You are not selfish

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When I look at my baby, this strong willed, determined, independent little thing, I’m scared. I’m scared that the world won’t understand her like it didn’t and doesn’t understand me. I’m scared that she will be too much for people just like I have been told I’m too much multiple times.

I’ve been called selfish a lot growing up and it has left a deep mark in me, burrowed deep into my core like hot branding. Like every day when I wake up I have to find ways to do everything I can to prove that’s not who I am. To prove that my communication may seem direct at times but that my heart is anything but that. (In my case, whilst I don’t have an official diagnosis of Asperger’s, I’m pretty certain it has something to do with it).

Am I selfish? Maybe? Yes. My friends might (hopefully) tell you otherwise. But I just want to shout fuck off now to anyone that thinks that way or has made me feel that way. I’m at that point in my life where I’m sick of altering myself to please others, so that I’m not too much for them. And I get it, I do, I’m not saying that it’s OK to be rude or obnoxious or unkind. and I don’t think, I hope I’m not any of those things (at least not too often). What I am is outwardly confident, sometimes loud, ambitious, passionate, neurodiverse, caring and misunderstood.

I see it in her too, shes 10 months going on 18. Like lots of babies, she knows what she wants and when she wants it. She’s independent, impatient, quick and stubborn. To be honest, qualities I quite admire because I see her as a future change maker, a world shaper for the better. But, I’m scared she will be misunderstood like I was. I’m scared people will be unkind, I’m scared they will pass to her their judgement and make her feel like she should be different or something more.

I’m scared she will grow up and feel like me.

Sometimes I just want to shout at the world and tell it to fuck off. To find a small planet with people that understand who I am and what’s in my heart. I’m fortunate enough to have lots of friends that do understand but I’m also surrounded by people in a world that doesn’t.

I’m scared that my baby will be too much for the world but really I’m just scared that the world won’t be enough for her.

To my baby,

and to so many I know are struggling. You are not selfish if you put yourself first. You are not selfish if you stand up for yourself. You are not selfish for doing what’s right even if it means people might get hurt. You are not selfish for being ambitious or outspoken or passionate about making a positive change in the world. You are not selfish when you stand your ground. You are not selfish for asking for what you need. You are not selfish if you can’t help today.

I don’t apologise for being myself, I’ve spent the past 30 years doing that and I’m not doing it anymore.

If you read this and think ‘she sounds rude’ or ‘self centered’ or, for want of a better word, ‘selfish’, this article isn’t for you. People who truly are selfish don’t go around worrying if they are. If you don’t get this blog, that’s OK, it might just mean that you haven’t been made to feel like you need to apologise for being yourself every day, incase you upset someone, for simply being yourself. And if you don’t get it, then you just don’t get it.

If you’re like me please stop now. Stop living your life to make others approve of your nature and just start living. Be loving, be compassion, be the change you want to see. But stop thinking you’re selfish simply for caring about yourself or your family or because you communicate differently.

You are not selfish, you’re just living in a world filled with lots of people that don’t understand, but I understand.

You are not alone.

Be you

XxXxX

Weeds and Concrete – 20 weeks later

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TW: Birth trauma, nightmares, PTSD

Today has been eventful and emotional. I had my second online CBT session by text. Unfortunately, anyone that knows me knows that my brain works at 100mph and texting therapy was just making me more anxious. I would watch the minutes go down on the clock feeling like time was escaping and like I would never have enough time to fix things.

At about 10 minutes in I started crying, a lot. I felt trapped in questionnaires and like I would never get help. Luckily One of my best friends Dave called and confirmed it was time to ask for face to face support. The CBT therapist was amazing and has referred me for face to face and so the waiting begins again.

This week has been full of both love and anxiety. I’m so lucky that I have an amazing bond with our 5 month old Harper and we get to see family and do classes together throughout the week. But I also ended up in A&E with chest pains (likely anxiety) and unable to go into the hospital, because of PTSD from her birth, so instead waited outside for 2 hours.

I dream of being in a hospital every night, even if what I’m dreaming about has nothing to do with hospitals, that is always the setting. I actually wrote a blog a couple of weeks ago explaining it all that I have yet to post.

Today I just wanted to share the nightmare that I had 4 weeks ago. One that I feel sums up how I feel perfectly but in a rather abstract way. I’m not entirely sure of the reason I’m sharing. Maybe it helps to share, maybe I hope it might make others feel less alone.

I’m fine, I will be fine and I’m so happy. Anxiety and mental health just has a funny way of making this life a rollercoaster.

Somewhere in the universe…

Weeds and concrete – 20 weeks later

I have woken from a dream tonight that was uneventful and extremely significant, terrifying, and detailed at the same time. I woke at 2:30am, it is now 5:30am and after lots of Google searches on post partum haemorrhage and retained placenta I still can’t sleep because I cant shake this awful feeling of dread.

I have had a couple of nightmares recently that have lasted what feels like minutes and that have been relatively uneventful but terrifying at the same time, enough to shock me awake.

