Blah blah Random thoughts

When I look back on the world from when i was younger I see that all though I know see it differently, not much has changed. People or should I say the people around me haven't changed and sometimes I think maybe that's a good thing but then I remember that change is what allows a person to grow. It moves you forward in life ever closer to the greatest goals and desires of your heart. Then I sit and think, Have I changed? Have I moved forward or am I still the same person I was all those years ago. Yes, I'd love to yes I have changed that I have become stronger, braver and more confident. However there are still days when I think nothings changed. How do you know if you've changed and how do you know if that's a good thing? I always sit and think what would my life be like if I acted the way I do in my day dreams. Would things be different, would I be happier? But those are the things I'll never know.

I guess in some ways I have changed, I have begun to open up to people more by letting them know about how I feel and all the pain that I've been carrying for most of my life. It was hard and it still is but I'm getting there. I'm just so afraid that people will look at me differently and speak to me as if I were made of glass that could shatter at any moment. I know how hard it is to try and talk to someone who isn't happy but at the same time the only reason I find it difficult is simply due to the fact that I don't want them to question me the same way. But I guess that's life, a series of unfortunate events that no one can control, all you can do is control how it affects your life and what you do with the pain/grief or the knowledge it gives you. But that's not to say that all bad things happen to hurt you, sometimes one door has to close so that another can open.

So where do we go from here? On-wards and up-wards that's where. Or at least that's where I hope to go. At the start of last year I made a decision that has since changed my life, at first it seemed to the worst decision of my life, but now when I look back I can see that it truly was the greatest choice that I've made so far. I'm guessing your wondering what this great change might have been. To put it simply " I escaped Wales". Yes that's right I ESCAPED!! For most of my life I have lived in Wales and I have hated it. To me it's the source of my misery, the people the places and even the culture. I know it's not wise to lump everyone together in one boat but I can honestly say that since I've left Wales I have felt a huge weight lift from my shoulders. My heart is lighter and I have finally started to truly fell happy. Happy?? this is something that if you asked me about last year, I could honestly say that I have never truly experienced. Sad right? 

When I arrived in New Zealand the euphoria I felt from no longer being in Wales is what fueled me to keep going for the first two weeks. But then things changed, I noticed that my happiness was slipping, and it was going fast. My anxiety came back and it was worse than ever, it was so bad that I suffered 3 mini/mild panic attacks. It was horrible to suddenly be unable to breathe, feeling a pain that isn't real and just wishing I could die, anything to make it stop. New Zealand was supposed to be my miracle cure, a way to make all of the pain and the hurt disappear, but guess what, it didn't, it came with me. I'd read online that this would happen, but I guess I was naive. I hoped and prayed that things would be different, but they weren't and in some ways they were worse. I felt trapped, as if I was suffocating in a home that was supposed to be my safe haven.  

As you might already know on the 30th March 2014 I attempted to commit suicide, yes that's right I took an overdose and tried to end it all. The pain I felt was so strong that I just wanted it to stop. I guess in reality I didn't think about it that much. I just got a glass of water, took the pills and went to sleep. Okay so technically speaking I've missed out a bit in the middle, but I don't want to go into that. So basically the long and the short of it is, I did something stupid. To me it was stupid, but that doesn't mean to say that I'm happy with others calling my decision stupid. Kind of pathetic right? I can say it but you can't. But then again I've always said I was a hypocrite. 

So where do I go from here. Literally speaking I went to the hospital, which might I add was the worst part of the whole experience. As I've said before dying is easy, living is the hard part. Knowing that I had to walk into a hospital and tell a nurse and a doctor and countless other medical professionals what I had done filled me with fear. I have never cried so much in my life, I was mortified and horrified that one of my worst fears had come true. That fear was to put in hospital due to my depression, it was something I feared since I was a child, that one people would find out and I would have to be admitted to the psych ward and I'd never be able to leave. So I guess in some ways my fear didn't come true. I was admitted into the acute injuries ward and had to undergo a few tests. Then I had to wait a while for my blood tests to come back and for the observations to end. I was watched constantly and I had to repeat what had happened several times. i admit the staff were kind and compassionate but I felt like a child, like they were speaking to me as if they were expecting me to freak out at any moment and have a complete meltdown. It made me feel uncomfortable and it honestly made me wish I had died. I didn't want to see the looks on their faces, the look that you'd give a broken toy, the look of pity or hopelessness. The worst came from the people I thought I could trust, and that hurt more than you can ever imagine. 

