I thought about tweeting this over the past couple of days, but figured no one listens to me so there's no point. That feeling is one of the more minor symptoms of #depression and #anxiety. It's #WorldMentalHealthDay and I want to stress how difficult it is to reach out for help.

Following a major event in 2017 that shut my life down, it has taken me a long time to get well enough to access help. When you're so low you just physically can't, people don't understand you can't just flip a switch. There're days when getting up and having a wash is Herculean.

So imagine having to be articulate enough to tell a stranger what's wrong. Imagine trying to fight off your imposter syndrome to do it. 'Oh you're well enough to whinge at a busy GP with cancer patients are ye? Wise up.' You can't overcome your own self-cruelty.

Even if you could, imagine the damage is so great you've lost words from your vocabulary. They're gone. You can see an image of how you feel but can't project it. You used to know the words and now there's a void. You feel stupid, pointless, what's the good of me taking up air?

It can take such a very long time to rise above these obstacles, but by then you've convinced yourself that you're well again because some of the words came back, and you were the life and soul of that event that time, and aren't all these plans brilliant?

And crash. You're down again. You're not well after all. You were just in a one-step-forward moment and now is the two-steps-back. I've cycled like this for four years now, perhaps for longer really, but it broke in 2016.

I have recently reached out because I got myself this far but I can't do the rest alone, and not this year. I'm high-functioning so it's rare that anyone notices I'm in bits inside. And it's all the time. Constant. It doesn't switch off. At all.

I manage to accomplish things feeling like that - what could I achieve if my head was right? If the pain subsided, just a little, just long enough to cut a break? Anyway, it takes time and trial-and-error and becoming a friend to yourself. That's the important bit.

Imagine that self-critical voice was saying those awful things about someone you think is absolutely class and love dearly. Fight yourself's corner because you *are* worth it, and if you can get through today, and the next day, and another, you'll be ready too. #MindYourself