Standing With Ahmed

Every few days I check the news, because I find that it is important to be up to date with whatever is going on in the world. This morning, when I was doing my usual sweep through the Internet in order to be up to date with the world, I was drawn towards two stories that may not seem connected, but to me are deeply rooted in the same plant pot.

In the last twelve hours, the hash tag ⌗IStandWithAhmed has gone viral. This hash tag is a result of a fourteen year old boy being arrested for bringing a home-made clock to school, a clock that a teacher falsely accused of being a bomb. Ahmed was arrested in school and released shortly after, when the police released that it was literally a clock he had made at home because he is a fourteen year old boy pursing mechanics. 

The second thing in the news that has captured the world's attention in the last few weeks is the refugee crisis. When there are hundreds of thousands of human beings crying out in pain, living in conditions that are so far from anything we live in, and enduring the heart-wrenching experiences of fleeing a place that you and your family have called home for hundreds of years, I really ask my self why the world is doing next to nothing. 

I question why countries are closing their borders, and turning away as families are torn apart, mothers are loosing their children and people are loosing their identities. I question why the acceptable response to these tragic events is to sigh and look apathetically at the news reports flooding in of the horrors these people are coming from, their harrowing journeys only to be met with hostility. 

You are probably wondering what the two stories have to do with each other, so I will explain the link that I have made:

The world is focusing on the wrong facts and figures. Instead of stretching out our hands and opening our hearts, we are creating a society where it is acceptable to close our eyes and focus on the wrong things. 

Ahmed Mohamed is a fourteen year old boy, an innocent fourteen year old boy, a talented fourteen year old boy. 

Now tell me what part of that makes you think of a terrorist? Because there must have been something that provoked the teacher into calling the police. 

Oh yes, I know what it is. Ahmed Mohamed was arrested today because he is a Muslim. So really what happened was, a grown adult, someone that should have known better, decided that it was their place to insight their own preconceived prejudices and get an innocent boy arrested because he was a Muslim boy, taking an interest in mechanics. 

But it gets better. It gets better because effectively the world is turning their back on these refugees based on prejudices; based on stereotypes that have one purpose in society, which is to destroy any of the basic humanity that people have. 

I am struggling to put into words how angry and disheartened I feel right now. The world is misplacing its concerns. Western superpowers should be worried about what is actually going on in these middle-eastern countries that is causing such an influx of refugees. 

We should be focusing on trying to fix the root of the problem instead of misplacing our prejudices and stereotypes onto innocent people that need our help and support more than anyone. 

The message Ahmed's school sent to him today is that they have a certain expectation that he will be a terrorist. They show him that they don't see Ahmed for a fourteen year old boy with skills that will change the world, instead they see him as a potential threat because his faith is not the same as theirs. And you know what that says to me? It says that we have not evolved at all. It shows me that white supremacy is just as prevalent now as it was one hundred years ago, and that destroys me, it really does. 

As for the refugee crisis, I really do beg people to open their arms but to also look ahead, look ahead to fix the problem that is not going to stop until a superpower puts it to bed. 

Whilst usually my posts are not this political, I feel so strongly about this, that I could not have passed an opportunity to write about it on this platform. I hope you will stand with us in standing with Ahmed and learn to open your hearts to the refugee crisis. 

-LF, LR and MG xxx

Leaving the Past in the Past

When I lie awake at night, letting my thoughts stir round and round in my head, I know that the only way I can fall asleep is if I write whatever it is down. I sit up, open my laptop and stare at a blank word document, until my fingers tap on my keyboard and within minutes, words appear on the page that spell out exactly what is bothering me.

Every now and again I like to read over what I write in those moments, because I think in some ways what I write then is the most honest, and the purest way that I can gather my thoughts together. For me it is in the silence of the night that the rest of the world is quiet enough for my thoughts to be heard.

Recently when I read over things I had written in my midnight madness, I saw a repetitive theme of the past and so I thought that I would write about it on here, and share some of the advice that I gave myself at some point between one am and four am in the last few weeks.

"Accepting the past is about acknowledging that all the things you have done and all the things you have been through, for the good and bad, are very much a part of who you are. Acceptance is the first part of moving forward and I think that when you have grasped that, you leave yourself with the foundation to build on.

You can take all the things you have learnt and develop yourself into the person that you want to be. It is about recognising that whilst your past will always be a part of who you are, it is not the only thing that you are.

I think the best decision I ever made was to move forward. I think through moving forward I have been able to strengthen the person I am into someone that I know will be able to take the weight of the future.

