NYE,

New Year is not my favourite time of year. This year I had plans, but they got cancelled what felt like pretty last minute, so instead I'll be at home making sure that the fireworks don't drive my dog crazy, but the truth is it's making me feel more than a little bit crappy. 

People like to think of New Year as a new beginning and the chance for a whole new you. For one thing, I hate the pressure of that and for another, tomorrow is just the next consecutive day in my life, where I will be writing the same novel, doing the same job, reading the same book, and, oh, the big difference is I'm diving into Veganuary again, because I am nothing if not a glutton for punishment. I've been going a bit more vegan anyway, but I still don't imagine this will be the moment, or month when it becomes a permanent feature, purely for the fact that I know how difficult I find it. 

Thinking ahead to 2019 though, there is something I'm really excited about and that's my first half marathon. I'm doing it for Macmillan Cancer Support (if you would like to support me in this, thanks, and please head to my Twitter page where there's a link to the Just Giving page) and I'm trying to decide whether to book in a few more runs as well. 

This year has been incredible for several reasons, including finally being trained as a First Aider and Mental Health First Aider, getting to do some amazing things at work that I would have doubted myself for only a few years ago, meeting someone who made me believe in love and romance again (don't judge me because of my age, stuff happened and it broke my spirit) and even though that didn't work out, I have some amazing memories. I went to San Francisco, and I'm not sure that I stopped grinning about it the whole time I was there - except the bit where I stacked it down the Powell BART station stairs; that really hurt. I met some incredible people this year, read some really incredible books and spent some amazing time with my canine counterpart. 

That being said, I also had a really crappy year with my mental health. Some of this year has been really difficult, and there were plenty of times where I wasn't sure it was ever going to get better, but it did and I'm still here. See you all next year. 

C

It Gets Better, It Gets Worse,

Sometimes I like re-reading old blogs because it reminds me that things get better, even when I read about times I was feeling worse. If there was an uphill from there, there can be one from here, too. You may have read the one about the Mental Health First Aid awareness course, or you may not, or maybe you just don't remember it, but the upshot was it was a difficult day because I had to think about why someone committed suicide and how they did it, and how seven years later, it still hurts that they made that choice. It was a tough day, but it had nothing on the actual practitioner course for me. 

Let me start this by saying that I would never try to dissuade anyone from attending an MHFA practitioner course. There are a lot of people in crisis out there and there are not enough of us. We cannot fix everything, we cannot help everyone, but we can listen and at the moment it could feel like the very opposite of a brief shout into the void (like a small ear to a great cacophony of sound or something similar...) My personal experience of the course was a bit difficult, more than a little bit actually, but at the same time, there was a heck of a lot of value in it. 

So, firstly, I am well aware of the fact that I can be my own worst enemy. Talk about having Generalised Anxiety Disorder can be quite difficult for me sometimes, but I do it. Sometimes I do it because I want to encourage other people to be able to talk about it. Sometimes I do it so that other people can understand what it looks like, or feels like and such. Sometimes I do it because it is the only way that I can tell people what it is I need from them in order to be okay. 

When you're talking about Mental Health in that sort of capacity, people need to know what it looks like hands on. We were really lucky, in some ways, to have people with a few different conditions involved in the course. We all talked about our experiences, our demons, and everything and it helped. Those who don't have problems, or have only experienced short-lived problems in the past made sure we felt safe, and what we were saying was valuable. Well, most of them anyway. 

It's hard because sometimes people are told to get themselves onto one of these courses to try and deal with people better and actually, they then say something stupid that makes the course harder for other people on it. That's kind of what happened to me. 

When I'm upset, or rather my anxiety is running the show, I need to chew things. Mostly it's my nails, or it's gum, hard chocolate or crisps or nuts also works, but I need something tough. I have a clicky thing (like eternal bubble wrap) and I had purposely worn one of my big hoodies that I can just dive inside of, and it's like my own cocoon. I struggled to make anything work right then, but I grabbed as much as I could chew on during the lunch break and then headed back into the room when someone asked me what I wasn't going to eat today. 

Eating disorders are anxiety based. There are times I struggle with food. It can be a consistency issue, it can be a heat thing, a flavour thing and all sorts of other things. Sometimes I have to remind myself to eat. Sometimes I have to remind myself that forcing myself to eat can make me sick, and not eating can make me sick and I have to balance everything against each other and try my hardest to be okay. Sometimes I eat the only things that I know my stomach won't freak out at because anxiety hits my stomach and causes IBS symptoms. I went through a period where I was sick no matter what I ate because of how stressed and anxious I was. If you're wondering how I managed through that, I drank a lot of Lucozade and I struggled. Until I sat in that course, I didn't really talk about it, which was partly because I didn't want people to watch me - I didn't want people to comment on it. I control it pretty damn well; I don't need anyone else looking over me to make sure I'm eating enough and the right things. 

