Hey guys!
It's been ages I'm so sorry!
How have we all been? Everyday more people from different countries view my blog so to everyone new a massive hello and welcome to my blog! Feel free to comment!
I have been doing really well, I have started College which was petrifying but I'm getting there! It's new and refreshing! Plus it's Medical Science, how amazing?
I GOT DISCHARGED FROM OUTPATIENT CAMHS AFTER A DECADE!
It is petrifying and will take me a while to get used to but I can do it, today has just brought back all the memories but that's normal right?
Stay strong, talk soon,
Love always, E x
Sunday 4 October 2015
Thursday 6 August 2015
"Why must we be so cruel?"
Depression.. heartache... pain... hopelessness.. loneliness.. doubt... fear... obsessions... compulsions... deflation... anxiety... worry... emotions... agony... betrayal...
Everything that I currently feel in my heart, chest, head, mind, and every other part of my body and soul. Little words have the power or ultimate passion to even partially explain the hurt of emotional distress.
I smile, I try, I support as best as I can. Not good enough. I dedicate my life to trying to assist others so that they are protected from the sheer terror of emotional agony. I never ask for a reward. Of recent people seem to think it's okay to rip me apart, to take my personality and to pick it to pieces and criticise. To judge me. And I'm left here asking myself why? :'(
I forgive more than I ever thought was possible, I always say never give up yet I'm sitting here trying to find a reason not to.
Why must we be so cruel? Why can't we all just be a little kinder? Why must we be filled with anger and meanness?
Be kind to those around you dear readers, you never know how much that one bit of kindness can save a lost soul. Offer a helping hand and don't be wicked. No one deserves to feel unwanted. No one.
Thank-you as always,
Erin x
Everything that I currently feel in my heart, chest, head, mind, and every other part of my body and soul. Little words have the power or ultimate passion to even partially explain the hurt of emotional distress.
I smile, I try, I support as best as I can. Not good enough. I dedicate my life to trying to assist others so that they are protected from the sheer terror of emotional agony. I never ask for a reward. Of recent people seem to think it's okay to rip me apart, to take my personality and to pick it to pieces and criticise. To judge me. And I'm left here asking myself why? :'(
I forgive more than I ever thought was possible, I always say never give up yet I'm sitting here trying to find a reason not to.
Why must we be so cruel? Why can't we all just be a little kinder? Why must we be filled with anger and meanness?
Be kind to those around you dear readers, you never know how much that one bit of kindness can save a lost soul. Offer a helping hand and don't be wicked. No one deserves to feel unwanted. No one.
Thank-you as always,
Erin x
Tuesday 28 April 2015
"I will hold myself to a standard of grace, not perfection."
Good morning, afternoon, evening and night to you all! As my blog has now gone global I have many readers from different countries meaning different time zones so hello!
It has been agesss since I last posted but I have been studying hard for my psychology exam and have been unwell with different viruses which were yucky so that is why!
Today I wish to talk about life changes.
Whether it is leaving primary school to join secondary education, whether it is applying for UCAS or deciding which career path to go down, changes can be very scary, especially when you are young and don't have a lot of experience in that area.
So I myself am in this situation at the moment thinking which career is right? Which university? Have I applied for the correct course at tech? When do I want to travel? Even which car to buy can be stressful! Choice is daunting but can be very exhilarating at the same time so take a breath and know that it isn't the end of the world and very few things are finalised that can't be changed or altered, you will learn from your mistakes and choices no matter what!
Three simple tips!
Tip number 1.) Draw out a career ladder. I find this really useful. Get a piece of paper, simply draw a ladder from top to bottom on the page. The top of the ladder is where you want to get to, your ultimate goal, the bottom is where you currently are and what qualifications you hold. All the space in between is for what qualifications and skills you need to gain to reach your goal in chronological order. I find having a plan clearly drawn out in front of me, not including too much detail, can really help me relax and feel in control of the situation again!
