Things I’ve got to be honest about:

I’ve been working too much recently. When I went up to full time at RHUL recently I had a group of students at another university that I didn’t want to abandon and so the last few months have been full of work. That’s NOT entirely true, while there are a few students that turned up and I quite enjoyed working with, I was a bit worried by money, and kept the extra days for a few more months than I probably needed to. It was a poor decision from a health and family perspective. I’m almost out of it now, but it’s been dumb.

I’ve NOT been sleeping well. I go to sleep fine but then I lie awake from 4, 5 am. Cutting out caffeine didn’t help.

My father has quite advanced dementia and, while I have been going up more regularly, I have been too far away to significantly support my mum (and sister) in this care. This weighs on me both in terms of a general guilt, and in terms of all of those unresolved feelings that one has when they have had a difficult relationship with their father.

I’ve gained a lot of weight. 94kg recently. Good odds that the stress and the sleep are contributing factors.

All this is quite negative but generally the negative things are the things that I have to get out.