I can’st really see a time when I won’st have thoughts going round in my head. Probably there might be something where people have said, “I’sve had therapy,” or “I’sve had medication for it and it helps lessen them. And it helps do this.” But I’m always, with it being a mental thing as well, I’m always a bit reluctant as to whether it is still something that needs to be treated, or whether it is still something which most people have got. I think – I can’st really see myself not having the thoughts, but I think maybe I’m hopeful of kind of trying to look for some sort of counselling.

I haven’st really looked that much, yet. I know obviously about kind of local IAPT services, I know you can look online and try and find services through the NHS. And I know how difficult it is to get services for that. I’m not sure I would feel confident still going to the doctors and pursuing kind of therapy for it or anything, or medication. But maybe that’s something I should think about doing.

I just – I think maybe, they’sd always sort of – I’d always kind of had running commentary in my head, and thoughts what go through your head, when you’re kind of anxious or nervous and sort of, or feeling low. When you’sve got a low mood. And sort of your brain tells you that you’sre not worth anything, or you know, you’sre not sort of, yeah. And I – maybe when that grief came, it kind of zeroed in on it a bit more. I think just the shock of it all happening, and then the sort of – maybe there was a thought, thoughts of kind of like, you know. When someone passes away close to you, there’s suddenly that thing of, somebody who had seemed like kind of – yeah, you kind of get shocked a bit because you kind of expect people close to you like your family to always be there.

In a way I think if I had more sort of courage I suppose to pursue, to go to the doctor and say “I’sve got this.” In a sort of way, with self-diagnosing, you kind of think to yourself, ‘do I really need that sort of validation’ or ‘do I need somebody to say you’sve got this’, and they might not necessarily understand. Because it is complicated, talking about it, and it is complex talking about them. And doctor’s appointments are only sort of short things, well they’re only usually about ten minutes long. So trying to get it – trying to talk about everything at once would kind of be hard. And with the thing of not wanting to have medication necessarily, I’m sort of averse to doing that, although if it was something that they really wanted me to do – I suppose the having the label does kind of matter, because it would kind of feel like, ‘this is the issue you’sve got. It’s official that you’sve got this.

And now you’sve got medication for it, it kind of feels like – if you’sre pursuing therapy for it, it’s kind of like ‘you’sve got this issue, this is what’s going to be used to treat it. But on the other hand, I don’st know if I’sd be sort of that confident with saying to people, particularly family, that I’sve gone to the doctors and they’sve said, “You’sve got psychosis.” Or, “You’sve got clinical depression.” Or something like that.

I think there were different sessions. So, some were based on anxiety and some would be based on depression. And I remember going for like – they called it, well they called it cognitive behavioural therapy, CBT. And it was a group-based therapy. So there would be about six or seven of us, and I can’st actually remember if it was supposed to be based on one thing or another. I remember going to like a triage session where there would be like seeing if you were a suitable candidate, if you like, for the therapy. And I remember at the triage session she said, yeah, she’s talked about me, about what I’sd been through, and I might have mentioned thoughts. I think I talked a lot more about depression, and I might have mentioned thoughts and feelings as well. But in that, they sort of covered what they would call I think, I can’st remember if they called it intrusive thoughts, but they dealt with like what you can do with thoughts when they pop into your head. And I remember thinking, or I remember the big thing was that she said that when you get these kinds of thoughts it’s probably more important or better for you as a person to just let them pass through a lot of the time, rather than challenge them, or attack them. But she was saying it was more to do with recognise that they are there, and accept that they are there, and then just sort of quietly let them pass through. And then think, and then try and change your thought pattern, by focusing on what’s actually – on how it might be false. Things like that, or. But not necessarily challenging it, which is what I would tend to do. So yeah, I think a lot of the time I would sit at home a lot and, when you’sre sort of on your own a lot of the time, you sort of go through your thoughts, and you develop sort of delusional thoughts which you kind of – it’s sometimes difficult to kind of say they’sre wrong.

