I have recently been told something by someone who means so much to me, and I want to share it with all of you. I know that it will appear to be painfully obvious but I have been almost forced to think very hard about it. This is what I was told: judge a person on their actions. I bet that was a huge anti-climax but just stick with me. Now, I bet a lot of you will have been told this or read this at some point in your lives, but last night I was just continuously going over this one thought all night. What is hard is knowing how to balance it all up. If someone continually hurts you, at least once a week, but then does also make you happy, how should you judge that person? Are they worth all the pain? These are the questions that I made myself address last night as this is something that I honestly have in my life right now. If you are meant to judge a person on each action that they make then this would be a lot easier for me - I would cut them out of my life. The thing is, I find it near impossible to not think of all the good actions a person makes. I am in no way saying that this can justify a person continually hurting you, but I am saying that it should be considered. In my very personal example, I feel that it has been going on for a bit too long and the bad is in fact starting to outweigh the good. So why can I not just put an end to it all? The thing is, I think that it is natural for a person to cling on to the very slight hope that things will change and people would stop hurting you if they actually care about you. This is exactly what I have been doing for the past few weeks, but it isn't changing and I doubt that it ever will. Therefore, what am I doing? What am I clinging on to? It is pretty pathetic, and I am the first person to admit that. I think it is hard for anyone to just let go.
0 Comments
With only a few minutes until the 1st of December, it is fair to say that Christmas fever has hit me. This is without doubt my absolute favourite time of the year and I cannot wait to scream out all the Christmas classics starting tomorrow. There are so many things that I just love and cannot wait for. Perhaps most obviously is all the food that I will inevitably be eating. But it is so much more than that - my family, like most, have so many Christmas traditions that we absolutely must stick to. Each year my brother, my sisters and I have a disney themed movie marathon - although it is more of a Toy Story marathon as that is what we watch each year. There is something about having all the family around that is amazing. When we were growing up we were forever around each other, annoying each other. Now as we are getting older we spend a lot less time altogether and so spending time together is something that I absolutely love. The house becomes full of life and I think we all get on better than we ever have done in the past. Another thing I obviously love - giving presents!! Each year I am drafted in by my dad to wrap all of his presents for my mum, which I dutifully do whilst sitting in front of a fire and if I weren't to do this, it would feel so very odd. There will undoubtedly be some form of quiz around the dinner table for us at some point, which brings out all of our competitive sides. Then there is the Christmas jigsaw that we have to complete within days - the most valiant of efforts definitely come from my mum and my Grandma. I think that the rest of us are too impatient. As I have mentioned in an earlier post, I have recently been re-diagnosed with anxiety, another very real form of mental illness. I have been very open about depression and what that is like and so I believe that I owe it to everyone else that I am open and honest about anxiety. If I completely honest, I absolutely hate anxiety, and I hate panicking. I have described depression to a few people as swimming against an extremely strong current in the dark, being washed away from where you started and I am trying to think of a way to explain anxiety. The thing is, it is so hard to explain as it is so different within people, but I will do my best to explain what it is like for me. I do this just to open people's eyes to another form of mental illness, you never know who this will help, and you never know what you might learn. The way in which I would describe anxiety is completely irrational. Despite knowing that what I start worrying about or having an irrational feeling about I am unable to stop myself from worrying excessively. It affects my everyday life a lot. Similarly to depression, anxiety is known to cause insomnia or just struggling to fall asleep and then stay asleep. Some of the time I do not even know what makes me begin to worry, but it starts with butterflies in my stomach which get progressively worse until I throw up. Not very pleasant at all. I am not a confident person anyway, and I don't think I was even before my bout of mental illness, but I can honestly say that I have never felt lower in myself than I do at the moment. I am absolutely not saying this for attention so please do not take it the wrong way, I am not 'fishing for compliments'. I am merely explaining the difficulty I feel being comfortable within my own skin. This within itself leads me to panic about really stupid things. If I am in a social situation and a group of people start laughing, I automatically think that they are laughing at me. I don't feel good enough in personal relationships. This has become most obvious in my relationship with my boyfriend who I have been with for nearly 3 years. I should be exceedingly confident around him, but unfortunately that is not the case, not through any fault of his own. The thing with anxiety that not many people appreciate is that it is very much place based. If you have been in a place or a similar sort of place in the past where you have felt panicked, the chances are that your brain will remember that. Anxiety is basically your body trying to protect yourself from situations you feel uncomfortable in. It is such a pain though, and the absolute worst part of anxiety? Panic attacks. I don't know how I can even begin to explain panic attacks. With me I feel really claustrophobic, I start shaking, I hyperventilate, I feel really dizzy, and basically I need to get myself out of that situation. Like any illness, anxiety is completely specific to the person suffering, so I have only described a handful of issues that I am having to deal with at present. I hope this opens people's eyes to the misunderstanding around anxiety, it is a real thing that does change people's lives. Educate yourselves!!
