I Had To Write It Down

I don’t think I realised how unhealthy my relationship with food was until I got older. Because when you grow up with something, it just feels normal. In my house, food wasn’t really a choice. It was a rule. You finished everything on your plate. It didn’t matter if you were full. It didn’t matter if you didn’t like it. You ate it. And if you didn’t? That was it. No alternatives. No “that’s okay.” No listening to your body. You’d go to bed hungry. So you learned quickly. You learned to eat past fullness. To ignore your body. To override what you felt. Because the consequence of not doing that felt worse. And then there was dessert. You only got it if you finished your main. And if you were the last one still eating? You didn’t get any. You’d sit there, still trying to force food down, while everyone else had theirs. Watching. Waiting. Knowing you’d missed your chance. So food became pressure. A task. Something to get through. Something tied to reward and punishment. But it went beyond...

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my childhood. About things that, at the time, felt normal. Just part of growing up. Just “the way things were.” But looking back now… I see it differently. Discipline, in our house, didn’t look like conversations. Or understanding. Or being guided through things. It looked like smacks. The wooden spoon. It looked like fear. If we were arguing with each other, dad would grab one of us by each ear and knock our heads together to “knock sense into us.” And you didn’t question it. You didn’t cry too loudly. You didn’t push back. Because that would only make it worse. The scariest words you could hear were: “Wait until your dad gets home.” Everything in you would drop. Because you knew what that meant. You knew what was coming. Mum would never do the physical punishing. And in some ways, that made it worse. Because it meant waiting. All day. Sitting with it. Thinking about it. Feeling that slow build of dread that didn’t go away. You couldn’t move on. Y...

There was a day I knew something had to change. Not in a quiet, gentle way. In a moment where everything felt too loud. Too heavy. Too much. I remember thinking I was done. Not in a dramatic way. Just… finished. Like I had nothing left to give. Like I couldn’t keep doing this. Like I didn’t want to be here anymore. But at the same time…something inside me wasn’t ready to give up. There was this small, fragile part of me that still wanted to stay. Even if I didn’t fully understand why. I remember thinking: I’ll give the world one more chance. Just one. If something or someone can help me, then maybe I’ll stay. But if not… then maybe that would be my sign. Maybe that would mean I was done. That was the line I was standing on. Right on the edge of everything. So I picked up the phone. I called the mental health crisis line. My heart was racing. My hands were shaking. And I didn’t really know what I was going to say until I said it. And what came out of my mouth was: “I don’t want to die…...

I don’t think people understand what a panic attack actually feels like. It’s not just anxiety. It’s not just “feeling overwhelmed.” It’s like something in me switches without warning - and suddenly I’m not in control anymore. Sometimes it’s physical. Out of nowhere, my body just goes into panic mode. My chest tightens.  My breathing changes. I can’t seem to get a proper breath in, no matter how hard I try. My heart starts pounding - fast, hard, aggressive. So loud I can feel it in my chest, in my throat. And my first thought isn’t, “This is a panic attack.” It’s, “Something is wrong.” “I’m not okay.” “I’m dying.” That’s where my mind goes. Every single time. I feel like I need to escape. Like I need to get out of wherever I am immediately. Even if I’m safe. Even if nothing is actually happening. My body doesn’t care about logic in that moment. It just reacts. I try to calm myself down. I try to breathe properly. But it doesn’t work. Because it’s not something I can just switch off...

I’ve been thinking a lot about what actually helps. Not the big things people talk about. Not advice. Not solutions. Just… what makes it feel even slightly easier to exist. And I keep coming back to this: It’s not fixing. It’s not explaining. It’s not trying to make sense of everything. It’s just someone being there. No pressure. No expectations. No need to be anything other than what I am in that moment. Because the truth is, a lot of what I’m feeling isn’t just depression. It’s loneliness. Not the kind where you’re physically alone. The kind where you feel alone, even when you’re not. I can be around people. I can talk. I can respond. And still feel completely disconnected. Like I’m there… but not really with anyone. Like no one is actually sitting in it with me. Because so often, when you open up even slightly, people try to fix it. They offer solutions. Advice. Ways to “move forward.” And I get it. It comes from a good place. I know they care, but sometimes it just makes you feel m...

There’s something I’ve been carrying for a long time. Something no one knows about. Something I convinced myself didn’t matter enough to say out loud. Something I thought I could bury so deeply that it would stop existing. But it didn’t. Two years ago, something happened to me. And I never told anyone. Not properly. Not in a way that made it real. I told myself it would be easier that way. That if I didn’t talk about it, if I didn’t think about it, if I didn’t give it a name, then maybe it wouldn’t affect me. I thought I could pretend it didn’t happen. I thought I could carry on like normal. And for a while, I almost convinced myself I had. But trauma doesn’t disappear just because you ignore it. It waits. It settles quietly somewhere deep inside you. And then it starts showing up in ways you don’t expect. It shows up in the panic. In the way my body reacts before my mind even has time to catch up. In the way I freeze when someone gets too close. In the way a simple hug can feel overwh...