Tag: depression

Sabre toothed tigers and hypocrisy

The Mental Health Awareness Week blog

Feature image “Sabre Tooth Tigers eating Daffodils” by andrew_j_w  CC BY-SA 2.0

Whenever I write about my experiences with mental health people tell me how brave I am for doing it.

I’ll let you all in on a secret though, whenever I talk about a rough patch it is always after I have gotten through it and am out the other side. When I am in the middle of scrapping with my brain I won’t admit I am struggling to a soul.

I tell the world that there is no shame in having mental health issues, but when I’m having my own I clam right up and pretend everything is fine. In short, I’m a giant hypocrite.

I told this to my therapist once and she heartily agreed, in a kind way. She’s one of those people who tell you what you need to know, not what you want to hear. She once gleefully quoted passages of my own book back at me – yet somehow I don’t know what I’d do without her.

The unfriendly ghost

When I’m not well I go into misguided superhero mode. I don’t tell my friends things are hard because they have their own issues to deal with. I don’t answer their messages because I don’t know what to say. Instead of keeping them safe from worry about me though, what I’m really doing is ghosting them, which is actually a pretty shitty way to treat a friend. A message saying “hey, I’m struggling a bit and not feeling particularly social but I’m fine. It’s nothing to do with you” isn’t actually that hard and it helps so much.

So instead of not writing about Mental Health Awareness Week this year because I’m not feeling super mentally healthy, this is my public version of that email.

This is the year I am going to quit being a giant hypocrite. Hi, I’m Anna Kirtlan and this Mental Health Awareness Week I am struggling with my mental health.

We all have mental health

One of the things I really like about this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week material is that it opens with the phrase ‘we all have mental health’. It says that mental health is something everyone has, a taonga that we should look after.

It’s so refreshing in a world where people still talk about “mental health” and “mental health issues” in unspoken air quotes and low whispers. Instead it says mental health is a thing we all have. Sometimes it’s good and sometimes it’s not so good.

People don’t talk about “physical health issues” like they are something unpleasant you wouldn’t want granny overhearing, so why should we do the same with our hearts and minds? It’s health, pure and simple, and we need to look after our health – all of it.

My mental health comes around to bite me on the butt when I’m not looking after it sometimes. I also hold down a full time job, have a great friends and family and am growing my writing career. It’s not always easy for me or the people around me, and I don’t always get it right, but I’m doing it. It’s a learning curve the whole time and right now what I am learning is not to be ashamed when things are tough, especially when I make a point of telling others not to be!

Dealing with sabre toothed tigers

This time round for me, and for a lot of New Zealand to be fair, the particular head weasel (a term I picked up from some awesome writer friends) is anxiety.

It isn’t always easy to spot when someone is anxious or having an anxiety attack. It’s not necessarily hyperventilating and shaking and clammy hands and darting eyes – though sometimes it definitely is. Instead it can be more subtle.

I’m sure by now many of you will have heard of the fight or flight response. Where our brains throw back to the days when it actually wasn’t that unusual to find ourselves being chased by sabre toothed tigers.

The choices you had were pretty much turn around and beat the tiger up or get the hell out of Dodge. Unfortunately, for quite a few of us, our brains didn’t get the memo that there aren’t so many sharp-toothed beasties roaming the streets and eyeing us up for lunch anymore. And sometimes the DANGER DANGER synapses fire up for what appears to be no good reason.

When this happens to me I tend to default to ‘fight’. My heart rate goes through the ceiling, I start talking loudly and aggressively at a million miles a minute and my nerves are fire. If someone sits too close to me when I’m in that state it takes every ounce of my self-control not to physically shove them away from me. So far I haven’t swatted anyone, but it’s not easy to be around that, I know.

The third F

What I wasn’t aware of until this year was that there is a third F in our throwback brain wiring – fight, flight or freeze. Going back to our sabre toothed friend, the freeze reaction would be when we don’t move a muscle and hope Bitey McBiteface doesn’t notice us.

Without the actual tiger this feels more like numbness. When you are finally so overwhelmed you feel nothing at all. It was peak Rona stress, when it seemed like bad things were happening to good people everywhere, all the time, that I learned I was experiencing this one. I rushed off to my therapist convinced I was either sliding into depression or becoming a monster. Whenever something horrible or stressful happened, when people around me were clearly struggling, I felt nothing. Where there should have been sympathy or empathy and concern and the desire to help fix the problem, there was numbness, paralysis – zilch. Surprise! That turned out to be anxiety too.

Instead of the usual million miles a minute, punch the tiger in the nose trick my brain usually did, my prefrontal cortex just noped right out of the whole equation. I wasn’t depressed, I wasn’t a monster, I did care. I was just overwhelmed. I was standing behind a tree, frozen in fear and hoping the monster didn’t notice me. Learning that was a massive relief.

Do what works for you

I am most certainly not a mental health expert so please take everything I say with a grain of salt and don’t use it in the place of professional advice. Different things work for different people, so all I can share is what works and what doesn’t for me.

Medication and therapy work for me. Inspirational quotes and positive affirmations don’t. It may be the exact opposite for others. Exercise works for a lot of people. It does for me, but I have to get my brain space fixed first before I have the energy to do it.

So these top tips are based entirely on me. You do what works for you.

