406 Yvette Webster ~ How Outdoor Adventures Can Help with Mental Health

Transcript

Holly:  Hello adventurers and welcome to the Into the Woods podcast, episode 406. This is your host Holly Worton and I am back with another fantastic guest. I am super-excited to reintroduce this week’s guest, Yvette Webster. You may remember her from episode 368, where we talked about how to up-level your outdoor adventures and take your hiking to the next level. In this episode we change our topic quite a bit and we talk about how outdoor adventures can help our mental health. This is a super-important topic to both of us, because the more we talk about mental health, the more we normalise it.

So who is Yvette Webster? Yvette is a full-time travel blogger at Wayfaring Kiwi and Kiwi & Haggis. She is a lover of nature and the outdoors. She was also the first solo female to hike the Scottish National Trail, an 864 kilometre trail that runs the length of Scotland, from south to north, beginning in Kirk Yetholm and ending at Cape Wrath. She is currently writing a book about her hike.

So what are you going to learn today? In this episode we talk about what is mental health and why is it so important. We discuss why we don’t talk that much about mental health and why it’s so important to talk about it, even when it’s hard. We discuss some of the things that we’ve done in the outdoors to help improve our mental health. We share: how hiking and outdoor adventures can help with our mental health; how to know when adventures aren’t enough and we need professional help and, finally, where to go for support.

I really hope you enjoy this week’s episode. I think a lot of us have been struggling with mental health due to the last year of lockdowns and the weirdness of life, in addition to all of life’s normal stresses. So hope you enjoy this episode. If you know anyone who is struggling with mental health, who might benefit from listening to this, please let them know about this episode, please send them the link to Yvette’s blog post on why she decided to go back on antidepressants, which I will link to in the show notes. Please, please, just spread the word. Thank you.

So let’s get into this week’s episode.

Holly: Hello Yvette.

Yvette: Hi Holly, how are you doing?

Holly: Good, I am so glad to have you back on the show.

Yvette: I’m really excited to chat to you again.

Holly: And I think this is a super, super, important topic, especially considering everything that we have been through the last year, and lockdowns, and just the weirdness of life these days and I think people aren’t talking about it as much as I think we should.

Yvette: Yeah, I completely agree. The last year – I don’t know if I can swear on your podcast?

Holly: Yes, yes.

Yvette: It has been a shit show. So yeah, I completely get it and I think that mental health is such an important topic and it has never been more topical than the last year.

Holly: It is like the entire world has changed to keep us safe from physical health problems but somehow the governments forgot that mental health is just as important.

Yvette: Yeah, that’s completely true and I feel a lot of people have actually learned the hard way, people who potentially have never had severe mental health issues in their life are suddenly having them now. So that is quite a scary thing, I think, to happen to a lot of people. I am quite experienced at dealing with my depression and anxiety and so I could prepare myself for it in lots of ways but I think it has had such a huge effect on everyone in so many different ways and obviously, you know, in the UK, the NHS have obviously completely redirected their attention to dealing with Covid patients and I feel like, yeah, a lot of people have forgotten about mental health and there are not resources readily available for everyone, just because of Covid. So yeah.

Holly: So what is mental health? What do we mean when we talk about mental health?

Yvette: Ah well, I don’t have a dictionary with me and I am not a doctor so I don’t think I will have the perfect answer to that but, to me, mental health is everything. It is essentially your emotional wellbeing and a lot of people don’t pay… and I think the reason that people don’t pay a lot of attention to mental health is because a lot of the time it is invisible, however, it effects us in every single way. Our mental health effects our physical health hugely: for example, when you are stressed, your body produces adrenaline, you produce the stress hormone cortisol, and then that actually effects your physical health, because if you are building up too much cortisol then that actually tells your body to store fat, rather than burn it, which is what a healthy body should be doing, we should be getting our energy from our fat. And, if you are stressed all the time you are craving sugar, you are not eating right and that has such a huge impact on your physical health and that can lead to so many different issues: heart disease, diabetes, cancers, all that kind of thing. So for me, everything starts with mental health. And it is such a shame, I am in my early 30s now, I wasn’t brought up knowing about mental health, we weren’t taught it in school. It is like nothing can be wrong with you, or you don’t have a reason to complain, unless you can physically see what is wrong with you.

