Hello and welcome to my first ever blog, I would like to talk about mental health and how it has affected my life and my experiences with mental health. I know information is so easy to come by regarding mental health I.e the internet, care services hospitals but what I would like to actually talk about is what we have all experienced during those difficult times and ways to help each other and those around us, that have also experienced hardship in life regarding our minds body and spirit.

i have had problems since around the age of 8 with hearing voices, feelings of anxiety depression hallucinations and god knows what else but I have managed to cope. I have managed to cope through the difficult times and even more so through the extremely difficult times. Looking back I wonder how? 

i never use to speak about my problems with anyone, I never felt like I could, and at the better times I was fine I didn't need to talk, but I was only young so I didn't understand what was going on at all in my mind it just became the norm as I'm sure some you reading this would understand.

feelings of sadness would flood through my body as a child, usually at night this would happen, depression would sink in, but I didn't understand at the time what was happening, it just happened and I would lay there and cry and get upset over nothing (well it's nothing to me now) but at the time problems in life were massive even the smallest of things would set me off on a whirlwind of depression eventually leading me to feel suicidal at 8 years old. 
I took sharp objects to my wrists cutting myself, but not having the guts to fully commit to suicide. Other nights I would get so depressed and fall into a tiny dark hole in my mind and think to myself the only way out is suicide so I took some tablets to overdose but again I didn't have the guts to fully commit to killing myself. Why?

I think, that when I was in that tiny dark hole in my mind I see good in myself that was hidden away, tucked away in the crevice of my broken mind. 
I would get up out of bed, some nights and just start working out, pumping out press ups, dips on the end of the bed and on the spot jogging. I don't know why I did this, maybe because I felt fat as a kid and that was one of my issues. But guess what, it helped me, it helped me to feel good about myself. But it didn't last as other problems came and my anxiety went through the roof at certain times. 
I would get up in the morning get ready for school and leave, I would have normal days at school hanging out with friends learning playing you know normal kid stuff. But I would often overhear conversations, I thought I was the one they were talking about, I would think they were talking about and live in the conversation like I was actually there, before zoning out.

i would become paranoid, anxious and zone out of any learning that was going on in the classroom, thoughts would play on my mind such as they're talking about you, you look stupid, you are stupid, they think your ugly, they think your a geek.

a few times comments were made to me nothing that serious just like oh your very spotty or something petty like that and I would go home and overthink it, overthink it so much it would give me anxiety over going back to school, my face would go hot, pressure would build up in my face and my mind. The thought of going back to school the next day was crippeling.

At bedtime I would slowly begin to overthink the day comments that were said conversations that were made , I would slowly begin to hate myself and eventually would send me into a downward spiral of depression.

i did use distraction techniques at the time that seemed to work like watching movies over and over remembering the funny times in them that seemed to cheer me up abit, working out in my bedroom and just thinking about different stuff until my mind had forgotten what I was bothered about.

i was quite a big thinker as a child and I used to get sad at the thought of dieing and losing those around me, I was very interested in what happens when we die, I used to ask my grandad what happens but I never really got a reply about it from him.

i would often think about death, and how sad it was, I would have all sorts of suicide thoughts. I was just at a place where I just didn't want to be here anymore, what is concerning is that I was very young I can see that now from an adults perspective looking back in time.

i grew up mostly around my grandparents staying there weekends to eventually becoming a permenant thing. I guess because they were old I was scared of losing them and eventually I did. I  lost my grandad when I was thirteen and  then my Nan past away when I was seventeen.