A few days back George Shelley of Union J and I'm a Celebrity fame posted a short video to YouTube talking about his sexuality. Strangely, I had actually planned to write this blog post before George's announcement. In the video, George discusses how there has been much speculation surrounding his sexuality and that he wanted to clarify that he had had both girlfriends and boyfriends in the past. He went onto say that he does not need to label his sexuality, as for him labels are old fashioned. Of course, the media jumped on the story and announced that George had came out as 'bisexual' completely ignoring the point George was trying to make.

For me personally, George's video is everything I had wanted to say in my original blog post. If you are not aware, I have been in a relationship with a girl for almost 7 years and we have been engaged for almost two years. Prior to this, I had had relationships with boys. (I say this very loosely as I was only 20 when I met my partner). I have been very lucky to grow up in a liberal accepting family and I have always been very vocal in my support for LBGT rights. Even as a teenager growing up in the early naughties when the idea of being gay was not as prevalent in society as it is now. I have never ever had a struggle internally with the fact I can like men or women. However, I have had a struggle externally with people trying to 'label' my sexuality.

A lot of people, even my family, assume I'm gay. The fact I have been with my partner for so long and my previous relationships were short lived I believe found this assumption. I have had a few acquaintances say 'You're gay now, aren't you?'. I don't get annoyed with this, they do not mean any harm. It is just frustrating that there has to be a label thrust upon me. A lot of bisexual people have talked about the struggle of 'bi-erasure' and I used to think this did not really exist (like the ignorant person I was before finding the glory of feminism). Even though I would not label myself bisexual, I still see it around me all the time. People still see in black and white; you're either gay or straight. There is no in between.

However, sexuality is a fluid concept. It can mean different things to different people. Because of  this, there are now numerous sexualities including but not limited to straight, bisexual, asexual, and pansexual. I find this quite hard to deal with. I understand why the sexuality and gender spectrum has increased over the years. It gives people a form of self identity. But I do not need a label. I am me. And I like who I like. Gender does not even come into the question. I like the person for their personality and the emotional connection we make. It is very rare that I ever feel anything for anyone purely on a physical/sexual level. And at this point, it does not even matter? I am in a committed relationship with a girl. Because I fell in love with her. It does not negate my past relationship. It does not mean I am 'now' gay. Likewise, If George falls in love with a girl, it does not change who he is. If George falls in love with a guy, it still does not change who he is. 

I want to make it clear, I am not saying that people should not be labelled. Labels are very good and powerful and allow for more representation within the mainstream. Being able to call yourself gay, bisexual, pansexual, asexual (the list goes on) is a fantastic thing. But allow a person to label themselves, do not do it for them. And do not assume if a person is in a relationship with another person of the same-sex that they are automatically categorised for life. 

What do you think about labels and the fluidity of sexuality? Feel free to comment below to tell me your views, I would love to hear them :)

Sam Pepper has done it again. Another disgusting video with yet more vile content and presented to the world as a 'prank'. This time Pepper's idea of a joke was to fake a murder. Because murder is hilarious, did you not know? Of course people were outraged, including myself. I have strong opinions and am not afraid to voice them, I am politically active, a politics student, and often lend support to causes I agree with. However, I have never been so offended that I felt the need to start a petition. Well, that was until Monday, after I watched Pepper's video.

The problem with the Sam Peppers of the world is that they clearly build their careers around being controversial. Sam Pepper is the Katie Hopkins of YouTube. All he wants is to be famous; he does not care what he is famous for. Part of me did not want to indulge him in his quest for notoriety but I felt strongly that someone needed to do something in attempt to stop him. The majority of the YouTube community had already spoken out against Pepper and practically disowned him after the allegations of sexual assault that arose in 2014. Unfortunately, YouTube are still providing Sam Pepper with an audience, even after he has proved he is not responsible with his content and abuses his platform. This really frustrated me and so, after a suggestion from my partner, I decided to launch a petition on change.org to ask YouTube to deactivate Pepper's account.

In the first few hours of the opening the petition, only a few people signed. Then out of nowhere, it seemed to gain momentum. It reached 1000 signatures, then 50,000 and within 24 hours, it had surpassed 100,000 signatures. As I type this, the petition has over 155,000 signatures and it is still increasing by the minute. One hundred and fifty five thousand people agree that Sam Pepper should be removed from YouTube, including several high profile members of the YouTube community. However, YouTube have stated they believe the video does not break their community guidelines so will not take the video down.

