Fighting an Inner Battle

I’ve been sitting here for the last hour trying to write this. Actually no I have deleted this twice because I am unsure if I want people to see this. For anyone who has read this blog before its fairly obvious that I have had my ups and downs, mentally I am in a better headspace than I was in 2008 but it is still a battle sometimes. I’ve been dealing with depression and inner demons for as long as I can remember, there are days where I’m fine and I can be the happiest person on the planet but there are others where I feel useless and unwanted.
I heard an analogy to describe depression once and to me it certainly does fit. Depression is like a castle, inside that castle are all your hopes & dreams and your happiness for the future and the castle walls that surround them protect them from outside forces. But when those demons come at you they are almost an opposing army attacking the Castle walls trying to destroy what hope you have left. And sometimes those Castle walls crumble and break and the only thing that stops that opposing army from destroying your hope is reinforcements from the outside. In my case I’ve had those walls crumble but never destroyed completely, I had outside help when I needed it the most.
But there are nights like tonight where I sit here and those negative thoughts just creep in and float around. They don’t do anything except sit there until you are just about ready to go to bed and then attack you when you are at your most vulnerable. At that point you could say it’s a knight vs. a dragon and only one will come out on top. I get told I’m ridiculous and that I shouldn’t worry sometimes but when you have these types of thoughts you can never take what someone else says at face value. You just keep going around in circles hoping that it will all end soon enough but its only once sleep takes hold that it ever does.
You wonder if you are bothering people, if they want to talk to you or the big one would you be missed if you were not around. I guess these have hung with me simply because of the lack of confidence in who I am as a person. It’s hard for anyone to understand simply because each situation is unique for people and I guess that’s why I can say unless you have walked in my shoes you won’t understand how I feel. I don’t consider this a bad thing because it simply means I have to force myself to talk more e.g. what I’m doing now.
I know I’m not alone in this situation each person has their own battles to fight & their own castle to defend, it’s just a matter of if we can stop those walls from crumbling or not and surviving to keep our hopes & dreams alive.

A thank you to The Voice Australia (RT) @TheVoiceAU

So tonight the first season of The Voice Australia comes to a close and then the excitement of Monday nights shall disappear until Season 2 comes around. In a very short space of time this show has changed the lives of not only the contestants involved but the audience who have witnessed this show play out. People have allowed themselves to open up to new artists, different styles of music and make many realise that there are thousands of talented people out there waiting for that step up into the spotlight. Not only that but this show has sent the Australian charts into meltdown, right at this very minute the top 9 spots on the ITunes top 10 are filled with the final 4 contestants songs that they performed last night and the Aria chart now has songs by many from the show scattered through its lists. And despite the fact only one will officially be crowned the winner tonight I think most of those who have appeared on the show shall have very long & happy careers.

So I say thank you to this show for not only giving me some wonderful & an amazing people to listen to on a daily basis but for allowing me to make a heap of new friends. The power of this show to connect people over social media has been simply outstanding and reiterates a post on here I made last month, which online friends are just as real as those you make in real life. It’s just in this case much easier to connect because you can relate to things much more quickly. This show has also helped repair lives, allowed people to heal all through the power of music and I hope it shall continue to do so for many more seasons to come.
So finally congratulations to not only the four finalists but to everyone who has appeared on this show and to the coaches. Australia loves you and is forever thankful you graced our screens and I think it’s safe to say we are all looking forward to supporting each and every one of you for a long time to come.

The Post i had to write (Please RT & READ)

This is a post I never expected to write, mainly because I am the type of person who keeps a lot of my problems in and just puts on a brave face. But tonight you could say I have been inspired to just put it all out there and finally open up a bit more.
I’ve never had what you would call a perfect life, I have had issues, I’ve never been popular, I’ve never been someone a guy would go out of their way to meet or ask out & if they did it would simply be a joke to use as fun later on. The older I have got the more I have closed myself off from people and I have simply just gone through the motions of life.
I have been bullied so badly over the years that there were times I just never wanted to leave my room and my nature to put others before myself got used so badly I was at one point doing other peoples homework or helping others just so I could be talked too. I’ll admit looking back at it now I was a silly naive girl but it was either this or nothing and I am not someone who deals well with having no-one.
A few people knew that 2008 was a year id rather forget but it was worse than that over the course of 12 months everything went wrong to the point where by the end where I tried to commit suicide. It was only an accident where Delta’s album fell on my head which stopped me, I spent most of the night listening to Mistaken Identify and I credit Delta as one of the people who saved my life. Delta slowly helped drag me out of the hell that 2008 had become and gave me a small ray of hope. Fast forward to the 16^th June 2012 and here I sit on my bed on a cold and rainy evening typing this trying to stop myself stressing over my Tafe course. There are good days now and then there are bad days but I try my best not to let myself slip to where I have been. What I do to stop myself is use my music and in the last few months 3 new artists have been added to a small list which keeps me from making any mistakes. Danni Da Ros, Glenn Cunningham & Rachael Leahcar all from The Voice have voices that can evoke the soul & Rachael in particular has brought me to tears on more than one occasion. Less than a month ago my mind was swirling and I cracked, causing me to feel as bad as I did in 2008 but I used all 3 I mentioned earlier to give me a kind of inner peace & now I listen to them daily.
People may have their opinions when I read this saying I possibly need help, but I’ve already had plenty. Music is my drug now and that keeps me sane, it inspires me and Delta, Glenn, Danni & Rachael have been a big part of that & I can never thank them enough.

And then there were 4 (The Voice)

And here we are the final 4. For the last few months we have been leading up to this point on The Voice and to be honest I am sad to see it coming to an end. I am not surprised by who was chosen by the coaches because nearly 6 weeks ago I made the call and said Rachael, Sarah, Darren & Karise would be the last ones standing and I was proven right. But what disappoints me is with the decision less than 2hrs old the hate has already begun.
Each one of the four finalists deserves to be there on their own merit. I knew the moment Karise opened her mouth at that blind audition that she would be hard to stop and her performance of Hallelujah tonight once again showed how remarkable she is. Sarah has a voice that could stop anyone in their tracks and has been one of the strongest performers from day 1. Darren has a smile and a love and joy for singing that warms the hearts of everyone who listens to him. And of course Rachael the girl who stunned all four coaches when they heard the emotion and power in her voice back at the blind auditions. The sad thing is each one of these four remarkable people is already getting some form of hate, more so than others. Rachael in particular has copped the brunt of this hate and I think this is more to do with her coach than her. To say Rachael only made the grand final out of sympathy is an absolute joke does that mean Glenn deserved it instead? I know full well that if Delta had chosen Glenn over Rachael the same people would have been shouting it was favouritism and so no-one would have been happy.
This show though has taught me something, there is no point in being depressed about seeing your favourite leave. After seeing one of my main favourites Danni leave the previous week it just made me want to support her even more. And that goes for all of the contestants. So I say there is no point hating the contestants or the coach, if you don’t like their music simply respect the fact that others do and leave it at that. We all came into this with our favourites and we leave with those same favourites and in my case a few extras. Depressed fans who are worried their favourite shall drop off the face of the planet shouldn’t worry either; most of these contestants won’t leave the public eye for too long after what they have gained from this show.  So in my opinion no-one has lost, in fact Australia has won, it shone a bright light onto some of the best talent in this country and gave them the shot they all deserved, and we should all be thankful for it.  So don’t hate the contestants, respect peoples choices and let us enjoy what we have..... some incredible musicians.