Phase 1 Complete, Level Up.

In my last post I mentioned my last exam was today, so let me just tell you how it feels knowing I don't have to work for the next 4 months. IT FEELS AMAZING! Now that they're all over I'm beginning to wonder what all the fuss was about, I can't believed I got so stressed out and morphed into a monster for the last 2 weeks all over these exams. That aside, I can't believe I survived a year here, it's been such a rollercoaster of emotions and experiences and stuff, I've learnt so much and met some incredible people. It just feels unreal that this time next week I'll be reclining on my sofa at home catching up on Criminal Minds surrounded by all the comforts of home. I can't decide what to do first when I get back, I guess unpacking is a good place to start. This summer is going to be spent with all thoughts of uni and studying pushed to the back of my mind, I love it here but home is calling me. I'm even looking forward to going back to my job, which I never thought I'd hear myself say! It's great knowing my days up until Saturday are my own to do whatever I want with, and they shall be spent in a limbo between frantic packing and being comatose for a large amount of the time.

All Good Things Must Come To An End

Term has officially ended for me today with my last exam over and done with, and Saturday I shall clear out of Birmingham and head back home to sunny Hertfordshire, which I'm really looking forward too. What I'm not looking forward to though it having to say goodbye to so many people. Tonight I had to bid farewell to a very good friend who I met back in September and was only here in Birmingham for about 10 months, and even though it's not been that long since we met, I've become very attached, so as you can imagine it got a bit emotional saying goodbye, not knowing when we'll next see each other. While I admit I did tear up a bit, I had to keep telling myself I have a long summer ahead of me, and the likelihood we catch up over then is pretty high, but still, I will miss her so much come September when I return to Birmingham and realise I don't have our frequent coffee dates to look forward too during the term. This is sad times indeed... so this gif seemed fairly relatable as it was raining a bit as we said goodbye, but once I reach this stage of crying it'll be time to get out the ice cream methinks. 

To Kindle Or Not To Kindle

  Now I've always been a little dubious about these Kindle's, so you can understand the hesitation in my voice when my mother asked me what I wanted for my birthday this year and I replied "a Kindle". The thing is, I much prefer reading a book I can hold and feel the pages as they turn etc, but this may just be my old fashionedness talking. It was pointed out to me though that Kindle's can be lifesavers when travelling and stuff, and as a uni student struggling for space in a small room with an ever expanding wardrobe it became clear to me this year that as much as i love my darling books there is no way I can bring them all back with me in September, which is sad times. Fortunately this Kindle is here to save the day, i've only had it a few hours and my eyes have already been opened. Who would have thought a tiny little thing could carry hundreds of books and still weigh less than the lightest of paperbacks. And as if this couldn't get any better, pretty much all the books I read are serious classics, meaning they're all free online anyway. Life just gets better and better, defo the best birthday present I ever asked for!

It's My Birthday!! (Kind Of)

  Well this is a bit of a belated post. Basically, it was my birthday on Thursday, and I celebrated my reaching the 20 year milestone in typical understated Nina-like fashion, by staying in bed for half of it and eating my feelings the other half. All in all, a pretty good day, although slightly marred by the absence of my family for the first time ever, which was kinda sad times. However, today certainly made up for it when my mum turned up in Birmingham to take me out for lunch and give me the best birthday present ever, aka a Kindle :D ! (More about that in my next post). Even though I'm going home next weekend it was so good to see her and really made my week, and for once even the weather seemed to agree :) .

  The only depressing thing about turning 20 though is I can no longer use the excuse of being a teenager whenever I throw a strop or feel a bit immature, suddenly everybody expects me to behave and have all these responsibilities and it's just like "umm.... No". Just because I've hit 20 doesn't mean I changed overnight, I'm still my fun-loving, troublesome, laid back and immature self, and at least for the time being that shall not change. What has changed though is my smiling. On my birthday I found myself cracking a smile as the sun shone through my window so I grabbed my camera and snapped it as evidence that it really is possible ;) 

 

The Myths Of Mental Illness

Before you read this I should probably put a little disclaimer up here. This post is not intended to be academic or scientifically accurate because let's face it, I'm only a first year psychology undergraduate,  these are just my thoughts that arose from some conversations with friends that we thought would work well as a post. While I will touch on the disorders themselves, most of this post will look at the stigma these people face when given the label of "mentally ill" and a lot of the common misconceptions society has about it. This may seem like a bit of a strange topic for me to write about, but this is an area that's always interested me and one I'd probably want to work in in the future, so here goes... 

