Hopeless Romantic or Hopeless Fool?... “When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.” – When Harry Met Sally From a young age we see romance and the ideologies of love portrayed on our screens. From Jack sacrificing himself for Rose to Edward riding in a white limousine to ‘rescue’ Vivian! And if you are like me, you think yes that’s what I want... So, if it’s like that in the movies then why the hell is it not like that in the real world? I want Hugh Grant bumping into me and spilling his orange juice, or I want to be at work and John Corbett to walk in and think I’m beautiful, I don’t want an awkward message on a dating app saying, “Hey how’s you?” But I’ll admit the ‘Hey how’s you?’ is better than the lovely surprise of a man’s phallus aimed at the camera. I’ve had my fair share of awkward dating app exchanges and I’m done, I quit, I don’t want to do it anymore. Is it too much to want a pleasant exchange, face to face with a man? Apparently, it is… Even face to face now isn’t like it is in the movies, every conversation seems to be tarnished with the expectation that it will lead to the bedroom. Which don’t get me wrong isn’t always a bad thing, but (and it might just be me) sex isn’t the be all and end all. Surely making a connection with someone is more important than falling into bed with them? Now people don’t get me wrong, the physical side of a relationship is important, but I would much rather be sitting with someone crying with laughter or talking all night about every topic you can think of, rather than a blundering, underwhelming romp in the sac with a near stranger. It seems that romance is very much dead, and that is heartbreaking. I’m not expecting a shirtless Gerard Butler riding up on a white stallion and sweeping me off my feet (as nice as that would be) but a little chivalry would be great. Maybe one day my prince will come, because I am sick of kissing frogs. So I ask you am I a hopeless romantic or a hopeless fool? Check out the amazing Katie on the following links and if you can spare a couple of hours, head down to the beach for a beach clean. Its good for your soul musers! Until next time........... https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nwt.org.uk%2Fblog%2Fkatarina-martin%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR1S6qkgNkg23IDa7wXDrJtjxaVmI_Y4f8rQBFtbywVUfez49TKD4WJz4WA&h=AT3gaJcyKXQNcv4PloL_H1EWYnUG90ynE0yVb7ttWZ528IoA_SGDa6xld-99F3qiMJ0HkR_kY6YIwquYz4BlBAGEIXWbrlatu1-y04yLeNQwQ5Lw6SXq_gzE6zTG3uBuZDJ2D8A3iQ-z https://www.facebook.com/katarina.martin.75

As you are taking off from the airport to go to sunny Spain, the flight attendants always go through a pre-flight safety brief just in case the plane decides to fly in the wrong direction. (For those of you wondering, that's down!) We all know that if that happens, there is a good chance that all the safety tips on the planet are not going to help, but maybe there is something comforting in the process not just for the passengers, but for the attendants themselves. Personally, it just reminds me that we might all die in an explosion of epic proportions which is never a fun thing to be reminded of. If you haven't already guessed, I am not great when it comes to the process of flying. I do love being in the air though, and I always aim for the window seat next to the wing. I mean, come on - how else are you going to pretend to be William Shatner in the Twilight Zone saying "There's something on the wing...." (Insert laughing emoji right here!) The twilight zone moment has become a tradition for me when I fly, much like the safety demonstration. The utter silliness is equal parts comforting and ridiculous, and helps to reduce the stress of the possibility of becoming a human fireball if things don't go to plan. Anyway, I digress... In amongst all the arm waving, smiling and reassurance are five little words that have become so unbelievably important to me over the last 24 months and I wanted to share them with you. PUT YOUR MASK ON FIRST For those of you who are a little confused right now, bear with me. I promise, this is going somewhere. We all know that in the extreme emergency of cabin pressure dropping, the masks drop from above and before you even consider helping anyone else out, you put yours on. After all, in an emergency where you can't breathe properly, how much use are you going to be in reality to anyone else? Its a scary thought. There is truly no getting away from that but its also something that you should be utilising in your daily life. Those five words are gold when it comes to looking after you because guess what...... if you don't look after you then you can't look after anyone else! One of the things that I have discovered with this blog is that I am sharing experiences with you that I thought I would bury and pretend had never happened, but in reality, to share the lessons I learned from them, I have to be honest about why those lessons were learnt. As a mum of two amazing not so little people, I have put so much on hold and not considered myself for a huge portion of my life. Let me just say, I don't say this to brag. I struggled immensely with it. We are inherently selfish and its hard to give up everything that matters because you have to look after someone else. I am the first person to admit that at times, I found motherhood exceptionally hard. Shame their dads weren't the same but thats a whole other story! There were moments that I resented having to put my dreams and hopes on hold because there are so many of them. I had so much I wanted to do but being a mum put a stop to a lot of it. The thing was though, I spent a lot of time looking at what I was missing out on and not appreciating the moments that I had that were unique, precious and so unbelieveably special. I was so blessed. As a single parent, I had all those moments that dad missed out on. Dad was a babysitter - his words, not mine - but I got the first words. The first steps. The school plays and the cards. The conversations about the things that were important to them. The moments where they stood up for what they believed in at school, even though it went against the norm. The chats on the walk between home and school - school and home. All those magical moments that made up amazing memories for me and allowed me to inch just a little bit closer with each moment to the most important people in my life. The thing is, as a single mum, its really easy to forget about what you need to be able to be the best you can be for your kids. That goes for anyone in any situation but if we are talking about my experience, being the person my kids needed was paramount, and that required me to be a little bit selfish and consider myself and my needs as well. The whole idea of put your mask on first is so important and its not something you should be doing as a result of an emergency. You cannot deal with the emergency if thats when you are finally placing that mask on. It has hit too much at that point. I spent several years not considering me at all. It resulted in anti-anxiety medication, anti-depressants and a minor nervous breakdown where I couldn't stop crying and ended up lying in bed for five days not eating or drinking. I stared at the wall and I contemplated all the ways that I could end the misery. The thing that stopped me was my kids. They quite literally saved my life. It was a case of not wanting one of them to walk in and see my dead body lying there. It was a case of knowing that no matter what I was feeling, they needed their mum there to help them through their shit and that taking that away would be more selfish than anything else I could do. That was the moment that 'PUT YOUR MASK ON FIRST' began to make sense. I pulled myself out of my slump, I had a shower and I washed my hair and I made the choice to look after me so that I could look after the people who were most important to me. You see, the thing is, I had spent so long looking after everybody else and prioritising their needs above mine that I had allowed my own self care to disappear. I had forgotten that I needed care too, and the thing is, when people are used to you looking after them, they don't always return the favour. I would just like to clarify that my kids were never like that. They have always been incredibly caring and incredibly aware of times that have been difficult, but there were people in my life who took and took and didn't return the favour when needed. The glass was drunk dry and never refilled and over a period of time, that destroyed me. I was not able to cope with anything thrown at me individually never mind what those I loved around me needed. We are brought up not to be selfish and to always be there for other people, but in doing that, we forget about ourselves and what we need. We need the support, the care and the love just as much as those people we give it to. This is why putting your own mask on first becomes so unbelievably important. For you to support those people around you, you need to look after you. It will look different for everyone of us. For some of us it will be shopping, for others a spa day. For people like myself, its quiet time, meditation, reading and general chillling. On the odd ocasion a sweaty session at the gym! Whatever that self care is, its essential to your survival. Its essential to the survival of the people around you. Its the difference between being your best self not just for you but for those people you love as well. Self care is not about being selfish but about self preservation and being the absolute best person you can be for the people that you love. Until next time.............

