The Not So Sugarcoated Truth

I guess I’ve been meaning to write a blog post for a long while now. It’s probably been close to a year if not more since I’ve written something about what’s been going on.
To be honest, it’s been a bit of a whirlwind year.. but more so a whirlwind couple of months.
Maybe I’ve been worried I’ve lost my little blogger spark to write, I think it didn’t help that for a year I did a job that I couldn’t really talk about for confidential reasons and it was something I felt so damn passionate about but I felt I couldn’t speak openly about it because of the nature of the work. In an nutshell I worked very closely with homeless people and for the most part absolutely loved it. Learnt a lot, even a lot about myself. It was hard and beautiful and easy and ugly all at the same time, but on the whole I loved what I did.
Now it’s a slightly different story, I work for a travel company which is pretty fitting I guess. I’m pretty useless with numbers and computers but hey we can’t al be perfect can we.

Aside from the standard work updates and the fact I’ve spent the last year living with two best friends in a lovely house.. there’s other stuff I want to talk about.

So I’ve spoken about it openly before, I touched on it in a few posts on here and the closest to me know that it’s been a part of my life for a few years now. For the last few years now I’ve been having anxiety and panic attacks and I’ve seen some pretty dark scary days with it. It’s shit, it sucks and I wouldn’t wish it on my own worst enemy no matter how much of a (bad word) they might be.

I’m not entirely sure what I want to write about ir how much detail I want to go into but I guess the closest friends and family know I’ve had a rough couple of months, to say the least. The first week was horrific, the second week I was just about functioning. The third week I went back to work and the fourth week I began to feel like I could breathe for the first time in what felt like a fucking lifetime. Without writing anything else I know some people reading will know already what I’m talking about but let’s just say a build up of anxiety, stress and then a very sudden break up. That’s pretty much all I’m going to really say about that, in respect.

Probably the worst feeling I’ve ever experienced when it all just exploded together. Literally like the whole world just fell on my shoulders and shoved me in the dirt. In really hard, rough dirt. Dealing with one thing on its own was tough enough but when it all hits within a matter of hours then you’re really tested. Looking back on that first week I didn’t even recognise myself. I lost a stone, I couldn’t go anywhere alone, not even to the loo at one point. I didn’t sleep or eat for about 10 days. I was so drugged up on sleeping tablets and beta blockers just so I was able to get an hours rest of be able to sit still without pacing or trembling so much I’d throw up. Fucking awful.

Anxiety or any mental health problem really is debilitating. You’re left having this war with your own mind about how and why could you possibly be feeling the way you are. You can be sat around the dinner table with your friends and family and suddenly it feels as if someone is holding a gun straight between your eye sockets. That shear wave of absolute adrenaline and fear that the worst is about to happen physically... but actually you’re still just sat there at the table. 

Hard to explain if you’ve not felt it. It’s one thing having it and your friends and family trying so hard to understand and be there but for then people to just up and leave.. leaves you feeling very alien. 

I’ve never experienced the lows before.. not properly. And thankfully I don’t think the lows are the main issue for me. I think it just comes after the (what I call) anxiety wave. 

You know that scene you often see in movies where the character is stood still but the world around them is spinning uncontrollably.. that’s what it feels like. 

It’s almost like watching an episode of some weird drama on tv. Literally unrecognisable. It didn’t happen over night. Biting the bullet and accepting help was the best thing I’ve done to get through it in the form of medication, friends and my family. Becoming so busy that I barely have time to sit and take 5 minutes to myself was also an exhausting way to distract myself. I mean, it either worked or I’m just so exhausted I just don’t care anymore. Of course I care, I care a lot. But I forgot what it felt like to wake up and be able to breathe without feeling like my heart and head were about to spontaneously combust and leave my body. It took a lot of endless pep talks and people sticking around and not making me feel stupid for feeling that way which got me trough. The endless nights my house mates would hold me for hours until I fell asleep and the meds kicked in, the phone calls my mum got 26 times in one night because I was alone and felt like my body was giving up and I was losing my mind. 

It takes getting to rock fucking bottom to pull yourself back up and gee I hope I never feel anything like it ever again. At times, I was prepared for it all to just end but you can’t. You just can’t. 

Alright, moral of the story.. it’s been shit and now it’s better and I wouldn’t have felt a lot better so quickly without some incredible people. 

