This week’s Weekly Wednesday Blogging Challenge asks something I’m proud of doing and honestly I’ve got so much recently. 

For a little background, I have agoraphobia, GAD and various other anxiety issues. I leave the house as little as possible, and over the last 3 years, it’s been much worse. I have been in and out of therapy for 30 years, my most recent was last year and it was incredibly helpful. I’m also medicated for my depression and anxiety, although not my ADHD. Please don’t offer any medical advice. 

Just after Christmas, Li and I caught the train to Exeter. I have not been on a train in maybe 6 or 7 years. I got very panicky as the train was late and more people arrived at the station, I was terrified to start but the train was relatively empty and I started to relax.

Our first stop was into a Waterstones. Because of the sale, when I stepped in I got a bit panicky due to the sheer number of people at the entrance, but once we passed the sales tables and up to the first floor… OMG WOW. I was in book heaven y’all. We grabbed a drink and a cake from the cafe then set about exploring the shop. As you may recall, between this Waterstones (and the second one we found at the end of the day), around £200 on books and it was amazing!

The main reason we were in Exeter though was to have a meal at Yo!Sushi. We both love sushi and neither of us had been for far too long – although my Tesco now has a Yo! counter. I had pre-booked us a table and bought a gift card in the sales, so we had a budget of £100. The menu had changed slightly so a couple of my favourites weren’t available, which was a bit sadly and while I mostly stuck to things I knew I liked, I actually tried a few new things… and only didn’t eat one of them because it was a weird texture. 

We wandered around for a bit, had a quick look in Bird & Blend, CEX, and Game… then discovered the second Waterstones before catching the train home.

A couple of weeks later, we went back to Exeter to go to the museum – there was an exhibition on the history of medicine that we both wanted to see and was finishing in January. So back onto the train, into Exeter and this is where I’m super proud of myself. See, one of my Big Goals when starting therapy was that I wanted to go to a museum, because I love them but too many people, closed spaces, etc. We managed to walk around most of the museum, even though there was a school party of very wee ones in there as well. We had to skip one room because of them, and at one point I had to run away out of another because I was feeling closed in but other than that… I had a very happy nerd. And they had a mummy which was so cool!

We still had some money left on the Yo! voucher, so we had some more sushi for lunch. We went into Build-A-Bear because Li wanted her Yoshi to have more stuffing in it. We ended up back in Waterstones (don’t look at me like that!) where I bought… more books. Another £100 or so worth. Because books. Our last stop was Bird & Blend where we spoke to the mixologists, and talked about what I did like, they recommended a few things to try, and I bought a few sample packs. By this point, I was hurting, so we limped back to the train station in time to miss our train – sat in Costa with a hot chocolate and a cake before the train home

So yeah, super proud of myself for that and hoping to try and continue the momentum into 2023!