This blog was always supposed to be a fun thing, but sometimes you have to step up and shout out for whats right. What we are seeing unfold in the UK right now is wrong in everry possible way. Nobody is suggesting that a dog attack is not a devastating thing. It absolutely is, but when will the attack on the animals stop, and dealing with the monsters who make them violent begin. Below is the link for the legislation and definition of this utter craziness that the government is is insisting on. Its madness and as I said, is just about vague enough to cover most large breeds. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/xl-bully-type-dogs-to-be-banned https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/official-definition-of-an-xl-bully-dog/official-definition-of-an-xl-bully-dog We need to do something and it has been proven time and time again that people coming together and demanding change really does work. Most recently we witnessed that with the change in legislation on mandatory vaccination. If we can get enough people to stand against it then we can force a change in policy. The link for the petition is below. Please, sign it and share it. https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/643611 We also have a link for a GoFundMe page which is raising the funds to fight the legislation in the courts. So far they have raised a staggering £42,401. Its an amazing amount but they need more. Please, dig deep. Your family need your help. https://gofund.me/0272a583 Contact your MP's. Get involved in protesting. Lets make this impossible for them to follow through on. Your family are counting on you to have their backs. THE TIME IS NOW! Until next time...................

https://gostargazing.co.uk/events/locations/stonehaugh-stargazing-pavilion/ On Friday night, after a couple of very successful pre-date meet ups, I had an official first date with an absolutely amazing man who for now shall remain nameless. As a lady of a certain age who has experienced an extortionate amount of first dates over the last 18 months, most of which have never made it to date two, (whole other article), I had come to expect the standard, incredibly uninventive first date. Drinks, dinner, general but not too invasive or deep chit chat, and the slightly uncomfortable attempt at a first kiss with someone who you highly doubt you're going to see again. It had become a bit of a pattern, and in reality, one which I think I probably went with because my walls were up higher than the Tower of Babel. (Insert laughing emoji here). When you date like that, you don't have to worry that someone is going to come along and knock them down in epic hero style! You can pretend that whats on offer is not for you, but the reality is that you have stopped looking for whats right because its safer for your heart. Anyway, back to the story! We had decided on a couple of pre-date dates to get to know each other as friends first, and keep it at a nice, family friendly U rating as we have both been through some stuff. In reality, the first second I saw him at Tynemouth market, that 'lets be friends first' thing became completely obselete. Within minutes, we were holding hands, laughing and joking and wandering around the stalls as if we had been together for years. We had another couple of pre-date dates which were just as successful and decided that Friday night would be our first offical date date! I left the planning in his very capable hands, and for the first time, I think we could have done anything and I would have been happy. I was just enjoying spending time together. What he settled on however, was quite literally out of this world! (Fella's, if you've read this far, this is the point at which you need to take notes because this is absolute first date gold and will almost definitely guarantee you a second date!) Instead of the standard drinks and dinner, I found myself in the car with him driving up to Stonehaugh Observatory in Northumberland for a stargazing evening. My job was road snacks girl and people, I take that job very seriously! Pringles, seasonal halloween Haribos and Maltesers fuelled the hour drive to the observatory, along with the rock music playlist that we had put together specially for the drive. One thing I love about meeting new people is hearing new artists. My music collection has grown exponentially over the last couple of years, and Friday was no exception! The drive up there, although dark, was really beautiful. Until you're travelling on these routes, its easy to forget just how beautiful the Northumbrian countryside is. Rolling hills, wild, untamed moorland, deep forests and incredible views are just a few of the amazing things that Northumberland offers, and the route we took up there was no exception. Stonehaugh is a beautiful and tiny little village in the middle of nowhere, nestled amongst the hills. The light pollution is virtually non existent unless the Man in the Moon has left his lights on full 😉, and other than the sound of running water and the occasional hoot from an owl, the quiet is unbelievably tranquil. After getting slightly lost, we found Liam, the owner of Stonehaugh Astronomy, and the fountain of knowledge around all things universe related, and he walked us up to the hut where the magic was going to happen. There was supposed to be another group joining us, but as it turned out, they cancelled at the last moment because of the cloud cover, turning an already epic date choice into an out of this world experience! I hope you boys are all taking notes! The night started with a hot drink and some casual chat about how much we knew about astronomy. I love to look at the stars, but I am a little bit clueless really when it comes to them, so the talk that Liam was giving on an Introduction to Astronomy couldn't have been more perfect for me. Fun fact........ Did you know, life was created in the final breaths of a dying star? You are quite literally made from stardust! (https://esawebb.org/news/weic2207/) This image, taken on NASA/ESA/CSA's James Webb telescope was taken as the star was dying. We all know how beautiful they are when we see them twinkle in the night sky, but star's truly do save the best till last! Obviously, it is a tad more complicated than that, but opening with that absolutely fed the romantic in me. Each and every one of us carry the building bricks of the entire universe within us. Mindblowing! From there, we talked about the planets, and Liam ventured onto the subject of distance and time in space. Trying to get your head around the unimaginable distances that lie between the planets just in our galaxy alone is incomprehensible. The numbers were huge! Another fun fact for you.... the nearest galaxy to us is Andromeda - named after the Princess Andromeda in Greek mythology. For those of you who haven't seen Clash of the Titans, shame on you! (The original of course, although the new one is not awful!) For those of you who have, she was the Princess that Perseus saved from being sacrificed to the sea monster Cetus. She makes up the largest spiral gallery to our own, and if you're lucky, on a clear night you can see her with the naked eye. She is spectacular, and at 2.5 million light years from the earth, if you see her tonight, you are actually seeing her as she looked 2.5 million years ago. To see her as she looks today, you will need to survive the next 2.5 million years to do so! Just to give you an idea on distance, if we were to send Voyager 1 to investigate her, it would take 44 billion years for it to get there at its current speed. The only problem there is that she is actually due to collide with our Milky Way in around 4-5 billion years, so not only will the probe have not actually left our galaxy at the point that happens, she won't actually be there anyway when it finally arrives at her current position? Mind blown yet??? Photo taken by Peter Forster. https://earthsky.org/clusters-nebulae-galaxies/andromeda-galaxy-closest-spiral-to-milky-way/ Liam was amazing and continued to wow both of us with facts, figures and some of the most incredible photography and videos I have ever seen. They were breathtaking and really made the night sky come alive for me. With the patience of a saint, he answered every single question fired at him and didn't falter at all. The presentation was incredible but of everything I learned during it, the thing that blew my mind the most was this........ Wait for it!! If you stand on the beach and put one single grain of sand on your fingertip and then hold it up to the nightsky, the area the single grain covers in the sky contains 10,000 galaxies! I cannot even begin to comprehend that. The Hubble Telescope was pointed at some of the darkest areas of space that appeared to be completely empty. It was left to gather light for around 55 hours and the photo below was what was actually up there. (Photo from Hubble Telescope) It's so pretty to look at. It takes your breath away! What Hubble found was young galaxies, believed to be from somewhere between 400-800 million years after the Big Bang. 10,000 galaxies growing up in a patch of sky the size of a grain of sand! I could go on and on, (the rabbit hole has opened up and I am on my way to Wonderland), but I won't! All I will say is that the time we spent during the talk with Liam was mindblowing and I have learnt some amazing things! The night ended with an attempt at watching the moon and a single solitary star that had broken through the clouds. As I mentioned earlier, the little man up there had left the light on making it a 98% full moon. Lovely to look at but creating a huge amount of light pollution. Had the clouds not been there, it would have restricted what we could see so if you are planning on paying Liam a visit, check the moons phase at the time you want to go. That beautiful big ball of while light is actually rather counterproductive to your viewing experience! The moon also moves remarkably fast. I went to look through the telescope at her and you can actually see her moving as you watch. I've never noticed that with a naked eye before but it was initially a little disconcerting. It took me a second to realise it wasn't me wobbling! I could wax lyrical all night about the date, (and the guy of course who I am now rather smitten with), but I won't! What I will say is get your tiny little tush's up to Stonehaugh Astronomy and spend some time learning about the wonder that is the night sky around us. I guarantee you will love every single minute of it! https://gostargazing.co.uk/events/locations/stonehaugh-stargazing-pavilion/ Single boys, I hope you have paid attention! Next time you are taking a possible love interest on a first date, think outside the box. Don't go for the predictable. Do something different. I guarantee you, she will absolutely love you for it! Until next time...................

