The People Who Saved My Life

Just to start off with, I never planned on telling many people about this, let alone putting it on the internet for the whole world to see. However, I've learned that hearing other people's stories can sometimes really help you. So even if I can maybe help one person in some way by telling my story then I'm considering that as a bonus. (Or it could just backfire and go terribly wrong.)

In the beginning of November 2013 I took an overdose. Even now I can't explain exactly why or how it happened. Ever since I was a young teenager I've always had horrible ways of dealing with stress, but back then I developed an eating disorder because of it, so it has definitely escalated since then. I'm yet to find out exactly what's going on and be diagnosed, but that's just due to me going back and forward between Lincoln and Cardiff all of the time.

As it was happening I felt as if something else was controlling me. Even looking back on it now it feels like I'm watching someone else. I had to let my best friends and housemates know what had happened, because there's no way that I wanted to die. It still breaks my heart to know what I've put them through, but if it wasn't for them taking me to hospital and sticking by me through all of this then who knows what I would be like now. After I got out of hospital I went back to Cardiff with a few days to be with my family and everything seemed fine. Even when I went back to uni everything seemed fine. After a few days things started to go wrong again. For about a week I would just sit on the same spot of my bed and drink. Once I got out of hospital it felt like everyone seemed to think that I was okay, but the truth is coming out of hospital was my lowest point. I felt so guilty for what I had put my friends and family through. People started to pick up that I wasn't right, so the week after I got sent to Cardiff again for 2 months.

Again after I got back to uni things seemed fine. I know now that I wasn't ready to go back, but I missed everyone so much that I just wanted to power through and make everything normal again. I had already found out that quite a lot of people knew what had happened. Two of my friends told me that they saw me going downhill since September/October, this is when I would drink every day and do things that I would never do if I was feeling alright. This made me incredibly paranoid. I had been struggling to even go outside by myself since September, so knowing that people knew what had happened made everything so much worse, but still I tried to power through. After about a week I started drinking a lot again. The uni work was stressing me out and I had been having serious thoughts about dropping out. Some people seemed to understand why I needed to drop out, others weren't so pleased by the news. I tried so hard to stay on top of my work and get better at the same time, but in the end it was too much. On Saturday 25th of January 2014 I ended up in hospital again. We then all realised that I had a serious problem that would not be solved too quickly.

So now it's February 1st, I'm a university drop out with no job, no plans for the future, and something in my mind that I can't explain. Yes it feels like I've lost so much, but I know that in order for me to get better this is where I have to be, and this is what I have to do. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world to have all these amazing friends and family that literally saved my life. Twice. 

This post is not here for people to feel sorry for me, that's the last thing I want. It's here to help, and I'm here to help. If you have any questions or you just need someone to listen to you then please don't hesitate to contact me, I'm not that scary.

I shall update you on this story whenever I get more information about everything and a diagnosis. Let's all keep looking forward.

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The 3 Lush Products My Hair Wouldn't Survive Without

This time last year my hair was at risk of being chopped off because it was in such bad condition. I'm one of those people that look totally ridiculous with short hair, but after discovering these 3 products my hair is well on the road to recovery. 

 The first is 'Big' a sea salt shampoo which in my books is the best volume shampoo going. My hair was so flat, thin, and lifeless that it would look like it was just stuck to my head. I've always loved having big hair, ever since my teenage years when I would backcomb it so much it looked like a birds nest (you can probably find some very embarrassing photos somewhere). I knew by using this product I could get the volume that I wanted without damaging my hair any more than I already had. The sea salt is also really good for my scalp as I sometimes get a bit of eczema there. Its recommended that you wash your hair twice with this to give you more volume, and I've found that it doesn't lather properly with the first wash so I like to use the first wash to focus getting all of the salt into my scalp, and the second to really focus on my hair.

The second product is the Jungle conditioner bar. It works wonders on frizzy, dry hair, and as we all know, my hair was a massive frizz ball. It's packed with vitamin C which leaves your hair so soft and shiny, it also smells incredible. Before I found this I would be using like half a bottle of conditioner at a time just to calm my hair down a bit, but now all I need to do is rub a little bit of this on and it does so much more than the conditioners that I was using before. 

The last product has to be one of my favourite Lush products ever. This is the R & B hair moisturiser. Originally I thought this was just made for Afro and really curly hair types, but after using this after conditioning my hair I found that it was just incredible. My hair would definitely get chopped off it it wasn't for this. As it's a leave in moisturiser it continues to work and keeps your hair feeling fresh and basically alive. Also as its so concentrated you only need to use a little bit each time, so a little pot of R & B lasted me about 4 months.

So well done, Lush, and thank you for saving my hair!

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