Warrior.

Be gentle with yourself, you’re doing the best you can.

I’ve had a lot of difficulty with the above statement in my life, and recently I’ve had to remind myself of it more than ever. The first few months of second year have not been easy – I’ve moved into a flat of my own and since our semester started on the 27th August we have been non-stop. Moving into a flat on my own has had both positives and negatives. I am definitely more of an introverted personality and so I really enjoy the space and time I have to myself, however, it also means that I have a lot of time alone with my thoughts… not an easy feat for somebody who is a total over-thinker!

Last year I struggled a lot with homesickness, and I had vowed that this year would be better and that I would go home less. Although I have stuck to the ‘going home less’ part of this deal I struck with myself (a win in itself!), the homesickness and anxiety has felt like a massive burden. It is most certainly better now than it was at the start of the semester, but it has been, and continues to be, a bumpy road. The constant fighting has been a source of exhaustion, and on top of a very demanding university course I have found it very difficult. Despite this though, I have found peace in a few different things, and these are the things I thought I’d share with you, because when we share our struggles it’s always good to share the triumphs that have come alongside them as a reminder that we are always moving forward, even if there are times when it really, really doesn’t feel like it.

I have been going to church almost every Sunday this semester, which has had a massively positives impact for me already this year. Last year I went home so often that I missed out on really getting stuck in with the church, and so I have made more of an effort this year and it has brought with it huge benefits. I have become closer to some really incredible people, and I am growing in my faith and relationship with God which has just been such an amazing experience. I struggle a lot with trusting in God because I talk very negatively about anxiety and emetophobia and as I’ve lived with them for so long I feel like I am destined to be fighting them forever, but I am reminding myself every day that nobody was made to have to live in fear, as perfect love drives out fear (1 John 4:18). One day, I will stand up in front of my friends and my family and tell the story of how God completely healed me of anxiety and emetophobia!

I was talking to my dad late one night last week as I had woken up very anxious for seemingly no reason (shoutout to my incredible parents by the way, who are endless and unwavering in their support for me). I was saying how the Bible says to cast all of your anxieties onto God, and I find that really difficult because I almost view my anxieties as a safety barrier against things that, in my mind, are scary. Then dad said something that has really stuck with me this past week – he said that it is not so much about giving your anxiety over, but rather shifting your focus onto Jesus. This way, you are giving Him all of your attention and can really shift the weight of the anxiety. I tried this that night, I turned off the Netflix that I was watching and instead listened to some worship music and I’ll tell you what, I was sound asleep within about 10 minutes! While writing this I am reminded of Matthew 11:28, which says come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. This verse is stuck up on my wall – a reminder that even when my anxiety feels like it is taking over and I don’t want to give it up for fear of being exposed to the ‘scary’ truth that lies outside of it, if I turn my heart to Jesus he will give me rest and peace, every single time.

It’s also important to remember that the anxious moments are not constant. I think it is so easy to be swept up into thinking ‘why am I so anxious all the time’, because I (and probably a lot of other people) give the anxious moments so much more space than the triumphs and the peaceful moments, which is completely backwards but so easy to do! The times when I am not anxious are great, and in those moments I actually really enjoy living in my little flat! I have a great space to study, I have a lovely view, and I have a space where I can invite people to stay or just for a cuppa. The more I fight, and the more I stick things out even when the going gets tough, the more frequent the triumphs become, and I need to learn to make those the big thing – those are the things that need to take up the most space in my mind! Hard work, but not impossible.

The Lord is with me, like a mighty warrior
-Jeremiah 20:11

NOT Back to Square 1.

Phew, it’s been a mental few weeks.

At the beginning of this month I had my final first-year exams, meaning that I have now completed my first year at university! It’s been a long time coming and a rollercoaster of a year but I am so grateful to be here and on the whole I have had a fantastic first year in Edinburgh. I had 4 written exams and they were all on 4 consecutive days so as you can imagine we were all feeling a little beaten up by the end of the week – I didn’t think it was possible to get blisters on your fingers just from writing but turns out that it is! Despite the pressure of having 4 exams so close together I felt very calm all week which was amazing considering my track record when it comes to stress and exams. I made sure not to overwork myself and made the conscious effort to maintain a positive mindset and remember that all I could do was my best; once I’ve gone in and done my best then it’s out of my hands and I don’t need to worry about it.