There is something pure and magical, wild and untameable, terrifying, inviting, mysterious and secretive when you look out to sea. She is comforting yet exciting in equal measure, her hidden depths holding endless secrets and stories that draw you into her world, curious and desperately thirsty for a deeper understanding of those vast bodies of water that cover such a huge portion of this spinning globe we call earth. Her moods are legion, her temperament passionate and explosive. Her abyss filled with untold dangers and exquisite beauty. She is friend to none and mother to all. I am yet to meet someone who is not drawn to the sea in some way. For me, she is a source of incredible comfort and wonder. My home is looking out to sea. The sound of the waves and the smell of the beach soothes my soul inexplicably. No matter what time of year it is, I am drawn to the beach. The feel of the sand between my toes and the biting chill of the water as it washes over my feet, quietening the noise in my brain and creating an almost meditative state that hears only the sound of her undulating waves and the call of the birds flying overhead. Her beauty is immeasurable, continuously changing dependant on the time of the day, the time of the month or the time of the year. She is unpredicatable at best, wild, raw and turbulent at her worst. She takes no prisoners and is unforgiving in her rage, but with that rage comes exquisite and bewitching beauty that draws you in and surges through your soul. As a species, we have plundered her bounties indiscriminately, and in doing so, we are destroying one of our most valuable and beautiful resources. Look out to sea. Hold your breath. Feel the spray on your skin. Close your eyes. Breathe in deeply, drawing in the essence of nature. The wild, untamed majesty that draws you in. Feel the water flow over your feet, A chill running through you, The stark reminder that you are alive. Crunch your toes in the sand, Bare, grainy, texture, waking up the life energy flowing within you. Look past the horizon to the possibilities of your life. Untold, unimaginable potential riding on the waves of courage. Of fearlesness, of audacity and endurance. Open yourself up to the vast power that she wields, The strength that she possesses and would gladly share. The connection to your soul that she has. Look inward, embrace the magic. See the Universe and everything it wants for you. Breathe in the truth of existence. Understand who you are and what you can truly become. Ride the waves. Surrender to the possibilities. Soar into your future. Until next time.............

The other week, after reading a Facebook post, I got to thinking about love and what it all means. I’m a sap when it comes to love. I’m the first one to admit it. I have always loved with my whole heart. In all honesty, I have no idea how else to love. If you have me, you have me 100%, and I will fight with everything in me for you. When I was younger, love was romantic songs, red roses, long walks along the beach, spontaneity and unbelievable sexual chemistry. It was romantic gestures and undying, unbridled passion. It was stolen kisses and secret smiles that promised the world. It was gentle whispers and even gentler caresses that set your skin on fire and your heart beating so fast that you believed the whole room could hear it. It was conversations that went on for hours as you lay spent in each other's arms, neither of you wanting to close your eyes and sleep because the reality you were in was too beautiful to step away from. As I have gotten older, whilst that hasn’t changed completely, I’ve begun to realise that actually, it's so much more than what Hollywood has presented to us for so long. Whilst there is all that to enjoy, there is so much more to love, and it doesn’t just revolve around romance, but around everything that life throws at you. The good, the bad and the ugly. As a teenager, I fell into what I thought was love so very fiercely. I wrote love songs and pined for hearts that would never be mine. I wrote poetry and plays and listened to music that sang of unrequited love and broken hearts. I wept for the hearts that ignored mine and instead chose to love the skinnier, more popular girls in the way that typical teenagers do. Love was the proverbial minefield of heartache and pain. Unlike the movies where the girl gets her guy at the end, I could never quite close the deal. Maybe I intentionally chased the hearts that I knew would reject me. Maybe it was part of the creative soul that I harboured. The one that subconsciously needed the pain and the rejection to be able to write, sing, paint, and create. The soul that was as deep as an ocean and that hid a thousand hopes and dreams in its murky depths beneath the crippling doubt that ate away daily at my belief that I could have the world. They say an artist is a creature plagued by demons and I can testify to the absolute truth of that statement. We truly are. We feel in a way that nobody really understands. We are crippled by uncertainty and doubt, and as our own biggest critics, we tear ourselves apart so much more voraciously than anybody else ever could. We see the world so very differently, and as a result, we feel emotion in a way that leaves deep chasms in our souls to either be filled with love or pain. We have an unrealistic view of the world based on the words that we write, the music we listen to, the scenes that we paint and the views we see through our lens. We ache for acceptance but don’t really have any idea what that looks like. We have never really learned to accept who we are because that would mean giving up some of what makes us who we are and as artists, we harbour extremes. Darkness and light. All-consuming love and irrational anger. Passion and indifference. Calm and excitement. We are the definition of black and white emotionally and it doesn’t get any easier as we get older, especially for those people who try to love us. The combination of youth and love was exciting, like being sucked up into a tornado of endless possibilities and overwhelming emotions, but forty something love is a whole new ball game and has depths that I couldn’t have ever begun to imagine in my late teens and twenties. According to some, you are destined for three great loves in your life. Your first love is the one you tend to experience as a teenager. That tornado of possibilities that is full of hopes and dreams. This is the love that will tend to shape your ideas of how love should be, but for most, is more about us than anyone else. Its raw and all consuming, overwhelming and devastating, uncontrollable, exquisite and painful in equal measures. It will break you in ways you never thought possible, but if you let it, that devastation will allow you to rebuild yourself as you begin to understand who you are, what you want and what you will accept in your life. Your second love is the one that will truly break you. Also known as the ‘hard love’, this is the one that teaches the hardest lessons that you will ever learn about love. It teaches pain and what you need to avoid in your next relationship. Unfortunately, you will continue this pattern of painful relationships until you learn the lessons that this love is trying to teach you. I know this from personal experience and I am only now beginning to embrace those lessons. Honestly, the last 18 months has been an incredible period of growth for me after repeating the same mistakes over and over. Like they say, the definition of stupid is doing the same over and over whilst expecting a different result! (Insert face slap here). The third, and hopefully the last great love of your life is the one that is unexpected and will surprise you. It won’t be what your teenage, imagined love was, but will instead far surpass everything you could have considered. It won’t follow the rules that you expected love to follow but will flow naturally in a way that only unconditional love can. It will break all your ideas of how love should be and will not only teach you how to accept love, but how to give love in a way that you have never done or understood before. Unconditional love, outside of being a parent is a strange thing. All of a sudden, it becomes about so much more than you and what you can get from it. It becomes about them and what they need with a true acceptance of who they are. They may not be perfect, but quite simply, they are perfect for you. It becomes about being there no matter what and loving them however difficult things may get. The heart that’s meant to love you unconditionally will always fight for you when you want to give up. It will pick you up when things get tough and give you its smile when yours has gone. It will support you and love you, even when you feel like you are completely unlovable. It will embrace your darkness because that darkness is part of who you are, and it will hold you until you find your light again. If you let it, magic happens in the embrace of a heart that loves you unconditionally. To love with your whole heart, unconditionally - it’s the greatest gift you can give someone. Opening yourself up to the possibility of hurt and heartbreak is a terrifying thing, but if that is reciprocated, it’s the most exhilarating and incredible thing. The rewards far outweigh the risks, but you have to be brave enough to step into the unknown and take the chance because if you don’t, you’ll never know. Until next time......

