HI! I am so bad at writing in this, I need to make the time to do it more.
Along with the anxious feelings I've been having which I wrote about in my last post, last year I was also feeling very stressed out and tired with a few things going on.
At the end of October I started a new job which involves a lot of travelling every day. I get up at 5.25am and I'm not usually home until after 6pm. It was my choice to do this and I'm not complaining about that alone. Last year my mum had both her knees replaced. She is young for this but she has had loads of issues so they did it and they replaced them both at the same time. While she was recovering in the hospital my dad fell outside after visiting her one night and broke his leg/ankle very badly and he also had to get an operation. So this meant that once they got out of hospital, my mum & dad were housebound and needed a lot of help. I used to go up every weekend to do their housework and take them shopping. This tired me out on top of all my travelling through the week but I didn't mind doing it because I knew they needed my help. What really got to me though, was when they started phoning and texting during the day to ask me to bring them things after work. Honestly the last thing I want to do after a long day travelling and at work was go out of my way to the shops and then to their house. The thing was, they knew I had been doing this all day and plus, there are countless other family members who either don't work, or drive, or both, who could easily do this for them, but still they asked me when they knew I was the busiest one of them all. Also, they things they were asking me to bring; I knew they already had in the house!!! My husband & I went to London for new year and on our way home they asked me to bring them stuff AGAIN. This frustrated me so much I cried but I had to go to their house for another reason so we did it. The next time they asked (which was the next week when I was back to the travelling and work) was the first time I said no, and also suggested they ask one of the other family members who could do it, and I listed these people. Thankfully now this has stopped happening so much but it was really getting to me. I just couldn't understand why they kept asking me when I was so busy and they had all these other people they could ask.....?
This led me to ask at work for one day off every fortnight. Strictly speaking it wasn't a "day off|", we work on flexi time so I worked extra hours each day so I could take this day off. This was great but I've only managed to actually take it a couple of times since the beginning of the year as work has been so busy.
After saying all that, I have been feeling a bit better recently. I know this sounds a bit cliché but the best way I can describe it is that at times I've just felt lighter, happier, with less weight on me, I saw my therapist again this week and he suggested that I don't need to see him every 2 weeks. I agreed and had also been thinking this, so I have another appointment in 4 weeks time and we will take it from there.
I don't think I'll ever not be an anxious person but hopefully I won't ever again feel as bad as I did last year. It feels like life keeps throwing things at me (as it does everyone) but I've learned I need to take time out for myself and to protect myself, and remember how lucky I am for the good things in my life. I also think this will be a continuous learning process.
Speaking of the good things, if anyone is reading this I hope you have a good Valentine's Day, whether you are single or loved up! I am off out later for Valentine's tapas with my husband xx
I started this as just a blog to keep track of things and as a bit of fun but now I think it might actually come in handy in helping me overcome my anxiety.
I've always been a worrier and while I find it easy to encourage other people to look on the bright side of life but don't always find it that easy to take my own advice. However, I've never really thought it was that much of a problem until earlier this year.
There has been certain things over the last year or so which had been really bothering me and that I couldn't get off my mind. So much so that when we went to London in the summer, there were times when I found it really hard to enjoy myself and difficult to get to sleep sometimes. This was really out of character because I love London so much and I never really have trouble getting to sleep. The other thing is, the thing that was bothering me was not that big of an issue that it should have been bothering me that much. I knew that but still I couldn't shake it off. I had kept it to myself but I was so annoyed that I was allowing it to interfere with my London trip. I admitted it to my husband and told him I had decided to phone the doctor and get an appointment as I know then something wasn't right with me.
The doctor agreed something wasn't right and told me I could probably benefit from talking to a counsellor and referred me on. While I was waiting for an appointment with the counsellor or therapist (I don't actually know what you call him), my hair started to fall out. It was only really noticeable to me and my hairdresser but it really bothered me. I am quite appearance concious as it is and so it worried me. I was pretty sure it was down to my worrying and stress which made me worry more!
Finally I got to see the therapist (I think that's what I'll call him). At my first appointment I was very cagey and didn't give much away. I was pretty nervous and didn't know what to say. He kept asking me questions about my childhood and honestly I couldn't think of anything that had happened when I was little which would still be affecting me now. We talked about how I had changed jobs, got married and moved house all in the space of a year which I admit was stressful but really didn't think it had anything to do with how I was feeling now. I mean I have to admit I had suicidal thoughts. I never thought about actually killing myself and how I would do it, but I felt so empty, sad & hopeless at times that I thought it would probably be better if I wasn't here. He sent me away with a little booklet to read and another appointment in 2 weeks. I read the booklet and it was all about anxiety and how people with anxiety feel. I realised I felt 99% of these things. The next appointment I opened up a lot more and as well as anxiety we discussed low self-esteem but we still couldn't work out where it was all coming from. Again I left with a booklet about that which I didn't read until I was on the train to my next appointment. I certainly related to a lot of the statements in this booklet too and I also have low self-esteem. It wasn't until I was reading this booklet that I started to realise where these feelings might have originated.
When I think about my childhood I mainly remember good things. When I was younger my mum & dad didn't always have a lot of money but I & my brother always got whatever we wanted and had lots of great family around me. When I became a teenager my mum & dad got back on track with money and that's all I could really think about when I thought back. However, I had obviously done an amazing job of blocking out my dad's obsession with housework.
