does 'everything happen for a reason'?

I have always believed that everything happens for a reason. What is the reason that my body must suffer for so long? A year and a half and it seems like it's just getting worse. Everything hurts my stomach.. Sometimes I'm fine after eating, but mostly, I am just bloated all day, and if I'm lucky, that's all that will happen. But my stomach cramps are just getting worse and worse (among other things I won't describe), and I am just effected and feel sick pretty much always. It sucks because I am FINALLY getting better with my muscles, after a couple months at this special training gym that I LOVE, but now that my insides are getting worse, it's making me weaker and I'm fighting to stay doing what I was but it's getting harder. I just want to find a job but now I'm worried I won't physically be able to until this problem is resolved. I went to a specialist this morning and they want to rule out lactose intolerance and celiac disease first, (but I'm pretty sure it's not the food that's the main problem, I'm pretty sure it's my insides) but my appointment to take the lactose test (drink milk sugar and blow into a thing) isn't until the end of June. WHY?!

 It's getting worse by the day and no medicine really helps, to be honest Marijuana has helped better than any medicine they have given me, but still I can't really ease my suffering that much. I just broke down outside the doctors office because I am so sick of suffering. I just want to live a normal life and prove that I can live here in Germany without relying on someone else. But I'm in so much pain all the time it's making it so hard for me to get where I need to be. And I know it's only a small bit but summer is coming up quickly and I am actually feeling good about my body, but because of whatever is going on I am so bloated all the time and it makes me so much bigger than I am and I can't control it at all. I want to feel good this summer like I know I could but it seems like this problem is just going to drag out. I feel so defeated. What is the reason for all of this?! The only thing I can actually think of is that I am avoiding money situations where I come from. Is this my karma for not dealing with that situation? Or is this just some random suffering to teach me that life is just hard and you have to learn to deal with it in a peaceful way?

I also mistreated the hell out of my body in the past so it doesn't surprise me that I am having problems, I'm just surprised it's taking so long for the doctors to figure it out. I feel such a disconnect between the doctors and myself here. The newest one I have been going to has actually helped me quite a bit. She sent me to the specialist today and also gave me a list of many psychotherapists in the area, and I finally found one that doesn't have a waiting list and more importantly, she speaks English! SO this is a huge plus for me, my first appointment is in 3 weeks.

I left out a detail earlier that I would like to now add haha. During my breakdown on the street (crumpled in a ball crying) a lady came up to me and asked me what was wrong and I explained everything to her (In German, which for me is a big deal) and she was so helpful and sympathetic. She said I should try to call the hospital and talk to them about it and make an appointment there. It was a really good idea that I probably wouldn't have thought to do. But they do everything there it's a hospital!! If I am suffering this much I need to do whatever it takes, and I don't want to continue suffering! My doctor gave me the last medicine she can give me and yah it doesn't work. Hospital it is. Thanks for reading my rant about my dwindling physical condition, I feel better now.

no one leaps mountains.

I've been hiding how I'm feeling from myself. I'm not really okay. I push away all the sadness and confusion. It's mostly too hard to face. I've suffered so much I feel like I won't make it having a good life, like it's just not going to happen. When it comes time to write down how I feel it won't come out. I can't get out of my head and I also can't stop repressing what keeps coming up. How am I supposed to deal with what I do not understand or know? When I think about where I should live or what I want to do, I feel nothing. Like I don't really want to exist, because life just seems like too much to handle. Wtf do I do if things don't work out with my boyfriend Timo? Would I live in Germany still? That's the big question I cannot answer. It's what brings me to the place of feeling like blank existence. I'm so fucking confused about life, love, everything. I have no idea what to do. But I've decided life here deserves a chance. There are many things I love here in Germany, especially Timo. I need to focus on that instead of all these what ifs. Save those for the if time. Also, One small step at a time. No one leaps mountains.

all you need is love

One of my favourite sayings is “all you need is love”. The problem, I am realizing with that phrase, is that most of the love that you will want or need in your life comes from yourself. It has to! Even the people that do really and truly love you get sick of you from time to time or need their love for other purposes. Love needs to come from within. Why is that such a hard thing for me to remember/practice? Why do I get so easily out of balance and feel the opposite; like all the love needs to come from outside of me, to make me feel good again. That clearly isn’t the answer but it’s really hard to build yourself back up from that.

I feel like I’m at such a low right now, sick of almost everything in my life and unsure of where to really go from here. Of course I have moments of happiness but underneath everything I just feel like I’m failing at life, letting down the people who had high reverence for me, changing their opinion of who I am, coming to decisions I cannot control and I hope that this low doesn’t cause too much damage. I don’t want to be thought of as being this way, unable to take care of myself, unable to work a steady job, unable to live life properly. It’s sad isn’t it? That because my nervous system works differently than the other 80% of people, I am judged without understanding, every day of my life. Lately I can just feel the judgement coming off of my super wonderful, smart and caring boyfriend. He is certainly not sensitive, and really can’t get into my head. I can see it in his face sometimes that he doubts I really feel the way I do. My easily overwhelmed sensitive self comes off as lazy and I really don’t know how to explain myself any different so that it is understood why I am unable to do what I am unable to do these days.

