Happy New Year

It's been a while since I last posted - mostly because in the last 3 months I have moved cities, started a crazy-busy new job and my mum was diagnosed with cancer (she's fine now) so I couldn't find the words really.

But it's 2014, new year new start, so am going to be a better blogger & chart the year as I try to be a better person, surround myself with inspiration & embrace fully this lovely new city in flatter shoes! 

Happy new year everyone! xx

'You've Sold Out', says Teenage Me

When I was a teenager with a poster of Che Guevara on my wall, I dreamt about a socialist paradise. I believed the world would be better off with an entirely equal distribution of wealth, that Cuban Communist society, where everything was split evenly, was the best route for humanity.

When I was a teenager at Faslane Peace Camp, I denounced nuclear weapons as the death-knell for society.  I believed my actions were just, that our pre-emptive defence strategy would get us killed.

When I was a teenager, I wrote articles against vivisection, watched videos about bunnies getting burned in labs, read about activists attacking lab technicians and banned myself from eating meat. I believed I was saving the world, one rabbit, one cow and one sheep at a time (*by being veggie, not committing criminal acts, I should clarify*).

When I was a teenager I was illogically liberal on every issue from taxation to civil liberties to environmental issues and foreign affairs. I couldn’t help anyone for trying to help everyone. I was headstrong, obstinate and stubbornly determined that mine was the only way, my views were the correct ones and everything in life was black and white.

Sometimes I look back and think life would be a lot more straightforward to retain those views, to keep pushing for the purist ideals and to never compromise. I learnt very quickly though, rightly or wrongly, that in order to achieve anything of substance, consensus must be achieved, compromise must be sought and life must be navigated between a million shades of grey.

I still call myself left of centre but I also respect other people’s views and opinions too much to head much further left than that. Money and taxation for example, it’s my duty to help those who can’t help themselves of course, but I am not going to stop anyone from working their socks off to earn as much money as possible. After all, those people then contribute (theoretically) more in taxation and in turn employ more people.

I have encountered someone lately who it’s safe to say I find illogically liberal. I have found it challenging to argue with him on a number of issues. On one hand of course, the natural process of getting older will change his mind on several things, but on the other hand, it’s giving me cause for concern that I have become too harsh in some ways.

I’m now utterly detached, dogmatic and disillusioned. Sometimes in the office, because of the job I do I’m forthright to the point of icy and objective to the point of cutting, I worry it affects my humanity. Would it really be the worst thing in the world to let something in, to keep a passion for one of my old causes?

But what could I choose; animal rights and vivisection? I was so passionate about this when I was younger, but now I’ve been to a research lab, I’ve seen a rat with an ear attached to its back and mice being driven insane. I know they are finding cures for Parkinson’s, Schizophrenia and more importantly, the tablets I take daily to keep me alive are tested on animals. So what possible stance could I take that would not result in my turning into a giant hypocrite?

Maybe I should choose civil liberties? I used to follow Shami Chakrabarti’s cases like a teen groupie, but now I am genuinely and utterly torn. Do I care that people are listening in to my phone conversations about my dog barfing on my bed, if it means there’s a chance the security services might pick up on someone down the road plotting to blow up a flight over London? I’m not so sure I do and that utterly terrifies me about the person I have become.

Whatever I decide to focus on, I think it is clear that in order to remain balanced, healthy and happy I need to retain passion for issues in life. Whether others disagree, or indeed whether the 19 year old me disagrees, it’s better to have a passion about any random old thing than to exist without knowing that feeling you get when your blood boils through your veins at some injustice you just have to fix. 

Does Epilepsy Win?

I've been stuck in bed for two weeks now after epilepsy complications have meant I'm not partying every night (obvious joke, the final season of Dexter is on for a start). 

Now I'm on the mend I'm able to think more clearly and focus a bit more on the thought process shared by, I'm sure, many epileptics going through difficult times.

Several medical professionals have informed me lately that I need a stronger support network. They have decreed that living on my own with epilepsy is not a good idea, that I need to have people close by to call on if I get ill. 

