Discovering Depression

Before you read this, this post was originally written a few months back, when I was in quite a dark place and I was struggling to see how to get out of it. This piece was originally written for Mind, the mental health charity, but the headlines in my local newspaper in Jersey have triggered me to post this. We need to talk about mental health, why is their a stigma for your brain, the most complex organ on the planet, going wrong. Why?

I hope this manages to help some people and to maybe blow this issue open a bit.

SLQ

Hi all,

I will fully admit now before I write this that I am not quite sure where this piece of writing will go. I have just completed my first session of karate for 2 months and my mind is unravelling and doing silly things so I am going to share this with you.

Never in my wildest dreams would I have ever thought as a kid that I would have depression and battle it for a number of years, it is pretty rubbish I can tell you that. Looking back I have probably had it for the last 10 years or so, but I had no idea what mental health was or how it could affect my life back then. I just thought the constant battles with my mind were normal and I was just weak and pretty much not good enough, so I battled on and on and on until I snapped. It literally took two mini breakdowns for me to realise that I needed to talk to someone. In the end when I look back it all stems from me being a victim of some heavy bullying at school as well as my parents divorce and the break up of what was a sturdy family unit.  Being told you were crap and rubbish (that is putting it mildly) and then beaten up for 5 years at school was not good. The problem was I had no idea I was cracking up, not a clue.

I am currently sitting here in my room with my karate gear still on, trying to think of a way to describe depression or tell you what it is. The thing is, I can’t, it is all in the mind and it is different for everyone. All I can really talk about is my experiences and myself.

You know I am struggling to hold everything in at the moment as I am a little fed up of the battle and the strength needed to battle this illness, it is so, so tiring to battle your negative thoughts every single day. With me, it just takes my identity away once it is triggered, Stephen the person is gone and what’s left is this anxious, mumbling, nervous, paranoid wreck who think he is not good enough for anyone or anything and who has no motivation for anything. I hate it, I really do, it has wrecked large parts of my life and a lot of the time it has only been my sheer stubbornness that has got me through.

I am pretty much in pieces at the moment, as I just know how much it wrecks me and takes away who I am. That is what it does! It takes away my identity! Imagine knowing who you are but not being that person because your mind will not let you, that is what it is for me…it affects me in so many ways, and even now, 2 years after I finally realised that I needed help, I am still discovering new ways about what depression is for me. I am still discovering about how it is triggered, how my view of the world is not quite correct and how my passion and desire for the natural world just disappears into a black hole with the words “you are not good enough to do this”.  That really upsets me, as the environment is my greatest passion and I am determined to change the world, the problem is that my mind at the moment is not playing ball.

The last couple of years have been one hell of a battle and I have needed my friends and family to help me, especially my youngest sister, even though I would never admit it.

I have had the CBT, the one on one counselling sessions and the drugs, it has been one hell of a long haul, but I refuse to give up because I know one day that I might actually be happy with me.  The hardest step is to admit things are wrong, after I admitted this I felt as if a huge weight came off my shoulders.

If you are reading this then I hope this has helped in some way, it has been quite a strong bit of writing, which is how I can be sometimes.

I am very open about my depression, which helps me as it makes me feel more normal, so if you are reading this and would like some advice or anything, then I am sure my contact details are on this page, I am always happy to help.

The main thing is depression is far from being rare, many, many people suffer in silence. You are definitely not alone.

Take care and I do hope to write here again sometime soon.

Stephen

Don't Call Me Crazy

Hi all,

If you are reading this I hope you are well and enjoying the outdoors.

Originally I planned this blog to be about my experiences as a naturalist and conservationist as I know it is a bit of a secret world, but once again I find myself writing about mental health, with a particular focus on myself. To be honest, I am not a great fan of writing of talking about myself because I dislike being the centre of attention. However I feel it is more important for people to get an insight as to what depression and mental health issues are and to also tell everyone that if you are suffering then you are not alone by a long, long shot.

