Rachel Sarah XO

Hi guys,

I haven't posted since July, I have a good excuse, I swear! (Okay so maybe not.) I haven't fallen off the face of the planet, I swear. So I've been working for 5 months now and I've been panic attack free for 4 months, yeah I'll explain that in a little bit.

So I'm working for this amazing charity called Leeway, they support victims of domestic abuse and I'm really loving it. I'm doing it as an apprenticeship, so I'm supposed to go to college once a month (I don't go, college is still a huge no no for me but whatever) and I do my NVQ work in Business and Administration and I see an assessor, it's all fun and games. It's so nice to have a routine, I wake up at 6:15am every morning, get on the bus at 7:10am, get off the bus, walk a mile to work and I get to work at 8:45am. Yes, I'm getting the bus now and managing to stay on it for over and hour without having a panic attack. It's so weird.

My first day of work was so weird. I hadn't explained my anxiety at the interview so the first thing I needed to do was make my supervisor aware, she was super supportive and she gave me loads of options I could take if I felt panicky at work. So first day was over and not one panic attack. Second day came, I was meeting more people on my second day than on my first and it was a bit overwhelming and I was a panicky mess, they all turned out to be so nice and I knew I had nothing to worry about. Third, fourth and fifth day came around, and I still hadn't had a panic attack. The only one I can recall was one morning on the bus, there was a whole load of students sat around me and I just felt incredibly uncomfortable, I got off the bus in my town and my mum ended up driving me to work, that was the last time I had a panic attack. Most people at work are aware of my problem and they're all super nice about it and I wouldn't feel like such an idiot if I had a panic attack. I think because I'm so busy at work, I don't have time to be feeling anxious.
I work the reception desk at work, I have to greet people from external agencies, on my first week I was avoiding meeting external people like the plague. Now I'm much more confident with meeting new people (adults, still not cool with meeting people my own age) and now I can answer the phone wiithout panicking about who's on the other end of the line.

It's safe to say I'm pretty proud of myself. I'm probably never going to be totally okay around people my own age for the time being but because I'm working in a place where the majority of the women there are 30-50, they're obviously a lot more mature and that's totally fine.

As for blogging, since I'm working 5 days a week, I leave at 7am and get home at around 6pm-7pm, I'm not finding much time for blogging, bearing in mind I also have to fit in my NVQ work whenever I have time to myself, so evenings and weekends. On the plus side, I now have a working laptop. That was another factor of me not blogging, my laptop totally just crashed and didn't want to do anything, I'd load it up and everything would just crash, so I had nothing really to blog on, but now I have a lovely new bright pink HP laptop, it's hella fast and does everything I need it to, so I may be blogging more frequently now, we'll see.

So really, these last 5 months have been pretty flippin' cool. I'm a much happier, positive person and I'm super proud of myself for not letting my anxiety ruin this opportunity for me. Good job, brain.

I hope you're all doing fabulous, it'd be cool to hear what you've been up to these last 5 months. :)

That's all for now,
Rachel. xo

Hey guys!
It's been a couple of months since I last did a mental health post, but since it's mental health awareness week, I thought that now would be the perfect time, also the theme this year is anxiety, so I feel I can play a part in this year's awareness week. Although this post isn't about anxiety and I'm sure you're sick of me talking about it by now (you can see all my mental health related posts here and there's a fair few on anxiety) this post will be focused on how your illness doesn't define you.

So I've always thought, if there's one small good detail about having a mental illness, it's that yes, other people may be able to do stuff a lot easier than you, but they're never challenging themselves. When you have a mental illness and you have to do something that may seem completely super easy for someone else, you're always challenging yourself and helping yourself and that makes for one awesome person.

I know that right now I'm feeling very hypocritical writing this post as I'm currently looking for a job and when you're applying for jobs, it feels very much like your illness defines you. You have to make the decision of not mentioning your illness or mentioning it and not getting the job, which absolutely sucks and that shouldn't be the way things are. But it does make you begin to think "oh god, my illness does define me". But I can promise you, it absolutely doesn't.

If you're reading this now, it obviously means you haven't given up and I'm proud of you for that. We all have bad days, some worse than others.

