The Truth About My Mental Health...

Hello guys...

It's been awhile. A long while. I have gone through a lot these past months but I am here to tell it and that is all that matters.

Mental health is a terrible thing, no one explains to you just how much it will affect your life until you're going through it. So I am going to tell you my experience of it.

Anxiety and depression can come on at any time, whenever you expect it the least. For me, mental health is always something that I have struggled with but always put it off and just assumed theres "something wrong with me, I just overthink too much".

But at the beginning of this year I started to realise that everything is just too much, I was doing university work, 30 hours a week within a job, helping to care for my family and just trying to juggle life. It was not working for me. I would cry at least every single day. It was no way to live. But with anxiety and depression, you do not want to "bother" anyone with whats going on in your life. I've always been the type of person to push my own problems to the back of my head and just think about other people. Overtime at work? I'll do it, need help? I'll do it. That was pretty much my life.

So after a few months of this and the crying, I could tell it was starting to affect my parents and my family around me because I was just a sad person to be around. This led me to the doctors to talk solutions. No one wants to rely on tablets to make them happy and as a 20 year old, this knocked me ill, completely hated it. But that was the only way that I could see some sort of light at the end of this dark tunnel. The doctor then told me about counselling and the idea of telling anyone my problems made me cringe too. But I went ahead with it and rang the counselling service which told me there would be a waiting list for 8 weeks. 8 weeks for anyone with mental health is a life time, another 8 weeks with feeling like absolute crap adds a lot more pressure onto you.

I waited it out and in the mean time I still had to deal with work and university. I did not want to have to tell the people I spend my time with in those environments, about my life and what I was going through.  Instead, I cut my hours hoping this would take stress off me. I was wrong.

As time went on, life changes and family problems made me feel lower than before. I was getting to the point of dreading work and talking to other people because I knew I'd just cry.

Nothing is worth making your health worse so that was it, the end of work. I had to leave, I had to hand my notice in. Work were very understanding about this which made me think "why didn't I do this earlier? What was I worried about?" Within one week, this lifted my mood completely.

Just as I thought, maybe this is going to be ok, maybe I'm going to be ok. Me and my younger sister, were part of the Manchester Attack which was at the Ariana Grande concert.

We were on our way out of the building when the bomb went off. We completely broke down and ran for our lives, my sister fell on her way out which made me panic and pull her. Being the older sister, I feel as if I am the protector. I could not let anything happen to my sister. We were two hours from home, panicking, crying and worried about what was happening and what had just happened. My nephew had just been born and the thought of never seeing him again had me in bits but we had to think positive. We had to stay positive and realise how lucky we were that we got out fine. This did not help what is going on in your mind. The constant thoughts about what had happened and the what ifs were endless. Not a day goes by that I don't think about the individuals that died within the attack. I will never forget it.

When we did get home, my parents arranged for me and my sister to chat with therapists to talk about our experience and basically just let us know that we were not alone within this.

As time goes on you start to realise just how lucky you are to be alive and around people who love you which made a lot of difference. That was when I knew that its ok to talk about what I've been through, no one has the same life and the experiences we go through are what shape us into the person we are today. I realised I should not be ashamed of my health and what I've been through and what I'm going through. I know that taking tablets to help me be happy, is what I need for now.

Mental health is not something you should be ashamed of but it will affect your whole life. It makes you want to quit at life but you can't (maybe you can for a few days) but we can't let it win. It is a struggle and I know I will never be completely myself again but I know my experiences are what have made me who I am and when I'm having a bad day, I will not be ashamed of that. I know that my mental health will never be "normal" and I will always feel the way I do but I know I am able to cope with that.

The fact I am able to talk about it today says a lot about how far I have came. Hopefully, I can get back into the swing of posting again.

Ciao for now...

Procrastination, Procrastination, Procrastination...

Hello guys...

pro-cras-ti-na-tion |prəˌkrastəˈnāSHən, prō-|
noun
the action of delaying or postponing something: your first tip is to avoid procrastination.

this month I am definitely suffering from the worst procrastination ever!  Whilst attempting to write this post I have walked around the house a few times and picked up my phone many times, nothing is motivating me at all. I realised this morning that I need to sort my life out for this week and being organised really helps me to do that but now that I've made myself organised, I'm completely unmotivated to do anything else.

Recently I have found that even to open my mouth and talk is too much effort, I just want peace and quiet. I do not know what is going on with me. I want to lie in bed and watch Netflix all day but the thought of even loading up the website is too much?! Perhaps I am in need of an energy boost to make me feel a lot better.

I have came up with a list in order to help others with procrastination, and hopefully help myself-

• Push yourself- by pushing yourself to do the task, you are overcoming procrastination (such as now when I am pushing myself to write this post)

• Ease yourself- If you are not the type of person to jump straight into doing a task or an essay when you do not want to, ease yourself into it. Take one step at a time, this may take much longer than you wanted to spend on the task but at least it wasn't rushed and you'd feel better about it later.

