Thinking My Way To Despair.

 

 

*Suicidal theme*

 

It’s odd. You can actually feel it happening, drip by drip… you can’t explain WHY, but you can feel the pull of despair. You start the day fine, and then for no apparent reason, the depression grabs you and sucks the hope out of you.

I’m finding this myself right now. I’m currently thinking about the loss of my grandfather. I’m thinking about the funeral and the family fallout, and how we’re about to find out just how deep that rift is. I’m thinking about the ‘friend’ who said it’s good I don’t have children, when all I want in life is to be a mother. I’m thinking about how the one thing I was looking forward to this year, and got me through my rough patch, was seeing friends this summer, which I now can’t do, as the people who hurt me will be there, so I have to miss out yet again, like in the past. I’m thinking about the people who abandoned me when I needed friends the most. I’m thinking about past hurt – friends who betrayed me. I’m thinking about the guy who hurt me so much emotionally that I wanted to kill myself two years ago. I’m thinking about how everyone has someone and a family, and I feel I’ll never find that for myself or be happy. I’m thinking about what a failure I am. I’m thinking about my health. I’m thinking about politics and how I don’t see us getting what we voted for now. I’m thinking about all the horrible people in the world – from bullies, to lefties, to young people, to terrorists. I’m thinking about how messed up the world is at the moment and how I’m not sure I can live in it. I’m thinking about how monotonous and pointless everything feels and how I don’t enjoy things like I used to. I’m thinking about what an awful person I have become since being screwed over by nearly everyone I’ve met. I’m thinking people would be better off without me here. I’m thinking about the bridge again, or taking something to my wrists. I’m thinking about suicide. I’m thinking about being ‘talked down’, and how for that moment someone would care about my life. I’m thinking how fucking selfish and attention-seeking that is! I’m thinking about the run I have soon and how I’m utterly unprepared and unfit for it, and how pathetic that is, given it’s in memory of my grandfather. I’m thinking I don’t want to do it, as I’ll be on my own and will only be walking – I’ll look stupid. I’m thinking my friends are fed up with me. I’m thinking nobody likes me. I’m just thinking I am so bloody tired. So tired. Tired of it all. I want to check out for a while. I won’t be missed…

And that is a live example of the ‘snowball effect’. It can be one thing, like that ‘friend’ and what she said, and the impact of it is huge and destructive. It sets in motion many thoughts, not just about the fact I don’t have children, but that if I do one day, my grandparents won’t be alive to see it, and that makes me feel such a failure. Thinking about what that ‘friend’ said, and how other friends reacted also reminds me of my experiences with my old group of friends. I feel people took her side, even though I never wanted anyone to take sides. Nobody had my back, only people who didn’t even know the girl – that invalidates my feelings and condones her actions. I then think I’m an awful person. We’re opposite ends of the scale politically too, which is fine, I have no problem with a difference of opinion. But she’s the embodiment of everything I hate about the opposition. She’s not just got a difference of opinion. She thinks hers is the only ‘right’ view and anything else is ‘wrong’. She thinks of people as racist / xenophobic / uneducated / bigots etc if they don’t view things the same as her. She’s a young person who thinks young people are more important than older people, and older people have screwed up her future etc. You get the picture. So just from that one thing she said to me, it sets off all my political fears too, and my outrage at people like her, and how they’ve treated people like me. Which makes me think about how screwed up this country is … how divided it is … and how the ones behind that are her lot, yet we’re made to feel like the divisive ones who have ‘messed up’ – which mirrors my fallout with her – she hurt me more than once this year, and somehow I end up the ‘villain’ and she’s a saint. I’m fucking through with people. If they can’t stand up for me and condemn someone vile like that, then they don’t give a damn about me. And then that makes me not want to be here anymore. I was so happy and excited about having these new friends. I thought, finally, a new start, and an end to those crappy friends from my past… and then this. Just as bad if not worse. I’m done.

I feel lonely right now. I feel insecure and depressed. And I honestly don’t understand why. I was okay this morning. I hate BPD. I hate how I think myself into a crisis. And I’ve got a busy week ahead. Can’t afford to feel this way. I hate that I’m back to thinking about the bridge – the only reason I can think, for this, is I briefly mentioned this ‘out-of-character’ thinking I’ve had, to the doctor the other day. Maybe it’s set it off again. I only hope it passes. I find it unsettling, not knowing why I have such a strong urge to do it. Will be writing more, but don’t want to gabble too much tonight.

