Hi folks,

I just wondered if anybody else suffers from an anxiety disorder or some sort of depression and if so, how do you deal with this when it comes to practicing your instrument?

It might not be the same for everyone, but a common symptom here is a short attention span. I have a lot of work to do for my upcoming piano exam, but after all the teaching and lesson preparation, I can barely sit at the piano for 10 minutes.

A recent performing disaster has knocked my confidence drastically and my medication makes me extremely tired. I find it hard to keep focussed and forget about all of my other worries.

I thought I would ask, as I'm really struggling to find any motivation or energy to do my practice so thought maybe others could shed a bit of light my way.

Many thanks xxx

In the months leading up to LTCL, I was becoming increasingly depressed after a series of severely stressful phases at home: I didn't dare start medication in the immediate run- up because I didn't want to become even more anxious, as can happen with some meds in the early stages of treatment: it was a difficult balance to reach - try to get treatment under way with the chance of performing a little better by the time of the exam, but having got less done immediately before, or defer treatment and perform whilst moderately severely depressed. I swallowed the first antidepressant pretty much on emerging from the exam, and yes, did manage to pass it, but with markedly different results for technique (a good mark) and musical expression (scraped pass and no more). The examiner was also rather lukewarm on my expressivity, so I comfort myself now with the thought that without depression, I could perhaps come across as more musical than I did then .

So, how to practise when depressed? I was glad not to be memorising anything, because as you say, it's much harder to do so when struggling mentally. I did lots of short bursts of practice, which worked very well for learning the difficult passages but didn't help me so much when playing long solo works, especially the ones using avant garde techniques which tend to sound uncomfortable and edgy even when played well. I practised in the best parts of the day, not when tired, and stopped when I could tell I wasn't concentrating - I'd also do several bursts in the one day which, because I wasn't setting out to do an hour, or two hours, in a stretch, felt much more possible to tackle. And when going into that exam, the depression did at least flatten my responses a bit, so I was rather thinking, "what the heck, if I fail, there's a reason anyway" - not perhaps the most positive way to go about things, but at least not actively assuming I would fail. It did help that I was playing with accompaniment, and that my accompanist was a dear friend, as was his page turner, and that they got to stay in with me for the whole thing: even with having muted emotional responses, their presence was a huge help.

Oh, and I got better from the depression: took a while, as it does, but things are much better now .

Wow, thank you so much. I find smaller bursts of practice sessions are best, but when I'm busy I put it off for "more important" jobs. I'm glad you have recovered, this has given me some hope

A close family member has found that Bach inventions (which were already known) made him feel significantly more able to cope with the world when he was very troubled by mental ill health. He couldn't cope with new material at all.

I think that exam pressure for you might be really unhelpful...use the music to help if the test does not?

There is also often that feeling of overload, isn't there -where it feels like there are a hundred important jobs, and which to do first....? In that situation, I'd let the lot go hang, on the basis that I wasn't going to do any of them that well, and use my music as the ideal procrastination tool, especially as I was promising myself only ten minutes at a stretch, at the worst times. I also did do non-exam stuff in those times when practice was being frustratingly unrewarding, just to remind myself that music can be a pleasure in its own right. violincjj is right, new material can be difficult to take on: thankfully the music I loved most, the baroque material, was in such a familiar genre that I was okay learning it, and the modern tripe, erm, material, was sufficiently edgy and cacophanous that the examiner won't always have known where the mistakes were .

The issue of dented confidence is also troublesome, I know, but again, when the rest of life is so bleh, you can find yourself shedding that "I must do my best, I must, I will let myself down if I don't....." vicious circle of thought, in return for, "well, what's going to be, will be, and is it really such a big deal?" . The week before my grade 8 exam, I diagnosed my son's diabetes, and that was the first time I'd had that experience of having performance anxiety put into proportion by something bigger and more important: three years later, when facing the licentiate exam, that sense of proportion had thankfully stayed with me, even though so much else was bleak then.

Depression is a condition most get better from - not always forever, and sometimes recovery is frustratingly slow, but the treatments do work. I probably see about four or five depressives in every surgery I do, sometimes more, only occasionally fewer, and I've seen amazing transformations in some, slower, steadier recoveries in most, and only a few whose condition has proved less straightforward to manage: most of those will have other compounding factors in the mix .

