Another Blogger’s Note…

Hey everyone.

How are all of you doing?

I know it’s been a while since I’ve written on here. If I am honest with you, I have been struggling a lot lately. Both my anxiety and depression have been flaring up more than usual. I mean, it’s always constant, but lately I’ve been experiencing extreme highs and crashing lows that literally leave me devastated, often ending my days curling up in my bed and filling my nights with crying.

I guess the reason for it all, though there are probably many reasons (and in that sense, no reason at all except for the fact that mental illness is not picky over the times it presents itself), is the fact that my exam week was last week. I’ve been working so hard up until that point all year, and I filled that week with intense cramming, so it left me exhausted by the end of it. The next week, which was the week just gone, I got all my exam results back. And to me they weren’t pretty.

I know I should be extremely proud of myself for getting through that week. Even the fact that I SAT those exams is a massive achievement considering what I went through that week in my head. But I’m not proud. If I am honest again, I’m ashamed in my results. Call me a perfectionist, tell me that I’m too hard on myself, but I am so disappointed in myself. It is just so incredibly disheartening to work so hard for something, to give it your everything, and to fall short. I’ve been there loads of times. I’m sure you have too.

Even though I’m feeling really low about myself at the moment, I’m trying to not let it get in the way of looking after myself, though it can be really hard at times. I’m also trying to remind myself that it’s okay to feel like this. It’s okay to be disappointed. It’s also okay to be angry. You have the right to feel those things because you are human and that’s what humans do; we do things we’re not proud of and we feel like shit. But feeling all of this is so important. You can’t get to the other side, you can’t pick yourself up and prove that you are strong, without having gone through the battle field first. Take a few hits. Cry over them. Even if it takes weeks or even months to get over. But don’t wallow for too long… you need to pick yourself up off the ground at some point.

So yeah, I’m not going to let this defeat me. When have I ever let anything defeat me? The answer is: never, because I am still breathing. Some day soon, I am going to pick up my scattered pieces, look at them, and figure out where the best place is to stick them back together. In a few days, or weeks, (however long I need really), I’m going to pick those exams right back up and work through them so I can figure out where I went wrong and what I can do to improve. When I go back to school next year for my final year before uni, I am going to go to my teachers, having already gone through my exams on my own, and work with them to help me improve even more. I am going to use this anger and disappointment as my fire, I am going to turn it into motivation and drive, and that is what makes me strong and will get me through to the other side.

For now, though, yeah – I’m gonna let this all wash over me. Then I’m gonna forget about it for a while, and give myself permission to relax. I need to find myself again. I neglected so many of the things that I love by prioritizing my study, so over the next few days I’ll be reacquainting myself with things that make me happy – ie, reading mountains of books for hours on end whilst drinking tea, spending the entire day with friends and actually being a teenager by having fun, riding horses and cuddling animals, etc. Those things are important too. If you’re not doing things that make you happy, or at least give you reprieve from stress, then what’s the point of doing the hard stuff?

I think the other thing that has steered me away from writing on here is the feeling that my writing has been going stale. I haven’t even been writing poetry as of late because I just don’t feel my creative juices flowing, or my motivation to do anything at all, for that matter. You have no idea the amount of times I’ve tried to write a blog post and stopped immediately or halfway through, or deleted an Instagram post that I’ve written, because I feel like it’s not good enough. I don’t want my writing to become a chore. It’s something that I love to do, and if I feel like my passion for writing has gone stale, something must be seriously wrong. So I guess I’ve been trying to steer clear of that happening.

I can feel myself coming out on the other side of my writer’s block, however. Still, I’m going to take my time. I want to apologise for not writing as much as I promised. Or keeping up with regular updates on Instagram. But, I guess, at the very least, this can be a reminder to you all, to prioritize self care, and to put yourself first. It seems I need to do a lot of work to catch up on that aspect of my life.

I’ll get there though. And so will you 🙂

Anyway, I also wanted to thank all of you who have stuck by my side, to everyone who reads my posts, whether it’s on Instagram or WordPress. All of you are truly beautiful souls. And helping you through my words is a massive help to me, too. Even if sometimes my presence on here isn’t all that regular. Thank you for being patient with me, and understanding that I go through these episodes…

I think this has been my longest depressive/anxious episode for a while. It’s lasted for 2 weeks and I can’t see a way out of it right now. But I have lights in my life that I’m reaching out to right now. And even if my writing isn’t at its best right now, I will always have my love for it.

So… thank you. For everything. I will hopefully be back soon.

