Becoming, Lucy

Where survival ends and I begin

12/06/2026

Is it normal to know you’re suppressing your emotions and being unable to stop?

I know when I’m intellectualising. I know when I’m masking. I know when I’m making myself smaller and staying quiet.

I almost understand why.

So why can’t I stop? They say awareness is the first step… Yet I feel like I’ve been stood at this checkpoint for a lifetime.

I feel lost. Or rather I’m unable to name my emotions.

I have this static in my chest but I can’t seem to tune into the frequency.

I can’t name what is going on inside me. It all feels a bit much. Something I can’t understand. I think it’s a complex mix of emotions and there are so many, I can’t get my head around them.

Maybe my issue is I’m trying to understand them. I’m using my brain rather than actually feeling.

I’m good at that, throwing understanding at them. Because if I can understand, I can fix it, right?

I’m still trying to figure out if I learned that behaviour – to understand rather than feel – part of me wants to say it’s just who I am. Because I am one of those people that always asks ‘why?’ Whether it’s about how we were made, someone’s opinion, or my own emotions; it doesn’t matter what it is, I will ask why because I am endlessly curious.

Though, I think I may be using curiosity as an excuse for myself. But I resent that idea because curiosity has allowed me to wonder – it has led me into rabbit holes about many topics as well as helping me understand people with compassion rather than judgement.

However, there is another part of me that wonders if asking why I feel a certain way is a behaviour I learned. There is definitely evidence to suggest it was. Therapy helps but it doesn’t ease my own self-blame. Somewhere along the way, I stopped using curiosity as a form of connection and started using it as a form of armour.

I do know, emotions aren’t there to be fixed. They’re there to be felt and to help us understand ourselves and what boundary has been crossed. At least the ‘negative’ ones are. I think. Yet even with all this ’emotional intelligence’, I don’t know how to feel. I’ve had a lot of emotional awakenings (yes, that’s what I’m calling them) recently.

I’m unsure if I’m numb or content because I suppressed my ‘negative’ emotions for so long that my nervous system also suppressed the ‘positive’ ones.

I don’t know how to show or talk about my emotions because I’ve always felt guilty and a burden for doing so to someone else.

A friend reminded me that humans were never meant to do life alone. We are naturally ‘social’ beings. We prefer a tribe. We need a tribe. Biologically speaking. And I know this. I know I’m not meant to hold it all alone. But I’ve been tuned out of my own emotions for so long that I have no idea how to express them. Everything ends in tears. And those tears feel like a failure.

I’m so conscious of everything I do. I know when I’m intellectualising. I know when I suppress. I know when I stay quiet. I know when I’m masking. So why can’t I turn any of it off?

Is it because I don’t feel safe? Am I too scared? Do I not know how?

Surely if I know I’m doing something, I should be able to just stop? Because I end up hating myself for it, for not stopping.

I’m so fed up of it all. Of myself.

I’ve spent forever and a day trying to fix myself. I’ve been the patient whilst also being the surgeon to myself and trying to fix everything ‘wrong’ with me.

And it has cost me. Being the surgeon of my own self has cost me my own trust. I cannot trust myself to be able to feel safely. I can’t trust myself to not stay in the pits of despair, grief, sadness, and anger. I can’t trust myself to be able to accept comfort. To be able to be seen.

The surgeon made sure I knew how to dissect a feeling, but I can no longer dance with one; whether it’s a positive or negative feeling. Show me joy and I will be unable to feel it, instead I will analyse it and figure out why I feel that joy, and then why I should not feel it. If I was told to simply feel it, feel the joy, I would be lost.

I’m trying so hard not to be the surgeon any longer but I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know how to just feel it all. I don’t know how to just lay there and accept I’m in pain.

My brain really said, “survive, survive, survive.”

There is fear behind it all. If I was to stop being the surgeon for just a moment, if I put down the scalpel, and allowed myself to soften… What would be left? What would remain of me? Would I cry sooner? Would I still listen to the same music? Would I be able to feel everything without drowning? Without the highs feeling like the highest highs and lows feeling like the lowest lows?

I’ve lived in survival for so long that I don’t know where survival ends and I begin.

Maybe it isn’t about stopping the surgeon completely. Maybe I just need to ask the surgical part of me to slow down. I need to allow myself to witness the emotion.

I tried sitting with myself. I tried just feeling. I put my hand on my chest, I tried to say what I was feeling but I physically recoiled. I threw my hand away, I felt sick and made my hands busy instead.

It was uncomfortable. And that’s a really horrible thing to admit. I’m that incapable of feeling.

What? No.

I’m afraid of feeling.

I can’t feel anything until the weight is too much, until the dam breaks and the tears fall. Until I’m suffocating on my own air. On my own emotions.

But I didn’t run. I have to remind myself of that. Sure, I couldn’t allow myself to feel the emotion, to name it. But I fidgeted and felt uncomfortable for another 10-30 seconds and then I picked up my phone and begun writing this into my notes app. I poured this out.

And sure, I’m still trying to be the surgeon. I’m still sat here trying to fix it, to understand, to apply logic and maybe even find excuses (or is that guilt talking?).

But I’m learning. Something. I’m not sure what I’m learning. But it is something.

I think. I hope.
Silence isn’t easier

06/06/2026

Lonely.

Loneliness makes me believe I am not worth knowing, that my thoughts aren’t worth hearing, that I should stay quiet, that I shouldn’t rely on someone, that my silence is easier.

