Free

“Listen stop and breath, it can only get easier once you have overcome the impossible burden you have faced”

 

Have you ever had a burden that feels like it is never going to lift, you look around at the walls and can remember the past memories haunting you. You could look at pictures on the wall and they no longer see what it actual was instead what it reminded you of when you were at the low points.

If you look at the outside world doing the normality such going to the supermarket but you are hit in the car by an unsafe driver, it will stick with you for a while. The reminder of the place it happened the emotions the pain the suffering you went through and depending on the accident it will remain with you for a while.

 

This is the same when you have any traumatic experience, including a mental break. You avoid that place that memory as much as you can, you do everything you can to avoid the memories flooding back in. The points where you felt the weakest and the most vulnerable, and sometimes people won’t see that, they will only put their beliefs before yours, as they don’t understand how powerful the memories are. The point the brain is no longer being your friend it is protecting you from what? The unknown the trauma that you went through. Some people can anticipate a situation before it happens with just a feeling but not knowing why they feel on edge or anxious and their brain is trying to protect and help you through that moment. You could be on edge just because you are under a lot of pressure but then you could be on edge just because you have experienced a traumatic moment and are unsure how to defeat it and see beyond the memory and be FREE.

A mental recovery depending on your treatment plan and the way you have approached recovery will differ. As you go through the recovery process you set milestones or goals. They will be small to start off with, could be to go within a certain distance of the memory. Taking that memory within hand but can feel like you will never defeat it. Over time you will set small goals and a number of big goals, the Goal to help you feel you have defeated a memory. Sometimes you can feel the freedom but it can only last slight freedom.

I have spent 8 months within the process of recovery, and the recovery isn’t going to have a timeline it is timeless as I will always have to fight the memories and the darkness. I took a bit of time off from blogging as I wanted to take a step of enjoying myself. Also looking at some of the milestones I needed to achieve. From what happened back in August a lot of the goals were created from there. Well since I took the break I have achieved a fair few milestones recently.

• Introducing two friend’s groups, I have always been scared of doing this and have done this for my birthday but felt more nervous doing it in my home. I introduced 3 of my best friends to each other.
• I spent the weekend with the same people at pride. Even going out to the meal and back onto canal street. I have been on canal street with other people, but I haven’t spent time with the same 3 people where it begun.
• I walked out the office and walked into one of my friends and the man who messed with my head and exploited my emotions and my mental health. To the point he was willing to see it destroy me.
• Approached a difficult situation with a few people and survived.
• Meeting a fair few new people, who have made me laugh and smile a lot.
• Even meeting my best friend new partner.
• Being able to smile through the darkness and actually mean the smile that I can get through anything.
• Continuation of the PHQ assessment from my CBT sessions being very low, and possibly getting to do a mindfulness course.
• Driving near the spot it nearly ended it all.
• Being able to be in the house and near the people who were there on that night barring two people. Feeling comfortable and secure and safe.
• Thinking differently and actually seeing that I must be liked in some way. If I wasn’t people wouldn’t of want to spend time with me, or communicate on social media and WhatsApp.
• Finally telling a few people who were in the dark about the situation, making them aware of the way I was treated and how they ran away from me when I needed them the most.
• Saying No at work. Not taking on some of the projects, that I could have been doing but being realistic with my work load and also my work life balance.

Only a few milestones, but the biggest milestone has got to be, finally letting go, of august, the darkness and the moment the world looked like the most dangerous place to be. Finally looking at the good and the happiness that the pictures have around my home. The pictures my mum has given me, the village I live in, the town I work in. they aren’t prisons they are just a piece of the puzzle. Some of the puzzle pieces are yet to be discovered.

I say what is on my mind, the filter I once had is now turned off so I can speak openly. I am very much aware that there will be bad days and there will be good days, as we grow up and move beyond the stepping stones to recover you find out who you want to be. Slowing giving up on parts of you and others that are no longer working or wanted. Making that choice for what I want. Not letting others to dictate my future instead I dictate it, and those I want in my life. Those that don’t make the cut you were part of my life and will remain in the chapter where you built part of me. For the good or the bad. No matter what I will continue to grow with a bright future. No longer looking at being single for life instead loving myself and those I class as family. With that I will never be alone, as my family and friends won’t let me be alone, nor will I let them.

Today I have become, FREE as the burden I had are no longer burdens, they are part of me making me stronger, no longer being held back by the misery I once had. I am growing and no longer afraid to make a mistake, I make many mistakes through life and now I embrace them and learn from it.

I am FREE!

We are ONE and are the SURVIV(;)R