This morning as I lay in bed, my face cushioned between a pile of pillows, with the duvet pulled up over the pillows and my face, I lay there repeatedly thinking “I can’t do it, I just can’t do it.” There’s like a fiery ball of fear, anger and pain that’s made home in my stomach, creeping around my body, making my neck and my chest tight, with my legs continuously shaking – as if I’m warming up for some sort of big fight.

“I’m pathetic, this is pathetic.” I’m 22 years old, and I don’t know how to do life. I feel small, useless, wasteful, pathetic, stupid, ridiculous, dramatic and pathetic. It’s pathetic that I’m ‘struggling’ – heck I’m so fed up with that word ‘struggling’ – I shouldn’t be struggling I should just be getting on with my life. I shouldn’t be trying to hide away from the world, the thought of going to the pub and having to talk to people shouldn’t terrify me, I shouldn’t continuously be second guessing every happy thought I have as if it’s an intruder in the vast, intense, strong battlefield of negative crap that rules my mind, my body and my life 24/7.

I’m so fed up of this, but there is no quick fix. I, or nobody else, can snap their fingers and make everything ‘normal’ – normal meaning: me being able to talk to other humans and have relationships with other humans and live my life without continuously being at the mercy of my own mind – my mind that hates me.

No matter how many times I attempt to let my friends know what’s going on, I find myself quickly saying “but I know I should just get over it, I’ll be okay”, but I’m not, I’m really not okay – but then when I’m having a good time, I’m genuinely having a good time – every day is different. But it doesn’t take much for the ‘darkness’ – well, it doesn’t seem dark – it just seems like an intense, horrid feeling of self-hate, uncertainty, fear, not wanting to and not feeling able to cope with it all – it doesn’t take much for the ‘darkness’ to pop back, to takeover. And then I’m left with the thoughts of knowing how much I don’t want to have to deal with this – and how pathetic I am for having to deal with this. Pathetic – it’s a harsh word I know, and pretty stigmatising too – and it’s not me using it in the worry that that’s how I anticipate others to perceive me – I genuinely find myself pathetic, and I get angry at my inability to cope. Of course, a huge part of my life is influenced by the fear of being judged, but lets be honest – I’m doing a top job of judging myself already.

Instinctively I know how to ‘cope’ when others are around – so all the crap, the self-loathing and not wanting to be here palava seems to dissolve ever so slightly. And I find a newfound sense of ‘yeah, the world is wonderful, life is good’ but then, when I’m alone – or even when there’s a quiet moment the horrid intensity hits me, and I’m left hating it and myself. Most of the time all I can do is lay in bed trying desperately to make sense of my feelings – when everything is a blur – it’s difficult for me to make sense of my feelings, when I’m feeling low I just can’t do it. Most of the time I can’t identify why I am feeling low, and that’s when moments from my past join the party and give me a very painful reason to feel like crap. Other times it’s just self-hate and overwhelming fear of the future, and that nothing will ever change. It’s that “I can’t and don’t want to deal with life” belief. I don’t want to be the same, useless, lonely, dramatic person for the rest of forever, and I don’t want to have to deal with how everything from my past still impacts me – heck, the older I get the more things impact me because I am growing ever-frustrated at the fact that “I’m 22 and things seem to be affecting me more than they ever have.”

But then, I don’t want to tell others how I’m feeling, because they’ve already supported me – they’ve already done their time, had their turn of looking after me, so I can’t go to them again. I can’t ask them to help me, when I don’t know why or how I need help, and I can’t talk to them because I don’t want to bring them down, and I don’t want them to know how pathetic I am for not being able to just get over things. No matter how wonderful my friends, my loved ones, and those in my support network are – even the professionals – they must be getting fed up with my inability to cope. They can see that I can’t do it, so why should I try and get them to help me, when my mind isn’t playing ball? And when it does, when things feel okay, I am quickly reminded that things aren’t – maybe I’m ‘destined’ to live a crappy, darkness-fuelled life – or maybe, maybe I am a genuine loser, weakling, silly, unable to cope person.