One Hell of a Year

2015, well its been one hell of a year, changes have happened by the dozen, I'm going to try to give a summary of my year during this blog post but, for now lets rewind to 1st January. I woke up on the hard, wooden floor of someone I had only met the previous day. I was freezing and was surviving on about an hours sleep in total. That day I really, truly believed that this would be 'my year'. I hoped for such potential and greatness, oh how wrong I was.

Don't get me wrong, there have been some great things happen this year, some really great things. Unfortunately these have been overshadowed by what can only be described as the worst year of my entire life. There probably were far more positives than negatives but in terms of effect on me, the  negatives had much of a larger impact.

I've always wanted something to actually happen in my life, something exciting or unusual for me. Up until this year I don't feel like anything significant really happened, just the same usual stuff day in day out. If I could go back I wouldn't wish to have an exciting life, I would feel content with my life, I would definitely not want any fucking drama.

Positive, positive, positive. Yes, many good things have happened this year, I'll begin with them. I finally finished Last Witness, which I had been attempting to finish for the months, if not, years. I also read The Longest Ride which was just the cutest book ever. After watching the film I decided to read The Lovely Bones, another brilliant read. (In case you missed them, I blogged about my feelings on both these books a couple of months back if you wanted to check them out.) Another of the books I read was Atonement, a rather unusual read for me but still very good nonetheless. As part of my English Literature course I have read King Lear and Death of a Salesman, both of which are fascinating reads. The current book I am reading is The Reader which, despite being heavily sexual in the first few chapters, is a brilliant and truly gripping book which I am hoping to finish in the coming weeks.

This year I have had numerous trips to the cinema. Earlier in the year I saw The Boy Next Door (seriously what the fuck was that movie, syringe in eye, ew ew ew) and Pitch Perfect 2 (there were seriously no faults, it was incredible although the worst cinema visit of my life but that's another story. During the summer I watched Ant-Man (my first marvel film and it was spectacular.) More recently I've seen The Visit (again what the fuck) and Miss You Already (I have never in my life cried so much at a film, it was absolutely heart-breaking) and yesterday I finally got round to watching Mockingjay Part Two (holy smokes it was one of the greatest films i have ever seen.) Aside from the cinema, I've also seen many films at home (mainly through Netflix). I watched Titanic, Forrest Gump, The Grinch and Back to the Future (1,2 and 3) again because why not. I watched many films for the first time; Bridget Jones Diary, It's a Wonderful Life (definitely a must see), About Time, Monsters University, Good Will Hunting, The Breakfast Club, The Notebook, Begin Again, What We Did On Our Holiday, Love Rosie, 6 Years, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Saving Mr Banks, The Best of Me, The Purge, Scary Movie and One Day. It's highly likely that I've seen many more films but I don't have the brain capacity to remember them all.

Personally, it's been a big year concert-wise, having attended five concerts in total (that's quite a lot for me.) In the first half of the year I saw Olly Murs and Luke Friend both of which were fantastic. Although not a concert, I attended Truck Festival during the summer (you can find a blog post about it that I wrote a few months back) where I first saw Slaves and also watched Clean Bandit, Lucy Rose, The Charlatans and Basement Jaxx. Unfortunately I had no more concerts until November in which I attended three in nine days, those being Imagine Dragons, Slaves and Scouting for Girls. All of them were flipping incredible and greats nights out. In terms of music, my preferences have changed quite dramatically with growing interests in bands such as Green Day, Neck Deep, My Chemical Romance, Blink-182 and Mayday Parade. I would definitely determine this as the year I've developed an independent music taste and listened to individual bands rather than listening to a particular genre as a whole.

As to not end this post on a sad and dark note, I'll go through the negatives now so I can come back to more positives before the end. Nothing really happened up until May that made me think 'crap things are getting so shit'. Before May I was happy (I use that term loosely as I'm not sure I have ever been happy with things for the past few years) but yes I was content, life was mediocre, not too much good, not too much bad. There are only two things I remember happening prior to May, well, two things that are worth mentioning. The first was that I stopped speaking to the guy that I had been speaking to on and off for the past few years. Luckily, we ended on bad terms so I didn't really miss him when we stopped speaking. The second thing was that, after 3 very painful and long years, I finally managed to get over the guy I had been in love with. The most unusual thing about it was all it took was my friend to tell me I had to move on for my feelings to rapidly vanish.

Around May time was the beginning of a downward spiral of things turning to shit. One of the most heartbreaking things happened around this time. And, I tell you if you want pain, watch your best friend cry when you can do nothing to help, the image will rip you apart. Of course I didn't want her to cry but it was her granddads (who was a really, truly amazing guy) funeral so I don't blame her, I cried my eyes out too. Prior to starting exams, my friends had made it clear that I was too sad for them to deal with and they stated they just ignored me because they didn't know how to help. Immediately I felt bad about how shit I had been feeling because it was effecting them although the majority of my feeling of this was how selfish it was of them. I had discussed a few times with one of my closest friends that I had looked into symptoms and behaviors of those with anxiety and told them I believed I also suffered from this. Although I hoped for sympathy and care, the response I got was that I hadn't been professionally diagnosed so it didn't count. I realized then that my friends didn't understand me and probably never would.

