JUST GET IT ALL OUT!!

Talking about how you feel. IT IS HARD. Going through life never having anyone to depend on. IS SO MUCH HARDER.
I know this might seem cliche and maybe the opposite of what some of you were brought up with but I would like to give an example in my own life where JUST GETTING IT ALL OUT  saved me.

I have always found talking about my emotions on a deep level quite hard and at times almost imposible. This is due mostly to the route of my emotions. I had a few friends i could talk to about how I was feeling but I didn’t feel as if I had any adults I could reach out to. I lost contact or had fights with the friends I could talk to and ended up feeling very alone and confused. I tried reaching out to someone who responded very well, however because of the emotional state I was in, I put to much pressure on this person and pushed them away. Having felt a brief moment of support and what I believed to be acceptance and love and then having that pulled away so suddenly left me in an even worse place than before. Unfortunately, this left me ina vunerable and suicidal state. Although this is very hard for me to say I was at a point where I wanted to end my life, I had a plan. My father found me, writing a suicide note, a goodbye note from my family. Being religious, I saw this as a sign from God. Crying i gave the note to my dad and told him to leave and then read it. He came up to me. Not angry at all and to cut a long story short I spent the next day in hospital and wasn’t allowed to be left home alone for about a month.

You may or may not have been able to associate yourself with this. You may think i am a drama queen or over reacting. I don’t know what you think. I just know for me, it was real. And it was scary. And i believe completely avoidable have I reached out to the people around me. I would like to say it has been very hard for me, to go about life like a ‘normal’ person these last few months. And although I have found it hard at times to want to live. I feel as if I am at my strongest now, I have been through the dark valley of death. I’m coming out the other side.

I know you can too. So please prevent suicide and depression, if you’re struggling reach out to someone. If you feel as if you can’t connect to the people around you try calling a hotline. They won’t be mad, remember there are always people willing to help you.

It’s not the End it’s Only the Beginning

It’s not the end it’s only the beginning.

I have heard this over and over again. In songs, movies, books, inspirational speakers and so on. But what does it really mean? I think we all question where we are in life and where we are going. But how do we know it’s the end, it’s time to move on, time to call it quites, time to give up, how do we really know it’s over?

There are of course different situations where you might ask these questions. In relationships, studying, ambitions and maybe even life its self. I think in every situation it is an opportunity to try your absolute best and to hopefully make it work out.

Relationships can be tricky because they’re based on feelings. Everyone is different, my beliefs however, are that relationships should be based on more than just feelings and physical attraction. As much as I think these things are important, a relationship built on that foundation will never last. It’s about making a decsion to make it work and doing everything you can to furfill and live up to that decision.

Studying is tricky because it’s a lot.of pain in the present for a reward down the track. I have had some issues with wanting to quit studying and drop out of school. It didn’t take me very long to realise that I would have to go study or become a tradesmen. I decided to stay in school. There are times when the thoughts of leaving come  back to me, then I just realise how much I would miss out on. I have worked so hard to get to where I am. I have never failed a subject, and I only have a year and a half left. The decision to continue to study can be a hard one, what I do is to look at how far I have come, how close I am to the finish line and if it is study I chose to undertake, I then remember why I did it in the first place. Studying can, at times, be exciting and fun though at other times it can seem like it drags on forever. My encouragment is to plan out study from the first day of semester and try and keep to it. And then just take it one day at a time.

Ambitions are hard because sometimes we can feel like we have done everything we’re capable of doing or we have failed to many times, I wasn’t supposed to do this. My encouragment is never, never give up. Even if the dream is suddenly now unachievable coach and mentor somebody else aspiring to the same dream. The same spirit of determination is in you as is in them. You’re allowed to have a dream, it will mean you have to make sacrifices and work hard. But if your dream is something you are truely passionate about, nothing will.stop you. I encourage you, do not give up. Everytime you get knocked down get up and try again, every single time. It can be hard when it feels like you’re done. Never stop learning and training in how to be better in that field and alwaya be willing, open and honest about wanting to take on more opportunities.

The last thing I said was feeling like it is the end of life. There are times when it is important to realise life propably is coming to an end. However those are not the times I am talking about. I’m talking about suicide. Suicide is a big ‘thing’ that most people don’t like talking about. The majority of us will be affected by suicide or depression in our life time. Whether it is us, a partner, child or friend. It is very common. Feelings of wanting to kill yourself can be very daunting and can make the person feel trapped. I know in my case, I feel like someone is trying to slowly kill and totrue me to make me hurt. That all these bad things are happening to haunt me, and the only escape is death. Death.will bring that sigh of reliefe, I was reading something and it said that you can not expierence reliefe after death, it is just nothing so it will all just be in vain. I would like to say that feelings of wanting to die do pass. Sometimes it takes a few minutes or hours sometimes days or up to a week sometimes in my case. I think it is important to always talk to someone. Deep down you don’t want to die you just want reliefe from everything. Talking brings a huge amount of reliefe. I would like to say if you are thinking of killing yourself please talk to a friend, family member, doctor or a crisis hotline. It can’t do any harm.

