Could you tell me a time you felt hopeless?

I was on holiday in St Andrews when I got the first call. There had been worrying times before but he had always pulled through. Was it another one of those times? Or was this it the end? 

My Grampa had been put into a care home due to the onset of dementia. He had always been such a fun and social man so this was so hard to see for all of our family. His mind had failed him but his physical health was top form. The main thing that hurt me so much about his passing was seeing my dad struggle. This is not something that is natural in life, seeing the people you look up to, the adults who always assured you that things would be okay, hurting. On the day I got the call I remember my dad saying that my Grampa was in a bad way. I was 170 miles away, a three-hour drive, and something inside me told me that this wasn’t one of those times. Something inside me was telling me I had to go, I have never felt a feeling so strong in my life. The pull to be there with them. The whole drive I remember saying out loud “Grampa please just hold on until I get there, I want to say goodbye” 

Standing by his bedside in the care home I felt so much love and sadness at the same time. This is as close I had ever come to death. I was fortunate enough never to have lost anyone until now. I held his warm hand and said a prayer for him. 

The thing that got me the most when my Grampa passed was the helplessness I felt when I saw the fear and sadness in my dad’s eyes. The same eyes that I, as a little girl, had looked into for reassurance and saw nothing but strength, courage and love and so much support – the same eyes I was now looking into as a young adult filled with sadness, fear and loss. The eyes are the portal to the soul and my heart ripped at the thought of the sadness that filled my dad’s soul during this time. An image which clearly sticks in my head, one which I will never be able to remove, is my dad on his knees at my Grampas bedside holding his hand, head down, and my brother standing behind my dad with his hand supportively on my dad’s shoulder. A complete role reversal. A chain of heartbreak and grief. This just isn’t right; my mind couldn’t comprehend it. It’s supposed to be my brother looking up to my dad, who looks up to his dad. Not the other way around. This memory will forever be engraved in my mind. The fragility of life and the certainty of death.

Could you tell me a time you used the power hand?

The Power Hand activity is an opportunity to practice recognizing our strengths. When we recognize our strengths, we feel hopeful and resilient, which helps us make healthy choices and manage our thoughts, emotions, and actions. This has a positive impact on our mental, emotional, and physical well-being. Below are the steps for the Power Hand activity, which can be done anywhere, anytime, to help us feel calm and strong.

1. With your eyes closed, take five slow and deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth. While breathing, focus on relaxing your muscles, and feeling comfortable in your body.

2. Once you feel comfortable, hold one hand out in front of your body, in a relaxed manner.

3. As you take a deep breath in, use the index finger of your other hand to trace the outline of your thumb.

4. When you get to the tip of your thumb, think of one of your strengths. This is something you like and value about yourself. When you think of the strength, gently squeeze your fingertip – this will help you remember this strength!

5. In your own time, continue to take deep breaths, and focus on a strength of yours at each fingertip, until you have completed your Power Hand. If you can’t think of five strengths, that’s ok – just think of as many as you can for now.

6. When you have built your Power Hand, take three deep breaths in and out, and remind yourself of your strengths you have just identified. Focus on how thinking of these strengths makes you feel, and how you could use your Power Hand in the future.

7. When you are ready, gently open your eyes.

Remember: this is an activity you can use to feel resilient and hopeful, and to remind yourself of your value, whenever you need to!

Waves For Change

Could you tell me a time you needed someone else?

It was a day I nearly lost. Waking up early in my, suddenly, messy room, again. I'm locked into bed demanding why things persistently tumble from order to chaos. It's too late, before I realise I'm wasting my time. A day off is a day off, the only one I got. I'm finally feeling lazy enough to get out of my bed, and it becomes clear this is how every day off goes. So to motivate myself I make coffee, cigarettes and food. Essential things to do before leaving the house, but perhaps a little distraction before too. Watch some videos and read some news, make attempts to reach out of this loneliness. If no one close is free, I'll happily go further and further until I'm talking to robots. Before long I realise I'm wasting my time again.

Frustration pushes me to get out and leave for a walk. I suit up, grab the lead and get in the car, I'm going north. Perhaps this beautiful part of the country is bad for my soul, at the drop of a hat I can disappear up a hill, through the woods, along the coast. Perhaps this is why I give myself so much time in the morning. I still hadn't decided where i was going, I had a memory in my head, of a place I wanted to reclaim, but without a clue where it was. This is sometimes why the voice in my head tells me I'm crazy, busy looking for something to reclaim, stumbling around like a fool without that clue.

After over an hour of driving, the pin I dropped in the map was wrong, the road is leading me through a pretty flooded Ford, so I stopped. For all this stressing about relaxing, I achieved little more than wasting petrol. Brilliant, a nice accompaniment of guilt to join the laziness and foolishness this morning has already brought. This is when it hit me the clearest, I'm only here wasting my time again. More time spent in my head justifying, apologising and arguing myself to myself all the while wasting my time from things more productive. I'm impossible, there's a hole in my bucket and I'm annoying myself, out for a walk but not finding one, out for myself and all I do is argue.

Resigned I was about to go home. I put the car in gear and notice someone is walking towards the car from theirs. Suddenly, this woman had arrived at the window of the car and knocked. I had a moment, while I fumbled to open the window, to notice this women must have been in her 50s, with a well worn jacket and that this is the first person I'm going to actually speak to today. As the window opens the lady leans down and arrives at my level. Well this is it, I'm going to have to talk and connect with a stranger.

She asks me straight "do you want to move my car forward so you can park behind mine?"

I'm hesitating, trying to quickly arrive back to the present to reach out and give my response.

"Oh, you know, it's ok, I havent decided where I'm going just yet, dont let me put you out" I finally replied, quietly hoping she didnt notice the vulnerability I'd woven through the words. I'm caught in her friendly face with a feeling that shes looking right through whatever mask I've put on to hide my internal voices. I'm left asking myself, just who is this woman?

