Steady My Heart.

I am a comfort eater. I find it hard to admit - but actually most people's attitude to food changes in relation to stress - some under eat, others like me - comfort eat. And as much as I wish I lost my appetite when stressed, I just don't. So at 22:43 I am sat here writing about being stressed, eating hazelnut chocolate spread from the jar. I kind of bargained with myself - if I did something constructive like blogging, then it wasn't so bad to comfort eat because y'know - at least I'd actually be processing some of the stress. So why am I stressed? I still haven't got an official start date for my new job. The hope is that I will start this coming Monday, but it's looking less and less likely as the days go on. Tomorrow I am seeing Occy Health again and will the proceed to bombard HR with phone calls until I know what's going on. I am so ready to start and financially I cannot cope any more. I can barely afford food - thus making comfort eating co...

This week has been tough in parts. It's been long and exhausting and I am still feeling pretty ill at times. There are positives though and I've accepted that there are going to be some lows. My heart rate is a lot more settled. 93bpm as an average for the day isn't bad given how active I'd been but I'm still having runs of intense tachycardia and it's exhausting. I'm seeing my GP in the morning and I'm really going to try and be assertive. I need some constructive planning to happen. I fell down the stairs this week, whether or not it was directly correlated to heart stuff or not, my balance is off. Hard going at times. Sometimes it feels like one thing after another. I've been pushing myself this week in lots of good ways - I've started to leave the house alone again, I've pretty much finished my housing benefit form, I've sent the relevant emails about officially withdrawing from Uni., I've written my personal statement and n...

I didn't want to go. I spent most of Friday evening telling myself that I was not wanted, that I'd only been invited out of politeness, that I hadn't lost enough weight since the summer, that I'd feel on the edges and that actually I should really just stay home. But I'd spent £30+ on my train ticket, I was damn well going! And it was great. In fact, more than great. It was one of the highlights of my year. Happy Laura right here. Bright and early Saturday morning I hopped on a train to be reunited with Team Foxtrot . We arrived, had a spot of lunch and generally spent time chatting, catching up and eating cake...the 3 second rule over the comfy chairs felt like we were back at base! Once everyone had arrived, and Reg had survived a journey with 3 boys who were inevitably plotting his downfall...we headed over to Blaise castle and grounds for a walk as the sun went down. It was BEAUTIFUL and far milder than we anticipated! Some members of the team, ...

What a fantastic video. I urge you all to watch it, whether or not you've experienced depression. October 10th was World Mental Health Day, to be honest I paid little attention to it aside from reading the odd tweet or Facebook status here and there. It's a bit of a controversial one, people tend to fall into one of two categories; one, recovery is awesome, it will get better, keep trying, keep hoping or two, well I'm not recovered, I never will be, I don't want to play along with all this hope crap. There is also the added dilemma that the majority of the focus is placed on depression despite there being many many other mental illnesses. One thing that did really annoy me/make me uncomfortable was Stephen Fry tweeting the following "It’s # worldmentalhealthday today - thinking of everyone with problems. Let’s at least start by addressing the stigma # proudtobemad " . It's all great until the last bit. Proud to be mad? I wouldn't say mental illne...

Working with Team Foxtrot is currently the highlight of my summer. I met some brilliant people and got to spend time doing first response stuff and using the skills I've spent so many hours acquiring! Really hoping that it'll be the start of getting back out on duties with the Red Cross be that SafeSpace or major event stuff. Since getting back I've also signed up to do further modules including Entonox, trauma, medical and others...exciting times. More than one person has asked why I'm pursuing teaching still when my heart lies in something more medical and to be quite honest I'm still not 100% sure. My current reasoning however is teaching has a longer career length, it would not be possible to still be working as a paramedic aged 60, it's not so unrealistic to still be in a classroom! Plus, I do love teaching and I don't know whether I would love medical stuff if it was my career? I volunteer because I enjoy it, just like I play my clarinet because I enjo...