Monday 26 March 2018

Blogger Recognition Award

A little foreword before the nomination form:

I have been hum-ing and ha-ing over posting this award nomination post since last November. I have wanted to post this as I am so grateful to Jen for nominating me but I also haven't wanted to post this as I am so aware that people may not like the reason why I have taken so long to post it.

The reason why it has taken me so long to even fill out the nomination form is because I have not nominated anyone to take part and it has been a great source of anxiety for me so instead I want to invite my readers to nominate someone they think should be nominated in the comments below and I will contact them to let them know.

Here is the post I had written before over-thinking got the best of me:





Here’s another sneaky catch up on a blogger nomination form! The wonderful Jen at BeautyLifeMom has nominated me (waaay, back in November) for the “Blogger Recognition Award” and this is me finally getting round to doing it. Thank you to Jen for said nomination! You can find Jen’s blog here.


The rules of this post are as follows:
Thank the blogger(s) who nominated you and provide a link to their blog.
Write a post to show your award.
Give a brief story of how your blog started.
Give two pieces of advice to new bloggers.
Select 15 other bloggers for this award
Comment on each blog to let them know you nominated them and link to the post you created.


How My Blog Started:

I’ve mentioned this a few times as part of the requirements for other nomination forms but basically I started this blog about 7 years ago (nearly 8 now) and forgot about it. At the start of last year I remembered that I had this blog/name and decided to change hosts in April of 2017 as I wanted to be taken seriously with my posts about mental health and since then my passion for blogging has been refuelled. I started putting out more posts from the end of June and from there have watched my blog grow to all that it is right now. I’ve had several blog over the last 14 years but this one is by far my favourite.


Two Pieces of Advice for New Bloggers: 

1. Write about what you know. If you are passionate about something (for me it’s sharing the mental health information that I have been provided with over the years as part of treatment sessions) then you will never be short of what to write about.

2. Interact with other bloggers/your followers (they don’t have to be of the same blog genre as you) and create your own network of blogger friends. Not only does it help you make new friends but you can also support each other – something that is really important to have. If your followers see you as a nice person they’re more likely to keep following you and will interact back.

Remember to leave you nominations below!

Anxiously,
Me


You can find Anxiously, Me on:
This blog
Twitter

Monday 19 March 2018

Unmotivated: Stream of Consciousness


I’m sat here in front of my laptop and, like most days, I really cannot be bothered to write. I feel completely drained and so deflated. I’m tired. I’m anxious. I’m lonely. So instead of talking about one topic I thought I would just share my opinion and take on some things and splice in some of my real-time thoughts at the same time.

*Some of these thoughts were inspired by some tweets that I’ve seen recently and disagreed with. I’m not in any way trying to start arguments or drag people down; I’m using my platform, my blog to express how I personally feel about them.

** Also; some of these may be “unpopular opinions” so be prepared for that. If you don’t agree that’s fine and it’s OK to say so but please be mindful of what you write in response to me, an actual human being with feelings. If you wouldn’t say it in person then you shouldn’t write it online.

***I may end up completely removing the “unpopular opinions”/controversial thoughts.

Here we go:

Competition between bloggers: I am only in competition with myself. I strive to be better than I was the day before; as a blogger, a writer and as a person.

I wonder if anyone gets excited when they see I’ve posted something new.

I wish more people would say “hello” to me.

HI!

I wish more people would try to have a conversation with me.

Thanks for reading this post! How are you?

I wish that when I post my views on something I wouldn’t see people that I once regarded as friends writing indirect tweets after.

I wish I didn’t feel so bad about being myself because I’m not “positive enough” and “always depressed”. I have depression; go figure.

I really should finish those books that I started.

Just because I have severe anxiety and depression it doesn’t mean that I am unworthy of even basic communication (“hi”). It also doesn’t mean that if we have a conversation that everything will be based around me telling you how sad I am and how panicked I feel.

I’m more interested in getting to know you than you realise.

I still think about that time that I replied to a fellow blogger’s tweet and he and his friend tried to call me out for replying (note: it was because I had REPLIED and wasn’t due to what I had said. I had agreed with him). They made me feel like a complete idiot for daring to reply despite said friend not being tagged so it wasn't like it was a "private" conversation of theirs either. 

I'd also never spoken to said blogger before so there was no past history of any wrong doing.

His need to shame me actually caused me to have a breakdown.

Thanks for that.

I resist replying to anything he posts now and contemplate unfollowing him daily.

Why is it so hard to unfollow fellow bloggers?

Why is it so hard to unfollow former friends?

Why does one of my friends not understand that mental health isn’t a competition and that she shouldn’t be trying to one-up people?