My dream was based in theatre. No one spoke about why we were there, my body felt fine and yet invaded at the same time. I knew something was going to happen, something needed to happen but I didn’t know what. I wasn’t told and I didn’t ask. I just sat and waited for them to prepare.

In a theatre room.

Outside the room was derelict weeds and concrete as far as the eye could see. No buildings. An old abandoned wasteland in the middle of an unspoken or acknowledged tragedy. It looked like what I can only describe what it must be like to return to Chernobyl in present day. It felt unbreathable outside of the dirty smeared windows that spanned the entire left side of the theatre room. Despite that we didn’t acknowledge it. It almost felt deceitful. Like I was somewhere ‘other’ not where I was supposed to be but unable to talk about it.

One of the midwives was washing her hands in the basin to the right of the head of the ‘bed’. I use the term bed loosely, it was a slab of smooth silver with mental legs and steps. We kept talking about how damaging hand washing was but how necessary it had become. Particularly in her role as a lung disease surgeon. Which of course left me wanting to hold my breath. It was spoken about as if it were something highly transmissible but something we just had to forget about and move past as we both shared the air in that small space. Covid.

I felt alone in that place because I was alone. Not only was I in a theatre without my husband or baby, I was alone in the world, the world was shut for business and life due to the pandemic. There were no friends there were no family. Come to think of it there were no doctors in that room which only furthered my anxiety about what we would do when it all went wrong. Subconsciously my mind remembered being pregnant and having a baby in a real pandemic.

I badly needed the toilet which would delay things if I left the room. The more I process it I realise I couldn’t leave the room. I was trapped there because all that existed was the room. The doors were not real, no one was coming in and no ones was leaving. I was not ever leaving. I offered to take one of the cardboard dishes and go in the corner of the room. The midwife confirmed that would be a good idea. In my actual story (not in my dream) and reality I hadn’t been allowed to leave the hospital until I had been to the toilet twice in a kidney bean dish and done at least 500ml each time. (Yes very dignified). I went multiple times before they were happy for me to go. Constantly drinking jugs of water. I actually asked if I could have 2 jugs at one point so I could just get it done and get out of there.

Had that experience in reality caused me to become trapped in my dream? That place was the only place I could exist in, outside of the unbreathable air and concrete weeds beyond the window. Yet it did not feel like a safe place to be. There was no where to run and no where to hide.

Image: Roman Robroek https://romanrobroek.nl/ weirdly, this image is almost exactly like my dream.

The room itself was clean but old. Like a scene from a theatre room decades ago. Everything was sterile and nothing was friendly or inviting. The walls were plain and empty. The tools were freshly polished and clinical. The room was empty and full at the same time. All I could see clearly was the metal bed, the metal basin on the wall and the midwives. A majority of the rest was not visually blurred but mentally. I knew there were lights and tools. But no door and no anaesthetic or drip.

Strangely, and rather, un inkeeping with the scene, the midwives appeared trust worthy. They were friendly and smiled the whole time. It was a strange dichotomy between their experience of reality and mine. Almost like there weren’t really there, just in my imagination. I was actually as I had felt all along, alone.

So much happened in that short time that seemed to last a life time and yet it was just that, short. The concept of time in my dream almost didn’t exist but as I woke it was likely less than 5 minutes; the parts I can remember.

I half expected to see a deer outside the window with 2 heads or a distorted malformed face.

As I write this I am now wondering if I were dead and I can feel an actual physical pressure in my stomach as that realisation hits. My dream had me trapped in some sort of limbo, an alternate world that I could not escape. On a plane where time did not exist and neither did my material surroundings.

I balanced in a dystopian tragedy, closing in on me, protected only by the thinly veiled walls of the theatre room.

And whilst I felt like nothing was happening, I wasn’t afraid but somewhere, some part of me was terrified and screaming. I can only relate that to the calmness displayed by the medical staff in my actual reality. Whilst I was experiencing a post partum haemorrhage, they were extremely quick moving but calm at the same time. The fear atomised and filled the air we were breathing but the team were immune. Part of me wonders if that contributes to my confusion and inability to let go. Like a deceit was taking place. The rational part of me says thank goodness they were so incredible and knew exactly what to do.

That theatre room is a box. A small box of concrete in a world where nothing and no one else exists. I can see that box from the outside as though I am looking down on it from the side, hovering in that heavy unbreathable air. I am trapped in that box, on that cold table. Surrounded by the smiling faces of strangers that don’t actually exist.

I don’t think I have actually left that room in my dream. I’m still there but I’m awake. There is a part of my consciousness trapped in that room that can’t get out. (And she probably still really bloody needs the toilet). She is alone and surrounded by haze. Her only reality the metal bed, the metal basin, a handful of midwives and those dirty windows that span the entire length of the left side of the room. Looking out into the expanse of weeds and concrete.

XxXxX

Grateful for life – birth journey

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Trigger warning: traumatic birth story

I realised today how lucky I am to be alive in the time of modern medicine. I mean I’ve always known how lucky we are but it’s not until I experienced what could have been a very threatening situation that I realised just how fragile life can be.

Without modern medicine I realise I would have been one of those mums that you see die in child birth in programmes set years ago. I would have been the mum that bled out and left her baby on this earth without a mum.

