Have you ever heard of the term 'the helicopter view'? It's something I've been trying to do for years, and never even knew there was a name for it.

Today I want to talk a little about comfort zones. We all have them, some more restricted than others, but everyone has their zones. 

Sometimes, if you're feeling particularly anxious or stressed, you might choose to remain in that comfort zone for a day, just to keep yourself and your mind happy. This is healthy, as I've said in previous posts, it's okay to do nothing if your brain needs a break.


My mum has ME and Fibromyalgia. These two things alone don't stop a person from working, I've met a lot of people with Fibromyalgia and a lot of people with ME who work. I get that it's different for everyone, and mum has had a flare up which has meant she can't do a lot. This is fair, unfortunately people do have debilitating physical health issues which mean that it's slightly too difficult to do things others can. This by no means is a post hating on my own mother. 

Mum also has anxiety. She tried having telephone appointments for therapy for it, and once her therapist told her she needed to try and step out of her comfort zone and perhaps get the bus to go and see her two children, she stopped the therapy purely because she couldn't do it. 

Pushing your comfort zone is an extremely difficult thing to do. It's called your comfort zone because it's where you are comfortable, and if there's an option to not be comfortable, it makes perfect sense for us to not want to do it. Like I said, everyone's comfort zones are different, some people's comfort zones may be the country, and only get anxious and uneasy when leaving their home country. For others, like my mum, it's just the house. You can live a pretty good life without leaving the country, although I would always strongly recommend trying to push that if you want to see the world and explore cultures. Your quality of life if you're afraid to leave the house, however, is not going to be very good.

Please don't read this as me 'telling you off' if you struggle to leave the house. I'm not at all. My boyfriend has only recently been okay with pushing his comfort zone back from just his house and it's a big moment and I'm super proud. Mum's comfort zone is her house, unfortunately she's in no rush to leave and seems pretty happy only leaving the house to go for a drive here and there. I get that there are other factors in her life, but it still sometimes makes me sad that she doesn't test herself every once in a while.

I understand that pushing your comfort zone can be tricky. It can worsen anxiety and if that happens, you'll wonder what the point in it is and not want to try it again. The only way you can push your comfort zone is a little bit at a time. Leave the house for ten minutes, once you're no longer anxious about doing that, try for twenty minutes, maybe walk slightly further. Once you're used to that try a bit longer etc. It's tough and incredibly mentally draining but it's a key step in recovery. 

I'm not saying you shouldn't have comfort zones at all, some of them might not even be distances away from your house. For me, my comfort zone is going anywhere public with music on. My anxiety is triggered by too much noise among many other things. I like to have loud music on so I can focus on just one thing rather than try and wrap my head around several different noises at once. I wanted to do this post today to talk about how I pushed my comfort zone today, and although there were a few times I wanted to quit and just stick my headphones in, I persevered and I felt really good about it. I also saw it as an opportunity to try and practice mindfulness, which is slightly more difficult when focussing on noise increases your anxiety levels.

I went shopping in the city today. There was nothing remotely unusual about it apart from the fact that I didn't have any music playing. I wanted to stay out as long as possible and just try to embrace the world and its noises while trying to remain calm and keep my panic attacks under control. There were times where it got a bit much, but I knew I could quickly escape the situation by doing something other than music. I left the shop, or went into a different, more quiet shop to just try and get a moment of quiet. It's something I want to try and do more, not because I think there's anything wrong with listening to music while you're out, but with trying to be more mindful and taking in every moment and just being present, it's much better to do that if you are actually in that present and not having music to distract you.

So I encourage you all to push your comfort zones, even if just a little. Yes, it is a challenge, No it won't cure your anxiety. It will, however, make you feel a lot better, and the pride you feel in yourself when you get home and think to yourself "I can do it" feels amazing and is really good for our confidence and our self-esteem. So try and push yourself. It's worth it.

Until next time,
-M x

The question is simple: How do you support someone struggling with mental illness if you, yourself have little to no experience in them?

Sorry this post is a day late. Sometimes life gets in the way and suddenly it's Friday which means a post has to go up but for some reason your entire day is spent swimming in overthinking everything, crying and just generally feeling miserable. Like I said, life.

I want to talk a little about sleep. We all love it, we all need it, but not all of us can actually get it or have it be as effective as we'd like it to be, or that it needs to be. 

Sleep hygiene is a phrase that links to all things nighttime routine. Whether that's physical hygiene, brain activity levels, melatonin being produced, how much strain there is on your eyes, or even your mind. There's so much that contributes to getting a good night's sleep, and if you're one of the lucky ones that can instantly go to bed and have a great night's sleep as soon as your head hits the pillow, despite you having been playing video games or watching a screen twenty seconds before that happens, then I salute you and wish you well on your great sleepy times.

