“I stare at my reflection in the mirror, why am I doing this to myself?” – Who You Are, Jessie J.
I spend a lot of time staring at myself in the mirror, questioning where I’m going or why I’m feeling how I do. One of the downsides of going through social anxiety is that it literally crippled my mind. To the point that I’m staring at myself for long periods of time – to everyone around me I’m just staring or day dreaming, but in my head, a war zone is kicking off. There’s endless debates and scenarios going on that I have absolutely no control over. Nor do I have any motivation to make it stop.
As my previous posts have mentioned, I am a long term sufferer of ADHD & Anxiety. Social Anxiety plays a huge factor in this. Particularly when my ADHD allows me to make an absolute fool of myself and has done for years, it has a long term affect on my brain. I’ve fallen out with a lot of people over the years through crazy behaviour, for various reasons. I’ve also had many scenarios where people start to avoid being near me when we’re in the same place because they find me irritating, annoying, impulsive, “too much”. It is very difficult knowing this about yourself. And it is also hard to move on from that mindset when so many people around you make you believe that this is the truth.
I wish I couldn’t give a shit.
But I do, I really do give a shit. My personality may express otherwise to people who have met me, because I act so hyper and carefree but when I get home, I am then overthinking every thing I did and how everyone around me must think I’m an absolute loon.
I have started trying to do different things in order to try and clear up the social anxiety aspects. Over the last year, I’ve gone to a couple of gigs and theatre trips on my own. Which is a big achievement for me. But then I go back to square one again because I start freaking out over other stuff.
When it comes to going to a show alone, I’m fine. I can go and sit and watch Wicked at Apollo at the end of the row on my own and not care because there isn’t really interaction when you’re seated watching a show. I can go to the cinema alone for that same reason. But one thing I’ve always loved, is gigs and music festivals etc – those things completely freak me out. I can’t put myself in a position where I stand in crowds or check out bands in my area without the incoming fear of humiliation.
There are loads of bands in the London/Harrow/Watford area that I always see ads for but I am completely terrified of even trying to go to one. I even sometimes can’t even fathom asking a friend to go with me because I am so frightened to be around new people.
I don’t know what it is about my appearance, or personality, but people have always looked at me like I’m a strange individual. Or repulsive maybe I don’t know. Girls in particular are not normally big fans of me, for reasons unknown. Maybe because I don’t fit that mould and I’m not very good at all that ‘girly’ stuff. Guys either don’t see me at all or see me as some weirdo not worth a second look. And so to have the idea of standing in a very public place, watching a good band, overthinking how everyone else is perceiving me actually makes me want to vomit.
It sounds selfish, because realistically, one thing I learnt from CBT was that a lot of the time, we are not even crossing someone’s mind, they aren’t even overthinking what we’re like, they don’t know you. But with social anxiety – you lose that logic. There is no logic. You just have this awful conception that every single person around you thinks you’re vile or annoying.
I am getting ready to go for a weekend away and my tummy is doing flips over every possibility of how I can make a fool of myself, what if I drink too much, what if I say something wrong? It’s all so stressful.
I am working on new ideas to try and focus on more ‘positives’, get myself out there a bit more without freaking myself out or doing what I’ve done in the past where I buy a ticket for something and then on the day hyperventilate and decide I am not going. I did consider going to like, singles parties or dinner date events that I’ve seen online, but then I’ve realised that’s going to be more dating focused and that’s not gonna help my dating hiatus.
So these are my targets for the next few months, to try and overcome social anxiety;
Try some relaxation techniques every morning and night to try and filter out some of the negative vibes
Explain my situation to a friend or two and see if they can attend some events with me
Start attending more events
Be myself. Regardless of whether this is going to make people hate me or not
Remember that if people do see you negatively or hate on you for being you, that you do not need them in your life these people are strangers pretty much, you lived this long without them, you can carry on without them and their negative opinion too.
We shall see over the next few months how this works out.
A while back, when I was having CBT for social anxiety, the woman I was seeing told me to write notes to myself. To help with the social anxiety side. I found the process quite interesting and felt a release when I did this.
I was thinking about this the other day while I was commuting to work on the London Overground. And I somehow started pondering about my younger years, like, when I was in my late teens dreading my 20s, having high expectations for where my life was going. I then started imagining in my mind that if I could somehow, get in touch with 19 year old me, what messages would I give her for the future? So with that, I decided to write it down, and lucky you I decided to share it on my blog..
So here it is, the notes I would give to 19 year old me if I could;
– you are going to get answers for all those things you think are wrong with you, and things will be (slightly) easier when you do.
– Those people who you call your friends right now. They’re not. But power through, because a few years from now you are going to meet the most amazing friends on the planet.
– you’re not as stupid as you think you are.
– you won’t work in this shop for much longer, you’re really going to surprise yourself.
– you’re not going to find love easy, or relationships, you won’t find the one any time soon either. But embrace the relationships you have anyway. You are going to learn so much about yourself from each and every one. You won’t see it at the time, especially when it falls apart, but you will.
– trust your gut. Always. You will trip up on this from time to time, but a majority of the gut instincts you’re going to have in the next decade won’t be wrong.
– write more. Don’t leave it too late before you remember how much you love doing it.
– Don’t dye your hair jet black. You will look weird.
– Social media is a trap.
– Try not to stress too much over the things you can’t change, you’re not going to listen to this, but I had to say it anyway.
– Think long and hard about some situations that arise for you, and consider the affect it will have on those around you. You may live to regret losing certain people through your actions.
– do not drink vodka. Ever. You will learn by your mid 20s that this does not go well with you and will have awful repercussions. Try sweet rum, you’ll love it.
– People hurt each other. Regardless of whether they want to. You will hurt people, and people will hurt you. It’s just the way humans are, try not to let it crush you too much, you will learn the difference between the ones who mean to and the ones who don’t.
– You will be okay on your own. Spend a LOT more time finding yourself and figuring yourself out. You won’t always get it right, and it will take you a long time to learn but that’s okay. You do you.
– LOVE YOURSELF MORE.
This is going to sound really strange, and I get that this post is rather random. But that somehow, in some weird twisted way, made me feel better. And also managed to get my mind off of crippling social anxiety that I’m experiencing right now about going away for the weekend.
