I'm only 19, so I guess to some I'm still quite young. But I feel like I've learnt a lot over the past few years, especially this last one, that I really wish I'd know when I was younger.






Self care is important

So obviously education is important, and I'm so grateful for my education but when I my depression was at it's worst I wish I'd understood the importance of self care. Your mental health is super important, and sometimes you just need to take a day or two to just allow yourself to just do your thing. By that I don't mean eat litre unpn litre of Ben and Jerry's and watch Netflix; I mean take a shower because it's been five days too long, get some sleep because three hours over a week isn't enough, drink some water before you start getting mistaken for a zombie. I think that self care should be taught more in schools, especially as more and more teenagers are suffering from various mental illnesses that shouldn't be washed aside because of the pressures of school. Education is important but no more important than yourself.

Popularity won't necessarily make you happy 

Throughout high school I was sure that if I had more friends and fitted into the 'popular' group of girls I'd be so much happier. I somehow thought that having lots of friends who were probably just fake and had nothing in common with me I'd be so happy and free from depression. As I type that I just think what an idiot I was. There will always be a group of friends who are considered the 'popular' ones, the ones who all the boys fall for and all the girls want to be friends with just to say 'oh I'm friends with so and so'. I don't mean to say that those people aren't happy, I never had any idea, it's just that as an outsider looking in I was determined that I'd be happy with them. I can tell you know I never would've been, The popular group at my school were actually really nasty people, and I was and am much happier with a smaller group of friends who all get along, who are so kind and generous to one another, and people who genuinely make me happy.

It's okay to talk about periods 

Okay so maybe a little strange, but I grew up thinking that periods were the one thing that could never be spoken out. That they were things you had to keep to yourself, and hide up any sanitary products as much as possible because people would be disgusted that a teenage girl going through puberty would be having a period. This again just feels like nonsense as I type it, but I genuinely was lead to believe that periods are 'women's problems' and should be kept hush hush like some big secret. It's just crazy that I even thought that, something like 50% of the population have periods - they're completely normal and it's completely normal to talk about periods. Some of the best conversations with my best girl friends have involved going into period talk some way or another.


In years to come I'm sure I'll look at this and think of many more things that I should've known then or even now, but for the time being those are things I wish I'd know when I was younger.

What do you wish you knew when you were younger?

Em x