I wrote this piece before I entered treatment and then finished it on my last day before leaving inpatient care at The Priory Glasgow.
"This is a question I ask myself everyday. Once you have hit the place they call rock bottom do you ever recover fully or is life just a series of ups and downs from then on? There’s a burning fire inside that never really goes out. A voice in your head that no matter how hard you try to turn down, still keeps shouting. Some people turn to drugs, some to alcohol, some to sex, some to food or no food and so the list goes on but when you finally get over one addiction, do you just find something new to obsess about?
Somedays I fool myself into thinking I'm ok. Maybe I finally cracked it, what comes so natural to everybody else. I smile, I laugh, I even have a good time, but something in the back on my mind says that I’m wrong. I start to question myself. I wonder if there is something I am missing. A part of me that no matter how hard I try, will never be there.
Make me happy I shout into thin air, but who am I shouting to? Why is there this need for someone else to make me happy? Why cant I heal myself, Why cant I fix my broken pieces and move on? But what I fear, is that every time I have been broken, a part of me has never come back. Lost forever in the ocean of my tears. But if every time I break, a piece is lost, what happens when there is nothing left to lose? What happens when I’m down to my last part?
Checking out they call it. When you just wanna get out of your head for a minute, an hour, a week, a month, a year... but what do they call it when you just wanna check out forever? Deep down, death is not what you really want, all you're looking for is something to fill the gaps, something to stop your head for one second, something to make you forget.
I’ve sat in a dark room and stared at the vodka bottle before. What harm would it do. I've poured the pills out onto the table before. Thought to myself this was the only way to escape. Its the simple things in life that people take for granted that affect the wounded more than imaginable. Picking up a razor blade and shaving. For people who self harm, a razor blade has so many options. I've sat on the bathroom floor before picking away at a razor blade, being left with just the blade, so sharp it cuts the tops of your fingers. You shake with the anticipation of putting the blade to your skin. It's a rush, it's a feeling like no other. It takes you away for just a split second where all you can think of is the pain of the cut and you forget everything else thats in your head.
It comes at the strangest times. You can be doing fine. At the gym, at work, driving in the car and then in a split second, you're back there. In the darkness, a lost soul searching for the light. That is where the cycle begins. Nobody can understand, they thought you were doing ok. The truth is, they saw the outside. They never looked deep into your eyes and seen the lost soul biding its time before jumping back out at you unexpected. They don't hear the thoughts that come into your head, they don't see it when you let a stranger abuse you just to feel something. No they see the version of yourself you put on display and convince themselves you are healed. But it comes back, and the next time its stronger, it's trying to take you back there.
They say life knocks you down but you’ve got to get back up, dust yourself down and carry on. If thats the case, then why do some of us never get back up? What would happen if we all just stayed on the ground? We all just held onto the darkness and never came back to the character of normal we put on everyday.
What actually happens if we end it all? Do we spend eternity in punishment for taking our own lives or do we get another chance? Keep replaying the same situation until we get it right. Do we ever get it right? Can you ever stop yourself from giving up? We are taught that giving up is the easy way out but is that always the case? Can giving up not be a hopeful thing? Hoping that the voices and thoughts will end when you do it. The silence. The peaceful silence you long for.
Sleeping is not even the answer. Your brain still doesn't stop. You dream of drowning, you dream of falling of a mountain, you dream of being attacked. Bad dreams people call them but is it just the voices in your head continuing as they have all day long?
How long would it take them to find me? Who would it be? My mother. She would be devastated to see my lifeless body laying on the floor, the hope gone forever. Would she cry, could she see it coming? Who would be at my funeral? Would people care or would it just be another day for the people who crossed my path in the short time? Would they play music, would they toast to my life?
And then a pain shoots through your chest. Snaps the thought for just a second. Its like a wave of heaven. So you keep seeking the pain. You cut a little deeper next time to see if it could last longer. You cut in the places people cant see so nobody asks questions. They assume your fine. Recovered. But it's back to the start of the cycle.
