I'm not doing okay
and I'm learning to talk about it.
I started this Substack to connect with others who are trying to heal from trauma. The original idea was to be honest. Open. Lay it all out there.
But I quickly began to mask, to only talk about the positives. How To Beat Your Trauma: We Can Do It! I’d pepper in some of my struggles, but the overall recipe was one of Hopeful Optimism.
I’m not optimistic now. My trauma is kicking my ass. My health is kicking my ass. There’s been some family issues, both in my own personal household and in my further extended family. I’m sad. I’m tired. The sun has come out, but I am still stuck in the depths of winter.
I turn 30 in November, and boy, is my body making me aware of it. I don’t know if it’s just a coincidence, or if the work I’ve been doing to heal my mind-body-soul connection is finally paying off (in ways I wish it wasn’t), but I’m no longer ignoring all the ‘little weird quirks’ of my body and looking into them as a group of symptoms.
Now, I am not a doctor. Not even close. I’m just a girl who hates AI and loves a good, real, research session with books, lived experience stories, and sources.
Just the person who has lived in my body for almost 30 years.
I’ve opened up to some close people about it for extra opinions - because diminishing my own thoughts is what I do best - and with the same caveat of ‘we are not doctors’, they agree. Was I hoping for them to say, ‘Maybe you’re grasping at straws here’? Maybe. I don’t know. But they see it, too.
I’m really scared. I’m heartbroken. And I’m so, so angry.
I’m scared of what this means for my future. I’m scared there are more things that I can’t fix. I’m heartbroken that every time I seem to get into a good place, it all comes crashing down so much harder.
And I’m furious that not only do I need to worry about my future again, but I may also have made it worse by sticking my head in the sand for so long.
I just can’t believe I’m here, chasing diagnoses, again.
I thought I had done all of this with my mental health assessment five years ago. With the physical stuff? I don’t know. I thought I had more time. I feel like I already spent 30 years feeling so far away, so attacked by my body. I thought I’d at least have some time after the trauma lifted to enjoy it. To enjoy my body, to enjoy being me. Now I feel like I’m never going to have that.
My whole life has been me kicking, screaming, clawing my way to some semblance of normality. But now I don’t know if I’ll ever know what ‘normal’ feels like. And I know, there is no normal. But that doesn’t make the thought that I really will never be there any easier.
I’ve worked so hard, and now I’m just going to have to work harder. What the fuck was it all for?
I’m apprehensive to write it down here - like writing it will either make it more real, or make me seem stupid if I’m wrong - but I also know I want to be more honest when talking about this stuff, so here we go.
On the mental health side: I think I have bipolar. Mainly bipolar II, although I have experienced psychosis in the past (that I was never hospitalised for, but I should have been hospitalised for). There are things that my CPTSD doesn’t quite cover, and after coming out of what I believe to be a hypomanic state from January to March into one of the worst depressive states I’ve had in a while, I don’t think I can ignore it anymore.
And on the physical health - drumroll please - I think I may have hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. I don’t know if I’m ready to go into the physical health symptoms of that publicly right now. But I hit pretty much all of the symptoms.
I have had my suspicions about both of them for years. Not in a conscious way. In a ‘maybe I have—no fuck don’t think about it’ kind of way. In a ‘but I really have those symptoms, and I CAN’T have that disorder, so they must be symptoms of what I’m already diagnosed with’ kind of way.
But there are too many symptoms to ignore now, and without proper treatment, they’re only going to get worse. So I’m doing something about it. I have a doctor's appointment to talk about my physical issues, and I’m at the beginning stages of the bipolar diagnosis pathway.
I realised I’ve been so scared to look into any of this in case I’m told no. I’m scared of having to advocate for myself, having to take up space, and having to be loud. All of the things I have struggled to do my whole life.
But in telling myself it’s going to be a no, I’ve already been telling myself no. And I can’t do that anymore. I’m so sick of doing that to myself. I’m so sick of being scared to be open, being scared to ask for help, being scared to demand care. I’m so fucking sick of being SCARED.
I can’t do it anymore. I need to love myself. I need to stand up for myself. I need to stop hoping that things will go away or convincing myself that it’s all in my head.
Because I actually don’t think my head is as wrong as people have made me believe. I don’t think I’m as dramatic as I once used to be. I think I’ve done a lot of work on myself, and I deserve to believe myself now.
I don’t think this is going to be an easy journey in any way. It’s going to take time, hard work, advocating, and possibly arguing - my least favourite thing.
I’m probably going to keep crying a lot. The fatigue isn’t going to disappear overnight. I’m still going to spend a lot of days in bed. People will get sick of me. I’m going to get sick of myself.
It’s all fine. It’s all life. I have to do it. I have to finally put my health over my fear.
Let’s see where the journey takes us.
Until next time,
Rae x
