A Year Of Progress - How Getting My Own Place Helped My Mental Health

Yesterday marked one year since I moved into my place and I honestly feel like it changed my life. I've been moved out for years now after having moved to London at the age of 17, but having my own space to permanently call home has done wonders for my mental health, my career, my relationships and more.

My anxiety is always a lot worse when things feel uncertain, so having somewhere I could certainly call my own helped a lot. However, it wasn't just about having a home. The stability gave me the confidence to do things I'd usually hesitate to do. I made a major career change and trained to become a body piercer, which meant leaving the comfort of working from home to go out and work in the real world.

Having anxiety, I was very wary that this meant I couldn't just take a break every time I got anxious and I'd have to interact with people and do my job even when I didn't feel good. I started slowly, working 4 days a week, but when I changed jobs I was required to work 5. Among other things, working more days eventually took a toll on my mental health and I got worse again. It felt like my anxiety was triggered by everything. Eventually, I made the decision to change jobs again and go part time. This in itself made me worry that I hadn't been piercing long and I'd already changed studios, but I found the extra days off really benefited me. It gave me time to rest, be alone and recharge my battery, but still gave me regular income and experience in my new profession. That said, it didn't all magically get better, and I later got myself a furry friend to further relieve my anxiety.

Since then things have improved quite a bit. It's crazy looking back on things and seeing how getting my own place lead to so much like training as a piercer and getting Cookie (who coincidentally is 5 months old yesterday).

It may have taken me a year to get here, but I finally feel okay. There's still a lot of work to do, but I'm always the last to acknowledge my progress so I'm writing this post to do just that. I'm grateful to everyone who helped me get here - my family especially as this wouldn't have happened without them. It's not been easy. In fact it's been fucking horrible most of the time, but I'm finally starting to feel like me again 💜

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