It takes an evening to just sit and not be distracted by my big social circle to really look back and reflect. 

I’m not ashamed, I have been.. but I just hope by putting myself out there a little.. someone else doesn’t have to feel so isolated. 

It’s normal, we’re normal. You wouldn’t deny a diabetic insulin so why the stigma for serotonin medication. 

A little short and possibly not so sweet but.. that’s reality and I talk about the real stuff, not the sugar coated version. 

Having An Outgoing Soul With An Anxious Mind

It's been a while since I blogged last. In fact it's been too long, how rubbish of me. 

I'd love to be one of these bloggers that can produce regular content but I find that quite difficult as the type of stuff I tend to write about it best written when I'm in a certain mind frame. 

I get the urges to write at the most inconvenient times which usually if why there's sometimes a huge gap between posts. 

Quite a lot has been going on since my last post which was about my wonderful trip to Iceland. For a quick update, I'm soon to be moving out again and to the next town up from my home town and into a house share with a couple of friends, I'm enjoying my job working with homeless and vulnerable people and I'm in a happy and fairly new relationship. 

That's it in brief. 

I've wanted to write a post of this subject for quite a long time now. I've had the title name set in stone for a good few months, just I've never been in an appropriate blogging space with the appropriate mind set to write in. 

Having an outgoing, bubbly personality with an anxious mind is how I describe myself. I've always been outgoing and down to earth and a pretty open person, I'm not afraid to go and make friends and talk to people, I'm always up for packing a bag and exploring another part of the world and always just up for being busy and doing fun crazy things.. I just worry about it. 

When I'm in this state of mind it is literally exhausting. I've touch on this type of subject in a few posts now, about the physical effects and how recently anxiety has shaped some desicions about my current lifestyle and everything, but this is kind of different. 

If some friends and people I know find out that I'm an anxious person and that I have panic attacks they're usually quite shocked. "But you've travelled the world" "but you're so bubbly" "nothing seems to phase you" 

I can assure you now it bloody does.  

It's a new thing for me. Fairly new, it was actually only diagnosed a year ago, but I've always known I "worried too much". It was a weird day being told that there's a reason why I'd freak out at stupid things. I was relieved that there was a reason and also scared there was a reason. I just though I was highly annoying and ridiculous. 

Being anxious and having a usually very motivated and spontaneous mind is so draining. When I feel anxious, like now as I'm currently sat on my bathroom floor in a flood of tears because I'm so frustrated with myself at being on the very edge of a panic attack FOR NO REASON. 

I am constantly talking myself down in my head and telling myself to "calm the f#*k down, youbare absolutely fine". It makes me feel like I'm not me, and it's terrifying. 

Last year for the first time I asked for help. I went through my doctor to set up CBT (cognative behavioural therapy) which is a type of therapy counselling that helps you retrain your brain for coping methods. And I got off the waiting list and then I chickened out because for a few weeks I felt fine, no anxiety at all! And wrongly thought I was magically cured and totally fine. Wrong. So I'm back again because I had another blip and gathered the courage and said to myself that I deserve to get some help because it might not be there all the time but it's still there. 

So I'm back on the waiting list. 

The hardest part for me is feeling like I'm a burden for the people around me. My close friends that I talk to on daily basis'. My boyfriend who is a really great support because he himself has such a positive mindset and even just hearing the words "you're okay, you've got this" is all I need most of the time. My friends also, they always give me the time of day if I open up and when someone asks me how I'm doing, I actually say "well actually I'm really struggling today". 

I have no idea what my triggers are half the time. The stupidest thing will set me off like.. change, something happening that needs to be organised, someone not messaging me back and automatically my brain goes into over drive and thinks something is really wrong like they hate you or are mad at your or has died. How ridiculous! I say it's ridiculous but it's true and I'm sure other people that might read this and also have anxiety can vouch for me on silly triggers. At the time though, not so silly. 

It's exhausting, the last year I feel like I've grown as a person so much, learning to love myself and kind of for the first time understanding what I'm all about and feeling comfortable in my skin and person and I'm now around people that enhanced that which is amazing and I'm so happy. 

But this anxious part of my mind is still a part of me and that's the part I'm finding hard to accept. 

My job is a lot of the time, talking to people who mostly have some sort of mental health diagnosis and I really do listen to myself at work and try my absolute hardest to take my own advise. It's just a lot easier said than done. 

