Tag: selfawareness

2020 vibes

2020 vibes

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 1 Comment

I’ve been rewriting this entry for about 6 weeks now, because every time I’ve gone to sum up how I’ve felt for the past 18 months, I’ve ended up being brutally honest about how, at points, I’ve not been very happy. Then I wake up the next morning, and I’m embarrassed about being such a downer the day before. But the fact is, that ever since I moved to university, and ever since being thrust into long periods of isolation, there have been a fair few moments when I’ve felt really down. More down than I’ve felt in a while.

If I think about it, then it’s easy to attribute it to lots of things in my life – huge changes, new stresses, the usual stuff. I know it’s normal, and I feel a lot better now than I did in the Spring, or even a couple of weeks ago when I started writing this. Nonetheless, the past 18 months have been really hard, I’m really tired, and though I have lots of things to feel excited about this year, the first couple of weeks of 2021 have felt like we’re going to have much of the same for the foreseeable future. And it’s difficult to have to force yourself to keep looking on the bright side when normally, you don’t have to think about it so regularly.

For me, isolation meant that I had a lot of time to sit on my own and think. This allowance to just stop for a minute seems like it helped a lot of people all over the world. But my brain just started to get hung up on the negatives, and I started to get more critical of myself than I’ve ever been before. I became acutely aware of how lonely I’ve felt at points over the last 18 months, and somewhere along the line that morphed into me shaming myself for sleeping with men. Don’t ask me when, how or why. I also started to think that I must be stupid if I can’t remember those 15 Japanese grammar structures 10 minutes after I’ve been told them. I thought maybe I just wasn’t good enough. But worst of all, for the first time in my life I started to feel like when I’m at university I should cover up my callipers so that I don’t draw attention to them. I don’t even think I’ve ever been to my university library wearing clothes where you could see my shoes. And that’s not like me at all.

However, it’s difficult for me to admit these things in such a public way because I know that my friends and family won’t enjoy reading this, and will probably tell me off for being such an idiot. I know these thoughts are stupid, I know there’s nothing wrong with the way I am or the way I look, I know it’s dumb to feel so lonely, I don’t regret anyone I’ve ever slept with, and I know how lucky I am in so many ways. But it gets tough out here sometimes.

If we’re going to get anthropological, sociological, or just a bit nerdy about it, then a lot of the things I’m feeling can be traced to the fact that society just doesn’t like young women to succeed. It encourages us to criticise each other, but more importantly, our societal structures and expectations ask women to tear themselves to shreds so that they can be as inoffensive to the world as possible. Thus, all the millions of pressures coming from every b*stard direction can sometimes get the better of you – no matter how much you love yourself. So don’t feel stupid, weak, or guilty if you can’t always bat them off.

I’ve had some really upsetting moments in 2020 – like everyone else – but I also laughed every single day. And as long as we can still manage to do that, then it’s not all bad, is it?

So Happy New Year kids; let’s have some better vibes this time around the sun.

Xx

Let’s talk about sex, bby

Let’s talk about sex, bby

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Talking about sex in a super honest way is rarely done, because if you bring it up, a lot of the time people start to feel nervous, uncomfortable, anxious, self-conscious, etc, etc. And these reactions make perfect sense: sex is one of the most intimate things you can do with another person. However, it’s also nothing to be afraid of, so we should probably start getting more aware of how sex-positive we really are.

Sex-positivity, in the way I understand it, is the recognition and acceptance that sex is a totally normal part of a person’s life. It’s something most of us do, and society should normalise talking about it; especially in the sense that it should be enjoyable for everyone involved.

That sounds pretty simple, right? If you’re sexually active, then you should be enjoying it, and comfortable enough around your friends/family/sexual partner/s to talk about it. But unfortunately, sex-positivity isn’t practised by society as much as it should be.

For women, the idea of sex is both empowering and oppressive. We can take our sexuality into our own hands and decide who we want to sleep with and when, but whilst we’re empowering ourselves and our female friends, there always comes a point when you wonder whether doing this is making you seem like a bit of a slut to the wider world. And nobody wants to be a slut: that kind of reputation rarely ends well.

So we use the word with each other. And by trying to reclaim the term, women are somewhat able to fight against society telling us how much sex we should be having, because after all, my sex life is nobody’s business but my own.

This attitude, however, doesn’t mean that sex-positive women aren’t self-conscious, nervous or conflicted when it comes to sex. You might be totally fine with the concept of a one night stand, but then when you have one, thousands of years of female sexual oppression might start creeping into your head to tell you that you’re a slut and you’re making a fool of yourself. It happens; sexism’s a bitch.

