Put On Your Own Oxygen Mask First

So, May is Mental Health Awareness month (among many other designations), and for much of this year, my mental health has been in the dumps. I’m not alone in this, and it’s not the first time nor will it likely be the last.

I’m fine. I’ve had a lot of life coming at me in the past four months, some very personal and some very much not but still adding to the mental load. I was about to hit publish on a post here when I heard the news of the white supremacists storming the Capitol in January and well, talking about yarn in the middle of all that just didn’t feel right. And then things took a nosedive and here we are, four months later.

Meanwhile I’m sitting on a slew of posts that I do want to publish, because I worked hard on those projects and those posts and this is usually something that makes me happy.

So as a reminder to us all–before we are bloggers, or vloggers, or makers, or whatever, we are humans, and we need to be nice and caring to ourselves. If that means putting down the needles or the hooks, or not posting, or eating what some might consider a ridiculous amount of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for a grown person, then that’s what you do. If you need extra help, in the form of a therapist or a counselor or a trusted friend, please take that step and ask. Too many of us are indoctrinated into the belief that we have to do it all alone and that if we don’t have “real problems” we shouldn’t ask for help. I struggled with this a lot. It’s a nasty and pervasive voice and it needs to be ignored.

I’ve had this blog for just over twelve years (side note: holy hell, I didn’t realize it was that long). And in that time there’s been many mini-breaks as I’ve dealt with a variety of things. But I always kept coming back to it. There will probably be more breaks in the future, but I plan to always come back to it.