Relationships

Hello everybody! Before I start I just want to point out that I’m not a professional and any advice given is purley from personal experience.

Now I know that for some people with mental health disorders, it can be hard to be in or maintain a relationship. When I say relationships, I don’t just mean partners, I mean family, friends, anybody who you are close too.

Sometimes, when we are feeling really low, we tend to push the people who care about us away. This can be by isolating yourself from them or even taking your mood swings out on them. Its so easy sometimes to just snap at people when you feel like shit. Trust me, I’m constantly going mad at people for no reason when I feel crap. This can cause you to loose so many people this way and then its horrible because we then blame ourselves. My advice for this is to warn people if your having a bad day. So, if i’m having a bad day, ill tell my boyfriend and whoever else that i’m having a bad day so expect me to be snappy. Another tip for this is to surround yourself with people who will be willing to pick you up on your bad days. Don’t be around people that are going to make you feel worse.

I struggle a lot with my boyfriend and i cause a lot of arguments because of my anxiety and depression. I constantly think that im not good enough, or hes going to find someone better, or that i’m not good enough. This is a constant issue for me in my relationships with anyone as i never feel as though they really care. When really they do, I’m just letting my mind get the better of me. I have lost so many friends through this and its so frustrating. So what I do know, is i just ask them, like if i feel as though I’ve annoyed someone, i will ask them if i have. That way my mind isn’t going into overload wondering. Most the time I’ve never done anything anyway. If your friends,partners or family really care about you and love you, they should understand that we need a bit more reassurance.

We also need to understand that someone without a mental health condition is going to struggle to understand why we feel the way we do, or why were acting a certain way. Its so hard to be on the outside of it all. It can be scary for some people. My boyfriend legit cried for 3 days after I overdosed as he just couldn’t understand why I did it. This made me realise that its hard for them too. We also need to give the people we care about space and time to understand and try and cope with how we feel. Its a lot for someone to take on and I know full well that when I’m having a bad day, I can be a right bitch and I know I’m a lot to deal with. This is why we also need to be understanding that it can take time for people to understand it. It takes both sides to be understanding, caring and loving to build a good relationship or friendship.

I hope you all enjoyed this! Message me on instagram if you have any questions or want some more advice:

livingundertheumbrella

chlo x

The reason my anxiety started.

Hey guys, well, whoever is reading this. If there is anyone. I hope, if your in the UK, your enjoying the weather. Not often we see the weird thing in the sky called the sun.

Anyway, I did a poll on my Instagram feed to see what you guys wanted me to write about next and my anxiety was what you guys wanted to know about. Before I start I just wanted to say that, everybody’s mental health is different and everybody reacts to situations differently. This story does also include violence and rape and self harm.

Here we go. So the main reason why my anxiety started takes us back to 2014. God I’m making that sound like it was ages ago! Anyway, I was 15 at this point and was living with my mum, my 8 year old little sister, my 9 month old little sister and my step dad. My mental health wasn’t at its best as my grandma had died exactly a week before. I was very close to her as her and my granddad basically brought me up, so as you can imagine this was quite hard. Which then caused me not to sleep.

It must have been around 3am and I heard a knock on the door. To be honest at this point all i was thinking was who the hell is turning up at 3am this time. People were always in and out of the house as my step dad at the time, now my mum’s ex boyfriend, was a drug dealer. So there were always people in and out of the house. So I didn’t think anything of it. I’m in bed on my phone at this point as I couldn’t sleep but my bedroom window is at the front of the house above the front door so I could hear when people were coming in and out.

So, I then hear the door open, my mums front door is always unlocked either because shes lost the key or forgot to lock it. Plus where she lives, everybody’s always in and out of each others houses so its easier to keep the door open. I then hear a man shout for my step dad. (I don’t want to mention names as I like to keep this part of my life private). So I hear a man shout a few times but I knew that my mum and step dad were in bed as I heard them come up like an hour before so I open my bedroom door but my step dads already walking down the stairs.

I should mention at the point that i recognized the voice. It was one of my step dads friends who had been round a couple times and become quite close to us all. We thought he was a friend. BOY, were we wrong.

So I go back in my room and get back into bed and I can hear them talking so i’m like its chill, he’s probably just come round to pick up or whatever. Its now been like 10 minutes and I can hear my step dad basically saying how he, the ”family friend”, shouldn’t have turned up that let and let himself in. Granted, its out own fault for not locking the door. Its what came next that changed me.

They then got into a bit of a heated discussion, I couldn’t really hear what they were saying but I could just hear that it was getting louder. I then hear my mum go downstairs and she asks the ”family friend” to leave as she had a baby in the house who was asleep. They all started arguing and shouting which eventually woke my baby sister up. So I shouted down to my mum to let her know that she was awake, my mum came up and grabbed her and went downstairs with her.

Keep that in mind, through everything that happens next, my mum was holding my 9 month old baby sister.

I get back into bed and try listen to whats going on. I hear nothing, like literally nothing. So in my head i’m like yeah that god for that. I then hear really loud footsteps coming up the stairs and loads of banging and my mum shouting ”He’s got a knife”.

I immediately jump out of bed and open my bedroom door. I see my mum stood at the top of the stairs, still holding my baby sister, my step dad stood a few stairs down holding the stair gate he had ripped of the wall, and this not so ”family friend” about 2 steps down from my step dad holding a massive, and i mean massive, knife. Pointing it at my mum.

My mum was shouting at me to phone the police so i dialed 999 and nothing. I couldn’t even say what emergency service i wanted. I literally froze. I was just stood in my door like a statue. My mum took my phone off me and she was shouting down the phone for the police to come. At this point the guy, if i type family friend one more time ill literally cry because he was the opposite of a friend, had fled. Taking the knife with him.

The police came straight away and there was loads of them. Id say at least 7/8. They were all lovely and me and my mum wrote witness statements about everything and a police officer stayed with us so we would feel more safe.

After this, I couldn’t leave the house for 3 weeks. All I could think about was him coming back and killing my mum. I had nightmares every night. I didn’t go to school or anything. I was so terrified and scared. I started having panic attacks and I think the longest one went on for an hour and a half.

We went to court about 6 months later, but he got away with it.

Ever since that day I have suffered with awful anxiety which causes me not to feel safe around most men, i cant go into big crowds and i wont ever walk anywhere in my own, even in daylight.

My mum and little sister are perfectly fine and he never came back or anything.

That’s it. Sorry if this was too long or boring.

Thanks for reading!

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