A Life of Extremes

I live a life of extreme emotions. For days, I can be on top of the world – everything is going my way, I feel at peace, and I feel so lucky to live the privileged life that I do. Alternatively, I’ll have periods where all I can do is sit and stare at the wall, doing my best to calm the negative thoughts in my head – that I’m not, and never will be, good enough.

It seems that I live very much in the external world. It can take one wrong thing to push me down the hill, rolling and rolling further away until I can stop, pick myself up and start trudging upward again.

When I’m in those high moments, I try to hold on to that feeling. I try to show myself that I can feel joy, love and wonder. I try to bottle some of that feeling and save it for a rainy day. Right now, I’m having a low day, and the only thing I can do is remind myself that I once was okay. I was once joyful.

I suppose the important lesson to learn from this is that joy and happiness ebbs and flows – it is not a constant state. I get really annoyed at personal development coaches, blogs etc. that try to sell ‘happiness’ as something that one can achieve. No. How about achieving acceptance? How about letting go of trying to control our emotions? That’s what I certainly want to be aiming for. Life comes in all different colours and all of them are part of living a full, multifaceted life.

Sadness, anxiety and uncertainty needn’t be as painful as we make it. We can curl up in our pyjamas with a cup of tea and ride it out. Not wallow in it – that’s not what I mean. But feel it until we’re ready to let it go.

And as for living from one extreme to another – what I am working on is staying strong and unshakeable in my internal world, so that external factors cannot knock me over.

How do you deal with extreme swings in mood?

Feeling unmotivated? Here’s how to get out of that slump

I won’t lie, I am feeling pretty despondent at the moment. You know that feeling, where you just want to sit in your pyjamas all day watching Gilmore Girls and munching your way through a whole bar of Dairy Milk? Yep, that’s where I am.

Motivation comes in ebbs and flows. There are some periods of our lives where we feel like we can take on the world. We have all these ideas and energy for projects, hobbies and goals, and we are super productive. Then, maybe something happens – things aren’t going so well at work, or in your personal life, you hit a wall, or maybe it’s just bad weather…. and all the balls start to drop. Things you found fun and interesting are just boring to you. And you know that you should get up off your butt and do something about it but just…. meh.

When this happens (and it happens to all of us), it’s important to remember that these things are always only temporary, and we have the tools to jolly ourselves up again. How do we do this? I’ve come up with a few tips to beating that motivation slump and get yourself back to being a Proactive Polly in no time.

Recognise your patterns

If you’re anything like me, you’ll have gone through these slumps enough times to know what your triggers are. For me, if I’m feeling undervalued at work I tend to lose motivation. What are your triggers?

Make a list of the past few times that you have found yourself in a slump, unable to get your projects off the ground. What were the circumstances surrounding it? What was going through your head at the time? What happened last time to get yourself motivated again? Keeping a nice little piggy bank of memories is helpful so you can whip it out when you feel that dejection and exhaustion hitting hard.

Once you’ve got this list, you are better equipped to understand what motivates you and what gets you down – and up again – in terms of achieving your goals.

Allow yourself time to be lazy

Huh? What? But I hate being lazy! This is a stupid blog, I’m not reading this!

WOAH, hold your horses there and hear me out. Sometimes the mere thought that we should be doing something more, that there’s something wrong with us for losing motivation, can be enough to paralyse us in to doing nothing. Beating ourselves up is not the way. Instead, I propose this – let yourself watch TV in your pyjamas and eat junk food, and do all those things that you simply just oh my goodness SHOULDN’T be doing. Allow yourself to be lazy, and be mindful that you are the one in control here. You’re letting yourself do nothing.

Have you ever been a hermit all weekend? Seen no-one, talked to no-one, gone nowhere…. and by the time Monday morning comes around you are just GAGGING for human contact? In the same vein, soon enough, after a while you won’t in fact want to be lazy anymore. You’ll be bored. You’ll want to set yourself new goals and try out new hobbies. Sometimes you just need to let yourself wallow in that laziness before you can get there. So go on, I give you permission to watch re-runs of How I Met Your Mother. You’re welcome.

Don’t wait for motivation to hit

Yes, sorry. This is the unspoken rule of motivation – you can’t wait for it to come back around. Once that wallowing and self-indulgence in your lack of motivation is over, it’s time to get back to work. The motivation will catch up sooner or later. And sometimes, it can not be there for a long time, and things can be difficult. Sometimes it can be really hard to lift our head off the pillow in the morning and do the things because, well, who cares? It’s important to know and understand whether this is a typical cycle of motivation waxing and waning, or whether it’s a sign of something more permanent, however. How long have you been unmotivated for? Does it mean that you don’t enjoy what you’re doing anymore, that you’re not interested? If so, that’s absolutely fine. But give it time and don’t quit as soon as that motivation dies down. When we first start projects, we are fuelled by excitement and drive and ambition, but after a while that just isn’t there in the same way (much like ‘the honeymoon period’ in a long-term relationship). It’s there sometimes, but a lot of the time it’s just hum-drum every day life. Learning how to stick through those down times and still achieve is the true key to success.

And look at that – I made myself do this blog post even though I had no motivation, and I’ve taken on all my own advice – BOOM! It’s done!

What are your tips for dealing with a lack of motivation? How does this make you feel? Would love you to share your comments below.

C x

It’s cool to confide in people…

I’ve always been someone who wears their heart on their sleeve – I’ve told people my secrets, trusted them and been vulnerable with them. My mum used to say that this was a sure fire way of getting hurt – ‘don’t trust people too much, because they can use it against you’, she’d say.

In this day and age, more and more people are closing themselves off to avoid getting hurt. I get my mum’s point. There are some mean people who will exploit that kindness and vulnerability that you show. But for every reason not to confide in people and bare your soul, I think there’s a bunch of reasons why you should be vulnerable with others…

1) Closing yourself up can be lonely

There have been times where I have been hurt by other people, and I’ve closed myself off from love, friendship and intimacy. Yes, of course you protect yourself from being hurt. But you also shut yourself off from that warm feeling when someone makes you feel special. That moment when someone listens to you and doesn’t judge. Those moments are invaluable. It turns out that closing your heart off to love is just plain lonely. We should all feel proud of those scars we wear from being hurt, because it means that we were vulnerable enough to allow ourselves to get hurt. We were brave enough to open our heart to someone else. Being hurt sometimes is, I feel, infinitely better than feeling lonely all the time.

2) You give others permission to open up too

Have you ever had that feeling when someone confided in you about something, and you in turn felt able to confide in them? Human connection is so joyful because of these moments of vulnerability, but opening up is scary. There may be some people in your life who need you to set a good example. Imagine a situation where none of your friends told you anything embarrassing, shameful or scary. Chances are, you wouldn’t want to share anything back. Be that good influence and start off the practice of sharing with your friends to show that your friendship is a safe space and that you can confide in one another. You never know; that might have been the signal your friend was waiting for to finally be able to talk and get something off their chest – you could be saving someone from loneliness and fear!

3) You say ‘no’ to being fake

Being authentic in this day and age is so important. As a species, we are bombarded by fake things – through social media, we have learnt that people only show the best of themselves, and we’re deluded in to thinking that this is real life, and that showing the not-so-pretty bits is just weak. It’s time to break that cycle now! Let’s have those meaningful, weird, awkward connections with people to show that we’re all still human, we all have flaws and that no-one is perfect. Being authentic shows other people, and yourself, that we don’t have to live up to some ideal of the perfect life that we see on Instagram. We show the world that we are perfectly fine exactly the way we are, and by being authentic, we draw other people toward us like magnets.

How do you feel about being vulnerable? Are there any other good bits about being vulnerable? What have been your experiences?

C x

A letter for any teenager who feels lonely…

It’s a Sunday evening, and I’m reminiscing about being a teenager at school. I’m feeling reflective and a little sad when I think about how lonely I felt at that time in my life, how abnormal I felt. I feel like I’ve gone back in time; I’ve holed myself up in my room, switched on my headphones and am playing melancholic tunes to reflect my mood (Nick Mulvey, in case anyone is interested…)

I wanted to write to any lonely teenager who feels confused, sad, scared or angry just by existing. You aren’t alone. You might think you’re the only person in your school, nay, the WORLD, who feels like they don’t belong. You might have no idea who you are yet.

Spoiler alert: no-one knows what the hell they’re doing. When I was at school I felt like everyone else had their shit together; I thought I was the only one who got nervous around boys, who felt like a bit of a freak, who felt self-conscious, unsure and under-confident. The truth is, everyone is going through the same thing you are. Some people are really good at hiding it, but take heart in knowing that you aren’t the only own with insecurities.

With that in mind, consider those kids at school who are mean, who tease others, who bully, who spread rumours…. come on, there’s always a few, right? It’s easy to hate those people. It’s also easy to believe them when they tell you you’re a loser, that you’re ugly, or whatever it is they’re saying. I’m here to tell you that those kids are the ones struggling the most. Yes, seriously. I’ll repeat it. People who are mean to other people are the ones who are struggling with their own conflict the most. That’s why they’re cruel to others – to make themselves feel better. I’m not saying that it’s easier to handle those mean comments, but it’s never ever about you, or your worth as a person. It’s all them, and you don’t need to internalise all those hateful things they say. You can feel sorry for them; if it felt right, you could even reach out and help them. It’s possible they’re going through something a lot worse than you think.

Finally, know that things get better. You might feel that you haven’t found anyone else who’s like you, who understands what you’re going through. Being at school seems like it’s your whole world at the moment – because it is! But once you leave school and go on to wherever life takes you, you will meet so many more people, and you will find someone, or many people, who understand you and who you can talk to. You will find your tribe. And when you do, you will be so happy and you will feel so much more thankful for it, because you’ll finally feel like you belong somewhere after all that heartache and loneliness.

Hang in there. Take care of yourself. Share how you feel with someone you trust. Or if that’s too much, share it anonymously with me.

Sending love to all the teenagers out there – you are warriors.

C x

When ‘personal development’ becomes an obsession…

For a long time, I have been fascinated with personal development. Whether it’s reading self-help books, or motivational autobiographies, through to trying out the latest ‘self-care’ or ‘personal development’ fad, I’m there at the forefront of all the trends. To date, I have dabbled in daily meditation through Headspace, The Miracle Morning, Marie Kondo’s tidying tools, affirmations and visualisation, not to mention others. I have regularly started up new hobbies (netball, choir, volleyball, triathlons, half marathons, Spanish) and taken courses (yoga teacher training, a Masters in Sport and Exercise Psychology), all in the name of challenging myself, getting out of my comfort zone and developing myself personally.

To my family and friends (indeed, to the outside world in general), I look like a driven ambitious, confident woman who isn’t afraid to push beyond her limits. And don’t get me wrong, I really like that I want to do these things!

But if you look at the real story, it isn’t that pretty. It involves me starting big and difficult tasks, only to give up in despair. It means me taking too much on that I have no time for myself and eventually have to cancel something. You can find me berating myself, saying to myself ‘why are you so lazy that you can’t stick at anything? Why do you always quit things?’

Things are going pretty well for me at the moment, personal development-wise. I have a job where I’m pushing myself regularly and learning new skills. I teach yoga part-time. I have a blog where I’m posting new content regularly and developing my writing skills. I’m exercising regularly and setting new goals for myself. And yet, every now and then I find myself in an existential crisis where I say ‘This isn’t enough! You must do more! You’re only teaching yoga four times a week? That’s nothing – take on another one! And why aren’t you volunteering with a charity? How are you even contributing to the world? How are you even furthering yourself?’

I sort of came to the conclusion that the problem wasn’t how many things I was taking on, how much I’m furthering myself, how much good I’m doing for others and the world. I realised that my obsession with personal development came from never feeling like I was good enough. I realised that I could take on all of the things and run myself in to the ground and achieve achieve achieve, but I would still have that little voice in my head telling me that I’m not good enough just as I am.

That’s the balance that I – and all of us – need to strike. It’s really really good to push ourselves, to set goals and to do good for others. But when this comes from a place of inadequacy rather than an appreciation and love for ourselves, a capacity to say ‘no’ when we’re feeling overwhelmed, and the ability to feel proud of ourselves, it’s all for nothing.

I think a couple of things contribute to this. The first is social media. We can scroll through our newsfeed and find a handful of our friends who are pushing and challenging themselves in different ways, and we feel guilty for not doing that too. It’s important to remember that everyone is at a different stage in their journey and has different priorities. Also, there are a million and one different things we could to to develop ourselves; we can’t do them all! And the second is, for me, living in London. I am surrounded by people who do not stop, who pride themselves in moving and achieving constantly. It’s a lot of pressure not to feel lazy when you want a relaxed Sunday afternoon, when you know that there will be other people moving seamlessly with the fast-paced lifestyle that London demands of us. I think that this pressure to be ‘doing’ all the time can be really detrimental to our self-esteem and our mental health. I think of my parents, or indeed any of my friends who don’t live in London, and they don’t have this same affliction. I try to remind myself that living a fast-paced lifestyle is fun and awesome, but not sustainable, and that it’s important to kick back and be in the here and now regularly.

I’m taking slow and deliberate steps to be happy and thankful for who I am right now, and proud of myself for the things I achieve. I have cut down my time teaching yoga to 2 classes a week rather than 4. I make sure to only say ‘yes’ to the things I really want to do, and to tune in and listen to whether it’s coming from a place of fear, or love. When I find myself feeling inadequate, feeling like I should be doing more, I make a promise to myself not to schedule more things for myself until the feeling has passed and I can think rationally. Making a list of all the things I’ve accomplished in the past couple of months helps too.

I hope that I – and you – can strike a good balance between pushing ourselves and loving ourselves.

Do you have this problem as well? What do you find works for you? What is this obsession we have with ‘achieving’ all the time anyway?

C x

My Journey with Acne

I have had issues with my skin for as long as I can remember. The first memory I have of it was when I was in Year 6, and my teacher asked me and my group of friends ‘who here is getting older?’ All our hands shot up. Then he asked ‘who here has got stuff on their face that shows they’re getting older?’ I don’t remember feeling embarrassed about this at all, and once again my hand went up. He said ‘that’s right Charlotte – you’ve got spots!’

Looking back…. tactless! But at the time it didn’t bother me – I hadn’t internalised my acne to be something that made me ugly.

As time went on, my spots got worse and I was teased about it by other kids at school. I was never much of a make-up wearer (and I’m still not), but I would cake my face in foundation every morning, and take one of those concealer sticks to school so I could touch up my face in the bathroom. I was so self-conscious of my skin that I wouldn’t be able to look people in the eye. I would dread sleepovers because I’d have to take off my make-up before bed. I also had terrible spots on my chest, neck and back, so when summer came I wouldn’t wear strappy tops when hanging out with my friends because I was so embarrassed.

When I was about 14 or 15, I decided to try antibiotics for my skin. As far as I can remember, they really didn’t make much of a difference. I became really really strict with my diet – making sure I ate no sugar, drank no alcohol, ate 5 portions of fruit and veg a day, and drank 2 litres of water a day. This became quite obsessive and was something I let control my life for a long time.

When I was 15, I went on the contraceptive pill – oh man, what a treat! I don’t remember much of a difference in my skin, but I gained a lot of weight and became very depressed, so I stopped taking them.

Since then, I’ve been on all kinds of antibiotics and topical creams. My chest and back was relatively spot-free most of the time, but I would have terrible itchy, pus-filled spots on my jawline and my neck that just wouldn’t go away.

