Rah, where's my.. happiness?

As a girl who has grown up with privileges others could only dream of, I count myself lucky every day. As soon as I got to uni, my try-hard attempt at a typically less so-called 'posh' accent miserably failed, and I was stereotyped as the dreaded "Rah, where's my baccy?" girl. I say dreaded because 1. people associate this with snobbery, blissful ignorance and daddy's money and 2. I am, in fact, not that type of girl and would hate people to make this assumption based on my voice. God forbid a girl has an accent.

Albeit not this type of girl, I am lucky to live the life I do, for which I am eternally grateful. However, for some unknown reason, the general consensus is that privileged people can't possibly be unhappy. Let me just clarify that when referring to privileged, I don't simply mean money, I mean family, passions, etc, the things you can't buy basically. So, when I entered my third year and fell into an unexpected turmoil of hopelessness and anxiety, I got many raised eyebrows and sneers, almost as if to say, "How can she be sad?". I have a family around me, internships lined up (which I didn't pay my way into), supportive friends and a budding passion for everything beauty, how could I have the audacity? Give me two secs, let me just switch off the sad girl act and be happy Daisy.

If only it were that easy.

I'm not going to make this into a whole spiel about the hardships I suffered because this isn't a biography, but I will be debunking this myth. Mental health isn't a one-size-fits-all; you don't just suffer because you're less privileged, you suffer regardless of who you are or what you have and that, my angels, is what many people don't understand. In my experience, the people who do have this mindset are often those who have, very luckily for them, not been a victim of mental demons and, apologies for my brutality, but uneducated. Yet, I can guarantee that if an estranged girl with little support around her suddenly fell mentally unwell, they would deem it more acceptable. If anyone has decoded the logic of this, please enlighten me because I remain clueless.

To be blunt, I have found it incredibly hard to accept my struggles and ever since it all began, there has been a constant feeling of guilt and the view that my mind is a nasty, privileged and narcissistic beast. Thankfully, I have come to the realisation that my hurt is valid, but it has been a struggle to escape the feeling I'm too privileged to suffer, something I know other people experience daily. It's particularly difficult when I've read countless blogs and listened to hundreds of podcasts all produced by people who have been inflicted with so much but have still managed to go on with so much strength. Yet I, from such a privileged past, seem to struggle still. Thankfully, I am now at a place where I've realised privileged or not, it's completely valid to suffer from mental health issues, but for others, this may not be the case.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: pain isn't always proportionate. It doesn't arrive with a checklist of hardships you need to tick off before you're allowed to feel overwhelmed. Mental health doesn't care if you grew up in a house with a garden, went on family holidays, or got into uni without a sob story. It just is. And honestly? That's the part that messes with your head the most. When you grow up being told you’re lucky by family, teachers, even strangers, you internalise this idea that luck and sadness are mutually exclusive. That gratitude should somehow be a cure. And if it’s not, well then, clearly you’re the problem. Spoiled. Fragile. Dramatic. But here's the thing: you can be grateful and still feel broken. You can be blessed and still struggle to get out of bed. These feelings aren't mutually exclusive—they just exist, awkwardly and painfully, alongside each other.

So, if you’re reading this and you’ve ever felt like your sadness wasn’t “justified” enough to speak about, know that I see you. I am you. And your hurt doesn’t have to look a certain way to matter. Whether you’re crying in a studio flat or a townhouse, pain is pain. And it deserves space, even if that space is just a scrappy corner of the internet where a girl with a posh accent says it’s okay to feel.