Her face breaks into a smile, causing my defences to begin to dissolve, and she tells me I should park and leave for a walk from here.

"There's an old woodland that goes up the valley, it's perfectly quiet and has indications that people from a time long ago lived and worked within this woodland. If you are looking for a walk this is the one to do" she finally said through her smile.

This strange woman, who appeared from nowhere and has an apparent ability to talk straight through the feeble defences I normally put up between strangers, was using all the words that would persuade the child alive within me to get out and really explore. I dont need to hesitate anymore, the idea has been firmly sold, or maybe I'm just happy someone has come and told me what to do.

I move my car and fill the space this woman has created for me, I take a moment to roll a cigarette and process all these unusual feelings meeting this woman has stirred. I've already imagined her as a magical gatekeeper, loitering around the entrance to these woods to encourage, or discourage, individuals on whichever path they need to take that day. I know I'm back wasting time, but I'm inspired into a world that I love wasting time in. This has been what I've been waiting for all day and I feel it.

I'm ready to set off and make sure I thank this woman once again because my gratitude has grown considerably since parking the car and catching up with my thoughts. I confidently stride towards the gate and it barely slows me down as I open it to let me and the dog through. Already, after the first few steps I feel like I've moved far away from the world I woke up in. I find a rocky outcrop, that worked as a quarry at one point in history, and I'm straight up climbing to the top. Ok, it's raining, and my shoes are not appropriate, but it doesnt matter. I've long left the self loathing that would have seen these as hindrance, completely removed from the hindrance the ford presented to me. Completely removed from the guilt, laziness and foolishness that was accumulating within.

With this new spirit and perseverance I was able to take the good with the bad. One became the other and this motivation encouraged me to ditch my unsuitable shoes and to trust that wet and muddy feet are more practical to me than wet and muddy shoes. This symbolic act of removing my shoes and walking muddy trails and through muddy puddles rescued my fragile mind in a significant way. It represented to me that being ill-prepared is solvable.

My mind is a labyrinth of endless corridors to get lost down, this is something I cannot change. However, it's a dynamic place which can transform in a moment and learning to trust the corridors I find myself roaming through is difficult. Knowing how I see these corridors is never permanent and that fills me with reassurance. I'm learning that the lonely corridors are sometimes the most difficult places to roam, without physical company it can feel impossible to experience the perception change that can inspire or debilitate. So loneliness is not a choice, it's a situation many people find themselves, and if you are open to connection, and willing to let your path cross, even the slightest moment of company can be enough to transform your perception.

So thank you again, wonderful strange lady. I might never get the chance to tell you to what extent you changed my day, or my life, but I'll pass on your intuition to people over again. If it can happen once, it can happen again. You're likely to never know how much you mean to other people, whether close friends or complete strangers, but every day a stranger makes someones world less lonely. Here's to hoping that this wonderful strange lady knows this, I find her worth talking about again and again.

Could you tell me a time you hit a wall?

In the year of 2016, I entered what would ultimately be an unsuccessful year of education but from which I learned some valuable lessons about myself and my approach towards other people. It was to be a victory lap on what had been a vastly enjoyable experience at university where I studied the field of Physics. I had glided through my penultimate year with relative ease and I was comfortably swimming in safe familiar waters with a final year ahead that was a stage set up for its final act, a predictable but happy conclusion. I entered my Honors year brimming with confidence and a keen interest to explore new territory. All through life I’ve maintained an awareness of the issues that our planet's environment is facing and like many others I’ve experienced frustration for my incapability as an individual to influence change on a large scale. In the brainstorming for my thesis proposal, I was presented with a rare opportunity to do just that and it was an easy choice. I was offered the opportunity to study the intake of microplastics in marine life; an issue that was rapidly becoming more prevalent and headline-worthy as people become aware of the damage that their favourite facial scrub was doing (another topic for writing in itself, but in short… the oceans are a mess). I recklessly bowled into it like an electrician attempting heart surgery, so eager to help without fully assessing my suitability. As you may have realised (unlike me) there is little overlap between a physics degree and the study of plastics in fish and it was already a stretch but my mind had been lit up with possibility at the prospect and after meetings where the possibility of having results published there was no question of me not choosing it.

Ironically with the field of marine biology, I found my self stranded in deep water. I was placed in a new building away from all the students and colleagues I’d been working with from the beginning with a laboratory I had no familiarity with.The apparatus was all new and I would have to repeatedly ask strangers for the simplest of advice. I’m sure in retrospect they were all welcoming of a newcomer in their departmentbut from my perspective I could feel eyes rolling back behind closed eyelids and imaginary disdain in their every tone. I hit my first stride a week or so in, finally being able to produce some results I could show to my supervisor. When presented, however, I was told of the irrelevancy of the results and lambasted for wasting valuable time with inconsequential research. I felt a significant knock to my confidence that day, but I still felt driven to correct my mistake. I would wake up with determination, pack my bag for the day, lunches prepped and all, and walk to university with the intent of spending the whole day making drastic breakthroughs and uncovering newground-breaking results. But I’d reach the front door and I’d pause, hesitant to step in from the cold. I’d do a small lap of the block maybe picking up a coffee as if that was the answer to everything and head back only to slow down again outside and be hit with a sudden overwhelming urge to just go home. Try again tomorrow! Something’s just not right today. I conceded and fell into this awful pattern, only rarely making it across threshold only to be met with further frustration and perplexity and every day I’d return to bed another rung down the ladder. Numerous times this frustration reduced me to the verge of tears and I’d make a hushed exit stage left so I could be alone before I had a breakdown in public. After a while, this solidified connection was formed between the work I was expected to complete and being unhappy. I knew every morning looking up at the modern architecture of the department building that if I was to put myself in that small dark optics room on the third floor I’d just feel like a failure. I’d have more ease scaling the side of the building than overcoming this unsurmountable wall I’d constructed in my mind.

