Confessions

In last night's Doctor Who, the Doctor escaped from a prison. His escape, by punching against a wall (4x stronger than diamond) for literally millions of years, is an almost perfect metaphor for how to climb out of the pit of depression.

It take millions of punches, painful and sometimes traumatic punches, to get yourself out. There is no quick fix, not even pills. I am not fixed from being on more of a plateau. The plateau, the numbness, allows me to access a smidgen more of the person I should be, the person I normally am. But sometimes, that connection fails. 

Sometimes, you have to step outside and cry because your mask of happiness and competence is at risk of crumbling. You phone your mum because you're having vivid and violent imaginations of falling from rooftops. 

Your legs feel like lead. And then they feel like jelly.

And your heart turns to stone. Then it disintegrates like ash. 

All the while your mind just spins.

It makes everything possible and uncertain at the same time. 

It makes recovery possible and uncertain at the same time.

It makes life amazing and soul-destroying at the same time.

It makes you want to live, and makes you want to die, at the same time.

It makes no sense. It makes it impossible to go forward, and impossible to go back.

It works very hard to eradicate your future.

It works very hard to eradicate the very essence of who you are.

The only thing you can do, in the face of something that painfully makes no sense working very hard to destroy you, is to painfully work very hard to destroy it back. 

But this is not a war. You cannot destroy depression with hate.

You can only destroy it with love. 

Yearning to stop yawning

There are good days and bad days. Good hours and bad hours. 

I'm learning what it's like to live with this.

It's relying on caffeine to stem the yawning that comes from being depressed, being on anti depressants and just not sleeping well. Yawns that come unbidden and to accommodate them you try to unhinge your jaw. An exhaustion you can almost feel in your blood. 

Half zombie, half fidget.

It's forcing a smile on your face and a spring in your step that you can only manage for short periods of time - and afterwards, you're left exhausted. Nearly tearful. As if you weren't already on the edge anyway.

It's a physiological change in who you are, fundamentally, as a person. It's going from a morning person to dragging yourself out of bed after snoozing your alarm for 45 minutes.
It's changing from enjoying the gym to struggling through a personal training session like you're being forced to do algebra 10 years after you left school.

Your tastebuds change. Things taste bitter, or of nothing at all. There's never anything you really want to eat; you eat because you have to. Like the way you're living because you have to.

You're sensitive to hot and cold and loud noises. It's a sudden and brutal change to your world when the phone rings; you begin to dread the noise. You hold things gingerly. 

You don't want to be dead necessarily; you just want to close your eyes and not exist.  

This is horrible. There's no other way to describe it. I'm always uncomfortable. I'm uncomfortable not just in my own skin, but in my own brain. I want to get out. I pound on the walls as if someone outside could rescue me from this. 

That same brain that I feel trapped in, it doesn't work the way it used to, the way it's supposed to. It takes minutes, even hours to process things. It feels steeped in fog, and I have to work overtime to push through it. 

I don't recognise myself. I don't like myself - no, it's more than that: I don't even care about myself. But I still worry about others. I'm worried that my problems will hurt other people. I don't want to let people down. 

It's having a good day, then a really bad day, then a pretty ok day but at the end of the pretty ok you realise just how hard you had to work to be ok and being left totally exhausted.

So excuse me while I yawn until I gag. 

Eye of the Storm

The last two months have been a storm, and my mind has been at the centre of it.

I have now reached the eye of the storm. Not because there's peace and calm inside my mind. But because I actually can't get my mind to do anything.

It's stopped really thinking, stopped really feeling. It's numb most of the time now, with peaks and troughs of sadness and happiness.
I think this is preferable to the overwhelming sadness I have been feeling. Sadness that came in waves, gushing over me and ebbing away, only to return once I'd managed to dry my eyes and carry on for a bit.

So this is my diary of depression. 

I don't make my bed like I normally do. 

The curtains don't really get opened.

And the mirror is back to being covered up because I can barely stand to look at myself.

Now, as an adult, I realise that everything I went through from the ages of 8-16 weren't all because of puberty. I have had trouble with anxiety, with expressing emotion, with feelings of self-hatred that go far beyond being a teenager and hating the world because that's the cool thing to do. 

