How I pulled myself out from the dark, into the light — how to heal from mental health issues.

Last week was Mental Health Awareness Week. With people talking about mental health and well-being, I thought it’d be an ideal time to share my experience of mental health issues and how I overcame them, and continue to heal. I am in a much better place than I ever have been, so sharing how I went from a nervous-wreck, with low self-esteem and very dark thoughts, to a confident, self-assured and fulfilled person is important. I feel that sharing the techniques I use to manage my mental health would help others; not only those who are suffering, but others who may want to alter the way they think about things. Mental health isn’t just about the negative — it’s about the positive too. It’s accepting mental health is a constant; something that never goes away but can change and express itself in many forms over time. In writing this article, I reminded myself of the control I have over managing my mental health. I hope that you as the reader will notice the control you have too.

My mental health rapidly declined after sixth form and before the start of university. This decling mood became a constant for many months to come too. I was self-loathing, panicked and scared. I had a real identity issue and an internal conflict about who I was. I struggled massively with my sexuality and I wanted more than anything not to be gay. I suffered from anxiety, paranoia, depression, insomnia and started to have suicidal thoughts. I couldn’t imagine a positive outcome by telling friends and my family that I was gay. Worst of all, I didn’t want to accept it about myself either. I wanted to force myself to be heterosexual and it totally consumed me. I would say anything, sometimes do anything, to fit in or get acceptance from others. Even to this day, I sometimes feel gay shame, caused by years of neglect; lack of support, lack of role models and constant gay-bashing.

However, as I mentioned, I’m in a much better place now and I handle my mental health much better. So here’s how I went from a dark place, to the light:

1. Friendship

Finding good friends who you can have meaningful conversations with is so important. I had quite a mix of friends growing up, but I soon recognised that the lad culture in one friendship group was toxic. They were not going to help me with what I was going through because their emotional capacity stretched to the length of a tea spoon. I identified a few key friends who I felt were understanding, authentic and empathetic. Those friends were the ones to give me a hug as I broke down in tears. They were the friends to reassure me that everything was going to be OK and the friends that said I could stay with them if I was disowned — my biggest fear.

2. Therapy:

I was so lucky to have a friend whose mum is a trained counsellor. Her mum was part of a charity at the time that offered free counselling. She put me in contact with a member of her team who identified a counsellor most appropriate for me, and it was definitely the best thing I have ever done. Even if you are suffering from mental health issues that are not impacting your day to day life, I would fully recommend therapy. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy was a blessing. I can’t recall every single session and what I achieved in them, but CBT gave me the tools to cope, manage my mental health, build my self-esteem and resilience, accept myself, control irrational thought and progress with life. I would 100% recommend therapy. The type of approach varies from counsellor to counsellor, so it may take time to find out who works best with you.

Some of the things I have learnt from therapy include:

• My language affects my thoughts, and my thoughts affect my feelings.
• How to ground myself in moments of panic and irrational thought: being in touch with my senses; noticing thoughts and letting them pass — recognising they are not permanent.
• Acknowledging irrational thought — for example, assuming or predicting the very worst outcomes because of an action I take. In response to this, I now acknowledge that I can’t predict the future and that there could be many outcomes to an action I decide to take — and I’ve trained myself to focus on the most disastrous. Evaluating the situations more fairly and having more faith in your decision-making; reflecting on previous decisions where there have been more positive results can help with this.
• Embracing anxiety and making it a friend: anxiety acts as alarm bell that something isn’t quite right, which then encourages me to do something about it.
• Looking back on past successes. I am someone who makes change happen. Therefore, I look back at past successes when I feel overwhelmed, to remind myself I have taken action, that has benefited me — and I am capable of doing that again. I feel like this is a really important tool, just because it made me realise how much control I have over a situation.
• Kindness: helping other people helps me too; sharing experiences, developing empathy skills and understanding that others have hardships and that together those hardships don’t feel as heavy when shared.

3. Reading books

Straight Jacket and The Velvet Rage are both books that dive into the realities of growing up as gay; the experiences we have and how that expresses itself in society. I could talk about these books for hours but for now I’ll limit myself to a few words. I want to point out that these books reminded me that I am not alone in how I feel and my experiences. It allowed me to feel connected to other people — like me — and gave me a feeling of normality. They are also books that provide lots of insight and advice to live happy and fulfilling lives.

4. Happiness: purpose or pleasure

This kind of relates to point three as I got this idea from a book. However, the practices are so important, I felt that it had to be its own point. Paul Dolan, author of Happiness By Design discusses that happiness comes from either purpose, pleasure, or a mix of both. Instead of deciding your level of happiness by evaluating your entire life or an entire situation, he encourages people to look at happiness on a more micro level and consider the day to day activities we do and notice how they make you feel — do they give you pleasure or purpose? For example, helping a child tie their shoes might not be the most pleasurable experience, but it may give a person a great sense of purpose. If you are complaining about your job every day, but then evaluate it and say, oh I work for a great company and I am a senior position — I’m so lucky, then you’re ignoring the experiences on the day to day activities and living the life of the story you tell instead. So, consider moment to moment and think, does this give me purpose or pleasure?

5. Feeling connected

Being gay, I am a minority, which was even more apparent living in Norfolk. This gave me a lot of anxiety about the direction of my life and what I wanted from it. My needs weren’t being met and I was aware of this, so I took action. I now live about 30 minutes away from London and also work there. Once lock-down restrictions ease, I am looking to join LGBT-inclusive sports teams too. The point here is, think carefully about your needs and take action to address them.

I hope from my experience you can see that if you are struggling, that there are ways to change that. It might feel like an uphill battle, but small changes can really make a difference. All it requires is a little bit of bravery, resourcefulness and perseverance.