I have kind of just pushed past it gratefully in my conscious mind and life. But as time goes on, I realise it’s actually hit me harder than I thought and reality sinks in at just how serious things could have been.

One of my biggest fears for child birth was of course death and I’m sure it’s the same for everyone giving birth. My other huge fear came from an episode of call the midwife. After giving birth the mother’s placenta became stuck. In an effort to get it out the midwives pulled on the cord and ended up inverting her uterus and pulling it out before pushing it back in again. Well you can imagine my horror when mine got stuck and the midwives began pulling the cord. Eventually the cord snapped off inside of me and pulling was no longer an option.

They tried to manually get it out whilst giving me gas and air but the pain was unbearable and they weren’t able to get to it. They tried multiple times and each time I screamed for them to stop.

I feel so lucky that there was a whole team on hand to take me down to theatre to get it removed. From the time of giving birth at 3:45am until theatre at around 5am I was still bleeding and my husband was starting to panic. I remember blood pouring off of the table in theatre and the team telling me not to worry. In that moment I had to put complete faith in the team of doctors and nurses, essentially fighting to stop the blood loss. I had already been talked through the process of a blood transfusion and the complications that can come with it.

As someone with OCD I was pretty certain I would need the transfusion, it would all go wrong, and I would die.

So many hours of just using gas and air for pain relief, because of my fear of an epidural, and yet I was going to now need a spinal block anyway. It felt soul destroying.

The hardest part for me was not the thought of death, but the thought of leaving my husband and new born baby alone. In those moments, all I could think of was how I had done this to him and how scared he must be.

My husbands face, whilst holding our newborn, will haunt me for the rest of my life. I don’t think I have ever seen him so scared and I hope to never again. I wanted to reach out and touch him, hold his hand, but he was too far away and the medical team around me were moving quickly. We didn’t kiss goodbye, we both knew we were too scared to. Too scared that it would be the last time, too scared we weren’t strong enough, too scared we would both start crying.

My husband told me later that he couldn’t kiss me goodbye because that would mean I wasn’t coming back. In that moment we looked at each other as I was taken away, that tiny moment of time we shared in eye contact said all we ever needed to say. It’s like we said 1000 words to each other in a millisecond. We knew what we would tell each other at the end,  we knew every word we would say if we only had the time.

I pray I never have to see that look on my husband’s face again as he held our baby in his arms, feeling so alone. All I could say to the midwifes and nurses was can someone please look after my husband he’s scared, can someone please help my husband, can someone stay with my husband. They promised they would look after him, and to their credit they did.

It’s moments like this you truly realise how your true heart feels, when you’re so close to loosing everything. My heart told me I had to stay on this earth for him, that I couldn’t bear the thought of him being alone. And not just alone but alone with a new baby, that to me is too tragic and it happens still too often.

The doctors told me this could happen to me again and that it would be a risk for our next pregnancy. It’s something that really plays on my mind now. I know I want to have more children but now I have to weigh that up with the chances of ending up back in theatre and not being as lucky next time.

I know that with the intervention of the team in theatre and with modern medicine that it’s unlikely I would have died but its still teriffying to know that I could have and would have without our modern day science.

As time goes on I think I’m still coming to terms with it. Reality is hitting me hard in the face that without going to theatre to have my placenta removed and blood loss stopped our story could have been a very different one.

I never want to fear kissing my husband goodbye again, I never want to see that very real fear in his eyes again, I never want to leave him in such a vulnerable position with our baby in his arms.

To make it all worse we’re in a pandemic so we couldn’t even have other family there to support. He just had to sit there alone for over an hour, holding our baby, wondering what his future was going to be like and if it was going to be very different from the one we imagined. I’m so grateful to the midwives that checked in on him throughout that time and who supported him.

I’m grateful to the medical team who helped dress me for theatre, washed blood from me when I was unable to move from the waist down, who held my hand, made jokes to help me smile, wrapped me in blankets to keep me warm, moved my legs for me when I couldn’t, lifted me from bed to bed, made sure I could feel no pain and treated me as though I was family.

Yes I was scared, so scared that I was going to die, but I was teriffied that I would be leaving my husband for good and that I would never hold my baby again.

I’m so grateful, grateful for human curiosity and modern medicine, grateful for health workers who really are miracle makers, grateful for every extra second since that day that I get to spend with my new little family when it could have been so very different, grateful for my husbands strength and endless love, grateful for my own strength that I really didn’t know I had.

In those moments I was absolutely teriffied I was also at my strongest. I stayed calm because I really had no choice. I asked all the right questions before signing to give consent to be taken to theatre. I processed everything that was going on around me, through the fear and pain and focused on staying earth side.

Recovery has been hard physically. During pregnancy I was diagnosed with SPD meaning my pelvis moves unevenly and twists, which is both extremely painful and restricts my movement. Having to deal with that on top of internal stitches and my insides contracting and healing has been painful and exhausting. I have had to go back to hospital because my catheter used in theatre has caused some trauma, which means even more blood loss. I have been dizzy, ‘spaced out’ and extremely tired. Add a newborn baby to the mix and sleep definitely becomes a commodity.

