163. Mental Health Stigma in Students ft. The Priory

Mental Health, and my relationship with it, is something that I've discussed on the blog before and I got a wonderful response from you, my readers; some of whom had been through similar things and could empathise and relate to what I'd written. It was a lovely feeling to know that the post had made at least one person feel better, or less alone and ostracized.

I was recently contacted by The Priory, regarding a new campaign they are running to raise awareness of mental health conditions in students. As this is a subject so close to home for me, I really wanted to share some of their information and resources with you. 

According to a new study, over 60% of students have struggled to believe when a friend or acquaintance has told them they're suffering from a mental health condition. It's no secret that many people struggle to believe in mental health problems; as they're easy to hide, they often affect the people you would least expect, and they are mental and emotional, compared to a physical issue which you would be able to see.

Further research also found that a quarter of students feel uncomfortable when talking to their peers about mental health, and that a shocking 50% of them have received negative backlash as a result of speaking out about mental health issues, such as depression and anxiety. Although I'm not a student, I am still within the student age range and many of my friends are currently studying; I felt exactly the same about discussing my anxiety and only opened up to a few close friends before I decided to share my story on here, mainly for the fear (as echoed in the above statistics) that people would not believe me, or would think I was exaggerating. It's awful that this stigma is still attached to mental health. 

Dr Ian Drever, Consultant Psychiatrist at the Priory Hospital Woking explained:

“Going to university is a time of real life change for young people, what with them leaving home, having very different looking days and a whole set of new stresses and social surroundings. Whenever change happens in people’s lives it’s a sort of pinch point when anxiety or indeed any form of mental illness, is more likely to arise. If students are also being subjected to isolation and stigma, this can heighten illness and make it more likely to arise in the first place.”

He recommended that: “Students need to keep an eye out for the signs they may be developing a mental health condition, including problems sleeping, concentrating, and being sociable. Although it’s easier said than done I think it’s important that students share how they feel with a close friend or a healthcare professional. They need to acknowledge to themselves that they are not well, or not happy, and that it’s time to get help.”

University, college and school are all environments that can easily become stressful and associated with negative feelings, so it's easy to understand why students are so prone to mental health issues. My main advice would be the same as The Priory's: speak to someone. Whether it's a friend, a teacher, a family member or a healthcare professional - it helps just to get it out in the open and lift that weight from your shoulders. 

Rather than letting depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, eating disorders, agoraphobia, anger issues or any other mental health problem affect your quality of life please, please do something about it.

The Priory have rehabilitation centres and specialist consultants nationwide - you can view their website here. 

*** I received no reimbursement in any shape or form, financial or otherwise, for this blog post. Diagrams are taken from this source, and the statistics were provided for me by The Priory ***

134. Lifestyle // Seeking Clarity

Those of you who follow me on Twitter will know that I've recently been having a tough time with my anxiety (which I wrote about here). The last couple of months have been tough; I took the decision to leave my job, I lost my grandfather to cancer and I lost a lot of the stability that had previously been in my life - I think this is what has triggered my anxiety; having no control.

I decided to take the bull by the horns and tackle my anxieties, so that I can move forwards, so I'm spending a week at my mum's gorgeous home just outside of the Lake District in Sedbergh, Cumbria, where I've been taking time out for myself; reflecting on things that have happened, thinking about what my next steps should be, researching into courses and jobs and, generally, trying to relax and enjoy myself; discovering, along the way, who I am and what I want.

So far, so good. I find it so therapeutic out here; I feel as though I'm somewhat disconnected from everything back home - despite still being in touch with my family, friends and S - and I find that I can channel much greater clarity away from the distractions of home. I've also been able to talk at length with my Mum and Grandma about what I'm thinking about and their support and advice has been invaluable, giving me the belief that I can achieve whatever I want to.

Although it's only been three days, I believe that I'm developing some really exciting ideas for my career and life, and I feel positive that - once I've done some further research and am sure of the path which I need to follow - I can set myself realistic goals and, over time, achieve them with great success.

I'll be writing a post shortly, once everything is decided, about what I'd like to do in terms of my career, relationships, mental health, hobbies, blog and education. I'm excited to get started and to share my journey with you.

119. Lifestyle // Update

You may have noticed my lack of blogger-presence over the last few weeks, and I think it's about time I explained myself...

As those of you who follow me on Twitter or read my recent mental health post will know, I struggle with anxiety on a day-to-day basis. Sometimes blogging is a wonderful escape for me to write, without anxiety, without doubt, but other times, when my anxiety is really bad, even the internet fills me with panic.

Add into the mix, lots of other normal commitments, stresses and tasks, along with me handing my notice in at work, losing my grandad to cancer and, generally, just feeling quite lost - I, understandably, didn't feel like blogging. 

However, although everything is still up in the air and I'm, by no means, in a good place right now, I feel it's time I pull myself together and put my energy into things that I enjoy, such as blogging. 

