I can hug myself in this jacket...

OK, so when I set out in creating this blog my intention was to update it once a week (at least) with topical pieces, occasional sports analysis, opinion posts and any other relevant, dicussion inducing topic that took my attention that I could weigh in on. However, one solitary post and I had writer's block. Well, so I thought. Only it wasn't at all. Even my attention span isn't that small. (Just about.) The reason I haven't written anything since is hard to admit and even harder to explain. At least on a public platform. But it's important.

You see, this isn't how this post was supposed to start. It's not how I planned I would go about it, but that's OK. It's OK because it's a subject I wanted to tackle since the beginning, even prior to that actually, except I haven't known how. It's something I have agonised over because it is something that has been very much a crux of my life up until this point. It's not an easy task to look at something objectively when it has had such a profound and extensive role within nearly every aspect of your own life. However, it's OK because I've come to realise lately that nobody knows how to go about it. Not in a way that makes people listen. Really listen. So I'm not going to try to make anyone listen. I'm just going to tell a story and maybe you'll decide to read along.

Now, at this point, I would like to invite anyone who thinks that this is going to be a 'pity post' to open your minds before you decide to read on. This isn't going to be a 'fluffy' post seeking sympathy. What I'm going to do is the following;
1) I'm going to write about my experience with mental health issues
2) I'm going to do it for the very first time
3) I'm going to do it for me, and
4) I'm going to do it for anyone who needs to read it.

So, this is the story. I guess I should start off by letting you know a little about who I am, shouldn't I? I'm a woman but I'm not looking for attention. I'm in my 20's but I'm not lazy and looking for everyone to do things for me. I'm unemployed but I do not lack passion, drive or ambition. I've been battling with mental illness but I am not weak minded or weak willed. Now, that's the stereotypes out of the way.

I always figured I was just a 'worrier'. From a young age, as far back as I can remember if I'm honest, I remember worrying a great deal. I was always very scared of getting things wrong. Actually one of my earliest memories is from school, in 4+, we had this task (I can't quite remember what it was about) but we had to draw a picture of something and I put two suns in mine. One in each top corner. I'm still not sure why but I do remember that being the first time I was ever told off by a teacher and crying because of it... what was my point again? Oh yeah! That was actually a dream I had at age 4. So, I've always worried a lot. But I always just figured that was normal. That was me.

I never noticed a problem. 

I only notice it now.

I started to notice I had a problem, a very real problem, about 5 years ago now. I didn't know what it was but I knew it was something. You see, I have a history of medical issues with my stomach which happened to coincide with my mental health issues getting out of hand, or me getting them in hand as it were, depending on which way you look at it.

I was playing football religiously almost at the time and, while I dither as to whether I'll go back or not, I'll always be thankful that the sport, in a way, was pivitol in bringing deeply hidden issues much closer to the fore, some of which are a story for another day. Or another post.
My shedule at the time essentially being the only day I had off from either training, playing or gym was Saturday.

• Sunday - Club game day.
• Monday - College training
• Tuesday - College training. Club training.
• Wednesday - External college tournaments.
• Thusday - Gym. Club training.
• Friday - Gym.

So, Saturday? Down the park, boots on, breaking legs (Only once. Nearly. She was fine!) and banging them in. I didn't notice it at the time but more and more, either prior to training or playing, especially with my club, I'd get nervous. Well, I'd always get nervous, no big deal. It was adrenaline. It was good. But this was different. It started to cause problems. It started to exacerbate the stomach problems I was trying to subdue at the same time too.

One training session missed. Half gym sessions. Only just completing pre-game warm up without running inside to the toilet. Two training sessions missed. And it carried on.

Normally this is where someone would say, 'OK, something isn't right here', but no, I was too stubborn for that.

My brain told me closer to the following; 'Get on with it you wuss!', 'Stop being lazy!', 'You're letting everyone down!'.

So harder I trained. Training was a must go no matter what state I was in. Even though shortly after starting I'd be gasping for breath. I wasn't tired, I was anxious. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't like that everytime, just with increasing regularity. Even when I didn't feel 'odd', for want of a better phrase, I didn't really want to be there. I didn't really want to be doing it. The main reason being because I was scared. Scared it'd happen again.

Scared of being scared.

One day my dad sat me down and asked me if playing football was what I really wanted. I didn't seem to want it anymore. I'd always talked about playing football and playing football hard. As far as I was always concerned my future consisted of choosing which crest I'd have on my chest; England, Wales or Scotland. I sat and thought about it and agreed that it was still what I wanted but I just felt like something was wrong and it was starting to concern me. So we decided that I'd keep on playing and go off to the doctor to get my stomach seen to. I mean, it couldn't be anything else as far as I was concerned. So I threw myself back into the sport I adored, the sport that had, to all intents and purposes, been my life, with new fervour.

