Friday 29 December 2017

I'm still the same person.

Every now and then, someone tries to tell me how strong I am. Not physically strong, anyone who knows me knows that I have about the strength of a feather. But internally strong.
After all, I chose a job where I constantly have to think of other peoples wants and needs over my own. Where I help look after people until they take their last breath. I've supported people so confused they're fearing for their lives at 2 o'clock in the morning. And yet every time it comes round to my shift, off I go.
I helped nurse my Nan until her dying moments. I found her on the floor after a stroke and called 999. I sat next to her bed nearly every day for 47 days knowing that she was dying.
I'm studying to become a nurse to help people in their darkest, dying moments.
That's what a strong person does, right?

Who knows. Because that's what I do every day and I am far from being strong.

I'm still the person that is convinced everyone is going to leave them. I'm still the person that believed it when an ex-boyfriend told me I should prepare to be alone forever because I'm 'unlovable'. I'm still the person that's answered phone calls where people who should know better have described in accurate detail how much they hate me. I'm still the person who panics when their iMessage tone goes off anytime after 9pm.
Every time I say good bye to someone, I'm convinced I'm never going to see them or speak to them again. I'm still the person that goes over everything I said or did, regardless of who I've been hanging out with to work out if I said something that will make them hate me and never talk to me again. I'm still the person that can't believe anyone when they tell me they like me, or they think I'm a good person. Sometimes I'm still that person who stayed up until the early hours of the morning searching for train times, trying to chose the right one to step in front of. I'm still the person who scratched their arm to pieces and then pretended I had no idea how it happened. 
I'm still the person terrified of being alone after once being told that I would 'die alone, cold and hungry' when I was an old lady. I'm still the person that panics when someone doesn't text or call me back, I still sit there and try to work out what it was that I did wrong. Sometimes in my attempts to work it out I make it even worse. I still cry myself to sleep trying to work out if I'll ever be normal. I'm still the person with the nervous habits. The Restless Leg Syndrome, the need to keep my hands busy when I'm worried.

I'm always going to be that person. Even when I'm doing better or I'm feeling confident in myself and my choices, I have to make those decisions knowing that the person I don't want to be is only just a few steps behind me, and will always catch me.


This isn't the post I'd like to be making at the end of this year, so I'll try and fit in another one if I get the chance. Most of this year I'd tried to adapt the thinking of that no matter what happens, the tide will still come in and out. The sun and the moon will still rise. The stars will still come out at night. My family and my real friends will still love me. If you've ever had the misfortune to have a brain programmed and chemically balanced like mine is, then you know how hard it can be to keep that constant positive thought in your mind. Like I said, I'm always going to be 'that person', and those thoughts are always going to be there.