Sometimes I find myself in a dark place. Usually in the middle of the night while the world sleeps and my brain works overtime.
During these moments I used to sink deeper and deeper until I lost the ability to move the next day. Now I write.
I write anything and everything and nothing. I write my thoughts, my feelings, my worries and my dreams. I list my thoughts and hope that somewhere, lost amongst all the nonsense, there will be a glimmer of something that might get me through. Hope maybe.
Sometimes I schedule blog posts sometimes I just hit delete, but it helps. Putting my thoughts into some kind of order and writing them down evacuates my mind and eases my battered emotions.
Sometimes, like now, I find myself pausing. Do I really want to publish this? Do I really want to put this out there for everyone to see?
I don’t for a single second think that anything that ends up in these types of posts is noteworthy or groundbreaking but it’s me. It’s me at the very core. And that’s not something I’m particularly proud of.
I’m extremely proud of my blog. I’m extremely proud that I have a handful of dedicated readers and I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for that. Whether you comment or talk to me or send an email or whether you hover in the shadows I feel your support and it helps. My god it helps.
I’m extremely proud that I am able, strong enough even(?), to be open and honest at all times, through everything. I am extremely proud that in some small way I have managed to help others and to highlight issues that surround mental health.
But I’m not proud that this is how it has to be. I’m not proud that I’m writing something that I will never be able to show my daughter. I’m not proud that my blog is so much about our relationship and none of it is positive. I’m far from proud, I’m absolutely devastated.
I don’t like the person that this illness makes me; unreliable, angry, paranoid, flakey, desperate. I don’t like that people see me as this person – it’s not me.
I don’t want to lose friendships, I don’t want to sever opportunities, I don’t want to worry people. Some of the people hovering in the background of my readers are my parents; if they are reading this then I don’t want them to worry. I am ok. You know me, the real me, and you believe in the strength that I always seem to find but deny that I have. Don’t worry.
So I pause. I wonder whether I want to post these things. And then I wonder why not? I am worried about the same stigma that I am trying to overcome. I have an illness, for some reason that is as yet unknown to me it is important that I document it, in all it’s glory. Maybe I need a place to vent, maybe I feel it’s important for mental health to be openly discussed, maybe it’s just what I need right now.
Publishing may help one person, it may help me. Surely that’s worth more than anything I have to lose? Maybe this isn’t something that I will ever be able to share with Beans but maybe it’s the thing that’s going to help me get to a place where I can share my life with her.
Because that’s what matters isn’t it?
you do help, sometimes so much of what you write makes me feel less of of a minority, you are helping yourself, your trying to get help for yourself trying to fight in a system that has walls higher than eternity but your fighting your stronger than you think. We are all really proud of you.xx
I’m a lurker, but I had to comment because this post really hit the spot for me this week.
These things are scary to talk about because they are close to home, but they are also scary to talk about because people do not talk about them enough! Please keep hitting that publish button. It’s good (proven) therapy and it’s another voice added to the chorus which can change our mental illness culture. Little, by little.
Who knows, maybe one day Beans will be the very person who needs to read all this.
Much warmth to you. x
Yes, that’s what matters.
I feel exactly the same about my blog although the subject matter is different. It’s all tears and pain and drama and that’s not who I am. It is what I need to write about though so that I can process the feelings and move on with being who I am. Hopefully your writing is helping you as much as mine is helping me.
I think you are brave for publishing all of these feelings but I understand how it helps. Keep writing. Xx
I think that someday it will be very important for you to share this blog with Beans. You will have fought for the relationship that you want to have, and you will value that relationship so much because of the fight. There will be days when kids say that they hate you and that you don’t understand what they are going through. Your blog is the proof that feelings are transitory and that the love between a parent and their child is so much stronger, deeper and more complicated than feelings. Keep writing and sharing.