So it is not the end it is only the beginning. Finish what you started. It’s important to remember too that there are different stages in life, different chapters. Yes the chapter ends but the novel continues. There is always another way.

My Apologies

I’m very sorry to say it has been a long time since I have posted. I’m sorry for this. I will try to go back to posting more often. Having just finished my holidays I found myself thinking about some things. The one thing that kept coming back to my mind was how do people become depressed and when does being sad cross the line into being depression. Or the other people that say, they were literally fine one day then a complete mess the next. 

I can identify with both of the examples I just gave, but in different times in my life. Currently I would say I am going through the second one. Of course everyone’s experiences are different but from my own personal life I would say the second one is worse. The first time that I believed I experienced depression was when my mother had cancer. I was sad obviously, but the sadness went on and on. There were other events too, but the sadness dragged on for many months. I received help and I believe I moved on from that. This is the type of depression that comes from an experience.

However what I feel at the moment is something quite different. When I think about it, I guess I had unusual extreme episodes of being up and down. But then I was hit with this overwhelming desire to end my life. And I thought at first it was nothing, but it didn’t go away. To cut a long story short, I feel into this deep depression that made me feel very trapped. I missed a lot of school for someone of my age, I think 2 weeks in total over the whole 10 week term. I was confused and lost because I had no idea why I was feeling what I felt. I just new, I didn’t want to be around anyone. I just wanted everyone to leave me alone, let me be. I didn’t want to go to school or be around people because that involved looking happy and being happy. I felt like I had a certain expectation I had to live up too. I would like to say, I still struggle with this a lot. Things that are so easy and even enjoyable for most people can be almost impossible for me. I cry nearly everyday, if I go a day without crying that is miracle for me. I will usually cry and feel extreme anxiety and resistance to going to events, even things I used to enjoy. 

I would like to say, if you identify with me, I’m glad. I’m not a professional, but coming from my own personal experience it does get better. Sometimes I feel like I waist my time even trying to get better, but then I go back to when I was in hospital 3 months ago, and I relise it might not seem like I have come very far but really I have. So even if the process is slow, it does get better and their are people that understand. 

The hardest thing for me, is trying to understand how I became so depressed. But I don’t let that be my focus, I focus on getting better and returning and becoming what I used to be. 

Failure

Nothing is more devastating then working really hard at something and not achieving a goal. 

I experienced this quite recently, I just have finished all my exams but was quite disappointed in how one of the worked out. I had studied very hard for all my subjects however the content in this subject was particularly hard. It was very frustrating and infuriating to not understand the questions or how to answer them.

My advice on this though, is to just always try your best. It doesn’t matter if you screw up sometimes, all my other assessment went great, it was just the subject that didn’t work out. I try to remember that because I find myself anyway, I am much more likely to focus on the negatives then the positives and in our day and age. There are many more positives than negatives. Yes I may have screwed up one exam but that doesn’t mean I’m screwed for the whole subject, and even if I was.There are still 5 more. My advice for how to get through times of failure is to not look at everything that is or has gone wrong. But to look at everything that has or is going right. The A you got in a different subject, the party you can finally have because you’re free. The TV you can or watch or the games you can play. This for me is how I keep myself going, without these techniques I wouldn’t survive.   

Days in our lives

I was unsure what to write about today. However I knew it had been a while since I posted.
First thing I want to say, I went and saw the star trek in to darkness movie yesterday. MY friends who are not trekkies said it was amazing. However, me being a trekkie i thought it was absoluelty brillant. Go see it if you haven’t seen it, it’s worth every cent.
The other thing that has started for me is my exam block, I have my first 2 and 1/2 hour exam this morning.

Through out all this time of studying and doing assignments I would sometimes find myself becoming completely overwhelmed and stressed. I didn’t know how to handle the work load and when I look at how much I have to do this weekend it makes me nervous. I have orals and exams and assignemnts. I have already had times where I have broken down. But what has gotten me through is just working on it one day at a time. Sometimes when we get stressed it becomes easy for anxiety to take over and fall into a hole of helplessness and desperation. My goal is not specific grades or marks, although I would like to do really well. My goal is to do the best I can and work as hard as I can;. I can’t necessarily get As for every subject, but I know that if I try as hard as I can then there is nothing more than I can do.

