My Flight Anxiety

31st Jul 20197th Jul 2020 by Kasia x ♥ 1 Comment

Hi everyone,

This issue has been going on in my life for the last year, year and a half I would say. And it has been awful. The fear, crying and panic I feel when even boarding a plane is unreal and it’s something I have noticed I am not the only one dealing with so I thought I would open up my own experiences about this issue and what I am doing to help my self, and maybe it will help someone else too.

When I was a child I used to fly a lot, around three holidays a year. It was all fun and games because I didn’t really understand the concept of a flying piece of metal in the sky, so I wasn’t concerned about it’s risks. I enjoyed flying and always had the window seat, enjoyed take off, landing, everything. My mom was a bit of a nervous flyer so me and my dad would even laugh at her sometimes, I could comfortably walk around the plane, eat, drink, play games on my iPad etc. It was all easy until all this flying stopped. My parents started to have financial issues and other problems also came up so I stopped flying from the age of 15 to 18. Three years without flying.

During this time I also developed serious anxiety due to on going family and personal issues but it never occurred to me it would mostly effect me during flying as I did not fly during that time. But then after three long years I decided it was time to go see some family in Poland, I saved some money for a ticket and booked the flight with no problem, no worries on my mind. I got to the airport and started to feel dizzy and sick as I started to hear the anxious voice in my head. I tried to push these out of mind and boarded the plane. As I sat down I felt worse and worse. The plane started to take off and I clenched my seat and fear and didnt understand why I was feeling like this. For the rest of the flight I sat curled up in my seat with my earphones in watching something on Netflix I downloaded, trying to block out the noise of the plane and pretend I wasn’t even on it. Once I landed I felt 100x better but still quite confused as to why I felt this was all of a sudden.

The way back was the same. Same sick feeling in my stomach clenching of the plane seats.I still don’t know to this day why I feel this way and what might have caused it. I flew again a few months later with my boyfriends family (photo below) but this time it was worse. I couldn’t breath, I was crying, refusing to unbuckle my seat belt or even get up from my seat to go to the toilet while the plane was in the air. I was having panic attacks every time the plane even moved slightly while in the air, over the period of a two hours flight.

Sitting here, writing this post, thinking about flying is making me physically sick to the bottom of my stomach. I hate it so much that if I didn’t love to see new places and learn new things, I would never fly again. My boyfriend talks about going to New York constantly, I’m going with him to Italy next year and at the end of August I will be flying back from Poland as tomorrow I am leaving to go there but by car, thank god! I would take a 26 car journey over a 2 hour flight, I’m not even as excited as I should be about a holiday with the one I love the most either, that’s how difficult it has gotten.

I have tried some natural remedies such as Valerian and some other stress relief medicines, it worked for a short period but not well enough. I have been using this and pushing this to the back of my mind for the last year but now it’s too much. I have decided to start some behavioural therapyand see how that works out, I will give an update later on.

I honestly recommend doing this. Don’t suffer. Some may think it’s stupid but if you suffer from flight anxiety as much as I do, you know it’s not lightly taken or in any way an over exaggeration. Speak out and get help, we all deserve to explore the world and see new things but for some of us, it’s just a tad harder.

Love, Kasia x

What High School Is Like

23rd Jul 20196th Jul 2020 by Kasia x ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Hi guys,

While your reading this you might be in high school, which is great, if no one is telling you how great you are doing then let me do it here, keep it up. If you are after high school then that’s also great, some of you might say it was tough. If your before high school then look forward to it, it can be life-changing. Whichever state you are at, it being before, present or after then this blog post will still relate to you as I want to share my own experiences with you of how I got through that time in my life and also many tips and tricks I wish I knew about in school.

This 5-year period has its perks and drawback; making new friends, growing and developing, relationships, misbehaviours, homework, exam stress, lifetime memories and many more. But what you have to remember about high school is just that, its only 5 years. So many people get caught up and I have seen many people deal with mental health issues due to seeing that they will be in this messy school state forever, but you won’t. As annoying and terrible as this part of your life maybe you have to remember that it is only a section of the life ahead of you, a very important section too as it, to an extent, puts your life in the order it will go in later. I say this because for some it does and for some it does not, for example, I studied Media and Business as my GCSE’S and now I study Media and Communication at university, but for some, they might study different GCSE’S and then end up doing something completely different. You never know what you may end up as but one thing you can take away from this 5-year experience is the learning and growth.