Eventually, after weeks of repeating this awful pattern and dodging emails, I met with my head of year (after the previous experience of meeting my supervisor I’d rather avoid a repeat of that). I explained my situation and was greeted with welcome sympathy but rather than accepting the unfeasibility I was told to endure it and keep going. I am very fortunate in life to of had my mental wellbeing in good health for most of my life, never having to experience to horrible realities of clinical depression or anxiety but I feel like I understand a little more the extent of this inability from this experience. Stories of people who suffer depression and struggle to get out of bed in the morning are not to be dismissed. Whenever somewhere, someone is suffering from a resistance that their own brain can pose when faced with the simplest of tasks you should treat it like you would a physical illness. I’d like to emphasise that my experience doesn’t fall in this category but to the senior staff in my department, it was probably like asking a primary kid to learn his times tables. They may have understood the difficulties but its far from an insurmountable problem, just a learning curve to be overcome. What’s far harder to fathom is the pure impossibility of a task. For me this was impossible. Nothing was going to change that. I didn’t care about trying again. I didn’t care about graduating. I just didn’t want to step in that laboratory every again and I feared that forcing it would only jeopardize my wellbeing. Forcing out of idle is almost never the answer. It only exacerbates the feeling of failure.

I firmly believe that a far more consoling and productive reaction is to try a new avenue. One from which you can gain just the same sense of achievement. Criticising a person’sinabilities can often feel for them like they’re just digging a bigger hole for themselves. For me, I took the following summer for myself and returned with a project that played to my strengths. I don’t mean to dissuade from exploring outside your comfort zone but going in with the understanding that sometimes it just might not work out and that’s okay is very important. Realise that you can still learn and grow from such experiences. I returned to blue shores where I completed my degree with a superb final result that I will always be extremely proud of and attended my graduation ceremony that had felt light-years away only a year prior.

Could you tell me a time you felt insecure?

Insecurity is something that is always there, small and almost inconsequential in the back of my mind. I think that must be the case for almost everyone, you have to be a certain kind of confident to never compare yourself to anyone else and get that feeling you’re not-quite-as-good. I find social media can be a world that exacerbates this problem, there is always going to be someone more attractive/sportier/confident on your timeline that makes you feel lacking. For me I particularly struggle with feelings of insecurity in social situations or stressful times, it takes one lack of an invitation to feel like you’re nowhere near as popular as everyone else going, but that’s where perspective and rationalisation come into play. Yes it is a difficult and frustrating situation but if you take time to think about all the good things that are going on (which are always there, if not always big things or particularly obvious), then the feelings of self-doubt slowly ebb away.

One of the hardest things to do, but something that I’m slowly learning makes an enormous difference in everyday life, is to try and not be envious or compare yourself to other people who appear to have everything easy. I am one of the biggest over-thinkers I know, less than I used to be, but still constantly unsure of myself, and yet I think many people who meet me would be totally unable to see this aspect of my personality. I like to think that is the case for most other people too, so if you are ever feeling insecure for not being quite as good as someone in one aspect, never forget they are probably comparing themselves back against you and thinking they aren’t as good for another reason.

A time recently that I have felt insecure was just a few weeks ago when things got on top of me at university. It got to that point at the start of winter that you’re feeling run down and ill, and deadlines stack up. When I’m tired I find it so much harder to think rationally, and for one particularly challenging piece of coursework I just couldn’t work out what I was supposed to do. I felt like every single other person in my module could understand so much easier and I was in the wrong place, insecure in my intelligence. I felt like if I reached out to my friends and said I was really struggling they would judge me and dismiss me for not understanding it like they did. Reaching a point of overwhelming panic, I had to sit down with one of my friends and just admit I just couldn’t wrap my head around it. She was EXACTLY the same. We sat for about an hour just non-stop complaining about how difficult the module was and how we felt everyone else understood while we didn’t. Next we started actually tackling the questions and while it was still difficult, we made a lot more progress than I had been able to before, and had the confidence to text more friends to help us, some of them who are super bright who got it straight way, but many more others in similar situations.

When it comes to insecurity about things like this, or about your looks, or popularity etc., it is so important to bear in mind that there are so many others who feel the same, and if you reach out to a close friend a problem shared can often be a problem halved. You could spend your whole life comparing yourself to others that appear to be better-off in a whole load of different ways, and it’s so difficult not to, but the more you put yourself out there and stay active – keeping your mind off things that make you feel less-than – the more I find you can start to be grateful and positive about other unique aspects of yourself.

Could you tell me a time you took a step back?

Around 2 years ago, at the age of 27, on a holiday with some friends in Sète my mental health reached a melting point. Looking back, I realise now that it was mostly likely years of escaping my negative self-beliefs through various avoidance strategies that led to this event where my complications with mental health became self evident. At that moment in time, and for the weeks that followed, I experienced a complete loss of self esteem and confidence. I felt embarrassed, confused, stupid, useless and ashamed of myself. I found it impossible to concentrate from having severe brain fog and had a deep rooted un- comfort and stress around my friends. As a result, I chose to isolate myself which led to me then slipping in to a dark depression.

