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Birth
I was born on May 7th, 1999 at 9:25 pm. I weighed 3.14 kg and i was 53 cm's in length, I was 7 days overdue. An emergency c-section had to be performed after I had stopped moving and my heartbeat had become irregular. -
Infancy: Health
I was born with a skin tag on my left ear and I had an in-turned foot which required me to go see a physio to fix. -
Infancy: Language (First Word)
I spoke my first word when I was 6 months old.The first word I said was "mum". -
Infancy: Physical development
I started walking when I was 9 months old, I would use the couch in our living room to pull myself up to a standing position, then I would hold my parents fingers and they would help me walk around our living room. -
Infancy: Attachment to caregiver
My primary caregiver is my mother and when I was an infant, I had a secure attachment to her. She was the one who took care of me the most so I developed a positive relationship with her very quickly. She provided a safe and loving environment from me to grow up in and made sure I was always happy as a infant. -
Infancy: Language
When I was 20 months old I started to put together words and started to make small sentences. -
Infancy: Memory
From what I've been told from my family is that as an infant the only way I could ever memorise something was through its visual image. Seeing an object was the only way I could memorise it and keep it stores in my brain. From what I've been told by my family is that its very common for an infant to use imagery has a way to store things in their memories. -
Infancy: Stress
As an infant, I didn't have any strategies to cope with stress. My parents however had to make sure I was distracted and would make me laugh or my sister would play with me to make me less stressed. -
Attended St. Pauls nusery
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Attended Pontyclun Primary School
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Early childhood: First Memory
The first memory I have is from when I was four years old. I remember going to my grandparents house after school one day and my grandmother taking me into Cardiff, our capital city, to ride the open tour bus of the city and then going to the market afterwards to play with the kittens on the top floor. -
Early Childhood: Physical Development
At the age of 5, I started Gymnastics. It was a big development for me physically because I was learning how be more coordinated with my body, learning how to control my body more. This was also the first time I started to really get involved in sport and start to exercise. -
Early childhood: Death and Grief
My grandmother passed away form throat cancer three weeks before Christmas, I was only 5 years old. At the time, I didn't understand what had happened because of how young I was. My parents kept having to explain it to me that my grandmother wasn't going to be around anymore. It took me four months to finally realize what had happened and to actually react to it. The photo is the only one I have of me and my grandmother, it was taken after I was born in 1999 alongside my sister. -
Early childhood: Physical development.
As well as doing gymnastics, I was still going to swimming classes every week, making my way through the grades in the program, the swimming classes had been keeping me active from infancy through early childhood and into middle childhood. By the age of six, I had become a very active child as I started running as well, for years I had been watching my sister train and I had always wanted to follow her and run, at 6 I was finally allowed too, finally experiencing hard exercise. -
Early Childhood: Vocabulary
My parents always tried to come up with new ways for me to learn new vocabulary. When I was very young and just starting to learn vocabulary, they would read a lot of bedtime stories to me and I would try sound out words as they went through each story. Eventually, I started reading books to myself at night to keep learning. I also had a Barney stuffed toy that would sing the alphabet song when I squeezed his paw. I would listen to it 20 times every night, just to practice and improve. -
Early Childhood: Stress
As a young child, the best way I dealt with stress was by being active. Being able to run around for an hour or two at my grandparents farm, as well as explore the fields, really helped me de-stress and calm down. My mother also used to make me count down from 10 and to take deep breaths in order for me to relax. -
Early Childhood: Attachment to Caregiver
As I grew up, I became more attached to my father more than my mother, I followed him around everywhere and would always defend him to my mother if they got into a fight. At this point my relationship with my mother became strained because I favoured my father so much. After my grandmother died, our relationship went downhill fast. We would constantly be arguing and fighting, my mum would take the anger she had at my grandmother out on me and I would just argue back. -
Early childhood: Health
When I was 7 years old, I had a flesh eating bug under my arm after I had got my skin caught on the zip of my sleeping bag while I was on a family holiday in August. The bug ate 10 cm of the bottom side of my upper arm. -
Early Childhood: Memory
As a child, the easiest way for me to remember things was by using flashcards, the flashcards would have the word that I needed to learn on the back and a picture on the front which I would learn to associate with that specific word. -
