Acceptance

I have a body focused repetitive behaviour, linked to OCD called trichotillomania which means I have a tendency to pull out my hair. I actually didn’t even realize I had it until I saw an article in the paper about someone else who was dealing with it. I suddenly realized, that thing I was doing was a ‘condition’.

I find that any time i’m mindlessly inside, or feeling stressed or anxious I subconsciously start pulling out my hair. It can get really destructive and painful, but i’ve been lucky to both find a support group in town of others who suffer from this, as well as having an amazingly supportive partner and family that I was able to confide in. They are able to help me realize i’m doing it when I might not even notice it myself. I’ve also taken to wearing hats any time I can, as I find having that physical barrier there, prevents me from doing the behaviour.

Slowly, i’m starting to learn to accept myself without judgement. I’m trying to reframe my thoughts of “this is bad, I shouldn’t do this” to “this is the space i’m in, and that’s ok.”

I want to get better at advocating for myself and others that I know are struggling with mental health issues. I work with kids, and seeing them struggle makes me realize how much we need the stigmas to go away. Mental Health shouldn’t be secret, backroom talk. 

Broken

Around 2 years ago, I started to feel something i’d never experienced before.
I’ve always been a hard worker - no stranger to long hours or tough timelines, and although I’ve had times where I’ve been stressed, I’ve always pushed through it.
This particular time though, I was in a new job which was becoming increasingly demanding and office morale was really low. One weekend, I went to tackle some work that was needed before a new week and I started to get really physically sick. I had a massive headaches, and I couldn’t keep anything down. I thought I was just coming down with something, but on Monday morning I woke up and I realized I felt totally broken.

It’s like my mind and body just snapped. The pressures at work, combined with the guilt of not having enough time for my wife and young children, but yet the feeling of needing to provide for them all just piled up and things gave out on me. This then led me to feelings of guilt and inadequacy for not being able to do what I was “supposed to be able to do” or be "part of the solution" and I felt trapped in a bad cycle inside my head.

I had no control over my body- I was physically ill for weeks, and have never felt so low mentally. 

I went to my doctor, who supported me in needing to take some time off, but eventually I actually had to switch jobs in order to give myself a full reset.

I’ve found my experience has left me a lot more aware of my mind and body now. I can kind of feel it when i’m starting to loose my grip on things, so that I can catch it before it gets too bad.

It wasn’t until this incident that I truly understood just how much your mental health can affect the physical you. I have such a better understanding and respect for it now, and so I want to be able to share my story so others don’t feel alone.

Can’t Forget

I have worked 911 Dispatch and taken police calls for the territory for the past 11 years. Through my experiences, I have learned that PTSD and OSI symptoms can develop over time, manifesting in little ways that you don't notice until you're in the thick of it. I've also learned these experiences affect everyone differently, at different times in their career and life.

Unlike a physical injury such as a broken leg, mental health symptoms can be difficult to recognize, and others may find it hard to know when and how to offer support. For myself, it started slowly as a travel anxiety. Because I knew how long it could take for emergency services to arrive at remote locations, I wouldn't leave Whitehorse city limits. When it got to the point I was unable to fly south for a family funeral, I realized I couldn't handle it on my own and I had to get help. It felt humiliating that I couldn't be there for my family.
 
Because of my experience, it’s important for me to normalize mental health with my family and my children. My Girls know that Mom has a “head doctor” and a “body doctor” and that it's okay to seek help from both.

I hope one day mental health stigma is gone and these issues are as relatable and normalized as other chronic conditions - that it's no longer scary to admit to each other, “Hey, I’m having a shitty head day."

Cathartic

At the age of 16 I was diagnosed with severe anxiety, anxiety-related depression, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), and moderate Social Anxiety.

My anxiety is usually what sets me off. If I'm not making my Mental Health a priority, then I can lose focus on harnessing my anxiety. My rational mind takes a step back, and my anxiety-driven, obsessive compulsive mind takes over, leading to obsessive thinking. These thoughts are omnipresent and extremely difficult to derail. At my low point, my only coping mechanism for dealing with my thoughts was hand washing. The hand washing was cathartic-I felt like I could control my thoughts by washing them away. Some days I would find myself at the sink upwards of 50 times a day. The day I had finally washed my hands to the point of bleeding was the day I realized that my compulsions weren't giving me any control at all. This epiphany triggered a severe depressive episode. But on the bright side, it also encouraged me to embrace the Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) that I had previously been halfheartedly participating in. 