It's certainly depressing to be alone and ill, a situation which generally results in having to run back home to my mum's. As a 31 year old woman, this is never my finest hour.

I have been thinking about my options in all of this. Do I take heed of the advice of medical professionals and go where a support network is? In my case, I guess, back to my hometown? 

I don't have a boyfriend, so do I actively seek one to double as a carer to make sure I don't drown in the bath? I don't have a cluster of friends in one place. They're scattered all over the world just how I like them, so do I try and find a group specifically so they can collect my prescriptions when I'm laid up in bed?

Do I ask my work colleagues to take my dog out for walks? Do i ask the tesco delivery man to make me tea and unpack as well as deliver my food? 

Obviously these are all extremely facetious points, but really, where does it end? 

And there is a serious point amongst it. At this crossroads of how I deal with my epilepsy, do I continue to be (at times stubbornly) self-sufficient, do I relent and move home, or do I try to find some kind of middle ground?

The simple fact is, I have never in the 16 years since I was diagnosed, bowed down to my epilepsy. I have never let it win. It has never suppressed my dreams or my goals and I have never let it limit my potential. 

Granted, I don't go to raves, strobing is a step too far! But I take my tablets, get plenty of rest and do everything else the information books tell me to do. 

So why should I change now? Why should I become scared of this little illness or let it control or define me? 

I guess this is a long way of saying, I know I've not blogged in a while and this is why. 

However despite some blips, whether you know me only online or in real life, you can gather that i'm someone who isn't backwards in coming forwards in life. 

I'm happy and I'm positive, my epilepsy hasn't changed me before and I'm sure as eggs not going to let it now.

So no to moving back home but maybe a little less stubborn wouldn't hurt anyone! 

An Ode to the NHS - Happy Birthday

As a fat little baby with whooping cough, you took me in, your nurses calmed down my mum and made me better. As a fat little baby you stuck needles in my arms to keep me protected in years to come and as a fat little baby you diagnosed me with a hip condition and put me in plaster casts for two and a half years to save me from further pain down the line.

You gave my family a regular team of doctors and nurses to make me feel less scared, my mum less alone, my brother less ignored and you gave us a second family in that children’s ward so we always had a reason to smile.

As a bossy boots in primary school, who adopted a stray cat you gave me a tetanus shot after the cat didn’t return my affection. Then years later you gave me another when I wanted to go off to far-flung destinations where you are a distant dream for millions.

As an accident prone teenager in high school you took me in, gave me painkillers, plastered my leg and again took care of my hysterical worried mum by my side.

As a stressed out and hormonal teenager I had to see my mother become very ill at 30 weeks pregnant and have an emergency C-Section at 32 weeks. You saved my mum’s life and the life of my little sister, who now as a 16 year old, dyed-haired and miserable-faced “emo” is one of the most important people in my life.

You diagnosed and helped that same stressed out and hormonal teenager and her family come to terms with a condition you’ve helped tackle ever since. There have been constant scans, medication, nurses, doctors, world class specialists and dozens of students who I had access to for free.

My hospital stays have been full of your overworked staff that does their job every day for the love of you and everything you stand for. They certainly do not do it for the pay or for the respect of the pen-pushing bureaucrats who make their job harder with each passing day.

Wherever I have moved to in the UK you’ve been there, welcoming me with open arms, with free drugs. I love you.

As a student, finally thinking I might have seen the last of my NHS days, you entered my life in the saddest of ways. After years of tirelessly fighting for and helping my beloved granny, you stuck it out with her in her final days as she fought valiantly and clung on to every last breath.

You and your team of doctors and nurses were with her 24 hours a day, and you grieved and prayed with us as we realised her life with us was coming to an end. You were sensational, her GP visited her to say goodbye, the nurses were in tears and even though there were twenty visitors in a room meant for two, the only time you told us to leave was out of concern we get some rest. Sensational.

In the aftermath, as my uncle passed his exams to join your ranks, I needed you again. You whipped me in to hospital, treated me, operated on me leaving the tiniest of scars, and I left with a spring in my step.

