I don’t want to sound like a victim, although I see no shame in being a victim. When I was given the victim support number at one point, I didn’t feel embarrassed. I can’t stand victim shaming, something a very close friend of mine endured following a horrific incident. I do feel like the term ‘life’s victim’ has it’s place. With the sort of people who blame everyone for their problems, and feel the world owes them. The sort of people who don’t self reflect, own their mistakes and grow from them. However, to call someone struggling and someone who is honest about their struggle and brave enough to be open, then I find the term ‘life’s victim’ so inappropriate and harsh. I am not a ‘life’s victim’. I have a good sense of perspective and am grateful for my blessings.

I think a great quote to remind yourself of is…

        “Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is a little like expecting a bull not to attack you because you are a vegetarian”

David Wholey

You’re going to encounter pretty shitty people in life, but always be kind for ‘everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about’. Or something along those lines. I took a really long time to open up to my closest friend, and later my boyfriend and parents. I also took a long time to seek professional help in dealing with mental illness and past trauma. Some things I will never blog about, but I do feel comfortable sharing just how difficult I found growing up.

In no way am I self absorbed, i’m just honest about how difficult I’ve found certain things in life. Often things other people enjoy, I would dread. Social interaction especially. I admit I was far from perfect growing up. But growing is a key word there. I have grown from my mistakes, and remember pretty much all of them. I have the hugest conscience and even recently I was building bridges with people I may have upset in my youth. I reached out to them because I needed to make things right and let them know I’ll never forget the times i’ve been less than kind. It was so important to me.

That quote, ‘happiness is the journey, not the destination’, doesn’t really apply to me. I’m on a journey to wellness and it’s been far from happy. It’s meant sacrifice, heartbreak, and facing up to things I didn’t really ever think I could. But you do begin to see the sun shine through from behind the grey clouds. It meant walking away and cutting ties from a lot of people I once considered family. It was incredibly hard as I spent most of my life trying to be close to them, constantly seeking their approval and when I got to the age I had my own beliefs and opinions I’d constantly be put down. One specific incident that springs to mind is I called a person out on a homophobic slur, and their response ‘Are you trying to tell me you’re a lesbian Stacey?’. Now, Love is Love. I love love. I do not see this as an insult. However, I found such a remark to be ignorant. I got tired of biting my tongue and face palming at ridiculous ignorant uneducated remarks. I got tired of hostility. I also wanted to make the person aware their language and vocabulary could be really offensive.

I was tired of being the blame of everything. Everything seemed my fault. Tired of being regarded as spoilt when I was anything but. So far removed from spoilt, it’s beyond ridiculous. I just realise I can’t make people love me (Bon Iver’s cover of ‘I can’t make you love me’ just popped up in my head, now the chorus will be stuck on repeat in my mind). I felt pathetic after years of trying to be happy and loved. Don’t chase that shit, man. Those who are worth it give it freely.

Another quote I actually like…?

‘You can’t have a rainbow without the rain’.

To me, that resonates more. Whilst I’m having a cringe moment, i’ll fully indulge and also admit I’ve bought a few little plywood plaques with quotes on in my time. Even though it’s one of the most cringe inducing things I see, I have bought a few by East of India. Does this make me a hypocrite? More than likely. But hey, that’s ok. I’m human.

I’ve suffered with mental illness my whole life. Pretty much as long as I can remember. I knew I wasn’t ‘normal’. I found socialising incredibly difficult. I didn’t want to play with the other kids early on. I’d cling to my mum, not just on the first day of school. Every day. I’d feel nauseated beyond belief at the sight of my school uniform (this never fully went away). I remember on the first day at reception (aged 5 I think?) there was a little play kitchen in the classroom and I remember wishing none of the other kids were there so i’d be brave enough to go and play with it, but of course there were other kids having fun and I didn’t dare go near it. So when I finally stopped crying (I was the new kid) the teacher let me cling to her instead. My lovely teachers tried so hard to get me to stop crying every day. To get me to interact with the other kids. One day I remember I was wearing an old coat, and inside I found two dummies. I had long been too grown up for dummies. But I found some that the babysitter hadn’t thrown away (my mum got our babysitter to get rid of my dummies as she didn’t want to be the one to as she knew how I used them as a comfort). So age five, I found these dummies, went and found a corner in the playground and faced the wall and sucked on my dummies. It sounds really amusing now. But I remember as if it was yesterday the little blue coat, that was a bit too small, and finding the dummies and them reminding me of home. It helped me cope that play time, not having any friends and feeling like I was an alien.

