Long time no speak Womble-Watchers, it appears I'm rubbish at blogging. Too much worrying about whether what I say is palatable or meaningful or worth anything.
Too long have I let this place become a mausoleum for my online life... I'm not even tweeting much anymore.

I want to jump back in but I'm not sure how, like a child having fallen from their bike I'm feeling apprehensive about how to get on again.

I think/hope I get it, I think my fear of what others might think about my thoughts is stopping me from exploring what they actually are. I'm not living online anymore, I'm not sure how but I want to start again.

This tempest inside my head brought up the idea of Internet anonymity past and present.

There have been recent stories of the right to be forgotten, I kind of miss the Internet of old where we were, at least somewhat screaming into the void, connected but not physically.

I'm now in a situation where many of my closest friends and I met online, generally on Twitter but yet I've all but retired from Twitter.

I wonder whether it's because my online persona is now around 5/6 years old at least and the people that care know who/where I am in real life. It leaves me feeling more than a little unsafe. A good old flame war is one thing but when someone can bring those flames to your front door it's quite another.

I guess the thing to attempt is to care less, somewhere along the line the whole wide world sprouted teeth and got all shadowy and dangerous.

I want to claim our togetherness back. I want to feel supported by each other rather than concentrating on ways I could get hurt.

My wonderful real life tweep network are some of the most lovely and supportive people I've ever met, I choose to believe that the majority of the world is like this instead of being as fox news would present it.

Anyway, this whole rambling post was meant to be a warning that I may post more regularly or I may not (Depends if I want to really), also a restating of the purpose of this blog...

Some sort of mixture of baking, cooking, crafting, disability, health/social policy, mental health issues and graphics. It may or may not be interesting, that's not the point, the point is if I can work out s focus for my blogging and my thoughts I would be really more prolific than I am.

I think that will do me for now.

W

Braindump! - Update

I am sitting here, having had a fairly major panic attack and hysteria episode one step from self harming, still quite close if I'm honest.
I have a doctor's appointment in the am, to discuss my mental health and that I think I need more  support, and possibly assessment by a psyche professional. I figure I'm not sleeping right now so I guess I could write down what's up and maybe it could help with tomorrow.
There's no reason why I can't share it with you guys.
I feel completely petrified of being abandoned all the time, anyone who I care about either has or in my mind will abandon me when they find out what a terrible person I am.
In the pursuit of trying to alleviate this I have been known to let people walk all over me, to cause great physical and mental distress to myself and sometimes lie to try to provide support to everyone in my life so that they do not abandon me.
This is because I feel empty all the time, I feel that I am not worth anything and that my life when not filled with other people ultimately is grotesque and completely devoid of meaning.
I feel as though I have no internal validation and therefore I must always be validated externally, continually. The ideal, though I can never attain it is to be held in good esteem by every single person I meet in my life, for the entire of my life.
To do this I act recklessly, I overstretch myself financially, I binge eat continually, hardly eating sometimes while eating to excess at others, I binge socialise and I run myself into the ground continually to seek approval. I start to fall apart if I meet two opposing opinions on what I should be doing and I start to internalise this which can lead to self harm or an alarming lack of self care on occasion.
I try to be everyone, I try to be a counsellor, a mother, a daughter a friend, a sister, a lover, a companion with everything that is in me, to complete these task to perfection is the overwhelming aim of my life, what else could there be?
I get very upset, because I CAN'T be everyone, if I dress in black I am invariably upsetting someone, as I would be if I put my hair up or wore jeans, slight preferences become very important things to be achieved within my mind, if I can't do them I am failing in some massive way.
This leads to me feeling extremely upset, if I cope I am failing, if I self harm I am failing, if I play games I am failing, I can never be good enough for everyone.
I have been known to self harm, I am very prone to thoughts of harming myself or suicidal thoughts, though because of the aforesaid need to please I manage to overcome these in the main because I feel I can't fail in that way, I feel I do not have enough control over myself to even be free to self injure, or indeed do this with food, this I believe is part of why I binge eat, it is a form of self harm and control, wildly flailing from one extreme to the next.
While talking about flailing, I often flail into very deep pits of hysterical crying and critical thinking, they used to be very common, and now are monthly/quarterly but they last anything from 4 hours to a week now, I have learnt to ride them out in the main and to talk about them, but I feel suicidal and like self harming, it used to be catastrophic, especially for my relationships as people often tried to fix what was wrong and couldn't see why I was so upset. It was a very long time before I realised it was a cycle, I always thought it was about something wrong in my life and when I couldn't think what was wrong I would normally be able to find something. Now I know it's an acute anxiety attack and that it will fade with time.
I tend to latch onto people and form very close attachments where they quickly become the centre of my world and I lose my sense of self, everything becomes about pleasing them and this becomes very difficult to square up with the rest of my world.
My sleep pattern is all over, because my self care and boundaries are total rubbish I tend to let my awake/sleep pattern slide all over, I fit my schedule around others and sleep when I can.
I tend to make choices about my life by amalgamating what everyone else wants for me, this can be exacerbated by whoever I have talked to most at the time and trying to please them. Things tend to be unsustainable in the long term and fall apart, leading to paralysing fear of completing a task I have failed at, of phoning up to pay a bill I am behind on etc. I am so scared of confrontation and failure that I will make things worse in an attempt to avoid facing it.
Right, I'm sure this isn't anywhere near all of the crap that is wrong with me but now I am going to get a drink and go to bed because I have the Doctor's in the am, am very tired and also dehydrated and nauseous, when I get fraught with emotion I have to strongly fight the urge to throw up to steady my nerves, mixed with the overproduction of acid that happens when I'm feeling naff and it all goes a bit wrong really.
Anyways, night guys.
I shall try to take this with me tomorrow
Ceri-Womble x

