Tracey_Louise_Phillips

YOUTUBE

Youtube is an amazing platform for just about anyone but one of the reasons it has a special place in my world it that while searching through youtube i came across a beauty, lifestyle vlogger the channel name Zoella. i watched all the videos she'd already done and from that moment i knew this was going to be an amazing thing in my life. Zoe Sugg has posted and mentioned her anxiety and panic attacks many times but before i found her i thought i was the only one to experience it. Growing up teachers and anyone else around me knew me only as the shy, quite one but it was always more than that i regularly had panic attacks that i kept quite and all the anxiety i buried deep inside me. i never spoke to anyone i didn't already know really well. But as I grew up i think i started to realise that what i was experiencing wasn't the same thing everyone else my age was experiencing. while they were having anxiety about popularity, exams and boys, i wasn't anxious about that at all i was more anxious about actually being able to get out the front door. During this time in Secondary school I was also dealing with my developing health problems some of which I still suffer with today, I don't know how much of my health problems contributed to my social anxiety but I'm pretty sure it didn't help.

I was anxious and panicky about open spaces, closed spaces, crowds, people, strangers, a big school full of people, presentations at school where i had to stand up and talk ( i never did i just stood in front of the class and waited for someones else to speak), public toilets, having to talk to people i don't know, all of which i hid from my family they all thought i was shy and withdrawn around people. Everything came to a head when I started college things like my anxiety got 100% worse. Then like i said above i came across zoella and i realised it wasn't doing me any good to keep my anxiety and panic attacks hidden from my family it was making things hard as i was always unhappy and depressed which my family picked up on. With the help of Zoella's video's i managed to tell my parents what i had been suffering though on my own for so long and there was a period of learning involved after telling them on their part as they had to figure out and get there head what exactly i was going through and how exactly I felt.

If it wasn't for YouTube I wouldn't have discovered Zoella and if I had not discovered zoella I don't know where i would be.

Zoella continues to inspire me and help me to feel positive about my future dealing with my social anxiety.

Through Zoella i have discovered other youtubers that inspire me and help me to be happier in my day to day life. Whenever I feel so down and depressed enough that i don't want to get out of bed, i don't want to open the curtains ad i feel like I'm never going to smile again i know i have some great people i can go to and youtube and watch and like magic within the first few minutes of a video a smile has crept across my face.

So thank you to all you inspirational youtubers out there with shout outs to Zoella (Zoe Sugg), Pointlessblog (Alfie Dayes), Marcus Butler, Thatcherjoe (Joe Sugg), Casper Lee, Tanya Burr, Jim Chapman, Niomi Smart, Sprinkleofglitter ( Louise).