Mental Health, feminism, and the adventures of an aspiring actress! Hiding behind books, probably. 'Have courage and be kind'

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Showing posts with label time to change. Show all posts
Showing posts with label time to change. Show all posts



Sometimes everything just gets a bit too much, and all the things you're so determined that you want to do suddenly go out of the window before you can even grasp what's happening. I feel like lately, that's what's happened to my ability and confidence to blog, and it's horrible. It's an awful feeling wanting so much to do something productive and positive about the things that are hurting you, yet feeling physically and mentally unable to start in any capacity.

An awful lot has been going on and changing for me, and it's taken it's toll quite hard. I still feel horribly guilty and disappointed in myself for not completing the Mental Health Awareness Week challenge I set for myself, but sometimes these things just happen. You can't predict or change the way your mental health might turn on you or suddenly take a nose dive and it's a terrifyingly worrying thing to try and process and cope with, but i'm learning. And, even though in all honesty it's bitterly, exhaustingly and impossibly hard to do - if i'm going to convince the world that that it's absolutely okay for things to get too much sometimes, I desperately have to start trying to apply it to myself too.



SO, it's been a little while! BUT, i'm back!! (yay!) - and, in more super exciting and positive news, I wrote a blog post for Time to Change's latest #InYourCorner campaign last week, and it's now up all shiny and new on their website!
I know i've had a couple of blogs published before, and in the grand scheme of mental health activist experiences it sounds like a tiny step, but this is the first time ever that i've had a blog published on the official Time to Change website and the first time my parents have ever read one of my written pieces, so it's really exciting for me and if you'd like to take a peek i'd absolutely love you forever!

Have a read of '5 simple ways to support a mate with a mental health problem' here!

There's a follow-up blog post on the wonderful people who've supported me and been #InMyCorner coming soon too, but for now I really hope the post helps show just how easy it can be to support people you love when they're struggling - trying to support the people you love when things are rough can feel horribly scary and daunting, but it doesn't have to be about intense talks and huge gestures. No matter what might be going on, all you truly need to be in someones corner is love, patience and kindness. It's really that simple I promise. <3

In another little bit of exciting news, i've finally got round to fully setting up my Bloglovin account! So if you want to give me a little follow, you know what to do!


Love always,
Rachel x
Anyone who's super-keen/observant (and oh my gosh I'd be so honoured and fangirl-excited if anyone actually did!) might have noticed that yesterday I didn't do my daily blog post for Mental Health Awareness Week like I promised I would try to do. Yesterday was a bit difficult and stressful, but I absolutely intended to write a post - I felt more than anything like I had to, like I'd be a complete failure and be letting everyone and everything I try to stand for down if I didn't. At 11.20pm I was all still curled up fretting and overwhelmed and horribly over-tired in the corner of the sofa panicking about how I was possibly going to articulate a post, and then I realised maybe I could use a missed day to make a point - that it's okay to take time out and step back when your mental health needs it.


It doesn't always seem like a legitimate thing to feel, especially if you're like me and get horrifically restless and upset with yourself for not being so busy 24/7 that it devastates you, but everyday life even when you're doing apparently 'nothing' can be so incredibly draining and overwhelming. I absolutely adore seeing all the amazing things that are happening to people I know and love or care about pop up on Facebook and it makes me so overwhelmingly happy seeing people get the wonderful things they deserve and have worked so hard for, but being surrounded by the incredible things people you know are achieving all CONSTANTLY is also a horrible catalyst for overwhelming self doubt and comparison, even when it's the last thing in the world you want to feel (and if you're me, you then feel so selfish and horrible for catching yourself getting upset or envious that you literally want to punch yourself in the face for being so selfish). There's so so much pressure to be constantly available, constantly on top of everything, constantly working towards a new shiny goal that might maybe help me feel a little more 'validated' or like I'm not just falling horrifically and terrifyingly behind everyone else I know, even though of course I absolutely know that social media 'life' is hugely rose tinted and that no one else's life is as okay as it might seem either. Sometimes when your mind is being horrible, even knowing those things just doesn't make it better. It's so so hard to remember, but please trust me: you're not being selfish. You're not letting everyone down, no matter what your head tries to tell you -  you're doing what's best for YOU, right now, in this moment, and that's absolutely okay.

