About Me
About Me
Hi there. I’m Alicia and I’m here to share my story of mental illness and recovery to help others, raise awareness and break stigma. I speak a lot about anxiety, depression, and particularly borderline personality disorder. By writing in a raw, messy and non-simplistic way, I want to give people hope about the future and let them know they are not alone.
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A letter to Music

February 14, 2021

Dear Music,


It's been a long time.


A long time since I closed off my heart to you. A long time since I built walls and barricades to protect myself. A long time since numbing out felt a lot easier than facing it all. 


Fear had completely engulfed my life, it's vast blackness shutting out any light desperate to shine through the cracks. Every morning I woke up brimming with anxiety, my fear of failure and not enough-ness spilling out of me in a jittery mess. 


I'd been set up, a cruel joke. Another concert pianist on the production line. I was imprisoned in my own mind, a forceful power haunting my waking hours. I wondered whether I ever really chose you in the first place. I felt completely lost. 


I needed to cut myself off from you completely, to break the chains and snap out of the fear-fuelled trance. But now some time has passed, I realise I've been closing the door to the very thing I need to heal. 


I remember you, my long lost friend. I remember why I fell in love with you, how much joy and good feeling you bring. You taught me how to feel, a wise teacher, a guide through many twists and turns. 


With the gates of self-expression now reopened, I’m learning how to feel again. My soul gently sighs, a huge relief comes over me. 


It’s a funny thing, paradox: you destroyed me and saved me. The very thing that dragged me into darkness has shown the way back into the light. 


And that's what it feels like. I'm coming home, not to who I thought I was but to who I really am. Unlike it's shaky foundations of the past, this house is solid and safe. It’s doors swung open wide like out-stretched arms, ready to embrace every part of who I am. And the best thing about this new home? It's a place where music is an expression of who I am, rather than a yard-stick for my self worth. And one where I can truly be myself, that I can always, always return to.


In the words of Selena Gomez, I needed to lose you to find me. 


Yours, with love
Alicia x

















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The wonders of walking

July 28, 2020



Hello all, it's been a while! Today I have a cheery post (for once - woo!) I've recently taken up walking, and the benefits for my mental health have been SO amazing I couldn't help but share it with you.
 
Rewind to a couple weeks back, and I was having a really terrible morning. OK, most mornings are pretty difficult to be honest, as I often wake up brimming with anxiety, feeling very on edge, a big knot in my chest. Mornings tend to be when my harsh self-critic says horrible stuff to me too, like "You're not good enough unless you're highly successful. What are you doing with your life? You should be doing more, more, more." Or some version of that. Some days I sort of half-successfully ignore the anxiety and try to get on with my day. Other days it's so debilitating, I collapse in a heap on the floor in tears. And of course, there's everything in-between. 

My mornings have been like this for years, which has over time created a negative loop I previously thought was impossible to break. I wake up feeling anxious, which then creates more anxiety about being anxious every morning, so then because I know it's coming I pre-empt it, then the whole cycle begins again etc! It's been such a huge problem for me, as starting the day off so negatively makes it super hard to have a good, or an even OK, day. I'll also add here that I work as a freelance musician, so my mornings are mostly work-free spent around the house.
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Understanding bpd:
chronic emptiness

July 5, 2020


Today I'm going to explore another BPD symptom: 

Chronic feelings of emptiness 


It wasn't until I was officially diagnosed that I realised I've been feeling empty for a long time. Up until then, I thought my feelings of emptiness were a symptom of depression. BPD is often tricky to diagnose and understand in ourselves because it can often co-exist with other mental health problems, such as anxiety and depression. With the help of Dialectic Behavioural Therapy, I've recently began to learn how to label different thoughts and feelings using mindfulness.


Living with feelings of emptiness is a really painful part of the disorder for me personally. It feels similar to the sensation of hollowness in my body, mind and heart. It's like I'm physically present, but dead on the inside. I have a body, but there's nobody home. At times it can feel overwhelming and suffocating; other times I just feel numb. During my darkest times, I felt empty almost daily for months on end, but through my own self-discovery and therapy, it’s began to gradually ease. An essential part of my healing is developing a stronger sense of Self, which means becoming more secure in, and accepting of, who I am (click here to read my post on BPD identity disturbance). Digging deep into the murky shadows of my psyche, I'm beginning to confront my feelings of deep shame, self-judgment and self-hatred that I've carried with me for a lot of my life.
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Time to bust those stigmas!

June 7, 2020


Welcome back to another post as part of my BPD Awareness Series running throughout May and June. Unfortunately, BPD is one of most stigmatised mental illnesses, especially given that a lot of people have never heard of the disorder (click here to read my post explaining what it actually is). I've recently written about a few symptoms I struggle with, but today I want to tackle some of the misinformed stigmas surrounding the disorder.

One of the most common misconceptions about people with BPD is that they are dramatic, aggressive, attention-seeking and untreatable. If this isn't bad enough, after a quick Google I was also shocked to read the most popular searches:
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10 facts about bpd

June 5, 2020


1. In the UK, around 7 in every 1000 people have BPD.

2. About 1 in 10 people with BPD die from suicide.

3. About 1.6% of the American population have BPD, which is over 14 million people. 

4. 75% of people diagnosed with BPD are women.

5. BPD is often misdiagnosed; a recent study suggests over 40% of people with BPD have been previously misdiagnosed with other disorders like bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder.
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Understanding bpd:
identity disturbance

June 4, 2020


Today, I want to share my own experiences of another BPD symptom as part of my BPD Awareness Series throughout May and June. I've already spoken about the fear of abandonment that affects many people with BPD, which you can read here. The next symptom I want to talk about is...

Identity disturbance: Markedly or persistently unstable self-image or sense of self

Those with BPD usually have a very unstable identity or sense of self. Obviously, a lot of people without BPD can struggle with identity issues too but it's usually more profound in those with BPD.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been crippled by fear, paralysed by indecision, and trapped by over-thinking. It feels like I'm trying to walk on moving plates that are constantly shifting beneath me, impossible to find a secure footing. I’ve felt lost and numb, disconnected from myself and the world around me, a question mark over my existence. When I've managed to get these feelings out into my journal, I drew myself as a scared, silent little girl with sellotape over my mouth, and a huge 'X' over my very existence. 

If you've ever asked yourself 'Who am I?' then you might be struggling with your identity too. Most experts define identity as the overall view of yourself and your place in the world. Your identity is made up of your beliefs, strengths, weaknesses, personality, temperament, attitudes, history, behaviour, knowledge, opinions, and roles. It's the glue that holds all the different aspects of yourself together. A stable sense of identity means viewing yourself as the same person in the past, now, and in the future. It also means you are able to view both your positive and negative traits at the same time.

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