Tag: selfcare

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. šŸ˜¦ 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.

Not feeling it

Not feeling it

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 2 Comments

Until yesterday, I wasn’t going to write a mid-week blog. Mostly because I’ve spent so much time with myself these past 52 days. 52 days man: I’ve not been outside in almost 2 months. (!) In fact, I have absolutely no clue what the country I’ve been living in for that time even looks like. If it’s past the view from the windows, then I’ve never seen it.

So the routine of my week kind of revolves around writing blogs now. But I’m only any good at this when I’ve got something to say, and how can I have anything to say when I don’t do anything? I’m trying to write down the things I talk about in my head, but I’m soooooo bored of hearing that little voice blabbering on all the time. I’d kinda like to hear someone else for a bit.

Lol didn’t manage it though, did I? Here we are, reading another instalment of that little voice’s monologue… ah well.

Quarantine has been a serious strain on the mental well-being of my parents and I. We never argue and we get along uncharacteristically well, so generally speaking we’re totally fine. We have a laugh and our issues are never with each other. But human beings aren’t built to be locked inside for months on end; it doesn’t matter how much they like each other.

Thankfully, me, my mum and my dad have somehow managed to alternate our breakdowns so none of us have been miserable at the same time so far. It’s not every day but every now and then, it just hits you. And whoever isn’t feeling like jumping out of the window on that day, gets the job of comforting whoever does. Lots of hugs, loud music, drunken dancing on the balcony, crisps and chocolate, Blue Planet, Judy Garland, sarcastic jokes. You know, usual family stuff.

But what I’m trying to get at in this blog, is that if you’re waking up some days feeling absolutely miserable then that’s a totally valid feeling to have right now. It’s a completely mad, upsetting time. It doesn’t matter how lovely your house is, or how amazing the people you’re locked in with are, sometimes you just can’t face another day doing the same thing, in the same rooms, surrounded by the same people, with no idea of when you’ll all be able to do something else.

I could end this with ‘hey, it’s mostly not that bad, let’s not dwell’ – a very true point. But there’s a lot to be said for allowing yourself a minute to just listen to some maungy music and bask in how crap you feel. You don’t always have to rationalise things; sometimes you just feel rubbish. And we’ve been stuck in the house for weeks with no prospect of an end date, in a world where the only news story seems to be how many people are dying. So if that isn’t an excuse to feel sad for a day, then I don’t know what is.

Xx

Does being masculine mean you shouldn’t slut-drop?

Does being masculine mean you shouldn’t slut-drop?

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

I wanted to know whether these young men feel like they need to act/look/talk/think a certain way when they like someone, and whether they think there’s a generally accepted version of ‘attractive’ for the male sex.

My favourite response was: ‘Iā€™m not saying I go around crushing beers against my forehead but I do maybe try and avoid slutdropping for hashtag bant’. I mean, that first part is just a really funny mental-image.

But overall, the answers were interesting because they were all pretty 50/50 on ‘yes’ and ‘no’, with equally passionate viewpoints on both sides. However, the ‘no’ answers had quite a lot of contradictions, with boys saying ‘no, not really’ or ‘definitely not’, but following it with ‘I try to be the most appealing version of myself’. Noting that it’s ‘pointless’ to be something they’re not in the first stages of getting to know a person, but still wanting to make themselves ‘more likeable’ to ‘not put girls off’.

I did completely understand what they meant: we all try to temper or alter ourselves when we first meet someone because we want them to like us. But, I can’t help feeling sad at how much pressure we put on ourselves just because we want the approval of a stranger…

Regardless of how many of these lads said ‘I just kinda do me’, there were a lot of mentions of the ‘tall, dark and handsome’ trope. The ‘v-line’ and the ‘older look’; the ‘jawline’ and the ‘muscular look’; the ‘confidence’ that always almost crosses over into ‘arrogance’. Oh, and ‘that typical white boy look’: I’m learning that for both men and women, other races have a lot more trouble with fetishisation than us Caucasians. But that’s a whole other blog.

Overall, the boys were saying a lot of things which equate to the experiences girls have our age. We all overthink how we should be when we’re trying to impress someone. We try not to change in front of strangers we fancy, but often we do it anyway. We have social standards we kind of want to live up to – no matter how impossible they might be. Our upbringing and our social class influence what version of ourselves we think is preferable to whoever we’re talking to. We’re all just kind of insecure and unsure at this age.