And I can’t write anything because I just have this block in my head that says no one – not even myself- wants to read about the same shit again.

I can’t even write for myself.

I am just very alone right now. I miss having that person I could share every random thought with. Someone I could excitedly tell about my new weekly interest with. Everyone seems to have someone. And even when they don’t, they find other ways to interact with people.

But how do I do that when I’m so introverted? I see people comment on strangers social posts and all I can think is, ‘wow, i wish i could share my thoughts.’

Every thought that crosses my mind… I don’t believe it is worth hearing, reading… No one wants that. No one cares. And maybe that’s what someone would say to make me feel better, that no one cares so just speak your mind. But I want someone to care. I want someone to speak to me. I want someone to ask me more, to converse back.

And I don’t know what the hell I’m trying to say or what the point of it all is.

I’ve had more breakdowns this week than I care to admit. I’m finding it all very fucking hard.

I just listen and listen and listen… I keep everything in.

I listen to friends, to family, to people I love. I say I hear them, I understand, that they’re not alone. Instead of turning round and reciprocating their openness, I keep mine in. I don’t want to burden them. And I don’t want to be rejected. Or made to feel small or whatever, so I make sure I’m not put into a situation where that could happen.

I don’t know the last time I felt heard. And that isn’t to blame anyone… But I just make sure I don’t share. I don’t know when I became the person who listens and doesn’t share. I avoid it all. I avoid the rejection. Because in my mind, I don’t care if it says more about them if they can’t hold space for me than it does about me. In my mind, the worst thing is the rejection.

I remember the last time I reached for recognition. I stopped myself just before I could become too much of a burden. I reached out, said I was struggling then not even a minute later, I was saying ‘yeah, I’ll be fine, thank you for listening.’ They didn’t really listen because I didn’t give them chance to, I just cried on the phone and then abruptly stopped before I could say anything else. I physically felt the recoil in my body. I felt the walls slam down.

Is it repetition or am I just living a wound everyday, every hour, minute, second? Maybe I’m just checking if anyone is listening yet.

Maybe that’s why I put this all online. To see if anyone is listening. A cry for help. Or rather, recognition. I hate how alone I am. I hate that I stop my thoughts before I can get them out. I don’t know what to say or to think.

Usually I can just write but it’s like my brain has decided I have a whole audience watching and not a single person is impressed. I try stop myself before I say something mean to myself, but it’s really hard. I try stop myself before I end up here, crying, alone, hurting but it’s getting harder, not easier. I wish it was easier.

I wish I was able to do this whole thing easily. No one really speaks honestly about the ugliness. They mention it, but they don’t talk about it. They don’t talk about how suffocating it is. How dark and gloomy it is. How it’s like a stormy summer day – the air thick, warm, suffocating, and the skies are dark and gloomy, a constant reminder of the heaviness. It’s a storm cloud you can’t shake.

But I don’t know how to shake it. I don’t know how to release the storm cloud. And I keep telling myself this isn’t a cry for help, that I do just want recognition, that I want to hear someone say ‘I see you. I understand’ but part of me fears that wouldn’t be enough. I’m not sure I know what recognition actually looks like. And the more I think about it, I wonder if it’s even recognition I crave but rather just someone intrigued enough to go ‘yep, same. Shall we talk about whether dragons were ever real now?’

But I can’t get that conversation until I actually allow someone to start seeing pieces of me. I don’t know what I’m protecting by staying quiet. Myself, yes. But what? Because staying quiet seems to just be hurting me more. I’ve silenced myself before anyone else can, simply because I don’t want to be rejected.

And I’m not sure I know how to speak about my pain anymore. I mean look above – how many ‘I don’t know’s’ are there? A lot. I’ve spent so long silencing myself that I don’t think I even know how to let myself be seen.
She was drowning

03/06/2026

She swam
And swam
I had to look more than once

She had a rock on her back
Her arms swung in what looked like perfect rhythm
Her legs kicked too

But she wasn’t equipped for the water
Salt stung her eyes
The current pushed her sideways, back,
Never forward

Every breath she took,
Water invaded,
Burning her lungs

She kept moving anyway
Like muscle memory
She didn’t make a sound

She didn’t notice me
She just kept kicking,
Swinging

She was drowning and didn’t make a noise
I don’t know how to dream big anymore

14/05/2026

Should I be about to open the floodgates to my emotions whilst sat in a coffee shop after ignoring them for over a week? No. Probably not. But here I am, about to do it anyway.

I have no hope. No happiness. I am just a shell of a human. In fact, I’m just a being. Not even human.

I’ve shut myself off from the human side of me to survive. The weight of everything is crushing, even when I only open the doorway to my emotions just a small amount. I wish I could say I know how to process everything at the moment but I don’t. And my body is punishing me for it. Literally – the universe is hellbent on making sure I feel something – I’ve sliced my finger open, fell into some drawers and punched them with my whole fist after stubbing my toe, walked into an open cupboard with my knee, banged my head – this was all in the space of less than twenty-four hours by the way. I am being punished for not processing, that’s what I’m telling myself anyway so I don’t have to admit to being clumsy as fuck.

So here I am, trying to process in public of all places whilst the world feels like it’s sitting heavy on my shoulders. That little voice has come into my head to tell me to stop being dramatic, stop thinking my problems are big and unsolvable. I am good at talking myself out of my shit and cross examining myself. Not today me, not today (it’s defo going to happen lol).

