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emmieblueeyes · 9 months
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Let me introduce you to my inner voice. She is one serious bitch! She's cruel, violent and she hates me.
At my worst moments of failure and personal recognition of lameness, she is there to cast a shadow over me. She tells me that I am disgusting. She tells me that I am a mistake. That I am ugly and that no one would miss me. She twists harmless comments made by the people in my life into cruel proof that if I was to die today, people would move on. She tells me I am a coward. She tells me everybody, especially me would be better off if I wasn't here.
She makes me cry. She also makes sense to me. I know her, she's been around for a long time and I secretly believe she's right.
Positive mental health has been made into a morbidly obese happiness eater. People are applauded and heralded as positive role models when they tell you on various media platforms how to keep smiling, how to chase your goals, how to be happy in spite of your traumas, and road rage at traffic. Most of all, these welfare and mental health gurus tell you various steps on how to have a positive or solution focused mindset that will eradicate the toxic inner voice.
I am going to a funeral tomorrow. For a client that I cared about and I want to honour them. I work in social work. I bought a dress. My boyfriend asked to see pictures that he could look at from across a different time zone. The evening descended into chaos. Seven months ago I was 24 stone. I am now 17 stone. I wasnt always big. Five years ago, I had a wonderful body that I wasn't grateful for and judged. I used to wear dresses everyday. Now I rarely wear them because my big belly and tree trunk calves cause me to wince and so I wear clothes that are strategic in what they highlight and hide. I go to the gym every day. I have cut out wheat, sugar and I live in calorie deficit. It works. Week on week, I lose pounds, small and great. But when I wear the dress, there is still mounds of fat everywhere. I can't send any photos to my boyfriend. He's not going to be turned on by my morbidly obese backside and bouncy castle physique. I am not turned on by it. I have another 7 stone to lose to be at my target. I look terrible in the dress. I look terrible full stop. I look as large as I did at 24 stone. I don't look normal, I look like an eye sore.
That's when the bitch serves me her best hits. She unleashes such torment that I want to die. I truly want to close my eyes and not wake up. I don't think I would really be missed for long. I am a blimp. Remembered and then forgotten. Not truly needed by anyone that couldn't replace me. I am temporarily suicidal. Seriously and not.
I say this as someone who not only works in mental health but as a trainee therapist about to qualify this year.
Good mental health is not the absence of toxic thoughts or never having a desire to die or to hurt yourself. It is the ability to know how to make sure that you around tomorrow and the day after. To continue even with a bitch throwing shade. To try again, even when you believe her. Good mental health is being able to hold a state of hope and hopelessness - waiting for the choas to quieten and move towards a kinder reasoning.
I want media platforms to talk more about the bitch. Maybe if we talked more honest about her and her long-term stay in our own lives, more suicidal thoughts would stay temporary, and we wouldn't hide this bully so effectively. We could help each other wait it out. Like strangers at the bus stop during a storm. We talk, and we joke because together, it feels a little less shit and the bus seems to get there quicker.
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