  • Don’t be ashamed if you need to take medication and don’t suddenly stop taking it because you are feeling better. I have done both of these things. Neither ended well. You wouldn’t be ashamed about taking medication because your blood pressure was up or down and you certainly wouldn’t stop taking it (I hope) without talking to your doctor because your blood pressure was back to normal. This doesn’t work any differently when you are dealing with serotonin.
  • Therapy isn’t for everyone, but if you think it might work for you, don’t give up if you get a bung one first time round. Trust me, I’ve had some howlers over the years. I had one tell me all I needed to do was look in the mirror daily and tell myself I was “a beautiful person” and another say I wasn’t going to get better if I didn’t stop using humour as a defense mechanism. Yet another told me Covering Things Up with Humour is Bad counsellor was full of it and that my humour defense had kept me going so far. It was a perfectly legitimate coping strategy – but perhaps I should work on some others. I now have an amazing therapist who challenges me and supports me and doesn’t take any crap from me. She keeps me on the level and I never would have come across her if I had given up after the first time someone waved a crystal at me. I do realise I am saying this from an enormous position of privilege in that I can afford to pay to see someone however. I know access isn’t easy for everyone and going into why this is so unbelievably wrong would take a whole new blog. For the avoidance of doubt though, I believe everyone in New Zealand should have affordable, accessible mental health support and we need to do more in this country to make this a reality, especially now.
  • Remember you are not alone in going through this. For some of us 2020 has been an ‘oh no, here we go again’. For others it has been the first time their mental health has kicked their butt and it is new and scary. Either way you’re not doing this alone. There are weeks like this to remind us that we all have mental health and there is help and resources available all year round (see below).

You can find Mental Health Awareness Week resources at www.mhaw.nz/

Need to talk?

  • Free call or text 1737 any time for support from a trained counsellor.
  • Lifeline 0800 543 354 (0800 LIFELINE).
  • Youthline 0800 376 633, free text 234 or email talk@youthline.co.nz or online chat.
  • Samaritans 0800 726 666.
  • Suicide Crisis Helpline – 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO)
  • Depression and Anxiety Helpline – 0800 111 757 or free text 4202

    

   

Changing the way we talk about OCD

Feature image by Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash

I’ve been thinking about writing this blog for a while but always end up agonising over whether it’s the right time. There are so many voices that need to be given the space to be heard right now – more and more every day it seems. So it feels selfish to try to add my own to that number.

But that is one of the insidious things about mental illness. It tells you that you aren’t worth it, that so many people have it so much worse that you, that you need to get over yourself. It’s one of the reasons so many people don’t seek help. They feel that help is for others, not them.

Which is why, when I was inspired by an awesome Re: news article shared by the Mental Health Foundation this morning, with amazingly brave people sharing their OCD stories, I decided to write the damned blog.

Re: People with obsessive compulsive disorder say lockdown allowed their condition to thrive (renews.co.nz) – image courtesy of the Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand.

My story in brief

I’ve shared this before, but for the benefit of new readers, I’ve lived with obsessive compulsive disorder pretty much all my life. I was diagnosed as a teenager in the 1990s when mental illness was something people Did Not Talk About and there was a very real fear, realistic or not, that if people found out something was wrong in your head you could end up in a nuthatch.

OCD often comes as part of a triad with anxiety and depression, which is not surprising really – taking on your own brain can be scary and exhausting.

Through a combination of therapy I was lucky enough to be able to access when I was younger, medication and a great brain-flosser I talk to on the regular, I only have mild symptoms now, but the anxiety is still there and rears its ugly head from time to time. Lockdown certainly gave it a chance to get nice and comfy for a while.

Words matter

While we were busy trying to fight the rona as a country our heath minister, while encouraging us all to wash our hands, casually said “now is the time for OCD.” It felt like a slap in the face.

There is never ‘a time for OCD’. It’s a horrific disorder that left unchecked can utterly destroy your life. Our health minister should have known better than that. OCD isn’t always germophobia or hand washing either. Nor is it always about being incredibly tidy or organised (anyone who has seen the state of my desk at work can attest to that.)

When you are older than Google

These are the manifestations of it that most people know about, and that is understandable. They are the easiest to explain, or portray on TV or in film. There are many other types of OCD that are just as debilitating that don’t get the air time.

I’ve always been torn about this, because it was amazing for me when people actually started saying those three letters out loud. Letters I had previously only heard from doctors or therapists or read in the textbooks I got out from the library (yes younger readers, I am one of those people who are older than Google!) The experiences being portrayed or talked about weren’t necessarily the ones I was having, but the fact they were being portrayed and talked about at all was amazing for me.

The problem is that when people only hear about those ones is that the others people live with go unrecognised, and potentially untreated.

@obsessivelyeverafter

A really great account to follow on Instagram for insight into the different types of OCD is @obsessivelyeverafter. Run by psychotherapist and OCD specialist Alegra Kastens, it has made my day on a number of occasions and above is one of my fave posts (which links through to some great information.)

Don’t go down there!

When something starts to become normalised – which is a great thing – it can become casualised in the lexicon. Then you start getting things like people saying “I’m so OCD” when they are talking about needing to have their cupboards organised ‘just so’. In reality that particular OCD can have you not able to leave the house for a week because something is a millimetre out of place and it you don’t get it just right someone you love will die horribly and it will be your fault.

The shitty thing is that you know these thoughts are utterly irrational, but it doesn’t stop you having them and it doesn’t stop you doing the thing to make them go away. It’s like watching yourself from the outside and being unable to do anything about it. Like screaming “Don’t go down there!” at the soon-to-be victim in a horror film as you helplessly watch them descend into the haunted basement. Casualising that experience hurts.

Ignorance rather than malice

As Paddy often says to me however, these things are usually said out of ignorance rather than malice. It’s hard to see that when you are in the middle of being upset and outraged, but most of the time it’s true.

One thing that illustrated this to me and gave me so much hope was actually an interaction in the comments section on, of all things, a car video on Youtube. Paddy’s an engineer and a bogan and often our evenings are spent with him watching people faffing about with car engines on the internet while I ignore him and read, write or kill zombies on my phone.

One particular evening during lockdown, when I was a little anxious and overwrought, I overheard a chap on one of Paddy’s videos talk about being “a little bit OCD” about something to do with the car he was working on. Often I let these things go but this time I roared “YOU ARE NOT OCD!”

Paddy stopped the video and said “do you want me to say something? I’m certain he wasn’t being malicious.” I told him not to worry about it and that Car Dude was lucky I was medicated and left it at that. Paddy went quiet for a minute then sent me an email and asked “is it okay if I post that in the comments?” I read it and nearly burst into tears.

