The introverted disguised as an extrovert

Why do days about others always have to become about myself?

The celebration of others should be one that I can immerse myself in through happiness and involvement. Instead I withdraw myself due to the fear of being outcast - I feel sorry for myself when  there is no need to be.

Today was a friends birthday celebration and although I wanted to stay the overwhelming thought of negativity regarding the actions of others prepelled a disturbing sense of embarrassment into me. A coward among friends and a recluse within a party.

What’s more troubling is the egotistical sense of feeling special when mental health is a major issue, one that I underestimate time and time again. I know of only one way to break the cycle but it would destroy far more it followed through.

Dancing with the Depressive Dude

One thing I have struggled with is my personality and the fear of having no friends and becoming a ghost to society is a terrifying reality. However, who wants to be friends with a bitter, anxiety riddled twenty something?

On nights out, I have my good nights and bad nights, I can dance in short bursts before the realisation of what I am doing comes to fruition and the sheer thought of embarrassment overwhelms me. I feel as though friends look at me as this depressing figure but as my heart beats faster and faster and my stomach flips, that little voice in my head commands I stop.

I look upon everyone having a good time, living their best life but thats something that I am always looking at, rather than being a part of. My head always seems to have conversations that I am not a part of, thinking of people who I have drifted away from and wondering if I was the reason why.

I never know how to act around people, my true self or the self-created happy figure to put people at ease?

I steroid my personality to hide away the parts I have ashamed of, I wish for once that the cloak of overthinking and sadness would relinquish its strangulation; as the feeling of never knowing if I am accepted continues to poison my personality.

I see you, lost in the age of Dog Filters

I see you. Not the social media image you portray to your thousands of followers, fans and ‘friends’ but the real you. The one that struggles to hold a conversation, when it’s not written in Helvetica Neue.

The anxiety of real life becomes a heavy pressure, and one that forces you to persist in flaunting your best moments in a 10 second snapshot as you shut out the remaining 23 hours 59 minutes and 50 seconds.

Your time spent locked away in your bedroom is a season of worry and concern, that the true world cannot offer you admiration or love but your fix of likes, for your perfect and totally 'candid' photography papers over the cracks of your many self-imposed and false imperfections.

Your idea of perfection is a flurry of “goals”, “wow” and a series of complimentary emojis filtering through your phone system like a heroine injection, outweighing any real life conversation, as in reality; a dog filter cannot mask the look of worry that your existence may not be as ideal as your notifications seem to suggest.

Flicking through to satisfy your craving for attention while ignoring the world around you, lost in the 4G dimension.

Should Marijuana be Legalised in the United Kingdom?

One complex yet open topic in modern society is in the legalisation of Marijuana. While statistically no one has died from an intake of the class B drug, this has created a movement for the government to take another look at the illegal classification but how wise would this be?

Alcohol is a drug in itself that is an increasingly high cause of death not only in the United Kingdom but globally also. If alcohol was discovered today, it's not hard to presume that it would be outlawed. In 2015, there were 8,758 deaths relating to alcohol, making that a rate of 14.2 per 100,000 people. Showing how when abused it can be an extremely negative substance, only strengthening the case for the legalisation of marijuana.

In the United States, under Barack Obama, each state had the right to legalise providing a regulation system is in place. While there has been no real strong backing from the government, the Liberal Democrats were the first to publicly support the decriminalisation of the drug during the 2017 General Election; possibly a ploy to attract a younger population of support that ultimately failed.

Nevertheless, fans of the most widely used drug in Britain, are still in favour of the drug being available without criminalisation being an issue, but statistics may argue against that. While as mentioned above the drug, also known as weed, has never killed anyone and your average dose would need to be consumed 20,000 - 40,000 times in order to kill you, if the carbon monoxide poisoning hasn't taken effect by then. Despite this it is not the drug killing or injuring people, it is the effects that stand in the way of future legalisation.

