Long time no post..

firstly, let me just apologise for not posting any blogs for over a month. My anxiety levels got quite bad and after a very extreme panic attack getting me sent home from work and a new found prescription of Sertraline, I am now trying to get myself back on the mend..

one thing that did happen in my life over the last month though, that I wanted to talk about, was another ‘almost dating’ situation with a guy. It was a friend of mine who I’d known a long time, we got on like a house on fire and he was newly single and there was a mutual attraction there. So we decided to take things slowly and ‘get to know each other’..

After a few weeks, things died down a bit, and whether it was my anxiety giving me deja vu paranoias, or he genuinely was off with me, but I had a feeling in my gut that something wasn’t right. So I did what my anxious self does, and told him that he seemed a bit off and that I think maybe it’s best if we don’t talk for a while until he gets his head together a bit more and knows what he wants.

He didn’t take it that well. He claimed he was busy with stuff and then got all defensive over how I made it ‘quite clear’ I didn’t wanna speak to him and if he didn’t wanna talk to me he wouldn’t and I shouldn’t be deciding how he feels or what he needs. Maybe he was just using excuses to brush me off, maybe I had upset him with what I said, but we haven’t spoken since.

Which is fine, I’ll get over it. If a guy doesn’t wanna talk to you there’s nothing you can do about it. You have to just crack on with life.

But as this all happened, I started to process how and what I was feeling, and also the extreme deja vu of how most guys I have met have all been in similar circumstances. We always date for a bit, talk all the time, have feelings, but never reach the actual proper dating stage or relationship level. Someone always goes cold or quiet (unfortunately in my circumstances it’s always the guy) and one thing I learnt is that the ‘almost dating’ situations with guys, are always the ones who hurt me the most.

But why?

When you’re in a relationship with someone, you have a full chance to develop all the up and down feelings, and when the break up occurs for whatever reason, most of the time, you have some sort of closure from it, there’s a conversation or an action that takes place that makes you understand why.

When you’re ‘almost dating’ someone, it’s never the same, there is also rarely any closure. Because when you’re not really with someone, you don’t have to owe them anything. You can stop texting or seeing them at any given point. But the problem with that is, when you are at that level with someone, your feelings have just started – so when it gets cut off quite early on, you still have those feelings sat there, they’re like, stuck. Trying to burst out and develop. You are then always at risk of seeing them again and the feelings just never quite left. You also end up angry at people and hating them because there was never proper closure – they were just the person who binned you off at the earliest opportunity.

They are the worst scenarios to find yourself in.

I find myself going through phases right now, one minute I am okay with not talking to him anymore and accepting the fact it’s never going to develop. The next I’m frequently checking my WhatsApp hoping his name is gonna pop up and he’s going to try again. But he won’t. They never do. And that’s just another learning curve in life.

The closure part

The sad thing about these situations is that you don’t always get closure and know why it went wrong, or what made it happen. But the thing is, there’s nothing we can do about it. The more we keep looking for closure, the more down we get that it just doesn’t exist in that situation. So the one thing I’ve learnt is, sometimes, we have to just accept that some things in life do not involve a form of closure with another person. We have to make closure for ourselves, even if all it is, is us accepting fate and saying “this wasn’t what I wanted, but it will all make sense one day” and moving on.

Try and avoid pining and hating as often as you can. Be happy with the idea that everything happens for a reason, sometimes we don’t know what the reasons are, but things WILL work out in the end, with or without the person you thought it would end with. There’s always something better waiting for you if you let the universe give you what you need at the right time.

Disclaimer: although some of this post may sound like I’m against them, I am, just like most women and love a good chick flick.

Since as far as I can remember, chick flicks have always been a big thing. You barely ever go to the cinema without seeing 2/3 new trailers for some really comical looking story about a girl meeting a guy. But there was always something that really pissed me off about chick flicks: it was always about getting with a guy in the end. And more importantly: the woman most of the time changes something to suit the love interest.

Without meaning to be, chick flicks have quite regularly thrown out this idea that you are not truly happy until you’re with someone. Therefore, making most women think that they’re incomplete without a guy on their arm. And that’s not okay.

Now as I say in the disclaimer, I’m a sucker for chick flicks too and I love a good giggle and cry and romance and those big romantic gesture scenes (very unlikely to happen in real life by the way) always give me butterflies.

But, this is a new generation. Full of many people who do not focus on relationships. There’s a lot more women in their 30’s who are single (go us!), and care more about travelling or careers. So we need less of this ‘a guy saves you in the end’ shit.

If you were to take a closer look at some of the most popular romantic chick flicks, They’re all fantastic films for their time, but in all of these films the woman role is always giving up something for love, or lying about who she is to impress someone else, or changing things about themselves by the end of the film to be with their love. Now this isn’t always 100% wrong. Sometimes, in love, you do make sacrifices. There has to be compromise somewhere along the line.. and when it comes to these films individually, there isn’t anything majorly wrong with them on their own.. the issue is that all of the films go in that direction and that is what’s not okay.

Women should not feel like they have to go out of their way to chase a guy, lie to him, give up their dreams just because this guy might not be there or love them at the end. It’s wrong to expect women to constantly centre their attention on a guy.

Most importantly: if a guy is not going to wait for you or appreciate that you have dreams and goals too, he’s not the one for you honey.

Thankfully, chick flicks are taking an amazing new direction. It started with Isn’t It Romantic? Coming out a few months back, where Rebel Wilson gets trapped in a romantic comedy universe (much to her dismay) and although she does realise who the guy for her is by the end of it, the lesson she learns is how to love herself. And that is so important to portray in a chick flick in this day and age.

