Mental Health & the Importance of Reading

Hello, everyone! This week is mental health awareness week run by the Mental Health Foundation. As this is an area I’m really passionate about both personally and as a psychology student, to do my bit I’ve decided to run a blog feature where I and guest bloggers talk about mental health related topics paired with books and/or blogging to help raise awareness. 🙂 Today I’m welcoming Charlotte to the blog!

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Hello everyone, I’m Charlotte and normally I can be found ranting and raving over at Miscrawl about books and life!

Oh mental health, how to write about thee? After much thought, I realized that the best way would be to (very loosely) tell my own story. Strap yourselves in; there be talk of depression and books from here on in.

I’ve always loved books and I’ve always loved reading.

Coming from a bookish family, I learnt to read at a young age and I was never one of those children that needed entertaining with fantastical games or expensive trips out. I was perfectly content to be left alone in a quiet room with a book, my imagination running wild. I was the stereotypical image of a slightly geeky, somewhat socially inept kid who always had their nose dangerously close to inhaling musty pages.

Mental Health Awareness Week: My Story.

Hello, everyone! You may not be aware, but this week is mental health awareness week run by the Mental Health Foundation. As this is an area I’m really passionate about both personally and as a psychology student, to do my bit I’ve decided to run a blog feature where I and guest bloggers talk about mental health related topics paired with books and/or blogging to help raise awareness. 🙂

So, it seems like a fitting place to start by sharing my mental health journey with you. This is something that previously, I have decided to gloss over on this blog. Until now, I haven’t felt comfortable discussing it. I felt embarrassed by it, ashamed even and didn’t want anyone to know except a very small select few. Mental health has a sneaky way of doing that to you, backing you into a corner, isolating you from others and blocking out any light or positivity. Something about putting it into writing has always made it feel so… final. It’s not something you can take back. It’s a scary thing to put out there, but I’m finally ready and I’m happy with who I am now.

True story: I suffer with anxiety.

2015 in Review: A Year of Big Changes and Awesome Fantasy Books!

Happy New Years everybody! Pop those corks, pump up the music and hug it out. You’ve made it through another year!

It sounds corny, but I’m so appreciative of everything in my life as 2015 comes to a close.
I feel like my relationships with friends and family have only grown stronger this year, and I feel lucky to have a number of amazing, passionate and loyal people in my life. 2015 has been a big personal year for me and I’ve learnt so much. I’m more sure, centred and confident about who I am, to the point where I really don’t care what anyone else thinks! And I’ve stopped obsessing over the what ifs that used to stop me from taking chances.

On Graduating + Where I’ve Been!

Hello, bloggers! I hope you’re well.
(This is the part where I hope that I’m not talking into a murky abyss of nothingness, as this blog has been somewhat neglected of late.)

So yeah, I disappeared there for a while. It was completely unintentional, but I think, much needed. Ever since I finished university, life has become a bit of a whirlwind, so much has been going on, but all of it good! I have been making it my mission to have as much fun and relaxation time as possible, and to catch up on doing things I didn’t have time to do the past 3 years, and it’s been awesome.

Quoting the Quill #51

“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”

– Dr. Seuss

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Well this week I packed up all of my stuff and moved out of my university accommodation, having to leave the great people I had been living with and had become great friends with behind. I’m not going to lie, it was sad, especially as these people will be living such a big distance away from me that it will be quite hard to keep in touch, but we’re going to try.

“What are your plans for after university”

You see, I have this problem.
I don’t know what I want to do after I leave university. I don’t even know what field I want to go into after university.
Sure, I’m studying psychology, but it’s a subject that can be applied to multiple areas.
That doesn’t exactly help me narrow it down a whole lot…

There are some people, you know those people, who seem to have had their lives planned out since playschool.
And then there’s me….

The gaping big hole of the ‘unknown’ after university is something that I’ve come to terms with. Mostly. Occasionally I feel terror creeping in when I see people bragging on Facebook about all their amazing internships and how they’ve got their dream jobs secured before they’ve even finished, but mostly I feel curiosity and a nervous hopefulness about what’s going to come next. You see, because I don’t know what I want to do, I don’t have the pressure or fear that comes with trying to achieve it, at the moment life is all possibility. And that’s okay with me.

Unfortunately, this answer doesn’t satisfy most people.

In every direction I turn, I find myself being faced with the same question from family, lecturers, friends, acquaintances, even random people I’ve only just met.
It’s the question dreaded by students everywhere.

“So *insert name here*, what are your plans for after university?”

Dissertation Drama: An Ode to the Life of a Student

Full disclosure, this post is going to be a ramble with lots of pictures and gifs!

So, you may have noticed it’s been quite quiet around here lately. Not that I’m worrying about that, it’s life right? But I thought I would do a little catch up on what’s been happening the past few months. To sum it all up in one word?

DISSERTATION.

Yep, that evil monster reared its ugly head. The one that strikes fear into the hearts of students everywhere. The past few months have been a smooshy ball of stress, panic, hope, and then straight back to panic again.

How People React When I Tell Them I’m a Psychology Student.

Having been a psychology student for three years now, I’ve noticed a somewhat amusing and at times frustrating trend to how people react when I tell them what I study. It’s gotten to the point where I can predict people’s responses pretty easily because the same ones pop up over and over again! The funny thing is, people’s immediate thoughts usually involve some kind of a common misconception about psychology, and other times they’re just down right ridiculous! After a recent stint of these reactions recently, I felt it was about time I vented my frustrations. It normally starts something like this:

This is by far the most popular response and oh how it gets old quickly. Yes, psychology is about the study of human behaviours, but that does not mean I have a roadmap to the inside of your head! Plus, just because I study psychology, doesn’t mean I always have my psychology hat on, a girl needs a break you know! It’s not like I’m analysing everything you do. If you tell me that you don’t like cheese, I’m not silently contemplating whether you had a traumatic cheese incident in your childhood.

