Today is The Big Blurtathon... and #weallhaveastory this is mine

If you are around me for any length of time, I will generally let you see part of the real me. It isn't always intentional, sometimes.it just slips out, but it is part of me. You see I have the label of depression and anxiety. It's something that has followed me around since I was a teenager. I once spoke on BBC radio 4 regarding the use of anti depressants with teenagers. I was in much defence of my GP. But I am getting ahead of myself... you see my story starts a long time ago probably before I was even born. Depression and anxiety feature in families a d it's difficult to start my story without brushing across theirs do forgive me my story's start is beginning with me. I can't tell someone else's story. So yes there was me. Me brought into a broken home quickly. With a mum and older brother, our family unit Broken families are more common these days but even thirty odd years ago they happened. They leave behind a lot of weird feelings and a lot of hurt... so back to my story. My family unit was very close. My brother and I would play nicely together, we were supported by a wider community. But my memories are still filled with the feeling of tense air that surrounded. As I've grown I've learnt of the battles that happened during that time but as a small thing I know I experienced it. My journey took me to nursery where the tale goes I wasn't very sure of it and cried every day until they questioned of I should be there. The question posed to me explaining I was upsetting other children and my behaviour change after shows that even then I was beginning to learn to allow others feelings above mine. I dont have many memories from that time, none featuring other children. I made a colour spinner, i remember that clearly. We had lunch there and I often had salad which had a spoonful of mash potato and we caught the bus which had those seats that when you aren't on them they tip vertically. Starting school I remember the playground being huge (I've seen it since it isn't.) I remember there was an older child with long blonde hair that encouraged me away from being sat on my own. I liked thinking on my own. I had friends there but even then with hindsite I wonder how much things now would spot some of what forms my diagnosis now. We moved schools. New family. New house. New school. My school report in my first year said she gets in a tizz if she doesn't understand but after a quiet break she will get on. That trend has followed me. Always the helper too. I looked after those younger. Volunteered to help. But still got frustrated over smallest of things. Lost two housepoints for not spelling Wednesday right and then not caring... school was a battle friendships a struggle I would have one best friend and when that ended it was looking after those that didn't have anyone. No one chose me for secondary school and yet I don't think it was because No one liked me more that I was a bit of a loner even then. Secondary school had it's own issues. Bullying. Scared of shadow. The school bus full of spit balls and smoking. It didn't agree with me. Academically I was recognised for putting the effort in. First person to get straight 1s. Eventually settled into a small friendship group after following my brother round for a couple of years. Looking back can colour the view as well as provide good reflection. Again I was just me. Drifted and tried different groups but wasn't settled at all. Learnt not to go to the loo at school for fear of who might lurke in the toilets. It's here the doc started watching me closely observed my loner tendencies and anxiety towerds things. Tried me on a low dose of antidepressant but I hated it. Would see me regularly to check in on me, referred me to my first counsellor. Still hugs me when he sees me despite being retired for 15 years. Was my first true observer. I started an online life about this time. Somewhere I could relate. Not always safely it was a place to rebel. I am sorry my story seems so long. I learnt a lot through counselling. I learnt that I am very observant and can spot something out of place in s room I've visited once. I learnt that more is got out of me if you ask me certain questions and give me something to fiddle. I learnt or at least had it confirmed that being scared to walk across the courtyard at college was not normal and that I struggled balancing friendships and understanding them. Something I still struggle now with. I learnt that being me is okay and approval doesn't need to be sort. Not something I actually have been able to put in practice until much later. College followed where again I was the organiser in class. Where tutors recognised the need to warn me of big decisions. They must have noticed something. Traumatic summer followed during uni prep time. Another breaking family. Moving away for a failed attempt at fitting in. Moving home again. Finding somewhere I could learn and growing in some manner. Bonds with tutor again another common theme. More counselling and a diagnosis of dyslexia a start of undetstanding to why some things had been tricky. Reading skills high. Tick. Intellectual tick. Ability to translate this out or on paper weak... bingo. I started attempting relationships. Not necessarily in the best ways. Eventually settling on one that was significant. I felt normal for just a little while but looking back i didn't get out everything I needed. It kept me out of the dark for a little while but fed into my hiding my worries to ensure my partner was okay. When that broke so did I. He wasn't the reason but had allowed me to hide behind. I went back in my shell. Threw myself at the gym. Hid from the world. A debel stage followed my online friends providing more comfort. Took myself away to different country was not letting the failed relationship define me. Was back at hotel before dark and felt very alone. This continued for years. Work home gym. Another bout of therapy CBT this time. A battle and half for me and the counsellors. Two that time after clashing with the trainee. Changing jobs helped as it gave me a new sense of ability. Tough though new people processes need to please. Lessons learnt a lot about appearances being important. Knock in the confidence there. What's happened there though is a more balanced social life. An opportunity to be me and my quirks and needs fitting in. I still get anxious but I've been lucky with blurt there as well as others. Slowly slowly I am beating things that made me anxious. It's not perfect by any means and I have to explain to my boyfriend that I need to fight through the anxieties. Not hide from them. It is working. I still have depression. I still get angry and I still need a lot of support to get me through but the battle is not over I'm just in a more knowledgeable position to fight. This is my story or at least a brief outline with a fair bit missing...

