A journal entry…

I hate the fact that I have not had the time to write since starting university this year. I think about it all the time but I always seem to have something that needs to be done. Nevertheless, I am here now writing this post. Better late than never.

A lot has happened since I last wrote and I have reached extremely positive states and dropped back down to low ones. I am feeling very low tonight, which is why I cannot sleep. I have started my counselling and worked on great tips to help with my anxiety. If you have not done a worry tree before, try it! I hope to share more tips with you very soon. What I have not addressed yet is depression. I thought it may be good for me to read a journal that I wrote back in July when my depression was at its worst to make me reflect on how far I have come and I wanted to share an entry with you.

‘ I don’t know what else I can say . I cant even think straight let alone talk. Its all one big jumbled up mess again in my head. Like a pair of headphones or a necklace that ends up in that awful tangle that can take hours to undo. The last week has been hell and I haven’t even had time to write, or maybe I just didn’t find time. I’ve gone back to wanting to sleep every moment that I don’t have anything important to do. Even then I cant sleep without having nightmares. I thought Angel would be with me everyday to help guide me but maybe they have a limit on how many times they can interfere. I have gone back to square one all over again. I cant understand how my feelings are such a rollercoaster and neither can he. One moment I sit and day dream, about the future, about buying houses, having children. I see a time where I am completely content and no longer feel pain, no longer fear. There are times where I sit or lay in his arms and cant stop smiling. I say I love you so often and kiss him so much that he actually finds it annoying and asks me to chill out. In those moments I have found my passion again. I don’t feel lost, I feel like a happy healthy girl, vibrant with goals, and so set and driven to reach them. But just moments later I can feel the complete opposite. I am lost with no direction, no idea what path I should take, no idea what choices to make , and here I often find myself making the wrong ones. How can this be? How can my thoughts and feelings change in what seems like the flip of a coin by a person playing a game with my life. Sometimes if I am lucky I may land on heads every time he flips it in that one day. More often than not I get my fair share of tails. Even writing this, the choice of words I have used I am beginning to see that I have little belief in having control over my own life. I think I’ve struggled since a little girl to believe that I can decide what happens and whether I can be happy. Why would I choose to be abused? I cant have wanted that, I cant have consciously taken steps to cause that to happen, could I? Maybe now as an adult I need to start realising that I do now have power over my life. Now I do have control over the situations I put myself in. Deep down I know its down to me to find a way to get passed these feelings so that I can live a life. But in moments like this I am not living at all , and all I think about is going to sleep and never waking up.’

I wanted to share this entry because it relates to my counselling session this week. Reading back over this its clear that at the time I was trying to say that my past experiences were controlling my life, and in particular the abuse. My Counsellor told me that I must work on comforting the little girl from my past who lives inside me. I must tell her she is safe now and that she cannot be hurt anymore. I must do what was not done all those years ago so that she can be at peace and let the current me have control back.

Many of my other blog posts focus on gaining control of your own mind. I really do believe that is the key to happiness and success.

Until next time.

Contributing to the future of others…

I have said since my son was born that I want to make a difference in the world. That I wanted have a positive impact on peoples life, to make the hard times just that little bit easier.

It soon occurred to me that there is no plain and simple way to do this. There is not just one act that will help you meet this goal. Instead, you must do little things, all the time. These things add up, and eventually you will have impacted many lives in many ways.

Last night I was sat in my car and I wasn’t even paying attention to the radio until a phrase caught my attention. “Childhood Sexual Abuse”. Automatically I tuned in. The Truth Project were advertising for people to share their stories of CSA. So this evening I had a look on their website and read about what they do. They are working on the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse. All they are asking for is victims or survivors to share their stories with them so that they can gain an understanding of what is working well and what is failing in the current system. Their aim is to provide better protection for the children of the future, and of course have a better system to receive those who have been unfortunate enough to be a victim.

As difficult as it is to sit down and tell your story to someone, I signed myself up. This is one thing that I can do, to try to help the children of the future. One thing that I can do to help make the world a better place, for my sons generation and the generation to come. There are so many little things, that we could all do daily, that together, will make a difference.

If you are a CSA victim or survivor, please have a look at their page and see if you can help too!

Ps. I haven’t had much time to write lately, but I have set up a new Instagram with regular positive, inspirational posts.. Please follow it @beyourowninspiration_

Thank you!!

Until next time.

Emotional Intelligence – The power of the mind, yet again!

