echoes

On our course we've been talking about things that we might encounter out on placements or once working in the field that remind us of things we've been through and bring up bad memories...they're called echoes.
Tonight I sort of had one.

Not out in the field or anything to do with social work at all. I was looking forward to tonight, we've never really done halloween so instead of getting dressed up I was planning a night in. The parents are away so PJ and I got takeaway, he was going to play his game and I rented the 6th series of Sex and the City because I own 4 and 5 and wanted to finish the story!

But whilst I was sat watching the DVD I was struck by this memory...last time I was watching a box set SATC I was stuck in halls and feeling really crap and using it as a way to try and distract myself but it never really worked. And suddenly all these feelings rushed back and I got that horrible feeling in my stomach, the panicky one, the one I felt all the time whilst in halls. I even knew what was happening but I couldn't stop it. PJ did his best and gave me a hug and I've been texting Kate about it most of the night but it only helped a little bit...

I know I'm ok and that my life is good, I have great friends, I love my course and I'm home. I'm happy. But that panic set in and it wasn't rational. I had this real fear, and it wasn't so much about having to go back there because I know that I'm home and I don't have to go back to halls and that I've actually been back and was alright. It's the fear that I might somehow slip back to that place I was in emotionally...I didn't really talk about it at the time but I was really down, I really felt like there was no way out of halls and that I'd be a failure if I came home and basically any option was negative. I've never been so down in my life. And this 'echo' brought back all those emotions and it really scared me. I'm crying as I write this because I just don't know what else to do with the emotion that's built up inside of me.

I know that tomorrow I'll be fine, that once I fall asleep I'll be lost in a dream world, that I'm happy and I love my course and have lots of friends, I do know that. But right now the feeling in my stomach is still there and I don't like it one bit.

Alright, I'm going to bed, I'm tired which probably makes all this worse. Hopefully when I next blog I'll be absolutely fine! This does tell me that those triggers and memories are still there and I need to find a way to deal with them somehow.
But not right now.

Much love xxx

only a little bit late...

I just realised that Mum has blogged and is very proud of the fact that she blogged before me! I did realise yesterday that it had been a week since I blogged last but it was late and I wasn't sure what to say so I decided to wait until today.

I'm still not sure what to write about, life is pretty good at the moment. Updates on my ups and downs:
-My knee is still getting better...if I over-use it then it can ache ALOT but its getting there...I'm driving in little bits now and walking more.
-I saw High School Musical 3 and loved it!! the bigger budget was noticeable and the songs were awesome, I've been listening to the soundtrack ever since and am going to see it again this weekend (sad I know, but I really don't care!)
-I've had a good week with lectures, I got my assignment in on Friday and was happy with it- won't find out how I did for another week or so. But I'm still really enjoying my course and developing friendships which is good.
-I didn't really make a fool of myself, I realised that one of my friendships is alot stronger than I thought and that being honest can sometimes work out for the best.

Coming up in the next week:
-CU tonight, I haven't been in a little while coz my knee was making it difficult to get in but I'm definitely going tonight, I miss my friends!
-Lots of work! Not anything super heavy but lots of little pieces I need to do this week that are going to take time...fortunately I have time to do them, I just need to get my rear into gear and do them!
-Trial interviews on Friday; a few of us 1st years volunteered to be guinea pigs at university so our teaching team can test out a new group interview technique coz the course is getting so many applicants :) so I get to try out for uni again on Friday...we were reassured that what happened wouldn't affect our place on the course! coz that could have been scary!
-Mum and Dad are away this weekend so I'm planning a pretty packed weekend actually: I think PJ and I are going to do takeaway and night in on Friday (it's halloween but I'm not planning on doing much), Saturday we're going to have Subway breakfast (there's a new Subway in Abingdon!!!) and then go see HSM3 with Kat. Then Hannah is coming round to stay Saturday night I think. Our parents get back in time for the light parties on Sunday.

I realise that I've been bullet-pointing my blogs alot lately, it just helps me to lay out my thoughts better, I have no idea whether it's easier to read or not!

My godmother is away at the moment so her blog is being kept up to date by her husband- very funny to read :)
Mum is keeping her going pretty well.
David & Pete aren't good at writing in theirs anymore but I'll let them off coz I know they're busy.
And that might be all my readers covered hehe so I don't feel bad about blogging late!

