Notes, drawings and recordings.

I started to record my life, my episodes and everything I wished they knew about. I took photos of my room being trashed, I took photos of my face after I had sobbed my eyes out, I recorded myself screaming that life wasnt fair.
I wrote down the words in my head even if they didnt make sense and I kept hold of shopping lists where I had written the same word over and over instead of the list I had meant to.
I took screenshots of my search history after I had been on destructive websites and I kept them all in a photo folder.
Sometimes I wanted to destroy it, sometimes I tried to. I set fire to it once and another time I ‘drowned’ it. So I made digital copies, or I made a second and third folder. Eventually I learnt that I was always going to have a backup, so why destroy it?

I mourned.

I mourned my past life, I mourned the life I had before my illness had ruined me. I mourned the grades, the friends and the hope. I mourned the part of me which was open and extroverted.
With mourning comes acceptance, and without acceptance I wasn’t ready to speak. When I accepted my current life I was a step closer to changing it. And without those steps talking becomes very hard.

I told myself what I wanted to say 5 times.

I’d love to say it was infront of a mirror, but in reality my reflection was in the mirror and I just get triggered by my reflection. But instead I lay in bed at night and imagined I was talking to my Physciatrist, I created a whole little scene in my head and practiced what I wanted to say. I said it again and again until it became second nature to reply to some questions with these pre-prepared answers.
Now Physciatrists don’t always follow the script, so it didn’t always work, but the times it did? Well they changed my life.

That leads me onto my 4th point, Accept that talking will change your life.

Now this is scary. Truely terrifying. And I am not exaggurating when I say it took me nearly 2 years to get to the point where I was ready. Still to this day I fall backwards when this takes over again, I go silent, I refuse to speak honestly to anybody and my lies begin to protect myself.

I started to practice self-respect.

Before I did this I didn’t feel like I was worth talking to, I wasn’t a functional enough person to be bothered about opening up. I was a wreck, a write off, and I didn’t deserve help.
But why not? Why do I deserve help less than my Mum, Dad or Boyfriend. Why do I deserve help less than the person sat next to me or the woman I shared my ward life with. Why am I less worthy than the man in the street?
I deserve this.

I deserve to speak, you deserve to speak.
Don't suffer in silence.
I am with you. 💛💛 #MentalHealth #Anxiety #Depression #Together #Donotsuffer #NotAshamed #notalone