The walls of my house

In the first weekend of August, I was lying on my floor after I’d slid down off my chair, shaking and covered in tears feeling like no matter how hard I screamed it wouldn’t be loud enough to change anything. It’s like gasping for air as you’re struggling to stay above water that’s continuously pushing you back under. This wasn’t There’s more for you to read!

My Birthday is a Trigger

Birthdays are supposed to be good days; days that you look forward to and wish to celebrate. I liked my birthday a lot when I was a child. Everyone likes receiving presents, eating cake and celebrating with friends, right? I do too, or I used to, at the very least. However, my birthday has turned into a day of expectations. Birthdays There’s more for you to read!

Why Sport is Good for My and Your (Mental) Health

From the age of three, until I became an adult, my parents insisted that I participate in at least one sport (of my own choice). This meant that I had at least one training session each week next to the two weekly PE sessions in school. When I was three this was dance aerobics as my mum took that class There’s more for you to read!

Suicide

It feels as if a shadow falls on me when I hear that someone has committed suicide. It reminds me that depression does take lives. A few suicides in previous years have particularly stuck with me. As a child, I was a fan of this character in a soap that was portrayed by a Dutch actor, Antonie Kamerling. In 2010, There’s more for you to read!

Sleepless Nights

I complained about the mark I received for my writing project. I wondered about what I’d done wrong. Was this piece of work, really only worth the grade it was given? Was all my work and effort for nothing and is it unfair, or am I simply claiming I’m a better writer than I actually am? I suppose all of There’s more for you to read!

The shame of depression

Today is Saturday, the day on which I was supposed to play Varsity. I am not playing because I cancelled, and I cancelled because my mental health got the better of me. I had fully intended to play Varsity… 1,5 month ago I decided I wanted to play Varsity with the university football team. 1 month ago I played my last There’s more for you to read!

Like Volcanic Ash

It feels like I will never be an adult because my emotions are like the mood of a teenager. I can’t function like everyone else because I never know if I’m going to be ok that day. I can’t ensure that I’ll perform well because I never know if I’ll actually care that day. Who cares about the future? There’s no There’s more for you to read!

Another chance to be happy

Can you imagine that I feel so much pain that if I had a gun right now I would hold it against my head and shoot? Can you imagine that it hurts me even more knowing that I can’t do this? Because I know that pulling the trigger wouldn’t make anything better. Pulling the trigger wouldn’t get me what I There’s more for you to read!

Poorly designed containers

Recently, I did research on representing ‘the unspeakable,’ something that is so terrible (such as the holocaust) that it cannot be represented in literature. Different traumatic experiences can be seen as something ‘ unspeakable’ and the debate as to whether or not it is ethical to represent such an experience is complicated. This is because language often does not do There’s more for you to read!

It will also be okay

There are so many thoughts going through my head that I can’t write them down. It’s like when you are trying to speak but have somehow lost your voice. What if nothing can ever make it stop? And it’s all just covering it up. Just a temporary release? I don’t understand how I can feel so confident and content with There’s more for you to read!

DOWN IT!

‘We’re doing it together; we’re doing it for each other,’ is typically what a team would in the changing rooms before a match. I started off as a tennis player but fell in love with football. Playing football isn’t as lonely as playing tennis since knowing that there are 10 other people on the pitch to support you is reassuring. There’s more for you to read!

A Surge of Panic

I went to a party the other day. It had been a while since I’d gone out and although I felt anxious about going, I’d convinced myself to go no matter what. The first hurdle came with the dress code. The theme was American Frat party, which sounds easy enough, right? Except it wouldn’t have mattered what the dress code There’s more for you to read!

Dissociated ego states

Two weeks ago I felt like what I would usually describe as ‘anxious’ during football training. This week I started reading The Myth of Sanity by Martha Stout, a study in human consciousness that focusses on forgotten trauma, dissociated mental states and multiple personalities in daily life. As I got halfway through the book I started recognising a possible certain altered mental There’s more for you to read!

Staying above the surface

Mentally, I have never felt this great. I’m feeling more confident, I’m happy and I’m starting to believe in myself. You could say there’s not a single cloud on the horizon. I feel like what I always imagined to be normal. Life feels a lot lighter as if she sun has consistently started shining and it shines through in my There’s more for you to read!