Mirror vs. me

Mirrors are my enemy. I hate all mirrors and anything that can hold my reflection in it.  If by accident I get a glimpse of my reflection, it sends a chill down my spine.  I don’t recognise the person who stares back at me, it’s not me. It’s not me anymore; it hasn’t been me for years. Maybe even ten years when depression got a hold of me, paving the way for more illnesses in years to come.

My eyes don’t sparkle anymore since M.E and depression sucked the life out of them.  They now look lifeless and empty. I have a permanent big dark circle round each eye, making me resemble a washed out panda,  now grey and white not black and white.

The skin that holds my face together is dull, pale and even translucent. My freckles now look like abandoned old smudges when painters are trying to get the right colour brown for a painting. My lips sport a constant frown and my frown is hardly ever turned upside down.

My lips are littered with bite marks,  a sign of my anxiety. I can gnaw away on my lips for minutes without realising it. I like it when my lips are sore, the tingling makes me feel alive inside, when I spend most of the time feeling like I’m part of the walking dead.

My face is no longer slender and long, not since I became ill with M.E and depression. Medication I take daily causes weight gain. Not taking them is not an option, so I can never win. My youthful face is now round, swollen and puffy. I feel like it has doubled in size like a football. 

I don’t like the new me, I look like a complete stranger, a tortured, lonely creature. Like someone has replaced me with a shadow of my former self. To be honest, I didn’t like the old me, but at least it was familiar, a reflection I recognised. I don’t recognise me now, and I don’t think I ever will. It’s just a horrible reminder of my life before illnesses took over my mind and body. It’s always someone else staring back at me in the mirror.

So mirrors are not my friends, they are my enemies and I doubt this will change.

Him

I hate it when my brain subconsciously tricks me into thinking I miss him, when I don’t miss him and I don’t want to miss him! He is part of my past and he should stay in the past. But why is everything reminding me of him? Triggering memories I buried years ago. That I want to stay buried. That I need to stay buried.

When one good memory of times we shared together pops into my head making me slightly miss you, ten bad memories follow suit.  Bad memories overshadow good memories because he always flipped from Dr Jekyll to Mr Hyde. For the last half of our relationship he saved the Hyde moments for me and only me. I was his unlucky victim.

He gradually pulled me apart with his words. His critical, judging, negative, hateful, disgusted words. Chipping away at me. Destroying me. Words can cause you harm even though you can’t see the wounds and bruises.  If words could cause harm I would have been littered with bruises which other people would have seen.  Maybe they would have realised what was going on and perhaps tried to protect me.

He tore apart the little self-confidence and self-esteem I had and left me vulnerable and exposed. He tried to mould me into what he wanted me to be. Didn’t he fall in love with me for who I was when we first met? Wasn’t it love at first sight? Or did he see the potential for a girlfriend he could sculpt into his ideal girl?

Maybe he wanted me to be his own Stepford Wife. Someone who followed his orders, constantly pleasing him, doing only want he wanted, following his commands and never talking back.

Why did I keep quiet about how he treated me? Why did I sufferer in silence? Why does our relationship stop me from meeting another guy? What’s holding me back? Will someone ever be able to love me and love me for who I am? Will someone be able to knock down the wall I’ve made around me? Or cut away the emotional baggage the invisible suitcases that are chained to me and go everywhere with me? Is the phrase – ‘once bitten twice shy’ true? Am I destined to be alone?

I don’t have any answers to the questions that bounce around my head. Like lottery balls ricocheting off each other.  The questions are screamed out inside my head for only me to hear.

One thing I definitely know is he couldn’t have genuinely loved me. That was not real love. It couldn’t have been. Does anyone have the answers? Where is my Knight in Shining Armour to rescue me? Who will show me what real love is?

Depression

When depression gets you its in every cell of your body, from the tips of your toes to the top of your head.

It sucks the life out of you from the inside out, making you feel hollow like a cheap chocolate Easter egg which starts to crack when touched.

It lingers on your every word when you speak, gushing out of your mouth like a cloud of invisible black smoke that only you can see.

It lives inside your brain like a parasite and suffocates any positive thought, memory and feeling with its spider-like tentacles. The parasite screams out every negative thought like a walling banshee that only you can hear.

It makes your heart feel like its empty and shrievelled making you unable to love and care for anything. Your heart beats so slow, you start to think you are a member of the walking dead.

Depression is here to stay and makes you forget who you were before it gets to you.

Pearls of wisdom from the future

Dear 20 year old self,

I thought I’d send you a letter as I know things have been extremely tough recently and you’re currently in the midst of your first breakdown and simply breathing and existing seems utterly challenging at the moment.

