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One condition at a time is relatively manageable but when they all flare up at once it feels like I’m walking around with my head on fire. Only, no one can see the blaze. Apart from the scars that run up and down my arms like train tracks, everything looks calm. Business as usual.
What I’ve learnt so far is that no matter how shit your situation is, there is an escape route and every time you climb out you’ll be more equipped to deal with the next falling down. This book aims to remind people of that, and myself too.
Ultimately, your mental illness lies to you. It’ll tell you that everything is wrong and that you have no future. It’ll tell you that you should be ashamed and that you’re a nuisance and you don’t deserve to get help. The world in which depression and anxiety reign supreme is extremely lonely and I wanted to write this book to reach out and say: ‘Hey there, you’re not alone, I’m right there with you.’
Mentally saying goodbye to that guy you’re really enjoying spending time with because you’ll probably fuck it up anyway Receiving a very small amount of criticism at work and, instead of dealing with it by doing better at the next task, spending the whole day Googling new jobs because this is it THEY WILL FIRE YOU
My depression coexists with anxiety and sometimes the scales tip. When depression takes over the lights go out. This isn’t to say that anxiety is easier to live with, but I have been able to at least attempt productive coping mechanisms when it comes to anxiety. Depression makes that harder. ‘What’s the point in coping mechanisms?’ I whisper to myself in a dark room. ‘I shouldn’t really be here anyway.’
When anxiety and depression decide to merge and come at me in unison it’s like my body is being moved in two different directions. Anxiety wants me to freak out, panic, run around to get help and call everyone I know, whilst depression locks my bones in place and tells me to stay put. On the one hand my body is heavy and sluggish; on the other it’s whizzing around and unravelling because of the pressure I’ve put on myself to get it together, be normal and just get on with things.
Instead of approaching my predicament with a bit of self-sympathy I felt angry and ashamed of being me. My anxiety had convinced me that everyone on my course hated me because I was weird and stupid, whilst my depression told me that they didn’t hate me at all. I hated them. I was a judgemental asshole that hated anyone having a good time. I deserved to feel this isolated. I was a bitch.
Write your thoughts down. It doesn’t have to be in full diary form, it can be incoherent or just an angry scribble. This will help keep your mind from running around in circles in its own cage. Set the words free
Lastly, remember that you’re made up of 70,000,00 0,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms. My depression makes me feel small, insignificant and hollow. I’m not hollow. Not really. I’m filled with organs and skin and mucus and blood that’s full of life
Whatever turmoil you’re going through it’s going to be over at some point
Whilst there might be more turmoil awaiting you round the corner, you’ll deal with that when you get there and once you do, it’ll be over too. When I’m struck by an avalanche of negative thinking I tell myself that it will pass, that it will wash over me, that this state I’m in isn’t forever.
So here are some not-so-cringeworthy (I hope!) mantras that help me when my brain needs to chill the fuck out: The battle cry: All right anxiety, we got this, GIVE ME YOUR WORST The good advice: Remember you went through this before and you can go through this again The distraction: ‘Look at this stuff . . . Isn’t it neat . . . ?’ Or sub this for whatever Disney song you know totally off by heart. If you find yourself somewhere you can belt it out loud even better! The reward: When this is over we’re getting pizza
To help you discover what your little pick-me-ups might be, try to keep a note of them. Think of it like you’re assembling a toolkit; once you’ve experienced something that acted as a little mood booster add it to the kit. You can turn to it when things take a bad turn.
Self-harm helped me manage my symptoms, just in the worst way possible.
For me, self-harm feels like I’m standing on a bridge and the wind is so extreme it can blow me away at any moment, and then I find a little trapdoor that leads me down below, to another bridge where there’s no wind and I can just move forward freely. Self-harm is that trapdoor.
My scars are a testament to the fact that I somehow made it out the other end time and time again.
Sex won’t bring it to life – self-care and self-respect and genuinely being OK will bring it to life. Having someone thrust their fingers inside me so deep it hurts isn’t me enjoying myself or having a great time. I’m self-harming, and I’m using someone else to do it.
If I say ‘no’ it’s an immediate no, there’s no pressure, and at no point do I feel obliged to do something I don’t have to do. I feel like this might be very ‘Yeah, duh! That should be the norm!’ to a lot of people. And it should, but when your sense of self has been obliterated by depression and self-destruction it’s not always easy to demand the things you know are right for you. It’s a learning process, and one I feel like I’m finally getting the hang of.
It’s this part of a relationship I find super hard to navigate because I’m such an ALL OR NOTHING person. If I’m arguing with someone, even if it’s just a little quibble, in my head we are shouting at each other and we might as well just break up because this is so awful see you later bye! I’m so quick to write things off and it’s not because I want to, it’s because deep down there’s a distinct feeling that I don’t deserve to be loved. It sounds super dramatic and emo but if there’s a thing about me that someone wanting to be my partner should know it’s that. It’s where all my weird behaviours
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Stop what you’re thinking about before the spiral of thoughts continues. Just stop for a second and examine those thoughts – what’s going on? What’s worrying you? What are you afraid of?
Voice some of the thoughts out loud. I’m luckily dating someone now who is the most patient man in the world so he’s OK with me asking him a million questions a day. This is how a typical convo will go: Me: Do you love me? Him: Yes. Me: But do you like me? Him: Yeah, of course. Me: But do you like me as an actual person? Him: Yes. Me: OK. Pizza?
