Mirtazapine and Me: We're back here again

Wow, that was officially the most depressing blog title I could ever have conjured up. 10 points to Rebecca for that one. I noticed recently I have been far, far too wrapped in work to even update my blog. So, tonight's the night. Hola gente hermosa! Please don't hate me too much for not writing. 20 points for whoever translates the spanish in any of my blog posts, I'm slowly learning more. Answers on a post card.

It's been a while since I've done a mental health post and that's for two reasons. Firstly, back in the summer I made the decision to come off of my medication because I was in quite frankly one of the most amazing places in my life, physically and mentally. Secondly and more recently, I'm in perhaps one of the lower places in my life. Not the lowest though, the lowest was when I first started on my medication this time last year. Yeah, that wasn't pretty. Anyway, I digress. I haven't wanted to do a post on mental health because I've always viewed this blog as showing the positives in life and how to deal with mental health and view it in a positive manner, or at least as positive as it could be. This post is designed to show you all the more honest side of things.

We all fall off the wagon, in some way, whether it's a diet plan, a project, studying or in a job. We all do, we can all agree on that one. I fell off the wagon at the latter end of September and the early start of October. Due to the stress of coming back to university and the sobering reality that I wasn't living my beautiful, crazy, island life anymore. Morph and the black dog hit me, hard. I found the first month and a half of uni immensely difficult, not in terms of content or deadlines but because I was scared that I was falling back into a dark place. I had grown scared of taking my medication, I had grown scared of reaching out for help. I just wanted to run, I had many thoughts of dropping out and I'm not ashamed to admit that. 

I'm very glad to say I'm out that phase, thanks to some very fantastic people; to my mum and dad for reassuring me that no matter what decision I would've chosen, you would've been proud, to the faculty rep at the university for giving me a massive wake-up call, although you may not of realised it at the time but you encouraging me to go for the course rep position re-ignited the fire in me keep going, you reminded me of the passion that 6 year old Rebecca had. And brought that passion back to 20 year old Rebecca. To my course mates, for being the beautiful people that you are and giving me the support network that I needed, I love you all dearly.

Now that I am out of the woods, almost, I'm taking my medication properly again. I've got renewed drive to succeed in my degree and just win at life. I've come out with my first 1st of the year in an exam last week, I've gotten heavily involved in the university's sub-aqua club and am currently helping in planning the international trip for January 2017, I have the opportunity to go Malaysia in September next year. And how could I forget, I'm going back to my beloved island for 5 weeks in the summer.

Even as I'm writing this post, I'm feeling much more positive about everything, laying it out on paper has made me realise that I have so much to look forward too and so much to give this year.

It's been a hard few months, I won't lie. However, I realise that even in the darkest of moments, I still have my scrappy doo attitude to life, there is no point giving up everything I have worked so hard for until this moment, there was no point in just taking the easy way out. If you take anything from this blog post, guapa, just remember, that no matter how dark it gets, no matter how bleak it feels, there is no shame in reaching out, it will help you immensely, and you will get through this.

As always, if you read this and you feel low, or sad or just want a vent, please do not hesitate to contact me.

2nd Year Begins. (The Return, Now It's Personal...)

So, lovely readers, we can now get back to usual proceedings in my blogging. Yes, it's the return of lists, it's the return of goals, it's return and this year, it's personal. Much love to my Dad for inspiring this blog and it's title. And to my brother, if you're reading this you will get your blog soon. In fact it's about to be written after this one and put on a schedule to be posted in the next few days. Muchos love.

I digress (Wow, we truly are back to normal proceedings.)  But yes my 1st semester of my second year back here in home sweet Hull has begun and I'm thoroughly enjoying my new modules thus far, they are actually something that I want to chase in my life. As promised though, this will be in list format and in that list it's time to outline some goals, and a quick review of all the goals I put up in my first blog about university life last year. Drum roll please...

