Prison Break

I read a post the other day by The Bloggess entitled "Sometimes Prisons can be Beautiful".

I have been reading her blog for about a year now.  The recommendation I was given was "She's funny, a bit "off" but in a wonderful way and has her own mental issues, a bit like you, but different ones".  I HAD to take a look.

Her blog was the first I had ever read.  I had already started my own, but I was at that time coming from an angle of just loving to write, and was writing purely about things that interested.  It never occurred to me to write about the personal stuff that you "shouldn't" talk about.  The fact that sometimes, I can be a little "off".  That I had issues.  All the things that you are supposed to keep hidden.

This particular post got me to thinking about how in some ways, we all create our own type of prisons.  Not the type with brick walls and bars at the windows, but ones that we have created in our minds, where the rules can be just as restrictive.  Where you are both the prison guard and also the person in the cell.

These type of prisons are more complicated than the physical kind.  To break out of them you don't need to scale a wall or bribe a prison guard.  The rules are of your own making, and the walls shift.

I've always known that I had a wall up.  What I realise now is that it wasn't just a wall.  It was a prison of my own construction which surrounded me, with it's own rules, all of which was constructed not because I was bad, but to protect me.  A cocoon.  

The thing about a cocoon is that at first, you feel safe in it, but eventually it becomes stifling and too close for comfort.  I was being smothered in a prison of my own making.

Compared to others, my journey is easy.  I created the walls around me, I drew up the rules, I can destroy them.

I don't suffer from depression or anxiety.  I thankfully don't have that daily battle sometimes just to get outside of your own front door, or have the need to hide in the bathroom when in the presence of others.  But reading the blogs of the people that do has gives me inspiration to improve my own life because if they can do it, I damn sure can too.

Ladies of the blogging world, from one bat shit crazy woman to another, I salute you.  You inspire me.