Middle -Late Childhood: Health
After the flesh eating bug had taking away the skin from my arm, Dry patches of skin stated appearing all over my body. My parents and doctors first thoughts was that it was eczema but after months of trying different creams to make the patches go away, I was re-examined. My doctor revealed that I had Psoriasis. Knowing I couldn't get rid of it completely, I started going through creams to treat it and make the patches fade and seem less visible, after almost a year, I found one that worked. -
Middle-Late Childhood: Physical Development
When I was 9 years old, I competed for the first time in races, I had been running since I was 6 but stated really training when I 7. The age in Wales to start competing is 9 and I fell in love with it very quickly. I continued to train more and race constantly through out the rest of my childhood, getting fitter and faster, becoming more and more active through the years. This photo is from one of my first ever races. -
Middle - late childhood: Grief
The Death of my grandmother didn't really start effecting me until I was 9, at this point I had begun to long for her presence. at this age, I had started a new part if my life, i had begun competing in cross-country and track. Knowing that she could never be able to watch me compete in my sport is what made me long for her presence more. -
Middle-Late Childhood: Memory
As I got older, I had to find more ways to memorize things. As I moved up through school years, what I had to remember changed and the amount I had to memorize increased greatly. I was now relying on not only visual learning but also audio learning. I found that listening to a recording of what I had to memorize on repeat while I was asleep helped me the most. -
Middle-Late Childhood: Emotional Dismissing Parenting
My parents never really did emotional coaching, if me and my sister ever got into a fight, they wouldn't try to explain to us our emotions or help us calm down, We would always be sent to our rooms to calm ourselves down. If we got into arguments, we were normally met with more anger coming from our parents which would make us even worse. I was told by my parents that they didn't even know this existed, they always thought they were doing what was right, exactly like how they were bought up. -
Middle to Late Childhood: Attachment to Caregiver
At this point in my childhood, I basically had no real relationship with my mother and I was very attached to my father. My father was now my coach so I spent more time with him than anyone else. Me and my mother would still be fighting over every small thing and sometimes she would threaten to leave home or to put me in a foster home. The environment in our house wasn't safe anymore. This made me became a very angry child, not understanding why my mother didn't like me. . -
Graduated Pontyclun Primay school
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Attended Y Pant Comprehensive School
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Middle-Late Childhood: Stress
Going into late childhood, I didn't really have a positive strategy to handle stress. the only way I seemed to even attempt to deal with stress was by getting angry and lashing out. Even though I was constantly being active, I wasn't getting rid of my stress. Eventually the only way I would completely calm down was if I had a nap, sleep seemed to be the only method that would actually calm me down. -
First time representing Wales (cross country)
I represented my country for the first time in 2012 when I was 11 years old. The race was in Perth, Scotland. Since this day, I have represented my country 16 times over cross-country, track and road. This day will always be one of my biggest accomplishments in my life. This photo was taken the day of the race with my sister who was representing our country for the 18th time. -
Adolescence: Health (Part 1)
When I had turned 13, I was faced with a lot of bullying over the skin condition that I have (psoriasis) as well as dealing with social expectations of being a teenage girl. After months of bullying, I began to self harm, thinking it would make it better, that I wouldn't feel sad inside. this carried on for six months. 3 months in my grandfather was admitted to the emergency room with triple pneumonia and was put on life support, with doctors telling my family to prepare for the worst. -
Adolescence: Health (Part 2)
With my grandfather being in the hospital on life support, my mental state declined rapidly, I was not ready to lose another grandparent from my life. With my mental state being so weak, everything going on in my life was pushing me further into my depression. Even when my grandfather pulled off a miracle and got healthy again, I couldn't get out of the depression. I now had suicidal thoughts and after someone told me to die just like my grandmother did, I attempted suicide on march 15th. -
Adolescence: Memory
The methods that were best for me when it came to memory didn't actually change from when I was in middle childhood to becoming a adolescent. I still responded the best to visual learning and audio learning, i discovered that I couldn't just sit down and read a book for a couple of hours, I needed to be able to visual what I was reading in front of me in order for it to correctly process in my brain. -
