Anxiety checklist – first success

I recently made myself a checklist to follow each day to fight my anxiety and try to live my days without suffering.

I just conquered two points in one scenario and I feel great!! I have touched on how I do not value myself and have no self confidence. This has caused me no end of insecurities in relationships, always feeling like other girls have way more to other than I do. There is a girl in my office that I have had an issue with for a long time. She was very jealous of my relationship with my ex and she made that very known to me. Instead of taking that in my stride and feeling good that I had what others wanted I let it eat me up inside, I hated her and everytime I saw her my anxiety flared up. Heart racing,hands shaking, blood boiling, day ruined.

Today I had an issue with one of my systems and had to use a manager’s computer to complete a task, right by her desk. At first thought of going over there to do it I started getting the sinking feeling in my tummy and I wanted to look for an excuse not to. But I didn’t. A daily goal is to face a fear, being anywhere near her was my fear and I did it. I walked over with my head held high and I did what I needed to do. I even had a conversation with someone and managed to smile, I didn’t hide away. I can do it, if I tell myself to, if I want it enough. How great is that?!

Which brings me to my second point, whilst there I could hear her conversation with her manager. They were laughing and joking about her being a ‘pikey’ and talking about Snapchat, oh I hate that app. Immediately I feared they were making indirect digs at me, joking about her stealing my boyfriend and talking about her sending him indecent things on Snapchat. Something I always suspected was going on. Maybe I was right, but hey maybe I was not and why should I choose to beat myself up and feel down about something that may or may not be true. Even if it was true, still I shouldn’t let it get to me, cause I deserve better than that and now I’m choosing to believe it. I fought a cognitive distortion, overthinking, jumping to conclusions. I stopped it, with my own brain, who knew I could do that?

I am so impressed and so happy with myself. 😊

If I can do it so can you!

Until next time.

My trust issues – In a nutshell

If you have already read some of my blog posts you will already know about the first part of my story, if you haven’t then you can read The first trigger for a more detailed explanation of that part of my life.

So at 8 years old I had my first sexual experience, abused by a teenager over a the period of 1-2 years. I never appreciated at the time how much this would affect my adult life and you will see references to this throughout my posts.

When I was 11 or 12 I started experimenting with boys my own age, in line with all of my friends. You know, the relationship in the school playground where a kiss was a big deal and it lasted a day or a week at most.

Then when I was 13 it happened again. I started having a relationship with a man 11 years older than myself, and I admit that at the time I consented. But as I have matured I have come to understand that a 13 year old does not truly know what they are consenting to and more so should never be put in the situation where they are given the option to consent. He then, was older than I am now and I do not look at 13 year olds and see anything other than an innocent child, a little annoying at times but that’s a stage of life. He tricked and manipulated me into believing it was love and that it was right. But oh how wrong it was. Not only that but he was mentally abusive and controlling. He used to sit at the top of my road and wait for me to come home, I barely went to school and spent most of my time with him for two years. I have spent alot of time blaming myself for this, asking myself how I let this happen to me, again. I have recently learnt that revictimisation is a thing and I will come on to that in another post.

After that relationship I started going out with another boy, much closer to my age. It started well and he had a great family that treated me well but he too was not a great person. He was a drug user and he didn’t work. I found myself having to pay for his habits. He treated me with nothing but disrespect and threatened me with violence on numerous occasions and pushed me about.

I remained single for a while after this, then I met the father of my child. This story is a long one and requires its own post. He abused me mentally throughout the relationship and physically whilst I was pregnant. Not to mention the lies and the cheating.

The next relationship I had after that is my last relationship,Mystery Man . He was nothing like any of these men, but I pushed him away because my head wouldn’t let me believe he was good. Every experience that I had with relationships had been bad, so why would this one be any different right?