People generally like to ask people who suffer from mental illness why we are tired all the time, especially if we don't seem to be doing anything. The answer, my oblivious friends, is depression. That's literally it. It may be the catalyst for other things to be affecting sleep but depression in itself is absolutely exhausting. It can also lead to things like antidepressants which can cause fatigue, some people like to sleep more to try and hide from life, and that causes problems to a sleeping pattern which can actually contribute to the constant tiredness so I have some top tips to improve sleep hygiene, whether you're depressed, just generally unable to have a good night's sleep or just want to read this post to better understand your fatigued friends.

Lights and colours
Light is one of the most obvious ones in my opinion. It's common knowledge that using our phones while in bed is bad for our sleep. The main reason for that is the blue light screens emit which decreases our brains production of melatonin which is our sleepy hormone. Most phones now (along with laptops, and tablets) come with a blue light filter. It decreases the blue and kind of helps with the melatonin production, but be aware that it's still a strain on your eyes to look at a light screen in a dark room, blue light filter or not, it's not healthy for your eyes.

One tip I would say is if you have a colour changing light bulb, or want to get one (I definitely recommend them) then when it's your wind down time, switch the colour to red. Red light is melatonin's best friend and it will help very much in those important minutes you spend winding down before going to sleep. No matter how tempting it might be to look at your phone once you're in that deep red room, it's important to try and fight the temptation and embrace all of that beautiful melatonin that's going to send you into a peaceful night's sleep.

Personal Hygiene
I also feel like this one is pretty common knowledge. How much better do we feel mentally after a shower or a bath? It's a pretty productive thing to do for so many reasons. It's very rare that I'll shower before bed, I usually use those to try and get me motivated for the day but baths however, are just what you need to help you get in a sleepy mood, especially if you've just changed your bed sheets and have some freshly washed pyjamas to crawl into. Making sure you've peed before you go to sleep is also a must (I don't know if that counts as personal hygiene..?) If you don't need to pee through the night, your sleeping brain has one less thing to worry about, that being holding your pee in until the morning. Plus you really don't want to wake up in the middle of the night and have to make a mad rush for the toilet? Or waking up with a horrible stomach ache because you've held in a pee for eight hours?

Music/noise
I don't know many people who can sleep in complete silence. I have to have a fan on making some white noise, or I have some LoFi playlist going on YouTube or Spotify to help me relax, although that usually gets turned off as I'm about to commit to the shut-eye. White noise is proven to help people get to sleep. It's used in so many apps to help with insomnia or inability to sleep every once in a while where you can choose from rain, forest sounds, beach sounds... There are so many different noises to choose from that will help you relax. For me it's always just been the noise of my fan. When I was little my dad would often put on the classical radio station to try and help me sleep because there were no lyrics for me to focus on, and I often drifted off with ballet dancers floating around with pink ribbons in my head.

The world can be very distracting. As someone with anxiety I always worry about every little noise I hear during the night, especially if I'm home on my own. It's nice to have my fan creating noise so I don't always hear tiny little things clicking or tapping during the night otherwise I don't think I would ever sleep.

Down Time
It's easy to get caught up in the mad rush of technology today, and to be fair, that's completely understandable - where would any of us be if we didn't embrace that technology? It doesn't mean it's good for our brain activity levels when we're about to go to sleep though, and it can often lead to either difficulty getting to sleep or staying asleep if you try and close your eyes while your brain is still whirring because it was having to focus on video games no less than five minutes ago.

Going back to the whole lights and colours it's really nice for our brain to have time to slowly shut itself down with something that doesn't require it to work that much. That could be reading, or colouring, maybe you do Cross Stitch or you knit. Anything you can do that's relatively absent-minded and doesn't require looking at a screen is always a good idea to do before committing to the pillow.

The Bed
We all love our beds. However, their main purpose is sleep (and sex, but that's irrelevant). If you're using your bed for anything other than it's intended purpose it can be easy to become detached and see it as something other than a bed. If you're sitting on something as comfy as your bed all day, is it going to feel as nice getting into it at the end of it if there's a nice little butt indentation from where you've sat all day? It's not going to be as appreciated as much, that's for sure. If you're on your bed, you're also inclined to lay down as well, which is not good for us as it means we're pretty much accepting of a snooze, and while that's not always a bad thing, naps should be kept at a minimum unless you're sick. Naps can be good in short bursts, and that's been proven. But always being on your bed, either sitting or laying always creates the danger of you just wanting to slide down and sleep, and if you're trying to lessen the amount you sleep, this probably isn't a good idea.

