every day life – Page 21

Mint

→ This post is really good – The Truth About Being Healthy [hint: it doesn’t look like Pinterest] To quote – “The biggest lie you’ve ever been told about building a healthier life is that it’s easy.”

→ I have been thinking about fitness lately. I was watching a drama and the heroine was at a gym class that looked really fun. I caught myself thinking I want to do that. I even found myself researching gyms in the area. I do not have a good history with sport though. I was always the last to be picked in P.E(Physical Education) throughout school and don’t even get me started on how much I hated being forced to have P.E every week for so many reasons beside, I started horse riding and was double the age than everyone there, and had half the skill, I tried badminton and archery, but everyone else at those clubs wanted to play seriously, and I just wanted to have fun. So I gave up. I admit I also tend to jump into it but become uncomfortable and then stop. I am always aware of the fact that I’m a certain age and I don’t have much experience of exercise – which makes it awkward starting new things, and with sticking with it when I can’t catch up quickly. But lately – I’ve been thinking of starting up something.

→ It all started with my commute to university. I have a long commute to university. I thought at the beginning of this semester that it would be a really good way of incorporating exercise into my daily routine – walking to uni, and walking back. One the one hand, I’m not sure its working out. I walk for an hour – at a pretty brisk pace. By the time I get to uni I’m hot, sweat soaked and uncomfortable. I take a change of shirt into university, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m still sweating. I feel slightly self conscious because of it. I know I look flushed and tired. I also feel very limited by what I can wear – as I have to layer carefully so I can layer down and up as neccesary (as I get hot, then eventually become cold), and I have to be able to change in a cramped bathroom stall, and quickly, before university, and I have to wear flat shoes.

I also find it really tiring sometimes – walking there, walking back. Sometimes I’m so anxious that I cannot concentrate on audio books, and it becomes a long walk stewing in my own anxiety.

→ On the other hand, I also think its really good for my anxiety, and this is why I have been thinking about starting something. During my exams I would sit through the exam panicked, feeling tearful, seriously thinking about harming myself, but afterwards a long, fast paced walk set to furious rock music really helped me calm down to a certain extent. I think its good to have that time to work all my anxious thoughts, and burn them off.

→ I do not want to lose weight. OK, I do. But I’m trying to reign that in. If I do take action in regard to my fitness, it will be for my mental and physical well-being and I will not get excessive about it. I admit this is also holding me back – I’m scared that I’ll pretend to solve my eating disorder, by flipping to another extreme – controlling my diet excessively and exercising obsessively. Its hard to know where the balance lies. And its because I feel like I do not know where to draw the line that I also hesitate. I tell myself I’m interested in fitness for the reasons above – but there is that voice telling me I need to be thinner. That I’m not doing enough to restrict my eating so I need to start exercising more. Yeah. I need to deal with that first, I think. Then I wonder – am I using this as an excuse? Because I’ve not quite come to terms with my eating disorder – I still feel a lot like I’m making a big deal out of nothing, and I’m not sure where I stand with my relation to food and to my body image. So either way, I probably should be careful at this point, but I do wonder at what point it would then be a good point to start. Its only a mild eating disorder after all, but I’m scared of making it worse – of making myself worse, almost as if I feel the need to make it worse to justify it. It adds a slightly messy, uncomfortable complication to this thought of I want to do that.

→ I do really like that I feel like I am becoming fitter. After years of anaemia, I became used to always feeling tired and out of breath, dizzy even after exercise (by which I mean, even 10 minutes of walking or walking up the stairs). After my iron levels returned to normal I was pretty saddened to find that I did not magically become OK, as I mentioned in a previous post. But its getting better! There are two routes to my university lectures – one is slightly longer, but flat. The other is shorter but filled with hills. I usually chose the flat route as it was easier for me – the hills on the other one tired me out too much. When I was anaemic, it would make me dizzy and tired. Today I walked the hilly way and I felt slightly more tired – but I didn’t feel feint or out of breath – I wasn’t gasping for breath, or panting at all. It was pretty good. [Well, I’ll be honest. It was amazing. It was like that time I found myself running and I felt OK.] It makes me feel hopeful that I am building up a certain level of fitness. Which is good as I am still aiming to climb a mountain this summer, and I don’t want to feel so exhausted as I did when I climbed Mt. Tarumae and Mt. Helvellyn last summer.

