Trying Something New

I know how difficult it can be to put yourself out there and try something new, this is especially true for those with mental health issues. It can seem like such a huge task to do even something slightly out of your comfort zone just in case you make a fool of yourself and then it sucks because it feels like you've failed at something. It also can be daunting doing something new by yourself as well, most of us like to go in packs to try something new. But it's really important to actually go out and try something new if you want to and think it will benefit you. 

Something new that I've tried this Summer is getting a new job. I have been in the same job for three years and don't get me wrong, I love it so much, but this Summer they hired a bunch of new tutors ready for September when some of the other Tutors have to leave for University, so there weren't as many shifts going as I hoped there would be. I would only be getting three or two shifts per week so I thought I better apply for a new job somewhere. I applied to a lot of difference places but the place I got the first interview at, the one I discussed in my other blog post about job interviews, was the one that I got, so I decided to do three days there and then four days at my other job and it was such a good decision.

At my new job I have already got two new qualifications which are  First Aid as well as Safeguarding, this was something I wouldn't have had the opportunity to do if I hadn't gone for this new job. I've done it for two days so far and it's been so much fun. Very tiring but literally so much fun, I've taken the kids ice skating, bowling and swimming to name just a few and I've really enjoyed myself. Don't get me wrong, afterwards I am literally shattered and have to go to bed super early but if I'm honest I don't really mind. The experience and fun that I have is completely worth it. 

I was totally nervous on my first day because I literally hate being the new guy, I hate not knowing what to do and how to act or where to go. But the people who worked there were so friendly and really made me feel welcome. One thing I do need to try and learn to do is ice skate better because right now I'm shocking and kind of scared to go on the ice so in my free time I'm going to go ice skating and try and improve my skills a little. 

That's just one example of trying something new and it really working out. However it doesn't always work out for the best but that's okay. It doesn't mean you're a failure if you try something new and it doesn't work out or it's not something you want to carry on with. The main thing is that you tried it and put your best effort in. So many people are afraid to try something new because they are afraid to fail, but you shouldn't think about it like that at all. The most important thing is that you gave it ago, think about all the things you tried and something amazing came out of it. I wouldn't be where I am right now if I hadn't tried something new. 

I now have the opportunity to write blogs and for people to actually read them and the money that I makes goes to a worthwhile charity. If I hadn't stuck my neck out and at least gave it a go I wouldn't be in the position I am right now. I never thought that anything I would write would be useful or worthwhile, but a load of people read my blogs and message me about how much it's helped them. This could have been a massive flop and no one may have read my blogs, but a lot of people do and it's so amazing knowing that people are reading them and feeling like they're not alone.

My writing has also extended to being featured in a newspaper in Carmarthen. I write blogs for the university that I study at and they wanted to feature one in the newspaper along with a photograph of me and now something I have written has been published in a newspaper which is so completely insane. That never would have happened if I hadn't tried something new and different.

But on the other hand, some things I've tried haven't always worked. I use to want to go to the gym twice a week and do a load of exercise and it got to the point where I didn't go anymore so I just gave up going. It felt awful to know I quit something but at least I tried to do it.

What I'm trying to say is that it's so important to go out there and try new things. You may find something that you completely fall in love with. That's how I got into this and you might find something that is better that you ever thought it was. Don't worry about failing or giving up, at least you tried.

Stay awesome. 

Anti Depressants

This blog post is going to be all about, you guessed it: anti depressants. I'm going to talk about the different types of anti depressants out there, how they work and what it's like to be on them. Going on them for the first time can be a real shock to the system so it's important to understand what they do to your body and also what it can do to others when they're on them. This blog is going to be more of an informative one rather than a chatty one about my own experience, although, of course, I will include that as well.

First off there are four different types of anti depressants which are:

Select serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) - These are the most widely presribed types of anti depressants and are more likely to be used as they have fewer side effects and an overdose on them is a lot less serious than others. 

Serotonin-nonadrenaline reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) - These are designed to be a lot more effective than SSRI. But the evidence to suggest they work better is a bit uncertain, it mainly depends on the person, some do better on SSRIs while other people do better on SNRIs. 

