My name is Matt and I want to begin my blogging about my own personal experiences of mental health problems. My blog will mainly be based around general mental health, and I will create a new post every week about a specific topic relating to mental health. However, for anyone that will be reading my blog, I would like to give a brief background of my own story.
I grew up in a good home, with loving parents and no history of mental health issues in my direct family. I went to school and I was fine, I finished my A-Levels at 18 and had experienced no mental health difficulties to speak of. I received my exam results in August 2014 and I was going to study Biological Sciences at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK. I was ecstatic as this was my first choice university. In September 2014, I made my move 2 hours down the road to Norwich.
I began my time at university as most students do. It was fresher's week, and every day revolved around getting to know your new flatmates by drinking and going out every night. In this sense, I felt comfortable. The anxieties of living in an alien place without my parents, but with people I'd never met, were eased as we got to know each other over the week with the help of intoxication. I had 12 flatmates, so it was a huge adjustment for all of us, and we had to get to know each other very quickly. Luckily they were all lovely people.
I will be honest, as soon as I arrived in Norwich I was experiencing strange emotions, feelings and sensations that I had never felt before and didn't understand. I suppose at the time, I put it down to the huge changes I was making in my life; what I know now is that it was the unforgiving arms of anxiety slowly dragging me into it's unrelenting prison. As fresher's week drew to a close, everyone was mentally preparing themselves for the beginning of classes and lectures. Unfortunately, my mindset was still focused on the seemingly positive effects all the alcohol I was drinking was having on relieving my anxiety, which I still didn't recognise as anxiety.
To cut the story short, as the weeks progressed, I was self medicating with alcohol as I still did not have any idea I was experiencing mental health difficulties. This this led to a misjudged, self-inflicted downward spiral of anxiety, depression and drinking. I was staying in my room, locked inside for days on end as I couldn't sleep, couldn't sit still and couldn't see any light at the end of the tunnel. I was not attending university classes and struggling to keep up with any work. Having never been educated about mental health at school, my confusion about what I was experiencing was just. I presumed I was going insane and that there was nobody in the world I could talk to who would understand what I was feeling. I was completely alone, and devastatingly being defeated in the war against my own mind.
Eventually, after a worrying email from the university about my lack of attendance and possible disciplinary action, I pessimistically went to speak to my personal tutor. I had the mindset that I would try and explain how I was feeling, but that there was no way he would understand. My own head was telling me I was the only person who had ever felt like this. After speaking to my personal tutor, he reassured me what I was feeling was totally normal, and after I saw my GP it was agreed that I could begin the first year of university again in September 2015. So, in April 2015, I made the difficult phone call to my parents, who at this point assumed from what I had told them that I loved university, and everything was going swimmingly. Of course, they were incredibly supportive; more so than I could have ever predicted.
So now, I'd had it explained to me that I was experiencing anxiety. Through personal research I realised it was a very real thing, and in no way was I on my own. In fact, more people experience anxiety at some point in their life, than don't. It was a real eye-opener, but it didn't stop or curb any of my anxieties. As a result of my continued anxiety and my unwillingness to open up about it; I kept self medicating with alcohol while I was home. I got a part time job at a local supermarket in my town, and in the end I was going into most of my shifts drunk. I fully believed I had some sort of supernatural power to hide when I was drunk.
One morning, I awoke at 5.30am having been drinking secretly the night before. I felt a "need" to drink more. I had run out of the vodka from the night before, so I sneaked downstairs and raided my parent's alcohol cupboard, taking a small amount from each bottle and pouring it into a glass until the glass was full of a disgustingly coloured, alcoholic concoction. As I was putting the bottles back in the cupboard, trying to be as quiet as possible, my Dad suddenly came down the stairs. I quickly closed the cupboard having stashed away the last of the bottles and hid the glass behind a chair. It was clearly evident to my Dad that I was up to something. He found the glass and asked why I kept drinking on my own.
I was desperate, I couldn't explain I was drinking due to anxiety and depression, it was too shameful, embarrassing and guilt provoking. On the spot, I invented a bogus story in an attempt to justify my ever worsening alcohol dependency. I told my Dad I was being abducted by aliens and that I was terrified; I told him the drink made it more bearable. It was a ridiculous story that was far more embarrassing than explaining I was experiencing incredibly common mental health problems, that he was already aware I was experiencing from university. As a result of this story, my parents contacted the local mental health services in a panic.
In the next few months leading up to September, I had a key worker from the mental health services who would come to my house once a week or once a fortnight and I had to keep up this absurd, bizarre lie. I was still drinking and hiding it from my parents; which made the anxiety and depression worse, but I kept quiet about this. In September 2015, I returned to Norwich, this time I was in a student house with people I had met the year before. From the first day I arrived until 4 Saturday's later when my parents came to visit, I was drinking alone in my room and doing nothing else.
I appreciate this is a long post, and therefore I will be splitting my own story into a few different posts to make it more manageable for readers. Please keep a look out for part 2 on my blog in the coming days. I will also be creating another post with a collection of useful links and hotlines for anyone experiencing mental health problems around the world. Take care, and look after yourself. Matt the mental health blogger :)
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