Mental Health and Me

This World Mental Health Day, 10 October, I am giving up my voice for 24 hours to raise funds for mental health charity The Black Dog Institute. The passing of a relative is what led me to speak out about mental health and to do this challenge in 2012, but underneath I realised that even though I was doing a good thing, I wasn’t doing all I could to reduce the stigma associated with mental health. I was keeping my struggles as a teenager silent, and in order to truly make some noise about mental health I needed to be 100% transparent, so here goes...

On my thirteenth birthday I woke up feeling sick. I assumed it was just because I hadn't eaten and headed off to the bus stop with an apple. By the time I arrived at school I was feeling even worse so I went to the school office and they called my mum to pick me up. This seemingly normal sick day was the start of many more to come. For the next and last six months of year seven the number of sick days I had grew exponentially to the point where I was missing whole weeks of school.

I went to the doctor many times and tried to explain to them that I would wake up every morning feeling really sick and I didn't want to go to school if I was going to be sick. They did all the blood tests they could, and they all came up negative. They told me I was fine and needed to just go to school because it was all in my head and I wasn't sick. When they decided it wasn't anything physical, the first thing the doctors, the school and my mum asked was whether I was being bullied or if there was something worrying me at school, did I find the work too hard and so on. The answer to all of the above was no. I loved school, I loved my friends, and I wasn't being bullied. I was so frustrated that nobody believed me, I wanted to be at school and I didn't want to feel sick, but no matter how much everybody told me I was fine, I didn't feel it.

My family and neighbours rallied around trying to make me go to school by offering to drive me, or by promising rewards if I went to school. None of this stopped me from feeling sick, and so as my family got angrier at my unwillingness to go to school, I got craftier in my avoidance. I was so scared of going to school sick that I started preplanning my way to get out of going by announcing how sick I was feeling before I went to bed. That didn't last very long, and soon I was barricading myself in my bedroom until my siblings and my mum had to leave for school and work. I would not come out again until they had left, returning to my room when they came home in the afternoon or evening.

I kept up with my school work the whole time, with my friends sending homework home with my sister for me. Explaining to my friends why I wasn't at school became harder the longer I was sick. Eventually I reluctantly agreed to go see a psychiatrist who specialised in adolescent disorders. It was then that I was diagnosed with depression and an anxiety disorder, and was put on anti-depressants.

I couldn't say whether this helped or not, as even though for the last few months of year seven I was able to attend school most days, I still found myself feeling sick, and other than riding my bike or hanging out in the street and the park with my neighbours, there was nothing I would leave the house for, and the last thing I wanted to do was get into a car or on a bus. I was so glad when the school year finished and it was school holidays, again, not because I didn’t like school but because it meant I could get up every morning and not worry about getting on a bus or being away from home if I didn’t want to be. I remained on the antidepressants, and everyone assumed (me included) that when term one of the following year started I would be back into the swing of things and have no further issues. Unfortuntely that was not to be the case and from day two of year eight I started missing school again.

At this point my family and the school started growing more concerned. I went to meetings with the school counsellor, with the year advisers, and even had a few teachers visit me at home to bring me work. I hated the way I was feeling, but couldn’t make it go away no matter how hard I tried. I remember crying to my mum and the doctors about just wanting to be better. I was missing school and my friends and normalcy and wanted a magic cure. As anyone else who has ever experienced anxiety or depression would know, there isn’t a simple cure.

I was taken to an appointment at Redbank House, which is a school located on the grounds of Westmead Hospital. It has small classes of students who (at the time I was a student) experienced a range of mental illnesses and disorders ranging from schizophrenia and psychosis, to anxiety, depression and eating disorders. Its aim is to rehabilitate, (for lack of a better word) students who face these various challenges. For some students it means just coming to the school daily instead of their regular school and meeting with nurses and doctors, and for others it means living on the ward during the week, with school in the day, and going home on weekends. I started off only attending daily, however because I was as reluctant to leave the house to go to this school as I was my own, I was quickly (with much protest) moved to a live in student.

Over the next two terms I grew to really love the place. I made some great friends, and loved all the staff members (most of the time). I loved that when school was finished I got to go back to the ward where we would play games, watch tv, play pool and generally have a good time. My school sent me all the work I needed to do, so I stayed up to date with everything I needed to learn. This meant that when I did eventually go back to school I wasn’t struggling to keep up.

In saying all that though, it wasn’t the easiest of six months. It also involved daily and weekly meetings with my case worker, psychologist and doctor, as well as family sessions. I can’t recall a specific point where I started feeling better in control of my anxiety, but by the end of my time there I was going to my own school a few days a week. I was really glad to see my old friends and school again but was still worried about returning.

In all my counselling sessions we discussed my anxieties and what I was feeling. Even though I hate being psychoanalysed and I’m not sure we ever came up with a concrete reason for why I was feeling anxious all the time. Somewhere in those six months I changed and grew and was able to cope with what I was feeling.

