Latitude Magazine & A Good Catchup!

Hello everyone,

How the dickens are we?

I mean, it’s December. Hang on, WHAT?!

Does anyone else feel like this year has just flown by? I don’t know if it’s with living in a covid world or that thing I repeatedly hear of time going quicker the older you get.

To be honest, I thought I would just sit down and have a chat. I know people have been missing my weekly blog posts and the chatty posts have been few and far between. To be honest, its come with that thing of time again. A goal of mine for the year was to step outside my blog, work with organisations and get into the community more and that has certainly happened this year.

Despite Covid-19 causing some restrictions, I have found myself working outside of the realms of my blog (though still online). Either working on other platforms or directly with organisations themselves. This has sadly meant i’ve struggled to find the time for both that and my blog. As i’ve wanted to work more closely with organisations for some time I really had to throw myself in to what was offered to me. That doesn’t mean I haven’t missed sitting down and pouring my heart into a blog post, sharing what I’ve been up to or teaching something new.

In other big news for my blog, I am so proud to say we landed ourselves in another magazine. Some months ago I was reached out to by Latitude Magazine and asked to share a little of my story and passion for recovery.

You know, despite doing this for so long now and having the odd publication it doesn’t get anymore ‘normal’. When the magazine arrived in my letter box I spent so long just staring blankly at it with my brain repeating “that’s actually you”. Despite seeing my face slap bang on the paper I don’t think my brains still connected that it is in fact, actually me.

Even better, Latitude really wanted me to talk about the recovery side of things which I often struggle to voice. So many times in the past I have had to turn down publications after people repeatedly wanting to share only a story of struggle. The older I get and the more I grow the less that has become appealing to me. My story certainly isn’t at the stages of ‘poor thing’ and I feel even more at this stage that highlighting that aspect of my story dulls the things I have managed to achieve.

Anyway, Latitude did a beautiful write up, touching lightly on my story and then passion for recovery. The article talks through my views on the need for talking about recovery and how important it is in leading to the path of better mental health.

In my personal life, not much has really been happening. You may remember some upset some time ago regarding how people seem to see me. Ive been on a path of instilling some hard boundaries and ones that don’t sway. I feel a lot of peace in my life now that I don’t seem to spend my days going from one person to the next whilst they offload such huge amounts of traumatic information.

I am finding the Jessica in Littlest Lady.

Yes, I finally feel that now there is Jessica and Littlest Lady. Littlest Lady is the story of Jessica, but Jessica has grown up, is on the journey of healing her heart and exploring her loves.

I have found myself with a group of people that see Jessica as Jessica. Obviously friendships come with sharing our troubles, but it’s no longer my sole purpose. Im a person that has a little more expertise on certain topics, granted, but I also like art, music and of course… puppy dogs.

You may also remember some time ago (and it really was some time ago, 2 years?!) I spoke a little about some head injuries that I had suffered and connecting them to a lot of things in my life wether minor difficulties or the inability to carry out my dream of doing more public speaking due to memory issues. I actually found this out shortly before Covid-19 broke out which meant access to help and support had become more tricky and was very hit and miss.

I found myself with a physio who had given me a good idea of what was going on and how these injuries had impacted me, but most importantly what I could do going forward. Due to the way the world was we sort of made an agreement for me to practice the things i’d been taught on my own and to reach out if I found I needed more help or wasn’t progressing.

It was something I was more than happy to do and even more so with believing so much in the power of our noggins and what they can do. Im basically using the same aspects I used in therapy of training and strengthening my brain, just in different areas!

Ive actually found my short term memory, concentration and headaches to be improving and feel 2022 is going to be the year I start practicing these things on a different scale.

All in all life is great. I almost feel so much of my life was getting over some huge hurdles and then the last couple of years I have just been tootling along (happily, don’t get me wrong!) Now I feel I am heading to the next stages. I have some big plans for Recovery Revival which I also must thank you all for the support with and hopefully Littlest Lady (and Jessica) will continue to grow and blossom.

Next week I will be sharing with you what I will be up to this Christmas and also will be doing a Q&A surrounding the Christmas period based on some commonly asked questions I get on the topic.