This time it feels so much more like a failure, and there's so much more pressure to get better. No one is directly putting pressure on me, but it's pressure I feel personally because I'm an adult, and I have a place in the world. A place I have been carving out for myself. I have a job, and some responsibilities. Ones I have been struggling to carry out and maintain. When I can barely get out of bed and wash my hair, how can I be made responsible for the duties of my job?

I feel ashamed. I feel so ashamed that it has gone this far. I feel ashamed and guilty that I feel like this when the world is in the state that it is. I feel so self-centred. I feel like I have sunk so low. I feel like I have absolutely failed because I have been put on anti-depressants. Have I not been working hard enough with my counsellor? Did I not keep myself busy enough? 

Why me?

I'm also relieved. I am protected now, in a way. 

Do you know what the last straw was? The tipping point? Other than dragging myself to work and being unable to hold back the tears?
It was not being able to enjoy exercise. Not wanting to go the gym not because I was tired or being lazy, but because I didn't see the point in exercising because my life is worthless.

I've reached my tipping point. Or have I? It could get worse, I know that from experience. It feels right now as though I am in the eye of the storm, and the only thing ahead of me are rocky times as I make it through. Up, not down. Through and out. 

Are you there deity? It's me, Emma.

Good evening deity, I trust you are well. I hope you enjoyed the fascination we all had with your fog, and the great photo galleries it created. 

Do you like the winter? Do you even have a favourite season? I'm not a fan of winter, but there is one jumper I am looking forward to wearing. It belonged to my granddad. 

You would already know that, if you existed, because you know everything. Deities are all-seeing, all-knowing. Some of them even preside over a heaven, in which case you might be hanging out with my granddad. Not that my granddad ever "hung out", but you know what I mean right? Of course you do. 

It's been a year. I can't say it's been an easy year, and I know I've been so busy at times to stop and reflect. I know I'm lucky to have the family I do, and the friends that I have. But I still miss my granddad. We all do. And one of the hardest things I've had to get my head around as an Agnostic verging on Atheist, is the utter absolution of death. That's it. You die, you're dead. No heaven, no multiple brides, not even a purgatory. My granddad is just gone. 

So it's on days like this when I want to believe in a deity. I appeal to you, if you exist, to let my granddad know that we miss him. That we loved him very much, and he will forever be in our hearts. 

Also please tell him that setting up a Facebook account was the best thing he could have done to encourage my nana's stalking tendencies. Thanks a bunch, Terence! 

Misty-eyed and surrounded by fog

Tears. I try to blink them back- dog walkers are coming towards me. I let the water pool in my eyes until they pass, then they spill down my cheeks. 

It was just a rabbit disappearing through a hole in the hedge. A flash of brilliant white that caught my attention, so I crouched down to peer in. I couldn't see anything at first, except a clearing in the bushes. Then it bounced into the clearing from where it had sat, hidden from view. Hidden from me. Ears long, and all a tawny brown except for that white tail. Like a bit that had been missed by the painters. 

I panic. I'm not sure where this path is going and I'm rapidly running out of time. I pick up speed, my feet wet from morning dew and numb from the cold. Not as numb as my hands though. I look at them: the nails aren't blue but a rosy pink beneath the flecks of leftover polish. I shove them deep into my pockets. 

It feels like ages, but it's not long until I get to a part of the path I recognise, and soon I'm back at the lodges. I feel peaceful, despite the sudden panic. It was fleeting, unlike normally. But things aren't normal anymore. I felt it, by the lake. A monumental shift in my spirit. 

I ran down this path only 24 hours before and yet now I have seen so much more. Before the rabbit, I came across a side trail, down to the edge of the lake. Covered in yellow leaves, the ground gives way to two small jetties. Jutting out onto the water, dark brown and bright yellow against the grey water. In fact, everything is grey - the water, the sky, everything in between. The fog surrounds me here and in this space, I feel cocooned. I feel like I am the only person that on the planet, and with that comes a deep sense of calm. I breathe in; I listen intently to the hooting of moorhens that have no idea that they are my own private theatre. A stage of dancers, gliding across their marble surface.  

