Tag: anxiety

Let It Be 

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

Today I got really angry about something I had no control over. If things don’t ever go the way I plan, I get really irritable. I don’t like blaming other people for why things go wrong, when I can blame myself. Which sounds silly, but that is how my brain works. 

But… things need to change.

It is not good for a person to believe that, every success and failure in the world around them, is entirely their fault. But that’s what anxiety does to me. And the worst thing is, that like all mental health issues, there is no quick fix. You have to spend time ‘re-training’ yourself, to change how you think about things. And that can seem the impossible task.

Maybe, a good idea, is trying to relax a bit more. Make sure that everything I do is the best I can do. Whatever happens around me, doesn’t really matter. Not when noticing ‘that’ makes me so aggitated. I have to try and learn that what happens happens, I can only do what I can. And if what I do is the best I can achieve, then there is no need to be angry if things don’t work out. 

Deep breaths and visions of a calm blue ocean are required I think. 

Risk It For A Biscuit?

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday I was asked why I never ‘put myself forward’ for different roles at work. It was awkward, because I couldn’t find an answer. But it was more, that I couldn’t work out how to say stuff, rather than there being no reasons.

I have spoken on here about having anxiety and depression before. It would be easier if those two things occurred together. But they don’t. Like now, I am very content at work, and I am enjoying what I do. And because I like helping people, I have been asked a few times about stepping up to a different role for the upcoming busy period. Which there is a chance I’d do okay, but my brain doesn’t seem to understand that.

The ‘fear of the Unknown’ is the problem, which seems daft. But it is one that I can’t get passed. I have encountered my fair share of failure in life, and the way I reacted to that has made my anxiety worse. Whenever something goes wrong, I square the blame fully on myself. Which is okay, only if you use the experience to learn from. I don’t seem to do that. I hate on myself for failing something, and I make myself so miserable that I don’t want to try anything else again. That developed to the stage where I had panic attacks when I would get the oppertunity to do something new. 

But things are a bit better. I still don’t put myself forward for things yet, although I do think about it. But I will try something new if it is put in front of me, and by focusing on whatever it is, I don’t panic. It is something I need to keep working on, so that one day, soon, I will be able to apply for new stuff, without the panic attacks.

BEDA: New Challenge & Future Changes

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

It’s April. That means that a lot of creative types are attempting to be super creative for an entirety of the month. I am taking part in Blog Every Day in April (BEDA), in a bid to help motivate me. It is a project that I first actually saw on YouTube, where video bloggers took part in Vlog Every Day in April (VEDA). People do also take part in the challenge in August. I love blogging, so thought that it would be a good wee challenge for myself. I like doing things like this, or at least giving them a try. So, I am looking forward to sharing things every day, and seeing how it pans out.

The challenge actually coincides with me changing a few things online. And, I don’t just mean just changing layouts and visual things. For the last few years I have used various internet networks as ‘sueriotgraphics’, which did make sense at one point. It maybe was a bit optimistic, but it gave an idea that I did want to do graphic design. This launch into my ideal career has stalled on more than one occasion. I have struggled to stay to motivated, and have become really discouraged about creating art. Which super depressing as it is, without seeing the ‘graphics’ title everywhere, kind of rubbing me the wrong way.

I wasn’t planning on doing anything too dramatic, just dropping the graphics bit. It would still connect to my aspirations. As I have mentioned before, I do have problems with anxiety, and it helps me when I can ‘close the door’ on things every so often. It is like stopping things, and starting a new chapter. I feel like it gives me a sense of control. To swipe aside any failures that I have had, and allow me to focus more on what’s ahead. It is like a cleanse.

I am hoping to start putting these changes through soon, and have started working on how I want everything to look. It is really exciting and I hope that doing BEDA will help keep me moving, and actually see this all through. Which would be a nice change, don’t you think?

Gadget Girl

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

I never used to bother about technology at all when I was younger. It may have something to do with the fact that other than Sega Vs. Nintendo, not a lot of people I grew up with was interested in it. We had a PC at home that never gained an internet connection for it’s entire lifespan. It was used for typing school things and playing Theme Hospital. People also didn’t really have mobile phones, not till I was reaching the end of my school years. Even then, the most exciting things were making ringtones or playing Snake on a Nokia 3330. The internet was accessible at school or at the local library, and even then, I wasn’t much interested.

It wasn’t till I found myself in Glasgow, being quite the loner, that I started a blog on livejournal, and I began to get involved with the internet. I started talking to people, who understood, people who are still friends with me many years later. As I have got older, I have found that I have become rather reliant on technology. Like, if I don’t have my smartphone with me, I feel lost. Which sounds very sad, and probably should make me really depressed. But, it doesn’t. And here’s why.

