Rachel Sarah XO: life update

Omg hi!

Well, it's been a long time since I've written one of these, 5 years infact. I'm shielding from COVID-19 at the moment with not a lot to do so thought I'd put my energy into something productive instead of playing Animal Crossing for 12 hour a day. A lot has happened and changed in 5 years, but as you can see from the photo above, I'm very much still passionate about makeup and I'm still dying my hair weird colours. (I think the yellow hair is my favourite so far.)

So... I guess we'll start from November 2015 which was when my last post was. Well, I had just finished an apprenticeship which was my first ever job which I absolutely adored. I worked a lot between 2015 and 2017 when I finally went to university.

2016 was a good year, I worked a lot, started a course with Open University in Psychology and then in May 2016 I went to Disneyland Paris with my pals Rachel and Karis and I had a blast, I then went back in November 2016 with my parents and my little sister and it was amazing!

In 2017 I ended up finishing that course with Open University, with that and my work experience was enough for me to be accepted into university to study Social Work. I was over the moon! It was probably the biggest achievement in my life so far. So in September 2017 I packed all of my stuff up and moved all the way to Nottingham to pursue my dream of being a social worker. I met my best friend, Charl in first year at university and she was my absolute rock all throughout.

In 2018, after years and years of being told by doctors and psychiatrists that I had anxiety and depression, I finally received a diagnosis of Bipolar type 2. It felt like a huge slap in the face and I wasn't expecting it. It's not very talked about but it's so so difficult to find the right medication for you that will actually work. I spent months on lithium, only for it to make me feel worse and it took a year for me to find the meds that I am on now and have been on for a year that have helped stabilise my moods.

In April 2018 I got myself into a horribly toxic and emotionally abusive relationship, I'd be lying if I said that the things that were done and said to me weren't still etched into my brain to this day.

September 2018, I started my first work placement for my degree, I was working with adults at risk of homelessness who had secondary mental health involvement. I started this placement whilst in one of the worst depressive episodes I think I've ever had. November 2018, I tried to take my life. 2018 was a horrible year for me. A lot of people close to me at the time showed me their true colours after my suicide attempt and I cut off a lot of people not long after that as a result.

Fast forward, a month after my suicide attempt. December 2018, I ended up going for drinks with an old friend who I hadn't seen since I was about 17, he turned out to be the love of my life. Me and Joe ended up making things official in January 2019 and we've been together ever since. We're currently living together at my parents house and will soon be moving out together once I'm out of shielding and I'm able to start working again. Joe has seen me in some right states and he's never judged me nor made me feel bad for my bad days. I've had so much fun with him and he makes me smile almost all the time.

That takes us up to 2020...

We all know 2020 has been crap, let's not act like it hasn't been.

January 2020, I received some pretty life-changing news. I was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease (one of two forms of inflammatory bowel disease) and I was found to have fistulas all around my digestive system (fistulas are basically just holes), I am currently undergoing a form of chemotherapy to assist my recovery but Crohn's is a lifelong condition and there is no guarantee that I will be remission any time soon. Unfortunately due to my deteriorating physical and mental health, I had to withdraw from university as I was deemed not 'fit to practice' as a social worker. I was 3 months away from graduating.

Then Miss Corona made an appearance which meant because of me still being in a flare and undergoing chemo, I am in the shielding category. (In the UK this means, people with certain underlying health conditions, or taking immunosuppressive medications, we aren't allowed to leave our homes at all, these rules recently changed and we're allowed out for one daily walk)

Up until the other day, I hadn't left my house for just over 90 days which has been really difficult for me. I went for a drive with my mum the other day (I didn't leave the car, of course) and everything just felt weird.

So we're all up to date now I think! I wanted to restart this blog to document my journey with Crohn's Disease, as I know I've found it a great help reading blogs of others dealing with IBD.

Also, because of Crohn's I've had to completely alter my diet and I thought it would be good to maybe feature some of my favourite homemade gluten-free and vegan recipes that I've been making recently.

I'm really looking forward to getting this blog up and running again, hopefully with more regular posts. Let me know what kind of posts you'd like to see and I hope Corona hasn't messed with your lives too much, it's such a horrible situation.

Lots of love,

Rachel xo

13:11 No comments

Hey guys!

This month has been pretty bad in the way of anxiety and health things but it's been awesome at the same time and I shall explain why.

So the month started off with intense anxiety about my teeth (super random, I know) but I've always been anxious about my teeth and dentists. I woke up one morning and my teeth felt pretty loose (they didn't actually move at all), but they felt really insecure in my mouth, I then noticed that my two bottom front teeth had shifted a tad. I plucked up the courage to go to the dentist, and my dentist diagnosed me with TMJD (Temporomandibular Joint Dysfunction), basically she took one look at my teeth and said "Do you grind your teeth?" and I was like "Mhm, yep" and she said "Yeah, you've got the typical looking teeth of a grinder." I also explained to her that my top two front teeth constantly felt like someone was punching my in my mouth and she said that it's a perfectly common symptom of people who grind their teeth, because you're putting so much pressure on your teeth when you grind them, it can cause problems to the nerves in your teeth or something and it can hurt even when you're not grinding. I wasn't even aware of my teeth grinding problem until my mum told me that when I fell asleep on the sofa once a month or two ago and she could hear a crunching/grinding noise, obviously it's gotten pretty bad if it's caused my teeth to feel so weird. I've caused some damage to the joints in my jaw because of the constant grinding. My dentist is making me a night guard though so hopefully when I next see her which is next month I think, I should be able to get my grinding under control.