Generally speaking though, sex should never be a thing that’s only appropriate for each gender to speak about amongst themselves. At school, I never saw how it made sense to separate the boys and the girls for the sex education talks. I obviously need to know the details of what’s going to happen with my body, but there’s a whole other half of the population that I’m actively not being told about. So when I develop relationships with that gender, there’s this huge barrier between us already, and I don’t see how that’s helpful.

Sex encompasses so many ideas and emotions that are vital to our relationships with ourselves and each other – regardless of gender. Politics, history, science, philosophy, psychology, anthropology: you name it, talking about sex would probably make parts of it make more sense. But aside from all that nerdy stuff, sex is fun, so why not talk about it in the same way you talk about all the other things you enjoy? That way, when it isn’t fun, you’ll feel comfortable enough around someone to tell them why.

Lockdown blues

Lockdown blues

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

A few days ago I was feeling really low: I wrote a blog all about my experience of coronavirus, my opinions on the way the government has handled it, and how depressing quarantining is. I didn’t publish it though, mostly because I’m super bored of talking about our shambles of a government…

Everybody hates being ill, and now more than ever we’re made to feel like we should fear illness. Obviously the pandemic has caused suffering on a huge scale to many people, but as we approach the winter, we need to give as much attention to our mental health as we’ve been giving to our physical. It’s been very easy to focus on coronavirus as the only relevant illness for the year, but a dangerous consequence of that has been that we’re kind of neglecting everything else.

As you might’ve read in my posts from back in the summer, I found quarantining in Peru really intense and exhausting at times. So on the 26th October when I realised that I wouldn’t be able to leave the house until at least the 8th November, I was thrown back into all of the emotions I remembered from the first lockdown. And I really don’t think that anyone has been talking enough about how awful it is to be on house arrest for weeks. Yes, it helps with slowing down the spread of the virus, but it also does some serious things to your state of mind.

Thus, the point I want to make this week is that we have to push the drama of the government’s restrictions to one side. Whether you agree with what they’re doing or not, when you catch this virus you’re going to have to stay inside for a couple of weeks. That experience can feel overwhelmingly bleak – especially when you know that you won’t be able to go out for food or for a drink at the end of it. You might wake up some mornings and not see the point of getting changed. Then when you check your phone and see text after text from NHS track and trace instructing you to stay inside, you might start to feel really suffocated. We’re all feeling the same things, and it’s sh**.

But you have to make the effort to get changed; to cook something interesting; to have fun with those you live with; to call the ones you don’t. Do your best to surround yourself with good vibes, and try your utmost to address how you’re feeling.

I’m not always the best at looking after myself, but as I get older, it gets clearer that my own happiness is my responsibility. So just keep reminding yourself of the positive things, because this lockdown world can so easily push you down.

Not my favourite birthday present

Not my favourite birthday present

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

On Monday I turned 21, had a lovely time, ate lots of food, got a free shot thanks to my birthday badge: all-round good time. Unfortunately however, I woke up the next day to find a huge blister on my right foot. 😦 And for most people, this probably wouldn’t have put much of a downer on their week but in my world, a blister can seriously ruin my life for a while.

This time I didn’t cry or freak out about it when I saw it, I just kept saying ‘it’s okay’, ‘it’s fine’. And it is okay because I know how to deal with it, plus it’s lockdown anyway so it’s not like I’ve got lecture halls to go to or anything. But it’s upsetting and annoying, and I don’t live with my family anymore, so I don’t have anyone close by who actually knows how upsetting and annoying it is.

I guess that that’s part of growing up though, isn’t it? You move out, and you experience things on your own – without that safety blanket.

It’s not like I’m completely new to this; I went travelling for a huge chunk of last year, and am going into my second year at University now. However, I’ve been lucky for a long time with my feet because I’ve not had any big complications. This has largely been due to me looking after myself, and having all the correct things in place to make sure that I’m not caught by surprise. But sh** happens, and it can happen completely out of the blue.

What can add even more stress and annoyance to times like this, is the fact that if I continue to be optimistic around people, that can imply that the situation isn’t a big deal. But I won’t sit and mope about this blister because I don’t want to waste my time like that, and I don’t want people to think of me as someone who whinges all the time. Plus, most have never seen me in a wheelchair or with an infection anyway, so they couldn’t understand if they tried.

Saying this though, last year I remember feeling really frustrated and lonely at times when my new friends didn’t understand my disability. It wasn’t because they weren’t trying to learn about it, or trying to help me out, it was because I know that they need to see it be bad before they can better understand what help I need. But then obviously, I’m not itching for it to get bad enough to show them…

You have to acknowledge that getting to know people properly takes a lot more time than freshers week, or a few months at university. It can be difficult to realise that the people you view as some of your closest friends don’t actually know you that well. But people do their best, and what they don’t know now, they’ll learn after time.