The skills I learned from CBT gave me a great foundation to create and build a skill set for dealing with my anxiety and OCD. Self care, counselling, medication, clean eating, running, sleep, and support from family and friends are all integral parts of my skill set. I like to view each of these  assets as an individual strand in a spider's web; any one of these on it's own isn't going to work, but all of these things woven together will create a safety net for when I feel myself falling.

The biggest, and most important, thing I want people to know is that you can't make assumptions. Just because someone looks "fine" on the outside, doesn't mean that they aren't falling apart on the inside. Mental Health doesn't discriminate.

Don’t Tell

It took me 38 years to feel comfortable enough to tell a friend I was sexually assaulted as a kid. To my relief, my initial disclosure was met with love and acceptance. It made me feel like that this conversation can happen, and it can be healing. From there, I told more people, and again, the responses were loving. The flip-side of needing to tell your story in order to heal is that a loving response may not always be the case.

I grew up in a small farming community. To say there was a "work-hard, play hard" culture would be an understatement. The community had a lot of social problems like alcoholism, intimate partner violence and child welfare issues, as well as overt racism. I was hard on myself for not having disclosed anything about the assault at the time. It was only upon looking back, processing the events with a counselor and, eventually, with my family, that realized silence was actually my best bet. The flip-side to this is, I was not able to process any of the trauma, initially.There is fertile ground for post-traumatic stress in silence and internalization.

I can be triggered by many things. Other people’s aggression and anger, racist remarks, violent movies, even certain smells or textures of fabric. Ensuring my home is a safe and comforting place is really important to me. What has also helped is the understanding that coping with anxiety and healing from trauma is a process. In the wisdom the 12-steppers it's called "You don't go back as often, or stay as long."
 
It is hard. Facing my own reactions and learning to be gentle with myself has been incredibly hard. It is only with vigilant self-care and a trauma-informed, supportive community that I have been able to move forward.

Erasing Stigma

My childhood consisted of a lot of fear and attachment issues with the adults in my life. Because of my family background, we also lived in a culture where we didn’t speak out about feelings and emotions as that would bring shame to our family. 

This resulted in me growing up learning to really withdraw from the world, and develop a fear of really opening my heart up to others.

I’ve also struggled at times with severe anxiety, panic and even agoraphobia due to a lack of feeling safe. And more recently i’ve been struggling with depression and that deep darkness that takes over. I was at a point where the sunrise would actually produce full body fear in me…that fear of waking up and having to face the world was crippling. 

I’m very lucky to have found an incredible partner who is so understanding. I realized one day that it was actually easier for me to come out as a lesbian when I was 41 years old than it was for me to openly talk about my mental health issues. That’s exactly why i’m wanting to speak out now. Being a lesbian is completely normalized and just part of who I am, and I want that to be the same for mental health issues; to remove the stigma

There are too many people struggling, and our current system is one of reacting vs. building capacity and resiliency. I want to be part of changing that. 

Exposed

I left home at the age of 14. I didn’t know it was molestation that was happening in my small town, but I knew whatever it was, wasn’t right and that I needed to get out of there. I knew it was happening to many of the children, and that it shouldn’t be.

In my 20’s another child disclosed the abuse had happened to him too, and that’s when everything broke free. It’s like a huge file of information downloaded into my brain and broke me. I felt like a film was playing over top of my life, and I could see, feel, smell the past all over again. I felt like I was walking around totally naked and exposed. 

My parents had become devout Christians when I was still at home. They would try to hide the past and not acknowledge the things that I had gone through or saw. They said I lied and that I made it all up. That I was possessed by the devil and that’s why I was saying those things.

My childhood experiences have never left me. I now suffer from PTSD, Cyclical Vomiting Syndrome, Anxiety/Depression and Dissociative Disorder. 

I’ve been hospitalized, been to numerous counsellors, been on medications. I have felt the social injustice of the Mental Health system. It shouldn’t be so hard to ask for help…you shouldn’t have to degrade yourself and hit rock bottom before you can get help.

