Running

            So today is the ‘Race for Life’. The ‘Race for Life’, as I’m sure you’re aware, is a five kilometre run to raise money for Cancer Research UK. It started as a run just for women, to raise awareness for breast cancer. The run is still only open to women but doesn’t just focus on breast cancer; it raises money and awareness for research into all kinds of cancer.

I signed up twelve weeks ago and those twelve weeks have flown by; I don’t know what happened to them. I decided to sign up for several reasons. I suppose firstly for my Grandad (my mum’s dad) and my Grandma (my dad’s mum) both of whom died of cancer, and so I am running in memory of them. Secondly, Cancer Research UK is an amazing charity that does so much good for people suffering from cancer and their families. Their work literally saves lives, as research and medical advances mean that more people survive cancer now than ever before. I praise God for those involved in the hard work that goes into saving the lives of so many; they are such an amazing blessing, so I want to raise as much money as I can for the cause.

My other reasons are personal. Due to my mental health problems I have gained a lot of weight in the last few years and have done little exercise. As well as, and partly because of, this I have very little confidence and a very low self-esteem. I am trying to lose weight in order to be healthy but, due to my history of eating disorders, this is proving to be very difficult for me, emotionally and physically. I took up running to try and get some exercise and to lose some weight. I also hoped that it would help with my confidence and self-esteem issues, which it has slightly – one step at a time (pun unintended). It has also been shown that exercise can improve mood and help with mental health conditions such as depression. I do believe that it has helped a little in this respect and has also helped a little with my anxiety problems as it has made me go out and do something where people can see me – which is a huge deal for me.

Obviously the real test will be tonight at the actual event where there will be hundreds of people around me. I am feeling extremely anxious about this but I really don’t want to waste all of my hard work and let down all of the people who have sponsored me. I am really praying that it all goes well and that I don’t bottle it, and I would be extremely grateful for the prayers of anyone who may be reading this. If you know me well, you will understand what a big thing this run is for me. I have been rather directionless for the last year and so having something to aim for and actually working hard for it and seeing it through is a big step forward in my recovery. It has given me motivation to get up and do something productive, and I am really hoping that things will all start to go up from here.

Before I finish this post, I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who has given me their support, their prayers and those who have sponsored me. I have raised £165 so far and it’s still not too late to donate, so I am hoping to raise even more. For more information about the ‘Race for Life’ visit: www.raceforlife.org. And if you would like to sponsor me please go to: www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/kirstennott or contact me and let me know how much you would like to give. Thank you for taking the time to read this and for all of your support in this venture.

God bless

KV 

Stationary or Stationery

So as I fleetingly mentioned in my post ‘Fresh Start’ it has taken over nine months to get where I am today with regards to treatment for my depression and anxiety. Where I am now, is starting a process of assessment before undertaking a year of intensive therapy which will involve three and a half days a week of different group therapies. Where I was nine months ago, was waiting for a referral to the York Primary Mental Health Team. The last nine months have involved numerous journeys to different places for assessments and odd counselling appointments and a great deal of frustration. For all of that time I felt like I was just waiting around for other people to make decisions about my life. I felt like my entire life was on pause; like I was just at a complete standstill. Motionless.

            As I’m still in the ‘assessment phase’ for this therapeutic community things aren’t exactly speeding along, but compared to the snail’s pace of the last year it feels very sudden and very fast. I had been led to believe that there would be up to an eight month wait to even begin the ‘assessment phase’ and so when I discovered, just a couple of weeks ago, that I would be starting it so soon I began to wonder if I was ready. I’ve prayed a lot about this in the last few weeks and from the fact that I have actually started the assessment now, you can probably guess the outcome of those prayers. I know that God has been preparing me for this and that He has blessed me by bringing me to this place. I know that by trusting in Him, even when faced with the prospect of another eight months of waiting, I have grown in strength through Him. I am still anxious about things; it would be weird if I wasn’t. But I want this and I am not going to throw away such an amazing chance at recovery.

            Plans for University and leaving home to live independently may still be on stand-by for the next year or so but that doesn’t mean that my life has completely ground to a halt. In fact I have been given a chance to really live life, away from the ties that bind most people my age, like University or work. I continue to pray for the patience to follow the path God has laid down for me and to live through another year of waiting to get back to ‘normalcy’. I may have to delay some things but life continues and should be eagerly anticipating the things to come.

