MuffinMaddy

Cute ! Happy birthday :) I feel you on using the forum as a way to get away from real life sometimes. It's pretty awesome.

Went away for the weekend to see my friend I hadn't seen in 4 years. Definitely needed the time away, I have such a sudden burst of motivation to work hard and I've written 19 pages of my final year project (I have yet to finish writing the rest of my methodology, results and discussion) but I'm around halfway to the word count. I love my project, I finally actually understand what's happening - I personally find the molecular level hard to visualise in my head, so for a while I was just following the lab protocol but it's great to know what's actually going on. 3 weeks left of lab work, and that is me done. 4 x 3 hour exams in the summer and that's the end of my degree. I'm feeling really positive for the first time in a while, I had the realisation that pushing people away because of depression was just self sabotage. I'm very independent, but support from people around me has been instrumental in my recovery, especially since my dad died. I generally want to be more positive even for my own sake. I'll still be seeing my abuser around I don't want to let him "win" by letting anxiety consume me which it has done for a few weeks. I went to lectures for the first time in three weeks and I didn't have a panic attack or any reaction to seeing him which is great - he looks miserable and lonely which is an added bonus. I'm bitter like that. I was seriously ill last week because of my anxiety and I just don't want to be defeated by it.

Yeah that's the most optimistic possibility. I lose feeling in my feet when I have bowel movements and I can be in great pain that causes me to be bedridden. I considered calling security to get me to hospital it's that unbearable but it seems to have stabilised enough for me to sleep a few hours

Yesterday was the hardest day of my life emotionally. It was the day of my dad's funeral. There were several unsolved, not repaired things he took to the grave and its only now that I realised the extent of my anger. I need to forgive but it will take time, particularly because I'm dealing with domestic violence in my personal life at the moment

Man I have no idea how I'm going to cope in social situations. I've been allowed to stick to myself and quietly contemplate everything so far, but I'm going back to University tomorrow and I have a meeting with my supervisor about being strangled about a month ago. Sigh. My head really is not in the right space for my own drama - it needs to end like right now. I feel like time has frozen since finding out my dad died man.

I lost my first parent My dad died today

So essentially my manager called me today, saying that because the physical assault was between two members of staff (myself and perpetrator both work for the university) we need to go to a disciplinary hearing. He's been suspended from our workplace and I haven't. While this investigation proceeds, it's mandatory that he's suspended after which they will make a final decision about whether he continues in his position or loses his job. He may potentially also have to write an apology to me and/or pay a fine. Me, I'm not very vengeful - I would be fine with an apology and us keeping distance from each other but I can sense he is MADDDD And I hate making people angry/making more enemies if I can help it. Unfortunately I can't help it in this case, but his absolute rage towards me is concerning. I just honestly can't get over that there are people who condone unprovoked strangulation. I don't know why it's so hard for me to get my head around. But yeah 5 more months of university and then I'm gone forever.

Prosecco, Champagne, some bath bombs. Had a decent day - had a nice breakfast with my colleagues, then went bowling with my cousin and finally had dinner with some of my closest friends. I'm feeling weird mentally though. I have 5 minutes of intense depression to do with my recent issues with the guy who assaulted me, and then I'm back to normal.

bday 2day

I've been a member of Tip.It for only slightly under half my life :o I have been feeling really unwell because of heightened anxiety but I'm starting to get a little better. It's hard being sick when you actually need to also take care of yourself and you're alone but obviously that's just life. Writing a 3000 word essay on DNA sequencing.

So I'm in a positive frame of mind (subject to change of course) I haven't seen another human in about 3 days - my job is very independent and I'm working until Wednesday. I still didn't mind having a very low key new year - I watched the fireworks from my home city on my computer. Even after Wednesday I'm still going to be alone until Saturday when I visit my friend/have a birthday night out in the north of England. Obviously there's a difference between being alone and being lonely and I'm happy to say it's the former at the moment. I can't help but have a little bit of anxiety though - I blocked the guy who assaulted me two weeks ago, and while my life has massively improved and I'm happier, I definitely fear seeing him regularly in the future. We go back to University and even though he might get fired from our job, he is still on my course and we have a good number of mutual friends. He has expressed sincere regret, I've forgiven him but it would still mess my head up to continue to be in close contact so I did create space between us. Anyway literally to have a happy 2017, I pretty much need to consciously put dating to the back of my agenda - I had the happiest days last year single and totally doing my own thing without feeling guilt, so that will likely be my formula for the upcoming year too - I am personally in no rush to find someone.

