The Moment I Knew I Needed Help

It was August, but it had already felt like a long year.

Countless arguments with my partner, fall outs with friends and mood swings. Mood swings that hit multiple times a day both as violent and destructive as a hurricane and as empty as the red wine bottle on my kitchen side.

I was alone, at work, which just so happened to be in my partners living room having a staring competition with my laptop. Wearing my current uniform of knackered old pj bottoms and a tea stained primark tshirt that no longer fit quite well.

If I closed my eyes I could almost feel the blood pulsing through my veins. The punching of my heartbeat in my ears and the empty void in my chest that was supposed to be filled with emotion. Any emotion.

I pondered the moment’s eerie silence. Every object in the room held its breath before the anxious thoughts stampeded back into my mind once more.

Holly and Phil are chatting away on the telly but my head is filled with treacherous what ifs and morbid whys. Impossible scenarios plague my thoughts as I begin to play out multiple alternative futures from my sofa that all end in heartbreak, hurt or loneliness. The hours continue to tick by before I look out my window and realise that another day has gone.

*****

Tonight another raging argument. Another frustrated cry for help, a fruitless attempt to share the million and one thoughts, worries and fears that pulse through my soul every second of the day.

I’m exhausted.

Exhausted from the bottomless tears.

Exhausted from the uncontrollable rage.

Exhausted from the deliriously fleeting bright moments.

Exhausted from the crippling numbness.

I felt out of control. Like the me I knew was gone, never to return. Like I’d be trapped in an endless cycle of these whiplash moods until I died.

I didn’t want to die. Not now.

I simply felt like I might. Like the engulfing breadth of my thoughts and emotions might spark me out like a circuit. As if my mood swings and sheer frustration over the immensity of my mind might knock me out like a prize boxer’s opponent in the final round.

This is the moment I realised that I needed help.

I simply couldn’t take it anymore. The pounding of incessant thoughts in my head, the constant adrenaline pulsing through my veins. I was a ticking time bomb of emotion and I needed help to diffuse.

I wasn’t suicidal nor was my life spectacularly falling apart – I was simply exhausted, broken and losing myself.

And this is the moment I knew I needed help.

-Bloom From The Darkness