New Year, New Month, New Update!

I know we’re already halfway through the first month of 2022, but HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season, no matter which you celebrate(d). How did the stress of the holidays affect your mental health? Were you able to come out of things mostly unscathed?

 

Christmas was actually a *lot* of fun for me this year! My husband and I went down to Columbus to see his family (who are all vaccinated and mostly boosted, save for one or two who were not at the gatherings we’d attended). We left super early on Christmas morning (and by early, I mean we were on the highway by 7:30am) and spent the night since we were visiting both sides of his family.

 

We had our annual gift exchange at his mother’s house, and everyone really enjoyed the presents that were given. The couples’ gift my husband and I received from his mom and stepdad was an automatic pasta maker, something we’ve been wanting for years and we were (and still are!) grateful that we’re now able to make our own pasta at home. We actually made homemade spaghetti on New Year’s Day, and it was delicious!

 

Todd and I had a quiet New Year’s Eve at home…we most certainly weren’t going to go out to any busy establishment with the pandemic still raging on here in our state! In fact, he was asleep by 10:30pm, and I’d laid down around 11:50 to watch the ball drop on a livestream that was playing on YouTube; then I crashed by 12:15am LOL!

Yep, I’m getting to that age where I’ll stay up (while struggling to do so) to watch the ball drop, then it’s straight to bed shortly afterwards. I’m just amused because that was always my dad’s NYE routine, while my mom and I would stay up til at least 1:30-2:00am. That memory still makes me smile.

 

So, let’s dive into the Mental Health discussion portion of this post, shall we?

 

First, I have a confession to make: I’ve rescheduled my therapy sessions twice already this month. I know, I know – I need to stop that habit. While convenient, I think virtual therapy with my counselor is more of a hinderance than it is beneficial; when I call the office on Monday morning, I’m going to ask to switch back to in-person sessions. I know I’d already mentioned the pandemic and it’s seemingly neverending temper-tantrum, but I know that all the staff at the office I go to are vaccinated and the majority of them – including my counselor – wear their masks all day. Also, going in-person will allow me to hold myself accountable more.

 

Secondly, sometime over the next couple of weeks I’ll be increasing my Lamotrigine dosage from 75mg to the highest-recommended dose of 100mg. It was a decision my psychiatrist and I came to together because I have had a few days of mania over the past couple of months, but not as bad as it was back in the summer. I’m also hoping this will help me re-regulate my sleep schedule again (*she says while writing drafting this post at 4:49am after not having slept at all yet…).

So, other than the therapy and dosage change up, my mental health has been going strong for quite a while now!

 

I’m actually super proud of myself because there have been some seriously stressful situations that’ve happened at work over the past few weeks, but thankfully I’ve been getting a lot better at de-escalating intense scenarios, and letting situations beyond my control just “roll off my back”, as my supervisor would say. AND! Here’s a cool thing: during my weekly meeting with him last week, he said that he’s proud of me for how much progress I’ve made since I was on short-term disability a few months back. Keep in mind, I’ve *never* met my supervisor – or any of my colleagues – in person because I started with my company right when my state was in full lockdown mode in the early days of the aforementioned pandemic. So the fact that he’s able to take notice of my improvement based on my overall performance and conversations during our one-on-ones and team meetings says a LOT. I even got teary-eyed when he’d said that because I don’t think I’ve ever had a supervisor tell me they were proud of me.

And of course, there was a re-alignment of all the teams in my department, so starting on 1/17 I’m going to a new team with a new supervisor. Hopefully she’s just as awesome as the guy I’ve had for the past year is!

 

On the creative side of things, I’m excited to announce that I’ve finished my short story collection that I started back in November! I wound up cutting the story count down from 7 to 4; and that may change to 3 because after talking with another writer friend about the first story in the collection, he helped me realize that it may work better as a novel. So, I’ll eventually tackle that project. But for now, my current work-in-progress is a domestic suspense thriller called Neighborly Liasons. And alter this year I’m going to get back into my YA dark fantasy trilogy Knights of the Wraithmaker so that I can finally tackle Book Two.

 

I also did a lot of reading in December, and accomplished a couple of big goals:

1) I’d read a book cover to cover within the same month: The First Mistake by Sandie Jones. It’s SO GOOD! I actually finished it in less than 20 days, which is unheard of for me.
2) I started a reading journal in my commonplace planner, which has been a fun way for me to see how my thoughts have shifted from my first impressions of a book to my final thoughts once I’d completed in.

*takes in a deep breath, lets it out in a big whoosh!*

 

This was…a long-winded post. Sorry, not sorry? If you’ve stuck around this long, thank you SO so much! Please do comment down below how you’re currently doing; I don’t need all the intricate details, but feel free to use this post as a safe-space to check in with others in the community who can offer their support while we all support each other.

Until next time, my friends…ciao!

 

Brightest Blessings,

Melanie