After my exams had finished, I moved out of halls. I felt really strange packing all my stuff into the car – it honestly felt like it was only a few weeks ago that we were loading it all in! I’m guessing that when I’m moving all my stuff back up ready for second year it will feel like I’ve barely had a Summer. Although I did find it difficult living away from home, I did it, and that’s the main thing to take away – plus the fact that it did get easier with time, and I have enjoyed it!

Once I got back home I didn’t even have time to unpack before I was packing to go away, to Belfast, BY MYSELF. Yes, I went on a plane on my own! Whaaaaat! If you had told me a year ago that I’d be flying alone I probably would have laughed… and cried. As you may know, flying is not one of my strongest suits, however, I am also a very determined person and although I do struggle with anxiety and emetophobia my goal is to live without them one day and to do that I need to challenge myself and work hard at it. So, I went to Belfast on a little holiday and had a really fantastic time. I visited one of my oldest friends (in time, not age!) which was fab, and I got to visit a dental practice also while I was out there which gave me some really valuable experience. I felt so loved and supported by everyone that I spent time with over the few days I was there, and I did it all with minimal wobbles, even when my flight was delayed coming home! I am still glowing from the triumph.

The day after I got back from Belfast, I did a 12-hour shift at work. I love my job, but 12 hours is a very long time so understandably I was pretty shattered afterwards! The next day I mostly spent it unpacking and clearing out my room and feeling a little bit weird. Although I was feeling a bit wobbly all day I managed to keep myself in check, right up until after dinner when I ended up having a panic attack, which has not happened in a very long time. At the time, I felt knocked back and really, really frustrated. I have been doing amazingly well recently and this felt like a huge knock – which it isn’t. I’ve been emetophobic for almost all my life, of course I am going to have blips while I am trying to overcome something that has been habitual for 15 years. The most important thing is how I move forwards from the blips, and the thing that is going to help me to progress is to not view a blip as a setback, but rather just a minor hurdle. I had not stopped since the beginning of my exams, and so it was totally understandable for me to be feeling a little overwhelmed and exhausted – it’s a blip, I should be proud of how well I am doing and not view this as a massive setback.

Yesterday I actually went and bought a second copy of my ‘Cure your Emetophobia and Thrive’ book. I have highlighted and written all over my current copy, but feel like it would be really beneficial for me to go back through the programme now that I have a couple of months off for Summer to really focus on completely ridding myself of emetophobia, and so I’m going to go back to a fresh book with a fresh, un-stressed mind and really get everything to properly click into place! One of my goals for 2018 was to completely get rid of my emetophobia by the end of the year – and I totally believe that it can be done!

– ‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.’ Matthew 11:28.

Hello, 6:30am?!

I know what you’re thinking, it’s been less than a month since my last post and I’m writing another one?! What is the world coming to!

I just really wanted to post a quick update and tell you about a couple of things that I’ve been trying to change recently because it’s been pretty great!
One of my goals at the moment is to become more positive in my every day thinking, because I have noticed that I think very negatively a lot of the time and I used to just let it happen. I have been slowly learning to catch my negative thoughts and swap them out for more positive ones. Even the times where what I am thinking can’t particularly be twisted into a positive I have been trying to maintain perspective and make sure that I don’t end up catastrophising (thank you, Thrive! for this!). It is a difficult thing, to change your thinking styles, but I am noticing improvements all the time and I am learning to move on from my ‘blips’ rather than feel guilty for them or tell myself off for ‘failing’ (because it’s not a fail!).

Something that has been really helping me to process my positive experiences and have a more uplifting outlook on my everyday life is keeping a Bullet Journal! I feel like this is a huge ‘thing’ at the moment and for a while I thought that I wasn’t good enough at art to keep one (which I now know is crazy, you don’t have to be an artist to make one!), but then mid-January I decided to bite the bullet (no pun intended) and start one up… and I have never looked back! I honestly feel like I have been more productive and motivated since starting it up, and I also have put a space in every day to write at least one positive thing that has happened on that day. The amazing thing is, even on days that didn’t feel too great, I have still managed to pull out something to put in my little positive box, meaning that I don’t look back on any day as a ‘bad day’ any more. There are ‘not-so-great’ days, but there’s always a positive to look back on!

