Beneath The Bottle

  • When The Devil Holds You

    When The Devil Holds You

    Prim and proper. That phrase haunts me. It feels centuries old; something from a period drama where women never spoke out of turn. Yet it’s one my mam lived by. You didn’t ever stray from the structure. Behaviour was to be impeccable, and she never needed to ask or tell me; a look was enough to send surges of fear through me.

    My early years were defined by strict reprimands and heinous punishments. By the age of six, maybe seven, I knew my place well enough to be trusted never to put a foot wrong. Now, I see the hypocrisy in her ways; abiding by strictness, towing the line, yet her behaviour was far from ordinary.

    And this, I believe, is where my inability to ask for help began. Because of it, my current life feels compromised in more ways than I can count.

    I’ve now done four weeks in AA; thirty meetings in twenty-eight days. And still I’m afraid to come off the floor and share. This last week has been especially hard. Depression has kept me muted, and aside from attending meetings, I’ve wanted to be alone. That isn’t healthy.

    I’m reminded, don’t pick up that first drink. Ring someone. Speak to someone. Yet I’m too afraid, too scared. Fear compounded by a lifetime of hurt and control. It’s easy to say, “you’re not there anymore.” I know that. But while the rational part of my mind understands, the rest of me stays in high alert. Trauma cohabits my body.


    As I move further away from alcohol as my crutch, I’m beginning to understand what that means. Trauma really does live inside me, controlling my behaviour in ways that still shock me. It doesn’t always roar; sometimes it just chips away quietly. Yesterday I stood looking at a small cliff edge carved and reshaped by the sea, and it struck me how much it mirrored the human body and mind. The constant pull, the relentless waves, they don’t destroy all at once, they erode slowly, year after year, until the shape that remains is something both fragile and fierce.

    But how do you remove years of condemnation, hatred, negativity, and physical pain? How do you learn to trust, when you’ve never had a safe example to follow? Learning to trust without ever seeing what trust looks like feels like a kamikaze exercise. Why would someone so deeply damaged ever risk it?

    Today spiralled quickly. By mid-afternoon I was scared; afraid of what I might do to myself. I’d already self-harmed, and the desire to hurt myself again pressed hard. That’s where my problems become even more difficult. I can’t pick up the phone to tell someone where my thoughts are taking me.

    There are days when words feel too small for the weight they’re meant to hold.
    I struggle to find the language to tell anyone just how hollow I feel.
    It’s easier to stay silent than risk feeling like too much, too heavy, too broken.

    My mam’s voice still lives in me. “No one will ever help you like your parents, never trust anyone.”
    She said it to keep me compliant, small, afraid.
    And though she was never someone I could trust with my safety, I learnt to cling to her anyway because when the devil holds you, it still feels like being held.

    My resolve eroded in those minutes, but with reluctance, I did ring the crisis team. Is it savage to resent that? My past experiences haven’t been positive, but I told myself, at least they’re paid to listen to my shit. That was the only grace that made me pick up the phone.

    Sitting outside my son’s school, I waited as the automated voice counted down the queue. In a way, I hoped I’d have to hang up before someone answered. But just as I moved to end the call, a woman’s voice came through. I spent ten minutes trying to form the jumble of emotions in my head into something that might make sense to a faceless stranger.

    To her credit, she was kind. She sounded genuinely caring and wanted me to speak to a nurse. The call ended with a promise that someone would ring me later in the day.

    The walk to pick up my six-year-old hurt. The responsibility, it mirrored the compliance of childhood. My children need me, and I’m bound by that. There’s no outlet to mess up. No room for mistakes.

    Whatever I’ve done to myself; be it self-harm or alcohol abuse, I’ve always done it quietly, still trying to be the perfect parent. The one who smiles through adversity and copes like everyone else seems to. Tied by responsibility and the fear of letting others down, I’ve forced myself to always show up for my kids. They go to school, to appointments, to everything they love. I have the patience of a saint. When they’re angry, I stay kind. When they’re naughty, I meet them at their level and we talk.

    My need to show up, to stop the legacy from repeating, means punishing myself with responsibility, leaving no space for personal mistakes. That’s become its own prison.

    Wiping my eyes for what feels like the millionth time over the years, I smiled the moment I saw my son. His innocence, his love for life, that’s when the guilt hits hardest. I am grateful. I’m blessed with beautiful children. But I’m also so very tired; mentally, physically, emotionally.

