Being Unapologetically Myself

The world can be an intimidating place. It can be so hard to find where you fit in, and even when you find it, it can be even harder to embrace that and be who you want to be.

Anxiety and Me

Worrying sucks. We all do it, whether it’s worrying we’ll be late for work, worrying about money, or worrying about whether people like us. It’s a human emotion, to worry. Sometimes though, it can go a little further and that’s when spiralling happens.

An Open Letter to Depression

Dear Depression,

You haven’t taken enough already? Taking my every last ounce of happiness, and every last good memory away from me wasn’t enough? Was giving you every single tear I had, every single piece of my heart, every single smile I had not good enough?

You are a killer. You are a murderer. You are cruel. You leave people to rot inside their own minds. You lead people to believe they mean nothing, when you know full well they mean the world to someone. You break families apart, relationships apart. You break people.

You take the strongest person and reduce them down until they’re nothing but sadness. You ruin the best in people. You make sure even the kindest souls are tainted with your darkness. Oh and you do all of this, and you’ve made sure there’s no cure.

Sure we can make you go away for a while, but that’s not enough for you. You come back. You’re always there, lurking. Waiting for the weak spot to rear its head again. Waiting for an opening. Then BAM you’re back. Ruining lives, and laughing the entire way.

You feed off of misery, and sadness and pain. You love to create loneliness. You dwell in the darkness of people’s minds, and make that grow until that’s all the mind can see. Until it starts to look around, but the light is gone.

You are a f*****g arsehole. You hurt the ones I love. You make them feel like they’re nothing, when to me they are everything. You hurt me. You hurt me every single f*****g day I am alive. You make it a chore to just survive. You make it hard to be alone. You make it impossible for me to think without you there. You make me feel like I’m drowning. Like I’m useless.

But you’re the one that’s going to lose. Depression, here is my oath to you.

For every mind you’ve ever broken, for every heart you’ve taken away and made dark, for every tear someone has shed because of you. You will live to regret it. Because we see you. We see your darkness. And we are sick of you.

It might take months, years, or even centuries. But one day, you’ll be nothing. You will be exactly what you make us feel. Worthless. Nothing more than a bad memory. Nothing. You have hurt people for so long. It’s time you felt it too, I think.

So get ready. Because I will never give up this fight as long as I am still breathing. I will never ever give up. Not for me. Not for my friends. My family. Not for every single person who has felt any pain from you.

I am coming for you depression.

Get ready, because here I come.

It’s not nice feeling scared all the time, is it?

Lots of love, from your tormented pawn,

Meggan x

Hope

I’ve been kinda absent on my blog recently and I have no excuse really other than saying, I just didn’t feel like writing.

If you’ve read my other posts then you’ll know I haven’t been in a good place, and I really didn’t want to write on here if I wasn’t in a place where I could help someone with what I write. I pride myself in trying my best to turn my own situations into something positive for others, and I just didn’t feel like I was able to do that recently, so I took a break.

However I’ve just come out of my last counselling session this semester and I have something I’ve not had for a long time. Hope.

Counselling was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done, purely because I am awful at talking, and I thought I wouldn’t be able to do it. However after some discussion with friends and family I thought I might as well give it a try, the tablets needed something else to help kick them into action. I’m so glad I did.

To anyone who has been to counselling and found it successful I’m sure you can agree that one of the main things is that you feel relieved after it. A weight has been lifted off your shoulders, and the burden of your mind is no longer your own. You have someone outside of everything to talk to, and who will use everything they can to help you. Now that doesn’t mean that family and friends can’t do that too, you all do amazing and I’m grateful for everything. But sometimes, I don’t want to have to let you go through it all, I want to protect you from it, and I know I’m not alone in that.

It’s been 6 weeks since I started it, and I now finally have hope for the future. The post I wrote in the past on the important steps was one of the most important ones I think I’ve ever written, and now I definitely stand by that. Something so small as talking to someone about how I feel, was one of the best things I’ve done.

I don’t want to get in your head that if you find help in this way it’s a sure fire way to feel better, because there is no such thing. Counselling won’t “cure you”, but if it works for you and helps you let a little bit of those black clouds get pushed away, even if it’s just for a day, it’ll be worth it. In all honesty I’m still struggling, my anxiety has been really bad recently and that’s never really bothered me before so this is new to me. I’m not better. But I have hope.