I remember the exact moment when I reached breaking point. I was assisting my friend making breakfast one morning. Usually what would be a simple task became an overwhelming experience. Finding it difficult to concentrate, I needed him to guide me through the process as I feared making a mistake and embarrassing myself over the most basic task. Once we had finished preparing food, I felt severely stressed from how difficult I found this everyday routine. My friend, unaware of my negative thoughts at the time, made a passing joke about me only having half a brain that morning. Unfortunately this solidified the negative thoughts I was having about myself and my worries that my insecurities would become noticed by friends was confirmed. I felt completely embarrassed and useless. As a result, I couldn’t even stay to eat the breakfast we had prepared - I sat down and started to profusely sweat in the sun. My friends conversed and I focused on trying not to embarrass myself further so I sat there in silence trying to persevere over the negative thoughts I was ruminating over. My situation did not improve and I eventually started to feel like I was going to have a panic attack so I said I needed to go for a walk. I rushed out of the house and sat by the canal worrying about what was happening to me and fearful of returning to the house. All I could do was ruminate over what had happened and catastrophize what was going to happen in the future. At this moment in time, I thought that I would never be the same again. I began to identify with these new feelings and believed that the happier less anxious me of the past was actually an imposter that had had his day and that circumstances had finally exposed the real me that would remain for the rest of my years.

At this time, I was very unfamiliar with the complexities of Anxiety and Depression. Even though I had probably been experiencing such symptoms for years I never felt like they were severe enough to warrant much attention. I was told by one friend that I could be suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as result from traumatic life experiences. At the time, I couldn’t believe that my symptoms were solely caused from this and convinced myself that it must have stemmed from a biological failure in my body or a physical accident. Despite experiencing these symptoms in the past they had never been so crippling so I thought that they must have been worsened by some recent development. I then started my own research and became obsessed with getting to the route cause of my psychological complications. My first diagnoses was that I had an Over-Active Thyroid and I was experiencing Hyperthyroidism.

Once I returned to the UK from Sète, I became obsessed with trying to discover what was causing my condition. As a result of ruminating over my negative thoughts, my symptoms remained and I began avoiding social situations and not answering phone calls from friends. I continued to diagnose myself with all sorts of illnesses online that continued to make me feel even more hopeless about the future. I began to believe that there was no chance of improvement. My condition got so severe that I even contemplated suicide. After visiting the doctor and having various blood checks, it was clear that it wasn’t a overactive thyroid that was causing my symptoms. Through diagnosing myself online (the worst thing a hypochondriac can do in this situation), I then developed a new theory that I had experienced Brain Damage caused by a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) which had triggered my anxiety and depression. Besides various minor knocks to the head, something which is probably common for skateboarders, I’ve only ever had one major knock that resulted in a concussion. Despite having scans at the time of the accident and being given the all clear from doctors without much sign of concern, I continued to worry about this long after the injury. My worries were not necessarily unjustified as I have seen the affects of Major Brain Damage in my father who had accident when I was in University and now requires 24/7 continuous care. After revisiting the doctor with this proposal, I was told that it was unlikely that my psychological state was the result of a previous bang on the head. This scepticism from the doctor was due to the nature of my symptoms, as they quite often come and go. I was then given a prescription of Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI’s) called Citalopram to see if this would improve my condition. I started the course of SSRI’s and simultaneously began Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) to satisfy the notion that my condition could be improved and was not irreversible.

Once I started CBT I learnt a lot more about my mental health. I was told that to improve my mental hygiene I would have to retrain my brain through various mental exercises to transform my negative thoughts cycles about myself in to more positive ones. After a few sessions with my therapist I stopped taking antidepressants and began to believe that my symptoms were not the result of Brain Damage, but were the result of a form of mild Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) and could be resolved through therapy. My therapist reaffirmed that my hypochondria had got the better of me and through self diagnoses I had found something to explain my condition that would only allow my negative thought cycles to continue. I began to understand I was suffering from very low-self esteem that most likely resulted from negative core beliefs about myself that I had developed throughout my entire life. I began to understand that some of the traumatic events surrounding my upbringing were most likely the cause of my negative thought patterns. I could see the patterns of my thoughts that had been developing for years and the ways I would ruminate over negative thoughts and begin to identify with them. I began setting my self challenges to break my negative thought cycles. Most of the exercises I worked on came from a book by Dr Melanie Fennell called ‘Overcoming Low Self-Esteem and Overcoming Low Self-Esteem Self-Help Course’ and the website www.getselfhelp.co.uk. After about a month of starting CBT I slowly started to feel a return of my old self. My symptoms began to dissipate and I was able to carry on with things with a new sense of empowerment over my thoughts. Although there are times when my symptoms have returned, I have stopped obsessing about what is causing them and instead focus on things I can do that can make me better in those moments. Overtime I have noticed many other triggers that have an impact on my mental hygiene. I’ve seen that my symptoms sometimes worsened during;

- Periods when I am idle and don’t have much to concentrate on.

- Times when I have been travelling a lot and not sleeping properly.

- Mornings after drinking alcohol.

- Weeks when I have been eating a lot of sugar and drinking a lot of coffee.

This has led to me avoiding these triggers at times when I can feel my anxieties returning which definitely benefits my mental hygiene. I have began to accept that there is not necessarily a singular reason to explain my condition and understand the fact that I can only hypothesize what brought on my break down in Sète and that obsessing about previous injuries only allows my symptoms to persist. There are most likely various environmental and biological causes for my symptoms. Fortunately, I now have the tools to help prevent me from ruminating over them so they persist and instead I can carry on with life as normal.

Could you tell me a time you felt optimistic?

Optimism is a hard emotion, in my opinion. Its not just like feeling happy or sad, its deeper than that. It’s telling yourself that you believe you can achieve something. In a lot of situations, I let other emotions push that feeling out of my mind. I’ve recently realised that tapping into that optimism can make me feel better about something that’s happening in a completely different part of my life. It gives me focus and excitement.

Optimism for me, at the moment, is directed towards my future and career. It feels great knowing that I’m doing everything possible to set myself up for success in the future. I’m not focussing on only one thing; I’m trying to set myself up with options through my studies and work experience. It may be hard work, but it gives me that belief for the things to come and distracts me from other things that may not be going so well right now.

