Monthly Archives: November 2012

Nov 28 2012

Group Therapy vs Mother’s Birthday Showdown

Just a quick post. I have got myself into a right disaster here. My mother was 70 in September, and not having a clue what to get her, I bought her a couple of days in Edinburgh for said city’s Christmas markets. My usual terror of the phone prevented me from having the bloody sense to ring one of her friends and ask if they would be available to attend. So, with a reluctance I shouldn’t be allowed to feel, I booked myself on the flights with her.

No problem. Not my idea of an exciting few days, but whatever. If my mother enjoyed it, that was the main thing.

Moving on. Having discussed the potential group therapy with my therapist, it was agreed that I would go ahead with it. At our last individual session last week, I said to him, in relation to same, “well, I’ll see you in a fortnight then.” The fortnight in question is up on Tuesday coming when the group assembles for the first time.

I was sitting about picking my arse yesterday when I realised with horror that the Edinburgh trip is from Monday to Wednesday coming. It clashes with the first group therapy session.

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Nov 22 2012

10,593

This post is a pity-party of misery. You probably don’t want to read it, particularly if you’re feeling low yourself.

As of 8.15pm yesterday evening, I have existed on this planet for 10,593 days.

It means I’m now 29.

I remember once as a child, a friend and I talking about blokes we fancied. I genuinely don’t remember who I referenced in the conversation, but it was someone over 30 (I’ve always been attracted to older men. Indeed, The Man is 10 years older than me.) My friend posited that “30 [was] really old,” was I mad?! (Quite probably, but for entirely different reasons.)

I didn’t see being 30 as “old.” Much as still do as an adult, I’d sit there and imagine myself at the age I now find myself as someone successful, happy, witty, everything going for her.

Not as an overweight Venlafaxine addict with no career struggling with bills and state benefits and bi-fucking-polar disorder.

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Nov 2 2012

1984 in 2012

Apparently* George Orwell once said:

During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.

I tweeted this quote on Saturday after reading this horrendous story:

A female disability activist had her home raided yesterday by South Wales Police who attempted to intimidate her into stopping posting comments on Facebook critical of government cuts and specifically the Department of Work and Pensions and their attacks on the rights of disability claimants.

In her own words:

I’ve just had the police forcing their way into my flat near midnight and harrassing me about my “criminal” posts on Facebook about the DWP, accusing me of being “obstructive”. I didn’t know what in f**k’s name they were on about.

As Tom Pride, the author of the piece quoted above, noted, this is the kind of policing one might expect in a dictatorial state, as opposed to a supposed democracy. And as @stillicides added, cliché or not:

…I feel like we’re living in 1984 right now – thought crime anyone? Terrifying, depressing, enraging.

Quite.

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