I have bipolar disorder and both the illness and the medication have an effect. Some days I feel like I am dragging myself with all my energy towards the piano and then not getting anything 'productive' done so it feels like there's no point. I write down how much practice I do each day and it looks like someone throwing darts blindfolded, anywhere from 10 minutes to 3 hours and often in runs, like 12 hours one week and 2 the next. On an average day I can concentrate for about 45 minutes but it can be a lot less, occasionally more.

When I'm having a bad day I try to find something really easy to play and this can help with the confidence as it makes me feel like I can at least play something even if it isn't whatever the current major project is. Break the exam stuff down into little chunks - for my Grade 8 I did this literally. I photocopied each piece and cut out the bars I was struggling with which I glued onto flashcards, shuffled them up and picked out a couple from my stack each day. It was a lot less intimidating than looking at pages and pages of music sitting in front of me and I got a lot more useful practice done. I've cut new pieces (again photocopied) into strips and put one line at a time on the piano and then built it up, or put a sheet of blank paper over the rest of the page so I can only see the bit I'm working on.

I generally find when I'm practising that it blocks everything else out from my mind, though putting those things aside long enough to actually start can be hard work. 10 minute chunks are better than nothing, part of the problem with depression is black-and-white thinking so it can feel like there's no point in doing something small and doing something big is too overwhelming. I agree with anacrusis that you should find when in the day you have most energy and not try to push yourself to practise when you're tired or losing concentration. I nearly pulled out when I found out my G8 exam was at 9.30am and it took me 5 days before the exam to artifically alter my sleep and meds schedule so I could get there and be in a fit state to play on time, and it completely drained me for about another week. I was over the moon when I passed and didn't care about not getting a merit or distinction because I knew how much effort I'd put in to pull it off.

Depression is treatable, although it definitely doesn't feel like it at the time, and for some people it needs to be managed long-term but it can be done. The side-effects of the medication, particularly tiredness get on my nerves too but if you need them it's because the benefits outweigh the costs - and heaven help anyone who suggests I would somehow miraculously get better if I stopped taking them. (*cough*Mum*uncough* )

Hi artstar,

I really feel for you as I suffer from cyclical depression for around 4 months every year. The first time I had it, I was planning to take a piano exam, but pulled out just before the deadline for entry as I couldn't cope with it, and most instrumental practice completely ceased for a while.

I would endorse what others say about practising in short bursts: promise yourself that you will do even just 5 minutes, and the chances are once you have begun that you will do more than that. Try to have an aim when you sit down to practise: to just work on 4 bars from a piece that you find tricky (as Tixlix suggests) or some other small aim. When you achieve that, it might actually make you feel more motivated.

I'm so sorry to hear about your recent performing disaster; that kind of thing can be very hard to deal with, but remember that was just one incident, and try to concentrate on other times when you've played / performed well.

I would also endorse what anacrusis says about getting better. It really does happen; but in the meantime, please be kind to yourself! You can only do what you can do, and work for your piano exam does need to be tempered by other things that you enjoy doing.

That's the other thing: mental illness and the social stigma, both of the illness itself and of the medication: having made that first huge step of being able to acknowledge the illness to yourself, you're already well placed for recovery. The medication tends to be subject to so much hype and ignorant conclusion-jumping: it does work, it's not a crutch.

Oh - final thought, I came across this quotation some time back: depression is not a sign of weakness, it's a sign of having had to be too strong for too long.

So much good sense in one thread. Depression seems to me very personal, surprisingly common, and utterly horrible (that was how I felt about it a few years back anyway). But it is "just" an illness, not a reflection on your personality or value as a human, and in some ways it's not desperately different to appendicitis or a broken leg: it doesn't last for ever (honestly!), but both it and the treatment do make it impossible to live and work at the normal flat-out rate while they're going on. You are so sensible to accept that the medication is affecting you. We have to work with what we have, and if 10 minutes practice is all that works, I think you're doing pretty wonderfully to identify that fact, and go with it. I just thought I should carry on as normal, and got myself more and more messed up.

Another thing I realise now: many of us work in fairly pressurised environments where achievement matters, and tend to let that demand escape into the rest of our lives. I don't know whether you're a professional musician or whether it's "just" a strong passion or interest? Good luck with your exam, but if you decide at the last minute you're not feeling up to it, or if you don't do as well as you'd like, please don't feel you're letting anyone down, and please keep playing. I'm sure you will - you sound too level-headed. Easy to say, hard to do. I still struggle to get the balance right between desire to aim high and achieve, versus the need to accept myself at the level I am, and realise that not being the best all the time doesn't actually matter. I shouldn't write this on an abrsm site, but exams really are very much a double-edged sword: a hurdle can encourage me to leap to new heights, but when I hit a hurdle at a bad time in life, it can just encourage me to stop in my tracks and stay on the wrong side of it (but that's a very personal view of mine and not one that necessarily fits anyone else on this site!). Good luck, anyway, anyone reading this thread and dealing with depression and difficulties in life.

