Mental Health and Tattoos Vol.1

Tattoo's are probably not something you would associate in any way with Mental Health. Most people can be forgiven for not seeing the link, because in all honesty, the link is only there for the people in the intersection of the Venn diagram representing both MH and Tattoos. I know that for a lot of people out there this is a strange topic but bear with me. I am going to talk you through the struggles I have faced with reference to my Mental Health and how my tattoos fit in among them. 

With regard to the different areas of my life, I have struggled with intense crowd-phobia, panic attacks which were both trigger-driven and un-triggered, depression, anxiety (both general and social) and self-loathing... I wont lie and say that I used tattoos as a way to close off chapters in my life, because I didn't. What are tattoos for me? They serve as a permanent reminder of where I've come from, where I'm headed and represent intense gratitude in two instances.

Now I know I'm not the only one who has a tattoo or two that represents some part of their past (or even current). Kayliegh, the co-creator of this blog has a beautiful script tattoo, which says "lose your clothes and show your scars", a pretty simple but powerful motto to remember. Perhaps she might touch on this topic another time from her own perspective, but for now, I'm going to discuss mine and what they have come to mean in my life.

Looking at my tattoos objectively allows me to talk about their meanings more succinctly.

My first tattoo represented a part of myself that I recognized in a man I hold in high regard, and respect dearly: Ville Valo. Anyone who knows me personally knows how much I think of him. He has a small heart on his right wrist, and I have one similar, though not the same! The meaning has grown since I've had it, though the original meaning has never been lost; "When I love, I love..". It's always been a part of who I am to love intensely, not just partners, but friends, family etc. I find myself physically upset when someone I care about is down or unwell. No matter what has happened in the last six years, I have always and will always love those around me. I wear my heart on my sleeve, as it were. I would also like to think that it represents myself in that it's a bit warped, but still alright, just like me!

My ambigram, atop my left shoulder which reads the same when you stand either in front of me, or behind me has a pretty simple meaning: Whatever way you look at me, however you perceive me, I am still Amy, and I am still beautiful. There's really nothing I can say for this one except that it took me a while to live by this. Public opinion meant a lot to me and there was nothing worse to me than people not liking me (social anxiety creeping in). I spent a long time learning that people will either love you or hate you, but you need to focus on those who love you and treat you right, rather than wasting your time trying to make the haters change their minds. I'll always be me, and that's the important thing.

The first big piece I ever got was a LOTR quote, in Elvish, mind you! The quote translates in English as "Few can foresee wither the road will lead them til they come to its end". Having exacerbated my anxiety for at least a year worrying over where I was going in life, feeling awful for being unemployed, generally wondering why I was bothering, this quote has helped me though many bad patches. I worry a lot about my future but this reminds me to be a bit less of a worry-wart. Life is going to lead me where it leads me and while I may have all these ideas and plans, it's not a big deal if they don't come true or they go pear-shaped because I'll find my way to where I'm supposed to be, no matter what. 

It had been 3 years since I had any work done but then last August I took the plunge and got a really important piece. The album that was the catalyst for everything I have since become, the person I have grown into was Venus Doom, by the Finnish metal band HIM. The limited edition album had these glyph-type symbols and I swore to myself that one day I would have them tattooed on me. That band pretty much kept me from the knife edge and I knew having a reminder of them on my body would never come close to the gratitude Ville Valo and his band-mates deserve. I think I identified with it more strongly from knowing that Ville was going through his own personal hell, and that reminded me how I was not alone. I've never been alone since then. 16 year old me had enough sense at the time though to know that tattooing a band on you is a risky business. Five years later it was still as good an idea as it was when I first thought of it, so I went for it! I love it so so much and you can actually find a full review of the whole process on my personal blog HERE. 