For years through my adolescence I struggled to find out who I was. I just seemed to follow other people, and never really spoke up for myself. Yes, I had my own interests, but they never seemed that important. I was really scared of being alone, and became quite anxious, and kept a lot of my thoughts and feelings to myself. Which, made any anxiety worse. And it developed into me really, really hating myself. I thought that I was a horrible person, a thought that has stayed with me since, no matter how silly I know it is. What helped me step away from hating myself so much, was the internet. I found forums and blogs where I could be myself, without fear of the very few people around me leaving. I slowly became more confident when I realised that I wasn’t alone in how I felt, there were other people struggling.

I think that finding this solace in the online world has been something that has stuck with me. If there is something that frustrates me I’ll tweet or write a blog about it. I’ll express it in a way that makes me feel better. I can message people from anxiety forums when I feel a panic attack coming on. It helps me cope with stuff around me. Particularly when I have reached out to people in my offline life, they have been critical of my depression or anxiety, which is something that I can’t help. If someone is rude to you online, you can always block them. That gives me control that I don’t have in general life, and it calms me down. Maybe it shouldn’t be like that, but it is. The internet is a calming little assistant that I have with me constantly thanks to my phone. And considering I work full time, have a social life and function ‘normally’, I think that it’s great. All these wee devices help me feel like a normal person, and considering I haven’t felt like that since I was 13/14, I feel it is a good thing.

If technology allows a person to feel free and enjoy the things that make them happy, I just don’t get how it can be bad. But, I am an adult. Though, I can’t help how much easier my High School years would be if I was so connected as I am now. If I could ask anonymous resources about how I felt, and chatted to people who were ‘like me’. I maybe would have been more in control of how my brain works. I guess there is no point wishing things could be different. Life is what it is, and technology has helped me a lot.

Keep on swimming…

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

It’s that time of January where people start to struggle with their New Years resolutions. Where things start to fall apart, and people revert back to old ways. Which seems easy. Change is hard, and sometimes we get to a stage where we just want to give up. The change we want isn’t worth the difficulty.

I’m still going on most of the things I set out to do. Yes, I have had a few hiccups, but i keep going. Sometimes I ‘write off a day’, and just close the door on it. As someone who deals with anxiety, I find this a good way of dealing with any time I fail to hit my goals. Shut yesterday off, and focus on today. Make today better.

It has helped me when I have had bad spirals of depression, where I struggle to move for days. I struggle through, and when I do feel better, I mentally shut off the bad days. It maybe doesn’t sound too healthy, but it helps me function. Helps me keep a full time job as well as trying to make my life better. And making my life better is all I ever want.

Main message is if you have a bad day, keep on going. Tomorrow never comes, so make today count. Make today better.

Begin again?

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

I am starting afresh. Not with life, or work. More my attitude. Since I started having a lot of difficulties with both depression and anxiety, several years back, I have had a rather defeatist attitude. Whenever I would try and get myself on track, I would fail. Things would fall apart. Why? Because I had no faith in myself. I thought I was destined to fail, so when things got difficult, I gave up. Rather than invite myself to a nightout, I’d stay at home. I just feel like I have missed out on a lot. At 30 years old, I am not where I thought I would be. And it is depressing. It leads me into that vicious circle, where being depressed, makes me more depressed, and so forth.

But I have had enough.

Today, after watching Superwoman (Lilly Singh), I felt inspired by her enthusiastic way she does videos. Even her daily vlogs has this hyperactive person as the starring role, even when Lilly herself probably isn’t feeling so great. And it made me think about how I carry myself in a day to day manner. And I realised that there is nothing I need to do every day, to get me that energetic and ready to go. I just slump out of bed, and sludge around to where I need to go. It got me thinking, maybe I should do something that gets the blood flowing a little bit. So, I decided to try doing videos on Youtube again, and do it differently to how I had before.

When I have previously recorded videos, I sat down, and blabbed nonsensically to a camera. Which would have been okay, but I feel because of my slouching, my voice maybe wasn’t as clear as I wanted it to be. And because, I wasn’t exactly thrilled, I didn’t really promote it, and got really discouraged. But, I guess my whole outlook on life at the time, had a lot to do with that. So, I shot a video by shooting for an hour, standing up, being the kind of forced happy you are when you have to sell something really, really expensive. It seems really nasty written down, but it really has got me motivated for the day. I did some housework, and various computerlike things as well. I have owned today, and I feel it is because the first time in a long time I forced myself to get up and used a lot of energy. My day, that started with me sleeping through my alarm, has progressed into a rather productive one. HOORAY!!