For those of you who have found yourself inexplicably single and venturing into online dating in your 40’s, I applaud you! For those of you who are in your late teens, early 20’s and realising that this is the way 90% of the population meet now, I pity you (insert weeping emoji here!) Give me an awkward but sweet meet-cute in a bar, the library or even a supermarket over the avocados instead of the inexplicable horror of a dating site. Where do you even begin and what do you do to avoid the possibility of catfishing, weirdos, stalkers or even complete nutters responsible for someone’s death. Just in case you’re curious, I have experienced all four in the last 12 months, so I am a girl who is talking from way too much experience! All that experience has shut it down for me for a short while but here are just a few of the things I learned while I was on there. It all starts with figuring out which site to use and how many you should be on. I say this because in my experience, the vast majority of people like to raise their chances and hedge their bets across a few different sites. That way you are hopefully giving yourself a better opportunity of finding someone, but heed my warning people, you are also opening yourself up to way more crazy! You then have to decide if it's worth paying the extortionate fees they charge to find love, or better to just go with the free package and keep those fingers crossed that your path will cross with Prince Charming in amongst a whole host of frogs! (Did I really just say that?) Once the site is picked, you have to put a profile together. It's like interviewing for a job! The trauma involved in trying to represent yourself in a truthful way whilst still being a little bit sassy and a little bit sexy is real folks! How much information is too much? What type of information should you share? Should you fluff? (I would say a big no to that one – just be yourself and you cannot go wrong). And then....... horror of horrors....... adding the pictures! So, for those of you who may be beginning this journey, here are a few tips. Blokes, take heed. This goes for you too! 😉 DO NOT do the duck pout. It's not sexy ladies and you just end up looking stupid! Please, please, please, I beg you, DO NOT stick your tongue out if you’re over the age of 6. (And if you aren’t, what the hell are you doing on Tinder!) I have lost count of the amount of 40 something men, (and older incidentally), that I have swiped left on because they are sticking out their tongue. It not cool, it’s not sexy and it just makes you look a little sad to be honest! DO make sure all the pictures you use are recent and avoid the filters. Yes, it should be based on personality, but I have been on two dates over the last 12 months where it turned out that the pictures were at least 10 years old, and the gentleman in question didn’t look remotely like their photos. It's not just about the way you look, but more about finding yourself asking the question, if they are lying about something as fundamental as this, what else are they lying about. That’s a very rocky foundation to start anything on, and in this type of situation, it's important that you represent yourself accurately otherwise what is the point in any of it? ALWAYS write a short bio. I always swipe left on people who don’t have one. It doesn’t have to be War and Peace but something light-hearted and fun is always nice to read. Don’t be a dick though. We all know online dating is tough, but you don’t need to bitch about the opposite sex because it hasn’t worked out for you yet. Major turn off. BE HONEST about what you want. If its just a fling, say that. Time is precious and I have wasted far too much of it on talking to people who say they want a relationship when in actuality, they just want to do the horizontal tango, no strings attached. If thats your jam, that's fine - just be honest about it! So, your profile is done and you're sitting there with your finger hovering over the button that will make it active, and hopefully, fingers, toes and everything else crossed, bring Henry Cavill into your life, or is that just me! Here are a few more do's and don'ts from an unwilling master of the online dating circuit because the brutal truth ladybugs and gentlefolks, is that online dating can be coarse, savage and merciless. It’s a cattle market of epic proportions! Dick pics, sexual innuendo, blatant misogyny - and that can be all in the first five sentences! Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott would be horrified. (Ladies, for those of you who don't know your feminist history, here's a link for you to educate yourselves. Please do!) https://interactive.unwomen.org/multimedia/timeline/womenunite/en/index.html?gclid=CjwKCAjw-KipBhBtEiwAWjgwrAcf6gskrGctSMj4ixjsfpeN7voO_0Xx_J8AaHGCEoYy57IIhof4-BoCcuwQAvD_BwE#/ Whilst I don't always agree with the toxicity of third wave feminism, (that is a whole other article, or maybe even a series of them), for some reason, on a dating site the feminist movement has stepped right back to the era of men believing they can say and share what they like with no respect for the woman or her feelings. Fellas, an unsolicited dick pic is not welcome and some would say, it could be considered a form of sexual abuse. For me, its an instant block but thats because I don't worry about upsetting the person on the other side of the screen who thought it was appropriate to send that, regardless of how I felt. Some ladies are not quite so quick to do that because they worry about how it looks. Don't worry! If he has to send his dick to get your attention then he deserves everything he gets and isn't worth the screen he is cyber flashing on. Boys, I apologise if this is one sided. I can only speak from a female perspective. I have no doubt at all that this is something men experience with women as well and on behalf of the decent women out there, I can only apologise for that. It may not feel like it sometimes, but honestly, there are some good eggs still around! The rest of you....... Be Ashamed. Be Very Ashamed!!! The old adage, honesty is the best policy couldn't ring more true than what it does with online dating. We have all been spoon fed a Hollywood idea of how it should be and the harsh reality is that life doesn't work like that. Love is messy, painful, difficult and full of agony but its also honest, warm, tender and passionate, and when you work everyday at it, it can be the most fulfilling thing you ever experience. Be unapologetically you from the start. Be honest about who you are and what your expectations are. Be honest about what you want and need from someone you're bringing into your life. Recognise your value and don't allow anyone else to devalue you in anyones eyes, most importantly your own. Only bring in those people who deserve to be part of your life. If they begin by pushing the boundaries you have put in place then chances are, they are always going to do that, and do you know what - you are worth so much more. It's better to be on your own than with someone who will not love you the way you deserve and want to be loved. Always think safety. If anything feels wrong, then step away. Listen to that quiet little voice inside you because that quiet little voice is there to protect you. I know this better than most after arranging to meet someone for a date. On talking to him a little more, there was something that just didn't feel right at all. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I listened to it and I cancelled the date. We kept in touch for a couple of weeks, and then a couple of weeks ago, I had some friends over who had asked about him. I explained and one of them suggested googling his name. It turns out that this person had killed someone whilst having sex with them. Rough sex gone wrong was essentially the verdict. For the murder of a young mum of two, he only served a couple of years and is now back on dating sites. Moral of the story - when your gut tells you something doesn't feel right, listen to it! If you get uncomfortable or don't like the tone of the conversation, shut it down. Unfortunately, there is a degree of insidiousness about talking over a messaging service that makes it feel like you can't just block someone. Its intrusive and can get to you within every aspect of your life which gives that tool you use for chatting, an unimaginable amount of power over the decisions that you make. Think of it this way. If you were out on a date with this person, and this was going on, would you stay or would you make your excuses and leave. This is the point where ghosting is actually okay, but generally that is frowned upon, and with good reason. Don't Ghost unless of course they have given you good reason to. Its a dick move people! If you aren't feeling it, just be honest. Its the right thing to do. Online dating holds enough trauma without the addition of ghosting! I have horror story after horror story from the last 12 months of online dating, but scattered in amongst the dick pics, (double digits people), sexual deviants, narcissists, stalkers and total nutters, there have actually been one or two really decent men. Unfortunately, the chemistry wasn't quite right, but it leaves me confident that there is someone out there for me and when the universe deems it right, we will be brought together, but in the meantime, I am just going to enjoy the journey! Until next time.......

