Ode to a medical student: "Oh, semi-zombie".

Most people who follow my (admittedly sparse,) blog will know a few things about me by now.  So far I think I’ve divulged that my other half is a musician and – more personally – that I suffered the loss of my mother in 2013. In other news, I am also a graduate entry medical student. For those who care enough to question what that is, it basically means I’ve already done a degree. In 2014 I emerged victorious from Cardiff Metropolitan University as a shiny, elated, 1^st class honours BSC Biomedical Science graduate.  Understandably, I was thrilled, however, for me this degree was only ever a springboard into what I really wanted to do: medicine.  Fast forward to 2016.

I am currently a 3^rd year graduate entry medical student going strong on my 5^th year of higher education. I can confirm, in no uncertain terms, that I am no longer shiny or elated. In fact, most days I feel like boiled shit. There are multiple blogs out there that will tell you what to expect from life as a medical student, graduate or otherwise. A lot of these speak of the elation you feel when you single-handedly deliver a newborn baby (read as: you stand awkwardly in the corner of the room and look at another woman’s vagina and say a silent prayer for all her holes).  I thought I would make a more honest "10 point post" blog about the things they 100% do not tell you about being a medical student, particularly a graduate.

1. You will be absolutely exhausted

I think this has to be point number 1 for the simple fact it pervades every aspect of my life.  Any lie in must be taken, at expense of all other activity. Think Gollum level attachment to the ring to envisage the love I have for my pillow on a Saturday morning. Think Sophie’s Choice-esque breakdown whenever it gets too much and I want to quit my life and become a stripper. Yup. That pretty.

2. You will get fat

It is the unspoken inevitability. As someone who’s put on roughly a stone and a half since deciding to service the general health needs of the population in the future, I can confirm this to be true. This will mostly arise from point number 1. Having the general mental energy to attempt to conjure up some sort of nutritious meal is a thing of the past. Embrace the super noodles. Also, look forward to playing my favourite game around exam periods. Similar to "Snog, marry, avoid", but instead titled "Sleep, wash or eat?". 

3. Some days you will be sick of the sound of your own voice.

Anybody who knows me will probably argue that this can’t possibly be true, and Lord knows I do love a good gas. But seriously.  There have been times arriving home from placement that I have just sat in silence for a good 3 hours because the thought of striking up and maintaining a conversation with someone after approximately 8 hours of “So tell me about that then…” is literally soul destroying. Please, leave me sedentary, don’t touch me and feed me occasionally. Ta.

4. You will want to cry. A lot.

At good things, at bad things. At ugly things that happen to lovely people. Sometimes you will actually cry. Hysterically. Mostly in toilet cubicles on your own.

5. Your holidays are non-existent and probably extortionate.

By the end of July, as you are limping over the finish line of summer exams, a glimmer of hope will appear in the form of a summer holiday.  That hope will quickly be destroyed when you come to understand that you’ll have to sell a kidney into the black market to afford any sort of sun. At this point you’ll probably be severely vitamin D compromised (due to hours of revision) and to resist Rickett’s you’ll beg any family member who will listen to take you for free.

Oh P.S. Half terms and reading weeks? Not a thing.

P.P.S. In tremendous and unprecedented displays of cruelty, the UK’s 2 days of summer will occur smack bang in the middle of your revision session.

6. There is no room for illness. Or dental appointments.

I think this pretty much applies to any sort of full time job but please recognise the awkward struggle of being absolutely surrounded by clinical brains and being too petrified to ask for a medical opinion.

7. You will diagnose yourself with everything.

The extensive list: Scabies, IBD, Ankylosing spondylitis. More to follow.

8. You’ll be poor.

Everyone ever will tell you to not get a job as a medical student.  Personally, there is absolutely no way on this Earth I could ever afford to live on the pittance student finance and NHS bursary dole out. As a graduate student, people are not very keen AT ALL to give you any sort of funding. Bar work fits in quite nicely with your schedule (Grossly unavailable at any given time apart from unsociable hours). This leads me back nicely to point 1.

9. You’ll get sent random pictures of peoples’ bits.

“Is this infected?”

“Do you think I need antibiotics?”

“Any idea what this is?”

There are bits of people I should never have seen. Also, to all the people who I haven’t spoken to in roughly 6 years who feel it is appropriate to contact me to discuss their bowel movements. PLEASE Y.

