Hello, 

I absolutely love mornings. 

At the beginning of term two, my eating patterns got really bad and so I went to a mental health drop-in session. I was nervous at first, but the lady was very nice. She laughed a lot and she smiled. So, yeah. That was alright and she gave me links for self-help stuff. I looked briefly at it but didn't use them because one said 'eating disorder' help booklet and I thought, I am fine. Perfectly fine! 

There is a point, I promise. I am getting to it. 

I ended up going to counselling and I had two sessions and each time I felt bad because I thought I was wasting the lady's time. My last appointment was last week Tuesday and the lady was like I could book another appointment or finish there and I opted for somewhere in the middle. Not booking another appointment, but seeing how things goes and calling up if I feel I need to. 

I have started to think about it. Last term wasn't great. I didn't feel like myself. Like, I wasn't the sort of happy person I usually am. I was tired and confused.

I feel like, with all the counselling, I was focusing on negatives. I was focusing on what has went wrong and those thoughts permeated into everyday, so in a way I was sort of trapped in the past for a lot of last term. Then, there is the who J situation when I just felt like shit, because I was letting him down, but if I am honest, he wasn't my responsibility and he put so much on me even though professional help was avaliable. Then, there is my mum going to Nigeria and having to pop home and look after people. So, yeah. I was focusing on the negatives and what didn't help was that when I talked to people (i.e counselling and my personal tutor), they looked at me like, that is so sad. Like, they could see right through me and like it was okay to not be happy. Because then it sort of made it okay for me not to be alright, if that makes sense. 

So, yeah. My point is, I spent so much time focusing on negatives. 

I realised this when Hayat emailed me and asked me to state good things that had happened and though many good things have happened, I couldn't think about any.

And so, I decided that I'd write a list of positive things that have happened this term. Recently, it has been helping.

Because, okay, fine, life may suck sometimes, but there are great things and the happy times has always been my pillow when stuff gets hard. The simple happy moments of every day are what I am living for. It is what makes all the crap feel worth it. 

And yesterday,  I looked back at the links that the lady gave me and there is this positive psychology practise link which I will use. 

I've decided that I will try be kinder to myself. That I want to reach a place where I love myself unconditionally. Because then, eating too much or too little, and gaining and losing weight won't matter. Then, I won't believe that I should take shit from people. Then, I will put myself first. 

And ending with a quote I saw in a book many years ago: When I love myself enough, I learnt to care about my own needs and not call it selfish.