This Ain't No Courtroom And You Ain't No Judge!!

Hello you, I hope your doing well. Its been a while, too long some would say. I've tried to post a piece of writing for quite some time. Unfortunately many things stopped me, judgement and fear started the habit of leaving the blog alone. 

Unwritten, yet the stories and words still there. That's all it was Habit!

Now I'm sure your thinking its very easy to break that cycle and its almost obvious. Just pick up a pen, get out the laptop and get on with it. 

I honestly never had nothing to say or write and the ramblings of my mind could fill pages galore. The words were stuck. The judgement from people who didn't approve or understand my writing acted as a glue, holding my thoughts and words prisoner within.

Over the past two years I've honestly lost count of the people who ask me why I don't write or that they miss my rambling words of nonsense, but somehow and we are all the same with this. The voices of those who put us down, that don't agree with our honesty and openness screams louder above the love and support from people who care. Now don't get me wrong even tho its great having people who support me and understand why I started the blog. It was never my intention to seek or want the approval from anyone. I started it because it helped me and if I could help one person see that depression should not stop you living your life to the best you can then that's great, fantastic, job done.  Honestly I lost sight of all that. I let the judgement looks from people if I was seen enjoying life get to me. They will never go away, unfortunately there will always be people that think if your depressed then slap on a frown, keep it there and don't dare let me see you happy! Well that's not entirely fair but the most infuriating thing with depression is if your having a good day, laughing and joking people will doubt you. 

No joke, I was once asked why I imply to have depression when I always enjoy myself on nights out!! 😯😮 AAAGGGHH!! sorry Fanny-Ann* didn't realise I wasn't allowed to come outta my house and enjoy myself. 

Like seriously, we all including myself need to give less a damn to what others think of us.. At the end of the day, we all judge people and that is never going to change. Everyone loves a good ole gossip or bitching session with your mates and that's fine! but do we really need to be rude and question why people decide to live their life the way they do. Like lets be serious, whose business is it that Jimmy* over the road wants to quit his job and travel the world? That's right not mine and definitely not yours either. Then there's that Patricia* one from town, who goes out every weekend gets drunk as a skunk and ends her night dancing on tables. You do You Tricia* Babes! you ain't hurting nobody, well maybe your liver and that definitely isn't my business so I need to shut my mouth.. If Annie* wants to write her blog again after loosing the power to get words on paper or screen. Well Annie* you do your thing!!

(*names have been changed for legal reasons 😎)

Be yourself, because everyone else is already taken and you can bet their all being judged too. So you may as well get judged for being yourself rather than someone else!! My my I got really into that there lovely wee rant on a Saturday morning. 

Maybe your wondering how I've come to free the words and write this piece? Well that is a story for another day. But I will ask you this, would you believe me if I told you a curly haired fairy with purple clothes and floral boots has got me to this point with her magical words of wisdom. Could it be true? I hope to be back to share all, until then.

Stay Safe, Stay Healthy and Look After Your Sunshine 

xO Annie  I mean Leonie 😝

I'm Sorry, What Did You Say

Hello everyone, I hope you are all doing well. Happy 2018, I'm not really a New Year kinda girl only because I'm not into the whole new year new me jazz. I decided this year to just be me! which if you know me will be challenging enough without throwing any resolutions into the mix.

Now its no surprise that Where Is My Sunshine has had a quiet 2017. I only published one article on the blog last year and I will explain why in a minute. The article I posted was very personal to me, you can still read just click here but it was after this that alot changed. I was still writing the entire year, but I didn't publish any for people to read and the reason for that is a simple sentence I heard so often I was ready to pull my hair out and do a Ms Spears 2007. Ok I may be a lil' dramatic but never the less it stopped me from doing something I enjoyed and that is not ok!! You ready for it...

You Must Be Alright Again Because Your Not Acting/Looking Depressed..

Now maybe not the exact wording, but I've heard so many variations of this silly nonsense and they all make me mad (see face above) P.s I love Kevin Hart! Seriously though please don't pick me up wrong here as it's important the difference in asking someone, how they are feeling and telling them they are alright. Although more often than not it was on social outings that I heard this the most but I still heard it from family friends and people I would see often. 

So lets say for example, you know someone in your group of mates who has depression and is open about it and can talk freely about it. You see them smiling laughing and joking around. another person in the group can pass a simple comment on how its great to see your over your depression, anxiety etc. which is a statement that can be received different by everyone and will most definitely not annoy everyone. (I'm a sensitive sally sometimes.) If the person your thinking on while reading this is open with their struggles, perhaps an easier approach is to ask them how they are doing first.