Until I got caught by a kid and the mocking began.

I couldn’t handle lunch time at school for a while. So I’d go home for lunch. But it would be my auntie picking me up, taking me to hers for lunch, and taking me back to school. I need to say here that my auntie was great. Always on time to get me, always had something fun for me to do during the break (she had a jar of hair bobbles on top of her fridge because she knew I loved to play with hair, and she’d let me do really interesting hair styles. What can I say, I was a visionary. Bjork and Gwen Stefani eat your heart out). But I feel awful for saying it, but I felt such disappointment in the pit of my stomach when my auntie was there 9/10 times to get me. I’d feel ecstatic when my mum was the one to pick me up for the lunch break. As in, kid on Christmas morning happy. Nothing against my auntie, I just was one very fragile little kid. It was nothing against her, a ‘normal’ kid would be stoked to have an auntie like that having them for the lunch hour. I just felt rejected and wanted my mum to come get me like the other kids who went home.

Shortly after I remember we were queuing up for assembly. I hated assembly as I couldn’t cling to my teacher and had to sit in a line with other kids. We were queuing up and I had such bad anxiety. I needed the toilet but I was too scared to use public toilets (I’ve only gotten past this recently).  When I tried to tell the teacher she was too busy trying to get everyone in a line. I remember she told us to start walking into the hall and I just stood there frozen not sure why a girl called Kelly stood there laughing at pointing at me. I looked down at my white tights and the floor, you’ve guessed it. I had an ‘accident’ at school. I remember thinking it wasn’t so bad, I got to miss some of assembly whilst the teacher helped me change into some clothes out of a random box of clothes, but then I had to be walked into the assembly past all the sniggering kids.

My mum started helping out at the school (I think this was an agreement between the teacher and her to try and help me cope). It was great having my mum there some days. I got the confidence to talk to other kids. The teacher gave me a main role in a school play! I was so excited. I learnt all my lines, practised at home, my mum helped with the costumes that year and it was the lead up to Christmas. My role was ‘Mother Hen’ and my mum made me wings by layering different coloured crepe paper. I was so proud that I had been chosen to have a main role with lots of lines. Just before it was my turn, a girl also in the play, the bitchiest little kid i’d ever known, walked up to me and ripped my wings off. I just stood in shock before having a meltdown. Oh shit, it was my turn to go on (there wasn’t a stage, it was just a square hall with lines of people sitting around three of the walls, and performers in front of the fourth wall).

I remember the teacher calling me. ‘Stacey, it’s your turn. You’re on’. I wouldn’t move. After a few minutes of hesitating my teacher took my hand and walked onto the ‘stage’ with me. I buried my head in her arm. She tried to get me to read the lines. I just remember peering out and seeing a bunch of adults and older kids just staring at me. Then I looked out for my mum and big brother and big sister (7 and 5 years my senior). I saw them. They were hysterically laughing and my mum was telling them off.  The teacher read my lines for me. Lines i’d rehearsed proudly for months. It was pretty humiliating, but by this point in my life that was a regular occurrence. I get that my siblings were kids, I really do, but I just wasn’t like them. I couldn’t laugh at somebody crying. I remember a few years later I saw a parent, the mother of one of my school friends (I won’t say his name), fall over. She was quite heavily overweight which made me feel even more protective of her feelings. A lovely lady. She fell over and I saw. My mum ran and helped her up, and she was ok. But I saw people laughing. I cried for days. Maybe months. I kept asking my mum if she was ok, she’d say ‘Stacey it was a month ago, she’s fine’. Her son was lovely, well, until an adult. Over a decade later he asked me and my best mate out on the same night, unaware we were together in her garden and comparing texts. It was pretty funny!

