Your story

Since as far back as I can remember I’ve told myself the same story;

• Girl gets sick and dies from freak illness nobody ever gets
• Girl is too anxious to spend time alone; or travel, or leave the house without something to distract her mind
• Girl is too anxious to watch scary movies or shows about hospitals and sickness and pain

And exactly what you think might happen, happened. It became my story.

Is any of it true? Maybe, I don’t know anymore. But I believed it to be true and therefore it was true. So often our perception is our truth.

And I lived it. I lived this story out my whole life. Right down to the darkest corners of my mind and back I’ve played my part accordingly. And then one day I realized I was more afraid of living this story than anything else. I was more afraid of the way my life was beginning to take shape than of the illnesses I had obsessed over for 22 years. I had spent so long obsessing over these imagined illnesses than I’d failed to see I already had an illness. And it was fatal.

It was killing me from the inside out. It was taking my personality, my social life. At one point I was so anxious I couldn’t eat for days and weeks and slowly mentally and physically I began to fade away. I had that “butterfly stomach” feeling constantly, my mind consumed with the fact that I could drop dead at any moment and yet so wholly unaware of the fact that I’d been dying for a long time.

That was almost two years ago now. It’s been over a year since I had a panic attack which were at one stage a daily occurrence. And yet I do not write to you from a pedestal of epiphanies and redemption and light. I do not write to you anxiety free with a pamphlet of 5 easy steps to make you feel “normal” again.

Instead I write to you from the 5th day of a year long, worldwide trip. I write to you from a clammy room in upper Manhattan, New york city where a girl, the same girl from the first story tells herself a new story.

One where she travels the world.

One where she falls asleep without a movie on.

One where instead of reminding herself how anxious she is, she reminds herself how resilient she is. How much she’s already overcame, and how much she still has left to conquer.

One where instead of focusing on how breathless she is when she steps off the plane, she focuses on the fact that she did it anyways.

And she reminds herself that this story, this running monologue in her mind is shaping her future. That it’s shaping her.

And she gets to decide how that reads.

She gets to write it.

All my love,

Maeve x

My Story (Animated)

I wrote this post over two years ago when I first started to emerge from the darkness and you know what I was right, I was okay. Infact two years on those two people have more differences than similarities and yet to her I owe so much. To my mental illness, even more. Suffering is as important as happiness and sometimes it the most important part of life. But you are not your mental health. You are so much more than your anxiety, so much more than your depression or your eating disorder. Believing that is your first step to overcoming it.

Becoming Fearless

We all have a story. Everyone you meet is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.

This is my struggle with anxiety. My story.

It started here, 6 years old panicking over the sudden realization that one day I would die, I would cease to exist. I remember some things from this time in my life but the most potent is sitting with my head on my mothers lap, her stroking my hair. In my fear it was her I ran to. It was her I clung to. I still love that innocence of children, that belief that your parents can keep you safe from anything, fix any problem.

When I was a teenager my anxiety disappeared altogether. It was just a distant memory. I used to remember joking with my friends that the office still kept a brown paper bag in my medical file incase of…

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Flawed

“she refused to accept her wounds came from the same place as her powers”  Power-Adrienne Rich 

We all have those days, or weeks or sometimes even years when you look into the mirror and the person looking back at you just doesn’t seem good enough. It might be your looks, you’re too fat, you’re too thin, you’re too ugly to be loved or wanted. Somebody’s broken up with you or cheated on you and somehow you’ve made that be about you and your flaws. Somebody’s smarter than you or more athletic or more musical and no matter how hard you try and practice and graft you just can’t get there. You fall short time and time again.

For years I’ve been attempting to be this ideal person. This image i conjured up, hand selecting traits I seen in the people I admired. Patient and kind but feisty. Humble but confident. Good at sports and music and lively without ever being over bearing. I have now concluded this was impossible. All I could ever be in the end was me. And I have wounds. I’ve seen pain and betrayal. I’ve had my heart broken. I’ve felt abandoned and forgotten and scared and with this has come wounds that aren’t ready to heal. With this has come a lifelong struggle with hypochondria and anxiety. A defensive and argumentative nature. A need to be right. To be the one in control. 

