by Genevieve Lowles

It was a Friday in May when I made the phone call. A bright and dusty morning, I’d just passed the crowded entrance of Stockwell tube station in London.

There are so many people, full of direction and purpose. I’m on the way to work, because it’s 8:30 in the morning, and that’s what I do at that time.

My head is full of voices, wordless chattering and the sound of my own uneven breathing. It churns together in white noise. I’m walking to work, because that’s what I have to do.

A flash of instinct: You should walk in front of that bus.

I don’t know why I would do that. But equally, why would I not? Why would I do anything?

I am walking to work. My legs are driving me forward but I’m not sure how I’m coordinating the movement.

Surely I shouldn’t feel like this? Am I allowed to think that?

If you walk in front of this bus, it won’t matter. Nothing matters. You can do it if you want.

You probably should.

Some part of me knows this isn’t right. Knows that I can’t have those words manifest out of me. Not those words.

I take out my phone and dial the number for my GP. The freckled hand gripping the mobile phone looks alien, and I wonder whose it is. I speak for the first time since last night and ask for an urgent appointment to discuss my mental health.

I hear my voice across time, a crackling loop-back. It is stiff and flat, and I can’t believe what I am saying.

“I think I’m having suicidal thoughts. I think I might want to hurt myself. Nothing makes sense and my body feels really far away. I think I need help.”

I am given an appointment for the following Monday. I put the phone down and carry on walking to work.

The first day of the rest of your life

It’s been just over a year since that phone call. Reflecting on that morning, I feel a surge of pride for the young woman taking that first step. It was a very long time coming.

I’ve since spoken with three different counsellors: two through the National Health Service (NHS), and the third through a low-cost counselling initiative. If I add up every minute, it’s just over 24 hours of therapy.

Doesn’t sound like a lot, does it? But those 24 hours make up the most important day of my life.

A few hours after I made that phone call, I was curled up in a lovely little ball on the floor of the disabled toilets at my office, unable to stop crying.

And when I say crying I mean death-of-the-Pharoah-pulling-out-the-hair-and-wailing-into-the-desert bawling. It was an exodus, a great flood, a breaking of the dam that had barely been holding back last night’s tsunami.

It involved a good friend, feelings I couldn’t forgive myself for, and quiet words that were so gentle, I only felt the rejection after I closed the door behind me.

It was simply the latest in a long list of hurts I had never processed. It wasn’t the slicing agony of finding out one of my closest friends had died, nor the bubbling panic of hearing that my parents were splitting up.

But the pain I felt that day and in the months afterward was just as valid. It deserved the same amount of tenderness and time that the other wounds did. I just didn’t know that yet.

“Everyone turn to the person next to you…”

During my assessment the following Monday (Do I really need help? Could things have been that bad when I called them? Do I really want to waste this professional’s time?) I was assigned to group therapy.

Group therapy did not go well.

I expected a circle of chairs in a dimly-lit community hall. Confessions and breakthroughs shared in low voices. Approving nods from the group leader, an unshakable woman in a tasteful shawl and thick-rimmed glasses.

In the first five minutes of the Stress and Worry Workshop, the group leader instructed us to turn to the person next to us and share why we were here.

I thought I would perhaps throw up. I barely had any idea why I was there myself. But I had to try.

Two women who were sat beside me turned to introduce themselves. They were nice.

The older lady explained that she was feeling anxious since her return to work after a long period of illness. We nodded sympathetically, and the second woman spoke.

She had just ended a long-term relationship, and with two young children to raise she was feeling depressed and unable to sleep. “That’s a lot to cope with,” I might have said, “It’s a good job you’re getting some support.”

Then it was my turn. In the words of Eminem, my knees were weak and my palms were most definitely sweaty.

“I’m just in a bit of a hole, I think. I keep feeling really worried about stuff, and I guess I’m a bit less interested in stuff than I was. I want to feel a bit more focused and a bit less depressed. I guess it was triggered by a thing with a guy a little while ago which wasn’t serious or anything, but was still a bad time for me.”

Not the most eloquent expression of self, but good for a first try.

The older woman nodded and smiled with secret knowledge. “That’s just your age, darling. You are about 20, yes?”

