Emily Violett. My Life.

I remember, during my last therapy session, my counsellor reading out what I had said to her in my very first appointment, just 4 months earlier. I was shocked. I knew the words she read were mine but I didn’t recognise them, I was completely detached. I knew I had said them, but it wasn’t the same ‘me’. It’s like I had a mental block stopping me, protecting me, from remembering the lows I had been dealing with. When I’m feeling good, I can’t remember the bad. I can’t think about it. I can’t put myself back in that mindset. If someone asks me about the lows, I brush over the details because I can’t put myself there again. It feels as though it was a different person experiencing it. I’ve spoken to others with similar mental health problems and it seems to be something a few of us experience. It’s like the periods of highs block out any negativity and only allow me to access the happy thoughts, creating more happy thoughts and so on. Then the low periods lock those away so I on...

I’m scared that I won’t get the help I need. I’m scared that no matter how many times I ask (beg) for help, I won’t be listened to. I’ll be ignored. I’ll be forgotten. I’ll be lost in the system. I’m scared that because I’m not an immediate threat to myself or others, that I’m dismissed as not important. I’m scared I’ll always be abandoned. By friends, family, and now professionals. I’m scared that because I’m able to ask for help, I’m not bad enough to receive it. I’m scared that I’ll be stuck in this in-between of not being ill enough but being too ill to function normally in the world. I’m scared that I’ll always feel like I don’t belong here. Like I’m waiting to go home, but I don’t even know where home is. I’m scared I’ll never feel whole. That I’ll always feel incomplete. I’m scared that I’m not enough. I’m scared I’ll always need validation from others. I’m scared I’ll never be happy. I’m scared that everyone thinks I’m not trying hard enough. I’m scared that everyo...