Pressure

Hi everyone. Long time no see. ❤

This is the first time in 2 months that I have posted. Quite honestly, to begin with, I was ashamed of myself, feeling the pressure of “needing to update my blog”. I have been thinking constantly about this blog, but it is always pushed to the back of my mind as “unimportant”… “no, you have too much to do already”. And I felt guilt for this. I still do to some extent.

I don’t think that’s the only reason I have been neglecting this blog, however; this impending feeling of having too much on my plate to bother my time with writing. As with many things in my life, I have been having doubts… that I am being seen as an attention seeker in writing this blog. That maybe, just maybe, I really am over-exaggerating what I am experiencing. That people will tell me I’m being dramatic, over-the-top. That I am becoming The Girl Who Constantly Rants and Raves About Anxiety. That I am impeding on people’s lives with my talk about mental health, making them feel uncomfortable, upset, annoyed, or, in the case of my loved ones, worried and fearful for my health and safety.

But the truth is.

This is me.

This is what I live with, every day.

Why should it be seen as taboo?
Why are we so afraid to talk about mental health? Seriously talk about mental health; not just what they teach in schools, but how we REALLY FEEL and what we REALLY THINK.

Tonight I thought about why I started this blog in this first place. Why, seriously why, am I so passionate about mental health? Because… people are still living in silence. There are still people out there in the world, millions of them, too afraid to speak up because WE have it embedded in our brains not to talk about the inner clockworks of our minds. WE are barring them, and ourselves, from the compassion and respect and understanding that we ALL deserve. A world where we can share things freely, and not to be afraid or insecure anymore… that is what I long for. And so that is why I write, and why I share my writings with the world, despite my incredible fear and immense anxiety, despite every fibre in my being telling me NO – DO NOT SHARE THIS WITH THE WORLD!

Well, you know what? I want to prove that little voice wrong. Maybe it won’t ever go away. That’s okay. It’s a part of me too. You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t have fear. However, our world is so accustomed to telling us to hide away our fears; to be strong, to always get back up, to laugh, to smile, to be perfect in every way shape and form.

No.
I’m here to say, no.
That is why I have made this blog. To say no in the face of mental illness stigma. To preach, as much as possible, that it is okay not to be okay. Always. In sharing my story, if I can move at least one person to speak up about their inner demons, if I can convince one person to stay on this earth, if I can remind one person that they are so beautiful and needed and worthy of this life… then my purpose is fulfilled. I feel this wholeheartedly.

Then I started to think about how this blog has changed ME. I feel as though in the smallest but most significant ways possible, this blog has opened up traits in me that I never thought I had… I am able to express my thoughts and feelings with less fear, I am becoming more content with myself, more open with my loved ones, more open with myself, more at peace, more accepting, more confident in the person I am, and just… happier. If it weren’t for this blog, I really do feel as though I would still be possessing a lot more self-hate and fear of being open about my mental health. That’s not to say that I don’t still hold some self-resent and fear… but I have realised how immensely this blog has helped me on my journey. It has been so cathartic to write about my struggles, my recovery, my relapse back into struggling, my recovery again, as the cycle continues… Writing has always been there for me.

So… if you want to know the reasons why I decided to suppress my fear tonight once and for all… there they are.
I want, more than anything, to help others. And to help myself.
And, as I see it, this blog is a pretty good place to start.

However… I have also remembered that I have actually done brilliantly in my first term of year 12. There have been a lot of obstacles, both in terms of school and my mental health, and I have powered through them all like a queen. And you know what, I am proud of myself.
So that is why I am not apologising for not having posted in the past few months… because this blog is for me to help others, to help myself, at my own pace. The whole point of this blog is to teach others to put their mental health first. And you can bet that I will be putting that into practice as much as I can.

So… I won’t be saying that I will write to you all soon. I will instead say, that I will write to you when I write to you. When I feel passionate about something, or creative, or needing to write. Not because I feel “pressure” to.

Lastly… I want to thank you for reading this. You.
You are beautiful.
You are needed.
You are worthy.
Your thoughts and feelings are valid.
And you have so much left to give ❤

Exhaustion

Processed with VSCOcam with t1 preset Hey everyone. So I haven’t updated in a while.

If I’m honest with you all, the past four weeks have been especially draining on me, having started back at school for my final year of high school. A lot of expectations, a lot of pressures have been riding on my shoulders. Mainly from myself, being a perfectionist and over-achiever.