    To keep my son’s world intact, I ask about his day, and as his words wash over me, the pain sits dormant, not gone, just waiting. It’s dutiful. Subservient. My children come first. Even if that means I have to suffer.

    I’m trapped in responsibility. It’s simply not okay for me to quit. I can’t bear the thought of disappointing my children if I stopped being “Superwoman.” Showing vulnerability feels immoral, forbidden. Those patterns of childhood, people-pleasing, hiding pain, masking overwhelm, run through everything. I’ve become almost immortal to my own reality.

    The nurse did ring me back. I had to speak briefly, awkwardly, with my daughter beside me. Even though her understanding is limited, I hate exposing any part of my vulnerability in front of my children, so perhaps I didn’t express myself as clearly as I meant to.

    The outcome of that call confirmed what I already feared, that it wasn’t worth the stress of reaching out. The nurse told me I had to find better ways to cope because more bad things will happen in life, and what I was doing wouldn’t help.

    I admired his honesty. But will I call them again if I feel suicidal? No, never.

    Was I angry with him? Not really. I was angry with myself, for wasting his time, for having unhelpful coping strategies, for needing to reach out at all. My anger always turns inward. I’m angry because I’m not worth the fight.

    I’m angry because I’m not good enough. And though I’d never use the nurse’s tone or words, I understand why I feel like a drain on people’s reserves.

    So as that anger turned inward once more, I hurt myself again.

    It wasn’t strength, and it wasn’t weakness, it was survival, in the only way I knew. Not out of self-pity, but from a place I’m still trying to unlearn, the only kind of release I was ever taught.

    I’m not proud of it, but it’s not the end of the story either.

    This space isn’t about perfection. It’s about honesty; about finding the courage to sit with what hurts and still believe that something softer might grow from it. I used to think strength meant pretending it didn’t hurt. Now I know it’s allowing the ache to exist without letting it drown me. Trust still feels far away, but maybe that’s okay for now.

  • When The Words Wont Come

    When The Words Wont Come

    Where do you go when you can’t pick up the phone?

    When asking for help feels impossible, when it’s easier to curl up in a ball, crying and begging some unseen force to save you from a pain that no one can see or measure.

    How do you move past the deep unworthiness that sits inside, that lack of self-regard? Even if reaching out for help were possible, those professionals can’t fix me or cure me. That has to come from within.

    But even when every part of me wants to feel human, to live as others manage, to do the simple everyday things that are taken for granted, the pain swells through my body. The darkness creeps in, and before I know it, my whole being feels tormented. Tortured by fear, pain, loss, and a longing to belong somewhere in a world full of people.

    My favourite one-liners are “I’m ok” and “I’m fine.” I hide behind them as though they’re twenty-foot walls made of reinforced steel. The hurt hides behind my smile, the pain sinks beneath the laughter with friends. I throw myself into supporting others, being the shoulder to cry on, the hand to hold, the comfort in someone else’s despair. It’s easier to show up for others than to admit how drained I feel inside.

    Because the truth is, the life within me feels like it has been quietly draining away. That all too familiar feeling of severe depression looms again, ready to steal what little hope I have left.

    Tears come easily these days.

    Today, I went to see a potential home for my daughter, a supported-living place that on the surface seemed ideal. But the area held too many painful memories for me. And the thought of her moving away, of leaving the only family she’s ever known, broke me. The decisions I have to make rest so heavily on my shoulders.

    For context, my daughter is twenty-three. She has severe learning disabilities and autism. She cannot read or write, she needs one-to-one support all the time, has no awareness of danger, and needs to be kept safe. She lives at home with me and her brothers, but her attachment to me is so intense that she struggles to let anyone else close. She doesn’t tolerate her brothers being near me. They can’t sit on my chair, touch my phone or computer, or hug me. We live in a constant state of anxiety, fear, and stress. A move is urgently needed, but she’s my daughter. It has to be as positive as possible, and the transition will be so hard.

    Tonight, I sit here trying to find the words, but they feel out of reach. My creativity feels distant, like a friend who’s stopped answering the door. I’m left questioning myself again, wondering whether I still have something worth saying.

