CF and it's Effects on Mental Health - Part 1

It's Mental Health Week so I thought what better way to celebrate than get completely real on the mental effects of CF! This first part of three regards Anxiety and Depression.

*Please be aware that all of my MH posts contain mentions of Anxiety, Depression, OCD and death so if you are triggered by any of these of then please take care when reading*

*And please also know that everyone experiences mental health differently; there’s no right or wrong way, please never deem yourself as ‘irrelevant’ or ‘not serious enough’ or believe you’re ‘unworthy of help’ just because you don’t seem to comply with any ‘norms’ that might have been wrongly established. Never be afraid or ashamed or embarrassed to reach out*

Samaritans - 116 123 (free 24-hour helpline)

Text Shout – 852 58 (crisis text line)

SANEline on 0300 304 7000 (4.30pm–10.30pm every day)

When you’re diagnosed with a chronic medical condition, there’s always a little clause that states something along the lines of ‘yeah sorry mate, but you’ll end up suffering with Anxiety and/or Depression at some point on top of everything you already have to deal with haha, it’s a bit pants but have fun with it anyway’.

For this reason, CF centres enlist the help of clinical psychologists who are able to help through talking things out or recommending self-care approaches or suggesting further intervention if necessary. I was twelve when I first met with one, but I don’t ever recall really utilising this help, it was just another professional who would ask me how I was doing blah blah blah. However, once I started having frequent admissions, the paediatric psychologist literally became my best friend as being in hospital can be exceptionally isolating and other fifteen year olds are probably not the best outlet.

Originally, I had written wayyyy more than what I've actually posted but then I realised that I don't really want everybody knowing the inside of my head in detail so I've aimed to keep this as consistent with CF as possible. SO, I suppose if any lesson can come from this, it's that there's always more than meets the eye so be kind to anyone and everyone you meet as you never know what they could be dealing with behind closed doors. And kindness, is in fact the theme of Mental Health Week this year!

Depression

What is Depression?

The charity ‘Mind’ describes Depression as ‘low mood that lasts for a long time and affects your everyday life.’

My Experience

I am extremely lucky that Depression has never really affected me, not in the way it does for others. Obviously, I’ll have days where I’m feeling down and pretty ‘what’s the point’ but I wouldn’t describe this as proper Depression at all. You might be surprised (or not surprised) to know that the actual concept of death does not phase me at all, I've built quite a solid and I'd like to think, a healthy relationship with death... although I'm not so keen on the actual dying part; suffocating isn't really my desired way to go haha.

However, staying overnight in hospital is a different kettle of fish when it comes to mood. Now again, I don’t have it, but weirdly, every time I’m admitted and discharged, I’ll become very down in the dumps and ‘here we go again’, it’s quite a difficult one to explain.

On admission day it’s the realisation that: the nausea is back, the lack of sleep, the repulsive food, the loss of independence, not being able to shower properly, needles, scans, the endless hours you spend alone with nothing but your own thoughts 😳dealing with doctors you’ve never met before who think they know more about the body you’ve been living in for 19 years than you do (!!!). But soon this wears off and you’re back into the same routine you’ve become accustomed to countless times before.

Then on discharge day: the realisation that I now have to do this by myself, swiftly out of routine again, genuine responsibilities again, back into the real world where I’m not protected with the pretty valid apology of ‘sorry I’m in hospital’. And believe it or not, it’s so intimidating trying to adjust back into normal life again, even after a one-week admission I’m nervous to go back into a classroom or out in public again.

Anxiety

What is Anxiety?

‘Mind’ identifies nine different types of anxiety but the most common is Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD) which they describe as ‘having regular or uncontrollable worries about many different things in your everyday life.’ Highlighting the fact that symptoms can range hugely depending on the individual so GAD can be a very broad diagnosis.

My Experience

Once again, everybody’s definition of a mental health issue differs, but for me, CF has led to Anxiety of uncertainties of situations, the notion of ‘not being good enough’ (whatever the hell that means), ‘jinxing’ and guilt. (And obviously having to worry about health, admissions, medications, prescriptions etc etc the list goes on and on.)

I’m very fortunate to only ‘officially’ suffer with Anxiety. I’ve been in and out of counselling for over two years now for either Anxiety, stress or just dealing with CF in general. On reflection, I’ve always been an anxious child in pretty standard ways, but the most prominent memory I have regarding the CF side of it was when I had hospital appointments or flu jabs due. I hated hated hated needles so much so that as a six-year-old, at least three nurses and my dad would have to hold me down to even attempt a blood test. This Anxiety grew to the point of sitting on my hands in every situation; in the classroom, in the car, in bed because I was just paralysed by the fear of my hands and arms being exposed. Even evaluating the risk of a nurse turning invisible and trying to get me that way.

I’d like to point out that I am FAR better now, the last time I played up (at the grand age of fifteen), I ended up kneeing a student nurse in the face, and at which point, I abruptly realised I was much stronger than my six-year-old self 😬 I do hope she continued with her degree despite a broken nose and coming face to face with a quite frightening display I'm sure.

Another instance that sticks out to me as a major CF related anxiety thing is there was a period of time that felt like every time I walked through hospital doors, I’d have to stay overnight unexpectedly, meaning a cannula or line would be shoved up my arm instantaneously, and as you can imagine, these aren’t exactly pleasurable procedures. So, unsurprisingly, it’s caused a great deal of ‘on edgeness’, always expecting a bad situation to occur, perhaps as a defence mechanism? ‘If I expect this to happen then I’ll be prepared for it’. However, in the last year, this anxiety has developed into ‘if I worry about it, it won’t happen but if I don’t worry about, it will happen’ I shall explain this complex in my next post.

I might write another post in the future about how I actually deal (or try to anyway) with Anxiety and trying to stabilise moods whilst being in hospital as I want to keep these as short as possible, but somehow I don't think I did an excellent job on this particular one haha.

Thank you for reading to the end, I do hope you enjoyed this and you learnt something or felt enlightened. I am aiming for the next post to be up on Wednesday evening, this will be regarding OCD and guilt, it could probably be described as a bit more raw than this one but nonetheless I think it's valuable to the realm of mental health and chronic conditions. Then the following one after that will be up on Friday, again this is a very heavy one but we'll leave that for later. I hope you are all staying safe and well!!