Emotional Intelligence – The power of the mind, yet again!

So this week I had a uni task and it has really inspired me to write this post. The task was to prepare a three minute speech on why we should receive a graduate trainee manager position. That was it, no elaboration on the job description whatsoever.

I decided that I’d focus on my interpersonal skills and how they would enable me to be good at management. I thought about what I think makes a good manager, and what I like about managers that I have had in the past and I ended up going into great detail about emotional intelligence. I had some training on this a few years ago in one of my previous jobs. They believed that It would be really beneficial to all staff members, at the time I didn’t understand how it was relevant to the job. After the emotional crisis that I have just been through, and the better understanding of life, I finally get it!

What is emotional intelligence? well.. for those of you who may not know let me give you a brief explanation.

Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand our own emotions as well as the emotions of others, and furthermore to use that understanding in order to guide ourselves or another.

I cannot believe how well this links in to combatting depression and anxiety. Being able to recognise when we feel a certain way, understanding why, and then adapting our behaviour in response to that emotion. That is exactly what we need to be doing in order to achieve our desired outcome.

It would benefit everybody to be able to manage themselves, whether they struggle with mental health or not, but what really inspires me the most about this concept is the consideration of others emotions. I have been focusing on the benefits of this in terms of employability. How you could be a better manager if you were able to understand the feelings of your employees and adapt your methods as a result of this. As a really basic example, it is your responsibility as manager to increase sales. You are able to recognise that employee A feels disappointed and disheartened when they complete a sale but receive no recognition for it. You come to learn that employee A loves to feel like their efforts are acknowledged and appreciated immediately after a sale. Therefore, you simply congratulate them and reward them with some sort of recognition incentive. This causes employee A to feel positive emotions, and so causes them to enter the next negotiation with a really positive mindset. As a manger, its a double whammy. You have made your employee feel important, made them happy and you are also growing business!

This does not just apply to your careers either. Imagine how much better your relationships with friends and family could be if you were more intelligent in their emotions? This is not be confused with the concept of allowing people to make excuses, and perhaps even abolishes the idea. The more emotionally intelligent you become the more that you understand and appreciate that whether they seem reasonable or not to yourself, everyone is affected by emotions in different ways. Recognising when your friend is experiencing an emotion, and knowing what you can do to guide them away from that emotion into a more positive one is a truly invaluable trait to have.

If you have never heard of it before, I urge you to spend 10-15 minutes to just research it. It will be really beneficial to your life and your career no matter what it is that you do!

Remember, we are all here on this planet together. Selfishness will not achieve you success, you will reach far greater in life If you allow yourself to be helped by others and help others yourself.

Until next time.

Anxiety through negative associations…

Next weekend I am going to Amsterdam. I should be overly excited, but I’m a tad confused and anxious.

Let’s go back a few months, I had my 21st birthday, I didnt do anything big to celebrate it, but I was going to Tenerife a few days after and that would be my time to celebrate with my friends and family. I think back to that holiday and how it was both the best and worst holiday of my life. I feel so much guilt because I feel like I ruined it for myself, and for everyone else that came along. I wasn’t myself on that holiday, usually when I am away I am in my element. I make lots of great memories and I have major holiday blues for weeks afterwards. But this holiday was the beginning of my melt down.

I had been feeling unwell for months before this mentally, may be even longer. Let’s say from summer time last year I started to suffer with my anxiety and depression worse than ever before. Then I got with my ex and things started to get better, because I had all of the good things that I wanted in life. But at the same time, they started getting worse, because I had more to loose, more to be afraid of. This started to slowly nag at me and build up. Then combined with pregnancy hormones o had my first break down, I didn’t know at the time that it was due to pregnancy. I threw my toys out of the pram and spent a few weeks with emotions flying around all over the place, typical of me when I’m pregnant. Let me warn you now, if I’m ever acting completing pyscho hand me a pregnancy test that is more than likely the answer!

The discovery was soon met by a traumatic misscarraige. The worst experience I have ever had in my life so far and from that point on I struggled to see a day go by where I was truly content and happy. Instead I became more depressed. I spent one whole lunch break crying to myself, having an anxiety attack in my car because I felt guilty for the loss, for misscarrying. I felt like I couldn’t get excited about my own upcoming birthday because it was my fault that the little child that started growing inside me would never have a birth day at all.

So by the time the holiday came round, I was not in a good place. I had a very good few days with my boyfriend before we went. He made me so unbelievably happy on my birthday, and that was when I realised that I really loved that man and that I finally had everything that I wanted but I just needed to get better to see it. I remember sitting on the hair salon before we went, reading hapiful magazine and sending him a picture of something that I read, promising I was going to get myself better. But we went on the holiday and I couldn’t let go of the pain inside me. I was sleeping in, being lazy, and I neglected valuable time with my family and friends that I don’t get to see very often because my head just wasnt there with me. But at the same time as not being able to enjoy it like I should have, I spent a whole week of quality time with my new founded family and that felt perfect. Waking up every morning, and going to sleep every night with my two favourite boys was incredible. It made my love grow so much stronger and I was looking forward to making that a regular occurrence in the near future.

The end of that holiday was the end of my happiness for a while, we came home and we argued for weeks. Certain things happened and the relationship was on very thin ice. Then we went to Paris, and the ice broke. I think I was the one that plunged deep into the freezing water below and he just stood on the ice above looking down into the whole were I once stood. It has taken me weeks to so much as smile and laugh, but I am starting to get better now. The journey home from Paris was the worst imaginable, I cried from the moment we arrived at the airport until the moment I slept on the plane. It was a traumatic experience in itself, embarrassing, awkward, extremely upsetting.

I feel in a slightly better place now but I am scared to drive the same drive to the airport, to walk into the same departure lounge and board the same airline. I don’t know how that is going to make me feel and I really hope that it doesn’t put me in the wrong mindset for my break Way because I just want to enjoy myself and let go of all this pain and negativity.

But the brain can be a bitch at times, it will associate that orange and white plane, the pretzel company where I bought him his first ever pretzel, even the toilets that I waited beside for him. My brain will associate all of those things with the whole episode of depression that I have just been through and I don’t quite know yet how I’m going to tackle that.

My last two holidays have been destructive to my life. Hopefully third time lucky.

Until next time.

Thoughts like buzzing bumblebees.

I want to take a walk through my last relationship, from the very beginning, to the very end. ( Now reading this back it definitely does not come close to start to end, I’m going to have to write a book if I want to do that!) Not missing out anything, a true reflection of how I felt, and a true reflection of the things that I did.

So we were in the same team at work, that’s how we met, I had no interest in him sexually I just thought he was a funny guy, he made me laugh. I enjoyed a little bit of banter with him, he made me smile. What he doesn’t know, is that my mood was very low just weeks before we started talking. I think he believes that I was a happy person then, but let me tell you deep inside I was hurting. I was surprised that he didn’t see me just a few weeks before coming into work looking like I had been hit by a bus, a bit like I’ve been lately. Not eating, not sleeping, I still to this day wonder how he didn’t see me like that, and how it never put him off. I had a shit summer, I fucked up my a levels, I was still getting shit off the father of my child and to make it worse, I got played by a guy and I stupidly thought it would be good to play the game back. It didn’t turn out well for me, and I have regretted it every single day since. See I learnt a lesson at that time, that point scoring doesn’t win you an emotional game.

Okay so we started talking a little, okay maybe not a little, a lot. I don’t do early mornings but this guy kept me up silly late talking to him and I still managed to go to work with a smile on my face. Talking to him was great, I thought we shared similar values, I thought we were on the same page. I have to be comply honest, when I say that what had just happened with C wasnt out of my head yet. C had messed me around a lot, and C didn’t want me, I knew that. But if he was graded on his ability to confuse me I would give him an A*. He wanted me at his beck and call, but he didn’t want to be at mine. It was not healthy, but at the time, it was all I had. And I think we have established that up until now, I have always needed someone. Having someone on my life, makes my life more bearable. Being shown love and affection, makes me feel worthy of life. Anyway, back to the situation. My now ex, then blossoming new relationship, asked if I wanted to have a chat with him face to face after work one day. C just so conveniently happened to see this chat take place and my phone exploded. He told me he loved me, for the first time and we had been seeing eachother on and off for months and months, and I can’t tell you how much I wanted to hear those words from him. But I was so confused.