I know you wished that people hadn’t interrupted your ‘grand’ plans a few weeks ago and you are angry at everyone around you because they didn’t let you go. But they did the right thing if you didn’t realise it and you won’t do for years to come. But I promise you will, it will just take time. You need to stop believing that everyone will be better off with you being dead, because it’s not true.

At the moment you are cross with a lot of people particularly our parents. You may think they are smothering and mollycoddling, but this is their way of showing you that they care, support and love you. Yes, it might be hard to comprehend but they do love you, whether you choose to believe it or not.  Every parent loves their children even if they don’t say it to them every day.

Even though it was us who had the breakdown, they had to cope and deal with the aftermath. There wasn’t an ‘Idoit’s Guide’ available that covers how to cope when your child wants to end her life and has a breakdown. There’s no list of do’s and don’ts that they could follow to make things easier. They did their best, they tried to manage the situation as best as they could.

It must have been extra hard for them as they had to look after our sisters as well as look after me. They have to and still have to juggle their love and share it between the three of us. If they didn’t love you they wouldn’t have taken time off work to look after you during the day so you weren’t on your own. Do you think you would have had the courage to go to all your doctors and counselling appointments on your own under your own steam?

I know you think it’s the end of the world that your relationship with him didn’t work out, but you will find love again, though watch out as there probably will be a few more relationship bumps in the road over the next few years. Everyone finds break ups hard, but people don’t die from a  breakup or even a broken heart.

Just because you were doesn’t mean you are undateable and that you can’t be loved. Everyone knows it takes two to tango but it also takes two to make a relationship work. It wasn’t working, you hardly saw each other and you were growing apart because you were working in different counties during the week.

Towards the end when you were together you just argued or didn’t speak to each other at all. You started to shut him out as well as everyone else and he didn’t even notice. It wasn’t the best idea to send that fateful text when you accused him of cheating on you. Just because our first proper boyfriend cheated on you doesn’t mean every boyfriend after him will cheat on you. Not everyone is a cheater.

There is a guy out there for you, but you will only find him when you stop looking. Your friends will always tell you that you will met a guy when you least expect it and even though it hasn’t happened yet, it will do one day. But you need to change how you are and how you act when you are in a relationship. Guys do not find it attractive when you constantly refer to yourself the booby prize, it makes them sound like they have low standards and no taste and it can make them doubt the relationship.

When you start a relationship don’t change who you are so you turn into someone who you think they would prefer. Don’t let any boyfriend control you and what you do. Letting them control you means you lose yourself and what makes you  gets lost. You become a version of yourself that you think they will love more. But remember they started dating you for who you are. They were attracted to you, they chose you. There must have been something about you that caught their eye. Don’t doubt why they like you, just accept it. Don’t let your constant insecurities ruin your relationships.

I know you think that having a boyfriend will validate your existence but it’s not the case. It’s ok to be single, it doesn’t make you less of a person than any of your friends who are in relationships.

I know you find friendships really difficult especially after how you were treated throughout school. You have to learn that some friends come and go, but true friends will stay in your life. Remember this: good friends are like stars, you don’t always see them, but you know they’re always there. True friends will see who you really are and stick by you during bad times.

I know we struggle with control but starving yourself so you can shrink yourself to a size 6 is not the best way of gaining control. It’s not healthy and will only worry everyone around you. Being a lolly person and wearing children’s clothes is not a good look and pictures of you like this will haunt you forever. Try finding other things that you can control about your body, like the colour of your hair and nails.

You will still have body issues for your rest of your life but you need to accept that no one is completely happy with their body. If people say they are happy, then they are lying. Focus on the things you like about your body and not the things you don’t like. After all these years you still don’t love yourself, but you are slowly learning to like yourself.

For the rest of your life you will be battling with your mental health problems, collecting different diagnoses as you go. You will never be cured at some point in the future you will slowly learn to live with your mental health problems. It may feel like the doctors give out antidepressants like they were sweets but they know what they are doing. If they don’t think medication is working they will change what you are on so they can find what suits you.

Try and find the positives about having mental health problems, such as the people you will meet on your journey who also have mental health problems. Meeting these people will help you feel less alone. Remember quite a few famous people had mental health problems; such as Vincent Van Gough, Sylvia Plath and Winston Churchill so you are in good company. You need to learn to stop bottling things up and actually talk to people about how you are feeling. Bottling things up makes you feel a lot worse and you turn into a ticking time bomb.

I hope this letter is of some comfort to you and makes you feel a little better and less alone. I will leave you with one more piece of advice, which you should always remember: Just move forwards and don’t live in the past.

Love,

30 year old self x