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0 By Emma Kennedy
I always felt different, like I didn’t belong, and never understood others completely. Nothing much has changed. I’m 37 years young, and learning more about me and the world everyday.
Facing my depression, anxiety and alcoholism
Since realising I had depression (aged 16), social anxiety (aged 21), and that those two things were not the same (aged 25), now I am also battling the longest of my addictions and problems – alcoholism. I may have discovered alcohol aged 14 down the park, but I only REALISED and ADMITTED my addiction in January this year, aged 37. And I’m still battling depression, anxiety and alcoholism, and mostly winning!!!
There are hundreds and thousands of things I could write about my depression, anxiety and alcoholism, but my poetry, I feel, says it best:
Here’s one from my ‘Princess of Darkness’ Days in Depression:
Depressed
When you can’t get yourself out of bed,
Cuz of the thoughts and the words in your head.
When you can’t face people or things,
Cuz of the pressure that living life brings.
When you can’t get showered or dressed,
Cuz everything’s making you stressed.
When you can’t eat, or eat all bad stuff,
Cuz your mind says ‘Nowt’, then ‘Not enough.’
When you can’t sleep, or sleep all day through,
Cuz your brain’s fried and hides away too.
When you procrastinate all the things that need doing,
Cuz your minds set ‘full-tilt’ on SELF-RUIN!!!
Here’s one of my Social Anxiety Days:
My Anxiety
When anxiety confines you to your bed
With millions of thoughts and niggles, duvet over your head.
When anxiety traps you within four walls
Fills you with doubt and the fog, everything else falls.
When anxiety squeezes your lungs and your brain
It shallows your breathing, narrows existence, is pain.
When anxiety gnaws through your soul
Tearing good foundations you built and leaves a huge hole.
When anxiety breaks your intent and good will
You are lost. Floating in blackness. Unseen. Mentally ill.
And finally one about the alcoholism. You would think, writing this in 2004, I would have known or realised, but I didn’t and continued to live with alcohol till VERY recently:
The Siren
The siren is screaming again.
Sometimes it comes from nowhere
Unexpectedly loud and clear
Just starts screaming and
Screaming and screaming in my ear
Sometimes I hear it in the distance
Softly I close the door
It goes, I can’t hear it now,
But it will come back for more.
Sometimes I can predict when,
Its favourite places and times,
Doesn’t make it any more pleasant
It could never be mistaken for windchimes
Sometimes I hear it blasting away
And ignore it and ignore it and it goes away
Sometimes it’s so quiet, it’s so barely there
That’s when I give in to the alcoholic’s nightmare.
So that kinda explains how I feel in each of my little mental health problem boxes. I hope this helps to explain it to others, and that at least one other person realises that people with mental health issues are human. In some ways we are even superhuman. We battle second by second, just to do what others take for granted or never consciously take into account, like getting out of bed, getting washed and dressed, walking down the street, never mind actual work and social things like parties – and don’t mention cinema, it makes me cringe and shiver!
1in4 UK Book Store:
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Take care of your mental health and the rest will follow! Be Strong.
Live Strong, Love Strong, Be Stronger Everyday.
Much Love,
Emma Kennedy
UNITED STATES
UNITED KINGDOM
[…] around the world. Generation after generation of dysfunction and learned behaviours. Sadly alcoholism still carries a stigma today, and I believe that has a lot to do with why innocent children like I […]