Thirteen.

Im tired. Tired of my brain. Tired of fighting it every day. Tired of it telling me i am not enough. Tired of it making me think im unlovable. Tired of it making situations worse than need be. Tired of it constantly on overdrive thinking and worrying about things outwith my control. Tired of it trying to sabotage any happiness i have in my life. Tired of it ruining my relationships with friends, family, partners. Tired of it feeling like its racing at 100mph all the time and never taking a breather to look at the scenery and take note of its surroundings. Tired of it working against me. Tired of it bringing storm clouds when they werent forecast. Tired of it making me unhappy. Tired of it working on overdrive even when its meant to be relaxing, bringing me bad nightmares that are so vivid and real that i am traumatised the following day by them. Tired of feeling like when my body goes to sleep, my brain climbs into another body and goes on adventures of horror and panic then comes back to me in time for waking up – bringing all the memories from overnight with it to haunt me through the day. I feel i am in constant battle with myself every day and it is exhausting. I want to feel normal. Like i dont have an army at war inside my head every day. That i can wake up in the morning and feel rejuvenated and relaxed. That i dont feel like there is an earthquake happening under my skin that no one else can see. I dont want to feel the sadness creeping out of my brain and running through my body, trying to escape. I want to zap all my sadness away so it cant run, cant survive, and it cant feed on me anymore and it will die. It is like a parasite – sucking all the happiness out of me and leaving me tired and defeated with nothing left. Taking all my nutrients and leaving me with nothing.

I am tired from fighting battles with myself every day. I am tired of fighting the battles.

Eleven.

I dont know what to do. How to feel. How to survive. I feel so empty.

I had my confirmation scan today which confirmed theres no pregnancy left inside me. Im so sad. I feel like theres a hole inside me and i dont know how to fill it.

I keep comfort eating and feel like if my mouth and tummy is full then my cries cant escape.

I want to howl and sob and i keep stopping myself cause i know my heart will literally break and i dont have any superglue strong enough to mend it and dont know if i can live through it. I dont know what to do.

Its like being in the worst depression and just being alive feels like too hard a job. If i wasnt breathing automatically i would not bother even breathing. It hurts inside my heart to feel my chest rise because i know my baby never got to feel that.

I can’t face the world. The critical part of me is saying im pathetic and to get over it. That it wasnt even a proper baby. Then the lonely sad part of me gets even more depressed. Its a vicious cycle.

I asked at the hospital today for my scan photo from last week. I wasn’t thinking last week to get one because i thought I’d see my baby again. As far as i understood from what the nurse said when i was there it was probably just that my dates were wrong. It wasn’t until i got home and read the leaflets that i understood.

I phoned the following day to request it. Then again when i spent Saturday-Sunday in the hospital due to my contractions and bleeding being so severe. I asked on the phone on Tuesday and then today when getting the confirmation scan.

The sonographer replied saying they dont give out scans that had stopped growing because its not a baby its just a sac and nothing is there. It is still my pregnancy though. I still had a 12 week pregnancy. It was still my baby. My peanut.

I just want my scan photo to help it all feel real i guess. To have something physical that shows i was pregnant and that my pain is real. Some people think that a baby loss in early pregnancy isnt as hurtful as losing a one year old or your mum or your brother or sister but its all the same. Its still a loss and its not just an empty sac to me. Its the hopes and dreams and the future you planned thats been stolen from you.

It doesnt mean i am going to sit and look at it and cry all the time but it means i have it if i want to look at it. Possibly for when times are sad or i feel hopeless, i can look at it and tell myself if i got through that then i can get through anything. Maybe for if we have babies in the future and i want to show them their little brother or sister. I just want to make it feel real and not let its memory fade.

I might get it and never want to look at it again. I dont know how i will feel about it in the future but atleast i have it if i want it.

I know i am becoming fixated on fighting battles when i really need to just sit and care for myself but i feel like a protective mother goose guarding her eggs, in the blind hope that they’re okay after the cunning fox has eaten them all.

I am fighting for my baby to not be “just another empty sac” thats forgotten about. It was my baby.

“You were carried for only a moment but will be loved for a life time.”

W.♡

Ten.

