This post comes from Raili Tanska in Australia. Follow her through a day where she remembers to never give up after a troubling start.

@#%*^& !!!!!!!!!!!  Not one single solitary thing is going right! It doesn’t make a scrap of difference what I try to do. Everything, and I mean Every. Bloody. Thing. STUFFS. UP! Frustrated to the point of screaming, I throw my things through the window. CRASH! Great, now I’ve gone and  broken a window. I bite my lip till it hurts. Damn, I can taste blood. Yet another thing to explain away with a flippant shrug of my shoulders and a devil may care false laugh when anybody asks me what happened.

Life has been like this far longer than I care to remember. In fact, it has been so long I can hardly remember a time when it was any different. I’m well and truly over it. Like, you know, just GO-AWAY and leave-me-alone-sick-of-it. Everything started to unravel when I had a run-in with some stupid person I hardly even knew. It got real ugly real quick. You know, like road rage type of ugly without the punching. I can’t even remember what started it. Name calling and personal insults were hurled at me like missiles. Every single word hit bulls eye. Bitch! Moron! Dumb ass! I can’t even repeat some of them, they were so bad. The barbs dug in deep, echoing in my head over and over again like some sordid, sick mantra. I still hear them at times like this, as if it had just happened.

Mind you, not every day is bad. In fact, you could say that most days now are pretty good. It’s just that it doesn’t take an awful lot to topple me. Someone once told me my frustration tolerance seemed to be a little low.  R e a l l y ?! How did they work that one out!  Yeah, yeah, I know. Sarcasm and all that. I’ve turned into a cynical so and so. That’s not what I’m like really. Or, I should say, it’s not what I used to be like. And truth be told, I just want to get back to the real me. I’m tired. Tired of feeling like crap. Tired of hurting inside all the time.

Tired of being tired.

I clean up the shards of broken glass, pick up the things I threw outside, and tape a sheet of plastic over the window. It will have to do till I can get it fixed. Cigarette in one hand and a mug of coffee in the other I head out to the back veranda. It’s a very peaceful place to sit. There’s lots of greenery. That’s such a soothing colour. I can hear the rainbow lorikeets chattering away in the bottle brush tree as they scrabble and squabble noisily over the juiciest flowers. Watching them is fun, they’re so colourful and playful. Makes me feel happy to see them enjoying themselves.

Having finished my nicotine and caffeine fix, I head back indoors, feeling brighter and happier. One day I’ll be able to sit out there vice free. There! That’s a worthy goal to aim for. Not yet though. Don’t want to set myself up for failure. That would really suck. First, I gotta get my head screwed back on the right way.

I’ve had lots of help. Been to counsellors. Been prescribed pills. All the usual crap that gets thrown at people who are labelled as having post traumatic stress disorder, turned into a chronic condition, turned into depression. Blah, blah, blah. Do this. Do that. Here’s the magic formula. Now go away and get better.

I pull out my journal. It’s got a lot of dark stuff in it. But it’s got a lot of really good stuff too. No one knows I keep a journal. They don’t need to either. I grab a pen and start, as usual, by writing the date at the top left hand corner.  It’s something I do every day. I start  by writing down five things I’m grateful for. If I can’t think of any, I list five things I’m least mad/sad/upset/angry/pissed off about.  If I can only think of one, I just keep repeating the same thing five times. Sometimes there’s more than five. I can break the rules ‘cos I made them up!

Next, I write down three things that I like about myself. That’s hard sometimes. So instead I list three things that I least hate about myself. Funnily enough, it’s easier to write the good stuff now for both lists. And I don’t care if it’s the same stuff. I figure repetition is good. It sort of helps to make me believe it more if I keep writing it over and over. There are days when I just can’t find any words at all, so I draw or colour in. It’s very soothing to do that. If I’m really mad, I write words in great big black angry letters. Or just scribble like mad. Bit like a writer’s punching bag, lol!

Truth be told, no one can do it for you. You gotta dig deep. What helps me most is having friends and family who care for me. I know all the things I need to do to help myself. So now that I feel better after that little hissy fit, I’m going to sit down and think about a few things.

The last step in my daily writing is the hardest. I try and find one thing every day I can do that will help me dig myself out of this hole. It’s gotta be something good, no matter how little, I can achieve and will make me feel better about myself. The main thing I keep telling myself is “Don’t give up!”  It’s become my new mantra. Much better than that other crap that runs around in my head shouting for attention. I’m gonna drown it out till its dead and buried in the bottom of the deepest pit in the biggest bloody ocean in the whole god-damn world. DON’T GIVE UP!!!!

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Special thanks Raili for being a part of our community and submitting her story. You can follow her on her own blog at Soul Gifts.

Always remember you are not alone.

You are loved.

PF

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