Hello Everyone!
It has been a while since I have properly sat down to write a blog post and I wanted to take the time to explain why, so that you aren’t all in the dark. I am currently in the middle of my GCSE’s, which are important exams that we take at the age of 16 in the UK for those of you from other parts of the world and they are an awful lot of work. I am taking photography, art and music, which are all heavily coursework based subjects, so naturally that takes up the large majority of my time. I have also continued to struggle with my mental health over the last few months, so I chose to take a few months off of my blog. I did explain a little in my Be Right Back post, but I wanted to take the time to give you all a proper explanation and tell you what I have been up to over the few months I have been away…
So where have a been? What have I been doing? And what have a got left to do? Well I have spent the last few months primarily doing coursework and finishing up learning the content that I need for my exams later in the year. At this point in time I have already taken my photography and music exams, which means I only have my art left to do in a few weeks time plus my academic exams in the summer. In short, the worst of it is almost over; my coursework subjects will be completely finished in 3 weeks time and then I just have to start revising for the May/June exam season. So I’m doing pretty good on the school front and it is a relief to know that it is almost all over and I will never have to set my foot in that school again.
That brings me on nicely to my mental health and also why I chose to take a break from my blog in the first place: If you are new here, then you may not know my past with my mental health struggles, but the short story is that I suffer with depression and anxiety and have for several years now. I am also autistic, which makes my life significantly more difficult from the point of view of accessibility within the education system and how much I am able to manage every day. I have been on Anti-Depressants now for about 6-8 months now and they are working well, but that doesn’t mean I still don’t struggle. I have been trying to catch up on everything I missed last year because of my mental health and I still have to deal with my own thoughts every day, but all things considered, I’m doing OK. The thing I mainly struggle with now is finding motivation to do the things I need to because I feel drained 80% of the time, which is why I had to put some things on hold, so I could continue with my GCSE’s.
I have a very limited amount of energy a day, which is both due to my depression and my autism, so I had to choose which things were the most important in order to cope. The way I like to explain it to people is that everyone has a set number of ‘points’ that they can use per day before they start running themselves into the ground. I as a mentally ill and autistic person both start with less to begin with (let’s say, the average person has 20 and I have 15), but every interaction and activity has a cost and my prices are considerably higher than other peoples because of accessibility issues and especially when it comes to interacting with other people. Managing my points every day is something I have been working on for the last few years and I have gotten pretty good at it, but it all got a bit much at the end of last year as the amount of school work I had to do for my exams doubled, which seriously set my point system out of balance. I was stressed, irritable and even less productive because of it and I was also making myself sick, so I had to cut something out. My priority has always been and will always be my health, both mental and physical, so I prioritised that and then worked from there with what points I had left and found that school took up all of them. I want to do well in my exams and I didn’t want all of my hard work over the last few years to go to waste, so i chose to prioritise my school work fro a few short months. I did however, have to cut out a lot of things including my blog, my Youtube channel and even reading. I have barely read at all this year, although I am now getting back into it as some of my exams are finished now, and I have also hardly seen my friends.
To wrap that all up, I have spent the last few months working and trying to get the best grades I can whilst also looking after myself and not doing much else of anything. I am expecting that to change over the next month or two though. I am currently on my Easter Holiday, so I have had some time to catch up on work without being given more and I am proud to say that that is all almost done with a week to spare. I am planning to get a head start on revision next week, get my art exam out of the way the week after that and then it is all down hill from there. As I complete more and more exams I will be able to slowly add in more activities that I used to do. The first one I have taken to integrating back into my life is reading. I fell off completely for about 10 weeks where I didn’t read at all, but I have set myself a mini ‘read every day’ challenge for April to help me get back into it and so far it is going very well! I am also hoping to come back to my blog and post once a week on a Friday by May and then return to my usual twice a week (Tuesday and Friday) by July.
I thought I would share some of the other things i have been doing in 2019 in a more concise list, so here you are:
- I’ve completed several quest lines on Skyrim
- I have spent far too much time playing the Sims 4
- I went to The Photography Show in Birmingham with my Dad
- I finally got the Kanken Rucksack that I wanted!
- I went to see Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat at the Theatre (and loved it!)
- I did a fantasy photoshoot with my sister
- And I have been smashing my way through Harry Potter Hogwarts Mystery! (I’m halfway through year 4 at the moment and have just become a prefect – if you play where are you at?)
I’m excited to get back to my normal routine and to finally have the time to dedicate to some of my personal projects and new things that I want to do once school is over for good, but for now I need to continue to focus on school for just a few more months. The second half of 2019 is set up to be 10 times better than the first half and I just have to remember that, so that i can push through these last few months. There is a lot planned for my 2019, but I will save that for a future Life Update post before this one gets any longer.
I hope you enjoyed listening to me rant a little about where I’ve been the past few months and I hope that you are all doing okay no matter where you are or what your struggling with! ❤
Goodbye for now!
Over and Out
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