Mentally I have had the dreaded baby blues and spend a lot of time crying for what feels like no reason. A lot of time also crying because I miss my husband and being able to hold on to him for more than 5 minutes without having to change a nappy or feed a baby. Of course I love the nappy chages and feeding but it doesn’t take away the fact I miss just having a cuddle with my husband.

I think the birth experience has made missing him more intense because I feel like I almost left him and so I just want to hold onto him forever and never let go. The thought of him returning to work absolutely breaks my heart. I don’t ever want to be separated from him again, not taken away on a hospital bed, not for work, not taken away for even a second.

This post has gone on for a long while but it honestly helps me to conceptualise how I’m feeling and why I may be struggling so much at the moment. I think I understand more now why the baby blues have been hard for me, because I almost left my baby and husband and because I never want to leave them again.

I dont know how I’m going to make it through when he does go back to work but I also know that, just like going to theatre, I dont have a choice and that I will find the strength to get through it, even if I’m fighting through tears.

Matthew I love you and I will do all I can to never have to leave you and Harper so scared and alone again. If one day I should have to go away you know every word I would ever say to you. Just how absolutely madly in love with you I am, how you make me so so proud every day and how you’re the kindest most incredible human. Thank you for being my all and for being Harper’s daddy, we love you past the stars forever.

I purposefully removed the ’till death do us part’ from our wedding vows and changed it to ‘infinity and beyond’ because I plan to be with you and hold you in my heart forever.

To infinity and beyond my love.

XxXxX

I am Hannah

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I would like to start by thanking Hannah Price – Faulkner for letting me use her words and for being an inspiration to all of us with OCD.

Note: This post contains information on intrusive thoughts that many people with OCD experience, some may find it triggering.

For a while now I have been wanting to write something to really explain what it feels like to have OCD. To explain it is NOT a cute quirk or about being neat and tidy. It’s not about being annoyed by an odd floor tile. Too many people, including those that say they are advocates for mental health, belittle OCD. Writing things like ‘I have Obsessive Christmas Disorder’ or ‘I’m so OCD’.

Language like this is so incredibly damaging. It affects the care we receive (I have had 3 different health care professionals belittle me or laugh because they don’t know what it is.) It means that when we finally find the courage to say ‘I have OCD’ someone else responds ‘oh me too!’ (When they dont) or ‘can you come clean my house’ (a nurse said this to me once).

Here comes Hannah Price – Faulkner. A courageous incredible human that has recently discovered that what she has been experiencing is OCD and that she should be proud to speak up about it. I met Hannah in an OCD support group where she wrote the most beautiful post to explain what she has been experiencing and that this is OCD and she is Hannah.

Her words speak for themselves so I will shut up now and let you read them, but as you read them imagine what it is like to have to deal with this every day and why it is not OK to belittle OCD so that people like Hannah can get the support they deserve.

Hannah you are amazing.

I am Hannah

“Having a real “slap in the face” time in the last 48 hours and I feel it’s ok to share them.

I have balled my eyes out, watching a program called “Pure” I never realised my traits were OCD , I thought I was sick in the head and I have never told anyone in fear of being labelled by those who don’t understand. But now I’m thinking – so what? Judge me, label me a freak/physco label anything you want if it makes you feel better about yourself. I am not a danger. It’s my OCD, it’s NOT ME. I’m Hannah.

I have always thought OCD was cleaning. I see many people posting “oh I’ve gone OCD on my house today” or posted a photos of something in a straight line “oh that’s pure OCD” we do it innocently.


OCD is intrusive thoughts, thoughts I have never told my parents/friends/family. I need to come out and I will allow judgement because I have suffered for too long.

My head is a loop, a record going round and round. A man walking down a street and my intrusive thoughts, have now imagined me pushing him in the road to get hit by a car. That’s OCD, that’s not me. I’m Hannah.

Sometimes I’m talking to another adult, and I’ve imagined sexual things in my head and it loops no matter how many times I try to shake it off because it’s dirty and wrong. I love my husband and he loves me. I don’t actually want to do those things. Ever. They’re just thoughts. That’s OCD. Not me. I’m Hannah.

My children play on a swing and I watch them break their neck. My babies are dead. That’s OCD, not me. I’m Hannah.

I have fought with this trait the most, thinking in my head I must be a murderer, a rapist, mentally fucked in the head. But because I know they’re wrong. They’re so so wrong. It’s OCD NOT ME. I have hid this in fear of being locked away in a prison or my children taken away. That I can’t hold a job because of these thoughts.

This ONE trait and it hurts. My heart is heavy most days, but the last 48 hours, there are other like me. I joined a group. They are teachers, nurses, shop keepers, Drs, Therapists. Intrusive thoughts aren’t spoken about in fear of judgment. This illness does not define us a person. At all. That’s the illness not us.

I am Hannah, the person who constantly decorates. Who cleans and decorated other homes. Walks to a friend who is upset at 2am in the morning because they need someone. I’m a hug and an ear always ready to listen. I’m a good baker, an opera singer, a mum, a wife, a terrible runner and absolutely awful at diets.