I cry. I cry with sadness, relief, anger, and joy. This place, this wonderful grey place, it's mine. I'm aware I'm literally steps away from the outside world but I feel so at peace it doesn't feel like an intrusion. Merely that this place of my own is a small piece of real estate in a world I don't and can't own or control. I have never been more in love with a place. And I've been to New Zealand. 

Now, away from my place and back in the real world, I have such a strong sense of self that I can't believe I ever lost it. I have a weight off my shoulders. I am beginning again to understand what is important, what I need as a person. What my body needs, what my soul needs. 

I haven't felt it in such a long time I didn't think I'd recognise it when it finally returned. 

But "it" is unmistakable: This is pure happiness. 

And I feel so blessed. 

Poem of Pain

London has no patience for me 

As I hobble along at half the speed

That I normally march at.

No idea of the pain in the soles 

Of my feet

Or the cramping in my calves

And the ache that my thighs have never felt before. 

Reversed, I would have no patience for me, 

If I was storming along at my normal speed.

Just as I can't stand the phone zombies 

And the "where are we"'s

That can only possibly discover the way

By stopping in the middle of the pavement.

Pain pervades my every move.

But this way I hear more:

I hear more snippets of conversation.

And I see more

Of people, and their lives. 

Just as they can't know

That I ran a half marathon yesterday,

I have no idea

What pain they might be in. 

And that's why we ran.

Let there be life

As I write this post, I'm standing on a station platform, trying not to throw up. There's no toilet I can go to, no seat to sit down on to relax and feel better. My trains are delayed and the absolute fear of beings stranded and hungry led me to binge eat. And now, after a chocolate bar, a nutty cereal bar and a pain au chocolat, I'm unsurprisingly feeling a bit icky.

Even if there were a toilet, I am now 96 hours since my last "purge" and determined not to go back to that. I guess it's lucky that I'm not at home, or that resolve might very well crumble.

I can't remember ever being this crazy around food. Not to the extent that my brain screams at me and  food dominates most of my thoughts. I use it as bargaining chips, I use it to scold myself. I'm constantly trying to evaluate how hungry I actually am, and how much of it is in my mind.

And I am terrified that I am jeopardising my health in an even greater way than the "bad" foods I eat and binge on ever could. How much is this going to affect my performance this Sunday, in the half marathon? Am I going to be able to restrain myself beforehand? And when am I going to get away from language like "restrain", which only reinforce the deprivation mindset that triggers binge eating in the first place?

I am coming out of an especially dark episode in my life, my darkest since earlier this year when I self harmed for the first time in years. This feels darker still because of the rapid way in which my mind unraveled. Whilst I'd felt the difficulty of staying stable for a week or so, the descent into this depressive episode, and the binging/purging cycle felt rapid; I was fine one day and then it had been 4 consecutive days of binging and purging and panic attacks.

Now I've made it 3 days and all I can think about is being sick and trying to blank out the judgements that I get from people and from myself. Yes I know I wasn't starved as a child, yes I know there are people out there with more to juggle than me. I know you're only trying to help me.
I know all the logic but my mental illness defence barriers treat logic like spam email - groaned at, ignored, trashed.

My journey back from this brief but brutal sojourn into despair and disordered eating will be hard. All I can say is that I'm glad I have supportive people around me. It makes me all the more grateful to be running the half marathon this weekend for a charity that helps people who, in situations like mine, feel they have no else to turn to.

So if you think mental health, and looking after people is important, then please sponsor my sister and I. After all, I'm going to spend 2+ hours thinking of when I can next eat.
https://www.justgiving.com/smithbodie/

Taking Deep Breaths

This will be short. I have to put it down on (virtual) paper because for some reason I agreed to be honest and open.

I am on the verge of developing an eating disorder. Having "binged and purged" before in my life, and sometimes just simply "purged" to make myself feel better, I can say that this last week is different. 

Because I feel like I can't control the rest of my life, I'm trying desperately to control my food. But in my desperation to tighten my grip, I am losing it hard and fast and now more frequently.