Food and drink
This is the last section and one of the most important, I feel. I love having cups of tea before bed. I like being in bed late at night watching Netflix with a bag of popcorn or Doritos and a cup of tea. This shouldn't be the case! Most food we have as midnight snacks contain sugar which is just going to wake us up again. The rest of it engages our brain so it can actually work on digestion, which isn't something it needs to be doing when it's time to go to bed. Going to bed just after eating can also cause terrible acid reflux and heartburn from being horizontal and needing to be vertical so gravity can help a little in the first stages of digestion.

Anything you'd like to say you sit in bed and drink at night probably shouldn't be drank unless it's water. Hot chocolate would be one I do, but again - it has that high sugar content which is just going to keep us awake. Tea, Coffee, energy drinks... All have an amount of caffeine in them (as well as sugar if that's how you have it) so are definitely bad things to have at least 2-3 hours before bed time. Plus once you're in bed, I'm assuming you've already brushed your teeth, and I can't imagine any drink tastes divine with a minty breath anyway. 

In conclusion just try and think about all of the things your brain does during the day, and think about how it needs to slow down in order for you to fully benefit from a night's sleep. Obviously if you're working on your sleep hygiene it doesn't have to be instant, it takes practice to make a habit of it. I'm sure even if you start implementing just two or three things from this post it will start to make a difference.

I'll be back to posting on my scheduled days on Wednesday

Until then,
-M x

 First of all I know I have been absent from here for the past week. The reason is that I have been coming off of my antidepressants, and it has probably been one of the toughest mental challenges I have faced in a long time.

I've been trying to find ways of writing this post for several days now. I've written a whole post, scheduled it for upload and now here I am, rewriting it for about the fifth time, just trying to find the right words to describe my experience. I don't think there is a right or wrong way. So I'm just going to tell you a little about what's been going on the past few months.

I've mentioned in my 'My Story' post that I was sixteen when I was diagnosed with anxiety and clinical depression. Although it was pretty bad and I was self-harming I was told that medication wouldn't be a good idea for me as I was still young, and if there was a chance I could get through it on my own, that was to be encouraged. I took that mentality with me through the following years and always managed to get through dark times on my own. It would take a lot of willpower and a lot of help from friends, but I would always come out on the other side smiling just for the sake of smiling and enjoying how good it felt to actually feel genuine happiness without the onset of guilt for said happiness.

October last year came around and My GP finally (after a couple months of regular mental check-up appointments) decided that I should start on antidepressants and see how I go. Considering how badly my anxiety was affecting my job at the time, it seemed like a good idea. I wanted my life back and if it meant I had to succumb to medication to get there, I was at the point where I didn't mind so much.

I just want to point out that although I may talk about how much I hate taking medication, it by no means I'm against it. I'll tell anyone to take painkillers for a headache but the only reason I'd take painkillers is if I'm in so much pain I can barely move and nothing else helps. I'm in no way against medication - if it helps, then it helps and it should be accepted. It's just a personal thing.

I started taking my medication and instantly felt the side-effects. Something I was sure wouldn't have started until a couple of days into taking them. The first day I felt sick, there was this acid reflux lump in my throat all day and that in itself lasted a couple of weeks. My mental state almost instantly went to hell. Again, I was expecting this, I had been warned and one of the most known side-effect of antidepressants is depression. It's mad, but I'm sure there's some weird logic in there somewhere although I don't exactly know how it works.

After about a month/five weeks I began to feel better. The lump in my throat was gone and the edge was completely gone. I felt a little more confident, and people could tell. I was happy, I thought although I still wasn't feeling amazing, it had still only been five weeks and I could still improve. But it didn't.

I started having panic attacks again, I started to feel anxious over tiny things again and my depression started to rear it's ugly head again - something I'd somehow managed to avoid up until this point. I spoke to my doctor and she told me to start doubling my dosage. I obliged, having heard the same warning again - that I would probably feel quite bad for a little bit while my brain readjusted yet again to the hormone changes. For these few weeks that I was on the higher dosage I turned almost psychotic. I was causing arguments out of nothing, I was snappy and tearful and not a fun person to be around. I turned into the girlfriend I never wanted to be and I turned into the daughter/sister from hell, just hiding in my room all the time and shouting like a little gremlin when someone wanted to talk to me. My night sweats also got bad and I started having nightmares every single night again and all of my self-care just went out of the window. I was a horrible person.

