Sunshine before the Social Distancing

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A ray of sunshine.

Hi,

It's been a while, I suck, I know. 

I've had a tough time dealing with my depression the past few weeks. This was the longest spell I've gone without having a depressive episode, which meant that when the bad day hit, it hit hard. I had lulled myself into a false sense of security, it had been months since I'd had a really bad day, I was cured! It was a Christmas miracle. At least, I thought it was, until one day I woke up and felt the familiar painful ache in my bones, the weight in my stomach and the unending dread. There isn't really an easy way to describe the feeling of this kind of bad day. It's like waking up underwater and constantly having to tread water to keep your head above the level. It's exhausting, and there's a part of your brain that can't help wondering 'what if I just stopped?'. Being sad isn't the worst part about depression, it's the thoughts that sneak their way across your mind like lightening, without permission, that tease and taunt you. It's the single, pervasive thought of 'what if it all just stopped?'. That thought, out of all the bad thoughts I've ever had about myself, is the most frightening, because it's the most tempting. 

Kristian Nygård

When I have a bad day, I constantly ask myself; 'why are you sad?', and I'm really asking myself; 'what the hell is wrong with you?'. And it's this question that bothers me most. I don't know why I'm sad. Nothing terrible has happened to me recently. I'm healthier than ever, I can look in the mirror without wanting to cry most days, and I have wonderful friends and family, so what's with the never-ending urge to cry for 64 years? The answer is, there is no answer. There is no reason for my sadness, there is just sadness, and this is one of the shittiest parts of depression. When you're sad for a reason, you can indulge your grief, you can sit in your room and cry and let it all out and move forward. When there's no reason, you can sit and cry, but then all you're left with after is confusion. Why am I crying? Why can I not stop? That confusion in my case, more often than not, leads to anger, because I can't stand feeling that out of control with my emotions. Then after the anger comes the guilt, what right do I even have to be sad when there are people out there suffering so much more? These emotions play with your head, you feel like you have to hide them, because how would you even explain that to people when you can't even explain it to yourself?

Elysian-Dreams

Often depression is simplified to just being really fucking sad, but it's so much more than that, it's so much more overwhelming. There's the loneliness, the isolation, the fear, the confusion, the unending exhaustion, the fact that you don't even know how to function as a human being anymore, the utter emptiness, the not caring about the things you used to love, the just not caring in general. When you simplify depression to sadness, to take away all the other factors that change you from the person you used to be, into the shell that you become. 

Depression Comix

There is something incredibly narcissistic about depression, all you can think about is yourself and your feelings, and the worst thing is, when it comes to actually talking about those feelings, the words fail. You end up isolated in this bubble of horrible thoughts, and fears that eat you alive, but on the outside you carry on as though you don't feel like you're dying. It's a lonely experience. It feels like you're talking to people through a glass wall and you can't find a way through it. You want to get involved, you want to laugh and have fun, but all you can hear is the voice in your head saying they don't want you around. And it's so much easier to give into that voice, because fighting it is exhausting. So you stumble around the glass wall, lost in a state of confusion and disorientation, but looking like a 'normal' human being and hiding the storm that is killing you inside.
I'm, generally speaking, an incredibly sensitive person, I don't know if it's the depression, or me just being a delicate flower, but I take everything to heart. This becomes so much worse when I'm having a bad day. The worry that somebody doesn't like me anymore is one of my most pervasive fears. I wish I was one of those people who didn't care what people thought. I have wished that more than anything for as long as I can remember. I've always wanted to be that badass who stands up for themselves and tells everyone else to go fuck themselves, but the most I can muster up is an arched brow and a quick scuttle away from confrontation. Even when people hurt my feelings, or make me feel shit, I'll go out of my way to avoid confronting the problem because I'm too scared of them not liking me. It's pathetic, but it's just the way my mind works. If people don't invite me out, I'll automatically assume they don't like me anymore and I won't know how to act around them because I won't know what I've done wrong. Hell, if I'm not even included in a tagged post I'll assume that we aren't pals anymore. It's an incredibly exhausting train of thought that leaves you scared of everyone and makes me an emotional nightmare to deal with. I don't know how my friends and family have put up with it for so long. 

