A Bundle Of Nerves

Posted on November 12, 2012 by The Savvy Senorita | 6 Comments

My mind can take a swim in the anxious soup, but I now know it is self defeating nonsense.

Sometimes I feel we push ourselves to our limits, to the point of physical and mental overload. We should all permit our brain and body ‘time out’ on occasions by letting go of those pressurising and punishing ‘interjects’. ‘Interjects’ are all too familiar in out lives, they dictate to us; ‘I must’, ‘I should’ or ‘I have to’!! ‘Interjects’ can drive people to feel anxious and unworthy.

I have learnt to see the pressure building whenever ‘interjects’ are included in the equation. For me it is then important to step away and question what is so important about these interjects. Will the world end tomorrow if all of my ‘to do’ list isn’t completed or the impossibly high targets I have set myself cannot be attained? No, it won’t! Whether I am an emotional wreck melted into a pool in the corner of the room or not, the world will still continue to turn on its axis! Bex’s issues not important to the world’s continuum!

My problem is I take too much on at once, which is fine, but I also need to remember I am not infallible, invincible or a super woman!

Another significant issue for me is social anxiety; interacting and feeling confident with others. Though the anxiety surrounding this has declined somewhat over the years, it has taken hard work on my part to tame the nonsense.

Since I was in school I have been blighted with anxiety, surrounded by insecurities and feelings of extremely low self esteem. I always hated how all of this impacted on me, my life and interactions with others. I therefore worked on changing it as soon as I felt able.

I actually did the reverse of running away and hiding from the world, I took on college courses and employment that would force me to interact, and pushed me constantly to be confident and social. This ethos worked; to a degree, though I am not ‘cured’. Note to add: ‘cured’ or what we perceive denotes ‘normal’ for everyone else and their lives. How do we know what normal is exactly? We don’t, it differs from person to person. So ‘cured’, no I am not, and don’t want to be as this is me.
It is not about curing, but managing what is part of you, and accepting it to a point.

Anyway, now I am here in Madrid, and I have had to make a new life for myself, yet again. This life now includes learning a new language, which anyone who has read
nosotros-no-hablamos-ingles-well-i-only-speak-spanglish-as-english-is-my-comfort-blanket
And
Brain Plasticity
Will know from these posts that I am struggling with it!

You see, there are still times where I don’t always take well to being deprived of my ‘comfort blanket’!
I get anxious and this anxiety can prevent me from being the best I can be. I manage it, but if I let it, it will run riot through my life.

Anxiety for me is like something else taking over how you feel and think; it’s debilitating, something deep within is blocking you, preventing you from living a full life and being a happy person.

Regardless of how anxious or under confident I might feel, I endeavour not to submit to that inner voice, and I won’t let it win, control and dictate me, my life and how I see myself. It won’t ruin my quality of life basically. Though, it isn’t easy; I know that and you know that.

Some days it’s like being in Hell, stuck in my own mind which is running a hate campaign against me. Just feeling comfortable enough in my own skin to be able to go out and face the world, seems like a miracle. Yet, being in unknown or daunting situations has helped boost my confidence, and changed how I have perceived myself, my capabilities and other people. So, it doesn’t mean that having anxiety will prevent you from living a life.

You see the reality is; things are never as bad as we imagine them to be. In our minds we have the tendencies of building mountains out of mole hills and Demons out of Angel’s. Only we have the power to stop doing that!

Now I know, and see that my thinking patterns can be irrational. So I query myself; what am I being afraid of? People are just like me and full of their own insecurities, and no-one really pays that much attention anyway (too busy with their own shit)! Am I going to even give a damn about what ‘fools’ think about me? Am I going to relinquish power over myself and my life to them? And the answer is; Hell no!

I can really empathise, and not in a patronising way, with how crippling anxiety can be to the ordinary and everyday life. I only hope you can take something from my experience, and what I have written here. I hate seeing people going through this shit for nothing, and then watching their life being taken over by it all.

The best thing to do is talk; tell it to someone else you can trust. Once the bad is released from the secret darkness of your mind none of the anxieties will look so powerful and overwhelming. It is keeping the anxieties a secret that maintains their power over you. Let them go, and question those inner doubts whenever they speak.

You can do it, step by step!