So on the day I was admitted to hospital, something changed and it was this change that has since made my life worth living. The change, I met someone, not a romantic someone but a new friend. I'd been introduced to her before but I honestly didn't think we'd ever be friends. That was until on the 31st March she showed up at the hospital. I'd just finished having my compulsory psych evaluation when she walked in. She was in tears when she gave me a hug. It was that moment when it truly sunk in what I had done. The moment when a pretty much complete stranger cried for me someone they knew nothing about. It hurt, but not for the reasons you'd expect. It hurt because here was a stranger feeling pain and shedding tears for me when the woman I once called family was sitting next to me only thinking of how this was going to make her look. How it was going to affect her status and peoples opinion of her. She didn't care how much I hurt as long as people thought she was a good person, that it didn't affect her relationship with my parents.

So yes, In case your wondering who this woman is, her name is Jenny. she has since become a great friend and confident to me. She welcomed me into her home and into her family and I cannot thank her enough for all she has done for me. She was the one who showed me that I have a reason to live. That my life is worth living. If your wondering how she did this, it's simple. She became my friend, she treated me like I was a regular person. She spoke to me as if today had never happened and most of all she was kind. Kind in the simplest of ways. She smiled, and made me feel human at a time when I felt like an empty shell. I have since in a way become a part of her family. She includes me on family days out and I have come to feel at home with her family. They are some of the most amazing people I have ever met, her husband, her sons, her niece and her nephew. Through them I have been able to meet and become friends with more people and I will be forever grateful of the day that I met her as I don't think I would be the person I am today had I not met her.

So what's happened since then. Well where should I start. .

this is going to be a long journey so I guess I'll stop here. I'll continue to update this eventually but not right now. I feel I've written a lot as it is and I have bared it all to you and I'm just too numb inside right now to continue. That's not to say I'm not happy, it's just it's hard to be happy when I remember these things.

I just hope that none of my family or the people I've met in New Zealand sees this. :/

hmm

Ok so I lied. I was planning on only blogging when I'm happy but I've realised recently that I'm only happy when doing 3 things. They are:
1.Planing my escape to New Zealand
2. Reading shoujo manga
and 3. Talking with my twitter friends.

Although these things make me happy, they've also made me realise just how bad my depression has become again. When I was my contract was ending in work I started to notice it creeping back. The anxiety and the feeling of being replaced. Some might say it was all in my head, but the truth is, I actually did get replaced in work. The girls who replaced me were happy and cheerful and kind and it just made me realise how much of a miserable person I am. I don't fit in. They would all talk about their weekends and how they went out with friends and boyfriends and all I could think is wow, i sat at home with my cat and watched anime. I really love anime but at the same time I wish I liked the same things as everyone my age does. Drinking, going out and SOCIALISING with people. But I guess I'm afraid I'll be made fun of. I don't like the same music or know any of the popular things, so it makes me feel like a 3 year old. To think when I was 8 I was so mature, then after finishing school it seemed as if I became younger and not older. I love anime characters and it annoys me. I start thinking up versions of myself and it makes me sad. I'm not pretty or thin or popular and I don't have any talents. But in my dreams I'm happy and I love the way I look. I dream that I'm blonde (cliche much I know), slim, have friends, a boyfriend and children. Yes children, I want to have a family when I grow up, I don't want to be old and alone. Kind of sad how desperate that sounds huh. I don't want to be rich, but I'd like my own house, I want to be able to drive and do normal things.