Hi artstar,

Having cared for someone with this condition and gone through 3 periods of extreme crisis with them, I realize how it takes over evey waking moment of your life.

Hope you have people in your life who love and care for you and can just be there when you need them.

Thankyou OP for starting this thread. I suffered horrendous anxiety disorder a few years ago which had built up slowly over several years, probably rooted originally in undiagnosed mild postnatal depression, and eventually ended up on medication, having to leave my job and unable to talk to my loved ones or face any social situation, I completely isolated myself. My music practice became obsessive and another way of avoiding social interaction, an excuse to shut myself away and avoid facing real life. I'm well now, having learnt over the years how to manage myself if it creeps back in, but always practice with a clock in full view, and force myself to stop after an hour if others are in the house. I don't know whether music practice helped or hindered my recovery. It less unhealthy than drink or drugs anyway.
artstar I have no answer to your problem, but suggest you try enjoying some listening/music appreciation if you can't face practicing. Exhaustion is a symptom of depression, and anxiety is absolutely exhausting too.

I think that music has saved me from becoming depressed - the last couple of years were horrendous at work (I'm "just" an office worker, not in a real high-stress job like doctor or teacher, but the politics were awful) and being able to come home and play the piano really kept me from going under. There were both good and bad sides to this - it was great to be able to whack the heck out of Pictures At An Exhibition for stress relief, but it wasn't so great that I channeled my anger into saying "I will learn the Debussy Toccata if it kills me". I gave myself tendinitis with the latter which has only recently subsided.

I did have to be conscious of not practising when I wasn't in the mood, rather just playing music. I was prone to frustrating myself if I tried to practise when already stressed about other things, however I am lucky that music is just a pastime. I do not take exams and my living does not depend upon it.

I don't know why playing music helped - I didn't want to talk to anyone about the work nonsense but I did spend hours just playing the piano to myself and expressing what I could. It wasn't even always pounding the keyboard (quite physical) or playing sad stuff, just playing *anything* at all seemed to help, emotionally.

All the best to the OP and others dealing with this. I know it takes a while to recover.

Thank you so much, everyone for all of your well-thought out responses, that alone has calmed me down and cleared my mind a bit.



This could be the case, although I like having the deadline to learn something as I would put it off even more. I managed to get some practice in yesterday in a much better environment and I just belted it out and soaked it up, not thinking about the exam.



I might try that, lately I've learned that I can't always get everything done in a day that I want to, so I shouldn't let it bother me, and just go at my own pace. I've always been "over-sensitive" and wished I was more like my brother who could let anything wash off his back. I read recently that this is part of my condition, when I find something upsetting, it's really upsetting, if something is funny, it's really funny. This made so much sense! I feel like I'm recovering (25 years - slowly) and I'm so glad I have acknowledged it and seeked help, that alone seems to have halved my problem.




This sounds EXACTLY like me!! What a great idea about the flashcards and covering up the rest of the music, I must try this.




Thank you so much, I think I aim too high and think that I'll do an hour, but I get so tired I won't do any more that day. I have performed well other times, so I need to remember this.



I am so glad I finally decided to do something about it, I was so sick of randomly crying or panicking for no reason, now I am on the road to recovery, and apart from the odd relapse, I can see a light at the end of the tunnel. (Shall I use a few more metaphors there?? )




This response nearly made me cry! I am only approaching grade 8, but teach beginners, I feel I really need these next few qualifications to progress as a teacher as well as for myself as a pianist. So I think I'm putting pressure on myself, thinking I need to get through it as soon as possible.
I used to wonder why people got so worked up about music exams, no one is forcing them to do it. It is overwhelming though, all that work over a year or two is boiled down to about 20 minutes! I think I shall read this thread over and over again until it is engraved on my brain.




Thank you, it's nice to have an outside view that isn't "just snap out of it" My family are the best, that's for sure!




This is definitely true, nervous exhaustion is the cause of it all, but then I feel lazy for having to sleep so much! I've now learned you have to rest, or it just gets worse. So ###### to what anyone else thinks, I know I'm not lazy. (Plus it then makes me do all the housework till 11 o'clock at night?!)



