Hello friends

In making this blog, I stumbled across some previous blogs I actually have on blogger, which I had completely forgotten about and figured they were lost to the internet space at this point.

But here they are, in all their 2012 me glory.

I was trying to write a book in 2012...if you can believe it. I had dreams, hope for the future. I was certainly a very different person back then. The thought of writing a book actually makes me want to laugh like a crazy person because that is an insane amount of work and I have no idea why I thought I could do it.

But I realised I thought I could because the weight of the world hadn't quite weighed me down yet, it hadn't beaten my spirit black and blue. I had faith in myself, and even though I didn't end up writing a book, I was damn eager to try. And I really believed that I could.

What followed this bright, ambitions and hopeful version of me is the hardest 10 years of my life. Depression and anxiety fogged my brain and the light in my eyes turned grey. Therapy, happy pills, mistakes, heartbreaks all took over my life and swallowed me up. I couldn't find a way out, and all I could see was darkness and there was no light at the end of my tunnel. I was drowning and no one could (or wanted to) hear me scream.

I have many regrets during this stage, as I am sure most do who experience the same. I hate to think of the opportunities I must have missed simply because I could not see through the darkness, they were not visible to me. I made some terrible mistakes and hurt the person I love the most. Thankfully this person stuck by me and has truly proven they are the one for me, because I don't think anyone else would have stayed.

When I was a young girl in primary school and early secondary school, so age 10-13 I suppose, I loved writing, I did so many extra assignments outside of classes just to impress my teachers and when they would say "You have so much potential, you should keep at it and maybe you could be a writer" I didn't want to laugh in their face at the absurdity of that remark, I believed them. And I suppose the teenage years caused that to flicker away, as I was trying to be "cool" and fit in, no time for writing, but reading kept that tiny flame aglow. I really loved to read.

When I was no longer at school, and was a fresh faced girl, just dropped out of university, in denial of the evident depression beginning to consume me, when some flicker of light was still burning in my soul, I tried again. And I recall I enjoyed it very much, despite the lack of reception for my writing, I enjoyed the process, I did it for me.

But slowly the depression took over, and that version of myself got locked inside a dark, dank cupboard in my mind. Fingertips bloody from clawing at the door, screaming to be set free. Eventually, she gave up. And for the last 10 years she has been sat on the floor of that dark, dank cupboard, pale and lifeless, no colour to her face, eyes dark.

Until that lock was cut off. 

My husband and I made the decision to try something a little more drastic, and costly.

I had my daughter during covid, November 2020. This put a lot of things into a new perspective for me, and made me realise that I was no longer able to hide myself away when things got to be too much because this tiny human needed me to be strong, but I had lost that ability a long time ago.

I felt rage I had never unleashed before and I would cry and scream and my blood would boil because the overwhelm of caring for this tiny human was consuming me and the darkness clouded my eyes, causing a kind of blind rage I had never dared release.

I became a person I did not like. A person that actually terrified me, and my husband.

So we decided to try hypnotherapy (shoutout to Karen, a goddess among us), although we could scarcely afford it, we decided traditional therapy was not for me as I did not know what was wrong, I could not have told you in words as my brain was so dark I could not find the memories I so desperately needed to access. I needed a light, a flame, a torch.

And I found it.

The therapy was rough. I felt empty, hollow, broken. Feelings I had long supressed, that I forgotten had existed. Memories I locked away never to be seen again came flooding into my eyes, flowing out of my mind through the tears down my face.

But I came out the other side. 

A path of light appeared and my old self, who was broken and blue, pale and weak, blinded by the brightness, emerged from the dark, dank cupboard, letting the warm glow wash over her. She was welcomed by this older, wiser, more cautious version of me. This version of me who accepts that she needs to set boundaries, knows what she needs to be happy, understands that some things will never change and that is part of life, and we must accept it.

Me and my old self were holding hands in the golden glow emanating from above.

She seemed so small. Broken, bruised, beaten. But with relief on her face. Relief to finally be freed from her prison of 10 years. Free from the darkness. Free from the torture of being alone with her feelings, with no where to aim the rage but right back at herself. 

She released my hand, and walked away into the empty space in my mind, free to roam, no locked doors, but never interfering. A memory to remind me of who I was, and who I could still be.

As I stood alone in my mind, beneath that warm golden glow from above, I imagined who I wanted to be. Who I know I could be if I give myself the time to heal and grow. Which was never possible when a critical part of my soul was shut away in that cupboard. But now she is free. She's healing, she's quiet, but she's there, whispering to me, giving me hope. Something I had long forgotten I could actually have.

Long story short, I survived the darkest 10 years of my life. I emerged from the darkness and stepped into the bright sunny world around me. I can finally see.