Week 1

Direct Copy & Paste from Twitter.

For those who have happened to stumble across this page from somewhere other than twitter, I thought I’d provide a little bit of context.

13 weeks ago I got home at 3am after 3 cocaine and alcohol fueled benders in four days over the Easter Long Weekend.

This is when it hit me, what I’d known deep down for some time, was real, here to stay and wasn’t going to go away on it’s own. I knew it was time, I HAD to act on it. I’d dragged it along too long, lying to myself, convincing myself it would fix it’s self. It was never going to. It doesn’t. That isn’t how it works.

This is the tweet that started it all…

When i woke up in the morning, feeling like dog shit, I started flicking through my phone. I saw I had a few twitter notifications. Instantly, I remembered what I had tweeted. I had a rush of dread and anxiety instantly. That was until I read the replies.

People were, and are amazing. Here’s a guy who is complaining about something that he is literally doing to himself. Yet people supported me. I didn’t understand it. But it was a fuckin’ great feeling.

Through the exchanges in the replies, it was reinforced to me that talking about this stuff helps, everyone.

The next week I felt compelled to retweet the original tweet to let everyone know how I was going, because they showed genuine concern for my welfare, I felt I owed it to them. I didn’t want people worrying about be unnecessarily.

So I did it, a retweet with an update. I wanted to mention that I’d been sober for the week because I wanted people to know that I was serious. At the time, that was a fuckin’ big deal to me.

Again, I was shocked to see such a positive response. Others discussing their own mental health battles on my post! I thought, “Could I… possibly be helping people?”

As good as that was, and somewhat selfishly, I realised that I was the greatest beneficiary of all. I found the process so very cathartic. Essentially using Twitter as a mental health journaling platform that might just help someone else at the same time.

So that’s when I thought, fuck it, I’m gunna do this shit every week and that’s how I got started.

I’ll directly copy and paste each weeks thread as it’s own newsletter, if I can find them all…

Here’s week 1…

#MentalHealth Thread

: I tweeted this a little over a week ago around 3am. At the end of a 3rd massive night in 4 days. This year has been and still is probably the toughest year of my life. I’ve been resorting to self destructive coping mechanisms all year.

Ultimately, this just makes things worse. It just adds more anxiety and stress onto the weight on my shoulders. I had a bit of. A breakdown that night but also a realisation. The next morning I woke up and felt a sense of relief that I had finally accepted that I am struggling.

I don’t believe I ever truly will be, mental health, like physical health, is something that must be maintained. I’ve been neglecting mine. Each day though, I feel a little bit better about myself, I gain a tiny bit more mental clarity.

That in its self is motivation enough, for now, for me to get up the next day and try again. I just wanna thank those who reached out to me last week. I want you guys to know that I’m working really hard at giving myself the best opportunity to pull myself out of this.

Im grateful you all and for all that I have. And thanks everyone for putting up with my constant tweets. Verbalising my thoughts and feelings is cathartic for me and it truly helps. I think more people could benefit from doing the same. Anyway, let’s stretch tomorrows ears…