Reflecting on My Mental Health Breakdown | Part One

Reflecting on My Mental Health Breakdown | Part One

My mental health the past year and a bit has been in the gutter. No matter what I’ve been doing, I always end up feeling like I’m being consumed by my feelings.

Thankfully things are taking a turn now and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. So, I wanted to reflect on the past year and what’s been going on in the hopes I can avoid going down the dark route of self loathing and hatred again.

Why I’m reflecting

As life has been all over the place and feels as though it’s constantly in a state of chaos, I wanted to take the time to chat about mental health in a way I’ve never done before. I just need to brain dump if I’m honest and to let go of the anger, sadness, bitterness and anxiety that’s been plaguing my life.

I want to take a candid and honest approach to the topic of mental health where I can share what it’s really been like behind closed doors. Although I’m being selfish in the fact this will help me a great deal in sorting through a lot of trauma, I also want to let others know that you’re not alone.

So, I’ll be stripping away my pride and ego to touch on some pretty tough experiences that have happened and giving an honest account of how I’ve been feeling, coping and overall, feeling like I’m drowning.

As it’s a deep dive into my mental and physical health, this will be in a few parts. Putting this out in the world is hella scary but I wanted to share this insight because it’s so true that we just don’t know who’s struggling, especially when you only see a glimpse into others lives on social media.

The inspiration to split this post up came from The HopScot on twitter, so thank you!

After going over this post again and again, there just wasn’t anything I could cut. I want to be as honest as possible because it’s surrounding mental health and sharing a part of me that I’ve been scared to.

Please Note:

I will be touching on the topics of miscarriage, pet death, harassment, self harm, weight, death and more in this series. So please, if you have a hard time with these, click off and look after your own mental health.

I’d much rather you take care of yourself than read my posts. It’s important to put your own mental wellbeing first. I’ll be putting a trigger warning on each post in the series so you know when hard hitting topics are coming up.

Let’s chat about life

So, life has been rough the past few years hasn’t it? I’m sure there are a lot of us who have had an awful time of it since the pandemic started.

From loved ones passing away to feeling like our mental health was declining rapidly. We’ve had lockdowns, isolation, loss of jobs, cost of living rising and so much more. To say it’s not been the best few years is an understatement!

I feel as though the universe has been dealing blows left right and centre, leaving no room to properly process what’s actually happening. And here we are again, another year and the world feels like it’s going down the toilet, and that’s putting it politely!

One of the worst years of my life

Dealing with a worldwide pandemic has been hard. Listening to the news about the death tolls rising, seeing people’s tweets about loved ones passing away, rules constantly changing and a virus that has no set of “rules” shall we say, is a lot to grasp. At least for me anyway.

But, life also decided it was time to put my mental and physical health to the test along with everything else.

At the beginning of 2021 I was hopeful. Full of excitement for a new year and ready to take on any challenge that came my way, or so I thought.

The beginning of January 2021 saw me take a pregnancy test. I was full of nerves, it wasn’t planned, we had been careful, I was so sure there was no way. But then the positive sign appeared and I fell to my knees.

I was weak. Locked in the bathroom crying my eyes out because I’ve been here before many times only to have the happiness whisked away. It’s safe to say I was in a blind panic.

The realisation

It took a few days for it to sink in, and once it did I found myself excited and full of hope. I prayed and prayed that this time would be different, that this time there would be a baby at the end.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be. On the 19th of January I began to bleed and feel *that* pain again. Laying on the bathroom floor I couldn’t help but hate myself for allowing myself to get excited.

There I was, another miscarriage and a whole new heap of trauma to add to my plate.

Although I’ve been through this many times, it never gets easier. The thoughts of what if and why take over your mind. Thoughts of “what did I do wrong?” And “why me?” Flooded my mind.

Mental torture ensued

That experience was awful. The bleeding lasted for days, the pain crippling my whole body and the mental torture breaking me from the inside out.

And the cherry on top? It wasn’t the only one last year. I went through this twice, once at the beginning and once at the end. It really did come full circle in a cruel sort of way.

Moving on

Although the beginning of the year was rough, I tried to deal with the grief the best I could. Throwing myself into work and social media I tried to cover it with a band aid so to speak. But that only lasted so long.

March came around and I was feeling awful. Fibromyalgia flare ups where hitting full force and chronic fatigue made it hard to move at all some days.

I know why though, I was avoiding my feelings and masking. My thinking was that if I ignore the problems they will go away, but that wasn’t the case.

Although on the outside I presented as full of life and excited for life, that couldn’t be further from the truth. I spent many nights sobbing for hours until I was so exhausted I fell asleep. I wasn’t eating or I would eat too much, I was lazy but some days I couldn’t sit still at all. The contrast was polarising to say the least.

Loosing myself

My body was in a very odd state and started to gain weight, quickly. Going from starting to feel better about myself at the end of 2020 to feeling like I’d lost myself only a few months into 2021 sent me into a tailspin.