I know what your thinking after reading that and I hear it all the time. "Get out and do something" but it's not that easy. My sister always recommends things for me to do but then I think, how weird would it be for me to do these things alone? I have no one to go with. I've mastered my fear of going shopping on my own and going to the cinema but I cant make myself eat out somewhere. I panic that people are staring and laughing at me behind my back. Pretty arrogant huh? They probably don't even notice me, but still I can't do it. Sometimes it feels like I'm being crushed by my fear and it's horrible. I remember before I started my old job I couldn't talk on the phone, I would panic so much that I'd be on the verge of tears. I hated t, however in my new job I was forced to make and receive phone calls on a daily basis, so I had to get over my phobia. It took me 7 months to pluck up the courage and gain the confidence to be the one making the phone calls without preparing a script. and then when the new girls started they did it like it was nothing. I felt so pathetic I could cry. Why was it so easy for them and so hard for me? Why do I have to be afraid of people? Why can't I say what I think and do what I want? Why must I feel so afraid to do new things? Why? Why can't I be normal?

But I guess sitting here in a ball of self-pity isn't going to help me. So I guess that's why I'm writing this blog, I need to tell people how I feel. I mean I told my sister before and she helped but, I don't know I guess Things don't work if you stop trying. I remember in 2012 when I was on holiday with my mom and gran and getting the phone call to say my brother had made a suicide attempt, all I could think is why do you have to ruin everything? Cruel huh? I mean when we got back everyone was being so nice and all I could do was criticise him. He was miserable and yet I yelled at him. He was supposed to be the happy one, the who didn't give f**k and did what he liked. He complained about his break up and how miserable he was and all I told him to was get a grip. weeks after my mom kept telling me off for shouting at him, saying that he lost everything and why can't i be nice to him? That this experience made him grow up fast. It was then that I told my mom, "yeah, well I had to that too when I was 8. I wanted to die and I even attempted, but guess what I got over it and so will he" it's safe she was surprised , it's like seriously you never noticed how depressed I was. You didn't notice how he made me feel, made me wish I was dead? no? you mean you didn't notice I had no friends, seriously? Louise noticed, and she didn't tell you?  The truth is I've been depressed for so long that I don't even know when it started, I just know that I wasn't happy when I was in primary school and I haven't truly been happy since.

The people I've met on twitter help, so does the anime and manga, kind of like anti-depressants, but at the same time I know it's only temporary. The happiness I feel from manga disappears as soon as I stop reading it and the same goes for the anime and the twitter friends. Its like the other day I was looking for ways to cure depression and I read a perfect description of what it feels like.

"You know when the water in the pool is cold but not so cold that you wont get used to it once you are in? If yes you probably have been in this situation where you are standing at the edge of the pool wanting to go in but something is holding you back. All your friends in the pool have fun, you have been trough this a thousand times and you know everything will be okay once you are in but still something inside you makes it hard for you to jump into the pool.

Depression is like that just with every single thing you do."

This is one of the many reasons I have decide to go to New Zealand, I want to leave the place that made me so depressed and start a fresh some place else. I want a fresh start, but at the same time I know it's not going to be a miracle cure. Starting a fresh will just be the same, I won't know anyone and I'll be just as socially awkward as I am now. But I have to do something. I feel like I'm suffocating in this bubble and I need a way out. Any way, just an escape route. I was originally planning on going to Canada unitl the fear of not knowing anyone stopped me from doing it. That's why when I found out my Auntie had moved to New Zealand, I found hope. Then came the daunting task of asking if she'd let me visit her, at first it was only going to be for a month at most, but then I felt miserable at work and changed it to a year. However the plan is that if I like it out there and I finally become happy, I'mm going to try and stay. Maybe I'll never leave, who knows. I might even come back sooner, but honestly as of know I don't think I'll want to. Come back that is. Like I've said in other posts I hate Wales. It's given me so many scars and I don't know if they'll ever heal.

