A shadow of my former self

This month, in recognition of World Mental Health Day , I’ll be sharing 30 snippets from my book, All My Heroes Are Weirdos.

It’s a story about a lot of things; about love and life and dreams, but more than anything, it’s a story about how I lost my mind, and how I found it again – hidden where it had always been. A mind that went from one of great strength and assertion to one of complete and utter weakness; a deluded, tortured mind.

It’s about a journey I went on, a trillion serendipitous moments that on their own look like a series of tiny coincidences, yet, as the story unfolds, every star emanates in the form of a character, a glance, a smile, a word uttered, a move made, a feeling felt and all play a role in this clever little script that is life.

When I woke up in the mornings, my head was so heavy I could barely lift it up off the pillow. I’d keep my eyes tight shut and reach for my phone, pressing snooze on the alarm for as long as I could. One eye would peel open, then the other, blinded by the garish light of a new day. The weight of the world would fall down upon me and I’d pull the covers up over my face for just one more snooze.

I’d begun to understand the true meaning of that saying, ‘a shadow of my former self’. There was nothing left but the bareness of me; a fleshless, loveless, lifeless skeleton, standing amongst the rubble of my life with a look of desperation strewn across my exhausted little face. I no longer knew what love was, or who I was for that matter.