realistic uni vlog | studying after a hard week, library days + a weekend away

Good morning. I just had therapy and I literally cried the whole time. Sometimes I don't cry for like weeks and weeks and months and then I have one really hard session where I'm just like realising all of these patterns and like the reason why I feel certain ways and it's like I appreciate therapy so much and I know it's so good for me and it helps me grow as a person and be better but sometimes I do also feel like it's so much easier to ignore your problems or like not even realise they're there. I'm okay admitting that because I'm not like behaving that way, like I am actively trying to change and be better for myself but it is always the easier option to just like stay the way you are. I'm trying my best though and I had a really difficult week so yesterday I started to like try and sort things out. I made a to-do list and I got like a couple things done, not big but like did a clothes wash, changed my bed sheets, did a food shop, I made some soup for the week and I'm just gonna try and take it one day at a time and do my work at my own pace because one thing I was just talking about in therapy was that I always feel the need to just rush through things and I don't enjoy stuff, like uni work as well. For me, I forget that this is something I actually find interesting and instead I just like stress out about it and try and get it done as fast as possible without focusing on learning or enjoying and that is what kind of ruined my undergraduate degree for me so I really want to like keep reminding myself that this is something I love and I want to be here. It's a privilege to be here so I need to enjoy it but that doesn't mean I have to get the best grades, like I can just do my best with what I have and where I'm at so it feels nice to like talk to the camera again. I was really avoiding it because I felt really guilty for some reason. Yeah, today it's Monday. I hopefully will have a better week this week. It doesn't need to be good or amazing but I really hope I can be there for myself more than I was last week. Funnily enough, like although I've been completely avoidant of every task I have, YouTube, uni, even like replying to my texts or like eating vegetables, I somehow managed to still do all of my running and so yesterday I ran 11 kilometres. Today is the start of week four of my half marathon training plan so I'm proud of myself for doing that. Anyway, I'm gonna finish my coffee. I showered and I ate breakfast before therapy so I'm kind of ready to start the day but it feels kind of wrong to not have a break between like crying for an hour and then just like doing work so maybe I'll go on a walk. That could be nice, going on a little walk to kind of refresh my mental state for the day and also I just kind of want to reflect on everything I just spoke about so I'll put my headphones on to like drown out the noise of the city but I'm not going to play anything. Sometimes it's just nice to be alone with your thoughts which is something I used to be very afraid of actually but it's not that scary if you are kind to yourself so maybe try it sometime if you are also extremely avoidant like I am about hard things. It's okay if you have a really terrible week because I literally just did as well like we're all the same. We can be better even if it takes time so yay! Let's go! Good evening, I have my cookies. Yay! I've been home for a few hours now. After I ate my pasta I filled in this form basically detailing what I want to discuss in my literature review and also the experimental design I want to go with for my research project and that's taken me a while, not gonna lie. Reading a few papers has definitely helped me to understand the topic better but I'm still not like 100% confident in it in my understanding and so knowing that I have to send this form to my supervisor who is like super interested in this topic and knows all about it, it felt a little bit like there was some pressure to not sound like an idiot. I know like there are no stupid questions and we're all learning and stuff but also like I don't want to make a bad impression on the person I'm gonna be working with all year so yeah that is what I just did and now I'm gonna sit here with my cookies, have a little break, watch some Queso and then I need to write the introduction to my lab report. I'm doing my lab report on the immunostaining lab. I'm getting to it later in the day today but hopefully tomorrow and the following days I will be writing in the morning and then I can get it out of the way and like relax in the evening, do my readings and stuff at home. On Friday I'm getting the train to Shrewsbury which I've never been to and me and my family are going to stay in an Airbnb in Shrewsbury for my grandad's birthday and so it's like a surprise thing. I don't know how they're gonna get him to go to Shrewsbury, like I don't even know where that is. No offence if you're from Shrewsbury like I bet it's really nice, that's where we're going. I just don't know anything about it other than I'm going there in four days so that's my main reason for wanting to get this lab report out of the way and just keep doing one or two readings a day especially when I'm away in Shrewsbury like just doing one before bed I'll feel like I'm still staying up to date with things and yeah hopefully I don't feel like I'm falling behind. Sometimes you have to wait for these to cool down a bit because they are too squidgy. Oh no, the perfect cookie. Some milk. I'm really proud of myself for pushing to get out of that little rut I was in and like to just face my to-do list which has been building and building and I've been too afraid to look at it and now I feel so much better just knowing I might be a little bit behind