• Reward yourself- After each task or job that you have to do but have no energy for, tell yourself that you will receive an award after which may be a nap, some type of food, anything as long as you feel better about it.

Now that I have done this post, I feel so much better and motivated because I'm making this Sunday productive in some ways. 

This was a short and unexpected post but I needed to do it. 

What do you procrastinate about? Feel free to leave comments below. 

To get in touch with me- 

email: nadia.elliott.1996@gmail.com

Instagram- nadiaelliott

Ciao for now...

In Need Of A Break...

Hello guys...

Once again, I am lacking with my blog posts, uni and life is just completely taking over recently. Hectic is a word that I would definitely describe my life at the minute.

Since the start of this year, everything that has happened in my life has just been one big blur. For instance its already approaching the end of October, I am no longer a college student, I finally got a job and I'm about ready to sit my driving test. Life has definitely been very hard and challenging this year to say the least.
When I first started this blog, I was having serious trouble with my anxiety and controlling it but I have found that since starting, my anxiety is a lot better, I was progressing at a great speed and I am so thankful for that. Unfortunately, since around June, I have felt that my whole life is just crashing down, I've had nothing but a hard time and spending most of my time doing Uni work to take my mind off just how terrible things are at the minute.

I've never been so in need of a break, a relaxing time away. A week off would be really good right now, with no responsibilities or social media. But I'm not that lucky, I can just dream about it instead. Being able to even sit down and write out this blog post is a way to take my mind off everything and just sit and relax whilst I type away. It's sort of like talking to myself but I'm finding it so calming to do it. My problem is that the one thing that is making me relaxed, is something that I don't have too much time to do these day due to the pile of work I get EVERYDAY. But I'm not giving up on blogging just yet.

This blogpost was quite useless but I felt that I needed to write something just so I could feel somewhat calm and relaxed for at least 10 minutes of my day. I feel like I have been able to breathe for a second.

Ciao for now...

#GrowingUpWithAnxiety...

Hello guys...

anyone that is on twitter, will have noticed that during this week there has been a lot of #GrowingUpWith trends and one of the trends that really stood out to me was the one about anxiety. I sat and scrolled through the trend just looking at all of the tweets people were making about growing up with anxiety. Reading through all of these tweets about people who have anxiety and how they've suffered in similar ways to you have, is actually quite comforting to know that you aren't alone. Anxiety is something that I have never really enjoyed talking about or wanting people to know that I have it but as I have grown up and by being reassured that there are so many more people in the world and my age that have anxiety made me feel somewhat "normal".
I saw a lot of individuals tweeting that "people shouldn't be glorifying anxiety" which is completely not what is actually going on. Individuals are finally feeling strong enough to voice their problems and explain what it feels like to have and to have grown up with the disorder so why are we shaming them?
I know from my own experiences that growing up with anxiety is horrible, I always felt like there was something wrong with me, I didn't want to be out with my friends or even out of my bed. I was quite happy lying in my bed away from the world and I just couldn't understand why that was unhealthy. My family would ask me if I wanted to go out and I'd just cry because I simply did not want to get dressed and see other humans, the other of interacting with others that I did not know was enough to make me feel sick. I went through 15 years of my life thinking that there was something wrong with me but I wasn't sure what, I knew I wasn't as confident as my sisters and I didn't like to be out all of the time like they did. Whilst they would be out with their friends, I would be in my room reading a book or on the internet. It was not until I started my GCSE's and the worry kicked in and the constant crying, that I realised that I need some sort of help and I couldn't carry on the way I was living or else I would've made myself seriously ill. Being 16 and being afraid to talk to someone on the phone is quite embarrassing and I wish I was never like that, even now at 18 I am still so afraid to phone people whether that being friends, family or strangers. Phone calls are not for me. I have always been the type of person to hate attention, I would rather no one knew my name than have all eyes on me.
Anxiety is not a nice thing to have or to go through and I know that I will always have it no matter what but being able to look at this trend on twitter and see other people have experienced events just like I have, is a good feeling. I have always been afraid of talking about my anxiety because of the fear of being judged but once I open up and know that others are the same, it makes me question why I was so scared. In some ways, if I did not have my anxiety, I wouldn't be the person I was. I probably wouldn't have concentrated as much as I have within school and college if I didn't have a constant fear of being seen as "stupid" or a "drop out" so in some ways, if I didn't have anxiety, I probably wouldn't have come this far in life. I'm not saying that anxiety is a good thing but I guess there could be some positives if you look into it hard enough. I'm not afraid to admit to myself or anyone else that I have anxiety, more and more people are aware of the illness these days too which makes it a lot easier on me. I know that I am normal, I may have a mental illness but I am not my mental illness, anxiety does not define me.

Some of the tweets I saw that I found relatable to me were:

"#GrowingUpWithAnxiety constantly thinking people dislike you if they don't talk to you" this is something that you feel with anxiety because you have a constant fear of not being good enough or not being liked and half of the time you are just over thinking it but it makes you feel terrible.

