Life of Late...

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I thought it was about time I caught you all up with life lately. Last time I wrote this sort of post, it's fair to say that I wasn't feeling my best. I had been suffering badly with anxiety, and after beginning to take some medication for this prescribed to me by my doctor (a last resort, as I had tried everything else) I was feeling even worse. That was really a low point for me, and I want to thank each and every one of you who listened to me moaning about it, for your kind words and just for being there.

Fast forward until today, and things have really changed for me.I stopped taking the medication,as it was obvious that it wasn't for me and was only making things worse. I was offered an alternative, but I had decided that I didn't want to try anything else - I had dealt with things for this long without medication, so I figured that I could continue doing so, regardless of how difficult it might be.

I was given yet more natural remedies to try, just in case, but as it turns out, since that last day at the doctor's surgery, I haven't needed it. It's the strangest thing, but it was almost as if on that day, when I made the decision to deal with things myself, my anxiety ceased to have a reason to exist. Because I had now labelled it as something I could cope with, it no longer had the same control over me as when I viewed it as something insurmountable, and something that was taken over my life.

Now, I don't want to get ahead of myself here, because I know full well that anxiety tends to come in waves; it comes and goes. But this time, things seem different. It's not that I don't worry about things any more - of course I do. But now, when a negative thought or an irrational fear enters my head, I am ready and waiting to tell it where to go. I'm able to see that they are irrational, where before I took my thoughts as gospel.

I'm not saying that it won't come back. But for the first time in a long while, I am finally feeling like myself again. I've somehow managed to pull myself out of the hole I was in and am able to see the good in things again. I feel positive, and excited about things again. 

Things are looking up.

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I'm so looking forward to Christmas this year. Sadly, I won't be spending it with my own family, but with my husband's. I think I've mentioned before that they are Brazilian, and in the past I have found it very disappointing to spend Christmas with them because they do very little, if anything, to celebrate. They barely exchange gifts, and they don't tend to have a special meal. In my family, we have always made a huge fuss, spoiling each other with lovely presents and stuffing ourselves with delicious food. We decorate the house, send cars, listen to Christmas music...all the things that families traditionally do in England. So it has been difficult, knowing what I am trading in my own family's Christmas celebrations for. But this year, I don't mind, because I am planning on being home for every subsequent Christmas, as of next year. Granted, I'm not really excited about Christmas day itself this year, but I'm looking forward to giving and receiving presents and getting into the spirit of things beforehand.

In other news, I have decided to go back to university next year. I did a degree in Print Journalism, with writing being my first love and a lifelong passion. But as it happens, it's not an industry I have found myself working in, and I feel the need to feed my mind with more knowledge. I genuinely do miss studying, not because I'm a geek but because I think after spending our whole lives filling our heads with new and exciting information, there comes a point where, after we stop learning, our brains begin to stagnate. I'm a firm believer that we have to use our talents, our minds and our creativity in order to maintain them and in order to maintain our youth.

I'm going to be studying nutrition, which has always been an area of great interest to me, and something which I have learned an awful lot about simply through curiosity. I have not given up my dream of writing for a living, but I think this will be an enriching experience, and will broaden the options available to me.

Things definitely seem to be looking up, and in the past that would have scared me. I was always too afraid to be happy, just in case whatever was making me feel that way was suddenly taken away, without warning. But now I see how silly that is, and what an unfulfilling way to live our lives it is. If you worry about things that might happen, then you are wasting the time you could be spending being happy. If you think positive, you are not silly or naive for not spotting something before it goes wrong. You are living your life.

xx