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© Bex Houghagen and The Savvy Senorita, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Bex Houghagen and The Savvy Senorita with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

The Fight or Flight – Home Owners V’s Burglars

Posted on October 9, 2012 by The Savvy Senorita | 4 Comments

At last common sense finally prevails!!!! The Criminal Justice System has eventually bowed in favour of the person in their own home, under siege from burglars. The new Justice Secretary Chris Grayling, has plans to change the UK law, to afford proper protection of the law to terrified householders who ‘over-react’ when confronted by burglars.

Of course it is easy to have always labelled those who have chosen to stand firm, fight and protect themselves, and their homes as ‘over-reacting’, and using ‘unnecessary force’. Yet, until you have been in that situation you will never know what you will do, how you will react. Fear and the Adrenaline do strange things to your body and mind; ‘An adrenaline rush causes the muscles to perform respiration at an increased rate improving strength’ (Wikipedia.org). It is either the case of flight or fight, and if you choose to fight you may be a different person than that over breakfast! Not quite a ‘Dr. Bruce Banner’, but indeed ready for what you have to do.

If you could, would you stand there and allow another to run rampage through your house, and over your life? Would you react or calmly walk away?

The UK’s ‘most senior judge’ has now strengthened the notion that ‘a person’s home is their castle’, saying that householders naturally have ‘the right to be offended by burglars’; why thank you most senior judge, as though none of us would be offended by a burglar in out home! People will for once have a right to lawfully defend themselves and their homes against the intruders. ‘People are not expected to remain calm when confronted by intruders’; at last sense is being spoken in defence of the victim of a heinous crime!

Justice Secretary, Mr Grayling will address Tory party Conference with this statement: “Being confronted by an intruder in your own home is terrifying, and the public should be in no doubt that the law is on their side. That is why I am strengthening the current law. Householders who act instinctively and honestly in self-defence are victims of crime and should be treated that way. We need to dispel doubts in this area once and for all’; about time I say Mr Grayling!

The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, said last month that ‘burglary was an offence against the person, should always be treated seriously’; he was speaking after Judge Michael Pert QC said that being shot by homeowners was simply a chance that burglars took. The advice then, be warned wanna be burglars.

Fight or flight, a strange and often redundant bodily reaction; and yet very necessary to aid those who have to face the things we all hope we never have to. Only then would we truly know what our reaction would be. Until then are we ever in a position to judge anyone else?

Burglars; take heed, homeowners are now lawfully willing and able to fight!

Benefits = food vouchers; the new Universal Credit, errr, card?

Posted on October 4, 2012 by The Savvy Senorita | 2 Comments

A poll commissioned by one of the many ‘think tanks’ has come up with a surprising response; people would be in favour of benefit claimants receiving vouchers, or indeed a ‘debit card’ solely to purchase ‘agreed’ items, such as food.

Needless to say these findings have provoked disgust from anti-poverty campaigners, who have been questioning the so called findings as the response of those ignorant to the full facts, and influenced by propaganda surrounding benefit claimants from the UK media.

Alison Garnham, director of the Child Poverty Action Group, was the findings harshest critic, stating that we could discount what 59% of the research group agreed upon, vouchers for societies ‘slouchers’.

“In the United States in the 1960s, welfare rights campaigners argued for food stamps for certain groups on the basis that some of them were alcohol abusers, but it’s not an argument that ever took traction in the UK because people would find that offensive. I think we have a very different culture. I just don’t think it would be acceptable in the same way,” Alison Garnham, Demos fringe meeting at the Labour Party conference.

In the United States, ‘food stamps’ are in the form of pre-payment card (debit card of sorts), that is then used by the claimant to purchase food and other essentials, which do not include the ‘luxuries’ of life such as alcohol and tobacco.

Well maybe Alison Garnham should think again, as the findings of this research demonstrates that people don’t think changing the current benefit/ social security system would be ‘offensive’. Many do in fact feel that this benefit ‘charity’ should end;

77% said yes to monitoring people with a substance or gambling addiction, and 69% for those with a criminal or anti-social history.
68% agreed the government should stop all recipients from spending their benefits on gambling.
54% agreed with the government should prevent people spending their benefits on unhealthy items such as cigarettes or alcohol.
46% opposed benefits being spent on branded goods such as Nike trainers.
38% backed a ban on buying junk food and 35% on holidays.