It wasn’t a magical cure though. For the next few years I still struggled with my anxiety, and although I was going to school every day, I sometimes found myself having a sudden sick day on days of school excursions. By the time I finished high school in year twelve to anyone else it was as though there was no more problem, and for the most part there wasn’t. I still get anxious about flying, and leaving my comfort zone, but am constantly challenging myself.

I know now what my fourteen year old self couldn’t work out, that the world isn’t going to end if I am sick away from home or in public. I developed along the way my own strategies of combatting anxiety, and it has worked. I stayed on the anti depressants until I was about halfway through uni, mostly because of a fear of relapse if I stopped taking them. That relapse didn’t come, and hopefully never will, but I am always conscious to keep my mental health in check whether that means talking to friends, or writing or just taking time out for me.

I have never thought of ending my own life, but if I hadn’t had been forcefully encouraged (if you like), to go get help, and if my mum, my family, my neighbours, my school, and my doctors hadn’t pushed for me to do it I may not have and if I had lived in that anxiety for an extended period of time, who knows where I would be now. Mental illness is a struggle, and when nobody wants to talk about it, or you have people (even close friends) around you telling you to “suck it up” and make yourself better because “You’re being a big cry baby” it makes it even harder to speak out.

When I had the flu I would tell people I had the flu, and when I broke my arm and missed a few days of school due to hospital visits I told people about that too. Why wouldn’t I? It was the truth right? While I was absent due to mental illness though I would tell my friends I had an undiagnosed mystery illness and that I had been sent to boarding school for a while and I’d be back to my normal school soon. I don’t know if my friends believed me at the time, and I didn’t really discuss it with them afterwards. Why did I need to? I was fine now.

I’ve added to the stigma associated with mental illness as much as everyone else. I felt ashamed that I had anxiety and depression, and even more I felt embarrased that I couldn’t just make it go away. I felt like there was something wrong with me, like I was a lesser person because everybody else at my school was fine. I didn’t want to try and explain what was wrong with me because I didn’t believe any of them would understand, and I was happier allowing people to believe terrible rumours about why I had been absent from school instead of just telling the truth. The truth is that even though it shouldn’t, stigma surrounding mental illness still exists today.

There are alarming figures about mental illness rates, with one in five Australians experiencing some form of mental illness in their lives. When there is an outbreak of chicken pox in a class of 20 kids once in a year it makes the news. One in five Australians is over four million Australians, which is far too great a number to stay silent about.

This Zip it campaign was a chance find when I felt a call to action in 2012. I felt lost and wanted to do something to help. I had given money to the Black Dog Institute, but knew I couldn’t just make a donation. I felt a need to speak out, and the best way to do that was to not speak at all. I love talking (a lot) and knew that besides being an easy money maker (given the number of people who would have paid money years ago to have me silent for a while), it was important for me to be an ambassador for mental health given my own struggles. So here I am back for round 3.

I know I don’t have the skills or resources to help every person who is struggling with mental illness, and to end suicide in Australia or in the world. I do have the freedom to be able to talk (minus one day) and write about it, and raise funds for the people who have the means to be able to make a difference. It doesn't have to be a life sentence, and you don’t have to struggle in silence.

To sponsor me or to find more out about Zip It, go to the link below.

https://www.mycause.com.au/page/80140/nataliezipsitformentalhealth2014

10 Week Creative Project Video & Reflections

Below is the video presentation of my 10 week creative project.

It summarises in four minutes and twenty seconds what activities I did. To read more about each task see my earlier blogs.

All these tasks challenged me and my comfort zone in a multitude of ways, and there were times and certain tasks where I doubted myself. I want to do everything, and I want to be able to do everything. I find it hard to accept that I can't do something which is why I will try mostly anything. I certainly won't bungee jump or jump out of a plane anytime soon, but the biggest thing these tasks have taught me is to not hate on myself if I can't do everything. I was terrible at Flying trapeze, and even though I faced my fear of heights I left feeling depressed that I hadn't been as good as everyone else.

My biggest obstacle in my own self development in my quest for awesomeness and challenges is wanting to be like other people. I came to realsie that I need to get excited about my own personal acheivements and not worry if I'm not as good a dancer as my friend who has done it for 23 years, or not as good at flying trapeze as my sister who is an ex gymnast.

I did all these things, and that in itself is something to be hugely proud of. I gave it a go, and nobody can ever say I didn't try. I remember in my very first term of pole fitness two years ago telling my teacher (and then colleague) that I couldn't do one of the moves no matter how hard I tried. As a girl who had had a huge transformation in mind and body since she started pole, she was well equipped to give the following words of advice:

"Don't say I cant... Say I will."

And though sometimes I can be over ambitious or over confident when declaring I will be able to do something, as long as I keep the attitude that if I try long and hard enough, with the exception of perhaps inventing teleportation, I can and will do anything I set my mind do.

What's next for me? There are still so many things I want to try and take part in, and while I will fit all those other things where my timetable allows, my next biggest goal is to take an acting course. I won't be able to start until the start of next year, but it is something I have always wanted to do, and have long put off for fear I would be terrible at it.

Here's to bigger and better things. Watch this space for updates of new and wonderful experiences!