.. hello again.

 well, it's been a while.

I should probably apologise for being so distant with this blog, I'm not even sure if anyone is even going to read this but I just want you to know I'm sorry. I created this blog in a time in my life where I was my most anxious, I was just really struggling, feeling like I didn't really fit in anywhere in this world so for a really long time this blog was my outlet. 

I struggled opening up to people and so in turn this blog was my personal public diary hoping that whoever read this could somewhat relate and understand that it's perfectly normal to feel like that also. 

My last post was in May 2020, so you can obviously imagine a lot has changed in that time but also my mindset has changed and as much as I absolutely adore this blog, I think it's time to start a new chapter of my life. I was anxious, depressed and lonely, not fitting into this world. Feeling more alone than I've ever felt and it was a pure relief just being able to get my thoughts out and just be able to breathe afterwards. I'd like to say that I actually owe a lot to this this chapter of my life because it made me realise I actually deserve a whole lot more than I was allowing myself to have. 

Thank you to whoever actually took the time out to read this, writing this saved me from suffocating in my own thoughts and to that I am so grateful. 

But, here's to bigger dreams and brighter skies. 

Sending you all the blessings, 

Stay Groovy

Liv 

x

- mental health week, 2020 -

if you haven't guessed by the title this week is the designated mental health awareness week, 

so if you're new here lemme tell you what mental health awareness means to me..

i'm liv and this is my story..

i used to get bullied, it started off firstly because i've got a different accent and i sound abit funky, it then developed to name calling, mostly about my weight.

after a while, it just took its absolute toll on me and i developed an eating disorder commonly known as anorexia nervosa. 

starting from my early teens, it progressively just got worse and for a long time i really struggled. 

with anorexia came anxiety and depression, and that catapulted into me just not wanting to exist. 

i didn't wanna die, i just didn't want to be me. 

i hated the skin i was in, i literally hated who i was.

i went from being that happy go lucky little kid that loved life, to being a teenager wanting to just not be around anymore.

my life had taken a complete 360 and i felt like i was in foreign territory, i wanted so desperately to just be able to see the beauty in life but for me, there just wasn't any. 

i'm in my twenty's now and had alot of fucking struggle. 

i've continuously fought for myself, i've felt like giving up on myself more than i care to admit.

i've felt so much happiness, i've had my heart broken, i've had really high high's and really low low's.

but what i'm really trying to get at, is that no matter how much of a constant battle your mind can be, it does get better.

i'm in a career i enjoy, i've kept my circle small so the few friends i have got are the bestest ones, and i'm happy.

i've asked for a few other peoples thoughts on mental health so here we go..

- Gary -

''i've lived with mental health issues for probably about 20 years, some days i'll get lucky and i'll make it through most of my day relatively easily but some days it's literally paralyzing, those days are the worst, those days i struggle to even get out of bed, my messy mind just takes over. 

i've been working on a blog and actualising my thoughts has helped keep things a little quieter, i'm not 100% there yet but i'm heading in the right direction. 

- Benjamin - 

''mental health to me is a big enigma.

i don't think anyone really understands its workings, or how it comes about or how to fully ''cure'' it. 

we just find ways to cope and suppress it. that's obviously only the ''bad'' stuff.

i believe mental health is a big umbrella term for how your mind is feeling and what's going on in there. happy, sad, anxious, angry, nostalgic etc. 

it's always been there, it always will be, i've come to terms with that.

but the last few years have made mental health awareness and advocation for being happy and talking after losing my best friends mum. 

she took her own life, she didn't talk, we didn't know.

i remember crying for a week about it, i remember being told by my best friend, he's family, they all are.

that feeling still haunts me.''

