A mental health update 🌱

Hello my loves,

A while back when I asked you what you’d like to see more of in these newsletters, a couple of you said you’d also appreciate updates on how I’m doing (which is very sweet!). So that’s what this is! 💜

You all know that last summer got pretty dark for me - a culmination of ongoing pandemic stress, uprooting some real deep trauma in therapy and being in a very destabilising relationship really pushed me into a place that I couldn’t see my way out of. I ended up starting a course of anti-depressants and not knowing what effect (if any) they were gonna have.

I’d spiralled into a place where my brain felt pretty unliveable if I’m honest - I was definitely depressed but I was also struggling with obsessive thoughts around my own unworthiness and most days I felt completely dissociated from reality - like I was floating above my own life and nothing was quite real.

The anti-depressants I started taking (sertraline, 100mg) didn’t magically change how my brain was working, but I feel like they gave me enough respite from the obsessive thoughts to slowly get back down into my own life and make some gentle changes.

I started doing small things I knew I used to enjoy - and combatting the intrusive thoughts telling me I wasn’t allowed to. I entertained the idea of caring about the little things. I built up my skin again and regained a little bit of belief that I could be okay.

Then once things felt more stable, I made some bigger decisions. I moved. I ended my relationship. I picked up new hobbies and explored new places. I got properly back into my life and I affirmed every day that I deserve to be okay. It hasn’t been linear and some days the intrusive thoughts crept back in, but I carried on trying to rewire them and being as kind to myself as I could be.

A few weeks ago I decided that I’d like to try and lower my dosage of sertraline and see how my brain feels - knowing that I can up it again if I need to.

So far, we’re doing good! The first couple of weeks definitely brought some overthinking and general feelings that *something* was wrong, but this week I feel more levelled out and more able to see clearly. That feels so beautiful.

I realised yesterday that I’m more *in* my life than I have been for the last year - I do things I love without questioning if they’re the best use of my time, I see people I care about and I don’t feel like I’m floating above the conversation, I don’t believe that I deserve to punish myself anymore. I think I deserve to be okay. I wrote a little something about how it feels to be back down here, in it, and I’m gonna end this newsletter on that.

Thank you for being here, reading this, caring about how I am and (hopefully) caring about how you are as well. I want all of the light for all of us, we deserve ✨

it's beautiful,
                      being here.
feeling pinpricks
watching spring

sometimes i make things
they count
they are real

my body, she knows
she speaks
i hear

i swear some days
the sinking
skips

who was she?
the one who spent so long
floating?

the ground
                   is here
all warm crust
on-my-way rush

there are:
blinks and birds and anniversaries
and us

all this living
all this
           being here.

💜