I don’t know about you, but I am pretty confident that I am severely allergic to heatwaves. I’ll be honest, lately I have had a really tough time handling the excessive heat and lack of rain.
It’s no secret that the UK is not prepared for over 30 degree heat, public transport struggles, we live in heavy brick homes with no decent air source and the climate crisis is becoming super real.
People are always talking about seasonal depression, particularly in winter, where their mood drops massively and they feel depressed and low. I on the other hand, thrive on Autumn/Winter stages.. but Summer and heat have always massively influenced my mood. In a rather negative way.
It doesn’t help that I’ve recently had my thyroxine medication increased so my hormones are adjusting a lot lately, and I have recently found out through an NHS health check that my blood pressure is super low (guess that explains the consistent dizziness and light headedness), but over the last few weeks I have found myself struggling massively to even function like a normal human.
I had various days where all I could do is lay down with USB fans on me. I barely ate most days because my appetite was non existent, and I have spent many evenings crying my eyes out over everything and nothing. The problem was, the heat doesn’t seem to be going away any time soon, and this past weekend I decided that I need to pull my finger out and push myself a tiny bit.
Obviously, being in a dark place mentally makes you overthink and rethink a lot of things, I have been spiralling hard over various things. So in order to not push myself to a point of a breakdown, I have made a few little adjustments to how I try and survive this heatwave and my mini breakdowns that go with it;
Firstly – Pushing myself to eat more. It’s not helping me at all just eating a bit of toast or some ice cream (duh) so I’m pushing myself to keep my body functioning with light meals throughout the day instead.
Second, I’m trying this whole affirmations and manifestations routine again. I always suck at sticking to things (thank you ADHD), so I’m trying to push myself to do some youtube affirmations every evening before I sleep to try and trigger my subconscious into more positive thinking, they say you have to stick to it for 21 days to really see a change.. I’ll let you know how that works out.
Third, I am putting less pressure on myself. I’ve been very expressive about what I’m going through lately, including writing pressures. I keep beating myself up over how little I am getting done. So I have made a decision that as the things I really want to focus on are working on my novels and blogging, I am taking a little break from poetry writing. As much as I love poetry and expressing my feelings into words, I think I have to be clear with myself on what my priorities are and let certain things take a back seat for now.
I am also limiting my time on my phone as much as I can. I’ve always been open about working on my anxieties and how I feel about trying to keep up with messages etc. so I’ve implemented limited screen time on my phone for the next couple of weeks while I get my head into a more comfortable space.
I have always stressed about not being ‘involved’ or not hearing from people etc but I have also learned that a lot of the time everyone else around me always has periods where they don’t reply to me or are busy, and any genuine people in my life will understand my decision to just slow down a bit and not be as ‘active’ with conversations. My brain just needs a little break!
I’m hoping at some point over the coming weeks I find a way to focus a bit better and not be worried about how heavy my emotions get. But for the time being, I’m resting when my body tells me to, and trying to stay positive about overcoming this sodding heatwave!
Positive, Yet Cynical 