And at last I see the light, and it's like the fog has lifted - Rapunzel, 2010

Something insidious about anxiety that I'm only beginning to realise is the way that it creeps up on you. Your thought patterns change, you're filled with fear and dread - yes fine, we know. But the particularly weird and not always noticeable part of this is that it makes you think that this is the normal way to be. You think these are normal responses to events, and there's no option to think any differently. 

I must have seen mention of this in various self-help-y things online, but I sort of ignored them in the way you do with things that don't resonate. 'Name your anxiety', and 'remember this is just something that's happening to you and not who you are' and so on. I understood the concept, but I didn't really see why this helped. And then I had a holiday!

For the first time since March, I left London for longer than a day and spent three and a half weeks in Norfolk with my family and various family friends. The term cottagecore is new to me but when I heard it, I knew. We swam, we walked, we read books, we played Monopoly Deal and Yahtzee. I downloaded Co-star and checked it every day because other people were doing it too and it was FUN. I ate about six pieces of toast per day and went back to drinking caffeinated tea because it's just fucking nicer and I was actually able to handle it. I went to a big Tesco and was totally fine, something I haven't done in London since before lockdown. My mum and sister and I did some PE With Joe fitness sessions which were reliably hilarious, and once we did it in the garden and a huge spider crawled on me while I was doing crunches.

It wasn't flawlessly perfect, obviously, because it was real and not fake, and I did have moments of anxiety. But they passed. Some combination of the beautiful nature and having my parents there and being free from the city made me honestly - honestly!! - feel like a new person. Or actually, like getting back in touch with the person I was before. It felt a bit like remembering how to breathe. 

It's hard to write about without using cliches and being smug - apologies lads! But to give an idea of how different things are, let me say that right now, I feel as though there isn't enough time in the day for everything I want to do. A few months ago, I wanted to fast forward.

Learning to trust myself (and forgive myself and like myself) again will be a process. Again, it's one of those things you are always told about any mental health problems - be kind to yourself, don't compare yourself with other people, be gentle. We know!!! But surprisingly, I now feel as though I'm allowed to apply that to myself, or try to. It feels like I can start on the process, rather than seeing it far in the distance.