“When will you accept yourself?” (Morrissey, The Smiths, 1983)
Despite what the start of this blog looks like, this isn’t a music post. It doesn’t actually have anything to do with the Smiths or Morrissey per se, but everything to do with that lyric. It says a lot to me about my life.
I’ve had a number of conversations recently that has brought this to mind and I took that as an opportunity to post this blog.
Talk about your Mental Health
At work I have recently joined a team of Mental Health and Wellbeing Champions with a remit of raising awareness of mental health in the workplace. Our aim is to remove the taboo and stigma that surrounds people talking about their mental health, especially when they are experiencing poor mental health.
We want create a culture of openness and understanding where people can talk about their issues with no fear of judgement or discrimination.
I’m relishing this opportunity, especially as someone who has suffered from poor mental health and had extended periods off work in the past as a result. As I’m now in a good place and managing my own mental health through a combination of medication and coping strategies and mechanisms, and importantly have accepted myself for who I am, I want to do what I can to help others.
If that means being an empathetic ear to listen, then that’s what I’ll do. If sharing my own experiences can help others open up and seek help if they need it, great.
The Past
When I think back on my own mental health issues, where I’ve been with them in the past, how I’ve dealt with them (or not dealt with them as the case had more often than not been) and where I am now, it is so apparent to me now that for too many years I did not accept me for who I am.
There are many years where I didn’t really like myself. I didn’t want to be me. To be honest, there were often times when I hated myself and detested what I did or didn’t do, what I was or wasn’t. Nothing I did was right. Even when it felt that I was doing the right thing, my good old brain would convince me I was wrong and I’d made an arse of things again. Bastard.
If you were looking in from the outside, you wouldn’t have known. For too many years I wore a mask to cover how I really felt. Not literally, obviously, although sometimes I would have done anything to become invisible. But my smile was often covering how I really felt. Another song covers that feeling too – Tracks of My Tears. I used to love watching Big Country live and when they played their cover of this song, I could relate. I was the life and soul of the party, but I wasn’t really. It’s amazing how much more confident you feel after a couple of drinks. The state of my mind before and also the aftermath was another matter altogether.
I have always cared about how I looked on the outside. I cared about my image, my hair, the clothes I wore. Don’t get me wrong, I still do. However, before I cared about what image I portrayed to others. The fact was, I cared too much about what other people thought of me. I did things to please other people. I tried to fit in with what others may have expected of me. Lets face it I did nearly everything to please other people. I said yes to everything.
On the inside though, I didn’t really want to be me. I wanted to be someone else, anyone else.
I felt like an outsider a lot of the time, I was never one of the “cool” kids at school. Don’t get me wrong I had friends that I felt happy with but I was never really happy with who I was. I know I have lost touch with people over the years mainly due to my anxiety. I know that the way I acted and behaved in social situations because of my social anxiety caused me to appear aloof or disinterested in people. It would also see me making excuses not to go out or to meet people over time this meant people would stop contacting me and it was easier to let that happen that try to contact them to explain.
When I looked at friends – I saw people who were so much more confident than me and I wanted to be like them. How could I strive to change my behaviours to be just like them?
When I started work and looked at other people at work – I saw people that were so much better at their job than me, and I felt like a failure. What did I need to do to be as good as them?
If I passed people in the street – no matter if I’d left the house happy with the way I looked, I saw people who looked better than me, they had better clothes, better hair, better shoes. They probably had a better job than me or more friends. I could believe anything. What did I have to do to be better than I was?
I lived with my parents until I got married – I looked at other people who were getting their own flats and houses, I told myself I would never achieve that. I wasn’t good enough.
If I saw people in relationships and I was single – I convinced myself that no-one would want to be with me. I had such a negative image of myself that talking to the opposite sex filled me with dread, no matter how much I really wanted to be in a relationship.
“I am sick and I am dull and I am plain, how dearly I’d love to get carried away, Oh but dreams have a knack of just not coming true”
You get the picture.
I cared more about what other people thought, I aspired to be someone else.
Did I ever tell anyone how I felt? Of course not. Why would I want anyone else to realise what I actually thought of myself! I never had a massive circle of friends…….
Of course, these things were all my own perceptions, no one had actually said these things directly to me. Well maybe a couple of arseholes at school who thought it was big and clever to take the piss out of the ginger specky geek. I’d love to see where they are now. But I could deal with that as it conformed to what I thought about myself. It was the seemingly innocent normal things that people said or did, I could twist these words and imply what they meant.
Looking back now I thought these things for so long that I was convinced they were out of my control and that was the natural order of things. There were cool, confident people who would achieve everything they wanted, and there were people like me. Of course now, in reality, I believe that is a lot of crap. But try telling my previous self that! The thing that kept me going was that I had an exit strategy for everything….I could remove myself from the situation somehow.
Society conspired to keep you feeling like that though:
Look what you could become if you try harder…
If you do this or that it will ensure you can hit your targets and become superman…
Buying this that or the next thing will make you happy!!!!
The Present
I have a beautiful wife and two daughters who I am immensely proud of, I have a good job and although I think to a degree I will always find this hard to say or admit, I now believe I am and have been good at what I do, even if I didn’t think it at the time. I’ll always doubt myself. I have some very close friends, not a vast circle, but ones I love and know will be friends for life. In recent years I have been in touch with people I haven’t seen for years, and built new friendships – social media isn’t always a bad thing.