The other day I was sitting in my room watching these lovely daffodils I had got recently slowly blooming into beautiful flowers, and it got me thinking about how gradually we as people bloom into the people that we are, as cliche as it sounds, it is true. As we grow older we do start to learn more things about ourselves, we progress as characters and people, we don’t remain the same person our whole lives do we?
For me, I have always been a real life DUFF. For those of you unfamiliar with this term, there was a film about it a few years back (GREAT film, I recommend) where a teen girl learns that she is the Duff in her friend circle. For clarification if you haven’t seen it, the Duff is a ‘designated ugly fat friend’… now, to be clear, a lot of the time Duff’s aren’t necessarily fat or ugly. It’s just the term used, but what they are, is less attractive than their friends. The concept of the Duff is that they are the least appealing one among a hot crowd, so people use them as their ‘gateway’ shall we say, to get to the ‘hot friends’. It sounds harsh I know, but it’s the world we live in.
I have been the Duff since I was little, I had a hot sister (obviously as kids she was not referred to as hot, more cute/pretty) and people would sometimes befriend me to get close to her.. I even had guys say things like ‘how can you be sisters? she’s really pretty.’ Somehow as I grew older as well, I ended up befriending the most gorgeous girls. You know the ones who have the most perfect filtered selfies all the time, the guys follow them round with their tongues half way down their chin. All that crap. I was never really the desirable one among the crowd. I was popular sure, but more as the girl that the guys would love to hang out with and have jokes with, not hook up with. In hindsight, this wasn’t always the worst thing because my friends did tend to get really hurt by some of these guys for messing them all about, and I’ve been used enough in my life by shitty men that I don’t need to then add half the guys my friends slept with to that number. But anyway, my self esteem was extremely burst and I struggled a lot being the Duff among my friends.
The hardest thing, about spending your life being the least attractive one, is that sometimes you can have some horrid groups of friends that see you as a project. Projects are all well and good in films like Clueless, but one of the important things you should always remember about people is, sometimes they are happy being what and who they are. Maybe they don’t want to change!! I’ve never thought I was the hottest girl going, evidently being the Duff has proven the opposite. But I am… comfortable with how I present myself, and I think every girl and guy should feel that way about themselves. Previous friends would make strange backhanded compliments to me which were actually quite hurtful… like “Oh my god can I take your make up off and put something else on, I have a cool look for you” or “maybe you should try doing this instead” or my personal favourite: “don’t worry, a guy once told me that guys go for pretty girls when they’re having fun but when they settle down they’ll go for the average ones”… Now although sometimes, when my friends were saying things like this, they were doing so with good intentions, I don’t think all of my previous female friends were intentionally spiteful, it can be quite a bruiser to have people constantly point out the improvements you should make to yourself.
People need to be more respectful of how a person wants to feel in their own skin.
I would like to say as this post goes on that I’m not the Duff anymore or that I now see myself as beautiful or whatnot, but this isn’t entirely the case right now. I’m in my thirties and I still struggle with self esteem issues, (as my previous posts have pointed out). I have a new set of female friends now, who I have had for a good few years now, who don’t make me feel like I’m the Duff. And I think that is what is important. There is something I’ve also learnt from growing up as a Duff as well, it’s a matter of opinion. My friends – the good eggs that I’ve had for the last few years, have never made me feel like I need to improve myself. In fact, we have many debates over how pretty we think the other one is. Me and my best friend in particular, have constant little WhatsApp rows over who is the prettier one. She’s always been drop dead gorgeous and has the most banging eyeliner, hair colours, great boobs, like the ideal alternative chick, and I’ve always envied how gorgeous she is. Yet, she argues with me about the fact that she envies how I don’t wear a lot of make up and I still always look beautiful without even trying. In fact, today I messaged her about how low I was feeling about how stupid I am when it comes to the opposite sex and how ugly I felt (she’s used to me having these vents at her a lot) and without me asking for opinions or anything, she sent me back my WhatsApp profile picture and had basically scribbled on it all these qualities she saw in my features, and also sent me a long paragraph about how although it frustrates her that I wouldn’t see it for myself, she thought that I was beautiful, amazing etc. And this is the sort of friend I could have done with in my late teens and early twenties. Instead of the one’s who made me feel like I was always in need of ‘improvement’.
Being the Duff can be a bummer, but it’s also a blessing. Do you know why? Because I learnt to be happy with who I am naturally, and the truth is, everyone to some extent can be the Duff. I’ve learnt over the years that not everyone’s taste is the same, and I’ve had guys I’ve dated tell me they don’t see the fascination with some of my friends who I perceive as the hottest girls alive – because as the saying goes Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I’ve learnt over the years that, as much as it upset me sometimes, because it is a mega downer when you’ve deleted Tinder and Bumble for the 20th time this year as you still have no one notice you or you make a fool of yourself because you accidentally view a hot guy you saw on a dating app’s insta story or like their pic (don’t even pretend that we all haven’t been there!) but, I then sit there and think – do I really want to have LOADS of guys chasing after me? No actually, I don’t need guys after me for artificial reasons. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it is lovely to be attractive to someone and we all no matter what we say, do go by physical attraction with people and we want to be attractive to people, but also, the looks only get us so far don’t they, and I’d rather wait patiently for a guy to find me and fall for me then have loads of guys fall at my feet for stereotypical reasons alone.
As the film The Duff quite kindly points out, we’re all duff’s in our own way. Some of us will feel like it a lot more than others do, however, whether we are the one who everyone thinks is the real life Duff or whether we’re beautiful to people without even knowing that we are, if there’s one thing I’ve learnt over the last year battling my insecurities it is this: The only one who has control over how I look and how I perceive myself is me. I read a book (more than once) called ‘What A Time To Be Alone‘ by Chidera Eggerue and it literally changed my life. She spends the entire book pretty much explaining to us that the only person who can love you for who you are is yourself, ‘We can each decide our own fate’ is one of the captions on the back of the book, and she is so spot on. We have the control over what our fate is. I’m not saying that this means that we suddenly decide oh I don’t wanna be single anymore, and we then suddenly find someone, because life is about things happening to us for a reason and at the right time. I truly believe that the reason why I still constantly feel like a Duff and I haven’t managed to thoroughly enjoy being myself and settle down yet is because I still have a lot of work to do on myself.
