Hi,
One thing that people start to realise about me very quickly is that I hardly ever do something someone tells me to straight away. It’s taken me months, for example, to be able to understand I need help and to properly implement that, with the encouragement, logic and screaming of my friends. It takes me a while to do absolutely anything because I try and reason why it would be a bad idea but finally, finally I did something.
This is a really quick post to just say, well, sorry for vanishing off the blogosphere for a few days. I know that this is my blog but I care about you guys and so not reading your blogs or not having the motivation to do it has wrecked my mind a little.
Truth be told, I don’t feel great and I’ve been ignoring it, yet again. I’m still unsure as to exactly why; it’s partly stress and partly that overwhelming terror you get when everything’s too much and you feel cold; you can’t breathe from it. I don’t know. I’m sad when there’s no logical reason why I should be.
Last week, I spoke to my Head of Year and cried my eyes out for 20 minutes. I wasted a bunch of tissues, sobbed, shook so hard that I violently panicked and was utterly unable to articulate what was wrong. We eventually came to the conclusion that I was sad, it was okay but that I was thoroughly unused to not coping publically. I’m going to see her this week too; I’m scared because I know I’ll panic and repeat the words “I don’t know,” “I can’t” and “I have no idea” a lot. I don’t like it. Not having a proper channel for my worries is making me skittish.
I hide things. On the surface, I tell people I’m not feeling good, I’m tired and that I’m not okay but I don’t often say why. It’s a coping mechanism because if I start talking, I won’t be able to stop but it’s also because sometimes it’s effort to trawl through my mind’s complicated maze-like thoughts. I never know what I feel or don’t feel and I’m so desperately sad sometimes that I want to scream, so lonely with no explanation that everything feels hazy.
Everything with which I used to gain enjoyment is now less fun; it’s worrying. I still sing, write, blog, talk to people but it doesn’t have the same fire for me. In my mind, I know it’s temporary, that it will pass and I’ll get that spark of life but for now, I don’t feel happy and I don’t feel like I have a purpose with it. It makes me sad as I want to truly love the things I do.
Luckily, I have something now with which to get this out. My head of year isn’t the perfect solution – she’d tell my parents if she started to worry a lot, which she inevitably will. My dad knowing about my fears is okay but with my mum, she treats it like it’s nothing and like it’s normal, like it’s your average teenage phase. Is it? Am I making this all up? Am I just being an overdramatic lazy bitch? I hope not.
I told her about my blog. I felt like I had to: as it’s a huge part of my life, it’s something that will come up in conversation in order to let her properly understand what’s been happening. As well as that, she’s emailed all my teachers to tell them I’m feeling anxious, all the time because as I said to her, “I feel sad every day.” For now, I’m going to talk about the shallower things to her but when I feel a little more comfortable, I may get onto the paranoia, self-hatred, anger and insecurity. That is, if she’ll properly listen and not brush things off – she has never done that, though, so it’ll be okay.
There are still things I’m happy about, like my friends and the laughter that still comes easily. I’m going to write about the open day I went to on Saturday which made me feel more connected to everything. It’s not all ‘doom and gloom’, as my mother likes to say. It’s just that at the moment, I’m trembling, my eyes are watering and I feel freezing.
If this is the first thing you’ve ever read from me, I’m not even going to apologise and say ‘this is not the usual me’. It is the usual me sometimes and that’s alright. To know a person, you have to know all their parts: good, bad and things in between.
Never apologise for feeling how you do and expressing those feelings; I feel more free and liberated. I didn’t plan this and haven’t thought much about what I want to write. I’m writing this at night, meaning that all my filters are down and I can post this tomorrow without feeling intensely guilty. What is there to feel guilty about, though? There isn’t a thing wrong with helping yourself by telling the people who mean the most to you a little of what’s really wrong.
I still don’t know how I properly feel. Sometimes, you don’t have to know. However, I’m on my way to analysing those feelings. Even though my friends forced me into it, going to see my head of year might just be the thing that forces me to acknowledge that I do have feelings and that I should deal with them, rather than pushing them aside and running.
You’re human. A human can only take so much until they break from the strain of trying to keep things together. Breaking is okay and natural; you aren’t pathetic for it. Telling people you’re an unexplained mess is something you can do. You don’t have to have reasons; you just have to feel. Remember that.
From Elm π