Holly: And I think that is a huge part of it because, as you say, it is invisible most of the time, it is very intangible, if you have got a shoulder injury, or a knee injury, it is so easy to put your finger on it and say, ‘this part of my body hurts’, but when your mental health is not in balance it can be so hard to describe or to even know what kind of help you need.

Yvette: Oh exactly, and sometimes it is really hard to figure out exactly what is wrong, is it past trauma? Is it because you are not eating right? There are so many different variables that can effect your mental health and I think one of the key things is to just monitor yourself and be really aware about how you are feeling. And that’s the thing, it is almost like you are trying to find your way in the dark a lot of the time, how to fix this problem, and, sometimes, you just need time. I am a person, I am very much like: okay there is a problem, I want to solve it, what can I do? But, from my personal experience, when I have been having bouts of depression and I have been feeling really low, there is nothing that I really can do, sometimes I just need a bit of time to let the dark clouds past and to pick myself back up again slowly. So it can be really frustrating as well, when you are just like: why do I feel this way? Everything in life is going fine, I have got shelter, I have got food on the table, I have got friends, I have got family, I am not physically sick and it can just be so, so, frustrating.

Holly: It is totally illogical, like you say it is like: everything else is fine, so why do I feel like crap? But, there are chemical things going on in our brains that we don’t know about, unless we get tested.

Yvette: Exactly, exactly. And one of the really interesting things that I discovered on my mental health journey was that depression is actually an illness. I mean, there can be external circumstances that cause you to become depressed but, when you are in a state of depression, your body isn’t producing the happy hormones that you need to do things such as get out of bed and just have that mental energy to get through the day. I like to compare it to diabetes, diabetic people need insulin and so their body doesn’t produce that, so they need to (not all diabetic patients but a lot) inject the insulin into their body for them to survive. And that is the way that I think about depression and antidepressants now, it is like: well, my body isn’t producing this, and there can be a number of factors why your body isn’t producing the happy hormones. Personally, for me, I think a lot of it is to do with my diet, I have got irritable bowel syndrome and my body doesn’t absorb vitamins and minerals the way it should and so that just causes my depression, essentially.

Holly: That makes sense.

Yvette: Which is why I do need to be on antidepressants to get by, because, when I have my lows I really hit rock bottom and I struggle to get myself back up, and yeah I decided to go back onto antidepressants because I was sick of falling and falling and falling and just clawing my way back out of this whole. And, in the meantime, the world was going on around me, you know: I have to get up, I have to work, I have to make money to pay my bills and I have to keep going, but when I am low I just can’t keep going and when I am low I just can’t keep going. So anti-depressants have been such a saviour for me.

Holly: And I think for a lot of people. So why do you think we don’t talk that much about mental health.

Yvette: I think a lot of it goes back and I can only speak from my experience growing up in New Zealand, but I think that, for example, when I was young, I grow up on a farm and people on a farm they are tough, they are strong (especially the men, you know), and it is not…talking about your emotions that’s showing a sign of weakness. So I think a lot of people are really scared to talk about how they are feeling because they are perceived to be weak, when, in reality, speaking up and saying: I am not coping, that is incredibly hard to do and it is very brave. And I think people are only just starting to see that now, however, it is still really hard to ask someone else for help, and it is also really scary, because what if you ask someone for help and you don’t get that help that you need? So I almost feel like a lot of people are just discovering mental health now, it has only really been the last ten years that it started to be talked about. And, I remember when I was first diagnosed with depression, I was 19 and I had kind of heard about it, but I had no idea that was what I was actually suffering from. No idea at all, until the doctor said: this is what is wrong with you, here are some anti-depressants, try these and let me know how you feel. And, I really had to go on my own journey of self-discovery, and self-education, learning about depression and then I realised I had anxiety as well, which, quite often they come hand-in-hand. So, I just don’t think the information has ever been out there, it is such a taboo topic. Yeah, it is a bit strange really, I don’t understand that it has only been the last 10 years that people have only just started to talk about mental health.

