Rachel Sarah XO: advice

Quite a lot of people struggle with telling their friends and family that they may think they have a mental illness, this is information for the friends and family of people who may have a mental illness.

Worried that your family member/friend might have a mental illness?

Here are some things that you may notice about your loved one:

Extreme lack of interest in doing things that they once enjoyed.
Poor performance at school/work.
Lack of attendance at school/work.
Mood swings that happen very quickly and are normally very out of character for that person.
Changes in appetite: lack of appetite or over eating.
Loss of, or increase in sexual desire.
Sleep problems.
Increased anxiety. (The person may seem on edge, or jumpy, they may also start having panic attacks.)
Feeling tired and lack of energy.
Not wanting to socialise, wanting to be left alone and low moods. Or it could be the complete opposite, constantly socialising, making new friends all the time and extremely happy, this could imitate a 'high'.
Isolating themselves.

If you've noticed a few of these things in your loved one's personality as of late, they very well might have a mental illness, it's always better to catch these things early as they're easier to deal with when you notice the signs earlier on.

As soon as you've noticed any of these symptoms, I highly encourage you to speak to the person being affected and try and convince them to see their GP (general practitioner). The person affected may refuse entirely, you need to make it clear to them that the longer they wait to get help, the more the problem will develop. If they still refuse, go to the GP yourself or writing a letter to your GP explaining the situation in full and then leave it up to the GP to decide what he thinks is going on. In the case, they may invite you and your loved one for a check up or may even do a home visit if they think it could become worse. If you don't think talking to a GP is the way to go, you can always get in contact with a CMHT (Community Mental Health Team), a CMHT is made up of psychiatrist, psychologists and communite psychiatric nurses. Often you will need a referral from a GP but some mental health teams will accept self referrals.

Supporting someone with a mental illness.

Try to accept the illness and the fact the affected person has it.
Try your hardest not to get overwhelmed by the amount of difficulties and obstacles it can cause in day to day life.
Be patient as recovery can take a really long time in some cases.
Try and encourage the affected person to take part in social activities or to take up a hobby.
Make a plan of action of what to do incase of a crisis.
If things go wrong, DO NOT blame yourself. It's never anyone elses fault.
Make sure you look after yourself.
For friends: If you're friends with the affected person, do not abandon the friendship because of their illness, friendships are so hard to hold onto when you have a mental illness and the more friendships the person loses, the harder the recovery will become.
For friends: Make sure they're okay, ask them how they're doing. If you don't ask, they'll assume you no longer care about them. Arrange to go over to their house and spend time with them and cheer them up if they need it, as much as that person might want to be by themselves, they always need someone there to talk to.
For friends: Understand that if that person finds it difficult to be in social situations and you've made plans to meet up, don't be disheartened if they agree to meet up and then the day before cancel on you. It's not your fault, it's their thoughts' fault.
For friends: The person affected may seem like they're pushing you away, it seems like that, talk to them more, don't just assume because they haven't spoken to you in a while that they want nothing to do with you because that's usually never the case. It's often just the person affected's way of coping with things, don't misinterpret things like that.

These are just the basic carer/family/friends information you need to know about if you're close to someone who has a mental illness, obviously there is more information about crisis, conflict, money and education and I may do another blog post on that soon. :-)

I hope you're all doing okay.

That's all for now,

Rachel. xo

19:13 No comments

So, this blog post has been long awaited. I feel now is the right time to do is as I've been awake for most the night having on and off panic attacks. I'm just going to explain what is a panic attack, what are the symptoms of a panic attack, how to recognise if someone is having a panic attack and how to cope when having a panic attack yourself.

What is a panic attack?

Official definition: Panic Attack - A sudden overwhelming feeling of acute and disabling anxiety.
A panic attack is caused when our body reaches the highest level of anxiety it possibly can. You have a panic attack when your body goes into fight or flight mode (your body goes into this state when it feels you're in a particularly dangerous situation.) When the body goes into fight or flight mode it lets off a huge rush of adrenaline in your body, this is the start of a panic attack.

Symptoms of a panic attack / how to recognise if someone is having a panic attack:

I have panic attacks on an almost daily basis and it's one of the most awful things I've ever experienced physically and psychologically. But don't worry, you won't die. I say this because one of the most awful psychological symptoms of a panic attack is feeling like you're having a heart attack or that you're going to die (sounds silly but even though I know I'm not going to die because of a panic attack, I still think about it). The reason why you're not going to have a heart attack or die mid-attack is because there's just so much adrenaline going round your body, your brain won't have time to shut down all of your organs as it's trying to focus on all of the other physical symptoms that's going on at the same time.
Physical symptoms include:

Heart palpitations / irregular heart beats.
Sweating.
Trembling.
Hyperventilation (which leads to lack of oxygen in your body.)
Dizziness.
Nausea (which can sometimes lead to vomiting.)
Feeling faint (this usually comes when your panic attack is coming to an end as your body is just so exhausted.)
Choking sensation.
Numbness / pins and needles (most common in fingertips.)
Needing to go to the toilet.
Shaking.

Psychological symptoms include:

A feeling that you are losing control and are going to die.
Your surroundings seem completely unfamiliar.
Needing to escape from whatever situation you're currently in at the time.

For it to class a panic attack, you will usually have 4 or more of the physical symptoms and 1 of the psychological symptoms. Panic attacks will only last 5-20 minutes but can happen more than once if you're in a constant state of high anxiety.

If you see someone in the street with any of these symptoms, don't straight away assume 'OH GOD THEY'RE HAVING A HEART ATTACK CALL AN AMBULANCE'. Try not to ask them questions as they will find it extremely hard to speak whilst in that current state. First try and calm them down and help them with steadying their breathing. Once they're breathing steadily, the other symptoms will sort themselves out. If after 10-20 minutes their breathing is nowhere near steady, that's when you should worry and should call for further medical advice.

Trying to prevent a panic attack / coping mid-attack:

I can only speak from experience here, if I have a panic attack that just comes from nowhere and I have no physical warning beforehand, there's no way I can stop it from happening so I have no options for helping you prevent a panic attack in that situation. What I can help you with however, is if you are in a high state of anxiety and you feel like you're about to have a panic attack, KEEP BREATHING. Don't allow your anxiety to take over your breathing, keep your breathing at a steady pace before the panic attack starts, hey, sometimes it stops the panic attack from happening all together (on the rare occasion.) If you let your anxiety take over your breathing, you're likely to become very distressed and that can often make the attack much worse. My dad has recently been keeping paper bags from the chemist that medication comes in so that when I have a panic attack at home, I have a paper bag to breathe into to help steady my breathing, it's sort of helpful I suppose. In extreme cases you can request an oxygen mask from your doctor, I hate the idea of carrying an oxygen mask everywhere with me though, I'd feel so self-conscious whacking out an oxygen mask in a public place, haha, but that's just my opinion.

I really hope this has helped at least one person, that's all I was aiming for with regards to writing this blog post.

Thanks,

Rachel. xo

05:54 1 comments

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