Featured

So…Here we are.

Welcome to my blog!

Here, I’m going to share the truth of being a nerdy, unpopular teenage girl. And I’ll just share my thoughts or sometimes I’ll just blog about what I’ve been up to.

This blog is something for me. I’ve always wanted to write, but never really known how to do that without feeling like a massive failure. So, I figured a blog would be the way to go.

I guess I should tell you a bit about myself, which will be hard to do while staying anonymous, but I’ll give it a go. I’m a fourteen year old girl living in England. I go to a normal high school and I have a relatively normal life. I’m a big fan of all things Harry Potter, I also love musicals. It is obviously important that you know my Hogwarts house, I am a proud Hufflepuff. I should also mention again: I am NOT popular at school. I am far from it. I am not liked by the popular girls at my school but that doesn’t matter because I have a close circle of great friends who will always stand by me.

I guess that will do for now. Thanks for reading and I hope that you continue to follow my life.

Regaining happiness and confidence.

I made a big decision last week. Well, it wasn’t a huge life-changing decision, rather, I didn’t think it would be. I’ll just cut to the point, shall I?

I cut off my hair!

Technically, the hairdresser cut off my hair, but you get the point. I told my parents last week that I wanted to have a hair cut and then I talked to my mum about it for a while because my hair is thick, curly and… unpredictable. After some research into how I would tame my hair, I decided that I definitely wanted to go ahead with the cut. I just didn’t see the point in wondering how it would look for ages and then not doing anything. I then had a wild thought. I could donate my hair. I told my mum and she immediately set up a fundraiser page and booked for the hairdresser to come and hack my hair off. So far, we have raised about £300 for The Little Princess Trust, and they will be getting about 10″ of my thick curls.

The cut happened on Wednesday and it was a bit of a shock to people at school the next day. The response seemed to be positive overall though, thank god. I”ve had a few compliments regarding the new style but, strangely, the most common has been, “Your hair is really cute.” which is new to me. Being called ‘cute’ is strange. That’s not happened to me before.

I felt really uncomfortable for most of the day though. I usually just blend in with the crowd, and I am quite content with that. But suddenly, with a new haircut, other students and every teacher who I have been tought by in the last three years, told me that my hair was different (as if I hadn’t noticed) and most said that it suited me. It just felt wrong for so many people to be talking to me.

Anyway, the first day of my new look was over and when I got home, I looked in the mirror, and everyone was right, my hair does suit me.

I am so glad that I decided to cut my hair off, because I have never felt so confident, especially after what happened to me a few years ago (I think I’ve talked about that before). I am so pleased with the way my hair looks and I feel so much better about myself. And that is all on top of knowing that, because of what I’ve done, a young person who has lost their hair, will get a real hair wig. That makes me immensely happy.

Not only I am more confident with the way I look, but I think I’m starting to feel like I’m becoming the person I want to be. I’ve mostly stopped caring about what the popular girls at my school think of me, I live in mom jeans and Dr Martens now, I play my ukulele constantly, I’ve been trying to improve my singing and acting, I auditioned for a part in our next mini production at school and I got it, much to the dismay of the year 11 who also wanted it, but he got a good role anyway so it’s not a big deal. It’s taken long enough, but I’m finally starting to like myself, and I’m so proud of myself for it.

I still have a lot of things that I’m not proud of myself for, obviously. For example, I binge watched almost a full season of Parks and Rec the other day. Oops. To be fair, it is probably the best show that has ever been on television.

I’m finally getting happier, I have tickets to see Twenty One Pilots, and for a reason that I couldn’t figure out, I wasn’t excited, but now I am. I am so ridiculously excited. I know that isn’t because of my hair, but it’s still about me getting better, which is kind of what this post is about.

Also, I’ve been trying to do more of the things that make me happy. I’ve spent a lot of time with one of my friends, but now I’m kind of worried because I would honestly marry her in a heartbeat, she is literally the best person I have ever met. When I’m around my friends, and I can be myself, and it slowly helps me to build my confidence, because it helps me to realise that just because some people don’t like me, it doesn’t mean that nobody likes me. I love being able to just be myself with no boundaries. That is part of the reason I go to the drama club at my school, it’s full of theatre nerds, I wouldn’t fit in more anywhere else.