I guess it also sounds like I’m a little bit depressed, which I read tends to be a problem with HSP’s. We get ourselves into these holes, be it by our minds or the overwhelming circumstances around us, and it seems like we aren’t trying when really we are just trying too hard. I hate it. I want to be positive about being an HSP but at the moment it isn’t really working. I am seeing how much I am going to struggle though life, and realizing that there might not be someone willing to love me unconditionally ‘forever’. I seem like such a perfect catch at first, but after time the complications unravel and at this moment I am hoping that I can roll this ball of yarn up and turn it into some new kind of respect. Respect for myself and for the differences of my partner, I hope that he can gain the same respect.

I just need to keep going, finding the love from within as much as possible.

the emotional roller coaster that is my life

My whole life I have heard things like "you're so sensitive Lee-Anne" or "you're just too emotional". For a long time I believed that I had a problem with taking things too personal, but now I understand why.

Being a Highly Sensitive Person (or HSP) affects my life in many ways, but for me the emotional part is the hardest to deal with. I have zero control over my original emotions in any situation, with every emotion. Also every emotion that I feel is to the extreme. In many situations this is great, I can have a real excitement for things in my life. But for the most part it is extremely draining and pretty overwhelming.

I know to be truly happy, outside influences like weather and work shouldn't affect someone, but because I am an HSP, I absorb more from these outside situations hence the overwhelming lack of emotional control. It used to bring me down thinking that my emotions control me, and that it makes me unable to handle situations the way others do. It made me feel weak that I can't just will away my emotions.The phrase, "leave your personal life at the door" is next to impossible for me in any scenario. I think sometimes that being an HSP drives me to constantly live in the now, which sounds like a good thing but often I can't get my mind past the current situation and that can be detrimental to calming myself down and moving forward with my daily life.

The good thing is, once I am able to see that my emotions have taken me over, I can try and come back to reality and use my sensibilities to subside my emotions. This gives me the ability to properly analyze and conquer whatever is going on. Now I am seeing the relation to being an HSP, absorbing more from each situation and taking longer to comprehend it all, but in the end I have a better understanding than many others.

Maybe I will never be able to control my initial emotional reaction to things, but I can try to find ways to catch myself when it is clear my emotions are in charge and if I practice that maybe handling my emotions will become more natural.

I run on love

Yesterday while I was at work I was feeling a sense of emptiness that happens when I miss my friends or family and it truly means I don't feel there's enough love in my life. I start over-analyzing everything and well I had some time to write about it and these were my thoughts

I have this thing where I want to always feel loved and needed, and this can be tricky for me. Even in a wonderful relationship, that love is not enough. I want to bring meaning into the lives of those I care about, and it's really hard sometimes to feel that is happening when I live so far away. A problem that stems from this [(wanting to feel loved and needed)] is it's easy to make myself happy with the love of other people. It distracts me from that empty feeling I perceived as loneliness. So in a sense it is good for me to live far away because I'm not giving myself that false sense of happiness that goes away when I am not with people. 

I get scared when I think that my friends will be getting married and it might not matter if I'm not there, it makes me feel like I'm not a big part of anyone's life. I feel like I've failed as a person when no one needs me involved in their life. It's like I have felt with past relationships, I'm not cherished as much as I feel I should be, and I feel like it's a mistake. I may have many insecurities but I know I am a special person that cares extra about the people in my life. I just wish more people showed me that I'm important to them. It;s hard to feel so much love and not have it returned. 

Thinking about this makes me realize I run on love. It's the most important thing in my life and has been for as long as I can remember. But I need to learn to provide my own love. I spend so much time thinking about how much I care for others I should be spending more love on myself. It's so easy to feel unimportant to people when I give myself that attitude. Of course I am cared about and loved by many and of course I am missed I just wish more people expressed themselves as easily as I do.

While writing this post I got an idea for my next post, the constant emotional roller coaster that is being a Highly Sensitive Person. So I think that's what I will write about next time! 

can a season be a trigger?