            As well as the group therapy, I am undertaking a kind of therapy of my own. I have always found writing to be rather cathartic. I love the ways in which I can express myself through words. And recently I have found myself rather excited about an idea I have for a novel. I won’t share my idea here, and have many reasons for not doing so. One of which is that it is still very much in the planning stage. I have the bare bones of the novel but they aren’t even connected in the right places and nowhere near being covered in flesh. This is the point at which planning comes in. The planning is vital – something I discovered when attempting to do National Novel Writing Month last year. I am now stupidly and unbelievably excited just about planning this novel. And it seems that my excitement is running away from me somewhat.

            This over-flowing excitement has somehow evolved into an excited desire to purchase lots of stationery. This obscure evolution has come about through my realisation that the planning for my novel is lacking any semblance of organisation or even sense. What began as excitement for planning my novel, soon turned into an intense excitement over the planning and organising of said planning – you can see how it got away from me slightly. Obviously this level of organisation requires much stationery; hence the monumental leap from novel planning to stationery.

            Now it has occurred to me that this post has also gotten away from me somewhat. My initial aim had been to talk about how my life had gone from stationary to stationery, in the sense that I am no longer feeling at a standstill but am rather attempting to do things with my life. It would appear that blog posts, much like novels, require planning. I did mention that this blog was going to be real; with thoughts streaming from my brain to my fingertips and onto the screen in front of me. Well this is what I think: I am not stationary.

If you managed to make any sense of this post, congratulations.

God bless

KV

Writing

So I haven't written any poetry in a while but there a few that I decided I wanted to post in a blog, so I've made another blog just for my writing. It's http://of-ravens-and-writingdesks.blogspot.co.uk/.

God bless
KV

Fresh Start

I haven’t posted in a while, I rather lost interest in keeping things up to date, but now I want to try harder and really make a go of this blog. When I started, I wanted to write amazingly well written, thought provoking posts but I have realised recently that I would rather just write, to get the words out of my head and down on paper, than get what I’m writing to sound perfect. There is always plenty of time for editing later if I so wish but right now is the time to be honest and real, and what’s more real than the random stream of words that just come tumbling out of my brain through my fingertips? And so, I am starting again. I am loathe to delete my earlier posts so I will just leave them where they are, gathering proverbial dust in the archives of cyberspace. Therefore I am treating this post as if it were my first and making a fresh start.

            A few things have happened in the nine months since my last post. With regards to getting treatment for my mental health problems, the progress was rather slow but suddenly things have started picking up speed. I spent a long time being referred from place to place and having numerous assessments with numerous people before being offered a course of treatment. I have also changed my medication twice in that time. The new medication seems to be working finally as my mood is definitely starting to lift, but I am still struggling with anxiety issues. The course of treatment I have been offered is a ‘therapeutic community’, which basically means group therapy. I didn’t like the idea when it was first suggested but over time and through much prayer I have decided to give it a go. I have never done group therapy before as the thought has always terrified me, but right now I am willing to try almost anything if it might help. When the programme starts properly it will consist of three and a half days involving lots of therapy and activities. It’s supposed to help with a lot of mental health problems and also with the effects that such problems have on people’s lives.

            The programme starts with one hour a week of assessment for four weeks before moving on to become a full member of the therapeutic community. This afternoon I had the first of these assessment sessions. Before I went I was really anxious and almost had a panic attack. My hands were shaking and I felt like crying and running away (an unfortunate habit of mine). I took some beta-blockers to help with the anxiety and made myself get over my fears and go. Everyone was lovely and I don’t know what I expected, but I think it went well. I was the only new person there and so a lot of the time everyone was focussed on me which I admit made me rather uncomfortable as I don’t like being the centre of attention. Despite that I felt welcomed by everyone in the group and did say that I would return next week. I really want to give this a shot as I am sick of this illness that has plagued me for over ten years of my life and I really believe that it is what God wants for me. It is what I want for myself. And though the road may be scary, the destination is somewhere I really want to get to so I am determined to stick with it (unlike any other therapy I’ve had over the years).

            As I mentioned earlier, the medication I am now on for my depression has helped in lifting my mood but another thing that I think has aided that part of my recovery is the fact that I have taken up running. I signed up to do the race for life for Cancer Research UK and have been trying to go for runs regularly. I was extremely unfit and over-weight when I started (and still am) but I am doing better than I did at first and though I don’t think I’ll be able to run the whole 5km, I have lost some weight and feel better for the exercise. Also, if I manage to complete the race I think that it will help build my confidence, having achieved a goal.

            Other things I have been up to recently are not as interesting to others as the things I have just mentioned. As always, I have been reading a lot. I am supposed to be writing book reviews for a friend’s blog but so far I’ve only actually written one. I need to get on track with that. Then there is my creative writing blog which at the moment only contains poems I wrote ages ago as I haven’t written any recently. I am however writing a new novel at the moment. I’ve only just started writing it but I am really excited about it, I think it’s going to be fun to write. I’m also doing a creative writing course at the moment. It’s the second one I’ve done recently and I’m rather enjoying it. I found the first one I did really enjoyable too and there’s going to be a book published of the work we did and a showcase for it in a couple of weeks. I’m not very confident in my writing ability but I do think that the showcase thing will help to build my confidence a bit.

