I’ve had depression and anxiety problems for over 10 years now, I’ve self-harmed for a number of those years too. I’ve had time in recovery and other times in complete crisis, including being on a mental health ward. As time has gone on I’ve learnt that I shouldn’t bottle up my feelings.

With mental illness you often feel alone, like you are too much of a burden for people, like no one is interested or wants to know. I personally know how much I have isolated myself from the outside world. How I’ve lost friendships along the way, due to little understanding from friends and feeling like they don’t want to know, like I am too much for them. I have also seen how me bottling up my feelings shows itself in other ways. If I hide things away, hiding when I am struggling behind a smile and jokes, the bottled up emotions will come out with increased anxiety, increased frustration and anger, and increased intensity of OCD tendencies.

I have tried going to different people and different places to open up: friends, family, care coordinator, crisis line, Samaritans, but I still often struggle. This has lead me to finding new ways to make sure I don’t bottle up my emotions. When I am struggling, to try to find the strength to talk about what is going on. These days if I feel there is no way to turn, no help, or I just can’t bring myself to talk about my problem and what is going on, I write it down. I find writing down how I am feeling, what I am going through really helps me, it gets it out and releases some of the pressure in the bottle to prevent it spilling. I normally write it down in letter form, make myself anonymous, put it in a glass bottle and chuck it out to sea. Then I sit down on the beach and watch it float away on an ebb, outgoing tide.

I have always found the beach calming and helpful, it brings peace to my troubled soul and brings me back to nature, reminding me there is a lot more out there to think about than the troubles I am facing and that I am just a tiny part of this world. It also reminds me that there are ways to get away from such a high pressured life that we all have fallen into, with the pressure of social media, jobs etc.

It is so important to not bottle emotions up, to prevent the feelings getting too intense. More so to prevent outbursts which cause added problems in relationships. There are always ways to help you offload how you are feeling, even if you can’t speak about it to people. Try what works for me – write out how you’re feeling, put it in a bottle, and float it out to sea or down a river. Having this outlet has helped reduce my self-harming and given me a positive way to cope, it also gives me an excuse to get back to nature when I am struggling to even get out of bed.

– Zoe