(Poll was carried out by Populus Data Solutions, based on a survey of 2,052 adults)

With Universal credit making an appearance very soon, six work related benefits will be lumped together, making this an ideal candidate for such controlled measures, and a pre-payment style card.

In fact, so far not even Prime Minister David Cameron has denied that he is not completely averse to exercising more control over how claimants spend their money.

Leaving out the fact that Universal Credit is just a one size fits all benefit, which benefits no-one, not even the working UK populace. How would such a pre-paid card (debit card) exercise such control, and prevent people from just living their normal lives? Well, online gabbling would be blocked by such cards. Such transactions wouldn’t be permitted, therefore they wouldn’t gain authorisation; like a debit card refused for lack of funds in the bank.

OK, but how can a mere debit card encourage people to make more healthy choices, surely this is a tougher question to answer? Does anyone have the right to control or outlaw what people choose to eat, drink or even smoke? Even the Police department responsible for stamping out illegal substances can’t boast that feat! People will do anything to get what they want; they do for drugs! So will this ‘ban’ increase the illegal selling and distribution of alcohol and tobacco? Will people commit even more crime to get such items one way or another?

I know the inspiration for this debit card system has originated with parents and families in mind. People on benefits are seen to choose those above luxuries over actually feeding their children. On a tight budget even one pack of cigarettes is surely unnecessary though; if it means more food on the plate, electric in the meter or clothes on your back, which would you choose? There are people out there who do blow all their money on nothing, regardless of their children or their house hold responsibilities; but how can we intervene completely, maybe stop paying them altogether? Don’t such issues also affect those who work too?

I agree that any benefit isn’t a charity hand out, it is there for hard times; even charities stipulate where their money can go to, and how it can be utilised, but again how can you differentiate between the people in receipt of a benefit? There are claimants who have never worked, and not because they cannot, but because they don’t want to; then again there are those who have worked, and want to work, and also those who are indeed too ill to work. I know I wouldn’t want to have anyone treat me like a brain dead moron just because I was claiming a benefit; I would not appreciate being told where to and what to buy. Plus, it is also the stigma attached to using such a ‘card’, its letting everyone know; ‘Hey, I’m on benefits’, setting people up for ridicule. It is a too general answer to a problem, as not everyone on a benefit is a scrounger. So where do you draw the battle lines and makes the distinctions?

I know there are people on benefits who go away on holidays, buy iPhone’s, drive nice cars, have great big televisions, and have nights out wearing the best clothes; I have seen that happen quite frequently, but it is not the genuinely needy people who do this. Those that con the system are also usually working and claiming (fraud), gaining illegal earnings from something or just don’t care about what happens when the money has run out. Not everyone claiming walks the straight and narrow, just like everyone who works doesn’t! Yet, I still want to control my money whether I work or have benefit; I think that would be my right as an intelligent and educated person who has worked and contributed into the system!!! I am not a feckless individual, even if there are those out there who are! Why should decent people bear the brunt, as they are the people who will suffer; who won’t break the law to get more money, and they will struggle to survive.

I do feel the poverty situation is being ignored here too, as people on benefits aren’t the only ones in poverty. I know people who work, and are so overwhelmed by just paying their way because the cost of living is ever spiraling out of control. They can’t afford to eat, go on holidays, and buy expensive food and all the rest. Yet, I do know benefit claimants who can have those luxuries! So again how can we iron out all these contradictions from an entrenched and ineffective system, without the innocent and genuine suffering? How do we help everyone who needs help?

In addition, one of the most striking findings of the Demos ‘think tank’ survey was that 18-24-year-olds were one of the most likely age groups to call for government controls on how benefits are spent. Yet, these are the majority of people out of work in the UK. Plus only 2052 people were asked in the survey, not a gargantuan amount. How was the sample of participants chosen, where were they from; location and family background? Would be interesting to know.

Nothing in the UK social security/ benefit system is clear cut, therefore why should any of the decisions regarding its future be? Are those in power the right people to make the judgements? Surely those who live a real life need to have their say, before they are faced living their lives under some rule they then cannot change or influence.