I am scared of a lot of things in life...

I am scared of a lot of things in life... spider, the dark, bees, wasps, small places the list goes on and on, but nothing scared me as much as my mind in the dark night, hopelessly tossing and turning in bed trying to sleep, trying to NOT THINK! 

I tried lots of different things from filling my days up with distractions after distractions, activity after activity. Overworking myself every single day, until I was physically and mental drained, surly I would be able to sleep then! surly I could escape my mind! 

Unfortunately not! My night was still filled with thoughts after thoughts, panic attacks after panic attacks! 

The next step medication! 

I remember when I went to get the medication, I snapped at my friend who was just trying to have a laugh but I just so desperately wanting to make the right decision! The right decision so that I could finally sleep so that I could finally escape! So I could finally not want to end it all as soon as I was alone and my mind was free to take over! 

“Take 30 minutes before bedtime” it said on the packaging, I took it while I was still around people, still Busy! 30 minutes before I was due to be alone! And double the dose I was meant to! I was just so desperate I didn’t even want to give my mind the chance. Once I got home my mind was foggy I was too tired to think and I fell straight to sleep! I was so happy, I finally found an escape! But it was short lived. A few hours later I was woken by the same nightmare that haunted me every night shortly followed by panic attacks and the overbearing thinking and thinking with no turn off! 

Anti-anxiety meds was next one.

When I got prescribed them The doctors warned me that at first it would make my anxiety heighten, they most definitely wasn’t lying about that! I would go through the day constantly shaking struggling to write from my hands trembling, I felt like I was on the verge of crying or breaking down every second of the day. And the worst part when I was alone it was 10 times worse! I knew that this wasn’t an option for me, I knew that I wasn’t strong enough! Even if it would get better after, I didn’t have the faith that I would survive through it to get to that point! 

Alcohol became a big part of my life at this point! I knew that when I was sleeping because of my alcohol intake I wasn’t getting the proper quality of rest that I needed, but I was finally getting that escape! I would wake up in the morning feeling more tired than when I went to bed, but I didn’t care I was just so scared of being alone with my mind! After a bit of this the alcohol started to have a negative effect on me, every time I would drink it was like it would weaken me! I wasn’t able to keep my feelings and thoughts at bay anymore even with distractions! It was like my whole body was tired of holding it all in and it was just ready to explode! I would have a breakdown in front of my friends tears after tears and I was literally incapable of holding it in! 

I used to be the kind of person who enjoyed being alone and now it scared me! 

I used to be the kind of person who would sleep with ease and now my mind wouldn’t let me.

I knew I had to do something but I didn’t know what! When you was a little kid and you are scared of the monsters under the bed there was things you could do, you could check under the bed, you could even sleep with the light on, get your parents to check under the bed. But when the monsters are in your head the options are limited! 

I knew that it wasn’t going to be easy but I knew that I couldn’t continue to live like this! So instead of scrolling through social media that night trying to distract myself from my thoughts I search the web in the hope of finding something that could help. I came across meditation and all it’s benefits. This scares me more than anything as I knew that I would have to sit quietly with no distractions from my mind but I was willing to try anything! At first it was so hard I struggle so much to silence my mind from the constant overthinking but i stuck with it! After a bit it began to get easier and easier! The Panic attacks became less and less frequent until eventually they stop, I began to feel happy throughout the day and not just distracted, then came the peaceful well rested nights, with no nightmares! I became calm my mind became calm I no longer need to escape it! I finally enjoy my time alone again and don’t feel the need to constantly fill it with distractions or people who don’t add to my life. I still find my mind trying to slip back into old habits but I find I have more control over my thoughts. It wasn’t an easy journey but I feel so much more grateful and happy and most of all calm! Meditation might be something that people judge, might be something that people associate with hippies and people have too much time on their hands. but me, I see it as the thing that saved my life! I may have  got threw this dark patch but I still have a long way to go to get where I want to be, but I know that I am on the right path. I am slowly learning to fill my life with thing that bring me joy and peace, but most importantly self love!