But it took me a long time to realize these things I hate about myself were also a part of the things I loved. They were also my powers. Yes I am defensive but how else would I be a social worker, how else would I defend those who can’t protect themselves. And yes I’m anxious and overly analytic but this very story, this journey back to myself had to first begin with loss and confusion. Only when I had no idea who I was anymore, when I’d lost my whole self in my mental illness could I begin this journey.

I’m not preaching for you to remember the things you love about yourself but rather for you to love the things you hate about yourself. To realise that your bossiness, your sensitivity, your shyness are just as valuable as strengths and occasionally are just two sides of the same coin. Their is power in your flaws and weaknesses and quite often your wounds are just the beginning of a new power.

It’s okay that you’re not as pretty or confident or creative as her or him in or everyone else. Its okay that you can’t master a skill other people seem to find easy. That you can’t run fast enough, speak in public or get the hang of that sport you’ve been playing for 2 years *cough rugby cough*. These are exactly the things that push you onwards to run a little faster, train a little harder, speak a little more. These are the moments that breed strength and ambition and bravery.

“The road is long and in the end it’s only ever with yourself..” The sunscreen song-Baz Luhrmann

And sometimes the things we don’t achieve are the most valuable moments of all.

All you can do is try and try and try to be a little more empathetic. To try to listen that little bit more, to try and catch the ball one more time than you did yesterday. And to remember that change comes slowly and compassion sometimes even slower. That patience and humility are traits that some people have to cultivate and practice. That sometimes it takes a whole life time to stop defending yourself. And that the journey to self awareness and improvement often begins in our ability to first show ourselves this compassion.

Hold on or let go?

I read this interesting article the other day and it stated that the people you spent your time with in your 20’s will define who you are going to become. Here’s a quote from it;

“The time you spend in your 20s is arguably the most influential in regards to your future self. Who you spend time with and what you spend time doing plays a massive role in you reaching your full potential.”

Do I believe this? Yes, in some ways, but there is always time to change the life you’re living. What I do know though is that time is precious. It’s valuable. And it’s yours to decide to divide up in whatever way you see fit. There’s so much I still want to do in life and sometimes I feel like there isn’t enough time to do it all. This isn’t true though. We have all the time we need, sometimes we just don’t know how best to allocate it.

This doesn’t just apply for how we spend our time but also who we chose to spend it with. There will always be times when we have to spend time with people we don’t necessarily chose like work and collective hobbies but even in these circumstances you have choice. The choice to refuse to accept who they want you to be or who they already think you are. The choice to stand strong in your own character, your own beliefs, your own agenda and to realise that if you have to change who you are to gain their acceptance or approval, then it isn’t somewhere you need to be or something you want to be apart of.

Sometimes though it’s not easy to see when a relationship or friendship has run its course. In times like that I simplify it to one simple question

Does this person make me feel like a bigger version of myself or a smaller one? 

Friends and good relationships are ones in which you see yourself through their eyes as a bigger, braver stronger version of yourself. More funny, more intelligent. Friends build you up, make you feel invincible and worthy. They make you feel big. They help you grow. They support you. They change and you change but somehow you adapt to get those two pieces to still fit together. 

They put the hard work in and when something isn’t working they put it in again and again and again. They try something new. They value you and they tell you that they do. And they show you that they do. Their the people on the side lines rooting for you even when you stumble, even when you come last. They love you even when you can’t love yourself. They feel your pain. They feel your doubts, your insecurities. And when you’re sure you can’t go on, when you’re absolutely sure you can’t take a single step more, when you have nothing left to give, they show you how to give a little more. The take the step with you, sometimes they take it for you.

The hardest part is acknowledging when is the right time to hold on and when is the right time to let go. Again I ask myself one simple question;

Have they given up on me? 

If the answer to that question is yes then you already have the answer to yours.

Life is too short to spend with people who don’t appreciate you. Change is necessary. And that choice you make between holding on and letting go, between giving everything and giving up becomes the story of your life. Write it carefully.

