6 Months.

 I have started every blog post from the last two or three that I have not written in a while. It is 2 months after my last one. I used to use this blog as a way to get out my emotions healthily and try and help myself or hope that my words could help someone. I have always been a creative person secretly, and I have always loved formulating words, stories and poems to do that and I just stopped because I eventually ran out of things to say. Until today.

Today I am 6 months clean. For 10 or 11 years I have self harmed and I am no longer to face that. I hid it for so long because I was so ashamed and so unhappy for so long. But I have never in these 10 years been clean for as long as I am today. Before this, my longest was about 4 months and that was broken by my last relapse, one awful night 6 months ago that was a huge moment in my recovery. I didn't want to ever wake up how I felt that night again, ever. I was fortunate enough for that to be my last needed wake up call and I haven't looked back. 

I never thought I would get here. Teenage me didn't think I would make it to 18. I am 22, I nearly have a masters degree, I am the happiest mentally I have been in years. I still have bad days and a lot of them, my anxiety is still a lot but I am learning to deal with it all. For the first time in years, I can look at myself and I do not see scars. I do no longer have to look at myself in so much pain because of how much I am suffering and I do not have to be disappointed in myself for not being able to deal with it.

But I, in these 6 months not once thought about self harm. Not once. It is astounding to me that I am here, and that I can picture the rest of my lives, clean. Because I know I can. I've done the hardest part, these first 6 months and then into the first year. But I have survived it. I can and will survive more. 

4 Months

I am in one of the best places I have been mentally for a long time. Maybe not on account for how I am feeling, but my sole ability to acknowledge it and be able to keep on going.

I have just once again reached four months clean. Before this, it was over 3 months. I have relapsed once in 2020. Once. Through a hugely stressful masters degree alongside a part time night shift job, spiking anxiety, a global pandemic, alot of change, and let me reiterate, a global PANDEMIC alongside the many other awful things of 2020, I have only relapsed once.

Even on my worst nights currently, my brain doesn't even think about relapse anymore, when for 10 years it was all I could ever think about.

I now know that recovery is possible. I am proving that to myself everyday.

Maybe that time from over 13 weeks ago. Maybe it isn't.

But I am able to do this.

i wrote this and i do not know why

I have never felt more vulnerable than I have writing the 32 drafts of this post.

I have not written anything in months. I did not feel the need to. I should start posting about my recovery, but all I know how to write about is sadness.

I have been struggling again. I do not want to talk about a relapse, because by typing this out I have to admit that it happened. I have to admit that I caved in a moment of weakness.

My anxiety is currently out of control. I cannot cope with the panic of the world on my own. When  I was younger, I used to have nightmares most days of the year about fire or ill-health or something terrible happening. I could not sleep alone in my room for years because I was so afraid I would wake up and everything I loved would be gone.

I am back here. I am back not knowing what is happening or how I can calm myself from the panic when everyone and everything around me is barely together.

I have had more panic attacks in the last 48 hours than I have had this entire year. I am barely staying afloat and I do not know what to do. Everyone is struggling so I struggle to talk about anything but the truth is my mental health is at the worst it has been for months and months. It feels like it will only get worse.

I am a closed book. I do not talk about anything unless I have to. I am better today than I was a few days ago, but I cannot hide my relapse from myself. I cannot type without seeing it, I cannot sleep without remembering it. I cannot do anything anymore.

Everyone I know and love is struggling. My worse childhood fears are becoming a reality.

I do not know what to do.

I cannot breathe again.

Leaps and Bounds

It has been several months since I have opened my blog, even more so starting a new post. This is not for a lack of things to say, but a lack of a way to say it.

I am in a very weird place of recovery at the moment, one that I am finding it hard to put into words. I don't have enough to put into words but I have enough that the feelings are still overwhelming to contain, when I feel them. I think thats the main thing, it's not the feelings themselves that have changed - it's the frequency of them. 

I think back on the person I was a few years ago, and the progress I perceive myself to have made is leaps and bounds beyond anything I ever thought I could achieve. I have changed so much from the girl who could barely eat a meal a day, self harmed almost daily, mentally struggling with her sexual identity and was struggling to find a reason to stay alive. I wish I could say that girl had completely vanished, but I would be lying to myself if I did.

