Something’s wrong with my face today

3rd May 2022 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Do you ever have those days where for some reason none of your clothes seem to fit you the way they did the last time you tried them on? You’re getting ready for the day, or for a night out, and your face just doesn’t face the way it should, you’re clothes don’t look right, your hair won’t do what it’s told, and the time is starting to run away; you’re going to be late to whatever you’re supposed to get to, so you start to get a bit hysterical and self-critical until you just wish you could crawl back into bed, hit a reset button, and try again tomorrow when everything hopefully does what it’s supposed to.

Just me?..

I’ve written before about how people shouldn’t let their insecurities control them, and I wondered whether I should write about this topic again when I could just reshare an entry I’d written a couple of years ago. Except, my body, and a whole lot of other stuff, has changed since then and I don’t really see this as a problem that can be fixed by a few hundred words.

So I’m going to give you a few hundred more! Yay!

We each know the power which comes with feeling confident, but like many other feelings, confidence is unfortunately very brittle. Just the other day, I’d woken up feeling pretty good about myself but it only took a few silly things happening throughout the day to leave me with a mind full of self-criticism by the time I was getting into bed for the night. And the frustrating thing is, that the moments which chipped away at my confidence were so minor it was stupid: I saw my reflection in a full-length mirror and I didn’t like the way my legs in my callipers looked, then a friend took a photograph of me and another friend and I thought my arms looked fat, and finally, the hot weather made me tired and subsequently self-conscious about how obvious my Spina Bifida was whilst walking through town.

Not one of these things is important, nor are they anything anyone else would take any notice of, let alone care about. But that’s what insecurity is: getting stuck inside your head about silly things which in the grand scheme of things, do not matter. Only, they matter to you and sometimes they matter so much that you torture yourself over thinking about them.

I’m lucky enough to be able to keep my insecurities at bay most of the time. But the times when I can’t – which do tend to be either when I’m drunk drunk, or experiencing the boozer’s blues the day after drinking – in those moments, I can’t do much except let myself just sit in it. I eat loads of snacks, or I cry to my friend, or I watch a film, or I stare at the wall whilst listening to my sad playlist. And I know that if a psychologist were to read those coping mechanisms, they’d probably say that they’re all really unhealthy – disclaimer: I’m definitely not about to make a case for you to do exactly what I do. However, I do think that my generation tries to psycho-analyse themselves far too much and that we need to just feel whatever it is we’re feeling for a second, without self-diagnosing. Obviously, there are limits and lines where a person needs help but it’s also okay to feel naff for an afternoon. In fact, surely it’d be worrying if we didn’t feel like rubbish once in a while?

I’m not going to patronise you now by listing all the reasons why we should be kinder to ourselves because I’m not a motivational speaker (shocking, I know), but also because we all know this already and knowing that I shouldn’t criticise myself, unfortunately, doesn’t mean that I won’t from time to time. It’s about being able to strike that balance where you allow yourself to feel what you need to, whilst also making moves to pick yourself up out of any ruts you encounter – it’s not always easy, and I’m not a pro, but we do our best.

So if you do wake up and your face isn’t facing, or your body isn’t bodying, and although you know it’s just in your head you’re still feeling meh, then that’s alright! As our lord and saviour Hannah Montana once said: everybody has those days.

So if it’s not your fault, then whose fault is it?

26th Apr 202226th Apr 2022 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

I had six operations as a child but I only really remember the last few, and even then the images are hazy. I remember the fever I had when my foot got infected so you could see the bone from the outside, but what I remember more is when my oldest brother (a teenager at the time) was late to meet his friends because he climbed into my tiny bed with me to watch The Road to El Dorado, as I shivered from the fever and waited to go to the hospital for another operation. I remember crying every time my parents told me I’d have to go to school in a wheelchair, but then I also remember all the laughs once I got there and my friends would run through the halls pushing me as they went. And I remember that even though I felt myself shrivel every time I had to climb into that wheelchair seat, I didn’t mind it so much when we went down a sloped pavement because my Dad would always make me laugh by letting the handles go and running alongside me.

Whenever I’d have to go to the hospital for operations (which, was not as often as it is for some children), I’d get excited because I’d be skipping school. I remember those workbooks with the ridiculously easy exercises, and I remember finishing the whole thing in about twenty minutes and then spending the rest of my time drawing or watching cartoons. I also remember fighting the anaesthetic before the operations even when I knew I wouldn’t win. Naturally, I never liked being in the hospital gowns or waking up with stitches in my feet, but I don’t have any trauma from it either. In a weird way, it was kind of an adventure.