When I brought all of this up with my GP she suggested I come off the medication as clearly it wasn't having a desired affect. It was taking the edge off, but it wasn't helping nearly as much as it should have, otherwise I would have been able to apply for a job without having a mental breakdown. She warned me for the third time telling me that coming off antidepressants isn't easy because of the hormone changes. They're not addictive so you don't get cravings or technical 'withdrawal' you get what's known as Antidepressant Discontinuation Syndrome which is where your brain kind of 'WTF's' you and the sudden drop in serotonin. 

There are different types of antidepressant and each one comes with their own discontinuation or withdrawal symptoms and after having looked on google I'm glad I didn't get the worst of it. 

I suffered from Vertigo so bad I thought I was going to throw up just by going up or down the stairs. I was scared to leave the house alone in case I keeled over or threw up. Mentally I felt completely numb. I'd never felt so disconnected with myself, the people around me or the world around me. Everything just existed and I didn't have any feelings towards any of it. When you're depressed the thought of feeling nothing seems quite appealing but when it actually happens, you'd be happy to feel anything, even if it sadness. During this week all I wanted to do was sleep and eat, the more carbs the better. I napped a lot and ate a lot and honestly I didn't care about any of it. What I cared about were the last two weeks where I have been a mental mess again.

When I was disconnected I hoped that I would just wake up one day and be able to say I felt something again. And I did, to a point at least. I felt something, but it was so dark and painful and depressive that part of me wished I could go back to feeling nothing at all. I felt like my face had been slammed into a wall. I felt like a failure, that I'd let my parents down, or I'd disappointed my boyfriend. That I was never any good at anything and I wasn't important enough to be cared about. It led to several mental breakdowns, it led to me crying my eyes out because my boyfriend pretended to be sad that I didn't give him one of my chocolates. It involved me laughing my head off in one second and then the next crying again because I felt so bad for having spent that long being happy. I was in a really dark place and there was so much temptation just to start taking my medication again, but I persevered and here we are. 

Then just as quick as it crept up on me, it vanished. I'm not saying i'm completely cured of all mental illnesses, but I sincerely believe that I can do this thing with no help from medication. Of course if my GP disagrees then I can understand that, but from now on I definitely want to change things on my terms.

For now I'm happy.  There are still things I couldn't do if you asked me, and there are still things that I get very uncomfortable with but I'm getting there. I'm starting therapy in July and of course I'll keep you updated with that as well. To be honest I just really want to start living my life again. I know I have to be resilient and usually I'm okay at that part but there are still things I'm working on.

On that note I've already dozed off several times typing this so I'm going to leave it here so I can go to sleep.

My intentions with this post was not to put anyone off medication. both of my parents, my step mum and my boyfriend and his sister along with many other people have taken or still take antidepressants and have found them insanely helpful, so while I'm saying that so far I've had a bad experience with them, I'm not saying they're bad. Like I think I've said before, if something helps then it helps. There's no harm in trying something new, and there's no harm in taking medication.

Also if you are currently on medication - this is your daily reminder to take your pills. You're welcome.

Anyway, I will update you all on Friday with how I'm feeling, along with hopefully going back to my normal style of posts. I just wanted to share a little bit of what's been happening in my life the past few weeks.

Until next time,
-M x

First of all, I know it's a bit of a click-bait title, and I'm not going to apologise, my blog is still new, I need help sometimes. Secondly I'm still heavily sick due to coming off antidepressants all at once so allow it. Please, I'm delicate and will probably cry.

To start off with, I want to explain what self-care means (at least in my opinion anyway). Self-care is literally caring for one's self. That goes without saying. It means things like showering, brushing your teeth, eating healthy and getting a good amount of exercise. It also means mentally, and that's what I want to focus more on in this post.

The first 'hack' I would say is actually listen to your body. This goes for physical care and mental care. I know that physical is slightly easier to maintain, because you don't always immediately know what will help your mental state. If you start to smell bad and your hair gets greasy, you know it's time for a shower and a hair wash. If your breath smells bad or your mouth tastes a little bad, then you know it's probably time to brush your teeth. It's so much easier to listen to your body with physical self-care that mental self care often isn't thought about because it's more difficult to keep up with.

My tip would be mainly trial and error. There are things that have been proven to help state of mind, and actually, physical self-care can boost your mental state pretty drastically. I've often found that if I'm feeling low having a shower perks me up as well as getting a good night's sleep and exercising. Yes there are things that might work for some people and not for others. For example, a bath may be very relaxing to some people, with some lightly scented candles and a LoFi playlist playing quietly in the corner, maybe even a nice bath bomb or bubble bath to aid in the relaxation. For others, this may be their worst nightmare. It's about knowing the things you enjoy and find relaxing and acting on those, not what you feel should help because you saw it on Pinterest.