* I really love your videos and it is fantastic that you are spotlighting the wonderful things that Kiwi innovation can do for us. You are an awesome guy and I really appreciated the service that you gave me in wellington. I have one small suggestion / request. I watch your videos in the evening when there is nothing much to watch on broadcast tv. Lets face it that is a lot of the time. My partner who is the most awesome person I have ever met and who managed to manage her mental illness to sail over 5000 miles around the the south pacific with me overhears what you say. She has struggled with OCD her whole adult life and when you say you are OCD about you FD it makes her feel belittled. I realize that is not your intention but please understand that this is an awful thing and people struggle with it in a way that we really can’t understand or thankfully never will. So please…… Be obsessive, passionate, focused …. or anything but please not OCD that is an awful disease that you would not inflict on your worst enemy.

Best regards

Paddy

*Identifiers have been removed

I said yes and the very next day Car Dude had replied saying that Paddy was absolutely right, he was definitely not trying to belittle anyone and that he would think about his terminology more clearly. He apologised to me and that apology is 100% accepted.

That was one small interaction between two blokes on the internet but it gave me a lot of hope that we can change the way we talk about things. Not just mental health, but all the things we need to change the way we talk about right now. It also showed me that speaking up when you feel uncomfortable actually helps. People don’t know what they don’t know and if you don’t tell them, then they never will – and if you do tell them, then it’s on them to think about what they say.

I know it’s not easy. I catch myself getting things wrong from time to time too. But the thing is, I catch myself, and I correct myself and if I hurt someone then I apologise. That is all we ask. If two Kiwi blokes with a mutual love of cars can do it, so can you.

And that is why what the people who spoke to Re: news did today was so important and why Re: News did such a great thing by running it in such a respectful and understanding manner. You guys, and every other Car Dude out there who speaks up or who listens, are all my heroes right now.

If you are looking for support here are a bunch of resources I blagged straight from the Re: article

National helplines

Gumboots and porridge

Porridge in the air

Comedian and mental health advocate Mike King describes depression as feeling like walking through mud. That was the inspiration behind the first Gumboot Up NZ day on April 5.

The idea was for people to walk a day in the shoes of someone with depression, while raising awareness and funds for youth mental health support.

For me, instead of mud, it’s always been porridge. For some strange reason, if anyone asks me to describe what depression feels like I have always said ‘walking through porridge.’

It’s as if the air has turned into a sort of lumpy sludge and for every movement you make through it, a pile more slurps back in to take its place – and that’s just getting out of bed.

Counter-intuitively, something I often can’t do when I’m depressed is cry. God I want to, I really do. But the more I want to, the more I can’t. Sometimes I see the porridge as a mix of all the tears and snot that I want to pour out of me pushing back down on me from the outside.

Now that I think about it, it’s actually a pretty gross analogy and mud is a lot better. The mud was actually what caught my attention about this particular mental health initiative. For the first time I was hearing something that described exactly how it felt for me, and knowing that someone else feels something so scary and internal and personal as depression the same way you do is hugely relieving and empowering.

Gumboots at work

Boots and suits

One of the things that was really cool about ‘walking through mud day’ was actually just walking around town. I paid a little more attention to people’s footwear than I normally would and I spotted quite a few people in gummies.

The cool part was that those people were obviously doing the same thing, because often we would catch each other’s eye, smile and walk on. It was a quiet acknowledgement ‘I know why you’re doing this, you know why I’m doing this. You get it.’

That small public acknowledgement – from the guy in the suit, from the woman in the amazing 50s style dress, from my workmates – was worth so much. I even appreciated the ‘helpful’ offer from a colleague to pinch me on the soft but under my arm to help with the not-being-able-to-cry thing (you know who you are!)

The teenager I used to be, utterly convinced that talking about mental illness would have landed her in the nuthatch, would have been completely blown away.

Radio gaga

I also have a bit of a soft spot for Mike King, who gave me a spot on his Late Night Nutters Club radio show when I was hawking Starboard when it first came out.

It was a scary and exciting adventure where I got to stay in a hotel in Auckland and blather on the radio about mental health and sailing. Mike and his cohost Malcolm Falconer were really great and made me super comfortable even though I was completely terrified.

I blogged about it at the time and you can listen to the broadcast on there. I have no idea what I said and probably completely blathered. I haven’t listened to it since because I hate the sound of my voice, so I can’t vouch for quality!

Nutters – Mike King and I

Radio Gaga  (seamunchkin.com)

I am hope – counselling for youth

I am also quite passionate about where the money goes for this particular fundraiser. 100% of the donations go to Mike King’s I Am Hope charity, which provides access to counselling support for young people.

When I was 15 and diagnosed with OCD, anxiety and depression in Christchurch in the 90s, I was lucky enough to have access to good counseling and support. Sadly, for a lot of young people now, that is just not the case. More people are aware of mental health issues, and this is amazing, but I think what it also means is that more people are seeking help and the resources just aren’t keeping up with it. Some young people in crisis are waiting up to 6 months for their first appointment and that’s just not acceptable or safe.

The way the I Am Hope donations work is that your money is deposited into their Kiwibank account and is then given directly to a registered health professional upon receipt of an invoice. This means 100% of the money goes to help kids get the support they need, when they need it.

Even though Gumboot Friday is over, you can still donate to I Am Hope through their website and Give A Little page:

Gumboot Friday (iamhope.org.nz)

​How to Donate (iamhope.org.nz)

When you can and can’t write

From one former Christchurch kid to the current ones, all I can send is hope and love right now. If any youth are going to need access to good counselling and support it’s them.

While I was able to write about the quakes that struck my home town, I just can’t find the words for the recent tragedy that happened there. I’ve tried and I just can’t do it. I honestly don’t know if I will ever be able to.

I was proud though, through my work at PPTA, to be able to share the words of others, and that is what I’ll share here:

Artwork by River Jayden of Street Wise

Against hatred we send love (ppta.org.nz)

One thing it has done though, is throw into sharp relief the little light-hearted ‘Gators, guns and keeping calm’ piece on our trip to the US that I was working on. I will still use the material in some way but it needs a different lens and a lot of different thinking, that I’m not quite ready for yet.