I used to be like this when I was little, I would wake up about 6am and play my keyboard then after school, play into the evening. Now I look at my piano and think, 'Eurgh what shall I start with?!' I decided to look back at my grade 6 pieces as I did really well in this exam, and I think I might need to accept this is just my comfortable level of playing and that's that.


Thank you again to everyone who has posted. It just shows how common this is and I'm so glad I spoke up now.

Much love,

Rachel xxx

I found myself having a few "Eurgh what shall I start with" moments - I realised that at that point, I'd forgotten that it could be fun, and that I did think it was fun at some point. But I guess I'm not doing it for a living, which may make all the difference. I don't know how hard it would be for you to try and recapture the fun aspect of it while doing it as your day job? Maybe worth a thought.. It doesn't help that I can tend to be a perfectionist, so I feel that if I am not learning something when I am playing the piano, it's a useless session.

Us musicians (and I include myself in that even though I don't do it for a living because I simply cannot imagine living without playing music) can be so very good at thinking we're less good than [insert name here].

All the best in your journey.

Artstar, thanks for being brave enough to speak up...

Yes I need to find the fun in playing again and not see it as such a chore.
I am not brave just seeking help haha.
Thanks again peeps xxx

Hi artstar. I'm sorry to hear you're struggling, but thanks for sharing your concerns here. I think you will find people supportive.

My main problem is in finding the motivation to even get my instrument out of its case, even though I love playing so much. My depression means that often all I want to do is curl up in bed and stay there, and it can be so, so hard to break out of that.

It may not be the same for you, but I find that just starting to play seems to change something. Once I've started, that's the hardest part over with, and more often than not I can then keep playing for a couple of hours.

Some days I do struggle to find the reward in playing though. On those days I've started using a technique where I concentrate on practising a single bar or a single phrase in one of my pieces for 2 or 3 minutes (I use a kitchen timer to help here). After my 2 minutes are up I am strict with myself and I move on. It sounds like a long time to practice a single bar, but it feels calming, almost meditative, sometimes. The idea of focussing on something for 2 minutes seems manageable, and because I'm only looking at a very few notes I see noticeable improvements in a short practice session. Perhaps this might help you too?

Good luck, and I hope you get some good support and useful ideas on this thread. Hugs.

Sadly mental health issues are usually brushed under the carpet and never talked about which is barmy as it is so common to have one or more illnesses.

As with any thing you are doing with concentration issues, I would do 5 minutes at a time and maybe something like this:

day 1: 5 mins scales and then 5 mins sight reading and later on practice a piece
day 2. practice list b piece 5 minutes breaking it down into bite sizes
etc

Keep a diary so u know what you last did so that will help stop you worrying about what you have not done.

I did grade 8 (refresher) 3 years ago and kept a diary of it all, one day I would do all the major arps and then the next the minor so I worked out (took me hours) a plan of action and stuck to it. I do not suffer with concentration but this was a huge help as working full time was tiring!

Go get that exam passed and remember that 5 minutes of solid practice is usually far better than stressing for 30 minutes

I have been suffering from an epic relapse lately and had barely any concentration at all and feeling suicidal most days.

I tried to remember the one about aiming to practice for 5 minutes and end up playing for 10 rather than trying to solidly do an hour. That's the only way I can manage at the moment.

My medication makes me so tired as well, this is an added hindrance.

If anybody else has any further tips I would be truly grateful. Sorry for the delayed response.

At uni, I had to keep working hard and doing well despite feeling awful all the time - (this was caused by being in a dreadful music department, and as soon as I left I was fine). I used to reward myself with a nice walk to the duck pond and back, and a cup of tea after every session of writing. Basically, setting lots of small goals and then rewarding myself after each one got the work done and helped me feel better. Artstar, do you have an underlying cause which if removed would make things OK again? Mine really was that simple. I know it's not like that for everyone and I really sympathise. You can always find friends to talk to on the forum.

Music as an art form can be a fantastic aid to combating depression.

There are obviously many different types of depression, but for me it usually comes about due to feeling mentally 'stuck' in a certain way or because of a certain situation, whether through a personal, work or financial circumstance than can leave you thinking this is all there is, and things won't change.

But because music is such a complex and enigmatic thing, it as huge potential benefits for the mind and mental healtth generally. Because a piece of music can be felt so viscerally and so personally, whilst at the same time being highly ordered, structured and intellectualized, it has unique qualities compared to other art forms - we can never tire of listening to music or learning to become a better musician.