Back from London, and I had a great time. Saw my sister and her boyfriend, went to some amazing restaurants, walked around London and met the family my sister is working for. Managed to distract myself for most of the weekend from being down. Having said that, since coming back to Nottingham I have already broken down again. I think it is for the simple fact that I went very abruptly from being around people who care for me to being in my room alone. If I am completely honest, I am finding things very hard at the moment and I have kept that to myself for a long time. I know that I need to make an effort and try to push myself, but at the moment I am panicking a lot, and crying most nights. However I have decided something. It would be the easiest thing in the world for me to drop out of uni again, I've done it before and I know that it is easy to do, especially with a medical condition. The thing is, I know that for a long time before I got depression that I wanted a university education, I wanted to learn more. As I don't real;y remember what I was like before depression, this is something I think that I should respect and hold on to. Everyone makes out that university will be the best years of your life. If I am totally honest, I don't understand why people do this. Obviously, for a lot of people university is the best thing that they have ever done, but by saying this you are automatically putting some sort of pressure on you. Before I went to Liverpool I was sure university was going to be perfect for me. I thought the same when I came to Nottingham. For this reason I think that I should voice my opinion to reassure those who aren't having the experience that they want. I know that good things are going to happen to me and I am now accepting that uni probably won't be the best years of my life, and I am fine with that. I am, however, going to try my absolute hardest to stick it out. I want to honour what I wanted as I am sure that when I no longer have depression I will want this education. To make this easier for me, I need to find people who I feel that I can rely on. At home, I have a support system. In London I had a support system. When I am here I do not feel that I have one. It takes me a very long time to open up to people, even doctors and counsellors. Hopefully a support system will come with time.
Hello again!! I realise that it has been a while since I last posted but a lot has been happening at uni, such as next year house drama, coursework, medication and attending lectures. But I have made time to update this. Firstly I am going to really quickly sum up my new medication and how it is affecting me. So, as my doses have been doubled it is a lot more likely for me to suffer some bad side effects which I have done. I am experiencing very painful headaches, I have been throwing up, my appetite keeps coming and going, and my anxiety has become a lot worse. BUT, my depression has eased a little bit, which is the main objective. I am currently going to the doctors every two weeks and the next time I go he said he might change my medication again if these side effects don't die down. That is all I am going to say depression related.
