Off to a Good Start

Hello, my lovely fellow internet "kids" (let's face it, we're all internet kids at heart LOL)! We're into the second week of 2016 and I'm hoping you're all having a fabulous new year! I've taken a bit of a two-ish month hiatus for no specific reason, but I'm back and ready to keep this darn thing updated! Stay along for the ride if you'd like!

Let's have a bit of a catch up, shall we? I spent my New Year's Eve at one of my best friend's houses where I met several of his lovely friends; Dalton was my wingman for the night and although I didn't get a midnight kiss, I did plant a perfect Nars Cruella stained kiss on Dalton's cheek. :) One of the best parts of the night was the clock hitting midnight and going around the room giving and receiving hugs from people I had just met that night all saying Happy New Year to each other. This is the first year in quite a while that I've spent with more than two or three people and the energy is just so different. There's an excitement in the room for the possibilities of the new year and the energy passed along from person to person. There were two people in particular that night who took quite a liking to me and they were throwing compliments my way for the majority of the night. They liked me for me and I was reminded that I'm quite a likable person with good conversational skills which is something I often forget. I'm not trying to toot my own horn here, but it is nice and necessary to give ourselves a pat on the back once in a while for just being ourselves.

And with that, I'll lead into something I've been learning in therapy. Since the beginning of the year, I've been part of an intensive outpatient program to help me learn coping skills and proper tools to deal with my anxiety, depression, and addiction. The most important thing I've taken away from the program so far is that I need to start caring for myself. Now this may sound simple, but it's something that I've never been good at. I've spent years either taking care of others or just completely neglecting myself which, along with other things, has left me being an extremely self-critical and anxious person. Some ways I'm trying to change my behavior involve something called the self-soothing technique; this is a technique where you take some time out of your day, even a few minutes, to do something for yourself. This can be anything that feeds your spirit and soul; for example, for me, I listen to my favorite album (American Candy by The Maine) some time throughout the day or I'll take 10 minutes before bed to sit with my breath and clear my mind.

Another tool that one of my therapists said would be key for me is replacing my self-critical talk with gentle words and tone. He used the example of thinking to yourself, what and how would you talk to your little niece or nephew. The answer can be different from person to person, but I would talk to my niece or nephew in a gentle, encouraging, and loving voice. I tried this technique yesterday afternoon when I got home from treatment and I could feel anxiety and self-blame boiling up in me for something that I logically knew wasn't a big deal. So I recognized that my thoughts were being overly critical of the situation and I stopped myself and instead began talking myself down by saying "It's ok, no one is mad at you, it was a miscommunication and you know for next time to let everyone know what is going on. No one blames, you're ok, it's over and done with." As soon as I told myself this, I felt the anxiety start to die down; it was incredible! I had never been able to talk myself down like that before!

What I explained above is called the Three C's technique; Catch it. Check it. Change it. This means to identify the thoughts, stop them, and replace them with something different whether that is doing a healthy behavior instead of spiraling into panic or, in my case, giving myself gentle self-talk. I know I just threw a lot of therapy mumbo jumbo at you just now, but these are just things that I'm learning are truly helping me to change my self-concept and therefore everything else in my life. If anything here was unclear or if you have any questions, please do leave a comment below or contact me at any of my social media. :)

I feel very positive and determined about this new year. A lot of things are going to change in my life, for better or worse, but I'm learning how to cope and I feel proud of that. Thanks for reading my rambly update and I hope you continue to read along with the rest of the psychobabble I'll be posting for the rest of this year. Great things are coming to this blog, get excited! ;)

All the best. xx

Thought I'd throw in some photos for LOLs. This is me! :)

We Love You Cory

Courtesy of weheartit.com

Dalton and I just finished watching the tribute episode of Glee and he and I definitely had to take advantage of the tissue box. It was was done wonderfully and I think we got to mourn and celebrate him at the same time. A huge part of why Dalton and I were crying so much is because we both kept thinking of our friend, Casey, who passed back in February the same way as Corey...we all miss you both, you wonderful boys. <3

Cory, I was gonna write you a letter, thanking you for being such a huge inspiration to me and now I'm sad I won't get to, but here's some of it. Every time, I felt alone or needed someone or was just sad in general, I would watch you and the cast on Glee and always feel better. I would watch Glee and I'd also watch all the behind the scenes stuff and interviews of you and you always made me smile. When I first was getting into treatment and was going through withdrawal and everything, I watched you and Glee and sang the songs and I'd laugh and just always feel better. You did so much for my life and you don't even know it. When I first found out you were an addict, but had gotten clean, you should me that I could find happiness without drugs and I could turn my life around and make it anything I want. Thank you for everything, Cory, you're loved and missed.

