Soul Searching



2018 had been an old bowl of arse suck so far. It began in 2017, I had been doing well, I was making plans and feeling good, but things here and there started to change, little events that I had no control over kept impacting on me. Over the year or so I had found a few things that I had to try to come to terms with. Things that had been unrealized and locked away for more than 20 years began showing themselves to me in random little ways, and those random little ways became one big almighty life changer, and not in a good way. I was in therapy with someone I had known for a long time and who I trusted enough to help get me through and deal with what I needed to. She was amazing and took me through the process step by step. She was a fan of the outdoors and climbing, I had wished I was more like her on many occasions, so I guess she was my first little shove in this direction. Before I'd even properly began, it all it became too much to try to tackle and it left me in a less than stable state. I found myself, not for the first time in my life, very suicidal, full of self-loathing, self-harming and living in a world of absolute chaos caused by the trauma my brain was re-enacting on a daily basis. I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't get to my DBT appointments, I could barely drag myself out of bed and knew I was well on my way to attempting to end thing or being hospitalized. It became apparent that neither of those things were an option and luckily for me, there was a third, A.T.S (Acute therapy service). A.T.S was basically a more condensed, more crisis focused, DBT. I spent a week over Christmas getting a taxi to Blackpool every morning and home every evening, sitting in a room all day with complete strangers (apart from the Karens, who I already knew through DBT). I was grateful for a familiar face, trying my damned hardest to just stay alive. All the staff were great and each of them had their own jobs and subjects they were passionate about or more equipped for. I learned a lot from all of them. I met a man called Steve, who was a great believer in look after your physical health and you look after your mental health. It was Steve that nagged about drinking and worked hard to convince me to eat on a daily basis. He sat down and tried to help me figure out what it was I wanted from life, the things I'd always dreamt of doing, or used to do and didn't anymore. He brought me a little book in which he'd written some challenges and tasks for me to take on when I left ATS. He taught me about what foods were the best for your brain and shared his love of walking and mountain climbing. His enthusiasm was something to admire, and I did. I hadn't realized at the time how much Steve was going to impact me and it didn't show itself fully until much later. I had tried to give the kids a good Christmas and I think I managed it, but my heart wasn't in it. After boxing day I had two more days at ATS and began feeling more capable. I was less consumed by my thoughts and had built some good relationships while I was there. It showed me some things about myself and my behaviours that I hadn't seen before and taught me that not everyone sees me in the same light that I see myself, and I had to start accepting that.

The children went for their annual visit to my grandparents for the new year and I had a few days to recover and recoup. It lasted all of about 5 seconds, my daughter came home and told me about the behaviour of my grandad and I was right back down that spiral of undealt with trauma, only, different trauma. I cut all ties and that was that, but I just couldn't seem to pick myself back up, combined with the fact that my mood usually takes a massive drop at the beginning of the year anyway, so I guess it all just kind of blended in together.

I tried to get on with life the best I could but my depression and anxiety had completely taken over and I ended up confined to my bedroom. My friend was looking after me, my home, and my children, while I rotted in my bed being pulled further and further into the despair. I was having regular appointments with all my support and my psychiatrist, and my medications were being double once every couple of weeks. I tried to put things in place to look forward to and it helped get me from one period of time to the next. It took a long time but eventually the darkness began to lift and I started to tackle life again, only this time I had done it without any suicide attempts and without being hospitalized. It was brutal for all involved but it proved to us that it was possible for me to get through a crisis and avoid both of these things, which was definitely a good thing.

I was scrolling through my facebook, as I did several times a day, and came across an event. I can't remember exactly the title but in a roundabout way it was a trip to the top of Snowdon on the summer solstice to watch the sunrise. I hadn't climbed a mountain since I was a child. I don't really travel anywhere on my own, never mind Wales, I barely leave my house, so my exercise capability was questionable. It didn't seem to be something that I would naturally lean towards, but I felt a deep need. I don't know where it came from, or why, but I had to do it. I had to experience that.