I don’t blame myself for having trust issues, for not believing that there is good in the world and that if there is I’m not deserving of it. It is perfectly okay for me to feel that way with everything that I have been through. What is not okay, is letting those bad experiences stop me from having any good ones. Okay, so me and life did get off on the wrong foot. I didn’t have a great childhood, if you can even call it one at all. People often use the saying ‘ start as you mean to go on ‘. That’s how I have been living inside my mind, believing that my life will go on in the same way that my childhood did, that it will continue how it started. It doesn’t have to be that way, I don’t have to give up on myself, I can choose to have an adult life that is far from the life I experienced as a child. Some people will have no idea what I have been through in life, some people will know and hold my hand as I battle my mind for this change and others will give up on me.

It doesn’t really matter who or how many people fight with me, and how many desert, as long as I believe in myself, and I continue fighting for myself. I love the history of the Tudors and I feel kind of reminded of an uprising right now. Some of the men that would go to fight would originally form part of the kings army, but if they felt that he was more likely to loose they would switch sides so that the potential new king would favour them in future. The people that are truly loyal to me, that want to see me come out of this battle with my head alive, that love me enough to go through anything with me, they are the ones by my side. The ones that give up on me, or that half-heartedly offer to be beside me, those that will only choose their side as the side that’s winning. Your army is stronger without those people, those that may turn on their own.

As of now, I am putting my trust issues into flames and letting them burn away into ashes. From today I will choose to believe that I have had all of my negative experiences and that the next one will be a positive one. I will continue learning ways to control my own brain, to overcome self-doubt and most importantly to love myself. By the time I choose to allow myself a relationship, I will be the girl that I dream of being, and I will have confidence in believing that I am worth more than the experiences I have already had.

I WILL trust again.

I am so excited, to start choosing to be the girl of my dreams.

Until next time.

A life can touch you no matter how big or small

Earlier in March this year I suffered a misscarraige, I give myself a hard time blaming myself for this everyday. It’s another big reason why I feel so down today. Below is a poem I wrote a few months back.

When I first learned of you, I felt so afraid
Now, my mind wonders over the memories we’d have made.
And it has created an empty feeling in my heart
To know that you and I will always be apart.

If there is a place that we all go after here
Will I get to meet you, will I get to hold you near?
In that place will you grow into a beauty of my own
Or will you remain in the only form that I was shown.

How do you grow without me, I hope there is a way
And know that if I had a choice I would have let you stay.
I would have fed you, taught you, loved you, held you in my arms
I would have done my best to protect you from any harm.

I barely knew you were there and suddenly you were gone
Fading away like the darkness does from dusk through to dawn.
Perhaps if I hadnt overthaught the blessing I’d been given
It would not be your tiny kicks inside me that I’m missing.

Until next time.

Anxiety – A daily checklist

This is my first constructive post that I hope may help people.

After reading lots of different blogs last night I realised that we often read about the things that we should be doing, agree to try them but then never actually put them in to practice. I have made myself a small checklist of 5 things to do every day to help me have a better day.

Compliment myself – Last night I listened to a guided meditation and this really stuck out for me the most. She said that no matter how much a person loves you, no matter how much they value you, you will automatically see that they value you the way that you value yourself. This is one of my biggest struggles, I do not value myself at all so I don’t see how anyone else could value me. So this is my first item on my checklist, It wont make me love myself overnight, but day by day I hope it will change the way I see myself. This may be as simple as complimenting myself for my hair or the outfit I have chosen that day, or complimenting myself for the way I handled a tricky situation at work.
Do a good deed – They always say that helping out another person will make you feel better. I am definitely one of these people, I feel great when I have made someone smile or just made their day a little easier. Whether its telling someone that they still have the label on their jacket or giving someone the extra change that they need to complete their purchase at the till point. This will not only remind me that there is good in the world, but It will help me to believe that people see my worth, because I am giving them a reason to.
Fight a cognitive distortion – This one is going to be tricky and I’m not quite sure yet how I am going to do it. I have a really bad case of ‘All or nothing thinking’ which is very common it seems in those that suffer with their mental health. I want to start by trying to have control over my mind at least once each day. To remind myself that I am in control, and when that panic takes over me, whether I am mind reading, or jumping to conclusions. I am going to try to stop in that moment and think the opposite to what I am thinking, no its not the end of the world, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing, maybe they are not thinking that. I will try to give you some examples of this one as I go along.
Face a fear – Similarly to number three above, I want to try every day to do something I am afraid of. By this I don’t mean tackling my biggest fears, just doing one small thing. One of those things that people always say your silly for being afraid of. For me this will most commonly be the fear of what other people think. I may pick an outfit out of my wardrobe in the morning and then put it back because I think others will judge me, or I might hold in my need for the toilet until those popular girls have moved so I don’t have to walk by them. When I do walk by them I tend to hang my head in shame, hide my face, avoid contact, for what reason? Now it is my mission to everyday face one of these fears. Maybe it will be just walking by someone I am afraid of and smiling at them.
Meditate – I think it is important to give your brain some me time, to just relax and really try to exhale all those negative thoughts and inhale all of the positives. It may not seem to benefit you much at the beginning. When you think about it, you are allowing yourself that time to address the negative thoughts, rather than them just building up and then exploding in an attack. I may even try to do this twice a day, once in the morning to clear my head of anything negative I have awoken with, and once at night to clear away all of the negative that has built up during the course of the day.