Now, here's a day I remember like it was yesterday (cliche-alert), and probably will for the rest of my life. I just didn't know how important it was going to be then.

One Tuesday, after training I started to feel a bit ill. Not intensely, not scarily, but definitely there. I couldn't put my finger on why, or even how, just that I didn't feel right, and the closer the end of the session got, the more anxious I started to get about getting home. As we got into the car I started to calm down but feel very cold. It wasn't particularly cold outside and I had a jacket on, as I always did after training (post-exercise lesson 101).

About 3 or 4 minutes into the 30minute journey home, I started to shiver and shake uncontrollably. I told dad I wanted to go home. We were going home anyway mind, but I meant I *really* wanted to go home. He asked me if I was OK and what was wrong but I couldn't answer him. I started to feel uncontrollably sick, but not to the point where I was going to throw up, just dizzy to the point I couldn't move my head, even slightly, without it feeling like I was spinning. Cold to the point that my shaking was making the car seat slightly move, and giving my legs intense cramp. Needing the toilet so suddenly, so badly, my stomach felt like a vice.

Sat in the car with my arms wrapped around myself, feeling so inherantly exhausted yet unable to stop moving, with a throat that was feeling tighter and tighter, drier and drier, I sang songs to myself between deep breaths. Any songs I could remember because it was the only thing I could think of at the time to stop myself passing out. Something which at that point seemed pretty inevitable. Every so often stopping to tell dad that I 'really wanted to go home now.'

A 30 minute journey. It took 15. It felt like 120.

I managed to calm down by time we pulled the car up outside of the house and when I got in I went straight up to bed. Both my parents and brother wanted to take me up the hospital but I insisted I just wanted to go to bed, so to bed I went.

The next day we came to the conclusion my stomach was the problem, I'd over done it and my body protested and I really had to get something done about it now. I know now that it wasn't my stomach.

Needless to say it took a while for me to get back into football properly, and when I did my heart wasn't in it anymore. I wouldn't let it be. Fear had well and truly taken hold now. I soon started to feel ill more and more, especially when it came to playing sports or working out. Anything that exerted myself, my body fought it. But I persisted. If anything was bigger than my now deep-seated fear of being ill, it was my fear of letting people down. Disappointing people. The people who love me and support me.

Two weeks before the County Cup final our opponents didn't turn up for our scheduled friendly match so we arranged a practice match between the squad. All was going well then around the 75th minute.... Bang. I went to knock the ball past one of our centre backs, our Captain, knocked it too far and, while I was reaching, she went in with the slide tackle and the result was my patella deciding it wanted to go on vacation from where it lived.

I've not played football competitively since.

About a year later, a year of on and off stomach issues, my second college course (my 3rd year overall) ended.

Now I had little to keep me occupied until I found a job. The more time passed, the more my stomach issues intensified. My doctor was less than helpful which didn't help the situation. I started to be unable to sleep. I got more frantic. There were days I felt unable to get up because I was in pain or I felt sick, or I was scared if I went out, I'd be sick.

I couldn't be sick. Not away from home at any rate. If I was at home everything I needed was there. Food. Water. Bathroom. Bed. Someone to take me to hospital if I got severely ill (genuinely my thought process.) So to add on, I started to become more and more reclusive.

One of the things that, actually, is so very key but gets over looked a lot is how alone you become. While I was going through whatever I was going through, all of my friends, and people I knew, were getting on with their lives. Their problems. Unfortunately, by time anyone notices the distance that's appeared, the other is long gone, out of reach.

Sleeping became harder and harder. I had occasional episodes that could last, on and off, all night and I wouldn't sleep. I started to get scared of falling asleep.

What if I went to sleep and didn't wake up again?

What if I had cancer?

A brain tumour?

Some incurable disease that I'd have to live with for the rest of my life? Oh that was a big one. What if I was going to be this way for the rest of my life? I was scared. No doubt I was scared. I was 20 years old and on a couple of nights, I spent the night in my mother's arms crying like I had done all those years previously when I needed my nappy changing.

You see, by this point the people around me became skeptical. Not of my mental health... but of my mental strength. So many people always think the two are one and the same but if this post does nothing else, I hope that it'll help to dispell that thought from your mind, at least a little.

'Grow up!' I was told. 'Get your act together and sort yourself out!'

See, I knew they were right but nothing felt more impossible at that time than doing exactly that. However, I resolved to do exactly that. How could I let these people down? I couldn't. I wouldn't.