Relationships, the good ones at least, are about letting people disarm your steely wall of self-protection because you feel comfortable and safe. You’re getting to know each other and you feel comfortable showing them other parts of your life they haven’t seen before.
So on the outside it seems like I’m pretty chilled about everything, but really I’m over sharing to the point where I’m turning myself into a joke. I don’t want anyone to take me too seriously. This is a very 2-D version of me. And by projecting that person I’m shutting people out. I’m putting out a funnier version of myself and drawing the vulnerable person back in. ‘You won’t believe this really fucking stupid thing I did last week!’ is my own personal smokescreen. I’m telling people to go look at that other person waving their arms about frantically. Don’t look at the woman in the corner.
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This wasn’t happening. I couldn’t have this happen to me. I needed to say no, I needed to make a sound but I couldn’t. I couldn’t open my mouth. I squeezed my eyes shut and escaped back into my head. I thought if I could just drift outside of my body maybe my body could disappear too. When I found myself fully disconnected from the lifeless blob of flesh being fucked below me I found I wasn’t the only person hovering over my body, I had company.
I remember feeling like something awful had happened but I wasn’t quite sure what.
You have to give yourself permission to go through the inevitable emotional rollercoaster. The more you stifle yourself, the bumpier that rollercoaster can get.
I’m not lazy, I’m proactively putting my own mental health first. I’m letting go of invisible pressures. I’m taking it one day at a time, on my own terms.
Emotional healing is a slower journey. It might feel long and drawn-out in parts and other times it might feel stifling and panicky. The most important thing is to give yourself permission to breathe and to find your own pace. I’m still dealing with what happened to me,
Dr Burrowes told me that life after abuse is a bit like grief. It’s something you learn to live with and that process isn’t easy. A lot of it has to do with striking a balance and slowly figuring out what you’re comfortable with. What happened to you deserves all the compassion in the world, it’s not an easy thing to get over. It’s fucked up and it’s catastrophically unfair but many people can expect to fully recover from trauma.
spent a lot of time flip-flopping between rage against the perpetrator and rage against myself. I told myself I probably led him on. I reminded myself of how drunk I can get and I even concluded that even if it was rape I probably deserved it anyway.
Children grow up believing they were to blame for their abuse, which is a slightly easier concept to process than the fact that people who are meant to protect you set out to hurt you.
As a self-harmer it made sense to me to self-harm after the assault. My self-harm was performing a function. I’d been using it as a coping mechanism for over half my life, why wouldn’t I use it now? Yes, it’s unhealthy and damaging but now just wasn’t the time to come up with a new plan. I had to resort to what I knew. I had to find some relief. I also sought out sexual situations that weren’t always right for me; I was trying to regain control by testing my limits. Perhaps part of me wanted to find out if all men were assholes. My body became a litmus test. If they stop when I tell them to
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I should’ve felt relieved that I still had a job but I still was so desperately ashamed. Going into work was even harder than it had been before. I felt marked. I felt like I’d let everyone down.
It’s just a job. ‘Yes you fucked up,’ he said, ‘but ultimately it’s just a job. You can find a new one.’ I know this seems bizarrely simple but so much of my identity was tied up into this role and making it work – without it I didn’t know who I was. If I was fired how would I pay my rent? How would I eat? What else could I possibly do?
Bad mental health isn’t ‘fucking up’ though.
Friendships will grow stronger the more honest you are
Relationships will never work if you shut yourself off
It’s the classic worry that I’ll be a bummer or, even worse, a burden.
I worry I can’t be a good friend to them if I’m making everything about me and what I need.
You are not a burden. At their core people are good and they want to help each other, they just don’t always know how to. Think about how you feel when someone comes to you asking for advice. I genuinely feel useful and even a slightly bit honoured and I need to get it into my head that it’s the same the other way round
Having someone I can send a quick burst of a worry to is invaluable.
When you say nice things to me I’m probably rolling my eyes or dismissing them but I am genuinely grateful
She’s very no-nonsense and doesn’t let me get away with glossing over things that are really affecting me.
In therapy, whenever I’m talking about self-harm or suicide or sexual assault, I inject a dark joke in there somewhere. It’s more for my own protection than anyone else’s. I don’t want it to get too serious, I don’t want to think too much and I don’t want to feel sorry for myself. Ever.
Afterwards I realised that the way I was talking about my life mirrored the way I felt about my life. It was all a joke. I felt disconnected from it and deep down I was scared I wasn’t going to make it out alive.
It’s so easy for me to beat myself up. It’s easy for me to talk down on myself. It’s much harder to be kind. To stop and be proud of what I’ve done so far. To be proud that I’ve asked for help, that I’ve gone to appointments, that I’ve shared my problems instead of letting them fester inside me. There may be days when it all comes flooding back, but that’s OK.
Recovery is about learning, about moving forward one step at a time. When I have a setback, I find myself completely absorbed in negativity, it rolls around my head like laundry in the washing machine. Everything is shrouded in a dark haze. I find it hard to just feel ‘a little bit bad’, it’s always a near-catastrophic END OF THE WORLD feeling for me. As I’m trying to get better, I’ve found it incredibly important to cling onto the little things that make me happy. Small steps I can make to offer myself a rope and dig my mind out of its blackhole.
So remember this: life is fucking hard sometimes but if you just keep going, just like you kept turning the pages of this book, you’ll be OK.