I'm aware my behaviour is destructive, and unhealthy is a different way to the "unhealthy" foods I'm binging on (Tracker bars are becoming my worst enemy). I've irritated the lining of my stomach pretty quickly - I have a delicate constitution apparently!

But I can't seem to break the cycle. I know I'm losing control and having trouble because I'm trying to control my food, but I keep feeling like if I could just control my food then I could feel much better...

I have a lot of hard work ahead of me, to ensure that this doesn't take control of my life - a control I wouldn't welcome! I'm not well, and I'm the cause of this. But I'm ok, I know I can move forward and get back to sane eating. I will get there. I just don't really know how.

The Oxford Half

Have you ever felt a bit sad, maybe for no real reason? Felt a bit miserable, a bit "down"? 

Have you ever woken up and realised that you've been feeling "down" all week. Or for a few weeks. Or even for a few months.

When you suffer from depression, you don't realise that you're ill. Not initially. You just think that this is the state of affairs. Even once you've twigged you're mentally unwell, that doesn't make it stop. The clouds don't part, the sun doesn't beam in. 

But realising you're not well is the first step to recovery. Recovery won't be as easy as taking tablets or having a chat about it, recovery for depression is life-long. That's not to say that once you've had it you will always have it, but that once youve been there it's easy to find your way back. 

But in that way, it's also easier to stop returning. You won't always be able to stop, but once you've got yourself out you can do it again, and again, and again if you have to. 

Recovery might feel like you're running from that feeling, and that you'll always be running. But the run turns into a jog and then slows to a walk, as you walk through life as normal. 
But when you're running from those feelings there are people that can run with you. There is support out there. 

My sister and I are running to help Samaritans provide that support. So that when they receive a phone call they can run with you, for a few minutes or hours. They are there to help slow you down and turn you around from the face of oblivion. I know because they've done it for me, more times than I can count. They might have done it for you too, or someone you know. 

So please sponsor us, because we're running 13.1miles so that no person with depression or anyone with thoughts of ending their life has to go through it alone. That if they need someone to talk to, to run with them away from those feelings, that Samaritans are there on the other end of the phone. Just like they were for us. 

12 Months, 12 Changes

A year can make all the difference. What are 12 things that are new and different in my life from September 2014?

1. New career: a year ago, I quit TV, and started volunteering at the Sutton Women's Centre. By December 2014 I'd organised a fundraising event and I was a committee member, running the social media. In May we had our 30th Anniversary which I largely organised, and soon we'll have a 30k walk, plus a new marketing plan and our annual Christmas fundraiser that I will have contributed to. My contribution to the Women's Centre fills me with enormous pride and I look forward to seeing it continue to help and support local women for another 30 years (even though one would hope it wouldn't be needed in another 30 years...). I also started volunteering for the Tanzania Development Trust, a role that teaches me new things about the world all the time. After a brief return to TV earlier this year, I got myself a job as Marketing and PR Executive for a charity. Exactly where I wanted to be.

2. Losing my Granddad: words couldn't begin to describe the grief I felt when my granddad died. I have never seen a person die, but I am glad I was there and that he was surrounded by family. Of course the pain of his loss has diminished but I still miss him everyday. I just wish I could hear his voice again, even if it was to grumble.

3. My mum's engagement and impending move: neither of which I am impressed with.She knows this. I've spent hours talking to my counsellor about it. I don't like him, she could do much better, and Lincolnshire is even more the arse-end of nowhere than Burwell. But it's her life. I'm not saying I'm ok with it, but I accept her decision. It's taken me months to get to that.

4. Getting myself back to therapy: following the loss of my granddad, growing resentment over my mum's plans and building frustration at my life, I referred myself to counselling, marking a return after 5 years out. My weekly therapy sessions are a lifeline for my mental health and there are times when I need it and times when I don't, and times when I can't get out of there quick enough, and times when I could do with several hours not just one. I have struggled with my mental health for most of my life, but referring myself to counselling could only ever be a positive step in safeguarding it.

