Mental Health Can Be a Right Bunglecunt

Mental health is a funny old thing ain't it?!

I've managed to get through a 4 year degree whilst in various stages of depression whilst dealing with deteriorating eyesight and major personal dramas (divorce, bankruptcy etc etc blah blah).

After a 2.5 hour exam on genetics, with a heavy slant on depression and the serotonin transporter, I finally realise what SSRIs do and the effects serotonin or lack thereof can have on our brains and mental health. I'd read up on it before, obv, but never *fully* understood it, in minute detail, like I do now.

So, after going through a horrendous Prozac withdrawal during my 4th year at Uni, I will be willingly putting myself back on the ole beast tomorrow, at 40-60mg a day.

I have posted this in a bid to continue being open and honest about my mental health shite in the hope it encourages others to speak out or not feel so alone whilst they lie in their stinking bed wondering if getting up would really make a difference to anything or anyone...

Strong, capable, and amazing people still need chemical help sometimes. I am proof of that. I know I am awesome, I know I am clever and insightful, I just don't feel it much of the time, and I bloody well should cos I've worked fucking hard for it!

I HAVE PASSED. I WILL GRADUATE, BITCHES!

FINAL FINAL UNI RESULTS IN:

Passed my final genetics exam with flying colours so you can ask me anything you like about the serotonin transporter, Parkinson's or Huntington's (be quick though cos I'll have forgotten it all by next week)!

So, I will DEFINITELY be graduating in July with a BSc (Hons) in Forensic Psychobiology.

Thank fuck for that!

Helen Raw
BSc Hons, ACSFS, MBPsS, AMRSB

:-)

What do you want to be doing?

I had a bit of a rush of shit to the head and wrote this Facebook post.

It's true though. I would also book myself into a fat camp for 6 weeks but we can't have everything ;-)

Joking aside, Mama and Papa Raw always wanted to make sure we were a) happy and b) doing what we wanted to be doing. No major pressure to get 'all A's' it was just 'do your best'.

Baby Raw would save all the animals and run a farm for free and make loads of craft stuff in her spare time if she didn't have bills to pay. I would foster all the animals, help all the new young acting and science students, and act in and produce plays and films for free if I didn't have to worry about bills. 

We are both lucky enough to have found a way to do, as a job, the thing we would do for free if bills didn't need paying.

I know my depression is sometimes a cunt and I know life has sometimes chucked me a load of shite that was just fucking annoying and a bit like Takeshi's Castle without the Japanese people or the fun, BUT on the whole, I'm pretty much doing what I want to be doing, alebit on a very shoestring budget. 

I've had the £30K+ a year jobs and they are not 'all that' if you don't enjoy or believe in what you are doing for the money you are getting every month, trust me on that one.