This has taken 11 years to tell this publicly, 11 long years from a traumatic event from age 16. I have suffered in silence But I am a survivor.

I am Hannah.”

Hannah Price – Faulkner

You can follow Hannah’s journey on her instagram @hallie_marieee where she also posts about her interior design.

Black Lives Matter: Resources for Allies in the UK

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It should have become abundantly clear by now that being ‘non-racist’ is not enough. It has never been enough. What we need to do right now, and forever moving forward, is to be actively anti-racist.

The emotional labour placed upon Black people to educate white people is overwhelming. We have relied for far too long on our Black friends to educate us about racial issues. Whiteness is not the ‘norm’ and yet that is how white people treat it. For years we have shared stories and history and created the label ‘Black history’. Because by default, whether you mean it or not, the term ‘history’ alone generally refers to the history of white people. (It was written from the perspective of white colonisers.) The same is true for so many other things that we racialise.

Before you jump in and start saying that ‘all lives matter’ and that you are not racist (in the same sentence) research, watch, read. Statements like this just show that you have not yet come to terms with white privilege and that somehow you feel threatened because you are not the centre of attention. If you feel uneasy about terms like Black Lives Matter then I encourage to really think about why an anti racist statement sits so uncomfortably with you.

Below are some resources pulled together by a friend of mine, with some that I have added in. I ask that you read and be open minded to views other than your own, to listen and to learn.

Documentaries / TV shows / films

13th (Netflix)

When they see us (Netflix)

American Son (Netflix)

Fruitvale Station (Netflix)

Just Mercy (Amazon Prime)

The house I live in (Amazon Prime)

Books

Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire by Akala

Why I’m no longer talking to white people about race by Reni Eddo-Lodge

White fragility: why it’s so hard for white people to talk about racism by Robin Diangelo

We need to talk about race: understanding the black experience in white majority churches by Ben Lindsay

Think like a white man: conquering the world…….while black by Dr Boulé Whytelaw III and Nels Abbey

Black and British: a forgotten history by David Olusoga

The Good Immigrant by Nikesh Shukla

The New Jim Crow: mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness

YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atfVUgyEIOI – Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire  (also available as a podcast “Unfiltered with James O’Brien” look for the Akala episode)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzLT54QjclA&t=3s – Why “I’m not racist” is only half the story by Robin DiAngelo | Big Think

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwIx3KQer54 – Deconstructing white privilege by Robin DiAngelo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuZbbMOH0Qo – Feelings on racism in Britain – Is Britain Racist?

Podcasts

1619 by the New York Times – https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/podcasts/1619-podcast.html

Code Switch – https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/?t=1591194504357

The Echo Chamber – https://open.spotify.com/show/61NN9bklzhHZs5YvR0jyoT?si=2JQgrvKDQLW18tvaBe-DmQ

Black Gals Livin – https://podcasts.apple.com/za/podcast/black-gals-livin/id1437752047

Say Your Mind – https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/say-your-mind/id1324118843

About Race by Reni Eddo – Lodge – https://www.aboutracepodcast.com/

Reports and publications

https://www.runnymedetrust.org/projects-and-publications.html – the Runnymede trust is an independent race equality think tank who have several publications on racial inequality in the UK.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/594336/race-in-workplace-mcgregor-smith-review.pdf – an Independent review by Baroness McGregor-Smith considering the issues affecting black and minority ethnic (BME) groups in the workplace.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/643001/lammy-review-final-report.pdf – an independent review commissioned by David Lammy MP into the treatment of, and outcomes for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic individuals in the criminal justice system.

Articles

IS “WHITE PRIVILEGE” A USEFUL CONCEPT IN THE CURRENT UK CONTEXT? https://www.rota.org.uk/content/%E2%80%9Cwhite-privilege%E2%80%9D-useful-concept-current-uk-context

White privilege: a primer
https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/politics/article/what-is-white-privilege

10 Habits of Someone Who Doesn’t Know They’re Anti-Black https://www.welcometostratagem.com/post/10-habits-of-someone-who-doesn-t-know-they-re-anti-black

Race for Justice
https://www.counselmagazine.co.uk/articles/race-justice

UK Charities

Runnymede – https://www.runnymedetrust.org/

Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust – https://www.stephenlawrence.org.uk/

Stand Against racism and inequality (SARI) – https://www.sariweb.org.uk/

UK Black Pride – https://www.ukblackpride.org.uk/mission-statements

Race Equality First – http://raceequalityfirst.org/

Black Minds Matter – http://blackmindsmatter.co.uk/

Stand up to Racism – https://www.standuptoracism.org.uk/

Take Action

Educate yourself – If you have access to the internet then you have access to an abundance of resources, ignorance is no excuse.

Write to your MP – Express your concern and ask them to take positive actions.

Write to your Police and Crime Commissioner – asking them what is being done about black deaths in custody, prison and how Black communities are being engaged with.

Speak up – Raise awareness and amplify the voices of Black people.

Listen – Listen to Black communities. Signpost The Black, African and Asian Therapy Network if you feel it may be useful.

