Mine's a latte

I am an incredibly open person - I know I bet you'd never have guessed! I don't really keep much hidden. I am comfortable talking to anyone about really personal and delicate subjects. 

So it strikes me as very weird the relationship I have with alcohol.  I don't really drink anymore but I avoid telling people this. To join in with conversations I will even create the impression that I like a glass of wine or 6. I make convoluted excuses about having the car or needing to be up early for smudge the next morning. Even some of my nearest and dearest don't know that nowadays I am practically tee total.  

I used to love a few wines with the girls, a g&t before Sunday dinner, a few vodkas before making an eejit of myself on the dance floor or if the sun was shining well that's Kopparberg elderflower and lime time. Then the depression hit and one of the quirks was that even one glass of alcohol made me violently ill. I was struggling with near crippling social anxiety and it would have been easy to use alcohol as a crutch. Did my body protect me by employing projectile vomiting as an anti-drinking measure? 

I can't really explain why I'm not drinking anymore. It doesn't make me ill to have a few drinks. I just don't want to. I just wish I knew why it was so difficult for me to be honest. I'd rather have a coffee.

The Guilt

I've been reading up a storm the last couple of days and am just a little proud of my progress. As I headed through to the kitchen to tidy up before bed I was for once not beating myself up. G is on backshift and instead of my usual brain dead evening in front of mindless TV I read a book. And not just any book. A classic. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. Even typing Steinbeck makes me feel good. Admittedly, it isn't a very long book but nonetheless an improvement on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

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In the kitchen I was pottering; washing the dishes, listening to Today in Parliament, treating devil puss to milk and trying to decide what to read next. By the time I switched off the light I was no longer proud of myself. The Guilt had returned. As a self confessed procrastinator I am familiar with that small nagging voice asking me when exactly I plan to get started with whatever I'm putting off. The Guilt is not that friendly voice.

The Guilt is mean. Harsh, cutting and horribly astute. Tonight Guilt started when looking at the mess of the kitchen windowsill. The problem with the Guilt is that it doesn't stop with a gentle reminder to clear off, wipe down and tidy up my greenhouse/gallery/dumping ground of a kitchen windowsill. No the Guilt continues to remind me that I didn't hang the washing out or hoover or mop or do any of the other mundane but essential jobs that I had mentally listed for today.

But still the Guilt keeps on at me. If I haven't been bothering to tidy or clean the house I should have at least been doing something productive. A glance at the kitchen calendar notifies the Guilt that my plans to menu plan and online shop have also come to naught - thanks Steinbeck!

I try to defend myself. I was reading, it's really important to read if I want my writing to sing. Stephen King told me. The Guilt laughs. "Write? When did you last pick up a pen?"

Well you know what Guilt you're right. I am a lousy housewife and proud that my life is too interesting to care about a pristine show-home. But I care about writing. I delayed my plans for bed and wrote. Now I'm off to make a to do list for tomorrow.

I'm fed up having to listen to your nagging so it looks like I might have to get organised, a little more productive and make you shut the hell up. 

Singing in the rain

I live in the West of Scotland. There are loads of benefits including friendly people, Glasgow shopping eating and outing, house prices that negate the selling soul to the devil deal. But one of my love to hate things about living here has to be the rain.

This morning at school run time it was biblical. If frogs had started bouncing off my umbrella I wouldn't have even raised an eyebrow. But I was cheery enough. Despite the logistical issues of carrying an umbrella, holding a dogs lead attached to the pulliest most disobedient dog ever and dragging a very dozy 8 year old to school without her walking through every puddle en route.

Cheery enough to merit the catty comment of one of the other school run Mums - there is no creature more evil to her contemporaries than a yummy mummy. Her ire appeared to have been provoked by my not entering a depressive state when seeing it was raining. As I squelched up the field with the dog it got me to thinking that I like rainy days. 

Despite smudge's firm belief, I am not the Wicked Witch of the West. I won't melt on contact with water. But just incase my daughter knows something I don't I do take some precautions.

Good wellies are absolute must. Especially if you intend to take full advantage of those puddles, I know I can't resist a splash. As I have the calves of an East German shot-put champion I am a big fan of the Hunter shorts. I got mine mega cheap in TK Maxx but would happily pay full price for them. They are comfy, strong and unless you decide to wade across a stream which is deeper than it looks very watertight.