Often you can feel stuck learning a particular peice, either through perceived technical difficulties, or an inability to grasp the composer's style. But it's amazing how by coming at the problem in a different way, having a break, learning something else and then coming back to it, you can suddenly feel greatly refreshed and open up new avenues of experience.

It really helps having a good teacher who can guide you and provide useful tips for coping with learning new work, or coping with exam pressure, confidence and performance anxiety.

I was struggling with some peices on my proposed diploma programme and getting to the stage where I was feeling sick of playing them altogether. Then negativity was creeping in and I deicded it was just down to me and a lack of technical ability.
When I discussed this frankly with my teacher, she made me stop playing all of the pieces for a few weeks. Instead, she gave me a choice of other works by the composers to dabble and sight-read with, and we spent time just enjoying listening to the new music and talking about how we felt about these composers, and then listened to some recordings to see the variation between different performers and their interpretations.
Now, we've come back to the diploma pieces, and I feel like I'm looking at them as new works again, and thinking about them in a different way. Instead of getting bogged down with technical excercises or certain problem passages, I am just trying to listen to the music more, and appreciate the brilliance of the composer (in this case Mozart), and trying to express the aesthetic intentions behind his art.

I think music has that ability to constantly re-define itself, and yet also evade definition. That elusive quality makes it infinitely rewarding to play and learn, which in itself is a great way to stimulate the mind to fight off depression.
Good luck to anyone who is struggling. Stick with it, believe in yourself and be open to new ideas and interpretations.

I definitely agree with the idea of small goals. It's also worth recognising achievements as achievements, however small. It sounds patronising, and it is absolutely not meant to be, but the fact that you've recognised "practise for one hour" as an unreasonable goal is an achievement in and of itself!

The only concern I would have here, because I know what I am like, is sneaky self-sabotage. "I'm going to practise for five minutes, and it might turn in to ten" - what happens if you practise for six minutes? Is that an achievement [because you made it to five minutes] or is it a failure [because you didn't meet the 'secret goal' of ten minutes]? Knowing me, it'd go down on a bit of paper as a success, while in my head I'd be berating myself for failure...

It is so very annoying that you have to work out individual solutions - what works for one person won't necessarily work for another. Find goals that suit you, and find rewards that suit you for when you meet those goals. Be kind to yourself, and if you don't manage to meet a goal, it's not actually the end of the world and if you tried that's really good too (three minutes of practice isn't five minutes, but it is still some rather than none).

Artstar, you have helped me this morning! With all this discussion of goals and rewards, I cleared out my garage and shed and took a car load of junk to the tip. It still looks the same actually, (like we've been burgled!), but it's a start! Thanks for bringing up the topic!

Hi artstar, don't be hard on yourself. At least you are doing regular practice and keeping your hand in.

Hope you are feeling better soon.

Four years ago in June 2008, I was a nurse working with people with Learning Disabilities. I was supporting a client with his care in an upstairs room. Suddenly and without warning, he became extremely violent and aggressive. He started hitting me round the head. My only escape to get help was down stairs. I managed to get out of the room, and went to the top of the stairs. He followed me out, continuing to hit me. At the top of the stairs, he pushed me and down I went. I landed heavily on one of my thoracic vertebra, causing it to become wedged between two other vertebra. The pain was instant and horrific. He was not satisfied that I had survived the fall (he told the police this in his statement), and flew down the stairs attempting to kick me in the head. Only the actions of other staff prevented him from doing further damage.

As a result, I suffered terribly with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and associated mental health problems. In 2010, I felt as if the world was against me as I was struggling to find the counselling and cognitive therapy I needed. I started cutting my arms with scissors and any other sharp objects I could get hold of. Some members of my family decided that this action was selfish as it was effecting the health of my mother due to worry and stress. I knew it was having this effect, but for me it was the only way I could express how I was feeling inside. I was having dreadful flashbacks to the event, couldn't practice piano, had lost my nursing career that I had worked hard for and loved for the past twenty four years, was fighting a court battle with my employers and the person who did this to me, was on a cocktail of medication that made me feel worse, and felt that I would be better off not being here at all. I was no use to anyone, and if I was being selfish, then no-one would miss me if I were gone.

On top of this and unknown to me, my every move was being filmed by my employers' insurance company because I was claiming against them for compensation. (This client should have been treated elsewhere, but my employer refused to have him moved). Their conclusion? 'In our opinion, there are no signs of either physical or mental health issues'. !!!! I was still walking badly, but because mental health is not a visible condition, they denied it existed. If they'd cared to pan in on my arms (it was summer and I was wearing a T-shirt) they would clearly have seen what I was doing.

