Clara Knight

So i know I haven’t posted anything in a longggg while but I do have my reasons! :) 

I have had exams, finished school, started college and have had heaps of college work to do before I have had time to sit down and write about myself. 

A lot of things have changed since my last post, I have gone through a terrible, nasty heartbreak that left me numb and completely knocked my confidence for 2 months. I have met some beautiful people along the way of me leaving school and joining college, I have removed a lot of negative things out of my life, surrounded myself with positivity and I feel like a much happier and better person. 

I’ve never really wanted to make this blog about sad posts and negative things, but I feel as if this is the only place I can write my feelings and emotions without being judged because I’m sure there’s people on here that can relate to me and we can reach out and connect. 

4 years of my life was taken over by a really disgusting illness called depression...and no- i’m not over exaggerating or using that word out of context. I’m being real. 

For anyone that doesn’t understand what the word depression means, it’s “a serious illness caused by changes in brain chemistry. Factors contribute to the onset of depression, including genetics, changes in hormone levels, certain medical conditions, stress, grief or difficult life circumstances”

In my case it wasn’t genetic it was during difficult life circumstances, stress and grief. It happened from the ages of 10-14. I completely understand that some of you are going to think “uhhh you can’t be depressed at such a young age” but you can. I was professionally and not self diagnosed with it and was given medication to help me. I’ve been bullied for 8 years and it all started when I was 7. I wasn’t really an attractive girl when I was younger (and in no way am I being big headed and saying I am now, but I know that I’m a lot better than what I used to be). I was bullied for really small and simple things like my teeth because they used to be huge and stick out of my top lip and rest on my bottom lip like bugs bunny, or they took the piss out of the size of my forehead (because it’s pretty big). It started off by making comments about my appearance, then it slowly started to move to my sporting ability because to be fair, I wasn’t very good at running. I was quite a chunky 7 year old, I played sports but the balance between a healthy diet and exercise was not something I excelled in, I did my sport but then fill my face with loads of really unhealthy foods and drinks afterwards. 

I’ve briefly mentioned me getting bullied in my previous post, but I’m sure I’ll write something about my bullying and how I overcame it. 

At the age of 10 I started to get severely depressed, as it went on I turned to self harming, I felt alone. I was told by my closest friends and family that they were ‘there for me’ but the meaning was never really shown behind it. I’m a firm believer that actions speak louder than words and they never showed me that they were there for me until they saw the danger I was in. I self harmed for 3 years. I started self harming when I was 12, the thought of going to school scared me, the thought of telling anyone my problems scared me, the thought of going out in public scared me, the thought of carrying on my sports scared me, the thought of being me and being accepted for who I am scared me. Most people out there don’t know who I truly am, and if they find this blog I don’t care. This is me and if they don’t like that then screw them. 

After the second year of suffering on my own and endless nights/early mornings of crying with fear and pain it led to me telling my Mum about it all. She caught site of my arm and the cuts so she took me to the local doctors so I could talk to a councillor. I felt as if the councillor was my only friend and the only person that accepted me for who I was and listened to me; she didn’t only tell me she was there for me but she showed it and that’s all I needed. At first I wasn’t so keen on opening up to someone I had never met before, I had to open up to a complete stranger and that was so hard for me to do when I couldn’t even open up to my Mum, Dad or my closest friends. To be fair it did scare me because I was a coward after my knock backs, but I knew that I was talking to this ‘stranger’ for a good reason, I knew that this was their job and this is what they did for a living, they’re qualified to help people and point them in the right direction with positive advise. After an half an hour chat the councillor advised me to take a cube of ice or to run my wrist under really cold water to stimulate the urge of grabbing the sharpest things closest to me and harm myself with it if I ever felt the need to harm myself again. She told that I would feel the same sort of “pain” but it isn’t doing me any harm. 

Since that day I haven’t harmed myself for nearly a good 3 years. I started to finally see hope and received help from people I trusted and from the people who actually loved me for who I am. I became a much stronger and healthier person, I was getting involved in more sport, I found my favourite sport which is netball and loved it. I started playing it for a small club and carried it on until I was 15. So I played with the club for 5/6years. I became more involved in sports in school by trying harder in the Physical Education (PE) and Games lessons, attending clubs after school for rounders, netball, and sometimes even hockey or football. I had always enjoyed sports since a very young age (roughly about 3-7) but didn’t get involved with any sort of game that involved a ball. I did the typical “girly” sports like ballet, tap, and gymnastics; but I soon realised I didn’t “fit in” because I was way too heavy on my feet and wasn’t a delicate ballet/tap dancer or gymnast AT ALL. Sport helped me get distracted by all the negative thoughts which the doctors advised when I was diagnosed with depression. Sport helped me release my built up anger, my built up tears and built up emotions that I just needed to release in a healthy way rather than self harming. 

