No More Stigma - A Mental Health Month Post, Part 2

This is part 2 of my journey through mental illness. If you missed part 1, please go here and then come back!
I went to my dad first. I was terrified that he would think i was being melodramatic or that i was a complete nutcase but he sat, and he listened, and he said maybe i should go and ask a GP. I made an appointment and i did the little checklist survey that the GP's make you do and then i was referred to a free counselling service within the medical centre.


As i was working on the one day that the free counselling service ran i decided to chuck a sickie the day of my first counselling session. At this stage, even though the GP said it was most probably depression, i still didnt really know what was going on, so i was cacking my pants at the thought of telling my employer ( or anyone for that matter ) that i was mentally ill. So i fudged the day off work and went off to see the counsellor. Even though i was nervous i felt immediately comfortable with her - she had this crazy, kicky, curly hair and she asked me questions without making me feel like i was going mad. Basic stuff like why i had been referred on, and how had i been feeling, and what happened when i felt that way. She set me some homework ( cognitive behaviour therapy she called it ) and our appointments became a weekly thing. I still majorly struggled but being able to offload in a secure environment once a week helped.

I was referred to see a visiting pyschiatrist when he came from Sydney every 2 or 3 months. He was a little intimidating and i think i clammed up a little more with him than i did with my counsellor. Regardless, he prescribed anti-depressants ( Levlen, from memory, an SSRI ) to be taken once daily, and continued weekly counselling sessions.

Little by little things became less heavy - my way of thinking started to change, and the fog started to lift. After about a year i discontinued the counselling sessions and started tapering off the meds. I started going out a little more when my friends were home from uni... and found that i actually enjoyed it. My motivation for actually " doing " something with my life started to return and, eventually, i had enough confidence to apply to be an au pair.

Me, in the orange, and some au pair friends at Six Flags theme park in Jackson NJ

I was accepted by a wonderful family in the USA. I spent a year living with them in New Jersey, making friends amongst the other international au pairs, hanging out in New York City on the weekends. I did a weekend trip to Florida to Disneyworld by myself. I took my two week paid holiday in Peru and did something i'd always dreamed of ( trekked four days through the Andes to Machu Picchu ). I even became the " go to girl " for new au pairs, the one the co-ordinator called to take new girls out for coffee, introduce her to the area and the other au pairs. Me, the previously socially anxious outcast!

I returned home in November 2005. For a while i was on a super high - i was back with my friends and family, i found a job and bought my own car. I took road trips to visit my (ex)best friend and went out every weekend with one of my other friends when she moved back to town. I joined the gym and went 5 days a week, relishing the natural high - and natural anti-depressive measure - that it gave me. I looked into becoming a yoga instructor ( but couldnt afford the training at the time ). I became a fan of a few of the early social networking sites like Bolt and Bebo ( ha! ). I made a few online friends, one of whom encouraged me to start blogging. I found it a great way to get my thoughts and feelings - good and bad - out of my system, making sure nothing got bottled up and stuck on the inside. My confidence was at an all time high.

And then - emotions that i'd never previously let myself feel betrayed me....
*Part 3 to be posted tomorrow...

Trust Yourself - Suprise

( By Ashley Ambirge ) Think of a time when you didn’t think you were capable of doing something, but then surprised yourself. How will you surprise yourself this week?

Image from here

Let me say this - suffering through depression and social anxiety disorder, i constantly suprised myself with things i had  to do in order to get better. Simple everyday things, like striking up a conversation with a stranger or eating lunch by myself in a public place ... things i said ( to my counsellor or psychiatrist ) " I'll never to be able to do that! ".... i did them. So take those small things and multiple them by like a hundred and you get the biggest challenge you could throw at someone with social anxiety disorder : move to the other side of the world and live in a communty where you dont know anyone. Not a single soul.

A monumentally huge challenge in fact. But, even though i doubted myself a bazillion times, i was determined that this was one challenge i was going to make it through. And, in the end, not only was i suprised that i stuck it out but i was also suprised at how easy it seemed to be. Moving to the US to live with and work for a family i had never meant was daunting, but i was amazed at how quickly i felt accepted as one of them. I thought i'd be lucky to make one friend while i was there, but by the end of my year i was the " go to girl " for new au pairs coming in to the community, the one who was asked to take them out for dinner and show them around. I thought i might struggle with suburban/city living ( having come from a rural background ) but i took to NJ and New York City like a duck to water. All those things were once on my " No way Jose! " list but, in the end, the ease with which i accomplished them suprised not only me, but others too.

So what will i do to suprise myself this week? I think it may revolve around some training i have to do for work on Wednesday... i could either:
a) suprise myself by NOT getting cranky at management i'll have to deal with or
b) suprise myself by telling them to take theur job and shove it.
Option a) is definately going to be the better option for me right now, so lets just hope i dont get annoyed enough to run my mouth!

30 Days of Music - Days 22 + 23

Wow - i'm slowly getting to the end of this thing! The pointy end as some people would call it, and the prompts are getting more personal and harder to pick so its proving to be a bit tricky. Anyhoo -
Day 22 - A song that reminds you of a person
Not many songs remind me of one specific person ( lots that remind me of people in a specific place, or people at a specific time though) so i decided to go with this one, which reminds me of my dad:

I dont think many of you will know it as its a country song ( and most of you dont come across as lovers of country music - i could be wrong ) but this song, about how having a job and working hard for your family is more important than being rich, or famous, or " successful ", really evoked my father even from the first time i heard it. My dad has only ever put his family first, always taking every opportunity he could to better provide for us, even when it was costing him personally. To me, thats admirable, even if he doesnt have a uni degree or earn squillions. So he and this song kind of go hand in hand...

