Honest to Blog - Trying. For Me.
- Ang Nicole
- May 9, 2019
- 6 min read
The crazy part about life, and about blogging, is that you always want everyone to think you're okay. You want to put your best foot forward and believe that you are more than your emotions, or the bad shit that happens to you.
It's so easy pretending to be okay.
Heck, how many times during the hardest moments of your life does someone ask "how are you?" and you just say, "okay!" (coz it's easier than explaining that you're actually not)
Full disclosure, I AM NOT OKAY.
I want to say, "but I'm learning to be."
And that is the truth.
Every hard day, every chaotic moment... it's a learning curve.
Even if that curve is simply that I no longer want to be hospitalized because I don't see that doing so will help.
For those who know me, or anything about my life, you'd know how downhill this year has been for me.
I'm not the only one feeling that way either. Almost everyone I speak to has hopelessly uttered that this year is just not their year. I'm honestly yet to talk to someone who says that they finally feel on top of things, or that life is starting to look up.
Be it the stars, planets, deity of any kind... whatever it is you use to guide your life... they're all out of whack this year! Truly!
Tonight I had a melt down. And I mean, next level.
I had a rough day at work, not even a ridiculously hard day... But the kind of day that usually has me messaging my partner to pick up a chocolate pudding mix on the way home so we can binge watch a series while I eat away my feelings.
Instead, I came home tonight and felt so ridiculously alone.
At the moment, my partner is not really my partner. And he's not actually living with me.
This year has been so tough for both of us that we decided to take some time apart to work on ourselves. In theory this sounds super positive, and most of the time I feel that it is. But after a hard day where I just want to curl up on the couch with him, to come home and have nothing but my thoughts and my cat judging me... it wasn't easy.
I started out by lying in bed and crying. Then I felt so stupid for doing that. I got up and decided to go to the shops to get some smokes so I could try use that as a coping mechanism. Before I even knew what was happening I was on the grass in an upright, yet somehow fetal, position. I held my jacket around me and screamed to dull the sound of police trying to call my name. I screamed and cried.
How had it got to this?
The truth about living with bpd, anxiety and depression all rolled up into one tiny mind is that it often plays tricks on me. It tells me things I don't want to hear, like that I'm nothing but a burden to everyone in my life.
It's so hard living with a brain that tells me I'm worthless almost all of the time.
As I sat blocking out the police all I could think was "how did I get here."
I guess I walked.
I guess I just went on auto-pilot and ended up there.
The honest reality of mental health is this... that it's not all quotes about being better, or implementing coping mechanisms so that distress is tolerable... in fact it's often being unable to effectively strategize at all, and instead giving into the voice inside my head that says it's all just too much.
As I looked around I realised that I'd somehow walked from my getting smokes at the shop to the place my partner is staying. An impressive feat considering how un-athletic I am.
Normally I'm not the kind to voluntarily accept walking almost anywhere, let alone walk a 30 minute walk in almost less than half that time.
My pre-frontal cortex shut down entirely. I was completely unable to think. I couldn't actually explain to you my thought process even if I tried, because there wasn't one.
Tonight, I fell apart. But then, despite the police and the clinician from the Alfred Hospital having to calm me down enough so that I could speak more than a word at a time without panicking, I pulled it together.
It took a bit of time, and a lot of patience from those that attended that scene. But somehow I did it.
And you know what, even if I fell apart and didn't want to life anymore... I got into the cop car and they dropped me home. I made myself a cup of tea and now I'm sitting here writing this.
Why?
Because I want to be real about how hectic living with this mental illness is.
I've had people question why I basically broadcast my life over social media and this blog... You want to know why?
Because it gives me hope!
That's what's up.
Doing this makes me feel like I'm accountable.
Like I have a reason.
Even if that doesn't make sense to everyone, which I know it doesn't.
I started this blog to spread awareness and in a sense I guess I also wanted to spread a message of hope, thinking I could show people that my life had been so low at one point.
I was kind of thinking to myself "look at me now!"
Like, I'm doing it. I'm still here!
Maybe I don't have much to show for that.
But just being here... that's so goddam huge!
The fact that I'm writing this, with my judgey cat sat on my legs stealing my warmth, that's a huge and amazing thing!
I hate the way my mind is, but I'm also goddam proud of myself for the fact that even when I feel there's no hope at all... I still reach out for help.
Maybe I'm not reaching out the right way. Maybe I shouldn't be passing my anxieties from myself to someone else. Maybe doing that hurts them and makes their life harder.... And I'm sure it does... But if that's the reason I'm still here, isn't that something?
Don't I deserve to be proud of myself for dusting myself off time and time again and getting back on the proverbial horse?
For a long time I thought I needed to hear those words "I'm proud" from someone else, and sure it's nice to still receive that, but guess what... I am proud of me.
I'm proud that even though it's so hard, all the bloody time, I'm still here!
Tonight was a mess. A huge, stupid, crazy mess.
But a little part of me is saying, "try again tomorrow."
And whether I've hurt people along the way, the fact that my mind still has a tiny and very quiet voice telling me to stick around... to me, that's impressive.
I'm so sorry to anyone my mental health has effected. I'm sorry to my partner who needs space, I'm sorry to the people he has to lean on to support him while he does this, I'm sorry to the medical professionals I have to see constantly, I'm sorry to my workplace for having to put up with me, I'm sorry to the police who had to be called out tonight, I'm sorry to my little cat for having an unstable home right now, I'm sorry to my friends, my housemate, and to my family... to anyone who has ever seen or had to deal with the way my mind can sometimes make me.
All I want is to be better.
I try, daily... But sometimes, quite often, I fail.
But even so, I promise to keep trying.
Because even if I'm losing half the people I've effected throughout the years because of how hard loving me is... I deserve to live a life I love.
Don't we all?
Doesn't everyone deserve a break?
I'm giving myself a break for what happened tonight.
I'm allowing myself to sit with the things I've done, and said, and I'm accepting that even though this happened... it doesn't change who I am.
Deep down, somewhere remotely hidden is a part of me that does believe I'm a good person.
I try to be.
And maybe that's the whole point of this.
That I'm trying.
And that I'll keep trying.
Because I deserve it. Because the people who care about me deserve it.
I am enough.
Did you hear that brain?
I. AM. ENOUGH.
I'm so tired of letting my emotions win. I'm tired of being controlled by whatever else has happened in my life that has made me the mess I am today.
I'm cutting myself just a tiny bit of slack on this one, because I know that even if tonight sucked... I am trying!
I can. And I will. Be better.
Even if that only happens one tiny, baby step at a time.
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