My Breaking Point and Mental Health Recovery
Trigger Warning: contains frank discussion of mental health and suicidal tendencies.
I wasn’t planning to mark World Mental Health Day with anything on the blog. However, the need to say something, anything, has been growing as the day has progressed and as I’ve seen so many fantastic stories shared from people, those I know and strangers, long and short in format.
This is really hard to write, I have no problem saying that. Because what I’m about to share is one of the darkest, lowest points I’ve hit in a long history of depression and anxiety.
In the summer of 2013 I was nearing the completion of my Masters in Art Museum and Gallery Studies at the University of Leicester. In theory it should have been one of the happiest times for me – I had volunteered in museums since 2009 but following a severe deterioration in my physical health, which resulted in me moving back to my parents home in 2011, I had already had to withdraw from studying for an MA in Art Gallery and Museum Studies at the University of Manchester. Getting back to studying in 2012/13 was a dream come true: I loved my course, I made some great friends and having improved somewhat physically was able to have some kind of social life again.
What I kept hidden from all but a handful of people was the true cost of that “progression”. Studying full-time was the hardest task I had undertaken in a long time: it drained me, physically and mentally. I was on a cocktail of medication for pain management that caused severe ‘brain fog’, which, on top of the exhaustion caused by full days out of the house trying to absorb information and think critically meant that by the time I’d get home around 5pm, I was basically collapsing into a chair, applying as much relief in the form of heat or ice packs as possible, topping up on pain killers, eating my tea and collapsing into bed for as much sleep as possible. Studying outside of lecture times was so hard. I’d go to the library and sit staring at the same paragraph for ridiculous lengths of time, desperately willing the information to go in. Trying to string together a train of thought and construct any kind of argument in my essay writing felt like the equivalent of sitting an A-Level Maths exam. In other words – totally out of my comfort zone and intellectual understanding. I pulled some decent essays out of the bag but certainly not to the standard I was used to, or had hoped for. I was plagued by self-doubt and self-criticism but I genuinely couldn’t give anymore of myself.
Towards the end of the course we began our work placements. I was fortunate to work in a gallery with lovely people, with a really interesting project to work on and genuinely loved being back in the real world environment of an art gallery and museum. Our placements were supposed to be full-time but it quickly became apparent that that was beyond me. I started taking every Wednesday off, to give my body a day of recovery after two days work, and then had each weekend after another two days. It just about worked. I was still coming home exhausted and following the same pattern: pain relief, medication, food and sleep. No leisure time to speak of, no additional study. The latter became a big problem as I was also supposed to be writing my dissertation at this point. By the end of the placement I had begun experiencing migraines: my very last day at the gallery was marred by one so bad I almost passed out and had to have family drive the thirty odd miles to pick me up.
A lot of my memories around this time are quite hazy. The self-doubt and self-criticism hit an all time high. I had carried out some fantastic interviews for my dissertation that I knew could be turned into something worthwhile. But I’d fire up my laptop, or get pen and paper out, and nothing would come out. Nothing. I couldn’t find my way through the research I’d carried out. I knew what argument I wanted to make, just not how to make it. It was like my brain had completely stopped working and I had no idea how to fix it. I was just so tired. All the time. I’d say I was going to the library to work and drive around for a few hours, stopping in random places to cry and try to breathe properly because the panic attacks were so bad. I couldn’t face actually going into the library because I was convinced everyone would know I wasn’t working, seeing as how I couldn’t figure out what to write.
For weeks all I could think about was jumping in my car, driving to somewhere far, far away where I could be on my own and not coming back. I wasn’t necessarily suicidal but I knew it wasn’t far off. I was missing dissertation reviews and withdrawing completely within myself again, particularly as the closest friends I had made through my course were, with one exception, scattered across the country busy completing their own placements and dissertations. My parents and extended family were realising something was wrong but I was hiding just how desperate things were.
Breaking point came when I told my Mum one day that I was going to the library. Instead I ended up in a Sainsbury’s car park on the other side of the city, bawling my eyes out. I couldn’t carry on like this and I knew it. If I had had the money then I think driving off somewhere might well have happened but I was also in considerable debt at the time (also impacting my mental health). As it was, I went home and finally broke down, admitting the truth.
With an incredible amount of support from my parents, a few friends and the faculty at the Museum Studies department at Leicester Uni I ended up graduating with a Postgraduate Diploma, meaning I didn’t have to complete the research project/dissertation element needed for a full MA. By far from my desired outcome but one I could live with. I am still heartbroken at not completing my dissertation, because I know it was original and within a research area I had wanted to work for many, many years.
It took months of talking therapy and acceptance for me to feel like I was returning to ‘normal’. Reliving the memories of it are really hard and I’ve cried so much writing this. As I said before, I kept this hidden from the majority of my family and friends. I know there will be amongst you people reading this and wondering how the heck they didn’t know it was happening: perhaps there’ll be some who knew something was wrong but not to its true extent. The thing is, I now know that keeping issues like these hidden, either from loved ones or the world at large, doesn’t help.
It doesn’t help those of us who live with mental illness, nor the people who support us to make positive changes and improvements in how we deal with it. It doesn’t help us thrive in learning environments or the workplace. It doesn’t help change attitudes or empower people to feel like they can make choices that will better support them without fear of ridicule or stigma. Let’s be honest: talking about it openly doesn’t necessarily always help either. Workplaces in modern Britain aren’t set up to handle severe crises of mental health. Friends and family shouldn’t have to carry the burden either. What we really need in this country is effective healthcare that treats mental health in the same way as physical health. As someone so presciently pointed out on Twitter today, they “wouldn’t be told to ‘reach out’ to their parents if they had leukaemia”.
I suppose I’m writing this for everyone: for the people who need the help and support to pull through their darkest moments and for the people who can help support them through it. Reaching out is a bit of a bullshit term if you ask me – the last thing you feel like doing when you’re going through what I did is admitting to people how awful you feel (especially if you feel like you’re failing at something). But if you’re finding yourself crying in supermarket car parks because you don’t know where to turn – please, please, seek help. It might not be a quick path out the other side but there is help there. And if you’re concerned about a loved one, please don’t wait for them to instigate the conversation, because the strength it takes to do that is unimaginable if you haven’t been there yourself. Ask if there’s anything you can help with, if they want to spend some time together. Demonstrate with actions that you’re there for them. It will make a difference.