So I went AWOL for a little while … I got sick, I hit rock bottom, I struggled to cope, my baby girl turned up early, our finances crashed and my eldest sons relationship with his dad slipped even further down hill. But I am back I’ll fill in some gaps but for now.

“I am the girl who suddenly stopped talking because I felt like I was bothering people”

Words I found by typing “I hate myself” into a Google image. That search was a hopeless action, there was no reason for it I didn’t expect it to do any good, but it did eventually. Here is how it happened …

I found a load of images which led me to this post full of quotes from people expressing how that self loathing feels. Almost every phrase resonated with me and I wanted to shout out and tell the world how it is, how badly it hurt, but I didn’t, I didn’t deserve the attention I didn’t deserve to be heard, I wasn’t interesting enough for it to matter. Then life carried on until that evening when I had a few moments to myself and posted this.

The first few people responded with tearful faces, next came comments with sympathy and I realised that wasn’t what I wanted or needed. Yes it is sad to have felt that way but I talked, I shared, I let the world know how I felt and that is something incredible.

The thing is I am passionate about understanding and supporting people struggling with mental health issues. I understand the vicious cycle of isolation, you can feel so alone and yet you walk through your life looking utterly normal and no-one not even your closest friend or family member knows the struggle boiling away underneath. You stay silent believing the self-talk that you are nothing, you deserve nothing, and when you speak you tell yourself that you don’t have the right to be heard, so the words come out in a nervous way filled with shame. For those who are struggling the shame is at ourselves at our inability to be “normal”, to cope with what everyone else does. For society the shame becomes attached to the disorder we are trying to talk about until mental health, depression, anxiety become dirty words. So the shame is worse and we don’t talk and the sense of isolation, of being alone and different grows. The more shame the more we hide.

This is wrong only by talking can we help ourselves or help anyone else. This blog is a blog about family, about household management, about cooking and kids and crafting, but more importantly this is a blog about being real. Anxiety and depression are a real part of my life and I refuse to be ashamed of that any more, I will do my best to get better, I will try to be honest with you about that journey, I hope it will help!

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