Stay Blogitive!

Hello again everyone, and welcome to the 6 th part of BEDA 2018. Frug Friday: I was afraid of dogs before we got one From now on, Fridays are going to be bit different here on Stay Blogitive! I have decided to start a new series (This Week wasn’t really working out so I’ve replaced it) called Frug Friday . I’ll be sharing the story of my dog (who’s a cross between a Frenchie and a pug), and how my relationship with both him and other dogs has changed over time. Before we even get into my relationship with my own dog, I want to talk about what my feelings about dogs were before he arrived in my life. Prior to owning one, I did not like dogs. I hated them. I feared them. I could not walk past a dog or see one without a huge jolt of fear going straight to my heart. It was this way for as long as I could remember with no apparent event that triggered it. No dog could come near me without me screaming in terror or running away. I would cross the street and walk on...

Hello again everybody and welcome back to BEDA 2018. CRYING Today I wanted to talk about crying. As a child, I have memories of getting very emotional at things and getting upset to the point of breaking out into tears on a regular basis. I should point out that it wasn’t I who had a problem with this – I was quite alright that if I was upset I could cry and it would be okay. It was other people and society in general that seemed to have a problem with it. I was told so often by people that I would be seen as “soft” or that I was being “girly” in some way and that crying as a “man” was a sign of weakness. Even people who were close to me seemed to have this attitude (mostly males sadly) but I couldn’t understand it. How was I weak by getting upset? If something was worrying me or had got me that sad that I felt like crying, was this not okay? In what way was crying a “girly” thing to do – don’t all people cry at some point? Even in my young mind, I was questioning t...

Hello again everyone and welcome to the fourth part of my BEDA challenge. MY RELATIONSHIP WITH FOOD So far this week I have spoken quite openly about my struggles with caffeine and alcohol. Now I’m going to talk about another thing I have had a problem with in the last few years – FOOD. Even though food is a necessity for all of us, it is something that can cause a great many problems, from over-eating to under-eating, from not making healthy choices to eating at the wrong times. I have faced so many problems of my own with food and my diet in recent years. A lot of it, I believe, is related to my troubles with anxiety and depression, and the need to have control over something in those dark times (it was in fact the complete opposite and it was loss of control over food masquerading as having control.) Here are just some of the problems I faced. ·          Not eating breakfast because of being “too busy” or “late” in the m...

Hello again everyone, and welcome to B.E.D.A 2018: Day Three. CAFFEINE Today I’m going to talk about something that was the subject of one of my first ever posts way back in 2015 – CAFFEINE. I am going to split this into three sections; THEN – What it was like when I was drinking caffeine QUITTING IT – My journey to giving it up NOW – What it feels like now I’m completely off it THEN Looking back to where I was less than four years ago, I would say that I was, like a lot of young people, addicted to caffeine. I was getting through so much of it every single day. On average this is how much I was taking per 24 hours ·          Between 1 and 3 cups of tea (I’m British, what do you expect?) ·          1 or 2 energy drinks ·          1 latte (once or twice a week) ·          An entire 2 li...

Hello again everyone, and welcome to day 2 of my BEDA challenge. ALCOHOL Today, I wanted to talk about something super important that I don’t think I am open enough about, either online or in real life – ALCOHOL. Just over a year ago, I stopped drinking alcohol, and currently have no intention to ever drink again. Here are just a few reasons why. I WAS USING IT AS A COPING MECHANISM I was using drink and my weekly drinking sessions to try and cope with the stress of being at uni because I thought that getting drunk and forgetting my problems was a way to help me. I realise now that this is 100% wrong for me. Rather than make my problems better or helping me to deal with being stressed, alcohol did in fact make things worse. Because of hangovers, I missed key meetings and was less productive. By stopping me doing what needed to be done, drinking made me more stressed. I WAS GETTING MORE DRUNK, AND DOING SO MORE OFTEN Looking back, I was in a dangerous ...

Hello everyone, and welcome to April (have we seriously entered the fourth month of 2018 already). WELCOME TO BEDA 2018! As you’ve probably already seen from the title and the header picture, this is part one of a month-long blogging challenge called BEDA (Blogging Every Day in April). I’ve attempted so many of these challenges in the past and failed, but that just makes me more determined than ever to complete it this time around. Each post is going to be in three parts. One – This will be the main content part of the post and I’m going to be covering quite a few interesting subjects over this challenge, some of which I haven’t really blogged about before. Two – Inspirational or motivational quotes on the light-up message board I bought for myself recently, along with a bit of explanation as to what that particular quote means to me. Three – Last year, in April, I counted down my favourite songs from 2007 (a decade on) and this year, I am doing the same again...