    Music has been my thin blanket tonight, fragile but comforting all the same. I’ve been listening to All I Ever Am by The Cure. Their music evokes so much emotion; it always seems to mirror exactly what I’m feeling, the struggle to find a sense of self. There’s a song for everything, every mood, every emotion. I speak to people through music. The power it holds is immense. Without it, I don’t think I’d survive. It’s the only thing that can lift me from a depth of no return.

    So tonight, I sat alone. Music playing, tears flowing. Somewhere deep inside, I wished the pain spreading through me would stop before it consumed everything. The thought of going on brought fresh tears, fresh pain.

    Another day.

    But we only ever have one day, today.

    Yesterday has already gone. Tomorrow hasn’t yet happened.

    Today is the beginning, not the end.

    And so, I write. Even through the doubts, even when the words feel small. I write in the hope that reflection might offer a little light. A flicker of something that still believes that maybe, just maybe, I can keep going.

    If you’re reading this and any of it feels familiar, please know you’re not alone. There is always someone willing to listen, even when it feels impossible to reach out.

    In the UK, you can call Samaritans on 116 123 (free, 24 hours a day), or text “SHOUT” to 85258 to message with someone who will listen quietly, without judgment.

    Sometimes the smallest act, a message, a word, a song, can keep the light alive a little longer.

  • I Didn’t Drink Tonight

    I Didn’t Drink Tonight

    It’s strange how the weather can hold so many memories within the mind. As easily as the soaking rain can drench you through, the way the sky looks, the smell of the air, and the way light glances across the horizon can pull you back into a place you thought you’d left behind.

    This evening, the sun flowed red across the sky. A bright, fiery ball sat above the landscape as if it were watching over everything, shining its light across the last dregs of the day.

    But as I stood and watched the sunset tonight, sorrow filled my heart. The mid October chill that spread through the air clung to me, pushing my thoughts to another time. The temperature, the sun, the blueness of the sky, the way the clouds tinged with a threatening pink, it all brought back a flashback so intense, so untimely.

    Memories, even the darkest ones, have a way of resurfacing in the quiet moments of ordinary life. This evening was no different. It was mid October, the air cool, the sky heavy with fading light. I was twelve again. The sky looked the same as it did then, and that’s when it hit me, the first night my dad came to my room. Every year, around this time, the sunset brings it back.

    I remember standing at my window, looking through the thin net curtain, the world outside washed in that same pale orange light. The cool breeze that had found its way through my open window from that day brushed against my skin tonight as I watched the sky through the transparency of the trees. The imprint of the sky, an echo that ricochets through time. Then his voice behind me, low and certain: “This is all women are good for.” His breath warm against the back of my neck.

    Later I sat alone in the bathroom, the sun gone, shadows claiming the rooms. The sting, the blood, bright red against white tissue. I turned it toward the dim light, afraid to switch it on, afraid of being found. Fear kept me there, hostage to the dark.

    That night, I lost more than blood, more than tears. I lost something I could never reclaim, something I could never give again.

    And so tonight, the pain hit again, as it does almost every year since. In the past, I drank — drank to numb, drank to cope, drank to hide the shame. But tonight I didn’t. Tonight I stood firm. My sobriety needs to remain resolute, because without it, my healing will forever remain stuck in the shadows of the past.

    Tonight my heart is breaking. It aches in a way that words can barely reach. The memories, the longing, the exhaustion of holding it all together; it feels unbearable at times. There’s a part of me that still wants to numb it, to make it stop, to reach for the drink that always promised silence. But I know now that silence isn’t the same as peace. So I sit here, heart breaking, hands trembling, but still sober. Because even in this pain, I know it’s the only way through.

    So instead, I went to my cupboard. Piles of old books that I used to read to the kids sat peacefully, mismatched and waiting. Slowly, I went through each one, knowing what I was looking for, what I needed. Eventually, I found it. The book was still in perfect condition. Of all the stories, I’d always hated this one the most. The kids would ask for it, and my heart would sink. We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.

    The book that teaches you that you can’t go over it, and you can’t go under it; you have to go through it. To face the reality of those words while sober felt like one of the hardest things I will ever have to do. But tonight, instead of picking up a drink, I picked up a book and read it aloud, reminding myself of what must be done.