Why do people ask me for advice and then never take it yet blame me when they don’t and it goes wrong? That is not my problem. You wanted advice; you got it. You didn’t want to take it; things went tits-up for you. That is not my fault.

People shouldn’t self-diagnose. Always, always seek professional help.

Buying followers, likes, comments should be banned.

Bot accounts should be banned and shouldn’t be allowed to be created at all.

I think I just cracked a tooth.

Cyberbullying needs to stop.

Well, it doesn’t hurt and I can’t feel any obvious change with my tongue so…

If you use IM/text speak in your posts then I won’t read them. I just can’t take adults and/or professionals seriously when they use “u” or “ur” etc.

The same goes if you have no grasp of correct grammar. "We was" drives me up the wall.

I really can’t stand blogs (that are supposed to be true to what a person has experienced) that read as fictional stories. Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?

I wonder if my readers would be supportive of my fictional writing...?

Those who constantly follow and unfollow accounts in aid of gaining more followers (and having more followers than they are following) should just be banned.

Same goes for those who straight up rip off or plagiarise other people's content.

I should probably wrap up this post. I’m definitely going to remove the “controversial” opinions; they’re not worth the worrying and the “what ifs” over people not being civilised.


If you made it this far you deserve some sort of reward. You should probably go reward yourself now. You may want to reward yourself with the art of conversation by starting one below or even by saying “hello” on Twitter…

Anxiously,
Me

You can find Anxiously, Me on:
This blog
Twitter 

Monday 12 March 2018

Can't Sleep


Can’t Sleep

Just before Christmas my anxious brain thought it would be hilarious if I could no longer sleep in the dark (or at all a lot of the time) and since then I have either been up all night or coasting by on very little sleep. In the 14 months before that I had finally managed to get into a pattern of falling asleep before midnight (or at least before 2am) and waking up at a reasonable time (for me this is before 10am) after over a decade of being unable to sleep before 4am (or not sleeping at all) and not being able to get out of bed before 3pm.
For those who are familiar with my late night tweets (you can follow me here) then you’ll know that, for me, being in the dark leads to panic attacks. It’s not that I’m afraid of the dark in the traditional sense( I’m very aware that monsters and demons do not live under my bed but rather in my head), it’s the fact that the darkness feels rather smothering and that in turns means that I – quite literally – cannot breathe. In cases like that I usually open my window up as wide as I can and breathe in and out for counts of 10. However, that is a lot easier said than done when it’s winter and the Beast from the East has taken over. I’ve had to resort to using distraction techniques instead to take my mind off of an attack.

*Trigger Warning – Don’t read the next line if associated words trigger you. If you want to know the triggers are then they listed next.*

*Triggers: panic attacks, nightmares, death*

Here is a breakdown of this time period and how I managed to feel even just slightly better about falling asleep and how I’ve managed to get at least a couple of hours sleep each night:

This first night started with a panic attack. As soon as it started to get dark outside (around 3pm) I could feel the panic is my constantly anxious body rising and I knew that I would be in for a night of broken sleep at best. I managed to stave off a panic attack until the time I got into bed at about 8pm. That may sound really early for some of you but, with my depression being worse due to the winter months and lack of sunlight, I’ve been finding it hard not to be in bed ready to wind down enough to sleep before 7:30pm. I managed to get through the panic attack but, like they always do, it left me feeling rather deflated, lethargic and unable to get my mind off of it. It might sound cheesy but putting on a Westlife tour DVD that night really helped me to at least not think of what my brain and body had just gone through. All until I wanted to go to sleep. I had managed to drift off just after 2am but was awoken by an anxiety nightmare (I have no idea why anyone calls them “anxiety dreams” as I certainly don’t consider one of my dreams to be discovering that my teeth are shattering and falling out) and a bit of a fever at 3. The nightmare had felt so real that even though I was checking with my tongue, I couldn’t feel my teeth for a good five minutes. It was like my tongue had gone numb or just that it just didn’t recognise what my teeth felt like and it made the aftermath all the worse. It took me a while to calm down (I recall looking at the clock and seeing that it was after 5 in the morning) with the help of deep breathing and putting on “Friends” quietly in the background. By having a focal point I managed to concentrate on breathing and very slowly all my senses came back to me. It no longer felt like I was underwater and I decided that I was brave enough to try to sleep again. I only slept for about 3 hours in total but it was so much better than not sleeping at all.

