Time for some Honest Tea.

Hey everyone,

So guess who is going to be annoyingly plugging the new episode of her podcast over the next week or so,… Me! So I am just going to get it out of the way now, you can find it on iTunes, Spotify, this link http://honesttea.buzzsprout.com and there is also a link on my main page of this blog. So there is no excuse not to listen, your support really means the world to me and honestly, I wouldn’t have had the confidence to start this podcast if you weren’t for the amazing support I get with this blog, so thank you. There are still a few teething problems with it, but I am learning and hey nothing is perfect and unfortunately, there is nothing I can do about my Brummy accent, so just close your eyes and pretend you are listening to Peaky Blinders.

Unfortunately, I have had a rough time lately and it has felt like I have been living in a world of “I can’t.” I have been unable to work, I have struggled with my vision, my anxiety has been up my ass and my motivation took a long vacation. Picking myself up from this all has not been easy because most of the time I am the one knocking me down. I am trying though, by going to therapy, restarting my podcast, investing more time in my blog and doing my art, I am starting to see my self-worth again. I may not be completely up, but I am making good steps to getting to that point.

Life knocks us down, we knock us down, but we can stand back up and it won’t be straight away as it takes time, trust me though don’t count yourself out just yet. I may not always look on the bright side, but I do believe sometimes we just have to go through some bad shit in life because that’s life. We may come out of it battered and bruised mentally, but we do come out of it stronger.

Take care,
Vixxy Rose
xxx

Therapy 6 – I need a cup of positivitea!

Hey everyone!

*knock knock*
Who’s there?
Motivation?
Motivation who?
Sorry, wrong house!

– my life

Do you ever feel brimming with ideas but the motivation to follow through on them is nowhere to be seen? I just sometimes feel like slapping myself for wasting time, but I just feel so deflated to do anything. Like my housework at the moment consists of putting a throw on the sofa that needs vacuuming and fuck it I am not putting the dishes away from the dishwasher, I will just use it as a big cupboard. If my life was represented by a colour, it would be beige. I am just getting through one beige day to another, and the small amount of energy I have can just about handle beige. I wish I had the energy for red or orange or even yellow (my least favourite colour), but I don’t and that is frustrating.
I did go to therapy yesterday, so it went from beige to a bit of dark grey for a bit so beggars can’t be choosers, I guess. This was my sixth week in therapy, and it has gone so fast. I am only just getting used to being open and vulnerable and not feeling like a twat. So how did it go? Well…

Therapy 6 – I need a cup of positivitea!

You won’t need to look far to find my biggest critic, it is me! When something goes wrong in my life I get tunnel vision and that is all I can see and feel. I am giving my issues issues because I just can’t seem to escape from my own mind. Some of my anxiety comes from my lack of positivity because I am too focused on the things that I can’t control instead of what I can control. My therapist is pretty certain that I do have C- PTSD and because of my past as I have an instant distrust of the world. My emotions can feel overwhelming because I don’t know how to handle them and basically I created this beige world to live in.
Being positive can sometimes feel so foreign to me and I don’t give myself credit enough for things I do well and have overcome because I don’t see it.
I am making steps to be more positive I write a tiny victories list most week and making small changes can evoke big things. The thing is I need to open my eyes to it more and have a cup of positivitea as I do deserve it. I need to start working on my own self worth instead of just putting myself down all the time out of habit. I am never going to be the type of person to look on the bright side but I can be more open to more positivity in my life.
Take care,
Vixxy Rose
xxx

Tea stains and reflections.

Hey everyone,

Today I looked in the mirror and looked at what was left of my two day old pigtails, the tea-stained jumper and the way too big sweat pants and thought “fuuccckkk!”. I can’t decide if this is what thirty is supposed to look like. I am close to a breakdown or all the fucks I gave have left the building. You may think I may be a bit upset by that image before me and honestly yeah a little, but also kind of proud of who was staring back at me.
The girl with the tea-stained jumper is the same girl who would put make-up on every day even if she wasn’t leaving the house because she couldn’t stand to see her own face. The girl with the 2-day old pigtails was the same girl who has started getting her hair cut and dyed at a hair salon after years, I mean years of being too anxious to step foot in one. The girl with the oversized sweat pants was the same girl who is struggling with positive body image but is trying to get better.
We may not always feel our best or look our best, but we are doing our best, so remember the next time you judge your own appearance, remember how far you have come and also you are an adult you can wear what the fuck you want, so wear that onesie with pride!