I can hopefully explain my own situation a bit better, because I understand not everyone will react the same way I did. In fact what annoys me one day probably wouldn't a few days later. Ok so for me the reason I held back on publishing a lot of my writing is simply, I was beginning to feel that I was being judged too much on the articles. Now I understand I have a public blog for anyone to read and therefore I can be judged openly. I am fine with that, honestly. What I'm not fine with is that if I happened to write about feeling low and someone seen me happy, I was made out to be a liar and vise versa. 

To Talk Without Thinking Is To Shoot Without Aiming

Moods change day to day, hell mine change at 30 minute intervals and ain't I a delight to be around. (shout out to my poor husband for putting up with me) but seriously what i write is not everything about me and if I'm unhappy today doesn't mean I won't be hosting a happy party tomorrow. 

It is very much F'd up, because you don't want people walking on egg shells around you either. Mental Health is still a mysterious thing to understand, no two people are the same and it takes so much time to understand your own mental health issues and habits. Thankfully I'm definitely more aware of my own and for most of the time aware of what I need to do for myself if I'm feeling a certain way. Be it a sleep, a walk, chocolate or a very large alcoholic drink!! (drink responsibly fokes 👌) and F.Y.I its very rarely a walk!

I will chat to you all soon as I hope to make more of my writing public again, so watch this space. 

As Always,

Stay Safe, Stay Healthy & Look After Your Sunshine.

xO Leonie

I Am What I Am!!

Hi everyone, I hope you're all doing well. It's a bit shocking that this is my first post of 2017 and it bloody March!! 😮 My wee blog has been fairly quiet lately to say the least but I felt I had no words to say or share. I'm not even sure if I have any now. Sure we'll give it a go....

 Its not that I've not been writing away lately because I have, I Just haven't posted anything as things haven't been to great. That may be an understatement to say the least. I will go into more detail in this post but I've basically decided to trust the timing of my life. I can't take it personally or blame myself for the way my mind works. I think I've finally realised that I need to take each day as it comes and trust that things can get better. 

People look forward to a new year in the hope that things will improve and it will be the best year they have ever lived. On the 31st of December I was most definitely one of those people (Dec' 2016 was a bad month). I had my hopes and dreams for 2017 all ready to be achieved. Little did I know 10 days into a fresh start the photo below would be taken of me. Location: Letterkenny Psychiatric Unit

Now I know what your all thinking, "look at the state a them roots" shocking I know!! 🙈 I admitted myself to the unit for the simple reason I had an Emotional Nervous Breakdown, Am I embarrassed? absolutely not.

I knew I needed to get serious help, I was in such a bad way. I often look back at this picture for the simple reason that bar a scratch on my forehead and puffy skin, I'm still me and I still look the exact same. Mental Health conditions do not have a certain image, all of us suffer just some worse than others. The stigma is still as bad as ever. It was a variety of different things in my life that led me to hit rock bottom some very personal that I'd rather not mention so publicly. 

As I said earlier the end of 2016 was one of the worse times I've ever had. Everyday I put on a fake smile, pretended everything was fine and got on with things. Quite simply the one thing so many people do each day. It is the worse thing in the world you can do. That day in January it all started with an argument and I cried. The only difference to any other time was that I couldn't stop. I tried so hard but everything that had built up in me just needed to get out. The scary thing was I wanted to get out. I hated myself so much I didn't want to be in this world. Now I've felt that way before but never as strongly. I knew I needed help and fast. Which made me cry more and feel so ashamed that I was at what I thought was a last resort admitting myself to a psychiatric hospital. It was definitely one of the best thing I could do for myself.
I stayed in hospital for 5 days, I learnt a lot about myself and how to deal with my feelings. I was monitored closely and my medication was changed for the better. 

The image I had in my head, which I'm sure a lot of people have of a psychiatric unit was scary and i was judgemental of them. In a very strange way I actually felt at peace in there. Everything was out in the open and honest. All patients had similar issues so mental health talk was not spoken in a whisper, medication was not secretive and nobody judged the person beside them. 