I’ve consistently thought against sharing the more vulnerable experiences of my disability because they play too neatly into the stereotype of the weak and passive disabled life; the image of me being in a hospital bed with a cannula in my hand rather than in a Year 2 art lesson strokes society’s ego too much. Nonetheless, I’m telling you a handful of these memories now because I want you to see that even in the moments when I fit into the DIY SOS trope, I didn’t feel like this image of the poor disabled little girl. I just felt like a little girl – one who was cracking jokes all the way through because I mostly didn’t care about my Spina Bifida. (Which defo contributed to a few blisters along the way, but oh well 😀 ).

The point is that I only ever truly feel disabled when society disables me – and it’s important that able-bodied people understand that because if they don’t, then it’s easy to think that disability has nothing to do with them.

In the last few months, I’ve felt really excited about my future because I’ve been working really hard to get myself started in the radio world. But in the midst of all that, I’ve had consistent problems with my feet where they blister, then they heal, then they blister, then they heal, then they blister. The reason that this has been happening isn’t because I’ve done something I shouldn’t have, instead, it’s because the factory which makes my shoes spontaneously decided to change the lining of my insoles last year. The new lining was tougher than the old one, it caused my skin to harden quicker than normal, creating a blister which then never really healed. You’d think that this would be easily remedied by asking for the insoles to just go back to what they had been for years, but I did that, and still every new pair I’ve received has been wrong in a different way – even though my insoles require about three modifications. So at this point, I’m convinced that whoever’s making them is completely ignoring the prescription.

I understand that the pandemic and Brexit, and a general under-funding of the NHS have made it so that resources are stretched and waiting times are enormous, but these things don’t change the fact that I need the insoles and shoes to walk. I am patient, and I don’t kick up a fuss until the very last minute because society tells me that I should be grateful for whatever I receive, but what I’ve been receiving for the last six months has been making my condition worse. What I’ve been receiving is forcing me to need more from the NHS; requiring them to spend more money on production and distribution than they would normally have to, just because somebody isn’t reading my prescription correctly. I have wasted materials in my house that I can’t use but I could’ve if someone had followed the design. Who knows! I might even have somebody else’s design and now they’re suffering too because we have each others’. But I bite my lip, strap my foot up, and I don’t start any arguments down the phone about this stuff because apparently, it’s nobody’s fault. The worst part isn’t the anger though, the worst part is being at the mercy of other people and them not seeming to take that seriously – like when I asked the receptionist if there’s any way my shoes could please be posted to me without being lost in the post. She laughed and nonchalantly said yes but if they’re lost then they’re lost. She laughed and I cried.

I think it’s easier for people to sympathise with, or pity, you when you’re a young girl in a hospital gown because most people identify a level of tragedy there. It doesn’t matter that I was a happy child, who didn’t feel disabled – operations or not – what matters, is that I looked vulnerable in that wheelchair. But half of the times I was in that chair were caused by the system’s incompetency to supply me with the basic materials I need. So yes, I smiled through the not-so-fun disability moments and I had a beautifully happy childhood, but there were times that I didn’t need to be in that chair.

So as uncomfortable as it might be for people to understand, it is a fact that this society disables me far more than my Spina Bifida ever could, and I don’t want pity for that, I just want my shoes.

Is it really that embarrassing to be alone?

19th Apr 2022 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 2 Comments

Now, I am a lot of things: some of them good, some of them not so good, but one of the not so good things about myself which I have been trying to change is that I don’t do so well with being alone.

I’d thought that travelling to various countries on my own in the months before I started university had been a decent way to combat this in preparation for moving out. What I hadn’t considered though, is that yes, I went through the airports and across the countries solo, but once I’d arrived wherever I was going it only really took me a couple of minutes before I’d found people to pass the time with. So, I was never alone for that long. This meant that when I found myself sitting in a room on my own at university for hours at a time, week after week, trying to find my feet in my degree, and surrounded by people I’d known for two minutes, I struggled. But those achingly lonely moments at university aren’t the ones any of us are supposed to talk openly about because these are supposed to be ‘the best years of your life’ where you come out of your shell; you’re not supposed to retreat back in.

In our first year, every single one of my friends experienced moments where they felt overwhelmed by it all, but I know that the thing missing the most for me was the safety you get when you’re around people who completely understand you. Like all of us, it takes me a second to totally relax and ‘be myself’ with people; in fact, I think that going to university has made me take longer to do that than I ever did before. Yet even after forming some of the closest friendships I’ve ever had, I still struggle with the fact that nobody truly understands me because they don’t understand my physical disability. My friends from school kind of got it since they saw me in a wheelchair for months at a time when my foot acted up, but even then they didn’t really engage with it because we were kids and me potentially having to be in a wheelchair for a bit was just something that happened. Then even though my closest friends at university do try to support me with my feet, they could only really do that after my foot had gotten bad and again, even then it’s just not really something anyone else can help me with unless they’re with me all the time. So, I had to accept that I have to do it on my own, and for the first couple of years since that realisation, it felt really lonely.

