Hello, 2020

2018 was the worst year of my life. Exactly one year ago, I’d just had approximately six weeks off work and was ‘preparing’ to go back to work. My sick note read that I was anaemic, which was true, but I could have handled that without time off. It was my mental health that was actually causing problems.

Mental health is such a strange thing. It can get incredibly bad without you really noticing, and it’s only after you have a breakdown that you think “hmm, something has changed here – I didn’t used to be like this”.

I ended up going back to work on second of January, though, to be honest, I probably shouldn’t have.

I went into 2019 in pretty much the worst state of my life, and I leave 2019 in probably the best state of my life. It’s been a very long recovery. An extremely stressful situation out of my control finally resolved, which was necessary, but apparently not sufficient, for my mental health to recover. I got the anaemia under control, which helped a lot too. I started taking anti-depressants, which have undoubtedly helped me settle down the rampant anxiety I was experiencing. And, finally, I found a better job and got myself out of a toxic environment.

2019 was a pretty bad year in many ways, but it was an upward trend, and I’m starting 2020 in a pretty good place.