Not All Those Who Wonder Are Lost

 

I am cringing a bit using a massively misquoted and over used line from Lord of the Rings as a title for my blog post. Especially as I don't even like Lord of the Rings that much, but sometimes there are feelings I have  that I know others have expressed much eloquently then I ever could. I am not entirely sure what this post is going to be about as such, because I don't think I've quite come to terms with my own inability to have a direction in life. In England at least we are pressured into choosing what our entire futures will look like at sixteen, although after the recent Gove education reforms this now looks more like fourteen. It is almost impossible at fourteen to know what kind of person you will be by the time you are an adult, you can't know what is going to happen in the world, what is going to happen to you, where you will be living or what opportunities will come your way. There is so much pressure to go to university or have a job as soon you leave school, you go from being babied and spoon fed to  having the world on your shoulders as soon as you get your GCSE results. £27, 000 is a lot of money to owe when you might not be sure that you even want to go to university at all. At my college we were made to feel like university is the only real option if you want to have a happy successful life, that Oxbridge is what everyone should want and that taking anymore than a year off between A levels and University is life ruining. I don't really want to document my feelings of disappointment towards my college and their actions on this blog, but I will say that they were incredibly unwilling to be flexible with me and my illnesses. I was made to feel that if I wasn't able to be a "normal" student then I might as well not bother with my exams at all, I might as well just give up completely.

 

Something which is rarely acknowledged is that often at some stage in your life things will fall apart, you will have to change the way you live, change your plans and you aspirations. I am often saying to my Mum how different I feel I am now to how I was last year, in a relatively short time I have gone from someone who was extremely argumentative and felt the need to get involved in every discussion to someone who glazes over and no longer cares. Of course these changes are due to unusual circumstances but I have been through so many stages in the last few years and at the time I was always convinced that I would stay that way forever. For years I thought I wanted to be an artist, I couldn't stand the idea of studying in a formal setting or wearing suits and being in an office, I then did a complete 360 and decided I wanted to be a lawyer and become some kind of leader of justice. My other great life plans have included being a writer, a teacher, a journalist and a politician. So what do I want to do now? The reality is I don't have any idea what I want to now and I don't think I need to, whilst seem people are sure of their future and do exactly what they planned a lot of people don't. Both of my parents took an untraditional route into education and did a lot of different jobs before and after, that doesn't make their achievements any less valid. My point is, you don't have to follow the status quo, you don't have to spend your life doing something you hate because it earns you money or looks impressive to other people. As dark as it sounds I have accepted that no one really knows what is going to happen in their life, just because those around you appear to have everything sorted out it doesn't mean they always will.

 

 

I seem to have written quite a lot without really saying much, there is so much to say about a topic like this but my brain is in medicated "brain fog" mode and I have begun to forget what my name is, let alone being capable enough to construct a readable sentence. I think there is a lot of media hype about my generation being lazy, I don't think we are lazier than those who came before us, we just are expected to set our sights on being an over educated professional, anything less makes you less of a member of society, whether you enjoy it or not (or so the Conservatives belief). It is alright to not know what you want to do with your life, not all those who wander are lost and not all that glitters is gold.

 

 

University Stress

Winter has finally arrived, or so the weather reports have been saying on and off for the last month- although I'm told that this time it definitely is staying cold. Winter brings along many possibilities that summer can never give, I can stay inside all day and avoid the world with a reasonable excuse, I can buy more coats than anyone would ever possibly need and I can get my hot water bottle out without being mocked by those who don't feel the cold as much as me (everyone). I have already previously written a blog post gushing over why I love Christmas and why, in turn I love winter so I won't blather on anymore about that topic. Yesterday was one of those brilliant winter days where the sun is shining and there isn't a drop of rain, or a gust of wind all day but it still cold enough to need to wrap up warm. My Mother and I took the opportunity to walk Rosie our new puppy for an hour on two, resulting in me falling face first down a grassy hill and the puppy being momentarily terrified of me and what I was doing. My Mum did manage to capture this moment on camera but I have decided to keep it to myself to protect any pride I have left.

Unfortunately the last few days have been the kind of days where I'm not really fit for anything, my health issues make it difficult for me to achieve anything and over the last few days I have spent a good majority of my time sleeping. I won't start a therapy session right here and now but I do feel unsettled by a lot of uncontrollable things in my life at the moment. Currently I am having to think about the reality of applying for university this year, it is tricky to strike the balance between being realistic about your abilities and remaining positive and upbeat. In typical "me" fashion I am throwing myself into every single possible task as a way of distracting myself from what has been a fairly shit time. It is strange to look back over the last year and think how many things have changed and how much I have changed as a person, there is a sense of inevitability in my situation but it doesn't really make it any easier to deal with. 