One thing I’ll do is be kind of careful with social media. A couple of my family members are on like things like Facebook whom I’m friends with, but I’m always like more sort of – a little bit more vocal about mental health and my own mental health.

When it was – I don’st know if I can mention this, but the organisation ran a day where you are encouraged to talk about things, and that was just last week.

Time To Change. Yeah that’s okay to say that.

Yeah, Time To Talk day, yeah.

Yeah, Time To Talk day.

Yeah. Yeah they ran a Time To Talk day, which was last week. And I was careful not to post too much on Facebook where members of my family are on. And I was more sort of – because they were encouraging people to talk about, and have conversations, I had posted more on a different social media. So I was on Twitter.

Okay.

Posting where people from my family can’st see what I’sve posted, and where its people from the volunteering from Time To Change who can see it instead.

And how was that sort of, twittering about your experiences?

That felt okay, yeah. I didn’st put too much in there, but I was – It was kind of similar to doing the testimony training thing. Which is one of their training things, where you do like a 5-10 minute talk, intended for like schools or workplaces. Where you talk about – like give a timeline of how, of your mental health.

And that I always mentioned a lot more. I always felt better reading it out. I didn’st feel confident reading it out at the actual training session, but the woman – the person running it said, “If you want to, we can arrange a phone call and you can try and read it out to me over the phone.” Which I did, and I felt better for doing that. And that was kind of similar to going on Twitter and writing about it. Neither of them kind of mentioned psychosis, because I wanted to focus on more the depression and the anxiety side of things.

Yeah.

But I think there is still that kind of thing inside of me, stigma inside of me what kind of says depression and anxiety are okay-ish to talk about to people.

Okay. Yeah.

But maybe when it comes to talking about thoughts and when it gets on to things like paranoia and psychosis, kind of – I’m a bit more reluctant to mention them even to people in the mental health community. Because it’s maybe – I see it as something a bit more – like I don’st know, maybe it’s seen as something where you’sre more of a risk or something.

Does it affect how you socialise, going to do hobbies, or?

Yeah. Yeah, because I’sve kind of got into a, a thought pattern now of, kind of because I’m not doing anything in particular, or anything big, or yeah, definitely affects me sort of like that. Because I have – not necessarily purposely, although maybe I have done, where I have sort of distanced myself from people and not – Because you don’st see people on a regular basis anyway, it’s kind of easier to sort of lose contact with people. And, yeah. [siren in the background] I’sve kind of not so much gotten to that point of giving up contacting people, but sort of just kind of like – you get that sort of ‘why bother’ type thing, and. Yeah, I definitely haven’st met up with people as much, or done social things for quite a few months really. For a while. With sort of the exceptions of graduating. But yeah, I definitely think it kind of affects relationships, as well.

Right.

I think it definitely affects your trust in people, and things like that as well. Yeah. I think it makes me sort of not do things, if you put sort of a simple term on it like that. It makes it a lot easier to say “I’sll just stay at home and do nothing, or just do this,” if I can’st be bothered to do something.

It makes it a bit easier to say no to people and stuff, you know.

And so I’sd always had kind of depression and anxiety. But I’sd never really sort of noticed how deeper it went, or kind of how much worse it got during this period. And so I think it was during this time I started to notice things like voices in my head. My own sort of voice became a lot more vocal in my head. I started to talk, talking to myself a lot more, and started to hear my own voice doing like a running commentary a lot. Yeah. A lot of the time it was mostly at night time as well, when you kind of, lay in bed trying to go to sleep and then you can notice a running commentary in your head. But yeah, it was probably just during this period when I was kind of noticing it more. But not really at first thinking of what to do about it. Because I’sd always kind of heard about things around depression and how it can have – sometimes they call it like intrusive thoughts. Things like that, or. And I’sd always just kind of assumed I suppose that most people had kind of a running commentary, or had their own voice talking to them a lot. So I didn’st really sort of think of it as anything too serious, just something to kind of go through with. I suppose sort of until about a year ago, probably while I was at a different university. I started to notice it a bit more because I was kind of going through a difficult time at university. Yeah, while it was sort of – I was noticing a lot more kind of thoughts going through your head, and kind of related to things around paranoia. So kind of a lot of delusional type things. Like hearing voices and things like that. So I was noticing that more, and I was thinking ‘oh, this is getting – seems to be getting worse’, as an effect of stress.