As well as using to-do lists to help my productivity (and writing little notes to myself like ‘it’s okay if you don’t get all this done today!’) I’ve also been using my Bullet Journal to ‘habit track’. I write down a number of things that I want to do or keep track of every day (sleep, walking for more than 20 minutes, exercise, processing my positives, reading my Thrive book etc etc etc), and then I get to colour in a little box for every day that I do one of those things. It’s a great little reminder to take time for myself and be a little more productive in ways that isn’t just sitting at a desk doing uni work.

Another thing I’ve been trying out recently is getting up really early in the morning. I have always been a morning person and I find I’m definitely the most productive at this time, but recently I’ve been finding myself sleeping in later and losing a lot of motivation and productivity. So, I decided that I would set my alarm for 6:30am every morning, and actually get up at 6:30am. On the days that I manage it, it’s been really great. I have been a bit poorly this week and so I’ve been more lenient on myself and it is a habit that will take time to get used to, but so far it’s working pretty well! It also means that I can take a bigger chunk of my evening to cook myself a proper dinner and have lots of chill time with tea and biscuits (yum). Getting up at 6:30 also means I can do a bit of bible study, some exercise and have a nice breakfast and still be ticking things off my to-do list by 8:30-9am! It is also the perfect excuse for having second breakfast…

The last big change I’ve made just in this past week is that I have officially deleted Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat off my phone. I always find that I waste a lot of time scrolling through things on my phone, especially before I get out of bed in the morning or when I am trying to do work. So, last weekend I decided to just get rid! Interestingly, I haven’t really found myself ‘missing’ them at all – I have definitely been more productive without them, and when I alarm goes off I don’t then sit scrolling for 45 minutes before I actually get up. Plus, when I do reach for my phone for something to do generally the first thing I come across is my Duolingo which is great because I’m trying to learn Italian at the moment!

So, on that note, it is time for me to head to bed. It would be so great to hear other people’s tips on productivity, becoming a more positive person and overcoming anxieties, and if this post has inspired anyone to try any of the things that I have then that would make me very happy.

– ‘whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.’ – Colossians 4:8

YES!

Long time no speak! As you can see, big things have happened since my last post! On Sunday 28th January 2018, I got baptised! This was obviously a really significant event for me for many reasons, a few of which I’d really like to talk about in this blog post.

Currently I am sat in my room at uni, listening to Ben Howard and giving myself a pat on the back for not booking a train home this weekend. Since starting university I have struggled a lot with homesickness and during semester 1 I ended up going home almost every weekend. I know that this isn’t the best way to combat being homesick but because of how much I was missing home and how lonely I felt (despite having made some really great friends since moving up, don’t get me wrong), my anxiety has been pretty aggravated which hasn’t made things any easier. I got to a point where I really wanted to just come home and I was really scared that I was going to have to drop out of uni because of how much I was struggling, but I persevered and I am happy to say that it does get better!

A year ago yesterday, I had my interview at Glasgow university. My mum had come up with me because she is fab, and on the way back we had a little stopover in Edinburgh so we wandered up to the castle. I remember feeling so excited when we got off the train – partly probably because I felt free as I had done my interview, but also because I was excited to be in one of my favourite cities. I led the way up to the castle and when we got there we admired the beautiful views and mum said to me ‘you need to be here, don’t you?’, and we prayed right there at Edinburgh Castle, that God would open the door to Edinburgh University. 2 weeks later I had my interview and 5 months after that I was moving up!

During semester 1 I started going to Central Church which has a huge student community, but because I was at home so often I didn’t really integrate myself very well and didn’t make a lot of friends within the church. At the beginning of January there was a weekend away in Lendrick Muir, about an hour North of Edinburgh. I hadn’t originally been going to go, but in the end I decided to make myself go. The idea of spending a weekend away from home, somewhere I’d never been before, with a bunch of people I didn’t know very well terrified me and I was so anxious the night before I left that I almost didn’t end up going! I did go, however, and it was one of the best weekends I have ever had! I met so many amazing people, we spent a weekend worshipping God and chatting about faith, plus the snow was about a foot deep – I have honestly never seen so much snow in my life it was amazing! I had to sleep in my thermals it was so cold but I didn’t care because we were basically staying in Narnia! I didn’t feel anxious once over the whole weekend – how fab is that?! God is SO good.