I don’t want to be ‘fixed’ because then I’ll never feel anything wholly, completely, deeply again. You know I wrote a line the other day that now that I’m thinking about it, I realise I’m wrong. I wrote: “I distrust hope because it has made me stay too long in places that stopped serving me, it humiliated me when I ended up disappointed.” The reason I don’t want hope is because I have become comfortable in my sadness and ‘knowing’ I’ll never be good enough. I’ve become okay with it all. Or maybe both can be true. I mistrust hope because it kept me in places too long, but maybe sadness became easier… Familiar. When did I stop wanting more?

Somewhere along the line, survival became enough. And I think it happened so slowly I didn’t notice it becoming my norm. I can’t pinpoint when it happened… Maybe each time I made myself smaller for someone else, or maybe when I was asking for help and I was brushed off. Or maybe I learned that I should just survive and not rely on anyone else, because they’ll either let me down or belittle me for needing help in the first place.

But I want more. Or I wouldn’t feel sad. I wouldn’t dream about a different life where things are different. I don’t mean drastic changes, things more like: I’m a better mum to the boys, I do something I love everyday, I know who I am, I’m confident in myself… Which I say aren’t drastic changes but would probably, most definitely, flip my life around. They aren’t big dreams, I don’t remember how to dream big anymore but I think I want my ordinary to be boring. I want happiness in the 5am wake ups (this would solve a lot of issues lol), I want happiness when I look at myself in the mirror, I want happiness when I think about who I am as a person, I want happiness in the small moments and I desperately want to remember them and not just the heaviness I was feeling.

Every time life softens though, every time those things start to happen, I brace myself for the crash, but in doing so I just end up putting myself into the spiral. I’ve built myself around the struggle, around survival and if I removed the struggle, who would I be? I don’t know if I would be able to write like this, or care and give compassion easily to others, or throw myself into tasks because I’d rather not feel. If I removed the sadness from who I am, I fear I’d be left with nothing.

Annoyed at myself. Sick of repeating myself. Sick of saying the same shit. I’m sick of myself. Tired of myself. Separate me from myself. I want to borrow someone else’s brain for a day. One that doesn’t cross examine every feeling until it disappears. A brain that doesn’t question happiness when it appears.

Deep breath.

I can accept and live in the hurt I know so well. I know sadness like muscle memory, it’s comfortable, predictable… I can control predictability. And that’s the issue. If I let the control slip, I might never actually reach happiness, I might plummet into the sadness and never be able to find a way out.

I just want to feel alive. Not numb. Not surviving. Alive.

I want to feel my emotions in the moment. I want to process in real time. I want to be able to say ‘yeah, I lived that’ because I remember how I felt during it. I want to be goddamn alive.

I don’t fucking know what I am saying or what I am writing – I am confused. Or maybe I’m not confused at all and I know exactly what’s wrong with me but I don’t know how to be the person who stops surviving her life and becomes alive again.
Destroyer of all things good

05/05/2026

I was never meant to live this long and now I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing with my life.
People want me to plan for a future that’s five, ten years ahead. But I can barely see tomorrow.

I don’t have a single thing planned out. I can’t imagine the future. It all feels fake. Like hope.
Hope isn’t something people like me get to have.

Why hope when tomorrow I’ll make sure I burn it all to the ground? I am my biggest obstacle after all. Destroyer of all things good.

I am a fraud wrapped up in survivors clothing.
Look twice and you’ll see.
I can see myself doing it

30/04/2026

I feel as though I am seen as the person miles away from who I am.

I’m seen as someone who doesn’t question things, who copes, who doesn’t complain too much, who only shares her opinion when asked and knows when to stop sharing. Whether I’m seen as that person by design to protect myself from… I’m not sure. Rejection? Being misunderstood? Or maybe to protect the version of myself that is already loved. Because losing people around me from just being myself will only fuel the loneliness eating away at me.

Or maybe I am seen as that person because that is who I am. But if that is who I am, then why does it feel so wrong and so draining to perform as that person? I think habit has become identity; the line between the two has become blurred.

I’ve just never felt enough.

It’s funny because I walk around like the person I want to be when I’m by myself – head high, not giving a fuck, in my own world. Sometimes I’ll smile at strangers, catch their eye. I find a lot of people do look at me. So I’m either magnetic (this sounds so vain on my reread, good lord) or people have something to stare at (lol, help). I even interact with strangers when I’m by myself like the person I want to be – confident, chatty, and I feel completely like my weird self.

But bring in someone that knows me into the picture? I shrink, I hold back, I stutter over my words. Am I two different people or am I just scared of judgement from those that love me so I hide parts of myself on purpose?

I don’t know my answer. I’m sat here wondering if maybe that is what I learned to do.

I see the pattern when I look back at friends I used to keep. I’ve always been that girl who is friends with everyone – in school I was friends with people from every ‘clique’ (cringe and that’s a whole article in itself on cliques within school). But I started secondary school within what would be classed as the ‘popular’ group because my best friend at the time fell easily into that crowd. She was someone everyone wanted to be (especially me) – beautiful, kind, smart, funny, confident and able to hold a conversation with anyone. Now when I look back, I realised I was dimmed by her light (I don’t blame her), or maybe I allowed myself to be dulled by those circumstances.

