*trigger warning*

I feel like it's been a while since I've sat here and opened up to you guys. I mean, that has been the premise of this platform for such a long time, you know? A place for me to share my experiences and put my thoughts out there into the world - a place which felt safe for me to open up. Lately however, I've found myself lost for words, with hardly anything to type out onto this blank page before me. I guess you could say I've been uninspired, had writers block, or any of the usual reasonings, but the reality is, that life has just felt very heavy as of late.

Everything from waking up in a morning, to making a cup of tea, to trying to sleep at night, has felt exhausting. All of the usual things that brought me joy seem to have faded into the background and I've just been floating about, trying to piece it all back together.

It's not an unfamiliar feeling, not at all, but the weight that it has planted on me is something comparable to an elephant being sat on my chest.


I've felt kind of alone with it all, and not because I haven't got good people around me, because I do, but more because it's such a confusing feeling to explain.

As with anything mental health related, all experiences are unique, so despite having had these feelings before, the encounter with it feels entirely different. And, well, that doesn't make it easy to explain to people how I'm feeling... especially when I barely understand it myself.

I suppose that's why I'm writing this now.

With that in mind, I guess it's difficult to explain to others how you feel when they only have their own experiences themselves to go off. I can't expect someone who's also had depression to have had the exact same timeline as me and have the answer to all of my problems. I especially can't expect the people around me to understand my eating disorders when they themselves have never had an issue like that.

It's such a complex thing, and ideally there would be one straight answer of how to fix all mental health issues, but life doesn't work that way.

It's felt confusing for a while that, when I do pluck up the guts to open up and talk to people, they don't really 'get' it. No one can really pin-point or define what I'm feeling. Honestly though, I really don't expect people to understand. It's not an easy thing for me to lay down in simple terms. I mean, it's normally a situation where I'm just blurting out suppressed emotion, so it never really makes any sense.

I think it's become easier and easier to conceal from people because of that. It feels less complicated to keep it to myself sometimes, but I know that's not the right thing to do.


To put it as plain and simple as I possibly can, right here, right now... I would say I'm somewhere amidst a relapse. I've felt unmotivated, low, anxious, unable to eat, not wanting to eat, not eating, aware of my weight, trying to lose weight, losing weight, confused, scared, and all of what's inbetween. I've felt as if I'm in some weird bubble that has managed to trap me inside and I'm really struggling to break free. I've felt completely suffocated by my own thoughts, and spend most days going back-and-forth arguing with myself over whether to eat, sleep, get dressed etc.

I mean, at first I thought I knew where this was coming from. I thought it was the same thing as always (my everlasting self loathing, of course) but there have been so many ups, downs and curve-balls this year, that there just seems to be more to it this time.

I feel a lot of things that I've felt before, like the need to starve myself or the heavy weight of depression lingering over me, but there's this underlying emptiness which I can't even define as either of those things. It feels so peculiar and confusing, that I almost feel like I'm floating above my own life.

Well, maybe I have felt it before, but just don't remember? I mean, there's a lot I don't really remember from 4 years ago.

I can feel myself falling back into old habits and thinking things I've not had to battle with in a long time. My world has become a sea of calories, weight and seeking validation again, and I keep finding myself avoiding social situations - hiding out in my house for as long as I can. It's got a sickening 'homely' feeling to it all.


The good thing, I suppose, is that I know it's happening. I always think that as long as I can feel myself falling, then there's no reason why I can't pick myself back up again. But it's always an up hill battle. It's never an easy thing to pick yourself back up and dust yourself off. I can't just click a switch in my brain and change things back to how they were - I've got to go through the whole process of reprogramming myself, and that's sometimes the most daunting part.


It feels silly to typing a lot of this, honestly. To a lot of people, my life has just been carrying on as normal, particularly if you follow me on any social media. You're probably looking at my page and thinking 'this girl's not sad!', but that's the horrible truth about the internet sometimes... the internet isn't real life, and my real life is no where near as picturesque as my Instagram account might seem.

I think it's so easy for people to just put on a smile sometimes and get on with things, I know that is for me. I just head off to work, click a switch and the 'show' begins. All my energy goes into pretending that I'm okay. I guess I've got a knack for suppressing things. But, especially when it comes to portraying myself on the internet, it's not difficult to press a couple of buttons on an app and post a happy smiley photo. I mean, 90% of the time that I've recently posted on anything, I've been lay in bed all day, crying, struggling to muster the energy to do anything else at all.

It's weird to think that you really only know so much about someone from a couple of photos on the internet. I think we all need to remember that more often.


But, yeah, I'm in a weird place right now. I'm in a limbo between completely losing myself to my thoughts, or fighting back with what little energy I do have. It's weird to know I'm aware of it, and also kind of terrifying. There are so many thoughts swirling round my head all the time, I'm not sure what to listen to.

It's felt good to get it off my chest, nonetheless... even if it is quite liberally on the internet, for whoever to see, but maybe me writing this can help someone who feels the same right now... I don't know.