mood swings and escaping social situations//

dear god why do mood swings exist.
being a teenager? nope no thanks never signed up for this @ life goodbye thanks for having me

seriously though, mood swings are so annoying. in the space of about five minutes, I can go from feeling like I just won a lifetime supply of concert tickets to literally wanting death.

help?

the thing is, I never really feel in-between. think of extreme happiness, then the most negative thing you've ever felt; usually, your feelings will fall into the grayscale between the emotions, right?
not mine haha kmn
most of the time, I either want to scream with frustration/sadness/anger, or I want to scream with happiness/excitement, there's no in between. and it's not because I have a particularly turbulent life- if anything, my day-to-day life is painfully average. so nothing controls my feelings, they just come and go as they please, which makes life very confusing. basically, I can be having a theoretically really bad/really good day, but that has no effect on my emotions, and in either of those situations, I could still feel on top of the world or rock bottom; the events happening around me have nothing to do with it.

the thing is, I just so happen to be extremely good at concealing said feelings, or 'bottling them up', some might say. the only difference is, when they get too much (daily, since they're so extreme), I still refuse to take them out on anyone. boxing is a pretty good solution, or just internal screaming hA great

however, the alternative to uncontrollably feeling too much is uncontrollably feeling nothing, which I have also experienced, but much more rarely, and it is ten thousand times worse.
so I try not to complain.
another problem I have is something which I used to refer to as being 'spaced out', until I discovered that being spaced out is associated with dissociative disorders such as depersonalisation and derealisation, which are both horrible things and I don't want to be misdiagnosed with something a lot more serious than what I actually feel.
the best way of describing it is that my mind and thoughts seem completely zoned out of and detached from my body. almost as if my physical presence is six feet in a different direction from my mental presence. as i said, it doesn't happen often, but when it does, it can last for days.

during my occasional 'spaced out' periods, i often find myself going into something which I refer to as my 'autopilot' mode. basically, i can have whole conversations which make perfect sense, but I don't even realise they're happening. and the second they're over, I've completely forgotten everything that happened. you can see how much of an inconvenience that can be. sometimes I'll feel like I haven't spoken for a while, then I'll realise that I'm literally talking as I think that (I'll then stop talking in surprise, but obviously I have no idea what I was saying, so I can't finish it, which makes for a very awkward explanation to whoever's expecting me to finish the sentence (or a hasty trip to the toilet to escape the conversation).

oh, that's another thing, toilets. weird, ik, but this isn't going in the direction you think it is. toilets are an easy escape out of any situation, and I often have to compose myself for no apparent reason, so I use the toilets as an excuse to hide for a few minutes. at first it was rare that I'd do it, but now, I'm finding myself planning events around non-suspicious time to excuse myself. it's probably unhealthy for more than one reason.

Creativity

It's one in the morning, so forgive me if I'm a little dramatic. We all have nights like this- I'm just a crazy person who chooses to share hers with the world.
Anyway, I'm in one of those weird moods where everything's deep and meaningful etc etc, and suddenly, it hit me how much I want to create things. Mainly art, but it's a bigger urge than I've ever experienced before. I've had the urge to travel, the urge to help other people, the urge to simply enjoy myself, but even those have never been as strong as this is now.
I just want to make things. I want to paint everything I see- paper, canvas, walls, ceilings, even my skin. I've always been drawn to tattoos, but never been drawn to them on myself, because as much as I'd like to turn my own body into art pieces, I'd very quickly run out of room. So I want to give body art a try.
Also, my walls- I've painted walls before, and I currently have two, massive, plain wardrobe doors sat right in front of me. I'm going to paint them. I don't know why it's suddenly come over me, but all I want to do is create things and share them with the world.

I'm hoping that the strength of the urge will die down a bit soon, otherwise it'll start to become a problem. Work, for example: it seems far off, but it's not long until I pick my GCSEs, which determine what college I can get into to do A Levels, which determine what university I'll get into to get what degree, to determine what job I'll be doing for the rest of my life.

Growing up, most people changed their 'future dream job' all the time, right? I was no exception, but I don't think I've ever dreamed of a job that doesn't take a more creative path. Which seems fine, when you read it, but I'm also very academic. I have a whole list of people, including my family and myself, who'd never forgive me if I gave up a maths degree for a fine art degree, or photography degree, and it ended up not working out. I could have a completely secure future- good job, good income, etc- or I could to what I want to do and risk throwing away everything I have.

