LETS TALK ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH!

I feel it’s only right that if I’m going to talk about breaking the stigma and preaching ‘Let’s talk about mental health’ that I tell my own story, now this isn’t the whole thing, I would need to bring out a book for that ha, but this was my turning point. So here goes..

My name is Emily. I am 25 years old and have been living (and sometimes almost not living) with mental health problems since I was a young teenager. I hid it very well as I was growing up - and I honestly wish I hadn’t because then maybe I would never have caused my family the heartache and pain. At home I had a great childhood but it was at primary school and the first few years of high school I really struggled. I started to develop an eating disorder in primary 7 just before I started high school, I would wait until everyone else was finished dinner at home then put mine in the bin, or line the pockets of my trousers with kitchen roll and stuff the food in there and hide it so my parents thought I had ate it. My dad literally started force feeding me and sitting with my until I ate my dinner. I would gorge on food and then make myself throw up. I would sometimes go days without eating then gorge again. I have lived my life being incredibly self conscious of the way I look. I hated my nose from constantly being teased for it - “Emily Meek Big Beak” - and have never been able to love myself or feel good in my own skin until now. My eating disorder didn’t make it through high school and I went from a size 6 to a 12 and I am now a very healthy size 10! But what came after was much worse - extreme highs and even lower lows with severe anxiety and paranoia that resulted in quite a few failed attempts of taking my own life and it all stemmed from years of hating myself, listening to what others said, how others looked causing me to feel inferior and unlovable, and much much more. I wish I had asked for help before it got so bad but I was so blinded by my own pain that I never stopped to think of the pain I could have caused others. To help you understand when someone is suicidal in those final moments of complete hopelessness you are only focussed on making the pain stop, on being free from the shackles that feel so tight around your legs and arms, on releasing the invisible hands that are relentlessly choaking you, on silencing those voices in your head that keep telling you “you’re worthless” and “better off dead,” on making everything that feels so dark just STOP! That is what we think when we are on the edge, it’s not about you, or me, it’s about being weightless.

On September 1st 2014, immediately after one of my best friends at the time 21st birthday I tried to commit suicide - for the 5th and final time in my life. 

This was the only time I have ever been caught or admitted to my family and friends what happened. When I said I hid my pain well growing up, I meant it. I have never seen my mother, father and brother in so much pain in my life. The day I witnessed my mother on the couch curled up in a ball with a look of complete and utter defeat and my father, who I had never seen cry before, with a tear stained face and my brother engulfed in emotion holding me as I wept when I was released from the hospital. It was in these moments that I recognised how much pain they were in at the prospect of losing me and I knew right then I would fight every damn day of my life to do better. I will not be defeated by my own brain and my own weaknesses. I am better than that. YOU are better than that! Don’t get me wrong. I have been in dark places again since then and felt close to the edge but I have coping mechanisms now, I am stronger than I was because I have a support system now, do you know why? BECAUSE I TALKED ABOUT IT.

So.. LETS TALK ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH!! Let’s change how we act and react to one another, make the future a safer place for the generations after us to open up! Let’s save some lives.

On October 6th, with my wonderful boyfriend Daniel by my side supporting me, I will walk every step of Murrayfield for SAMH. Please donate whatever you can, every penny I raise for this walk goes straight to SAMH!! 

Share your stories with me. I want to know how strong and beautiful the people of this country are, because even if you forget - you are loved, you are strong and you are worth fighting for.