Meds

Stopped taking my meds two months ago
Guess you could say i missed feeling low
1000 voices in my head that hate myself
Then I make shit decisions and fuck my mental health
Still wish I was unstable and got drunk just to feel
Happier when I’m questioning whether I’m really real
What’s the point of paying 50 quid for therapy
When I’m much better being sad like I’ve always been
Would rather want to kill myself than improve myself, not much good for my mental health
My therapist is gonna lose it when she hears this
At least death has some finality
Bit I’ve made depression my whole personality, not ready to face the reality
Now it’s difficult to separate depression from me and even worse when I cant seem to break free of the misery that this life seems to be.
So when the reaper comes calling and puts an end to my endless falling
I hope that you can see that you made me happy but that happiness is not the be all amd end all when the rest of your life is so crappy.
Now that I can maybe find some peace in deaths sweet release. Just tell me you won’t mourn the deceased like you hurt the living.

Sad one from a whole ago

– Hope

Relapse

I relapsed last month. Three years of progress reversed in one night. Now relapses occur every other week. I’m not even ashamed. Sometimes I think I deserve this, to never get better. For now, I’m counting the days since I last relapsed in single digits. I’m back on 0, wondering if I’ll ever make it past this.

18

Today I sat and thought. The end of a decade. An era. It’s weird to be looking at 18 when I thought I’d never make 16. Looking at the future that I couldn’t see before, that I didn’t want to see before. Looking in the mirror and seeing a ghost, a mirage, someone who shouldn’t be. A hundred unaware souls surrounding my guilty secret, blissfully unaware of that thought.

Jump, it’ll kill you

Hearing the songs that I feverishly clung to in a desperate hope not to lose myself to the chasm below, sobbing to the soft guitar that saved my life. It’s strange to imagine not existing, a world where I didn’t and I couldn’t and I wasn’t. A world where that song was at a funeral not a party. A world where I didn’t kiss him, or her. Where I didn’t save them or smile at you. A world where I didn’t live.

Today, I can’t believe I’m here. In this universe, with these people, at this time. 2020. Today, I’m watching my friends fight the same battle, sadness tugging at my heart. Tired eyes, broken dreams, shattered souls, it hurts to see them in that pain. Desperately trying to claw out of the hole. To survive. Yet there’s nothing you can do. Just hope that one day they’ll reach the age they thought was the future. The future they wouldn’t have.

-Hope xx

If I play my music loud enough maybe I’ll feel something

1st February 2019

Often I find myself drowning in a world of soft melodies and heavy beats. The symphony of my heart playing through twist, worn headphones. My reality of this world tethered to an upbeat chorus in a song. Soulful minors and majors that dance and spill out cheerful chords and smiles. I always thought music played a big influence in my life, from the first song I learnt all the lyrics to (Replay- Iyaz) to the first rap a much younger me managed to conquer (Airplanes- B.O.B ft Haley Williams). So many important memories and eras are defined in my life by the music I was listening to; the playlist we’d listen to on the winding roads to Derby, the party tunes of the early 2000 which shaped my childhood. To now, the impressive rifs of electric guitars, heavy base and synth. The intoxicating potion of modern rock, alternative and Indie, the songs that I stayed up all night listening to, the songs that have me courage. The songs that gave me strength and gold medals, the songs that carried me through the dark days and the ones that made me cry quietly in my room.

I go through phases with songs, every week I have a new favourite, but there’s always constants, the runs and belting (What a catch, Donnie- FOB); the melodic piano, passionate lyrics and heartache (Addict with a pen- Tøp); the irate mood and the thunderous lyrics that create a masterpiece( Bruises- Transviolet). These are just a few of the songs that have carried through every dark day and night, kept the world spinning while mine stuttered to a stop, prevented the walls caving in on me. I will forever be eternally grateful.

