MY OPEN DOOR LIFE
For nigh on fifty years I was like most people – very quiet and private about my personal life. I barely shared my inner world with myself, let alone anyone else. But now I live my life like the door to my house is wide open and everyone can see inside. And there are reasons for that profound change. Let me see if my humble words can explain it a little bit.
I can’t process things with the spoken word
I have never been able to. There are times when I can speak a lot of words, usually about other people or things. But I have to process a lot before I can speak about myself. And the older I get, the less I speak. I have become more and more reserved verbally as I become more and more open with the written word.
A lot has happened to me in the past decade. Maybe not a lot more than anybody else. I am not sure. But for me, a lot of things have happened and many of them were not very pleasant. I had to learn to process a lot of difficult things. And I had to look at my history and childhood to explore why I am like I am. It has been a very steep learning curve, but I have definitely learned a lot.
Journaling is a therapy tool I was taught
And of all the tools I was taught, it was the most valuable. I learned early on in journaling that I could express myself much more eloquently and that by the time I finished journaling, my distress was almost always lessened. Not erased. Because nothing works like that. But it would become manageable.
I have spent a lot of time sitting on a couch with a psychologist. Which is by it’s very nature a place where you have to talk. But even there, my head would churn the thoughts but they wouldn’t come out. I would have to go home and write. A lot of psychological work had to be dragged out of me face-to-face. But when I was sent away to write or do worksheets, that is when the magic of therapy happened.
But why so public you might ask?
In 2016 I started this blog. It is a public space where I have shared many of my darkest thoughts, my family history, my distresses and my successes. I have shared almost everything.
When I was very unwell, I had a lot of therapy. But I also spent a lot of time on the internet searching for stories I could relate to. Mental illness is an extremely lonely and isolating experience. And the longer you’re unwell the less the people around you can tolerate it. They get compassion fatigue. I can completely understand how this happens. Despite high levels of empathy, I developed compassion fatigue when my sister was so unwell for so very long. When I was younger it was harder for me to understand mental illness. It was only when she was dying that I was once again able to give her the full support that she needed and deserved. I will always regret that I wasn’t able to be more present for her difficult years.
But searching the internet for relatable content is a common strategy for many people who feel isolated by mental illness. And so once I started writing so frequently and prolofically I was encouraged to write a blog where I could share my stories with other people. To support them in the way I was supported by reading other people’s stories.
And so I went public with my struggles
I wrote about everything I was going through. I shared my stories in places like The Mighty and social media to find a wider audience. And I received an enormous amount of responses, both private and public, from people going through similar experiences who wanted validation for their own struggles. It feels like I am giving back to the mental health world of lived experiences by sharing my story. I was so incredibly grateful to the people who had shared their own stories and I didn’t want to hold back my story any longer.
There is also a lot of shame in silence. As someone who can’t speak about my struggles, I have to write about them. And if I am the only audience that ever sees the writing, there is a high level of shame that stays in place. I have said and done things I still feel enormously ashamed about. My mental illness has impacted the people around me and while I have had a lot of support, I know those people have often struggled with my illness. Felt frustrated at the length of time it took me to get well.
Mental illness is not treated in society the same way that physical illness is. It’s hidden. And often wears a smiling face. This is why the shared experiences on the internet are so crucial to recovery for so many people. It is often strangers who can validate our experiences, because they understand them. When you feel alone and isolated, finding someone – even a complete stranger – who understands you, is the most precious thing in the world. For a moment in time you feel less alone.
It brings a glimmer of hope
So my life has become this open door where everybody can see in. And once the cat is out of the bag, there’s no putting it back. Anybody can go back and read about the last eight years of my life. And those years will be judged and taken out of context at times. I cannot control how people interpret my words. But there are also people out there who will find comfort in knowing they’re not alone. And find hope in the fact I have found such strong recovery from most of my mental health problems – the eating disorder, major depression and bipolar II disorder. The only thing I continue to struggle a lot with is generalised anxiety disorder. I have learned to manage it, but it never goes away.
Writing is the single most powerful tool I have for managing anxiety. You may think I write a lot of words here, but trust me when I say I write an awful lot more words that never leave my journal. My journal has become a place where I write letters to someone I lost. Where I unpack every ugly thought in my head in a one-way conversation. Where I lessen the distress about the big things and the small things in my life.
Without writing, I don’t know where I would be now
There are so many different psychological therapy tools. And everyone responds differently to all the tools. I did two and a half years of Dialectical Behaviour Therapy which was one of the most powerful things I could do. But even there, I still processed everything by writing it down. I could talk out loud, but I processed internally and took it home to write.
There are people who would have a strong opinion on my public sharing of my personal world. And I’m aware that sometimes I get things very right. And sometimes I get things very wrong. But I continue to try and advocate for mental health support by sharing my story and helping people feel less alone. It helps me to share my story, but more importantly, if one single solitary person feels understood and validated by reading my words, then it has all been worth it. The door I opened, has had a positive outcome.
