Right Now – A Guest Post. 

I am very pleased to be hosting this anonymous Guest post from a lovely, known Mental Health blogger.

I am a hypocrite.

I think I should be honest about that.

I talk the talk about breaking the stigma, but for the first time in my life I am not walking the walk.

When you apply for a new job you fill in a form.

Ongoing or previous illnesses.

I should have written Depression.

I put pen to paper and paused.

The pause itself was enough for the doubts to seep in.

So I wrote nothing.

I was too scared of being passed over.

I needed the job.

So I wrote nothing.

I pre-assumed I would be passed over based on the stigma and I wrote nothing.

I got the job.

I have been doing the job 6 months.

This week has been a struggle.

Some weeks aren’t, but this week has.

I am hoping it won’t be a struggle soon.

I am hoping that my serotonin levels will boost.

But right now I am struggling.

Right here, right now, in this meeting.

Five people are sat around me discussing potential outcomes and variable forecast.

Words, statements, ideas and solutions fly in and out of my head at an alarming rate.

I am unable to hold on to any of them.

They slip away and melt like snowdrops in the fog.

I cannot hear myself over the sheer volume of internal noise, I cannot focus however hard I try.

‘You are not good enough. She doesn’t like you. Nobody thinks you are cut out for this job, you are proving to be a mistake, why is he not looking at you as much as he is looking at her? Did you turn your straighteners off this morning? If you didn’t the house will be burning down now with your poodle in it. Oh poor Ozzy home alone all day. Now as you sit here, he is at home alone. He deserved a better life than the one you provide for him. Your neighbours are always taking their dog out for a walk. You need to walk him more. If only you had tried harder in school, you could be at home making babies now. Oh wait you can’t make babies can you, your head is in a mess. You aren’t good enough.’

And then the Spanish starts.

‘Por dios que te pasa porque no puedes escuchar, actuar, ayudar, eres como tus profersores te han dicho, un malo huevo… you are never going to amount to much…’

‘You are so fat and what the hell is going on with your hair today? It’s all poofy on one side. You are not as thin as her, as knowledgeable, as trusted. She hates you. She thinks you are an idiot. You hate her too, because you think she thinks these things about you, but do you actually think she thinks about you at all? Probably only to agree you are a pathetic fat bitch nobody wants here. She’s rude to you because she has earned the right to be. Why would anyone respect you? The state of you.’

‘L? Your thoughts?’

I am blinking at a graph.

‘Agreed.’

I should have written it on the damn form.

I should have been honest.

Ongoing or previous illnesses. 

I fight against clinical depression.

This does not make me lazy or hard work, this does not give anyone the right to judge me or think I am incompetent, even if I have a tendency to think these things about myself constantly.

I fight clinical depression on some days like a Trojan, and not at all on others.

This may mean I know what I want to say and do, but am unable to clear my brain quickly enough to articulate it. This means words I know and want to use will vanish.

This means that when I smile, and walk with my head held high and complete some seemingly menial task, I am using superhuman strength to do so.

I need you to know I was once at the top of my game.

I was you.

I am you.

I can do everything you do, say everything you say, see everything you see, or at least I could, if I could just clear out the noise.

What I have is a sickness and what I do is fight every day to stay in control of it.

To win against the loudest, strongest meanest of girls.

The one that sits in my head.

You have no right to judge me.

My politeness is not a weakness, my illness does not make dumb or stupid, or oblivious to your evil whispering and cruel ignorance, it makes me stronger than you could ever imagine yourself being.

Because I am still here.

You have no right to judge me, but you do daily.

You are almost as mean to me as I am to myself, almost.

And yet I am still here.

I should have put it on the form.

‘L? Your thoughts?’

I think I am unable to cope anymore.

I am unable to cope anymore.

I think I am unable to cope with any of it anymore.

I am unable to cope anymore.

I am unable to cope anymore.

‘L?’

‘Agreed.’

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