I haven't put a trigger warning, but read at your own discretion.
Hello,
I posted on Instagram (@ellielovestoast) about doing an updated where-am-I-at-with-my-mental-health post seeing as Mental Health Awareness week has rolled around again, so here you are! You can read last year’s post here.
In that first post I gave you a rundown of everything I’ve experienced since my anxiety began, finishing it by sharing where I was currently at. I wasn’t ruled by my brain so much, my self-doubt wasn’t quite so crippling, but my loneliness and fear of failure could still take over and squash me for days. I wasn’t majorly self-conscious anymore, my panic was still there but the panic attacks were pretty much gone. And, I’d started to be able to look at my anxieties subjectively.
So where am I now?
Social connection can lower anxiety and depression, help us to regulate our emotions, and improve our immune systems. Haven’t been able to have a lot of that have we… Like many people, I think, I’ve found the last year pretty tough mentally.
For the majority of 2020 I was at home with my parents, to begin with I really needed the comfort and security of home, the ending of my relationship was still playing on my mind and I just wanted something familiar. However, after a while I started to feel restless and I wanted my own space to keep growing. In September 2020, I moved to Manchester and was there for 6 months before I had to come home again. This second coming home wasn’t at all like the first, I wanted to be in Manchester, I felt like I’d found ‘my place’ but circumstances meant home was where I needed to go. Within a few days of being home though I had found a job, which I am really enjoying, and everything felt like it was falling into place. Being home again also means Mum and I can watch the telly together and tell you all about it (when I’m not working late)! Also, theatres are reopening!!! I could cry I am so excited!
So geographically, that’s where I’m at. Let’s jump into the mentally bit now.
For the most part I’d say I have progressed positively in my mental health journey. Some highlights being, I haven’t had a panic attack in the last year, when my anxiety has peaked it hasn’t been completely debilitating, I feel like I am more of my authentic self (I do still self-edit a bit around new people), I’ve forgiven people for the pain and stress they have caused me in the past, I’ve also forgiven myself for the stress and pain I’ve caused myself in the past, I am feeling pretty great about my body and appearance – my body has changed a lot in the last year, a fair few pieces of my clothing don’t fit me anymore, I’m buying clothes in bigger sizes but I am very comfortable in this new body. Until someone else compliments me on it, then I get very self-conscious obvs. On the other hand, I am anxious, there is a constant level of anxiety that I am always feeling all the time, its just rumbling there under the surface, but it never feels like it’s ever going to completely blow. And given the year we’ve had, this isn’t unexpected, and I won’t punish myself for it.
I thought I’d go through the key points of that first post and comment on where I’m at now.
As we know, a lot of my anxiety comes from the shock and grief around my grandad’s death in 2014. I’m still struggling to process his death, obviously after 7 years I’m closer to that but, I honestly think I have a bit of block around death in general. Death in all works of fiction (tv, literature, theatre, film etc) cuts me up! I will mourn for those I don’t even know, when friends have lost people, I fight not to cry with them, when an actor or celebrity passes, I feel their loss. I don’t think this is a bad thing per se, but I would be interested to know why.
My self-doubt and self-consciousness seem to be affecting me even less. As I mentioned, I am pretty comfortable in my body right now, working with my personal trainer friend Em has helped a lot (@embarrettfitness, check her out, she’s the best). I feel less like an imposter, I did a little at the start of this new job having never been hired in a position higher than ‘Team Member’ (or the lowest of the low), being hired as a Supervisor straight away was a bit of a shock to the system, but I feel super comfortable there now. I have less concerns about ‘getting it wrong’, I know mistakes lead to learning and I want to learn and grow and get better at everything and anything.
I've got much better at self-editing myself. I still avoid confrontation at all costs, but I will stand up for myself. I won’t let someone walk all over me or tell me how to live, but I won’t have an argument about it. I’d rather we were both cool headed and we can have an adult conversation about whatever the issue is. I know what I want, I know what I deserve, I’ve started to gain an understanding about what my boundaries are and not letting people cross them. I used to consider people who knew these things as abrasive and demanding but they’re not. Especially women, they’re not ‘difficult’, they just know their self-worth and you can’t decide it for them, it doesn’t work that way, sorry hun.
I have less regrets. I have things I’m a bit disappointed in but less things that I regret. Again, learning! You learn from your past mistakes and it informs our future. I’ve been dancing around with forgiveness and I feel like a new and improved bigger and better person because of it. Burdens have been lifted off of myself which were completely self-imposed by holding on to pain and suffering. I am a freer and happier person because I have forgiven people and myself. It’s so easy to say now, like forgive them for hurting you, but I KNOW how hard it can be! The growth I have felt would have been unfathomable to Ellie a year ago.
Panic attack count since the last post = 0! But even if I had had one, I wouldn’t consider it a failure on my part.
In the last post I talked about some of the OCD tics and tendencies I had in the height of my panic and anxiety, and that the majority of these had gone already and this is still true, they haven’t resurfaced and nothing new has arisen either. I can still catastrophise fairly well, but its more intrusive thoughts than overthinking a situation until I scare myself out of every trying something.
I am still wildly claustrophobic, though I haven’t even thought about doing anything to work on this so that was never going to have changed. If any of the chefs at work are reading this, please don’t lock me in the fridge or the container. I will cry. A lot.
‘Feeling lonely is a massive thing for me. I can very easily feel lonely in a room full of my closest friends’. I wrote this in last years post. It’s still true. But, I’m less at war with that feeling. The pandemic and the lockdowns have meant a lot of time spent with myself and learning to be by myself. It’s not my favourite thing, being by myself, but like I said I’m not at war with that feeling. When the world first started to open up I was so excited to see my friends again, and if anything it was a bit overwhelming. Having spent so long virtually hanging out, actually physically hanging out had a lot of expectations on it (all placed by myself) that afterwards I found a lot of solace in being alone. I’m sure as things settle down and normality (whatever that is now) comes around again things will shift, but it’s quite refreshing to have some comfort in being alone with myself.
I’m still finding comfort and relief in reading, exercise (though more ‘work out-y’ than yoga-y at the moment. I started skipping, who am I?!), and practicing self-love. I fell off the band wagon with journaling a bit but I’ve started doing monthly scrap book style pages in my diary instead so I can remember moments of joy. I still struggle to watch new things, preferring to find safety in watching the Hunger Games for the 400th time, though I’m getting better at this. Last year I said I had time limits on apps, now I've just deleted some of them from my home screen so I actually have to search for them if I want to fall in to a doom scroll. At the moment, I’m limiting my caffeine intake, only having maybe 1 caffeinated drink a day and even then, having a lot of water around it. I think this is helping that low level of constant anxiety stay so low.
My anxiety is still a big wiggly circle that I’m trying to make sense of, but it’s making more and more sense and getting less and less wiggly.
Thanks for reading the little update gang. Hopefully writing this piece will get me back into the swing of writing reviews with Mum again. In actual fact we’re about to watch something right now!
Don’t forget how amazing you are, how far you have come and how far you have left to go.
I’m proud of you all.
Ellie x
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