When you live with a mental illness it doesn’t matter how well your life is going, how much success you’ve had it will rear its head at some point. In fact when everything is going right I find it even harder to deal with. Earlier this week Prince Harry spoke about mental illness , a quote of his really stuck with me;

“A lot of people think if you’ve got a job, if you’ve got financial security, if you’ve got a family, you’ve got a house, all that sort of stuff, everyone seems to think that is all you need and you are absolutely fine to deal with stuff,” – Prince Harry

I’m incredibly pleased and proud that the royal family are using their status to highlight mental illness. Harry’s mother, Princess Diana also suffered from mental illness. When I realised I wasn’t just sad, I was very sick I looked up famous people with mental illnesses. It sounds silly, but I needed to know that other people had made something of their lives, even when they’d felt as bad as I had. I needed to know that other people had carried on and after being diagnosed it gave me a little bit of hope.

There was never a time when I thought oh everything’s going great, I’m fine, I’m going to be happy forevvvvvvvvvvvvveeeeeeeeeeerrrrrr. But, even so, sometimes I forget how lonely it can feel. It doesn’t matter that I have a loving family, partner, job the energy just kind of drains from me and I just wonder around. I question everything and feel so upset over the slightest thing. Going into London on a particularly low day was hard, the people, the rush, anxiety crept through my body and made me just want to hide. From that I got angry and frustrated, why was I like this? Why did my brain do this. I felt so confused and like some huge freak. This is what it’s like on bad days for me.

As I’m writing this, I’m feeling more like myself and because I’m now home I’m a lot calmer. There’s good in my life and there is bad and it’s a balance. I won’t hide from my readers, my Twitter followers that side of my life, because it’s real. I would rather have a smaller readership and an honest blog, than one that is polished and false, because people need to know that they’re not alone. So if you’re reading this and you’re struggling, for whatever reason, remember that you have the strength, you’re not a freak or whatever your head tries to tell you when you’re sick. You’re not alone.

Image from Pinterest.