Making new friends and relationships are tough in high school. At least they were for me. I was never particularly popular, I mainly kept close with three girls and some other small groups of friends but that was all, it was hard to make them at first of course because that related to speaking and getting to know people and that, even at age 12, was not easy or fun for me. I liked to be alone but still have friends and someone to talk to from time to time. But once friends were made then that made the school experience a lot easier for me as they were people who supported me and were in the same situation as me. So if you are in high school now I advise you to speak up, get to know that person, be active in your lessons. You can do it, making friends can be hard but its all worth it in the end.

Growing and developing is also a large part of high school. You will go through a lot of physical and emotional changes and school is sometimes not the best environment for that but it gives you a safe space to discuss it if you need advice. Speak to your friends because they are going through it too, speak to a school advisor, anyone you feel comfortable discussing these things with.

Lastly, I will touch on something that is very important near the end of high school, which is exams. Please, if you are 15-16 years old and are taking your final exams do not stress, I know I just said they decide your life path to an extent, but they also don’t, you can always do something different. They are still important for various reasons all your teachers might have already told you about but it is not worth not eating or sleeping or hurting yourself mentally for. There’s always second chances if you don’t get something perfect first time, life does not end at GCSE’S please remember that. Don’t sweat it, revise, practice and I’m sure you will come out with the best grades.

High school is hard, testing, annoying but its also where you can make friends for life, where you will grow up and where you will discover your self as a person so live in it, you won’t be there forever and maybe, one day you may miss it.

Love, Kasia x

What Affects Mental Health?

10th Jul 20196th Jul 2020 by Kasia x ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Social media. At most.

I see social media to open up a lot of windows of new business and growth opportunities, to escape the world and also to laugh a little, but as you may gather from my other posts I have a love-hate relationship with it and so should you. I think it’s very important to give people a wakeup call for their behaviours and online personas to allow them to see what it actually does to people if you focus on it too much. And also give others the eye-opening realisation that what they are doing on social media is wrong.

Masses amounts of research have been conducted on this topic, including titles of “reducing social media to 10 mins a day will help your mental health” or “social media is the biggest killer” But I wanted to speak about both sides of the argument, not just the negative one and also some small positives we can gain from it if we use it correctly.

Firstly, the positives of social media. I would see it to bring a lot of social benefits as it allows people from all over the world to connect and allows you to make more friends and keep in touch, which definitely boosts your wellbeing mentally as from experiences I have had online friends that have helped me and supported me just as much as my real-life friends. Another positive could be education, we now learn a lot from social media, it being quick tutorials on Facebook pages or sharing new things we discovered while travelling, sharing knowledge on such platforms is endless which is why I would mainly encourage people to join social media; to learn.

Also, social media allows for self-expression and lets you be known to the world, it lets you develop as a person and show others your drive for the things you love and that by far is the most amazing. There are also many more positives about social media such as creating support groups or global charitable advertisement but the reason that I did not name these in greater detail is that we first need to step back and take a look at how we use social media otherwise these will be impossible to do on a larger scale.

Discussing the negatives of social media, I would like to mention Instagram first.

As you will know Instagram shares images and videos of anything you want to post, but this most of comes at the price of others judgment. Body shaming and bullying is seen in mass volumes on social media account. The “your too this, your too that” argument consists of so many negative descriptions based just on appearance. I just don’t understand why some people won’t let others simply be themselves, be curvy or skinny or be in full-on glam 24/7. It’s their life choices and it does not affect you in any way shape or form so It would be amazing if we could see more positivity and love on posts rather than hate. I see children receiving hate from adults and vice versa. I see people inappropriately commenting on men’s and women’s bodies. I see celebrities promoting unhealthy lifestyles. I see a whole generation of people with nothing nice to say developing and it needs to be stopped immediately.