Like I talked about in my last post, it's so so important to try and look after our own mental wellbeing, and sometimes - difficult and horribly selfish and frightening as it seems - that means it really is okay to step back from everything. I've never been able to fully take myself away from social media or completely isolate myself from going out for more than a couple of days, because my anxiety is relentlessly scary and overwhelming and just won't let me, but to be honest I think this people who do are ridiculously and amazingly brave. (HUGE shoutout here to my amazing TTC Champion and amazing friend James here, for inspiring this post with the bravery of his social media break and still being so unfailingly thoughtful and lovely despite all the shit he's going through on his own too. I admire you so much and I'm so so happy to have you back at least for a little bit!).
It takes an awful lot to recognise and make a decision which can still be so widely misconceived or misunderstood as self-deprecating, antisocial or counterproductive in the interests of your own wellbeing, and it's a hugely brave thing to do to commit to putting yourself first despite all the pressure from society and general life not to.

I didn't post yesterday in the end, because I wanted to make a point. I wanted to take my own advice for once that's it's okay to step back from things sometimes - we can't help make the world a better, kinder and better place for mental health if we don't try to look after ourselves and our own wellbeing first too. This is something I'm still finding horrifically hard to grasp, both in terms of trying to look after myself mentally and physically, but hopefully if we keep encouraging each other that it's okay to take better care of ourselves, I'll maybe one day be able to convince myself that it really is okay for me to do what's best for me first sometimes too.


Today has been a little bit of a whirlwind of stress and tiredness (yay for auditions with anxiety!!) so today's post is going to be a little one, but hopefully important all the same.
I've thought about this a bit today, and realised that so far both in yesterday's post and on my blog in general I speak primarily about mental health issues themselves, and the stigma, fears and general bizarreness that surrounds trying to deal with them whilst having to attempt being a 'normal' human being. I'm 100% okay about this, because of course we need to keep opening up conversations about mental illness, and as a Time to Change Young Champion it's my job apart from anything else!! However, I think it's hugely important too to recognise that Mental Health Awareness Week is about ALL mental health, all of us - not just mental illnesses or the bits we struggle with.


The most important thing to realise, in terms of helping shift attitudes towards mental illness too, is that we all have Mental Health. Every single one of us, no matter how much we might struggle with it or to what degree, have mental health that affects everything we do, every single day. The problem is that a) society isn't too cool about acknowledging that, and b), no one teaches us how to look after it. If you get a cold, most people know that the things that might help include honey and lemon, curling up under blankets, throat sweets, hot water bottles and sleep. If we sprain our ankles, we know to rest it, pack it with frozen peas until it goes numb and elevate it onto all available chairs/tables/dogs etc - but no one teaches us how to help look after ourselves when your mental health decides to take a little nosedive off a cliff, even though it might hurt and stop you from doing the things you love (and hate but kinda-have-to-do) just as much.

When I say that I'm 100% behind Mental Health education being compulsory on the school curriculum, I don't just mean that we should be taught about mental health conditions the same way we are taught about sensitive physical illnesses. We need to teach, nurture and enable ourselves to understand, recognise and be aware of our own mental wellbeing - the things that make us sad, the things that affect our ability to concentrate or feel joy as incandescently or the things that calm us down. We need to learn that the things we feel are valid, no matter how silly or tiny  or impossibly scary they might seem inside - and if we can learn how to practice self care and kindness when we need it, that'll be a huge step both for us and for helping understand and recognise the importance of our mental health too.

It's so impossibly hard to find ways to practice self care when we need it that don't feel like selfishness, because we're taught that putting ourselves first is wrong - but sometimes your own mental health and wellbeing just has to come first. I struggle with this desperately and it sends my anxiety and stress reeling and makes me feel like the absolute worst person in the world, but sometimes you have to try and be brave in understanding that the best thing in the world for you right now might be to sleep instead of going out, or have a bath instead of going for a run, or eating your own weight in pizza just because it's what you feel like right now. No matter what your mind or society tries to tell you, your feelings are valid, and you deserve to look after yourself. Really really.


The truth is that no matter how much mental illness might or might not affect you or those you love in your lifetime, we all have mental health, and it really is okay and so incredibly necessary to talk about it and care for it. Fingers crossed that shiny & brilliant little initiatives like Mental Health Awareness Week might be a little nudge to help us to need to recognise it, accept it as part of us, and one day learn that's it's okay to look after it too. 


