Praying they can stay alive

In our reflections lie our true enemies,
Those we cannot flee from,
The undesirable number one,
She who shall cause our worst downfall.

You cannot save people from themselves,
You cannot shield them inside their heads,
You can try and try, and love and love,
But it only goes so deep.

No matter how hard you try to patch them up,
They must heal themselves,
You cannot force them to be fixed,
To be okay.

When someone trips you can save them or let them fall,
But sometimes the saving doesn’t save them,
It just pushes the eventuality of the fall further forward in time,
You are delaying the recovery.

You cannot keep falling, you will hit the ground,
No matter its state, no matter what it looks like,
Beneath you is solid ground,
To stand on, to survive.

Their self destruction is before your eyes,
Behind them the pain lies,
Praying the hurt can end,
Praying they can stay alive.

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12 Posts of Christmas – Day 9

I spent the day with my best friend and she sort of healed me.

Over the past month I have been feeling quite low again, feeling lonely, worried and if I am honest, depressed.

But today was so amazing. We had a trackies day, and we just bought a few christmas presents, came home and made jam and crisp sandwiches, talked and snuggled.

She fell asleep on me at one point and as I was falling asleep myself my thoughts were the kind of wibbly wobbly semiconscious thoughts. And I just remember thinking that I wasn’t alone, and that it was always going to be ok.

We talked a bit about how I had been feeling and hearing her talk about it made me feel a little less dark. Thankfully I wasn’t being treated like a china doll, because that makes me feel so uncomfortable. I’m not a gun with the safety catch off, I am just upset.She is there for me, as are so many others.

Everyday I am thankful for the people around me because while they are around I am never truly alone.

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Deep breath

*deep breath*

That is how everything I write begins, with a deep breath and a few words inside my head. I can hear them now as I type.

The last few weeks have been very bloody hard. I had a lot of school stuff to worry about, some heartache, diet struggles and I really started to lose my energy, physical and mental. And so I cried and got upset and didn’t handle things in the usual manner.

The other day I asked a friend if I had changed, if all that I had been contending with had changed me. She said I was still me, with the same personality, just minus a chunk of happiness. That is why I haven’t been writing and that I why I have let everyone down. She asked me about whether I had considered sleep meds or antidepressants to which I said no. Sleep has been an issue my whole life, because as the type who likes to be busy I find it pointless. Even when I was a little kid I would make my mum sing me to sleep and talk to her about anything just so I could stay awake. And recently I have been going to bed later and later. It takes me at least an hour from getting into bed to falling asleep so I am always tired. Depression however that is a whole other story.

I think I am relapsing slowly but surely. Like sliding from the edge into the swimming pool rather than just dive bombing. I cried down Facetime to my bestfriend the other day because I had finally had enough. I had laid on the radiator in Spanish and had enough. Its warmth drew me in and then I started to cry but stopped myself, holding it in til I got home. Because I couldn’t deal with the things I was going through. Hitting a brick wall with my diet, feeling rejected again, having so much work to do and feeling like an utter failure.

I’ve lost half a stone, which is about 3.1kg but I can’t see it in the mirror.

I still feel fat. I look at myself and I still hate it all. I mean for God’s sake someone complimented me on my legs the other day and it felt so good. But then I got home and still wanted to go out for a run. Because I’m not addicted to eating healthily, I’m addicted to going out and burning it off. And it is making me to tired. I honestly can’t keep awake.

Because I can’t love myself no one is ever going to love me, or that is how it feels at least. I feel like I’m fighting a losing battle.

I’m scared.

Just so scared.

My general consensus this year was that I wasn’t going to marry or have kids. I was going to live my life selfishly and travel around and make the most of this existence. But I realized I was only saying it to make me feel better when no one wanted me.

The shittiest part is that I know I shouldn’t need someone else to make me happy but a part of me does.

I’m just feeling so alone and down that I don’t think my filters are really working.

I think I’m breaking down a little here, sorry.

I just hate feeling not good enough for myself, because it makes me think I’m not good enough for anyone else. I feel like I’m failing and falling and I don’t know what the fuck is going on.

I’m not going on meds and I’m not going to have this discussion with anyone because I don’t need to relive all the stuff I have been feeling over the past few days. I miss eating whatever I like and I miss being bubbly, I just can’t quite remember how to be really happy anymore.

