You shouldn’t have to see to believe.
I think what can be most difficult
for people trying to understand mental health is the fact that you can’t
physically see it.
This is what I found most difficult as I
started to work towards my own recovery. I was gradually gaining weight, no
longer passing out, my skin no longer a ghostly shade of grey/yellow and on the
outside I was certainly on my way to looking healthy. This of course made
people around me very happy, after months of following me around picking me up
off the floor, waiting to see what shade of grey I’d be each day and walking on
egg shells to see if my body was strong enough to make it through another day..
for them it was a huge relief to see me looking alive again. So every time
somebody approached me with ‘You look so much better’ or ‘I can’t tell you how
healthy you look’ I should have been overjoyed with pride and felt so good
about myself that I’d managed to get to this point...right?
Wrong. That’s how I wanted to feel, I
wanted to be smile back and thank all the people that went through hell and
back with me and tell them I am just as happy as they are. Often, I would do
that- but on the inside I couldn’t feel more opposite if I tried.
I think there are two reasons this
affects me so much and I think many people in similar circumstances will be
able to relate…
1)
I look healthy, I’m no longer
collapsing every other day, I’ve gained some much needed weight back and from
the outside I look well. On the inside however I couldn’t feel more horrific,
out of control and desperate. The worst part would be when someone approached
me with one of the comments like ‘I cant believe how well you look’ Id smile
and say thank you but inside my head I was screaming, frustrated at how
desperate for help I was. I’ve never been good at speaking out and opening up
about how I feel so for so long my way of crying for help was through my eating
disorder. Don’t get me wrong there were certain people that know me so well
they could see beyond the physical appearance and really take the time out to
question and understand how I’m feeling.
2)
Those that have struggled with an
eating disorder will know this one all too well. Somehow our illness convinces
us that every bit of food we eat, every pound of weight we gain and every step
closer to health we take is a complete failure. Logically we know this is
rubbish- we know that doing all the above is needed to get well and live our
life however the strong waves of guilt, hard-hitting thoughts and emotions can
often make this so difficult to remember. I think people around us find this
hard to understand- you’ve gained weight, you now eat things you never used to
so why can’t you come out for a 3 course meal? Why is going on a night out and
ending it in a kebab house such an impossible challenge for you? You don’t look
unwell anymore.. you’re better right? .. This goes back to mental illness not
being physically visible. It explains why so many people relapse in to their
eating disorders- it can become so easy to feel so desperate and need to show
people how bad you feel to be taken seriously. This shouldn’t be happening.
This applies to all forms of mental Illness,
the amount of times I’ve heard the words ‘you don’t look depressed’ or ‘you
look perfectly fine to me’ is unreal. Mental illness is a mental illness a persons physical appearance may never change for
the whole duration of their illness- that doesn’t mean that they’re fine. They
may look ok, but its how they feel
that’s important. This can also be a problem when seeking help from
professionals, I agree the lack of funding and ever lasting waiting lists is
out of their control but the fact that the severity of your struggle is often
based soley on your appearance or actions just isn’t right. We shouldn’t feel
that we have to starve ourselves to a point where we’re extremely underweight,
we shouldn’t get to a point where we feel self harm is the only option, we
should never have to think that risking our lives is the only way that our
illness will be taken seriously. How we feel and the way that we think should
be enough to be understood and taken seriously to receive the help that we
need.
The fact nobody can see mental
illness means it’s quite common for people to wonder why you are doing this to
yourself or why you can’t just ‘think positive’ or ‘cheer up’. So many people
sat me down to tell me how much time I’ve wasted of my life with this illness
and to some extent they’re right. It’s been a good 7/8 years that I’ve been up
and down- doing ok for so long before plummeting. What they don’t understand is
that it’s an illness. Nobody sits in their bedroom and decides they’d quite
like to spend the next 7 years feeling like they’re losing their mind. Nobody
plans to starve themselves for a good time. No one would choose to feel so out
of control and scared not able to see a way out…just like nobody would choose
to have an Asthma attack. It can be the most frustrating thing in the world to
see everyone around you living and enjoying life and you wanting to do that
more than anything but just feeling physically unable. To be sat crying and
panicking and not knowing why or how to pick yourself up and feel better. We
sadly don’t have a ‘cheer up’ or ‘think positive’ button. Sometimes believe it
or not we can’t control how we feel, we’re unwell. 
Don’t get me wrong there are certain aspects that are in our control. We have choices that we can make to help us on our way to recovery. Self-help is a big one, on the darkest days it can be so easy to just do the complete opposite of this and self-destruct and sometimes we’re so unwell that it can feel like the only option. Self-help is one of the hardest yet worthwhile choices someone struggling can make. We are often in a position so unhappy with ourselves that taking care of ourselves just feels wrong. The decision to do this can range from choosing to get up each morning through to knocking on someone’s door and asking for help. It can be eating three meals a day and it can be going for long walks to clear your mind. There are so many forms of self-help and some days we choose things just to get us through the day but as good days start to occur we can do things that push out of our comfort zone and allow us to progress in recovery. We all have different methods of self-help, I won’t go in to mine as I’ll save that for another post but using these things and developing different ways is definitely a choice, it’s not always an easy choice- infact sometimes its almost impossible, but it’s a choice that’s so important. One day I may be the biggest self-help, personal development fan ever, doing things to take care of myself and setting future goals of creating a life I love and some days I’m sat thinking it’s all rubbish and achieving nothing but rolling out of bed in the morning... but that’s ok. It’s all part of one big journey.
So yes, to some extent we have choice and we can do things to help ourselves and prevent relapse and these choices are important just like an asthmatic choosing to take their inhaler or quit smoking. However sometimes no matter what a person with asthma does to care for themselves, every now and then they may suffer an asthma attack- it’s out of their control and has nothing to do with anything they have done but they just have to get help, pick themselves up and move forward from it. Just like those of us with mental illness- sometimes we will lapse or relapse and it won’t be our fault or in our control, it’s just about bearing with us, being there and helping us pick ourselves back up and keep moving forward.
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