So this may or may not have been a silly idea to try and juggle with auditions and applications and everything that's going on right now, BUT, it's now May (aka Mental Health Awareness Month) and this week is extra extra special because it's Mental Health Awareness Week 2017!! SO, to help celebrate and mark the occasion, i've decided to try and do a blog post every day this week speaking out about mental health, and why it's so important that we keep talking about it. (As illustrated, for the purposes of this first post, solely by Frozen gifs. Enjoy x)


I think i've blocked out a lot of what happened when I was in hospital when I was younger, but I do remember lying in my bed on the children's ward, all numb and tired from crying over my NG tube pain, and my mum or maybe one of the nurses saying to me that one day, i'd be able to use all this pain for good. She promised.
I didn't really believe it at the time, but that little thought and fire stayed in me and as I got better (and then worse, and then a bit better, and then catastrophically worse etc etc), it's become a fighting force within me and glowed stronger and stronger - some kind of adamant, furious determination that yes my mental illnesses could steal my childhood and my life from me, but there was no way in hell I was going to let all the things I was fighting through stop me from using my experiences to speak out and maybe help someone else. The problem was that I always clung onto the little bit of determination that id be able to do something good 'when I got better', or 'one day' - but nearly 10 years down the line, I was realising fearfully more and more every day that I don't know that that day will ever come. I don't remember my life without mental illness, and in all honesty i'm not sure that I ever see myself living free from it in the future either - so slowly I was realising at the back of my mind that 'one day' was never going to come, or if it did, it might be too late - I was going to have to start trying to turn my experiences into something positive NOW. Whilst they were still attacking me every day. And that's freaking terrifying.


The little push I needed to start came from a guy who is now one of my favourite people in the whole world and possibly one of the most inspirational, talented, and unfailingly lovely people on the planet - and I met him for the first time in the hallway of a small theatre. For those of you who don't know him yet - James Rhodes (this guy!!) is a classical pianist in the coolest, most brave and rockstar-esque way imaginable. He's not only insanely talented, but intersperses his pieces with brilliant, honest, funny and sensitive commentary about his own struggles with mental health and the bizarre, comic and fascinating woes of the composers whose work he features. ANYWAY, after seeing him perform at the Arts Theatre in London on a fluke, I went to one of his further gigs where he was doing a meet and greet afterwards (it was a much tinier venue!). In a nervous bundle of gabble, I said something to him which probably made absolutely no sense about how amazing it was hearing him speak out and how much it resonated with me, because as it turned out we had been in psychiatric hospitals at roughly the same time, and how I was basically just overwhelmed with admiration for him and a lot of other fangirl-y embarrassing stuff like that (probably). James, being utterly lovely, treated me like i'd just said one of the most eloquent and genuine sentences in the english language, gave me a hug, and then looked straight at me and told me in the calmest, loveliest voice to never stop talking.

And that was the 'real' real beginning.



 Talking about the things that hurt you is hard. That little moment with James that encouraged me to start saying fuck it and trying to unashamedly and truthfully speak out about my experiences with mental health was right at the beginning of my 2nd year of uni. The next week, I went to my university's DAMSA (Disabled and Mental Health Students Association) group on a whim, randomly stood up and ran for a place on their committee, and got it. I started trying to go even when my MH was shit, and helped run their Time to Talk day event that year ft many many cakes and brownies (which was how I met Time to Change!!) - By 3rd year i'd become their secretary, run my own Time to Talk day event for the University, started my first mental health blog (www.theoverthinkingblog.wordpress.com) and started sharing campaigns on social media. I still wasn't exclusively stating that I DID suffer from the mental illnesses I was trying to better on Facebook and Twitter, but I wasn't denying it or shying away from it either, and even something that little is a big step when you're sending posts out to a world of people you actually know. It's a hugely vulnerable feeling, but it's empowering too.


