October Look Back 2019

October was a month of change for me. Change that I’m pleased to say has so far been very positive. If I’m totally honest, November was a pretty horrid month, and whilst some of that negativity did bleed a little into October, it’s still been a much better month.

Probably the biggest highlight of my month is that I changed job. As I have eluded to in the past, I was extremely unhappy in my old job for many reasons. From working under an inconsistent micromanager, to being sat totally alone and away from the rest of the office for 6 months, to everyone being overworked, underappreciated and all in all feeling pretty miserable. Perhaps that’s something to talk about another time.. however, it was pretty clear that I’d given up with it, and just soldiered on and put up with it because that’s just what you do when you have bills to pay.

What worse is that certain people around me had a much bigger impact that they could possibly know. They killed my confidence, shattered my self-esteem and they knocked my mental state back. The past two or three months I’ve had more panic attacks, random outbursts of crying than I had in the past 5 years. Even Mike has seen a massive difference in the last couple of months. I’ve been subdued, unable to make simple decisions and a lot of the time been uneasy or restless.

 

Moving was hard, not because I didn’t want to go, I certainly did, but because I didn’t feel I had any worth. It meant sitting through an interview, trying to talk about my strengths and why they should hire me was a challenge, because I felt worse than useless. I managed to get through it, and things are so much better now.

On my first day I was nervous, who isn’t on their first day right? Yet the moment I walked through the door and was greeted to go through my induction I knew it felt right, and it’s just got better from there. So much better. I won’t lie and say I feel 100% because I don’t, but I feel significantly better than I did. I’ve still had the odd episode, but I feel a lot happier and a lot better in myself. My new team is helpful and friendly, with good banter around the office and from what I can tell so far management is much better too. I’m starting to feel a lot more like myself again.

Aside from a change of job I also got out and about a couple of times. My gal pals and I went on a trip to Algys Farm shop to go pumpkin picking together. It was great fun trekking around the field in the mud, picking up pumpkin after pumpkin until we each found the perfect one. Then later that day we carried on with the Halloween theme and watched horror movies together while goring on snacks.

 

Between jobs I had some time at home which meant that I could dedicate a day to carving my pumpkin into a floral arrangement. Then the following day I used the inside of those pumpkins to make soup and even toasted the seeds in a couple of different ways. It was nice on both days to do something a little different, and to just have some time to myself while working my way through various bouts of TV.

I’ve had a few more trips to the cinema for non-Halloween themed films – Terminator was sadly a little disappointing, but it was a good evening out regardless. We even had an unplanned night out, where I had to quickly think of and then implement a Halloween look with very little to hand, but actually turned out pretty good. Although my friend absolutely won hands down by dressing up as her finance!

 

Halloween is actually the anniversary of Mike and my engagement, although neither of us can quite work out if we should even celebrate it, or go by our actual anniversary? We’ve decided to be greedy and celebrate both, although we didn’t actually go out anywhere this year. Instead we decided to chill on the sofa together, and take turns going to the door for the trick or treaters.

That just about sums up my October, and whilst it doesn’t really look like much on paper (or on a screen) it’s felt like a lot. It’s been both a good and a hard month, but with my change of job and things starting to improve I’m looking forward to the rest of the year being much more positive.