I carried on trying to get on with life and once every so often the post leaked its way into my mind, over and over again. I went back to facebook a few times to see what the availability was like, each time it got smaller and smaller, but I was struggling financially so just couldn't justify it. Eventually, I had the £35 I needed and decided I was definitely going to go.

I wasn't scared. The thought of being on a train for 4 hours didn't scare me. The thought of going that far alone, to somewhere new, didn't scare me, going and meeting a bunch of random people and climbing a mountain with them didn't scare me. The fact that I was going to have to climb that mountain didn't scare me. I couldn't explain why, and I cant even now, but my soul craved it and nothing else seemed to matter.

Anyone that knows me, knows that absolutely everything about all of those things and more, absolutely terrifies me on a daily basis, 80% of the time, I'm crippled by it. Those that don't know me, I can't even put into words how far from the normal reaction this was for me. I have depression, Social Anxiety Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, and suffer from symptoms of history trauma based PTSD. My reactions to anything are usually, nothing but extreme, ever.

Knowing that, just implemented the fact I had to go even more. Nothing about it phased me, I just needed to be sat at the top of that mountain watching the sunrise.

We'd done our shopping, we'd done our training and the time of the trip was coming around quickly. A couple of before we were due to go, I heard from my mum that my grandma had been taken to hospital. I felt many things, I hadn't spoken to her in 6 months, I spent those 6 months trying to convince myself that I didn't give a fuck about my grandparents, I had to somehow find a way to let go, but as soon as I heard, my stomach flipped, I got a lump in my chest and I just wanted to make sure she was safe. I struggled for a few days back and forth trying to decide if I should go and visit because although yes, I cared, my grandma was still my grandma and our relationship has and would always be the same. I decided to go. I bought her a puzzle book so she wouldn't be bored and some nice snacks that she could nibble on and not be over faced with, because apart from anything else, everyone knows, hospital food, SUCKS! I went with Mum and I was terrified. My anxiety was killing me because I hadn't seen her in so long and I'd left it quite badly, but couldn't believe it when I saw her, she looked old and frail and delicate. I'd never seen her like that before, it was heartbreaking, she was quiet and low, and had huge black bruises all over her arms. This wasn't my battle axe, stiff upper lip grandma that I couldn't make a connection with. This was something new. I noticed some blood on her arm which was coming from the craters on her inside elbow where the nurses had repetitively taken blood from the same place. I cleaned and patched her up, and she thanked me. It was genuine which was odd, and she noticed things and took an interest in things that she never had before. I know it sounds awful, but I'm not sure my grandma has taken her head out of her arse long enough to ever notice anything beyond herself before.

It was weird for me because it felt natural to want to care for her but honestly, that's not really something I'd ever really felt around her, largely it was just contempt and toleration. I felt like a hypocrite. There is an uncomfortable contradiction in my attitude towards our relationship and I can't help but feel guilty for that, but it is what it is.

That doesn't mean I want her to suffer, and it definitely doesn't mean I want her to die, which a couple of days later we were told there would be a 50% chance that that could happen. We visited again before our trip and she seemed brighter but still wasn't out of the woods. Mum and I chatted afterwards and came to talking about our trip, I remember saying that if anything happened to her, was it right to go or would we just leave it? Anyway after some talk, Mum had said that if the worst was to happen then there wasn't anything we would be able to do about it anyway and that that trip may not be the same as planned, but could kind of be in honour of her. Not that in those circumstances it would have mattered to not go but Snowdon was still on cards. Thankfully she is OK, she is still in hospital but is stable.

The beginning of the week for our Snowdon trip was here. It was getting closer and I was getting more excited and more determined. I couldn't wait.

