Mental Illness Recovery Series: Story # 17
This is the 17th story of the Mental Illness Recovery Series. Courtney is focused on her recovery after accepting her mental illness, and how she learnt to deal with it. This is her story:
Courtney Allison is from Northern Ireland and she loves photography, cinematography and all kinds of music. She is currently studying psychology at her University. Her goal is to get a doctorates degree possibly in clinical psychology. She wants to move with her boyfriend and her two dogs to the bay area in America and work with a mental health care facility.
Courtney’s therapist named Susanne, diagnosed her with depression and social anxiety which she developed during her first year in University. She still struggles with it, but she has improved a whole lot. Courtney said, “I was an 87 on the scale that my therapist used (out of 130 I think) and by my last session it had dropped to the last forties.” She believes her mental illness was due to trauma that neither she nor her therapist can pinpoint to a specific event. It took Courtney a while to accept her depression because she has a great boyfriend, family and education. She thought others had it a lot worse than she did. Her therapist gave her CBT and psychotherapy with a focus on mindfulness.
Courtney was constantly on the verge of tears, but she never really expressed it. She said, “I just became notably quiet. I put on weight from comfort eating. Felt too nervous to leave my room. Everything felt like I was looking at it through a long dark tunnel. Lost passion in everything, I became a kind of blank canvas (which is not me at all, I’m a very opinionated person). I hated seeing people, I hated going to lectures because I’d panic about the friends I’d sit with.” She also said, “I can remember one occasion when I was putting on makeup to go out and I had to correct it so many times because my hands were shaking so badly and I was crying. It felt worse than waiting for a dentist to drill a hole in your tooth – constantly. It felt like I was rotting on the inside.”
This affected Courtney’s life tremendously. She was convinced that everyone hated her, so she never talked to anyone making people think she didn’t like them because she wouldn’t speak. She would stay in bed for hours, instead of going to lectures. Courtney was penalized for not being friendly to costumers at her work and she stopped talking to her best friend of seven years. This affected many of her friendships, but she and her boyfriend became closer. Her parents feel on edge when Courtney feels down because they don’t know what to do.
Thankfully Courtney never attempted suicide, but she did think a lot about falling asleep and never waking up. She felt entirely alone, she said, “I had created this little prison in my mind and that’s where I was for 9 months. I got angry that I couldn’t tell anyone, I got angry that they probably wouldn’t understand.” The turning point for Courtney was when she moved out of University student accommodation to move back to her home. It was the help she needed, she also recently got a puppy as well.
The strategies she used to help stop negative thoughts, was stopping it before it took hold. For example; Courtney would reassure herself that the person has no reason to dislike her, so she shouldn’t assume they do. She also accepted her illness by telling herself, “I thought I didn’t have the criteria for depression because my life was actually pretty good. But brain chemicals don’t care about that.”
Her boyfriend, therapist and parents helped her enormously, she said”
“I think having someone who’s non-judgemental, and very nice and on my side helped. My boyfriend honestly coped with how I was so well – I was not the same person I was when we started out together so I admire him endlessly for sticking with me. My parents helped by loving me unconditionally, and doing anything they could to help.”
Courtney learned to not listen her head all the time. She realized her thinking could be so far from the truth and that those thoughts aren’t always right. She is much quieter now, although she is pushing herself all the time. She gets stressful a lot now, even to post a Facebook comment. In order to prevent herself from falling again, she does not isolate herself in her head.
This is her advice for others struggling with similar situations:
“Get help – even if you think you don’t need it. It doesn’t matter how great your grades are or how nice your house is – depression is depression and anxiety is anxiety and they don’t care about those things.”
“Don’t judge people on how they seem. There could be a lot going on underneath.”
Courtney is on her journey to recovery, a difficult one, but none the less possible. She is strong for accepting her illness and learning to cope with it. I hope she finds the relief she is looking for soon.
You can help me make a difference too by sharing your story of struggling with mental illness.
Edited by Hamad Hussain
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