I didn’t feel as though I fit into that crowd so I moved into another friendship group and once again, I never truly felt like myself. By the time I was in Year 10 (14/15 years old), I had a solid friendship group and friends within every friend group across my year group. I mean, I don’t think it was hard to have friends in every group – my year group was only small, 90 something students by the end of Year 11 – but there was definitely still cliques and divides across certain groups.

I lost friends when I left school because I ‘changed’… But what if those people were never meant to continue my story with me if they didn’t like who I really was? What if I’m not scared of being myself, but simply scared of losing people I thought would stick by me through it all?

Maybe that’s the issue. I’m still treating my adult life like school – like there are cliques to fit into and conform to but in reality you can still be loved without having a label plastered to your fucking forehead.

That feels like an easy answer though (again, what’s new?). All my issues started when I was trying to fit into society (as I knew it as a teenager) and now the reason I can’t seem to be who I want to be is because I’m too afraid to step out of the box myself and others have labelled me into, when humans aren’t that simple. Seriously, at this point just tell me to be quiet and stop trying to intellectualise everything.

Fear holds me back from everything. Why do I let fear run my life? Or rather, why do I let fear hold me back from life? If I knew that answer, I wouldn’t be here relying on writing out every thought that ever crosses my mind. Closing my laptop before I get angry at myself for being a stupid bitch. xoxoxo

I’ve come back to this now and I don’t know what to say. I’m annoyed at myself for trying to explain it away. I’m angry at myself for then letting that voice come into my mind and minimise what I am writing as I try to give myself acceptance to be who I want to be. I hide behind self-deprecation and I can currently hear myself giving myself some shit, (dramatic as fuck).

I can feel the exact moment I start shrinking myself and it’s embarrassing how automatic it is. As soon as I feel eyes on me, someone waiting for my opinion or when people go silent after I’ve just spoken it’s as though it flips a switch and my first thought is: ‘okay, time to turn your light off or redirect it to someone else so no one sees you’. Because god forbid someone sees me for who I actually am. They wouldn’t see what I try make myself believe I am, they would see everything I fear I am. A coward. A fraud. Unoriginal. Boring. No depth. No talent. Uninteresting.

They would be able to see me thinking twice before I speak, they would see the moment I disagree with someone but choose to stay quiet because I don’t want to upset them or have my opinion minimised. They would see the smile that doesn’t quite reach my eyes when I laugh along to something I don’t actually find funny. They would see that I truly have nothing interesting to add to the conversation and if I try, it must be fake.

Or maybe, none of that is true and my fear isn’t being seen but that if I am, people will decide I am not worth choosing. At which point I can just feed myself some ‘glass half-full’ perspective and say they were never meant to be a part of my story until I believe it. But it wouldn’t rid the pain. It wouldn’t make the loss any easier. It would feed my self-worth narrative of never being enough and I’ll just repeat the same cycles again and again. Predictable. And still happening.
Do I even like anything or do I just think that I do?

27/04/2026

Everything I enjoy feels like a lie. It feels as though I’m acting out a script I didn’t write or have a say in but find myself acting it out anyway. Everything feels rehearsed. “Do I even like this?” Or do I just like the idea of being someone who does?

Flowers, music, clothes, books – all of it. None of it feels… right. It feels chosen, but not by me.

I often notice myself liking something and then immediately questioning it. For example, the other day I found myself looking at my books on my shelf, admiring them, thinking about the next fictional tale I’ll find myself in but then: “you don’t even enjoy reading” could be heard from the corners of my mind in my own damn voice. The thought left as quick as it arrived but then I noticed it again when I was queuing a bunch of songs for my drive the next day. I was hovering over a band I’ve been listening to a lot lately and: “you only like them because you feel like you should.”

The more those thoughts linger, I find myself wondering if anything I like is truly out of my own choice. What if I only read because my best friend does and it gives us something to talk about? What if I only like that band because fans of another band I (apparently) like, like both bands? Why does everything I enjoy feel… forced?

And these thoughts feel even more solidified when people ask those basic ‘get to know you’ questions. What’s your favourite colour? What’s your favourite flower? Your favourite song? Sunset or sunrise?

I don’t fucking know? Am I meant to have favourites? I find myself analysing my answer, thinking really damn hard about something that should be straightforward or is apparently straightforward to everyone else. I find myself searching for the correct answer rather than what is true. Am I trying to appease people? Am I trying to be liked? Am I that fucking desperate? Because the ‘correct answer’ is usually what I think people want to hear and if I give them the wrong answer… The thought makes something in my stomach twist uncomfortably.

I’ve just remembered two examples of when I liked something simply because I thought I should, not because I actually did. One Direction and the colour pink. I remember these because I was trying hard to fit in within my first year of secondary school, trying to find my footing and I went to lengths to prove myself. Fair enough I was a pre-teen and easily influenced but what if everything I still enjoy now in my adult life, I was influenced to like? Because I thought I should? What if nothing was ever my choice? Was it my choice to be influenced? Ah shit. I don’t know. Send a psychiatrist in to tell me I’m fucked.

Maybe I’m just too aware of being influenced and that’s why nothing feels like an original thought. Is it possible for a human brain to have a thought that isn’t influenced? And if that’s true… Then I’m holding myself to a different standard to everyone else.

