What Sophie Said

I didn’t intend to take such a long break from posting here, or any break at all, really. I’ve been writing but not publishing. Writing as a way to try and process thoughts I don’t understand myself yet. There’s been a lot going on over the last few months. I’ve written on here about my journey with anxiety over a number of years, and about the fact that in June this year I completely crashed with my anxiety and depression. There’s been a lot of rebuilding going on. A lot of pulling thoughts apart to their very roots and learning how to change them so they’re no longer damaging. Finally, I acknowledged that I needed to face everything properly, rather than continuing to wear a mask and pretending I was ok. It’s been going well. I found a counsellor who understands me. He knows what I’m describing before I finish describing it. He doesn’t let me get away with taking the easy route, and he challenges beliefs I’ve been leaning on for years. About a month ago, I realised t...

Yesterday marked exactly a year since I moved to London. I didn’t think it would ever be a move I would make, but it has led to one of the busiest years of my life and probably the one in which I have changed and learned the most. The move was about breaking out of my comfort zone, and throwing off the comfort blankets I’d surrounded myself with. Without challenging myself, I was never going to overcome a lot of the fears I had built up and learned to live with. The timings suddenly clicked. I was really unhappy in my job, living alone with the flexibility to move, and there was nothing tying me to stay in the same place. When the job hunt began, I was offered a role at a company I’ve admired for years, which sealed the deal and to London I came. It’s been a year of extreme highs and some very real lows, and one year on I can say it’s been one of the biggest learning experiences I’ve had. I’m in a new city, facing ‘fears’ like the tube, living with stranger...

I could write a lot here, but a lot of the thoughts in my head don't really have much structure yet. So really all I'm going to say is it's ok to struggle. I've spoken on here about my anxiety a number of times, and over the past few years I've been learning to deal with it and control it. But sometimes you can't control everything. Sometimes, your thoughts can take themselves a little too far, and the struggle feels a bit too much. I've spent two weeks doing nothing but attending appointments, reading, writing, and trying to look after myself a bit. I had become so good at putting on that mask of pretending everything was fine that I had neglected the fact there were still issues there I really needed to work through and couldn't keep ignoring. About two weeks ago, the anxiety reared its head with full force, and it was a blow to hear that has now been joined by depression. A blow, but also an explanation, because those I'm close ...

It seems an appropriate day to share a story about my dad. Soon, I'll fill you in a bit on why there's been two weeks of silence... but right now it's a space for a story about my dad. Or rather, a story about my dad and me. Of both of us, of a period of 15 months where we were both father and daughter, and boss and employee. When I first graduated, I worked for my dad for just under a year and a half, and in that period we learned a lot about each other and about ourselves. Not only were there new boundaries to navigate, and the need to establish that line between work time and family time, but I was in a period where I was struggling. Towards the end of university was when my anxiety first decided to properly rear its head, and the Sophie that was working with dad then was not the Sophie of now or the Sophie of six months before. I was cautious. I was apologetic, I had forgotten what my talents were, where my strengths lay and how strong I could be. We wer...

Last week, I spoke to Felicity at BBC Newsbeat on the topic of mental health and social media. Her post (which is fantastic and can be read HERE ) got me thinking on the topic and my story a little more. The article summarised my own experience: when I first started to see the symptoms of my anxiety when I was at university, I had no idea what it was. It was through reading blogs and reading what people were saying on social media what I learned more about it, got the courage to see my GP, and learned it was ok to talk to my friends and family about it. I learned it was ok to talk, and ok to need some help. Since speaking to Felicity, this idea has been stuck in my head so I thought I’d write a bit of a follow-up on exactly how social media helped me. As I said, it was at university that my anxiety began to take on a big role in my life, and began to have a big effect. It was also during university that I completely fell for the world of blogging and social media. I was qu...

Today is Time to Talk Day. I've written and deleted this post so many times over the past month. There are things I want to say, and things I'm not ready to. So today I'm just going to talk about the need to talk. When you suffer with any kind of mental health problem, one side effect can be that you become secretive. When my anxiety first began, I was embarrassed and didn't know what was going on. Once it had been diagnosed, I remained embarrassed and confused. Nobody had explained to me how I would feel day to day. That some days are bad, and some days are brilliant. That sometimes you can cry for hours because you just need to get out that frustration that's an invasive ball of emotion in your stomach. That sometimes you'll feel nauseous for days on end, and nothing will shake it. That logic doesn't come into it and your thoughts are in a constant battle. That talking helps. Sometimes, I want to be quiet and alone. But sometimes,...