I know that this will sound so basic and stupid but another thing that’s made me happy is that there is a boy in my group for a drama piece who I think kind of keeps flirting with me. But it’s difficult to tell, because I’ve never been flirted with before. It’s just nice to know that people care about me to be honest. I don’t think I’d want to be in a relationship with him anyway (we’re teenagers, so it’s not like anything would be serious), but it is a nice feeling when somebody is really nice to you and they aren’t just doing it to make themselves look good. I can joke around with him comfortably and we just act like idiots, and people who you can be an idiot in front of are usually good people.

I should probably wrap this up now, it’s getting late.

Basically, do more things that will bring you joy and try to do good things. Donating my hair is probably the best decision I have ever made.

Goodnight. x

Feeling lost.

I haven’t posted here in a LONG time, but I want to start posting again…so here we are.

Recently, I have realised that I am finally becoming the person I want to be, but something just doesn’t feel right. I have been teaching myself to play the ukulele, I have started dressing the way I want to dress, not following trends, and I’ve decorated my room to make it a place where I feel happy and comfortable. I finally broke up with my boyfriend, which was a relief to be honest, but something just feels wrong. I don’t feel happy, despite having a good life.

Two of my friends suddenly became really close in the past couple of weeks, and now I’m That Friend who gets pushed out of conversations and ignored. I don’t know where I stand with either of them and it just makes me feel awful. Luckily, the drama club has started back up at my school, so I’m making more friends that way, but those friends will never be the same as the ones I feel like I’ve lost. Seeing your friend become best friends with your other friend is a horrible thing to witness, because in my case, the girl who I’m closer to out of the two acts so differently around me than around the other girl. And I know she’s faking her attitude and personality around the other girl because I’ve known her for ten years so I know her very well, and when she spends time with me, it feels so natural, but everything seems so fake around them. I know jealousy is an ugly trait, but its a really hard thing to avoid when the only person you feel comfortable with replaces you. I think this is probably the main reason I’m not happy at the moment. Because of my stupid brain being jealous of a friendship that used to be mine, I know that sounds ridiculous, I’m sorry.

I do get bursts of creativity when I feel down though, so I guess that’s a way to embrace the darkness, which is really the only thing I can do until this passes.

I just wish things would feel normal again.

I know this post is really short but its one o’clock in the morning. I’ll be back with a longer post soon. x

Feeling good.

I don’t have a very specific topic in mind for today’s post, I just really want to write because, for the first time in a while, I feel ridiculously happy. I’m not exactly sure why to be honest. It could be to do with the fact that this weekend it is my birthday but honestly, it feels like any other weekend.

My school timetable is a nightmare on a friday, but I’ve actually had a great day today. I just feel so loved today, by my friends and by myself. I finally was able to look in the mirror today and not hate what I saw. One of my best friends gave me birthday presents first thing this morning and even teachers were saying happy birthday because they saw the bag. I hugged my friend and it just hit me that I am so lucky to have such amazing friends. It is also so important to make people feel loved.

That gift and that hug from my friend honestly got me through a day from hell. I had two exams today and a load of lessons that I hate. But I just remembered how it felt to be around my amazing friends and I felt so good anyway.

Sometimes, you just need to hug your friends, it could honestly improve their mood for the whole day.

Tomorrow, I’m going out to do an escape room with a few of my closest friends and I can’t wait. Just thinking about it makes me all giddy and excited.

Thanks to that one small hug, I am so so happy right now. It’s almost midnight, but still, as I write this, I am dramatically miming to the Dear Evan Hansen soundtrack and I’m smiling like an idiot.

Sorry this post is short, I really hope I somehow can shed light on your day if it’s not been great and I really hope you feel good too, if you don’t, I hope you can find happiness soon. Remember to look out for your friends and hug them all, even the confident and funny ones, they could be hiding how they feel and a hug from you could really help. I’ll be back with a longer post as soon as possible. 🙂 x

Social media.

Social media is very controversial. On one hand, it’s great! You can communicate with people all over the world, learn about other people’s lives and keep up with the world. On the other hand, it’s terrible. A home for cyber bullies, edited photos and fake news.

Social media is something that I love and hate. I’ve made so many friends online and it is a place where I can usually be myself.

Social media is also part of the reason I lost all of my self-confidence and became ridiculously insecure, and still haven’t gained it back at all. I still feel awful about my body, insecure about my skin and embarrassed about my personality.