Most recently, I decided that it was high time to commemorate something that brought me out of myself... Archery. If it wasn't for archery being offered as an extra curricular activity in school, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to keep it on, and during the darkest days, I may never have left the house. I used to perform quite well in my bracket. I've made the most amazing friends and had the best weekends of my life because of archery. Though right now I cannot shoot due to a long standing injury, coupled with collegiate commitments, there is always the future. Nothing could tear me from a sport that kept me smiling even when my dad was in hospital, when I wanted to drop off the face of the planet, when I was miserable... Even the fear I'm currently experiencing wont keep me from getting back to it. 

Gone are the days when I would weep from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep. My tattoos are a reminder of my trials and my strength in the face of great hardships. I am proud not only of my ink, but of the person I have become. Life used to be a miserable sequence of crap days and negative thoughts, but I've come through the worst of it, and I find comfort and solace in the significance of my tattooed story. 

Hopefully we will have more posts on this topic in the next couple of weeks so we can see all the different perspectives... 

Drop a comment below if you have any input, and if you would like to get in contact with us here at Mental Health Monday, be it feedback or sending us a guest post you would like published, you can drop us a mail - our email is in the Contact Us tab. 

As always, if you need any assistance with any struggles, you can find a list of useful organizations in the tabs above. 

Amy
xx

Do You Really Know Me, Really?

Hey guys,

First just let me quickly apologize for my absence last week, I was snowed under all weekend. I'm back now though, and hopefully you can forgive the gap I left in our posting two by two! Secondly, this following post is going to be a bit of a personal one, so as to balance out the POV's we have on here. Kayliegh has posted two absolutely brilliant blogs on here about eating disorders, today, and last Monday! Here is my personal ramblings on the topic...

Now.

Do you really know me? If you saw me on the street would you know that I used to starve myself on purpose? Would you be able to tell? I bet you wouldn't. I wouldn't be on for advertising the fact. But its the truth.

People in my life, all of whom know me pretty well, will know that I am a big fan of my food. As a kid, I was the only person I knew, of my age, who would willingly eat a salad. My mother has even told me the stories of when I was maybe four, sitting on her knee in a cafe with her friend, helping her eat a giant plate of salad. We used to share salads when we went shopping, I remember them vividly. One plate, two sets of forks.

I don't know how or when I started skipping meals, but it certainly wasn't to be thin. I only say this because it will aid me getting my point across: I have been stick-thin since my puppy fat dropped off, around the age of 3 or 4. My family found it an unmitigated nightmare to get me clothes that fit. Being tall and thin as a child helps nobody, especially when the clothes are sold by age, rather than size!

I have never skipped a meal to aid in weight-loss, that much is true. I did so because I thought I deserved to be punished for the bad things I did, the bad person I was. If I had a fight with my boyfriend, I wouldn't eat til maybe, dinner the next day to punish myself for "being a shit person", as I rationalized it.

I hated myself for being weak (and to me being weak was my anxiety, my panic attacks, my constant battles with depression), for making people miserable, and so, I would deliberately skip meals to atone. I have lied to everyone at some point, maybe even you, the person reading this. "Yes, I had breakfast!" was the most common lie. Breakfast is the most important meal, so the old adage goes, but to me, it was the meal that I would deliberately skip, because it was easy to. When lunch came around, it was again, very easy to be really busy until the hunger went away.

At the worst of my self-inflicted punishment, I was working off maybe one slice of toast for a whole day, plus coffee or tea and my anti-depressant medication.

I ate alone, or I didn't eat at all. There was no middle ground. My family are well used to me disappearing with a plate of something to my room. It's never questioned. I can't abide eating with people, though. I make an exception when I'm out with people, but generally, if you pay attention, you may notice (at shoots, for example) that I will eat my lunch before everyone else, and then wander off to do something while everyone else is laying into their food.

In my head at the time, starving was the only way I could be punished for being the awful person that I felt I was. If I made someone feel bad, I would make myself feel ten times worse to, as I saw it, even things out.

