I am alison, the person the title of this blog is referring to. I’m not lost, I’m not in need of rescue. I feel like I’m approaching a crossroads, or I have something missing that I need to find. A part of me untapped, or an external something I’m missing. Before I can look for the external thing I’m missing I need to work on myself internally. To fix issues that I’ve had, pushed down so deep I couldn’t see them, for a very long time.
Being brave doesn’t come easily to me, I’m naturally quite an anxious person, but for me to be truly happy, I need to shine light on all the parts of me, all the things I’ve been through in my 42 years of life. The good, the bad and the ugly.
This was all inspired by listening to a podcast that had Bryony Gordon as a guest, where she spoke about, as a child never wanting to be herself, always wanting to be someone else. That struck a deep cord within me, as for as long as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to be someone else. Sometimes in the ‘oh, wouldn’t it be nice to be Kim Kardashian and have more money than I could ever spend.’ and more often in the ‘I really don’t like me, I don’t want to be me, I want to be someone else.’ Like the Pink song, don’t let me get me. It wasn’t just that I didn’t like myself, it was more, I felt like I didn’t belong. I never really felt like I fit in at school. This could be due to being an army brat and having started 4 different schools by the time I was 13, or down to something within my psyche, that felt, even at that young an age, that something was wrong with me. A fundamental flaw that everyone else could see in me. I could feel it too. Other girls had boys falling over them, I never did. I never felt as pretty as other girls, or as bright. I felt distinctly blah. Beige. Indistinct. I had lots of friends and was generally a happy kid, but I just never really wanted to be me.
Things happened to me when I was younger, good things, bad things, things that left me indifferent. I’ve tried to focus on the good and ignore the bad, but things that get pushed down can only be pushed down for so long before they start to rise to the surface. I remember being surface level happy but underneath there was always this anxiety. That I was failing, that I wasn’t good enough, smart enough, pretty enough.
My older brother needed a lot of attention when he was younger, he had learning difficulties and was at boarding school, which he ran away from all the time. He was so needing of attention, and my parents had to give him so much attention that I felt like I faded into the background. I was the good girl, I didn’t cause a fuss, I just chugged along as normal, as was expected. But the feeling of being second best never really went away.
My mental health officially became an issue when I was 16 but it took until I was 24 before I got an official diagnosis. I’ve dealt with my mental health for the past 18 years. I’ve had good periods, bad periods and periods where my mental health has been so bad, that its been torture. But through it all, I kept going. Some days I’m not sure how, but I managed to get through even the worst of days. I have so much I need to unpack and deal with and I’m thinking that here might be the place to do it. Its fairly anonymous and no-one who knows me knows what I’m doing here and that helps.
I need this space to be just for me, to be whatever I need it to be. I’m determined to post here regularly, maybe not daily, since I work a fairly demanding job, but at least twice a week to start with. I have no idea what this is going to look like, or even what I’ll feel like posting but I have to start somewhere.
This is a journey to discover who I really am 