Category: Updates

Looking forward to 2019

Pay rise

This year I am going to get a pay rise … I know this because currently I get nothing and I plan to get something so, a raise is on the cards

Health

As the year goes on I am going to continue to have health. The alternative is I’ll be dead so, I am looking at health for my best option. It might not be good health but, any health is better than the alternative.

New Family Member

Well, someone I am related to somewhere is going to get pregnant so it’s probably very likely maybe!

A Great Holiday

Back in the day, a holiday would have been a trek to the countryside so I am really fortunate that the countryside is just down the road, my entire year could be a holiday!

I Will Feel Loved

Obviously

I will see the funny side

Anyone who doesn’t is in for a miserable life!

Weight is just going to Fall Off me

I’ve a sort of ongoing weight problem. We can all lose weight, I do everytime I take a shit but, the longer term aim is to get rid of the huge mass of body fat I currently have wrapped around me. I am going to do that … with your help!

Summing Up

A random guy said to me a few days ago after a brief chat that I am obviously a glass half full guy and, he’s totally right of course. I could look a the life I have right now and despair at the pain I am in, the financial mess and, my historical experiences certainly might give me cause to fret but, that’s not how I think. I prefer, and I do this naturally, to think of what positive experiences I got from the bad experiences in the past. What do I actually have now rather than what I don’t have. How fortunate it is that I have this pain because, I am the sort who can cope with it and find a path through (even if it’s taking longer than I planned). I have so many good things in my life and that’s what I remember when the demons attack. I know when I feel really panicked with pain and anxiety of an evening that, tomorrow is another day, it’ll be better tomorrow even if only for a bit. I am still me.

I know many are anti religion, this is a very little understood thing about me. I am very against organised religion, I am quite sure they are all corrupt and in it for the money and power it affords them. I am into faith, pure faith. I pray rarely but when I do, my prayers, more often than not, are eventually answered. Sometimes instantly, other times, it takes years. I do not cringe when I hear the name Jesus. I did many years ago, I get that feeling but once I realised that my dislike was not for the faith but for those who held the power in religion and I separated those two, I finally got it.

I don’t do prayers with everyone else, mine are personal. If I needed to be told what to say then I am missing the point.

Be happy in life, if you can’t be happy, be hopeful, if you can’t be hopeful, find someone who is and trust them.

Something changed here in the UK

In reality, with growing gender equality here in Britain it became apparent that valuing women primarily for their looks was inappropriate. Demeaning was the word most commonly used, it devalued women to little more than fashion accessories for men in the eyes of many. I have to confess, I too feel uncomfortable with the concept.

Too many countries seem to hold with the belief that attractiveness should lead to success, a person can get on better in life purely because they look the part.

Just think about that for a moment, look long and hard at it and how damaging a concept that is. One person is better in every way to another just because of genetic markers they have zero control over? So, the logic might go, brown haired people should automatically be better than red heads because of their hair colour? Clearly the assumption is flawed.

In the UK the pageants are all but banned. It’s nearly impossible to watch one except on a streaming service. Many of the judges, looking back, were really just lecherous men in need of some totty. 

We’ve all seen those awful interviews meant to get to the core of the contestants personality which really just showed that beauty was just about their only attribute of note. 

In some countries, the concept of beauty is so empowering that many employers will choose staff based primarily on it. With beauty comes that other little issue, ageism, nobody loves a fairy when she’s forty as the old song goes and it is so terribly true with many companies looking to fill their desks with beautiful people.

Don’t we just need to get away from this whole notion that beauty somehow makes anyone a better person? Is it healthy to label someone on nothing more than their looks. You go in the attractive queue, you go in the lesser queue and everyone else is too unattractive so just as well go home? 

Does a beauty queen represent their town or country? No, of course not! If the UK (doesn’t happen) were to win a beauty contest, does it suddenly make Theresa May look more attractive? Does it boost the career prospects of all women? No, of course not and that there is the crux of it. Beautiful people, women, get hired but their career depends on their looks. Advancement is often elusive to them because, on looks alone, Sheila up in accounts isn’t going to hire them, she wants competent people who can do their job, not some beauty who is going to distract her male workers. So, it gets the foot in the door, on the bottom rung of a company and then the beauty, because that was the primary reason for getting the job, they get stuck.

I spoke to a really attractive guy once, I’ll talk to anyone me. He was mid 20’s and all alone in a bar. Gay, surrounded by gay guys. I asked him why someone as attractive as him didn’t have a swarm of guys around him. The answer was really sad … he told me that many men seemed to be scared of his attractiveness and wouldn’t talk to him. Those that did only wanted his body, they were not looking for a relationship. He said, it often felt like winning the lottery, all that money but a total inability to know which people want to be friends because they like you and which, the majority, because you had money.

That’s really sad isn’t it?

Now, I am not suggesting that attractive people do something to make themselves unattractive, that’s just silly. What I am getting at here is, highlighting attractiveness as a certain body shape, the exact right look is counter productive. As an intelligent species we should be beyond that, we should be able to think deeper than that. 

Every person regardless of their physical appearance deserves the same chances in life. As I have demonstrated, putting extra value on beauty is also detrimental to them as well as those who are perceived not to make the beauty grade.

The crazy thing is, if we’re honest, we all have our own perception of beauty anyway. Why are we having it dictated to us by beauty pageants? That is a form of beauty, it is not the only form. Just think of those teenage girls who end up with eating disorders trying to be ‘beautiful’, those boys who see every female as though he’s a right to see her in a swimming costume?

