Anyone who's super-keen/observant (and oh my gosh I'd be so honoured and fangirl-excited if anyone actually did!) might have noticed that yesterday I didn't do my daily blog post for Mental Health Awareness Week like I promised I would try to do. Yesterday was a bit difficult and stressful, but I absolutely intended to write a post - I felt more than anything like I had to, like I'd be a complete failure and be letting everyone and everything I try to stand for down if I didn't. At 11.20pm I was all still curled up fretting and overwhelmed and horribly over-tired in the corner of the sofa panicking about how I was possibly going to articulate a post, and then I realised maybe I could use a missed day to make a point - that it's okay to take time out and step back when your mental health needs it.

It doesn't always seem like a legitimate thing to feel, especially if you're like me and get horrifically restless and upset with yourself for not being so busy 24/7 that it devastates you, but everyday life even when you're doing apparently 'nothing' can be so incredibly draining and overwhelming. I absolutely adore seeing all the amazing things that are happening to people I know and love or care about pop up on Facebook and it makes me so overwhelmingly happy seeing people get the wonderful things they deserve and have worked so hard for, but being surrounded by the incredible things people you know are achieving all CONSTANTLY is also a horrible catalyst for overwhelming self doubt and comparison, even when it's the last thing in the world you want to feel (and if you're me, you then feel so selfish and horrible for catching yourself getting upset or envious that you literally want to punch yourself in the face for being so selfish). There's so so much pressure to be constantly available, constantly on top of everything, constantly working towards a new shiny goal that might maybe help me feel a little more 'validated' or like I'm not just falling horrifically and terrifyingly behind everyone else I know, even though of course I absolutely know that social media 'life' is hugely rose tinted and that no one else's life is as okay as it might seem either. Sometimes when your mind is being horrible, even knowing those things just doesn't make it better. It's so so hard to remember, but please trust me: you're not being selfish. You're not letting everyone down, no matter what your head tries to tell you -  you're doing what's best for YOU, right now, in this moment, and that's absolutely okay.

Like I talked about in my last post, it's so so important to try and look after our own mental wellbeing, and sometimes - difficult and horribly selfish and frightening as it seems - that means it really is okay to step back from everything. I've never been able to fully take myself away from social media or completely isolate myself from going out for more than a couple of days, because my anxiety is relentlessly scary and overwhelming and just won't let me, but to be honest I think this people who do are ridiculously and amazingly brave. (HUGE shoutout here to my amazing TTC Champion and amazing friend James here, for inspiring this post with the bravery of his social media break and still being so unfailingly thoughtful and lovely despite all the shit he's going through on his own too. I admire you so much and I'm so so happy to have you back at least for a little bit!).
It takes an awful lot to recognise and make a decision which can still be so widely misconceived or misunderstood as self-deprecating, antisocial or counterproductive in the interests of your own wellbeing, and it's a hugely brave thing to do to commit to putting yourself first despite all the pressure from society and general life not to.

I didn't post yesterday in the end, because I wanted to make a point. I wanted to take my own advice for once that's it's okay to step back from things sometimes - we can't help make the world a better, kinder and better place for mental health if we don't try to look after ourselves and our own wellbeing first too. This is something I'm still finding horrifically hard to grasp, both in terms of trying to look after myself mentally and physically, but hopefully if we keep encouraging each other that it's okay to take better care of ourselves, I'll maybe one day be able to convince myself that it really is okay for me to do what's best for me first sometimes too.

Today has been a little bit of a whirlwind of stress and tiredness (yay for auditions with anxiety!!) so today's post is going to be a little one, but hopefully important all the same.

I've thought about this a bit today, and realised that so far both in yesterday's post and on my blog in general I speak primarily about mental health issues themselves, and the stigma, fears and general bizarreness that surrounds trying to deal with them whilst having to attempt being a 'normal' human being. I'm 100% okay about this, because of course we need to keep opening up conversations about mental illness, and as a Time to Change Young Champion it's my job apart from anything else!! However, I think it's hugely important too to recognise that Mental Health Awareness Week is about ALL mental health, all of us - not just mental illnesses or the bits we struggle with.

The most important thing to realise, in terms of helping shift attitudes towards mental illness too, is that we all have Mental Health. Every single one of us, no matter how much we might struggle with it or to what degree, have mental health that affects everything we do, every single day. The problem is that a) society isn't too cool about acknowledging that, and b), no one teaches us how to look after it. If you get a cold, most people know that the things that might help include honey and lemon, curling up under blankets, throat sweets, hot water bottles and sleep. If we sprain our ankles, we know to rest it, pack it with frozen peas until it goes numb and elevate it onto all available chairs/tables/dogs etc - but no one teaches us how to help look after ourselves when your mental health decides to take a little nosedive off a cliff, even though it might hurt and stop you from doing the things you love (and hate but kinda-have-to-do) just as much.

When I say that I'm 100% behind Mental Health education being compulsory on the school curriculum, I don't just mean that we should be taught about mental health conditions the same way we are taught about sensitive physical illnesses. We need to teach, nurture and enable ourselves to understand, recognise and be aware of our own mental wellbeing - the things that make us sad, the things that affect our ability to concentrate or feel joy as incandescently or the things that calm us down. We need to learn that the things we feel are valid, no matter how silly or tiny  or impossibly scary they might seem inside - and if we can learn how to practice self care and kindness when we need it, that'll be a huge step both for us and for helping understand and recognise the importance of our mental health too.

