One thing they don’t tell you about when your mental health suffers is the constant presence of it in your life. It permeates everything you do. Oozes from every pore.
It’s true, time heals but only some of the more superficial wounds. Even now after a few months, I can go about my life, go on holiday, laugh with friends and still feel an inch away from that vast chasm of darkness that threatens to swallow me. It feels so easy to just break and a very thin veil of strength holds me from actually doing so.
The presence of it irks me. I want to be fine. I want to stop talking about this, thinking about this, fearing this, hating this, trying to move on from this. And being the person that I naturally am (typical Type A personality, highly-organised, high anxieties, erratic energy), I, of course, start projecting on other people that they’re expecting me to be over it by now. I have no actual way of knowing what they think, only know that I expect this from myself. And it all adds to self-loathing when I realise, I’m not over it. I’m still very much hurt by it and it needs to be confronted that there’s a high possibility I will always feel the effects of this. The only hope that I cling tightly to and that keeps me going is that the effects could turn out to be positive, and I have the power to make it so.