I’m 27, but…

“And it is like that at your age, you will grow out of it.”

My body flooded with shame. I knew I didn’t deserve to be here. I smiled and nodded, and the second woman chipped in.

“What’s your star sign?”

Really?

“Erm, I’m July, so Cancer.”

She leaned in and grinned broadly. “Oh yeah, that’s like me, I’m Cancer too! It’s just because of your star-sign, babe, we can’t help getting like that sometimes.”

I nodded agreeably. Luckily, I was too numb to bury my face into my new Cognitive Behavioral Therapy exercise book and begin sobbing.

They were both kind women just trying to offer me an explanation. They were just being nice.

Talking to people about sensitive subject matter is usually something I’m quite good at; it’s my job. But I wasn’t at work. I wasn’t with family, or friends, or people who had known me for more than 30 seconds.

I was in therapy, and I’d never been more afraid of anything in my life.

I didn’t speak again in that session, nor the following three.

The sense of failure was absolute. There was no language in me yet to describe how I was feeling or why.

The classes taught the basics of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and although I learned how to de-escalate a panic attack, I still had no idea why they were happening in the first place.

At the time, it felt like masking the symptoms instead of treating the cause. Worse, it was teaching me that these feelings were now an intangible part of me.

No tissues required

I asked for help again despite being sure I was unworthy, haunted by the memory of that voice serenely urging me in to walk into traffic.

It propelled me into a small GP office, to sit in a comfortable blue chair with square armrests in front of a woman called Bridget. I would later find out that Bridget was a highly qualified psychotherapist; I just saw a very nice, softly-spoken lady whose eyes crinkled up in the corners when she smiled.

Bridget helped me find the words to describe the experiences I squirreled away in the back of my brain. She said things like “That must have been quite difficult” and “That doesn’t sound silly to me” and “What does the voice that tells you to hurt yourself sound like?”

Nothing ground-breaking, and despite the box of tissues sensitively left to hand, no eruption of sobbing.

Just a bit of honesty, in a place where I felt safe. By talking out loud, I began to hear how often I undermined my own feelings. My favorite catchphrase was: “Sorry, it sounds really pathetic but…”

And it was the first time I’d hear someone tell me that “Adult life is very hard. It’s OK that we sometimes struggle.”

My inner child is wearing a very strange hat

If Bridget talked me off the edge in those six sessions, then Beatrice challenged me to think about how I’d got there. My second therapist was a cool, black-clad woman who smiled like a cat and encouraged me to be kind to myself.

We spoke about the inner-child, and she asked what I would say to my 13-year-old self. I responded with something flippant about warning her off from wearing so many ridiculous hats to school.

Beatrice blinked slowly and asked me: “Why are you so cruel to Genevieve? She is very small and in pain, do you not want to comfort her?”

I came face to face with my softest and most vulnerable self; the very young girl who was trying her best in the face of her parents’ divorce, emotional abuse at school, and shockingly low self-esteem.

If I couldn’t give her compassion, did I still expect the acceptance and love of other people could compensate?

And I could at the very least congratulate her on the wearing of silly hats to school.

Work to be done

Later that year, I was crying in a disabled bathroom. Again.

I was at a wedding surrounded by some of my best friends, and they were all in love. In love with the kind, gorgeous and perfectly-suited people they’d brought with them—husbands, fiancés, boyfriends, girlfriends.

I was so happy for them.

But that bloody voice again…

They can be in love, but that isn’t something you can ever have.

Come on, I’m at a wedding! I just want to drink free prosecco! I want to wear the oversized sunglasses and pose in the photo-booth with my friends! I want to make sure I look happy so no one pities me for being alone!

Love isn’t for you. You’re not enough. And your desperation for it is disgusting.

I just don’t want my friends to think of me as the one who’s always crying. Please…

You are a curse.

Surely no one thinks that?

You should hurt yourself.

I was so scared, but more than that I was afraid the voice was right.

A few days later, I called The Samaritans during a difficult time at work and had another panic attack. A lovely man called Phil with a soft Cornish accent helped me focus my breathing as I sobbed down the phone, apologizing again and again for wasting his time, for being so pathetic.

