On Gratitude, Guilt and Acceptance

[This was written and ready to be posted at the start of August. I was just going to insert gifs/images and then move on. It's now been so long I can't bear to spend any longer on it, so I'm afraid we're just getting a lot of text here. I also haven't re-read it since I wrote it, so I have no idea how it's going to come across.]

Song of the day: Something Good - alt-J (pretty much the whole album)

Currently reading: I don't think I can bear to say Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance  again, so I won't.

I worry as I start writing this post, having been considering the topic whilst watching south England zoom by out the train window, that parts of this entry may come across as annoying. I'm worried that it'll sound like I'm bragging, or this will just be taken as a case of "_____ people problems" (not entirely sure how to fill the _____ though). Whilst it is a little bit of the latter, I do mean everything I'm saying here out of the bottom of my heart, and I absolutely do not want people to think the below is a proper problem. It's not, it's just a case of what's in my mind at the moment that I need to work through. Let me explain.

As you can probably guess from the title of the blog, I am twenty-something. Specifically, my early twenty-somethings. Two weeks after I quit my MA course I had an interview for my current job. A month and four rounds later I was offered a place, and in February  I started on a very comfortable salary of over £30k per year, although I won't go into exact details. My job affords me a good deal of flexibility regarding hours and working from home so long as I get the work done, it's varied and project-based so I won't get bored doing the same thing for months on end, and provides quite a bit of responsibility and provision for moving upwards in the company. So what’s the problem?

[The problem is we've been stopped in Haslemere for nearly 10 minutes now… why aren't we moving? The guard is just walking around on the platform outside.]

I graduated from university last year with a 2.I in BSc Anthropology. I didn't know what I wanted to do, so I applied for an MA in Film and Philosophy that I thought would be right up my street. It quickly became apparent - in only a matter of weeks - that it wasn't the right course for me, and that combined with other factors made me drop out of the course in November. It was a big, scary decision at the time (I'd only spent a month telling everyone I was doing an MA, and there I was dropping out because I couldn't take it). One of the additional factors, although not the only one, was the cost. I couldn't really afford to live (in central London nonetheless) on what I was earning and spend over £8000 in tuition fees, even with housing benefit.

So in November I decided I needed to get a full time job. I didn't particularly want one, but the fear of being "homeless" was there. I should note that this is actually a pretty insulting thing for me to think. I wouldn't have been homeless by any stretch of the imagination. I would have just moved back in with my parents in Liverpool rather than living in a nice place in central London. My fear of not being able to afford rent and losing my flat, whilst very real, cannot compare to the fear felt by people who do not have parents/anyone willing or able to take them in who may be in similar or worse situations to the one I was in. "Homeless" should not have been a word I was using, especially not for the possibility of having to do what millions of young people in the UK are currently doing. The fact that I'd been able to live in London a whole six months after graduating university is more than a lot of people are able to do. I wouldn't have been homeless, I wouldn't really have been in any distress. I just wouldn't be doing exactly what I wanted to do.

Two weeks after I made this decision, and only one since I'd stopped messing around and actually sent out a lot of applications, I was informed that I'd made it through to the next round for a job I'd applied for only the day before. I knew nothing about the industry or what the job would entail, all I noticed to begin with was the benefits package. It was a city job - a type of job I always claimed I'd hate to do and would never apply for - but I was feeling a bit desperate. A week or so later, after an hour or so's research into what the career would entail and a re-read of my application answers, and I had an online interview. A week after that I was informed that I'd made it through to the final round of the application and went for an assessment day. I had a horrible migraine and told my interviewer I would probably be good at the job because I like playing computer games where I build empires through strategy and trade rather than war.  The next day, during my birthday tea (literally cups of tea - I holed up in a café for the afternoon and saw various friends at various times), I was offered the job. Two months later, I'm at a networking event making pizza having written a post on here about having to find an appropriate outfit. And I've been there ever since.

