Hi,
I found these types of forums very useful when I was first suffering from my breakdown and just wanted to share my story and things that have been of help to me in recovering in hope that it may be of use to someone else.
I have included a bit of background but if you wish to skip to the useful steps for recovery feel free...
A bit of background - I'm a 32 year old female, attractive, with a great job, lots of interests, good friends and a supportive family so why did I have a breakdown? Looking at it now I think it stems from suffering from glandular fever when I was 16 which resulted in residual fatigue for a long period afterwards (years) and short but scary bouts of depression when for no reason at all the world seemed to shift on it's axis leaving me feeling off kilter. I didn't really understand it at the time and my way of dealing with it was to think that if I changed my situation i.e. had the right career, right friends, right house then I would be happy and these feelings would go away.
So I worked hard and achieved a lot but yet it still didn't seem to be enough and my fear of getting depressed and the resulting behaviours learnt over the years led me to run myself into the ground.
I was living abroad at the time, on an expat contract with my company. The couple of years previous to my move abroad had been quite stressful - house building project and break up with my long term partner. Then trying to make a new life in a new country plus taking on a new role in a project type I was unfamiliar with in a new culture began to take it's toll. I didn't realise as I was so used to being strong and coping. I think it's when I started having problems sleeping on a regular basis that I really started to think that something wasn't right. My mind more and more was on overdrive - analysing, problem solving and worrying - eventually like it had got stuck in a loop. Headaches, brain shocks, vision disturbances followed, then weak limbs and finally an emotional unravelling to the point where I was anxious about nearly everything and unable to cope with everyday life.
I came home to my parents and let go (ish - it took a while for me to stop trying to cope and to understand and accept what was happening to me). This was 3 months ago and I am now feeling 95% better - I am still vunerable to stress and my body is still fatigued but I am confident now I will make a full recovery and be stronger than before.
Here's what worked for me (in order of importance)...
1. Learning to ask for and accept support from other people. One of the key things that helped me was learning to show weakness - it feels really amazing to experience the caring and protective instinct in others that this initiates. This has made me feel much more supported by friends and family and has brought us much closer, now not only can they lean on me in times of need but I can also lean on them.
2. You know that 'stop the world, I want to get off' feeling? If you really feel the need to then do - I was worried about this but found that teh world didn't fall apart without me and that other poeple picked up my slack. A friend once reminded me of the advice you're given on an aeroplane in case of emergeny is to put your oxygen mask on first before you help anyone else, even your own child's. You have to be well first before you are able to look after others so take some time out to look after yourself and to get well.
3. Educate yourself about what is happening to you - anxiety and depression and all these things have both physical and mental aspects, so what you are feeling is definitely not 'all in your mind' - there are physical reasons too. This is important to know so you don't blame yourself and so you can have both a physical and a mental recovery program. In many cases glandular fever or another virus is followed by depression - something chemical has gone on in your body to cause this. From the reading I have done and from my personal experience I believe that viruses or prolonged physical or mental stress can exhaust the systems in your body e.g the adreanal glands or deplete your body of the nutrients it needs to be well.
4. Take antidepressants if you need to. Whilst it is unlikely these will be the full cure they can help and anything that helps even a little is worth it. With some antidepressants you may feel worse for the first 3 weeks or so - my own side effects were pretty horrendous but after 3-4 weeks I felt better and by 6-8 I had no side effects. Google Citalopram 3 weeks and then google citalopram 4 weeks and see the reduction in the number of forum posts - I took this to mean that most people feel better after 4 weeks and it gave me hope in my third week.
5. Sleep well. A tough one huh? I tried relaxation meditation, deep breathing etc but for me this meant taking sleeping tablets for about 2 months - whole tablets for the first few weeks, then half tablets and finally quarter tablets. However you do have to give the tablets a chance to work - if your mind is on overdrive they won't work so well as your body's survival instincts i.e. your chemical stress response, is stronger than most sleeping tablets. So try and relax after you take them in order for them to work (I had to do some relaxation exercises). If you do this they will work. I was worried at first about taking them esp. as they are addictive but I figured that sleep is my body's most important healing mechanism and so anything that helped me sleep was good. Once I started to feel better it was no problem weaning myself off them.