Its been some time now I've been home and back to the day to day of my mad life with my girls. Are things perfect and all honky dory? Absolutely not! Will They Ever be? Possibly not, I just don't know. What I do know is that I am not ashamed that I suffer live with depression. I still have fun and I still laugh. I've made so many small changes to my life lately and I hope they are for the best. I'm not being selfish by making these changes, I'm simply just living.. Okay maybe I am being selfish, but its needed sometimes. 

So there ye have it, for someone who didn't have much to say I can fairly ramble on. All I can say to you all now is be selfish, put your own needs first every now and then. Ignore the negative nellys, who drain the life outta you. Just be you, if you need a wee tablet and a chat every now and then with a therapist so bloody what. Its your life, you are your own number 1 supporter. So Whoopee Go You! You Rock!! 😎 

As Always,
Stay Safe, Stay Healthy & Look After Your Sunshine.

xO Leonie

I'm Going Through Changes 😀

Hello everyone, I hope you're all doing well. I honestly can't believe that it's been three months since my last update on the page!! I can't exactly explain why I decided to take a break from the blog, it just happened naturally and I'm kind of glad I did. Not much has been happening the past few months although I have made a few changes to my life and I can definitely see that it's helping me.  Slowly but surely. Now the changes are nothing too major, in fact I should really call them little tweeks. So my little tweeks are so simple and things I should have done so long ago.

As we all know if you find yourself in a negative situation the best thing to do is to turn it into a positive one. Easy enough right? Aaagghhhmmm Nope! Maybe the very odd time but not if it is happening constantly. Putting up with people or situations that make you feel so crappy is just exghusting. There is no point whatsoever. I personally have just decided to remove myself from a few of these situations that I was dealing with. It has definitely made small changes to me. For a while my  days were just full of stress and then bad decision making due to being stressed. It was a never ending circle.

Thankfully, I decided to also make some much needed changes to my health and it's looking to be one of the best choices I've made. I've been more positive and I'm excited to say I have been noticing more genuine laughter in my life. Such a silly thing to be excited about but there is no better feeling than noticing little snippets of your old self again. I'f I get permission I will do a more detailed post on what I've been up to in the next few weeks..

Overall I'm happy and content with where I'm at right now in my life. Will it keep improving? I sure hope so but we never know, do we? My days are still filled with highs and lows. No day is perfect and I don't expect them to be not with my two girlies who love a bit of mischief or should I say a lot of mischief. My aim right now is for my lows to be not so low and for my highs to be that little bit higher.. 

As always,

Stay safe, stay healthy and look after your sunshine.

xO Leonie

Just A Note x

 There's an ache in my chest it feels heavy, my hearts like a drum, my body's trembling, the butterflies in my stomach feel like they are carrying weights, my heads dizzy and light, I'm numb and weak. I wish these feelings are because I'm about to do something fun like a skydive or a bungee jump, unfortunately I'm not and this is a daily occurrence for me. Its not always easy for me to explain my personal mental health issues because I don't understand it and I don't think I ever will.

Its been a long while since I've wrote on here and I'm still not to sure if I've got to much to say. I didn't even realize that its been a year since I wrote my first blog post so I thought I would try get a few words together. Unfortunately I wouldn't exactly say I've made any dramatic improvement in the last year but I still struggle on, trying not to let my depression rule my whole life and that to me is an improvement at least. 

I always say that I'm sorry for the lack of ramblings on my blog sometimes and I truly am sorry. I struggle to write when my mood is at its lowest, at times I think this makes me fail as a blogger and well maybe it does. For me personally I don't want to add extra pressure to myself by having blog post deadlines. I started my blog to raise awareness, to help myself and to help others. That was and still is my main goal. 

Thank you all so much for your support over the past year, it means the world and more to me. x

I hope to be back on chatting to you all soon. 

Stay safe, stay healthy and look after your sunshine.  

 xO Leonie

Get The Right Support!

Hello there, how are you feeling? Things are pretty much the same with me, no major changes to report. I'm not letting that get me down though, as I'm very aware that it's an ongoing battle and will not be fixed in a few days.

Today this blog post is going to be about support networks that are available to each and every person who is living with a mental health issue or anyone who is currently feeling a little lost. To be honest I know for a fact that my support network will not suit everyone, its not meant to and that's okay. Your support network is exactly that, YOURS! Find people or things that make you feel better also try to avoid negative people and things. (not always easy I know) Here's a list of mine:

FAMILY

Thankfully my family are very understanding with me, if I want to talk about how I'm feeling I know they are there. I don't really confide in my family and they tend to find out about my mental health journey through the blog. Its suits me far better this way believe it or not. I know each and every one of them are there if I ever need them. 

