Confidence

Confidence is an issue that I've struggled through for a very long time. Throughout the years my lack of self confidence has varied and moved around into several different areas. My self esteem has plummeted pretty low at points, but once you get past that, everything's a little better.

I think confidence is something that a lot of people struggle with, which is a bit of a shame really. It's one of those things that can really affect people; really hold them back. I had a close friend that used to hurt themselves quite regularly because they...well they thought they were worthless I suppose. I have never felt completely worthless, and I hope I never do, but sometimes those dark thoughts do cross my mind.

Confidence is a strange thing. I feel more confident blogging to a group of strangers about my life than I do telling my friends to their faces. That's weird, isn't it? I'd rather tell a stranger through a screen. I think that's odd anyway. It's odd because...well...my blog is like my diary. That's not the sort of thing people let people read, but well...here we are.

Writing at night is easier than writing in the day. Under the cover of darkness. Kind of a bit secretive really. Maybe that's saying something about my confidence. I don't know. More people have insecurities than people think, and more people have more insecurities than they know. Maybe we should all help each other with our insecurities. Maybe that's a bit sloshy and cliche, but maybe it's true.

Ironically, it seems like people aren't confident enough to help other people. So maybe we should all work on improving our own issues. The thing about humans though, is that we're not solitary creatures. We work in groups, we're social...well most of us are - the point is, hearing something nice once in a while does wonders to your self-esteem, so dropping compliments here and there would work wonders, no?

For me it was Diagnosis = Confidence drop, and now I'm re-building again. Just kept thinking 'damaged goods' or 'faulty' or something, but at least I know I'm not alone. We can do everything we want to, we just have to be confident enough to try.

AJ

Onwards with optimism!

Two and a half months since my diagnosis and I feel like I'm starting to become more and more like my old self every day. Everything looks a little brighter, and in spite of the harsh winter weather, I rarely feel cold and lifeless anymore. This blog is kind of like a form of therapy for me. I suppose most writing is. This is where I'm completely unedited though, where I have total free reign to make mistakes, where I can make typos and that's how people know I'm a real person.

I genuinely feel blessed at this moment in my life. I have the most amazing people surrounding me, the nicest, kindest people that I could ever ask for. I've said in the past that they make the world a little less dark, but really, they make the world a little brighter. I maintain that the world can be a dark place, a hard place to be, but there are places you can find, people that you can find, things that you can do to keep it a little brighter than you could have thought.

The thing with writing is that inspiration rarely hits me until the wee hours, or at least, very late at night. It's a challenge for me to keep this blog going, but I'm still doing it, because I really want to help other people with it, not just myself. My job at The Student Review keeps me sane sometimes. In spite of the fact that it drives me crazy having to come up with things to write about, I love doing it. It's a challenge. Seeing a pattern? For some crazy reason, and god only knows why, I love doing things that are difficult for me, challenging for me. I suppose it makes me feel a little stronger. It's that sense of achievement.

As well as that, I do work alongside some pretty brilliant people on TSR. I don't think I'll ever regret taking that up. I'm bloody grateful to have been able to be a part of it. I wrote an info/article piece about PCOS for The Student Review, and I feel a little better about myself because I've been able to do that. I know that there are people that have read that, and just knowing that people are a little more informed makes me a little happier.

I suppose everything seems to be travelling a little more smoothly now. Things are settling down, and I'm finding time to do things that I didn't want to do when I was on the bad pills. I love helping people, making people smile, making things a little clearer for them, which is why I have my Advice column (if you have any questions feel free to get in touch). I feel more optimistic now because I am happier. I am steadier, and I have pushed through what I needed to push through. Strangely it was before my diagnosis that I was at my worst. You think you've hit rock bottom, but you have much further to sink. My diagnosis acted as something of a liberation for me. Although I'm still not completely at peace with it, I think that some day, maybe soon, I will be.

AJ

PCOS and Me

Okay, so I've let the news sink in a little bit now. I've had PCOS all my life, but I was diagnosed four days ago. Isn't it interesting that when you don't know about something, you tend not to care so much? Interestingly with PCOS, it's not curable, but there are solutions. Diet, excercise, oral contraceptives, IVF and all of that stuff, I'll always have polycystic ovaries, and I'll always suffer from polycystic ovary syndrome...although, I don't really think suffer is the right word. Suffer implies something horrendous, often something painful, but I'm feeling strangely calm about having this condition.

It's been three years that I've been trying to find out if I have PCOS and those three years have been pretty difficult; so now that I know, I feel strangely at peace with it. The last few years have been filled with tears, laughter, numbness, friendship and utter, complete madness. It's been filled with breakdown after breakdown, but people are always there to pick up my pieces. So thanks for that guys, if I ever have to, I'll do the same for you.