Then again, I’m not getting any elevation training right now, which is a problem.

→ I really do want to go walking again – properly. I am thinking about signing up to another of the university rambling society walks – but it feels kind of awkward, after not going for so long. There is also the weather to think about – beautifully sunny and warm one day, then suddenly raining, then suddenly windy, its all over the place. and then there is also money – its £9 per walk for the society and I just cannot afford that. I am going to dinner with my father on Wednesday and I am going to casually suggest we meet up to walk in the peak district together – I can get a train for about £3 which is marginally better. There is still the weather though. I love walking. I want to do more of it, but its not the most convenient of sports – its location based, time consuming and highly weather dependent, unless you get really hardcore about it and are willing to walk in any weather imaginable- which I am really, really not.

→ So I think for now, after all that, I’ll stick what I’m doing. I’ll keep walking every day despite the annoying aspects of it, try and focus on climbing a mountain in the summer, and once I get a bit further into my counselling I’ll see about taking further steps. And it won’t be through joining a club or a gymn – I’ll like, buy myself some fitness DVDs or something that I can do privately whilst I ease into it. Yes, I think thats the plan. I think thats a good plan. Its hard to know.

→ I cannot believe I just wrote over a thousand words about fitness. I must really be growing up. XD

” I don’t know what to expect, I don’t know what’s coming next”

→ I got my results on Thursday. I was such a mess beforehand – I was terrified, what if I failed? What then? I felt a horrible kind of certainty that I had failed. I’d panicked during my exams, I had struggled, I had left so much blank. I was definitely expecting the worst. We could have got our results from our tutors on Wednesday – but I felt too terrible about it all to face him. Everyone was talking about their results and how well they had done and it only made me more nervous, more afraid. So I wasn’t planning to check them online on Thursday either – I was going to put it off as long as possible. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t want to. But I got home from uni on Thursday and I felt so angry at myself and at how pathetic I was being, I just wanted it to be over. So I opened up the university portal, took a deep breath and clicked “my marks.” I was shocked at what I saw. I had passed. Not only had I passed but I had done well. One low grade pulled my average down but otherwise it was OK. It was OK. I was so happy. But mostly relieved.

→ I’m still job hunting and it still does not go well. I feel a bit better that at least my grades are still good but it feels sometimes like even with high academic achievement its still not enough. I am probably not going to be able to do an internship this summer, which I can deal with, but it brings up interesting questions about what will happen when I actually need to get employed after university. I was talking to a friend the other day and she suggested that maybe these kind of jobs weren’t for me – that I should in future go for smaller companies. I think she has a point but the thing is – I want those big companies, those amazing graduate schemes, to be for me. I wasn’t supposed to do engineering – but here I am. I wasn’t supposed to live abroad – but I did that too. I don’t care about what my personality dictates would be easier for me. Fuck my shyness and my anxiety and all those things. I want to become really, stupidly successful anyway. I want to go as far as I can go – the 2:1 masters degree in engineering, a competitive graduate job. No matter how exhausting it is, I just keep on pushing myself because I have this dream, these goals, and I want to prove to myself, and OK, to others, that I am capable of fulfilling them. But with that comes the doubt- am I capable?

→ It was really great meeting up with my friend. Its so good to talk to someone who you can be totally honest with – someone who you can say I’m not OK and they will listen and understand. Nonetheless, I wonder if I have become a burden to her for relying on her like this.

