Hello,

Bit of a different one today, but I’ve been thinking a lot about this recently and I always find that writing things out is good for helping me process and it was this or a passive aggressive LinkedIn post and I can’t be bothered with that.

It seems in the last few weeks, I’ve inadvertently found out that a bunch of people I used to know – whether from school or uni or wherever – are really successful; whether they are making incredible achievements in their careers, buying and renovating houses or starting families. And in my heart of hearts I want to be happy for them – whether it was someone I only knew because we were at school at the same time, someone I didn’t get on with or someone I used to be friends with I really wish my gut reaction was to be pleased for them. But I was immensely jealous. I’m not going to pretend I wasn’t for the sake of making myself sound better, but for once I gave myself the time to acknowledge how I was feeling because it really hit me hard.

And almost instantly I recognised that I wasn’t jealous of that person specifically – I was jealous that I don’t feel I’ve achieved the same successes. There was a version of me that thought I would be at an exciting career point by my age, and had all the hopes and dreams for myself that I haven’t been able to achieve (or no longer want). Most of the people I went to school with would probably be surprised to find out I’m married!

And I feel the need to add – we can all scroll through LinkedIn or social media and see people’s greatest achievements, but everyone has a mundane life too; everyone does laundry, everyone has days where the accidentally spill an entire meal on the floor just after they’ve served it up, everyone has ups and downs. Just because there’s one aspect of their live that I’m jealous of – and they absolutely deserve to be proud of – doesn’t mean their whole life is ‘together’. Is anyone’s life ‘together’? (answer: no)

I think what I’m getting at is that my life feels very overwhelming at the moment – I’m still processing the PTSD and trauma from being unfairly fired last year, I have been waiting for an appointment for an autism diagnosis for 2 years, I’m being supported by my family in so many ways but I’m really struggling with my mental health and then I go down the spiral of feeling guilty about it because my autistic-black-and-white thinking says ‘I have nothing to feel depressed/anxious about’ but it’s not that simple and it never will be.

I know rationally that I’m doing what’s right for me right now – I’m regularly seeing my therapist (who is wonderful), I’m keeping myself busy without overwhelming myself with tasks, I am technically employed on a ‘work when you want to’ basis that I’m incredibly grateful for and I’m trying to use that to slowly train myself back into a working environment (the PTSD thing is really hitting hard). I’m trying to give myself time for my hobbies – reading and cross-stitch, predominantly – I’m seeing friends and I’m being honest with them about how I’m doing (as much as I can without absolutely killing the vibe at a restaurant, y’know?).

But I had all these huge dreams – working in social media for all these incredible companies, travelling, being an outgoing socialite with an Instagrammable life. The version of me in those dreams though, isn’t who I am – I am autistic (probably), so such a spontaneous lifestyle would stress me out. I struggle with sleeping unless I’ve got my pillow, my teddy and some sort of ambient noise so travelling all the time would mean I wouldn’t sleep a lot. Those were dreams of a neurotypical version of myself that doesn’t exist – an extroverted, super social creative who can go with the flow and change their routine at the drop of a hat. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to be that girl but I never will be and I spent a long time thinking that was because of my own flaws, but it’s not and that’s okay.

Dreams change: when I went to my very first university open day I went to a talk for a course about publishing and working in the literary industry. Now, nine years later, I’m looking at starting a career in publishing, so some dreams come back around! Does that mean I made the wrong decision when I applied for university in 2014? No, I applied for what I thought I wanted with all the knowledge I had at the time – I love editing YouTube videos and writing on my blog and the Multimedia Journalism course I did was the perfect combination of the two. And there’s the whole butterfly effect of meeting the people I met and the whole path of my life being different if I hadn’t made that choice etc. Something I need to remind myself until I truly believe it is that changing my mind isn’t a failure or a lack of commitment to what I thought I wanted – it’s listening to my true wants and needs and adjusting with them. The trajectory is adjusting but I’d still like to shoot for the stars.

So part of that jealousy stems from feeling unfulfilled in my career, but I went through a huge trauma last year in a workplace that didn’t value me, my skills or my mental wellbeing in any way, shape or form, in fact it very nearly destroyed it. As my therapist said – life is a game of snakes and ladders and my last boss is a snake that sent me back down the ladder I was on, but I’m climbing another ladder.

And at the crux of it all, I’m lonely. Don’t get me wrong – I have a good amount of friends that are wonderful and I love them dearly and I’ve been through long periods of time of having no friends at all, but I think it’s more along the lines that everyone I love and care about lives at least an hour away from me and when I sit on the sofa on a night where my husband is away with work (which is approximately 50% of the time, which definitely doesn’t help) and I’m feeling a little sad and in need of some physical company, I don’t have anyone to turn to. And I have absolutely no idea how to make friends locally and that feels very overwhelming too.

I think this is enhanced by the aforementioned exhaustion and poor mental health and in another period of time when I feel more neutral and less like I’m running on empty, I wouldn’t feel this sense of loneliness but right now? Being alone in my house is hard. And admitting that isn’t admitting a fault within me (and is okay).

My immediate instinct in ending this post is to say ‘but I’m alright really and things will be fine in the long run’, which is true, but I don’t feel that right now and that’s okay too.

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx