Update on my life (and its morals)

Well this is sort of embarrassing... I've spent too long without posting here. A month? Oh dear. I must apologize by saying that this last month has been extremely busy and full of great (and not so great) stuff. I have also been absent from all social networks and I am extremely sorry for that, I won't let it happen again.

I've finally decided that I'm going to start vlogging. Some great vloggers have encouraged me to do it and I've been wanting to for a long time.

I was meant to go back to university this January but things turned out a bit differently. Going back to university was causing me a lot of stress. Every time I had visited my uni town last semester (from September 2014) I had had suicidal thoughts and a lot of impulsivity partly brought in by the anxiety that being there caused me (and I was only visiting!).

The week before I left to theoretically move back to my uni town, my anxiety was so extreme that I had physical pains in my chest, and especially my stomach. I wasn't hungry, I could barely eat, I was even sick repeatedly during a whole afternoon when I simply thought about going back.

So I didn't move back. I'm still living home. I only visited to sort out everything that had to do with university and to make possible for me to finish my degree from home. I felt like a failure because I was not going to be able to move back there, but at the same time thinking about it now... Maybe I wasn't ready. I didn't have classes so I would have had a very unstructured day. And this way I can still go to therapy and start to leave the day centre little by little.

I am finishing my degree this year, I'll simply be doing it from home.

What can be concluded from this?

· Things don't always turn out the way you want them to. But it's okay, you need to adapt and maybe even look at things in a different way.

· Maybe you are setting your expectations too high. And if you fail to accomplish something you had set your mind into, it doesn't mean that you're a failure. Maybe you've just set your bar too high. Reconsider this.

· Progress happens slowly. Don't get frustrated if you feel like you feel like you're not getting better fast enough. You're not going to get better in one day, progress happens at its own pace and it's different for everyone. Things will get better.

· Let your university know about your mental health situation. I can't say this enough. I was scared since my first year to tell my university about my mental health, but I am so glad that I finally did last year. Not only did they help me giving me a leave of absence, but going back now has been made really easy for me too. The teachers have agreed to have skype sessions with me instead of face-to-face ones, and they have all made it very comfortable and easy for me. You may be going through unnecessary difficulties added to your already difficult situation, and just telling your university might help you in ways that you never thought of!

I'll start posting weekly (hopefully more than once a week) from this week again. I hope you found this post useful and helpful!

Surviving the holidays - Spending the holiday with family

This is the first post in a series of posts about how to 'survive' these holidays.

Even though the holidays are meant to be a happy time to spend with our loved ones, many of us find them challenging as well. It can bring anxiety and other unwanted emotions, so these blogposts are to ensure that your holidays can pass as smoothly as possible!

This post will be about: 

Spending the holiday with family

Your family may or may not know about your mental health issues. A lot of us spend the holidays with our families, and there are some members of our family that we see less often than others. So questions regarding you, your current situation and possibly your mental health could be asked.

One of the main things that I recommend is to think about it before. If someone asks you what you're currently doing or if something is wrong, you could easily go blank from anxiety and not know what to reply. So something that I have found helpful is to prepare beforehand what you are going to say to people.

You may want to check out the post of 'What to say if you're not ready to tell people', since it contains advice on what to say if you're not ready to talk about your mental health.

Once you know more or less what you want to tell people, it will be a lot easier when they ask you since you will be prepared.

If your family tends to worry about you and you don't want all the attention focused on you (and think that this may be an issue), you can also think beforehand about some topics of conversation to try to change the subject and redirect the conversation towards something else.

The purpose of this series of post is to make them short and easy to read to be as helpful as possible. I will be posting them at least twice a week, so make sure to keep an eye out!

It's either perfect or not worth it

So, here I am, I am back. I'm sorry for all the time that I have been away. I stopped because I was feeling down and then never saw the time to come back, or what with. I wanted to come back with something great making the wait worth it and because I never felt like a topic was perfect enough, so I stayed gone.

But then I've realized that this sort of thought is very common for perfectionist people and affects in a very harmful way people suffering mental health issues such as eating disorders, BPD or even depression to name a few. 

So I thought: why not talk about it?

I am and always have been a perfectionist. I want the things I do to be perfect. And even though some may say that it's a good trait, there is a very fine line and it can very easily become something harmful for you that takes control of your life.

"If it's not perfect, why would I even bother?" is a very common thought amongst perfectionists. If something is not going the way you want, or you don't feel like you might be able to do it well, you may simply just give up on it.

Let's see a few examples:

· I start painting and it's something I have invested a lot of time on but then the painting is not going as well as I expected. When I realize that it's not looking the way I want it to, I just stop painting that instead of trying to fix it and maybe even give up painting altogether even thought it was something that I enjoyed doing.

· In eating disorders there is a very common example:  I am restricting on eating biscuits. Then one day I can't help the urge and I open the biscuit bag and eat one. I may think "Since I have already broken my rule, I may just as well eat the whole pack". And many times that sort of thought is what drives people into binge eating.

We need to challenge that sort of thought. We need to realize that not everything has to always be perfect. First of all, wanting things to always be perfect will lead us to unhappiness since we will never consider something to be perfect enough. So we have to accept things as they are and see the beauty in them.

If you enjoy something but feel like you're not good enough: don't quit. Keep on trying, no one was an expert at the beginning. And even if you don't get to be great at it, if you enjoy doing it you should keep up with it.

This sort of thinking is what drives many people into quitting school, university, a job, a hobby, maybe even relationships.

I'm not saying you should settle down for less than what you want in life. But I am saying that maybe you should reconsider whether what you want is realistic. Also, you should enjoy the things that you have and that you achieve and not quit things that you like because you feel like you're not doing them well enough. Who judges whether we are good enough anyway? No one's opinion matters except ourselves when it comes to that. We shouldn't be so hyper critic of ourselves. 

Let yourself enjoy life and things even when they're not perfect!

Going back to your 'old life'

I am so sorry about how long it has been since my last post! But I do have an excuse. I have spent the last week back at my university city, visiting friends and teachers. This was meant to be a way to see my friends who are back at uni, to talk to my teachers about the work that I have to hand in in January (when my leave of absence is over) and to start to integrate myself again in my old life.

And even though I came back on Sunday, I needed time to think about the experience.

I must admit that I had been very scared about going back. As much as I wanted to see my friends, I had not been at the university campus since March and I was scared about how stressful it was going to be. 

In these months I have developed this anxiety of being around a lot of young people. When I'm in the tram on my way to town and there are a lot of young people who go down at the same station as me, I just avoid the stairs that they are using and I use the other ones (they usually use the escalator, so I use the stairs). So when I arrived to university and it was FULL of young people wherever I went, you can imagine that my level of anxiety went up.

So yes, going back was definitely triggering. But at the same time I do feel like it was a necessary step. I am meant to be going back in January so at some point I had to start to make those small steps.

Something similar may have happened to some of you. Maybe in different contexts. But sometimes when you have had to leave your everyday life to get treatment, the prospect of going back can be very stressful.

As much as on the one hand you may want to retake your normal life again, you may have a certain fear about this. If it is not the case, then that is amazing and I am really glad that that is the case for you and that you have no issues with it.

But if you do feel stressed about the prospect, then I think that what I have done is a good idea. This time I have only gone for a week. I will be going back before January for another week more or less. Even though this may be triggering in a way, at the same time it did show me what scared me the most and what things I have to get ready for and work on.

January may come and I may still not be ready, that could happen. But I think that taking small steps before instead of going all of a sudden in January is a lot better. The shock that came from this visit was a shock that, after all, I spared myself from in January when I move back in.

Have you had any similar experiences?

What has helped you to adapt again to your "old life?