I’m now at a point where I’m taking a hiatus from dating, because I got so fed up of chasing people that made me feel more Duff-like than ever, I needed a break from being what felt like ‘the ugly duckling of tinder‘ who would basically get matches from people who just wanted an ego boost but never even considered taking me out on a date (it does not do wonders for anxiety let me tell you). I’m at a point where, I’m actually finally okay with being the Duff but also, I’m okay with looking at myself as a work in progress. I’m working on being confident in myself and happy with who I am.
So then hopefully, should someone who isn’t using me to get to my friends comes along, I won’t need them to tell me how awesome I am because I will know that myself already deep down. We should always have relationships to add to our happiness. Not define it.
Warning: this post contains spoilers about the plot line of the film ‘He’s just not that into you’ (but realistically, you should have seen that film by now and if you haven’t, maybe this post will inspire you to give it a go!)
Dating is hard. In this generation in particular it is really bloody hard. As a 30+ year old woman who has spent about 85% of her adult life being a single desperate lady, I can say the dating world is tough. Dating app’s are even harder. But I will touch on the world of dating specifically in a variety of later posts I can promise you. But this post, is something I need to share with everyone about a particular film that I think anyone in my scenario (or even in relationships) needs to see, and take note of.
Ten years ago in 2009, an american chick flick was released with the gripping title ‘He’s Just Not That Into You’. I remember when it came out, a lot of friends were posting statuses about it, how good the trailers looked and also how if they went to see it, it was going to make them ‘understand men better’. Bit of an extreme expectation if you ask me, but the fact is, this film touches on numerous single and relationship scenarios in a lot of ways and to this day it is the most realistic film I’ve ever seen about dating.
It’s a well known fact about me that I’ll watch anything, I am mainly a horror, Star Wars, Tim Burton kind of girl but I am a sucker for a good romantic comedy or chick flick. Even though, I find myself frustrated with them a lot of the time – with this whole unrealistic kissing in the rain not being a complete mess, men and women chasing each other in airports, crashing their ‘true loves’ weddings, like seriously – we all need to sit back and acknowledge that these things just do not happen in real life. I personally, no matter how much I thought someone was the one for me would never go and crash their wedding to prove a point, you’ve got to let that shit go. But anyway, I’m sliding off the point here and that is this, to this day, even 10 years on from release, I still turn to this film every single time I need reminders when it comes to my dramatic love life and confusion with the opposite sex.
Now, it may seem like common sense and not something that we need to be reminded of over and over again, but seriously, we do. Because over the years I have learnt that we all like to live in a complete fantasy scenario. We are constantly making excuses for the opposite sex when they don’t call us back or reply to our messages within a few hours of us sending them. I’ve learnt that even my best friends do this to me, when I have guys constantly going quiet on me or not contacting me or seeing me when I want them to, my friends are always trying to make excuses for them and do the whole ‘Maybe he’s busy’ ‘Maybe he’s had an emergency’ etc etc. The first couple of minutes of the film ‘He’s just not that into you’ is basically a montage of a bunch of scenarios where women are telling each other different explanations as to why a man has rejected or dumped them, but as Gigi’s voiceover states we are just avoiding the obvious.
Gigi
Gigi is literally my hero. Because she’s me. Throughout the film, she is completely incapable of playing it cool. She runs after guys before they leave the bar to ask who’s calling who first, she keeps checking her phone for messages, she waffles on and on… I am basically the real life British equivalent of Gigi. My friends can vouch for that. Yes, Gigi finds her night in shining armor eventually, but not before finding herself in quite a few awkward rejection situations beforehand. But here is why, even though you could argue that, the film still has those ‘predictable plot lines’ where the guy that’s helping her out ends up being the one, I would argue that although you might have seen it coming, it is still pretty damn believable. Why? Because he doesn’t acknowledge it straight away, that he wants Gigi. Now this situation happens in every day life, I’ve seen it happen a lot. You have these friends who hang out a lot, have great chemistry, but one of them doesn’t actually realize they like them until they can’t have them anymore. And that is exactly what happens. Gigi leaves, he pines for her, and eventually goes to find her – he doesn’t run through airports, or crash dates, or anything OTT and unrealistic. He just simply turns up at her apartment to tell her he is an idiot and he likes her. Simple.
I’m not saying we all should date our friend that we always talk to about our love life… this is not an advertisement for friend-dating. It doesn’t work for everyone.
Gigi of course, is not the only person with a story in this film. There are numerous characters going through different struggles. There’s a married couple with issues – the wife is a bit of a nag I’ll be honest, but the husband (played by a yummy Bradley Cooper) is an arsehole who secretly smokes behind her back and cheats on her with Anna – possibly the most selfish person in the film (in my opinion), Anna basically not only has an affair with Ben knowing he’s married with the secret hope he’ll leave his wife for her, but when things get a bit pear shaped, she starts using her friend Conor – a cute little desperate male friend of hers who she has history with. Conor is like a male version of Gigi in this film, he will do ANYTHING for Anna to get her to hook up with him again, and Anna uses him to her advantage when things don’t work with Ben. Now, no-one’s perfect, and we’ve probably all had a situation or two where we may have hurt someone whether we intended to or not. No judging here. But there’s a lot of stuff going on in this film where there’s guys who don’t want to marry their long-term girlfriends, guys or girls not calling each other back, trying to read between the lines of whether someone likes you or not. It’s all really hard!
Bear in mind also, that this film was 10 years ago, before we even regularly used dating app’s like Bumble, Tinder, Hinge etc. Myspace is the site that gets a shout out in this film which shows how old it really is. Imagine if we had a film now about dating apps! But regardless of this, the film is still relevant. It still speaks volumes in a lot of ways. So in honour of this film being in my life for 10 years, helping me along the way here are the things I’ve learnt in life from this film, that I think is good for anyone to touch down on..
There are rules and exceptions to rules: People tend to always treat people the same way when they don’t give a shit, they only change for the one, or who they feel is the one. Think about it – when you’re scrolling through your dating app’s or having different people express an interest in you, they’re not that bad but you’re not fussed either way – you’re going to treat all of them in the same way. But when there’s someone you really like, you will, without even realizing you’re doing it: always act differently. And you need to recognize when the roles reversed and someone isn’t making an effort for you.