A few days before we were due to go, I was betrayed in the worst way I could ever possibly imagine. In 24 hours, my whole life had been completely flipped on its head because one person decided that their needs were more important than my boundaries. Yet again I found myself in a place of total trauma. I couldn't believe it, I was in total shock, again I couldn't eat, I couldn't think, I didn't know what the hell to do. Later in the day I went to my mums and we went for a walk just so I didn't have to sit around thinking. We realized that this event also meant I now didn't have anyone to look after the kids, so wouldn't be able to go to Snowdon. To be honest I hadn't even thought about it and I didn't really care. I did still have that pull at the pit of my stomach though and this little voice shouting at me, this is exactly why you need to go.

I tried to think of a someone who I could trust to look after the kids and who I wouldn't have to explain everything to, because, fuck that.

I thought that my friend, Laura, might have my daughter because our daughters are friends and have regular sleepovers anyway, but I couldn't ask for both because she has two children of her own and was having birthday celebrations the next day. I had to head home and collect the kids from school, I later got a call from mum saying that my stepdad had offered to have my son, so if I was up to it, Snowdon was still on the cards.

My mum and Laura were an amazing support and ear, and I decided to carry on with our plans in spite of what had happened but it didn't take it away. I still couldn't sleep. I was now scared to sleep anyway and on the times I did drift off I was having nightmares and flashbacks I couldn't stop shaking, I couldn't stop crying. The emotions came in waves that I would periodically drown in. I hated myself again, I wanted to hurt myself again, I tinkered with the idea of ending things, but it was just fleeting. I tried to make sure I didn't get sucked in by the urges and I just tried to put all my thoughts and energy into the trip. Luckily there were some last bits of prep we needed to do, snack shopping ect. It made it easier but I wasn't really looking forward to it now. I knew my underlying feelings and anxiety were going to overshadow it all. It was going to make everything I hadn't feared so far, very scary. And I wasn't convinced that I would get out of it what I needed to now, but still, that pull was there, telling me the opposite, that little voice telling me that couldn't allow this to destroy something that I felt was so important.

It was the morning of our trip, I was nervous, how was I supposed to climb a mountain when I hadn't eaten or slept much at all in days. I did what I needed to and we were on our way. Honestly, all though I hadn't realized it at the time, those feelings had pretty much dissipated by the time we arrived in Wales. We were just eager to get cracking. I was surrounded by such beauty there wasn't time to think of anything else. Before we'd even got to climb the mountain my soul already felt calmer. I'd spent the day with my mum, which although we do spend a lot of time together, it was never like this or for this long, it really was lovely. The sun was shining beautifully and was warm on my skin. I just enjoyed my time without effort and without pressure to change things or to make them better, it just sort of happened naturally. Once every so often my brain checked in with itself and was relieved to not find all the negatives and, unusually, didn't go searching for them either.

I looked like crap, I was around people I didn't know, in a town I didn't know and none of it bothered me and knowing that didn't make me feel uncomfortable either, just slightly bewildered but I just let it be.

In my head this trip was about being at the top of Snowdon watching the sunrise, but it had already become so much more. The climb up was brutal physically but emotionally I felt strong, I'd even go so far as to say I felt powerful. The sunrise at the top of the mountain wasn't the main focus anymore, it was just another fabulous part of my experience. My hopes weren't pinned on making sure that it all happened how I'd envisaged it and when. It just was.

I wasn't caught up in the whats and the whys of anything really. I had fleeting thoughts of what had got me there and every time I felt something that I wasn't used too, or let something go without effort it became more apparent why I was there. Each moment had an internal reply of, 'that's why, Zoe.'

I have spent years of my life trying to find this place inside me. Being taught how to practice mindfulness, to live in the moment and to not try to control where my thoughts were, just be aware of them and let them be. I've tried so hard over the years to put it into practice, over and over again, but it's hard. I have achieved it in very short bursts before returning to my natural way of obsessing and allowing myself to be tormented by things, not that it ever feels like a choice.

As much as it was a running commentary of my trip, looking back now, I see a person I do not know. That person wasn't inhibited around others, she was chatty and not self-conscious before every word she spoke. I see a person who looked like what many would describe as absolute shit, but I didn't care about that either. I saw someone who took everything in her stride and just accepted and let go when things didn't exactly go as planned. It didn't freak her out or make her want to give up, it didn't send her brain into an uncontrollable frenzy like it ordinarily would have. I wasn't trying to be that, there was no effort, or savage words with myself, or force to be that way, it just was. I just was.