Nonadrenaline and specific serotonergic antidepressents (NASSAs) - These can be effective for people who are unable to take SSRI and the side effects are similar to those of SSRI. They can cause drowsiness at first though. 

Tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs) - These are a much older form of antidepressant and are no longer recommended as a first line of treatment for depression as an overdose from these can be much more dangerous than other antidepressants. They also cause more side effects than SSRIs and SNRIs but exceptions are sometimes made for people with severe depression that don't respond well to other treatment.

So yeah, four main types of anti depressants, I'm currently on an SSRI called Citalopram at 30mg, the only annoying thing about this tablet is that it contains lactose and I'm lactose intolerant, but this antidepressant also helps with my anxiety. I started on 10mg because that's what they usually do, and went up to 20, then 30 as I felt like my dosage needed to go up as it wasn't working the way I wanted and needed it to.

How it usually works with antidepressants if you don't have a depressive disorder is that you take it for about six months to help boost the serotonin and nonadrenaline levels in the brain. Both of these neurotransmitters are thought to be linked with mood, and as they're neurotransmitters they send signals around the body via the nerve cells in the body and brain. How my psychiatrist described it to me is that they work by bringing the serotonin and nonadrenaline levels back up to a place where they would be normal, and then the brain learns to create more of them and that's when you can begin to wean yourself off them. They usually start to work seven days after starting to take them but this can vary, and they can affect the body in many different ways. It's so important that if you notice a change you don't stop taking them after a month, you need to do the whole sixth months to get the neurotransmitters at the level that they're meant to be then slowly come off them. If you stop completely all the progress you made with the levels of neurotransmitters can completely go away and it can be seriously dangerous.

I think the worst thing about my antidepressant is how tired it makes me. I've switched from taking it in the morning to taking it at night but it still can affect my energy levels. I've found that if I do a lot during the day I get so tired and need a nap whereas before I would just want one rather than need it. I've also been getting really weird dreams with this antidepressant which isn't something I've experienced before. Usually I don't dream at all but now with these I dream all the time and man they can be bizarre. Sometimes to the point that I question reality when I wake up, they're so vivid and real that it can seriously mess with my brain.

When I first started going on them I didn't really notice that much of a change so after four weeks on 10mg I switched up to 20mg and then four weeks later up to 30mg. I found that when I got the right dosage of 30mg, it really helped level out my mood. I was paranoid that it would make me feel nothing at all and I would be like a robot, and it did do that to a certain extent but not to the point it had done previously when I've been on antidepressants. As they started to work I noticed a big difference in my mood swings to the point where they weren't really there as much as they use to be. I wasn't overly emotional and my anxiety reduced somewhat compared to what it was like before I was on them. I've been on Valium before and I know how messed up it can get you and how tired and groggy so I was glad to be on something that didn't have that big affect on my body like that drug did.

The most dangerous side effect of any antidepressant is an increase in suicidal thoughts. Kinda weird when you think that they're meant to reduce those thoughts, but  on the rare occasion they can make it all worse. It's so important to have an open line of communication about this to your GP. The reason they usually start with a small dosage is because of this exact issue, if you are having increased suicidal thoughts GO TO YOUR DOCTOR, they can change the medication or do something else so that you don't take that step in doing something silly.

The best way that antidepressants work is alongside counselling, the antidepressants take care of the imbalance of neurotransmitters while the therapy helps with the issues that made you feel like that in the first place. You want to resolve the issues as well not just rely on the pills to make you feel better. Most doctors will recommend you see someone to talk through your issues and resolve them with you.

I hope this blog post has been helpful to you guys and you've got a better insight into some of the antidepressants out there and the affect they have on your body both on a chemical level but how they can affect your thoughts as well. They're not something you should be afraid of taking but you do need to self monitor and see if they're working in the way you want them to.

Stay awesome.

Abusive Relationships

I watched a video on Facebook recently and it's something that I recognised and related to. This video contained a couple and within the video it became evident that the relationship was abusive and this girl was seriously being emotionally abusive to her girlfriend but her girlfriend couldn't see it until it was pointed out by one of her close friends. I'll put the link of the video at the end of the blog but it really got me thinking.

