Growing up, I was always seen as the smart, calm, adult-looking kid who wouldn’t step out of line. I remember very clearly spending endless hours playing alone in my bedroom, creating worlds where Barbies would become more beautiful after I touched their hairs and Action Men would become even more powerful!

Following my grandfather’s and father’s footsteps, I realised my creative side was sharper than most kids’ I played with. I saw more. I felt more. I even remember wondering “does everyone think as deeply as I do?”. The voice inside my head played a HUGE role in my daily life, and I’m not sure that’s something most people notice at a young age. - Or is it?

Like most creative minds, I started feeling frustrated because I couldn’t draw or paint as well as my grandfather or my father. I couldn’t sing, I couldn’t make my creativity palpable, so to me that meant it didn’t exist. I felt isolated because I didn’t have a way of telling people what was going on inside my head.

As I grew older - around 13/14 - I started dancing as a hobby and that gave me a glimpse of what letting my creativity flow would feel like. With that, more mental space for other things came. Alongside it, came waking up very (very) early so I could be ready for school thirty minutes earlier (to ensure I wouldn’t be late), or setting more than one alarm (to make sure I wouldn’t miss a task), or even studying for tests many days in advance (so that I had time to write everything down, memorise it and then lecture my mom on whichever subject I would later be assessed on). The latter was where the concept of anxiety first started to make “sense” to me.

My mind would work in a goal-driven way: set up a goal; do everything you can to achieve it; achieve it; forget it; set up a new goal. Looking back from where I am today - exactly from the point of writing this article - I can understand that that loop was what pushed me through school and even University. My mind was too busy to label my emotions, so all I had to do was to complete tasks, be good and succeed - whatever “success” meant… Me not remembering most things I learnt at school over the years - practically anything - is the proof I was in autopilot mode, my eyes on the prize. The prize being a good grade, a diploma, a “congratulations, you did well!”, a tap on the back… Leaving room for anxiety to build up and go unnoticed.

Unnoticed until last year, when I found myself zoning out at work, not being able to handle extreme stress situations. Out of nowhere, my heart would start racing, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t move, and moments later I’d feel extremely tired and the strong migraines would come… As my specialty is pretending I’m ok all the time, I kept pushing through, hoping it would just go away - BIG mistake! For those of you who don’t know, I am a scrub nurse, which means most of my days are spent in a Grey’s Anatomy environment with emergencies, blood (loooooots of blood) and people screaming. It sounds scary but once you’ve done it for so many years, it just becomes the norm. - Or so I thought.

(Here come the strategies and teachings I learnt that made me a better person)

After reporting at work what I was going through, I received FULL SUPPORT and I was advised to use a free counseling service the NHS has to offer and I couldn’t be more grateful for that. One of the first things I was told to try was the “thermometer technique”:

Find a moment of pure joy and peace and “measure” it with a thermometer. Let’s say it’s 3.
When you’re feeling anxious or even having a panic attack, to which number would it correspond? 6?
Then when you’re going through one of those difficult moments, visualise the thermometer and remember your “normal” state is a 3. Wherever you are, all you need to do is stop and picture the thermometer.
By breathing slowly, you’re going to bring the high temperature you’re in down to 3. By doing this you do two good things: 1) you prevent it from getting worse and 2) you teach your brain that it’s something you can “control”.

This was a crucial period of reflection for me because I had some time off work, I had time to step back and realise what was happening to me. It allowed me to stop and think about where I was headed - which was definitely not a good place. The most valuable teaching I take from this is that it’s ok not to be ok! Yes, it sounds cliché but you’d be surprised by the amount of people who still believe showing your true colours is a sign of weakness.

Apart from the counseling sessions, I sought hope in meditation and reiki. When you feel hopeless you tend to forget about the tools that were most valuable to you in the past, and I was so focused on how bad I was feeling, I didn’t even realise help had been right there throughout the whole show.

Meditating regularly, even when all I wanted to do was sleep, made me come to the conclusion all of this was happening to me because my body was rejecting all the accumulated tension, stress, sadness and anxiety! Was I depressed? My spiritual guides - who I speak with almost every time I meditate - told me this was happening now because I needed to get rid of the past, in order to create room for new things to come in and settle.

If you turn on the tap right now and see all that water coming out continuously, that’s me. That’s me most of the time nowadays. Overstimulated with everything. Too much noise, too many people, too many colours, too much stress, eating me alive and pushing me to a corner, forcing me to lay down with my head between my knees whilst waiting for it all to go away.

I am still coming to terms with this. I feel a lot. I stopped saying “I feel too much” because it has a negative connotation which is not the truth. I do feel a lot, I do feel stimulated by music (especially deeply sad and classical music), I do feel the power of the moon, I do love staying awake at night watching the stars and channeling my creativity while so many people sleep.

To conclude, I have to be honest and share with you that I only learnt May was the Mental Health Awareness Month after I started writing this article. But the inspiration for it couldn’t have come at a better time of the year. Everything happens for a reason, and if the Universe wanted me to share this with you all, this month, it has to mean something.

Whatever it is, may it bring you peace and light. Please know you’re not alone, no matter what you’re going through.

Why anxiety and depression made me a better person