The Beginning

Hi. Welcome to Not Happy Jan Blogs. I’m new to blogging so let’s start this journey together. I’m writing this blog to share my life experiences thus far and am open to any suggested topics or questions you may have – just send me an email or a private message!

Ok, let’s start!

My name isn’t Jan, rather that is just the boring and old fashioned middle name my parents gave me 24 years ago when I was birthed. I guess we all seem to dislike our middle names in some way or another. Well for me, all my life I hated it with a passion. The other kids at school would tease me about it and quote the “Not Happy Jan” advert that was on TV many years ago. (By the way, if you haven’t seen it, look it up on YouTube. It’s actually quite funny.) I used to go home and cry to my mum that all the kids teased me about it. I didn’t have many friends back then to stick up for me.

Maybe that’s where it all started. Maybe that’s when the crippling anxiety came along.. From those ignorant little 6 year olds who’s mothers didn’t teach them how to be kind to others.. Or maybe it wasn’t.. But do we really know when our anxiety started? Where it stemmed from? How long we’ve been bottling it up? How long it is going to stick around for? How to overcome it?

These are just a few questions I have asked myself over the years. And I guess I really don’t know the answer to all of these questions either. I’m still trying to figure it out.


Growing up, I was an extremely shy child to say the least. As my Father loves to say, “no one knew we had a daughter until you were at least 6 years old”. I would always hide behind his or my mothers’ legs if we saw someone we knew in public. I don’t really know why I was so shy, I had no reason to be. I didn’t have an abusive or traumatic childhood, it was actually the best childhood I could of asked for really. I guess I just enjoyed my own company, my own space. But apparently that wasn’t enough. Even my kindergarten teacher tried to keep me back a year because I wasn’t interacting with the other kids. Apparently not wanting to share your Barbies in the sandpit warrants staying back a year.
Fortunately for me, my mother thought this was absolutely ludicrous and simply explained that’s just who I was.

Thus my journey continued on to Primary School. More challenges, more kids, and less room to hide from social interactions.

When I said I didn’t have many friends, I lied. I had friends. But looking back now, they weren’t very good friends.

I used to play with a group of girls and there was always one “leader”. This leader would have the responsibility of choosing which made up game we would play during lunchtime. If the leader was away, the responsibility was then put onto another girl in the group. If both of these girls were absent, then there was yet another substitute for the position. I think you can see where I’m going with this. Well for me, I was last on the list. The bottom of the barrel. The end of the line. I’m not really sure who came up with the ordering of leaders, but I’m sure she has since become the leader of a cult or something.

This was the first time I truly felt unworthy. Incapable. Incompetent. Unfitting. My 8 year old self just wanted so badly to fit in. I didn’t want to speak up and tell them how ridiculous I thought this all was and risk getting thrown out of the group that I called my friends. I was scared of being labelled a “loner” by the other children. Kids can be so cruel.

I continued on playing with this loathsome group of girls and decided to keep my feelings to myself. The one thing I knew how to do best. The one thing I have mastered over the years. I was never taught how to speak up and voice my emotions, I was always told to simply “suck it up” and “move on”. This was just a bandaid method for me. Just covering the wound and not necessarily focusing on the underlying cause to my real problems. My anxiety. The thing that I have always had, always carried with me, but have not always been aware of.

This didn’t really change much for me throughout my schooling years but it was the only thing I knew.
Maybe I was too emotional. Maybe I did need to “suck it up”. But this is the start of my journey. The start of me expressing my raw and untapped emotions, experiences and everything in-between. This is me.

If this is even slightly relatable, I hope that you will follow along this journey with me. Thanks for listening.