Growth.

I find writing cathartic and recently I’ve been wanting to write but I’ve felt too afraid to let my fingers find the keys. After getting a lot of upsetting comments about my words I suppose I reverted back to holding my thoughts, emotions, and experiences inside. Sharing my experiences makes me vulnerable and I didn’t quite appreciate just how vulnerable I am until I had several negative remarks. Words can be used to empower someone but also they are strong enough to tear someone down  with one move; similar to a game of Jenga. I suppose over the last few days I’ve remained on the ground, unable to find enough courage to build myself up again. Until now. Don’t get me wrong, I am terrified of a similar backlash from this article however this isn’t about specific people who are no longer choosing to be a part of my life; it’s about myself and my journey. I just choose to bring people alongside me to attempt to help them in their own.

Growing up you develop this form of identity and a reputation of sorts. This can change over time due to people’s opinions or the versions of yourself you show to others. Who you are is a personal journey and I’m finally grasping that allowing other people, especially people who judge and don’t know you, define you is a fatal mistake. How can you have an identity that someone has simply handed to you? It's you who chooses who you are. Yes your genetics can’t be altered, but you as a person can’t be a set of DNA. Humans are far more beautifully complex than a bunch of cells provided by two people. Too many years I have spent letting other people call me names and define the person I am. Fat, ugly, the other twin, too shy, too clumsy, geek, too thin, disgusting, beautiful, sexy, horrible, insane, mad, crazy, etc. I could go on. But these are merely words because mad for instance doesn’t sum up an identity. It gives you a reputation of being different and ‘insane’. I mean surely all mental health patients are mad, right? But doesn't that mean we all are? Because I don’t know about you but everyone I’ve met seems to have a varying degree of mental health struggles.

People write things about me all the time and their chatter remains inside my head for many years after. According to many I’m ungrateful and I have made horrendous accusations about someone who’s only fault was loving and supporting me. It makes me sound incredibly disrespectful and dare I say it a horrible person. But then just because someone says you are something, it doesn’t make it fact. A personal view doesn’t mean you are that view and even your own view is ultimately opinion and up for debate. Nothing about reputation or identity is set in stone or factual. It's fluid and changeable. When it comes to allegations of sexual abuse there comes a time when people choose sides; be that a conscious or unconscious decision. I never asked people to side with me (or him for that matter) but just because I didn’t ask them to it doesn’t mean people won’t make a choice. I can’t control what people do or don’t do. That’s just how life is. Leaving the family home prior to reporting my father to the police was not the easy decision many make it out to be. It wasn’t about being selfish or wanting to seek revenge upon anyone. I did it to protect other people and gain some perspective on the situation. I still feel overwhelming guilt around leaving my family and that’s something that will remain. In the taxi to the refuge I was crying my eyes out because the magnitude of leaving was hard to accept. It wasn’t an impulsive choice but I hadn’t exactly realised the impact such a decision could have not only upon myself but to the rest of my family too. This was my final goodbye to the majority of my family and unpacking a tiny suitcase felt like climbing the highest mountain in the world. I broke down several times that night and I reached for my phone to call them over and over. I told a white lie; I said to my mother I’d gone to a homeless shelter. Close enough I suppose.

