Somethings you can’t change…
One of my motto’s in life: If you can’t change it, accept and move on. We waste so much energy on things we can’t change. Once we have accepted it we can manage it and change that which you can actually change or influence. Easier said than done. I lost my father in law to suicide, I lost my dad in a motor vehicle accident 4y ago. He was my hero and my role model and he changed the world he lived in. He was the only person that ‘got’ me. But I managed to have peace shortly after he died. I still miss him, I get reminded of memories at least once a day but it brings a smile to my face. I often tell my patients, if something bad happened, it is ok to go into your black hole, but you can’t stay there. You need to come up for air. Having said that, last year things happened that I couldn’t change but I didn’t want to accept.
One of my goals in life is to break down the stigma around mental health. I am never afraid to tell my colleagues, family or patients that I also struggle with Depression and Anxiety. I believe if I tell them, they can associate with me and see that it is ok. In matric I struggled with depression and burn out. In 2013 (by then already a specialist in my field), I was again diagnosed with burn out but also OCD. Not the OCD almost everyone claims to have – the healthy kind that makes you overachieve-the kind that cripples you. The kind that makes you (as an adult) check under your own bed before going to sleep. The kind that makes you turn around 3 times, on your way to work, because you think you left the door unlocked or the stove on (even if you didn’t use the stove for 3 days). You come late for work everytime and people start talking. The kind that explains why all 3 of my children still sleep in our bedroom. Because I am afraid something might happen to them if they don’t. We have an alarm, big dogs, 2 security gates separating our bedrooms and proper burglar bars and farm patrolls. Thus unreasonable fears – others might also have these fears and know there is a small chance of it happening to them, but when it is OCD you are almost 100% sure that they will happen to you so you have to make sure that none of these ‘fears’ will become reality by doing absolutely everything you can to prevent them.
Last year, for many reasons, I was also diagnosed as having ADHD as well as bipolar mood disorder type 3. Thus I now had Generalised anxiety which caused the OCD, ADHD and bipolar mood disorder. When the bipolar was added I couldn’t accept it. All of a sudden I stigmatised mental health. Bipolar 3 is different from 1 and 2 as it is caused by medication. If you don’t use medication, you won’t have any symptoms. (will explain in more details at a later stage) My meds were changed quite drastically – and probably 3-4 times after. Despite everything I worked non-stop and no-one noticed.
My eldest daughter was set for Gr R in 2020. She went the first day and 2nd day and then refused. Despite trying incentives, forcing her, punishing her – we really did try everything-nothing worked. She would take off her seatbelt when in the care or open the door. She is very tall and strong so wanting to restrain her isn’t an option. I knew she wasn’t being defiant or difficult. I knew something deeper was going on. She has the kindest most loving spirit. She always wants to help and please. So why would she react like this? We started play therapy with a therapist. In discussion with her, we started my daughter on an anti-depressant for anxiety. (It runs in our family and I have struggled with generalised anxiety my whole life) It started going better but still no school. I took her to an occupational therapist and psycologist who specialised in this field, they only came up with a list of physical things that needed attention. That helps! I then took her to a pediatric neurologist. I had to complete a bunch of forms beforehand, we went to her for an hour (my daughter was told to wait outside). Not once did she examine or evaluate my child but she did say that she defnitely has Autism. That is when I went blank. For the first time in my live I had a ‘nervous breakdown’. I went home and I couldn’t put 3 words together to make a sentence. I would be so scattered that even my husband couldn’t follow what I was saying. This was not because of the diagnosis of autism, but the fact that I wanted my daughter to have a normal happy life without extra stressors. I didn’t know what to expect, what to do,how to protect her from all the bad reviews you hear about autism when you listen to any podcast or read any books about it. I knew how mental health had affected me and I was still in shock and struggling with my ‘5’ different diagnoses and I did not want that for her.
For the 1st time my husband stopped seeing my mental health issues as ‘something you have the power to fix on your own if you are strong enough’, because now his little girl was also affected. I am on meds and doing very well, my daughter is on meds and getting so much support and we are walking a path with the medical team. She also has ADHD (once the anxiety meds worked, hello ADHD!) She went back to school after 6 months and she received an excellent report (1st term of Gr R). I am also doing so well – realised the ADHD was actually the culprit behind it all – undiagnosed for more than 30y and led to the development of all the others. So far meds working well.
Weird to think that all my years I have had ADHD and GAD (social anxiety featuring nr 1 on the list), yet I have excelled and succeeded in almost everything. I had many top leadership positions (headgirl, junior mayor…), I was on the debate team, I passed matric being nr 7 in the province, I played in orchestras and no-one ever had any idea. Even my parents and siblings didn’t. They still don’t.
I am walking a path that isn’t easy, like so many others. Many that have it so much worse than I have. I don’t see my mental health as a disability or something that holds me back. I see it as something that made me resilient, that gives me insight and the ability to understand and connect with my patients and colleagues in a more intense way. I have the priveledge to understand myself better-to “get” myself – at the ripe age of 40.
If I could change everything or rewind, I would not have this opportunity or be where I am today
I hope I inspire you to do the same