Introductory Post: One Day Seekers

However much I tried to power on with my life, I always had an underlying conception the one day my tireless efforts would be rendered fruitless.  I knew that I could not run forever, no matter how hard I tried to labour under the illusion that I could.  I was constantly fighting this frightening premonition that one day I would crack, all I was doing was holding it off for as long as possible.  It happened though – I did crack and I suppose now you could say that I am dealing with the fragments that it scattered on my clouded reality.

I find myself attempting to begin writing this blog as my life seems to have hit a transitionary period and I guess a part of me hopes that this endeavour may later  represent the beginning of my journey out of it.  I can uncover no other way of introducing this blog other than revealing the pivotal event through which I found myself in my current situation.  

On the surface, I suppose many people (those I allowed close enough) would have described me as a successful and accomplished young lady.  Most people would have known me primarily for being a high achieving student.  One who sailed through her GCSEs with 11A*s and 2As, left college with 4 A levels and 2 AS levels all with A grades and then went on to university to gain a first class honours degree in Theology and Religious Studies.  This student achieved these grades while holding down a part time job for 5 years, competing nationally and internationally in karate, coaching a successful junior karate squad and looked after a horse.  She then worked full time as a learning support assistant and form tutor in a secondary school while studying part time for a masters degree and started the application process in the hope of gaining a place on a PhD programme at Oxford University.  I list my apparent 'achievements' in this manner not to boast, for I have never felt a sense of pride and accomplishment over any of these things.  I wish only to give a sense of how others may have perceived me or rather perceived the mask I wore.

A couple of months ago, I was hell-bent on ending my life.  I did not ever want to die.  I did not believe that there was any way in which such an act could be morally condoned, justified or forgiven.  I had lost members of my extended family to suicide and if I ever made a promise to myself, it was that I was not to take the same route as them.  Yet I saw my impending early departure from life as inevitable and unavoidable. 

I went to work one rainy day in April, although I don't remember getting up that morning or anything of my forty minute drive to get there.  I do recall hazily sitting in my usual spot in the staffroom, soon to face my class of twenty children and coming to the realisation that I was completely lost and could pretend no longer for myself, the students or anyone.  That morning exists in my memory as a series of surreal and foggy filmstrips in which my existence became played out to me.  Essentially, the whole affair culminated in two of my unsuspecting work colleagues stopping me from jumping off a cliff in the pelting rain.  

It feels uncharacteristically bold of me to introduce my blog by broaching the topic of suicide, which is so widely considered to be unspeakable and taboo.  So much of my previous life was consumed by secrets and facades that if I am to achieve anything remotely meaningful by means of this blog, I felt I could only begin from a position of absolute honesty.  I always think that it must appear completely ludicrous for any outsider to attempt to comprehend how a person could try to take their own life the 22 years of age.  Short of unveiling my whole life story, the only light I can shed on the matter momentarily is that beneath a seemingly together exterior lay a life bound together by a series of dark and troubled memories that a young girl filed away in her mind in the same obsessively orderly manner that she filed away her many books on perfectly symmetrical bookcases. If you overload bookshelves, the reality is that they break and that's what happened, there was only so much of her past that she could file away, especially when so much of it affected the present.  

In that moment though, where my work colleague stopped me in my tracks and I was taken away in an ambulance, the background story of my life, which I made increasingly failing efforts to hide, suddenly became the one in the foreground.  I could ignore it no longer and the only way forward was to confront it.

This will probably come as no surprise now but I am no stranger to the mental health services.  I suffer from depression, anxiety, complex post traumatic stress disorder, dissociation, auditory hallucinations, insomnia, OCD, body dysmorphic disorder, anorexia nervosa, food phobias and more recently I have been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder.  When you've been under the mental health services for a fair while, you seem to accumulate these labels which almost provide a textbook definition for the complexities that mar your mind.  I am not downplaying the problems that I suffer from or suggesting that such diagnoses are unhelpful. I am merely trying to express that I derive hope from a belief I hold dear to me that my mental health problems do not and will not define who I am as a person, there is far more to me and indeed to others than a bunch of labels.  This blog will serve as a means of sharing who I am, honestly and without embellishment.  Also, it is my hope that this sharing may help others in some way as in turn, I have always found the act of helping others to be a fulfilling and empowering one.  I don't claim to be an expert by any stretch of the imagination but it occurred to me that through personal experience I have gained considerable insight into a number of mental health problems that others may learn or discover something from.

I have been interested in the world of Internet blogging and vlogging for a number of years.  Originally, I started by looking at YouTube videos of young girls chartering their journeys with their much loved horses.  I later began following a number of beauty, fashion and lifestyle bloggers.  For some reason, the whole YouTuber phenomenon really fascinated me.  The idea that viewers can derive so much appreciation from watching daily vlogs of people carrying out incredibly normal and everyday tasks. I suppose it offers snippets or a small slice of the world we wouldn't have seen before and I have always believed that people as a whole are subconsciously seeking something beyond their own existence.  I believe that we are all seekers in some way.

One of my friends began a fashion/beauty blog a couple of years ago and she has always encouraged me to do the same.  I am just slightly obsessed with clothes, probably have quite an unusual dress sense at times and I'm always trying out various creations on my hair.  The idea did always tempt me to some extent but the main thing that stopped me from going ahead was my job.  There have to be limits to the amount of information a student can know about the personal lives of the staff who are responsible for their care in school and hence the idea of me publicising some of my life and interests over the Internet did not seem sensible one to me.  Also, I thought that the whole pursuit would just end up serving to thicken the mask that I used to shield the world from my true identity.  This blog shall give a more true and well rounded depiction of myself and it is for that reason that it will remain anonymous.

While I said that I hope to write quite extensively about the topic of mental health, I am aware that it could get quite heavy and dark in places. My mental health problems may have a considerable impact on my life but my battle to overcome them is certainly not the only part of my life.  I therefore plan to also make posts about some of my other interests or about anything I think other people might find interesting or useful.

I title this blog 'One day...' as it is a phrase that has always stuck in my mind in a positive way.  In conversation, people often reveal some of their deepest hopes and aspirations for themselves and the world around them by introducing them with the phrase 'one day'.  I have for a long time laboured in a dark place where it can become so easy to render myself completely incapable of achieving anything in my life and I can so quickly find any glimmer of hope I once had swiftly fading away from me.  However, I cling onto the realisation that all the while I am able to say that, "There are things in my life that I find difficult or seem impossible at the moment but perhaps one day it can be different." I realise that I am in fact on a journey to make that 'one day' a reality.  Recovery is a word that goes hand-in-hand with change, it is dependent upon it.  'One day...' is a phrase that is so full of hope in my eyes, it is idealistic yet realistic at the same time. It suggests a commitment to change or to make something happen yet it does not set unrealistic expectations or constraints on when such a thing must be achieved.  It is timeless yet happening and I believe that is what makes the concept so profound.

Thank you for taking the time to read these ramblings of a one day seeker.