#MentalHealthAwareness

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So last week was #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek and you would have seen numerous blog posts about it and people being so open about it.  I think we should encourage more people, not just males or just females, just PEOPLE to talk about it.

For everybody who suffers with Mental Health issues I bet you wish you had the support that you saw or gave on Twitter everyday in your life, let me just say YOU WILL. So long as you talk about it.  In my opinion we need to focus more on Mental Health and trying to increase the awareness so more people will understand it and not judge.

I suffer with it now and have done for a long time and in this post I am going to open up for the first time PUBLICLY and talk about what I have been through and how I got back into a positive mindset and I am still getting help and trying to move forward with my life. so here goes and I hope you enjoy and I hope there is 1 person who reads this who I can inspire to open up and talk about their Mental Health issues. Unfortunately it may be long BUT I want to open up fully so I hope people read the full post.

It all started back when I was around 17/18, I was actually fine at that point, no depressed feelings, no suicidal thoughts, I was the life of the party actually. Everybody loved me and was knocking on my door to go out, until all that changed in 1 night which changed my life forever.  I would like to add that I was bullied over my speech impediment and my severe acne but never thought of selfharming or killing myself.

So I was really good friends with a girl named A (I will use fake names) and this 1 Night A decided to selfharm, which I had never seen before, so to keep the post/story short, basically I thought I could stop her by pretending to selfharm myself and my thought process was that she would stop because she saw me as a good friend, well she did. HOWEVER, unbeknown to me, that my was trigger, that 1 cut I did on my arm changed my life.  From that moment on, anytime I was angry or upset I selfharmed and my mindset changed I began to become depressed, I started thinking negative about every situation no matter what.  A stopped and I started.  So I would go out on a Friday/Saturday and have an argument with a friend over nothing and BOOM I would selfharm and try to kill myself. Anyway this went on for a few years, I was sectioned under the Mental Health act in 2005, where on this night I basically had enough and had a piece of roper around my neck tried to jump from a bridge and as I jumped my cousin saved my life and stopped me. Thats when police come took me to the hospital and I was sectioned. I was put under observation in Leigh Hospital and no disrespect but that was a scary place.  I won’t describe what I saw however if you want to know message me on Twitter and I will tell you.

Anyway I had counselling was getting myself back on track when June 6th 2006 (666) came around, my cousin who saved my life went to bed the night before and died in his sleep, R.I.P Brent.  That rocked my world, because he had saved my life and now he had been taken. I could not believe it. So I spent maybe 2/3 years after that back in depression and having suicidal thoughts and then I entered CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy), which I must say for me is 10x better than counselling, however it is different for everyone. Fast forwarding my life to around 2010 I came out of CBT, because I had been in and out of it, had a few issues at uni with some of the other students bullying me over my speech impediment.  Went back into the university counselling which they offered m and it pretty much lasted for about 4 years, even if it was just a face to talk to every week it helped.

Almost finished, getting to 2016/2017, there was a massive situation which occured on Twitter and I had slipped back into a really dark place, due to graduating almost 2 years ago and still have not found a job or a girlfriend, felt like I was going to die alone.

However it took me to lose everyone, or pretty much everyone, to realise I needed help again and I am back in counselling getting the help I need and now I am more focused and positive than ever.  I am back at the gym focusing on my fitness for my refereeing, I am also focusing on my football refereeing too and I hope to progress in that.  I am becoming more active as a blogger and getting more experience with local businesses in terms of my advertising/marketing degree.

There is a lot I have missed out because I have been through a lot and wanted try keep this as short but as detailed as I can, hopefully its not too long.  Looking back, I thought my life was over, even got told by a doctor I would never amount to anything because I am mentally F***** (THEM WERE HIS WORDS). You just have to remain positive and talk to people and you will do fine.  If you struggle, go listen to @GaryVee, he has inspired me in the last few weeks.

On a final note, I want to give Charlene McElhinney a massive shout out to her because I am a stranger to her and she supported me through a lot and her book Melancholy Mind, which you can buy via this link http://amzn.to/2rkBSLi, has really helped me.  I would also like to thank my family and close friends who I won’t name who have supported me through all of this as well.  If there is anyone out there who suffers from Mental Health issues and wants to rant or just say hi, I am ALWAYS available to message on Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat or Facebook. Just remember the hashtag:

 #MENTALHEALTHAWARENESSWEEK

Until next time,

Phillip Dean