5. New Zealand Take 2- jumping off a suspended gondola and free falling 134m: when I went to New Zealand the first time, I made the mistake of telling the bungee jump company that I have a chronic pain condition. I didn't make that mistake when I booked it, and I was totally fine. In fact I was better than fine because it was an absolutely incredible experience and I desperately want to do it again! My second trip to New Zealand also heralded my first football match - Wellington Phoenix vs Brisbane Roar. We've got the wind, the rain and the phoenix...

6. The gym- my second home: I first went to a gym when I was 15, and my mate persuaded me to go because we both desperately wanted to be thin. I wasn't even fat to begin with but vulnerable to suggestion that I needed to lose weight, like many young women and older women, and teenagers, and even now pre-pubescent girls. And men too. I only went a few times, and mostly stuck to the treadmill. The second time I joined the gym was as a birthday present to myself in 2013 (I also had just split up with the guy I was seeing...). I joined the BBC Club and that gave me the gym at the bottom of my building for cheap. This time I explored more machines, and even weights. I went a few times a week, usually late after work, until I got the craving to playthrough Mass Effect again and I stopped going...

So it is third time lucky. A new gym opened up at the top of my road and they had a pre-opening offer. Spur of the moment, having started running and training for a 10k (running had fallen by the wayside by January 2015 because I was so upset and exhausted over my Granddad, and losing my uncle too in December) I decided to sign up. And it has changed my life. Before when exercise and dieting was a path to beauty, working out and healthy eating is now my path to strength and fitness. The way my body has changed and developed in the last 7 months is something I could never have anticipated at the beginning. I miss the gym when I'm not there. Running is my relaxation, and one more rep is always my ambition.

7. Studying again: I decided to take up a Chartered Institute of Marketing qualification through the Oxford College of Marketing. I knew I wanted to make the move, and I knew that volunteering would only get me so far.It was the right decision, though it is hard. I've done one module so far, and due to holidays and timing, I now have two modules to complete by the end of January, for assessment by the March boards. But I know I want this, and I will do it and do it well.

8. Network, network, network: Networking used to fill me with fear. I started attending the I Am Networking charity drinks in January and the first time I went, I had a panic attack and almost didn't go in. I stood in Covent Garden in floods of tears on the phone to my nana. Then I went in, talked to someone in the lift, and then kept talking to people. The awkward moment where you sidle up to some people having a conversation - just swallow your fear and get on and do it. I've now been to 7 out of 8 monthly I Am Networking drinks, and I'm going to another Charity networking event next week. It's the researcher in me - I like asking people questions and being nosey.

9. 10K: Linked to the gym (no. 6), I ran my first 10k in June, and finished in 1 hour and 12 minutes. There's nothing like the feeling of crossing that finish line, and knowing I'd raised money for Cancer Research UK made it even better. On holiday in Croatia I ran 10k in 1 hour, and I'm due to run the Oxford Half Marathon in October, this time for the Samaritans. I bloody love running.

10. Losing the person I thought was my best friend: pretty self explanatory. For reasons I don't fully comprehend, the person that I thought was my best friend was apparently lying about being my best friend for the last two and a half years. What a waste of our time. Now I know what kind of person she is, and she's not the kind of person I want in my life, and doubtless I'm not the kind of person she wants in hers. I was devastated, heart-broken. Then I was angry, betrayed. Now I am grieving, but calm. It is what it is, I don't wish her any ill-will, but a weight is off my shoulders and a breath of fresh air flows through my life. To adapt an old, much-used phrase, you don't know what you've got weighing you down til it's gone.

11. Topdeck: despite the aforementioned schism with my tent buddy, I had a fantastic time on Topdeck. Yes my last night was kind of ruined by the bull, but actually I had a nice night that night, and many other nights. In fact all the other nights, and days. The lack of sleep, the boiling heat, and the cold and damp and the flooded tents. The walking, the running, the dancing. The setting up and packing down camp, the food Gemma cooked, the food everywhere especially chimney cake and borscht and spinach dumplings. The News, the quiet time, the Wake Up song, the fight over the electricity points. The sweet relief of hostels and cabins.
The new and amazing places I've been. Venice on a gondola, Croatia to party, Budapest to steam out my pores. Krakow to hear the trumpet, and to feel the history at Auschwitz. Prague's 5 story club, Berlin's history, and Copenhagen's Little Mermaid. Hamburg gave me white wine spritzers, but Amsterdam gave me so much more. Already made a list of those to go back to. A haul of 9 new snowglobes for the collection too.