I decided that I needed to give my ex a fair shot, rather than being up against someone that I had a lot of chemistry for. So that’s what I did, o talked more, I went on dates, and I fell for him. But the whole time I was afraid. I didn’t feel ready, he was very honest about the person he was in the past and that made me very apprehensive about opening myself up to him, and I was umming and arring about what to do. I wanted to choose my heart, and I did, choose my heart but that doesn’t silence my head. He asked me, to be his girlfriend, and o wasn’t expecting it. I said yes without giving it any thought. My love for him grew, but my trust issues exploded. The more I loved, the more I was able to be hurt. I don’t know if I was always going to be hurt, or if I pushed him unit hurting me, or if I deserved for having doubts.

Surely everybody has doubts right? It was very new and I didn’t know if it was right for me or not. I didn’t use this as a justification for myself to go out and test any waters, believe it or not that really isn’t me. I never flirted with anyone, not even a cheeky smile, or a slightly over friendly text. I wanted it to be prefect, but there was only ever one thing I couldn’t defeat. C.

When I was feeling really down, I would turn to him. So stupid to do that. I might not have had him at my neck and call, but I knew I could count on him more than anyone else that I have here to be there for me. I could count on my hands the number of conversations that I had with him. It wasn’t like I was having a full on affair, I didn’t kiss the guy, I didn’t touch the guy, not once when I was with my ex. I know talking to him over text was wrong, and sometimes I may have said things about how I felt about him, which is also wrong, but it was true. Sometimes the truth hurts but I have no time for lies now. Point is, nothing physical ever happened whilst I was in a relationship.

There were certain things going on in my relationship that I had to adapt to. Things that I had never experienced before, didn’t know how to deal with. I’m not going to lie at first I questioned myself could I do it? Could I live with this change?… But do you know what, I gave myself a shot, I gave myself belief and in belief I succeeded. Many would have secretly found away to not have to change, or just gave up without giving change a chance but I never did. The love I was building in my heart became more important than anything else I have ever experienced.

Everyone is different, and I know that everyone is affected by things differently. Don’t get me wrong, nobody is okay with their partner talking to someone else behind their back, no matter how many times or who it is. I don’t mean to sound as though I am trying to justify a ring action here because I’m not, but in order to love with myself I have to forgive myself and to forgive I must give myself an explanation. I know that my wrongdoing was not out of spite, not out of hate, I wasn’t point scoring, or just being plain greedy. I turned to one person, for no other reason than that we had a connection. I turned to him at times that I was afraid and sad, because I wanted to feel like somebody cared. What I have learnt, is that the only way to fix something like that, is to actually sit down and talk to the person that’s making you feel that way, and explain to them why you feel that way. If your love is strong enough, you will find a way together, to work it out.

What’s brought this on tonight? I try not to wonder over it in my mind, but sometimes things trigger it and I can’t help myself. I know, hand on my heart, hope to die, that I only ever made one mistake – one person. I find myself asking the question how many girls really were there that he came close to, stood on, or crossed the line with? Would it be better if I knew, or am I better off never having the truth? I have suffered all my life facing the consequences of a person’s lie. The reality is that one persons lie, is enough to make me want to end my life. But I know that one is a lie, because I know the truth. There are many things I don’t know the truth about, would I rather it come out? Or is it better left in the closet? Who knows maybe if I never spoke up about my abuse it would affect me the way it does now? Maybe I wouldn’t feel like my words are worthless, maybe I wouldn’t feel let down by my friends and family. Maybe I wouldn’t feel like my feelings are not justified because if I explain them they are little more than an excuse to others.

Silly really, I was feeling a little lonely, and I was asking myself about tinder. Should I download it, why not I deserve to meet someone in the end right? But i couldn’t bare the thought of coming across him on there I know it would cause me more pain than I’d ever gain from the app. Then I thought maybe I could meet people another way, a different app that he won’t be on an then something hit me. I remember seeing a dating app on his iPad. And my thoughts began to wonder, I had always told myself that was just old and he no longer used it. But what if that wasn’t the case, what if he was using my logic, but when we were together. What if my boyfriend, the one who was playing father to my child, was also dating online. And here I am again, in floods of tears, wondering what someone up there would be able to see if they looked down at my life, the things that go on behind my back, the truths.

I need my guardian angel back, I can’t find her.

Until next time.

Off Guard

Its 3am in the morning, I have an early start, I should be fast asleep. Instead my emotions have been caught off guard and I’m stuck thinking about my ex, everything about him.