Fake it till you make it... just not with everything

"Fake it till you make it" is something i use to say and use a lot, and sometimes it works wonders.
For example, your confidence! when you're going to a new place or a job interview or just somewhere you just generally don't feel too confident, faking your confidence can work wonders and get you threw your shy times. I also found that "fake it till you make it" with my confidence actually aloud me to build my confidence quite a lot. 

Unfortunately "fake it till you make it" isn't something you should apply to everything, or at least not the only thing. For example, your mental health. Seeing how well "fake it till you make it" worked with my confidence i applied this to other areas in my life too.. like my mental health. At first it seemed to be going well, I even manged to convinced myself I was okay, but then it would all come crumbling down. You see the thing is when i was just faking being okay i wasn't actually acknowledging or working threw the reason that lead me to feel this way in the first places. Instead of a person with depression who couldn't get herself out of bed or function properly, I became a person with high functioning depression, but one who wasn't willing to admit it. I manged to get myself a job, make friends and have a social life, all the things "happy" none depressed people do... right? Once i was finished at work or socializing with my friends that is when it would all hit me, but instead of admitting the truth I would just put it down to loneliness, not even willing to think about let alone say that i was still dealing with depression. 

Instead of working threw my depression I would just try to fill my loneliness, so that I could get back up and "Fake it till you make it". This lead me to filling my time and distracting my self with people who would treat me less that i deserved, just so i could have the life of an "okay" person. I became a person who would get herself worth from people liking her, being in a relationship, and making other happy. Constantly trying to be and act the way other people wanted me to or at least how "happy people" acted. 

The truth is I wasn't okay at all, The "fake" okay would come crumbling down so many times just for me to build it back up for it to crumble down again the processes would just keep repeating itself, crumbling, building, crumbling, building and so on. Until eventually it came crumbling down so hard that there was just no way to rebuild it. I became so determined to keep the fake act up that I would let people and things into my life that took away from who i was, not only was I letting people treat me less that I deserved, I was treating my self less that I deserved just so I could fake it. In doing all this I just chipped at myself even more. which is something I had to face when the fake crumbled.

When it all crumbled down it was one of the darkest, hardest, and scariest times of my life. I tried so hard to build it back up so desperately just so I didn't have to admit the truth. I didn't want to admit that I was dealing with depression, I didn't want to put the work in that I knew it would require, I didn't want to be known as anything but my happy and hyper personality, I didn't want to admit the way I had let my self be treated or even treated my self just to fake being okay, but most of all I didn't want to admit the way that I had treated others just so I could cling on to the act.

After trying so many different ways to build it back up and desperately cling on to being "okay" and them all failing, I slowly had to admit the truth to myself. As hard as this was to do I am so grateful that I had to, because I now have the opportunity to drop the act, and truthfully holding it and rebuilding it was just so tiring. but more importantly I have the opportunity to work on myself. To like and love myself, instead of sacrificing this so others would like me. Find my own self worth, instead of letting others treat me less that I deserve. To calm my own mind, instead of constantly filling my life with distraction so I don't have time to think. To accept my past and be grateful for the things it has taught me. Most importantly I can work on forgiving myself, something I tried to give so freely to others but not to myself.  

I would just like to say to anyone going threw mental health struggles that I know how hard it can be to admit the truth, but covering it up and saying "I am fine" when you're not doesn't help. Mental health does not make you weak or somebody who isn't worthy, it just simply means you're human and this life is hard sometimes. As hard as it is the first step is admitting it! The people who truly love you will support you and understand, and the people who don't, you will soon come to realizes they aren't the right people for your life! 

Sertaline

8:30 PM. my alarm goes off, I reached to my bedside table and pull out the foiled packet along with water, Flavored of course, to distract from bitterness of the shame and Failure swallowed along with a little pill called sertaline.

Doctors office, smile on my face head held high! Just one question to wipe it all way, I feel the question bounce around my head I feel the shame well up inside me, just this one question "are you on any medication" my head drops my eyes fixed on my fiddling fingers "sertaline" my voice betrays me and begins to shake "an anti depressant"

Sertaline The pill I have to take so that blood doesn't drip down my arm from the cuts I have carved out on myself, in the hope that I can just feel something but emptiness. Sertaline the pill I have to take in hopes that today I will not take my own life. Sertaline The pill I better not Forget to take otherwise I'll be crazy and the feeling of emptiness will overpower me. Sertaline A lot to swallow for such a little pill. 