Funnily enough, my mental illnesses have been barring me from posting on here, my mental health blog. Lately I have felt a mental block in my mind. As in, an actual slab of concrete that just bars me from having some or even any motivation. That is the best way I can describe it. I have been experiencing depressive episodes far more frequently due to heightened stress and anxiety; my most recent one started on Friday, leaves temporarily for a few hours, then another freak-out kicks in and I’m back on my depressed path. It’s still here. Squeezing my chest, plaguing my mind. Most days of the week I get home and have a breakdown, and either have to keep carrying on with what I need to get done, or have no choice but to limit or cut down my work load because I am too depressed or anxious to continue.

Tonight I feel super depressed and low on confidence. It just affects all aspects of my life. My schoolwork, for starters. I struggle with self confidence and motivation, my productivity or performance in school decreases, I get lower grades than what I was hoping for or a talking to by my teacher, and then I feel even more doubtful of myself. It’s such a cruel cycle. I just wish it would end.

I know a lot of people who meet me, even a lot who know me well, would say that I am an extremely motivated person. I guess, in some aspects, this is true. The way that I see myself, however, is not motivated. I am literally driven by fear of not succeeding or being less than what I expect of myself, despite EVERYONE in my life telling me that my best try is good enough, and so I run myself into the ground until I have a meltdown, whether that’s at school or at home. It’s happening so frequently. And no matter what people tell me – friends, family, teachers – no matter what they say or how many times they say it, no matter how much I want to start doing what they say, I CANNOT, for the life of me, slow down.

Genuinely, I am starting to believe it is something ingrained in me, this perfectionism. This need to run myself into the ground. To burden myself with exhaustion. I honestly feel as though if I am not exhausted, then I am not trying hard enough… even though I don’t WANT to be exhausted!

I am trying so hard to do everything they’re telling me to. Self care, regular exercise, drinking heaps of water, voicing my feelings, taking breaks. But for a person like me, taking breaks is not so simple as a click of a finger. I constantly feel the need to get absolutely everything done in one sitting, and so forcing myself to take a break requires immense strength. I don’t think people actually realise how much strength it actually takes me. That in itself is exhausting. And – even though I know this is a trick of my mind – I feel extremely guilty for taking breaks. I feel like I should be doing something. I feel like I need to run myself into the ground again. I NEED to feel my exhaustion. Otherwise, where am I heading to? At the same time, I am finding it extremely difficult to concentrate, both in class and at home, and I know this is because I am hardly ever taking breaks, and when I do I don’t allow them to be restful.

I am also constantly feeling like I am behind on ‘schedule’ all of the time. No matter how much work I’m putting in to everything. There is always a mountain of things left to complete… and every day that mountain gets bigger. Surely this cannot be true. Surely I am not as behind in things as my mind is telling me I am, because of the sheer amount of work I am doing, right from when I get up every morning at 6-7am up until 9-10pm at night at the earliest. One thin is for sure… The mind is a powerful tool… often used against me.

It’s currently 11:52pm on a Tuesday night. Not the best time to be up and contemplating thoughts. But when has my brain ever abided by that rule? Overthinking is my speciality. But I am so in desperate need of sleep… I wish I could just let go of all this self doubt, self loathing, self degredation and do what I’m coming to school for, do what I love doing… TO LEARN. Why does my brain have to bar me from that? There is so much I want to do. I just feel so physically restricted by my own head. Why is that? How is that?

Maybe one day we’ll be able to answer those questions… for now I just need to accept my mind is racing. I hope tomorrow I will wake up and feel differently to how I’ve been waking up these past 4 weeks… like I don’t want to wake up again. I will keep persisting. There is, however, a fine line between persisting and fighting against mental illness, and pushing myself until I break. I hope one day I can find balance on that fine line. Until then, I will keep on trying my best to cope…

Despite my insomnia, my anxiety, and my anxiety about my insomnia, writing this out has actually helped me feel less sick to my stomach. I’ve been neglecting my writing a lot lately, and not just on here. Fear of people judging me, of being offended or triggered by what I say, fear of being seen as inadequate in other’s eyes as well as my own, and my mental block as I said earlier have all been restricting me from being able to let my words flow as usual. As I’ve said… it’s been a difficult past few weeks.

Goodnight beautiful people. I send my love to you. Remember you are all full of worth, you all make this world brighter, and you are never alone. My instagram DMs on @breannas.blog and email inbox are always open ❤

Until next time… hopefully soon 🙂

Keep fighting xx<3

What Depression Feels Like… A Unique Story to Everyone

…And this is my take, on the story of depression. Keep in mind that others experience depression differently. This is mine.

