Could you tell me a time you felt completely lost?

I remember falling into my first Job in a kitchen pretty young at about 15, and from there I worked in that kitchen pretty relentlessly until I was 22. 

When it came to the point where all my friends were planning for University and deciding on which part of the country they’d move to for the same reasons, I didn’t have a clue what I was going to do. 

I’d already left school a year early, and went off to college to study professional cookery. Little did I know, that it wasn’t really even a career I wanted to pursue. The busyness of the kitchen and the closeness of everyone that worked there, enticed me and seemed like a pretty fun environment to work in. I’d always liked cooking, I loved food and I enjoyed the creative aspect of coming up with dishes. 

Even though I was completely immersed in the kitchen and college, I was totally unaware of the impact the hours and the stress of the kitchen were having on my mental health. I was pretty unaware of my internal goings on into way later into my 22nd year, and even then I was just completely confused as to the heart palpitations, tight chest and constant stream of negative thoughts. I was so detached from my body, that I didn’t really have any awareness of what was bubbling under the surface. 

During my time in the kitchen, most people I worked with either smoked weed, drank, and or took drugs in the spare time if they weren’t with their families. For a long time, they had what I didn’t, which was people close by, like family and friends. Most of my friends had moved away to Uni, and I stayed behind, and moved into a flat by myself. 

The space on my own and unsociable hours left me in a space that I felt completely alone. Yes, my family did stay near by, but I didn’t want to spend much time with them at this point in my life, I just wanted to drink, smoke, and hide from the world in my own little bubble thinking that everything was okay. In the midst of being at my worst, my dad got diagnosed with cancer, which I had absolutely no idea how to process or deal with in any way whatsoever. So I continued how I knew, I drank more, and smoked more, by myself. I thought about leaving my career several times, and threatened to leave several times, but for some reason I stuck with it. 

Luckily, my dads cancer was treatable and he made a strong recovery, and still is doing well. 

Fast forward to my 22nd year, my relationship with my partner was a mess, I was a complete mess and totally lost as to what to do, I felt like I was in a total spiral until everything fell apart. I ended up quitting, my partner left me, and quite rightly so at the time, and then I ended up leaving my flat and moving home to my parents house to try and recalibrate.

In the time between, when I was in the process of moving out of my flat and back home, everything felt completely hopeless. I was filled with extremely dark and negative thoughts, and my drinking got quite bad again. I couldn’t stay in my flat as it was filled with memories that I could barely cope with, I didn’t want to stay at home, so I stayed on a friends couch for a while. This felt like such a complete low that I really didn’t think id recover from at all, but, I did. 

It took a lot of time, and my mental health is still something I have to attend to each day, and that’s okay. 

Once I moved back to my parents, I started to find my way again, got into counselling, therapy, meditation, and really solidified a yoga practice that helped me find a sense of direction and keep me on track. 

Even though things can feel completely hopeless and you can feel so lost in a really dark place, it can still get better. There’s nothing wrong with seeking help, and reaching out.