we are the species

We are the species of waste, the species of 'would you like a plastic bag with that', and not 'do you need it?' We're the ones who buy products that can be widely recycled, but don't even attempt to do so. We're the ones smart enough to know how things decompose over time, yet we still produce items that wouldn't biodegrade for millions of years. We're the species who claim that health is important, and then genetically modify food before drowning it in chemicals and claiming it's edible. We're the species who think that land can be owned, and will stop anyone who disagrees. We control others through laws, and place labels like 'deviant' on those that we don't like the behaviour of. We're the species that would rather spend $463 million on a building which will only ever be used for a month. We're the ones who see suffering and walk past because we're too busy to stop and help. We're the species of freedom, yet we are restrained by so many rules. We're the species of unreachable expectations, but we still expect others to reach them. We're the ones who would rather capture a memory through a lens than just enjoy it as it is and capture it in our heart and mind. 

We are the species of destruction, and we can't stop ourselves. 

hypocrisy

One thing in life that I find undeniably frustrating is when people give advice that they would never take themselves and yet they expect others to follow their completely advice. This has become a particularly popular thing for people to do on twitter which I have noticed far too often for my liking.

When scrolling through my timeline, it's very common for me to see what I call 'depression accounts' (just to give them all one simple name, however not all suffer from depression, but similar mental health illnesses). Many people with these 'depression accounts' self harm or are suicidal, and they will actively tweet about their recent self harm or the fact that they want to try to kill themselves that night. Freedom of speech, I can't stop that.

One thing that I have noticed is that these 'depression accounts' intercommunicate frequently, especially in attempts to stop others from hurting themselves. They will say 'don't cut yourself tonight', when they themselves have every intension of doing so. Some will say 'show --- that things get better' when they truly believe that things will not get better for them.

I learned a while ago that giving advice that I wouldn't take myself is useless. I didn't start my recovery by choice, but one of the factors encouraging me to keep recovering was that I didn't want to be a hypocrite anymore. I wanted to be able to say that recovery works, that I'm feeling better and that the urges had gone, and have people believe me because they can actually see that I'm telling the truth. I wanted to push myself towards recovery, even though deep inside me, I never wanted to get better. But I was sick of feeling like any advice I gave was a lie. So I had to take my own advice for once and start to get better.

When I was very bad, I remember being told by so many people that I gave 'great advice' but that I should take my own advice too. I can recall that feeling like an impossible task that I would actively refuse to do, because I thought it was too hard. Well, over a year on, I can tell you that yes it was hard, and yes it did suck, but it was worth it. My own advice helped me so much more than I could ever have imagined, and that's because I stopped being hypocritical and finally decided that I needed to practice what I preach.

Although this may sound selfish, it's important that it's done. Recovery is a highly personal journey, people can guide you along the way, but it's you who has to take each step. So focussing on yourself is crucial, even if you don't want to. Spending more time following your own good advice to help you to get better would be so much more beneficial to you than helping a thousand other people to recover.

You need to take the first few steps yourself, show that the advice works, and that you're living proof that it's a good idea. So, go on, try your hardest to find alternative coping mechanisms, write down your thoughts like you tell others to, talk to your friend to vent your frustrations, find a hobby that allows you to take your mind off things. Don't just give this good advice to others, take it yourself. 

persistence

When entering a password, often if we are uncertain, or when we know we have made an error, we erase the whole thing, even though we cannot see whether we actually are right or wrong. For all we know, the password could be completely correct, but we erase it and start again, trying to get it perfect the next time.

In a way, this knowledge can be used on ourselves. When things begin to go wrong, or even when it feels like things are starting to go wrong, sometimes we choose to give up. This could be with anything; a friendship, art work, or even recovery.

Things are always going to go wrong, but that doesn't mean that you can give up. It's very rare for things to be right the first time, so persistence is needed to succeed.

Relating this back to recovery; you'll have good days, and bad days. At first, there will be more bad than good, but in time, and by not giving up, you'll have more good days. Don't waste all the good work you've done just because something goes wrong. You can't make an omelette without cracking a few eggs first.

taking some time out to myself

Things have been changing for me so much recently. Honestly, I'm a bit confused about what I want from life and how I feel in general. I just know that things are getting more positive, but it's odd. I'm not used to this. I don't know why it's happening, but I'm definitely happy about it.

I have been spending more time by myself recently, not on purpose, but I really feel like it has been helping me. I feel like I've finally realised a lot of things about myself, and I really think it's about time that I did. I've spent my whole life believing one thing, only to then realise that the truth is the complete opposite.

All I know is that I will continue to grow and develop into the best person I can be. But in the mean time, I need to keep spending more time by myself, getting to know who I truly am, and becoming as self aware as I can. For that reason, there may be a lack of blog posts over the next month, but I will try to fit in one whenever I can, or whenever I have an idea of what to write.

I'm taking my personal space because I can, and because I deserve it. I'm taking care of myself first, and putting the rest of my life on hold. I deserve to get better.

go and be the grass

Have you ever looked at nature and really appreciated it for how truly great it is? I'm not talking about looking upon a view in awe, or seeing something outstandingly beautiful. I'm talking about the simple things; the things that people usually look past, mainly because they are not automatically seen as the most amazing thing there is. Just by observing something as simple as grass, you can gain so much appreciation from nature.

Grass is regularly seen as just part of the background- to most people, it has no special purpose, but I think that's what makes it even more special. Grass is everywhere, well, of course not everywhere, but there is a lot of it. People play sports on it, animals feed on it, but we only ever see grass as a form of ground to walk on.

Often, grass is stepped on by people or animals, walked on by bugs, soaked by the rain or blown by the wind, but it always stands back up. With time and the right things, grass will always stand back up. Even when you cut grass, it grows back again, it takes time, but it does grow back.

Why does grass always stand up and grow back? Who is it doing it for? There's never going to be a superior blade of grass that will congratulate the others for their successes, it doesn't work like that. Grass stands up and grows again because it can. Grass isn't doing it for anyone, not even itself, it's just doing it because it can. 

I understand that up until this point I may sound like I'm in love with grass, or that I've gone a little mad, but there is a message behind this. Grass stands back up and grows back because it can, and so can you.

You have the ability to get back up, and change yourself into exactly who you want to be. You just have to be willing to work for it. People may knock you down, things may go wrong in your life, your friends may abandon you, and you may feel completely hopeless, but that doesn't mean you should give up. You have the power within you to keep going. If you give up, you're just letting go of your chance to be happy.

Everyone has the ability to be happy, no matter how bad things get. It's all about how you look at things. Too many people these days let negativity cloud their view of the world. Yes, lots of things go wrong, but that doesn't mean that everything will. We've always got to hold onto the positive things in life.

The fact that you're still alive means you're doing something right. Go and be the grass, stand up and keep growing, no matter what happens. Keep going... because you can.

opinions

We are all unique, in a literal sense, but so many of us are just replicas of other people. A shocking number of people choose to copy others for no reason other than 'to fit in'. I know plenty of people who copy other people's clothing choices, hobbies, music tastes, and worst of all, opinions.

Everyone has their own opinions, but we all have different strengths of opinions. Some people have very strong opinions. These sorts of people will very rarely change their mind on something, no matter what. They are often seen as 'closed minded' people, and this can be an aspect of their personality that others dislike, but I believe that someone with strong opinions is better than someone with weak opinions. People with weak opinions don't truly know what they believe, or they change their opinions depending on who they're with. These people are incredibly indecisive about their personalities, and it's obvious.

The thing I love about opinions is that they're so incredibly personal, or they should be. It seems that these days only a small proportion of the population have opinions that they truly believe in. A large number of people have opinions that seem to change along with the weather, just so they can impress certain people.