on some things or not feel completely on top of things but at least I know what I need to do and I can take steps to get there which is a million times better than how I was feeling a couple of days ago where I was just feeling really really avoidant just like sitting here all day not even on my phone or anything like that I would just sit here and go over and over all the things I need to do in my head and then not take any steps to completing those things or like doing any work. I'm definitely getting there slowly and one thing that has really really helped to like reduce the feeling of impending doom is to just take it one day at a time and just think like I'm gonna do the most I can today to the best of my ability so that tomorrow I feel proud of myself and I feel motivated to keep going and I'm setting myself up for success every day. When I wake up tomorrow I will know that I tried my best and I made progress and just knowing that will put me in a good mood you know? I literally just started rambling on about running for like 10 minutes and I don't have time for that not gonna lie so I'm gonna eat my cookies and then get back to work I'm feeling kind of off this morning. I woke up late which hasn't happened in a few weeks and I just feel kind of groggy and I don't know why but it's a shame because I was really looking forward to my run yesterday and now I'm kind of in a rush to do it. I don't know if I've mentioned this but the moment I have to do something I don't want to do it anymore and knowing now that I need to do my run and finish it and be home before my building induction makes me not want to go on a run. Obviously I'm gonna go but another reason I really like going earlier is because there's less people around whereas now it's like 9am so there's gonna be so many people Hello, I just put a pimple patch on like my lip so that's what that is. Today is Thursday, it's 2pm, I just ate some pasta. Are we shocked? No, same pasta as usual obviously. My week has definitely been better than last week, I've been putting more effort into getting dressed, getting ready and going out but it's not always easy. For example yesterday I woke up late and then by the time I'd done my run and done a leg workout, come home and showered, it was already midday and I felt really guilty for having snoozed my alarm and not woken up early and so even that kind of mindset was not beneficial towards my day. It kind of made me feel bad that I'd still gone to the gym or done my run when I should have maybe done more work but I got dressed, I did my makeup, I put on a cute outfit and I walked to one of the campus buildings with my laptop and I was already feeling pretty anxious just about my workload and having started the day a bit later than I wanted and so it was definitely maybe not worth it to have left home and instead I could have stayed here to work. I've mentioned before that I'm really sensitive to like overstimulation and one way I can tell that I was definitely overwhelmed in that moment was I went up to the fifth floor of this big building and there was barely anybody there and there were these concrete floors and some person came along and they sat on one of the chairs like probably like a meter or two away from me, like not right next to me and when they pulled the chair out, the metal leg like scraped on the concrete floor and the noise of that set me off, like I thought I was going to start crying. I had tears in my eyes and I just felt like in that moment there is nothing actually wrong. All I've heard is a loud noise but when you are feeling so overwhelmed it doesn't even need to be like rational and so I sat there and I started feeling really like upset with myself that I was so anxious that just like one noise could set me off so badly. I feel like this won't make a lot of sense to most people but if you understand then you will just really get it and in that moment when you are feeling really overstimulated or just overwhelmed it doesn't need to be a big thing that kind of pushes you over the edge and so I literally sat there for like 15 minutes longer. I thought so many awful things about myself because I couldn't focus and I felt like just so guilty for not being able to work and I just had to get up and leave and I was probably sat there for an hour total and I literally only made notes on the abstract of a paper which is only like a paragraph long and I came home and I got in bed and I just like sat there for a bit just trying to like calm myself down. I fell asleep for like two hours and then it took me another three to finish off my notes on the paper but that is just an example of how one task can take so long when you're not really mentally equipped to be working and I really try so hard to care for myself and I put so much effort into journaling and going on walks and you know running, making sure I clean my bedroom, eating healthily like I feel like even just that takes a tremendous amount of effort for me and so to feel sometimes that it's not helping can be really disappointing. I am having a much better day today. I actually had a meeting with my supervisor this morning which I was really nervous for. Most people call it imposter syndrome. I tend to just view it as really low confidence or self-esteem but yeah that has been really one of my main points of anxiety recently. I feel so so undeserving of where I am and also just like underqualified and like I don't belong. Even in my head I start considering like maybe they accepted me onto this course by mistake and I'm actually not meant to be here and I've somehow deceived someone to be here which is just like when you say it out loud it makes literally no sense but when you're so anxious in a moment and you're just thinking and thinking and thinking you start just