I'm turning 18 in less than a week and there's not many words to explain how much fear I'm feeling. From the age of 12 I didn't think I'd turn 18. It was always a plan to never let myself get that far. Multiple attempts on my life, many sections and psych stays and all of the self destructive behaviour I could do lead me to believe I'd never make it that far. Every year I didn't see myself making it to my next birthday. 

Here I am now, a year and a half psych ward free, over a year and a half attempt free, clean from self injury and fighting every day to stay in recovery. About to turn 18. My mind screams no, everything in my head is against me making it to 18 but I know I will because I've not got the willpower to take my life which IS a good thing. I try to remind myself it is. I refuse to traumatize my family any more, have any more hospital stays or let my mental illnesses get the best of me. It's exhausting but I won't give in. But I'm just so scared. 

Mentally, I'm still 14. The year I first went into inpatient services. The trauma and the stuff I went through has kept me at that age in my head. I don't feel like an adult. My therapist says it's because I never had the chance to grow like other teenagers my age back then. Whilst they did their GCSEs and partied and had fun and went out, I was being pinned to the floor in hospital to keep me from ending my life. I know I am 17, turning 18 but inside my mind I have the thoughts of 14 year old me. 

For the last year, from before I even turned 17, I've panicked like mad about turning 18. My stomach would twist thinking about it, I'd feel nauseous and I'd cry and break down and freak out and lash out at myself. And now it's the final week and I'm freaking out. It didn't feel real for the last few weeks until I got some birthday cards in the post a few days ago, now it's hit me. Seeing the big 18 on those cards has sent me spiralling inside and I'm struggling. The countdown is ticking in my head and everything is getting difficult. The depression is creeping back in, the anxiety is shredding me apart and my BPD is raging. My moods are crashing and rising intensely, my smoking has spiked up, even my tourettes is playing up because of my stress. 

I want to enjoy my birthday. I want to be all happy and smiley and celebrate and I'm sure I'll put a show on for my family to act happy but inside I'm going insane. The attention being all on me, the fact I'll legally be an adult, the shame that as an adult I'm still living with my parents and I will be for a long time because they are the only ones who can keep me safe, I'd literally die living alone. The fact all my friends from school are going to University, having babies, moving out, getting drunk on cocktails whereas I'm a dropout living at home with my parents and the only cocktails I have are the cocktails of psychiatric medications I take every morning and night. I can't even use a razor for god's sake. I know I shouldn't beat myself up about it and I know it isn't in my control and I know it's nothing to be ashamed of but I can't help but compare myself and feel like shit for how badly I've ruined my life.

I'm just so scared. So, so, so scared. There's nothing I can do to change it, I AM turning 18. I WILL be an adult. It is what it is. But god, this fear and anxiety is destroying me.