About Me

I am just an average single 30 something tackling those day to day issues about life and the reality it brings whilst dealing with a mental health condition. This blog is for my random ramblings about anything and everything…

…That’s what the prologue in the side bar of the blog tells you all and I guess that just about covers the basics, but we can go into a little more detail for all you inquisitive folk out there!

I am in my early 30’s and I live near Manchester. I’m female and I am happily single!

I’ve had a mental health condition for a long time and my diagnosis is Borderline Personality Disorder and Reactive Depression with Rapid Cycling Moods. I also have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and a Binge Eating Disorder which is gradually getting under control and along with that I am losing weight. The downside it’s costing me a fortune in clothes, as fast as I am buying them I’m growing out of them!

I spent ten months between 2008 and 2009 in a local Therapeutic Community run by the NHS which was group therapy for people with Personality Disorders. It was during this time I was able to work with staff such as Psychologists and Psychotherapists and gradually I used the time to work on my issues and learn to alter things about my behaviour and how I reacted to certain things. For me group therapy was perhaps the main turning point in my life in which I was able to start to make many more structural changes in my life.

I may have BPD along with other complex issues but I am not going to let it to take over my life any longer. BPD is an illness, but one that one day I hope to win and recover from that’s my ultimate goal! I’ve been blogging for years and over the coming months you’ll read about a lot of changes I am going to make to my life to start to build a new future for myself.

In March 2009 I lost the one person in my life that was my inspiration, my mum. She passed away at the age of 61 from Renal Failure. She was one of the most positive strong people you could ever meet having spent her entire life sick and in and out of hospital and her parents where told she would not live past the age of 10. She never complained and always smiled. She died of a rare and fatal complication of her renal failure called Calciphylaxis.

From September 2009 I am fulfilling a lifelong dream of mine by returning back to college where I am studying an Access to Higher Education Diploma in Nursing and Allied Health Professions. I plan to go onto University in 2010 to do a Diploma in Mental Health Nursing. I want to use my own experiences of living with and having a Mental Health condition to help others during their times of distress and crisis. I have a long way to go but I am determined and I am certain there is one person who will be with pushing me along telling me I can achieve what I want and that’s my mum! She always said you can achieve anything when you put your mind to it!

As well as being a little bit crazy I also do perfectly normal things if the following can be defined as ‘normal’ this includes chasing middle aged pop stars and or groups around Europe mostly Sweden and or listening to anything in Swedish! This usually involves queuing for hours to ensure a good spot on the front row, spending ages on banner preparation to impress said middle aged pop star so he can sign it at some point during the tour and make comments about how cool it is! I obviously love anything Swedish, this includes IKEA, Meatballs, ABBA (everyone secretly loves ABBA…), Clas Ohlson how impressed am I that they have one in Manchester!, Absolut (but am attempting to give this up) Pear Cider (and this!) Mazarins and H&M.

I also love the theatre especially musicals and concerts but you probably gathered that from the above! I love to read anything and everything from cheesy fiction to thrillers to something educational. I seem to have developed a keen interest in Psychology over recent years and I think maybe it comes from the amount of self help books I’ve read or perhaps the amount of Psychologists I’ve sat in front of! I love to travel and have seen much of Europe especially exploring Sweden over the past 10 years with all that concert hopping from place to place. In case you have not picked up yet I have a thing for Sweden and yes I speak Swedish!

I love films, the cinema and I am fan of TV actresses Amanda Burton and Hadyn Gwynne. I also love to read if I don’t have my head in a book I’m sick! I love to write, I use writing as a form of therapy equally a way to express myself and my thoughts and more importantly to help say ‘Let’s break down the stigma to Mental Health’. I take inspiration from Anne Frank on her own diary writing and when I visited Amsterdam in 1986 I became amazed at how such a young girl’s diary could become so famous worldwide, it’s a book I can read over and over again and never become bored with and even now she’s someone who inspires me to write truthfully and honestly.

Writing here keeps me sane – I think!

Alison
September 2009