That weekend was hugely significant for me, and it really made me realise how far I’ve come since starting uni. Despite struggling a lot in my first semester I am still here, I’m still persevering, I’m really enjoying my course (we’ve started seeing patients already!), I passed my December exams, and I have really grown in my faith. Romans 5:3-4 says Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. Seeing how far I have come in the past couple of years, considering 2 years ago I couldn’t walk to the end of my street without panicking, has given me so much hope for the future. I have complete faith that one day I’ll be living a life where anxiety and emetophobia are both completely in my past, and I am well on my way which is pretty exciting.

I was talking to my dad just a couple of weeks before I got baptised, and he was saying how he believes that suffering is not the absence of God, but rather where we can find Him the most. This really resonated with me, as although I’ve been finding things difficult, I’ve not once given up and I have trusted in God that He is totally for me and by my side throughout all of this. He is building me into this anxiety-free, hope-filled version of myself and I think that’s pretty awesome.

My decision to be baptised in January came about from a combination of all these things. My first few months at university have been huge for me and its been a massive step forward in my faith and so being baptised was a way to mark that and to say a whopping great YES! to God and His plan for me – bring it on.

– perfect love drives out fear – 1 John 4:18.

Hello, Edinburgh.

I am officially 2 weeks into my life in Edinburgh, and it has taken this long for the ‘Freshers Flu’ to finally strike me down! Luckily, I only had one lecture today so the majority of my day has been spent chilling out in bed willing myself to get better.

The past 2 weeks have been a serious rollercoaster, my emotions have been all over the place and it has been exhausting, hence I think why I am now a bit poorly! Regardless of that, I have had a really brilliant start. I’ve met some brilliant people, found a great church and even signed up to be part of the Christian Union worship team!

Edinburgh itself is such a beautiful city, and I feel so privileged to be calling it home for the next 4 years. I had the pleasure of spending the day with my mum on Monday and even as I was walking to meet her at the station the views and buildings I was walking past were so pretty! It was really great to get to see mum between the end of Freshers Week and the start of my course – I think that I hadn’t really anticipated how I’d really feel moving out (I mean, who can?!), and having some precious mother-daughter time helped heal some of my emotional exhaustion. Plus, we got to hang out at our favourite cafe and eat cinnamon buns – bonus!

I have surprised myself these past 2 weeks – I knew that moving out was going to be a massive challenge for various reasons but I wasn’t quite prepared for the scale of it – university is hard to predict if you’ve never done it before! Saying that, like I’ve said, I have surprised myself and have overcome so much of my anxiety! I have met new people almost every day, I’ve signed up to join in with things like the worship team, I have been in the flat alone several times, I’ve been on walks around Edinburgh by myself and I’ve joined in with spontaneous plans, among many other things! Considering even a couple of months ago the prospect of being at my own home alone for more than half an hour brought on a lot of anxiety, I have done incredibly well and I’m so proud of myself.

Of course, huge achievements like this don’t often come without wobbles, but that’s all they are – little wobbles! In the past couple of months reading my emetophobia book I have previously mentioned that I have definitely noticed a difference and since moving out that has been even more evident. I have learnt to be able to maintain perspective when I’ve had little wobbles – almost everyone here will be homesick at some point, and everybody is encountering their own difficulties – being able to carry out logical thought processes in moments where my anxiety slips a little has been so important and means that my achievements seem even bigger because they aren’t being brought down by overthinking my trips! I am improving every single day and right now I couldn’t be prouder of myself.

One last thing – I am SO excited to finally be studying what I want to study! You have no idea how good it feels to be going to lectures that are to do with dental hygiene and teeth, being handed lilac scrubs and meeting the ‘phantom heads’! It’s been such a long road getting here, and as much as today especially I’ve felt very homesick and have been missing everyone back home a lot, I really feel like I’m meant to be here – there are so many things I’m excited for during these next 4 years and I can’t wait to see where this journey takes me!

Tricky Challenges.

Well, it has been a while! I am currently writing this sat at my desk in my new room in Edinburgh! How crazy is that. I just had a couple of things I wanted to touch on in this post, so I’ll get right on it.