With alcohol having a negative effect while driving, so to does Marijuana, slowing down reactions and has been the cause of a significant amount of deaths in the United States; more so following the legalisation of the drug in some states. During 2013, 10 million people in the US aged 12 and over admitted to driving under the influence of illicit drugs according to the NSDUH. A US study in 2010 also found that of deadly crashes, 47% were under the influence of prescription drugs while 37% were of marijuana and 10% cocaine. What makes this significant is that while a study for alcohol intake is available for roadside tests, there is no accurate and instant way to determine drug intake on the road, with blood tests being the most efficient and by the time they occur, the drugs may be out of the users system or have wore off at this point, making it hard for regulations to put into effect.

Giovanni Roman has alcohol, marijuana and cocaine in his system as he killed his cousin in a 2017 crash.

Marijuana is not a completely negative drug, with many positive uses identified during studies including:

- it can be used to treat Glaucoma. The drug decreases pressure in the eyeball that would have caused damage to the optic nerve thus causing visual impairment

- can be used to treat epileptic seizures. A 2003 study showed that epileptic rats were much calmer under the influence of marijuana

- may halt cancer cells. While much more research is yet to be done on the effect of marijuana and cancer, studies have been positive and have shown that the drug makes some forms of cancer less aggressive

With marijuana, there are negatives and positives, with much trust placed in the user as each person, just like alcohol, can have different reactions to the substance. While as of yet there are no available, accurate and instant tests for marijuana usage, most notably during driving where the members of the public are also put in danger, until this can be rectified it's not likely that marijuana, for medical use or not will be legalised.

The Anti-Homeless Agenda in Britain

Politics can be a beautiful thing, but while the democracy of a nation oftens create unity, the judgements of others more than not cause a divide. The most recent General Election in the United Kingdom was hailed at the "most important for a generation" with the result still shrouded in a distinct lack of clarity and the fallout yet to be clarified, but while the leadership remains an issue, the bigger controversy lies with the people of the United Kingdom, who turned their back on a fairer, more equal society.

The decisions of the many resulted in the conservatives staying in power, as Great Britain once again reared its ugly, selfish head and highlighted its selfish attitude. The rise of Jeremy Corbyn was a positive one, a man that stood for change and good, while in the opposite corner, those who labelled him a communist and a leader with far too many ideals presented their rather short arguments.

While Corbyn is not Prime Minister, but his campaign reseonated with the youth of the U.K. and garnered interest in young people the likes of which has never been seen, but despite this, the divide between Conservative and Labour, rich and the poor, the left and the right; has never been greater.

Most recently, the Labour leader suggested that the abandoned and unused homes of the rich be used to house victims of the Grenfell fire attack. People who have lost everything with nowhere to go, yet the opposition took this suggestion personally, as if Mr. Corbyn himself was asking the people of Britain to move out of their homes up and down the country and allow benefit scrounges to sleep in their bed. This was not the case and only established the opposition between Corbyn as the right wing newspapers, most notably the Daily Mail altered his words in venemois fashion.

Walking through Liverpool town centre, the sheer magnitude of the homeless crisis in Britain is clear, yet too many people are refusing to help. Refusing to land a helping hand and turning a blind eye to the rising epidemic. With claims leading up the election that Corbyn would be taxing everyones hard earned money, he became public enemy number one to those in a good standard of life and above. While the words of right wing media turned many heads also, despite being factually inaccurate time and time again.

With labels of a terrorist, following his meeting many years ago with Sinn Fein Leader Gerry Adams, with the man no longer with the group during his meeting with Mr Corbyn. While this still is a valid point, what was conveniently ignored was the times Theresa May, Conservative leader at the time of writing, sold weapons to Saudi Arabia, cut the police force by 20,000 and according to the Indepents article reviewing her six years as Home Secretary: "Some police chiefs believe that having fewer officers who know local communities well has undermined their ability to spot potentially dangerous extremists who might turn to terrorism."

What's heartbreaking about this is that, people would rather criticise one man's care for the homeless community by suggesting he wants a civil war, over helping those in need. With many unable to accept that one mans selfishness can be just ablut helping others, with MP's having a rich history of expense fiddling as history infamously details. While this may seem like a cry for idealism, each and every person should be a valued life, and value should not be determined by wage intake, Amy suggestion that those on the street are in any way undeserving of a home is inhumane and highlights a complete disgreagrd for human life.

As you sleep in your warm bed, take a drink from your fridge, feel privileged of your surroundings, for their are others who can only wish for your level of privilege, through no fault of their own.