Health update

“Hello from the other siiide” ~Adele

Well hello there, it’s been a while. For those who are new to the blog, I’ve been struggling with burnout and depression, brought on not by work but instead by a compounding of life events, the pandemic and an undiagnosed condition which I will unveil below. I’ve been on a long journey to recovery and in this post, I hope to “summarise” how I got to the other side.

I’m now happy to report that I am back to my former self, better even. I am content, happy and can experience joy again. Coming from where I was, this is no small statement. I still have work to do but I’m in a much, much better place. It’s amazing the difference a year can make.

If you are where I was, please know that this too shall pass, you are resilient, and with the right resources and information, you too can make it to the other side.

Here is my very high-level list of my own journey back to myself. I will go into each in more detail. I also want to say that, most, if not all of these things are NOT easy. It’s going to take work and perseverance but it’s well worth the effort.

• Recognise you are not yourself
• Ask for help
• Rest
• Educate yourself
• Go on a digital diet
• Eat better
• Sleep better
• Move more
• Meditate
• Journal
• Be patient

Also just to note the obvious, I am not a medical doctor and below is my own story and journey.

Recognise you are not yourself

The conditions and events that lead to depression and burnout are going to be different for everyone but the end result may be very similar. At a high level:

• If you feel like you want to leave your job, leave your marriage, move or all three, it can be a sign that it’s time to reach out for help
• If you are a woman and are experiencing severe PMS, mood swings, insomnia or other symptoms linked to your cycle when you didn’t before, it could be a sign your body is telling you something is not right
• If you struggle to feel joy or get excited about anything, especially things that you would have enjoyed or looked forward to before, this is also a sign that getting help would be beneficial

My story

When I was at my lowest, I wrote down the following list to bring to the GP.

I’m struggling and need help diagnosing the root cause. I’m willing to put in the work and know it won’t be a quick fix. My life, work and marriage are severely impacted by how I’m feeling.

• Exhausted
  • Constantly sick (son in playschool)
  • Even though I’m sleeping 8-9 hours, aside from sickness I can’t remember the last time I woke up feeling rested
  • I’ve always had low energy
  • Very quickly tired by social outings (introvert)
  • Insomnia during cycle
• Seasonal Affective Disorder
  • Lack of sunlight affects me but I’m unable to go anywhere sunny (I had surrendered my passport for a time to apply for citizenship)
• Low mood
  • I’m generally positive, content and grateful but can’t remember the last time I felt that way, so much so I’m considering quitting work
• Mood swings
  • PMS linked to cycle since being off the pill, getting progressively worse, so much so I almost ended my marriage
• Grief
  • loss of my Grandma during the pandemic, no funeral, couldn’t go home
  • recent loss of family pet
• Lack of support
  • pandemic particularly hard, no family support with a toddler not sleeping, husband gone on some weekends helping a sick relative, I felt extremely isolated

Ask for help

I’m going to start this one off by saying that asking for help was THE hardest step for me. Please know that asking for help is a sign of strength, not weakness and please don’t wait for things to get as bad as I did before reaching out. Here are some ways that reaching out looks like:

• Talk to friends/family that have gone through something similar
• Book an appointment with your doctor
• Find the right therapist. Finding a therapist that fits with you is so important, it’s like any other relationship, if the first doesn’t suit, find another, get recommendations from like-minded friends/family, try an app like BetterHelp that matches you to a therapist based on your preferences and outlook. Check your employer health benefits to see if you have cover for therapy, although in my experience the therapists provided through work schemes were not a good fit for me
• Consider taking anti-depressants with the guidance of your GP

My story

As I mentioned, asking for help for me was hard. I’m usually so solution-focused and determined that I can fix most things myself. I felt that I was weak or a failure for needing help. I knew something was very wrong but no matter how much I tried different things I couldn’t fix myself. I think what finally led me to reach out was that I first started talking to friends and family that I knew had, had similar struggles. On their gentle pushes, I scheduled an appointment with my GP. It took me weeks to even schedule an appointment. Asking for help is SO hard. Please do not wait so long if you are feeling this way.

GP Visit

With the list I included above in hand, I got through reading 2 words before I broke down into tears. After getting through the full list, the GP asked me a series of questions, prescribed anti-depressants, talk therapy and asked if I wanted to be written off for work.