Sylvie Reuter

Sometimes I'll have these brief, glorious moments on the bad days where it feels like the clouds of parted, and I can smile without feeling like my face is tearing itself apart, but then the next second, that little insidious voice is back. With feelings as mercurial as that, it's very hard to grasp how you feel at any point of the day. When people say 'just tell someone', it's so much harder than that; how can you articulate something that you don't fully understand, how can I tell someone how I feel, when I'm not entirely sure how I feel? The anxiety makes it even harder, because as understanding as society is now, it's very hard for people to fully sympathise with someone who doesn't like answering the phone, going new places, or even talking to new people. It's incredibly frustrating being too scared to do the simplest things that are easy to everyone else, imagine having to talk to somebody about something that terrifies you. 

I don't know if I really have a concise point to this ramble, I think I just find it easier to type out my feelings than chat about them. I can find more words when I'm typing than when I speak, when I speak it feels like the words get lost on their way to my mouth and nothing I say makes sense. This, I guess, is my way of trying to make sense of my thoughts and my broken brain. I don't know why I'm sad, I wish I did, because at least then I could do something about it. I don't know why I feel so alone, or lost, or confused. I don't know why I feel like everyone hates me. I don't know why I'm so confused, disorientated or scared 75% of the time. I just don't know. If I knew, I wouldn't be spewing my thoughts all over the internet, I would be out having a life, I would be living the dream.   

Shannon Sophia

I'll leave it there, I hope you're all having a better day than I am. If you want to chat, you can leave a comment below, or find me on any of my social media links on the side. Thanks for reading my ramble, if you made it all the way down here.

EDIT: Alright, I feel like I ended this on a really negative note, so I'll just add; I won't give up, I'll never give up and I live in perpetual hope that tomorrow will be a better day than today. I am the eternal dreamer haha. 

Hi!

First of all, I'd apologise for the title, but part of me thinks it might be the best thing I've ever written. So instead, I'm gonna go ahead and give myself a pat on the back for being hilarious.

Second of all, hello. It's been a while since I did the blogging thing, I hope I haven't forgotten how this thing works. I don't have any excuse really, other than I was focusing on getting myself happy and healthy, so I'm happy enough with the time out. I am back now, I can't promise a post every week, but I'll try my best! In terms of life achievements, all you've really missed is me losing 3 stone (GO ME) and I saw Star Wars and The Martian, both of which were most excellent. I mean, I did other things, but those felt like the main things. I'm not sure what that says about my life, but I don't really care, so there's that. 

The new love of my life.

With that all out of the way, let's chat about selfies. I get made fun of on a fairly regular basis for the amount of selfies I take, and that's fair enough, I do take an alarming amount of selfies. There's a lot of chat about people who take selfies, none of it particularly heartwarming. The majority of the opinions I've read about them generally follow the whole 'could you be any more in love with yourself?' (I hope you said that in a Chandler Bing voice) train of thought. It's not good. There seems to be a resounding belief that selfies are a sign of a vain, vapid generation who care only about themselves. Allow me to offer an alternative view because, after all, what's wrong with loving yourself?


I used to hate having my photo taken, even now I get a bit antsy if I'm not the one holding the camera. I'd look at every photo of me that was taken and pick out every single flaw. My face was too fat, my eyes were too small, my nose was too weird, what the hell face am I making? Everything. Everything was wrong with those photos, even if someone said it was a nice photo, they were lying. When I was in the height of my depression, I couldn't even stand looking at pictures of myself. I would actively avoid the three thousand pictures my Mum has hanging up around the house, because to me, they were just a reminder of my failure. All I wanted was to be able to look at a picture of myself and be happy with what I saw. 
After a while I learned how to manage my mental health and take better care of myself, and I taught myself to not automatically doubt everything I did, and that burgeoning sense of confidence and security was just awesome. Suddenly I didn't feel like shit 24/7, there were brief moments when I actually thought 'y'know, I'm not too bad!', and soon those moments happened more frequently. Then I fell in love with makeup and it was like a whole new world (I, 100%, started singing the song from Aladdin there, I hope you did too) opened up to me. It was like magic! This was something that allowed me to control how I saw my face, how others saw my face, I could hide what I wanted and enhance what I liked. I was finally in charge, and after years of feeling like I wasn't, it was a glorious feeling. 

