3.

 Read an Instagram post earlier about trusting your heart (from @thebirdspapaya)

Thinking now about how much trust I have placed in my heart along the way.

I have always felt everything deeply. My mind and body react strongly to any and all emotions and I have always felt like it was more of an affliciton than a privilege.

Sometimes it is, but sometimes just being able to sense your heart so clearly and know when something is or isn't for you can be an incredible privilege.

I left the secure life I had and I decided I was going it alone and every day since then I have doubted whether that was the right move. Since I took the bull by the horns and said 'This is not right' I have tried to shy away from the power behind it yet every time I have looked for the opportunity to backslide I have been blocked from it. 

*FOR A REASON*

The option to slip back into comfortably numb is gone completely but now I sit frozen in the headlights of oncoming traffic. I literally have to move to survive and it's going to have to be a giant leap at this point because I have waited too long to take baby steps. 

And the thing is...I know I have the courage to keep moving because I had the courage to start moving in the first place. Like, I have concrete evidence that that level of courage lives inside of me so I can't deny it, I can't doubt it and I can't debate it.

 So tonight I ask my heart to lead me to the safety that comes from not playing it safe. 

Tonight, I put all of my trust in the scared girl who packed her shit up and left.  

On so many levels I feel like I have no idea what I'm doing but on the only level that matters, I know I'll figure it out and everything will be as it should be.

Everyday I try to make sure that I honour the moments to teach my daughter how to stay empowered and I think it's time I took those lessons and turned them on myself.

2.

 I want to be happy for them, I truly do.

But part of me always thinks how unfair it is that they get to be happy and I am left behind, here in limbo.

I have been to the depths of my mind; so far into the darkness that I thought I would never see the light again. 

There was no one sending me an 'R U  Ok?' text like in the ad campaigns.

There was no one thinking of me as I sat alone crying into my favourite blanket, hair unwashed for days and no idea when I would muster the energy to wash the dishes.

I dragged myself out of there alone and I still to this day have no idea how I did it.

One inch at a time I slowly began to feel the heaviness recede just a little.

But then I have days like today.

Where I wonder if maybe I just got used to the weight and actually I didn't get any better.

I know in my head I have gotten somewhat better because sometimes I catch a glimpse of myself dancing around the kitchen to my favourite songs while doing the dishes and I realise that past me would never have been able to do that. 

So I guess the moral of the story is that mental health is not always linear, and maybe that's a good thing?

I will never know what direction my life would have gone in had I not fallen foul to the darkness within but maybe I should choose to see that as a good thing.

Not everyone is trusted with that journey and not everyone makes it out alive and gets to look back on it like this.

I have seen a rich texture to life that some will never see - every moment of peace that I find is cherished, every genuine smile I find on my face is a wonder because I spent so long thinking I would never be able to feel anything again. 

 So I guess, in the duration of this post, I have talked myself back into seeing the wonder in what I've experienced.

Honestly, I could be doing without these heavy days but if that's what it takes to see the value in the glimmers of light then I am here for all of it.

1.

She thinks about how letting go can be so easy sometimes and so painful at other times but there doesn't seem to be a middle ground. There is either a shrug of the shoulders and indifference or there is clinging on with bloody fingertips and eyes half shut from crying in desperation; please do not leave me, I am nothing alone.

Sitting in the garden, despondent, she closes her eyes and imagines him walking up behind her and planting a kiss on her neck. She leans back on him smiling softly and he brushes his hand through her hair. She leans into his hand like a purring cat; he owns her and she owns him and there will never be anything this beautiful again and why would there need to be when this is everything she'll ever desire? All of life pales in comparison to this moment. Warmth radiates from that spot on her neck, drawing attention to how out of the question it is to go back now.

How can he exist, seemingly unscathed, without her?

Can it be that this was all in her head?

How can he just recreate it all over again with a replacement? She couldn't recreate him no matter how she might try. Everyone else makes her skin crawl.

She supposes her replacement maybe isn't littered with the silvery scars of past pain made visible on her skin. She supposes when things get messy this one doesn't dig a hole and bury herself in it so she doesn't have to admit that she's hurting but she doesn't know why. She supposes this one won't descend into an unrecognisable state and give herself over to the lurking darkness within, if indeed she even has any. She imagines this girl as soft and much more beautiful that she could ever hope to be. She imagines her tears fall delicately on to her cheeks and he wipes them away with the pads of his thumbs as he holds her face and leans forward to kiss her forehead. There, all better.

This thought, this very thought is excruciating. She can picture them fucking, or laughing together, or feeding their baby and it's painful, but the intimacy of that thought is like a knife to the gut.

How can he love someone else when she still loves him this much? How can he just be going through his life without knowing that this much feeling exists within her? She feels like it must be etched across her face but maybe he can't read her like she thought he could. Or maybe he has chosen not to. She is unsure which one of those thoughts is more terrifying.

She'll maybe just pop another couple of pills and try to forget for another night.

Welcome

Hi.

I'm never sure how to begin and that is probably what has delayed the process of me actually creating this blog for the many years that I have thought about it.

My writing is personal, sometimes brutal and always raw. I write to heal from things that have overrun my life to date. There are the classics, like depression and anxiety, and the less fashionable (or socially acceptable) intrusive thoughts, OCD and eating disorders.

To be clear - I do not wallow. Sometimes on my worst days I think I'm being trivial and whining about something that has little to no meaning for anyone else. However, on my good days, I see it for what it could be; a soothing medicine for someone who perhaps can't put into words how they feel but they see it on my page and they say 'WAIT! That's me! I feel that too, and now I can talk about it and feel less alone all at the same time!'

That's really what we all want; to feel less alone in our own minds. It is not in our natural make up to be so alone all of the time, so in this time of isolation I thought fuck it, let's hit publish on this stuff you've been choking back for years and see that the world won't end as a result...there are myriad other reasons that the world might end but my writing shall certainly not be one of them.

Stay tuned for my first essay, landing soon.