Letting go of negative comments is difficult especially when they tap into your core beliefs. It’s harder still when the comments continue long after the case has been dropped. I want to make one thing clear; a case being dropped does not mean someone is not guilty of the crime they were charged with. If people knew that this time I was incredibly resistant to even reporting then maybe they’d understand the love I still hold for not only my father but my wider family too. I was so against it I went months allowing him to break my ribs and leave me black and blue repeatedly. I went months risking my life to refrain from the negative comments that I knew would hit me like a tonne of bricks upon opening my mouth to the police. But even months after his bail was dropped and he was “proved” innocent I still get hurtful remarks thrown my way. I want to scream that they got what they wanted but it’s no use. They will still hold the same grudges created from that day in March 2015 when I made the decision to report him for the first time. I’m told over and over that I’ll get karma for what I’ve done and I stare blankly at the words thinking about how much karma I’m already experiencing. Being on an Acute Psychiatric ward for nearly ten months and suffering the after effects of trauma on top of having barely any family left... Isn’t that enough? Obviously not for someone with my reputation. Because I’m mad and I made it all up, right? A lot of people think that and I have gained a lot of enemies over the years. Funnily enough this started a long time before even reporting. I had to listen to remarks about my "voluntary" Anorexia and putting the family through such a terrible ordeal. I was treated like some sort of alien because I’m different and I can’t fully contain all my emotions. I was told just how ungrateful I was everytime I swallowed handfuls of pills because being suicidal makes you selfish. I’m sorry about that; for them not for me. People like to play on your flaws, paranoia, and insecurities to make themselves feel better. Pushing rage onto the other person feels a hell of a lot better than experiencing it yourself. Denying a horrific truth is easier than acknowledging that an allegation could potentially be accurate. You make it your mission to find evidence from anywhere to guarantee your comfy seat within denial. Luckily for my family I have a mental health diagnosis. It’s a literal get out of jail free card and they feel the need to utilise it over and over again.

I have a bad reputation amongst many and I’m not okay with that but it is how it is. I have discovered that when I openly explain my experiences to professionals all of a sudden my behaviours and thoughts make complete sense. Factually a Trauma Unit wouldn’t accept a patient if the patient wasn’t believed to have experienced trauma. You can’t exactly fake Dissociation and definitely not flashbacks/nightmares. I could be the actress they say I am but in reality I’m absolutely terrible at lying. I can lie about my emotions but when it comes to what actually happened? Lying is impossible and trust me I’ve tried to lie because being honest about abuse is very hard to accept. I’d rather be within the denial of my family but it’s just not possible for me. I’ve found it’s best to try and balance their comments with my own version of events. You have to place their knowledge and emotions into context when understanding their behaviour. I mean you’d be a terrible sister or brother to think that this person abused their own child. No wonder you would fight with immense anger to rectify the situation. Therefore it's understandable when context is explored on a deeper level. That’s why I always try to not argue so much because it only leads to more anger and more attacks. Instead I use my words to grasp where they are in that moment and carefully navigate my way to balance my experience with theirs. It's not easy to do but it is something I’ve worked hard to attain in therapy.

All things considered I am doing better than I ever was in the sense that I am finally accepting the right treatment and not cycling through EDUs and Acute Psychiatric Wards. I know that to truly heal and move forward I need to face up to why I am the way I am and not just my behaviours. Self hatred has driven me to continue upon a path towards hurting myself and accepting comments reaffirming this hatred isn't all that helpful. This is why I’ve decided it’s best to finally metaphorically lock the gates around me. I only allow people inside who build me up rather than crumble me down to the ground. I will continue to hold on tightly to the keys so that if I ever feel like letting them back inside, I can. But I have to accept that in the mean time they have the decision to walk away and that they might not be there when I’m ready for them to be. You lose people you never want to lose in life. But I have learned that they end up losing you too. I need to let people make their own choices and not feel so eager to jump in and change their minds. They can say I made it all up if that helps them to move on. They can believe what they need to believe and see their “side” as fact and I need to be okay with that. I don't need them to believe me to prove what he did; I can trust myself. It’s taken years to admit to myself what he’s done and it will take years to accept it. If I can manage to keep those gates locked whilst I work hard to heal myself, I will put myself in greater stead to manage the trauma. He stole my choices but I know that now I can make my own decisions. This may be terrifying right now but it will ultimately set me free. I’m not a defenceless 10 year old girl anymore; I’m an adult. I don’t need someone creating an identity, reputation, or narrative for me. I define me and I show people the person I truly am. I have the pen and ink to write my own story. And this, I guess, is growth.

Shame around Sexual Abuse.

I've been debating whether I should write about my experiences of sexual abuse in a way that feels shameful to me. I suppose I want to use my words to work through my shame and also help others with similar experiences to not feel so alone. For many years I've felt like the only person to feel these reactions to abuse. It's certainly not spoken about and it's something that feels too terrifying to even write down. But feel the fear and do it anyway, right?

