Mental health, both good and bad, is a continuous journey. Your age, situation or background doesn’t mean you cannot seek the help and support you need…
Over the past 2 years, having went through a big dip in my
mental health, leaving work and becoming a family carer for my Grandmother, it
is safe to say life has not been very straight forward. That is why for Men’s Mental
Health Awareness Month this year, I felt it important to do this blog.
To find support, advice and guidance about men’s mental health please visit the Mental Health UK website – https://mentalhealth-uk.org/mens-mental-health/
Even though I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Depression at an early age which has been a part of me for so long now, I have always had many different struggles when it came to education, work and personal situations. I never explored much into it, I just accepted it must just be part of my conditions.
My mental health through the years and its effect
on work…
My mental health has not been smooth sailing. It has been up
and down to say the least, but I now take it in my stride and recognise it as a
part of me. I am now able to be a bright, positive and strong person because of
what I have experienced and it made me who I am today.
I have had a range of jobs since I left school at the age
of 16, after finishing my GCSEs through Hospital and Home Tuition Service.
Straight out of school I went into a Level 2 Youth Work Apprenticeship for 2
years, but I left this role due to my mental health and inability to manage. I
did successfully pass my Level 2 Youth Work Practice before leaving the role.
After taking a break to focus on my recovery I ended up
taking a different route and went to work as a temporary Christmas Customer
Assistant at Boots, which then led into a permanent position for 1 year 8
months. I then decided to spread my wings and apply for a role at Pets at Home,
due to my love and passion for animals. I was successful in gaining this role
and worked there for 11 months. Again, I left this role due to my mental health
going downhill causing me to struggle in the role.
After I left Pets at Home, I went on to work as a Bartender
at a pub in Newcastle. This was a very different role because at this point, I
felt stuck in a rut and didn’t know which way I wanted to go forward. I worked
there for 10 months before leaving to take care of my Grandad and due to my
mental health once again going downhill, this just so happened to be exactly 1
month before the first Covid lockdown came into effect in 2020.
During my time working at the bar, in 2019, my Uncle had
taken his own life at the age of 46. He had suffered from a young age with his
mental health which eventually led to severe alcohol addiction later on in
life. Instead of focusing on the negatives, I want to focus on what is
important, that Uncle was an amazing, kind and caring guy before the alcohol
took control. Uncle never accepted that he needed help with his problems and as
we know, that is the first step you must take before you can start on the road
to recovery.
The loss of my Uncle affected not just myself massively but
my Mam, Gran and Grandad too, not to mention our extended family and friends.
His passing was painful for so many people who knew and loved him.
My Grandad was the one who found Uncle in his flat but it
was already too late and this image never left Grandad and was ultimately a
contributing factor to his own mental health going downhill.
I will note that during these years I was doing volunteer work for YoungMinds and I was also a Governor for my local Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust.
Lockdowns, bereavement and rebuilding our lives…
Now I know we have had more than enough stories about Covid
and lockdowns so I don’t want to spend much time on this subject. However, it
is important to my life and story. As I said I left work to become a carer for
my Grandad in February 2020 and due to my mental health being affected by
losing my Uncle. Due to both Uncle’s passing and the effects that lockdown had
on my Grandad, his health deteriorated physically and mentally, resulting in
his passing in October of 2021, after the majority of restrictions were lifted.
Only one visitor was allowed on the ward and as a family we agreed that I was
in the best position to see him each day.
On the fourth day he was in hospital we received that
dreaded phone call and we knew he didn’t have much time left. Myself, my Mam
and Gran were allowed to spend the last couple of days and nights in hospital
with him until he took his last breath. One positive for the funeral was that we
were not restricted to such small numbers and awful seating arrangements that
many families had to endure, so we could still have the send-off for Grandad
that he deserved.
After Grandad had passed away, I was expected to start searching for work due to the rules around Universal Credit. I will give credit to my local Job Centre; they were very accommodating and put a pause on my account for 6 weeks to allow me to sort out our financial affairs. This time allowed us to apply for Attendance Allowance for Gran so that I could formally register as her full-time carer due to her caring needs. This meant I did not have to search or begin any employment, especially because I felt unable to return to work following the loss of my Grandad.
Taking that first step and going back to work
As I mentioned earlier on, I was a governor for my local
Mental Health NHS, Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust
(CNTW).