My first role was London-based, and quite nicely only 35 minutes journey from my house. The one I'm currently on, however, is based on the south coast, and requires me to travel down on a Monday and stay in a hotel, travelling back on Thursday nights. The hotel is often quite nice - it's a step up from the Travellodges that I'm used to for sure. And this is where the start of my "problem", or probably more truthfully, "yuppie-guilt" is coming from. I used to only order room service for dinner, but starting last week I decided I liked getting breakfast in my room too. It's only available in one of the two hotels I stay in as far as I'm aware, so I did it whilst I could. I've had a terrible cold this week, and so on Tuesday I stayed in and worked from the hotel room, rather than disturbing and infecting everyone. This meant I also ordered lunch to my room, and I was in when housekeeping came to clean.

I only started to notice this recently, but all the hotel staff that do the less-nice , presumably minimum-wage jobs (the room service orders, clearing up and housekeeping etc), they're all my age. And probably a little older too, but maybe only by a couple of years. There I was, sat on a very comfy hotel bed (one of two in my fairly large room), having just polished off a very delicious club sandwich and fries and now focussing on my [work] laptop, whilst a girl maybe a year or two older than me cleaned the room around me. I started coughing at one point and made a comment about how much I hated colds, and she told me that she thought she was getting one but really couldn't afford to be off work.

I get called "ma'am" by people older than me. And I just feel guilty.

The reason, I think, is two-fold. The first regards the thinking surrounding my guilt. I feel like I should be doing what they're doing. I had only been working for just over a year prior to this job, and hardly even part-time. I feel (or felt, I'm starting to change my mind) that I hadn't "done my time" in minimum wage service jobs. We hear so often nowadays how difficult it is for young adults once they graduate from university, with thousands upon thousands being unable  to find any sort of work, and many being stuck in minimum-wage jobs for many years more than they would want. And those are the "lucky ones". Well, I'm even luckier than that. None of that has applied to me. I didn't have to move back in with my parents, and I pretty much instantly went into a good job once I started searching for one. I haven't done my couple of years of uncertainty/misery, haven't spent any longer than six months worrying about where the rent money is going to come from, and I start to feel like I don't deserve what I've got. I keep saying "I'm lucky".

Well, I am lucky. But I need to also stop claiming that to be the be-all and end-all of why I am where I am today. This is a problem particularly with a lot of smart young women I've noticed. We don't own our achievements. I got a good degree from a good university. I worked hard, I did some time in the service industry (if only a little) when I had to pay my rent, and then I went out and impressed a company enough to get through four rounds of application and get a job. As of last Friday, I passed my probation period (yay!). I am good at my job. These things aren't all just down to luck, they're down to me. Luck wouldn't have had me pass my exams had I not put in the work, luck wouldn't have paid the rent had I not gone out and done the jobs that I needed to do but didn't particularly like, luck wouldn't have got me through the entire interview process. There was a four hour assessment centre, they must have liked something about me!

I think part of the problem is that we're taught it's not polite to brag. We're to be modest, and don't over-talk about our achievements. But for a lot of young women, this turns into don't acknowledge that you had something to do with them. There's also the additional fact that I know a lot of very smart, clever people. A lot of my friends went to Cambridge, or other very good universities. My sister graduated only this year from Cambridge with a degree in Natural Sciences, and she is one of the hardest working, smartest people I know. She worked incessantly, and my family had to make sure to get her to take breaks at Christmas, Easter and New Year. In comparison to her, I didn't work much at all. But I need to remember that I still worked! I don't feel like I've achieved much because a lot of my friends have achieved great things - good degrees from good universities, good jobs, a highly sought-after pupillage to name just a few. We've done extremely well and should be proud of ourselves, not pass it all off as luck.

But it is important to realise that there is an element of luck involved. I am under no illusions that everyone who worked as I did would find themselves in the same position. There are plenty of people who work much, much harder than I do, who are still unable to live where they want, or get the job that they want, or afford the schooling that they want. These are people who desperately need to afford their housing, or have hungry mouths to feed, or need to get out of their parents' house because they just can't cope any longer. There are so many people at the moment who put in application after application, who are more than adequately capable, who just hear back nothing. I in no way believe myself to be smarter, a harder worker, or in any way better than those people. Those people are my friends, my colleagues, my family. They're everywhere. I can't forget that I am in a very privileged position and I should be very thankful for that.

What I shouldn't do is forget that it wasn't all down to luck, and that I am a very capable human being.