There is always something that can get in the way of feeling optimistic, but there is always room in life to do something that can give you that feeling and its worth every minute. Giving myself time to think about what I am doing well so I can focus on feeling optimistic isn’t something that comes naturally to me, but I hope I can keep doing it in more parts of my life.

Could you tell me a time you felt grateful?

There was a time when I played my dream sport, with my dream team and surrounded by all my friends. Then one day I got a terrible injury and my whole life got turned upside down. Everything I felt I had worked for throughout my life at school and as a young adult had slipped away. I could no longer go out and enjoy everything I felt I was or had been. It felt like I had lost my identity.

However, the old saying is that every cloud has a silver lining, and the silver lining for me was that I learned, after my accident to really appreciate life. To really appreciate being able to get out of bed in the morning without passing out of feeling ill. To appreciate being able go out and spend time with my friends instead of being shut in a hospital. To appreciate having the freedom of getting in my car and driving instead of having to get help to do so.

So, although this injury took so much away from me. It also gave me so much. And although it’s not the way I chose to end playing my sport, it probably taught me just as much, if not more about life and how to be grateful for everything in it.

Could you tell me a time you felt connected?

I recently moved The Hague in the Netherlands from my home in London to study for a year. An experience that has turned out to be far more challenging and lonely than I ever pictured it to be.

When I’m waiting at Centraal Station for a train one of my favourite things to do is to sit on the steps next to the piano where commuters sit and play. I love watching people sitting down playing, so absorbed in what they are doing and so connected to everyone that is listening to them. I like observing the smiles it puts on people’s faces and the people just jumping up when they have finished playing and continuing on their way!

Doing this reminds me that everyone is kind of alone, but connected at the same time. I gain a lot from taking time out of my often hectic day to sit down and watch people walk to where they have to be, whilst listening to someone play the piano. I think it’s little things like this that you need to appreciate when you’re feeling lonely or anxious and this really lifts my mood on a blue day. It would be easy to sit on my phone or have both headphones in, but I feel so much more connected to people when I’m looking up and not plugged into a device. This is so important with regards to my generation. I was born in 1998 so have been exposed to technology and social media since the beginning of my teenage years. Social media can make it really difficult to get a realistic picture of life, when all you see is the idyllic visions and social personas that people present on Instagram. Something I really struggle with and that gets me down is constantly comparing my reality abroad (which can be pretty miserable at times) with the life my friends at home are having.

But, right now I feel present and content, which is something I’m really trying to feel more often; through doing yoga, running, reading more and spending time outdoors disconnected from technology. Growing up is hard and I’m still trying to figure out how to live well and be happy, but baby steps! Memo - written sitting on the steps of Den Haag Central station next to the piano!

Could you tell me a time when you stopped relying on prescription drugs?

I've lived half my life on medication of some sort, and my entire adult life in a fog of anti-anxiety pills. I've tried to come off them before, but every time the floodgates opened I couldn't cope with the torrent of suppressed emotions. I quickly hopped back on the meds and shut everything away, fully aware that it would continue to build up. These feelings would leak out in dribs and drabs, but I soon conditioned my brain to resist them. This resistance would manifest in uncharacteristic attitudes and behaviours, some incredibly dark and life-threatening.

I developed a loud, confident persona to cover all this and - even though I hated "her" - she seemed to function relatively well in public life. So I accepted that she was the best I could hope for and plodded on. Then a year ago, a tragedy rocked our family and exposed the terrifying power that the drugs and my coping mechanisms held over me. I saw them working harder than ever to prevent me from feeling grief and I couldn't do anything to fight back. I cried, but I wasn't sad. Anger and devastation plagued my thoughts, but I couldn't feel either. Instead, I felt calm and muffled. And yet, for the first time, I didn't want to feel muffled. I can't express how strange it was to want to feel sad, but I knew it was what I wanted and needed: a breakthrough.

While I had convinced my rational brain that I needed to engage with my feelings, I also realised that my emotional brain wasn't quite there yet. So I made the decision to once more attempt what I had failed several times previously - to come off the anxiety meds. My dosage was gradually lowered like before, but this time when the floodgates opened, I stopped fighting and welcomed the torrent. And it was horrible... They were gut-wrenching, agonising feelings, but there were accompanied by a huge sensation of release. I felt light and aware. I physically, emotionally and mentally felt like a new person, but really, I had resurrected the real me.

I have come to accept that suppressing unpleasant feelings - whether on my own or with pills - will not make me happy or healthy. By embracing feelings like pain, fear and anger as an inevitable part of my existence - no intrinsically better or worse than the pleasant feelings - I can work towards having a better-quality and more genuine experience of life. The drugs served a purpose at one time, but getting off them was the first step on my journey to real happiness.

Could you tell me a time you needed time?

When you’re loud, it’s hard to be quiet. I have a big personality. Always cheery, always smiley and cracking jokes. I’m a people person. A massive extrovert. I definitely love nothing more than spending time with others.

But recently I got rejected from a job that I had worked hard to have enough experience for, and one that I had wanted for a while. I’m lucky. I have a job that I love, friends around me and supportive family. But still, it has really hit me. My confidence has been knocked, I’m disappointed, embarrassed and more than ever I’m doubting myself, rethinking my abilities and what I want to do next. I currently live in a fantastic place, where there are always things going on. I live with other people, people come over, and people invite you round to spend time with other people. Usually, I love it, but recently it has meant that it has been hard to take time for myself. If you’re an introvert people expect you spend time on your own. You can take an hour, an afternoon, a day out, to spend doing whatever you need to. But if you’re not, any time that you try to take is interrupted by a barrage of texts and phone calls, knocks on the door to check that you’re ok. People think you are being rude if you don’t fancy going along to an event, for the first time since they’ve known you, if you want to go for a walk by yourself or just fancy a day watching Netflix (other streaming platforms are available) in bed. They worry, constantly ask if you’re alright and you say yes, because, despite acting out of the ordinary, you are. But when you’re loud people don’t expect you to want time to be quiet. They expect you to bounce back. To constantly remain the life and soul, to crack jokes. If you say no it sounds too dramatic for the way that you’re feeling. They try to help, to fix it, to get you out, give advice, to hang out with you, when all you really need, is a little bit of time. 