EDIT: In all the excitement I forgot that when I get started on a task I find it very difficult to complete as I go completely overboard. The other week I cleaned my sink as the start of a new leaf. I started at midnight with soaking it with a bleach mixture, finished at about half 2 and then started again as soon as I got up for about 4-5 hours because it wasn't right. I was so upset it wasn't perfect that I was close to tears and filed, sanded and buffed it. I do this whenever I try to do something properly, I go overboard and can't cope when things aren't perfect.
The sink still worries me because it's yet another part of my life I can't control!

- UPDATE -
I went to the doctor's, she can't do anything to change my medication, she suggested a local charity that may be able to help me but have a waiting list of a year, and said she would refer me to someone who does assessments at my local surgery (a gateway worker or something). As it happened, later that day the local counselling place I had been on the waiting list for for a month or so phoned up with a first appointment for Monday.
Still, it doesn't really help that I go to my Doctor, having obviously been up and crying all night (she was visibly shocked at my appearance) and was offered nothing by way of additional help, after asking for it because I was in crisis.
This is ridiculous, what on earth am I meant to do? It was only coincidence that the counselling people came through on the same day for Pete's sake, and no offer of any increase or change in medication despite saying I had once again felt suicidal/like self harming.
Me-thinks it might be time to change GP!

On the upside I am feeling much better now, though I have gone through 1 day of horrendous headache and one of a migraine before feeling better. I have wonderful friends and supportive family who have helped me through but not everyone has these amazing people to support them! Minimum intervention can't always work!

Jack of all trades

My brain says, you never finish anything, idiot! When it's trying to have a go at me!

I write blog posts, I compose poetry, I write songs, I sing silly songs.
I go out, I support people, a lot of actually quite messed up people, I am RARELY at home for a full day anymore, I volunteer, I lampwork.

The last time I was like this I was at college, go out every day I mean, I didn't do lots of that other stuff!

I have MS, I can't even walk without a stick half the time.

So why do I feel like I'm never good enough?! What a fucker! I'm my own bloody worst enemy entirely. If I knew what I went through every day I wouldn't say these things to me!
NOBODY else can EVER come close to the barrage of abuse I give myself on a minute by minute basis.

I'm nothing and everything all at once and I never rest to feel rested, just to stave off exhaustion, probably because I feel shit about myself or some childhood trauma, but really? It's not on really is it? It's just RUDE! I'd never think half the stuff I think about me about others! Why am I so fucking special? What is it about me that makes me think I'm better than everyone else eh?