Rain don't change the sun

Song of the day: This Is What It Feels Like - Banks.

Currently reading: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig

It's taken me a long time to decide on the title of this blog post. So long, in fact, that whilst I'm writing this it currently does not exist. I have a vague idea of what I would like to write about, but whilst I normally come up with a title very easily my mind is pretty blank today.

I'm currently in my second week of my summer holiday, in Clairvaux Les Lacs, Jura, France. The weather outside right this moment is lovely and sunny but with just enough cloud to provide a little respite from the heat here and there. I myself have retreated indoors. Half an hour lying in the direct sunlight earlier today have been quite enough for now, and I need a bit more of a break.

My original plan for this holiday had three prongs. I wanted to sunbathe, as I'd been really enjoying the half an hour of sun I was able to soak up during lunch hours at work and wanted the chance to experience it more. I also wanted to read more, since I'm usually too tired after work to do so. And finally I wanted to swim a lot, eat healthily and maybe lose a bit of weight. Or at least get fitter.

The first day here was wonderful. It was lovely weather, I read a decent amount of A Feast for Crows and I went swimming. But then came the rain. And for an entire week, it poured without pause. And it was freezing.

In my very eloquent and descriptive words via snapchat to a friend...

So of course, sunbathing went out the window. Every day when I checked the weather forecast, I was slightly disheartened to know that had I stayed at home the weather would have been wonderful. But alas, there was I was, stuck in the rain but determined to make the most of it.

And for the most part, I did. Rain may not be very conducive to sunbathing or sight-seeing or lake-swimming - my mother's two preferred holiday pastimes, but it does give you a lot of time to read. So read I shall.

But it's the final thing I mainly wanted to talk about. Swimming, eating healthily and getting fitter.

I'll just say it right now. It's not gone according to plan. I haven't swam every day. Aside from the fact that on some days it's just been too wet and too cold to leave the caravan and treck down to the pool, it's also a very different campsite to the one we were on last year. Last summer I did go swimming everyday, even if the weather wasn't particularly nice. Despite it being the same time of year, the campsite itself had very few children and so my mother, Harriet and I had the pool to ourselves for the most part. It meant that I was happy to stay in there for a long time, gradually going from 30 lengths at the start of the holiday to between 75-100 lengths by the end.

This terrifies me.

This time though the pool is just far too busy. It takes much longer than it should to navigate from one side of the pool to the other, and the children here - or rather, the teenagers - are at that age that they don't pay attention to themselves in relation to their environment. I'm thinking here of the game where one person sits on another's shoulders and faces off against another team (or in this case, two), and tries to push the others off. I don't mind people playing that in the pool if it's not particularly busy, or if they stay to one end. But these kids were taking up the entire pool which was fairly packed (as it was raining so everyone had amassed upon the indoor pool) and did not care who got in their way. They weren't going to get out of yours. It's all very well that happening with people like my mother and I trying to swim, but there were babies close by to them learning to swim. And I do mean babies. Towards the end I could hardly watch, I was just terrified something dreadful was going to happen.

But yes. I've been swimming three times and we've been here a week and a half. For a lot of the week and a half I've been sat in one position on the couch all day. Definitely not as much exercise as I had planned. I would have done some in the caravan, but due to the rain all the family has been stuck in the same room, which means there hasn't been the space to do so.

However, as much as I'm making excuses about the exercise, a large part of it is my fault. There's no one else to blame. I could go down for a swim in the rain or the cold, I just chose not to. I could exercise whilst my family are around, I just chose not to. I could go for a rain or a run outside, I just chose not to.

I've yet to reach the "I enjoy consistent exercise" stage.

The one area it has been more difficult for me to control - and also the most important area - has been my diet. I really don't like the diet my family have. It just doesn't agree with me. It's not particularly unhealthy - they make everything from scratch and there's usually vegetables in there somewhere, but most meals revolve around pasta or rice or potatoes. To some extent I've got around this - we had wholewheat pasta one night (my body just does not like white pasta at all), and when we've had potatoes I've bought sweet potatoes to have instead. I also had a sweet potato last night instead of the pasta. But other than that, there's lots of tinned things and creamy/cheesy sauces. There's also lots and lots of bread. I mean, we're in France. But we get through at least a baguette per day.