However these boys made a point that deserves a specific mention: not enough time is given to how much these pressures to look a certain way damage the mental health of young men. My friends were so right to tell me that ‘body image amongst men isn’t taken as seriously’ as it should be, because according to the National Centre for Eating Disorders in the UK, men are thought to make up around 50% of all cases. And I don’t know about you, but that statistic came as a surprise to me…

I think we’re doing pretty well in diversifying what it means to be ‘masculine’ in the modern world. But we’re moving so slowly. We still need to fully recognise that sexism is a huge problem for both men and women now: in 2020. If we sorted it out for women, then men would definitely feel the benefits too. Maybe we’d even realise that if someone likes us, then they probably couldn’t give less of a sh** about our hair colour or our height. Imagine it! A world without gender rules.

So, does being masculine mean you shouldn’t slut-drop? Well I certainly hope not. And FYI lads, if you want to play with gender expectations, then a little bit of eyeliner can go a long way too…Iā€™m just saying.

We all feel like a sea cucumber sometimes

We all feel like a sea cucumber sometimes

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

I think that loving your body and the way it looks every single day is impossible. But don’t worry, I don’t mean this as a massive downer, or some precursor to a hugely self-deprecating blog: relax.

I just mean it in the sense that having insecurities, and waking up some mornings thinking you look about as attractive as a sea cucumber (those things are not pretty, don’t try and tell me that they are), is not the end of the world. Insecurities are normal and healthy, as long as you don’t let them overwhelm you.

For me, the things I don’t love about my body are largely based around how I think I look when I move. I just don’t like the idea that my disability causes me to have a limp or is accentuated when I walk. This doesn’t mean that I think it’s a big deal when other disabled people have a limp, it just means that somewhere in my head, I feel insecure about whether I might have one. Does that make sense?

You might read that and think: ‘no, that doesn’t make sense, why be bothered by such a minor thing? Plus, you are disabled, so if you did have a limp then it’d make sense and not be a big deal’. But that’s how insecurities work: I tell you what I don’t like about myself, you say you barely even noticed, that you don’t care and think that I shouldn’t either, I thank you, feel better for a second, but still duck my head before I see my legs reflected in shop windows.

So where do we go from there?

Well, what’s clear is that businesses prosper when people don’t feel good about themselves: that’s part of the reason we buy things. We’re also addicted to scrolling through social media and looking at examples of ‘perfect people’ in ‘perfect places’ with ‘perfect lives’. Basically, we like to see what’s beautiful.

So obviously a huge remedy to our insecurities would be to recognise that what we see on social media is a fragment of the truth, but we know this already. And obviously we need more varied representation of body types in the media, but it’s also impossible to represent everyone because each individual human is different – and there are a lot of us. So in all of this, we haven’t really been able to solve the problem…

And that’s because there simply isn’t a quick, one-step solution to getting rid of all of our insecurities. Humans will always find flaws in how we look because improvement, jealousy and seeking perfection are just in our nature.

But something that we can definitely try to do, is not let our insecurities consume us. By all means, feel it, and even wallow in it for a minute, but don’t let what you don’t like about yourself be the only thing you think about. You know you won’t like how you feel after thinking about it, so why waste your time like that?

We all have to become more aware of how we treat ourselves, so if you’re looking for a one-sentence piece of advice on how to do that, I guess all I can say is:

just don’t be a b****.

Just an idea

Just an idea

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Let’s talk about why we live in a society where we’re made to feel like if we ask someone out, and they’re not keen, that that is the worst humiliation that anyone could ever suffer. Because as I’m growing up, I’m beginning to realise that it’s really not that deep, and that we need to stop causing ourselves so much grief about it.

Obviously, getting rejected never makes you feel great, and sometimes it can really hurt. But does that short-lived disappointment really warrant never asking anyone out? Especially since if you do it early on in your infatuation for someone, and they shut you down, then you haven’t involved your feelings as much as you would’ve weeks/months/years down the line. It then follows (in my eyes) that everyone should maybe just get it off of their chests pretty quickly, before it escalates and feelings get super carried away…

Saying that, I’ve always been really timid when it comes to telling boys that I find them attractive or like them in a romantic way. In most parts of my personality, I’m pretty confident and fearless but for some reason – whether that be due to my own insecurities, or those triggered by popular culture- I’m shy with expressing how I feel to boys.