Then came Someone Great. A film focused on 3 best friends on a little night out so one of them can get over her ex who dumped her the night before. This film is full of laughs and all about friendship. But the best part about this film for me *spoiler alert* is she does not get back with her ex at the end!!

Let’s be honest, so many chick flicks do that don’t they? They either take the guy back at the end or they meet a new guy to run off with instead. The beauty of this film is it does not do that. Truth is, you don’t entirely know where their lives will go at the end of the film, but the lead girl is moving to a new town as part of her career and fair play to her, she is taking chances and grabbing the bull by the horns, and one day, yes, she probably will meet someone who shits all over her ex as a person and makes her realise why no other relationship worked. But we don’t need this in every single effing film we watch guys!

Always be my maybe has just recently come out on Netflix too, and that film is superb. In this film, the woman gives up nothing, she is career driven and it beautifully has a role reversal where for once the guy is chasing her and he is the one who moves to stay with her. I like the way this works out because it is also good to see that a woman can be successful and powerful and not have to chase a guy around. Women deserve to see this portrayed in films where a woman doesn’t give up her dreams for a guy.

Now I may come across in my posts etc like I’m bitter about love because I’m some 33 year old Singleton who literally has the worst luck with men but I don’t give up on the idea of love. I’d love to meet someone one day and have everything make perfect sense.

But I also think it is extremely important that women don’t feel like they are failing because they’re not settled down yet. We are not failures for knowing what we want and going out and getting it!

So if you are single – and also, this isn’t gender specific either – no one should feel like a failure for being alone, just remember that things always work out one way or another and there is nothing wrong with putting your career first or getting to know yourself before you meet someone else, so don’t feel like you have to be with someone because people are telling you to.

It isn’t always about finding someone to complete you. Complete yourself.

Surprise! It’s been a month almost since my last blog post! Whaaaaat!

I am so sorry for the silence. This post is just a quick one to point out I’m okay, I’ve not gone anywhere and I will be back to blogging very shortly.

Why the long disappearance? I’ll be honest, I’ve had a bit of a negative spell, with everything. My best friend got married so that occupied my time quite a bit with bridesmaid duties, prep etc.

But then also, excitement aside, I’ve been very depressed about things, at 33 my life has been put into a bit of reality perspective. I’ve gone through the whole ‘everyone is settled down except me’, ‘I’m still living at home with no savings’, ‘I haven’t travelled’. All the standard crisis moments that cross your mind when you start to feel like a failure in your life.

So I’ve spent the last couple of weeks in a bit of a loss. Questioning where my life is going, trying to gain more self-confidence (which is difficult when you constantly feel chubby and like the ugliest woman in Britain), and trying to find ways to control my mental health from being at a very dark level. It’s not been my highest moment.

But. I have figured what better way to learn things about myself and progress with things then to continue blogging about this journey I am on? I have a lot of things I always wanna talk about, and the blogging community have been nothing but amazing throughout my blogging experience, so here’s to some more posts going forward (hopefully happier)

So sorry for the lack of posts guys and those of you that have taken the time to read this and are still following me or subscribing. I thank you so much 🧡🧡🧡

The above is from “the witch doesn’t burn in this one” by Amanda Lovelace (I strongly recommend her stuff, it is beautiful)

I have spent as far as I can remember struggling with anxiety, depression & ADHD. I don’t know what decent sleep is, I don’t know what it feels like not to worry, I have mood swings like nobodies business & when I feel down, my god do I feel fucking down.

It’s mental health awareness week, so I thought I’d give a reflection on how my mental health has been in the past, & some of my lower points, for no other reason then because it is good to be honest about what goes on with us, & I don’t want people to suffer alone.

I think I was around 17 years old when I first started going to the doctors about mental health issues (not knowing much about mental health at the time) without realising I had problems. Initially, I just remember going to GP’s moaning about the fact that I can’t sleep. Now I don’t always remember every single thing that happens in my past at the exact times or in the right order but I can declare for a fact, that I do not remember the last time I knew how to sleep successfully.

In fact, I remember being a kid & my Dad saying to me one night “to get to sleep you just need to clear your mind and stop thinking about everything” & it was literally the most impossible task for me to get my head around. It was a few years later that I finally had the word ‘anxiety’ given to me, oh & depression, & ADHD… so it made sense why my brain just physically is incapable of shutting off & letting me sleep.

I think I sleep on average, about 5 hours a night, a lot of the time it’s broken sleep. The only times I really sleep through the night for 6-8 hours is if I’ve literally not slept well at all for about 4 days & so my body passes out a bit. But we all know that is not healthy.

I’m not healthy. My body physically seems to be fine every time I have tests done (other than hypothyroidism obviously), but mentally I am so so unwell.

I’ll be honest, my mental health I sometimes look at like the sea. It seems calm, & peaceful at times, but out of nowhere these waves started crashing in, sometimes the waves are tiny & bearable, & other times they are clashing in hard & fast & if I don’t run out quick enough they’ll drown me…

I haven’t always dealt with my mental health in the best ways either, I became addicted to smoking at 16. (I vape mostly now but sadly still cave in to cigarettes when I’m having a very bad day, or I’m drunk/hungover). I got careless, & I also had a big period of my 20’s when I did get quite selfish. I was so wrapped up in how I felt about things that I didn’t really care about anyone else or how what I did would affect them. Having a condition like vaginismus as well made me such an angry person, that once again my brain controlled me enough to give me a horrible condition that was going to affect every relationship I’d ever have with a man.

I’m not proud of how I behaved sometimes (& my God does my anxiety like to constantly remind me) nor am I proud of the fact that I was an on-off self harmed for many years, I wasn’t very good at it, which made me more depressed, but you don’t have to have scars to know that what you’re doing to your body is harmful & you need help. But it made me feel better.