I'm not one of those "all carbs are evil" people. I prefer not to overload on white empty carbs, but that's because they don't agree with me. I know this because I haven't lived with my parents full-time in over four years now, and I feel much better if I eat what I tend to cook rather than what they do. But whilst I get to make a couple of meals here and there - I'm making gnocchi (again, not my preferred base health-wise although very tasty) with a courgette/aubergine tomato sauce, so there'll be a lot of veg in there - my parents are footing the bill so what they want goes.

At least I haven't overindulged as much as I have in the past. I don't think I've lost any weight - in fact I may have gained a little - but nowhere near as bad as I have some years. My goal for this month, after losing practically no weight last month, was to lose 5 lbs and this holiday was going to be key for that. It both has and hasn't been. It's true, I haven't lost much - if any - weight or lived particularly healthily...

Some of those would have been tasty.

But I have realised that I'm not doing enough and it's my fault. I'm not picking the healthier options all the time (I'm all for treating yourself occasionally, but my occasionally at the moment is practically every other day), and I'm also finding plenty of excuses not to do any exercise.

One of my current -albeit fairly good - excuses is that my back is sore. I injured it at the gym over a month ago now, but whilst it felt like it had got better and the pain vanished after three weeks of annoyance, it's back with a vengeance. I first noticed the pain return the day after I'd helped my sister move our of her room at university (I probably didn't lift the heavy boxes properly), but it's been nearly three weeks since then now and it's still sore. Swimming exacerbates it and I can feel it even when just lying or sitting down. Standing seems to help, but it's just very frustrating. I'm going to try and go back to the physiotherapist as soon as I can, but if it is what he thinks there doesn't seem to be a cure. It's supposed to just heal itself. But at the same time, that doesn't seem to be happening! Arghh.

Anyway, what was intended to be a thoughtful reflection on the trials and tribulations of health and fitness and how, despite good intentions, one has to be wary of excuses and recognise when you're making them, seems to have turned into a bit of a dear diary/ rant about my holiday so far. Oh well, so be it. This is unlikely to be the last time health and fitness is mentioned.

Moral of the story.

It's very warm again now despite being indoors, so I may move outside again. Perhaps there'll be a little breeze in the shade.

Pound the alarm

Currently reading: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

No song of the day today, as much as I'd like to be listening to something a little upbeat (such as our current title-influence). We're listening to a training course in basic Excel skills whilst we go about our other tasks and talk about ourselves in the plural for some unknown reason.

There hasn't been an update here in a long time for the simple reason that my new job is extremely immersing, and I haven't even properly started working yet! Four weeks of training were meant to culminate in my first role starting last Monday, but I've had the worst luck in the world and that was cancelled, as was the role I was assigned to following that mishap. But we seem to be back on track and I'll be starting my first actual role tomorrow, nearly a full six weeks after officially starting the job.

In some ways, the job being so immersive so far has been good. I've got to know quite a lot of people, I've barely had time to stop and think "what am I doing?", although that has cropped up a little over the last few days, and they provided me with some wonderful food. I was also able to spend two weeks in the US, which is always a nice bonus.

But it hasn't all been sunshine and daisies. Oh no. And the main problem we're going to discuss in this blog post is something we've talked about before.

How on earth do people keep their living spaces tidy!?

This is the situation:

Problem area uno

Problem area dos

And yes, I realise this has only got worse.

This is even worse than when I decided to sort my room out initially! To be honest, my room doesn't completely look like the above. These pictures were taken a couple of days ago. Some parts are better, some parts are worse. Problem area #3 hasn't changed. There are a lot of large empty cardboard boxes in the middle of the room.

I know I need to just grit my teeth and get on with putting things back in their place, but that's a large part of the problem. I'm not sure where a lot of things should go, there's no home for them. For example, my new stretchy bands to use during pilates, or the new pc accessories I have for work. There's just no storage space! I solved one storage problem a few weeks ago, as you can see in the first image, and bought somewhere to stack all my shoes. I think my next purchase needs to be an organiser to hang over my door, because the one hook I have is being seriously overloaded at the moment.