Sorry to not be useful in my writing. I guess if you’re reading this blog, you understand the feeling sometimes of being overwhelmed with your thoughts. But I will try and work on informative posts when my brain next allows it. Keep safe all xxxx

Open Letter To My ‘Friend’.

 

 

*Mentions self-harm & suicide*

---

 

 

Dear ‘friend’,

Thank you for caring so much about me. Thank you for supporting me through the loss of my grandfather. Thank you for noticing my mental health had declined, that I was harming and wanted to kill myself. Thank you for understanding that my focus on politics was a coping mechanism to avoid dealing with my grief. Thank you for reaching out to let me know you cared. Thank you for making me feel I’m worth something and I’m not just your emotional punching bag. Thank you for checking in on my posts to see how I was doing. Thank you for accepting my difference of opinion like an adult, and still respecting me as a person nonetheless. Thank you for not letting your own dogged opinion come between our friendship. Thank you for speaking kind words to me, and for not lashing out in anger, personally attacking me just to win an argument. Thank you for thinking about someone besides yourself for a moment. Thank you for making sure nobody took your side in an argument, against me, which could cost me their friendships too. Thank you for your sensitivity and kindness. Thank you for understanding mental health yourself, therefore applying your knowledge to my situation and not making me harm myself. Thank you for being so mature and lovely, humble and remorseful. Thank you for messaging me, apologising profusely, wanting to save our friendship. Thank you for caring so damn much.

You see my ‘friend’, none of that was true. You are a ‘mental health activist’. You have experience of mental illness, self-harm and suicidal thoughts, apparently. You are aiming to become a counsellor. And yet you showed such little compassion and regard for one of your fellow human beings, who was suffering badly.

I was grieving. You chose to attack my posts right slap bang in the middle of two of the most distressing times of my life – my father’s heart attack, and my grandfather’s death, which had been coming for 8 months. You then either decided to cut me out as you just didn’t agree with my political views, or you decided to not respond to anything I posted, after I asked people not to attack my posts. So you and someone who chose to back you against me, both stopped speaking to me for over four months, completely abandoning me in the worst time of my life – where I was facing the first major loss of my life, and my mental health became so bad I wanted to end my life. You didn’t once say anything to me about any of that, nor anything in response to posts about interests we shared. You made me feel like I didn’t exist.

You decided to forget that I suffer from mental illness, and struggle with self-harm. You obviously decided I’m an ‘older person’ therefore can look out for myself, so don’t need kind, supportive, sympathetic friends.

If you had any understanding whatsoever about mental health problems, you would know how you treated me was wrong. You would understand how abandoning me would have made me feel. You would know the anxiety caused by being ‘attacked’ by people publicly. You would know all about real depression, quiet depression that honestly makes you want to not exist in the world, and feel like everyone hates you. You would know about ‘triggers’, and if you had supported my writing you would know what those triggers are, and what my boundaries are, and how you crossed every single one of them. So you would know that when you said on Twitter to me, out of the blue “All I can say is it’s good you don’t have children”, it would send me into a spin, and make me cut myself. If you were my friend, were supportive, and honestly understood mental health problems, then YOU WOULD HAVE KNOWN THAT.

So … I have to conclude, either you don’t know as much about mental health as you claim to; you are selfish and only think of things from your own young perspective, and don’t consider the consequences of your words and actions on the feelings of others; or you knew what you were doing, knew it would upset me and make me harm myself, and chose to do it, to make yourself feel better.

So which is it? Are you inexperienced in mental health? Selfish and thoughtless? Or are you a narcissist / sociopath? I’ll let you decide.

Now admittedly you could have done what many of us have done over the years… you could have just made a bad mistake. You did utter the word ‘sorry’ after I had to ask if you were even sorry, as you didn’t seem it! But the fact is, if you truly WERE sorry, you would have faced up to what you did to me, how it made me feel, and your response would NOT be to block me and block the friend who was showing me support. If you were honestly remorseful you would have contacted me, apologising profusely for hurting me. You would have made an effort. You would have shown some interest in me as a human being. But you already knew our friendship was fucked, because four months before, you had decided to let me suffer alone. You opted to not share in interests, not pass on your condolences to me, and to not offer sympathy or support for my mental turmoil. And you knew you owed me an apology for far more than just saying what you did. You owed me one for being a lousy friend, upsetting me, abandoning me at my worst time, and then swiping at my weakest point – motherhood.

