At the time of writing this, it is actually early March of 2023. A few back-dated posts will be showing up over the next few weeks while I move myself back over here and start to get my feet back under me. I've had a fascinating few weeks.
Some of you will know this, but in January I embarked on a new adventure by purchasing the private mental health clinic I've been practicing at since 2019. The founder is starting to move towards retirement, and we share a similar vision/passion for trauma-informed mental health care.
The learning curve has been steep, but not impossible. Not discouraging. Just exhausting. I have some management skills, and so I'm largely enjoying that side of it, but the sheer hours of attention required were something my brain had not been trained up for - which makes sense considering I spent the past few years in a pandemic lockdown.
Since the Takeover, I've noticed a few things:
- My own mental health is better, despite the increased stress
- I really don't know what stress looks or feels like, I have a lot to learn about reading my body
- Self care is incredibly difficult for me, I argue with myself for literal hours over it
- My physical body is exhausted but trooping on
- My mind bounces between having all the energy and having none the energy
My psychologist self is taking notes. My inner child is finally being listened to, occasionally. My responsible self isn't in panic mode. My physical self is starting to heal. My emotional self is tired of so much change and happy to see things settling out.
Hopefully sometime soon I'll tell you what all this has done to my writing. If you haven't yet, please feel free to check out the second blog I've started running, here. Despite it being much less personal, I'm still really enjoying it.