In 2016 (when I was 24), I decided to go on Roaccutane. For those who don’t know, Roaccutane is a very strong antibiotic that completely dries out your skin. It can also have devastating effects if you become pregnant while you’re taking it, so I had to go on birth control and take monthly blood tests and pregnancy tests.

The side effects I had when I was on Roaccutane included:

Awful dry, cracked lips
Muscle soreness
Fatigue
Depression

I had to come off Roaccutane early because of the strong side-effects. Nonetheless…. the antibiotics worked! The summer of 2016 was the best my skin has been since I was 10 years old, and I finally felt confident to leave the house without make-up, to look people in the eye, and I firmly believe that my new-found confidence was what was attractive to my boyfriend (who I met in 2016).

Fast-forward 2 years, and in 2018 my skin was bad again. I would get cysts that wouldn’t come to a head on my cheeks, and the itchy acne on my jawline and neck was back with a vengeance. I felt so upset about this – I thought that after the Roaccutane, my skin was cured!

A couple of months ago, I went to a dermatologist to see what else could be done. She recommended that I cut out dairy completely, and next week I’m due to start a treatment called KLERESCA – a special gel applied to the face, and then put under an LED light. Since November, I’ve done my best to cut out dairy, although I saw no results even after 6 weeks of this. I went on holiday to South Africa in January, during which time I was more relaxed about my diet (skin was terrible over the holiday just FYI!), and then when I got back I decided to cut out alcohol for a month. The combination of no dairy and no alcohol has now made the world of difference – I still have acne, but no more painful spots that won’t go away. Result!

The other change I’ve made is to take my Mirena coil out – the Mirena coil contains progestin, which I’ve heard can make your skin worse. It’s only been a week, so we’ll see how this goes as well.

To anyone who has acne and is struggling with this, I have some advice for you:

Know that it’s not your fault. Most of the people I know who have acne are actually the most careful and diligent with their skin, and most of the time our acne is down to genetics, not anything that we’re doing wrong. Know that it’s not something you can completely control.
I know the feeling of not being able to look people in the eye when you have bad skin. But I also know that other people don’t notice the state of your skin anywhere near as much as you do. Ultimately, we all think about ourselves more than we do anyone else, and so take heart that the thoughts you have in your head are way more judgemental than anything that anyone else is thinking.
Confidence is the most attractive thing in the world. I know many people who have acne, who have a happy disposition and tons of confidence, and this is what makes someone beautiful – their heart and soul, not their skin. I truly believe that my shyness and inability to look people in the eye was the thing that made me feel lonely and isolated more than people judging me about my skin. Smiling and looking people in the eye, although really difficult, is a starting point to gaining more confidence and realising that your skin doesn’t have to rule your life.

My journey with my skin isn’t over, but I hope that by sharing this, other people can feel like they’re not alone. My hope is that, one day, we can experience a ‘skin-positivity’ movement – where people can post selfies online make-up free and talk freely about their skin issues without feeling embarrassed or self conscious. So let me be the one to set a good example:

Do you have issues with your self-esteem because of your skin? How do you deal with it?

What treatments have you used? What worked for you?

C x

Why Yoga Helps You Get Better At Life

I’m a part-time yoga teacher. So admittedly I’m biased, but…. I LOVE YOGA!

Due to Christmas, being away on holiday and injuries, I haven’t been able to practice yoga as much as I’d like. I like to practice and teach a fast-paced, dynamic flowing yoga, and because of back pain I’ve been avoiding that and going for something more slow, which I don’t enjoy as much. Nonetheless, I wanted to share with you some of the main reasons why I love yoga…

You really see results quickly

I remember when I first started practising yoga back in 2013. I remember that first class being horrendous – I had no idea what I was doing, and although I had some level of flexibility, I had absolutely no strength and had to take a time-out multiple times. I remember feeling so despondent!

And yet, leaving that class, I really felt like there was potential to gain more strength and flexibility, and despite the struggles, I really enjoyed the class. I think that was partly down to my yoga teacher who made me feel so welcome and assisted me when necessary so I didn’t feel like a complete failure.

Sure enough, I started practising 1 or 2 times a week, and within the space of a month I had gone leaps and bounds in my practice. There’s nothing like the feeling of finally being able to get deeper in to a pose that you previously couldn’t do, or being able to do a handstand or an arm balance that you watched your yoga teacher demonstrate and thought ‘yeah errr…. no, I’ll pass thanks.’ I think that yoga has the potential to give you a lot of joy and a feeling of great accomplishment, because each time you show up on the mat you are gaining more strength, more ease in a pose, and even just a fraction of a change in flexibility feels like a big leap! Of course, this just makes you want to keep going back to deepen your practice even further.

With the right yoga studio, you find a community

Yoga has the potential to really connect people. I think that a lot of people are drawn to yoga because of their hectic, busy schedules, and wanting to find time for themselves. A lot of the time, people turn to yoga to work through some kind of trauma or difficulty in their life. If a yoga studio is doing their job properly, you can find a real haven of like-minded people through showing up on the mat. Especially in a big city like London, it can be hard to make new friends, and loneliness can creep in. Finding an hour a week to connect with other people, whether that’s before the class in the changing rooms, or on the mat in the middle of the class, is so valuable. It makes you realise that we’re all the same really – we all have difficult times and times of joy, and we all are looking for something to make life just a little bit easier.

With many yoga studios, there are lots of workshops that you can attend that help you meet like-minded people – that could be a handstand or arm-balance workshop, or something more spiritual. If you aren’t feeling like you have a community of yogis to connect with, I’d encourage you to have a look at local workshops you can go to.

You can see yourself more clearly

After you have been practising yoga for a while, you’ll notice that the yoga teacher will harp on all the live long day about ‘the breath’. Turning up the breath, focussing on the breath, quietening the mind…. and once you start to do that more, you’ll realise how often your mind wanders, and where it tends to wander to. For me, I have quite a competitive streak. When I realise that I’m looking at other people in the class and thinking ‘I can’t do that pose’ or ‘She can go deeper in that pose than me’, I know I’ve stopped breathing properly.

So when you start practising a lot, you’ll notice the types of thoughts that continue to come up for you. Do you find yourself getting competitive with other students? Do you try and find ways of distracting yourself? Do you berate yourself a lot for not being able to ‘nail’ that pose? When you start to become aware of these thoughts, you start to notice them in your life away from the mat as well – these patterns that we all fall in to. And when we start to notice when those patterns emerge, we can say ‘aha, I’ve seen you before’, and choose whether or not to let those patterns take control.

Say for example, you had a bad day at work and you thought to yourself – ‘this is a ridiculous job, I’m just going to quit and find something else!’ Perhaps that’s a thought pattern you find yourself in a lot – feeling like you want to run away and quit when things get hard. Maybe, when practising yoga, you find yourself falling out of poses quickly when they feel difficult. When you start to notice this, you can say to yourself ‘okay, I know that this is a pattern I get in to when I feel like things are difficult. I’m going to wait a week and see how I feel rather than making a rash decision.’ And there you go – you just chose to not let that thought pattern take control!

The title of this blog post is ‘why yoga helps you get better at life’. Now you have 3 reasons why – you get a quick feeling of accomplishment with regular practice, you can meet like-minded people, and you can free yourself of unhealthy thought patterns. Now there’s no excuse not to roll out your mat, or get down to your local yoga studio and sign up right now!

What benefits do you find when practising yoga?

Is there anything you want to add to what I’ve said above?

What other forms of exercise help you get better at life?

C x

Book Review: ‘Asking For It’ by Louise O’Neill

CONTENT WARNING: Discussions of rape in this blog post

I just finished reading ‘Asking For It’ by Louise O’Neill. The book is a young adult fiction book about a teenage girl who suffers a horrific gang-rape (the evidence of which is then posted on social media for all to see), and the consequences of this trauma on her, her family and the small town in Ireland where she lives.

I finished this book a week ago and I still can’t stop thinking about it, so I thought I would write a book review to start a conversation about consent, victim-blaming and the influence of social media. DISCLAIMER: I mostly refer to rape below in terms of female victims, as that is what is portrayed in the book.