Hope means more to most people than anything. One of the worst parts of depression for me is that I start to feel hopeless, like nothing could ever possibly make me happy. So having that little bit of hope in my life is something I grip onto. It gives me a little edge in fighting my depression, something the depression never expected me to get. So I grip onto it and use it to climb as far out of the hopeless well as I can. Yes, I’ll slip and probably get back down to the bottom, but I have that hope and those steps already there to help drag me back up again.

What I’m trying to say is never underestimate yourself. When you think you’re finished with everything, take a deep breath, a step back and look around, you never know what little bit of hope you might find. Whether it’s a hug from a friend, a kiss from a lover, or even just managing to get out of bed on a bad day. Hope is what makes us human, and hope is what will help us defeat our demons.

This isn’t a post saying that counselling is the best, this is purely just my aspect on it. I urge you to find hope however and wherever you can, I know counselling doesn’t always work and that’s okay. There are other ways for you, if one thing doesn’t work, something will I promise you.

Keep hope in your heart, and try your best to find one good thing each day. No matter how small, the little things are often the best. Find one good thing in the day and then you will realise not everything is bad. Even on the darkest days there is a little light shining on you, you just have to find it and let it show.

You are braver than you believe and you can do anything and everything if you just try to find it and have hope. A little light can go a long way.

Stay strong and keep fighting.

First Steps

Everyone will no doubt go through challenges in their life, and these can be hard to overcome. No matter how hard you try, you may feel like nothing will help or that even when you try your best you can’t see any difference. However usually, the most important parts of overcoming challenges are the first steps you make.

The initial steps you make on your journey to achieve your goal are the best parts. They show that you’re doing something about it and they prove just how strong you are at making this change, because normally it’s starting out that can be the hardest.

I figured this out the hard way, as most people do throughout their lives. I felt like after months of being diagnosed with depression, that there was no hope and that there was no way I could overcome this. I felt like nothing had changed and that no matter what I did and how hard I tried, it was no use. That all changed for me yesterday, when I realised that it’s not about the biggest change, it’s sometimes not at all a difference you can see. It’s the small things.

Yesterday I went to my first counselling appointment in hopes that that, teamed with my medication, would help me to improve my mental health, or at least to learn to cope with it. It took me a while to realise, but that in itself was a step forward into making a change. I never would have done that before, because I would have avoided anything I could like that, I’m not the most open person when it comes to people I don’t know.

It made me realise that sometimes you can change, or take a step toward your goal maybe without even realising it. Whether your goal is losing weight, doing better in education, trying to achieve your dream job, or even something like eating better or recovering from an illness. It may seem like you can’t change or that everything you’re doing isn’t working but I can almost guarantee it is.

You can only try so hard, and I promise that your effort won’t be in vain. Take notice of the little things, whether that’s making an appointment for something you never thought you’d make, or even something as simple as reducing the amount of snacks you eat a day, or taking more time in completing homework. It’s the small things that make the difference, and once you’ve completed these, you’ll find the bigger differences fall right into place until you’ve achieved everything you want.

Don’t ignore the small achievements you make, they’re the most important, no matter how much they get overlooked. They’re the hardest to complete and they’re going to be the biggest part in your success in life. Don’t give up on yourself, and don’t sell yourself short. You have got this, and I promise you can do anything you want.

There’s hope for everyone, and you can achieve even more than you think. Just don’t underestimate yourself, as A.A. Milne said “You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think”. Always remember that and no matter what you do in life, you will beat it to the best of your ability.

Stay strong.

Update

I think there are times in everyone’s life when you finally feel like you’re on the right track. You feel like life is going you way finally, but then you realise that in fact you’re right back where you started. The effort you made amounted to nothing, and you’re not entirely sure how that happened, but it did.

That’s me right now. When I went to the doctors to get diagnosed and to start my tablets, I felt like that was the beginning of a new chapter for me. The chapter where I was finally going to start getting back to how I used to be, the me that was happy and didn’t have the dark cloud hanging over her all the time. 5 weeks later and nothing has changed.