Sex education

Sex education

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

This week I’m on my period. So for the past few days, I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing painful cramps, mood sWINgs, and a whole lot of bleeding. Too much information? Well tough.

Even though I have my period once a month, and it’s an entirely healthy part of my life, society encourages me to never talk about it. Then a direct consequence of this, is that women generally know very little about how their bodies work, and how to take care of them. And the men around them know even less. So no one knows anything, and half of the population’s physical and mental health is put at risk.

Not ideal.

But I’m not talking about everyone being able to regurgitate the facts they learnt in science – although you should be able to do that. This is about acknowledging the hormones and the pain women feel whilst on their periods as legitimate. We’re not overreacting: it f**king hurts. And as funny as it might be to see a girl cry over her bobble snapping, those hormones do genuinely mESS you up for a couple of days. I mean, sometimes we literally wake up in a pool of our own blood.

So, periods are intense and tedious enough: I don’t need society telling me that I should be embarrassed by them too. Nor do I need people to tell me how/what I should feel/wear/say/think when no one is taking an interest in my body or me anyway.

At the same time, I don’t know much about what male bodies go through. I know they don’t have such a dramatic time of it every month, but that doesn’t mean it’s always smooth-sailing. Like puberty, that doesn’t sound like a walk in the park for a boy – physically, or psychologically.

The point is that we never ask detailed, comprehensive questions about our bodies. But we go further than not asking: we stigmatise the topics so much so that it becomes ‘gross’ or ‘uncomfortable’ to even think about going there at all.

For women especially, getting to know yourself intimately isn’t normalised, so a lot of us just don’t do it – by ‘intimately’, I mean both sexually and biologically. A lot of my female friends have never even taken a mirror to have a look at themselves, let alone experiment with masturbation. Whereas a huge proportion of my male friends know their genitals as well as any other part of their body – maybe even better.

So if we’re saying that women barely know anything about their own bodies, and we then take that to talk about health and safety, how could we ever know that something is wrong, if we don’t know what we look like when we’re healthy? Then on a psychological level, how is it right that we’re so disgusted by our own bodies? We won’t touch or get to know ourselves but we’ll let some random lad who might ditch us next week do whatever he wants? I dOn’T tHiNk sO.

Conversations about our bodies shouldn’t be separated according to whatever genitals you were born with, because we don’t exclusively socialise with people of the same sex. We need to ditch the euphemisms and the pressure, so we can learn to look after each other and ourselves more effectively. After all, knowing this information will definitely save someone’s life one day – maybe even your own.

Exam season is gross and degrees are difficult

Exam season is gross and degrees are difficult

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 3 Comments

My experience of University so far has been a mixed bag. Luckily, the overriding emotions are positive, but there are also elements that I really don’t love that much.

Last Thursday I cried when I read some feedback given to me by my language teacher about a practice paper I’d spent hours on. I’d done the paper the first time, received the marks and was disappointed. So, I spent around 8 hours this week translating every word of Japanese on it with my textbooks and notes. Then I redid my answers and rewrote the essay because I wanted to make sure that I knew how to do better. So I cried at the second lot of feedback my teacher gave me because after all of that time and effort, it was better but it still wasn’t right.

Oh and don’t think that I don’t know how pathetic it is that I do that hahahah. Trust me, I’m aware.

I know I have issues with being a perfectionist: I’m way too hard on myself when I don’t understand things straight away. I definitely need to try and ease up when it comes to my work ethic. But I don’t cry because of my ego, I cry because I want to love my degree and because I try really hard to improve. Plus, it didn’t help that at school we’re absolutely overwhelmed with feedback sheets. Whether it was a bullet point list, or ‘two ticks and a target’ in green pen, we were always given the correct and very specific direction. I hated the whole peer marking thing at the time, and now I’m realising just how much it made the work easier.

I absolutely don’t want to be spoon-fed answers. It just comes as a bit of a nasty shock when all of a sudden I’ve gone from thinking I was pretty decent at languages, to thinking that I’d chosen the wrong degree. I won’t change my degree because I don’t want to, and I did kind of throw myself in at the deep end with Japanese…so it’s sort of on me.

But the level of difficulty in my degree this year has made me feel stupid on many occasions. I don’t mean the ‘omg lol I’m so dumb’ jokey version of stupid, I mean straight-up ‘I’m actually just not clever’. And it might sound like a totally woe is me, first world problems lamentation but feeling that way for the first time is really awful. There have been plenty of things I’ve not been good at in my life but I’ve always liked to think that at least I’m clever. So when I’ve been thrust into situations where I really doubted that, naturally, I get upset about it.

