This is about my own experience with mental health.
Sometimes I don’t feel positive. There is no other way to say it. Sometimes I feel horrendous. Positivity and despair can turn up in the same hour. And despair is the guest that the vast majority of people in my life don’t see. Actually no-one sees. They may feel the aftermath. The whispered subdued. The slow remnants of anxiety and grief. But the journey through the storm is one that I weather alone. Passing ships can see me headed that way and they may be aware of the warning signs that mean my course is set. But they know that my grief is a solo voyage. I reach out just to make sure they can still see me and that they are near by should I lose control of my ship. But my battalion know this is my personal fight. They know, probably more than I do sometimes, that I am well equipped to deal with what lies ahead and that ‘help’ is not what I need. They do know that sometimes I just need them to anchor me down while I temporarily slay my own personal demons. You see these demons will never leave me. They are my shadows. And slaying them is not my objective. It’s not the goal. I must work with them. I must manage them. Because we need to co-exist on my terms. Terms that allow me to live a life of hope, love, courage and abundance. The terms that allow me to have a greater understanding of compassion and empathy.
The sadness I sit in can be overwhelming. The emptiness I feel can be deafening. The sea of despair I swim in can be paralysing. There are days that I wake up knowing I will have a fight on my hands. Sometimes the best I can do it to let the demons run free, halting any plans I may have had. Letting them exhaust themselves. Until I am strong enough to tame their tired tears and wounded hearts into submission again.
Sometimes the fight is inevitable. And experience tells me that the harder I try to ignore their pleads for space to express their melancholy cries, the worse they are when I do finally back down.
So I do feel these things.
I might not choose to let you in to watch me lose battles. I don’t need your advice on how to handle them, because even though they pull out every trick in the book to take me down, I still know the best way to fight or not fight them.
That doesn’t mean I don’t need you. I’ll always need you. Hold my hand, cuddle me close, stand strong when I am weary. But these are my battles and this too shall pass.