Insomnia

This is something that I'm struggling currently and it can get you down so much. One of the worst things ever is just lying in your bed being unable to sleep even though you know you want to, especially if you are so tired and you simply cannot sleep.

I can really empathise with anyone who suffers from insomnia because I know how sucky it can be. One in three people suffer with some form of insomnia. Symptoms of insomnia can include:

• Finding it hard to fall asleep
• Waking up a lot during the night
• Lying awake for long periods of time
• Not being able to nap during the day
• Not feeling refreshed when you wake up

Insomnia can be caused by a number of different factors such as anxiety, stress, being depressed, a poor sleeping environment and sometimes down to prescription medication.

For me, it's probably one of the worst effects of having anxiety and depression. I have a very over active imagination so most of the time when I'm trying to sleep my brain is so awake, this is because I analyse almost every decision and conversation I have, so I can't always go to sleep easily or fall asleep at all. I really hate the fact that sometimes due to my anxiety I just cannot get to sleep or I wake up a lot during the night. I have wondered for a long time if, when I do actually sleep, that I'm not actually getting good sleep. Last September I got a Fitbit and it measures your sleep, The weirdest thing is that I can sleep for about 8 hours, but only 3/4 of those hours are actual peaceful sleep and not restless, which is probably down to my insomnia. 

There are a few things that you can do to help your insomnia though. Having a good night time routine is so important! You need to be able to wind down before you go to bed and you need to make sure you are actually tired when you try to sleep. Don't have a massive meal or drink alcohol/stimulants before bed as that will only keep you up. Avoid taking over the counter sleeping tablets, they don't always work and because of that it can get you even more frustrated, you also don't want to rely on them to make you fall asleep.

You need to also make your sleeping environment better and more conducive for sleep. Make sure you have thick curtains so that no light can come through and affect your sleep. Ensure that your bed is comfortable and you have pillows, duvet and a mattress that you feel comfortable with. It's so important to feel comfortable and safe in your own room and in your own bed. It will help you sleep so much better.

I hope a few of these little tips and trick I use to make my insomnia better helps some of you guys too. This is something that I'm currently struggling with and I know how awful it can really be. If you've never experienced it, you will have no idea how horrible it truly is. But I hope I can help someone to start to get better. If your insomnia is not getting any better, please do go and see your GP and see what they suggest to help with it all.

Stay awesome.

The Stigma Surrounding Mental Health

This is going to be quite a difficult one for me to talk about because I feel that I have to be quite PC about a lot of things said here so if I do offended anyone I am really sorry. But what can I say? There's a HUGE and I mean HUGE stigma towards something who is suffering with some form of mental health issues. 

When I talk about mental health issues, I'm talking about things such as, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, body dysmorphia, gender dysmorphia, anti social behaviour, psychotic illnesses etc. 

This stigma is something that I find so bizarre. You wouldn't tell someone who is a cancer victim to get over their cancer, or tell someone with an amputated leg to just deal with it and move on. Yet that is something that is said to me all the time as someone who has suffered mental health issues all of my life. These are just some of the things said to me about my mental health

"You're just not trying to be happy"

"You can stop yourself from worrying"

"Don't you think you're making a big deal out of nothing?"

"There's nothing really wrong with you."

"You can't seriously think that?"

"Are you going to go cut yourself now because I've upset you?"

"You're mental."

"Crazy bitch"

The list could go on, and on, believe me. I think the problem is because people can't physically see your mental health issue, they think that it's non-existent. And while I understand it's hard to empathise with someone when you never have been through it yourself, some of the things people have said to me are simply unacceptable. 

As soon as you mention that you're on anti-depressants, or are seeing a counsellor or have a mental disorder some people immediately think that you're mental or something like that. One in four people will experience a mental health issue in a given year, so more likely that not, everyone knows someone who has or is suffering with mental health. It's extremely common, yet there is still this huge stigma attached to it. As though you're about to do something silly at any given moment. 

Mental health isn't something to pity a person about, I think a lot of people suffering with it, myself included, would find that quite patronising. It's not about pitying or feeling sorry for a person with mental health issues, it's all about becoming clued up and actually trying to understand how they're feeling. It's no good being ignorant about it because you may end up offending someone and then causing more problems for them.

I'm quite open about my mental health diagnoses and I will tell anyone if I trust them enough with that information if they ask it. A lot of my year at UWTSD know I suffer with depression and anxiety. However, not all people are as comfortable about it and may even be ashamed of it, and the stigma they face due to the label that's been put on them. I honestly feel sorry for those people. It must be awful constantly feeling judged and as though you have to hide.

I really think we need to get out of our heads that mental health is something that can be fixed easily and only the weak suffer from it. It's simply not the case at all, men, women, children, straight, gay, lesbian, transgender, black, white, can suffer from mental health issues. It's not discriminatory at all and can hit anyone. I feel as a society we need to get a better understanding of these issues, first through teaching our children about it, and making them realise that it's not something to be ashamed of. It's 2016 for goodness sakes! Nobody should be made to feel inferior or not "normal" because they have something a little different about them.

