alysinscotland

[alysinscotland]

𝄞⨾𓍢ִ໋🎧ྀིMusic of life 𝄞⨾𓍢ִ໋🎧ྀི

My emotions have been all over the place lately, from struggling with anxiety to pure happiness sitting in the sun to hating myself and feeling chained to my bed. It's weird for me; I'm not usually this wishy-washy, and it's caused a lot of reflection. Surprisingly, or maybe not, I've found my love for music increased tenfold. Now, ive always been a huge music lover, can't sing, play an instrument, can't even dance, and yet the connection i have with music evokes such a deep, raw feeling in my stomach. I've always thought that choosing between tv and music would be the easiest choice. Music. Always, and in the past week I've felt it deeper, resonated more. If one song came on that had a certain mood, I immediately felt like that. Even though my anxiety has been a huge rain cloud over me, if 'Rich Baby Daddy' shuffled on, I immediately wanted to be in a club. If 'All night' played, i needed to be spooned by a huge muscly guy (pls lord) despite being in a very insecure place. I've been thinking more about why i'm feeling this undecided, my brain doesnt know who i am, who i want to be and its hard. I had a huge knock to my confidence in the summer that i havent been able to recover from. Maybe thats why the music is imprinting on me so hard, i don't want to live in my own head. On the other hand, when i type that, i cringe. Usually i'm confident, i know who i am and this is my only life - i dont let the anxiety take over. I just don't know anymore. That's why I fell down a wormhole of why music is so influential. Mainly, the idea seems to actually be quite simple. Humans relate certain songs to emotions, to experiences they are feeling or have felt. Blah, Blah, Blah. Its all just a massive nostalgia fest. Which is somewhat underwhelmingly obvious. But for me, knowing for sure why i feel the way do, why my stomach hurts listening to sad songs and why my throat tingles when i listen to love songs provides alot of comfort, and its not just me who feels so intensely. But as to why im feeling everything so harshly, i couldnt find anything specific. It's led me to think that it's just my brain's way of trying to come to its own, to be myself once more. Music is truly a comfort and knowing that i'll always have that to lean on, have someone who's created magic that i feel in my soul makes me just that bit more secure. I'll always come back to myself.

-Alys <3

[alysinscotland]

it’s okay it will be okay you’re okay you will be okay.

It hasn’t been long since i got absolutely smashed on st paddy’s. and it’s left me with a dread I haven’t felt in a long time. Drinking has always been a catalyst that sends me spiralling into the deep pit of anxiety and after the amount i drank i was genuinely convinced for a week that the consuming anxiety i felt was from alcohol. (Seriously. I spent more than $100 in 1 night) Maybe it was just some very severe hangxiety to begin with but its left me in a hole Ive visited many times before but for some reason it just feels different this time. Before this trigger i had become more confident, having always struggled with social anxiety and have started to do things I would never of been able to do 2 years ago. Which is why this sucks. Ive felt so hopeless so stale and it feels like someone has been sitting on my chest so hard I can’t breathe, it feels like death. My anxiety has never been forceful but like a constant hum of a fridge, always consistent, present, and in the past month the intensity is striking me in a way I haven’t felt in a year. I sit in my bed not doing uni work or anything productive and it hurts so bad sometimes i need to yell just to relieve the pressure on my heart. I feel the pressure mounding up as i get closer to my end of year exams and I can’t help but hear the black hole luring me in. It would be so nice so releasing to fall in, let the tunnel surround me in a soul-crushing embrace. It’s like there’s a dumpster fire in my mind and instead of putting it out I’m watching like its a car crash unable to look away as my mind melts. I don’t want to feel like this. There is so much effort needed to be happy and healthy when it feels like your predisposed to a toxic mind and i feel it fiercely rn. I want love and happiness but is that something I’m even meant to have? These are thoughts always in my mind but I’m very skilled with letting their noise be my white noise. I don’t think they will ever leave me fully but i do want a happy fulfilling future. Desperately. I’ll see things that i know I’m destined to see, to feel, to live in. I will get there. Things might not feel okay, i might not want to leave the shadow yet and that’s okay too. Because i know it will be okay, I’m okay and i will be okay.

Thanks for reading the rambles

-Alys

I don’t love this one guys, I’m really struggling to get out how i truly feel, but these feelings are so nuanced I’m not sure there’s enough time in the world to dig that deep.

Serious Question: is there people out there who seriously don’t struggle with their mental health? I seriously can’t imagine that life lol.

Ok done now. Bye <3

[alysinscotland]

Impending doom.