On to lighter subjects- yesterday I decided to dress practically for the warmth, opting for a more comfortable outfit. I have always despised the idea that dressing comfortably should take priority over looking good, I used to put myself through all kinds of minor discomfort to look good. However, since being ill I have despised wearing tight things as they tend to feel like little needles digging into my hip bones and body, something which isn't very desirable. I bought the joggers pictured as I thought they would be comfortable, warm and maybe fit into the sports luxe trend, I'm not really sold on them completely but they are fine for dog walking in Somerset. I am also wearing my extremely battered and destroyed converse, these really shouldn't be worn anymore as they have holes in them, are falling apart and are no longer even vaguely white in colour but I just feel like they go with everything and I have a strange attachment to them. I am also wearing my newly purchased MAC lipstick in Russian Red, I am still cringing over spending this much on lipstick but it so beautiful. I ate three meals, had a nap, drank and went out wearing one coat of the lipstick and it didn't budge at all. I have never really appreciated high ends products, believing you are paying for the brand name over the quality a lot of the time, but this is one expensive item I think is worth the money. 

As a last note I would like to apologise to anyone who is neurotic as me for all the pictures in this post being different sizes. My brain is completely stressed out and muddled today and I just couldn't make them look how I wanted them to look. I realise the majority of people won't notice this but it does set my perfectionist side on edge!

Coat- Asos 

Shirt- Topshop 

Top- Urban Outfitters (sparkle and fade)

Joggers- Topshop 

Converse 

Lipstick- MAC Russian Red 

A Lifetime of Wardrobe Malfunctions

Rings (left to right) Topshop, Primark, Primark ( gold band), vintage, Topshop

My whole family seem to have been born with an incredible talent for having wardrobe malfunctions, we may be up there with Janet Jackson or Fergie who arguably have had some of the funniest wardrobe malfunctions ever. For instance, at my sister's graduation meal my Mother managed to drop all her white top, then she tried to wet a red napkin to wipe it away which in turn left her with a massive red stain on top of the curry stain. I always seem to somehow have a wardrobe malfunction at nearly every single formal occasion there is- there was the time I flashed my whole bum to a restaurant of Italians, or the time where my trousers ripped from crotch to feet in school, you name it and chances are its happened to me. This skirt is no exception, I asked for it from my birthday thinking it would be a a heavy quality and a little bit longer. Unfortunately missguided clothes do tend to feel the tiniest bit cheap ( which isn't that bad considering they are cheap) and I am almost 5'8' meaning this skirt is bum skimmingly short on me, every few steps I took yesterday I had to yank my skirt down to make sure it wasn't up around my waist. Not the most glamorous look. 

This outfit was mainly put together for dog walking purposes so I wanted it to look fairly nice but also be warm as my body runs at a naturally freezing temperature. This coat is from the reclaimed vintage section of Asos and came in at around £70 which does make me cringe slightly inside, hopefully I can get a good couple of years out of it as  it quite easily makes a dull outfit into something that stands out a bit more. The shirt I bought from Depop but was originally from Topshop, I love it but it is 100% silk and therefore creases every time you even move a tiny bit which can be annoying for someone who hates ironing. I really love the way the blue tones in the shirt make the skirt look more of a vivid blue as it can look a little wishy washy and cheap.

I may as well also address the elephant in the room- yes, I have dyed my hair, these photos make it look a lot more brown then it really is in real life. Overall I like it as I felt the whole bleached blonde look was very severe and my face look a lot harsher than it really is. I dyed it this colour in the hope I can grow out my natural hair, which is a "strawberry blonde" (ginger) colour as I haven't seen my natural hair since I was twelve and it has become very weak and dry from dying, bleaching and illness over the last year. Undoubtedly this colour won't last long in my hair though, I have had nearly every single hair colour there is, bright red, purple, blonde, yellow, pink, blue, black, brown and every shade in between. I am thinking in the near future I will have to a post of my many different hair shades, although it might take my a worryingly long time, there some absolute shockers that I am sure many people would like to save and look at when they need a laugh.

Headband- Amazon 

Jacket- Asos 

Shirt- Depop 

Skirt- Missguided 

Rings- see above 

Nail Varnish- Sally Hansen Gem Crush in "Cha-Ching"

Coping With Long Term Illness

I've been hesitant to write a proper post about coping with long term illness because I don't really know if I am coping with long term illness that well, nor do I feel like I am the best person to be handing out advice. I've already done a post on what is wrong with me so I won't be going into great details about the nitty gritty diagnosis details. I'm writing this so it can be some what cathartic and will hopefully be helpful for other people who are feeling alone with their illnesses. 

