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!

Top Five Wednesday: Books I've Read This Year

Hello!

So, welcome to my first Top Five Wednesday (I think, it would be embarrassing if it's not...). I'm just going to be telling you my favourite books that I have read this year in no particular order, and believe me, it was hard to pick out just five. Anyway, hope you enjoy!

One. 

"A Monster Calls" by Patrick Ness. 

This might even be the number one favourite book of the entire year. It was emotional, beautiful writing style, beautiful message. It was gorgeous. The only thing I didn't like was the book cover, I think I prefer the other one. 

Two. 

"Over you" by Lucy Diamond. 

This was the first romance novel I have read that was written for adults, and I think that had a huge influence on my feelings towards it. But, Lucy Diamond's writing style has a way of sucking you in. The plot is okay, the characters are amazing. I really like this book. 

Three. 

"The Miniaturist" by Jessie Burton. 

It's been a while since I've read it and I didn't like it at first. It was a lot of stuff thrown in that I didn't quite understand, like why the characters and the setting was more modern for a book written in the 1800's, and it also wasn't what I expected it to be, I expected a lot more focus on the miniaturist and not the events in the house but the events in the house is what the story is about. Because I was so focused on knowing the story on the miniaturist, the ending was a massive let down and a plot-twist rolled into one. Now that I've had time to think about it, it sticks out in my head and I'm probably going to re-read in sometime in the future. I liked it a lot.

Four. 

"The Twins" by Saskia Sarginson. 

This book was slow at parts but overall, I really loved it. It was dark, it had some romance elements that didn't overtake the entire thing, it was very enchanted and "hippy" throughout the novel - not to say that it didn't have flaws, it was quite flawed, but still a wonderful read that is sticking to me and I can't wait till I find Saska's other work. 

Five.

"Carrie" by Stephen King. 

Throughout my childhood and even now, my nickname is often "Carrie" and I absolutely adored all three movies before I even knew it was a book. I expected the book to disappoint me, but it didn't. It was slow, and wasn't his best work, but overall I was pretty pleased with it. 

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this! What are your favourite books so far this year? 

- Loz x

Me and My Boyfriend's Second Anniversary! - How We Met

Quite humorous that we still haven't met yet, isn't it? 

*insert cute photo of us kissing in front of a waterfall or something here that we haven't gotten yet due to above reason*

*coughs* anyway, what would be a perfect couple thing to do for this date would be to do the girlfriend/boyfriend tag but we already did it here and here that I published late last month, so it would be pretty stupid to do an updated version this early (kinda wish I waited for July, but I completely forgot, to be honest). 

Due to him working and being in a long distance relationship (he lives in Ohio, I live in Wales), we aren't going to be doing anything for our anniversary. We might watch a movie or something, but that's about it. 

HOWEVER, I recently found an idea on YT through a pretty wacky woman who I have forgotten the name of and I don't think I'm subbed to her, where she had an anniversary journal that she shared with her husband of seventeen years. They had a photograph of them together on their wedding day on the front of the journal, and throughout it, she wrote about what she did on their anniversary along with photos and gas prices, bread prices and milk prices, which was the part that probably interested me the most. This is something I am not going to start anytime soon, we're clearly not married, but maybe if we do in the future, this is something we can do, thought you might wanna hear about the idea too! 

Back to the original point, I think it's time I shared that little story of how we met, don't you? 

Way, way back in April of 2013, I was with a boy called Dylan* who I had been with since August 17th 2012. We weren't happy together, that much was obvious. We would argue a lot, and constantly doubt each other, and would much prefer others' company to each others. It got so severe that we had a huge tiff around April 6th, and we broke up. This being my first proper boyfriend who I guess I loved, but wasn't IN love with (I realize this now), I was devastated. It took me down such a vivid and different pain then what I had ever have expected.

I went straight to my best friends at the time for comfort, and I will always hold it close to my heart how much they helped me that day. I spent the rest of April in tears, refusing to leave my bed unless for school, my grades dramatically dropping and in June, I had my exams - you'd think I would have been better by then? Well, I wasn't. I was very emotionally invested in a boy who wasn't good for me. We never even talked much on the phone, we only had two short and sweet conversations, of which I was the one doing most of the talking. Goodness knows why I was so distraught over this. But, I guess you are, when it comes to first loves.