So clearly still family I have to mention the hubs and my girls. I confide in my husband a lot and thankfully he never judges me for the way i feel. When he doesn't have the answers I need, there is always a cuddle and a cuppa to make me feel a bit better. Now my girls, honestly they make life hectic with their crazy wee ways and I never go a day not laughing my head off at them. Each day they give me enough kisses and hugs to last a lifetime. They are my sunshine!!

FRIENDS

I for one don't mind saying that I do not have a large group of friends and honestly I wouldn't have it any other way. The close knit of friends I do have are so very precious to me and have supported me so much for the last few years. Proper real friends are not easy to find. The friends that stand by you in hard times as well as good times are the ones you need and will help you so much more. Knowing you have the support from people who are not your family and are willing to listen to your troubles is PRICELESS!! They are there for you because they want to be!!

DOCTORS

Anything you say to your doctor is in private, there is no judgement from them and they can help you so much. Even if your only feeling a little lost, talk to your doctor because they can only advise you if they know something is wrong and trust me they CAN help. I have a lot to thank my doctor for, I was put on the correct medication and referred to a mental health professional. If I remained ashamed of how I was feeling and didn't go see my doctor years ago, I can honestly say I don't think I'd be here today. There is not a thing to be ashamed about. Its okay not to be okay!!! 

MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONALS

Now these people have no easy job but it is also no easy job finding the right one for YOU. I could give you the name of mine but its no good it really is trial and error. I honestly think you need to personally connect and feel completely comfortable with your counselor etc. I literally got it third time lucky. The first two counselors I had, were no doubt about it good at their job and unfortunately the connection wasn't there. I lied to them about how I was feeling or they said something to me and I would think how F#*king dare you. This is completely wrong and you should ask to be referred to another. This is your mental health so make sure you get it right.  

STRANGERS

Now I know what your thinking, (WTF) but hear me out. 

Have you ever been walking down the street and a stranger gives you a smile, says good morning etc. Well this is what I mean and I know I'm a rare being. But there is one stranger who helped me on a day I was really low and it meant the world to me. I was in a shop and got chatting to a woman. It was about nothing in particular, the usual weather, xmas, kids etc as I was about to leave the woman told me to please take care of myself then reached over and gave me a hug!! Usually I'd be a bit freaked out with stranger hugs but that day when I looked completely worn out and like crap, that glamorous stranger made me change my mind. So always be kind and smile you don't know who you could help.

Books/Kindle

I bet my husband is rolling his eyes at this one! HA! 

This is my go-to support network. I love love love reading. If its not a magazine or a book then its some device with the kindle app downloaded to it. Reading for me helps me escape for a bit and it helps me relax. I would much rather cosy up with a book than watch tv. It keeps your mind active and is said to reduce stress. So why would you not want to read every day?

CHOCOLATE

I don't think i need to explain much more.. x

I really hope each one of you have a support network of your own as it makes a massive difference to your day to day life. Feel free to message me with any questions you have. 

Stay safe, stay healthy and look after your sunshine.

xO Leonie 

Sometimes We Stumble Backwards!

Hello everyone, I really hope you weren't holding your breath waiting on my next blog post!

I know how much of a disaster I am at keeping the blog constantly updated and as per usual I've no excuse. I've definitely been busy but at nothing in particular, mainly life, my girls, hubby, work, being lazy and far too much online shopping. 

I didn't mean to take a wee break from writing and I can honestly say its done me no good at all. Its far easier for me to cope with my mind when I'm jotting my daily thoughts and goings on down. I personally feel over the last month or so I've taken a huge leap back in my battle with depression. (see I've told nobody that but i can write it ok, strange doll I am) I don't know why I've ended up feeling this way again but I don't intend on staying like it. Thankfully I'm due to go back to see my counselor in the next few weeks, so I'm on the right track at least.

I did noticed a few signs of my mental health getting worse, but the thing with depression is that it creeps up on you over days, weeks and months. Then before you know it the negative thoughts outweigh the positive thoughts, the bad days are more often than the good days and BOOM your in a slump. I wish I could sleep through it all and we all know that's not how life works. 

Hopefully the next time I'm chatting to you all things will be more positive and upbeat. Also I really mean it the next post wont be as delayed as this one. Remember look after yourself and keep smiling! 

Stay safe, Stay healthy and look after your sunshine.

xO Leonie