HAPPY 22nd BIRTHDAY TO ME!!
Not the birthday I imagined but I am sure many people have had the same experience. 2020 was a year worth reflecting on so if you care to indulge me a little, I would like to do a bit of self-reflection on my birthday.
A year ago, today, I was waking up in Rome with a boyfriend who I loved but was not in love with anymore. Days later, we broke up.
The first lockdown affected everyone’s mental health in one way or another. For me it meant that I had nothing to do but go to work, see him and his new girlfriend, then go home and think about it non-stop. Whilst this might seem so futile, it was made worse by people approaching with new gossip and rumours they heard. Some even about myself. It was extremely damaging to hear false perceptions of me being spread around my workplace, people who I had never spoken to you looking down on me. I was constantly angry or upset and cried nearly every single shift I was on for a month. My brain was so overwhelmed that I eventually just started shutting out certain emotions just to cope and everything just turned to constant frustration.
I decided that being a bit more selfish was the way to go but I took it too far and became a person that I am not proud of. I was self-centred and just stopped caring about other people because their sadness was an inconvenience to my happiness. I did some terrible things to one friend who I care very deeply about and nearly lost her friendship as a result.
Eventually, I had a full breakdown. I would look at myself in the mirror every day and not recognise the person who I was looking at. I developed such strong anxiety about going into work that it infected every other aspect of my life. Soon the panic attacks hit and got more frequent. In them, I swear I could feel the vibrations of someone yelling at me on the back of my neck. They would be yelling cruel things to me. I could not tell you what they were saying because I was not having auditory hallucinations, but I was internalising them which was much scarier. I eventually started thinking, “if I have to experience this tomorrow, then I don’t want to wake up”. I turned to therapy and got myself medicated. I am very proud of myself for doing it, but it was a very daunting process to have to face things I had been outrunning for years. But last year, I got too tired and stopped running but I did not realise how much my sadness consume me.
Therapy was a great help, but my medication is the greatest thing I have ever done to date. People call them happy pills, but I call them my ‘clarity’ pills. It was like the clouds parted and for the first time, I could see all my problems as separate entities rather a entangled mess of trauma. In my head now, I have my ‘shelf of issues’ where everything has a box. Some are firmly closed with a nice bow on top, I no longer need to waste energy on them anymore. Some do not have a bow and the lid falls off every now and then, but in those moments, I allow myself to be sad because it is fleeting.
After I started my medication is August, I have managed to achieve more personal goals in the last 5 months that I have achieved in years. I so far have achieved 8 distinctions out of 9 assignments at college and applied to university after thinking it was never going to happen. I recently got accepted into my first choice and only need another 3 distinctions to secure my place. I know I am not the smartest person, but I surpassed my own belief in what I thought I could achieve.
I learnt more about my sexuality; turns out I like girls as well as boys. I will admit I like boys a little bit more unfortunately, but what can you do?
I figured out I need to really stop caring about what people think about me. I always have tried to be a people pleaser but when I realised if playing that role does nothing but make you unhappy then stop doing it. The queen herself, RuPaul, once said “what other people think of me is not my business. What I do is what I do. How people see me doesn’t change what I decide to do” and it is very true. What people think of you is none of your business, you just carry on doing what you want to do. Those that you think care so deeply about what decisions you make will stop showing any interest because spoiler alert... they never cared to begin with. They were just bored.
I learnt the value in recognising your own worth. British culture does not welcome self-appreciation, it is seen as an egotisical practice but sometimes you have to. Sometimes, you might say to yourself: “I look hot today!”, “I did amazing in my assignment” or "God, that was so clever of me". I never used to say these things to myself, I used to wait for someone else, but nothing feels worse than a forced compliment.
These are all things I am extremely proud of as it has allowed me to get to a point in my life where I know who I am and where I want to go. So even though the world is not where I thought it would be today, I am still pretty excited for what 22 means for me.