Hey everyone, hope you’re all doing well. I thought I’d write a little catch up post to explain why I’ve been a bit quiet or MIA on bibliobeth recently. It’s been for a variety of reasons really that have kind of merged into one and stopped me posting as much as I would have liked. I’m trying not to beat myself up too much about it but I can’t help but get the nagging feeling that I have such an enormous backlog of reviews to write and if I had been on top of things like I anticipated mid March 2019, I would have almost cleared that backlog and be able to participate in many more fun stuff like memes.
First of all, my chronic illness has been up, down, upside down and back round again. (If you want to read more, check out a personal post I did HERE). To be fair, it has been a lot better than it was in the past so I don’t want to complain too much and considering the extra personal life events I’ve had recently, it’s been a hell of a lot better than I could have expected with the addition of these stressful times. In addition to my fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue and hypermobility, I have now been diagnosed with hyperthyroidism caused by Graves’ Disease so that hasn’t helped matters but luckily at the moment, my thyroid is currently stable so there has definitely been an improvement in that area. Fingers crossed it stays that way.
Then there’s the job situation. I started a new job near to my home in September last year, purely for health reasons so that I wouldn’t have to commute into London and back (three hours a day). I started the job and everything was going okay until I got offered an even better job in the same Trust (I work for the NHS) but in a different department and building five minutes walk away from the current job. I had to give a presentation as part of my interview and I don’t know about you guys but presentations are my worst thing ever. Seriously, I’m a mess with them. I have severe anxiety issues and the thought of talking in front of other people is my idea of a nightmare.
In fact, I got a lower mark in my first degree because I couldn’t do the presentation and had to take beta blockers from the doctor to get through the presentation in my Masters degree. That’s how bad I am. I was absolutely determined that if I wanted my dream job (which was a dream…. 9-5, no night or weekend shifts!) I needed to get through this and just DO IT. Well, I got the job but had to give twelve weeks notice so I didn’t actually start the new job until the beginning of March, a mere six months after I moved jobs from London the first time!!
I had already been aware that there was a Senior role going to made available in this new job at some point as the current Senior was due to retire but I thought I might have a chance to settle in and find my feet before going for it sometime in the summer. I was wrong. The Senior wants to retire a little earlier so on my first day at my new job, there I was – ANOTHER presentation and interview. And guess what? Less than three hours after I started my new job they offered me the promotion to the Senior role.
You’re probably confused right? So to make it clearer – I started a new job in September last year, interviewed for another one before Christmas in a different department, started it in March this year and within a few hours was offered a promotion! I’m now part of the senior management team in a department that focuses on bowel cancer screening and I couldn’t be happier.
SO…..all of this nonsense going on with my health/job/personal life etc has made my blogging quite sporadic. It’s the reason why I’ve been especially quiet since the beginning of this year but also, all of the stress and uncertainty of everything also put me into a major blogging slump. I just haven’t feel motivated to blog at all which is a real shame. I’ve still managed to read an absolute ton which I’m very happy about (I’d be so cross if my reading suffered, haha!) but when I think about sitting down and writing a post my brain is just so tired, I don’t want to even think about doing it.
I’m really hoping things will be back on track now it’s calmed down a bit and I’m in my new post but I am worried that things like my poor health and new work responsibilities will lead to my posting being a bit erratic from time to time. I think I have to accept that I might not be able to blog daily like I’d like to and if I need to take a week off, I should be able to give myself permission to do that without feeling guilty!
I’m still loving reading all my fellow bloggers posts out there and I apologise if I’ve been slow to like, share or comment on them. (I blame Twitter jail too, haha!). Finally – to whomever nominated me for Best Blog at the Annual Bloggers Bash Awards THANK YOU!!. It means the absolute world to me, especially when I’ve been so inconsistent lately.
What I’d like to know from you guys is:
Have you ever been in a blogging slump and what did you do to motivate yourself again?
Do you find life just sometimes gets in the way of being a consistent blogger?
It would be great to hear your thoughts in the comments below. 🙂
