Warning:This blog is potentially triggering. Please do NOT read if you are triggered easily!
Hi there, how is everyone? Hope you are all well.
If you haven’t already, please go read my other two blogs which can be found on the website. I want to talk to you about the much darker side of living with N.E.A.D. If you have read my previous blogs, I seem quite a happy, positive and inspiring person. If you followed me on Instagram and Facebook you would probably get the same impression. We are very reluctant to post negative things on social media, with regards to anything that is related to depression and mental health. So when you see a person’s social media, they may not always be showing a true reflection of what’s really going on in their life. This is me, I only post the positives online. But there is a darker side that’s going on with me at the moment. I am living with the ‘Black Dog’ also known as Depression. I have lived with Depression for four years now, and it soon started after the NEAD was diagnosed. Now anyone who has NEAD knows the debilitating effect it can have on a persons life. No wonder depression can creep in. Over the last year or so, my Depression has been at its peek. I was let off work for a whole month because I was so unreliable. I wouldn’t get out of bed, I would go days without showering (disgusting I know!). I had pretty much given up. To those who have/had Depression knows how much effort goes into doing daily things. I will admit that I have self - harmed because I felt so low. I have taken multiple overdoses because of the terrifying, negative thoughts going on in my head. I have also been to A&E multiple times. I’ve seen mental health teams there, (also when they say they’re to see you within an hour of you arriving, don’t take this as an actual time scale, they are a service that are pushed to their limits) These people talk to you and your parents if you’re young about how you’re feeling and what you and other people can do to keep you safe. If they deem you as unsafe, for your own safety, you will be detained in A&E for 24hours. I then started to hear voices in my head telling me to do life threatening things. I thought I was going mad. I was then referred to the Early Intervention Team. This is a team of Psychologists, Psychiatrists and Doctors who work with people who have Bi - Polar, Psychosis and Scizophrenic like symptoms and help them out. Luckily I didn’t categorise into any of these and that it was just my own terrifying thought process. This team did however, get in touch with my doctor who agreed to up my dosage on my medication to hopefully help with my Depression. I am also on the waiting list to see a councillor to just talk about what’s going on in my head. Now when this first arose. I didn’t want to talk to anyone about it. I thought if I tell me people, i’m going to be locked up on a psychiatric ward for the rest of my life, or my parents are going to think i’m that big of a problem and check me into The Priory! The problem with keeping it all in, (if they hadn’t clocked on already!) is that it manifests itself in different ways. Hence the overdoses and self harm. I figured that talking to someone about what was going on might be more helpful. Once I started talking, I realised that people didn’t want to lock me away, they just wanted to help. When I tell people about my struggle, some obviously know me very well and aren’t surpised by it and are naturally supportive. Others are shocked, because they think I have this well put together life that they see on facebook. And some are saddened by it. They wish they could take away my pain. The weird thing is....The NEAD has now slowly subsided. Maybe the odd attack. But the Depression has taken over. Naturally, my family and me thought that if the NEAD side of things eased up that the Depression would too. Unfortunately it didn’t work out that way for me. But whose to say it won’t for others? My inspiration for this blog, was a conversation my mum was having the other week, about how social media not always showing the real truth behind everyone’s lives, that we should always ask how people are and not just assume that because they post about lavish holidays and happy family times, that not is all what it seems. So next time you’re scrolling through someones social media feeling the jealousy set in, because they’ve spent two weeks in the Maldives. Don’t just assume their life is perfect. Maybe all is not what it seems. Or maybe it is for some people. All 1% of people anyway!! As I said in my previous blogs: Never . Lose. Hope. Because I haven’t. Thanks for reading Emily x Sent from my iPa