hannahvsana

[hannahvsana]

you will feel so alive again.. like so incredibly alive. i dont know when that will be but it will be. u are gonna feel so alive that ur cheeks hurt from smiling oh man oh man i promise that day is coming. you do have a future, you do have good things coming, and you’ll survive everything that’s thrown at you until you reach that day

[hannahvsana]

[hannahvsana]

Dear 17 year old Hannah, writing on 27.09.17

5 years later, I’m sat on the sofa in the home I’ve made with my partner. I have blankets wrapped around me, pumpkin spice candles are burning and I’m quietly crocheting while listening to an autumnal playlist. We ate a home cooked meal together this evening while watching a nature documentary, and I’ve had a lovely warming shower before putting on comfy clothes. I had a productive day at work, I’m now a travel copywriter, and my first class degree certification sits proudly on my desk — I graduated this year. I’ve had some negative ED thoughts today, but I still roasted a pumpkin in preparation for making a pumpkin bread loaf tomorrow to share with my family this weekend.

Life is finally stable. I have a lovely home, a fun and loving relationship, a good job that I thoroughly enjoy, an amazing group of friends, a solid education, and my relationship with my family has never been better. I have a general 5 year plan mapping my travel, education and career goals, but I’m open to change and uncertainty. There was still difficult days mentally, but I’ve truly never been happier.

- 22 year old Hannah.

Holy shit guys

I’m being admitted to the adolescent psychiatric hospital TOMORROW !! They wanted to take me in today, until I managed to get leave for tonight.

The building is really nice and I get an en suite which is pretty snazzy, but I am scared. There’s 10 patients on my ward, only one other girl has an ED. I have to be there by 8 am tomorrow for breakfast, which I am nervous about, but I start the programme tomorrow. I have Internet from 7-8pm so I might update every few days

Keep fighting lads 💜

[hannahvsana]

The moment you come to terms with the fact that everything is temporary/fluctuates/changes, you will experience an unimaginable amount of peace.

[hannahvsana]

Small update: I finish university tomorrow after 4 years of trying to alongside of recovery; I’m moving in with my boyfriend in a couple of weeks; I made myself real pasta alone tonight for the first time in years; I turn 22 next week, and although I feel swept up and in anxiety right now, I wish I could tell my 17 year old self that it’s going to be okay and things will go as planned one day, even if that means things will be stressful sometimes

[hannahvsana]

There’s power in telling yourself ”no we don’t do that anymore” in response to self destructive urges.

[hannahvsana]

be kinder to your past selves

[hannahvsana]

be terrified, but open your arms

[hannahvsana]

Nothing I’ve read has changed me more than “you do people a favor by accepting their help” like I repeat this constantly to so many people because it’s true!!! People like to feel useful, they like to feel kind, they like to feel like they have an ability to impact people’s lives so just let them!! Not everything is a thing to be owed back — accept people’s kindness without making a competition out of it

[hannahvsana]

© By : @ sa.liine on ig

[hannahvsana]

i need 2 nourish my body so when i die i can contribute maximum nutrients to the trees

[hannahvsana]

When I was 18 I took a ballet class at college and every morning our beginner adult class started just as the Ballet Majors in the studio next door took a mid-class break.

Many mornings they would gather in the doorway of my classroom and watch us struggle through our bar warmups or jumble up a new technique while they smiled and whispered to each other.

And every morning I dreaded seeing them there because I knew they were making fun of me.

I had other classes with some of them, and I was always embarrassed when ballet came up, and it always did, them being ballet majors, because I loved to talk about it but knew they’d seen me dance, and I was sure they thought I didn’t belong in the conversation.

At the end of the semester, our instructor announced that she’d like to invite the dancers from the next door studio to sit in on our final performance as an audience, and everyone in my class hesitated. We’d worked so hard, we wanted to celebrate our progress during our final without being judged. Most of us left class that day suddenly more anxious about the final than we’d ever been.

The next morning, in one of my other classes I had with the ballet majors, one of them approached me, and as if she’d been reading our minds the entire semester, she said

“Hey. I just wanted to say that I know we watch you guys dance a lot, and I wanted to make sure you know we’re never laughing at you. When we watch you guys learn the basics…..it reminds us of when we first started when we were younger. It’s like…looking at ourselves when we first fell in love with dancing. That’s why we love watching you guys.”

It shocked me. I felt awash with relief and utterly stupid all at once.

Here I had spent an entire semester assuming the worst of people who had otherwise been nothing but nice to me in every other setting, and I had no one to blame for that but my own insecurities that I’d allowed to rule me for months.

I’d been so unfair to these girls, because I was self conscious. I was so worried about being judged that I’d judged all of them.

Here I was worried they were laughing at me, and all along they were looking at me with nothing but absolute delight, even envy for what I was getting to experience.

This encounter changed my entire attitude, permanently.

It made me realize that, yeah sometimes people are jerks for no reason, but more often than not, people really are just….Good.

Since that day, I’ve started giving everyone the benefit of the doubt until they prove me wrong, for their sake and for my own.

And I’ve learned that the world becomes a lot better and life becomes a lot easier when you accept that maybe not everyone is judging you. Maybe you’re the one who’s hardest on yourself.

Let yourself be. Let yourself exist and breathe and be happy.

The world is a much better place.

[hannahvsana]

me: I dont wanna like…… do things……..

My psychologist: You have to, do things

me: 

[hannahvsana]

[hannahvsana]

a fools guide to not wanting to die anymore

by me, a fool who doesnt wanna die anymore 

never make a suicide joke again. yes this includes “i wanna die” as a figure of speech. swear off of it. actually make an effort to change how you think about things.

find something to compliment someone for at least 4 times a day. notice the little things about the world that make you happy, and use that to make other people happy.

talk to people. initiate conversation as often as you possibly can. keep your mind busy and you wont have to worry anymore

picture the bad intrusive thoughts in youe head as an edgy 13 year old and tell them to go be emo somewhere else

if someone makes you feel bad most of the time, stop talking to them. making yourself hang out with people who drain you is self harm. stop it.

[hannahvsana]

It’s a late one, but first I wanted to share that my birthday fundraiser for Beat raised £170 which I’m super happy about!

Secondly, despite a shitty shitty year on multiple accounts, I PASSED SECOND YEAR WITH A FIRST CLASS!!!

I can’t remember how much I’ve actually updated my blog on my recovery over the last 8 months. But in November, shortly after I had to move to Somerset as I was unsafe living alone, I was told my body was physically shutting down and I had a week to stabilise before being sent to an EDU in London. At that point I couldn’t focus. I was struggling to form a proper conversation, as I would forget what I was going to say next, and then forget what I had just said. It was terrifying and humiliating.

I hit a rock bottom that scared the ever living fuck out of me and that’s when I decided to recover for nobody but myself, because I want to live a fulfilling life with friends, good family relations, travel and academia. I want to be a writer and to do that I need a good undergrad degree in order to take my masters in nature writing.

Now I’m looking back to the girl crying on the floor of her uni en-suite because she could barely write a sentence in a document, knowing she needed some blood sugar but was too dizzy and paralysed by fear to get off the floor; to the girl who finished the year with 1st in every module bar one (which was one mark off a 1st), having spent the day writing nature short stories for the US company she works for and arranging to move into a new house share.

Yeah I’m pretty damn proud 🥰 Recovery is terrifying, it still scares me everyday, 8 months on from my original resolution; but it’s days like today where it really proves its worth

[hannahvsana]

You guys drastically underestimate how long you will live on in someone’s memory