Humans are better than this, we all deserve better. I honestly believe that our obsession with someone’s else’s version of beauty explains why so many actors and singers just look so much alike. Men give these girls jobs and careers, so rarely do girls who don’t meet the beauty bar level get on in music or acting, we can think of them ourselves it is so easy.

Maybe it is just now time to let these pageants go? Let the value we put upon women be because of why they are, not what they look like?

My mum was beautiful, I bet yours was too yet, she likely wouldn’t have got past the first stage of a beauty contest. Would we ever wanted to have swapped her for someone who did? No, that’s the real understanding of beauty, what is inside and only that.

This is what I do so, if you do the same, you’ll be fine …

What is it?

M.E. or CFS stand for basically the same condition, no one has yet settled on a set name, my doctor prefers CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome). How it affects someone is more ‘ME’, as in the word.

Like a great many conditions, there is not a one size fits all approach. Some broken legs heal in 6 weeks, some take 6 months. Some migraine attacks are over in a matter or hours, some take days. Autism isn’t a condition, it’s a broad spectrum of how it affects people.

Likewise, CFS doesn’t affect everyone the same. Two people could be ‘moderate’ sufferers yet be affected very differently. Some will continue a near normal life whilst others will have considerable struggles.

Work Through It

It upsets me when sufferers are treated as idiots with a condition which is basically in their head. You got to work through it being most commonly uttered. Some will say, once you get your self respect back and work, you will feel so much better.

Look, there is merit in the argument that keeping busy does help with moral. staying at home watching daytime TV is soul destroying. At the other end of the scale, going mad, doing all the housework, helping others out, and basically ‘doing’ all day is, for some, very tiring. 

I can work through it, quite effectively but, it’s like I am on autopilot with many functions. I get the job done but it’s not pleasant.

Tired

So, I hear people ask, ‘Doesn’t everyone get tired at the end of the day?’ … ‘is this just not normal stuff we all feel?

This isn’t like that sort of tired. This is an unable to function tired. Imagine the worst jet lag or, perhaps, that time when a new baby has been waking every hour or so every night for a week. Effectively, imagine as tired as you’ve ever felt and this is the feeling most of the time whether a sufferer has slept or not or worked or not. Last night, for example, I got a full 7 hours and yet by lunchtime I am exhausted, it’s like I just didn’t go to bed at all last night. This is an everyday thing, not just now and then. How quickly it hits depends on how active I am being.

Pain

I am sure, when I think back that, if I got really tired my everything hurt, am I right on that one?

Arms, legs, back, neck … just discomfort, borderline pain and, seizing up in the mornings. This too is ‘normal’ for me

ME and me

So, this is normal for ME and me. Sure, it’s one of those conditions where people can, to an extent, make it up, pretend the symptoms are there and, probably because of that, it’s taken in the same degree of seriousness as ‘man flu’ or a ‘bad period’. In other words, an excuse. Anyone that’s really felt this though wouldn’t want to (or need to) exaggerate it at all. It’s invisible to most, easy to dismiss and, some of the worst people for dismissing it are other sufferers who wrongly presume all cases are the same and what worked for them will work for someone else. No, stop doing that. Your condition is yours, mine is mine. You have no reason to downplay yours, I have no reason to exaggerate mine. We need to trust each other on how much our experience affects us and others. I am happy for anyone who finds what works for their version of a normal life. It could be full time work, part time, voluntary work or struggling with housework. All are valid for the individuals and we must respect that because we all deserve to be respected as tellers of our own truths as opposed to liars and scroungers

My Current Condition

On top of the CFS I also have allergic rhinitis, I have Urticaria , currently whiplash to my back and next following a car accident. I’ve a sty on my eye which hurts and makes my vision blurred. Medically my immune system is always low, my vitamin D is always low. Familial hypercholesterolaemia

Coping with that on a daily basis is tough. Just about everything there is invisible. It’s comical when others not going through what I am expect my help (and get it) complaining about how hard they have it.

Links:

ME/CFS https://www.meassociation.org.uk/about/what-is-mecfs/
Urticaria   https://www.nhsinform.scot/illnesses-and-conditions/skin-hair-and-nails/urticaria-hives
Allergic Rhinitis https://www.nhsinform.scot/illnesses-and-conditions/ears-nose-and-throat/allergic-rhinitis
Vitamin D https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vitamins-and-minerals/vitamin-d/
Familial hypercholesterolaemia  https://www.nhsinform.scot/illnesses-and-conditions/blood-and-lymph/high-cholesterol#introduction
Whiplash https://www.nhsinform.scot/illnesses-and-conditions/injuries/head-and-neck-injuries/whiplash

Creating a final video for a friend who has died to show to friends and family after her funeral is one of the toughest things I have had to do. I describe as like peeling onions!

Desperate to get it finished I was up last night until nearly 4:30 but, I couldn’t have slept with it unfinished, it was too important.

This morning it took me an hour to pluck up the courage to watch the finished production. Usually, video creating is akin to cooking a meal, by the time it is ready I am sick of it and don’t want to see it anymore. With this, wow! An emotional explosion.

Of course, I may be the only one it affects but, if all that work got just one predictable reaction, I am happy with it.

Who would think so much could be packed into just 15 minutes, not very long at all for a lifetime.

Obviously, no one will ever know how complex it was to make, that doesn’t matter really, the end result it was matters. It probably holds the record for the fastest production ever by me.

There were three things wrong with the final cut, I could only correct two of those and the third, well, it’s there, I know it’s there but it will be soon forgotten.