I paid off a £800k mortgage on a £25k salary – but I struggle to get out of bed in the morning because of my depression
GEMMA Bird’s 227,000 Instagram followers know her for her bubbly personality, cheerful temperament and infectious smile.
But each morning, as she prepares to dish out her latest money saving advice on her Instagram account Money Mum Official where she rocketed to fame paying off her mortgage on her £25k salary, Gemma first pops a pill.
The mum-of-two, 40, has been taking the antidepressant medication Citalopram for two years after bouts of anxiety and depression often meant she couldn’t get out of bed in the morning.
However, Gemma, who lives in Billericay, Essex, with husband Adam and their kids, son Brody, eight, and two-year-old daughter Bronte, says that the little white pill has totally transformed her outlook.
Speaking to Fabulous Digital, she says: “I first started taking antidepressants when I went through my divorce but I have been taking them regularly for about two years now.
“I am an over-thinker, I worry, I find it difficult to relax over the smallest things.
“I had always suffered with anxiety growing up by when I split with my partner that was a real blow.
“Some mornings I just couldn’t get out of bed, it felt like there was a physical thing pushing me back into bed and the only thing to stop my mind worrying is to go to sleep.
“Unlike some people who really struggle to go to sleep I don’t, I could go for hours and hours and hours and not want to wake up. It’s the only thing that switches my brain off.”
“But the minute I started taking the tablets I wished I had done it sooner. It was like a cloud had been lifted.
“But it never should have got to that stage, had there not been this stigma around mental health I would have got the help I needed much sooner.
“Instead I had felt embarrassed about going to the doctor and put it off, living in denial and insisting I was fine.
“Even talking about it was too much, if ever Adam tried to discuss my mental health it would really wind me up and I think that’s the case for a lot of people.”
And England has one of the world's highest rates of antidepressant use, with more than seven million people using the drugs.
"It doesn’t help that many mental health conditions already cause feelings of guilt or worthlessness, making people more sensitive to thoughtless comments.
"Yet mental illness is every bit as serious, and every bit as real, as any physical illness.
In other news, Gemma revealed how you can halve your supermarket shop with these simple tips.
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And Gemma revealed how you can look a million bucks on a budget.
Plus she revealed how she got her home looking like a boutique hotel without spending a fortune.