..'People with anxiety aren't disabled'.

I was just scrolling through Facebook when something caught my eye on my newsfeed, one of my friends on there had shared this article which said ''Theresa May's adviser says people with anxiety aren't really disabled.'' 

Let me stop you there.

Anxiety is crippling, you may not be able to see that there's this huge fear surrounding me but I can feel it. 

I do not choose to always feel like absolute shit, I do NOT choose to feel this way. If I could change it I'd do it in a heartbeat but I can't, and this is why more and more awareness needs to be brought up about mental illnesses.

People discriminate because of this stigma surrounding mental health, the stigma is still around because people don't understand. If you've never felt anxiety at its purest form then I strongly feel like you have absolutely no right to talk about mental illness. If you haven't felt physically trapped by your own thoughts, if you haven't felt like the whole world's against you then do not say you know how I feel.
My head is a constant nightmare yet I can't escape none of it, I don't have the choice to just ignore it or just get over it and this is why mental health is SO SO important. People have to understand the continuous battles people that fight mental health related battles every single day.

Anxiety and depression aren't things that just come and go every now and then, I either feel everything all at once or nothing at all. There's no in between.

People will happily ask about your physical health, for example -

''How's your cold?''
''How did you break your elbow?''

Yet, people feel uncomfortable asking if you're mentally okay and I get that it's because people lack the knowledge and understanding of what mental illness is. Mental illness doesn't discriminate yet the society we are in does which creates this stigma surrounding mental health.
DON'T let people in the public eye make you feel like your feelings are invalid because they matter, your feelings DO count.

Don't ever let somebody belittle you or make you feel less because of you feel more deeply than others.

L x

...my weight gain journey.

You always see these weight loss journeys but gaining weight was an entire journey in itself.

So here is mine.. 

I was so trapped in the mindset that I had already created for myself, I was always telling myself how fat, how ugly I am etc so to suddenly start to try and be positive about my body and myself in general was hard. Even now it's hard. 

I felt like just the simplest things to everybody else were hard and painful for me like just putting food in my mouth made me cry, I would feel such physical pain over just over something that everybody else could do so easily. Trying to recover and get better after having an eating disorder for me was worse than the actual eating disorder itself because forcing myself to eat when all I could think about was gaining weight and I had all these emotions going round and round in my head yet all I truly wanted to be was 'normal'.

I went from having such an unhealthy obsession with losing weight to trying to actually put weight on and it's honestly so scary because ONE small thing could set me back so easily and alot of the time it did, even now if I have a bad day I won't feel like eating and that's something I'm still working on.. but it's a working progress and I'm trying everyday.
Everytime I'd go to the doctors this time to get weighed and they'd say I put weight on, I'd be happy don't get me wrong but in the back of my mind all I'd be thinking is 'I'm gonna get fat. I'm gonna be fat. Fat.' That was always in my mind, sometimes I still think that too but I have to realise that it's okay because I'm healthy and if I wanna eat cake or chocolate, I can.

I used to be so petrified of food, it became one of my biggest fears. Like people who have never experienced having an eating disorder themselves will never truly understand just how demeaning it is, I felt weak and powerless and I cried alot all the time.
I used to be so embarrassed to tell people I struggled with this, I was ashamed because I didn't and still don't like people knowing me to be vulnerable so me allowing people to know me like this is HUGE.

I'm no longer ashamed to say that I struggled for so goddamn long with anorexia because for me to be able to write and try to atleast help one person going through things similar is absolutely mind blowing. I went from almost letting this beat me to becoming a strong confident woman that isn't ever giving up on herself again.
Recovery isn't just hard physically but it's excruciating mentally, I used to be surrounded by this darkness that I just couldn't escape no matter how hard I tried, it just followed me. Literally, like I always had this dark cloud looming over me and even just having a glimpse of happiness would be impossible. However, I went from that constant darkness to basically sunshine and rainbows. I learnt to love myself inside and out, I learnt so much about myself and I'm constantly learning more.

Never give up on yourself, the journey is going to be tough and you're going to constantly want it to just be over but persevere and I can absolutely guarantee you that afterwards it's all worth it.
You're capable of so so much more but you have to allow that to happen first.

My favourite quote from one of my all time favourite people - ''You can't have sunshine without a little rain, but plants need both to grow.''

L x

...hurt.

Second chances is the title of my all time favourite book in the WORLD - mainly for the fact as it's titled people DO deserve second chances, Sometimes I feel it's kinda necessary so you can both progress as people whether you have relationships, friendships, whatever. 

The absolute KEY to second chances is forgiveness, if you can't forgive that person for whatever they've done previously then there's no need to have them back in your life. Everybody doesn't deserve your forgiveness but if you can learn to forget the situation and move on from it then that just shows how strong and mature of a person you are. 

I either forgive people too much or hold grudges for way too long and honestly both of them aren't that good especially holding grudges. 

Holding a grudge is literally you holding onto so much anger over a situation, it's literally like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die from it. It's unhealthy for you because let's face it it isn't going to affect the other person, they'll just move on and you'll still be overthinking every tiny little detail over and over again which will just make you crazy. Your own mind will spiral you into an abyss.

I forgave someone that broke my heart and left me without a second thought, because in reality all I wanted to do was cry in my bed. But I never gave myself a chance to really be by myself for a while because I wanted to replace my bestfriend, however people aren't toys and you can't just replace them whenever one leaves you. You have to truly learn to love yourself, you have to learn what it's like to do things by yourself. 

Honestly, people always say I'm making mistakes with the decisions I make. 

Yet, as I have said so so so many times YOU DO NOT GIVE UP ON THE PEOPLE YOU LOVE. 

I am constantly evolving and as humans we all are. Heartbreak can absolutely destroy us or it can make us want to grow and better ourselves for the next person that is the lucky one to have us. 

L x

...a letter to the future love of my life.

a letter to the future love of my life..

It won't be easy and that's good though because anything worth it is never easy. 

Being in a relationship with someone that has struggled as much as I have with my mental health nothing's ever going to be easy however, all I ask from you is understanding. 

Understanding that not everything's going to be sunshine and rainbows but when sunshine and rainbows do happen it's the best fucking thing in the world.

I just want you to understand something that no man that I've spoken too has, love cannot cure anxiety or depression, love can't make me not want to starve myself but your understanding and you just being there could help me massively. There's days that I'm physically not gonna be able to step foot out the house but then there's gonna be days where we can go out and go on some mad adventure just because we can. 

There's going to be times where it gets tougher and I'll need you to understand that I can't be that confident woman you fell in love with all the time because it's absolutely exhausting. It's exhausting trying to not always let my feelings get the better of me and I notice ABSOLUTELY everything so if the replies get shorter or you change the way you're talking from usual, I'll notice even if you don't mean too it's still there.
However, when I do have my bad days you'll have to understand and learn that I will try and push you away, I will act like the coldest bitch and act like I don't care but once you understand me without my anxiety then you'll understand the way my body reacts to a bad day.

I want you to not give up on me no matter how fucking difficult I make it, I want you to fight for me and then eventually I'll stop testing you and I'll trust you and if you know me as well as you should then you'll know that's something that doesn't come naturally to me so just be patient and it'll work out perfectly.

Please don't give up on me,

L x