Mental Health Day.

Hey guys,
Joe here with a different blog post for you;



As some of you may know, today is worldwide Mental Health Day.
This is a day to help people with mental health cases, it isn't to promote the negative's of it.

If you don't know what Mental Health Day is, here is a short definition:
Mental Health Day is a day which was placed to support people who have or believe to be suffering from a mental health case.
People with mental health cases will most likely not seek professional help and they will not involve their friends or family members because they feel as if they are bothering someone or that the people they are speaking to don't understand or don't care.

Sometimes though, that is the case. Most people who haven't had mental health issues do not understand what it's like to have them.
People with mental health issues will seem on the outside to be all happy and smiley, thats just to keep the people they love happy; on the inside, people with mental health issues just want to curl up and cry, they want to shut the world away without saying goodbye to anyone.

"But Joe, why are you speaking like you know?"

Well person asking question, that is because I suffer from mental health myself.
I have been professionally checked-up and I have been told I have OCD and it is a fucking huge problem, OCD stands for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and most people see OCD as keeping everything clean or making everything tidy/neat.
That is the Obsessive side.

I found out about OCD after hearing a youtuber (or youtubers if you may) by the name of Game-Grumps. One of the hosts, Danny who is a sufferer of OCD, was speaking about OCD and the symptoms it has; while listening I thought 'I have these symptoms' but I didn't think anything of it, but it did worry me a little so I googled it and took a few NHS tests and they provided information about places I could get help.

I went to my local GP back in May/June time and the lady said that I had the stages of OCD and if I didn't seek further help it would get worse, she recommended me to a CBT clinic.
I got scared, I didn't call the CBT clinic because I was scared they were going to class me as 'crazy'.

I suffer from the Compulsive side, this is to do with the brain and your thoughts, what you say, how you say it, etc.
Sometimes I will say something and be like 'Wait, why the fuck did I just say that?' or I'll be thinking something really innocent and sweet like a teddy bear floating on a river made of chocolate, then suddenly my compulsive side will trigger and the teddy bear will be dying or drowning in some huge state of panic... see, like I said things aren't okay.
When I was around the age of 15/16, I used to get really dark thoughts, I used to get them so much that it got to a point where I would stop eating, I wouldn't want to wake up and I just didn't want anything to happen in my life.

When I was diagnosed, the first person I told (after my girlfriend and family) was my Bookolio Partner, Amy.
She was fully supportive and didn't think any differently of me.

When I told my family, I was scared they would make fun of me, I was scared they would say 'Oh it's just a phase, you'll be over it soon'
(My girlfriend accepted it from the get-go, it didn't phase her or change her views on me and I respect her and love her for that)

It still affects me practically every day; Some days it will be harder to ignore as the images or the thoughts will be crazily vivid. Other days I can switch off my mind and relax... but the latter is not very usual.

I also have dyslexia so that also affects my spelling as I will write full sentences of my thoughts when really I would need to be writing coursework or something.

But the reason why I am telling you guys this is because, even if you are scared like myself, there are people out there who will listen to you and the best thing about that is that these people are professionals. Yes they will tell you what you don't want to hear, but what you don't want to hear may save your life.

Your friends and family will try to help you but at the end of the day they are not professionals.
So if you are suffering then please, phone some one, go online to the Samaritans website they give free advice and help to people who aren't sure whats wrong.
(I'll leave their links at the bottom of the page)

I've finally picked up the courage to call the CBT clinic, I shall do it tomorrow as I'm quite busy today haha!

It is a tough road, but there are people who want to help you, professional people with professional help. At the end of the day, that one meeting may change your life for the better.

Thank you for reading
Joe :)

http://www.samaritans.org/

http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/mentalhealth/Pages/Mentalhealthhome.aspx