Last week, Peter and I were in sunny Spain enjoying 28-degree heat, constant sunshine and a distinct absence of any clouds. To get there we took a 3-hour flight, which was a huge deal for me. Flying is one of my weak spots for a couple of reasons – travel sickness being one of them (even though I am lucky enough to not experience it while flying myself I’m always nervous somebody else will be) and another being that once I get on the plane I can’t exactly get off again, and so if I do get anxious or somebody is sick or I’m sick I can’t remove myself from the situation or distract myself very easily. Despite all this, I handled both flights extremely well to my standards. The way there was very scary at one point as we had terrible turbulence like nothing I’ve experienced before but this was the only point I really panicked, and I have allowed myself this one because it was totally normal to be a little scared given the situation! The return flight was nowhere near as bad turbulence-wise, but I was aware that Peter had felt poorly on the flight there and so was likely to feel sick on the way back, which he did. Although I felt shivery and a little anxious about this I actually stayed very calm throughout the whole of the flight, which was a massive triumph for me and gave me a lot of new confidence.

The other thing I wanted to lightly touch on, as I have not experienced this for very long yet, was moving to university! I can’t believe how quickly it has come around, and no matter how ready I felt I still had my doubts yesterday morning as we were packing the last of my things into the car (props to my dad for managing to fit it all in!) – this is a huge challenge and such a drastic life change that I’m not sure I was ever going to feel completely ready for it. I know that some nerves are totally normal when you’re moving away from home for the first time and so I know that it’s okay not to feel completely fine. There are so many things I feel scared about, including myself or others getting ill, being far away from my friends and family, making new friends, what my course is going to be like etc etc! So far, I have done really well I feel. I’ve enjoyed myself and my room is feeling quite homely which is nice, I have felt a little anxious but I’ve managed to keep myself busy and telling myself it’s completely normal to feel nervous! I’m looking forward to getting into a routine and starting to feel more settled, and no doubt I’ll have family visiting in no time because they’re all excited about coming to Edinburgh! I’ll try and keep my blog updated as much as I can but I can’t promise any regularity right now as I haven’t even had my course timetable yet!

What I can say is that I’m extremely excited for this new adventure and I think the next 4 years are going to be pretty fab.

Striding.

Welcome back!

I have been putting off this post for a while now, mainly because I didn’t feel like anything significant enough had happened since I last posted. I have just finished chapter 4 of my Thrive book which was all about self-esteem and that attitude is something that this chapter wants to combat. Just because something huge hasn’t happened since I last posted doesn’t mean that there haven’t been any significant events!

Self-esteem is all about how I feel about myself currently. Self-esteem is not based on how I felt 3 years ago, or 3 months ago, it is about how I feel right now. So, in theory, if I can feel positive about myself most or all of the time, then my self-esteem will be high, right? Right. The book describes us as having a self-esteem battery. When we have negative thoughts and process experiences negatively this will deplete the charge, therefore to increase the charge there must be positive thoughts and experiences. You might say that you cannot control whether some experiences are positive and negative, and you would be right in saying this to a certain extent. There are particular events that can only be construed as positive or negative, however, there are many events that we can change our perception of my processing them differently.

For example, if I have a ‘bad day’, it is likely that only a couple of things during that day were actually ‘bad’. Perhaps I burnt my dinner, I was late for work and I made a mistake while at work. Now, because I am stewing over the negative aspects of my day, this means that I will process the day negatively, and therefore my memory of that day will not be a good one. On the other hand, maybe in the same day I also had a nice conversation with someone, the weather was nice and I did well at work despite my mistake. If I decided to note these parts of the day instead of the negative parts, my memory of the day will be a lot more positive and therefore my self-esteem will be a lot higher.

The way that we process events in our life becomes a habit, meaning it can be easily changed by practising a new way of thinking. I now keep a list of my 10 ‘current positives’ in my phone, and I update it whenever I feel like it. Here is where the significance of events comes in. Of course, significant achievements and events can go in my list of positives, but what is just as important is to acknowledge the everyday, smaller positives. They are just as important; nothing is ‘not good enough’ to be on my positives list! The more I read through this list and the more I update it, the more I am noticing and processing my positive experiences. I am training my brain to interpret things in a more positive manner, and learning that I am capable of increasing my self-esteem, beating my anxieties and feeling happier and more positive in general.

In the book, it gives you a hint on how to better process your positive experiences by giving you a table to fill out with your 10 initial positives. The 4 columns are the positive experience, why the experience was positive, what would someone else say to you about this experience, what have you learnt from this experience. At first it was difficult to think of things to put in the table, but as I wrote more down it became easier as I got used to interpreting my experiences in a more positive way – it felt good!