I have been in an abusive relationship before and abuse, for some reason, is so difficult to see. In the one particular relationship I'm going to talk about, there was physical, mental, emotional and sexual abuse going on and it was so hard for me to notice it. I was with this guy for 13 months and he was abusive for probably ten of those months. I was so scared to leave him and only did it after I had to and someone gave me the strength to do so. 

It started off as something so little and it gradually built up so it wasn't like a massive bust up. I will never understand how I got myself into the situation in the first place and why I didn't have the guts to let go. I guess I'm still shocked and dealing with the consequences of being in that relationship. The first thing that I should have noticed was on his birthday he pretty much broke up with me, he cried and said how he knew he loved me but wasn't sure if he could be with me for the rest of his life. This was the beginning of the manipulation and the hurt. I remember not feeling good enough at all. Like I wasn't worth anything and didn't deserve to be with him at all. It's something that I never truly got over and I will never forget how my heart broke that day.

He began to isolate me a lot as well, he made me not want to go out as much as I had before we were together. He made me feel so bad for wanting to go out on a Friday night instead of staying in with him. In the end I couldn't go out at all without him and even when we went out together for a night he would get so jealous that I wanted to go and talk to other people rather than him. One time in first year, I wanted to go and talk to my friends but rather than being allowed to do that, he got angry that I wasn't paying enough attention to him so he went into my room and trashed the whole room. My bed was upside down, my wardrobe doors were broken off, he broke my bin, all because I didn't pay enough attention to him and he got angry. But of course, this was my fault, not his. If I had payed more attention to him it never would have happened. That's how he saw it anyway.

My friends in my flat when I was in first year would text me asking if I was okay when he went mental, they would hear him throwing things and going crazy. I would feel so embarrassed that people heard us fighting, not because of how he was treating me. I stupidly thought I was in the perfect relationship and he was only doing these things because he loved me so much. But what he did to me wasn't love. It was control, and it was abuse. I just didn't see it like that at the time. We both wore promise rings and planned on getting married one day. It was insane thinking back that I thought that was all I deserved. No one deserves that sort of abuse.

Over the summer between first year and second year was when it did get seriously scary. If I didn't text him in a suitable amount of time he would call me on the phone hysterically telling me that he was going to come over and that I didn't love him enough and that I didn't care. One time I had to lie to him and tell him I wasn't going to be at home because I was worried that he would go to my house where my mum is and upset or do something horrible to her. I remember having an argument with him in the car on the way to his Grandma's and he kept on driving really dangerously and I honestly thought he was going to kill me on the M3. I know that sounds melodramatic but that's what it felt like. If he had crashed the car on purpose to hurt me I wouldn't have been surprised. Sometimes during our fights when I did stand up for myself he would scream right up in my face, push me into things and throw me around the room. I did hit him a few times when he was shouting in my face which was completely wrong of me and only made him more angry. I do regret slapping him but at the time it felt like the only way to get him out of my face.

What made me realise I couldn't do it anymore was a number of things but something happened one Friday night which I just couldn't get past. He had promised to change so many times and one time was just too bad for me to handle anymore. I won't go into the details of the events of that night but it ended up with him being in a prison cell over night and him self harming in front of me. The self harming in front of me was particularly difficult to deal with due to my history with self harm. A lot of people were involved in this incident and we were all terrified of what he was going to do next. He basically wasn't allowed back to uni because they had to do an enquiry into what went on and then was told he would have to retake the year which he wasn't happy about.

We had almost broke up previously to this because he got kicked out of the union for starting a fight after an argument with me, but this was what did it for me. The whole time this situation was attempting to be sorted out which was about two months he blamed everybody else and took no responsibility for what he had done. Nothing was his fault, it was all someone else's fault. I ended up having this internal dialogue of "Is this my life? Am I going to be with him forever?" I got scared of ending up being married to him with a few kids and regretting staying with him my whole life.

After many conversations with my mum and my close friends I realised I needed to break up with him and enough was enough. I was too scared to break up with him previously because I thought he may kill me or even kill himself if I did, but I finally plucked up the courage. I had abusive messages off him a couple of times and we ended up blocking each other and haven't really spoken to each other since.

It was only really after breaking up with him and talking to my friends as well as getting into a new relationship that I realised how abusive and horrific the relationship was. I mean, I wasn't perfect in this situation at all, and I will put my hands up to that. But this guy emotionally, physically and sexually abused me. My new partner at the time had to point out the fact that my ex had raped me because I didn't understand what consent was and then it took a while for me to actually be able to say those words. I couldn't label it as that for a while.

What I'm trying to say here is that if you think you're in a relationship that's abusive and has been for a while, get yourself out of there as quickly as you possibly can. If they have promised to change over and over again but haven't, it's not worth it. Take it from someone who has been in an abusive relationship and come out the other side stronger and a better person. You can get away, you just need support from your friends and your family and recognise in yourself that something is not right. Only when you accept it can you truly move on and get your life back on track. I lost a lot of friends because of how much I was isolated in my relationship, I'm only just starting to get back out there and be close with my uni friends. I'm so glad that they've been so understanding and helpful to me in this process. I couldn't have asked for a better support system while going through all of this.

It can be so scary leaving someone, especially when they're mentally unstable and/or abusive, but you can do it! I've managed to and I'm so glad I did. God only knows where I would be right now if I had stuck by him and not broken it off. I'm still so worried about what's going to happen come September when he comes back to uni and I see him for the first time in about nine months, but I guess I'll just have to cross that bridge when I come to it. I have an amazing support system at uni so a lot of people are going to be looking out for me next year which will be good.

I've dumbed down a lot of what happened over the course of my 13 month relationship as there was a lot of stuff that I didn't have time to write about, but hopefully this gives you a general overview of what I went through. I'm putting a link after the Facebook video link to a website that helps with abuse, it has some good pages on there and signs to look for if you think you're in an abusive relationship. It's also not gender or sexual orientation specific which I like, as men can be abused as well. It also has some information on sexting, consent, rape and porn and if you're dyslexic like me you'll like it because it's super easy to read.

Stay awesome. 

https://www.facebook.com/SOML/videos/892764494201299/?pnref=story
https://www.disrespectnobody.co.uk/

Irrational Thoughts

So a few days ago I tweeted one of my really irrational thoughts that I have and a lot of people liked it and retweeted it. So I thought I would share some more of my irrational fears and thoughts and hopefully you guys will have some of the same and then we will both feel less weird about having these thoughts and maybe we can laugh at ourselves a bit? I don't know, this one sounded good in my head, I'm not sure how good it'll actually come out so bear with me!

About 60% of the time when I'm driving I am completely convinced that an unmarked police officer is following me and that they're about to pull me over. I've never actually been pulled over or anything like that but whenever there is someone that's been behind me for a while I am utterly convinced that they're an unmarked vehicle. Most of the time when I think this I'm not actually doing anything that would warrant me being pulled over and told off but I can't help but think that. I look behind me and genuinely think that the granny in the old Fiat Panda is going to book me. My friend who is going to be a police officer has told me what kinda cars the police use as unmarked vehicles but I still can't get it out of my head. Realistically granny in the Fiat isn't going to pull me over, but if she was, it would 100% be my luck that she would pull me over.

Another weird irrational thought I have is that sometimes I am convinced people can read my mind. This one in particular can make me pretty anxious, and when I say it aloud it sounds pretty ridiculous and almost makes me laugh when I think about it. So I'll be sitting with someone and if they look at me in a particular way I automatically think they can read minds, especially in an intimate situation or when you're thinking something you shouldn't. I get in into my head that they can read minds and that in particular they can read my mind. So I get a bit worried that they can read my mind and then have my own internal dialogue that goes a little something like this "Oh crap, what if they can read my mind? How long have they been reading it for? I don't want them to know what I was thinking, they'll think I'm a proper freak. Right, think of something else. Cats, Dog... pizza. Oh Christ why are they looking at me funny now?! Probably because they're reading my mind. SHIT" You get the idea, pretty funny when you think about it but genuinely I can get so wrapped up in the idea that someone can read my mind and make myself seem like a proper weirdo when having a conversation with someone. Sometimes I even forget to reply because I'm so focused on trying to not think about the thing I was thinking about. Weird right?

