Riding the Thermals

Living with mental illness is a bit like trying to fly a plane through turbulence without instruments — I also had four small passengers demanding snacks, help with homework, and that endless pile of laundry.

There’s no smooth altitude. Some days you glide for hours, thinking you’ve finally found the calm air. Other days you hit an invisible current that throws you into a spin, and you have to grab the controls with both hands and steady the whole thing before anyone notices the drop.

As a GP, I learned early how to hold other people steady. Listen, empathise, anchor them in their storm. What I wasn’t prepared for was doing all that while trying to keep my own wings from folding in. It’s one thing to care for patients with depression or anxiety — it’s another to sit in the consulting room, feeling like a fraud because your own mind is quietly unravelling behind the smile.

And then there were the evenings — that part of the shift that never ends. Four children, one washing machine, and a brain that never stops. The physical exhaustion was constant, but so was the drive to keep everything afloat — school runs, night shifts, scraped knees, paperwork, packed lunches, repeat. If you are a parent....you know. But my mind became more of a fury of fireworks the harder I played.

People often imagine resilience as strength — the ability to push through. But I’ve learned that real resilience is far less glamorous. It’s getting out of bed when your body feels made of concrete. It’s showing up for your patients and your children when you’d rather disappear or evaporate into a mist. It’s also forgiving yourself, and accepting that sometimes, just surviving the day is actually the achievement.

Mental illness doesn’t care how educated you are, how much you love your kids, or how many people depend on you. It can strip you down to your rawest form — until there is just you, and your choice to keep on going forward.

And I did just keep moving forward, the tiniest steps on some days. I'm still doing it.

Because “keeping going” is enough.