believing everything your brain is saying to you. It is such an awful feeling but that has been on my mind recently and having to meet with my supervisor today I was so worried that I had a nightmare last night that I was late. I just felt so nervous that he'd somehow catch me out for not knowing enough about the topic or he'd ask me a question I didn't know the answer to and he'd react badly or something like that and this man has never done anything to warrant those worries. He's been very supportive and friendly and like just kind but in my head I am so afraid of what could happen and what people might think that I have been so nervous and I think that was one of the reasons it was difficult for me yesterday to get my work done because in the back of my mind I was like ruminating on that and telling myself like I'm gonna mess up, I'm gonna embarrass myself, I'm gonna make a bad impression and stuff like that yeah um I just wanted to share because I think I have come a really long way with like my mental health and anxiety and stuff but sometimes I forget that even now that I'm much better this still isn't a normal level of anxiety to have every day and I do still need to push myself to be better. I don't need to just accept life being this way because I am so lucky in so many ways and I'm so grateful for that but then I feel like because I'm always trying to change for the better it can sometimes feel like I don't have self-acceptance. I don't really know how to strike a balance between accepting myself versus wanting to be better for my future self. I think it just takes time to figure things out but yeah sometimes I feel completely clueless and just confused but yeah if you related to anything I just said or you find that you are feeling more anxious one of the best things I do is to find someone close to you like a friend or a family member or just anyone that you trust to be honest with you and I can tell them what I'm concerned about and they can honestly tell me that is a silly thing to be worried about and just hearing that I'm like yeah it really is because like 95% of the time I'm worrying about things that will not even happen and so I'm just making myself suffer for no reason so it can be really good to just have an outside perspective to kind of remind you what a non-anxious brain thinks like but yeah that's all I have to say right now. I've been trying my best to get back to work and stuff like that but it's definitely taking time and slower than I thought and so I'm trying to not kind of like beat myself up about it um when I like I'm not as efficient as I would like to be because I'm still trying and trying is better than nothing so and the sun is literally setting right now at 2 23 that is certainly not helping with the mental health not gonna lie especially if you wake up like half an hour late and you're like I already missed half an hour of the daylight and I only get like five hours I'm also going away this weekend to see my family and so I do need to pack I'll be away Friday to Monday morning I think and so that has also been another cause of anxiety for me worrying that I won't get enough work done before I go and then I'll feel guilty for working instead of spending time with my family yeah I just need to show up and be the best version of myself I can manage in that moment and that is okay. I'm gonna finish reading today's paper because I have been trying to read one a day and that has been a helpful routine to make me feel like I'm progressing towards like my literature review and just my understanding of my research project and then I'll probably like go on a little walk maybe come home pack my bag a little bit for tomorrow and then either write some of my lab report or edit my video because I actually missed an upload and I feel really really bad about it but it was like when I was having a really bad time and I thought everybody watching would probably prefer me to just have a break than to stress out over uploading a YouTube video which I literally just do for fun so yeah at least I had that moment of clarity there instead of staying up all night to edit a video that I wouldn't be proud of or feel like bad about so yeah I'm trying my best as my updates and I hope you're all doing really well and having like a really nice week wherever you are whatever you are doing I'm entering the rambling phase now so I'm gonna go it's 7 a.m this is my last seven kilometer training run from next week my training runs will be eight kilometers until the end of the plan and my long run this week is 13 kilometers I was a bit intimidated to go from nine kilometer long run to 11 kilometer just because double digits is kind of like it was completely fine and usually after my long run I end it and I'm like oh I could literally have continued and it was not even bad but yeah 7k I have a little bit of a cough but I'm really hoping it's more so just from drying my clothes in here and when I just ate my toast it felt really good scratching my throat I don't know if that is bad good morning from Shrewsbury I didn't bring my camera because I was traveling by train I thought that the extra weight would not be worth it but now I regret not bringing my camera because we are staying in this beautiful place I don't even know what to call it but there's this entire building just for us and beautiful views beautiful rooms everything is just like so amazing I literally feel like I'm in Downton Abbey which is crazy my video is done so now I'm going to upload it I don't know how fast the wi-fi is here it might take a long time to upload but honestly just knowing that I've finished it is enough okay it says it's going to take two hours and 38 minutes to upload it's kind of slow I might try and move closer to the wi-fi but yeah gonna be a good day