I haven’t self harmed in over a year now. I’m not going to say I will never do it again, because whenever I say never somehow things happen, so I just would simply say I don’t wish to do it again.

My health has improved slightly in recent months, I think doing a lot of writing & blogging has helped with that. I’m becoming a bit more confident in myself (a lot of my depression & anxiety stems from how I perceive myself as ugly & irritating) & I hope that in the future I will be able to progress & be okay.

I’ve said this before I’m pretty sure, but I don’t hate myself for having mental health problems. My mental health issues have been with me for so long that I don’t really know how to be me without them. But there’s going to come a point in my life (hopefully) where I will overcome these issues & they won’t have so much control.

More than anything though, I am grateful that we have things like mental health awareness week. & it is slowly but surely becoming something people talk about openly more & more.

There is still some way to go though,

I still get scared or embarrassed to talk to people about my mental health issues or things I’ve been through, because sadly there are still those out there who have misconceptions about mental health or do not understand. But I’d like to think that we are progressing to more understanding.

It is okay to talk about how you feel. If your friends or family just ‘don’t get you’, see your doctor or see about counselling/CBT. But as I say this, it’s important we acknowledge the next part don’t let other people’s mental health stories dictate how you should treat your own. The thing about mental health is, there are so many different people that have it affect them in different ways. & there is a variety of treatment out there.. but just because your friend took anti-depressants doesn’t mean you should take anti-depressants, you might benefit more from behavioural therapy, or counselling (there’s a big difference between CBT & counselling, I’ve had both), only you know what you are going to feel most comfortable with. Accept advice but the only person who is ever going to really get how you’re feeling is YOU.

Take everything you can, one step at a time.

xxx

At the beginning of April I made a very abrupt decision to go on a complete break from dating. For three months.

The reason for the time frame of 3 months is because I have a journal from a company called Project Love. Project Love do this ‘goodbye 2018 hello 2019’ journal, and the idea of it is, every 3 months you set yourself some targets and you write reviews after every 3 months of how you’re feeling and progressed etc. At the start of April I was at a bit of a loss. I honestly didn’t know what 3 targets to give myself.

My targets have been mainly about saving money or paying off debts. And different things to do to help my mental wellbeing. As my mental health has been very bad lately. I’ve constantly been feeling quite worthless.

But why is a break from dating good for my mental health?

People are always making it this big thing that in order to be happy you should be with someone, and ‘putting yourself out there’. But Dating in this generation is HARD. We are literally the most anti social generation ever. But that’s not entirely our fault, we’ve been given modern technology which allows us to not have to communicate with other people… unless it’s behind a screen. We don’t talk to others on public transport, we have our headphones in and are glued to whatever social media app we can’t get off of. So of course we’re now in that completely cut-throat world of online dating. Because it is easier to swipe left or right then it is to speak to someone in a real life scenario.

I have been doing online dating on and off for at least five years, although actually.. plenty of fish has been around for a long time so it’s probably more than that. But as you can tell from my blog topics, it’s not exactly been a success story for me.

The problem is, a lot of us use dating app’s on the pure basis that we’re bored and just fancy a hook up, and that makes it harder for those who are looking for something real on the apps.

In 2018, I met up with at least seven different guys – only one of those did I have a second date with, I also exchanged message conversation with another five or so guys per app, and I was on three apps so that’s over twenty guys I ‘wasted time on’.

After a while, that shit gets exhausting. It is also really degrading when you match with people who just waste your time or don’t even bother to talk to you or make an effort. I am ashamed to admit that over the years, I became so desperate to be with someone that I got quite full on….

I would get overly keen on guys, I’m never good at playing it cool anyway but the truth is, that doesn’t always matter, but it does when the guys you’re wasting all your energy on will never see you as more than a laugh on a rainy afternoon when they’re in between video games.

So, it was my only option. For the sake of my mental health and sanity, I had to give myself a damn break from all these guys. And I needed more respect for myself.

We all deserve happiness, which doesn’t have to be with someone else.

The first month of the hiatus went quite fast so I haven’t really reflected on if I feel like I’m ‘missing anything’, but it has literally been such a huge sigh of relief to not be thinking about dates .

In the last month I’ve managed to spend more time reading books, still not as much as I’d like to just yet but it’s a work in progress, I’m managing to keep distanced from my phone when I need to because I’m not stressing about time limits on messaging strangers, I’m focusing on myself, 100%.

My social anxiety used to make me a bit paranoid about going to things alone in case I got judged. Recently I signed up to an unlimited Cineworld card (because I am a huge film buff and it obviously makes sense) and I’ve been to the cinema to watch a film alone 3 times in the last few days, and it’s actually been really nice, no worrying about the person next to you whispering at crucial parts, no waiting around for someone else when you want to grab food or go pee, it’s all on your own terms! I can sit and laugh, smile and cry as much as I like without being judged. And most importantly, no worrying about when other people are available to see something with you.

I could not recommend activities on your own more. Sometimes you’ve just gotta give yourself love.

Always remember, you can be alone but it does not have to mean that you’re lonely.

Depending on how May and June go for me, I may extend my hiatus if it feels right, or I’ll give dating another go but be more serious about what I’m looking for. But there’s no pressure on myself to jump back on the dating wagon, I am going to do everything in my own time and on my terms.

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been finding my mental health a bit hard to handle. I can’t explain why, but I am what I can only describe as stuck.

I’m stuck in a deep dark feeling that I have zero control over, for reasons I can’t explain (not because I don’t want to, but just because I genuinely don’t know why) I have no ability to be very happy about anything.

The exclusion here was Avengers Endgame. Apart from being overly excited on the build up to seeing that and feeling bittersweet about the film, I have had zero excitement about things.

