My Mental Health Struggle Story

It's been a few months since I last shared an update on my mental health and I thought it was about time, I shared the progress I've made, starting with my story. For those that haven't followed my journey for the last year and a half, a long story short is that I went through a breakup in June 2022. 

I was the one who did the breaking up, hoping my now ex-boyfriend would flight for me and for us, and he didn't. He begged us to get back together for the first month and then he quickly moved on, whilst I realised I wanted nothing else than for him to be in my life. 

I tried to do some dating in September to October, and found a guy I actually really liked but we were both having our own struggles so ultimately that ended before it really started, and that forced me to realise the reality that I wasn't over the love of my life in the slightest. Things went downhill quite quickly and on Boxing Day 2022, I self-harmed for the first time. 

From there I became suicidal. I never attempted suicide but I have found out through professionals that what I was doing was called suicidal ideation. I was constantly searching ways to kill myself, and in all honesty I was close. I felt that my life wasn't worth living, I didn't have any joy and I wanted to end it all. The only thing that held me back was the pain associated. If I didn't have that fear, I 100% wouldn't be here anymore. I was terrified of following through though and went to bed frequently holding a knife in the hopes I would perhaps accidently stab myself in my sleep. I would leave the door open and unlocked at night, hoping I would get robbed and someone would attack me. 

The only small distraction I had was work and I always felt like I was really quite good at my job. I love what I do and I've always had positive feedback from women and their families. Despite that, the lack of sleep - I was only getting a couple of hours a night - and the emotional exhaustion of my depression meant I found myself making the odd mistake and I really struggled with that. They were only small like giving paracetamol 30 minutes early, not documenting a comment about someone drinking or unsuccessfully taking bloods. Back then, I was beating myself up for everything like I'd literally killed someone. 

In January, I started on sertraline 50mg once a day, after a long waiting list for counselling. I was initially a little reluctant but it was a great decision ultimately. I then managed to get 3 months of counselling through my university which was a great help. I'll share more about talking therapies next week, as that's a more recent update but things very slowly became better. It was probably not until July I truly started to feel like my old self, but I am very pleased to say I am now in a much better place. 

I'm excited to make plans again, I'm not worried about being alone and I feel secure in myself once more. I feel like a different person to the one I was at the start of the year. I'm still not 100% and I'm still making improvements myself, with the goal to get back to that place, but I'm doing well. I stopped taking my medication of sertraline at the end of August and I still feel the same. Here's to the future.