I launched the blog with a couple of highly personal articles and one of them seems to have really struck a chord with people. It's tough to open yourself up to the people close to you, but to open yourself up to everyone is an incredibly daunting thought. The internet/social media and people in general can be very cruel. We have seen it time and time again and unfortunately, with the anonymity that the internet offers, the situation continues to get worse. You put someone behind a screen, and they suddenly seem to believe that it makes them invincible, allowing them to say things that they wouldn’t dare to voice if they were stood in front of the individual in question. There are reprehensible, disgusting and thoughtless comments made because of that element of anonymity. Over the last twenty or so years, since the introduction of the internet, social media and the mobile phone, the mental health crisis has gone from bad to worse. Lockdown exacerbated this already growing problem and in between rising suicide rates and the breakdown of friendships due to differing views, we saw a huge rise in loneliness and isolation that has made it harder still for people to communicate the old-fashioned way. For those of you unsure what the old fashioned way is, in my day it was referred to as talking😉 Unfortunately, with the development of the internet, the Convid crisis, (did I just say that), and the imposed isolation during lockdown, not only have adults mental health been impacted, but our children's mental, physical, social, emotional and spiritual health has been affected in a way that they may never fully recover from. I speak as someone who has children and who has watched this crisis unfold. As a mum of two, I have had the pleasure of helping two babies turn into fully functioning adults with their own hopes, dreams, belief structures and relationships. They make me proud every single day. They surprise me every single day. They are my legacy, and they have grown and continue to grow into exceptional human beings. The reason I bring them up is because our upbringings were very different. I was the generation that built treehouses and got shot at by the local farmer when we ran across his field to get to the back of the airport to watch the planes taking off whilst we lay on hay bales. I was the generation that climbed trees and fell out, breaking limbs several times before I beat that tree! I was the generation that would go out on a morning on my bike with friends, a picnic in my rucksack and not come home till the sun was going down. No phone, no way of my parents contacting me and them never really knowing for sure where I was. In reality, I was part of the last generation to experience true freedom and enjoy life without having to worry that my mistakes would rear their ugly head on social media or youtube. My oldest had to learn to balance both those worlds. I insisted on time spent outside with friends, but I also had to accept that the internet would change the way his childhood was experienced. At the age of 12 he had a mobile phone which immediately changed the dynamic from my point of view. For him, it was just what the other kids were doing. For me, I went from the mum who needed to be comfortable with letting him have a degree of freedom, age appropriate of course, to the mum who had to reign in her absolute terror every time she tried to get in contact by phone and he wouldn’t answer. The abject fear that he was lying in a ditch somewhere or that he had been part of some terrible accident was made worse by the fact that he was uncontactable when he should have been more contactable than ever before. I would imagine, if you ask most parents my age and older, they will have experienced those same fears, and trying not to impart that fear of the outside world and the damage it could do onto your child is not an easy task. The invention of the internet was in equal parts incredible and devastating. The world shrunk overnight. Relatives in different countries no longer had to use the phone to get in contact with each other. Face time came along, and you could have face to face conversations with people that you hadn’t seen in years. Anything and everything you wanted to know was at your fingertips, it was accessible 24 hours a day and those things that could take weeks of research could be found within minutes. A blessing and a curse, this left everyone in the uncomfortable position of not knowing what was what, and having to filter as best possible. For those of us like myself who have an alternative view of certain truths, (aka the conspiracy theorist), you could find yourself falling into the rabbit hole and never getting out again. Trying to work through what was truth, what was lies and what lay somewhere in between was complicated, deceptive and difficult. My children navigated this new reality a lot better than I did, especially my youngest who hit the ground running as this was all par for the course by the time he started school. What was never considered with this incredible invention though, was the impact it would have on the mental health of all ages, but specifically of the children growing up with it. All of a sudden, a bully could enter the only part of your life that was a safe space - your home. The ability to contact anyone, anywhere at any time had gone from an exciting, incredible thing to something insidious, incredibly dangerous and irreparably destructive. Bullying is something that most people experience during their school life at some point, and for some it goes on into adulthood, but the internet brought with it a whole new generation of bullies who could destroy you not only outside, but also inside the very place you should have been able to find respite. As an adult, I struggled to understand why it was so difficult for my kids to block someone who was using the internet to attack them outside of school, but for my kids, sometimes the fallout was worse if they did that. - especially when the direct bullying came from someone within their friendship group. How do you tackle someone who is supposed to be your friend and who is bringing other friends into it? Not only that, but the introduction of social media, facebook, snapchat, myspace, youtube. etc introduced the hyperreality of the perfect life. Endless photos of beautiful people with perfect, flawless hair and makeup, the latest designer clothes and shoes, fancy holidays, big houses and flashy cars. It was hyperreality at its most damaging because it portrayed an image of an unattainable and unrealistic life that nobody could live up to. It became the ultimate lie because instead of selling happiness and love for who you are, it taught our kids that to be happy, you had to surround yourself with material things. You had to look a certain way. You had to do certain things. You had to be a certain type of person. As parents, this made an already challenging job teaching our kids that self-worth lies within, almost impossible. That lesson is a difficult one to get as an adult. I am still learning it and sometimes, I have to remind myself that I am just enough as I am. Trying to impart that to a child who is bombarded with images 24 hours a day of what life should be according to the world is incredibly difficult, and I suspect is only going to continue to get harder as the internet takes over more and more of our lives. Sometimes, thinking about the changes we have seen makes me think of Wall-E. For those of you haven’t watched it, you really should. It’s a beautiful film, but also incredibly thought provoking and as it plays through, there are so many elements within it that you can relate