Anxiety and Depression Revisited ……….
Hey, you may have read a post I put out in the past about how my gender status affects my health, if not, it’s here: https://beingsophie.weebly.com/blog/gender-fluidity-affects-your-health And also about my own mental health struggles which is here: https://beingsophie.weebly.com/blog/stress-anxiety-depression-and-me But as seems to be the way when you suffer with these problems, they can improve and even appear to be cured. But I am beginning to think that they never really go away. Just when I feel like I’ve dealt with everything that I thought was a problem, and think that things are getting back on track, something else comes up. In this case my downward spiral, has been brought about by my own issues and paranoia's being fired up by other peoples’ behaviour, towards both me and those I love, not all at once, but over sustained periods of time. Where I see what I think is inequality in how I am treated, or my family. Where I see double standards and perceive that I come off worse because of it. When I think that someone is having a go at me or criticising me in some way. These things will all provoke a negative and defensive reaction from me, I close down, and I can’t cope. It’s nature, it’s my inbuilt fight or flight mechanism taking over. This is a problem because the people around me constantly tell me that I must manage how I react to all of them but never seem to accept that they must do the same. Because none of them accept that they are a catalyst in a situation. My problem is, that I can’t change them, I can only change me. Here for example are a few things that, to be honest, I should be able to just brush off or ignore. However, because of my mental health struggles, these become a big problem for me to cope with. If you don’t like my driving, then don’t ask me to drive somewhere, drive yourself, and if you don’t want to drive yourself, keep your mouth shut. I don’t like the way some other people drive, so I don’t get in a car with them, it really is as easy as that, or if I absolutely must, I put up and shut up. Don’t dictate your Pro-Brexit views with me if you don’t want an argument, because I am firmly against it. The fact that its going to happen anyway is neither here nor there. Oh, and don’t ever tell me we should stop immigration or identify people with labels or argue against rights, because I will never back down on that. It really could be anything, and add to that, that I look for problems before they even happen, just in case. Anyway, the point is that a lot of this is deep rooted, for most of my childhood, my opinions were suppressed, my life micromanaged I was given little choice in much at all. I was required to conform and chastised if I didn’t, I was not allowed to explore my identity or express myself in ways I would have liked, I was only allowed to do ‘Boys Stuff’ and expected to stick to traditional male stereotypes in everything I did. So, it shouldn’t be a surprise that as I grew up and looked for exit strategies, I started building defences against it happening to me as an adult. But in reality this doesn’t work, you cant defend against other peoples’ faults, but when defence is the only strategy you know, what else do you do ?? I can tell you what you do, you start to shut things and people out, you start to withdraw and you start to avoid things, and this is a serious problem, because this doesn’t stop at avoiding the odd conversation or a few people it leeches into every aspect of your home life, I say this, because most people suffer in silence, its unlikely the people they work with would ever notice a difference, because the workplace is a place to escape to, it’s an out from the real issues you are trying to cope with, but the impact it has on those at home can be huge. But as you can see, and here is the thing for me: as a child, I felt like this, as a teen I felt like this, as I did through my 20’s and 30’s and I still do now in my 40’s. I don’t believe that those who suffer with Depression, Stress or Anxiety, either personal or social, can ever be cured of it, you can develop coping strategies which may work to a greater or lesser degree, but I don’t think you can be cured. So, bearing that in mind, it becomes understandable how life is like a roller-coaster, there are ups and downs and you just hope the ups last longer. The next point with this is that being Gender Fluid is sometimes a contributor to the whole decline in Mental Health because it is not easy to live in today's society that way, this all comes back to binary expectations and a lack of understanding and acceptance of trans people in general, its improving but still got a long way to go, something I discussed at length in my blogs. Additionally, because I am out but not fully out to everyone, this still brings me deep feelings of guilt, but my fears as to what will happen if I come out fully are not unfounded, there is plenty of evidence that shows rejection and discrimination are alive and kicking in 2018, much more so for the trans community than the gay and lesbian communities. This also helps to fuel my anxiety problems. Things like comments made behind my back, making assumptions about my sexuality because I am trans. There is no link here, I am not interested in guys, whether I present as a male or a female. The only person I’m interested in