Thinking about the future is scary, it makes you wonder if you will ever be able to escape, it makes you doubt yourself and your capabilities and whether you will ever be able to truly leave behind your past. but I think that the best way to escape your past is to run into it with open arms.

It is about embracing your mistake, the places where you tripped and fell so that the next time you will know what to do. If you embrace your past then you can use it all to build a future and with your future at the tip of your fingers, you will be able to accomplish anything.

You can't move forward without letting go, and whilst I know letting go is going to be so hard, once you are free to reach out and grab whatever opportunity you are faced with, the past won't seem so troubled anymore.

Instead you will look back and wonder how you made it through the hark times, with nothing to guide you. But you will also know that it was all those things that are very much a part of who you are now. You will know that the reason you carry round a flashlight at all times is so that when you get lost again, you will be able to find you way. You know that when you go swimming, you make sure you jump in with both feet, but wearing a life jacket, so that you can feel the water against your skin without tempting fate and struggling not to drown.

But the best thing about the past is that it gives you lessons for the future, and I think when your past is as clouded as mind, it is the lessons that we extract that will stick with us and shape us for life. It isn't about seeing everything for the bad, it is about taking the bad and turning it into the good."

So I think what midnight me is trying to tell you, is that you need to let go of the past in order to build a future. But letting go of the past doesn't mean forgetting where you came from, or how far you have fought to get here. Letting go means taking with you all the things you have learnt, but leaving behind all the negative associations and memories that you have as well.

I hope this was helpful insight,
LF, LR and MG
xxx

What It Means To Be A Victim

In some ways, I believe that being a victim of something, has been romanticised. We glorify experiences that people have had. We make victims into warriors, not because we mean harm, but because we don't know what else to do. We don't know how else to react to the pain and the suffering that someone has been through, in an experience that is so completely different from our own experiences. So instead we admire them, but we don't understand them.

I would like to share what it means to be a victim, and then give some advice about how to deal with being a victim, with the hope that this post will not only give you some understanding, but it will give you the tools to deal with your friends or family members that may be dealing with the fallout of certain issues that make them a victim.

What does it mean to be a victim? 
Whilst most people think that being a victim means having survived a horrific event, I would like to explain what being a victim really means.

Being a victim means being afraid. It means being afraid of the person or people who inflicted such pain on you. Afraid of yourself and the person you might become. Being a victim means sleepless nights, bouts of depression and anxiety for things that seem unrelated but none the less haunt you for years.

Being a victim means suffering with PTSD, possible eating disorders and mood swings. It means living your life with the knowledge that other people that are in your age group have no idea of what you've been through, and will never be able to understand you. It means being confused about who you are, and doubting yourself. Being a victim means being so lonely that you are forced to turn to someone, but when you do, the empty feeling that you experience when they just don't understand makes you wish you'd just have kept quiet.

Being a victim means that you are strong and brave, but more fragile than you realise. It means spending the rest of your life forcing yourself to move on, and make something of yourself, even though what you really want to do is disappear. It means good days that leave you on a high, but bad days that leave you in the lurch, possibly for days after.

But most of all, being a victim means that on some days, the rain falls so hard and fast it feels as if the bad feelings are never going to go away. You feel disgusted by yourself and constantly put yourself down. However, on the sunny days, you look at all the things you have accomplished even after all you have survived, and you know that your victories outweigh all the bad things that you have suffered, a million times over. Because when you see all your victories, you know that you are nothing like your worst fears, but instead you are the person you have always wanted to become.

A few helpful tips for helping a victim: 
1) Listen!! Listen to your friend/ family member. Let them speak. Don't force what they have to say, but instead just let them say what they need to say. Most likely they will feed you bits of information here and there instead of just telling you everything straight. But if they do tell you something, know that it is because they trust you, and for them, trust is not something that comes easy, so keep reassuring them that you will not disclose this information to anyone.

2) Overreacting/ Minimising. Whilst there is literally nothing worse than you pouring your heart out to someone, and them just reducing it down to something that a child wouldn't be bothered by, at the same time, crying over what you have been told is not helpful either. It makes the victim feel even worse than they already do, and will just make them shut off. You might not realise that you are minimising the pain or experience, but trying to change the subject, laughing, making light of the situation or just trying to avoid talking about it, makes the person feel worse. The victim doesn't want you to find you an answer, nor are they expecting you to take the pain away, they just want to talk, and making them feel like a burden or like they're making a huge deal of nothing is likely to enhance any private and personal feelings they have about themselves.