I should cut myself some slack coz holy crap I'm a harsh bitch when I don't like someone. Thing is, the only person I really feel like this about is me.
I have no idea why I think I'm alright to pass comment on my own life so harshly, maybe it's because they say you have to walk a mile in a man's shoes! Thing is, if you come to hate the man occasionally for no good reason it's a bit of a pisser really isn't it?!

Baking and Blocks (Bran-Muffin Recipes)

Hi, I've been suffering some with writer's block lately so I haven't been blogging, this is something I want to nip in the bud though.

So, before a Guide open evening tomorrow evening I'm baking muffins for the cake stall.

First spoony trick was a) buy chocolate and plain muffins in Tesco £1 for 12 deal.
b) make two energy conserving conscious batches of muffins, making 2 bran based recipes meant not cleaning out the food processor between the batches!
Please note: Should you have a Cat they may STEAL your seat while you slave in the kitchen, THEY DO NOT CARE THAT YOU ARE BAKING! *Sighs at lack of Cat/Human relations awareness*

Cran-Bran Muffins the Ceri way

a) Find recipe online that you can start with and fiddle with depending on what you have in the cupboard. (Recipe Here)
b) preheat oven to 150 Centigrade
c) get ingredients:
2 7/8 oz Bran flakes because they had them in value at Tesco.
a pinch of Salt
a pack of Crasins
2 7/8 oz brown sugar
1 Med egg (I had Duck eggs to use up)
a "glug" or 2 of sunflower oil
2 tsp of baking powder
about 2 tsp cinnamon
5 oz self rasing flower (I had no wholemeal or bicarb)
enough milk to make it like thick cake mix when you whizz it in a food processor

d) put muffin cases in tray, divide mix between muffin spacey things (I made 12)
cook for 20-25 mins

Banana-Bran Muffins the Ceri way
a) Find a recipe that, the same as the above you can play with! (Recipe Here)
b) preheat oven to 150 Centigrade
c) get ingredients:

4 1/4 oz butter
3 1/2 oz brown sugar
3 bananas mashed
2 capfuls of the little bottles of vanilla extract
2 eggs (I used the duck ones again)
6 1/2 oz SR flour (again, was out of bicarb and wholemeal flour)
3 1/2 oz bran flakes
2 tsp baking powder
pinch salt
 and whizz up in a mixer with enough milk to make a gooey batter thing
d put muffin cases in tray, divide mix between muffin spacey things (I made 18)
cook for  20-25 mins, realise oven doesn't seem to be working... take out, put back in after you think you have sorted oven out, realise you haven't, turn oven off and decide to bake in Mother's oven tomorrow!

The end

Damage the new thing!

I remember this feeling, I have had it so often. I get something new and I can't use it coz I'll damage it and make it useless. I know it's kind of wrong to feel like this though, having fun is using it for something useful!
I have felt like this with everything, silver, glass, books, jewellery, comics. Tell you what.
From today I have decided that I shall just jump in when I feel like this and damage the new thing as soon as I get it until I am no longer scared.
This I believe will be the cure to the problem, however not today as my body is being all crap and MSie! How dare it? It's not like I pushed it at all is it? *whistles nonchalantly* Maybe the thing that I have no problem damaging is me, maybe it's coz I feel ruined already! That's a depressing thought.
Ohhh, Look! PIZZA!
Hooray!

Anyways, yes, I can tell you about my fabric!
So yeah, the Burberry type is just a silly skirt I got from a jumble sale coz it looked like I could use it for fabric.
The apple green satin came from Emmaus, a charity down my way and was £6 for a large amount (240cm x 180cm with a seam in the middle).
The kind of green spotty cream cotton fabric was 32 cm worth for £1.50
the three little rolls are fat quarters from Callyco in Cambridge whole lot for £8
and there are 50 squares of 4cm x 4cm cotton for £7.50ish off ebay
I'm starting to get there, I wanted to bring another colour into my beigey living room and decided for mainly apple green (though I'm gonna have some red in there too with other accessories).
Will hopefully get my first project done soon.
Horrah!

Undateable?

Channel 4 has just announced a series talking about sex/relationships etc. with regard to disability called "Undateable".
Edit: I should have made it clear that I am not only talking about the channel 4 show here but the 70% of people who wouldn't shag a disabled person (from an observer survey through @lisybabe).

