It’s #TimeToTalk about my health and death anxiety

*Long read*

I have added to this blog several times over the last year and a half, but haven’t finished it. Either something on social media prompts me, or a conversation with someone about it.

Today is #TimetoTalk – a campaign to get people talking about mental health and this is a story about me and me mental health, so it seems pretty fitting to finally publish it today.

I feel that I should put a disclaimer to say that this might be triggering to some people, or you may just find it comforting that someone else has experienced something similar to you.

This blog you’re about to read is a final mash together of two drafts I put together – the first in July 2017 in the midst of my anxiety – which if I had published that as it was would read very differently than it does now. When I worked on a second draft, in May last year during Mental Health Awareness Week, when I was very much planning to publish it, I almost forgot how bad it had got. I’m in a much better place now, thanks to therapy – which I’ll go into later.

Now before I dive in to telling my story, I must point out that this is only my experience. Everyone experiences varying levels of mental health issues. Mine is about my struggle with anxiety, but even under that broad umbrella there are so many different variations. Mine is particularly related to health and death, which isn’t uncommon, but again is experienced in varying ways by different people. That was basically a really long way of saying everyone has a unique experience with their mental health.

I’m not sharing my story for sympathy, nor to care for trolls who might tout how it’s nothing compared to what other people experience. It’s just me, sharing my experience to hopefully help people who have or are experiencing it themselves, and to help those who are lucky enough not to have suffered with poor mental health to try and understand it.