Tag: personal

Blog Your Feelings

~ Sue ~ 1 Comment

I have spoken to quite a few people about the subject of writing a blog. Many people seem to struggle with the concept of writing about personal thoughts on a public forum, when you can’t express it to people in real life. And when I think about that, it does sound fairly strange. But I do have personal experience on why keeping a blog can help a person.

I have been struggling with various things over the last few years, things that are integral to who I am. And I feel that using this blog as a ‘think space’ helps me try and organise my thoughts. And it also is good to look back on, and see any progress that I have made. Sometimes it doesn’t seem like much, but it does help. Particularly when I have a bad depression period, when I struggle to focus on anything other than my failures. It helps to see that sometimes there are better times, and that I can get through it. I find it reassuring.

When I first started blogging, several years ago, I read a lot of other blogs. Blogs which actually provided me with hope and thoughts that I wasn’t as different as I felt. And if you are having problems in life, I think it helps to know that other folk experience similar things to you. And by sharing my own stories, maybe it can help someone else. And I think, as people, that what most folk want to do. Help those who have experienced similar issues to ourselves. And as we search through life to become a better version of ourselves it’s only natural to want to document it.

Or that’s what I think, anyway.

Happy List

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

I haven’t been posting the last week or so, because I have been struggling to come up with anything constructive. I have had a few really bad anxiety days, and haven’t been able to focus on anything but that. So, in a bid to distract myself, I thought a little list of things that have made me happy over this last week. A bit of a reminder that life isn’t all bad.

-Music has helped me relax. There was a stage where I believed music was everything, but it isn’t. It just helps block out the bad thoughts and the irritants around me. It helps me focus on what I need to do for myself, which is what I need to do. Because it feels like noone else gives a shit about what happens to me, so I’d better start.

-Going for walks. I am rather lucky that I live in a place where I can walk through towns, forests or through towns. I find walking super relaxing and chills me out a lot. I can do a lot of thinking, and it is super good for my health. I don’t do enough for my health really.

-The weather has been pretty awesome. I am not a person who loves the heat, but the fact that it has been dry is enough to put me in a kick ass mood. The fact that the sun has been out when I go and finish work has had such an impact on my mood. Because I think that it is a little depressing when it feels you miss the whole world. And when the days are longer, it makes you feel like there is more going on for longer. Sounds daft, but it’s true.

-Working hard helps me forget my problems sometimes. It can be super busy at work sometimes, and because you are physically moving all day, it can help forget worries. But you have to be able to let yourself become absorbed by what your doing, which can be hard when your brain is going a million miles an hour.

-Having a strong sense of who I am, and the person I want to be. The last week or so, several people have attacked me personally, for how I act or what I believe in. I have been called a tease because I told a guy I was gay, and didn’t to go home with him. I have been called a bitch because I am offended when some of my so called friends told me I over-reacted. If I was drunker, that man could have taken me home with him for god knows what, despite me saying I am gay. That is disgusting. I didn’t do anything wrong, and am confident enough to know that, to know that society is wrong. They make excuses time and time again for men who think it is their right to have sex with whatever women they chose. I am proud that I stood up for myself, no matter how horrible I felt.

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.

(Not) Following Instructions

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

I like to think I am a very independently minded person, in that I am willing to go down a different path, if I feel it will work for me. I always have been a little like that. Did what I wanted to do, despite what other people would do. I’d spend my summers reading library books, as well as playing outside with friends. From an early age, I seemed to realis that ‘a little bit of everything’ is a good thing. So I would try new things, as well as doing my favourite things. The problem with trying something new, is that you have to learn the best way to do it, and this can sometimes be where I fall a bit flat.

If I get instructions for something, I tend to skim through and try to pick the bits that I deem the most important. This is, as I have mentioned before, because I am lazy. I don’t want to spend any longer on something than necessary. I like a good ol’ quick fix. Sometimes it works. I do what ever I need done, and there are no problems. However, a lot of the time something doesn’t work. And you’d think I would have learned something over my 30 years of life, on to at least read instructions properly. But I haven’t.

