It is World Mental Health Day, so I figured I would tell my story.
In 2012 I had a medical event (contracted Labyrinthitis) which caused me to have severe anxiety and depression. For the longest time, I did not want to admit to myself that I was depressed or had anxiety. I figured I could just power through what was happening to me and everything would just sort itself out. That simply wasn't the case.
As the days wore on and my panic attacks grew more frequent, to the point of quite literally being paralyzed by fear, my parents started pushing me to get help. I didn't want to do that. I could handle this myself. I didn’t even realize I wasn’t eating. I just thought that was from being nauseous from the vertigo symptoms.
I had been out of work from mid-July and I went back to work around mid-August, without having received any kind of mental health treatment. On my first day, I had one of the worst panic attacks I ever had to that point. I made my way into a small meeting room we only used for outside visitors, but I knew I was not okay. I was so so anxious and shaking that my fingernails cut into the palms of my hands. I began to sob uncontrollably and saying "I'm sorry" to no one at all. That's when my co-worker found me.
She helped me regain my breath and be able to relax. I had to leave work and luckily my co-worker called my boss and told her I was leaving. After I got home (I had moved back home about three months earlier to help pay off student loans) I sat in my room for the longest time. I didn't say a word. According to my parents, it was almost as if I wasn't there anymore. About two hours later I finally came out of the state I was in. I walked into the living room and said, "I need help." I was lucky as my work has an excellent Employee Assistance Program. They helped me learn some basic coping skills until I could be matched with a therapist. I can't say the coping skills worked right away.
I was matched with a therapist and was a very emotional first appointment. There I was, bawling my eyes out over things that had happened decades ago. I kept saying "I'm normally a strong person." My therapist would reply "You are strong. You've just been too strong for too long.” She easily diagnosed me as suffering from anxiety and depression, but she dropped another diagnosis on me: PTSD. I remember saying, “That only happens to soldiers who have seen battle.” She then read off the clinical definition of what I was going through and symptom by symptom is sank in. I learned that day that PTSD isn’t something that only soldiers get.
In consultation with my general physician, I was placed on an anti-anxiety medication and anti-depressant. The anti-depressant made me severely ill to my stomach to the point where I had a panic attack fearing that I wasn't going to get better. I locked up all over again. My mother found me clutching to the side of my bed breathing heavy, telltale signs that I was in distress. She tried everything to get me to calm down. She called my father and my doctor and they got me into the office.
I wasn't able to answer any questions I was being asked, that's how terrified I was. According to the notes in my medical chart, I had broken out in hives (I had never had that before) and was unresponsive to rudimentary questions. My doctor immediately told my parents that I needed more focused help. I was told that my doctor wanted to spare me the intake process for hospitalization, but my local hospital would not budge on protocol. I was sent to the ER, where so many who suffer from mental illness end up.
Being in the secure section of the ER was just another bit of terror to compound what I was going through. I was stripped of my shoes, my belt, searched, wanded all while my parents pleaded with them to not treat me this way. I was only having an anxiety/panic attack. I kept telling the security person "I'm not a criminal. I'm not going to hurt myself or anyone else. I just want to go home now." I had never felt so powerless in my life. The only kindness shown to me was that my parents were allowed to stay with me.
The room was cold and bare walls, save for a TV behind plexiglass and the door. The furniture (if you could call it that) was a hard plastic bench and a hard plastic chair. The lighting was bright, which didn't help my medical condition at the time (bright lights caused me to be dizzy). A professional from the local mental health service Riverbend came to see me. His job was to evaluate me for any kind of intake or hospitalization. I had calmed down to the point where I could answer his questions and ask my own:
"Could I have a blanket? I'm cold."
A: No. People down here aren't allowed to have that. He was surprised I was still in my own clothes.
"What would the treatment be like? Could I go home?"
A: I don't know what it will be like on that floor. You wouldn't be able to go home.
My parents came in to speak with the assessor and to ask basically the same questions. We all agreed that hospitalization was not what I needed. My father had learned about a program at another hospital that had helped someone he knew. That is what I would try to get help from. It took another 30-40 min before I was finally given my shoes, belt, and clothing back and was discharged. As soon as I got home, I called the Catholic Medical Center Intensive Outpatient Program and set up an appointment for the following day.
To say my nerves were on edge would be an understatement. If I couldn't get into this program my only other choice would be hospitalization. The interviewer was kind, attentive, & could see what this would mean to me. I could get the help I needed with the support of my family by being able to go home at the end of the day. They couldn't give me an answer without contacting my insurance company to see if they would cover the program. The drive back from CMC to my home felt like forever. By the time I walked in the door, there was a message light blinking on our answering machine. I was in.
I called the program right back and scheduled myself to start the next day. For the first time in a little while, I felt a sense of hope. Day 1 of the program was intense group therapy, 1-on-1 medication counseling, and activities to help with coping.
I left that 1st-day feeling good about the program. Knowing that I could make progress and work toward regaining my abilities to work, be social, to just be me again. “Graduation” from the program was a drawdown in time spent there. As I approached the end of my time, I started to get nervous. What if I wasn't really ready? What if I had another panic attack? Those fears were replaced by a new thought: It doesn't matter, you have the tools to cope.
returned to work on a limited schedule in late October 2012. By New Year's Eve, I was back up to working my usual 7.5 hour day. 2013 was going to be a year of rebuilding myself physically (I had dropped to below 150 lbs) and to continue to work through my anxiety and coping. When I did return to work I chose not to hide my depression and anxiety diagnosis. To hide something like this, I thought, would be a disservice to all those who have them. I wanted to be vocal. Indeed the more I talked about what I went through, the less I relived it.
So, that’s my mental health story. I am me again, with the added benefit of having an anxiety disorder, being depressed at times (it never truly goes away), and living with Labyrinthitis.
Be kind to yourself. Know that while you feel alone, you aren't. Don't suffer in silence. Don't be ashamed to need help. We all need help.