Rachel Sarah XO: lifestyle

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.

What have you guys been up to lately?

That's all for now,

Rachel. xo

14:03 No comments

16:53 1 comments

Quite a lot of people struggle with telling their friends and family that they may think they have a mental illness, this is information for the friends and family of people who may have a mental illness.

Worried that your family member/friend might have a mental illness?

Here are some things that you may notice about your loved one:

Extreme lack of interest in doing things that they once enjoyed.
Poor performance at school/work.
Lack of attendance at school/work.
Mood swings that happen very quickly and are normally very out of character for that person.
Changes in appetite: lack of appetite or over eating.
Loss of, or increase in sexual desire.
Sleep problems.
Increased anxiety. (The person may seem on edge, or jumpy, they may also start having panic attacks.)
Feeling tired and lack of energy.
Not wanting to socialise, wanting to be left alone and low moods. Or it could be the complete opposite, constantly socialising, making new friends all the time and extremely happy, this could imitate a 'high'.
Isolating themselves.

If you've noticed a few of these things in your loved one's personality as of late, they very well might have a mental illness, it's always better to catch these things early as they're easier to deal with when you notice the signs earlier on.

As soon as you've noticed any of these symptoms, I highly encourage you to speak to the person being affected and try and convince them to see their GP (general practitioner). The person affected may refuse entirely, you need to make it clear to them that the longer they wait to get help, the more the problem will develop. If they still refuse, go to the GP yourself or writing a letter to your GP explaining the situation in full and then leave it up to the GP to decide what he thinks is going on. In the case, they may invite you and your loved one for a check up or may even do a home visit if they think it could become worse. If you don't think talking to a GP is the way to go, you can always get in contact with a CMHT (Community Mental Health Team), a CMHT is made up of psychiatrist, psychologists and communite psychiatric nurses. Often you will need a referral from a GP but some mental health teams will accept self referrals.

Supporting someone with a mental illness.

Try to accept the illness and the fact the affected person has it.
Try your hardest not to get overwhelmed by the amount of difficulties and obstacles it can cause in day to day life.
Be patient as recovery can take a really long time in some cases.
Try and encourage the affected person to take part in social activities or to take up a hobby.
Make a plan of action of what to do incase of a crisis.
If things go wrong, DO NOT blame yourself. It's never anyone elses fault.
Make sure you look after yourself.
For friends: If you're friends with the affected person, do not abandon the friendship because of their illness, friendships are so hard to hold onto when you have a mental illness and the more friendships the person loses, the harder the recovery will become.
For friends: Make sure they're okay, ask them how they're doing. If you don't ask, they'll assume you no longer care about them. Arrange to go over to their house and spend time with them and cheer them up if they need it, as much as that person might want to be by themselves, they always need someone there to talk to.
For friends: Understand that if that person finds it difficult to be in social situations and you've made plans to meet up, don't be disheartened if they agree to meet up and then the day before cancel on you. It's not your fault, it's their thoughts' fault.
For friends: The person affected may seem like they're pushing you away, it seems like that, talk to them more, don't just assume because they haven't spoken to you in a while that they want nothing to do with you because that's usually never the case. It's often just the person affected's way of coping with things, don't misinterpret things like that.

These are just the basic carer/family/friends information you need to know about if you're close to someone who has a mental illness, obviously there is more information about crisis, conflict, money and education and I may do another blog post on that soon. :-)

I hope you're all doing okay.

That's all for now,

Rachel. xo

19:13 No comments

Hey guys!

So for Christmas I recently received a journal and what better way to start it off than write a list of New Years resolutions that I probably won't stick to?

I'm also not sure what category to put this in because a lot of it is to do with my mental health but I don't know if it should go in my mental health section of my blog because it's not really helping anyone else but myself, ahhh, how annoying.

Let's go!

By the end of the year I hope to be able to stop letting people walk all over me.
Let me elaborate. I've always been the person who's there for everybody and I'm always the shoulder to cry on, but funnily enough those people that I'm there for are never really there for me, so I'm going to do something about that. Also, I've never been able to stand up for myself, I just let people talk down to me and it's always me helping them out with things and when I need something or just want to talk they're always too busy or just have no time for me and I'm sick of it, so that's stopping.
I will try to leave the house much more often and not let me social anxiety/agoraphobia get any worse.
I've hardly left the house in the past 3 months. I might leave the house like twice a month at a push and I usually don't last more than an hour without feeling like I'm about to have a panic attack.
I will stick to a certain diet and exercise routine. All I really do nowadays is sit on the sofa, sat at my laptop and I either forget to eat or I overeat. I'd quite like to try out the 5:2 diet which is basically where you eat a normal balanced diet for 5 days and then on two non-consecutive days you'll be on a severe calorie restriction. That usually means you can eat 500 calories on each of the two fasting days. So that sounds fun! I've also recently considered buying Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred DVD so I'll be doing cardio daily aswell.
I will allow myself more time to get stuff done if I need it. Like when I was at college I was always panicking about my coursework and rushing to get stuff finished when I knew that if I'd have asked my tutor for a short extension, she probably wouldn't have had a problem with it. But I'd hand in unfinished work or rushed work that wasn't to the best of my ability and get I'd get in even more trouble.
I will not let my negative thoughts take over and control my life again. This year has been so hard what with exams and starting college and my negative thoughts were just out of control which has resulted in my anxiety being the worst it's ever been, now I don't have to deal with either of those two things and my negative thoughts are still being a little bitch, so next year I'm going to work on shutting out that annoying part of my brain and focus on doing better.
I will blog more. Again with the allowing more time to get stuff done, I feel like I've been slacking with blogging, I've either not had the motivation to blog or I've done a blog post and it's just been so rushed that I want to delete it shortly after publishing it.
I will try to stop stressing over stupid things. I stress about everything, it must drive my friends and family mental but that's just me. I'm aware I have obsessive compulsive tendancies and that's probably why but pathetic things like, if my make up doesn't look okay, I will take off my whole face of make up and spend another hour redoing it, which sounds crazy but I suppose it is. If my hair isn't perfectly straight I'll spend as long as it takes to get every hair on my head perfectly straight and it's just not fun.

I hope you guys have so much fun celebrating new years tonight (and don't get too drunk ;o).

Rachel Sarah XO

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