2017 - My Year's Experience (#BLOGMAS DAY 6)

[Just a quick warning to let you guys know this is VERY personal and highlights a lot of things I have battled this year.]

So I wanted to create a blog post to end the year that kind of reflected on everything that has happened to me within 2017. Just a forewarning, A LOT has happened, and I just wanted to share it with you guys, not as a sort of excuse for not being as active on my blog this year, but as a way for you guys to understand more what I have been going through that has kept me so distracted. Christmas time and New Year is all about reflection, so I just wanted to share with you guys personally what has happened to me and what I have overcome within the past 12 months.

So starting off the year, I struggled a lot with university. I've always been pretty academic, but I started to become overwhelmed by my work load and how much I had to do, and my revision became hard. I was given more hours at work which helped me out but at the same time meant I had less study time, to the point that I would be working until 9pm, coming home, heading straight to the library and revising until 2am before my 9am exam the next morning. To say I was disappointed in the results is an understatement; I've always been good at school and these were 100% my worst grades. It was very disheartening as I did so well in some of my assignments, but it was my exams that brought me down a lot.
Along with this, I was supposed to be carrying out a placement year before going in to my final year in 2018. I applied for over 50, only heard back from half, had 2 interviews in total and could not get my hands on any placement at all. It was extremely deflating for me that I couldn't get a job in my dream department and what I was actually studying for, and it made me so upset as I started to feel like everything was all for nothing. I was down for a long time, and I had to reach the conclusion that I would take a gap year instead of a placement sandwich and it meant I had to move home and get a job.

A lot of family issues happened, too, that pushed me off course a little. I thought about working full time so that I could save up for when I go back to university, however my step dad left my mum and left her in an extremely bad circumstance which damaged us financially more than you could ever know. We had to move house, move everything, and start again with both of us having to find new jobs and splitting everything between us. Being under 21, my minimum wage is awful, and I was, and still am, finding it difficult living on minimum wage. Because I was earning so little compared to how much everything costs to live, I had to get another job, meaning that I am currently working a day job and an evening job. Having 2 jobs is so different to being from university and it's been a huge shock, but I do have a great work ethic and I do persevere through anything.
We also lost the support of most of our family, and, although there had been family issues before with some, the selfishness of my closest family members shone through and we could not support them anymore when there was nothing retaliated. It has been difficult trying to get through it, let alone without the support of our family, but both me and my mum have managed to do it (with an immense amount of help from my nan and grandad, also; they are who I am thankful for).

Additionally, I was seeing someone for the whole year, and we had a lot of issues. When it was good, it was great, but it beat me down so much when it was terrible, and he couldn't commit to me the way that I wanted him to. With that ending in the midst of all my family issues, it weighed down on me a lot because I started to feel lonely and unloved, and I started to doubt myself a lot. I have always had severe anxiety issues and have suffered from panic attacks, but with this it was different. I bottled everything up, I didn't want to talk to anyone, but I was suffering so badly, and it started because of how I was treated. No one seems to understand as I still believe he is a good guy, it was just his selfish actions took over him and he didn't put anyone before himself, not even once. I felt deflated and life became difficult with everything hitting me at the same time.

On top of this, I fell out with one of my closest friends, so badly that it ended up with a court case and her trying to find a way of accusing me of fraud. She was always foul and backstabbing when we were friends, but because of how malicious she could be I always just pretended what she said was fine, until I started to think, "why am I surrounding myself with these poisonous people?" She began to manipulate everyone around me, turn people against me by spreading lies about me and my character, with even some of my closest friends turning on me (despite them constantly saying someone needed to stand up to her and call her out what she was doing). She spoke about everyone behind their backs and had a bad case of delusion, truly believing she was better than everyone else. Because of how badly we fell out, she ended up trying to get back at me some other way. She had issues with my landlady who asked me and my other housemates about things she had done in our house, including damage caused, and we provided her with the evidence she wanted, because it would've affected us also (financially) if we didn't prove she had done it. She started to fight against us, said we had made everything up and that we had "framed" her, which was not the case. We didn't want to be involved but knowing that if we didn't prove her actions we were going to be charged, which wasn't fair on any of us.It got incredibly ugly, leading to a court case, which I mentioned before, however I did end up defusing the whole situation before it got to that point, retracting all the comments I had made just so I could get out of the situation. Although I did not want to back down as it gave her all the power after everything she had done (including threatening physical harm against me and creating a police file against her), I was so drained by the whole situation that I just left it and walked away from the situaiton.

I think all in all, this year has made me tougher and I have learnt how to deal with extremely difficult situations. I had a lot of breakdowns throughout this whole year, faced a lot of issues with family and old friends, which caused my panic attacks to get worse and my state of mind to deteriorate dramatically. Looking at everything now, as it has all passed me, I feel as though I can take on anything, and, although I have a lot more improving to do, I feel as though I can get over any negative situation that gets put in my path (but I do beg that nothing happens like this in 2017 as I cannot be dealing with it all over again).
For the New Year, I am looking forward to working hard, putting more effort in to my blog, going back to university and moving back to my lovely city of Brighton (oh boy have I missed you). I hope all of you have had a better year than I have and have become stronger and better versions of yourself throughout the year (if that is even possible).

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR!