Alcohol and drinking, alcohol generally is, alcohol is a depressant. And it makes you feel, it makes me feel better and I do admit I do self medicate. If I feel bad I do go, I’ll like, if I’m out I will have a drink, if like I’m nervous I will have a drink and I will feel better. It’s not a good way of doing it and I know it’s not. But people then sort of can mistake that alcohol for what’s making them feel better and even though it can make them feel ten times worse, and they just keep drinking because it does make them, de de de, and then you get into sort of alcoholism and blah blah blah, like the really extreme end.

Like as I said the drinking doesn’t help. Drinking, like with socially it’s fine. I’m not going to deny that. It’s part of the Uni, part of my Uni lifestyle. Like it’s my friends, it’s one of my mate’s birthday tomorrow she doesn’t know we’re going, like we’re surprising her tomorrow, with like a pub crawl and like a Nandos meal, ‘cos she’s obsessed with Nandos. But like that, like I would feel wrong, well not wrong, that’s definitely the wrong word to use, I would feel awkward if I went to a social situation like a house party, or if we went to a club, and be sober, just because I wouldn’t feel comfortable.

Counselling is probably one of the best things that I would recommend to other people. sort of before like you know medication or anything like, or sort of suffering in silence, suffering in silence is the worst thing you can do. because it does just trap you, and you just go round in this little vicious circle and there’s no way out.

I do have no kind of belief in my own ability, my own kind of worth, like I am capable, I am really capable of academic achievement, but I still I didn’t believe it. And like I’ve got loads, I’ve got loads of groups of friends, if you write it down on paper what’s like my life is like, like you know, where I’m from, the grades I’ve got, things like that, I look like everything should be fine. But at the same time I felt that I just couldn’t live up to that ideal. I couldn’t live up to that point like that, this bubble that, this kind of fictional person that to me seemed completely separate from me, that everyone kind of looked at and sort of like expected so much of. I just, I couldn’t, I didn’t feel that I would be able to match that, and that I was worthless and that I just couldn’t like I couldn’t like, my parents and like my teachers all kind of like, You’re going to go far, and all this kind of thing, which is lovely to hear that, that you know people believe in you, but at the same time it was that pressure that I think also kind of sent me down because like I was just kind of like I can’t do this, I, there’s no way I’m gonna be able, I’m gonna let me down, they’re gonna be angry at me, they’re gonna be disappointed in me, they’re gonna be this, this, this. And then that would send me of into like a different thing.

Over sort of my second year of college, I remember being just a bad time, like to anyone that sort of knew me at the time, I would’ve seemed fine, I mean I was voted to like the bubbliest person in my college, but like behind that kind of façade of just being able to cope, and being able to kind of like handle everything and get everything done, and sort of still manage to like see people and do this, like everything behind it was just crashing. Like I felt really, really bad, and I felt bad for not telling people, but I, but because it was, I was restricted ‘cos I didn’t want to, it would go back to, I didn’t wanna burden them, I didn’t.

If I’m perfectly honest because both are sides of me, but I prefer the smiley side. I prefer the smiley side, I prefer that upbeat side but the downside is like is just, it’s just been there, it’s just what I’m used to. It’s kind of like it always has just been there and it always has like just been a part of who I am, what I do. All that kind of thing, and it is, it hasn’t been till like probably recently that I’ve kind of noticed the distinction between the two.

I just remember feeling numb. Just ‘cos it was kind of like, as I said it had been echoing around my head, but along with the thoughts of, You’re wasting time. And I’d kind of sit there and, Okay. It was kind of like, like if, like you know you’ve got a cold and you can just hear it coming, then you listen to someone kind of goes, Oh you sound like you’ve got a cold, and you’re like, Yeah, I’ve got a cold. And kind of like, it was the, it was the fact that someone outside of me and outside of my own head and outside of a computer screen, saying, Here’s, this is, if you’ve got, if you’re doing this, this, this and this, you might be depressed.

Like it was, it was someone outside and kind of a bit of that, Oh, okay. Right. Right okay. And it was, it was, that was literally just, Right, dot, dot, dot, blank space. But it was relieving to hear someone, it was relieving and just kind of like, a realisation that it, that this wasn’t just normal that this wasn’t how like everyone felt, every hour of every day. That this, that I was different, that I was kind of outside of the normal kind of block. And that someone other than me had said it. And someone else like other than the one friend who I’d spoke to, other than that one, those two people, it was someone else who said it, and that kind of made it slightly more real.

I then kind of stopped taking them, without telling my GP, just ‘cos I just kept forgetting to take them, and I thought I’ll take ‘em later, I’ll take them later, I’ll take them later. And then kind of I just didn’t and I haven’t been back on them for a while, I mean I am kind of umming and erring with the decision of going back on them, just because I am going through this kind of bit at the moment that I’ve become like, Phew Okay, but I know that they can make you more anxious. I mean they work for some people, and some people they don’t. And I’m still trying to work out whether I’m one of those that it does or doesn’t.

I wouldn’t say no to them, I’d like, it, and they did ask me, did I want to go on anti-depressants. And I, because I was kind of this, Oh right, kind of state of mind, so, Yeah, why not? Go for it.And like as I said I’m thinking about going back on them, but it’s kind of weighing up the pros and cons of it, ‘cos they do make me feel a bit more anxious, for a while until like everything evens out and it did take about 4 to 6 weeks, it isn’t a quick [click finger] like that. Like drugs and kind of sort of counselling and CBT, will kind of be the best way of kind of dealing with it and talking to people. I, like if I had to pick one way of dealing with it, it would be talking, talking about things, ‘cos there’s only, there’s only so much that a drug can do. But I wouldn’t say no, and I wouldn’t discourage anyone from using them. I would encourage them to use it ‘cos it might work for them, it might you know, just don’t drink heavily on them because then it can just make you feel worse, because like yeah. They just can.