Speaking of Pinterest, this site can be an amazing place to find lots of different tips on how to help with mental self care. While I literally just spoke about how you shouldn't look at sites as a bible where things you find HAVE to work, but if you don't know what's good for you, sites like Pinterest are good at collecting lots of different ideas that work for many different people. There are also quite a few science-y posts, that tell you what things have been proven to work, and while, again, they might not work for everyone, it's nice to see things have a bit of evidence backing them up. These kinds of posts include aromatherapy solutions (scented candles that include notes proven to help with negative moods). There are tips on how to get a good night's sleep if that's something you struggle with... literally anything you want to know about, Pinterest will definitely have more than just a couple of things about it.

Another thing I would like to stress is self-care does not always equal spending money. Yes, it may make you feel better for having bought yourself something nice, but it's not going to fix any problems. Unless it's something like a cheap face mask or some new pyjamas or something that's actually going to make you mentally feel better, then I personally don't see the point. It'll feel good for about ten seconds and then you realise you still have the problems, you're just poorer. I can use this example with the laptop incident I talked about in my fixations post. Yeah, it would have made me feel better and excited about receiving something in the post that was expensive and that I've wanted for a long time, but once I'd have finished setting it up and got bored of playing around with it, then I would be back to were I was before. If I spend less than a fraction of that money on a face mask instead, then yeah all my problems will be there but I will feel refreshed and energised enough to face them. I think the point to this 'hack' is basically me trying to say that money doesn't solve problems. It can help, sure, but it should by no means be the thing that you need to make you happy so you can buy materialistic things to try and make things better.

One of the biggest things I want to point out is being safe. Safety is the most important thing to watch when practising self-care. It's really important to notice when things you're doing are self-destructive and work on those (I made a post on that which you can go and read here). When my depression was at it's worst and I wasn't looking after myself as much as I should have been, I wasn't being safe. I wasn't looking before crossing a road, I didn't care that my baths or showers were too hot, and I never made sure that I was being safe when I was using scissors or knives, and when I was self-harming I wasn't caring whether the blades were clean, I wasn't cleaning my cuts afterwards... I just want to stress how important your safety is. Self-care will not mean anything if you're not being safe. If you're working out and your body is telling you to calm down, then calm down. If your shower is too hot, turn the heat down. If you're self harming, firstly, please try and get help, but secondly be safe with it.

The conclusion to this post is that self-care is very important to our well being. We need to look after ourselves both physically and mentally. Even for those who don't suffer with a mental illness should practice in looking after their mental health with a couple of scented candles and a face mask to de-stress every now and then. It's good practice, and something that we should do more. With my depression, self-care became such a low priority. I'd go days without showering, or weeks without changing my bed sheets... When I eventually got the motivation to do these things it boosted my mood so much that it really makes you wonder why your brain doesn't actually make you crave self-care like you crave carbs when you're low on energy.

I hope this post is okay, I'm still a little out of sorts with coming off my antidepressants and I'm really not doing too well. I'm trying though, getting stronger and better by the day. Friday's post I will try and do something either based on my experience with antidepressants, or a 'beat the taboo' kind of post where I want to talk about how many misconceptions people have about those who struggle with mental health illnesses. Let me know if you have any ideas.

Until next time,
-M x

One word: Don’t.

It can be easy to feel like it sometimes. For me the feeling can already be there, and upon trying to help myself with something I find enjoyable, and that thing doesn’t go how I want it to, the feeling gets stronger and I’m left feeling utterly defeated, and wondering what the point of it all is.

It’s important to recognise when your thoughts are this desperate that something simple going wrong can completely bring you down. For me today it was baking. I’ve recently come off my antidepressants (and by recently I mean today is my second day with no pills) and so I’m already struggling to determine how I’m feeling. Am I grumpy? Sad? Just a little glum or unmotivated? Or am I on the verge of a mental breakdown that’s going to stop me caring about whether I relapse or not? It’s difficult to know and I’m only on day two so suffice to say I’m scared of how the next couple of weeks are going to go.

To try and make things a little lighter, my boyfriend suggested we bake together, something that we rarely do, but we enjoy it nonetheless. What we baked fell to pieces and my mood completely sunk and I just wanted to cry. These past couple of days I’ve felt like a failure and like I was constantly letting people down, and this was just the icing on the cake (unintentional baking reference).

Of course I’m not about to give up on myself. The things in my last post were completely true, and I definitely don’t actually want to let people down by giving up. It’s a good thing to constantly practice remembering who’s around you, and remembering those people are usually still there even if you feel like you mess up from time to time, because that’s what true support is. If you give up, what reason are you giving those people to not give up?