Around the end of June, I had started to get over him and get 'out there'. I joined a dating website, one I had been using since I was fourteen (but I didn't meet Austin on there, no worries about that) but barely visited it. I was quite fond of being by myself, I found, with just my friends to talk to. I had no intentions of getting back into a relationship, but my personality hadn't done a complete turn over just because of a traumatic break-up, I was still needy of attention and that would never change. 

I went on Omegle, a lot. To be honest, I still do. It's entertainment, and you might be surprised to find out how many good people can be on there if you go on the question section instead of the one to one where you'll mostly just find people asking you for your age, gender and name, and probably where you live, too. Be warned, though, the amount of despicable people you have to get through first is like walking through the ocean with rocks taped on your every pore.  It's been a while since I went on there, I've forgotten the specifics, but you know exactly what I'm talking about.

I came across a boy. Not Austin, this was just a very wild, young boy. At this point, I was willing to talk to anyone. If you have never been lonely, then I can not describe fully how it can make you do the craziest things - but, hey, it turned out to not be so crazy after all. He gave me his Skype, so I added him. I had no intentions of ever doing much more then talking, but introduced me to an even wilder group of boys in a group chat. I eventually gained the courage to join them in a call.

Even crazier, I enjoyed it. Sometimes, I still find myself missing it. Going off the point again, aren't I? Well, anyway, Austin came along a little while later. Everyone in the call was talking about him, and how he was hard to get a hold of nowadays (whatever that meant). I was getting eager to meet him, even though at this point I only knew his Skype/Steam username and not his actual name.

Eventually, he arrived. I was mostly attracted to the voice, seeing as I couldn't see any of them. They were all very loud, we didn't get the chance to speak in anything but the text box. We found that we got along really well. And I mean really well. We were, of course, teased because of this. He then went on to message be privately, always checking if I was okay and saying good morning and making me feel welcome when the group calls were noisy and I wasn't being chatted to.

And then came the day where we got together. At this time, I was sixteen, and pretty naive of everything (still am, really). I thought the male had to ask you out, despite me being eager to do it. So...well, I told him to ask me out. I even said what he should say. When he did, I said yes (duh) and he spent a short while lying on his bed because he's an awkward soul who didn't and doesn't know how to talk to girls.

Ever since then, I have realized what actual love is and what it feels like to not feel belittled and unloved by your own partner. Sure, I may be only eighteen and he twenty-one, but it feels like I have found someone who, even if we're not together forever, will be with for a very long time at the least.

If you have gotten this far in the post, I thank you dearly, and I do hope you enjoyed it. Please tell me if there's anything in my writing you could say I need to improve, and I'll see you next time.

- Loz. 

* Names have been changed for the sake of privacy. 

Mid Year Book Freak Out Tag!

I've done so many tag posts recently, but this is probably the one that's going to be published first because, well...mid year tag. It's basically like a time limit. This is another tag created by ReadLikeWildfire. I wasn't tagged, I wasn't tagged to do any of these and I never tag anyone, I just think they're fun to do so if you want to do, why not? 

Best book you have read so far in 2015?

I can't even remember what I read in 2015, let me go check Goodreads one moment.  

Oh my goodness, I loved so many of them, this is going to be hard.

Hmm, it's probably going to be "Carrie" by Stephen King because, quite frankly, I realted a lot to Carrie in the movies but we related even more in the book, it was fast paced and enjoyable with a few slow parts but honestly it was a great book and will probably eventually be re-read. 

Best sequel you have read so far in 2015? 

This one is easy, I haven't read any series really apart from Bridget Jones and the Gone series by Michael Grant, and I have to say from the Gone series so far it's probably going to be "Hunger". It was fast paced, gruesome, action packed, wasn't slightly boring, so much conflict and insanity, it was excellent. 

New release you haven't read yet but want to?

I don't much care about new releases, I see a book and if I think it looks good and it's cheap then I buy it, and that's the extent of how I read. But, I am really looking foward to Ransom Riggs' "Libiary of Souls" coming out in September, which I believe is the finale of the trilogy. "Hollow City" left with such a cliffhanger, it was horrible, I'll be re-reading those this late August so that my memory is refreshed by the time Souls comes out. Although, I do have a new release that I'm planning to read soon, "Mind Games" by Terri Terry. It came out in March, so I guess it doesn't count as a new release anymore, does it? I don't know, I don't care, I'm interested in the book. Nobody on my GR's has read it yet, though, and I'm not sure how good or bad that sign is yet. It'll let me develop my own opinion on it though so I can't wait to read it.

