Social Anxiety. S.A.D. I wish beyond belief that this didn't exist. Through everything life has thrown at me, this is one of the worst. To constantly second guess yourself and your relationships is torture, but it doesn't have to be this way. After noticing many, many new articles and posts online regarding S.A.D myths, I thought I would set the record straight with a few facts and tricks on how to regulate this in your life. 1. S.A.D vs texting Texting is a normal thing, right. To conduct conversation. Sometimes, though, even such a mundane task sends flames of fear through my heart. I am usually one of two people: The over-texter Have you ever sent a message, looked back and thought, "Why the hell did I send that?". Well, that's me EVERY TIME. Every single message I send becomes a little mental game: have I said the right thing? Have I said too much? Should I stop talking? Should I send more? Thank goodness for the 'delete message' button, am I righ...

You're ugly. You're worthless. Why are you even alive? You mean nothing and never will. Don't even try because you'll fail. You'll never be happy. No one will ever love you... I have heard these words more than I can count. When I was 13 I started experiencing intense bullying, both physical and verbal. To be told these things every day, no matter how hard you try, you start to believe them. No one ever told me any different, so what was I, as a young teenager, to believe? I started to hate myself. I mean HATE myself. I fully believed that I would never accomplish anything and that my life was a mistake. To be honest, sometimes I still do. Words are incredibly, ferociously powerful! They have the power to build or destroy you. And it is so true and so sad that you are more likely to believe what others tell you then what you tell yourself. In 11th grade I decided something had to change. I couldn't live hating life, and I wanted to prove those people wrong. Lo...

I spent a long time trying to find a source of power in my life. It felt like the more I tried, the more people would take that power from me. They would destroy my wings and give me scars. I felt weak and not worth fighting for. Powerless. But you see, people can be cruel because they don't understand. Or maybe because they do understand, and their pain is shown through cruelty. But all those people who were breaking my wings forgot one important fact...I have claws too. When I spent all that time searching for power, I didn't realise that I already had it. Power comes from brokenness. Truly powerful people know pain. Understandably it's not the ideal place to gain power. But that power is so unimaginably strong that no one can come against it. It's the power that comes from small things that others overlook: getting up in the morning, going out the house, washing your hair, choosing to live in the midst of your war. That's power! That's strength! The miscon...