I don’t know how useful this will be to myself or any of you, but I hope this inspires you to do something if you aren’t already. We must actively try to battle this, every single day. The do nothing approach will not work for us, it wont just go away by itself and another person will not make it go away for us. The only person you can rely on for your happiness is you.

Good luck with whatever it is that you do each day to combat the bad, if you have any suggestions for me please do help!

Until next time.

Mystery Man

I wanted to use this post to focus on some of the positive things that my mind has neglected over the last 9 months.

I first met my ex boyfriend at work, I was a newbie and out trainer brought him into one of our sessions to talk to us about the job. I hate to admit it, but it wasn’t love at first sight. I had never before been attracted to a guy with his appearance, I thought he was very funny, chilled out and just fun! Honestly, I thought he was too “cool” to even consider a girl like me, Mr Popular who would want Mrs Popular on his arm. I was wrong, and that at the beginning should have been enough for me to realise my worth in his eyes. After a few more weeks of being out of training and coming out onto the floor I was placed in the same team as him. We used to banter a bit, nothing that I would really consider too flirty just have a laugh and a joke. I will never forget the excitement I felt when the notification popped up on my phone to say he’d followed my Instagram. I actually burst out loud with words and I didn’t know why. Its one of the most positive memories I have of the last 12 months. I was so ridiculously happy but I didn’t even like the guy in that way, or did I? Maybe I was just overwhelmed that somebody as cool as that actually wanted to know me.

Things moved pretty quickly from there, we talked all day and all night. We told each other all of the amazing things we wanted to do with our lives and he fell in love with the girl that he saw in those first few weeks. My dreams and aspirations, my morals, the love I have for my son, and the positive energy I had about me. If only he had seen me 2 weeks before that I was feeling just as I am now, not eating, low mood, a mess. He asked me recently how I hid this side of me so well at the beginning and honestly I don’t have answer to that. I wish I could do that all day everyday, then I wouldn’t loose so many good things. I still have the same dreams and aspirations, I am still that same person I have just lost grip of that positive energy. Anyway, enough about me.

Our first date was better than anything I could have asked for. He took me out for dinner, we talked for hours, so long that we were the only ones left in the restaurant and they had to throw us out. He walked me back to my car and sat with me a little longer, we talked about other planets and aliens, the sun and the moon. We exchanged a kiss but nothing more. He was respectful, we want on a few more dates before anything sexual happened. I had never experienced actually dating before, and what a difference it made. He is the kind of guy that will hold the door open for you, he will tell you to sit down when your running around trying to ten things at once, he complains if you try to pick something up that’s heavy and says let me do that for you. He will come back with random things from the shop for you that he knows you like. He always said thank you if you did something for him, always said your food was nice if you cooked for him. I will never forget the first time we went on an outing with my son. He wanted to push the pram everywhere, he wanted to help with everything. When we met with his friends that day he spoke of my son with such excitement and pride it was almost as if he was his own. That really touched my heart and it will never leave me. He was an amazing father to my son and someday he is going to be an incredible father to one of his own. He always took me to do nice things, like the cinema or greyhound racing. My 21st birthday he really pushed the boat out, its not even about money but thoughtfulness. A trail of rose petals and 21 red roses waiting for me. That was one of the best days of my life and most certainly the best birthday I have had. Sometimes I think he’s just going to turn up at my door with a bunch of flowers, hold me tight and tell me that our love is too strong for him to walk away, but then I remember how far I have pushed him.