Because of my long running commitment and connection to the
organisation including the support and treatment I received from their Children
and Young People’s Services (CYPS), I knew some of the staff and directors
quite well. I started to feel this would be a really good career path to follow.
I was lucky enough to gain a Level 3 Business Administration Apprenticeship
working within the Corporate and Membership department. As they knew me well and
were aware of my responsibilities with my Gran, we were able to work around
these with part time hours and flexible working.
After about 6 months in the role, an opportunity arose for
me to take on more hours to become a full time Band 3 employee within the team,
while still completing my apprenticeship qualification.
Following a lot of discussion with my family and making
sure Gran could manage with me being around less, I decided to apply and was
successfully promoted into the role on the condition that my hours would still
be fully flexible to fit around my Gran.
I kept going from strength to strength, I completed my
Level 3 in Business Administration with Distinction and I also completed an
additional Level 2 Certificate in Mental Health First Aid and Mental Health
Advocacy in the Workplace.
I loved the job - of course, at times it was stressful but nothing I thought I couldn’t handle, I thought I was doing well. However, there was something always niggling at me in my mind, I just never gave it the space to come out or cause any problems. I thought I was set for life with a career in the NHS which I had always dreamt of.
The fall, the emotions and the problems arising…
After about 18 months in the role, on a visit to the GP,
they noticed some issues during a routine blood test which was eventually linked
to the sertraline I take for my anxiety and depression. We decided together that
I would slowly come off it and see if I would manage okay. My blood results
came back down to normal and everything was going well. Then about a month
later I noticed some small changes which snowballed into one of the fastest
drops in my mental health I have experienced. Even compared to other times I
have changed medication over years from Venlafaxine to Fluoxetine and
eventually landing on sertraline.
I went on the sick from work and after speaking to my GP I
was put straight back on the sertraline, as the positives of being on it
outweighed the negative that my bloods previously showed as it is not a life-threatening
issue.
Even though it had only been about a month or two since I last had any sertraline in my system, it took a lot longer for it to start helping again. I was eventually put on the maximum dosage allowed to try and bring my mental health back into a stable place but it just was not working. I was referred to a counsellor to explore what was going on in my mind as I could not make sense of what was going on in my head. At this point in time, I still had not returned to work and was still on sick leave from my role.
Diving into my mental health and starting again
from page one…
During my counselling sessions I ended up talking about and
expressing a lot of feelings and situations that I had never gave myself a
chance to deal with. One that stood out was that I realised I had never let
myself grieve following the loss of my Uncle and my Grandad as I always put
myself last on the list and focused on helping others. I had a lot of hidden
guilt, fears and sadness that my counsellor finally helped me explore, speak
about and understand why I was feeling this way – and most importantly I
realised I was allowed to feel this way.
The word that kept cropping up was Catastrophizing,
which I had not thought about before. It is a cognitive distortion where a
person assumes the worst-possible outcome of a situation is likely to happen. I
never realised that nearly every situation that arose in my life I would go
straight to catastrophizing it without even considering any other possibilities
could happen and that the worst thing possible would. Because of the
experiences I had had in my life, my brain taught itself to be like that.
This opened a whole new view on my life and what I could
start trying and doing in life to think differently. By this point in time, I
had formally left my role in the NHS.
I realised early on into counselling that I should not have
jumped into a full-time role so fast on top of my other responsibilities as
this stretched me too thin and I couldn’t keep control or a handle on the
situations. I have always been a yes-man, but this was ultimately a
contributing factor to my recent lapse. Once again, I started to catastrophize
everything from work, the consequences of leaving and the effects on other
aspects of my life.
This word would keep coming up, week after week, session after session, until instead of letting it control me, my thoughts and reactions, I learned to embrace it and see a different way of thinking. Not completely getting rid of that way of thinking, but balancing it with more logical and thought-out ideas and feelings.
The revelations and seeking even more
diagnostic assessments…
During the time I spent with my counsellor, we started to
explore the possibilities of other psychological problems and conditions I
could be suffering from, the main one being Attention Deficit Hyperactivity
Disorder (ADHD) but there was also some thoughts about potential Autism
Spectrum Disorder (ASD) traits.
Once I completed my counselling, I booked an appointment
with my doctor to discuss my thoughts and why I felt I may meet the criteria
for ADHD and ASD. I made sure I did some research first on the ADHD UK Website https://adhduk.co.uk/ as
they have an Adult ADHD screening form you can fill in to support your
conversation with the doctor and they also have information about the Right to
Choose pathway that is available for ADHD and ASD assessments – which is the
route I wanted to go along.