Things do get better though. One of the biggest things that has helped me is learning about DBT (Dialectic Behavioural Therapy), and re-learning the basics of self care. Water, Rest, proper nutrition. Life needs to be simple.

In the past few years concurred a lot of fears and been more public about my experiences. I’ve run as Yukon Sourdough Rendezvous Queen to fight in the name of Mental Health Awareness. I am a huge advocate of destigmatization and fighting for support for those suffering with their mental health.  I knew that if I got to the other side of all this, I needed to help make a change, so that’s what i’m doing.

Mental health issues effect everyone. You’re either a part of a support network, or are in a network that touches someone in someway.

Fragmented and Frayed

I’m at a place in my life where I am really struggling. I’ve suffered chronic anxiety my whole life, but ever since I started my Master's degree it has become more severe. My anxiety can be paralytic, often completely impacting my day-to-day functionality. It leaves me without a sense of safety and security in the world.

I have sought help many times but have found a fragmented and frayed health care system unable to provide the support that I need for my mental health issues. There isn’t a cohesive process that can help navigate the system or provide the support to go to a deeper level… there’s a lack of compassion and caring in our system. When you are already feeling isolated and alone, the lack of support and interconnection just adds to those feelings. 

I do not believe anyone is free of Mental Health issues… it is just a matter of degree. We all should care about this.

I want to share my story so that my granddaughter can have better support than I’ve had. 

Grief

I’m currently dealing with the hardest year of my life. Death and grieving have always interested me. I’m a nurse and have also explored the concepts when I was in arts school…“but it really hit home this year to understand how different it is when you’re going through it yourself..."

My brother died. Telling my mom the news was heartbreaking. His funeral in Beijing was quite different from my own culture. As a nurse I am confronted with mortality all the time. Still, I’ve not always taken the best care of myself.  After Brian died I wondered “did he have to die for me to learn to take better care?” So many feelings of desperate sadness, guilt and anger. It has all made me see the medical system from another angle… having interventions done to you, even though as a medical professional we feel that we are giving as much care and compassion as possible. It’s still different from the other side.

I wish the tradition of wearing a black band around your arm to signify grief would come back. That way we would know to be more gentle with each other…as everyone is going through something at some point.

"Life is so fragile yet so strong…wouldn’t it be nice is we were all just more gentle with each other.”

Isabel

I was almost 36 weeks pregnant on Christmas Eve, when I went in for some routine monitoring and doctors discovered our baby's heart was no longer beating. I gave birth to Isabel a few days later, on December 27th (she was beautiful, weighing 4lbs 2oz, with her dad's hair and mom's long fingers and toes...)

It’s really hard to talk about things that are hard to talk about…but I'm so so grateful for all the support and love we've had over the last few months.

I'm just starting to work part time again, and go out in public, which comes with its own challenges; it's not just hard for my partner and I, but also hard for anyone to hear about or talk about the loss of a child.

I’ve found if I talk about it first though, people are way more likely to come forward and share their stories and experiences. I’ve started blogging about it here and there - reading about other people's experiences has been really helpful, and it inspires me to share my own. But it can be isolating and I would love to see more support and awareness about child loss in our community. I had no idea that 1 in 4 pregnancies will end in a type of loss until it happened to us. 

Medicated

It all started when I noticed I was getting sick all the time. I had constant nausea, my body just didn’t feel right and then it hit me-my first panic attack right before one of my major exams.

I was seen in the emergency room for about 10 minutes, and I was shocked by the amount of medication I was prescribed right away. Months worth of Ativan and Anti-depressants, without even really having a chance to talk about how and why this was all happening in the first place.

I realize now that it was anxiety taking over. I still don’t know my triggers that well, but I can feel it coming on now. I notice the changes in my body a bit earlier and the inability to control my feelings all of the sudden is what alerts me now.

Luckily my family is very open and supportive. I’ve been able to regulate with mild medications, luckily not taking as many as I was first prescribed, and in some ways it’s been a positive thing. I feel like i’m so much more aware of how I feel now.

Numb

I had a traumatic birth experience and I believe that really affected how I was able to bond with my baby. The doctors told me I was at a higher risk for postpartum depression because of the amount of blood I lost. I didn't think it could happen to me, because I was 'strong'.