Opinions are a vital part of someone's character. Whether they like or dislike something can sometimes make or break a friendship. But, an even more likely reason for a friendship to break due to differences in opinions is when someone who has opinions that constantly change is in a friendship with someone who has stronger opinions than they do. These sorts of people tend to try harder to impress others than to actually find and appreciate themselves for who they are. In a friendship, these sorts of people can actually be difficult to deal with, because you never know whether the opinion they are giving is honest or just a lie to fit in.


I've always grown up telling myself that I have opinions for a reason, and I might as well be serious about them and keep to them, and all through my life I have been known as someone who has strong opinions, and yes, this has annoyed so many people and caused so many arguments, but no one has ever had a doubt about who I am or what I believe. I prefer things to be this way. It's better to be real to yourself and those around you. Life's too short to be anyone other than exactly who you are. 

you get out what you put in

I have been told so many times during my time in education that 'you get out what you put in'. Usually the teacher is referring to studying for exams, in the hope that their students will realise that they have to work very hard to achieve the highest grade they possibly can. Some students ignore this completely and avoid studying at all costs, some people think about what the teacher has said but don't follow the subliminal advice completely, and there are some students who realise that the teacher is being completely truthful. These people will work their absolute hardest to do the best they possibly can.

I really think that what our teachers say in the build up to exams is so important. We learn about hard work and dedication. We learn to work towards a goal and try our hardest to do the best that we can. These lessons can be applied to situations other than education, to be vague, it can be applied to the rest of your life.

Imagine you are working and there is an opportunity for a promotion. Your boss has to choose who to promote- only two people are being considered for the promotion- a co-worker and you. Your co-worker is the same age as you and you have both been working for the company for the same amount of time. Your co-worker gets to work five minutes late most days, and during the day they often avoid working and would rather socialise with other workers. They leave on time most days, but days they leave a few minutes early because they've had enough. You, on the other hand, get to work on time, or five minutes early everyday without fail. You work hard during the day and keep your breaks to a necessary minimum. When you find that you are busy at work, you will often stay for longer than your shift, just to get your work finished.

Who do you think would get the promotion? You would. Now, do you think it's reasonable for the co-worker to be annoyed that they didn't get the promotion? Do you think that it's right for them to think that they should have a better chance of getting it than you? I don't think it is. Once again, you get out what you put in. If the co-worker really wanted the promotion, they should have worked hard for a long time before the option of a promotion was ever available.

Unfortunately, lots of people don't put everything they can into things, but they still expect to get the best out of it. Hard work, dedication and motivation are all needed to achieve highly in life. Next time you feel that something unfair has happened to you, try not to think of it as a negative thing. Instead, think on where you could improve. Life is about growth and development, and that means learning from mistakes.

Try to work your absolute hardest for what you want, or what you need to do, and you'll be surprised with the positive results.

understanding others

Self awareness if not so much a gift, but a reward. So many people believe that they are self aware, but they have no idea what sort of impact they have on others. They often wrongly estimate the positive and negative impacts that they have on people and the world. This is understandable. We are each only one person, and the perspective of others can never truly be taken into consideration because we simply cannot override our natural thought processes. We can try, but it won't happen. Other peoples' beliefs and opinions cannot become our own, there will always be a part of us that is skeptical or has an opposing opinion. This makes self awareness difficult, as we can never be truly aware of the impact that we have on others. We can only see what we see, and believe what we believe.

With this in mind, some people manage to get as close to self awareness as humanly possible- they take other people into account with most things they do. They try to understand how people will react to things- whether what they say will make someone feel happy, sad, angry, confused, the list goes on. Knowing and understanding how someone will react requires previous knowledge of their personality- so someone that is considered a friend would be a perfect candidate to test self awareness on.

Many people these days are not self aware. They speak and act without considering how they will impact others. Often they are confused by the person's reaction. They will think to themselves: I wouldn't have been upset by that, so why were they? They don't fully understand that we are all different and that their words and actions have the power to change someone's emotional state.

