Finding HopeFeeling Good About Feeling Bad
Posted on June 1, 2019
This video has some really good thoughts on how to process negative emotions, one that isn’t forced positivity and doesn’t end with you accidentally dwelling in the negative. The method may be a little cheesy but it’s good advice and let’s face it, we could all do with some self directed gentleness and goofiness.
“Literally every emotion you feel is trying to do something for you.”
Quotes That Helped Me (Validation Edition – Part 1)
Posted on May 11, 2019
One thing I’ve really learned over the last few years is that, as important as support and help are, so are recognition and validation of what we’re going through. To feel like someone understands how we feel can ward off the intense isolation that can come hand in hand with mental illness. To have our struggles dismissed is sometimes even worse than them being ignored altogether.
In a continuation of this series, here are some quotes that validated my feelings and helped me feel understood. I hope they can do the same for you.
“I’m afraid I’ll be a book that no one reads. Music that no one listens to anymore. I’m afraid I’ll be abandoned like a movie playing in an empty theatre.” – Tablo
“We are all museums of fear.” – Charles Bukowski
“I exist too much, I feel too much, think too much. Reality is crushing the life out of me.” – David Jones
“I’m really afraid to feel happy because it never lasts.” – Andy Warhol
“Have you ever had to get through a day, smiling at people, talking, as if everything were normal and okay, while all the time you felt like you were carrying a leaden weight of unhappiness inside you?” – Elizabeth Wurtzel
“I get it now. I get it. The things that you hope for the most are the things that destroy you in the end.” – John Green
“I’m numb and I’m tired. Too much has happened today. I feel as if I’d been out in a pounding rain for forty-eight hours without an umbrella or a coat. I’m soaked to the skin with emotion.” – Ray Bradbury
“The truth is, I pretend to be a cynic, but I am really a dreamer who is terrified of wanting something she may never get.” – Joanna Hoffman
“The incredible pain returns again and again and again.” – Susan Sontag
“I can only connect deeply or not at all.” – Anais Nin
“Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living.” – Jonathan Safran Foer
“I’m not sure which is worse: intense feeling, or the absence of it.” – Margaret Atwood
“That’s the thing about pain. It demands to be felt.” – John Green
“I need to be alone for certain periods of time or I violate my own rhythm.” – Lee Krasner
“I am deathly afraid of almosts. Of coming so very close to where I want to be in life that I can almost taste it, almost touch it, then falling just a little short.” – Beau Taplin
“I’m just dying to say, ‘Hey, do you ever feel like jumping off a bridge?’ or ‘Do you feel an emptiness inside your chest at night that is going to swallow you?’ But you can’t say that at a cocktail party.” – Paul Gilmartin
“It’s all too much and not enough at the same time.” – Jack Kerouac
“She felt everything too deeply, it was like the world was too much for her.” – Joyce Maynard
“Even if you know what’s coming, you’re never prepared for how it feels.” – Natalie Standiford
“The sadness will last forever.” – Vincent Van Gogh
“How do we forgive ourselves for all of the things we did not become?” – David ‘Doc’ Luben
“There is a certain clinical satisfaction in seeing just how bad things can get.” – Sylvia Plath
“No one warns you about the amount of mourning in growth.” – Té V. Smith
“I am half agony, half hope.” – Jane Austen
A Letter Under The Floorboards
Posted on April 16, 2019
Today is exactly a year since we moved house. That was a terrible day. It was stressful and upsetting and exhausting. I had a meltdown when we finally collapsed in the new house (surrounded by boxes and carefully balanced furniture) and neither me nor my Mum slept that night. It was all just too much.
It’s better now. I’m still adjusting, but then I had spent most of my life in that house so I didn’t expect a quick recovery. I’m getting there. My room almost feels like my room.
Since we moved out, we’ve actually learned quite a bit about the history of the house and the people who lived there. Our favourites are two women who lived and worked together their whole lives, the first head and deputy head of Varndean School. We even found pictures of them, which is really cool. We were all weirdly moved to learn these stories.
When we moved out, I wasn’t thinking about the history of the house and our part in it. I was just trying to figure out a way to say goodbye. So I wrote a letter and tucked it under the loose floorboard in my room. It was a letter to any and all future occupants, asking them to look after the house for us, for me. We’re part of the house’s history now and perhaps, one day, someone will find this letter and feel the same way about us as we feel about these two women. And since we live in a technological age and the first step of investigation is to google something, I thought I’d put this out into the internet. Maybe one day they’ll find me.
To whoever finds this,
This has been my bedroom, on and off, for about seventeen years. That’s most of my life. That’s a surreal thought, one that I’m trying not to obsess over. It took a long time to feel okay about moving and I’m scared that thinking too hard about all of it will be the wind that blows me back into that storm. I didn’t think I’d survive it the first time. I don’t want to leave but I don’t want leaving to be a life altering tragedy. I’m trying to remember that I don’t need this room to be me, even if it feels like that sometimes.
A lot has happened in this room, in this house. I grew up here, watched thunderstorms, brought friends over for dinner, celebrated birthdays and Christmases. I wrote stories and songs and my brother learned lines and turned the flickers of ideas into masterpieces. I said a last goodbye to my cat of fifteen years, learned that I could love another one, and then raised two litters of kittens with her. I taught my dog to sit, sneaked him onto the sofa when no one was home, and sang to him while emptying the dishwasher. I studied for GCSEs, A Levels, and my degree. I graduated with a first and I found out in this room. I had my heart broken. I struggled with my health and my mental health. I found out that my Dad had died.
I worry that leaving this room, this house, means leaving all of those things behind and that I’ll lose myself because of that. It may not be rational but it’s how I feel. I hope that I’ve managed to box all of that up with my belongings but I guess I’ll see when I get to the new house. There’s a little voice in my head that says that the rooms feel empty because we’ve packed all the memories and emotions but I’m scared to believe it.
Maybe this is all too flowery and fluffy for you. That’s fine. A room can be just a room. A house can be just a house. But regardless of whether you see it as four walls or a time capsule, please take care of it for me. For us. We have loved it dearly and hope that you will do the same. Fill it with life (and extra radiators because, as you’ll soon find out, it’s practically impossible to keep it warm). I hope you will feel as safe here as I have.
Look after this place. I’m trusting that you will.
LAH
16/04/18
Finding Hope 