10.  You will hoop jump better than a starving dolphin at sea world.

Tick this, do that, get this signed off, yadda yadda yadda. You get the point. If you are incapable of doing things as a means to an end, medicine is not for you. Yes, apparently, they do want to see you can wash your hands. Every year.

By no means am I ungrateful for where I have ended up, but today definitely required a good moan. Maybe in the future, when I’ve actually passed (fingers crossed,) Friday’s exam I’ll write another 10 point post about the plus points of medical school. For now they’re too buried under my 7 empty tea cups and the Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine. 

Hakuna Your Tatas, Kim K.

So let’s talk about Kim Kardashian’s international women’s day post.

Before anyone begins reading this article, let me first clarify that this is not meant to slut shame anyone and the general message can be applied to most influential female ‘celebrity’ figures. I don’t believe putting pictures of your naked body up online makes you a slut. I don’t care what one woman does with her vagina, be that whether she offers it up to many sexual partners, or whether she guards it like her prized possession for the majority of her life.

I do not think Kim Kardashian has done anything so horribly shocking that she should be publicly flogged for her mistakes forever. The sex tape for me isn’t an issue. In fact, I wholeheartedly agree with you, Kim. It’s not your fault that a sex tape you made with a trusted partner got leaked to the entire internet. I agree, you should not be made to feel ashamed for performing fellatio on your boyfriend at some point in your relationship. I’m sure many of us are guilty of doing the same (Not me obviously, am shining beacon of chastity).

But what you are guilty of, I’m afraid, is being so self-absorbed that you can’t even see why you annoy people so much.

So we come to your international women’s day post.  Can I just start by asking what platform you think you have provided to young women anywhere that has been so rewarding for them? Of the suffocating weight from the media on young women, yourself and your aesthetically pleasing family are probably prime contributors. Admittedly, not your fault. However, are you honestly so naïve to think that the hundreds of young women pouring over your photos wishing their boobs were a bit bigger, their waist a little smaller, their lips just a tiny bit fuller, come away from watching your TV show feeling empowered?  

As Pink said, “Kudos to you Kim, for feeling sexy as a mother, daughter and a wife”. You should do. You’re very lucky that with your team of personal trainers, nutritional experts and army of beauty moguls that they can give you all the advice you need that you can get back to your personal best after your pregnancies.  I am so glad that you are empowered by your body and proud to be a woman. I am also proud to be a woman. But not because I have a vagina, or (admittedly) painfully average breasts. Because I know, as a woman, I am not disadvantaged. Because, I too, have been brought up by empowered, brilliant women who have –admittedly – told me I am beautiful. They have also taught me that there are no limits on what I can achieve. That my sexuality does not define me. That I can be whoever I want to be.

Can we think, just for a second, about the women who aren’t empowered by their body? Those women who have suffered any form of sexual assault? The women who are so psychologically scarred by their experience that they go on to self-mutilate, to blame themselves? To resent themselves for something that they could not prevent. The women who feel, not empowered, but imprisoned, by their sexuality? A woman who cannot see themselves as anything more than a body. People work every day to protect those women and to teach others that may suffer in future that is not your fate or your duty as a woman to come to expect the blatant derogatory comments and inappropriate advances.

What about the women that society labels ‘ugly’?  I don’t resent you for being attractive at all, but I wonder how empowered you would feel if you were considered ‘ugly’?  Were you really always that self-confident? So self-confident in your body that you’re so terrified of ageing and the natural aesthetic that you botox yourself into oblivion? Real women get older. They get wrinkles. Their boobs sag. That is real. That is embracing your sexuality and all it is to be a woman. It is looking at yourself in the mirror one day and realising you’re not 18 anymore, and you don’t look like Claudia Schiffer, but that’s okay. Because you have more to show for your life than a portfolio of 300000 selfies. Why aren’t you posting your naked selfies and telling women that this is how you look, but this is not the only version of beautiful that exists? I appreciate that for you, it really is about your body. But if you want to start earning respect from other women, why don’t you try using your fame and fortune to spread a greater positive vibe?

You have a captive media audience on international women’s day, as you do every day. A massive influence (for reasons I cannot fathom) on millions of women. So what do you decide to do with your influence?  This is your chance to use your massive ‘social platform’ that you speak of to do something good. If you had asked each one of your loyal followers to donate 1 dollar to any charity, support of domestic abuse victims, women’s aid shelters (The example used is a female charity in keeping with the theme of the day, but it could have been anything).  You have 41.6 million followers. Imagine the capital you could have generated to put towards a beneficial cause.