    Healing doesn’t come in waves of light or sudden moments of peace. It begins quietly, in the stillness of the same places that once held your pain. Tonight, I didn’t run or hide. I stood beneath a sunset that mirrored the worst night of my life and stayed there long enough to let it pass through me. Sometimes healing isn’t about forgetting; it’s about standing in the memory and choosing to live differently this time.

  • A Quiet Win

    A Quiet Win

    Tonight I found a small moment of gratitude in one of the places I least expected it; mid-game.

    Gaming has always been my escape. When I’m sitting at my PC, headphones on, everything else fades out. The noise in my head quiets for a while, and I can just be. I get competitive, I lose myself, and sometimes I even surprise myself with what I can do.

    Tonight, a random player; someone who doesn’t know me, my story, or anything about my life, called me a really good player. It’s not the first time that’s happened, but for some reason, this one stuck. It was just a few words spoken over the microphone, but it felt genuine. Real.

    In real life, when someone I know gives me a compliment, I usually find a way to twist it in my head. I convince myself they’re just being kind, or saying what they think I need to hear. But when it’s from a stranger, someone who has no reason to lie or soften the truth, it lands differently. It feels honest. It feels earned.

    It’s strange, isn’t it? How validation from someone who doesn’t know us can sometimes carry more weight than from those who do. Maybe because it’s unfiltered, free from history, expectation, or obligation. Just one person acknowledging another.

    So tonight, I’m grateful. For a game that lets me lose myself. For a stranger’s words that reminded me I might actually be good at something. And for that small, quiet feeling that maybe, just maybe, I don’t have to question every bit of kindness that comes my way.

  • When Insecurity Wakes First

    Now it feels like a real-time diary entry. Not that I’m apologising. I’m using this space to talk about things that may just all of a sudden come up. It’s a space for me to unapologetically write what’s on my mind in the moment. A safe place to help keep myself accountable while sitting in reflection about the part I played in the whole thing.

    This morning has only lasted two and a half hours so far, as I write this at 10:00 a.m. But already it’s been enough to make me cry, to make me doubt my sanity, to crave an alcoholic drink just to cope. And quite frankly, nothing of any real significance has happened. It has all manifested from my own insecurity, my own inability to rise above the mediocre, that has made today, so far, unbearable.

    For some bizarre reason, in the whirlwind of haste that every school morning dictates, my usual method of choosing what to wear rests wholeheartedly on whatever is clean or lying on top of the pile. So I put on a shirt instead of my signature hoodie. My comfort lies in clothing that creates an extra layer of invisibility. Hoodies are safe clothing for me. But this morning was different. Dressed in jeans and a shirt, I went to put the kids in the car when my almost ten-year-old came out with, “Why are you wearing that?”

    I’m not even sure it was a question. His tone carried the kind of youthful honesty that hits harder than it should.

    My reaction was minimal. “It’s my shirt,” I replied. But as if I hadn’t heard him the first time, he repeated it. In the rush of needing to get two kids into the car and drive through roadwork-stalled traffic, I knew it wasn’t the time to enter into an unwinnable conversation with a ten-year-old about my clothing or how it has very little to do with him. There’s a time and place, and that moment wasn’t it.

    Still, it sat with me. His comment lingered and swirled like the ebb of a geyser, starting gently and then quickly building into something far more powerful, stronger, and devastating. Overthinking. A cruel side effect of life.

    Then my twenty-year-old came in, his day off work, covered in grease and oil from his car. He saw a hoodie sprawled across the banister and asked why I was changing. I told him I’d developed a complex about the shirt I was wearing. His response was meant to reassure me that what I had on was fine, though it came wrapped in a quiet insult about what I’d wanted to change into. He told me hoodies made me look pathetic, which only added to the already spiralling rhetoric now filtering through my thoughts.

    We were on time for school, yet the gates were being shut. I was made to sign one child in while the other made it through. In quiet frustration, I pointed to my watch and said, “He’s on time.”

    “There’s no need to sign him in for a late mark,” I added, but her curt reply made it clear my challenge wasn’t welcome.

    “He won’t be on the register if you don’t sign him in,” she said firmly.

    To add insult to injury, I also had to tick a box giving a reason for his ‘lateness’. Under my breath, I muttered something about how there was no reason, but still, I ticked a random box.