The reason I cried so much over the broken wings? My mum. I remembered how long she spent making those wings. I cried because my mum had made me them and a cruel child ripped them off as I was waiting to go and perform. I knew my mum wouldn’t be mad, but my heart hurt. I just couldn’t take someone doing something unkind to my mum.

A few years later in the junior school I had a watch on that my mum bought me, and one day it broke. The strap broke (grown up Stacey would realise that watches from Argos probably will snap). But that day I withdrew into myself, went and found a corner and broke down. I knew my mum didn’t have much money, and I remember how happy she was to give me this watch for my birthday. I couldn’t bear her knowing a watch she had saved for had broken. I cried so much I was sick, and I was sent home. My mum just said ‘that’s ok, we’ll buy another one’. She took me to Argos to get one (later something that would be referred to as me being a spoiled brat by absolute dickheads who are now very much in my past).  It wasn’t me crying and being a brat that I wanted a new watch. It was me having a mental breakdown because I knew my mum didn’t have much money, and the watch was extremely sentimental to me.

In my teens, this sensitivity to how others feel meant I was referred to as an ’emotional wreck’ by a [then] family member. It was during a disagreement and they mocked me.

Rewind a little back to infant school. By year 4 I’d finally began talking to a few friends and playing at play times. My sister was in the junior school and sometimes I could see her as the two playgrounds were separated by a grass verge. Every day I’d go to the verge and call for her. Or ask other students ‘Do you know my sister, can you get her for me?’. I can imagine this was annoying for my sister, and maybe embarrassing. Even though other kids did the same to say hi to their older siblings. Just seeing my big sister for a few seconds made me cope better and get through the day. She stopped coming to the verge after a few times, or she’d tell the other students to tell me that she was too busy playing. I get that, honestly I do. I was an annoying clingy sister, but it was a coping mechanism for me.

I had two best friends, one called Adele and one called Laura. My favourite teacher wasn’t supposed to tell anyone, but she told my mum that she was moving up a year and would be my teacher for a second year in a row. Lunch time was part filled with anxiety, desperately hoping i’d get to sit with my friends, and part comforting as my sandwiches reminded me of home and my mum. This never went away, and comfort eating became a huge issue in later life.

When it was time to move up to the adjacent junior school, I was heartbroken to find out that Adele, Laura and I were split into the three different classes. I became pretty ill. I didn’t eat, I had nightmares, I had to be dragged to school. My mum went into the school to plead with the teacher to let me be in a class with one person I knew. The teacher said it was out of her control. (I respect that, after all, school is to teach you to be independent). But as a kid I didn’t understand. The teacher, bless her heart, gathered about 12 members of what was to be my new class and sat them around a table. This was to get me back to school and prepare me for the future. Then I remember walking in to this room of kids  as I was still clinging onto my mum’s hand. Then she passed me over to the teacher. These poor kids, so confused as to why they were all pulled out of class to sit around this table. Each kid had to tell me they’d be my friend and say something they liked about me. They barely knew me. We didn’t even know each other’s names. I remember two people specifically. One girl, I won’t name her but the prettiest girl i’d ever seen (to this day she’s one of the most beautiful people you’ll ever see) and one boy. Another boy who in our twenties asked me out. I’m not mentioning this because I’m a raging narcissist, I just want to point out back then I felt like such an ugly kid. No-one wanted to know me, but when I was in my late teens and early twenties, the same boys I crushed on later started paying me  a lot of attention. By then I wasn’t ‘into’ them though.  I do wonder if he remembered this incident in infant school, but I never reminded him.