Since then I haven’t felt comfortable enough to fall asleep without a familiar comedy playing in the background and for the first few nights I purposely only watched Westlife tour DVDs before attempting to sleep as they are guaranteed to make me feel well enough to do so. Even though Westlife haven’t been together in about 6 years they still bring me immense amounts of joy and bring a sense of calmness over me. I owe a lot to them but I’ll leave that for another post.
After a couple of nights I felt well enough not to put on one of their shows and switched to watching at least one movie before changing over to “Friends” or another movie that I have previously seen because my anxious brain’s FOMO (fear of missing out) is apparently still prevalent even when I’m alone and I know can watch the movie again thanks to Netflix or even my DVD collection. Some nights I would just switch on “Friends” straight away and watch a couple of episodes before falling asleep and then watching the ones I had slept through the next day.
It’s been about twelve weeks since this cycle started and I am yet to feel like I can go to sleep without the TV being on. Aside from having frequent panic attacks, I also struggle with the intense feeling of panic that I am going to die if I close my eyes or that something bad will happen if I do. It has also been during this time that my phone, which is usually on silent because ringtones get on my nerves after a while and notification sounds trigger my misophonia (so they can do one), has been set to sound or, at the very least, vibrate as this fear that someone needs to get a hold of me late at night to tell me something has gone wrong/someone’s in hospital or has died has taken over my life. I should probably tell you that just before this period of not being able to sleep started that my brother had been taken into hospital and both my mother and I could not be reached at that time and I was also dealing with anxiety over pains and lumps I had found, so it (being unable to sleep) was bound to happen at some point. Hopefully I’ll be back to my new old self soon.

I hope this post made sense and I’m sorry if I jumped around a lot or if you feel like I missed anything out/glossed over anything. I wrote this a stream of consciousness but tried to stick to the topic of being unable to sleep and it’s subtopics of why I can’t sleep and what I’ve been doing to remedy it.

If you want to know more or want me to go into detail about something that I’ve mentioned then feel free to ask. If you want a list of what programmes/movies I’ve managed to sleep through (because they are familiar) then let me know and I’ll post it as a lighter take on this post. I know some of you like that more in depth look into other people’s brains and what they like/don’t like and I promise that I will not find it intrusive of you to ask for it.

Take care!

Anxiously,
Me

You can find Anxiously, Me on:
This blog
Twitter 

Monday 5 March 2018

Back to Basics

Instead of having a guest blogger answer my "Self-Care Q&A", posting an award-type post (I will get round to doing them) or writing up some mental health information that I've found helpful I have decided to go back to basics and do what I did when I first started this blog; just write whatever has been on my mind.
Since before Christmas everything has revolved around being tired (physically and mentally as well as figuratively) and feeling inadequate so I thought I would get it all out into the open in the hope that I might start to feel better once it's all been released.

Without further ado, here is: A Slight Stream of Consciousness: “Tired”.

*May be triggering to some*

For the last couple of months I have been completely floored by my anxiety and depression which has left me unmotivated to do anything. I was about to tell you that I have no idea why everything had suddenly felt ten times worse but as I was writing that very statement I realised that I do know where it came from this time.  I’m used to living with anxiety and depression on a daily basis – my earliest memory of having anxiety is from when I was 8 (but I know I felt it long before that) and depression from as young as 9 – but sometimes it hits me harder for periods of time. This is what normal has been for me for (at least) the last eighteen years and right now I am both mentally and physically tired of it.
I’m tired of every day being a struggle, of being alone and feeling lonely, of never having a break. I’m mentally tired of not being able to sleep (and tired from little to no restful sleep), of having such horrible anxiety nightmares and of feeling like if I close my eyes then I will die or that someone I know will.
I’m tired of always being on the lookout because years of relentless bullying taught me that in order to get through the day without falling victim to cruel pranks (confuse don’t abuse, people) or being a target I always had to be one step ahead of them both figuratively and physically.
I’m tired of being unable to leave my home because said bullies would literally bring their taunts to the door and now it haunts my every thought.
I’m tired of jumping every time the phone rings because all throughout primary school and high school we were subjected to prank phone calls and abuse being yelled down the phone.
I’m tired of not feeling safe in my own home because we’ve been targeted in the past by vandals and people who think it’s funny to ruin your private property by jumping over your back fence and using our outdoor furniture as a way to boost themselves over the next.
I’m tired of having to keep my mouth shut because it’s better to be quiet than to express an opinion because you’re “always wrong” and that your “opinion doesn’t matter”.
I’m tired of not being able to be myself and not feeling like I can tell you who I am without people that I used to know leaving anonymous hate comments because that’s all I ever received growing up.