It sounds harsh, but sometimes we need a bit of tough love. If you genuinely stop making an effort in life, you really don’t want to carry on looking after yourself or trying to get better, or trying to make things better for yourself then what’s everyone else got to stick around for? If you want to give up, tell people you’re feeling like there’s no point in trying anymore. People are there to support you and give you reasons to keep fighting, so let them do that. Know that those people care about you enough to give you good reasons because they’re not going to give up on you. If other people won’t give up on you, then why would you give up on yourself?

In summary, we know when we’re struggling with things. We know when we just want to stop trying because it seems like far too much effort and most of the time it’s not a lot of payoff in the time we want. It’s demotivating when you’re impatient like me and just want things to be okay instantly, but it’s important to remember that good things take time, and to not forget the people around you want to help keep you motivated when you’re at your weakest. This could be relating to life, to school or work, to self-care, to medication, to anything. We can accept we’re struggling because that’s good practice. We can’t let that part of our brain win though, that’s not so good practice. We’re all in this together, and it’s good to recognise that you’re not alone, both people who are suffering with you, have suffered before or have never suffered and just want to help you. All of these people should be appreciated.

This post has been a bit of a ramble, so apologies for that. I’ve just been feeling a little defeated today and needed to make a hypocritical post hoping I’ll take something from it, but I usually don’t. Worth a shot though, right?

Until next time,
-M xc

When I'm having a tough time, I very often feel like there's no point in doing anything. I lose motivation to do even the things I love to do, and would rather just sleep until all of my problems disappear. Unfortunately the world doesn't work like that, and luckily we have things to keep up going, no matter how insignificant they may seem. If it helps, it helps. There's no point in analysing how significant or insignificant it may be.

1. People
I hate people. I don't think I'm in the minority when it comes to that. The amount of bad news I read on my phone almost daily, the amount of less than tolerable customers I had to deal with on a daily basis when I worked in retail, and the sheer amount of people on the internet who think they're better than everyone else. There's a big but in there though, and that is the people I do love make up for everything. The people I love and who love me back are always on my mind if I'm having a tough time, I know who I can talk to if I need to, and when I'm at my lowest, it's mostly thinking about everyone I love that pulls me back up. It's cliche, I know. But it is what it is.

2. Hobbies
As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, everyone needs a distraction. If you're the sort to start a project and not let it go unfinished because you're so passionate about it then why would you leave it? Make it the best thing you have ever made, sink way too much time into it and be proud of something you've made from scratch. This could be anything, although I'm using arts and crafts as my example because that's currently what I'm sinking my time into (instead of anything productive... like uni. Oops). If you get to the lowest point, try and remember what makes you happy, what do you like doing that you can just lose yourself in? Surely that will always be better than losing yourself to yourself.

3. Summer
Another cliche one. I don't know about anyone else, but while my depression is definitely all year round, it's definitely worse in the winter. I'm cold most of the time in the summer as well, so you can only imagine how miserable I am in the winter. In the summer, there's lots of sun which scientifically is good for a mini mood boost. Something about sunny weather and warmth of the sun just makes me so happy, and I'm always looking forward to the next day I'm able to walk around a park and just listen to the peacefulness of the summer. I can definitely tell you how much I've been crazing my boyfriend to walk around the park with me when it's been warm out. He asks if I'm okay when we're just sitting, I think he thinks I'm overthinking things because that's my natural state, but the truth is I'm just enjoying the sunshine and the quiet of the park. There's something very cathartic about it and it just floats my boat in all the right ways

4. Music
I don't actually think any of these aren't cliche. Music is amazing. If I'm feeling low, it's a good idea for me to stick some upbeat music on and force myself to have a sing song. Singing always puts me in a good mood, and if I'm up for it I'll even dance. Sometimes it's good to be sat in silence and enjoy that but when you're just sat there thinking nothing but badness, it's nice to have a little audio getaway and just enjoy the music, focusing on that rather than anything you might be overthinking.

5. Plans
Now I'm not one to make a lot of plans with people other than my boyfriend (mostly because I don't have any friends but we'll skip ahead on that fact). Plans are something I need in my life. At the moment my only plans are at weekends to see my boyfriend, and something I'm getting back into in June is going to school to volunteer for two days a week. Assuming I'm not the only one that likes a bit of structure in their day-to-day lives, it's important for us to have that, but more importantly to have something to look forward to. I don't know what I would do if suddenly I was looking at the foreseeable future and not know anything that was happening, even if it was something small. I always need to have something going on, which is a reason my degree has been so helpful to me these past few months, and why I haven't deferred like I was debating when I was first signed off due to mental health.