So back to all these confused kids saying nice things to me, but very aware that the teacher was watching. They’d keep looking at the teacher to make sure they were saying the right things. I think my teacher was lovely and so caring, and I do think maybe it made me less afraid of moving up to the big school having met some of me new classmates in advance, but it was one of many situations I needed reassurance. The anxiety never went away, i’m not sure it ever will entirely. What I will say is, this incident was not used against me and I was not bullied by those children. In fact I wasn’t bullied at all in junior school until one new girl joined, her name was Joanne. I remember she got upset that I was chosen to be baby spice at play time and she asked me to bend down to pick something up she dropped and kicked me in the stomach. Even now I wince at how much it hurt. It winded me. My mum wasn’t having it though, and took me into school and complained straight to the head master and deputy head. She also painted over one of my drawings that I was really proud of. But after my mum made the teacher’s aware, the girl didn’t bully me again. Back then security on school campuses was non existent. I remember one boys mother running into our classroom screaming and dragging a boy that had been bullying her son. I felt guilty as I was outside the classroom and when this angry woman walked in and asked which classroom was Mr. B’s, I pointed her to the room. I felt so guilty. To be fair to 10 year old me, I didn’t know that shit was about to hit the fan. An angry woman asked me a question, I answered. That would be unimaginable today. When I was 15 I did work experience at my old infant school and you had to type in a code, and speak on an intercom to be allowed access into the school. It’s sad that the violence in the world has lead to this, but it’s necessary to protect children. I remember another day we had to stay over an hour after school as there was a man with a rifle walking around. Our school sounds awful, and I do joke about it being ‘rough’, but back then believe it or not, it was a lovely school. I only recall a few incidences of bullying. It was probably my most happy time at any school. Even though I still found it difficult and would never use the toilets.

It didn’t help that this belief  that I was ‘weird’ was reinforced by people who were supposed to love me telling me I was ‘different’. They’d say it in such a negative way, screwing their faces up. When I was in my twenties working at the skate shop, I had a pretty awesome boss. I told her ‘shit, i’ve always been called different as an insult’ and she told me ‘dude, different is awesome. Embrace that shit’. So now I kind of do. Tim Burton’s ‘different’, but he’s successful. Be alright. Kate Bush was ‘different’ and she’s pretty ace. S’all good!

As I grew up, my mum began to get frustrated with me. We didn’t get on so much in my teens. She’d say awful things like she was ‘ashamed’ of me. Something she later deeply regretted. I was a good kid, but I was in her words a ‘worrier’, a ‘whittler’. Back then we didn’t really know about social anxiety and how much it can impact negatively on a person’s life. My mum saw her friends kids being confident, self sufficient, and then her kid was a bit of a pain in the ass. I couldn’t make phone calls, if there was a school trip I’d dread it. My luck was always that if someone was to be left out or excluded, it was me. I began planning months in advance trying to find somebody who would sit beside me on the coach. I’d keep asking them, making them promise. I’d be sick leading up to the school trips. I guess I couldn’t handle all of the anxiety and emotions. I do remember a few occasions I had fun on school trips, but for the most part they were awful. Especially that trip to Bude in Cornwall. Don’t get me wrong, the idea of learning to surf was something I really wanted to do, but not only was I in a room of 13, when were separated into activity groups, every single person in the room had a partner apart from me. Not only was I with 4 other girls from my school I didn’t know, I was in the ‘left over’ group where we were put with another school. It just didn’t seem fair that my biggest fears about the trip came true. It should have been a learning curve for me. To be independent, but it just made me feel inferior to everyone else, unworthy, and ‘different’. Back at the room everyone would be so happy having had so much fun. I’d just want to hide under my covers. If back then we’d had mobile phones like kids today do, I’d probably have been ringing my mum non stop to come and get me. (of course she’d refuse).

