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. 

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. 

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. 

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?

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.

I'm running out of clock and that ain't a shock.

I'm 6 days away from leaving. I'm 6 days away from leaving an island of family, friends, memories, for an island of family, friends, and memories yet to be made. 

I'm sitting on a train carriage and the man across from me is clutching an oversized bottle of Stella Artois. I like Stella, but the smell reminds me of an ex, and his bedsit, and nights in front of the PS2 playing Lego Star Wars. 
And it reminds me that I think I lost one of my PS2 controllers to him. Just like I lost my DVD (or was it VHS, I was 16...) of the Nighmare Before Christmas to another ex. 

And it's trails of memories like that which I savour, and considering my terrible memory, feel precious to me. Granted, it's not pleasant remembering either of those ex's, but remembering the memories themselves is nice. It's comforting.

Someone commented to me recently that they didn't think I was the sentimental type. But I can be. That's why I have several memory boxes of collected items. That's why I have walls covered in postcards and pictures. But you can recognise the pleasure in remembering times gone past without being nostalgic for them, or wishing that in fact the past was the present.

I'm about to leave the country for anything up to a year, and at times I might be lonely, or homesick, and the memories of all the people I've left behind will battle for space in my mind. Some will come equipped with megaphones, others colourful banners; anything to get my attention.

But when I'm not feeling that way, or maybe despite feeling that way, I'll be in a new country, on a new adventure, making new memories. And that is so exciting. We document our lives so much these days - Facebook updates, 140-characters or less tweets, Instagramming our dinner. Even blogging. There's the criticism that we're so busy posting about our lives that we're not actually living them. 

But how can we resist having an instant memory recall?! How can we resist being able to find out how exactly we reacted to England qualifying for the World Cup or the major storm of 2013. Or our comments on the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics, or even as far back as Michael Jackson's death? It's like reading back old diaries and reminding yourself of all the ancient petty squabbles you had with your sister or the time your parents tried to ground you for doing something or other.
I can look back on my Facebook and the multitude of hair colours and clothes I've had in the last 8 years. I can see with a click of the mouse the people I've been sharing my life with up until now. I can see again all the places I've been: America, Belfast, Bologna, Brighton, York. London. Beautiful, miserable, sprawling and crowded London. I barely know London. I want to know it so much better. I still have time. But for now I can make do with getting to know Cairns, Brisbane, Sydney...

I'm going to miss you. All of you. Ok not all of you. In fact, I'm looking forward to putting some memories, some people, behind me. Hey! Hey you! Yes you, the one that acted like a jerkoff to me. I'm looking forward to leaving you behind. The Other Side of the Sea behind. Don't get me wrong, I'll still think about you, because you got under my skin and you're like a scab that I can't resist picking... But when I'm in a country where I'll be in a bikini because it'll be SO DAMN HOT, I won't want to pick that scab.

I'm not stupid in thinking that by going to the other side of the world, I'm leaving all my troubles behind. How many films have we seen when people run away from their troubles or think they've escaped them only to have them catch up with them? I'm taking my issues with me because they are to do with me. But people run away for a new scene, a new culture, a new perspective. So your issues? They might not matter so much an ocean away. 

So when I'm the other side of the sea, missing some of you, and being finally free of the presence of others, you just need to know I'm ok. But you'll know that, cos I'll have posted it on Facebook. You know, that photo of me on the beach in my bikini, in December ;) 

The Times They Are a-Changin'

Changes can happen overnight, instantaneously or gradually. But we all change, all the time, and when we comment that someone hasn't changed, we're wrong. That person will have changed, perhaps not in a ground-shifting life-altering way that irrevocably changes who they are, but they will have changed in little ways, by small degrees.

I have changed so much in the last 12 months. Trek is the obvious catalyst to a new perspective of my life. Before Trek, I would never have planned a year abroad in Australia. I cried when I went away on Trek, when my mum and nan came to wave me off. I'm tearful thinking about it now. And that was only for a month.