8.30pm, my alarm goes off, instead of pulling a foiled packet from my bedside table along with water, flavored of course, A smile forms on my face pride begins to fill my whole body of a reminder of what I did, of what I achieved, of how strong I am! Because Sertaline you haven't been invited into my body for a while now, there is no more emptiness for you to fill, I'm too full up from pride strength and happiness. 

Sertaline the pill I USED to take!

Milk + Blush hair extensions

I get bored with my hair pretty easy and fast so I like to change it up and I decided this time that I wanted ombre and and long hair so I knew hair extensions where going to be a must. I hate trying to find hair extensions cause I know they are either going to be ridiculously expensive or tacky and bad quality and call me greedy but I wanted a good price and good quality so I decided to look around. The normal place I buy them is just a local beauty shop near me and they are good but they are never thick enough for my hair and don't last long no matter how I look after them so I decided this time I wasn't going to get them from there. After a few days of looking around reading reviews  I decided to order these lovely ones from milk and blush. When they come I was so excited I had my hair dye ready to match my hair to the extensions. When opening them up I thought the box they come in was so pretty and was perfect to store them in and keep them safe which was ideal as I was looking for ways to store them safely. Once I opened them up there was two compartments one which was the main part and was sealed with a security sticker and another with just one piece in to see if the color matched your hair, I thought this was a really nice idea as I like the fact you could test them with out causing any damage to the rest of the hair and then just send it back if they didn't match. There was many different colours sets and lengths I got the full head hair extensions classic set in the color Bel air baby with the length being 20-22 inch and I love them.

 they are so soft and shiny but not shiny as in fake but healthy they are super thick and are perfect for my naturally thick I don't find there is much hair lost when brushing threw them plus they are easy to apply and the clips are secure. You can tell they are good quality and was only £110 which I think is excellent for the thickness, quality, and length. From what I have experience up to yet I will definitely be purchasing hair extensions from here again.

I also brought the loop hair extension brush from there at £5.50 and I love this it doesn't tug at the extensions like a normal brush does and keeps them healthy longer.

Locked mouse

So as much as I want to continue my blog and be able to keep it up to date there are somethings that get it the way and can't be helped. For example my laptops mouse pad not working, turns out that I just accidentally locked the pad off but I am not computer savvy enough to find that out for myself lucky my old friend goggle came to the rescue. I will try to continue to post as much as possible and try to work around or fix and problems that may pop up so that I am able to work on my blog and make it more reliable as it is something that I love doing and hope to be doing for a while. anyway this is just a quick update to explain about my locked mouse and my very little and limited computer skills so be patient with me as I still learn my way around computes and blogging.

How I get my teeth white on a budget

* disclaimer I am not an expert nor am I claiming to be these are just a few things I like to do to help whiten my teeth.

My teeth are something I always get complimented on about how nice and straight and white they are. unfortunately getting straight teeth isn't something I can tell you about as I have always had straight teeth, although I do know there are ways for that, but getting them whiter and cleaner is.

The first step is pretty simple and something we should all be doing at least twice a day anyway, brushing them! As simple as this is there are ways you can up your brushing game and the first one is simple get a good tooth brush and tooth paste. This doesn't mean spending £50 on a tooth brush but getting a electric one will help. The one I have is off amazon and was just a few pounds and leaves my teeth feeling so clean and well brushed after. It even came with two extra heads and a lid to cover it to stop germs getting on it and a stand plus is is PINK! that's what I call a barging. Now toothpaste is something I found is all about trail and error as I found ones that work for me but don't necessarily work for other plus I like to change them up too. The one I am using at the minute is Colgate whitening toothpaste witch works amazingly for me plus Colgate is one of my favorite toothpaste brands. I also add in mouth wash and flossing into my brushing routine too just to go that extra way I don't use any pacific brand for this I guess they are just trail and error too. Another way I up my brushing game is a timer. I will set a timer on my phone while brushing my teeth for 3 minutes and that way I know they are getting a really good clean.