It's so impossibly hard to find ways to practice self care when we need it that don't feel like selfishness, because we're taught that putting ourselves first is wrong - but sometimes your own mental health and wellbeing just has to come first. I struggle with this desperately and it sends my anxiety and stress reeling and makes me feel like the absolute worst person in the world, but sometimes you have to try and be brave in understanding that the best thing in the world for you right now might be to sleep instead of going out, or have a bath instead of going for a run, or eating your own weight in pizza just because it's what you feel like right now. No matter what your mind or society tries to tell you, your feelings are valid, and you deserve to look after yourself. Really really.

The truth is that no matter how much mental illness might or might not affect you or those you love in your lifetime, we all have mental health, and it really is okay and so incredibly necessary to talk about it and care for it. Fingers crossed that shiny & brilliant little initiatives like Mental Health Awareness Week might be a little nudge to help us to need to recognise it, accept it as part of us, and one day learn that's it's okay to look after it too. 

So this may or may not have been a silly idea to try and juggle with auditions and applications and everything that's going on right now, BUT, it's now May (aka Mental Health Awareness Month) and this week is extra extra special because it's Mental Health Awareness Week 2017!! SO, to help celebrate and mark the occasion, i've decided to try and do a blog post every day this week speaking out about mental health, and why it's so important that we keep talking about it. (As illustrated, for the purposes of this first post, solely by Frozen gifs. Enjoy x)

I think i've blocked out a lot of what happened when I was in hospital when I was younger, but I do remember lying in my bed on the children's ward, all numb and tired from crying over my NG tube pain, and my mum or maybe one of the nurses saying to me that one day, i'd be able to use all this pain for good. She promised.
I didn't really believe it at the time, but that little thought and fire stayed in me and as I got better (and then worse, and then a bit better, and then catastrophically worse etc etc), it's become a fighting force within me and glowed stronger and stronger - some kind of adamant, furious determination that yes my mental illnesses could steal my childhood and my life from me, but there was no way in hell I was going to let all the things I was fighting through stop me from using my experiences to speak out and maybe help someone else. The problem was that I always clung onto the little bit of determination that id be able to do something good 'when I got better', or 'one day' - but nearly 10 years down the line, I was realising fearfully more and more every day that I don't know that that day will ever come. I don't remember my life without mental illness, and in all honesty i'm not sure that I ever see myself living free from it in the future either - so slowly I was realising at the back of my mind that 'one day' was never going to come, or if it did, it might be too late - I was going to have to start trying to turn my experiences into something positive NOW. Whilst they were still attacking me every day. And that's freaking terrifying.

The little push I needed to start came from a guy who is now one of my favourite people in the whole world and possibly one of the most inspirational, talented, and unfailingly lovely people on the planet - and I met him for the first time in the hallway of a small theatre. For those of you who don't know him yet - James Rhodes (this guy!!) is a classical pianist in the coolest, most brave and rockstar-esque way imaginable. He's not only insanely talented, but intersperses his pieces with brilliant, honest, funny and sensitive commentary about his own struggles with mental health and the bizarre, comic and fascinating woes of the composers whose work he features. ANYWAY, after seeing him perform at the Arts Theatre in London on a fluke, I went to one of his further gigs where he was doing a meet and greet afterwards (it was a much tinier venue!). In a nervous bundle of gabble, I said something to him which probably made absolutely no sense about how amazing it was hearing him speak out and how much it resonated with me, because as it turned out we had been in psychiatric hospitals at roughly the same time, and how I was basically just overwhelmed with admiration for him and a lot of other fangirl-y embarrassing stuff like that (probably). James, being utterly lovely, treated me like i'd just said one of the most eloquent and genuine sentences in the english language, gave me a hug, and then looked straight at me and told me in the calmest, loveliest voice to never stop talking.

And that was the 'real' real beginning.

 Talking about the things that hurt you is hard. That little moment with James that encouraged me to start saying fuck it and trying to unashamedly and truthfully speak out about my experiences with mental health was right at the beginning of my 2nd year of uni. The next week, I went to my university's DAMSA (Disabled and Mental Health Students Association) group on a whim, randomly stood up and ran for a place on their committee, and got it. I started trying to go even when my MH was shit, and helped run their Time to Talk day event that year ft many many cakes and brownies (which was how I met Time to Change!!) - By 3rd year i'd become their secretary, run my own Time to Talk day event for the University, started my first mental health blog (www.theoverthinkingblog.wordpress.com) and started sharing campaigns on social media. I still wasn't exclusively stating that I DID suffer from the mental illnesses I was trying to better on Facebook and Twitter, but I wasn't denying it or shying away from it either, and even something that little is a big step when you're sending posts out to a world of people you actually know. It's a hugely vulnerable feeling, but it's empowering too.

Being accepted to be a Time to Change Young Champion is an absolute dream, and one of the best things that could ever possibly have happened to me. Giving my first testimony after all the stress and tears of trying to write it was an amazing feeling - it felt like I was finally doing the thing i'd hoped all along I might be able to one day do - to use my own experiences to help change other people's experiences understanding of mental health for the better. This blog is another part of my 'speaking out' journey, and it's taken me an awfully long time to try and convince myself that I can have a blog where I write both about mental health and about my life in general when my mental health issues just happen to be there too - but i'm finding my way (I think!). Mental Health Awareness Week is a hugely important, inspiring and fiercely brilliant thing which shines a hugely deserved spotlight on all the charities, campaigners, bloggers, companies and people who are trying so hard every day to change the way we think about, perceive and treat mental health issues, but the truth is it should be the same every week. I still doubt myself hugely, and sometimes everything I try to do still feels hopeless and unbelievably shit, but at it's heart speaking out is terrifying, addictive, electric and astonishingly powerful, and the more we do it, the better we can help positively change the future of our mental health for everyone.