Bad Blood

The world of celebrity can often make us think that we ought to have our own 'squad' of friends. For instance look at Taylor Swift and her gang of leggy lady friends, they all joined forces in her 'Bad Blood' music video. The phrase 'friends in the right places' springs to mind, she capitalised on the idea of featuring famous women from a variety of industries; fashion, music, acting and even sporting as Serena Williams joined her on stage. She combined forces with these women whom she is often papped with to create a music video. This video attracted the attention of her fans, and also would have been of interest to the fans of the other women featured, even if they had no interest in Taylor Swift! As a slightly introverted person, it can be hard to see others living their lives with masses of friends and showcasing their activities on social media. I'm not a particularly jealous person, I know that there may be factors going on that aren't presented in their social media posts. Perhaps life can be fantastic with a big crowd of friends, sharing a holiday home for the summer and racing across the beach. I used to be part of a fairly big group of friends in secondary school. The group changed over the years, people joined the group and others drifted into different groups as they became more popular or developed different interests to the rest of us. I was happy for a time, until I realised how catty some girls can be. I hated witnessing how some girls made it their mission to actively exclude certain members of the group. I hate that I didn't speak up about it sooner. Most of you know what happened when I did speak up. Their catty nature and their gaze turned towards me and made me the target, but it became so much more than what I had witnessed before. It was pure, psychological bullying and harassment.

I was incredibly fortunate to have other friends at school, ones who I actually felt like myself with. I no longer had to act a certain way, ensure that I laughed at a particular person's jokes or agree with their vicious put downs of other people. I finally felt safe and secure. I'm still lucky to be in contact with most of those friends that were such a big support to me during that time. At the time they didn't know how bad it had been for me or how bad things were about to become. I hope that they're aware of how much they mean to me. We may have periods when we don't see each other much or when we've forgotten about that Skype call we intended to have. Life intervenes sometimes. University, jobs, relationships and geographical distance can make it hard to stay in contact. The truest friends will always understand that this is a part of growing up and that we'll all be there for each other whenever a crisis comes calling.

Despite all of that, I often find myself thinking about how few friends I have. I may know a lot of people, I might have a 'decent' number of friends on Facebook. However, I'm not in contact with almost 90% of those people and I can't say that we truly know each other. I can convince myself that I have a handful of really great friends that really understand me, which is fantastic. Unfortunately the demon inside my head will get the better of me and will have me in tears because I feel SO lonely. I can distract my mind to an extent with 'busy-work', but every now and then I will be sobbing hysterically, feeling like I have no-one to stick around for and no-one to hold me up. Have I mentioned how cruel depression is?! I don't understand why I appeal to people, what qualities I have that make someone want me as a friend. I've been told that some of my fiance's school friends read the blog and that they'd want to meet me. For which I want to say that I'm flattered, but I'm scared that perhaps they perceive me in a certain way through what I write. What if I'm a let down in person? Perhaps one day I'll be back here reporting on how a meet up went.

A Difficult Journey

Sensory overload with the photos?! It was a glorious day up North, days which are few and far between so I took full advantage of having my camera out in the sun.

This is the post that I had intended to write for last week, but alas the sinusitis struck me down! I'm still battling with it but I've manage to compose a 'proper post' for this week. The photos above were all taken whilst on a visit to the Botanical Gardens in Durham. Yes, Durham! I finally made it back up there after a year of being away from university. I'd manged to place all of my bad feelings onto the physical location of Durham as a whole, so for a long time it seemed like an impossible task to visit my friends up there. The reality is that there are a few physical locations in Durham that I'll probably never return to. There are panic attack hot spots for me, places where I repeatedly had panic attacks no matter how well prepared I was for the circumstances. I had been saying that I would try to go back for the college ball at the end of May/beginning of June as I remember it being a really great event despite the headspace I was in at the time of our first ball. Unfortunately we couldn't make it for various reasons, and I was quite relieved. I was aiming far too high for my first visit there. I must remind myself that baby steps are essential during my recovery! Getting up to Durham would be, and was, a massive achievement in itself. The trouble with me is that I'll think that they are achievements and feel pretty chuffed, but as soon as anyone else acknowledges them I'll be quite bashful and downplay those achievements. We eventually decided to head up by train for a long weekend with a stay in a hotel in central Durham so I didn't have to worry about long treks back to our safe place! We could have saved money by staying with friends in our former college, but I have a lot of bad memories of locking myself in my college room for weeks at the end of the first year, so we thought it would be a safer and more positive option to treat ourselves to a big comfy bed! 

