By Abigail Ann Kemp

It’s hard. Believe me it’s beyond hard going from the point where you want your life to end, to accepting help and making recovery. There’s a lot of ups and downs, twists and turns and some days it’s easy, others it’s extremely difficult. 

My depression it’s on and off, some days I’m full of energy and motivation. On a good day, it typically looks like me getting out of bed early, getting up and dressed, being productive- eating regularly, tidying, going gym, going to the shops, walking the dog. Simple things people manage to do daily without any struggle, without any battle to get up and leave the comfort of your bed. A bad day typically looks like me sleeping for 95% of it because you can’t be sad, you can’t feel anything bad when you’re asleep. Not getting dressed, not eating, living in a shit hold of a room until my good day motivation comes around. Bad day me, is not the me I like. It makes me feel sloppy, tired. One thing that does help me though, is I try get up, shower and dressed in the morning everyday even if I’m not doing anything, maybe practice makeup to make me feel better. Even if I go back to the bad habit of napping at least I feel about my appearance. 

My anxiety really hits me the hardest, and it’s the thing I’ve lived with my entire life. Most things I get anxious over are general things people would laugh at me for, saying to stop being silly it’s only a phone call, answer it. But to me it’s terrifying so many thoughts, bad scenarios rush into my head. Whether it’s someone I know or a number I don’t recognise it’s a genuine fear. 

The hardest thing about my anxiety right now is the lack of control, I’ll be out and public and it’ll just hit me. People staring, is that person talking about me, what if I get in a car crash again? (Yes again, story for a different time). These all race through my mind whilst doing maybe even simple tasks like going to Tesco to get bread. Sounds like a get in the car, drive, go into Tesco, get the bread, drive home- easy task but no. Add in the steps where I motivate myself to leave the house, check I have the correct money a thousand times, brush my hair over and over, check my makeup is okay. It’s not easy at all. 

I think perhaps the saddest part of my anxiety is the way it affects my self esteem. Some days I can look in the mirror and not hate myself. I do my hair, my makeup get dressed up go out and I feel so confident and good. Then when I’m out the shit show happens inside my head, I compare myself to other girls, my hair isn’t as good, my makeup looks terrible compared to them, they’re skinny, I’m not. It’s sad sometimes, because it knocks me down so much I have to leave or I get home and cry. Even though my amazing boyfriend tells me daily I’m beautiful or tells me I’m not fat, spends the time reassuring me (which I’m so grateful for) I will never believe it. That’s something I need to work on, loving myself. 

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There’s loads of things I try& attempt to learn to control all of my mishaps, for example- grounding, below is an example of what I do when I feel the anxiety kicking in and I need to relax. 

I do this quite a lot and it distracts me from the negative thoughts I have. I’m never gonna be perfect, and to be honest I don’t want to be but one day at a time I wanna heal and learn how to take more control of my life. My first step was accepting help for my mental health difficulties, the next is taking back my life. 

I’ve been unemployed for the past 3 months but I’ve finally got myself a job and I’m even volunteering at a dog shelter to preoccupy my time. Such a huge improvement.  I’m also proud to say it’s been a whole 6 months since my suicide attempt and those dark thoughts haven’t crossed my mind. It’s no longer an option, recovery is. 

Thank you to those who read my blogs, I know they’re long but I appreciate it. I don’t write these for you to feel sorry for me, I like to put out how I’m feeling and hopefully help others by making them realise they’re not alone. Please feel free to message me if you want to ask questions or even if you’re struggling and just need a friend to listen. I’m always available to those who need it. Thank you, Abigail x

“You’re too young and pretty to be depressed”

-Close fAmily friend

I look pretty normal don’t I? Just another 18 year old girl ready for a night out, hair and makeup done, nice outfit pouting. Feeling confident.
This was me pretending everything was AOK inside my head.
On October 24th 2018, was the first time I tried to kill myself. Scary right. How someone that looks so normal, that was told I’m too pretty to be depressed would wanna just take my entire life away. To end it all. At the time I should’ve been happy, I had a boyfriend, friends, family but I still decided to shove around 30 pills down my throat. I was taken into hospital given fluids then let home after speaking to the ‘crisis team’ and saying I regretted it. I was to see a psychiatrist at the hospital in a weeks time to review my medication.
See with me, with these episodes of me piling up emotions and problems, there’s always a final trigger. At first I wasn’t sure what it was. But unfortunately there is always a trigger.
On March 7th 2019, a lady phoned 999 because I was on top of a multi story carpark, legs dangled over and I was ready to let go and fall. I was sat crying my eyes out trying to justify to myself that all my friends and family would be fine if I left them. That they’d move on and be happier someone so fucked up was gone. Again, I was taken to A&E, I spoke to a member of the crisis team again, they let me go home.
Things were good for a little while, I shut out a lot of the problems I was facing, I was hiding how I felt from others and myself. Inside, I hated myself and wanted to be gone. Outside, I was the happy bubbly girl, always cracking a joke and going above and beyond to make others happy. But never making myself happy.
Months passed until, June 2019 I called a friend after swallowing a lot of pills in the middle of a field. I wasn’t crying this time, I wasn’t sad. I felt numb. I was taken to hospital. I discharged myself by ripping my cannula out my own hand and walking out. I didn’t want to hear the bullshit from the crisis team, nobody seemed to care about me so why should I.
Then August 2019, I overdosed again. I was still numb. My friend came over and found me sitting there crying. I was taken to hospital. I stayed to listen to what the crisis team had to say but again, they didn’t seem to give a shit about me.