I've got to understand and accept that anxiety doesn't define your personality. It is just a part of you and the way your life has been shaped and pulses since you were a kid can have a huge effect on how you see the world. 

We all have our own window to the world. 

I've been sat here over half an hour writing this and I'm totally meant to be getting ready for work so I should probably wrap it up. 

Have a fabulous day.  

 

A Brief Touch On Iceland

I've just come back from a mini trip in the Icelandic lands and I just wanted to touch on a few things I've taken from the trip.

For starters, the place in beautiful. Barren, earthy and raw.
The colours of the earth and sea is something that I'll always remember. Jet black sands with speckles of brown and grey, the yellow grass and green moss covered rocks, pristine white snow and the sky that goes from deep grey, to baby blue and then pink and orange at the start of the sunset.

Iceland was a place that completely stilled my mind and headspace. The thoughts that ran through my head on the whole trip were only 'in the moment' thoughts, without any hang ups of life outside of our perfect little trip to the mountains.

We saw waterfalls that you could walk underneath the sheer power and volume of its movements, glaciers that covered huge areas and produced such incredible aqua colours and silence, mountains that were built up of layer upon layer of different coloured rock and soil, roads that seemed to have no ending and no destination, beaches covered in beautiful ice boulders that have broken away from the glaciers and ended up washed onto the shores of the black sanded beaches and thermal heated pools of baby blue.

The place was just still, silent and magical. I can't really explain it in any other words.
I felt as if my lungs were filled with the cleanest air, cleaner than anything I've inhaled before.

It was an expensive place, paying around £8 a pint and £25 a meal. Petrol you could only pay for on card and day light only between the hours on 10am-5pm. But this made no difference to the beauty of the place.


Tips if you're planning a trip to Iceland...

1. Take more money than you think you need.
2. Pre book the Blue Lagoon a good 4/5 days before the day you want to visit.
3. Sod booking onto tours to see the natural wonders, rent a car and do it yourself.
4. Go with someone that wants to get the same as you want out of your trip (which goes for any destination or place!)
5. Take some decent boots and a warm coat.
6. Go in winter, Its so beautiful!
7. Drive from Keflavik to the Diamond Beach.
8. Never think that you wont see the northern lights, because we saw them two nights in a row!
9. Prepare for the water to sometimes smell like sulphur when you're showering, no you don't really smell that bad!
10. DONT scoop up a load of silica from the bottom of the Blue Lagoon because you'll probably find human hair like we did!
11. Go with an open mind and come back with a clear one.

My Personal Thoughts On Drugs

Following on from my post I wrote a while ago on my personal views on alcohol, I figured that its only fair that I write one on this subject.

So, drugs huh. Funny subject.. I've been meaning to write about this subject for a while now because its something that I've never really experienced. I mean, I don't drink, I've never even tried a cigarette in my whole twenty four years of life, heck have I tried drugs.
Well alright, that's a lie.. I've tried weed very briefly on a rooftop over looking the NYC skyline. Despite the setting being pretty outstanding, it was shit. I just felt sick, and then was sick the next day. I've also tried a legal high, very briefly in Brighton. God only knows what it was but again, it was shit.
I have pretty strong views on alcohol so it's only expected I share the similar hate for drugs. Well, yes. I don't like drugs very much but then like I said.. I've not really been introduced to them or found myself experimenting with them.

Now, hallucinogenic drugs totally fascinate me in how they are able to unlock these different parts of the brain and make you experience these weird and sometimes wonderful trips. I don't know if I would ever go as far as trying any other drugs because they scare me, but I am interested in what it would be like to trip and hallucinate.

Disclaimer, I don't really know what I'm talking about so if I write something that isn't correct or whatever then just ignore it yeah?

Alright, the low down is that drugs make me feel uncomfortable. I'm talking the hard drugs.. I'm not talking about weed. Weed I don't have a problem with, until it takes over somebody's life and they become dependant on it and it starts to make them paranoid and not themselves. That's when any substance becomes a problem, and I'm not a lover of any substance really. I get really uncomfortable at the idea of being out of control, which is why I don't really like being drunk or seeing people I care about totally off their faces.

