About

What inspired me to create my blog?

My name is Amy, I am 25 years old and I suffer from 4 chronic pain conditions, anxiety and depression and a range of other things;

It all started in the summer of 2016 when I was signed off work for 10 weeks with anxiety and depression while undergoing my diagnosis of Crohn’s disease. This period of my life is a blur, It was a time I felt like everything was put on hold. A time where my head would explode with the amount of research I was doing to try and figure out what was wrong with me (Never do this by the way, it will bring up all sorts of unnecessary problems that you’ll convince yourself you have) and wondering why the hell I deserved it. After receiving treatment, things settled down but I carried on living my life full of anxiety trying to adapt to a new life I didn’t ask for or understand. Fast forward to summer 2019 I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, Chronic migraine and Endometriosis.

I was going through a very confusing and lonely time; in fact for those whole 3 years of my life I couldn’t come to terms with what was happening with my body and why it was happening; my symptoms seemed to be getting worse, I had multiple tests, hospital and doctors appointments and was undergoing investigation for other conditions. No one could help me because we didn’t have a clue what was wrong with me. I wanted to speak to others that where going through similar things. That’s when ‘amys_journal_’ was created on Instagram. I needed a safe place to document my story, share my emotions and connect with others, all whilst intending on helping to raise awareness for invisible conditions.

It came to the point where I was seeing soo many other chronic illness warriors on social media of varying invisible conditions, that I began to gain empathy for them and I wanted to help them so much because I new what it felt like to have to live with these conditions and the affects it has on your mental health. Especially adapting in my 20’s, that was one of the hardest things to deal with. I felt like a regular person before and it was almost as if a bomb had dropped on my world and changed everything. It brings me tears writing this, it was so hard to come to terms with and still very much is, but I believe it is so so important to raise awareness and share these stories with the world. I decided now was the time to put all of my energy into understanding myself and my body better, I wanted to be better, and I wanted to help other people but I needed to care for myself first.

I believed I hid a lot of my mental health problems from everyone; friends, family, work colleagues, even my boyfriend because I was ashamed, I never really told anyone how I felt because I didn’t want the ‘special’ treatment. I’ve been insecure for as long as I can remember. I lost all of my friends when I left secondary school and I didn’t know how to make new friends. I always thought there was something wrong with me especially now having multiple chronic conditions; people wouldn’t want to associate with me especially if I announced my mental health struggles. My boyfriend of now 8.5 years has always stuck by my side. I guess I was in denial. I always believed their where people worse off too and that sort of helped me believe that I wasn’t all that bad and I didn’t need the help because I could do this on my own. Attending mental health therapy was the best thing I did. It helped me find myself again, it helped me to come to terms with my conditions and why I was feeling the way I was. Unfortunately I’ve had to go back to therapy over the years because, well, my conditions are incurable and it’s a fucking hard life to live.

After spending soo long trying to come to terms with my conditions, attending physiotherapy and multiple mental health therapies, I became interested in human behaviour and psychology and I just new this was something I wanted to make a career out of. Doctors always told me that most of my conditions was due to my anxiety and depression and at first I couldn’t accept this. I tried so hard too and eventually in accepting this, I figured if I cant help my physical health without helping my mental health then its best I concentrate on improving my mental state. I was anxious for feeling anxious and depressed anyway, I didn’t want to live this life anymore. My conditions are incurable and doctors also don’t know what causes either of them, but stress has always been a known factor. Whilst I can’t fully accept that mental health is the number 1 cause for these types of conditions, I do believe it plays a main part. So, I did a whole bunch of research on how mental health is connected with chronic conditions. I’ve experimented with different tools and self care strategies to try and understand my body and myself better. I followed a path to self-discovery and its something I will always be working on throughout my entire life to continue to help understand myself and others better for a more exciting and fulfilling life.

I’ve come a long way, pushed myself out of my comfort zone, gained confidence, and followed my curiosity.

“If you can follow you’re curiosity, it just might lead you to your passion”

Over the years I have progressed from using my Instagram account as a platform to help myself to now blogging about looking after your physical and mental wellbeing, self love and self acceptance and sharing all the tools and reading materials I have accumulated over the years for both mental wellbeing and chronic illness. I am now passionate about mindfulness and CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) I am now not ashamed to announce that I struggle with my mental health. It is a working progress. I am passionate about helping others overcome difficult times in their life and I am starting a undergraduate psychology course to make a career out of helping others by becoming a psychologist/councillor. Eventually I’d love to study a mindfulness and CBT course so I can teach these also.

I very much hope you enjoy following me and joining in on the road to self discovery.

Love Amy x