I wasn't certain that I would even make the trip up to Durham. And hour prior to us leaving I was still in bed crying because I already felt like a failure, I was scared that people wouldn't want to see me and I was more terrified that I wouldn't be able to see them and end up letting people down. I'd been in that state for a few hours before Robbie came home from work before we were supposed to get our train. He's a very chilled, comforting being. Without him saying much at all to me, I realised that I could either spend a weekend without him sobbing in a bed in Epsom, or I could take a risk head up to Durham and potentially just spend a weekend crying up there with him popping in to check on me. Fortunately my reasoning won over the dark monster in my head, and despite a nerve-wracking journey through London,  I made it onto the Durham train unscathed. Arriving at a very late hour made it hard to distinguish the surroundings, I hardly knew I was in Durham (!), except for the obvious signs of an illuminated cathedral and castle. We took control of the weekend and all plans. I'd decided that I would do better without having firm plans in place as I could easily fail to attend things if I had too much time to think about them. Instead we opted for a spur of the moment mentality, doing what we felt like. Surprisingly I came up with the idea to head up to the Botanical Gardens which is very close to our former college. It was a trip that we hadn't managed to do as a couple whilst we were at university, despite it being all of a 5 minute walk from our college accommodation. I got trigger happy with my camera. Robbie had to prop me up a bit as there was a fair amount of walking to do, and it was an uncharacteristically hot day in Durham! That combination together with my anxiety left me reaching for my inhaler for relief a few times. I soon got over it as I was super excited to show Robbie the giant greenhouses full of cactus plants and GIANT lily pads, in my eyes the best aspect of the Botanical Gardens which he'd managed to miss out on previous visits with others. 

The remainder of the weekend consisted of spontaneous dinners with some uni friends as well as some time spent together as a couple. It seems ridiculous that I can be terrified of seeing friends, but I genuinely was. We managed to keep some anxiety at bay by arriving to the restaurant early and having a few cheeky cocktails to perk me up a bit! Ultimately I had to keep in mind that these people could easily make excuses if they didn't want to see me. I even managed to have some fun with Robbie's former housemates, we were all friends from the same college corridor from our first year, but I always found them a bit intimidating. Deep down I know they're all teddy bears really, and I've managed to comfortablyy have one-to-one time with most of them. I was really happy to spend time with them casually playing the Xbox and surprising them with my skills on a certain game called "hidden in plain sight". I managed to have a really great time with all of them, catching up with some close friends from uni and being really excited for their future plans after graduating. It can be really difficult for any student to meet up with uni friends after graduating, so I'm even more concerned that I won't see some of them again. Hopefully we'll be able to meet up in a convenient location for everyone at some point.  I know this seems like a 'me, me, me' post but I hope you can identify where I've attempted to reason with my inner demons to control a potentially stressful trip and end up having an enjoyable time by doing things the way I needed to. It also really helps knowing that everyone up there knows about my situation now, whereas whilst I was at university they didn't have a clue and either thought I was quite shy or may well have never given any thought to it at all! Its never easy admitting to something like that, and you might lose the support of some friends but the ones that matter most will stick by you and hopefully those friendships will last for a lifetime.

Cutting Loose

Yes, I'm completely crackers. Disclosure: no hairs were harmed in the production of these photos.

When I was younger I never imagined life without my closest friends by my sides. I barely remember how those friendships began, they simply just always existed. We don't tend to foresee the breakdown of friendships, sometimes people simply drift apart and move towards other groups. These transitions often feel quite natural, but at times they can be devastating and have a long lasting affect upon our lives. Over the years I've had to intentionally break off friendships. In my teenage years I drifted through various friendship groups, this was fairly pain free as I wasn't alone in those transitions. There were times when I had to break away from people as I realised some 'friends' no longer shared the same values as me. At one point someone attempted to bully me into remaining loyal to them despite them behaving in ways I didn't agree with. Those actions were the reasons I was distancing myself from them in the first place.