    My frustrations were overwhelming this morning. It’s not typical of me to react like that. Normally, my obedience and quiet acceptance of most things stop any kind of outward reaction. But today has already been heavy.

    Maybe that’s the whole point of this space. To see myself in real time, even when it’s uncomfortable. Mornings like this remind me how quickly my self-doubt can take hold, how one comment can unravel everything I thought I’d steadied within myself. But it also reminds me that I’m still learning, learning to pause before I spiral, to breathe before I drown in it.

    Writing it down here feels like reclaiming some control, even if it’s just through words. It’s a way of saying I see you, I hear you to the parts of me that still need gentleness. Maybe tomorrow will be lighter, maybe it won’t, but tonight I can say I showed up for myself, even when it hurt.

  • Tonight I Took A Slow Walk Along The Sea Front.

    Tonight I Took A Slow Walk Along The Sea Front.

    Tonight I took a slow walk along the sea front. My hope was to capture a beautifully poetic photograph of the moon as it rose over the sea, but the erratic clouds lingered stubbornly. Small glimpses made it a challenge to find the perfect image. Disappointment hit me at first. Still, I got to see those glimpses in real time, and maybe that was enough. They were not captured the way I had hoped, but perhaps tonight the moon was meant for watching, not photographing.

    I have always loved the moon. Ever since I was a child, it has held a special place in my heart. When things felt uncertain or frightening, I would look for it, that quiet constant light in the sky. It never failed to appear, even when everything else felt unpredictable. Somehow, knowing it was there gave me comfort, as though it was silently watching over me. The moon has always felt like a companion, distant but dependable.

    So often we live focused on capturing things perfectly that we miss the time in between. Perfection is unrealistic, and sometimes the messiness and unpredictability create the most sincere and reflective moments. That is the quiet beauty of life.

    It is midweek now, and tiredness is slowly mounting from the routines and chaos that build as the days roll by. The early autumn evenings bare the darkness so soon, and the year is edging toward its close. The final months are evaporating steadily. As the clouds wove morosely across the darkened sky, the lack of natural light mirrored my mood. It felt as though the weather understood me better than I understood myself.

    There was a slight chill tonight, enough to make me bury my hands deeper into my pockets, but not cold enough to send me home. As I walked the length of the sea front, the cool gentle breeze did not cut through me, but it threatened to. It still amazes me how the weather can mirror emotion, how it seems to speak a language of moods without ever having to say a word.

    The tide was out and the sea was smooth. The only sounds I heard came in the breaks between songs as I listened to music, my slow walk helping to quiet the racing in my head. Tonight’s playlist was made of soft chilled-out tracks by Post Malone, Conan Gray, Olivia Dean, Plain White T’s and JP Saxe. Each artist wove seamlessly into the next. The tension that had been sitting stubbornly in my head, that familiar resistance on the verge of becoming a headache, began to ease.

    By the time the song faded, the clouds had shifted again, just enough for a wash of light to touch the water. It was not bright, not quite, but enough to remind me that hope does not always arrive in full sunlight. Sometimes it comes in small breaks, between the clouds, between the noise, between the songs.

    Maybe you have felt this too, that quiet shift when something as simple as a song, a glimpse of light or a breath of sea air softens the noise inside your head. When the outside world aligns with what is happening within you, and you realise that peace does not always arrive pronounced. Sometimes it whispers, in the music, in the calm waters, and in the soft glow of the moon that always finds its way back through the clouds. Perhaps that is what they call pathetic fallacy; when the world outside mirrors the storm or stillness within us, reminding us that we are never truly separate from what surrounds us.

  • Someone Like Me-part 2

    Someone Like Me-part 2

    There are parts of my story that feel almost too heavy to put into words. But silence has never made them go away. The past has a way of sitting quietly in the background, shaping how I see myself and how I move through the world.

    I wasn’t raised in a home shaped by alcohol. I was raised in a home shaped by abuse. My parents, the people who were supposed to protect me, were instead the ones who hurt me the most. Their abuse was emotional, physical, and sexual. As a child, I didn’t have the language for what was happening, but I knew I wasn’t safe. I learned to keep quiet, to shrink, to survive.

    Those lessons didn’t vanish as I grew older. They followed me into adulthood. I still catch myself doubting whether I deserve kindness, or bracing for pain even when none is coming. Abuse teaches you to expect the worst, and unlearning that is one of the hardest parts of healing.