It’s back.

The blanket feeling.
The sinking emptiness.
The hollowness in my core.

It’s back and I don’t want to deal with it. I can’t stand it when I know there are people who are entitled to suffer, who have reason. Me? My reason is the sinking emptiness in my pit. It is no reason at all.

I feel guilty for being here. I feel like I am triggering others. But I don’t want to hurt anyone. I want so desperately to help others, to help myself…

Yeah, the emptiness is back. I feel it grasping outwards from the very core, the very centre of my being, reaching its tendrils out to link onto every fibre of my body and pin me down, pin me down into this nothingness, this horrible entity of nothingness. I am choking, choking in its grasp.

I want to cry. I force myself to cry. But the truth is that crying does nothing to take away my emptiness. I cannot feel anything, but the feeling of being a weight. Sinking further, further, into the abyss, like heavy rocks seeking the bottom of the ocean.

Time is immeasurable right now. I look at my phone screen after what seems to me like 5 minutes has passed, when in actuality I have been lying here encased in my blanket feeling for over an hour, shut away from my family and everyone I care about. But I can’t bring myself to see them. I can’t bring myself to talk, to anyone. I feel as though I’ve reverted back to my old ways, to the dark days where my depression was ever-present and clutched me daily, shutting me away from the world. It brings back horrible memories, where I felt completely and utterly alone in my terrible abyss of nothingness. This loneliness impends on me, like the increasing darkness of the sky outside my window. I missed the sunset tonight. Something I wanted to see. Now all colours are gone.

The truth is, I haven’t felt like this in weeks. It’s always been there, this dark empty nothingness, its tendrils tapping on my shoulder like an impatient lady’s freshly manicured nails on a desk. Waiting. Waiting for the moment I slip up, even just slightly, before it swallows me entirely. I’ve just been so busy, I have had so much relying on my functioning mind and body, that I pushed, pushed, pushed this blanket feeling away with all my strength and might. “No, I will not let this take over my body! I will not let this take over my life.”

All I can say now, however… is that I believe I fought brilliantly for those few weeks that I kept my depression monster at bay. But now it’s time for me to rest at the feet of this monster. It’s time to feel the gnawing pains that have been slowly dragging me further and further down. I must feel them, I need to feel them… because if I keep fighting it, I’m going to break. And I don’t want to break. So instead I succumb to my monster… I let the tendrils wash over me… the blanket muffle the world around me… until I rise out of it again. I know I will rise out of this again, because I always do. I just need to accept this is where I need to be at this moment… and remember, that every storm does pass.

I will feel the pain of numbness tonight. And tomorrow I will wake to the sunrise, and it will be a new day. Maybe the pain won’t go away, maybe I’ll still be muffled, maybe I’ll still have the despair clutching to my core. But I will see the sunrise, and know that I have power beyond words imaginable, because I. Will. Get. Through. This.

Yes, it’s back. But each time it comes back, I am stronger than I was when it last found me. Because I have lived through every single night it’s come back. I’m a survivor, and I’m not giving up now.

“It’s just another night,
and we’ve had many of them.”
❤ Bastille ❤

The Girl in the Photo (An Early 2019 New Year’s Resolution)

Today I want to talk to you all about the girl in this photo.

This photo was taken around this time last year. Nearing Christmas, having just finished school term for the year and taking a long deserved break, this girl was on her way to Melbourne to visit her well-missed family, whom she hadn’t seen in a few years. This photo was taken by her father, who had driven her up to the airport in the early morning, sending her off with love and well wishes. This photo was taken right before she left to board her plane. Alone. Hunched over, embracing her pillow in a lung-crushing embrace, scared to let it go out of fear she would become imbalanced and topple over. Smiling awkwardly and shyly, painfully, to try and mask how absolutely terrified she was feeling in that moment.

Admittedly, this girl was petrified of heights. She had been on planes before, but not for a long time, and never without the comforting presence of her parents right beside her. She had also been watching a TV series called Lost around this time, whose story plot revolved around an airplane crash.

But I know, looking back on this photo, taken a little over a year ago, this wasn’t all that this girl was afraid of.

This girl was afraid of loss.
This girl was afraid of the inexplicable fear that gripped her daily.
This girl was afraid of the despairing emptiness that so clutched at her heart.
This girl was afraid of herself.