But being alone doesn’t need to have as many negative connotations as we like to give it. (I think) I’ve now fully accepted that all the disability stuff is pretty much a solo mission, and there will be times when I cry about that because it gets really difficult, but that’s just how it is. We each have to accept that there are always going to be certain things we can’t get from people. For example, you’re always going to have that friend who’s a right laugh in person, but you definitely couldn’t rely on them in an emergency; that doesn’t mean that the friendship isn’t worthwhile, or that the person doesn’t care for you, it just means that we shouldn’t expect every individual to be able to give us everything we need because if we do that, we’ll only be disappointed. Besides, that’s a lot of pressure to put on every relationship we have with someone. In practice though, it is difficult to accept this and I should know, because I’ve relied heavily on people and ended up disappointed by them more times than I could count, and I’d be lying if I said that I’ve completely stopped doing this. Nonetheless, I am trying to become more self-reliant because it’s just not healthy to allow the actions of others to dictate your happiness.

Stopping myself from doing this is an active effort, given that everywhere we look in popular culture we’re hounded by the impossible image of a perfect life where we’ve got a perfect relationship and perfect friends who never falter and are there for every second and every ounce of what we need. I don’t want to suggest that my friends and family aren’t brilliant because they are. Instead, the point I want to make is that we each have to learn how to be good on our own because no matter how amazing your friend, partner, or family member is, they could never be everything you need, or understand you completely.

Since I’ve started to be comfortable in doing things on my own like going to the cinema or to a gig because I want to and can’t be bothered to convince another person to come even though it’s not something they’re super into, it’s clear that there’s an unnecessary stigma around doing things in public on your own. For some reason, we’re telling people that they have to be with someone else, otherwise they look like a loser who nobody likes – and that kind of social rejection seems to be a fate worse than death for many of us. But seriously, when was the last time you saw someone walking around on their own and you thought ‘wow, what a weirdo, imagine being alone and not in the house, they must be a psycho’ ? Who even cares that much?

And if you do judge people like that then get a new hobby because that one’s lame.

Thus, the moral of today’s blog is that I think you should do whatever the hell you want to do and not rely on other people for your happiness. After all, when you lie down at night, it’s just you in that head of yours, so you’ve got to make sure that you feel comfortable being there.

Wait, but I thought that I was supposed to hide this?

1st Feb 202214th Oct 2022 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

If there’s one thing that I always hate hearing from people as a young, disabled woman, it’s ‘oh you do so well’. I’ve heard it whilst sitting on buses, walking down streets, in the waiting areas of the doctors or in airports, from the mouths of my parents’ colleagues and those of my teachers, and plenty of times from strangers when they simply don’t know what else to say. And I know that the intention is often pure; people want to show some level of appreciation for the fact that my physical existence may not be as simple as their own. Only, most of the time it just comes across as a bit bloody patronising.

The flip side of this, however, is that I spend so much time coping with my disability whilst doing whatever I want to do, that I’ve been guilty of disassociating myself from the fact that I’m physically disabled and that these things I’m doing are impressive. I am also English, though – Northern at that – so I suffer from an acute inability to talk about my successes without the embarrassment setting in.

But when I really think about why I don’t acknowledge ‘how well I do’, it’s because ableist aspects of our western society make it such that I’m supposed to blend in. Therefore, if I make any reference to how it might be really bloody impressive that I’ve done things like travel to, and live in the middle of the Nepali jungle without any access to medical care for 3 weeks on my own when I was 19 even though 3 weeks before that I couldn’t even go into work because I had an infected foot, then doing that doesn’t make me blend in. It brings my disability to the forefront, and I stick out in precisely the way society has told me that I shouldn’t.

So this is the part where you, my lovely reader, (hopefully) think ‘yes, of course, that’s impressive! You shouldn’t want to hide who you are’. And just like I’ve said to every person who has had genuine kindness in their eyes when they’ve told me ‘you do so well’, I want to thank you for saying that.

But drawing attention to my physical weakness is hard.

Last summer whilst I was in Ukraine, I found myself in a situation where I knew I had to mention my disability in a very public way, in order to avoid awkward run-ins later on. As always, when arriving at a place full of strangers, I chose to wear an outfit which covered my shoes to avoid any judgements before people heard me speak, but then I remembered that summer camp counsellor is a pretty active job and when the kids arrive tomorrow, if people see me sitting down every now and then, then they might think that I’m lazy or slacking off. So, to save face, I sat next to my friend from the first year I’d worked there and I announced my disability to a group of around 35 people. I’d never done anything like that before, and it was awful; my voice shook with every word I said, and I was very close to tears. But people were lovely about it, as they often are, and my announcement actually created the space for individuals to feel comfortable and slightly obliged, to ask me specifically how my legs were doing during our intense working days – something no one except my parents had ever asked me.

