When Black Becomes a Rainbow

"It feels like one long nightmare; like being held under water, unable to catch a breath. It seems endless, ceaseless, incessant. The pain surpasses any other pain I have ever felt. There is a mixture of hatred, anger and guilt. Fear, hopelessness, helplessness. There are unanswered questions, confusing emotions. There is disorder and turmoil within, chaotic and out of control. And the worst part? That I can’t share it. Who can I tell? Who can understand? It didn’t just happen overnight. It happened gradually over the four weeks I was there. I had no idea what was taking place until it was too late. Too late to pretend nothing had happened. I would do anything to go back in time and erase those four weeks from my life. I have tried to obliterate it, but to no avail. It won’t budge. It stays with me as long as I live. And to be quite honest, that terrifies me. For I have seen in the past few months that I am unable to survive with it inside of me" ----------...

Just over 3 years ago I wrote a blog post about my experiences on a psych ward. I wrote about the more positive aspects of being in hospital, the support I received and just generally making light of my time spent on the ward. I do that. I try to make light of things. I just want everyone around me to be happy; and my way of managing this and controlling this is by showing that all is going well. But today I am not sugar coating. Psych wards are not fun.  There are very few positives that can come from being in one, and my experiences last year are ones I would not wish on anyone. I can't and won't go into detail, however it is safe to say that I am scarred. I trusted when I shouldn't have done and the consequences of this lead to 6 months in 9 different wards and some shocking 'care' in the hand of the NHS. Last year I lost my job, the majority of my friends and a large part of myself. I lost confidence in myself and most of society. I still have flashbacks f...

These are my thoughts.   Please do not worry/contact anyone. PLEASE DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE EASILY UPSET/TRIGGERED Do you know how it feels to be different? Do you know how it feels never to fit in? Imagine being alone and nobody knowing where you were or what you were doing Imagine not being able to see a future Have you ever felt the desire to disappear? Have you ever thought you were better off dead? This is depression This is the reality of my life right now I look strong I come across as secure and knowledgeable I'm not I'm weak and insecure A failure A waste of space How can I continue like this? How can I be in this world living a lie? Someone take me away from here Someone save me from this pain It physically hurts me to feel this way It hurts my head, my heart, my whole body is protesting being alive Guilt takes over Guilt destroys any part of me wanting to live I have destroyed everyone around me slowly ...

I really hate this time of year. Sadly I don't remember a time that I didn't. Pesach is not easy when you have mental health problems, and although I no longer struggle in the way I used to struggle with my eating, I do still remember the difficulties I had in having to adapt to a different diet and restrictions. Pesach is also hard if you struggle to adapt to change in general. All holidays have this added stress of life not going on as normal - day to day life is disrupted and there is a lack of structure which is hard to get used to. Holidays are therefore harder than normal for those with adjustment disorders or Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Something I have not mentioned on here before (and have not told many people at all), is that I have recently been diagnosed with a form of autism known as Pervasive Developmental Disorder , a condition similar to Asperger's Syndrome . I haven't been so open about this until now as I have not known how to exp...

For as long as I can remember I have been different to those around me.  My interests weren’t the same as others, my ability to express myself was limited and instead of being able to verbalise my struggles, I only managed to keep them inside of me.  From a young age these internalised struggles rapidly turned into anxiety, depression and anorexia. I didn’t have a clue about mental illness when I was a teenager.  This wasn’t something taught about in school, not something spoken about at home and certainly something seen as ‘taboo’ within the Orthodox Jewish Community. I am the third of a family of 6 children and both my older siblings were straight A students with an innate ability to manage a good social life. At 14, both my older siblings left home and concurrently my grandmother was diagnosed with terminal Cancer. In tandem with this, I became more introverted and found I wasn’t able to understand the interests and activities my classmates and peers found to be so...

As promised, I am back here again. Life seems to have taken over and I have got back into the swing of things. I have had a job interview and I'm now the proud Mum of 6 guinea pigs and a hamster. I am also apparently mothering an expectant guinea pig so I am going to be a PigGrandma soon. I'm too young to be a Grandma! These are my beauties (I am *slightly* obsessed): In reality, it is hard not to keep going over the past and what has happened; intrusive thoughts seem to have a way about them making it hard to block them out at times. But instead of using these negative flashbacks to punish myself and remind myself of bad times, I need to learn to embrace my difficulties and use them to show me how much better things are now. I realised in the past year that I no longer believe in 'recovery'. Don't get me wrong - many people who have had mental illness can 100% recover from this.  There are however many who will not fully recover.  Mental illness will ...

Having just been asked to speak at a small event for a local mental health charity, I started typing up a short speech. Once I started I realised how much I missed writing.  I totally forgot how cathartic it is. So maybe I am back!? There is a lot to catch up on – the last time I wrote properly on here was August 2015 and a LOT has happened since then.  I’m not going to go into all the details – too lengthy and boring! In short, 2016 was not my year. I spent 6 months+ between December 2015 and July 2016 on various different wards in a variety of hospitals, struggling to manage my depression. It was the worst time of my life and I never want to repeat any of those experiences again.  In the past year I lost so much including my job, my old treatment team and so many friends.  I don’t blame anyone for leaving me; I  was struggling to survive and was not able to be there for anyone. For those who stuck with me – thank you! I know it was hard ...

So I've been wearing the most comfy shoes known to man for quite some time now. They are quite literally falling apart but I can't allow myself to get rid of them until I find a suitable replacement. The thing is, what makes them comfortable is the fact that I have worn them in and spent months shaping them to fit snugly on my feet. If you were to put them on, you would more than likely kick them off in disgust firstly due to the fact that they have holes in random places (which may or may not make your feet wet when it rains), but also because they won't fit you like they fit me.  Now all of this is a literal comparison to something so much bigger. Something we have all had someone say to us in our lifetime - don't judge a person until you have walked a mile in their shoes.  I find the basic concept of this quite hard. Because if I were to walk a mile in someone else's hypothetical shoes, I would be doing so with my own brain, my own connections to the world around...