Being self aware, and understanding how we impact other people is incredibly tiring, and it's often a trait that a certain type of person has. The more I observe people, the more I understand how to categorise people into groups. The accuracy is often frightening. Almost every single person I speak to is placed into a category in my mind, I only place them in this category when I feel that I know enough about them to do so. Sometimes this can take five minutes, sometimes five weeks. But most of the time, I'm correct with the categorisation and with this I can completely predict someone's reactions.

This is tiring, it's a lot of effort, but the accuracy makes me want to keep doing it. One thing I have learned by categorising people is that I may be able to understand lots about others, but I will never understand as much as I would like to about myself.

overcoming fears

Once again, I am very sorry for the lack of a blog post over the last few days. I have been very busy, lots of things have been changing for me over the last week, although I don't really want to discuss this publicly right now because I just don't feel that I need to. As well as being busy, I've actually been unable to make a blog post; this is partly due to an injury which has made typing a very difficult and somewhat painful task. The injury was a complete accident, and five days on, it's healing well, but I still have to avoid using the injured finger to type with, so that's slowing me down. And as well as the injury, my internet had been down for a couple of days, so that completely prevented a blog post. To put it simply, I have been completely unable to create a blog post until now.


Now that I've got that out of the way, I can explain about a fear that I have recently been trying to conquer. This fear is one that remains hidden until something happens to provoke it. It is my fear of injuries and infection of injuries. This fear only returned because five days ago I accidentally sliced off half of my fingernail. I will not share the details of it, but there was a lot of blood and if it had gone any deeper, I would have hit the bone in my finger.

As I am trained in first aid, I knew what to do straight away- apply pressure to the wound, hold it above my heart, and I also had to sit somewhere comfortable because I went into shock and nearly passed out so I needed somewhere safe to sit that I wouldn't fall and hurt myself if I did pass out.

As there was blood, I was instantly scared because I knew I had an open wound that could potentially become infected. After half an hour of holding my finger up and applying pressure to it, the bleeding had nearly stopped and I felt that it was an appropriate time to put a bandage on it. I got my parents to help me with this, as I would have needed two hands to do it. While they were bandaging up my finger, I began to cry because I was just so scared of the injury. This was the first time my parents had seen me cry in about four or five years.

Since the incident, we changed the bandages twice and each time they were changed, I cried, not because I was in pain, the injury was only painful when it happened, but I was crying because I was so scared. Both times we took the bandages off, I was scared to look, in case the wound had become infected. It hadn't at all.

Last night we planned to change the bandages again, but instead we just removed them and let air get to the wound to let it heal properly. When my parents told me that I wouldn't have another bandage put on, I panicked and began to cry. I was so scared that the air would infect it, even though I know that's silly. After I had finally calmed down, my parents spoke to me and told me that I would have to sleep without a bandage on my finger. By this point, the wound had dried up and there was little chance of it bleeding again, unless I knocked it. I was terrified that I would knock my finger during the night and that this would cause it to open the wound and bleed again, and this would somehow become infected. I got into bed and ended up crying because I was just so scared of something going wrong.

During the night, I woke up a few times, as I normally do, but as soon as I woke up, I'd turn the light on and just inspect my finger to make sure it was okay. Each time I woke up I completely panicked.

I know that this is a silly fear, and I honestly don't know where it came from or why it is so bad, but it is one that I have had to overcome. Although I haven't completely beaten it, the last few days have been a great opportunity for me to come face to face with my fear and force me to deal with it.

I have actually spent the whole day without a bandage on my finger, and it has been absolutely fine, and I am going to sleep without a bandage on again tonight. I am nervous about this, and I almost cried when I thought about it, but I think that I will be okay. I can tell that I am far more relaxed than last night, so I just hope that I will be okay, and that by the time this injury has healed, maybe I will have overcome my fear, or at least decreased its power over me.

problems solvers are people too

We have all met someone who seems to be able to solve any problem they are faced with, and they are particularly good at giving advice, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they enjoy helping others. By being surrounded with problems to solve and the pain of others, they can actually be brought down, and ultimately feel as though it is their duty to help anyone and everyone, even if they are suffering greatly themselves. They may not want to help people, but so many people are constantly relying on them.

