Beauty, Lifestyle, Study and Tips. These are the words of Katy.

My handbag essentials

Hello angels! Thank you for all the kind comments in response to my last blogpost, I am so grateful. After the post about ‘What’s in my bag, I had questions about what’s in my essentials pouch. So, today I am going to be sharing that with you all.

Hand sanitiser – I travel to university on either the bus or the train and they just make me feel gross. I’m that person who sanitises my hands about 100 times on my one-hour train journey because they just feel so grubby. Anyone else the same with public transport? I often use public toilets also, especially the ones in the stations and they make me want to vomit. So, having my hand sanitiser on me at all times is a must.

Hand Cream – Using a lot of hand sanitiser does dry out your skin, so after a couple uses I always apply moisturiser afterwards. As the weather gets colder, my hands tend to dry out even more and there is nothing worse than feeling your skin is about to split.

Lip balm – Again, the colder months just drain the moisture out of my lips and if I don’t take care of them they get so sore and the skin splits, it’s horrible. If you know me, you know I drink so so much throughout the day, which does mean that I rub my lip balm off and have to reapply it.

Lipstick – This falls hand in hand with my lip balm. The majority of my lipsticks do last throughout the day but if I feel like I need to top it up, I can.

Perfume – Again, the smell of public transport is something I hate. When I get off the train or bus, I spray myself straight away because I feel like I stink of public transport and that is not a good feeling.

Compact mirror – Every girl needs a mirror, right? I use my mirror to touch up my makeup or check my mascara hasn’t ran, seen as though my eyes don’t stop watering in the winter.

Notebook – I use little notebooks so much so having one in my bag is essential. If I’m out and a thought or a job pops into my head that needs doing, I’ll jot it down and complete it when I’m home.

Hair clip – I can’t stand writing at university and all I can see is hair in my face. Majority of the time, I’ll just throw it up into a top know but I also like to just clip the fronts back.

I also carry chewing gum, mints and a pen. There is nothing worse than wanting a piece of chewing gum in the middle of your day and realising you have none. The only downside to carrying chewing gum, is that EVERYONE wants one as soon as they spot it.

That is all I carry in my essential kit inside my bag. Since I’ve been using this, I haven’t been caught out. So, I would definitely recommend this to you and for you to tailor your kit to everything you need. Pop me a message or comment below if you think I need to add something you can’t live without.

I hope you’ve enjoyed that little insight into my bag and everything I carry. I have a very exciting, midweek self-care routine going up Wednesday so make sure to stick around by subscribing below!

Katy x

He hurt me, he made me feel numb and he didn’t have respect for me.

Hi everyone, todays post is my third episode of my mental health journey. Today’s post is going to be a hard one and may be a trigger if you have suffered any abuse, emotional or sexual abuse.

At the start of Year 11, I had my friends and I knew who they were, some were people I spent breaks and lunchtimes with and others who I spoke to in class. For a couple of years, one of my best friends was a boy in my year. We chose most of the same subjects for our GCSE’s and we sat quite close in all of those. At school, he was someone who was always working hard, always well behaved and no one could say a bad word about him. We started chatting on Facebook after school and on the weekends, one day we decided to meet up and go ice skating. At the time, it was so fun. He was one of my closest friends and we had a laugh. We ended up getting together a little time later and I didn’t think anything would change. I’d known him 5 years, I’d spoken to him so much in the last couple of years at school and everyone thought he was a nice lad, even me. He came around to my house one evening for tea and met my parents. They didn’t have a bad word to say about him either.

About 2 weeks later, he asked me if I wanted to go for a day out with his family. I said yes, he told me that has been before and it’s so boring and he would rather just spend the day with me instead. I agreed we could do that and so on a Saturday, before lunchtime, his parents dropped him off near to where I live and we started to go for a walk. He told me we could go to his but we would have to leave before his parents were home as they wouldn’t like the fact we’d been there without their permission. I tried to persuade him to ring and ask or that we would just go another day. He was persistent and so we ended up going to his. After I agreed, he picked up the pace so we would get to his house quicker. We went upstairs, laid on his bed and we were just chatting.