I still care about how I look and what I wear, but where I used to really care about what others thought, and tried to fit in with what I felt would please other people. I now do it to please myself. I don’t try to fit in. Maybe some people see that as a mid-life crisis and it is well passed time for me to fit in and conform to societies expectations. I wouldn’t say that I don’t care about what other people think, but to a greater extent, I’ll accept that and not let I bother me.
I used to talk about things like guilty pleasures. But there is no such thing. If I like it, I like it, why should I feel guilty about it? Life doesn’t have to fit in a certain box. Life is too short to give a shit about what people think you should like, say or do. Please yourself.
Though now I now accept myself for who I am and I’m much happier for it and I hope my friends and family see a difference in me in some of the ways I deal with things now compared to the way I used to act and behave, the harder element to accept is that I will always be that someone who has mental health issues. I will always be that person and I have to manage that. It isn’t as easy and sometimes tires me out.
The first time depression hit me really badly, and I came out the other side, I know deep down I didn’t accept that fact initially which resulted in me treating my mental health like any other physical illness. Over time and with treatments, strategies and drugs I felt better so I stopped doing the things that kept me well. I wanted to come off my tablets. I told myself I wasn’t that person I was when I couldn’t get myself out of bed, didn’t wash or shave, couldn’t speak to people, made my loved one’s lives a misery. I don’t need these crutches anymore I thought, I’m fine.
Despite my asking, my doctor didn’t take me off my medication, but over time I did end up stopping doing all the right things that kept me well.
“Anything is hard to find, when you will not open your eyes
Every day you must say, so how do I feel about my life?”
As a result, my issues returned, and before I realised it I was back in counselling and dealing with who I was. This time though things felt different during and after my counselling.
That was last year, and I don’t want to return to that time again, however, what came out of that was a realisation that the way my head works will always be part of me, regardless of how it came about. It had been exacerbated by years of not dealing with it or facing up to my thoughts.
I’ve now accepted that is who I am. I know these thoughts will always be there to a greater or lesser extent depending on circumstances. However, I have many different strategies for different situations that can ensure I keep them under control. I am their master not the other way around.
I can talk to people about it now where for years I bottled things up. I don’t mind if people know as I have now accepted in myself that it isn’t something to be embarrassed about. It doesn’t make me any less of a person. I want other people to be able to feel they can talk about their situations too.
I’ve accepted that if the medical experts feel that the tablets are something that helps me keep things under control, then so be it. I’d rather be taking tablets and being a positive happy person, than not being on them and going backwards.
As I said, I now have many things I do to ensure I maintain good mental health and I need to ensure I don’t let these slip again. Of course, I have bad days, but where before, these would spiral into bad weeks and bad months, I can halt the process and turn things around. Sometimes it’s hard, but I persevere. I’m determined my thoughts aren’t going to beat me again. I’ll always have anxiety and be susceptible to bouts of depressions, but I have a toolbox to deal with it. Some days a bit of mindful breathing will be enough at the start of the day, on other days I’ll need more. But I know I have the strength to deal with it.
I’ve said it before, but blogging helps me focus. Blogging about mental health helps me keep that at the front of my mind, but not in a manner that I dwell on the bad things. It ensures I focus on the right things. Even if it is not blogging about mental health but about music, that is channelling my energy into something positive. I don’t wallow and dwell on things like I used to.
Strangely though, one of the other strategies that works for me is scheduling some worry time. That might sound odd, but I used to worry 24/7. Usually over little things that I built up to be huge. Now, if something pops into my head, and I think it may become bigger. Rather than try to not think about it at all, I’ll allow myself time each day to come back and think about all these little things and rationalise them, that way I can go to bed with a clear head. If I do feel some of them might be valid, instead of worrying about them, I confront and deal with them. Usually by the time my “worry time” comes around, most of the negative thoughts are no longer there as I haven’t given in to them when they wanted and given them the time, so it is easier to deal with any that remain.
I make that sound so simple but I’m nearly 50 and have wasted too much time and it has taken me many years to come to that realisation and control my own thoughts.
I don’t chase dreams that I can’t achieve now. I still have dreams and ambitions, but they are to do with my family, my life, myself. They aren’t about trying to compare myself to others.
I’ve been on plenty of courses and seen motivational talks over the years about changing and striving to be happy. I don’t believe you have to change a lot about yourself or believe that you have to be or even can be happy all the time. If you accept who you are and identify what you need to change to accept yourself, not to try to be like anyone else. Being happy 100% of the time is unrealistic. I know you can’t be happy all the time, but I strive to ensure that when I’m not happy, I can recognise the signs and use the right strategies to ensure the negativity doesn’t take hold and I end up in a dark place.
“And time is against me now”
Well, no, it’s not. I’ve accepted myself for who I am. I also now realise that others accept you for who you are, not everyone judges you all the time. And if they do, do you really want them in your life?
I know it is hard though and the decision to accept who you are isn’t necessarily easy for everyone. It didn’t take me weeks or months, it took me years. It took me to become physically ill before I got the help I needed and had a hard journey to come out the other side. I know that journey wasn’t just hard for me, it was hell for my family too.
I realise you can’t force someone to ask for help or to accept who they are, they need to make that decision for themselves.
However, I know that you can provide the right culture, atmosphere and openness to encourage people to know they have a safe place to go and there is someone who they know will empathise and support them without judgement or criticism.
“Accept yourself….for heaven’s sake…..”
It is never too late.