So out I went. Or out I tried to go. Either way, I pushed myself and I pushed myself hard. The only way I knew how. Doing something by halves wasn't on the agenda. I had let myself get into a mess and I'd be damned if I was letting myself stay in that mess. Yet, no matter how hard I tried, no matter how hard I pushed, it didn't seem to become any easier. Any less like torture. A very personal, private, unmentionable torture, but an agony nonetheless.

I'd get sick before going anywhere. Even the prospect of going anywhere would make me feel intolerably ill. Sometimes I'd go, sometimes I wouldn't be able. On those occasions I'd stay home, maybe everyone would, and I'd be privately inconsolable, sometimes for a couple of days, at letting everyone down. Letting myself down. Yet increasingly panicky, again privately, that this was never going to end. This mental self-persecution was going to be my life.

Yet. Slowly, slowly, catchee, monkey.

I started to focus on the positive rather than the negative. I *WAS* making progress. It was slow, it was painful, and it felt like it was miniscule movements forward but nonetheless, forward they were.

One day, I'd forced myself to get out and went shopping. Not alone, I was with my parents at the time. I felt a little ill before we went but I chose to ignore it. Or I tried to, it was there, but I wouldn't focus on it. I focused on NOT focusing on it. We were nearly done when my father turned to me and told me I looked really pale. I broke. You see, I had been, up until that point, concentrating on ignoring it and not letting go of my focus. Not letting go of my resolve.

Not. Letting. Go.

My legs went. I had to catch a hold of a nearby shelf, nearly up-ending it in the process, so as not to collapse. I needed the bathroom. Urgently. But I, nearly 21 years old I, had to ask my mother to escort me because I didn't feel confident in my ability to get there unaided. Not totally unfounded, it turned out. The 30 second dart between shoppers took 5 minutes and I nearly fell over or passed out 3 times.

By time I got home, I was typically exhausted. For 4 days I didn't leave the house. I 'didn't feel well enough to.' On the 5th day I decided I'd pop my dog out to get some fresh air. I managed to get around the corner from our house to the field, literally behind our garden fence and my legs were shaking badly enough I didn't think they'd hold me. I felt the knock back almost as if it were a physical blow.

And so this set the pattern for the next few months, up to a year. Every time something would happen, I'd pick myself up, determined to fight it. Sometimes days, sometimes weeks after an episode, but get up I did. Yet, no matter how much progress I made, no matter how far I felt I dragged myself forward, that knock back would eventually come. Like the ending credits of your favourite film, you don't want it to happen but it is inevitable. That's when I made the decision that (Ding! Ding! Ding! Cliche alert) would change my life.

By July 2012 I was sure. I went to my doctor and told him that I felt it was time to see someone about helping me through this. I couldn't do it alone, I told him, no matter how hard I try, I never really get there. Not where I need to be.

So as of August 2012 I started a CBT (Cognitive behavioral therapy) programme and was diagnosed with Anxiety-Induced Panic Disorder. Just hearing that seemed like a small weight was lifted off my shoulders.

 'It's a thing! I'm not crazy! I'm not going to end up locked in a bouncy room!' My mind revelled.

I explained to my therapist, a brilliant guy by the name of Nick, everything I had been through. In much a similar fashion to how I have to you now. Yet, even by just talking about it in a candid manner, a manner I wouldn't have attempted in any other environment, the horribly difficult jigsaw I'd been trying to solve alone started to fit a little better.

That 'episode' at football? My first panic attack. Most likely brought on by health issues and the increasing pressure I felt under to succeed and succeed in a humongous manner.

Increase in problems after I finished college? Well yes the pressure of finding a job in a poor market but what I didn't mention, or connect at the time, was my grandmother died less than a year later and every aspect of my personal and home life was strained beyond levels I'd ever known before.

You see, I've always seen it as my job to support everybody. Just not myself. Not the way I should have.

The on-off 'episodes' I had? Well. you add up progressively worse health and increasingly growing anxiety and panic issues and, well, do we really expect much else?

The 'episode' in the routine shopping trip? Again that came, fairly obviously now, at a very pivotal and difficult stage in my life. Probably harder than anything I'd known before. That's why it took me a greater time to recover. Or 'recover' is probably more apt. My brother had moved out to America for a year and, being a very close knit family, my parents took it hard. Very hard. But it was my job to hold everything together, remember?

And many, many other instances during the most gruelling time I can imagine experiencing, attributed to the way, even everyday occurences, simple jobs and duties, were perceived within my life. I even become agoraphobic at one point.