So this week I had a uni task and it has really inspired me to write this post. The task was to prepare a three minute speech on why we should receive a graduate trainee manager position. That was it, no elaboration on the job description whatsoever.

I decided that I’d focus on my interpersonal skills and how they would enable me to be good at management. I thought about what I think makes a good manager, and what I like about managers that I have had in the past and I ended up going into great detail about emotional intelligence. I had some training on this a few years ago in one of my previous jobs. They believed that It would be really beneficial to all staff members, at the time I didn’t understand how it was relevant to the job. After the emotional crisis that I have just been through, and the better understanding of life, I finally get it!

What is emotional intelligence? well.. for those of you who may not know let me give you a brief explanation.

Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand our own emotions as well as the emotions of others, and furthermore to use that understanding in order to guide ourselves or another.

I cannot believe how well this links in to combatting depression and anxiety. Being able to recognise when we feel a certain way, understanding why, and then adapting our behaviour in response to that emotion. That is exactly what we need to be doing in order to achieve our desired outcome.

It would benefit everybody to be able to manage themselves, whether they struggle with mental health or not, but what really inspires me the most about this concept is the consideration of others emotions. I have been focusing on the benefits of this in terms of employability. How you could be a better manager if you were able to understand the feelings of your employees and adapt your methods as a result of this. As a really basic example, it is your responsibility as manager to increase sales. You are able to recognise that employee A feels disappointed and disheartened when they complete a sale but receive no recognition for it. You come to learn that employee A loves to feel like their efforts are acknowledged and appreciated immediately after a sale. Therefore, you simply congratulate them and reward them with some sort of recognition incentive. This causes employee A to feel positive emotions, and so causes them to enter the next negotiation with a really positive mindset. As a manger, its a double whammy. You have made your employee feel important, made them happy and you are also growing business!

This does not just apply to your careers either. Imagine how much better your relationships with friends and family could be if you were more intelligent in their emotions? This is not be confused with the concept of allowing people to make excuses, and perhaps even abolishes the idea. The more emotionally intelligent you become the more that you understand and appreciate that whether they seem reasonable or not to yourself, everyone is affected by emotions in different ways. Recognising when your friend is experiencing an emotion, and knowing what you can do to guide them away from that emotion into a more positive one is a truly invaluable trait to have.

If you have never heard of it before, I urge you to spend 10-15 minutes to just research it. It will be really beneficial to your life and your career no matter what it is that you do!

Remember, we are all here on this planet together. Selfishness will not achieve you success, you will reach far greater in life If you allow yourself to be helped by others and help others yourself.

Until next time.

The greatest strength lies inside your mind.

If your reading this blog it is probably because your mind currently, or at some point during your life, seems to have taken control of itself and your life, and you feel like you can’t stop yourself from feeling a certain way or doing certain things.

I know when I was feeling my lowest that I thought there was no way out. I thought that the only way I could escape my mind, which had run free and messed up so many things in my life, was to take my life. It seemed impossible at the time, that the very tool which was destroying my life was also the only tool that could build up the life that I want to live. The mind is key to success. Whether that be setting up a business, pulling yourself out of depression or climbing mount Everest. You can’t do any of those things without your mind, a positive mind-set is a catalyst for success.

There are so many things that I do or don’t do in my life, that I want to do or to not do. Let me give you some examples. I have got much better at managing my money, ensuring that I am not left with absolutely nothing for any period of time but I’d really like to save and I’m not hitting my savings goals at this moment in time. There is only one reason why. I haven’t got the right mindset yet. I know what I want to save for, but I do not have the determination to fully commit. I have stopped myself from buying expensive things that I don’t need, but I still end up spending unnecessarily, usually on food. If I want to save money, I need to have the willpower or it will never happen and willpower comes from the mind.