It all happened a few years ago, I think it was around the time of my 11th birthday. I received a message online from the account of someone who I considered a good friend that just read, “YOU FAT BITCH!”. That message hurt. A lot. Up to that point, I had never even considered that it mattered that some of my friends were thinner than me (I was never actually overweight, they were just skinnier than me). From that day, everything changed. I was constantly conscious of how I looked, and I became very insecure. And I still am. It’s horrible. I hate going shopping for clothes because I’m worried that I’ll just hate myself even more when I look into the mirror.

When I started high school, the issue just became bigger and bigger. Suddenly, you’re plunged into new friend groups. The populars and the nerds. You follow all the other new students online and that was what made my confidence worse. The popular girls were posting selfie after selfie showing their perfect faces, their perfect boobs, their perfect bodies and their perfect arses. I hated it. They were getting so many compliments for looking older than their age. I was just sat in my room, not wearing any makeup because I never wear makeup, living life as it came. I wasn’t trying to look 16. But at the same time, I felt a weird kind of jealousy. They are all seen as perfect by everyone at school and I’m just nobody. It’s kind of ironic though, they’re all single and I’m the one who actually has a boyfriend who loves me. I’m still stupidly insecure and I know I shouldn’t be, but with time, I have realised that there’s nothing to be jealous of. I have a small group of really close friends and that is what is perfect.

So yeah, social media kind of ruined my life. It changed who I am for the worse. But, I have also met so many great internet friends who I can fangirl to, so everything has a bright side.

Just as a sidenote, the boy who called me a fat bitch got sent home from his friend’s house from a sleepover because I told my parents, who told his parents. He apologised and said he didn’t know why he said those things to me (there were more messages). While I still think the boy acted so ridiculously asinine, he has apologised a hundred times and still does apologise for it quite often and he’s alright with me now. We get along fine. I don’t know if I can exactly forgive him yet, as I still feel heavily affected by what he said, but I’ve accepted his apology and he knows that what he did was very wrong.

Sorry if this post seemed rushed, it’s because I need to sleep but I really wanted to write today, I’ve had a very stressful day and writing helps.

Periods.

Oh my god did she just say period? Ewwww.

Yes. I did say period. Menstruation, that natural thing that happens to half of the population. And no, not “Eww”. It’s natural. And honestly I don’t know why it’s so taboo. Girls (and boys) need to know what to expect, what will happen, why it’s happening. And every person who menstruates should have access to products that they need.

Recently, I received a voting paper to vote for what I think the youth parliament need to discuss and what should be prioritised. I really couldn’t decide on what to vote for because there were two things that are really important to me and that I feel very strongly about: Mental health help in schools and ending period poverty.

I’ll be honest, I voted for mental health help because of personal experiences, but it took me all night to decide.

Period poverty is a very important subject to me because as a girl who has easy access to everything I need, I can’t help but feel bad that not every person who has their period is as privileged as me. Many young people miss school whilst on their period because they can’t afford pads and tampons. This is a problem. If you miss a week of school every month, you miss a whole lot of work and information and your grades will drop. You’ll end up missing about a quarter of your time at school.

I feel that every young person deserves the right to an education and I feel that period poverty takes that away for some people. It just isn’t fair.

Period products should be available for people in public and school toilets for free. The government already does free school lunches for less privileged kids, so why not free pads?

I just feel awful that there is very little I can do for the teenagers who are struggling with poverty and can’t even afford a necessity. I hope this is an issue that is dealt with soon, it is one that really bothers me.

Sexuality.

Sorry I haven’t posted in a while, I have had a whole lot of homework to catch up on (I still do, but I’d much rather write this).

Sexuality is a topic that can be (but shouldn’t be) very controversial. It is also something I feel very strongly about. One of the things that I hate most is people making homophobic jokes. I always call people out on it and explain to them why they can’t say stuff like that and 99% of the time, their response is, “Why do you care so much, are you gay?” And I always say that it doesn’t matter what I am, it’s still rude and totally not okay.

I feel like sexuality is something that people care a lot about, which is good, we need to move forward in this world. But why are people so bothered about other’s sexualities? Can’t we just accept each other? It’s 2018, come on, we’re all people. If you’re religious and aren’t comfortable with it, just accept that others are. Their sexuality is not your problem, don’t attack them for being who they are. Just let people live their lives how they want to. Let them be attracted to who they want to be attracted to, if they want to be attracted to anyone, that is.

Most of my friends say they’re straight, I have a couple bisexual friends but I don’t understand why everyone needs a label. It’s fair if you want to label yourself as a certain sexuality, say it loud and proud, you should be confident and happy in who you are, but I don’t think that we need every single person to be labelled if they don’t want to be.