I ended up going back to work when my baby was 11 days old. I needed to work to make ends meet but what I didn't realize at the time that this was also my coping mechanism and always has been. Having to work kept me going and gave me that sense of purpose that I so desperately needed. 

I felt inadequate most of the time. I started having thoughts of harming myself and believed my children would be better off without me, but those thoughts come with so much shame.
 
I couldn't reach out for help or talk to others for fear of what it will look like. I already doubted myself and I questioned what others would think about me being able to care for my children. I feared someone would come take my children away because I was unfit. Take them away because I was not strong enough. A nightmare within the nightmare.

Imagine you are living in a dark, foggy and heavy place. It's hard to explain and when you start to think about how low you feel you start to think about how selfish you are, how could you be depressed?  You have wonderful children, you have a house, you have a job, you own a business, you have a vehicle, you have friendsand family who would drop everything for you,  you have everything, you have more than enough. You must be the most selfish person on earth. You have no right to be depressed. You have everything. You must be weak.  Your thoughts continue to deepen the spiral of postpartum depression.

Revictimized

My life changed on Halloween night of 2006. I was kidnapped and raped by someone who I at that time had thought was a friend.

My hands were tied, and I was taken from my house, naked with only a blanket to cover me. I left as many clues as I could in hopes someone would realize something had happened, but it wasn’t until hours later that the cops finally found us. Their guns were drawn, and my kidnapper had a knife to my throat. He threatened to kill me and said if he got caught, he’d come back for me.

In the end, I was safely removed from the situation. Little did I know, that this was only the beginning of my trauma.

I’ve been re-victimized by our legal system ever since. I was in the hospital room next to him later that night. My kidnapper eventually served some time, but is now out a free man, and I have no rights to know where he is or what he’s doing. So i’m left feeling totally vulnerable again to a man who threatened to come back for me.

I’ve taken it on as a personal mission to become a victim’s rights advocate. I’ve gone through, and seen too much of the system failing the victims of violence. I will always continue to be an advocate and voice for those who are too fearful to do it for themselves.

Safe Place

I have a form of OCD where I have traumatic imagery flash into my mind hundreds of times a day. So unlike the OCD you often see depicted in movies, I have the intrusive/obsessive thoughts, but then not the compulsive behaviours. 

The thoughts are often violent. I picture something awful happening, and then I experience the full trauma as if it actually happened. So every day, multiple times a day, I live the guilt of having harmed others in a very real, physical way, even though the events have never happened.

I’ve been able to get control over my thoughts through counselling and medications over the years. The biggest help has also always been animals. I have never had these intrusive thoughts towards animals, it’s always been positive experiences, so it’s like a break from my thoughts when i’m with them. They give me acceptance and a sense of shared joy.

Scream

I’m going through a really hard spot right now, struggling with anxiety and depression. A lot of stuff from my past and from my childhood is suddenly coming up, and I have no control over it.

I spent years suppressing my emotions and pushing stuff down. I came from a family where talking about feelings and expressing emotions was not accepted. You were not allowed to show any anger. I had terror of expressing any feelings. My only defence in my situation as a child was to shut down so I got very good at it.
The problem is now, i’m experiencing these waves of intense emotion and i’m having to teach myself to not shut them down. I’m 52, but emotionally I feel like i’m still a child. It’s terrifying, but i’m trying to encourage myself to not just hide everything…to let those emotions out.

My biggest coping mechanism right now is actually medieval fighting. It’s a group of individuals in town who dress in historically accurate armour and battle. It’s a safe place for me to be able to show my aggression, to get out of my head and to let out my battle cries. It’s like when I put on my physical armour, I feel like I don’t need as much emotional armour.

Seasons

I have struggled at different points in my life. When I was younger, I struggled with alcohol addiction, but i’ve gotten through it with AA and various other supports, and I learned that I am actually Bipolar as well. When I tried to seek support for being Bipolar, however, I found the medical system just tried to push medications on me that I had terrible reactions to.

Over the years, i’ve found better ways to cope that work for me. I’ve learned self advocacy is key, and that you need to learn to stand up for yourself. I’ve found a counsellor and more natural remedies to help me cope.