What has really sparked off this piece of writing is a programme on BBC Three called 'Don't Call Me Crazy' and it is a documentary covering the stories of an NHS mental health institute for teenagers aged 13 to 17. I highly recommend it as it is quite an eye opener and you are able to watch it on the BBC iplayer.
I related to the patients and staff and they are quite brave to actually go on television and talk about their minds and how they suffer from OCD, Depression, panic attacks or have voices telling them what to do. In the end many of these problems have been created by family issues and a lack of stability whilst growing up. Anyway, it is a must watch from my point of view.

The link to the episodes is: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01b86w5/episodes/guide

Over the last couple of months I have been steadily improving as I am now off my medication, which was bloody tough to do. As soon as I came off it my insecurities came back and the withdrawal symptoms messed me up a bit. I was dizzy, had bursts of light in my eyes (hard to explain) and suffering from nausea for a couple of weeks before it faded away. I did a bit of research and realised this was normal for the drug I was taking, even in low doses.

Ok, that is enough about me, all I really wanted to say is that the programme made me realise that I do not think you can really understand depression/anxiety unless you actually go through it. That may sound harsh but the problem with mental health is that you cannot really see it physically and everyone thinks it is made up or not very serious. HELLO! NOT THAT SERIOUS?! This is your brain effectively being ill, it is on full shutdown mode and is struggling to cope with the real world and when you stop and think about it, that is huge, really huge. Your brain is you, it is everything you are.
The best way I can explain is that it is like someone has sucked out your brain and who you are and left you with an empty space. You then need to try bit by bit to find your mind again, which is done piece by piece. To think this all goes on in such a tiny space, but then again the mind is the earth's most complicated product of evolution.

Some people can be quite shocked as to how open I am about all of this, but to be honest I am not ashamed, this is just who I am. It does help me to explain things in words as it makes it more real and straightforward, but I mainly write this to help other people as I am coming out of the other side. I am here to help people who are struggling and feel messed up because of the crazy, unhealthy lives that we lead.

If you find me on Twitter and Facebook then I am always here for advice and information and a little help. I am not a medical professional by a long way but I felt the loneliness, the sadness, the feelings of suicide, the OCD and the belief that I am not good enough for this world (holy shit that is big!).

Hopefully this may be my last mental health post for a while, we will see. I do actually love to chat, talk and get wrapped up in the natural world. That is the real me, but I need to find a healthy, stable place first.

Just remember that you are not alone...

Take care,

SLQ

(Twitter: @slequesne)

P.S. A great book to read is 'Sane New World' by Ruby Wax.

The Heart Never Lies...

Hi all,

Just to let you know that this will again be quite a personal blog, but there are things that I really need to say and just explain.
The past few months have been pretty horrendous (especially January as some good friends have passed away) but as I write this at the start of February 2013 I seem to be finally winning the battle to get myself on that start line once again.

For people who have not read this before for the past 18 months I have been battling depression that I now know I have had for a substantial amount of years (at least 5 I think). It is something I never really realised that I had until I had a small breakdown during the first few months of a relationship.
Anyway, the past few months have been crap, I am not going to lie, I have really struggled to pick myself up this time and of all of the times that I have had to pick myself up and dust myself this has been the hardest by a country mile. One reason for this is that I a not a fan of Christmas and New Year as I get incredibly lonely and have many thoughts of being unwanted and useless over the holiday period. The second reason was the ending of a relationship which ended pretty badly and was so so tough, especially as I was the one ended it. I never thought I would have to end a relationship with someone who I loved that much, who I cared for that much, but now that I step back and analyse I know that I did it for the both of us.

I do actually hope she is reading this as I still think about her every day and for all of the times she was there for me, loved me and helped me through my illness, a part of me will always love her and I will never ever think badly of her. She is truly someone very special and all I want is for her to be happy and I hope she knows this. In the end we both needed to find ourselves again and stand on our own two feet.

As the dust settles and I walk away from one chapter, another one starts. One thing that has really turned things around for me is that I have been seeing a life coach. I must admit that at first I was a bit hesitant but the person who coaches me is a good, good friend and I can honestly say that she has helped me a lot. I feel like she has grabbed me, shaken me around, picked me up and put me back on track and bit by bit started putting me back together. I have always known that I have had the potential to do anything as I believe in my career with everything I have, but has just all become lost over the past couple of years as I have had to come to terms with realising how far my depression goes and how much it has been a part of me for so long.