I personally feel that the video does break their guidelines. Surely Pepper knew that uploading a video so similar to execution videos created by terrorist organisations was not a particularly sensitive idea and could be seen as promoting terrorism and/or violent culture. If younger viewers watched this video and believed it was acceptable to kidnap their friends and tie them up, they may get arrested for false imprisonment. I do not believe 'it was just a prank' would fly in a court of law. Sam Golbach, who was the subject of Pepper's prank, later said that he had not been traumatised from the event and was happy for the video to be uploaded to YouTube. However, I feel this is not really relevant. For once, consent is not the issue. The issue is that this is a very real problem that people are facing every day. It should never be replicated as a prank. Because, quite simply, murder is not a laughing matter.  

Some people have accused me of trying to censor YouTubers and deprive them the right to free speech. I can assure you, that is not my intention. I do not want to limit creators in that way but I do want them to realise they have a responsibility with the platform they have been given. If Sam Pepper really cared about anything other than notoriety, he would have apologised and removed the video as soon as he realised most people had been repulsed by what they saw. But in true Pepper style, he did not care; he basked in the attention. He has been allowed to get away with this once before and because of this, he feels untouchable. It is such a shame that YouTube is endorsing this attitude of invincibility.

2014 was a horrible year for me sprinkled with a few really brilliant moments. Getting engaged to the love of my life, getting a new puppy, spending some proper quality time with my family, some really amazing concerts and theatre shows were all highlights of not only the year but of my life. On the down side, I lost people I considered to be true friends and I struggled severely with my anxiety issues. I won't spend too much of this post dwelling on the negative, I promise. But I do think that it's important to acknowledge issues so you can move on from them.

I make resolutions every year and I tend to stick to them. This year feels different though, it feels like a complete new start. Like I said, some of my friendships have disintegrated. I have been very dependent on my friends in the past and I would say I haven't coped very well with losing a few people who I thought would always be in my life. Of course, there is blame on both sides. Infact it doesn't even matter who is to blame, it is about assessing who is good for you and who is not. If someone has the power to make you feel worthless, they should not stay in your life. Whatever the reason. For years, we have been stuck in a toxic cycle and it's time to break out of it. I only wish these friends the best but they have no place in my life anymore and I have no place in theirs.

The people I am taking into 2015 are the best of the best. They are people who have never let me down. People who have been there for me through thick and thin. They understand me. And even when they don't, they always try to. I have an incredible fiancee, a family who are the most accepting and loving people in the world, the best lifelong friends I could ask for. I am happy I have them all in my life, I am so so thankful for them.

I have so many things to look forward to in 2015. We have three holidays booked (including Florida), moving to a house in February, lots of daytrips and concerts planned. So many things to be happy about.  The only resolution I am making this year is to make 2015 the best year I possibly can. Of course there are lots of things I need to do to make this happen but the first thing is to let go of the past. Let it all go. And hopefully, with a new positive attitude I can make 2015 the best year I've ever had. No, let me rephrase that; I WILL make 2015 the best year I've ever had!

My mental health is always a bit up and down. Why are there are long periods of times when I'm fine? For me being kept busy means I'm less likely to have any problems. Which is why when I'm in employment, I don't suffer as much. I focus on the job at hand and just get on with it. I have had two exceptions to this rule - I once worked in a big department store and I hated it. It was more to do with the physical store than the company. I had to quit because the job just wasn't worth the stress it was causing me. A few months after, I started work for the a big theatre company in their call centre. It was the worst experience of my entire life. I hate speaking on the phone anyway so for me, it was hell on earth. As it was a temporary contract and we needed the money to live, I stuck it out and I'm glad I did because I did gain some kind of job satisfaction and pride. In my other two main jobs that I have had - a assistant manager in a local convenience store for six years and two very fun summers working in the retail department in somewhere very fancy (I can't say where just incase I go back!), I have reveled in the work environment. Obviously there were stressful moments but especially in the latter job, there was literally no time to think about being anxious. I'm an expert avoider so that worked well for me! So I have come to realise that my university timetable where I have 8 hours of contact time a week really really really does not sit well with me. I'm not self motivated, I need structure and I need routine to feel good about myself and this is something that university does not provide.

