An Announcement

Coming back to tell you I'm going away...

You can watch a video version of this announcement here:

It feels strange to write my first newsletter in over six months with the news that I’m taking some time away - because I quite clearly already have taken some! But I hope the following will give you a fuller understanding of the reason for my unintended absence, and why I’ll be gone a bit longer.

I’ve made the difficult decision that I need to take some time off.

I’ve spoken quite openly about my mental health at various points over the years, including writing a whole book on my eating disorder experience, and lately about how much I’ve struggled with the huge transition of moving house. Recently, I’ve come to a better understanding of why that change was so difficult.

I found out about a year ago that I’m autistic, and I’ve been struggling with how to tell people about that. It’s such a big shift in how I see myself in the world, but one which makes sense of so many things I’ve fstruggled with, both past and present.

Over the last year or so, I’ve become less and less able to cope with everyday things. I’ve felt overwhelmed, both by my work but also by life in general – particularly my sensory experience. Sounds, smells, even colours can be so painful they make me panic.

I’m also having issues with my eyesight. My vision is blurry even with up to date glasses, and sometimes I can’t see clearly enough to read more than a few sentences. It takes immense effort to focus, so I’ve been finding it difficult to concentrate on anything, especially fine hand work like knitting, stitching or drawing.

In short, I’m completely exhausted and I’ve got to give myself a break.

What’s made the decision really hard is I haven’t lost interest in things. I am still inspired, excited and motivated by all kinds of creative projects. I want to be engaged in doing things, I just don’t have the capacity to do them. It’s frustrating and overwhelming to be surrounded by projects I want to be working on but can’t. Like many of us in our culture I grew up believing I could do anything if I put my mind to it, but I’ve been putting my mind to it HARD for the last year or so. I don’t think I could have tried any harder to keep going.

Things have been getting worse and worse, meltdowns and migraines have become more frequent, which is why I’ve decided I need to take sick leave, time off to rest and recover. And, to rethink what my life and work looks like to better fit my needs.

The problem is, in the UK in 2024, as a self-employed person I’m not entitled to sick pay. And as a one-human business, I don’t have a team to keep things running while I’m away. I’ve decided to close my shop at the end of July, probably for a couple of months. I will also stop making podcast videos. There might be some hiking videos that crop up in coming months, as my friend Kat and I have already recorded our recent South West Coast Path adventures, but there won’t be any Green Bean videos for a while.

I thought long and hard about Patreon – it does offer a holiday mode, but I realised turning it off would deprive folks who might want to continue offering financial support from the easiest way of doing so. Instead, I’ve decided to leave Patreon running but simplified the pay structure. For the time being, it’s pay-what-you-can. All paying patrons will have access to a five year back catalogue of extra videos. If you’re not a patron already, now might be a really good time to sign up. There’s more than 50 exclusive videos on there you could catch up on if you’re going to miss me and Jack while I’m away, and at the same time contributing a few £s a month to supporting me through this difficult time. As and when I’m able, Patreon will also be the first place I share updates on how I’m doing and what I’ve been up to, hopefully as I start to recover. Of course there’s no pressure to join, or to stay, during this time I’m not making new videos, but any support you are able to offer will be received with huge gratitude.

Its crept up on me, but when I look back I can see it has been building for a long time. I’ve been really, really frightened to let go but I am encouraged knowing that I’ve been here before. I had a breakdown – or, as I now understand it, an autistic burnout – after my book Lighter Than My Shadow was published. Interestingly, I’d also just moved house to a different part of the country, so it seems like big life changes can be a real trigger for me. I completely lost my ability to engage in the work that I loved, and had to reckon with what that meant for my identity as an artist who’d just arrived in the world with their published book. It was devastating, and like now I had a lot of feelings about failure, and letting people down, and disappointing myself.

What got me through that burnout was knitting. I found a different outlet for my creativity – a passion, a special interest if you like – and as I recovered, I eventually combined it with drawing into what became my podcast, and then a shop, and now we’re here: somewhere I never could have imagined when things started to fall apart. When I look at it from that point of view, I do wonder if it’s part of my creative cycle. What if it’s a natural process, like the ebb and flow of a tide, or mushrooms breaking down a log. It’s terrifying to let go of things, but surely it’s scarier to think about doing the same thing forever without pause or rest. In nature nothing is constant, things break down and rot and enrich the soil for whatever might come next.

And in that there’s a spark of curiosity, of wondering. What might be possible if I really stop and allow space for something new to grow? I hope you’ll stick around to find out.

But first, rest.