However, every single time someone asks about my disability, or I have to explain how it limits me, it’s emotionally draining in a way that I can’t effectively explain. That’s not to say that people should stop asking – definitely don’t stop doing that. I just want to communicate to you that back to back disability explanations don’t come free: it’s new for me to meet people and my disability to be one of the first things we talk about, and it’s new for me to have to talk about it this much.

One of the most heartwarming things I experienced after my announcement in Ukraine was towards the end of the summer. I was walking back from running an activity for some of the kids when 2 girls asked me if I could please explain to them why I wear my shoes. For the first time ever, I turned to someone who’d asked me to spontaneously offload personal details, and I said ‘do you mind if I tell you tomorrow? Because it’s 11am and 25 people have already asked me today.’. 25 isn’t an exaggeration by the way, I’d counted. And at that moment I realised that I’d always answered people’s questions straight away because I’d never wanted anyone to get embarrassed or feel upset about asking me. I also realised that subconsciously, when people see something as physically obvious as a disability, they think that on some level they’re entitled to an explanation. This, of course, is problematic.

I did explain it to these girls though since they asked so nicely, but they had to wait a day.

So, I’m in a weird spot now because I’m seeing myself doing things I never would’ve done two years ago, like walk around my university library with my callipers on full show and mentioning how I’m physically disabled in the first few moments of speaking to people. Meanwhile, the stubborn part of me which never wants to be defined – positively or negatively – by my Spina Bifida persists, and it occasionally dismisses my physical successes as just what everybody does.

And I know that my writing style leans towards a nice, neat conclusion that pulls all of this together, but not today my friends. My relationship with my body is complicated, and that’s just it.

I don’t want to wait until I’m older

11th Jan 2022 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

For a few months now I’ve been reading a lot of literature on the topic of disability and sexuality. I’ve been doing this mostly because it’s what I’m writing my dissertation on, but it’s also doubled-up as an exercise in understanding how to be a better ‘advocate’ for disability.

The first thing I learnt, which didn’t surprise me whatsoever, was that the study of disability history is a relatively new branch of academia – though obviously disabled people have existed for as long as anyone else. And whilst there are a million comments I could make on the nuances of disability history, I don’t really fancy self-plagiarising, so I think I’ll save those details for the 8,000 words I’m required to write. I do, however, wish to take some time now to acknowledge just how uncomfortable physically disabled people have been made to feel by society when it comes to their bodies. I’ve read page after page of interviews with physically disabled people, where they describe how not only have they never been led to believe that they could be beautiful or attractive and physically disabled, but that many of them are actually disgusted by the sight of their physical appearance on some level.

Disgusted. I just want you to notice that that was one of the words used by them.

This embarrassment, and in some cases repulsion, at the sight of one’s physically disabled body isn’t something people should be having to feel just because they don’t look like what some eye in the sky defines as ‘normal’. But these individuals are so poked and prodded, and pushed into a corner by societal expectations that eventually they’re left feeling physically lesser in more ways than those written in their medical notes. And these feelings of irrelevance are present in more aspects of society than many able-bodied people notice. For instance, clothes shops are made so inaccessible that people in wheelchairs can’t reach half of the clothes, or, if they can reach them, most clothing isn’t designed to fit people who need to use medical equipment or have deformed body shapes. Thus, many physically disabled people can neither look at, nor consider wearing half of the clothes everyone else is browsing, and they’re pretty much told to just cope with that.

Then there’s the fact that the medical aids designed to make life easier for people are designed solely with purpose in mind; never aesthetics. For example, let’s take the case of my callipers. Callipers are a pretty straightforward medical appliance, used by thousands of disabled people. They’re two metal bars that are inserted into the soles of my shoes, and they help to keep my legs straight. That’s it. And my shoes are made specifically for me, with personalised insoles and little tweaks here and there, but overall they just look like Docs. So, if that’s how simple the provisions are, and Doc Martins/boots are insanely popular, then why can’t I have as many designs and patterns as are sold in the Doc Martins shops? Would it be that difficult to make them?

I’ve just given you two examples out of I can’t even tell you how many, but the running theme in this discussion is that hardly anyone is considering that physically disabled people might want to look nice too. They might want to experiment with how they present their bodies just as much as anyone else. Only, their medical history means that the ability, or option, to do that is taken away from them.

Undoubtedly, there are some out there who don’t relate to what I’ve said here at all. Nonetheless what I’ve seen from my research so far, is that it often takes physically disabled people a long time to get to a place where they can wholeheartedly say that they’re comfortable with how they look.