Everybody goes through tough times, everybody has bad days, bad weeks or even bad months, and everybody feels a little (or a lot..) lost at times, but dwelling on it won't help - you can only help yourself.

And that's what I'm ready to do.

My mind is now brimming over with ideas for future posts, and I have a couple more planned over the next week or so, such as a #bookbloggers tag, a wishlist and a round-up of some of my favourite Soap & Glory products.

So keep your eyes peeled.

PS. My Blog Sale is still on - check it out here.

111. The Anxiety Diaries - My Relationship with Anxiety

Today's post is somewhat more personal than usual, but it's something that I've been wanting needing to share for a long time, I just couldn't quite think of the words. 

For the last 5 years, or perhaps even longer, I've struggled with anxiety and - as I know that anxiety affects so many of us, especially in the blogging community - I wanted to share my experience with you lovely readers to help raise awareness and, potentially, help someone out there (even if it ends up just helping me, by expressing myself, surely that still counts?)

Anxiety is feeling nervous, worrying and/or panicking; it can affect your sleep, concentration and - in the long run - your whole life can suffer as a result. Although everybody suffers from anxiety from time to time, in some people it can be more extreme, affecting certain people each day and, on occasions, resulting in panic attacks.

Although I've only suffered from a handful of panic attacks in my lifetime, anxiety is something that affects me almost every day. For me, anxiety can be defined as an overwhelming fear and intense feelings of panic. A lot of the time I can't work out why I'm anxious or what's triggered it but, some recurring causes are arguments, where I'm left feeling vulnerable and upset, and social situations.

Anxiety is at it's worst for me when I'm faced with a social situation; this can be anything from going to a party with new people, meeting a close friend for coffee somewhere familiar or joining a new a club or course. I begin to worry that people won't like me, that I'm boring, that the other person doesn't really want to come... and then, boom, I've locked myself away in 'anxiety-land' where nobody can do anything to coax me out of it.

On days where my anxiety is at it's worst, I feel it coming on the night before - I'll be having a normal night; watching tele, cooking with Shane, texting, whatever, and then I begin to think about tomorrow, or the day after, or the week after, and gradually I shut myself down until it becomes obvious that none of the plans I've made are going to happen: because I won't let them. By the time the next morning rolls around, I'm bed or, at least, house-bound and unable to do anything.

I've lost so, so many friends as a result of my anxiety. Mainly because people don't understand - or rather that I don't want to tell people - about anxiety; when I text someone cancelling our plans for that day, week or month, it's met with 'oh that's okay, don't worry about it' until it starts to happen every time and then, after a while, people stop making plans with you because they know that they'll never actually happen. They think that I'm just unreliable, or that I can't be bothered, or that I've found something better to do... when, in reality, I feel as if I'm living in some sort of sh*t bubble where I so desperately want to go ahead with our plans for meeting for a coffee, catching a film or heading out for drinks, but only if it involves not leaving the house, not having to speak to anyone and nobody seeing me.

My relationship with Shane has been put under a lot of strain through my disorder too. Along with my anxiety comes paranoia too. If he goes to the pub, I convince myself he'll meet somebody else within 5 minutes and leave me... If he doesn't answer his phone, I think there's been a terrible accident... I'm not as bad with this as I used to be at the beginning of our relationship and I think that's because we've built up trust and I now feel secure in our relationship, but it doesn't mean that these illogical and irrational thoughts don't happen anymore - of course they do. I'm just more aware of them now which helps me to control them.

I'm a planner, organiser and list-maker by nature; I always have been, and this can both help and hinder my anxiety. I'm one of those people who very rarely 'lives in the moment.' I have a one month plan, a one year plan, a five year plan, a life plan. And when even just one thing slips out of place and doesn't go the way that I had meticulously planned it to, it shakes everything up for me and I'm back to square one.

But, on the other hand, I've found that simple and manageable to-do lists can really help to ease my anxiety. If I set myself achievable goals such as 1) Tidy bedroom, 2) Buy ingredients for dinner, 3) Text Penny to catch up, etc, each day I don't feel overwhelmed by 'all this stuff that I need to get done!' and, instead, I feel a great sense of achievement when I've ticked them off.

source

This is a little self-help trick that I'm going to try and incorporate more into my daily life, as well as breathing techniques (such as meditation before bed each night) and reducing the levels of stress that I'm exposed to each day through work, family life, etc. Unfortunately, at the stage I'm currently at with my anxiety, I don't feel that I am in a position to give out advice on how to cope with anxiety as, despite being in a better place with it than I was a year or two ago, I'm still not 'there' yet.

I'm not sure how helpful this post has been for readers, to be honest, but it feels good for me to have got it off my chest and even if one person can read this and say 'hey, that's exactly how I feel too... at least I'm not the only one... I thought I was crazy!' then, as far as I'm concerned, that's another goal achieved and ticked off the list.

I'm always here to talk if you're going through something similar.

Do you have any advice for anxiety sufferers?
Have you found this post helpful or insightful at all?