Hi Brain... Why you gotta be difficult?

"The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind" William James I have this OVER self-CRITICAL and self-LOATHING voice that makes me feel crap. It ruins my day and makes me sink lower. It makes me question my decisions and my thoughts. It's essentially a bully and makes me feel as if I'm being bullied, by myself.  My appearance  The clothes I wear Life choices  If I make the tiniest mistake at work  Uni assignments  In social situations (THIS IS MAJOR) Over the past year, I have been working hard to try and eradicate this inner voice. At times, it has worked so much, but when my anxiety has spiked or I am feeling low it creeps back up on me. Here are a few methods I have used to prevent the critical voice from bullying me. 1.     The realisation that this is just an inner voice and isn't a "true voice" I have many inner voices, the voic...

"The brain is wider than the sky"  Emily Dickinson                                               I felt the start of my blog needed to be more about myself. I must add that this blog will not constantly be about my own experience. My mental wellbeing started to flail when I was around 10 or 11. My family and friends noticed a huge difference from the big, bright-eyed and bubbly girl who had always been laughing and happy, to someone drenched with depression and self-harming every day.  Early Years  Over ten years on, I cannot remember how or why I started to develop mental illness. My earliest memory was scratching myself when I was angry and feeling the intense release it gave me. From then on this was my coping mechanism and I adopted the habit of doing it every day. I became very different from everyone else, I started...