How to reject alcohol in social situations

Alcohol is a drug, but it is a very socially accepted one. So much so, that it is even considered strange not to drink in some social contexts. However, you may not want to drink. If you are struggling with depression or other mental health issues and know that alcohol can lead you to dysfunctional behavior, you want to stay as far away from it as possible. And if you are on antidepressants, you shouldn't be drinking alcohol either, as I explained on my previous post.
However, this doesn't mean that you can't go out, or that you have to avoid any social situation that includes alcohol. Especially if you have isolated yourself in the past, you want to start to attend social events again.
But people can be pushy with the subject of alcohol, and they may not just ask if you want to drink, but try to encourage you to drink. This sucks, I know, especially when you actually kind of want to accept and are only rejecting it because you know that it's bad for you but there is a part of you that wants to say yes.

Here are some tips and tricks not to succumb to peer pressure. It will also be helpful to keep some of this info in mind in order to not get upset.

When people offer you a drink and you refuse, they are likely to keep offering. Don't get annoyed, they are probably not doing it with bad intention even if their insistence makes you feel bad. They may have good intentions and simply be trying to get you to 'have a good time'. It is commonly assumed that that's alcohol's purpose. And most people don't see that for some people alcohol can just be either plain uninteresting or actually pretty damaging.
What you probably want to do when someone insists over and over again is something along these lines:

But that's why I'm writing this post, to offer you other solutions.

Bringing someone along who knows you're not drinking. If you have a mental health issue, having someone at the party/social event who knows about your issues and who knows that you can't drink is a really good idea. That way, if people keep offering you drinks, you will not be on your own rejecting them, you will have someone by your side offering you their strength and maybe even pushing those people away (even if that friend is drinking too).

If you bring a friend who doesn't drink either, then even better, since it will be 2 of you not drinking and things will become much easier because your friend's behavior will encourage yours and the same the other way around!

You can say that you have a New Year's resolution not to drink. People are more likely to stop offering you drinks if that's the case. 

If they have seen you drinking earlier the same year, you can do a version of the previous one which is to say that you have stopped drinking for a while to be healthy. And it is the truth!

I'm not a fan of lies. I actually hate them. But if you're getting stressed out from being pressured to drink, I think that's a fair enough reason to blurt out an innocent lie such as claiming to be on antibiotics. It will not work on a long term basis, but if it is for a one-off that you're going out or once that people are especially annoying, you may just choose to use it.

If your problem is that you actually want to drink but you know that you shouldn't and you don't know whether or not you'll be able to control yourself, you can just take the necessary amount of money for the transport back (or in case you'll need a taxi back or whatever), and leave the rest home. Or give your money to a friend that you trust. I know that when I take more money than I need out, sometimes I think "I may just as well buy alcohol" when I'm caught in the moment. So, lately I tend to take a lot less. Only the amount for a few soft drinks and what a taxi would cost in case I'll be too stressed to drive back or whatever.

If there are some people that when you meet up with them they always get drunk, and they keep insisting on you drinking despite you repeatedly saying no... You might want to reconsider whether it is good to keep hanging out with those people, at least for the moment. I'm not saying, go on and break a friendship just because your friends like to drink. I'm only saying that if your relationship consists solely on meeting up to drink and you can't drink (or shouldn't or don't want to) then maybe they are not the right people for you to hang out with at the moment.

Also, I want to emphasize that I wrote this post because I don't want you to have to stop going out just because you can't drink. You should do the things that you like, because in order to get better from depression, you should do the things that you like to do and do as much of them as you can. But I am not saying either that going out is necessary if that is not your thing. 

I hope this was helpful!

I'll confess: I tried doing a vlog about this but I'm so bad at it... and I was gonna post it anyway but then I found out the sound and the video weren't on sinc... -.- so yes, I'll try next time.