There were a couple of these experiences that I just wanted to touch on, because they are actually very significant achievements. I hadn’t really appreciated how amazing these were until writing out this table, I found myself glowing as I was filling out the table!

Last week was my parents 25th wedding anniversary and so they went away for a night, leaving me, my sisters and my cousin to have free reign of the house (how trusting are they?!). Even a few months ago the thought of my parents going away would make me anxious, but this time I felt totally okay with it, however it doesn’t end there! Being home alone has been really difficult for me for a number of years now, and the last time I had been home alone for more than about 2 hours was probably about 5 years ago. Even then, when I was home alone for any amount of time I would be anxious for pretty much the whole time which is exhausting let me tell you. While mum and dad were away, everybody else in my house was at school, college and work so I knew I would be home alone for a very long time. What is incredible is that I kept myself busy which usually I would find difficult as when I’m anxious I find it hard to do anything other than watch television or pace around the house, and I can honestly say that for the whole time I did not feel anxious even once! Even when I had to take the dogs out on a long walk by myself! I cannot tell you how incredible this is, the last time I can remember genuinely enjoying a day in the house alone was when I was about 14. It’s been a long road but I am making huge steps and I couldn’t be happier.

The other little thing I also wanted to mention is going to seem maybe a little silly to a lot of people, but to me it is another huge achievement. I won’t give you the full-blown story but when I was in year 11 this was when I started having anxiety and panic attacks. One particular day everyone had gone out so I was home alone and I ended up having a panic attack while I was in the shower. Since that day I have not been able to have a shower while home alone without feeling severely anxious but while my parents were away I managed to do it without feeling even a tiny bit anxious – Megan 1 Anxiety 0!

I am believing more and more that I can overcome my emetophobia – I have made huge strides with my anxiety which is adding to my confidence and it feels amazing.

Baby Steps.

Hi again!

I wasn’t actually going to write another post so soon after my first installment of my journey to overcoming emetophobia but I felt like I had to write a quick update just letting you know of the things I have learnt and accomplished so far.

The main thing that I have learnt is that my phobia revolves around a fear of loss of control. This makes sense, as although it is vomit that terrifies me the most, other symptoms such as feeling dizzy can also cause me to get anxious. This fear of a loss of control is also evident in other areas of my life. I am a very organised person, perhaps even too organised (if there is such a thing!). When I am travelling or booking holidays and events I triple and quadruple check that I have done everything correctly and I write multiple packing lists. When I briefly attended university last year my budget wasn’t just “I have £ to spend each week”, it was a meticulously thought out budget on an excel spreadsheet, split into each category of what I needed to spend my money on each week and how much I could afford to spend. It even had fancy calculations (tapped in by my dad… Thanks dad!) that meant I didn’t have to work out my spendings and what I had left every week! These are only a couple of examples, and I am by no means saying that being organised is a bad thing (it’s not!), but it definitely is a known characteristic of an emetophobe to be overly organised in every area of their lives that they can be.

There are a couple of things that I wanted to mention in terms of achievements. Obviously overcoming this phobia is not going to happen overnight and my improvements are going to be small but it is good to acknowledge them because any improvement is something to be proud of.

The first thing I wanted to talk about is that going out to places where there is consumption of alcohol has been very difficult for me. Whenever we would go to the pub or a house party I would only stay until 10 at the latest and if people started taking shots I’d be out of there in minutes. Just recently my boyfriend Peter and I have discovered a pool and snooker bar (thanks Scott!) which we go to very regularly. Peter had been a few times with his friend from college, Scott, before I was invited to go, and then when they did invite me one night I surprised myself by agreeing to go along! I knew that we would be out until late (this place closes at midnight), and I felt a lot of pressure on myself to enjoy it and not get anxious because I didn’t want to ruin anyone else’s night. Since that night, we have been very regularly and most nights we stay until it closes – this is a huge achievement for me and as well as loving it every time we go (and becoming a lot better at pool itself!) I feel so proud of myself and even when I have a little anxiety wobble (which happens less and less), I push through and prove to myself than I can do it.

