Category: life

life, mental health, relationships

Friendships are the best kind of ships!

ramblingmads

My best friend and I have been evil twins since we were 11 year olds just starting secondary school.

image

We took our first girlie holiday last year, it was well overdue, we went to Venice.

We are so in sync that we once bought each other the exact same thing for Christmas, and frequently get very similar things for each other for birthdays.

image
My addiction & a dedication to my evil twin

I am very lucky in my friends, bunch of weirdos that they are. Most of them have been my friends since we were kids, builds a hell of a connection between you.

image
Who's in your gang?

Most of my friends have been part of my life (and family) since we were kids. Those deep, lifelong friendships are so satisfying. Built on a history of in jokes and ‘remember the time…’ stories.

It can be hard for new friends and partners to break into the group, but those that do, can never leave!

Those friends, who’ve known you for years, those are the ones that you can lean on when things get tough, and vice versa.

image
So go find them!

I have been so lucky in my friends, the ones that are like family, my brother from another mother, the ones that are always at the end of the phone. The ones that even if you haven’t spoken for a while, you pick straight up the conversation like there wasn’t a gap.

Remember to tell your friends how awesome they are and how much you appreciate them.

image

ramblingmads

life, mental health, mindfulness

Crazy banter and mental health*

ramblingmads

image

So, I have been signed off work since late August. Because of the two conditions in the above image. Anxiety and depression. The devils on both shoulders.

There has been a lot of discussion about mental health issues recently, partly because of next week’s elections and concerns about how the outcome will affect the provision of mental health services, and partly because there is still a distinct lack of knowledge and understanding of mental health conditions and what living with them is truly like.

I will never be ‘better’, there is no magic cure. Instead, with a combination of therapy and medication, the aim is to manage my condition so I can lead a relatively ‘normal’ life and go back to work.

I don’t like the word ‘normal’, in fact I spend a lot of time wondering what exactly is normal?

Last summer I tried CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) but it wasn’t for me, I know it has helped a large number of people manage their mh but I don’t have the tools to exchange negative thoughts into positive ones. I may never.

Currently i’m doing a psychotherapy assessment, meeting every other week with a consultant to assess whether psychotherapy is for me.

I also regularly see my GP to monitor the tablets I take and check in.

image

Sometimes it feels like I spend my time going round in circles, with good days where I get lots done and feel able to cope with things and then I can’t get out of bed at all, forget to eat and spend too much time sleeping.

Stupid things trigger my anxiety – the phone ringing, a knock at the door when I’m not expecting anything, opening the fridge and not finding anything I want to eat even though there’s plenty of food.

The thought of going back to work makes me feel worse than anything else, but I have to make a decision. 

*lyric from Bitter Ruin’s Child in a Seacave

ramblingmads

life, ratties

My new flatmates

ramblingmads

This weekend we went to get a few things to make my new flatmates at home.

My new flatmates won’t be human though, instead they are rodents. I know some people (including my mum) hate rats but they’re cute, fluffy, smart and squeaky.

Mine are two brothers courtesy of the lovely Georgina of Fuller Figure Fuller Bust whose girl rat had some babies a few months ago.

I’m allergic to cats (which is a shame) and we can’t have a dog in the flat so small mammals it is.

My cousin used to have a rat as did a good friend of mine, so I’ve handled them before and have knowledgeable people on hand.

My boys will have better digs than me, their cage has three stories, toys, tunnels, a hammock, water bottles, food troughs, a litter box, ladders and soon, a wheel. They’ll also have lots of things to play with outside like a zorbing ball and the entire front room to explore when I come home to them.

They even have room service and a cleaner – me! Regular baths and new toys and treats.

Wish I was that lucky!

We have named them Justin and Algernon. Both are literary references. Justin was one of the super intelligent rats in Mrs Frisby & the rats of N.I.M.H and Algernon was the mouse in Flowers for Algernon (which is one of the OH’s favourite books).

image
Justin munching apple

Algie is brown and Justin hooded (a mix of colours, in his case brown and white), which makes telling them apart easy.

image
Algie all snuggled up

At the moment there are curled up in the corner sleeping, all wrapped up together, probably exhausted from their exciting day of moving and rampaging round their new home.

Pictures will appear on my Instagram. I can’t take any when they’re curled up in the corner.

Rats are very clean, intelligent animals, capable of learning their names, how to do tricks, they spend a lot of time grooming themselves and each other. They can be toilet trained (mine have a litter tray).

They’re affectionate, social animals who use social grooming to bond (and will apparently groom you too), they like hiding and have an abundance of tunnels to scoot through.

Rats didn’t spread the plague as was previously thought – it was gerbils! The gerbil PR machine must have gone into overdrive spinning that one.

Do you have any pets?

ramblingmads

life, studying

Mortarboards and gowns

ramblingmads

Today, Callum, my boyfriend, finally graduated with his Masters degree in psychology.

image

We went to the Barbican arts centre in Central London for the ceremony as he did his degree with OU. It took him 6 years part-time while working, training and playing sledge hockey with team GB.

I like to tease him because I did my Masters in a year while working and found writing my dissertation exhausting. He didn’t have to do a dissertation for this.

I am really proud of him for keeping with it even when they changed his course twice, and he struggled with the sheer cost of it all.

He looked very fetching in his blue robe, shaking hands with dotcom millionaire, chancellor of the OU Baroness Martha Lane-Fox, who gave a somewhat rambling speech advertising the OU to people who had just graduated!

Actress and baking goods businesswoman Jane Asher was awarded an honourary degree for her charitable work for the National Autistic Society and Parkinson’s Association, and she also made a speech that could have done with an edit.

My hands ached after clapping all the new graduates off the stage and I was glad to escape the Barbican (a place I ordinarily enjoy being in) for the streets of the City of London.

We went for dinner in a slightly eccentric restaurant, that I’m sure had moved further away, despite being exactly where I remembered it!

Now we need to find another space on the wall for his certificate (mine aren’t on display, I don’t feel comfortable). There are mutterings of another degree, perhaps in history and I’m still trying to decide whether or not to do a PhD!

image
The stage before it all kicked off

ramblingmads

life, relationships

Valentine, be mine

ramblingmads

image

For the first 24 years of my life I was permanently single and it didn’t bother me. I had more interesting things to think about than boys. It probably didn’t help that most of my friends were boys, I was ‘one of the guys’ and it was clear that the word ‘boyfriend’ was one I didn’t have in my extensive vocabulary.

Four years ago (almost five) I met The Boy. I wasn’t looking, and I thought he was flirting with another girl at the training session we were in.

We don’t celebrate our anniversary and Valentine’s we buy silly, cheap presents and he makes me dinner.

I don’t think if you really love someone you need a special day to tell them. If you do, maybe you need to rethink a few things.

So, single, coupled up, whatever. How about you love yourself. Happy Palentine’s friends.

ramblingmads