The Magical, Mystical list of Rebecca's goals this year!

Numero Uno - Firsts All Round.

Yes, I am still chasing my goals to come out of my degree with first class honours, I've had the warnings from my peers that I'm going to burn out this year. And yet again, I will choose to disregard them, sorry guys, I know you say it in kindness. First year taught me a lot about myself and the way I operate, I know that I can push myself to almost (almost being the key word here.) to breaking point and still come out of the other side. In fact, I have no fear in ending every day exhausted but having achieved something because I know how worth it it will be. I also have something now that I didn't exactly have in the beginning of last year and that's an absolutely fantastic team of course mates who are as driven as I am, And I genuinely don't give them enough credit for how amazing they are. So guys, this one's for you. *raises mug of tea* 

Numero Dos - Stumpy.

Those who know me well enough, and one customer in Gran Canaria who allowed me to witter on about one thing that I am truly and utterly passionate about (Thanks Jacqueline!) And that's Stumpy the Orca. To put it in very brief terms, Stumpy is an Orca located in the Norwegian Fjords. Researchers can only but guess that she was involved in a collision involving some form a speed boat. This has caused him to lose most of her dorsal fin and immense damage to her back. This, as you can imagine folks, is severely debilitating for an organism that has to eat such an immense amount of food to survive, and travel massive distances in their lifetime. Things weren't looking great for this young Orca. However, he has been seen with no less than 5 other orca pods. And wait for it, the coolest thing is every pod knows how to look after Stumpy in some way, whether it's stunning fish and bringing it too him, or half eating a fish and giving it to Stumpy. This altruistic behaviour is rarely seen anywhere else in the Animal Kingdom, especially by other pods or families of the same species. Within a module of 2nd year and I am able to write an essay on any form of any behaviour that interests me.

This is it.

Numero Tres - Looking Ahead.

To follow on nicely from my last point. I have been thinking one hell of a lot lately what I would like to study for my masters degree and then hopefully for PhD. And that's Animal behaviour and looking more in depth at stumpy's case study and case studies of other Orcas with a similar issue, And hopefully go on to to looking at more of a reason as to why this occurs. I have a few theories form the research I've been doing but I have a few people I need to run this past first.... slight problem of having to survive my degree first and then get funding... yep.

Numero Quatro - Dive into it

Ha, can you see what I did there. Ah, okay, I'll sit here smiling silently to myself. But I'm currently ready and waiting to begin my volunteer post as a Dive Master with my local dive shop, and I can't wait. The BCD has been dry for too long and I need to get back to being used to wearing a dry suit, plus I just have a natural yearning now for diving. I basically just need to grow gills, this is the level we have reached ladies and gents.

I believe these are my key goals for this academic year, and well, academic life. Plus I'm struggling to recall all the spanish numbers to make my points with, whoops. But I've decided not to create a list of goals as long as my arm this year. I achieved what I wanted to do last year and that's get my 1st in first year and by hell or high water, I'm going to do it again this year. That's very simply my one goal and I have to keep that central to everything right now. For the sake of Stumpy! Kinda... That's just what I keep telling myself anyway.


Fin.

Who is Becca?

It's nearly 1am here in Hull, I'm sat in the kitchen alone, hearing the noises of a new home. The creaking of the floorboards, although strangely, nobody is moving. But in this almost silence, I'm very much deep in thought and it's thoughts I wanted to write down.

Throughout my entire 20 years and a few months on this earth, I have never liked my name being shortened. The line "It's not Becky, it's not Bec, it's Rebecca." Falling from my mouth in a very similar fashion and tone as my mother. But in recent months, I have accepted Becca as a more tolerable alternative. Predominantly because customers in Gran Canaria just defaulted to calling me Becca, why, I have no idea whatsoever. This began to become the running joke in my family, that when I'm in that wet suit I'm "Becca the Dive Master." It's suddenly got me thinking over the last few days, what's in a name? There's a lot more to Becca then Rebecca. People always used to ask me how I'm so confident in situations like public speaking or meeting new people, despite the anxiety problem. It is immensely easy to fake being confident, it's very easy to put on a mask and the more you do it, the more natural it becomes and the more you adopt it into your normal persona.

