Getting Better

Hi guys,

Since the last book I'd read spoke about anxiety, it's given me inspitation to write about my experience regarding my mental health and how I've dealt with it for the past couple years.

I've briefly told a version of this story before in another post here, but this one will go into a bit more detail. It's going to be a bit of a long one.

I believe that my mental health started to rapidly decline when I was about 14 or 15, only a few years ago. My first years of secondary school went great, I'd made few but very close and sweet friends, my grades were excellent, and I was genuinely happy. But at one point, my grades started falling, and so did my motivation. School started to become the worst thing imaginable and sometimes when I felt like I was going to lose it, I'd make excuses to skip classes. I seriously got lucky with my final exams, because I'd barely graduated. If I'd scored even a fraction lower, I wouldn't have made it and would have had to redo my last year. Given my already fragile state back then, I don't know if I would've been able to handle it.

Graduating secondary school actually came as quite a surprise to me, and since I was so focused on getting through all that, I'd never completely thought out what I'd do next. While being rejected by the college I originally signed up for, I tried applying for the next best thing, a college about a 40-minute bus ride away, which was simultaneously the closest one to home. I continued to live at my parents' because as a student, I didn't have to pay for bus fares anyway. Though my home situation wasn't doing too well either at that time. I regularly got into fights with my parents and they drove me crazier by the minute. I just couldn't stand to live with them anymore. The whole thing was one disaster waiting to happen.

So, with remaining stress from secondary school, stress from starting college, and pressure from my parents, I'd finally cracked.

I was having very frequent mental breakdowns and decided to drop out of college as soon as I could. I hadn't even lasted until Christmas. My coach was very understanding of the whole situation, so it was a relief to be fully honest with her. My parents on the other hand, weren't too thrilled.

I would spend month after month, day after day in bed, watching Friends with chocolate or a tub of ice cream, or simply just crying until my lungs gave in. I didn't know what I wanted to do, but all I knew was that there was no way I'd let myself suffer again.

Thankfully, I had a good friend nearby. On one of my darkest days - I'd just gotten into a huge fight with my mother - I'd called up my friend and asked her if we could hang out. She said yes straight away, no questions asked. It was weird how I could feel more at home at her place than at mine. Till' this day, almost two years later, she still has no idea why I'd come over so out of the blue. She's never asked either. One of these days I'm going to have to remind myself to let her know how much of a help she'd been.

Photo courtesy of Brandon Woelfel

Summer was slowly starting to creep in on me and I'd have to figure out what my next step would be. I just knew I couldn't go back to school anymore. I would've gone crazy if I actually had. And actually, a friend of mine inspired me to spend some time abroad. Away from my parents, away from responsibilities, away from my normal life for a while. With lots of persuasion, my parents allowed me to go. I think they also started to see that I couldn't go on anymore.

So after summer, I spent eight months in New York. Slowly, I noticed progress. It really felt as if a weight had lifted from my shoulders. It really helped to be surrounded by strangers, in a strange place. I could reinvent myself, and that's exactly what I did. I pushed myself to do things I never would've at home. At the end of my trip, I felt happier, healthier, and more sure of myself. I'm not saying that it completely 'cured' me, but my time in New York had certainly helped me open my eyes.

As I'm dealing with college again at the moment, I do notice the huge difference from now and two years ago. My first college experience was doomed from the start. I don't know how I thought I could've ever finished the study course when I never wanted it in the first place. Now, I'm only home on the weekends, which is very refreshing. Don't get me wrong, I love my parents, but they can get on my nerves very quickly. In addition, my grades have been great so far, and I haven't had any big setbacks yet.

I'm still not 100% better, and I seriously doubt it's possible to get to that point. I still find myself on days where I'm stressed and panicking, and I get flashbacks from those dark times. I always try not to let it eat at me. I remind myself that I've gone through a really bad time before, and I can do anything that life throws at me now.

I knew that I was starting to fall in love with life again when I didn't dread getting out of bed anymore. It truly is amazing what a little bit of time away can do for your mental health. It certainly helped crank mine up. And of course I know that not everybody is in a position to get far away. A great alternative is to find a place closeby to get away, even if it's just for a few hours to recharge. For me, currently, it's a nice little bookshop, not even too far from college.

I'm content, but I'm endlessly improving and creating myself.

Love, Faith

What Is Self Love?

Self love is feeling refreshed and anew. It's taking gorgeously smelling baths, putting on a face mask, shaving, painting your nails.

