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Maintaining Your Own Identity in Motherhood

Motherhood and Identity

Women are often considered guilty of “losing their identity” once they become a mother.

Friends lightheartedly complain that their once-lively social media feeds are now purely full of baby photos, or that conversation seems to only swing in the direction of sleep routines and exploding nappy anecdotes. 

Exercise buddies or other hobby partners (correctly) quip “haven’t seen you in a while” and “miss you!”. 

Talk of girls nights on the town are promised but never gotten around to. 

And let’s not forget there are still many women who are considered to be less qualified for their previous career, simply because they now have a child.

It’s true, for many women it seems like once they have a baby that their whole life becomes about their child. 

That’s because it does. 

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Limiting social media: Why I cut back my time online

Personally, I’ve always been a huge social media user. 

I was a young high school student at the golden age of MySpace and MSN Messenger, and I greeted Facebook and Twitter with open arms as they were invented.

I went through an intense, emotionally-charged affair with Tumblr during its heyday (if you know, you know), and I jumped onboard with Instagram and Snapchat as well, soon after their invention. 

I was part of that first generation of “If my social activities aren’t documented on social media, then did they really happen?”

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Books I’ve Been Reading: April

Reading, Book Club

I’ve always been a massive bookworm. 

As a child my parents used to joke about how I always had my nose in the pages of the newest hardback I could get my hands on. 

As a teenager learning to drive I found out how much I didn’t even know the streets of my hometown well enough to navigate without help, as I’d usually spent my time as a passenger reading. 

As an adult I still spent hours immersing myself in different worlds from fiction novels, or filling my brain with new information from non-fiction books on topics I found interesting. 

Since becoming a mother six months ago, however, I found I hadn’t really been taking part in one of my favourite activities, reading, at all. 

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5 Things To Do During Coronavirus Isolation

Lockdown Isolation

Coronavirus Self Isolation, Lockdown, Quarantine – Whatever level of official measures your country is at in regards to the COVID-19 outbreak, the message is fairly clear: Stay at home.

But staying at home can be a problem for many. Not physically, that’s easy – just stay at home! No, it’s the mental side of things that can get a bit hard. We humans are social creatures, and we’re not used to staying cooped up in the one place for too long these days.

Here in the UK, we’re on lockdown, only allowed to leave our house for a short time each day for exercise, and to get groceries approximately once a week. Apart from that (in our household, anyway), we’re at home, as I am on maternity leave currently and my fiancé is working from home.

The urge to stay in pyjamas all day and watch one mindless Netflix show after the next, day in and day out, grows stronger and stronger for us all in isolation. However that can just feed into a negative mental health cycle that’s then hard to break free from. So let’s discuss some of the ways you can try to avoid a complete swan dive into depression during COVID-19 isolation.

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Fears and feelings on COVID-19 pandemic

Tracksuit pants, endless cups of tea, Netflix binges, and napping with my baby – Life in isolation from Coronavirus, or COVID-19, on a day-to-day basis isn’t all that different from my life as a mum on maternity leave, but with a crushing weight of anxiety and a whole heap of life disruption sprinkled (or, rather – poured heavily) on top.

We’ve all been affected one way or another by the COVID-19 outbreak.

Either you’re self-isolating to help flatten the curve of the outbreak and keep others safe (Or you’re refusing to do so, complaining that your football has been cancelled, protesting that this has all gone “too far” and think it’s all a bunch of bullshit – in which case: You, my friend, are bullshit).

You or someone you love may be in actual quarantine with symptoms or following exposure to the virus. You may be working from home or unable to work at all. Your children may not be able to attend school or nursery.

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Mental Health Awareness Week: Five things to do if you’re struggling

 

It’s time for another chat about a very important topic which is extremely close to my heart: Mental health.

I’ve spoken about my own mental health situation on my blog and YouTube channel before (If you haven’t seen that post you can catch up on it here). But today is more about you guys.

This coming week, the 14th to the 20th of May, is Mental Health Awareness Week here in the United Kingdom, where I live.

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Self Care Tips and Strategies

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One of my favourite self care strategies – bath time with scented candles

Self Care is an incredibly important part of looking after your mental health, physical health, and your health in general.

Self Care is defined as the actions we can take as individuals to help maintain or heighten our health, wellbeing and wellness.

In terms of mental health then, self care is a valuable tool.

You don’t have to be struggling mentally to indulge in self care strategies, in fact, I believe it’s import to make self care a part of your regular routine, in order to help maintain your mental health.

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