“I Want You Always to Remember Me. Will You Remember That I Existed, and That I Stood Next To You Here Like This?”

It makes me so sad to write this post, as it’s something that still shocks me and doesn’t quite feel right, although it is a hazy, half-forgotten nightmare. It doesn’t feel like it happened to me, but I know it did. I’m reminded by the pale, faded little white scars on my wrists that I attempted suicide a few years back. I had been absent from this world for weeks, months before I thought of doing something to leave it. I was deeply, horribly miserable – the kind of misery that refuses to leave and sets up home in your heart. Everything was tainted, there was no happiness and no hope. Nothing bought me joy. I cannot pin these feelings of despair on one single thing, but I hadn’t had an easy time for a few years before. I didn’t see my life continuing, more over I didn’t want it to. Everything felt hard and strained, all I wanted to do was sleep and cry, and eventually, I just wanted to die. 

It came to surface after new year when ideas turned into plans. I had a last day with my mother, wrote letters and went to bed thinking I wouldn’t see another morning. How glad I am that that night I was weak and tired and didn’t die.  I felt so many things sitting in A&E the next day sandwiched between my mother and younger sister. I felt embarrassed and foolish, sad and scared. But there was something else too; a miniscule, ever so slight feeling of hope. What I had been feeling, the sheer magnitude of misery, was out now, it wasn’t my burden alone anymore. Although I had terrified my mother (I slept with her a few nights after the night that I attempted), she was calm and formidable, an absolute pillar of strength. I don’t know if she felt it, but that’s what she conveyed so by following her pattern, I gathered slowly but surely my strength back. There was a part of me that was glad I hadn’t succeeded in my plans that day, and that part has grown each day since.

There are never days I am not thankful for being alive. I still have shitty days where I need to go to bed at 7pm or call friends up in tears or eat a big bowl of pasta – but it’s all been manageable. Should you ever be in the most horrible situation where you don’t think life is worth living – my heart goes out to you completely. If you have the energy to, employ every tactic you can think of to bring you happiness again. Rely on those around you, eat good food, know that people love you – because they really do, and stay. Because there are adventures to be had. If you don't have the energy, allow yourself to be carried for a while. The world needs you, you deserve to grow old and your now is not your forever. 

I've Been Waiting For You, To Come Around and Tell Me the Truth About Everything That You're Going Through - My Girl You've Got Nothing To Lose

As Mental Health Awareness week draws to a close, I thought it time again to write a little about how it is to navigate this world as a person diagnosed as Bipolar. More appropriate timing than ever, we’ve been discussing psychosis in class this week. I lose track of how much I’ve told you all by now, but my episodes can infringe on becoming psychotic (psychosis is a mental health problem that causes people to perceive or interpret things differently from those around them, which might involve hallucinations or delusions). I completely and utterly believed that I controlled the weather – tears equaled rain, smiles equal sunshine. How bloody bizarre are our brains that I ever thought I overruled the entire complexity of the WEATHER! For a period of about three days I was so elated I couldn’t shake this notion, and as I lay blissfully under the baking sun that March 2014 bought, I truly thought it was I who had provided it. 

Four years ago this week was my second admission to hospital (you can read about here, if you wish) which came with the loss of many things, some of which I’m still coming to terms with. One of the things it feels like I lost, was my identity as a fit, healthy, kinda-sporty girl. She was replaced ever so quickly with an overweight, huffing puffing, struggling-to-get-fit-again girl. One of the side effects of medication the medication I was put onto is weight gain – and not just a few pounds, like an ‘I can no longer shop in Topshop’ kind of weight gain. After I left hospital I ran every day to combat this side effect, I was so determined it wouldn’t happen to me again after my spell in hospital aged 16 where I ballooned from a size 12 to size 16 in pretty much in a month. It may sound superficial, and you may think that I should have had more pressing issues to worry about (controlling the weather, for instance) but not feeling at home in your own body can have such detrimental effects on your self-esteem, self-worth and ultimately your mental health. I stopped running two months after leaving hospital, after one particularly drenched one where my mum kindly consoled me and let me know that I didn’t have to run every day. The weight gain caught up with me, as I’m sure it would always have even if I‘d continued running, and I’m now trying to figure out what size I’m supposed to be, and be to peace with that too.

Our brains are brilliant, and complicated, and sometimes completely erratic and out of control. Be kind to those fighting to preserve their sanity – it’s the strangest process losing touch with reality, and then being thrust back into a society that isn’t catered for compassion. We can make changes in the language we use, the way we interact with strangers and the way we go about our communities. Let’s encourage each other, praise diversity and let people know you are there to help them... or perhaps, that you need a little help. There is no shame in that. I wish you all a happy weekend, sending lots of love and compassion to you all. Try to be courageous, and always be kind xoxo 

And Here You Are Living, Despite It All

This evening I’m going to see the wonderful Rupi Kaur perform at Leeds Museum. If you don’t recognise the name, chances are you’ll recognise her brief lines of poetry which are paired with line sketches, from all over Instagram, Pinterest and the like.