"#GrowingUpWithAnxiety having too much anxiety to go to school and then people joke about you "skipping"" This happens. Not everyone will understand what anxiety is and they just don't see what the big problem is, loose those people out of your life.

"#GrowingUpWithAnxiety Being the most emotional in your family and crying over minor things and having the rest of your family not understand" !!!!!!!!!!! THIS !!!!!!!! nothing sums up my life now and when I was growing up more than this tweet.

"#GrowingUpWithAnxiety mentally preparing yourself for social interactions" I wish this wasn't true but it is. Knowing that you have a huge event coming up is always the worst, your mind does overtime and you have to plan and plan situations in your head that will probably not happen and because of the situations going on in your head, this can make you not even attend the social event to avoid interactions.

I have two photographs saved in my phone that I have had for the longest time and I am ready to share. Both of these photographs are from tumblr (feel free to leave your url in the comments and I will follow you)

I hope that these photographs come in helpful with you like they have with me and I hope that this overall post makes you feel as if you can be a bit more open about your anxiety or can relate to the illness.

Feel free to leave any comments if you would like to talk to me a bit more privately.

Ciao for now...

Becoming Myself Again...

Hello guys...

It's been too long since I was actually my normal self and it's been a long time coming. My normal self was always happy, helpful and friendly and since I started college I became someone I wasn't happy being, I was never happy anymore and I was constantly stressed, crying or tired. One thing I missed was being able to have a good night's sleep without worrying or waking up during the night thinking about all the different tasks I had to do, I started to miss being bored. But, on Friday, I finally finished my two years of college which I have been looking forward to since I started college. Finally I am free until September and life has never felt so good!

Since I have finished I have spent most of my time just watching Netflix and sleeping and it has been the best thing ever. I am actually enjoying doing nothing and I feel so much happier already, my biggest aim for the time I have off was to become myself again and to take care of myself because I always put other people before my own needs so now, I will take care of me.

Ways that I plan on becoming myself again are by-

Becoming healthy and happy. I want to take care of my skin and make it the best it's been in the past two years so I plan on drinking a lot of water and keeping it make up free a lot more than I usually do. I am so done with spots.

Spending time with family and friends. I tend to not want to be with people when I am stressed or upset but now that I have a weight lifted from my shoulder, I plan on spending my time off with the people I love the most in hope that it will make me becoming myself again.

Taking time for myself. I'm free for a couple of months and I have just about all the time that I need to do anything that I really want to and that might be nothing at all or something very creative.
Now one thing I do plan on doing is watching a lot of series on Netflix.

Having a rest. Nothing I need more than a good old sleep with a lot of resting and relaxing. I hope that I will be able to have a weekend away during my time off in order to rest and reward myself for all the hard work I've done recently.

Hopefully through all of this, I will become myself again and I will be a lot more happier than I have been, I look forward to keeping you all updated with how that goes!

Ciao for now...

Insecurities and Self Image...

Hello guys...

I have been thinking about how to actually write this post because everyone has insecurities, flaws and imperfections that you can never get over no matter what. I could count on one hand the amount of features I actually like about myself and I find that quite upsetting because no matter what I do I'm always going to have them. I go through a lot of bad days or bad weeks were I simply won't leave the house because I don't want to see anyone or anyone to see me.

Posting a photograph of myself on instagram, Facebook, twitter or tumblr may come across as if I find myself "acceptable" because I am sharing the way I look with others but what people don't is just how long it has took me to get the courage to actually post that photograph in case someone is criticising the way my nose is or the size of my lips, its an ongoing cycle. Receiving likes and comments about you being 'beautiful' or 'pretty' never helps either, I never remember the good compliments from people, only the worst. I could sit now and write down all of the past nasty comments I have received from people for as far back as I can remember but I won't do that because that will only make me upset. No-one thinks about other people's insecurities or the way that they see them selves whilst they are talking to them. I want to be someone's idea of perfection but how can you become that when you don't even see yourself as it?

Recently I have been battling a lot with my weight, constantly dieting, no matter what I eat I am constantly thinking to myself, you shouldn't eat them, you'll regret that, how many calories does that have in? I am constantly shaming myself for everything I do and eat and it's because I'm never going to be happy with myself. I look at other people's photographs and I'm like "I wish I looked like her, I wish I could eat as much as she does and not gain any weight" but unfortunately that isn't me.

I am 18 years old and for as long as I can remember I have despised my flaws, as much as I hate my insecurities, I will not let them defeat me, hopefully one day I will actually appreciate them even a little bit because without them, I wouldn't be myself. One of my biggest fears in life is that when I have children, they are over run with their insecurities, I know how it feels to be so upset with the way I look and I'd hate for it to happen to my own child. I can't change the way they feel about themselves or help anyone but I can help them by letting them know that they aren't alone with it, we all have them but without them we wouldn't be ourselves.

How do you cope with your insecurities? Does any of this sound familiar to you? I am long way from ever feeling good about myself and my insecurities but I will get there. I know I will. I will not let them destroy me

Ciao for now...