What I've realized more than anything, is that THAT was the thing I needed, the thing I was searching for. Yes, it's good to fill your life with beautiful moments and that's exactly what I was doing, but I went searching for something outside of myself only to find what I'd been looking for had been there the whole time, inside, it just need the opportunity to show itself.

They say in life that there can be events and there is your life before those events and your life after those events, this was one of those times. Snowdon showed me some of the most beautiful things I've ever seen, but by far the most beautiful of all the things I saw there, was myself, my true self.

I forget how much i love being with nature. It's easy to do when you spend 90% of your time locked in your house afraid of the outside world, afraid of not knowing where your place in it is, or where it's supposed to be.

In those conversations with Steve, although I understood what he was saying I didn't really feel like I connected with it at the time, and that's because I was too busy living out the bits of me that had become me, rather than the bits that were naturally me.

My reaction to the thought of going for a walk in the rain was totally adverse, in contrast to the thought of climbing a mountain which didn't totally repel me. Its quite the surreal contradiction and then I realized why.

I've always loved nature, it wasn't until after I came home that this actually hit me, to the point where I could have actually slapped myself for being so dense.

When I was a kid I lived with a "family" who wasn't the nicest. I spent my time being locked out of the house come rain or shine, sometimes I'd be confined to the garden in a jumper in the middle of winter, freezing my arse off. One night I was sent outside in my nightie, barefooted, it was dark and absolutely hammering it down with rain, I was freezing and crying, smashing my head off the wall while my little bones quivered. I remember watching the rain blow beneath the light of the lamppost, I remember the smell of the wet tarmac around me, even now when it rains and I get a whiff of that, it takes me back to that night and the memories and the feelings surrounding it. Being outdoors, under those circumstances, made me miserable and that never left me. On the flip side, across the train track from where I lived, there was a place called The Pit. It was acres of land filled with streams and hills and what felt life cliffs, but they probably weren't, I was probably just really small. There were trees everywhere, and little puffy things in the ground that puffed out clouds of green mist if you stepped on them, they were fun although could've been totally poisonous for all I knew. I'd spend days just exploring, adventuring, and playing over there. That was the only place then, that I didn't feel scared. That was where I found freedom, the only place I ever felt truly free, just me and my brother, and sometimes our friends, doing what kids are supposed to be doing, being kids. I haven't felt that freedom since the days of The Pit, that kind of freedom, the freedom of just being. I hadn't really thought about that and the comparisons until now either.

The realization that even as a kid my soul naturally gravitated to nature as a way to just be who I was. No wonder that pull was so great, and no wonder that I had that conflict inside. Snowden was my pit, but 20 years on, and now that I've realized that and experienced that again, I am changed. I'm still the whole messy effort of a human I have always been, but now I'm more, I'm new, I've seen myself. I've experienced just living, just being and just accepting, even right in the middle of trauma and pain. I am capable and, even more importantly, that is who I naturally am, but it got taken away and I was blinded to it. I lost myself, I became a person built up of bits and pieces of what and who everyone else wanted me to be and I'm fucking taking it back.

Im going to carry on finding exactly who it is I am, instead of who I'm 'supposed to be'. I'm going to do what I want and what I need to, regardless of what others think I 'should' be doing.


I know who I am now. I've spent years trying to figure that out and usually, stupidly, I looked for that in the opinions of others, those others were people that did not have my best interests at heart. I can't believe how much I let people convince me of what a shitty person I was. I am NOT a shitty person, fuck you! Fuck every single human being on earth that thinks it is OK to abuse, bully, take advantage, and manipulate anyone. YOU are the shitty person.

I have learned more than is even conceivable, I learned who Zoe is and that actually, she's alright.

And all it took was a random man with a notebook, and me climbing a mahoosive mountain........ Literally and metaphorically.






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