After a troubled childhood involving divorce, disability and sexual abuse I started self harming at the age of 12. In early adulthood I encountered domestic violence, several bereavements including one of my own child, rape, stalking and battled a heroin addiction whilst all the time struggling at University. I ended up graduating with respectable honours in Law in 2011 which was a proud achievement for me.
My story really starts in 2012 following the birth of my son. I had been on antidepressants for a while and was managing well on them. The midwife told me if I felt happy I should come off my medication which I did. Looking back this was a huge mistake as it should have been done slowly and under the direction of my GP. I was a single mother juggling work and a part time college course whilst running a house and adjusting to new motherhood. It was unsurprising that I developed severe postnatal depression aged 23. I engaged in Psychotherapy but it didn’t help much. When my son turned 14 months old I decided the only way out of my personal Hell was to end my life. I took a massive overdose. I was sectioned that night in August 2013. This admission to my local mental health hospital started years of being a revolving door patient, which meant I spent time in hospital, stabilised, was discharged and then became unwell again and was re-sectioned. For me, it was like sticking a plaster on an open wound when what I needed was stitches and healing. I was diagnosed with depression, anxiety, complex PTSD and Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder. My decision to kill myself that night cost me my career, relationships and, to my devastation, custody of my son.
I continued to experience failure, rape, stalking and my mental health deteriorated to the point I was overdosing 3-4 times a week ending up in resus many times, cutting myself all over my body and attempting to throw myself off bridges and hang myself.
In December 2016 I left a suicide note in my flat and my best friend/on-off partner found it. She called the Police. She went looking all round the city for me and eventually found me on a bridge above a railway track, threatening to jump. Bravely, she climbed over the barrier and held onto me until the police found us. She pulled me back from the bridge. I was taken to a place of safety by the police and later sectioned under the Mental Health Act. I spent my third Christmas in a row in hospital. I woke up to the sounds of alarms instead of the excited screams of my little boy. In February 2017 I was granted a lot of money to go to a private rehabilitation unit for people with complex mental health difficulties and personality disorders.
I spent 16 months in rehab compiling my coping toolkit. I was under an excellent psychiatrist and I engaged in all therapies offered including DBT based distress tolerance skills, mindfulness, a programme called STEPPS (Systems Training for Emotional Predictability and Problem Solving) and exposure therapy. I learned how to control and regulate my emotions. The way I describe it is people tend to be able to express their emotions quite normally; for example, the body/mind switches tears on automatically whereas I had to learn to flick the switch manually.
I left rehab in June 2017 with a whole toolkit of coping strategies. I compiled a recovery scrapbook full of positive quotes and my positive poems I have written which helps in times of need.
I started a Happiness Journey blog on social media where I post things that inspire me or that I am grateful for. It is mostly to do with life improvement, mental health awareness and gratitude. I have a newfound love for life. I’m not saying it’s a breeze or a walk in the park but it’s definitely a lot easier. I remind people that the bad thing is “nothing lasts forever”, but equally the good thing is “nothing lasts forever”. I keep daily gratitude journals because I love writing, and I think it’s healthy to focus on the positives of the day. Days can be long, tedious and overwhelming especially when you’re poorly but I wholeheartedly believe in that there is something you can be grateful for, or be positive about, and that makes dark days a lot easier to handle. I also wrote a letter to my poorly self and challenged everything I normally say when I’m unwell.
I credit rehab to healing my wounds, a good CPN to keep me grounded and my now fiancée for saving my life and giving me hope. Without her I would not be alive, well, happy and looking forward to the future.
My son has a well mother, my fiancée has her future wife back and I honestly couldn’t be happier. If my story can show one person who is struggling that there is a way through and that the life they think they don’t deserve is coming then sharing it is worth it.
The Warrior Within 