For me the term "undateable" itself is highly pejorative and insulting. It may not have been meant to suggest that someone with a disability and/or life limiting condition is in some way less worthy of love but that is outwardly how their advertising appears to be selling the show, that we have less worth within a relationship or are harder to love, though this may be trying to be ironic all it does is perpetuate a stereotype that is just gross and unacceptable.
In my opinion, having to deal with adversity is a commendable trait to have, in fact it often makes someone more emotionally mature, sensitive and capable of having a long term relationship and being more understanding.
In my eyes there's nothing quite so off putting as someone who would be so judgemental as to rule out a huge swathe of the population for dating purposes. Honestly, I find it really unattractive as a personal trait.

Some people might be into blonds or bums or people with glasses, choosiness is fine, however completely excluding people based on one unchangable aspect of their life really says more about the person doing the excluding than the ones being "excluded". I don't believe that it can be classed in the same way as sexual orientation, if you don't find disabled people sexy then fine but if you actively exclude people entirely based on this one part of who they are then you hardly come across as emotionally mature.

Maybe the dicks who are so judgemental as to not be interested in someone with a physical or mental issues purely on that basis are truly the "Undateable" ones!

I am bloody good enough, and OW!

I write this, through tears, my back screaming because though recently it has been wanting to do things that are impossible with the human spine I am currently only able to be somewhere between approx a 60- 140 degree angle. I have a thumping headache, my head is swimming, I can't even have the TV sound on because the volume is hurting too much. I am finding it a job to swallow and I have stigmata pain in both my hands. Also, for every 5 seconds or so I am getting about 4-5 twinges in my muscles/nerves.

I am scared. I am back on my crutch nearly full time when I leave the house and I am exhausted all the time, not including the level of exhausted I am when I've been out. I am now on quite a few meds and still feeling crap, I know this is only a wobble brought on by some kind of virus but it freaks me out, I want to do so many things.
Then I go online, the only place I feel I have any impact, the only place I can be equal and "normal" I come into contact with the Telegraph and The Sun (c/o political scrapbook) stories, they scare the hell out of me, they make me want to curl up and die.

They make me feel as if everything I am trying my absolute best to do is never enough, my working relentlessly while being unfit for work at finishing my OU degree, my volunteering to try to gain experience and strength etc. is all for nothing. As if nothing I will ever do will be enough in the eyes of the world at large.

I get it you know? I know; I know that some of you view me as a piece of dirt, as a scrounger. However I know better, I know that I am a human being, I know I desperately want to get better, but MS is progressive. I want to get the strength I had prior to my recent attack back but that may never happen. It has taken me years to accept this is how my life is and I still don't entirely, it doesn't really help when the rest of the world fails to accept it too.
I still feel "maybe if you just tried harder", I still feel like I should try, relentlessly for approval but I'll never get it. Maybe I should just accept that some people will always view me as workshy and a scrounger.

However, I look at this from outside and you know what I see? I see someone who has been abused, I see someone who feels as if this is what they deserve and the part of me that has studied health and diversity and social policy and a wee bit of psychology looks at the little scared me and despairs.

This is a ridiculous state of affairs! It's holocaust memorial day, a reminder of what hate of what you do not understand or tolerate can lead to, a reminder of what hateful governments can do to their own people. More than 70 years later can we still be doing this to people, segmenting into those that are deserving and "moral" and those who deficient in some way? Now people must fight to be seen as rightfully disabled, as ill enough, and morally upright citizens, and enough for "the tax payer", that we must strive so hard for recognition or are scrounging and therefore a cancer on society.

There is, after all, a thing called "National Insurance" (also, more than 70 years old, as is the NHS) people forget, that this pays for the welfare state, we pay for it, we all pay for it. we all are one, we are one people, yet somehow the government is instilling hate in the hearts of the paranoid. We are all being "taken for a ride" by these "scroungers".

You know what? Fuck it, I have rights in this country, that's why I love Britain, rights that my grandparents fought for, rights that every citizen is rightfully entitled to, and this does not have to do with justifying my right to have a meagre struggle of a bloody existence, it has to do with compassion, with understanding, with healing the sick, with supporting the poor, with legislating the private sector so that people do not have to live in squalid conditions, or are not left disabled by faulty bloody breast implants, or left without income, so that nobody should die in poverty.

