the tune without the words.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.

I love rediscovering old favourites through old journals. The image is from tumblr. 

life is a beautiful mess.

"These words on a page, carry the pain, they don't free it."

Sometimes I wonder, is writing really a blessing? Or is it a curse? I've had people tell me that my writing is beautiful (I hate repeating compliments I receive, because 9/10 times I never believe them and hate repeating them because it makes me sound pretentious) but my writing isn't beautiful. I write my thoughts, I write my mind, and my mind isn't "beautiful" my mind is a mess. My mind is a maze of twisted complexity, I suffer from black and white thinking, I constantly question everything and search for hidden meanings, I overreact to everything, I can't process any of my emotions at a "normal" (god, I hate that word) rate, and I have negative thought after negative thought. 

So when I write, I'm really only writing my mind. A thought. A question. A moment. All of them are fleeting, in the grand scheme of my life, each and every piece that I write is a fleeting moment in time. Do I really want my thoughts, my messed up mind immortalised? 

Sometimes I think that when you write about something, it loses it's meaning. The original moment or thought you were writing about diminishes and it becomes quite literally words on a piece of paper, or through a blog, or through a screen. The thought is gone, the inner workings of my mind have changed, that no longer exists in the present now, it's gone. So is writing it down where it can never be forgotten something that is productive? 

I haven't suddenly decided to give up on my blog or my journalling or any of that. I'm just thinking through my writing, I guess. I think it's nice to chronicle your state of mind when you're going through recovery, or even anything really, to look back and see how things have progressed, how your mind has moved forward, how you have grown and flourished. 

But in reality, do you really need to be reminded of thoughts you had? Do you really need it there to see? Can't it just be lost along with the hundreds of thousand other memories that we create and forget? 

the darkness in which I swim.

creative therapy.

I was never blessed in the artistic skills department, however, I've been keeping journals for the last year and a bit and found a new lease of creativity that had been laying dormant inside of me.

When my anxiety is at it's worse there is nothing that can help me, I've exhausted methods with my cognitive behavioural therapist and as of yet, we have yet to find a way to combat it.

However, what I discovered last year was that art, be it sketching, painting, doodling, whatever, has been a great way for me to at least semi distract myself when my anxiety is bad.

So, I thought I'd put this out there for anybody to give it a go if you haven't already. 

My favourite was "scrapbooking" but I've grown out of it now, I mainly just sketch now. But if you have any magazines around, scrapbooking is a great way of encompassing any flicker of creativity inside of you, be it just a flicker, or if you're one of the lucky ones who has multitudes of it. It just helps you focus on something in a way that watching a movie/TV show or reading doesn't really do, it doesn't work for everybody but it did help me focus on something despite my anxiety.

You can just make a page of things you like, or an interest of yours. Mine are mainly all fashion based, here are a couple of pages from my journal. 

the inevitability of prolonged discomfort.

There comes a time when you are faced with a social situation that you have to attend. You are obliged to go to, and there is no excuse to get out of it, no matter how many scenarios you plan out in your head.

Ordinarily, I like getting dressed up, going out and having fun. Even if it's just for a few hours, it gives me a perfect distraction from the 96,000 thoughts going round my mind, and just allows me to pretend that I'm okay without having to maintain that "absolutely fine, positively happy" mask that I have to put on when I'm at work. Throughout my late teens and up until I was 21, I loved going out. My job meant that after work we'd go for drinks, off to clubs, and most nights for nearly three years straight ended in the early hours of the morning, arriving home in a taxi, often crossing my Mother on the doorstep on her way to work. I wasn't one of those girls who went out to get drunk, many nights I'd only have one or two drinks, it was simply the company and nightlife that I thrived off. It was the ideal scenario for my depression and my eating disorders; drinks at night, sleep all day - no time for eating or to stop and take note of where your mind was. In my little head, it was perfect. 

Anybody who has or currently works in theatre will know that it's a very antisocial job, you end up spending a lot of your time with the people you work with, often planning nights out after performances, simply being on the same work schedule and sleeping pattern made it very easy to be extremely social despite the antisocial hours. Despite having lots of people around me, I was still incredibly lonely. I brushed any negative feelings aside and simply lived for the moment. But I was struggling. 

Fast forward to a few years later. I look back at my old self and I almost envy her, being able to ignore the overwhelming feelings that consume my mind 24/7 is a luxury that I lost a long time ago. I get fleeting feelings of happiness, which I am so thankful for because without those, I don't know where I would be, but at some point, "it" always creeps back up on me. 

Social situations are something I now dread. The thought of being somewhere that I am not 100% sure that I want to be, or in the company of people that I trust implicitly absolutely terrifies me. When I am overwhelmed with thoughts of self loathing, or my mood drops, or I am triggered by something, it does not matter where I am or who I am with, it will simply become too much and I will completely flip; there are tears, followed by panic attacks, followed by what I call "Zombie mode" where I go into what can only be described as an almost catatonic state. The thought of that happening when I'm out, or with people who don't know what to do or say to me terrifies me. Maybe that's letting it win, maybe that's me being defeatist, because I have given in, I have let it control what I do and where I go. But I know my mind, and I know that these happen too regularly to risk it, for now, that is the best course of action for me. 

So on Saturday I was faced with an occasion that required my presence; an entire day in the company of my family and extended family, in all around 25-30 people. My family as a whole tend to only get together around 4/5 times a year, so it wasn't something I could skip out on, especially as it was one of the very younger members' (whom I adore) third birthday party. 

It was hard. I struggled. I suffered. I didn't show once how I was feeling, or if I did, it just wasn't mentioned. But I did it, I got through the day, and I am so proud of myself for doing so. 

What I am also proud of is the fact that straight after I got off the train home, I went to a work friends' hen party, where I was yet again in a crowd of about 14 people. I was terrified at the prospect of having to put on a facade for two situations, one after the other with no real pause for clarity, for almost 17 hours. One I can just about handle at a time, but two at once? I didn't think it was possible, but I did it. 

Small victories. It is those I am proudest of. 

I am paying for it now. I woke up just mentally and emotionally exhausted, with crippling anxiety and the inability to feel or think coherently. But that's okay, because I achieved a huge step yesterday, today I am simply "suffering the consequences"

Every action has a reaction. Every action we take has a consequence. If the action is something positive, hold onto that. My consequence is simply my mind coping with the strength that it had garnered for a prolonged period of time yesterday. I am not seeing today as a defeat, I am seeing yesterday as a step forward.