The Start

Well, I'm doing it. I'm creating a blog. (This is actually my second blog, and the first didn't go to well. I think it totalled 4 posts. We'll see how this one goes.)

I'm calling this "Light and the Prophet" because those are the meanings for the names we picked for our children. (I say 'picked', our boy name was definitely not picked... But more on that at another time.)

I need a place to focus on what is positive and to not get overwhelmed with the fear at the moment. A place to believe and hope. Also a place to be real.

It's currently 4:50am. I've not been doing too much hoping tonight. I've been trawling the internet. This is never a good sign. In amongst this I've stumbled across some really helpful stuff.

I can hear our lodger and she is up talking on the phone. I don't know how long I can keep going with this.

My brains feel like they're falling out my ears at the moment and I'd like to retreat into a cave and gather myself, and I can't. I keep telling myself; "He is teaching me; He is teaching me; He is teaching me". He is teaching me.

But this is the most I've ever had to cope with - here, in this moment. The past five years have been leading up to this moment. That's intense.

The realities of daily life; realities which have changed and expanded a lot over the past three months - life has been evolving and growing in the most wonderful way the past year; these realities are stretching me; I can feel the stretching going on within my head.

Too many fears to mention.

But today, I choose to be thankful that we have this opportunity. That not only do we have THIS opportunity, but that I have all the other mind-blowing opportunities that make my life so exquisitely wonderful and worthwhile: the young asylum seeker project, the marvellous institution that is the Open University and the set of circumstances that fell into place so that I could study, the changing relationship with my parents and in particular at the moment my relationship with my beautiful mother, and of course the wondrous blessing that is mental health care and my amazing counsellor. How I love her.

I am so grateful every day for mental health care. Yes, it is flawed, and yes, it is evolving, but it has given me a precious gift of life and that is something older members of my family were not given: it has given me rest, understanding, and respite; it has made me feel valued and important. When I think about the pain-in-the-backside that is Seroxat, it seems like a small price to pay for all of that.