Eventually, I got some excellent counselling and cognitive therapy and in time, was able to think and talk about my incident without reaching for the scissors or my tablets.

Playing piano became my saviour, and although I needed to start with some very easy pieces, at least I was playing again. I could only manage about ten minutes at a time as my back would ache and sometimes I couldn't see the music because I was having a flashback. I learned to accept that I needed to pace myself- as difficult and frustrating as it was, especially as before the incident I could spend all day at the piano if I wanted to. Even now, I can only manage an hour at a time before my back starts to protest. Instead of getting down about it, I see it as a major improvement.

I still have days when I can't bring myself to do anything, let alone practice piano and singing, but thankfully these are very few and far between. Just writing this is making my hands shake, and I've had to stop due to flashbacks. I live with it now though. If my employers or the man who did it knew I was still suffering as badly as before, I think they have 'won', and I'm determined that I won't let this thing beat me.

Things will improve for you, artstar, but accepting that it won't happen overnight is the key to progress (in my opinion). All the best to you.


*Apologies for the long post!*

Primrose that's a horrendous experience - you are so brave and have done much better than I would have done in the same situation! What can I say except

And thank you for pointing out that it's a long, slow road with no overnight recovery

No apology needed, Primrose.

I was woindering if this post came on the heels of Ruby Wax's excellent progamme on Channel 4 last night, about letting your colleagues know about your mental illness. I found both that programme and your account very moving.

artstar, sorry to hear you are going through another 'rough' patch. If you are 'feeling suicidal most days' then please speak to someone or contact your GP urgently or your area Mental Health team who usually have a crisis helpline. Please don't keep all this to yourself, a good start would be to let a family member/good friend know how bad you feel. Your first priority is to keep yourself safe.

xx

Sorry again for the massive delay, I've even had trouble mustering up the energy to read the replies and respond to everyone. I'm so grateful for everybody's input, I'm going to print this entire thread and keep reading it to help me



I've always had bouts of depression ever since I can remember and I'm pretty sure most of it is just "inherited" from my mother and her mother as my therapist pointed out. I don't think being at home on my own all day helps either.
Anyway, this is an excellent idea about the rewards, I haven't ever tried anything like that so I'm definitely going to try it!




Some great points here, I recently started with a new teacher, but as she is quite expensive and far away I can only get there about once a month. She is amazing though, so totally worth the journey. She's very positive and makes me feel like I can actually play these pieces, she says I'm better than I think I am. Maybe if I can get more frequent lessons with her it will keep me constantly upbeat like I feel every time I have a lesson with her.

I'm going to try listening to other pieces by the composers and playing the easier ones I did from previous grades to see if I can come at these newer ones differently.




Thankyou Maizie That is an excellent point about the 'secret goal' I hadn't even realised, I would always be waiting for the failure of not making ten minutes ha.
I'm going to try out everyone's suggestions and see what works best and then tailor it to suit me. Another great point about a few minutes being better than none, I need to acknowledge that definitely!




Glad to have been of assistance, Norway




Thanks so much



Thankyou so so much for sharing your ordeal! I bet that wasn't easy at all having to relive it just for me.
I tried some cognitive therapy before, but I felt it didn't help at all. Then I eventually went to the doctor about it, and discussed how I was feeling suicidal and getting panic attacks, then I was set up with an appointment with my local mental health centre and there was a vast improvement along with the medication. I didn't expect to relapse like this.

I can see how you ended up harming yourself, as I often feel the need for pain to feel more 'alive', I often feel like I'm not in my own body!
Thanks again, and I know at least talking about it, I'm on the road to recovery.




I wasn't aware of that programme, I might see if I can find it online and check it out




Thankyou, I have been referred back to the Mental Health team so hopefully they won't just discharge me so quickly when they see some sign of improvement.

Love to everyone! Rachel xxxxxxxxxx

I'm sorry I don't have anything constructive to add, I just wanted to say thank you OP for starting this thread and to everyone who has posted. Mental health is still so rarely talked about. When I was really struggling a few months ago one of my school teachers took me to one side and asked if I'd spoken to anyone about depression, which hit me hard. It's nice to hear people being so open about their experiences and feelings, I hope you feel better soon Artstar xxx

Thanks Jen, I hope you are getting the help you need too. After opening up the first time, I feel it's much easier to talk about now xxx