If your reading this and thinking why didn't I tell anyone that I was this miserable, well then honestly I don't know. I kinda hoped that someone would notice but I guess I'd been feeling like this for so long that they didn't notice the difference. I guess my sister noticed first and she used to tell me that I didn't need to try so hard to be happy, that it should come naturally, but it didn't and still doesn't. I guess my parents and brother noticed when I refused to go to one of my jobs one day, but I mean you'd have to have been blind not to notice it then. I was hysterical crying and panicking and I just wanted everything to stop and leave me alone. It was then that I was taken to the Doctors with my sister telling them how I'd been behaving. It's kind of hard to be told by a Doctor that they recognise you have depression, I mean I was lucky I was young as otherwise I would have been given medication. They said that due to my age they wouldn't medicate me and that I should try other ways to cure it. In the short term it kind of worked, but then it stopped working. I felt it creep back up again and again. But whenever I think of telling the Doctor again I keep thinking, that they're going to say I'm lying. But I'm not. The thought of having to tell people I'm depressed scares me. Will they treat me differently,  will they think I'm suicidal or will they just looking at me with pitying stares.

Some days I'm happy and others I'm numb, I'd say it was kind of bi-polar but it's not that extreme or maybe it is and I've just not noticed. I mean some days I'm so happy, excited and hyper that it physically hurts. I want to jump about and scream "woohoo" but then i know that I can't. then the other days I just feel numb and want to destroy all the things that make me happy. Like binning my books, because people said they were childish and throwing away anime and manga and all the things I love. I regret it afterward but at the time I feel nothing. I just want it to be gone. Some days I'll buy something and love it but at the same time I know that in a few weeks the "down" day will hit and I'll bin it, but for those few weeks i just want it. I wish I could feel normal but I guess there isn't really such a thing as normal is there. hmmm maybe I'll this now. I wonder if anyone reads this, If you do and you made it to the end I hope I haven't made you feel sad. I just need to say this to someone, preferably someone I don't know.

Ok so bye bye

Update and reason for my blog!

I can't believe how long it's been since i last wrote on here, it's shocking. When I first started this blog in 2009 I had hoped that I would update regularly and by this time I'd have thousands of blog posts, and yet I only have 13 well 14 if you include this one. I thought that if i had a blog I'd be able to write about all the amazing things that I did, except I never did, any amazing things that is. 

My first goal was to make friends as someone who had recently been cut off from her friends I was lonely and a little depressed ( okay so maybe it was more that a little) and I wanted people to talk to. I know people would say go join a club or go out with your friends, have fun. But how can you do that when you have no friends. My brother didn't understand he was popular and everyone loved him, my sister well she had her boyfriend, her son plus she had her friends so she didn't understand either. I used to find talking to people really hard and no matter how hard I tried to talk loudly nobody heard, and they would walk away. To me I was shouting and to them I was barely whispering. New situations scared me and the thought of meeting new people filled me with dread. I hated talking on the phone, the very thought of having to phone someone (even family) made me want to cry. I used to panic and think people would think I was weird, as sometimes I found it difficult to talk and forget words. It embarrassed me and made me feel so stupid. 

But that wasn't all of my problems. i never thought the same way that people my age thought, I always seemed to get along better with people who were younger than me. Which is weird considering when I was 8 I was the one who told people in my class where babies came from and preferred to read Cosmo and Elle and grown-up magazines like that. I loved make-up, doing my nails and my hair. But the one thing that was different then compared to when I started this blog at 16 was, back then I liked my own company. I was bullied in school and felt I didn't fit in. I hated this country that my parents had moved us to, (not that I remember South Africa much) I used to wish we could go home, but it never happened. Whenever my mom used to say that we were moving back, i'd get so happy, I was finally going to be free of this hell. but time and time again my mom would say the plans off we're staying here. I'd be devastated each time, Hoping that maybe this time she actually means it, but she never did.

