Blurt Foundation: Stamping Out The Stigma, One Word At A Time
There’s a certain routine that one’s life is expected to follow. You go to school, possibly college, and if you wish to stay in education you find yourself at university. If not, you are tossed out into the adult world with little preparation more than Blondie’s song ‘9 -5’ telling you it’s not the way [...]
I have written this piece to give hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel! I use the word “tunnel” consciously as that is where I was – a dark tunnel with no light at the end of it. A claustrophobic space that was suffocating and paralysing. My story begins in 2006. [...]
When I wake up in a morning I feel ok, but I lie there and work out if I’m at work or not and when I realise I am I get hit by a wave of absolute dread and feel sick to my stomach so that I find it difficult to eat breakfast. When I [...]
The world and the media are constantly reporting on how those with mental illnesses are struggling, how others are using their illnesses as explanations for horrible actions. But, in both these circumstances, I believe that no one really cares to look inside the sufferer, to learn their story and to not judge before they know [...]
In my 7 years, I’ve never been quite able to put my finger on why I’m depressed. Is it that I saw my mum suffer with depression and I learnt that behaviour? Is it that my first relationship at the tender age of 16 was physically and emotionally abusive? Is it that I have no [...]
I never expected it to happen to me. But I guess nobody expects it to happen to them. It was as if – over the course of a few days – my whole world came crashing down around me. I was urged not to go to work but to visit my GP. I needed help. [...]
Dear Friends, You may or may not be aware about my long term struggle with mental illness. In January 2011 I was diagnosed with severe clinical depression and generalised anxiety disorder. So that’s two years ago but it had been going on for a long time before that. Every day I experience guilt that I [...]
For me, sleep and depression are like the chicken and the egg. Does depression cause my sleepless nights or do the sleepless nights cause my depression? For me, they are intrinsically linked. A few night’s of interrupted sleep and I can feel depression snapping away at my ankles. I don’t know what causes the interrupted [...]
Throughout the years of living with depression I have found a few ways to help reduce the darkness of the clouds that often gather above me. I try to eat well, exercise, and get enough sleep. Try being the key word here. Sometimes I would rather roll around on burning coals than get out of [...]
Just recently, right out of the blue, I had a panic attack in the street. I knew I couldn’t afford to run back to security, as I have a long history of agoraphobia. This is the story of how it developed. I was born in 1952. Throughout my childhood, from my earliest memories until I [...]