It's the country I always thought I lived in, it's the country I fight to live in every, single day. Where ignorance isn't fought with ignorance, where distrust isn't fought with more distrust, and where people who already have a pretty bloody crappy lot in life are allowed to have a bit of actual dignity, not having to join the very real analogue of a workhouse just to eat, where people are provided with the help they need to go to the bloody toilet, or wash their bits!

If you do not want to live in this country, please tell me why the hell not, tell me, why, living with daily pain striving to get through (not even starting on the mental health issues), struggling to eventually get out of the benefit hole I am in of sickness and social immobility is not bloody good enough for you, do that or kindly bugger off.

Virus fairy and feeling Ugh!

I Had a visit from the virus fairy this weekend. I've been rather burning the candle from both ends lately, been not having hardly any down time and not much sleep.
Although I'm ok with it to a point, eventually my body cracks, I just don't have the ability to keep going like I used to pre the attack of this summer.
So I spent Thursday evening, Friday and Saturday Morning in bed, had loads of sleep, even though it still doesn't feel like anywhere near enough.
Eventually forced myself into getting up, got dressed, felt exhausted.
I really need to sort the flat out, get rid of all the crap.
Thing is, even just getting up, getting dressed, washing a few plates etc. and sitting around all day feels like too much at the moment; and I fall even more behind on the housework, even less chance of getting all the other jobs I need to do done.
I really need to sort all my stuff out, chuck away a load of stuff, thing is, it's getting started, and continuing... lets be honest, it's the whole darn thing. I have no energy anymore.

So yeah, in an attempt to make myself feel a little bit useful today I made a new avatar for twitter.

That concludes the interestingness of my day, well it probably doesn't, I've just hit brain fog territory and I can't think anymore.

A system as broken as my heart

I write this on the eve of the vote on welfare reform in the lords, I have not spent ages thinking this through or researching this so you will need to take this as it comes, I just needed to write about how upset I am.

Yesterday the first (afaik) report of its kind was published, the first report entirely researched, written, funded and distributed in by a grassroots movement of vulnerable people. The most vulnerable in society, the hardest hit, we fight not only for us; we fight for the one of the noblest of causes, we fight for social security, we fight for those who cannot stand (metaphorically) against their oppressors, against their accusers and against their government.

We published a report exposing how the government has systematically deceived the public about the consultation behind this welfare reform bill, not just mislead, but lied. They have had the inaccuracies pointed out, again and again, by people not just within the left wing on centrist media but from within their parties and from the daily mail.

This to me shows that they are actually intentionally trying to get it past the public and MPs, and that; and here's the scary bit, they know they can get away with it.
And who can blame them? Where was any reporting of this on the BBC news channel? On the BBC website? On Sky news? On Channel 4 news? Nowhere!
In fact it seemed possible at one point that channel 4 news might report it, however they seem to have completely misunderstood what the report was about. In the ruckus that ensued from that twitter message from Jon Snow as people were upset/confused/explaining what the content of the report actually was/asking questions it became too much for him and appeard to switch off from the discussion.

Just as every other form of televisual media has, we don't exist, we can just go away, if they ignore us we will scream and cry and plead with them and they think they will break us, they think they can get away with deciding what is newsworthy. A dog who "can act", and a kleptomaniac chef eclipse the publication of a report that exposes the lies that will be used to try to destroy us.

I am incensed that this has been brushed under the rug, truly I am filled with rage that something that is so obviously newsworthy has been ignored by people who say they have read it.
I say to you that you have not read it, you cannot have done if you can completely miss the entire point of it.

The system is broken, the opposition oppose nothing, the Liberal Democrats work to see us with neither liberty nor democracy, whether by design or inaction. The media are all corrupt. And tonight my heart is truly broken, the principles of social security are that we are protected by our society, we can truly no longer say that.

I really, implore you, all of you to support this cause, to try and get it out there, to show what has happened here, we try so hard every day, and because of how ill this has made them one of the main contributors has had to go to hospital, I am screaming from within that this simply isn't possible in the world I thought we lived in.
However, maybe I am actually just starting to wake up and see the world as it truly is.

What is it that Grown up Wombles do?

