Thank you for the many responses I received from my last post, they are all appreciated and help to make me feel a little bit more sane about the situation I'm in. So please keep them coming!
Following on from my post on depression and anxiety I want to talk about social media and what a nightmare it can be...
Of course there are benefits to social media such as: promotion of yourself as a brand and/or blog, keeping in touch with relatives/friends, posting your photography/videos, and having your opinion heard daily.
However, the down side to media far outweighs the positives for someone like me... when I look at my Facebook feed or my Instagram I am bombarded with people in social situations having 'The time of their lives' whilst I'm the one sat in bed, looking like a mess scrolling through longing to be with people or in another location. Social media can give you unrealistic expectations of life, make you want things you don't need or will never be able to achieve for certain reasons (mainly financial) and this in turn makes you feel like a pile of crap. For example, my feed is filled with health food and fitness gurus and at the moment I am not in the shape I want to be, so looking at other people in the best shape of their lives doesn't inspire me, it just makes me feel like crap, I wholeheartedly understand that they are doing it to inspire people and motivate them but until my mind switches to the setting of 'I don't give a crap what people think' I will always just feel disheartened.
But mixing anxiety with caring too much is a dangerous combination, I have discovered I care too much, what people think, what people want, what I can do to help them, and yes this may seem like a nice gesture but that means instead of thinking about my needs and wants I put others before me.
And the important thing to remember about anything in life is you have to LIVE it, YOU have to look after yourself because you are the person responsible for your life and how it turns out!
I write this post thinking today will be the day I don't care, and it will last for a while and then something will happen to make me feel guilty again, like not informing someone of my whereabouts or leaving a mess (when others in my house leave a far greater mess..) or the fact I need to do something for somebody, and it brings out my anxiety tenfold. Stress is the number one factor that causes me to become depressed/overeat/overthink and the environment I am currently in is provoking that emotion to come out all the time. So I have decided to de-activate Facebook and have a break from it, I can focus more on the important things like my university work, moving out, health and fitness and being happy!
Finally, I want to end on a high note, because discussing all the negative things can weigh you down and get you back into the state you were once in, and so I am trying my best to have a positive outlook on life! Things may seem impossible at the moment but everything changes, day to day, hour to hour, you have the opportunity to change your life and live how you want to live!
My goals are still the same and I am slowly moving towards them- this week I have started my running again, prepared my meals, gone to university, received some good marks back from my work and I have made plans to socialise, OH and next weekend I am going to see Slipknot & Korn together...wow.
At the end of every week why don't you make a list of things that have gone right or you've achieved so you can look back and say "actually this week wasn't all bad", I think I'm going to start doing this, asking less questions and finding out things by actually doing them!
Here is to another amazing week!
I hope your week had some highlights :)
'Life is a roller-coaster' - I don't like Ronan Keating, but this makes sense ;)
'Life is a roller-coaster' - I don't like Ronan Keating, but this makes sense ;)
NAMASTE!
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