Anxiety

Anxiety

Bleugh, even the word makes me feel ill.

Like many, many people out there, I suffer from anxiety and panic attacks. This post is mainly to tell my stories about things that have happened to me and how I suffer with it and also some advice to people who need it.

I've never actually been diagnosed with anxiety by a doctor but I have all the signs to say I have it and when mentioned to doctors, they basically just agreed with me.

I'm just speaking for myself here and the experience I've had, but I have found that doctors/GPs are completely useless when it comes to helping to combat the anxiety I have. I've been countless times and so many appointments i've been faced with the same question: 

"So… what do you want me to do about it?"

That's not exactly what you want to hear when you've been kept up all night worrying about silly things and having panic attacks around the clock. So many times I've been given a list of relaxation exercises. That may well help some people so I'm really not ruling it out, but I did have a go and the exercises just didn't seem to work in any way. The only time I ever got close to receiving some kind of medication for it, there were still obstacles in the way. Personally, I don't like the idea of taking pills to help me calm down or to help with my anxiety, but if its safe and proven to ease it even just a little bit I was more than happy to give it a go. I was offered something called "Beater Blockers" but because I've suffered with Asthma, I wasn't able to take them. I was also offered something else but then the doctor said he would rather not give them to me as young people tend to get addicted to them. That in itself put me off anyway. 

I take Calms sometimes but I don't really think it doesn't anything, I think its more of a placebo effect. If I take something and I think it's working it will work for me. But other than that I continue to live with it and try to get by.

Sometimes there's reason for me to be anxious and nervous. An exam, an interview, money worries, going back to uni… But sometimes there seems to be no reason at all. It just comes from nowhere. I feel like there's a weight on my chest and shoulders and I can't stop worrying and feeling nervous. I think it's a subconscious thing. 

Sometimes it just seems like the most ridiculous reason to feel anxious. Right now, as I write this, I have to go back to uni tomorrow, for an exam the next day. The thought of the exam is worrying me, but most of all, the idea of getting on a coach and then a taxi to my flat on my own is freaking me out. As well as that, it's stressing me out that I don't have a lot of money because my student loan is ridiculous and there is barely any food in my flat. To someone who doesn't have anxiety, that might seem really irrational and silly, but it's been on my mind for days now. 

A lot of people don't understand. If you have anxiety, you'll probably agree with me. People don't understand why you're always nervous or why silly things make you anxious or why you're sad and nervous for what seems like no reason. I get it. 

To cope with it, you need to have patience with yourself and with the people close to you. So many times i've had arguments because I lose my temper when people don't understand why I feel the way I do. But… it's understandable because they have no experience with anxiety so they won't know how to deal with it. Rather than losing your temper, try to explain exactly how you feel and try to understand yourself why you feel the way you do. Ask yourself has something triggered it? There's not always a reason. Explain that sometimes, a thought that has stayed with you, maybe in your sub conscience, is bugging you and it makes you nervous to think about. Try to do activities to take your mind of it. Clean, play some music, see friends. I find that my anxiety is at its best when I'm with my boyfriend because that's when I feel most relaxed. So if I can't see him, I tend to just try to talk to him and tell him how I feel.

It's hard but you can live with it. I'm still here.

Money Worries!

First thing that used to spring to mind before I became a student: FRESHERS

First thing that springs to mind now that I am a student: SKINT

Being a student is great. The majority of people are really sociable, you can go out drinking and have fun, you can join societies, etc. etc. etc.

BUT. If you move away from uni you might be eligible for a maintenance loan. Nobody really talked anything like this through with me at college or anything, so I had to work it out on my own, with help from my parents. A maintenance loan sounds great. It'll help you to pay for going out, your food, your bills, and you might have money left over for your christmas presents and a few treats for yourself, with the odd takeaway after a night out.

Wrong.

Not meaning to scare you, but the system is ridiculous and I have no worries saying that the student finance programme is utter shit.
They base the amount of money they will give you on how much your parents earn. Despite the fact that you won't be living with your parents to get money from them, they still consider that. Instead, you get next to nothing because your parents work hard and earn money. Ridiculous.

Look back to all the things I thought my maintenance loan would cover. With the money I was able to get, my loan doesn't even cover the rent of my accommodation so my parents have to help me out. I absolutely HATE borrowing money, so this is a massive deal for me.

