How To Cope: #happything

Last February was when I cracked. I couldn't keep it in any longer, when my little sister asked me how I was I squeaked out "Not good", heated and violent tears tumbling down my cheeks. The next day she suggested that maybe if we shared one thing every day that made us feel happy it would help. Not a solution, but something. I found it centred me, rooted me more firmly to the ground. I still try to do it - here are some of my happy things.

How the sky looks 

Loving yoga 

Being kinder to myself

Buying a sunflower for my sister

#happything 

#memories

#hope 

Time to Yourself

I don’t know why I have been struggling with this - being here, having time to myself. I thought it was what I had always wanted, to be able to write and read but there’s something about me - I don’t do well on my own. I mean I want to, I really, really do - but it’s like something’s blocking that; stopping it from being possible. 

Or is there nothing? I am creating a path, an expectation of a blockage, when it doesn’t really exist? I am my own limitation - I can achieve anything and yet I choose not to, to sit and feel completely lost and alone, to focus on that feeling and let it overwhelm me. I am not here to judge, only to observe my life patterns and how I let them coil around me.

26th September 2014

Christmas is Cruel

This is the thought I had today - there's a cruelty in Christmas. 

Don't get me wrong, I wholeheartedly love Christmas. Every year it's one of my favourite times. Just hours ago It's a Wonderful Life made me whimsical and weepy. I don't love it because I'm madly religious; I'm not all and that in itself is a topic for another time. I love it because I get to go home, see my family, dress up nice and go out. I get to play games and watch TV - to do all the things I never have time for usually. In short, I get, to be indulged. 

Therein lies the cruelty. Indulgence breeds a kind of guilt.  Or it does with me. 

If you're like me and you have (or have had a problem with food) it's can pull you apart. Like the rest of my family and friends I love food. I love eating.  Every Christmas I can remember I've felt guilty about doing it. Sometimes before, mostly during, always after. The first time I made myself sick on Christmas day I felt relieved. Like I could be unaffected by surging all of it out of me, straining my heart. There'd be an acidic taste on my tongue and I'd dispense of it with more chocolate. And the circle continued. 

I don't know if there is a kind of hope here - maybe if you recognise what you're doing it's easier to stop it? I'll speak more about triggers soon but Christmas is one. It's something that hugs you tight then pull you back fast into darkness. 

Miss D x 

Hello there

Hello reader, 

Welcome to my blog. It's about living with Mental Health problems. Sometimes ones you might not know you have. 

You need to know something about the name, I think, to start with. When I was a teenager I remember one birthday present in particular - a Mr Men door sign 'Little Miss Sunshine'. My friend said to me "it's because you're always so happy".  I thought: inside I'm screaming and you do not know me at all. 

I've been living with depression for as long as I can remember, although I only realised what depression was about a year ago. Before then I thought I had an eating disorder, or at times just a really moody temper. Sometimes I'd get anxious. I always seemed angry. Then I started to cry too much. The same questions tugged at me - Why am I not happy? What is wrong with me? 

Cliche? Cliches exist for a reason. We all think we are wildly original when actually we go through the same things, the same kind of pain. 

It took me a long time to answer those questions. In the end I only got there because I was tired. So tired of years of it, coming at me when I least expected it. In between I had good times and great times. So I knew that things could be better. 

I spent most of my younger years covering it up, blaming myself for the way I was feeling - tearing myself apart physically and mentally. 

The reason I'm here is to share what I've been through and what helped me get better. 

I always wanted to a be a writer, but for a long time everything I wrote was a reflection of what I didn't want to be - myself. 

Here's hoping.
x