I rarely have bad days anymore, but I have many moments within my day where everything is difficult. Just today, I woke up feeling anxious (which thankfully alleviated after 10 minutes) and this evening I spent hours trying to get myself to eat something. The difference between me now and a few years ago is that now I actually will eat if I try and stop myself originally. Me now will get out of bed if I'm feeling anxious or sad, to carry on as normal to get the feelings to pass. Me now will think about relapse but I rarely come close to doing it.

I wish I could pinpoint the moment my mental health difficulty started to turn into recovery. I wish I knew how or even why I have managed to find myself in a place where I can put my hand on my heart and outright call this recovery. I am fortunate enough that I am in a happier, stronger place and that I am not constantly overwhelmed with feelings I cannot and do not want to comprehend.

I used to tell myself that I was going to be unhappy forever. I know that isn't true. But I also know that this will never completely go away. I think accepting to myself that reaching the "true" recovery, that I have wanted to reach for so many years, is never going to be something I will reach has helped me continue. Part of me will always have a second thought when I eat, will still feel anxious all the time, will still want to shut herself off from the entire world and the part of me that simply does not want to exist. Accepting that has allowed me to continue working towards recovery.

After all these years, I think I can finally say I am doing the best I have been since I was a suicidal 11 year old, feeling lost and alone. I am doing well, and I will continue to do so with each passing day. 

Reality / Recovery Reprise

Sometimes recovery is too hard.

There have been so many days where I wake up and I don't want to eat. Not because I'm not hungry, but because I wish I wasn't hungry. There are days where I am so anxious I don't think I can physically move. There are days that I feel like I need something to cope with the overwhelming feelings that are being shot at me for no apparent reason.

I have days where I don't want to recover. I have days where I am absolutely convinced that the life of sadness, binge eating and self-harm are the ways forward. I am convinced sometimes that I will always be the girl I was when I was younger, hurting my body in one way shape or form because I wanted to be anything but what I was.

I still do. I still want to be someone else. I still want a body and a mind that I feel happy living in. I will catch a look at my scars often when in public places and hate myself for doing that to my body, especially knowing that other people can see it too.

I'm getting there. I know I am on a road to recovery. I have bad days, so many bad days, but I rarely relapse anymore, regardless of how much I feel the need to sometimes. Some days the trickle of water on an empty stomach is a better feeling than eating, but I now make sure I eat anyway regardless of how much I may not want to.

Recovery is hard.

I know that saying that is almost the equivalent of me saying oxygen is important for breathing. But when I was younger, I used to believe that one day, when I wanted to, I could just stop. I could just stop being sad. I could stop harming myself. I could stop forcing myself to go hungry. But I couldn't stop. I wanted to heal and I wanted to heal overnight. Instead, it's been countless years and I am still in the process of healing.

And I don't think I will ever fully heal. I think there will always be a part of me that I could never completely fix. There will always be a part of me that every now and then will emerge and I will want to relapse. But I won't. I'll want to, but I won't. Thats what recovery is to me. I'm not expecting recovery to stop the intrusive thoughts and I'm expecting days where I cannot deal with them. As I continue to get better, I continue to learn that recovery to me is about not being free of the pain, but learning to push through it. It's still something I am struggling to cope with. But I'll get there.

Sometimes recovery is hard. Mainly because true recovery is something I may never to truly be able to achieve. But with each day, I do better. And that for me, is enough.

Being Alive / Notes from July 8th

Being alive feels impossible again.

I know, wanting to die is selfish. I've heard it all before. You've told me how there are people terminally ill who are praying for one more day of existing and there are people in the middle of wars not knowing if today is the day they are killed and i know people are dying every day and you don't want me to add to that list.

But when all you know is wanting to die, sometimes you clutch onto that feeling. You clutch it tight like its all you have left because sometimes thats what it feels like. It feels like all you have is the fact that yesterday you wanted to die but you didn't, like you didnt the day before then and each day from each month from each year from the first time. 

Sometimes I go through days by remembering I survived yesterday. Sometimes the only reason I can live to tomorrow is because I lived to today. 

It's hard wanting to die but not having a reason. I don't even really want to die I just don't want to feel like this anymore. I don't even know what this feeling is. I feel like I'm lost, like I'm walking around an empty room without any way out. 

Everything is fine. But I don't feel fine.

Because I Am

I have been unable to find any words to sum up how I'm feeling. I haven't written in a while because I am unable to say how I am feeling.

I don't want to be alive.

But it's okay.

Because I am.