    In part, I’m still very much stuck in that cycle. The worst has become a safety net for me. If I expect disappointment, I won’t be surprised. It’s the most painful comfort blanket imaginable, wrapping me in a promise that I’ll never be hurt again, yet keeping me from feeling true happiness or joy. When you live inside worst-case scenarios, there’s no space left for gentler thoughts. Even the smallest moments of peace are muted by fear, the fear that if I let myself feel happiness, when (not if) it fades, the fall will be too painful to bear. Because somewhere deep down, I still believe that nothing good happens to someone like me.

    What is someone like me? There are moments when I feel like I was made from something lesser; a quieter thread in a world woven from colour and noise. I move through days carrying a shadow of difference, not the kind that shines, but the kind that isolates. My reflection feels blurred, misshapen by years of silence and smallness. I’ve learned to hide behind words, behind smiles, behind the fear that if I were ever truly seen, people would turn away. There’s a heaviness that whispers I will never be enough. That I am something broken, unworthy, forgettable. Sometimes I wonder if I was ever meant to belong anywhere at all, or if I was always meant to exist just slightly out of reach.

    For a long time, I told myself to just get over it. But you don’t just walk away from a childhood like that. It stays with you, in your body, in your thoughts, in the way you see yourself. Naming it, saying out loud that what happened was abuse, has been one of the hardest but most freeing things I’ve ever done. It reminds me that the weight I carry has a reason.

    If you grew up in a home where love and harm were tangled together, maybe you know what I mean. The silence, the fear, the way you learned to be small. If that’s you, I want you to know you’re not alone. The shame doesn’t belong to us, even if it feels like it does.

    Writing this is another step in laying down the weight. I can’t erase the past, but I can stop carrying it in silence. And maybe, if you’re reading this with your own heavy memories, you’ll feel a little less alone too.

    Until next time, be gentle with yourself.

  • Growing Beneath The Bottle

    Growing Beneath The Bottle

    Some seeds grow in silence. Through connection and reflection, they begin to rise; slowly, softly, quietly until one day you realise how far you’ve come.

    There’s a saying I’d never really thought about until now: when you plant a seed, it doesn’t bear fruit the same day.

    Only recently have I begun to see how many seeds have been planted, both by me and for me, and how quietly they’ve been growing beneath the surface of my life.

    In these past months, words from others have lingered like rain, softening the soil around me. Small moments. Conversations , glances, shared truths have helped me act and reflect in ways I once never could. I’ve realised that without connection, our capacity to plant anything meaningful is limited. Isolation keeps us trapped in our own thoughts, rooted in stillness, repeating the same stories.

    But through connection, something shifts. Growth becomes possible, not all at once, but gently, like light spreading over still water at dawn.

    One seed that took root was the realisation that I had used alcohol for decades to numb my pain. I believed it could fix what was broken, but it only buried it deeper, covering cracks with temporary calm. Earlier this year, I reached out for help; a step that led to a medical detox. It wasn’t smooth or easy; growth never is. Life doesn’t move in straight lines. But slowly, I began to see that even in the hardest moments, new shoots can appear.

    Acceptance was another seed – the understanding that relapse doesn’t mean failure, it means learning. Now, sober, for today, I can look back and see the quiet influence of others. The gentle reminders, the shared stories, the encouragement that took root when I wasn’t even aware.

    Those small seeds have bloomed into something unexpected, fruit that nourishes me with knowledge, compassion, and patience. I’m harvesting lessons I didn’t know were growing.

    What I’ve also come to see is how one seed can start a chain reaction, a quiet domino effect of growth. A single moment of honesty, a small act of reaching out, can set something in motion we might never see fully. One seed takes root, then another, and soon what began as a single act of connection becomes a field of change. The words someone once shared with me became my turning point,and now, in sharing my own, maybe another seed begins to stir somewhere else.

    Maybe you’ve planted seeds too. Quiet moments of change that haven’t yet shown their bloom. Stay with them. They’re growing, even if you can’t see them yet.

    And if you’re in that quiet stage; where nothing seems to grow, you’re not alone. The roots are there, waiting. Together, we’ll keep watering them, one sunrise at a time. Beneath the bottle, there’s always room for roots to take hold.