No one would know because I’m constantly having a smile on my face and acting all hyper and like life’s a breeze etc but inside I just feel this emptiness.

My best friend gets married in less than 2 months, I’ve had a wedding card made ready, I’m a bridesmaid, I have my dress and it is one of the most exciting events to be a part of, but as happy as I am for her, I just feel so empty. There’s so many group chat conversations about how this build up is so exciting and she’s counting down the days, but for some reason I just can’t feel anything. I’m happy about them being excited, but it’s like I have a blockage. Like something inside of me has shut off. I can’t break through the barriers and experience positive emotions.

This isn’t a new experience for me, I go through phases with this, because of also suffering from ADHD, anxiety and hypothyroidism my mind is always exhausting itself with all of that shit going on, so thankfully the low moods become rare, but my god when I get them are they extreme.

I get bored easily. Of everything. I’m the sort of person who can binge watch a show or get really engrossed in a book series but then for no reason just phase out from it and go off it and ‘not be bothered’, not even down to writers or actors changing anything, it’s just the way I am, I’ve had it in relationships and dating too, I’ll feel like I like someone and then a few days later just feel nothing.

These sorts of feelings and emotions always concern me a great deal because it makes me worried deep down that I’ll never truly be happy. I seem to be tired all the time at the moment as well, even when I’m getting plenty of sleep. So it’s clear that my minds downer mood is having a negative affect on my body.

I can’t talk to anyone about it because it’s hard to explain and also, everyone else seems to be having their own stuff going on and I don’t think what I tell my best friends would be taken very well. So I figured I would write it all here in a blog. Where it’s easy to filter my feelings out.

So what am I doing about it? I don’t honest know. I have a couple of new self help books to get my teeth into, I currently have a book called ‘Wherever you go, there you are’ which is about mindfulness and meditation, I keep getting these things recommended to me so I’m going to give it a try (see if my adhd mind will actually let me focus enough to meditate for 20 seconds here and there!) we’ll see how it goes.

Hopefully my next blog post will be a bit more fun and intriguing. I am considering writing a post about my thoughts on Avengers Endgame as well at some point but, I’m going to give it a while so people have the chance to see it before spoilers are discussed.

Keep smiling xx

Hey there! Apologies for the big gap between blog posts, I’ve been away on a trip with friends. Hope you all had a smashing Easter break whatever you got up to.

So today I’m doing a post on something that I’ve been learning a lot about in the past couple of years, who your real friends are. And more importantly who the toxic friends are.

Have you noticed that we always seem to use the term ‘friend’ very loosely? I guess in hindsight, friend is easier to say then “oh hey this is my mutual acquaintance who I may occasionally have a drink with if we bump into each other in pub toilets”, friend is a much shorter, easier term. But how many times in your life, can you scroll through your Facebook ‘friends’ list and say you know all of them people inside out as true friends? You can’t. None of us can.

But what we can do, is think about the people that aren’t just on our scroll-through list, we can focus on the people that we do think are our friends, the ones we spend a lot of time talking to and hanging out with. How do you know who the bad apples are in your friendship circles?

It’s taken me a very long time, decades even. Of going through numerous groups and circles of friends to learn the signs of the bad apples. I didn’t have many friends after I left school and college, I got bullied a lot, I was always just one of those people. And I became obsessed with trying to fit in with any groups of friends that I met over time, and the thing is, it is actually very easy to make friends in most scenarios now, through social media, pubs, clubs, work place, you can make new ‘friends’ frequently, but some times those friends you have aren’t actually your real friends, they don’t care about you much. It’s a personal gain thing so they’re not alone. But sometimes it is hard for us to know the good apples from the bad…

So here is a few things I’ve figured out, some are quite obvious, some not so much, as to how you can figure out who your real ones are:

They only talk to you about their stuff

Now this one is kinda obvious, but it happens so many more times than it should. Now we all have our vent days or bad moments where we might spend half a day talking to our bestie about our shit. It happens, you can get in a tangent about stuff and forget to then go ‘oh sorry how was your day?’ We’ve all been there. But once in a while is fine, if your friend constantly only messages you when they wanna talk about them and they never ask you how you are or check in with you, the possibility is: they don’t care how you are.

They say mean things about you when they’re drunk

“The truth comes out when you’re drunk”, for some reason we all get a little braver when we’re drunk to tell the truth. Maybe it’s because psychologically we believe that the alcohol is the perfect excuse to get out of it if someone has a go at us later for what we said. ‘Sorry, I was drunk’ is used way too many times as a get out clause and it needs to stop. There’s no excuse to be mean. If your ‘friend’ constantly makes jibes at you when they’ve had a few, or upsets you regularly when they’re under the influence then they are doing so to make themselves feel better and that is no way to treat you. Alcohol is not a be-a-bitch-to-your-friend shield.

They’re passive aggressive

If they are saying things to you in a nice way, but the comment is actually quite hurtful, they’re being passive aggressive and it’s not on. There are always ways to go around how you speak to someone if you don’t like something, “this colour would look nice on your eyes” is a nicer thing to say then “oh I wish you’d make more effort with your eye make up” but saying it in a friendly tone. I’ve had passive aggressive comments made to me regularly by so-called friends and colleagues about my lack of makeup wear, my figure, my personality, and it’s not nice. People think that if they say something negative to you in a nice way, then it can’t count as being mean, but it’s actually worse sometimes. So if your friend is always sitting there making nicely toned comments at you but they’re actually quite bitchy, and hurt your feelings, you have a passive aggressive friend.

(The book pictures in this post are from ‘what a time to be alone’ by Chidera Eggedue and I highly recommend you read it!)