Communication is NOT difficult: No matter how busy you say you are, we all will always have time to check our phones. I’m sorry but unless there is a life-threatening situation, this is the truth. No one is separated from their phone or PC for more than a day without valid reason. We prioritize what we do on our phones when we use them, and your crush is the same. If they are not calling you back or messaging you.. it is not because something came up (obviously be reasonable with your time limit we’re talking about 24 hours not 24 minutes), it is because you are not a priority to them and they are not bothered if they talk to you or not.
Don’t give up hope: Regardless of how many times you get rejected, or kicked to the curb, don’t be too cynical when it comes to dating. It’s hard to feel positive about dating outcomes when you are rejected all the time (Believe me, I KNOW!) but not every person you date is the same. Have faith in dating and most importantly yourself.
If your love interest is already invested in someone else, run: Now I don’t care if they look like your celebrity crush, or they are a celebrity or that they tell you everything you want to hear. This may seem like an obvious statement to make but you’d be surprised how common these situations are. I myself, shamefully have been in Anna’s position before where a guy in a relationship has told me everything I want to hear and I fall for the BS (this was many many years ago and I have learnt from my mistake). It’s easy for us to get lost in a fantasy and when someone is giving us all the lines we want to hear, we fall for them and hope it’s meaningful, it doesn’t help that half of the romantic comedies and chick flicks we obsess over actually involve people cheating on each other all the time ‘because they’re in love’ but we have to separate fact from fiction. If the person you want is with someone else, they literally have no intention of leaving them for you. If they did, they would have done it. It’s that simple. If you allow them to see you and do the things they want to do with you behind their partners back, I’m telling you they will literally have their cake and eat it. Once the novelties died with you, they will still be with their lover, and not you. Or hey, eventually they might get found out and leave their love for you but can you really trust them not to do the same to you? I mean, this is a flexible topic I know because there are cases where people have left their partners because they’ve fallen for other people, fine, you can’t control how you feel but it’s more respectful for your partner to turn round to you one day and say ‘I don’t love you anymore’ than it is for you to find out they’ve been dating someone else behind your back before they came to this conclusion. Right?
It is OK to be on your own: Just because everyone you know may be happily settled down and you’re not, doesn’t mean that that’s a bad thing. Sometimes your happy ending is just you. Being on your own. It happens to be the ending for one of the characters in the film, where they pick up the pieces and start fresh, I have so much respect for that being one of the endings because I think that this sort of thing is SO important in films these days. We watch so many films where people constantly end up with each other and it can make us feel like there’s something wrong with us because we can’t be on our own. There is nothing wrong with any of us singletons. We’re on our own because it’s right for us right now.
All images from Google.
I feel like this quote was the perfect way to end this post.
Again, if you have not seen the film – you can download it or buy it literally anywhere, I highly recommend it. Also, you can read the book that the film is loosely based on with the same title. I have read that myself on a few occasions and it’s very on point.
Social Media is literally a game changer isn’t it? I know there are probably people here that don’t actually know what life without social media is, but for the older ones like me who do, isn’t it crazy to think that once upon a time we used to just call our friends on a landline, plan a meeting spot, hang out for a bit and no one would know what we were up to unless they saw us. Selfie’s weren’t a thing. We had single use cameras to take (sometimes terrible) photo’s of events and places we’d been to that just went in little photos albums. Strangers never got to see them. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to say bring back the days of no internet connection – that’s just silly. The internet and social media has a lot of pro’s. We make a lot of internet friends, we get to keep up to date with everything that is going on with our friends, family, favourite celebrities, secret crushes. Hey – I wouldn’t be writing this blog and having you reading it right now if it wasn’t for the power of social media. It is literally a life changing tool.
But for me…
Social media had a bit of a negative affect. For quite some time, you see, here’s some background on this anonymous woman writing you this blog. You’ll probably find this out about me more over time, but I have some very severe self esteem issues. Some of this is because of conditions I’ve mentioned in my last two posts, but a lot of it is down to how I grew up. I was always the ugly duckling. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying ‘I’m the most minging person ever’ and fishing for compliments, I’m not ugly. But I’m not exactly what people consider beautiful or hot either, I’m kind of… average. But, growing up I always seemed to somehow be the Duff (if you do not know what a Duff is, you need to watch the film ‘the Duff’). I have a beautiful hot sister who always got all the attention. My female friends are all stunning, I’m always the girl that you’d see in clubs and pubs and parties standing awkwardly in a corner while her friends were having men swoon over them. Or men would be talking to me to get to my friends. Eventually I just accepted how it is, and became Okay with it.
I thought that the internet and social media would be a good escape place from all that, but I was wrong. My mental health became very deeply affected by social media. I wanted attention that I wasn’t getting, and I found myself spending all my time comparing myself to everyone else. I posted selfies not because I loved how I looked, but because I would think I look good here, I want to know if other people think I look good too. It was like an anxious reassurance technique. I wanted to be liked. But I found that I wanted to be liked by the wrong people. I’d develop crushes and ideas on people on social media that I barely knew, just because we matched once on Tinder or I met them through mutual friends at a pub and thought they were good looking. I wanted them to be the ones who would like my photos or give me attention. But they barely knew I existed. I found Instagram a bit poisonous for a while because instead of just scrolling through and liking different posts from friends, I was going on the newsfeed and witnessing how everyone I knew was liking all these other beautiful girls, or how my friends who were naturally pretty – but just so happened to add an amazing filter to their photo would get about 20 likes in 30 minutes, I was lucky if I got 10 in a day, and then it started to slowly hit me. This was not what social media was supposed to be about. I genuinely don’t think the guys behind Instagram and Facebook thought to themselves ‘do you know what would be cool? if we can make people feel really unstable and compete with eachother over who has the best fake life! May the best one win!’ but sadly, this happens a lot. I know that I’m not the only one who has had this sort of feeling occur over time. It doesn’t help that there’s this whole ‘filter’ thing, now each to their own but, I completely disagree with the filters. It’s just made people, in my opinion, more insecure about how they look. Do you know how many times I’m out with friends now and we go to post photos and one goes ‘oh I don’t like my skin in that, can you add this filter?’ and suddenly we’re all posting things online, pretending to be people we are not. It was when this started happening far too often that I decided that I needed to take a step back and start to have some strict breaks from Facebook and Instagram. The first time I had a clean break, was back in September when I did scroll-free September. It was one of the most therapeutic things I have ever done. Since doing this, I learnt that my life actually goes quite well without these app’s buzzing at me all day.