But then someone commented, it was meant to be a joke, about what was I not going to eat today. And suddenly, after just having to listen to someone talking about eating disorders and sitting there chewing my fingernails, feeling like I wasn't sure if I could get through the rest of the session, I was having to think about telling that person, and all of the people that they had said it in front of, that my eating habits were not to be the subject of jokes or discussions, but actually, yes, I struggle with it, and pointing it out only made that even harder. It made for the hardest couple of days I had had in a few months and it made me want to scream. 

I wrote yesterday that I was feeling content, and I was. I felt like today was a good day, and it was, but I have been carrying it around that the comment hurt since it happened and it's hard to shake something like that. I'm hoping that writing it down means I can try and let it go now, even if just a little bit. 

The Recipe for Happiness,

If you've clicked on this link hoping for something akin to exactly what the title suggests, I am afraid you may be bitterly disappointed. The first thing I need to get out of the way is the idea that happiness can be achieved by a list of a few things, the same for everyone and puff, everything is perfect. Maybe not quite boiled down to this extent, but a lot of people seem to believe that this is the case. 

Happiness is something that I think about a lot, and it's something I've read a lot about. One of the reasons for that is that I have been working in Mental Health for approximately the last fifteen months (a year and a quarter - however you prefer to read it, the time line is the same) and part of it is the fact that I have my own mental health diagnosis. Something I have learnt because of both of those things is that happiness can be an elusive beast and we seem all to able to look back and see happiness in the past, but only be able to see our current misery. There is a reason for this. 

One of my big beliefs - other than God, true love and the fairies who are currently irritated that we don't have a garden - is that it is almost impossible to be permanently happy. That's not something which saddens me at all. I've studied philosophy for long enough to understand and accept the theory that "bad things" can simply be a privation of the thing we want. Darkness is simply the lack/absence of light, evil is the lack/absence of goodness (though I am far less sold on this one in particular) but I don't think that depression, or sadness, or any other synonyms you wish to use are solely down to a lack of happiness. I think they're something different and they're actually down to a lack of contentment.

The easiest way to describe it, I think, is that happiness is like an orgasm. For most people, it takes time, it takes some effort, whether by yourself or with someone else, and it's relatively short lived. Now, that's not to say that sex is boring, it's not to say that there is no pleasure or worth in it, but it's like happiness is that pinnacle moment, so really we need to look for something else. What is that feeling that we have before hand, at the same time as and following that pinnacle moment? That's when it's important to be content. 

I've heard of people talking about contentment as a bad thing. It's almost as though you're choosing to "settle" for something which is "lesser". There is a reason I have marked those two words out. There have been studies that show that the environment that we have created for ourselves within our society isn't structured to bring about happiness, and I think that part of that is because we have been designed to not be content. Think about it - how far out of your home can you get before you see an advertisement? And what is that advertisement there to do? To sell you insurance - firstly they've got to convince you that it's possible bad things will happen, and insurance is the only way to cope. How about make up? First, they have to convince you that the way you look anyway isn't good enough. Okay, what about clothes and cars and stuff? You need to be convinced that you either don't have enough stuff or it's the wrong stuff. It's the out of date stuff. Hurry up, get the next thing or you'll be left behind. We're in this environment where it's not about having enough to be content, or to be able to live easily or anything like that - there's a pressure to earn more money, to spend more money, to have more stuff and then to display it to everyone. How on Earth is that going to make anyone happy? It's even more momentary, even more fleeting, because you get the thing and then minutes later it's no longer good enough. 

I don't want to sounds like one of those pompous idiots who have revelations in the shower, but I was sat in my reading chair (the acquisition of which did actually provide me immense happiness, partly because it was cheap, it was second hand and it wasn't leather and also it was so perfectly the vision of what I wanted that I had to pinch myself to show I wasn't dreaming) and I was reading Jojo Moyes Me Before You and I realised that, as little as two months ago, I had been sat around elsewhere in the flat and I had been listless and restless and unable to decide what to do, but had no motivation to do anything. It was partly my diagnosis, it was partly my medication to deal with that condition and it was partly this idea that I was looking for something quick to make me happy. Even today, I was sat there wanting to devour that book and get to the ending - partly, I believe, because it is an excellent novel and I just love every second of it, but also partly because I am not perfect, and I think finishing the book will make me happy - but I could feel myself smiling. Granted, I wasn't over the moon elated, but I was, and am, content that I don't need to do anything more with my weekend than sit in a chair that I love, reading a book that I love, and I don't need to get out of my pjs yet, because I am content in this moment. Now maybe that's because it's the post-NaNoWriMo high or maybe because I spent some time with friends watching Christmas movies yesterday or maybe it's because I start a new job tomorrow, but I would like to think it's also a little bit because I've accepted that not every day can be an adventure, and actually, I can be happy right here. 


Also: Sorry I haven't been writing here a lot. There's a lot that I have wanted to write, but my anxiety has got in the way. I think I'm doing better now, so might be around a bit more. Catch you later. C x