I am invincible

I am invincible

I’ve always been ill and more than often terminally ill. I’ve had brain tumours, meningitis, appendicitis and more heart attacks than I could keep track off. Right now I actually have DVT. Unfortunately only one illness I’ve ever had was real though. Health anxiety, better known as hypochondria.

I’ve talked quite openly about my experiences with anxiety though I actually rarely mention that most of this anxiety is focused on my health. I read a great article last week that hit the nail on the head “anxiety is like water, it needs a container. A thought to give it shape, a channel to flow through”. This is the most accurate way I could describe hypochondria. It’s just the container, the real problem is the anxiety. Understanding this has helped me better understand anxiety in all its forms such as OCD, social anxiety, even jealously in relationships. It all comes from the same place and then we pick and choose where we focus it.

I’m sure I probably lost half of you at hypochondria. It’s become so well known that it’s comical. The people who are obsessed with going to the doctors and think a paper cut is cancer. Even I laugh about it. But there is a serious side. At 3am when you’re still awake googling symptoms, sweating trying not to pick up the phone it stops becoming a joke. At 18 and on courses of anti depressants and diazepam it stops being funny.

Now surely if you have the insight to know you’re a hypochondriac then you can no longer be one? I wish it worked like that. My anxiety is clever. Every time I’m on top it finds a way to out smart me. We’ve been best pals since I was 6 years old though I can remember moments of anxiety even earlier than that. It grew up with me, it changed with me. I’ve stopped watching Tv shows about hospitals, stopped reading articles on fb about freak illnesses but it’s so tuned in. It will pick up stories from half way down the train carriage, remember illnesses from game show questions and then use them at the a later point.

The ironic thing is it has nothing to do with actually being sick. It’s just about control. Like OCD, like eating disorders, they are attempts to gain some kind of control in life. Which is exactly why when I’m stressed my hypochondria will rear its ugly head. But you can’t have control. The only real way we control our lives is by how we chose to react to life.

I realised a long time rationalising with my anxiety was pointless. I’m 22,  this disease is really rare etc does not work. The fear is irrational so how could the answer be rational. The best way for me to deal with it right now is by acknowledging one simple truth. Up until now, I am invincible.

Nothing has ever killed me, no turmoil was too much, no anxiety was ever too frightening, no heartbreak too heartbreaking. No challenge life has given me yet was too hard. I am invincible. So therefore I must assume, based on probability that whatever life throws my way I will overcome it. Because the reality is that’s much more likely that the alternative.

And by that acknowledgement, by accepting that I can’t control if I get sick but that I can control my reaction to it, suddenly you take the driving seat. By letting go of control, you gain it. And not only am I going to endure it, not only am I going to survive it but I’m going to live it. I’m going to own it.

I am invincible.

As G would say..

All my love,

Maeve

Writers block

It’s been exactly 3 months since the last time I wrote something. 3 long slow months. It’s so much easier to write when you’re travelling or living in another country, so many new people and new experiences. But living in my home town, working in a burrito bar.. It’s easy to feel like you’re going backwards sometimes. And even easier to feel like their are no lessons to learn in doing so. But there are things to be learnt and discover in every single part of life if you are willing to see them. So for the sake of my own sanity these are 3 things I have learnt in the last 3 months.

Sometimes you have to relearn lessons
I argue too much and listen too little. The amount of times I have heard this in my life is frankly bordering on ridiculous now. It’s not that I don’t believe the people who say it or that I don’t see it for myself because I do but unfortunately just because you understand it, it doesn’t mean you understand how to change it. One thing I have always struggled with is untangling my flaws from my good traits. For example I don’t know how to still be confident and independent and efficient without being pedantic and over bearing. It’s something I work on almost every single moment of my life and most of the time I don’t succeed. It’s a lesson I’ve been learning for 21 years and yet some days feel nowhere closer to achieving it. But the important thing is that I recognise it is a lesson I am still learning. The important thing is that I do want to change and improve.