 

You can’t undo what you did to me this year. But apologising would have been a start. And I mean a sincere apology, privately, not just on Twitter to make yourself look better to your followers. You removed the offensive tweets you’ve posted, I’m guessing just for appearances, and not because you thought it was wrong. You’re merrily carrying on as if you didn’t cause me to drag a blade across my arm a few days ago. I wanted to overdose – and coming from me that means a lot. If you claim to have experience of these feelings and thoughts, then I’d expect you to be more sensitive to the suffering of others. That’s the one good thing I took out of my own fifteen years of mental illness – I can honestly say I have a lot more empathy for other people. I am more sensitive to their feelings. I do admit, sometimes that goes out the window when I’ve been hurt by someone – in those moments I do become more selfish and might say and do things, that with hindsight I would choose not to. I’m not claiming to be some paradigm of virtue… I make mistakes like everyone does. But it’s more in the heat of a moment, and as a defence mechanism after years of people hurting and betraying me. In everyday life I would never seek to hurt or upset anyone. I’m usually good at reading people’s emotions. I would never say something so hurtful to a friend as you did. Out of thin air too. I could understand it in the heat of the moment if we were arguing, but as far as I could tell we were merely discussing politics.

You had someone leap to your defence when one of my loyal friends referred to you as ‘vile’. So well done, another one who has your back and not mine. Probably because I’m older than you, and they’re both old enough to be your mother, so it’s mothering instincts. But I expect people to take my side if I’m the victim. I don’t expect them to say, ‘Well you’re older than she is, therefore I put her feelings ahead of yours’ – fine, they can do that if they want to, but they’d better be prepared for losing me, either as a friend or from this world. If you take the side of an abusive person, against the victim then the blood is on your hands too.

I understand that ‘good’ people can do bad things and it doesn’t make them bad people – heck I’m one of those – I do bad things. But at this point in time I actually agree with my friend that you are vile. What you said was vile. It’s made extra vile by the way you treated me (or rather didn’t) for four months beforehand too. Nobody else knows the whole story, so they can’t look at a situation that hurt me, and say you’re not vile for how you made me feel. Only I have the right to that opinion in this case. And I’m allowed to perceive you as vile until I reach a place of forgiveness – be that after a heartfelt apology from you, or from simply wanting you not to take up space in my thoughts. To anyone who hasn’t been hurt by you, you are a lovely person. To me you are nasty. Neither one of us is right – you are not nasty, and you are not lovely. They are merely opinions based on our own different viewpoints. My other friend had no right to say you are not vile. And I have no right to say you are not lovely. I can THINK it all I like! But everyone has their right to an opinion based on the way you treat them. In my personal opinion, as it was a personal attack on me, I think vile people say vile things. Lovely people don’t often say vile things. Not to their friends.

I’m sorry to say that unless you change your manner and behaviour, then becoming a counsellor might not be right for you at this time. I understand you’re going through your own challenges in life and with your mental health. And whilst it’s admirable to want to use your experiences to help others, like I have always wanted to do, you have to have control of your own mind first. I spoke to a colleague at work about what you said to me and how it made me feel, and she said you’d likely push people towards suicide rather than help them. This at the present time would be true based on how you made me feel the other day.

I hope you can conquer your demons, and achieve your goal, as it’s good to give back the help you’ve received. I hope I can do the same in some way one day, but I know that my mental health will always be an issue, and the likelihood of me directly helping others anytime soon, is low. My blogging is a way I feel I can give back to the world, but even that has its dark times and silences.

 

 

I believe that mental illness can make us better people. There’s got to be some reason for our suffering, and my belief is that we suffer to learn, and to find the skills and tools to help prevent the suffering of others. I guess you just haven’t had experience of it for long enough yet, to learn the lessons. When I was your age I had only just started to deteriorate mentally. It was at the age of 16 I started to self-harm, and it took me until I was almost 18 to admit it to my parents. And then came the long road of counselling, therapy, medications, joining forums and support groups, ups and downs. It took me about seven years of mental illness and self-harming, to speak openly about it – I gave a speech to a group of university students about self-harm. Only did it the once.

