Welcome to the twentieth-first day of the National Health Blog Post Month Challenge hosted by WEGO Health. Every day during the month of November I will be writing a new blog post related to health and living with a chronic illness based on given prompts provided by WEGO Health.
Today’s post reads:
Mental Health Meld: Mental health issues can affect many other conditions. Write about mental health, emotions, and challenges as they relate to your condition. How does your mental health affect your overall well-being?
Let’s talk Mental Health…
Regarding yesterday’s post about the start of the dizziness in my life, entitled “I still remember..“; it also triggered an anxiety disorder. Due to the intense dizzy spells that I experienced as a young child and becoming worse as a teenager, it resulted in me worrying about everything; worried about the when the next time the dizziness will occur. And then when it occurred in places such as a supermarket, or in a particular shop, I would worry that it would happen again and so would avoid that places, in the hopes that I would avoid an attack of the dizziness. However, this obviously did not stop the dizziness from the occurring; but only resulted in my world from becoming smaller and smaller as I avoided more and more places. In addition, as a result the dizziness that I kept mentioning to the doctor was put down to the anxiety disorder that I was diagnosed with. This is the problem with being diagnosed with a mental illness; it is widely acknowledged that mental health patients face difficulty in getting diagnosed and treated for physical illnesses as doctors will often blame their psychiatric diagnosis or the medications that they are taking on the symptoms that patients are experiencing.
A diagnosis of a mental illness can be a roadblock to getting diagnosed with a physical health condition…
In the end, I got help and treatment from the anxiety disorder, and thanks to therapy and graded exercises my world once again started to become larger as I started to visit the places, I once avoided. The relaxation techniques that I were taught, helped with the anxiety I was experiencing; although the dizziness was still very much there and still as intense. Now, I still find that anxiety is still an issue; an issue that can affect my mental and physical health,for example when the dizziness becomes so intense when out, my first instinct is still to panic and become anxious, although the anxiety I find is something that I am able to control, unlike the symptoms relating to my neurological condition, such as the dizziness, and the weakness and trembling in my legs, etc.
It is not only the anxiety, however that can be a problem for my mental and physical health however; depression is also another mental health issue that I have experience of, and can which still be a problem, years even after it first started. The depression, can still rear its ugly head, when I am experiencing bad flares in my condition. I often experience the depression, when my symptoms have been really severe for a long period of time; for example recently the dizziness has been so bad for several weeks now, and that has been making me feel down a lot of the time because of it; and because of the depression, the fatigue that I already experience becomes even worse, and that has a knock-on effect on the rest of my symptoms.
Depression can appear during flares in my condition…
That is the thing with mental health conditions when already living with a physical health condition – it is a vicious circle and one of the health conditions become worse, it automatically affects the other. So, to survive living with a physical health condition, we also need to look after our mental health…
Do you find that the best way to live well with your chronic illness is to also look after your mental health? I would love to hear your thoughts and comments regarding this issue. Please comment below…
Welcome to the fourth day of the WEGO Health ‘Advocating For Another’ Blog Carnival. Today’s prompt is as follows:
Today’s post theme is all about the reveal. What’s something people would be surprised to know about your life as a health activist, your community, or condition. Uncover it and elaborate upon it in a stream-of-consciousness style.
In my day-to-day life I am not aware of other people’s perceptions or their personal thoughts regarding my life, health community or even my condition – it is often the elephant in the room – the topic that nobody wants to discuss as they may feel awkward or simply do not want to pry. People often stare at my crutch, but do not ask me any questions on the reasons why I might need ir, looking at me suspiciously as if I am only using it to exaggerate my condition for disability benefits.
However, reading articles in magazines and from some replies from others after they have asked me how I am with the typical “That sounds awful, it must be so terrible living like that”; it seems people assume that living with any chronic illness or disability must make life completely miserable and living with one mean we all must be absolutely depressed all of the time; unable to have fun and enjoy life. However, as we health activists and patients know that this isn’t the case at all; humans are resilient and can withstand a lot more than we think we can cope with!
The perception of chronic illness
And although many of us, have to cope with a chronic condition; with unpleasant symptoms everyday we are still able to enjoy life. I think living with a chronic condition actually makes people appreciate life more than those who are healthy, taking pleasure in simple things – for example I love having my nails painted, I find it relaxing and enjoyable, picking bright colours to cheer myself when symptoms have been bad. Also enjoy watching comedies; and always laugh with the jokes. Although I often feel unwell with the symptoms associated with my condition, I still make an effort and enjoy volunteering with a local charity and have even recently helped during an Open Day to advertise the Centre, pampering the ladies with hand massages and painting their nails – felt great putting smiles on other people’s faces!
One of my favourite comedies
It makes me sad when I read stories in the newspapers regarding ‘benefit cheats’; and how people assume that when people have been spotted out having a great time then they surely must be cheating the system. Just because someone is ill or suffers with a disability does that mean they should no longer enjoy life? Should they simply shut themselves away and wither away? We should be able to go out and have a great time during the times of respite from our symptoms without judgement and criticism.