If our illnesses defined us, we would be walking around with a things over our heads that say "ANXIETY: I get anxious a lot.", "DEPRESSION: I'm often feel empty." "BI-POLAR: I have intense mood-swings."
Imagine how judgey people would be? The good thing about that not existing, is that we can often choose who judges us. We don't have to make people aware we have an illness, because it's something that goes on inside our heads. No one else can hear it, see it or feel it except us. We have a choice of who we can tell our problems too, we have a choice of who we want to trust.

So I suppose what I'm trying to say is, trust who you want to trust, challenge yourself everyday, try to be the best person you can be. And do not let your illness define you.

I have a lot of pride and love towards people who are so open about their illnesses. I also have a lot of pride and love towards people who aren't quite ready to open up about it yet, a time will come when you've bottled it up so much that it will all come pouring out.

(Jeez, I feel like a rambly preacher. I'm not sure how rambly this post was, it was a spur of the moment post and I did no planning for this so it may be taken down within the next week but whatever.)

If you ever need to talk, go and add my personal facebook (here) and send me a message, or follow me on Twitter (here) and give me a dm. I'm never ever going to turn anybody away.

You too can join in the chat about mental health this week by going on twitter and using the hashtag #mentalhealthawarenessweek and let your tweets run wild.

That's all for now,
Rachel. xo

So, people always say 'people are ignorant towards the things they fear or do not understand', well please, start understanding, it's not rocket science.

I'd say this post is inspired by my dad, he's super ignorant when it comes to mental health and just doesn't really take an interest and doesn't bother to research it, whereas my mum has experienced it herself and it runs on her side of the family so she understands it a lot more.

So, one down side to having depression is the sheer lack of motivation you have, I know that recently it's hit me really hard so I've been finding it hard to do simple things like, take a shower, make dinner, get dressed. So there's pleeeenty of things my dad's said to me recently that I'd quite happily slap him in the face for if he says it again, like:

• "For god's sake, how long have you been lounging on that sofa for? It's been a week now."
• "WILL YOU JUST GET OUT OF YOUR PYJAMAS FOR ONCE?"
• "Wash your hair, it looks beyond greasy."
• "Stop feeling sorry for yourself and get some housework done."
• Being called a 'lazy shit' is always a fun one.
• My sleeping pattern is completely messed up, I'll sleep on the sofa during the day and then stay up all night downstairs so "If I come downstairs tomorrow morning for work and you're still down here I'm going to make sure you don't sleep."

Hey guys!
I feel I've been slacking a bit on my posts lately and I haven't had the chance to buy many beauty items lately, there won't be a review for a week or so yet (sorry!) but I do hope you've all entered my giveaway to win a gorgeous bridal/prom tiara!

This post will be written entirely from my experiences with anxiety and panic attacks throughout my school and college life. So in November I actually wasn't able to deal with my panic attacks and anxiety in college and ended up dropping out 2 months in, so this post may seem a bit hypocritical, but I survived 5 years of high school at least!

My panic attacks really kicked in when I started my new high school in year 8, my mum took me to the doctors and the woman thought I just had really bad asthma (any good doctor would be able to tell, that was not the case).
I actually went through school without telling my teachers anything about my social anxiety and panic attacks (although I'm sure they'd already noticed) until maybe, end of year 10 when my attendance started getting so bad, I'd make up any lie to make sure they weren't aware of what was going on because at that time I felt alone and ashamed about what was wrong with me, I felt weird. I went to countless amounts of attendance meetings with the heads of the school and the school governors and it wasn't until they threatened my mum with court that I finally went to the deputy head (who always ran the attendance meetings) and told her what was happening, that just made school 50% easier, I didn't have to worry about my attendance as much as I was, I had a reason for walking out of lessons mid-way through when I felt panicky and the school did so much to try and support me, I no longer had to go to assemblies (that was when my anxiety was at it's peak, sitting on the floor in a crowded sports hall with a couple hundred people just scared the shit out of me basically) so my form tutor and deputy head found a way for me to still do something during form time when I was meant to be at assembly, I'd go and see the school counsellor lady and she'd work on helping me with my panic attacks and she'd help with any work I was struggling with. The one thing I was so appreciative of, I realised the November before my exams when I was doing my mock exams that my panic attacks was worse in exams than ever, I was able to sit in a classroom with about 10 other people (which was sooo much better than sitting in room with a hundred or so kids.)
Now, the social anxiety side of things wasn't so fun either, I found it really hard to talk to anybody outside of my friendship group and then, even talking to people in my friendship group at the time was pretty hard, it wasn't until I'd fully learnt to trust my friends that I was completely comfortable talking to them. I was unable to work with other people in the class, I was quiet and just sat at the back in most of my lessons, I wouldn't dare participate in lessons which often got me in trouble.