It was meant to take only 2-4 weeks for my tablets to kick in, yet here I am 5 weeks later and still nothing has worked. I feel the same as I did when I first went to the doctors and to top it off I’ve noticed I’m a lot more anxious and nervous about things now too. Coming to terms with the fact my tablets aren’t working yet is hard. I really thought this was my chance and I know that they don’t work instantly but I still hoped by now I would notice a difference. I ask myself questions like: why aren’t they working? Is there something wrong with me? Will they ever work? I mean the questions are no good because I don’t even have the slightest clue of the answer. But they’re still there.

To tell you the truth I don’t know why they haven’t worked yet. Maybe they will, maybe I need to change them or something, I have no idea. All I know is that while they haven’t been working it’s been hard as hell still. I’ve been trying my best to get used to coping with my mind and to deal with it, and some days are better than others. I’m trying to be my old self and not show it as much, whether I’m doing well I don’t know.

I just wanted to make this update to show that it’s okay for your medication or your method of help to not work straight away. Yes it’s a massive pain, and yes it is extremely hard to deal with, when the one thing you thought would make you better doesn’t…its crushing. However we’re not alone, and you can’t give up. This method might not work but others will. It might just take a while to kick in. There are so many options of help, one is bound to work so don’t give up hope yet.

I’m still struggling and it’s a lot harder now, but I’m not going to give up. I discuss soon with my doctor about what we’re going to do about my medication and I’m hoping that will help. I’m nowhere near feeling better, and that cloud is well and truly still there but I just want everyone else who is in the same boat as me, no matter the illness, to know you’re not alone. You’re never alone and as long as you never give up fighting then you’re beating it. It might take a while but im sure you’ll get there in the end. Keep fighting and stay strong.

Mental Illness

One of the first posts I ever did on this blog was on mental illness, but from an unusual point of view. Instead of writing it from the point of view of having a mental illness, I wrote it from the point of view of knowing people with one and trying your best to be there for them and how you can be there for them.

However, now it’s all changed. This post is more focused on what it’s like to have a mental illness. Well, my personal experience anyway. Everyone is different and everyone deals with things in different ways, you’re completely entitled to that but I hope that in some way, this post helps you too.

Mental illness sucks. That’s the simplest way to put it, no matter what aspect you deal with I can pretty much guarantee that you wouldn’t wish it upon your worst enemy. Now I can’t talk about all mental illnesses, but I know first hand that depression (and some aspects of anxiety) are awful. I don’t know for sure how long I’ve been dealing with it, probably longer than I thought I had. But either way it’s there.

There is such a stigma around mental illness. Unfortunately they’re becoming more and more common amongst all ages, which means there is a lot more help available but it means more people have to deal with them. One of the worst things is that depression especially can be hard to explain.

Some symptoms can be so similar to everyday life that to people who aren’t aware of what you’re going through, it could just be passed off as a ‘bad day’. Which isn’t wrong, I mean I do have ‘bad days’, but they’re completely different to that too. When I’m personally not having a good day, it’s like there’s this weight pressing down on me. The weight presses down on my mood and myself so far that no matter how hard I try to lift it, nothing works. All I do is I wait for it to hopefully lift because it takes so much strength to do it myself, but it’s so heavy. I want to move it, and I try but sometimes it won’t no matter how hard I try.

If you know someone with depression and you’re trying to help them but they don’t seem to be cheering up, or don’t seem any better, please don’t give up on them. I promise you it is working in some way, it just might not be entirely obvious. My friends and family give me so much support and it does work, although it might take a while. I might not be ‘cured’ or jumping around with happiness, but that doesn’t mean your support has gone unnoticed. If you’re there for the person, that’s all they’ll really need, just to know that even in their most insecure moments when they’re worried that their mind will push everyone they love away, that no matter what you’ll stay.

I find it hard to talk about, even when I went to the doctor’s it was much harder than I thought. I know this can be quite common too and it’s something I’m working on (hence this post, I’m trying my best to finally talk about it and also hopefully help as many as I can along the way). Talking can help, you don’t need to hide it away. It’s happening and hiding it away won’t mean you’re not still going through it. You are, but it’s also a lot harder. I get scared and worried when talking about it, but I’m trying my best to change that and I hope that you do too. Find strength within yourself because you’re probably stronger than you think.