And that is why Kim Kardashian, you annoy the ever loving crap out of me. Because on international women’s day, you chose to put up a small essay that was so thinly sprinkled with girl power it was almost laughable. I don’t berate you for being beautiful, Kim, I berate you for having the power to spread a message so far and so wide, and instead, using your ‘platform’ to once again validate yourself. No, you should not be slut shamed. But you should be ashamed, that you have the potential to give so much back to your fellow woman, but you don’t.

Do you know what Kim?  I hope you are so naked and happy every day of your life. May you never have to buy a single item of clothing to cover your hooha ever again. But for goodness sake, can we all stop pretending that you getting your chesticles out is for the benefit of women kind everywhere? Because I have to admit, lovely, no woman I've met as of yet feels directly empowered by your cheeky nip-slip on the back of ol' Kanye's motorbike. 

In the words of the great Biebs, if you like the way you look so much, maybe you should go and love yourself.  In private. Because you are doing my 'ed in.

The Melon Effect

 

 

I understand that the majority of my blog posts are largely centred around the more morose aspects of my life, so let me stand to reassure you from the beginning of this one that I am not at all sad. In fact, I am the happiest I have been in a very long time. I have just passed my first year of medical school, I am in a stable, happy relationship. My relatives and loved ones are all in good health. These are the things I am thankful for every day.

That said, writing has been an outlet for me specifically regarding my grief. I fear that this topic will continue to be discussable forever, for as long as I experience it, I will write about it to help myself. If the first two years after my mother’s death are any indication, you should expect many more blog posts. As a medical person, the entire psychological process behind grief and the grieving process as a whole fascinates me. Maybe you will regard this as a macabre fascination, but I have sat there for what seems like hours of my life, staring at ceilings at bed time, wondering why this emotion is so distinguishable from any other. Even sadness. A lot of people describe grief in ‘stages’. I’ve pioneered my own explanation of things. I call it, “The Melon Effect”. You may envisage any melon of your choosing.  I’ve gone for your bog standard honeydew for no other rationale other than I’ve just eaten a bloody lot of it on the holiday I’ve just been on. This may seem like a random post but it stemmed from the fact that prior to going on said holiday, I had only ever missed my mother in places that reminded me of her. How could it be that I went to a completely different country, a place that she had never been, and yet some days I still ached the same as I did in her bedroom? I was ashamed that I could still be so completely undone by it all two years on and in a foreign country to boot. This started the whole thinking process (with a large amount of frustration) all over again. Thus, the melon effect was born in the mind of a deliriously tired girl on an airplane.

 Firstly, when you prepare your melon, you take a (usually large but horrifically blunt, if it’s anything like my house), knife. The first grief in those few fragile days directly following death are a blow. A distinctive blow. However, it’s all a bit waxy (See where I’m going with this) and feels a bit contrived. Kind of like a melon skin, I guess.  “Yes, they’re dead”, you think to yourself and you nod because it’s all very definite. 

Then come the pips or the seeds. This is probably the most difficult stage I experienced for myself. It is the craggy underbelly of that first, poignant pain. You don’t know your arse from your elbow, whether you’re up or down or somewhere in the middle. It’s all a bit difficult to navigate and it takes careful precision. This is particularly true with regards to family members and friends. Why aren’t they grieving like I am? Why aren’t they as sad as me? Why is that friend who only knew my relative for a year so much sadder than me right now? What can you even do with this stage? It doesn’t make anyone feel better and no-one deals with the issue. This is the autopilot stage, the funeral arrangements. The bits that no-one really wants to do but we do diligently because it is a person’s last wish. We owe it to them to help them on their way from this life to the next in the best fashion possible. It is our job to respectfully divvy up jewellery, clothes, pictures to the correct recipient. Everyone knows you can’t eat the seeds, they just have to go. That said, seeds aren’t completely useless, are they? And just like that seed is a thing of promise and life, these tasks that you undertake with your family will power you through. They are the moments you will look back on in years to come and think, well didn’t we all pitch together well? Those tears you shed together looking at the photos, the stories told around the earrings or the necklaces will hold you together and give you a sense of purpose.
 

