I have always been an anxious person. Within the last years of high school I ended up experiencing panic attacks and anxiety episodes. It wasn’t until my second year of nursing studies I ended up having to go on medications to help regulate my panic attacks.

When I was a teenager I suffered bad depression and I have lived with it my whole life. I am now 29 with two kids, I got diagnosed with bipolar nearly 2 years ago. I went through a manic faze ending my marriage/ relationship I was in for 10 years. I'm now going through a divorce and trying to live with my bipolar. I am doing all this without medication for my bipolar, as the meds made me badly depressed and I ended up self harming.

Hello my name is April, I suffered with depression really bad after my nan passed away December 2012, which was 3 months before my wedding. I looked after her for 12 months before she passed. I struggled so much having that empty gap in my life and I didn’t know where to go in my life, until finally reaching out to family and a counsellor and I finally found my calling as an AIN in an aged care facility.

I can feel my heart beating fast, the nauseousness in my stomach and the sweatiness of my hands as I write this. That's the anxiety's way of trying to deter me, but I'm fighting it. I'm still in the midst of my journey, but I'm getting there and I would like to share my progress so far.

If you would ask anyone who knew me they would say three words, Easygoing, Dreamy and Relaxed. So when I opened up to friends and family that I struggled with an anxiety disorder called Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, they where quite shocked. I also got the usual reply “oh my goodness I totally know what you mean, I can be soooo OCD as well, like if my rooms not clean it totally stresses me out!” Or my personal favourite “Ohhhh we’ll at least you’ll always have a clean and organised house.”

I experienced extreme traumatic events within a period of 6 months between August 2018 - February 2019. There were a series of traumatic events which happened and being my ‘strong’ self I thought it would pass and I could soldier on like I normally would.

I have been living with PTSD for the last 4 years. My PTSD has only been treated for the last 10 months after I decided that my reactions to certain situations just weren’t ‘normal’. My route of my PTSD stems waaay back to 2015 when my family and I were involved in a home invasion.