From a young age my parents made my brother & I do a LOT of housework. It was annoying but I am sure a lot of kids went through worse. The thing that was really bad, was the way my dad spoke to us if he found any "mistakes". If he found a glass that we hadn't picked up, or we hadn't put things away in the cupboard the was he liked, then he would be so nasty. He would never hit us, but he would tell us we were idiots, stupid, disgusting and generally make us feel terrible. He once told me he would make me feel scared to hear his car in the driveway. I remember thinking that this was already true!
After a few drinks one night I did tell him how he made me feel. I was talking about one particular occasion, and I remember him saying he didn't give a f**k how that made me feel. It's strange because in almost every other way, he was the perfect dad. He always had my back if I had any issues, he would give me money if I needed it, celebrated my exam results etc etc.
Obviously this had a huge effect on my self-esteem and mental health in general but I had obviously blocked it out, and now it has came back to bite me.
So, at the moment I don't really understand how much knowing where these feelings originated can really help me, and I am concentrating on moving forward. I'm trying to remember to listen to a meditation app everyday, and doing some exercises in the booklets my therapist gave me. It's difficult for me to find the time but it's so important that I need to do it. I've read that it's really important to keep it up too so I'm going to do my best for my own sake but also for my husband's, after all he has to live with me and he wants to see me happy!
Anyway another thing I read was that it's good to write things down and sort out your thoughts, rationalize them, so hopefully I can do that here x
This post is about the move Frozen by Disney. I should put *spoilers* in the title but I don't suppose it matters as I think almost everyone has watched this movie now!
I was not interested in Frozen at all and I probably wasn't ever going to watch it, but on Boxing Day my dad made us all sit down and see it.
All I knew about it was that there was 2 sisters (Else, the glam blonde one) and Anna (the less glam one). I also knew there was a snowman called Olaf who, from what I had seen, was ugly looking. Most of my friends loved the film so I was actually quite glad my dad suggested watching it so I could see what all the fuss was about!
Oh well was I disappointed!!!
My biggest issue with the movie is - why is everyone so bloody obsessed with Elsa?! Ok the ice coming from her hands thing is pretty cool and her hair is nice, but thats all she's got! She's got no personality to speak of and she's actually hardly in the film. Anna on the other hand, is genuinely quite funny and seems like the main character of the film.
I did NOT like Olaf. He is ugly and I didn't think he was funny.
The only character I really liked was the reindeer!
So..... all in all I guess Frozen wasn't for me and I wouldn't watch again!
Since I last wrote my week has been a bit of a whirlwind.
Part of my job is going on-call every now and then and if the weather is bad when you are on-call then things can get busy! The weather this week has been very bad and so on Friday I had to get up at 04.25 IN THE MORNING and was picked up outside my flat a week later for a day full of working! I stayed in work that day until 16:30 and then left, looking forward to getting home and cozy. Got on the bus, got off at my stop and then realised I had left my keys on my desk! Annoying or what..... so I had to get the bus back in to town, walk up to the office and back down to the bus stop to do the journey all over again!
On Saturday I went to 3 classes at the gym then to a 30th birthday party. I had a good time at the party chatting away to people but I felt a bit sorry for the birthday girl because the atmosphere wasn't great and there was hardly any dancing.
Today I had a lie-in and then I was off to Zumba.
Next week the highlight is a trip to London with work :)
I'm watching The Pursuit of Happyness just now for the first time. Great film - really makes you think. First about how lucky you really are and how you shouldn't take simple things like a job and a roof over your head for granted, and second about how you can really do anything if you put your mind to it.
Today me & fiancé went to see the film Lucy starring Scarlett Johansson and Morgan Freeman. It is written & directed by Luc Besson who has also made the films Leon, The Fifth Element, and From Paris With Love and I loved them so I was looking forward to this!
Before I went in I knew that the film was about the theory that humans only use 10% of their brains, and a person who managed to unlock and use much more of it through taking drugs. Sounds a bit like Limitless, no? Well I liked Limitless and I loved the idea of taking drugs to enhance your brain power (I wish I could do it!) but Lucy made much better use of the theory in my opinion.
It starts off with Lucy (Scarlett Johansson) getting mixed up with some very scary Chinese gangsters because of her stupid new boyfriend. She is punched in the face and knocked out by the gangsters and later wakes up in a fancy hotel, in some pain. While she was asleep packets of a synthetic drug were stitched in to her stomach, and the plan is that she and a few other unlucky drug mules who have had the same treatment as her will smuggle the drug to big cities in Europe as part of a big money making scheme.
Lucy ends up getting beat up and kicked hard in the stomach meaning that one of the bags of the drug bursts inside her and the drug gets in to her blood stream with immediate and amazing effects! The film then goes on to show what different things Lucy can do as she keeps being able so use more and more of her brain.
To cut a long (but great) story short, when Lucy reaches 100% of her brain, she ceases to exist as we know her..... we can't see her, but she is everywhere, she is everywhere in time. She can see everything, she can communicate. She is in the time space continuum.
There is a lot more to it and you should really see the film. It is defiantly MY kind of film and I loved it so much. Fiancé is not usually in to the same films as me especially ones with a bit of a sci-fi edge but he enjoyed this too so it must be a good all-rounder!
I sometimes wonder if parts of this story are true, and that what people believe as "god" is actually someone in the time space continuum like what happened to Lucy........