Some people will be eligible for more, so don't worry completely. But if your parents earn a comfortable amount of money here are some tips on how to save:

• Start saving now- any money you have, try not to spend too much. Put money away every month because you'll need it.
• Keep your job- if you have a job now and you're not moving away for uni then that will be a really good help. If you're moving away but live close to the city you're moving to and are going home on weekends, try to keep your job because you could always use the extra cash
• Look for a job- if you're moving quite far away and you are planning on staying there full time, coming home for holidays or the odd visit, try to find a job on weekends or nights. Making sure you have enough time to yourself and time to get work done of course, otherwise you'll end up really stressed and overwhelmed. 
• Takeaways!!!- This was my biggest issue. I can't cook very well so I was resorting to takeaways all the time. Try to avoid getting takeaways as best you can, but if you're craving a greasy kebab after a night out, try to find somewhere cheap and cheerful or take full advance of freshers fairs and get leaflets full of free food vouchers or take away deals
• Basics- if your parents do your shopping at home, they might buy branded foods and that might be what you're used to. When you're a student and it comes to doing your own shopping, aaaaalways go for shops own brand. It's cheaper and you get more for your money and it will be better for you in the long run. I'm sure you can get like 40 tea bags from Sainsburys for 29p and they taste great! 
• Walk- don't get taxis or busses if you can help it. If you're moving away, look for accommodation really near you campus so that you can walk there. If not, try to take advantage of being a student and apply for student passes and everything you can get. 

Moving Away For Uni

I'm going to be completely honest in these uni posts, because I feel like I went into this thinking I knew exactly what I was doing, when I actually had no clue at all.

If you're around that age where you have to start thinking about your future and where you want to go to university… PLEASE carefully consider your options. Moving away to a different city, sharing halls with brand new students who you've never met before and learning to stand on your own two feet sound so exciting! However… you also have to consider the fact that you're so far away from everything and everyone you're used to. This got to me a lot at the beginning.
It sounds so fun and exciting… which it is, to some extent, but when you get there and your family leave you to go back to what you used to call home, you're there on your own and you have to start looking after yourself. You're in a city that you've probably never been to, or you don't know very well and you have to be an adult now.

I'm going to be honest, I've never felt my heart drop more than when my parents said they were gonna go back home and leave me to settle in. As soon as I closed the front door of my flat, I felt the lump in my throat and I just wanted to run back and shout "NO! Take me with you!"

I think for the first week or two, I absolutely HATED every second of it. I hated living on my own, I hated my room, I hated everything. As I suffer with anxiety and panic attacks, this was a major test for me and I really struggled with it at first, So, if you suffer with the same thing, please be careful. I would definitely say that you have to push yourself and learn to live outside of your comfort zone, but if you're an anxiety sufferer, it's a lot harder to do that, and I think moving to a city 2 and half hours away from where I am from was a little too much for me.

Despite all of that, I'm still there! Almost 7 weeks in, with 6 weeks left before I leave for the Christmas holidays, I'm still there and ploughing my way through the first semester. I found a happy medium to help tackle my anxiety. Call me stupid or whatever you want, but the only thing that helped me settle in and be happier at uni was coming home at weekends to see my family and boyfriend, then going back on the Monday night to start uni on the Tuesday afternoon. Yes, I agree, it's silly and expensive and I should just "suck it up" as a lot of people have been telling me. But at the end of the day, I do what makes me happy. If i'm in a situation where it makes me unhappy, I'm gonna try my best to improve it.

Don't get me wrong, it is definitely a good experience. I've made so many amazing new friends and you get to meet people from all walks of life, who you would probably never have gotten the chance to meet before. I mean, everyone I know are either from Sunderland, Newcastle, Boldon or South Shields. But now, I have friends from Blackpool, Crook, Bishop Auckland, Ireland, Sheffield, Formby, Chester, Easington, Halifax, Manchester, Nottingham… so many places! It's so interesting to get to know them and learn about their lives and what they would usually get up to.
It is fun to live on your own, without parents too. As scary as it also is, it's quite good to be able to get to make your own decisions and (sorry parents) not have your parents or siblings tell you what you should and shouldn't do.

So! If you're in your final year of college or just thinking about your future, please, please, PLEASE really think through your choices. If you're like me, and you're quite a 'home bird' where you feel happiest and most comfortable in places that you know well and you're used to, really think about whether or not you can live on your own and move away. Try to think past all the excitement and think about if you really are going to be able to cope with all of the changes and going from living with people you're related to, who can look after you, to living with complete strangers.

Many people are different. I know people who were so excited to move away for uni, unlike me who has been dreading it since May. Some have been to eager to leave their house and have took to uni life like a duck to water. If that's you, and you're that kind of person, I commend you. I wish I was more like that. But if you think you're not going to be able to do it, you have a choice. Don't base your decision off of what your friends are doing, or what your family would prefer you to do, or what you older sibling did… if you wanna move away, do it! As long as you can afford to. If you have considered it and think "You know what… I'm quite happy living here and I think a university closer to home would suit me better." then thats great!