A year is very different to a month. (No shit, Sherlock)
A year alone is very, very different to a month with a best friend and a random group of people you have to spend everyday with.

34 days left to go, and I'm scared. So scared. I'm terrified because I'm going into the unknown. Fearful of the things I'll find, or won't find. Scared that what I'm leaving won't still be here when I come back. I think the stupid craziness my brain has been dealing me the last week or so is down to me desperately feeling the need to make more roots here.

But the fear isn't stopping me from going. My excitement, my expectations, my desperation to explore, the bubbles of curiosity are carrying me ever closer.

A lot can change in a year. I've changed a lot in a year. I'm not expecting to come back in a year, or however long I go for, and everything be as it was when I departed.

I think that's one of biggest evolutions you can go through. Understanding that things change, and that it's okay. Accepting it, and embracing your own changes.

Evolving Forwards, Not Stuck Behind.

Those Walls I Built, Part 2

Boxes. Lots of boxes. Different sizes. Different weights.

That's how I'd like my mind to be. That's how I would like to compartmentalise the bad memories and the good memories and the grey memories. I could keep the bad memories in a dark corner, hidden from view, gathering dust.

In the same dark corner in which a flame burns. A flame that refuses to be extinguished. A flame that threatens to give life to paranoia, give light to jealousy. It burns bright for self-loathing and held to closely it smokes out my self-esteem.

I am still to work out how exactly I am meant to deal with rejection, and let go of crushes. I feel like every time it happens I haven't learned anything from the last time. Or the time before that, or the time before that. 

So I am a bit fed up of feeling so crap over this one thing. I feel like I'm only focusing on it because I'm bricking it about Australia. But I've got shit to do. So whilst I would love to feel the feelings and work on sorting myself out, I think the best thing to do is keep having the small brief cries, and compartmentalise. Like I said, shit to do man. Shit. To. Do.

Those Walls I Built

It's very easy, when you're overwhelmed by emotion, or when you're feeling something you'd rather you didn't feel, to try and block it out. 

I'm good at steeling my heart against things, against people in particular. Acting cold towards someone is a defence mechanism, that I'm sure they can see through. But it makes me feel as though I'm dealing with it. As if it can't hurt me. I think that eventually it works its magic, and in the end I can deal with it because I've walled it up for so long. In fact, I'm undoubtedly processing those feelings and emotions constantly, and that's what gets me through it.

Whilst I am sort of fed up of feeling things for people and then having to stop myself from feeling those feelings, I guess that is life, and emotion is so important. It's vital to being empathetic to other people, to making friends; it's essential for falling in love.

The walls I try to build around my heart don't stop me crying at RSPCA adverts or the degeneration of an elderly man's - my elderly man's - mind. It didn't stop me crying when I moved house, or when my sister left, or when my mum moved away.

And sometimes it's easier said than done. Even when clothes I like the look of don't look good on me at all (I'm looking at you, blue sequin Lipsy dress) I don't automatically think "oh well it doesn't suit my body shape or my skin tone." I think "I'm fat, why are these arms even here, why doesn't it look on me like it did on the (tall, leggy, well-photographed and well-photoshopped) model?!" Sometimes reason is lost in emotion, and not even the best walls can stop you feeling crappy. 

And then, sometimes, aside from dealing with unrequited desires and not coping with rejection, the walls, and the emotion, are necessary. This morning walking to walk, I had a sense of futility and gloom. And it was confirmed when I got in and I felt overwhelmed, scared, and very alone.
But I took a moment to deal with those feelings. I felt the fear, the terror. And then I walled it up and got on with things.

But with every paper cut, with every phone call made and with the re-tying of my makeshift hairband, I was dealing with the feelings.  Those emotions, and my ability to deal with then, make me who I am. 

I just wish I was able to cope with all emotions, all the time. 
I suppose that's what the rest of my life is for.