Write Now

I have a complicated relationship with writing.

Right now I'm trying to write a new short story and the trouble is, the trouble has always been, that it has to be bad before it comes good. This is why, for many years in the throes of depression I wrote diaries by the ton load, but I hated my own words. Sometimes I would scribble them out just so I wouldn't have to see them. Now it's the most useful thing, because I can look back and understand how I was feeling given my mental state. I don't feel angry at how poorly expressed my thoughts are, I feel sympathy for my younger self and sad that it took so long for me to get the help I needed.

Whoever you are and wherever you are, writing helps.

As for my story? Never confuse a single failure with a final defeat.

The Lives of Others

Speak the truth, even if your voice shakes.

The truth is a powerful thing.

The thing I have found most startling since I started actually talking about my own mental health is how it almost always leads to somebody telling me something similar, or something worse, about a relative or a friend or themselves. Again and again we all keep it quiet, don't mention it until we are pushed.

And it's not in the way that you might if you were talking about a more physical illness - like cancer. I mean sure you might wait until your comfortable to tell someone about that kind of a struggle. But there is a precedent for it - books, films, TV shows and by enlarge you would only expect a swelling of (perhaps hard to deal with in itself) sympathy.

There is still a huge disparity when it comes to mental health issues. Instead of waiting for something positive or empathetic you wait to be judged. You wait for people to look at you differently, or try and skirt over it politely. I'm lucky in that very often this hasn't been the case for me - it's happened only a few times. Instead I've found people sharing their own stories. I remember telling one of my oldest friends about it after she had been through an episode of her own and she was stunned. 'Everybody hides stuff' was what she said eventually. Of course we do. Why? Because your brain, after all feels, like your responsibility. Perhaps the only responsibility that will make a difference is the ability to tell the truth about it.

How it feels: An Average Day

I wrote this when I was very low. I hope it might help to explain how depression feels, at least to me. 

I sat by the pond today. I say pond where others might say lake; to me the pool of grey water, dappled with long grasses and framed by ragged green, only had the stature of a pond. Ducks traversed in the water, sending out smooth circles of movement. Their slick feathers were dark grey, tinged with black tips. In the air there was ripples of chatter. Stones poked up through the pond, although in parts there was only water. I imagined putting my hand down into the murky water, diving down into the thick mud - stones and weeds underneath. On the surface it reflected a fiercely blue sky, no clouds to break up the colour.

A free day. I had nothing to do. I sat by the pond alone, without direction. A pretty day; the sun warm on my ankles, a fresh breeze colouring my cheeks. Emptiness rattled around inside me, a pinball bouncing off my sides. I thought about all the things I could be doing, better things, more normal things, things that would make me whole. I thought about reading again, filling myself up with something. I thought about writing again, pouring myself out. I only sat. I watched a small, scruffy duck turn on its side, flipping its head beneath the water. I looked up at the sky. I looked at the time. I dug my fingers into the grass beneath me. I think, I think, I thought, I am, I am not, I think, I think, I thought, I wish I was, I wasn’t, I can, I can’t, I think, I think, I thought, I try, I’m trying. I think, I think, I thought, I feel hopeless - I hope. There is nothing here.  I am doing nothing. I am less than nothing, a negative force. It pulls inward, it tugs at me and I struggle.

This is it: the way I treat myself. Treat. It happens all the time now and I’m not sure why, or I am, or I could be, or I’m not. It’s just how I am. How I have always been.

I let that nothingness coil carefully around me. I block myself in, thought on top of thought balanced like heavy bricks. I don’t have the energy to push them.  

Today I sat by the pond and watched the ducks. How about you?

Trigger Unhappy: Weight

Today I made the decision to weigh myself. I knew that the news wouldn't be good - just after Christmas is always a damage limitation zone. I also knew that I wasn't being a very good friend to myself because I knew how it would make me feel. If there is one thing that can bring my mood crashing right down it's knowing that I weigh more. I did it anyway. I suppose it's partly because I felt I had to know, partly because it's what I have always done and partly to give own self a scolding.

Rationally I don't know why I place such meaning on the flickering number on the scales - when other people gain weight I almost never think they look bad. That said, I always notice. I used to be obsessed with watching other people eat. I still parallel the people I'm with, berating myself if I eat more than they do, stiff with sadness if I have to make up excuses as to why I'm not hungry.

After everything I've been through there are some things I know. Firstly I know that this is a learned behaviour from a long time ago, when I learnt thin = good. I was a twelve year old writing in my diary about how I needed to lose weight. When you do people tell you look great. 'You've lost weight', unless you are suffering from an illness, seems always to be a compliment. The same magazines that tell you to be proud of your figure advocate weight loss and dieting. I stopped reading them along time ago, but the message rolls around at the back of you. Thin = good, not thin = not good.

I weigh more than I did and I am not happy about it. If I hadn't been through almost two decades of this, if I hadn't gotten help, I know what I would believe. I am not thin (although it must be said no matter how much I weight I lost I never felt content and never believed I was thin) therefore I am not good. That's what I would be thinking right now. It would curl up in my stomach and purr cruelly at me every time I even thought about eating. The thing is now I don't feel like it matters so much. And I'm not sure how I feel about feeling that.  I'm not driven to hurt myself the way I used to, because my depression is under control. Mostly. It makes me nervous knowing that some of the habits I had then, when I spoke to myself in riddles of hatred, I might have to use now. Dieting after having an eating disorder is like walking on the side of a bridge, praying that you fall inside it - not off it- if you stumble.

"What a strange illusion it is, that beauty is goodness."

Miss D x