I want to be a professional writer, and I don’t want you to feel alone.

I wish I had someone as messed up as me to look up to for guidance, not that you are messed up. Someone who was open, honest, vulnerable and real about how winding, undulating and sometimes turbulent the healing waters can be.

Social media feels quite shallow and I am unable to express myself completely – the unwritten rule of a short, evasive caption to summarise a bunch of uplifting photos. That’s not what my life represents. So this is my own digital playground to explore myself and my life in more depth. Insights from my journal, my daydreams and my daily experiences to inspire myself to keep fighting for the life I want to live.

I remember the day I realised how alone I was in my hurt and pain. The day I realised I could only rely on myself to love and care for myself in the deep way that I craved. Damn External Validation is a lesson I must learn in this life, or perhaps more correctly, I must learn to embody my own Internal Validation. I have met many comrades along the way. The road is not lonely, when you are in the right places, but the day to day effort most certainly can be. There is a big difference in loneliness and solace. I am still bridging the gap.

I daydreamed about this blog for a while. I think this is up to my third start-stop attempt at this venture. I want to do it. I yearn to do it. But I am scared that I won’t be able to do it and get panicked just thinking about exposing myself like that. Similar to someone learning to drive a manual car with their Dad in the passenger seat. ‘I know you know how to do this, even though I have given you no instruction, and I will yell at you to hit the brakes at the bottom of the hill we have just rolled down’. Cue me getting out of the driver’s seat and walking back up to the house, hypothetically. Except the heavy press on the brakes is due to my self-doubt, my not-enoughness, fear of failure, not knowing what I am doing, do I have what it takes and most of all, my fear of my true potential.

This time I am trying it on for size, properly, truly, fearlessly. Well, as fearlessly as I can muster. Fearlessness is like a muscle, right? Risk of exposure, risk of being found out, I want to show up myself each day. I want to know myself. I want to create. I need that outlet. I want this to feel personal. I want it to feel like you are reading my journals. I want to show you how I process my hurt and how I move forward. I want to prove to myself I can set sky high goals and achieve them. I want more for myself.

The purpose of this blog is to learn who I am. Strange to say that, given my age. But I truly do not know who I am. How can I say that? Everyone knows who they are, I hear you say. Well, I don’t. Why? Well part of it is losing my sense of self from what I suffered in childhood. The other part is that my mind, or some part of me, decided that it would be a good idea to wipe my memory, like that Men in Black movie. Ziiiiiiiing. Gone. Forever? I hope not. My mission in life, and is frowned upon by some, is to get my memories back. The good ones, the bad ones, and especially the outright ugly ones. How am I to learn who I am without those puzzle pieces? I get why my memory was wiped, I do, and I also want them back.

I had this experience at Christmas 2024 that showed me my deep longing to know myself. I guess it also showed me the absence of knowledge about myself. I can’t remember most of my life. I have come to accept my mind did this to ensure I stayed alive. A survival technique, a unique one at that. It did its job, and I am grateful, and now I would like access to those memories. All of them.

The K Trip was a cute idea I came up with, truthfully in a ketamine experience. My name is Kate, Ketamine, you get the idea. This is in no way a promotion of the use of ketamine. In the many profound ways it has changed me and helped me, there are equally bad times. It is a difficult drug to navigate. I can say more another time.

The real joke in the name is my initials KT, and then RIP, which I have been very close to so, so many times in my life. Whenever I would get to my next lowest low, the only thing keeping me on this side of life was this incessant, pestering voice – ‘I haven’t written the book yet’ or ‘You need to write’. It wasn’t my friends, my family, my cat, travelling, hiking, no part of living was calling me like this voice telling me to write. I couldn’t have lived this life I have and not written about it. If I don’t write about it, all of my suffering would be for nothing. I wasn’t doing it for myself, either. I couldn’t do it for myself, but I could do it for someone else. There’s that external validation again.

My suicidal ideation started when I was about 8 years old. I struggled with sleep, nightmares, trying to fit into my family, as well as the horror that played out when we visited the family farm. If there is a rebuttal here, it would be my Mum’s voice asking me desperately ‘But I thought you had a good childhood’. It was like living in two world’s as kid, in lightness and in darkness. Both can be true at the same time. It makes it very confusing. Hell, my own mother can’t comprehend it. It’s also been difficult for me. Imagine me trying to deal with it as a child, my innocent little mind. I tried my best to keep help. I did. Whether those people remember my attempts or not, I remember what was true for me. I repeatedly asked for help in the way I knew how at that time. How does a little girl find the right words to describe something that she was not old enough to understand what was happening? I tried my best, and my best was not enough to get me the help I needed, and so, in my helplessness, I did what only I could do. I believed that I was the problem. The problems disappeared if I did, and so began my lifelong fantasy of wishing I was never born, how happy my family would be without me in it. A very specific lullaby to put me to sleep each night. It was my form of escape. It hurts to admit, but it’s true.

I have heard many times “I don’t want to hear about your trauma”. The ultimate form of rejection for me. I think it cuts deeply because I wasn’t heard as a kid. I was shut down. Denied. Dismissed. Told I was a liar. This phrase touches that wound. I won’t ever forget the people who have said that to me. I am open to repair, sure, but I am very doubtful they would ever apologise. Can I forgive? I am not sure. I think we remember things for a reason. Maybe because the wound is still open. Maybe the lesson hasn’t been learnt. Maybe there is still more work to be done. So anyway, I’m not trauma dumping on you in this space. No, all of that will have its own place to live, an optional tap into at your own risk.

This here is my healing story. The good stuff. This is my story about me finding myself. I will write about self-discovery, friendships, disagreements, internal conflicts and external conflicts. Coz if I am experiencing these things like I am, you probably are too.

So here is my attempt at turning my desperate need for external validation into some sort of an asset, or strength in my life.

It’s rough, it’s not polished, it’s me attempting to help myself each day.

Healing happens in community, and I feel honoured you took time out of your day to have a gander.

Lots of love,

Kate