Holly: Well, it really wasn’t that long ago that we took people with mental health issues and put them in hospitals and locked them away forever. So, I mean, not that long ago there was horrendous treatment of people with mental health issues, so, even just the slightest thing just got people kind of removed from society, so we are not where we…

Yvette: Yeah, people were just ostracised weren’t they? And that makes a lot of sense about why people have been too scared to talk about it, it is almost like, one of your survival instincts is to fit into society, and so, if you don’t fit in, your instincts do kick in and say, ‘you need to do everything you can, to be liked’, because you need to have people around you. This is…you know, humans have been on the planet for about 300,000 years and this is like caveman thinking and it is funny how it is still with us today!

Holly: And, I think a lot of people, also, because we don’t talk about it, people don’t know how to deal with it. So it is like when you start trying to explain to people, a lot of people are like, ‘well, I don’t know what to do with that’.

Yvette: Yeah.

Holly: So, why do you think it is so important to talk about mental health, even when we are struggling and even when it is hard?

Yvette: I think the most important thing is that we need to talk about it to normalise it. This is why I am so vocal about my mental health: I love writing about it. It is really scary to speak up and say, I have got depression, I am not feeling at my best right now, I am having suicidal thoughts, I don’t want to be here, I don’t want to be alive. It is really scary to speak up about those things, but, we need to, because we need to normalise this, and I kind of forced myself to speak up about it, especially on a public platform, because whenever I was at my lowest point, and I would see a celebrity, or a prominent person talking their battle with mental health that really helped me, because it made me feel like I was less alone. And I just thought: I am going through all this shit and I want something…I am a strong believer in turning something negative into a positive. And so, that’s why I talk about my mental health openly, because if I can be that person who speaks up and says, ‘this is what is going on with me’, hopefully, someone else, who is going through some struggles will hear that and they will feel less alone. So, not only do we need to speak up about mental health for ourselves, just to have that outlet, but we need to do it so that we are passing on…we are making it normal for other people, other people can go: oh my god, thank god, I am not the only one that feels like this, and it is almost just that a huge weight falls off your shoulders and then, it is almost like a doorway is opening for you to go and get more help, or it is a doorway to talk to a friend, or talk to a doctor, or take action about how you are feeling.

Holly: Yeah, it is almost like, when we speak up about this we are giving other people permission to do the same, because it is feels safer.

Yvette: Yeah, exactly, exactly. And I have known, actually it was in 2018 there were two girls, I had lost contact with them, but they were part of my life for many years, once upon a time, and these two girls both committed suicide in the same year and you just wouldn’t have known, at all. They were really positive, they seemed happy, and bubbly, and they both took their own lives and that is really, really, sad to me and I want to prevent that from happening, as much as possible, which is, again, why we need to keep talking about it, even though it is hard, it is really hard – I still struggle sometimes.

Holly: I know, it is, it is. I had really bad anxiety earlier this year, just about a month ago. The stress of Covid, the stress of lockdown, the stress of this entire year and then I had a series of life events that made things even more stressful, and then I had a couple of family emergencies and then my cat was in and out of the hospital and that was the thing that tipped me over. And I had a few weeks where I was just barely functioning: I was doing my work, I was getting stuff done, but then, little things would happen and I would be like: I don’t know if I can cope with this! I remember being at the Sainsbury’s self checkout and I was scanning stuff and something didn’t scan and I remember thinking, ‘what do I do? Do I just drop everything and run and just leave?’. You know how, on a normal day, you would just call the person over and they would scan the thing, but I could barely handle it, I just wanted to run. And it was so… it is such an unfamiliar feeling to me, I have only had peak anxiety like that twice in my life and that was at really bad points in my life, so it was such a foreign feeling but it was just like: shit, I can barely function.

Yvette: And that is such a perfect example of the fight or flight mode, you know?

Holly: yes, yes!

Yvette: You know? That’s a really good indication, because your body is producing all these stress hormones and we have still got our caveman brain, you know? (Or cavewoman brain, I should say!). That, you know, our body is sending all these signals: you are stressed, get out, get out, get out. That’s [what happens] when we have those anxious moments. Yeah, I have been there myself. One thing that I realised about myself last year, at the peak of Covid, was that I was getting really irritable and angry, and I didn’t actually realise it at the time, but anger is a sign of depression as well. Yeah, it is really bizarre I was getting into a rage over small, stupid, things. {laughing} So, again, you were having a flight response at the checkout, I was having fight responses and it was just silly things: the dog was pulling on the lead and I was like yelling at it. People were kind of looking at me like ‘what’s wrong with her?’, they kind of made me realise: this isn’t normal behaviour, like, you need to do something about it.