I see the effects on drugs a lot in the job that I do and its heart breaking seeing the harsh reality of it. Something that one minute can make you feel on top of the world and as soon as it wears off, lower than low. Left with nothing, literally. Taking these chemicals to erase harsh memories of the past. A sad, scary reality in some cases that I've seen. That's the really sad side of what I see in drugs and people can take them for a number of reasons. Out of boredom, peer pressure, to heighten the dynamic of a night out or social event, to cover up the pain of a memory or on-going issue, to ease physical pain as well as mental.

My view on using drugs for social events is a tricky one, I can see the want to exaggerate emotions and feelings but I personally think that its covering up reality in a way. Good times come about from being around good people and good conversation in a positive atmosphere. It saddens me that some people find it near impossible to enjoy a night out or social gathering without being completely off their face. You shouldn't need a substance to have a top night in my eyes anyway.
Saying all this.. and again I'm not saying I'd try it because its highly unlikely but I am kind of curious as to what it would feel like to be high.

It's mostly pills, cocaine and other "un-natural" substances that freak me out, not so much things like shrooms, weed and truffles etc. that are extracted from the earth. But putting those hard chemicals into your body and blood stream. Our bodies aren't made for that shit surely.

Anyway.. I don't really want to go on and on about this subject only because I feel I don't know enough on it to really comment. 

There it is.

Be Kind To Yourself, First.

It sounds easy doesn't it? Being kind to yourself.
But it really isn't. You think its something that comes naturally to us as humans to think about our self before anyone else but really we find it extremely difficult.
We go about life trying to please every single person around us that we forget to please ourselves and we lose ourselves for a minute.
Its really hard being selfish, its not like you should be selfish all the time but when it comes down to your own well being and happiness then its vital that you put yourself first.

If you're not in love with yourself first then how are you ever going to love someone to the extent that you need?
Think about that for a second.. I don't mean being so wrapped up in yourself that you become a self centred twat. I mean the small things like just waking up and thinking to yourself " Yeah, I like who I am today". Something so simple can be such an impossible task for most people and how bloody sad is that.
I'm not going to say that I find it easy to find the things I love about myself, I find it hard I really do. For years I've struggled liking myself on the outside which sadly, what young adult hasn't felt negative about the way they look physically? Which on its own is a shitty thing isn't it.
I've mostly quite liked the person I am inside, I mean there's things I could massively improve on of course but then who doesn't have flaws. We are constantly growing and forming into something new everyday, we see and hear and feel things that change us as people in every breathing minute.
Something that felt right yesterday might not feel right today, something that you hated months ago might bring you so much life today. Something that broke you inside might make you feel empowered and brave. Something you deal with on a daily basis might beat you down and down but as soon as you feel a sudden sense of strength you heal again.

The word 'selfish' is always perceived as a negative thing. I don't think being selfish in this sense is negative at all. How can you expect to be happy with your life if you're not even happy within yourself.
If something isn't sitting right in your head, chances are it isn't right. Chances are that you need to listen to those little niggly thoughts that pop up or the alarm bells that deafen you at night time and do something about it.
If you hate your job, leave it. If you're not in love, leave it. If you've been eyeing up a destination to explore then go there. And most importantly if you've been eyeing up that top in the shop window then bloody well treat yourself.

Practicing self love can feel really silly at the start, if its something you're not used to doing. I mean if someone told you to stand butt naked in front of a full length mirror and said to say out loud to yourself what you loved about your body, you'd probably feel slightly awkward right?
But it doesn't have to be awkward like that, you can just lay there in bed for a moment just before you get yourself up and just think to yourself something positive about the person you are. It sounds so cringe but I think its massively important.
Even though I've not been feeling the most positive over the last couple of weeks, I have been looking at myself in the huge scary full length mirror before I have my daily lush bath and pointing out things on my body that I like. And as a girl, a young woman that used to be afraid to look in the mirror, I think that's a huge thing for me, personally.

We go about our lives not just as one person but as several. You're not just you. You're a son, daughter, mother, father, auntie, friend, lover, ex, employee, carer, advisor.
You are SO many people in one single body. But as you play all these roles to the people around you, do you ever think to yourself... "Where am I in all of this"
I think you can get so caught up in playing the roles that you've adopted within your lives that you forget that single most important thing, which is you.