Burning bridges is always detrimental
I don’t know how many times I’ve said, Heard people say or thought “it’s okay cause I’m leaving anyways or I’ll never see this person again”. While this may seem true at the time, often you will have to cross the same bridges again and I have been humbled by the amount of times this has happened in the last year. It is much easier to maintain a steady relationship than to build a broken bridge. Thankfully the people in my life I have encountered seem to have an endless amount of grace but as a close friend reminded me it is also important to give yourself this grace. Moving on and mending relationships requires first the grace for you to forgive yourself and the mistakes you’ve made. To allow yourself to be forgiven inadvertently gives you the permission you need to grow and change.

Perspective is everything
Over the past few months I have noticed my health anxiety creeping back into my life. This is not overly surprising to me really. As soon as I stop moving in life either physically or emotionally I have always felt my anxiety more acutely. What I have learnt though is that perspective is everything. Health anxiety is not a nice feeling and I do not enjoy it but I have come to understand my anxiety is not my problem but rather a symptom. The times when it increases is when I’m stressed or not dealing with a problem that’s been rattling around inside my head. It forces me to stop because it paralyses me which in turn gives me the time to process my thoughts and whats not going well in my life at that time. Also constantly feeling like your dying or about to die, while terrifying, is actually a great way to live. Steve jobs once said “you’re already naked, theirs no reason not to follow your heart” (I think) and he was right! Yes I might not die today but I am dying. So are you. Being forced to deal with this reality forces me to live. My anxiety has never changed but my perspective on it is consistently changing. Sometimes that makes all the difference.

So yeah, Belfast is great as it always has been. And maybe I am in some ways going backwards but maybe that isn’t a bad thing. Maybe it’s the universe giving me a second chance to make amends with my relationships, my past and myself.

ps. I’m having some GREAT ADVENTURES aswell.

My brothers surprise party

London training with Camp America

Vulnerability is strength

For most of my life I have considered strength as holding it together. Being resilient. Showing as little emotion as possible, dealing with things alone. Not something I necessarily ever achieved (ever) (ever ever) but definitely what I was striving for. In my mind that’s what bravery looked like.

I recently started Bikram Yoga, the art of practicing yoga in 100 degrees heat for 90 minute intervals. For those who know me or have seen me dance I am a gawky, unyielding person (in more ways that one), so you can imagine how far from graceful I look. Something like me with a bright red face and a muffin top trying to touch my toes while I sweat from my finger tips and ears and places I didn’t even know could sweat. The other day as I was doing precisely this, our instructor said “vulnerability is strength”.

Vulnerability is strength.

I couldn’t shake it. It was so far from my idea of strength. Two seemingly conflicting ideals and yet, something about it just made sense.

For those of you who used to read my old blog you’ll know anxiety used to kick my ass every.single.fucking.day. Everyday my family would watch me fall to pieces at the dinner table or my friends would hold me as I screamed in my sleep. It was killing me from the inside out. But everyday I got up and brushed my teeth or went to uni I refused to give up. Everyday I searched for the “cure” in meditation or counselling or reading or writing, I refused to give in. It was in those moments of my life that I was at my strongest, whether I felt it then or not.

My word for the summer is Vulnerability.

To remind myself that it’s okay to just, not be okay. It’s okay to need help. It’s okay not to know who you are or like who you are, you definitely aren’t alone. It’s okay to be nervous without your Iphone or your beauty products or whatever other crutch you’ve given yourself. It’s okay to say I love you first, even if you never hear it back. It’s okay to get hurt. It’s okay to let down your guard and be embarrassed. (I’ve even heard it’s character building) It’s okay to trust again and again, even when people keep letting you down. It’s okay to fall in love again and again, even if all you get back, is your own heart. It’s okay to tear down the walls you’ve spent 21 years building, the only person you’re ever really shutting out, is yourself.

Yesterday as I lay gasping for air dripping with sweat or tears or both I could have swore for the tiniest second I felt my fingertips touch the top of my toes. Some hope that as my body yields and changes and grows through it’s weakness, maybe so will I.

I have no pictures which relate to this post but look how cute these kids are that I spent every day with! They’ve taught me more than anyone about how to be vulnerable.

All my love,
Maeve

The truth

I think its fair to say I’ve always been an over thinker. My mum used to say I was searching for “the truth”. Some kind of colossal truth about the universe and life and our purpose that greater minds had overlooked. And 21 years on, I think its safe to say I’m still looking.