They constantly expect you to be nasty

No one should willingly be spiteful to someone. If your friends are always making you feel negative and bitchy because that’s the type of character they have, then it’s best you step back from them a bit. There’s a fine line between being quite a blunt character and just being plain nasty all the time.

They hang out with people you don’t get on with

Now this is a tricky one, because this is quite a regular thing in a lot of circles these days, people date each other and break up, people are besties and then fall out, and a lot of the time there’s mutual friends along the way. This is normal, and a lot of the time not a problem if there’s amicable reasoning, but in some cases you just can’t get along with someone and there’s too much hatred, in which case mutual friends is awkward. Sometimes you can’t pick sides. But in these scenarios, you may not pick sides, but you have to prioritise one. Now if you have an enemy who you are always bitching about to your friend because of whatever it is they did to you, but said friend is also spending a lot of time with this enemy, the chances are they could be happily agreeing with their negative views on you and bitching about you behind your back. People that do this genuinely can’t make their mind up, I’ve found more often than not that those ‘really nice people’ that everyone loves who’s friends with everyone (even the friends that hate each other) are actually just desperately trying to fit in, they have serious FOMO and they just want to be liked by everyone. This is human nature, but it is also a negative trait when it comes to being loyal. If you and an enemy have a mutual friend, be wary with what you tell this friend, they may not be as trustworthy as you think.

They interrupt you, constantly

Now I’ve had discussions about this one before, as someone who’s suffered with ADHD her whole life i find it difficult to stay quiet. Sometimes thoughts come up and leave my mouth straight away, I accidentally end up blurting stuff out all the time. And yes, I’ve interrupted many people, but it’s not because I don’t value their opinion. This is something I’ve been working on for a while now to actively try not to do. However, I have many times when I am with social circles of my ‘friends’ and when in conversation, I will start saying something and they talk over me or cut me off, with no necessary need to, I’ve read many articles that say if a person continually talks over you and interrupts you, they do not respect you. Now again this is very tricky and sorta 50/50 because if you’re in groups it can be so hard to all take it in turns to speak. But what I will say is, if you’re with one friend and you’re having a conversation but they’re constantly cutting you off to say what they want, they genuinely don’t care what you have to say, truth is, they probably just hang out with you so they’re not bored or alone. It’s harsh I know but it happens so often in this day and age, we live in a generation where everyone feels like being alone is a negative and we thrive off of company.

They don’t tell you the truth about how you look

If your friend knows that an outfit makes you look awful or that you have very visible flaws with your makeup or hair or whatever and they don’t tell you and let you go out like that, they literally just want to look better than you. They’ve let you look bad for personal gain and they are not your friend.

They try and set you up with people they like

I had this girl at work, we both liked a guy in the office, he fancied her and not me, it was as simple as that. They had a little hook up but then a mix up at work meant someone said to this guy that they thought I was into him. This girl then kept trying to encourage me to message him and flirt with him to ‘see what he does’. If a friend ever does this sort of thing to you when they are fully aware that it’s the person who wants them, they are trying to make themselves feel good by seeing the person reject you and make it clear that they’re more appealing then you. It’s bitchy, horrible and selfish.

You can also argue as well that people who post bad pictures of you online are also doing it for personal gain. And I mean this loosely because sometimes they might not think a picture of you is bad (let’s face it we all don’t like our own pictures a lot of the time do we?) but I’m talking about when your friend posts photos where you can clearly see food on your chin, that you look like you were dragged through a bush, your eyes aren’t open etc, but they look good, again it’s selfishly making themselves feel better by looking like the hot one.

We live in a generation where there is a lot of mental health issues and low self-esteem and how we react to our views on ourselves varies. Some of us will try to give ourselves more self-love and confidence and embrace who we are, others will not know how to deal with it other than by treating other people like trash. It is important to always remember that if a person is being mean to you this is really how they feel about themselves.

How to deal with a bad apple friend

It is always important to talk to your friends, I recommend this 110% all day every day, if they’re hurting you, tell them. It’s important.

The truth is, sometimes your friend might not actually know what they’re doing. Especially if they have issues themselves or they have never been told how they’re acting is wrong. Don’t just cut a friend out of your life without trying to rectify the issue first. If your friend has done anything to make you feel crappy, talk to them about it, the best case scenario is that they realise they were wrong to do it and will make an effort to not do so again. The worst case is that they feel no remorse or regret for how they treated you.

If your friend never apologises to you under any circumstances and they always try and back up all of their actions, even when those actions are wrong, then they’re not your friend, they never have been and they are too wrapped up in themselves to ever care about you. Cut them off. (Believe me I have known ‘friends’ like this more often then I have liked and cutting them out was the best thing I did).

We deserve to be happy and we deserve to be comfortable with the friends we choose.

Obviously, every single person in this world is different, we act and think differently, you must always bear this in mind when you are talking to your friends about how they make you feel or even if they’re telling you that you’ve done something that upset them (let’s be honest, none of us are perfect and we’ve all been there) try and have empathy in these scenarios but also don’t be a doormat.

It’s not all scientific facts or rocket science, this is all just some stuff that a woman in her 30’s has learnt over the years and wanted to share some personal wisdom on, it’s not gospel, and you can take it or leave it. But I will end it with this:

always be mindful of how you’re treating other people and also, how people are treating you.

You deserve the best.

It’s been a couple of weeks now since I started up “it’s probably definitely maybe me” (I will explain the title at some point in the future) and I would be lying if I said blogging was easy. It’s actually a lot harder than I thought.

Yes, I’ll admit I was one of those girls that thought the whole I just want to express some feelings on a blog page, I’m not bothered about who see’s it type people to start off with, but truth be told, I did start caring. As soon as you start entering the blog world you do fall in to the whole routine of wanting feedback, checking stats etc. I don’t regret any of it. I have had good days and bad days with the blog to be honest, some days I question my motivation to keep it going and others I don’t even know how I’m going to fit all my thoughts into one blog post. It’s a very up and down world.