I sit in the bath remembering
How much things change in a week
For only a few days ago
We couldnt wait for our sneak peek

We had stayed up late questioning
Would you have my ears or his
I imagined your eyes sparkling when you smiled
The softness of your skin i couldnt wait to kiss

We went to the ultrasound room, cosy and dimly lit
I climbed up on the bed, shaking only a little bit
I was excited to see your tiny face, hear your beating heart
But in that second all i felt was my world being torn apart

A silent miscarriage, i got told
My body doesnt even realise
The baby stopped growing weeks ago
My heart breaks as i hear my throat let out its cries

I am angry at my body,
bittersweet in its unacceptance
My grief trickles down my face
You’re our angel now, forever there to protect us

Sobs leave my body as i think about what could have been
I close my eyes and try to sleep
My body feels empty, useless and desolate
I fight my way into dreamland as i continue to weep

I spend three days in labour, with nothing to show at the end
Just contractions and pain and a heart that needs to mend
A miscarriage that was missed, But missed you shall be
The future that never began which stole a part of me

I will think of you on your due date, and shed tears for what never was
I will hang a stocking on the fireplace when expecting santa claus
I will blow out your birthday candles and wish your soul to come back to me
For i will long for you, forever, my little chestnut tree.

Eight.

I had the most amazing experience today and i want to write it down so i can read it again and again.

I went to see a psychic medium this evening for a private reading. We went to a group show last year but did not get any messages through so we booked a private one instead.

In November last year, my sister and some friends had an evening of private readings and received messages from loved ones who had passed. I didn’t have a reading this night but it was still very emotional for me; listening to my friends tales of their loved ones. A friend who we all spent time with in a big group when we were teenagers came through. He passed away in 2013. I had been very upset at the funeral but i feel it was more guilt that we hadn’t kept in touch and we had let life get in the way than a specific personal loss to me. I certainly never stopped caring for him though.

My sister had booked a reading for herself that night. Afterwards she came back to the group and said there had been a message come through for me.

In 2009 i was in a relationship with my first BIG love. I had been in a previous relationship but this was my first true love. Every inch of my heart belonged to him. In September of that year I accidentally fell pregnant and i was completely fucked up about what i should do. I was nineteen. We lived with my parents at my home. I had always been very anti-abortion unless it was for reasons like rape etc. I did not feel like accidentally falling pregnant justified a termination.

For the month before i found out i was pregnant i had been suffering severe pain in my abdomen which went right through to my back. I had NHS24 out twice, multiple emergency appointments and was given loads of different medication. They thought it could be an ulcer in my duodenum or kidney stones or IBS. They didn’t really have a clue. Looking back i have no idea why they didnt do a pregnancy test.

I then found out I was pregnant. Then came the decision. I spoke to my then-boyfriend about it and explained that i didn’t want to abort. He told me that if i kept it he would leave me, that he would hate me and have nothing to do with me or the baby. I cried alot. I felt like i was being torn apart. Thats not giving me an option. Thats giving me an ultimatum. I lay awake at night crying and looking at him, wondering why he didn’t want a baby with me, wondering why he didnt love me enough to stay with me if i kept the baby, wondering how he could be so heartless to want to kill something that i was growing inside me, that was developing fingernails and a heartbeat.

Ultimately, i chose him. I chose to keep the person i already had in my life, who i loved with every ounce of my being. Why would i give up that for someone i don’t know and don’t love like i do him yet? Little did i know he had been cheating on me.

The process of the termination began by taking a tablet at the hospital that began the process. This was a Wednesday afternoon. It was irreversible. No going back. I took it like it was no big deal. I was to come back to the hospital on Friday morning for the second part of the process where i would birth my baby.

That Thursday evening i found out he had been cheating. Not the full extent of his cheating but enough to make me chuck his belongings in a binbag and tell him to leave. I was heartbroken. Not only had i just found out he had cheated but i had started an irreversible process to terminate my baby that i started because it meant getting to keep him in my life, but i wasnt wanting a cheating, lying boyfriend.

Friday morning came and i got the bus to the hospital. He was waiting at the bus stop for me. I told him i did not want him there but he wouldn’t go and i didnt want to create a scene.

I birthed my baby. Friday 30th October 2009. I was 8 weeks gone. I had labour pains. I saw my little egg baby. I never grieved. I pretended that i was not bothered and it didnt phase me. I had to meet my family in town for a lift home. I got made to walk round shops with a NHS nappy in my pants as i bled.

My ex partner and I broke up on Christmas Eve 2009. When i found out the extent of his cheating. When i was at his parents house in England. When i had no way to get home until after the festive season. When i had to endure being around him for a further five days. When my heart broke into a thousand pieces and fell around me as snowflakes whilst i sat in the snow sobbing my heart out.

I have carried the guilt of terminating my baby around with me ever since. I wondered if the baby’s soul felt abandoned and unwanted, that it was all alone in the universe. I never forgave myself.

