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Hi There!
Some of you will know that next Tuesday is "Let's Talk" Day. The idea is to get people
talking about a subject that is a bit taboo in our society: which is mental illness.
I think it's a worthy cause and I think it's important that we take the opportunity to
talk about mental illness. It provides me an opportunity to share something with you
that I've been thinking about sharing for many years, but couldn't quite convince myself
to do it. It's about my experience with mental illness. It goes back to almost 25 years ago
today that I had an episode of mental illness that I had no idea what it was. I thought
I was/ I was convinced that I was dying and I suppose back then we would have described
it as, you know, having a nervous breakdown.. that's all I could think about.
Anyhow, it began a period for me of struggling with anxiety, panic attacks, depression, that
lasted for about five years. So why am I sharing that with you? Well, for one thing, I wanted
you to know that you can come out of the end of something like this. You can. There are
better days to come, and while in the midst of it I was convinced that I would never have
a normal day again in my life, absolutely convinced of it and made up my mind that that
was the case through a series of events, interventions, counselling, medication, I did come out the
other end of it, I did have another normal day. I've had lots of normal days. While again
in the midst of all of that there are many days that I was barely functioning... (I think
I missed one day of work through the whole thing) but many of the days that I came to
work I was barely functioning and I think I was pretty good at putting on a brave face,
because I don't know that very many people, or any other people in my workplace knew what
I was struggling with.
So, as I say, good news is that if you are struggling with mental illness, there is hope.
I want you to know that and I had the good fortune of having a very understanding boss,
who when I got up the nerve to share with him what was going on in my life, he embraced
me I guess, in the sense that he told me that if there was anything that he could do or
that the department could do to support me (that was before the days we had EAP - we
have EAP now but we didnt have EAP then). I was fortunate to have a boss who understood
and was very supportive, a very supportive family and medication played a pretty significant
role in my recovery.
If you are struggling and if you are barely getting through the day, I want you to know
that you can hope and that things can be different. With the right interventions (and I would
encourage you to seek the right interventions, seek counselling, pursue things with your
doctor) you can come out the other side.
So, that's my story. I hope you take it as something that will encourage you if you are
struggling and just know that because things are bad now, they won't be bad forever.