I can hear the few people yelling out obvious things to solve this -

"If university stressed you out so much, why don't you just leave?" - The biggest reason why is that I worked so hard to get into university, I went back to college to study an access course and then I got into a very good university and then had to leave because of anxiety and depression. This is my last chance to get a degree and I'm not going to let anything stop me - even my anxiety.

"Why don't you get a job alongside university?" Honestly, I have tried to go for jobs and my anxiety has stopped me even getting to the interview. I do want to work but I can't work until I feel better and I won't feel better until I'm working. This is something I do really consider every day but I do not want to end up in a situation like the call centre where it puts me in an even worse position and university begins to suffer with it. I don't want to jeopardise my degree.

I often have what I call "anxiety spirals" which at the moment occur daily or weekly. These "spirals" are when I get myself so psyched out that I literally cannot do anything. I can't leave the flat. Sometimes I can't leave my bed. It's like my thoughts are too loud and I can't focus on anything other than them. It feels like I'm spiraling into a pit of despair and I can't get out. A few months ago I began to bake, and it helped me so much in that respect. It was a 'distraction'. And I've found that having distractions is what gets me out of the spirals. I'm not sure if distracting myself is the healthiest way to go about it but it works, so I will continue to do it.

The state of my friendships often affects my anxiety. If I am fighting or arguing with a friend, that feeling of lack of closure gets to me. I can't focus on anything other than if I am right or if I am wrong. Should I just be the bigger person? Do I let people walk over me? Should I say something or should I not? Do I just let how I feel slide? Am I a bad friend? Do I not make enough effort? I go over and over these questions in my head. It's deafening a lot of the time. But I've come to realise that people pleasing is not always necessary. You should always try to be the bigger person so you can say you did everything you could to fix the situation but if the other person is not willing to meet you in the middle, you can't force them. And sometimes you just grow out of friendships. Sometimes the friendship is toxic and you NEED to let it go to move on. Putting other people first is always a nice thing to do but unless they do the same for you, you will be constantly giving and getting nothing in return which will make you weaker and less able to give effort to the people who deserve it.

Again, I feel like this post has been all over the place which is kind of how my brain feels at the moment. Oops, my apologies. I do eventually want to do something more structured but I feel I will wait until the new year and incorporate it into my resolutions :)

To anyone who reads this, I hope you are well :)

Kaylee

It is often stated that mental illnesses are rarely understood. In my experience, I would say that is completely true. I love all my friends dearly, they make my life a better place and I know they only want whats best for me. But the majority of the time, our friendship suffers because they don't really know how to be friends with someone who struggles the way I struggle. My anxiety has been at an all time high this year and it has made it difficult to do normal things like attend university, keep down a job or even leave the house. Most days I am plagued by bad thoughts, some are completely irrational and others are not. I often obsess over these thoughts over and over until I find it hard to do anything other than focusing on breathing. Of course, this is my issue and it is my job to find ways of getting through this trying time but some reactions from people in my life have really not helped my recovery.

Anxiety is a word, a bit like depression, that is thrown around far too much. Anxiety is not simply 'feeling nervous'. My anxiety often manifests in physical symptoms. I constantly feel exhausted, or nauseous. I also suffer from digestion and kidney problems and these are exasperated when I feel stressed or anxious. Of course, there are different levels of anxiety, some can suffer minor anxiety, some peoples anxiety is circumstancial, some people do not have anxiety or panic attacks. But I need to make clear anxiety is NOT the same as being nervous. It's far far far more complex. I will often be sat in lectures feeling fine and then all of a sudden a thought will pop into my head and I will immediately begin to have an anxiety attack. Some people say their anxiety attacks make them feel dizzy or they feel numb. I don't get these symptoms, I just go into a state where I feel the dread in my stomach and tears behind my eyes and I cannot do ANYTHING. I have the desire to escape whatever situation I'm in. HOWEVER a lot of the time, I also cannot move as I think people will ask where I'm going or know that I'm having an anxiety attack. So I sit there and have an internal breakdown until I feel it's safe to leave.