I was actually kinda being tongue in cheek. I don't date guys based on the subject they study or if they play a sport. I play women's football and I was in the trampolining team two years ago. My ex was a tennis player and I'm fully aware that your hobbies don't inform your character /personality Anyway I blocked him, I think I need time to recover and I've written my statement, submitted the audio file and I'll try my very best not to think about the incident too much. I quit a shift at work for some space but I hope I can do my job properly when I return next week. Whatever the punishment ends up being, I do genuinely hope he can get help for his anger. In reply to you, ring world: I'm not much of an argumentative person I'd always just let him rant at me. Looking back I'm not really sure if I liked hanging out with him, getting high with him was always a laugh though. The sexual chemistry has got to be the best thing we had, I've never been so attracted to someone sexually but I'm cool with that being over. We always said that it needed to stop but it just kind of wouldn't... It sounds [bleep]ed up but I literally wish I could get closure to this. I never will though I just want to know what makes you strangle someone that clearly cares for you

I've joked about this before with a friend "My type is white boys who abuse me." But seriously, you have no idea what a baddie looks like sometimes. The boys I avoid are the stereotypical "would [bleep] with your mental health" types (DJs, sports players, business students) but at least you can see them from a mile off. I watch my friends get [bleep]ed over by these types of guys, but the behaviour of these types of guys is almost predictable, and my friends seem to bounce back pretty quickly. My ex boyfriend was a computer science student, seemed sweet, but absolutely destroyed my mental health in a two-year relationship. I've been single for seven months. This guy, Biochemistry student, once again, seems sweet, trustworthy. Invites me to events constantly. Absolutely continued the destruction of my mental health (but by this point I was used to people chipping away at my mental health) but then this guy physically assaults me and I have no idea wtf to think. I think one of the reasons I don't bounce back so quickly is because I'm hyper critical of myself, my actions - I wonder what I did so wrong to end up in these situations. Instead of accepting that people are horrible and nasty and that I didn't deserve to get strangled, I wonder what I could have done to avoid getting assaulted, and that's [bleep]ed up but I need to find a way out of that type of thinking.

I'm actually so selective with who I date as well, though. It's just that my selection is awful. I didn't date on my year abroad at all so I didn't really invest anything in anyone there, but I got attached to this guy pretty damn quickly and it was hard to loosen the attachment even when things became increasingly negative. I've already cracked, I've bought his "I love and care about you Maddy" spiel and unblocked him on WhatsApp, but at least I sent the report. I've kept the voice clip just to de-program myself so to speak and give myself the reality check that THIS GUY STRANGLED ME, WHY DO I STILL CARE ABOUT THE LEVEL OF PUNISHMENT HE GETS. I don't understand why all I think about is HIM and how HE will feel, why is the focus on him when I'm the one who's been physically assaulted? I can't seem to focus on myself because all I think is those "You're such a drama queen/stop victimising yourself/ stop being emotional" reactions to any time I displayed a remotely negative emotion. I just feel terrible because I'm one of his supervisors at our job. We do the exact same course. We live less than 3 minutes away from each other. This was always going to be a bad idea, but I always thought if we fell out, it would just be a clash of ideas, that it wouldn't be anything serious like this. We didn't even start out by dating, but maybe the drugs need to stop because it only became romantic after one of those nights. Either way, I am going to be clean for the entire month and try and get started/finished on some of my assignments due in for next semester. I have an average of 85% right now and I'm relieved that none of the crazy things that have happened this semester have disturbed that.

I'm not proud of myself. I'm very upset with myself that I am in this situation when I could have left months ago. My head is a complete mess over this and he's tried various tactics to get off lightly: Tactic 1 has been making me feel more guilty than I already do, telling me it's his final year of university and how he won't know the outcome and it'll cause him stress Tactic 2 has been telling me to tell my manager that it was a joke, or that I was too drunk to remember and that it's been sorted out Tactic 3 has been him getting in contact with my ex boyfriend and that circle of friends to find any dirt that would make me less credible Tactic 4 has been him telling me he loves me, that I'm amazing, that I'm caring, that he's never had a friend like me Despite all of this, I'm writing my formal report and it does make me a little concerned about whether I'll get into any trouble or whether there will be any retribution. At the end of the day, all that kept me in that horrible situation was affection and sex and it wasn't worth it for one second. I still haven't been able to stop caring about him, but I have a voice note that I need to re-play so that I can be reminded that he doesn't care, doesn't think it was a big deal to hurt someone that he supposedly cared about, who wasn't posing a threat to him at all.