Though you’re a champion for mental health, you are still at the beginning of your journey. You haven’t had enough life experience yet, to understand the complexities of mental illness in others. It’s only through your own long journey to recovery that you come to understand your own mental illness, and you learn about compassion, sensitivity and acceptance. You learn about yourself and life, like I’ve had fifteen years to do. I’m still learning now! So hopefully by the time you achieve your goal, in eight years, you will have gathered that life experience, and learnt the lessons you’re meant to learn from your own struggles.

I don’t wish you ill. I wish you well, but more than anything I wish you experience, to ground you and teach you. Time will give you maturity and wisdom, and you may reflect on the harmful things you say to your friends. I will forgive you because you are young and inexperienced in social etiquette. But it does not mean that how you have treated me is okay. Far from it. And I hope in time you will learn from it, and have the courage to apologise properly, as this is what makes an adult. Screw-ups don’t matter. It’s the way we make up for them that defines us.

xxxx

Seeing Red.

*Mentions self-harm / suicide & contains bad language*

So this happened at the weekend….

 

……………………………..

 

I couldn’t believe what I was reading – where had this come from? A ‘friend’ and I were discussing politics and all of a sudden she was personally attacking me, saying it’s good I don’t have any children. What kind of person says something so unpleasant? She was nasty.

I saw red, and responded as I did. I couldn’t believe the cold, callous, apparent narcissism I was witnessing. She had just been raving about how amazing she and other young people are, and how important they are, and then said something horrendous like that to me, and when asked how she would like it, she implied it wouldn’t bother her as she doesn’t want kids. I couldn’t believe it. I had to actually drag some level of remorse out of her!

My heart was pounding faster and harder than I’ve ever known in my life, and my heart was erratic – I had palpitations. I had the buzzing in my head. After typing my responses, and blocking her on Facebook, I started hyper-ventilating. I furiously searched around for my self-harm stuff, and quickly slashed at my arm, before bursting into tears. After patching myself up I went to see my parents, and they could tell immediately that something was wrong. I burst into tears again, and started hyper-ventilating… so much so that I felt I was going to pass out, so I sat down and told them what happened. My mum was furious and wanted to use my account to give her a telling off. I said I needed to calm down first and foremost, so she never did do it. I took my blood pressure and it had soared to the highest it’s ever been, and my heart rate was over 110 beats per minute… this was having calmed down a little!

During my anxiety attack I took a screenshot of the tweets and posted it on my Facebook, needing support and people to validate my feelings. To make me feel better. One of my friends did so, by saying how awful it was, and hoping I’d blocked that ‘vile person’ – she doesn’t know her. And another friend commented on her comment, and said ‘She isn’t vile x’ … Now, fair enough, ‘good people do bad things, it doesn’t make them bad people’…. but there’s a time and place for that – this wasn’t it! It had literally JUST happened, and I was in severe distress. That kind of sentiment is good to have… when you’ve reached a place of forgiveness…. like I could say it was just a mistake. But for Heaven’s sake I had only just been publicly attacked by a friend!! It’s going to take a lot of time to reach any place of forgiveness towards her, if ever! So until then I am allowed to believe she’s not a nice person. I’m allowed to believe she’s a bully. I’m allowed to hate her if I want to. I am allowed to believe she is a vile person – because how could any sort of ‘lovely’ person say something so cruel and vile?

I know the comment was aimed at my friend for labelling her as vile, not knowing her. But what it actually demonstrated to me was a lack of sympathy, caring and loyalty. She was more concerned about defending my attacker against the word ‘vile’ than about the long-term scarring that girl had just left me with – mentally and physically! My heart started racing again, and I went red. This felt like a second attack from another friend. It felt like they were taking her side against me. This has happened to me in the past with the last ‘friend’ who bullied me. That’s why I won’t tolerate disloyalty anymore.

I don’t expect my friends to take sides in this. Perhaps the ones who don’t know this girl, yes, but not mutual friends. She only hurt me, so I can understand the others won’t have a problem with her. And that’s fair enough. But that doesn’t mean they can’t sympathise with me and say what she said was wrong. It doesn’t mean they can’t speak out and stand up for me. The friends who keep out of it is one thing. But if a friend defends my attacker, and doesn’t offer up any form of care for me, and doesn’t condemn what was said, then to me it is CLEAR they have chosen a side. They chose the side of someone who is an unpleasant person and chose to hurt me, out of nowhere.