Storytime today! Because one year ago today was potentially one of the most nerve-wracking days of my life. At the beginning of January, I had started a new job based just south of Manchester. I knew I would be working with both my office and colleagues in the London office, but I don’t think it had quite registered that that would involve trips to London. You see, at that point, the only trains I had managed post-anxiety were 5 minute local-stopping trains. I had never travelled to London alone. I’d only been there a handful of times in my life. I’d never stayed alone in a hotel, apart from trips with family where I was maybe in a room next door to my parents. I was doing pretty well in terms of my anxiety, but those were still big hurdles. Anyway, when it was dropped into conversation that I’d be making my first trip to the London office in a couple of weeks, I replied just as casually that yes, of course that was fine. It would have to be! I knew I would find a ...

I hate the tube. I mean, it’s convenient, it’s efficient (when it’s running on schedule) and it’s really easy to navigate. But sitting underground in a metal tube whizzing through black tunnels just doesn’t sit right with me. Despite the fact my anxiety is at a much more manageable than it used to be (when train and car journeys were close to impossible), the tube conjures up many of those old feelings and I regularly have to employ my various ‘stop panicking’ tactics. Stopping in tunnels in a fun one. Very often, whether it’s because a passenger alarm has been sounded on another train, or one has technical difficulties, or a train has not moved away from the platform in front quickly enough, the tube stops in the middle of a tunnel. Immediately my heart starts racing. I’m trapped. I have no signal so no one knows where I am. Why have we stopped? How long will I sit here? Very often it’s for less than a minute, but every second stretches on and on. It’s especially fu...

Hello, December. You’ve raced towards us, this year. I always look forward to December. I’m a summer girl through and through, but December holds a special place. It’s so Christmassy. Bright. Festive. Busy. Full of family. Full of friends. Full of excitement. I get an overwhelming mixture of emotions in December. I had a couple of strange ones. In one, I was home after my first term of university, where I wasn’t happy. That December/ January, my sister was really poorly. I didn’t like that year. In another, I felt nauseous. A lot. I was convinced I had some kind of bug, but couldn’t figure it out. Chewing gum (the minty taste) kept me going through social outings. That was third year of uni. A couple of months later, it became clear that had been the first signs of my anxiety taking hold. In another December, I was struggling, probably at one of the worst parts of my panicking. I had to leave the room during a family gathering. I ate next to nothing...

Recently, it was the anniversary of a particular event, or series of events, that happened at a time when I was probably struggling the very most with my anxiety. What the event was doesn’t matter, nor do the specific ins and outs of what happened, but what I wanted to try and put into words was how these dates felt, this year. Firstly, I felt sad. I felt sad that what should have been a really happy occasion and memory is tainted by the way my anxiety made me feel. It completely took over the event, leaving me crying in my room, and escaping for long walks with my dad. Secondly, the emotions and feelings came flooding back. I sat in my room remembering the events. The transportation there and back made me feel trapped like I would never be able to get out. And every minute felt like hours. I was convinced everyone was watching me, noticing what a nervous wreck I was, noticing me trying to slow down my breathing and stop my whole body tensing and shaking. I was c...

Opposite my flat, there is a park. I’ve done a lot of sitting in it, a lot of thinking. In the six months I’ve lived here a lot has changed, lots of decisions have been made, and lots of thoughts have been thought. It’s only small, a combination of grass and trees and flowerbeds, but it’s the first time I’ve had a regular outdoor space that lets me clear my head. The luxury of having it outside my flat is one I’ve made sure I enjoy. One thing I’ve learnt over the past couple of years is how important it is to lend proper time to thinking, to your thoughts. When you go through a period where your thoughts become ‘out of control’, or ‘disordered’, or ‘unhealthy’, you have to reassess the way you deal with those thoughts. My head would be spinning with a thousand things at once, all screaming at me that they were urgent, and none of which I could switch off. In a previous job, I took the decision to walk the 3.5 miles each way, every day, to wo...