Mental Health Awareness
Wednesday 22nd Apr
I’ve lived with mental health challenges for quite sometime now. Psychosis, depression, anxiety, PTSD, ADHD, labels that, on paper, try to explain something that often feels impossible to put into words. For me, it hasn’t just been having a bad day or feeling low now and then. It’s been something deeper, something that has shaped how I see myself, the world around me, and my place in it.
There have been moments in my life where everything felt too heavy to carry. Times where the noise in my mind didn’t quiet down, where the weight of everything built up to a point that felt unbearable. I’ve had three suicide attempts. And when I look back now, I don’t see those moments as a desire to die, I see them as moments where I desperately wanted the pain to stop.
Mental health struggles don’t always look the way people expect them to. Depression, for me, isn’t just sadness, it’s numbness. It’s feeling disconnected from everything, even the things I used to care about. Anxiety is like a constant hum in the background, always there, making even small things feel overwhelming. PTSD can pull me back into moments I’d rather forget, while ADHD makes it hard to focus, to settle, to feel steady. And psychosis, at its worst, can distort reality in ways that are frightening and isolating.
For a long time, I felt alone in all of this. Even when people were around me, it felt like no one could really see what I was going through. And that’s one of the hardest parts of mental health struggles, they can make you feel invisible, even when you’re not.
I won’t pretend that everything is suddenly okay now. Recovery, for me, hasn’t been a straight line. There isn’t a clear before and after. There are still difficult days. There are still moments where things feel overwhelming. But there has been change.
What’s helped me hasn’t been one single solution, it’s been a combination of things. Reaching out, even when it felt uncomfortable. Speaking honestly about how I was feeling, instead of hiding it. Getting support from professionals, and allowing myself to accept help rather than push it away. Bit by bit, those things started to make a difference.
One of the most important things I’ve learned is that you don’t have to wait until things get unbearable to ask for help. In fact, the earlier you reach out, the better. Whether it’s speaking to a GP, a therapist, a support worker, or even someone you trust in your personal life, opening up can be the first step toward feeling even a little bit less alone.
If you’re reading this and any part of it feels familiar, I want you to know this: you are not alone, even if it feels like you are. What you’re feeling is real, and it matters. And there are people and services out there who want to support you, without judgment.
It might not feel like it right now, but things can change. Not overnight, not perfectly, but gradually. Healing isn’t about suddenly becoming a completely different person. Sometimes it’s just about finding ways to get through the day, and then the next one, and then the next.
I’m still learning. Still healing. Still figuring things out. But I’m still here, and that, in itself, means something.
If sharing my story helps even one person feel less alone, then it’s worth it.
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Good luck son. Really proud of you. Xx