Until then… take care of yourselves. 🙂 ❤

Trigger

Hi lovely people.

I’d just like to say something quick before I need to start my study for the afternoon (I need to finally stop procrastinating!!)

On Thursday night of last week, my mind set completely switched. Those of you who follow me on Instagram will know about it. I was having such an incredible week, there was literally no reason for me to break that night, but I did. It was so out of the blue and it gripped me so hard and so suddenly that I had to stop everything I was doing and just cried.

I did end up mustering the strength to look after myself very basically – feed myself, have a shower, wrap myself up in warmth, allowed myself to lay in bed. I was floating in and out of reality. All of a sudden, emotion would overcome me and I would lie there shaking and bawling my eyes out. That would last for a few seconds before the numbness overtook and I felt literally empty. I felt like I was losing my mind, losing all sense of who I was. This vicious cycle went on and on for God knows how long, until I finally sank into complete numbness, staring vacantly at nothing, feeling nothing in particular. The good thing about this complete absence of feeling meant my mind didn’t have the strength to conjure up any nasty thoughts, so I drifted off to sleep fairly quickly.

The next day, I woke up feeling a little better, though I could still feel the little monster wrapped around my leg, weighing me down. With 2 tests later that day, I chose to “push through” it. Got out of bed. Made myself smile. Hoping keeping active with both my mind and body would drive me out of this depressive episode. Sometimes, this is all you need – just a little boost and you’re good to go. And whilst I am proud of myself for getting out of bed… in the state I was in, this wasn’t the way to go. I needed to rest.

I found this out the hard way later on that morning. With each minute that passed, my mind set was rapidly deteriorating. Exhaustion gripped me – not from lack of sleep, from lack of motivation and feeling. My teacher in period 2 noticed and kept asking me if I was ok, after repeatedly pushing him away. Until I just snapped. I broke into tears.

My beautiful friends also noticed and did their best to comfort me. They encouraged me to go to the nurse, and one of them carted me away to go and see her, and – bless their souls – just in time too, because I was on the edge of a panic attack. I had pushed myself too far. I should have listened to my body and my mind’s warning signals. I ended up sitting on a bed in the nurse’s office, my face a mess as I started to cry uncontrollably. My whole body was trembling, I was hyperventilating, my head was spinning, my heart pounding. I was genuinely scared it would beat out of my chest.

My dad ended up having to come to pick me up. I felt so ashamed, sitting there in front of the nurse and my dad, unable to calm down. The nurse was so lovely though. She had witnessed one of my episodes before and stayed with me, helping me to gain my breath back. But, it didn’t stop the shame and guilt that swept me up. I think people tend to forget that although I am so open about my struggle, I am still ashamed of being so exposed and vulnerable to others.

As I said, I ended up having to go home. I missed my 2 tests, and a new wave of shame swept over me. It wasn’t that I wasn’t prepared for them; I was ready to sit them, knowledge-wise! It was my mental state that forced me to step down. I felt as though that maybe my anxiety was just an excuse for me to get out of things. I started to worry about what my teachers and peers thought of me. What if they thought I was just trying to have an unfair advantage over everyone else? Oh, poor Breanna, we should all pity her and exempt her from her classes whilst her peers have to do what she can’t.

And you know what the nurse told me? I hadn’t said any of these thoughts that overflowed from my mind. I was too distraught. But it was as if she read my mind. With my father’s hand on mine, I felt the warmth that traveled from her gaze on me, even though I couldn’t bring myself to meet her eyes. She said… “Breanna, we know you. We know that you would never suddenly just take time off if you didn’t absolutely need it. Because you’re a pusher. You push through things even when it’s detrimental to you. And even though that’s a beautiful trait to have, sometimes you need to just take your foot off the pedal a bit. It’s ok to rest. We all understand.”

This brings me to what I wanted to say today: sometimes, anxiety just has no reason. It can grip you so hard and suddenly, and there is just no explanation. There doesn’t always have to be a trigger.

But just know… it is never your fault. It is never an excuse. No, it’s not an excuse… it’s so much more than that. Anxiety is real and it’s valid. No one should ever feel guilty for this. No one should ever feel responsible. IT. IS. NOT. YOUR. FAULT.

For those on the receiving end, who witness someone who is in the same state that I was in on Friday, please direct any thoughts of them with compassion. We are so swept up in the stigma of mental health, the negative representation of mental illness, that some of us fail to understand anxiety just HAPPENS. It all happened so quickly for me on Friday. That morning I was smiling with my friends. Not even an hour later I had spiraled into a complete anxiety attack.

