by Hey there. Yep, I’m still here. Soz for the radio silence, got a bit overwhelmed by stuff and hence felt the need to hide away and distance myself from social media and all that shiz for a while. Anxiety levels were high, my gremlin strong, and any sense of my true self had well and truly fucked off. I was a hormonal wreck, in need of some time out. Which is exactly what I did. And boy has it done me the world of good. I am back feeling stronger, happier, and more like I can handle this shit and so I thought seeing as it’s a new year I’d start a new little feature on my blog, which is basically me having a weekly brain dump. The idea being that I get to creatively empty out the contents of my poor overactive mind, whilst also hopefully providing you lot with a few giggles and maybe a sense of relief if you’re feeling some of this stuff too.
New Year Resolutions
What a load of bollocks. I’m not gonna sugar coat this shit (or glitter the turd – my new favourite saying) I hate new year resolutions. They do my bloody head in. Firstly, no one sticks to them. Secondly, January is shite enough as it is without adding even more crap to the pile. And thirdly, surely we’ve all had enough of restrictions!!!
There is so much pressure at this time of year to set resolutions and goals for the year ahead. Social media feeds are inundated with images of people starting new diets, new exercise regimes, running every day, not drinking, cutting this, cutting that, or whatever else they feel needs changing. But to me, all this narrative tells us is that who we are is not good enough. Which is a bucketload of bollocks in my opinion.
I get that January seems a logical time to reassess, to start afresh. And I’m all for that to some degree, after all a little bit of self improvement never did anyone any harm, it’s never good for us to rest on our laurels so to speak. What I do have a problem with, is how it’s sold to us and the pressure of feeling as though you ‘have’ to make a resolution. I’ll be totally honest with you, I caved this year. I sat down with a pen and notebook determined to jot down a list of things that needed to change. I spent ages staring down at the blank page in front of me racking my brain, trying to think of anything, anything at all that I could resolve to change. Don’t get me wrong, I by no means think I’m perfect, nor do I want or strive to be, but what bothered me is how thinking about resolutions created a negative narrative within me. Because the more I struggled to come up with any, the more it made me feel as though this was just another thing that I had failed at. Fucking brilliant. I ripped out the page, screwed it up, threw it in the bin and promised myself this – that this year more than anything else I will remain true to myself. Not a resolution. A promise.
Little HRT Update
I am in a really good place hormones wise at the moment. There was a bit of a blip when I first started the HRT, in that it seemed to be making my anxiety worse despite all the physical symptoms being alleviated. I brought this up at my 3 month check up and my dose was upped. Just one month on and I’m pleased to say that touch wood everything seems to be doing what it should. I take progesterone pills for half the month and am now on 3 pumps of oestrogen gel every night. Both the physical and mental symptoms that I was experiencing have now all pretty much disappeared. Which is a (pardon the pun) bloody miracle! I’d like to do a few more posts on my experience of this, as I know how many of you are going through similar, or at least suspect you might be. It’s always really helpful to hear from you about what you’d like me to write about, questions you might have, etc. so please do get in touch and let me know. My DM’s are always open, and despite the rather impersonal automated response, I will get back to you. The brave part of me wonders whether a Facebook live could be a goer… but then the scaredy pants side of me thinks no one would turn up and that would be awks. So yeah, let me know what you think about this too please my loves.
Starting As I Mean To Go On
About a fortnight before Christmas I fell ill, like proper take to my bed ill. I don’t really do ill. I fight it, refuse to feel it, battle on. Us females are good at that, right? Anyway, this particularly nasty bug, well and truly floored me. Of course, the natural response was to think it was Covid, cos well that’s what we’ve been brainwashed into thinking. A Pack of lat flows and a PCR test later, revealed it wasn’t Covid. 10 days spent mostly in bed, not eating, shitting yellow liquid out of my poor sore bumhole, and coughing up chunks of lung butter, I emerged feeling and looking like an emaciated Victorian street urchin. It wasn’t pretty.
I know this is going to sound proper woo woo weird, because honestly I suspect it was just flu and yes I am 100% signing up to a flu jab next year, there is a part of me that thinks that maybe, just maybe, me catching this bug was for a reason. That maybe I had been fighting things for so long, that all of my energies had become blocked, that perhaps my body needed a ginormous physical and mental purge in order for it to reset. Does that sound crazy? Since then, I have felt this shift in me. Obviously, I feel immensely better in myself now that I am eating properly again and able to leave the house and exercise. But my mindset has also changed since then. It’s as if I’m lighter, like something has been lifted from me, and it brings with it the most immense relief let me tell you.
Last year was a shit show – both literally and figuratively – but I have come out of it and moved into 2022 feeling more like me than I have in a long old time and it feels awesome.
So no, I won’t be making resolutions, they are well and truly going in my fuck it bucket. This girl has got no more shits to give – quite literally!!
I hope you enjoyed this week’s brain dump. Come back next week for more!
In the meantime, if you wanna get in touch, it’s probs best to head on over to one of my socials where I’m gonna try and be a bit more active again on, without letting it completely run the show.
Facebook – @thisishealthyliving
Twitter – @ArtHealthLiving
Instagram – @arthealthyliving
Or leave me a comment below.
Author Bio
Becky Stafferton is a content creator, full time procrastinator and mum of 2 kids and 1 aggy cockapoo. She tries to promote a realistic, sustainable and positive image of how to lead a healthy life, whilst also maintaining the fact that life ain’t all fluffy clouds and rainbows. When she’s not writing or sitting on her arse scrolling through social media, she can be found running through muddy puddles, making lists of lists, having a good old moan, doing random Google searches and squatting like her life depends on it.
