Learning to live with Mental-Health, think before you speak, BE KIND 😊🌸❤

I grew up in an abusive family, my so called father was a coal miner and a mother who was a cleaner. All the memories i have from growing up are bad ones,*the beatings, the put downs, the mental abuse, the torture and my school life wasn't any better. I look back now at those wasted years when i could have been studying to better myself instead of being scared all day everyday. I would go to sleep dreading what the next day had for me, scared to go to school scared to go home.

Those are the words i used with a mask covering my fave people thought i was fine but inside i was a wreck. You learn to hide how you feel as saying I am fine is deal with easier, If i had said "I am mentally and physically drained, i need help" there would have been so many questions to answer when speaking was the last thing i needed. Back then depression wasn't heard of very much, there was no help back then. I didn't know i was depressed, i thought i didn't matter. We had nothing, 5 children to a coal miner, we were poor and so called friends knew it and didn't let you forget.

I am 56, married for 30 years with 2 grown daughters and still have depression, its not something you can cure or ignore. It takes time to learn to live with it and how to ignore the tiggers. Triggers are something you hear, see or feel that take you back to those bad times, triggers set of the low feelings. My biggest problem is learning to love yourself, i was put down by my father for 28 years, he would tell me i was useless, would get nowhere and everyone else was better than me. I did everything i could to get him to say he was proud of me, i worked hard, brought money in the house, worked my way up to manager of a shop but he still put me down.

I grew up with those comments running around my head, he also beat me with the buckle of his leather belt that he had nicknamed Rikki Tikki Tavi after a mongoose in cartoon. The beatings didn't bother me as much as the name calling, when they say names will never hurt me believe me names last a lot longer than a bruise.

I carried this with me until i was around 35 when my hubby started noticing the signs of depression, it had come to the point of my mask slipping and not being able to control the tears. I had so much counselling, a lot of it was pointless as it wasn't what i needed at that time. It was quite a few years later when i was taught a technique to use when i was low. I still heard my fathers voice, it felt like he was on my shoulder constantly saying your useless, good for nothing, you were mistake I learned to visualise him sitting on my shoulder and imagine me being able to pick him up by his hair and let him dangle in front of me then to flick him so hard that he flew through the air so fast he hit the floor so hard he smashed into pieces or drop him in front of me then stand on him. I had to keep visualising this every time i was taken back to my childhood. The more i did this the quieter he got until all i can hear is a whisper. I can deal with a whisper.

I know i am going to always have depression, its who i am or should say its a part of me. I Last year i had a breakdown and tried to end it, that's the lowest i have ever been but it was also the time i got so much help from everyone around me. It brought me and my family closer it also opened my eyes to my hubby who usually gets on my nerves but then he was my biggest supporter. He now knows all the signs, he can tell when i am feeling low and knows how to handle me.

I am better than i have ever been, i am more open with my loved ones, i am aware of all my triggers and have a tool to deal with them and i worth so much more than i thought.

Name calling hurts as it sticks like glue, once you have said something nasty to someone you can't take it back. Think before you speak and BE KIND to everyone.