Back in 2015, Rupi Kaur created the theme of a university photography project (she has a degree in rhetoric studies from the University of Waterloo) around the taboo about menstruation. Doing so, she started a censorship ‘war’ with Instagram – who removed the image below, twice.

She fought back, writing the following on Facebook: "Thank you Instagram for providing me with the exact response my work was created to critique... I will not apologize for not feeding the ego and pride of misogynist society that will have my body in underwear but not be okay with a small leak when your pages are filled with countless photos/accounts where women (so many who are underage) are objectified, pornified and treated less than human."

Instagram eventually reinstated the image after Rupi Kaur’s post was liked by 53,000 people and shared over 12,000 times. They apologised to her, writing in a message: "A member of our team accidentally removed something you posted on Instagram. This was a mistake, and we sincerely apologise for this error."

 Fast forward a few years, Rupi Kaur is now a #1 New York Times bestseller, with milk and honey (her first collection of poetry) selling over 1.5 million copies. She has now released her second, the sun and her flowers. Rupi states she purposefully writes in lower case –

although i can read and understand my mother tongue (punjabi) i do not have the skillset to write poetry in it. to write punjabi means to use gurmukhi script. and within this script there are no uppercase or lowercase letters. all letters are treated the same. i enjoy how simple that is. how symmetrical and how absolutely straightforward. i also feel there is a level of equality this visuality brings to the work. a visual representation of what i want to see more of within the world: equalness.

and the only punctuation that exists within gurmukhi script is a period. which is represented through the following symbol: |

so in order to preserve these small details of my mother language I include them within this language. no case distinction and only periods. a world within a world. which is what i am as an immigrant. as a diasporic punjabi sikh woman. it is less about breaking the rules of english (although that’s pretty fun) but more about tying in my own history and heritage within my work.

Below is my favourite piece by her, a poem that resonates with me again and again.

If You Ever Need Someone, To Just Love You... If You Ever Need Someone, To Simply Adore You - I Will Be There, Standing By Your Side

I’m sitting here in one of my favourite tops, a billowy romanticist white shirt with floral embroidery at the top. Today it has mustard on both billowy sleeves and a button broken at the top – it’s been a bit of a messy day, with Big Cow burgers at Nation (yeah, being Vegan hasn’t quite kicked in yet) and fire alarm exits and texts to the ex. Today was a day of norms, full of special people and time spent in my favourite place, the place I’m proud to be calling home again – Leeds.

Today is International Happiness Day, and the first time I’ve blogged in months.

I’ve been coerced into it by a little university project, and I’m now going to go and blog about blogging (mind boggling) – however, I’m so happy to be writing. It feels like I haven’t had the time or volition in a long while to say anything, let alone anything worthwhile. I’m constantly torn between writing about hospital experiences and how being bipolar affects my life, or keeping quiet – I don’t want to seem like there’s nothing more to me and that it defines my life. Because honestly, for the most part it doesn’t. I forget how hard things have been. I forget I only left hospital for the last time two years and two days ago. Instead, I remember the feelings of happiness at my cousin and I winning articulate at every family gathering (dream team). I remember my friend’s sunny faces even when fogged by distant memory. I remember the way my sisters laugh when they collude, crumpling into each other on the sofa in my dad’s flat. I remember the way my dad lovingly rolls his eyes at me when I pop on another moody acoustic indie girl singing. I remember the way my mum tells me she’s proud, and my step-dad decorating my room with daffodils and yellow roses to welcome me home.

These things accumulate and make me who I am – not a mental health diagnosis. We can often find who we are, in what we are not. I’m not the best student, or very good at packing my lunches. I’m not a natural athlete, nor am I as fast at reading as I used to be. These things are all fine. They make me happy in the way that I know they are some little quirks that build me up and give me the identity I have today.

Today is International Happiness Day, and the first time I’ve blogged in months.

It isn’t always easy to do the things that make us happy – sometimes these things are terrifying, expensive or you just don’t bloody well know what makes you happy some weeks. We live in a world where we’re taught to crave more, expect less and live by the margins of what is socially acceptable. Well, how about we stick it to the man, watch Captain Fantastic (or Mulan) and always, ALWAYS try to remember you’re doing amazing just for being here. This isn’t simple, and life will hold different meanings for us all – but I figure the best we can do is to muddle through this together, be brave, be excellent to each other, love, and make this world a happier, slightly smaller place.