Over the past week I’ve felt like a spectator as I watched my mental health once again slowly deteriorate. I reacted to things that were out of my control with anger and frustration as well as doubted and judged myself for everything I said and did. I started to distance myself from loved ones by not replying to messages and spending any spare time isolated and away from the noise. I know from experience that these are all signs that I need to think quick and snap out of it before it suffocates me and takes control, but I can’t just snap out of it, my mind is too foggy and my body is too heavy to do the things I know I have to for me to get out of this dark hole of sadness and worry. I need to talk about it but I don’t want to talk, I just want to stare at the television screen in a trance and escape reality.

I’m putting a lot of pressure on myself at the moment and that always comes with a price to pay, my mental health. Firstly I start putting blame on myself for everything from financial worries to the state of the house. I start to feel so shit about myself that it starts projecting out of me and onto everyone around me. Negativity, frustration, anger, judgment…all signs of sickness on the inside, an illness created from thoughts, from the thoughts I have of myself.

I wrote The 3 M’s in hope that I could shed a light on the hard times of motherhood however the pressure of self-publishing is playing havoc with my mind. The constant worry of what people think, not receiving responses from people I’ve reached out to and the money I am putting in, in hope that the book will be seen. It’s not only me that’s taking a huge risk but my family too. I’m asking them to trust and believe in me and my writing, that it will all pay off one day. The thought I might let them down haunts me daily. I’m drowning in self-doubt at the moment, so much so that I’ve been basically bed ridden for two days in sadness. I’ve been a zombie in my own home, constantly eating even though I’m not hungry to try and fill the void of emptiness that I feel. When will this feeling go away? Will it ever go away? Or will I feel this suffocating sadness forever? The thoughts won’t stop, my mind won’t switch off and it just keeps going over the same thoughts on repeat. I’m a prisoner of my own thoughts.

It’s always the next day that I’ll try to do better, I’ll get up earlier, I’ll take the dog for a walk, I’ll eat healthier but it always gets deferred to the next day and then the next until another week is over and nothing has changed because I haven’t changed it. When we moved towns a few months back the one thing that I was losing by moving was my training routine. I had finally found a Personal Trainer that inspired me and I fell in love with working out again because it made me feel good both mentally and physically. I became addicted as if it were a drug and I needed that hit every morning to get up to face the day. Moving away and having to cancel my gym feels like I’m going through a relationship break up and I’m heart broken. I miss everything about it and how it made me feel. The withdrawals have been debilitating. I’m petrified to try and look for a replacement because it took me so long to work up the courage to join where I was and I hate the eyes that fall on you as a new member, the awkward hellos and having no idea where everything is so you walk around in circles like a bloody idiot. But I need to overcome these feelings, I need to keep telling myself I can do hard things, otherwise I will continue to watch myself deteriorate. When I was younger and went to the gym it was to look a certain way, now it is purely about feeling a certain way and for me that feeling is sanity.

The saying goes ‘what goes up must come down’ and I feel like this describes my mental health in a nutshell. After a stressful five dayshifts last swing I had a happy and productive break but it was non stop with Brayden’s birthday and a few other commitments. This was when I was feeling on top of the world, unstoppable and able to concur anything that got it my way because I was busy without a moment to think or doubt myself. I returned to four nightshifts and everyday felt like a struggle until it came to days off and I crashed and burned for two days. Now I will slowly build myself back up again and the viscous cycle will continue. The more I look after myself the longer the highs last and the falls become more bearable, shorter and less debilitating. When I lose all routine like right now, there are so many things that I need to reintroduce into my daily life again that I get overwhelmed by it all and do the complete opposite, nothing!

Trying to explain what it feels like to suffer with a mental illness is impossible. Some think it’s made up for attention seeking purposes. Sadly that’s the stigma towards mental health in the world today but this silent killer is taking our loved ones away from us daily and from such a young age. It has got to stop! Be someone that is there to listen and support the ones around you, you don’t have to understand, you just have to be there.