I never asked them to take my side. I never wanted them to have to pick a side. But they did. And that was demonstrated by their comment. ‘She isn’t vile x’ – I think that should be left up to me to decide don’t you? As I was the one who was hurt by her. What you have to realise is with BPD you can go from liking someone to hating them at the drop of a hat. They can be a decent person, and then boom, they’re a vile person for what they did. And I am allowed, for now, to think she is a vile person. Eventually in time I may come to think she made a mistake and spoke out of turn, and it doesn’t change that she’s a ‘lovely’ person. But I do not feel that way right now, and that’s okay. And if it’s not okay, and me having this opinion is offending you more than the way she’s treated me, then you are part of the problem, and you don’t have my back. So don’t be surprised if I distance myself from you. I will not be ganged up on by friends. I have been shitted on by so-called friends for long enough now, I don’t deserve it, and I will not put up with it.

The funny thing is, they were defending her against the word ‘vile’, and she was blocked on my page, so it was all for nothing. It was virtue signalling, wanting to appear like the loyal friend who had her back – well why the fuck didn’t she have my back? Why the fuck didn’t she post / tweet to this girl that she was out of order to say what she did? Why is it always the case that when it comes to me, nobody has any fucking loyalty?! They all support bullies. They all support disgusting, vile behaviour and condemn me for reacting to it! Well no fucking more. If anyone else does this to me, they’re out of my life immediately.

I’m very lucky that at least four of my friends have stuck up for me, by validating my feelings, saying it was wrong of her, and supporting me. These are the people who matter to me. Not ones who sweep it under the rug, as done and dusted. Not ones who say they don’t comment on political stuff now, when the attack was certainly not political – it was personal. Not ones who have the back of someone just because they’re 19, with mental health problems – never mind the fact I also have severe mental health problems… but of course I’m older, so can look after myself. Wrong. And the more false friends I have supporting my attackers, the worse my life becomes.

I can’t tell you how awful my life felt on Saturday. I seriously contemplated taking an overdose… or slashing my arms to high Heaven. I didn’t want to be here anymore. This was too much, given the personal tragedies I’ve faced this year. I’m still grieving the loss of someone so close to me, and this episode only brought that to the front of my mind again. I wished so much that he was here, to comfort me and tell me everything would be okay. It made me think how a ‘friend’ could say something so horrific to me whilst I’m grieving. But then I remember that this ‘friend’ unfollowed me on Facebook so didn’t look at my page probably – so wouldn’t have known anything about my life since February. If only she hadn’t been so immature as to do that in response to a request I made, she may have been more thoughtful about her words towards me – but maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe she’s one of those people who just says whatever the hell they want, with no shame.

The reason this comment upset me is partly because I have nobody special in my life, and because of my BPD I feel I never will…. which means I’ll never be able to have the children I so desperately want. Even if I do find someone, I have health issues which may make it harder to get pregnant. So might not get to have the children I want. I feel I’d be a great mum, if I was given the chance, as I have a lot of love to give, and have good morals I could pass on to my children. But I’m also devastated that my granddad passed away, having never seen me happy. He won’t be at my wedding. He won’t be there if I have children. And the fact I haven’t had any children yet, so that he could meet them, and so that my nan can too – and my parents, before they’re too old or no longer here…. upsets me so intensely – more than anyone else could imagine, as most people I know are married and have children. None of them realise how deeply her comment cut me, because they don’t understand my situation. This was one of the worst comments anyone could ever say to me, especially at the moment, when I’m grieving the fact my granddad didn’t get to meet my children, that I may never have. The guilt from that is immense, so when someone says it’s good I don’t have children, it’s like an attack on me as a woman – it made me feel like a failure for not having any yet, and like an attack on what sort of mother I’d be – what, simply because of my political views, and opinions on the nastier young people in society today? Of which she illustrated a perfect example!! I’d make a fucking great mother thank you. I’d at least teach my children to not behave as disgustingly as you did. Mine would have manners, morals, a conscience and respect for other people. Mine would respect a difference of opinion and would be sensitive to the feelings of others. Mine would be taught to make it up to someone when they hurt them, not ‘block’ them and run away from the responsibility. Mine would be taught to be humble and live quietly, not boast about everything. Mine would put the feelings of others ahead of ‘winning an argument’.

