Category: rest

The Pressure of Ok

Ellen Thomas2 Comments

How is it Sunday? This week has completely passed me by, in a sea of going back to work, to a routine, and to everyone around me and myself telling me that everything is ok and that it will be ok soon. I am ok, I guess. I’m fine. I am 58,000 times better than I have been. But I am massively feeling the pressure of ok lately, and I need to write this for myself, too whoever needs to hear it, I think I need to hear it, I hope it resonates with someone else.

It will be fine. It will be okay. Everything will work out.

Don’t get me wrong, these are all real and true statements and meaningful words that apply to everyone, no matter where you stand. I have enough belief in life that everything you and I are walking through in this moment, everything we have been through, we’re both going to come out the other side, and we will come out wiser and happier than we ever thought possible.

But the truth is, those words don’t help. Instead, they usually cut on a level we didn’t know pleasant words of comfort had the ability to cut. Because even if it’s true that it will be okay… it’s not okay right now, and sometimes that’s all we can see and feel and hear. Sometimes that’s all we can register inside our exhausted bodies.

Please know that it’s not okay that you’re struggling, if it’s feeling like everything is starting to fall apart around you. It’s not okay that you’re feeling like this, and it doesn’t have to be okay.

So what are we faced with? We tell each other it will be okay… because we don’t know what else to say, and some people don’t know how to climb into the shit with us at the time and just hold our hand while we cry or scream or rage it out.

I’m not going to tell you that everything is going to work out.
I’m not going to tell you it will be fine,
that you’ve got this.

Instead I’m going to tell you that I feel and see your pain. I see it. It must be bloody awful. I understand how much it sucks right now. How your heart is heavy and your spirit is tired. How it’s taking everything you have just to get through the day. I see you. I feel you. I love you. I know… I get it, I really do. And I also know exactly how much willpower it takes to not punch someone in the face for telling you it will be okay. Especially when it feels like “being okay” is sometimes a little out of reach, no matter how hard you fight to find your footing and dig your way out of the darkness.

Because you are powerful beyond measure whether you know it or not. You have purpose and a contribution for this world that only you can make. I know it doesn’t feel like it when all you can do is find a way to get yourself out of bed each morning, when the hours begin to weigh on your chest like a ton of bricks and breathing becomes a little difficult sometimes, when you’re forced to be awake and upright. But you’re doing it, love. It may not be at a rate or pace that you want, but you’re doing it. Just by getting out of bed and finding a way through the next moment, by putting that smile on, and by keeping your head up. You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for.

What I am going to tell you though, what I will tell you, is that you’re not alone.

Even though I know it feels that way, like you’re the only person in the history of the world who has experienced this much struggle, who has been through this. Even the most happy and successful people have been through some shit, or are probably walking through their own storms right now.

You’re not alone. You do not have to do this alone. If ever there was a thing that lifted me out of the depths, it was being reminding that I wasn’t alone. That I didn’t have to do this alone. You, are not alone. This weeks been a bit tough, but I’ve been unable to work out fully why, maybe it’s because of what I’ve written, but maybe it’s not. I’m not alone, I know that.

So… I’m not going to tell you or myself that it’s going to be okay. Not because I don’t think it will be (because, okay, it will be.) But because that’s not helpful to us right now. That’s a thing we say to each other when we can’t find any other words. When there are no words.

Please, if you take one thing from this, if you need some words, please tell someone you love them, tell them that you’re there for them. That’s much better than pressure of okay.

Hang in there.

Ellen on the Edge xx

Give up the booze for a bit

Ellen Thomas4 Comments

Alcohol surrounds everything. It’s surrounded my social life and me since the moment I turned 18. I have very few “tee-total” friends and have spent a lot of my weekends over the past 7 years drinking alcohol. Drinking alcohol is fun, and for me (especially in the past 2 years) it didn’t always end in disaster. There’s dancing on tables, lots of loud singing and screaming, meandering conversations that wound on late into the night, and much laughter. Me and my closest friends are regulars at the millennial English tradition of “Prosecco brunch” where we would in a very classy style, scream at waiters to fill us up faster as we downed glasses of cheap Prosecco. It is great. But there were also the darker repercussions of drinking, I hate feeling out of control, my anxiety and feelings of utter hopelessness come thick and fast when I wake up with a hangover and I was increasingly becoming appreciative of Sunday’s well spent.

Alcohol is a depressant. It’s a fact.

In the months leading up to the breakdown I experienced in August 2019 I was really not enjoying drinking, but was craving the effect of delusion and escapism it gave me from my own thoughts. I began regularly drinking, everyday. I would have a couple of glasses of wine every evening and was finding that, momentarily, this was taking the edge off. And due to its casual nature, went completely unnoticed by anyone close around me. But this edge was only taken off for a very limited time and boy was I paying for it. When I was going out with my friends I was finding it difficult to get “fun drunk” like I had in the past and was feeling like I wanted to go home when I went on nights out.

I realised I might need a break from alcohol following one evening in July, when on a weeknight, I was home alone, and drank a bottle and a half of wine. I was watching a TV programme about mental health and was struggling with the content, and so rather than turning it off, I turned to the bottle in order to numb how much I was relating to the sad and raw reality of the programme. This wasn’t right.

It was the following week that I went to the doctors and described the slippery slope I felt I was on, and that I felt depression was consuming me. I was signed off work and placed on some medication.

Like every other millennial, I’m a google searcher. I google everything, and usually look for the worst case scenario before I stop. I was googling the medication I was on the moment I got it. “Will it make me gain weight”, “Will it make my hair fall out”, “Will it kill me”, and the clincher “Can you drink alcohol”.

I knew what I was looking for with the final question and it wasn’t what I thought I was; “You can continue to drink alcohol while taking sertraline but having the two together might make you very sleepy and unsteady on your feet. … Drinking alcohol every day, or in large amounts, can make your symptoms worse and the sertraline will not get the best chance to act.” This was enough, this was my get out clause, this was the excuse my brain needed to stop. I wasn’t to drink for the next few months, and give the medication the best chance to help me. After that I would see how I felt and may continue to drink, but hopefully I would be more mindful following a break.

What I quickly realised however was that I was relieved, I was relieved because I had an excuse, and I never had had one. I was able to approach the dreaded “don’t you drink?!” question by explaining that it didn’t agree with the medication I was on. My body was thankful for the break and Tesco own brand orange fizzy is a new favourite. But that got me thinking… why the BLOODY hell should I feel the need to have a viable excuse, why should I need an excuse at all. We live in a society which excludes non-drinkers as “boring”. However people don’t often stop to think about the background that may surround this lifestyle choice, the dark and extremely painful past that someone may have with their relationship with alcohol, the despair and the fact it may exasperate an underlying condition. And actually whether it is any of their goddamn business.

I’ve not drank alcohol for 2 months now, whilst this is a choice, I appreciate that I have not occupied spaces that have massively encouraged me to drink and I have no intention of ‘never touching a drop again’, living an openly sober life, or an intention of making it a big deal. I would never insist on sitting and preaching to people about why they should stop and take up a sober trial, least of all, it’s none of my business. But its working for me right now, my mental health is improving at the moment and I feel good. I am increasingly going off the idea of alcohol and would quietly advocate giving it a go, even just for a short period, for your physical and mental health, and your confidence. Our society is so dependant on consuming something to numb reality or give us an altered rose tinted fun experience, that when you stop turning to alcohol, you realise that real life, and feeling raw experiences with nervous clarity, can be just as much of a high as that tequila shot.

Hang in there.

Ellen on the Edge xx