Let me tell you where I have practiced this successfully. In some of my other posts I mention the break up that happened almost 2 months ago with my ex boyfriend. I kept saying, and kept thinking that I wouldn’t ever be able to love again. And, if I am to be completely honest I am still not sure that I will. However, what I have done is changed my mind-set, and I am using my emotions and heartbreak to my advantage. Let me tell you how. I am very afraid, to let anyone else in after all of the past experiences that I have had, but, it is my dream to have a loving relationship, to settle down and it always has been. I am a really family orientated girl, very maternal, and my idea of happiness sits comfortably in the family life regime. So why should I remain a single parent, with only one child, when my dream is to have more than one child and to marry? I shouldn’t. Just because I have had my heart broken, I shouldn’t run away from my dreams because if I don’t then at least I have a chance of reaching them right? Okay so this is what I have been doing…

In the 2 months that I have been single I have only felt well enough to talk to another male in the last two weeks. I discussed it with my councillor and she and I developed a few things that we should do in order to help me get back into the world of dating, but protect myself from making the wrong choices. One thing that I mentioned to her was doing things too soon, from getting intimate, to becoming in a relationship and introducing my child. So I have created a list of 5 questions that I must ask any man that I am seeking that kind of relationship with. It is not an interview so they will not be word for word, and I will be slipping them into natural conversations where they are applicable. This is to help me to identify at an early stage whether the person has the traits and personality that I am looking for, before things start to get to complicated.

Now I feel myself drifting away from my actual intended point here, the power of the mind, but methodology is important too. So basically what I am doing is taking things very slowly, and ensuring that I am finding out the important things sooner rather than later. If you have read my earlier blogs you may know that I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. I want to explain a little bit about how that has affected my relationships, and particularly my sex life so that you can understand why I feel I have made great progress over the last 2 weeks. My experiences as a child made me grow up feeling like no more than a sex doll, sad, but its true. Now some survivors go the opposite way, they have a fear of people going anywhere near them or touching them physically and so become afraid of sex following the trauma. For me, the experience was very different. Due to re-victimisation very shortly after the first spate of abuse I entered my teenage to adult years feeling as though I was worth nothing more than sex. Like that was the only thing I was good at, the only purpose that I had. My brain had also programmed itself into believing that my opinions, my desires, what I wanted, had no significance. Therefore, if a male wanted me, I would often consent even if I didn’t truly want to. Many will say that this makes me a slut, but I am not offended by their thoughts or comments because they don’t understand what I went through and what it did to my head. I no longer have to be ashamed because I have discovered the issue, and I have addressed it and now I have put my plans into action using nothing but my mind. On every occasion that I have seen this one guy over the last two weeks I have gone no further than to kiss him. I regret to say that this an achievement for me. No matter that I had alcohol in my system, no matter that he was trying to persuade me to change my mind. I went into his company telling myself that I was not going to give any sexual contact and I stuck to my guns every single time. Part of this is to see if he respects my wishes, or whether sex is all he wants. Part of it is to make him chase and see him put in the effort. But do you know what the most important part of it has been? Showing myself that I CAN do anything that I set my mind to. I don’t have to be a slave to sex as the males of the past made my mind believe. I can be whoever I want to be. I deserve more than giving myself up straight away, I deserve to grafted for, but I have to make that happen.

The above example may be un-relatable to many of you reading it, but the point that I want to get across is that you can change lifetime habits, you can change habitual thinking patterns, cognitive distortions that have been instilled in you since a very young age. The key is the mind. You must use your mind, you must adapt your mind-set. The behaviours and everything else required for your success will follow once your mind has found the right path.

Believe in yourself, challenge yourself. You are your best supporter and your worst enemy. Once you unlock the full potential of your mind, you can be unstoppable.

I hope this post inspires you to test the powers of your own mind, success is like dominoes! Once you achieve one goal, you believe, and once you believe, you can begin to smash all of your goals one after the other in succession.

Good luck.

Until next time.

Thoughts like buzzing bumblebees.

I want to take a walk through my last relationship, from the very beginning, to the very end. ( Now reading this back it definitely does not come close to start to end, I’m going to have to write a book if I want to do that!) Not missing out anything, a true reflection of how I felt, and a true reflection of the things that I did.

So we were in the same team at work, that’s how we met, I had no interest in him sexually I just thought he was a funny guy, he made me laugh. I enjoyed a little bit of banter with him, he made me smile. What he doesn’t know, is that my mood was very low just weeks before we started talking. I think he believes that I was a happy person then, but let me tell you deep inside I was hurting. I was surprised that he didn’t see me just a few weeks before coming into work looking like I had been hit by a bus, a bit like I’ve been lately. Not eating, not sleeping, I still to this day wonder how he didn’t see me like that, and how it never put him off. I had a shit summer, I fucked up my a levels, I was still getting shit off the father of my child and to make it worse, I got played by a guy and I stupidly thought it would be good to play the game back. It didn’t turn out well for me, and I have regretted it every single day since. See I learnt a lesson at that time, that point scoring doesn’t win you an emotional game.

