What Katy Writes

2013 is drawing to a close and I truly can’t believe it.  I know that everyone says time flies, but this year in particular seems to have disappeared before my eyes.  Lots has happened this year and at the same time, it has been a blur of routine. The biggest, most important event of the year was without a doubt my marriage to the man of my dreams  on 2 nd  March .  The weather was perfect, our favourite people in the world were there with us and we ended the day as husband and wife.  I can’t believe that in a couple of months it will be a year since that day.  The happiest day of my life. Mostly 2013 was filled with work.  I have really struggled in my job over the last two years, but I can finally say that I am starting to enjoy it and honestly I feel truly lucky to even have a full time job.  I get to help people every day, even though it is definitely a challenge, I have to believe that it’s maki...

Struggle street. That term is thrown around a lot these days and everyone has been a resident at some point in their lives.  Some people have even built a permanent home there, cemented their foundations and bricked up the walls so they can't break free whether they want to or not.  They have given up and believe that their lives are always going to be this way.  I see people every day in my job who believe that this is their reality, their only option, their only road.  It breaks my heart and often there isn't anything I can do to help.  This is not a place I want to be, but right now, I do have a little tent erected in the middle of this road.  It's not permanent, and I will be doing my best to move the hell out, but right now, that's where I am. A lot has been going on in my life over the past few months.  I haven't realised at the time because it's just what my life has been, but as I look back even over the past few weeks, I have fou...

Why is it that self-acceptance can be such a hard task?  I have been trying so hard to focus in a positive way when I talk to or about myself, not in a way to make myself sound like I think I'm better than others, but just in a way to actually not be self loathing.  To be honest, I'm finding it really exhausting.  It's like I have surges.  Surges where I feel content and able to be nice to myself and then all of a sudden another surge of hatred and negativity overtakes that and I'm right back where I started.  It turns out that making the decision to try and love yourself is much harder than actually doing it. Self destructive behaviour is really common, I know that.  Normally, my behaviour changes depending on the day.  A lot of people see Mondays as a negative thing and I have to admit that has been me and I don't love getting up for work after a lovely weekend, but Mondays I always tend to have more resolve and seem more able to treat mysel...

My most recent posts seem to have centred on my anxiety disorder that I was officially diagnosed with only this year.  I have received a fair amount of feedback about this and let me just start by saying that I'm not speaking about my issues in an effort to get attention and I'm definitely not trying to sound like I'm trying to be some kind of hero.  I write about it because it helps me, and if someone comes across my writing and it helps them in some way too, then that is my ultimate aim.  I know how terrible it is to live with a crippling fear that nobody else understands.  I know how it feels to be belittled and told to just "toughen up" and I know how it feels to be so frustrated by myself and my brain that I start to believe what others are saying - but no more.  I was lucky enough to attend a seminar that was run by Fay Jackson last Friday that was about mental health and how to deal with it not only on a personal level but also within the family un...

On my sweet sixteenth birthday, I was excited to finally feel like I was growing up, like I was getting out of the morbid years that had been my fourteenth and fifteenth (you should see my diary from those years!) and that I was in my last year of high school, finally feeling like I belonged somewhere and wasn’t floating between friends and work trying to be what people wanted me to be.   I had a lot to look forward to, but one thing that I most certainly wasn’t looking forward to, was getting my Learner’s driver's licence.   So many people ask me why I hate driving, what scares me about it, what is it that makes me sick to my stomach about getting behind the wheel..   Well, here I am going to try and explain how it feels to be petrified of something that is so simple to most other people.   It is also going to be handy to have some point of reference to show others who question my seemingly ridiculous fear as I have never really documented what it is about ...

In one of my recent posts, I talked about a few of the body image issues that I am currently facing, and to be honest have faced my whole life.  I try so hard not to let social conventions of what I should and shouldn't look like bother me but sometimes I just can't help it.  Let's just say I've started to do a lot of my shopping online and I feel myself falling deeper into the dangerous lack of self respect chasm. I have come across a few lovely articles and quotes lately that I think are so wonderful and are how I wish I could view myself.  I'm definitely not trying to sound up myself here, but I think self love is something that we shouldn't be ashamed of.  Sure, there are about a million things I would love to change about myself, but I don't want to become one of those women who are obsessed with their appearance and become ridiculously shallow and can't seem to focus on anything else.  However, in our society, I honestly find that a really challe...

I think my last few posts have made it pretty clear that I am really trying to be an all around happier, more positive person than I have been known to be in the past.  I have also written on here a lot about time and how it seems to simply disappear before I even realise that a day has passed.  I am trying to learn more about the way I structure my days, as it is honestly a blur of routines to me, but I don't want that to be the way I live my life.  This brings me to an important, often-used, often hard to achieve word:  Priorities. For most of my life, school was my priority.  Studying was always number one, but now, I don't have anything that I am studying for, so this frees me up a bit, although occasionally I do wish I was still studying, and I probably will end up studying something in the future, who knows?! When I started work, that became a big priority obviously - so much so that I have nearly made myself very ill trying to prove that I am worthy t...

