Talents

I watched a programme the other day where this 15 year old boy played the piano like he'd Bern playing all his life. He wrote his own piece to play plus could listen to something then play it back straight away. He said the notes were like colours in his mind. He had no desire to play the piano, ever but just knew he could do it so when he tried it he was a natural.

Why has he got this ability? How does he do it? What if we had talents we didn't know about that were hidden? How do we get them out? People practice for years and don't come half way near his talent. Should they give up? Should they persevere even if it takes over their lives and makes them feel bad?

I always wanted a chocolate Labrador but couldn't afford it. I wanted one for years, then I finally got one and it wasn't at all as I expected. She was hard to train, dirty, hairy and smelly but I knew that because I grew up with labradors but then I guess mum always did the cleaning stuff and hoovering. It shattered my dream and left me feeling a tad let down.

Same as parenthood. Thought I was going to be earth mother, all singing all dancing yummy mummy. Erm, no. I do the basics. It's not how I imagined.
I always wanted to be a writer but don't have the discipline to sit and write and it always sounds better In my head!

I don't have any talents I know of as yet but I'd love to be able to sing, dance, climb, play piano, guitar, whisper to horses! Does everyone harbour secret desires like this? Do they day dream of being great artists, singers, pianists whatever??

Why are sone people good at things they hate doing as well? Accountants who are excellent with figures but hate accounting who dream of being marine biologists but failed miserably at biology at school. Or the cook who dreams of being a singer but is tone deaf? Why do we dream about things which are out of our reach?

The mother who hates being a mother while the childless woman prays for a baby. There's not a lot you can do about it once you have children, a child. They are not like dogs who can be re-homed if you find it's not to your satisfaction or you split up so the dog has to go. A child is for life.

Why then doesn't the childless lady just say 'ok, I can't have kids, what shall I do now?' she doesn't. She will drive herself nuts thinking about it and trying over and over for that elusive baby. Human minds, your best friend or your worst enemy.

I always thought if you got what you thought you wanted that would be it. Settle down, chill. What if what you thought you wanted isn't what you need though?

Why do we get what we want but not what we need?
How do we know what we need?

Mum

I want to ask my mum stuff about me and my childhood. But I can't. She isn't here anymore. Wretched cancer. A friend said yesterday 'what goes around comes around' when talking about what a little shite I was as a child. Well if that's the case I'm screwed. I was a devil and got worse as a teenager.
I never thought I'd be like my mum was when I became a mum but I'm just like her in some respects. She hated school plays and it upset me when she didn't enjoy coming to see me perform but now that shoe is on my foot I totally understand.

I wonder what she really thought of me? I tell Hope how I'm feeling and how she makes me feel all the time so she'll grow up knowing at least what went on inside my head. Maybe she couldn't actually tell me because it would have been hurtful but she never once told me she loved me even when I sobbed on her chest that I loved her as she was dying. She just said ' I know you do, I know'. Maybe that was her way of telling me she loved me? But if I love someone I tell them and I don't band it around like it's in abundance.
You get into my heart and you'll stay there for a very long time if not forever and I would do anything for you within my power to make life ok for you.
Guess I will just have to wonder about Mum. I hope in the future less and less people have to sit and wonder about their parents who died too young.

Chuffin annoying stuff.

What is bugging me today? Well, the bloody rain for a start. Trying to get out the house with a stroppy 7 year old is bad enough but when there's rain involved too, well.....
I'm so very bored I'm resorting to ironing and cleaning!!!

Fruit: how bloody annoying. Just been shopping and the stuff goes off in a nano second. Going to shops with said sprog results in much pestering, arguing and falling out so getting fresh fruit everyday is a pain!!

Other peoples children raiding my fridge!!!! Boot up the behind. Adious amigos!! Cheeky buggers.
Anyway I resetting the day and starting again. Shower and out the house to pay in some lovely lolly to my fund from 2 very special people who helped by one of them being waxed. Thanks to Dave and Becky Brant. Bloody good friends x

Eat, pray, love.