Lately though things have been looking up and I feel a bit more...well...me...
Ever since I admitted to myself that what has happened in my life has led me to having problems with my mental health I knew that the most important thing was to battle it, fight it and deal with it, otherwise I would have it for the rest of my life. It has been the hardest thing to do and I do not think that people realise how hard it really is for anyone who goes through this. I have had to challenge who I am as a person and basically re-boot my mind and how it perceives everything and I mean everything. Bloody hell it is a hard thing to do and I am not surprised that mental health problems are on the increase as the way we live our lives is just not right. Too much stress, too much pressure, too fast and all the small things that are important just get lost.

I have many things to focus on but my main goal is to become a wildlife television presenter (there I said it!, happy Linzi :P). There has been a lot of focus lately on who will succeed Sir David Attenborough. To be honest there will never been anyone like him but there is someone writing this who wants to be that role model, that point of contact so if there are any industry people reading this I am throwing my hat in the presenter ring so to speak. I am here to tell stories and communicate.

I will leave you by saying that if you are reading this just trust who you are, believe in who you are and remember that your gut instinct and heart never lie, that is the lesson that I have learnt over the past few months and is one I will never forget.

SLQ

The legacy of depression

Hi all,

I am still amazed at how life can be so unpredictable and such a huge roller coaster. You have not heard from me in a while as I have had no idea how to start to even write what has been happening. My eyes are quickly filling with tears just as I write these first few sentences.

Firstly I was going to write about Wildscreen and how I managed to overcome so much of my anxiety problems and really gave that week all that I could. Secondly, this second blog post was going to be called 'How counselling saved me', if only this was the case.

Things have kinda fallen to pieces, especially in the past couple of weeks and I do not want to say too much but once again I am just me. There has been a realisation within me that I do not have the strength or commitment to give 100%, I just cannot do it at the moment, no matter how hard I try. I have tried so so hard but there is just a part of me that refuses to let go of the past, to let go of my anxieties, my issues, my problems. This illness is more than just a phase. I now realise that it is a part of who I am, which really hurts, right down to the core. It brings me to tears, but I must be strong and pick myself up.

I know that I have fought really hard with this and that I have made so much progress, but it is still a learning curve and I still do not know how deep this goes. I have caused so much pain, I feel awful. But, what could I do? continue to fool myself and drift along with all this anxiety and uncertainty? To say to someone that I am fine when in fact I am not 100% reliable? I just could not do that, that is not me and I have always said to myself that I will try and do the right thing in my life. This journey needs to be just me and perhaps I am the only one who understands this.

The realisation that I am not me begs the question of when did this start to happen? It is all so messed up.  I am sorry that this post is more of a ramble rather than anything else as I just do not know what to say or write or do.

It is such a travesty that mental illness has hidden in the shadows for so long because I really do now understand why people take their own lives and how it can make someones life a living hell. The way your mind can change completely so much that you question who you are and what your life is, is one of the worst things anyone can experience.
What I do know is that hiding within me, laying dormant is the love, passion and empathy for the natural world that is a part of me and if I were to fail with this battle with my mind then I would be failing all the animals and plants that I hold so close to me.

I promise that the next post will be a little bit more cheerful but I hope this blog is helping others who are in the same position. To admit that you suffer from anxiety/depression is so so hard but is the first step to recovery, the problem is that due to our hectic lives and the pressures on all of us it is becoming far too common

Until next time...

SLQ

Trying to unravel depression

Hi all,

This is a blog post that i have been trying to write for a while now but i can never quite come up with the words or the courage to type something out. I really want to describe what i go through when i experience depression/anxiety but the process is harder than i thought it would be.
Today though seems very fitting as i had a counselling session that starts another step in my therapy and i know talking about this will help me and hopefully help others as well.

I do not really how to start, so this might be a bit all over the place!
Ok, so first of all i must say that depression is different for everyone and comes in many different shapes and forms. Scientifically it is all to do with a change in chemicals in the brain and a dominance of negative thoughts, it really is an illness. It changes how you think and perceive everything, from how the world works to what people think of you and makes the very easiest of tasks so much more difficult. As i am going through this journey i can completely understand why people decide to take their own lives,.This might be a huge shock to some people but i have thought about it in the past, not so much now but in my younger years i did wonder about it, although i never went through with it.