In my Thrive book that I spoke about in my previous post, one of the challenges is to visualise what I want to happen and not what I hope will not happen. For example, every day I have thoughts like: ‘I really hope I don’t feel sick’, ‘what if someone is sick?’, ‘what if I get too anxious?’, ‘what if it goes wrong?’. The more these thoughts go round in my head, the more anxious I become because I start overthinking and visualising, convincing myself that these things actually will happen. This is, in part, a coping mechanism. If I can assume the worst, then surely it won’t be such a shock/disappointment when those things do happen? Wrong. This is not the way to live a life, always expecting the worst and working myself up into a state about things that probably won’t even happen. So, the challenge is to visualise the things that you want. ‘I’m going to have a good day today’, ‘I’m not going to feel anxious’, ‘if someone is sick, I’ll be able to deal with it’, ‘if I feel sick, I can deal with that’. It is, I will admit, a difficult exercise and it is extremely hard to push out my anxious thoughts that are constantly trying to tell me that vomit is something that should trigger my ‘fight or flight’ response. However, I am starting to notice a small difference. I have been feeling more positive in general, I feel more confident and I am beginning to believe more strongly that I can overcome this anxiety and this phobia! Although the improvements are small at the moment they are significant, and I can see them happening which is so encouraging and so amazing.

One last thing I wanted to quickly touch on that links to what I’ve just been talking about – I was reading my friend Kathryn’s blog earlier (it’s fab, please go and show her some love), and one thing she said really struck a chord with me. ‘We cannot choose what happens to us, however, we can choose how we react to these situations.’ If there is one thing to tell ourselves when we are riddled with our own worries and anxieties, it is that. In my Thrive book it talks about this, which is why when Kathryn said it my attention was caught. The book talks about the fact that some people can deal with stressful situations a lot better than others, and the reason for this is their thought process in relation to the situation. Where someone who wasn’t an emetophobe might feel sick and think ‘I feel sick, it’s not very pleasant but if I am sick then that’s okay, it’ll probably help me feel better anyway’, if I feel sick it’s ‘oh NO I feel sick this is terrible I’m panicking I can’t deal with this I’ll do anything to stop myself being sick help me’. Hard not to see the difference, right? The fundamental difference between these two thought processes is how the person feels they can deal with the situation. Being sick is something that we cannot necessarily control, but what we can control is our reaction to it. If I were to believe that I could deal with being sick, then what would I have to be scared about? In practice, this is a lot trickier than it sounds, but the point is that it is possible, and I am going to keep on working until I get there.

Overcoming Emetophobia Pt.1

Hello! Long time no see – as usual! This post is a little different, as I’m just starting one one of the biggest challenges of my life so far. If you didn’t know already, I have emetophobia. Emetophobia is the fear of vomit/vomiting, and it is exhausting. Recently, I bought a book called ‘Cure your Emetophobia and Thrive’ by Rob Kelly, and I am determined to kick this phobia in the butt.

I have been making huge strides in terms of overcoming a lot of my other anxieties and I recently threw out my rescue remedy spray after spending a whole weekend away from home without even realising I didn’t have it with me! The one thing that I still continuously struggle with and feel like I haven’t even made a dent in is this emetophobia, hence the reason for buying this book. I am hoping to write a few blog posts, sort of logging my progress as I work through the book, providing me with a view of how much I’m improving and hopefully even giving some other people a bit of advice!

Currently, there are a lot of areas in my life that are affected by this phobia of vomit, and it does prevent me from enjoying certain things as much, as well as being something that is on my mind probably about 70% of the time even when nothing is ‘provoking’ it as such. When I feel sick or someone else does, I panic. To a lot of people this is going to seem crazy and most people can’t understand it – a lot of the time the response I get is ‘well nobody likes being sick’ which, while true, is also so frustrating. When the day comes that I can say ‘I don’t really like vomit’, I’ll be celebrating, because at the moment all I see when I feel sick or someone else is sick is blind panic. I shake, I go clammy, and I can’t think straight. All rational thought goes out of my head and what’s left is “how can I get out of this situation?” “This can’t be happening”.

As well as panicking when I or someone else feels sick, the plaguing thoughts related to the emetophobia are swimming round in my brain Every. Single. Day. I get anxious even using public toilets because I’m so terrified that someone might come in and throw up. I have even been known to check each cubicle if I’m in a place where there is drinking, to check there’s nobody in there. I do things on an everyday basis that would seem so strange to other people. If a child goes quiet, I instantly worry in case they’re going to get sick. If I go to the theatre or the cinema I have to take an aisle seat so I’ve got an easy escape route and I always check to make sure nobody around me looks unwell. I hate situations I can’t get out of easily, like public transport or exams, and I am always worrying about other people getting ill or me getting ill. Sometimes I don’t even feel poorly but I find myself overthinking about being ill and consequently make myself feel sick! It’s a vicious cycle and its there in every area of my life and I want it GONE.

