It’s #TimeToTalk about my health and death anxiety

*Long read*

I have added to this blog several times over the last year and a half, but haven’t finished it. Either something on social media prompts me, or a conversation with someone about it.

Today is #TimetoTalk – a campaign to get people talking about mental health and this is a story about me and me mental health, so it seems pretty fitting to finally publish it today.

I feel that I should put a disclaimer to say that this might be triggering to some people, or you may just find it comforting that someone else has experienced something similar to you.

This blog you’re about to read is a final mash together of two drafts I put together – the first in July 2017 in the midst of my anxiety – which if I had published that as it was would read very differently than it does now. When I worked on a second draft, in May last year during Mental Health Awareness Week, when I was very much planning to publish it, I almost forgot how bad it had got. I’m in a much better place now, thanks to therapy – which I’ll go into later.

Now before I dive in to telling my story, I must point out that this is only my experience. Everyone experiences varying levels of mental health issues. Mine is about my struggle with anxiety, but even under that broad umbrella there are so many different variations. Mine is particularly related to health and death, which isn’t uncommon, but again is experienced in varying ways by different people. That was basically a really long way of saying everyone has a unique experience with their mental health.

I’m not sharing my story for sympathy, nor to care for trolls who might tout how it’s nothing compared to what other people experience. It’s just me, sharing my experience to hopefully help people who have or are experiencing it themselves, and to help those who are lucky enough not to have suffered with poor mental health to try and understand it.

A basket, 6500 miles and a whole load of coincidences

Earlier this year, I spent a wonderful 10 weeks in the county of Taita Taveta, Kenya volunteering with Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) through International Citizens Service (ICS) – a UK government funded programme allowing 18-25 year olds the opportunity to volunteer abroad in one of twenty developing countries on a three month placement.

Several reasons had led me to the ICS programme: my contract at my job was coming to an end and applications for another had fallen on deaf ears; I wanted to gain the skills I needed for a job in campaigning; and I was hankering to travel but didn’t have the money to do so.

How #30DaysWild saved June

June – what a month. A snap general election which produced unexpected results (and I’m still not sure what’s going on tbh), a tragic incident at Grenfell tower and devestating terror attacks in London.

On a personal level, it started with the prospect and hope of having a job by the end of the month, something I started to come pretty confident about around halfway through. Five job interviews later however, and I sit here at the start of July still unemployed.

So thank god for 30 Days Wild as I fear I would be sitting at the bottom of a deep, dark pit by this point. It forced me to make at least a little bit of effort every day, and on other days make plans with friends and do something on a bit of a bigger scale. It’s for that reason I’m quite sad it’s over, but there’s nothing to stop me continuing to keep that daily connection with nature, after all that’s what this challenge encourages.

Reconnecting with nature – #30DaysWild

I can hardly believe that a year has passed since I first took part in 30 Days Wild!

Last year I wrote a post about what I was planning to do that June, and although I successfully took part in the challenge, I didn’t quite manage everything I wanted to do. So this year, I want to do some of those things I didn’t accomplish, as well as some new ideas I’ve thought up.

For last year’s 30 Days Wild I was in the midst of my discovery of just how great Britain’s nature and wildlife could be and was definitely taking advantage of it – hiking, visiting some of my local nature reserves for the first time and really noticing those little details in nature. I was however in a very different situation than I am now. I was working full time in London, commuting from my home in Hampshire whereas I am currently unemployed, spending my days applying for jobs.

Changing my relationship with ‘stuff’

I’ve been back from a ten week stint in rural Kenya for well over a month now. One of the biggest culture shocks I experienced on my return home was just how much stuff there is. I was overwhelmed by the choice at the supermarket, and then I was overwhelmed at just how much stuff I owned. After living very basically, but happily for two and half months, I just didn’t understand why I needed all this stuff. I’d forgotten about the majority of it while I was away.

The secret life of bins

Image: Scott Cawley via Flickr CC

For the last two months, I have been working in the county of Berkshire on a project designed to encourage residents living in communal properties to recycle more effectively. This has involved engaging with residents in conversations about the barriers to recycling, and the monitoring of communal bins to check for contamination – this is where people are disposing of items in their recycling bins which cannot be recycled, which has been a big problem in this particular area.

Getting back to nature with #30DaysWild

“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” – Albert Einstein

 

Over the last six months as I’ve become more interested in Britain’s wildlife (especially birds) and the lovely natural spaces that surround us, I’ve definitely made more of an effort to get out to see it first hand. Although I work in the city, I live in the countryside, and definitely took it for granted before I started exploring it. But you don’t have to live in the countryside to get out and enjoy nature – you can create a home for wildlife wherever you live, and there’s never a nature reserve far away if you fancy a change of scenery.

The Wildlife Trusts are continuing with a great initiative that they launched last year, although this is the first year I have heard of it and will be taking part. It’s called ’30 Days Wild’, and encourages people of all ages and abilities to try and do one ‘wild’ act a day during June.

Five products to nip ‘on the go’ food and drink waste in the bud

Although grabbing a sandwich, bottle of water or coffee to go can be convenient, it ends up producing a whole load of waste. Everyone knows that planning ahead saves you money, and with just a little more effort you can cut down on how much rubbish you produce too. Here are five products that I use that can help you towards that…

A starling discovery

Feature image credit: stephendl via flickr

Photo Credit: Duncan Brown (Cradlehall) via flickr

Some time ago, I was sitting in my living room with some of my family, enjoying the usual comfort of relaxing on the sofa. In one of the pauses between conversation, I glanced out the window in a sort of daydream when something caught my eye. My attention had been diverted by a bird sitting on my next door neighbour’s brick wall that surrounded our front garden. It was a beautiful bird with a speckled coat and feathers that revealed a multitude of colours when they caught the sunlight. I called over my brother-in-law, a fellow nature lover (or so we claimed), and asked him if knew what the bird was. After some failed guessing work, we turned to the RSPB’s online bird identifier and tried to remember the features of the little creature that had now flown off. Around half an hour later, using the process of elimination, one finally seemed to match. A starling. I raved about it to my parents, “I saw a starling outside earlier!” I started to see more. I told various others, “I saw some starlings the other day, they’re lovely!” until I repeated the same sentiment to my best friend. “Starlings?” “Yeah!” “Yeah I see them all the time, they’re quite common. Haven’t you seen them before?” Maybe I truly hadn’t (at least not on its own where I could distinguish it from its flock), or maybe leading up until that very moment, I had been seeing but not really looking. And to think I’d had the audacity to call myself a nature lover.

Articles I’m reading this week: 10th September 2015

Every week I will round up the environmental stories that have warranted my attention and that I think deserve a few minutes of your time.

It’s been a fairly shocking week for environmental-related news; Rupert Murdoch has bought National Geographic, The Countryside Alliance called for Chris Packham to be sacked, and edible water bottles…