And that above, is the whole point of this blog post. I have adopted "Becca" as my persona. You see, when I was in that wet suit, when I was Becca, I had so much confidence, I could brief a full boat of people and be confident about it, I could conduct introduction dives and have a laugh and a joke whilst doing so, I could put people at ease when I was diving with them (Shout out to the Italian family I did a double tank dive with, you guys were fab!) I have noticed ore an more recently that I'm transferring a lot of the "Becca" traits into my "normal" life back on land. I stand a little taller, I'm a heck of a lot more confident and eloquent when putting new ideas to a group of people, I can now handle most situations, I can even make and receive phone calls to people I don't know, - level up!

By putting myself in a situation that I knew would be uncomfortable in the beginning, I have completely changed myself and my outlook on life. I like to believe that Becca is a cooler person *puts on shades* No? Okay... Anyway, but Becca is the person that 13 year old me always wanted to be, the girl with the nose ring, the slightly blondish hair that doesn't ever really fall right, the girl who is always planning her next adventure, the girl who will ever give up on her dreams.

To try and round off this blog post, and to allow you, dear reader, to take something from it. I want people who are scared of social situations, scared of doing that presentation in class next week, or maybe, like me, you get a little bit nervous when it comes to paying for you shopping at the till. To make a persona for yourself, it doesn't even have to have a name, just create that version of yourself that you want to be, to create the self-fulfilling prophecy. And soon you will be conducting that presentation or even talking to that cashier with more ease and confidence.

Until the next post, guys, be good and be safe.

Moving On

This blog post is going to be a little bit different in comparison to the ones I've done before. There won't be any lists, just me chattering away about how life has been in the last few months, why I haven't been blogging too much and my new goals and ambitions. It's been a perspective changing few months and I've had a really hard time readjusting back to normal life. This is partially why I haven't been blogging too much in the last few weeks either, I don't want to let go of the happiness I felt when I was over in Gran Canaria, I found the lifestyle for me, I found the career path for me and I didn't want to have to face the fact it's over. But this is where that famous quote comes in - "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it's happened." And I'm trying my best to keep smiling because it's happened but it's hard. I've tried to write the blog posts summarising the last few weeks that I was out there but I can never finish them. This will probably be quite a short blog post due to the fact that I just want to complete one and get it out there following such a long hiatus.

So I'm going to try now. Yes, I'm now a PADI certified Dive Master, I finally completed the stress test without killing off Ryan, or completely emptying the tank, I could conduct introductory dives for customers on my own and although there were a few teething errors in the beginning in, I was getting better and better every time. I als achieved something that I thought I never would whilst I was out there. I'm now also a Discover Scuba Diving leader.This means I can conduct the PADI Discover Scuba Diving session by myself now. In order to get this certification I had to conduct 4 DSDs under the supervision of a PADI instructor (Big applause for Sam who saw me through these!) I conducted one in the middle of the 8 weeks, although this was a apart of my Dive master internship to see if I would be interested in being a DSD leader.

To cut a long story short, my next DSD would be to the most difficult customer I would ever face and that was my own Dad (I would also like to add after I had taught my Dad on his DSD, we had the amazing opportunity to see how to teach 5 DSDs at once, thank you to Ryan and Sam for letting me part of that, it's certainly taught me a lot about logistics!). During my last week out in GC I had one hell of surprise when my parents facetime me and then pan the camera round to show me a beautiful picture of Anfi beach behind them. After crying considerably and regaining some composure I ran from patalavaca to Anfi. It was an absolutely amazing experience and I'm truly blessed to have parents as understanding as them - To such an extent they were fully prepared for me to turn around at the end of that week and say I wouldn't be going back with them,