Most anticipated release for the rest of the year?

Again, "Libiary of Souls" by Ramson Riggs, I'm pretty ecstatic about that. 

Biggest dissapointment? 

An awful lot of books lately have been a dissapointment, probably because of the reading slump (that I think I have reached the end of, yay). Probably a middle-grade favourite for a lot of you Americans, but we never read it here in the UK - at least not in the school I went to - but "Hatchet" by Gary Paulson, it was so boring and so slow paced and I get that in a real survival, it wouldn't all be on your toes so yeah, it was realistic in some parts - although, not really - and I want more of it explained, like how life was like when he got back home in more detail, but he never really described anything I wanted to know in the book in detail. No idea how he managed to stretch that book out into a five part series, but he did. 

Biggest surprise? 

I haven't read that many books this year yet, so I really don't have very much to go from, but it was probably "Hunger" by Michael Grant as I really didn't like the first book very much, it was okay but it wasn't my sort of thing and the only reason I wanted to continue on with the story in the first place was that I had the whole series on my bookshelves and I didn't want to give them away without at least trying them first, because if I didn't hate or dislike the first book I will usually go ahead and read the second book anyway. I thought it would be just the same as "Gone", but it wasn't, it was better. 

Favourite new author? 

Not a huge fan of romance, but probably Lucy Diamond, I just love the type of people she writes about and how...sweet and lovely it is to read one of her books, especially when going through difficulties in life or having just pushed through a particularly difficult book. I love her. Even though her writing is not perfect. I also really like Saskia Sarginson, and can't wait to buy her next new book, "Without You". 

Newest Crush?

Eh, nobody. None of them really struck me as the type of charecter I would want to know in real life. I haven't got around to reading my new Rainbow Rowell books, though, so maaaaybe one might come soon, who knows? Right now, though, none of them. 

Favourite charecter? 

Diana from the "Gone" series, Coraline from "Coraline", Carrie from "Carrie"  and Nella from "The Minaturist", I can't really pick between them. 

Book that made you cry?

Books...books don't make me cry. "Carrie" made my heart feel quite sad, and "Diary of a Young Girl" (Anne Frank) always does make my eyes water, but books don't really make me cry. I haven't cried since I read TFIOS two years ago, but that was two years ago, if I read that now, I don't even know if I would like the book enough to make me want to cry. 

Book that made you happy?

All of them did, in their own way, I can't really pick out one. "Coraline" by Neil Gailman is a book I am reading right now, so I'm just going to go with that one, the cover is gorgeous and it's such a scary, awesome story that if I ever had kids, I would love to read it to them. 

Favourite book to movie adaptation that you saw this year?

Aside from "Coraline", I'm not a big movie person, I just watch horror/thriller/suspense type of movies, or family friendly type of movies, and I never usually watch movie adaptations from books, I just read the book. 

Favourite review that you have written?

I'm not really a fan of any reviews that I have written so far, I'm still learning my style of writing and the way I want to write and what I want to write about and how I will entwine the information I want to say about the book into a well written and well structured review, so right now, I haven't written anything I can look back on and be proud of just yet. 

Favourite books you have bought this year or received? 

"My Sister's Keeper" by Jodi Picoult because I only have that on kindle but I loved the book so much that I don't understand why I never bought it in paperback, and I saw a non-movie edition for cheap in a charity shop and was amazed. I also found a first edition hardback of Harry Potter "Order of the Phoenix" and a first edition paperback of "Deathly Hallows", so now I have three first edition hardbacks and three first edition paperbacks. I'm pretty happy about that. I'm pretty glad that I finally own "Carrie", and I also found the White Rabbit Chronicle trilogy for £5 and I was thriled about that, too, but I still haven't read it. 

What books do you need to read by the end of the year?

Uh, hmm. I want to get the White Rabbit Chronicles out the way, read that book by Ransom Riggs, finally finish the "Gone" series, and that's all I really want to finish by the end of the year, anything else is just going to be freestyled, I read what I please.

Thank you very much for reading, I hope you stick around to see more, g'day!