Sometimes I don't know what I'd have done without Shauna, Rachel and Karis in my final year at school. Shauna was the one that was always there in my lessons and if I ever had a panic attack, she'd explain to the teacher what was going on if  I just walked out of a lesson and if I needed to calm myself down, she was there. Rachel and Karis were always there for me and they were the only people that knew about what was going on that I didn't feel were judging me for it, they're the most understanding people. I know I'm not easy to be friends with but they were there for me when my anxiety was at it's worst and I couldn't be more grateful.

Unfortunately I failed all of my exams and it's probably to do with the fact I had about two panic attacks in each exam, but hey, I tried my best!

Tips for college/school:

• Let the school/college know as soon as you feel something is not quite right or as soon as you've been diagnosed. It takes a lot to speak to someone in authority about such a private subject, but your teachers will only want the best for you and high school will seem a lot easier once you've told them.
• There's absolutely nothing wrong with sticking to your friendship group and don't ever feel like you have to mix with others in your class, if the school/college are aware of your problem, likelyhood is, they may make an exception and let you stay with your friends when doing group work.
• There are going to be people who'll ask you 'oh, why did you walk out of the lesson?', you can either tell them what happened or tell them to bugger off, it's none of their business. As long as the teachers are aware you've walked out and know the reason why, they're the only people that need to know.
• Try your hardest to participate in lessons, I've learnt that no one even cares if you get the answer wrong, you're more likely to get praised for having a go than not trying at all.
• If you need extra support, ask for it. Don't go through your entire high school life worrying about everything. If you need extensions on coursework because your attendance is bad, ask for it. If you need someone to help you with exam stress, ask for it. You're going to seem a lot more determined to get through high school and do well therefore you're probably going to be allowed the extra support. If you go to school on the odd occasion and don't ask for the work you've missed and don't complete the coursework in time without a reasonable excuse, the school/college aren't going to care, you're going to come across as lazy and they won't want to help you.
• You may not need the extra support, you may just need the school/college to get off your back about your attendance but if they offer the support, might aswell take it, it's going to help you so much more in the long run.
• Finally, if you're worried about your exams, tell someone. If you feel like you're not sure about a piece of work you've studied that's sure to come up in the exam, tell whatever teacher that teaches you that subject and of course they'll help you. Teachers only want you to do the best you can and if any little push can help towards passing your exams, they're going to take the opportunity to help.

Hey guys!

Okay, this is my second mental health post in two days. I feel this needs to be said.

If you feel like you may have symptoms of depression, anxiety, OCD or an eating disorder. You need to ask for help. Asking for help is not going to make you seem weak like some people think it will. If you don't ask for help and you don't have that support system there for you, god knows what might happen to you. Asking for help might not even be going to the doctors to try and get a referral to see a counsellor, it could just be telling a parent, a friend, anyone that's close to you but you need to make someone aware of what you're feeling. I know I definitely left it really late, I'd been having panic attacks and having low moods 2/3 years before I even told my parents about it, I told them when things started to get debilitating which isn't good because when it came to seeing a counsellor, it was harder for her to help me because I'd let things get so bad. Also, maybe getting a diagnosis could give you some kind of closure, I wasn't prepared to start recovery until I knew exactly what was going on which turned out be general anxiety disorder, social anxiety, panic disorder and depression (yey for things! -.-).

I'm going to put down some symptoms of depression, anxiety and ocd, if you feel like you have a lot of the symptoms, you must tell someone before it develops into to something more serious. The sooner you see someone about it, the quicker they can prevent it from developing.

