apparently I’m allowed to heal out loud
In May, I was discharged from mental health services.
Just like that. A sentence. A goodbye. An ending I didn’t quite trust yet. I kept waiting for someone to say actually, no, not you. But they didn’t.
Instead, we created a planner for Action on Postpartum Psychosis. Something practical. Something real. Something that existed because of everything I’d been through, not in spite of it.
That felt strange in my body. Good, but unfamiliar.
I started sharing more online. Messy footage. Unpolished thoughts. Half-formed half-feral sentences. I learned that social media doesn’t actually need to be curated to be meaningful. That imperfect and honest beats silent every time.
I made a sock puppet for a night out.
I don’t have an explanation for that.
I dressed in one colour for another night out. Yellow. Which is not my colour. Objectively. But I like lemon-flavoured things, so I decided it counted.
May felt experimental.
I started talking about my OCD publicly. Saying it out loud. Naming it. Letting people see the edges of it. I braced myself for jokes, for trolls, for the internet doing what it does.
None of that happened.
Instead, people were kind. Open. Relieved. They told me it helped. That seeing someone speak plainly about it made them feel less alone.
Helpful.
That word stopped me in my tracks.
I had spent so long thinking healing was something quiet and private and careful. Something you did behind closed doors so you didn’t make anyone uncomfortable.
May taught me that healing can be loud. And messy. And still welcomed.
I don’t fully trust it yet.
But I’m letting it be true for now.