But as you’re aware, right now and for the foreseeable future, I am writing a blog anonymously, the e-mail I use for this account, my twitter and the blog itself never reveals my name or any details that may lead to knowing my identity. Any pictures I take that contain me will not reveal my full face for the same reason.

But why anonymously?

That’s a hard one to explain, but to put it in small detail, my social anxiety is seriously bad. If you ever did know me physically as a person you would find this hard to believe. I always come across very bubbly and bouncy (it’s getting me to shut up that’s the problem) but inside, I’m having mini panic attacks every time I am in any social scenario.

As I’ve stated in previous posts, I suffer from ADHD as well as anxiety, so it goes in a little circle, some days I will be hyper around new people and the next, I’m anxious about all the silly hyper things I said and did. I am also, not a very girly girl most of the time, I like wearing jackets from Topman, I only got the hang of how to apply make up correctly in the past few years, but anyway all that aside, for some reason – I don’t seem to be a girls favourite girl. I am one of those girls who other girls can find quite odd. I get evil looks from girls on the daily, hey I get funny looks from guys on the daily too. And this triggers a lot of my anxieties and makes me uncomfortable.

Through things that aren’t my fault, or in some cases are, I have a few judgmental haters (people can really hold grudges – I still get grief from a girl who decided I was a shit friend 13 years ago because I’d told her that her ex was seeing someone else, apparently the way I said it wasn’t empathetic enough and she’s hated me ever since, so in some ways things I’ve done have got me haters and in other ways it’s just people falling out with me easily who weren’t really my friends to begin with) and I always find social media an anxious place. I worry that if people find out it’s me they will give me negative shit.

I realise that a lot of this is all in my head probably, but either way it sits there and stews daily. I am also not very confident about how I look and it worries me that if people saw me they’d go off my blog instantly.

I knew that I needed to write more, I’ve always loved writing. I’m still trying to get my motivation on to write stories again – my brain constantly has ideas but I never quite get round to writing them down. And I also really wanted to blog for such a long time. I just never got the motivation. So, when I took the plunge and got a blog together I made the decision to do this anonymous and not reveal my identity. Whether I change my mind a while down the line or not, we’ll see. But for now, this is what makes me comfortable.

But what I’ve learnt through doing this recently is that there is some pro’s and con’s to blogging with ‘no identity’.

Pro’s.

Not revealing my identity has given me a real big window. I can write about things I do not have the confidence to write about as myself. What I mean by this is, in day to day life I am an honest and blunt person. But there are certain things I go through that I genuinely don’t think I would have the courage to write about if my blog wasn’t anon.

My blog has become a field for me to write about things I go through without worrying about people who know me judging me for it. From the big things to the little things; for example in my blog I can write honestly and freely about how I have intimacy issues due to PTSD from a horrible experience in my teens that led me to developing the condition Vaginismus. Could I write that where all my friends see and know it’s me? No. Because there’s so much judgment. I can write on here about my struggles with IBS, I don’t want people turning round to me at the pub saying ‘oh I didn’t realise that the reason you were gone from the gig for ten minutes was because your IBS played up and you had to spend time in the cubicle’.

There shouldn’t be so much taboo and judgement about different health issues or things that people go through, but we live in a world where it’s still a thing, and we have to cope with the anxiety that we develop along with it. Anonymous blogging is a window to saying everything you wanna say without the fear of people you know giving you negative judgement.

Con’s.

One thing i have learnt from doing this anonymously is, it can be slightly harder to connect with people in the blog community when they don’t know who you are. People get very cautious around connecting with people who aren’t showing their full face or personal details, and that’s fine, I get it. The internet is an amazing tool that we are lucky to have the pleasure of using daily, and it gives us the opportunity to make so many friends on-screen. But, it is also a dangerous place, sometimes. And you do get a lot of dangers. So I totally understand the wariness some people experience with an anonymous blogger. Is she really who she says she is? Is it actually a catfish? And also, social media and even the blogging world is a lot like secondary/high school at times too, there’s still – just like on every platform (this isn’t just about bloggers, this is life in general) a lot of popularity contests and sadly, this will always be the way everywhere you go, I’ve seen a lot of beautiful girls sharing their beauty blogs and the amount of attention they get is unreal.

So sometimes, your anxiety and lack of self-esteem can play a factor in blogging too and you will sit there and think people can’t see who I am and they know I’m not pretty enough which let’s be honest, it’s silly, that’s not what blogging is about. It shouldn’t matter how popular or pretty other bloggers are, we’re all in this together. But I’d be lying if I said from time to time I do sometimes get bummed about how unpopular I am both online and offline. But again, some of this is overdramatised in my head.

One thing I will say though, without a shadow of a doubt is that I’ve never been more comfortable in any community then I have been with the blogging community. There is so much support out there for each other, I love going through my Twitter feed every day and seeing how great everyone is to each other, it’s so rare to find in this day and age.

You bloggers are all incredible people, keep doing what you’re doing, and don’t beat yourself up if your blog doesn’t seem to be as big and popular as someone else’s, one thing I’ve learnt is, as important as stats are, sometimes you need to acknowledge the fact that if you are just reaching out to one person who related to your post that much to like it and comment on it, then you’re already succeeding. 😉

Being dumped or being rejected in general, is shit.

There’s no sugar coating this, there is no such thing as a good break up or rejection situation. No matter how much we might play the ‘it was my idea’ or ‘it’s for the best’ all those other lines, we always feel a little bit shitty when the person we thought we’d be long-term with, didn’t quite work out that way.