It was scary to confirm that what I had was depression, I don’t know why but it did shake me up a bit. However living in fear of it is no good either. My other half told me when I was worrying that it was better to name it and then try my best to deal with it, than to always live in fear of what it could be. He was entirely right. It’s scary to have things such as mental health issues confirmed but if you know what it is then you have the beginning of the means to fight it. Living in fear is never good and living in fear of your own mind is terrifying. It doesn’t have to be that way always, the light at the end of the tunnel is there, just picture naming it as the first step on the train towards the light.

I can’t say I’m doing good at the moment, but I’m trying. I’m trying everyday and I’m not giving up no matter how much I want to. When I want to stay in bed all day because I don’t want to face the world, I try my best to get out and do something. Even if that doing something is just getting dressed. That doesn’t mean to say that I don’t have bad days. In all truth most of my days recently are bad days, or are at least tinged with some bad. But I’m trying, that dark cloud is definitely still above me and I am living in it’s darkness a lot. I will never stop trying to get into the light again.

There are so many other aspects to it and I’m sure one day I might make a post on ways to cope with those too. However for now I hope this is enough.

Mental illness doesn’t define me or anyone else suffering from one. It’s awful, it’s tough and it’s definitely not a walk in the park or something to be ignored. But it also isn’t the end of your life. It isn’t who you are and it isn’t who you’re going to be for the rest of your life. I’m still learning to deal with it and yes I can’t say I’m good at the moment but I know I’m gonna fight till the very moment where I might beat it. Or at least learnt to cope with it.

For all the people who have depression, I hope that hearing someone else’s story helps you, and reminds you that you are not alone. Your mind can make you feel so lonely, like no one understands or that you don’t want to talk to people out of fear of burdening them or worrying them. But you’re never alone. They might not be with you but there are so many people going though their own battles that yes, are different to yours, but also similar in ways that prove that you’re not alone in your own battle.

For anyone with other mental illnesses that goes out to you too. Mental illnesses are so different but sometimes have similarities and no matter who you are you are never alone no matter how hard it gets.

Stay strong and never give up fighting.

Scars

Every person in some way or another, has scars. Whether they’re emotional ones or physical ones, it’s pretty much a guarantee that you will have some.

Many people across the world tend to see these scars as ugly, or a part of them that they don’t want. Yet they’re actually an important part of being human. Throughout our lives we accumulate scars, I got my first scar when I was younger and I accidentally ran into a wall, cutting open my knee. I still have the scar to this day, it’s faded slightly but it’s still there.

This is the same for many people who injured themselves throughout their lives, the scars may fade but they’ll more than likely still be there. It’s not just injuries that cause scars, stretch marks may also be counted as scars. They look like scars and can last just as long such as after losing or putting on weight, or having a child. Same with emotional ones, something can happen and it becomes something that you’ll always remember and have to live with for the rest of your life. It scars your brain and sometimes won’t leave no matter how hard you try.

Both physical and emotional scars can be seen as something to be ashamed of or hidden away but I can promise you they’re not. The scars that you carry through life are something to always be proud of. Yes, they may hurt to see or think about whilst they heal, but once they heal they’re something to look back on remember how good you were at beating whatever you got through. If it’s an injury scar, instead of thinking how bad it looks instead think about how you made it through the injury and use it as something to look at and always remind yourself of how you got better and beat the injury.

When you look at your stretch marks, remember that no matter what they’re part of you. They’re what makes you you, and they’re something to be proud of. You wouldn’t be the same person you are if you didn’t have them so you should embrace them and try your best to love them. They’re a part of you and that makes them amazing.

Emotional scars are a tough one. They can be even worse than physical scars, physical scars heal over sometimes short periods of time, yet emotional ones can take months if not years to fully heal. Sometimes they never do. Don’t let them beat you down or build up into something that you can’t bear to think of. Use them as a source of strength. “If I can get through this then I can get through anything. I won’t let it beat me, I’ll prove that I can beat this and show how strong I am”, use this as something to prove how strong you are. You’re so strong and you deserve to always remember that.

Scars are something to learn from, remember and ultimately never be ashamed of. Someone once said they’re like tiger stripes, a tiger wouldn’t be a tiger without its stripes, and you probably wouldn’t be the wonderful person you are without your scars.

They’re hard to deal with and take even longer to come to terms with having sometimes no matter which type you have, but the quicker you realise how they can make you stronger in whatever way you let them, the quicker you’ll start to heal.