I said I didn’t feel like it was depression (I’ll share more on this below), but she said anti-depressants can help all kinds of imbalances not just depression. I also didn’t feel like being off work would help as it would give me more time to ruminate and have spiralling thoughts but in my gut I knew I needed a break.

Anti-depressants

This is another one I was extremely reluctant to try. Throughout my childhood, I had heard a lot of anecdotal horror stories about medication and that they were to be used as a last resort when all other avenues had been exhausted. I felt like I was weak to need them but at the point of getting them prescribed, I was so desperate to be better, I filled the prescription. Even then, they sat in a drawer for weeks before I mustered up the logic to take them, again by talking it through with a friend I knew had been on them.

They aren’t magic pills but they can level you off to give you the headspace you need to work through what you need to in therapy. Studies show that a combination of medication and therapy has statistically higher chances of healing depression and reducing chances of recurrence. I certainly wouldn’t be where I am without having done both for an extended period of time.

After about 4 months, after what I felt was sufficient therapy and with the guidance of my doctor, I weaned off the anti-depressants. I went through about 4-6 weeks of withdrawal which was more like the re-emergence of symptoms I had before I went on them. The symptoms eventually tapered off but I hadn’t done enough in therapy and although I was more myself, I still had the inability to feel joy. Friends and family said I had lost the light in my eyes. I was always on the verge of tears. One day at a playground play date with friends, my friend noticed my blank stare and asked if I was ok, just her asking that had me wanting to cry. I thought I was better until that point and remember talking with my husband on the way home that I was going to go back on the meds.

6 months after weaning off the anti-depressants, I went back to the GP, renewed my prescription and started back to therapy. This time I stayed on them for 9 months and continued therapy, which made a world of difference. Studies have shown that once started, patients should stay on anti-depressants for at least 6 months from the point they start feeling better before trying to wean off in order to see the most benefits and avoid reoccurrence.

I have now been off them for almost 5 months and still feeling really good. My decision to go off the meds was not a judgment against being on them but rather that I also have ongoing sleep issues which I wanted to work on while knowing that there were no medications possibly causing side-effects.

Therapy

This was another one that took me months to start. I’d never been to therapy until this point. Despite having liberal views now, I grew up in an era where therapy was often considered to be airy fairy and that you were weak if you needed it. I felt like, I talked openly with my friends and family and had done ok so far working through things that way. This was a very hard mental block to break through. I think on some level I was also afraid that the therapist would convince me to leave my marriage, which on the surface I thought I needed, but at my core, I knew I didn’t want. Again, I talked to friends and family I knew had been to therapy and they helped me push through and book my first appointment. When you start opening up about your struggles, you’d be very surprised who of your friends and colleagues has been to therapy. Only that I shared my struggles, did some of my friends and even work colleagues, including quite a few men, shared with me their experiences.

I initially went through my employer assistance program where I did a 90-minute assessment. The program only covers 8 sessions and so the assessment session is for them to assess whether they think your current problem can be solved in just 8 sessions. I went through all I was struggling with only to be told they could not help me further as I would likely need more than 8 sessions to get through all I was struggling with. I got off that call so deflated. It had taken me SO much JUST to make that one phone call only to be told, go back to square one and find someone else. I also felt I got nothing out of the call that I didn’t already know. I would have been very disappointed if I’d paid for it.

I shared my experience with a friend who recommended I try a free 15-minute consult with their therapist as we have very similar outlooks and felt we’d be a good fit. I got more from that 15-minute call than I did from the 90 minutes with the other therapist. Even though I had no cover for this new therapist and the higher-than-average cost would be completely out of pocket, I knew that I could get through so much more in one session with them than if I paid a lower rate with a different therapist. I now say this was the best money I’ve ever spent. To no longer feel the way I was feeling and to be off anti-depressants. Hands down.

This is why I say, finding the right therapist is so important. If you haven’t found them yet, keep looking, you won’t regret it.

As an extremely open person, this post alone can attest to that, I never thought talking to a therapist could achieve what it has. Talking with someone that holds space for you and has no bias, along with a professional degree in helping provide you with tools and ways to reframe your mind and your experience is extremely different than just talking with friends and family. This seems so obvious now but it was a barrier for me.

When I first went in, I thought my issues were one thing but after going through therapy, those issues were just symptoms of a deeper rooted cause. Now that I’ve gone to the root, the other surface level issues have resolved themselves or vanished all together. At one point, I was convinced I had premenstrual dysphoric disorder (a severe PMS that causes extreme mood shifts that can disrupt daily life and damage relationships), as my symptoms had gotten so extreme around my cycle but after reading Code Red and other books and working through things in therapy, I realise that those symptoms were my body’s way of screaming at me that something in my life/environment was very wrong and needed my attention.

