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PhDisabled: Ten years since I got an eviction notice on my birthday
Week 3: Run, Write, Read.
Mental Health Awareness Day falls on my birthday. The day before, this year, I finished a run of EMDR therapy. It has been a tough year, and not just because it’s tough doing a PhD.
Most of the stories I read about people with depression open with “Everything in my life was going great and then I got severe depression”. This probably isn’t a fluke, it isn’t as strange as people think. As my therapist likes to say, minds tend to wait until they feel relatively safe before they allow themselves to fall apart. It’s when everything is going great that we let go and then it all goes wrong.
It is all going great. It has been for a while. Ten years ago, on my birthday, I was served an eviction notice. I lost my business and my world fell apart. I was very ill, and there was nothing I could do about it but sit on a year-long waiting list for support. I couldn’t afford to eat, let alone pay for private care. This year, I had just signed documents guaranteeing me a home for life. Instead of sitting alone at home, terrified, calling various agencies to get help, my partner and I went to Knowsley Safari Park and admired the animals. It was about the most relaxing birthday I’ve ever had.
