Oh well hey there.

I was reminded by someone recently of how much blogging can help. Especially a blog like this that no one reads, where I can just dump the contents of my brain all over it, and there's pretty much no repercussions. I put the link on Twitter, which only about 3 people I like actually use, and it's more or less guaranteed that no one will see it. 

Anyway. I had the best of intentions for this year I really did. I vaguely remember writing a post at the end of the year, bragging on and on about how well I was doing in life and how that was something I was going to carry on well in to 2017 as well. But instead, my entire 2017, my heart, emotions and everything in my life just came crashing down around me. On February 1st, at just about 7.30pm my Nan had a stroke, which in time would leave her with no use of her left side. During her time in hospital with the stroke it was discovered that she had end stage lung cancer with a spread to her spine. After a month in hospital, she came home to a nursing bed in the living room of our house, and carers looking after her during the day. All of a sudden my life became this chaos of looking after her, leaving the house in relays so she was never left alone, sitting by her bedside, making her cups of tea and helping her drink them (much to her frustration) and chasing down various carers and nurses during the day time (or the one time I waited for a nurse until nearly midnight.) On the 19th of March in the early hours of Sunday morning, she passed away relatively peacefully at home, where she had always wanted to be. I've been through the grieving process before, but this is something else entirely. I've never felt such loss and heartbreak as I did during the whole experience. My Nan was my buddy. I told her all the time that she was my best friend, her and my grandad were both like second sets of parents to me. The hardest day by all accounts was her funeral. All I could do the entire service was stare at her coffin and try to beam messages to her of how much I love her and how much I miss her.

One day when Nan was still in hospital I went down for an X-ray with her as she didn't want to go alone. Just me and her in the room we spoke about things that we never had done before, mainly, her telling me that I need to stand up for myself against everyone. I had forgotten this conversation, and I was probably using excuses for things far too much. I was reminded of this the other day by someone, the same person who reminded me that this blog existed actually. I'm pretty good now at being brave in some areas of my life thanks to my Nan. I've been accepted on to an Access To Nursing college course, to go for my nursing degree, in the hopes of becoming a palliative care nurse. I can even sometimes make my own phone calls to hairdressers or work etc. I still prefer to do things by written word, not spoken, but that's just me. 

However there are some aspects of my life where I know no bravery exists whatsoever. I sometimes want to sit here and say 'no. But why them/it/this situation?' 'Why haven't you spoken to me in 5 days, do you think this is good enough?' And then there's other times when I'm quite happy to blend in to the background and just keep unnoticed. To be fair, those blending in moments are probably the reason I have any friends left at all. 

I'm not really sure what the point behind this post was in all honesty. I think there were just things I needed to get out. 

Thank god no one reads this. 

Rosie. 

Goodbye 2016.

Well, 2016 was on hell of a year wasn't it, not just for me but everyone I know seems to have had quite a turbulent year in someway or another. Now, 2017 is a few hours away, and congratulations everyone, we survived it. Now it's time for the recap. I had too much to put in a Facebook status like other people were doing, so I used my blog instead. Here goes nothing.

How I started 2016-

• Deeply depressed, with my anxiety at an all time high. 
• In a supremely unhappy and manipulative relationship, but also completely clueless about it. 
• Unemployed, going no where fast and not being particularly bothered by it. 

January to April has been kindly blanked out by my brain. I have a few memories of that time but most of them involve tears, panic, arguments and general discontentment with my life. In April, my entire life turned upside down. My horrendous relationship ended, in a pretty brutal way on their part and a pathetic way on my part, and I had a breakdown. I know now it wasn't because of the relationship ending, the end of the relationship was the final crack in my already weak pretense of being a normal, happy person. I couldn't kid myself that I was okay anymore, and I couldn't kid other people that I was okay anymore either. I spent most of April sat in my house, crying, not eating, not talking and genuinely suicidal. 

Yep, 2016 will be known, in part, as the year I wanted to kill myself. And I am okay with admitting that. I know now I wasn't fully suicidal but I did want things to change, and that was the only way I saw it happening at the time. I know lots of people have a brilliant time talking about what happened to me, and mocking it to this day. But while you're all sat in the same place, with the same people, drinking too much and doing the same drugs you've been doing for years, I'm out there getting better, growing and learning. I'd rather be on my path than yours, any day. 

2016 taught me many things. The people I thought were my friends, weren't necessarily my friends. Not everyone will be nice to you because you are nice to them. Not everyone deserves your niceness. Sometimes you need to let yourself be broken for a while. But more importantly, everything is temporary. 

So, how am I ending 2016? 

• I have the best relationships with people right now that I have ever had. 
• My mental health problems are currently under control. 
• I have a job I love, working with people that I love, who have helped me in ways I don't think I can explain. 
• I have plans and ideas and a list of goals for 2017.  

Its hard not to just see this year as "The Year My Life Fell Apart". 