3) Comparing. If your friend or relative is telling you about the time she nearly killed herself in an overdose, DO NOT compare it to the time you wanted to buy a new pair of shoes so you went to the shop but they didn't have your size, so you were so depressed you nearly killed yourself. It is not helpful, it is not useful, just don't do it!

Hope this was useful insight,
LF, LR and MG
xxx

Courage, Dear Heart

"Courage, dear heart"

This may be one of my favourite quotes of all time, even though it is short and simple, it really speaks to me unlike anything else.

For me, I believe that courage is an attribute that is seriously underrated. Mostly, people see others acting in a courageous way, but don't necessarily identify that behaviour with it actually being an act of courage. For other people however, courage is not how we act, but it is how we are.

The reason why I believe that courage is so underrated, is because no one ever knows what challenges you are fighting. This therefore means that whilst for you, going into a shop and asking an assistant for help, may be the most courageous thing you have done in a long time, for others, opening up about a problem that have, will be the most courageous thing they will ever do.

This is not because some people have less challenges than others, it is because the way we perceive challenges are based on our own experiences. So, in my rational mind, I know that someone coming out as gay, takes so much more courage than I can ever imagine. Just as, for me, opening up about certain events in my life, took all the courage I have.

Whilst one person exerting courage is no different to another, regardless of what scale we may understand it to be on, it is easy to only identify certain things as an act as courage, when really, who are we to judge whether or not something is courageous, coming from that person.

We often neglect to realise that something that is completely normal to us, such as wearing shorts, or going out the house with no make up, or getting out of bed in the morning, is actually one of the most courageous acts for someone that we just don't know about.

This is why, I am therefore proposing that this post celebrates every single one of you out there, who is courageous on a regular basis even without anyone noticing.

To anyone who knows that their greatest struggle at the moment is getting out of bed, but every morning, they summon their courage and they rise to the challenge.

Here's to anyone who suffers with a mental or physical illness which means they are faced with challenges that can mentally and physically cripple them, but they bravely battle them anyway.

And here's to anyone who is just having a bad day or a hard time. To anyone who just needs to know, that even if no one around you is going to tell you this, then we are. We are going to tell all of you that you are brave and strong and you have courage that I could only dream of having.

Courage is hard, and sometimes we don't manage to do what we think we want or need to do, and that's okay too. As long as we remember to celebrate people for what they are able to do, and what they still struggle to do, then thats okay.

It is important to not only celebrate all the times that we have fought to find our courage and won, but also all the times that it just wasn't a fight we could beat.

So here I am now, giving you the tools to empower yourself, and in this way, I hope that everyone comes to recognise the importance of courage and how much it impacts our lives.

-LF, LR, MG

How to Stay Strong

Hope is a funny thing. You keep telling yourself that it will get better, but deep down, in the pit of your stomach, where all your anxieties live, you can't help but remind yourself that although at some point it may get better, it still hasn't yet.

Here is the thing, even in your darkest moment, on your darkest days, you have to remember that you can do it. You have to remember that you are as strong as you need to be and that no matter what life throws at you, you are capable.

Because in the end, everyone has pain, its whether or not you chose to suffer with it: that is key.

You have to take a deep breath, and remember that whatever is going on now, isn't permanent, and that there is going to be a time where this time in your life when you spent days and weeks not being able to look past it, fades into the past.

There is going to be a time, where you are living your life the way that you want to, with everything behind you.

Hold on to that thought, and don't let go. No matter what happens, if you have that thought of 'its going to be okay' then it will be okay.

A lot of the time, we believe that things happen to us are going to break us, not build us. But you have to hold on to the fact that the darkest times come just before dawn, and that if you can just wait it out until the morning, and keep on fighting, then it is going to be worth it.

I promise you, that no matter how hard it gets, no matter how many times you break down and you tell yourself that you can't do it anymore, you can do it.

You are so much stronger than you think. Never ever forget that.

It is always ok to feel like you just can't do it anymore, it is always ok to feel that nothing is ever going to get fixed, as long as you remember that it will. As long as you remember that it is worth the fight, it is worth the tears. Because at some point, it will come right.

What will be, will be. But as long as you know you have done everything you could to help yourself, then whatever happens will happen for the good.

I can't tell you that whats going on in your life is as a result of anything, but I can tell you that it is going to build you into the most incredible person. And that when you smile, it isn't the smile of a broken person, it is the smile of a warrior.

The smile of a person, who has built their self on strength, on bravery and on kindness. On the basis that one day, one day they are going to get there. One day they are going to look back and smile, and say that they did it.

And if you never forget any of that, then you will stay strong. You will stay strong until the very end, and I believe in you.