There is another project in the works however, and I promise I won’t rip it out from under your feet this time because it actually is finished. I’ve had some super helpful feedback from beta readers and it is now with a manuscript assessor to help me iron out the rest of the wrinkles before I decide what to do with it. It’s something a bit different in that its my first foray into fiction – and it’s a nice escape from reality for me right now. Its a young adult novella, and never fear sailors, it has boats, scuba diving and various other marine activities in it (it also has bitey mer-people who farm dolphins for snacks). I will fill you all in when there is more to tell, but whether I self or ‘trad’ publish it as young folk say, I promise it is something you will actually be able to have.

For those who aren’t into that sort of thing, don’t worry, I am going to keep up with the non fiction about sailing and being bonkers, it’s just always fun to try new things!

The case of the disappearing teeth

When I look back on it, my mental health blogs seem to jump from ‘bugger I’m bonkers again’ to ‘yay I’m better!’ with nothing much in-between.

That’s because in-between isn’t much fun, and writing when you are in-between is not an easy thing to do. But it’s probably the most important time to write, because in-between is the time that people need to hear that what they are going through happens to us all. That the ups will eventually stick around longer and the downs won’t last forever. I think we have a tendency to block out the in-between when we start feeling better because we don’t want to focus on the crap stuff. So we don’t write about it and we don’t talk about it.

So my blog for this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week (which kicks off tommorrow) is about what in-between being sick and being well looks like for me.

Why do I feel sad? I’m better dammit!

In-between is having an awesome, productive weekend where you do all the things that seemed so insurmountable for so long. You mow the lawns and remember how much you love spending time in the garden. You tidy your room and hang up those pictures that have been gathering dust. You feel successful and, for the first time in a long time, really happy.

In-between is coming home the next day and crying your face off because you have felt sick and sad and anxious all day and you shouldn’t be feeling that way because you are better now dammit.

Poor, long-suffering Paddy says getting better isn’t a straight path, it’s a continuum. And he’s right. When you start to see little glimpses of sunshine you take it so much harder when it starts to cloud over again.  But the sun is still there and eventually it will stick around longer and longer.

Okay, who stole my teeth?

In-between for me this time was also finding out how much damage my anxiety had done to my body. It was going to the dentist to have a filling replaced and finding I had anxiety-clenched my teeth so hard, for so long, I had ground down the enamel so far you could almost see the nerves.

It was also having to be a grownup and working out a payment plan so I didn’t have to sell a kidney to get it fixed.

Funnily enough, I had actually noticed in a couple of pictures friends had posted online that I seemed to have a weird gap in my teeth when I smiled. I remember thinking ‘that’s odd. I don’t have a gap there’ – not after all the money, time and trauma my parents went through getting me braces as a teen.

Then the dentist broke the news to me.

“You have the mouth of an 80 year old,” he said.

“What?!” I spat.

“Well, maybe a 70 year old…”

“Dude, that’s not much better!”

It turned out he was talking about wear. I had done about 80 years worth of wear and tear to 37 years worth of teeth.

Yeah alright, it was me. 

After the initial shock, I wasn’t actually surprised. I most likely grind my teeth in my sleep, and I have experimented with sleeping with a mouthguard before, but the real issue was during the day. When my anxiety was up I could judge how tense and jumpy I had been by how much pain my jaw was in by the end of the day. I wouldn’t even realise I was clenching my teeth until I unclenched them. My jaw would pop and my back teeth would be stuck together like glue.

It was actually one of the first signs for me that the new medication was starting to work. I would get to the end of the day and think – ‘hey! My jaw doesn’t hurt!’

So while I wasn’t exactly surprised, I was rather shocked that something that was going on in my brain could do that much damage to my body without me realising it. (I may have had a minor meltdown over that, but seriously, who wouldn’t?)

Goodnight, sleep tight – don’t let the tooth monster bite!

The next step was, what to do? Leaving it was an option – for six months or so anyway, much longer though and it would be the difference between $3000 for building up what was there and $50,000 for getting crowns on everything.

I decided to rip the bandaid off. I knew that if I put it off I would just keep putting it off. There was a psychological component to it too. What’s more symbolic of getting better than taking a ragged, crumbling, anxiety mouth and giving it a proper smile again?

So I booked in to get some scans and moulds made. When I saw the mould of my mouth I was horrified. It looked like something parents would use to scare their children. It turns out I had ground several millimeters from both the top and bottom of my front teeth. I needed nine teeth built up with the equivalent of 11 fillings worth of schmoo.

Ahhh! Run away!!

They probably aren’t lined up exactly right as I was balancing them on a chair in the dentist’s waiting room while taking the pic, but you get the idea.

New gnashers!

It all happened quite quickly. A week after seeing the funhouse horror moulds I was in the dentist’s chair having scaffolding put on my teeth. Two hours in the dentist’s chair later (no fun drugs, just lots of injections) and I pretty much had a new set of gnashers.

It was actually a fairly painless process, the crick I got in my neck was the worst of it really. Hearing comments to the dental assistant like ‘look at all the wear there’ and ‘have you seen many procedures like this before?’ and learning that one of my front teeth was actually loose from all the pressure I’d put on it was a little more traumatic.

The dentist looked pretty proud of his work and he had every right to be. I thought I looked like a whole different person. He said I looked younger but he would – I was paying three grand and he had that ‘mouth of an 80 year old’ line to make up for!

I’m pretty happy with it though and think it’s an awesome symbol that things are getting better.

New gnashers

It does feel rather strange though, like I have someone else’s teeth. I tried to bite my nails the other day and I actually physically couldn’t. Maybe after all these years I might be able to quit that habit!

Four weeks of schmoo

The only drawback now  is that for the next few weeks I am pretty much on a diet of mush until things settle down. So for me in-between is now soup and smoothies and sneaky KFC potato and gravy – but it will be worth it to have my smile back.