  I recently wrote about being grateful for the small, every day things in our lives that often get taken for granted.  I've found that applying that to my life has made everything seem so much more positive and I'm going to make sure that gratitude becomes part of my daily routine.  It is so easy to become self pitying when things are tough, when you've had a bad day at work, you're stressed, you're tired and grumpy and just can't be bothered pasting on a smile.  Quite often, this has been me, but I want to work towards changing this and becoming an all round more positive and thankful person.   I don't like to think of myself as negative, but in all honesty, I do tend to look on the bad side of situations and it is definitely not something I like about myself.  In the last few months, I have been really focused on trying to be more positive and focus on what's good in my life rather than the things that I want to change.  I've started...

 I realise that throughout this whole blog, I mention Reid in most every post, but I have never really taken the time to talk about him in depth.  I thought I might take this opportunity to explain some of the many things about him that are special, and just why I love him so much and can't imagine my life without him. Reid and I have been together for almost six years now and have been married for just over six months.  Reid went to school with my best friend Sammy and I always had a crush on him purely based on his looks for a long time.  When I was sixteen, Sammy gave him my number at a party and we started to send each other text messages.  This went on for quite some time and I was smitten from the start.  We met in person in November 2007 and started officially dating on 3rd December after a few ups and downs.  Since that day, I have never looked back. Reid is truly the kindest, most loyal and selfless person I have ever met.  He co...

                                                 I love to write, that's no secret, but I truly find myself lacking in the time.  I have recently joined the online world of Pinterest, which is a huge time waster but still pretty enjoyable to browse.  I have found a few interesting quotes about writing that have really made me think about how important it is to me and that I need to make the time for it otherwise I tend to go a bit crazy.  I have always kept a diary of sorts, but haven't written in mine for probably close to two years.  I started this blog with the intent of throwing myself back into a writing routine but have managed to only write the occasional post.  Well - that is no longer going to be the case!  I'm...

I haven't written here for a long time.  In all honesty I haven't really known where to start. Things have changed, once again, from my last post. While teaching is something that I think I have definitely thought about a lot over the years, I don't think it's time for that right now.  My mind is still so full of doubts and while Reid is incredibly supportive and would be happy for our lives to change, I think I need to be really, really, really sure of what I want to be doing before quitting a full time job and losing a lifestyle that I love. Reid and I have so much that we are planning for.  We want our own home, we want to start a family in the next few years and we want to be able to enjoy our life without being incredibly financially limited.  My job has improved somehwat.  My role has changed slightly and I am finding it much more enjoyable and am not feeling sick every day when my alarm goes off.  I am taking some medication to help wi...

  I have struggled with severe anxiety for as long as I can remember, and for my entire life, I have seen it as an embarrassing and awful weakness.  It means that when I hear my alarm go off in the mornings, I have to force myself to get out of bed and live a life, when all I want to do is stay under the doona where I am safe.  It means that if I am asked to do something out of the ordinary, I have to fight to keep myself from having a panic attack.  It means that if I'm invited to go somewhere, and I have to drive there and haven't been there before, then I will do almost anything to get out of it.  It means that I have to leave my house at 7:22am Monday-Friday on the dot, so that I don't get stuck behind a bus on the way to work because I don't want to change lanes, and then I sit in my car, in the car park that I hire so that I don't have to try and find parking along with everyone else, until it's time to walk to the office. It means so many more little...

The very first post I wrote here was about my Nanna Sue and what an incredible inspiration she was to me, and still is. I have had a particularly tough week this past week, not for any stand out reason, I've just struggled with a lot of things.  If there is one thing that I feel that I could always draw from Nanna Sue, it would be strength. This woman was the strongest, most amazing person I have ever met in my entire life.  She had advice for any and every situation that would always put it into perspective for me and give me the courage to push myself past whatever obstacle I may have been facing at the time.  It's really, really hard being without her right now.  I need a Nanna Sue pep talk. I try to imagine what she would say to me to help in my current situation, but no matter how much I try to channel her, any words that I imagine her saying turn to foggy mush and I can't make anything out.  Right now I truly don't understand how I have managed without ...

How much of life do we live because that is what we truly want to be doing?  How many choices do we make based on our personal desires without taking into consideration other people? How many times have we become stressed about how we are viewed, thought of and spoken about? For me, I know that I have come to base a lot of my decisions and life choices on expectations. Whether they be my own, or the expectations of others, I find that I rarely sit back and truly examine the way my life is going and what I have achieved and what I want to achieve without thinking about the judgments of others. This frustrates me. I know a lot of people who claim to "not care what anyone thinks of them" and nearly everyone who I have heard utter that sentence with real conviction and who truly try to live like that, when I look at the people who are closest to them, they are often unhappy.  It is impossible, in my opinion, to put yourself first all the time and do only what you want to do...

When I first started this blog, I wanted to try and write a post around once a week, but all of a sudden it's 17th February 2013 and I haven't written anything since October 2012. As I sit here looking back over the last four months, nothing overly significant has happened to keep me so occupied that I couldn't find half an hour to sit down and write down some of my constantly whirling thoughts. Over the last four months I have worked, continued planning mine and Reid's wedding, celebrated Christmas and a New Year and turned 23 years old. It gets me thinking about my priorities and how much life can fly by without you even stopping to breathe and enjoy a moment.  That has definitely been my life for the past four months, probably even longer. For my whole school life, I wanted to be a teacher.  I completed year twelve in 2008 and applied to do a Bachelor of Arts with the aim of then going on to do a Masters of Teaching. I started my Arts degree, immediately felt re...