Becky Beyond Blue


Hi! Thanks for stumbling across my blog :) My name is Becky, I'm 21 and I live in Brighton, UK. I love cats, music and chocolate and I'm one of the unfortunate people to have been struck with Severe Clinical Depression and Anxiety Disorder. In this blog I write about my common struggles of coping with this illness and what I'm attempting to do to recover. If you read my posts you'll gain an insight into living with Depression and maybe find some advice on how to cope.

Thursday 12 May 2016

Make the present, pleasant

You know when people might say a piece of advice over and over but it just won't stick until YOU realise it yourself? 

The way you can tell an alcoholic over and over to stop drinking but they won't until it is THEIR decision to, not yours (I have personal experience with this, and found out the hard way time and time again). 

Well I had a moment of sudden realisation myself recently. People have told me over and over that I think ahead too much or worry about the past, I need to just make the most of today. It's one of those things that people can tell me until they turn blue but until I, myself, make that discovery and decision to change my mental behaviour, it won't stick. 

I might have the facts engrained in my head but it will just be there as knowledge, stuff I know will make me feel better but it stays purely as information and is not put into action. 

It's almost similar to the way you KNOW that you should exercise and eat healthily, but until YOU decide that it's going to start happening, then it will just stay as bits of information inside your head. And if you're like me, you probably have a lot of things like that. From searching for endless amounts of time for a cure to treat this illness, and you'll know that if you get a regular sleep cycle and don't use screens before bed, eat healthily and exercise, draw, listen to music, spend time with positive people, get more sun, go for a walk, write your thoughts down, do a gratitude journal etc etc. (I could go on for days) that it will ease your symptoms so much. But, especially for someone with Depression:

a) it's not easy to process that much information when your head is so crowded

b) at the end of the day, you are depressed, it's not that simple to just be like "OK, today's the day I'm going to get better" because you know there's no guarantee of that for one and also if you can't sleep and forget to eat how the hell are you supposed to get all those other supposed cures achieved as well?

Anywho, I had this sudden realisation where parts of that information I'd been storing for years finally fell into place. Make the present, pleasant. I'm so sick of being sad. And because of this, I plan out my future to be as good as possible because I'm trying to hold on to the hope that it WILL get better, and the future will be bright. But if I carry on just WAITING for the future to happen, it will never turn out how I hoped. 

Unless I try my best to focus on today. By taking things bit by bit. Not thinking too much about the consequences (obviously easier said than done with the constant crippling anxiety lurking on your shoulder). I just want to have fun again. I want to be ridiculous and make stupid decisions and LIVE MY LIFE. Because I have wasted far too long being miserable. 




My Dad always told me "PMA, that's all you need" (Positive Mental Attitude). Yeah, cheers for that, if I had a positive mental attitude then I wouldn't be depressed! It's not a button that you can just switch on and off when you feel like it. You don't have any control, it can hit you at any time, like a storm. However, you CAN try and get a slight grip on it enough to function. 

The way I see it is, if you had a broken leg, you COULD just sit at home and wait for it to heal. OR you could get some crutches or a wheelchair and try to make the most of the situation, no matter how painful it is. Do things you enjoy. Spend time with people you love. Travel. Try something new. Live. Some days will be better than others. Some days you mentally and physically won't be able to do it, but that's ok. It's OK. When you need to do nothing, do nothing. But when you feel able to, do things that you LOVE to do, because life's too short to do things that make you feel like crap. Say no to things you don't want to do, quit the job that's making you even more miserable, stop hanging out with the people that don't bring something positive to your life. Live.




It took me to reach a point of rock bottom a few months ago before coming into this realisation. I've been in extremely bad states, but this topped it by miles. I was suicidal, I was catatonic. I couldn't talk. I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't move.  I was completely and utterly numb, but at the same time feeling as if I was whirling around in a never ending tornado. I wasn't dead, but I wasn't alive either. 

Since then it's been one of the slowest and most painful recoveries I have ever had to do. By recovery I mean getting myself back up to the level where I can function. By no means am I cured, far from it, but it has pushed me to make some major changes to my life. 

Because I was in such a terrible state I couldn't handle contact with anybody, I shut the world out completely. All of my friends, family and everything. Even Adam (my boyfriend) had to fight to get let back in to a certain extent. For a good two months I hadn't had any contact with anyone other than Adam and I am so grateful for his support. I went back on medication after having a break for a while and I went through a ridiculous process in the NHS's mental health sector to realise they couldn't offer me what I needed, forcing me to go private. I dropped out of uni and moved out of my shared student accommodation, which I was sharing with my best friend at the time. 

And even though it was only a consequence of me doing this, I realised she was a toxic friend to me. Not necessarily on purpose, but she was draining me of all my remaining energy so that I didn't have any left to care for myself. She was making me feel extremely guilty for 'abandoning her' when in reality I was on the verge of suicide, which she knew, just didn't understand. Therefore this situation has resulted in me cutting contact with her. 

It has shown me again who my true friends are, and dropping out of uni and stripping my life back down to the basics has really given me time to re-evaluate my life and sort my priorities out. Right now, my priority is me. And I'm going to take things one day at a time.






Feel free to drop me a message or comment :)

Peace x

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