the day i hope it turns around

 

i spent so much of my life writing these blogs. i used it as my therapy, my outlet, my void. i spoke about my mental health because no one else would listen to me. my doctors and counsellors just told me to try hot baths, to try exercise, to try lose weight, to just try and be happy.

until today.

it is the 23rd of july 2024. so much has happened in my life since i last wrote a thing here but i think about this blog constantly. especially today.

someone listened.

i am finally starting some medication.

there's got to be something wrong with me

some days i wonder why i'm still trying. and by some days i mean most days. but today more than most.

i am at a stage in my life where i've been struggling with my mental health for longer than i haven't been. at a stage where all i remember is trying to recover and failing and trying and failing.

and i have nothing to show for the progress i made.

i still feel the same as i did back then. staring at the ceiling, in the dark, wondering if this is another one i'll get past. 

no you won't

is all i hear. the anxiety is so bad that i feel like i am going to die. it is so bad that i cannot think straight and i barely can register anything but my heavy breathing and the thought of making it all go away by doing something that 10 minutes later i would regret doing.

i hold my head to try and make it stop but it won't. nothing ever makes it stop and i'm running out of options.

i don't know how else to rephrase the feeling of feeling everything. to summarise how much it is dragging me down. to say how much i am struggling again.

and i say again like i haven't been this whole time, just suddenly today i cannot manage it. i hate typing it out because i hate having to say it all over again but i don't know how else to let it out. i don't know the best way of saying it rather than just typing without thinking. 

i really thought i was better this time. but here i am now falling asleep drunk next to a thankfully untouched razor wondering to myself the next morning what wouldve happened if i simply stayed up for one minute more. i thought i was better but instead i was forcing myself to sleep 14 hours a day after waking up having another panic attack because i did not know how else to make the panic stop. i thought i was past this until i find myself feeling full after looking at a past photo of myself where i was smaller because no matter how unhealthy i was, sometimes the idea of being small seemed more appealling than being happy.

and i think about the assault. i think about the people i shut out and pushed away. i think about how i was doing everything i wanted to be doing and how even though i was so lucky to be doing so that i was just so fucking sad.

i don't know how to make it all go away. it feels like it's just never going to stop. 

12 years later and all i can think about is giving up. and i don't know how much longer i can go until i do. 

goodbye

 a few weeks ago we said goodbye to our family dog, franco. he truly was my best friend. and i know everyone says it but he meant the absolute world to me. 

i was 10 when we got him. he saw me finish primary school and lived through me graduating with a masters degree. he loved me despite it all. he didn't care about anything i did, how i looked, what i liked. but he was a dog, how could he care? but the reality was that having that meant everything to me. when i was bullied for years relentlessly, he always was happy to see me come home. when i was crying my eyes out, he laid with me and often licked the tears away. when we were lonely we could be lonely together. i spent countless hours by his side, either sleeping on his back legs where my head fit perfectly on him, whether he was sat on me because the boys were screaming at the football, or on 2 long hour walks because even if he was tired he never wanted to stop.

i loved him with every ounce of my body. everyday was better when he was in it because he made the sad days a little bit brighter. he was the first one i would run and see when i got home from anything, whether that was an hour away with my friends or months away at uni. he would usually get the last bite of my food or be the one to eat our leftovers. he always just made everything better. 

ive known for a while a goodbye was coming. i think he did too. on his last day he spent hours just trying to hold on because he didn't want to go as much as we didn't want him to go. i have never cried more than this, since the moment he left. there feels like a huge hole in my heart that i dont think will ever be fixed.

the truth is i didn't think i'd ever say goodbye to him like this. i think thats the hardest part. when you spend so much of your life struggling to stay alive, you never think you're going to outlive people. i never thought about the goodbyes. especially this year. i have spent so much of 2021 just wanting to not be alive that i really thought i wouldn't get through it. i hate to even think about it, but i didn't think i'd make it, part of me isn't even sure i still will some days. i've discovered newer rockier bottoms, new thoughts and emotions that i never knew were possible and new things to be sad about.

but it was different when franco was alive. when he was still here i had a reason to get out of bed. if i got out of bed, even if it was only for a moment i got to see his smiling face and stroke him and feel better in an instant. but now i have nothing. and i am truly lost without him.

i didn't realise how hard losing him would be. i never thought i'd need to. 

so blue all the time

 it feels like it won't get better. it's just getting worse.

i should be 18 months clean but i can barely go a few days.

i just want to run away from everything. when i think about the future it makes me feel sick. i can't imagine myself living long enough to have a future. it is too overwhelming to be alive.

i have run out of words to write. i don't know where else to turn.

i'll just do what i do best.

be sad and push everyone away.

it's all i have left.

i'm struggling again, as always

 i'm starting to think again that recovery isn't possible and that good days are just days where my world isn't ending. it is almost impossible to think anything else.