Being at school or university with depression and anxiety

I have mentioned a few times that I had to leave university because of depression last January. I will talk more about that in a later post. However in this post I wanted to talk about my experience in school and university with depression and anxiety and what helped me make things relatively better.

Hopefully those of you who are struggling with work, university or school can find this entry helpful.

I will not lie, this was not the first year that I stressed because of my degree. since a very young age my studies, my parents' expectations and my aim for perfection have made me stress more and more every year. I hadn't yet arrived to uni when exam periods made me so stressed that I would cry for days or even two weeks, claiming that nobody cared about me, they only cared about my grades. The sentence "I am only a number" has become a highly repeated one in my repertoire.

I was aware that there was a school psychologist and looking in retrospective, I think that I should have gone visit her. Talking to a teacher could also have been a good idea. Maybe not just any teacher, but someone that I trusted and who knew me well.

However when I arrived to university something changed. I must clarify that despite my good grades at school I did not feel ready to go to university, I didn't know what I wanted to do. However I succumbed to the pressure around me and I picked a degree. Although I think university is an incredible opportunity for those who can afford it, I do think that if you are unsure about what you want to do, you should feel free to take some time to consider it despite what your family might say at the beginning.

Thankfully I do not regret my choice and I turned out to like it. 

But the pressure at university became completely different. I only had 6 hours of class per week (people in the UK might know there are not many classes, unless studying engineering, I'm not sure of how it is in the US or other countries). So I had to organise my own timetable, my own study hours. I was also living away from home so there was no one supervising me. I had complete freedom yet I had responsibilities no one but me was checking that I was doing. It was a big change. And stress came in a whole other level. In my first year I had a big depressive episode, along with self-harm and my eating disorder reappeared, but I still didn't know all the resources that were available to me at university. 

I found out that there was an Eating Disorders Unit at the University Health Service. I only found out about I guess many universities, if not most will have something similar so try to get advice from a regular doctor or online.

I found out about the service because I went to the doctor because of constant headaches and dizziness. After asking me many questions, I admitted that I was not eating properly and that is when she mentioned the Eating Disorders Unit and she referred me to them.

At the time I did not see leaving university as an option because I thought it would be an enormous disappointment for my parents. I considered the option of suicide more viable than the option of quitting university. Quite extreme, huh?

I ended up seeing a psychiatrist when I returned home in Christmas and taking some medication and things got better.

In my third year, I had learnt to organise my time. And not only that. Thanks to my job as a residential mentor in 2nd and 3rd years I had learnt about quite a lot of the options and resources that the university offered to students with problems. I also knew that depression was not something uncommon at university.

This time my depressive episode had started over the summer. So when the university year began, my anxiety attacks didn't take too long to follow. The last year was not just a lot of uni work, I also had to think about my future and start applying to jobs. And besides my degree I had a job and I was part of the committee of a society. I guess it's not something unusual to do many things during the university time. We want to fill our CV (Curriculum Vitae), have a full experience, learn more things. However, if you are someone who stresses easily and you already suffer from anxiety and/or depression, maybe don't make things so hard for yourself. This doesn't mean that you can't study and work. It doesn't mean that you can't do what you want. It only means that you should try to know and learn to know your limits. In my second year I had no problem with my degree and my job. However, in third year with that same job, I had a bit more uni work and I added the committee. I honestly believe that things would have got out of control even if I didn't have my job or the committee, but those two things certainly did not help and only made things more stressful.

I went to the doctor and later the psychiatrist and got some sleeping pills (besides antidepressants). I found the sleeping pills very helpful especially at the beginning because I was suffering from a really bad case of insomnia. However, (if you choose this as one of your options) I cannot say this clear enough or too many times, do not self-medicate. Only take the amount that your doctor prescribed and the way that they prescribed it.

