Depression and Anxiety were first mentioned to me when I was only 14. There was a history of it in my family, so it didn’t come as a huge surprise. There was a lot going on at home and I was starting my GCSE’s – a beautiful recipe for the start of the mind getting overwhelmed. But, unsurprisingly, both me and my mum were not comfortable with the thought of me taking anti-depressants at such a young age. I tried councelling just the once, absolutely hated it. After that I decided it was best to battle through, and didn’t mention it very much after that. There were various things happening outside of school that nobody other than my family really understood. School became a very lonely, scary place – I can totally understand why. But this was only the beginning…
Having danced since the age of 4, it was hardly surprising that it was all I knew. I felt like dance was my happy and safe place. It was my time to express the hidden feelings of hurt and worry, and performing was even better as I could, temporarily, let go of all of the problems I was facing and focus on making other people happy. So when I woke up at the age of 20, 3 days before auditioning for vocational college, unable to feel my right leg properly or weight-bare, I think it’s safe to say my whole world was turned upside down. I had suffered an acetabular labral tear to my right hip – in other words, I had damaged the cartilage which cannot repair itself due to lack of blood flow.
What followed was 4 years of agonising pain, uncertainty as to whether I would be able to get out of bed on a daily basis, and the hope that one day I would dance again. This is when my mental health really plummeted. Over night, randomly, I had lost the ability to do the one thing that I considered to be my therapy. I couldn’t understand why this had happened to me, and believed that I must be a really awful person, that I was somehow being punished without a chance of forgiveness. This is a feeling that sticks with me on some days even now. When I am feeling low the first thing I blame is myself.
In December 2017, I finally had the life-changing surgery I desperately needed on my hip. They stapled the damaged cartilage back to my pelvis bone and shaved down the head of my femur bone so that the joint was easier to move and manipulate. The obvious stuff, the physical stuff such as the physio, moving, starting to walk were a huge part of the recovery process. But my mental health was still waiting like a ticking time bomb waiting to go off.
After the trauma of surgery, I had managed to work myself back onto the stage, to my happy place, (as a lead role too!) and I truly believed this was the beginning of the rest of my life. But there was always something missing. From here, although still exhausted at all times, everything went to strength to strength, and I found myself in a place that seemed to be exactly what was wanted or needed. Without going into any personal details here, it progressed into a situation that nobody wants to be in.
I first started on anti-depressants in January 2019, 50mg of Sertraline every day. The initial few weeks were horrendous. Truly horrendous. I felt sick every single day, the headaches were unbearable, I didn’t want to and couldn’t leave my bed. But after that everything seemed to settle down. I still wasn’t feeling 100%, but it was manageable, and that’s all that mattered.
2019 was a complete mish-mash of a year. I performed in two musicals, took our youth dance company to the Edinburgh Fringe, started a new job that I absolutely loved and started to feel as if that side of my life falling into place. In other areas though, things were unravelling at a pace that I wasn’t even aware of. I became aware that I was in a situation that was out of my control and was leaving me feeling worthless, invisible and pointless. Sometimes you have to walk away and take a look back at the bigger picture to realise these things, it takes a whole lot of strength to do that, and believe me it wasn’t easy. This is where my ‘facade’ kicked in. It was the only way I knew how to cope with it all.
As 2019 drew to a close, I had this overwhelming feeling, week by week, that things couldn’t get any worse. And every week I was proved wrong. From various family members being in and out of hospital, to trying to organise where I was going to live, there really were times I couldn’t see a way out. Throughout all of this, my family were absolute diamonds, we all rallied together and held each other up. I also had a special someone (maybe we’ll talk about them more soon) who stuck by me through all of this which really brought home the idea that difficult times bring out the people that you can love and rely on most.
And here we are. After (very tearful) conversations with my doctor, we decided it was time for me to focus on getting myself mentally stronger and take some time off work. I love my job(s), I love helping others. But in order to do this effectively, I need to look after myself too. I hate letting others down, but I am starting to realise this was absolutely the right thing to do.
Here’s to growth, learning and healing in 2020. I don’t feel ready for a fight, but I am prepared to work through this and get out the other side.