whenever i think i'm on the up i quickly hit rock bottom again. but this time the bottom is lower than it ever has been and i don't think theres a way out of this one. it feels like this is where i will be forever, and maybe it will maybe it won't. even if it isn't when i come up from the bottom i'll have nothing to show for it. i tell myself pushing everyone away is best for me to work on myself but really i think it's just a way of pushing everyone away, and it's a really good one at that. i don't know what to do.

my doctor won't help. not that i'm surprised but everytime i force myself to make that call i wonder why i ever did. i feel too guilty to burden my friends with the thoughts of my brain on my worst nights, my tonights. so i say i'm coping when i'm not. i say i'm doing fine just after another relapse or another glass of wine. i say it will be better soon as i contemplate whether this is worth it anymore.

my brain is constant thoughts. constant thoughts that bring up so much anxiety that i don't know what to do with. i just want a moment of quiet. a moment where i don't think about how i ruined everything and i still don't know what i even did in the first place. a moment where i don't fear everyone finding out i'm not as clean as they thought i'd be because how do you tell someone your 18 months is actually 24 hours. i thought i would be past this by now. i'm soon going to reach a point where self harm has been my enemy for half my life and the idea of that makes me want to not exist even more.

they say it's a bad day but not a bad life. but how many more bad days can i take? i can't remember the last time i had a good day that ended as a good day. a good day where my mental health didn't take the reigns.

the worst part is i'm trying. i have been trying. i've been trying to get medical help, i've been doing things that help my brain rather than sabtotaging it. but what does any of that matter when i'm here right now. at 5am wondering whether i can do this for another day as i chug my vodka wine mixture even though i have a killer headache. wondering whether it's even worth it.

wondering how i tell my mum. my dad. wondering if it's even worth talking about it. 

i've felt this all before. it's all gone away before but i'm struggling to believe it will go away this time. i'm tired. and i don't know how to make it stop.

it'll stop any day now

 the past however many years now of my life have been recovery then not then recovery then not again on repeat. whenever i feel like i'm getting somewhere, life soon throws a curveball and i feel right back where i started.

it doesn't seem to take much anymore to throw me back into a depressive episode, and the last 6 months have just felt like one long depressive episode with little glimmers of hope that make me think i'm getting back on track.

the truth is i'm not.

i feel stuck in a rut, living a lifethat has no meaning. i feel years behind everyone else my age. by now i wanted to have moved out, in a full time job i love, having travelled to whereever i want to go and maybe even be in a happy relationship. instead i'm still working part time in a job i was supposed to leave over a year ago, barely most of the time staying alive and struggling to do anything. i feel like part of me is still trying to understand and comprehend the idea of being alive and doing life because i didn't think truly i would or could make it this far.

and it's taken me a lot of time to accept that it's okay. it's okay that i'm not doing what i want to be doing because i will be one day. as many people are, i'm finding it hard to adjust back to normal life now that covid restrictions are easing. simply going into work now is anxiety inducing, hanging out with friends feels 10 times harder and i am struggling to figure out how to be myself again.

but the truth is this is myself. my new self. my best creative, better in tune with my emotions self. the self that puts themselves first (some of the time) rather than the person who would do anything even if they didn't want to because they didn't want to hurt anyone else. this self is finally (slowly) trying to sort herself out some help, taking breaks when i need to. she understands her limits, knows that it's okay to say no.

i am a different person than i was how ever many years ago. i'm a different person than i was pre covid and even though not all of these changes are good, many of them are. and it will be okay, eventually.

darker days

it is getting harder to decide whether this is currently a low point in a better time or a higher point in a worse time. i don't know whether i can count this as recovery anymore but i don't think mentally i can do anything but.

if i had a dollar for everytime i have said i sound like a broken record i could probably afford a lifetime of therapy, but talking about my mental health in this capacity truly feels like it. i haven't blogged in 6 weeks, because i have not wanted to talk about how i am feeling. sometimes coming to terms with how terribly you are doing does nothing but make everything worse and whilst even though this is probably one of those times, i don't think right now i could feel worse so i have nothing to lose.

everyday this week has felt like a low. i'm have spent all my energy the last 2 weeks simply persuading myself to stay alive and i don't know how much longer i can carry on doing it. i am in a cycle of self sabotage and my brain is a constant stream of intrusive thoughts mixed with suicidal ideation. as painful as it is to admit it, i don't think my mental health has ever been worse and that scares the shit out of me. with each passing day i feel like i'm just getting worse, that this is just getting worse. i truly thought not long ago that it was getting better but once again it just suddenly and drastically got so much worse and i don't know how much lower it can physically get. 

i am tired of feeling like i am burdening people. if i talk about it i feel like a burden, if i don't i feel like a burden. i am just constantly a burden and i do not know how to not me. 

i am trying to get help but it is harder to do than it should be. even ignoring how hard it is to actually get help, it is hard to get myself to consistently try. but i'm trying. even if it's slowly, i am trying.