I Had To Write It Down

She tells everyone she’s okay. And technically, she is. She goes to work. She replies to messages. She shows up when she’s needed. She keeps things moving. But she’s not okay. She hasn’t been okay in a really long time. She just learned how to hide it well enough that people stopped asking what’s wrong. She wakes up tired. Not just physically. Soul tired. The kind of tired that sleep doesn’t fix. She goes to sleep tired too - if she sleeps at all. Because her mind doesn’t shut up. It replays conversations. It revisits mistakes. It anticipates problems that haven’t even happened yet. She is fighting a war inside her own head every single day. And no one sees it. She carries pain she doesn’t talk about. Old pain. New pain. Layered pain. Things she hasn’t processed. Things she doesn’t feel ready to face. Things she minimises because “other people have it worse.” She walks around with a smile that doesn’t match how she feels on the inside. And people think she changed. She didn’t. Life jus...

Waking up and wishing that you don’t is something I pray you’ll never know.  It’s not dramatic. It’s not loud. It’s not a crisis with sirens and headlines. It’s quiet. It’s opening your eyes in the morning and feeling disappointment instead of relief. It’s that split second of awareness - realising you’re still here - and feeling the weight of another day land on your chest. It’s not that I want to die. It’s that I don’t want to feel like this anymore. There’s a difference. But it’s a hard one to explain. Because when you say, “Sometimes I wish I wouldn’t wake up,” people hear something final. What I mean is exhaustion. What I mean is heaviness. What I mean is being so emotionally worn down that the idea of starting another day feels unbearable. It’s waking up already tired. Before you’ve checked your phone. Before you’ve spoken a word. Before anything has even gone wrong. It’s the realisation that you have to get up. Have to function. Have to show up. Have to pretend you’re okay e...

It is a different type of pain when you are going through something and you need someone to talk to - but you don’t want to bother anyone. So you don’t call. You don’t text. You don’t say, “Are you free?” You just sit there. Alone. Drowning in your own thoughts. It’s not that there’s no one in your life. It’s not that you don’t have people. It’s that voice in your head that says: “They’re busy.” “They have their own problems.” “You’ve already been heavy lately.” “Don’t make yourself a burden.” So you stay quiet. Even when everything inside you feels loud. There’s something uniquely painful about needing comfort and denying yourself access to it. About craving connection but convincing yourself you’re too much. You pick up your phone. You put it back down. You type a message. You delete it. You tell yourself you’ll be fine. You tell yourself to handle it. You tell yourself it’s not that deep. Meanwhile your chest feels tight. Your thoughts are looping. And you’re stuck inside your own h...

It’s okay if today wasn’t your best. It’s okay if all you did was make it through. I know you feel like you’ve barely been holding it together. Like you’re one small thing away from unraveling. Like everyone else is managing better than you are. But listen to me. Sometimes survival is the win. Not thriving. Not achieving. Not ticking off a to-do list. Just surviving. And you did that. You don’t have to prove your worth by constantly achieving. You don’t have to earn rest. You don’t have to justify slowing down. You don’t have to perform strength just because people expect it. Your value is not measured by productivity. It is not measured by how much you carry. It is not measured by how little you complain. It is not measured by how well you hide the cracks. You are worthy because you exist. Not because you excel. It’s okay that you’re tired. It’s okay that some days feel heavier than others. It’s okay that you didn’t reply to everyone, that you cancelled plans, that you stared at the c...

I don’t know how to explain what I’m feeling right now. I keep trying to find the right word. Anxious? Sad? Overwhelmed? Lonely? None of them quite fit. All I can say is that it hurts. Everything hurts. My chest feels heavy. Not sharp. Not panicked. Just heavy. Like my heart is carrying something too big for it. Like there’s pressure sitting right in the middle of me and I don’t know how to release it. All I want to do is cry. Not dramatic sobbing. Not attention-seeking tears. Just that quiet, uncontrollable kind. The kind where your eyes burn and your throat tightens and you don’t even fully know why. Nothing specific has happened. Or maybe too many small things have happened. Maybe it’s old pain mixing with new disappointment. Maybe it’s exhaustion catching up with me. Maybe it’s grief I haven’t named. I don’t know. I just know that everything feels tender. Like the smallest thing could tip me over. Like I’m holding myself together with a very thin thread. It’s confusing when you can...