Honestly, I don’t put a label on my sexuality at the moment. I’m thirteen, I’m living my life as it comes. If that means I end up crushing on a girl, that’s cool. Girls are freaking gorgeous. I’ve never had a problem with people having different sexualities, if I ever saw a gay couple when I was little, I would just be like, “Aw that’s nice, they’re in love.” And that’s still how feel.

Seriously, feel free to love who you want to. You should never feel ashamed of who you are. But obviously don’t feel pressured to come out, if you’re not ready, you’re not ready. No-one should have a problem with it. It’s your life, they can’t dictate your feelings. Sadly, in this world, it is possible that not everybody would take it well, but eventually, with any luck, they’ll come around to it and understand that it doesn’t matter who you fancy. If you don’t want to make your sexuality a big deal, then don’t, it doesn’t have to be. If you want it to be a big deal, that’s fine too.

Just never resort to doing something you’ll regret if you feel like you’re alone with how you feel, if you feel trapped. Please, don’t hurt yourself if you can help it, there are other ways to deal with how you feel. Talk to somebody online at least. You are not alone. ❤

An escape in fiction and fantasy.

Sorry I didn’t post last night, I ended up being quite busy with homework and stuff.

Nearly every person has various issues at school, and they can range from stressful days to extreme bullying. No matter what, everyone’s issues are completely valid. No-one should ever be told that their problem doesn’t matter because others have it worse. That problem could be really bothering them and saying something like that just makes the situation worse.

Anyway, many people, such as myself, use fictional worlds from books and TV as a coping method to help them through problems. Personally ,the reason I do it is because I can absolutely lose myself in a book. I can imagine myself going through that story, in that setting, with the characters. I get so invested in the story and I find it a relaxing escape from the troubles of the world at that time. It just takes my mind off of anything that may have been bothering me, even if it is just for a while.

I think reading is a great escape. However, I am not saying that you should just avoid your problems completely. If you are having issues at school, home, or wherever else you may be, speak to someone. If you can’t face speaking to someone in person (I have severe social issues and physically can’t speak to people sometimes), speak to someone online. There will be someone out there who understands what you’re going through and will try to help you. If it is a simple issue, such as feeling stressed because of too much homework, I would suggest speaking to someone in charge at your school (like your year leader or form tutor, if you have those). They could probably go through your homework with you and help you get through it.

Back to my main topic, an escape in fiction. I personally think that reading and sometimes just taking time for yourself is so so important. First of all, reading increases your vocabulary, and being well-spoken is a good trait in anyone. Next, in a strange way, it gives you a better understanding of the world, you learn about different people and for children especially, it teaches them about diversity and acceptance of people who are different to themselves. When I have children of my own, I will make sure that they understand from the day that they are born that everyone is equal, and no person is worth less than another, topics like that are really important to me and I feel very strongly about them. Lastly, reading is relaxing and I feel like, in high school, relaxing is something that you really have to do, otherwise, you will struggle and you will get stressed and tired, resulting in your grades suffering.

So basically what I’m trying to say is:

Reading is important.
Please, if you have issues with anything, try to get help and support.
Never try to avoid problems completely, they will just get worse.
Don’t let yourself get too stressed over school, it doesn’t have to be something that you dread.

Sorry that this post was quite rushed, I’m quite tired and it’s getting late. Thank you for reading 🙂

Dealing with bad days.

We all have bad days, some of us more often than others. And that’s okay. We wouldn’t be good people if every aspect of our life was perfect, because if we had a perfect life, we wouldn’t know how to help others, we would take things for granted and we wouldn’t know how to deal with emotions. So yes, it’s perfectly normal to have bad days, but what isn’t okay is not having good days.

Good days are vital. There needs to be something that lifts your mood after a few bad days. That’s why I make sure, if I’ve had a bad day, to find something that will make me happy the next day. For example, today I’ve had a bad day, I didn’t have any good classes at school, I feel ill and I’m exhausted. But tomorrow, I know will be better, because tomorrow, I have good classes and can spend more time with my friends. I have drama tomorrow, which is a lesson where I can just be myself, and that’s a good thing.

