A New Year

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough." Mae West

I am going to be 27 tomorrow. A whole new year stretches out in front of me waiting to be filled. As I look back over the last twelve months (detailed in my other blog via my profile), I am somewhat anxious about what exactly the next year will entail. The last couple of months have been harder than I can remember them being for a long time. My cocaine addiction has spiralled completely out of control and whilst I sit here two days clean, I wonder how long this attempt can really last. Am I really ready to give up the ghost? Can I really do this and more to the point, do I even want to. To say I am exhausted with my existence would be an understatement, I am beyond the run of the mill sick and tired. I am frustrated, confused and the ball of pain I have carried for twenty years doesn’t seem to be decreasing in size. In fact its now seemed to pick up speed and like an avalanche is threatening to take me with it down and down till collapse is the only viable option. I can not have another year like this. Addiction can not get its evil claws around me anymore. I am ready and waiting to be freed and have now come to the harrowing conclusion that its me that holds the key to this freedom. Super. If only I could remember where I put it.

As I have decided to start a new blog, in celebration of what I hope to be a more successful year, I will briefly explain for the readers sake, my current position in this so called life of mine. I am currently battling the demons of cocaine and cannabis addiction, both of which have spiralled completely out of control in the last few months. To add to this exciting mix I am also bipolar and have borderline personality disorder, so really if the drug’s weren’t bad enough, this diagnosis really helps to see how messed up I truly am. I have been attempting since finishing work over a year ago after a rather embarrassing manic episode to learn to live with my disorders and in some ways I have made sufficient progress.........in many ways I haven’t. Along this journey, last year I got bought to my knees with the darkness of my depression and somehow in that mess I managed to find God. Yes God. My last blog was really designed as a tool to get to know Him better and to understand my first year walking with him and it was successful in at least recording the journey. The reason I have decided to change to this new blog is because the other areas of my life, mainly the addiction and bipolar are just as big an issue and part of my journey as my faith is so I wanted to make a clean start on attempting to deal with them all. This is where the new title comes from and this is where I now plan to stay.

Why do I even want to write about it you may wonder. Well, for me mainly the writing in itself is like therapy. It is here I can come and unload my heart and soul and it also acts as a record that I have been here, I have existed no matter how appalling that thought may be at times. The other main reason for my writing is my conviction that there are more 'me' people out there who may read this and get some comfort for the trials and tribulations they may be facing in life. This time I want to make my blog more public and give people the chance to read and hopefully find some relevance for their own lives within my words. Maybe no one will read it, in which case it can be a record of my times, but if they do and they find comfort then maybe the pain I have come to know will be of some ease to another and I can honestly imagine no greater gift to give.

I plan to write on here more frequently than I ended up doing my last blog. This year I really want to get to grips with the empty void I feel inside and what I can be doing to change that. I want to learn how to live with my mental health issues and still feel a relative degree of normality and more pressing at the moment, I want to learn to live without my addictions and the extreme misery they have caused me. This is my space to be me and I promise one thing, honesty will be at the forefront of my writing at all times. It may not be pleasant, sometimes it will be uncomfortable and more often than not it will speak of the struggles not the blessings. But it will be 100% me throughout. I look forward now to the year ahead and pray that this is the year that saves me.

Love Always.x