Depression:

• continuous low moods or sadness.
• feeling hopeless and helpless
• having low self-esteem 
• feeling tearful
• feeling guilt-ridden
• feeling irritable and intolerant of others 
• having no motivation or interest in things
• finding it difficult to make decisions
• not getting any enjoyment out of life
• feeling anxious or worried 
• having suicidal thoughts or thoughts of harming yourself.
• moving or speaking more slowly than usual 
• change in appetite or weight (usually decreased, but sometimes increased) 
• unexplained aches and pains
• lack of energy or lack of interest in sex (loss of libido)
• changes to your menstrual cycle
• disturbed sleep (for example, finding it hard to fall asleep at night or waking up very early in the morning)

Let's be honest, anyone with any sort of mental health problem has probably received discrimination about their problems at least once. You may think, "oh mental health problems are too common for there still to be stigma surrounding it." Well, yes, you're right. Mental health problems are common, but there's still them stupid idiots that don't actually understand anything about mental illnesses and feel the need to judge you for it.

Here, have some stats that I'm about to throw in your face.

• 1 in 4 people will experience a mental illness at some point in their lives.
• 1 in 10 young people experience mental health problems.
• Depression affects 1 in 12 of the entire population.
• Rates of self-harm in the UK are the highest in Europe at 400 per 100,000.
• 450 million people worldwide have a mental health problem.
• Nearly 3 in 4 young people fear the reactions of their friends when they talk about their mental health problems.

So last week I did my 'how to recognise a panic attack' post and I'm thinking about doing a weekly mental health related post as it got a pretty good response last time.
This time round I'm going to be discussing depression and how it can affect your motivation.

So, depression can take a lot out of you. You may not want to wake up in the morning and you may want to stay in bed all day... Everyday. This is just one of the symptoms of depression. You'll often feel exhausted, overly-tired and just very rough.
Lack of motivation can actually make you feel much worse as you'll lie in bed all day doing nothing and at the end of the day you'll go "oh crap, I didn't actually do anything productive today." As someone who doesn't go to college, doesn't have a job and has no means of transport, this is something that's been happening a lot recently so I thought for my sake and for the sake of others, I'm going to make a list of things you can do to try and be a bit more motivated.

Now I'm going to tell you ways of getting yourself off that sofa and doing something a bit more productive, you'll need to start off with baby steps though:

• Playing video games, reading a book and writing can actually be really motivational, you may have no motivation to get out of bed but if you do any of these things, I suppose you're achieving something whether it's meaningful or not.
• Start a blog, that's what I did. Again, this is something that some people may not think is exactly motivational but it's something to be proud of if it becomes successful. I try my hardest to do blog posts almost daily (depending on my mood) and if I complete 5 or 6 blog posts in a week I feel like I've achieved something.
• Set yourself a list of chores. So you may be sat there thinking 'why would I do that, I hate housework'. Yes, that may be, but if you complete a list of chores you will often be rewarded in doing so. Receiving rewards and praise is a great way of becoming more motivated.
• Think positively. If you're not thinking positively, you're going to be in a slump all day which isn't going to help with your motivation problem. If you think positively, you're going to be much more pleased if you do something productive with your day.
• Make a playlist. Make a playlist of songs that make you happy and make you want to dance around your room all day. That way you're going to be getting yourself out of bed. Music can also help when doing housework, I find doing chores much easier if I have music playing really loudly, haha. For me, it's extremely cheesy 80's pop songs.
• Get into a routine. Set yourself a time to wake up, get up, have breakfast, get ready and get on with things that need to be done.
• Don't be disheartened. If you're reading this now and thinking 'YES I'M GOING TO DO ALL THE THINGS TOMORROW' and you wake up and feel awful, don't be disheartened, there's always tomorrow. Things like this take time to get used to if you've been lacking motivation for a while. Start off easy like reading a book and work your way up to going out and doing the weekly shop or whatever.
• Exercise. You get on that Wii Fit board that's been hiding away in the cupboard for months or whack out the Zumba waistband and you do those dances. Exercise is a great way to become more motivated. Things like Zumba are great because it's fun and you're making your body feel better.
• Don't sleep too much or too little. I can't say anything about sleeping too little. I'm the worst at the step. I get to sleep at around 5am and then wake up at 2:30pm and there's the majority of my day gone. If you're like me and just can't sleep, taking 3/4 of a Nytol tablet will knock you out within 15 minutes and you don't wake up with the Nytol hangover. If you're to take a full tablet before bed, be warned, you will wake up with all the symptoms of a hangover in the morning,

So, this blog post has been long awaited. I feel now is the right time to do is as I've been awake for most the night having on and off panic attacks. I'm just going to explain what is a panic attack, what are the symptoms of a panic attack, how to recognise if someone is having a panic attack and how to cope when having a panic attack yourself.