But I don’t want to wait until I’m older to be able to do that.

It’s no secret that I’m confident in my disability. Still, I don’t look at my full-length reflection. And it’s sad to admit it, but I do think that the image of me walking is gross. What’s sadder though, is that I only think these things because my legs aren’t like everyone else’s. Thus, it’s been through my dissertation research that I’ve realised how much shit I’ve internalised when it comes to my perception of my disability. Here I was, thinking I’ve always been pretty comfortable in my body, without realising that I was only ever thinking about myself from the knees-up. But these insecurities about how I look when I walk aren’t constantly on my mind – in fact, the world has so consistently shown me that my disability isn’t pretty, that I can only describe it as an ambivalent acceptance.

But fuck that. Fuck accommodating centuries of patriarchy and nonsensical beauty standards just because some of my nerves are in a knot. And fuck writing off a whole percentage of the population’s moral right to their own sexuality, simply because of their biology. I don’t see how any of it makes sense. So, I just posted a video of me walking on my blog Instagram (it’s _bettydouglas_ btw, just in case I haven’t bullied you into following it yet) as my way of showing that I’m trying to fully accept this Spina Bifida. I can’t promise I’m going to look at my reflection now every time I walk next to, or towards a glass window, but I’ll try not to look away so enthusiastically when I spot my reflection.

A day in the disabled life

14th Nov 202115th Nov 2021 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

The other week someone asked me what a normal day with my disability is like, and I laughed.

Like many, this person was looking for me to recount a complicated series of events that measure up to the stereotype of an arduous, pitiful day of living with Spina Bifida. Only, life isn’t like that, and my answer to this strangely-worded question will always be the same: it depends on the day. I will say however, that by having my first blister in 3 years a couple of weeks ago, and living more on my own than I ever have before, I’ve started to think about and recognise the number of things I do, and things I know how to do, which simply don’t go through the minds of many of my peers.

I look at my feet religiously every morning and every night: I check for tiny little differences from what it looked like the last time I looked, and I press on my scar tissue to feel if it’s weakening because god knows it can decide to weaken at any given time, for absolutely no reason. With my blister – which I thought had healed, but it hasn’t completely – I have to constantly apply this gel my doctor gave me which dehydrates the wound to constrict the blood vessels and hopefully heal the blister more quickly. Just a few days ago some old blood from when the blister had been active came out whilst I had my shoe on, and as always, I only noticed this once I took my shoe off and saw the blood on my sock. I was at my friend’s house at the time and asked her for some antiseptic, she said she didn’t have any, I made her laugh by saying ‘that’s privilege’, and then I asked her to boil some water and put some salt in it because I know that that’s the next best thing to sanitise a wound. Then amongst all of the practical things I do, at the minute I’m having to weigh up which social events I can go to, whilst also factoring in the amount of walking I’ll need to do for lectures, whilst also wanting to continue to have fun with my friends like I was before my foot decided to be a dick.

And regardless of whether I have a problem or not, there are always days when I put my shoes on and my legs feel weak: I’m tired, I trip more often, I’m self-conscious of the possibly exacerbated limp to my walk. If the pair of shoes I’m wearing are new, I can tell that all of the structure is in the right place because as I walk my feet try their very best to revert back to their naturally deformed position, but the hard leather pushes them to where they should be, making walking both easier and stiffer than before.

I know how to make a perfectly flat bandage for any tricky angle or curve on my feet, and how to spot it when an infection is tracking towards my ankle. I could tell you exactly the type of medication I need if I get an infection, and I could tell you a million tales of when I’ve had to take it. In recent years, I’ve learnt that Spina Bifida also means that I can occasionally experience bladder retention when I’ve had too much to drink, meaning that I temporarily lose the ability to empty my bladder on my own and I have to catheterise myself before the pain starts and I have to go to A&E. It’s not a nice thing to have to do, and it hurts the next day.

Knowing all of these things (and more) is second nature to me because I have to know them, and I’ve always been taught to acknowledge that it could be so much worse. But by just getting on with it, I’m not sure that I ever take the time to consider how tiring it can be to have all of this in my head and nobody to acknowledge that I’m having to think about it.

When I was a little girl, I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know or care that I walked funny or that my feet were different to everyone else’s. I started to clock it when I was having operations; when there were times that nurses came to the house every day to dress my foot, and I missed out on things my friends could do because I was in a wheelchair. Then I became a teenager, and I got angry about it, or I ignored it, and I didn’t look after my feet the way I could’ve. Now we’re here, I’m an adult, and I know how to do it better than anyone else. But the one thing – my biggest crutch – that I don’t have as much as I did when I was younger, is the ability to just look at my parents when I’m weary from it all and see that they know. So I miss that look sometimes.

