Mental health isn’t straightforward. Sadly, it’s not something you work on, get better, and then never have to think about again. There’s no one cure, and it can be a constant battle between what your mind and body tell you and what you know to be true.
At the age of 33, I’ve spent more time in my life learning about mental health than I haven’t! But, knowing this information isn’t enough; it needs to be something practical too: an everyday exercise to help you hold the evidence that things can, and will, get better.
When it comes to trauma, from the outside looking in, the traumatic event may be perceived as the worst part, and I’m not going to lie, it most certainly wasn’t nice. However, I don’t think anyone really understands the hardship of getting better, or God-forbid, feeling happy again.
The trauma, the survival, the healing; it’s all so hard and for very different reasons.
I am pleased to say I am through my trauma; it is safely something that is now in the past, but like anything that damages your body, it leaves a scar, and saying ‘I’m happy’ is something that makes my scar burn.
Getting here has been a lot of hard work, mentally and physically. It’s been rewarding, but no matter what I do, I can’t help but have this lingering feeling that everything I love will be gone again in a flash, and the horror of that worry is exhausting.
I have a job I love, a boyfriend I love, friends and family I love, a house and 2 cats that I love, a car I love, hobbies that I love; I am surrounded by things and people that make me feel happy and safe, yet I have this black cloud that lingers over it all, threatening to pour on it all and wash it away like none of it even happened.
It’s hard to live under the cloud.
I try to ignore it, but recently it’s getting too big to ignore. I can hear thunder rolling around in it, and from time to time feel spots of rain, but I know the thunder isn’t actually coming from the cloud; it’s coming from the fear that lives inside of me.
Honestly? I love my life now more than I’ve loved any other time in my life. I have so much of the stuff, actually, I have all the stuff I’ve worked so hard for, and on top of that, I have new parts of my life that never existed before! Parts that make me feel excited in my chest: a feeling I don’t think I’ve felt in my adult life.
Which to a mind without scars would be a dream, but my mind tells me that if I barely survived losing my old life, a life that felt disingenuous and like squeezing into a mould that didn’t fit me, then how would I survive losing my new life, one that genuinely brings me so much joy? If it was that hard to fall from a false high, I don’t think I’d survive a fall from a true high.
The looming cloud of loss and grief is always there, whether I’m in control of it or not, and although living under it is often loud, scary, and very dark, I think it’s something I’m going to have to learn to live with. I need to live with the cloud and learn that even though it looms, it’s not necessarily going to wash everything away. I can’t live in fear.
I want to learn how to put up my emotional umbrella and plod through the fear, as crippling as it feels most days. I need to remind myself that the fear of the rain isn’t enough of a reason to not leave the house.
Gwen Richards 