I want to start writing about mental health. I’m not sure what my motivation is entirely. Part of it is certainly ego. I had an experience and feel the need to share it. The extrovert in me. maybe.

But part of it is that I want to help. Poor mental health is an epidemic in the UK. We don’t share and we don’t open up. We constantly want to be seen as normal.

So people learn to live with low confidence or that traumatic thing they went through or feeling a bit rubbish or being self conscious or anxious or depressed. People learn to live with not fully loving and accepting all of themselves - even the ugly bits. I’m learning that it doesn’t have to be that way.

Over the summer I went through an experience that made me realise I’d not accepted and worked through my mental health issues. I didn’t love and accept myself. It resulted in, not for the first time, a relationship I valued breaking down. I was broken and I was at rock bottom. It was an experience that motivated me to dig deep and look directly at what had been causing me my problems for so long. What had been causing my anxiety? Why didn’t I love myself? Could I ever find the courage to deal with some trauma I went through? (Find out on the next episode of...!)

In hindsight what I’ve realised is that things didn’t need to get that bad. I didn’t need to get to rock bottom before reaching out. People love me. Friends, family, strangers on the internet would have listened at any time. They wouldn’t have judged. And their advice wouldn’t have changed too much either if I’d reached out a month or a year before hitting rock bottom. Not matter what happens in the news or wherever that seeks to divide us never forget that people are kind. People are kind. People are kind (worth repeating).

The barrier to me reaching out was myself. By wanting - no, craving - to be normal and not accept I’m a complicated, messy, emotional bag of bones and chemical reactions I could never allow myself to reach out. I had to be normal (I still don’t know what normal is btw)

But I know it was fear that drove me. What if people judged me? What if they didn’t accept me? Negative self talk that sapped away my courage. The biggest realisation I’ve had is that living with fear is not living. Not living fully anyway. It’s a strange mix of giving your issues, hang ups, and insecurities too much airtime but conversely letting them operate and control things from the shadows. Be unseen but ever present.

But once you shine a light on them, you see them for what they are. They’re nothing tangible. They’re the stories we’ve continually told ourselves about ourselves until they become us. But they’re not us. By defining ourselves by our past we stunt the possibilities for the future.

When I shone a light on my insecurities it was powerful. It was emotional. I cried a lot. It was hard. And I’m still working through them. But this work is necessary to break through to the other side. It’s a messy process because mental health is. And what’s working for me will be different to what works for you.

But all it takes is a moment in time to decide that the fear isn’t worth it anymore. And in that moment you can decide to drop it. To make the smallest of changes that will massively change your trajectory. To start the process and decide that the story you will create for your future will be way more compelling than the one you’ve been repeating from your past.

The key for me has been understanding that it is a process. I’ve always been impatient and wanted things now. But there’s no quick fix. Mental health is complicated and has developed in us over many years. But small changes compound. Commitment and consistency are key. And it all starts with you

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