Life likes to throw spanners in the works, sometimes if you're really lucky you get the odd sledgehammer thrown your way too.
And even if it feels like the world is doing its absolute best at testing the waters, testing your patience and your emotional stamina, just don't forget that you are amazing in your own individual way. You make people smile, you make people feel good by just being you.
Give yourself a break if you're feeling like you've lost your way a little, it's ok to give yourself time every once in a while.

Because you're doing just fine.


Passenger - The Long Road.            A song for a traveller.

Cloudy Thoughts

Okay, so slightly different this time round. More of a blog post on me waffling things that have crossed my mind recently, not really sat down and planned this one at all. Not that I hugely plan what I write on here as I'm sure you'd be able to tell with by the extreme lack of correct grammar and spelling.
I was just walking home from work today and I saw this massive cloud right in front of me. Like it was huge, it had such a presence and I just stopped and looked at it for a minute and took multiple pictures and snap chats of it. Weird how a cloud made me think "Right, lets write a blog post tonight". Alright well not just the cloud but things have been happening recently which has just left me thinking "Hmmmm" quite a few times.

So the cloud made me think that, despite all the silly stuff we stress and think about in every day to day life, we are so stupidly small on this planet compared to what is around us. It just made me put a few things into perspective, like that our 'problems' that seem like the end of the entire world are just miniscule compared to the shear volume of things in the world. That sounds so deep, I'm literally just typing, this probably makes no sense what so ever but we'll roll with it.

The last few days I've been doing my other part time job as a youth worker, working with young people aged 15-19 this week. Its a job I am so incredibly inspired by, it leaves me speechless most days, especially this time round. So many level headed young individuals that gives me a little more faith in the coming generations of people that will soon be making the decisions to keep our world spinning.
The stories and lifestyles of the people I've met from all sorts of walks of life is so surreal, so grounding to hear how younger lives see the world around them. I've realised even more than I did during the summer when I did the same job that I need to be helping people. I can't go a day without knowing I've somehow impacted somebody's day even if its just a passing smile to a stranger in the street to going up to a homeless lady in the streets of Brighton and asking what I can buy for her from the shop to get her through the day and night ahead. I find it so damn hard to turn my head at something that  I can somehow make a small, tiny difference to.
Recently I feel like I'm easily inspired and impacted by people around me,  I'm a sensitive little soul and read into things quite deeply. The way people are around you, the way things are said, body language, asking deep and meaningful questions is one of my favourite things. I just love to really get to know someone on an in-depth level.

I guess in the recent months I've felt a little lost, coming home from the 'Dream Life' in Australia and coming back home to live under my mums roof in my little hometown. It was a HUGE thing coming home, massively made me re-think where my life was heading, especially when I started to settle in back home. Its scared the shit out of me that I could be happy just being at home and not being in a beautiful country.
A lot of things have changed in the recent months, a lot of ups and downs and roundabouts and emotions, health hiccups and money trouble and you name it. And some days I think fuck, where is my life heading and what do I actually want to do, Like am I living to my absolute full potential. Other days I'm like "Yeah, I've got this" and I'm quite happy doing the jobs I'm doing, being where I am. Right now, right this second I'm excited, intrigued and hungry for something that I cant quite put my finger on. Things that people notice about you, things that people show interest in, things that people quote to you about something you've written years ago. Gives you a good feeling, and quite frankly made me want to write more on here. I mean I have absolutely no idea what I've said in this whole damn post, but I enjoy it so fuck it.

I'm going to work on a few things after writing this, gut insticts are super important. Putting myself first for once and really putting myself first, just being comfortable in my own mind, body and soul. Being so happy that you can see it beaming out of my face. Spend time with the people  that make you feel like you. Taking risks, chasing the work I want to do and just saying "Fuck It" more.

After all, we're only human and we're all just winging it anyway.

I've had a song on repeat whilst writing this post. Hailee Steinfeld &Grey ft. Zedd - Starving.