to in today’s world. Our reality is not really that far from the reality in the movie and that is actually quite a scary prospect. If you want to really terrify yourself though, read The Machine Stops by E.M Forster. It’s a look at the future, and considering it was written in the early 1900’s, its scarily prophetic and quite worrying! So, what does all this have to with the rise in mental health issues I hear you say? You have waxed lyrical about the state of the world but what does this actually mean? As individuals with feelings, thoughts, opinions, desires, fears and ideas, we have always been susceptible to what others thought. As much as we would like to think that we don’t need the approval of others to feel like we are living our lives the way we want to, at times, the need for that can become almost overwhelming. The introduction of the internet, whilst an incredible achievement and the beginning of so many new possibilities for people has also created an inescapable isolation. It has allowed the poison of other people's hate, damage and fear to seep into our lives in a way that it should never have been able to. It has made our children so much more vulnerable to predators because anyone could be on the other side of that screen. It has introduced misinformation, lies and danger into our day-to-day existence, leaving us fearful and worried about things that we would have otherwise accepted as inevitable. It has invaded every essence of our being - emotional, spiritual and physical and with that, it has brought a combination of complete elation and utter despair whilst taking no responsibility for the damage caused. We see a rise in mental health issues as a result of our ever-growing dependence on something that serves only itself. Something that leaves us questioning whether we are good enough and that encourages us to want more and more without truly understanding the damage that burning need for material wealth does to our soul. The question we have to ask ourselves is this – Has the cruelty we see online towards others always been there and all the internet has done is to give that cruelty a voice, or has it just given a voice to those who didn’t have one previously, making those the people who shout the loudest? Are you one of those people who has needlessly attacked someone who went against you because you were sat behind a screen and knew that you could get away with it? Moreso than ever, we now need to support each other. The world is changing every day and with that, the isolation is growing ever more prevalent, bringing with it a generation of adults and children who are struggling. The conversation started several years ago, but every single one of us have a responsibility to keep it going, even if we aren’t one of those who is suffering. We have a responsibility not only to ourselves, but to other people to let them know that its okay to talk. That its okay to not be okay and that asking for help takes more strength than it does to hide away. We are in the middle of a mental health crisis of unprecedented proportions. If we don’t keep talking and we choose to stop listening, we are going to lose so many people whose main need is to know that someone cares enough not just to ask but to listen. None of us should be ashamed of where we are mentally because in todays world, those issues are commonplace. Nobody should feel the isolation anymore that comes with not feeling that you belong, that you are not enough or that you are not worthy because we should all be supporting and lifting each other up. Although the blog was always supposed to be a lighthearted look at life as a forty something, I am finding that within that, there are things that need to be talked about so as per the last article on mental health, lets actually start that conversation. Lets make this a safe space to talk about those things that we struggle with, and maybe, somewhere in amongst those conversations, someone will be able to offer some insight or help that will make something that felt insurmountable, just that little bit easier to handle. Until next time..........

I remember the first time I ever watched a handsome Prince ride in on his white horse, sword drawn, ready to rescue the beautiful Princess from the evil dragon that held her captive in its crumbling tower. It was Disney’s Sleeping Beauty, and it was painfully and exquisitely lifechanging. I was young, impressionable and immediately swept away by the complete romance of the imagery. The drama, the colours, the sounds and then the heartbreaking romance of the inevitable kiss that shattered the spell and woke her from her slumber. It was all about that final look. The way he looked at her, the way she looked at him – as if they had been looking into each other's eyes their entire lives and nothing and nobody could tear them apart. The idea that true love could save you was intoxicating, and I suspect, like most women in my generation, I was immediately hooked by the idea that someday, my Prince would ride in on his white charger, draw his metaphorical sword and sweep me off my feet. I wanted more than anything to be that Princess and while Disney kept churning movies out to the masses, I became more and more obsessed with the fantasy. As we all learn over time, the fantasy is not reality, and to expect it to be is ultimately going to deliver heartbreak. For those of us who wear the rose-tinted romance glasses, it’s a hard pill to swallow. How do you navigate a romantic life that doesn’t fit with what you spent your childhood being exposed to and believing in, and how do you make sure that you don’t put so much pressure on the person you connect with that they begin to feel that they will never match up to those unrealistic expectations, resulting in you losing them? When is enough truly enough? One thing I have learnt in my 40 something years, whilst trying to navigate the unimaginable stress of relationships and understanding the opposite sex is that romance manifests itself in many different ways. In your early teens, when you first really begin to see boys as boys and not just smelly creatures who push you over in the playground and take the mick, romance appears as shy little secret smiles over a crowded classroom. He carries your books for you, walks you home and writes innocent and passionate love notes declaring that you are always going to be his. At least that is until the next blonde with blue eyes and impossibly long legs catches his eye, and suddenly, those declarations of undying love and eternities together become a thing of the past and you’re left holding your torn, bloody heart in your hands trying to understand what you did wrong. Teenage love is intense, all-consuming, fiercely overwhelming and deeply potent. Your world is epic and fantastical whilst you’re together, but when things go wrong as they ultimately will, it’s the end of everything. Life itself stops and you feel pain like nothing you have ever felt before. My first real teenage love was an unrequited love. He was handsome, popular and ever so charming. For three years, I could think of nothing else. I wrote and recorded a love song for him that I left in his locker on Valentines Day. I wrote pages and pages of poetry. I even wrote a play for the drama club that cast me and him in the leading roles of a couple who fell in love and then tragedy struck, killing him and leaving her bereft and heartbroken. What I learnt during that period is that I do my best writing and composing when I am in pain. All those broken hearts seem to work in my favour. Go figure! As I learned, and my parents had to endure, the broken-hearted teenager is a wretched, miserable creature, akin to the main character in a Greek tragedy. Forlorn, bereft, purposeless and morose, they shut themselves in their rooms to dissect and understand the overwhelming agony of love and heartbreak. They play love songs incessantly, refusing to eat or talk whilst they navigate their first experience of true rejection from someone who had quickly become their entire world, even just for a short time. The journey is a difficult one, but they emerge hopefully just a little bit wiser, and a little bit more careful with who they give their hearts to. Romance and love changes exponentially as you move through your teens and into your twenties. The innocence that encapsulated those early forays into romance and love begins to dwindle, introducing a much more physical element and creating a whole new dynamic to navigate and master. That dynamic is sex, and it changes everything. My twenties were almost more uncertain than my teens had been. There is a degree of confidence and stubbornness in your teens. You know it all and nobody can tell you otherwise. As you head into your twenties though, you begin to realise just how little you really know, and relationships