Joe Weller has very recently released a video talking about his depression and everything he mentions is very true, I can relate to almost everything he mentions so if you want to check that out then I’ll leave the link..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrzPmUlSCHQ

My depression improved for at least a year until I moved up into senior school and reached year 9 where I was starting to get bullied by a girl who bullied me before she even joined the school over a social network that used to be very popular called ‘kik’. Of course I had my up and down days when I was getting bullied but because I took up netball and then horse riding I released my emotions and anger through doing sports. 

I’ll write more about bullying as a separate post because bullying isn’t my main focus on this post at the moment but what I’m trying to say is when I was getting bullied and going through depression, sport really helped me take my mind off things and helped me improve getting over it. 

Over the years I have become a MUCH stronger and confident person, all with the help, guidance and support of my family and friends who I love A LOT! 

My depression started to get a lot better and ware off by the time I was in year 10 (age 14) because I knew how to handle everything and the different ways to react. Handling situations in a mature manner definitely helps, it helps you to control the situation and really helps you to get out of the hole you may be digging by arguing back or carrying on to get involved in the negative energy. Although I was bullied up until the age of 15, handling situations the correct way helped me conquer it all and actually helped me finally complete my full time in education up to where I was legally allowed to leave; but now I couldn’t be happier because all of this has made me a much stronger person and has built a lot of character that I have now. 

Thank You’s

I just want to thank a lot of people reading this, especially my friends because I personally feel that my friends know a lot more of me than my family do. Although this shouldn’t be right on certain levels because at the end of the day family is for life and friends come and go as you finish and begin chapters throughout your life. You see your friends way more often than you do with your parents because of education. We also spend more time with teachers than we do with our parents throughout our schooling as well. So I want to thank my friends for all of the wonderful advise you have given me for 5 years, especially throughout the 4 years of my depression. The 5th year was mainly just helping me get through the disgusting bullying that went on, you have helped me so much you have no idea. Most of you are the reason I am motivated to get out of bed and do things. You are the reason that I haven’t self harmed in nearly 3 years, by giving help and advise, by telling people harming themselves is doing no one a favour it’s only giving the bullies what they want, by telling someone they have a right to live their life and make beautiful memories with beautiful people goes really far. It helps so much, you may think it’s pointless advise when typing or talking it but I can promise you from the bottom of my heart when someone is going through the darkest and deepest part of their life to when they are finally loosing hope and motivation to do anything where it leads them to being or feeling alone, your advise means more than anything to them. Knowing I had more people to talk to that I thought helped me become the confident and loud person I am today. 

Of course my family helped me so so much too, especially my Mum and Dad; even though it broke their hearts to see me come home from school crying every day screaming how much I wanted to die or to leave the school they stuck by me. They helped me, they believed in me and they didn’t move me to a different school because they didn’t want the bullies to win, they didn’t want the bullies to see me weak. They wanted to show everyone how strong of a person their daughter is and how she can take on any person who thinks it’s acceptable to treat someone the way that I was treated for 8 years. I have no idea what the hell I would have done if I didn’t have the support I had. Thank you to each and every individual that took the time to help me through it all. I love you more than you will ever know x

So, lately, i’ve been thinking about how life really is like going on a rollercoaster with a blind fold on. It truly does have it’s ups and downs and life is one big massive ride. 

Now you could either look at it as if everything we do is like a ride where the adrenaline starts to escalate as the ride is going up and then as it reaches the peak moment before it drops you get a massive rush and love the thrill where you go around the loops and the speed starts to increase that you’re either going to be sick or you’re loving it and just laugh. Then as if comes to an end everything slows down and you want to do it all again or you’re never doing it again. Or life in general is just one massive ride where you’re in your baby/toddler years and you’re getting on the ride completely oblivious to what’s about to happen, then as it starts to speed up this is your pre-teen years where things start to change, gradually after the bit before you drop is your teen years, you can’t wait for what’s going to happen next or you’re completely dreading it, then the fast loops, bumps, drops, twists and sharp turns are where you find yourself and you manage to find a comfy place in that rollercoaster seat where you don’t seem to be banging your head against the sides, your head isn’t rocking back and forth and you’re finally having fun, slowly as the ride starts to come to an end and slow down this is the towards the end of you life where you think about how amazing that ride was and the best moments. When you get off the ride and speak to someone about it like, “Oh my favourite bit was when we did those 4 loops in a row”, it’s like talking to someone about the best bits of your life. 

Everything is just crazy and too many people aren’t living it up.

Everyone has those really down days where we just want to stay inside, stay in our beds and do nothing but feel sorry for ourselves, and that’s ok.