Anxiety - My Raw Experiences

So a few days ago it was World Mental Health Day where all over social media, people were posting about mental health and I thought it was so refreshing.
I think these days its something that is getting easier to talk about and easier to accept if you're an unlucky soul that suffers with something in that category. For a while now I've wanted to write a post on the real and raw side to me that people probably don't know about or even think is there. But as some of you may know if you've read some of my other posts, you'll see that I don't really like to beat around the bush. I don't want these things to be left unsaid, why should things like mental health, anxiety, illness, grief, fears and other things life throws at us not be talked about? I don't know about you but I really respect people that talk up about the real shit, that don't pussy foot around subjects because they may not be seen as attractive, or be seen as pretty and lady-like. It is what it is and I get messages from people asking me to write about things that are on a more personal level, because it gives people that small amount of comfort that they're not alone, they're not the only ones on the planet dealing with some difficult things and I think its now time, in this century that people should speak up, especially for those that want to hear. And if you don't want to listen/watch/read people talking about the not so lovely things then you don't have to read into it, you can just ignore these posts and the videos you see on YouTube. But I think its really great that there is something there that people can watch or read or listen to.
After all, its a big world and there's a lot of us in it.

A handful of people know, or even people that have heard the story of why I'm back in England and left Australia know that I've been having some anxiety stuff going. Its all pretty new to me although I know its definitely been there in the background of my life for a while.

Lets talk about the panic attacks for a moment.. Now if you've ever experienced this feeling to whatever extent then you know what I mean when I say that it is absolutely terrifying. From what I've read, people get them in different levels and some more often or hardly ever. No matter what your anxiety attacks are like, they are all awful and horrible and very scary.
I know exactly when I feel mine coming on. Firstly my heart will race like a bloody African drum in my chest, like its about to pop out at any second. Then I will go cold, and then hot and then I will start to shiver, which turns into shaking and trembling. My eyes start to blur and my hearing will go cloudy. My hands will tingle, my face will go numb and then I wont feel my legs. Like that intense feeling you get when you have pins and needles. That awful cramp, it will start in my shins and move up to my thighs, my hips, my stomach will turn, it will feel like someones dropped a medicine ball onto my chest and I wont be able to breathe slowly and calmly. I tend to hyperventilate and feel like my lungs just wont fill with oxygen. The world around me will spin, my hands with cramp up and go stiff In all different shapes and angles and it looks like you're having some sort of fit or stroke. My face slants and I cant control my face or mouth and my whole entire body is still solid.

It is the scariest, most horrific thing I've experienced. The first time it happened was a few years ago, At first I thought it was like an asthma attack and I had some of my bosses inhaler. But it wasn't and I think I started the sensations that I just explained. I was taken by friends to a walk in clinic which then turned into an ambulance that came to the car park. That was the first time I heard "You're having a panic attack, breathe". The day after was the day I ended up in hospital with septic shock, so I think the panic attack was from me not feeling well and then things just got ugly.
The second time was when I was in Thailand, Now ever since I was a kid I suffered with problems with my stomach. I'm not going to go into detail about this subject as I feel that's a whole other blog post and there is already one about it in the post 'Backpacking With IBS'  but my IBS plays a HUGE role with my anxiety stuff.

I've always panicked when I've been unwell, especially if I'm actually sick and I always end up freaking out so badly I have an anxiety attack and usually end up passing out. Bloody nightmare.
And then the week before I flew home from Australia is when the attacks just kept coming and It was just the worst week ever. Thankfully I've not had a bad attack since being home but I've still had attacks every now and then.

On a more personal level, my anxiety has definitely been part of everyday for about the past six weeks which has to do with the fact that I've recently been through a break up and the emotion from that really set me off. Even a month on I wake up without fail every single morning with a sheer panic sensation and it often wakes me up at the crack of dawn, and I have to talk myself out of it and distract myself in my phone for a little while.

Since writing about anxiety and IBS its amazing the amount of people you know and know of that come forward to express how much just reading about someone else having the same or similar shit going on really makes them feel less alone is exactly why  I write about this sort of thing. Its terrifying the whole concept of not always being fully in control on your mind and body. I mean how unfair, its my body I should be able to control it. But some things you cant help, and you just have to figure out how to live with them and make them part of your life but in a positive way. To learn from it, to look at anxiety in the face and be like "I aint scared of you, not today" and that's something I am working on. Trying to find ways to retrain my mind when I feel attacks coming on, and being honest about it. After all, millions of people right now are having panic attacks, IBS attacks and all sorts of issues. Instead of being afraid of it and ashamed, I think its so much more healthy to have it there available to read about. 

So there's a little snippet of the other side to the (not so much now) "exciting" and busy lifestyle I've chosen to try and live. Sometimes its not all sunshine and rainbows, and that's totally ok.

Don't be ashamed of something you have no control over, You've got this... We've got this.