It has been just over a year since I opened my blog. A year since I opened my heart onto ‘paper’ and let all the thoughts and feelings out. And my goodness, what a year it has been. I almost don’t know where to start…

I guess I’ll remind you of who I am, I mean it has been a year..
I am Becka, a 33 year old Mum to two beautiful children.
I have Bipolar Type 1, CPTSD and Anxiety with Panic disorder, diagnoses.
I am someone who loves, love and happiness but my world and life has been built of bricks of difficult times. I often have to rebuild my life from rock bottom and have always struggled with maintaining a healthy mind and lifestyle. But I try.
I predominantly use my blog as a way of expressing myself when I can’t any other way. I always used this platform as my voice to the world and anyone who wanted to listen. I can’t lie my voice has silenced itself. It’s almost like my head and heart are not in line with each other anymore. Or perhaps they’re more in line with each other, because what I want to say and should say are too very different things. This is because I have shrunk as a person and I am only just realising how much I, as a person, has wilted. For fear of upsetting others. For upsetting you, him, her and them! But where does it stop, when do I say no, enough, I want my voice to be heard again. I have an opinion, I have feelings, wants, needs and I deserve to not feel like I am letting myself go, be left behind again. I owe it to myself, surely, to not let myself disappear.

I don’t want to be anything but authentic to and for myself. I pride myself on my passion and determination not to suffer in silence and when things get too much I need this outlet.
The last year has been tough beyond belief. I have struggled immensely and for the best part of it only a few know how much, to what extent and the ‘gory’ details. But even then, at some points no one knows what has really been going on, especially in my mind.

So I guess I want to acknowledge how I used to be, how I never used to care what people thought of me. I was bold, carefree and had a voice I loved to be heard. But I am so cautious now for fear of upsetting everyone else that I tread carefully, I don’t explode when I could and I just stay in silence. Responding when appropriate and those responses being thoughtful and meticulously worded so I don’t get criticised further for my feelings and thoughts. I almost all the time try and keep emotion out of everything. Honestly, apart from a handful of occasions I haven’t cried or let myself feel that raw vulnerability in such a long time I have forgotten how it feels. But I know it will come out one time or another. This is what I fear though, the crying, inconsolable, the manic, the depressed, the wild and untamable Becka comes out and can’t cope.
So with a bit of hope, by opening up, I don’t become the above because we all know, all too well, what that results in.

I mean, if I am honest with myself the reality is that people then and people now will have a view of me that I cannot, no matter what I do change. Which is fine. I am grown up enough and mature enough to understand you are not going to like everyone in the world and some people just flat out, for no real reason not like me. I think the thing is how we deal with that.
I was bullied as a kid, a teenager and even at some points in my adult life. So I have grown a very thick skin, but it is out right impossible sometimes to ignore the people in life that think they have more ground to stand on and that their opinion of me matters more than what I think, know and believe about myself to be true.
When I was a teenager I could not wait to become an adult and make a life for myself that I wanted. I could be who I wanted to be. Didn’t have any clue who that person was but I was determined as hell to discover who I am. I learnt to express myself in ways that exhumed all of the parts of me that I had always suppressed for fear of not fitting in and this is something I do now still, and with confidence. I am bold, I dress how I want to, I will wear the bright lipstick and the sparkly tops. I try to carry myself with confidence because I can’t let anyone know deep down I know I need to lose weight, that my arms are big and my bum is saggy etc. Because clothes and appearance are all a facade we all hide behind in one way or another. So don’t get at me for choosing this way to hide when we all do it.
Again, as a child and a teenager I was always told I was too loud, to opinionated and too much at times for others. I was often told my opinion wasn’t valid and didn’t matter. That I had too much to say on things that I didn’t have business having a say on. In general my personality and how loud I could be was too much. But why can’t I have an opinion, a say, a voice? ‘You’ don’t have to agree with me but we don’t have to be rude or unkind about it.
This is where I get myself, or rather I used to, get myself into trouble.
As soon as I open my mouth someone is inevitably going to be pissed off. What shocks me the most is how there are grown arse people out there with such an opinion of me and how I conduct myself and life and this is reasoned with.
‘Well you know what they’re like.. That’s just how they express themselves.. Just ignore them.. Does it matter what they say or think?..’
To answer that I am going to be brutally honest and say yes actually it does matter. Why do I have to ignore the nastiness that is being said about me to the ones that are supposed to be my friends, family and loved ones. To allow for other people being shitty people when I so publicly and openly get called out.
I am not about to say I am exempt from this or that I shouldn’t be pulled up on my behavior and actions but why am I always in the firing line and everyone else gets away with it.
This is where it takes me back to my teenage years, being scared to be me. Constantly being ridiculed for something; I was too fat, too weird, too loud, too bossy, too alternative, a smart mouth, over opinionated, ugly. And I have learnt to channel all these put downs into becoming a confident but cautious adult. My entire being is built on not letting people know that I am bothered by what was said or done because for what feels like my entire life, my feelings have always felt secondary to those around me. And let me tell you how impossible this is sometimes when I am riddled and plagued with anxiety and paranoia and then proven right that in fact, my feelings, me as a person comes secondary to everyone else.