It's been less than a day since tiktok was banned. and then approximately 12 hours since the app was unbanned by Donald Trump. I have to be honest, at first, i cared very little for this sensational news - I'm scottish and i didn't believe the ban was really going to happen. This news was sooo the boy who cried wolf and it felt like fear-mongering at its finest, to which i would boast, I'm not the one to get baited! But then i saw this for what it really was and it scared me. My algorithm sucked me deeper into the whirlpool of fascism, oligarchy and right-wing media creating a hole so deep that when i woke up this morning, dread filled my chest so full i felt i was going to burst. Is the world ending, or have i fallen this easily into the media trap? It's hard to truly deduce how bad the state of our world is in this era, and on TikTok it's even harder to separate the truth from the lies. But i digress, the (shortest) ban made me truly think whether i even want to be on this app when all i see is how horribly we treat each other and the planet. It's like how my parents no longer watch the news because its too depressing. I used to be appalled by this, exclaiming not everyone has the privilege to just turn the television off, making my current thoughts guilty and hypocritical. it's hard to support a cause that even in the UK feels like a minority. I can feel the politics of places like the USA reaching its claws deeper into the very vunerable politics of Britain (i'll admit also already a conservative state), escalating the rise of right wing supporters, misogynistic, racist and homophobic discourse, striking a sense of doom in me i have never felt before. It is actually mind-blowing to me how so many people i know of or know personally are travelling backwards to ideals of the past. Online I see such a disconnect from people on having empathy or even humanity, and almost worse, there are no consequences for this type of behaviour. Due to this I worry so much for the children of this time who are so vulnerable to propaganda and hateful ideas. I worry for how long our planet will last as i have to sit back knowing i cannot stop the 1% from destroying our home. I worry. Every time i open social media i am shown how desensitised and demoralised people can be and whilst this doom seems to be having a crippling effect on me, social media will every so often (not in the past 24 hours but that just might be tiktok's impressive algorithm!), show me that it is not too late and there is always hope. The people of this world and the world itself deserve so much more grace and kindness than they have been given and I believe that while there is hope out there, there is a bright future ahead. With hope, not all is lost. If there was one good thing from the past 24 hours for me, it's that my beliefs and passion have been reinforced in a way I haven't felt in a long time. Hope will keep me going. I hope love will win.

Alys <3

[alysinscotland]

'I'm not always very attached to being alive'

CW: Suicidal Ideation (But truly it's hopecore promise)

Luminance shone against my face the first time I read it, finally hearing words my underdeveloped brain thought she understood, up late when I was meant to be asleep inside my super cool, super trendy, crushed velvet bed. The first time I felt seen - like the thoughts stuck in my brain had permeated through my skin into existence. It's almost like I gained conscience that one late night in 2019, tucked up with my face smushed against my favourite teddy reading an article on my phone on what was probably a school night. I used to always stay up late when I knew I wasn't supposed to, my heart would beat so fast anytime I heard my dad move downstairs in fear of being caught. Everything felt so existential to me then, my brain would just never turn off and the doom-scrolling calmed my brain in a way no doctor could. The feelings I had at 15 kept me so bogged down that the lack of sleep never caught up. Till now, the old age of 19. Looking back at this article often fills me with trickling dread and while I hate to invalidate myself, I cringe. The feelings I felt at the time were so real to me that looking back it's hard to conceive that maybe, I wasn't suicidal and maybe, I was just a girl with big feelings in a tough place. In this world, it felt hopeless to be hopeful when all I could notice was the evil out there to get you, and in the cultural era of 2019, it felt like compassion had left us, another unnecessary death every time I unlocked my phone, evolving out of our human nature and watching it float away into the atmosphere, adding more pollution to our world. The repetitive scrolling almost became a comfort to my rotting brain. I was genuinely the human form of 'what's the point of living if we're all going to die'. It's hard to be attached to life even now - when I'm unsure what life is. I do hope that my thoughts are translated into words eloquently because, with the benefit of hindsight, I can understand my tween brain's connection to the article, whether she actually knew how she felt or not. Life is numbing, no really, as I type this and really think, like really think, I struggle to comprehend how I feel about life, like a blank wall has just appeared instead of my forehead and then I'm actually not sure I feel this way at all. Because I don't want to die, but the concept of enjoying life and hating the way I'm made to live it is a nuanced, sticky feeling. What I'm trying to say is that while I still feel that little girl's angst, this is my one and only life. There is hope, and there is love. When scrolling on TikTok today (some habits never die) I saw someone say, 'Be where your feet are'. Where my feet are is pretty good right now, and while I know im only speaking for myself, and the hate is perhaps more alive than ever, my hope will never die, my love will never die and my fight will never die. Nothing is ever perfect but without action how could it ever be?

Idk. I'm on my period.

If you would like to read the original article, I've attached it above.

Remember there is always hope.

- Thanks, Alys