A Little Every Day - Weeks 10 & 11
This recap is an amalgamation of both weeks ten and eleven of the A Little Every Day project. I had originally planned to write my weekly recap for week ten, and had indeed begun to draft up the review but was side-tracked by my kitchen sink coming unconnected to the piping. Though it was fixed pretty quickly I still had been distracted dramatically enough to completely forget about the weekly review until about four days later, by which point I decided to just wait until the next one.
The last two weeks have been troubling to say the least for myself. As you are all no doubt aware, I have been unreliable with my writing and publishing, but this is the tip of the iceberg. As of midway through last week I was signed off from work to focus on my mental health. I had reached the point where I was struggling to cope with the day to day requirements of life, let alone writing and pursuing my dreams of being a writer. I was strong enough to admit to friends, family, and my doctor that I needed help. I am not ashamed to admit that I needed time to be able to get back on track, time to prioritise myself and the things that really matter to me.
In the weeks leading up to this review, I have been troubled and growing ever more exhausted by what has quickly become a toxic work environment. This has affected my self-esteem dramatically and consequently my ability to maintain the habit I had built of writing a little each and every day to keep the ball rolling. I am working on accepting that even if I don’t get a little done every day, so long as I am doing my best that is good enough. I have published very little over the last two weeks but what I have done I can be proud of. I have been working behind the scenes on recipes to add to the website, with little success I might add; I managed to annotate, expand and edit a full Dungeons and Dragons recap before publishing it; and finally I have been making slow but steady progress on Chapter 11 of the first Lonely World novel.
What I am trying to take away from my experiences of the last two weeks is that I am not what my anxiety and depression reduce me to. I am more than that and will not be defined by it. It takes strength to weather the hard times. It takes greater strength to accept that you cannot do everything alone, and to ask for help. Please if you are ever struggling reach out to those who love you and care for you. If they truly care for you, I promise that they will not see you as a burden and you will not be inconveniencing anyone by asking them for help when you need it.