sadkiwi

I remember going to the doctors and telling the doctor I was feeling low, she went through a list of questions with me, pretty general and then one of them was, am I feeling suicidal…. This question upset me because for the first time in my life, yes I was and the tears started to fall. I didn’t know why or what to do I just knew i needed help and fast. The doctor got to the end of her questions and told me the computer says I do not qualify for any help, she prescribed me with some antidepressants and told me to be on my way.

Welcome to NZ and our fucked up mental health system. Luckily i went home to my supportive partner who helped me and we worked through these things together. But if I was someone else maybe more fragile, someone who didn’t have a support person or this was their last cry for help?  I’m not sure it would have ended so well for them. The scary thing is this is a very very common thing to happen in NZ and i’m sure many many people can attest to that. 

 I have always thought that I was pretty normal and happy. Most of my life as a child, being the younger sibling, I was always annoying as hell but mostly a good kid. The most significant thing that happened when I was younger was my parents splitting up. My brothers were much older than me so it didn’t affect them as much, or at least i didn’t think it did. But as we know in NZ men are taught to be tough and not show emotions…I  was a 13 year old girl, just hitting puberty and it caused a lot of new emotions for me. Starting high school and moving to a new place with Mum and my siblings. My siblings  were in their late teens and not home much, out living their teenage lives.  Eventually my oldest brother, who I am closest with moved overseas to do his O.E. I don’t even really remember my Dad being around that much in my childhood but the thought of your parents splitting up as a young girl is a hard concept to grasp. 

Anyway I remember hearing about mental health growing up as a teenager and not understanding it very well. I used to think people would do it for attention. I remember in  high school girls would cut their wrists or thighs and would have scars or fresh cuts from this. I saw this as an attention seeking thing and didn’t really understand what mental health was. No one ever talked about it and you never heard about it. I think as well our parents’ generation have been taught that it’s not a real thing. Depression and anxiety? Nope, not real. My mum still will say to me to this day that it’s just a little phase you’re going through, that you will get over it, think positive. I’m sure if you have suffered from mental health you have heard these same comments and you know they are very unhelpful and actually more detrimental than anything. She means well but I honestly think it’s such a taboo topic in NZ and we are only just starting to talk about it.

 I think we all have it in some shape or form inside of us. Sometimes it wakes up and sometimes it lays there dormant. I have bipolar in my family on both sides. Which is scary and I sometimes wonder if I have it and I find myself googling the symptoms sometimes. My older sibling has severe anxiety which they are medicated for. Personally, I suffer from anxiety and depression. I currently don’t take meds for this but there is moments were I’m like fuck….maybe i should be haha. I saw this chart once. It had depression symptoms on one side and anxiety on the other and in the middle some things that fit with both. The idea is, you can figure out what the feelings are you are experiencing. I honestly checked off everything on the whole chart and then I was like, now what? I find I go through really good ‘seasons’ as I like to call them, and then extremely low ones. I still don’t know what brings it on but I am getting better at dealing with the lows.

What I find the most frustrating is when you finally have the courage to tell someone, no one truly understands what you are going through except for you. You know that person loves you and wants to help but there is only so much they can do. In my experience the responses I get back, show me they don’t fully understand and they truly just can’t. That’s a hard truth because it’s like, now what? who can help me. You are stuck with the battle of your own mind. 

Depression is real, anxiety is real. I want you to know that. Whoever is reading this.  No, there is no simple answer or cure. One thing may not work for another person and these problems take their forms in different ways in everyone. But you are not alone and keep going, you got this!!

If anyone has some helpful experiences or tips I would love to start a discussion about this. I myself am still learning about it and this is just my thoughts and perspective currently.

Thanks for reading

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