But then why should it always be the boys’ duty to make the first move? It’s common sense that they’ll feel just as shy or scared as girls in this context, so why continue the sexist trope of waiting for them to kick things off?

It’s literally only been in the last year that I’ve started to have moments of exasperation where I think: ‘why am I sitting around, dropping hints, being shy and wasting my time waiting for him to say something? Why don’t I just put what I’m thinking out there, and he can either take it or leave it?’

Yes, it’s not easy and yes it takes a lot of courage to say how you feel when you have no idea whether the other person feels the same way. But let’s be honest: is there really any point in making yourself suffer the stress of not knowing, when you could just rip the plaster off and ask?

So what if they say no? At least you know and can stop sitting there wondering…

I’m a total sucker for playing the flirting game, and I’m really not experienced in romantic relationships at all – so my word on these subjects is definitely not gospel. However, my conclusion from observing those around me is that the whole tip-toeing around the subject is pretty tedious and causes more grief than its worth.

So whatever your gender, if you like someone, just let them know. The worst case is that they reject you and you’re upset for a bit, but now you know that there’s no point pursuing it anymore. A vital comment to make here, is that the rejection shouldn’t and doesn’t take anything away from you! If they don’t like you like that, or if they’re messing you about, then forget about it: you don’t need the headache.

But then the best case scenario is that they say yes and when that outcome happens, you’ll be so glad you had the courage to be honest about how you feel.

So just do what I did when I was searching for my first job aged 16, and tell yourself: ‘well someone has to say yes at some point’. (Granted, that comment was laced with sarcasm and annoyance at the time, but it’s still a relevant point to make).

When I write these entries sometimes I inadvertently end up giving advice, but it’s important to note that what I say isn’t always reflective of how I act. That isn’t to say that I’m being a hypocrite, it’s just that whilst I like to show my vulnerabilities and flaws, occasionally my aim is to speak how I want to be and how I think I should be into existence. It doesn’t always work, but then sometimes it does.

Regardless of whether I’m saying how I am or how I want to be, I hope that after you read whatever thoughts I have, that we can both take something positive from it.

As always, thanks for reading this far.

Xx

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.

Like a virgin

Like a virgin

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

This week I want to talk about the one thing that FILLS the minds of people of all ages, especially those around my age and younger: sex – more specifically, losing your virginity.

It’s a big topic since everyone’s sex life is such a huge deal in today’s society. People put so much pressure on when and how they should lose their virginity, that the act itself is made out to be this big, momentous, personality-shaping, potentially life-ruining moment. To a large extent, I agree that the details of when and how you have sex for the first time are massively important, but not for the same reasons society forces us to believe.

First of all, I don’t believe that there’s a ‘right’ age to do it (except past the legal age obviously). Whenever you choose to have sex, as long as you’re both safe, able to change your minds and feel ready, then so what if you’ve known each other for years or for hours? There’s no need to build it up to be this moment where you need to have been in a relationship for years, on some romantic weekend away, with rose petals on the bed. Let’s be frank, for most people it’s kind of messy and uncomfortable and anticlimactic. Oh, and for most girls, it hurts like a B**** (!) for the first time: yeah, they don’t mention that bit in the movies, do they?

Also boys/girls (but mainly boys): if the girl bleeds, then just be a nice guy and don’t freak out about it. You may not have known that sometimes that happens (and that it’s tOtally normal) but equally, the girl might have had no idea either and your reaction will be a big deal in how she feels about it and herself – both at the time and afterwards. Speaking from experience, the boy I lost my virginity to wasn’t a saint in how he treated me overall, but when I bled he didn’t care one bit so neither did I – if you’re reading this buddy, thanks for that. Xx

Having worked at a girls’ school and just generally being surrounded by people, it’s clear to me that popular culture’s airbrushed narrative of sex and the loss of a person’s virginity is toxic for the individual. You have girls and boys with these unrealistic notions of what sex is going to be like, ultimately ending with disappointment when their reality doesn’t match what they expected. I have so many friends who’ve felt like they nEEded to lose their virginity before University, or in the first week, just so they didn’t have to carry the shame of not being experienced in that area. Sex is a super intimate thing to do with someone, and like everything, you get better with practice.