The fear and anxiety that had been building up, the fear and anxiety that I thought I'd been fighting through, but had really just been hiding from and distracting myself from, kept hitting me like a ton of bricks. You see, that's the thing with anxiety. You know when they say 'You can run but you can't hide'? Nothing has ever been truer. It will stay. It will always be there. It will find you. Again. And again. And again. Until you confront it. Until you genuinely fight it. Until you stick it up in that proverbial dock and rip it to shreds, it will always find a way back at you.

So it was time to learn, and boy, did I learn. But you reap the rewards of the seeds you sow. Progress has been made. Progress will keep being made everyday now I have the tools to move forward. Well actually, now I know how to use the tools to keep me moving forward.

I always had the tools... I just didn't know exactly what they were or what to do with them.

Not everyone can show you that. Not everyone can understand that the way you need them to. Or at all even. That's something I had to explain to my family, my parents in particular. At first, while they supported me, they felt hurt that I couldn't 'just talk to them'. But it doesn't work that way. If it did, things like various therapies wouldn't exist because it'd be that easy. It's anything but.

Now, this brings me to the point of writing this (if anyone's still with me by this point). Two things happened that encouraged me to write this piece. A piece I'd always thought about but didn't think I'd ever really be able to write it.

1. I finished therapy last week.
2. I saw someone best described as a 'suit', on Twitter (where they had quite a large following, therefore influence) bad mouthing CBT and therapy in general when, by their own admission, they had never experienced either first-hand.

I felt affronted by that especially. I probably had no reason to, after all I'm not a therapist, but I felt insulted. By belittling the very thing that had been quite instrumental in helping me, and many others, progressing with life in a positive manner, they belittled everything I, we, have been through. Like it's not important. Like 'all it is', is mental weakness (They actually said that bit too).

Now I hope, by this point, you don't think that. If you do, well that's your lookout and your opinion. Though I have no qualms of any fashion telling you that you are categorically wrong.

Not only is mental illness real, not only is mental illness life-destroying, it is rife. Far more common than I'm sure most people imagine. But far worse than that, so many people go on struggling because they are still, in 2013, STILL, at risk of being ostracised for seeking help.

I sought help when the time was right for me. When I felt able to. Now, thanks to that help, and a lot of damn hard work, I'm starting to come out of the other end of a very, very long tunnel. I'm looking for a job (I've had two during the last 5 years). I'm volunteering at my local Keech charity weekly. I'm going back to college in September. I plan on going to University next year to get my degree and then a Master's after. None of which I would have ever even considered possible at so many points during my still very young adult life. Not 'I never considered' - I wanted them a great deal, they just never felt like remotely achievable goals for a great deal of time.

'Hey, they're wackjobs!'

'They're crazy!'

'Stear clear of them, they have "issues".'

'Wow, high maintenance!'

'They're soooo Emo!'

'So lazy, they want everything doing for them!'

'God, they should just cheer up. They're so depressive.'

'THEY MUST BE SO WEAK!'

No, actually, what we are... what I AM, is normal.

Not another parade! Wait, I mean tirade.

Ok, so the idea behind me starting up a blog was to produce a well structured, informative platform in which I could get my views across in an eloquent, befitting manner. Because my views are just *that* important, of course.
However, I had a good maiden post idea in my head all morning. I started structuring and writing it in my mind but, since I've sat down to type it up, it has, for the most part (the structuring and writing part), vacated my mind.
So let's just wing it and see how we go, eh?

Right, there's been a lot of talk today (on twitter at least) about 'gay marriage' and the support/opposition for/to it. 'Oh, it's one of *those* posts!' I hear some of you think already. Well, yes and no. I am pro-equal marriage. I make no bones about it. However, if you think this is going to be just a simple 'opposition bashing' post, you are most certainly mistaken there. You'll see what I mean, or at least I hope your minds will be open enough to at least. If not, well you've probably already stopped reading by this point anyway.

One of the main points I saw that opposed equal marriage today was that marriage is a religious institution of our church that the legal system in this country just facilitates. Fair enough. Except, I don't understand the support of this argument at all. I understand the statement, but not as an argument against equal marriage. Here's why: If that is a good enough reason to stop equal marriage becoming legal then it is an equally good enough reason to;

1) Make it illegal for anyone who is not of the church to get married,

2) Make marriage ceremonies performed outside of the church, by someone who is not of the church especially, illegal.

Yet I see neither of these being argued. Neither of these fit in with marriage being a 'religious institution of our church' surely?
'No! No! No!' I saw someone shout. 'That's not the same at all!' Ok, so it's not the same? Why? 'Because the church does not govern people of other religions, only those that are of the church! The religion of this country', they said. Exactly, I reply, so why can't equal marriage be passed then? Think about it. Why can't I, for example, as an atheist, marry a woman if I wish to? What right do subscribers to a church, of which I am not a member, have to tell the government who they should allow or, conversely, stop, me marrying?