Okay so we started talking a little, okay maybe not a little, a lot. I don’t do early mornings but this guy kept me up silly late talking to him and I still managed to go to work with a smile on my face. Talking to him was great, I thought we shared similar values, I thought we were on the same page. I have to be comply honest, when I say that what had just happened with C wasnt out of my head yet. C had messed me around a lot, and C didn’t want me, I knew that. But if he was graded on his ability to confuse me I would give him an A*. He wanted me at his beck and call, but he didn’t want to be at mine. It was not healthy, but at the time, it was all I had. And I think we have established that up until now, I have always needed someone. Having someone on my life, makes my life more bearable. Being shown love and affection, makes me feel worthy of life. Anyway, back to the situation. My now ex, then blossoming new relationship, asked if I wanted to have a chat with him face to face after work one day. C just so conveniently happened to see this chat take place and my phone exploded. He told me he loved me, for the first time and we had been seeing eachother on and off for months and months, and I can’t tell you how much I wanted to hear those words from him. But I was so confused.

I decided that I needed to give my ex a fair shot, rather than being up against someone that I had a lot of chemistry for. So that’s what I did, o talked more, I went on dates, and I fell for him. But the whole time I was afraid. I didn’t feel ready, he was very honest about the person he was in the past and that made me very apprehensive about opening myself up to him, and I was umming and arring about what to do. I wanted to choose my heart, and I did, choose my heart but that doesn’t silence my head. He asked me, to be his girlfriend, and o wasn’t expecting it. I said yes without giving it any thought. My love for him grew, but my trust issues exploded. The more I loved, the more I was able to be hurt. I don’t know if I was always going to be hurt, or if I pushed him unit hurting me, or if I deserved for having doubts.

Surely everybody has doubts right? It was very new and I didn’t know if it was right for me or not. I didn’t use this as a justification for myself to go out and test any waters, believe it or not that really isn’t me. I never flirted with anyone, not even a cheeky smile, or a slightly over friendly text. I wanted it to be prefect, but there was only ever one thing I couldn’t defeat. C.

When I was feeling really down, I would turn to him. So stupid to do that. I might not have had him at my neck and call, but I knew I could count on him more than anyone else that I have here to be there for me. I could count on my hands the number of conversations that I had with him. It wasn’t like I was having a full on affair, I didn’t kiss the guy, I didn’t touch the guy, not once when I was with my ex. I know talking to him over text was wrong, and sometimes I may have said things about how I felt about him, which is also wrong, but it was true. Sometimes the truth hurts but I have no time for lies now. Point is, nothing physical ever happened whilst I was in a relationship.

There were certain things going on in my relationship that I had to adapt to. Things that I had never experienced before, didn’t know how to deal with. I’m not going to lie at first I questioned myself could I do it? Could I live with this change?… But do you know what, I gave myself a shot, I gave myself belief and in belief I succeeded. Many would have secretly found away to not have to change, or just gave up without giving change a chance but I never did. The love I was building in my heart became more important than anything else I have ever experienced.

Everyone is different, and I know that everyone is affected by things differently. Don’t get me wrong, nobody is okay with their partner talking to someone else behind their back, no matter how many times or who it is. I don’t mean to sound as though I am trying to justify a ring action here because I’m not, but in order to love with myself I have to forgive myself and to forgive I must give myself an explanation. I know that my wrongdoing was not out of spite, not out of hate, I wasn’t point scoring, or just being plain greedy. I turned to one person, for no other reason than that we had a connection. I turned to him at times that I was afraid and sad, because I wanted to feel like somebody cared. What I have learnt, is that the only way to fix something like that, is to actually sit down and talk to the person that’s making you feel that way, and explain to them why you feel that way. If your love is strong enough, you will find a way together, to work it out.

What’s brought this on tonight? I try not to wonder over it in my mind, but sometimes things trigger it and I can’t help myself. I know, hand on my heart, hope to die, that I only ever made one mistake – one person. I find myself asking the question how many girls really were there that he came close to, stood on, or crossed the line with? Would it be better if I knew, or am I better off never having the truth? I have suffered all my life facing the consequences of a person’s lie. The reality is that one persons lie, is enough to make me want to end my life. But I know that one is a lie, because I know the truth. There are many things I don’t know the truth about, would I rather it come out? Or is it better left in the closet? Who knows maybe if I never spoke up about my abuse it would affect me the way it does now? Maybe I wouldn’t feel like my words are worthless, maybe I wouldn’t feel let down by my friends and family. Maybe I wouldn’t feel like my feelings are not justified because if I explain them they are little more than an excuse to others.