Passing out in my back yard was the last straw, or the second to last, as you'll understand in a moment. I gave my mother the fright of her life, after I skipped two days worth of meals, on the third I got up to make something, because I felt ill and that was a warning sign, only to feel dizzy and go out for air. I don't remember anything after that until I was being rushed to the GP for an emergency appointment. It was brushed off as a drop in blood sugars. I had to have my blood pressure monitored every day for a week but nothing more. I went home and had a salad.

The next time I passed out, I did it in the kitchen, after another "punishment" session. I remember eating soup, sitting on my kitchen floor, when I came around. I think my mother was less fazed by the second collapse than the first because I wasn't hauled off to the GP, this time around. But two faints were enough to tell me to get my shit together. Mam was scared the first time. I was scared the second time.

Its only been in the past few months I've been eating properly again. It's been oddly tough, and I do slip into old ways on occasion, but mostly its been a conscious effort on my part. I still eat irregularly, but the irregularity is usually based off genuinely not feeling hungry at that moment. As someone who lied about food, day in, day out, I can admit right here that I was good at looking like I was eating, but when I was alone, I was doing everything possible to avoid food. These days, I make a mission of having food. If I do skip breakfast, I will pointedly eat a big lunch, and I love a good dinner now. Chris and I talk about this from time to time and he will usually be the voice of reason, my conscience on the outside.

To this day, I don't believe I have, or have had an eating disorder, though, I'm sure there are plenty who would disagree because I always try to eat alone. People may not even believe me when they read this as they may have seen me hoovering down a bowl of pasta, or chomping down a wrap.

I still eat alone.

Let me know if you have had any similar experiences, and if you have, have you overcome them? If you are struggling, I am here to talk to you.

All my love,
Amy
xo

Amys Story

“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” L.P Hartley

Everyone has a past. Its a universal truth that most of us are embarrassed or ashamed of what occurred in their past. Most people hate the pictures of when they had an awkward hippie phase, or maybe a horrible, ill thought-out haircut that took months upon months to grow out. In my more serious posts, I touched on bullying because of my hair colour and also on anxiety. 

I love blogging about beauty, don't get me wrong, but every so often I have to remember that this blog was created so I could have a place to write thing that would help me, and in turn help others. So I'm going to reclaim that for a while. 

Please remember that what follows is personal and maybe I shouldn't be sharing this, but someone out there will get solace from this, maybe. If I help one person, then it will be worth the anxious feelings that hitting that little orange "publish" button will bring.

When I was 18 or 19, I went to see Paramore in The 02 with my boyfriend at the time. Everything was going amazingly and we were after making friends with some people from Northern Ireland in the queue. We got in and were standing around in the crowd surrounded by around 10,000 people. I was in front of Himself, and I don't really remember what preceded my breakdown but I have been told that I turned my head to look around and I was in tears. I snapped back into the world around me then and I started to freak out. I remember it vividly, painfully. I started to freak out and He had to push me out of the crowd as I hyperventilated, cried and screamed. I was having my very first panic attack. I couldn't control it and for that very reason I was terrified. What was happening to me??? I was brought to a Medic and all I remember was being asked had I taken drugs. No way. Never have, never will. I was taken into a medical room and made to sit down as they attempted to bring me out of my panic. They gave me water and asked me questions. I answered them all in a pretty harrowed, hiccuping voice, from what I remember. Then they gave us seated tickets to get me away from the crowd and let me go out to the ushers when I was able to be up and functioning properly. 

That was the start of two or three awful years for me. I went downhill rapidly after that, sometimes having up to two panics a week, which would vary from mild shaking and quietness, to full blown screaming and hysterical crying. All of these panics were accompanied by thoughts that the world around me was falling asunder, that I was losing control of myself and my life. I hated myself for being weak. There was an awful couple of weeks during the following summer, where I was really low, and I just didn't know how to reach out, or who to reach out to. As if that wasn't bad enough, I was being made to feel awful by others because I didn't know how to cope with my own feelings. It was Hell. 