This leads me on nicely to both my short term and long term goals. As much as it was immensely tempting to stay in Gran Canaria and become an instructor, university has to come first and it always will. So my main goal right now is to absolute smash my degree and come out with a first, then at the end of the next two years, I will be ready to go back to Scuba Sur and begin my IDC. However, there are some things I'm ding in the middle now that will keep me ticking over. I'm now a member of the Above and Below dive team here in Hull and I will soon begin assisting them with pool sessions and hopefully out on some dives too! Through them my goal by the end of this academic year and before I go back to gran Canaria for a holiday next year is to become an Assistant Instructor and hopefully get my EFR instructor done too, they're effectively the pre-requisites for becoming a PADI instructor, so I'm doing this in stages, and I really can't wait to see what the next chapter of my life brings. All I know is I've found my calling in life and I will chase it, and nobody will stop me.

My time as a DMT and in the latter stages of the 8 weeks as a DM has been the most educational and thrilling experience of my life, I cannot thank my Scuba Sur family enough for all the individual lessons you taught me. I'm going to end this blog post here for now but I'm settling back into uni life at the moment, waiting for lectures to start - I can't wait to get stuck in! Bring it all on. Until next time, dear reader, be good.

The Diver's Log: Confidence (And my lack of)

Hello again beautiful people! It's that time of the week again where I round up how my third week as a DMT has been. As a major starting point I can say that I'm now having consistent better days. By this I mean that things aren't entirely perfect yet, and we still have a lot of polishing to do in terms of my briefings, my skills and a whole lot of work to do on my sense of direction. The thought of guiding a dive in the near future is quite frankly terrifying me. Then again, two weeks ago I never thought I would have the confidence to sit in front of a group of divers and deliver a briefing, I now do it quite a few times a week and I'm also now able to give briefings, debriefings and guide snorkelling trips. I suppose that's what this week's blog post will be about - Confidence.

Now before I begin I would just like to point out that what I say in the next few paragraphs isn't a sob story or a pity party, it's just some background to my life so you can understand how I've reached this point in my life. After a conversation with my brother this morning he made a very interesting point of saying how much I've grown as a person in such a short space of time. Let's rewind here, back around 12 years. I went through all of my primary school life and a little bit into my secondary life coping with being bullied. Every. damn. day. Because I was "the fat kid" because I was clumsy, because I was odd, I was different. That destroyed any self-esteem I had well into my late teens. I can remember clearly my mother sending me to a self-esteem help "club" for children when I was about 8 or 9, just to try and help me get my confidence back and over time and little by little I suppose I did. I certainly developed a front of confidence so that I could protect myself should any other bully come along I was lucky that they didn't and I have the most amazing friends and family in the world.

I digress, back to the comment my brother made - that in 4 years I've gone from being this girl who would rarely leave the house, who was very sheltered and struggled to be away from her family for too long. University came along and I had to adapt and I did to an extent, I still suffered terribly with anxiety and depression but I worked through it. I look at where I am now compared to 4 years ago and I'm genuinely amazed. I never dreamed I would travel 2,000 miles by myself, let alone be working in a foreign country. But I'm here and I'm doing it and just that in it's own right makes me immensely proud of myself and I'm not afraid to admit that.

I never believed in my life that I would be able (to some extent) handle some of the logistics of the dive operation, such as making up the boxes, weight belts, making sure there's enough tanks loaded. Being able to talk to customers so freely and so confidently and actually feel this damn good about myself and what I'm doing. I got so used to asking people "Did I get it? Was I right?" and they would always respond with "ah kinda, you're close but not quite." At this point in life I have people telling me that I'm doing a good job, that I'm improving by the minute. Yes, okay, I'm not perfect but I have never felt this validated in my life. An I know that the only way is up from here.