become a whole new monster. Sex is introduced and it turns into the whole should I, shouldn’t I? What will he think, what does he want? For all those twenty somethings out there, I know it's an old-fashioned idea but keep it in your pants! A twenty something guy generally doesn’t want to take the girl who slept with him on the first date home to meet his mum. She is the good time girl, not the one you settle down with. The introduction of sex into a relationship creates a whole new dynamic and politics that you couldn’t have ever imagined in your teens. All of a sudden you have something you can weaponize, and that makes it a dangerous and potentially explosive dynamic to introduce. In your twenties, you are still figuring out who you are. You are still trying to be what you think people want and the confidence that you had embraced in your teens seems to completely disappear. My twenties were quite possibly the least confident I had ever been. I relied on other people to give me value. It was a dangerous precedent to set and one that followed me through right into my forties. When I look back to my twenties, thirties and even more recently, there was broken heart after broken heart, not always mine and not always unavoidable. What becomes of the twenty something broken hearted? Well, we tend to hide our broken pieces behind huge walls that make it almost impossible for anyone to get close to us. We create a persona that protects us and prevents others from getting too close. It makes it difficult for us to be who we are and almost impossible for those people who want to get close to us to do so. A twenty something broken heart has not yet hit cynical and suspicious. It still has a degree of innocence and that creates a huge amount of pain. The twenty something broken heart is the one that really has the potential to destroy the belief that love is everything that Keats and Shakespeare wrote endless sonnets about. It’s the broken heart that will lay waste to all the love songs you listened to over and over in your bedroom as a teen when you thought you understood what love was. It's completely shattering because it’s the one that allowed you to believe for a second that you had grown up, that you had found your soul mate and that the endless parade of dates, break ups and friends setting you up was over. It gave you a glimmer of a perfect future before it ripped it away. The thing is, and you must take this from those of us who survived, it does get better! There are those lucky souls who meet their better halves in their twenties, but for the majority of us, it’s a process! I truly believe that the purpose of the twenty something broken heart is to rebuild you into the best version of yourself. In my experience, as one of them, when you haven’t figured out who you are and what you want, the broken heart is a lesson that the universe sends you to show you what you should be demanding from the people you let into your life. How long it takes you to figure that lesson out is up to you. I have to be honest; it took me a while! The lesson is finally sinking in now that I am in my mid-forties, but it's an important one. To find your twin flame, soul mate, or whatever term you choose to use, you have to know and understand who you are, what you want and what you need from a partner. Don’t get me wrong, it's very much about compromise, but you begin to learn in your twenties that you have to be true to yourself and what you want. Anything else is not acceptable. It's better to be on your own than it is to be part of something that doesn’t fulfil you. My hope for you all is that the twenty something broken heart is the last one that you will ever experience, and you will find your lobster. (If you know, you know😉). If like me, you find yourself hitting your forties and still experiencing heartbreak, it can feel extremely isolating. If you use it correctly though, it can become a completely reformative experience. You develop a much deeper understanding of who you are and the thought of being on your own – not alone – is no longer a scary one. Life opens up so many possibilities when your soul focus moves from finding someone to complete you to realising the only person that you need is you, and that finding yourself and making the most of everything that your short time on earth has to offer is the only way forward. Life becomes exciting for all the right reasons and there is no time to be lonely. Don’t get me wrong, a relationship is an amazing thing, especially when you’re with the right person, but if you can’t be happy on your own, then you will never be truly happy with someone else. You are utterly unique, exceptional and one of a kind and you deserve to be with someone who understands and respects that. So, what becomes of the broken hearted? We figure life out, learn to demand better for ourselves and learn that to move forward, you have to start to choose you! Until next time.........

Lets talk........ Mental Health This article was originally going to take a very different direction. The subject was supposed to be Covid, lockdown and the inevitable rising crisis in mental health, but no matter how I tried to put it together, it just wasn’t happening. I have always prided myself on being able to write about most things, even stuff I am not very knowledgeable on. Google is most definitely my friend and has proven invaluable when it comes to researching unfamiliar subjects. For some unknown reason though, I was uninspired, flat and unable to focus on what I wanted to put on paper. That is, until this morning. This morning, I was lying in bed with a caramel macchiato, (thank goodness for Tassimo!), with Grace and Frankie on the telly in the background whilst I scrolled through facebook. As with most facebook scrolling, I wasn’t really paying any attention to what I was looking at. It was the usual adverts, pointless memes and photos of peoples’ breakfasts, (I am ashamed to say I was one of those who put a photo of my breakfast on there on Saturday), when suddenly, I was stopped in my tracks by a terrifying statement. ‘It is projected that by 2030, mental health problems, (particularly depression), will be the leading cause of mortality and morbidity globally.’(www.mentalhealth.org.uk) It was like a slap in the face. The sudden realisation that I could throw facts, figures and anything else I liked at you, but it wouldn’t really make any difference was staggering. You see, I know this intimately. I have spent most of my adult life struggling with mental health and what I know is that all the facts and figures and attempts at help make no difference when you are in the throes of an anxiety attack or desperately trying to drag yourself out of bed and all you want to do is pull the cover over your head and shut the world out. The rising crisis is incredibly personal to everyone who suffers, and even with all the changes that have been made around the subject of mental health, it is an incredibly lonely and debilitating way of living. We still don’t talk about it enough, so today, I want to start a conversation that really matters. To do that, I am going to share a little bit about me, and how mental health issues have impacted my life. I’m Rebecca and I have lived most of my adult life with chronic anxiety, exhausting periods of depression and more recently, PTSD related anxiety. I’m learning with each day that passes that it's important that we talk openly about our mental health not just for ourselves, but so others know that they can talk too. This is my story...... My mental health issues began at around 14 years old. As with most teens, puberty kicks in, creating immense mood swings and an inability to cope with even the most basic of situations without turning them into a huge drama. For a long time, I assumed that the issues I experienced were just part and parcel of the atypical teenage angst we all deal with, but as I headed towards my early twenties and the birth of my first child, I began to realise that those feelings of despair, anxiety, panic and low mood were no longer just caused by me being overly hormonal, but were actually symptoms of something deeper. At that time, as many people in their 40’s and older will remember, mental health was something that generally wasn’t talked about. It was considered inappropriate and would leave people quite uncomfortable. We were at the cusp of change in how openly people discussed their mental health, but we were still part of the generation of the stiff upper lip - keep calm, keep stum and bury it because nobody really wants you to talk about it. I had an amazing family but was never in a position where I wanted to bring them in, not because I didn’t think they would listen but because like most of us who suffer with these issues, we don’t want to burden anyone else with them. We