With the makeup, came the selfies. Every time I liked what I'd manage to do with makeup, I'd take a photo of it, and instead of hating everything that I saw, I'd see something that I liked, which felt like a life achievement to me. Being able to compliment yourself when you've gone for so long only able to put yourself down, is just the best feeling in the world. When I hear someone complaining about people taking selfies and hear them say 'they are so in love with themselves!', a large part of me thinks 'good. I hope they are'. Because when did it become a problem to love yourself? I'm not saying that posting selfies is going to cure the great issues of the world, and sure, like everything there is a limit, but if that photo made that person feel good for even just a moment, then what's the problem? 
I don't post pictures of myself to gain anyone's approval, the only person's approval I need is my own. I couldn't care less if someone doesn't like a photo of me, because if I've posted it, it means I like that photo and that's all that matters. Sure, when I post my 389th selfie to Instagram and get a few likes, I'll not deny that it feels nice, it feels like a little internet compliment, even if it is just someone double tapping picture. I challenge you to find anyone who doesn't like a compliment, and if they say they don't, they're lying. And you should probably compliment them because they sound very sad.

I don't post selfies because I think I'm the best looking person in the world, I post them because I do think I have a nice face, I do like what I can do with makeup and I do feel pretty, and I don't think any of that is a problem. Those pictures might be 'vain', 'vapid' and 'ridiculous' (thank you social media for all your opinions, as always) but they made me feel good about myself in a time when I didn't think I could, and my opinion of myself is far more important than anyone else's. 

The next time somebody tries to make fun of you for taking selfies, ask yourself; how do you feel about that photo? If the answer is that you think you look bomb as hell, then post that picture to every piece of social media in existence because the world deserves to see a moment of you being happy in your own skin. It's a bizarre turn of events when we're trying to teach everyone to love themselves, but the second they show a sign of doing it, there's someone right there telling them to reign that shit in. Don't reign it in, love yourself proudly and publicly because you deserve to. 
If you're the person who makes fun of people who take selfies, try it for yourself. Take a photo of yourself that you like and point out five things that you like about it, and if you don't feel marginally good about yourself after, you're probably a robot. 

I'll leave it there because I've already lost this blog post once and I won't risk it again. I hope you all had a magical Christmas and a wonderful New Year! I can't wait for 2016 because I feel like it might be a great year, and maybe I'll actually post some blog posts! We'll not place money on that though. I will chat to you all soon(ish),

Be happy and be kind,
Becca xo

Hi!

So there's this hashtag business floating around on the interwebs in honour of International Women's Day, which was yesterday (never let it be said I do things on time). Basically, the idea is to give your younger self the advice and wisdom that you have now. Then if there are any younger people reading or watching, hopefully they can take away something helpful!

Now, I was an awkward, pale, embarrassed, scared and sad 11 year old. Which, I am aware, is a very depressing description of a child. I had started High School and I was having a shitty time. Like, really shitty. I was pretty badly bullied when I was 11 so I just sort of, stopped going to school. I'd make myself physically ill just so I wouldn't have to go. And then one day my Dad- who would ask me every single day if I was okay, to which I would lie and say I was fine and then cry all night- said that enough was enough. He marched into school and basically told my teachers that they were a bunch of assholes. It was terrifying and it was amazing. And that was when I knew that if everything got too much, my family would always take care of me. 
I don't have many pictures of me at that age, because I hated the way I looked, and I couldn't stand my face in photos. I still have moments like that, and I still only like photos of me if I'm the one taking them, but I'm working on it!
So this is me, obviously just out of bed, and my adorable puppy Axl (after Axl Rose, obviously. Best dog ever). I have no makeup on and it is only around this age, that I'll start thinking that there is something wrong with my rosy cheeks/face/head. 
 Here goes.