Then of course, comes the fruit pulp. This is the longest (and the mushiest) stage. This is where even your bones feel soft and heavy with the weight of holding it all together. Even when you feel like you might just be getting somewhere, you realise it’s all for nought and all it takes is a word or a memory to send you back into brain meltdown. But at the same time, it’s strangely refreshing. After wandering around like an android for the last number of days/weeks/months you are finally letting it all out.  Well, the first taster is refreshing. Then, also a bit like melon, when you experience too much of it all gets a bit sickly. This is your ‘go either way’ phase. You can choose to let your grief nibble away at you, to finally allow yourself to embrace your inner banshee. To sit down with all your memories (Good and bad) and excise all your demons. Or, you can resist. You can fight it and you can sit there and rot. With good support, I am here to tell you that you can indeed ride the waves of despair into some form of sanity again. It would be such a waste of melon to let it rot, wouldn’t it?

 And finally, there you are. The little melon carcass. You have the teeth marks in the remainder of that pulp you just couldn’t be bothered to attack. But eventually, the mush falls away and you are left with a thick skin. Unfortunately, you are also left with your post traumatic memories. Every now and again, little melon, you will be overcome by that unmistakeable hollow feeling (This is what started the whole melon analogy), that continuously reminds you of how far you have come and all you have lost. But with your thick skin comes a resilience you never knew you had. Eventually, that whole horrendous journey that felt like it split you into a million pieces and turned your insides out, becomes a memory. You will survive.

The point is, no-one rebuilds your melon. You cannot change what has been done. However, we all sit there after we’ve devoured one thinking “that was a lot of effort, but now I feel great”.  As well as all of that waffle above, the term ‘melon head’ is vaguely amusing and at the very least, if you are trying to work out whether you are at skin, pip or pulp stage, I hope it will bring a small smile to your face. 

Stay melony.

 

 

Keep Your Head Up, Keep Your Heart Strong

It is no secret to some people who know me that this last year has been very hard for me. This time a year ago, in the run up to Christmas, I could only feel dread at the thought of trimming up and getting into the Christmas spirit. I could only feel sadness at all the change that had come about in my life and the unknowns I had yet to face.  And worst of all, I felt insufferable guilt that came with not being able to cope. With the difficulties in holding my hands up and saying “I have made mistakes, I would like some help.”

Christmas is so joyous, you see, you forget that it’s still a very real day that can be infiltrated by your very real problems. Problems I saw reflected in every bauble and strewn along the floor with the left-over tinsel. For some people, Christmas is a time to forget and to forgive. For me it has always been a time of painful remembrance and evaluation. It always reinforced that my life had the propensity to be very different to other peoples.  What was even worse was that my confusion had gotten to a point where I knew that I needed to do something, and do it quickly, I just couldn’t see my way through the tack to evaluate exactly what. So I trooped on to January.

By this point I was plagued with anxiety. With that constant thick, churning feeling of dread. Racing heart, sweaty palms. Brain cycling so fast that it’s all you can do to focus on your mundane tasks and not freak out about things. Anyone who’s ever suffered with anxiety will relate perfectly to that crushing weight that you carry round all the time, like a sinister accessory. You’re almost convinced people can see it all over you, like a sickness. You have three moods; so low you think the world is ending, that mid-line of numb and nothingness and then, worst of all (for me), the mania. The days you’re overcompensating so hard for your confusion and depression that you’re talking to anyone who’ll listen about pretty much everything – and always at 90mph. The days you struggle to keep your dinner down and your tea in your cup because you’re vibrating faster than a guy with who’s just hopped on a road digger and you're popping Bach’s herbal remedies like Smarties.  It’s absolutely exhausting.

I think a very real turning point for me was helping a friend prepare for her beautiful wedding and being so overwrought with emotion that I had a breakdown sat on the edge of her bath. I’m sure she thoroughly enjoyed being soggy, and the bathroom was a good a place as any.  It wasn’t the fact that I cried that was the eye-opener (Crying wasn’t a particularly novel behaviour of mine). It was the fact that after she’d listened to me caterwaul for a good half an hour, lamenting about my life like an absolute drama queen, she breathed a sigh of relief and said “Well, that’s the first time I’ve seen Amy in a while.”

I think that was what broke the seal for me in the end. That even strung out and emotional I was better, healthier, facing my emotions head on than wandering round like an android nodding and saying “yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir.” So I decided, with the help and support of anyone I’d spoken to that I was going to take back control of my life. I would not let anxiety control me. I realised that there was no point waiting for some miraculous sign that was going to point me in the right direction. I had to sit down and listen to the little voice in my head almost smothered by my inherent ranting and take a breath. Start again.