This one I think a lot of people can relate to... or at least I hope they can and I'm not the only person who thinks this. But sometimes I think my life is like The Truman Show. If you don't know what I mean by that, I basically think that my life is constantly being recorded and watched by the world. I sometimes even change my behaviour because I am convinced that there is cameras watching me and the whole world is. That may seem big headed of me to think that people would actually be interested in my life but this is genuinely something that I think and can affect my life. I will do things just in case my life is being recorded so I know that if it is, I won't look like the bad guy. That's also another reason why I rarely ever lie because I think that people would think I'm a liar if my life is a TV show. This one is probably the most irrational thought that I have and I'm sure it crosses other people's minds too but with me, because I have anxiety I think about it a lot more than I would like to normally.

So there are my top three most irrational thoughts I have on a weekly basis. These ones are meant to be a little funny as well as light hearted and I do laugh at myself when I can get the thought out of my head. But some irrational thoughts can be much more detrimental to your mental well being and prevent you from doing everyday activities and going out there and experimenting with life.  These three thoughts can cause quite bad anxiety within me sometimes so they do sort of have a serious side of them. I guess what I'm trying to get at is that a lot of people have irrational thoughts, but it's just how you deal with it and attempt to not let it take over your life which is the main thing. In a few blog posts time I will be talking about how to deal with negative thoughts which includes some irrational thoughts as well.

I hope you guys enjoyed this blog post and it wasn't to much of a ramble and as weird as I thought it was going to be. It made me chuckle and smile while writing it so hopefully it's done the same for you guys.

Stay awesome. 

Job Interviews

I just had my first proper interview in a long time for a job that I really cared about getting a few days ago and as soon as I found out I was having an interview for this job, the anxiety set in. The woman who was going to interview me seemed really lovely over email and was very flexible with when I could come down and we eventually decided for 2pm on Friday.

I spent hours getting ready, and when I say hours, I do mean hours. I reapplied my make up about ten times until I got it looking just the way I wanted to, natural but still something there. I had to make sure my hair was perfect and it look me a long time to pick out my outfit, but eventually. I decided, my black work trousers, a white top, black pumps and then my pink floral kimono. I felt like I looked quite smart, but not too smart. 

Me being me, I got ready and left the house far too early so was 35 minutes early for my interview than I needed to be. As an actor I've always been taught to be 15 minutes early so I left my car at 20 to and made my way down to the creche. My first awkward moment was when I attempted to open the door to the creche, I realised it was actually locked so I had to ring a bell instead, and which point I was told to come back in 15 minutes,

My immediate thought was, oh crap, I've made an awful first impression and it was all I could think about was that I've messed up my chances of getting a job that I really wanted and needed. Working with kids is something that I am so passionate about and love doing and this was such a good opportunity for me to do that and I felt like I majorly messed it up. I tried to text my friends and play on games to keep my mind busy and I had brought my tangly thing with me to play with while I waited and tried not to panic. Some of the staff at this place must have thought I was really weird for sitting in a hallway playing with a tangle toy. It got to five to and I was debating in my head whether I should go bang on 2, a few minutes after two, or a few minutes before two. Honestly, these are the things my anxiety makes me think about and debate. 

I ended up going at two on the dot and rang the bell. The woman who was interviewing me was actually so lovely and I don't know why I was worrying so much. She told me it was just an informal chat and she would just ask me some questions, if I didn't know the answer then we would discuss them. Luckily because I had worked with kids before and have quite a lot of experience with them, answering the questions was pretty easy for me, it's all stuff I have had experience and knowledge in so all very simple for me to explain and I didn't have to blag anything or make it up. 

After all of the nervous energy and the worrying, I was told that I got the job and that she was very happy to give it to me. I literally couldn't believe it. I was so happy with it all. I couldn't stop smiling. I have to fill out some paper work now (another thing for me to worry about) and give her my availability and I can start ASAP. It will be weird for me being the new girl and everything as I feel like a veteran at my other job, but I'm feeling good about having something new in my life and doing something a little different.