Hi Me! 
First of all, I know, the bob was a bad idea, but we've learned a valuable life lesson here! Curly hair+ Round face= ANY HAIRCUT EXCEPT A BOB. Sure, you look a little moon-face at the minute, but don't worry, it'll grow out in no time. And then you'll know; not all hairdressers are right. If you don't want to do it, don't do it! There's another life lesson for you. Don't be afraid to say no if you don't want to do something! Don't think that just because everyone else is doing something that you have to as well. Only do what you want to do. Also, in the future, there'll be straighteners that'll do miracles for that stupid bit of curly hair at the front. It'll be a game-changer!

I know you're having a hard time in school, and I know it feels like you have no friends but please know it will get better. When you grow up, you'll learn that people will say horrible things all the time, which sucks, but it's how you react to them that'll change everything. If someone says something about your round face, or rosy cheeks, or calls you fat, don't let that form how you think about yourself. Whatever that person thinks of you is their own deal, and whatever they think is irrelevant to how you feel about yourself. This is something we're still struggling with, but we're getting better! 

People will seem really shitty at the minute, but when you get older, you'll meet the best friends in the world, people who share your humour, your love of makeup and your terrible taste in 90's music (N*Sync and Backstreet Boys FO' LIFE). The person bullying you is struggling with their own shit, don't let this make you scared of everyone. Don't be afraid of people and please talk to someone! I know it's scary but it'll make a world of difference. Don't worry so much about what other people think of you. I know this is so much easier said than done, but don't be afraid of being you! You'll spend a lot of time trying to make ourselves smaller and quieter, just to fit in with everyone else. Don't do this! Be unashamed in who you are and what you love! Please don't waste your time not being true to yourself and not doing what you love. Trust me, just going for it now and grabbing life and all it's opportunities by the hand will make everything so much more exciting. It'll be scary, but that's life. If you aren't scared, you're not living!

Alright 11 year old Me, you'll have our first crush around this time. It will be all-consuming and it will end BADLY. This will not be the first time a crush will not go your way, but please don't let it make you scared, because when you're 16, you'll meet the nicest boy. He will be tall and handsome and the biggest goof in the world. He will make you laugh and he will make you happy. And one Christmas, he'll tie a beautiful ring to the top of the Christmas tree and he'll make you happier than you ever thought possible. All those terrible, never-ending crushes will lead to this one, imperfectly perfect boy. 

Keep on with the film loving, that'll keep you going through a lot of stuff coming our way. No matter what, even if you're falling apart, those new and old film favourites will make everything a little bit easier. And it'll help you find a dream! I mean, it's an unrealistic dream, but it's something we're working on, and that's all that matters!

I know you're sad now. And I'll be honest with you, that sadness is something you will struggle with your entire life. But it will get better. Not today, but soon. You'll have your down days and there will be massive leaps backwards, but on the days when you wake up with a smile, those days will be totally worth all the bad days. You will live for those days. And soon, you'll have days, weeks, even months like that. You'll learn to live with it and manage it and soon the fake smile will become a real one. You'll learn to laugh again and it'll be awesome.
Love,
25 year old You. xx

P.S. When you're older you'll discover makeup and it will be the beginning of a lifelong love that will drain your bank account. But you will love it nonetheless! And you'll find a way to deal with the rosy cheeks, pinky promise. 

See? Rosy head= gone. Magic

Alright! I'll leave it there for tonight, let me know if you have any advice you wish you could pass on to your younger selves. Drop me a comment down below or find me on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram! I hope you're all well and I will chat to you soon!

Be happy and be kind,
Becca xo

Fair warning, this is not a happy post. And I'm pretty sure it'll be 75% incoherent because my brain appears to be broken. 

So yesterday I was gonna post a blog about makeup, but I was in a foul mood so I thought I'd do it today but it appears the mood is staying with me, and I don't want to do anything. Which is just fabulous. I thought about posting a 'How to Deal' type thing, but truth be told, I'm not dealing very well at all. Instead, I thought it might be a good idea to give you an insight into what a 'Down Day' feels like to someone with depression.