After about 15-30 minutes, he began to get very forceful. Before him, I hadn’t even kissed a boy properly and yet he wouldn’t stop. Things progressed and he started to get undressed. I remember repeatedly asking him why he was doing that and why he couldn’t wait till I was ready. I tried to get up and leave but he pretended he didn’t want me to go and was hugging me until I laid back down. I was saying how I didn’t want it, how this was the first time at his house and how we hadn’t been together that long. Instead of getting re-dressed, he forced my hand into something I didn’t want to do. I can’t count how many times I tried to move my hand but each time, his grip tightened. I felt so trapped. Once he had finished and went to the bathroom, I text my friend and she rang.

I didn’t tell her what had happened, I just said I was bored and didn’t want be there all day. So, she rang and I left. I refused to let him walk me to meet her and told him I’d be fine. I was pretending everything was okay because I was ashamed. I felt dirty. I felt weak. Nothing I did was what I wanted and yet I still felt pathetic. We broke up because I pretended I needed to focus on my GCSE’s. I told no-one.

I will carry on with my journey in the next episode as this is quite a heavy post. Please understand that I am not posting this for attention and I am not looking for sympathy. I am posting this to raise awareness, to help others and to make people feel less alone.

If you ever need someone to talk to, I will reply to every single one of you who needs a friend.

Katy x

‘Now you see her’ Book review

Wow. This book had me HOOKED from start to finish. I have only recently started reading thrillers and this was about the 4^th one I had read and oh my god – the best I have read so far!

Alice, Harriets daughter, goes missing without a trace and her best friend, Charlotte, is being held responsible – we know that, from the blurb. Yet, every scene was still as gripping, still as thought provoking even though we knew Alice was going to disappear. Heidi Perks has written this book in such a way that you don’t want to put the book down until you’re finished and know what happens but you have to put the book down and you are still thinking about the book. I possibly went through every single ending I could think of, I suspected and I was 100% set on each ending at one point or another. Yet, I couldn’t have been more wrong.

I would rate this book a 7.5/10.

I loved how much this book makes you think and truly makes you believe there is possibly only a few endings which you hang onto until around the last quarter. The story was written so well and there was just the right amount of information about the characters background so I didn’t find that I got bored of reading about the characters or later finding that none of it was useless information. The only thing I didn’t love about this book was the structure. It flicks between a couple of characters but also jumps from past tense to the present day. Sometimes, I would start the first page of a chapter after putting it down and be so confused. Regardless, of this I still loved reading it and would definitely recommend this to any of you who already love thrillers or have wanted to dip your toe into that genre.

Let me know if you choose to pick it up and what you thought of it!

Katy x

Fresh starts

There is just something so refreshing about starting a fresh. Whether it be something so small or something big. Sometimes, I just feel like I needed a fresh start; to get rid of everything going wrong, make a clean slate and start doing things to pursue my own happiness rather than someone elses.

2 weeks ago, today, I had an operation which meant I have been laid up recovering. Thankfully, I’m so glad that this experience has motivated me to do more, pursue my dreams and do everything I can do to be happy; after a lot of thinking throughout my recovery I realised there was things that were still draining me of all my energy. So, I decided to purge all those things that weren’t serving me, that weren’t bringing happiness to my life but instead, taking it away.

I started to do this a couple of months ago after I was discharged from a psych hospital. At first, I felt guilty, I felt like I couldn’t get rid of people or things that made me unhappy in case it made them unhappy. Why? Why was I sacrificing my happiness in the worry of hurting others? I was getting hurt by holding on, by giving 100% when some would only give 20%. Life is a balance of holding on and letting go. I sat down one morning, listened to some chill music and to curate my thoughts on to a piece of paper. Deciding whether I needed to rid myself of the negativity of each thought or to improve my thoughts on the situation so that it served me happiness. This exercise taught me a lot. It taught me that letting go of people is not cruel or nasty. It’s a form of self-care. Being alone in life is better than being surrounded by half-hearted people.