I have struggled with a few issues over the years. Depression is one of the most difficult experiences I've ever had but I would argue that my anxiety affects me more day to day than depression did. Although I did suffer from anxiety when I had depression, the anxiety was very concentrated and to related to how I (thought I) looked. I would often be afraid to go out because I thought people would judge my size. Now my anxiety can be caused by anything and I will stress over any tiny little mishap. I often have anxiety spirals where I don't leave the house for days and I cannot focus on anything.

I have always always had a group of people who I consider to be my 'best friends'. I have never, except for maybe in primary school, had just ONE best friend. Over the past few years, this dynamic has changed quite a lot. I still have a lot of close friends, people that I love spending time with, have inside jokes with and share each others lives but I often find it difficult to confide my struggles with mental illness with anyone except the ones who have experienced it themselves.

I want to make this clear now. Not one of my friends has ever outwardly or consciously been dismissive or negative about my issues. And I am incredibly grateful for that. However, I often am thrown into situations where I feel guilty because I have 'let people down' because of my anxiety (or depression or my eating issues). And this is where we have a problem. In this day and age, friendship can take on many forms. I speak a lot more to my friends via text or social media than I do face to face. Why? Because I moved away from my home town over three years ago. It costs a bomb to go back and also is very time consuming (3 hours door to door). Even my friends who live in London all live at least an hour away from me. I am a firm believer that quality friendship time can be face to face or it can literally be a phone/skype/whatsapp conversation (fyi, I hate phone calls and will avoid them at all costs).




There have been situations where I have had to cancel on plans or on people or on visits home. Not always because of anxiety but it usually is. Often on the other end is hostility. No understanding. And then this triggers a MASSIVE wave of anxiety and self hatred. 'I'm not a good enough friend' 'I'm a horrible person' 'I don't deserve friends'. People always assume that it's because the person 'cannot be bothered to make the effort'. I'm telling you, if that person couldn't be bothered to make the effort, they wouldn't have made the plans with you in the first place. OR they would flake out way before. I have not once agreed to go to something I didn't plan on going to. I have got to the point now where if I think something is going to trigger an anxiety attack or I feel will be difficult attending, I will just say no immediately. Which is sad because the only reason I'm doing that is so I don't face emotional blackmail further down the line. Obviously if you miss something important, your friends do have a right to be upset. After all, you are part of their life and they want you there. But you should never be made to feel guilty if you cancelled for a genuine reason - whether that reason be mental illness related or not. The world would be a much nicer place if everyone just took a chill pill to be honest.




I often feel detached from my friends. Apparently this is an Aquarius trait but it's definitely something that has got worse in the past few years. I often find it difficult to tell people I am upset with them and I often feel on the outside. I think this is partly due to growing up. A lot of my friends have children, they are settled down and I have moved away.  It is REALLY difficult to keep your friendship healthy when your lives are all completely different. I also think the other part is because I feel like my friends don't really get what I'm going through. I never want to put my downers on my friends and also when I have some of them haven't really reacted in the best way; 'You REALLY think you were ill?'.  This is really difficult because half of my battle is actually me accepting that I do struggle. It took me years to admit I had suffered with eating issues, it took me years to admit that yes, I probably was depressed.. I never felt like I had the 'right' to be ill. Other people were smaller, other people had it worse. What did I have to be depressed about? And hearing this echoed in my friends - even if they didn't exactly mean it how I read it - that didn't exactly help me. I know all of them love me but sometimes I still feel as alone as if they didn't.

I don't really know what this post has been about. I'm finding it extremely difficult to order my thoughts at the moment. I hope the next entry will be more coherent than this one.

Til next time..
x

"sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me"

When I was younger, I used to sing the above and really believe it. I have always believed that I was always proud of who I was. And to a certain extent, that's true. I have never cared if I was different than others, I'm always happy to embrace the quirks of MY personality. When other teenagers were becoming interested in boys, I will still happily obsessing over television shows. In fact my obsessions were actually what I was known for in school. I spent the majority of my teenage years on online message boards, meeting people online and I wasn't ashamed to admit it. I had plenty of friends offline too because I simply would ignore whenever anyone tried to bully me for things I liked. I was who I was and I was never ever going to apologise for it. However, although I was comfortable with who I was on the inside, I have NEVER been comfortable with who I was on the outside.