There is this huge pressure I have put on myself to make something of myself. Because in my head if you aren’t pretty you have to make something of yourself, because when you are plain like me, your brains and humor are all you have. And I don’t think I’m smart enough to do that.

And I’m losing myself. All this over exercising mixed with under eating and school stress and unhappiness has changed me. I just want to go back to being me. The girl who is strong and funny and clever and makes her friends smile. I have found myself in a labyrinth from which I cannot escape.

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Alone and Lonely

As humans we are all alone inside our own heads and at times that makes things hard. Cause no one can ever see your life the way you see it and no body is going to understand how you feel about something the way you do.

But if you’re lucky you can meet someone or some people who make you feel less alone inside your head. Yes, at times, you might want to scratch their eyes out or slap some sense into them. But when you find someone who you can trust and love as if they were your sister/brother, you have just won at life. Being able to confide in someone can save your life, maybe it saved mine, and always having someone to turn to means you can take on anything. So people are even lucky enough to find a partner who makes them feel this, and those relationships are the kind that last.

Of course being alone isn’t a bad thing. Being alone is not the same as feeling lonely. Being alone can be great for creativity, concentration,  self reflection and doing tasks that you like to do alone like working out or cooking. But feeling lonely is hard, especially when you feel like you have no one to reach out to. People are so wrapped up in their own lives that they can’t see that they need to spend some time with you, and as one of the population of the world I can officially say, we aren’t doing it on purpose.

Alone in the sense of a relationship status annoys me, because not being in a relationship doesn’t make you alone. I’m single but I have some of the best friends that are there for me, so I’m not alone. A relationship can’t fix loneliness; loneliness is a separate demon to dependency. Sometimes even in a relationship you can be alone. And the worse kind of relationship is the one you are alone in, because you can begin to feel like there is a big gap of white space between you are your significant other. If that person doesn’t understand you anymore, you don’t have to keep them around. Sometimes love isn’t enough because you’ve changed, but that is ok.

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Halloween Edition MHM – Anxiety increases

Welcome to Spooky Week here at thoughtsfromthespareroom. As you can tell by my creepy new background, I am feeling the freaky vibe. All this week I will be posting Halloween Edition posts, and today’s is the first. Happy Halloween my lovelys, keep your wits about you and gorge on candy for this is the time we remember the things that scare and shock us.

At this time of year my anxiety level goes way up, because the nights draw in, there are more parties and social events that get under my skin. For example because of the clocks going back today, when I was trying to get home from a shopping trip with some friends, it was dark. And getting back from where we were is hard anyway because I have to use a plethora of public transport. But for me the dark and the threats that come  with it get a little much. So tonight I was getting panicky and worried, and because of who I was with hugs and a sit down were not an option. I got home in the end, all safe and sound and I executed my plan perfectly.

As the dark encroaches, things seem a whole lot worse than they are. It’s obvious the weather and light effects peoples moods, so remember to stay aware of the influences at work.

Anxiety/ Panic attacks are absolutely awful and should be avoided, but don’t stop yourself not going to things or seeing people because you fear them. The fear of the anxiety heightens the anxiety.

Just remember BOSS (I came up with this myself 🙂 and I think it is actually quite good, if I do say so myself)

B – Breathe. Breathing is one of the key things in controlling panic and anxiety. Just give yourself a few breathes.

O – Observe. Look at the situation and calmly think it through. Work out what is upsetting/triggering you.

S – Stay Safe. Move away from the trigger or change the situation you are in so that you feel safe and can feel your symptoms fading.

S – Smile. Smiling helps, even if there isn’t emotion behind it, trust me science has proven so. Smiling and acting fairly normal also helps in situations where you can’t/don’t want to explain your anxieties to people.

Also I just wanted to say thank you, love you and life goes on. If you read this post, that means you care about my little blog, and therefor I care for you too. Thank you for your love and support everyone. Your the reason I’ve done as well as I have with this. Without you I wouldn’t have the confidence to write, photograph and talk to people about the crazy stuff that goes on in my head ❤

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MHM – Your childhood stays with you

Disclaimer: I am not a professional. I don’t have any letters before my name, I have no training. If you are looking for professional advice contact a doctor or councilor. If you are looking for facts, statistics and proper information about mental health I recommend websites like www.mind.org.uk. All my knowledge is from personal experiences, or those of the people closest to me.