Quoting the Quill #47

“The scariest moment is always just before you start.”

– Stephen King

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I remember reading this quote in Stephen King’s non-fiction book On Writing where he discusses…well, writing…and stuff. At the time I thought how spot on and true it was and as it turns out, this quote seems particularly apt for me at this week; not only because I am currently making my way through my first ever Stephen King novel 

2014 In Review: A Personal and Bookish Round Up!

Happy New Year everyone! I hope wherever you are, whether it’s at a party, the pub with friends or at home in your dressing gown watching TV or film marathons (all equally great options) that you are enjoying a relaxing, entertaining night and you’re starting the New Year as you intend to go on! Let’s hope we all make 2015 a great one!

2014 seems to have whizzed by but it’s been a pretty good year for the most part. I passed my second year of university and started my final year, which has included some really great grades and plenty of fun impromptu cocktail and movie nights with my housemates. I went to the Isle of Wight festival to enjoy some great music and learnt how to bartend, and I also had some fun days out like Go Karting, Archery and visiting the Warner Bros Harry Potter Studio Tour (which I keep meaning and failing to blog about). Overall, I’m in a much happier and positive place than I was a year ago, which is awesome! 🙂

It’s also been a pretty good bookish year for me too, I read 31 books (11432 pages), just beating last years target of 30 books (and 10531 pages) ohh yeah! Yes, I am a very slow reader *don’t judge me*. I also gave out five, five star ratings and particularly read a lot of great contemporary books this year which is very unusual for me!

So without further ado, here are the lucky books that are receiving notable bookish awards from me this year!

Completing Final Year Semester 1 (Like a Boss) + Christmassy Things!

Hello blogity friends! As you can probably tell, university has been keeping me very busy of late, which has become evident by my lack of presence on the blogosphere! Imagine my horror when I logged in and realised I hadn’t blogged in over a month, WHOOPSIE! *Edges sideways.* This semester has been one fun, crazy, stressful, and brilliant ride, and I can only hope the second semester will be just as good. It’s been a lot of hard work assignment-wise, especially as each piece is so weighty to the overall grade but ultimately everything has run pretty smoothly. The results I’ve been receiving have far exceeded my expectations, and this week I officially received ethical approval for my dissertation (aka, permission to experiment on people, mwuhuhuhuuuuuu!). 

Quoting the Quill #43

“ ‘Go back?’ he thought. ‘No good at all! Go sideways? Impossible! Go forward? Only thing to do! On we go!’ So up he got, and trotted along with his little sword held in front of him and one hand feeling the wall, and his heart all a patter and a pitter.”

– J.R.R. Tolkien (The Hobbit)

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In case you haven’t noticed by now, I’m a bit of a Tolkien enthusiast. I know, SHOCKER!
I can’t help it, I keep coming across his awesome quotes and I can’t help sharing them with you.  I have a problem.
This one is classic Tolkien though, it mixes 

Quoting the Quill #42

“It’s good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”

– Ernest Hemingway

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Awwh, Hemingway, you insightful man, you! I do love this quote. I’m definitely one of those people who strives towards goals and sometimes it’s too easy to get caught up in reaching them, rather than taking time out of the day to enjoy the act of getting there and living in the now. 

Alien Life Forms and an Excess of Pasta + Mini Book Haul

Hello all!
I feel like it’s about time I did another one of these random life update posts. A few weeks ago I packed up all my stuff AGAIN and headed back to the student world for my final year of university. Can you say scary? The fact that this is my final year is really messing with my head. What I do in the next 9 months will count towards two thirds of my degree. It’s where the real work starts. EEEP. Right now everything feels a little bizarre because it’s like the calm before the storm, I know all of these deadlines are looming but the impact is yet to hit. At the moment it seems like I’m having too much fun! I know it can’t last and the stress factor will soon kick in but for now all is good in Becky world. I’m feeling oddly hopeful about my final year. Even though it will probably be mind numbing and intense I’m ready to face the challenge (no doubt this entire train of thought will reverse within a month, you wait and see :P). 

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking Review

Overall Impression: An accessible look at introversion – its strengths and its weaknesses.

To make this review a little more fun and interesting, it’s going to be a bit different from normal! Don’t worry, I’ll still going into the basics of writing style etc. (let’s not get crazy here) but I feel like this will be more interesting if I also share with you some interesting facts I learnt from reading Quiet. 🙂 So let’s start off with a little story: Once upon a time there was a young girl with blonde hair. She loved to learn, to follow the rules and do the best she could at school but every time parent teacher night came around or reports were drawn up she would come across the same critique again and again – ‘Student is kind and conscientious, she works hard and always helps others but she needs to speak up and participate more in class.’ This cropped up again and again and the girl soon learnt it was considered a bad thing to be quiet, that it was a fundamentally negative trait that needed to be fixed. It would put her at a disadvantage in the work place, in relationships and in life. But no matter how much she tried, she couldn’t change her nature.
That young girl was yours truly.
And a lot of the ideas expressed above are what introverts are taught to believe when living in a world that has an extrovert ideal. This is one of the many topics that Cain tackles in her non-fiction personality psychology book, Quiet.