1) Mental illness is more common than you probably realise. Schizophrenia is estimated to affect only 1% of the worlds population (about 51 million), while the World Health Organisation estimates that around 2-3% (121 million people) suffer from some form of depression, and although this isn't a very large percentage when comparing it with the worlds 7 billion population the estimated number of people suffering from these disorders alone is 3x the population on the UK, and this is without taking into account eating disorders, addictions, split personality, ADHD and a whole host of others too numerous to count.  

2)  For most of you if I said the word "schizophrenic" you'd automatically think of the things you here in the news about serial killers and violent criminals, but as a matter of fact while these people Are mentally ill, they are actually in the minority. A lot of our misconceptions come from negative media influences or Hollywood which often are confused and misleading, but because we live in a media-saturated society it's practically impossible to not hear what they say, so often we end up taking everything we hear about mental illness is true. If you were to take a look in the DSM-IV-TR or V (the diagnostic and statistical manual for diagnosing mental illness), nowhere in the classification for schizophrenia does it mention violent behaviour as one of its symptoms. It's true if untreated some symptoms such as delusions or paranoia can trigger violent behaviour, but again this is rare and as I said, often because that person is not receiving the help they need. 

3) Which nicely brings me onto my third point. I've heard quite a few people say in the past that it is possible to cure somebody of a mental illness, but from my experience this is not always the case, and in fact many people I know would disagree with that entirely. While I often feel uncomfortable with the phrase "in remission" instead of "cured", it is important to remember doctors use this term for many illnesses such as cancer, not just mental ones. Being "in remission" doesn't mean a relapse is expected, in fact many mentally ill people can go the rest of their lives leading a normal life if treatment is successful, but it seems even then there is still stigma attached to the fact that at one point that person was seriously ill. One study on stigmatisation in 2008 found that mentally ill people in remission found it harder to find work, rent houses or socially interact because they often found they were seen as the outcasts of society. This was supported by a psychologist in 2001 who stated that mentally ill people were the most stigmatised and discriminated against despite also being the most vulnerable.     

4) (the one that really annoys me) there are some people who just believe mental illness is a myth, or if it does exist then it is self inflicted and getting better is possible without needing medical help. Not so. Mental illness isn't something you can just fake nor does it go away overnight. Recovery is a long slow process that needs to be worked at for a long time before any improvement is seen in many cases, and while yes, there are drug therapies that are used a lot that can speed up recovery, they are realistically only capable of managing any illness as they do not deal with the root of the problem, which is why nowadays a lot of treatments combine drug and cognitive therapies. But what makes me annoyed the most is the people who say mental illness is self inflicted. If you've never experienced it then how can you begin to understand what they're going through. Eating disorders in particular can see patients go in such vicious cycles that it is so clear something caused them to do this in the first place, and for them, having someone say it's self inflicted only confirms to them the thoughts they already have, that there is something wrong with them and they need to continue what they're doing in order to feel good about themselves. Many theories exist as to why people suffer from mental illness in the first place, and while they often differ on reasons why, aside from biological theories they all conclude that disorders stem from deep rooted psychological issues. This could be anything from traumatic experiences to childhood memories, and it may not even be apparent at the time, but it is often said to be the trigger, and is especially prevalent in eating disorders.

A sociologist called Merton came up with a theory he called the "self fulfilling prophecy", which is where is somebody knows there is an expectation of how they will behave and interact in society, they will inevitably adopt said behaviour and go on to behave as was predicted, and while this is mainly used to describe deviant behaviour, the same theory can be applied to mentally ill people who face stigma in society today. We focus too much on trying to see how "different" mentally ill people are from the rest of society that we forget that just because they're ill it does't make them any different to us. In fact, if we were to look at Marie Johodas 6 categories that she believed define mental illness, we would see that we all fall into at least one of them. Often people forget that some of the greatest people we look up to were/are mentally ill. Charles Dickens suffered from depression, John Nash is schizophrenic, Florence Nightingale had bipolar and ever Abraham Lincoln sometimes suffered crippling bouts of severe depression. Yet we still look up to and respect them because these were great people who left their mark on society, so if we can show respect for these people then why not extend it to everyone?

The Morning After The Day Before

Yesterday along with the rest of Tumblr I went on a bit of a rampage about this whole Yahoo thing, and then I decided to try and stay positive in the face of annoying pop up ads, Tumblr becoming mainstream and someone potentially bursting my safe bubble. But it seems Tumblr shall not be silenced, it seems ever since this has emerged the bloggers that are usually dormant until 10pm have been woken from hibernation are are still going strong 24 hours later high on caffeine and gifs of cats, which are, quite frankly hilarious. Seems this debate won't be dying down anytime soon.

