a little vent

To be honest, I’m not even sure what this is. A blog post, some sort of diary entry maybe? I have no clue. All I know is that the one thing I want to do when I’m struggling is write, something which I haven’t done freely in years. Taking a journalism degree meant that my writing for the past 3 years was often times forced and made to meet deadlines, as opposed to the creative and free writing process that I fell in love with. So, after a shitty day in which I’ve probably felt every range of negative emotions a human can, I am going to write. For myself if not for anyone else.

Since leaving uni my life has been pretty rubbish, I won’t lie. Learning how to cope with the knowledge that one of your parents has a terminal illness and essentially a time frame on their life is a hard pill to swallow. I don’t think anyone should ever have to witness the suffering of a parent, let alone a 21-year-old and honestly, I’m still in a sort of disbelief that it’s happening. I guess that moving back home has also been instrumental in making this process 10x harder—it’s a lot easier to be blind to something when you can’t see it, as was the way I coped when I found out during my last few months at uni. If I wasn’t back home and couldn’t see it, it wasn’t real right? Well, I’m back home and it’s there, that’s for sure. Like a heavy cloud just hanging in the air, you’re always aware and on edge. The luxury of being blind to it is gone.

One thing I’ve always counted on in the past three years at uni when I’m having a shit time is friends. I’ve been so lucky to make some amazing friends for life through uni and my favourite memories are of times spent with them: going on nights out and being embarrassing, the hungover morning debrief and maccies, ugly crying together, talking about the weirdest topics and sitting in their room until before you know it you’ve powered through 6 movies and it’s 5 in the morning. I guess that’s also why this process has been so difficult; I don’t live near my friends anymore. We’re all scattered over the country (and even world) and it truly sucks. If I was having a bad day before, I’d pop over to my friends with a bottle of wine in tow ready to watch a bit of Geordie Shore. If I wanted a cry on someone I’d run upstairs to my friend’s room and just have a good sob. Hell, if I wanted someone to cheer me up I’d go downstairs to my even more tragic friend who always had some good stories to share (soz Liam). But I don’t have that instant support system anymore and it makes everything worse. Of course, my friends have been amazing since everything unfolded and if there’s any positive to take from this situation, it’s that I can count on having the kindest, sweetest, best friends a gal could ask for. But when I’ve been having bad days I’ve found that for some strange reason, I just can’t bring myself to phone them or even send a quick text saying I need to vent or have a little cry, when in all honesty, it’s the only thing I want to do in those moments. Maybe it’s because I hate feeling like a burden, or maybe it’s because I know there is nothing they can really say to help the situation (which I completely understand, I would be the EXACT same). This may be different for every individual but for me, it feels like it takes so much more courage to do this rather than just see people in the flesh. Either way, not having friends literally outside my door has been a massive struggle for me and means I usually always just end up crying alone in my room before wiping my face and going downstairs like everything’s fine.

Of course, the usual post uni/graduate struggles have also got me down like most other people I know. It has only been in the past two weeks I’ve managed to get a job and even then, it just feels like a massive step backwards. All sense of independence I had in uni has basically vanished since moving back home and lastly, I’ve gotten fatter and spottier. Ugh. Combining all these factors means my motivation, positivity and general outlook on life has been pretty bleak at the best of times since graduating. I do have good days where I’m determined in my plans and know what I want to achieve. Most of the time however is just spent in an almost unfeeling state, robotically watching Netflix and having nothing to look forward to. Then you get the bad days, where it’s almost impossible not to scream and cry and run away as far as possible. Today was one of those days.

Despite always having loved being an imaginative person, since this whole ordeal began it’s been nothing but a curse, thinking up the worst-case future scenarios possible. Like truly awful stuff I’ve never had to consider. I’ve imagined my wedding day where my father doesn’t get to walk me down the aisle and we don’t get to have our father/daughter dance. I’ve thought of his last days and what I would say to him. Today’s little creation my brain thought up? Giving a full eulogy at his funeral. Like literally, what the fuck brain? I was midway through blending my contour when this little thought grew into a full on panic attack and I furiously tried to keep blending my contour despite the tears rolling down my cheeks and the feeling that I might nearly pass out. I wish I could say these occurrences weren’t often but they are. It’s hard not to imagine what the immediate future is going to look like when you know something is definitely going to happen and my anxiety has never been worse thanks to it.

Another big part of the reason I immediately went to my room and ugly cried into my pillow for like an hour today is this stupid fucking illness. I know everyone thinks their own parent is the best in the world but like, legit my dad is. Before getting ill he was always laughing and making me laugh, stupidly dancing to Madness or doing his 23^rd impression of Bryn from Gavin and Stacey that day. He was the most chill, relaxed, funny and kind person I knew, and I owe so much of my own personality to him. However, since getting ill the biggest change I’ve seen in him isn’t so much physically but mentally. He rarely laughs now. He’s always annoyed or angry or being sharp. He snaps, a lot. Watching an illness change someone you love into the opposite of who they are is beyond heart-breaking to the point I can’t even put it into words. Imagine someone pumping up your heart in your chest to the point it feels like it may burst whilst someone else is simultaneously lowering a weight onto your chest and you’re 1/100^th of the way there. Learning to cope with these new personality changes without taking it to heart or holding it against him has probably been the biggest struggle overall for me and I guess today it all just got a bit too much.

So yeah, that’s everything I think I wanted to write down at the moment. I actually don’t know whether I have the courage to post this or not so it may just remain in a corner of document folder on my laptop forever. But if I do have the guts to post this and you’ve read it all and got this far then I guess well done you and thanks for listening to me whine for a bit. For now I’m gonna go watch the Harry Styles BBC special and pretend I’m 17 all over again. In a bit x