I have to make a conscious effort to remind myself that this was also;

"The Year I Lost My Unhealthy Relationships" 

"The Year I Got A Job" 

"The Year I Went To London And Didn't Have A Panic Attack" 

"The Year I Got To See My Best Friend For The First Time In Far Too Long" 

"The Year I Met People who Changed My Life" 

"The Year I Could Fit In To Size 10 Clothes Again."

"The Year I Learnt To Contour My nose."  

Consistancy.

One of the few things consistent about depression, is that it will come back. No matter how hard you try, it will come back. It will feel different every time it comes back. (Sometimes its not so bad, sometimes its worse, the reason is always different etc.) Either way, it will come back.

I've been doing pretty well lately. I finished my psycho-dynamic therapy and I'm just seeing how things go in my mind. I still take my daily antidepressant. Somethings that used to be impossible are now a part of my life I don't even worry about, when I'm in a really good mood I can even have a conversation with a stranger. However, sometimes it's like being on a roundabout, I can feel the depression coming back around again.

Could it be that Christmas is just around the corner? Christmas isn't my favourite time of year anyway. However seeing all these gorgeous night out and party clothes in the shops is like a big slap in the face reminder that through various reasons, I don't have any of my "going out-out" friends anymore. Could it be the end of my therapy finishing? Being emotionally alone for the first time in a long time (by alone I mean having no mental health professionals around me) is a scary idea, anything that comes up I have to deal with on my own for the first time in a while. Family? Friends? Love life? Work? The weather? Inanimate objects?
Anything? Any ideas? Anyone?...


I don't know what it is right now. However, it's never nice to be reminded that depression, anxiety, any mental health problems in general don't ever really leave you, they just have moments where they fade in to the background and you manage to co-exist together for a while. It's important to remember it won't ever go fully away, otherwise each time it returns it's just a massive punch in the face. But, it's even more important to remember the only other thing consistent about depression is that eventually, it will go away again. To repeat myself at the beginning of this post- it will go away again. No matter how hard you try, it will go away again.

Thank you.

Thank you for making me miserable. Thank you for making sure I ended up in such a dark, horrendous place that I had to do something about it. Thank you for making my life so unbearable, and making realise how obviously miserable I was. Without you being such a horrendous person, I would never have been a bad enough place to finally get the help I needed. I would never have wanted to kill myself, and I would never have taken such clear notice of all the reasons I had to stay alive. Thank you for all the times you let me down, making plans with me to never turn up. Thank you for telling me that I was a psycho, maybe I needed to realise that, I was in desperate need of mental health help after all. Thank you for telling me I couldn't do things, thank you for telling me I'd never amount to anything. Thank you for making me realise that I hate spending all day sat around doing nothing waiting for other people to wake up, turn up, or answer their phones. Thank you for making fun of my breakdown. Which one of us is sat there mocking someone who was mentally unwell and is now trying hard to help themselves, and which one of us is actually out there improving, growing, learning and healing? Thank you for ignoring me, with out all that time to myself I might never have learnt so much about myself, or had the time to work out who I am. 

Who am I though? I am Rosie. I am 24 years old. I am a night care assistant in a care home. During the days when I can, I go in to work and do laundry there. I have severe social anxiety, and episodes of depression. I take antidepressants every day. I like to eat lots and lots of biscuits, and I like to put too much sugar in my tea and coffee. I like to play Sims, I like to read books. I like to read Daily Mail online and read about the Kardashians. I love to watch a show called Dance Moms, to be honest I really like watching any reality TV. I would rather spend a night wrapped in my blanket, colouring in and watching TV than going on a night out that I am not going to enjoy. I like to go for coffee, shopping or meals with my friends. I like chasing my niece around the house making tiger noises for hours on end, as much as I complain about it. Most importantly, I have gained some self confidence that I didn't know I had, that I never thought I deserved to have. I have learnt to trust myself in making decisions. 

On a brighter note, here are some good thank you's. Thank you for being there for me. Thank you for answering the phone to me. Thank you for still being my friend even though depression and anxiety took over and I wasn't able to come and see you for years on end. Thank you for taking me out for a drink in the evenings and singing Disney songs with me on the way home. Thank you for staying awake until 1am with me talking about superheros and Star Wars. Thank you for letting me come in to your bedroom at 6am and comforting me while I sobbed uncontrollably. Thank you for being 2 years old and teaching me to see the world through your eyes. Thank you for making me spend hours sat on the floor building towers of blocks and making teddy bears talk with different accents. Thank you for buying me my first Pumpkin Spice Latte. Thank you for letting me buy you your first Millie's Cookies. Thank you for making me realise it's possible to have feelings for someone again. Thank you for letting me stay at your house when I couldn't bear to be left alone, and truthfully, wasn't safe enough to be left alone. Thank you for taking a chance on me and giving me a job. Thank you for looking after me at work, showing me how to do things, telling me the right way to go about things. Thank you for being a fantastic group of people to work with, and thank you for having patience with me while I'm learning. Thank you for being the best family and friends that I could have ever had. 