I talked to my personal tutor. I had only talked to him twice before. Once the first day of 1st year, once the first day of 2nd year. So it's not like I trusted him a lot, or knew him a lot. But the doctor at the University Health Service insisted that it was an essential step in order to facilitate things. And you know what? It was an enormous help! He was really understanding and really helpful. He asked me to email him every once in a while keeping him informed. And he told me that if I brought a medical certificate I could get extensions for all my essay deadlines. I had not expected this at all. And it did really help since I found impossible the simple task of concentrating. Even if I didn't need the extra time in the end (which I ended up needing), my stress and anxiety got relieved knowing that I had more time to do it.

I could have done this in first year, it would have probably helped me relieve some stress. But I didn't do it because I thought he would think I was lazy and I was embarrassed. But honestly, do not hesitate. If you are struggling and are having issues, go talk to your tutor. Even if you don't need more time. They might find some way to help you make things easier and better. And it is all confidential.

Talk to your mentors, to the tutors, look up the resources online. They are all there to help you. I know from experience that I was too scared to talk to my own mentor in first year. But when I became one I wanted to help people and our job was to advise them and keep the information confidential.

There are resources available to you.

You are not alone.

I hope this helped!

First post, my story

I believe each person has a story to tell. It doesn’t have to be something “BIG”, each story is worth telling. Your story is the most important and beautiful, you are the only one who knows the whole truth, only you can judge.

I got inspired by the book “Be beautiful, be you” by Lizzie Velasquez.

For those of you who don’t know her, she is a girl with a rare condition that doesn’t allow her to gain weight. This affects her every day life. It is impressive how she managed to stand up after each insult or disgusting look from others. All her life she is pointed by strangers, but every morning she wakes up  and is grateful for her life. Something I respect a lot.

I had always believed I’m not a talented writer. Lizzie is the one who showed me that you don’t have to be a great writer to write. Probably I’m not the best, but who cares!

I think writing helps. Putting your thoughts down on a paper leaves your mind in peace for at least an instant. Some of you maybe know that feeling “please leave me, at least for a moment”, well writing helps me, putting my “crazy ideas” (in a good or bad way) in order, gives me perspective.

If someone asks me now, “are you happy?”, my answer is, without hesitation, “YES!” But it wasn’t easy, and it stills not, but it’s worth it. I would encourage everyone to spend more time with themselves. Think about who you want to be, what you want to be, where you want to be, why and the hardest how you want to do it. But it is a 24 hour job, you have to fight for it each and every second, no one can help you, you are the only one who  can encourage yourself to continue even if sometimes it’s hard.

It’s difficult to say where my story begins. I guess I would say it’s two/three years ago during the senior year.

It is an atmosphere full of tension, they remind you each day how important that year is, how it will impact on your whole life, how it is a one life opportunity. Possibly some of you know what I’m talking about. Just thinking about it,  reminds me of the pressure in my stomach that I used to feel.

I always loved to study, it sounds nerdy, but I really enjoyed it. But that year it was different, I began to study for my marks, for the university instead for myself. That was the first bad decision.

All we do, it’s a matter of point of view. It depends on what is important to you. Now I would say “love myself”, I realise how egoistic that sounds, but how can you care about someone else, if you don’t care about yourself.

It’s hard work, but in my opinion the most important. We forget to do it too often, in some way I think society makes us overlook this part of ourselves. In that way they would lose,their “power”  over us, because once you realise yourself, you don’t need a system to care about you, you can take care of yourself. In some ways I think that we don’t really live in a “free” world. If we do what we’re ask to, it works well. But from the moment that you take another road, the big wave that used to care about you, flows against you.

You can be what, when, who, why, where ever you want. And I promise you, it’s one of the best feelings you will feel. When you find out who you are, you will find out what you need.