I apologise if this post is a little all over the place. My thoughts are a tad scattered. I am still a little stuck in the aftermath of my shaky experience from Friday. I just hope this brings across the message I wanted to deliver… that anxiety is not selective over when it presents itself.

I hope you are all well today. And if you aren’t, please reach out.

So much love to you all ❤

~Breanna xox

Slowly Killing Myself… Social Media and all its dangers (how do we combat it???)

(Lovely photo of the setting sky I took on my evening walk today… the soft pastel colours truly put me at ease. What a beautiful world we live in <3)

Heyy everyone!

So I wrote this last night in my sleep-deprived mind-set, because it was something that was just really irking me and making me quite anxious if I’m honest with you. And now I’d like to share it with you all, because I’m sure a lot of you feel the same things on some level.

What I want to talk about is social media.

I spend so much time on social media, to the point where it’s reeeally becoming a bit toxic for me.

I hate being absorbed in such a tiny screen, and hours just seem to fly by without my even noticing when I’m online. Sometimes I do notice, and that makes it even worse, because I can’t stop. I feel stuck. It just fills every gap of my day. Waiting at the bus stop or in the car. Sitting on my bed after I get home from school. Scrolling through pages and pages, meaningless by the time tomorrow reaches, before I go to bed. And for what?

Where is the time that we donate to ourselves? That we donate to others? That we donate to the world around us, the one that we actually live in, not one that we’ve created for ourselves in this tiny little box?

I know it seems a bit ironic, that I’m making a post about this online, the very thing that I am detesting. I’m adding to my collection of views. Pruning my social feeds.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the community of social media that I am in. It’s a place where I am able to help others and myself through sharing my experiences and sufferings, and along the way I’ve gotten to meet some pretty inspiring people, too. I feel considerably less alone than a year or two ago.

But it’s also taking its toll on me. This consumption. This urge and obsession for likes and comments. I won’t lie, I’ve been victim to it. I just don’t want it to take away from my life. I think that’s the line.

Life is beautiful, guys. And we’re missing it! Locked away in these screens. We’re absolutely missing the point. Why search something up on your little box when you can live it?

Just a random throw-in thought here, too: whenever I witness a truly beautiful moment when I’m out and about and immersed in nature’s glory, I always immediately get this strong urge to take a photo. “This would be a great backdrop for your next instagram post on how beautiful life is.” And that’s fine! The problem is that I start to stress that I’m not enjoying the moment like I should be, I feel that ever-pressing guilt that I’ve been swept up by social media, and neither self-peace nor captured photo is accomplished. Like, seriously, Breanna. (Ah, lookie, the essence of my anxiety: indecisiveness of the simplest tasks.)

Anyway, I’m kinda going off on a tangent. But that gets me thinking… maybe I need to set down some ground rules to help reduce this intoxication of social media, the guilt that ensues from it, and the consequences of what it takes from me!

So, here are my new ground rules (as of me writing this, right now.) You’re welcome to adopt them if you like, or modify them to suit you better. But I think having guidelines for your online usage is so important, so you don’t get swept away from life rather than in it…

1. Turn off all social media apps past 9pm.
I know a lot of people turn off their phones completely, but me being me I play out every scenario of how my night is going to go, and I worry that by turning off my phone, someone I care about may need me and won’t be able to reach me. Solution: ensure all my loved ones have my number, and mute all unnecessary apps!

2. Get into the habit of doing something proactive before going to bed, if you’re a restless soul like me.
I think part of the reason I’m so quick to jump onto social media at night before bed, in bed when I can’t sleep, first thing in the morning etc. is because I’m so RESTLESS and need to do something to clear my head!!!! Instead of adding on the extra minutes on my phone, I’m going to be avidly trying to do something that doesn’t involve my phone screen before bed. This can be a variety of things; reading a few pages or chapter of my book, watching a show that I like with my mum and cats, doing a crossword puzzle or word search, drinking my favourite hot drink of tea while I just simply SIT with myself and contemplate my overly-neglected thoughts by either writing or thinking (have some me-time, you know? Tune in to the little-me’s that make up my brain… they’re worthy of my attention too!), or going outside for a few minutes to look at the stairs and forget about myself in the presence of the vast expanse of the universe for a bit. You can change it up each night, however you want, as long as it’s a refreshing, positive or peaceful activity of self-awareness, reflection and/or compassion.