For me personally, the first option seems a lot more appealing, but I don't know if I'd be able to live with a non-creative job without literally going insane, which is why I'm hoping it calms down. I'll have to look into body art, but I'm going to paint my wardrobe, and try to set aside more time for creative things. If I think about it properly, I've felt like this for a long time, but I'm trying to convince myself that it's just because my sketchbook is hidden in a box somewhere while I redecorate my room, so it's like art withdrawal or something like that, as opposed to this being what I actually feel like for the rest of my life.

God knows what I'm on about, but it's out there now. Sorry if I sound insane.

Fundraising for Cancer Research and donating my hair!

Hi :)

In a few weeks time, I'm going to be cutting off all my hair and donating it to The Little Princess Trust. It's an amazing charity which I decided to help out, they make wigs for children going through cancer treatment who need some support and give them to them for free (they'd usually cost around £2000).

You'll notice that on the left of the page, there's a button linking to my JustGiving page. Alongside cutting my hair off, I'm raising sponsorship money to go towards Cancer Research, which is also an amazing charity. I explain further about why I'm doing it in the story section of that page, but I thought I'd put up a quick post to let you know in case any of you are particularly charitable people and would like to donate.

Thank you to anyone who does, and thank you for reading this :)

See you soon,

Lucy x

The YouTuber Stigma

Hi.

Okay, I now, the regular updates flopped. But honestly, if anyone actually expected me to keep a new year's resolution, I blame it on you.

Anyway, in case you didn't know, I have a YouTube channel which goes along with this blog. Well, that's sort of reversed itself, but I still don't like referring to this blog as an add-on because I've had it for so long. Some of you might remember my first ever blog post (props to you), where I said that I made this blog after a previous YouTube channel went wrong.

We don't talk about that channel.
Or my old blog posts.
(dear god no.)

However, in May last year, I went on hiatus on here and created a new YouTube channel (this one), which hasn't gone quite as badly. Since I've made this one, people have started to actually be interested, which has been an experience.
That's one word for it, anyway.
I don't even have many subscribers, and I've started to get a taste of the stigma surrounding YouTubers. I feel like people judge me differently when they find out that I have a channel. If they were judging me on the actual content of my videos, I'd understand, but that's not it. All I have to say is 'I have a YouTube channel', and I'll get a patronising look of 'that's weird.' I don't usually tell people- in fact, I originally intended on keeping my channel private from people at school, but they somehow found out. There's only a couple of people who actually talk about it, most of which aren't actually my close friends, which is interesting.

I feel like the fact that I have a YouTube channel should be similar to someone else enjoying football, or something like that; a part of my personality rather than my entire existence. Why is it such a big deal? I enjoy making videos- does that change something about me? I'm hardly Pewdiepie, I'm not even that active on my channel, so why is it so important?

Well, that was a bit negative. On the plus side, I re-discovered my love for Vesperteen's music recently, as the music video for What We Could Have Been came out, and Jesse Cale, one of my favourite people, started going back on the road to support them. I definitely recommend you listen to it.

I think that's everything I wanted to say, so I'll (hopefully) see you soon. If you do follow my uploads, I'm currently working on a video which is pretty complex in the technical department, so might not be out for a couple of weeks (if any of my friends are interested in helping out with the filming, that would be greatly appreciated), so I might be a bit inactive for a few weeks.

Lucy x

2017

Remember when I used to post regularly on here and people actually read it?
That was fun.

It's partly my fault, but partly not. I haven't posted on here in over a month, after a pretty solid couple of weeks of daily posts, but even so, people weren't reading or commenting on those, either.

I think the main reason I've lost my audience on here is because I've started to find myself a bit more. I talked about this briefly in my recent YouTube video, but when I started this blog, not only did I have a lot of time on my hands, plus next to nothing going on in terms of my personal life, I was also quite 'normal'. That's the only word I can think of, it doesn't quite cover it. All my photos were overly saturated, I was always buying makeup and bath bombs, I listened to all the music in the charts, and people liked that.