Video is down below:

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Note: the ‘fair independence referendum’ thing I was posting, is still in writing. It has turned out to be quite the task to find fact based points, which isn’t slating the opposition. So stressful. But I am determined to post stuff, so stay tuned. 

Bad Day?

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

Everyone has those days. Those days where you just want to hide in your bed and forget the world exists.

I have a lot of bad days, and I am trying to find the best way to deal with them. Because if something bad happens, it weighs on my mind and bothers me for weeks afterwords. When you go through periods of bad days, it can be tiring when your mind just replays what happened.

A suggestion was that a new day is a new opportunity. Forget what happened yesterday as you can’t change what happened. What you can do, is strive to make tomorrow better. That is sometimes all you can try and do, aim to be better

Oops

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

It’s easy to fall behind in things. Get to absorbed in a part of your life, that you forget something. That happened with blogging this week, as I have been so pre-occupied with other things.

But it’s okay. People do forget things.
It’s part of our nature, and it is certainly not anything to feel ashamed about. This is something that I need to tell myself over and over, that it is okay to forget things every now and then. I have a habit of berating myself when I don’t do something. And I make myself feel so bad that I actually don’t do that thing again for a while. That’s what has happened before. I make myself feel so bad, that I don’t want to blog again.

But not this time. I have been trying to change a few things that I do, so that I am not quite so negative, or panicky. It doesn’t sound like much, but by changing small things gradually, it can hopefully make a big change. So by not beating myself up at every mid-step, I can focus on the actual activities themselves, and enjoy it more. Because fear of failure is the main reason i don’t do something.

And I’ll tell you what, I certainly feel better writing about stuff, than I do beating myself up over a mistake. Maybe I can transfer this to other parts of my life?

Aches And Pains

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

When I tell people I haven’t been to the doctor in a long time, they question my intelligence. They don’t understand why a person wouldn’t want to get help. I try to explain why, and I feel stupid. I feel like a child who is not wanting to go to school because they have forgotten their homework. When, in reality, it is nothing like that.

Let me explain, last year I sprained my Achilles’ tendon, and was told it would take up to 3 months to heal. I hurt it going down the stairs at work, and within a day, it had swollen up like a golf ball. I went to the hospital, and advised of the recovery time mentioned above. After some research when I got home, I read that a quick recovery was based on an average person working in an office. I kind of banged my head off the wall at this. I work in a warehouse, and can be on my feet over 11 hours a day. So, it’s safe to say, my recovery hasn’t gone as quickly as I’d prefer. In fact, after a day of work, I am almost always limping about my house.

I should have really gone to the doctor after the initial 3 month period (start of the year). This is when another problem comes into the fray. I struggle with anxiety. I get panicked at what should be normal things, like getting on a bus. I over think things, and end up talking myself out of doing something. Going to the doctor is a prime example. I am in pain a lot, but I think that someone else is more deserving of the doctors time. I feel like I am a ‘bother’, and just annoy people around me.

Trying to explain anxiety to someone who hasn’t had it, is hard. It’s hard to explain what happens, because people want to know why. I wish I knew why I feel like I do. I get panicked about a situation, I don’t really know why, so I panic more.

There is a positive change. I have an appointment for the Doctors tomorrow. Sometime that I was encouraged to do by my work. I feel like I am falling apart, but also trying to get it in my head that asking for help isn’t the worst thing. It’s a constant battle in my head, it’s not nice.

The Loner Life

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

I feel like I have always been a bit of a loner. I like my own company a
lot, rather than having to deal with people. That sounds really selfish, but it isn’t because I don’t like people. It’s because I feel like I ruin people’s free time and things. It’s part of my anxiety disorder, behaviours I had as a child, which have became worse as I’ve got older. I feel like I am a bore, so I don’t bother meeting with them, so that they can continue with their lives rather than being dragged down by me. And it totally stresses me out.

So as a result, I spend a lot of time on my own. Reading, listening to music, watching movies, browsing the internet. I do things, but things that don’t involve actual contact with other people. That way I don’t feel guilty. Because that happens way too often. I feel like I am a bit of a shit person, and that people will get angry when they find that out. So sometimes I panic, as my brain anticipates that I am going to make someone angry. I can have sleepless nights over whether I’ve said something that could have offended someone. I can panic over not having the right change when getting on the bus.

Sometimes it is best just to be alone and not having to panic. It’s actually pretty good to not having my brain run 100% miles an hour.