One of the hardest aspects of being ill long term is that you of course don't feel on deaths door every day of the year, otherwise you probably would be dead and not just chronically ill. Unfortunately these good days haven't always been pleasurable for me, it often leaves me with a strange feeling of guilt- guilt that I'm not really ill, guilt that I don't have a job or a purpose in life, guilt that I haven't managed to sit my exams yet. It is only when these good days are followed by bad days that I realise why I haven't achieved all of those things, I am just not consistently well enough to commit to a job, exams or even enjoying myself. This leaves me with the dilemma that I don't feel I can enjoy life when I feel well but I also obviously won't enjoy feeling bad either. I try to live life as it comes ( trying to avoid slipping the phrase YOLO in here) but that isn't always possible. I think the most important thing to remember if you have been ill for a long time is to look after yourself, try not to worry that other people think you are lazy or not that ill, only you and those closest to you will know how ill you really are, try to listen to the people who care about you and know you properly. Just because you are well enough to go to Tesco on your own one day doesn't mean you are suddenly well enough to handle a full time job, it is more complicated than that.

Guilt is also something that will inevitability be felt by those who are ill for a long time. No matter what your illness is, you will find yourself asking "could I have done something differently to make myself healthier?". Whatever the answer is it is a pointless question to ask, you cannot change what has gone before but you can try to change how you live from now on. I also find myself frequently feeling guilty for how my illness has affected those around me, I can't help but feel that my health is not only holding me back but it is also holding back those who have to care for me, like my Mum. For me this amplified by the fact my Step Father also has a long term health condition and needs more care than what is "normal". I hate to use the word "burden" because my family have tried their hardest not to make me feel like I am a burden, but sometimes when I just cannot do the simplest of tasks, or need lifts to doctors appointments at stupid times in the day I do feel like my family would probably have an easier time if I wasn't this way. The only advice I can offer to help with this guilt that sits and eats you up slowly over time, is to try and imagine how you would feel if you had to care for someone who is close to you. If you were looking after someone in your family you wouldn't feel remorseful or annoyed, you would likely want to help as much as you can, if you do love someone you want them to be happy and healthy even if it does impact on your own life. There will always be times when you feel that everything would be easier if you are not around but that completely overlooks the fact that you can positively impact those around you without being in full health. You can still offer advice, make jokes, have long conversations and be there for people if you're ill, those are the things people would miss if you weren't there, they wouldn't just be happy because they no longer have to give you the odd car lift somewhere. 

Tumblr Illustration

I already feel like there is so much I need to say about this topic but I know not everyone will want to read reams and reams of rambling about illness so I will probably end up doing follow up posts from this when something important comes to me. One of the last few points I definitely want to mention is advice for those around chronically ill people. If you know someone who has been ill for a long time and has to give up their job etc. because of it then it is important to remember that this person will probably be "grieving" somewhat for what they have lost. I cannot express how frustrating it is to loose the ability to do the things you love. Before I got ill I always enjoyed being a homebody, I'm an introverted person and I didn't go out that much, but I did have the option to- I would quite often go out for peoples birthdays, or shopping in a nearby city. Now I cannot manage these things that I used to enjoy, a lot of people assume that those who don't work are spoilt or lazy, but not working isn't fun at all if you can't go out and enjoy yourself, I don't live off benefits or go out all day splashing my cash because I am not well enough do those things either. I find myself frustrated because I am unable to do the things that made me, me before, I cannot help to feel that I living a stagnant life achieving absolutely nothing but likewise not having the freedom to be destructive either. People who are chronically ill will get upset that they have lost the ability to live their lives the way they would like to. For instance I found myself in tears a few weeks ago listening to my sister talking about starting her course at university, I couldn't help but feel I should be the one starting a degree. I felt upset that I cannot manage to look after myself, I thought back to when i went to an open day at Queen Mary University in London- my Mother and I went up the night before, traveled across London and walked around shops for hours, as well as going around the University itself. It suddenly hit me that I couldn't do those things anymore, I wouldn't be able to cope with the train journey up to London let alone organising myself so I could get around an open day or a busy shopping center. I felt overwhelmed with the realisation that I am barely able to attend open days for university this year, let alone apply and start a degree in the near future. Those with long illnesses will be hit with grief because in a way you have lost a major part of yourself, in becoming ill you loose your old self and become someone completely different in order to cope with your new problems. Sometimes I feel as if I am a completely different person compared to the person I was six months ago, I feel as if I am somewhat of an empty shell or just a person who is  in pain and nothing else 

It occurred to me the other night that I have been feeling so stressed about being ill because I constantly feel that I am under pressure to suddenly get better, to be cured from everything and go back to how I used to be. As negative as it may sound  I have realised that I may never go back to "normal", that normal has changed to a totally different thing altogether. I may never be able to go up to London at 7am and walk around the busy streets until 8pm at night, even if I massively improve it will take a long, long time for me to have the stamina for that. I may completely recover but I feel fairly certain that if I do it will be a slow process, I won't suddenly wake up and be able to go on a long run. Once you let go of the idea that you will find a magic cure you begin to enjoy life a bit more again. You cannot live your life afraid of disappointing other people with your pain, you haven't asked to end up being ill and you cannot ask to get better in day. Although it may sound that I am being totally pessimistic, I really just being realistic, I now feel that it is more about if I get better not when I get better. This acceptance has made it easier for me cope and although it may not work for everyone I do think sooner or later with long term illness you will feel like this.

