Mental Health Round-up: Acceptance & perceptions

We’re somehow racing towards the end of June and OMFG it’s the summer holidays soon and I still can’t make these shorts fit and it’s sports day tomorrow and woodlice keep eating my strawberries in the garden and and and… Pfff. Summer’s nice I suppose. In a vague, distant “I think I ought to look as though I’m enjoying this searing sun on my bare skin while I stomach the school fete / play date / oh crap, I’m running late,” kind of way. Obvs you have to make yourself get up and open the curtains and get out there first, which ain’t anywhere near as easy as it sounds. I wrote a post last week about the latest fiasco on my happy pills – The Intruders (AKA the one where I don’t recognise my own laugh).

The first post to kick off this month is a timely one, seeing as BritMums Live has now been and gone in a flash of excitement, nerves and the comedown has finally started to set in. Real Housewife of Suffolk County wrote a refreshingly honest account of her experience at Britmums Live in her post In a Room of So Many, including a wonderful epiphany she felt while listening to guest speaker. Emily Beecher’s talk about her struggles with postnatal depression and post-partum psychosis and the spark that motivated her to produce her own show, the Good Enough Mums Club.  I feel this is a particularly important post to read, even if you weren’t at Britmums and have never seen the Good Enough Mums Club in action (you should, they’re bloody brilliant) as it simply shows that it only takes one small moment, one person you find particularly inspiring for you to finally connect, to be in the moment and to feel as though someone who is talking to hundreds, is speaking directly to you.

Still on the wave of glory that was BritMums Live, we have It’s Just Me and My Life and her post Anxiety? Me? which recounts her first journey to London by herself and the awful moment of alien panic she experienced as her train reached its destination. There a few things scarier than anxiety attacks, losing control, the shakes, the panic, but experiencing one for the first time while in an unfamiliar place bustling with strangers is quite frankly, terrifying. Food for thought for those who’ve never experienced such things themselves.

Now jumping from one end of the spectrum to the other, Beth Bone uses the excellent #TimeToTalk campaign to do just that in her post Learning to live… – a beautifully candid post covering her very own history of everything and how she got through to the other side. A seriously heartening post, which makes everything seem lost and futile, but still, you can claw it back again, piece by piece.

Next up, a post I wanted to grab and keep forever was Accepting my Mental Health and Need for Medication by CupcakeMumma. Obvs, as the title suggests, the post is about Hannah realising her need for medication is absolutely no different to someone with a physical illness needing medication to manage their own symptoms. Taking antidepressants, sleeping pills et al can feel like a failure, a weakness, it can exacerbate the symptoms you’re trying to manage in the first place. Hannah manages to shake away all the stigma, the preconceptions and just tells it how it is, and I think anyone who takes medication would absolutely benefit from reading her post.

Trigger warnings aside, my penultimate post is a subject I’ll never, ever stop talking about as I believe someone has to – Self harm. In Kip Hakes’ post My Dark Passenger’s Companion, he speaks openly about his history of self harm and how those scratchy feelings of temptation will never leave him. It’s unapologetic yet it isn’t sordid, it’s honest without the need for pity and I urge you all to read it. Now.

And to end, a heart-wrenchingly honest post from my lovely friend Mummy Barrow, who wrote this wonderfully thought provoking post – Perceptions – which is about how even years on in adulthood, we can be triggered and dragged back to decades before and be back where our fears began. How we can project a version of ourselves which is recognised for being confident and strong yet still feeling vulnerable beneath and I reckon an awful lot of us can identify with it.

I’ll end it there, if you have written anything relating to mental health please don’t hesitate to give me a shout (or a gentle whisper) over on Twitter.

About Cas Imossi

Cas Imossi is the writer of the award winning blog MummyNeverSleeps, honestly covering what happens when motherhood and mental health collide. Open about her battles with depression and anxiety because it's cheaper than therapy after all, plus she can write at home in her pyjamas. Bonus. She's on a one woman mission to throw away the smoke and mirrors of parenting, proving that it ain't all one big Pinterest board. Sometimes you get poo on your face, and other times you go out with yesterdays pants stuck on your jeans. You can find her lurking by her coffee machine, in a doctors waiting room or hiding from her rambunctious four year old while he pelts her with Crème Eggs.

• Mail
|
• Web
|
• Twitter
|
• Facebook
|
• More Posts(4)