I think she resorted to a personal insult because she knew she was losing the argument. It wasn’t an argument anyway, it was a conversation. I was being very respectful towards her. The only time I got a little narked was when she implied young people matter more than those over 65 – does she include her own relatives in that?? I said that’s the attitude of young people that I don’t like, as older people have wiped the backsides of the young, and paid taxes to give them the lives they enjoy today, only to be told their opinion doesn’t matter as much as teenagers!! That’s when she took that swipe at me. She knew I knew more about politics, and in her mind I was obviously beginning to make her look bad, so she went for the jugular, to bring me down, or end the conversation as she’d had enough.

The comment about older people was replied to on a different thread, one which involved a couple of other people and a newspaper, but I spotted this before responding about the attitudes of the young, because I knew she was trying to bait me. She wanted me to rage at her, to show me up and make me a target for other people, as more people would see it if others were tagged in it. So I refused to play her little game. I replied to a tweet that was just between the two of us. Didn’t stop her sniping at me though.

I see she’s removed the disgusting tweet now. Now, some would say she’s done it for my sake, I say bullshit. She’s done it because I called her out on it, and she realises it makes her look like a nasty person. She thinks if she erases evidence of her past, that people will believe her to be nice. Well the thing is, I am never going to be able to forget this. I will have a permanent scar on my arm now because of her. I have the words etched in the front of my mind… they have been added to all the other nasty words people have ever said to me. I can never forget. It’s nice she has the luxury of deleting it and forgetting it ever happened. I cannot do that. So I’ve tweeted a screenshot of it, which I did before she deleted it. It was put on Twitter, it will live forever in my mind and on my heart, and on my arm… so it should live forever on Twitter also – the place that started it. She doesn’t deserve to forget. She doesn’t deserve to get away with erasing it, when I cannot. She has to face up to the disgusting way she behaves. It’s the only way she’ll learn. I’m sorry if people don’t agree with my thinking here, but people do this too often with Twitter – say something awful and then delete it. But Twitter is so public and instant. Even when deleted, hundreds of people may have potentially seen it. And people have to be held to account for the atrocious words they say. If she hadn’t deleted it I would have reported it. But she chickened out and removed it. Lucky I have the evidence.

What bothers me the most is this person apparently knows all about mental health – they’re a mental health activist. They’re training to become a counsellor. And as a colleague of mine said, she’d likely push people towards suicide rather than save them from it, if this is her manner / attitude. I would have thought she’d be a lot more understanding, and know not to hurt someone like me. She knows all about my self-harm and mental illness. She once messaged me and told me she’d just self-harmed, and I was annoyed at this, because one of the rules when in therapy is to not do that sort of thing – because you might trigger other people, which it did. It made me want to harm. This is partly why I eventually withdrew my support for her with her struggles, as I couldn’t cope with them on top of my own. I just find it hard to understand how someone could understand self-harm themselves, know that I’m at risk of it, and choose to say something hurtful which could lead me to self-harm. I don’t understand that mentality. I don’t understand why anyone could hurt other people, but when they know you have mental health problems and are prone to cutting yourself, why would they decide to say and do the things they do? She’s got eight years to train to be a counsellor, let’s hope in that time she learns compassion and respect for the feelings of other human beings, and gives up this need to be ‘right’ no matter the cost. She lost this argument by turning to nastiness and insults. And she lost a friend. I haven’t, because she hasn’t been there for me or made any effort for over four months, and all she brought me in the end was aggro. So I don’t feel a huge loss right now. Only in the sense that it impacts my friendships with others, and stops me attending things as a group… which hurts because it brings up my experience in the past. But my life might feel a bit calmer now, and that’s what I need right now, to work through my grief and get well again.

This upset has allowed me to take a step back and focus on self-care. I’m avoiding politics, the news and the outside world, when I don’t have to deal with it. I’m looking after myself, and focusing on the people who matter to me – my family, my Godchildren, and my real friends. I’m hoping to get back to blogging properly about mental health now – won’t be very regular, but want to start being more informative and helpful to others… get back to basics. I almost needed this breakdown to start again from the ground up. Just wish I could have got through it without harming myself. The key though is I’m not going to give myself too hard a time over it – have a hard enough time from others without beating myself up!

I hope everyone’s well. And if you’re not then take the time to look after yourself, and listen to what your soul needs to recover. Speak to you all soon xxxx