I never thought I'd turn my back on writing quite like I did over the last two years.
The words of my last post still ring true and I think about the terror and distress I was experiencing everyday in my own personal hell. I'm still in hospital, more so now because I have nowhere to live outside of hospital than my own mental health keeping me here.
The last two years, well, blurring into three years now has been all kinds of chaos. There's been a lot of self-discovery, two new diagnoses - autism and obsessive compulsive disorder - and a whole lot of shift in my view of the world.
Things are less terrifying, more hopeful, but still an uphill battle with my mental health that still threatens to snatch my life away from me at times. This last week I have been recovering from surgery after an OCD behaviour left me in a pretty dangerous situation physically. I have come this far and yet I still can't convince my brain that harming myself won't keep other people alive, alas I do the compulsions and I'm the only one at risk.
I know I need to break free soon because the suffering I cause myself is awful, but I've never faced a compulsion without acting on it and it terrifies me.
In writing everything sounds fine, it would be easy to pop on the rose tinted specs and see that I'm fixed. I know I'm far from it. I know there's still a gaping chasm that screams inside of me and I think now more than ever it's chances of swallowing me up are greater because no one's looking out for it. Everyone thinks better means fixed and ready to leave hospital means good as new.
I can't even tell you my own fate, because I don't know with each day I stumble closer to the idea of discharge whether I'm ebbing closer to falling straight off this mortal coil without even making a sound or whether my battle cries are enough to keep me afloat.
I don't know, but I guess none of us know our fate. I still frequently of my friend, who fought her demons for years for a life outside of hospital only to die a year on from discharge of covid.