Silly really, I was feeling a little lonely, and I was asking myself about tinder. Should I download it, why not I deserve to meet someone in the end right? But i couldn’t bare the thought of coming across him on there I know it would cause me more pain than I’d ever gain from the app. Then I thought maybe I could meet people another way, a different app that he won’t be on an then something hit me. I remember seeing a dating app on his iPad. And my thoughts began to wonder, I had always told myself that was just old and he no longer used it. But what if that wasn’t the case, what if he was using my logic, but when we were together. What if my boyfriend, the one who was playing father to my child, was also dating online. And here I am again, in floods of tears, wondering what someone up there would be able to see if they looked down at my life, the things that go on behind my back, the truths.

I need my guardian angel back, I can’t find her.

Until next time.

Anxiety checklist – first success

I recently made myself a checklist to follow each day to fight my anxiety and try to live my days without suffering.

I just conquered two points in one scenario and I feel great!! I have touched on how I do not value myself and have no self confidence. This has caused me no end of insecurities in relationships, always feeling like other girls have way more to other than I do. There is a girl in my office that I have had an issue with for a long time. She was very jealous of my relationship with my ex and she made that very known to me. Instead of taking that in my stride and feeling good that I had what others wanted I let it eat me up inside, I hated her and everytime I saw her my anxiety flared up. Heart racing,hands shaking, blood boiling, day ruined.

Today I had an issue with one of my systems and had to use a manager’s computer to complete a task, right by her desk. At first thought of going over there to do it I started getting the sinking feeling in my tummy and I wanted to look for an excuse not to. But I didn’t. A daily goal is to face a fear, being anywhere near her was my fear and I did it. I walked over with my head held high and I did what I needed to do. I even had a conversation with someone and managed to smile, I didn’t hide away. I can do it, if I tell myself to, if I want it enough. How great is that?!

Which brings me to my second point, whilst there I could hear her conversation with her manager. They were laughing and joking about her being a ‘pikey’ and talking about Snapchat, oh I hate that app. Immediately I feared they were making indirect digs at me, joking about her stealing my boyfriend and talking about her sending him indecent things on Snapchat. Something I always suspected was going on. Maybe I was right, but hey maybe I was not and why should I choose to beat myself up and feel down about something that may or may not be true. Even if it was true, still I shouldn’t let it get to me, cause I deserve better than that and now I’m choosing to believe it. I fought a cognitive distortion, overthinking, jumping to conclusions. I stopped it, with my own brain, who knew I could do that?

I am so impressed and so happy with myself. 😊

If I can do it so can you!

Until next time.

Anxiety – A daily checklist

This is my first constructive post that I hope may help people.

After reading lots of different blogs last night I realised that we often read about the things that we should be doing, agree to try them but then never actually put them in to practice. I have made myself a small checklist of 5 things to do every day to help me have a better day.

Compliment myself – Last night I listened to a guided meditation and this really stuck out for me the most. She said that no matter how much a person loves you, no matter how much they value you, you will automatically see that they value you the way that you value yourself. This is one of my biggest struggles, I do not value myself at all so I don’t see how anyone else could value me. So this is my first item on my checklist, It wont make me love myself overnight, but day by day I hope it will change the way I see myself. This may be as simple as complimenting myself for my hair or the outfit I have chosen that day, or complimenting myself for the way I handled a tricky situation at work.
Do a good deed – They always say that helping out another person will make you feel better. I am definitely one of these people, I feel great when I have made someone smile or just made their day a little easier. Whether its telling someone that they still have the label on their jacket or giving someone the extra change that they need to complete their purchase at the till point. This will not only remind me that there is good in the world, but It will help me to believe that people see my worth, because I am giving them a reason to.
Fight a cognitive distortion – This one is going to be tricky and I’m not quite sure yet how I am going to do it. I have a really bad case of ‘All or nothing thinking’ which is very common it seems in those that suffer with their mental health. I want to start by trying to have control over my mind at least once each day. To remind myself that I am in control, and when that panic takes over me, whether I am mind reading, or jumping to conclusions. I am going to try to stop in that moment and think the opposite to what I am thinking, no its not the end of the world, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing, maybe they are not thinking that. I will try to give you some examples of this one as I go along.
Face a fear – Similarly to number three above, I want to try every day to do something I am afraid of. By this I don’t mean tackling my biggest fears, just doing one small thing. One of those things that people always say your silly for being afraid of. For me this will most commonly be the fear of what other people think. I may pick an outfit out of my wardrobe in the morning and then put it back because I think others will judge me, or I might hold in my need for the toilet until those popular girls have moved so I don’t have to walk by them. When I do walk by them I tend to hang my head in shame, hide my face, avoid contact, for what reason? Now it is my mission to everyday face one of these fears. Maybe it will be just walking by someone I am afraid of and smiling at them.
Meditate – I think it is important to give your brain some me time, to just relax and really try to exhale all those negative thoughts and inhale all of the positives. It may not seem to benefit you much at the beginning. When you think about it, you are allowing yourself that time to address the negative thoughts, rather than them just building up and then exploding in an attack. I may even try to do this twice a day, once in the morning to clear my head of anything negative I have awoken with, and once at night to clear away all of the negative that has built up during the course of the day.