If you've been on this blog for a while (aka, I've harassed you on Facebook to read my stuff), then you'll know depression is something I've struggled with for a long time. I have gotten, after a few years practice, a decent handle on how to manage it. Okay, decent-ish. My Down Days are much more spread out than they used to be, but every once-in-a-while, a really bad one will sneak up on me and hit me like a frigging train. It's more of a struggle for me on a daily basis to see the good in myself, but on a Down Day it's impossible. The fact that I've even managed to type something is mindblowing to me, because days like this are impossible to do anything productive on. Like, this is taking a physical toll on me to type. My brain aches. To be clear, I am not asking for sympathy, nor do I want it. I am simply telling you what a day like this feels like, so if anyone you know suffers from depression, you'll understand how they feel. All cases, of course, are different, but hopefully this will help give an idea.

A Down Day for me, generally starts right away. I'll wake up and just feel  it in my bones that I am going to struggle. Getting out of bed is the first hurdle of the day. It feels nearly impossible, but I am a grown up and I can't bring myself to ring work and say; 'Yo, I can't come in, I feel really fucking sad'. So it's off to the bathroom to wash my face. By this stage, I am keenly aware of the black cloud looming, washing my face is exhausting. I can feel my limbs ache and my head pulse. But I carry on. I get ready for work: makeup, dress, pack my bag. The whole while I am aware of the pit in my heart and the dread in my stomach. I feel like I have physically forgotten how to smile. I feel the strangest mixture of intense sadness, but at the same time, I feel like I feel nothing at all. It is the weirdest combination. I spend the day swinging between wanting to cry, and not feeling anything at all. I get to work and the automatic smile comes to my face. This is something I've gotten very practiced at over time. Because I never want people to feel awkward or scare people off, I put on a smile. I convince myself that if I smile enough, I'll feel better. It rarely works, but I can hope. I talk to people, and laugh and joke, but I feel as if I'm watching someone else, because I sure as fuck am not laughing on the inside. My face hurts from smiling, I'm pretty sure it's because fake smiling is so much more effort. I feel bad for not being more involved but I can't bring myself to do anything more. Every time a customer comes in I feel the ache on my cheeks as I hitch the same stupid fake smile on. Working in retail, feeling like shit, is the worst possible combination. By 2pm, the exhaustion is taking a physical toll, my arms and legs feel like they might stop working any second, my back aches and my face hurts. I go for lunch and sit in a daze, mindlessly flicking through social media, instantly forgetting what I just looked at as soon as the screen swipes up. I am alone, and I don't have to fake smile. But at the same time, I am very aware that I am alone, and this is the great contradiction of a Down Day. I want to be alone, more than anything. But at the same time, I am absolutely terrified of being by myself, because it's when I'm by myself, with my head, that I am most aware of the black cloud. Lunch ends and I prepare myself to go back up, I feel the dread like a weight in my stomach, but as soon as I hit the door back onto the floor, the smile hitches it's way back onto my cheeks. 4pm hits and it's time to go home, and still, not once does a real smile make it onto my face. I couldn't tell you a single thing that happened today, but I do know I made it home. 

When I get home, I want to try and cheer myself up, but listening to music, or watching videos actually irritates me. And sitting in silence means I can hear the voice. So I'll take being irritated over the voice, but now I'm annoyed and sad. Depression is a terrible contradiction. 

Actually taking the time, to be able to type, is a huge step forward for me. At my worst, I lost all interest in anything. I couldn't do a damn thing. I would just lie there, in an exhausted daze, dreaming about all the things I wanted to do, but just couldn't bring myself to actually do. This is one of the worst part of my Down Days; I'll daydream about all the stuff I want to do, all the things I want to achieve, and after it's all said and done, there is this tiny, pervasive voice telling me to just give up. And you can ignore it for a while, but eventually that tiny voice becomes a roaring din and that's when the hope leaves. 