What is a panic attack?

Official definition: Panic Attack - A sudden overwhelming feeling of acute and disabling anxiety.
A panic attack is caused when our body reaches the highest level of anxiety it possibly can. You have a panic attack when your body goes into fight or flight mode (your body goes into this state when it feels you're in a particularly dangerous situation.) When the body goes into fight or flight mode it lets off a huge rush of adrenaline in your body, this is the start of a panic attack.

Symptoms of a panic attack / how to recognise if someone is having a panic attack:

I have panic attacks on an almost daily basis and it's one of the most awful things I've ever experienced physically and psychologically. But don't worry, you won't die. I say this because one of the most awful psychological symptoms of a panic attack is feeling like you're having a heart attack or that you're going to die (sounds silly but even though I know I'm not going to die because of a panic attack, I still think about it). The reason why you're not going to have a heart attack or die mid-attack is because there's just so much adrenaline going round your body, your brain won't have time to shut down all of your organs as it's trying to focus on all of the other physical symptoms that's going on at the same time.
Physical symptoms include:

• Heart palpitations / irregular heart beats.
• Sweating.
• Trembling.
• Hyperventilation (which leads to lack of oxygen in your body.)
• Dizziness.
• Nausea (which can sometimes lead to vomiting.)
• Feeling faint (this usually comes when your panic attack is coming to an end as your body is just so exhausted.)
• Choking sensation.
• Numbness / pins and needles (most common in fingertips.)
• Needing to go to the toilet.
• Shaking.

Hi guys!
So it would seem I've become quite the shopping addict. Went on a bit of a spree on the ELF website (I say spree, I only spent £15 for the pure fact I could get the 100 piece eyeshadow palette for free)

I just thought I'd share with you the things you can be expecting a review of next week onwards. So I suppose this is a online haul of things that are yet to be delivered.

Hello there, me again.
Not having the greatest time at the moment in the way of anxiety and emotions and what not. I'm on the verge of dropping out of college because when I do manage to get myself into college I can't concentrate because I'm worried about having a panic attack and then when I'm not at college I'm getting behind on work and everything's just piling up and leaving me feeling awful. I just feel like if I don't get the work done I'm never going to even pass this course and then I'll have to re-do the entire year, whereas if I drop out now, work on my anxiety and get my head sorted I can return next year and start a fresh, because let's face it if I fail this course this year and don't get on to level 3, I'm going to feel like a huge failure. To me, my mental health comes first, my non-compulsary education comes second. The sooner I get my head sorted, the sooner I'll start doing better at college. Everything's just a bit blah at the moment. I'm sorry this post and my last post were a bit kind of negative, but that's just what's happening at the moment and I can't really help that. I'm trying to keep on going with my blog and I'm quite proud I've even lasted the few weeks I have without forgetting about it, haha!

That's all for now,
Rachel. xo

Hello there,
So this is going to be an anxiety/mental health related post. A couple of weeks ago I went to the doctors about getting counselling again because let's just say, my old counsellor made my anxiety so much worse so I got referred to the Wellbeing Service run by the NHS, I'm kind of sceptical but I had a telephone assessment and my new counsellor told me that it sounds like I live a pretty miserable life as it sounds like I'm living in constant terror, which is correct so I didn't have to spell that out to her but whatever. She's offering me CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy), graded exposure (to ease me in to going places by myself) and behavioural experiments (contributing to mental health research by doing things like discussing fears, plans of actions and keeping diaries) and then after a few months of that I'll go onto long term counselling (I'm not going to go into too much detail but my parents, GP and counsellor reckon I have too many years of not very nice things happen to me (mainly bullying) to just undergo a few months of counselling, she said the long-term counselling could range from a year to 6 years so that's good I suppose, at least I know I'm not going to get discharged from the service after 6 months without any notice. So that's what going on in the way of counselling, hopefully I can get my life back on track.

That's all for now,
Rachel xo