I had an extremely happy childhood, a wonderful adolescence, and so far so good when it comes to adulthood. But every now and then I step away from the monotony of everything I know I have to do, to realise that Jesus Christ it’s a lot. It could be worse, and everyone has things they cope with in life, however, that doesn’t mean that I won’t have moments when I’m a little tired by it.

Thus, I’m afraid that I don’t have a neat or interesting ‘day in the life’ for you because that’s not how this disability thing works. Or how anyone’s life works for that matter. And let me clarify that I didn’t type this searching for pity, or for a little moan. In my head, I think that by writing this down and publishing it I’m trying to give myself that look of acknowledgement that I can only get from my parents because no matter how they try, my friends here can’t do it yet. They’ve simply not known me long enough. And away from all of the clumsy self-psychoanalysis, this blog is another attempt to show you as much of my disability as I can communicate through words.

So there you go, now you know that if you’ve ever got a nasty cut or blister that needs nursing then I’m your girl. I’ve got the personal first aid kit of your dreams mate.

The stress of the sesh

8th Nov 20218th Nov 2021 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

If we’re going to be honest about it, then realistically, most university students do not have a very healthy relationship with alcohol.

Or do we? Because, what do we mean when we say ‘a healthy relationship’? And does whatever definition we’ve concocted to answer that question change according to context? These questions can be rhetorical, or not, depending on your opinion and your own situation but for me, life as a university student is its own unique beast, and going back to a ‘proper’ university experience after quarantine has made me reassess my own relationship with drink.

Every student will know that one of the best parts of the university experience is the partying: the thrill of meeting new people and deciding whether you’re going to sacrifice tomorrow’s seminar for the sesh. Whether it’s the middle of the night conversations, the drunken silliness, the dancing, or the escape, alcohol and nights out afford university students freedom and liberation from not knowing who they are or what they want to do yet. (They also offer us an obscene amount of fun.) But our youth and our energy can cloud our judgement so much that sometimes we don’t realise that we’re regularly ingesting a really harmful drug. Saying that, I’m not about to bitch about drinking culture nor am I here to announce a ‘new, sober me’ because my love for the sesh and a vodka lemonade are too much to allow me to commit to that. However, after going out more this year and seeing familiar faces I’ve become a little paranoid about people’s perception of me after they’ve seen me drunk.

Unfortunately, we’ve all embarrassed ourselves when under the influence: we’ve said something we shouldn’t have, we’ve tumbled on the dance floor (although for me, that’s not particularly embarrassing lol), we’ve flirted with someone we shouldn’t have, and we’ve puked on someone’s floor. But what makes these things okay, is that most of us do our best to get drunk with and around our friends: with people we can trust. Having that security blanket of no judgement can mean that whatever mistake you make after that second tequila doesn’t have to define you for longer than you’d like it to. Although, if it was ridiculous and funny enough then you can count on someone having filmed it or made a mental note to never forget it and periodically remind you of it. Oh, the delights of friendship.

Occasionally however, in this university bubble you may find yourself with a group of people who have only ever seen you whilst drunk. And whilst that might not bother others, it doesn’t sit right with me because my next-day boozer anxiety makes me feel like I gave too much of myself to strangers. I don’t like the idea that there are people who only know me as whatever slurred words I said one night because I don’t know them enough to trust that there won’t be any judgement. I’ve never said anything that bad, or that deep, but still, I don’t know, I prefer to know people properly before we see each other drunk.

I think it’s also important to mention here that another layer of trust needed when drinking with people, is that you’re physically safe. Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few weeks then you’ve seen that there’s been a huge and frightening problem with university students – mostly young women – being spiked whilst on nights out. Thankfully, it’s not something that has ever happened to me (touch wood), but if it did then the first thing that I would need in that moment is the support and help of those I’d gone on the night-out with. My friends and I aren’t always perfect when it comes to watching out for everyone on a night out because we’re young, we can get silly, and sometimes we can definitely get distracted by the fact that we’re horny, but I’m happy in the knowledge that if I were ever in trouble or if I ever felt like something was wrong then they’d sort me out in a matter of minutes. It might take a few minutes if they’ve been on the VKs, but it’d happen nonetheless.

So this week I mostly just want to encourage you to be aware of who you’re allowing yourself to be vulnerable around; drinking is fun, but only if you’re safe whilst you’re doing it. Watch how much of yourself you give to people – both physically and emotionally – and look out for your friends. Obviously, this would be the perfect time for me to say ‘drink responsibly’ but I don’t think many of us adhere to what the government describes as ‘responsible’ at this age…so I’ll leave you instead with this request: be careful.