Fast forward eight years and there is my sister standing infront of me, telling me that a psychic lady has told her that my Granny in heaven has my baby and is caring for it, that my baby isn’t alone. That they are watching over me. How on earth can she know that? I have only just confided in my mum three weeks ago that i had been pregnant. I was shocked, overwhelmed and emotional. Could i forgive myself yet? I was not sure.

Today i went to our private reading with my current partner and his sister. They lost their mum to breast cancer when my partner was only 18 and he has never grieved. He is very skeptical of psychics and doesn’t quite know if he believes or not. This changed today.

The first thing that she picked up on was a baby in heaven for me. She said that its a girl and i have to name her, something to do with stars or night time (i had always liked Luna, after the moon) and that shes my guardian angel. She said that if i hadnt terminated her then we would have both passed away due to complications as it wasnt right to have her and that she forgives me for terminating her. She picked up that i would have been due in May, the fifth month. She said that i have a grandma behind me whos looking out for me and telling me everything is gonna be okay.

How is it possible for two different psychics to know this about me when some of my closest friends and family members dont know?!

My partners mum came through and said first of all that he needs to be careful about his brother who is in jail (which is correct!) as he will never learn from his mistakes and will always be in trouble. She picked up on my partner being easily led and his brother will abuse that so he needs to be very cautious of him. I told her at this point that its funny she said that as i had a dream a few nights ago that he was found to have vegan drugs in his prison cell and he went on the run and was trying to hide out at our flat and i kept saying that it was wrong and he needs to hand himself in and that i didn’t want to be a part of it.

She knew that there was a story behind me and my partner meeting that was unusual (we met online) and he was very persistent which i would have found to be very pestering and that he had to try many times before i gave him a chance (fourth time he messaged me i finally agreed to a date) but it was meant to be.

She told us that his mum says that she is my biggest fan and she is very thankful for me saving my partner and that i will ultimately save his brother too. We all had a laugh when she told us that his mum kept calling him a dickhead but that i need to know that he worships the ground i walk on but he needs to tell me he loves me more often.

She picked up that i have very low confidence and self esteem and that i need to be happy with who i am and how i am and if i am wanting to change anything it needs to be for the right reasons and be done slowly. This was particularly interesting as i am joining slimming world next week in the hopes of losing weight so i dont need to think about going down the surgery route.

She also said that i have to accept i may never be the person i used to be again; that i used to be very fun, spontaneous and bubbly but i am having a hard time coming to terms that that person has gone but i need to accept who i am now and be happy. This was particularly hard to hear as since being diagnosed with IIH i have had a really hard time not being able to do what i used to and i feel like all my sparkle and fizz has gone.

She picked up on my partner moving out his house and into mine but said that around April we will be looking to move into our own place that is ours collectively as opposed to my flat which he stays in.
She also kept asking if im pregnant and saying its going to happen soon and i will have a baby and due to that, it wont be a long engagement we have.

She was able to pick up that my partners mum had breast cancer and it had been misdiagnosed and then her passing was very sudden. She picked up on his sister discussing having a baby girl and that it would have a floral name with their mums name as a middle name, which also worked for my partner as his daughter fron his last relationship has 2 floral names and his mums name as a middle name.

Finally, she also had a message for my partners sisters partner, from his uncle who raised him so was more like a father, who commited suicide via a heroine overdose and he is blaming himself saying it could have been avoided.

The parting message was that their mums sign is rainbows so look out for them in the coming days.

I was pretty overwhelmed by how much she managed to get through – none of which she could have got via searching me or anything. I cried alot and was really happy that their mum said she is so happy i am with him and loves me as I often say to my partner i wonder what she would think of me and if she would like me.

Tonight has completely sealed my faith in the afterlife and that your loved ones never leave you. I look forward to what my dreams bring me tonight.

W.♡

Six.

I feel so alone inside my head. Emotionally alone. I am being dragged down into a pit of depression and i dont care enough to even try and fight back. I will let it pull me down and swallow me because i do not have the energy to try and stay above.

December. The month of festivity and cheer. Of surrounding yourself with loved ones and feeling content and blessed.
I am wrapped under my covers in my dark bedroom, swamped with darkness both inside my mind and in my physical state.

I have no income. Zero. Ziltch. My SSP finished on the 11th, even though work are trying to say it finished on the 19th November. More phonecalls to explain to people that they are calculating it wrong and how to do it correctly to ensure I get what I am entitled to.
I’m £300 short of affording my rent now without my SSP. Thats before i even manage gas, electric, my car, insurance, petrol, broadband. I cannot get my bills down any lower.
The money I am meant to get through my work – income protection insurance – denied my claim due to them not actually taking into consideration all of the information. That should have been getting paid to me since 30th october. Before my SSP ran out. Before i ended up in this situation. This has meant delays and having to write appeal letters.

