Those of you who've read my columns and articles over the years (hey mum and dad!) will not be shocked to learn that I suffer from anxiety and depression from time to time.
When I say "from time to time," I mean relentlessly, painfully, cripplingly for years and years, until about 2017, when I managed to break free and become the positive ray of sunshine* I am now.
I've been proud of myself over 2020, when things seemed about as bleak as they could get, that I've managed to hold it together and stay in a relatively positive mindset.
Like most of us though, I'm exhausted now.
I haven't gone downhill, not properly. Not in the life-shattering way I'm capable of. When it comes to this kind of thing, I don't do things by halves.
I work hard to stay in a positive mindset, to keep myself in the moment. To try not to let things get to me in the way they used to.
And I'm OK.
Over the past couple of weeks, though, I feel exhausted with the effort of it all. I don't think I'm alone. I feel as if in 2020 someone left the tap on, and drip by drip our hope disappeared. We thought we were OK. But 9 months into the pandemic, many of us are feeling depleted and down.
For me, this time, it's come out as feeling as if I'm constantly getting it wrong. That people don't particularly like me. I've been misreading emails and misinterpreting social media posts. I think the lack of 'real life' company hasn't helped.
So over the next couple of weeks I'm going to work hard on myself. Eat properly. Sleep properly. Smile properly. Try to find the tiny sparkles of hope amongst the gloom. I'm going to celebrate the fact that my paperback is coming out (in a muted fashion) in the US. Try to be positive about the future.
I suppose what I'm saying is that maybe we all need to up the self-care to get us through the next bit. Whether it's the boredom, loneliness or worse we're battling, we need to find a way to keep going anyway.
Weirdly, having this down side to my personality helps with my writing sometimes. For me, my sense of humour comes from my ability to catastrophise - to see the ridiculous in the terrible and find a way to relate that to the reader. So it's not all bad. See - look at me, accentuating the positive...!
And as the saying goes "this too shall pass" - I just wish it would hurry the f*ck up.
*miserable old cow
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