The breaks and what they’ve taught me
Obviously, due to my new blog (which I’ve finally got round to doing – only taking me years) I still use things like twitter regularly to connect with bloggers and make people aware of my new posts. But I have started some new ‘breaks’ from social media. Every so often, I will delete my Facebook and Instagram app’s from my phone and not re-download them for a week to two or three weeks. Depending on how I’m feeling at the time. Also, regardless of whether I am active on those sites or not – I now charge my phone at night downstairs far away from where I’m sleeping. By distancing myself from social media apps and night time phone usage, I’ve learnt a lot of things about me as a person. It may come across that ignorance is bliss so of course, I’m not feeling down about things if I can’t see them, this is completely true. And there is the odd occasion where I use the apps again and feel down again very quickly. But I have learnt to shut them off as soon as they start to make me feel anything negative.
I read a book recently by Matt Haig called ‘Notes on a Nervous Planet’ and if you have not read that book, I strongly recommend you do because it has some really good points about social media and what it can do to your mental health. It is his book that also suggests things like charging your phone in a separate room to where you sleep and also, as hard as it may be sometimes, do not have arguments with strangers on the internet. Also – turn off your notifications so you are in control of when you use apps.
Also, my CBT therapist I had in 2018 recommended this below pictured book by Melanie Fennell to me, which I’ve just decided to start reading through properly to try and help myself going forward:
I’ve learnt how to control my emotions now when I use social media. I now make a point of not having notifications, so I use my app’s as and when I see fit. I’m not being controlled by some other notifications in a desperation to be noticed or popular. I don’t look at the newsfeed page on Instagram that shows me who likes what, I check my own notifications, I see what new posts are up for those I follow, I don’t even check who views my stories anymore if I post any. I don’t allow those little things to get to me anymore. Also, most importantly, I block anyone that makes me feel remotely uncomfortable about myself (and just so you know, we all have the right to delete or block anyone who makes us feel bad about ourselves, don’t ever be sorry for shutting out the poison), I do social media in my own time. Also, blogging has become a blessing in disguise, because I now spend so much time on my blog twitter page checking out other people’s blogs, subscribing and coming up with new posts for my own that once that’s out the way and I take time to read a good book or watch a film, chill out, I don’t have the time to scroll through the other app’s and see what people are doing or who’s chasing who, or whether my pictures are liked.
There is also these few vital things before I finish this post (I could waffle forever but I’ll save that for another time ;)..) that I have learnt that I think is a good way for me to close for any of you out there who have ever felt like I have when it comes to social media and popularity on social media.
You have to love yourself first and foremost, once you start learning to do that, other things will fall into place.
“Comparison is the thief of joy” this is one of my favourite quotes, and it is so true. The more we compare ourselves to everyone else, the more unhappy we become.
Never feel like you have to post something just to impress someone else, or because everyone else is doing it.
The people who care about you, will respect you anyway. STOP CARING WHAT STRANGERS THINK. (that was more a reminder to myself than anyone else).
We’re all beautiful in our own ways, no matter what our backgrounds are or who we are, social media is a great platform for us to use so long as we use it cautiously and wisely. Don’t let it ever put you in a position where you feel like you or your life aren’t good enough.
“Just because you don’t look like somebody who you think is attractive, doesn’t mean you aren’t attractive. Flowers are pretty but so are Christmas lights and they look nothing alike”.
For as long as I can remember I’d always thought there was something wrong with me. That my brain was not quite normal. Of course, growing up in the 90’s, there wasn’t as much awareness for kids and teenagers as there is now. I just spent most of my school years being easily distracted, told off often, acting up, and just being a parents worst nightmare. I just figured that was who I was. I’d never known how to engage my brain before I spoke. It’s literally just something that can’t function inside me, my mouth speaks then my brain functions and say’s ‘you probably shouldn’t have said that’.
Diagnosis
It wasn’t until I was in my twenties that I started trying to look into the root of the problem. And that was more down to my boss at the time then my need to do so. I had gone from school, to college, to working in retail to an office job. Of course, office work requires you to be more still. This is something I’ve never been able to master, even now while I’m typing a blog post I have twitched my leg 5 times and looked around the room a little bit. But at work it was becoming a concern. Now I’d always known I was a ‘worry wart’ as people used to call me, so I had come to the conclusion that anxiety was one of my many problems. But more on that shortly. I got referred by my GP when I discussed with him my lack of concentration skills, or ability to think before acting or speaking etc. it was affecting my work and I needed an answer. Finally, the diagnosis came in. ADHD. I was so frustrated at this diagnosis, not because I had it. But because I couldn’t help but think how different my life could have been if we’d known I had that growing up, I could have found ways to monitor my behaviour, I may have done better in school because I would have had learning support (other students used to get that). So I also had a lot of resentment inside me over the fact that it was never noticed. I’m not sure who the resentment was actually towards, I just know it was there. The other downside was, I was in my 20s. A little too late to start trying to monitor and change your ways. I wasn’t allowed to have medication for it either, because of other medical condition meds that I was on.
The Anxiety diagnosis came in not long after this. I would say from around 15 I was starting to overthink every scenario in my life, have mini panic attacks over things and expect the worst scenarios, but like the ADHD, I just thought that was the way my brain was wired. It was only when it got too much for me and again , I seeked help, that I got a diagnosis. Then it was just finding ways of dealing with it.
The Balance.
Balancing both issues is actually pretty hard. I had to have CBT for anxiety but I found it so hard to concentrate on conversations (because it requires you to be still and attentive, two things I struggle to physically do). I had general counselling for other issues (see previous post) which was also meant to help with some of my anxiety issues and the bout of depression I went through at that time. These things worked as temporary fixes. I’m not sure if many people will agree with this, but I find CBT can sometimes be a bit of a band aid. It will solve issues for you at the time, but before you know it, six months down the line you’re back to square one – at least, that’s my personal experience.