Going the extra mile 

Out side of brushing your teeth there are other things you can do to help clean and whiten your teeth. One of these which I am sure most of you have hear about is oil pulling. There are little packs that you can by from places that are specially made for this and there are different kinds of oils you can use. I just buy a jar of coconut oil making sure it is virgin coconut oil the one I use is Biona organic virgin coconut and I buy this off amazon. Although coconut oil can be a little bit on the expensive side It is defiantly worth it as it can be used for SO many different things and is SO good at all of them honestly is is my holy grail and something I have to have (maybe we will make that into a diffident blog post?). I try to oil pull about once a day sometimes missing a day or two. To do this I will take a table spoon full of coconut oil then warm it up in my mouth until it becomes a liquid and then just pull it around my mouth, a little like you do with mouth wash, I will do this for around 15-20 minutes and then I will spit it out ( remember oil can clog your drains ) leaving my teeth feeling and looking super clean. How this work is (supposedly, I feel it work) it draws out toxins from you body (yeah don't swallow it)  improving you oral and even over all general heath. I am not going to lie this does not taste to good but you do get use to it after while.

Another way I Like to go the extra mile is to use teeth withing strips The ones I use are advanced teeth whiting strips which is something else I also buy of amazon for just a few pounds. In this you get the instructions a little card to compare you progress to and 14 pouches of teeth whitening strips which all come with a upper teeth strip and a lower one. These are easy to apply and do not have a horrible taste. To use these I follow the instructions on the pack leaving them on 30 minutes, using them daily so they are used in 14 days and the redoing them every three mouths and they leave my teeth looking so white and clean. I could see the different in my teeth after one use of one strip and I honestly love them and have already brought some more. These are the thing that have made the biggest difference to my teeth.

A few random tips 

• drink threw a straw 
• Avoid things that stain your teeth like smoking and drinking tea and coffee
• Avoid eating to many sugary foods
• Use strawberries and baking soda mixed together and apply this on your teeth 
• Rub the inside of a banana peel on your teeth
• clean your tongue 
• Eat water rich vegetables 
• Drink plenty of water 
• Get them regularly checked 

Feel free to let me know if you have any tips I would love to know. 

It's ok to have a bad day

Yesterday wasn't one of my best day, I felt so low and lonely and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't get myself out of feeling so low. I just ended up just spending all day in my bed crying and not eating or drinking properly. To make it worse I also felt so weak and like I had failed for feeling this way. I had been making so much progress lately and feeling so good that to have this kind of day made me feel like I had failed and gone back to the start, when in fact that was not the case at all. Today is a whole new different day and it's one of the best days I have had in a long time I manged to get out of bed, workout, take my dog for a long walk, and have a little chat with a few of my friends plus I am here writing this blog and I have been eating healthy meals and getting enough water into my body. I also did something to day that is a very big deal to me and made me so so proud of myself ( maybe we will go into that one day in the future). After having such an amazing successful day I realized that yesterday didn't mean I was weak or failing or taking a step back it just simply meant I was human. Today I have been stronger than ever and and carried on taking steps forward. I now know that next time I have a bad day, which I will because I am only human, not to be so harsh on myself and know that it's ok to feel that way, to cry, to not want to get out of bed and it doesn't mean that I am a weak person. I also know that it isn't going to last for ever and I will get back on track in my own time at my own pace and for now I just need to look after myself and be kind to myself. Life is full of ups and downs It doesn't mean that you are weak or anything like that it means that you are human and living. So here is my message to you if you're having a bad day, it's ok! go cry as much as you need go lay in bed and watch Netflix all day if you have to just don't feel ashamed or guiltily for feeling this way, it is only natural. Look after yourself and be kind to yourself. it's ok to have a bad day just don't unpack and live there, cry it out, take the time out you need, then refocus. When I was having a bad day I did talk to some friends ( something I advise to everyone is  to reach out to loved ones) and one thing one of them said really helped and It's something I will remember for the rest of my life "it's temporary, ride it out".

You're not alone guys! xx