-Matt - 

''living with mental health has always been something of a challenge for me as it is to anyone who suffers.

i live with anxiety and depression, coupled with an empathy disorder meaning that i tend to feel emotions with more depth than other people, and i can assume someone else's feelings and mood completely, especially negative emotions. 

sometimes not by choice (as an example of this if a friend is going through bereavement i will feel their emotions despite not knowing the deceased).

my advice to anyone dealing with strong emotional responses and needing a way to deal with them would be to lean on friends where possible, and also write things down.

whether that be in letters to yourself, or as journal entries.''

mental health isn't a one size fits all, everybody feels differently, we all cope differently.

what works for one person, may not work for you, but one thing that you all should know, is no matter how alone and lonely you feel, you aren't alone.

whether you message me or someone close to you, protect yourself and your mind at all costs.

the advoation for mental health will always be incredibly important, awareness for mental health isn't just important for a week or a month, the feeling that there's people out there that know your struggle and can relate to their own struggles helps.

mental health and suicide can sometimes be seen as a taboo subject but you've gotta get comfortable with the uncomfortableness of talking about it.

it's the only way to help others.

Stay groovy
liv
xxx

- growth.

everyday I aspire to be and do different than the previous day, there's so many times where I've pushed and pushed people away, I've purposefully ruined good things because I used to be so scared of things just being okay.

I used to get so scared of just feeling comfortable, because I thought if you feel comfortable in any relationships, it just gets boring. 

like an old pair of shoes, you constantly wear em because they're the trusty old ones but the new ones are fresh and exciting, and it's like the honeymoon period until that gets too comfortable and I always shy away from it unless, I truly genuinely feel something real. 

and the amount of times I've genuinely just ruined something because I was so scared of it getting too comfortable, but the fact of the matter is now I strive to be a different person. 

I want to embrace love with both hands, if it gets too comfortable that's not always a bad thing, it shows that you're two people that are just in love. plain and simply. 

4 years ago, I was a shell of myself. 

anxious, depressed, but most of all I was in love. 

it was almost like I had a few different personas of me, there's the liv my boyfriend saw, the liv my family saw, the liv people at work saw, and then the actual liv. 

and it got exhausting, and I'd project so much negativity because I just didn't know how to deal with just being myself. 

it took for me to meet someone that legitimately broke my heart so badly, for me to just want to be myself and not be afraid to show people who I am. 

I used to be so anxiety ridden that I became quite a toxic person to be around, 

so this is me.

taking responsibility for my many fuck ups, apologizing for being the toxic person in your life. 

learn to be your authentic self, it took for someone to completely break me down for me to realise just how much I needed to be alone, to learn who liv was again.. 

what my likes and dislikes are, I needed to find passion in things, to see what I enjoyed doing and honestly, I'm happy being liv.

welcome to this new chapter,
stay groovy.
xxx

lets recap -

my last post was about the struggle, and i'll be honest i was really in a dark place and it was a little cry for help.

i felt like the ground was suffocating me and there was no way out, but there is always a light at the end of the tunnel of darkness. 

i know it feels like it's just getting darker and darker but i promise you, once you open up and talk to someone about how you're struggling, it does get better.

i'd told my bestfriend big man Keith because although you can talk to your family, there's just somethings you never wanna tell your parents or your siblings, and i told him to the extent of how i was feeling and i sought help. 

i went to the doctors on my break at work and just spilled my guts, i told the Dr everything and god, i cried.. alot.

but, it was the most freeing experience because to be honest, even if i wasn't gonna get help, nobody could say that i hadn't tried.

because at that point, i knew i was getting bad because suicide was the only thing i could think about, as much as i wanted to be here for my niece (not born yet!), i just couldn't face waking up every morning and that's one of the worst things about mental health.

you become a different version of yourself, a zombified version of myself.

i tried everyday to paint a smile on my face but honestly, there was a massive weight on my chest and my heart just felt heavy and i couldn't face my emotions at all.