So as I said yesterday I was away last week because I had a revelation and today I’m going to explain that a little.

Throughout primary school I didn’t have many friends, and I was very different. I was the chubby kid, who’s parents weren’t as rich as everyone else’s and who didn’t understand how to fit in because I moved around 3 times in the space of 3 years. And so unsurprisingly I wasn’t happy. I went to school with some very judgmental, stuck up people who acted just like their judgmental, stuck up parents. This meant that I was growing in a world of rumors, secret hatred and the idea that being different wasn’t ok.

Once I was old enough I left that school and went to the secondary school I am at now, and that really helped. Because here I am around a vast mix of people, who are by enlarge fairly normal – or as normal as teenagers can be -. But until last week the experiences of my primary school days hung to me. Being told I was fat, being told I was ugly and that no one would ever, ever want to be my ‘boyfriend’, being asked out for a joke, it all stayed with me. And luckily for me I went through a whole lot less than some people I know today. But it left a lasting impact on me.

So last week I stood in the mirror and looked at myself and thought ‘why do I hate myself so much, why do I have so little confidence’ and the answer my friends is surprisingly simple; I still saw myself as 10 year old Writer X. Yeah obviously I have changed a whole lot since then (puberty is a friend to many) but underneath it all I still saw a chubby, unhappy little girl. I would look at my hips and rather than see their curvy shape, I would see the stretch marks from when I gained weight rapidly. I would look at my stomach and rather than appreciate all the weight I had lost, and the emerging muscles, I would see the fat that was once there. And I would look at my face and look at my forehead and ears and hate them for their size, and then at my eyes for their lack of impressive, distinctiveness. I would talk to people and be paranoid that they secretly hated me, or that I was to boring for them. I would talk to boys and feel so weak, because I didn’t want to be my confident self, because that is ‘what guys want’.

But the second I started looking at myself as a different, on-the-way-to-adulthood person, it felt so good. Because now I see a young woman and she has a good figure, she is so beautiful when she laughs and smiles, she is so confident and has great opinions. She is the product of two flawed but perfect people who love her so much. She has the most loving, most amazing best friends who she couldn’t live without, who just like her are beautiful and smart and amazing. She has so much to be happy about, like god damn she is clever and caring and she is so special. Hell, she is not perfect by any stretch of the word. But she is herself.

I want you to look in the mirror and see yourself without the past/the baggage you carry around. And then tell me what you think of yourselves, because, honestly you are just as gorgeous and important. No matter what shit you have been through, you are worth it, you are good enough.

And folks, I think I found the last pieces of the puzzle. I think I’m here; 95% ok.

I love you all and I will chat to you tomorrow 🙂

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MHM – Coping and taking time out

Disclaimer: I am not a professional. I don’t have any letters before my name, I have no training. If you are looking for professional advice contact a doctor or councilor. If you are looking for facts, statistics and proper information about mental health I recommend websites like www.mind.org.uk. All my knowledge is from personal experiences, or those of the people closest to me.

So this week I want to talk about taking time out from what you’re doing. And the first thing I want to say is it is OK to want to be alone. Seriously as stupid as it sounds, some people really do struggle with just being alone and having time to calm down, or taking themselves away from situations that are making them feel worse than usual and having time alone. Today I am going to give you some coping stratergy ideas if you have an anxiety attack or other kind of stress/worry induced problem, in various situations.

School/Office 

Since I’m still in school this can be a real problem for me. In break times and lunches everyone is my form room, to the point where it feels like I can’t really breathe. So I have come up with a simple coping strategy that I recommend to you.

1. Breathe. For a second just take a breath, and understand what you are feeling. Crowded? Stressed? Anxious? Think about your options.
2. Take time out. Leave the room or area for a little bit. Go to the loo, the canteen, to post an envelope in the office, to the IT suite or just to the library. Go for a maximum of 2-5 minutes, this way you aren’t going to appear suspicious. While you are there play an iPhone game for a minute, clear your head and just breathe. Calm yourself down and just be.
3. Come back. When you go back to the situation just explain where you have been or done, to a level that you think is appropriate. Don’t make up some complex lie, but you can bend the truth a little in order to feel more comfortable.