The most important thing for me was the way he looked into my eyes, nothing compares to his gaze locked on mine. The most beautiful eyes I have ever seen. The way he held me in his arms, the sense of security and the warmth of love coming from his heart was incredible. We used to kiss all the time, we always said we couldn’t stop kissing each other, like we were just drawn to one another. Like magnets. And although I failed to see it at the time, he did very often put my thoughts and feelings first, and tried to shelter me and keep me safe. Too bad that he couldn’t protect me from my own head.

I have never really experienced a broken heart like this before.

I hope there is a way to heal it.

Until next time.

Being the Victim

Victim, I’m not sure I like that word…

There is a phrase that has been repeating itself over and over in my head over the past few days. “You always act like the Victim”. I have had a lot of time to think this over and I had never really noticed it before but I guess it is something that I do, subconsciously. See who I am and who I want to be seem to be two very different people separated by a loss of control over my mind. I know who I want to be, how I want to act, and I have all the right intentions. These intentions seem to travel from my heart, into my head, and there they are manipulated into something so far from how they begun. Like a game of Chinese whispers. I always thought that I was a selfless person, that I put others above myself always and that I was a very caring and understanding person. Maybe I still am, but just not to everyone?

Let me give you an example, on mothers day this year I went out to town with a friend who was at the time with child. She was so distressed and upset because her partner hadn’t got her a card or gift from “the bump”. Some people may not believe in this practice, but as a mother I know that parenting begins the moment that you conceive, and I wanted her to feel some sort of recognition for all the sacrifices she has already made. I am a single mum myself, and I didn’t have a lot of money. But I raced around, I bought a card and flowers, and some cookies. I placed them on her doorstep, knocked and hid. I will never know how that made her feel, of course she thanked me a great deal and I think that she appreciated it, as would have I. That’s the me that I feel that I truly am in my heart, and the me that I wish I could be every minute of every day.

Let me give you another example, another very close friend of mine found herself in a similar struggle to that of my current struggle. I wont go into any details because that is not my story to tell. That girl is my life, family that I wasn’t born into, family that chose me. I had a feeling that if I didn’t pull her away from the situation very quickly she would loose herself, and maybe I would loose her forever. I couldn’t bare the thought of my friend suffering any worse than she already was. Without even asking her I booked her a ticket to travel to the country that I live in and I drove 3 hours to pick her up. I took her away from a bad situation, and I knew it wouldn’t fix her, but it would give her time to reflect before making any rash decisions. I barely had any money myself, and I certainly couldn’t afford to do what I did, but I did it anyway. That’s how important she is to me. I would do the same for anyone that is close enough to me.

So why is it that when it comes to men this side of me seems to disappear of the face of the earth? why is it that I feel like I am still being the same person that I want to be, that my friends can see, but to men that’s not how it comes across. I always thought I made compromises in the relationships I have had, but maybe I didn’t. Taking a step back and looking at it, my feelings have always been my number one concern in a relationship and for that reason I have neglected the feelings of the other party. I don’t agree with that, It goes against everything that I stand for. A relationship should work both ways, so why do I feel like only I can set the boundaries? I am starting to see that I don’t always play the Victim, I am always the Victim. Maybe not in reality, but I am in my head. My brain processes all of its thoughts with me as the Victim, always trying to protect me. My brain thinks its self defence, but really its self destruction. Every day in a relationship it is telling me I am the Victim, just like I was all those years ago and that I cannot trust any man. Its not just men, but women too. Anyone new that I meet faces the same barrier, I have no self confidence, no self worth and that affects me with everyone I come across in life.

