World Mental Health Day

The 10th of October is World Mental Health Day. The overall objective of World Mental Health Day is to raise awareness of mental health issues around the world.

I was diagnosed with anxiety, depression and Functional Neurological Disorder 5 years ago. This was triggered by the onset of my crippling spinal degeneration, chronic pain and PTSD from all my surgical complications and trauma.

FND has only recently become an illness that has been bought to the attention of our Medical Profession, as it was becoming more and more prevalent in our community, and constantly being misdiagnosed.

Someone with FND can function normally, they just can't at the time they are experiencing the symptoms. FND is considered a condition that involved both neurology and psychiatry, in is involuntary.

It's often helpful to think of your brain as a computer. FND doesn’t cause damage to the hardware, or structure, of the brain. It's the software, or program running on the computer, that isn't working properly. The brain is unable to send and receive signals properly and there is a disconnection in the function of the lobes. Symptoms can be arm and leg weakness and seizures.

I experience non epileptic seizures when in acute severe pain and high stress situations. I stop breathing and my seizure look like full blown grand mal seizures. I also can become catatonic. I can’t respond to any commands but I can hear. I do get a 2 second warning that I am about to have one. My seizures can last from 1 minute to 1 hour. They are extremely exhausting and cause me a lot of pain.

Judgement of mental health conditions has still got a long way to go. We are talking about it more, but the overall stigma is still there.

Having stayed in hospital for months as an inpatient, I have unfortunately experienced first hand this judgement. There is nothing more lonely than finding yourself in a vulnerable state feeling like no one is stepping up and being your advocate or have your best interests at heart. It is soul destroying.

We have to keep talking, keep listening, keep researching, keep learning, lend a hand when you can see someone is struggling, be present and available.

Don’t give up on yourself, keep yourself open, this will make a world of difference to your outcome. As I’ve said before,’ Love Conquers all.’

Please stop before you judge someone who is suffering from a mental illness, you don’t know their story or how they got there. It might just be you one day.

Christine Bunn

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