What went right? It’s such a simple question but quite difficult to answer. So much time spent reflecting after being in services is about what went wrong, how things could be improved, where opportunities were missed… It’s incredibly easy to pull countless examples of those things out and dissect them at length for whichever audience is present. But the good things? Not so much

It makes me think about something I realised a few years ago – after so long of being in and out of mental health services I’ve become at ease with talking about the majority of what has gone wrong in my life. I can talk about some truly horrible things I’ve experienced and it not bother me in the slightest. But ask me about something trivial about myself – favourite type of crisp, books I like reading, what makes me laugh – and the barriers will go up. I’m simply not used to talking about the good in my life, what brings me joy

Even when I do talk about the good, I’ll spin it into something negative – I’ll both praise and criticise something in the same breath, be self-deprecating, pretend I hate something I enjoy so it can’t be taken away from me or used as a weapon. If I can make someone laugh in the process, then it’s win-win but often the affect is to make me feel like crap

I asked my boyfriend recently (via text so these are the actual messages) if he thinks I’m capable of being happy

He responded: “Yes but on the occasions you accidently discover you are, it unsettles you markedly for days. Quite the loop”.

I replied, “Would it be fair to say I generate drama to prevent myself from feeling happy?”

His answer: “Maybe to create the familiar and hence known and comfortable. But I think we all have that instinct to create drama”

Why is it after so much interaction with mental health professionals I’m more comfortable with discomfort? Why is it that I can’t sit with happiness? Is this something I should be seeking further help with or will it only exist to create more opportunities to talk about all the occasions I’ve felt sad, and therefore have to dwell on it and continue the “comfortable talking about bad things” cycle? Is it appropriate to be wondering these things in a blog I’m writing for work?

But contained in those words I just typed is the answer to “what went right”. People. It’s the people I have around me now, and some of those who I’ve met along the way, who have made things right…

• It’s my incredibly patient boyfriend who takes me seriously when I ask weird questions about happiness out of the blue
• It’s people who force me to see the things I do well
• It’s the people who call me on my negative attitude and make me allow a crack of happy to shine into my life
• It’s the people who encourage me to be silly and make it safe to drop my guard
• It’s the nurse on the ward when I was waiting for a crisis team assessment who spent her break with me talking about telly and sharing some cake
• It’s the people who encouraged me as a volunteer and made me feel capable, trusted, wanted and valuable
• It’s the people who decided my mental health wasn’t bigger than the good I could do and offered me employment
• It’s the therapist who repeatedly told me that it wasn’t my fault
• It’s the counsellor who never expressed any doubt in what I told her
• It’s the support worker who understood the importance to keep my cats with me when I was homeless and fought to keep us together
• It’s the people who come to me when I believe I’m the worst human on the planet and listen without judgement before telling me all the reasons why I’m wrong
• It’s the people who aren’t like me that give me hope that I could be happy
• It’s the friend offered and drove 30 miles to pick up me and my cat and drove another 30 miles to our new home just because she was happy we were going somewhere I knew we could be safe and where I could build a real life for myself
• It’s the person who dealt with me at my worst and decided to be my friend at the end of it
• It’s the people who included me despite being so different but never made me feel I didn’t belong
• It’s the people who listen and hear me
• It’s the people who stay