12. Me: The previous 11 points are all things that I've done, or have happened in my life. But the biggest change in the last 12 months is of course me. I've grown, and I've shrunk. I've taken steps forward, and steps backward, and then a few shuffles sideways and sometimes diagonally. I've aimed for one place and ended up another. At the end of it all, I am still me, but changed. Same same but different. I have learned so much, done so much, seen even more and all it's done is whet my appetite for life more. At the beginning of the year, it didn't seem like 2015 was going to go this way. A brief recurrence of self-harm and traits of eating disorders. But I've been there before, and I wasn't intending to get stuck there again. I picked myself up, dusted myself off, and carried on fighting. Like so many people do every damn day.

So with a new tattoo on my right foot, I step into the next school year. I'm ready. Bring it on.

All the voices in my mind/Calling out across the line

I spent most of this weeks counselling session railing against birthdays.
"Why do I get presents and attention? It's my mum that did all the hard work!"
And today when the office suddenly burst into chorus of happy birthday, it took me a moment to realise I was included in the song along with the other two people having their birthday this weekend. I had automatically started singing to them. 

I didn't want the singing to be for me.

When pressed to consider why, the answer is simple: I want to feel special, but when the spotlight is shone on me I don't feel I deserve it. 
This isn't restricted to birthdays. This is all the time. I don't want the spotlight on me for anything, despite wanting to feel appreciated, acknowledged and special, because I'm terrified that if the spotlight shines too bright people will see what I'm really worth.

Which, in my mind, is nothing.
Or at least very little. 

And yet I keep going. What for? If I consider my life so futile, so worthless, what reason do I have to keep doing everything I'm doing?

Because I'm trying to find my worth. I'm trying to earn it. Even though I know that if I earn success and achievements I won't automatically feel ok and like my life is worth something. 
That isn't something that will happen with one achievement, one success. 
That has to be worked on and happen gradually and continuously forever. 

Part of this comes from realising this is my first birthday without my granddad. 5 and a half months on I'm still mourning, and lately I've been preoccupied with worrying whether or not I'm making him proud. 
How you can make a deceased loved one proud is something I haven't worked out yet...

It fascinates me that I, and most of humankind, feel entitled to happiness. Is that a symptom of a world with ever increasing challenges despite our ever improving technology and services? Or is this a primitive instinct?

Is it one that can ever be achieved? Do we ever win the the race of the pursuit of happiness?

I look down at my tanned legs, and see the bright white scars highlighted by the pigmentation from sun exposure. The scars stand out so much brighter against the darkened backdrop. I looked at them earlier, and I cried. I cried and I cried, and then I smiled.

The challenge for me is to recognise that these scars, that I caused, are not a sign of weakness. Instead, they are a sign that I have survived, against the odds that I stack against myself.

Constantly saying "I'm worried about... I worry about..." isn't because I over-anxious necessarily. I do need to relax and calm down and accept the flow a bit more but it also shows that I care. I'm allowed to care. But not so much it makes me ill.

And I need to accept that the spotlight shines on me one day a year, for reasons I find unnecessary, and it's ok to be uncomfortable with that. For at least one day a year, people think I am worth celebrating, because I was lucky to be born and and to some extent lucky to still be here, but with gritted teeth and no lack of trying, I have stuck it out for 26 years. 

I'll take it. Here's to birthdays: The day you get to celebrate your mother's reproductive organs! 

Morning After Pills

How do you begin to reconcile the fact that, when you went to sleep last night, you were hoping you'd never wake up?
Or that when you did wake up, this nightmare would be over.

But what reason could ever be strong enough to want to not wake up?
Does there have to only be one? Or can several, smallish reasons add up over time?

