Those of you that know me well will know that I love to celebrate milestones. Big or small, I believe they motivate us through the journey of life and lift our spirits. 1st of June (yesterday!) was a milestone for me as its a year to the day that I last left a Psychiatric hospital after my third and final stay, and I can safely say that year has been the best of my life. That day marks the day I returned home to myself, that I began the long journey that led to me trusting in my own power again - to engage life, be full of light and stand confidently in my own skin. So much has changed and my life is so completely different to ever before; I have moved gently through each dark room and proudly drawn back the curtains.
Healing can be very chaotic and stressful but this year I have been lucky enough to find peace and am enormously grateful for the life I lead. I've probably never know myself as well as I do now, both inside and out and have learnt to respond to my mind and body effectively. It has been a massive learning curve for not only me but all of my amazing family and friends too.
It could have gone so horribly wrong when, not long after leaving hospital I was made redundant from my job of 5 years, but you either get bitter or you get better. Its that simple, eventually. You either take what has been dealt to you and allow it to make you a better person or you allow it to tear you down. The choice belongs to you.
I have been lucky enough to find new and much more appropriate employment over the past year. I now work as a Peer Support Worker, helping other adults with Mental Health challenges using knowledge of my own experiences. I co-facilitate several workshops for NHS staff on Recovery (from Mental Illness), Managing Crisis (in a Mental Illness), Peer Support and on Bipolar. From January next year I will start running similar workshops for the University of Bedfordshire as part of the Mental Health Nursing degree (very excited about this!). I'm working on a project to improve the usefulness of activities on all of the Mental Health wards in the area and I am involved in recruitment and interviewing of new staff for the local Trust. I am involved in a 'Break the Stigma' campaign and I sit on the Recovery Partnership Board for Luton which is hugely proactive at bringing organisations together to provide better care for Inpatient and Outpatient Mental Health Service Users. I also still do the occasional shift for Music24, helping to facilitate music groups on the Mental Health wards in Luton. So I think I'm at a point in my life where its fair to say I now believe my Bipolar has brought me good fortune and I feel so blessed to be able to say that.
Although I have endured and I have been almost broken, I have known hardship and I have lost myself, here I stand, still moving forward, growing stronger each day. I will never forget the harsh lessons in my life, as they have definitely made me stronger. An appropriate and poignant poem by Leonard Nimoy -
'Because I have known despair
I value hope
Because I have tasted frustration
I value fulfillment
Because I have been lonely
I value love'
My message to anyone out there still in a time of struggle - when things seem shattered and lost, know that nothing stays broken forever. Gather up your strength and pick up the pieces one by one. You must always keep going and it will get better. Growth can sometimes be uncomfortable because you've never been here before; you've never met this version of yourself. Give yourself a little grace and breath through it. Remember, the one who falls and gets up is so much stronger than the one who never fell.
It doesn't matter who you used to be; what matters is who you decide to be today. You are not your mistakes, you are not your past, you are not your wounds. You can decide differently today and everyday, remember that. You are offered a new opportunity with every breath you take to think, choose, decide and act differently in a way that supports you in being all that you are capable of being. Sure, it can be tough at first, but I promise you it will be worth it.
As a nation, we get so worried about being happy that we can too easily end up missing out on happiness altogether. Stop waiting for that magical moment of pure bliss and start enjoying whatever little fragments of happiness you can find. Its the rainy nights spent under a blanket with a good book, a walk through nature on a warm sunny day, paddling in the sea, talking for hours with a good friend and the embrace from the person whose arms you find peace in. Your little everyday joys, whatever they may be, all lined up in a row. Blessed are those who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing. Its the little moments, that's what life is all about.
For what its worth: its never too late to be whoever you want to be. I still find it quite bizarre that its been my mental illness that has brought me to where I am today, to peace and fulfillment and to work I feel proud of. I hope you live a life you're proud of, but if you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start over and build yourself a life you can find peace in. Of all the things I could have been, I'm so glad to be who I am today and I thank God I didn't actually become who I pretended to be back when I had no idea who I really was.
Never give up hope, keep fighting as you never know whats around the corner.