Maybe I had more work to do.

Taking my time

On the second Monday of January 2018, I shook hands with a woman called Emma and sat down in softly lit, cream colored room.

This was paid therapy, which I’d been able to access due to a low-cost option. Unlike my other two counsellors, I’d “picked” Emma from a selection of staff bios.

She looked very kind, and mentioned that she loved to write. A good start.

Emma was patient and clever, and she let me make make her laugh when I was feeling uncomfortable. Bonus!

We took our time. I began to release my grip on the things I had held back before.

The self-hatred for having suicidal thoughts when I’d mourned people I loved and looked up to, who’d acted on theirs. The eating disorder which had crept up in the past year. The deep, vivid shame I felt for coveting romantic love. The feeling of anger, which was completely new to me.

It’s getting better all the time

Slowly, all those words loosened the burdens I’d been carrying.

One afternoon, I spent an hour after work crying over a friend who had died a few years ago, missing him immensely. Then I wiped my eyes and went about the rest of my evening. I didn’t need to be paralytic with drink and wailing at a bus stop at three in the morning to mourn him.

Months later, I was sitting at my desk when I realized I felt lighter than I ever had in my life. I was overwhelmed by a sense of peace and safety, and dashed to the bathroom just as the tears started to spill. I was my own greatest protector, advocate and source of love. I sat on the toilet seat and cried tears of joy into a handful of two-ply.

Not too long ago, I enjoyed several enormous pizzas with my sisters. Afterwards, I did not sneak to the bathroom to lean over the toilet bowl and stick my fingers down my throat. I thought about it, but I didn’t do it.

Small, precious victories.

A tool in your arsenal

It’s been over a year since I made that phone call.

One of my biggest fears going into this process was that I was secretly looking for a cure. The elation of each breakthrough had been dizzying. What about when those eureka moments dried up?

I was afraid that I was simply looking to be fixed, because objectively I knew this wasn’t what therapy was about.

I would feel the same as when those two women at the Stress and Worry Workshop told me that there was nothing I could do to change how I was feeling. That’s just the way it is, just a random assignation like which star sign you happen to be

I came in one Monday convinced I was done. Finished. Ready.

I launched into a monologue of my successes: Boundary-setting! More self-compassion! No more panic attacks!

And a new voice that pipes up to soothe, uplift and protect. It tells me I am worthy, that I deserve safety and happiness. It reminds me that the other voice is a fucking liar when it tells me I should die.

Why would I need to keep doing therapy?

Plus, I was tired. I was scared that if I kept talking we would just keep finding problems. I was afraid of it ending, but even more afraid of carrying on.

But I owed it to myself to see, to trust myself. We decided on four or five more sessions, and I found immense comfort in Emma’s reassurance that I could extend that at any time.

“It’s a tool in your arsenal now, you can come back to it at any time in your life.”

The final revelation.

“In the last two weeks, have you experienced thoughts of suicide?”

In my final session with Emma, I filled in the same form I used to complete at the beginning of every NHS-allocated therapy session. I saw the question which asks whether you’ve had thoughts of suicide or made plans to end your life in the last two weeks.

I remembered when I ticked “yes.” I considered what it would mean to tick that box again in the future.

Maybe I would. But I am different than the woman who walked to work while idly considering stepping into traffic. I have a secret knowledge.

I know there will always be people like Emma or Beatrice or Bridget, and places where I can open a line of communication with myself again. A safe place where I can sift through trauma, cultivate kindness, and learn to live alongside the chaos of the universe.

Adult life is hard sometimes and bad things happen for no reason. It’s OK to struggle. You are doing your best.

Rooms like those will always be there. It’s a door I’ve closed for now, but it will never be locked.

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Genevieve Lowles is a writer, editor and children’s book illustrator who would probably be very excited to talk to you. She’s currently Writer/Editor at a national healthcare charity in the UK. She also edits Never Say No to Metal, a blog about metal music.

She can often be found halfway up a climbing wall, swimming in the Thames (the bit you’re allowed to swim in), and picking long, ginger hairs off her clothes and furniture.

You can follow her on Instagram, if you fancy.