Be aware – Do not encourage more Black emotional labour. They have been campaigning for years and they are tired. Do your own work.

Donate – Donate to the charities listed or research other charities that need support.

Be responsible for your actions – in-action is action.

If you have more resources to add please contact me.

Is it professional to talk about mental health in work?

I’ve just been reflecting back on the rollercoaster that is mental health. Just thinking about my own experiences and who it has made me today.

Something that I used to worry about was whether talking about my mental health at work is professional. It sounds quite ridiculous because talking about our health should be a priority. Yet when it comes to mental health in the work place I’ve sometimes had this dilemma on when and how to talk about it. This has mostly come from previous bad experiences. It’s like we accept the mental health of children but we forget that adults have mental health too.

If you read my ‘about’ page you can see that I’ve had ups and downs with mental health at least since I was 4. I’d say that it has impacted me massively throughout my whole life and particularly as a teenager. But as an adult it becomes a different kind of creature.

I don’t know if anyone else with mental health difficulties feels the same. As a teenager my mind was completely off the rails half the time but I could also hide behind that fact that I was a teenager and ‘thats just what teenagers do’.

We mostly associate irrational behaviour and things such as self harm with being young. People are constantly writing about social media and the effects this is having on the mental health of children.

My favourite lunchtime view 💚

As an adult it still remains a relatively un explored and spoken about area. We have come on heaps and bounds from where we were 10 years ago but we still have heaps and bounds to go.

So many organisations just don’t recognise the impact of mental health and how important just talking about it is. I have lost 2 jobs because of it. I left them but I say ‘lost’ because I would not have left them if mental health had been handled in the right way. If I hadn’t been made to feel like an anomaly or a burden. If I hadn’t been told that work is not the place to discuss mental health. In those experiences I was made so ill that I didn’t just loose my job, I lost parts of me too.

The past 2 years and roles I’ve had have been amazing for me. Being able to join up both mental health and professionalism. To know that having poor mental health is not ‘unprofessional’ and that it’s not unprofessional to talk about it in work; despite what managers have told me previously.

I’ve now learnt that being real and honest is actually what makes me more professional. Speaking openly and talking for others that aren’t ready to yet. The more honest I am and the more I teach others the more respect I seem to gain. Because being honest about how I’m feeling allows me to be the best version or myself.

I’m not completely there yet. I still have days where I have a day off for a ‘severe headache’ when I should just be honest and say it’s mental health. But that’s OK because these things take time. And time doesn’t always mean you’re moving forward, sometimes things happen that make us move ‘back’.

One of the biggest things mental health has taught me, and which we hear a lot now, is that it’s not a linear process. Being well is not about continuous improvement and never stepping back. It’s OK to have and accept the ‘off days’ that doesn’t mean you’re going backwards or that you have failed. It just means that today is an off day. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

The best technique I have learned over the years is ‘be kind to yourself’. Allow yourself the off days and don’t beat yourself up over it. The kinder we are to ourselves the easier the process can become.

On this rollercoaster that is life, be kind to yourself today.

XxXxX

Hide and seek – a stalkers game

WARNING: This blog paints a picture of how it can feel to be a victim of stalking. It talks about the fear of being home alone and feelings of being watched. I have given specific detail on the images I imagine and how I feel. Do not read this if you believe it could make you fear being home alone, being watched or stalked, or might trigger a bad psychological response. This could also be harmful for people with OCD and reoccurring thoughts.

Sadly I don’t think even a German Shepherd could stop me from being scared. This cutie certainly can’t!

Home alone and it’s after sun set. I’m absolutely terrified to the point I can hear my own heart beat and I feel completely sick. I can’t even explain the level of fear I have when I’m home alone and my husband is working nights.

It’s not like a subtle anxiety, or a really scary experience, it’s completely and utterly paralysing fear. At every moment I am waiting for a man to appear from behind the curtain or under the bed. I don’t fear that I might be hurt. I fear that he has nothing other than a creepy agenda to just stand and watch. The watching man.

Not long ago I was stalked for almost 2 years by a complete stranger. Eventually the police interviened and put an end to it. I have to say that they were amazing and I will forever be grateful. I had a full team pose as civilians to catch him and stop him. From time to time I still receive a call to ask if things are OK and if I’ve had any further trouble with him.

I don’t know if this experience has made this whole ‘home alone’ situation what it is today. What I do know is that my jaw is aching because I have been grinding my teeth continually since my husband left the door.

I’m in a constant battle between wanting to look behind every door, under the beds, behind the curtains and in the cupboards. I’m stuck between checking and being too terrified to check because I’m almost certain someone is there just watching.

Without a shadow of a doubt I know I can hear breathing, it isn’t mine and it isn’t the dog’s. I can hear someone clicking with their mouth in the other room and winding me up, playing mind games. A bit like my stalker did in his variety of ways. The very fact that I wrote ‘my stalker’ makes it feel like I have some kind of ownership. He’s not ‘my stalker’ he’s a person that decided to stalk someone and unfortunately that someone was me.