As I lay here in my bed I close my eyes and try to imagine the feeling of his mattress beneath me, the heaviness of his duvet. The smell of his room, of this aftershave. The feeling of his soft skin against my cheek as I lay with my head on his chest. I used to do that every weekend. That was my home. See the truth is, nowhere has ever really felt like home to me before.

My first house, where I grew up, was ruined by memories of my first abuser. I can’t think back and picture my bedroom without picturing him there with me. No matter what memory I have, it always ends up coming back to him. I remember being in the front attick room of our house, I had always shared with my brother on the floor below but the lodger had moved out and I could finally have my own room. All girly. I remember that room, one Christmas Eve, I thought I would be able to hear santa land on my roof because I was so close. A little girl excited for Christmas. But then I remember that same room, that same bed. I remember being completely naked laying on the bed beneath him completely naked. I didn’t have that room for long, so now that I think about it, my sexual journey started before I stopped believing in Santa Claus. What kind of a childhood is that?

The next house I lived in he also visited once or twice, and whilst not much happened there it was were I was living when I first spoke up about what had happened. My memories of that house are surrounded by police interviews and interrogation and upset within my family. It seems like all of the good memories I ever had in either house only come back very rarely but these ones I could relive every moment, every fine detail at any point.

The house I lived in after that, during my teenage years, where my mum still lives now. That was where I was living during my second episode of abuse. The bed that I layed in when I was 13 years old, with a man who was 24. The convincing rapist, the groomer. It’s no wonder I have no self esteem, and no ability to believe in myself when I let that happen to me. Why didn’t I stop it? Why didn’t I see that it was wrong?

I moved to my father’s house for a little while, which is where I currently live now. It doesn’t feel like home, not one bit. I think that’s just because I am not close to anyone here, apart from my son, but he will be with me wherever I go. It’s not mine, I’ve not been able to decorate my room, I’m bound by rules, I don’t feel free. More than anything I feel lonely, and when I’m lonely, like this very moment, my thoughts consume me. And I cry, I cry until I fall asleep.

Before returning here, I lived in a flat with my ex and my baby. It would have felt like home if it wasn’t the very place that I was attacked whilst pregnant. Full of raging arguments, a place where I often felt low and didn’t want to live anymore.

My ex’s house started to feel like home. Whilst we bickered about things and had disagreements we never had a fight, he never physically hurt me, he never raped me. It was the only bed that I layed my head to sleep on where I was safe. Whilst I never felt safe mentally, because I felt like the whole world was attacking me, him included. Compared to the rest of my life this was a safe haven. With more happy memories than bad ones. With more positives than negatives. One place that I actually felt loved and welcomed. I felt like I was actually wanted there.

I think of the feeling of his teeny tight curls between my fingers. I loved playing with his hair, it felt so different to any other head I’d touched. That’s why I liked it so much. As I squished the strands in my fingers I dreamt of having little babies with the same hair, that I would play with in the same way until it wasn’t cool for me to do it anymore. I think of how our lips met when we kissed, his were like a big soft cushion. Never had a kiss that felt so right before.

Now I can’t even reply to a text. Every time I engage in conversation with him I feel at rock bottom, and I don’t want to live anymore. I’ve had a long time to work out why my head is so messed up, and I know the causes of most of my struggles and emotions, but not this one. The only thing I know is that not talking to him at all has helped me to start seeing a future for myself, but clearly it does not mean that I do not think about him. It does not mean that I do not miss him. My councillor asked me last week what I wanted and I said I don’t know. She likes to remind me that I may well find someone else who treats me better than I have ever been treated before. Fills me with optimism. It’s true, I could. But how do I know? I’m afraid. I’m afraid to ever let anyone in again. I’m afraid to date, I’m afraid to let anyone fall in love with me because they may no longer want me when they find out what I’ve been through and how it affects my life. I’m afraid of abondonment. My ex felt like I caught him under false pretences. Clearly the way I was acting when he fell for me, the person I was then, I am not able to manage all the time. How long can it last? I may find someone else, I may be able to be the good me for a week, a month, a year. Long enough to attract them. But what happens if I come back to this place, what happens when I’m struggling, when I’m hurting. Even though it’s not their fault, they may leave me, again, because I’m not the person they thought I was. How will I ever attract someone if I’m honest with them at the start? How do you say to someone.. oh by the way, before you fall in love with me, i was abused as a child, as a teenager, subject to domestic violence when I was just an adult and that has made me fragile. I have issues with trust and sometimes i just may not want to be alive. Be lucky if they even pay half the bill and don’t run from the restaurant before finishing their food.