Why does it become so hard to imagine waking up and being happy about that? Being pleased that you have one more day, as opposed to wishing yesterday had been your last?

Why has your brain made taking too many pills sound like a normal solution to what you're feeling? 
Why, when you know logically, that it makes no sense to want to die, you only want to curl up and give in. Give up. 
Be gone.

How do you go forth into the world and have a "good day", when you didn't even want this day in the first place?

Pushing through (self-imposed) barriers

This weekend I got up and went to a gym class. 

It was so hard it made me cry. 

It made me hate myself, my body, my life. Not for the first time this year I felt like there was no hope. No point. I should just give up. 

I came home afterwards and got into bed, and cuddled my new soft toy Noah the whale. I stayed in bed lying there, listening to the same piece of music on repeat, and did nothing. Did some thinking and some dozing, but mostly I just lay there. 
And when I got up to eat, I told my sister how I felt. I didn't feel much better, my mindset wasn't suddenly "oh what a wonderful world we live in." It was more a grim acceptance. This is life. We are lucky enough to have been given it, and it is ours to do with what we will. My body is damaged and I must do what I can with it. 

That grim reality both fuels and quenches the fire of life within me. It tells me that "this is my life, I can do anything in it, I can be anything." And it also whispers softly, "No. All you are and all you ever will be is a speck of dust in this wide universe."

I felt similar tug-of-rope feelings in the month after my granddad died. "Life is precious", it shouted. "You might die any day so live the days you have with all that you can give them."
"No", it whispered. "Everyone dies in the end, that is the only guarantee in this world. Everything you do is futile."

So these imaginary voices tussle and so I get no further. 

I have aspirations of grandeur. That I will contribute to this world in a way that I will be remembered for. Somewhere, I and my achievements will be noted down. 

Not everyone can go down in the history books. But surely we can all be remembered by someone, for something.

I need to refocus my attention and energy on things I can make a difference to. To the lives of my family and friends, to the local area, the bits of volunteering I can do. And doing my job to the best of my ability.

But that leaves me with no answer regarding my body. It's damaged; is it beyond repair?

I guess I have to keep trying. And I'll note down my achievements so that somewhere, they're written down.

How many secrets can you keep?

This week, new stats came out about the rate of suicides in the UK. The difference between north and south, and the difference between men and women. It looks pretty bleak.

So between these statistics, and having spent the week reading Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, and battled grief, mild depression and anxiety for the last 4 months, I felt I needed to write this blog that's been brewing.

Until now, all my mental health issues have been a past tense conversation topic. I call for there to be less stigma, more open discussion about mental health. For us to open dialogues so that those with mental health issues can talk about it with their families, friends and colleagues. So that bosses know how to help make the work environment more positive and accepting of mental health issues. So that friends don't take it personally when someone doesn't want to hang out, or doesn't even feel like leaving their house. So that families don't feel like they've let any one down or brought them up wrong. 

But now I'm in the beginnings of what feels like a long journey back to positive mental health, I feel all those things.I feel like I need to be stronger. That this is western privilege, that there are people out there with nothing and here I am with so much and I can't appreciate it. Or that I should be stronger and deal with this by myself. That I'm being melodramatic when I try to imagine the future and all I see is darkness. That I'm being stupid when I cry for no reason, or get panicked and anxious over anything. That I'm pathetic for finding solace in unhealthy coping mechanisms. That I'm letting people down.

You learn all over again to keep things hidden. To keep things secret. Or at least try to.Finding out someone has mental health issues, that they've had them in the past, can make you treat them differently. I know this because I've done it. Knowing I could not cope with a man's mental health issues because I needed to deal with my own, made me end whatever I had with him. But I also spend more time making sure I listen to my sister and ensure I am there if she needs me to be. (At least I hope I do Claire?) These acts don't counteract each other, my actions with my sister do not make ok the way I treated this guy. It's just a personal observation. I've been dumped for being suicidal, and treated with utter kindness and empathy. The latter attitude is the path that people should take, and should be taught to recognise. It's still taboo to be mentally unwell, and it shouldn't be when 1 in 4 of us suffer from mental health problems. Or in the case of my family, 3 of the 4 of us, although you could count my father's alcohol addiction as a mental health problem. So 4 out of 4 of us.

