Today is the start of Carrie Hope Fletcher's May Vlog challenge May, Myself and I where I have decided to blog the prompts her Instagram followers suggested to her when she asked them for ideas. If you haven't read my post from yesterday she invited her followers and subscribers to join in and tweet, write stories, poems, blog, make videos or whatever but to just create something based on the prompts that she shared.

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.

Today is Easter Sunday and I'm late uploading today's post. It's almost 2 pm as I'm starting to type this out, which is when I schedule the posts to go up but it has been a busy couple of weeks at work and I'm feeling tired and like I need a rest.

A few days ago I started with a cold sore - a clear sign I'm run down. I've been doing my best with eating healthy, trying to get a good nights sleep every night and rest when I can. My anxiety has been up and down the last few weeks and my sleeping hasn't been as good as it had been and I've woken up a few times in the night this last week.

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.

Today (Thursday) is my first day off after being back at work for three days and after two weeks off with tennis elbow, and I am shattered! I’d planned on running a few errands this morning but I woke up way early again for the third day in a row and my body is just not having any of it. Three 5.30 am wake ups in succession isn’t good for me, especially after two weeks of no alarms. I’ve had breakfast and watched a couple of YouTube videos and it’s now 8.07 am. I’m wanting to get a shower but I’m just far too comfy led on the sofa it’s gonna take me a bit to get up.

My Autumn self-care

The clocks changed here at the end of October which means that for a little while we have lighter mornings and darker early evenings. It's about this time of year that I struggle more with my moods being low due to the shorter days.

As I sat down to write up a handwritten post today about the clocks turning back last weekend and how the shorter days affect me, I was trying to think of a title about the clocks going back an hour. All I could think of was the Cher song, "If I could turn back time..." and then I immediately followed that up with 'what would I tell my past self, knowing what I know now,’ if I could actually travel back in time.

It’s now September, which means that summer is over and autumn is here.

I don’t remember the change of seasons being an issue for me while I was growing up but, as I’ve got older I’ve started to struggle with the darker days of autumn and winter that we get here in the northern hemisphere of the NW of England. These seasons can be difficult for me if they’re dull and wet, especially if we’ve had a dreary and damp summer.

For years I’ve done things that would now come under the self-care umbrella. Things that I needed to do to help lift my mood, to help take care of myself and things that make my low days a bit easier to manage. They range from opening the curtains as soon as I wake up in the mornings when it’s light earlier to get as much daylight as possible, to having an early night when I need it and all manner of things in between. Today I’m going to tell you about some of the things on my current self-care list.