It's now 6:38 for me and I am beyond exhausted. I ache and my head and heart hurt and I don't know why. Nothing bad happened today or yesterday, but still this cloud reigns. And that is why this feeling is so difficult to deal with. I need a reason to feel like this, and I don't have one, and it's shit. I used to try all the self-help crap to make myself feel better, but the fact remains. Depression is an illness, and largely there is no rhyme or reason to why I feel this way, so making myself feel worse because I don't feel better is only going to make a shit day even shittier. On Down Days, the only thing that keeps me going, that keeps my head above water, is knowing that tomorrow the cloud might be smaller. Tomorrow could be better. 

I'll leave it there for tonight, because frankly, I feel like I've run a marathon. I hope this has help give at least, a small insight into what a Down Day feels like, or has given some element of support or something. If you have any questions, you can hit me up below, or on any of my social media. I hope you're all well. If you're having a Down Day, please don't give up. We can get through until tomorrow. Tomorrow might be better, and that's enough for me and I hope it's enough for you. I'll leave you with one of my absolute favourite quotes of all time, it's one I whip out to convince me to carry on to the next day:
Be happy and be kind,
Becca xo

Hello beautiful people!

You know when you have so much to say, so much to explain, that you have no fricking clue where to start? Yeah, that's happening right now.

It's funny, I have this ridiculous compulsion to splurge all the feels but there are so many of them I may as well just smash my head against the keyboard repeatedly. It's always the important topics that are the most impossible to write about. Typical. As a side note, I feel I should just say; Mum, if you're reading this there WILL be swearing! I have done a disclaimer so now you can't tell me off :).

I guess the best thing to do is to start from the beginning (such an inventive idea, I know) so I'll link my first post about Mental Illness right here. If you want to be able to follow along with my ramblings, it might be a good idea to check it out first. 

As I mentioned before, I've struggled with depression since I was 11 years old. It's been an on/off thing ever since. Some days can feel like the end of the world then I could go a week feeling almost optimistic. It's an exhausting way to live, never knowing if the next day you wake up, if you're happy to wake up at all. When I got to uni I lost any and all small ability I had to control it. I would spend days on end in bed, make up excuses to not go out and basically panic about everything. Like, literally, everything. I've always been a worrier but when I hit 18 I just went, for lack of a better word, a bit mental. Everything turned into a worst possible scenario in my head and I lost all desire to do anything. To my mind, people only tolerated me, I didn't really have friends, I was going to fail my degree before I started annnnnddddd I was never going to succeed in life. So, in my head, I was a verifiable mess, incapable of doing the simplest task without panicking and thinking 'OH SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIIITTTTTTT'. Outwardly, I like to think I was cool, calm and collected. And herein lies the problem. My absolute and utter determination to keep my game-face on, to pretend that I was like everyone else, left me suffering alone and scared and terrified to talk to anyone. And this is the great deception of depression, it doesn't just make you think the worst about yourself, it isolates you from everybody. You become convinced that nobody will understand, that you'll be rejected and then you'll really be left alone. 



I wanted to write this post for a couple of reasons. Recently I had been trying to finish off some assignments for university. All I had to do was write some essays, submit them and then BOOM, degree in hand. It all sounded so simple! Except nothing's simple when you; 1) hate your degree, 2) second guess/triple guess/quadruple guess everything you write/do/say and 3) when you have to partake in regular human society and work for a living. And when it came to concentrating and putting some words down, I just fell apart. My mind just turned to shit and was a squidgy mess (I apologise for that mental imagine) and I felt like everything was pointless. Yet at any point did I tell anyone? Say; "look lads, I can't do it, I'm falling apart"? OF COURSE NOT, DON'T BE SILLY! I pretended everything was super duper and then, 2 days before the essays were due in, I had the most almighty panic attack of my life (and I have had some gems). I literally thought I was going to die, and truth be told, in my moment of sheer desperation, I thought that mightn't be so bad. Which looks so awful written down, but it is what it is. I don't necessarily spend my days contemplating suicide, rather I just think about blinking out of existence. Just having everything...stop. 
My poor boyfriend, who is the kindest, sweetest and most supportive man I have ever known (along with my Dad), had to try and pull together a person he didn't even know was falling apart because I hid everything. The problem with thinking the worst about everything is that you anticipate the worst from everyone. Despite my family being nothing but the greatest bunch of people I could be genetically connected to, my mind tells me they'll be disappointed and ashamed of me if I don't do something. Deep down I know that's absolutely not true, and that, frankly, it's a little offensive to think so little of them. Yet when the dark thoughts come, that logic doesn't feature in. Depression has made me alarmingly self-centred, I am convinced that all events lead to me and something terrible I have done. 