In other news, today I had my second exam, I'm officially over the halfway point and it feels so good. I won't go and say I smashed it because that's too optimistic, but I think it's safe to say I got the minimum pass. At least, I'd better have done. I didn't waste all that time yesterday procrastinating and watching Made In Chelsea in a bid to avoid revision only to do it all late last night and not pass this thing. Either way, my fingers are firmly crossed.

In the meantime, here's a picture of a horse eating grass. I can identify with it on a regular basis when I'm hungry and too lazy to move.

Courage Bloggers, Courage For Our Friends

Hold your ground! Hold your ground!
Children of Sherlock, of Homestuck, of LOTR and Harry Potter, my siblings;
I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me.
A day may come when the courage of bloggers fails,
when we forsake our otps
and break all bonds of fellowship,
but it is not this day.
An hour of cancelations and deactivated blogs,
when the age of the fandom comes crashing down,
but it is not this day!
This day we accept!!
By all that you hold dear on this good Earth,
I bid you stand, Children of the Fandom!!!
STAND AND GREET FATE AS AN OLD FRIEND!

So obviously I've been keeping an eye on what's been happening on Tumblr today. Remember how I said Tumblr is full of people like me who hate change and are socially not ready to conform and all that. Well they're taking it pretty hard, it seems everyone is in 3 camps. There are those fleeing to Wordpress and Blogspot already. Then there are the few who are keeping their heads about this and trying to think positive. And then there is the majority who are just all having major breakdowns. Either way I've never seen Tumblr this busy during the day, my dash keeps popping up more notifications

Finding The Positives

Up until now everything I've been saying about the Tumblr take over has been really negative, and I think that's pretty much reflected by what other Tumblr people are saying. However, with every negative you have to find a positive right, so here is my (very short) list of things that are good about this.

- We now have Marissa Mayer, who I would like to remind everyone was actually poached by Yahoo from Google in the first place, so that's one plus.

- She also brought over a couple of other people from Google so it's not all bad.

- Marissa actually has her own Tumblr and actually has done for nearly 3 years now, so maybe, just maybe she understands the complex inner workings of the site, although her blog needs some serious work done on it before I accept her as a true Tumblr user.

- Everyone is freaking out about ads as well. Well there are ad blockers out there we can use, so it's not going to hugely affect us if we can block them.

But just in case things get really bad, just remember

WE ALWAYS HAVE WORDPRESS!

Tumblr Takeover

For any blogger living under a rock today Yahoo announced it was taking over Tumblr in a $1 billion deal. Aside from the shock that Yahoo even has that much money to burn, the reaction from Tumblrites including myself has pretty much been one of outrage ever since I logged on this morning. And forgetting for the moment that Yahoo even slated us in their own article as being whiny brats, what I hate most about it is I found Tumblr to be a safe space I can flee to, away from Facebook and Twitter etc. In a way this relates to my previous post on my issues on opening up and trusting others, as I use Tumblr to hide away from people I know so they can't see how I really feel, and in a way Tumblr has become my little protective bubble from the outside world as I can vent and express myself so freely on there. There are no censors on Tumblr, in a way it is the only place online where we can say whatever we want and nobody can judge us or tell us we're wrong. But with all the media exposure this takeover is bringing as well as Yahoos ghastly plan to make it more family friendly, it's going to become harder to express myself as more and more people will join who don't get what Tumblr is all about, and that scares me a lot. The people who read my Tumblr are like me, we all go through the same stuff and we support each other, and the last thing any of us want is to have others who don't see it that way to come along and make us feel self conscious. If this is the case and everything I'm worrying about happens, then that means this blog will become my last safe space, and if that happens I will still never be able to be as open here as I ever was on Tumblr, as I know a lot of people read my blog, including a lot of the people I have on Facebook etc... 

Nina Does Emotional

This post should come with a little health warning and apologies in advance. It's a lot more personal and stuff, so if you don't want to hear about my personal stuff I would suggest you skip along to the next post.

Ok, so up until now all my posts have been quite light hearted and witty and stuff, but this is my blog after all, and the whole reason I started a blog in the first place all those years ago was because it was a place where I could store my feelings and speak my mind openly without caring what others thought about it, I guess it's a little harder to do that nowadays with all the people I know who read this so I apologise in advance for showcasing the inner workings on my mind. And for those of you who ask why I've chosen to put this put there so openly, well usually I reserve stuff like this for my Tumblr, but for this I felt it was easier to write here.

