Journal Entry: Trying Not to Let the Storm Brew

The grey cloud has been hovering again.

Not a full storm. Not yet. Just that familiar heaviness in the air, the kind that makes everything feel a little dimmer, a little quieter inside my own head. The kind where you can almost sense the weather changing before anything actually happens.

I know this feeling now.

I know the warning signs.

And I’m trying not to let the storm brew.

There was a time when I didn’t recognise it. When emotions would build slowly and silently until suddenly everything felt overwhelming. Back then, it felt like being caught in weather you didn’t see coming. But experience changes that. You begin to notice the subtle shifts, the thoughts that linger longer than they should, the tiredness that isn’t just physical, the sense that something inside you is starting to darken.

It always seems to trace back to that day.

That fateful day that divided life into before and after.

Some memories never completely fade. They sit quietly somewhere in the background of the mind, and most of the time they stay there. But now and then something stirs them — a thought, a feeling, a moment of reflection and suddenly the past feels closer than it should.

That’s when the cloud appears.

I’ve learned that fighting it doesn’t really work. Pretending everything is fine doesn’t make it disappear either. The only thing that seems to help is recognising it for what it is, a passing piece of weather in the mind.

Not permanent.

Not undefeatable.

Just weather.

So I’m trying to do the small things that keep the storm from building. Writing helps. Talking helps. Even just acknowledging that the cloud is there helps. It takes some of the power away.

Because storms grow in silence.

They grow when everything stays bottled up and unspoken.

And the truth is that mental health isn’t about never having clouds. It’s about learning how to live with the sky as it changes. Some days are clear blue. Some days are grey. And occasionally the wind picks up, and the rain comes.

But knowing the storm is forming means you still have time to steady yourself before it arrives.

That’s what I’m trying to do right now.

Holding the line.

Keeping the clouds from turning into thunder.

Just breathing, writing, and reminding myself that even heavy skies eventually break.