Sophie's World

Hello hello, hope everybody has been doing ok and having a great summer! One of the last times that you heard from me was about how I just finished treatment and everything was rainbows and unicorns. I would love to tell you I still live in that magical world but unfortunately, life is never really like that. Things haven’t been great and I wanted to share my experience with that as it is part of my gap year. Previously I think I unintentionally sent a false message that mental health sucks but if you get treatment then everything goes straight back to being great again. That isn’t my experience though, and not the experience of almost everybody I know so I wanted to do a follow-up post about that. About what a relapse is in terms of mental illness, and what that has been like for me personally. It hasn’t been easy, that’s for sure.  When you read the word relapse, one of the first things that come to mind is probably about drugs. Am I right? I think we tend to get very stuck in t

Here it is, the elusive blog post about my trip to Sri Lanka. It's been a long time coming and I'm excited to finally share the experiences I had. My original plan was to summarise the most memorable moments of my trip. That proved impossible because it would include the entirety of the time there, it was all just too good. With my last post about mental health being such a success, I decided this post would be better served sharing the real reasons I was there - on a volunteer placement to promote positive mental health. What better to write a post about, than everything I learnt about it while over there :) I do, however, want to share the highlights with you all in sooome way, so I decided that the best option was to create a video. If you make it all the way through this long post, the video will be at the end! The educational aspect of the trip was really interesting to me. I have been teaching about depression, stress, and suicide in schools across Oregon for the pas

I posted on Facebook a couple of weeks ago that I would be publishing my Sri Lanka blog soon, but obviously that has not happened yet and I felt like I should exlpain the circumstances behind that. As I am so open about mental health and mental health advocacy I feel as though it is only right if I share the journey I have recently been on with whoever might be reading these blogs. Before I left for Sri Lanka it was a bit of a turbulent time for me. I felt very overwhelmed and almost as if my trip were a test to see how I'd do when I leave for school in Scotland soon. Even though the trip itself didn't intimidate me, it was the change that did. As I've discovered about myself, I do not deal well with major changes or the end of relationships - as I'm sure most people can relate to. I've said in the past that Youthline has been such an amazing part of my life, and this continues to stand true in every aspect. When I was experiencing these overwhelming emotions befo

I'm not even sure how to start this because I just don't have to words to describe how magical and amazing Disneyland was. I cried 3 times if that puts it into perspective for you. Amazing. I arrived in LA on Wednesday night at 11:30PM and took an Uber to meet up with Calum at USC. That night (because it was so late already) was pretty chill. We got some food, met up with a couple of Calum's friends, and chatted for a bit. Pretty uneventful. The next  day, however, was Disneyland day, so definitely a contrast to the night before. It was a very busy day. The reason I'm in LA is to pick up my visa for going to Sri Lanka (in 7 days omg!!!), so that was my first priority on Thursday morning. It worked out well because Calum had class from 9 until 10 and the Sri Lankan embassy didn't open until 9 anyway. On the website with instructions for the visa, it said it normally takes a couple hours to process so I was expecting to have to go back the next day (Friday)

Soooo as many of you may know, two weeks ago on the 15th of February, I got a super cool opportunity to meet one of Oregon's Senators - Senator Wyden. It was super awesome so I thought I should write a blog post about it :) I've mentioned Youthline before, but for those of you who aren't too familiar with it, it's the teen to teen crisis line that I volunteer at. Teens from all over the US and also internationally text, online chat, or call in and other teens (like myself) answer. I find it super awesome, and although I may be biased, think that it bridges the mental health gap that a lot of teens face. Anyways, so Senator Wyden is looking to pass a bill or legislature that will hopefully designate a 3-digit mental health crisis number. Countries already have numbers like this, be it 911 or 999, where there is a line to call in emergencies. But what about mental health emergencies? In the US there is a national crisis line, but do you know what it is? The answer

Hello everybody! I can't believe it's February already, the time has flown! As you can probably tell by the title of the blog, I got a new job recently which has been super fun and exciting. After working at Topgolf for about two and a half years, I finally gave it up and decided it was time to pursue something that I'm more passionate about. My passion for helping people led me to the Center for Autism and Related Disorders (CARD) here in Portland. What's been cool so far is that I've never really worked with any kids with autism before, and it's been so fun playing with them and seeing how differently autism affects every person. These last two weeks... or was it three? I don't really remember, but anyway, for the last couple of weeks, I've just been doing training. I did about 40 hours of e-learning in the office last week and the week before, while this week I have started my overlaps. The overlaps are basically where I shadow the other therapists

I've written about it before in other posts but I thought it was about time to address it directly. As part of my Gap Year Bucket List, I am aiming to read 50 books. I love reading but while I was in school I rarely had any time to sit down and read. I always had homework, a test to study for, or another commitment that I had to be at. That was why, when I was writing my Gap Year Bucket List, I decided I wanted to challenge myself to read more. I'm not going to lie, I definitely overestimated how many books I was going to be able to read every month... I am not really on track to meet my 50 book quota but it's been really fun to challenge myself to read more anyway. It also forces me to put some quiet time aside where I can take a break and chill for a bit. Here are the books I've read so far (and all of them have been really good):  Unfuck Your Brain by Faith G. Harper Half the Sky by Nicholas D Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn Les Miserables by Victor Hugo The Sixth Ext

So. The airport/flight drama starts again. Here I was thinking this return journey to Portland would be a piece of cake. Nope. Because why would it ever be easy? So, if you've read my previous blogs, there was some mishap and annoying travel on the way here. I was assured, however, that aaaalll would be good for my return. I was lied to. The only flight that leaves from Amsterdam for Portland leaves at about 9 in the morning, which means that I have to leave Edinburgh at some ridiculous time in the morning to get that connection. As my flight was at 5:50am, I needed to be at the airport by 4am. So here I am, waking up at 3:15 - shivering in the cold, walking like a zombie, and wishing mornings never existed - driving with Steve to the airport. All going according to plan. So what's the problem here you ask? Well. After checking in my bag and expertly going through security, I had my coffee, banana, did my last minute chocolate shopping, and headed to my gate that would be b

Ok, I know that I said I would have another blog done by the night of Hogmanay, or at the latest the day after... But I got a little distracted again . Sorry! Better late than never I always say! Anyways, I won't make this one very long, just wanted to kind of summarise 2018 and also the things I am hoping to do this coming year :) 2018 recap: 5th of January : Turned 18 - legal in most countries! 14th of March : Led the student walkout against gun violence at my high school - much scarier than I thought it would be when I volunteered haha 24th of March : Led the March against gun violence in Portland and spoke in front of thousands of people (didn't help that I'm so short so nobody could really see me #shortpeopleproblems) to try to have a positive impact on the world :) 6th of April : Went to watch the Hamilton musical!!  May : Took the tens of hours of tests and got the IB diploma - woohoo! 9th of June : Graduated from High School - another woohoo! 24th of June