I know different things work for different people. These are just the things that work for me, and I'm by no means saying that this list is my complete list, it's probably just the things I can write most about. Other things seem very random and boring to talk about for a blog post. My point being is that there are always things we can count on to help us back up if we fall down. They might be one or more of what I've talked about today, there might be more, there might be less but the important thing to take not of is that there is something. Even if it seems so small, like maybe you want to keep living through to day to eat your cheesy curly fries this evening. Maybe you're feeling low, but all you need is to buy a new pair of shoes to help give you a little pick-me-up. If it works, it works and like I said at the beginning, there's no use overthinking how small it is. If it's something you know helps, then don't just disregard it.

Until next time,
-M x

I’m a hypocrite. I fully admit that, and I’m not happy with it. The truth is as much as I preach about therapy and how much I encourage people to go, I’m not so great at accepting that I need it myself.

I just referred myself to wellbeing. It was difficult to do because I’d convinced myself that I could do without it for so long. I can’t. It’s not nice feeling so out of control that you have to bare your soul to a stranger in order to help yourself.

My boyfriend asked me why I didn’t like doing it. I answered honestly; I feel like I’m asking for attention. I feel like by getting help I’m making the problem real, and I can no longer just say it’s just something I’m going through, and that I’ll be better on my own terms in due time. By referring myself for therapy I’m admitting defeat, and admitting I’m weak and sacrificing the ability to deal with my depression on my own.

While this is all true, I’m genuinely a huge advocate for therapy, and I do strongly believe that it shows courage and acceptance (as mentioned in my previous post) to admit that you need help. I’ve never been good at taking my own advice, and I know that’s not exactly a good thing when I run a blog that’s supposed to strongly advocate self-help.

I decided to write this post with the previous post in mind, particularly when I mentioned I should write when I feel shit. I feel like I should be ‘relatable’ in a sense for anyone to take my advice seriously. So yes, I completely understand how difficult it is admitting that you may need help from a professional and yes I do completely empathise with everyone struggling to come to terms with it. No, it’s not going to be easy for me to go into therapy again and completely bare my soul to a stranger about things that I still don’t fully understand about myself but the important thing for us all to remember is that these people you’re talking to want to help.  Why else would they go through all that training?

I want to help people understand the hardships of their mental health. I want to let people reading know that what they might or might not be feeling is normal, and others feel it too. So yes, I will continue on my mission to advocate positive mind-sets, but I also want to aim to make everything seem normal, for people to read things and think ‘thank god I’m not the only one’ even if I risk exposing myself as the only one who does something or feels a certain way about something.

Hope you are all well, and please remember that it’s okay to feel defeated when asking for help, but try to remember that ultimately it’s going to help, and there’s truly nothing wrong with knowing when you can’t handle something by yourself. It shows a certain strength I feel.

Until next time,
-M x

So yesterday I spoke to someone with the hope of getting some friendly advice about how I've been feeling the past couple of months. She asked me if I had an outlet for my depression, and I told her that I did run a blog about promoting the positive state of mind and the idea of self help. She asked me why I stopped. My answer was simply 'I wasn't in the right head space to feel like I could run a blog talking about positivity. I'd feel like I was lying to myself and those who read my blog'. Then she said something that really resonated with me.

She told me that when we're depressed we can sometimes act like a toddler throwing a tantrum thinking something isn't right. We can look at the whole 'fake it 'till you make it' bullshit or we can just accept that we are going through a tough time and get on with our life. She told me to not give up on the blog just because I'm not in a positive state of mind, but to start writing about how I really feel, if nothing else just to prove to others that it's okay to be depressed. It's okay to have dark thoughts and it's okay to have low self-esteem. It's all okay as long as you know and accept the fact that it's temporary. Think of it like a dark cloud over your head. You see it and you think 'ah shit. It's going to rain on me any second' but there's nothing you can do about it, so you accept it. You know it's happening but you know that it will go.

DISCLAIMER: Everything I talk about is based on my experience and my opinions. I'm not saying everyone's the same, I'm simply talking from my own experience.

I don't think embracing your mental health illnesses is the way forward. I feel like by saying you're embracing it, you're welcoming it and inviting it to stay and learning to love it. I don't think this is healthy by any means. Embrace is such a positive word, and should be used for things like constructive criticism or the people you love, not for something that's making you question your very existence. Acceptance is just letting it be what it is. Knowing that it's a thing that's happened or happening and just thinking 'well... okay'. Accepting something bad makes things so much easier to deal with, and I don't think depression, or anxiety should be something you should avoid at all costs.