I don’t know how useful this will be to myself or any of you, but I hope this inspires you to do something if you aren’t already. We must actively try to battle this, every single day. The do nothing approach will not work for us, it wont just go away by itself and another person will not make it go away for us. The only person you can rely on for your happiness is you.

Good luck with whatever it is that you do each day to combat the bad, if you have any suggestions for me please do help!

Until next time.

Mystery Man

I wanted to use this post to focus on some of the positive things that my mind has neglected over the last 9 months.

I first met my ex boyfriend at work, I was a newbie and out trainer brought him into one of our sessions to talk to us about the job. I hate to admit it, but it wasn’t love at first sight. I had never before been attracted to a guy with his appearance, I thought he was very funny, chilled out and just fun! Honestly, I thought he was too “cool” to even consider a girl like me, Mr Popular who would want Mrs Popular on his arm. I was wrong, and that at the beginning should have been enough for me to realise my worth in his eyes. After a few more weeks of being out of training and coming out onto the floor I was placed in the same team as him. We used to banter a bit, nothing that I would really consider too flirty just have a laugh and a joke. I will never forget the excitement I felt when the notification popped up on my phone to say he’d followed my Instagram. I actually burst out loud with words and I didn’t know why. Its one of the most positive memories I have of the last 12 months. I was so ridiculously happy but I didn’t even like the guy in that way, or did I? Maybe I was just overwhelmed that somebody as cool as that actually wanted to know me.

Things moved pretty quickly from there, we talked all day and all night. We told each other all of the amazing things we wanted to do with our lives and he fell in love with the girl that he saw in those first few weeks. My dreams and aspirations, my morals, the love I have for my son, and the positive energy I had about me. If only he had seen me 2 weeks before that I was feeling just as I am now, not eating, low mood, a mess. He asked me recently how I hid this side of me so well at the beginning and honestly I don’t have answer to that. I wish I could do that all day everyday, then I wouldn’t loose so many good things. I still have the same dreams and aspirations, I am still that same person I have just lost grip of that positive energy. Anyway, enough about me.

Our first date was better than anything I could have asked for. He took me out for dinner, we talked for hours, so long that we were the only ones left in the restaurant and they had to throw us out. He walked me back to my car and sat with me a little longer, we talked about other planets and aliens, the sun and the moon. We exchanged a kiss but nothing more. He was respectful, we want on a few more dates before anything sexual happened. I had never experienced actually dating before, and what a difference it made. He is the kind of guy that will hold the door open for you, he will tell you to sit down when your running around trying to ten things at once, he complains if you try to pick something up that’s heavy and says let me do that for you. He will come back with random things from the shop for you that he knows you like. He always said thank you if you did something for him, always said your food was nice if you cooked for him. I will never forget the first time we went on an outing with my son. He wanted to push the pram everywhere, he wanted to help with everything. When we met with his friends that day he spoke of my son with such excitement and pride it was almost as if he was his own. That really touched my heart and it will never leave me. He was an amazing father to my son and someday he is going to be an incredible father to one of his own. He always took me to do nice things, like the cinema or greyhound racing. My 21st birthday he really pushed the boat out, its not even about money but thoughtfulness. A trail of rose petals and 21 red roses waiting for me. That was one of the best days of my life and most certainly the best birthday I have had. Sometimes I think he’s just going to turn up at my door with a bunch of flowers, hold me tight and tell me that our love is too strong for him to walk away, but then I remember how far I have pushed him.