So slowly – ever so slowly - I started to go about cleaning up my life. I was cruel to be kind to myself, and I had to uproot myself from situations I had run to as a false comfort. It was not plain sailing in any way shape or form. It was difficult to trust myself and my new found self-confidence. But my one powering thought was that I deserved to be happy.  At my lowest point, I felt incapable of love, undeserving of it almost. I was afraid of hurting others and afraid of hurting myself, because it was love that I had been wounded by and used to wound deeply. I learned, as I pieced myself back together, that in fact, it was quite the opposite. That for me, even if my life was falling apart around me, what I had always had was love. Numerous loves, in fact. A constant, supporting love that never wavered, only took a back seat. The love of good friends and family, who stood by and let me make my own mistakes and my decisions without judgement, only support.

So instead of focusing on the minuscule discrepancies in my life, and the unchangeable factors, I focused on my constant. And as soon as I accepted that I began to learn to love myself again, mistakes and all; forgiving myself was a major part in my road back to normality. Accepting that I could not change the past, but could look only toward the future.

As soon as I came to this conclusion, my life immediately began to look up, almost like someone was looking down on me and had set every traffic light to green. My university work fell together, I stopped worrying about what other people thought of me and focused on what I thought of myself and what I wanted other people to think of me. I could talk about my mother and my memories of her with a smile, instead of being racked by grief. I graduated with a first from my degree. I got into medicine at my first choice university. I moved away to embark on the career of my dreams. But most of all, I held steadfast to the thing that grounded me: love and support. I had  peace of mind, and better still, I was able to be calm and strong for other people again. Like the old me.  For the first time in an age the other night, I was laying in bed with my boyfriend and we joked about outer space and how if a meteor hit us right now there wasn’t a lot we could do. And I could cringe with the soppiness of it, and the cheese factor (This is a cheddar +5) but I honestly could have cried right there in the bed,  in my horrendously disorganised room (No-one said I had to spring clean that as well as my brain), because I was HAPPY. It was flashing in my brain like a neon sign with red fluffy edges and bows like a little trollop.  If I got hit by a freakish outer space rock of alarming proportions, I would have been the happiest little meteor squished human.

There are many tests for us all in this life, I believe that. But the greatest test is our loyalty to ourselves and the courage to say “I deserve happiness”.  No-one is going to hand it to you on a plate, but it is there for the taking, ripe for the picking with the right attitude. I will never forget the kindness and support I have been shown and I am grateful for the challenges I have come across that seek to make me a stronger person. A person better equipped to help others through. For those of you going through a difficult time, or battling with anxiety, please hang in there. Be the boss of your brain, and not the other way around :) You go Glen Coco! Kick life's ass. 

Musician Love

So recently, I moved to Swansea to start my career as a medical professional (God help you all). My blogs are usually quite serious and centred around me having the emotional equivalent of a bitch fit. The idea for this – more light hearted one – popped into my head this morning mid debate with the boyf. I’ve had an inkling for years that he’s a strange ol’ egg  (Let's face it, he's got to be mental to be going out with me), but he continuously confirms for me that his brain is wired so very differently to us normal folk. Specifically people like me; the academics. So here’s a heads up on what to expect if you ever find yourself going out with a musician.

1)      You will be ignored for their instrument of choice at some point.

We have all been there. When they walk through the door with that bright eyed, expectant look and you think DAYMN it is on, and then he walks towards you and…oh. Nope. That look was actually reserved for their Fender. Bugger.

2)      When he is in ‘the zone’ you’d best find yourself an interesting hobby

Never in my whole life have I ever given myself a better pedicure.

3)      If they’re a good musician, they will probably mock you incessantly for one of your music loves.

My other half is a punk at heart. I am a massive R&B/hip hop fan. It doesn’t matter how he tries to hide it, when he sees me singing along to Usher I know a bit of love for me dies. That’s okay though. Please notice how this ‘music snobbery’ mysteriously disagrees when the subject of interest is Katy Perry in a PVC suit. There’s an allegory there somewhere about a cat and a hot tin roof, and yet, despite this…it’s okay, because she’s ‘putting on a show’.  Riiight.

4)      They will make offhand comments about their musical talent because they don’t appreciate how much of a skill they actually have.