How/when/what/am

How do I know what's too soon? When is too soon too late? What do I do to encourage? Am I unreasonable to ask?

Well it's been some time... ...cant say it's been an easy four years. Times of euphoria and Times of heartbreak. Loneliness and grief as well as fun and laughter. Whilst the world keeps on turning without you close to us. Your visit to our little earth will always stay with us. Know how much your loved and forever in our hearts. Oh little one sleep soundly and play amongst the stars.

i like

When I come to the end of the road and the sun has set on me, I want no rites in a gloom filled room,... why cry for a soul set free. Miss me a little - but not too long, and not with your head bowed low, Remember the love that we once shared, miss me -but let me go. For this is a journey that we all must take, and each must go alone. It's all a part of the Master's plan, a step on the road to home. When you are lonely and sick of heart, go to the friends we know. And bury your sorrows in doing good deeds, miss me - but let me go.

I am officially....

I am officially terrible at Blogging, I have all of these ideas, and never get round to actually writing them down on Blogger and sharing them. I really must try harder. I have read more books in the last six months and not written about half of them. I've experienced new things, new places and again not shared. I'm not really sure why I keep a blog, I think because i find it there when i need it, I don't expect anyone to be reading my musings of the day, it's nice when they do, but I don't think I'm incredibly interesting, so I wouldn't blame anyone else from feeling the same way. So major updates are going to have to happen - I will write up on the summer of sport, I loved every moment. I will write on my watchable rugby now (even though i do watch in welsh sometimes) I will write on my new challenges, both sucess and failures, and I will attempt to keep up with some of the books I read, and if not review them, at least show some comment, because at the end of the day, this is my record, my thoughts, and I think i might want to read them again one day.

Quotes...

I love Quotes... i find them completely facinating. I have them on my wall, and my door. Many are inspirational, many just make me smile, and many tell me that life is okay. I found this one today. I think it sums up a reader quite well. I am going to make more of an effort again to read, because I love it, and thats life:

"You should date a girl who reads.


Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.
Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.
Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.
It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.
She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.
You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.
You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.


Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes."

— Rosemarie Urquico

It's a cats' life

So this week I am cat sitting, Tilly is my brothers cat, and while my brother, his partner, niece, mum and stepdad are at Disney in Paris. Now I would like to be there, I want to see Mickey Mouse, and go on the rollar coasters, I feel left out. Tilly is alright, but I do not like cats. I don't know how to cope with her, it is going okay. I have had sleepless nights, and my house smells funny, and it looks a mess. I can't wait for a clean. It will take a while with the business of my schedule. But I think I might miss her company when she's gone, but i do think I wont miss the litter box, or the smell, or the lack of sleep.