I have also developed a whole new respect for people on special diets. I got my teeth done just before a big work conference that involved catered meals. Everyone was fascinated when my dinner looked different to theirs and I got the third degree. By the end of three days my answers ranged from ‘I have new teeth and can’t eat solids’ to ‘I anxiety clenched my teeth to oblivion, please leave me alone to eat my schmoo’ – I seriously couldn’t do that all the time.

I love my new chompers though, and they are helping me in more ways than one. When I have a rough day and (as Paddy so eloquently puts it) ‘the black dog takes a dump on my brain’ I can look in the mirror and see that no matter how ratty things get, they can be fixed. It won’t be an easy fix, it could be the equivalent of four weeks of eating slush, but there is a fix there. In-between sucks, but it’s exactly that, in-between. You will come out the other side, potentially with a whole new smile (even if it’s one held together by plastic and dental goop).

Mental Health Foundation fundraiser

As always, and especially this week, 50% of paperback sales of Starboard the book go to the NZ Mental Health Foundation. Depending on how financial you are feeling you can either pay $20 and donate $10 here

Or take advantage of the sale price and pay $10 and donate $5 here

Free postage in NZ. If you are overseas just drop me a line at whichwayisstarboardagain@gmail.com and I’ll investigate postage costs.

Where to get help if you need it (in NZ): 

Need to talk? Free call or text 1737 any time for support from a trained counsellor

Lifeline – 0800 543 354 (0800 LIFELINE) or free text 4357 (HELP)

Suicide Crisis Helpline – 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO)

Healthline – 0800 611 116

Samaritans – 0800 726 666

The Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand also has a great list of specialist helplines which you can find here:

Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand helplines (mentalhealth.org.nz) 

Harry Potter and the Customs Official 

Note: This is one of those blogs that travels all over the shop, from New Zealand to Samoa and back – so I have broken it up into bite-sized chunks so you can easily stop reading when you get sick of the sound of my e-voice. You’re welcome.

Also content warning: This post deals with mental health issues including anxiety and depression. It is unbelievably okay to ask for help so if you or someone you know needs assistance there are New Zealand-based contacts below. I am sure there are similar resources available for overseas readers.  

When the crazy comes back

This  sort of feels like an admission of defeat, but my gleeful post about switching meds for the first time in 20 years appears to have been a bit premature.

In short, the crazy came back.

Basically things went really well, right up until they didn’t. I was functioning fine during the working day, but by the time I got home I was completely out of gas from holding it all together. I was pretty much on an anxiety tight-rope. When it got to the point where Paddy sneezed and I screamed, we knew something was seriously wrong.

I didn’t give up easily. In fact, in trying to find another answer, I probably took longer than I should have to realise it was the meds. I did all the right things, I talked to an awesome head doctor, I started seeing a physio because the tension had munted my back and I was trying to eat healthier. (Getting more exercise was the next on the list, but I hadn’t quite got there yet!) When none of that worked that pretty much left one thing, it was chemical.

I didn’t want to admit this at first because I was so convinced the last happy pill switch was going to be the answer, so when things got steadily worse I felt a bit gutted. It’s silly, I know people who have been through at least six different medication changes before they found the right mix. I just figured that wouldn’t be me.

In typical Anna fashion, crunch time came at the least convenient moment, just before we were due to go on a planned holiday to Samoa. (Before you ask, we totally cheated and flew rather than sailed. We’d need a bit longer than 10 days if we were going to try something like that!)

No time was going to be a good time to switch, so my choice in terms of going on holiday was –  wait until I got back, knowing there was 100% likelihood of feeling crappy while I was over there, or start beforehand with the small hope that I might actually feel a bit better. Not much of a choice I agree, but in the end I went with the latter.

This involved weaning myself the old happy pills, a couple of days of no happy pills and then gradually building up the new happy pills – which meant a fair bit of time with Anna’s brain not having enough happy juice. I was a bit scared, but I had done it before, and I knew it would be okay eventually.

Harry Potter and the Customs Official

‘Swish and flick!’

One of the joys of having an anxiety disorder is that you fixate over every possible way anything could go wrong. If you are under-medicated and have an anxiety disorder it’s like that on acid (not that I ever tried acid, my brain was already fizzy enough!).

We were flying to Samoa from Auckland and circumstances meant that Paddy would be there before me (in Auckland, not Samoa), so I was going to catch a red-eye from Wellington and meet him at the Auckland International Terminal.

So of course my brain got busy with all the things that could go horrifically wrong before we even got out of the country. I stayed on the boat the night before to be closer to the airport and, after very little sleep (except for enough to have a nightmare that Wellington Airport was fogged out and no flights could leave), I got there ridiculously early and everything went super smoothly leaving me with an hour to kill. So far so good…

Turbulence on the flight to Auckland made me a little bit jittery, but it was nothing compared to bouncing around in the middle of the Pacific Ocean (which is what I kept telling myself as I gripped the armrests.) I arrived safe and sound and made contact with Paddy to let him know I was about to head through customs. He told me there was plenty of time, but as far as I was concerned there wouldn’t be plenty of time until I was sitting at the gate waiting for them to call our seat numbers.

Customs went fine at first, I was waved through the people scanner, got most of my stuff, then noticed my handbag was heading away from me down the Naughty Conveyor Belt for Naughty People Carrying Naughty Things. I signaled to the customs officials that it was mine and they waved me over.

I stepped towards them and they were all “stay behind the yellow line please ma’am”. This was serious, I couldn’t even check to see if time was running out for my flight because my phone was in my handbag!

It was actually the second time this had happened recently, the first was when I was visiting my sister and new niece in Brisbane, but they found nothing then.

After confirming I had packed my own bags I joked (because that is what I do when I am stressed or nervous) that it might be my good luck troll. For those of you who don’t know me: My name is Anna and I never travel without a troll.

The customs official said “no, but I can see the troll, it looks quite funny!”

“Can I have a look?” I asked excitedly, forgetting I was still under suspicion.

I mustn’t have looked too dodgy because he let me lean over to see.

There she was, smiling benevolently up at me through the x ray. ‘Get me out of this Cal! (Short for Calorie, a story for another time),’ I thought frantically at her. ‘We’ve got a flight to catch!’

