Mental Health 1:01

#mentalhealth "Talk" is now the defacto word on pretty much any mental health post.

But when you are in the hurricane path that is poor or low mental health talking is probably the last thing you want to do because of the demons and monsters that lurk in your inner dialogue telling you what a loser or failure you are or the fear you will be stuck on the bus to the funny farm with the other window licker or worse still you will be silently ignored and politely screened out of future relations, jobs, promotions but none the less the message is talk and it will be better for all.

My journey with Complex PTSD began at 5 when I fell in our local river, succumbed to panic, followed by blacking out and in my child's brain thinking I was dying.

I have tried talking and not talking about my experiences. Talking for sure worked but at 9 a family member told me the night terrors that kept me awake (I had 3-4 a night following the river incident, and they stepped up a gear when my father died when I was 9) that it was because I was an evil child I had them so I stopped talking about them and what ailed me until I was 45.

So my advice is also to talk it really will help but choose someone like the Samaritans, Therapists, Charities organised around your thing (CPTSD in my case) and even if you have the best family support remember they are there to love you, experts are there to help you cure you.

Experts normalise your demons, your negative thoughts and tell you why you are troubled by them, they normalise them and they take away their power. Think of the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz melting away, that's what happens when you talk to an expert, they show you how to kill your demons.

Also, be prepared to talk to more than one before you convince yourself you can't be helped. Not hitting it off with the first expert you speak to is not a failure that can be quite common.

I worked with 5 before I found the two who worked for me, like many things involving humans rapport was needed.

You got this.