Mental Health Journey - 6

Facebook and Snapchat memories are both the sweetest things and most cruel.

My memories have been all over the place showcasing my jobs, and fun times with my at the time roommate, Oliver my cat, adventures and trips I've had and all those fun times. But there are memories that stick to me, make me really think on it and also change my whole mood. Those memories are the ones where my mental health is low and very present.

What exactly does that matter? Well, I feel the need to share my story just in case it helps someone out there. If it doesn't, I mean at least it's out there. Who knows who will stumble onto it. 

Going all the way back to when I was a wee lad, in elementary school. Yep. All the way back then. We went from a full on, happy go lucky family, living the fun life and in our house, to losing our house and being forced into a small apartment. My sister and I had to share a small room, barely enough space for our beds and it drove us crazy. The situation that led us there I won't really talk about but my poor dad went through the ringer, lost his job and was forced to do a lot to keep us afloat. My sister was in high school, and she even geared her future to helping my family, making one of her classes a co-op class so she could work and eventually get a job at that place to help the family. My mother on the other hand, it didn't sit well at all with her and losing the house, my dad's situation and everything in between, it drove her into a very real and dark depressive state. She would sleep all day, and stay up all night, barely eat and would hide in the apartment from the world. We stopped seeing family, we stopped going to events and we just crumbled down into dirt. We had hit rock bottom, or whatever the deepest bottom there is.

This was all really hard for me to digest and I couldn't really comprehend why all of this was happening to us. I hated it. I hated everything about our lives. What the fuck was I supposed to do? I was in elementary school. I wasn't old enough to get a job or help the family. I was only in grade 6 when all of this went down. What was I supposed to do?

Living in the apartment was hell. It smelled of smoke which my parents did in the apartment, it smelled of all the mixtures of food people would make, it was always hot, miserable and just overall not a fun place to live especially with everyone being in the state they were in. So I did the only thing I knew to do. I ran. Literally. I would get home from school and just run. Well, it actually started as walking really fast and then running as I got used to it. And it wasn't just for an hour or half an hour or whatever. It was for hours at a time. I did this every single day. Weekends however were reserved for hanging with my close friends at the time and just unwinding. I would do anything just to stay out of the miserable apartment.

Running and walking would allow me to just listening to music, get out of my head for a while, get out of the apartment, and also to just scream, cry, laugh, or whatever was needed on certain days. This started to develop and eventually started to make me lose weight. It was both a blessing and a curse. People at school started noticing, especially my teachers, who encouraged me to do more and celebrated my weight loss victories. By the end of elementary school, I was the smallest I had ever been in my entire life. Weighing roughly 115 pounds. My teacher even helped me get a membership to the YMCA so I could continue my "weight loss" journey. Little did I realize, that was soon going to be my downfall.

I started going to the YMCA during the summer leading up to my first year of high school. It was something that kept me busy, kept me healthy and most importantly, got me out of the apartment. I would go daily and would work out on all sections I could whether it was weights or running, swimming or cycling. It was fun for the most part but things started to become a bit intense. Just to mention, I would have to walk about an hour to two hours just to get to the YMCA in the first place (just there. It was another hour or two to get back home) because my parents only had the one car and would be at work so I had to find my own way there. Then on top of that, I would work out for roughly 5-6 hours. You heard that right. Not 1 hour. 5-6 hours a day. Pretty intense if you ask me. It allowed me to lose more weight, I was down to 105 pounds. Now the new low of my weight.

However, high school started and that's where things start to get weird.

High school was an emotional rollercoaster. Hormones going crazy, everyone was lost and scared for their first year and it was a new stresser to add to my life. Now, I know a lot of you out there, high school was a fucking nightmare but it wasn't for me. I was actually really happy in high school. In fact, I was in plays, in band, I joined a book club, I was involved in the yearbook and so much more. I was finally starting to feel happy with my life. Even my cousin came over, approached my mom about everything and started to get her out of the apartment. My dad had a solid job with my sister and everything was feeling good! When I looked in a mirror though, I didn't feel like myself. In fact, I hated the way I looked. I hated how my muscles would move and I hated how obsessed I was with working out and everything in between. It was right there at the end of 9th grade that the happiness was starting to bring up old feelings and in fact, brought up more than that. I realized I was addicted to working out, I wasn't happy in my own skin and I needed to face what happened in the past.

From then on, I slowly but surely just stopped. I stopped working out, I stopped caring about my weight and slowly but surely throughout high school, I started gaining my weight back. I watched it as it grew from 105 pounds to 120, 130, 140 and so on. By the end of high school, I was at 200 pounds, happier than I had ever been and we were finally out of that fucking apartment and in a new house!

As the story goes, college arrived! I've mentioned it in a previous blog about my story, admitting I'm a potato. Let's just say, I was so happy at that point in my life, especially after year 1, I was volunteering for events and getting that under my belt. But as everything does, things started to change.