Holly: I know what you mean, because before my anxiety kind of peaked I was really irritable for a couple of weeks, it was just like the slightest thing would be ggrr, and I had no idea what that was leading up to.

Yvette: Yeah, and it is like your body does send you all these little signs, because your mental health does manifest into physical health. Your body is constantly sending you signals and signs and, quite often, it is not until we are at a really low point that we finally sort of pick up on it. So I think it is really important to monitor our mental health constantly and that it is something… we need to be taught this, this needs to be taught in schools: you need to be aware of your emotions. For example, have you been eating really healthily for one week and then something happens at school, say, one of your friends goes off and plays with someone else and then all of a sudden you are craving sugar as a way to cope with that? Yes, we really need to monitor ourselves to be taught how to do that, and nip things in the bud and stop things from getting to a point where we can’t get out of bed in the mornings.

Holly: Yes, self-awareness is one of the most important life skills, or tools, or whatever you want to call it, because that is the key to everyone, at least if you know what is going on with yourself you can try to seek help for it.

Yvette: Yeah, completely, and it is also a balance too: it is good to be really self-aware but then sometimes you need to get up and carry on, rather than focussing too much on something that went wrong, and, you know, ‘how is this going to effect me?’, and getting all worried about it. It is a really delicate balance between being self-aware and kind of getting stuck in just being careful all the time.

Holly: Yeah and kind of ruminating on thoughts or feelings and kind of excessively focussing on it.

Yvette: Yeah, yeah.

Holly: Yeah, there’s a balance. So what have you done in the past, in terms of outdoors adventures to help with your mental health?

Yvette: So it is kind of ironic, really, when I am feeling at my lowest the hardest thing for me to do is to actually go outside, and go for a walk, and be in nature and…that’s when I need it the most. So probably the biggest self-awareness exercise in my mental health was when I hiked the length of Scotland a few years ago, and I spent six-and-a-half weeks by myself, with a pack, in Scotland, and I went through every single emotion possible, and, one of those emotions was depression. Every single morning I would wake up and I would feel depressed: I don’t want to get out of bed, I don’t want to walk today, my body is sore, I am tired, I am sick of being in my own thoughts. I was kind of forced to process everything in my life, because I had all the time in the world just to think and I had no one to talk to. But I noticed a really interesting pattern and that was: every morning I was feeling depressed, and I didn’t want to get out of bed (or out of my tent!). And, then, once I got up, I got my pack on and I started walking, it was about an hour into that walk, when all of a sudden, everything/the fog started to clear and I got into my groove and I was like, ‘yeah, I can do this’, and I was feeling amazing. And it was the same pattern every single day, it was like getting out of bed was the hardest thing to do, but when I forced myself to keep walking and to be in nature, magical things happened and I found that I was an incredibly resilient person. And, normally, if I didn’t have to get up and keep walking in order to survive, because you can’t really quit in the middle of the highlands and be like: okay, I am done with this – you wouldn’t survive out there, so I had to keep going. Pushing through and actually just having some sort of physical activity outside really helped my mental health and it kind of taught me: Yvette when you feel like shit, just get up and go for a walk, even if it is just around the block, it doesn’t matter how long it is, just go out and be in nature. Every single time I have done that, I have a saying, ‘I walk into the woods with all these problems in my head and then I walk out of them and all the problems have magically solved themselves’. So, yeah, I don’t need to have hardcore outdoor activity, just a simple walk in the woods for me just helps so, so much.

Holly: Yeah, yeah, and that was something, like you said, there were some days where it was really rough for me to do that, during lockdown, I remember having a lot of resistance to it, my husband would be like: go for a walk, get outdoors, even if it is just around town, it will make you feel better. And sometimes I would be like: errr okay, I’ll do it! And then I would feel amazing afterwards, of course! But it is such a struggle!