I think the happy medium, and what I wish I had done, would be to go to a uni near my home city, but still move out. I think if I went to Newcastle university, which is about 45 minutes away from me at the most, and moved into a student flat, it would still be daunting and scary, but I think I would be more at ease and more comfortable knowing I wasn't that far away and could nip home any time I wanted.

You learn from you mistakes I guess!

Update

Everything has been a little crazy lately.

I moved out of my house and into student halls in Leeds and I started my degree in Journalism. Everything feels so different now and I have felt 7 billion emotions per day since I moved and its all been a massive learning experience.

I'm back to blogging more regularly now, and because of what's being going on, I feel like it might be a good idea to do a few blog posts on uni life and how to cope with change and stuff along that wavelength, as well as everything else.

Also… christmas! It's just around the corner and I love this time of year so I think I'm definitely going to be writing a lot about what to wear, festive makeup, what I'll be getting up to in the holidays and all that kind of stuff.

So that's just a quick update!

Getting personal.

Another quote I found on Tumblr that I wanted to blog about. 

'Accept yourself.'

I've been yo-yo dieting since I was about eleven years old, which means I've had a pretty unhealthy relationship with food and a warped view of how I should look for around eight years. That's pretty sad when you think about it. I always thought that I had to be skinny and that there had to be a small number on the scale and there had to be a gap between my thighs and an extremely visible collarbone for me to be 'pretty' or 'perfect'. Through all of that, I started to just hate everything about myself and constantly compared myself to other people. They always had nicer hair, clearer skin, thinner legs, better cheekbones, the list goes on. I would always think about how unattractive I was and it took up my every thought. 

 Well the thing is... I've recently discovered that you can be happy no matter who you are,  your jeans size, you hair colour... You can be happy if you weight 7st or 17 stone. People with a gap between their thighs are beautiful. People who's thighs touch are beautiful. 

Everybody has flaws too. Everyone gets spots and dry or oily skin. Everyone has bad hair days and days where their makeup looks weird or they can't find something to wear. 

All you have to do is accept yourself and love yourself for who you are. You're allowed to feel down sometimes, but you're also allowed to think you look good.

There's no better feeling after years of really not quite liking yourself, than looking in the mirror and feeling proud of who you are and happy with what you look like. 

Love yourself, accept yourself and be brave. 

Again, I won't take full credit for this style of post. I'm sure many people do this but I'd just like to give a little shoutout to where I got my inspiration from which is the lovely Louise Pentland, aka Sprinkle of Glitter. If you don't know her, have a look at her blog here. She does similar posts to this sometimes and I absolutely adore her. (and her blog.)

Oh, while you're there, just give her a little subscribe on the old YouTubes as well :) 

youtube.com/sprinkleofglitter

Tumblr

So, just a quick post this one is...

(I swear I'm not illiterate.)

TUMBLR!

I've had a Tumblr for absolutely ages. Since the dinosaurs roamed the earth. Since Jesus was kicking about. But, lets get serious here, my blog used to be absolute crap. It was cringey text posts about what had happened to me that day and was basically a way for me to moan about things without many people seeing or judging me for it... lame, I know. (Don't judge me)

Alas! I have changed my ways and now I'd like to think it was a pretty darn good blog... or decent at least. I used to just reblog things about One Direction or McFly or The Wanted or any other random boyband or singer I was fancying at the time.

Now I like to reblog... nice things. :)

Basically, long story short, follow me! 

Turn A Star Into A Galaxy  is the name of my blog. It's not meant to be hipster or anything with the whole galaxy part by the way... it's Demi Lovato lyrics! 

Best App Ever

THE HUNT

So... I'm absolutely obsessed with this new app (Is it even new? Am I just a late comer? Who knows?) The Hunt which is basically a fashion/style/everything app. If you see something somewhere and you want to buy it, you just post a picture and someone, somewhere in the world will help you find it! 

Let me explain...

Imagine you saw your standard 'tumblr girl' wearing this really pretty pair of tie dye shorts (do tumblr girls wear those...? Again, who knows.) and you think 'Oooo, I'd love those!' but you just have to sadly scroll past and wish for them. Well, with this app, you can save the picture and post it asking for help. Somebody might know which website/shop its from and they can link you to it! It's honestly fab!

Not only that, but when you're bored, you can have a scroll through and see what people are looking for and have a look for them. I'd be lying if I said I haven't said on it all day and searched the net for clothes that random strangers are looking for. The beauty of the internet. 

So... if you fancy giving it a try, go to your smartphone app store and look up The Hunt- Style and Shopping Advice and just sign up either by creating an account or using you Twitter/Facebook. 

...follow me if you like :)