After an operation that could potentially change my life, starting my second year of university and doing things I know I love, I’m starting to throw myself right into the things that make me motivated. The things that help me grow into the person I want to be. The only person I should be putting first, is myself and with a complete new outlook on life – that’s what I’m doing. Luckily, for me, I have such a supportive family, friends up and down the country and all of them are recent. After changing my life, the people around me and the toxic group I was surrounding myself in, I thought I would be lonely, I’d have no friends and I couldn’t be more wrong. The friends I have met have been my bigger supporters and have believed in me, regardless of the situation. They have all bought so much into my life, that I know now, what a true friend is. If you’re not sure how to tell a true friend, I can’t help you because that is something that will depend on you and your goals, but I promise you will find them. It may take a while, a few heartbreaks from ‘friends’ and a couple of horrible lessons along the way but I promise, you will.

I can’t wait to do every single thing for myself and myself only. Blogging is such a big passion of mine, as is education and I’m diving right into both of them to succeed. I have so many plans for every aspect of my life and I am so excited to see myself flourish and grow.

I hope you understand the reason behind the lack of content lately. To stay up to date with some exciting news, follow my socials and come say hey! It would be lovely to chat to some of you.

Katy x

My childhood struggles with mental health.

Hi angels. I hope you’re all having a lovely week so far. This is part two of my mental health series and is the next part in my journey, which is the struggles I had with mental health as a child. In my first episode, I explained the first memories of mental health that I had. So, lets continue on with my journey…

Alongside the nightmares as a child, I was also very self critical and I hated myself. From a very young age, I was a competitive trampolinist and I loved it. But, there was one downside. I had many friends at trampolining and whilst training, it was nice to have a supportive club. Competitions were a big thing for me and I used to love the trampolining aspect of it. However, getting up onto a trampoline in a leotard to compete in front of so many people watching you, those you know and those you don’t, was terrifying.

There was two things I got nervous about at competitions. Not the normal, like messing up my routines or falling. Being too fat to be a trampolinist or being seen as a failure because I didn’t have the perfect figure. The majority of my friends would get nervous about competing, most of them worried about competing and to feel like I was too fat or not pretty enough to trampoline made me feel so isolated at competitions.

This carried on through my childhood, not just at competitions but in day to day life. Going swimming whilst in primary school was the worst, doing PE at secondary school was a big NO from me. Granted, I did trampolining and trained around 3 times a week, I was nowhere near as fit as I should have been. My friends at school wouldn’t get out of breath running from one side of the sports hall to the other, yet there I was breathing like I’d just ran a marathon. I was so self conscious in secondary school that I would make excuses up before PE lessons so that I didn’t have to participate.

In secondary school I wasn’t ‘popular’ and I certainly didn’t have a big group of friends so I always felt a little bit of an outcast. One day I got called ‘fat’, made by somebody I barely knew, in a passing comment. If someone were to call me ‘fat’ now, I’d probably agree but I wouldn’t be upset. As a teenager in year 8/9, that one comment cut deep. It consumed me, I couldn’t think about anything else that I might bring to the table apart from that I was ‘fat’.

One night, after the comment had been made a couple of times. I came home, tore apart a razor and began to self-harm. That was the first time I remember self harming and for me, I used it as a release. To feel pain in another way than just this comment that was niggling away inside my head.

Feeling like this, was something that happened from primary school through to secondary school. If you’re reading this and someone you don’t know has made a nasty comment towards you, ignore them. You are not defined by how you look, who your friends are or what other people think of you. I’ve learnt that people who make comments like these, aren’t happy in their own lives so take it out on others.

Please, if you ever need anybody to talk to, you are always free to message me no matter what. To know you’re not alone in feeling this way can sometimes mean the world!

I hope you are all happy and healthy. I hope you enjoy the rest of this week and come back Sunday for a bit of a lighter post – my stationary favourites.

