Date: 30th July 2020
So it turns out recovery from depression and self harm for me, is an ongoing process. I haven't updated this blog purely because I have been focusing on making sure I am secure in my own mental health before attempting to write my thoughts out here for you amazing people to read :)
I've been doing this weird thing (at least weird over here) called Therapy in an attempt to figure out the workings of my brain and how to be kinder to myself as a result. And it's hard. So hard at times it feels like it is easier to just give up and sink into this dark hole of safety I have built around me to shield people from what's really going on in my head. The more I am doing this whole digging in my head for answers, the more questions ping up and the harder it gets at times, to see the wood for the trees.
During this process I have begun to undertake, I've finally let it sink in how much of an impact both my upbringing and college had on me and my self esteem, social skills and friendship building abilities. I've moved a lot as a child, the longest I had ever stayed in one place (until I got to Wales) was 4 years. My parents were forever doing up houses and selling them in the hope to get to a greener and better place for us as kids to grow up in. All this is fine, till you realise the lack of security in where you're living, slinks its way into the back of your head and starts to prevent you from putting down roots because you know it's not worth it or because when you finally do put roots down, they will be torn back up again and you'll have to start from scratch. On top of this constant lack of consistency in where I was living , there was the whole "home educated" aspect of my childhood. I went to school until the age of 7 and then was pulled out by my parents because I was being bullied by the tutors and kids alike. I never went back into the educational system until college at the tender and naive age of 16. That's 9 years of having very few people my own age who were home educated and even fewer who I got on with and even fewer who finally became my friends - of which I am currently in contact with zero from here in Wales and rarely in contact with my 'friend' from Cornwall. So I never had social security and learned to rely on my family for my sole friendship group. This meant my family became this weird mix of my only friends but also the people that were my parents and siblings.
As a result of having my family as my only consistent source of friendship, it has meant I am close to my family. But also withdrawn from them. There are some things you just don't broach with my mum - like my mental health and college - and the same rules apply to my dad as well. This is all well and good until the very thing you need to have someone to talk to about, is the one thing you can't talk to your parents about due to previous attempts ending up with people in tears, people being cross or people making something A LOT worse by trying to do the opposite. So you don't talk about it and you get worse, you try to talk to a family friend and you end up hurting their relationship with you. You bottle things up and when you finally find someone to talk to about this all - ie my therapist - the feeling of being honest and open and truthful about what you're going through, is so foreign it feels fake.
Add into this big, tangled mess of worms the whole college experience - which I will do an entire separate thing about cos it's messy as can be - and you end up with me. Someone who is unable to take off this mask of "I'm this happy, put together, confident, don't care what you think about me, good person" and when she finally does try to reveal her true self to her friends, ends up with pretty much everyone running away from her.
There are days when I am ok with the hot mess that is me and there are days where I wonder if it's wroth fighting for anymore. I had very serious thoughts back in college of suicide I almost went through with and to this day, I have fleeting - not really serious I believe - thoughts of taking my life still. And if it's not wondering about suicide, it's the struggle not to self harm (because once you start it's addictive and it's hard to stop) or the constant fight against the controlling anxiety and it's exhausting. Fighting against yourself 24/7 uses up 99% of my energy before midday most days and the remaining time I'm not asleep is spent avoiding thinking about stuff or avoiding anything sharp or conversations that might make the mess in my head worse. And I'm going round and round in circles trying to figure out how to tell my therapist all this and more without making an entire hour long session go by without him having spoken or given up on me and the lunacy that's lurking behind my eyes...
My brain is hurting to a point I'm not even sure it's alive anymore but I have to keep going if there is to be any chance of me understanding myself even a tiny little bit more than I do now... And I need that more than anything right now...
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