I used to think I was a fairly strong person, but 2020 taught me otherwise. It started with the fires, then came the floods and then the global pandemic, it seemed that no matter where you looked there was nothing but bad news and devastation.

I'm single, live alone, work from home and my family live interstate. Before COVID I was a social person, always doing something with my mates but the lack of human interaction during lockdown really hit hard. By June the cracks had started to show, I found myself drinking alone, dropping the ball at work and pushing people away which was very unlike me. July finally came around and restrictions were eased, I thought I was ok, I could finally be social again and then I got caught in a COVID cluster and was put into 14 days quarantine. During quarantine I had an argument with a mate over something so stupid, he eventually called me out on how much my behaviour had changed. That's when I realised that I had been bottling everything up, drowning it all with alcohol, giving off the impression that I was doing ok and pushing away people when they got too close.

I fast realised what I was doing wasn't sustainable. I began talking about my feelings, stopped pushing people away and started looking after myself and my mental health. I took up meditating, made a rule not to drink alone and got a tattoo to remind myself to always wear my heart on my sleeve.

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