→ I wish I could say I felt better now that results have come through. Everything is OK, right? But I have no confidence. Every time I succeed I feel relieved, I feel blessed – like it’s just luck. I’m still afraid of that luck running out. Its not like life just stops once you achieve something – there’s always more that needs to be done. That, to me, needs to be conquered. That’s how my life seems to have become – always fighting (myself) to get anything done. I still have a thesis to write, and three more modules to succeed in, and Japanese to finally put some effort into. But I’m so tired. Its exhausting me – all this anxiety, all this fear, all this doubt. Don’t give up now, I tell myself. Don’t give up. Lately, it falls on deaf ears. I am not working hard enough right now – I need to get on with example sheets and assignments and I’ve fallen behind so badly on my thesis research, but its so hard to care. I am beginning to lose the will to fight. I used to think if I just worked hard enough it will be OK but job hunting has made me question. What if its not enough? What if after everything, I cannot end up where I want to be? This is why its probably dangerous to set yourself so many goals, and to become so fixated on achieving them. But I cannot get through without something to work towards either…

→ I had my last doctors appointment this week. I waited for 59 minutes for what was essentially a check up. It was so pointless and awkward, but he didn’t suggest I come see him again, and so I am gratefully relinquished from that. I saw the psychologist for the first time about my eating disorder too, and that was terrifying. The appointment was long and it was painful. At one point she asked me about my depression and that was the worst. I cannot remember, you know. I’m clinging onto all this stuff as a result of that, but I cannot even remember what it was like. Its just like this…incredibly dark period of time. I remember feeling exhausted, sad and angry but I cannot for the life of me remember why. Am I supposed to remember? Does it make my depression lesser that I cannot pinpoint some great tragedy that brought it about? Was I making a big deal out of nothing? Its been years, and everything is kind of hazy. Anyway, we talked about a whole range of stuff and she gave me some things to take away and work through. I’m trying to throw myself into it but again, there is this fear and this anxiety and this doubt. and well, embarrassment too. Its really fucking embarrassing. There is definitely a part of me that regrets going down this path – Am I doing the right thing? Am I making a big deal out of nothing? Have I made the right treatment choices? Do I go on medication? But I don’t want to go on medication – I’m so afraid of going on medication. Am I just making myself miserable? All these kind of thoughts spiral through my head. But telling myself to stop it just doesn’t work you know? I can recognise my bad thought patterns and my bad coping methods but I cannot help myself. I feel so out of control.

→ I’m still really struggling. At least its not reflected on my grades any more. Last year it was reflected on my grades. And it was terrifying – was I going to fail again? But…maybe it is OK now. Maybe. I just have to find the strength, somehow, to get through this semester. And try not to think too hard about the future, to not worry about the future, while I’m at it.

Post Title: Olivia - Sailing Free

“Will I be able to make it through after all? The weight of my cross filled with wrath and hate and this world filled with hopelessness?”

Wednesday, 29/01/2014 10:44:06

I’m sitting writing this on the train whilst struggling not to cry. These past few days which should have been amazing, have turned out badly.

On Sunday I woke up at 6am, left the house at 8am and trudged through the rain to the bus stop. I got on the bus and got to the station, and from there the train back home. Seeing my family again was nice, but it still feels so awkward to be at home. I don’t know what to do with myself when I’m home – I feel self conscious, and uncomfortable. Its very strange. On Monday I dragged myself out of bed at 5am, after hardly getting any sleep the night before. I do not know how I managed it – but I was ready by 6:15am. My poor father also had to get up early so he could drive me to the train station, to which we arrived too early, and stood, huddled into our clothes against the freezing cold. My train came and I made my way to my seat reservation, and waved enthusiastically to my father as the train pulled out the station. At this point I was still filled with hope, and probably a little hyper from lack of sleep. It was a long journey- at first I worked on my interview preparation, then as my hyper energy faded away, I leaned against the window and gazed outside, resting. I wanted to close my eyes and sleep, but the scenery was too beautiful as I passed through the lake district into Scotland. Lush green fields to snow covered hills… it was too wonderful to miss. At Edinburgh I changed to the next train and this journey was even more wonderful – curving around the coast, and I was luckily sat on the side of the train that faced the sea. Finally, I arrived into Aberdeen, exhausted and hungry, but still in a good mood. I went to the hotel and dumped my stuff and then went out for lunch. I didn’t stay out long, didn’t bother to explore – I was tired and it was cold. I went back to the hotel and half lay, half sat, with the intention of working on interview preparation. The next thing I knew I was waking up with no idea what time it was or even, for a moment, where I was. Thankfully it was 5.30pm and I had not missed the company dinner that night. I was exhausted though – all my earlier hyper energy gone. I got ready and went out and there were so many people at the dinner and I felt so awkward and out of place.