So, if you’ve had a bad day, try to make sure tomorrow will be better, think of something that makes you happy, whether it be a book, a TV show or even a friend, and try to focus on that for a while and try to lift your mood. If you yourself haven’t had a bad day, but someone you care about has, tell them that you care, tell them that you value your relationship with them, because they will appreciate it, even if it just lifts their mood a tiny bit. My friend was sat belting musicals and drawing with me the other day and she just turned the music down and stopped drawing and looked me in the eye and just said, “I love our friendship, it’s just so easy to spend time together and we can act like idiots and no-one cares.” Nothing in a very long time has made me feel better than that did. She made me feel so happy and loved. Please, try to make someone else feel that way. It’ll make you feel good too.

Physical Appearance.

Our appearance. The way we look. It’s something that, whether we will admit it or not, bothers all of us sometimes. But why are we so obsessed with the way we look? It’s not something that can be changed so easily. We will always have the same face.

A lot of people think, “God, I wish I looked like her.” but why? Your appearance should be something you are confident in. At the end of the day, no-one can say what features specifically make someone attractive. What we find attractive is individual to every person. Now you may not think you look good, you may wish you were somebody else, but to somebody else, you could be the definition of perfect. So why do we bother to make ourselves look “good”?

Most people would say they spend hours getting ready for themselves, so that they feel confident, but is that really the truth? They may not even realise, but most people aren’t doing it for themselves, they’re doing it for other people. It probably does make people confident when they look good, but most people subconsciously do it for a feeling of acceptance. If other people think you look good, you fit in, you’re an acceptable member of society, right? People want others to approve of them, to be impressed by them.

I feel like the pressures of looking good are even worse in high school. If you’re pretty and wear loads of makeup, you’re popular. That’s the (ridiculous) way of life in high school. I recently read “The Manifesto on how to be Interesting” by Holly Bourne and that story followed an unpopular teenage girl who decided to put effort into the way she looked and all of a sudden, she was loved by the whole school. (The story goes much deeper than that, trust me, its amazing). That is the painful truth of life in high school. But just because someone looks good on the outside, they could have a horrible personality, or they could really be struggling to get through life.

We all need to stop caring what others think. I assure you, the other people in your class probably don’t care how you look. They’ll be focusing more on being the centre of attention than to your slightly messy hair. Seriously, don’t worry about your appearance, school is for learning and for being with friends, it’s not a fashion show.

I have an idea, a way of becoming more confident in yourself that I will probably try myself:

Every time that you look in the mirror, try to point out one thing about yourself that you love. Even if it’s just the colour of your eyes or your hair. Slowly, you’ll start to realise that actually, you look pretty amazing, even if you do look different to someone you find attractive. We all look different (not counting identical twins I suppose) and that’s something that we need to embrace and accept.

If you are someone who is not confident yourself, or even if you’re just a good person, compliment other people, tell them they look nice, honestly, it really boosts confidence.

Being mediocre.

Being not the best but not the worst at something. This is a situation that can be horrible. Unfortunately, I have ended up in a situation where being mediocre is horrible.

P.E. In my eyes, the worst school subject of them all. An hour where you feel at competition with everyone around you, an hour where being nerdy or being clever doesn’t help, it only makes things worse. PE is a subject that I am not great at. Only, I’m good enough at it to scrape my way into the higher-ability group. This is what I hate. All the other girls in my PE class are popular and sporty and I’m just…not. It gets to the point where I actually feel intimidated by them.

I am at the bottom of my group, which is obviously not a nice feeling. I hate that I’m pretty good at netball, I hate that I’m okay at handball, that I’m okay at long jump and triple jump. I hate it because it doesn’t matter if I’m good at those things. The thing that seems to matter most, the thing that people pride themselves on, for God’s sake, even the thing we get graded on is being able to run. I CAN’T RUN. I can walk for hours on end but I just can’t run.

I’d much rather be top of the lower-ability group than be at the bottom of the higher-ability group. I don’t care what group I’m in, I just don’t want to feel ashamed of myself. PE is honestly probably the only subject I don’t care about. I care about drama, I need to build my confidence, I care about English, I love to read and write, I care about maths, it’s useful and could actually help in life, the same goes for all three sciences. But, for me anyway, PE will be useless in my future.

If you are in the same situation as me, or just getting through life in general, try to follow the advice I’m giving myself:

Just try to stop caring what others think. You’re you, that’s something nobody can take away from you. You’re individual, you’re an incredible person in your own way. Don’t let the fear of judgement ruin your day, just do you. If people care, that’s their problem not yours.

I just wanted to write this all down in an attempt to maybe calm myself down about dreading PE. Sorry that it’s rushed, it was just a spur of the moment post.

Just Another Teenager