My problems with my weight began in my early teens. I was always slightly chubbier than other girls my age. It was simply puppy fat. I remember the first time I was called fat. It was actually when I was much younger, I must have been about 5 or 6. It was a boy who lived in my street who made the comment. I can't actually remember the circumstances but I remember the comment and it has stuck with me til today. The thing is at that age, I wasn't even chubby in the slightest.



I remember being really upset by the comment and running home to tell my Mum. She was comforting and she told me to stand up for myself if anyone ever said it again. I don't think I ever did though. Words weren't supposed to hurt me and I don't think I really understood that something that wasn't physical could hurt that much. I was pretty much self conscious about my weight from that day on. But it didn't exactly repel me from food, infact it had the opposite effect. Food was my comfort zone. I had never ever been a fussy eater, I would always eat my vegetables and I loved healthy meals. My Gran lived across the road from my Mum and I and all too often I would go over and get treated with sweets and cakes. It's only looking back now that I realise that this is a pattern which has followed me almost my whole life.

When I reached my teenage years, I had a paper round. I earned about £30 a week because I used to do two rounds everyday and four everyday at the weekend. That is an insane amount of money for a 13 year old to earn. I had nothing really to spend it on apart from sweets and chocolate. I put on quite a lot of weight from them onwards. I still wasn't huge or obese but I was around a size 12/14 by the age of 14/15. I remember clothes shopping used to fill me with dread. I used to live in jeans which were always too small or too big for me. Around this time, my Mum would constantly tell me I needed to lose weight. She didn't used to say it horribly, it was just concern from a worried Mother. But to me, all I heard was her telling me I was fat.



There were a lot of other factors in my teenage years that constantly reinforced my belief that I was "huge". My first year of college, I found out a few friends on my course had a less than flattering nickname for me. There were often comments about my weight brought up in conversations. The first boy I ever liked called me fat and told me I should lose weight. Another led me on and then told me it was a joke. Another pursued me for months and then told me he didn't want a relationship. A few months later he started a relationship with a girl a lot smaller than me. I'm not saying the last two were because of my weight. Infact, they most probably were not. But to me, everything that went wrong was because of my weight. Through all these issues, I still took comfort in food.


Around the age of 20, I had put on a significant amount of weight. I had gone from a size 12/14 to a size 18/20. I had started dreading going out and always felt huge in comparison with other people. I felt disgusting and I remember the exact moment I decided it was time to change. It was June 2009. I had been in London for the weekend. I was sat in Leicester  Square. I decided something had to be done. And with that I started "dieting". I lost over four stone in just over a year. I don't know exactly how much because I refused to weigh myself until December 2009. I don't really want to go over the details into what I did or how I lose the weight. This isn't about what I did to tackle these feelings, it's about the triggers.


Throughout this time of weight loss, the amount of comments I got about my weight tripled. I worked full time at my local shop and every other customer would comment on it. Both positive and negative. All triggering in different ways. Behind every comment, I thought there was a hidden meaning. The constant scrutiny on my weight from pretty much everyone was a LOT of pressure. I had lost all this weight and still all everyone wanted to talk about my size. I never was tiny. I was a "healthy size" at my lowest. But mentally and emotionally, I felt worse than before. My self worth was almost entirely placed on how much I weighed. People would often say to me "You look just okay now, don't lose anymore" and then another would say on the same day "How much more do you have to lose?". It was exhausting having everyone comment on both my weight and how much or what I was eating.

It isn't just weight related comments that stick with me. It's anything to do with my appearance. A number of people who have made comments with negative connotations. Every single one, I will obsess over. And the stupid thing is, the person responsible probably won't think about that comment ever again. Over the past few years, I have put over a stone back on. I'm still under 10 stone. I'm nowhere near as big as I was before. People still comment on my weight. It's happened a lot over the past two years. There have been a few incidents that have made me feel as big as I was before. Just yesterday, I had a group of boys opposite on the train platform calling me a "big girl". A few years ago, a boy called me fat at the dinner table. Although he immediately apologised, I still think about it to this day.

Words do hurt. And how you use your words matters. You have no idea what the other person is going through and how your comments will affect them. Something as personal as appearance, unless you are giving a genuine comment: "you look incredible" or something that can't be skewed negatively, is something you shouldn't comment on. Ever. Period. If a person is obviously uncomfortable with something, please don't press them on it. Leave it be. Sticks and stones do break your bones but words can break someone's self esteem. So really, is one worse than the other?