When it comes to me i have alot of emotions and feelings from my past that i have never dealt with or confronted, most of which i have explained in a previous post (they include family loss, school bullying, heartbreak) and over the years all of these negative thoughts have twisted how i think and perceive the world. By nature, i am not a depressive person but what seems to happen is that gradually negative thoughts will creep in bit by bit and i do not really deal with them but carry them with me, there then comes a tipping point when something in my brain switches and i break and just cannot deal with it anymore. This happened the other weekend at a friends house, granted i had a bit of alcohol but this just made me more honest and by the end of the night i was crying uncontrollably on the steps, something which i have felt like doing for years but never had the courage to do so. I have lost count the number of times i have wanted to cry and let out my emotions but just kept it inside of me instead. (Feelings though never go away and i think this is the case for everyone).
I just could not handle the thoughts and feelings anymore, all the hate, anger, fear, sorrow, sadness, anxiety and pain all became too much, even writing about it now puts a tear in my eye. This so so bloody hard.

To be honest, i should of just let it all out sooner, many years ago, but i have never taken mental health seriously until now and i just thought that i was weak and that my feelings were normal. I now know this is the exact opposite.
If i were to give any advice it would be to talk, talk, talk, talk and talk some more, to your friends, family, family GP, or just to your pet dog (i used to did this alot and it really helped to organise my thoughts).
The next step for me is a programme of one on one counselling to try and really unwind the feelings that i have and to accept them, which started today. I always thought that the greatest battle i would ever face would be to protect the natural world but i must admit this might just supercede it.

Until next time...

Stephen
 

2012: The story will continue (and end apparently!)

Happy new year everyone,

I must start this post with a deep heart felt thank you to everyone who tweeted, emailed and facebooked me in response to my last blog post regarding my current battle with my inner demons. I will put my hand on my heart and say i was not expecting such a huge response from such a fantastic, kind array of people, so thank you.

The December blog post was not just written for me, but i also wanted to help out anyone that is currently going through the same thing. Hopefully i have helped as i tried to be as honest as i could. If any of my friends are struggling then i do hope they know where i am because i am always here to help.
Following on from this as well i have decided that whenever i have a 'down' phase or an 'up' phase then i will try my best to post it on here and describe the feelings and phases, which i will hope will lead to more of an increased level of understanding. This is all still a huge learning curve for me as well as i have only just accepted the battle inside of me that has been happening all these years.

But as the title of the blog suggests i am also here to write about my job, my life and my passion that is all things wildlife and as it is the start of 2012, which according to the Mayans will be our last year (i think the worlds last day is my birthday!) i am going to write down a few thoughts, ramblings and ideas about the year ahead.

Last year i had the goals of kicking on in my job as a wildlife education officer, becoming a forest school leader, passing my karate black belt grading, trekking iceland for charity and becoming a more experienced bird ringer amongst other things. Looking back i am happy to say all were achieved with various levels of success.
This year it is all about wildlife film making and photography, it is what i really want to do and push on towards, something i know inside that i would be great at. I am very determined to give it my best shot and i know i have the key ingredients as i love wildlife, i love music and i have the inner workings to connect the two together. I want to communicate and tell stories and i know the stories that i want to tell.
That means for 2012 this blog will hopefully contain a MASSIVE section on the Wildlife Film Academy based in South Africa, my own wildlife photography assignments, quirky stories about my job educating the general public on all things wildlife and updates on an old family farm in Jersey that i am making wildlife friendly, you could say my own wildlife reserve. although that does sounds like i have money, which is very far from the truth.

Whatever happens this year, it is going to be another busy one, i am just crossing my fingers and toes to make sure the world does not end on my birthday! (21st December 2012).

I do hope that you, the reader, will keep on reading and visiting this blog in the months ahead.

SLQ

My unknown battle with Depression

This is going to be quite a difficult post to write as you may have guessed from the title, but it is a story that i feel i need to tell for myself and for others who have felt the same or do feel the same right now.
What i am going to try and do is explain my battle with anxiety and depression by going through what has happened to me over the years, how i have felt, how i have dealt with things and how i have only just realised what i have been through.