University is meant to be really challenging, because if it weren’t then there would be little point in attending. So I recognise that I’ve got some catching up to do and I just have to keep reminding myself that even though I’m not doing as well as I’d like to, I know I couldn’t be working any harder. I’m not stupid, and eventually I’m going to be good at this language; just not yet.

So I’d like to finish by wishing all of the students reading this: good luck in your online exams!! Also, you’re not stupid if you’ve found this first year really difficult – specific shout-out to my fellow Durham students. And finally, thank you for using my blog as one of your many methods of procrastination. I’m honoured x

Boys are just as scared of you, as you are of them

Boys are just as scared of you, as you are of them

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 2 Comments

When I talk about my experiences, they’re always from the female perspective – a very important one to hear. However, it’s not the only viewpoint out there, and I’m aware that a lot of lads read my blog. I’m also aware that young men are renowned for hiding their thoughts and feelings – and that this contributes to a lot of them having poor mental health.

So as a feminist, and a big fan of the male species, I’m going to try and make this a space for them to voice those thoughts. Not just so that they can see themselves reflected in what I write about, but also so that as a young female with brothers and lots of close male friends, I can understand them better – and help them if they ever need me.

And also because girls want to know what goes on in their heads anyway…

This week I asked as many boys as would let me (surprisingly ended up being 25 of the buggers) a set of questions focused on how they perceive themselves, and how they think they’re perceived by whatever gender they’re trying to pull.

There were so many interesting details in their answers; far too many to summarise in one blog. So I’m going to give them lots of attention and scrutiny in the coming weeks, writing blogs discussing each question one by one. Plus some of these lads are eager to have a feature on my blog anyway, so that’ll give me plenty of opportunity to quote all of them…as well as making them obliged to read more than one and up my ratings hehehe.

What surprised me most when I received all of their answers though, was seeing how grateful many of them were to just be asked. A few of them even straight-up thanked me, and that really plucked on my heart strings.

It became so clear that many of these young men lack someone who just asks them how they feel, without having any exterior motive like wanting to pull them or get some gossip out of them. They have amazing groups of friends who they love and trust, but they don’t always have spaces where they feel like they can just give their opinions – without judgement.

Some of them appreciated the fact that I wasn’t about to call them a ‘fboy’ or a ‘pr**k’ for saying that they didn’t want a girlfriend right now. Since, at our age, everyone’s entitled to make mistakes or just want to flirt with whoever. Many appreciated that I’d keep it anonymous, and they liked that all I wanted to know was what they thought. I didn’t want them to cloud it with jokes or euphemisms.

Young men are the same as young women. We all want to be made to feel interesting and relevant. We all have good parts and bad. We’re all in the middle of learning who we want to be and who we want to love. But more than anything, at this point in our lives we just want to work out all of those things without fearing judgement.

With all that in mind, in the coming months I’ll do my best to write some good blogs with the information you gave me lads: I hope I do you proud.

(If not, then I’ll do a wottle……jk, I’m not doing that hahahaha)

Xx

*wottle*: young person’s terminology for downing an entire bottle of wine as quickly as possible a.k.a a death sentence

Chill out mate

Chill out mate

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Thankfully this week was a lot nicer, and a lot less stressful than the last.

My last blog was obviously a huge rant, but it might surprise you to know that after writing it, the situation didn’t bother me much. Instances such as the one with that delightful traffic warden aren’t that big of a deal for me because they kind of happen all the time. That being said, it’s never a highlight.

I’m pretty sure that the main contributor to my terrible week was just being ill, and it’s only when the illness leaves that you can realise just how much being full of cold can mess with your state of mind. Already feeling run-down, I was just overwhelmed by everything piling on top of me.

For years now I’ve been so excited about going to University and what it would bring to my life. Plus, I’ve always been pretty independent and self-sufficient so I thought that I would be absolutely fine once I actually moved. And all in all, I am absolutely fine and love it. But I do think that there’s a lot to be said for just how difficult starting University really is.

Not only have I moved to a totally new place, but I’m experiencing so many more pressures than I could have ever envisaged. One of the most stress-inducing being the academic pressures of my course. I mean I’m taking a degree in a language that I’ve never had any exposure to, and I really really struggle with not being good at something. First world problems, I know.

I’ve been telling myself that I’m really bad at Japanese when I stumble over translation or spontaneous speech, and have already cried in frustration at least a handful of times. But in these moments all I’m thinking about is why I can’t remember everything straight away, and I really beat myself up about it. But Japanese isn’t like French, and I need to fully accept that I’m not going to get it straight away, because on a base level: it’s just proper difficult.