The most important thing for me was the way he looked into my eyes, nothing compares to his gaze locked on mine. The most beautiful eyes I have ever seen. The way he held me in his arms, the sense of security and the warmth of love coming from his heart was incredible. We used to kiss all the time, we always said we couldn’t stop kissing each other, like we were just drawn to one another. Like magnets. And although I failed to see it at the time, he did very often put my thoughts and feelings first, and tried to shelter me and keep me safe. Too bad that he couldn’t protect me from my own head.

I have never really experienced a broken heart like this before.

I hope there is a way to heal it.

Until next time.

The first trigger

Okay so I’m ready to tell you about the first and most dominant trigger of all my mental health issues.

My Childhood – The Abuse

I find this very hard to talk about, and apart from the police officers in my interviews and questioning, I don’t think I have ever disclosed the details to any of my family or friends.

I was about 8 years old when it started, it began as a game, like mummy’s and daddy’s. There was a housing estate just a five minutes walk from my family home, where a family friend lived. My mother used to take myself and my brother to her friends house and let us play with the other children that lived on the housing estate. I can still visualise exactly where it was when it first started, the fence that acted as the pretend doorway to our imaginary house, where we would place our fingerprint to gain access. I was still young enough to participate in these imaginary games and find them fun and exciting. He told me that we had to pretend to be married, and do all of the things that real married couples would do. At 8 years old I was too naïve to understand what it is that adult couples in relationships do, but I was about to find out…

The game began outside in the street, anyone could have seen it but out there only a quick peck or a cuddle was displayed which must have seemed normal to any adult should they ask and be told that you were playing a game of that sort. It progressed over the weeks and things started to move indoors and this is where I first learnt about sexual activities. It was a part of the game, it was what couples did. First I was shown what to do, being taught like a child would be, but this wasn’t a classroom and it was no content I needed to learn about so early in my life. After being shown the various things that I could do I was then told I had to keep doing it. I will never forget the explanation or the room surrounding me as I learned of this. “when you keep doing that, eventually it will make my whole body tingle and something will come out, that’s when you know you’ve done a good enough job”. That was my first ever experience of how to please someone in the bedroom and it has never left me. I remember having a session with a councillor at school, shortly after I had spoke up about what had been happening. I was about 10 by this point, I was in my final year of primary education, hadn’t even made it to big school yet. I sat with this lady and we cut out words from magazines and stuck words one side that we thought may make me sad, fearful, things I may struggle with in the future. Words like sex, boyfriend, man, trust…

Nothing could prepare me for how much it would impact my life and it seems that every time I have a breakdown or an anxiety attack I learn even more how it links to this. I read some articles lately about childhood abuse and it mentioned on there that you can go one of two ways from an experience like this. Some people are so fearful that they avoid any sexual contact, any relationships, due to the trauma they have been through. Some people however act in the opposite way, participating in sexual relations perhaps too much. I am afraid I have been one of those. Only now that I am able to reflect on the life I have lived I have realised that I engaged willingly in sexual relations at a very young age, something that I am very ashamed of. I also consented to relations throughout my life that I have actually had no desire for. I believe that I have always acted this way because of that moment I mentioned above. I grew from a child into an adult with it implanted in my growing brain that I had to please men, that I had to make them orgasm, only then would I have done my job properly. I now have my own desires for the product that is produced when an orgasm is reached and I wonder if that is again also linked to that day.

There is far too much to go through with regards to how this abuse has left me feeling. Most commonly I feel worthless, I feel as though everyone is out to get me and that if someone is being nice to me, it is not out of the goodness of their heart. There is always an ulterior motive that my brain wont give up searching for, and it is this that causes me to push away the good people. Because I cant believe they are good, I cant believe anyone would ever love me. I feel as though I am destined to be hurt and that it will always happen to me no matter what. As I write more posts I will link some of my attacks, my fears and my feelings back to what happened to me as a small child.

Sometimes I feel as though its just easier to give up, because things will never get better for me. But its like I have two minds, a true Gemini, and every now and then I get a glimpse of a healthier, happier future and I know that I cant give up on reaching it. I really hope that I can find ways to get better and fight this for myself and for everyone that is close to me.

Until next time.