I won’t be sad forever, or probably even for very long, but I do need to be allowed to be sad and disappointed and sometimes, that’s ok. I need time to figure out what I can do differently, where I might want to go next, what steps I need to take.  

When you’re loud, being quiet can be a battle. But I think that we all need to be afforded some time to think every now and again. 

Luckily, today, I’ve been able to take a minute for myself for the first time in a long time. And it’s given me time to write this blog, which I’ve been meaning to do for a while. 

If you ask me again next week, I’ll write a post about feeling happy - about how funny I am (or think I am) and how much I love a good boogie at a party, because that is me, most of the time.

Could you tell me a time you felt calm?

My mind is usually racing all the time, thinking about the day, what things need to be done in an hour, that evening, tomorrow... I'm feeling restless and can't switch it off. What has helped me immensely is spending time in a garden, burying my hands deep in the soil, hearing nothing but birds and bees. No traffic, no schedule, no head fuzz. Every time I set foot on the patch of land a curtain lifts and I'm in the moment. Seeing all the vibrant colours, smelling the lavender, hearing the wild life. There is also a small pond, I sometimes spend ages looking at the still surface to see insects and amphibians doing their own thing, like they are on a wee mission, without any hurry.

I'm in a different country now. No garden around me, however, I did manage to sneak some home-grown fruit into my suitcase to remind me of the peace and quiet from before.

Could you tell me a time you felt close to someone?

My roommate and I had ended up living together sort of by accident, there was a big group of us and I didn’t know him well but we ended up being put together. For a few months we chatted, cooked and ate but I never felt that close to him. About six months in, he seemed normal except he barely left the flat, missed classes at uni and never wanted to be that social - I asked him about it but he always said he was just tired. A couple of months after that began, we were up late playing Fifa and we got talking about family. It’s then that he told me his mum has terminal brain cancer and that’s why he never had the energy to do much. It seemed like a small thing at the time but after that we became so much closer. I told him things that I and my family had gone through, and those moments of vulnerability completely changed our relationship. We have been so much closer since and can talk about anything. For some people it can be really hard to get over that hurdle of sharing your issues, but it is so worth it. Now, a year on I know we will be friends for life.

Could you tell me a time you felt committed?

I have no reason to be unhappy. I have a path carved out for me; good upbringing, good school, good university, good job. It’s involved a bit of hard work as well but overall a lot of things have been put on a plate for me and all I have to do is take the opportunity. This somehow makes me feel much worse, like I haven’t made the most of the opportunities. People will think ‘what’s he complaining about?’ but that pressure isn’t as great as the expectation you put on yourself when you’re disappointed for not being able to make the most of or enjoy what you have. For example, I was constantly told that at university I would have the best time of my life. I really didn’t. Could I have taken another path? Well yes, I could have, but at the same time I really couldn’t. I think that having a path carved out for you means that you aren’t truly free. Not because of the expectations of your parents or teachers who have worked hard for you but because of the expectation from within that tells you to take advantage of it.A quote from an old rugby coach particularly sticks in my mind; in the end of the day it’s not what other people think of you but what you think of yourself.”

I have always been told that to be happy in life you have tospend time doing the things you enjoy doing. Get a job you enjoy, spend time with the people you love and study the subject you are interested in, not necessarily the one you’re good at. These things are all there for you to enjoy, after all why else would they exist? However, it isn’t so simple when you are afraid of your own enjoyment. I’ve always somehow managed to distance myself from the things I enjoy most and the people I want to spend more time with. It’s not like I try to, I guess it’s a natural reaction I have or a kind of protection mechanism I possess. But why? What’s the point in avoiding things that are good for you? What does it tell me about myself? I think that if you enjoy something you will stick with it, but for me, this means I will be missing out on every other aspect of life. I find it hard to fathom that I have to miss out on other things, but that’s all a choice is isn’t it? You go with one option and miss out on all the other experiences that you could have. I’ve slowly come to realise that that’s the essence of growing up, just making choices. However, now I have to realise that there’s no point in making a decision without wholeheartedly committing to it and being thankful that I had the choice in the first place. It is folly to regret the experiences that you missed out on. So, when making a decision I have to ask myself ‘am I just committing to my path or am I truly committing to myself?

Could you tell me a time when you have gone under?

I have gone under, driving myself away, not just from my students, but from friends and family too. I worked harder and harder and, with the best will in the world, the job became everything to me. At points I have even felt resentful and undervalued, ever more conscious of my position and status, more po-faced, more tired, more proud of my service, more running, more proud of my self-sacrifice, more running and, of course, more tired, more marking, more photocopying, more late nights, more time that has elapsed since I last spoke to my friends and family on the phone, more early mornings, more running… 

However, I am not a better friend, father, son, husband, teacher for all of this, I am unquestionably worse. I know that nobody wants to be friends with me when I have ‘gone under’. As a runner where balance is crucial, I am therefore making a pledge (on the TELL ME A TIME blog) to be more balanced. No longer will I devote my entire life in term time to the school and then recover my sanity, friends and health in the holidays (as I seem to do at times)…I see too little of that Real World that my parents talked to me about around the kitchen table as I grew up. I could all too easily go for two weeks without leaving the school grounds). True, friends kindly visited and we took them to a restaurant, Twickenham, a nightclub, but I was seldom absorbed or fully enjoying myself. Being 100% for school does not make for good teaching either. 