Take care,
Vixxy Rose
xxx

Me and my Anxiety.

Hey everyone,

I feel like my anxiety has been affecting me the most recently. My therapist has recently helped me understand my anxiety a little bit more, and a lot of my anxiety comes from the critical parent side of me. I get anxiety about anxiety and I can end up in a circle of hell because of it. I have recently been trying to battle physical and mental health issues and my anxiety has been feeding off that battle.
I don’t sleep that well because my mind is run on the anxiety battery and don’t socialise that much because my mind is run on the anxiety battery and this anxiety battery can give Duracell a run for its money.
It can go on and on and on and there we have the circle of hell. I
I am getting better at dealing with my anxiety though, I have introduced more coping mechanisms in my life to help me and one of those things is writing. The other day I was close to an anxiety attack and decided to get out my notebook and write down what I was thinking. This is what I wrote.

The bitch of anxiety.

Her voice is so loud I can’t not hear her,
she wants to tell me I will never be.
I will never be okay,
I will never be loved,
I will never be accepted.

She is under my skin,
infecting everything she touches.
She can turn me against me,
by telling me I will always be.
I will always be rejected,
I will always be a failure,
I will always be lost.

She sucks the energy from a room,
she can leave me gasping for air.
She is my first and last thought,
the reason why I care.
I care too much about why?
I care too much about when?
I care too much about how?

Anxiety is here and she wants to be heard.

Why did I write that? I wanted, no needed to show myself that yes anxiety is real, but what anxiety makes me feel isn’t real. There is no truth behind what anxiety tries to convince us is the truth, but all the bad energy, negative thoughts and fears have to go somewhere. Anxiety feeds off it and then throws it back at us like it is gospel and we believe it because it comes from us.
Anxiety is a liar but a convincing one and we may not win every battle with it but that doesn’t mean we are failures it means we are warriors.

Take care,

Vixxy Rose
xxx

The adult revolution!

Hey everyone!

So today I decided I was not going to worry about those pesky adult things we do to make it feel like we have used our time wisely when we have free time. You know what I am talking about; washing up, making the bed and collecting the abandoned socks your partner leaves around the bedroom. No not today, today it was an adulting-free zone. I decided it was about me, myself and I.
Why do we always feel guilty for not doing things all the time? I can feel so guilty at times for not using my time wisely that it makes me anxious. Why can’t we have a day where we just stay in our pj’s and do absolutely fuck all without feeling guilty? What is that? Where does that guilt come from? Being an adult should mean being able to do what we want, when we want.
I want to start an adult revolution. I want all of us adults to find a day whether it is once a week or once a month or even once every 3 months where we have a guilt-free non-adulting day. I am not talking about a self-care day or a day off, I mean a day where we eat cereal for dinner, stay in our pj’s and dance in the kitchen to your favourite songs. A day dedicated to doing things that make us happy and not what is practical and using time wisely.
Today I played video games, ate junk food and didn’t do one small chore because I needed an adulting free day. Being an adult comes with stress and responsibilities, and it can feel like we are constantly thinking about things that we need to do or trying to do the things we need to do. We are constantly assessing our ability to be an adult by those things, so don’t we deserve a non-adulting day!
So think about it and join the revolution and have yourself an adulting free day!

Take care,
Vixxy Rose
xxx

Therapy 5 – shoulda woulda coulda!

Hey everyone,

Today was therapy day aka, crying into some cake day. I got emotional from the get-go, as soon as she asked me if I was ok because I am not ok. I am not ok with the situation with my eyes, I am not ok with the direction my life is in, and I am not ok with me. That is a lot of not ok in one person. I feel like I am stuck in a situation I don’t want to be in, and I have no control over the situation, I have just got to get on with it and look on the bright side and think positive.
Who else gets annoyed when you get told to think positive and look on the bright side? Raise your hand if you have rolled your eyes so much when you have been told these things, eye-rolling has become your main form of cardio. Like, I get it most people are just trying to be nice, but sometimes I want to stamp on their rose-tinted glasses. My therapist advised me today, you can’t always see the bright side, and it is ok to feel like shit if that is how you are feeling. Maybe I need to get a t-shirt that says, ” Yes I am grumpy and yes that is ok”.
I am constantly beating myself up for not being perky, not doing enough and not handling things better. My therapist pointed out that I am saying I should do this and I shout being doing that, and asked me why all the rules. If your body is telling you it needs a break, why ignore it? If your mind is telling you it needs comfort, why ignore it? Why ignore it for some made-up rules that say you need to do something with your time constantly. Why? Because I fear the loss of control and it scares me that I am now so physically and mentally vulnerable.