I’m sorry. I’m sorry that you’re fighting battles right now that you didn’t start. I’m sorry that in the middle of anxiety, sadness, exhaustion, and everything that feels unstable, you’re also carrying wounds that were never properly acknowledged. I’m sorry that you’re still living with pain they caused - pain they never cared enough to fully understand, let alone make right. You deserved an apology. Not a half one. Not a defensive one. Not a “sorry you feel that way.” You deserved someone to sit with the weight of what they did and say: “I hurt you.” “I see how that affected you.” “You didn’t deserve that.” “I am accountable.” You deserved repair. Instead, you got silence. Or denial. Or minimising. Or blame. And somehow, the responsibility to cope landed on you. I’m sorry that you have to process trauma they won’t even admit exists. I’m sorry that you are the one in therapy. The one reflecting. The one trying to untangle patterns. The one adjusting medication. The one lying awake at 2...

2AM is loud. Not outside. Outside it’s quiet. Still. Dark. But inside my head? It’s deafening. 2AM anxiety doesn’t whisper. It interrogates. It replays conversations from six years ago. It re-reads messages I sent earlier. It re-analyses my tone, my face, my words. “Why did you say it like that?” “They probably think you’re stupid.” “You shouldn’t have shared that.” “You always say too much.” It builds entire court cases out of ordinary moments. And at 2AM, there is no defence lawyer. It sounds like urgency. Like something is wrong. Like I’ve missed something important. Forgotten something critical. Ruined something irreversible. My heart starts beating faster for no reason. My chest tightens. My body feels alert - like danger is nearby. But there’s no danger. Just darkness. And a brain that refuses to power down. 2AM anxiety is creative. It writes stories. Worst-case scenarios. Imaginary confrontations. Future failures that haven’t happened yet. It convinces me that tomorrow will fall...

I’m not writing this from the other side. I’m writing this from the middle of it. From the thick of the mental battle. From the days where my mind feels crowded. From the nights that stretch longer than they should. From the moments when everything feels heavier than it looks. The struggle is loud right now. It questions me. It exhausts me. It tells me I should be stronger than this. It tries to convince me that this is permanent. But even here - especially here - I’m making a decision: I intend to heal loudly. Mental health battles don’t always look dramatic. Sometimes they look like functioning while fighting internally. Like smiling while spiralling. Like answering messages while feeling disconnected. Like getting through the day but not feeling present in it. The noise can be relentless: “You’re behind.” “You’re not enough.” “You’re too much.” “You should have figured this out by now.” It’s loud. But it’s not the only voice. I don’t feel healed. But I feel determined. Healing, for ...

There are things that have happened in my life that I don’t talk about. Not because they didn’t matter. Not because they weren’t painful. Not because I’ve healed from them. But because I’m not ready. And that feels complicated. There’s pressure in the world right now to process everything out loud. To name it. To unpack it.  To “do the work.” To turn pain into a lesson. But what about the trauma that still feels too close? Too raw. Too destabilising. What about the memories that feel like they’re behind a door I’m not strong enough to open yet? I carry things I haven’t fully looked at. They show up in subtle ways. In the way my body tenses in certain situations. In the way I react stronger than I mean to. In the way I avoid certain conversations. In the way I need control to feel safe. Sometimes I don’t even consciously think about what happened. But my body remembers. My nervous system remembers. Even when my mouth stays quiet. It’s strange living with trauma you don’t speak about...

I don’t know how else to say it. Life just feels hard right now. Not catastrophic. Not falling apart. Just… heavy. Like everything requires more energy than I have. The small things feel big. Replying to a message feels like a task. Making a phone call feels overwhelming. Tidying up feels impossible. Even getting dressed some mornings feels like I’m climbing something. It’s not that I don’t know how to do these things. It’s that they cost so much. Energy I don’t seem to have. I watch other people move through their days so effortlessly. They wake up. They work. They socialise. They plan. They cope. And I’m here calculating how much emotional energy I have left before lunchtime. Deciding which tasks are essential and which can wait. Sometimes brushing my hair feels like an achievement. And that’s hard to admit. There’s a constant weight in my body. Like I’m carrying something invisible. My shoulders feel tight. My chest feels heavy. My thoughts feel slow. Even simple decisions exhaust m...