Back to my story... I began to study for the external factors. I  put a lot of pressure at myself. I was obsessed about getting high grades, and that was the only thing I could think about. I couldn’t see anything besides my exams. A feeling that today I find ridiculous. A mark, a job, a hobby doesn’t describe you, it’s part of you, but it’s not you. But back then I could just see that. I tried to convince myself that I was okay, but I wasn’t. I remember looking at myself at mirror, smiling, and tears running down my cheeks. I could see my unhappiness in my eyes, but told myself, I was exaggerating, I was okay. As the time passed, I recognized myself less, until a day looked at me and could find me. Then I said, OK, that is what means to grow up, to became an adult, a thought which is absurd.

The days passed, the pressure increased every day.

After a year I got my marks, I got into the medicine School  I wanted . I should have been thrilled, but I wasn’t. I just wanted to get that feeling away. At that time I thought maybe I should ask for help, but then again I said to myself that it wasn’t such a big deal.

For to 2 years I lived with that bad feeling, pressuring myself. I didn’t ask myself what I  really wanted, if I wanted to be at the university, if I wanted to study medicine, I just kept going.

Until I got a job, where I had to convince people to be part of Red Cross. I had to go from house to house, talk to people and convince them. It was too much for me, each time someone closed the door in front of me it was like a bullet in my stomach. With that experience I got, like the psychologist said, a burnout. At that moment, I understood I needed help. And I can say it was the best decision I ever made. Under recommendation I took  a time out, I began to respect, understand, know myself better. This was a year ago, during this year I’ve learn a lot about the human body and mind, and I can assure you it’s amazing.

After my personal experience, I would recommend each of you to sit and think about yourselves.

For the ones knowing  what they want, don’t forget that it is important to be patient. Some days it will be easy; other days it will be less, but if you want something and you work for it, it is possible.

I have shared my story with you, now it’s your turn.

Hold on!

Hya

First post, principles, goals

Everyone suffers stress at some point in their life… probably at many points. Sometimes stress becomes anxiety, and sometimes anxiety might have little to do with stress.

The thing is that despite the fact that 1 in 4 people suffer a mental health problem at some point in their lives, there is still a stigma about mental health. And I can’t help but wonder why (cause that is a hell of a lot of people).

Depression is a clinical condition. A person would not be embarrassed to admit that they suffer from asthma or diabetes; however, when I was diagnosed depression my mom’s first words to me were 

‘Do not tell the family or the university, just say that you’re stressed’

Why, I thought, would I have to lie about my medical condition? I know she only meant it to protect me. 

If I try to use other words, the words that my psychologist and psychiatrist are using now – ‘borderline personality disorder’ (or BPD)– people will simply hear ‘crazy’. 

That is why I have only told the closest people that that’s the latest diagnosis. They know me well. Like my dear boyfriend told me, in his words ‘I have diabetes, but I am not a diabetic’. I have had repeated episodes of depression during my life, since I was 11, I am 21 now. I have felt this constant feeling of emptiness for 10 years. I have a personality disorder. But I am a lot more than that. I am more than my diagnosis. Just like you. We’re not just made of 1 simple thing. And that’s why the people who are close to me don’t judge me for knowing that I have a personality disorder, despite the stigma around it. They know ME. They are ready to take this path with me and learn about the disorder, to defy the stigma, to know more about it all. I know this also affects them. And that is partly why I want to get better. No one else really needs to know, however there is no reason to be ashamed of other people knowing about this condition. Like I said it is just a medical condition just like any other... and if a stigma exists around it... it is time for it to stop existing. And for us to be part of that.

And this blog is part of my recovery.

I want to make this blog a safe space for me and for the readers to talk and discuss mental health and recovery. What makes me feel better. Please feel free to comment and to post in the comments what you think, if you agree, if you disagree, I want to know.

So if you also want to recover (no matter what your mental health problem is, or even if you don’t have one), and even if you don’t, follow me in this adventure!

We are all extraordinary, but normal, people; just like everyone else is. 

The only thing I will not tolerate in the comments is disrespect. Not against me, not against well-being, not about life, not about any previous comment (so if you comment something MEAN I will have to delete it)

If you need urgent help, please go visit this page. 

Life is beautiful ♥