So I think probably maybe a couple of years ago, while I was still at university. I kind of – I think a few years ago I’sd entered sort of a deep kind of depression episode. Due to various different things, but also kind of around my Dad die- passing away, about into my second year.

And so I’sd always had kind of depression and anxiety, and. But I’sd never really sort of noticed how deeper it went, or kind of how much worse it got during this period. And so I think it was during this time I started to notice things like voices in my head. My own sort of voice became a lot more vocal in my head. I started to talk, talking to myself a lot more, and started to hear my own voice doing like – yeah, like a running commentary a lot. Yeah. A lot of the time it was mostly at night time as well, when you kind of, lay in bed trying to go to sleep and then you can notice a running commentary in your head. But yeah, it was probably just during this period when I was kind of noticing it more. But not really at first thinking of what to do about it. Because I’sd always kind of heard about things around depression and how it can have – sometimes they call it like intrusive thoughts.

Well, two things really. I suppose firstly I was doing – they asked us to do a dissertation which was, my masters was in social research. So you can research any area of society as long as you can relate it to something sociological.

Right.

So I started to think – I’sd already had thoughts that I could do something mental health related. Something based on therapy, and mine happened to be on CBT for people who’sd had various different issues. And they would – I would interview them, and they would talk about various different things. So they wouldn’st, often they wouldn’st have just had CBT, but they’sd have had other things as well like DBT, or they might have had counselling therapy, or taken medication. And they would say CBT is good for this, but it’s not good for something else which I’sd had. And I think one or two of them had even mentioned sort of having paranoia, and having psychosis, and having thoughts where CBT wouldn’st be. So I was starting to think oh actually, maybe I’sve got something similar’s. Because what they were talking about was very similar to what I had been going through.

Right. So you identified with their description of the sort of paranoid thoughts?

Yeah. I remember one person in particular had mentioned having paranoia and sort of. I remember thinking – you know, I didn’st really think. Maybe I should have done, but I wasn’st really thinking paranoia was something that you would necessarily relate to your mental health. Obviously it seems quite, like common sense almost, to relate it to something with thoughts. But I was kind of, before that I was probably thinking that paranoia is just something people get. And then, you know maybe I had it a little bit more extreme than other people. That maybe it was just something you go through, with anxiety. So – I think that sort of influenced me to try and seek out something about it. And then when I was – After university had ended, or around about that same time I started doing volunteering with people.

Okay.

And you meet – I met like eighty-odd other people. And there’s a lot of other people who have had very similar experiences. And at this kind of point, I was sort of thinking – I was self-diagnosing with quite a few different kind of things. So I remember just basically looking online, because I’sd always done that anyway, and several years ago I’sd looked sort of online and found out about things like not just depression but also other issues, which still are still – people are a bit uncertain around. Even medical professionals. So there’s kind of like de-personalisation, and things like that. And I’sd started to, started to think more about kind of depression at the extreme, more extreme end. So like bipolar disorder and maybe whether it was something, maybe I’sd got one of those type of issues. Like something you can kind of put a name to almost, rather than just calling it depression. And then I came across sort of, I thought well I wonder if kind of like, people have had experiences of having thoughts running through their head constantly, and finding it difficult to get rid of them. And sort of having paranoia and all these kind of things. And that’s when I just started to search online, really. And found – I think it was just the NHS website saying this is what psychosis- well it was – it got me onto the page of psychosis, where it was talking about – because it had been talking about delusions and hallucinations, hearing voices, and. Yeah, it got me onto the page of psychosis, when I was thinking – kind of looking through it and thinking well I haven’st got that necessarily, but this seems very similar, or exactly what I’sve got.