What I need to do now is focus on building self esteem, building that confidence so that whether I’m walking into a new situation or a new situation arises within a longstanding relationship, I don’t instantly believe I am the victim. I want to be able to be in that moment with no preconceptions, no worries, no paranoia. I don’t want to walk into a room full of new people and think ” why would anyone want to talk to me, I’m not worthy of anyone’s time”. I want to have the confidence to walk into that room and think ” I am going to start a conversation with as many people as I can in this room, because I am a great person to talk to”. It seems so far away, but I know I will get there one day.

I found it very hard to fall asleep last night, thoughts were running wild. But I did come up with something that has given me some excitement in this dark time. I have set myself a goal for the year ahead, and something special to celebrate with when I reach my goal.

Until next time.

Explanation or excuse?

Now I’m frustrated and I need to vent it somewhere.

It pains me that I have lost so many good things in my life to this illness, that I have not allowed myself to enjoy the good moments and that I have suffered endless nights of crying myself to sleep. I have spent my teenage and adult years torturing myself with the past, suffocating in the present, afraid of the future. I know now that my happiness is down to me, and only I have the power to change how my brain works. I wish I had asked for help much sooner, if I had done this years ago my life could be so different now and I am the only one to blame for that.

What angers me is that everyday you hear people saying you must talk to someone, you must tell people how you feel, don’t bottle it up. People say that they are always here for you, but when you really need them how many of those people can you really count on? I have been afraid to go to a Doctor and seek professional help. I have known that I needed to do so, but going and actually getting it done was a whole lot harder than saying it. As if your mind doesn’t overthink enough with this kind of condition. Now I’m sitting there thinking what if they don’t believe me? what if they deny me any help? what if they do diagnose me with a condition, then I am labelled with it. Having that initial professional diagnosis does scare me. I know that mental health problems are common, and I accept that I definitely have one. What I am afraid of is the stigma that is attached to it. People will think I’m crazy, they might try to take my child away from me, they may stop me from doing things in the future. Sounds silly to be thinking about the future, but a work colleague and I were reading through the terms and conditions of a skydiving company a few months back and it said you cannot participate if you have suffered from anxiety or depression. All I kept thinking was once this is on my record it will never go away and one day it may well prevent me from doing things I’ve always dreamed of doing.

It is such a scary thing to do, but now I have done it. What hurts the most is feeling like the people that you love don’t believe you. Maybe they do believe you, but they just cant understand how severe it is. I guess I cant blame them, especially if they have never suffered with a mental health condition themselves. When the one person that you have confided in , the only person that you feel comfortable enough to tell your story to tells you that you ” always use it as your escape goat” its absolutely heart breaking. Does anyone else experience this? and if so how do you deal with it? how do you not let it break you? I wish there was a way that I could show anyone who thinks that people use their mental illnesses as an escape goat or an excuse for something to see what really goes on in our heads. This is not a choice, especially when you have not yet received any professional help, any CBT or whatever treatment best suits a person. Believe me I would never take a sick day off work again if it meant I never had to suffer with this pain. I would give up chocolates and cake, travelling, money, any nice things. I would give up anything but the people I love to stop me feeling this way. It both angers and saddens me that people think that I choose to be like this or that I am using it for anything. I am just trying to explain how it affects me, the things it makes me do and the way it makes me act. You don’t even have to understand it, you don’t have to agree with it, but to tell someone that is in a lot of pain that their illness is an “escape goat” just seems unforgiveable to me. It is there, in my head, every single day, its a part of every decision that I make and it forms a part of my reasoning for every action that I take. Am I better off just saying that I have no explanation for my actions and keeping all this to myself? or am I doing the right thing in trying to help those I am closest to understand me?

I know that it must be hard if you are supporting someone that is going through anything like this, but if you really care about them please try to make sure you are mindful of what you do say to them. There is support out there for you too. I came across this list earlier which is focused on survivors of rape and sexual abuse and I almost wish I had it attached to me when reaching out for my support.

http://cambridgerapecrisis.org.uk/support-for-supporters

I promised some people that I would take more time to recognise the good things in my life too, there is not a lot of good going on at the moment, so I only have one thing to highlight. Yesterday was the first day in a while that I managed to stay up all day and not feel completely worn out. I managed to walk to my sons nursery with his bike so that he could ride home, something that he loves. We also went to the park and he had great fun whizzing down the little ramps. It made me feel better, to start spending more time focusing on my beautiful child.