Cal the good luck troll (spoiler- as you can see we made it safely to the Pacific and she became TropiCAL)

After a bit of scruffling around and finding nothing, he finally said “What we are seeing is a pointed metal rod with sort of bumps all the way down it.”

I let out a massive sigh of relief. “I know exactly what it is. It’s the Harry Potter wand on my keyring!”

Instead of looking at me like I was a crazy person, he dug in deep, grabbed my keys and said ‘So it is! And it’s not just any wand. It’s the Elder Wand!”

(It’s totally a knock off of the Elder Wand, but I’ll take it).

It was a ‘graduation’ gift from a Wizarding Academy steam train trip I took recently with my Mum, two of my best friends and not a child among us – because #adulting. (Important note to anyone else who went on that trip. Take the wands off your keyrings if you want to fly internationally.)

Wizarding Academy graduates – adulting at its best!

It turned out Mr Customs Official was a massive Potter geek and had just returned from Harry Potter World (I didn’t catch whereabouts, I was still a little flustered).

He preceded to wave my tiny wand around *, showing his fellow customs officers the proper ‘swish and flick’ motion and trying to cast Alohamora.

I was massively relieved and glad to have provided some entertainment and found a kindred spirit, but I was also all ‘dude, flight to catch!’ I didn’t say that out loud though because I was still so relieved he hadn’t pulled out the rubber gloves.

In the end he gave me back my wand and my troll and I made it to the gate with time to spare and a story that I probably found much more entertaining that Paddy did.

* Yes I am aware of how that sounds. If your inner 14 year old boy is as vocal as mine, just google ‘Harry Potter wand replaced with wang’ and get it out of your system.

That’ll keep you going through the show
(with apologies to Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb)

Sometimes you don’t realise you haven’t been feeling anything until your emotions come back and you start Feeling All the Things.

It’s like when you stub your toe or otherwise bang yourself up. You feel nothing for a split second after you injure yourself (mostly because you are in a wee bit of shock) and then EVERYTHING IS FIRE AND PAIN.

As I mentioned in my book (which you should totally buy if you haven’t already because half of the proceeds go to the NZ Mental Health Foundation – see I can do product placement!) I have the cray-cray trifecta – obsessive compulsive disorder, anxiety and depression.

The anxiety is pretty easy to identify because you jump every time a spider farts, but the depression is a creeper and often you don’t realise you are going through it until it has its claws well hooked.

Paddy noticed I was sleeping a lot at home, but I just put that down to having a pretty full life. That was really the first sign. The second was that I had stopped feeling. I was making my way through life fine, but I didn’t really feel happy or sad, or anything really. I was numb.

It wasn’t until I was unwinding in a tropical paradise that I realised just how long I had been like that, and I realised it because I suddenly started to feel things again.

Something really silly made me cry. It might have been something in a book I was reading, or I might have lost something, or I might have stubbed my toe – I honestly don’t remember other than it was pretty minor – and I suddenly realised I hadn’t done that for a really long time.

That opened the floodgates.  I’d get really involved in a discussion, I’d read something that resonated in a book, I’d see a cute cat on the internet and I would start bawling. It seems perverse that feeling sad can actually be a good thing but when you have felt nothing for so long it really, really can.

The first couple of days were a bit rough. Different people deal with depression in different ways and different approaches can work at different times for the same person. There is no right or wrong way to do this, so please don’t take my coping strategies as gospel, I might have different ones next week.

You often hear people talk about ‘battling depression’ and often that can be exactly the right thing to do. Fight the bastard. Throw everything you have at it. Don’t listen to a lying word it has to say.

Sometimes though you just don’t have the energy to do that, and that’s okay too. Sometimes you need to know when to stop and regroup, to recharge and get your energy back to kick it to the curb. That’s when I find myself sinking into it, just curling up and letting the feelings wash over me, acknowledging them but not fighting them. Sometimes that can take their power away.

Of course from the outside that looks a whole lot like curling up in a ball and feeling sorry for yourself, and when you are in a tropical paradise that some people might never get to see, that seems rather ungrateful and something you should feel ashamed about.

Now that I am out of that ball and feeling recharged and ready to face what’s ahead of me I can tell you that’s absolutely not the case, but it can be a tricky argument to win with yourself at the time.

When you suck at being a VIP

Before anyone tells me what I missed out on, this is not the first time I have been to Samoa. Around 10 years ago I visited Upolu, Savaii and even American Samoa and saw some stunning places, had awesome experiences and met some lovely people. I particularly recommend Savaii if you are thinking of going there yourself, it is absolutely stunning.

This wasn’t meant to be an adventure holiday, it was more of a stop, drop and flop affair. Somewhere warm to go and do absolutely nothing to stave off burnout in our real world.

So for the first time I stayed in a proper resort. To be honest, and I really hope this doesn’t come across as privileged and ungrateful, I’m not really a huge fan. Don’t get me wrong, it was absolutely lovely. We had lovely air conditioned rooms in a gorgeous setting with BATH TEMPERATURE ocean water just outside, the food and people were lovely, but I’m just not that crazy about people running around after me like I’m some sort of VIP.

I know it’s their job and if they didn’t do it they wouldn’t have one, but I just find people serving me and cleaning up after me a little hard.

I think I might have been a bit hyper-sensitive to it because I wasn’t 100% and I kind of just wanted to be left alone. But every day staff were desperate to get into our room to tidy up and, even if we left the ‘do not disturb’ sign up, they just circled until they had the opportunity to. I understood why after a couple of days, when it turned out hours later a manager would come in to check that the first lot of staff had done their job properly.

That didn’t sit super well with me, and is also a little hard when you are already feeling a bit guilty and ashamed about being busted taking a two-hour depression nap in the middle of a beautiful sunny day. I know it’s silly and that people who are on holiday rest a lot but, trust me, depression isn’t big on making a whole lot of sense.

Sometimes superpowers aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

Voices by the pool

One of the side-effects of going through the medication switch at a resort is that I now know far too much about the people staying there.

