What Sophie Said

Now I've moved away from London, it has once more become a place for visits and day trips. I'm no longer doing a daily Central Line commute into Oxford Circus, and I no longer pop to Westfield Stratford mutiple times per week. Last month, my dad and I hopped on the train for my first visit back to the city since moving. I had mixed feelings of excitement and nerves - my reasons for leaving were tangled up with anxiety, so of course when I did leave, I was at the height of that. Fast forward a little and I'm in a different place, and the main nerves were attached to the train journey - another thing to add to the list of things I panic about (but am working through). I had booked us tickets to Rent the musical at the St James Theatre for my dad's birthday months earlier, and the day finally rolled round. My nerves in the week leading up to the train ride were high, but once we were on it and moving, deep breaths and podcasts kept me sane. It still amazes...

Today is #TimetoTalk day. Talking about mental health is so, so important to me and has been one of the most important parts, I believe, in my journey. I wanted to take today as an opportunity to share a potted history of what's been going on, where I'm at and why talking means everything. In my final year of university, I knew I wasn't ok. Realistically, it had been going on longer than that, but at that point, I started to struggle to a point it was affecting my life. Everything scared me. Everything was too much. That was a few years ago. The last few years have been a rollercoaster, to say the least. I've been through really rocky patches, and really positive patches, but throughout that the shadow of anxiety has remained. For most of this time, I've been able to function, to work, to see friends. When people would hear I had anxiety they'd say 'You? But you've always been so confident!' I was just really, really good at pre...

What a start to the year it's been.  My January has been intense. It was full of challenges, and accomplishments, and deep conversations, and appointments, and trying new things. 2017 is my year to work on healing properly, not just pushing on through the things I've been struggling with. It's time to face these issues head on, and really get to the bottom of my anxiety and work on making lasting improvements. January was a good start. February will be better. I'm now regularly going to pilates and doing yoga and mediation. I'm cooking more, eating three meals a day and trying to work up to reintroducing some of the foods I had ruthlessly been cutting out. I'm facing up to some things that have really been troubling me for a long, long time and coming up with ways to tackle them. In the past month, I've tested myself and been reminding myself I can do more than I think. I've had so much support from the people a...