Until next time.

Always searching for the truth…

This morning I woke with slightly more energy than I have had over the past few days.

I think partly due to my last post, where I got things off my chest that I have been keeping to myself for a very long time. But also, the nightmares have stopped, for now, at least. Over the last month I have had nightmares every night and I have woke up feeling sad, scared and suffocated by the bad I have seen in my sleep. Mostly surrounding my boyfriend, well, my ex-boyfriend now, and it pains me to say that. My sleep is not good at the moment, I wake every two hours at least, but each time I dream and each time it is about him. He is the first and last thing on my mind every time I wake, only now am I dreaming about the good things. I woke up this morning after dreaming that I took him to my birthplace, something I have been waiting to do and we were happy, like I always wanted us to be. Maybe I feel lighter this morning because my brain is finally allowing me to see him in a good light and I suppose that’s because now that he is no longer mine he is not a threat to me. I like seeing all of the things we could have done, the relationship that I deserve. But I know that these events will only ever occur in my dreams and they are now so far from reality that they will never return. Even now writing this post I look down at my cuts and blisters from the silly heels I wore for our evening out in Paris and I would give anything to go back and change things. I wish I had the strength to not let this illness push away the only person that I love, and I fear that I will never love again.

Back to the abuse.

There is another thing that only those who have access to the files at the police station will know about my abuse. The case never went to court, there was not enough evidence, but there should have been. It was my word against his, and his word won. But there were three words that made up a part of the story, and only mine was true. There was another person involved. This boy was not much older than myself, still a child and probably never before exposed to sexual activities before that day either. I never blamed him, and now that I am old enough to look at it with an educated brain I understand that it would be classed as abuse to him to. Me being the abuser, only not by choice. They were best friends, the two boys. As the older one taught me what to do, and how to please him, he also made me please his friend. I don’t think the younger boy ever wanted that, or maybe he was curious and he did, either way, like myself he was afraid to say no. Nobody would say no to him, that’s the kind of power these people have. I guess that’s why he denied everything in his interviews, he denied any knowledge. Maybe because he feared he would get in trouble for partaking in the activities, maybe he was just trying to protect his friend. Maybe he was threatened by him, I will never know. It must have been a daunting experience for him too being caught up in something like that at such a young age. I still don’t blame him but I do wonder if he carries guilt in his heart to this day knowing that he didn’t tell the truth. His lie cost me my justice. I never have had any justice for what happened, I never had any closure and I accept that I never will.

We three people are the only people that know the truth, but the rest of the world only have what they know from it to judge by. I spoke up, and nothing became of it. I cannot explain how powerless that makes me feel. It has affected me in my adult life in so many ways. My ex-boyfriend and I used to have many disagreements about things, silly little things. Most recently we were having a debate about what would happen if you fell from an aeroplane. They should have just been normal educated discussions but I also took it a step too far and started to wind him up. I was never able to just drop it. I always want my point in an argument to be understood, I want to be listened to and agreed with and I wont stop going until I get that. I tried to explain it to him once before, that I feel as though because I wasn’t listened to before I want it more than ever now. Its funny how the brain works, because I’m not the same in every situation. Sometimes I say nothing at all, I am too afraid to speak up about something or voice my opinion because I have that belief in my brain that my words mean nothing anyway so its pointless using the energy to express it.