Yvette: I know, it’s crazy, it’s like, the last thing that I want to do is go for a bloody walk –  I just want to lie on the couch with a book or watch Netflix… but if I force myself to go out I just feel amazing afterwards and I am like, okay, I say that to my husband as well: you were right, it really did help, because, yeah, it is one of the hardest things, with Covid, is feeling like you are stuck in the house.

Holly: Yeah, and we are so lucky. I live in a small town and we have so many trails, all around town, there are trails in every direction and, still, there was resistance, because sometimes I didn’t feel like it, but I always knew that it would make me feel better.

Yvette: Yeah, and I am exactly the same as well. I am so lucky that I live with woodland trails at my doorstep and I really feel for people who live in cities, and high rise apartments, who have been in lockdown, you know that is really, really, tough.

Holly: So why do you think it is that hiking, and outdoors adventures, help with our mental health?

Yvette: I think, again, it is the whole mental/physical wellbeing, it really is tied together so tightly. You know when you get out walking your body produces, gosh I can’t remember what the happy hormone I called?

Holly: Oxytocin?

Yvette: There are a few of them…

Holly: Yeah there’s a few.

Yvette: There’s a biological reaction that it gives you. I also think when you are walking, especially if you are going for a walk by yourself, it is a really good way to process everything. I feel like when we are at home we are constantly trying to distract ourselves with Netflix or our phones or even like escaping into a book, anything really. But, when you are out walking it is a really good way to process all the stuff that is going on in your head and we need to do that, we need to clear our head and make space.

Holly: Yeah, absolutely. So, do you think that outdoors adventures can help with mental health because they require that we pay attention to the environment in the way that humans are evolved to do, back when we were hunters and gatherers we kind of had that balanced distribution of our attention: looking at the horizon, looking at our surroundings; do you think that maybe that is one of the reasons that it helps? It is kind of like our natural state, back in the day…

Yvette: Yeah, yeah, because one of the best things that you can do is practice mindfulness, when you are feeling low, and mindfulness is all about being in the present moment. If you are thinking about the past you are usually like, things are ruminating through your head and you are almost winding yourself up and you are just thinking, ‘oh, I should have done this differently and I should have done that’. And you are kind of beating yourself up, and if you are thinking about the future, we can never predict the future, so worrying is one of the most pointless things that you can do, because, at the end of the day you don’t know exactly what is going to happen, things will just turn out as they do and you deal with them when it happens. So I think being in nature really allows you to practice mindfulness. And I think today, how the digital age has evolved, and how we are just constantly connected to something these days, I feel as though, again, that is putting us in the flight or fight response, because we are producing this adrenalin, we are constantly looking at our phones, we are constantly doing something. And, our bodies, are just in this constant state of go, go, go, go, and I feel like, actually, being in nature, taking things back to being simple, like we did hundreds of years ago, when we were much more in the outdoors than we are now, I think that is really important.

Holly: Yeah, yeah, I agree. So when we engage in outdoors adventures like hiking, like you said hiking the length of Scotland, there is a bit of mild-to-medium discomfort. You know, we are exerting energy, putting effort into it, it is a bit physically uncomfortable sometimes, so do you think that mild discomfort can help to cut through anxiety and mental health issues?

Yvette: Oh, 100%. I have a saying and it is, ‘you have got to make yourself uncomfortable to be more comfortable’, and when you go out and you do something that is physically challenging and you accomplish it, it is such a confidence boost and you really learn about what your body is capable of, and what your mind is capable of too, because, at the end of the day, if you are doing something that is physically challenging, quite often the mental aspect of that is harder. For me, when I did my hike, it was always harder in my head than it was in reality. So when you accomplish something, even if it is a small win, it just does give you that boost of confidence and that boost of happiness hormones… so putting yourself in comfortable situations really helps and it also makes you appreciate what you have. I was living in Canada for a while and I was living in a van, it was incredibly uncomfortable sometimes because I didn’t have a kitchen, I didn’t have a working bathroom. I put myself in this challenging living situation and then when I moved into a house I was just like: oh my god I am so grateful for having a toilet and a kitchen, it is like: make yourself uncomfortable to then make your life more comfortable. 

Holly: And also, as you said earlier, having that mild discomfort of hiking, or whatever it is that you are doing, brings you back to that present moment, it brings you back to that state of mindfulness.