Casey, I still can't believe you're gone. Some days I'll wake up and forget and I'll think I can still call you or expect to see some philosophical post of yours on Facebook. You were such an amazing light in this world and I feel so privileged to have been friends with you. We always used to say we'd get clean and leave all of that bullshit behind...I wish I had helped you more so that we could have gotten out together. Now, all I can do is live my life the way that we always said we would and be clean and really enjoy life. You've taught me so much about life and what it means to be a decent human being. You'd always sing song lyrics and tell me how much you cared and loved me and you had one of the most biggest smiles I've ever gotten to see. You were one of the most beautiful, kind, genuine people I've ever met and I wish I had spent more time with you towards the end. Some days I'll find that it's harder to remember your voice than others, but you always come back to me. I love you Casey, I'll never forget you.

If anyone reading this is struggling with addiction or knows someone that is, please comment below and I'll let you know how to contact me and I'll try to help any way that I can. You're not alone. <3

Just a bit about me. :)

Hello! :)

The most recent (presentable lol) picture of me (on the right) with my lovely friends, Laurel and Brad who are expecting their beautiful baby girl at the end of this month! :)

I find it a bit ironic, that I'm saying "hello" and I literally have no idea if anyone is going to read this, but hello none the less. Lol My name's Reynna and I'm 20 years old, turning 21 this year on the 15th December. Yay! I live in California with my parents who, after being separated since I was 16, got back together earlier in the year. I have an older sister who is 28 that I love to death (don't know where I'd be without her) and a 31 year old half-brother on my dad's side who lives back in New Jersey where I was born; unfortunately we haven't spent much time together since I was 3 years old but we speak regularly. I just started my first real semester at community college a month ago and I couldn't be more excited to finally be in school! The past two years have been a roller coaster and school just never really fit into the equation, apart from a single class I took last year. I'm currently undecided about what my major will be so right now I'm just taking 12 units of transferable classes with a possibility of majoring in English (Creative Writing) or Psychology (Drug counseling) in mind.

I'm a very chilled out kind of person, but I can get really goofy at times especially with my friends. I love my friends to bits and I wouldn't be where I am now without them and some of the friends in particular whom I'm sure you'll end up reading about in the future are Dalton, Heather, and Sebastian. <3 I also spend a lot of time reading, writing, drinking coffee, and watching a lot of Netflix (once in a blue moon, you'll find an incredible movie among the sea of crap that is on there lol) and A LOT of YouTube. I watch a lot of British YouTubers (Zoella, Alfie Deyes, etc.) and British television and films as I've been obsessed with British people and British culture since I was about 8 so if it seems like at times, I pick up some vocabulary that sounds a bit like I'm trying to sound British, I promise it's only because it's such a habit at this point. I'd like to make a huge shout out to Zoe Sugg (who I've mentioned in the past two posts) because she's pretty much the only reason I finally started a blog on here and in all honesty, a lot of my post ideas are probably going to come from her blog. I'm already aware of this, so please don't feel the need to tell me "Your blog is too much like Zoella's!" Lol Thank you kindly! :)

Judge me if you'd like for this next bit, but a huge part of who I am, which I'm sure will come out eventually so best to get it out of the way now, is that I am a recovering addict. As I said above, the past two years have been a roller coaster and that is because I've struggled with my addiction for those two years. About four months ago, I finally told my parents (which was one of the hardest things I've ever done) that I needed help and then I got into treatment. I was part of an outpatient program (a program where I did not stay over night at all) for two months and finally graduated my program about two months ago. I struggled a bit with relapses from the time I got into treatment, only staying clean for no more than a week, but I have now been clean for 23 days as of today which is the longest time of being clean that I've had in about a year. If anyone reading this (if there is anyone reading this) has a problem with addiction or knows someone who does, please get help or even contact me if you'd like and we can talk because this isn't something someone should go at alone. 

I look forward to writing on here more and getting to express myself freely and hopefully I'll get to know some new people from here perhaps. Goodnight world and I'll see you tomorrow! :)