I have to learn how to stay on top of this. I need to sort out storage, buy some baskets maybe, or another bookshelf, and I need to get used to putting things away straight away. Otherwise I'm living in a mess, and it makes me feel unprofessional and lazy. It makes me feel less of a sort-of-adult, and it just doesn't feel like home! So once I've finished this bit of training, I'm going to get to work. The reason I decided to address this issue here is that I'll feel more accountable. I'll have to do it just so that I don't leave this as a lasting impression!

Regular service will resume shortly.

Learning discomfort

Song of the day: Bottom of the River - Delta Rae
What I'm reading: Bad Pharma - Ben Goldacre

I actually had an 'ah hah!' moment whilst doing yoga the other day. For the first time ever, I discovered that a thought I had whilst reflecting on what I was doing in that current moment (trying to relax into pigeon pose for a full minute) actually applied to all areas of my life.

I was uncomfortable. And I needed to learn discomfort.

Yes Harvey, thank you for your input.

I had read somewhere at some point that hip openers in yoga were important because the hips and pelvis hold lots of stress and negative emotions such as sadness, guilt and fear. I didn't hold anything by this, because how on earth can any particular part of our body 'hold' emotions, which are all created by the brain. It was new-age-y nonsense, and I was quick to put it out of my mind. Until I was actually doing hip opening poses, and getting really emotional. I wouldn't be able to place the particular emotion(s), but they were definitely negative, and they were definitely uncomfortable.

My instinctive response was to stop what I was doing immediately. But before I did, I re-assessed my situation. Yes, I was uncomfortable. But I wasn't actually in any pain. My hips were feeling a slight stretch, but it was the feeling in my chest that was the strongest, and I could already place that as emotional not physical. So there was no real benefit of me stopping. Sure I'd be more comfortable, and I'd no longer feel awful, but I was doing yoga in the first place to try and get fitter and more flexible (and to relieve stress and anxiety). You're not going to get flexible by not actually doing the poses. So I held it for the allotted time, and then I moved on. And I was fine. But for those two minutes, I was very uncomfortable, and I hated feeling that way.

I realised that whilst I didn't stop what I was doing that time, I usually do, and that's a big problem. I'm no longer very fit, and I'd like to improve my cardiovascular health. But the rare occasions I do work up to the point where I'm really hot, sweating and breathing heavily, I stop what I'm doing. I don't like that feeling, I'm scared of that feeling even, and so I don't let myself stay in that state. As a result, I haven't actually improved my ability to do anything that requires any physical effort. I mean, you hear people talk about people throwing up after an intense exercise session. I don't ever let myself get anywhere near that.

Side note: I was watching an early episode of The Biggest Loser the other day, and one of the contestants was crying and said that she's really scared of the feeling of the intense workouts. I am with her 100% there. The trainer said to her something along the lines of it won't kill you, you push through it and it'll never feel this bad ever again (because even if you have a super-intense session, you'll know that you can deal with it). I know this, but I've yet to learn it.

This obviously applies directly to physical health/fitness, but I find that I have the same problem in everything else I do in life. Confrontation getting too uncomfortable? Find a way to stop it or run away (usually the latter). As I mentioned in a previous post, not done something I was supposed to do? Make an excuse and/or run away so I don't have to face the discomfort of the consequences of my actions. Have to put a bit of effort into learning a new skill? Give up. Anything that I feel out of my depth in, I tend to give up on, because I don't like that feeling at all.

But I can't do that any more.

Missing a day or two of work because you're uncomfortable and tired when you've got your student loan to fall back on is immature, irresponsible, but at the end of the day not that big a deal. Missing a day of work when you need to pay your rent, bills and buy food and don't want to get fired is out of the question. I start my new job on the 17th of this month, the first full-time job I'll have ever had, and I have been nearly paralysed by fear at the thought of the discomfort today. I'm used to being at university, where yeah I may need to do 10 weeks work here, but then I'll have four months off, woo hoo! I'm now going to have to go to work every. single. day. With no day off in sight unless I pre-book it far in advance.

Yay?