I guess I have my team to thank for all of this; To Colin for being the best mentor anybody could ask for, for constantly pushing me to be the best I can be, we may have a lot left to do but we're going to smash this together! To Dave for being the gaffer, the boss of the base and for always being around to offer a hug, some kind words and for knowing how to cheer me up (usually there's chocolate involved.) To Sam, for well just being Sam, you sir have a wicked sense of humour and you inspire me everyday with your sheer ambition to succeed.
And last but not least to the lovely Ryan, thank you for teaching me everything you know about casting out the anchor, even though I can never get it exactly right, so you're amazing for putting up with a clutz like me.

And now none of you can say I don't mention you in my blogs. ;)

The Diver's Log: Night dives, Briefings and Stairs...

So, I tried to do a blog post title based off of "Lions and Tigers and Bears" close enough, right? Anyway, today we can celebrate my survival of my second week as Scuba Sur's DMT. It's been an interesting week to say the least but in my own opinion, crossed with the words of others and the lack of bollockings from my mentor towards the end of the week; I do believe I'm starting to show some improvements. I certainly haven't blown any O rings off of cylinders this week and I've remembered my weight belt everyday *Insert fist pump here* (Sorry, Mum.)

I should probably tell you all what exactly being a DMT involves. Let's just roll this back a bit, a DMT stands for Dive Master Trainee. Now as a trainee there are lots of things I have to be able to do to gain the magical mystical title of a Dive Master. There's a few main elements so just allow me to explain them all briefly:

 Timed Swims:

It's probably not much of a shock to you all but you have to be relatively good swimmer in order to become a Dive Master. You have to swim 400m without any scuba equipment and then 800m without the use of your arms but with fins, mask and snorkel. During the 800m your face must be in the water for the whole of the exercise, unless you are taking a quick look up to check your direction. It took me a couple of attempts to get my 800m time down but after nearly killing some poor old gentlemen because he swam directly in front of me even though he had the whole beach to himself. I'm happy to say I've ticked off both of these timed swims. The only thing left for my time swims now is a 100m rescue tow, sounds easy but when you're in full scuba gear, I can assure you it's exhausting.

In addition to the timed swims there is also a treading water exercise but I was given full marks for that; Thank you RLSS for putting me through the 15 minutes of treading water sessions with arms extended.

The Stress Test:

If I called the equipment exchange exercise where you trade mask, fins and BCD with a buddy then you would probably look a me and say it's not stressful. However, there is one very important element to the stress test. There is only one "operational" regulator. You are sharing a regulator with your buddy. And this is the point where I would like to formally apologise to Ryan for ever so nearly drowning him by taking too many breaths. I hated this exercise when I first did it but after some practice attempts with my mentor of just taking the BCD off and him being in control of my regs I can hopefully say that the next attempt Ryan and myself make should be much better.

24 Skills Circuit: 

Skills tests, if you're a diver on any level you will know that in order to complete a course you have to complete a certain amount of skills so you have the appropriate training for your appropriate level. Mine consists of 20 open Water course skills and 4 PADI skin diver course skills. I wouldn't mind just having to do the skills but it has been over a year since I've had to perform some of the skills and I have to get them up to demonstration standard before I can pass. So by hell or high water (and with the help of my mentor and some youtube videos) I can and will get there.

Including all of the above being to satisfactory standard you have to have at last 60 dives to pass but we've nearly surpassed the half way mark for 19 days of being here so that's not too bad really. Then there's also a theory element and a final exam.

So apart from practicing all of my DM skills, timed swims and the notorious stress test this week has been fantastic for me in terms of breaking down some serious walls in terms of my anxiety. About three days ago my mentor announced to me I would be giving the pre-dive briefing to customers about a dive site called Bahia Lila. I was terrified, I've usually been pretty good with public speaking but this was different, or at least it felt that way. But the time came around for me to give my first briefing and it was going well until I sat down on the boat afterwards. "Shoot, I forgot about lost buddy procedures." I was lucky in this instance because we were diving with experienced divers and they had been warned this was my first briefing. The next day came around and I gave the briefing again and this time I'm pretty sure I covered everything because so far neither the boss nor my mentor has pulled me up for missing anything. Brownie points for Goodwin.