Please remember to speak out and speak now, if you are having a hard time staying strong.

-LF, LR and MG

Understanding PTSD

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a mental health condition that's triggered by a terrifying event - either experiencing it, or witnessing it. It can be characterised by symptoms such as flashbacks, nightmares and severe anxiety, as well as uncontrollable thoughts about the event.

Although at the start of research into PTSD, it was found only in soldiers returning from war, there is a common misconception that this illness only effects soldiers, and this is not true.

Many people living with PTSD, often don't realise it for many months and sometimes years. It is a mentally debilitating illness, that often results in a deterioration of other aspects of your health, such as insomnia, crippling anxiety and strain on your internal organs.

Often, one develops PTSD after a traumatic experience, this can be anything from returning from war, witnessing or being in an accident, experiencing abuse (physical, verbal, sexual, domestic or emotional), witnessing continual abuse, rape, illness, being physically hurt. These events can occur in childhood anywhere up until and during the age you are now.

A lot of people chose to ignore initial PTSD symptoms, by putting them down to nightmares or a bit of anxiety about things that they do not believe to be connected.

1 in 10 women and 1 in 20 men develop PTSD at some point in their life.
This is a huge number and as is the case with a lot of mental illnesses, the less we talk about them, the less we know and then the less we can help.

If you yourself has dealt with something particularly traumatic, or have a family member or close friend who has, please pay extra attention to how they are coping with their situation. It is very easy to pass of someones 'jumpiness' or 'shakiness' with just being a jumpy person. But this is a symptom for PTSD. Someone who is particularly paranoid about something, or appears to be fixated and unable to move past a certain event, needs help. Whether they realise it or not, they are suffering with something that can be helped.

PTSD can be treated, without medication, through various forms of therapy including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, which will give the sufferer techniques to help them through this difficult time.

Reliving a traumatic event is emotionally and physically exhausting for the person, and can leave them on edge, tearful and what appears to be extremely distressed by an event. It is important to note that these episodes can be brought on by something that reminds the person of a behaviour that have experienced in the past.

If you are suffering from this illness, please speak now and speak out. It is hard, it is terrifying, but the first step to recovery, is speaking about it. You never know how much you could be helping yourself until you do. You are probably scared, frightened and confused. But please know, that we are here for you.

We are here for you every step of the way, so feel free to share your journey and get on that path to recovery!

-LF, LR and MG

Change

One word, 5 letters, such a strong impact.

Change can be seen in minor cases, such as an alteration in your morning routine or a new hairstyle. This form is mild, in general has a very small effect on a person and can easily be forgotten about.

However, this is not always the case. Some changes, for example moving schools, houses or even countries, can throw the balance of normality and usually does not feel right. It plays on your mind that something is not normal or even safe, and it can truly throw your emotions all over the place. You almost begin to doubt the people who are closest to you, nearly losing trust in the ones you love. You find that you feel alone, as if there is nobody that you could speak to because they could not possibly have experienced what you feel and anything that anyone says will throw you and make you feel worse.

Of course this does not happen in every situation; most large changes can be extremely beneficial and genuinely will help you in the long run. But the patience and time required for this effect to happen require so much energy, and it is tricky to handle at points.

I would like to give a few small pieces of advice, which I have followed recently and have got me through this tough period on uncountable occasions.

1) Give it time

Time is one of the greatest healers. Though it seems long, as if you are travelling down a long road of unsettlement, there will come a turn at the end which clearly shows positive effects. This turn-around will not happen overnight, it will take time. Once that time is up, there will be no looking back.

2) Patience is key

Do not, under any circumstances, give up. Coupling with point number 1, settling does not come instantly. If you feel a loss of motivation or like it is the end of the world, this feeling will certainly not last forever and if you bare with the situation for a few weeks, it will improve.

3) Acceptance

It is more than okay to feel upset. Joint with discomfort will generally come a feeling of being pathetic or guilt for your negative emotions. Ignore them. Being sad is normal, as long as you acknowledge the fact that this will not last forever.

4) Change your thoughts

It is no use trying to apply yourself to a situation if all of your thoughts are clouded by negativity and you are not willing to make an effort. Force yourself to step out of your comfort zone a small amount each day, whether it be talking to somebody or holding a smile for five minutes. This alteration in attitudes will cause steps 1 and 2 to come along much easier and there will be a noticeable difference in yourself.

So to summarise, whilst change is inevitable, there are ways of avoiding making it more difficult than it should be. Whilst I have only named 4 steps, there are many more: why not try to come up with some yourselves?

Best of luck.

-LF, LR and MG