I've spent much of the past few months putting massive amounts of pressure on myself to get better. I've been ignoring my anxiety and my depression and then beating myself up with I won't let myself do something due to panic attacks or feeling defeated. My depression has got worse and worse simply because I wouldn't accept the fact that I was back to having regular panic attacks, and would end up feeling like I've let myself down if I couldn't do something without having a panic attack. I put pressure on myself because I want to get better. I'm not patient by any means, and when something doesn't go my way, I hate myself for it.

In my opinion, this is why anxiety and depression so often come hand in hand. When you're anxious you stop being able to do things you love, and you start overthinking everything to the point it becomes unbearable and you start to feel low. That's how it was for me anyway, especially this time. I relapsed in October with my self-harm purely because I was fed up of being anxious. That's all it took. Self-harm for me is muscle memory in a way. Because it's been something I've struggled with since I was 16, it's one of those things where I know that it's a definite way for me to release pressure and feel something other than despair for a second. I don't like doing it, but in the midst of a mental breakdown and my face hurts from crying so much, my mind instantly tries to make me feel at ease the best way it knows how.

I don't want to go on too much of a tangent seeing as this is my 'returning' post. I just wanted to make note of some of the things that were said to me yesterday because they really spoke to me. Accepting you're depression, anxiety, bipolar... anything is important. It makes it so much easier to deal with because you can very easily justify the way you're feeling. You have the right to be sad, you have the right to feel low, you have the right to emotions and you have the right to have a reason for all of that. And it's perfectly okay if that reason is simply 'I have depression' or 'I have anxiety'. Those things are there, and there's no point running away from them or trying to ignore them because that's not going to make them disappear, in fact sometimes it might make it worse like it did with me.

I'm aware people have different ways of dealing with their shit. I know some people do get better by just getting on with their lives and ignoring the problem, really embracing the whole 'fake it 'till you make it' state of mind. I respect that, but this is me writing this post and it doesn't work for me. The purpose of this post is to remind people that it's okay to know that depression and anxiety are valid. To know that although neither should form part of your identity, they're there and they should be respected and listened to and recognised.

I'm hoping to be back regularly. I think it might be a good idea for me to start writing posts even if I feel shit because of this conversation I had yesterday. Acceptance is part of recovery in any case, I suppose. Maybe writing when I feel down is a good way to show that it's okay to feel low to anyone reading. The whole idea of this blog is to try and make mental health more talked about after all.

I'll hopefully talk to you all soon..

Until next time,
-M x

With the new year coming up, a lot of us are making resolutions. Before I get onto the main point of this post I want to talk about my problem with New Year Resolutions.

While I like the concept of New Years Resolutions, I don't think they're always healthy. If you're like me and you always struggle to keep to them, you find yourself less motivated to set them because you are very much aware that you would be disappointing yourself much sooner than you would have hoped. I also don't think you need it to be the start of a new year to set yourself a goal to become a better form of yourself.

My question is this: If you want to start eating healthy and working out, then why would you say "I'll make that my New Year's Resolution" because, well let's face it, that's procrastinating like crazy. If you want to improve yourself, then do it now.

Having said that, I like the idea of resolutions. I like the idea of setting yourself goals and the idea of trying to become a better version about yourself. It's good, but here's where I get to the point of the title - your productivity doesn't define your self-worth.

It's a loose link but hear me out.

My New Years Resolutions always require me to be productive, they're things such as going for runs on a regular basis, or making sure I eat better, write more, be more creative... The thing is that there are days where I'm not productive at all, and on those days I feel like I've let myself down. I feel like a disappointment to myself and that just lowers my motivation to do everything even more until I fall into a pit of self-loathing and disappointment.

My first pointer for avoiding this is don't make anything huge for a resolution. Keep it simple, keep it something you want to do to become a better version of yourself, but keep the pressure light.
My second pointer is don't let how productive you are define your self worth.

Being productive is great. It makes us feel good, and like we've achieved something. However it's perfectly fine to have unproductive days. The amount of days I've had recently where I've done nothing and beat myself up about it and I'm slowly realising that I don't have to. Sometimes our body needs days of doing nothing so we can mentally (and physically) recover. If you're struggling with mental health sometimes the smallest of things can really take it out of you, and so you shouldn't be angry with yourself if you do nothing. You deserve to do nothing.

In conclusion: If you want to make New Years Resolutions then go for it, but make them achievable and keep as much pressure off yourself as possible, if you stick to them, then great and you should be proud of yourself, but if you don't, then it's not the end of the world, and it doesn't make you any less of a person. Have fun with them and make them something that's ultimately going to help you enjoy life that little bit more.

Because I'm a productive bean I've already planned the next post where I'll be reviewing all of the highs and lows of the year. It'll be a long one so stay tuned!

Until next time,
-M x