Home

For me the worst times are when I am at home and my parents are on my nerves and then suddenly something stupid like a really hard piece of homework just gets to me. I might not have an anxiety attack but I will get to the point where I’m upset and feel a little off. So here is my home strategy:

1. Leave it. Whatever is upsetting you just leave it alone. Place it on a high shelf if that helps, or anywhere that gets it out of your way.
2. Physical activity. Do yoga or go for a run. As much as this may seem like an awful prospect to most, it really helps. You can go on fitness equipment or just do a short 20 minute run. The physical activity releases endorphin chemicals which make you feel happier and more uplifted, relieving stress.
3. Do your nails. Or any kind of activity that doesn’t overly engage your brain, but engages your hands. This can be really beneficial for self harmers or  just those who need a distraction.
4. Re approach the task. Get the task back out and look at it. Realize that you can take it step by step, taking your time and that really it isn’t a big deal. No matter how important it is, you can do it.

Overall coping is about being alone with your thoughts and thinking things over in a calm way. Find what works best for you, because there are so many other things out there than what I have mentioned.

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Mental Health Monday – Depression, the beginning of the beginning

*trigger warning* This post is about depression and therefore, may not be appropriate viewing for some.
Disclaimer: I am not a professional. I don’t have any letters before my name, I have no training. If you are looking for professional advice contact a doctor or councilor. If you are looking for facts, statistics and proper information about depression I recommend websites like www.mind.org.uk. All my knowledge is from personal experiences, or those of the people closest to me.

For some people there is an event that brings on depression. The loss of a friend or family member, being laid off at work, a crisis of some kind. But for others it grows over time, sometimes stemming for events in that persons past like abuse or bullying, eventually leading to an over whelming moment of sadness and emptiness.

That’s a large part of depression really; emptiness.  The general consensus with depression is that someone with it will essentially become a recluse and will lie in bed crying all day. This isn’t always the case. Many people who suffer with depression appear absolutely fine on the surface but are hurting underneath.

For some people, especially those you have suffered with mental illness before, they recognize that they are feeling off very early on and they seek help very early on. But for others their symptoms go unnoticed. They pass it off as stress, grief, feeling low or just having an off week or two. And why wouldn’t they. Because around the world their is a massive stigma towards mental illness, and those suffering with depression can be in denial because of this, myself included. They think to themselves ‘I’m not going to be one of those people’, when in reality nearly 1 in 5 adults in the UK alone will suffer from depression of some kind.

So the symptoms. Firstly disinterest in or forgetting about basic activities, for example having a shower, eating a meal, walking the dog. Then there is the aforementioned emptiness, best explained as feeling ‘hollow’ or numb. You begin to feel less emotion towards people in life, sometimes even pets, whilst having surges of emotional upset when alone. Another notable early symptom is skipping out on social events. For example; Parties might not be your thing, but missing a dinner with the girls/lads because you just want to go to bed, when you haven’t had a taxing week.

At this point some people can and do get better very easily. Taking a step back, spending sometime reflecting, looking into adjusting your diet and seeing a councilor can really fish you out of the waters, that do get deeper the longer you swim within them. My main piece of advice is don’t bottle things up. Don’t think that crying makes you weak or that you just have to be like everyone else and ‘deal with it’ because sometimes we need a hand with coping, especially in the darkest parts of our lives.

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In the coming weeks I’m going to talk about other parts of depression, so this is just a brief summary of the early stages of depression.

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Voices

You’re so useless,

You’re so boring,

No one likes you,

No one cares.

 

Why can’t you just get it right the first time,

Why can’t you just be like everyone else,

Why do you even bother,

Why do you even exist.

 

Look at your stomach,

Look at your stretch marks,

Who would look at you,

Who would love you.

 

Do you honestly think you look good in that,

Do you think anyone cares if you make an effort,

Have you seen how static your hair is,

Have you seen how small your lips look.

 

 

Dealing with stress post depression

This is well rested

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This is tired

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This is where I am

I may or may not have nearly dozed off in my chemistry class, walked nearly a quarter of a mile down the road with my eyes closed and gone into a tiny coma in the shower after my work out.
So on my way home from school I was thinking about how I am dealing with and feeling due to this tiredness, stress and general extra work load. Back when I was depressed I would deal with these sorts of things by *honest moment* thinking suicidal thoughts, eating my feelings, crying while I when I was meant to sleeping and worst of all fantasizing. Fantasizing about how great my life would be when I was older, about story lines for books.