I’ve noticed that as my exams get closer and I can break down the workload I’ve become less stressed. I’m surprisingly calm this morning despite having 2 exams today. I’m not sure if that will change when the exams get closer. My encouragement to anyone who is feeling overwhelmed and stressed, to break the work down into steps and then do your best to complete the steps to the best of your ability. And set yourself a reward when you’re done. 🙂

Life of a Nocturnal Studying Teen

I wanted to start by saying a big sorry for not posting for so long. For the next few weeks I will probably only be able to post once a week. 

At the moment I have a lot going on, I have all my exams and assignments coming up. As I’m sure you can imagine this puts a lot of stress on me and it can be really hard to stay determined and get all the work done. I have 6 subjects two pieces of assessment for nearly everyone. It pretty much means I have to be working somewhere between 4-5 hours everyday. 

I know this seems like a lot, but once I get started I’m usually okay to keep going, it’s the getting started that is really hard. I kind of feel like that with most things, I find it really hard to start things and try new things. If I can have someone else there with me it makes it a little easier but sometimes the fear of doing something wrong or embarrassing myself stops me from doing things I would really love to do. 

I find once I am confident with something it isn’t something that causes me anxiety anymore. On Thursday night, I had a moment of panic when I realised how much work senior high school has. I hadn’t left it too late, I had more than enough time and currently I am ahead of most people, finishing assignments sometimes a week or more before they are even due. That wasn’t the issue. The issue was how much work there was, I didn’t feel like I had the ability to obtain that much knowledge and do that much work. I became apathetic and didn’t concentrate much on what I was trying to do. The shock of how much work I had to made me feel as if I couldn’t do. Eventually, within a period of about 10 minutes it meant I just didn’t care because I thought I wasn’t smart enough or didn’t have the ability to complete the task. 

I remember saying to me Dad, 

“I want to care, but I just can’t.”

I was so overwhelmed that I become a helpless victim to a situation I couldn’t do anything about. There have more than just this time when I have had to deal with feeling so overwhelmed I put the car in reverse and become hopeless. It’s a trap so easy to fall in and sometimes very hard to get out of. 

The only thing I found helped was to write down everything I had to do and breaking it up in to days. Then with the help of caffeine studying well into the night and all through the afternoons. Having a set up near the rest of my family has kept he accountable as they have been able to see what I am doing. 

When you’re stressed and overwhelmed I have a few types that always help me.

1. Cry it out if you need to (optional) Sometimes, I know, I just need to cry a bit, maybe scream. It makes me feel better eventually, sometimes I will seem like a helpless mess but I am actually helping myself deal better with the situation by getting my emotions out.

2. Write a list of what needs to be done. It can seem like it’s all in your head and you won’t forget it but putting it on paper does make a huge difference.

3. Breaking it into steps.

4. Setting yourself breaks and rewards.

5. Working as hard as you possibly can.  

Words do Hurt

None of this sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me. That’s bull crap. Sorry to put it bluntly but it is, in my mind there is no other way to describe living under the illusion words can’t hurt you. Words hurt  us in ways we don’t even realise. It builds up and effects our self esteem.

Throughout my own life i have been a victim of bullying. I have been called ugly, fat, disgusting, groty, smelly and dirt just to mention a few. Some of those things have stuck with me and still torment me today years later. However the things that bother me the most are the little comments, maybe made with good or curious intentions. People commenting on how I should cut back how much i eat or a actually wash my hair. Little did they know I’ve been watching my weight since I was 11 and hated my naturally oily hair since i was 10. The most hurtful things are when people tell me the same things i tell myself. When people call me fat its lIke a little voice inside me says, “see I told you.” I know there are things that i tell myself are true, that I’m more scared are true rather than know to be true. I think this is because i believe that if i think, this is true and someone then says it to me it should hurt less.

Listen to me, words do hurt. You have the ability to destroy someone’s self esteem from one harsh comment. You don’t know what she’s going through or what he thinks about when he is alone at night.

If words didn’t hurt, I wouldn’t have scars, i wouldn’t have panic attacks, i wouldn’t be paranoid, i wouldn’t be in doctor’s waiting rooms and hospitals. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that what people say doesn’t hurt you, it might not be for years that you realise the affects of words. Speak up, speak out and help those around you.

Hurt

Hurt is such a strong word. It can hold many different meanings to people. Hurt to some is thoughts of abuse, neglect and torment. To others it’s the guilt and shame over the physical torment they have forced upon another. To some it is the rigid thoughts of what they have done to themselves. Our Hurt shapes us into who we are. Every time we get hurt by someone we change our behavior.

