out with the old and in with the new, 2014-5!

Well.. this years been one heck of a year, a lot of lessons learnt and many things accomplished! despite having the bad parts of 2014 there is a bright side! I finally passed my driving test and I'm officially on the road, this means one thing and one thing only, typical road trips with my 3 best friends as we've only seemed to manage our local McDonalds at the moment haha (guilty). 2015 is looking to be a good year for me and things are finally starting to look up, 2014 has been a hard year for me however I'm not going to sit here and feel sorry for myself as I'm sure I have life a lot easier than many others, but this year has helped me, became more of a learning curve and I'm ready to make the next big stages in my life!


A holiday of a lifetime was also gifted to me by my amazing mum! what's not to like about unlimited food and drink and beautiful white sand and a crystal blue sea, this was truly a great trip, we stayed in Cancun Mexico in the Riu Cancun hotel (ps this hotel is AMAZING). Although I looked like a lobster towards the end and had a body full of peeling skin, got food poisoning and sea sick on a boat trip the last 2 days of the holiday (never eat McDonalds there), the trip was so good and I would recommend it to anyone, especially in December when we went where the weather is still hot but not unbearable, here's a few snaps -

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another highlight of my year is my uncles beautiful wedding with the lovely Jayne! Now I'm not sure about anyone else but my family are crazy, loud and proud! haha this made the wedding so much more amazing, especially seeing everyone drunk and making the classic big sing along to wonder wall!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(classic iPhone selfie)

 

Dress - Ax Paris.

Amongst the gatherings, a crazy Halloween party and the days of just being lazy and sleeping it out all day in bed, this year hasn't been too bad minus the anxiety, fall outs and confusion. As I am new to blogging I think this is the perfect time of the year to create one and I hope to take whoever reads my future blog posts on the journey with me, who knows what's in store! but im sure to make this year my year! I hope you all have a great new year, best wishes.

-Harriet♥️

teenage anxiety..

urgh, the dreaded subject... anxiety! some may feel my pain on how much it sucks to get anxiety, but if you don't, stick with me and this may prove a little something however it never quite feels as bad unless you've experienced it.

we're almost entering 2015 and I've reflected back on my life on a year which has been like a roller coaster, but not exactly a fun one.

throughout 2014 I have developed anxiety and it hit me like a whirl wind, to some people you may think anxiety is just something that comes and goes and isn't such a big issue, well I am hear to prove you wrong. Those with anxiety will realise how much of a burden it is, being only 17 it has proven to be such a difficult and scary thing to deal with but not over come. Now I'm not going to ramble on (which I probably will end up doing as I'm a huge talker) about my huge sob story's and my day to day life but I will mention how it begun to where I'm at now.
sorry for the classic 'it all began on blah blah blah' but it seems to fit here perfectly ha. so.. it all began not just on one day I can remember, it was a sort of progressing thing, at first I just thought I had a cold and I made frequent trips to the doctors about my heart, how it use to race, I even had a weeks heart monitor on to record my heart beat, I've had blood tests, and everything came back clear, which made me feel a lot better (shock) as my mind was at ease, and then a few weeks later I began to feel scared staying home alone, like something was going wrong, I would get palpitations (flutter in heart, heart takes extra beat, pounding in heart) and my muscles would ache and your instant thoughts are something is defiantly wrong, so yet again I went to the hospital this time and they put it down to erm... trapped wind (sorry) haha, putting my mind at ease once again I felt fine for that week, then it all hit me, and this is where it really did begin, of what I never realised would become such a hassle to my life.