Being accepted to be a Time to Change Young Champion is an absolute dream, and one of the best things that could ever possibly have happened to me. Giving my first testimony after all the stress and tears of trying to write it was an amazing feeling - it felt like I was finally doing the thing i'd hoped all along I might be able to one day do - to use my own experiences to help change other people's experiences understanding of mental health for the better. This blog is another part of my 'speaking out' journey, and it's taken me an awfully long time to try and convince myself that I can have a blog where I write both about mental health and about my life in general when my mental health issues just happen to be there too - but i'm finding my way (I think!). Mental Health Awareness Week is a hugely important, inspiring and fiercely brilliant thing which shines a hugely deserved spotlight on all the charities, campaigners, bloggers, companies and people who are trying so hard every day to change the way we think about, perceive and treat mental health issues, but the truth is it should be the same every week. I still doubt myself hugely, and sometimes everything I try to do still feels hopeless and unbelievably shit, but at it's heart speaking out is terrifying, addictive, electric and astonishingly powerful, and the more we do it, the better we can help positively change the future of our mental health for everyone.




This is only going to be a little teeny post, because it's late and to be honest i'm still super nervous and paranoid about the fact that when things have been so messy and hard my ability to blog has just gone to absolute pieces - but I felt like it was really important to acknowledge even in the smallest way how important today/this week is. So here!

Today marks the beginning of Eating Disorders Awareness Week 2017, aka a super-important week aiming to raise awareness of this horrible, debilitating and relentless illness and break the frightening amounts of silence and stigma that surround it.
I haven't always spoken as much about my difficulties with eating disorders quite as much as I have about depression and anxiety etc. This is partly I think maybe because I was so young when everything first went horribly wrong, to the extent that in all honesty I don't remember my life before having an eating disorder - but to be truly honest it's also partly due to the amount of stigma-orientated hate and frustration I still have against myself in my own mind. I will try and talk a little bit more about my own story this week, which is terrifying, but I've made a promise to myself to try and be brave - for the sake of maybe helping others if nothing else - but for now I just want to talk a little bit about why it's so important to break the stigma surrounding eating disorders, and maybe what we can do about it this week and hopefully beyond too.




When people talk about depression, they often talk about how one of the most crippling difficulties with it and with other mental illnesses is how invisible they are, and in some cases how seemingly easy they are to hide. I know i've done this too - the whole metaphor with how you can't tell someone with a broken leg to 'just walk'. The horribly difficult thing when it comes to eating disorders is that sometimes you can see it, and that's the 'acceptable' default image of an eating disorder diagnosis that dominates our entire society, including the GPs and medical health 'professionals' we need to access the most.
The truth is, you can't always see an eating disorder, and for that reason they are one of the most deadly, isolating, corrosive and destructive mental illnesses we're facing; 1 in 10 of those suffering from an eating disorder will be killed by it. Eating disorders come in all shapes and sizes, races, genders, sexualities and classes, strike without any warning at all, are relentlessly cruel, and bitterly isolating. And because we as a society still only really accept one 'kind' of eating disorder - the emaciated white teenage girl - the silence and secrecy around these illnesses in an increasingly diverse society is more stubborn and frightening than ever before. (NB, there are plenty of ED sufferers who do fit this type too, and their pain is just as valid and frightening- it's just that right now I want to talk a bit about the countless others who don't too).



(TW - this bit contains details of ED behaviours)
I have been hospitalised for my eating disorder twice, once just after my 11th birthday, and again when I was 12. But this doesn't accurately or truthfully measure the amount i've struggled with it. You can't count the severity of someone's illness by the amount of times they've been hospitalised, or their lowest weight. Two hospitalizations almost 10 years ago now doesn't show you the other terrifying times my weight dropped, but not enough to be 'worthy' of help. It doesn't show you the countless lunchtimes I spent aged 16 nibbling half an apple and a cereal bar, and hating myself for the rest of the afternoon over the sugar in those 100 carefully calculated calories. It doesn't show my daily routine aged 17 of crying, confused out in the rain at lunchtime over the calories in gum and nursing diet coke, because that's what society had assured me that 'real' anorexics did, so why wasn't it enough and why couldn't I just fucking do it properly? It doesn't show the amount of times I burst into tears in the middle of the cereal aisle at uni, or the first time I resorted to making myself sick for eating a 'normal' amount, or the fact that the whole of the last 3 years has been a cycle of starving a bit, panicking because I don't have 'time' to be ill anymore, disappearing at uni to make myself sick, gaining weight slightly and losing everything else trying to cope with it. I'm a stable-ish weight at the moment, and a semi-healthy one, and it's catastrophically frightening, sickening and exhausting. I don't 'look' ill, so I hide everything and constantly and jeeringly doubt myself that I even am, or that I ever have been. I can't 'recover' right, and I can't please my eating disorder right. I am a colossal failure in every conceivable fucking way.

