Trying to believe in myself once more.

Today I am feeling so very low, In fact in all fairness I can say I don’t like me at all. The picture is mine, one that I took on a happier day and time.

And this picture is one I have had to break the cycle of.

I have suffered from depression since as long as I can remember. I was bulimic from my early teens, although I’ve never had a healthy relationship with food.

I went to self help classes, that helped me so much. I decided to train to become a chef and stop fearing food. I was a very quick learner and was promoted with in the first year to second chef. Two years after that I opened my own restaurant.

I have always suffered highs and lows, I loved the highs as I believed I could do what ever I wanted. And due to the amount off responsibilities I put on myself I was able to get through the lows.

Ater a car crash, I crushed my L1 vertebrae. I lay flat on my back for 6 months. The morphine helped kill the pain and the boredom.

I have always been a fighter to the illness the doctors labelled me with, firstly manic depression and then Bipolar. I always believed I was the one who would control my future So much so I had a college place excepted for as soon as I was back on my feet.

I was very lucky and privileged to get the support I needed to get through the course. I had dxylecia, although had never been diagnosed ( that’s for another time).

I found myself a very good job for finishing college working in youth Justice, I supported young people and their family to prevent the children going into care. I loved my job and maintaining it for almost ten years.

Life was a daily struggle with my pain, but the pills helped. Also with my own mental health issues. I was doing a job that helped young people to have better life’s. I often wondered what my life would have been if I had had something like me in.

I don’t know the point of this, I am so trying to believe I am a good person. And have only wrote the most positive things I’ve worked through.

After having a mental breakdown, whilst I was working with adults supporting them with their mental health ( how ironic). I stayed in a ward for four week, I was told it was post traumatic stress as I had never dealt with so many past issues.

I was diagnosed with an emotional personality disorder, it was the Third Label I had been given.

I struggle daily with my thoughts, some days easier than other. I am not a writer, just trying to learn how to work through my past issues by putting it down on paper. Also to remind myself I have been a good person and if I start to believe in me again, I can be of good use to the other people in my life and be the person I once was.