I used to want to know it all. What we were made of and were we came from and if god was real and if aliens were and what happened when we died. It took a long time for me to realise that I should probably focus on life first and deal with death after. That I should probably think about my purpose before I worried about lifes. But how do you find the answer to a question you don’t know. And the truth is, i don’t know. The truth is that sometimes I feel further away from finding it than that neurotic six year old girl. The truth is the amount i still don’t know or understand about life paralyzes my brain so much that I’ve stopped asking, I’ve stopped searching. The truth is I can’t handle it.

In a way everything I’ve ever done has been part of this search. Every passion was a potential purpose, an answer to that unanswerable question. I searched in new houses and new boyfriends and new friends and every time it led me right back to the beginning. And yet in all of them, I found some truth. Some piece of the puzzle I’ve been building my whole life, still too unclear to read.

In 12 days I will officially be a social worker and the truth is, I don’t know if I’m ready. The truth is I don’t know what to do without my pre set plan. The truth is I don’t know if  I want to grow up yet, or if I can. And the truth is, I don’t know if it was the right choice.

The truth is I’ve never felt closer to the truth than when I’m writing. Even if what I’m writing is useless. Even if nobody ever reads it. And sometimes, I feel like writing might be that truth.

All I can really be sure of is that whatever I’m looking for, it isn’t in my past. And yet again life pushes me forwards, onto new things. New homes, new adventures, new loves.. And for the first time, I intend to embrace that.

The truth is, I owe that much to the truth.

Bon voyage Liverpool.

 

A photo of Liverpool the day of my Social Work Interview at Hope

2011

Here comes the summer

I can still remember that day as clear as ever. Taking the ferry from the North Fork to Shelter Island for the first time. I wore a white top and denim shorts, had a cowboy hat on and sunglasses which always hurt the sides of my head. Like they were begging me not to miss that moment. I’ve played it again and again in my head. I had my feet perched up against the glove compartment, resting neatly in place of the steering wheel.

We were strangers then, all of us but somehow the silence never felt awkward. Would it have scared me then to know how attached I would one day become. Would I have regretted the constant inscription of you etched around my right ankle, almost as real as the sound of your voice across a crowded dining hall. This is the problem with travelling you see, it doesn’t just broaden your mind, it stretches your soul. It leaves pieces of it scattered under the coconut trees in puerto rico, or buried below the sand at K-rock with our old cigarette butts.

If I knew then how much I stood to gain and lose on that tiny island, would I have turned back. Would I have rewinded it back to my first night, drinking cocktails in your back garden, arguing with your dad that true love exists. That I’d felt it, I’d lived it. Or back to the night we skinny dipped at k-rock, back to them nights on the roof watching the sun come up. So free. So free it was almost frightening.

Or maybe back to the first night at camp. Would I be willing to give up this me for an easier ride. Would I be able to say no, say I’d meet you another time, down by the waterfront or at the drinks machine queue. Would I place my hand over yours, close that gap on the sofa, fast forward the inevitable. Would I take the bus out with you to chase that thunderstorm, you always were braver than me friend. Or maybe I would just get drunk with some friends, watch a girl in cowboy boots get sloppy. Enjoy the details my mind may someday not remember.

This is our first summer since that day apart. Sure we’ll see eachother but it won’t be the same. It won’t ever be that first day. It won’t ever be that first ferry ride, silently gazing across the still water. So unsure about what this adventure would hold. So unaware of the effects of that small patch of land on our lives and so ignorant of the potential a group of “20 something year old kids” might hold.

ps Bryan, this ones for you..

 

Dear, me. – My Messy Beautiful

Dear, 

6 year old me.

The world is a scary place. Even at 21. But don’t be afraid. Don’t carry the world on your shoulders. Don’t think too much, you’re far too young to know what worries are. Things are chaotic but those same people will always be there braving this chaos with you. I promise you that. Somebody will always be there to protect you, even if it isn’t the someone you’d imagined.

Be brave, be strong. I know that it’s hard but things will get better. You are loved. You are so loved. 

11 year old me. 