I know a lot of you will be thinking “this happened in the past, you should be over it by now” or “high was years ago; you don’t live there anymore” but I guarantee that if you are thinking these thoughts then you’ve never experienced the type of trauma and mental abuse that I was subjected to.
Do you know how hard it is to overcome all of that? To not feel inadequate, like nothing you say or do is good enough or to feel like your life is meaningless every second of every day? It’s exhausting to feel every little thing so intensely because I’m one of these people who actually gives a fuck about creating good impressions and will spend all day worrying about whether or not you actually liked the tea I made and going over every little detail of the day over and over again in my head, over-analysing things to the point where I don’t know if I even said or did whatever it is I’m worrying about. That type of trauma and abuse has you second guessing everything and you never feel confident in just being because you’ve always been told by your peers (and some adults) that who you are just isn’t good enough or that what you think isn’t valid. You believe that all the negative things they tell you about yourself are true because that’s all you’ve ever heard.
It doesn’t matter if you grow up to be a success because you never truly feel like you are. You always believe that anything good that happens to you must be someone pranking you because the only times people have been nice to you it was all just so that they could get a laugh out of it.

There are things that happen currently that make me feel like this too. A lot of them are now centred round blogging and the maintenance of my website but they are all still people-made problems:

  • Messages being left on read and unanswered despite the conversation not being finished. I’m not talking about waiting a while to figure out a response, I’m talking about reading the message, being disinterested and conveniently “forgetting” to reply until I message weeks/months later daring to check in on you.
  • One word answers.
  • No further conversation being had on a blog post or comment board even though you took the time to carefully word a reply back.
  • Only being good enough to talk to when the person has no one else.
  • Being used to gain followers, subscribers or even just visitors when you host a guest post but never actually being asked to do one.
  • Being made to feel inadequate or like you did something wrong when something great happens to a really terrible or undeserving person.
  • Very little to no support.
  • Making so much of an effort to be supportive and not even receiving a “thank you”.
  • Only getting a comment/follow/reply if you are the one who makes the first contact.
  • People playing the “follow/unfollow” game.
  • Not receiving any kind of interaction on something you worked really hard on/are really proud of.
  • Not being check in on or given the same respect that I give others.

Any of what I have mentioned above is enough to make anyone give up so think of how someone like me must feel when they are dealing with all of the above (either the past or current section, or both in my case). It not only effected my past and affects my present; it also has an impact on my future. How you treat others matters. I don’t feel like I’m entitled to replies or for people to check in but it would be nice, and let’s be honest; a lot of it is just common curtesy.
No one seems to care. I want to be able to go to any one of my friends or followers and say “I’m having a tough time. Can we talk?” without mind games being played or seeing my message be left on read because you “can’t be bothered” talking to me because my tweets are rarely positive or because you feel like I’m not worth talking to because, yes; I am depressed and you might catch it. Depression isn't contagious. I see it all. I feel it all. I want it to stop. I’m trying so hard to get into a more positive head space and it’s just so mentally exhausting to go to therapy, go to group sessions and to just try to speak to someone as it is without feeling like this community of friends that I’m trying to build really just have no consideration for how I’m feeling. I made my blog and my other website to help others not feel lonely or alone by creating a place where anyone can talk to me, where at least one person understands or is there for them but the same kind of consideration is never given.

On my other site I can mention that I was really ill but no one will care; they just want the next update. Last year I was so ill with anxiety over getting updates out to them that I thought I was having a stroke because the left side of my face felt numb/tingly/like it wasn’t moving yet no one cared. They just wanted more from me. All I do is give and all others do is take. How is that fair? I work myself down to the bone to make others feel included, to feel like someone is there for them yet when I need them I get nothing. No “I saw you were struggling”, “how can I help” or even a “hello”. Even when I reach out to them I get a wall of silence. What have I done that is so bad that you can’t even be bothered to say “hi”? Don’t even get me started on the disaster of actually asking people for guest posts last year for Christmas/Winter and only having ONE person send anything even though all 10-15 that I asked promised they would send something in and promised that they were “writing as we speak”. I couldn’t even use that person’s post because they ended up plagiarising at least one of my tweets and I didn’t feel right rewarding that kind of behaviour (as in the “giving someone something despite them doing me wrong” sense not in the “I feel like my blog is better than theirs/being a guest blogger on my blog is that big of an honour” sense. Come to think of it, since I told them that I didn’t feel right posting it it’s felt like there has been some kind of vendetta against me with them and their friends blocking me despite me having not done anything wrong and never having spoken to their friends…

I digress.

I like doing these “what’s been on my mind”/stream of consciousness/almost diary-like posts. I may do one about the “vendetta” mentioned above or even how that came about some time. It would simply read like a story time blog or even vlog would do and no names would be mentioned either because whilst I believe in writing the facts and documenting the truth, I don’t agree with giving people that kind of attention by mentioning their names. At the end of the day names don’t matter; actions do.  

Anxiously and oh-so-very tired,
Me

You can find Anxiously, Me on:
This blog
Twitter 

Get To Know Me Part 2

Hi everyone! Here is part 2 of the "Get To Know Me" post that I did last Friday to celebrate one year of being with Blogger. If ...

Anxiously, Me