I am aware that I'm 28 which for most people comes across as probably mostly "grown up" but screw it, I only just got my degree and getting to a point where I feel like I know what I want to/can do with my life.

I would actually love to teach, well, that said there are a great many things I want to do with my life but one of these many things is indeed, to teach.
Also, teaching is a good jumping off point for lots of the stuff I would love to do too, so let's do that!

For those that are interested/know that pre-August I wished to be a nurse, know that my MS attack in late July/August brought things into focus a bit more for me and brought me a bit back down to earth.

What I want to do is help people, and overall I feel that teaching is actually quite good way of doing that. So yes, I am applying to do a PGCE at Leeds Met (when I get my Personal Statement done - probably early Feb after my Dad giving me a hand), My favoured course is Health and Social Care. If I don't get into that, then I'm also applying for Citizenship and if all else fails my third preference is for Further Education (which it now seems that you can get loans for - as you don't get fees paid for PGCE's any more).

All of this of course would mean moving or some such, my Dad already lives up in Leeds so it'd be ideal for doing the whole grown up thing without being entirely without support. Thing is, I have an assured tenancy, it's secure. I am in a council flat and there's not much that can get me out of it. I need to find out where I stand with moving, whether it's possible to get a transfer, whether I'd need to get an exchange, whether I could even keep my flat in Cambridge and just pop down again at weekends, holidays etc. etc.

Also, I have been out of work, for many years, I'm frankly concerned about whether I'll be able to cope with a full time job, thing is, for everything I'm doing to try to get myself out of the hole I'm in, to try to get myself off of benefits... the more peril I actually stand in!

I am very concerned that I will end up being found "Fit to work" over the next few months (by Atos) and will be thrust into something like workfare so that I will not be fit enough to actually go to college by next September! I am frankly terrified by the prospect of the future, anything I might do, any movement at all could get me into deep water with the powers that be.

What I would love to happen is for tomorrow everything to be sorted, to be volunteering with the charity I help out at, to do this Further Education course in Preparing to Teach Adults for the next term. To have a place at Uni, to not have to choose between the prospect of a brighter future and somewhere to love (a real worry re housing and moving etc.), to know whether there will even be a place for vocational GCSE's in the future. Whether my health will even allow me to actually DO any of this at all!

All rather up in the air at the moment as you can see, so if I'm a bit all over the place at the moment please excuse me, I'm just busy trying to work out what the HELL I'M DOING!

2011 And being a positivity shark!

Ok, I seriously can't be bothered one bit by doing some blah about looking back at 2011, it was a bit shit if I'm honest, let's just say I have learned some important lessons about myself and all that stuff we should say, actually I have learned MAJOR lessons this year...
Not least of which is that I write stuff and people seem to read it, I have no idea why this is but I want to thank you, and if there's something you would like to see more of then please do say and I'll get on it or ignore you, definitely something!
I haven't done what I wanted to with the year because of a HUGE number of things, people, health - both physical and mental... it all went a bit shit really in places, best to just move forward, like a "positivity shark"!
But yeah, other than this I thought I'd give you my top 5 blog posts of 2011, these are the most popular posts.

What is twitter to me? - A post about twitter and how I use it.
Bus Stop Biggots - A post about how I hate opinionated idiots
Lie of Capitalism - A silly drawing about how I want to buy all the things but how this is bad!
The Past - A bit of an emo-post, about me, my feelings, my thoughts and basically my past.
Handmade Chocolatey Goodness! (Fixed) - A post about my AWESOME chocolates I made for Xmas!

Anyways, lots of positive things to look forward to, thank you ALL for helping SO much this year, I have really needed my friends around me, and those that have stuck by me have shown my what true friends are, I feel able to be me, truly in a way I didn't feel this time last year. Thank you for helping me and supporting my fight, through a hedge, kicking and screaming to go "Oh, Right then, ok" (although occasionally I still go "ARRGGGHHH! Love me!" but then, who doesn't?).
To learn how strong you are you must get to your lowest points. I now know a tad of who and what I am, and I have my friends, both IRL but ESPECIALLY online to thank.
I honestly couldn't have done all this without you.

All my love and best wishes for the next solar cycle my lovely peoples!
Womble
xx

Red Queen Crisis

A few times lately I have had to try to describe/explain the mental flips I can do when in a fit of depression to others; Of course it didn’t actually work last night but I managed to get other coping mechanisms in place.