I decide to check the window ledge in my room to make sure there’s no one hiding behind the curtain. I should explain that I don’t even think a 3 year old could fit and hide on that window ledge but I’m completely convinced that there is a man hiding there. As I check, I’m haunted by the image of a man standing in the middle of the garden just looking up at me expressionless. He’s not really there but in my mind he is, and to me that’s 100% reality.

I open the under stairs cupboard to get the dogs dental chew. I’m convinced that there’s a man curled in the corner hiding and just waiting for me to find him so that he can stare at me with an expressionless face. It’s like a constant game of hide and seek. Now I want to shut the cupboard door but I know he’ll be standing behind it as I close it. Just there watching, not actually doing anything.

I go to my bed, which is the most horrifying part. Checking the locks before bed and turning the downstairs lights out. I want to leave the hallway light on upstairs but I can’t. I can’t because then I might see the shadow of his footsteps under the door. As I sit here in my bed I can hear creaking. I know the creaking is him standing at the door just breathing. Just standing there doing nothing with his face against the door. The creaking is him in the wardrobe, under the bed, in the roof. He is everywhere and everything all at once.

I need to cry but I’m too scared to make a noise because then he’ll know I’m there and that I’m awake. He wants me to be awake because then he can frighten me by just being there.

It’s only 11:30pm. My husband left at 9pm. It’s been 2 and a half hours and I have 5 and a half left to go. Over 5 more hours of being slowly psychologically torchured by a man who’s name I’ll never know.

I hear a noise on the TV, an odd laugh, a bang, a click. I see a menacing face, an odd glare. Even the most innocent of programs can trigger a thought for me and send a wave of fear and heat through me. I can’t even distract myself to mute my fear.

What makes this most scary is that I don’t even know his agenda. He’s the ultimate psychological thriller, just pure creepyness. Because he has no agenda he has nothing to loose and that makes him even more powerful. He doesn’t fit in to social norms or believe that both the actual law or basic laws of human decency apply to him. He has nothing to loose and he fears nothing. He smiles in a jail cell because he gets pleasure from fear.

He’ll play the long game, wait in the dark for hours until I’m home alone before he comes out. I suspect he likes that he can remain so calm, and I suspect it’s for sexual gratification.

One of the most terrifying things about my real stalker is that for the longest time I didn’t know he was there. When I finally realised I remembered him being there all along. I can’t get over the fact that someone can watch and follow you for so long and yet remain hidden in the shadows for the same length of time. As soon as I noticed him the memories of him being there, all the times before hit me like a freight train. Layer upon layer began building in my mind within seconds. He had been there all along.

I remembered he was the guy that touched my leg on the train whilst pretending to be asleep months ago. I remembered all of the other times he had made physical contact with me. Then suddenly I think of all the times I don’t know about, all the things I didn’t remember and all the times I didn’t see him, but he was there.

In the weeks before police intervention, I began making records of his behaviours and when he appeared. I took pictures of him watching me. The one video I will never forget was when I secretly filmed him on a train journey whilst I pretended to be asleep. He never broke his stare once. He never stopped looking, staring expressionless, not once did he break his gaze. As a lady stood in his eye sight he lent to the side so that he could look around her to just watch.

I’ll never know his name, I’ll never know who he was, but most importantly and most haunting of all, I’ll never know why.

It’s the never knowing why he did it, that means I’ll always be watched. My images of the watching man are not of him. They’re the figure of someone else but they are born from him. The image I see are from that disgusting Luther episode of the man hiding under the bed. That’s my mind’s invention of how the watching man appears in my empty home.

When my husband is here it’s the safest place in the world. When I’m staying away from home with a friend or family member I feel safe. But whenever I am alone, in the dark, at home or away. If I’m alone the watching man will always be there.

He might not be physically real anymore but to me his affects on me are completely real. For as long as he is there I will continue to play hide and seek with him. I will continue to know that he is everywhere and everything all at once. I will continue to feel him there. Waiting, breathing, watching.

Statistics show that 700,000 women are stalked each year. Victims do not tend to report to the police until the 100th incident – which is similar to my own experiences.

If you or someone you know needs help you can call the National Stalking Helpline on 0808 802 0300

I found them very helpful as well as the Suzy Lamplugh Trust http://www.suzylamplugh.org/

If you have ever been stalked or you care for someone that has been, know that it can take time for the effects to surface and that sometimes they make no sense. If you need support then make sure you reach out.

Only 4 hours left till I’m not home alone anymore.

XxXxX

What lasts forever?

I never know whether to put a warning at the start of some of these posts when they explore certain topics that may upset people. If you’re not in the right place to read about lack of control, lost relationships or the unknown then maybe this one isn’t for you. Or maybe it will help you to see that you’re not alone in your thinking and that there are others who understand.

I’ve had so many people come and go from my life, the strongest of relationships fade, to the point that I kind of feel that any relationship I have might not exist in 2, 5, 10 years. That’s not because I don’t want them to, but if the universe has taught me anything it’s that very few things are forever.

