Well, 2016 sucked

Okay, just to clarify, I have a lot of brain fog. Being able to speak and write sentences that actually make sense haven't been my forte as of late and for that I apologize and although this may make sense to me, it probably won't make much sense to other people. The grammar/punctuation/spelling may infuriate. It's just one of the many side effects of being mentally ill, I'm afraid. 

We lost a lot of people this year. The Orlando gay-club shooting. Christina Grimmie. Syria. Carrie Fisher. Alan Rickman. David Bowie. In no order, and just to name a few. It was an absolutely devastating year. To top it of, Brexit and Trump are in our future so even that looks dim and we all just have to hold on to hope and our own optimism to make the next few years great for us despite outside sources. 

For me, personally, I started off the year on a high note. I remember that I was visiting my grandparents' house. I was looking out of the window in awe at the fireworks, smiling into the moonlight and the beautiful bright stars thinking about the wonderful year I was about to have because hell, I was going to make it happen...wasn't I?

Nope. 

What happened instead was, basically, a series of unfortunate events and stupid mistakes that I take most of the blame for. 

I did some pretty amazing things during these mistakes, though. I can't just ignore those. I made three coach journeys this year via National Express. All of them were for about fourteen hours each. I left my home town, made several stops before I reached the destination. On those stops, the longest was for about two hours in a very busy city. This is quite a challenge for someone who is autistic/has social anxiety. 

I had my first kiss, my first sexual/romantic experiences in person and I lost my virginity (although I didn't really lose anything). Shortly after that, I am now in my first "proper" relationship with someone who I adore - even if he is a bit of an idiot. 

I finished my first year at college and went into my second year, and I am struggling quite a lot mentally with it but I have high hopes I'll get out alive. I return to college Tuesday of next week and I intend to hand in a form that requests to join Level 3 but this time, instead of Animal Care, it's for Animal Management. I am both dreading it and I am excited for it (and nervous that I won't get accepted at all). I feel a bit insecure that I'm 20 and still in education, and not university either.

I cut off toxic relationships completely. I'm endlessly happy they are not in my life anymore even though at the time I thought I couldn't be without them. I am fine without them. Much better, even. 

I finally got contraception, and the implant which is the one I wanted the most. I was meant to write some posts updating you the affects it has on me and how it feels and what it did to my periods but I've just fallen a bit behind on that, as I have with most things really. 

I now have some mental health appointments I attend. My next one isn't until the 12th and I have been holding things back but I think I can't get proper help without being completely honest so I'll have to try that. I'm grateful I finally receive some form of help as it's been a long time coming. 

I read about thirty-odd books this year. The rest, which added up to about seventy I believed, were comic books which is a recent interest of mine that I picked up this year and I am in love with them. They are perfect for when I want to read and want to admire art without taking too much energy from me that I do not have to give out. I have been in a reading slump since early summer, so I might ease myself into it via comic books!

I lost a close relationship I made in Febuary but gained some balls and contacted him. I contacted a few friends I had lost and only two, this one included, accepted my apology and I'm so happy that I made that challenging leap. 

Bad things happened, too, of course. You can't live a whole 12 months without that happening! 

I went through a break-up and it dragged out for months because I was unable to cut him out of my life. I managed to end our "friendship" the day after my 20th birthday in August and I was absolutely heartbroken for a few hours as he admitted in the argument that he had fallen in love with another girl and the reason we ended was because "he wasn't ready for a relationship". The lies hurt, too. I slept, woke up and was fine! The next month, my first month back at college, I met my current boyfriend through a mutual friend (his cousin) so it all ended up okay - we got together at the end of October. 

I lost my two best friends I had met in my first year of college, my first real life friends and the first friends I had a mutual connection with. It was entirely my fault, a mean joke that I never intended to be mean and they got upset and it turned into a nasty argument that we haven't been able to recover from.  I miss seeing messages from them. I miss spending time with them during our breaks and messing about during our classes like we're school children. I miss our heart to hearts. I miss our memories, the time we spent together, and how we can't make more. Most of all, it hurts seeing their life go on and I am not a part of it anymore. I hope one day they can come back, and I hate how they have cut themselves out of my boyfriends' life too (as he was part of it), it hurts us both. I can have hope. 

My mental health took a dark turn. I self-harmed. I cried and lost my shit in college and I never break in front of other people even though I am open about my struggles. 

I lost an awful lot of people this year, most of them just some good online friends. Some of it was via arguments and some of it was just because we didn't speak anymore. I miss seeing their names pop up on my phone screen. 

I went through an awful lot of men/half-assed "relationships" this year that took a massive toll on me and even though I'm in a happy relationship now I'm constantly on edge it won't last long! 

I did not spend much, if any, time on my blog. The aesthetic hasn't improved and nor has my content. I don't want it to get super successful. but I do want to develop a small community just to converse back and forth. I would love some feedback on my posts and I never get any. I don't market, I don't try to promote my blog at all, because I have no faith in myself and what I write and my style of writing. It needs improving and that's another reason why I want feedback.

I went through some tough times concerning my body image and I'm still struggling with that massively (no pun intended). I intend to be healthier in the new year, you'll see any goals I'm planning to make in my 2016 goals/resolutions post which should (should) be up on the first of January. 

There's probably a whole bunch I am forgetting here but this is the basic run-down. I want to put more effort into my blog is what the outcome of 2017 should be, one of the most important projects I want to work on, but juggling that with my relationship and college I have been finding difficult and sometimes you have to pick and choose what you should prioritize in order to make things mentally easier on yourself! 

I've also done something pretty big that should pop up in about two months? Maybe earlier/later. Big for me, anyway. I am super nervous about it. It is a way to promote by blog, spread awareness of female autism and take advantage of an opportunity that I know I can do - even if I don't believe in myself. If I remember to (which I probably will this time), I will post the thingy here when it happens and explain it in a bit more detail although it is pretty detailed in itself. I just didn't add everything I wanted to talk about. There was a limited amount of space and I can write and write and write. Too much, sometimes. 

That's my basic run down of 2016. I hope yours went better. See you in a couple of days!