**due to interest and demand, i'll be posting my blogs in both welsh and english.
this is the first.**
literally, never have. until now. (except for the welsh version i've done lol, this is an english version)
i was so fed up one day in february. there had been a succession of shit days, feeling sorry for myself and stressing about all the work i hadn’t done (the usual really), and i just wanted to scream at everyone and tell them exactly what was on my mind, y’know.
but i have more to say than that, and it’s not all self-inflicted last-minute assignments, i promise.
anyway, i’ll start at the beginning. a bit of context:
i grew up in gaerwen on anglesey with my mam, dad and little sister. they say that people from gaerwen are chavs and roughians, but where no chavvier or rougher than any other village in wales, honest.
according to old home videos, i used to be a little diva – i loved singing, dancing, and acting in a ballerina costume with a stethoscope around my neck and a rucksack on my back. (yes, all at the same time) i loved improvising stories and i quickly got my first job, as my little sister’s personal-bedtime-story-teller.
then when i started school, things went downhill pretty fast because i was being bullied - and that lasted until the bully left school a year before i did. even though the bully left, the bullying didn’t stop, as by year 6 i was fat. people say “nooo, it was only puppy fat” … no mate, i was fat. fatter than my classmates anyway.
i had a few shitty experiences at school but you can hear about them another time, in another blog maybe.
high school: i loved the first five years. i really enjoyed it tbh. it’s hard to find a bad memory from then apart from one or two that’s scarred in the brain. like when one of my PE teachers called me fat, in front of my parents on parents’ evening. i was only in year seven. bitch.
summer 2012, i was in the midst of an argument with my dad whilst putting up a gazebo in the garden. “jen, this girl needs fucking help” my dad told my mam in his temper. “that’s what i’ve been trying to tell you for ages but nobody’s fucking given it to me!” i shouted, over the entire village. the village of chavs and roughians.
sixth form was a rollercoaster. that’s the time where i really thought “fucking hell i’m not okay”.
a gap year, a crappy year doing a course i did not enjoy at university, and now i’m still in university but doing a course that i actually enjoy!
anyway, last year was the biggest shitshow so far, and this year hasn’t been brilliant either tbh.
christmas 2016, i felt like absolute crap. honestly, i didn’t care about anyone or anything. i went up 3 dress sizes and i’m STILL trying to get back to the size i was but i’m scared because the women on my dad’s side of the family tend to be quite “big-boned”.
i didn’t want to speak to anybody. i was like “fuck everyone, nobody cares about me and i don’t care about them either” (but inside, i really did care).
it only got worse from there. i bailed on nights out, i wouldn’t reply to texts, snapchats or mails on facebook. i was isolating myself but at the same time i was panicking that people were slagging me off for that very reason.
i did the bare minimum of work for university, and that was only done the night before it was due because i was terrified of failure but i didn’t care enough to do the work earlier. a constant internal battle.
all this sounds so fucking boring, i’m sorry. but i seriously didn’t tink anything was wrong with me at this point. i just thought i was a horrible, rude, lazy girl… just a little bitch basically. and that’s what i seemed like as well to the people that didn’t really know me. (which at the time was a lot of people because i was mentally isolating myself)
thank heavens for three friends who told me: “lowri, you’re not yourself. you need help.”
nobody had ever said that to me before. but now, i couldn’t muster the courage to go to the doctor.
anyway, the end of may 2017 – i had an exam. i’m shockingly shit in exams. like, give me coursework any day, but ask me to sit and study… nope. and i’m a slow writer, so writing three essays in two hours isn’t my idea of fun.
i was in a tough place with a guy i was seeing and his ex at the time. there was talks of us getting a restraining order against her and all that jazz. so i went to my tutor and poured my heart out to her, crying: “this exam is in five days and i haven’t even opened a book.” she jumped straight on the phone and called the head of department and asked for permission for my exam to be postponed. (shout out to delyth humphreys, best tutor i’ve ever had)
but the deal was that i had to go to my doctor for help. ugh, FINE.
the next day, the doctor puts me on anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medicine, and signs me up for counselling.
hold on. anxiety? i do not have anxiety. depression, i understood. i knew that depression wasn’t just being sad. i’d had my suspicions that i was depressed for years, but to everyone (unprofessional and professional) i tried to talk to, i was just a “hormonal teenager”.
growing pains.
anxiety sounded ridiculous to me. i love being on stage. i completed an A level, btec and gcse in drama and performance, how the hell do i have anxiety? it didn’t make any sense.
but according to the doctor, the counsellor, and two psychiatrists in the hergest mental ward in gwynedd hospital: i did have both depression and anxiety. and i had for a while too. years.
i was humiliated on my sister’s 18th birthday. nothing to do with her, i just remember the thing clearly because it was on that day. turns out i really didn’t need that restraining order against that guy’s ex, but rather against him. but that’s another story.
i spent 10 days in bed after that, and in that ten days i only got up seven times, and that was to piss. i didn’t go to work. i didn’t wash. i didn’t eat (and that is super weird for me!)
i lost almost two stone in ten days. 26lbs in 10 days.
i’m not gonna lie, i loved that. but it was gross, unhealthy, disgusting.
i think that was my lowest point. my rock bottom. i’ve had other dark times after that but at least i’ve been able to get out of bed at some point every day – and not just to piss.
by now i am quite an open person. that’s why i’ve started this blog. i want to share my story with anyone who’ll listen because i went so many years with no one.
and if no one is listening to you – make them.
as yws gwynedd says in his song “sebona fi”:
[mae ‘na werth i dy wen] your smile has its worth.