3. Allocate sectioned times for your social media usage during the day
I most certainly am NOT a routine-sticker. My actions and thoughts flicker and change every day. I obsess over planning, yet I HATE structure with a burning passion. But, I do believe it’s good to have a guide in place to help keep you on track, even if you’re in a chaotic loop-de-loop like me every day. I am going to start by allocating 1 hour maximum of social media every day, maximum of 15 minutes in one sitting, and see how I go from there – some days I may increase this slightly as I wish, and if I can reduce it, even better! I won’t keep the schedule too rigid. Hence, don’t beat yourself up if you go a little (or even a lot) over the limit. Building good habits takes time, just like what I was saying in my blog post on tips to develop self-compassion a few weeks ago. I will also restrain myself from going on it first thing when I wake up and get home from school, however I won’t ban myself completely during these times. Again, allow some flexibility. It’s just the same as removing any bad habit or addiction… you’ve gotta do it s l o w and gentle. 🙂

4. Aim to increase your physical exercise to combat your itch to return to your phone!
Once you’ve put your phone down, keep that bad boy down and keep active! Of course, sometimes exercise just seems like a drag, especially when we feel unmotivated. But it doesn’t have to be as big or spectacular as going for a run three times around the block or forcing yourself to go for a walk (although you most certainly can, if you want to! Don’t feel guilty if that’s not for you, though!). It can be as simple and as little as doing 5 minutes of yoga in your backyard, doing some stretches as you take in your surroundings, or even just takin a walk to the kitchen! Pairing your activity with the outside world will do wonders for your mind and soul if you can, especially if it’s a sunny day – enjoy this world while you have it! I truly believe nature has powers to heal us from the inside out. Even if you just look out the window for a few seconds on your walk to the kitchen, and actively get your mind to notice at least 3 things that you can see outside. You may surprise yourself with things you’ve never even noticed before.

5. Less scrolling, more engaging.
Yeah, sure, we’re being social on our phones. It IS called social media, right? Yes. Correct. The way I use social media IS to connect with people, and that’s wonderful. But next time you’re scrolling, think to yourself…

Am I engaging, or just scrolling?
If I am engaging with others through social media, is it worth my time if I am on my phone/is it something I am actually benefiting from right now?
Are there people who are currently here with me, in person, whom I feel comfortable socialising with and would actually make me feel better engaging with in reality rather than sitting on my phone?

So often, we push people who are closest to us away, and a lot of the time, we don’t even realise. Cherish the moments you have with the people physically here for you in your life, right now. Don’t waste all your time and energy in a screen. Be mindful of your present moment.
If you feel like a challenge, and the person(s) you are currently with in person are not people you know very well – ie. sitting at a bus stop with a stranger – put your phone away and engage in real-talking conversation with them! Of course, don’t push yourself if you don’t feel comfortable. But every friendship starts from the simple introduction of saying hello.

6. Don’t do things half-heartedly.
This is a saying that I still remember from my dad when he told it to me years ago. It’s stuck with me since then. I often feel bad that I push this little saying away, and have done many things half-heartedly many times. But I think it’s important to try and remember as much as possible, and to stop and listen to it. If you’re watching a show, watch it. With your full attention. If you’re spending time with someone, don’t keep checking your phone every 5 minutes. Turn it off if you really can’t help it. Just don’t let your phone steal precious moments from your life, more than it already has.

So, those are my 6 main tips for combating the pull of social media for now!

Please, please, please share with me any other tips for reducing screen-time obsession if you have any! I am always open to suggestions and I’m sure a lot of other people will benefit from it too, myself included!

Alright. Thus concludes another very lengthy post on my behalf. I hope you are all having a wonderful day/night, you lovely people. (It is currently 9:07pm for me over here in Aus, so I’m going to start unwinding now.)

Until next time!

Lots of love 🙂 ❤

~ Breanna

Blogger’s Note! :)

Hey guys!

So I just wanted to fill you all in on a quick note…

These next few weeks (the next 4-5 weeks to be exact) I am going to be extremely busy. I am finishing my studies in year 11, and have my end-of-year exams roughly 4 weeks from now. So my primary focus will be on preparing for these exams.

I love writing so much, and so that is why I am going to try my hardest to keep writing for all of you and for myself whenever I have free time & am in the mood for it! I will aim to make at least one blog post per week, however if I am inactive for a couple weeks at a time, please note that I’ve just been caught up in a little whirlwind called life, and I will be back very soon ❤

Thanks to all you lovely people for understanding!

I hope to write to you all again soon. And remember – be kind to your mind!

Cheers for now 🙂

heart

Breanna