(Now I stop at this point to reiterate that this is not opposition-bashing or, for that matter, religion bashing in any sense. I'm actually not anti-religion in any real sense of the term, see a previous post I have written elsewhere on my views of religion as a concept here. I'm just using arguments I have seen and merely questioning them. I'm aware I haven't seen all arguments used, nor do I claim to, but I can only comment on what I have seen, clearly.)

So, anyway, I digress. Taking a different tact here. Another religious based argument I have seen in regard to the opposition of equal marriage is; the Bible's definition of marriage. Equal marriage would ruin the sanctity of marriage. Well, see, as I've found, the definition of marriage per se within the Bible is far more diverse and flexible than most give it credit for and the majority would, by the standards of today, be considered sacred. Within the Bible's pages the following things are included in marriage and/or constitute marriage;

1) A widow who has not borne her husband a son before his death must marry her husband's brother and submit sexually to him in order to give him offspring.

2) A wife must be subordinate to her husband. The wife is to have no independant rights, needs or priviledges of her own.

3) Concubines. The only difference between a wife and a concubine in the Bible, is wives have dowries, concubines have none. Such women enjoyed the same rights in the house as legitimate wives. Examples; Abraham had 2, as did Caleb. Gideon, Nahor, Jacob, Eliphaz, Manassah & Belshazzar all had 1. Solomon is said to have had 300(!) (Go Solo, g...I mean, ahem...)

4) In Deuteronomy is it said that a rape victim must become her rapist's wife and submit to him sexually. The rapist must merely pay his victim's father 50 pieces of silver due to 'loss of property'.

5) Under Moses command, Israelites were to kill every Midianite man, woman and child except for the virgin women. They were to be taken as spoils of war and must submit sexually to their new husbands/owners.

6) In Exodus it is said that a male slave will be assigned a female slave as a wife. She must submit to him sexually and bear him children, which will remain the owner's property (the wife and any children) after the man can go free.

So, let's talk about how the Bible defines marriage shall we? I'm not going to say about the rights and wrongs of what is contained within the Bible.What I am saying is I don't think you can use that as a valid argument against equal marriage unless you're actively, and just as rigorously, campaigning to have such things made legal under what does constitute marriage.

The third big reason I saw opposing equal marriage was thus; Marriages of two people of the same sex undermine the marriages of two people of opposing sexes.
This is, I have to say, one that does truly baffle me. I cannot see any way that two women, or two men, getting married could possibly affect your 'straight' marriage. If it does, that surely calls into question the foundation on which the 'straight' marriage is built upon to begin with? I don't think I can aptly word this any better than one very famous face did, so I'll let her do the talking instead:

"If gay marriage affects your straight marriage obviously your marriage is pretty shitty to begin with." 

- Mila Kunis

The fourth and final big reason I saw that opposes equal marriage seems a very big one. Especially amoung those that can't abuse the Bible and religion as their excuse; 'The main reason to be married is to procreate! Two men/women can't do that!'

This one has quite a simple response; Why are you not campaigning against infertile people getting married? The elderly? Or people who do not want to have children through choice? Surely, via that reasoning, they should not be allowed to get married either?

The law the Government are proposing forces no religious institution to perform marriages between two people of the same gender. It will actually be illegal for Church of England institutions to perform these marriages in totality. No-one in this country is going to force anybody to get married. It is illegal. If equal marriage becomes law it will *still* be illegal.

If you do not like/want/agree with 'gay marriage' there is one simple solution that I will enlighten you with now; Do not get 'gay married'.

However if it really is that important to you to stop two people you have never met from standing up in front  of a bunch of other people you have never met, say nice things about each other, and pledge to stay commited to each other for the duration of their lifetime through love and respect, I suggest to you this; it is not this potential law change that needs looking at, it's your priorities.

End note of two things: 

I use Christianity as the religious example for two reasons;

1) It is the religion which I have seen twisted to suit people's reasoning in this matter.

2) It is generally recognised as both the historical and official religion of Britain. Church of England (Anglican) in England and Wales and the Presbyterian Church of Scotland in Scotland.

You may notice that I have been loathe to use the term 'Gay marriage'. You see, 

1) Gay people can already get married, just not to other gay people.

2) The whole topic is about equality. It is not about asking for anything different or out of the ordinary. It is purely about people who wish to commit to someone of the same gender wanting the same legal (and religious for those who practice) rights as those who wish to marry someone of the opposite gender.