I don’t know. It’s all I keep saying, to everyone, to myself. I don’t know what to make of the situation. I don’t know what I want for the future. I don’t know if I’ll ever love again. I’m just stuck here in limbo.

Until next time.

When you find the one you love

Heart break is one of the worst things we will go through in life. As humans with emotions we are built to give love and built to receive it. We need love in our lives in order to live life to the full, we can’t change that. People will go through things that you could argue are much worse than heart break, but those things are often almost completely negative. Whilst they are painful, they are not a loss. A relationship may have been toxic, but it would have had it’s beautiful moments too, and that’s why we find it so emotionally challenging. We cannot live in a world without love, so we must learn how to optimise it.

As with anything in life, we must put in the effort and hard work to achieve it. Nothing is just handed to us on a plate. As a newborn baby we only really have the ability to suckle and to cry. We learn to chew foods, to talk, to walk. We learn to become doctor’s, scientists, astronauts. Nobody just stumbles into a world, fully able to do everything. If you never learn medicine, you will never be a doctor. You may wonder how this is relatable to love and relationships? Well not only the heartbreak of loosing somebody that I loved, but also realising how low my self esteem is and how I’ve left bad past experiences basically control my mind has sent me in a new direction. One of the only things that has helped to start bringing me out of depression has been learning to understand how powerful your mind can really be if you train it to be. Learning about our minds, and our abilities in lofe has made me realise a lot about what we need to do as individuals in relationships.

Nothing in life is prefect right? We hear that saying all the time. And it’s true. Nothings perfect, but things can be great. Greatness doesn’t just hand itself to you, you have to achieve it. This applies to any relationship that you have with any person. The attraction may be instantaneous, and it may seem like you didn’t have to put in any effort to get things started with a person, which is fantastic, but let me tell you much more is required to maintain that person. No matter what you want in life, there will always be obstacles. Things will always try to stop you from achieving your goal, the environment, unfortunate events, people, often even those closest to you. In order to succeed and still reach your goal, it’s important to go through the obstacles. Don’t turn away from them and look for a different path, don’t go around them, not over them, or underneath them but go through them. You have to have the attitude of ” well I’m going to do it anyway “.

Relationships present many obstacles and always will. Just because there are obstacles, doesn’t mean you should give up, doesn’t mean you don’t deserve eachother. It just means you have to go through the obstacles, together, in order to be a great couple. Together is the key word in that last sentence. If you are going through the obstacles alone, even if you think it beneficial, like team work.. you take that one, I’ll take this one, it won’t work. If the result that you want achieve is being together, then you have to take all of the steps together, on the same path. When you find someone who is willing to take every obstacle head on with you, if you both want the same result, both want to achieve the same goal (in terms of the relationship) then don’t let them go. One of the most important things I have learned in the last week is consistency. I will not get better and stay better if I’m not consistent with the actions that I am taking to bring me away from the low mood and anxiety. Relationships are no different. If you want the relationship to work out, the love to last then you have to be consistent. I heard someone say on a speech recently, if you stop brushing your teeth and ask in a week’s time why your breath smells, it’s because you haven’t brushed your teeth. If you don’t want your breath to smell, you have to brush your teeth everyday. Do relationships get harder as time goes on or do we become less consistent? Think about the build up to one of your relationships, what did you do to impress that person, to make them want to be with you in the first place. Did you say good morning to them, and wish them a pleasant day every day? .. how long did it take before you stopped letting them know that they were on your mind first thing in the morning, and that you cared about the day they would have?… Do you feel as attractive to your partner as they made you feel at the start of your relationship, do they still tell you how nice you look? … It’s no good saying well I’ve told you before, or well you know I care. Because no, actually people don’t. Unless you consistently show your partner how much they mean to you, unless you consistently treat them like they are special to you, they won’t feel as though they are. The relationship, is slowly going from fresh and minty to stinky breath. Each of you has the choice to use the toothbrush daily, but if you choose to not to use it, you are allowing yourself to have bad breath.