Personally, I don’t have anything against one-night stands – hey, if you’ve got an itch to scratch, then do you (!safely!) – but I very strongly believe that they should NOT happen through someone being ashamed of being a virgin. That shouldn’t even come into play.

So, if you’re reading this as a virgin, then please don’t force yourself to rush into it just because you think you need to, and don’t expect it to be perfect! I mean, I lost my virginity at 17, but at 20 I’m still yet to thoroughly enJOY sex because, fun fact: it takes a lot of females years of being sexually active and a few sexual partners to get the full experience we all hear so much about. So if you’re in that position too, then it’s cool man, you’re not the only one. Plus, just because you don’t have an orgasm doesn’t mean that it’s not fun.

If you’re over the legal age, feel ready, and are safe (in every way), then you’re good to go. But if you aren’t ALL 3 of those things- even if just 1 of them isn’t right- then like I told my Year 11 girls who asked me about this when I was a Teaching Assistant, the braver and more worthwhile thing to do is just wait until you can tick all 3 of those boxes. Looking after yourself is a l w a y s a good idea, especially when it comes to sex – and that goes for e v e r y o n e.

Losing your virginity might be a bit of a flop orgasm-wise, but as far as I’m concerned sex should always just be fun. So do it with someone that you like and feel good around – that way, it’d be hard not to enjoy it.

A n d u s e p r o t e c t i o n k i d s !

Little blip

Little blip

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Now if you’re an avid reader of my blog, then you may have noticed that last Sunday I didn’t have a post for you. Which I apologise for – though it’s crazy to me that so many people actually enjoy what I write at all, let alone come back for more…so thank you for that!

The reason I didn’t post anything wasn’t because I was swamped in University work (true though lol), but it was because I felt wildly uninspired and just couldn’t seem to write anything worthwhile, no matter how hard I tried. I even sat in front of my laptop for 2 hours and started to write about not knowing what to write about: not a shining moment for my creativity, I won’t lie.

But not only was I struggling to write a blog, I was struggling with how I felt overall. For a week, I felt more lethargic and insecure than I’ve ever felt in my life, and I’m not completely sure why. I just know that I didn’t like it.

Generally, I’m a very self-motivated and positive person but just because I’m like that most of the time, it doesn’t then translate that I’m always going to feel that way. So even though I only felt low for a relatively short period of time, it really made me have a think about what the bloody hell I’m going to do about it when it happens again. Since, let’s be honest, it’s inevitably going to happen again because I’m a human being and my emotions fluctuate. So lying in my bed surrounded by pillows, I decided that I need to be less harsh on myself when I’m not feeling too chirpy.

In that week there were moments where I was upset about things and began to tell myself that I was being stupid for caring about those things. But the truth is that if you feel something, then you can’t help feeling that way, and you need to accept that emotion as valid, because if you don’t then you haven’t helped yourself at all. No matter how much you tell yourself to ignore something, if it keeps popping up in your head then you should probably address it. Plus, it might not be anything that major once you’ve thought about it objectively. For example I kept telling myself that I was isolated from my friends, so I was moody, and then because I was moody I was isolating myself, so then I was isolated. Classic.

In the past year, through my exposure to the wider world and all the different types of people within it, I’ve learned that there are parts of my personality which I’ll never get rid of – nor should I want to. I love most parts of myself, but then there’s times where I wish I could change how much I feel things. I’m a super sensitive person and I’ll always be that way. On one hand it means that I care about people very deeply and always try to be kind to others, but then it also means that people disappoint me when they don’t do what I expect.

And then I cry.

Which is a blag.

What I’ve got to do though, is manage that part of myself: try to chill out sometimes when I’m sensitive to things that really aren’t a big deal. But then in other moments, recognise that I’m totally justified in allowing myself to feel the way I do. And thus, let myself feel it without any shame or guilt.

This, might I add, is a task that people struggle with for their entire lives so don’t beat yourself up when you get lost in your own feelings sometimes. The main thing we should all focus on is being kinder to ourselves. If something’s upsetting you then accept that you’re upset because you’re allowed to be, just make sure that you don’t stay down: eat some ice cream, remember you’re a bad b**** and work out how to get back up again.