I know that's not a big deal to most people. But I've got used to myself being a quitter, and I don't want to be one anymore. I was on Skype to my mother earlier, and we were talking my potential and how I've not really lived up to it in the past (my words, she was actually fairly complementary about what I've achieved so far). I pointed out that I know I haven't lived up to my potential in the past, and she said how it's easy to blame other things, but now I've got to take responsibility for my actions. I was quick to point out to her that I take full responsibility for not getting enough done in my past. I am very aware that I am the problem. I don't want to be the problem anymore. This is going to be difficult.

And so I need to learn discomfort.

This applies to other things rather than just work. I'm going to become the lead tenant in our house, so I'm going from not being responsible ever for any bills, to being responsible for the upkeep and running of our house and the three people living in it. I'm going to be meeting a lot of new people, and socialising with new people is another area I feel out of my depth. I'm going to a networking event on Thursday, and I have no idea what I'm doing. My previous response would be to just not go.

But learning discomfort. I need to learn that I can do these things, be uncomfortable for a short while, and then things will get better. There's a Sex Nerd Sandra episode that discusses mindfulness, which might be something to consider here. One piece of advice given is to practice awareness without judgement. So acknowledge that in this moment you feel uncomfortable, but try not to over-think it. Don't assume it's going to last, don't blame something that you did in the past, don't start putting yourself down because you're uncomfortable, just acknowledge this is how you feel and move on. Everyone says you only learn by making mistakes, so if you're paralysed at the idea of making mistakes you're never going to learn.

And the whole point of this blog and this endeavour is that I want to learn. So I have to make mistakes. I have to do the things I don't really like doing. Because after a while they won't seem like a big deal anymore.

I used to never make my bed. Now I do it without thinking about it.
I think that's quite good metaphor for life in general.

Bam.

-----

Things I'm improving on: Oversleeping less.
Things I've still got a long way to go with: Finances. Not overspending. God, do I have a long way to go when it comes to this.

Weights on my shoulders [Part 2]

Song of the day: Icarus - Bastille

So where were we?

Consequences. Things have consequences. And we have to face them.

Yes, we do.

On the outside, my past actions of not working very hard at university and managing to get out of any prior consequences seem to have not impacted on my life in any way. After all, I didn't get into any trouble, I got good grades, went to a good university, and today I'm none the worse for wear.

I didn't take responsibility for my past actions. I blamed other circumstances. I wasn't feeling well. I just couldn't do it. Something came up. I never faced the truth. I was lazy. I didn't want to do it. I couldn't be bothered. I didn't work as hard as I could have. But now I have, I'm faced with thoughts of me not being or doing good enough. It doesn't matter if everyone else is proud of what I achieved, I know I could have done better. And that applies to most things in the last decade. For some reason, around the age of eleven I stopped caring. And now I've started again, I deeply regret large parts of the last ten years.

The other downside to never having to worry about consequences before is that now I do, and that terrifies me. I don't know how to deal with confrontation and being in the wrong, and having to own up to that. As stated in the last post, my response in the past has been to ignore it. To give up or to run away. I've become known as a quitter, and I hate that. But I've only got myself to blame.

So how does this get back to dealing with anxiety and depression? Simple.

By taking responsibility of my own actions and accepting consequences for what they are, I can help to break the cycles and just make life a lot easier for myself.

For example, a few weeks ago I let anxiety get the better of me, and I switched my phone to silent for two or three days and ignored every phone call I received.

Yup, it was not a good idea. Ignoring problems/people does not make them go away. It only makes it harder to deal with afterwards. After all, not only are you then worrying about the initial problem, you're also worrying about the fact that you're ignoring them. It all adds up, it's not mature, professional or healthy. It's just stupid.

So I'm trying to change my actions. This morning I received an email that made me anxious (because so many things do, I can't really help it). In the past I would have left it for a few hours, until the stress built up so much that I had to reply or have a nervous breakdown. Today I replied straight away. I'm still a little anxious about it, but I know that there are no actions I can take regarding it now. It's out of my hands. I have done all the actions I can do, so the ball is in their court. [I realise I'm making this email seem like a big deal. It really wasn't, I'm just trying to explain my thinking.] I did all I could, and as redundant as it seems to say it, that's all I can do. For once, I did my best.