The only life that you are living is yours, you are the main character of your movie, and so the world does revolve around you. You can’t be in anyone elses eyes, you can’t make anyone elses movie. So in a relationship don’t forget to consider your own actions because your looking out at everyone else. It is important to look back at yourself and make sure that you are doing things right too. Just the same way that your partner has to learn how to live with you, you need to learn how to live with them. You will each do things that upset each other, that annoy eachother, there is no doubt about that. But you must take the criticism and act on it. Make yourself better, to them, to everyone else, to yourself. You cannot expect another person to make changes to suit you, if you are not willing to make changes to suit them. At the same time you shouldn’t have to change who you are and where you want to go in life in order to suit someone else. A relationship is the idea of unity, of two becoming one, and sacrifices will need to be made on both parts for that to be achieved, it’s inevitable. You will never find a person who is just a perfect fit, because perfect doesn’t exist remember? You need to be willing to make small changes, and you also need to understand that you can’t ask too much of that person either. Otherwise that person that your trying so hard to hold on to, you will push them away.

Relationships need to have balance, their will be negatives, but they can’t outweigh the positives. Sometimes one person will be weak, and the balance may change. Person A may have to put in 80% whilst person B only puts in 20%. Let’s take grieving as an example. Person B’s mother has just passed away, which is a great loss to person B who doesn’t know how to deal with it and all aspects of Person B’s life are affected. Person A will help pick person B back up again, take some pressure or person B whilst they are struggling, show their support and care. If you are not willing to accept that sometimes in life people won’t be able to give you their all, then you probably shouldn’t be with that person. You need to love someone enough to guide them through their toughest times, and they need to love you enough to do the same.

If you already love someone, or when you find someone that you do. Keep the relationship healthy by being consistent. Talk to eachother, tell eachother what your feeling and thinking. Agree on what’s acceptable to change and what’s not. A breakdown in communication will have a devestating impact on your relationship. Don’t let them slip away and don’t push them away.

Until next time.

You jump I jump – Well that was a lie…

I have spent a lot of time this week thinking about the relationship that I have just come out of. Maybe it’s not good to think back over everything but maybe it is, for I’m finally starting to see things that are helping me to stop blaming myself.

If you have read over my first few posts, and in particular Mystery Man you will see that I have praised my ex boyfriend for everything but not standing with me through this mental struggle. I have gone back to my roots and I have explained how my experiences as a child have left me with severe self-esteem issues, feeling worthless, like everyone else is better than me which of course causes trust issues in a relationship. I have neglected to mention all of the things that happened in the relationship leading up to the break up, that lowered my self-esteem even further, made my mood even lower and made me want to give up altogether. We watched titanic together about a week before he left me, and he said to me ‘ you jump I jump’ hence the title of this post. He claimed to have my back, he told me not to cry anymore, he said he had me and I can’t count how many times he told me I was precious and that he was going to show me my worth in the world. That he was going to be the one guy that proved to me that relationships, that men, aren’t all bad. However, he didn’t live up to his word. I was clouded by my low mood into thinking that he just didn’t jump with me, but I’m starting to see that he pushed me before he walked away to the easier life he wants.

Every relationship has its ups and downs and everyone makes mistakes here and there particularly at the beginning of a relationship when your still unsure if it’s what you really want or not. The things that I have been considering are the more recent things. Only about 6 weeks prior to the break up is where things really went downhill. I cannot deny that I too have not been perfect and that I have made mistakes that warrant him to be angry and upset. The difference with me is that I owned up to them, I didn’t need to have evidence put Infront of me, all he had to do was ask me if I had done something and I told him the truth in response to his question. I even told him things that he wasn’t asking about because I didn’t want to hide anything from him, I didn’t want to lie to the man that I loved. Even at this point when we had agreed to be honest about everything and wipe the slate clean he still protested his innocence throughout the whole relationship. He spent a week at least giving me a very hard time for the mistakes that I had made, and made me feel extremely worthless during that period. I have never before felt so undeserving of love and I really blamed myself thinking that I was the only one that had done wrong, that I had ruined my life and that I would just be better off dead because I had messed up.