I am sure that everyone has this one character flaw, that means that they do the same thing wrong over and over again. Reading instructions is mine. I seem to think I know what I need to do, before I even glance at the instructions. This seems bizarre, when I am writing it down like this, because if I knew what to do, then why have the instructions? What I think I know, and what I don’t know are two different things. As a person, living in an age where I can Google any question I have from my phone, wherever I am. Information is everywhere. And as such, I think it may make people think they know ‘it all’, when the actually know very little. And I feel this ‘knowlege bravado’ is what makes me rush through instructions and trying to learn. It is something that annoys me, because if I read things properly, it would probably take less time that having to re-read things because of inadequate skimming.

An example of this is that I recently decided to sell my old phone to a phone recycling website, so I can get a bit of cash. Great idea, right? I received a box with instructions on preparing your phone for delivery. The instructions was two sided, which I would have noticed if I had taken my time. I read one side, which showed how to wipe all the data from your mobile phone, and then send it. Which I did? What I had missed was that you also had to remove the device from your online cloud account. I only know this, because I received an email from the company telling me to remove the phone from my account. So I have had to take time tonight, after work, to find my account and remove the device as requested. And the disturbance to my evening, is no-one’s fault but my own.

So learning how to follow instructions needs to be on my to-do list. Not that anything on that list is getting done. Am I the only one who doesn’t read instructions properly?

Panic Stations

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

I am a stress head.

When something happens, good or bad, I stress over it. When things get quiet, my brain goes into overload, and it panics over what has been done during the day. I pick over every detail, and worry about what I could have done differently.

When I was at school, I would fall out with friends sometimes. Have petty arguments that lasted one day, like most kids do. I would stay up all night, worrying that I had upset someone by doing something stupid. I was forever apologising for things that didn’t seem to bother the person I was actually apologising to.

My previous job was in a call center, for a customer services department. I took it because I love speaking to people, and wanted to help folk out. But telling loyal customers that there was nothing I could do when they were experiencing times with financial hardship. No discounts, no reconnections, no nothing. And me, being in a bad financial state myself, I sympathised with them. And because I know that I couldn’t help, I lost my confidence. I would go home at night, worrying about these customers that I wasn’t able to help. I would cry in bed, cry on my way to work. I became so stressed that I was of no use to anyone, because I couldn’t even help them when I needed it.  It wore me down, and I fell into self-harming. Something that I hadn’t done in years. It was hard.

I am trying to stop over-analysing everything going on, and that not everything that happens is a direct result of my actions. It is difficult, I still panic if I think I say something wrong to someone. It is hard to change a habit of a lifetime, but it is something that is long over due.

 

Finding Time

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

Life sometimes gets busy. As Christmas approaches, I find myself busier and busier. This time of year is expensive, and I have to put in more hours in at the day job just to afford it. This means, that I have less time to do what I want to do.

At the moment, I am working 55 hour weeks, which is a lot. When I finish work in the evening, I struggle to find the motivation to do anything other than watching tv. But, when I am that exhausted, I find it hard to fit in anything useful. I don’t even browse the internet as much as I used to, I just can’t be bothered. And, it has reached the stage, where I am annoying myself.

But, as I try to get used to working such heavy hours, I need to remind myself not to be too harsh. Lots of people struggle to find a happy balance between work and life. It is only natural, for other things to slip when your focus is set on a certain aspect of your life. And thinking that helps me feel less guilty, because I do feel guilty. I feel guilty for not doing more of what I love. I sometimes feel that by not doing all I want, I am committing some huge disservice to myself.

I guess I have to do what I do best, and resort to lists to help me out. I need to think about what i need to do, and schedule it a time for the activity to be done. Which sounds a little bonkers, but maybe it’s the only way to utilise any free time that I have. Because as relaxing as soaps and cups of tea are, they don’t make me feel better about keeping up with my hobbies and things. I have a need to be creative on some kind of level. Even if it is just whining, like this.

Headstrong!

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

One of the hardest things in life is to keep motivated when things don’t go your way. It is not how a person acts with their successes that defines them as a person, but how they deal with their failures. Because as much as we pretend otherwise, everyone experiences failure at some point in their lives.

Honestly, I never used to be good at dealing with failing at things. In fact, when it did happen, I ‘dealt’ with it by cutting myself off, and giving up on whatever had bettered me. Which, although it was intended as a bid to protect myself from any further disappointment, all it did was waste the time that I had put into it. Which, when every moment we have is a gift, is not a good thing. If there is something that we really want, we owe it to ourselves to keep trying to reach our goal. Any failures are minor setbacks on a path to success.