These people are only human and they shouldn't be expected to solve everyone else's problems. It's not right for people to go to them and ask for help, even after they have clearly stated that they are unable or unwilling to offer help to others. They are doing this for their own well being, because too much pressure will slowly destroy them, not just to be harsh to those around them- that's the last thing they want.

Respect should be given to these people. They should be asked how they are doing and whether they are able to help anyone before a request for help is made. When people don't ask either of these questions and simply demand help, they can often get confrontational when help is not given, even though the person is only saying no for their own well being.

The same care and respect should be given to everyone, but those who are seen by others as 'problem solvers' often require slightly more care, as their help can be taken for granted, which is unfair on them.

what has been going on?

Over the last couple of weeks, I haven't really been posting much at all on twitter, and I haven't posted on here for nine days. Some people may not have noticed a difference, but as I usually post regularly on both twitter and this, it seems like I have been avoiding the internet, and well, to a certain extent I have been. I know what makes me better and what makes me worse, and certain aspects of the internet do make me worse. I also find it difficult to share things, such as how I am feeling when I am feeling particularly low. This is partly because I don't want to make anyone else feel worse, and partly because I often just cannot find the words to explain how I feel.

I have been struggling a lot over the last few weeks, but I still haven't managed to find the words to explain how I have been feeling. How I'm feeling can only truly be explained in the pages of an elaborately written novel entailing the life of a sufferer of a severe mental illness, but as I'm not an author, nor am I particularly good with words, I will just have to try to explain how I have been feeling through my own words, but I will probably give very little insight to my true feelings as words often fail to aid me in accurate explanations of my emotions.

To put it simply, I have been empty. I know it can be common for people to feel empty when they suffer from a mental illness, but I have never felt empty like this before. This emptiness was just not concerning my emotions, but also my mind. I couldn't think. I felt as though I was simply an empty carcass obediently completing the daily tasks to which I had previously done with vitality.

Each evening I would get into bed and just stare at the ceiling for a couple of hours, not because I wanted to, but because there was nothing else I could do. Communication was useless, all I would have done was make everyone else feel worse. Doing anything to distract me was useless too, I couldn't focus on anything. I'm not actually sure whether I couldn't, or whether I just wouldn't, but distractions served no profitable purpose to me during this time.

After staring at the ceiling for a few hours, with no thoughts passing through my mind and no emotions surfacing to be felt, I would finally fall asleep. Sleep has always been an escape for me, it's some time away from reality where I can just relax, but not over the last few nights. My sleep was incredibly disturbed. I would sleep for two hours, then lie awake for five, only to sleep another two before waking up and having to go about my day and somehow ignoring the fact that I was exhausted. During the five hours that I would lie awake each night, I tried listening to the radio, specifically to the news in the hope that I would be able to find out more about what is going on in the world around me. That didn't happen. What I heard was instantly forgotten, not because I was tired, but because I just haven't been able to think about, focus on or remember anything.

In all honesty, the last couple of weeks have been dreadful, primarily because when you can't think, the chances of you believing in any hope for the future disappear before you can even try to hold on to the memory of it. Thankfully, I'm very slowly beginning to feel better, and I feel as though some sort of explanation was needed, but I'm not sure if the explanation is to me or the rest of the world.

I hope that things will continue to get better for me, but I am realistic in my hopes and I'm aware that there is a significant chance that I will return to that lonely state of mind once again. I will try to do all I can to prevent that, but I know that working against the chemicals in my mind is like trying to slay a dragon by throwing marshmallows at it. There's a small possibility that the dragon is allergic to marshmallows, but it's highly unlikely and will probably end up with the dragon winning.