You might think that my chosen career in the field of dentistry is sounding a little mad now, having heard that I have this phobia. Even though it is exhausting and it does affect me a lot, I always really, really try and prevent it from letting me do what I want in life. Sometimes I slip up and the panic attacks are the worst, but if I want a career in dentistry I’m going to get one, because I know that I will conquer this fear one step at a time.

I haven’t got very far through my book yet but so far it’s fantastic! I am learning so much about how my brain works and why I think the way I do. I have learnt that my phobia is more about the fear of a loss of control rather than the vomit itself, and I am determined to work really hard at the exercises and make a massive difference. Especially with moving out to university this September, which I think in itself will help me a lot, I want to try and get a handle on things and really make a difference in my life – I don’t want to live with this fear any more, so I won’t!

Curve Ball II

Last time we spoke, I had just received a place at Durham University to study Pharmacy. Currently, I am sat at home about to write a blog post about how I am no longer studying Pharmacy at Durham University.

As you may remember, I had originally worked towards studying dentistry at university, and was gutted when I did not get in, however I got a place to study Pharmacy through clearing on results day and was very excited about it. The campus I was on was in Stockton-on-Tees and I decided that I would commute from home to university every day. This was a 2-hour journey and the train to and from Newcastle only came every hour, so it wasn’t the most convenient commute in the world. I didn’t mind though, because I was finally going to university and the excitement this brought overshadowed any negative feeling I had about the commute!

In my first few weeks of the course I made some really great friends and I am very grateful for that. The content was difficult but that was to be expected – any degree was never going to be easy! Doing a 4-hour-round commute every day was really tough, having to get up at 5am if I wanted to make it in for a 9am lecture was something I knew I would never get used to and some days I wouldn’t get home until nearly 8pm. It was a long day full of lots of new information, 3 hour lab sessions and a lot of time sitting on a train.

I really enjoy learning, and so a lot of the things we got taught, especially when they were human anatomy or directly related to pharmacy, were very interesting and are things that I will remember for a long time because I found them so interesting. Despite all this and having made great friends though, I was unhappy. I found myself wishing a lot of the time that I was in a lecture learning about teeth and dental materials and the like. Results day had been such a blur I didn’t really have time to be sad about not getting into dentistry or oral health sciences, all I knew at the time was that I wanted to go to university and pharmacy sounded interesting. I felt pressured to make a decision quickly as clearing works on a first-come-first-served basis, and so I didn’t really have time to think rationally and weigh everything up before jumping into the huge decision to completely change my career plan.

As a lot of what you learn in first-year pharmacy is more based around Chemistry, I didn’t really learn much about actual pharmacy, meaning that I wanted to wait until my first placement to start deciding whether or not pharmacy really was for me. Being a clearing choice meant that I had never done any work experience to do with pharmacy meaning that I had no concept of what it was really like to work as a pharmacist and so I couldn’t decide whether the course would get better once our learning was more pharmacy-based. This is why I went to my first hospital placement with an open mind, I was actually quite excited about it because I thought it was going to give me new motivation for the course and help me to see what I was working towards, because by this time I was feeling more and more unhappy with the course.

Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy my placement. I couldn’t see myself being in any of the job roles we saw, which was a shame because my original thought had been that if I was to choose an area of pharmacy to go into it would have been hospital, so to not enjoy the placement was disappointing. After that day I did a lot of thinking and research and decided that I wanted to leave my course. The type of career I picture myself in involves being in direct contact with the patients and treating them myself rather than dispensing the medicines and doing the drug histories. I enjoyed learning about pharmacy and it is a very important position to have but it’s just not for me.

Now, I am in the process of applying to Oral Health Sciences. I considered other areas such as physiotherapy and occupational therapy, which I know I would enjoy, but I’m not ready to give up on my dream of a career in the dental field yet and being a dental therapist is something that really appeals to me.

The last couple of weeks have been mad and stressful, but since leaving pharmacy I have felt so much lighter and happier, and I am very excited too see what lies ahead of me, and the prospect of possibly starting an Oral Health Sciences degree next year fills me with excitement.