The only time on that trip I had fun was when one of my best friends (one that I believe got frustrated how clingy I was) and I won the talent show. We kind of had two entries which was cheating a little bit. One was our ‘famous’ ventriloquist act (something we’d performed at school one time and we had kids asking for autographs, i’m not kidding)… people told us to do it for school trip talent show, but this time we had a microphone and it completely threw us off. It bombed. Not as in, ‘shit, that was bomb’, no, it was awful. However one very enthusiastic teacher (well, she was the most miserable and feared teacher ever), but she was competitive and got excited knowing kids from her school could win, she found out we were Irish Dancers. Well, regarding myself I use that term lightly, however my friend was brilliant, her house covered in trophies and medals. I was truly awful. I mean, awful! The most stiff, to the point of being in pain trying to stand straight, dancer ever. My mum made me attend classes in her ongoing attempts to make me sociable. So this teacher, let us miss group activities, took us to a shop to buy an Irish music CD and then made us practise! We felt pretty special as we didn’t have to take part with the other kids, we got to stay at the hostel in a room and practise. We won the talent show but I’ll have to give my friend credit for that I was appalling at Irish dance. Another reason my little cousin and I were made to go to classes, was because we had a proud Irish grandmother and our parents wanted to impress her. (Maybe not really the case, I think Heidi liked it, but I was so bad at it).

Back to mental health though.

Up until recently I was embarrassed about something I have no control over. I never discussed it with friends as I didn’t want to make them feel uncomfortable. I was ultimately a pain growing up. So clingy, always seeking approval and reassurance. Until I turned 16 and hid behind my ‘I don’t give a f*ck’ attitude. You know, when I only wore black for 2 years, painted my nails black and took winged eyeliner a little too far. Oh college days. Obsessing over guys who were ‘so hot’. Listening to ‘Deja Entendu’ by Brand New on repeat, really diggin’ their ‘new sound’ as I worked on my huge art canvas (such a tortured soul I was). I made latex masks and sewed them onto a canvas. It was grim. Man, I was so arty and ‘misunderstood’.  The films I made were always horrors. I loved filmmaking though. I even got encouraged by my art teacher  to make a film to accompany my art project. My final major project was on David Hockney and swimming pools. We saw Bill Viola’s video instillation at the Tate Modern and it was all about people jumping into water and reversing the images. So I kind of ripped that off a little for my video.

At least back then I got really into fitness and lost a lot of weight. I had the best body i’ve ever had but it’s  a shame back then that I wanted to be stick thin, hated my curves and only wore boy jeans and band tees. I wore a fitted dress once and some folk said ‘wow, that looks lovely’ so I ran back up to my room and changed back into my boy clothes. Man, I wish I had that figure now, i’d definitely be wearing cute skater dresses.

So for a few brief years I convinced myself I was confident and didn’t care what anybody thought. I got a job at the local video store and my confidence grew having to make dozens of daily calls, dealing with drunk customers on the night shift, dealing with difficult customers (one who kept calling me a bitch because they didn’t understand they had to pay £5 off of their massive fine in order to continue renting).  But that confidence didn’t last long. I’ll thank university for that. Three miserable years of social interaction. I just wanted to learn, but felt pressure that I should be sociable. I didn’t connect with anyone apart from one guy. I liked him because like me he was a bit of a loner. The fact he looked just like Jonathan Taylor Thomas may have had something to do with it. We became friends, hung out a few times after college ended. I lent him Silvia Plaith’s ‘The Bell Jar’ and all of my Elliott Smith albums (I do listen to music and read books by people who didn’t commit suicide too) … He played some of my favourite songs on my guitar in my room, probably unaware of how bad I was crushing on him. We met up a few years later, but we didn’t hit it off as much. He’d changed a lot, so had I. He’s very happily married now and doing so well and I’m beyond stoked for him and his gorgeous wife. We keep in touch and it’s all good.

