Why My Bedroom Makes Me Sad.

Okay, this may be a slightly damper article, but as I said at the very start. This is for me. No one else. And this is how I feel.

I haven’t been feeling too great recently. When I say recently I mean consistently and alarmingly extremely for the last year. 15 year old me thought it was bad, 19 year old me is laughing because somehow it managed to get worse. And I didn’t think it could.

For as long as I’ve been finding things difficult (quite a while I won’t lie) I have tended to retreat to my bedroom.

I guess I just thought it was safer to stay there. If I close the door, hopefully everyone will get the message that I have no plans to come out. In my own space where no one could reach me. I didn’t have to speak to anyone or do anything. It was just easier. Inside. Alone.

When I was younger, my brother and sister and I used to swap bedrooms all the time. We live in a four bedroom house and we used to constantly have a live in au pair, so one of us pretty much always had to share. For a long period it was me brother and I, up in the attic, and then I decided I was kicking my sister out of her room when I was about 13. Once we were finally old enough to not need an au pair living with us then I took the attic for myself.

(Hence ‘Views From The Attic’)

So this has been my space for quite a few years now. And although it is ‘my room’ it doesn’t feel and never really has felt like ‘my room’.

It’s just a space. It has my clothes in and my makeup. My shoes and my coats. And it also has some horrible memories.

Because my room has been the one and only place I felt like I could hide from my feelings and the world around me, I obviously have spent quite a bit of time in it.

Except, I couldn’t hide from my feelings. So I have experienced some of the lowest and most painful moments of my life in that room. Moments where I have thought about hurting myself. Moments where I told myself that I didn’t want to be here anymore. Where I didn’t want to be here anymore and wanted so deeply not to be here ever again.

I’d look in the mirror and I hate what I saw. I’d wish I looked different. I’d wish I was a completely different person. I’d wish I didn’t exist. On my lowest days I’d get home from school or work and I’d collapse to the floor and just cry. I’d stare at the ceiling or out the window for hours, imagining a version of me that I might actually like.

Every time I enter my room I am reminded of those times. And although having my own place to escape to can be beneficial. Sometimes, hiding away from my feelings isn’t the best idea.

I often find that keeping things to myself is a thousand times easier than trying to explain what I’m feeling. Because it’s damn hard. Half the time I don’t have a bloody clue what’s going on inside my brain. Sometimes I think that there is another being inside my head and it’s just living it’s life around my brain. Sometimes it likes to use my brain as a trampoline and jump all over it which messes with my feelings. Other times it thinks my brain is a football and kicks it around, which gives me panic attacks and breakdowns. Clearly, the little gremlin in my mind is not the nicest, but unfortunately, he is a permanent resident, so I just have to accommodate for him. Let him be. I’m not going to say ‘try and ignore it’ because that is the single most shitty piece of advice ever. He’s just doing his thing and I’m doing mine.

But, to resolve this article, whatever I do with myself next year, I need to move out. I need to get away from the constant reminder of all the feelings that I trapped myself in in that room. I need to get away from all the self doubt and depreciation that I put myself through in that room.

Every month or so I rearrange things and I always try to keep things tidy. I think, maybe because I can’t tidy all the crazy darting thoughts that are messing my brain up. If I change the position of my bed, or change the shitty paintings on the walls to even shittier ones that I’d painted myself like my therapist had suggested then maybe things will get better... Funny right?

Long and short of it: I need to get away. I need to leave my room, no matter how much it might scare me. No matter how much comfort I feel when I am away from the world, I need to put a bra on and actually leave my house for once. I need to do something that makes a difference to me and the world around me. Part of me wants to just bugger off and live in another country for 3 months. Maybe if I move away I can get a divorce from my brain gremlin and leave him there. Regardless, he’s been living with me for a long long time and he’ll probably be here for as long as he damn well wants.

Not entirely sure how to finish this post, because it’s an ongoing problem. I’m constantly split between wanting nothing more than to be alone in my bed, as opposed to avoiding my room and my house as a whole.

I'm working on a solution though. It'll all be fine. I just know I’m ready to leave.