Rest

If you’re burnt out, take time off if you can, or find ways to do as little as possible guilt-free to allow yourself time to rest. Despite what our culture tells us, rest is productive. Rest allows you to come back stronger. As the airlines say, put on your own oxygen mask before helping others. This is true for mental and physical health too. If you’re familiar with the spoon theory, at the end of the day, ask yourself how many spoons or how much energy do you have left to finish out the day, if you have low energy, ask yourself is there anything that doesn’t NEED to be done or what shortcuts can you take so that you can finish out the day without borrowing spoons from the next day – which if done consistently, will leave you in chronic burnout and require a significant amount of down time to recover/recharge from.

My Story

In my first session with the GP, she asked if I wanted to be written off work. My gut was screaming YES at the time but my head and mouth said no. I continued working while starting the anti-depressants, therapy and subsequently weaning off the anti-depressants 4 months later in the Spring. I had planned to take that Summer off to go back home to Canada for an extended visit. I thought this might be enough time to allow me to rest and get back to my former self. You can see by the end of this post just how that went. Long story short, it wasn’t enough time. I decided at that point that I wasn’t going back to work and was going to focus on getting better. I went back on anti-depressants, went back to therapy and “rested”. By rest I mean, consumed an inordinate amount of wellness content, focused on eating and sleeping better and exercising more which I’ll go more into below. I also made some huge life and financial independence changes which I will share in another post.

In total, I was off work for 16 months minus a 6-week contract around the 12-month mark. My husband was also off during this time which was paramount to me getting the support I needed. I know this is extremely privileged, but I feel like it has its place on a financial independence blog as it was our working towards financial independence that allowed us both to take this time off. From a financial perspective, I’ll explain how we were able to fund this time off in the next post.

Educate yourself

Consume positive media on wellness and healing. Opening yourself up to this space and seeing where it leads could uncover things about yourself you never knew. Listen to podcasts, watch YouTubers, read books, and start a new Instagram account that follows only positive wellness accounts.

My Story

As I mentioned above, I consumed an inordinate amount of media in my quest for healing. When you’re looking for positive content, the algorithms actually work for good too, in that they continue putting forward related content and like-minded individuals. You may start to notice recurring themes or concepts, take note when you see them, the universe is trying to get your attention.

Following the trail actually led me to getting a diagnosis which has been a big part in getting me to where I am now. It started with me watching the comedy skits of Laura Clery on Facebook. She is an American, who was married to a British guy who did silly skits on the differences between American and English terminologies, which was relatable to me being a Canadian married to an Irish guy. She is around my age and at the same stage of life as me. She went on to become a mother around the time I did. She shared the same parenting styles as me. Her content started to evolve as she grew as a person. In one video she shared that her son was diagnosed as autistic and they shared the process that they went through getting that diagnosis. She also shared that in that process, they found that her husband had experienced many of the same things their son did as a child and has since gone on to get a diagnosis of autism himself. I was extremely moved by this video. I didn’t think much more about it at the time but very shortly after for whatever reason, a seed planted in my subconscious maybe, I decided to look up Asperger’s traits in women (now grouped together under the autism spectrum due to the unscrupulous history of Hans Asperger). The list has about 150 criteria, of which I identified with 80%. And down the rabbit hole I went. I spent probably 5 days straight (and many more since) consuming everything I could find on autism in women (hello hyperfocus), and have since navigated the pathways to getting formally diagnosed myself. I also likely have ADHD (having both is very common) but those traits are largely overshadowed by my autism.

I will write more on this and my lived experience in another post, but for now, I will share that getting this diagnosis has been a huge relief and extremely validating. I have a better understanding of myself and much more compassion for myself. Where once I felt broken in comparison to other people, now I know I’m just wired differently and have different strengths and weaknesses because of it. It also helped me understand that the burnout I was experiencing was something called autistic burnout which can take much longer to recover from.

From these I have read books on autism, one of which led me to the book Code Red which helped me see that my extreme PMS was more psychological than physical, and prompted more work in therapy.

Other content that really helped me on the healing front includes:

Podcasts/YouTube

These are all from Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown but hand picked the ones that helped me heal the most.