I have well and truly gone off on a tangent. I just wanted an introduction of how my mind was one of my worst enemies growing up. I suffered with crippling anxiety as a child (I don’t think i’ll ever go into where I believe that all stemmed from as it’s not really something I want to blog about). I don’t think there was much awareness of Social anxiety disorder back then. I was deeply sensitive to other’s feelings, something I struggle with to this day. Recently my therapist recommended I watch a seminar and my word did the speaker’s words resonate with me. I’ll go into depth about that in another blog post. Basically it’s to do with something one of my emotional support counsellors said when I was upset that a lady in the supermarket’s card got declined and I couldn’t stop crying. I wanted to pay for her, but didn’t want to offend her or embarrass her, but I couldn’t bare her putting her trolley full off groceries back. I cried in the car with my very understanding boyfriend trying to comfort me and reassure me. My counsellor later said ‘You can do your part, but you can’t save the world’. A similar message I got from the seminar I watched with a world renowned therapist and author.

My childhood was difficult and later, I suffered with a deep depression and pretty severe  OCD. I always felt I wasn’t allowed to feel sad or down as there were always people far worse off in the world. But now I realise I needed help as a kid. I needed guidance. I was struggling too much and not living my life.

For now, it’s been pretty cathartic for me to revisit those parts of my childhood that stick out in my mind. Things i’ve since spoken about in counselling, therapy and with loved ones. I am so relieved that today mental illness is spoken about more widely and that children are able to get support and seek help. It’s so important, especially in the formative years.

I think this is a long enough blog post, so even though I only mentioned a few things that I felt comfortable writing openly about, I just wanted to explain that I know what it’s like to feel pretty alone and confused. Perhaps the parts of childhood i’ve touched upon seem trivial out of context, but to say I struggled would be an understatement of epic proportions.

Of course there are happy memories too, but most of those were overshadowed and I was a really unhappy kid. Scared of everything, the most crippling anxiety. It’s gotten better and worse over time. I was always well aware that there were children far worse off. Children starving in the world, homeless children, children who’s parents had passed away, children with terminal illness. I was always grateful for my blessings but I was just so sad. I felt inferior to other kids. Even as an adult part of my CBT was finding ways of dealing with he inferiority belief I had. Especially the feeling of being inferior to other women. I’m still working on that.

At one point during my deepest depression I stayed in bed for a month, only leaving to shower (even that wasn’t as frequently as I usually would have). That was a really dark time in January 2015. A time that countless times I had night terrors. My loved ones called out of hours doctors and I felt like a zombie sitting in a waiting room early hours of the morning having not slept in days. Then there was the niacin overdose. It wasn’t really an overdose, but now it’s the one thing during that time I can laugh at. My best friend was so worried about me, and the medication I was prescribed was going to take 3 weeks to start working. I was as close to suicidal as I’d ever been. I had scissors under my pillow and I remember crying because I wanted to numb my wrists first but we had no ice. I was terrified of being denied a place in Heaven (I’m not super religious, but it is always something I thought of), I’m also not christened so I really felt i’d not be allowed through the pearly gates. Committing a sin and having not been christened. I also was genuinely worried about traumatising anyone who found me. So I was in  a bad way. My best friend and boyfriend visited a herbal shop and the woman recommended niacin. She warned them that I would have a hot flush and go red. So, later that night, I took the recommended amount. It didn’t seem to work, so I took more, and then some more. All of a sudden I felt as if I was on fire, my skin was burning, and I saw sheer fear in my boyfriend and friend’s eyes. I looked in the mirror, I was not red, I was borderline purple. Like the girl in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory who turns into a big blueberry and the Oompa Lumpas have to roll her away. I remember I had such a bad panic attack I told the nurse on the phone I felt my skin was on fire and I couldn’t breathe. When we went in the waiting room there was a husband and wife and their little girl. Probably aged about 7. That poor girl, I probably gave her nightmares. I walk in with every blood vessel showing in my skin. I sat the row behind her, and her little head kept turning round with the most shocked expression and her mum kept turning her head back around and asking her not to stare.  Now I find it really funny how bizarre I looked, especially when I was telling my cousin and googled a photo to show her how I looked (google niacin overdose, even though is not possible to overdose on it, it’s certainly dangerous. You still won’t see how red/purple I was, as the photos on google aren’t quite as extreme. Unless you saw me, I don’t think you can imagine how red I was. I’m not exaggerating. Worse than any photos on google of a niacin ‘overdose’). When the little girl went in with her mum (about 1am by this point) her dad couldn’t hide his amusement and asked what I’d taken. He turned out to be a pretty cool guy and knew a lot about herbal medicine and holistic healing. He actually made me laugh, at a time in my life I never thought i’d laugh again. He was really funny and kind. I was this overweight bright purple girl sat in a waiting room at 1 am. The fact i’m quite overweight just added to the blueberry look.

