Thanks all for your indulgence as I dipped my toe into the forum over the course of the last month.
I’m not sure how much of what I am about to write has affected my mental health over the years. I guess it is the sum of all the parts that has resulted in where I am today.
Childhood for me was a real Jekyll and Hyde experience. Growing up I had loving parents, and lived in an area that I thought was the business. Primary school was great. Unfortunately, those same parents that loved us, seemed to harbour a hatred for one another that appeared to know no bounds. My dad had a short temper and was frequently violent with it. My mum could hold her own, but it was extremely distressing.
The marriage ended when I was around nine or ten years old, fortunately, and home life was significantly more peaceful. It was then and, looking back at it now, a blessed relief. Sadly, I struggled to come to terms with the divorce even though things should have improved from there. When it came to moving to secondary school with a new set of people, I felt it embarrassed by it. We were financially poor and that was obviously easy to pick up on and I became increasingly socially awkward. My parents divorce, and the aforementioned embarrassment, meant I hid my background from friends at school. I’m not sure why it was such a big deal, but it was enough of an issue for me to lie about it.
Teenage years were, well teenage years. We all have difficult adjustments to make. I did well enough at school, but I became cripplingly shy. Speaking to people outside my known circle became progressively more difficult.
After leaving school it took a reasonable amount of time to find a job. As you can imagine interviews were painful at best and a source of complete terror during the worst of them. During this period, I met my future wife. Around eighteen months into my career we had our first child. I’d gone from being the responsible eldest child at home to being a responsible grown up in no time at all.
Given the trouble I have had over the years expressing my point of view, I do consider myself lucky to have done pretty okay. We’ve been comfortable without doubt, although not wealthy. I’ve been in the industry and firm long enough to have seen quite literally hundreds of people get made redundant. I never quite understood how I avoided it.
Anyhow, over the course of time I seem to have grown out of the worst of my social awkwardness. This really only seemed to start improving significantly in my 40s, though. The industry I’m in is ever changing and the skills demanded of us have done so too. I was always quite happy being the thinker and problem solving in a logical way. However, I felt pretty much cornered into evolving my role into fronting projects from a planning and communication standpoint. While there’s nothing wrong with PR bullshit, I grew to dislike myself more and more at work as I had to put a positive spin on things that I just didn’t believe. The thought going on it my head was simply, you’re a bloody liar!
Towards the end of 2017 on a particularly bad project, I was anxious and increasingly struggling with sleep. I was exhausted so found it easy enough to fall asleep, but could not sleep for any more than three or four hours. Burn out was occurring fast and eventually I started suffering panic attacks. I tried to push through with the aid of betablockers, but eventually came to a point at the start of 2018 where I had a breakdown.
Luckily for me we have a good GP, and I have healthcare that allowed me to access both a therapist and psychiatrist. This isn’t to over dramatize it, as I never considered myself suicidal. I did consider which could be the best way of ending it though. Despite this, I didn’t see myself as depressed. Three healthcare professionals disagreed with me so there was little more to argue against. The first three months of last year I was off work, followed by a further three months where my hours were gradually increased. With the right antidepressants and a lot of work with the therapist I have improved. I consider myself in a reasonable, if not perfect, state at this point in time.
It has been difficult, but at the same time helped in a strange way. I find it much easier to talk about my struggles now. In a large part, I think this is in thanks to the time I spent with the therapist. I have found, and continue to find it a pleasure to talk to, and help those, who have been touched by similar circumstances back at the office. It has given me cause to evaluate just what is important as well. I’m now in a new role in the organisation that better suits my skill set. Work isn’t as important as I once built it up to be, I’ve realised. I can do a good job, but I put much less pressure on myself to fix every problem I encounter.
I have been able to do some fantastic stuff outside of work in the last six months that I would never have considered doing before. Life is not perfect, there are still struggles, but with the aid of medication I currently can handle them better. I genuinely don’t know what the future holds and hopefully my mental health will continue to improve. If for some reason it does slide the other way for a time, it is probable that I will recognise it myself. If I don’t, however, I will at least be prepared to listen to others who are in a position to point out to me that I am struggling. I have been fortunate that I have people around me who understand how difficult the struggles can be and a place of work that has worked with me.
Hope this provides some insight into me. As an aside, one of those fantastic things I did outside of work was a sponsored trek in the Grand Canyon. This was for a Charity by the name of Rays of Sunshine. From the bottom of my heart I would like to thank those of you that contributed through your connection to Zoe. It is so very much appreciated.