“Hey babe how did you learn to play a guitar?”

*Barely looks up from playstation*

“Bought a Nirvana album, bought a guitar.”

OH RIGHT SAME TBH.

5)      They are very passionate, opinionated people.

You will lose every intellectual argument. Even when you’re really clever yourself. And they have this, this way of making you think everything they say is a good idea. Which leads me to points 6) and 7)

6)      They are like, REALLY clever.

This may be a personal opinion of mine, but I personally think creativity is one of the highest forms of intelligence. Particularly with music. That someone can pull ideas out of their head and formulate them into an all singing, all dancing number is a bit brain boggling to me. They just know where it all fits and that’s the end of that. Seriously cool.

7)      They know exactly what they think and why they think it.

Think it comes from being very self aware. They aren’t ever afraid to stand up for their beliefs because usually, it’s not just words and opinions they’ve garnered from someone else. Just like their music, when they invest in something, they really invest in it wholeheartedly (See 10)

8)      You will have to deal with women/men acting very weirdly around them and occasionally trying to molest them.                

Yes, hello. I see you eye-raping him. He is very nice, I agree. That’s why you are not allowed. DESIST. This is particularly exacerbated if they also sing in addition to playing their musical instrument. In particular, their talent is a good opening point to conversations for all manner of sexual predators. My particular favourite is your 40 year old who thinks it is appropriate to giggle “Ooh, you could be my son!” whilst subtly dribbling over her Strongbow can.

9)      You will get embarrassingly proud.

There will be many times where you look up at them doing their thing and you just get this little niggle in your chest because they absolutely LOVE what they’re doing. And then that niggle turns into a bit of a chest puff and then you’re a bit close to crying because it’s all a bit much and NO THAT IS JUST SOMETHING IN MY EYE GOD I HATE IT WHEN THAT HAPPENS. You will also get a tad enthusiastic. You won’t like every piece of music they ever produce, that’s impossible. But you will find yourself unintentionally plugging them to, well. Everyone.  You’ll also really really get to like the “Oh, my other half’s a musician” card in a world full of nurse, teacher and business manager hubbies.  That card is pretty swaheeet.

And finally, the most important one.

10)   Musician love is good love.

The thing is, these bloody musicians, they’re really REALLY good at making you feel like you’re super important. And the best part is, they really think it. If they do love you it is an absolutely incredible and beautiful thing. Sometimes, it will be really difficult. Especially coming to terms with the fact that their work schedule is untraditional, that they could have to do the thing they love a hundred miles away from you for weeks or more. That aside, they are incredibly loyal, loving and beautiful creatures with very sensitive hearts. So if you got one, love them good, squeeze ‘em tight. And get some earplugs for the 2am sing-a-longs.

Where There is Light, There Must Always Be Shade

This last year has not been easy for me emotionally or mentally.  This is not a ‘silver-lining’ kind of blog. I admit that some situations for some people are genuinely too horrific to ever find justification in. Instead, it is a blog about the greatest balancing act of all.

I have always been a very optimistic person, even from a young age. I was always quick to see the good in people, or to seek explanation for bad behaviour in past occurrences and life experiences. Up to this point in life I had always been in a particularly positive place where it was very easy to brush aside those who appeared to destroy my happy go lucky attitude. I had never been bullied or made to feel littler than someone, because I was always in such a good place that I was able to avoid feelings of belittlement.  

Unfortunately, I became vulnerable. I allowed myself to enter a very, very sad mind state and I kept myself there with all my sad songs and my poor judgement and my bad decisions. Not deliberately, you understand, but an accidental sadness. You see, when you are in a position like I was in, sad is familiar. It is easier to keep yourself there than to entertain other emotions that you don’t understand, nor are you ready to process.  I was suddenly very, very influenced by what people thought of me. I could no longer validate myself, or support my own statements. Because I was such a shadow of myself that I didn’t even believe in me.  During this time period, I made some decisions that ended up hurting people I never set out to hurt at all. I also attracted some unsavoury attention which highlighted just how dangerous the wrong information and assumptions can be. This was particularly distressing for me, simply because I have never been a talked about commodity and I have never much cared for people’s thoughts on me. This awareness was new. I allowed these assumptions to shape my emotions, my feelings and - worst of all - my anxiety, because of this stage in my life that I was in. I sat down for hours, trying to work out why I was stuck here in this rut where I allowed people to keep me in the dark.  

