Hi lovelies! Today's post is potentially going to be a bit of an informal, rambley kind but we'll see how it turns out once I get into it, haha. If you follow me on Twitter, then you may have seen my tweets yesterday, about the fact that it marked my 3rd blogiversary and that also it happened to be a day when my mental health left me in a pretty shitty state of mind. Without sugar-coating things, last week was sort of a blur for me. Living with depression is often associated with feeling sad all the time, and whilst there are definitely moments like that, it's not really talked about how the mental illness can make you feel numb, like you are sort of just existing in what I can only describe as a world of nothingness. With that comes all sorts of feelings of guilt, etc... like why do I feel empty when 'this' happens, or why do I not feel happy right now when 'that' has taken place? I use this and that in my description because there are just so many examples, when you feel like you are supposed to have, for instance, a happy feeling but instead, you don't feel anything and are left thinking you are, for lack of a better word, broken....
Well my life for the last week or so has been like that, and with this comes all sorts of feelings of confusion, anger, guilt, but because you're not really able to emotionally work through these feelings, they are kind of repressed and once you start to get back into a ''normal'' head space, the feelings all hit you at once, it just makes life extremely overwhelming. Yesterday was like this for me and it was exhausting and all-consuming and bleak, and I wasn't in the right frame of mind to feel like celebrating. Then on top of that, I had a lot of negative thoughts about my blog, insecurities were surfacing that I'm sure all bloggers have from time-to-time, but given the way I was feeling anyway, I was just obsessing over these insecurities continuously throughout the day. I was wondering why people read my blog when I feel like it's such a mess... well, I feel like it's been poor quality this year, I don't really know how to sum up my feelings in one sentence, so bare with me XD
I feel like I mention it a lot and I worry that people will get bored of hearing it, but this year has been so hard for me. Just when I felt like I was starting to make some progress with my mental health ''recovery'', I went through so much emotional turmoil that made me feel like I was back at square one again. It was a challenge to try and hold myself together. 2018 brought with it so many tough things to deal with, like my mom being ill (I don't feel like I'm in the right frame of mind to talk about it right now, but you can read more here), and another stressful situation involving family that I don't feel is my place to talk about online. As a result of the stress from everything going on, my mental illnesses were very much affected and in turn, my physical health conditions flared up, which of course put further strain on my mental health. I was in a cycle of physical and psychological pain and not really sure how to do anything about it. I felt powerless and lost, and trying to maintain a level of normalcy in my everyday life was proving more and more difficult.
I was putting a lot of pressure on myself to try to carry on like I wasn't going through all of this, and when I couldn't do the things I usually did, I was beating myself up for it. I was trying to force myself to do things, and then this took much of the joy away from things that I used to find so fun. One of the hardest symptoms of depression is that it takes away your passion for things, they aren't as enjoyable anymore and you desperately try to ignite the love you felt for it, and it's devastating when you don't know if you'll feel it again. Sure, there are occasions when you feel truly happy but at the same time, the emotions often feel somehow muted, not as intense as they once were, and it really sucks! Sorry guys, this post is probably so miserable to read but I just felt compelled to let it all out, to share it with you all ♥
In my struggles, I stopped taking my anti-depressants because I just felt like they were doing nothing to help me, when I should have instead talked to my doctor about increasing the dosage, but my anxiety had gotten to the stage where I wanted to avoid all social situations that I find difficult enough as it is. I also felt like my local mental health services pretty much abandoned me, but maybe I'll talk about that another time. Nothing seemed to be going right in my life. I stopped being able to function properly; I didn't want to look after myself and I was finding it hard to put on a happy face around people. Things were only getting worse the more I kept trying to carry on with things whilst having no treatment for my mental health. I was struggling to keep myself out of self-destructive mindsets, which were telling me to just give up on everything I had worked so hard at and poured so much heart into, and one of these was blogging.
I love blogging! Having my blog has been so helpful for me over these last few years. When I was in a really bad place with my mental health after graduating from university and moving back home, I started my blog as a creative outlet, as a place for me to express myself and to write about all of the things that made me happy. I wanted to focus on the little things in life that brought me joy, and my blog become my little happy place. I was (and still very much am) delighted when other people started to read and comment on my posts and find joy in the same things that I did. I have met so many wonderful new friends through blogging and I love you all so much :) I feel like this year, I have really sucked at showing it though! I struggle with social interaction enough as it is, but with the way I've been feeling, I have just neglected so many things. Of course, this is not because I wanted to, I have just felt so much lack of control over my own life; I don't know how to express fully what it has felt like to be honest. Regardless, I have tried so hard to motivate myself and on a good day, I am glad that I have been able to get a blog post up. On a bad day though, which not to be dramatic but have literally taken up most of my year, I have not been able to find the motivation, the drive, the energy, whatever it is, to do it. No matter how much I have wanted to, despite having so many ideas in my head, I just cannot find the words, or more accurately I cannot find the passion to put it down on paper so to speak (put it down on... laptop, doesn't have quite the same ring to it :D haha!).
Whenever my head is filled with the negative feelings I have about my blog, I always think about my lack of posts this year. I am forever questioning the quality of my writing or if it reads interesting or my personality shines through in my words, but I imagine that most bloggers feel like that once they have hit the publish button. For me, when I look at how many posts I've shared in my previous two years of blogging, and see all the content that I can look back on and be proud of, I feel good about my little space on the internet. It's not that I focus on quantity over quality or anything like that, but I like to look at my blog almost like an photo album or a diary, it lays out for me so many of the occasions in my life that I enjoyed enough to want to share with the world. It is lovely being able to look back through these happy times whenever I am feeling blue, but because I haven't been blogging in the same way this year, I don't get to do that. I know that there's still lots of posts, but for me it's almost like a diary with some of the pages torn out...
I'm probably not making my blog sound like it's worth reading much in this post *insert several shy face monkey emojis here*. Oops, but now that I've probably embarrassed myself, I wanted to say the things that were my inspiration for this post in the first place. And that's thankyou. I wanted to give a huge thankyou to every single one of you that have stuck by me and my blog this year, despite the fact that I'm not as active online anymore and I barely share any posts. It means so much to me that you still tag me in your posts, and mention me in Friday Follows over on Twitter, that you all still remain my friends even though I am not around as much as I would like to be. All of these things, no matter how insignificant they may seem to some, have been very important for me, because they have kept me going with my blog when I felt like I should just give up with it. On some of my lowest days when I've felt like I was... forgettable, it has reminded me that there are people that actually like me :D I feel so shy writing this down (eeek!). So I just wanted to explain what's been going on with me, and maybe help someone else with similar thoughts and feelings know that they are not alone in their struggles. I am working my hardest to get things back on track with my blog and my life in general, and I am starting to see little improvements as I go. But yeah thanks for baring with me and for making it through reading this post. I cannot say thankyou enough and I will keep saying it if I continue writing, so it might be a good point to end it here XD haha. Happy three years to my blog and happy three years of knowing all of my awesome followers and friends! You guys make it special for me, you are all stars :) Here's to three more years of putting up with me!
Thankyou for reading!
(There I go again :p)
♥
Also if you have a favourite thing about my blog or a favourite blog post/ type of blog post or anything like that, and you wanna share that with me, please let me know in the comments :)