I'm off to eat some brunch...am hungry!
Probably ought to dry my hair too...
And do some work...
Busy week!
Much love xxx

ups and downs

Good things that are happening:
-My knee is feeling better generally.
-I'm going to see High School Musical 3 tomorrow.
-I had a really good lesson today where I had to practise interview techniques with my lecturer and I was terrified but she said I did really good and even picked me out in front of the class as doing really well :D
-I started to have some thoughts about placements which excited me.

Bad things that are happening:
-My first assignment is due in on Friday and despite it being a formative thing and not actually marked...I'm still stressing about it!
-My knee still aches by the end of the day.
-I think I just made a fool of myself by being honest with someone.

 

overall I'm having a good week and am super excited about HSM3 tomorrow- silly I know but I love those films and the music and everything Disney!
and hopefully I'll get to sleep in tomorrow which always makes me feel better :)
and I don't think my assignment will be horrible...it's just nerve-wracking!

that's all for now folks, am off to continue writing my assignment!
Much love xxx

all that worrying over nothing

Tuesday was fine...great actually :D I had a really good time at lectures and being in the wheelchair was fine.
I had a whole variety of people push me around throughout the day and it was actually interesting to see what it felt like to have to think about disabled access to places.

Today I slept in :D yey! which was great coz I was so tired from the weekend still. Then went out to lunch with Mum and my grandparents for my Nan's birthday...we thought about taking the wheelchair for me but my knee was feeling a bit better so I decided not to, especially since I would only have to walk from the car to the pub....I was a foolish girl! My knee aches so bad now! I mean, actually there was a step and the wheelchair would have been slightly complicated and walking was alright, only slightly painful...but afterwards it ached alot and still hurts now. So I didn't end up going to CU tonight and am planning a restful day tomorrow.

I did some work today but not as much as I should've, so I'll be doing more tomorrow- especially since the formative assignment for one of our modules is due in next friday! scary stuff!
Although I'm feeling alright about all the assignments, I mean they'll be tough work but I'm not feeling overwhelmed and I'm still loving my course- hence why I made so much effort to get into lectures yesterday!

My new desk is coming tomorrow- during my gap year we gave my desk which was huge to my Grandad. Now I'm back living at home I need a desk but unfortunately my old desk would just be too big for my room now coz I have some storage cabinet type things in now, plus I wouldn't want to take it back from my Grandad. So I ordered a new one, a smaller, thinner, dark brown/black one that looks really nice! And it's getting delivered tomorrow so although I plan to sleep in tomorrow again, I have to be up in time to receive the delivery.

All in all, things are good- my knee hurts but I'm still loving uni and feeling happy again :D which is very important!

Much love xxx

major update!

So I went on the CU weekend away and loved it :D until I twisted my knee and ankle whilst playing a silly game in the dark!
Foolish of me, I know, it was actually a really fun game but it ended badly...I tripped down a tiny step along the girls corridor and hurt myself. I pretty much cried solidly for the next hour or so coz I was in so much pain.

Sunday morning my ankle felt much better but my knee was still very painful and I couldn't put any weight on it, after a late night conversation with my parents (I woke them at about 1am I think- oops!) my dad came and got me on sunday morning...it meant that I missed the last talk and the group photo but there's no way I could've done the journey back in a packed car!

So anyways Dad and I stopped at Abingdon minor injuries on our way back to get it checked out. I was told it was either a ligament injury or a fracture- so I was given crutches and asked to come back the next day to have an x-ray (the x-ray machine wasn't open on sundays). So that's what I did today...with Mum in Derby and Dad in Farnborough, my Grandad came to the rescue and took me :) after a couple of x-rays and not too much waiting around I was told I haven't fractured it (yey!) so they took away my crutches (boo!) and told me to rest alot and do gentle movement around the house...definitely shouldn't be going to lectures....

Now taking away the crutches was a good thing because actually I don't have the upper body strength to use them really! but saying no lectures wasn't a good thing...I'm not your typical student, I love my course and after missing last tuesday's lectures due to illness, I really didn't want to miss tomorrow. I miss my friends and I want to catch up on what I missed. But I also understood that I shouldn't be walking too much on my knee...a little bit around the house but not too much. So we've managed to borrow a wheelchair from a friend and I'm going to lectures tomorrow! I'll be in the wheelchair so will still be resting my knee (like I was told) but will get to go to my lectures and my friends are going to wheel me around all day- lovely people that they are!