I now have a good handle on things. I know how to catch my symptoms early…when I feel hypomania coming on, I become more aware and perceptive. I become very light and sleep sensitive and become highly emotional, direct and persistent. But through breathing exercises, meditation, and orthomolecular treatments I am able to find more balance, which i’ve also learned needs to be a fluid thing. What I need changes throughout the seasons, and what is going on in my life, and being able to accept that helps me move forward. 

Turning to nature and the animals also helps…it grounds me. I’ve also realized over time that it wasn’t until I reached out to my community that I got support back. Talking from the heart works. And that’s why I want to continue to share my story.

Self Support

I’ve struggled with depression for years. When I first reached out to close friends, I didn’t get any support back.
As an introverted person it became really easy for me to just isolate myself when I didn’t feel like I had anything to give to my relationships. It became really hard to be social.

Having my daughter brought some hard moments as I lost friends to the life changes of having a child. You don’t want to be a burden on them-a lot changes when you have a child….But on that same note, she has quickly become one of my biggest supports as you have to keep it together for your kid. She can distract me from my negative thoughts. 

And i’ve been able to teach her about having open dialogue about these issues. I’ve explained to a six year old, about how mom goes through some hard times sometimes. And she doesn’t judge me.

I hide my self medicating from my daughter. But I don’t hide the fact that we all go through difficult times in life. 

Sleep

I wanted to share my story so that people know they’re not alone in this. I’ve experienced social anxiety, but in the past year anxiety, generally, has really started to take over and negatively affect my life. 

All of the sudden I couldn’t bring myself to eat, I wasn’t sleeping. Depression snuck in. I didn't recognize it for what it was, but it was prevalent. I would have anxiety attacks where I couldn’t even form a sentence to tell my partner what was happening…there were no words that would come to my mouth. 

It’s at it’s worst on Sundays when I know i’m having to go back to work, and I love my job. I’ve tried meditation and breathing exercises, but I just can’t get through them. I’ve self medicated with wine or marijuana, which helps shut off my brain sometimes, but other times it just makes it worse.

At my worst times, even just feeding myself properly is overwhelming. I can’t get to the grocery store, I can’t meal plan or cook. I have no energy. With everything I try it feels like I just can’t quite get there… It’s like when the depression hits, you can see the light, but you just can’t quite reach it.

I don’t know my triggers yet…this is all still so new to me. I just wish I could get some sleep…if I could just rest my body and my brain, maybe I would feel better.

Someone Else

My anxiety taking over is what really made me realize something was wrong. I suddenly wasn’t really able to control my thoughts/feelings. I started to get really depressive thoughts. There’s a lot of wars in my head, and I felt like everything I thought about, I could also then immediately contradict.

My family moves around a lot, and so I’ve had a rough time moving through various cities throughout my childhood. I struggle to connect and have been bullied a lot.

Finding the art world has really helped me the most. I feel like it’s the only time i’m taken seriously and the only place I actually feel safe to emote. I’m the most myself when i’m on stage. I’m never really allowed to be me, so I want to be someone else. Anyone else.

The Battle

I’m starting to tell people about my story because I don’t want to hide anymore.

When I was a child, I was sexually abused by my father. I’ve since developed Dissociative Identity Disorder, which is where I’ve fractured my mind into various identities within myself in order to contain the trauma. So there is no ‘leader’ or main identity…I truly don’t know who I am as I don’t have a core. It feels like everything happened to this other person…not me. There is a black hole pitted in my chest of childhood experiences that I can’t necessarily access…I’m trying to find out where the bottom is.

My whole life has therefore become filled with contradictions. My identities are in constant battle with each other. Even for simple decisions, my 2 and 3 year old self might have a totally different viewpoint than my 8 year old self… so I never know who I’m supposed to listen to.

From the outside, it appeared like I lived a totally normal life. That’s because I’ve learned to disassociate or mentally check out when faced with personal contact. This makes it incredibly hard to be intimate or get close to people. I feel like no one has ever really gotten to know me. 

Through my counselling, I’ve learned ‘normal’ PTSD therapy won’t work for me…if I were to try to meditate, I’d just have 8 different voices screaming at me in my head. Instead, I need to learn to respect my identities. Instead of trying to get rid of them, I need to take the time to honour them…to let them have have their voice.

I could just keep disassociating through life, I just don’t want to.