I have learnt over the years to not trust easily. I tend to find good friends and trust them to much to quickly. It’s a mistake I see myself make over and over again. Every time getting hurt. But the people that suffer are the ones closest to me that suffer. The more I get hurt the less I trust the other around me, as I start to feel better I reach out to someone else and get hurt again… I see myself doing this over and over again, but it’s a cycle I can’t seem to break. I’m doing my best to make up with people I had friendships with. I’m also trying to reach out to more people around me, I want to make more friends.

This is challenge for me. You’re support means the world. I don’t enjoy having social anxiety it’s very debilitating. (If you want me to do a post on it just comment and I will). Currently, I am listening to a song on repeat. It’s really speaking to me about who I am and who I used to be. It’s hurt by Johnny Cash. (I’ll include the link to the song on youtube) He is singing about how in the end, he just ruins every thing. He just hurts everyone around him.

What have I become
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know goes away
In the end
And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

He also sings about hurting himself.It’s a depressing song. But I feel I connect to it a lot. People that love me stick around, but I can’t handle having people around me that know to much. I end up pushing them away, I just have to hope they’re a good enough person to not betray my trust.

I have found that opening up about my feelings helps me to feel free however doing it to the wrong person puts them in a cage. I want to be free but I don’t want to sacrifice the freedom of another to do so. I want to be free, and as I have said before freedom is happiness. I wish to be happy and to feel. I have been feeling happier as I work towards recovery. Of course there will always be blocks in the path. Things that stop me from moving forward. Challenges I have to work through. But I am determined to change myself and my world. Ultimately no one ever really remembers you or your personality. People remember what you stood for and how you impacted the world around you.

I don’t want much when I leave. Just to be remembered and surrounded my loved ones. I have a dream of reaching out and helping others; I want to write a letter to everyone in my grade to bless them. I’m struggling to think of any other ideas (if you have any comment and let me know). I want to reach out to everyone and let them know they are loved and treasured.

Also, sorry I haven’t posted in a day and a half, I got really busy with school work. I’ll be sure to be back to posting twice a day soon!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmVAWKfJ4Go

You’ve done it …

You’ve done it before and you can do it now. See the positive possibilities. Redirect the substantial energy of your frustration and turn it into positive, effective, unstoppable determination.

Ralph Marston

This quote hits home for me. The first line, ‘You’ve done it before and you can do i now’ just makes me feel determined. Knowing within myself that I have the strength to do what I thought I could not is one of the most empowering ideas. I have over come stress and pain and loss before. I can do it now and I will do it again, every time becoming stronger and learning something. 

The positive possibilities may be hard. I find when asked to think of negative things about myself I could list of a million things. When asked to think of positive things I can list about 5 maybe 6 on a good day. It’s that fatal trap of my bad self image that nearly everyone falls into. If I can take you back to a previous post about the conference I attended on Monday. There was a man that spoke about self image and in our own strength it’s very hard to change things if our self image is bad. Your conscious mind is determined to do it, while your sub conscious doesn’t think you have the ability. He spoke of three steps to take just once or twice a day that will help to improve yourself image. 

1. Tell yourself you can/are the thing you want to do/be. (For example: I am Smart.)

2. Think about what that looks like for you.(Example: Knowing the answers to questions and getting good marks)

3. Visualize how that feels. (Feelings after getting good marks, reactions to others.)

Ultimately after approximately three weeks your sub conscious will have a different perspective on your level of intelligence. If you’re sub conscious believes you are something or have the capability to be it will be much easier to achieve goals. Furthermore, it may feel like you’re lying to yourself but ultimately you’re helping to improve your self image. 

The last part of this quote is my favorite bit. Essentially what it means to me is take all this negative energy, all these bad thoughts and desires  And channel them into something else. Be strong use these feelings to make you stronger and drive you to your dreams. 

I will use my weakness to fuel my dreams. 

Sweaty Palms, Racing Heart, Burning Eyes

If you are anything like me you will know what this feels like. Sometimes it comes on for no reason, sometimes there’s a trigger. But when the knot starts to form in the bottom of my throat closing of my air ways, my heart starts racing, my palms sweat and my eyes burn that it’s coming. Sometimes if I’m lucky, I can control it. Others there is no point, there are times when I find myself sobbing and screaming into pillows for what seems like no reason. It doesn’t help that everything I do I get dragged by the darkness. This is the reality of living with a mental illness. 

My aim in this post is to not achieve the sympathy vote it is to raise awareness. Please if you have any of these symptoms or feel that something is not quite right. Please see your doctor and get help, it does get better.