Abigail's Anxieties

2018: somehow the best and the worst year of my life. But Abbie, how can something be both the best and the worst? Well, let's just say that 2018 wasn't exactly a quiet year in my life. (and it doesn't look like it's going to be much quieter at the end, seeing that as I'm writing this I'm stuck in bed with the worst cold I've had in years, coughing my lungs up, wishing for my eyes to pop out to relieve the pressure behind them...little TMI? Oh...okay...note to self; don't talk about eyes popping out of skulls or lungs being coughed up too much...anyway!) In January of 2018, I decided that it was finally time to explore my love of vintage fashion (that of the 1940's and 1950's) and well, it ended up taking over my entire wardrobe. Now in my local town and at university known as the girl that can always be seen in vintage clothing, making me easy to spot and often taking up a lot of room on public transport due to my love of giant ...

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 diab...

University life...how is it going so far? I'm not sure if I mentioned this in my last post but I GOT INTO UNIVERSITY (can you tell I was a bit excited?) and so far I have been loving it. I'm studying my BSc in Food Development and Innovation and even though I am only just about to enter my 3rd week I have to say that I have ended up on the perfect course for not only my future career but also for my mental health at this moment in time. You see, I love food. And not just eating food, but how the food we eat affects us, how society can affect our eating habits and how our actual eating habits compared to what they should be. These are some of the things that I happen to be learning in this first semester, but let me break down my 3 modules for this first semester.  Diet and nutrition: this is the class where I learn what the recommended eating habits of the nation should be. For example, did you know that the recommended amount of fruit and veg a day...

So yeah, where exactly have you been Abbie? An explanation explaining my absence  So yeah, I've been gone for a while, much longer than I was planning to be gone but gone none the less. So why was I away for so long? Where was I? What was happening? Well the answer to these questions are the same thing: A sever episode in my depression and anxiety disorder. You see, it's been a stressful time in my life recently what with getting my exam results, finding out if I got into university or not, starting to feel less and less confident in my own life decisions and this lead to me entering my "episode" as we'll call it. I was stuck in a vicious cycle. My anxiety was convincing my brain that I had failed my exams, and that made my depression kick in and say "well if you have failed, what's the point of getting up and doing anything? The past 3 years at college have been a waste of your life so you might as well rest the waste of it" ...

The things no one tells you about depression and anxiety  The things you don't get told about depression and anxiety, written from the perspective of someone with both. So as many of you reading this will already know, I have been suffering from mental health problems for most of my life, but I myself was only diagnosed in February 2015. Everything before that was my parent's mental health problems influencing my life.  Both of my parents have got mental health problems, which my mum having depression and anxiety (the exact same as me) and my dad having both of them as well but many more problems along with them. He hasn't been in work for nearly 4 years due to a complete mental breakdown at his last job (something which we still, as a family, find hard to talk about). Much like 33.1% of those with mental health problems*.  Since then, he has been a mere shell of a man that he used to be. Don't get me wrong, he still has his great days where he s...

Life certainly is strange How the PS4 game "life is strange" had a bigger impact on me than I thought it would. *SPOILER ALERT* So if you've read some of my other posts then you'll now that I like to play video games, and when my boyfriend saw that "Life is Strange" was one of the free games for PlayStation Plus, he knew it was right up my alley and instantly downloaded all 5 episodes for me, (I know guys, #relationshipgoals am I right?). Anyway, as I was playing through the game the topics in it started to become darker and darker and honestly, I didn't think that a game would be able to have such a mental and emotional impact on me.  The first time I was overcome with emotions was when the protagonist Max entered an alternative timeline which caused her best friend Chole to become a quadriplegic who felt she was surviving rather than living. After spending some time with her she asks you a very big favour; can you turn up her dosage of...