A lot has happened since I last did one of these update posts, most of which in the last month. I'm not going to lie, most of it's been pretty shit.
Mental health stuff
Me being me, I had another bought of anxiety and depression that sucked. But this time I decided to catch it before it caught up with me. I've had to come to terms with the fact that this is probably going to affect me for the rest of my life and in doing that I now feel I have the upper hand, slightly. I was fed up of having shit days for no reason and waking up in the afternoon hating that I'd wasted another day. I wrote myself a list. It was a list of steps that I know will make me feel better if I complete them. I don't mean a list of productivity, but a list of wellbeing. The most important things came first and the more trivial came later, so I started with things like 'Get yourself a glass of water, take your pills, remember to eat etc.' and ended it with various activities that require low energy that I know make me feel good, such as knitting or watching a disney film.
This may sound really obvious, but sometimes I need to remind myself that I deserve a break and I deserve to care for myself. I have a habit of becoming quite self destructive and just not looking after myself in general. I stuck it on my wall next to my bed (where I'm most likely to hibernate) and have been checking in on myself every time I find that I'm feeling low. Obviously there have been times that it doesn't completely work, but this made such a huge impact on my mental health in a positive way and I highly recommend it to anyone else that feels they need a little reminder on how to pick themselves back up.
I've also made some changes to my eating habits and diet which I think has had a great effect on my mental health (that doesn't mean it will for others though). I'm on my way to being vegan! I went pescetarian in January and soon after stopped consuming dairy. Next to go will be eggs then seafood. I know it might seem a weird way round to do it, but I need to make sure I'm getting the right vitamins etc. and before I do that I need to learn which foods I can find them in. I'm going to post about this separately to explain why I have made these choices and why it's important to me.
Saying goodbye
Now that was all lovely and good stuff, but life seems to have a way of testing you when you think everything's going well. We had a small 'hurricane' in England called Doris. In the British way everyone had a little laugh at the weather and thought nothing of it, but although small it did cause some destruction. I've spoken before on here about our four guinea pigs and even though we did what we could to protect them from the elements as best we could, we found that Hyde and Eva had died in the night. It was a shock and something that hit both of us very hard. I miss them both so much and just wish we'd thought to do more to prevent it from happening. The other two are happy and healthy and have had their home upgraded to keep them safer, but I still regret that we lost two beautiful babes and I miss their furry little faces squeaking up at me...
We broke up
Next piece of shit news; Noah and I have broken up. It's a weird kind of breakup because nothing bad happened, things just weren't working anymore. We're still best friends and wish only good things for each other, but it is the end of a huge chapter in both our lives and is going to take some time to recover from this. There's not much more to say other than it's been hard.
A new home?
So obviously Noah and I lived together, but we lived in a studio flat so we couldn't both stay. I decided that the best place for me to be was on campus at university so I did just that. I picked up my keys last Friday and yesterday my mum and dad helped me move in. It's weird having all my things in a new place and only seeing the animals once a week, but I now live with some cool people who are all here for the same reason that I am. I wasn't going to allow this massive change to take me off course. I came to bath to get my degree and start my career.
I've already benefitted so much from this move in the week that I've been living here. I'm actually attending my classes, I'm able to get my work done in an environment designed just for that and I'm loving having some space to breathe (that flat was really tiny). I also have friends that live in the next building too, so although I've been experiencing some lonely moments I'm never far from a friendly face.
I'm contracted until the end of July, but I'm hoping that I like living here enough to stay next year, so we'll see!
This month has been the most trying time of my life. I know that sounds dramatic, but that's because it kind of is! I've never had to do all this before in such a short amount of time and it's been terrifying at times. I'm doing okay though, that's all that matters right now.
Bicks x
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