The irony that I love writing, and want to do it for a career, yet physically cannot complete my English degree is not lost on me. It's some sort of cruel cosmic joke, is what it is!

The second reason was the suicide of Robin Williams. I don't think I've ever been hit so hard by the death of someone I didn't know. The thought that someone who brought so much laughter and joy to other people's lives, could be suffering so intensely in private was far, far too close to home for me. Not that I'm comparing myself to Robin Williams (although, I too could grow an impressive beard. If I tried.) but I understood the desire to hide away from the world and pretend like everything is okay. And this is, I guess, the crux of my ramblings. Why do I want to hide? Why should I hide? 

In modern society, there has to be an excuse for everything, but often with depression there is no reason, it just is. I have no reason to feel the way I do, nothing outstandingly horrific has happened to me, I have great friends, an awesome family and a fricking fantastic boyfriend (who would be even better if he picked up his socks) so what's my problem? And there isn't one, I have no explanation other than my brain, on occasion, hates me. Sure there are triggers and things happen that warrant my sadness, but a lot of the time it's just a lot of sitting around in a black cloud thinking "is this really my life?". The treatment of depression and suicide following the loss of Robin Williams did not help my own understanding of my condition. Generally what I got from newspapers/websites is that I should stop whining, grow the fuck up and stop being a selfish mare. The sensationalisation of his death absolutely disgusted me. If he had died from a battle with cancer he would've been mourned on the front page, yet because Depression is seen as some sort of made up illness he is called 'selfish' and accused of wasting his life and the horrific details are splashed all over. And this angered me to no extent. People with Depression don't choose to feel shitty, they aren't killing themselves for attention or to be selfish, there literally feels like there is no other choice. This is what needs to be highlighted, how can a person, in a society as oversharing as the one we live in, get to the point of not being able to talk about not wanting to exist anymore? Instead of making excuses for why someone feels depressed, as we see with the treatment of Robin Williams (he was broke, he was struggling with sobriety etc etc) perhaps just accept what it is and find a way to make someone feel loved, accepted and needed? Educate people on how to cope, how to recognise the signs, and most importantly, stop people feeling ashamed of having a mental illness. When news broke of Williams suicide my Facebook newsfeed was full of people encouraging others with depression to speak up and seek help, and like an absolute hypocrite, so was mine. But it's not as easy as that. Getting help, opening up to someone and just saying it is the most difficult thing, because for some reason, it's seen as some kind of weakness. And this is where change needs to come in. If I had known about my condition when I was 11, maybe I would have a better grasp on how to control it, how to live with it. Maybe I wouldn't feel ashamed of something that is totally beyond my understanding. And I wouldn't feel absolutely terrified about posting this. 



So, if you're reading this and you've been struggling, if you have had any dark thoughts about yourself, please know you are not alone. Even if you can't talk to someone you know (which, I know, is really bloody hard) you can always drop me a line one here. I won't pretend I have all the answers, or in fact, any at all, but I can at least support you. Or, we can support each other. Please remember, even when it seems impossible to, you are loved and you are important. I know it's something I need to try and remember. If you know someone with depression, just know that you being there and supporting them is so much more appreciated than you can ever know. 

Alright, that's a lot of heavy shit, and truth be told, I could go on. But here, have a picture of Tom Hiddleston to make it a little better. 

I hope you're all well, and if not, you can hit me up on any of my social media or on my email, which you can find in my 'Contact' section. Be happy, be healthy, be safe. If you need anymore information or advice you can check out the Mind website here. Chat to you next time :).

Becca.                           

Hola!

So, I've been sitting on this idea for a post for a while. I'd been meaning to write and post it last week and be a top blogger, obviously that didn't happen. I am still a top blogger though, right?! 
It's a bit of a tough one for me to write given the personal crap that is about to explode all over the page. Not only is writing about the the topic hard, but writing about how hard it is to write about the topic is hard. It's writer inception. Writerception, if you will. Now I've gotten the obligatory Inception joke in there, let us move on. 