I get bored carrying umbrellas but have yet to find a properly waterproof coat that I don't detest on sight. So in order to alleviate the boredom of carrying it there has to be an added benefit to my umbrella. This morning it was bright orange to counter the grey skies. I'd really like a rainbow one but until I can grow out of leaving them on buses, trains and in cafes I'm going to stick with my free ikea one!

But THE most important thing to remember to keep happy in the rain is to leave your eyeliner flicks and mascara for a drier day. Lets face it when your umbrella blows inside out and the stupid dog is feigning deafness again do you really want to look like this?

Pity Party

I cancelled today. Due to my need to cry at the slightest provocation. I know enough about the tangled mess of my brain to know when to rest. 

So today has mainly consisted of me curled in "my" armchair watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer on netflicks. I did some writing. I did some thinking. I mostly did some nothing.

I was working hard. Repairing the sore bits of my brain. Healing.

Tomorrow will be a better day. Tomorrow is a new day.

Being adventurous

I don't need to chuck myself out of a plane, put on cramp-ons or travel half way around the world to be adventurous. I'm doing it every time I send a post circle letter, go to Cake club or make dinner for friends.

When I got depression I didn't know what has happening for a long time. I was scared of everything. I couldn't sleep properly. I had no faith in myself. The only emotions I seemed able to feel were anger and sob inducing pain.

My world had to become very small so I could cope. I hid. Leaving the house only when I had to and very rarely alone.

I thought I had a strong support network of friends. I'd worked on these friendships and believed these women would be there for me. As I had been for them. They weren't. Even in the midst of a black cloud that descended well before the perceived betrayal it stung. In stinging it got horribly tangled into the depression, it became part of it.

I am now in a happy, healthy place. Better able to cope with the bumps in the road. I've spend a lot of time and devoted a lot of energy to working through, soul searching, analysing and healing.

Like a lot of illnesses, depression does leave scars. Mine are on the inside. My social anxiety is new and I am learning to live around it. I refuse to listen when the scarred bits of myself tell me that there is no point cultivating friendships. That no matter what I give I'm not good enough to receive. I fight the urge to run from the crowded room. I pretend I'm confident because if I don't the tingling in my nose just might progress to tears. I always carry mints in my handbag incase I need to throw up before I arrive.

I'm stubborn and I refuse to let depression change me so fundamentally. I was confident and self assured and downright awesome before. I won't be feeling it on the inside so I'm going to act until I can forget I'm acting.

Passion Projects

I want to write. I have done since I first held a pencil. Before smudge came home my plan was to use my evenings in with a small child and a shift working husband to write my bestselling series of novels. They were going to make me richer than J K Rowling. Although I am completely unashamed to plagiarise her kick ass awesome approach to taxation.

Needless to say becoming a parent to a toddler, dealing with social workers and getting completely tangled up in a web of depression, self doubt and anxiety left me feeling like a hollowed out shell of myself and incapable of anything creative.  In brief, I barely picked up a pen in 5 years.

Last year, still crippled with anxiety, I did something brave and went on a creative writing course at Strathclyde University. Despite having now completed both creative writing courses, 40 weeks of study, I am unable to put into words how transformative this was for me. I got a bit of the old me back and it was the bit that writes.  I try to write everyday, even if it's just for half an hour. Somedays I even haul myself out of bed at 6 to write while the house is quiet, admittedly not very often though.

I write this, short stories, a ranty journal and ever so occasionally I fight with stubborn characters and try to bully them into a novel.  I fail spectacularly, throw that notebook in a drawer and sulk with them until the next time. But even when I'm getting frustrated the scratchy noise of my fountain pen on the paper soothes.  The sight of my handwriting filling up a page makes me feel empowered. Whether, I'm workshopping some of my creative writing or just hitting publish on a blog the mere fact that I am sharing some of my words blows me away, I'm invincible.

Maybe one day I'll be brave enough to consider putting myself out there and seeing if I could actually make some pennies doing something I already love.  But not yet.  Right now I'm still practising.