It can be a scary place to be. It’s quite worrying to think that my entire support network could be completely different or gone over the years. It’s quite an empty feeling to have. Knowing that your only guaranteed constant in your life is yourself. When something bad or upsetting happens I always think ‘I’m so glad I have X to help me through’ or ‘all that matters is that I have Y by my side’. But the scariest thought comes when my brain tells me ‘what makes you think they’re yours to keep’.

Thank goodness for puppies 💕

I want to write something comforting about how as individuals we need to be OK with the unknown and trust in time. I want to write that the relationships that mean the most to us will always be there. But today OCD isn’t allowing me to. It’s telling me that no matter what I do, at some point it’s going to be just me on my own and that any relationship I ever make, no matter how deep it feels to me, really might not be that deep or meaningful to others. OCD makes me feel unstable with no solid platform or level of control.

I have incredible friendships with close friends that would give me the world and I could never explain to them what they mean to me. It’s just pretty shit that OCD has this way of convincing me that eventually I’ll be alone and left again by different people over the years. I remind myself of all the people who also come into my life in recent years and the new relationships that I create but that just leaves me wondering who will ever really know who I am? If all my relationship end up being transient and ever changing.

Fear of being alone isn’t just an OCD thing or necessarily a mental health thing. But OCD does make it more real for me. It doesn’t become an ‘if’ it becomes a ‘when’. And even if I know in my heart of hearts that my closest relationships are here to stay my brain does weird stuff that tells me to not be so ridiculous, of course I’ll eventually be alone. I feel pretty selfish saying that.

It takes me back to the day I brought my wedding dress. The second I put my card in the machine my brain said ‘what are you doing? Why are you doing all of this? You’ll be dead before then anyway. You’re not going to be alive in a year. Why are you bothering with any of this?’

It actually felt ridiculous to buy a dress I would never wear. The thought and feeling was so real to me that I almost told the sales person that I was being ridiculous because I was going to die soon. And in my mind that felt like a completely reasonable thing to say. I found it really hard to enter my pin in to that machine at the same time as being absolutely sure that I wouldn’t be here to wear my dress anyway. Not because I didn’t want to be here, but because I just genuinely believed I didn’t have a choice and that nothing lasts forever including me.

If you’re friends with someone that has OCD or poor mental health, know that they probably deeply care about you even if they are annoyingly always concerned that it’s all going to end soon.

If you’re friends with me then thank you. Thank you for dealing with my randomness, my sometimes anxious behaviour and my often fickleness. Sometimes there is method in the ‘madness’ or in this case, a reason.

If you’re in my life and you’re here to stay then thank you for being my rock, because as with any day living with poor mental health, I need you now more than ever and I appreciate you for everything you do for me. I’m so lucky to have an amazing husband and so many amazing friends that mean the world.

No matter how close or far from me you may be, I know you’re there and that to me is huge.

‘mad’ as always

XxXxX

Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. 💚

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Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. 💚

So many of us are affected or know people that are affected by suicide. Sometimes we hear people refer to suicide as ‘selfish’ or people complain about ‘inconvenience’ when it means their trains don’t run. Just remember that someone was ill enough to end their own life and that’s a pretty awful place to be in. It is not selfish and it is not an inconvenience. Nobody wants to be ill and nobody ever wants to feel that it’s their only way out.

Usually people share posts and ask others to do the same. ‘share or post this so that others know you’re there’. They encourage you to reach out and ask how others are doing. But we often forget to ask ourselves how we are too. So today, on World Suicide Prevention Day, reach out to others and encourage others to do the same. But don’t forget to reach out to yourself also because it’s not selfish to make sure that you’re OK too 💚

Try Something

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It’s been about 8 months now since I started my new role and over 8 months since my last blog so I thought it was about time for an update.

In my last blog I spoke about how it’s OK to be scared of change and to take those adventures. I explained that sometimes adventures and scary changes pay off and that sometimes they don’t. If they don’t then you have to find a new adventure.

I’m pleased to say that this new venture has really paid off and I’m really enjoying my new role and the people. Of course I miss my old work family too but I’m so glad I made the decision to not let fear of the unknown hold me back.

There were times at the start where I felt a little lost because my anxiety would tell me that I wouldn’t fit in. However at every turn my anxiety was proved wrong. It’s funny how nothing ever turns out quite as bad as your anxiety tells you it will.

It seems the more you begin to have faith in yourself the more the world listens because your behaviours change along with the way that you treat yourself.

I always talk about development in work and how 70% of what we learn is on the job and through doing. Only 10% is actually through formal learning with 20% being social. So I challenge you today, or this week, to do something outside of your comfort zone. Something that will challenge you. It doesn’t have to be huge, it can be something small like taking a different route to work (which to some will be a huge challenge) or having lunch with someone new. Perhaps you could make that phone call that you keep putting off?

Take the opportunity to remember this moment and how you felt before doing it. If it goes wrong then that’s OK, you will still have learnt something from it, even if it’s just what not to do. If it goes right then you will also have learnt something.

Don’t leave the development of you or the betterment of yourself in someone else’s hands because only you can follow your true journey to see where you have come from and where you feel you want to go. And if you’re not sure where you want to go then try something because in doing nothing you are still making a choice about where you’re going.

Start today

XxXxX