On Tuesday I woke up at 6am, again, and I was very tired by this point. I got a taxi at 7:15am. The taxi driver was a very talkative old man, who rambled on the entire way. It was strangely soothing listening to him talk – it kept me from my own thoughts, my own fear, that companion to hope. I arrived at the company soon enough. The job interview was quite something. I messed it up royally, and I ended up walking back from the company – a long walk, made uncomfortable in my inappropriate work shoes, but I wanted to work off my disappointment, my anger at myself, that terrible feeling of all your hope coming crashing down around you, slipping away from you. I got back to the hotel room and I sat down on the bed and cried for a good while. Although I just wanted to lie there and mope, I had made plans to meet with my uncle, his wife and my cousin that night. I was terribly nervous about the whole thing – I’ve not seen any of them in years. They were late so I sat the restaurant for half an hour, fretting. I was still filled with all the feelings of the day – nervous energy, dissapointment, regret. Thankfully when they showed up it was…it was actually quite nice. There were a couple of awkward moments, I was so tired and finding it hard to think straight, but for the most part it was OK. It was strange to see my cousin again, too. He’s grown up so much – I still remember him as a young boy but hes grown so tall now, and his voice is starting to change.

Everything about these past few days were so new and different, it left me feeling quite overwhelmed.

Afterwards I went back to the hotel and went to bed. I had to get up early tomorrow and I was determined to get some sleep.

Now I am on the train to Edinburgh. I’m trying not to think about exams, or about the interview, but I cannot help it. The latter especially. I loved Aberdeen, and I wanted the job so badly – more, after spending some time here. And I messed up. Because of my anxiety, because of my shyness, because I am just completely useless. Is there no space for someone like me in this world? I’m 21 and I…look at other people my age and feel alienated. I feel so useless. I feel so childish. I feel like with the way I am, I’m never going to get anywhere- and then what? What can I do if I just keep on failing to deal with this anxiety? I’m so upset. I just want to cry and cry and cry.

Not exactly the feelings I wanted to start my holiday with. The thing is, its not failing the job interview that gets me, its knowing I did not do my best. If I’d gone there and I’d lived up to my full potential – truly tried then I could deal. Its knowing that I messed up, its wondering what I could have been if only I hadn’t gotten the perfect answers to the interviewers questions, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes after the interview. I didn’t do my best, I didn’t show the side of myself I wanted. That I regret.

Wednesday, 29/01/2014 20:56:35

The train journey to Edinburgh was not particularly exciting, I kept checking my watch, waiting for it to end. I was feeling emotional and trapped in my own thoughts and I wanted to escape from those feelings.

I drew into Haymarket station just after lunch. Thanks to google maps, I found the hotel with ease. Its rather tucked away from central Edinburgh, buts its in a quiet area and as I found after I checked in, the rooms are absolutely massive, with high ceilings, and a huge bed and bathroom. It feels very luxurious for a not so expensive hotel. Compared to the last hotel, its significantly cheaper and much better quality – the room is warm and decorated nicely, and no signs of construction. (The hotel in Aberdeen was nice, but poorly heated/freezing cold, and lacking finishing touches – like a towel rail, a do not disturb sign – and there were signs of ongoing renovations everywhere.)