This book is split in to two main parts: the first focusing on the life of Emma (the protagonist) before the rape, and the latter chapters detailing her life one year after. What I thought was really interesting about this book was that Emma was not, in general, a likeable character. O’Neill details how Emma is mean to her friends, steals from them and craves attention from boys and other girls at school. Her life is a constant striving to be the best at the expense of everyone else. When I’ve read other novels about rape, the protagonist is painted as an angelic creature who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, or who fit the generic ‘criteria’ of rape by saying ‘no’ and being aggressively forced in to sex. This novel paints a much more nuanced, and I would argue realistic, portrayal of the absence of consent. Emma, the main character, had been drinking heavily and taking drugs at the party, and had previously had sex (albeit not completely consensual) with one of her attackers. Not only that, but previously upon finding out that one of her friends was raped, Emma encourages her not to ‘make a fuss’ and not to use the word ‘rape’. Perhaps because she wasn’t seen as a particularly nice person to begin with, many of her friends told her that it must have been her fault, or that she was lying.

For me, this created lots of uncomfortable feelings when reading the book. On the one hand, I believe that it’s never consensual sex when one person is unconscious and cannot remember anything. However, it made me realise how easy it can be to place blame on the victims of rape for drinking too much, or the choices they made on that evening. And if that person has other negative qualities about them, it’s all too comfortable to say ‘they deserved it’ or ‘they were asking for it’.

I’ve definitely had my fair share of nights out where I’ve drunk too much and passed out. Thankfully, none of them have resulted in rape. If they had, I wouldn’t have deserved it, no matter how many mistakes I’ve made. Rape doesn’t only happen to the ‘good girls’ – and there isn’t anyone who deserves to be raped. I think this book does an excellent job of questioning our assumptions when it comes to this topic.

The other aspect of the novel that really affected me was the fact that Emma’s rape was publicly displaying and debated on social media – pictures of her in vulnerable positions, unconscious and being taken advantage of, were posted and subsequently commented on with abusive and hurtful comments. Even a year later, Emma is still haunted by these images, knowing that her family as well as the whole town has seen them, and she still replays all the hurtful things that were said about her. O’Neill does a brilliant job of weaving this in to the narrative, showing the constant slew of negative thoughts that are uncontrollable and take over Emma’s mind:

‘You OK?’ he asks me, but I can’t look at him. (He has seen the photos. He has seen me, pink flesh, slut, whore, bitch.)’

I’ve grown up mostly under the influence of social media, and I have seen how the protection of a computer can encourage people to say the most harmful things. I think social media really brings out these unconscious biases and prejudices that we would ordinarily never say out loud to the forefront – it’s as if typing in to a computer eradicates the censorship and thoughtfulness we have when speaking face to face. Not only that, but the vulnerability and exposure that Emma feels, knowing that the worst thing that’s ever happened to her, and something she can’t remember, was displayed across Facebook without her knowledge – it’s something that’s really stuck with me after finishing the book. I think that in this digital age, rape survivors are more afraid to speak out. The ease in which other people, even strangers, can find them online and target them with hate mail, is a scary prospect.

Ultimately, this book really made me think about different definitions of rape rather than the standard ‘she said no and he ignored it’. It made me realise that empowering and encouraging people to be confident about their own sexual rights, and to never feel like rape is something that you ‘ask for’ if you drink too much or wear certain clothing, is so important.

So if you are reading this and you are someone who feels like it is your fault if you are taken advantage of, know that there are good and kind people in the world who will believe you, stand up for you, and will help you realise that you are never ‘asking for it’.

If you have been affected by anything you’ve read in this blog post, there are a number of helplines and resources you can use:

http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Sexualhealth/Pages/Sexualassault.aspx

http://www.nhs.uk/Service-Search/Rape%20and%20sexual%20assault%20referral%20centres/LocationSearch/364

http://www.rapecrisis.org.uk/