2nd year came into play and my mental health started to drop once again. Everything was attacking my mental state and I felt like I was ruining everything. Whether it be projects, my relationships with people or my own future. As I stated before in the other blog, school just ruined me and before I knew it, it was over and I didn't even attend my own graduation because of it.

Once I was out of school, my family was kind to me and let me adventure home once again but I felt like my future was stuck and maybe, just maybe if I tried getting a job, it would help with my mental health. And it did for a while. I worked at David's Tea for about a year, had ups and downs but mostly highs and it felt good. I felt like I was connecting with people and actually making a difference in peoples days. Yes, I know it was just a tea guide job, but it was making people smile and excited to see me when they came in. So if I could make peoples days, I would do what I could to continue that.

With all my work experience, volunteer experience, my social media and editing experience, my friend inquired me for a job at her work. I was nervous but I tried my hand at it and it was actually going really well. Everyone got along (for the most part) and me and her kicked ass in our jobs, working together to get the job done and at the best of our abilities. Everything was going perfectly. However, bosses changed, management changed and things started to fall again. It got to the point where I was missing work, coming in late and just not doing as much as I would be. 

I looked into getting a therapist because a friend had recommended Planned Parenthood, which I didn't even know was an option. I applied and it was a 6 month wait but before I knew it, I finally got one and boy were they amazing. They helped me find a dentist, a proper family doctor and even helped me set up an appointment to get a proper diagnosis with a psychologist at CAMH. I was terrified because I was worried nothing was actually wrong with me and I was just being a baby but once I got to the psychologists, they diagnosed me with Severe Depression, General Anxiety and believe it or not, Binge Eating Disorder. None of it was really a shock to me but my therapist helped me focus on getting help and from there, we worked on getting myself medication and groups to help with my BED.

Though it seems like a straightforward process, it's really not. It's about trying some meds out and seeing if they work. If they don't, you try another and so on and so forth. My first round of medication definitely didn't do anything, but it was my second round where things started to get messy again. I would zone out, I would be really numb and it just caused me to get even more depressed and it scared me to talk about it. This was affecting my work and more. It got to the point where my boss decided that it was time to talk and get things rolling again. They forced me to take work off and to go on short term disability for my mental health. Through my insurance company, they set me up with another therapist for some reason, they set me up with physio, all while I was still seeing my regular therapist and I started going to a BED group.

We all realized that my medication wasn't helping and that I needed to try another kind of medication. My boss had to then organize me being on long term disability and things continued to move forward. Mind you, I wasn't working so things were definitely better, I went and travelled, I focused on me and it felt great. But before I knew it, the year was up and it was time for me to return to work. I was terrified to say the least because things had changed so much at my work. We got a new boss, people had moved around and everything was just different. I basically didn't even have a job going in and they had to figure it all out again. Which made me feel like shit because I didn't have MY job. But it was either that or nothing so I went with it.

It was going good to start but things started to get messy once again. My original therapist believes this happens because once we're happy, things that we coped through in our past that we didn't really digest properly would start to come up in feeling flashbacks and more. She was VERY right. It got bad at work and I was missing and making excuses where I could to the point where I got written up. Coincidentally, the pandemic happened. It was that day we were called to return home and stay there.

As terrible as this is about to sound, the pandemic was a blessing in disguise. It helped me focus more on my mental health once again, I was able to find a medication that actually works for me and I was able to get out of that job and find a better one in its place. FINALLY, I was doing good. Obviously, that changed and I moved onto two more jobs a couple years later, but it's all in the process of change and moving forward.

Where am I now? Well, I haven't attended any groups for my BED in a while. I did do a different group through a mental health college of sorts. It helped greatly and they provided me with tools that I can use but I continue to go to an online or over the phone group every once in awhile just to get some tips and tricks for when I'm really stuck. As for my mental health, I'm on medications that work so YAY! I'm at a job I genuinely love, I live with my boyfriend and cat, I do therapy regularly and I'm going out or staying in with friends and talking to family on a regular. Obviously, I have good and bad days, everyone does, but they aren't as intense as they used to be. When I'm on my period, it's a lot worse but that just comes with the nature. But overall, my journey still continues. I'm still working through what happened all those years ago, I'm working through experiences with friends I no longer have, I'm working through college and day to day life.

Life is fucking tough but I want you to know at the end of the day, things fucking get better! Yes, there are times where things can feel worse but you work to make them better. People are there to support you as well and we are here to help get you moving! But things will get different, as long as you put your whole soul and being into it. Never be afraid to ask for help, go to your friends, family (if you got them) and go online to look for resources to find a therapist or mental health hospitals that can help. I don't have many resources because I'm in Canada but if you happen to be around here, look at the resources below and know you are important, you are worth living for and you are amazing. Thank you and have a great night!

Planned Parenthood Website: https://ppt.on.ca/
CAMH: https://www.camh.ca/

Stella's Place: https://stellasplace.ca/

Sheena's Place: https://sheenasplace.org/

Friends of Ruby: https://www.friendsofruby.ca/