Now, I'm about to go to bed and was thinking about tomorrow and had a little knot in my stomach, like I get when I either don't want to do something or I'm nervous/stressed about something. I was trying to work out what and I think I worked it out...I don't want to attract too much attention. I don't need the wheelchair, I can walk- it just hurts, and I know that I'm going to end up explaining the whole story a million times tomorrow. I think I was worrying about people looking and wondering what's wrong but then I realised that I go to the School of Health and Social Care...people are so nice there! I don't think anyone would say anything bad actually. And I just need to work out how to tell people what happened in one or two sentences rather than worry about the whole story.
I guess I just want to go in and do my lectures without it being a bit deal but being in the wheelchair, whilst it being practical, is going to attract attention.

Plus I'm just really tired and everything seems worse when I'm tired. And in relevance to how I felt a few weeks ago...this is nothing! I'm so happy with uni and how things are going now, I just need to stop worrying about silly things!

So I'm off to bed, get some rest and hopefully tomorrow will be great :)

much love xxx

oh..

...I almost forgot...

Nina's home :D :D :D

I'm a very happy girl! xxx

a good week :)

I figured it was about time to blog again and since I've been super lazy today and haven't done much work I thought I should do something productive!

There's good reason why I haven't worked today, I was ill yesterday...well actually I was ill monday night (combination of chinese takeaway and fair rides= not good!) so I spent yesterday recovering and testing the waters food-wise...today I'm still pretty wiped so I've just lazed about.
Tonight I'm going to the CU quiz night though so that should be fun :)

I have got quite a bit of work to do though so tomorrow I will be putting my brain in gear and doing some work but for now I'm just going to have a relaxing day.

Other than the obvious bad night on monday, I've had a very good week...before I got ill on monday 4 of my uni friends (Danni, Teresa, Dina and Adam) came and joined me and 2 of my abingdon friends (Hannah and Tip) at my house to have dinner and hang out before going to the fair together :D it was so much fun and the group just worked together, it was brilliant!

This weekend I'm going on the CU weekend away which will be fun hopefully...although I haven't really thought about it too much.

Overall this week has shown me that despite moving home, my uni friends are growing in number all the same and I'm still getting involved with the CU.

All is good!
Much love xxx

Moving Home

We've made the decision...I'm moving home.

Whilst you make think that this decision has been made too quickly or something like that...I didn't make the decision...God did.

Tuesday night I had a long conversation with my parents where basically the outcome was that I wanted to move home because I don't like halls but didn't want to make a quick decision...Mum wanted the whole thing to be over because its an emotional rollercoaster going through all this...Dad wanted me to do more nights, even if I was eventually moving home, because he wanted to prepare me for moving out next year and generally being away from home.

Wednesday lunchtime Dad spent some time with God and God very clearly said to him 'it's time to bring her home'. So that's what we're doing. Particularly because it came to Dad rather than Mum or I who were leaning towards me coming home, God had a reason for putting me at Brookes and when all this first started I gave him permission to do anything to over-ride what I was feeling- now to be fair I was thinking that if he wanted to change my halls situation and make it ok for me to stay there or whatever then he could...instead he decided to over-ride our thinking process and tell me to move home.

It's only sort of sinking in today that I'm moving home...I'm so happy but for the last few weeks I've felt so unsettled that it feels weird to have made a decision. I'm so pleased that I can move home and especially that I know it's what God wants for me too.

I'm obviously concerned about moving out next year since I don't want it to be as bad as this year. It'll be different because I'll hopefully be moving in with friends, but anyway I'm going to go on the CU weekend away next weekend which will be good because I don't have any best friends in that group yet but hopefully it will build those friendships and it means I'm staying away from home. Plus I'm going to try and spend some nights crashing on Lucy's floor or some other people at uni, if I've been out with them or something and its easier to stay than to come home then I'll do that...I think it's important that I do.

I know that people might think badly of me for moving home so quickly but you honestly don't know what it feels like or what I felt like whilst going through it all...it's hard to describe.
Just know that I'm happy at home, God wants me to be here and that's what is important. I love my course and am making friends at university...that's more than alot of people can say. Plus I haven't compromised who I am by trying to go out and drink loads with my flatmates as a way of fitting in. instead I'm happy to be who I am and do university a slightly different way!

I'm off to do some reading for my course :)
Much love xxx