Have A Breakdown, You Deserve It

I keep on making small errors at work. Whether it’s forgetting to put a receipt in with the cashing up at the end of the day, or taking 20% off the sale I keep on making little errors. It’s like my brain doesn’t have the capacity for information when I am emotionally drained. Since around January of this year I have been really struggling to make ends meet, my rent is so high and my income so low that I have been using food banks and relying on government support for the majority of this year and last. Add deeply grieving for how hard the last year has been for me personally into the mix and you have a recipe for a pending breakdown. Which is why I think I am making small errors. My brain is so full from the stress of the past year and a half that my brain can’t concentrate on what’s not a immediate problem to be solved. It feels like I am being pulled in so many directions and I am just barely staying above the tide. My whole body wants to say ‘STOP. I am tired’

Recently I’ve been wondering if that would be the better solution. We spend so much of our time fighting our feelings and living against ourselves and just struggling on and on until we make ourselves unwell. Whereas the alternative might be more favourable. Last year when I moved into my flat I paid 6 months of rent upfront with the last of savings and part of my student finance. It gave me the ability to slow my life right down to give myself the opportunity to put my life back together. I took myself out of uni, I reduced my hours at work, I even took a huge break from Bitsifind. I cried, really grief cried for all the things I felt I was losing and all the fears I had for the future. i cried for everything I was healing from. Somewhere in the middle of that deep healing my 6 months ended and I entered into a rolling contract with my landlord (which for those who don’t know means I get to stay in my flat as long as I keep paying rent and the landlord is happy) and I had to pick my hours back up at work, I started doing Bitsifind again, I had started to feel much stronger in my healing journey and more resilient than ever. I am so determined to have the life I want, the only question is ‘what is the life I want?’

There is part of me who wants to move to Spain, to take my savings, grab Phoebe and dance off into the sunshine for a few months, drinking coffee and learning Spanish and buying houseplants for the air b&b we would live in. I see drawing and dancing and smoking and flirting in this future of mine, I see sunglasses and swimming and crop tops and sandals. I see a small tattoo and new friends. Maybe a small bar job. I want it so much I almost feel the freckles on my shoulders.

There is another part that wants to move to Bristol to be with my friends. In this future I see a townhouse flat with a pokey garden, I’m back in uni and I’m thriving in my final year. I get another dog to keep Phoebe company. I work in a art shop or a vintage store. I go running along the roadside and cycle to the pub. Vases of flowers. New tattoos. Time spent at dinner with my closest loves.

Or I stay in Southsea, I become freelance with Bitsifind, I take a risk and work from home, in this reality it all goes smoothly, me and Phoebe companionably spend time together everyday, music plays and there’s always coffee. We save up all our money and we lay in bed in the sunny mornings. Phoebe sleeps in my lap as I make ends meet from freelance jobs and passive income. We save for sunny weeks in Spain. We plan to move to Bristol.

I think I am at such a crossroads in my life, something feels like it’s growing in momentum, the continuum of my current state of struggling feels like it can’t continue, I desire for more creativity, more freedom both financially and mentally. I want more of myself, this discovery. I want more healing, more art. I don’t want to wake up in 30 years and wish I had gone to Spain when my body is asking me to rest and redirect. I think I am at such an emotional time in my life that my body is asking me for a break or a breakdown and I know which one I would rather respond to. Last week I sat in front of my office computer and said to myself in jest ‘have a breakdown babe, you deserve it.’ I laughed at the time, but now I am starting to wonder if I need to rest more than I need to keep going, to actually honour my body and brain of her needs and not just muddle through the next part of her life. I want to convalesce and rest. I want some time off to cleanse myself of the past few years. I want to sleep for awhile and draw awhile. I want to hug my dog.

In this moment I would like to take time to assess what it is my body is asking of me. And this time I really want to listen.

I would invite you to do the same, to breathe and listen to what your heart desires, to give them the compassion and time to decide the journey of your life ? Do you want flowers and sunshine and drawing and dogs? Do you want to rest and recuperate and cry it all out? Do you want to let your heart spill out in a diary, your thoughts and feelings folded between the pages? Do you want to rest? Please breathe my darling, breathe in and out and today you will start that journey. I believe in us. I believe in you.

Until next time babies,

Love from

Bitsifind x