Slowly day by day his lies began to expose themselves, and the amount of times that he lied to my face became way more than anything I had ever done to him. It even came out that during that week that he was giving me a hard time for not being completely honest about something that had happened when we weren’t together, he was going behind my back talking to other girls. Whilst giving me the low down, making me feel like I was the worst person in the world he was actually not practicing what he preached but doing worse!! I’ll tell you the reason why I felt so low when I arrived in Paris with him the day before the break up. Teo days before we were due to leave, I was using his iPad and I came across a folder full of nudes from other girls. He had told me, numerous times, and even that very week that he had deleted all of those pictures and had no need for them any longer. Yet again he was lying, perhaps it was an innocent mistake that he hadn’t deleted them from all locations but he had said that he had seen them the night before and couldn’t remember his code to get into the app but why wouldn’t you just delete the whole app? It makes no sense and he’s not a silly person, he’s got brains he just tries to act dumb when it suits him.

I am beginning to think that there are many many things that he lied to me about, and I believe that he was always up to things that he should not have been. Whether he actually loved me or not I will never know. I don’t think he would ever admit this but I think I know why he does not want to be with me now. He kept saying that he wanted to support me to get better, but that he didn’t want to be with me and I was confused by this. I couldn’t understand how he could care but not enough. He said that getting me better was the number one priority, and he kept repeating that the relationship wasn’t good for me that it wouldn’t help me get better, that I wasn’t in a good enough place for a relationship. But I’ve figured it out now. He knows that he wronged me, and only he knows to the full extent how much. He doesn’t want to be with me because he knows that although he has nothing to do with the underlying mental health issues, he has pushed me over the edge with the way he has treated me lately and he is too much of a coward to fix it.

Better off without him.

Until next time.

Understanding Self-Esteem

When thinking about problems that one may have with their mental health I used to think only of anxiety and depression, and forget that there are other things that contribute to mental health such as stress, anger and self-esteem.

“self–esteem reflects a person’s overall subjective emotional evaluation of his or her own worth. It is a judgment of oneself as well as an attitude toward the self.”

Search the word on the internet and you will come across many definitions like the one above. When I used to think about self-esteem I thought it was solely about appearance, are you happy with what you look like, are you comfortable with your weight, do you consider yourself to be attractive. But I have come to realise that there is much more to self-esteem than anyone thinks at first glance, and that it has a major impact on my life and the things that I do every single day. My ex boyfriend used to ask me a question such as “what would you like for dinner?” and then follow it up almost immediately with ” don’t even say you don’t mind”. I always used to say you know how indecisive I am, I like it when other people make choices for me. Only in the last few days have I actually learnt that my indecisiveness is a result of my low self-esteem. Having no confidence and belief in yourself, fearing that you will make the wrong choice, makes you not want to be responsible for the choice at all. Whether its just going to affect yourself of whether its going to impact others, and that is even scarier. You don’t want to suggest somewhere to eat, just in-case the person you go with doesn’t like it, and then associates that experience with you and blames you for it. Decisions, they occur numerous times on a daily basis, and being indecisive is something that I do automatically every time and would never have thought it had anything to do with my self-esteem!

So what are the signs that you have low self-esteem? You may be well aware that you have a struggle at the moment but you may not have thought that self-esteem was something that you need to work on to help you fight. Here are some common signs that you have low self-esteem:-

Feelings of hate or dislike to yourself
Feeling worthless or not good enough
Being unable to make decisions or assert yourself
Feeling like no one likes you
blaming yourself for things that aren’t your fault
Feeling guilty for spending time or money on yourself
Being unable to recognise your strengths
Feeling undeserving of happiness
Having a negative outlook
Lack of confidence
Inability to express your needs
Focusing on your weaknesses
Feelings of shame, depression, or anxiety
Belief that others are better than you
Trouble accepting positive feedback
Fear of failure

How many of these do you experience? I think I suffer with all of them. Damn that’s pretty scary! No wonder I don’t believe anyone loves me, no wonder I always feel like I cant trust anyone, not boyfriend nor friend, and sometimes not even family. How can I possibly believe that anything will be good when I think this way?

Update with my progress- I have had my assessment and I have been put on to a wellbeing course with the opportunity to have some one-to-one counselling after I have completed it. Bad news is- there is a waiting list for the course, and its going to take a little while to complete it so I could still be a very long way from the help that I need. So in the meantime I am doing my best to self-help, I have brought a CBT book and I am just about to get to the practical part where I will learn things that I can put into practice and share them with you here. My goal for this week is to research and practice methods of raising my self-esteem, I think its a great place to start and will have a domino effect with both my anxiety and depression. Fingers crossed.