The truth is that in second year (the last time my weight dipped enough to worry anyone), I only 'got better' because I had to. My parents were about to take the chance to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe away from me and my uni life was completely on the edge because I just wasn't coping in any way. I was about to lose the one thing I love doing, and the one thing that makes me vaguely a person in my own eyes, and all the independence and everything that came with it. (Also, crippling amounts of fear and guilt at the amount of 'wasted' money if I had to drop out of my degree). It wasn't an option. I'm not a little girl anymore, I don't have time to be sick, I can't I can't I can't.

But even at a healthy-ish weight, or the way I am, the difficulties haven't stopped. In fact the truth is that sometimes when you're in 'recovery', or you don't 'look' anorexic, is when things get the most terrifyingly tiring, mocking, hopeless and hard. I am not currently in specialised treatment, because there was a complete mess with my files when I moved home from uni (a whooooooleeeee other story…), but the doctor I do have dismisses anything I dare to whisper to her about my mental health almost laughably. My body image is crippling. One moment i'm making myself sick because of a single flapjack, the next I'm panicking about the damage to my body and having things taken away from me, or hurting my family, or I get attacks of extreme hunger and all the starving i've done goes completely to shit. (My mum's mum is ill at the moment, so though my family are lovely and have been amazing throughout all this mess, at the moment if I show any hint of being unhappy such a huge guilt trip ensues that I can't bear it). I look healthy, but I faint or get chest pains randomly all the time, my metabolism is beyond fucked, my period has been monumentally messed up for as long as I can remember, and eating puts me in pain daily. I still don't see food, I see numbers. Things have been horrifically worse for me and I know that more than anything, but X years on they aren't right either, and it's frightening.

I promised that this was going to be a short post and it's turned into a little bit of a messy ramble instead, but I hope it makes some sort of sense. In short, Eating Disorders Awareness Week is crucial because this horrible illness is still so desperately stigmatised, simplified and misunderstood at every level. Even in recovery, we don't talk enough about the invisible dangers that haunt sufferers both physically and mentally day in and out. Heart problems, brittle bones and infertility all wield their own silent vengeance regardless of how much you recover, or how much you weigh. Eating disorders don't just eat away at physical weight, they eat away at everything you are inside and out. It's time we set the record straight for sufferers, for professionals and for everyone, and hopefully we'll help save lives from the pain of this horrible illness as a result.



Support Beat-ED's EDAW17 Campaign here: https://www.b-eat.co.uk/support-us/eating-disorder-awareness-week
(I'm also supporting B-eat by wearing silly socks ever day this week for their #sockingit to Eating Disorders campaign, so expect lots of sock fun soon too!) x

Right now as I write this, I'm curled up in front of 'Friends' with a microwave fluffy dinosaur hottie (purple), and anxiously/tiredly dipping baby weetabix in my tea (I know, it's nice I swear). I've just finished my second day at my new full time grad job (in a coffee shop), I've had 2 panic attacks, and am terrified and overwhelmed. This is basically my go-to safe zone, minus the weetabix. Whenever everything is just far far too much, I drown it out with Friends and tea. It doesn't always work, but I try. Sometimes that's the only thing you can do.

If you've been on Facebook or Twitter lately, it probably hasn't passed you by that today marks World Mental Health Day 2016. This is a super wonderful thing, because it gets people TALKING, which sounds so simple but in practice is so freaking hard. It's one thing to say you're against mental health stigma, but it's so hard to practice out in the terrifying rush of everyday life. I know I'm horribly guilty of this and it eats me alive. I'm a young champion for Time to Change, but I'm still too petrified to call in sick to work when I have a panic attack or my depression gets too suffocating. I'm currently a sort of stable-ish weight (much to my own dismay and torture), but 10 years of struggling with anorexia and sub-type purging means my body is much more fragile that I allow for, and sometimes the combination of pushing myself to the edge as I do to carry on a 'normal life' and being such a perfectionist/ so desperate to please others means I literally break myself to the point of becoming dangerously ill. I spend a scarily huge, secretly hidden amount of time tearful, anxious, shaking, sick and exhausted, but I still have never once called into work and told the truth. Last week marks the first time that I've declared myself as having depression on an employment contract which is a huge step for me, but even then I feel horrible and upset with myself knowing I only did so after I'd been offered the job.

