Personal Mental Health and how I overcome it

By Candace Berger

It was around 2009 that things seemed to take toll on me. My mind was hearing a yelling of I think it was a guy but I couldn’t make out what he was saying. It was so loud that I couldn’t sleep at all. I decided to visit a friend for help and he took me to the hospital. I was admitted into the psych ward at the hospital where I still heard the loud voice. Also my weight had gone down to 109lbs where I was showing bony features on my body. They encouraged me to eat so that I could get back to a healthy weight. I decided to listen to them and got my weight back up to 125lbs. But all that time I was hearing that voice. They decided to put me on an anti-psychotic, Risperedone and it made the voice calm down somewhat in loudness.

After a while I was put in a step down care center where they monitored my mental health. Throughout the past 11 years I have been in and out of care facilities and hospitals. All that time I learned about tips on coping with my mental illness and I want to share them with you. There are times where the voices get loud and I try to talk to them to see if they will stop yelling or listen. Sometimes it works. Another one is taking my medicine consistently that way it doesn’t interfere with the routine and then end up hearing voices again. This tip is writing in a journal. You can either rip up the paper or keep it for a record of how you are doing as time progresses. Sometimes listening to music can help sooth the voices and me.

Now for anxiety I have several tips for you. One is doing body scans, two is the vagus nerve exercises and three is deep breathing meditation. You can look these up on youtube. Two more that might help with voices and anxiety are taking a bath and talking to someone like a counselor, parent, friend, relative or neighbor. Well now that concludes this blog piece. Thank you for reading and I hope that these tips will help you.

Be Safe.