M.I.A: Where On Earth Has Kate Been? A Welcome Back Post.

I’ve been ghosting the internet for over 9 months, so it’s time I filled in the blanks. Where on earth have I been?

This Is Not A Success Story…

The truth? I was avoiding everything. Somehow I became reallyyyy good at it and the better I got at it, the easier it was to keep doing it. I had a great run-up right before dropping off the face of the earth. My Instagram was doing well and all my posts were performing better than ever. I was steadily growing an audience, getting the hang of things for TikTok, and I even started posting on YouTube. My blog was thriving and I had all of these big plans to create more presets, step into the world of ebooks and continue writing about social media, my travel adventures, fashion and style, etc. I was even hiring my boyfriend on a weekly basis to be my photographer and videographer on content shoot days. You could say I was really getting into the groove.

And as most success stories go, things should’ve gotten bigger and better. Well, for me, it was the complete opposite.

The Downfall

I’m not sure if I’m choosing to block out the last year and a half of my life on purpose or if I genuinely can’t remember but, what I can recall was feeling so hopeless, sad, and unmotivated around Christmas of 2021. Despite continuing to show up online, on the inside I was falling downwards into a black hole of misery. Basically I had this belief that life was kinda meaningless. I’d somehow adopted this bleak mindset about my life, my career, friendships (well, lack thereof). Pretty much everything I once had an interest in drifted away into nothing. Everything I wanted in life felt so vain, pointless, and undeserving. As if what I truly wanted was the biggest stretch of my imagination.

I hit a brick wall – or breaking point if you will. Looking back, this was a lesson in disguise and luckily, it threw me into thinking ‘I need to work on these negative feelings’.

Potential Upwards Spiral?

In early 2022, I decided that I needed therapy. There were these unravelling feelings and thoughts that were kind of taking over my life. They were daily thoughts at this point and it made me act in a way in which I didn’t even recognise myself anymore. It brought a lot of stuff up to the surface and I acted so negatively that it was past the point of being a joke anymore. (There’s this running joke that I’m a ‘glass is half empty, not full’ kind of person…) It made me hate who I was for the way I was treating myself and others around me.

During therapy, I was diagnosed as severely anxious and depressed and it was recommended that I work on my childhood issues and the death of my closest cousin. Turns out I was absolutely still grieving him and the whole ‘life is meaningless – what’s the point’ thoughts I had stemmed from his passing.

However, I never felt any shame about going to therapy at all, I just didn’t want anyone around me, especially my parents, to think they hadn’t been good enough in their role of raising me. I guess I was more concerned that they’d be offended by my choice, rather than supportive. I think my family find it hard to ‘talk‘ about sensitive things, so going to therapy about childhood issues or whatever felt uncomfortable…

Steady Seas…

After a few months of therapy and I started to feel better. Now, I’m like an improved version of myself, obviously I’m still working on things and I’m extremely lucky to be able to sit here and tell you how much better I am now, but you know how it is. I’m not a perfect human. In my head, there’s this imaginary line between ‘old me’ and ‘current me’. There’s definitely a clear difference in habits, thoughts and behaviours, but sometimes the line blurs a little.

Throughout 2022, I was still pretty active online. Nothing in particular stands out as to the reason why I dropped off but, I do know that working on myself meant all my energy was spent trying to feel normal again. That meant I spent less time focusing on my job and over time, less work would come in for me and this made me feel insecure, frustrated, and worried.

And Back Down We Go… Again???

Over time, my income was less and less, meaning I couldn’t continue my current lifestyle. I also didn’t feel like doing half of the work required to maintain my job, such as shoot days, outreaching, managing brand collabs, etc etc. Eventually, I couldn’t pay my boyfriend for helping me shoot content all day (and yes, I paid him because he would take time off from his current job to walk around taking photos of me). I couldn’t go out for random meals, coffee dates, holidays or days out. Nor could I just buy the clothes or shoes I wanted to. I had to really consider my finances.

That kind of snowballed into a new thought pattern: I convinced myself that I wasn’t making good enough content. I also convinced myself that I just wasn’t interesting enough anymore. Maybe I wasn’t even trying hard enough or wanted it badly enough. With less collabs and partnerships coming in, it meant my income dipped. A lot. That definitely freaked me out because ever since I left my full-time job, I hadn’t experienced a low income month. Each month, I was making the same or more than the month before. It was steadily growing until… it wasn’t.

Life Lesson #1…

There was actually a point where I was scrambling the back seat of my car to find loose change. And no, I hadn’t saved much money because I was spending it all on trying to make myself feel better. I had a lot to pay out also, some credit card purchases, fuel, phone bill, food, a random and stupidly expensive bus gate fine…ugh. Admittedly looking back, this is a great learning curve for me and a lesson on planning ahead, budgeting and creating a savings fund. I know, you’d think at 23-24 years of age, I’d have this all figured out but thankfully I got this far in life without needing to so it never occurred to me that one day (soon), i’d really need to. Going forward, I will absolutely make sure these things are not swept under the rug until it’s too late.