Yvette: Ah yeah, totally, if you are hiking a hill, or a Munro or something like that, and you are just. If you are like me, every time I hike a hill, I am like, ‘why did I do this, I am so unfit, this is so hard, this sucks’. You know, every time I am walking anywhere uphill as soon as I get to the top I am like: ‘oh my god I am so glad that I did this, yes, this is amazing!’.

Holly: Can outdoors adventures ever cause mental health issues, like when people have post-trail depression?

Yvette: Yeah, I definitely think that they can. I actually did experience a bit of post trail depression after my hike of the Scottish National Trail and it was just because I felt like I had learned all these really important lessons about society. And then, when I came back to society, I realised that there were a lot of things I didn’t like. And I had to integrate myself into society and I didn’t quite morally agree with a lot of things. For example, just the way that there is a certain way to live that is approved by the vast majority, I guess the government, teachers, parents, schools. There is a certain way to live and I felt I didn’t fit into that box anymore, after spending so much time learning about myself, and I realised that I didn’t want to fit in and sometimes that can cause a bit of friction.

Holly: Yes

Yvette: So I did struggle and I felt quite lonely after I finished my hike and I feel as though a lot of long distance hikers will have those same feelings as well. And I guess there is the aspect that you can push yourself a bit too far sometimes, you can put pressure on yourself to achieve things in the outdoors, or sometimes you might put the pressure on yourself: if I go and do this it is going to solve all my problems. Whereas in reality, we need to understand that mental health is a scale and we are going to move up and down that scale and it is completely normal, and it is completely natural. So it is really about trying to maintain a healthy balance and not dipping too low. And, again, going too high, as well, that can cause some problems too, so having that nice healthy balance and realising that it is okay to dip down, it is okay to slip, as soon as you notice it don’t judge yourself, just [think]: alright I am going to get myself back to a healthy balance now, how can I be kind to myself? What can I do? What can I not do? What should I not do? Trying to achieve that balance, I think.

Holly: Yeah, and I think so many of us are out of balance in one way or another that I think, for a lot of us, it has been a while since we felt balance.

Yvette: Oh yeah, completely, the world is completely different now. Even my career revolves around travel and that is not going to be normal for a very long time. I guess, again, one thing the outdoors has taught me is to adapt to any situation. So, when you are out in the wilderness by yourself, you do learn, if something goes wrong, you have to solve that problem yourself and that is a really good skill to learn, to not rely on other people but to rely on yourself, to figure out things by yourself, because, again, when shit does hit the fan, you are experienced in pivoting and so you find you can manage things much easier.

Holly: Yeah, I think that is a really important aspect of one of the things we can get from outdoors adventures. So, sometimes, people with depression can find sunlight to be painful, do you have any suggestions for how someone can deal with this and get outdoors even though they experience this, other than sunglasses?

Yvette: That’s an interesting one! Because I have never actually heard of that before but, I guess, what is jumping to my mind right now, is that sometimes if you are depressed it can be incredibly hard to leave the house, and you don’t want to get out and about and I guess that would effect the amount of sunlight that you can handle, so, obviously sunglasses is a pretty obvious one. Maybe just going for walks in more shaded areas, so, for example, driving to a woodland or going for a walk in the woods would probably be the kindest way to introduce yourself back into life.

Holly: Or even, I was thinking, if you have a park, or any trees anywhere in your town, if you don’t live in a more rural area, just sit in the shade, outdoors adventures don’t always have to be moving through nature you can just sit in the shade of a tree and that can be incredibly healing.

Yvette: Ah yeah, completely, just being still in nature is so, so, good.

Holly: Yes. So how do we know when our adventures aren’t enough and we need to get professional help and support?