Adolescence: Physical Devlopment
By the time I was a adolescence I was solely focused on Running, I had developed so much physically, I had my growth spurt and my body was reaching its peak fitness level at the time. At this point I had been training for about 8 years and my training had gone up a lot to meet with the speed I needed to be racing at. My body's threshold had changed significantly and it was able withstand higher mileage and faster paces. the photo is from when I was 15 representing Wales for the 13th -
Adolescence: Attachment to Caregiver
After my suicide attempt in 2013, the relationship with my mother improved greatly. It allowed us to reconnect and talk about everything.The way our relationship had been during my childhood and put such a strain on my mentality that I didn't think she would listen to me about how I felt. after that, our home had a safe and happy environment again and my attachment to my mother grew a lot more, now becoming equal to my dad. The pictures are from when I was 16 at a family 70s costume party. -
Adolescence: Stress
As a teenager I had to distract myself a lot to cope with stress. I would be constantly watching videos or the tv or hanging to with my friends just to distract my self from the stress of school. Eventually my family realised that the pressure they put on me to do well in school and running, only made me more stressed and I became prone to mental breakdowns once everything got to much. My training would keep me mind clear for 2 hours every day but once I was done I was back to being stressed. -
Adolescence: Death
When I was 16, my family had to deal with an unexpected death of a close family friend. This added to the grief I was still dealing with from my grandmothers passing. -
Past my Driving test, Recieved Liscence
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Graduated Y Pant Comprehensive
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Moved to America
I moved to America in order to start attending UAB for four years, leaving my family and friends behind. -
Started attending UAB
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Early adulthood: Health (part 1)
In February I was diagnosed with ADHD and depression as well has being labelled with High anxiety. I expected to be diagnosed with these conditions based on my life experiences and know it has affected me. I have been going back and forth with stages of depression since I was 13 years old. The biggest triggers for my depression is my grandmothers death as well my past experience of being bullied because of my skin condition. -
Early adulthood: Health (part 2)
Being diagnosed with ADHD gave me the reason as too why I always struggled to focus in class and in everyday life. My anxiety levels had been increasing as I moved up through comprehensive school and reached a new high in college. My anxiety now has the ability to complete take over me and my thoughts, leaving me terrified to leave my apartment and be around other people, there are now times where I miss classes due to the fear my anxiety is causing me. -
Early Adulthood: Memory
Much like when I was an adolescent I relied on visual and audio learning. Now that I'm in college and have a lot more material to learn, I've seen that I can become overwhelmed with too much studying, causing me to lose focus completely.Growing up I became very good at memorizing patterns which has led to now being able to -
Early Adulthood: Stress
Now that I'm in college, I found that there are only a few methods that actually help me de-stress. The best strategy for me to handle to stress is by turning everything around me off. For an hour or two I turn my phone, laptop and tv off and just relax. I normally start drawing or painting in that time as it keeps me calm and lets me feel like a kid again. One thing I have learned is that people pressuring me to grow up makes me more stressed, so sometimes I just need to feel like a kid again. -
Early adulthood: Attachment to Caregiver
My relationship with my mother is great now, she is my biggest supporter and the person I lean on the most when I'm upset or when I need help. She is always there to encourage me to make the best decisions for myself and no one else. Since I moved to America for school we have got even closer with her crying every time she sees me come out of the arrivals gate in Heathrow Airport. She does her best to make sure I am well supported out her financially even with my Athletic scholarship. -
Early Adulthood: Grief
The death of my grandmother affected me a lot through my development growing up. I constantly think about how young i was when she passed and how I only have a few memories of her and what she was like. Its always affected me knowing that she was never able to watch me grow up and doesn't know who I am now. I still haven't moved on from her death and I'm still grieving the loss. While reading the chapter about grief in the textbook, I learned that I suffer from Prolonged Grief Disorder. -
Early Adulthood: Physical Devolpment
Right now, I'm at the peak of my physical development. to keep me skills at a high level I am constantly active. On average I run 55 miles a week as well has doing three weights session that last an hour. I'm constantly trying to improve my skills and improve physically. The picture is of me now, as a UAB athlete, competing in our regional champs in cross country.