I have had more than my fair share of rejection if I was to make a montage of my life, it would literally be guy after guy dumping me or rejecting me in numerous ways. It’s become a special untalented skill of mine. And I am definitely skilled in putting on the game face. (the game face is that face you put on in front of everyone where you pretend you are okay with that arsehole across the room who broke your heart in a million pieces, when really you are fighting the urge not to cry or punch them in the face).

Now, recently I had to go to a social event where my ex and his new love would also be in attendance. Quick back story; my ex was with me for several months a few years back, he broke it off one day while we were sitting watching a horror film by just simply going “I don’t want to be in a relationship anymore” of course I handled it gracefully, storming out of his house with all my bags in tears, but after a couple of months we gave each other our stuff back and I got the whole ‘I need time alone to be single’ etc etc. Anyway, within six months he was in a relationship with my friend, they’re still together now and they’re ecstatically happy. I got over the concept of my friend being with my ex fairly quickly, in small towns like mine you literally have slim pickings and everyone appears to date everyone so it was a high chance he’d get with someone I knew anyway. But the thing I was finding hard, was acknowledging them together. The idea of being anywhere where they were together made me sick with nerves.

But at this recent event, I managed to get closure, finally, from everything that happened. I managed to engage in regular conversation with them, and felt true happiness for them and no longer felt any resentment. And this is something that I’ve started trying to do with every situation where a guy dumps or rejects me (which is sadly, often). It hasn’t always been easy, but it’s been doable, and I’ve done so by following some certain steps and guides I’ve made for myself for “overcoming a squashed heart”.

So here are the simple steps and guides I’ve gone through myself to help me get over these situations and also gain closure at the same time, please note- not all of these will work for everybody, different situations and break ups means different ways of coping. But if some of my ideas can help any one who suffers with constant negative emotions over break ups then I’m happy. Also, if anything, I just hope people have enjoyed reading them..

First things first, and important to remember: do not give yourself a time frame!! Every single one of us is unique and different, some of us can overcome bad feelings in a week, some of us can hold grudges for years. Do not compare yourself to your friend Ally who got over that dick Brian in 30 days.. that doesn’t mean you’ll be over all your emotions in 30 days. You do you. In your time.

Take other people’s advice, but don’t use it as gospel, if your mate tells you ‘I’ve read that people have to do this to get over someone properly’ then take it on board, but never feel forced to do anything you don’t want to do just to save face.

It is okay to admit you’re not over it. You will be in time, but the sooner you accept all of your feelings, the good and the bad, the easier it will eventually be. Don’t be embarrassed to admit to your best friend that it still hurts. You have to go with the truth, if anyone thinks it makes you look stupid then they’re not your friend.

Spend time with your single friends, or friends that can take time out from their partners to have some drinks with you or do an activity. Try to spend some time away from any scenario where you’ll be thinking about your ex too much.

Take up (if you don’t already) some form of exercising regularly – join a gym or take up yoga, working out actually really helps clear your mind.

Eventually, when the time feels right, write down your feelings but also, if you think you’re up to it, write down the advantages of your relationship not working out. I’m not saying you have to write down “he/she has ugly teeth” or even that you have to write anything terrible about that person, some break ups are healthy and not for negative reasons, but even if it’s little things like ‘I wouldn’t be able to go on this trip if they were still with me’ or ‘I can wear that top they hate’ or ‘I can now get my nose pierced coz he hated nose piercings’ (that is a genuine one I wrote once – and of course got the piercing), no matter how big or small the points of the list are, it’s kind of like a mantra, if you do this enough then you will eventually start believing those points as advantages and it will help with the healing process.

If it hurts you – block them even if it is on a temporary basis, sometimes you have to shut people out for a bit so you can heal. I blocked my ex on social media for a chunk of last year (mainly because my friends are his friends and they interact a lot so it kept popping in my news feed), and it really helped. Ignorance can be bliss for a while, especially if it was a situation where you are the dumped and not the dumper. It will hurt you more to see what they’re doing. Block it out for a bit.

(Also – I truly believe that we have the right to block anyone on social media at any time if they make us uncomfortable or give us bad vibes, we don’t have to explain ourselves on that)

Avoid (where possible) any social situations where you are likely to see them or have to engage with them when you’re not in the frame of mind to say anything to them.

If you can: and only when you’re ready: arrange a time to talk to the person. Now, in some scenarios I know this is not possible, and also some times bad things can happen. But if you can get to a level with your ex where you can sit and have a civil conversation just to clear the air and the tension (particularly if you hang in the same social circle) then this will also help you get one step closer to closure. If you can’t actually speak to them, maybe write down an email or letter (you don’t have to send it to them) expressing how you currently feel, if you are getting over them it might help you to write that down.

The above points there are just ideas and guidelines that I have found healthy and doable to give myself closure from these negative ex experiences. But here is one little point I would like to end this with, that I think is important to clarify and is also what I remind myself of regularly so that I don’t get too bummed:

Everything happens for a reason . Whether you believe in fate, or coincidence, things always work our one way or another for a reason, sometimes it isn’t clear to us what the reason actually is. But sometimes the reason is as simple as ‘they were what you needed at that point in your life, but now they’re not.’ Always look at each relationship you have as a learning curve. We learn things about ourselves or what we want from each relationship we have, trust that. Trust that the things that don’t work out for us are preparing us for something awesome round the corner. Sometimes we have to pick up the emotional pieces too many times, but remember that whether you’re struggling from a break up, single or in a settled relationship, we are all strong individuals who got this far in life from being ourselves and learning from all our little hiccups, mistakes and positives along the way. Take every negative relationship as a lesson, a lesson that is building you up for the strong person you are becoming. Day by day.

