World Mental Health Day

I’m a day late but this is honest and vulnerable for a public post, so we’ll call it even… and you’ll find out why at the end.

Those of you who’ve known me for a while know I’ve had my battles with mental health over the years – some resolved by a good weekend with friends, others an extended stay at the priory. This time last year I saw what I thought to be the best version of myself to have existed so far, and at 34 years old (back then), finally knew what ‘peace’ felt like.

Then I decided to retrain and become a software developer.

A brief fast-forward to today and I have an incredible job, working with a great bunch of people and to my amazement, a structure that works exceptionally well for someone with ADHD!

None of this came without a cost though. Rewind to January…

The intensity of bootcamp, the very necessary hours of coding outside of core hours and on weekends, not knowing if we had a class until sometimes an hour before it began, and an expectation to be job-ready in 12 weeks, was an easy recipe for burnout if you weren’t careful. Throw in a few personal issues and it was a guarantee.

By April I had lost most of my short-term memory (no joke – I had no idea what I’d said mere moments before), my heart rate was randomly diving on par with an Olympian’s sporting prowess, and I had completely dissociated from everyone and everything around me.

The other way to describe it would be like a captain putting on auto-pilot at 30,000 ft, standing up from her seat whilst she sighs “fuck this” (but doesn’t remember saying that of course), then jumping out of the cockpit window with a bin-bag for a parachute, but not before she has somehow destroyed the black box… because yet again, this pilot sure as shit isn’t going to remember a thing.

When the course finished, I spent the next couple of weeks in that bin-bag assisted free-fall, travelling at a rapid pace, accompanied by the unbearable noise (me) of the now very torn bin bag. (Go on, hold one outside in a strong wind and tell me the sound doesn’t do your tits in.) I went back to therapy as quickly as I could get an appointment and my therapist and I found agreement in the fact that this was the worst my mental health had ever been. Fortunately, I guess in a really odd way, I’ve had a fair whack of therapy over the years, so I’m equipped with a great set of tools and awareness to help speed up the recovery process. If you’ve been down the same road a few times you don’t really need a satnav, I just needed someone to help me get the tool belt on – not least because I’d been living on biscuits and it probably didn’t fit very well at the time!

So why I am I banging on about this now? Well, at the beginning of the year I set a few goals. I promised myself I would do them once I’d completed my course and started my first job as a software engineer. I’d read that if you keep them to yourself then you’re more likely to make them happen. (If any of you say I told you about these, I’m not going to argue because I won’t remember telling you!)

My Goals

• Go to Madrid with my Mum
• Establish an exercise routine or find a new sport I can play
• Learn to surf or SUP
• Buy a pair of Hoff Metro Retiro sneakers

There are some others that aren’t relevant or a work in progress so I’m keeping those to myself for now!

Why am I referencing mental health and telling you my goals?

Here’s why. There were several points earlier this year where I truly didn’t think they’d ever happen. Not for lack of ambition, but I didn’t think I’d be here to try.

I didn’t write this post yesterday on world mental health day because I was enjoying the last day of my holiday in Madrid with my Mum.

I’ve had to postpone my Portugal Surf Camp trip to June ‘24… because I damaged my quad tendons, going too hard at the CrossFit style gym I’ve gone to three times a week for the last three months.

Oh, and that picture up top? That’s me wearing my Hoff Retiro’s in Retiro Park on Monday.

No matter how bad it gets, how dark and heavy the clouds feel, there is always sunshine on the way. (I mean, there’s a climate crisis so that’s a given, but you know what I mean.)

Talk of mental health has become more common on social media, not just through personal posts, but the means of illustration, poetry, and support groups. LinkedIn (where I link to this Medium blog) is viewed more as a professional environment, where we share our career achievements, our work goals and how many Udemy courses we’ve completed this week. Well as far I’m concerned, if you’ve ever felt like choosing not to be here tomorrow but you’re here, now, reading this post, then that’s the greatest achievement of them all.

Peace + love, Hayley