One of the people I admire most in the whole world, James Rhodes (if you haven't heard of him, check him out. He's a brilliant and astoundingly lovely human being), tweeted that though World Mental Health Day is amazing, really EVERY day should be World Mental Health Day, and I think that's a really important goal to aim for. You don't get days off from mental illness, and it 100% has NO respect for your plans, dreams, or general need to function as a human being. E.g:

Me: hey! I actually feel like things might maybe be okay toda-
Depression: SUPRISE BITCHHHHHH

Honestly. Every time. ANYWAY, long story v. short, talking more openly and confidently about mental health like we do on this day each year is powerful af, and it's up to us to keep that message of acceptance, kindness and support out there every other day of the year too. When my OCD symptoms first started to get seriously limiting and out of control, I very very vividly remember being out in town with my dad and jumping over a crack in the pavement back and forth over and over and over again, and my dad was yelling at me to stop but I hadn't 'finished' yet and the anxiety was making me cry, and parents walking past started shielding their children's eyes from me. But I didn't know I had OCD, I was 12, I'd never HEARD of OCD, and neither had my Dad. It's isolating enough struggling at all, but it's a million times scarier when you don't understand what's happening to you either, so I completely stand by James' message that ultimately we need to find the courage to speak out and raise awareness not just on one designated annual day, but every day. A bit like my tea-and-friends thing, it doesn't always work, but we are getting better. We all have mental health, and the sooner we find the bravery and determination to talk about it, myself included, the better things will be for all of us.

So, here are 3 things you can do right now to help fight Mental Health Stigma:
1) Text a loved one just because
2) Pop a pledge up on the Time to Change pledge wall, no matter how tiny!
3) Remember:
I don't know whether it's just a me thing, but I find that starting (and keeping) a new blog can be really hard. I think especially now that literally everyone and their mum's best friend's dog all have a blog and that so many people make a career out of it etc etc, it suddenly makes it a really scary and daunting thing, especially if, like me, you have an awful tendency to cripplingly doubt everything you ever think, do or say anyway.
The other thing is, I don't know if I feel I'm ALLOWED to have a blog. As in, I'm not a 'blogger'. I'm very much imperfect and messy. My hair is never neat, I look about 8 years old, live in oversized jumpers, and am most normally found crying over a dropped sock or playing hide and seek with my dog. I like apple juice and instant coffee and muddy walks, and I get all flustered and shy with pride whenever anyone starts talking about Benedict Cumberbatch. I know there's no rule anywhere to say you have to be a certain kind of person tone a blogger, but sometimes it really can feel that way.
ANYWAY. Here we go, right? I have a new blog. Just over two weeks ago, I had the amazing experience of completing my training to become a Time To Change young champion, and meeting 84 other brave, astonishingly lovely young people fiercely dedicated to changing the face of mental health and the stigma that surrounds it. I hate cliches, they make me feel so awkward and horrible inside to say - but the atmosphere that whole weekend was completely magic. I've never EVER before been in a place where there was such an unconditional sense of kindness, safety, love and respect so quickly, and all without anyone saying a word.
One particular thing really sticks in my mind from this weekend though. On the first day, we as a group were asked in passing to raise our hands if we'd ever experienced stigma towards us because of our struggles with mental health, and without even thinking, everyone did. I think even the TTC leaders were shocked, and this is what they do for a living. And I think in that moment we all automatically became united, inseparable and fiercely respectful and protective over one another too.

That's a picture frame of how mental health stigma stands in our society at the moment. BUT, right now, I think that it's important that that happened. I think we're processing it into a positive, because here you've got 85 young people who've known each other less than two days, more connected to one another and relentlessly determined to stamp out mental health stigma than ever before. And they, being the lovely folk they are, have convinced me that I CAN have a blog, and I CAN talk about things. We aren't just a diagnosis, we have Hogwarts houses, we cry with joy over dog videos, we're ready to do something about all the shit we've been put through. It's okay to start again.
Anyone who followed me over on theoverthinkingblog.wordpress.com will know that I tried to blog periodically throughout my time at uni about the struggles of coping with a degree and the horrifically inadequate state of student welfare services, and now I'm graduated (FUCK...), it's time to do something about it. So here! Here's a blog, and here's looking at you, world. Let's fight to leave mental health stigma where it belongs.