            I don’t think I have much else to write about. Life here plods on, though it does seem to be beginning to gain some speed at last. I am finally looking forward to the future more and am intent on returning to university. I’m trying to take things one step at a time and working through problems instead of just running away from them. I really do want to recover and by God’s Grace I finally believe that it can happen. It has taken a considerable amount of time to come even this far but to me it feels like a massive step and it is all going in the right direction. For now I am going to leave things here but I do intend to keep this updated about things going on in my life and how I feel about them.

God bless

KV

Of hopes and dreams...

‘Pessimist’ you call me. I too have hopes and dreams. Hopes of a future. Hopes for life; love; marriage; children; happiness. For prospects; for charity; for a good relationship with God.

And of dreams: I dream of a day when I might learn to like myself, maybe even love myself. Of a day when I can look at myself in a mirror and not feel that seething hatred for myself. I dream of looking down and seeing my arms - without scars from cuts or cigarette burns. I dream that no daughter of mine ever suffers as I have - that they never feel the self-loathing that poisons one’s soul; that they never harm themselves by cutting their flesh or starving their bodies. I dream that one day, one person might not reach for that razor blade, because of my story. I dream that my story might lead one woman to seek escape from an abusive relationship.

‘Pessismist’ you call me. I too have hopes and dreams. The only difference is… I know that they’re not likely to come true.

'Social' Occasionally

The awkwardness of social situations never fails to surpass me unnoticed, when people you barely know, but have been flung together with at the wish, and likely great amusement, of the host, pry into the details of your life on the back of their extreme drunkenness. A question which, for many may seem par for the course of life in general, can reduce a few to mumbled explanations of their distinct lack of a life. One seems almost expected to respond with rank and number when asked this question, and a mono-syllabic answer is rarely allowed to go without being followed by further interrogation into the details of what such an occupation might involve, when surely anyone with half a brain cell can work out what it is that a ‘teacher’ does. (For those of you lacking that half-brain-cell; a teacher, teaches.) Of course such questions are easily fielded by those who actually have a job, or some purpose in life, but for those of us whose so-called ‘occupations’ are undefinable, the seemingly endless mass of questions are quite frankly daunting, especially considering they are not invited. I don’t want to have to mumble some half-arsed attempt at an answer to the question of ‘what are you doing with your life at the moment?’, especially when the answer is quite obviously ‘wasting it’. Being at the age I am (that’s 20, nearly 21) most people expect me to answer with ‘oh, I’m a student’, and believe me I was quite happy to do so, when I actually was a student; but now I have officially joined the ranks of the mumblers amongst us, my occupation, well it’s difficult to say, because I don’t have one. And then having to mumble yet further explanation as to why I lack an occupation just makes me wish the ground would swallow me whole. If you think mumbling is awkward, try telling the reems of guests that you’re mentally ill. People are apparently not prejudiced anymore but when they’re enjoying copious amounts of alcohol at another person’s expense they want to think about nothing more serious than the weather, the traffic driving over or who is the designated non-drunk. And people wonder why I rarely go in for ‘social’ occasions.
KV

Word Imperfect

I suppose I ought to begin this with some form of introduction, however, my usual aptitude with words seems to be failing me of late, and so this introduction is likely to be extremely poor.
I have recently returned home from university due to severe mental illness, currently classified as depression and anxiety, however, potentially a whole different diagnosis is required. I am hopefully soon to discover what it is that plagues me daily, and this blog is going to be my way of expressing my thoughts and feelings about what I am going to go through this year whilst I attempt to get better; to become happy. I don’t know how this is going to go. To be honest, I am scared; terrified, of what is going to happen this year, and that’s why I want to write it all down here. Just to have somewhere to vent, to write things down, because I like writing things down. Even if it’s not very eloquently. At the moment I’m just waiting for a referral to the primary mental health team. I’ve been waiting over two weeks now and I’m getting rather anxious that I haven’t heard anything yet. Hopefully I’ll hear something soon. Then maybe things will start to happen. Because I’m getting sick of waiting, of not knowing.
One thing, however, that will always keep me strong is Jesus; He is my Lord and Saviour and He loves me (even if I sometimes forget that fact).
Anyway. I guess that’ll do for an initial introduction. I’m tired now. I’m tired a lot. Maybe I’ll write something else soon.
KV