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.

Can we do it all again?

What do you do when it's all done?
What do you do when there nothing left to organise, or plan?
When they have been commemorated or celebrated and cremated and then...
What's left?
When you're not building up to the funeral of someone you love, and worrying about whether it's going to be done right. 

Then what do you focus on?

Suddenly you're back in the real world: the world you rediscover the day after they die, because the day they die the world stops.
But the world keeps on spinning as if they never left and the next day you find it's business as usual, except you have an event to organise. 

And when the date comes and goes, and the event is over, then the really real world comes back. 
And it's actually business as usual.
And suddenly business as usual seems so fruitless and pointless and you're inconsolable and inconsolably angry for no reason and you're feel like you're stuck in a dead end which wasn't signposted as a dead end so surely there's another way out.
But you can't find it. You don't find it. Things are "normal" but they're not.

You're so irreparably changed that suddenly you can't stop thinking about the next one. 
Wondering who will be next and how that event will go and how they would want it.
And whether you'll do them proud.
As if they could ever be proud of you for accurately planning and executing their funeral.
As if your choice of flowers, or words, or music, affects how they feel about you.
It doesn't: it's all for you, about them. 
It's not about doing them "justice". 
It's not about saying goodbye to them in the appropriate manner.
It's about doing whatever you need to do, to say what needs to be said or what you want to say.
It's about realising that life is short, even if it's 80 years long, and if you don't say it now it may remain forever unsaid or unheard. 
And if it is too late for them to hear, saying it anyway, to people that will hear and will listen and will understand. 
Because then you've heard it said aloud. And you know it to be true. 
And since anyone so loved is gone but not forgotten, you have still said it to them, and they have still heard. 
They hear you because they still live in you. When you breathe, laugh, smile. Cry. 

They are a part of you in a way you cannot alter.
They always will be.

I love you, tomorrow/You're only a day away

I feel I want to fold in on myself. 
Fold myself up until I'm small enough to slip into someone's pocket.
And stay there, warm and safe. In the dark, with only a crumpled receipt and some spare change to keep me company.

Unless, of course, the pocket has a hole in it.
If that is the case, I might think I'm safe and warm in the pocket, and once my eyes have adjusted to the gloom, I'll go exploring.

And that's when the floor will give way and I'll fall through it, and be trapped in the lining with no way out.
Unlike the pocket, the lining isn't comforting.
The lining is that feeling when you're in a maze, and you're actually trying to find the middle, or the way out, without cheating, but you can't and you're trapped and you start to wonder if this is where you'll be for the rest of your life. If you'll ever see the outside world again.

Like the hole that you might disappear into, when someone you love dies it leaves a hole in your life.
A rip in the fabric of space, and time.
A rip in the fabric of you.
Suddenly, you are the pocket, and the hole is where your granddad used to be. And whenever you go anywhere near it you get the sense of emptiness, of a never-ending gloom. 

Tomorrow is going to be awful. There are no two ways about it. I am going to be crying or on the verge of tears from the moment I wake up. There'll be moments throughout the day when I think that maybe the tears have dried up, and then they'll spring afresh in the wells of my eyes and come streaming down my face and it'll be all I can manage not to let out a heaving sob.

I want to fold in on myself. I want to save the memories of my granddad that are inside me and if I fold myself up and shut down from the outside world they will be safe. And warm. Protected inside. 

I don't want to lose them like we've lost him. Because now the memories I keep of him only live in my head. They are gone from his. 
He is gone.

When he was in the care home, he said, "I'm ready to die tomorrow, but tomorrow never comes."

Tomorrow came for him, and now tomorrow comes for us.