Lately, the sentence that keeps circling my head is this: I don’t feel like myself. Not in a dramatic, falling-apart way. In a quiet, unsettling way. In a way that makes me pause mid-conversation and think, Who is this version of me? I’m still functioning. I get up. I respond to messages. I show up where I’m supposed to. I say the right things. But internally, something feels disconnected. Like I’m slightly outside of my own body.  Like I’m playing a role I used to know by heart but now have to consciously think through. It’s not always chaos. Sometimes it’s flatness. Sometimes it’s noise. Sometimes it’s just sadness. The medication helps. I won’t pretend it doesn’t. There are days it feels like everything is finally under control. The spirals are softer. The intrusive thoughts are quieter. The edge of panic isn’t right at the surface. On those days, I feel steadier. More manageable. Almost normal. And I cling to those days. But then there are other days. Days where it feels like e...

I don’t know how to write this without sounding dramatic. But it’s the truth. It’s very hard to love yourself when your own mum makes it clear she doesn’t like how you look. Not always in loud, obvious insults. Sometimes it’s in the comments. The comparisons. The little reminders disguised as observations. Because I look like him. My dad. The man she divorced years ago. And somehow, without choosing it, without asking for it, I became a reminder. I didn’t choose this face. I didn’t choose these features. The shape of my nose. The way my eyes sit. The expressions I make when I’m thinking. But I’ve grown up feeling like my reflection carries someone else’s story. And when the person who gave you life reacts to your face like it’s something uncomfortable - something that stirs up resentment - it does something to you. It settles deep. But it’s not just my face. I’m built like her. I have her shape. Her body type. Her frame. And she makes comments about that too. About how I “get that” fro...

Dear Depression, You are quieter than Anxiety. You don’t always shout. You settle. You linger. You dim the lights slowly until I don’t even remember when the room became dark. You arrive without drama sometimes. Just heaviness. Just stillness. Just a weight that makes everything - even the smallest task - feel monumental. For a long time, I hated you. I blamed you for the days I couldn’t get out of bed. For the messages I didn’t reply to. For the joy I couldn’t access even when I knew I “should” feel grateful. I thought you meant I was weak. But I’m starting to see you differently. You are not laziness. You are not failure.You are not a character flaw. You are exhaustion that went unspoken. Grief that went unprocessed. Pressure that built quietly over time. Pain that didn’t have space to breathe. You didn’t come to ruin me. You came when I had been strong for too long. You slow me down in ways I never would have chosen. You strip away performance. You expose the parts of me that are ti...

Dear Anxiety, We’ve known each other for a long time. Longer than I care to admit. You’ve sat beside me in quiet rooms. You’ve followed me into crowded ones. You’ve whispered worst-case scenarios before I could even finish a hopeful thought. For years, I tried to outrun you. I tried to silence you. I tried to pretend you weren’t there. But you always found a way to make yourself heard. So today, instead of fighting you, I’m writing to you. You are loud. You interrupt my peace. You tighten my chest. You make ordinary decisions feel enormous. You convince me that I should prepare for impact even when nothing is falling apart. And if I’m honest, I’ve resented you for that. I’ve called you dramatic. I’ve called you exhausting. I’ve called you a burden. But here’s what I’m beginning to understand: You were never trying to destroy me. You were trying to protect me. Somewhere along the way, you learned that the world could be unpredictable. So you stayed alert. Hyper-aware. Scanning for dange...

I don’t even know where to start. I just know that lately, I feel profoundly alone. Not the kind of alone where there’s no one in the room. Not the kind that’s solved by plans or noise or distraction. The kind that sits inside me. The kind that follows me everywhere. I can be around people and still feel it. I can laugh and still feel it. I can reply to messages, show up, do what I need to do - and still feel this quiet emptiness underneath it all. It’s like there’s a version of me no one can quite reach. Or maybe I don’t know how to let anyone reach her. Sometimes I wonder if it’s my fault. Maybe I don’t open up enough. Maybe I open up too much to the wrong people. Maybe I expect depth in places that only have surface.I don’t know. I just know that I feel unseen in ways I can’t fully explain. It’s exhausting carrying thoughts you don’t know how to share. Feeling things deeply but not knowing who can hold them without flinching. Wanting someone to notice that you’re not okay without ha...