Today I have learned that I need to give myself a break and to just live in the moment, I am only human and I can’t control everything. Life gives you shit simple as that, good and bad shit, and we all have these moments where we question why. There isn’t always an answer and a perfect way to get through the why times. If you want to look on the bright side there is nothing wrong with that if you want to have a good cry and feel sorry for yourself for a while there is nothing wrong with that either. Just need to remember life is hard but so are we.

Take care,
Vixxy Rose
xxx

Bleary eyes.

Eye got problems!

I started noticing a problem with my right eye about June last year, I thought it might have been down to hay fever, or I might have scratched it in my sleep. I decided to go to A&E because as I was getting headaches and blurred vision. They said it was a migraine and gave me a muscle relaxer and sent me on my merry way. I knew it wasn’t a migraine, and so, I booked an eye test. Straight away the optician told me there was inflammation in my eye, and I needed to get to the eye hospital ASAP. So at the eye hospital, I learned the inflammation is called uveitis and it was a serious condition as it could cause blindness. I was given steroid drops to take for 3 months. 

So fast-forward 3 months. I finished my drops and my eye didn’t get any better. I was then referred to an eye doctor at the hospital. The doctor informed me both my eyes were now inflamed so more drops! I was going backwards and forwards every month and wasn’t getting any better. So the doctor decided to inject my eyes with steroids, yes it is as bad as it sounds, that set off a chain of events. 

My eyes got 99 problems, and clear vision is one!

After the steroid injections, my eye pressure shot up to double of what it should be. My doctor then referred me to a specialist in uveitis. I had to wait a couple of months but was worth it. The specialist ran a lot of tests and diagnosed me with Sarcoidosis of the eyes and Pan-uveitis. I was put on medication for the eye pressure and more steroids for the inflammation. Sarcoidosis is a disease involving abnormal collections of inflammatory cells and Panuveitis is inflammation of all layers of the uvea of the eye. Two rare conditions in one person, yay me! I had to choose between steroid treatment which has side effects or immunosuppressant which means I can’t get pregnant for 2 years, I chose steroids. 

Keeping my eyes on the future.

At the moment I have had to go off sick from work as my vision has worsened and I am on a lot of drops for the pressure and inflammation. I have now found out I have got a cataract in both of my eyes and my eye pressure is one step away from glaucoma. I am now looking at surgery for both eyes to replace my eye lens and to remove the drainage tubes from the eyes, which will lower eye pressure. 

This is a scary and stressing time for me. My mental health has been affected, as it has been hard to keep my chin up most days. I do have hope though that this long ass journey I am on with my eyes, will have a happy ending, as I won’t stop fighting for me, my sight and my mind. 

Also, don’t forget to get your eyes checked regularly, as the eye test I had probably saved my vision. 

Take care, 

Vixxy Rose 

xxx

We all freak out from time to time.

Hey everyone!

