Last week we shared Aisling’s first post. Here she writes about how some days, all she wants to do is stay in bed. Most days, she gets up anyway, one day at a time.

My bed is my castle. Nothing can come near me and nothing can harm me when I’m in my bed. Whenever I’m feeling low it’s the first place I go. I mean in every fairy-tale, the princess is kept in the castle hidden away from the world. I’ll tell you now I’m very far away from a princess but it could be argued that I’m rocking the ogre side of Fiona waiting to be rescued.

But that’s the issue with staying in bed, waiting to be rescued. I’m in my “castle” My Black Dog walking all over me, waiting to be rescued. But with depression you can have your prince charming, pretty dresses and hair as long as Rapunzel’s, but it makes no difference. No one can “save” you. People can make you feel better and you may want to get out of bed to spend time with them. But at the end of the day, you must want to get out of bed.

Now the issue is I mean you’re leaving the castle to fight the dragons and trolls (I’m in fairy-tale mode bear with me) who wants to do that? But I mean you have to just kick yourself in the ass and say “yep okay, trolls take me on.” When I’m feeling good that’s what I do I say “yeah okay come at me and give me your best.” But I have to have My Black Dog on it’s leash.

Most of the time I let them off and I stay in my beautiful castle where nothing bad happens and I can sleep all day. My biggest issue is when I wake up. Nothing bad has happened I avoided my dragons and trolls. But nothing good happened either. I’m still tired, I’m behind on schoolwork and quite frankly I need a shower.

My castle is my castle. I want to just throw on Netflix and stay there for the rest of my life. Nothing bad will happen. However, nothing good will happen either. I just need to put My Black Dog on a leash and take it on a walk.

Ash x