They don’t make you ugly, they don’t make you any less of a person and they definitely don’t need to be hidden. They make you stronger and show just what you’ve been through in your life and how well you’ve done to come out on the other side stronger than ever.

Never be ashamed of yourself because you are stronger everyday, and become a better person each day you’re here, even with your scars.

Stay strong, you’re stronger than you think.

Body Confidence & Body Shaming

Body confidence issues is becoming an even bigger issue recently, than ever before. No matter who you are or what size you are, these days its so common to have low self esteem when it comes to body confidence. That left me wondering, is there something we can do to change that?

If you look at the media of today, most women have a certain way to look. Now I know what you’re thinking, ‘yes they’re all meant to be thin’. However that isn’t always the case. You can look at Victoria’s Secret models for example, who the majority of are thin, but then if you listen to the song “All About That Bass” by Meghan Trainor, that itself promotes being a bigger woman instead. The point is that it seems in the media today, neither body types can exist without shaming the opposing one. It seems that VS models are shaming bigger sized women, as they rarely feature people of those sizes, making them feel less sexy and pretty and unhappy with their bodies.

However it isn’t just those body types that get shamed, as Meghan Trainor also shames smaller body types in her song, claiming them to be ‘skinny bitches’, which can be derogatory as to how they look. Neither body type can exist without creating some sort of discontent about the other. And that in itself really doesn’t help people to love their bodies, when how they look is constantly judged and depending on the media outlet you look at, criticised both negatively and positively.

I have a bigger body type compared to some people, and it can be difficult to see smaller body type people and not compare, or wish to look like them. Yet there are many people I know who are the smaller type, who in fact would love to be my size, it’s just hard to get there. Some people who are thinner are just naturally like that, their metabolisms are a lot faster so they burn off food a lot quicker meaning that naturally they just don’t put on weight. This isn’t their fault and it’s unfair for them to get body shamed because of it. People don’t criticise others for going on diets and trying to lose weight, so why should people who are trying to put on weight to get to a healthy size be criticised?

Mental Health

There’s a lot of stigma attached to mental disorders these days, I mean the word disorder in itself makes it sound like something has gone wrong in a person. Well no it’s not like that.

I can’t speak from first hand experience as I’ve never actually experienced anything of this sort of my own. But I know many people who have to deal with it everyday, whether it be a struggle to get out of bed in a morning, a struggle to eat their dinner or a struggle to tell themselves the voices they hear in their head are nothing but delusions, I’ve seen many of my friends and family have to go through this on a daily basis. I’ve seen them when they’ve been really struggling, and that has been so hard to see, but this doesn’t last forever. I’ve also seen them get better so much, because I think that’s one thing in common with people who suffer from mental disorders, they’re all fighters. I can’t tell you what it’s like as a person who deals with it but I can tell you what it’s like to see it from a friend or relatives perspective.

It’s hard I’m not going to lie. I mean it’s a hell of a lot harder for the person dealing with it, I know that, but all you want to do is help them but you know that sometimes what they need isn’t a lecture on how to get better or what to do. What they need is someone to talk to. So that what I advise to anyone who knows someone that deals with mental health issues, don’t try to cram self help ideas down their throat, that’s not what they need. They need a friend and someone who they can confide in when they’re having a rough day of it, well everyone needs someone like that.

It’s amazing how much good you can do just by talking, and that’s relating to both sides, for people who deal with it please don’t bottle it up, your friends and family are here for that and they wouldn’t want you to go at it alone. If there’s anything I’ve learnt from the people I know is that words do a lot more good in the world than silence. Words give people the strength to get out of bed or to eat that piece of food, or even ignore those voices. They give people the power to be who they want to be without having their mental health hold them back. To all those who deal with this issue, you are not your illness. Your illness does not and will not control you or define who you are, not if you fight it. Sure it’ll be hard but just think, it doesn’t last forever. One day you’ll look back at yourself and think ‘I did it. I beat it.’ And you’ll be more proud of yourself than ever before. I know that it gets better because I’ve seen it, I’ve seen my friends and family fighting through it and winning, oh and it’s beautiful to see. They’re inspirations to me, they really are.

It will get better, it just might take some time. But you will be okay, never ever give up, you can do this.