• An open letter to The Maccabees….

    It’s not often you stumble across a band or an artist that from the moment you first hear them, they grab hold of your heart and cement themselves firmly in it for the rest of eternity. That’s how I felt when I first clapped eyes and ears on you guys. I was living in Manchester…

  • London To Brighton…or more truthfully….London to Bletchingley!

    It would be completely remiss of me not to begin this post by talking about the horrific events that happened in Manchester last week – events which I’m still struggling to comprehend. I went to bed having seen the tweets about an incident at the Manchester Arena and subsequently read “eyewitness” accounts saying that it…

  • Mental Health Awareness Week

    I haven’t written a blog for a while; mainly because I’ve been busy fundraising ahead of my walk for CALM in a couple of weeks time (there’s still time to sponsor me, see here!). Well that and taking 5 million pictures of my beautiful new niece, more of which later. Anyway, this week is Mental Health…

  • #timetotalk

    I haven’t written anything on here for a long time but I thought as today is Time To Talk day that it would be rather fitting to erm…talk! It really is wonderful to see how many people now get behind #timetotalk; my social media feeds have been full of encouraging messages urging people to speak…

  • Keep calm and carry on

    For any of you who have the misfortune of following me on any social media platform, you’ll have noticed my incessant pleading for money. Thankfully I’ve not fallen on hard times but signed up for another charity challenge. It seems that losing various toenails and damaging my hip flexors last time wasn’t enough to deter…

  • Fix you

    If you’ve read some of my other blogs you’ll know that I recently underwent a programme of CBT to try and help me manage my anxiety and depression. The therapist decided that despite 6 years of being told I had depression it might be PTSD that I’m living with. Long story short, she referred me…

  • Does my bum look big in this?

    I did vow when I first started writing this blog that I would try and bring a bit of humour and as yet I haven’t really delivered. So with that in mind I thought I’d write something about one of my biggest anxieties, that is, in the grand scheme of things, pretty ridiculous. Ladies and…

  • How to lose friends and alienate people…

    I’ve been thinking a lot lately about friends and how my mental health has affected my friendships over the past 5 years. It may be an old adage, but the notion of going through a hard time and therefore finding out who your real friends are is a very true one. As anyone who has…

  • The whole picture

    Today’s been a day for panic and anxiety – nothing new there I hear you cry! But rather than the physical panic attacks or the anxiety about an event it’s been a sheer blind panic about how people perceive me and how I come across online and in my communications; Facebook exchanges/Instagram/texts/Whatsapp/Twitter etc. I’ve painstakingly…

  • Precious Time

    As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m currently having CBT sessions, and whilst it’s not been plain sailing, I have found many useful tools that are helping every day seem that little bit easier. I’ve always been a very organised person; I like a plan, I like a list and I like a diary…