Acceptance

When I started up this blog again, earlier this year, it was mainly because I wanted an outlet to write about my experiences of suffering and recovering from a mental illness. Writing has been a great way for me to process my crazy thoughts and sometimes overwhelming feelings and has helped me massively in my recovery.

I am very lucky as I have an amazing support network of friends and family and so I’ve always had someone to talk to when I’ve felt scared or overcome. And yet, a lot of the time, I have felt very alone. Although my loved ones have always been there for me, I think it has been difficult for them to understand what I have been going through. After all, they can’t see inside my head. Anxiety is a difficult condition to explain sometimes, as you can’t always articulate what you’ve anxious about. It is often just a feeling, and not a thought, and people find that difficult to grasp. And so, I turned to a support group online, to speak about my illness to others who were going through the same thing.

Just knowing that I wasn’t the only one, that I wasn’t mad, and that what I was thinking and feeling wasn’t unusual, has helped me to accept my condition and lift my mood at times. I had hoped that this blog could maybe do that for others and I have received so much positive feedback to suggest that it has helped some of you.

This week, I have been discharged from therapy and have worked with my GP to come up with a plan to come off of my medication. It’s the start of a new chapter for me, and so I probably won’t write much about my illness anymore. It may crop up from time to time, because it’s a part of who I am, but I’m past the point now where it is the main focus in my life. And although it is a part of me, I don’t want it to define me.

Yes, I am a sufferer of mental illness. But I am also a wife, a niece, a friend, a crazy cat lady, a Chartered Tax Adviser, a Law graduate, a Conservative, a toiletry hoarder, a cooking enthusiast, a clean freak and now a blogger. So I want to write about other things too, because I’ve got so much to say about the world and so much still to figure out. I hope you will still follow my ramblings and come with me on the next leg of this crazy journey called life.

Thanks to everyone who’s supported me over the past few months. And to those of you out there who are struggling, just remember, you are not alone. xx