Back in autumn 2019 I experienced what I can only describe as a complete mental shutdown. I broke, in every sense of the word. My mental health deteriorates when I suffer from Insomnia. I was awake for 5 days straight, that’s 120 hours. I don’t know why my brain decides to do this, but I just can’t shut down mentally and physically. I still have energy, yet still have moments of complete calm.

I was still working at the time and I remember experiencing a racing heart/ tight chest all day, I got home and it got worse…. so I called 111 and they sent an ambulance. The Paramedics arrived and they did an ECG, I had a heart rate of 120 bpm. The strange thing was my mind was so calm and still. They suggested I might have a chest infection but I had no other symptoms to suggest this. They suggested I was taken to the hospital, but I declined, which was ok. They ended up calling an out of hours doctor who suggested taking paracetamol every 4 hours. Whilst we waited for more advice we watched Forrest Gump and had a good old cuppa.

That night I didn’t sleep again and the following evening at 2am I was feeling very strange and afraid of trying to sleep. My dad took to me to A&E: we were there for 15 hours. In this time I smoked about 50 fags, drunk lots of water and juice, spoke to many different professionals, nurses, doctors, psychiatrists, had my amazing sister with me and my incredible mum. I finally was given a bed/ room and they gave me a very low dose of Ramipril which I knew wouldn’t do anything and guess what it didn’t. By 9am I saw different physiatrists which were very helpful. I was eventually allowed home and I had the emergency mental health team visit my house every day for a week or two. All very helpful- mostly.

I was prescribed a heavy tranquilliser, the max dose 600mg. Well that evening I accidentally took 900mg as I didn’t realise/ remember that each pill was 300mg. That night I had the most horrific, realist dream I’ve ever experienced. I vaguely remember my dad speaking to me as he was on the phone to 999. Long story short, I would be fine as long as my body didn’t lock out. When the mental health team visited me after I’d woken up, they were aware it wasn’t intentional, and much to my families confusion, discharged me from the emergency mental health team.

After a few weeks I was out of the woods and back to feeling human, though during this period I pushed away many of my close friends. For the next few months I surrounded myself with family and was embraced by their love and care. My family is everything to me and I couldn’t have done any of it without them. Fast forward a year and the nation and world was engulfed by Covid, which though a shit time for many, it put a lot into perspective for me and allowed me time to rest and restore from all the trauma of the previous months. It wasn’t fun being unemployed for almost 7 months, but I definitely found my center through the first lockdown/ summer.

We are now in March of 2021 and life is back on track, for me anyway. Life is never simple and healing is not linear but you can find beauty in the most unexpected places. With pain comes A LOT of growth and grounding. Always remember things do get better and though I can’t promise there won’t be hard times ahead, because there will. What I can promise is that the sun will shine again and with Spring comes more light and warmth. Here comes the sun!!!