During all of this, life was hard, I lied to work to get out of it half the time. And I lied to everyone around me so I could stay in and sleep in the comfort of my bed. Imagine being 19 years of age and not wanting to work, go out with friends, not wanting to shower or put on makeup. Not wanting to eat or look after myself. What a shit show. The governments funding to mental health across the UK want enough so even after attempting so many times to take my life. They still couldn’t offer me help and put me on a 8-12 month waiting list. A joke right ? Although I was being released and medically cleared for those of you that may be thinking of an overdose let me bring some light onto the impact it has on your health.

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And now for the important part of the story, September 2019. I took over 80 tablets. My mum had locked them up in a medical box. I got upset, I smashed the box apart and took handfuls of pills, with alcohol. At the time I was ready to go, I was finally ready for it to work but yet my subconscious clearly wasn’t. Because I told someone. I told a friend about what I just did. God knows why, she lived about 25 mins away, what could she do. But one of my closest Friends called an ambulance for me, and I’m glad she did. I was taken to hospital and kept over night. The amount of pills was dangerous for my and my blood pressure and heart rate was far too high. I was slipping in and out of consciousness and had a seizure. It was one of the worst experiences of my life. And it did make me realise it wasn’t what I wanted. Imagine if I hadn’t reached out, it would’ve been too late. I spoke once again to the crisis team and they reviewed my medication. The hospital also saw I was vitamin b12 deficient which could’ve had a massive impact on how shit I felt as it’s linked to depression. They prescribed me the correct medication and injections I needed to keep me on track. They also referred me to the home care team to come round each day and check up on how I am until they could get me the help I needed. I was out of work for the next two months, receiving universal credit benefits. Still wasn’t enough to pay my bills, I was down and everything felt too shitty for me. I didn’t go out socially, I spent everyday sleeping in, doing absolutely nothing. I had hit rock bottom.

“How do you think everyone would feel if you died Abigail, your family, your friends, your boyfriend, your dog?” -Crisis Team

“They’d get over it. Family will mourn and miss me but the pain will go away. My friends wouldn’t care so much. Boyfriend would move on and find someone better. And my dogs just a dog, what would he know” – Me, September 2019

Fast forward a little bit, a few home visits and injections later. New meds. I am now back working, only part time but it’s a start for someone that didn’t go to work for months.
I’ve decided to go back into education next year and train to become a nurse. I feel that I would be good at it and I will enjoy it. I have lost a few friends, but my truest and closest friends have stood by me supported me through it all. And through it all my family have stuck by me. Most importantly the person I can’t thank enough is my boyfriend, Jake. He is my absolute rock and has been there for me from day one of this battle and will continue to be there for me. All of this hopefully inspires, some or even just one of you reading this that your life can hit rock bottom and it can still get better, you can still achieve what you want to achieve. Some days I feel are worse than others, some days I don’t even realise I have depression. And that’s normal, it’s normal to struggle and it’s okay to not be okay.

I hope reading this, you realise that sometimes the people you least expect go through the shittiest of times, I hope that you reach out to that friend that never comes out anymore, I hope you realise that things will always slowly get better. My life isn’t immediately fixed but it’s only onwards and upwards from now on. I’ve self referred myself to healthy minds and hopefully they can give me the help and support I need going forward.

“My story isn’t over yet”

I like to think of myself as caring and empathetic person, if you can’t reach out to anyone closest to you then please reach out to me.
Or if you can’t do that get in touch with the SAMARITANS. I’ve text and called them in the past and it’s helped a lot.
https://www.samaritans.org/

Thank you for reading my story.
Below is some recent pictures to show you how much I have changed from that after hospital photo.

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