Self love is dealing with and clearing the notifications you've been avoiding, and then turning your phone completely off.

Self love is going to sleep early, and not setting an alarm for the next morning.

Self love is making time to do the things you love; whether that's pursuing an art or training for a sport.

Self love is allowing yourself to treat yourself on a pizza, a cake, that fancy handbag, whatever.

Self love is buying and wearing the clothes that you want, and feeling good in them.

Self love is knowing that if you're in the middle of doing school work, and your head is getting dizzy, and your hands are starting to shake, it's time to go the fuck to sleep.

Self love is drinking a decent amount of water every day.

Self love is not comparing yourself to other people. Self love is not feeling the need to compete with them.

Self love is realising your worth and not letting anybody make you feel small.

Self love is letting go of grudges that you've been holding, and instead, forgiving others.

Self love isn't selfish. It's a priority.

Photo courtesy of Brandon Woelfel

Living With Anxiety

Hi guys!

I'd like to touch on a subject that is close to my heart and that I relate to a lot, as I'm sure a lot of others do too. I suffer from a mental illness; anxiety, and then especially social anxiety. People tend to mix it up with being nervous, shy or reserved, but it's so much more complicated than that. I'll break it down for you as best as I can. Please note that everyone with anxiety experiences it in a different way, so not everyone will apply to it in the same way. This is just my story.

Anxiety involves constant overthinking and creating completely unlikely and ridiculous scenarios in my head, but it's hard to stop them. Except for the people that I'm closest with, which is a very small circle, I will always feel anxious around other people. My stress levels will reach an all time high and all I can think are things like; "Is my make-up / hair okay?" "Did I just laugh a little too loud?" "Why can't I think of something to say?" "Oh God, they must think I'm boring." And this list goes on and on with an endless number of insecurities that makes me want to lock myself up in my room forever and not interact with another person ever. Because I'm always that nervous around people, it means that conversations drain the energy out of me. After any social event, even if it's a small informal one, I can't think of anything but crawl right back into bed and sleep.

My anxiety gets worse when I'm alone especially. If I'm hanging around with friends or family, I can manage to zone out the rest of the world. Even though I still get a little anxious, it's still a huge relief to decrease the overthinking. However when I'm alone, I'm suddenly very aware of the fact that I'm alone. There's no one to distract me from my thoughts, so they start building up more and more. This is the reason why I don't like going out on my own.

When a group of people near me bursts into laughter, 9 out of 10 times I'm afraid they're laughing about me. I'm thinking this is because of early years of people openly judging me. I've been bullied and made fun of before, and it inevitably resulted into me trying to act as 'normal' as possible so I don't attract any attention, because that's the last thing I want. If I can just be quiet and blend into the crowd, I think people won't notice me.

Don't even get me started on giving any kind of presentations. I literally want to disappear whenever I'm standing in front of a class and all eyes are pierced on me. I lose my concentration to focus and I stumble over my own words, every single time. I've done dozens of presentations over the past few years and I've still not gotten over that fear. And do not tell me the "imagining everyone in their underwear" trick works, because it does not work for me. In my case, it feels as if I am the one in my underwear.

I think one of my worst habits that I have because of anxiety is that I lie, a lot. I lie to get out of any social events. I lie to not seem like a weirdo. I lie to teachers, to my parents, I even lie to friends. Close ones. It's just that my anxiety builds up and I panic, so I think of an excuse, any excuse. So far, it's never been anything too big or scandalous, but I hate myself for doing this all the time. It's exhausting, and yet I can't seem to stop. I really hope that one day I do.

I'm pretty sure I'm forgetting tons of other things right now, but I feel like I've summarized the main parts pretty well. It's hard for me to explain it in way so that other people can understand what I'm feeling.

Even though I'm aware that it's bad I'm not doing anything about my mental state professionally, like seeing a therapist, I've seen people writing amazing things about it online and it's helped me so far so good. But I'm afraid that one day my bucket will overflow. That one day that one tiny drop that falls into it is too much to carry and that I'll break down. I have seriously thought about going to seek professional help several times, but I would have to talk to my parents about it first. And trust me when I tell you that's going to be one long, tiring, frustrating conversation. I am thankful that I have people in my life that help and support me as much as they can, but they can only do so much. So I'm urging everyone else that struggles, please talk to someone you trust and do something about it. Mental health is something that gets overlooked far too often and it's just a shame.

"Sometimes the quiet ones are yelling on the inside." – Connor Franta

Stay strong always. You're not alone.

Love, Faith