I stayed for a moment to organize myself then headed out to the National Museum of Scotland. Again, thanks to google maps I found it easily – went down the wrong road a couple of times but thanks to GPS I could see I was off route. Maps and GPS are one of the reasons even if a smartphone annoys me sometimes, I’ll never give it up. I think having something like that on you at all times is one of the most brilliant things about recent phones – my old smartphone could never cope. I have no sense of direction and get extremely panicked when I get lost, as I often used to back when I didn’t have a phone with GPS capabilities. Now, I don’t need to worry. I have the postcodes for all the places I want to be and can use GPS to make sure I’m not wondering around with no idea where I am or how to get back to somewhere familiar. (Really, its the GPS that matters – knowing where you are real time, without having to try and figure it out on a map, using street names and landmarks…is really great.)

Anyway, the museum was great. They had a fascinating exhibition on wooly mammoths and other ancient ancestors of todays elephants- they had some of the skeletons, the leg bones were the size of a small child! They also had an interesting exhbition on kabuki prints, and a room packed with taxidermy and skeletons – from t-rex, to giant land sloths and blue whale jaws (the whale jaws fitted around an african elephant!) I found it all fascinating. I also went up to the 7th floor garden terrace which was freezing, but afforded great views of Edinburgh. I spent the whole afternoon at the museum and emerged at 20 to 5 and ended up getting an early supper at 5 – the place I wanted to go was very close. I went to a Japanese restaurant, eager for katsudon. But the food was disappointing – cold green tea from a bottle, packed with preservatives, instant miso soup with no seaweed or tofu, the katsudon was lacking…it was nothing like I’d had in Japan, even the Japanese fast food chain did it better! And for much cheaper. I was a little disappointed. I walked back to the hotel afterwards and have spent the evening lazying about and trying not to feel guilty about it. I’m on holiday! Its OK not to do work! But I still feel guilty, like I’m doing something wrong by being here, by wanting some time off.

On the other hand it is great to be lazy, I had a fun afternoon at the museum, and I am looking forward to going to the botanic gardens and two art museums tomorrow. (Also tomorrow I’m having Thai food and hopefully that restaurant will be better!)

Post Title: Nell - Counting Pulse

Tell me what the rain knows

Exams finally over! I had my very last yesterday. To be honest, they all went terribly. I have been a mess over the exam period – I started eating chocolate again, and alongside that I mostly survived off bread and fruit and little else. I couldn’t sleep properly, I stopped doing chores so the house became cluttered and messy. I was anxious and struggling to revise, and to concentrate during exams. The exam papers were difficult. It was awful. Breathe, I was always reminding myself, just slowly, breathe in, breathe out. I’d find myself in the middle of the living room, or in the girls bathrooms before exams, or in the middle of the exam, or at the end, desperately trying to do the breathing exercise, desperately trying to calm myself down. I could never quite manage to do it properly – my breathes were always shaky, and my chest was always too tight, it felt like I could never get enough air, but it sort of worked. I think that and fast paced walks to and from exams kept me from full on panic attacks, and yes OK, the chocolate too, but the anxiety was always there. My heart was always pounding an my chest was always tight and I was always filled with a sense of dread, that something terrible was going to happen and soon. I felt useless and like a failure – why, when you revised so hard, are you struggling, the cruel little voice in my head would taunt.

I still slightly am filled with these feelings. I’m desperately trying not to dwell on it though, not to sit and fret about results. I’m going to stop eating chocolate now. Its not done me any good – my skin has broken out, and my eczema feels dreadful. I’m just – still not in a very good place. and yes, I am worried about how that impacted my exams. I worked so hard, and I’m so scared that it won’t show. But – trying not to think of it. My thoughts go like that – worrying, then reeling back, worrying, then reeling back. I want to be positive, I want to put it all behind me – but its always there. That voice. Those thoughts.