Tip number 2.) Research, research, research! Whether it's which university, which car, which holiday or even to save or to spend, trust me, the best thing to do is do a lot of research. Know what you are talking about, whenever you go to purchase a product you want to feel confident and able to ask the sales person questions and not feel like they are pulling the wool over your eyes, know your rights, know which course suits your needs, know all your information and it lowers the stress on the day when you have to decide. Trust me, after a while you will know the information so well that you could be the salesperson or university lecturer and will feel confident in your decision with less doubts.
Tip number 3.) Don't feel embarrassed or ashamed to ask for help. There has been many people before you going through the same change in life or the same decision making process and it really helps to talk to someone in person about the reality, the pros and cons and not just what it says written on paper. It can really help hearing different opinions and may actually change your mind dramatically once you hear what each path contains and where it can lead. Ask your mum, or spouse or teacher or peer mentor, but don't be stubborn and feel it makes you look stupid, it doesn't, it makes you look wise.
It really is so stressful having to make such big decisions for your future, especially at this time of year when we're all getting prepared to sit exams but I hope these few hints and tips may make you think or may help you along your journey.
I read a quote this week which really made me think .. "I will hold myself to a standard of grace, not perfection."
Hugs, E x
It has been agesss since I last posted but I have been studying hard for my psychology exam and have been unwell with different viruses which were yucky so that is why!
Today I wish to talk about life changes.
Whether it is leaving primary school to join secondary education, whether it is applying for UCAS or deciding which career path to go down, changes can be very scary, especially when you are young and don't have a lot of experience in that area.
So I myself am in this situation at the moment thinking which career is right? Which university? Have I applied for the correct course at tech? When do I want to travel? Even which car to buy can be stressful! Choice is daunting but can be very exhilarating at the same time so take a breath and know that it isn't the end of the world and very few things are finalised that can't be changed or altered, you will learn from your mistakes and choices no matter what!
Three simple tips!
Tip number 1.) Draw out a career ladder. I find this really useful. Get a piece of paper, simply draw a ladder from top to bottom on the page. The top of the ladder is where you want to get to, your ultimate goal, the bottom is where you currently are and what qualifications you hold. All the space in between is for what qualifications and skills you need to gain to reach your goal in chronological order. I find having a plan clearly drawn out in front of me, not including too much detail, can really help me relax and feel in control of the situation again!
Tip number 2.) Research, research, research! Whether it's which university, which car, which holiday or even to save or to spend, trust me, the best thing to do is do a lot of research. Know what you are talking about, whenever you go to purchase a product you want to feel confident and able to ask the sales person questions and not feel like they are pulling the wool over your eyes, know your rights, know which course suits your needs, know all your information and it lowers the stress on the day when you have to decide. Trust me, after a while you will know the information so well that you could be the salesperson or university lecturer and will feel confident in your decision with less doubts.
Tip number 3.) Don't feel embarrassed or ashamed to ask for help. There has been many people before you going through the same change in life or the same decision making process and it really helps to talk to someone in person about the reality, the pros and cons and not just what it says written on paper. It can really help hearing different opinions and may actually change your mind dramatically once you hear what each path contains and where it can lead. Ask your mum, or spouse or teacher or peer mentor, but don't be stubborn and feel it makes you look stupid, it doesn't, it makes you look wise.
It really is so stressful having to make such big decisions for your future, especially at this time of year when we're all getting prepared to sit exams but I hope these few hints and tips may make you think or may help you along your journey.
I read a quote this week which really made me think .. "I will hold myself to a standard of grace, not perfection."
Hugs, E x
Tuesday 10 February 2015
Advocate Change!!
Hey guys!
So today has been a great day for me! No particular reason, I just felt happy when I woke up, and for someone living with mental health difficulties this defines a great day!
So I decided I would blog and usually I have outlines as to what I want to talk about, but tonight I'm kind of freestyle typing. I want to tackle the issue of social stigma but in a different kind of way.