But now, I don’t really know how I am coping. For me all those things I did whilst depressed became a knee jerk reaction and I have been conditioning myself to deal with these things in healthier ways. It’s like how drug addicts talk about walking up in the morning and doing a line of cocaine to wake themselves up. A shower would do them a lot more good and works the same way (plus you get to clean yourself and on a cold winters morning warm yourself up).

So I’m off these – to me – drug like coping strategies. And right now my coping strategy is just keep going. Keep working, keep running, keep eating healthy. I think I’m at a point where I don’t need to see the light at the end of the tunnel because I have faith that it’s there. I have faith in myself.

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Oh my lord

Oh my lord my heart is racing,

I can barely breath,

The air is catching in my throat.

 

My heart is pumping,

Hard,

But I feel nothing.

 

My mouth works,

But nothing is coming out,

I look like a mime.

 

Falling,

As the chair refuses to support me,

My feet above my head.

 

Lying on the floor,

Faces watching me,

Saying words I cannot hear.

 

They are asking me to breath,

And I try,

But it’s not enough.

 

My eyes are flicking shut,

One of the girls above me shouts,

And then someone pulls out their phone.

 

Sleep engulfs me unnaturally,

The cold creeping in from all sides,

Everything is turning black.

Black to Blue

 

There is more to a sea than drowning,

There is more to a cliff than falling,

There is more to a rock than broken bones.

Help yourself see the  second picture rather than the first. Don’t give into to your demons because you can and will fight back. I am in a good place right now and I want to tell everyone who is suffering that you can be too. And to everyone who has recovered, give yourself some love because it’s hard. It is really f*%£ing hard to get better and to stop feeling awful.

To me the first picture was what I saw when I was really depressed and filled with anxiety. And the second is what I see now. That picture could be brighter and better but it is not. It is honest and real and how I want to live my life.

Copyright to myself (photos from Corisca 2014)

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I’m back from holiday so you can email me and tweet me again. Well you could before, but now I can actually respond. Yay for wifi!

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Happiness

Happiness is not a goal,
Some objective just in reach,
You can’t use it as an even better if,
Or some kind of improvement.

Happiness doesn’t come with work,
Time,
Age,
Or planning.

Happiness is a spontaneous inconstant bitch,
Who will come and go as she pleases,
Leaving trails of tears in her wake,
Acting as a buffer between your pain and fear.

You cant tie her down,
You cant buy her out,
You just have to enjoy her presence in your life,
Knowing she can leave as she pleases.

The Simple Suicide of Louise Parker (Short story teaser 1)

She slammed the door behind her and walked out of the driveway. She hadn’t taken her keys or phone or her purse. Just a wad of letters, around 4 inches think. Walking at a brisk pace, passing her neighbors, smiled at but not smiling back. No one knew. She ‘just appeared to be walking to the post box’, they would say when asked days later.

The walk to the field was short and flat so the girl was there in less than  5 minutes. Her small black sheer pumps started to fall off her feet, their age beginning to show, so she just took them off and walked barefoot. And then she was there. Standing at the bottom of the bridge with her heart pounding in her chest.

Gently resting a letter on each step as she walked up, she began to think of all the people she was going to leave behind. Jess, Eric, Adam, Phi, Elle and of course her parents. But she had to push them out of her mind, because if she thought about them for too long she might change her mind.

She stood in the damp, derelict, covered over tunnel for around a minute before making her final decision. Resting her left hand on the railing she kicked out the thin paneling and jumped to reach it’s edge. She then pulled herself up onto the top of the tunnel.

At around 7 floors up she could see the track clearly as well as the surrounding buildings. Few people were around and by her calculations non would notice. She dance around for a bit enjoying the time she had left. Hearing the Swan Lake tune in the back of her head she rested right at the edge and waited until the last trumpet segment came in. And then she jumped.

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After the death of Louise Catherine Parker, her friends and family have to come to terms with the unhappiness that lead Louise to her death as well as their own guilt for her death.

Please note that in no way is this short story idea intended to glamorize suicide. The aim of this short story is to imagine the effect a teenager’s suicide can have on a community.