I am very excited about this weekend. I am going down to London to visit one of my sisters and her boyfriend who have recently just moved into their own place. They have made so many plans which I really can't wait for. I don't go to London very often so this is extra special and I am getting the train down tonight.I am hoping to sleep on the train because I have been barely sleeping recently (another wonderful side effect), but I know that I should probably be doing some sort of work. This week I handed in my first piece of coursework which counts for 40% of my overall mark. I think it is because of the amount of time I spent on it that I have been telling myself it is okay not to do more work. For my family who are reading this: I know this isn't good. Maybe after this weekend I'll start again properly... One final thing. As I have mentioned a few times before, I really love hearing from you! This past week for some reason a lot of people reached out to me and there are a few things I would like to say if anyone else is considering reaching out to me. You do not have to apologise for messaging me, I love it and will not take offence to anything that you say. If you are suffering from a mental illness, you should not feel embarrassed. Believe me, I know that is very hard as I am continually embarrassed by mine, but here is the thing: mental illnesses are serious. I know how scary they are, how isolated you feel, and I am not suggesting that writing about it will help with everyone. I started this blog as an attempt to address the stigma surrounding mental illnesses, not really thinking that many people would read what I have to say. If you don't have a mental illness, this blog is for you also!! Just because I have depression, does not mean that I am always sad. Just because I have anxiety, does not mean that I am always panicking. If you are reading this right now and know someone with any illness for that matter, if you can be there and the person suffering can say "they were always there for me", you are honestly doing the best thing. I only know of a few people who have continuously been able to support me, but that is all you need, a few people. Enjoy your weekend, and I will write to you all again very soon. This is somewhat of a hard topic for me to write about as it is very personal, but I have to be honest. As I mentioned in the previous post my depression has definitely got much worse recently and so I decided to go back to the doctors. I have finally managed to get a good, understanding doctor after my run-in with doctors who did not make me feel comfortable in the slightest. Anyway, to cut a long story short, my doses have been doubled. This is very sad for me, as I was so sure after summer that I was very nearly back to my old self, so seeing first-hand the destruction of depression on my own personality for the second time has been very hard. The doctor also re-diagnosed me with anxiety, something I was aware had begun to take over my life again. Luckily for me, I suppose, is that the current drugs that I am on should be able to help control the anxiety issues I am facing at the moment. Due to the fact that the dosage has been doubled, my body has to get used to all these powerful chemicals being pumped into me, and so I have been told to expect some not so fun side effects. However, some of these side-effects can be a lot of fun! For example, I am not the best person at remembering things at the best of time, but now I am even worse. I am having the strangest/funniest/weirdest dreams. I get myself tongue tied quite often now. I am just trying to focus on the positives of the side-effects now, as I am experiencing some negative ones. I am not, however, going to dwell on these, as once I get passed them (which I will) then hopefully this will be the last time I have to change the drugs that I am on.
It has been so long since I last wrote an entry on here and there is one simple reason for that: I have somewhat of a 'relapse'. By this I mean my depression has struck really, really badly again, crippling me with the belief that everyone would be better without me. It is such a challenge just to get up in the morning so, as you can imagine, uni has become a very tough place for me. Luckily, for me however, I have such a strong support system who never judge me and are there for me when I am lost. This means that I have been going home. Expensive, yes, but I cannot explain how helpful it is to me. I cannot stress enough the importance of feeling comfortable and not judged in a place, and the only place that I feel like that is at home (or in America - but that would be far more expensive). So this my apology to you for not writing anything and even now it isn't a very interesting post. Things will improve from now. Thank you for sticking by me.
For people who know me well, you will know that I have a love for Winnie the Pooh. The story is enchanting, and it was written with such skill and beauty with many underlying messages. All of the characters have been said to have some form of illness; Winnie has an addiction problem (honey), Tigger has ADHD, Owl is dyslexic (despite being exceedingly bright), Piglet has an anxiety disorder, Rabbit has OCD, Kanger Roo has social anxiety disorder, and Eeyore has depression. I cannot tell you how incredible the stories of Winnie the Pooh are - truly captivating.
So why am I telling you this? Well, today I read a quote about Eeyore which was amazing, I think it really sums up what being a true friend to someone with depression is all about. It reads 'One awesome thing about Eeyore is that even though he is basically clinically depressed, he still gets invited to participate in adventures and shenanigans with all of his friends. What is amazing is that they never expect him to pretend to feel happy, they never leave him behind or ask him to change, they just show him love'. What I think is truly remarkable is the fact that all these, albeit fictional, characters have their own problems, and perhaps this is why they never judge Eeyore. They show him love and support. Despite the fact that he probably isn't the most fun to have around, he has a lack of energy and a negative outlook, they still want him to be around. To me, I believe they do this simply because they want to help their friend get better. I know this seems somewhat silly to be ranting about Winnie the Pooh, but I honestly believe that A. A. Milne has created something that is outstanding. A children's book with so many beautiful, inspiring quotes, such as: "you're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem and smarter than you think". It teaches children, and adults, to have self-confidence, to appreciate how massively important friends are, and about serious mental health illnesses. This is groundbreaking, as it seems that Milne is attempting to get rid of the stigma that still plagues mental health illnesses today. Everything in life is temporary. Enjoy the good things whilst they last. When the bad things happens, as they are bound to, don't worry; it won't last forever. It may be stormy now, but rain doesn't last forever. Have faith in yourself and find comfort in the knowledge that something amazing is coming.
|