Hello (Again)

Hello. Remember me. I used to blog about beauty and life. Every week. It's nice to see you again. It's been a long time. Longer than I was expecting, but I'm back and hopefully on a more permanent basis. I've been out of the blogging game for a lot longer than I intended, but I kind of needed that space to get my head straight as it were.

If you've seen any of my posts this year, you'll know I've been struggling with anxiety and OCD. I mean really struggling. To the point of a panic attack every time I'd have to leave the house. I needed time to really focus on helping myself and getting myself out of that awful place. I'm not out yet, but I'm not in as deep as I was. Baby steps. When you're in a dark place, social media isn't always the best thing for you, so for my own sake, I had to step away from it. It's also really hard to create decent content when you feel like you're drowning in a sea of anxieties. If there's one thing I know, it's that you can't force inspiration. And I really don't like putting out sub par content. I've done it before and it just doesn't sit well with me.

My mental health has improved over the break but it's a challenge I have to contend with every single day. I'm constantly fighting thoughts and compulsions, but those thoughts aren't winning as much now. And that's great. I've also mentioned in the past that my mum has been seriously ill and was waiting for surgery. Well, six weeks ago she had it and it was bigger than we thought it would be. She  suffers from Crohn's disease and it got so bad her bowel and bladder fused together like cement. Hopefully she's through the worst of it, but the recovery process is horrible. Crohn's never really goes away and because it went practically unnoticed by our GP she needed a lot of surgery and a lot of her bowel had to be removed. It's not a small thing for her to go through and it's taken its toll on all of us. When it rains it pours, as they say. On the plus side, she's getting stronger everyday and my mum is incredibly resilient.

On a more positive note, LivinginMakeup has had a redesign! I went with a Pipdig template and I'm beyond happy with it. Phil was amazing and installed the template the same day I purchased it. I definitely recommend Pipdig whether you want them to handle everything or you want to do it yourself. Phil has quite literally thought of everything and the guides on the support site are amazing. Thank you Phil!

So that's that. I'm back. I'm going to do my very best to continue posting on a Monday and Friday. If I miss a few days here and there, I apologise. I say this all the time, but I love blogging. It's been a small glimmer of light in some really dark times and I just want to continue doing what I love.

How are you? What have you been up to?

Avani
xoxo