After a discussion with my current psychologist I feel that I need to explore this in more depth in order to move forward in my understanding. Simply hearing her say this is a normal reaction to trauma was a relief; but I'm not saying the shame has reduced all that much. Opening up a conversation, even with an experienced professional, is hard and sharing my personal experiences with the world via a public medium is even harder. However, I created this blog with the sole purpose of breaking the silence and challenging stigma around mental health. And this my friends has a lot of stigma.

I enjoyed sex with my father.

There I said it. And to those of you who haven't experienced childhood abuse or abuse by a loved one, this sounds probably shocking and very wrong, am I right? It's okay to admit that you're currently thinking I'm insane and this is the real reason I've been in hospital for 8 months. That's okay. But before you stop reading or begin judging my interpretation of abuse, I want you to continue to read on.

So here are the facts:

Experiencing an Orgasm is a biological response to repeated stimuli. Anyone who has had sex knows that stimuli from a partner often feels good if not euphoric. But you need to understand it can be an involuntary physiological reaction over which the survivor has NO control. And if you're being abused by someone who loves you and who you love back, you will have some sort of reaction. I want to make the next sentence VERY clear. Having an orgasm during sexual abuse does not mean that the victim/survivor wanted to be raped and it doesn't mean that they should feel ashamed for "enjoying" it. In fact biology says that it's more than normal to enjoy sexual contact.

However, this is about my father. And as much as I hate every abusive contact I've ever had with him I cannot for one second deny I wanted it. I wanted it as a child more so than an adult because at 10 years old I was conditioned to want it because sex equated to love. And isn't that one of the main needs children thrive upon? So is it any wonder why the little girl inside of me is desperate for that contact to feel loved? Should she feel ashamed about this? The silence is painful for her and until this week she was unable to even say the words on paper.

A child weaned on poison begins to consider harm a comfort. They begin to associate love with abuse. And anything that doesn't fit into this belief? Well that's even harder to make sense of. How can someone love me and not want to abuse me? Sometimes in my flat I'd get very drunk, which happened to be a regular occurrence for a very long time, and I wanted my father in my bed. Yes, the man who has ruined my life and the same man making me feel ashamed of myself right now. Him. It makes me hate him for loving him. And when he's touched my hand in the past I've had mixed signals making me unsure as to whether I should flinch or increase my grip. He used to make me so very happy which always turned back to feeling sad. And then my internal anger would increase leading to the desperate need to punish myself for feeling this way. But I could never make him love me in the way most fathers love their daughters. Nobody can force that kind of love and it's not anyone's fault. It just happens.

When I sat in that room on Thursday I felt my face become hot and I couldn't look my psychologist in the eye. I feared she'd ask me to leave and say I'm completely abnormal. I was on the edge of my chair ready to bolt from the room if she uttered the words "I can't help you". But she sat and she listened to me and didn't look away. She was warm and compassionate; she explained the facts and how common this is. I expressed just how much I struggle to comprehend that more survivors have felt this shame. This inability to talk about it when it is so very common. Maybe people will now.

I hope so.

Shame is something we all avoid in one way or another. We cover it up and push it away with other emotions and unhelpful behaviours. The problem is that these only lead us straight back to even more feelings of shame. Over time this shame eats away at us until we are completely consumed by it. To all the survivors out there, I'm going to tell you to not feel ashamed if you feel this way which I know makes me sound like a hypocrite. I want you to know it's normal and it's nothing to shy away from. Speak out and maybe, just maybe, we won't live with shame associated with experiencing enjoyment from something that "should" be traumatic and terrifying. Enjoying it doesn't take away the criminal offence or the trauma. It doesn't make your experience any less horrific. It's a reaction. And it's common and normal. You are not a freak; you are a survivor.

Living with Trauma.

Let me tell you what it’s like living with trauma. Sure you could guess, read a book, and even assume what it’s like, but that isn’t ‘real’ life. I’m not a page in a textbook and I certainly don’t fit into a neat little box. They don’t tell you that, although significant, the act of Rape is only the beginning. That in the grand scheme of things the afterwards is much more significant than the during. Admittedly being raped is horrific and violating but it doesn’t end when he goes away. It doesn’t end when you’re lying on the ground bleeding. In fact, it never ends. Because that event has a domino effect upon everything that happens next in your life. It impacts upon your grades at school, your work, your relationships, your self esteem, and it can even lead you to commit suicide. It’s not just about rape; it’s about everything and anything after it.

I’ve been close to death many of times in my life. Many times through him but most by my own hands. It’s usually when I feel invisible, like I’ve vanished. By this I don’t mean everyone has left me. Not at all. I mean I’ve left me. I’ve walked further from myself and become this body which feels so foreign. A scarred and violated and pale body that flinches at any touch. This body that holds no laugher but no tears either. Empty. Yes, that's the best word to describe it. It’s like I don’t feel anything at all and therefore there is no reason to continue living. You have to feel something to connect with someone and without connections you die more and more inside. I know this because at school the kids treated me like dirt on their expensive shoes. They ignored me. I was invisible and that killed me. Not physically but it killed parts of me that make me, well, myself. I started losing myself when I was nine years old, when the abuse started, and every year I lost another chunk rather than gaining a new element of Sophie. Who the hell was this girl anyway? I don’t even think she was ever real; just a mismatch of a person people decided she was. But the parts didn’t fit right so I never really felt like a complete person. How could I? Nothing made sense because virtually every person saw me differently.

I’ve not always been unlucky in terms of finding people who care. Maybe my problem isn’t this at all, it’s more that I never truly believe I deserve them and therefore I find ways to make them hate me and leave. I push and pull them and wear them down to almost nothing. I do it to prove to myself they either don’t care or I’m a horrible person; usually it’s both. Men have made me feel loved, safe, and visible. But these relationships never last. People fall for me quickly and I don’t know why this is, but they do. The problem is that they do it so fast that I feel the need to tear myself down to make them not like me at all. It’s comfortable for men to dislike me or for me to have to earn their love. What’s not is for a man to simply love me. I see a person and I can recognise that they are kind, good, and decent. I might have been with a fair few bad choices but I know a good man when I meet one. This is why I get scared; because they will end up leaving. With the bad guys I know what they want and how to make them stay. With the good ones? I only know how to screw it up and force them to walk away. I haven’t mastered reversing this.

The impact upon my interpersonal relationships has been huge. I fear being abused but it’s all I know so I end up gravitating towards it. I don’t know how to allow someone to love me and for me to feel like I’m worthy of this love. Do I deserve to be cared about? Am I all that important? My head says no and that means I only accept the love I think I deserve which isn’t a lot. People get close and I don’t know when they will leave me; it’s unpredictable. That’s why I find it easier to be alone. But then being alone comes with it’s own problems and feeds the thoughts around deserving to be alone forever. I just have considerable amounts of evidence that most people leave. I get too much for them; I have tonnes of baggage. Do you really want to be handling all this? Some say they will and then it gets too much. Friends, boyfriends, and even professionals back away and then it’s reinforced all over again. Don’t get me wrong, I will never judge or despise people who decide to leave, I know I am tough to handle especially now. But it is lonely and it is always terrifying being left or anticipating someone leaving.

Nights of Loneliness.

"Olly Olly Oxen Free."

Everyone needs one. You get to come out of hiding without losing the game. In life it would be nice to say it and for it to be true. I feel like this when it's late at night or in the early hours of the morning when I find myself frozen under my sink. Or sleeping on the cold hard floor because the bed feels too triggering. And I want to scream, "Olly Olly Oxen Free" like I did in the school playground many moons ago. That way I'd feel safe to get up. I'd feel safe and secure to be seen. And I'd know for sure nothing bad will happen if I move. Because feeling paralysed to the ground is horrific. I either wait for someone to find me because I need to be reassured it's safe to come out of hiding. Or I stay put and wait for the feeling to pass. I just want someone to say it; to say the game, or rather the flashback, is over and not real. That confirmation I can move.

But reality isn't hide and seek. It's definitely not a childhood game in the playground during lunchtime. No one is going to say it and the words aren't magic. When you're a child you believe in magic and your imagination is as vast as the ocean. Sadly that begins to fade as you age and the more that happens to you, the quicker it goes. After years of constant abuse it's safe to say the magic ended for me years ago. And now make believe feels incredibly childish even if it's all I want. So I sit on the floor knowing full well these words won't make me feel better and they certainly won't make me feel safer. I'm too cynical now. Maybe people need to be my Olly Olly Oxen Free. I need to let them be my safety and allow myself to feel safe. I haven't felt safe for a long time. Not completely and I don't know if I ever will.

Trauma at night is horrendous. It begins in the evening and builds as time passes. It alters my thoughts and makes everywhere feel unsafe like I'm treading on uneven ground. And then I wobble. I stumble. I take a fall and I crumble losing every sense of reality. I'm in the past. Stuck. And I need someone, anyone, to pull me out. To give me some respite from the thoughts which often lead to urges which then lead to behaviours. The flashbacks are real to me. They take me back in time like an imaginary time machine. But I don't choose to get in; I just don't have a choice. These hours are my loneliest time. My most vulnerable and terrifying time where I find myself in a crisis. I pace my room. I tidy to avoid the thoughts. I leave my room continuously to get a sense of where I am. I lie on the floor because as a child this felt safest. And I hide under my sink when I feel terrified. When everything feels too much and I need to cry but I also need to hide it from everyone. I did this as a child too because I was brought up to act okay. To be okay. But let me tell you, everything in my life wasn't okay. It's never been okay and maybe it never will be.

Between the hours of 1am and 4am I struggle with the battle to give in and sleep or to stay awake with flashbacks and avoid the nightmares. It's a balance which I flip between. It's almost like I only have two options and staying awake feels more tempting; I feel more in control when I'm awake. Sleeping means I'm frozen and I can only get out if I wake up or someone wakes me up. I thrash and scream and I relive it all. Trying to fight him unlike many times when I just lay completely still. I punch the wall. I scratch my skin raw. I lose control and that's terrifying. So I wonder around avoiding this natural human cycle. I feel detached from the people around me because I end up isolating myself in the day and spending my nights alone. I listen to people sleeping and the jealousy creeps in. Then I feel guilty for feeling like that. The thoughts about deserving this punishment circle my head and I end up getting angry at myself. Because he's always said it was my fault and therefore I must deserve this torture, right?

People act like I’m some sort of object, something with no feelings or something you can simply brush away whenever you feel like it. I catch a glimpse of being included, of being wanted, and then suddenly it's stolen once more and I'm replaced. Then that familiar black cloud covers me and again I stand alone trying not to fall. Trapped in the loneliness. So let me tell you about being lonely. There's a thousand ways to feel it. But my loneliness? Well I feel like I've got nothing and no one. That if I fall to the ground a hand won't reach down to help me up. You can have a long list of friends but if all of them are too scared to see you because of the way trauma has affected you, do you have any at all? I just need everything to be over because it's becoming more than I can live with. I don't care anymore about anything. When your own family abandons you, and leaves you alone crying on the floor, you start to believe nobody will ever truly want you. That everyone will leave and it hurts like hell every single time. So you become accustomed to being lonely. It's now become normal for me but this doesn't mean I feel comfortable with it. I'm just not used to people talking to me so I tend not to say much unless they do. And this breeds the loneliness further.

Do you know what it feels like to have your soul broken? When suddenly you become numb and you collapse into yourself completely. I know what it's like to be judged and how it would help to have a friend who doesn't judge me. Who doesn't treat my trauma reactions like some hilarious joke. It feels like people are afraid to love me just in case I disappear forever and I don't blame them. It's a real possibility that I will but they just don't understand. By keeping me at a distance it makes me long to vanish even more. Everyone needs someone. They need connections and without them the world is a very scary place. You feel like you're navigating it alone and the further you walk the more you realise you are simply walking in circles without knowing how to venture outside. You don't have the courage to continue down a narrow path without someone by your side. I've learned that people can give you something that nothing else can give. They make you feel like a person. You become a wanted and loved person. And right now, right at this moment, I've never felt so alone. Because no one likes to see me in this way; being unwell and unable to fix it quickly. They don't want to see the scars and the endless tears. They don't want to hear about the thoughts and urges. In fact they avoid it completely and that means they avoid me by default. Then who is left to save me and make me feel safe? No one.

I want to play hide and seek. I want someone to be my Olly Olly Oxen Free. Because every night my safety and security is snatched away from me by him. And I'm reminded of a life where nothing felt safe. No one felt safe. And that's the loneliest place to be. This is where I've lived for so long even if it's never felt like home.

Nothing.

It’s not romantic nor pretty,
the tears that trickle like an endless stream.
They differ in speed in a race to reach my quivering chin.
My mind races then slows to a sudden halt.
Do you ever feel an overwhelming emotion and then nothing?
Just nothing.
Like a heartbeat constantly changing beat.

My thoughts scream then whisper slowly.
I no longer fear them more than I welcome them.
My arms outstretched to tightly hold them close to my chest.
People break hearts.
They destroy reputations.
They sentence spirits to death,
and then perform complete destruction of souls.
Your thoughts echo people and they make choices for you.
Choices based on the opinions of people who break your heart.

Life is unpredictable.
You can’t control it.
Control is only an illusion to make it easier to sleep at night.
But this unpredictability can feel like being smothered.
It can make you feel powerless and then ambivalent.
Men appear to snatch it from you,
they tell you lies that you begged them to.
You asked them to.
Yet here I stand,
knowing control isn’t real for either of us.
Yet here I stand,
a creature obsessed with the illusion of control.

I am that person,
the one that tries not to,
but always manages to let people down.
That’s when the voices come,
that gentle hand appears on my shoulder.
It tells me people are better off without me.
That there is evidence to back this up.
And what exactly does that feel like?
Nothing.
It feels like nothing.
An endless nothing.
Just blank.

And it looks like nothing too.
You see I wear this smile like an actress,
to cover my pain.
But underneath my entire body fights with itself.
Scream.
Cry.
Say something.
That’s why I find isolation easier.
I can imagine living a sheltered life.
That way I’m no longer lying to others.
No longer lying to myself.

I feel loneliness trap me unexpectedly everyday.
It lingers for some time until I shake it away for a while.
As I write the word I am unconvinced it will ever go,
no matter how much I drag an eraser backwards.
Nothing left inside me feels able to fight.
I have no one and I can feel the water starting to rise,
it’s all around me.

I am beginning to drown under the waves of loneliness.
I reach for a hand,
but I can never quite hold it tightly enough.
I try to stay above water but I know I’m waiting,
waiting for the hurricane to hit.
Someone to add to my list,
which includes the people who have wronged me.
I’m an easy target,
and it’s open season.

As my body submerges into the deep blue,
I feel calm.
I don’t care if you want to knock me further into the water.
I don’t care if your hand pushes my head further in.
In fact,
I dare you.

Because no matter how much you try to take from me,
I hope you realise that you will forever leave with nothing.
I have nothing left inside me.
And if you try to collect the pieces of my broken heart,
let me warn you.
The edges are sharp and painful to touch.
They will make your eyes weep.
Blood will empty from your veins until,
just like me,
you have nothing left.

If your game is to break me in two,
you need to learn to walk away.
You won’t win.
Not because I believe you can’t break a person.
I know for a fact you can.
But you need to know that you can’t break what’s already broken.
And, honey, I was broken long ago.

Suicidal Thoughts.

What if the only way not to feel bad is to stop feeling anything at all, forever?

