Ok I am going to start this off by saying this is extremely personal to me. It is something I have been talking about a lot recently and I wanted to share it with you. Not for sympathy or to make anyone feel sorry for me. But because I know we've all had dark times and hard times. Sometimes it feels like you are never going to come out the other end and there is no point in continuing.  I am here as proof that things get better there is always something to make each day worth while. Mine was Shinee and Kpop. If you look hard enough you can find yours too. And if anyone out there reading this wants to talk about any of this or being sad or low or depressed, please feel free to private message me. I will reply as soon as I can. Sometimes it helps to know that you are not alone.

So here is my story.........

How Shinee Saved Me

My mum got sick just before my 25th birthday. I knew it was pretty serious straight away. She was given a hospital appointment on the actual day of my birthday at 10am. I went with her as she was afraid to go on her own. The diagnosis was the worst it could possibly be. By lunchtime on my birthday I had learned that she had lung cancer and it was incurable. If she was lucky she had a year to live. I thought I would break but instead I found strength I didnt know I had. I dropped everything, my job, my flat, my life and moved back home to care for her. It was the best and worst year of my life. Some of the most touching and painful memories. I learned about my mum as a real person and woman. The person she was behind being a mum. I also watched her deteriorate, to waste away mentally and physically. To have to listen to her tell people I had left her alone and crying all night because she couldnt remember I had been awake the whole night, changing her and bathing her, holding her hand and giving her meds. I had no one else to help me. My dad had MS and had had a a few years earlier. He wasnt able to do anything for himself let alone my mum.  And no one else offered. When she finally passed away a year and 15 days after her diagnosis I was holding her hand. The main feelng I had was mostly relief. She wasnt suffering any longer and was finally at peace. After her funeral I decided I was going to take all that I had learned from the experience and rather than letting it break me use it to be positive and build myself a better life. 

But then a few months later my gran died and then a few months after that my other gran died. Then a boy I had been friends with all through school with passed away suddenly. To top it all off 11 months after my mum died I was in America trying to get over the horrible year I had. It was the day after my birthday and I was waiting for my aunt to get showered so we could check out of the Disney Castle Hotel. To kill time I was browsing facebook when I saw a post from my cousin about her uncle passing away. It took me a minute to realise the uncle she meant was my dad. 11 months after my mum passed away I found out my dad had died. I fund out on Facebook!! Not long after the funeral my sister took a massive ..  

This was enough, I was broken.  Too many bad things happened in too short a space of time and my brain just broke. I shut down completely. I basically stayed in bed and stared at a wall. I did this for 3 months. I was so depressed I just couldnt see the point in continuing any longer. I didnt want to die exactly, I just didnt want to exist. I couldnt read or watch movies or more seriously (as music is my life) I didnt want to to listen to music. In fact I refused to listen to music at all it was too painful. It wasnt until one day I was bored of staring at the wall and picked up my laptop that I remembered Shinee. I had stumbled across a vid of theirs a few years earlier and had thought them delighfully ridiculous. I loved Boybands they were cute and their Konglish lyrics were adorable. But that was all the thought I had given them. When I discovered them again I started to watch all their videos and it was ok, I didnt mind the music bcause I didnt know what they were singing about. Then I decided I wanted to learn their names. At the time Minho was the only one I could readily identify lol. I realised that not only had I been researching them for 6 hours but for the first time in a long time I was actually smiling. 

From there on out Shinee gave me a reason to get up up every day. Even if it was just to log on to watch their vids. Or old episodes of Star King, then I realised I wanted to know what they were singing about, and then I thought I wonder what other korean bands there are? And I wonder what Korean culture is like? What does this word mean? It spiralled from there and I found myself smiling more and more, getting up and dancing and singing and looking forward to what I could find out about Shinee or Kpop or Korea that day, or to watch another Kdrama. Before I knew it was halfway back to my old self. All because I had remembered how silly I thought the words "fantastic elastic" were. lol Shinee literally brought me out of my misery. They gave me happiness and inspired me to find new passions and re build my life. Their music cheered me up, their silliness and dorkiness made me laugh, their hotness made me love them, and I will be forever grateful to those 5 perfect idiots for reminding me there was still hapinees in the world if you looked for it.

My point here is this, depression is a scary thing and life can really bad. But if you look for the reasons to be happy, even if it doesnt seem there arent many you will eventually find something that pulls you out the other side. Take joy in the little things and dont beat yourself up for feeling bad. You are allowed to. Everyone needs time to heal. But dont let being sad get in the way of looking for your happiness, A few years on my life is back on track and I am for the most part very happy. I still struggle and I still get sad and that is ok. But Shinee are there when I do and they never fail to keep a smile on my face. People think I am crazy for listening to kpop and my obsession with Korea. I dont care. From all of this the main lesson I have learned is never let another person dictate your happiness. Embrace what you love and life will work itself out. 

If anyone had taken the time to read this then thank you. I hope you have all the reasons in the world to be happy! If you ever want to talk then please message me. I will answer as soon as I can xxx