Being able to talk about having mental health problems can lift a weight so great you didn't realise how much it was hurting you to carry it until it comes off. It might not get rid of the weight entirely, but a problem shared is a problem halved, and having someone listen to you, for however short or long a time, professionally or personally, can only be a good thing. If we are scared to reveal we're struggling, we internalise that fear, and turn it on ourselves, it colours our world view. The world becomes a scary, unforgiving, unempathetic place. It becomes filled with people that we are jealous of, things we are paranoid about. Situations we can't deal with. Emotions that overwhelm us.

If you think this post is over sharing, I want you to think about why you feel that way. Are we so caught up in being polite, putting on a brave front, being so British, that we can't cope when people share their negative feelings? We don't know where to look, what to say. We squirm uncomfortably. I know, I've been there, I've done it, I've been lost for words and wondered why can't they deal with this themselves. Despite the fact I've been through this all before, despite knowing that talking about this can and will help, despite the fact that briefly talking about it to a friend online today made me feel tons better, I'm still unwilling to admit this failure publicly. Because it feels like a failure. I'm failing at coping. Coping with life, stress, work, family, all of it. I AM FAILING. Failing damn miserably.

But it is because I am so, so unwilling for you all to know, that I'm writing and publishing this post. It's self-indulgent, yes, but I need that. I need to indulge and wallow in this pain inside my brain because I'm trying to make sense of and work through it, and I know I'm not the only one. I might feel utterly alone but I know I am not alone. Out of 8 of us on the street, there's at least one other person who understands.

This Wednesday night I'm going to a networking event. When I went to the one in January, I was just round the corner and I froze with fear. I just started crying and the anxiety swept over me like a tsunami and I just drowned in it. It took a phone call with my nana to sort me out. It took several deep breaths and a glass of wine too. This Wednesday, dressed in long sleeves, I will go there a little less fearful and anxious because I know I can do it as I've done it once before.

But is that enough to get through all of this, this time? I've done it before. I can only keep trying.

New Year, Same Me, Different Attitude

I'm in a large bus, listening to Paramore on repeat as we wind along the road past a clear blue lake, and a backdrop of incredible mountains.I can't help but feel so lucky that I am able to see this landscape. That the sun beating down keeps the plants alive, which keep us alive.In this moment, I couldn't hate or fear anything.But I am on this bus to go and do the scariest thing I've ever done in my life.Bungy jump.

2014 was a year filled with experiences. Swimming with dolphins, whale watching, a skydive, white water rafting, black water rafting. But this? I'm setting my year up to be full of exciting and scary experiences by doing this.I want this year to be full of fear. Full of fear that I will face head on and push through and only eliminate it by feeling it.I have defined my life for so long by things I like and dislike. A lot of it is dislike - I am a known grouch, a killjoy. I don't like the commercialisation of birthdays, or Christmas, I really dislike Valentines Day. I don't like meat, fish, egg, milk, cheese, mushrooms, Brussel sprouts and oranges. I can't stand snow, and I'm not a fan of winter, rain or wind. Or if it's too hot. I don't really like sand, and I don't like getting in the sea all that much because it's generally cold and wet, and I do not like being cold or wet. I especially don't like being cold AND wet.
And I really dislike being scared, and I have a fair few fears. Dying, losing my loved ones, being lonely, being rejected, being broke, being hungry.But these dislikes and fears, if I and when I experience them, I know I can handle it. I was wet for 3 days on Fraser Island. It sometimes snows in Britain - I do not break out in hives and fall apart, I just wrap up warm if I have to go outAnd if I am rejected...well then that job/man wasn't meant to be. I can handle it.

**For all the thing that you're alive to feel,Just let the pain remind you that hearts can heal.**

I'm on the bus back from the bungy jump.I'm seeing the same scenery, listening to the same tune on repeat.And tears roll down my cheeks.I am happy.I stared fear in the face and it blinked.And I feel like I can do absolutely anything with this life I've been blessed with.