One very important thing that I have learnt this week is that to start feeling better, you need to take away the things that are having a negative impact on your health. As hard as it is to do that, you will only feed off of these things and they can very easily reverse any progress that you have made.

In my last post Is love the answer? I talked about wanting to have someone beside me through the journey, how people have caused me to feel this way and I feel like I need people to help me feel better. I do hope that there are currently people in my life, and that I will in the future meet people who will hold my hand through this struggle, but I have learnt that you are better off doing it alone than turning to someone who is unreliable, and causes your head more confusion. If they cant decide whether they want to be there for you or not, don’t accept their help at all. You need support that is concrete, people who you can turn to no matter what.

Until next time.

My trust issues – In a nutshell

If you have already read some of my blog posts you will already know about the first part of my story, if you haven’t then you can read The first trigger for a more detailed explanation of that part of my life.

So at 8 years old I had my first sexual experience, abused by a teenager over a the period of 1-2 years. I never appreciated at the time how much this would affect my adult life and you will see references to this throughout my posts.

When I was 11 or 12 I started experimenting with boys my own age, in line with all of my friends. You know, the relationship in the school playground where a kiss was a big deal and it lasted a day or a week at most.

Then when I was 13 it happened again. I started having a relationship with a man 11 years older than myself, and I admit that at the time I consented. But as I have matured I have come to understand that a 13 year old does not truly know what they are consenting to and more so should never be put in the situation where they are given the option to consent. He then, was older than I am now and I do not look at 13 year olds and see anything other than an innocent child, a little annoying at times but that’s a stage of life. He tricked and manipulated me into believing it was love and that it was right. But oh how wrong it was. Not only that but he was mentally abusive and controlling. He used to sit at the top of my road and wait for me to come home, I barely went to school and spent most of my time with him for two years. I have spent alot of time blaming myself for this, asking myself how I let this happen to me, again. I have recently learnt that revictimisation is a thing and I will come on to that in another post.

After that relationship I started going out with another boy, much closer to my age. It started well and he had a great family that treated me well but he too was not a great person. He was a drug user and he didn’t work. I found myself having to pay for his habits. He treated me with nothing but disrespect and threatened me with violence on numerous occasions and pushed me about.

I remained single for a while after this, then I met the father of my child. This story is a long one and requires its own post. He abused me mentally throughout the relationship and physically whilst I was pregnant. Not to mention the lies and the cheating.

The next relationship I had after that is my last relationship,Mystery Man . He was nothing like any of these men, but I pushed him away because my head wouldn’t let me believe he was good. Every experience that I had with relationships had been bad, so why would this one be any different right?

I don’t blame myself for having trust issues, for not believing that there is good in the world and that if there is I’m not deserving of it. It is perfectly okay for me to feel that way with everything that I have been through. What is not okay, is letting those bad experiences stop me from having any good ones. Okay, so me and life did get off on the wrong foot. I didn’t have a great childhood, if you can even call it one at all. People often use the saying ‘ start as you mean to go on ‘. That’s how I have been living inside my mind, believing that my life will go on in the same way that my childhood did, that it will continue how it started. It doesn’t have to be that way, I don’t have to give up on myself, I can choose to have an adult life that is far from the life I experienced as a child. Some people will have no idea what I have been through in life, some people will know and hold my hand as I battle my mind for this change and others will give up on me.

It doesn’t really matter who or how many people fight with me, and how many desert, as long as I believe in myself, and I continue fighting for myself. I love the history of the Tudors and I feel kind of reminded of an uprising right now. Some of the men that would go to fight would originally form part of the kings army, but if they felt that he was more likely to loose they would switch sides so that the potential new king would favour them in future. The people that are truly loyal to me, that want to see me come out of this battle with my head alive, that love me enough to go through anything with me, they are the ones by my side. The ones that give up on me, or that half-heartedly offer to be beside me, those that will only choose their side as the side that’s winning. Your army is stronger without those people, those that may turn on their own.

As of now, I am putting my trust issues into flames and letting them burn away into ashes. From today I will choose to believe that I have had all of my negative experiences and that the next one will be a positive one. I will continue learning ways to control my own brain, to overcome self-doubt and most importantly to love myself. By the time I choose to allow myself a relationship, I will be the girl that I dream of being, and I will have confidence in believing that I am worth more than the experiences I have already had.

I WILL trust again.

I am so excited, to start choosing to be the girl of my dreams.

Until next time.