What I Realised During My Blogging Hiatus

Some of you may remember that I took a break from blogging for two weeks, as I needed to deal with certain aspects with my life. Now, I may not have gotten everything sorted (I still don't have a job, for that matter) but, at least, I got some things done. For example, I've got everything booked for my trip, so that's a win for Stephanie! Well, I still have to finish the itinerary for the trip but *shrugs* there's plenty of time for that.

The first thing I realised during my break was that I love blogging. I love it so much, that I was missing it, and I had serious blogging withdrawal. I wrote several new posts in eagerness and was able to come up with ideas for twice as much. I had to resist the urge to press the 'Publish' button because I didn't want to start publishing them until I had the blog design and new URL done sorted. I'm still trying to figure out why my redirect won't work, and any means of contact that I've made with both domain hosts are not being returned, so I'm still working on it in the meantime.

Other than that, this blog is exactly the way I want it. I learned about HTML and CSS codes, and how to modify them to my liking. I didn't want to buy another template off of Etsy, so coding lets alter my previous template and now it looks nothing like before. I'm still excited about having discovered Firebug, because it let me select codes on my page or other sites, make alterations to it, copy and then paste it in the CSS of my template. It makes my job 100% easier, and it's so much fun seeing how other sites look with different fonts, colours, or sizes, without screwing with anything. Nerd moment right here.

Another thing that I found out during the hiatus was that my depression was back, and it was almost as bad as last year. It's resulted in horrible sleeping, general irritability with everything, lack of motivation for anything, and a great displeasure about myself personally. I'm taking measures to remedy my depression before it gets worse, otherwise, I'll have a much harder time bouncing back from it. I don't want to downplay depression, and I know mine isn't as bad compared to many others, but depression is very difficult for everyone to deal with, let alone admit to having it. I know exactly why it came back, and while I can't fix certain things immediately, I know that with hard work and determination, I will be able to work through the other things.

Part of my depression is because of my lack of self-confidence, which stems from how I look and dress, so I need to focus on working out, eating healthy, get my skin back under control and most of all, dealing with my hair. My hair has been one of my biggest stress factors the past couple of years, as it keeps falling out.  I've lost almost half of it since last year. Ironically, stress may be the cause of it so I'm trying my best to not get so stressed out, and hopefully working out will help me relax.

I've bought some biotin and zinc supplements n the meantime, and I'm trying to stuff myself with enough protein every day so that my hair doesn't have a reason to go "bye!" on me and decorate the bathroom tiles. I'm taking them because even though I only have a B12 deficiency, I know that I'm not getting enough zinc or biotin from vegetarian food sources. I'll do a post on this and let you all know how this goes after a few months. I got a pixie cut yesterday so the regrowth could grow at more or less the same length. And you know what, I'm glad I got this cut, it looks amazing and I feel more confident now, so I know this is also helping me feel better about myself.

My mission to improve myself, and reduce the effect my depression has on my day to day life, is progressing slowly but surely. I hope that soon I'll start feeling much better.

Do you guys have any tips on combating depression? How did you cope with it?