Sometimes I sit at this laptop and write words, sentences, paragraphs, essays about my pain. My physical pain less so, but my emotional, mental pain is often eased by writing those words down so that someone, anyone will read them and hear me and understand my pain and suffering.
I feel very selfish writing that about MY pain and MY suffering, but my mental health makes me selfish in that respect. I am in almost every other aspect of my life selfless, but my illness makes me selfish for wanting to be heard.
When I write about MY pain I am writing MY story. Everyone has a story, ten people trapped in a room together will share a story, commonalities, but their individual accounts will differ. It doesn’t mean that the other nine people are wrong and I am right. This is MY truth. Their version is their truth and I’m fine with that.
When I sit at my laptop, sometimes choking on my tears, or chewing my lip raw with anxiety, I tell my story, I spew out my pain, my shame, my demons onto the screen knowing that someone somewhere will relate and they will often reach out, and together, even for a few minutes we know we are not alone feeling these feelings and thinking those thoughts.
I have no doubt that since writing this blog nearly two years ago I have scared some old friends off, I’m too candid for them or they are scared of my darkness. Equally I know for a fact that I have made far more friends for being open and being me than I have lost.
Sometimes what I write can be raw and emotional, or too near the knuckle for some, but that’s how it is inside me, in fact some of my writing only hints at the darkness inside because I am mindful of who may read this now and in the future and that my words are a record, but a record of MY truth alone.
I will continue to write as Hemmingway suggested, I will “write hard and clear about what hurts” because I will not be ashamed of what I feel, I will not hide away in the shadows because my mental illness is somehow shameful to others. I speak for me and I will not be forced to be ashamed of myself. I have enough demons of my own to slay without being stigmatised by others.
Do not start with me, you will not win.