When it comes to interviews people with anxiety can often become so overwhelmed by it all, Interviews can be stressful enough as it is but when you also have an anxiety disorder everything gets a lot more heightened and things can become too much very quickly. I guess the best kinda advice I can give to someone who is going to an interview is to breathe! Sometimes with anxiety it's so easy to forget how to breathe and that causes more panic within yourself. You just need to keep calm and breathe. It's also so important to work out where you have to go so that you don't have a last minute panic trying to find the place you need to go to and then you arrive all flustered and not ready to begin. It's so crucial to remember that the people interviewing you aren't trying to catch you out or make you look like an idiot. They want to fill the job position and asked you along because they thought you did. Also make sure you bring along with you something to help relieve your anxiety, for me it was my tangle toy, but other people being putty to mould, a cloth with a scent on it and other things that help them relax.

I know how freaky and scary interviews can be but it's important to keep calm and try your best. If you don't get the job, don't worry! There is always next time.

Stay awesome.

Sometimes You Need To Be Single

I know this seems like a really weird topic for me to be talking about on here but it's something that I have come to realise over the last few months and it's something I would like to share with you guys, Now, if you look at my past dating history since I started dating people at 15, you would probably notice that I haven't really been single for that long. What I mean by single is that I haven't been at a point where I'm not talking to someone, seeing someone or I've not been in a relationship. For the past five years almost, I've probably only been properly single for about a year. That's one fifth of the time since I started dating my first boyfriend at age 15. 

Like right now, for example, my last relationship split up about three months ago, and since then I was in a really short lived relationship, then were dating people on and off and had so many people on call who I could literally just text and they would come over. Before that relationship, I was with someone for just over a year, I can literally trace back my dating history since my first ever proper boyfriend when I was 15, I've had five relationships since then, with only two of them lasting over a year. That's quite a few relationships if we're honest.

I've come to realise why I like to be with someone so much. For me, it's a form of being wanted and feeling as though I'm worth something. So many of my friends have told me that I'm a 'relationship jumper' and what they mean by that is that I constantly have someone on the go. And for me, that's how I measure my worth by. I love being in a relationship, I love looking after my partner and I love knowing that I'm taken by someone. It makes me feel like I'm worth something by being with someone, and I think it's the same for a lot of people, the need to be in a relationship in order to feel good about yourself.

Just like me, I know so many people who hop from relationship to relationship and I can completely see from an outsiders perspective why it doesn't look healthy. It's like you don't give yourself enough time to get over the thing you've lost before searching for something new and exciting. 

For me especially, I focus so much on the relationship and the other persons problems that I almost forget all of my own. I push them to the back of my mind and don't notice how much I am actually struggling. Of course, I do still have my mental health problems when I'm with someone, but I don't deal with them effectively when I'm with someone, I focus on their issues and their mental well-being and don't even bother sorting my own head out. I let things build, and build and build, then when I break up with the person I'm seeing, my mental health just explodes and I have a huge relapse of progress.  

I suppose what I'm trying to say here is that sometimes you need to be single. Sometimes you need to work on yourself and not focus your attentions on someone else. Don't get my wrong, being in a relationship is literally amazing, the closeness and the love you get is wonderful. But there's no point in being in a relationship when you can't love yourself properly. You need to be okay by yourself before you can even think about being with someone else. I have constantly jumped from relationship to relationship and I really think it's time for me to enjoy the single life. Go out with my friends and have an amazing time. Do not be in a relationship for the sake of being in a relationship.

This summer before my last year of uni, I'm going to focus on me for the first time in a long time. I'm going to focus on getting better mentally so I can work my arse off during my final year of university. I'm going to enjoy myself, work hard and be the best person I can possibly be before even attempting a new relationship. My mental health comes first, not my need to feel love and accepted. I am only 20 years old, I have so much time left to fall in love and meet the one. I need to stop focusing on that and start focusing on myself.