The Right to Choose system allows people to choose who they
are referred to for their ADHD and ASD assessments which can help ease the
pressure on the main NHS services as it allows companies who have contracts
with the NHS to provide assessments, support and even medication titration.
There are many different companies you can choose to be referred to. Just for
ease I went with Psychiatry UK who are the UK’s leading provider of online
psychiatry.
If you would like to find out more information about the
Right to Choose framework this can be found on the ADHD UK or NHS website at
these links:
https://adhduk.co.uk/right-to-choose/
https://www.nhs.uk/using-the-nhs/about-the-nhs/your-choices-in-the-nhs/
To my appointment with my GP, I took a pre-written letter
available from the Psychiatry UK website which explained to him what Right to
Choose is, who it is for and my rights to choose my provider for my
assessments. Because of this amazing resource my GP was able to understand what
I wanted; he explored the conditions with me and specifically asked me to
consider:
‘What do I expect to get out of this?’
And,
‘Why do I feel this referral would be beneficial for me?’
By asking these two important questions it helped me to
feel listened to, he showed he wanted to know how I felt and how I feel this
could help if I was to be diagnosed with ADHD, ASD or a combination of both.
Following my appointment, he referred the letter and screening
forms to my chosen provider to allow them to process and confirm I meet the
criteria for an ADHD and ASD assessment.
I want to note here, I was not seeking these two assessments
for excuses, which I felt like I had to make clear from the start. All I wanted
was answers. I needed to know if there were other reasons for my behaviour and
feelings or if they are linked with my previously diagnosed conditions, or maybe
if it was something else entirely. It’s important to say that I was only able
to seek these diagnoses because I had symptoms as a child and this could be
proven through case studies from people who knew me as a child, a teenager and to
present day. Without meeting these criteria, I would not have been able to be
assessed for these conditions as an adult.
This all happened at the start of 2025; by May I had my ASD
assessment with a doctor and ASD Nurse Specialist online via Microsoft Teams
and at the end of the appointment they confirmed that I did indeed meet the
criteria for Autism Spectrum Disorder Level 1 both in childhood and present day
– previously known as Aspergers Syndrome - however it now forms part of the ASD
spectrum levels of diagnoses.
This gave me such relief, not just because I finally had
some answers, but because it meant my difficulties with work were starting to
be answered and I now had resources and supporting information for the present
and future to help me settle and get any reasonable adjustments when I return
to any sort of work, paid or voluntary.
My ADHD assessment just happened last month (October). Due
to the increase of referrals there were longer waiting times, however I still
got seen faster than expected.
Following this assessment, I was diagnosed as having Adult
ADHD Combined Type, which means I have a degree of both inattentive ADHD and
hyperactive/impulsive ADHD which were evidenced in childhood as well. I have now
been added to the waiting list to start titration for medication which will be
a few more months due to medication shortages and demand for the service. If
the medication helps, the responsibility will be passed to my GP to continue to
prescribe with yearly check-ups with Psychiatry UK to see how I am progressing.
I finally feel seen, I feel listened to and I feel like I actually know myself better, I’m learning about the type of person I am. These diagnoses won’t define the rest of my life but I want to continue getting to know myself more wherever that may lead.
Chapters may conclude, but the story never
ends…
So here we are, Men’s Mental Health Awareness Month,
talking about and sharing stories and experiences to improve men’s mental
health support across the world.
I am so proud to say I am no longer ashamed of leaving work
due to mental health. I have often felt like a failure each and every time I
left a job or went on the sick because of poor mental health. I felt like people
would conclude that I was ‘using my mental health as an excuse’, but now to
have people help me discover, support and explore my feelings, emotions and
experiences. I feel empowered to say that leaving/struggling anywhere, whether
it was my employment, education or personal life, I know my own mind AND
I know what I need to do for the best.
A diagnosis is not a label to be ashamed of; it’s something
to be empowered by. It can lead you down new paths, it can change your life
both negatively and positively. But always remember support is available,
support is there and people want to help. You just need to want to help
yourself, which can be the scariest and hardest step to take.
Thank you, Aimee, for giving me the space to explore my
life, share my feelings with others and be my authentic self.