Sometimes I would find my alarm going off at 5am (at the sleep-deprived time I almost feel like this is the central plank of my achievement) and out running in the dark in the pouring rain, with a head torch on, mulling over my lessons and to-do list for the day… My running and obsessions in general are attempts to bring order to an unruly mind. Without an outlet I tended towards reticence, and my reticence can manifest itself as gloominess. Sophie respects this, I think—even appreciates it, in theory, but she struggles, understandably, with the specifics. I run because I need to run, blitzing through mile after mile. Of course, I want to be impressive, a credit to the school, a credit to the profession, I want my school to be immensely proud of me, but sometimes it might be better to run the risk of seeming a little uncommitted or a touch semi-detached, I will try not to selflessly take on everything; but I am sometimes so scared of failure that I daren’t even contemplate it.

I am determined not to sell my students, friends, family short in this way. Real discipline, I am beginning to think, is not necessarily driving oneself on; rather, it is pacing oneself (I should know this as a long-distance runner!). At times this year I have been in a puritanically self-obsessed rut, I have found it hard to relax and even wondered whether I should. I did not speak to some of my nearest and dearest friends for two months and I did not even notice, until, one day, a rather churlish email came through telling me to sort myself out. The truth is, at the time, (and I have probably only admitted this to Sophie) is that I’m only truly happy when working; reflection brings dangerous thoughts, so, back to burning the candle at both ends. Occasionally I’ll apologise in a postcard to my mates and tell them how much they do really mean to me and justify it to myself by telling myself that I’m only ‘trying’ to do a good job.

So, this is me vowing to do better next time. I’ll end with two lines from W. H. Davies who captures everything I have just discussed in his famous aphorism, made even more famous by its use in a Centre Parcs advert. Of course, Davies had an advantage over me, he wasn’t a teacher but a homeless guy: “What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare.”

Could you tell me about a time you felt anxious?

Ah man, all the time. 

There’s a familiar expression of mine that my friends and family recognise almost instantly – a furrowed brow and eyes growing wide in concern as my hands starts to softly poke at my face while I’m thinking. A sudden silence and drop of energy after a lot of conversation and animation, as it becomes apparent that I am clearly musing over something. It can be triggered by almost anything – I can be my happiest and relaxed self without a care in the world, and the smallest and most insignificant inconvenience can send me into a downwards spiral of anxiety. 

‘Don’t worry’ is what people say to me the most in life. But as I’ve grown older I’ve come to realise that being worried is a part of my permanent state of being.

As a child I would frequently lie awake at night worried out of mind, my heart racing and a million thoughts circling around my head. Back then it was things I’d only long to worry about now – having said something embarrassing in class, getting in trouble when I had forgotten to do my homework, going into school after an argument with a friend, and wondering where I would sit at lunch. Acne, boys, fashion, exam results. How I looked, how I acted, who I was friends with. Every time I would start at a new school, I would cry to my mum the night before as I didn’t know where I would be able to hang my coat.

As I grew older, the things I would worry about as a child seemed almost insignificant compared to the things you have to worry about as an adult. Suddenly there’s bills to be paid and monthly budgets to be planned, job interviews to attend, bosses to please and life decisions to be made. And amongst all the normal adult worries - like money, health and relationships - comes another string of worries that are specific to you and your life. 

I bit the bullet and went to the doctor about my racing heartbeat and tight chest that I would get when someone at work asked to talk to me, or the dizzying thoughts of having done something wrong if a friend replied to my text in a slightly different tone than usual. The diagnosis of anxiety was a relief, but it manifested itself into something far more dangerous as I tried to take control of it, to find a distraction. During the deepest darkest clutches of my eating disorder last year, my worried thoughts at night would not be on whether my health would deteriorate further or the people in my life I was hurting, but on whether or not the 600 calories that I had consumed that day were ‘too much.’ The irony was that when my body and mind was consumed with anorexia, the things I would have usually worried about once upon a time were the last things on my mind. So, in a sense, I had achieved what I wanted. 

But I made the decision to remove myself from the place I became sick when I realised I couldn’t heal there, and now, six months later, my mind is occupied differently. For the first time in a long time, there’s relative peace in my head. I now spend most of my time thinking about the French language, dog walking, Zumba and the absolute joy of hot Belgian fries on a Sunday evening. I find myself in a loving relationship with a wonderful guy, and there’s now another person floating about in my thoughts, and not just me. My spare time is now filled with exhibitions and cinemas to go to, parks to visit and cobbled streets to cycle over. I have the mental, and physical, capacity to travel to new countries and dance at concerts again. I’m working somewhere where all the responsibility doesn’t fall on just me, and when I go home at 5 o’clock, I truly do go home. I’m able to sit down and read a book without my thoughts rushing off somewhere, finishing it from cover to cover and giving it my full, undistracted attention. I can watch new TV shows and films with my boyfriend without thinking about what I had for dinner. When I make a mistake or something goes wrong, I’m able to view it rationally and know that these things happen, and it won’t always be bad. 

The worry is still there, of course. The familiar drop in my stomach when presented with something foreign and unusual. And it will always be there – I am an anxious person. I care too much about what people think, how my actions directly impact those around me and the decisions I make in life. But I have come to realise now that life doesn’t have to be perfect and free of anxiety for it to be a happy life. And that’s what it is – a happy life, with bits of anxiety in it, and not the other way around.

Could tell me about a time when you felt overwhelmed?

