Negative voices

Ok, so I have been meaning to write this blog post for over a month now, but for some reason I have been letting the negative voices inside my head get the better of me, in fact I've been letting them have a full blown negative party in my head, whereby they invite all their negative pals along to increase the negativity and have a full on rave!! It sucks and is nearly getting to the point where it's making me ill.

But what's causing all this negativity you may ask? Looking back over the last few months it seems as tho it's a number of things.

I returned home from lambing in Scotland at the beginning of May, with the intentions of concentrating on my small cottage design business. To start off with it was great. I attended a few shows, networked with other stall holders in the industry, and basically enjoyed being back in the swing of things.

The feeling didn't last however, and the thought of being stuck behind a sewing machine, on my own, day in day out just filled me with dread. Was this really what I wanted to be doing? Is this really what I had returned home from travelling and working elsewhere to do? It didn't feel right at all, so I started applying elsewhere for jobs back within the agri sector. Of a different kind however, more admin based.

I attended knowledge transfer events, spent hours questioning my future and again spent hours applying for jobs to which no responses or results returned......which the later had proved very annoying to say the least! Amoungst all this, on my journey of developing a new, adventurous future, I had been struck with a majority of the same response on what life is about........and unfortunately I was finding it a very negative and unhelpful response at a time when I was looking for as much help as I possibly could.

In my last blog post 'stuck at a cross road' I explained how I was unsure which road to take for the next part of my career in life. I had done the seamstress work for many years, and part of me still enjoys it, and the other part of me had embarked on another enthusiastic part of my life, farming. But I had been and done the main thing I had wanted to do on my bucket list, and since my return I hadn't thought or added the next new activities to my list.

People kept telling me life was about doing any old job that brings in an income for you to live. 'Unfortunately you can't always have a job that makes you happy', was the response I was always being told. So your telling me that I need to just get a job and deal with the fact that I'll probably be miserable doing it but that I'd just have to deal with it as it earns me money to pay the bills? Come on....seriously?

I had come to learn over the years that this type of misery strengthened my depression, and what brought me to the point of almost having a complete breakdown. Did I really want to put myself through all that again? I think not.

I may not have known exactly what type of job I wanted but I was determined to give anything in the agri sector a go. However two months of solid applying for jobs in this sector and no responses what so ever started to make me feel worthless, like it would anyone else I'm sure. Does it really take that much for someone to write a small email just to say that I have been unsuccessful?

Add in a few other things which had happened over those months and the negative people in my head were starting to double, even treble in numbers. 

I've always been a perfectionist and it's something that doesn't help a person like me with depression. I always work to the best of my ability, and constantly double check things to make sure they are right. But sometimes things can go wrong, things which are totally out of my control, but it makes me feel like a failure. And so the start of the negative voices in my head begins.

They tell me I'm useless, that I'm no good at what I do so I should just give up. Then those negative thoughts develope into comments like 'they'll never want to speak to you again' or 'they'll hate you forever and tell everyone else how useless you are' etc etc.

These thoughts keep on expanding to the point where I just feel numb. Almost like a zombie, staring into space and allowing the negative thoughts to have a huge party inside my head. Every time I think that I can get up and do something, an activity or a small task, the voices jump into my head and tell me I'm useless so there's no point in even trying to do that task, as I'll be no good at it. They could be simple tasks like going for a walk. 'You'll see someone when your out walking and they'll look at you and think your useless and no good' would be the thoughts that would develope from a simple thought of possibly going for a walk. This is how ridiculous it feels, but for some reason they are starting to get a hold over me.

When I returned home from my travels I was so full of enthusiasm, positivity and always seeing the good things in life. I wouldn't worry about what I wanted to do that day, I would just go and do them. But there was something I noticed while being away, and that was home was a very negative, moany, and lacking enthusiasm kind of place compared to where I currently was, New Zealand. Don't get me wrong there were people who were happy but we do seem to like to moan a lot in the UK. I returned home with the plan of not being negative or letting the negativity get to me. Unfortunately I hadn't even been home six months and I had begun feeling depressed again. It's amazing how quickly it affected me.

I've also come to learn after working with the young stock both abroad and here in the Uk that I absolutely love working with stock. There's something about it that I can't quite describe that makes me feel extremely happy everytime I have worked with them and after working with them. Oh my god am I missing working with them,it's crazy!! Seeing all the pictures going up on social media sights of this years calving season in New Zealand makes my heart sink and just want to be involved and working with them again. The fact that I haven't been able to do that much with livestock since I have been back hasn't helped my depression at all. Now people may ask why cant I do it at home, with the family farm, but unfortunately I wish it was that simple.

So all of these things have caused me to feel nearly back where I was before I bought my tickets for New Zealand. In fact if I had the money now to buy a ticket to fly away again, I would of booked it by now, however a small glimpse of positivity finally came from constantly applying for jobs, and I start a new job next week. I also enrolled on a new college course in agriculture which starts in September. These are after all two very positive things out of everything which has happened, but believe me I'm still having to fight off the negative thoughts really strongly, to realise they are positive prospects for my future.

The new job will give me some structure to my life again, and the college course will help me learn about an industry I am enthusiastic about. Someone asked me last week that did I still feel going to do a course in agriculture was a good idea after everything the industry is going through at the moment? Of course I still think it's a good idea. If the agricultural industry doesn't have positive,enthusiastic young people coming into it, hoe will it ever survive. We need agriculture more than people realise.

So it's actually taken me five days to write this blog post, simply because of the negative thoughts in my head constantly telling me 'who'll care about your negative thoughts', but I came to realise I don't write these blog posts for others to read but it's more importantly a way of doing something to try and help me feel better.

I'm not quite sure at the moment how I can go about working with livestock alongside my new job and college assignments, all I know is that it is definitely something I need to have in my life.

H xx