Non Surgical Uplifts

I spent Father’s Day with my parents and my brother, his wife and their 2 year old twins. A muggy day, it was lovely to see how happy my brother was with his family. I sort of thought that he’d be a great dad, he has been a real help through my periods of illness and incredibly supportive. He is an uplifting person. Like everyone who’s never had a mental illness, he sometimes doesn’t understand where I’m coming from and my actions but I know he really tries.

That weekend my boyfriend and I decided that we would take advantage of my then unemployed status (I start a new job on Monday) and go to the beach. We decided on Bournemouth and headed there on Monday. Once there we got our cozzies on and headed to the packed out beach. It was about 5ish and still sweltering. I paddled in the steal cold sea and we headed to hotel after a while. We decided at dinner time, after learning our check out time was 10am, that we would go the beach really early the next day. So that’s what we did. At 7am we headed to the beach and dipped our feet in the freezing sea. After having a walk we stripped to our swimsuits and went in still very cold sea. My boyfriend started to not feel his feet as they were so cold so we got out. We spent the rest of out time visiting the art museum and wondering around the town. We both love mint choc chip ice cream so we both got one and sat to eat it’s dripping goodness. It was a flying trip but it was so lovely to be by the seaside with my favourite boy.

I got back to my hometown and I felt quite down. I’ve been feeling this on and off over the past couple weeks. But then I had a friend tell me that the way that I had come through my illness was inspiring. The fact that I can inspire others with my journey is really a wonderful thing. If I can make others not feel like they are not alone in their pain and tough times then I will do my best to be a person they can come to, even for an understanding ear.

Although I have a job in place, I had a really great opportunity come up and I decided I would interview and see what happens. I felt quite positive about how it went. They got back to me and said I gave a good account of myself and I came across as intelligent. I was taken aback by this as they didn’t have to give such complimentary feedback and I do often doubt myself, inside and out.

Finally today I was sent a reference from a job at a theatre I did 2 years ago. This job meant a lot to me as it was my first full time, paid marketing job. I was running the whole department by myself for a few months and whilst it was high pressure, it was a rewarding job with room for me to be creative. The reference that was written about me has blown me away in all honesty. I worked really hard in that job but wasn’t sure how I had managed things. But my reference read “she has some very innovative ideas.” My communication and other things were also complimented. To be recognised in such a high profile job and also have my ideas seen as worthwhile is an amazing feeling.

As I start an interesting week next week, I’m trying to allow all of the good done and said about me this week sink in rather than evaporate as is often the case. I beat myself up a lot and allow the harsh and some times cruel words of others close to me to stick and burrow deep within me. It’s a hard slog changing how you view yourself but I know that I shouldn’t let others bring me down.