I like to think that I’m a pretty self-aware person, so whenever I’m having these explosions of stress and exhaustion I know exactly what to attribute it to. I know when I’m tired, or stressed, or upset about some boy, or am emotionally volatile because I’m ill or on my period, or am missing home. I know that I work really hard, and that it’s okay for me to not understand everything straight away. But no matter how self-aware I am about why I’m being a cry baby, I also know just how stubborn I am.

It’s obvious that I need to not beat myself up about things, but it’s also really clear to me that I always will: I’m just wired that way. People talk a lot about bettering themselves in some sort of self-care scheme, and those schemes are clearly very worthwhile in many instances. But I also think that people should probably talk a little bit more about the parts of themselves that they don’t necessarily like, know aren’t good for them, but know are parts that they could never get rid of.

If I removed my strive for perfection and work ethic, then I just wouldn’t work as hard. And yes, sometimes I wouldn’t be as exhausted or as emotionally wound-up, but I’d also be bored out of my mind because I wouldn’t be doing anything. You can’t really have one without the other.

Plus, this intense part of my personality doesn’t just pop up when I’m in academic settings, it rears its head in my relationships with people. I just care a lot about everything.

I try really hard to always be kind and loving to those around me. Yes, sometimes it ends in unfortunate emotions, but most of the time it helps me to be surrounded by incredible people. And luckily, some of those people are there for the times when I get overwhelmed and just need someone to rant to, give me a big hug and tell me to stop being dumb. *shout-out for Richard last week, thanks buddy xo*

Sometimes I’m stupidly mean to myself…and I should try to not waste my energy like that.

Eyes up here please

Eyes up here please

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 1 Comment

When I write or talk about my disability, I have to remind myself that the tiny things I experience are not also a part of everyone else’s day-to-day. So this Sunday, I’m going to tell you about one part of my life which may surprise you, though it seems tediously normal to me.

To put it simply: I can’t step out of the house without someone staring at my shoes. For instance, just the other day I was walking in my college at University and one of my fellow St Aidanites walked past me. She stared at my shoes for the entire time we were passing each other – a good 15 seconds – and at no point did she take the time to tear here eyes away from my feet to look me in the eye. Now. People. I get it. Often when you see my shoes it’s the first time you’ve seen anything like them in your life. But come on. Is it really that exciting? Did your parents never teach you that it’s rude to stare? Plus, the object of her amazement was literally just leather boots with some metals bars coming slightly up my legs. Wowee 😮

Growing up I became so used to people staring at my shoes and not looking in my eyes that I was sort of numb to it: on the street, on a bus, in a museum, at the cinema, at school, at the park, with my brothers, with my friends, on my own – you name a time and a situation, someone was probably having a look. Amazingly, I can’t remember ever really being phased by it as a little girl. But then I got older, and I got angry.

A particularly memorable experience is when I was 12 years old and I went to a shopping centre with my family. I was standing on my own in a queue for some food, when I saw a middle-aged woman abandon what she was doing just to gawk at my boots. She literally stopped in the middle of the floor and just stood there looking. I’m not even exaggerating. I was furious and humiliated, so I crouched down to make her realise that there was a person (a child) wearing those shoes who could see exactly what she was doing. She didn’t apologise after she realised I’d seen her, she just walked away. I’ve had more instances like this than I care to remember; with some days gifting me more than one.

Fortunately it’s not always like this. Very rarely, I’m made speechless when someone sincerely says that they like my shoes. Like! The first time in my life someone did this was when I was walking up the stairs at school, aged 17, and a supply teacher said ‘Nice shoes’ to me as he walked past. I stopped dead in my tracks with my mouth wide open, mumbled a stunned ‘thank you’ and watched him walk away. In all honesty I was ready to pounce because I thought he was taking the mick, but I realised that he wasn’t: he actually meant it. So I legged it into my common room and still in disbelief, told my friends about what had just happened. That was the first positive comment I’d ever gotten about my shoes from a stranger, and to this day, that’s only happened a handful of times.

Now that I’m older, somehow I don’t really care about my shoes or the stares. Although if you catch me on a bad/insecure day and I see you staring, then I will hate your guts for a second. Regardless of my mood though, I’ll always at least notice it.

I know that people stare because my shoes and my disability are probably things that they’ve never seen before. So if that then means that I have to be the one to watch you gawk at me like an object for a few seconds, so that you won’t do it to the next disabled person you see then that’s fine, I can take it. Just remember that whatever you’re staring at is being worn by someone, with feelings, and eyes to see you too.