I feel like over the past months my blog hasn't really been about 'me'. Yes, I know it's not always about me, but this is my blog and whilst I love makeup and beauty, I feel like this blog's less mine and more reviews and hauls 24/7, which is 100% what I never wanted to happen.
This was always my space to come and wright about my thoughts, feelings and absolutely everything else, but it's become stale and boring and I'm not happy at all.
You may or may not know, whether you've been here a while or just a short time, I have previously had anxiety and depression. Over the past two or three weeks, they've come back, really badly.
My biggest problem has been trying to explain how anxiety and depression make me feel, to people that have never encountered them. I have probably one, maybe two people, that seem to seriously take it into account. But that's the thing, I don't want people treating me differently, like I'm more fragile because I have anxiety and depression.
I just want them to know that if I'm not 100% myself, I'm not excited about something, if I don't want to go out, it's nothing to do with them, it's me, and it's something you have to leave well enough alone to let me deal with.
I'm not an over-emotional person, if I'm struggling with someone or something, I internalise it. I don't enjoy being the centre of attention, and I don't like it when people cause a huge commotion. I don't understand when people make a big deal out of things, simply because I deal with my problems myself. Which is probably not a great thing, I need to learn to share more, but I don't know if others actually want me to tell them what I'm feeling or what they want to hear.
Trying to explain anxiety or depression, to someone who's never dealt with it is very, very hard.
It's like trying to explain veganism to a T-Rex, completely impossible. One because it's a dinosaur and two it's frickin extinct.
For anxiety, just imagine thinking about that one thing that worries you a little, but thinking about it constantly, and making it a bigger and bigger deal. Like your building this wall up and up and up, until you physically can't get over it.
And it doesn't even have to be anything big, like a vacation, or a hospital trip. For me it can be small things that most people take for granted, I love driving, but driving to new places, or places with lots of roundabouts gives me a huge amount of anxiety. The cinema is a nice twenty minute drive away from where I live, and if I've driven to the cinema, you can guarantee that the entire way through the movie I'm watching, I'm thinking about the drive home. Pacing the entire drive out in my mind, every lane, every carriageway, every junction, everything. For a solid hour and a half.
It's too easy to say 'just stop thinking about it', but put it this way, back in school the night before that HUGE exam, you probably couldn't think of anything else, you were probably crazy nervous. Did you revise enough? Have you covered all the subjects? Do you have all your supplies? Think of that one nervous exam night, as the rest of your life, but about things that people see as stupid, small, petty or trivial. That nervous exam night, where you got barely a wink of sleep is my entire life.
That's how I'd explain my anxiety to someone.
Don't take this as everyone's word though, anxiety and depression are very different for everyone. If you've a family member or friend who's suffering with one of these, their experience might be completely different from mine.
Depression is a similar but different kettle of fish altogether.
A lot of people think of people with depression as suicidal, and some are.
My experience with depression is similar, but a little different, and some of my experiences I think are a little more common.
For me depression is being lonely, and not feeling like you have a reason to be here anymore.
Think of that time when you were a kid in the supermarket with your Mum or Dad, and you went off to get a bottle of milk, only to come straight back to where you left them, and your Mum's not there. That gut-wrenching worry that you will be left all alone, multiply it by ten-fold. Make it something you think about all day, I genuinely mean that, 24 hours of gut-wrenching loneliness, like no one will ever be there, like you will be alone and unloved forever.
Combine that with coming to terms that you'd be ok with going to sleep and never waking up again, it's pretty lonely and isolating.
Depression is like everyone else sees the world in HD, and you're stuck in a frosted glass box. You can kinda see what everyone does and is, but you're stuck in your own blurry box that is inescapable. At the same time, you know that there are people with way worse problems in their lives, you know that there are billions of people in much worse-off situations. It makes you feel selfish, that you should complain about being in your frosted box, when there are others in completely opaque ones.
I'm only writing this, because I know that it'll help me process my own feelings, and I also feel like it'll help you guys to understand what's been going on with me.
I want to give those of you like me, that are experiencing this awfulness, some kind of hope. I have an appointment next Tuesday morning with the doctor, and I'm going to talk to her about this.
In the past, after speaking to a doctor, I've been given medication and therapy. I didn't take the meds, but the therapy did sort of help, my therapist taught me how to process my feelings, my dark thoughts and how to put them to rest. To think of my good thoughts like Dragons, and my bad thoughts as Gremlins.
This time around though, I want to do this with you, let you guys know what's going on. This is something completely different that I don't really talk about on here, but it's time for you guys to know me. I don't want to be a brand, I want to be a person, I want my blog to be personal. And this is what I am going to do.
I'll let you know how I get on next week - fingers crossed.
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