Obligatory introduction

I spent the days leading up to my 27^th birthday in a hole. A figurative hole, naturally, but one just as dark and deep and trapping, and one far too many of us frequent far too often. On this particular occasion I had found myself unable to speak aloud or leave the flat, unsure if I’d be able to return to my unskilled part-time job, and whether or not that was a good thing, deeply afraid of interacting with my friends again, believing the relationships to be unhealthy and damaging, and mostly ‘coping’ through spending my days in a haze of TV, half-sleep and wildly out-of-control eating-disordered behaviour.

This is not a game of who has what the worst. This ‘episode’ was worse than some, not half as bad others, within my own life and in others’. I have some level of support, where others may have none or more. When talking about mental health it is so tricky to tread the line between ‘it’s okay, you’re not alone’ and ‘your experience is not unique so suck it up’. It can be a relief to be first diagnosed, a sense of ‘I’m not terrible or failing, there is legitimately something wrong with me and a valid reason why it’s so hard to manage this or that”. However, after years of living with the label it can start to feel like it is who you are, maybe even all you are.

Increasingly, you see online lists of ’20 things all people with X relate to’, or ‘10 things you shouldn’t say to somebody with Y’. There are numerous books written about how to deal with somebody with A or B. And yes, by definition there must be some common ground between people with a common diagnosis, so many of us go through the same awful things. And no, we’re not alone, nor are we all special snowflakes incapable of being understood by anyone besides ourselves. In the end, I can just speak for myself, and you can only speak for you, and neither of us might have anything new or original to say. That is not to say we should say nothing.

I had my birthday yesterday, and I knew I had to make some changes. That was not some great epiphany. I have known I need to make changes for a long time, and have intended to do so every birthday, New Year, Monday morning, morning-after and so-on for just as long. Often I am out of hope that things can change, often I do not have confidence in my ability to make it happen. I also kid myself that there will be some easy fix, if I just do ‘this’ then everything will suddenly be better. ‘This’ is what a lot of people sell; read ‘this’, take ‘this’, practice ‘this’, eat ‘this’ and you’ll feel better. Don’t feel better? You’re obviously not doing ‘this’ enough, or the right way. Sadly, I don’t think ‘this’ will fix anything alone, no matter how positive or powerful the ‘this’ might be.

Some things help some of the time. Where mental illness is concerned, there is no definite, no rule. Just that some things help some of the time. This is me exploring them.