When I'm talking about this 'audience' I used to have, it wasn't big or anything, but I'd get 50-ish PVs per post, and about five comments. Since I had a break over summer, and changed the style of my posts, my PVs dropped to around 20, and I don't think I've had any comments. People occasionally bring up my blog in conversations (which is great by the way), and for some reason, I find it a lot easier to talk about than my YouTube. Which, when you think about it, doesn't make sense, because I share a lot more of my feelings and experiences on here, and it's more personal than my channel. So if my channel is more light-hearted, why is it harder to talk about than my blog?

Anyway, happy new year! I'm back on here, but how often, I'm not sure. My spare time has gone down a lot recently, and it's going to decrease even more over the next few weeks, with school, so I don't want to promise anything. But I do enjoy posting on here, and I have been doing so for over a year now, so I'm not intending on stopping anytime soon. I just might not post as regularly. For the one person living in Poland, six-ish in America and two in France who reads all my posts, hello! I also have a YouTube channel which I'm more active on if you'd like to look at that. I'm assuming all the Brits are my friends.

So, that was a bit of a ramble. But in short, I'm back on here, and happy new year!

Lucy x

Opinions

Literally everyone will tell you that other people's opinions don't matter and that you should just be yourself etc, but I've been thinking about that. The only reason someone's opinion should matter to you is because you like that person, and you don't want them to think you're weird or whatever. If it's their opinion on the way you look that matters to you, they're not worth your attention. But if you're telling me you don't want people to think you're nice, and likeable as a person, you're probably lying. If you like someone as a person, you want them to like you back, which would be why you're bothered about your opinion. Which is annoying really, because if they don't like you when you're weird, and you get closer to them, you'll have to spend your whole life faking who you are around them. I don't know, it's just another one of those weird ways our brains decide to work.

Skill development? idk that sounds too fancy

I've sort of suddenly realised something (again). I'm 12. Well, I knew that, but it never really clicked. I haven't had enough time to be as good at things as the 16 year olds in my social media feeds, so I can't expect myself to be as good as them at something they've practiced a lot more than me. I'm not going to be as good at art as the fine art uni students on my instagram page. I'm not going to be as good at playing an instrument as someone who's been playing for ten times longer than me. I'm not going to be as good at photography as the professional photographers on my PicsArt & Tumblr feeds. But that doesn't matter, because I enjoy making art, playing music, taking photos- and if I carry on doing them out of enjoyment, maybe one day I will be as good as the people I look up to. It's not like I haven't made any progress over the last couple of years. I found a painting the other day which I did about a year ago and remembered being really proud of it, but if I did something that looked like that now, it'd be in the bin. I literally laughed at how bad it was. I always date my art so that I can look back and track my progress, because it never feels like I'm improving. But I look back at something I did six months ago, then look at a realism sketch I did today, and they look like I did them six years apart. So now, if I do something and it's slightly off, I won't get mad, I'll just think of how I'll feel in a year's time when I look at my improvement. If you're already perfect, you can't improve. And getting better at something you enjoy is one of the best feelings.

Perspectives

I read something recently, and it's completely changed my perspective on life. Firstly, if you have a family you can go home to who are going to care about you, your problems aren't as big as you might think.
Secondly, everything seems pointless now. All I'm doing everyday is school, and all school does is give you a better future. But that future might not even exist. Right now, while I'm sat here writing this, something could kill me. I could be dead in 5 seconds, and then that's it. The majority of my life spent fighting for a future that might not exist. If I had more freedom and things were easy, I'd just go and do more things which are actually going to have an impact on the world. You don't need maths to change someone's life. Right now, while I'm sat here writing this, I could be going the extra mile to help someone. Even if we're not close. I could have a really positive impact on someone's life. My perspective on this type of stuff used to be that I wasn't good enough too help anyone, but now, that seems pretty selfish. Being too absorbed in your own issues and insecurities to even try to help someone, or find out more about them if you're worried about them. Because I guarantee, if you really, really try, no matter what insecurities or anxieties you have, there's always going to be a way you can help someone.
Thirdly, you should never, ever, assume anything about anyone's life. You'll never even know half of someone's story. Even if you've been inseparable your whole life, everyone has secrets, and some of them might be a lot bigger than you think. It doesn't matter how well you think you know someone's life, you should never think you know anything about it, because the only full story you'll ever known is your own. And you probably don't even know the full story for yourself.