As you've probably gathered from the title, I'm going to splurge all the feels about Mental Illness. IT'S GOING TO BE A LAUGH RIOT. Probably not.

Mental Illness is something I've been circling around for a while as part of my screenplay (aka, the jumbled mess of notes currently scattered around my flat). I keep coming back to it because the topic itself is a highly personal one to me. I am also very aware of people I know reading this which makes it twice as hard to write about. But here goes, now comes the feels.

So, depression is something I've struggled with since I was 11, which is a delightful age most of the time, twice as delightful with depression. I was becoming a teenager and I hated everything. How unusual. Basically, I had a shitty time for the first few years of secondary school. I always had issues with feeling like I never quite fit in anywhere and always wanting to belong so badly. High school is not a helpful environment for those fears. And, without getting into the nitty gritty of it, I really struggled with the idea of existing in a place where I didn't feel like I should be. But I was a kid then, and mental illness wasn't something we talked about, so I kept it in and eventually the black cloud became more of a murky grey. And for a while things were okay. Well, as okay as I thought they could be. And then I got M.E. (or chronic fatigue if you prefer). M.E. is basically a condition where your body feels like it's dying a slow death. At least, that's what it feels like to me. At it's worst, I would spend days in bed, totally incapable of doing anything but sleep or cry, which is surprisingly exhausting. It weakened everything in my body, including my immune system which meant I was sick ALL THE TIME. It sucks balls. 




 Getting sick in your final year at school is never an ideal scenario, so imagine my joy when I got sick and then also had a crappy time with friends etc. The usual teenage girl crap really, but it can all get a bit much when you're ill. Eventually 6th year passed and, instead of taking time out like I smart human being would, I went to university. And I brought my M.E. and Depression with me- PARTAAYYYY! And then I slowly came to realise I hated my degree, and the murky grey cloud that had been growing and darkening, arrived with a vengeance looking like a great big black mindfuck of a storm. I hated everything, and I was anxious all the bloody time. Everyone would be out partying and I'd make my usual crappy excuses so I could sit in and lie in bed and panic about everything and then hate myself for panicking.

I was amazing to be around. Eventually I sorted my shit out, but depression isn't something that just goes away, it has to be managed, and a lot of the time, I am shit at managing it. I can hardly manage to update a blog on time, who's trusting me to manage my mental health?!

I'll give you a space to take all that shit in. Here, have a picture of a kitten to help:

This will make it allllll better.

Now comes my problem; how am I to write about something so personal and so important in a way that will translate to a big screen? Mental Illness is, by all accounts, not necessary a laugh riot, but it is something that needs to be spoken about. There are not a great deal of films I can think of that deal with the idea of mental illness, and deal with it well. The last I can think of is Silver Linings Playbook, which I really loved.




I want to write something that people can watch and enjoy, but I also want something that will encourage discussion. Film is one of the great arenas that shows everyday issues in a manner that allows for debate. Mental Illness is something that is talked about in hushed tones and then pushed aside to the corner, but given how prevalent it is in today's society, this is an essential time to start talking. There is an overwhelming need to medicate and then forget about the problem, but I know from my own experience, it doesn't necessarily work. 1 million people commit suicide every year, and yet this blog post is one of the hardest things I've ever written. If it's such a big problem, with 1 in 4 people experiencing a mental health problem in the United Kingdom alone, why do I feel weirdly ashamed to have depression? I didn't know I had it until I'd already had it for 5 years and even after that, I was too embarrassed to talk about it. Hell, I still am. And I think this is why I am so determined to write about it, I don't want to feel embarrassed or ashamed, and I sure as hell don't want anyone else to be. 

So, yeah. I'll end this rambling here and hope that you aren't emotionally scarred. Apologies if you are. But I do hope it makes you think a little, and also makes you want to watch Silver Linings Playbook. All credit for the comics goes to Buzzfeed and this great list.

Peace out :)