Maybe the questioning started when I was a pre-teen trying to find my way. Or maybe it was even earlier when I was questioned for liking something someone else didn’t and I was made to feel small. Because liking the wrong thing must mean something about me is wrong too. Or maybe it started when I was a teen and I admitted to myself I never liked the things I said I did – One Direction, the colour pink – so the doubt started creeping in about everything else.

Consistency feels like the only way I can decide whether I actually enjoy something. Consistency means it stuck around long enough that my nervous system recognises it as something I enjoy. It means I’m not faking my reaction because it’s all chemical. But then that minimises everything I have grown out of. It would mean I never really enjoyed those previous things and what does that say about things that aren’t hobbies and interests? What does that say about my previous relationship? That I never really loved them? Or does it mean I changed? Ugh. What the fuck?

What if I’m just a damn sheep? Is that the issue? I can’t decipher it. Am I copying? Am I original? Is nothing truly original? What if I’m only interested in something because I thought it was completely original and I didn’t want to be like anyone else? What if it’s opposite? Seconds away from spiralling, great.

I don’t know why it matters so much that the choices are mine. But if they’re not mine… Will I ever truly know who I am or will I constantly be trying to verify myself? Is ‘becoming’ just questioning myself like this repeatedly? Or is ‘becoming’ when I begin to question myself less?

The self-doubt is always whilst I’m enjoying something, never before I sit down to do the thing. I question myself mid-task, mid-thought. It’s almost as though I don’t trust my own identity… Fuck. It’s because I don’t trust happiness when it arrives so I find a way to sabotage it. Lol. Hey Lucy, haven’t you already written about this? Yes. Yes I have. If I enjoy something and find happiness in it – it feels undeserved almost as though I haven’t earned the right to get enjoyment out of it. What’s the point in feeling happiness if it’s just going to get stripped away anyway? Well, isn’t that a glass half-empty point of view.

I won’t lie I don’t know how to stop questioning myself. I can’t decide if it’s helping or limiting me. But I think I will always question myself and my happiness. Maybe not always so negatively, not always in a way that makes me spiral. But because I have to. Because it’s what stops me from fully feeling things and if I allow myself to fully feel happiness then what happens if I can’t switch off the ‘feel fully’ button when negative emotions occur? I might go back to surviving and I don’t want to be there again.

I guess my answer to the things I enjoy/like is somewhere in: if nothing else existed, no past influences and no one else’s opinion, what would I choose to keep? The only thing I feel certain on is Lego. Very random, I know, but I used to love it as a kid and now my son is in his Lego phase – I find myself enjoying it just as much still. It quietens my mind like nothing else can.

The colour white – or shade, or whatever you want to say it is – I think that’s my favourite colour. Like the moon, stars, clouds, lightening, seafoam and my favourite flower – daisies.

I guess I do know some things… Even if I am currently questioning them.
I believe I’m unlovable, so I act like it

23/04/2026

I’m going to call myself a liar.

I was going to start this the same way I start every entry lately, that I can’t write, that I don’t know what to write about. But the truth is, I have been avoiding writing and feeling.

I have been so busy with life that I just refused to let myself sit down and feel anything or process anything. Avoiding the hard shit as per usual. I’ve kept myself purposely numb so I don’t crash out but now that life has slowed down a little, I am inevitably on the edge of crashing out (seriously, you should see my notes app, it’s a steady spiral over the last week).

Also, I had a realisation that I don’t trust myself, my own voice. I don’t trust the words that come out of my own mouth and I’m not sure why. Or I don’t think my voice is worthy of being heard. Or I’m scared of being perceived. I’m still trying to figure out which one… Probably all three.

I think a lot of it is self-worth.

I am not worthy. Of being listened to. Of being understood properly… Of being loved.

I learned that belief somewhere along the way, and it stuck.

Admitting that out loud… It breaks my heart. I wish I could say I don’t believe it, that it isn’t true – that of course I am worthy. Because if someone I loved said those words out loud to me, I’d tell them of all the ways they are worthy… Hell, if a stranger said that out loud to me I’d probably go to lengths to make them realise they are worthy too. So why the fuck don’t I think I am?

And if I admit that I don’t think I am worthy to those that love me, what would they think of me? “God, she’s broken.” Or would I just make them uncomfortable? Or would they also try go to lengths to tell me I am worthy whilst I sit there uncomfortably and nod along awkwardly?

It’s easier to believe that I am not worthy of love because if I am rejected then at least it’s easier to soothe the wound with ‘I was never worthy anyway’ than risk someone else deciding that for me.

Within my notes I also wrote about how I don’t know who I am and I’m never sure what I mean by that when that sentence slips out of me. I just feel like I’m coasting through life pretending. Living a narrative that wasn’t made by me. I keep trying to convince myself that these are things I want to do, but nothing lasts long and I don’t get true happiness from it. At least I don’t think I do.

Honestly, I’ve been feeling lonely. No one understands or will understand. Family or friends, they just don’t get this situation I am in. It isn’t easy this co-parenting shit – still being friendly with your ex but also holding onto a dislike for them because of their actions. I am lonely within myself. I have silenced the part of me that wants to speak out about the way I was treated. I’ve been telling myself I’m being the bigger person by keeping shit private but I’ve not spoken to him about it either. But again, it’s to keep the peace.