Sometimes you don’t need to pull up your big girl pants and get on with shit. Sometimes you need to put on your sweats, eat a good amount of chocolate and have a good cry. Let’s be honest, who gets excited or happy about dealing with shit that comes our way. I haven’t come across anyone who looks at their bank account the day after payday and gone ” yay bills have come out, I feel responsible.” Or have said this; ” I can’t wait to spend my evening worrying about if I have fucked up my life.” We all have stress and problems that feel bigger than what we can handle if we didn’t then the there would be a dip in sales for alcohol, chocolate and self-help books.
I freak out all the fucking time about things in my life and just because we are adults doesn’t mean we can handle everything that life throws at us. Like the other day, I managed to worry over not getting enough mail through the post. What if something is wrong? Is it normal not to get mail every day? What if my mail is lost? What if I am a ghost and don’t know I am dead yet, hence why no mail?
We are told through the news outlets that we need to eat 5 a day, burnt toast gives you cancer, buy watches that count our steps, cut down on meat we are killing the earth and so on and so on. The important things we need to be told are either not told to us or get lost in a frenzy of do’s and don’ts. `No wonder it feels like life is too much and we can’t do anything right because we are constantly told to improve ourselves.
We can’t be like the generation before us and get on with things all the time, you know the old stiff upper lip method. There is a lot of shit out there that is scary and fucked up and we don’t always know if we are doing things right because we are told we are not.
So fuck it, we don’t need to have all of our shit together we don’t always know what to do because being an adult doesn’t give you all that information as soon as you turn of age. Vulnerability seems to fade the older you get and a stigma gets attached to it. There is nothing wrong with having a good cry, to confessing you don’t know what to do because if we look at life simply, we are all fucking winging it. As there is only one thing guaranteed in life. It’s not the ad that tells you if you drink this tea you will look like the Instagrammer advertising it but that we are all going to die one day.
So it is ok to freak out and not have all the answers and googling can only get you so far, just don’t google your cold symptoms we all know where that leads! Just take it easy on yourself and remember you are not the only one.

Take care,
Vixxy Rose
xxx

Plan, what fucking plan?

Hey everyone!

I am tired, hungry, anxious and did I mention tired. Why didn’t anyone tell us that this is what adulthood is all about? Making sure you’ve got a constant supply of paracetamol in your cupboard, never feeling like you are getting enough sleep and getting anxiety over every fucking thing.
I remember looking up to people who were my age now when I was younger and thinking I can’t wait to have that amount of freedom. No one prepares you for that freedom though? We go to school we learn about fractions and King Henry’s wives but shouldn’t we be learning about the cost of living and the importance of taking care of your mental health.
I ran headfirst into adulthood and as soon as I could buy my first legal drink in a pub I thought, I got this shit. Oh, how wrong I was. Everyone around me keeps talking about a plan, was I supposed to have a plan? I’m thirty now, is it too late for a plan? Am I suppose to be on the right career path by now, am I suppose to feel responsible by now and am I supposed to be fucking up less by now? Is that the plan?

If a plan was so important then why the fuck are we told to get into debt to further our education at the start of adulthood? Why are we not taught more about politics so we understand who to vote for? Why are we not told that things don’t always go to fucking plan?
I have spent a lot of my adulthood not feeling like an adult because I’m not like the adults I looked up to or even like some of the adults that are around me. I am not married and I don’t have kids yet, and I also still have no fucking clue what I am doing. You know what though, that’s ok. It is ok to eat cereal for dinner, it’s ok to enjoy cartoons still, to live life your way and it is ok to be an adult who doesn’t have a plan.

Take care,

Vixxy Rose
xxx

Therapy 4 – How the fuck do you self-sooth?

Hey everyone.

So therapy today was another barrel of laughs, I think today it has finally dawned on me on how far down the hole of depression I have got myself. Even though there have been some great steps forward, I am struggling with my inner critic. She is a right fucking bitch but I always take what she says as truth, as why not? She is me. I am learning more and more that I am at war with myself and this battle has been tearing chunks out of me for years. I think I am starting to see that the attention I crave so much needs to come from me, the love I crave so much needs to come from me and the acceptance of my mind and body needs to come from me. My inner critic is telling me I am not strong enough, but I have gotten this far haven’t I.

I need to start showing myself some kindness. I am good at keeping my mind busy and using creativity as a self-care tool, it is not enough though. I need to learn to self-sooth and give myself a fucking break when things get tough. I need to take care of my emotional needs and physical needs instead of just trying to put on a brave face.

Now, how the fuck do you self-sooth?
I wish I knew! There is no switch to turn off my inner critic, but I can start by turning the volume down by listening to what my body needs. Whether I need a good cry, a tea break of just sitting and collecting my thoughts or maybe just letting myself heal emotionally or physically at my own pace and not try to rush it.
I feel like I am new to this be kind to yourself stuff and it feels so alien to me, but like everything else, it is just going to take time. I am a work in progress and I made a promise to myself that I am going to be ok and I will be.

Take care,

Vixxy Rose
xxx