First I stayed up one night with my dad from around 10pm till 5 am in the morning, which at this point I didn't know I was having multiple panic attacks one after another, at one point I was hyperventilating and used a paper bag which bread was inside haha oh dear, but this was really when it all began. Cut a long story short I woke up one morning and my mum was off to work so I was home alone with the dog, now I'm one of those people that literally checks everything up on google, does searching about a splinter and finding out you need to have your whole finger chopped off sound familiar? haha yup. Now this really didn't help, but I remember sitting up in bed and it was like as soon as I was awake, my anxiety (which I didn't know at the time) would kick off all again, like my body came from relaxing straight back to panic mode, and it was unavoidable. Anyways I've totally lost what I was trying to say.... erm waking up in bed and searching the internet, that was it, well.. I looked at my phone and started to see health problems that really scared me and I'm even scared to speak about now, I tried to calm myself down and headed downstairs to get some food, I began to feel extremely dizzy and went and sat literally on the floor in my garden, hair everywhere and in my old dressing gown, from this moment I knew something was going to happen, I sat in the sofa and stared at the TV not even noticing what channel was on, the from that moment all I can remember was opening my dressing gown and staring at my chest where my heart was, and it literally seemed like my heart was bouncing out my chest, trying to get out, my fingers started tingling and my toes, going really cold, I was dizzy, random sweats, and every time I tried to stand up my heart rate would get super high, so I slumped down in the sofa, pale face, blue lips. I reached for my phone and rang my mum, hearing her cry down the phone was the worst, it seemed to panic me more, knowing they must think something's wrong, and one thing I never thought I would bring myself to ask for was an ambulance, but I did, my mum, dad and the ambulance all turned up at the same time and the paramedics put me at ease so fast, whilst one did all the checks on me and confirmed they was all okay although my heart rate was high, the other paramedic sat and spoke to me how she thinks its anxiety and I'm having a panic attack, and surprisingly she suffers with the same thing, she made me feel so calm and centred, I asked silly questions like why is my eye twitching really bad, and she confirmed it was a sign on anxiety, and within minutes from being slumped on the sofa all pale, I was walking up the stairs and getting changed, I hopped in the ambulance and got took to the hospital for more checks and that's when it was confirmed, and when I finally knew I had anxiety.  I got told alot of  useful tips which was things like cut caffeine out, no tea of coffee unless decafinated, not huge amounts of chocolate (help) and to stop drinking cans of pop like coke, i never really realised how bad they are for you.

each and every day I get nervous, just getting in my car my heart pounds, walking to lesson my heart races and I get sweaty, walking across the room in front of all my 6 form I feel like everyone's watching me and many days I get palpitations which are the worst, but you learn to realise that this is my mind, and I can control it, the key is to be calm and stay centred, stay in control and know this isn't going to get the best of you, there are so many different forms of anxiety but we can all control it in the same way, by knowing, and by that I mean knowing what's wrong, knowing nothing bad is going to happen, and knowing you can control it.

No matter how many times somebody tells you its nothing to worry about, or just stay calm, you will always get them moments where you think please, just stop, stop making me feel this way, stop with the sleepless nights, stop with the palpitations, stop with the shortness of breath, but the key is to know YOU control it, YOU stop the sleepless nights, YOU stop the shortness of breath, although my anxiety comes and goes as it pleases and isn't always caused from something scaring me or worrying me, I can calm it down and deal with it. Some tips I advise to others is listen to music, if you are in a hurry and are having a panic attack just go onto www.youtube.com and type in calming music, there is so many that will calm you instantly, get in a nice warm bath, go outside on your own and just breath in the fresh cool air and close your eyes, or simply try and lay down and get some rest, this is how I calmed down from my continuous panic attacks from 10pm till 5am, I just eventually got that exhausted and tired I fell to sleep.


I know not many, perhaps nobody will read this but if you do and you are affected by anxiety then please message me or comment on this post and share your tips, or let me know if this helped or made you feel a little like your not the only one, because that's what makes me feel like I've done my part in helping others who shared these experiences be them smaller or worse experiences.


Now that's the soppiness out the way time for some good vibes! its nearly the new year and I'm super excited, not going to start with the typical Facebook status 'new year new me' malarkey, but I feel like this years going to be a good one! check my next blog post for a new year 2015 post, anyway its 12:22 am right now, so think its time for me to hit the pillow, night guys! or night to myself as probably nobody will see this, hay ho!! haha



-Harriet♥