I read an article that helped me realise how common mental health issues are and I think it's a really interesting read so if anyone is interested in any statistics surrounding mental health I would recommend reading this document.

https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/publication-download/fundamental-facts-about-mental-health-2015

Stay awesome. 

It's Okay To Not Be Okay

I think we've all had those moments in our lives where we look at ourselves and realise we may have hit rock bottom. Self harm could be involved here or you could just be in a really down place.

I think a lot of people just focus on the fact that they are at rock bottom, don't get me wrong, I do this too. Right now I have hit rock bottom, I have barely slept in a week, I can hardly eat, my anxiety is at an all time high and I've contemplated self harm/suicide. I am at rock bottom. But to be honest, that's okay because I can only go up from here. It's so easy to get stuck into this cycle of feeling like this is how your life is going to be for the rest of your life and you never ever will get better. But can I tell you a secret? You will get better. 

One thing I've had to realise over my life time is that it is okay to not be okay. No one has it together 24/7, and if they say they do, they're probably lying. It's okay to cry or to feel shit or to feel anxious; that's normal human behaviour. However, with that being said, you need to acknowledge when this rock bottom is dangerous to your health and mental well being.

The first step to getting better is admitting that there's a problem there and that you're not happy. Once you've addressed that then it's important to seek out any help you think you need. Whether that be through a counsellor or through some medical intervention. The problem is admitting that you need help, and that can be a hard pill to swallow.

I realised recently that I really needed to get help, I went through a traumatic event in my life and it made me realise how mentally unstable I really am. I thought for a long time that it was just because I was going through some bad times, and that I was fine but really, I just wasn't. It took that event in my life to realise what was happening to me.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that no one is all smiles and roses all the time and you shouldn't expect yourself to be or be disappointed when you're not. Sometimes you're just going through a rough patch in your life and sometimes you do need a little bit of help. And there is simply nothing at all wrong with that. There's no need to be ashamed that you need help or that you have a mental illness. There is a certain stigma attached to mental illness which I'll talk about in another post. But honestly, from one mentally ill person to another - It's okay to not be okay.

Stay awesome.

My Anxiety Relievers (Trigger Warning)

In this blog post I'm going to discuss some of my relievers I use successfully and unsuccessfully to attempt to curb my panic attacks or a build up to a panic attack. I am not a psychologist or a doctor so these techniques may not work for you and some of them are really not good things for you to do at all. I just want you to get a general picture of what I do.

I typically have two types of panic attacks, one where I zone out and cannot move, increased heart beat but its almost like I cannot make myself move and the other which is the most well known panic attack, which involves loss of breath, increased heart beat, butterflies and a feeling of being faint as well as sometimes actually fainting. 

I deal with these panic attacks in very different ways. When I zone out I really don't know what to do and I generally increase my panicking state my mistake because I worry even more. I try and make myself move or tell my body to do something and I just can't. It's almost like I'm locked in my body and then that makes me panic further, these attacks can last for hours, I tend to get myself stuck in a sort of rut with it and make myself worse. If anyone has any coping mechanisms that has helped them with this sort of panic attack, let me know! I would love to see if there's anything I should try to do which I haven't been.

With my other type of panic attack the relievers or coping mechanisms are very different. One way I can tell if I'm feeling a bit anxious or one is on it's way is that I pull out single strands of my hair on my parting. I will feel for shorter hair or hair that doesn't quite feel right and I will pull it out. This usually doesn't make me feel better though. I have employed the hair band trick a few times to try and calm me down, with this one you simply put a hair band on your wrist and you flick it, this one doesn't always work but sometimes it can do.

One thing I rarely do is I scratch at my skin, this is a new one that's developed over the past year or so. If I'm in the middle of a panic attack and I don't know what else to do I sometimes will scratch at my hands. This doesn't sound too bad but believe me it is, it's technically a form of self harm. I don't call it one of my self harming tendencies because to me the scratching is related to anxiety rather than trying to actually harm. The first time I did it was in Freshers week at UWTSD, I had a panic attack on the bus and I scratched the skin off my fingers. Almost all of my fingers had barely any skin on them from the knuckle to the first joint. This is something I would seriously advice against. It was not a healthy thing to do at all. The pain with this was ridiculous, it wasn't like a usual self harm scar, this was the worst thing ever. It almost felt like a really bad burn, I think it's because it cut through less layers of skin and the surface area was much bigger. I had huge scabs and it would make writing or even just moving my hands so difficult and painful. They clear up after maybe two or three weeks but it's not something I would ever recommend for someone to try and do to curb a panic attack. If anything it made me panic that the pain and the scabs would never go away and I was worried the whole time about how bad my scars from it would be. NOT something I would recommend at all.