It gets a little too loud

24th Oct 2021 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

A few days ago, I lay down to go to sleep but couldn’t because all I could hear was talking. I tossed and turned and I tossed and turned, but the whole time I felt like I was trying to go to sleep in a crowded room full of people talking, laughing, and arguing with each other. Then I realised that all of that noise was in my head. So I breathed, and I calmed it, and I went to sleep.

Now before anyone refers me onto a psychiatrist, I don’t suffer from any mental health problems which would mean that I hear voices; the only thing I suffer from is trying to constantly keep myself busy. I fill my days with activities to avoid being bored or feeling like I’m squandering my time (or that I’m alone), then in my head I plan, organise, and evaluate everything. Once I’ve thought about all the things I’ve done, or need to do, the next brainwave is all of the internal conversations about my friendships or boy tediums, and if I’ve exhausted all of that (and am nearing the days of my period), some cheeky insecurities will pop up to say hello.

It gets pretty noisy.

All of this isn’t to say that I’m unhappy, though; coming back to a more normal version of a university life this year has been something that so many of us really needed, and I’m glad to say that I’m pretty content at the minute. I no longer need to worry about the stress of a year abroad, or the fact that my degree makes me feel stupid. I’m able to get out of the house, go to lectures I enjoy, and socialise with people without breaking the law or having to cover half of my face. I’ve had insanely exciting news which has made me feel like I’m actually going to be able to have a career doing something I love – and I’m not going to go into details about it in case I jinx it. I get to see and laugh with my friends all of the time, and I feel like I’m getting pretty good at this whole adult-ing thing. But even the good times are mentally trying, and it pays to recognise this before something happens and your brain goes bang and you end up crying on the floor eating ice cream.

As is the case with many things, I’m not an expert in how to help yourself calm down and relax because I’m constantly trying to find something to fill my time. However, yesterday when I was doing my eye make up, I realised that I’d forgotten to breathe because I was trying to make my eyeliner perfect, whilst also thinking about an argument I wanted to (but never would) have with a lad. Needless to say, (once I’d remembered to exhale), it was clear that I need to work out how to slow down a little.

When I was younger, my granddad used to take me and my brother camping in the Yorkshire Dales a lot. I think of those times with an immense amount of fondness, but possibly the most influential part of those trips was the fact that when I get overwhelmed, I feel an intense need to go to those hills because of the silence. It’s so quiet up there that it kind of hurts your ears. But as much as I want to, I can’t be driving an hour to the middle of nowhere every time I feel a little claustrophobic: I’ve got a dissertation to write. Thus, I drive half an hour to the beach to look at the sea, I go home to sit with my parents and watch TV, or I read a book I want to read (not one that’s been assigned to me); I play guitar, I listen to music, or sometimes I just sit and stare at the wall for a bit. Although, that last one does sound like something out of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest…again, I don’t need a psychiatrist, I promise.

Whatever it is, and whatever age you are, all I can say is that you should probably find something that gives you a moment of respite not just from other people, but from yourself too. Otherwise eventually, as everyone’s mum used to say: it’ll all end in tears.

I ran away to the Ukrainian mountains

31st Aug 2021 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

As many of you have seen on social media, I went back to Ukraine this summer to work as a summer camp counsellor for a month, and if any of you are prOper big-time stalkers (*cough* I mean, ‘followers’…) of my work, then you’ll know that this wasn’t my first rodeo: I did the same job at the end of my year abroad two years ago. And what’s funny about coming back from doing anything for an extended period, is that people ask you how it was: some ask you out of politeness when they’re not really that interested, and others ask you because they truly want to know. But then when it comes to it, there’s no way you can effectively concentrate a month’s worth of experiences into one conversation, so you’re left with the ‘oh yeah, it was really fun thanks’.

I wanted to go back to Ukraine for two main reasons. The first was that I wanted to go to a different country because I like seeing other places, and because this year pretty much everyone on the planet has had the urge to leave their home country ever since being literally confined to it by law. The second reason related to the first, but was distinct in that I wanted to go somewhere else because for so long I felt stuck. I’d thoroughly enjoyed my second year at university but a pandemic, online learning, and the basic fact that I don’t really enjoy my degree made it so that I had this feeling that I was waiting around for something to happen only I had no idea what that something was. So I guess if we want to psychoanalyse it, I was eager to go back to do something I’d done during my year abroad since that was the time that I’d felt the surest of who I was and what I was doing.

The pandemic threw everyone for a loop, we know this, but my feeling lost and directionless at times can’t be wholly attributed to Ms Rona: it must also be a side-effect of our school systems telling us all the way through our adolescence that we need to know every step of our lives at least five years in advance. If you don’t plan, and if you don’t know, then you’ve done something wrong, you’re failing at adulting.

