As the days shortened in August, we had a few cooler days in the last few weeks of the month. We can still get warm days in September, which I remember from high school. It was often a lousy end to the summer holidays, and then when we were back in a classroom, it was roasting!

To work through trauma, you have to revisit the trauma. That brings up old memories and body sensations from when you were in that traumatic moment. As a result, I have been looking at ways to look after myself in all aspects of my life.

I’m making many changes this year in many different areas, at least for this first part of it, and I will see if anything else changes later in the year post-therapy.

I’ve struggled with the change in seasons from summer to autumn for many years and as a consequence, I’ve spent a long time trying to find ways to help myself with the autumn or winter blues.

I've really been struggling the past few weeks, I don’t know what mood I’m going to be in when I wake up and two Saturdays ago I woke to feel very anxious. I had my breakfast and did my meditation but then half an hour later while journaling I burst into tears. Even now I couldn’t tell you why. I had serious doubts as to if I should go into work as it happened about twenty minutes before I was due to leave the house. But I find that keeping the structure in my day and seeing and speaking to people often helps lift my mood.

I thought it was time to tell you all a bit more about my story as I don't think that I have talked about it in its entirety. I have mentioned bits here and there but I've not written my mental health journey on here from start until now. I can see that I'm getting lots of people reading my blogs now so I wanted to let you all know my story a bit more.

** I am a domestic abuse victim and I will touch on parts of my past with my ex, so if any of you reading this and are likely to be triggered by anything related to domestic violence, please don't continue to read this post. Do what's good and right for you. **

I was conditioned to believe that no one else except my ex would love me, no one else would have me and that he was doing me a favour by being with me. After about nine years I changed jobs and met a colleague who helped me to see that my now ex wasn't a nice man and that I wasn't in a healthy relationship. After about ten months of almost daily chats and advice, I was starting to question what I'd been told by the man I loved and who I believed loved me.

While I have been recovering from tennis elbow the last few months, I have noticed my mood dip and my anxiety rise because I can't do what I used to and therefore what I'd like to do. I really noticed it the second week I was signed off sick, which was during the first full week of February as I didn't have anything specific planned like going to the cinema as there was nothing on that week that I wanted to see.