If you could see the state I was in the week before going to the dentist, I absolutely pity my mum. I was having panic attacks on and off for 5 days, I couldn't stop crying and I cried so much I caused my whole upper body (particularly the joints and muscles because of the tension) to be in pain for the whole week afterwards. It generally wasn't a good couple of weeks.

But then things got a bit better! By the next week, my teeth were feeling a lot better, my pains had gone, I'm still grinding my teeth but I can't help that since I do that whilst I'm asleep but generally everything was a whole lot better than it was the couple of weeks before.

Things then got even better. I was invited to go to a job interview in Norwich (closest city to me, it's like 20 miles away) for a domestic abuse charity. The role I'd applied for was an apprentice admin and finance assistant. Not sure why I even thought that was a good job for me, I can't even add up but whatever, haha! I walked into the office building and signed in, waited in the reception area whilst trying my hardest not to have a panic attack, got interviewed by two ladies, and then got worried as the interview had only lasted 15 minutes which only seemed about 5 minutes as I was sat there. Got told I'd hear whether I got the job or not that day or the next day. Went back to the car park to tell my mum how it went (was pretty convinced I messed it up beyond belief), I then spent all evening waiting for a phone call. Hardly slept at all that night. Woke up at 9:30am, and spent all morning staring at my phone pretty much, then I finally got a phone call 3 hours later and it was the woman who interviewed me, I GOT OFFERED THE JOB, WOOO. Obviously I said yes! I've been unemployed for 9 months so I would have said yes to anything but this is a job I really really really wanted, so I was so excited. It's still a shock. I think I start on Monday 4th August, although I'm not entirely sure. I know I have to go into work then to discuss salary and the days I'd be working and what not, so that should be fun!

This month has been incredibly interesting, good and bad but I'm so exciting to see what next month is going to bring.

I hope you're all doing okay, let me know how your month has been. :)

That's all for now,
Rachel. xo

00:00 1 comments

Hey guys!

So, this week's been pretty busy I suppose. Was in Norwich on Saturday with Abbie and her boyfriend Jon, went shopping and what not, it was cute, especially since I hadn't seen her in what felt like forever and I'd never met her boyfriend properly prior to Saturday, so that was fun. I then went back to Norwich with Shauna on Monday because the Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway Supercomputer was in Norwich doing filming. For those UK folk that don't know what that is, it's a Saturday night TV show and Ant & Dec are famous TV presenters over here and they go to different cities around the UK with this 'supercomputer' with the chance to win a holiday and all you have to do is act like an idiot and make the crowd laugh and you're almost guaranteed the tickets for the holiday. So anyway, me and Shauna were stood front row in the crowd and the camera's were on our face a lot of the time and chances are is we're going to be on TV acting like loons in the crowd. Shauna then decided it would be hilarious to join in on this couple's dance as they wanted the crowd to join in and Shauna got in front of the Supercomputer's front cameras and was line dancing. It's definitely going to be an interesting watch.

On Tuesday, I'd been invited to go to a job interview at a local doctor's surgery for an admin apprenticeship job, it was actually way better than I was expecting. I got there 10 minutes early, I was then taken into the interview room where I was told 'don't consider this an interview as such, think of it more of as an informal chat', they told me about the job, found out about my anxiety (probaby went through my medical records, this is the NHS we're talking about) and the women were so lovely. I then met the ladies who'd I'd be working with if I get the job and I then got a tour of the surgery, so that was nice. The women who interviewed me were always smiling and laughing at stuff I was saying and they said that if they weren't already aware of my anxiety, they wouldn't even think I suffer with an anxiety disorder as I seemed quite 'cheery and confident' so that was nice to hear.

So I'm actually supposed to be at a job interview right now, a few hours ago I decided it really isn't worth it. For an apprentices salary, I'd be earning £400 a month and £129 of that would be spent on monthly bus fare and then £80 a month would be spent on rent to pay my parents, so really, working 40 hours a week to only earn just under £200 a month is a bit ridiculous. (The reason the bus fare is so much is that this job is about 40 minutes away and I have to get two buses whereas the other job is a mile away and a 5 minutes bus ride away and it's only £21 a month to get there)

So me and my mum decided it isn't really worth me going to the interview, because I told her that even if I did get offered the job, I wouldn't take it because it's just not worth it.

So, this week's been pretty fun I suppose, now I'm just playing the waiting game and waiting to hear back from Tuesday's interview. Stupid me, I forgot to ask how long it would likely be that they'd get in touch with me, wah.

Rachel Sarah XO

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