As a person in general I tend to keep to myself a lot. I'm not saying I avoid social interaction because that's untrue, I love being sociable, there's nothing better than catching up with friends. What I do have an issue with though is sharing my personal life and emotions. It has been said many times that I rarely smile or I'm hard to read, and it's all true. I don't like to give anything away because I'm afraid it would be seen as a sign of weakness. As you can imagine it has caused a few problems with friends who don't know if they're coming or going with me, or they don't know what I'm about, and that inevitably brings up trust issues, as how can you trust somebody if you don't know who they really are. I don't really know how long I've done it for, but for most people I put on this persona of being cold, hard, unapproachable and unfeeling. To me it's a way to mask my emotion, so even though it's all there underneath, I prefer to keep control and never to let it show.  

But obviously everyone needs an emotional outlet, even somebody dubbed the "ice maiden". You know that one friend we all have who basically acts as our therapist or conscience whether we need it or not, and we can tell them absolutely anything and know we can trust them? Well I have one of those, I met her 4/5 years ago and she is an absolutely sweetheart. In fact, she's probably one of the nicest friends I have and to be honest you don't get much higher praise from me than that. But lovely or not, to this day she remains one of the few people who can give me a slap on the wrist or sit me down for a brutally honest talk and say it how it is and completely get away with it. It's actually quite funny really because even when I start talking to her just intending to have a light hearted conversation with her, we always end up getting deep and meaningful no matter what.

Well anyway, I took a break from studying yesterday and met my friend in town for a bit. As always the talk inevitably turned deeply serious after a while, and while I usually shy away from it, for her I do try and go with it, even if it means mumbling my responses while avoiding her gaze. I have this thing about looking people in the eye when talking seriously, I just can't do it. They do say the eyes are the way to look into the soul and I prefer guarding mine with a high barbed wire fence with guard dogs patrolling the perimeter. But back to the story, so eventually we hit on the trust issue along with a number of other things, and it really got me thinking. I wasn't able to say everything I wanted to say to her face, partly because I was too embarrassed and partly because when I'm put on the spot I tend to forget most of what I want to say, so I'm using this post as my chance to start saying the stuff I wanted to say to her.

I think that talk yesterday was probably the most open I ever had with her. It isn't the first time she's given me much to think about, but yesterday really opened my eyes to see how much I needed to sort my stuff out and face up to this whole issue of trust and openness and honesty etc. It didn't surprise me when she said she found it hard to see what I was about because even with the stuff I tell her I do leave bits out or hold back (my best friend says I have the ability of saying everything and nothing at the same time) because I'm afraid of saying everything and then having to entrust that person with my secret when I don't even trust myself with it. What did surprise me though is how understanding she was, even though I knew she wanted answers and was getting a little impatient. It made me realise how unfair and selfish I was being by messing her around the way I was, and her saying she would try and help me if she could after all she'd already done for me just broke right through my emotional defences. Whenever I leave our conversations I always think long and hard, but this time it felt like so much more than that. I openly admit it was the first time I came home and cried after talking to her, and a tear or 2 may have even be shed during (also a first for her) but I will always maintain that was hay fever to anyone who saw. The hardest thing was when she said there were things about me that I never spoke of that I ought to, and she was left baffled as to why I never speak about them. I wanted nothing more than to tell her exactly why but instead I stayed quiet and said nothing. The truth is, certain topics to me are taboo, it's not that I don't think of them often because I do, there are some days when I think about them so often it hurts, and that's why I never speak of them. There's truth in what people say about the truth hurting, and sometimes the pain is so bad it can feel like a knife being twisted in my gut, so I rationalise it's better to bury my head in the sand and pretend all is well.

As well as this we also spent a long time talking about forgiveness. A big reason why I don't like telling people stuff about me is because I'm quite shallow and vain, and I really care about what others think of me, even if I give off the impression I couldn't care less. I can just predict the things people would say to me or how much they'd judge me if they knew what I was really all about, yet my friend repeatedly tried to get through to me that as a Christian if I couldn't get ahold of the concept of forgiveness, I must be suffering from something I think she called a "heart problem". And that also made me think a lot, because obviously Christians are all about forgiveness, because they have a God who has already forgiven them for every wrong thing they've ever done, and that's pretty amazing, so why am I so concerned about them judging me? It's ironic in a way that it's Christians I worry about judging me the most, I feel like there's this expectation I have to live up to, and failing to do so will make them think I'm weak. It's actually so stupid of me to think that when I look at it like that way. After all, it is always my Christian friends who have been there to pick me up when I've fallen in the past. 