I guess I am just tired, and I’m not naive to think that I am perfect, that everyone likes me etcetc.. But why can’t I stand up for myself, especially when no one else is. When I’m being called a cry wolf behind my back and the irony of this being a week after I very nearly died as a result of an attempt on my life. But I’m crying wolf because of what reason? Because I didn’t succeed? Because I wrote about it? Because what? Because ‘you’ think everything I do is for attention? Because in that moment someone felt that it was okay to be so cruel about me at my lowest to someone who is supposed to love me despite it all and I was told to ignore them and that it didn’t matter. In all truth, the conversation had was one thing and the betrayal of my feelings and lack of sympathy was another but to feel like I had to be silent after was the hardest part. Like I couldn’t call out on this or have a reaction was what broke me and still gets to me now. I mean I am over the most of it but to be made to feel silenced for me is devastating. This blog has been such a lifeline for me and for the most part that has been a big reason I haven’t wrote anything in such a long time.
To silence someone into a hibernation who already doesn’t feel validated in life for me is just cruel. It happens all too often I have found. Since my spirit was dampened I have found that I have resigned into this silence and noticed a lot that when I do open up to people I am submissive to their opinion on what has happened and how I feel. I feel like a child again being told how to feel, react and see a situation. When for me this is how I am seeing it and feeling doesn’t hold as much value.

It is such a hard parallel because around my people, my tribe, my girls, my family and the ones I love I have a loud, proud a powerful voice and presence. I just feel dampened and sad about my loss of a part of me. But perhaps I need to not see it as a loss but an evolution of my prior self. I’m just scared that when I become I silenced I become someone else.

So, where do we draw the line? We all matter and we all are valid but why can’t I see that for myself right now? Why am I willingly letting myself go and revert back to something I’m not. I think I feel lost. I don’t feel confident or validated in my opinion or feelings and my mind is playing a game with me that I fear will turn towards that slippery slope.
The one where the intrusive thoughts take over.

Which can be thrilling, that rollercoaster is so easy to ride at times when they thoughts are risky but not dangerous per se.. but when you spiral..
“Have another drink, dance on the table, say what you really think, get drunk, have another drink, it’s only a bit of fun, no one is going to get hurt, have another drink, call them out on being shite to you, don’t take your meds they’re only numbing everything anyways, you’re the best thing, you’ve got this, who cares anyways, no one likes you anyways so do what you want, stay out all night, have another drink, quit your job, who needs to sleep anyways, I hate myself, I hate the world, the kids hate you, everyone hates you, have another drink, sleeping all day, awake all night, bad dreams, hearing voices, seeing things, paranoia is fun sometimes, paranoia is scary sometimes, have another drink, lie to the professionals; you feel fine, withdraw, become more of a person to make up for the fact that you feel nothing, chase the dopamine highs, buy everything and spend all the money, have another drink, yes you can do whatever you want, run and be free, do you think it would hurt if I crashed the car, have another drink, no one would miss you, the world would be better without you, no one understands you anyways, you’re crazy, they’re right you bring nothing to the table, they’re right you’re a liability, do you think I care, no one cares, have another drink, tell them you love them, say goodbye…”

Where do we draw the line, on silencing others, on making others feel like they’re not worth it, that they’re secondary in their own lives.
Where does it stop?

Don’t ever suffer in silence.

Being Becka x