Although I may come across as a ray of sunshine on here, the truth is that throughout life I have leant comfortably towards the more pessimistic side of the perspective spectrum. That is, I’m moody and I want everyone else to be moody with me. However, as of late I’ve needed a bit of a morale boost and so I’ve been practising writing pieces with a little more positive energy. So, since it’s Friday and I am still battling the mother of all colds I thought I’d share the five best decisions I’ve ever made!
Story time! Throughout the majority of my teenage years I struggled every day to get out of bed and go to school. I was deeply uncomfortable with my existence, constantly anxious and everything was a little bit shit. At the time, I thought this was just normal teenage behaviour because that’s what I was repeatedly told. I didn’t want people to pay attention to me, I didn’t want to be dramatic and most of all I didn’t want people to see I was weak. Nobody was going to see how I was really feeling, because if I admitted that I needed help it would only make things worse and besides everyone else felt as horrific as I did, right?
Well eventually, I stopped getting out of bed in the morning and when I did my behaviour was sometimes worrying, eccentric and even dangerous. After years of stubborn struggling, I agreed to see my doctor and after starting my second year of Sixth Form in 2009, I saw my first ever psychiatrist.
Although I haven’t always had great relationships with the mental health system, I cannot imagine what my life would be like now without going through those learning experiences. If I hadn’t agreed to accept help I doubt I would be as mentally stable as I am now.
After I’d been seeing my first psychiatrist Eric for about two months, he suggested that I re-evaluate the people I keep close to me as I left my school life and went to university.
When we’re in school, we’re forced to build friendships with people simply because we’re in a close environment for the majority of our time. A lot of the friendships we make aren’t built on foundations that we would require in friendships outside of school, and so we end up attached to people who are less than desirable. Teenagers are rarely equipped with the knowledge and experience it takes to tell whether people are compatible or simply thrown together, and worse still they don’t know how to be a friend themselves. Throw puberty in there, and the fact that some people are just cruel, and you are definitely going to end up with more than a few dickheads knocking about in your life.
I was hesitant about cutting people out of my life because I knew that a couple of my decisions would have huge consequences. Still, even all these years later I cannot say that I regret removing a single one of those people from my life. I am surrounded my genuine, caring, selfless people who I am completely in sync with, and I would give up friendships with a million nutters for any one of them.
Time to get serious. Despite what movies would have you believe, nut allergies are not a huge inconvenience in everyday life. Usually, having a nut allergy simply means asking if there are nuts in your meal when ordering in a restaurant, reading ingredients and giving evil looks to your vegetarian friend who insists on eating pesto near you. Or at least they did until they found out it had meat in it somehow… Seriously, being vegetarian is a lot harder than having a nut allergy.
Really, there are only two heartbreaking things about being allergic to mother nature’s tiny, killer monster-food:
- You will never get to drive in The Crunchy Nut Lane.
- You can’t join in on the Nutella love.
The latter was always a genuinely devastating issue for me, but no longer. Whilst in Malta I tried Nutella for the first time thinking it was simply chocolate spread and fortunately, I was fine. Now I eat Nutella all the time, and I’m pretty sure I’ve eaten my own weight in Kinda Buenos. I am now living a more fulfilling, praline-y existence.
Hanging on to them will not pull them closer, wasting energy on them will not make you happier. Concentrate all of your effort on yourself, and eventually you’ll be so far passed them they’ll just be a blip in your past.
When I enrolled in my Digital Media Journalism course at university, I never thought for a second I would enjoy it as much as I do. Writing online is the best possible job I could imagine: I get to share my writing with the entire world and make an impression on thousands of people every day. I cannot think of a single job I would enjoy more - other than professional video game and pizza tester - and although I’m only at the beginning the possibilities just seem to multiply every day. Better still, my anxiety levels are lower than they have ever been because I get to control what I do.
Sure, I get odd looks when I tell my relatives that I work from home and online because I think what they hear is “I do shit all every day and I love it” and sometimes I feel ashamed that I’m not out there working in a boring, normal job like everybody else. All I have to do when I feel like that is remind myself that times are changing, that online journalists are necessary in the modern world and that being a waitress was the worst job ever and I never want to do anything like that ever again.
For those among you who aren’t too keen on my sappier posts, don’t worry: I have something typically defeatist planned for next week.