I have just read this book by Elizabeth Gilbert and it was just fantastic. I thought it would be a pious ‘born again Christian’ type of thing but it was not that at all. It was enlightening and informative and moving.

The author finds herself in a situation she feels she should be in but does not want to be in and to get out of it has to go through great personal torment and upset to do it. She goes against tradition.

I have fought tradition for a while now. You grow up thinking, find a man, get married, have babies and have a family and that’s you, well that’s how I grew up anyway. There never was divorce in my family, well there was one. But it was always get married, have kids, that’s you. I was a rebel, a black sheep. I wanted to travel, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I thought I should have a career and going from job to job was the sign of a loser.

So I became a nurse, good move. I could travel as a nurse and so for a year I did. My family couldn’t understand why I wanted to go. I wanted liberty and to see the world. It opened me up as a person and gave me a confidence I would never have gained any other way.

I hope that my daughter will want to do it too. I will encourage her and hopefully manage to travel a bit with her maybe? If she’ll have her embarrassing mother next to her!

Reading Glbert’s book made me want to pack my rucksack up and head off. It was so simple living out that bag. You couldn’t buy anything because you had to carry it so the more you bought the heavier the rucksack. I had 3 pairs of pants and 3 pairs of socks! Wear one, wash one and one pair drying. It was ace because now with all the pants and socks I have, can I bloomin’ well find a matching pair of socks or indeed a pair of pants when I need them? Nope. I never had that problem travelling.

 

One pair of shoes! One, maybe 2 if you had flipflops. You didn’t have to worry about what you wore out, you wore the same thing to work in as you wore to the pub! I had a uniform for work and it rarely got ironed. I work caterpillar work boots for work! It was just a minimalist existence and boy was it great. The amount of crap I accumulate now in pursuit of ‘happiness’ astounds me. 

How many games consoles? How many pairs of shoes? Coats?

Things, just stuff. Amazing.

I have to have a stable environment now for my daughter but my feet are itching terribly to get going again. There’s so many places to see yet. Let me at them!!!

Fun’ draising

Well, the leg waxing went well! Thanks to everyone who got involved with it. Namely my hubby Bruce who raised nearly £150! And my friends hubby has raised over £200 too so all in all with the raffle, with kind donations from local places The Bridge Centre who donated a £30 voucher and Mickleover Court Hotel donated a voucher for a meal for 2, the Midlands Co-Op gave me a £10 voucher to raffle off. My lovely work friend offered to make one of her special cakes for one of the winners and my brill hairdresser gave me a voucher for a cut and blow dry at the ace salon Cocco on Peel street in Derby (blatant advertising!) the event raised nearly £600 woo hoo!!!!

I haven’t much on the cards at the moment except a couple of bake sales which always go really well as people lurve cake!!!

 

My time at the mo is taken up chilling and reading and small person entertaining. It’s been nice to take some time off it actually but my mo jo is coming back so I’ll once again be back on 2 wheels and scrounging money off folk!!!

Perv Doctor

Well, in the last couple of weeks I attended a hearing for the GMC (General Medical Council) and gave evidence againgst a doctor whom I went to see as a teenager and was suffering from depression and self harming.

My GP had refered me to this consultant as he was 'a good friend' of his. I didn't much like my GP but I trusted him. My family knew I had self harmed but I was too embarrased to tell them I had been refered to a psychiatrist.

I went to the appointment alone in a clinic I had never visited before. I went into the room alone and Dr Andrew Clayton and I were alone throughout the appointment. Not once did he ask if I'd like a chaperone. He discussed why I had been refered to him and asked me if I was sexually active and how many times a week I had sex. Which I thought was odd.

Worse was to come. He then said that cancer could cause depression and he wanted to examine my breasts. I was horrified but I was young and too polite (??) to object so he examined my breasts. He never talked about treatment, councelling or anything else after the examination and said if I needed to come back to make an appointment or go and see my GP.