The weeks that followed provided me with two things; major stress from exams and my flaws being pointed out to me by my so called friends. Distraught is the only word suitable to describe how I felt by the continuing events although they did lead me to making one of the best decisions I have ever made. I decided I was worth better than the dismissal and negativity which they provided me and I walked away. At first it was easy, I spend various lunchtimes with other friends, it seemed I could just go on like this while I needed to. I wasn't overly bothered that I was now without a group. I didn't mind because I had individual friends who I could spend time with and, besides, if they were busy  or I couldn't find them I could always go sit in a classroom and revise, an option I chose a lot of the time, an option which lead to the most heartbreaking phrase I have ever heard. But despite my best efforts to stay away from the toxic people in my life, their comments did not disappear so easily. There could be another reason for it but to me, the reason i sometimes struggle to eat two meals a day is because it is engraved into my brain that I should avoid eating too much in case comments are again made.

I remember that I had just entered the canteen after the bell had rang for the end of lunch when I had seen my friend. She had asked me where I had been at lunch and I told I had been sat on my own to which she replies 'sorry I would have come but the group is here'. Those few words broke me more than any others I have ever heard. That was one of the last times I spoke to her. I didn't want to be some second choice, pushed back in priority over these new found friends. What hurt me the most was that I would have dropped my group in a heartbeat if  I needed to go help out or be with a friend who needed me, sure they would have said things in my absence but it wouldn't have bothered me, after all, I did have other friends who sometimes needed me.

Exams were a major part of this year and I am absolutely dreading AS exams this year. I really struggled to cope in the exam hall, it wasn't the exams but the environment. The thought that I will soon have to go through it again makes me feel ill. I don't think that having friends would have helped me dramatically but it would have been nice to have people there. I did have some people, about 3 or 4 I think but having already lost about 6, my mentality probably wasn't prepared for exam stress.

Over the summer many really great things happened; I had my first kiss, I took part in NCS, I went to a festival, I started a blog, I got a boyfriend. All in all, life was pretty damn great. For the third year running my family went on holiday with my bestfriends family, I went to visit family in Cornwall, it was a good time. Nearing the end of summer I believes that life was finally good again, all the shit had happened and the following school year would be bearable. Everything was fine, everything was great until about three weeks into term, until the shittest day of my life.

It was a school day so I wasn't mega excited but I had woken up feeling less tired than usual, ready for just another regular day. I had woken up to a message from one of the members of my old group, a letter of apology he called it, explaining how he finally realised the reason I had felt shit had been them and that he was sorry about it. I didn't forgive him because he has written that, I still haven't forgiven him but I think the main reason for that was because of what happened next. The day really was a normal day up until my third lesson. The school managers came to get me and I was very confused. I search my brain for why they would want to speak with me, what had I done wrong, who had I offended by accident, who was involved. I was sick with worry. It was explained to me (rather intimidatingly) that I had been posting severe negative thoughts about myself online and had been reported for posting suicidal thoughts. To this I was utterly confused as I hadn't posted anything recently that was anymore negative than usual and nothing I had posted had any direct meaning that I was suicidal. I was very confused until I was informed it was my old group who had reported me. It made sense then, I realized the reason I had been reported was because it was them who had discovered they were at fault for how I felt regularly and therefore they didn't want to be to blame if something happened. It was, in my opinion, entirely selfish.

This single event resulted in many changes. I had to speak to my mum about everything that had happened (I'm not one to share with family members my thought and feelings), I was signed up for school counselling, I grew a stronger feeling against my old group. I really didn't know how to act or feel or what the hell was going on. Luckily I had a fair amount of friends who helped me through this particular rough patch and I am ever so thankful to have them.

Since that dreadful day, things have got a lot better with very few negatives to talk about. I suppose the one thing worse mentioning is I found out one of my friends has cancer but even that is looking more positive now and she seems like she is going to be okay.

Twice this year I have had brief places in a group but I think I can now say that I'm better off without a group. So yes, positive things. Well obviously I started a blog up this year and I'm very happy I did because it has provided me with comfort when I have most needed it and allowed my to output my emotions into something worth while. I also managed to pass all the GCSE's that I took, something which I was very proud of, especially considering the events which occurred around the time of taking my exams. Another positive is that my friend and I started to watch American Horror Story, started being the key word as we are still on season two. I'm sure we will finish it at some point.

So, that was pretty much my year, a mixture of good and bad, days out, days in, laughs and cries It's been an emotional one and if going through all that has taught me any decent lessons then I could have done without learning them, I think i would have been happier. I am very much hoping for a more positive 2016, I'm sure it will be a great year because I have some truly amazing friends to spend it with. I wish you all a brilliant new year with lots of laughter and happiness.

See you all next year.

--- Aimee ---