I Lost It
Hello - this is my first blog so bare with me
I am a 36yr old woman from England and I grew up in a single parent family, when my mum found a boyfriend life wasn't easy and I was often forgotten about but let's not get too deep here. At 18 I came out as gay & at 19 my mum decided to kick me out thinking I would just go to my best friends for a few days...I never came back.
I quit college because I needed a job to survive, to put food on the table and a roof over my head. I left school with only a high school education and only got bottom end jobs. I worked hours for little pay, 6yrs of living in homeless accommodation I finally got my own place so let's skip forward to today.
Years of thoughts of suicide but not actually doing it as I didn't want to leave my cats behind, medication that never worked and a pure refusal to go to counselling I went through 17yrs of mood swings and the inability to hold down a job for more than a year because I would burst out in anger at the boss. I went through periods of being fine then out of nowhere I would meltdown and not care about anything for days, I would lose interest in the things that used to interest me, food and alcohol became my crutch, I didn't shower and I put on 100lbs in 6yrs.
I'm ok I said, this is just a phase.
2017 I lost one of the people I was closest to in my life, my grandma - she died due to a surgical error on Sept 1st, her funeral was Sept 26th and my birthday was Sept 27th...I changed all my birth dates all over social media as I didn't want to celebrate my birthday anymore but finally in 2019 I decided I was going to. I asked my mum what she was doing and she said she was going to another city to attend a charity ball with my cousin....oh....ok, thanks mum. I asked Granddad if he wanted drinks with my in memory of grandma and he said yes. Weeks passed and the week before my birthday my granddad text me and said that he can't be with me now as he has new plans....oh...ok, thanks granddad.
I had gone back to college to make something of my life and finally get that qualification I never got 17yrs prior and while I was upset about my birthday, college was helping to give me a purpose. I rely on government benefits because I struggle to hold down a job and my live stream that had once flourished and was giving me enough to pay my bills had suddenly crashed. The UK government state that you cannot study full time while you are in receipt on government benefits unless you are a single parent....oh....ok, thanks government. Regardless of this I went to college and decided to not say anything and just do my best to find a job but after countless applications, not one got back to me.
Once a week I get an employee from the housing association that I rent my apartment from and two weeks after starting college she told me she was going to have to report me for benefit fraud if I didn't quit college. I was going to lose my apartment which meant I was going to lose my cats...I lost my shit!
I have never been a violent person but I started to scream and kick empty cardboard boxes next to me that I used to store bits and pieces I carried on yelling at her and told her to get out of my house, as she left I shut the front door and punched it as hard as I could twice breaking my middle finger. I couldn't feel the pain all I wanted to do was crumble and die. I stayed strong for my cats, as weird as that sounds, they are the reason I am still here and I just cried.
I went in to college the next day and told them what had happened and to cut a long story short, I was a hot mess but they helped me stay on at college by cutting me out of 90mins of study that weren't relevant to my course but this wasn't enough to fix me. My birthday was in 3 days and I just didn't care, I didn't shower and I didn't get out of bed for 3 days, I barely ate which was unusual for me as I usually binge eat when I have an episode, I got out of bed twice a day to feed the cats and that was it. I slept.
My friend in a town about 2hrs away invited me over for my birthday so I decided to shower and go, I didn't want to be in this city but knew I could only stay one night because I had to come back for my cats so I left them plenty of food and water for the night and got on a coach. She threw a mini surprise party for me, we streamed it live and drank gin, the night was good but when I got home I still couldn't snap out of this depression.
I've been a live streamer for 2 and a half years, it was one thing I really enjoyed doing but I just had no desire to do it. I haven't streamed now (apart from my birthday) in almost a month and it's been my biggest breakdown in the history of my mental health. For me, time is a healer and after a while I start to become me again but I think that one week has changed me forever. I'm still me somewhere inside I just can't quite get out but I feel ready to slowly reintegrate with the community I helped build, I feel like an abused dog coming out of hiding with it's tail between it's legs. I don't know how my return is going to go and I'm not 100% ready for it but if I don't do something positive I'll never be ready to come back.
For me, mental health is a personal battle - it's taken me this long to finally seek counselling yet I still don't believe it will work. For me mental health is something I can get over, it just takes time and it's never taken me this long before.
I don't quite know what the point of this blog was other than I guess to say you are not alone and you can get through it no matter how deep you have gotten in your own mind.
You matter