I am a huge anxious bean

Hi, my name is Hannah, I’m 26 and I live in a coastal town outside of Newcastle in England. I am a huge anxious bean and I have suffered with depression multiple times in my life. I mainly suffer the most around winter, and I tend to pick myself up again in the summer, if I could hibernate the winter away I would, but unfortunately I can’t so instead I pretend like I’m OK and carry on as normal (not healthy, I know!).

I have decided to create this blog as a way to help others who suffer with the same mental health issues I do. For me, this has been a lifetime battle but depression really reared it’s ugly head back in 2014 when I was studying at university.

Two weeks later I was standing on a bridge.

I went to a university not far from my hometown which gave me the luxury of returning home for weekends. At the time, the thought of moving away from home totally filled me with sheer dread. I remember coming home at weekends and telling my mum that I felt depressed. My mum kept telling me to not throw that word around and she insisted that I wasn’t depressed, I was just feeling a bit down because of uni work stress. My mum has always been very emotionally supportive but in this case she didn’t know the full extent of the way I was feeling. I didn’t understand it either until two weeks later I was standing on a bridge.

I never speak about that day to many people because it was one of the worst days of my life, but weirdly one I am grateful for because in the weeks that followed I learnt a lot of things.

I didn’t look back.

Firstly I learnt about the people in my life that truly have my back and will stand by me through anything. My mum has always been my number 1 support and in the following months she not only took time off work to make sure I was OK, she also helped me get better, especially on the days I didn’t even realise I was ill.

Secondly I learnt that when things get tough, you have to take a step back, so I did. I took a year out of university, went to therapy, travelled to France where I lived for just over three months and I didn’t look back.

When I eventually returned to university I graduated with a first class honours degree, which I can honestly say was the proudest day of my life.

So now you know a bit about me, I’m thrilled to be taking you on this journey with me. If you like what you read please like and share! You can also follow me on Facebook and Instagram.