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...

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...

15 Things I Wish I Knew Before..

Hello guys...

Growing up is a challenging experience and there are a lot of things I know now that I wish I knew before that could've influenced my life in a different way. If I was told these before then I would be a different person to how I am now so hopefully these influence you now before it's too late.

-Friendships: don't stay in the same friendship group if one friend is being awful to you, in the end that person will more than likely end up with only one friend so don't let them make your life hell now! They do not own you, you are your own person. Surround yourself with people that make you enjoy life.

-School is not the best time of your life: adults tell you that you should enjoy being in school because it'll be the best time of your life and they're wrong. For a lot of people school is the reason for depression and anxiety so live in the now, have fun, don't worry about grades so much.

-Learn to say no: nothing makes you feel more powerful than saying no to someone or something if you don't want to do it, you make your own decisions.

-You don't need to explain yourself: we all have our own opinions on different situations and if someone doesn't agree or questions your decision, you should never have to explain yourself. If you feel like you have to explain yourself to your own friends, they aren't the friends you need in your life.

-Mental Illness: having a mental illness is not something you should be ashamed of, there are more people than you can imagine that also have one. Never feel ashamed about who you are.

-Do what makes you happy: if you want to buy something new or change your hairstyle, DO IT! If it makes you happy then it's completely worth it.

-Social media hurts: one of the main reasons that I am so insecure about myself is due to social media, if I knew before just how much it would wreck my self esteem, I would have never been so invested in it, so limit your use of it before it's too late.

-Sleeping: going to sleep early doesn't make you a "baby", it makes you normal, don't feel that you need to stay up past 11pm because that's what all the "cool kids" are doing, it will exhaust you. You deserve as much sleep as you can get.

-You're beautiful: you were beautiful before the boy or girl you like told you you were and you will be for as long as you live. Compliments do not define you.

-Take a day off: taking a day off from life doesn't make you lazy, it makes you happy. Spending your day in bed watching Netflix will make you a lot more happier than spending a day stressing, take the better option, you won't regret it.

-Don't be embarrassed over something you love: being a crazy fan girl or fan boy isn't embarrasing or crazy at all actually, if you love a sport or a band etc, don't be embarrassed because other people don't like it, if we all had the same interests, the world would be boring.

-Never feel pressured: don't be pressured into doing something you don't want to do, it will only leave you feeling guilty for as long as you can remember. It's not worth it, if you don't feel comfortable doing something then don't do it. End of!

-Girls Rule. Boys Drool- I'm kidding but seriously most of the time that boy or girl that is breaking your heart is not worth it, you deserve so much better than an idiot that has no time for you. Ssomeone is probably craving your attention whilst your attention is focused on that loser.

-We all have down days: you may feel like you just don't want to socialise or make any form of movement at all one day, this has happened to me a lot and I thought there was something wrong with me but there's not, it's completely normal to not want to do a thing at all, it'll make you feel better in the long run.

-Dance like nobodies watching: always have fun in every situation, no one remembers the boring events from their life so have fun every day.

I hope that these steps were somewhat useful to do because I know I wish I knew this before I turned 18 and had endless sleepless nights of worrying and fake friends in my life.

Let me know if there's anything you wish you knew before or if these steps have helped you to realise  something you didn't realise earlier...

Ciao for now...