My relationship ended the following February/March and I was surprisingly fine with it for about a week. Then I crumbled even further. Now while I say that, I in no way blame him, nor was it the definitive reason for my further demise. This was when I started to think really dark thoughts. I was listening to a lot of really depressing music which now when I think back on it, was glamorizing self-harm and suicide. Now while I have to just plainly state that I have never ever physically harmed myself, I can fully admit that wallowing in my dark, depressive states was mental harm. I was always listening to music that dealt with death, suicide, blades, alcohol, and a lot of negative imagery. I was hurting myself indirectly. I can admit that now, but back then, I was spiralling and could not see it. While I can understand the mentality and the place you have to be in to want to take it out on yourself, in order to have physical pain to focus on rather than the mental anguish, I just could never understand the action. Its a big jump from theory to practice.

I met Chris not too long after my previous relationship, having known him for a while just as casual hello's, as he's a close friend of my Ex. He doesn't know this (but I believe he reads my blog) but I thought he was the instant fixer. He made me feel beautiful, he made me laugh, life was looking up. But I was fooling myself. Things with Chris were getting more and more serious and I was so happy with Chris, but I was getting worse to a certain point. I would cry on the bus home because I didn't want to be alone. I was aware of how much better I felt when I spent time with people, but you have to go home sometime, and its in those moments you see the difference. I still didn't know who to reach out to or how to do it. Many nights were spent crying and feeling like I was coming apart from the inside out. I would spend hours on MSN and Facebook Chat to Chris and my best friend Aine talking. Aine (I love you, you ass kicking bitch!) gave me plenty of pep talks when I opened up. I told her about feeling so low I thought about suicide. She went ballistic. I cried and cried, typing away to beat the band, and for a while I would feel better. Time was rapidly passing. Chris spent many a night talking to me over video chat and IM, helping me to muddle through my feelings. It helped, and I love both Aine and Chris for helping me. 

We went to Kerry for a week during the summer of 2011, and as is the case when 11 people in their late teens go off on a holiday of boozing and debauchery, there was drama. It's not my drama to talk about but it really set me back. Ho hum, that's just life I suppose.

Through Chris I met another amazing friend (and I love you too for the record!), Kayliegh. She and I weren't close at first, but we had common ground in our struggles and we played a lot of cards together in Kerry, and when Chris went off to Donegal and Spain for a month two summers ago, we leaned on each other a lot. I hadn't got my boyfriend and she hadn't got her best friend. We literally talked every day. Somewhere in there we formed a firm friendship that I am grateful everyday for! I don't remember who persuaded me to, but I eventually went to see my GP and told her about my panics. She was not helpful in the slightest. I was advised to buy a self help book and see how I fared with that. I read it. It did not help me. So I went back and suddenly there was a new GP in her place who was amazing! She referred me to a Psychiatrist. I was bricking it and it did take about 2 months for him to get to see me, but it was the first step to recovery. I had thought day in, day out about dying up until I went to see my doctor. Now I was getting in control. 

When I went to see the Psychiatrist, Dr Paul, I was terrified. Was I being silly? Maybe I was over-thinking my problems? Did I even have problems??? Time to man-up, as they say! So in I went, answered a myriad of questions about my family and my relationships, my life, what was happening in my life, and how I had learned to cope with my panic attacks. I answered every single question with blunt honesty, and after 90 minutes in Dr Pauls office, I was given a basic diagnosis. Anxious Avoidance Personality Disorder. What a sigh of relief I breathed! I had a problem, it had a name, I could work on it. I was asked to come back to see a Clinical Psychologist. She was amazing. Like a lifelong friend, I just opened up to her and spilled all of the worries and hurt out. She took notes, told me she'd see me again and work on getting me a space in an Anxiety Support Group. I was thrilled. Things were looking up. 