It took me a very long time to come to the end of my proverbial tunnel. Whilst the negative influence did drive me back into the darkness momentarily, I realised I had to make a decision. It came to me very suddenly;  I could let life get the better of me, or I could get better at life. So I chose light. My light. I realised that my light in particular was surrounded by a whole lot of shade, and that I would have to fight to get to it.  Most of all, I realised to illuminate the darkness I had to burn brighter, not cower further into the corner.

When I did, I realised that my light had never really gone away at all. It had just been masked by a gigantic, multi-factorial rain cloud. And it was really as simple as making a decision and sticking with it. A friend of mine offered me some very basic, sound advice in a light hearted chat. “Protect your assets”, she said. “People should learn to protect their assets”.  I have already told her that I don’t think she’ll ever know exactly what chain of events this activated, but I adopted it as my motto; my mantra, even. I realised that my greatest asset was my piece of mind, and my well being.  Life does not exist as a series of positive events. Rather, it is a yin and yang existence that we require for balance. 

We all exist as individuals, but we make conscious choices to cast our shadows on others, or to shed light to help them find the way.  Along the way, learn that in order to forgive we must see both sides of the coin. For that, I am grateful for my own shadows. They have taught me to appreciate that the darkest of night gives rise to the day.

Accept your own darkness and your own light. Accept that you must find your own balance and your own understanding before you make choices that will influence other people, but know also that other people will seek to keep you in their shadow.  Never forget, but do not wallow.

For you see, without the lows, how would we ever know when we hit the highs?

My Other Mothers

Mothers day 2014 is approaching. My first ever mothers day without my mam. A lot of people may think I would be incredibly sad around this time, and in some ways I am. But it is a different kind of sadness to what I have been through in the last year. It is not a crippling, disabling sadness but an appreciative sadness.  This blog post is less about remembering my own mother, and more about other people’s mams. The mams that have helped me through.

I can say with resounding faith that this mothers day will undoubtedly be better than last year. Mothers day 2013 was when it all really sunk in for me, and I think for my mam too. Mothers day 2013 was the first time I saw my mother sedated. That in itself was terrifying. I spent the day alternating between pleadingly circling the bed, throwing up in the toilet and crying my eyes out begging her “Please not on mother’s day mam, please don’t go today”. It was a selfish association of course, and I can almost laugh now that looking back I was so fraught that my biggest concern was that if she died on mothers day, it would be ruined forever.  Whilst that was understandably a devastating time for me, it was also a complete eye-opener. Because I began to take notice of the tribe of wonderful women that I like to call my ‘other mothers’.

These same women who stood around my mother’s bedside, and indeed, around me, formed a strange sort of shield during my most difficult times. They held me up when I could no longer hold myself, and they stepped in when I was just too tired to be positive for my own mam anymore. Together, we mothered each other, and I learned so much more about my mam in her final months from precious stories and memories of her. Memories I would never have. First came the ‘officials’. Sisters of my mother who were always there for every visit, who lumped my washing back and forth their houses, ironed bedding upon bedding, and did the simple things like forcibly restraining me to shove sandwiches or some form of sustenance into my mouth.  They held strong even though it was their baby sister, a sister they’d nursed in her earlier life and ironically had to learn to care for again. Now, after her death, “the professional” or, Auntie Kath continues to be one of my main supporters.  In my mother’s absence, she has become my confidant. If I have a decision to be made, I can always go to her. I know she will listen to me with respect and give me the best guidance she can with no judgement. I am never afraid to be myself or to tell her my feelings, because she has never shown anything other than 100% faith in me. We limp along, she and I, and we lift each other on the days we’re not quite ourselves.

Then there’s “the crazy”.  Not meant in any way offensively, but anyone who knows my Auntie Chris knows I speak the truth. Auntie Kath is a bit more reserved than her, and if there’s one thing my mother wasn’t, it’s reserved (Ha!). And so, on the days when I need a crazy flavour, that wonderfully wild streak that my mother had, I go to Auntie Chris, and her daughter,  Joanna. I may not see them as much, but I do not need to live in their pockets to know that I always have a welcome and a best friend in both of them.  Wherever my officials are, I have a home, and I don’t feel quite so much like an orphan anymore.

