LONDON, UK – It’s amazing what you can cover up behind a filter on Instagram, a few minutes spent constructing the perfect tweet or status, or even behind a joke, a laugh or a smile.
But I wonder how many of you reading this have ever stopped to think about what’s going on behind the scenes? We live in a society driven by social media platforms that people often feel the need to flood with pictures and updates about how good things are in their lives, but are they really?
The 10th of October is a date that has never had any significance to me personally until now, because on the 1st of August I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety.
Many of you will be aware that the 10th of October marked the World Mental Health day and over the past two and a half months I have been torn between the decision to tell people my story or to keep it to myself. Up until this point only my closest family and friends are aware of my issue. Now I have decided to share my story on a larger scale in a community I know so well. I would take you back to the beginning but I’m afraid I don’t know when that is. All I can share with you is the end of my story.
It’s extremely difficult to explain to someone what it’s like living with a mental health issue if they have never experienced one themselves, which, in a way, is strange as one in four adults and one in ten children will experience a mental health problem at some point throughout their life, according to the NHS’s statistics.
The only way I’ve found, that even begins, to help people understand what it’s like, is by using a metaphor of the sky. If you imagine your head, your mind and your thoughts are like a wide open sky, a clear sky, with a vibrant blue colour and plenty of sunshine, there’s no clouds or wind and as a result it allows you to see further, to focus and has a calming sense to it. Your thoughts are more often than not happy ones, you’re not always bouncing off the walls with joy necessarily but most of the time you’re in a good mood, just like many of us are when the sky is clear on a sunny day.
Now imagine a huge, ever growing thunderstorm rolls into the sky, with dark black clouds, torrential rain, fierce winds, deafening claps of thunder and powerful lightning strikes that damage the landscape the storm surrounds. Well that storm was in my head for longer than I care to imagine and it got to a point where I was sick of being in my own mind. When you overthink everything, at a million miles an hour and it feels like you can’t switch off, can’t enjoy things, can’t laugh and genuinely find something funny, can’t focus, can’t control the thoughts that drill into your mind and you can’t clear the storm from the skies. It is horrible.
I can only speak for myself as I try to outline the effects that depression and anxiety can have on your daily routines but I’m fully aware that the effects of the storm can vary between individuals in the populations and can vary in severity also. Personally I displayed a wide range of symptoms which included; a complete lack of motivation, loss of appetite resulting in weight loss, severe problems falling asleep, difficulty waking up in the mornings, a sense I wasn’t enjoying things I had enjoyed previously or most things really, headaches, stomach pains, stiffness in my neck and shoulders, feeling constantly tired, lack of focus and concentration, extremely irritability and a short temper, a crushing sense of dread about literally anything, a sense of feeling like I wasn’t good enough and an overwhelming fear of things that had, may or might not even happen. I wasn’t content with anything.
I was aware of all of those things but I didn’t want to talk to anyone for a long period of time. I was having to force myself to converse with work colleagues, my teammates, my family and even my fiancée to keep up appearances. I didn’t want anyone to know what was going on inside my head, whether it was the darkest thoughts and panic about how things could end, the worries over daily tasks and routines and if I was going to be able to complete them or the anger that built up inside at the most minor events or as a result of my frustration with feeling the way I did. The whole time I kept thinking to myself I’ll be fine, it’s just a slump, get over it, you’re all good and it turns out I wasn’t.
I had constant feelings and thoughts of ‘what is the point in life’ rolling thought my head and I hated it. I never once planned or genuinely considered self-harm or suicide, mainly because I had an overwhelming paranoiac fear of death, but mental health issues can have extremely serious consequences if they’re not treated in time and prior to seeking help I just assumed I was fine as I wasn’t suicidal.
I also felt incredibly guilty that I felt so down all the time. I mean why was I feeling like that? Nothing traumatic has happened to me, my upbringing was all I could have asked for, I have a loving family, I have a steady career, I play the sport I love, I’m getting married in May to my beautiful fiancée, I have two of the my gorgeous cockapoo dogs and the list goes on. I didn’t have anything to be depressed about surely? I was also getting twisted by the indecisive thoughts of if anything was actually wrong with me. Does everyone feel like this? Is this normal? Am I going insane? Am I just thinking there’s something wrong because I’m starting to hear and read about more mental health issues?