DON’T BE AFRAID TO BE YOURSELF. 

You’re funny and smart. You’re empathetic and probably too sensitive but BE WHO YOU ARE. Not who everyone else is. It’s okay to be different! And it’s okay not to know who you are yet, nobody knows who they are yet. Don’t change for the people who don’t “get you”. Don’t lie about liking rock music and reading. Don’t hurt other people to get where you want to be. If you have to, it isn’t really what you want. Don’t worry about not having the right clothes, in 10 years time everybodys clothes will seem hideous. People will remember who you were, not what you wore. Don’t be afraid to stand for something. Even if you’re standing alone. 

And whatever you do, definitely, definitely don’t aspire be “normal”. 

13 year old me. 

You aren’t as ugly as you think you are. The older you get, the less important looks will become. Nobody is going to fall in love with your hair, nobody is going to marry your body. And confidence is attractive and right now, you reek of insecurity. 

14 year old me. 

Never stay somewhere you aren’t happy. Never put up with shit. Never let someone tell you that you aren’t good enough. Never let them make you feel small so they can feel big. Never respect people who don’t respect you. Never confuse age with experience. Never confuse power with wisdom. Never stay somewhere you aren’t happy. 

16 year old me

There’s a difference between being strong and headstrong. Accept help when you need it. Social Services aren’t so bad, in fact in time you may even admire them. You are not an adult. I know you feel like one, and god knows you act like one but it’s okay to break down. It okay to give in, it’s okay to admit defeat. Holding things together isn’t always suceeding. Bottling up problems will only force them to explode. 

Knowing when you need help is part of growing up. And you have a lot of growing up to do. 

Enjoy being 16. These years won’t last for long and you’ll regret not being more immature. You’ll have all the time in the world to be an adult, trust me. Make stupid mistakes. And then make them again. This time of your life should be fun, not stressful. 

18 year old me. 

It’s okay to feel. It’s okay not to be okay. It’s okay to just be really, really sad for a while. It’s okay to need time to move on, give yourself the time. It’s okay to talk to people. It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to get hurt, building walls will only hurt you more in the long run. It’s okay to be afraid. It’s okay to feel like a six year old child, gasping for air at 3am. It’s okay to not be ready. It’s okay to lock yourself in the toilet. It’s okay to admit there’s something wrong. It’s okay to need help. It’s okay to have panic attacks, everyone in life has a cross to bear. You just haven’t noticed yet. It’s okay to be afraid. It’s okay to be angry. It’s okay to be bitter and say things you’ll regret. It’s okay to resent them, in time that too will pass. It’s okay to wonder how your life might have been, how you might have been.

It’s okay. 

20 year old me 

I told you they would get better. 

And that guy? Don’t worry one day he won’t seem so important. You’ll fall in love again. You’ll have new friends, new houses, new insights, new passions. Life is exciting. So very unpredictable and yet, so fascinating. Travel the world! You’re doing pretty good already but theres always more to see, more to learn. 

APPRECIATE. Appreciate your life. And your good fortune. And your career and friends and family and loves. Every single one of them brings you happiness. And that can never ever be underestimated. Don’t pat yourself on the back too much. At least half of what you achieved was luck. 

Let go. Let go of the past. Let go of people who bring out the worst in you. Let go of blame, you’ll make mistakes aswell. Let go of hurt, time changes everything. It really does heal all wounds. Let go of anything and everything in your life that doesn’t make you happy. THERE IS ALWAYS ANOTHER WAY. Let go of insults. Let go of memories that don’t bring you happiness, but don’t let go of what they taught you. 

Let go of fear. Let go of terms like anxiety disorder, it is a self fulfilling prophecy, not a diagnosis. Let go of worry and panic and tension and stress and just let things unfold. Just let life have the control. 

Just sit back, take a deep breath and enjoy the ride. 

Yours, 

21 year old me 

 

http://momastery.com/carry-on-warrior/

This essay and I are part of the Messy, Beautiful Warrior Project — To learn more and join us, CLICK HERE! And to learn about the New York Times Bestselling Memoir Carry On Warrior: The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life, just released in paperback, CLICK HERE!