This isn’t the story I want to tell, this isn’t the story I want to be living. Write about my life they say. Like it’s easy to rip open the doors of my mind and explain to every person who will read this how fucking hard it is to wake up.

My very good friend is always telling me that I’m one of the strongest people she knows.

She see’s the weakness and the fear and the sadness and hurt, but sometimes I feel like talking to her is such a burden, though she doesn’t know it. I’ve never told her how sometimes I just want her to wrap me in her arms and tell me that it’s going to be okay, instead of giving me advice and telling me that I can handle whatever stress comes my way.

You have no idea who I am or what I’ve been through, so let me run through it again.

I’ve been raped, kidnapped, beaten and abused. I lost my son when my ex boyfriend raped and beat me whilst filling me with pain killers instead of taking me to the hospital. See he managed to get two of us pregnant at the same time and chose to kill my son, whilst allowing his other child to live. Then he named the living child Conner. The same name as my would be Son.

His ex girlfriend delights in telling me how wonderful her son is every time I see her, which of course only compounds the pain.

Suffice to say I’ve been through a lot, so how do I deal with it? Well, until recently I drank a lot. And had sex. With random strangers.

This doesn’t work. It only feeds the demons and fuels the emptiness.

For nearly two years I filled my house with garbage, because if my house was a mess people couldn’t come into my home which meant they couldn’t come into my life.

At the moment I tell everyone that I’m writing every day, and that’s true. I am writing every single day, but I’m hurting. I quit my job because my mom was fired and I didn’t agree with the decision, but I also quit because I wasn’t happy.

I hated my job. I hated dealing with people who were throwing away every ounce of their lives and pretending that they wanted help.

I hated dealing with the judgments of my co-workers and people thinking that my life was perfect because I am Jonquil’s Daughter.

Even my very good friend, the one who thinks I can handle everything, didn’t realize just how rough we have it in terms of our economics. She had no idea that we were struggling for money and worrying about how we were going to eat or pay bills.

All these normal things that everyone worries about are ten times worse when you are dealing with depression, anxiety and bi-polar disorder.

When I get stressed out and angry I get mean and cruel. I say things I don’t mean, I call names, I scream and lose control and it’s this burning that I cannot control.

I become a completely different person, someone I neither recognize nor like. In fact I become someone I detest. I truly am the female version of Jekyll and Hyde.

By now you’re asking me why I don’t just take medications. It worked for Sarah, it works for thousands of others, millions even.

I’ve tried. I’ve taken mood stabilizers, uppers and downers. I was on Dexedrine for years and the only thing that did was make me lose weight – I starved myself because even the mere mention of food made me gag. I couldn’t swallow water much less food.

I’ve been on Lithium, which is like battery acid for the brain. At 13 I spent three weeks in Maples Mental Institution. During that period I was seeing a Dr. Golden, he turned out to be insane, and raped several of his patients. Thankfully I was not one of them.

I have seen shrinks, doctors and counselors. They have told me I am fine, told me that I should “Learn to hug my feelings” given me drugs and told me that there is nothing wrong with me. I am a self-diagnosed 32 year old woman living with un-treated Bi-Polar Disorder and anxiety issues.

My life is not easy today. I’m 32 years old and I cannot stand to be touched by anyone I don’t know. Yes I do have the occasional one night stand but it’s always with men I know fairly well and trust. Random strangers who touch me get a very cold shoulder and often get told to Fuck off.

I don’t hug.

My life is not easy. I might be strong but if I am the strongest person you know you are not looking deep enough.

Yeah I’m strong, you have to be to live through mental health issues, you have to fight and scrape and scrimp and save every bit of talent you have to pretend that everything is okay.

It isn’t easy to share this story because people who think they know me might read it. They will tell me they are proud of me for sharing this, they are proud of me for staying strong, they are impressed with my ability to string words together. They will smile and hug me, and they will do their best to support me.

They don’t know it hurts. Every hug, every touch, every time someone says “I’m so proud of you”.

This is the story that I was given however and I have to deal with it. Every day I have to deal with it and pretend that it doesn’t hurt.

My deepest fear is falling in love, because any man who falls for me is going to have to deal with a horrible past. I am not the Fantasy Woman. I am not the Dream. I am just, Syn, Jonquil’s Daughter.

HeadshotMy name is Devon Hall. Bloggers know me as Syn de Nial.
I’m thirty-two years old and I live with Bi-Polar disorder and anxiety.
I live in Surrey, B.C. I’m a former “Gang Affliated” Gang Girl and Anti-Poverty Advocate. My dream is to own a coffee shop and book store. To live on a boat in an Ocean surrounded by sun and marry Chris Evans, the Actor.

Devon, also known as Syn, can be found on her blog, Twitter, and Facebook.

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