Or that’s what I keep telling myself. Try to keep my head up, as things seem to keep setting me back. I have started to tell myself repeatedly that life isn’t a flat journey, it needs the bumps to make it exciting. Kids think that life is an adventure, every day is exciting. To live life successfully, we need to get that childish wonder back, need to have a sense of fun about life. Sometimes when life is taken to seriously, it is when we start to struggle with it, and everything becomes a stressful mess. All that is needed is a step back and a deep breath to make the world that little bit easier to deal with.

Howdy Doodie

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

I am getting really bad at this update thing. Wish I had a lot more motivation. November is NaNoWriMo, and for the first time in 4 years, I am not even attempting it. The idea is that a person writes a full length novel in the space of a month. As enjoyable as I find the process, I have no motivation what-so-ever. If there is one thing that I hate, it is the thought that I could fail, which would be a certainty.

In my personal life, I am still working away in my temporary job. Money for Christmas, and for things that I have needed for months. It is a relief, that even though I do not have an abundance of money, that I can buy some of what I want. I can pay my way. Which is something that I struggled to do without a job.

I don’t think that I ever appreciated how difficult it is for someone to find employment once they lose a job. I was in constant employment for almost 13 years of my life, and yet I was unemployed for 6 months trying to find a job. I’d hate to see how bad it would have been, if I had never worked. But that is what some people face. With the unhelpful Job Centre staff, it is very easy to lose any hope of finding employment. And I imagine that feeling would get worse and worse, the longer that you were unemployed.

Long story short, I am happy where I am. Yes, it maybe isn’t idea to be working in a warehouse, but for the moment it pays my bills, and everyone there are so nice. I have been cross-trained in another department after under 2 months, which feels great. I feel like I can so something, and that I am useful. Once I force myself out of bed, I am in a great mood going to work. Which is a complete 180 on the sleepless nights I faced at my old job.

But working has me in a good mood. And considering what has happened over the last year, it is great to have my sense of purpose back.

Battling With Mental Blocks

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

If you take part in any creative activity at one time or another, it is likely you have suffered from a mental block. A period of time where you can’t physically create what you enjoy, and have a want to do. Usually, for me, I start something and will never get into ‘the swing’ or feel what I am writing or drawing, and I stop. The idea is always in my head, I just can’t transmit it anywhere. And, since drawing and writing is a major stress relief to myself, not being able to do so, can really get me down.

I read something once which claimed ‘people get stuck creatively, because of the pressure they put on themselves’. At first, reading this as a teenager, I did the ‘stereotypical teen’ thing, and scoffed at the very idea of myself being part of a problem with my own creativity. But, all these years later, I believe it to be true. I go through phases where I write so many things in one period of time, and then, almost as sudden as switching off a light, I have nothing. No interesting thought or idea comes up. And I feel lost. I feel like I have lost an arm, because I have used both art and writing as a way to de-stress for so long, I don’t know what to do, when I can’t.

I think, I do stress myself out about trying to get into schedules, and wanting what I create to be of a certain standard (probably can’t tell that, right). I stress about the actual creating something, that I over-think it to the point that I can’t create anything. Because nothing will beat the high expectations that I have for myself. But people amble across this blog and don’t see my stresses. They see a rambling mess which is updated on a semi-regular basis.

But, that isn’t the point. The perception of other people, whilst sometimes nice, isn’t why I made this blog. It is about me describing how I feel, and try to keep me creative. Which, recently, has had the opposite effect to what I wanted. I look at periods where I was at college, and I blogged every other day. I pine for that time, where I felt I was being creative, and so try to force myself into a schedule. I can’t stick to that schedule, so I freak out more, and I post nothing.

So, what I think is needed, is for me to step back. Stop making such an importance on how regularly I post. I want to blog because I enjoy it, and putting pressure on myself, takes away that joy. And, I think that is something that adds to the frequency of ‘mental blocks’ that I get. So, hopefully by chilling out, I’ll find things easier again.

_____________________

note: I am aware that this is more of me complaining why I can’t make things anymore. But, I feel that part of this blog is to brainstorm what goes wrong, as well as just rambling. I am trying to change the way I do things, so that I do want to pick up my sketch pad after a day of work. Creativity needs to be nurtured, not forced. And, I need to remember that.