Similarly, the younger boys lie has haunted me. I always say that I want people to tell me the truth no matter how much it hurts, because my brain cannot deal with not knowing. I will waste so much energy, and suffocate my brain trying to find the truth myself, trying to come up with the answers. As many of you who suffer from this will know, your brain comes up with the worst case scenario and sticks it there, and doesn’t let you believe anything else. It also causes you to predict worst case scenarios for future matters that haven’t even occurred yet and the sad part is you end up pushing people to do the very things your afraid of. This is where I have gone wrong in my last relationship, I feel like I am constantly being lied too and the truth is always hidden from me. That is something that I need to learn how to control if I ever want to get by in life. Any relationship, whether its intimate, a friendship or a family member. I need to learn to have more trust in people, stop searching for a truth that may not even exist. Just because these two boys lied about the truth, and the world will never know what I went through, and the instigator will never be punished doesn’t mean everyone is hiding the truth. It doesn’t mean everyone is getting away with something without being punished, and that is how I’ve been feeling. I guess that’s why I’m always searching for something, to uncover some truth that’s been hidden, so that they cant get away with it, just like he did.

I am no angel myself, and I must admit that I too in my lifetime have told lies or hidden the truth or part of it. That just makes me hate myself even more. One thing that I will give myself credit for is that If I’m ever asked about something, if I’m accused of lying or hiding something and I have, I will admit to it. And often I will just come out with things that I have hidden without anyone searching for them because the guilt is too much for me to carry.

The day that my brain stops behaving this way, stops wanting answers to everything, stops searching for things that may not even exist, I will be free. I cannot wait to experience a free mind for the first time in life since I can remember.

Until next time.

The first trigger

Okay so I’m ready to tell you about the first and most dominant trigger of all my mental health issues.

My Childhood – The Abuse

I find this very hard to talk about, and apart from the police officers in my interviews and questioning, I don’t think I have ever disclosed the details to any of my family or friends.

I was about 8 years old when it started, it began as a game, like mummy’s and daddy’s. There was a housing estate just a five minutes walk from my family home, where a family friend lived. My mother used to take myself and my brother to her friends house and let us play with the other children that lived on the housing estate. I can still visualise exactly where it was when it first started, the fence that acted as the pretend doorway to our imaginary house, where we would place our fingerprint to gain access. I was still young enough to participate in these imaginary games and find them fun and exciting. He told me that we had to pretend to be married, and do all of the things that real married couples would do. At 8 years old I was too naïve to understand what it is that adult couples in relationships do, but I was about to find out…

The game began outside in the street, anyone could have seen it but out there only a quick peck or a cuddle was displayed which must have seemed normal to any adult should they ask and be told that you were playing a game of that sort. It progressed over the weeks and things started to move indoors and this is where I first learnt about sexual activities. It was a part of the game, it was what couples did. First I was shown what to do, being taught like a child would be, but this wasn’t a classroom and it was no content I needed to learn about so early in my life. After being shown the various things that I could do I was then told I had to keep doing it. I will never forget the explanation or the room surrounding me as I learned of this. “when you keep doing that, eventually it will make my whole body tingle and something will come out, that’s when you know you’ve done a good enough job”. That was my first ever experience of how to please someone in the bedroom and it has never left me. I remember having a session with a councillor at school, shortly after I had spoke up about what had been happening. I was about 10 by this point, I was in my final year of primary education, hadn’t even made it to big school yet. I sat with this lady and we cut out words from magazines and stuck words one side that we thought may make me sad, fearful, things I may struggle with in the future. Words like sex, boyfriend, man, trust…

Nothing could prepare me for how much it would impact my life and it seems that every time I have a breakdown or an anxiety attack I learn even more how it links to this. I read some articles lately about childhood abuse and it mentioned on there that you can go one of two ways from an experience like this. Some people are so fearful that they avoid any sexual contact, any relationships, due to the trauma they have been through. Some people however act in the opposite way, participating in sexual relations perhaps too much. I am afraid I have been one of those. Only now that I am able to reflect on the life I have lived I have realised that I engaged willingly in sexual relations at a very young age, something that I am very ashamed of. I also consented to relations throughout my life that I have actually had no desire for. I believe that I have always acted this way because of that moment I mentioned above. I grew from a child into an adult with it implanted in my growing brain that I had to please men, that I had to make them orgasm, only then would I have done my job properly. I now have my own desires for the product that is produced when an orgasm is reached and I wonder if that is again also linked to that day.