Yvette: For me, I feel as though last year when my depression got quite bad… I will back-peddle a wee bit, so I had been off antidepressants for about five years and I had coped pretty well.  I had definitely had a lot of lows but I managed to get back to a more normal balance. But just last year, there were so many external circumstance effecting me that I couldn’t control, that I found myself in a really low place and I didn’t want to be alive, I was having suicidal thoughts, and I couldn’t function. And it was at that point where I was like: okay, I have tried everything: I was trying to talk to people; I was reading positive books; I was listening to happy music; I was eating better; I was meditating – I was doing all these things and nothing was working. And, that can be so frustrating, when you are actually trying, when you have very little energy, and you are doing everything you can to try and feel better and it is not working, that can be really hard, and I think a lot of people may have felt that way before committing suicide. So for me, I was like: okay, I have tried everything, it is time to go to the doctor, it is time to talk to the doctor. And it was really interesting because when I called my doctor, so we were having phone appointments at this time, because we couldn’t go and see the doctor due to Covid, he had said to me that for the past few years I had actually gone in that same time of the year with mental health problems. And he actually said, ‘I think you have got seasonal depression’. I said to him, ‘I think I do need to go back on anti-depressants’, because there was this stubbornness in me where I was like: I really want to try and heal what’s wrong with me and I wanted to figure it out myself and not with drugs, but then, when I thought about it, I thought, depression is like diabetes, you know. My body isn’t producing that and I need to get it from somewhere else and that was when I decided to go back on antidepressants. And, I am so, so, glad that I did because I feel like I don’t hit rock bottom anymore. I kind of just like, when I am having a bad day, I feel like a normal person, you know, I feel like I am experiencing a bad day like a normal person and not like a depressed person. So, I feel like the most annoying thing to hear when you are actually depressed is all of that generic advice, like: talk to someone, talk to a doctor. And you are just like… it is just frustrating! But, definitely, if you have tried everything and nothing is working talk to a doctor and sometimes you do have to try a few different types of antidepressants before you find the one that will work for you and you know I have had friends who have gone on antidepressants and had a bad reaction to one, but another brand works really well for them. You just have to communicate with your doctor clearly and obviously there are also talking to someone professional, talking to a therapist. I have talked to therapists and psychologists over the years and I have found that to be a huge help for me, but what suits my situation is antidepressants, because I do have digestive issues and I think that is a lot to do with it. And depression and anxiety is also in my family so it is a hereditary thing too, so yeah, antidepressants work really well for me.

Holly: Well that’s good and it is good that you had that experience before, so that you know that was a possible solution for you.

Yvette: Yeah and I knew the brand that worked for me and yeah it was actually really reassuring when I went back on them. And I didn’t feel like that I had given up and I was not solving the problems, it was actually solving the problems because this is what my body needs.

Holly: That is absolutely a valid solution to a mental health problem. I think a lot of people are really resistant to it but you know if that is what you need, if that’s what it takes, then get the help.

Yvette: Yeah and a lot of people if they have got anxiety, along with depression, there can be the anxiety of, ‘oh my god, what is this pill going to do to me?, is it going to zonk me out, is it going to make me feel like a zombie?, is it going to make things worse?’. You know, if you go and read the possible side effects that can open up a can of worms of anxiety and so that can be quite a scary thing as well. Sometimes, you just need to try a few different things, and just keep in contact with your doctor, and for the first weeks, while your body adapts to antidepressants, you may actually have worse symptoms for those first two weeks before your body balances itself out and you feel better.

Holly: And I think that is a scary thing too, but if you can get through those two weeks with maybe extra support from people.

Yvette: Yeah, that’s exactly what I thought, I was like, ‘all right for two weeks it is going to be crap, and then I will feel good’, and I did.

Holly: Good, good, I am very glad. So do you have any final thoughts, or tips, or suggestions, for people who are maybe struggling with their mental health now and they don’t know what to do?

Yvette: There are so many things that you can do. Don’t feel like you are stuck because there are so many different solutions to depression. And one thing that I do personally for myself, I have a list of all the things that make me feel good.

Holly: Yes!

Yvette: It can be really basic things like running a bath, lighting a candle, reading a positive book, listening to positive music. I love interior design magazines at the moment, so if I am having a shitty day I will go and buy a new interior design magazine and read that! I feel like if you write this list when you are feeling in a good mood, and you have this list with you that when you do have a low you can whip it out and you can pick one thing and just do one small thing to try and make yourself feel better. Just be really, really, kind to yourself and just treat yourself, as if your best friend has come to you and they are really upset because something has happened to them – you do need to be really, really, kind. Obviously there is the generic advice like, talk to your doctor, talk to someone, reach out, which I think is so, so, important. But I feel like that message is regurgitated quite a lot – and those things are really important and you should definitely do them – but, sometimes, you do reach out and ask for help and you don’t quite get that help. I have been to doctors when I have been feeling really depressed and suicidal and they haven’t given me the support that I have needed and they have basically said, ‘just call a friend when you are feeling low’. And I am like, ‘Well, I have done that, I feel like I have tried everything and it is not working’. And they are like, ‘oh well, things will get better’.