We all hear a lot at the moment in the media about how we need to "Lower the stigmas around mental health" which is definitely a necessary task; however, to those who maybe haven't had a lot of experience in this field they tend to think about the big picture rather than individual life stories. By this I mean we can get caught up in tackling "How we all think people are crazy who have mental health difficulties" or "How we keep depression on the down low" .. I don't know about other people but to me this isn't where the stigma needs to be lowered as such. It's more daily tasks and views and passing comments that hold onto the stigma more.
For instance, I blog about mental health, I post it on facebook, instagram, I have even been interviewed about it, however I still struggle mentioning it in front of people face to face because usually they tend to go very silent and awkward. This I find is a lot more uncomfortable than someone making a comment or asking a question. I approach the subject usually in a funny manner. I would say something like "Oh me and my mucked up head" and then laugh, because people can manage that, however if I say "Oh my depression/anxiety is bad today" they freeze or stare. Mentioning I've been an inpatient in a psychiatric hospital? Gosh that's a no zone!! So why do we try and tackle the big picture, and not the more personal aspects?
Yes it's hard to understand everyone's personal experience, but these awkward moments, these shocked faces are proving that lowering social stigmas isn't actually working. We can put up on a billboard a sign about mental health, we can report on the news the rates of suicide, but we aren't informing people just how common it is to have a mental health problem, how we don't have to tiptoe around the 'big scary subject'! I believe that mental health should be included a lot more in the curriculum of schools. How to notice the symptoms, how to take care of a friend, what organisations to contact, how to manage, self help techniques.. these are the things we should all be learning about because 1 in 4 of us in our lifetime will have a mental health difficulty!!
Social stigmas NEED to be lowered... not the cliché view of "We can't call people crazy anymore" .. but it should be discussed on a one to one basis and taught in classrooms, we need this change to happen to prevent unseen diagnoses and potential suicides!
Be the change you want to see in the world!!
#AdvocateChange
All my love, Erin. x
So today has been a great day for me! No particular reason, I just felt happy when I woke up, and for someone living with mental health difficulties this defines a great day!
So I decided I would blog and usually I have outlines as to what I want to talk about, but tonight I'm kind of freestyle typing. I want to tackle the issue of social stigma but in a different kind of way.
We all hear a lot at the moment in the media about how we need to "Lower the stigmas around mental health" which is definitely a necessary task; however, to those who maybe haven't had a lot of experience in this field they tend to think about the big picture rather than individual life stories. By this I mean we can get caught up in tackling "How we all think people are crazy who have mental health difficulties" or "How we keep depression on the down low" .. I don't know about other people but to me this isn't where the stigma needs to be lowered as such. It's more daily tasks and views and passing comments that hold onto the stigma more.
For instance, I blog about mental health, I post it on facebook, instagram, I have even been interviewed about it, however I still struggle mentioning it in front of people face to face because usually they tend to go very silent and awkward. This I find is a lot more uncomfortable than someone making a comment or asking a question. I approach the subject usually in a funny manner. I would say something like "Oh me and my mucked up head" and then laugh, because people can manage that, however if I say "Oh my depression/anxiety is bad today" they freeze or stare. Mentioning I've been an inpatient in a psychiatric hospital? Gosh that's a no zone!! So why do we try and tackle the big picture, and not the more personal aspects?
Yes it's hard to understand everyone's personal experience, but these awkward moments, these shocked faces are proving that lowering social stigmas isn't actually working. We can put up on a billboard a sign about mental health, we can report on the news the rates of suicide, but we aren't informing people just how common it is to have a mental health problem, how we don't have to tiptoe around the 'big scary subject'! I believe that mental health should be included a lot more in the curriculum of schools. How to notice the symptoms, how to take care of a friend, what organisations to contact, how to manage, self help techniques.. these are the things we should all be learning about because 1 in 4 of us in our lifetime will have a mental health difficulty!!
Social stigmas NEED to be lowered... not the cliché view of "We can't call people crazy anymore" .. but it should be discussed on a one to one basis and taught in classrooms, we need this change to happen to prevent unseen diagnoses and potential suicides!
Be the change you want to see in the world!!