See you Sunday – Katy x

Useful Numbers

Samaratins – 116 123

Mind national helpline – 0300 123 3393 (text 86463)

Birchbox – September 2019

Hi everyone, welcome back to my blog! I hope you have enjoyed my blogposts so far and stick around for more. Today, I will be sharing with you what I received in my September Birchbox. I have been subscribed to Birchbox for a couple of months now and so far I have loved everything. Let’s see what products were in this months Birchbox and I will share with you my first thoughts!

The theme for this months box was ‘sweet simplicity’. Birchbox say that the products were chosen to take a more focused approach to beauty and strip it back to basics. Is this not the prettiest design?

Benefits ‘posie tint’ is the first product I have spotted. I am looking forward to using this as it is a lip and cheek tint. Who doesn’t love a multi-tasking product? The colour of this looks gorgeous and I think it will look gorgeous throughout autumn for a muted tone but to still add some colour.

The next product is a micellar water by Marcelle. Although I only use micellar waters to take the instant layer of makeup off before a deep cleanse, a good micellar water is definitely needed to remove all of my eye makeup and I have heard such good things about this one so I can’t wait to try it out!

I then spotted a hair product which is by Number 4 and is a prep and protect spray. The description of this product says that it detangles, strengthens, repairs, tames flyaways, nourishes and protects your hair. I am so excited to try this as my hair gets super tangled and is always a nightmare to brush.

In last months box, I received the detoxifying clay mask by Generation clay and I loved it, so I am going to be trying the brightening purple clay mask out as soon as I can to see if I love this one just as much!

The final product that is in this months Birchbox is a body cream by Baïja. I have never heard of this brand before but the rose lychee scent is divine! I can’t wait to try this as the product I change up the most in my routine is my body cream.

I hope you enjoyed that little insight into Septembers Birchbox and I will be posting my thoughts on the products over on my instagram so make sure you follow me on there. I would definitely recommend subscribing to Birchbox as it allows you to try products you probably wouldn’t have picked up yourself.

My next post will be live on Wednesday and will be the second part of my mental health journey. I hope you have a lovely day and I will see you Wednesday – Katy x

My chronic illness journey (part one).

Hey angels! Today’s post is the start of another series. Alongside my mental health series, I am going to be starting a chronic illness series. Both of these issues are not acknowledged enough and no one will learn about the toll that both these conditions have on your health if no one talks about it. So, here I am sharing my own experience with chronic illness. I will also be sharing my story in two parts as it is quite a long one. So, today’s post is how my chronic illness started, up until my diagnosis.

From being a child, I’ve always been quite healthy and have never had any long term medical issues (although I was always at A&E from hurting myself), until around October/November in 2016. I was walking home one day, on a Monday and all of a sudden got really really dizzy, I could barely walk and I had to be picked up even though I was only a street away. I sat on the sofa and I can just remember myself ‘falling asleep’ and was being shouted at to stay awake. I was doing everything I could to stay alert and awake but I just couldn’t. My family rang 999 and they were sending an ambulance. I can’t remember how long I had waited but when my Dad called back there was a two hour wait and my Dad decided I just needed to go there straight away so, I was carried to the car and we went to A&E. The doctor carried out test after test and I got sent home with vertigo and some medication for this. I was extremely tired so I went straight to bed, still feeling really dizzy.

I slept for pretty much the next 24 hours. My Mam arrived home on the Tuesday evening and she came into my room to see how I was. When I woke up I can just remember being in excruciating pain. It felt like someone was electrocuting the back of my head and constantly hitting it. I had pain behind my left eye and I was rolling around because I was in so much pain. Again, my parents got me straight into the car and took me back to the hospital. I can’t remember much of that night, except from being in a dark room at the back of the A&E ward because of how much I was crying. The doctor came in and gave me some morphine after I’d been given the usual paracetamol and it hadn’t helped. The morphine only eased the pain a little bit and I also felt so sick, so they gave me something to help that too.