How many nights did she spend tucked away in a corner, weeping to be rid of her thoughts? I cannot say; there were so many, she must have lost track. How long did she let herself suffer, by sitting in her silence? For too long. So much to say, yet so much left unsaid. Why did she hate herself, despise every inch of her outer and inner self, when she still gave so freely to others? Why did she feel the need to conceal all that was sure to burst out of her sooner or later? Because it was going to happen. And it did.

I guess I will never know the answers to these questions. What I do know, however, is that I now need to put these questions behind me. I need to let this poor girl go. Because this girl was me. But she is not anymore.

A year ago today, I was so afraid of myself. So afraid that I was ashamed. I was ashamed to be who I was. I was ashamed to have such dark and horrible thoughts about myself, when everyone around me was telling me how great I was. “Why can’t I just believe them? Why can’t I just be great like they say I am?” I don’t know, beautiful. I really don’t. I don’t know what was barring me from accepting who I was. All I know is that something bad was eating away at me last year. It had been gnawing on me since an early age, and last year I finally started to feel its effects. I started to feel like I was becoming the monster that once fed off of me.

The year of 2017 was a dark place for me. Everything was numb. I felt hopeless, worthless, devoid of colour. I wanted so desperately to be rid of myself. To just get out. The year of 2018 brought me some of my most difficult obstacles to overcome yet. It also brought me some of the most breathtaking scenery, and life-lasting memories that I will never forget and will sustain me until I’m old. The year of 2018 brought me out of my dark hole, but it took me to such extreme highs that it in turn caused me to come barrelling down – not back into my hole, but to the ground, with such force that it often knocked the wind out of me and left me paralysed. Left me to pick up my shattered pieces again and again and again and again. It was an oscillating graph, a fluctuating rollercoaster that did not stop even when I begged and pleaded for it to.

The year of 2019, however, is like a light, drawing closer and closer to me. This present year saw me at my highest moments and my most extreme lows, and left me exhausted for most of it. But this year has also made me stronger. It’s made me hungry. Hungry to change. Not out of hate for myself; to change for the good. Hungry to make a difference. Hungry to make something of myself. Hungry to learn. Hungry to be hungry. The year of 2017 left me broken. The year of 2018 left me devastated. But the year of 2019, will be my year. I can feel it in my pulse.

The change in myself that I am most amazed at, however, is over the past 5 months. 5 months ago, I was still scared of myself. Still loathing to be in my own skin. Still living in fear. It is over these 5 months that I officially began my journey of self-recovery. It is over these 5 months that I discovered the true meaning and importance of self-compassion, and how to build it for myself. It is over these 5 months that I realised my worth as a human being and a young woman, that I realised just how freaking awesome that I am. And you know what? I truly believe that I kicked the year of 2018 in the ass. This year threw me to the ground so many times, and every single time I got right back up. Whether I got back up with a hardened stare and square shoulders, or I got back up crying and damaged for all to see, I don’t care. Because I STILL GOT BACK UP. (Take that, mental illness.)

I am still learning to love myself. There are some days where I am totally in love both with my body and who I am inside, but there are also some days where I feel like I sink back into my hole of self-loathing. And that’s okay. Recovery is not linear. Recovery is guaranteed to come with relapses. What I have learnt in the past 5 months, is that this is okay.

Looking back on this photo, and even looking back on the girl I was 5 months ago, I am blown away by how much I’ve changed, for the better. I have not changed the person I am inside, but I have become so much stronger, so much more resilient, and I am so proud of myself (though I am still terribly afraid of heights!). Dare I say it, but I am proud of this fragile girl who was once me. I owe all of this to her, after all, for she was the one who opted for my recovery. And I thank her for it.

So, this is my new year’s resolution: 2019 is going to be my year. What I mean by this, is that I am no longer going to hide in fear. I am going to start putting myself first. I am going to be more aware and conscious of myself in that I do not put too much on my plate even if I feel at the time like I can handle it, and to focus not just my studies but all aspects of my life in important areas instead of just trying to do everything like I did in 2018, which is what broke me a thousand times over. And I am going to more frequently devote set time for myself, really devote time for myself, where I can just appreciate sitting with my thoughts, and do what I like to call ‘checking in with myself’. But most importantly, I am going to accept me for who I am, anxiety and depression and flaws and all, no matter what. Because I am doing the best I can.

Yes. 2019 will be my year. Because I am the stronger Breanna, the Breanna with fire in her soul rather than an empty matchbox.

And you know what, my loves?

2019 is your year, too. Whatever you make out of it. ❤

Another Blogger’s Note…

Hey everyone.

How are all of you doing?

