I think this is the longest I’ve gone without posting to Dearest Someone, but I have a good excuse I promise… Now, I’m not one for writing “sorry I haven’t uploaded in a while…” and I don’t have a set schedule for blogging (I see my blog as an extension of me, therefore I blog when I feel have something of interest to write about, because trust me I have a lot of rubbish floating around in my imagination at times, you should be glad I have some form of a filter!) Moving on… the last blog I published was a post which was simultaneously published through Huffington Post Young Voices ‘Rain Rain Go Away… Dealing with Stormy Weather After Surviving a Natural Disaster’. I don’t normally share the same blog post in multiple places but this one was a particularly prominent and personal post and it felt right to publish it on a larger platform. I’m glad I did as the response was, as usual, really lovely. Moreover I had a bit of an incident that day after publishing which meant I didn’t have the time – or health – to write some more stuff.

Long story short, I managed to hit my head quite badly on Thursday morning, despite definitely being concussed I still went into work, and it wasn’t until the next day (at work) where, after a phone-call with my GP, I was advised to call an ambulance. Needless to say calling an ambulance and going to hospital was the very last thing I wanted to do. I panicked slightly but I also really knew that it was the best thing for me to do. I spoke with some of my colleagues and an ambulance was called – I work at a University which is alongside a popular attraction in Birmingham so I was pretty overwhelmed and slightly embarrassed. However, one of my wonderful work colleagues stayed with me and kept me calm. All in all Friday was a pretty hectic and very overwhelming day. Fortunately I was able to return home and I spent most of the weekend asleep (and today).

My body works in a way that means whenever I am overwhelmed, stressed or poorly sleep is the only option. Which is hilariously ironic because I also really struggle with nightmares, falling asleep and – at times – panic attacks during the night. However, these past five days I’ve not really been able to do much other than sleep. My housemates have been wonderful, so have my family and colleagues. I also realised how guilty I felt about not blogging (I really do see this blog as a fantastic outlet for me). But this weekend I couldn’t really make sense of things. My mood has, undoubtedly, been all over the place and I’ve been acting a little out of character.

There’ve been a few times this weekend where I wanted to blog about specific situations, however I banned myself because I knew I’d blog angry stuff, and that’s not who I am and not what I want this blog to be. Of course I get frustrated by people but I very rarely get angry about certain situations. My mood and my behaviour has been slightly peculiar since I hit my head, but fortunately I seem to be back to my normal (albeit annoying) self.

Pinterest

Although I spent most of the weekend eating food, watching YouTube videos, sleeping and watching Harry Potter I also really spent a lot of time on Pinterest. I honestly find images and art to be a fantastic way to articulate my emotions – and I think I find the repetitiveness and ability to ‘organise’ things of Pinterest to be particularly soothing. No matter how strange it sounds Pinterest is a lot more productive than scrolling endlessly through other forms of social media – also it allows me to come across other creative works produced by people dealing with, or familiar with mental illness – that to me is a really special way to use social media – aka: using social media to share and express experiences of mental illness, allowing others to realise they may not be alone in their journey.