Now, I’m not much of a ‘Swiftie’ – I can bop along to her music if needed, yet I’ll never go out of my way to listen to her. There’s a lyric though in one of her popular songs that says – “everybody moved on, help, I’m still at the restaurant” and it’s one that remains in my mind often – especially when struggles resurface. There’s a certain type of anger that lingers after trauma. I say certain because it isn’t all consuming, nor is it a direct rage to anyone or anything. It’s this persistent humming in the back of my mind no matter how much the chaotic noise of life tries to drown it out. It fluctuates – just like every feeling does. Somedays I’m more spiteful than others, but that resentment continues to linger within me and the hardest part within it all is I have no direct reasoning to feel this way. The trauma of mental illness and the devastation that occurred due to the effect of it can’t be blamed on anybody, I can’t point it to a specific event and there is no direct reasoning for it. It just is. 

Life is full of ups and downs, highs and lows and devastating things are part of those lows – but some events are so unfathomable, so destructive, that you can’t just think to yourself ‘well, that’s just life”. When people ask – “Do you believe everything happens for a reason?”, I find it difficult to give a clear answer. I’m quite a spiritual being so I trust in the universe. I believe everything in life can teach you something, but some things are just so soul destroying that there is no reasoning for them. I don’t believe I became unwell so that I could learn the value of joy, but I know that my experiences have taught me it. Some events are just so soul destroying that there can’t be a reason for it. 

Last night, I lay in bed wide awake at 3am – a common occurrence for the ADHD brain that I have. I found myself looking through the social media accounts of people from high school – a common occurrence for most people I think. These are people that I have had zero contact with since I left. They have no clue what happened to me, and I have no clue what happened to them – but I do know that their life continued on. The path of life they had hoped to walk down became the reality for them. I too had dreams of what I wanted my life to look like – yet the reality that came was completely unexpected. The losses due to the destruction trauma brings is a grief I carry with me every day. There isn’t a time that I don’t mourn that nagging question of ‘What could’ve been?’ That niggling question of ‘Why?’ taunting me.

So, when that lingering anger towards the universe rises to the surface and the grief fills up my heart, well it breaks me. I lay there in bed last night and the nagging question of ‘Why?’ came back. ‘Why did this happen?’ ‘Why me?’, Why this, Why that. I know I’ll never have an answer, and I’ve learnt to get better at accepting that. The question still remains though. Even if I did get given a reasoning for everything, I’m not sure the answer would offer any sort of fulfilment. Nevertheless, the resentment remains. 

These people, regardless of whether they knew me throughout my trauma or not, if they stayed by my side or left me – they still got to carry on with their life. The effects of an unwell family member or an unwell friend didn’t derail their life. They still got to pursue their ambitions – yet I had to fight ferociously just to stay alive. Amidst all of the sadness they may have been feeling over the pain I was experiencing – they got the blessing of being able to keep on achieving. 

Everything I had known was destroyed. 5 years later I am still having to pick things up from the rubble and rebuild what was stolen from me. I’ve had to work relentlessly day in day out, battling a brain with an illness embedded into it that despises my existence. I’ve had to adapt to a life that was once utterly foreign to me. I’m grateful for all I have now, yet there’s an emptiness within – knowing that the reality of my life was something younger Hope could have never imagined. I wouldn’t wish the heartbreak of my experiences on anybody, but I am resentful that it was me who had to live it. Jealousy meets me everywhere. Despite the struggles of what they may have faced and the undoubted pain that comes with living, it was me whose life was utterly derailed by it all. And I’ll never know why. When the illness begins to consume me again, so does that rage. It’s stop, start, break down, get back up again – constantly going in and out of the grasp of it all. 

I question whether I am just destined to be broken. Because even after 5 years and many gruesome battles to live – rather than just survive, once again I remain back in the debilitating trap that is mental illness. Watching through the restaurant window witnessing the achievements of others pass me by. 

There’s times where I question if I would want my past to be different. I have been told persistently throughout it all that I carry so much insight and maturity. Slowly I learn to not only accept, but appreciate the being that I am. I see the strength within my story, the power I posses within and more importantly – the value within my worth.