Good Morning Lovelies,

Some days I get so angry at myself. I get this wound up feeling like I am not good enough. Like I am a waste as two family members once called me. And sometimes I believe it. I look at the lives of those around me and think why am I not there? Why am I not at this stage in my own life? Why am I not married? Why don’t I have children? Why am I not at the top of my game career wise when I went to university and got a First? Why am I not in my own home? Why don’t I say yes to more things? Why don’t I have a solid friendship group anymore? And it hurts me! 

Upon turning 20, my life went to utter ruins. There is no other way of putting it. I witnessed my grandad go on a horrific downfall, leading to my mum having a mental breakdown, causing depression that she was treated for. I then witnessed my dad have two strokes right in front of me, having to hold his head up off the steering wheel for one of them and having to take the fork and knife out of his hand when he had the second to make sure he didn’t go over onto them and stab himself. Throughout all of this, my eating disorder and exercise addiction took over, as I had nothing I could control but them. 

When my grandad passed away, the realisation set in that I was not well and I was ready to die. I had begun to prepare for it in fact. Giving away the items in my room that I didn’t feel worthy of anymore. I would go to my therapy sessions, step on the scales and pretend to be sad it hadn’t gone up, when in my head I was over the moon. All of which led to me being placed voluntarily into an inpatient hospital in London that honestly made me worse. 

The nurses were horrific. The food and menu would never arrive on time or be what we ordered. We would be woken at 6am, told to wee, before being weighed and sent back to our rooms where we would sit for hours on our own until our breakfast arrived and we would start the daily routine over and over again with no real care in between. 

Then the pandemic hit and I was discharged with no help, leading me to have to fight for myself. Something I have been doing with my mum ever since. Since coming out, I have said goodbye to my dad in the most upsetting way, as I couldn’t be with him when he went. I have distanced myself from other members of the family to protect my own health. Though it hurts to think about how much trouble led to it. I have lost friends for no reason. And throughout it all I have tried to stay calm and respectful. 

Yet, now, after a year of pretty much no events, my body and mind have now realised that we are tired. We have put up so much of a fight that with nothing to fight anymore, I don’t know what to do with myself and this has led to a new sense of angst. One where I can see that the life I thought I was navigating well was actually a big amount of stress that when no longer there makes me feel like I have missed out on the life I could have had. 

Speaking to someone about this recently, they told me that I wasn’t behind in life but yet I hadn’t had a life. I hadn’t had the chance to go off and meet new people. I hadn’t had the chance to do what I really wanted to do, which was travel. I was a bird in a cage throughout my 20s that kept flying from one side to the other but never out of it in a bid for freedom. It is not my parents' fault in any way. They always told me to do what I would like to. Yet, I have always felt tied. I don’t know if it is my eating disorder, AuDHD, anxiety, panic disorder or something just built within me, but I have always been afraid to just let myself relax and be free. 

Now, apart from things to do with my health, I have that chance to do so and it scares me. To the point where I think I am reaching a burnout from a life that has kept me going for so long but no longer needs to. And I don’t know what to do about it. I am so restless. So flighty. So on edge that everything will be taken from me that I can’t breathe. 

Even spending a day in bed feels scary, when I used to be able to do so with ease. Trying to pick a holiday makes me worry what people will think about the place I have picked when I really shouldn’t care. Being bored is my idea of hell. Any ache, pain or nausea leads me to thinking the worst thing is going to happen. I wake up tired and I haven’t even started the day. And I am so so sick of it! 

I am sick of the constant fighting! I am sick of people thinking they know the cure when they don’t! I am sick of it all! Everyone has had a say in my life up until now and when I think about it I haven’t. And that is why I am afraid of being behind in life. Not because of the major milestones that I see happening all around me. But because I have spent so long fighting to be better. Do better. To become someone I am not. That now my head thinks we are behind because the fight hasn’t got where it is meant to have got yet. And why should it have? 

I am 31. I am young. I am prepared to take things slow and steady and maybe one day the things I see happening around me will happen to me. Yet, in a lot of ways I don’t actually want them too. I don’t want kids and haven’t done so since I was 11. 

I don’t see the need for marriage, as I think love should be felt and dedication given no matter what. I am happy at home with my mum. I don’t need the white picket fence house that others do. I have so much time to explore the world and go to the places I want to see, not what people tell me to see. The right role will come along one day and when it does, I will prove those who called me a waste wrong. 

I am not behind. I am only getting started. The way I feel will pass and a new day will come. I just need to take it slow and steady to be able to win the race. 

Joey X