So, Where Did She Go?

In September, I completely stopped showing up online. Obviously I knew this would have an adverse effect because the minute you stop showing up is the minute most people lose interest. I don’t blame them – people move on. Part of me was ashamed to come online and post about my happy-doodily life knowing it wasn’t anything to admire or boast about. In my head, I always needed to look successful online when the reality was, I felt like a hugeee flop. It also felt like everyone else was ahead of me all of a sudden and I’d been left behind. Looking back now, I should’ve tried to remain active but part of me couldn’t fake being happy online any longer.

Coming into the new year, 2023, work slowly picked up momentum. I had a few income streams, brand partnerships, client work, more digital purchases, etc, which felt great. Everything was slowly returning back to the pre-downfall groove and that made me feel a whole lot better.

And Now?…

I’m just seeing where life takes me. I’m trying to ignore this internal feeling that I should be further along in life than I am, but I bet compared to other people my age, i’m sitting right at average – which I’m totally fine with. Obviously there’s things I want to work towards and I’m slowly getting there. Another flaw of mine is comparing my success to everyone else’s. On the other hand, I’m quite happy where I am right now. Really though, what is the rush? I should be enjoying the journey instead. At some point I’ll reach the finish line and look back like “wow I should’ve taken more time to enjoy that more than I did.“

I don’t wanna regret missing this part of the journey and then being like, “now what?” because that actually happens to a lot of people. I’d probably hate reaching my goals too early on in life. I’d rather not be stuck thinking “okay soooo what’s next?” at the age of 25 all because I was too successful – lol. Such a terrible problem, right?

What I’m Currently Focused On…

• Buying a house outright with no mortgage. It’s a loooong process because who’s actually patient enough to wait for things these days?
• Saving for a new car – maybe this one will have a AUX cord lol – will miss using CD’s tho, feels very old school.
• Building my social platforms back up, starting with my blog. Then branching back on to Pinterest, YouTube, Linkedin, FB maybe?
• Travelling more. One day I won’t be able to do it as easily, so I’ll do it now. I really wanna go to Bali, Portugal and Italy.
• Getting stronger, fitter, healthier. BTS your girl’s been weightlifting for 3-4 months now! Slow progress but i’m getting there…
• Building a business with Mase. It’s been almost a year now in the making and we are nowhere near ready… lol
• Spending more time with my family and my dogs – when I move out I wont see them as much so, i’ll enjoy it whilst i still can.
• Creating more digital products. Presets are my fave so I will be making more – maybe even different digital products in the future?

I’m Content With Being Average.

If there’s one thing you should take away from this post, it’s that I’m extremely average. That’s not me being all cute and modest. I’m serious – my life, goals, career, whatever, is just the same regular stuff as anyone else. If anything, I hope that makes you feel heard, less alone, able to relate… Sometimes I catch myself just ripping into myself because I’m not pretty enough, talented enough, good enough etc and I just need to work on being okay with being me. I’d look at other people online (the start to every devastatingly sad sentence) and think “wow they have everything!” or “I want what they have!” forgetting that social media is indeed a highlight reel and everything you see can be completely manipulated.

Life Lesson #2…

I know that sometimes it’s easy to look at someone’s life on social media and feel less than, like you’re underperforming, not achieving, or lacking something because I do the exact same. But you don’t know their story. That big flashy car they just bought, it’s probably on finance and they might’ve even gotten themselves in a lot of debt just to say they ‘own‘ it. All those designer bags and jewellery they flash on their Insta is probably all gifted and they most likely never spent a penny on any of it. Those who are travelling all the time or documenting their amazing experiences might be using their parents money, came into money recently, or sold their entire belongings just to travel. You never know someone’s circumstances.

The thing to remember is not to believe everything you see either. Not everyone who posts looking happy is truly happy. Not everyone flaunting their new designer sh*t has the money to buy it. Can you see how surface level this stuff becomes? It’s easy to get swept up in it all, isn’t it?

Final Words and Life Lesson #3

Find what truly makes you happy. You won’t find it in tangible objects, but rather in people, animals, experiences, memories. Once you realise you don’t need to live a certain way or conform to a certain lifestyle, trend, or habit just to fit in, you might actually start feeling true happiness. And then everything that everyone else does just becomes a ‘shoulder shrug’ to you.

If you ever need someone to talk to, my dm’s are always open – you can also leave a comment below or send a direct message by clicking here. (PLEASE NOTE: If you message me on IG, you will bombarded with voice-notes lol)