I spent a lot of today cleaning and de-cluttering. Answered and sent some emails I’d been putting off during exams. Did some other little things I’d been putting off. It helped. Tomorrow, I will do more.

My job interview is next Tuesday, already. I do not feel in the mood for it -I’m still anxious, I don’t feel like I look my best which is impacting my confidence. I want to just go there and do my best – but I feel a lot of pressure. Its such an incredible opportunity, I feel so amazed and lucky that I made it even to this stage, and I cannot help but hope for even more luck, even as the hope scares me. Although I dread that, I am ridiculously excited to going to Edinburgh for a holiday afterwards. I finalized all my plans tonight. I’ve unfortunately had to plan around the weather quite a bit – it seems it going to be even colder in Scotland than I imagined. I badly wanted to go to Linlithgow Palace and Arthur’s Seat seems nice – but that’s off the table in this weather. Instead I’m sticking to Edinburgh city, and I’m going to stay indoors as much as possible. I’m visiting museums, the castle (of course the castle!!), The Palace of Holyroodhouse. I’m going to eat Japanese food on Wednesday night, Thai food on Thursday night, and Korean food on Friday night. I cannot make these foods myself – too expensive and difficult to get the ingredients , and I wouldn’t even know where to begin putting it together- and I cannot afford to eat out often , so when I do, I always go for Asian food. Japanese and Thai food are my favourite, and I loved the food I ate in Korea, so I’m crazy excited for that. I wanted to go to a South African shop too, as I heard there were a bunch there, but unfortunately I cannot find any information online. I’ll have to leave that one to chance.

It’s going to all be a bit expensive this holiday – but not too devastating. I’m hoping that what I get out of it will more than make up for the financial loss. It should be fun.

“What is protecting me from having my heart fall apart in the end?”

Well, it’s been a while since I posted. Since my last post I did go home for Christmas, I had an OK Christmas followed by a tiring boxing day dealing with the horrors of the sales, in which I did not get everything I needed, although since I have managed to put together a decent interview outfit. Wearing formal clothes makes me feel desperately uncomfortable, I look in the mirror and think gosh, I’m getting old. I guess that means I am dressing appropriately. I have spent the last few weeks mostly revising. I am trying to take breaks – by watching dramas. I’m currently watching Miss Korea, which is amazing, and Man from the Stars, which is the sort of drama where you can see the drama writer pulling the strings to make it popular, but Gianna Jun is lovely. I am also halfway through Pursuit of Happiness, which started of amazing but sadly began to drag in later episodes. I even took a whole evening off and went to the cinema, to see Long Walk to Freedom, which was very emotional and made me cry. Its incredible to think that Apartheid ended when I was 2 years old, that my parents and grandparents lived through that.

(Ever since my Grandmother died I have been so homesick. I long to reconnect with my culture – I long to go back, to see my living Grandparents… one last time, I think, which is painful. I want to experience Cape Town as a person living there, again, too. It doesn’t help that South Africa/Cape Town has been everywhere – with recent events, and its recent status of design capital.)

Time is passing quickly. I am struggling to feel in control. I feel like everything is just passing me by.

I had my first exam today. Woke up at 7:00am and left the house at 8:00am, feeling pretty optimistic about getting there on time, and strangely relaxed. Then the 8:10 bus did not come, neither did the 8:20 and finally, a bus arrived at 8:35. Well, I was definitely going to be late, and so I was panicking. Its the little things that set my anxiety off – this was one of them. I got off the bus at the entrance to the university that is the opposite to the central campus – the bus does not go into the campus, and the point where I usually get off near central campus is a very heavy traffic area, so it seemed a good idea to escape the hell of unreliable public transport and cut through campus on foot. I ran most of the way and shocked myself by the fact that I could. I was breathing hard, but I did not feel dizzy and my chest didn’t hurt. Living without anaemia is great. Nonetheless I was not in a great way when I finally got to my exam – just after 9am. One of the invigilators was outside and she was very nice about me being late, the exam had only just started, and she helped me find my seat. I was breathing hard and my hands were frozen cold and my anxiety was high – and so the exam got off to a very shaky start. I settled down surprisingly quickly though. My counsellor introduced me to a relaxation breathing technique and I find it useful for getting my anxiety levels down – it cannot remove the anxiety completely nor does it help me sleep, but it usually does OK in keeping me from panicking. I couldn’t implement it fully in the exam – no time – but I had sure to pay attention to my breathing, to keep breathing deeply, slowly, to try and focus, read the questions carefully.