Sometimes bullies can be halfhearted, they strike out, the result of their own insecurities. Fortunately I was able to brush them off when I first encountered bullying. My second encounter with a bully was very different. They were manipulative, strategic and vicious. I'm often told that I ought to pity bullies, supposedly they must have some deep issues or problems at home, they seek control through bullying in their domain. At the time I didn't realise it was a form of bullying. Yes, it was verbal abuse which I associated with bullying. However, I'd never experienced or heard of psychological bullying, something which would affect me for the entirety of my young adult life. I don't hold onto any angry feelings towards those involved. Mostly I just want to know why it happened, how they could do such a thing and whether there really was something going on with them to cause the attack on me. It was a hard time for me, I isolated myself and walked away from long-standing friendships to avoid causing a 'choosing of sides'. Reflecting back upon that time, I realised that sides wouldn't have been chosen. They were all under the thumb and believed the rumours spread about me. These 'friends' ought to have known those rumours were completely out of character and could never be true. I'm not one to give myself compliments or to 'talk myself up', but I will say that I'm loyal and I care for those I know and love. We don't always anticipate change, we don't expect having to walk away from friendships.

In a way, this post is a letter to my 16 year old self, and advice to anyone experiencing similar problems currently or still allowing problems in the past to weigh upon them today. There isn't much about my 'depression story' that I'd change. However, I would have walked away sooner. You never need to change yourself for anyone. I attempted to change and adapt to please others. I used to stay out longer than I ought to at the weekend to avoid 'missing out' on the laughs, the stories and inside jokes that would be re-iterated for the next week at school. None of it made me happy. True friends don't seek to make you feel uncomfortable, they don't intentionally exclude you and if they love you for who you really are they won't try to change you. The genuine friends will stick with you throughout good and bad times. Long distances and lengthy periods spent apart won't break the bond. My true friends have emerged since I started being honest about my life, the struggles and the conditions I live with.

This post came to mind in anticipation of an upcoming trip to Durham (where I attended university). I'm aware that my friends from uni read my blog and that they're supportive of it. I'm glad that they now know how hard it was for me whilst I was there, and why I wasn't around as much in the second year when I was really struggling. I have reached out to a few of them, but its difficult to maintain contact when we have little to talk about, reaching out sometimes feels artificial. I've missed them more that they know, I cherish memories of my better days with them and value their friendships. I haven't seem most of them for well over a year, a fair amount of fear comes with that amount of time apart. Despite that, I know that the true friends will be there to catch me if I start to wobble.

The Lonely Beast

 A new, updated, fresher layout for the blog and a few bits that have cheered me up this week.

Depression is a lonely beast. It's not as if I have a few fellow depressed housemates and we've synced up like it's our time of the month, so we sit around in our pyjamas having a cupcake party. If only. It's very much a personal thing, I try my best to let others know what's going on, they can usually tell when my mind is cluttered and bothering me. However, I can't always tell them the specifics at the time it's occurring, this may be due to being afraid of certain thoughts and how others may react if I voiced them out loud. I'm frequently clouded with thoughts but I can't pinpoint what's really bothering me, why I've suddenly slumped and can't even build a nest for myself on the sofa in front of some familiar TV programme for comfort. On days like those nothing can break the flow of those thoughts, I cannot concentrate and yet I can't relax either, I'm restless but I just want to lay down in the foetal position for hours and watch the sky go from dusk to dawn, black to blacker. As I said, it's a lonely beast, especially when you can't figure out what the problem is so you can share it with others. Depression is the world's greatest incognito figure, a master of disguise and a shape shifter.

The worst part of leaving university and living away from my hometown is not knowing many people here, I can go for months with only seeing the same three people. As lovely as they are I miss other human contact, I seem to be afraid that I'll lose the connections formed at uni, the people that were unknowingly such a huge support when I needed it most. I'm also scared that those friendships may not have been as strong as I recall, most memories I have were formed in my first year there back in 2012-2013. My second year of uni consisted of me fading away into my lockable room, barely seeing anyone from February onwards. I was frequently left agonising over conversations I felt had gone badly, I sweated over the details such as how I fidgeted nervously the entire time or how I knew I ought to have walked away sooner but I was too anxious and awkward to excuse myself and leave.

Most people attempt to convince me that others don't notice the things I sweat over, but what if they did notice? What if the image I left them with is one they don't want to remain in contact with or even be reunited with? I'm trying my hardest to reach out and keep the connections flowing, but how long will the links remain in tact if I can't face returning to the place where everything crumbled?