Day 23 - A song that reminds you of a place
See, for this one i couldnt think of a song that reminded me only of a place, without having a person in there to give it some context. So lets consider this a song that calls of memories of a person, in a place, which leads you to thinking just of the place and then of other people there. Ok?

This song reminds me of my friend Keitumetse, whom i knew in the US when we were both au pairs there in 2004-2005. Now, its not because Tumi IS a gold digger, but rather because when this song came out she loved it, and everytime we went somewhere in her big van she'd turn it on, turn it up and sing the shit of the Jamie Foxx part. It also kind of makes me a bit sad sometimes too, because after we left the US i never heard from Tumi again. Its like she went back to South Africa and got eaten by a lion, or just fell off the face of the planet or something. Its a shame, 'cause she was a great person, very fun and bubbly and from a culture so different ours that i felt enriched just chatting with her... where are you Tumi?!

I've Been To The Summit - And Things Have Only Gone Up From There...

Another Blog This! challenge - Take us on a journey. Your journey. Something you've achieved, somewhere you've travelled, someone you've become. How has it challenged or changed you?

I've been to the summit, and things have only gone up from there.
Ok, not exactly " the " summit. Not even " a " summit. Just Summit - Summit, NJ. What i mean is that i once lived in a place called Summit, NJ, and since that time my life has only been on the up and up.

I lived in this house:

I looked after these children:

And i had friends like these:

And what did i find during my amazing one year stay ? I found me. Thats right - i had to journey to the otherside of the world, 14 hrs on a non-stop flight, and experience things outside my normal experiences to find who i really was. Really am, i suppose. I'm not going to go into details ( lets face it, there is  hell of a lot of detail invlved over the course of a year ) but suffice to say that by physically travelling - taking a physical journey and having the physical experiences - i really changed and developed on an emotional level.

I lived with a wonderful family with 3 beautiful boys, working as their nanny. I was on a foreign volunteer program, so i made fruends from all over the world - just in that photo up there we have people from the Dominican Republic, France, Colombia and the Czech Republic. I had to live and learn in a new culture, deal with things i hadnt dealt before ( you know, like living on the opposite side of the planet to EVERYONE i knew ... ) and it truely was a " sink or swim " situation.

But you know what ? I gotta say, i think i did ok. I lost the depression and found some confidence; gained a second family and lost some weight; made new friends and destroyed old bad habits. Everything changed for the better because i was brave enough to take a step outside my box and try something new.....

The land of the free....

.... and the home of people i miss. Yes, i speak of the United States of America. Or, more specifically, of Summit, NJ. 07901. See, yesterday i received an email from my old host mum, completely out of the blue, and it really was a lovely suprise. I know i've been home for almost two and half years and still i find myself randomly missing my boys. And my surrogate dog, Miles. And my converted attic bedroom. You get the picture. The family i lived with, and worked for, the Mullers, just treated me so well that i really did get attached to them as a second family. I wasnt just the nanny, the au pair, the babysitter - i was like an older sister, or maybe a young aunt, somebody simultaneously authorative and responsible, yet fun and cool and a loved part of the family. I really did feel that way. And i really did love the boys - i know a lot of girls ( and guys, i suppose ) who work as nannies say they get attached to their charges, or conversely that they couldnt stand the little brats, but my boys were honestly fantastic. Sure, there were times that i wanted to wring their little necks, to cry and yell and throw a tantrum right back at them, but those times were few and far between. Most of the time it was just hanging out with some great kids.

But its not just the family i miss. I miss the place too - i lived a half an hours train ride from New York City and you would not believe how much i miss being able to just buy a ticket, take the trip, and instantly have something to do. Its really true that NYC is the city that never sleeps - i'm pretty sure you could find something to do, and someone to do it with, at any given moment of the day or night. Also, I miss the friends i made, only one of whom is still over there. Flavia was a Brazilian girl who originally worked as a nanny, did her year, went back to her home country and one of her charges missed her so much that he had to call her in Brazil every night before he went to bed. The host family asked her to come back as a combined nanny/university student and she accepted. Flavia was great . She helped show me the ropes, little insider tips, the best place to go for dinner with the other girls, and always invited me to parties at her boyfriends house ( insider tip for all of you - DO NOT drink home made Russian vodka that is being served to you by the Russians who homemade it. You WILL throw up.A LOT. ) As much as i love the very few friends i have here sometimes i just wish i could be back in Flavia and Tomas's tiny living room, eating Brazilian party food and hanging with the all the other non-Americans we knew.

But you know what i sometimes miss? Sometimes most of all ? Who i was over there. Or maybe who is not the right word - maybe i mean how i was. I was a different kind of me. Going to the US was the first major thing i had done post-depression. I had literally only been out of counselling and off medication for a few short months, so shipping myself off to another country, to a place where i knew not a soul, to start a job i had never really done before - well, it was really forcing myself to either sink or swim. And i think i swum. Awkwardly at first i suppose - it was more like a drunken dog paddle, like i was in there, i was making the effort, but it was hard. By the end of my stay however it was more like Olympic butterfly - still not overly easy, but i was in there making waves and loving every minute of it. I was the au pair all the new foreign girls came to. My area mentor, the women who looked after the welfare of all the girls would ring me and say " Amy, Olga/Celine/Kwame has just arrived from Russia/France/South Africa - why dont you give them a call and take them out for coffee ? " or " Amy, Ling/Rosita/Haley has just arrived from China/Mexico/England and i told them to give you a call. You're always so good for the new girls ". I loved that - i loved that i had turned from wallflower to the go-to-girl. I was proud. I want to be that again. I want to be that version of me again.

The Olympic butterflying go-to-girl. She was good.

I'm just thinking i might have to start out back at drunken dog paddle first....