Now, if you know me well, then you probably have an idea of how I reacted when I heard that this had been said about ME - me of all people. At first, I think I laughed it off - why would anyone want my life?! Have they any idea what has happened these past few years? Mine is definitely not a life that I would wish on anyone else...... and then I stopped, and took a moment, to just THINK. I have never been the type of person who takes compliments well, more so if I don't believe what has been said myself. But, if I'm being honest here, I have never in my life felt so humbled and undeserving of something said about me. Everyone has their secrets, everyone has those things that they don't choose to share with the world but I guess, here it goes..."I wish I could have Ellen's life! She always seems to be so happy, like she's enjoying herself and having fun all the time. I wish I could have that"
These past few years have perhaps been the hardest years of my life and you might think oh here we go, she's just saying that but what I mean is in terms of what I have had to deal with, push through and at the end of the day, always putting on a brave face, remaining optimistic that everything will get better in the end; telling myself that if I weren't strong enough do deal with these issues then they wouldn't have been put into play. I am not one to hide when someone asks me a question, I will give them an honest answer. I am very opinionated on topics that tiptoe close to my heart and I have learnt that the stigmas that thrive in today's society are often a result of us not talking and being open and honest with each other.
At the beginning of last year, I got diagnosed and hospitalised with having Glandular Fever. (For those of you who have no idea what that is, it essentially a type of viral infection that affects mainly young adults (out of anything it could have been, I know). Whilst most people recover after a couple of weeks, I guess I was the unlucky one, in the sense that it begun to take me months, especially during my last year of high school and especially that because of a lack of understanding and me not being present to defend myself, I had a lot said about me to the extents of being called a "liar", a "skiver", having jokes, if not comments made about me every single day by not just my peers but by teachers I thought I trusted at the time, this was the least of my worries. For me, my main challenge every single day was fatigue - getting out of bed after sleeping for days at a time, sometimes to the extremes of having to be lifted to be moved. To me, it wasn't a joke. To me missing out on all the things I wanted to do, the things I SHOULD have been doing in my last year of high school, the things I thought at the time that I deserved to be doing definitely took their toll.
Let me give you an idea - on my 18th Birthday, instead of celebrating, I had to leave my birthday meal/drinks early because my body couldn't stand even a couple hours of being on my feet. In the beginning, I couldn't leave my house. I was away from my friends and family and there was nothing that I could do. I had never felt more trapped. I missed out on so many things to the point where even my teachers were surprised to learn that I had made the decision to go back to school on a phased return - simply for a couple hours each day and that I still planned to sit my exams, instead of repeating the year, even though I had missed learning so much of the content. I slowly felt that I was beginning to lose myself in the midst of it all. From not being able to perform alongside my best friends in our final performing arts unit, instead falling asleep during their tech rehearsals. From being on the opposite end of common room phone calls, with them keeping me updated on day to day life, crying myself to sleep that I wasn't there with them. I wanted it all to just stop, to go away. What had I done to deserve this?
My stress and frustration never yielded for even just a second, to the point of making myself more and more ill, loosing a lot of weight and causing my mental health to deteriorate each and every single day. I had officially crashed and burned. But I wasn't prepared yet to give in that easily.
I became a different person, someone with a different outlook on life, an outsider to my own world. I tried to go back to school, at the time there was nothing more I wanted than an escape, but to my dismay, I got sent away because I wasn't well enough to be there - and they were right, I wasn't. I think without the incredible support system that I had in place, I would have never gotten back on my feet at all. I made it through my exams. I celebrated on the last day what I hoped was the end of the uphill battle that I had been facing. I went on holiday, I got a tattoo, I did all the things that I had wanted to do. And then results day came and all that hard work (in my head) seemed to have been put to waste when I opened my results to see my grades. I didn't get in. I didn't get in.
The only sentence going through my head for the entire day. I shut myself off. I refused to speak to anyone. My heart was set on a university that gave no care about what I had been through or what I had faced in order to reach this point. I didn't get in. My results were awful. When am I going to stop being such a failure?
As you probably have already guessed, I got there. I survived it... or so I thought. My first term at uni was an absolute blast, better than I could have ever imagined and yet when I returned home for Christmas, all that struggle, the exhaustion I had pushed aside and pretended didn't exist anymore, suddenly began to make sense when my consultant dropped a bombshell on me. I was diagnosed with CFS - chronic fatigue syndrome. To me, it was a relief. It wasn't all in my head. I no longer had to face my fatigue alone. Now I know that you're probably all thinking, what was the point in all that. Why did she bother to tell this story. Was it just for the sympathy vote? Why did she post this? Well, I guess it's to show, I'm not perfect. but then again, neither is anyone else. I didn't get the ending that I had always wanted. I missed out on so much in what is supposedly one of the best years of your life. But I didn't give in. I didn't let one thing, no matter how big it appeared at the time, stop me from getting from A - B. I didn't let people get in my way through listening to their opinions of me, no matter how small. Yes I'm still living with CFS. Yes I am going to rehabilitation therapy for it (god that makes me sound ancient) and No I have absolutely no idea how long I will be affected by it for or why it even affected me in the first place and I guess I won't know for a long time. Yes my mental health went downhill but I SPOKE UP. I did something about it. Yes I will probably be dealing with issues for the rest of my life. But guess what? I am happier. I am in a better place. And that doesn’t change who I am as a person. We don't always show our true selves, like I said in my last blog - maybe it's because we are afraid of the judgement, maybe it's because we are afraid to be different. Not everyone's life is as perfect as it seems from the outside. Each and every person on this planet faces struggles on a day to day basis that they do not show to the outside world. Struggles that they hide with a brave face, pretending that they don't exist in that particular moment.
"Qui Audet Adipiscitur" - She who dares wins.
So yeah, I'm not perfect, but I'm guessing neither are you? We just have to learn to accept ourselves for who we are, who we aspire to be and not let anything get in our way of our dreams. And now to end on a cheesy quote... "I am brave, I am bruised, I am who I'm meant to be, this is me" - Come on, you all saw that coming! (and just for the record, you sang it, didn't you)
xoxo - Gossip Girl (the temptation was too real, I'm sorry!)
Until next time - Ellen x
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