Spread the Understanding
The first time I had a really bad run in with my anxiety and depression, I was in the first semester of my second year of university. My first panic attack happened during the middle of a midterm exam; all of a sudden everything started closing in on me and I had a hard time breathing. I wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible, and felt like a terrified caged animal. I had no idea what was going on, but forced myself to stay until that moment when they first allow people to leave exams, then got out of there as quickly as possible.
At this point in time, I lived in a house with a group of friends; it soon got to the point where my depression and anxiety were so bad that if I could hear anyone else in the house, I wouldn’t leave my room - not even to eat or use the bathroom. I slept every opportunity that I could, missed a lot of classes, and isolated myself from everyone. I missed work. I wanted life to end.
Certain parties didn’t understand what I was going through, and that made everything so much worse. I remember one of the university profs telling me that the only reason I was depressed was because I had broken up with a boyfriend. It was frustrating and enraging and heartbreaking to realize that some people didn’t believe that my mental illness was real.
It wasn’t long afterwards that my doctor took me out of school for the rest of the semester and the following one. (I never went back there - ended up going to college instead.) This was a tough period for me. I couldn’t go into public without bursting in tears of complete and utter terror, and if I had my way I don’t think I would have ever left the house again. I would never have been able to recover from this on my own; if it wasn’t for the help that I received from my doctor, the nurses, a therapist, my family and my friends, I wouldn’t have gone back to school, I wouldn’t have been able to start working, I would still be hiding in my parents’ house.
Unless you’ve been through it yourself, or know someone who has, you may not realize how much someone who is suffering from a mental illness may benefit and change from a little bit of understanding.
CAMH website thumbnail - www.camhunderstanding.ca
Have you seen the campaign for promoting awareness and understanding that the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health has created for depression, schizophrenia, alcoholism, bipolar disorder and mental illness in children? If not, you really need to - I’ve embedded their playlist of videos so you can see them all. (Warning: if you’re anything like me, you may need tissues.) What I really like about this campaign is that it shows both sides - what could happen to a person if they don’t get help, and what could happen if they do. It can be really eye opening to see the differences contrasted so starkly like this. It’s definitely worth watching.
Click to viewAll the feels, man! All the feels!
If you know someone who suffers from any kind of mental illness, please take some time to learn a little bit more about what they are going through. They need your help and your understanding to get through this.
Originally published at Once Upon A Bookshelf. Please leave any comments there.