I know it’s been a while since I’ve written on here. If I am honest with you, I have been struggling a lot lately. Both my anxiety and depression have been flaring up more than usual. I mean, it’s always constant, but lately I’ve been experiencing extreme highs and crashing lows that literally leave me devastated, often ending my days curling up in my bed and filling my nights with crying.

I guess the reason for it all, though there are probably many reasons (and in that sense, no reason at all except for the fact that mental illness is not picky over the times it presents itself), is the fact that my exam week was last week. I’ve been working so hard up until that point all year, and I filled that week with intense cramming, so it left me exhausted by the end of it. The next week, which was the week just gone, I got all my exam results back. And to me they weren’t pretty.

I know I should be extremely proud of myself for getting through that week. Even the fact that I SAT those exams is a massive achievement considering what I went through that week in my head. But I’m not proud. If I am honest again, I’m ashamed in my results. Call me a perfectionist, tell me that I’m too hard on myself, but I am so disappointed in myself. It is just so incredibly disheartening to work so hard for something, to give it your everything, and to fall short. I’ve been there loads of times. I’m sure you have too.

Even though I’m feeling really low about myself at the moment, I’m trying to not let it get in the way of looking after myself, though it can be really hard at times. I’m also trying to remind myself that it’s okay to feel like this. It’s okay to be disappointed. It’s also okay to be angry. You have the right to feel those things because you are human and that’s what humans do; we do things we’re not proud of and we feel like shit. But feeling all of this is so important. You can’t get to the other side, you can’t pick yourself up and prove that you are strong, without having gone through the battle field first. Take a few hits. Cry over them. Even if it takes weeks or even months to get over. But don’t wallow for too long… you need to pick yourself up off the ground at some point.

So yeah, I’m not going to let this defeat me. When have I ever let anything defeat me? The answer is: never, because I am still breathing. Some day soon, I am going to pick up my scattered pieces, look at them, and figure out where the best place is to stick them back together. In a few days, or weeks, (however long I need really), I’m going to pick those exams right back up and work through them so I can figure out where I went wrong and what I can do to improve. When I go back to school next year for my final year before uni, I am going to go to my teachers, having already gone through my exams on my own, and work with them to help me improve even more. I am going to use this anger and disappointment as my fire, I am going to turn it into motivation and drive, and that is what makes me strong and will get me through to the other side.

For now, though, yeah – I’m gonna let this all wash over me. Then I’m gonna forget about it for a while, and give myself permission to relax. I need to find myself again. I neglected so many of the things that I love by prioritizing my study, so over the next few days I’ll be reacquainting myself with things that make me happy – ie, reading mountains of books for hours on end whilst drinking tea, spending the entire day with friends and actually being a teenager by having fun, riding horses and cuddling animals, etc. Those things are important too. If you’re not doing things that make you happy, or at least give you reprieve from stress, then what’s the point of doing the hard stuff?

I think the other thing that has steered me away from writing on here is the feeling that my writing has been going stale. I haven’t even been writing poetry as of late because I just don’t feel my creative juices flowing, or my motivation to do anything at all, for that matter. You have no idea the amount of times I’ve tried to write a blog post and stopped immediately or halfway through, or deleted an Instagram post that I’ve written, because I feel like it’s not good enough. I don’t want my writing to become a chore. It’s something that I love to do, and if I feel like my passion for writing has gone stale, something must be seriously wrong. So I guess I’ve been trying to steer clear of that happening.

I can feel myself coming out on the other side of my writer’s block, however. Still, I’m going to take my time. I want to apologise for not writing as much as I promised. Or keeping up with regular updates on Instagram. But, I guess, at the very least, this can be a reminder to you all, to prioritize self care, and to put yourself first. It seems I need to do a lot of work to catch up on that aspect of my life.

I’ll get there though. And so will you 🙂

Anyway, I also wanted to thank all of you who have stuck by my side, to everyone who reads my posts, whether it’s on Instagram or WordPress. All of you are truly beautiful souls. And helping you through my words is a massive help to me, too. Even if sometimes my presence on here isn’t all that regular. Thank you for being patient with me, and understanding that I go through these episodes…

I think this has been my longest depressive/anxious episode for a while. It’s lasted for 2 weeks and I can’t see a way out of it right now. But I have lights in my life that I’m reaching out to right now. And even if my writing isn’t at its best right now, I will always have my love for it.

So… thank you. For everything. I will hopefully be back soon.

Until then… take care of yourselves. 🙂 ❤