I hope this has shed some light onto how chronically ill people can feel if you yourself are having to care for someone at the moment- it can be difficult to know how to help someone, especially when the feelings around these issues can be incredibly complex. If you yourself are coping with long term illness then maybe this post has at least made you feel like you aren't as alone- it can feel like you are the wrong sized puzzle piece in your life but in reality you are just part of a different puzzle altogether.

How thin is "too thin"?

Apologies for my lack of recent posts, I've only had this blog for a month or so and am already neglecting it, however after going back to college I have been exhausted constantly and have been only able to tackle things that I can achieve lying down with my eyes shut!

Today I am going to be writing a bit of a different post, obviously a lot of this is my own opinions and I want to advise you not to read on if you are easily triggered by discussion of weight and eating. For the last two or three weeks I have wanted to post on this blog about what I bought in the sales, or my makeup favourites or even tutorial/cooking posts, but I just couldn't do it. I couldn't make myself pretend to be chirpy about fashion when in reality I have been too tired to focus on the things I normally enjoy. Therefore today I am going to be discussing exactly how thin, "too thin" is, I can really only scrape this topic in a blog post but I will give it a go.

Ever since I have been small I have associated being thin with being happy. It wasn't like I believed that if you were bigger, you weren't a good person, or you weren't capable of achieving important things. I just thought that somehow, if I was skinnier all the problems I had would be solved. That somehow it would make me happier, more popular or more likeable. It doesn't matter whether I am 90 lbs or 190lbs I will still be the same person, realistically, if someone likes you more because your thinner, then frankly they aren't a real friend.

I started off earlier this year wanting to shift a bit of weight, I was over 10 and a half stone and felt unhealthy, unfit and unattractive, I then reached my goal of 10 stone. But I couldn't stop there, I then wanted to be 9 stone 10lbs, then 9 stone 6lbs, until I found myself at 8 stone 10 lbs, still feeling if I could just loose a little bit more then I would be happier, feel stronger. I am over 5'8' so of course, I know deep down that being much lighter won't be healthy but it is addictive, and there is a small part of me that felt comfortable being in the danger zone. My sister suffered with an eating disorder so I was well aware of the destructiveness, but it didn't stop me from wanting to constantly "beat" those around me, as if being underweight would make me better.

This was me in June at just under 10 stone 7lbs, when I still had a healthy attitude to food.

I don't exactly believe that the media encourages women to be thinner, but I do think that a lot of the health trends that are boasted as being safe ways to loose weight are actually promoting an unhealthy attitude to food. That in fact a lot of social media that promotes itself as being a "fitness" source is in fact responsible for a lot of ugly habits.  One of the biggest trends is the "clean eating" seen plastered all over instagram, this in itself says to women that food that isn't fruit or vegetables is "dirty". That we should feel guilty for eating foods that have any fat in them, or aren't the bare minimum we need to fuel ourselves. The sad thing is that these posts are not even marketing themselves as "pro ana" (that is a whole other awful kettle of fish" but are instead claiming to have a healthy attitude to diet. Women should not be encouraging each other to feel guilty about eating. Obviously over indulgence is a bad thing, but the occasional slice of cake isn't going to make you fat, in fact the average person needs at least 25%- 35% of their diet to be made up of fat.

I personally don't read fashion magazines very often, finding them over priced and lacking in content, so I am not hugely influenced by them but I would say that tumblr, instagram and even twitter have played a large part in my obsession with being "thin". There is a general trend of glamorising eating disorders and being under weight as the "in" thing, obviously if you are naturally thin like Kate Moss etc. that is brilliant but I think there needs to be a bigger acceptance that not everybody can be tiny, you cannot change your genes, you cannot rip apart you skeleton and give yourself a wider thigh gap, longer legs or smaller shoulders. Women seem to love to make other women feel guilty about their eating habits, constantly searching for what is "normal", when really normal is a socially constructed idea, it doesn't exist beyond the walls of your own mind.

Rather then encouraging people to feel guilty about their eating, maybe we should celebrate the things they can achieve, humans are more than our weight and a life that revolves around calories and food is not a life being lived to the fullest. Instead of encouraging terms such as "clean eating" maybe we should encourage a healthy, balanced diet, Which yes will include cheese, milk and even chocolate if you want it to. Instead of encouraging everyone to aim to be someone else, we should encourage everyone, including ourselves to be happy with who we are, regardless of thighs, cheek bones, and ab definition.

So is there such thing as "too thin"? Of course there is, but health is more important then a number on the scales.