is my wife, who I love and adore without condition. That said, and from another angle, being Gender fluid is also helpful as it allows a different route of escape, you see although I am just one person, my male and female sides have 2 completely different groups of friends with only a handful that know both sides of who I am. So, the worse things get for Russ, the more I will use Sophie as a crutch. Ordinarily I just present as Sophie when I want to, and it doesn’t become a way to hide, but it’s a sign for me that things are bad when that changes. Here’s how the symptoms work, when its mild I may just get a little tearful at times, and not want to talk about minor problems that might come up. The worse it gets, the more symptoms show, shorter temper, less tolerant of my kids, a feeling that others, particularly extended family are encroaching on my space and interfering in life. The last time it was really bad, it resulted in having a panic attack, which my wife and I thought was a heart attack at the time, there were paramedics and an ambulance on the scene in minutes. I am ever grateful for their help and response, it could have been worse, but it still took a long 8 months of weekly counselling and talking about everything to recover back to a reasonable state of mental health. So why write this piece now ?? well last week saw the advent of World Mental Health Awareness Day 2018, and this almost coincided with me getting feelings that I was bordering on breaking down again. I was feeling all the symptoms that I well know. Along with withdrawing more and more, I was starting to suffer from social anxiety as well, whereby I wasn’t really even wanting to go out and see other people, feelings of failing my wife, my kids and pretty much everyone else, filling every possible minute with utter crap as a way to focus on something and just not deal with any real problems that had been building for ages. Avoiding contact with my wife through fear that I would just fall apart, avoiding other people because I was afraid something would set me off, and all the time, still trying to smile and hide it, but losing it whenever I felt someone attacking me in the most minor of ways. Then I finally snapped over the weekend, I felt broken, I felt numb and like there was nothing more I could do, I was losing my wife, my kids and my life. Ultimately, it was the combo of National Coming Out day, followed by International MH Awareness Day that brought it to a head for me, I had made a GP appointment for something else but had this added onto the notes to talk about, that way there was no avoiding it, and despite having dodged being medicated for this my whole life, I decided, that trying that had to be better than how it was. So now I join the crowds of people all over the country taking happy pills, and as someone who has never taken medication unless I absolutely had to, I am betting my life on these working. If they don’t, I don’t really know what to try next. What I really needed all along though, was for someone to shout me out, to spot the signs, but that didn’t happen, I don’t think anyone was looking, and that was the problem. It’s the same problem for most people who suffer like I do, other people don’t see it, and we don’t tell or talk about it. I’d like to think that if they had, they would have taken my hand and led me, talked to me, done something to help. Just been there for me would have been good, except I wasn’t going to ask. So what now ?? Now I’m talking, and getting the medication I probably should have had years ago, and I hope I will get better balance and come back stronger, I implore any one reading this who suffers to turn to someone, anyone you know and just talk to them, and if you don’t suffer, take a look at the people around you and ask yourself if you think they are all really ok, someone you know wont be, and they will hide it well. Mental health problems are so common in the UK and yet still the problem is brushed away by so many, when you tell someone to ‘Man Up’, ‘Deal with it’ or any other phrase like that, they probably won’t, in fact they probably can’t. If you cant talk to a friend then look up a charity that can help and has an online self referral system, like Mind: https://www.mind.org.uk/ or ITalk: https://www.italk.org.uk/ these or others may be available where you live but a quick google search will help you find one. They offer 1 to 1 counselling, various group courses and CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy), all of which are designed to help you to help yourself. Finally all that’s left is for me to say thanks so much for reading, and normally I would say I hope you enjoyed this post, but this time more appreciated or took something from this post is more appropriate. If you want to know more, then contact me through this blog or on one of the other Social Media platforms that I use (The links are all below). I’d also love to receive your feedback. Thanks again, Love and Hugs, Sophie xxx Facebook www.facebook.com/beingsophie Twitter www.twitter.com/sophietgirl Bloglovin www.bloglovin.com/blogs/being-sophie-17676297
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AuthorHi, I'm Sophie. I hope you enjoy reading my blog. Please leave some comments on what you think of my blog x Archives
March 2022
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