 And then of course, there were the “unofficials”, who may as well have moved in with me. My mother’s closest and most treasured friends; Anne, Debbie and Wendy, Auntie Jan and Auntie Adele.  These women showed me the strength of female friendship. When I consider now, what I would do if I were to see one of my closest and most treasured friends terminally ill, I don’t know how any of them ever came to my house or the hospital with a smile. But they always did. They showed me that my mother must have been a great friend in her time, because their dedication to her care was boundless. They always brought the sunshine into her little hospital rooms, and the sweets and the magazines (Integral to visits, of course). They had no obligation to my mother, or to her family, but they came anyway.  It would have been very easy for them to say “thanks very much, but I would rather keep the memories of your mam as I knew her when she was fit and well”.  My mother often spoke so fondly about her best friends, and even when she was very low she still had room to worry about them. “Something’s wrong with our Debbie”, she’d say, and do the ominous peer over her glasses which told everyone Anny-O was on the case, and don’t you forget it! And I see now that it was just one giant circle, and that when I was born, and my sister too, I was introduced into that circle. They loved me and supported me because I was a part of her.  So thank you ladies, for bringing the light.

Then of course, there are the people who I never expected to be my other mothers. Those who were not friends of my mothers from birth, but who came to know me and came to love me and think of me as their own.  There are two distinct women in this category for me, and both women have helped me in ways that they will never realise. Lynette, thank you for being everything a mammy should be.  Thank you for always checking that I was okay, for holding my hand and for always having that inner radar good mammies have for when I wasn’t exactly telling the truth about how I felt. You opened your home and your family to me, and you gave me stability in a time when I didn’t feel all that put together at all.

Secondly, Viv. I don’t know if you ever knew how much of a support you were to me, through my mother’s illness or through her death. I cannot count on one hand the times we sat in your kitchen, you supplied me with a glass of wine and let me rant about god knows what, just to get it all out.  You were there through it all, and your lovely house was my escape. It was always a haven of calm and comfort in my otherwise bonkers life.  I think my mam was even a bit jealous of you in the beginning, but in the end she was as endeared to you as I was, and she often said how grateful she was that she knew when I was out of my house and in someone else’s, I had a mammy number 2 who would make sure I was on the straight and narrow – without any messing! Sometimes I think we are a lot alike, you and I, and you have been a massive inspiration to me and an even bigger comfort. You are a brilliant example of how sometimes, life does not deal you the best cards, but that with the right attitude and the right support, you can come through something that really is very ugly. You gave me my ‘go get ‘em’ attitude. You never pressurised me to talk about my feelings but I always knew and still know now that you would be there in a shot if I had a problem. You showed me what it was to be a truly good person.

Last but not least, the person I never thought would have to be a mother to me: my lovely papa. Dad, when I think of how far you’ve come in the last year I could cry my eyes out. If anyone has had the most change thrust upon them, it has been you. When you married my mam, you married for life. You never expected to be on your own again mid 50s, and a single parent.  We’ve become so close you and I, and things that I once would never have dreamed about telling you about, now become so easy to talk about. We’re a team hen we get along. In the game of “parent a 15 year old”, we’ve become a bit of a duo. I hope when you look at me you’re really proud, because that’s all you ever make me want to do is show you how well you did and what a brilliant parent you are. Thank you for always being honest with me, even when it hurt, but for never really saying I told you so.  For just being there and knowing that I’m still not too old for a hug off my daddy.  Yes, I do still sit on your lap and I will continue to do so until my arse is too fat or your knees give way. Whichever comes first, really.  We’re only going to get closer Dad, and I can’t wait for you to get even grouchier as the years go on so I can antagonise you a bit more and we can laugh after we’ve had our 5 minute screaming argument and realised how similar we are.

And one more. Ellie. Ellie?! How can my little sister be a mother to me. Well, kiddo, I think it’s safe to say we mother each other, don’t we? Thank you mostly for being a precocious little bugger, because I don’t think anyone makes me laugh as much as you (Or cry with frustration, actually).  You make me laugh the most when you come home from school to find me sniffling in your bed, or when I creep into your room and you just roll your eyes and lift up the quilt in a way that says “get in loser”.  You’re my bestest friend in the whole wide world, you are. And I’m so proud of you every day.  Even when you leave my washing in the machine so it smells damp, and when you leave your glasses on the side and not in the…sorry. Got carried away.

Whoever you are and however you’ve mothered me. Thank you for showing me what it is to be a wonderful woman, friend, or parent.

You’re all wonderful creatures J