#AdvocateChange
All my love, Erin. x
Thursday 22 January 2015
Distraction techniques for when you feel you have lost control!
Hey strangers!
Feel like I need to say that seeming as I haven't blogged in well over a month!
How have we all been doing? Christmas? New Years? So many events and celebrations! I'm sure it's been a rollercoaster for you all like it has been for me!
If anyone has any requests for blogs throughout 2015 give me a wee message or comment and I will respond ASAP! I'm really busy atm with so many different things but I will try to get back into the swing of blogging!
So recently has been very difficult for me. I got a very nasty flu over Christmas which always starts the anxiety off! I felt very out of control and resorted back to not eating correctly or even nearly enough which in turn led to me losing weight... again. My urges increased and basically the voice in my head and the intrusive and depressive thoughts have been overpowering. However, I am just about managing to keep them under control and I'm battling away because in recovery, as we all know, that is all we can do when things seem worthless and never ending, keep going.
I thought tonight I'd go over some techniques that are distraction whenever you feel like you have no other option but to act on your urges. For a lot of you this will seem probably quite patronising and repetitive however this may be new information to somebody who is very scared tonight, so for that reason I shall share with you some tips. I myself use these, some more than others, however tonight especially I am finding it extremely hard to battle them, so here goes -
1.) Whenever you feel numb, or the emotional pain and distress is far too great to manage on your own, you will most likely have thoughts of self harm. So one way of feeling a physical sensation which will not cause harm is ice. Get ice cubes from wherever you can manage to get them, hold one in each hand/in crease of elbow and squeeze really tight, so you can feel the ice freezing away in your hand/crease of elbow. Whenever it melts, your skin may feel a little - very numb, so repeat, however on a new position on skin.
2.) Elastic bands. Put elastic bands around your wrist and lower arm, and ping them back and forward so you get the sting of the elastic without any scars.
3.) Progressive muscle relaxation. If you don't have sheets on this, look up the full exercise online. Basically you tense and relax every muscle in your body, one at a time, from your head to your toes and then relax them one at a time so as to know the feeling of tensing and the true feeling of relaxing.
4.) Safe place. Go to a place in your head, a place where you have no possible chance of getting hurt or being harmed. This may be a beach, a treehouse, a park, a boat, an igloo, or somewhere that you have previously been that you felt very relaxed in, you can even create a place in your mind! This place is just for you. Describe to yourself or out loud what the place looks like, everything you can see, what smells you can sense, what your body feels like, is there sun heating up your skin or is there snow cooling you down? Can you feel grainy sand, or the swinging motion of a hammock? What can you hear? Is there silence? Can you taste anything? Stay in this place for as long as you need to relax and then slowly return to reality again.
5.) Drawing on your skin. Use a red pen and write/draw along your arms and legs or wherever you usually harm.
6.) Write in a journal. You can do this two ways. One is write about how your feeling and anything you wish to let out. The other is if you have a lot of anger then scribble/write on a page of paper, scrunch it up, rip it apart and throw it away!
7.) Breathing. Especially when anxious and hyperventilating this is useful. We breathe in too much oxygen for our bodies to cope with whenever we hyperventilate so it is very important that we breathe out for longer than breathing in. So breathe in for 4 seconds, hold your breath for 2 seconds, breathe out for 5 - 6 seconds or as long as feels manageable, then hold for two seconds before repeating the process. This is very hard to do whenever you are very worked up practice this exercise whenever you aren't anxious and you will be more prepared to deal with the situation when you are. So breathe in .. 2 .. 3..4 and hold .. and hold .. and breathe out .. 2 ...3...4...5...6.. and hold at the bottom and hold ... and repeat.
8.) Add colours to your breathing depending on your mood. So whenever you feel anxious for example imagine breathing in the colour pale blue, and breathing out red. If you are depressed breathe in white or yellow and breathe out black. Etc.
I haven't gone into great detail here as they all are very individual and if there are any you would like me to explain more please ask, I have many more techniques I can offer if none of these work or suit you, don't panic! There are always other options!
