The Liebster Award!

I’m VERY excited to say that I’ve been nominated for the Liebster Award! Thankyou Mentally Questionable for the nomination – to any readers who haven’t yet discovered her blog, take a look at it. It’s an excellently worded description of life with anxiety and depression, and it’s helped me a lot to feel that someone truly understands. So thankyou for the nomination!

The rules of the Liebster Award are:
1. Acknowledge the blog who nominated you and display the award
2. Answer 11 questions that the blogger gives you
3. Give 11 random facts about yourself
4. Nominate 11 blogs that you think are deserving of the award (with less than 200 followers)
5. Let the bloggers know you’ve nominated them
6. Give them 11 questions to answer.

So I’m not going to nominate 11 blogs in this entry today, but I will nominate a couple and then do the rest over the next few days. I’m going to start by nominating jedspencer, a very new but powerful blog about caring for someone with anxiety and depression and how it affects his life, I look forward to reading more from him! I’m also going to nominate I am better, but I am not well, because I’ve really enjoyed her posts in the short time I’ve been following her and I find they’re very well worded and thought-provoking.

Okay so now onto the questions I have to answer!

1. Is there a skill you wish you had?
Yes. I would love to be able to draw. I’ve never been all that great at art, I’ve never had much patience with it, but it’s something I would love to be able to do.
2. What do you consider to be your biggest achievement in life to date?
This is a tough one. For me, getting through each day is an achievement, and when I notice myself doing something that a few weeks ago would have panicked me too much to do, I feel proud of myself and consider it a huge step forwards. So I guess my answer is surviving with anxiety and depression.
3. If you could go back in time, what would you tell your ten year old self?
I would tell myself that I am beautiful and special and not to let anyone tell me otherwise. I would encourage myself to hold onto that knowledge, and to repeat it to myself every day in front of the mirror.
4. What’s you favourite food?
It depends on the day. Like anyone I love junk like cookies and chocolate, but I also LOVE a home-cooked roast dinner, complete with LOTS of vegetables. I love vegetables and I don’t eat enough of them.
5. Are you artistic?
No. Well, not in the sense that I can draw or paint. But I think I am creative if that counts? I love thinking up ideas for stories I might write one day.
6. Do you have a guilty pleasure?
Cookies. I hate it about myself because I know it’s no good for me, but if there are cookies in the house I have very little self-control. I eat them in a ridiculously short length of time.
7. If you could have a superpower what would it be, and why?
Hmm. I would love to be able to fly because it’s always been a dream of mine. I love the idea of soaring through the sky, leaving all my cares behind and just enjoying nature. Invisibility would be pretty cool too.
8. Do you keep up with the news?
Not really. I don’t have a TV so the only way I find out what’s going on is through Facebook or occasionally checking BBC’s website. I wish I was more up to date, but at the same time I like not knowing about all the horrible stuff that goes on because it depresses me.
9. Which celebrity would you love to meet?
I think I would love to meet J K Rowling. I was a huge fan of Harry Potter when I was growing up (I still am, actually), and I also recently read her book The Cuckoo’s Calling, which she wrote under a pseudonym. It was a fantastic book, and it intrigues me that she chose to write under a false name. I’d love to speak to her about that, and about how she got the idea for The Cuckoo’s Calling.
10. What bad habits really annoy you?
People picking their nose and just getting rid of it without a tissue. Also, it frustrates me when people talk slowly, or when they take forever to get to the point of what they’re saying. I lose patience with that pretty quickly!
11. What do you hope people will get out of your blog, if anything?
I hope that reading about my journey with anxiety and depression can help someone who’s struggling with similar things. Life can feel incredibly lonely at times, and it would make me so happy to know that I’ve helped someone feel less alone in this world.

Okay, so now I have to include 11 random facts about myself.

1. I’m a complete Doctor Who geek. I love it. My favourite Doctor is Matt Smith.
2. I play the piano. I’ve played it for as long as I can remember. I taught myself when I was young just by playing things from memory, and as I grew I learned to sight read. I had piano lessons in high school to improve my sight reading and technique. I love the piano, it’s my favourite instrument to play and listen to because it’s so versatile and sounds so lovely, and it really relaxes me.
3. I got married when I was 18. That shocks some people. But it’s worked out wonderfully for me. I knew I’d found the person I wanted to marry, so I thought, why wait?
4. I’m terrified of turning 21 next month. And I can’t particularly give any satisfactory reason why. I just don’t want to grow older.
5. I used to tell my sisters stories when we were younger. We all shared a room, and so I’d make up stories to help them get to sleep. It’s a fond memory of mine.
6. I hate log flumes. Rollercoasters make me nervous too, but I love them. But log flumes…no. They feel so unsafe!
7. Once, when I was about 10, I beat a whole room full of teenage boys at Scalextric. I still feel smug about that. I’m pretty ace at it.
8. My dream is to perform on stage in the West End (UK equivalent of Broadway). I love musicals and I’ve always dreamed of singing on stage.
9. I love Disney’s Frozen, because I think Elsa wonderfully represents what it’s like to have depression. I can really relate to her inner turmoil. “There’s so much fear.”
10. I’m secretly curious about what it would be like to skydive. I’d never have the guts to do it because I don’t like heights and I would literally feel like something would go wrong and I would die, but I’m sure it would be completely exhilarating.
11. I went to Egypt on my honeymoon. It was amazing, so interesting and rich in history and culture. The only down side was that we went in July. It was like an oven.

Okay so my questions for those I have (and will) nominate are:
1. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?
2. Do you like your name?
3. What was your childhood dream, if you had one?
4. If you could be the best at something, what would you choose?
5. Are you close to your family?
6. Do you have a role model?
7. What’s the scariest thing that’s ever happened to you?
8. If you could have a superpower what would it be, and why?
9. Do you have a celebrity crush? If so, who?
10. If you had a time machine and could travel anywhere in time, where would you choose to go first?
11. Why do you write a blog?

Enjoy! I’ll nominate other blogs over the next few days.