I remember 500 days of Summer coming out about ten years ago, it was the film that introduced me to my love for Zooey Deschanel & Joseph Gordon-Levitt, that also made me happy because it wasn’t a typical love story. I loved everything about that film, I loved the way it had everything in a jumbled order so you could see positive & negative sides of the relationship in a random order, my favourite part about it was that it taught me that sometimes you can love someone but not be right for them.

Then after watching a mini essay on Amazon Prime ‘the weight of expectation’ a man’s observation of the film, I decided to get the film out again & watch it, for the first time in possibly about 7-8 years! My God, the film turned out to be a massive eye opener when I watched it again.

Do you ever watch a film, love it, but then forget a lot of the main roots of the film, then rewatch it years later and learn something totally different?

That is basically what happened to me when I watched it again. My mind was blown. What really fascinated me most though, was how much the film taught me about myself.

Now we all know the main plot of the story, Joseph’s character Tom becomes obsessed with a girl called Summer. He is convinced that she is his soulmate & embarks on a relationship with her, only to get dumped & find out that in less than 500 days of knowing her, she married someone else.

I remember when I first watched the film years back, although I adored Zooey Deschanel (still do), I thought her character Summer was a bit of a bitch, & my perception was that she played Tom & messed him around. However watching this again, I actually see that it’s not Summer who’s in the wrong. In the film, Summer makes it very clear to Tom that she doesn’t want anything serious, she asks him if that’s okay & he plays it cool about it (clearly thinking he can change her mind), when you rewatch the film you actually notice that Summer doesn’t actually go hot & cold with him, not really. She is always pretty much the same with him. He just fixated on this idea of her & sees her differently in the beginning. He doesn’t see the signs that it will never be more than a bit of fun.

Watching the film, I actually learnt that, I was a lot like Tom in real life. When I look at my failed relationships, I realise that, I didn’t really love the people I was with. I loved the idea that they could be the one , I lived in a total fantasy scenario. I had these extreme expectations that the guy I was seeing would turn out to fall madly in love with me, depend on me, & vice versa, but it was never really about them as a person, it was just this deluded idea that we could be perfect & happy. Because I just wanted to mean something to someone.

The fact that I’ve bumped into my exes on numerous occasions like weddings, friends parties etc & sat there questioning what I saw in them justifies this fully. Because there was never a I love him. It was all about what I wished our relationship would be.

My anxiety played a nasty factor in a lot of my relationships as well, & I found myself constantly pestering men I dated for reassurance (you know the whole double texting, texting again if they don’t reply in 2 minutes, all that crazy crap), but whenever it inevitably ended, I moved on to another guy. Pretty quickly. Tom does this in the film too, the film ends (spoiler alert) with Tom meeting another girl (conveniently happens to be called Autumn – I see what you did there!) & you know that he’s going to start pursuing Autumn the same way.

I literally did this exact thing every time I got dumped or rejected. Instead of focusing on myself, my own wellbeing, being happy on my own, I would go straight on to Tinder or Bumble or go down the pub looking for a potential guy to start chatting to, it was always aimed initially as a distraction from the previous guy, but I’d always end up getting engrossed in the next guy too, validating my point about loving the idea of someone & not the person.

I had a lot of men in my life that were like Summer too. Always making it pretty clear that they ‘didn’t want a relationship’ & wanted to play the field, & I would pretend that was cool & hope they fall in love with me. Why do we do that? Why when someone tells us the honest truth to our faces do we still sit there & think challenge accepted ?! We need to respect that persons decision & either agree to the laid back terms or completely walk away. I think I just lived in a delusion because most of my close friends ended up in relationships with guys who were ‘friends with benefits’ to start with, so somehow fixated this false hope in my head when quite frankly, the men I was falling for were not the relationship type, & had I focused on falling for them as a person & not my fantasy, I would have nipped it in the bud from the start.

There are also a lot of things in the film that make me question my actual beliefs. I’ve always been one of those I believe everything happens for a reason, but I also think a lot of things are a coincidence types. I also share a mixture of Summer’s & Tom’s different views, I like to fixate in the idea of a soulmate, but I also sometimes find myself in Summer’s mindset near the start where she believes love is a fantasy. I think when you have had a pretty rubbish love life & a lot of bad luck in general you naturally become a rather cynical human, that’s just the way I am.

But this film generally taught me about how people should & shouldn’t be in a relationship. Joseph is completely on the ball when he expresses that his character is in a selfish fantasy & it is not healthy for anyone to be in that mindset. It’s taught me that going forward I need to be more aware of what I am chasing.. am I chasing the guy because I like him, or am I chasing the fantasy of what I want him to be? When a guy tells me he doesn’t know what he’s looking for or he’s not into serious, or he’s unsure, that means I need to let it go – if he’s not sure about what he wants, it means he’s not sure about me. I need to accept that & move on.

I think as a whole, what we need to take from the way we are, or more importantly, what I need to take from all this, is that you are never going to be completely happy with someone until you can be happy in yourself. Until you fulfil yourself no one is going to come close. The moment you are depending on another person to make you feel important or happy, is the moment you need to take a step back. I know it is easier said then done, I have literally been addicted to the idea of men & dating & relationships since I was about 16 years old, it is very hard to suddenly shut your mind off from fantasy land & accept things as they are (I blame the over the top romantic comedies for our false ideas personally). But we have to focus on us.

As I’ve stated in previous posts, I am currently on a dating hiatus & this film has literally justified to me exactly why I should be doing so right now. I need time to learn to love myself & focus on what I really want & what makes me happy, I don’t need a man to complete my life. I need to make sure that I am fully okay with myself & my needs before I start dating someone again.

Because when I do date someone again because I know eventually I will, I want the reason to be because of who they are & what I like about them. Not because I’m lonely.