Summer is my favourite season, I love the colours and the warm weather and sweet smells. I also love summer activities, swimming, biking, running, bbqing etc.  Summer makes me happy, but for about the last 10 years of my life, summer has also brought a lot of mental pain.  The first time I remember trying to lose weight it was at the end of the school year in Grade 11 when I had just turned 17. That was my anorexic summer. The next summer was the summer I remember arguing a lot with my family, admitting to my mom that I had an eating problem, and certainly not being ready to move away to University. Every summer after that for about 4 years this season meant diet pills and exercise so I could wear all my favourite clothes and bikini’s. One summer it got to be too much for me, the mental effects of my lack of food brought me to a place where weight and food were all I thought about, that was the summer I decided I needed out of this mental hell, and started on the recovery path.

Every summer since then it seems to be the same for me, feelings of anxiety. Wishing it would be easy to turn to my old habits so I could feel good in summer clothes. Feeling sadness that I feel so uncomfortable in my own skin that I have to x out many options of attire I might wear including bikinis and anything strapless or form fitting. Every summer the acceptable length of shorts gets longer for me to the point where this year I hate wearing shorts, I don’t want to, I just want to buy dresses, but again my body type is hard to fit dresses correctly without it being too small on top or too big on the bottom.

I spend so much time lying around hating my body and the fact that I don’t feel like I look nice in summer clothes right now. This has consumed me for so many years. I was going to buy a summer pass for the pool in my village but I am now realizing the terror I feel this summer of being in a bathing suit (not even a bikini) in front of other people. It sucks. I know there are so many others out there that feel the same as I do, and even worse. I have come so far from that first summer, and I would never go back to my old eating disordered habits, but I just wish I knew how to stay positive! I know it helps to focus on what you like about yourself, but lately my problem is I am starting not to like those parts anymore since my recent weight gain due to physical illness and the halting of physical activity for a few months.

I want so bad to inspire others that have disordered eating that there is a better way, but it is still so hard for me most days to like my body and that was always the question “is it better to be skinny and miserable or normal size (feeling constantly fat) and miserable?”

The answer is definitely normal size, because at least I can focus on other things in life besides my body image, and that is worth the most, being able to live life!

The goal: not to care so much about how I feel in summer clothes, and just enjoy the summer!

will I always struggle?

I have been neglecting writing lately because I have been pretty mentally and physically exhausted from my job and losing sleep over it. While I was at work the other day and had some spare time I wrote a little bit on what I have been going through.


Lately I've been feeling more anxiety than usual. I recently started working again, only to find that switching from evenings to days means losing sleep because I am so worried that I need it. My job isn't even hard, the only hard part is that it's in a language I am just becoming familiar with. I don't think I'm worried about it but somehow I'm getting more and more worn down. My thinking is (like I've talked about before) it's time to move on, find a new job, something better. This brings even more anxiety because thinking about what kind of job I would like, that is possible for me to get, is really hard. Near impossible. So what does this mean? Will I always have anxiety with everything in my life? Is everything always going to be so draining for me? The frightening answer is probably, yes. Because I am an HSP, I am effected more by everything. The sooner I can accept this the better. Despite my anxiety about not having an income, I am going to quit my job (unless my working visa doesn't allow a gap for job change, in which case I will continue to be worn down until I can attain a new work contract). My heart is heavy and I know life and finding a new job would be much easier if I can just give this up. It doesn't make me weak, it shows my ability to listen to my needs, which I am finding more and more are different than others, and that's totally ok!


I have been uninterested in food, unable to sleep properly, crying almost every day, just down in general. Finally I started to feel a little more calm and was able to eat and sleep, and today my life was way easier and happier. It really shows how much anxiety can affect my life.

amy winehouse: a diamond in the rough

Something has been plaguing me for over a week and I think it's about time I wrote about it.

Amy Winehouse

To be completely honest I am not one to listen to the radio or follow the lives of the rich and famous. I didn't know much about Amy Winehouse, I had heard a couple songs and knew I liked her voice, raw and with a different edge than a lot of other famous lady singers. When sometimes hearing about her tales of destruction, I wrote her off as another girl starving for attention. When I found out she died watching youtube videos of herself, I think I may have laughed a little, seeing it as an act of vanity. These were all my first impressions because my only information came through hearsay of the media. This must have been most peoples impression of her. 

Last weekend an interest sparked when I heard someone on "Deutschland sucht den Superstar" (Germany's American Idol) singing  Rehab, the only song I was familiar with. I am very passionate about singing and find it really lifts my mood to really let loose and sing as loud and wonderfully as I can, and when being reminded of Amy Winehouse I thought, I would like to learn to sing a few of her songs. Remembering that she died a couple of years ago I looked her up on Wikipedia. There is a lot of information about her musical career (rightfully so), but there seems to be even more information about her personal life, having drug and alcohol problems, relationship problems. It tells a lot about how much the media attacked her. There is slight mention of an eating disorder, but not much information is given as to why these problems were in her life. All that is written is that her parents divorced when she was nine, and she took it hard when her grandmother died because she was a big musical influence for Amy. 

