a lost battle in a war to be won
This is a story of hopeless, then of hope, and of healing. This is a story about what mental health really looks like, and it’s not pretty. This is a story of a fighter still fighting. This is the story of the last 48 hours and how they were hard but real and how in the end I still decided to chose life and tell you to do the same. *check tags for TW’s
*I posted self-care tips here that help me. Take care of yourself.
(I want to talk through what happened last night, what happens too many nights. I want to figure out how it got so bad again so fast. The truth is there are parts missing, little memories that aren’t there, time that’s unaccounted for. When it gets bad like that and I’m in the middle of an actual panic attack, I get into this sort of fog. Everything’s blurry, everything is too fast or too slow. Everything I hear is an echo. My body goes on autopilot, one minute I’m sitting the next I’m walking but not really thinking about it. It’s terrifying. I try to get myself alone as if I’m a bomb about to detonate and I don’t want anyone to be there when I go off. I try to act like it’s not happening, even force myself to continue what I’m doing but it’s even worse because I can’t feel anything but the anxiety that has taken over. Eventually I break down, I go off. If I’m lucky it’s with people who know what to do or say to not make it worse, because no one can really make it better at that point. Then I come down and it’s like waking up in a messy room you don’t remember destroying. I’m just quiet for a while as I try to sort out what happened, try to tell myself I’m safe now. Then the pain comes, the headache and nausea and soreness. Breathing is still something I have to think about for a while. The cold water and air, it helps. Then I have to face my face, tired and blotchy and tear stained. It takes hours before I can talk again and then I try to take it slow and start from the beginning. Finally I’ll pass out, but not to music or while watching TV like usual because I’m too fragile and numb. I wake up the next day feeling hungover, even if I had nothing to drink. I become my own nurse. I put myself on bed rest, take multiple showers, stay inside, eat well. At this point I’ve lost two days to it, two days to this sickness I try to fight and cope with because I know it will always be there.)
I was in a room full of people mostly there for the music, something I love. I knew many people there, knew all the bands. None of that mattered. Nothing good or right matters when everything feels that wrong.
I’m not even mad no one noticed. I didn’t want anyone around me to call me out for shaking and biting at my fingers and staring off into space. There were so many factors going into it, many bigger than just that night. I tried to focus on the people around me, get them water etc. I always help other people, and completely forget about myself. It’s not their fault I do this, that I care too much. When you’re at a show, you want to enjoy it desperately. I was there physically but mentally I was 10000 miles away in some very dark place. I don’t remember what songs were played even though I’ve known of this band since middle school. I don’t remember leaving who I was standing with. I don’t remember getting in the crowd, I suspect I did so because I was so desperate to feel something, to just enjoy myself. It didn’t matter that I could see the stage. It didn’t matter when the confetti went off. When you feel that broken, the things you think can fix you just won’t. I’d be lying if I said I had never felt that lonely before because the truth is that I have. I have felt that lonely. In a room of 5,000 people I felt a weight on my chest I’m surprised didn’t make me collapse. I felt absolutely worthless, I felt like I could disappear and no one would notice and in fact they would all be better without me. I felt like a burden, like my pain was an inconvenience to everyone. I felt lost, like I lost myself. Like I was just a body with no soul inside and a giant hole for a heart. It’s like being numb and being in the worst pain simultaneously. It doesn’t make sense, mental illness rarely does.
My friends found me and that’s when the bomb went off. All it takes is that one touch on the arm, that one “are you okay” sometimes and then the pressures released. I remember sitting on the floor of a 7-11 crying into rough napkins and getting yelled out by the store employees, I don’t remember walking there or back to the apartment. The silence helped. Sitting helped. The cold water helped. Not being forced to explain helped. I think after maybe half an hour I was able to move, but it hurt. People need to understand that mental effects physical in a very big way. It’s not cute, anxiety. It’s not pretty. Wiping black makeup off your face and getting snot out of your hair isn’t romantic. It’s terrible, it’s terrifying, but it’s real. Don’t tell me this isn’t real. Stop telling people that mental illness isn’t real. Why would I ask for this? Why would I pay $40 to be miserable at a show I now barely remember? I wouldn’t. This isn’t me. My mental illness isn’t me but it impacts me. I wish with every cell in my body it didn’t.
{Mental Illness is like living in the cold. It’s always cold. You can buy a space heater, put on a coat and scarf. You can learn to live with it, to make yourself feel warm. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s still cold}
I deleted twitter right away. It helps, to not fake it. I could have tried but that wouldn’t have helped me get or feel better. Let yourself just be honest with yourself and other people. I let myself stay in bed all day. I let myself take care of myself. That’s all you can do.
I have bad days, bad nights and moments. Not all of them this severe. But I get them.
I can’t let this weekend dictate my progress. Recovery is small, and constant. Recovery is the fact that I still woke up this morning and ate breakfast. Recovery is that I started a new book. Recovery is that I took my dog on a walk and smiled for a second. It’s not easy. And I don’t think recovery has a final destination but you keep going and you hope to God it gets better and I think it does.
I want you to understand that I have come so far, and that you can and will to. This is just a battle in a long war that I believe I will win so I keep fighting, we have to keep fighting. I have found miraculous people, people that don’t mind me being a bomb or being around when I go off and that’s more than I can ask for. I have found counseling and I will go again tomorrow and tell her about all of this and she will understand and let me talk and cry until I feel better and then she will give me new perspective and I will leave and come back again next week. I will look back at this post in a few months and ache for the part of me that had to go through this because I will be doing so much better.
I thought I was alone for so long, too long. It’s not fair that I went so long feeling like that or that no one stopped and told me all of this wasn’t normal and that people cared and that people could help me. Maybe you’ve felt like this at a show or somewhere. I want you to understand you shouldn’t feel like that, I want you to know that death shouldn’t be a solution you ever consider. I’m so sorry it’s like this. But you aren’t alone, I wasn’t alone in 11th grade and I wasn’t alone the other night at that show even though I felt like it. Feelings lie, feelings cheat and steal happiness. Reality doesn’t always match up with how I perceive it but I act on the wrong thing. It’s not logical, I know that.
I want you to know that even after weekends like this I wake up and chose to fight, chose to live. I want you to know that I think I matter, that I think you matter. We aren’t crazy or weird or inconvenient, we are just sick in a place people don’t see so many of them don’t understand. We can win. If we live this life our best, if we chose to fight, we can come out as the victor. We will still have many moments of happiness and bliss and love despite everything bad and dark and scary. We will look back and see the contrast, see the bright against the dark and the bright will be all the more brighter. I believe there is hope. I believe that we are writing incredible stories of survival with our lives. I believe people will look at us and our bravery and admire us and we might feel undeserving but we aren’t, we deserve the world and all the life it has to offer us. We deserve friends who understand, road trips, live music that feels something like love, love itself, nights where we don’t sleep but don’t regret it because we are really living, honest conversations that make us feel light, birthday parties, checking off items on our bucket list. We deserve all that and more and I think we will get it. It’s the reason I woke up today and I will wake up again tomorrow just to tell you I think we matter and I think we should chose to live despite anything and everything in us that might say otherwise. I am going to win this war, and you can and will win your own. This is just a battle. Keep fighting. We got this.
2087
germansingergirl
areudirty
dededos
annaxmalina