I keep telling myself I’m being the bigger person, but really I’m just silencing myself so no one has to deal with my truth. So no one can label me as weak, dramatic, bitter… The one who couldn’t make it work. But towards the end, I became the person who stopped bringing up conversations because I knew how’d they end, because it was easier than being dismissed again.

I learned how to keep the peace by abandoning myself. I stopped telling him how I felt. I stopped trying to connect. I stopped trying to make my voice heard.

Am I just abandoning myself again? By not writing? By avoiding telling the people who love me how I really feel? By just agreeing with my ex and doing things to appease him when it comes to the kids? By staying quiet when he disappoints me and the kids? By not allowing myself to feel? By not giving people the chance to understand me?

The fear of being misunderstood isn’t new. It echoes past situations with different people – I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to figure that one out. I’m scared of being perceived incorrectly to the point where I feel dismissed so I silence myself because it’s easier. I don’t want to seem weak. Or like all I do is think my life is shit.

Silencing myself is such a fucking cop out and makes me so angry at myself. I keep silencing myself even when I’m suffocating. I choose my own pain rather than letting anyone else feel uncomfortable. I stayed and abandoned myself. And I continue to abandon myself. Consciously.

“I am not worthy of love therefore everything I have written above is a pointless endeavour and should be deleted.” – A line written by me in the final part of my crash out. But I’m not sure that version is true anymore because staying silent never worked either so maybe it isn’t pointless after all.
The problem with feeling okay

07/04/2026

I have been struggling with what I want to write about for weeks. Which makes sense now because I don’t think I understood what I was actually feeling.

I’ve been wanting to reflect on something. To write an essay. But nothing has felt inspiring. My brain hasn’t felt stimulated or much… Satisfaction? Satisfaction with any of my ideas.

Then I realised I haven’t really felt much joy recently. I haven’t felt much of anything. Not any real strong emotions. I have just been numb to it all. Which is rather funny because I have been capturing soft moments from my days and posting them as weekly photo dumps on Instagram. So to most, I probably look like I am thriving (social media is fake). I have been posting the dumps and taking the pictures for myself though – a reminder that I am capable of finding softness, of living slowly, of noticing things.

Being numb hasn’t meant I am not present, nor incapable of feeling. Maybe numb isn’t the right word to describe how I have been. But I have been going through the motions and just surviving everything life is throwing at me at the moment. No big emotions have taken over and lasted more than a few minutes.

BUT (and it is a big but (hehe)), I have been feeling something that could almost be described as content. It isn’t often. It isn’t all the time. But it has been appearing.

For example, the other day I caught my reflection in the mirror and had to do a double take because I was glowing. I really looked at myself and said, “woah. I’m glowing.” Now it could’ve just been sweat – it was warm and I was moving furniture around – but I felt a sense of peace wash over me. The sensation flooded my senses and I smiled. Properly. I smiled properly for what feels like the first time in weeks. Sorry, months.

I believed that smile. I felt like I was coming home to myself after the longest time. Of course it didn’t last long though. I don’t trust myself to keep that happiness around. As quick as it arrives, that little voice in my head reminds me that it never lasts long. I sabotage my happiness.

My bracelet keeps getting attached to my laptop because for some stupid reason my laptop is magnetic and it is driving me insane. My train of thought has come to a stop. Or maybe I am just avoiding something.

Contentment and numbness are rather close emotions.

Am I about to crash out over that thought?
Possibly. Highly likely.

Contentment is just peace, right? Numbness could also be peace? Because numbness means I am not feeling anything and I am not suffering. Ah fuck. Good lord, send help. Maybe what I really felt when I looked in the mirror was joy then? Or am I just trying to explain away this content or maybe numb feeling? Seriously, help. No. Contentment is different. Because contentment feels lighter. It feels like noticing those soft moments.

What if I have really been feeling content this whole time and not realised it? No. That’s not it. Because it isn’t around long enough. So maybe… I am not really numb. Maybe I am a liar.

I am a liar.

I think I have been lying to myself (and you) to make it easier. So I wouldn’t have to sit with everything I have been feeling. Honestly, it has worked. The emotions never stayed long. Is it healthy? Probably not. But it has been working. I think?

I have been feeling sad, tired, angry, frustrated, and at times peace. Occasionally happiness too. I wish it lingered longer.

I don’t think I trust happiness right now to let it linger. I don’t think I believe I am deserving of it. Or that now is the right time to feel happiness at this stage in my life. Why do I believe that? Because surely I am allowed to feel happiness whenever I want and it doesn’t matter when it shows up. But I truly think if happiness showed up tomorrow… I would question it. I wouldn’t be able to accept it.

Maybe content is the only positive feeling I will allow myself to feel right now. And that’s a scary thought because… Well, how long am I going to let it stay before I allow myself to feel joy? To feel real happiness? Contentment feels safe. Contentment is easier to fall from. Happiness feels too high to fall from. When sadness comes, it won’t feel like I am being ripped from the sky. Contentment feels manageable.

Maybe contentment is the pathway to happiness. What if contentment is the foundation of happiness and I just didn’t know this is what healing looked like? I didn’t expect to feel contentment. I didn’t expect to be okay. I expected low lows and dramatic highs, not this middle feeling – where feelings come and go, where nothing lingers for too long.

Or maybe it’s not healing at all. Maybe it’s just an unwillingness to feel anything more.
Entries from the middle: March

27/03/2026

Authors Note:

I almost didn’t share this.
It feels unfinished. Messy. A little too close to the surface.