Music has and always will be a constant in my life, for every concert I go to is a reminder of all the joy and happiness I can possess. Whether it be hundred, or thousands or tens of thousand people in one room, one beating heart, shouting the lyrics of the songs that are part of you, all in unity. One heart, one beat, one song. The artist glowing on stage, grinning, shining pride, watching a million people sing the songs that saved them right back. It’s like coming home into loving arms, a warm embrace. Live bouncing off the walls, sweat and stress forgotten, just eternal joy. That’s the power of music, it’s the best drug in the world, the best therapy. It’s eternal warmth and tears and emotion locked in one moment of time. It’s everything I ever needed.

With love, always

-Hope xx

Air

Like most, I’ve always had a rocky relationship with my body. In our minds nothing can never quite be perfect. Whatever perfect is. Forever trying to fix things that don’t need fixing; to lose mass that doesn’t exist. I’m so self aware of the issue. Anyone who knows me, they know it’s stupid. Yet I can’t stand to look in a mirror and I can’t wear shirts that aren’t three sizes too big. It’s terrifying. There’s a tiny voice in the back of my mind, telling me it’ll never ever be enough. Yet here I am.

I was told, recently that I’d be able to walk without gripping my stomach, if only I lost a little weight. Then I wouldn’t be self conscious. Perfect, why didn’t I think about it. But it’s never enough, a month later and eight kilograms lighter, it still wasn’t enough. I will never be enough in my own eyes. I was told I looked good, but my jeans didn’t fit; I hadn’t eaten a proper lunch in a month and I’m still terrified of most meals. I thought 49kg me would be happier, I was wrong. I can’t not eat all day, my energy is drained and my mood plummets; yet I feel guilty every time I eat something that isn’t a vegetable. The same person who lives on chocolate when sad (that’s a lot) can’t think of meals without feeling mildly sick. It’s exhausting.

I come back from training, so terrified of putting on weight that I’m certain I’m not hungry. I’m wearing baggy clothes when I can and trying not to think about the part of me I can’t stand. It’s ridiculous. In the day of body positivity, I have never felt worse about myself. Everyone is a comparison. Yet you can put any woman in front of me and I could list every thing I find beautiful about her, including every flaw I hate in myself. It goes round and round and round. One step forward, three steps back. 2,000 calories too many in one day. Guilt and fear and genuine sadness over something so inconsequential. And I hate that I’m not alone. Because so many people also can’t look in the mirror, my beautiful friends think they’re anything but perfectly imperfect. And that, that’s what hurts most.

Splash

I’ve always had a rough time choosing between my own happiness and my swim career. It feels like they’re constantly in battle with each other. I can never do well without training as much as I do and that training makes me exhausted constantly, without time for myself and honestly causes so many issues in my life. It’s pretty well known by now that I’m not the most mentally stable person, and the more commitment I make to the sport the more it feels like in signing away my mental health. Sometimes everything aches so much and I feel numb, and I have to swim 6 hours. And I just want to cry but I can’t. It’s a catch 22, my downfall in swimming is showing and feeling emotion. But the swimming itself has destroyed my stability. I can’t have a conversation with my mum about it anymore without it turning into her mocking me and making me feel like utter shit. I was proud of myself today, I put my happiness first and decided not to compete again. Then it all crumpled, and now I’m sitting alone in a car sobbing my eyes out with a person ounding head and swollen eyes. So sometimes in fucking existence, choosing happiness leads to so much fucking unbearable sadness. Typical.

With love, always

Hope xx

Maybe this is a cry for help

I’m putting a bit of a prologue on this post to prevent unnecessary worry. This was written a while ago when I felt really down, not about myself. I am perfectly fine now, this is mainly exaggerated due to emotions at the time. You may notice that I actually took this down after first posting it but here it is again.

MAJOR TRIGGER WARNING

How many pills will it take to kill herself?

How many cuts would it take for her to bleed out? How many intrusive thoughts will she have before she finally bites the bullet? How long does she have left to live? She thinks the heart rate monitor would look pretty, stuttering to a stop. She thinks she’s going insane.