I just had this thought while I was in the bath the other day and I thought I would get it all out and see if my thoughts made sense. I think they did. Sometimes you just need to be single and sort your life out and that's exactly what I've been doing and will continue to do. 

Stay awesome. 

Plus Size

This post isn't mean to offend anyone or make anyone feel upset, I'm just going to be talking about something that has really been getting on my nerves recently. I've been seeing so many posts on social media fat shaming 'plus size' by one way or another. There was a meme someone shared on Facebook a few days ago that basically said you'd need a forklift to pick up a larger woman. I see adverts with 'plus size' women and people say "She's not big enough to be plus sized" or "If she's plus sized, what the hell am I?". I just got to say something about this whole plus sized thing.

I hate the term plus size. 

Phew, now, before people get angry at me and start calling me a fat shamer or whatever let me explain the reason behind it. I am a size 12/10 woman, my jeans are always a 12 and the top size that I wear ranges from a 10-12. Yes, my thighs rub together if I walk, I don't have super thin legs, I do have fat rolls on my stomach, I have reasonably big boobs, but I would never ever say I'm plus sized. I'm also super short so that doesn't help with my body proportions at all. 

I feel like if I said to anyone that I was 'plus sized' I would get the phrases: "you're not big enough to be plus sized, you're only a size 12, plus sized is 16+" etc etc. But then again... I'm not small enough to be considered a 'normal size'. I'm at that annoying stage in the middle where I'm neither 'plus size' nor 'skinny'. Clothing specifically designed for plus size starts in the UK usually starts from a size 14, 16 or 18. So where the hell do I lie in terms of sizing?

For me, this whole label of plus size is so dangerous. The models that are used on the runways that are 'plus size' are skinny shamed for being too thin to be plus size but then the 'normal' sized models are also skinny shamed for being too thin and anorexic looking. There are exceptions to this, of course there are, but as a general rule this is the case. There doesn't seem to be a whole acceptance that everyone's bodies are different and that means that we can't really label them. 

I know I'm going to probably get a lot of hate for this post because people will get angry that I can't talk about being plus sized when I never have been that size. Let me just say to you, that under the actual definition of plus size, I have been there. I lost three stone over the last year and am still trying to lose weight because I felt like my body was unhealthy and it wasn't in the place that I think is best for my body type.

I think we should be teaching our teenagers to be accepting of their body and not label it as 'plus sized' or 'normal' or whatever the label may be. We need to teach how to be happy and healthy, it's not about being stick thin or being overweight, it's about caring for your body to ensure you get the best out of life. I don't think people should be ashamed of being a size 20 versus a size 8, or a size 8 shouldn't feel bad for being too thin. 

As women and as a society we need to band together and tell our children that as long as they're happy and healthy that's all that matters. These labels are what ruins people. I know that some people identify with them, and that's fine too, but there will also be a lot of girls out there looking at their body and feeling worthless because they don't fit into a certain category. I know when I was about 15, I felt like I didn't really fit in anywhere. I had zero self confidence, and it wasn't until I got to about 18 that I started to not care about the labels and where I fitted into them. I am my own unique size and there's probably no one else with the exact same body as me. That goes for every woman, we're not all the same, we're different and we should celebrate those differences.  

In the photo above of my and my friend, Cheyenne, I can point out so many things about my body. My legs are too big, you can see some of my back fat, my boobs look saggy, my arms look fat and my stomach isn't flat, but guess what? I don't really care about all of those things. I am currently very happy with my size and bar losing a few more pounds so I feel healthy again, there  is nothing wrong with my body at all. Yes, I don't fit into the only two categories that seem to be available for women's body types, but I don't care. I don't need a label to define me, I am myself and I am loving and accepting of my body, as well as the bodies of other women AND men. 

We should teach self love and acceptance to our kids so they don't feel the awful pressure to fit in like I'm sure many of us did as kids. Every one is beautiful in their own way, we need to eliminate skinny and fat shaming and just be accepting of each other. And as women, we need to quit being bitchy and bringing confident women down because we don't feel good about ourselves. Everyone should be comfortable in their skin and not have to worry about the labels that society will try to place on them.

Stay awesome.