The medical staff and doctors decided I need to stay the night on the ambulatory ward, to be observed overnight. At 6:00 am, when the doctors had finally gotten round to seeing me, they woke me up and I explained what had happened and he did the usual observations. This was my first time in hospital on my own as I was an adult now. The doctor sat down and told me his thoughts. All I remember hearing, from being woken up and falling asleep throughout my observations and still in agony, was: “It’s possible that you have a bleed on the brain”. I felt lost, my parents were asleep at home, I was in pain and I knew, a bleed on the brain is serious. At 16 years old, hearing the doctors thoughts, which were serious, scared me.

When the nurses came round that day, I was told that I would be going for an MRI scan and a CT scan. Another doctor came and observed me again, this time I was told it might be meningitis, again, another serious illness. That day, I had both scans and I was still in agony. The pain had increased, I felt more nauseous than I had and I couldn’t eat. My Mam was allowed to stay overnight going forward. I would be crying into the early morning, holding a sick bowl and felt so so poorly. The doctors were giving me pain relief but nothing was helping. After a week of being in hospital and numerous reasons why this was happening, I was discharged with general migraines.

I had suffered with migraines previously and I knew it wasn’t the same. For weeks after being discharged, I would be at A&E, every single day or at least every other day. It took my life from me, I couldn’t do anything without being in severe pain. They tried a whole load of treatment and medication and still, nothing would help. I would be put on oxygen, to try and help the pain. I would be on a drip and I would be given as much morphine as I was allowed. After weeks, of the same journey, the same routine, I finally was treat by a doctor who referred me to a pain clinic.

I still had no diagnosis, I still missed a lot of college and I spent the majority of my time in bed. But, we were moving forward, we were seeing specialists. I was seeing a pain management consultant and a neurologist. Although, it still took some time. My amazing consultant prescribed me medications that at least eased the pain and at the start of 2018, she diagnosed me with something my family and I, had never heard of.

Occipital Neuralgia.

I will be explaining in detail what occipital neuralgia is and the effects of the illness. If this series helps just one person, that’s all I could ever want. Stay tuned for the upcoming parts of my journey and some guest writers in the future!

I hope you have all had a lovely day and I will see you Sunday.

Katy x

What’s in my everyday handbag.

Good morning, I hope you have all had a lovely week! Todays post is going to be an insight into my everyday bag and everything I carry on a day to day basis. I don’t really change the contents of my bag, as when I am at university I take a small suitcase to carry all my books and folders so I don’t need anything extra in my bag.

The bag I use the majority of the time is this Fiorelli Bethnal bag in steel. I have had this bag for about a year now and I only ever change it depending on my outfit but because of the colour, it is so versatile. Although the bag comes with a shoulder strap, I don’t use it as I prefer the look without it and it is quite a big bag when it is worn crossbody.

So, the biggest thing I carry in my bag is my emergency kit. This includes all the essentials I need on a daily basis and anything I might need should the occasion come. A blog post coming up will include my emergency kit in depth and why I carry what I do inside this.

For those of you that know me, will know I am a complete book worm. I love reading and I often read when I am commuting to university or if I am at a family members and have chance to read. For the times I am not reading whilst commuting, I listen to music or a podcast so I always carry my headphones in my bag so that I am not stuck without something to do.

I always carry my purse, as it is definitely essential. I have quite a large purse as I have so many cards, such as loyalty cards, business cards, my railcard and my student ID. This purse is from Radley and I have had this about a year too and it has been the best purse I’ve ever had. It works perfectly for me and it has worn so well and will definitely last me a couple more years.

I always carry an umbrella as the weather from home to university can change in an instant. I also get too warm really quickly, so I prefer not to wear big waterproof coats and an umbrella is definitely essential for times like that.

The last thing I always carry in my bag, is my water bottle or a drink. I drink so much that I constantly have a drink with me.

I think I have everything I need for a daily basis in my bag but I would love to know if you have any recommendations for things I need to carry. I hope you’ve enjoyed this little peek into my handbag! My emergency kit will be uploaded in the next couple of weeks so keep your eye out for that!