believe we can hide them and that maybe, if we do, they’ll go away on their own and even if they don’t, we can manage them better if we don’t say the words out loud. They are our cross to bear and the longer we hold them tight to our chests, the more difficult it becomes to open your mouth and say those three little words – I need help. Mine took its first really serious tumble after the birth of my first child. I had lost a baby at 23 weeks and within 8 weeks, was pregnant again. I hadn’t processed the loss of the first baby and was unprepared for the emotional toll carrying another child would take. I went from exquisite highs of ecstatic happiness to devastating lows that impacted every step of my pregnancy. The ensuing anxiety and fear that was a direct result of the loss took its toll, and I developed postnatal depression after his birth which left me heavily medicated and unable to bond initially with my new baby. This encapsulated already serious doubts about my abilities as a new mother, and still has a direct effect on my confidence as a parent today, albeit nowhere near as seriously as it did then. I went on to have another child 9 years later, and whilst this pregnancy was a very different one emotionally, due to concerns around his growth and then the introduction of an ICU crib during his birth, I once again developed postnatal depression and found myself medicated, but this time with a doctor who took the situation a little more seriously and put me forward for counselling. Counselling is a very personal thing. If the individual in question isn’t right, it's unlikely to work, and unfortunately for me, my first experience of counselling was not a positive one in the sense that I struggled to connect with my counsellor. She was a lovely woman, and I believe a very competent counsellor, but we just didn’t connect in the way that I needed. I shut back down again, put my walls back up and continued to pretend that everything was fine whilst I was in front of people. Unless you have suffered with depression or anxiety, it's difficult to really explain how it feels. For me, it was and still can be debilitating. For those who have never experienced anxiety, when an anxiety attack hits, the ensuing panic is horrific. I would feel pain shooting through my chest, experience palpitations and spent several occasions in my twenties hooked up to a heart monitor at the hospital before it was formally diagnosed as anxiety related. My skin crawls as if it's covered with thousands of tiny creatures and I can feel heat emanating from underneath it, as if my insides are on fire. I hear my heart beating in my ear like a drum, the vibrations as intrusive as the sound and my head begins to pound not with pain but with the beat of my heart. The desperation is manic and completely disabling and the need to get away from wherever I am at that moment is immediate and all consuming. Anxiety also manifests itself as an uncontrollable anger at times for me, again based in complete and total fear. It's difficult to recognise immediately, but when you have lived with it as long as I have, you begin to recognise the beginning of it, and you put coping mechanisms in place to help you manage it as best you can. Depression hits me completely differently. Whilst anxiety was an almost temporarily manic state of being, depression was completely the opposite. It would start with low mood, and over a period of a few weeks I would sink until I hit the point where something as simple as cooking a meal became almost impossible. I am unmotivated, physically and emotionally exhausted, and couldn’t be bothered to do anything. Dishes can sit for several days, my hair will be scraped back into a bobble, and I come in from work, turn the telly on and don’t move to do anything other than go to the bathroom. Even then, I hold it as long as I can because the energy to move is almost too much. At my lowest point, I didn’t leave bed for a week. I couldn’t see the point. Other than drinking water, I lay and looked at my bedroom wall, not even having the energy to cry. I don’t say this for sympathy but because for those who haven’t experienced mental illness, it's very difficult to comprehend the depths of its hold and just how hard it is to pull yourself away from it. It becomes an almost comforting space in its familiarity. The pain is like an old friend and it's easier to embrace it and disappear into the darkness than it is to fight it. The overwhelming urge to lay down and let it completely envelop you in its entirety is paralyzing. The energy required to fight it is beyond anything you can imagine and takes time to develop. I have had more occasions than I care to count where I have finally had to give myself a metaphorical kick up the ass and drag myself up or I knew I would never leave my bed. I sometimes wonder if I didn’t have my kids around if I would have just succumbed to it. Having my children has been a lifesaver for me because I have had to get on with it even when all I could think about was giving up. They have saved my life more times than I can say. For years, I have bounced between doing okay and then spiralling, usually as a direct result of external influences that I have not been able to control. Moving forward to today, I spent the last 18 months controlling my anxiety and depression with meditation, exercise, healthy eating and focussing on the right things. Unfortunately, those coping mechanisms stopped working and around 8 weeks ago, I found myself in the doctor's office again, shaking and crying and telling him I desperately didn’t want to go back onto medication but that I couldn’t manage it anymore. I had lost control. The thing is, we don’t like to talk about the need for medication. I am the first one to avoid medication. I believe that a lot of things can be cured by exercise, diet, focus and lifestyle changes, but there is always a point at which you have to look seriously at the situation and say – ‘I cannot do this alone.’ The right thing for me at that moment was medication. It has allowed me to get everything back to a more balanced state and gives me the support that I need to get through each day whilst I work through the rest of the issues. Even now, with everything we know and understand, there is a degree of ridicule attached to people who take medication for mental health issues. An aura of shame is still attached to admitting that you cannot cope on your own. For all that we have come forward leaps and bounds in the way we approach mental health, we are still almost prehistoric in the way we talk about it day to day. This makes asking for help when you are suffering extremely difficult. The first issue is admitting that there is a problem because in today's world, why should there be? We have more than we have ever had and yet we are more disconnected from each other and society than we have ever been. We are on the cusp of the biggest mental health crisis the world has ever seen and we still refuse to deal with it in the right way. We refuse to open up and share our stories and yet, 1 in 4 people will experience a mental health disorder in their lifetime, and 1 in 6 reports to the Doctor with a mental health disorder every week in the UK. In 2022, over 703,000 people worldwide were recorded as having taken their own life. In the UK, around 115 people die by their own hand every week and 75% of those are male. Even before the effects on mental health of lockdown and covid, we were seeing an almost apocalyptic rise in mental health issues impacting on every aspect of life for those who were suffering. The most debilitating element of this is the feeling that you cannot and should not talk about it and the worst feeling comes from knowing that someone that you care about is suffering in silence. Just think, how would you feeling losing a family member because you suspected they were struggling, but you didn’t ask because you were worried about embarrassing them or yourself? It's time to start those conversations, however uncomfortable or difficult they might be because you being uncomfortable is nothing compared to how difficult and desperately lonely your loved one's life may actually be. Even if you don’t suspect there’s a problem, creating an environment that is open to the conversation is a huge step forward and can be the difference between someone surviving, and someone giving up. My name is Rebecca and I have mental health issues. I live with them every day and finally have begun to accept that that’s okay. They are part of who I am, and they always will be but with every day, I get stronger and more able to cope with what life throws at me. It can make things tough, but it's also gives me an empathy and heart that many people lack. I am me and I am enough just the way I am. I would love to hear your story. Until next time.........