• Gabor Maté: Who Gets Sick and How to Prevent It
• Jewel: Turn Your Life Around One Thought at a Time
• Micheal A. Singer: Let Go of Yourself and Surrender to Life
• Byron Katie: Find Out What is True
• Dr. Sarah Schewitz: How Your Childhood Wounds Are Affecting Your Relationships

Books

Of all the books I’ve read on healing, these were the most impactful. The below are affiliate links which help support the blog.

• The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture by Gabor Maté and Daniel Maté
• Code Red by Lisa Lister (Any women with a monthly cycle should read this)

Netflix

• Brené Brown: The Call to Courage
• Stutz
• Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones

Go on a Digital Diet

• Stop watching the news, watching the woes of the entire world of which you can do nothing about is way more information, mostly negative at that, than humans are meant to consume
• Uninstall social media from your phone
• Turn your phone into a dumb phone, mute all notifications, remove all or most apps from your home screen, turn on auto do not disturb mode from 8PM, turn on night mode from 7PM to limit blue light.

My Story

When I was at my lowest, I had no more room for anything. Dr. Gabor Maté talks about women being their family’s shock absorbers, this felt particularly true for me and my experience during the pandemic. I had absorbed too much and had no room for anything else. I couldn’t cope with watching the news. I couldn’t read or watch anything that had any drama or heavy content of any sort. I went through a phase where all I watched on Netflix was stand-up comedies and all I read were fluffy holiday novels as that is all I could take. Social media and the news would only make me feel worse about myself or increase my anxiety.

At one point I came across the idea of a dumb phone. I researched various models and decided that I still needed a smartphone for things like authenticator apps and maps but that I could reduce my reliance on it by artificially making it dumb. I removed all social media applications, muted all notifications, especially group chats, I removed most apps from my home screen and moved the most used apps to a separate screen so I wouldn’t see them when I first unlocked my phone. Especially at night if I picked up my phone, I didn’t want to see any new emails or messages as it would send my mind racing wondering what they were and I already struggle enough with sleep. I set my phone to go into DND mode automatically by 8PM and turn on night mode on both my laptop and phone from 7PM to limit blue light which can impact sleep. I use the search function to load the apps that are removed from my home screen. Months later, a few more apps have made their way back to my home screen but it has made me be much more intentional with the use of my phone and significantly reduced my endless scrolling.

Eat Better

I’m not going to go on too much about the obvious stuff everyone knows. Healthy nutrition is so important for all health. You are what you eat and all that. I did want to share my experience of having been off work and having had time to try eating more healthily and what I learned about putting too much pressure on ourselves.

My Story

I’ve always eaten fairly healthily but in my search for healing, I came across a book that included a 4 week meal plan to help with improving gut health which has impacts on overall health including depression and anxiety. When I went off work, I wanted to give it a go. In true autistic style, I went all in and tried my very best to follow it to a T. The first week I tried to do the breakfast, lunch and dinners recommended in the book. They included all different ingredients we didn’t know where to buy, took us going to 4-5 different shops to just try and get the ingredients and then I pretty much spent the entire day in the kitchen just following the recipes for each meal. In the second week, we focused on just the dinners because even though we were both off, ain’t nobody got time for that. At the end of the 4-week plan, we had a repertoire of the meals we liked best and getting groceries got simpler, we kept those in rotation for another 3 weeks. I can’t say I felt any difference either physically on the scale, in my clothes or mentally in my mood or energy. I think I was so tired from trying to follow the meal plan that even if I did have energy gains they were consumed by the effort of following the recipes. We started re-introducing some of our old reliable meals that we knew how to make without following a recipe and it was such a relief. Now, a year later, we’ve gone back to our old ways and are eating simple whole foods. I still try to include some of the ethos which is to eat as many different whole foods as possible and get as many colours as possible every day but the pressure is off. All this to say, that while eating healthy is important, there has to be a balance where the effort to do it adds more to your life than detracts from it.

Actually, now that I think of it, our best and most effective diet, wasn’t intended to be a diet at all. When we were trying to go zero waste (produce as little waste as possible in all areas of our life), we were only buying whole foods or things with sustainable/very limited packaging. This meant no crisps, no biscuits, no processed food, no store-bought salad dressing or sauces and so on. I remember doing a scan at work that showed your BMI, visceral fat, metabolic age etc before and after we attempted this lifestyle and all of my measurements went down. My visceral fat went down, my weight went down and my metabolic age went down by 10 years!