There have been a few sparks in my life that have slowly made me turn the corner as of late, one of these being my lovely caring girlfriend, someone i did not expect i would ever meet. The other was passing my black belt karate grading yesterday, something i have been working towards for the past 15 years and fills me with alot of pride and confidence as well as a huge sense of achievement. And this is where the story starts...

I started karate when i was 12 years old as i was having a terrible time at school with bullies. I was bullied on a daily basis for reasons that i still to this day are unsure of, and even when typing about it now i can feel all of the emotions returning. The bullying would come in a variety of forms from verbal abuse, to being spat on, to being beaten up, the problem was that it was always a gang of people, it was never one and one, which meant that i never had the chance to defend myself making me feel really helpless.
I am only realising now how the many evenings of me crying as i walked home from another awful day has influenced how i have perceive people as an adult. I would never wish what i went through upon anyone, although in a way i am proud to be the man it has made me.
As i started my A Levels this upheavel was replaced by another which was my parents divorce and to cut a long story short it was horrible, basically 5 years of court cases, crying, emotions and me doing my best to keep the family afloat (thank god for the football team at uni, those guys saved me). During this i had also had to deal with the loss of my grandparents who helped me through the divorce as well as a massive family fall out due to some inheritance, which will never be the same again (my friends are my family now). All in all it has been one hell of a rollercoaster but a rollercoaster that i felt was normal meaning i kept everything inside.

I am not writing all of this to get sympathy (i do not like sympathy as there are alot more people worse off than me), what i am trying to say is that in the past i never really understood how all of these pressures and upheavels affected who i was as a person and how the negative thoughts i felt and created would eventually set in to make me anxious and depressed and eventually persuade me to seek help.
One of the main problems i had was that i did not know i was depressed, i just thought i was a normal person with normal problems and that i was just weak for not coping like everyone else, which i realise now was actually the depression kicking in. I was certain that i was burdening people with my problems if i spoke about them which meant on a daily basis for a good two years (especially when i was in Africa) i was battling myself inside, battling my thoughts, anxieties and confidence issues and crumbling emotionally bit by bit whilst doing it.
You see on the outside i masked everything, i was in a profession i loved and worked hard to travel and study, yet on the inside i was falling to pieces and fast. The main issue was the paranoia and how i was so concerned about what people thought of me and whether they liked me or not. I just wanted to feel accepted. 
What i must also say is that there was as added ingredient into this which was my passion for wildlife. You may think that having a passion and doing what you love should help, but not when all you look at are the negatives and with the planet there are alot of negatives right now and because i care so so much about wildlife it dragged me down even more with feelings of helplessness and sorrow.

I say this was my unknown battle as i just did not realise i was not supposed to be feeling like this, i just thought it was my fault and everyone was perfect apart from me. The hardest part has been to stop, look at myself and realise that yes i am not happy i need to seek help, even now after 7 sessions of therapy i am only just accepting this. It really has been hard to say that i suffer from depression, but it really is nothing to be ashamed of.
I am pretty sure it has been this tough to admit i am not happy is because as a society we still do not consider mental health issues as important and are simply portrayed as a temporary state. Believe me, they are an illness and stay with you until you deal with them like any other health concern.

I will end this post by saying there is light at the end of the tunnel for me and there always is for anyone who is going through the same thing. I have accepted my issues and with professional help i have to come understand how my problems have formed and how to deal with them. In the past i have been terribly naive with the connection between how i think and how i feel and now that i know more i feel like i am finally after all of these years coming to a point where i am happy. Even just writing this post has made me realise how bad i have felt in the past and how strong i have truel been not to have given up and to keep going. At times i have felt like giving up...

With the hectic, stressful lives that we all live in our modern society it is no surprise that more and more people are suffering from anxiety and depression no matter their profession or background and if you are one of these people then please, please, please remember that you are not strange or different, that you are not and never will be alone and that these problems can be overcome by seeking help. Seeking help is not a sign of weakness but a sign of strength. Only with true inner strength can you confront your problems.

Until next time...