Not even just discussing Instagram now as just all other platforms we use daily; we see constant shaming and discouragement online that it is starting to affect the way we think in real life. I have had moments where I have overused social media and ended up being negative or it impacting my real-life choices for a period of time, just because of one discouraging comment or one image of a face tuned body that makes me feel ashamed of myself. This has to change, its impacting our real lives and our outlook on others and ourselves. We have people ending their lives over comments and number of likes received on a platform that didn’t even exist 10-20 years ago.

Mental illnesses are on the rise because of heart-shaped like button or reactions to Facebook posts. We start to feel ashamed to write our feelings in the thought of being judged or laughed at when in reality social media should be this open space we can communicate with others.

We need to stop and think. Do we need this? Do I need to say this? Should I really post this? Do not bring others down to feel better. Do not use social media that is supposed to connect us and bring us together to bring more hate into the world. We already have enough hate some more love would be appreciated. Take a step back and look at yourselves every time you overuse social media or use it for a negative purpose. Is it really worth it? can you do things differently?

Love, Kasia x

Just Figure It Out

7th Jul 20196th Jul 2020 by Kasia x ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Hi everyone,

I hear the above comment be uttered from so many older people around me it is ridiculous. This includes parents, relatives, teachers and even people that barely know me and many more. Everyone seems to have it all figured out and know what you should be doing, everyone seems to think that as soon as you hit 16 or 18 years of age that’s it, you know what you will do with your life and that’s final. Everyone is wrong.

You never know. EVER. What will be the “thing” you will be doing with or in your life.

Whoever is in your life, it being a guardian or even partner, no one should ever tell you what to do with our life, what job you should do, when you should stop educating yourself, who you should settle down with. No one has control over these choices except you and that is what you should always remember.

The pressure that is now put on young people to know what to be doing with their lives at such a young age is insane, parents try to create their “mini-me” and teachers try to form their ideal students for their own benefit. I know this from personal experience, teachers moulding their class just to show their perfect reputation and people telling you what to be just to make money in the future and not for happiness. Such pressure impacts mental health and wellbeing of young people, having to constantly think about what you will be with your life at the age of 16 is ridiculous and will eventually drive you insane, you are not even old enough to vote yet but of course, you must know what career you will be in for the next 50 or so years. This sort of behaviour towards young people needs to be stopped, we need time to think grow, develop. At the age of 16 or 18, you still don’t fully know about all that there is out in the world, different sectors of work, job titles, corporate ladders etc. This is your time to try new things, mess up and learn from your mistakes, not decide what will make you the most money when you’re older.

When I was 14 and I was confident I was going to be in Human Resources and study business at Birmingham University. Then at 16, I switched over to radio and production because I did GCSE media and really enjoyed it and now I’m studying Media and Communications at Bournemouth University and to be honest I still don’t know 100% if this is what I will be doing in 5, 10, or even 15 years. I love my course but career-wise I don’t know what I will be doing when I graduate but I know one thing; I’m doing something that I love and interests me which is the only thing I can ask of you. I was very much influenced by my teachers to pick such subjects and also by my parents as they have previous experience in the business sector, don’t let this be you. Do what you love and what makes you happy!

If anything, take these main three pieces of advice that I have created to do with this subject area from my own personal experiences:

Take your time: you will not know what you will be doing with your life the second you turn, 16, 18 or even past that. You need time to develop as an individual, see what you love and don’t like and go from there. Slowly.
Don’t be influenced: Do what YOU want, not your siblings, parents, family members, friends, partners. You do you.
Do what you love: even if it’s something out of the ordinary, anything that doesn’t check the usual corporate boxes, just do it! If you love it that’s all you need as with passion will come work and everything will come together eventually.

This post might have been a bit all over the place, but I think I got my main point across. Do what you love and don’t let anyone tell you differently. You don’t have to have it all figured out yet just like I don’t. It takes time and care but make sure whatever you are doing now while figuring things out, makes you happy and allows you to be mentally and physically well.

Love, Kasia x