I don’t think I’m alone when I say that, since leaving high school in 2013, I’ve felt somewhat overwhelmed trying to adjust to ‘adult life’ and managing the responsibilities and social pressures that accompany it. As a 17 year old, I only concerned myself with trying to fit in with the other kids and maintaining adequate marks in my classes. Admittedly, this time had its own pressures – popularity being the most salient element of day-to-day life. Who did you hang out with at lunch? Were you invited to the latest house party? Did you have a girlfriend yet? Whilst this was stressful in itself, I was aware that everyone else was in the same boat and my group of tight knit friends kept me in check.

However, things have changed since, what I now realise, were the stress free school days. Sticking to the same analogy, we have now ‘abandoned ship’ and I’ve found myself struggling to stay afloat without the safety raft that was Craigmount High School. Seeing those with whom you shared a classroom, travelling the world, getting married and achieving success in their respective careers is of course wonderful; however, it serves as a constant reminder of the progress you have made in the period since. In a world where we now aspire to ‘Instagram influencers’ and reality TV show stars as our role models, its important to remember that social media is not an accurate representation of an individual’s real life, although, having said that, this serves as little consolation when you see that Joe Bloggs has gone from picking his own nose at lunch to travelling Thailand with his wife while taking a sabbatical from his executive position in a matter of a few years.

Whilst I understand that this does not represent the majority of my high school peers, it can be difficult to avoid comparisons and to stay focused on your own life. I have found it far too easy in recent years to live by my own misguided mantra, “if I don’t try, I won’t fail” and avoid taking any risks. The bucket list that I created as a teenager remains largely untouched whilst I count the years tick by. (Older readers will roll their eyes knowing that, at the time of writing, I’m approaching my 24th birthday). However, the feeling remains and I understand that, to overcome this feeling of being overwhelmed, I need to work on my motivation and mind-set in general. I need to do what I want to do, eliminate the fear holding me back and commit.

So, I’ll leave you with this. Carpe diem. Seize the day.

Could you tell me a time you felt motivated?

I am a lazy person. My family, friends and most people who know me will probably back me up on that. If there are things that need done, they will most likely be done at the last second or later than I had planned. This is not because I set myself too many things to do in a short amount of time, or because I’m going out and doing other things instead – I am just lazy. I’d rather sit down and do nothing than to get up and do the things I need to do.

The biggest problem with this is that I never really got motivated to do things because I was able to be lazy and get away with it. I’d be able clean my whole flat in the couple hours before a flat inspection or whip up a decent essay the night before. I was able to get good enough exam results to get into Uni on the very minimum of effort. But as time went on and assignments and exams got harder and I took on more responsibilities the little effort I put in wouldn’t take me far enough. As I got more of a handle on other things, I just started shifting the lazy. Assignments would be done well and in exchange the flat would be a mess and I would eat rubbish. I would clean the flat and eat well and I fell behind on Uni work and was less organised for work. Not because I didn’t have enough time, I am just lazy.

I used to view being motivated as a predetermined factor, a personality trait that I was born without. I’ve gone through phases of being highly motivated towards things such as going to the gym or studying but found it difficult to maintain. I realised recently when I was wallowing in laziness and not feeling motivated about anything that I was looking at it all wrong. I was looking at motivation as an on-off switch – you were either fully motivated and active or not at all. I realise now that its more like the accelerator pedal in a car, you can increase and be more motivated or ease off, take time for yourself and be a bit lazier. The reason I was struggling to stay motivated is because I felt like I had to be fully motivated all the time when that’s really not the case. I’m still trying to find the right balance between being motivated to do the things I need to do and my lazy nature but I’m getting there. Some days I’m lazier than I should be but that’s fine - motivation is a marathon, not a sprint.

Could you tell me a time you felt lost?

It’s incredibly easy to look at yourself and never be satisfied. It’s incredibly easy to reflect on what you haven’t achieved. It’s incredibly easy to become comfortable. It’s incredibly easy to suffer in silence.

It’s not easy to change who you want to be. It’s not easy to push yourself. It’s not easy to move your comfort zone. It’s not easy to admit your suffering.

Why should you settle for easy? – I asked myself this question on Boxing Day 2017, the day I admitted to myself that I wasn’t okay.

Since that day I started creating change, making more mistakes, trying to learn from them and ultimately trying to make myself feel better, make myself feel happy. I tried to tackle everything head on, I tried to tackle a few big factors in my life that didn’t make me feel happy, I struggled, eventually I broke the biggest factor down and tried to fix it one day at a time – making positive choices consistently. I had bad days, I had good days, I had great days and I had days that I don’t want to remember – but ultimately they were the days that shaped me.

I put one foot in front of the other and repeated, repeated and repeated. 

Set myself progressive goals that I never thought would be possible and then… I put one foot in front of the other and repeated, repeated and repeated.

I’m over 18 months on from when I first started and I find it hard to reflect on what I have achieved but so far: I’ve lost over 8 stone; I’ve ran a marathon; ran 4 half marathons; ran over 500 miles in 2019 (so far..); I’m due to run, run cycle and kayak the width of Scotland in a couple of months and ultimately I have begun to like the person I am becoming. I have ups and downs and no two days are the same but I am positive that my best is yet to come.

Do something today that will make you smile tomorrow.

Could you tell me a time you felt sad?

Unfortunately, it's quite an easy one for me to answer at the moment because quite recently I really let someone down. Someone I had been with for the best part of four years, absolutely loved every second of it and then one morning you wake up and everything is different. Whole world gets flipped upside down, didn't feel the same way, all very sudden and after about a month it hadn't changed. So had to call it a day, as otherwise it would just be unfair for everyone involved and it was pretty horrible. The worst part was really feeling like I had let her down, I think that's the part which made me the saddest. When you let someone down you feel like you can't do anything about it, which is the horrible part.