If you watched the Netflix documentary on the blue zones where many people live to over 100, their diets are varied but none of them eat processed foods. In fact, once some of the communities became modernised and started getting easier access to processed foods, they are now losing their blue zone status.

The zero-waste lifestyle also took into account everything we put on our bodies. Hand soap, shampoo, laundry soap, dish soap, cosmetics, feminine hygiene products and so on. A lot of these things have toxins in them we aren’t aware of, and if you put it on your body, it ends up in your body. While I don’t make all my own soaps anymore, I did spend a lot of time researching which ones I could buy that were least harmful to both my and my family’s bodies and the environment.

Sleep Better

Similar to the eating healthy bit, sleep is paramount to good health. I’m not going to go into that which we all intuitively know but again wanted to talk through all I have tried and things I have found to have worked or not worked for me. You will have to do your own trial and error but hopefully, there are some learnings you can take away.

My Story

I’ve always had low energy despite sleeping 9+ hours a night. I very, very rarely wake feeling rested. I’ve been to the doctor many times over my life with this complaint starting in my early 20s, I had bloods done every time, and each time told there is nothing out of the ordinary. Get more exercise, more sunlight, more fresh air they’d say. Years later, add onto that already low energy, a baby that doesn’t sleep (less so than other babies). Even though he is now sleeping, I’m still struggling to sleep through the night and get through the day without needing a nap. I got a sleep tracker. No surprise, I get 0-15 minutes of deep sleep on average despite being “asleep” for 9-10 hours a night. I also have awake/disturbed sleep for 1.5 hours on average. Now that I know I’m neurodivergent this makes a lot more sense. This is a common affliction in our community. Still, I’ve scoured tiktoks and blogs trying to find the magic cure. I’ve yet to find it but I’ve tried a lot and found some things that help and some that make things worse.

Things that make things worse:

• Alcohol – if I have even half a glass of alcohol, my heart rate is elevated ALL night. My sleep suffers.
• Caffeine – if I have any caffeine – even tea – after noon, my sleep suffers
• My cycle – certain parts of my cycle wreak havoc on my sleep
• Screen time before bed – this is only a recent trial but I’m starting to be able to fall asleep without listening to something on my phone after only a week

I know these can’t always be avoided but at least if you know what effects they have, you can try to plan things around them. If you need to be on point for something, try to work around the things that don’t help.

Things that help:

• Go to sleep when you’re tired – this sounds obvious but too often, when you just want that little bit of me time once the kids are asleep, we push through and stay awake longer than we should. Learning my body’s natural sleep rhythm has helped.
• Listening to TV shows that I know or am not interested in – I need something for my overactive brain to focus on to keep my brain from kicking into overdrive but it has to be something I’m not interested in or already know by heart. I have certain shows on repeat. When I wake in the night, I put on an episode and 5-10 minutes later I’m back to sleep. Otherwise, I could be awake for an hour or more.
• Turning lights low before bed – I’m hypersensitive to artificial lights, they actually cause me pain (hello hypersensitivity), so I always have lights dimmed, but having overhead lights on after a certain time of night will keep you awake for longer as it messes with your circadian rhythm
• Exercise – this is obvious, although I know I need to do more, when I do exercise it helps
• Sunlight/Vitamin D – I got more deep sleep in the summer when I got outside every day, I take vitamin D supplements but haven’t seen the same impact as getting actual sunlight
• Time in Nature/Fresh Air – As above, I got more deep sleep when I got outside in nature every day.
• My cycle – other parts of my cycle increase my deep and overall sleep
• Sleep in a dark room – I have black-out blinds and a weighted sleep mask that I bring with me if I’m travelling
• Breathable sheets, duvets and pillows – these bamboo rayon sheets are my fave, an all-season duck/goose down duvet that comes in 2 and snaps together or apart depending on how warm you want it and down pillows help me feel cosy but not too hot
• Weighted blanket

Other things I’ve tried with inconclusive results for me (though I probably didn’t try them for long enough) were: hypnosis, meditation, magnesium supplements, going to sleep at the same time and getting up at the same time every day and journalling.

I have yet to try melatonin, CBD oil/ cannabis or going to a sleep clinic but they are on my to try list. I’m reluctant to try any more supplements/ sleep aids as I feel like they are a sticky plaster over a root cause. I need to do more work in therapy to get to the root of this one I think.

