Mental Health Matters with Ailey: Greetings and Introductions

CW: self harm, suicide recovery

There are many moments in my life I have felt I would not survive. Whether brief or sustained, the fear and hopelessness of not knowing if or how I will go on is something I’ve become quite familiar with over the years. My name is Ailey and I am mentally ill.

My mental health journey started when I was about 12 years old. My parents found out I’d been self-harming, a desperate attempt to quell the wealth of emotions I felt were threatening to spill out of me at any moment, so they took me to see a psychiatrist, who diagnosed me with depression and sent me off with a prescription for Prozac after about 15 minutes. Spoiler alert: the Prozac didn’t work.

Over the next ten years, I shuffled between psychiatrists and therapists, medication and treatments quicker than a deck of cards in the hands of a Poker dealer. Waiting rooms became my train station as I tried to figure out where I was going, how I was going to get out of the mess I’d made. I was assessed and diagnosed, reassessed and rediagnosed more times than I can count, all while my body tried to wrestle its way through the onslaught of side effects: weight gain, fatigue, constant nausea, irritability, dizziness, suicidality. And still, the pain festered deep inside me. The dark thing, whatever it was inside me that had gone rotten, tightened its grip on my life. Bright pink, puckered lines littered my inner arms and thighs. My waist and thighs continued to balloon with each dosage increase, whatever shreds of confidence I had left vanishing into thin air with each new pound. My daily routine consisted primarily of snacking, napping, Netflixing, and at least two hours of scheduled crying. I tried every day to tell someone how I was feeling and what I was going through, but it never came out quite right. Over the course of a decade, it felt like I’d started out standing in a room, alone, that was slowly filling with water. By the time I found my voice to scream, I was already drowning.

Mental health statistics in America have always been concerning. According to Mental Health America, 19% of American adults experienced a mental illness in 2017, an increase of 1.5 million people from the previous year. In the same year, 23.6% of those adults reported an unmet need for treatment, a number that has not declined since 2011. In 2016, there was a death by suicide once every twelve minutes in America. But all of that was before. Before the virus first bloomed in that meat market, later hopping planes and trains to faraway cities. Before our hospitals were overrun and our towns shut down. Now, over a year after the first COVID-19 case was diagnosed, after all the loss and grief and loneliness with only more on the horizon, with over a million deaths worldwide, almost 200,000 Americans have reported experiencing frequent suicidal ideation.

My mental health journey took a turn for the better in 2016. After all the pills and all the therapists, the countless hours trying to explain myself, the experimental and naturopathic treatments, the brushes with death and the quiet, haunted halls of psych wards, my mental health found a way to start healing and moving forward. And while it was still an upward climb, at least I was headed toward the light. There is a lot that I learned and discovered over my decade down in the depression ditch: tips and tricks for survival, a deeper understanding of my physical brain and how it operates, clinical terms for diagnoses and treatments. But the most valuable thing I’ve learned is the importance of conversation around mental health. Mental illness is so deeply stigmatized in our culture that those who struggle, like myself, often have difficulty even just saying so, let alone asking for help. Even if someone who is struggling is able to vocalize their pain and seek help, they are tossed into a world full of unfamiliar terms and definitions; without a true understanding of diagnoses and treatments, those of us who are struggling are just as likely to fall back on stigmatized, stereotypical understandings of mental illness, which often compounds the pain we are already struggling with.

My goal with this blog, as in much of the rest of my life, is to start conversations about mental health in hopes of dissolving the misunderstandings and resultant stigma. Our silence in these conversations has already led to so much needless pain and even death. We all need to get more comfortable not just talking about mental illness but also understanding it. For those of you who struggle with mental illness, I hope that by sharing my journey and what I’ve learned, both about survival and the clinical side of mental health, you can start to feel more compassion for yourself and what you’re going through. I hope that I can also help demystify diagnoses and treatments, both for those seeking help and those who love someone who needs it. But most of all, I hope to start fruitful, healing conversations about mental illness. So long as we allow mental health to be the unspoken elephant in the room, so long as we shrink in fear from an experience we may not even fully understand, the more people will suffer.

It is important to remember when reading this blog that I am not a mental health professional or clinician. I don’t have any training or licensing to be offering mental health services, care, or medical advice to anyone. I am simply a person with an experience, a story to share with the world in hopes of alleviating a little bit of pain. If you have questions about your mental health or that of someone you love, it’s best to seek the advice of a clinician. This blog is just meant to serve as a starting point for those who want to learn more about and better understand mental illness.

I am so looking forward to taking this journey with City of Folks and all of you following along. Community and interdependence are critical to mental wellbeing, and I couldn’t think of a better place than City of Folks to foster conversation and relationships that may alleviate someone’s suffering. We have a lot of fun topics planned with some of my personal writing mixed in. Until next time, I wanted to provide some Triangle area local resources for anyone who may need immediate care:

• Alliance Health is Wake County’s Local Management Entity/Managed Care Organization (LME/MCO) which means they are responsible for managing the care of those who receive publicly-funded mental health and/or substance abuse services. Visit their website to locate local resources for crisis management, mental health and substance use disorder recovery, intellectual and developmental disabilities, traumatic brain injuries, and transitions to community living.

• The Hope4NC Helpline connects people struggling or in crisis to mental health and resilience support. They are currently offering a Crisis Counseling Program tailored to the pandemic that provides immediate counseling services for those affected by COVID-19. The hotline is available to anyone in NC at any time of day, 7 days a week. They can be reached directly at 1-855-587-3463.

• The Suicide Prevention Resource Center compiled a guide of web pages and information sheets on supporting and protecting mental health during the COVID-19 epidemic. The guide is updated as new resources become available and is divided into sections specific to different communities such as Latinx, LGBTQ, health care workers and first responders, Native Americans, and faith communities.

• The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s “Taking Care of Your Behavioral Health - Tips for Social Distancing, Quarantine, and Isolation During an Infectious Disease Outbreak” information sheet offers some preliminary advice on what to expect from and how to care for your emotions during a lockdown.

• The National Alliance of Mental Illness Wake County offers a Mental Health Services Guide listing crisis services, treatment centers, important insurance information, and what to expect from certain types of crisis care.

To anyone who is struggling, know you are loved, valued, and cherished. Know there is always a place for you and always someone to listen. If you or someone you love need mental health care, the resources offered above are a good starting place. In cases of crises or medical emergencies, please call 911 and request a response from officers who have received Crisis Intervention Team training.

If there is something specific you’d like to see covered in this blog, please reach out to us at cityofolks@gmail.com with any ideas or suggestions. Until next time!

Ailey O'Toole (she/her) is a queer freelance writer and psychology student passionate about trauma-informed mental healthcare and racial justice. She works in clinical research and, in her free time, likes to hang out with her emotional support dog, Clementine. She hopes to one day work in trauma research to further our understanding of a somatic approach to healing. She loves you and thinks you're doing great!