I would post on Instagram about trying to find myself and that self acceptance with my body, but truthfully, I felt like a fraud.

Yes, I was trying hard to love my body and yes I was trying to find myself again. But I wasn’t feeling it. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t. I would look in the mirror and all I would see is a body that betrayed me, that couldn’t even function like it “should”.

Don’t get me wrong, looking back I know that’s not the case and I was incredibly hard on myself for things I shouldn’t have been. But my mental health was declining at a scary speed and I believed I was worthless.

Obsessing over my weight

My weight was a huge issue. I could see my stomach, arms and thighs getting bigger. My clothes weren’t fitting well and my face was getting rounder.

Before I go any further I do want to state that I in no way judge anyone by their shape or size. Weight is not someone’s defining factor and people’s bodies are all beautiful, no matter what. This section is purely to explain how I felt about myself due to poor mental health and in no way reflects how I feel or think about anyone else.

Let’s continue

Looking at myself in the mirror I hated what I saw. I picked apart every aspect from head to toe and loathed having to put on anything other than pyjamas. No one knew this though, not even my other half. I kept this bottled up and got on with things, but deep down I was hurting.

So what did I do? I ate my feelings. Most nights I would binge eat in my room while crying about how I felt and looked. Did this help? No. But did I do it anyway? Yep.

I’ve honestly never felt like that before in my life, not even when I was a teen and diagnosed with an ED. This time it was different, this time the issues were deep rooted in everything from my emotions to daily life.

I look back now and I’m sad I allowed myself to get to that point. To a point where I punished myself for something as benign as my weight.

Now I know my weight wasn’t the issue, the issue was my mental health.

Then tragedy struck again

Going through the motions with my health, weight and awful thoughts of self harm wasn’t enough though. No, life just HAD to throw another curve ball.

On June 5th, my beloved cat Teddy Bear who had been by my side for 19 years passed away.

I was devastated. No, that’s not the right word because what I felt genuinely broke my heart into pieces and began a chain reaction that set my life on fire. Devastated is too soft a word for what I felt that day.

Taking him to the vets for them to say there was no saving him crushed me. Handing him over in his little blanket to the vet to take to another room as he got THE injection was one of the worst pains I’ve ever experienced.

His passing broke me

Teddy was everything to me. And I know that may sound so strange and a bit over the top to some people, but Teddy was with me for 19 years. I got him in 2002 and from the moment I laid eyes on him, I was smitten.

He saw me through the death of my mother, my great granddad, rape, assault, domestic violence, withdrawal from drugs and so much more. He was always there, cuddling into me and rubbing his little head against mine as I cried.

I’ll never have the right words to describe how much he meant and still does to me. That cat wasn’t just a cat, he was a member of the family.

The show must go on

It wasn’t bad enough that Teddy had to be put to sleep on the 5th of June, but the 5th also happens to be my other half’s birthday and that day we had a massive birthday BBQ planned to celebrate his 30th.

I cried all the way home in the car, sobbing my eyes out as I cuddled Little Bear and consoled him as well. Not only was I dealing with my grief, I was also watching my son go through it and that hurt deep. No one ever wants to watch their child break their heart for an hour straight. Not only had I just experienced a huge loss, my son did as well.

Watching him cry and listening to him say he misses Teddy so much already really was gut wrenching. So, I did what any parent would do, I pushed my sadness deep down and focused on him to get him through this experience.

Birthday BBQ

Although we had just experienced a huge loss, we still had a BBQ to get through. I didn’t think it was fair to cancel the whole thing as it was my other half’s big 30th birthday, and ALL the family was coming.

This had been arranged months in advance so to call 1 hour beforehand and cancel didn’t seem like the right thing to do. Plus it helped take little bears’ minds off Teddy for a while.

I pushed through the day, greeting guests, helping with food and playing games with the kids. I kept a big smile on my face and tried so hard not to break down anytime someone asked how I was doing after Teddy passed away.

That was probably one of the hardest days I’ve been through in a long time. And looking back at photos from the day I cry because you can see the pain in my face, in all of them. I look dishevelled, tired, bloated, and just awful.

But I’m not sad that I felt that way because that’s normal. I’m sad because all the photos from S’s big birthday bash aren’t happy ones. Instead they are a stark reminder of the day Teddy left our lives.

The pain only got worse

Like everything else that had happened so far, I decided I didn’t want to deal with my feelings.

I pushed them down deep and refused to let myself grieve because I felt like I couldn’t handle anything else. My mind was already in overdrive and I could hardly deal with life as it was.

So, I did what I do best and I masked. I pretended everything was ok and got on with things like normal. Except, nothing was normal.

End of part one

And that’s where I’ll be leaving the post for today. As it’s such a long one, the best way to tackle this was to split it up into a few parts.

So if you’ve read it all, thank you. Thank you for taking the time to hear me.

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