It’s hard to balance, because both conditions bring out different and opposing sides to me. The ADHD will make me insanely hyperactive and things come flowing out of my mouth or I make an impulsive action, all seems great at my impulsive moment. Then the anxiety kicks in, because whatever I did in that ADHD-Controlled moment, I am now overthinking how everyone else took that action. Oh my God, I should not have said that! That guy is going to think I’m a right weirdo now!, Your best friend is going to hate you for saying/doing that. I’ll be honest, a lot of the time, I’m overthinking things that the person it happened to isn’t giving a second thought to. But as anyone who suffers with anxiety knows, that’s not the point. We can’t stop the thoughts once they are there. I struggle a lot with my actions, I’ve spent many, MANY nights laying on my bed crying about how stupid I’ve looked or how I haven’t slept properly in days because my brain is in overdrive because of not one but TWO conditions that overtake my brain. I wake up every morning, wondering which one of the A’s will be in control for the course of the morning, am I going to be hyper and silly and unable to focus, or am I going to be overthinking and panicking about every single possible outcome of the day? It’s in my view, a large part of why I’m single. I have a lot of issues when it comes to dating because of these problems. I’m very insecure for a start, which is never a good basis point for a relationship is it? So I spent a lot of my relationships over-texting, ‘coming on too strong’ as they call it, because I get so paranoid people are going to be thrown off or put off by me. But that is something I have to deal with as time goes on and I (somehow) get back on to the dating field. Or not, or I could just hide behind my laptop for the forseeable future until I pass away with 3 cats on my lap. Who knows?
For the time being, I have to try and focus a bit more and find ways to balance my conditions, but not let them break me. I’ve started taking up reading a lot of self-help books that help with anxiety, depression etc. I am still looking for one for ADHD. I am looking at new dietary foods and drinks I can have to try and calm down my brain (e numbers don’t really help ADHD). I’ve also started taking up small yoga segments, I try and do 10 minute morning yoga exercises, I’m trying mindfulness, cardio, different things that can try and divert my brain in a healthy way. It’s a work in progress, but hopefully in later blog posts I will have new ideas and progresses to share with you.
But most importantly, I try my hardest to dissolve the resentment, and not hate my two A’s, because in all honesty, they’ve been with me as far as I can remember, and whether I like it or not, they are part of who I am. That’s something I have to embrace, and deal with.
“Sex makes the world go round” – was a famous quote once said by Madonna a couple of decades ago, and there’s a lot of truth to that statement as well. We live in a generation now where there is endless sex. Every sentence we say can somehow be an innuendo, porn is everywhere, people are having sex on the first date. But what if sex wasn’t possible for you?
We always see things posted about erectile dysfunction and other issues that men may have, but one thing that I don’t see enough awareness about, and suffer from myself is a condition known as Vaginismus.
“Vaginismus is involuntary contraction of muscles around the opening of the vagina in women with no abnormalities in the genital organs. The tight muscle contraction makes sexual intercourse or any sexual activity that involves penetration painful or impossible.”
That is the first paragraph you see if you search for the term Vaginismus on google. And yes, it is as horrible and life-shattering as it sounds.
Let’s face it, we as humans are all very horny creatures, we get turned on, we want to get sexual with people. But imagine going through all of those sexual feelings and emotions but still not being able to physically have sex with someone.
I am in my 30’s, I have had sex four times in my life, with four different people at different points in my life.
Can you imagine being someone who is always feeling horny or attracted to people but never being able to have sex with someone you’re in love with? Can you imagine meeting a guy at a bar and having to explain to them when you first start dating or they want to go home with you that they ‘can’t have sex’? Let me tell you something, men see that as a challenge. I speak from experience when I say they think you’re just playing hard to get and they’ll somehow break you. And there is nothing more humiliating then having guys storm out of your flat because you couldn’t give them sex, and men blocking you on social media or deleting traces of you because you weren’t lying when you said they wouldn’t get it in.
The causes of the condition vary, my cause is a mixture of a horrible traumatic event that happened to me in my late teens and also being completely unfamiliar with sexual activity, thus associating sex with pain in my brain. It wasn’t until I was with an ex boyfriend at the age of 22 that I realized that I had such a horrible condition. I had 3 one night stands in the space of 2/3 months a few years before my ex, the first 2 were not so bad, however the last time the guy was very big and it was extremely painful, I’d also over the years spent more time thinking about my traumatic experience and being horrified by the idea of sex hurting me.
My ex was lovely, he was my first real long term boyfriend and we got on really well. But apart from his tongue (which obviously is way softer than anything else you’d use down there) we had no luck with anything, it was when he tried to insert one finger inside me and I squealed in pain that I realized I had a problem. We went to the GP to have tests done as I was terrified I had somehow caught some horrible disease from previous experiences or that something was just well,… wrong with me. Imagine my horror when doctors couldn’t even insert anything inside me to do any tests!! It was only when we tried using diazepam an hour before at a later scheduled appointment that I had any luck. It was then that the Doctor advised me that my situation was psychological. The concept made absolutely no sense to me. Why is my brain stopping me from doing something I really want to do???
Me and my ex carried on dating a while, but unfortunately when a guy sits there with you when a doctor tells you its all in your head – they don’t quite stay as lovely as you’d think, because the ideas then go in to his mind ‘so if it’s all in her head then it just means she doesn’t want to have sex with me’. Sadly, my ex was not the first or the last boyfriend I had to have that conversation with me. A few years later I saw a counselor who gave me some exercises to perform with my next (ex) boyfriend. These consisted of me sitting on top of him and slowly lowering myself bit by bit on his penis until ideally, we’d get it all the way in. The timing was a bit off, because me and my then ex were going through a rough patch anyway and Id started to acknowledge I was suffering with anxiety and depression, so my libido was very off. And again, a break up happened, a spiteful comment was made about how ‘frigid’ I was and I moved on.