Endings.

In my current therapy sessions, I've been asked to think about what happened during the years I spent doing nothing. I've been been told to concentrate on what it was that stopped me from doing anything from 2011-2016. You know, the big 5 year gap that where I was stuck in a cycle of doing nothing, getting dumped, crying and eating. Yeah I know, those were the days.

And I guess its a thought that must have seeped in my subconscious. At the time she asked me, I had no idea. And now I think I know what it was. I was scared. I was absolutely terrified of starting new relationships, friendships, hobbies or jobs etc and then just having them end in circumstances that were out of my control. I know no one likes endings, but I just don't cope well with them. When things end, I tend to fall apart. I was scared of these things ending, and not knowing what to do, and I was scared of my reaction when they ended.

Some how I managed to convince myself that I was protecting my mind from doing nothing for all that time. If I didn't do anything, nothing could end, so I couldn't get hurt or feel sad at all.

Still, it was no reason for everyone to sit and make fun of me for 5 years was it?

Looks like it's that time again, to get my own word out there.

So today I encountered my first piece of life drama for a while, and I have to admit that it turns out I am a little bit out of practice. I don't even react to it the same way I used to. Anyone who knows me knows that I used to adore an argument, I wouldn't even think twice about jumping in to one. I thrived off of drama, I didn't think twice about telling people what I thought of them. But when today's drama kicked off, I just didn't want to take part in it anymore. I let the other person rant away and go on and on about it all, and I just didn't have the energy to take part in it. Don't get me wrong, they are loving being able to get sympathy from people, but I'm just not like that anymore. And then I realised something else. (This is a whole train of thought here so bear with me.)

I've just let people shout and scream things at me when they want to. I let an ex boyfriend drunkely text me horrible things at 1am. I let another ex boyfriend regularly shout abuse at me down the phone for years. I've let friends have all kinds of arguments with me, and tell me off for things that I've only just realised that I didn't deserve. I've been letting myself believe that I am a God awful horrendous vile person and it's been suiting other people for me to believe that, and I'm not.

And now I know I'm not these things (for example, I know I'm not a liar, I know I'm a good person and I know I'm not full of myself) I don't need to listen to these things. I can just turn my phone off. I can block numbers. I can block social media profiles. I can make it stop. And that's what I'm going to do from now on. I'm no longer going to accept being told that I am a horrendous person by people who couldn't control me, or couldn't manipulate me to fit in the mold of how they wanted me in their lives. Like I worked out in counselling today (yes, I am still going) any form of relationship- parent, sibling, friend, partner, needs to be equal. There needs to be compromise. You can't say things like "I'll only be her friend if she does/doesn't do this" "I'll only date you if you do this, or don't do that" "if she does this I'll stop talking to her" that's not how it's going to work with me anymore.

Basically, I've finally realised that I don't "deserve" any of this. And that is going to upset a whole load of people, and quite frankly. I don't give a shit. So while all this is going on and being splashed all over Facebook and Twitter, and getting back to people I don't really want it to and you're all sat around talking about it and being horrible about me. Go ahead.

Summer 2016.

So it's September, which in my mind means it is autumn. I adore autumn. I am such a little autumn bug it's crazy. I'm not overly looking forward to the memories from last autumn/winter if I'm brutally honest, but I will cross that bridge when it comes to it. Anyway. I sat myself down in my room and turned my computer on, and all of a sudden it dawned on me that I should be so, so, so proud of myself. Bear in mind the place I was in about 6-7 months ago (quick reminder, I wanted to kill myself) and now... I'm in a totally different place. I've lived more this summer than I have done for years. My counselling earlier in the year showed me the importance of writing things down and charting the progress I'm making. So...

Rosie's List Of Progress This Summer. 
1. I got a job. I adore my job, everything about it (I'm still terrified of the stove in the kitchen, but I'm working on that one!) I work with lovely people as well.
2. I have my own money! I can buy myself things with out justifying it to other people, and I can buy other people things as well.
3. I've seen friends I haven't seen for a long, long time.
4. I bought a pair of trainers.
5. I started to drink coffee.
6. I braved two bus journeys on my own to see a friend I haven't seen for years.
7. I went to Colchester Zoo.
8. I left the house every day.
9. I reconnected with old friends I thought I would never hear from again.
10. I lost friends I never anticipated losing, and I don't really mind that much about it.
11. I bought my first crop top. (I now have far too many)
12. I started reading again.
13. I stopped drinking.
14. I stopped being embarrassed over the things I enjoy doing. I'm going to throw it out there now- I LIKE PLAYING SIMS 4. A LOT. It's my favourite pass time.
15. I completed a course of counselling, I'm about to start a new one, and I've already got a course of CBT planned for when I finish the next lot.

And that's it. I don't care about you guys, but I am proud of me.