I know that three Australian men were there on a racing trip (though I’m unsure what type of racing) and that they were rather fond of the local beer. I know that the kid two tables down from us hadn’t slept for three nights in a row (and I felt terribly sorry for his parents), I know that the woman at the table behind us was headed to Tonga but something her son was supposed to do back home hadn’t been done – and I learned all this in about 10 minutes, while trying to have a conversation with Paddy.

I first experienced this when I was 15 and diagnosed with All the Things. At the time I thought I was hearing voices or had suddenly developed the ability to read minds.

I would be in the supermarket and suddenly be assailed by inane conversations.

“This brand is cheaper but Frank likes that brand better.”

“Susan is a total skank!”

“I told you we were running low on petrol two days ago.”

I would hear all these things simultaneously until I wanted to scream “just put the house on the market Janet – it’s not going to matter if you buy new curtains or not!” at the top of my lungs.

When I told my head doctor about it I was convinced I had developed some sort of unwanted psychic superpowers. “You know, like when Superman got overwhelmed by being able to read everybody’s thoughts until he got control of his powers?”“

No,” she said, disappointingly. “You are not turning into a superhero.”

So much for silver linings!

She explained the fight or flight wiring in our brains, which kept us alive when we lived in the jungle and every cracking twig could be a bear creeping up on you. This was useful when humans were more regularly potential bear snacks, but not so much when you are in the supermarket buying yogurt.

As humans became less likely to be lunch, this hyper-vigilance faded. But those of us with anxiety and out of whack brain chemicals didn’t seem to get the memo. So here I was, in a tropical paradise, drinking pina coladas while utterly convinced there was A BEAR RIGHT BEHIND ME all day, every day. We don’t even have bears in New Zealand, and I’m pretty sure they’re not native to Samoa.

Once I got this under control the first time (and I will again) it actually became a useful skill as a journalist. I had developed bat ears and often conversations inadvertently tuned into, grew into promising story leads.The moral of the story is, don’t whisper things around me, I will automatically tune in, whether I want to or not. Also, that colour really does look good on you, you should totally buy that dress!

Anna’s list of things that help when you are going bonkers in the tropics

There is most definitely a light at the end of this particular tunnel. I am not better yet, the drugs still need tweaking, but I am getting there.

The fact that I am writing again is a pretty good sign. In fact, I wrote most of this while we were away, which is an even better sign. I find writing down the things that have helped me through a wobbly patch is useful for the next time things go bumpy, so here’s my list this time round:

  • Sending silly messages to my family Whatsapp group chat, and seeing what they are up to (particularly looking at photos of my wee niece and grossing my sister out with photos of my Crocs)
  • Island cats (none of which were as beautiful and snuggly as my beloved at home of course!)

Island meows!

  • Swimming in bath temperature warm ocean water

32 degrees!!!

  • Having breathing space to write again and actually feeling like doing it (it took four days before I was in the right headspace but I got there!)
  • Umbrella drinks
  • Putting umbrellas from said drinks in my good luck troll’s hair

Tropical flowers that look like fuzzy Muppet caterpillars

Muppet flowers!

  • Reading three books in 10 days – a record, which is a shame because I love reading, I just never take the time to do it.
  • Wearing pretty summer clothes (that probably won’t come out again until the next holiday)

I got Paddy in orange!!

Paddy – for being right there with me while I slept, wrote, stalked island cats and put umbrellas on my troll. Love you babe!

Paddy in training for the 2019 International Competitive Hammocking Championships

 

Where to get help if you need it (in NZ): 

Need to talk? Free call or text 1737 any time for support from a trained counsellor

Lifeline – 0800 543 354 (0800 LIFELINE) or free text 4357 (HELP)

Suicide Crisis Helpline – 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO)

Healthline – 0800 611 116

Samaritans – 0800 726 666

The Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand also has a great list of specialist helplines which you can find here:

Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand helplines (mentalhealth.org.nz) 

Anxiety, depression and being the funny one

I’ve written, rewritten and deleted this blog more times than I can actually remember. The timing has always seemed wrong. Every time the issue of depression or anxiety has become a topic of discussion it has been around real and tragic events. Talking about myself has just seemed tacky, like dining out on someone else’s pain.

In hindsight that may also have been a convenient excuse to keep putting it off, and I’m not going to do that anymore. If I can’t talk about it now, when everyone is talking about it, when we should be talking about it, it’s a bit gutless really.

Last week an insidious, lying, bastard of a disorder took some of the light from this world.

It was a shock because it happened to the funny one – the talented one, the one who everybody loved.

How could someone who brought so much joy to so many people possibly have been in such pain? It doesn’t make sense.

But in a sad and strange way it does. When you are the funny one you aren’t allowed to feel sad, or you won’t allow yourself to. You are the person that makes other people smile when they are feeling bad and when you can’t do that people don’t know how to handle it – you don’t know how to handle it – you feel like you are letting yourself and everyone else down. The pressure can be immense.

For those who know me well this is not news, but for those of you who don’t – my name is Anna Kirtlan and I have lived with mental illness for most of my life.

I don’t talk about it in detail that often. I was diagnosed in a time when people didn’t talk about it – there were no brave celebrities and sportspeople putting a face to mental illness, there were no campaigns letting people know that 1 in 5 people were going through the same thing you were and there was a constant fear that if you let someone know you could find yourself in a nice comfy padded room.

Things have changed a lot but there is still that hangover there, there’s still the fear that lighting the fuse and pressing ‘publish’ on this post could have an impact on my life, my career prospects, the way people look at me.

What’s more important though is letting people who might be in that black hole right now know that they are not alone and with a little help they can claw themselves out.

Mental illness it does not make you weak. It does not make you selfish and you don’t need to just “cheer up and get over it”. You don’t need to justify feeling the way you do. You have an illness – and an illness can be treated.

So if one person stumbles across this blog and feels the stronger for it, then outing myself so publicly will be worth it.