Will her family miss her? I think her best friend would cry. Those kids she teaches, the lies they’ll be told. A minute of silence at the pool. Or maybe just forgotten, after all, who cares. How will she do it, when she finally goes. Her search history knows. Is this the last meal she’ll eat? Will music save her again? Or will the soft melodies be what’s played at the funeral.

When they do the eulogy, will her brother break down? Will he regret his sharp words or will he be impassive and apathetic. She’ll never know. Will her mum be in denial, talk about her future husband and potential kids, or will she realise that it was never important, never a phase. Will they ever understand what she was going through, the lack of support that they gave? Or will they cover it up with memories of a life they couldn’t save.

I hope they remember her never ending smile, the love she tried to give and the hope she once had. I hope they play her favourite bands and dance and sing. I hope she ends up in heaven, not hell like she thinks, with all things pretty and bright. I hope they move on and forget about her, live and love forever more. She hopes this can end the voices in her head. She hopes this means she never had to deal with it again. She hopes and she prays as the rain pores down and she no longer cries at the thought of it now.

She wishes for the end.

-Hope

I can’t stand to look in the mirror.

My thighs are too thick and my arms are too fat. My stomach won’t ever be flat. I’m too short, I’m too stocky. Man I hate this body. And now I’m back at square one.

My eyes are too dull, too grey, too bleary. My hair too frizzy, it makes me so weary. I hate wearing glasses, but I hate contacts too. I just wish one day I could be perfect like you.

I just want some proportions that make sense. Tear my hair out, grit my teeth, why is this so painful. Is this what it takes to truly be beautiful. Confidence makes you look hot, so what do I do when I’ve lost all that lot.

Somedays it’s okay, somedays it’s not. Somedays I want to cut bits off. I’m so uncomfortable in here it feels like a cage, put a marker on this come back to this page. Because I know I’m not alone in this thought. There’s a million other people who have been taught.

That they’ll never be pretty enough for anyone and I know that hurts a shit tonne. It’s bull crap we know it yet here we are. Comparing myself to the highest of bars. Hoping that I’m good enough for the standards we made. Man I hate this body, would you like to trade?

Razor

Bad days are funny because they come on so soon, one minute I’m happy and safe in your arms. The next I’m balancing on the edge of the razor blade that used to carve paths on thin tissue. Paper used to scribble frantic messages to my former and future self dissolving into a mess of scrawling ink and lines that run deeper than the page. And colours lighting up behind my eyelids; words screaming that I’ll be okay yet clawing at my mind to hurt again and again and again and again. Staring up the depths of the clinical white ceiling while drums set a steady beat and headphones knot around my skin… that now feels like it holds just a skeleton of a person that can’t feel and can’t love who is just a shell of what they used to be yet is more than they ever were in so many ways. So so many ways.

Some days I wake up and I don’t want to get out of bed, I want to slip in and out of hazy consciousness in the warmth of sheets and covers which feel better than living ever could. Other times the tears fall thick and fast over painted lashes and dusty cheeks. Sadness broods, a dark cloud hanging over me and nerves are struck in symphonies of melancholy. Bad days are funny because one moment I’ll be grinning so hard it hurts and the next I ache so deep I feel it in my soul, balancing on the edge of that razor blade.

-Hope

Locked in the trunk

I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry and shout and manically laugh, I wanted to sob and to whisper. I wanted to do anything to explain to her that if she cared she wouldn’t be doing this but I’m that moment I realised something, I can’t control this. The universe is doing it again, fucking up anything that has the opportunity to be good and it is completely out of my control. That terrifies me. I can’t monitor what passes through their head, I can’t stop the dark thoughts; I can only keep searching for the light.

When I look in the mirror I no longer see the half decent looking girl with a confident smile, I see the real me. Ugly on the inside and out, crippled by years of taunting and jeering about my build and weight. Haunched over as if trying to cover every inch of skin that could possibly be used as weapon against her. The girl I see isn’t crying, she has no tears left but she is broken. Broken and horrifically ugly. Some things you can never change, she will always be ugly to me. That’s why they always leave.

-Hope x