BUT.. you should all know something,

you aren't alone, no matter how isolated you feel, no matter how loud the demons in your head get, you aren't alone.

i'll tell you all a little something, 

i loved a man that just weren't capable of loving me the way i so desperately wanted him too and i couldn't deal with that and my heart just craved a love he couldn't give me and it broke me.

i was a broken woman and at that moment, i decided never to let another person break me like that.

i took a week off work, i got prescribed some medication and i'm happy.

the world is all doom and gloom but your head doesn't have to be, you are the controller of your own fate.

you're always allowed to feel some self pity and have a pity party with yourself, you've got to allow yourself to feel these types of emotions but you can never let it break you.

reflect, let yourself be vulnerable but always have love in your heart.

so instead of signing off like i usually do, 

i wanna leave you with this,

be kind to your mind and love yourself..

lots of love and stay groovy,
liv
xx

struggling.

I've been struggling for a while now, I put this strong facade on and I'm always trying to paint this fake smile on because it gets a bit draining otherwise, you know?

But, pretending everything's okay when it isn't is just as bad really. 

I'm the kind of person that believes in love at first sight, yeah I still believe in that whole fairytale romance bullshit and I believe in the love that you read about in books, the kind that doesn't give up.

And finding someone that makes you feel like you're the only person in a room full of people, finding someone that makes you realise why it never worked out with anyone else, that's all anybody wants.

I've been working so hard on myself, becoming that person I knew I could be but my problem?

I meet people and I get attached to their aura and how they tick. 

People like to psychoanalyze me and assume they know what I'm about but truthfully, there's very few people that know me like that.

It's not that I want to die, I just don't want to exist anymore.

I feel like I carry the weight of the world on my shoulders and whenever someone needs me I'm there but who's there when I'm struggling? 

I just, yeah. 

I've lost my sparkle.

..sunshine is on the way..

It's quite funny, I had 3 drafted posts before I decided to do this post..

Nothing felt right but this one, I think it's gonna be different.

Throughout this entire blog I've wrote about struggling, the highs and lows, and everything in between but one thing I've never written about is my goals. What I truly want in life, what fulfills me, what gets me up and out of bed every morning.

Everyone says money rules the world and for a good proportion of people it does, but for Liv's world, love rules it all.

Whether it be a romantic love, a friendship love, or a love for a pet.

I had a cat not so long ago, Mystery, he's been mentioned in a few posts before because he's been my lifeline for as long as I can remember but he died.

And, the amount of love and loss I felt but at the exact same time, it didn't feel quite possible to be honest.

There's so much loss in this world that now I just wanna fill Liv's little world full of love, the love Patrick had for Baby, the love that stays and grows with the both of you.

One thing I've not really had is loyalty, and if you know me then you'll know I'm absolutely OBSESSED with dirty dancing.

That's the kinda love that'd fit perfectly in my world.

Sunshine is on the way, there's been so much doom and gloom.. but now I just wanna dance in the street with the man I love and not care if anyone sees, I wanna sing at the top of my voice to country songs and make little playlists for every trip, I want effortless love, love that doesn't have any other needs just you two. 

Love is on it's way.

Stay funky,

L x

23.12.2019

i try so fucking hard, genuinely so hard to just keep it together and get through the day.

but there's days where i just get fed up of the same behaviours, fed up of the same feeling of missing that something in my life.

i get these really high highs, but the lows. god, they just get worse every single time, genuinely every single time it gets worse and it physically hurts.

and at that moment, i'm just begging for someone to notice but they don't and on the rare occasion they do, they try to psycho-analyze me and act as if they know what i'm about but honestly, there's very few that know me that well.

sometimes all you need is to be held for a little while, while someone tells you it'll be okay. 

and no, i'm not saying i need anybody in my life but i think at this moment, i need a wee bit of reassurance to be honest.

my last post was about feeling lost, and not knowing where i really actually fit in in this little world of life, and it was actually quite funny because i never expect people in my personal life to read my posts and the morning after i posted it, i went into work and every fucker had read it.

and i realised, i don't need to fit in, i need to create a world in which liv is happy and that's not been the case for a little while lately.

just gotta keep pushing on, i guess.

liv x