Move More

Again, exercise is an obvious one for overall health. When I exercise, I sleep better and have more energy. I listened to a podcast (which for the life of me I can no longer find) that said “If you could bottle the benefits of exercise into a pill, it would be the most prescribed drug in the world”, it also said that “no matter how little you think you can do in a day, any exercise is better than none. So if you can only manage 5 minutes, do that and go from there”. It also highlighted that as humans we need a combination of muscle, flexibility and cardio exercises to keep us healthy for as long as possible.

My Story

During my time off, I thought I would exercise more. I did for a while and I was seeing benefits but something happened along the way that got me out of the habit and I stopped. I really do need to get back into a routine again. One trick I saw was that, once you’ve started a workout routine, no matter how little you think you can do, especially when life hits, like you or your kids are sick, you can always do something. If all you can do is 5 minutes, do that. When it comes to building a habit, you need to do something each day no matter how small. That’s what will build the momentum. This is more of a do as I say, not as I do section as I have yet to crack this one myself. I’ve also come across another health hack that says you should move as soon as possible as soon as you can after you eat. Even if you can do calf raises under your desk at work that will help level out your glucose spike and keep energy levels even.

Meditate

I recently heard a different podcast that said something along the lines of “We as humans did not always brush our teeth, but we now know that brushing our teeth extends the health and life of our teeth and so we take a few minutes each day to brush our teeth. We also now know that meditation is scientifically proven to improve all kinds of mental and physical ailments, so why don’t we also take a few minutes to meditate each day”. This really stuck with me.

My Story

I’ve “tried” meditation so many times and while I had some success, I have yet to make it as second nature or as hard coded into my routine as brushing my teeth. Another podcast stated that there is no “trying” to meditate. It is something you do as a lifestyle. It takes time. When you first start training for a marathon, you don’t just get up and run the full race without training. Same goes for meditation, when you first start, you might not be able to sit still for 30 seconds, but with training and practice you can get there. Also to know, there are different kinds of meditation. If you’ve tried one without success, there might be another you can try. While guided meditation is a great starting point, there is also walking meditation and yoga which is a movement-based meditation for those who are particularly restless (hello ADHD). My favourite is to go for a walk in nature or get out on water and sit/lay in the sun and take deep breaths while bathing in nature’s stillness. When I was at my lowest, I felt called to the forest and to be in nature. I had a pass to a local garden and I went there as often as I could. I felt the forest and lake were so healing.

Journal

Buy yourself a nice journal, keep it by your bed and build it into your screen-free bedtime winddown routine. There are many different ways of journalling, so try different ones to find the one that works best for you. The more you journal and tap into your subconscious, the more your intuition comes through and unveils things that need uncovering to help you heal.

My Story

After reading Code Red, I bought the journal that goes with it. It has guided sections to fill out every day. This one in particular is for tracking your ups and downs in relation to your menstrual cycle but taps into all elements of your mind-body experience. It gets you to reflect daily on how you’re feeling in your physical and mental body, what you did for yourself that day and what your gut is telling you. At the end of the month it gets you to reflect on the last month and previous months and notice any trends that are starting to appear. Which days are the best and which were not so great. When you get into the daily habit, it’s amazing how your intuition starts to get stronger and your subconscious brings things up throughout the day that might be needed for you to continue healing.

Be patient

There are no quick fixes, medication takes time, therapy takes time, seeing effects from routine, diet, exercise, sleep hygiene, meditation and supplement changes take time. Just like losing weight, building muscle, or running a marathon, you need to slowly build up to sustainable practices that heal you. Don’t just try something for a few days or even a week or two and give it up as you are seeing no effects. Be persistent and your efforts will pay off.

My story

This one is more of a do as I say, not as I do moment. In other words, learn from my mistakes. As above, I went off anti-depressants too soon. I’ve tried so many different things over the last 2 years trying to get better and probably gave up on a lot of them way too early.

My mood and outlook on life have dramatically improved because I gave therapy and anti-depressants the time they needed to do their job (the second time).

Give things a go for at least 6 months before writing them off. Otherwise, you might, like me, look back and think, I didn’t try that for long enough and it will extend your trial and error efforts trying to find something that works for you and your body.

Also, like me, try not to try changing too many things at once. Firstly, you’re unlikely to keep at them as too much change at once is unsustainable and not easy to build habits and second, you won’t know which thing you changed made a difference or not.

Give yourself grace and compassion along the way and don’t compare yourself to others. You are on your own journey and it will take the time it takes.