In the meantime, I couldn't get through a weekend with Chris without breaking down somehow, into hysterical tears and spilling my guts. One weekend I told him about how low I had been feeling. I felt like the worst failure in the world. What kind of person was I to be attempting to have a serious relationship with someone?? I obviously didn't deserve to be loved. I was unlovable. I was awful. Maybe I should just die and stop bothering everyone with my stupid head problems. I didn't know what to do. Things felt like they were going from bad to worse. Somehow, Chris took it all on board, and continued to persevere in helping me get through. It wasn't the worst thing I had told him. Imagine your other half telling you they had thought long and hard about how to kill themselves and feel as little pain as possible. I did that. Imagine seeing your other half in hysterical tears telling you they want to die. I also did that. I was put on medication after medication, until I found the one that fit. Then I stayed on that for a year, and slowly things picked up. The tablets were doing their job, thankfully, and I was slowly learning to be happy. 

I came off those tablets a year ago, or so. I just forgot to take them and slowly I was off them. I was terrified of what Dr Paul was going to say during our next session, but he was fine with it. He reminded me that medicating was only going to do half of the work, and I had to step up and do the other half. Time to be strong. After being told I could stay off the tablets, I was pretty scared. Was I going to come crashing down? Would I cope OK? Having recently been diganosed also with Generalised Anxiety Disorte, now only time would tell. I would still talk to Kayliegh, I would still have my arse kicked by Aine, I would still cry over stupid things, but I knew I had to be a big bold 20 year old and be brave. 

For the first few months after I got discharged from Dr Paul's Mental Health Clinic, I was still really liable to slip and wallow in my own self pity. That wasn't helping but this time I knew it. I decided that I was going to help myself be happy. I was going to kick all my bad habits and that was just the way it was going to be. I would be Amy 2.0 if it was to kill me. I deleted people off Facebook who I knew weren't good for me, and I forged new, wonderful friendships! I even cut all of my purple hair off and embraced my ginger self! It was hard, and every day I wanted to give up, but I am absolutely not a quitter and life is there to be lived, so I was going to live it, and fuck anyone who said I was doing it wrong!! 

I can't remember the last time I wallowed. I especially can't remember the last time I panicked. I started this blog and suddenly I was feeling like this amazing, fabulous Super-Amy! I had an outlet for my negative energy, and it had the scope to help someone else. I was going to do what made me happy, and that was just the way it was going to be. If anyone said anything negative, suddenly I was able to deal with their comments. I had been budding during the months prior to this, but now I was in full bloom. 

Amy from 3 years ago is so far removed from who I am now, and I couldn't be more happy, or proud of who I have become. I know now that I was damaging myself, I was making my own life miserable, and in doing so, making other people miserable and hurting them. I felt like shit, all the time, and that wasn't okay. I want to say that during my year of rising out of the darkness, there have been setbacks, hurdles I've had thrown out in front of me. My ex told me he lied about loving me and led me on. I knew for a long time that our relationship was toxic, that we were bad for each other, though, I know because he told me once I'd be unattractive with my natural hair color. The only one who was unattractive in that exchange was him, with his manipulating words. My friends have told me about their problems which I was too blind to see myself and its made me feel like a failure, as a friend. But life moves on and all you can do if grow and mature. At the age of 21, I have more knowledge of my own strength that many don't attain til their 40's. 

This might not have been the most coherent post, but the misery of that time in my life mushes it all together in to one big black, tear-stained blob. I can't thank Chris, Kayliegh, Aine, and all the rest of my friends enough for helping me get through. I absolutely love every single one of you more than you will ever, EVER know! 

If this post helps one person, then it will have been worth it. While I'm not proud of my past, I'm proud that I came through it. I'm proud of what I learned, and in some ways, I'm grateful for the experiences I had, because they shaped me. I'm the  new and improved, confident, brave Amy, and that is definitely something I'm grateful for. If you find yourself in the dark, please remember what Dumbledore once said...

“Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.” Albus Dumbledore (Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban, J.K Rowling)

I hope you mined some kind of wisdom from my demented, probably overly honest ramble. 

All my Love,

Amy,

xoxo