Never.Give.Up.
All my love,
Erin.. x
Feel like I need to say that seeming as I haven't blogged in well over a month!
How have we all been doing? Christmas? New Years? So many events and celebrations! I'm sure it's been a rollercoaster for you all like it has been for me!
If anyone has any requests for blogs throughout 2015 give me a wee message or comment and I will respond ASAP! I'm really busy atm with so many different things but I will try to get back into the swing of blogging!
So recently has been very difficult for me. I got a very nasty flu over Christmas which always starts the anxiety off! I felt very out of control and resorted back to not eating correctly or even nearly enough which in turn led to me losing weight... again. My urges increased and basically the voice in my head and the intrusive and depressive thoughts have been overpowering. However, I am just about managing to keep them under control and I'm battling away because in recovery, as we all know, that is all we can do when things seem worthless and never ending, keep going.
I thought tonight I'd go over some techniques that are distraction whenever you feel like you have no other option but to act on your urges. For a lot of you this will seem probably quite patronising and repetitive however this may be new information to somebody who is very scared tonight, so for that reason I shall share with you some tips. I myself use these, some more than others, however tonight especially I am finding it extremely hard to battle them, so here goes -
1.) Whenever you feel numb, or the emotional pain and distress is far too great to manage on your own, you will most likely have thoughts of self harm. So one way of feeling a physical sensation which will not cause harm is ice. Get ice cubes from wherever you can manage to get them, hold one in each hand/in crease of elbow and squeeze really tight, so you can feel the ice freezing away in your hand/crease of elbow. Whenever it melts, your skin may feel a little - very numb, so repeat, however on a new position on skin.
2.) Elastic bands. Put elastic bands around your wrist and lower arm, and ping them back and forward so you get the sting of the elastic without any scars.
3.) Progressive muscle relaxation. If you don't have sheets on this, look up the full exercise online. Basically you tense and relax every muscle in your body, one at a time, from your head to your toes and then relax them one at a time so as to know the feeling of tensing and the true feeling of relaxing.
4.) Safe place. Go to a place in your head, a place where you have no possible chance of getting hurt or being harmed. This may be a beach, a treehouse, a park, a boat, an igloo, or somewhere that you have previously been that you felt very relaxed in, you can even create a place in your mind! This place is just for you. Describe to yourself or out loud what the place looks like, everything you can see, what smells you can sense, what your body feels like, is there sun heating up your skin or is there snow cooling you down? Can you feel grainy sand, or the swinging motion of a hammock? What can you hear? Is there silence? Can you taste anything? Stay in this place for as long as you need to relax and then slowly return to reality again.
5.) Drawing on your skin. Use a red pen and write/draw along your arms and legs or wherever you usually harm.
6.) Write in a journal. You can do this two ways. One is write about how your feeling and anything you wish to let out. The other is if you have a lot of anger then scribble/write on a page of paper, scrunch it up, rip it apart and throw it away!
7.) Breathing. Especially when anxious and hyperventilating this is useful. We breathe in too much oxygen for our bodies to cope with whenever we hyperventilate so it is very important that we breathe out for longer than breathing in. So breathe in for 4 seconds, hold your breath for 2 seconds, breathe out for 5 - 6 seconds or as long as feels manageable, then hold for two seconds before repeating the process. This is very hard to do whenever you are very worked up practice this exercise whenever you aren't anxious and you will be more prepared to deal with the situation when you are. So breathe in .. 2 .. 3..4 and hold .. and hold .. and breathe out .. 2 ...3...4...5...6.. and hold at the bottom and hold ... and repeat.
8.) Add colours to your breathing depending on your mood. So whenever you feel anxious for example imagine breathing in the colour pale blue, and breathing out red. If you are depressed breathe in white or yellow and breathe out black. Etc.
I haven't gone into great detail here as they all are very individual and if there are any you would like me to explain more please ask, I have many more techniques I can offer if none of these work or suit you, don't panic! There are always other options!
Never.Give.Up.
All my love,
Erin.. x
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