These are entries written across a few weeks. Captured as they happened, without much editing or distance.

This space was never meant to be filled with polished thoughts or neat conclusions.
It’s meant to hold moments like this – while I’m still in them.

05/03/26

My heart has changed. My soul has changed.

Words I will scream at the top of my lungs every damn time. From my chest because my god, are they true.

I am a different person to who I was a week ago, two weeks ago, a whole year ago. Wow. I am someone becoming a woman, the woman I was always meant to be. Fuck. I AM PROUD OF ME.

I am powerful. I am strong. I have so much resilience. I survived and didn’t drown in it all – I am amazing.

Okay – enough talking about me like that. What have I been noticing recently?

Yesterday I watched a stranger smile secretly, privately at a baby and the baby’s mother. I couldn’t help but smile at the smile. This man was suited in workout clothes – shorts, hoodie, backwards cap… Honestly? If we’re going off stereotypes, he isn’t someone you would immediately go ‘ah yes, they smile at babies’.

Ah, gosh. He’s back in the coffee shop today as I have just begun writing about him. Now I’m grinning like a fool. Jesus Christ. I will try to write this with a straight face but I am too expressive and do not have a poker face at all unless I am walking and I am on a mission.

Anyway, I noticed this man smiling, I watched him watching this baby and mother as the mother talked about her baby to a stranger in the queue and I was intrigued. Not in the sense of I want to know this man but… Why did my first impression of him immediately make me assume he isn’t someone who would smile at babies?

That probably isn’t my question and I am just making stuff up for the sake of writing so we’ll see where this goes. I do feel like I am writing just because, but I also just want to see what I can spew out, see what I can notice just by letting the knots in my head unravel – even if new knots form along the way.

Back to the man; he had no idea I was watching him, no idea I was observing him and I was hooked. I watched him wait for his coffee, walking up and down near the counter, dancing slightly on his feet without being obvious about it, I watched him watch this mother and newborn and I couldn’t help but think whoever has that man is lucky whether he’s an uncle or a father himself, whoever’s family he is a part of – they’re lucky.

And there it is. The big thing. It is not the fact that whoever has him is lucky. It’s the fact I observed him happy, present, content, I observed him observing.

I have been drowning, barely surviving this season of life yet yesterday I was able to be present enough to notice again, to notice my thoughts and to notice my curious mind wandering when I haven’t been able to hear anything else recently. It felt good to notice again, to see again but it was a reminder that it’s okay if I lose myself for a bit, I am always here waiting.

I can’t kill this curious mind, she will always live on. And I am forever grateful I get to remain curious and my brain wants to remain expansive in this closed off world. I am proud of the journey I have lived, I am proud of the chapters I have already written and survived. Maybe now, my future chapters are no longer about survival but about living.

I’ve just done the thing I said I was going to stop doing… Over intellectualising my emotions. Agh.

13/03/26

God. I am sad today. Not just today. All week. I have felt a heaviness sit on my chest all week that just won’t release. I can’t seem to cry and it’s driving me crazy because I’ve done everything I can to bring the tears up and they just won’t come up. They’re blocked.

What are they blocked by? Fear? Survival? Coping? Exhaustion?

I need the damn dam to break. Just one crack.

I keep hiding in music and quick dopamine fixes but the reality is I just feel heavy and numb but sad and exhausted all at once. I can’t even pinpoint what it is that’s causing me to feel this way so I can resolve it. I know I should just feel my emotions but it’s really hard to feel something when it just feels like a pressure on my chest. A literal knot and I’m unable to find the end to start unravelling it.

If I’m honest with myself then I know the only way out of this is just to keep putting one foot in front of the other but that sounds like literal hell.

I suddenly don’t see the point in anything.
I can feel myself getting dragged under.
The hand of despair reaches up and pulls me under.
It ignores my pleas, it ignores any hope I had pulsing through me.
Black shadows move through me, infecting my blood stream.
Clouding any sense of hope or happiness I had left.
Despair has taken over and I’m not sure my blood will ever run red again.

16/03/26

I went for a walk yesterday to meet my mother for coffee. I set off, the sun was shining, wind blowing a breeze. The coffee was good. The conversation was good. But whilst we were sitting drinking coffee the weather took a turn for the worse – rain poured, wind picked up so my walk home wasn’t very fun. I lie. I love walking in the rain – I’m often that person who is walking with their head held high, not shielding from the wet or the wind whilst everyone ducks their head.

This wind, this rain felt like it was washing something away, freeing something I had been holding. I watched the droplets hit the water of the canal, felt my lip tremble and I realised I was going to cry. I have no idea what it released but it helped release a pressure I didn’t know I was holding.

Now I’m sitting here – after describing the moment (badly) – trying to figure out what it was that was released. I probably don’t need to know, my nervous system clearly needed it for whatever reason. But I can’t help wanting to know – I think it’s natural to want to know. But I don’t know. I’m clearly not ready to know the answer.

I know I was grateful for the rain coming down as hard as it did – it hid my tears when I walked past strangers. Not that I tried hiding when I walked past them, I still gave them that British smile and nod ‘hiya’, or maybe it’s a Yorkshire thing.

