Abigail's Anxieties

Dear world, 
please believe me when I tell you I'm ill.
I know, I know.
Looking at me from the outside I look like a relatively healthy 20-year-old woman.
I don't look particularly overweight, I'm taller than the average woman but nothing too notable. 
But what I need you to understand, world, is that what you see is a one-second snapshot of my life. 
What you don't see is the confusion, the anxiety, the lack of motivation, the lack of emotion and the stress in my brain. 
You don't see the night before where I was lying in bed wondering if it was worth getting up the next day just to go back to bed, to get up again, to go to bed again... 
You don't see just how many thoughts are going through my head at any one time. 
You don't see me crying, holding myself and sometimes unable to make a single noise as I try to understand what is going on around me while whatever is around me is making no effort to try and understand me. 
What you do see in that one second is someon…

My new curly hair routine for 3A/3B curls
So over a year ago, I did a post all about my hair care routine and explained how having good hair seemed to help me with my depression by lifting my spirits. Well since then I've done a heck of a lot of research into the best ways to care for curly hair as well as trying a few different techniques.
Now along the way, there was lots of frizz, lots of knots but in the end, lots of good results.
So I thought I'd share this new routine with all my curly haired friends out there and those who are intrigued by curly hair, which to be honest seems to be everyone in my life who doesn't have it.
I mean, I even have complete strangers sometimes come to look and even try to touch my hair.
No, not weird at all, go ahead random person I don't know, attempt to run your hand through my impossibly thick hair while knotting it up in the process.
Just....just no.  
Now, just a couple of things before I start with the routine itself. 
1) You ar…

Dear body, why are you working against me?
Do you ever feel like something or someone is working against you? Like it/they don't want you to do well or succeed in life? And that it/they will do anything to get in your way?
Well, I feel like that right now. And this thing that's getting in my way? My own body.
It started when I was diagnosed as asthmatic which affects me a lot with physical exercise e.g. walking around and extream weather such as very hot and very cold affect my breathing so I have to use my inhaler but I've had it for so long I'm used to it.
Then October 2017 happened and I developed costochondritis which I still have to this day. Most cases sort themselves out in less than a year or at least improved. My case has gotten worse over the past near year and my day-to-day life is affected.
I have to take multiple breaks during the day just to give my body a chance to recover. I have to use so much more energy just to get through the pain of the day meaning I…

I've finally realised it, I need to make some lifestyle changes
All my life I thought that I was being healthy, making the right choices for my body and my life. 
And for a while they did seems like the right choices. Although I didn't realise it, I was lucky that I had very few medical problems, my "puppy fat" from my younger years just fell off without me trying and I had clear skin. 
But over the past couple of years, my luck has been slowly running out and know it looks like I'm now actually going to have to work towards getting back what was once my "normal" body.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm fairly happy with how my body looks now but the extra weight has decided to all just collect around my stomach which could really cause problems for my health in the future. 
You see, those with excess fat around the stomach area are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes and heart disease in the future and considering that diabetes run in my family it's…

My "emergency" kit I have to get me through life
So a large part of my anxiety is being surprised by unpleasant situations and that if something goes wrong there is nothing I can do about it. 
And when I say emergency I'm not talking about "oh my, someone needs first aid for a broken bone" emergency (however I am looking into doing a first aid course, you know, just in case) but more of a "oh my, my period started unexpectedly" which unfortunately happens far too often for me (ladies, I know some of you can understand me) or "I suddenly have a headache and need some painkillers to get through the rest of the day" which tend to pop up in my life more often then I would like.
After being surprised and made anxious one too many times, I decided that enough was enough and that I needed to always have items with me to make sure that no incontinent situation would ever get the best of me again! 
With that in mind, I made a list of what I wanted t…

HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY ABIGAIL'S ANXIETIES!!!!
We made it through the first year. There have been tears, tantrums and times where all we wanted to do was sleep (but to be honest, that's me all the time). 
But there have also been smiles, laughter and many kind words exchanged. 
So let's sit back and look over the first year of Abigail's Anxieties and start to look to the future so we can have even more to celebrate on our second birthday. 
It all started on Wednesday 28th June 2017 when I set up this blog and was planning on having it as a place where I could not only vent about problems (thank you very much for listening to those rants by the way) but I could also use it as a place to show the positives and negatives of mental health problems to show both sides of the coin and educate people who may not know much about them and how they can help.
We started on the same day by showing the somewhat ugly side of mental health problems with a post called And so it begins... wher…