I think as a consequence of me growing up I have actually come to start to understand my depression, what I thought was somehow a defect in myself, a mark on my character is actually just another condition, a disease I have to fight against.

It tells me life is hopeless when it’s not, it weaves webs of mistruths in my head until I can’t see anything apart from my loneliness and the blackness of my future. It tells me to do things I shouldn’t to try and kill my pain or to not do things that will help me because there’s no point.  I have always felt like this, it has just taken me a long while to come to terms with the fact that I have this in my life and I’m not quite normal, I’ve always known that I’m not. I just never took it as a difference but as a flaw, I think my double standards make me able to see all sorts of shades of grey for other people but not in myself.

Now I start to see it as a strength, I have many coping methods others don’t. I can give myself and my time without thought to others in a way that other people would find absolutely exhausting. When I am feeling totally black and without hope I can quite often just go “NO! I REFUSE TO FEEL THIS WAY!” and spend my time doing everything and anything to distract myself to the point of exhaustion when I can normally quiet my thoughts enough to actually sleep. This is a real strength.

This is what I mean when I say I can flip, I also tend to do this when my physical health is bad, like a self righting mechanism of some sort, because if I kept feeling bad then I would just go into a completely downward spiral. The other contributing factor is that I often make myself physically more ill, as a part of my depression’s action; that is, I push my body until I make myself ill because it makes me feel more sane again or I don’t do things like eat properly or take my medication.

All of this takes me to why I was so bad last night, my pain has been increasing and I should go back to the doctors and get my medication adjusted but this is just another aspect of depression ruling my world, I don’t want to, I can’t bring myself to, I just want everything to go away and for me to fade away to nothing. So with increasing levels of pain my mood rises but then it has nowhere to go once it’s up apart from down, if I try to make myself feel better by taking part in exercise I end up at square one.

Me feeling absolutely terrible last night was just me, not being to cope with the various currents of physical pain mixed with emotional pain and mixed with plain old exhaustion lead to a crisis.

I am really quite proud of myself for managing to ask for help when I needed it, the plan now is to go watch my gorgeous sister being a tree in Roald Dahl’s Snow White and then to make myself a doctor’s appointment in the morning, however I’m kind of hoping I might get some sleep in the in-between time.

Brilliant Play, I am one VERY proud sister, she wasn't just a tree but a narrator too!

Scared of Scarring

I'm feeling a bit scared.
I'm not very well again and while I'm pretty sure it's just a blip it's knocked my confidence rather.
I hate this... even with the depression I can normally be strict Ceri, I find a way through whatever barrier is there, somehow, coz I'm either tenacious or pigheaded depending on if you're trying to compliment/insult me.

However, when my MS screws up I can really do naff all about it. I can fight, and push and kick and scream all I like but I only end up more stuck. Thing is, I can't not do anything because that's just counter productive and leaves me in an even worse situation. The line between completely screwed and the right amount is totally on a hairpin trigger; I'm not always aware of how far I'm pushing and other times I think I'll be ok because I want to be.

It used to be ok because I could push myself further, because I've not been very well recently (with my first attack in 7 odd years) I'm continually surprised by how easily I can mess myself up, I'm not used to it. I'd do a great many things differently if I could go back in time but one would definitely be to not look what was relatively good health in the mouth.... that metaphor was weird; health has no mouth!

But yeah, I now tread a very odd line, in ground I am not used to between messed up mental and physical health, being very much more aware that I am beholden to them. I used to be ok the majority of the time with periods of worse health, now it's more navigating between shit health periods trying desperately to push hard enough to regain something but not pushing so hard as to end up back in bed.

I would like to say at this point that it's not fun, I didn't choose this and honestly I wish someone would just come and take it all away. Anyone who EVER thinks that this is some kind of fun life, living off the state and not being able to take care of yourself, how would you feel if you couldn't do basic things like the washing up or bathing, let alone working?

Anyways, yeah scared, always scared... but just lately, more scared of the scars than most other things, both the mental and the physical.
And trying to cope and look like I know what I'm doing, despite everything

Darn my myelin >.<

Ceri :-)