Several Days of Self Care

Aka Time for an Update! It has been a few days since I last posted and thought it worthwhile updating the good ol' blog. I've been back at work a little over a week and despite my apprehensions, it has been surprisingly fine. For me, it seems to be fairly quiet at the moment, so hopefully I can crack on with some training, and fingers crossed I'll be feeling okay to be back up to full time and can continue working my way up the Banana Seller career ladder. Mental health wise, it is Mental Health Awareness week! If I'm honest, I never really thought that mental health issues would affect me that much. I've usually considered myself to be pretty lucky in my situations, but I suppose everyone has a wobble at some point. For me it's now, with my ear and hair, the world at large, and a realisation of late that I quite often compare myself to other people which doesn't really help me with my self-esteem. However, I've got my appointment coming up the day a...

Aka It Wasn't as Bad as I Thought it Would Be I've not posted with quite the same regularity that I normally would. This is because yesterday I had my telephone assessment for the Depression and Anxiety Service, and today was my first day back to work. Also I went bouldering and it was a blast! First of all, the assessment I had was pretty thorough, and lasted about an hour. My fingers hurt by the end of it, but I'm glad that I got to explain a bit of background and get the ball rolling on treatment. I tried my best not to rattle off everything that had gone wrong, or what made me anxious, or to bad mouth my ex too much, but all in all I got to provide enough information to give my supporter a rough idea of where I was coming from. I had to answer two questionnaires - one on depression and the other for anxiety. On the depression one I scored 8 out of something - mild symptoms and in line with the general population so not one to be concerned about. For anxiety, my scor...

Aka Working 9 till 5...sort of Today I had a disconnect day. This means minimal usage of social media for me, to stop doing the endless scrolling that I normally partake in on Twitter and Facebook. I got a few things done, but I mainly chilled out on the sofa working on a notebook or stuff so I can plan myself accordingly, track a few things day to day, and note down life changes I want to make (mainly on the eco side of things). In a way, I suppose being signed off is its own disconnect from work. I've got time not to worry about concerns of the day, and I get to focus my energy on myself as opposed to the working tasks at hand. I've been composing this entry off and on in the back of my mind. There are a few things that I want to cover and I'm conscious that some of my colleagues read this blog (hello peeps). As such, I feel that I'm going to have to be careful of what I say perhaps, as I can be linked back to the company, but equally, this isn't a rant about...

Aka What I'm Doing to Get Better As the first few posts have been about how I've ended up in a mental health mess, I figured now would be a good time to focus on the positives and show what I've been doing to get myself better. At least once a day I'll have sad potato time, but instead of that I'm trying to recognise that I shouldn't wallow in these emotions and get up and do something, no matter how hard that is. There are plenty of times where I want to do something, but I don't want to do something. I want to participate in an activity but instead the meh takes over and I end up on the sofa with a dark cloud over my head. When I am sad potatoing on the sofa, I think the easiest thing to do is something small yet constructive - tidy the coffee table, empty the wastepaper basket. Something very low energy but still means that something has been achieved. Hell, sometimes I don't have the energy to get the washing out of the machine and hang it up t...

Aka Why Saying "Don't Worry About It" Doesn't Work Being still is not my strong point. I'm not the kind of person that can sit on a sofa all day: I always have to be doing something. My life is a plethora of activity. Sunday is a good example. I got up, had coffee, went to a clothes sale, went to a charity shop and bought fabric, picked up some white spirit on the way home. Got home, painted a few things, varnished another, reupholstered a seat. Next thing I know it's 3pm. Made bread, cooked dinner, ate dinner, did another layer of painting, wrote a blog post, did a set of exercises from an app on my phone, had a bath, went to bed. If I am sat down with no activity I get fidgety and antsy. I have this time, I need to use it. I need to make something with it. I like reading and the odd video game but because I'm not creating something, they fall by the wayside whilst I pour my energy into arts and crafts. I enjoy doing these things - they're fun, and...

Aka How I Got Into This Mess in the First Place I started Several Days of Self Care because, as mentioned in the previous post, I was signed off sick from work for a week or so (hence several instead of seven ). As Julie Andrews' saccharine nun says in The Sound of Music, let's start at the very beginning. On 30 November 2018 I came back from my honeymoon. Feeling incredibly dizzy in the kitchen as I was about to cook dinner, I thought I was jet-lagged and went to bed. The dizziness however, persisted. After speaking to the audiologists we have at work and a trip to the doctor's, I was diagnosed with Benign Paroxysmal Positioning Vertigo (BPPV), a condition where crystals in the inner ear mess about with the balance system. I was told it would clear up within two weeks. It did not and I returned to the GP where I had the Dix-Hallpike manoeuvre performed (not as fancy as it sounds, you get pulled backwards over a bench and they look to see if your eyes are twitching), ...

Aka Things I'm Doing to Stop Myself Becoming a Sad Potato Yesterday I was signed off work with stress and anxiety. It's been brewing for a while and, whilst I feel guilty about not being there with my colleagues, it's probably the right thing to have done. Back in December of 2018 I was referred to the hospital as they suspect I have Meniere's Disease - a rare chronic illness that brings on bouts of vertigo and can lead to profound hearing loss in the affected ear. I won't go in to details here as I plan on leaving it for another post, but having the fear associated with that is where a lot of my anxiety and worries have come from. Alongside this, my hair has been falling out and I was diagnosed with alopecia areata, and I'm also going to have my bloods taken as well as my doctor wants to rule out any possibility of a thyroid condition. When I first had the Meniere's referral, and finding out it would take so long, I found myself despairing. Attacks happ...