My Journey with Mental Illness: Getting a Diagnosis

Today is #BellLetsTalk Day, which is a day designed to spread awareness and raise money towards mental health related causes. As such, I thought today was a good day to talk about my own experiences with mental illness.

I was always an anxious child. For as long as I can remember, I have feared that something catastrophic would happen in my day to day life. This was addressed in passing when I was in elementary school - one of my teachers noticed that I had written something like "I hate myself" on one of my assignments and the school board got involved. I scarcely remember this, but I remember both sitting with a social worker once a month and getting pulled out of school to go to a psychology clinic in the city. I remember going to two or three child psychologists before finding the right fit (our insurance at the time was pretty crummy, so choice was a little limited. Luckily the last one was fantastic). I was able to develop some coping skills, go through a little grief counseling and generally just return to being a happier and easier to deal with child.

Most of my primary and secondary education went well in that regard. I was, however, hyper-aware and extremely worried about how I was perceived. I would go through endless cycles of "What if they don't like me? What if they make fun of me? What if they don't want to be friends with me anymore?" It was exhausting (and still is, to a certain extent).

Things got bad in the year that I was in Grade 12. This was the year that I was applying to university. It was also the year of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, which my dad was fortunate enough to have been chosen by Bell to work at. He spent most of that high school year in Whistler, which was great for him (but less so for my mom and I). I had always done well in school (anxiety tends to lend itself well to being productive - "What if I don't do well at this? What if people think I'm stupid?" is a pretty good motivator to doing schoolwork), but this was the first time that I had ever struggled. This was the first year that I had an ineffective teacher, who actually told me that I wasn't smart enough to be an engineer, and it was also the first year that I had had so many heavy subjects at once. Suffice to say, the pressure was intense. I don't think that my mother and I have ever fought as much as we did that year.

I remember the physical symptoms: pounding heart, whirling brain, trouble sleeping, hands shaking. It was horrible. Still, I didn't go see anyone or talk to anyone because "it was just stress." In any case, my symptoms became much more manageable when I was accepted to nearly every university that I had applied to (I probably would have been accepted to the last one, but I had already accepted the offer from my first choice school).

Fast forward two years to my second year of engineering. I was in a dual degree program - chemistry and chemical engineering. I had just broken up with my live-in boyfriend and was unable to move out. My physical health was poor because of the house I was living in (my landlord at the time was a slum lord and there was so much mould that you could smell it as soon as you walked in). All of the symptoms that I had experienced in Grade 12 were back, but 10x worse. It was so bad that I hardly had the energy to do anything beyond get out of bed in the morning and get ready for school.

When classes finally ended and I moved back home for the summer, my symptoms didn't get any better. All I could think about was how my friends had abandoned me and how my ex had cheated on me (this has actually not been confirmed, but I very firmly believed it at the time). I lay in bed all day, staring at the ceiling. Eventually, my mother took me to the family doctor because she couldn't watch me do it any longer.

After describing my symptoms to her (the endless cycles of "What if I never get a job? What if they don't let me switch disciplines? What if I have to live at home forever?", the baseless feelings of doom, the perpetually racing heart, the body aches, etc.), she diagnosed me with Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Panic Disorder.

Honestly, that day was the best day of my life. I finally knew what was wrong with me. I wasn't crazy and I wasn't broken. When I was having a panic episode (which is like a panic attack, but lasts for a longer period), I was dissociating and not having some kind of mental breakdown. In those states, my body was just doing what it could to survive what it thought was a life or death situation.

The doctor originally prescribed me an SSRI, which I took for about a week, then stopped because it gave me wicked migraines. In the end, I decided that I would rather under go Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) which was more about re-training your brain than medicating it.

I have been doing much better (apart from last year's six-month long panic and depressive episode). I have a brilliant therapist, both here at MUN and back home. I encourage any Queen's friends to go to the counseling centre in LaSalle because they are fantastic. My journey is ongoing, and it always will be, but I no longer feel as if the obstacles that I may face are insurmountable.

Please, if you're struggling, reach out to someone. It doesn't need to be me or a therapist, but get help. You don't have to do this on your own. I'm here for you. We're here for you. You are so not alone in this.

Be well.

-K

The Year in Review

So, 2014 was kind of a rough year for me. I think that goes for some others as well, so I think I can say with confidence that 2015 should be better than 2014 was. Hopefully.

I graduated from chemical engineering this past June, which means that the 6 months leading up to that fateful day were absolutely jam-packed full of stress. I had at least three group projects of varying degrees of complexity to deal with at a time, which of course also means I had a whole pile of different personalities to deal with. I had always thought of myself as someone who was easy to get along with, but that turns out is not exactly the case. I like to be in charge, as in turns out, as much as I may protest to the contrary. Giving up control is hard for me, and can make me either passive-aggressive (best-case scenario) or openly hostile (this actually happened towards the end of the bigger of the three group projects -- everyone's been there. I think).

After some reflection, I realize that I could have saved myself (and my group) a lot of heartache by communicating more and more effectively. This is the best lesson I think I ever learned from 4 years of engineering education. You cannot control people. They are their own people with their own thoughts and feelings. If you need something, tell them. That way, when they need something they'll feel like they're able to come to you for help.

So, after graduation, I had one of longest panic episodes of my life - maybe a whole week? I don't remember. I was terribly stressed about finding a job, feeling pressured by my family to work (even though I know now that there really was none - I just don't like being dependent), and feeling pretty worthless because most of my class was already working - or so I thought at the time.

In response to said panic episode, I took a job in northern Labrador for a mining company. It was a summer student position, and at the time I was happy to be able to make money (I was also happy to be able to be closer to my then-boyfriend. More on that later). It wasn't a great job, and I was strung along for over a month and a half waiting for a start date and I was terribly under-utilized but I met some great people. This past summer was probably one of the best ones I've had, at least in recent memory. However, the hours were shit, the isolation was draining and so was the travelling. I was offered the chance to stay on longer but I very politely declined due to my concerns over my mental health - I had more panic attacks during the time I worked there than I had all year.

Now I'm back in my hometown, living with my parents. This is both awesome and awful. I will not deny that the quality of the food is far superior to my life as a student, and that not having to pay for my own food or utilities while I'm not working is amazing. That said, I feel like I have no opportunity to have a social life while I'm here. I'm not really that close to many people from high school, and most of them have either moved to the city or are in their final year of university and thus too busy to hang out. I'm tutoring high school kids, but that's not exactly a steady-paying gig nor very intellectually stimulating.

Career-wise, I have no idea what I want to do. Oil is faltering at the moment, and I'm considered a flight risk in Alberta while I'm living in Ontario. Mining has turned out not to be my cup of tea (too environmentally damaging for me to want to be a part of). I'm not particularly interested in manufacturing, but that's essentially what my career has trained me for.

And yes, I do realize that I am in the incredibly privileged position of a highly educated person feeling unsure of their next step because they have essentially the whole world at their feet, but acknowledging this privilege does nothing to alleviate the stress of the indecision that I am now facing. I know that I want to be of help and of use to the world in some way, but the question is: what?