I'm Fine

One of the most useful gifts in life is the ability to convince people that you’re happy even when you’re lower than low. When you go through life changing experiences and moments of despair it becomes all too easy to lie to people and hide your true feelings. When my brother was seriously ill, I convinced everyone that I wasn’t scared, that i didn’t think i’d lose him and that i didn’t worry for him every second of the day. In reality i was crying inside, wishing that it was me instead of him, wishing that i could my mum stop crying in the bathroom at 4 in the morning.

He had so many demons, and i could feel every single one just by looking at him, but like me, he convinced everyone that he was fine, even though he didn’t look it. I watched him deteriorate day by day and was too naive to realise the reasons why mum made me wake him up every morning. She was too afraid. She was scared she would walk in his bedroom and find him dead. This thought makes my guts wrench.

Eventually, he was admitted into hospital after being resuscitated in my bathroom late one night. I remember that night far too well… I remember crying and screaming and needing him to wake up, shouting at the paramedic when they carried my brother down stairs and out to the ambulance. That night, i didn’t sleep at all… and the next time i did sleep, i wished it would be for eternity or that i’d wake up and it would all just a be terrible nightmare.

In hospital and throughout his illness my brother managed his emotions and his feelings by writing poetry. He put everything he had into that poetry, it was so powerful and so upsetting to see on paper the pain he was going through but only half as upsetting as seeing him starve himself almost to death previously.

The point i’m trying to get at is, my brother was so sick for so long, but he managed for 3 years to hide it from the world. The only way he expressed himself was through writing. I think along with everything else, the treatment and the therapy, it was writing that saved his life. From him i have taken the ability to put my feelings into words as well as the ability to hide them. When i’m feeling low i find it so easy to put on a brave face and just write it all down at the end of the day, to empty my mind for an hour or two and confide fully in the words i write.

Writing is therapy for me, just like it is for my brother.