This page is dedicated to giving others a voice…
Here I will post others explanations and experiences with mental health. If you personally want to contribute please contact me on here with a description of the mental illness you suffer with and your name if you don’t wish to remain anonymous.
Let’s start speaking out about mental health!
“For me it is helpful to think of anxiety as being a bit like if someone were holding a gun to your head that no one else around you can see and you can’t risk alerting them to. So you try and act normal but inside you feel like the whole world will end at any moment and you have no control or power to stop it. But that is not a fair analogy to use because in that situation if you told people they would be scared for you, they would see the enormity and that your fear was justified. But if I were to say out loud the things that cause me to feel intense panic on a day to day basis it sounds ridiculous and petty. You begin to hate that you are letting your life be controlled by the things everyone else seems to be managing perfectly well and although it’s difficult to live with anxiety it is harder to let yourself feel that you are justified in recognising your experience of it as a genuine struggle.” – Anonymous (Anxiety)
“Suffering from bipolar disorder is like being constantly confused about who you are and what you want to do. So making decisions can be so difficult because I don’t know if I am actually going to feel the same way later on!
The hyper times I prefer, however they are exhausting, and people never understand why I’m so hyper! My brain is rushing with so many thoughts it’s hard to keep up, then afterwards I forget details and reasons why I made some decisions…
I can get so frustrated with the world because to me I feel like society wants me to behave in a certain way and trying to do that all the time is so exhausting.
Down times are the worse! I will literally not be able to think of anything happy. Nothing is good and everything is shit or wrong or annoying! Then I can sometimes turn my emotions out on others, or more likely on myself.
This can include taking severe risks, letting myself get into dangerous situations, self harming, and breaking things that are precious to me.
It’s basically like you’re always moving never staying still because things change from day to day, or from week to week.” – Kirstin (Bipolar Disorder)
“Depression is like having chains wrapped around your arms and legs and having a Goliath for a bully constantly with you 24/7. You can’t escape your thoughts, emotions triggered instantly. So focused on Goliath you can’t see a way out, you can’t shut the verbal taunts of his cruelty, all you do is want him to shut up. The chains stop you from stepping out, they tire you out when you do move.
Every kind, loving thing gets captured by Goliath and ripped up and despair is all you have, you grow to be comforted by despair and stay still. Any joy or hope given to you, you end up ripping it up yourself, because Goliath is just going to get rid of it anyway, and you except that’s just the way life is.” – Cheryl (Depression)
Essentially my BPD means I struggle to be able to regulate my emotions which leads to a bundled mess of reckless thoughts and then self-destruction mode kicks in.
For me, it normally adds up to weeks upon weeks of endless stress & insecurities etc. where eventually I will finally be able to cry, because more often than not I feel as though I come across like I’m completely unable to feel or show emotions, or I am either too emotional for my own good where the littlest thing can set me off for no apparent reason, literally!
I’ve always described my BPD (and everything else involved with it) feeling as though an elephant is squeezing my head, which makes everything become incredibly hard to keep sane and difficult to see things clearly. It also feels like a constant heavy heart, which I am sure I can feel psychically at most times. A dragging sensation of permanent heart ache, and unsure how I will wake up feeling in the mornings. But most importantly, I feel it needs to be understood just how not alone you truly are, because believe me, I felt that way constantly until I met others similar to me, who I’m sure will become friends for life! And reading blogs and seeking help, you start to realise just how big of a community your lonely thoughts are a part of. – Emily (BPD)
Journey Of The Mind 