Come to the end of the first term of my final year of uni. Incredibly eventful term, much of it spent under the influence of various legal and illegal substances. Slightly turbulent for my mental health but I had six weekly counselling sessions that showed some minor improvement. Bit of a sad end to the term as I was strangled by the guy I had been dating for two months so it's messed my head up a bit and I now have nightmares about being choked/strangled. And the best bit is he doesn't even know that what he did is actually serious. He's disappointed that I reported it rather than coming to him even though I spoke to him over the phone several times and each time was increasingly distressing as he provided several "reasons" why he did that to me. I'm actually really shocked at how textbook "This is what an abusive relationship looks like" my situation has been It started with him deliberately gunning for me with verbal criticism of literally everything I do, what I look like and I had grown used to negativity and being put down. I thought it was the price of the few/random moments of affection I got from him. I would genuinely be kissed by him in the morning and 20 minutes later, be shouted at for extended periods of time. I guess I put up with a lot more than a lot of other people would, as I got used to having a low opinion of myself. Every time I demanded more respect he'd just call me a drama queen. I bought that and just tanked all the verbal abuse for months. I guess the physical abuse woke me the [bleep] up, and the fear that consumed me made me run for the hills. I've since met up with him but only in public places just so he can provide some closure/apologise but there's literally no hope. I recorded his statement of "I didn't strangle you, I just yanked you across the room holding your neck" and I guess I'll give it forward as evidence although I do feel some guilt about whatever punishment he may receive.... He says "If you didn't stay over at mine so often, this wouldn't have happened"

Three weeks into my final year of University, struggling to balance my two jobs to be honest. I can't really leave either of them because one is essential for my chosen career path and the other one has given me my accommodation. I think the accommodation one will calm down eventually, there just seems to be an epidemic of really bad criminal behaviour on campus. My job is to essentially make sure that students feel safe and comfortable on campus, and I've been trained in mental health first aid and I haven't had to put into practice that training so far, but I've had to sort out big arguments that have become violent and I'm very surprised I've managed to do it. It's the highest paid student job available. In addition, I have to work a few night shifts that basically just mean I have a special phone on me that people will call if they need urgent help. The first line of responders are the people I supervise, so they sort out very trivial things, but they would call me if a situation was very intense, or sensitive. So while I often get paid for doing nothing (because I don't get calls), when I do get a call it means shit's going down. Also, I'm dating someone again and it's really nice actually to have company so frequently, I don't want a relationship, it's the company aspect that I'm really enjoying.

Bit late but I've been offered a place for a master's degree. I also sought some counselling for some of my mental problems and I just feel so happy overall. I've been drunk basically every night for a whole week which is something I'm not proud of but I've been able to repair feuds that have lasted years because of that because I've been able to just walk up to the people that I have bad blood with and just apologise.

I'm in Bologna now and I've probably been the best teacher this time round as I have a proper setup. I like my class and they clearly like me. Harmony with my colleagues is another story but tomorrow two Canadian guys are coming to help us out so I feel like the chemistry of our group will change hopefully. Going back home next Saturday. I've literally lived for three months in Italy and I'm kind of surprised that I managed to do it

I was in a region that was affected, so the school I was teaching at closed down and we had some time off but we went back on Friday to another facility because my company doesn't want to refund the money they made from the parents. I did feel the earthquake and one aftershock. It was a horrible, horrible night. I had a room mate who woke me up and told me that there was an earthquake and I didn't believe her for whatever reason, even though our beds were shaking, the whole room was shaking and the glassware had completely crashed from the cabinet. Earthquakes just weren't on my radar at all, I hadn't heard the word for a very long time. The family who were hosting us came to our room and told us that there had been an earthquake 6.2 magnitude and 10 dead. They said that the epicentre was a 40 minute journey from us. We watched the news as the death toll climbed and climbed and it's now near 300. It was very difficult to sleep again and I had no access to a phone to contact my family for a while. I had to go back to being upbeat and smiley with the children all the time whilst the gravity of the situation weighed heavily on my heart.

Well the earthquake was really horrible but I'm still working in Italy and trying to not get too anxious even though aftershocks are very intense at times The death toll keeps on climbing It makes me feel so sad when I think back to the night

Bloody hell being lost in Napoli wasn't fun but I'm off to see mount Vesuvius tomorrow!!

I've been travelling for a week hitting Genova and cinque Terre which was beautiful. I went to the biggest aquarium in Italy, totally worth it but was like ikea where I couldn't find the exit for nearly an hour. I'm now in Pisa and looking forward to taking a walk around the city, take some cityscape images

Seeing Cinque Terre NEXT WEEK

I'm doing a 40 hour week and I'm exhausted and feeling fatigued. Running after children everyday does it to you. Yes there are the sweet ones but I don't think I'll be working with children in my actual career