So I decided that I'm going to try making a list of all the things that are weights on my shoulders, either due to things I did in the past (or didn't do, as the case may be) which have consequences currently arising, or things which aren't of my making, but if I do not take action and responsibility, the consequences most certainly will be.

And whilst the idea of listing my weights so I can learn how to lighten my load is primarily to help myself deal with stress and anxiety, the fact that I suffer from anxiety is going to be one of the items on the list. It's nothing that's going to go away by itself. Now that I'm aware of it, I have to remain aware of it, and do what I can to reduce it's grip on me. It may not be my fault that it affects me, but it will be my fault if I don't deal with it.

This post became a lot more ramble-y and different than I originally intended. I was going to just list the weights and talk about the best way to ease them, but I think that might have to be a private endeavour before I make it public. I'll be delving into the depths of my mind that normally remain untouched. Who knows what will surface?

Weights on my shoulders [Part 1]

It's very hard, on days like today, to talk myself into doing something. There's no particular 'something' that I should be doing, it's just a generic idea of productivity. I feel bad, so I don't want to do anything, so I don't do anything, so I feel worse. It's a horrible cycle that occurs often when one is suffering from depression [mild], and there's a similar cycle that crops up with anxiety [more severe]. Only in that case, you put off doing a task that is making you anxious, which therefore makes you even more anxious about it.

You said it, Stiles.

The most important thing is to be aware of the cycle. I'd been vaguely aware of it for some time, but it was really drilled home for me during my sessions of CBT [cognitive behavioural therapy]. It became clear that the best way to feel a bit better is to get something done. That way you can't sit around berating yourself for being lazy and unproductive, because look, you're not! Which is why I finally sat down today to write this blog post. I got up at half eight this morning, earlier than I have done in a while, and proceeded to do absolutely nothing for several hours. That's not going to make anyone feel good, let alone someone who started the day feeling down for no reason anyway.

So is there a point to this post, besides forcing myself to do something other than sit around with a weight in my chest?

Why yes, yes there is.

I've been thinking a lot recently about taking responsibility for myself. [Side note, awesome music just appeared: Sky Battle from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I was not expecting such dramatic music to occur at this moment.] It's partly due to having this break before I start the next big chapter of my life (i.e. starting work), but it's been building for some time.

In the past, my approach to bad things in life was a little like this:

It didn't matter what it was. Didn't do some homework? I could do it during the break it was due after, it was easy enough. If that didn't work, well, the teachers liked me, they'd accept whatever excuse I would come up with. Innocent-eyed and a good student, if I ever did do anything wrong I got away with it easily enough. Didn't revise for GCSEs? No problem, I got mostly A*s anyway. Don't revise enough for A-levels and actually get worse results? Drink too much, then blame your being sick on the chocolate you ate beforehand (which I'm still convinced played a part), and get out of trouble due to this being not-normal behaviour and you're so sorry and you'll never do it again. I never had to face consequences, so I could ignore the problems.

Then we get to university, when I'm more independent. Again, consequences don't seem to happen for when I don't do the right thing. I'm good at cramming and writing last-minute essays, which get me good grades even if they're not as good as I could do. So I ignored the fact that I wasn't working hard enough. I ignored the fact that I was having mental health issues until my flatmate coerced me into addressing them with a professional rather than just saying "oh I should probably speak to someone, this can't be completely normal, but ignore me, I'm fine". Once I stopped getting therapy, I just ignored the problem again instead of setting up a new support system. I've still not told my family the full extent (so if they happen across this, surprise! I'm fine, do we really have to have a conversation about this? I mean, we probably do, I just don't want to), and look, I'm trying to ignore a problem again! Then once university is over and I have problems with money and rent and finding a place to live and everything else that comes with being 85% independent, well... ooh look, a squirrel!

But you know what? These things did have consequences. They were just internal, and I ignored them until now.

Because now, I'm trying to pass as a 98%-independent adult, and I can't use my situation or personality or luck or anything to smooth over anything that goes wrong due to me messing up.

Accurate pictorial representation of the world.

The world doesn't work like that. It doesn't care about us as individuals. We have to care about us as individuals. So that's what I'm trying to do.

This post is getting too long. I'm going to split it. Part two can be found here.