It will hit you like a bowling ball…

(Trigger warning: mental health)

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how everything seems so unbearably hard right now, or as Gary Lightbody sang with Snow Patrol:

“It shouldn't need to be so fucking hard  / This is life on earth / It's just life on earth”. 

I’ve always struggled with depression, and it was only when I met my husband that my anxiety got worse. I always had social anxiety but this was some next level shite. And that’s not his fault, that’s a byproduct of being happier. If depression is a fear of the past, anxiety is very much a fear of the future. I was 30 years old and for the longest time I didn’t think about a future. I didn’t think I had one. Or at least not one worthwhile. 

I spent the last quarter of 2021 and most of 2022 in therapy. With little effect if I’m honest. It was a great little ramble every week, you know I can talk for Ireland, but not really all that helpful.  For the longest time, my friends and music have been my therapy. They still are more effective than “sally sue”  every Monday, ever was, or probably ever will be. 

I remember spending one particularly hard night in June 2015 talking to Darren Hayes in my Twitter DMs. Boy did he give me some home truths, but he was right. He basically said I’m a bad ass bitch and he thought my story was one of rejection. 

I seen a quote yesterday on Facebook, it said over explaining yourself is a trauma response to abandonment. I definitely feel like that doesn’t help, and I push people away.  I definitely rely on self comfort, more than I probably should. I comfort myself because for the longest thing, I felt like I was all I had. 

I remember Darren telling me about this song he wrote called ‘H’ for his 2011 album. He said some people, especially me, will understand when we listen to that song.  It was called Hurt. Ironically I was a bit hurt when I first heard it. It’s a song about how hurt people, hurt people. And he was right.  

I woke up this morning determined today was gonna be a better day. I found this quote I had saved from February. It said “if you want to be happy, you have to be happy on purpose. when you wake up you can’t just wait to see what kind of day you’ll have. You have to decide what kind of day you will have”. 

And today was a much better day. I laughed a lot more than I have in days. Yesterday I thought the sound of my own laughter was the furthest thing so far out of my reach. And those that know me, know I don’t stop laughing normally. My favourite thing is laughing at my own jokes, so you don’t have to. 

And this morning on my commute, I went back to the same song by Savage Garden called ‘I don’t care’ I always go back to.  

“People tell me that I feel too much

But I don't care, no I don't care”.

One of the reasons I never took meds for my mental health was because I didn’t want to feel numbed or muted. I want to feel the highest highs, but the trade off is the lowest lows. And as much as the sad is REALLY shit, I want to feel elation, I want to feel joy. I want to feel all the feels. I want to feel that buzz over a concert, or my favourite food, sunset, or that photo I took… or just a random moment with the love of my life. I want to soak it all in.  There are nights even now, 7.5 years later, when I’m laying on my husband’s chest at the end of the day..and I suddenly feel so at peace with the world, so content, I cry with happiness. 

February was a good month.  I was happier than ever. More level. More content. I thought I was finally working it all out. But in the back of my mind, I was waiting for the trap door of depression to fling its way open and gobble me up again. That’s the repeating cycle. I crash, I get more level, and I crash again. It’s been a while, old friend. But these past couple of weeks have been so hard, But you can sod off back to where you came from. 

Or in the words of my favourite band The Candle Thieves:

“I wanna feel the ocean on my skin, I wanna find a way to be happy again, and I don’t want to let go of you”.

If you find something worth fighting for, someone worth fighting for, grab it with both hands, fight for it, And it won’t always be this hard. And in the meantime, there is music, and good friends and good food. 

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