4 years ago the term mental illness meant hearing voices, being crazy, and the last thing I ever thought I’d experience for myself.
In the space of 3 months I’d moved away from the town I grew up in, had a baby with an abusive unfaithful ex, lost my lovely mum suddenly to a heart attack, then suddenly found myself alone with a new baby, homeless and miles from home.
I threw myself into work and raising my son even though I didn’t feel those feelings of happiness or sadness...I was just numb. Life went on like this for a few months where I continued to pile on the pressure my working full time, studying and raising a baby alone.
I didn’t notice that my self-care had slipped. I started to accept I didn’t have time to eat, shower, sleep etc and thought that stress was just an emotion and couldn’t actually hurt me.
Walking my son to nursery one day so I could go to work, my hearing went muffled...I couldn’t see straight my heart was racing and my legs were jelly and the panic I felt hit me out of nowhere was so intense I fainted at the nursery gates. I was taken in an ambulance where the doctor there explained I’d had a panic attack. I refused to believe a panic attack could do all that when he informed me they can cause everything from faints to seizures in severe cases.
I then became so fearful of that happening again I started to avoid the road where it happened... then in other places I’d be walking along worrying it was going to happen again...then inevitably I got into the vicious cycle of panicking about having a panic attack so much that I just stopped leaving my house. I’d spent stupid amounts of money on taxis just to take my son to nursery and back so I didn’t have to be alone in public at any point. My only safe place was my house.
I met my ex partner who became a safety net. We’d stay in all the time, he’d drive me to and from places I needed to go and I became dependent. When we split the shock or losing the safety net actually became my platform to rise up from. I worked with my gp, I take 30mg of citalopram daily and with the support of my gp and friends but mainly myself I’ve slowly overcome the worst but will still keep fighting my battle everyday.
Written by Michelle Benton