I applied for two different benefits 6-8 weeks ago and now they’ve asked me to go for face to face assessments. I advised i don’t have any money to get there. I cant afford the petrol or a bus or taxi fare. I can’t get help with transport costs until i have been accepted for the benefit. The chance of that happening first time is very slim. I will need to appeal the decision and ask for a mandatory reconsideration. Further delays in getting any help with my income.

If i had been accepted by now, i would be getting cold weather payments for the last week of sub-zero temperatures to help with my heating costs. But i havent so i cant afford to turn my heating on. I will stay under my covers instead. Did you know that the medication I’m on for my IIH is a diuretic? That IIH is a neurological condition? That people who have neurological conditions or who are on diuretics suffer more in the cold and struggle to keep warm? Maybe i should get my hat and gloves whilst i stay in bed.

Christmas. The time of year to be with the ones that you love. I can’t get there. I have no money for travel expenses. I very much doubt anyone will come and visit me. I dont have any money to get a nice christmas dinner or a nice cosy house.

How am i meant to keep my head above ground when this is my reality? How am i meant to keep fighting when all my energy gets used up trying to just keep myself alive?
I am now having to cancel my hospital appointments as i cannot afford to get to them. That’s not going to improve my situation in any way.
What am i meant to do? For now i will bury myself in my depression and try to find hope.

W.♡

Four.

A friend on facebook wrote some beautiful words to me today. I have not seen her in about 10 years and we aren’t very close but she has made my heart swell. Below is the comment she wrote me:

“Think of the amount of people you’ve brought together. You were the catalyst to the start of my independence; you gave me friends and day trips, you gave me adventure and rebellion. You have touched so many lives it’s unreal and I know everyone who has met you can’t believe how wonderful you are. Thank you for being in my life you beautiful soul.”

I replied back stating i feel very lonely and slightly forgotten about which was ironic considering her words. Her following comment is below:

“You can never be alone when you’re loved like you are. I’m also very lonely. Not just because I don’t have many tangible connections anymore but because I find it really hard to make friends since becoming a mother and having a physical and mental disability has been challenging to come to terms with. I try to ignore it and I don’t know how to talk about it. How are you getting on? Is your health picking up a little at least?”.

I am currently overwhelmed with feelings of love and sadness at the same time. I also have physical and mental disabilities which im finding it very hard to accept. Mentally i have known for a long time i have issues but im only seeking the proper help now which is emotionally exhausting and very challenging but i accept i need to do it to heal.

Physically i cant accept it. Intracranial Hypertension is an invisbile disability so even i myself find it hard to accept i have a disability now cause i cant see it with my own eyes like when i had crutches. I dont want to accept i have a condition thats gonna be with me for life and i cant talk about it without getting upset because its affecting my life so much. I feel trapped in my own body and nobody understands. I feel like i cant talk about it cause people then think im looking for sympathy or being self pitying so i end up just not talking about it, but it is like i have had my legs amputated off its just that no one can see. To me i have this massive loss i have to come to terms with. I am struggling and i am helpless. My physical health is affecting my mental health and i dont know what to do except try and not let my sadness make its way to the surface. I feel lost inside my own mind.

W.♡

Two.

Today i feel like crying. I dont have a specific reason why, nothing has plucked my heartstrings or upset me. But i can feel it. The lump in my throat, like a bubble of emotions trying to escape that i keep swallowing to stop from coming out, for fear of how it will sound. The prickly, tingly feeling i get in the tip of my nose, warning me that tears are about to overflow their dam. My body knows by now that once that dam has burst its banks, it will leak for the rest of the day.

Its tiring being emotional. Its tiring trying to resist giving in to my body and letting myself shed these tears, as i know it may cleanse my soul but i will feel even more emotionally drained afterwards than i do just now. Its a battle every day. Will i use more energy holding up the wall to protect my village from flooding or should i let my village flood and use my energy to repair the damage afterwards? What is the better choice in the long run?

I seem to be much more emotional these days than i used to be, which is saying something as i have always been very empathetic and sensitive, but since my diagnosis and the daily use of multiple types of medication to manage it, it seems to be a daily occurrence that something makes me cry – good or sad tears. I am unsure if it’s a symptom of my condition or a side effect from the medication, all i know is that its tiring.

W.♡