Deep Within the Well

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By Eleanor Johnson

I’ve learnt a lot about myself and others during my current crisis with my mental health.

This particular battle began around four years ago. I’m not sure when I began to lose control of the battle. Sometimes the chaos sneaks up on you without you realising. What I do know is I got to a place where I had nothing left to give. I had no desire to fight it any more.

Right now I feel like I’m still stuck at the bottom of the well but I’ve picked myself up of the ground of despair. Now I’m starting to grab at the sides, preparing to start the long climb out. There are moments when I fall back down and question what exactly it is I’m fighting for. However those moments are daily occurrences which are shorter lived, rather than my very existence.

It’s hard to recognise how far I have come in those moments. It hurts to look back at things I wrote only a few months ago but I think they are important to acknowledge and accept as they remind me how continuously I was feeling them then, without reprieve, otherwise I would never have risked putting them on paper. The truth is in those moments, I didn’t believe I would be around to regret anyone seeing them. This I wrote on 31st March 2017:

“I can’t see an answer any more. I know it will cause so much pain and that’s the only, and I mean only reason I didn’t do this years ago. But now I’m so so tired and I can’t pretend any longer. This means I haven’t been hiding it from you like I used to and I can’t bear hurting you day in, day out any more. You deserve to find life again. I’ve sucked it out of you for too long. Hate me with everything you have, then move on, grow again, be everything I know you can be that you couldn’t be with me around.”

Worth the Fight

I’m sharing in the hope that if just one person reading this resonates with this, they can see that the fight is not futile. I certainly believed it was when I wrote the above – I was wrong. I was deep in the dirt and I have a long fight yet, but I’m already not quite where I was then.

Keep going. Not just for those around you, but for YOU!

YOU deserve another chance.