6. Get the right nutrition. Since getting ill I have cut out anything that messes with the hormones in my body - caffine, sugar and alcohol. Surprisingly, despite being a total tea and chocolate addict, this was easy - it helps not having to get up for work in the morning :-) For about 2 years my hangovers have been steadily getting worse and lasting for 2 days, I also was not getting as merry as I used to when drinking - just very tired. Looking back I think this is related to the fact that my stress/nervous system was more affected by the alcohol than usual. Apart from the odd glass on wine it is easy for me to give up alcohol as it now makes me feel horrendous (depressed) for the days after. Sugar was the toughest one, I gave it up but relaxed over Christmas - the result was that the spots around my jawline that I had managed to get rid of now reappeared. I looked it up and apparently sugar is inflamatory and increases the amount of androgens (male hormones) in your system... these same male hormones are produced by stress. Anyway this was one bit of evidence for me on how diet affects your wellbeing. In addition to taking things out I also started having a protein and supergreens smoothie for breakfast, eating protein and plenty of coloured veg for lunch and dinner and a small amount of wholegrain carbs in the evening. I also take supplements. The building blocks of your cells are amino acids which are proteins, to heal your body you need plenty of protein. You also need plenty of the vitamins and minerals that assist your body's systems, more than the RDA if you are run down as your body is probably quite deficient in some. Vitamins B, C and mineral magnesium are particularly important. The most important thing is to keep your blood sugar constant - a reduction in blood sugar causes your body to produce Cortisol - a stress hormone. It's recommended to have a healthy snack between meals and to eat some carbs in the evening to keep your blood sugar constant throughout the day.
7. Look after your mind. Many of us get into unhelpful thought habits, and the more we think these thoughts the more ingrained these habits get. The good news is that we can re-train the brain to think more helpful thoughts. Be aware of whether the thoughts you are having are helpful or not i.e. are they thoughts you want to have?, if you find yourself having unhelpful thoughts then find some way to distract yourself - make up some set piece of coaching/ a statement you can say to yourself and then reward yourself for doing this - sounds corny I know but it works! It's like teaching a child or training a puppy. The thoughts you have influence the chemical reactions you set off in your body which in turn affect how you feel - if you are worrying then you set off the stress response which leads to a feeling of anxiety which can make you worry more and so the cycle continues. I certainly got stuck in this 'fight or flight loop'. It is believed that getting stuck in such a loop is one possible explanation for ME, chronic fatigue, panic attacks, so it is important to find a way to break this loop. I did the Lightening Process which I found extremely helpful, but other people have some CBT or NLP etc.
8. Take some exercise. My back was a rigid mess of knots and tension due to my body being on high alert all the time so I treated myself to a massage every week which helped a great deal and helped me to relax also. I had never been too keen on massages before (they made me emotional as I carried a lot of tension in my body) but I found a very good therapist who I trusted. I also joined a gym for some gentle swimming, the sauna and when i felt up to it yoga. I also started practicing some restorative yoga (involving mostly lying down ;-)) at home - I recommend a book called 'Spent' by Dr Frank Lipman which gives day to day steps for getting well including some of the best nutrition advice I've found. If I am stressed or feeling anxious doing some restorative yoga never fails to re-balance me even though sometimes it takes a few exercises before I start to calm down. Going to the gym is great for getting out the houseand making you feel like you've done something with your day - even if your are just sitting in the sauna ;-) Sauna's or hot and cold showers are also very good for flushing toxins out of your system (some people recommend them as a treatment for ME) and making you feel invigorated.
9. Go out in nature. I find a walk in the country (luckily not far from my house) always makes me feel better. I also took a diving holiday over new year, beforehand I was worried that I wouldn't be well enough to do anything but figured the sun would do me good, but actually being underwater in the natural environment felt amazing and I wasn't as tired as I'd feared.
10. Do things becauase you enjoy doing them not because you feel like you should or that you ought to enjoy doing them. Go with what feels good for you.
Wow! that was a longer post than I intended. I hope that it is useful for some of you (and not too long!)
L
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