Holly: Ew!

Yvette: I know and I left that doctor’s appointment feeling really angry because I was like: what if I was suicidal and that was me asking for help? And that person just completely ignored my plea for help, you know. If you go to a friend and they don’t give you the support that you need, go and talk to someone else; and if they don’t give you the support you need, go and talk to someone else. Because some people don’t know how to deal with depression and anxiety, we haven’t been taught how to deal with it, we haven’t been taught how to support people. So you just have to keep trying things and just coming from someone who has been dealing with depression and anxiety for thirteen years, I think it is now, things do get better, and it is completely normal to just drift up and down the scale, but just do whatever you can to…. yeah, just be really kind to yourself and don’t give up. Sometimes it is really tough getting out of bed in the morning, just don’t put pressure on yourself to get up, maybe lie there for five minutes and practice some deep breathing and then get up. Yeah, just be kind to yours.

Holly: That is the absolute best advice. I know I often give myself a hard time when I am struggling, because it is like: I should be able to do better, I should be able to do more, and it’s like: sometimes you can and sometimes you can’t.

Yvette: Yeah, and just make mental health, and your mental wellbeing, make that a priority. Ever since I had my low last year I decided 2021 is my year of health and wellness, and I have just been on this really amazing journey of doing all these nice things for myself. I have invested in new skin care, I have invested in nutrition courses, I am learning about how different foods effect our body and I am learning all these different things and I am really educating myself about my mental health, and so knowledge is power. It is a really exciting journey to go on, it sounds quite morbid, but I am really grateful for my depression and how much it has taught me and how it really has brought me back to myself and I have learned how resilient I am, and I have learned how important it is to actually take care of yourself.

Holly: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Thank you so much for joining us today and talking about this. As we said earlier it is so important to talk about this so we can normalise it and make it okay to talk about this. I kind of went missing from my email list when I was going through a tough time and when I finally came back, and I wrote to my email list, I got so many responses not only from people saying, I am so glad you are feeling better, but from people saying: I was really struggling too, so thank you for talking about this. So anyone out there listening to this who is struggling, please get support and get the help that you need and be kind to yourself.

Yvette: Oh yeah, 100%. One of the most rewarding things that has happened from me talking about my mental health journey is people who have come back and said: I have been feeling this way too, thank you, reading this has encouraged me to go and get help. And it is just like: if we keep talking about it, it is just going to have such a ripple effect on the world and we are not going to lose people to suicide and we are just going to live better, happier, lives, so just keep talking about it, it is really, really, important.

Holly: Thank you so much for joining us today, I am so glad we had this chat. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Yvette: Yay, me too! I love talking about this now. I do feel it is easier, the more you talk about it the easier it gets.

Holly: Good! Alright, thank you.

Holly: Please drop me a line and let me know what you thought about this week’s episode, have you been struggling? Let me know, I would love to hear from you.

I wrote an email to my list a couple of weeks ago about how I had been struggling the last few months and, I don’t want to say I enjoyed hearing from other people who had been struggling, but I did enjoy hearing from them because it meant that they were speaking about it.

So drop me a line and let me know how you have been doing, I am up from hearing from you, even if you have not been hearing well. My email is [email protected] or you can find me online and get in touch there. I hope you have been feeling well and I hope that if you are not that you get the help that you need and I hope this episode has inspired you to get some help if you need it.

Thank you so much for listening and remember to visit: HollyWorton.com/406 for the show notes on this episode and I wish you the best. If you are struggling in any way with your mental health please talk to your doctor, talk to your friends, reach out for support and get help in your local area. And, as Yvette said, sometimes you need to ask for help more than once, sometimes you don’t get what you need the first time, so stick with it and get the help that you need, there is help out there, there is help available and take care of yourself!