I got out of there as quickly as possible with no intention of ever going back. I wasn't about to tell my GP that his friend had examined me inappropriately. I decided if this was the way to treat a depressed teenager then I would have to face it alone and never asked for specialist help again.

I was put on antidepressants a year later after I could no longer cope with the symptoms but had been too scared to go to my GP in case he sent me to a specialist again. I never told anyone about what happened until years later.

In 14 years I struggled with the debilitating symptoms of depression and battled along myself as best I could, falling at the wayside occasionally and climbing the steep slopes out the pits I fell in. On my own, no help.

It wasn't until I was pregnant with my daughter that I had to go and see a psychiatrist. My GP (a different one) felt I was too ill to be treated under his care and got an urgent referal.

I was pleased to see it was a female doctor and I told her why I hadn't seen a specialist in all these years. She made a note of it and said I could report it if I wanted but it was up to me. I was desperately ill and heavily pregnant, I could barely get up in the morning I wasn't about to open that can of worms.

So I kept quiet. I hadn't the strength to fight it myself.

A few years later I got a letter from my psychiatrist asking if I would give evidence against Dr Clayton for a hearing of his employers, Southern Derbyshire Mental Health services, of which he was joint Medical Director from 1993-2006.

I and others gave our evidence against Dr Clayton, although I did not appear in front of the committee and he was suspended from the Trust in 2008, 5 years after I had told my psychiatrist of Dr Claytons misconduct toward me.

Dr Clayton was also found to have child pornographic images on his computer and sentenced to a community order with a supervision requirement for 3 years and a programme requirement(attendance on a sex offenders group work programme). He is on the sex offenders register for 5 years.

I thought that to be the end of it but then the GMC held a fitness to practice hearing of which I attended.

I also found out that the GMC held a hearing against the Trust Dr Clayton worked for to determine whether they could have done more to prevent Dr Clayton commiting these acts and protecting people. They were found not guilty and let off.

I reported him to a psychiatrist in 2003 and he wasn't suspended until 2008! They didn't do enough. I could have done more but I didn't know how to and thought I would be fighting this battle alone. My word against his and I didn't have the strength to do it.

I never once heard a good word said about Dr Clayton. The words 'pervert' 'nonce' and 'slimey' were only ever used. But that was just hearsay, albeit I agreed with the words I had no real evidence against him.

I heard yesterday he has been struck off the register. Yay!!! But he could still practice anywhere in the world and have access to children anywhere. It doesn't bare thinking about.

I suffered because of his actions on my own for 14 years until I was so ill I was nearly admitted to hospital. Maybe I wouldn't have gotten any better care with anyone else, maybe I would but I wasn't allowed the chance because I was too scared of the consequences. I have had to battle to get the treatment I was entitled to even after I was taken seriously by a lovely psychiatrist but that was at the hands of GP's.

It shouldn't have to be that way, for anyone.

If you think you won't be heard, shout louder. If someone abuses their position, report them. Don't do what I did and suffer in silence. It could cost you your life.

Bad times

I having a bad time time at the moment. Life seems really hard and for no particular reason I have hit a brick wall.

My fybromyaligia is playing up big time so I'm in a lot of pain and have no energy. I feel like I have constant overwhelming PMT. I'm irritable, can't sleep, either too hot or too cold, restless, in agony, feel sick and dizzy.

The pain is a constant but everything else comes and goes. My head hurts, my teeth hurt, my gums, my neck, my back, my stomach and no amount of pain relief helps. And my 'dancing legs' are going mad all the time and driving me nuts!!

I can't even think about exercising at the mo and I'm trying to lose weight so have started a diet, which doesn't help me when I'm feeling dizzy or faint but to put even more weight on would be awful.

I just need some time out from it all I think then I'll be right as rain, I hope.

I've been overdoing it I think and just had a relapse so a holiday will do me good.