Life in Lockdown: Part 2

Yes, believe it or not we’re still in lockdown. Things are to apparently get better, but as far as I’m concerned… I’m not feeling optimistic about it. You’ll remember Life in Lockdown: Part 1, where I spoke about getting a new job and how the lockdown has been so far. A lot’s happened since my last post and we’ve had a lockdown valentine’s, we’ve had the Meghan and Harry interview with Oprah.. the UK has hit a border with everything in the past year. Here’s my update on the last two months and what’s been happening.

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Anxiety has taken over my life
Ever since starting my new job, my anxiety has sky rocketed. I’m thankful for the distraction when it comes to my depression however, my anxiety has gotten worse. Don’t get me wrong, the people I work with are amazing people even though we haven’t actually met in person.. I feel like I’ve known them all forever. We’re like a tight knit family and I feel extremely comfortable with them. Usually, my anxiety would be on the first day meeting everyone for the first time and of course my first day was absolutely nerve wreching, however that quickly went away within the first week. Now my anxiety stems from getting the job done perfectly! I’m not perfect, nobody is and nobody can always get things done perfectly but I’ve put massive amounts of pressure on myself to get the job right. I’m constantly seeking feedback to make sure what I’m doing is correct and I have this sense of self doubt just because it’s a whole new job environment for me and I’ve learnt the ins and outs of the job from home within 6-8 weeks. I’m now at the latter part of my training where I’m actually doing the job that is required of me but with some additional support which makes it even harder because I’m at the stage where I’d be phasing into sort of fending for myself. Part of me was debating to work in the office to help with my anxiety.

My routine still sucks
In Part 1 you will have seen me mention that I’m trying to get into a routine before I start work. I mentioned waking up at 7:30 everyday to be ready to start work at 9, let me tell you.. it is an absolute myth. I’ve tried, and 7:30 was a little too early. So I tried 8:00 and here’s my update with that..
Alarm clock goes off 8:00AM, Naimah rolls over and turns alarm off then closes her eyes. Naimah then receives a phone call at 8:30 or 8:45 which awakens her and suddenly Naimah most definitely has to get out of bed to ‘travel’ to work which is on her bedroom dressing table. – Yes, I’m ashamed to admit I just can’t do it! It’s like a pandemic blues. On the weekends I get up at whatever time takes my fancy and pretty much stay in bed all day doing absolutely nothing or playing Xbox games, browsing on my iPad or writing blogs as I am now. Not that there’s anything we can do because there isn’t.

On the plus side I actually feel as though I’m doing something with my life. When I was unemployed for those 4 months to work on my mental health I struggled with knowing what my purpose was. Since I started blogging a little more consistently I’ve felt a sense of ‘is this what I’m meant to be doing?‘ I’ve felt better ever since. Having the distraction of my job as well gives me something to do and something to work towards, a goal to complete etc. and giving me something to do for 8 hours throughout the day. I feel as though through my job I’m becoming even better at my communication skills whether that’s via email or through the phone and even writing my blogs have helped me to communicate things in a better way.

I’m worried about my blog
My reasoning for this is because now I don’t have as much time to focus on the contents of my blog than I did whilst I was unemployed, a whole 8 hours a day of my time is taken up by my job and then on the weekends I focus on doing the things I didn’t manage to finish within the week. Yes, I know we’re constantly at home so it shouldn’t be a problem, but even working from home can be exhausting. I want to stay consistent with my blogs however I’m already starting to struggle and feel I only write blog posts as and when I can. Sometimes I start a blog post with one paragraph and I may finish the rest on my phone whilst I’m on the toilet and spend 15-20 minutes sat in the bathroom locked away from life. Whenever something pops into my head I instantly write it down in my drafts to elaborate on later and then later will arrive and I’ll be busy doing other things until I see my drafts a few days later and realise that oppourtunity has passed. I keep those thoughts in my drafts until the continuing though pops up in my head again. I just don’t want to neglect my blog as this is one of my favourite places to be.

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How is lockdown going for you? Can you keep on top of all your plans? Do you find working from home exhausting?