The hardest thing I had to deal with was wondering if I had hyped the whole thing up. What if it got to the results and it turned out I was being a hypochondriac? There was one person who - unknowingly - made me feel like that. It did make me think, well I'm obviously not worth the bother, maybe I should just quit while I'm ahead. But I didn't. And I do have PCOS. I wasn't hyping it up.

Okay so now I know exactly what my problem is, and I know how to deal with it. The new doctor's surgery I've been visiting has really helped me on my way to finding out. They've done everything they can to support me, and that's helped so much, it's unbelievable. I'm glad that I found out sooner rather than later, and that everything is going to be okay; I'll make everything okay. I feel a lot more of a person, if that makes sense, a lot more substantial than I used to feel. I've begun to find it easier to talk to people about my situation, to tell people what's going on and in turn help them.

Having PCOS can make you feel really inadequate, like 'nobody's going to want me' and 'I am not worth the hassle' but that's not true at all. It's normal to feel like this, normal to have a massive blow to your self esteem after diagnosis, but it will get better. It can always get better.

I'd like to hear from anyone who has PCOS if any of you read my blog. We can all deal with it together!

AJ

Post-Ultrasound!

Hi!

So yesterday I had my ultrasound - just to clarify, I won't get the results for a good couple of weeks yet! The ultrasound itself went very smoothly and quickly, I was trying to make it go quicker by tuning out because I really, REALLY had to pee. She got the photos that she needed and let me go. It's strange, because she pressed down really hard on my tummy with the probe-y thing, and it didn't hurt too much during the examination itself, but afterwards I was quite sore, and my tummy feels a little bruised, but what can you do? At least we know I'll know soon. I hope.

So I'm pretty happy I've got that done with. I've been feeling a little under the weather recently, but I think that has something to do with the cold. Today, I ventured out into the city and went to the cinema with a few friends. We went to see The Three Musketeers. It was a great movie, very entertaining and filled with action. I must say that the actors were brilliant with their characters and well...played the parts brilliantly, but this isn't a film review, I'm not very good at those. Go out and see it, It's great.

I suppose this is a bit of a filler post, so that you guys know what's going on with me right now. I'll pop in a few random things. Like this one: anthologies2011.blogspot.com home of the Memory Eater. CP will soon be posting a page one where to purchase the anthology, so please check it out and do so! A lot of writers and artists (myself included!) have worked very hard on this anthology and we want to see it take flight!

Also, everyone say hi to my wonderful friend Kitty Curtis (you can find her on The Call To Adventure, I write things over there sometimes too!) because she's now at Cambridge university and doing well! She even sent me a post-card Ooooooooooo pooostcard!

That's about all the news I have to share with you right now. Everything seems to be okay from this front, but it could always be the calm before the storm. Aaaaah happy thoughts.

Love
JCxxx

Pre-Ultrasound Nerves

Okay, so you might know that I'm scheduled for an ultrasound on Wednesday. You might also know that this is part of an investigation to see whether I have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS). You might even know that this has been an ongoing thing for oh...the last three years. Yeah. Some doctors just don't want to give you a straight answer. But however much I talk about straight answers, not being able to get them etc. it doesn't take away from the fact that I've gotten used to them. How weird is that? I'm used to being given shitty answers, like 'we don't normally investigate people who aren't in a stable relationship' what?! NO.

*Ahem* Sorry. Anyway, I've gotten to this point, the pre-ultrasound nerves. There are things going through my head like 'what if I have PCOS?' and 'what if they can't get a clear picture' and 'what if they do get a clear picture?'. But I think the not knowing is worse than the knowing. I just want a little reassurance that whatever happens, everything's going to be okay. And it's not like I don't have an excellent support system, but I'm seventeen years old. I never expected to care about being able to have kids. I never expected to have to deal with any of this.

To be frank, the worst things that I've had to deal with are, in order, horrible medication; the stuff I was on before made me depressed and nauseous. The nausea I noticed, but the most frightening thing was that I didn't realise that I'd gotten to such a depressed state. I nearly quit school, I nearly sabotaged all of my friendships, I nearly ruined what life I have. The other thing that's really bothered me is 'Oh, it's probably not PCOS'. It's when people say this that you know they're not sure what to say. But at the same time, it feels like they're blowing you off, like it's not a real problem, but oh wait, it IS! I hate that, like more than most things. I'm not telling people to get sympathy most of the time, and when I do want sympathy, it's not because I'm an attention seeker, it's because...well it's a big problem that I can't deal with alone.

I can't help but feel very alone sometimes, and I'm writing this in the hope that someone out there has gone through something similar and might offer a few words of encouragement, but it's a long shot that they'll happen to stumble across my garbled words. And if there's anyone out there that I can help, I'd like to. Potentially having PCOS doesn't scare me anymore, there are women who have it all over the place who have it, women that will be diagnosed with it. As alone as I feel I know that there are people with the same issues.