It's something I can't quite put into one sentence. Not one word can single it out. I could try to string the words together with a pretty bow but there's nothing pretty about the silent tears that fall down your cheeks. You can't romanticise the numbness as it seizes your whole body. The gasps sound so very desperate as you try to get up from the floor and you can't seem to find your footing anymore. You may have walked miles and climbed mountains but moving a millimetre feels too much. You wrap your arms around yourself as if to pretend you've got someone there. But as you open your eyes you notice there is no one to be found.

It's different for everyone but the outcome you crave appears so similar. Suicide can feel terrifying at some point but then suddenly it's this exciting dream. It's something that will confuse you if you've never felt this way before. Because of course it's human nature to want to live or so I've been told. You see, I get this feeling late at night and early in the morning. It manages to cloud that desperate need to want to grow and thrive. It makes me want to shrink and shrivel into the ground. To take up less space rather than encourage the world to see me.

Sometimes I tell myself I'm okay. I repeat it over and over in my head. It's constant. I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm scared that if this stops, even for a moment, I will drown in all the reasons I'm not. And to me that's like each one of my organs failing resulting in this empty feeling on the inside. I've always covered up the darkest of situations with a smile. This is where the trouble began, with that innocent smile. Because now I struggle to allow it to falter. Even a little bit. And maybe this is why I feel like I don't actually exist. To others I don't have my own voice. I desperately want people to know me; not the stuff they think they know. The real me. The me with and without suicidal thoughts. The me who cried herself to sleep on the floor behind a locked door last night. But also the me that can genuinely smile and giggle. The one you can lean on for support and love.

I just think that staying alive shouldn't be such a exhausting task. It's draining to think about and plan my death every day. Or actively work to avoid it. The thoughts can come and go but for now it's all I can think about. Last night I was hysterical in my bedroom on my hospital floor. I banged my head against the wall in a desperate need to knock the urges and thoughts out of my head. Maybe to even knock myself unconscious. But it didn't work and I slept on the floor under my sink. I woke up in tears at the prospect of another day being me. Living. A doctor once told me as he stitched up my wrist that life isn't for everyone. And at first I was shocked but then I realised how true that can be. I've lost four people to suicide this year alone. And it hurts that they have gone but they must have been in so much pain. Tortured by their mind. I can sadly relate.

People tell me to try a little harder. Become a little more motivated and not to spend my days in bed and my nights awake under my sink. They tell me like it's easy. But I've tried. I have tried so hard to be the good daughter. The good patient that doesn't self harm. The best friend people would want. To be good enough. But I've failed each time. And then people leave or give up on me. I just wish I wasn't so easy to give up, you know? Missing people comes in huge tidal waves and a lot of the time it feels like I'm drowning. That my tears are as thick and endless as the sea. So I try not to care and love so much but I always do. I usually love the people who hurt me the most; I'm not a very good judge of character. And I tend to look at my scars a lot and I love them only because they have stayed with me far longer than most people have.

You know I used to walk along bridges late at night? I'd see the sky reflected on the gentle water. So calm and peaceful. It's a very long way down to the bottom and I used to tell myself I needed to let myself sink. To be smothered and hugged tightly by the water. And I used to buy blades and vodka. The vodka to numb the physical and mental pain. The blades to end my life. I'd keep them as a "just in case" solution. A lot of people with suicidal thoughts do this. Ironically this usually prevents a suicide because you have access to the means and therefore you feel safer. It's comforting to know you can do it if things got that difficult. I do understand that this is very hard to get your head around if you've never felt suicidal.

My main driving force behind suicide is love. Again sounds rather strange because I guess people often want to live because of love in it's various forms. However, I find the problem with love these days is that if someone tells me they love me, instead of feeling cared for, I just wonder how long for. Days, weeks, months, or years? I worry and maybe that's why I never fully believe in love. I'm too scared to. And if I'm terrified of love then my reasons to live are much smaller than someone who welcomes love with open arms.

Where I Stood.

Saying goodbye is difficult.

It's one of the many life events people struggle with and let's be honest anything to do with change scares us. Factor in the loss of a person, or people in my case, and it feels like a part of you shrinks. That you're not whole anymore and you struggle to rationalise that this isn't permanent. That people will come and then leave behind those intolerable gaps. However, letting someone go doesn't mean a part of you is lost forever. It means that part of you changes. It has to. But the pain remains as a dull ache because that person mattered and they still do. Feelings don't disappear but they do fade or alter over time.

