Autumn has historically been a slightly tricky time for my mental health.
I know that a low mood can obviously appear at any point in the year, but if I look back, September and October seem to be the months when I’m most likely to notice things starting to wobble.
For years, I think I treated that as something that simply happened to me.
This year, I’m trying to look at it differently.
I’ve recognised the pattern. I know it exists. And while that doesn’t mean I can guarantee I’ll feel brilliant all autumn and winter, it does mean I can be a little more prepared for it.
Forewarned is forearmed and all that.
So rather than waiting until I’m already struggling and then wondering what happened, I’ve been thinking about the things that genuinely help me feel more steady.
The first is routine.
Summer is lovely, but it’s chaotic. Different childcare arrangements, holidays, later nights, no school routine and everyone vaguely forgetting what day it is.
By autumn, I’m usually very ready for some predictability again.
I blame the autism, but I find routines genuinely comforting. More importantly, they reduce that horrible feeling of everything being up in the air, which tends to make me anxious – and anxiety is often where the spiral begins for me.
The second thing is food.
Eating well somehow feels much easier in summer. Fruit, salads and lighter meals happen almost without thinking about them.
Then the temperature drops and suddenly my entire personality wants beige food and hot chocolate.
Unfortunately, I also know that living entirely on comfort food and sugar doesn’t actually leave me feeling particularly good.
So I’m not banning anything because absolutely nobody needs that level of misery in October – but I do want to make the comfort food work a little harder for me. More soups, casseroles, hearty pasta bakes and meals that still feel cosy without making me want to fall asleep at 6pm.
I also need to keep moving.
I’m realistic enough to know that I’m not suddenly going to become somebody who looks forward to brisk winter walks in sideways rain.
So I bought a treadmill. And, slightly more surprisingly, I’m actually using it. The seven-year-old is also rather enthusiastic about it, so apparently it has become a family investment.
Then there’s the stuff that isn’t quite as visible.
I’m still journalling. Still processing things instead of pretending they’re fine. Still talking when I need to talk and paying attention to how I’m actually feeling.
I’m trying to sit with difficult feelings without immediately panicking that they are a sign that the black cloud is back, but also without allowing myself to disappear into them.
There’s a difference between acknowledging that I’m having a difficult day and deciding that everything is terrible.
I’m still learning it.
More than anything, though, I think this autumn needs less pressure. I don’t need to optimise every part of my life. I don’t need the perfect morning routine, a flawless diet and ten thousand steps before breakfast. I just need to keep doing the small things that I already know help me.
And being a little gentler with myself when things feel harder than usual because I know this season can be difficult for me. But this time, I’m not walking into it completely unprepared.