Anyway, I’ve been listening to Orange Juice by Noah Kahan a lot recently. I shout-sing the part “my heart has changed and my soul has changed” – because it has. It really has. The song is about sobriety, changing life and yourself when revisiting a past place, a hometown and I get it. Not so much the sobriety part – not that I drink really – but just changing. I am stepping into a new chapter and I feel like I am leaving people behind and thank fuck for that.

I hate everything I write lately too. I’ve been writing longer form essays for my book and I reached flow state with one of them so everything since then has just been so shit and doesn’t sound good at all. It’s frustrating. Everything I write now feels rubbish compared, which is annoying because all I’m doing is writing to process my emotions but instead when I read it back I’m cringing – yay.

18/03/26

I have been struggling to write, once again (yay), and I want to say I don’t know why. But the truth is, it’s because I’m very much in a survival phase of my life right now.

But it’s a weird sort of survival. I am still noticing small things, small moments that make my heart happy or send a sense of calm over me.

20/03/26

Unable to write – can barely write. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I hit flow state once and everything I have written since has just been pure shite.

I also have noticed I am not really feeling anything at the moment, I’m just surviving and going through the motions of life. Which is fine. We all have those moments, those periods of life and I’m still making a conscious effort to notice small things that bring me joy, then capturing a picture of that moment. It’s still weird though – I’m capturing these soft moments and not really processing what I am seeing. I’m not really feeling anything even if the moment does feel… ‘aesthetically’ nice? I think that’s how I would describe it.

I haven’t been sleeping recently either – no more than 4/5 hours a night, which is lovely (sarcasm intended). It’s incredibly frustrating because I am tired. I am so tired but as soon as I take myself to bed and try to sleep, I can’t. Insomnia is very real. Disgustingly so.

I am just writing for the sake of writing to prove that I can write but they’re more like pointless journal entries no one needs to read. I hope I can write another essay style entry soon because I am starting to believe it was just a fluke.

Sat in a coffee shop whilst I write this. Just observing humans. There are two people clearly running a job interview with a man who doesn’t seem nervous at all. Middle-aged couples scattered around, drinking coffees. A couple of solo patrons (like moi) working on their laptops or in their notebooks. It’s busy for first thing on a Friday and I kind of love how there are so many different people here.

22/03/26

I wrote a letter to him (that he will not see), then wrote the words below afterwards because the letter was very raw and full of emotions I had not let out.

—

The part that hurts the most is I let myself live like that. I feel fucking stupid for letting that happen to me. How could I be so goddamn stupid?

I let myself believe that the love, or lack of, was good enough for me.

Maybe I wasn’t good enough for him.

Was I not good enough? Do I not deserve love? Is everything I do not worthy of receiving love? Am I not worthy enough to be truthful to? Am I not worthy of anything?

I don’t think I am worthy. Because if I was, why would I have accepted that? Maybe deep down I know that I will never be worthy of love.

It feels like I’m not worthy of anything more.

I’m embarrassed to admit that nothing changed between us when I ended the relationship. That the relationship was broken for so long that nothing fucking changed.

I hate this. I hate myself. I swallowed my feelings, my thoughts, my everything. I stopped doing anything for myself. I did it all for him and for the kids. I lost myself completely and I let it happen. I hate myself for that.

—

If my friend told me these exact words, I would tell her that she is not unworthy of being loved, that she isn’t the problem. I would tell her that she stayed because she wanted to protect her peace, the kids’ peace, and protect the idea of the future she’d imagined. I would tell her she was strong for going through all of that but she is not to blame.

25/03/26

There is nothing more frustrating than saying you can’t write, when you can write, but you just can’t write anything good or worth anyone reading.

I just want to write something that is worth people reading. But right now, nothing feels like it is. Everything is just me ranting or getting angry at nothing. I am very angry at the moment. I am also riddled with anxiety. Absolutely riddled in it. Unable to sleep.

My ex is moving out on Friday and I am ready for it – it needs to happen – but I am terrified of this next chapter. I will be alone, with the boys everyday, every night. I mean it’s only for three weeks until my sister moves in but it’s terrifying. Not the being alone part – I have been alone for a long time – but no, the part where I have to be a mum alone, hold the weight of the house alone and also, hold the weight of my children’s emotions as they adapt to this new life where they don’t see their dad often. Maybe a couple of evenings a week and every Sunday. I have to explain to my almost 5 year old that he will see his daddy again.

I am worried and I just hope I can do right by my boys. I can’t even really process my own emotions around this next chapter, I am too focused on the boys and… Realising that as I am writing breaks my heart a little because I never allow myself to feel anything or process anything until after the fact. Until everyone else has gotten to feel their emotions first.

And this whole ‘becoming’ journey is meant to be me stopping that – stopping putting everyone else first. But it seems I just easily fall into my usual habits. It’s not a bad thing to care for everyone else first but it does mean I keep neglecting myself and not really processing what is going on inside me. I have been saying for weeks I feel out of touch with myself, almost numb, and now I understand why. I have been bracing myself to hold other peoples emotions.

I don’t want a neat solution to this – I don’t want to say I am going to make sure I feel because that’s just not true. I am not the type to make time to go sit and feel, I would rather write it out or just randomly cry whilst applying hair oil.

Honestly, I think just recognising what I am doing is enough for now. I don’t need to fix it.

I am not numb like I think I am.

I am simply bracing.

I am preparing to hold other peoples emotions of those I care about deeply. My children have to come first for this big life change that is coming to them. I don’t want to rock their world too much so I have to stay steady for them.