Growing up in Wales as a foreigner was hard, the kids in my school were horrible and I used to wish I could disappear. It's sad that the age of 8 I wanted to die. I used to think that it would be so easy, all I had to do was step off that pavement out into the traffic, I used to have to force myself to stop and walk normally. Taking pills, hanging myself, drowning and cutting my wrists, I used to think about it all the time. Wouldn't it be better if the ground would open up and swallow me whole, to be dead and free from their torment. I'd tried drowning myself on multiple occasions, by trying to fall asleep whilst in the bath so i wouldn't feel it, other times and shove my face in a sink of water and pray that it'd work but it never did. Pills? I would have done except my parents never kept them in the house,  only a few things but not enough to do any harm. The thing that scared me the most about suicide was not the dying and having my parents find me, it was the thought of what if I fail? What then? Would people look at me differently? Would they think I was crazy? or Would they understand that I hurt and wanted it to stop? I don't know when I stopped trying, but I know that I've only recently discovered what true happiness is. Back then I couldn't tell you what happy meant, I still couldn't tell you know, but I'm trying. I remember telling my sister that I was trying to be happy and she told me she knew, but did she really mean it or was she trying to stop me from going over the edge.

I guess your thinking what could be so bad as to make an eight year suicidal right? Honestly I couldn't tell you. It was the small things they said and did day after day. 'Grinch' and 'Witch' were the names the called me. "Go back to your own country", " Go back so you can get killed to" and that wasn't the worst, When my cousin Christina died, they laughed and joked about it. At that moment I died a little inside, from then on I stopped trying to be their friend, I didn't want to be like them. They were racist and cruel. They used to think they were so fantastic and that being Welsh made them Gods. But from my experience and from what other members of my family had to go through, I can safely say I'd rather be dead that call myself Welsh.

The Welsh made me miserable and lonely. They also made me (in the words of my moms friend) "afraid of people". I was constantly worrying about what people thought and it made me anxious. I know I've always been a quiet person but when I'm with people I know I'm loud and speak my mind. After secondary school that changed, I was quiet even with family and more so in college. I looked afraid all the time and I hated it. 

When I started college I though things would change, I would be happy and I'd have friends. But yes you guessed it, it didn't happen. When I went into my Geography lecture I found I was in the same class as my former best-friend. I thought that maybe if we talked we could go back to being friends, instead she ignored me. Every time I tried to talk to her it was like speaking to a brick wall, she didn't reply to anything I said. It was made worse when I found out I was in the sames classes as some of my other former-friends,  In someways that was okay, because at least they talked to me. but then I'd hear them talk about me in the corridor as I walked passed and it hurt. We used to be friends and then we were nothing. I used to hide in the library in between lectures and brought my own food so that I never had to go to the canteen.  Eventually I made a few friends but then my old ones got in the way and eventually I was on my own again.

After that I quit college and signed up for an Army prep course that by one remaining (kind of sad huh) friend had just finished. She looked so happy whilst on the course that I thought (rather stupidly) that if I went on it, I too would be happy, but it didn't work out. After that I went on a work scheme, where you tried a job for 8 weeks and had the opportunity to gain some low level qualifications whilst you worked. In some ways it was the turning point in my life but in others it was terrible.

The first placement i went to was in a Nursery day center. The job wasn't bad and I enjoyed looking after the children. The problem however was the fact that the place was short staffed and they expected us (the 3 of us there on work experience)  to look after the children, your probably thinking "isn't that what you were there to do?" In some ways yes and others no. The staff would either be in the office, staff room or the kitchen, which meant that the children ( some as young as 9 months) were left alone with us. Bearing in min the oldest out of the three of us was only 17. It was a horrific experience to be suddenly made responsible for them at 16. I remember the day one of the babies (1 yr old) fell and I told staff. They had a go at me because I apparently hadn't checked to see if he had any injuries properly. I mean what was I meant to do, I didn't know what to do. They should have been there with me supervising, but they weren't. After that I finished and went onto another placement. Fortunately it wasn't childcare. that incident has scarred me for life.

Okay, so that's it. Part of my life story at least, maybe I'll write more another time, but at the moment thinking back on when I was younger is hard, it makes me sad. I wish I could erase that part of my life, but I guess in some ways it's whats made me the person I am today. Hopefully good, stronger and maybe a little bit happier.