Honestly, the exam wasn’t great – I left feeling like I made a lot of stupid little mistakes, like I missed some sneaky trick I should know for several of the questions. I did not answer all the questions properly – though I did half answer or put random guesses for the ones I did not know. I tried though, and so I cannot help but hope. The thing is – this was one of the exams I was feeling most confident about, and its unsettling that it did not go as well as I hoped. If this is how my good exam went, then what about the rest? This is exactly the sort of way I shouldn’t be thinking, I know. My counsellor picked up on it to – the way I use the bad things in the past, no matter how distant, how I use my mistakes to justify my bad thoughts. I’m working on it. Its hard to be optimistic, when you feel like once you do, will be the point you lose everything you’ve worked so hard for.

Counselling is going quite well actually. Its really good to talk to someone, and to work through this. I don’t think my anxiety will ever go away fully, but I am hopeful that I’ll learn to live with it better. My eating is still all over the place, and I am still waiting for my first appointment with the psychologist for that. After my exam today I was desperate for chocolate but I took a deep breath – and well, I still bought junk food, just not dairy containing junk. Its really pathetic. Giving up dairy has been a fantastic choice for me in one way – I eat a wider variety of foods. In another, its also highlighted my issues with food. Every month I tally up my receipts and its always food that pushes over budget – sneaky trips to convenience stores or supermarkets to buy binging foods, but always buying staples like fruit or something else healthy, because I feel ashamed of my true intentions. The thing is, without chocolate, I need to eat more to get the same ‘satisfaction’, and I rarely do. I really hate this. I’m really scared for that appointment though- these are my habits, and thinking about changing them is so scary. As it gets closer and closer, I just get more afraid.

I also had another doctors appointment and that was a little awkward. I admit, now that I’ve gone through the scary part of admitting to it all, and had it all brought into perspective with various health professionals, I now feel a certain…not regret. But I do wonder if I’m wasting their time. It feels a bit awkward. Like I’m not anxious enough, my eating not disordered enough, to warrant this attention. I especially wonder why my doctor keeps wanting to see me – he suggested I come back to him after exams and that is the thing – is it a suggestion or is he telling me this? What would happen if I don’t? And how long am I going to be going back to see him? He’s busy and I feel bad taking up his tome to essentially just chat about how I am. I guess he’ll stop asking me when he feels like there’s no problem? So there is a problem, right? Its hard to know what’s going on. I feel very uncertain about this all. Am I doing the right thing? I think about it often, too much.

Things aren’t OK right now. I’m not going to lie. This is why I have eased off on blogging – there is only so much you can whine on the internet. And there is only so much I want to put up here – I am quite open on this blog, but I do have certain things I don’t feel comfortable sharing. And these days, my off line diary entries are filled with these things. I have renewed my domain for another three whole years though! So even if I end up blogging once a month, I’ll still be around.

I’ve got another exam tomorrow, and the day after that. Then three more next week. Then there is my job interview. Then finally, I’m taking a three day holiday to Edinburgh. My doctor suggested I give myself something to look forward to after exams – and I decided to take to the extreme. For three days I am going to not study or think about university and I am going to take a holiday. It feels indulgent, but then I think – people take time off work don’t they? So its OK I “take time off” from university right? I’m just so tired, so fed up. I just want a tiny break. I feel guilty, but I am also looking forward to it immensely. Its my little light at the end of the tunnel.

I best get back to revising now.

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