It wasn’t until a conversation I had with a close family member and my fiancée that I decided I should speak to someone. Even when I told them I would talk to someone I still wasn’t convinced I was going to do anything about it. To add to the existing mess I already had in my head, I began to think I was overreacting, that I was just being silly and that the bad times would pass. But I finally found the courage, the sense, the nerve, the minerals whatever you want to call it, to do something about it whilst driving passed my GP surgery by chance. I actually nearly crashed my car turning into the surgery’s car park as it was that much of an impulse decision. I asked for an appointment of which there were none, until the lady behind reception asked “Is it an emergency?”. Was it? I didn’t know? I’ve got the majority of my brain driving me insane to the point where I’m sick of living in my own head, but there’s a tiny part of it that says, “Nah you’re fine”. I panicked at the time and informed her I just wanted to speak to someone about mental health. She booked me straight into the first available appointment, on that same day. Two hours later I’m sat facing a trained medical professional and all she’s asked me at this point is “So what’s going on, how can I help?”.
I had a complete break down in front of a total stranger.
It makes me laugh now looking back at it, but more so for the image of my 28 year old self, an ice hockey player with a, more often that not, ‘laddish’ outlook on life, sat crying in front of a rather attractive General Practitioner. I never thought I would be in that position in my life. Was I embarrassed? Yes. Should I have been? Absolutely not.
I told her everything. As weird or as warped as what I was saying may of sounded, I verbally unleashed the storm inside my head at a million miles an hour. After about 10 minutes of me explaining to her what I thought the problem was, she turned to me and said “It’s ok to feel like that, you’re not the only one”. I didn’t really want to hear that at the time as I didn’t feel it was going to help clear the storm, but she went on to explain how depression and anxiety can affect people, the problems they can cause and the ways in which they can be triggered and the ways you can treat the issues. Turns out nothing traumatic needs to of happened to you in your life to experience depression or anxiety, more often than not it’s just a chemical imbalance in the brain.
She put me on a prescription of Sertraline, a commonly used Anti-depressant medication and gave me the contact number for Let’s Talk Wellbeing service, who I have since been to see and booked in some Metacognitive Therapy sessions with. We continued our conversation and she reassured me that depression and anxiety are treatable and in many cases not will not re-occur before ending with “We’ll have you back to feeling like your normal self soon enough”.
I nearly laughed in her face, but that’s sadly because I couldn’t remember the last time the skies were clear in my mind and both myself and the GP have struggled to pinpoint how long I was like that.
But I did it. I found the courage to talk to someone. I had to fight against my own mind just long enough to make the decision to talk to someone about it. And it was the best decision I ever made.
I’m nearly two and a half months into my treatment, I’ve been taking my prescription everyday and that will continue for a minimum of six months to a year and I’ve had one out of a potential six to eight therapy sessions which are designed to help alter your thought process when your mind starts to cloud over. I have felt happy, I have laughed, I have enjoyed doing things that I previously despised, mainly work, I conversed with people because I want to, I enjoy walking my two dogs, I enjoy completing tasks on a daily basis no matter how small they are, I enjoy falling asleep peacefully, I enjoy not feeling tired constantly, I enjoy having my appetite back, I enjoy feeling motivated, I enjoy being able to focus, concentrate and my improved ability to remember things and deal with situations accordingly but most of all I enjoy feeling content with myself and my life.
I’m fortunate enough to have played with David Carr and I sincerely thank him for allowing me to share my story on PHN. I am no longer embarrassed about my problem, I have accepted it and I am dealing with it a day at a time. I still have the occasional bad day but I’m learning to deal with them. I don’t need pity or for anyone to ask me if everything is ok everyday, I just want people to understand things aren’t always as they seem. That’s the reason for this article, I want to help break the stigma surrounding mental health issues, in particular amongst men. In a sport as tough as hockey, we’re quick to judge, accuse or feel guilty that things might not be ok and that needs to change.
If you’re reading this and it sounds familiar to you in anyway, I can’t encourage you enough to speak to someone about it. What the worst that’s going to happen? You end up feeling better? I’d take that any day. If this article encourages even one person to talk to someone about mental health, whether it’s a friend, a family member or a Doctor, I’d consider it a success. To steal something I read in an article on the Players Tribune, if you have any questions about anything in this article, just want to talk to someone who’s been through it or anything else please contact me. Literally, here’s my e-mail: flatsy73@outlook.com.
The sky is now clearing and it looks beautiful.
Thanks for reading.
Flatsy.
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