I'm terrified of hospitals - there's another thing about me. They're horrible. I respect anyone who can work in a hospital on a daily basis. The thing is, I have to see my gyno/radiologist in the hospital. Aaaaaaaahh! Anyone wanna field this one? HELP!

I'll let you know how the ultrasound goes, and when I get the results.

AJ

Sinners Never Sleep - You Me At Six at the O2 Leeds

On Wednesday evening, I was lucky enough to be able to go, with a friend to see You Me At Six on their current tour in Leeds, in promotion of their brilliant new album, Sinners Never Sleep. I think it's safe to say that I have always liked the band, but they hadn't stood out for me until they released this album, and I genuinely think this is their best album yet. With the opening song of 'Loverboy' with its sometimes annoyingly catchy tune (it's been stuck in my head for days...) the rest of the album is sure to impress. I think my favorite song on the list is probably Bite My Tongue feat. Oli Sykes. I'm not going to lie, there's a bit of screaming at the end, and I'm not the biggest fan of screaming, but I don't know what it is about this song that makes me really not care about the ending. Anyway, I'll end my inadvertent advertising of this album by saying if you do buy it, it's a good investment. I really enjoyed it.


I was even fortunate enough to get into a small meet and greet session before the concert. I think the thing that struck me was how down to earth the band are, they were just sat, looking slightly sheepish grinning at everyone and joking between themselves, just an ordinary bunch of guys. This was the second thing that boosted my liking of them. They didn't seem to have that overly cocky attitude that you see rockstars develop as they get famous, although, I feel I should mention, they dropped more than a few f-bombs during the show, I honestly don't think I've heard the f-word used more within the space of ten minutes. Well done Mr. Franceschi, well done.


When it got to the actual show, the atmosphere was crazy. Everyone was buzzing, and even though we didn't want to seem rude, I think we all really just wanted the main band to come on, but when they did, the crowds, rather predictably erupted into cheers and screams. The energy overtook the room when they burst into their first song, The Consequence. The amount they jumped around on stage was insane. I can't describe it in any other way than it was like they were taking the energy from the room and throwing it right back down there. This was the third thing that made me like You Me At Six even more.


The majority of the songs that were played were, of course, from the new album, and I think it's amazing how people learn the words to songs so quickly. After the main man, Josh Franceschi, claimed that 'you got some beautiful singing voices Leeds' the crowd through all their energy into singing along, so much so that if Franceschi hadn't been there, it probably wouldn't have made much difference in terms of adding vocals to the songs. But having said that, when you could hear the insane vocals that were being produced, combined with the drumbeats and the guitars, You Me At Six really got your heart going.


The night was brilliant, and this band are definitely my new addiction. Since seeing them, I haven't been able to stop listening to them whenever I can. Just the feel of the room is enough to make me want to go out and see them again, so if you get the chance, you definitely should go. Y'know...if rock music is your thing of course. But an amazing night, and definitely one to remember.

It would happen...

A couple months ago or so, I submitted a blog post about being tested for PCOS and my journey through that. I believe it was entitled 'Grin and bare your teeth'. Apparently, I spoke too soon with that. I told you I had tested negative for PCOS, but it turns out I haven't been given the all clear yet. The lady on the phone must have interpreted it wrong, because I soon received a letter telling me to book an appointment to see my doctor about it. This is the second time it's happened to me, so it didn't come as a huge shock. So off I went, trooping to the surgery around the corner, with a sense of cold foreboding upon me.

My doctor was very friendly, kind and sympathetic, and basically was just really nice to me. He told me I wasn't completely in the clear for PCOS, because my hormones don't quite match up with how they should be. I'm now waiting on a letter for an ultrasound. It's been a couple of weeks since I saw the doctor, and I'm on new pills which he gave me, in the hope it would help my symptoms somewhat. The pills are great, they don't make me nauseous, they don't make me depressed and I haven't suffered any adverse effects yet. This process has made me so tired, but it's made me grow as a person. In spite of what it's put me through emotionally, I wouldn't change a second of it, because it's helped me become who I am, as cheesy as that sounds.

I've come to a point where I've reached a sort of conclusion with my journey. There are two possible endings. If I have PCOS, I might not be able to naturally have children, but there are treatments out there - IVF, things like that, and I could adopt if can't conceive those ways. If it's not meant to be, I won't have children, because that was never meant for me. If I don't have PCOS, I might still be able to easily have children, but again, if it's not meant to be, then it isn't meant to be. We'll see what happens, and I'll let you know. Who knows, if I have it, this might turn into a 'Coping with PCOS' blog. If you're going through the same thing, don't go through it alone. Something that's kept me alive is knowing that my friends and family were with me all the way.

If you need a friend, someone to talk to, any advice, contact me at my Advice column on The Student Review website. They're usually entitled AJ's Advice, there's a link to TSR just below my top banner. http://www.thestudentreview.co.uk

AJ