Prior to that, another time I was stuck in an all consuming deeply depressed state,  for well over a year in my early twenties i’d spend my days off from work and university in my room with the blinds down. I went from the 13 year old girl who polished her room every single night (just one OCD ritual I had) to an awful mess. Everything was clean, the clothes that cover my floor especially… but it was a mess. It really upset my mum and she’d get really angry at me just staying in a dark cave of a room. She’d get angry and say hurtful things. I just felt like ‘I am at university, I’m also working and I am so unhappy and you still shout at me all of the time. Don’t you get I just don’t want to wake up?’. I just didn’t want to be in the world anymore. The first time my boyfriend saw my room, I was in bed crying (I can’t remember what over, and my parents let him in) and he spent hours tidying it for me. I was feeling too low to feel embarrassed about the absolute state of my room.  I wanted to do it for so long but I couldn’t face it. I’d just break down crying every time I started tidying. I am a very tidy person, so now i’m feeling better I couldn’t imagine being in that place.

At one point, around the age of 26, sunlight gave me anxiety. Sunlight and mirrors, seeing myself in sunlight was unbearable. I’d gained about 5 stone. My once straight teeth (thanks to braces on the NHS) were going crooked again. I hadn’t aged well due to stress and straying far from my once very healthy and active lifestyle. Even now I hate pulling the visor on a car down incase it has a mirror. But my boyfriend and best friend surprised me one day and told me they’d pay for me to have braces (for a second time). I said no, but they insisted. They literally gave me my smile back. I get emotional thinking just how kind that was of them. How thoughtful and selfless.

I often worry that my anxiety will hinder my future children from becoming self sufficient, confident and independent. I don’t want them to see their mother stressed and worried all of the time. It really worries me that they’ll inherit my mental illness and I would be devastated to see my children be the recluse that I was. I’m not sure how common OCD is with children, I read the onset is later in life, but I definitely suffered as a child. One particular ritual was when I went to the toilet (apologies if this is an overshare, but it’s the truth) I had to hum a tune as I wiped myself. If I did it wrong I had to start again. Most nights it took me 45 minutes to get it right, but that time I was so sore and in so much pain. If I didn’t do it correctly it meant I wouldn’t be able to sleep, and something bad would happen. There was also the flicking of the light switches. When I first learned I had OCD I though the most common thing people think, ‘oh that’s why i’m super tidy and meticulous and why I have rituals’. Little did I know that OCD was so much more than that and I suffer so severely that at one point I was paranoid I had schizophrenia. (Something a relative of mine had, and heartbreakingly took his own life.) For some people, OCD is living in fear of your own mind. It’s absolute Hell and I feel that people need to be made more aware that it’s not just counting (something I do a lot less now in supermarkets thanks to CBT) or flicking a light switch. It’s regarded by the World Health Organisation amongst the top ten illnesses for loss of earnings and quality of life. Sure, I had rituals, countless ones by the time I hit my twenties. Even today i’m realising some actions are rituals. I’m constantly challenging myself, thanks to my therapist.

I’ll stop here as it’s going to turn into a novella if I keep rambling on. For now anyway…

I’ll end it with a quote of my own, well a Facebook status I wrote a few years ago…

‘If you love someone tell them, you never know how much they might need to hear it. 

Better yet, show them. You never know how much they need to feel it.’

I’m no poet, or author, but I think choosing to have children later in life (I’m now 30, yikes) i’ve definitely grown a little wiser of the years, and when I do have the privilege of becoming a parent, I’ll be more knowledgable and the wisdom will be useful.

Stace x