Hope Wins

It’s New Year’s Eve. This year has hit some major milestones in my life. I turned 25 in February (and had a party full of my wonderful supportive friends), graduated in June with a degree in Theology, and was proposed to by my wonderful Dan in September. In October I moved into my first home that wasn’t either living with family or in halls, and I started my first full-time job. In so many ways I was the happiest I’d ever been and happier than I’d ever thought I’d be. I achieved things I’d always wanted to and stumbled on joys I had only imagined.  I was blessed abundantly. I had everything I ever wanted in life.

Or almost everything.

Around Easter Dan noticed a change in my mood. I recognised it. It was depression, an illness I’d already fought with and thought was long gone. But it came back with a vengeance in 2015. The only thing I still want in life is peace of mind.

2015 has been a year of joy. But it has also been a year of struggle and pain. Hidden inside my head and heart has been a battle I almost lost and a weight I can hardly bear. I’ll be writing about it more on this blog in 2016.  I want to talk about how it has hurt me so you might better understand this secretive illness, and how I cope with it so that you might find ways to live with it too. 

If you’ve found this post from the link I posted on facebook, chances are you know me personally. So in the last year you’ve seen me laughing and smiling and joking. When we’ve talked I’ve seemed to be having a good time. Perhaps I told you my great new anecdotes from my new work, or about the adventure we’ve been having with my new house.  Or I’ve told you with a smile about how Dan proposed and showed off the ring he designed for me. A lot of that has been genuine….but sometimes I’ve been pretending. I’m getting very good at faking happy when I’m not. But that means that unless I want to show you I’m depressed, you probably won’t have realised how ill I am. I preferred to pretend I’m ok.  After I had to be signed off sick from work because I was too stressed to go on, I didn’t tell you, I just pretended it was a day off. On the days I could fake a smile to cover my hurting feelings, I did. On the days I couldn’t I hid. I cancelled my plans and made excuses. I even stayed hidden in my room while you were visiting my housemate. Between faking it and hiding, I’ve ensured almost no one knows quite how ill I actually am.

 Lying and hiding are far easier. If I tell you I’m fine, I won’t have to tell you that I self-harmed today. If I smile and change the subject, you’ll think my life is going ok and not know I’ve had to quit my perfect job because of this illness. If I hide on my bad days, you won’t see the messy, tearful me who can’t cope today.  I have good days and bad days. On my best days I’m entirely normal, healthy and whole. On my worst days….well read the previous post. On my worst days I lose hope and wonder about suicide. I hate those days, and never want to go through another one. But they keep coming.   

I’m sick of facing it alone. I’m fed up of lying to you. Lying and hiding work for a moment, but they leave me and Dan to face this alone. For 2016 I’m blowing the lid on this conspiracy. I’m struggling, I’m ill, I’m hurting, I need help. This blog is a safe way for me to talk to you. Writing it down doesn’t hurt as much as talking to you. If I burst into tears, you won’t see it. If I’m not able to write that day, I won’t have to. So welcome to my blog friends and family. I’m writing it for you.  

But there is one thing that I cling to: hope wins. I’ll write about that in 2016 too.