Good morning beautiful people! What a lovely weekend it has been. The perfect start to what will be the best day of my life so far this coming Saturday!
The Unmarked Road
Life On The Other Side Of Mental Illness
Month: June 2015 (page 1 of 4)
I’m back! Hello everyone! Please forgive the cut off at the end! I ran out of space apparently. But please say hello, I’ve missed you all! Xx
“Respect yourself enough to walk away from anything that doesn’t serve you. ” I need to take a break, take a step back for a few days. But I’ll be back xx
As I wrote earlier on today, there is still such a huge discrimination against people who express their emotions and mental health stigma seems well and truly alive, in a way I’ve not really experienced before. It’s not been very nice and I’m trying my best not to let it get to me. You always know you’ll get these comments and trolls, but it never prepares you for how it will make you feel.
As many of us know, there’s a huge stigma when it comes to mental illness and discussing sometimes difficult emotions. Those who’ve seen my posts will know the problems I faced; I self-harmed, was diagnosed with depression and eventually tried to take my own life.
In all honesty it was just a bit shit really. No one understood or wanted to know because it would make their uncomplicated happy little existence uncomfortable. And so, like many who suffer, I suffered alone and in silence.
Well I’m proud to say I’m not that person anymore. I don’t have the uncontrollable desire to hurt myself or punish myself. And so I stared a blog about mental illness, dealing my experiences and giving support and advice on how I conquered my demons. Something I wish I’d had 15 years ago.
So imagine my shock and surprise when, on the mental health part of reddit no less, a place where people should be able to come for support and non-judgemental advice, one rather eloquent and wonderful member called my blog ‘whiny’ and nothing but ‘teen angst’.
While my initial reaction wasn’t great – you don’t come away from years of self-hate unscathed – it dawned on me the sheer irony of this comment and that this kind of attitude is exactly the problem. Because many don’t feel they or their feelings are important enough to be taken seriously. Because it’s just ‘teen angst’ and people’s general view point is to ‘just get over it’.
Which for those of who have truly suffered know isn’t that simple.
Because what might seem like a very small problem to the outside world, can eat us alive from the inside out until there is nothing of ourselves left but a hollow place where our souls used to be.
So thank you to the commenter who proved exactly why it’s so important to carry on with my ‘whiny’ mental health blog, to not stop talking about these issues. To never stop fighting against the discrimination.
Lots of work has been going on for the wedding today, most things I can’t post pictures of, of course, so here’s a photo of our beautiful wedding venue. I literally can’t believe how fast the time is going!
Being a bride means being the centre of attention for a whole day, especially when walking down the aisle. So how can you combat the kind of fear that comes with being the focus of so many? In this video I go through how NLP and visualisation can help to combat fear and motivational issues.
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Happy Day 12! This is the gorgeous little church we’re getting married in in just under 3 weeks! We visited our vicar today to finalise arrangements and it’s made everything even more real now!
Sorry for the late update! I’ve been away all day (for exciting reasons I cannot yet divulge!) Here’s my happy day 11 picture. A well deserved glass of wine from my home town.
They say you should write what you know, but I think it’s the things we don’t want people to know about us that have the most power to invoke real emotion and change because it’s at our most vulnerable and honest.
I have always written openly about my thoughts, shared my hopes and dreams, and generally opened up my heart to those who wish to read about it. However, I believe everyone has a side they don’t want anyone to see. It’s this part of you that you try to forget or pretend doesn’t exist, that you protect ferociously from all outside predators, like a lioness protecting her cub.
There are things I don’t want people to know about me. Because I’m embarrassed, ashamed. Because they are not self-depreciating, humble or ‘cute’. They are ugly and often extraordinarily absurd.
Moving house (which we are at the end of this month) always means clearing out a lot of things you haven’t looked at since you last moved. You know, the things that move from one unused drawer to another? During a clear-out last weekend, I came across my old letters and memorabilia documenting my life. Like the scars on my arms and legs that will never completely fade, these letters to myself mean I will never forget the pain and destruction I felt as a young girl. While they make for incredibly uncomfortable reading, they are also an amazing way to remember how much I have overcome.
Deciding to publish one of these on my blog was an incredibly difficult decision, one I’m not even sure right now is the right one. But, while I do not recognise the scared young 18 year old who wrote those words, they might help another young girl or woman not feel as alone or ashamed as I did.
Opening myself up to judgment and ridicule by revealing the deepest darkest secrets of my past is not something I have done with ease. Because I have come such a long way from the scared little girl I was, it is as a strong and well balanced woman that this is an incredibly humiliating experience.
Be kind, for unless you have experienced the demons that can possess your mind and drive you to the deepest darkest moment of your life, you will not understand how reality can become completely distorted by your own truth. It is as though you are wearing broken glasses out of which you see the whole world and the people in it.
Unless I change my mind (highly possible!), one of these letters will be published early next week.
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