As a tax-paying grown-up in the big wide world you gave me access to the global expert in my condition for free who treated me personally for years. You then treated me for an unknown tropical disease which still lies in a Petri dish somewhere.

As a terrified girl hiding in a woman’s body when I found a lump, you guided me through the process like you’d swooped me up in the palm of your hand. You carried me from the start to the very relieved benign finish line.

And as a silly girl in big heels who fell on some cobbles and smashed her face in, I caused a huge 18 month long chain of events needing constant help from you. This culminated in another hospital stay where you proved how good you are, but how desperate you need help.

You were on your knees; you were begging someone to take notice of how much you are suffering. You were crippled under the weight of the forms your nurses have to fill in, the paperwork that has to be done each and every hour in lieu of helping out patients.  The illusive and overworked doctors who patients see once, maybe twice a day and the conditions which sometimes meant cleanliness levels were shockingly low.

None of this is your fault, it’s ours. We have been too complacent, we’ve taken you for granted and we have let these pen pushers treat you like a business (the worst run business in the world) when you couldn’t be further from that.

I’m going to need you in the future, my loved ones are going to need you now and in the future and millions of lucky men, women and children across the country are also going to depend on you. I just hope we can learn to take care of you a bit better. You’re getting older now, so put your feet up, let us make you a wee cup of tea and we’ll try our best to keep these monsters from your door. 

Friendships - Breaking Up is Hard to Do

I read an article a few weeks ago about friendships and how women sometimes have unrealistic expectations of them lasting a lifetime. The author said we must expect, like any other relationship, for our friendships to sometimes not last the distance and we should let go of those which are unhealthy or have ceased to bring us joy.

I read it with some interest, since I had my own ‘break up’ a few years ago I have struggled to get over it. It was a huge relationship in my adult life and left a substantial hole in my life. When it ended I really mourned what we had, I was reeling, utterly confused at how it had gone so wrong and for a long time, was very sad to be without her.

However, like other relationships heading for the chopping block, I started to recognise there were clear signs as I looked back, for over a year before the final ‘break’. Strained conversations, questioning myself about what we had in common anymore, weird silences that had never been an issue before. I used to sometimes dread seeing her in case there was drama of some sort. I never knew what mood she was going to be in from one day to the next, and finally after a lot of soul searching, I just cut her out of my life completely.

I knew it was for the best, I knew life was too short to have anyone in it who made me feel bad, so I was happy about it and felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. But at the same time, I felt incredible guilt, like I’d just given up. I felt like I should have tried harder, like I owed it to the time and effort we’d both invested over the years to fight for it, to push my way back in to her life and stand firm. But I knew deep down, she didn’t want me there anymore, that we had just run our course, and so I’ve tried to move past it.

Something similar happened a few years ago with another friend. She and I had clicked straight away and we were on the same wavelength about most things. We laughed and talked for hours and bonded immediately. But then a guy got in the way and so that was the end of that. However, unlike before, this really niggled at me, I really missed her, thought about her all the time and wanted her back in my life. It was about six months later when I thought, sod it, I’m not 16 and I’m not falling out with anyone over a guy. So I got back in touch and it was the best thing I ever did. I couldn’t last a week without talking to her and she’s like my family.

I was at a (nother) wedding last night with many people from my old school and I was struck by the friendships on show. There was one group of girls from all those years ago who were still standing there giggling and as delighted by each other’s company as they always were, it was as if we’d just time travelled back to 1996. There was also a group of boys who had been best friends since I’d known them, just chatting away like we were still 15, except their wives were there too, also friends.

I went to the wedding with my best friend, seeing everyone at this de facto high school reunion, just confirmed for me the relationship I have with her is one of the strongest in my life. I know whatever happens in my life she’ll be there for it all, and me for her. I’m cemented into her life so she’s never getting rid of me!

  

It was comforting and reassuring that in this life, where relationships break down, things fall apart and just don’t make much sense sometimes, there was this room full of people who still love each other in exactly the same way as I remember, all these years later. 