I hope you have a lovely day and a fabulous week. See you Wednesday – Katy x

“When did you start to feel like you had mental health problems?”

Mental health isn’t talked about enough. I want to raise as much awareness as I can and I think it’s important to those struggling, to know they are not alone. This is going to be a series of posts, as it is a lot of information to share all at once. I am going to go into detail about certain things but anything that I think may be a trigger for others, I will keep brief.

For me, the question I have been asked the most the past couple of years is: “When do you think this started?” At first, it’s a hard question to answer but it does get you thinking about your past. Your earliest memories of feeling different, feeling low or anxious or when you started to struggle with your mental health. After thinking about this a lot lately, I think I have got a vague idea of what started it.

My earliest memory of having any kind of struggle is constant nightmares as a child. Yes, everyone has nightmares but I recall these differently. I didn’t sleep well as a child regardless of any medication I was given. The nightmares would haunt me throughout the day and would make me so scared. I would ask my parents questions as to whether events had happened that I had nightmares about. Although the answer was always no, I would still question myself. This has carried on throughout my whole life and still does to this day. Recently, they got worse and it causes huge panic attacks.

It was only when this started recently that I realised it had been something that has been happening throughout my childhood until now. Although it sounds like something simple, unless you have experienced this, its impossible to know how scary it is.

I hope this introduction has given you a little insight into mental health, that you don’t have to feel alone and that it’s okay not to be okay.

This series will be posted twice a month, every other Wednesday. My next post will be more in depth about my childhood struggles with mental health.

If any of you feel like you need a chat or just someone to talk to, please feel free to message me via instagram or email.

IT’S OKAY NOT TO BE OKAY.

Katy x

Useful numbers

Samaratins – 116 123

Mind national helpline – 0300 123 3393 (text 86463)

Desk Tour

Hi! Welcome back or welcome to my blog. This post is going to be a little tour of my desk and all the essentials I keep on my desk. As a student and a blogger, I spend a lot of my time sat at my desk working. I’ve had this desk around 2 years now and I’m so happy with my desk and how I organise it. So, let me show you.

My desk is the ‘Micke’ desk from Ikea and the add-on unit. The top shelf on my desk, is styled up with some accessories as it wasn’t very practical having anything I needed on this shelf. This is the only shelf I change up every now and again, except for the wifi box. But, for now I have;

Ikea ‘Fejka’ artificial trailing plant, to add some greenery
‘French Lavender’ Bath and body works candle.
Artificial succulent.
Letter board which I change the quote on quite often to motivate me.

On my desk, I have a desk lamp which is essential when I am working; especially in the winter. The large whiteboard is where I keep any notes I need, my to-do lists and my weekly meal plan. The small whiteboard is what I use for any to-do’s, that are urgent. My MacBook is sat on a tilting stand that has saved my life. It is so much easier to type and prevents me getting a sore neck from constantly looking down. I also have my google home which is amazing for listening to music on when I am studying or working as it stops me from going on my phone. On the left side of my desk; I have my weekly desk pad, my planner and my study planner.

On the small shelves on the left, I keep a trinket box on the top which holds my crystals. The second shelf I have an initial block and a box full of my essentials.

My essentials box is something I use everyday when I am sat at my desk. I keep a hand sanitiser, hand cream, cuticle oil, lip balm and some mints.

The last part of my desk that I need to show you, is my stationary drawer, aka, the drawer of dreams.

I made the draw dividers myself by using foam boards from Hobbycraft so that I could tailor it to exactly what I needed. Each section has a different type of stationary in. I have 4 large sections and I also have 4 smaller sections. I would definitely recommend making your own dividers as this way, it will 100% work well for you.

Having an organised desk, is most definitely essential for a productive workspace. I know where everything is whenever I need it which saves so much time when I am working. If you have any questions, you can comment below or message me on instagram.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little insight to my desk and this post. Enjoy your day! Katy x