The other wall I managed to smash down was my fear of night dives, when I was doing my advanced open water course last year I had the chance to do a night dive but the fear of getting disorientated was too much and I opted to do something else. So after skipping last week's night dive due to a confidence crisis, it took 3 instructors to convince me to go for the experience and I'm honestly so glad I did because after a few minutes of working out my buoyancy I loved it, the sighting of a grand puffer fish and a massive sting ray just absolutely had me made up. Ever seen an over excited marine biologist before?

Just as a side note to my fellow divers, be aware of your tank positioning because if you should slip and fall down a set of near vertical stairs into the water below, it could save your back, I was very lucky that my tank took the full hit. Also make sure your jacket has some air in it too, so you just float back up to the surface. In other words, just don;t be as clumsy as me if you can help it.

I think I'm gonna leave it there for this week guys, I know his as been a long post but I can't put into words how stressed, how exhausted but how truly happy this job makes me. Yes, you have bad days in this industry but with a team like mine I know that even if I have a bad day they are there for me and they never fail to make me laugh with their antics.

Upon Review: 1st Week As A DMT

Hi all, since I got such good feedback from my last post about my first day as a Dive Master Trainee (DMT) I felt it would only be natural progression to move onto how my first week as a DMT went. This post won't be any candy coated truths, it may show some vulnerability on my part but that has been the function of the blog from the beginning. To be honest, to be truthful and to be open because it may just help one other person out there who could be struggling,  in a new job, in a new country or in an internship. Or maybe you can have a laugh at my expense too!
My first couple of days on my internship were interesting to say the least. Those who know me know that the line "if it can go wrong, it will go wrong" has a tendency to follow me around wherever I go and whatever I do. This couldn't be any truer than now. I've blown O rings out of cylinders, I've jammed a tank valve (although actually, that wasn't my fault, it just had to be attached to my BCD at the time.), I've forgotten extra weights, weight belts and to top it off, on one occasion where my mentor and myself were doing an introduction dive, guess who forgot to turn her air on. Yep. So I snorkeled the entire thing. So at this point I'm already in the minus brownie points. And my mentor has lost a considerable amount of hair in the last week.

However, everything that has happened has taught me how to do something new. I've learnt how to replace O rings, rig up tanks to the compressor to be filled, that a wrench is a perfectly good tool to use to jam your tank open so you can dive with it, I've memorised a checklist in my head like it's second nature so in the last three days I don't think I've forgotten anything (To my fellow Harry Potter nerds out there a rememberall would be fabulous round about now.) I've also gotten over my fear of snorkelling, Although I will always retain the fact I'm a scuba diver, not a snorkeller. Oh and now I have an overwhelming paranoia of making sure my air is on.

All of these things are only practical aspects but in the last week I have learnt a few things about myself, how I operate, how I work. This trip was never meant to be on of those "self-finding, tree-hugging, mud spa experiences", I knew it would be sun, sand and hard work but I guess when you take on endeavours like this you can't help but discover some things. I've known for the last 5 years I have been a hard worker but this last week I felt the mental and physical strain of burning the candle at both ends; so working in the day, then coming home and reading up on the theory side of things, sleeping and repeating that entire process. It wasn't until yesterday when by chance I ended up on the beach for 20 minutes after work and I jumped in and just enjoyed being in the water, not having to worry about timed swims, scuba kit or students. It's time to stop operating like a machine and start working smarter, not necessarily harder.

And I think I'm going to leave it there for this week folks, it's been a hard week and mentally draining so I'm going to enjoy my day off today, be lazy and recuperate. But enjoy this lovely quote below in my absence.