Another way I try to deal with my panic attacks is through nursery rhymes. This is a weird one and I'm not sure if it would help anyone else but a while ago my mum told me that when she was giving birth to my brothers and I, if she was going through a really bad contraction she would sing nursery rhymes in her head and it would help her take her mind off the pain. This is something that really works for me when trying to calm myself down. It stops me from focussing on only the panic and fear and makes a sort of effort to try and calm myself. It can work with other songs as well, I just find nursery rhymes soothing and comforting.

One massive and important technique that you can use is to simply focus on your breathing. Quite a lot of the time with panic attacks you can't breath as well and you get a shortness of breath which can then make you feel faint. I have fainted several times due to the feeling of not being able to breath. With breathing it's important to try and breath in and out slowly and calmly.

If I'm with someone when I'm panicking I either like them to step away from me and give me space to breath and focus on myself or I like them to just stroke my hair and shush me a little.

So yeah, that's just a few of the things I do to attempt to relieve my panic attacks or prevent them. I'll leave a few links at the end of this blog in case you feel like your suffering from panic attacks and don't know what to do or you want a better understanding of the subject.  I hope this has given you a better understanding of how I deal with my panic attacks and some of the methods that I use. Until next time.

Stay awesome.

http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/stress-anxiety-depression/pages/coping-with-panic-attacks.aspx
http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/stress-anxiety-depression/pages/understanding-panic-attacks.aspx
http://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/anxiety-and-panic-attacks/panic-attacks/#.VurV8pyLTIU

My Anxiety Around Men

I thought it would be best to start talking about my first experiences with anxiety. This is a kind of odd one to explain to people who don't really understand it and I haven't come across anyone who suffers with this form of anxiety, obviously let me know if you do. Since a very young age, around 6 months old, I began to have a fear of men. 

I can't really explain what triggered it initially, as I was so young I can't remember, but my mother always use to tell me that when I was a baby I would just cry and cry around men. I would cry at male doctors, male opticians, my childminders son, my uncles, etc. I wouldn't, however, cry around my father and my brothers.

 I know what everyone's initial thought of this is and many people have asked me about it, people think I must have been abused as a child or had a bad experience with a man. I have to say though, I really don't think that I was abused or had any bad experiences. That would explain it but I really don't feel that it's the case with me. My brother always joked about the fact that he use to poke me when I was sleeping to make me cry so my mother would take me back to the hospital, but I honestly don't think that was the trigger behind my fear as I've always been okay with him.

The anxiety and fear that I get is only really around men older than me, so I don't get worried or anxious around men my age, or around younger boys. Usually it's someone older than me and in some sort of authoritative position. So it hasn't really affected me getting into a relationship, which is lucky for me but it has affected me in other ways. 

Most of my life I have had to see female doctors and opticians, I use to get super anxious when I had male teachers in secondary school, I feel anxious when I'm in a room alone with a man, I panic if a male stranger touches me, my personal bubble with male strangers is huge, my personal bubble with my male lectures at Uni is also pretty big.  But my anxiety varies depending on how I'm feeling that day. So for example, sometimes I physically cannot walk down a street without getting panicky or wanting to go home in case a man walks past me, other times I can just about cope with it all. As a general rule I just try and avoid any unnecessary contact with men so that I don't run the risk of having a panic attack, which means, I try to get female waiters, go to the cashier with a female or if there isn't one there I don't buy anything, I always ask for female doctors and will always go to a woman over a man. Only if I'm really forced and I have no other option will I go to a man, I usually have to rationalise it in my head first then take a deep breath and go for it.

Does anyone else suffer with this form of anxiety? I would love to know so I don't feel so weird about it. 

Stay awesome. 

Welcome to my blog!

I suppose I should begin with explaining the title of my blog and introduce myself a little if you don't know who I am.

First off, atelophobia is the fear of not being good enough or a fear of imperfection. It classifies as an anxiety disorder and can affect a persons relationships, it makes them feel like everything they do is wrong. This feeling then can lead to depression as we cannot be perfect all of the time.

I think that word perfectly describes me.

Here I am with my older brothers, Josh and Jamie at Jamie's wedding. 

I guess I look fairly normal from the outside, bar the fact that I have red hair. I suppose from the outside most people look normal, but allow me to explain. My name is Gemma. I am 20 years old, I am in my second year studying Acting at The University of Wales Trinity Saint David (UWTSD), I love all things Disney, I'm currently dieting to try and lose 3 stone. That's all pretty normal right? The abnormal thing about me is that I have suffered with depression for 13 years, and anxiety my whole life, yes seriously, my whole life. 

Over the course of this blog I hope I can elaborate further on my experiences and shed a light on what living with what I have can be like. Some of the things I post on here may be triggering so be warned, I will put it on the post if I feel like it is. But yeah, I hope you enjoy reading. 

Stay awesome.