So, I know I've rambled throughout this whole post, but I think what I'm trying to say is I realise now that pretending something never happened or having a persona isn't ever the answer to my problems. If anything it's an easy way to alienate people and make it hard for them to trust me if they don't know the real me. I've done it for so long now though that whenever I think about stripping it all back to emotional me I panic and assume somebody will use it against me and try to hurt me, but that's a mentality I need to snap out of fast. As for my friend, well even though I trust her without question I'm afraid of letting her down. When I met her she was a stranger who I entrusted with the things I didn't want anyone to know about me, the things I am quite frankly ashamed of, and because she was a stranger I felt I could be so open, yet now I've got to know her I have so much love and respect for her, and while that's great it also means telling her stuff has got that little bit harder as I don't want to disappoint her like I know I do, or anyone else for that matter. But now that I think about it, that's pretty stupid. If anything I could be doing more harm than good by doing that, and it probably hurts her more knowing I'm giving her half the story than being open and honest with her. I think eventually I'll be able to tell her everything she wants to know rather than just bits and pieces, but I get the feeling it's going to take some time to build up to that and I can only hope she has the patience of a saint in the meantime. So, I have resolved that I need to make a big effort to sort out these issues of mine and be completely honest with people, no matter how scared I am of the outcome.

I guess that kinda brings this post to a close, in my head it feels like all my thoughts have been jumbled up, but writing it all out here may not have given me any illuminating conclusions but it makes more sense seeing it laid out like this. Part of me hopes I have the courage to show my friend this, but as I said in the beginning, this is the place where all my emotions go, I guess it's a little like the Room of Requirement in Hogwarts. The place where all things are hidden.

Healthy Living Will Be the Death of Me

Hi. I'm Nina, and I'm a recovering pizzaholic. 

Ok so that should be takeawayholic but oh well. Truth is, it has now been 2 weeks since my last take out, if we forget about the one I had last night due to having no food in the house, so technically my last needless take out. While I admit I've seen a big improvement such as getting up in the mornings and the weight loss, I am genuinely sick of what I've had to switch it for. Right now what with exams I am practically living off the dreaded green stuff (salad), Ryvita and noodles along with various vegetables. If you were to open my cupboards you'd probably find enough in there to start up a greengrocers. I actually feel like a rabbit eating this stuff. It's been so long since I had meat I've forgotten how good it tastes, and as for bread, I'm getting cravings just thinking about it. So it's official guys, vegetarianism is not for me!

Little Lady

A long time ago my Christian Union held a promise auction where people promise to do stuff for others and we all bid money for them, so... basically an auction with no actual stuff. Anyway, amongst many of my bids I won the chance to have my very own custom Cassie toy, which is a big deal in CU. For those of you who won't know, a Cassie toy is a stuffed cuddly toy made by the lovely Cassie, and are much sought after and the envy of all non Cassie toy owners. Anyway, so when I won it I asked her to make me a palomino pony to resemble a pony I used to look after when I was younger, called Lady. And finally, after many many weeks of waiting my patience was finally rewarded tonight when I was presented with my finished toy, and even as someone turning 20 in a couple of weeks I am unashamed to admit I squealed with glee and ran around the room showing anybody who would listen my new toy. I'm pretty sure they now all think I'm more insane than they realised, but it was so worth it :3 . It is by far one of the nicest things someone had ever done for me and I shall treasure her always.

Bank Holiday Adventure

Excuse my taking so long to post, what with all this awesome stuff going on at the moment and this stupid lab report I'm still trying to finish off my days have been fairly hectic. But today I took a day out from all that and headed over to the Ashridge forest estate with my church for a bank holiday day out full of sunshine and nature and fun times! For those of you who don't know Ashridge it's a National Trust place situated in a lovely bit of countryside in Hertfordshire, not far from where I live and it's absolutely beautiful. It was so nice to do something different and forget all the stress that comes with studying and living in the big city, I do love Birmingham but I'm a country girl at heart! So anyway, here are some photos I took from the top of the monument I climbed up in the park, it was nerve-wracking climbing up all 172 of those narrow spiral steps but the view was so worth it, you could see for miles and miles, even the London skyline was visible in the distance. Other than that my time there was spent walking through the forest and sunbathing in the meadow, I was hoping to get tanned but sadly I could not stay still long enough to achieve much on that front. I can safely say I am not looking forward to going back to Birmingham!

Ok so i nicked this last one off a friends Facebook, but I didn't actually manage to get a decent photo of everyone, although you can see me getting snap happy with my phone in the bottom left ;)