This is still me ❤️

What the hell is a "Purpose" anyway? Finding your "purpose" is something that I see a lot online. A few years ago, seeing this constantly come up in my social media feeds left me feeling worthless. I didn't have a purpose, I was a woman in my 30s and I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life, the constant reminder that I didn't have a "purpose" made me feel like a total and utter failure. I would find myself looking at others, wondering how the hell they found theirs, some were mothers, saying their purpose was to raise their children, some had their own business and then there was me, why didn't I have a purpose? A reason to exist? The problem I had, was that I had too much going on in my head. I had so many unresolved issues that I had been avoiding dealing with, that I had no capacity to think about what I wanted from life. I'm not even sure what a "purpose" is, but for me, it's something I look forward to get

As always, I hope that someone may take comfort in these posts and realise that they are not alone. I originally started writing blog posts on WordPress back in 2017. I have finally imported everything over to Medium, which took a while! I am now in the process of reviewing the older posts and rewriting them, my writing has improved rather a lot since then! I’m still keeping all the original versions on WordPress for nostalgic reasons but I wanted to reshare some of those posts, This week, I want to share some posts about mental health and the start of my journey with anxiety. How I was diagnosed with General Anxiety Disorder. How My Anxious Mind Affects My Self Esteem Want To Increase The Worrying In Your Mind? Get Divorced What Happens When Getting The Wrong Help Causes You More Worry

It is not your job to make others happy. I had never heard of the term “setting boundaries” until I started therapy, I certainly didn’t know what it meant. Yet I have found it a key part of my healing process. Why hadn’t I heard about this sooner? I will admit, that I can sometimes find setting boundaries difficult. I am a people pleaser, I want to keep everyone happy, unfortunately, this can cost me my happiness. Your peace should be your priority. This isn’t always going to sit well with others, but if someone is ok with you putting their happiness first at the expense of your own, maybe it’s time to question that relationship. We also need to be respectful of the boundaries others put in place. We all want different things and we all have different priorities in life, so whilst we may not understand the thoughts and feelings of others, we should still be respectful of them. Since I started setting boundaries in my life, I have experienced a dramatic improvement in my overall

My hard work is starting to pay off I normally write these posts by going through my week and what’s been happening, but I am far too impatient to write a whole post before I can get to my exciting news. Some of you may have already seen, that I have had my first article published on Medium. For some, this may not be a big thing, but for me, it’s pretty huge. Back in 2017 when I started writing this blog, I was too afraid to share with anyone other than close friends. Who would want to read anything I wrote? I certainly would not have imagined even having the courage to think about submitting my writing to a publication. Writing has been a dream of mine for as long as I can remember, so I’m feeling pretty bloody good right now. It’s been a good week overall anyway. The husband and I celebrated our 4th Wedding Anniversary last Friday and we went to Stratford Upon Avon for the weekend. Stratford Upon Avon is beautiful and our hotel was right next to the river Avon. The sun was shin

After a pretty reclusive week last week, I enjoyed catching up with some friends this week, a trip into the city to meet my friend for lunch, a shopping trip with my twinnie followed by dinner with the bestie. It was just what I needed. I also made some great progress in my counselling sessions. I'm still so amazed at how much I get out of these sessions and how much I have learnt to about myself. I am learning so many valuable life tools and I feel so positive about the future. Yesterday, the husband and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary. We celebrated in our usual fashion, by taking ourselves off for a little break. What went well for you this week? ❤️

Will it be as bad as I think? Today, the husband and I celebrate our 4th Wedding Anniversary & things finally feel like they are settling back down again, after a hectic few weeks. Last Friday, I was sent into a bit of a panic. Toby was a bit sick in the morning, not usually a cause for concern as I have read that cats can be sick if they eat too quickly, but he seemed fine. A couple of hours later, he was sick again and by midday, he was barely lifting his head and was completely listless. I was quite worried now as there are lots of things that are toxic to cats and I didn't know if he had eaten anything he shouldn't have during the night. I decided to call the vet, who asked me to bring him in straight away. Toby got into his carrier without a struggle, which is unusual and he didn't make a sound on the journey, which is also unusual. He usually likes to loudly complain. The vet sees us straight away and he just sits there whilst she examines him, still quiet as a

Even after the love has gone. Part of my anxiety means that I cannot be late. This is such a major dilemma in my relationship, as my boyfriend has no concept of time whatsoever, often leaving home at the time he’s supposed to be somewhere, I on the other hand like to be at least 10 minutes early, I allow for traffic etc. If I am late it sends me into a meltdown and it's caused so many arguments between us. My punctuality went in my favour on the day I went to see the solicitor as I couldn’t bloody find it. I walked up and down the high street about 3 times before noticing it nestled between Lloyd’s Bank and the Pound Shop. I pressed the buzzer, no answer. Barry pops up in my head! “What if they have mixed up my appointment?” “What if he’s off sick today?” Arrrrrrgh. Luckily before I could respond to Barry or talk to myself in the high street, two people arrived at the door with coffee. “Hi, I have an appointment with David Beckham at 9 am” bless the girl for not even flinchi

The thing with anxiety is, that it’s always there, it’s never going away. The techniques I learned at my CBT sessions are great and do work, but you do have to work at it. I got a bit lazy. I finished the therapy in March, carried on doing the minimum (meditation etc) then there was a birthday and then we were off on holiday, great right? Not for Barry . I was feeling insecure, so instead of lying by the pool relaxing, I was comparing myself to everyone around the pool, thinking that my boyfriend probably wished I looked better. Why don’t I take care of myself more? All this whilst sipping several Pina Coladas I might add. I hated myself. All these negative thoughts I was having about myself were draining me, looking back now, I can see I was slowly slipping into a hole. I tried to put a brave face on but inside I was feeling quite sad, I put it down to hormones and got on with the holiday. About 6 weeks later, I received a letter from my ex-husband’s solicitor officially starti

Mental health is so confusing There are going to be a lot of acronyms flying around in this post, so please try to bear with me. So I had booked my lunchtime appointment with the CBT therapist (cognitive behavioural therapist) I was nervous and wasn’t sure what to expect. I had only told my boyfriend and the friend who had told me about CBT, I didn’t want anyone to know, I was quite embarrassed, I wasn’t mentally stable! The session was in an old fashioned building, hidden down a little side street in the City of London, I had to climb about 100 stairs, I was out of breath by the time I got to the first floor and all hot and flustered. I sat in the waiting area, half of me eager to rid myself of the craziness, the other half wanting to run out of the door and hide from it all. Then my therapist came out, she was lovely and put me at ease straight away. I explained that I thought I had OCD and why I thought that, I explained my temperament, the constant worrying and she told me th