I’ve always been one to be confident but then as soon as someone says something to me I instantly loose that confidence and shy away. Over the past 8 years of me being bullied, I’ve learnt to stay strong and keep being confident because that’s what pisses bullies off, they don’t want to see you happy, they don’t want to see you enjoying yourself because they’re jealous of the happiness you’ve got and the happiness they haven’t got. 

Confidence is honestly the Key to Success 

Confidence. Some people are born with it, some have to work for it, and others do not know how to obtain it. It is something either one has or does not, but can always be accomplished over time. The question that many want answered it “what can I do to gain confidence?” I have learned over time that confidence is hard to achieve, but with friends, trust, and time it can be achieved. The meaning of confidence is the “belief in oneself and one’s powers or abilities.” Everybody is lacking confidence in something; not everyone is perfect. Whether it be giving a speech in front of the class, competing in a large competition, or accepting one’s appearance, people lack the confidence needed to enjoy life.  Recently, I have struggled with confidence in being myself. I’m 15 years old and with society these days people have high expectations, boys expect us girls to have big tits, big lips, a cute nose, big eyes, eyebrows “on fleek” and a big ass with a small waist. Yes, I do wear makeup and follow trends but that’s because I don’t want to be judged and look as if I’m singled out, but every day I’m starting to think “fuck it” to more and more things. I shouldn’t have to follow everyone else and do stuff to fit in, I wanna do what I wanna do, wether that is to leave my eyebrows natural and not fill them in to make them look sharper, thicker and darker. I don’t want to have big lips and to pout in every single photo like everyone else, I don’t want to have a small waist with a thigh gap and watch what I’m eating because a famous youtuber or instgrammer released another video on how to eat healthy and get the ‘summer body’.

Because to be quite frank I personally don’t agree with summer bodies, because I feel as if more and more people are pressurised into following other people to look the same because they’re too worried about being bullied and teased about it. People really need to stop telling others how to look and act because it’s leading to more bullying, more depression and more mental illnesses that are fucking up people’s lives because society is telling people to be people they aren’t, it’s getting really shit. 

School is the place where I feel most judged. I don’t mind walking through town or walking down the street looking like I haven’t made an effort with myself at all because the people who judge me won’t ever see me again. But school is where I don’t feel as if I fit in. I feel as if I HAVE to wear makeup because all the other girls do and if I don’t then the boys will tease me about it. Yes, I have worn no makeup to school before and gone in with my vagina looking eyes and faint eyebrows but that’s on the days I was either late getting up or I just really didn’t care what people thought of me. 

I need to have more of those days where I don’t care what people say but at the moment I can’t do that because I’m being bullied by 2 girls who are fairly popular and will pick out anything and everything I do just to make me feel really shit about it. After being called into the deputy head of the school and the head of years office many times about things I’ve been accused of they can finally see the true colours of the 2 girls and I’m starting to feel confident in myself again. I’m finally believing that I am a better and stronger person than them and that I cannot let their bitchy bullshit comments get to me. Everyone else believed in me to become a better person but I didn’t. I have learned that if one cannot believe in being able to do something, one will not do it. One really needs to be confident in what they do in order to succeed. I am slowly building my confidence by believing in myself and trusting in my abilities.

Some people have so much confidence that they are not afraid to do anything. Others are the complete opposite, and are scared of being judged or ridiculed by others. Self-confidence cannot be taught, but is reached by the individual when they decide to believe in themselves. In order to attain self-confidence, one needs to believe that they can do the task at hand. 

It cannot be accomplished overnight, but slowly gets stronger and stronger over a period of time with finally help you to achieve anything you want, wether that is to have loads of money, a big house with 3 garages full of cars or just to be happy and do what you wanna do because you enjoy it and you don’t care what anyone else says. One of the major ways to obtain confidence is acting like one is confident, even when not. Acting will transfer into truly being self-confident and having high self-esteem. Another way to gain confidence is by talking to others, like me talking to my teachers, parents and closest friends. I know that talking to people about your problems may not be the way to deal with things, you may not feel comfortable with it or you might just not want to, but I promise you, you’ll feel 10x better when you do it, it’s like a massive weight gets lifted off your shoulders and nothing feels better than knowing you have someone to go to when you’re feeling angry, down, stressed, emotional or just to get advice.  In conclusion, confidence is a characteristic that everyone struggles with at one point, but can be achieved by trusting one’s abilities and speaking with others that are supportive. 

So going back to what I was saying about life being like a rollercoaster, when you feel so low about yourself where you think you’ve ran out of confidence, can’t find happiness and feel alone, that’s the part of the ride where you feel as if you’re gonna be sick with all the loops and just wanna get off but then when you come out of those loops and start to enjoy the ride that’s where you find confidence. 

Yo,

This is just a quick welcome to my new blog.