To anyone struggling with mental illness and to all of us struggling to deal with our own minds day in and day out,
I know there isn't anything we can say to take the pain away, but now more than ever we can be there to SUPPORT each other. ALWAYS remember that you are never alone. No matter how terrible things are there are people who care deeply and who understand the pain that comes with grappling with your own thoughts and emotions. The same way families, friends and practitioners support each other through physical illness they CAN support each other through mental and emotional illness. Despite how isolating mental illness can be, there is so much HOPE for each and everyone of us. Never stop fighting.
The hardest thing in the world to feel is blackness. It is a physical sensation that encompasses the entire body. It hides all love, hope, happiness and connection. It replaces it with hopelessness, unworthiness and darkness. In the blackness nothing matters. Everything seems unimportant: life, love, and connection all mean nothing. It all feels like a never ending put of doom and despair.
The blackness encompasses every bodily sensation. It takes over emotions and replaces all good emotions with negative one. It takes over the physical. It is like a shadow gliding over the inside of the whole body. It makes you feel heavy and like you are being slowly crushed by an overwhelming sense of despair. It zaps every ounce of strength and energy in your body. It makes it feel as if there is nothing good in the entire world.
The blackness hides your soul. It hides your essence, the part of yourself that could help you to remember that there is more to life than blackness. By shadowing your essence it makes it so much harder for you to escape this sensation. The essence holds the love, your love and your strength. When that energy is hidden from view it is so much easier for the hopelessness and despair to take over. It makes it so much harder to overcome the blackness.
The blackness acts like a knife, cutting you off from reality. It is hard to connect with people or be present in the blackness because it those moments, it feels like there is nothing else.. It is like drowning in the world, unable to feel or experience anything as it happens around you.
If someone hasn’t experienced this sensation it is difficult to understand it. It does not make logical sense. You can’t just tell someone in the blackness to be happy. There is so much more then the blackness then just happiness or sadness.
It takes a special type of connection with oneself and one’s surroundings to be able to let in any light. It takes a special type of strength to feel the blackness and fight to see the light. It takes a special kind of strength to recognize you are drowning and choose to fight to get to the surface.
This strength cannot be described. It is a feeling. Some days it is accessible and some days it seems that you will never be able to find it again. This strength can allow us to overcome anything in our lives: the worst experiences, the most pain and the most hurtful rejection. This strength is what lets us survive when we know that we can’t on our own. This strength is our best friend. It is always there when we need it. We all have it. I promise. It is often hidden, so hidden that we don’t even know it is there. But just because you can’t feel or see something that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.
Support is available everyday from friends, family, healthcare practitioners, hospitals, private and public treatment centers, help telephone lines. It may feel like we are alone when living with our own mental health but I PROMISE that no matter how alone you feel you are NEVER truly alone.
Sending all the love and hope and strength xx