For the longest time, I knew I wanted to go to university and study Japanese Studies. So, then when I got there and realised that not only did I not enjoy it, but that the teaching had beaten my confidence down so much that I started to genuinely believe that I’m a bit stupid, it came as I nasty shock. And though I’d never really thought about it before, I now acknowledge that when situations or people stress me out, make me feel embarrassed or upset, I prefer to just run away and hide so I have time to make sense of it in my head. Hence the trip to the Carpathian mountains to fuck about doing dance routines and eating grechka with some kids for a month. Grechka, by the way, is this buckwheat thing and whilst I love some Ukrainian foods, grechka isn’t for me…it’s just that consistency in between needing to chew it and not needing to chew it…kinda gross. But anyway, back to the analysis of emotions.

I’m not about to criticise the part of my personality that likes to hide sometimes, because I don’t see why we need to change every little inconvenient part of ourselves, but I will say that I need to be less hard on myself right now. Yes, once you leave school and move out, you become an adult and there are lots of responsibilities associated with that, however, that process doesn’t automatically come with knowing exactly what you’re going to be doing at every stage of your life. Therefore, we should start cutting ourselves some slack for feeling a little lost sometimes. Especially considering we just lived/are living through an iNtErNAtiONal pANdeMIC.

On that note, coming back from Ukraine to see people no longer afraid of standing near strangers, of hugging, of going to a festival, of dancing in a bar, has really helped with dampening all those intense anxieties building up in me for the past 18 months. Let’s not be silly and assume that the stresses have completely gone – I’m still a languages student with no real semblance of a year abroad – bUT (!) as everything relaxes, and musicians release new music, life feels like it’s moving again. And thank fuck for that.

You free later?

18th Jul 2021 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

I’ve written many a blog about romantic relationships, men, flirting, sex: all those topics which easily draw a crowd. But often my writing shows, as I’ve said before, the more logical part of my personality. I conveniently omit moments when I’ve failed to follow my own advice because everyone likes to present the neatest version of themselves to the internet and honestly, I can’t see myself regurgitating every detail of my life on this blog or my social media pages any time soon. This isn’t because I’m trying to mislead anyone, it’s because I’ve no obligation to and it’s nice (healthy, even) to keep some things private.

Obviously I’m going to tell you about something today though…

For over a year, I was subconsciously slut-shaming myself every time I slept with someone and I didn’t even acknowledge it. The logical, feminist, part of my brain always knew that it was a misogynistic and nonsensical thing to do, given that every time I’ve had sex with someone it’s been consensual and feeling guilty about it afterwards was never necessary. I never cried about it or said really hurtful things to myself; my method of slut-shaming was way more insidious than that. In the days after having sex I’d low-key pretend that it didn’t happen, give in to embarrassment, and avoid any contact with the boy ever again. But doing that started to feel silly after a while.

I’d realised what I was doing through the conversations I was having about sex with the young women around me, and decided it was time to stop partaking in this form of psychological self-harm. I know why I was doing it though; it was because I’d really rather not sleep with different people, so every time I did, I felt guilty straight afterwards. I’d have this stressful internal monologue of not regretting the sex, but wishing it’d been something more interesting than just that, with someone I knew better. However, I don’t know anyone I’d want to date yet, so does that mean that I should numb all urges I feel for physical interaction until prince charming comes along? No, that doesn’t seem right either.

The ideal situation for me earlier on this year was to engage in a good, old, friends with benefits relationship. Yet, there are so many unspoken rules when having sex with a person that the idea of sending the ‘you free later?’ text just made me cringe. Frankly, I thought I didn’t have the personality to ‘pull that off’ – an idea no doubt derived from the patriarchy suggesting that it’s abnormal for a woman to want to have sex simply because she’s horny – something I recognise as complete bullshit, of course. But we’ve got a lot of internalised patriarchy to undo here on the daily, so yes, when I texted a lad I trusted asking if he was free later for the first time, it felt weird. No regrets after doing it though heyooo.

I know that I’m fortunate to have so many sex-positive people in my life and that it’s a luxury not everyone has. There continues to be countless women out there who spend a stupid amount of energy telling themselves to stop feeling what they’re feeling. But you’re not only horny when you’re in a relationship and you should never make yourself feel guilty about when or who you want to have sex with. It’s a toxic way to waste your time, and even though stopping doing it hasn’t made me want a relationship less, it’s made sex a lot less associated with guilt and embarrassment in my head. Which is definitely a win. So go get your kicks with whoever you want, whenever you want, and start taking better care of yourself by taking control of your sexuality.

Oh, and if you and a couple of your friends order vibrators at the same time and split delivery, it’ll be cheaper.

An Indelible Friend

Tag: mentalhealth