I Had A Mental Breakdown And It Was The Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me

There is hope, even if your brain tells you there isn’t.

Throughout my whole life, I’ve usually been that annoying upbeat positive person who could always see the bright side of everything. Although I had gone through tough break ups and sad times, I had never experienced actual mental health problems.

Now I don’t know about you, but I always expected mental health issues to be really apparent and just hit you like a tonne of bricks. I expected you would be really aware that you were experiencing a problem and you could seek help.

Well, that’s not quite how it happened for me.

Last year, everything seemed to be going incredibly well for me. I was going to buy my own flat in London, I had an amazing boyfriend straight out of my dreams, a successful career and a great trip to Las Vegas planned.

I didn’t even realise that darkness was creeping into my mind. I slowly started becoming more irritable. Next came the anxiety and paranoia (crazy girlfriend, anyone?). I then started thinking everyone hated me, and no-one actually cared.

After a string of arguments and finding me in less than favourable situations at home, my boyfriend left me. I don’t blame him, I was hard to live with. As he packed up his belongings, he called the ambulance on me because he was worried what I would do.

I saw my doctor straight after that, and got signed off for 5 weeks to deal with the breakdown. I saw a therapist who pointed out something that I hadn’t thought about; throughout the year, I had experienced a lot of triggers — big ones, the sort that even one can sometimes trigger mental health issues in a person, yet I had experienced plenty in just 4 months. Let’s just have a quick look at these;

I realised I don’t want to live in London.

The stressful commute crammed in with tons of people on the tube, the long days, the high cost of living, the pollution… all of it was contributing to a low level underlying level of anxiety. Over time, it wore me down.

I realised I don’t want to work in finance forever.

I stopped enjoying my job and the hated the idea of working in a semi-meaningless job for the rest of my life. I wanted more. I wanted to choose jobs based on enjoyment rather than money. That’s how I found the financial independence movement.

I realised I want to be financially independent.

After a lot of research, I made a plan of how I would become financially independent. It would allow me to choose how and where I want to work, rather than feeling an obligation and stress to work in jobs I hate just to pay the bills.

I realised I want to be near family.

I truly hadn’t realised how important this was to me until it was taken away. Being around family made me happy, and spending those 5 weeks with them last summer without stressing about my London life really highlighted this for me.

I was finally content.

Putting all of these points together, I made a plan that I would never have otherwise made.

I was going to move countries and be with my family, where the cost of living was low enough (if you came with GBP £) that I could easily become financially independent in a much shorter space of time. I started really putting my head down and thinking of ways to make extra income, focusing really hard on paying off my debts and planning for my future (focusing on passive income as much as active income).

A year later, I’m debt free, have lots of savings and own a piece of land that I’m planning to build my own house on. I have a plan to get out of the rat race, and to build the life that I want.

I’ve also had tests done, which have shown that I had an issue with my thyroid that can lead to rather severe depression — this would have contributed greatly to my mind being more susceptible to the breakdown.

None of this would have happened if I hadn’t broken down enough to take the time out, seek help from professionals and re-evaluate my life.

The reason I wanted to write this, was to show you that even if you feel like there is no way out and no hope— there definitely is.

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