Did you know, it’s Mental Health Awareness Week again? A whole pissing year has passed since I wrote this post. which was uncharacteristically personal and quite over-sharey, but relevant. TL:DR, I had been prescribed antidepressants for depression and anxiety earlier in 2021.
I try and blog about life updates life from time to time, so you might know some of what’s gone in since then, but you probably don’t. I don’t expect anyone to follow my life that avidly, that would be a bit weird, but it’s there should you be inclined to read about it.
It’s mainly for my own benefit really; I have always used blogging as a form of therapy. I find that writing things down really helps make sense of them; I’d urge you to try it, even if no one reads what you write.
Anyway, in brief, this year:
I’ve gone through the majority of the divorce motions – I’m not quite there yet, mind, these things take fucking ages. Everything is agreed, but we are still waiting for the house sale to go through and all the paperwork to be authorised, and then it’ll be on to the next chapter which we’ll all be relieved by.
I’ve moved into my own rented house, living on my own for the first time ever.
For real. Rent is expensive (£1350 a month for a tiny house – fuck me) and I don’t need to tell you that bills are spiralling, I don’t have a real job (this is literally it) and although I’ve considered it to the point of being offered one, I realised that, sadly, it would be almost impossible (not to mention financially disadvantageous) to work around the kids at the moment.
I don’t get any benefits or child maintenance or anything like that, just the income I make as a self-employed writer/blogger, and I’m more or less waiting for my house sale to go through so I’ll be able to pay my rent. If you’ve ever wondered why people don’t get divorced when they’re clearly unhappy, that’s probably one of the big reasons why. It’s fairly stressful.
I’ve gone from doing 50/50 childcare initially, to moving and being 60-odd away from my kids all week for three months, to now having them here all the time while they’re at their new school. The new arrangement is obviously better in terms of spending time with the kids – and they are already doing fantastically at their new school, it was 100% the right decision – but perhaps selfishly, it gives very little spare time to see friends, which is my main coping mechanism to be honest and most probably why my mental health plummeted during lockdown. Hopefully by the Autumn school term it’ll be back to 50/50 and a better life balance can be achieved.
I completely came off antidepressants early this year.
This wasn’t entirely because I no longer needed them, but because the side effects were making everything so much worse. They were making me lethargic, one extra stone turned into two and quite frankly that was fucking with my mental health more than any situation.
I do want to lose the weight, it’s just very hard to find the motivation. I was hoping it would seize me when I came off the pills, but no such luck. I used to stick to healthy eating diets fairly easily but I find it so much harder now; being old sucks. Eating separately to the kids is just not cost effective and I can’t make them eat fish and stir fries all the time as they’d sooner starve.
I have however joined the crappy local council gym, mainly to go swimming again which is more of a relaxation thing than a weight loss thing. Maybe I’ll work my way back up to cardio but it feels like a big step and I ain’t feeling that brave about it tbh. I’ve made the first steps by joining and walking in the door, and that I’m giving myself credit for.
I’m fairly certain I’ll never go back on the happy pills now, but not because everything is superduperfantastic.
Some days area great; others are awful. I can usually cope with it. If there was a pill I could take which would make everything seem easier without making it impossible to get out of bed most days, then I’d give it a bash, but the risk/benefit analysis just doesn’t stack up. I think therapy would probably be a more effective, longer term solution – I have many friends that absolutely rave about it – but I can’t afford it, quite frankly. If you’re looking, I’m told that this is the place to start however.
Anyway, this isn’t a whinge or searching for sympathy in any way.
I don’t want that at all. I am well aware that in many ways, I have enormous privilege. Many people are worse off than I am (although this is unrelated to mental health, as it goes, so if you ever think about mentioning it to someone who is suffering with their mental health, even in a kindly-meant way, then shut the fuck up because no one wants to hear it).
It’s just a timely reminder than you never know what’s going on beneath the surface in someone’s life, and that if you need help, then reach out. Not to me, please – I’m absolutely not qualified and I can’t help you – but to your GP in the first instance, or at least open up to a friend and start that conversation.
Just know that you’re definitely not the only one. You can still be strong, funny, opinionated and an all round A+ human being, and need a little help now and then. Life is complicated, and hard, but in the words of many an annoying American in a terrible TV show, “you got this”.