I have had so many encounters with men that have ended horribly because of my condition. Unfortunately, men are very sexual creatures. They use their penis as their brain a lot (this is not meant to be a rude gesture towards any men reading this, this is just something I’ve read up on and learnt from the men I have encountered). So it is very hard to find a guy who will sit there and go, ‘That’s a perfectly understandable situation to go through, I am here for you and I’ll wait for you’
The above image is a pretty accurate description of how Vaginismus works. I will meet a guy, things will develop, and I can be extremely turned on by and attracted to this man. One thing leads to another, we get frisky, get our clothes off, but then as soon as it starts to divert towards the point where I know he is about to try and insert his penis, my brain panics. I can’t control it. I’ve tried. 9 times out of 10 a guy will get as far as a tip getting somewhere but sometimes not even that happens. Vaginismus has also made me scared too, of dating anybody.
I have literally had a lot of men come home with me, whether it be after a couple of dates or because they’re who I’m ‘seeing’ or I’ve just hooked up with them drunk, as you can imagine they don’t stay very long. One guy even stormed out straight away when he knew he wasn’t getting anywhere. Some guys have a slight bit more respect though, and they’ll act all nice and understanding, cuddle me through the night, leave the next morning and then just never talk to me again that way.
I have had many horrible snappy comments made to me because of my condition. Even from people who ‘loved me’ because what I’ve noticed is, people genuinely do not understand it’s a physical condition. People just assume that if you can’t have sex with that guy you like, you’re just frigid. Or unattracted to them.
But vaginismus is so much more complex than this. There needs to be more awareness of this condition, particularly amongst men.
Whenever I explain my condition to female friends, a lot of them haven’t ever heard of the condition, but they understand that it’s a genuine thing. If I ever try and explain to a man, it’s like I’m talking to a wall. It’s not the man’s fault. They just have no idea what I’m talking about, and in a way, it’s like a man explaining to a woman what a hard on is like, we don’t understand it. We don’t have penises. Men literally just look at sex as we have this hole between our legs that opens and they slide right in, a lot of men aren’t taught that sometimes things happen to people. Things beyond their control.
The fourth time I had sex, the best time I had sex in my life, was not with a boyfriend. It was with a friend. It was a one night stand, however, my close friend knew my situation and understood how to approach the situation. He was very gentle with me, and somehow managed to not give up on me at the first attempt and proceeded to relax me and have intercourse. I’m not going to lie and say it didn’t hurt. Of course it hurt, it was my first penetration in 10 years. But I could do it. As you can imagine, after this I got quite excited and thought ‘Oh my god, I can have sex now! yes!’ and tried again with someone else a few weeks later. The same problem occurred. They couldn’t get it in. I’ve spent the last few years being back to square one again. Do I give up hope? Sometimes. But I also, would like to think that I will somehow overcome my condition.
But here is the thing people also need to understand: It is different for everyone.
Not everyone is going to overcome it as easily or in the same way as everyone else. It is a condition that is very real but it is also very personal. We develop it for different reasons. I’ve read many stories over the years, some people have had hypnotism and overcome it, some used vaginal dilating equipment, some just kept practicing inserting their finger in their vagina in the bathtub, some waited patiently for the right guy to come along and ease his way in, and some people like me, have not quite overcome it yet or found a ‘cure’.
I wish there was more literature for men to understand what this is. But then I also wish that men would not see the condition as a ‘challenge’. It’s not one of those ‘who can shag the girl going through the dry spell quickest’ competitions. This is a genuine horrible experience for girls and women alike to experience. I still have to have diazepam medication whenever I have a smear test or any procedure that involves insertation in my vagina. I still delete dating apps every 2-3 weeks because I speak to one or two people but then remind myself that I don’t want to put myself through a scenario again where I sit a guy down and try and explain to him without getting too personal what I’m experiencing and hoping that he will somehow understand and still want to date me, and maybe eventually we’ll finally find a way to have sex.
There’s a possibility that I may never be a mother because of what I’m going through. It makes me feel awkward whenever people at events ask me if I’m settled down yet or want to have kids because I honestly, do not know the answer to that. I can’t wish for something I’m not sure I can have.
At the end of the day, there needs to be more familiarity then there is about Vaginismus. There needs to be more common knowledge of it. There just isn’t enough. And then women are made to feel like they’re worthless or unlovable because they can’t perform a natural human activity.
Men: If you’ve read all of this post, fair play to you and please now that you’ve read this far take note that, if you are with someone going through this condition, please be patient and understanding with them, I know it is just as hard on you as it can be for them, but please, don’t leave them and especially don’t make them feel like they are a burden because of what they are going through – we hate it just as much as you do. Trust me.
You can find out more about Vaginismus on NHS websites or local health websites. The images in this post are thanks to Google images.
If you have any stories relating to Vaginismus or other sexual conditions affecting your lovelife that you want to share via this blog then please e-mail me at thedatingandlifeblog@gmail.com
Warning: Spoilers in this post. If you have not seen the film and don’t want to know what happens, or you want to read the book and do not want to know what happens.. don’t read this post.
As we all know, Stephen King is an incredible author. He has written a whole variety of books, that have been made in to fantastic (or not-so fantastic in some cases) films. But one of the more well-known amazing films of his, is The Green Mile.
A friend of mine has read pretty much all of Stephen King’s books. One day we were having a discussion about books being made into films and you know, the whole if you love a book and see the film then the film can ruin it scenario. My friend then mentioned that the problem with some of Stephen King’s famous books was that a film gets released, there’s a lot of hype but then the film in no way compares to what you expected, but she then said to me “One film that did live up to the book in my opinion, was The Green Mile!”
I vaguely remembered The Green Mile, I had seen it once many many years ago in my late teen years, the film about Tom Hanks working on death row and this huge guy being convicted of the rape and murder of two young girls, it was one of those films I had enjoyed, but only seen once, and all I remembered was he was innocent, the guy had flies come out of his mouth, and an evil prison guard made one of the criminals have a horrible death when he didn’t wet the sponge on the electric chair.
So I decided, as someone who loves reading books (the fact that I still have a whole shelf full of books to read is not relevant here) I decided to find the Green Mile book.