There is far too much to go through with regards to how this abuse has left me feeling. Most commonly I feel worthless, I feel as though everyone is out to get me and that if someone is being nice to me, it is not out of the goodness of their heart. There is always an ulterior motive that my brain wont give up searching for, and it is this that causes me to push away the good people. Because I cant believe they are good, I cant believe anyone would ever love me. I feel as though I am destined to be hurt and that it will always happen to me no matter what. As I write more posts I will link some of my attacks, my fears and my feelings back to what happened to me as a small child.

Sometimes I feel as though its just easier to give up, because things will never get better for me. But its like I have two minds, a true Gemini, and every now and then I get a glimpse of a healthier, happier future and I know that I cant give up on reaching it. I really hope that I can find ways to get better and fight this for myself and for everyone that is close to me.

Until next time.

The Journey Begins

Thank you for taking the time to read my story.

I am just a girl, just your ordinary girl as it may seem to the outside world. 21 years old, with the world at my feet and opportunities arising everyday. If I was to choose one comment from others that would best describe me it would be this ‘you’ve got your head screwed on’. The amount of times I have heard that, that must be what many see. Oh, the irony, as each day that passes I feel as though my head gets looser and looser. Or maybe I am making it looser because my head carries so much that I no longer want it on my shoulders. It is too heavy, it suffocates me. Those who judge me by my cover see what I want them to see, they see who I want to be. But those who come far enough into my life to start reading the book, begin to see the real me. There is only so far you can come in to my life before I struggle to hide my feelings from you.

I guess that’s why I am here today, why I am beginning to share my story with the world. Perhaps I am seeking acceptance, people who have been through a similar journey and can relate to how I feel. Perhaps I want to be that acceptance for someone else, who is at the stage where they feel like no-one will understand them. Perhaps I want people to read my story and better understand what it is that a loved one is going through, because it must be hard to understand someone else’s pain if you have never experienced a pain like it. There needs not only be one reason for me starting this page, but I truly hope that it can benefit many people.

Let me begin with the most recent turn of events. The weekend just passed my boyfriend took me to Paris, we stayed in a beautiful hotel where he arranged for champagne and a birthday message to be waiting in the room for me. I have never been treated so well by a man before. It was like one of those moments you see in movies or Instagram posts and think, ‘ I wish someone would do that for me’. There I was, with something I had wished for so many times prior to this, and I finally had it, right in front of me. But I didn’t appreciate that moment, like I had always dreamed that I would. There was something bigger inside me weighing me down, stopping me from that one special moment that we both deserved to have and both deserved to cherish. It had been building inside me for a long time, years in fact. But it fluctuates, its like a heart beat, constantly up and down. You can go a short period of time managing it, putting it aside and dealing with it later. Sometimes, you cant manage it at all and you have a break down, no matter where you are, who your with, you just cant physically take what is going on in your head anymore and it all flows out. That’s what happened to me in Paris, I knew for weeks that I was on the verge of a big mental breakdown. I love travelling, I should have been so excited, I should have been in my element, but I was not. I was in such a dark place that even something so great was not enough to lift my mood. He wanted to see my bouncing around like a child, smiling non stop, enjoying everything right there that I had in that moment. I wish I did. I really wish that I had appreciated that time away, and all of the effort that he had made for me but I couldn’t. Things were so bad inside my head that I was suffocating even then. I had known for weeks now that I needed professional help, but its an easy thing to say that you want it, but going to get it is scary and I put it off for too long.

After this heart-breaking experience, no doubt for the both of us, I reached breaking point. I went to work and I broke down, I knew I had to go home and that it was finally time to make the first step. For the first time ever, I broke down to my parents, one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. Admitting to them how I often don’t want to live anymore, how I feel worthless, how I feel like the whole world is against me. There are hundreds of little contributing factors to the way I feel, but it all started with childhood abuse. I have now been to the doctor, I have got some time off work to try and recover slightly before resuming normal day to day life. Shortly the process of the referral will kick in, I will be psychologically assessed and I hope that will bring me the help that I need. It may be too late to save my relationship, but there is still time to save my life.

Until next time.