It took me a long time to be able to speak out about this stuff. I felt I had to wait until I’d ‘proved myself’ – until I’d gotten my degree (which I was told by a well-meaning counselor not to pursue because the stress might be too much), my journalism diploma (which was much more stressful – and rewarding – than the degree) and had held down more than one high pressure job. I waited until I was chief reporter of a (albeit small) daily newspaper before I officially came out of the closet. That was before the paper had a website though – so you won’t find it if you google my name.

Several years ago now I did one of the scariest things of my life (and I am including sailing offshore in that list). I stood up in front of a hall full of teenage boys and talked about mental illness. I had been invited to do this after talking about my experiences in my weekly column – in support of a mental health awareness week initiative the district council had cooked up. The youth branch of the council had designed and produced bright orange t-shirts with five stick figures on then – one of those figures coloured in to represent the one in five who live with mental illness. The idea was to get as many people in town wearing them as possible.

The school was Waitaki Boys High in Oamaru – the hall was huge, and full. I got up on the stage and almost walked right back off again. There were three of us – a radio presenter (bi-polar), a district council spokesperson (post-natal depression) and myself (obsessive compulsive disorder/anxiety/depression).

The kids were amazing. They laughed at all my stupid jokes, but otherwise you could have heard a pin drop. Afterwards they were jostling to put on orange t-shirts. When I came into work the next day one of my workmates came up and gave me a hug. “What’s that for?” I asked. “My son told me about your talk at school yesterday,” she said. “It’s the first time he’s told me about something that’s happened at school for weeks.” I’ve never forgotten that.

So I’ll tell you guys what I told those kids.

First of all, mental illness does not make you weak. It took me a long time to realise this, but it takes an incredibly strong person to fight against their own brain.

I joke about being Anxiety Girl but there is an uncomfortable amount of truth there. I joke about a lot of things, it’s what I do. I am the loud, tacky, bright coloured one. It was an identity I chose for myself in high school after I came to the conclusion that I could hide away and be bullied or stop caring about what people thought of me. It was immensely liberating and helped me create life-long friends.

When you go from being the ‘out there’ one to a gibbering wreck however it’s a little hard to explain. I started showing OCD and anxiety type symptoms from a very young age but it wasn’t until I was in my teens that things really started flaring up. When I was at my worst I wasn’t eating or sleeping and could barely leave the house. I couldn’t stand up or sit down for more than a couple of minutes. I couldn’t stand having people physically near me, but I was terrified of being on my own. There was something affecting me physically but there was nothing that could be tangibly treated. It wasn’t a bug that needed antibiotics or a wound that could be healed.

None of it made sense. Bad things weren’t happening in my life, I had good friends and a loving supportive family, there were so many people out there so much worse off than I was. I had no right to be feeling this way.

I was the bright bubbly one so how could I possibly explain this black evil thing – these compulsions that made no sense. The anger and frustration at myself was visceral.

My parents took me to our GP and he put me in touch with the amazing 198 Youth Health Center in Christchurch (now 298 Youth Health) they in turn referred me to Youth Specialty Services   – unfortunately based next to the mental hospital then known as Sunnyside – which was pretty frightening for a teen. (I used to tell people I had remedial Maths lessons when I had my appointments – they believed that, I was crap at Maths).

That’s where my recovery began. I fought against it for a while, but eventually a combination of counselling, cognitive behavioural therapy and (I’m not ashamed to admit it) medication started to work for me.

One of the biggest helps was when a psychologist sat me down and drew a diagram of what was going on in my brain. She showed me how the chemicals in my brain were out of whack and how medication could help balance them up again. She said it was no different from a diabetic needing insulin to balance their blood sugar levels and that I had  no reason to be ashamed.

Over the years I did go off and on the meds. Particularly in the 90s when a number of high-profile studies came out saying how terrible they were and that  doctors were prescribing too much. When I went off them I would be fine for a while but then everything would come crashing back with reinforcements. This  happened while I was at university but with the support of my family, friends and partner at the time I got back on the rails and passed with a double major. I now accept that happy pills are a part of my life and I am okay with that.

I have pretty much kicked the OCD symptoms now, but the anxiety still rears its ugly head on occasion. I am an A-grade worrier. If being terrified was an Olympic sport I could represent New Zealand.

The trick is to learn the difference between practical fear and completely pointless fear.  For example, fear of falling off a boat in rough seas is sensible. It’s self-preservation and you can address it by making sure you are firmly attached to the boat by a safety harness and by not doing anything stupid. An absolute conviction that the boat is going to fall to pieces every time it makes a perfectly normal creak is not.

You may ask why then, if I am such a ball of neurosis, I would even consider getting on board a tin tub and sailing into the middle of the ocean? The answer is simple. I’m not going to let fear win.

I still get anxiety attacks from time to time, often in situations that people normally wouldn’t find stressful at all. Driving breaks me out in hives. I can do it, but I hate it. Put me in a high pressure work situation and I thrive, ask me to drive down the road and pick up a bottle of milk and I become a nervy, sweaty mess.

Funnily enough sailing doesn’t often do that to me. When things get a bit bumpy I may freak out a little but even then there’s a huge sense of accomplishment and pride when I get through it – and the beauty of a watch on a settled night with nothing but stars and ocean for company is incomparable.

I guess what I am trying to say is that mental illness may never completely go away but it doesn’t have to stop you living the life you want.

And for those of you who haven’t experienced this just remember, more people around you have than you think. And it’s the people you don’t expect  – the zany ones, the bright ones, the people you respect and admire – it’s your boss, your doctor, your teacher, the fix-it person you go to when everything’s falling apart.

These people don’t need pity or sage advice, they just need to know that you know and you care and you don’t judge. You can’t fix them, but you can support them while they fix themselves.

As for Robin Williams – the amazing man who inspired this post – don’t focus on how he died, focus on how he lived and how he managed to touch so many people in his short time on this earth.

Dead Poet’s Society was one of the first films that truly inspired me, Mrs Doubtfire was one of my comfort films when I was feeling down. He’s been a fixture of my life through film and TV for as long as I can remember and the world is a better place for having had him in it.

Resources:

Mental Health Foundation

Lifeline Aotearoa

Youthline

Sparx

The Journal