I then discovered, the books were originally as a first edition, released as a mini series of 6 books. Realizing that this would be much easier to carry around in shorter versions, I decided to use these. The 6 books are titled as following:
Book One: The Two Dead Girls
Book Two: The Mouse On The Mile
Book Three: Coffeys Hands
Book Four: The Bad Death Of Eduard Delacroix
Book Five: Night Journey
Book Six: Coffey On The Mile
These books for starters, before I go into the content and comparison to the film (I rewatched the film after finishing the last book to compare) are so good, they’re much more convenient as well if you want to have something light to carry and read on your journey to work, also I don’t know if it’s a psychological thing or not, but the books being short small volumes made me read it a lot quicker. I don’t know if in my head it just seemed more doable to complete small books rather than one big novel?
Anyway, back to what this blog is actually about. The books. I have to say, the books are so well written, to the extent that this book series is the second book in my life that I’ve read that has physically made me cry at the end. So kudos to King on that one.
Obviously, because the books are a mini series, the only downside is that the start of each book is like a refresher of the end of the last book, which if you’re reading book after book in one go (I believe the books were originally released over a time frame so it’s understandable why they were written that way) it may seem slightly repetitive. But I get why he did that. I imagine the later release of The Green Mile as one whole book probably cuts those parts out.
The book vs film comparison
the film does actually stick to the book in quite a lot of ways. However there are a few parts that differ:
Brad Dolan – Brad Dolan is a bad guy who does not feature in the film at all, but is frequently appearing in the books, he is a nasty staff member of the old people’s care home where Paul Edgecombe is living his final (never ending) living years. He is suspicious of Paul’s character and constantly pesters him and bullies him. It makes the books very interesting to read and you do encounter a massive anger on Paul’s behalf. In the film, one of the workers at the beginning asks Paul where he goes on his walks and that’s all you really see of the workers. In the book, Paul is bullied and followed by Brad when he visits the shed. It is understandable however, why the film did not have much time to put his character in.
The film is still satisfying without Brad’s bullying being a part of it.
The revelation of the girls killer – The revelation is discovered slightly differently in the book, there’s more of Paul going and investigating when he realizes Coffey is innocent and them finding out the truth about ‘Billy’ being the killer, it didn’t come straight to Paul in a vision. But again, it works out better in the film to cut endless investigation detail out and keep it to a vision.
The deaths of everyone around Paul – In the film, Coffey is executed and you cry your heart out, and you know that they all quit their jobs and then Paul goes on in his older days taking his friend to the shed he’s been hiding Mr Jingles. And we go on to learn the curse Paul has where he keeps on living, as does Mr Jingles. In the books, Brad Dolan follows them and confronts them, Mr Jingles dies while Brad is there, Paul Edgecombe also goes on to detail to you how everyone died.
Sadly, he explains that Dean is stabbed in the neck at a new prison shortly after transferring. Brutal has a heart attack I believe from memory approx 25 years later.
The saddest of all however, is his wife. There is a part in the final book where there is a whole scene where a tragic crash occurs killing many, except Paul, who escapes with barely a scratch on him. His wife, however, dies tragically. in the scene, Paul sees John Coffey standing nearby and screams and shouts to him pleading for his wife. But Coffey disappears. It is then that Paul realizes why he has barely a scratch on him and he has survived.
That, is one of my favourite moments in the book, as the book is told from Paul’s point of view you really do feel every fibre of his heartbreak and you’re touched so much by how horrible it is what he’s experiencing.
The book ends in the same way as the film did too, which I’m grateful for (I will never get over how The Time Traveler’s Wife had a totally different ending to the book and was an absolute disgrace to the book itself) with Paul still living out his days in his early 100s, knowing that although he is not immortal, and he will die eventually; he has been patiently waiting for so long now for his time to come.
The film is one of the most moving things you will ever watch in your life, and although they do say ‘Never read a book after watching a film’ I would strongly recommend everyone take the time to read this, there are a fair few differences/additions from the film and it really is a beautiful piece of literature.
I would go as far as to say it is one of King’s finest pieces.
So, here it is, my first ACTUAL blog post… you know, you would think that a woman in her 30’s would be a bit better than this, and wouldn’t have spent about 45 minutes struggling with the concept of setting up templates and making an average looking blog page. But I did. And here we are…
So why am I here? Why am I doing this? And why Anonymously?
All very good questions, and here are my reasons: I am here because of the basic reasons, I want to be a writer, I love writing about everything and anything, and I have a LOT of things to write about, so I figured why not start a blog. I’m not expecting many people to see/read this. I don’t even quite know how to publicize my blog enough just yet. But it’s a work in progress.
Why I did this anonymously
I have anxiety, really bad anxiety. Which has made me overthink every single logical situation of me publicly releasing a blog, how many enemies and frenemies I have, how someone might know somehow that something is about them etc.
I’ll be 100% honest, I am not a perfect person (who is?) I have made a lot of mistakes in my life, and people tend to hold grudges about things. I’ve always been one of those women who doesn’t have many friends long-term either. Women don’t seem to like me very much a lot of the time, I have ADHD, Anxiety, Depression and all of those things don’t give my brain much time to think before I speak/act.
I’ve said things I didn’t mean to people, I’ve hooked up with people I shouldn’t have for no other reason than I wanted someone to love me, regardless of who it was or who else it might hurt. And basically, I want this blog to be a place for me to discuss life issues, my overly ridiculous dating life and my mental health issues, without having people go ‘oh that girl is full of BS because she did this to me back in 2009’. Let’s face it, it happens. People don’t get over things easily. People have pure hatred for some people.
But here’s the thing, I do firmly believe that people can change, that people progress, there’s no room for progression if we are constantly burdened with the same judgmental attitude from something we did in our past.
I am not proud of some of the things I’ve done, but I do not regret any thing I’ve done, as all of my actions have given me room to reflect, progress and change.
Right – with all that nonsense that you probably didn’t even need out the way, here are the main things I will blog about;
– Mental Health Issues I suffer with: Specifically ADHD, Anxiety & Depression.
– Reviews on things from TV shows to Movies/Music with good measure (just so you’re not bored of reading the same thing. this is a lifestyle blog after all)
– Dating… in your 30’s.. it’s hard.
– Other health issues
– Social media
Welcome to my blog, thank you for taking the time to read 🙂
It's Probably, Definitely, Maybe Me. 