I've lost a lot of people in the last few years and some I've come to realise I may never get back. I always leave the door open for them in the hope that they might call and see me once more. These people mean more to me than living because connections form your life. And it's even harder when you don't completely lose them. You might get to see their faces in photographs which don't include you or you often see them in passing. But due to that decision to leave, you don't get to say anything to them and that increases the ache I spoke about which becomes a sharp throbbing pain.

For me the worst part is seeing them with someone else. That envy of another person standing where I stood. Listening to the same jokes I laughed at months before her. Seeing the way they smile and how much wider their smiles become compared to ours. But then if they are happy then surely they get to stand where I stood. Isn't that how it works? I know if I stood there the conversation would be different now; too much has changed. Smiles would be fake and laughter forced. But I don't know who I am without them; these people I let leave. I mean I did fight for them and it sometimes came across as desperate and needy even when I didn't want it to. But eventually I let them go because I know they wanted to and that they will find people who will lift them rather than almost drown them. You just can't stay once you know. Because knowing they want to leave and sitting across from them, trying to pretend they don't, often hurts more.

Just because it hurts more to stay it doesn't mean it's any less painful to let them go. Not all endings happen with waving hands and the loudest of goodbyes. Sometimes endings are 
made of teary eyes and the saddest 
of smiles. The ones that say we tried our best but in the end it didn't work out. Something went wrong and it's a mutual pain so really it's for the best to part our separate ways. I'm frequently reminded of the day I moved to a Women's Refuge with one suitcase when I decided to leave my family. I will never forget that moment when I realised I couldn’t live without them, nor will I forget the very same moment I knew I had to.

I'm still adjusting to it; this being alone feeling which I believed I would always handle. When you say your last goodbye you don't just lose that person, you lose the person you were when you were with them. The inside jokes. The clothes you chose to compliment their's. The way you did your hair. Even the things you wore because they bought them for you. The cinema tickets and the goofy photographs you absolutely hated them for being the one to take them and get the prints. Now they are stored in a box far out of your reach because you can't bare to even touch them yet. Or you worry you'll damaged them or lose them and then that's yet another loss. Some nights I try to remember how it felt to be loved by them. And on other nights I do my best to forget. It's a constant war between needing any reminders of their presence and wanting to forget them completely. It's all about wanting to destroy that pain. But in forgetting you lose be happy memories. Yes, you might lose the painful ones but also the beautiful life-altering ones. The ones that used to make those dark days a little brighter.

The hardest thing I’ve ever done is look at the way they looked at me with so much hate when once they looked at me with so much love. A family which was a unit broke apart and I will always feel responsible. And me leaving wasn't because of hate; it was because of love. I loved them enough to let them go. I said my last goodbye to my mother not so long ago after years of barely any contact. As the words fell from my lips I died a little bit more inside. That night I lay there in tears because I was alone. She wasn't there. And a part of me knew that maybe she never will be again. I can remember nothing but the words that she said to a friend once before, as I left the house in tears. You can have her. They were the most honest things to ever leave her lips. And I wish that she had lied.

Losing someone you love, well, it's something I can't quite put into one sentence. Not one word can single it out. I could try to string the words together with a pretty bow but there's nothing pretty about the silent tears that fall down your cheeks. You can't romanticise the numbness as it seizes your whole body. The gasps sound so very desperate as you try to get up from the floor and you can't seem to find your footing anymore. You may have walked miles and climbed mountains but now moving a millimetre feels too much. So you wrap your arms around yourself as if to pretend you've got someone there. But as you open your eyes you notice there is no one to be found.

I don't think I'll ever get over losing the people I love. But sometimes you realise you can't force someone to love you in the same way or the exact amount that you love them. You might never even hear the word 'love' roll off their tongue even when you say it every day. And somehow you've got to be okay with that eventually.