I thought, 'that's it?' really? So I researched further. Trying to figure out what lead her down the path of destruction. I only could find the information that she had been battling bulimia since the age of 17, that she struggled with self harm, that her abusive on again off again relationship with Blake Fielder-Civil was the cause of her drug problem. 

I started to feel more and more sad for her. No one, not even Amy herself, seemed to care about what was really troubling her. I watched a few videos on YouTube, including some from her final live performance , (says Amy is 'drugged out of her mind' but I am 95% sure she is just drunk) and I couldn't help but start to cry. As someone who has battled an eating disorder and drug addiction, I could see so clearly that she was destroyed inside and out. I got angry, why didn't anyone help her? Why did the media attack her constantly instead of trying to get to the root of the problem. Why are the problems of celebrities blown so out of proportion but not looked into further than the destruction's caused? Why was her eating disorder pushed aside to the public when it is just as crucial a medical problem, especially when drugs and alcohol are part of everyday life? Her brother Alex seemed to be the only one that truly understood the seriousness of her bulimia, to the point he expressed it was the cause of her accidental death. I know ultimately Amy was responsible for her own actions and refused professional recovery multiple times but I feel like more could have been done to help. Everyone was too busy gossiping about her bad behavior, but no one took the time to try and understand that bad behavior can also be due to extreme mental problems.

In my opinion, the media didn't pay as much attention to Amy's eating disorder because drug and alcohol problems are more dramatic and also more visible. It is way easier to write a 'successful' story about the antics caused by intoxication rather than the self-harm caused by an eating disorder. It is much easier for the public to handle a situation that seems as though someone is acting out of control rather than mentally out of control. The media had a horrible approach to Amy's weight fluctuation that was clearly due to eating problems. There are many pictures of a skeletal like Amy holding giant bags of McDonalds food. After she quit drugs for good, she appears to "gain weight and have a muffin top" but looking at the rest of her body she is extremely underweight, and it is very clear to me that she actually has the belly bump of someone that is malnourished and addicted to alcohol.

                                          

I wish that the media didn't hold such authority over the lives of the public, as well as the lives of celebrities. Looking into Amy's life was the first time it really registered what kind of impact the media can have for those being reported about. Any celebrity must be in total mental control to not let the masses bring them down. Reporters and paparazzi are like sharks, one drop of blood and from far and wide they come to feed. I truly feel sorry for the continually growing number of celebrities that succumb to the pressures they feel and end up with drug/alcohol problems and eating disorders or intense weight fluctuation. All are seriously harmful to the body and mind. 

It seems unfair to me that just because someone is famous they must remain perfect and in total control. Fame or not, people are people and almost everyone struggles with some kind of mental or physical issue in their life. Everyone deserves a chance, everyone makes mistakes in their life.

Maybe if the media wouldn't have been so consistently harsh to Amy Winehouse, she would still be here.  it is a shame her personal life became more important to the media and to the masses, which in my opinion is what ultimately destroyed her. 

At least we can forever enjoy her musical talent and distinctly soulful voice, and as sad as it is, at least she is now at peace.

stop feeling guilty about setting personal boundaries

I need a boss who understands when I need to take the day off because I can't stop crying. I need a job that lets me set my own boundaries, because I am different. Unfortunately not many business owners are the type of people who would understand that being a Highly Sensitive Person means if I am not on my game, my work will seriously suffer. I do not respond to pressure and criticism but to positive guidance and encouragement. Sometimes life is overwhelming and unfortunately I can't just "leave my personal life at the door" when coming to work. Everything takes longer for me to process and fully understand, I need time to come to peace when something shakes me.

This is discouraged in the work place. I think it is very unfair. I know that some jobs give you personal days, but I have never worked somewhere where I was able to do that. I have never had this opportunity, and actually this is something I really need in my life as an HSP. The ability to say no to life when it gets overwhelming and take time to rejuvenate so I can continue on in peace and with motivation instead of drudging along with resistance. Life is hard and I think everyone should have the ability to take a day off when they are feeling a mental drainage/explosion. Why is it less manageable to get that across in the workplace than having a physical ailment?

I shouldn't have to feel guilty when something is preventing me from working, whether it be mental, physical, personal or not. Normally in Germany, where I live, it is no problem to take a day when you need it, but I don't work at a company that runs with the regular ways so I am out of luck. It is definitely time for a change in my work, which of course brings on more anxiety. I enjoy a lot of things about being an HSP, but sometimes I wish I could just let things go and move on easily, I wish it didn't feel so heavy to jump into something new, especially when it comes to my work. I want to feel purpose in what I am doing, even with the anxiety produced by looking for a new job in a foreign country. I deserve more and I need to learn to not be afraid to go for what I want and need in life. Of course when I say I deserve more, I also mean everyone. Everyone deserves to go for their own version of gold!