What if my childhood had been different? Would I have chosen this path or would my life be different? Would I be happy, that genuine happy. Would I laugh, the genuine laugh that you feel deep in your stomach. What if I had felt loved? Would I still let men abuse me? Violate me. Would I let them treat me with no respect? Would I let them do what they like and then leave me alone in the bed in floods of tears? Why do I do this to myself? Is it me? Did I choose this? Is it a choice? Did I miss the flashing signs telling me there was another option?
We all have dreams. For me its to be a singer. I want the stardom. I want the fans, I want the attention. I want people to know who I am. I want to help people who are feeling this way... but can I help them if I cant help myself? Practice what you preach. I get angry. Its overwhelming at times. Breathing is difficult and you feel every sharp breath in and out. When you see no hope and think that this pain will rip straight through us one day.
Are some of us spared? Are some of us made to be examples? Can some of us really get past this place and be genuine happy? Is happiness just a fairytale. We don't believe in knights in shining armour but we do believe that there is such a thing as eternal happiness. Is that just the same as believing in a fairytale?
If there’s a soulmate out there for everyone, do they bring the missing pieces? Do they fill the gaps or do they completely destroy you when it all gets too much for them? The constant voices. Do they look in your eyes and see the sadness? Can they heal the sadness or just make it worse when they walk out the door, saying there is no hope left? Is that when you hit the floor and never get back up? Is that when you are destroyed completely? Nothing left to live for. The hope is gone. The love is over and the tears don't stop. You fall further and further into the black hole until you are lost forever.
Sometimes I wanna shut the world out. Turn my phone off, turn off the computer, the tv off and close the blinds. Just sit in complete silence and darkness and breath. Only hear the breath in and the breath out. Close the voices down so they are only a dull murmur in the distance. Clear your mind of all feelings, all thoughts and all noise. In and out, thats all you do. Breathing. No thinking. But you eventually give in, a thought comes into your head and everything starts up again. The voices shoot straight back up to full sound, the breathing becomes mechanical and your not able to silence it all again.
We all have opinions. No one can judge them, good or bad, they are just your take on the world. Some people like to share there opinions. Even though they know its negative, they still let it go. Would they do the same if they could see the aftermath? The fact that the words they say cut like razors on your skin and throw you into a spiral of self loathing.
Beauty, what is beautiful? Who makes the decision? Who said that one thing was beauty and one was ugly? Cant it all be beautiful? Why is there always a need to pigeon hole everyone and as soon as they change something? It's all wrong!
If you're confused by reading this, then imagine what its like to live with these thoughts on a constant loop in your brain. Question after question. Jumping around so fast you feel a bit dizzy when you finally snap out of the trance. Sometimes it lasts for days, you can seem normal on the outside but the voices are still going. People talk, you talk back but really you are just going through the motions. The darkness is always there, just waiting until you let your guard down for a second so it can take back control.
Since I wrote this, I have spent time as an inpatient at The Priory Hospital Glasgow. I am now feeling something that I thought I had lost... Hope. I have hope that the future is going to be ok. And my head, well it's like someone has turned the radio down and I am back in the moment.
The past is the past and that's where it should stay. I am going to work on me now, I am going to take it from today and just live in the moment. Instead of day by day or hour by hour I am going to live my life second by second, just being present and being me, unashamed and out loud. I have the power.
Last night I went out clubbing and I had a revelation on the dance floor. I was in the moment, I was looking at my friend dancing with me and we were both just there, hands in the air, care free letting our hair down, just enjoying the feeling of total bliss. Ecstasy without the drugs or alcohol, ecstasy of life, ecstasy in knowing that in that moment, our bodies were just there to dance and love life.
I'm still a little scared of the previous but that's ok I have found. It's ok to know that one day I might not be feeling on top of the world or I might have a problem to deal with because I have tools now, tools to get my through and I have the support I so desperately longed for. People who genuinely care, the flowers in my life. And the weeds, well I'm picking them out one by one and eventually, my garden will just be beautiful flowers, colouring my life.
So there is now hope, I'm not fixed because I was never broken, I was just lost in the forrest of life but I've found a map, I've found a few flowers and I'm on my way to the sunshine."