Wendy Davis on abortions - she can talk for Texas!

Senator Wendy Davis made a stand, a really, really long stand – 11 hours of a stand - to be the last person standing - against a law which effectively would ban abortions in Texas. She spoke until the clock ran out at midnight, meaning the bill couldn’t be voted on by the deadline and couldn’t be signed into life. She is my hero of the day.

This is the woman who has also just guaranteed the processing of thousands of rape-kits for Texan women who had already suffered at the hands of vile, disgusting men. They would have then suffered all over again as bureaucracy and funding cuts would have meant their untested rape-kits would have lain in storage gathering dust as their rapists walked free to hurt other women.

Again, she is my hero of the day. This is also the woman who had two Molotov Cocktails thrown into her office to try and scare her into stopping her work. It did not. Hero!

What is it about women and our reproductive rights that get people in such a tizz? For me it’s the simplest, most straightforward concept in the world. It’s my body therefore it’s my choice, and I will defend that to my dying breath. Women like Wendy Davis today have shown, to badly quote Dirty Dancing, that there are people willing to stand up for other people no matter what it costs them.

In the UK we have a lobby of men and women who try to quash our reproductive rights. They intimidate women entering clinics, calling them names and waving placards at them with distressing images of aborted foetuses on them. They say this is education, I say it’s scare tactics.

Men and women who work in clinics providing abortions risk their lives every day in this country and I find this utterly reprehensible. Politicians like Nadine Dorries hide behind an argument that we should reduce the amount of weeks an abortion can be carried out from due to the increased viability of the foetus.

 However, this argument is a smokescreen, doctors much more credible than she and others in her group all agree the foetus viability has not changed enough to justify a reduction. Personally I think they should just admit they want to ban abortions, at least we know what we’re dealing with.

I genuinely do not understand what makes these people think they have any more control over my body than I have over theirs. The debate surrounding abortion is of course long, nuanced and complex for many people, as Wendy Davis proved last night by how long she could talk on the subject, but for me it’s simple – keep your hands off my uterus and we’ll get along fine.  

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/26/texas-abortion-vote-defeated-deadline-wendy-davis

Nigella etc. Would men have to put up with this?

So what is a feminist anyway? A bra-burning, ranting hippie with mad hair? A high brow University lecturer spouting obscure theories on how product A or Product B furthers the oppression of women? Or is it just any random person across the world, male or female, who believes women’s rights are everyone’s rights? Who feels that we are all born equal so we should live equal regardless of whether we are XX or XY?

Women can do whatever we want to do in life, wherever we want to do it. We can have kids or not have kids, get married or stay single, travel or plant roots, climb the corporate ladder or stay in a 9-5 and prioritise hanging out with friends and family. There are literally no right or wrong answers to a woman’s life and we have no apologies to make for any of it.

Unfortunately there are still some things that can stop us fully in our tracks, winded to our core thinking exactly how far have we really come? Has any sort of equality between the sexes even occurred?

Over the past few days I’ve been horrified about Nigella Lawson’s treatment at the hands of her husband, Charles Saatchi. The wider suspected abuse is not something I wish to comment on, that’s for the police to deal with, save to say the number for Women’s Aid is at the bottom of this article if you are in trouble and need help or advice.

What I was practically punching walls at is Saatchi’s comments to the media that the pictures of him choking his wife were part of a “playful tiff” and he was clutching her neck “to emphasise his point”. I wonder if he’d consent to her teenage son clutching his neck to emphasise his point that laying a hand on his mother was not acceptable to him. Probably not eh?

The whole sorry affair just portrayed to me a man threatened by his powerful wife trying everything to belittle and undermine her. From refusing to eat her cooking to “preferring her fat”, it’s a classic power play and while I, of course, know domestic violence takes places against men too, I use this high profile example as part of a series of events over the last 24 hours which demonstrate to me a systemic desperate attack on women by pathetic and misogynistic men.

The leader of the BNP who I will not name as I believe half his motivation was to generate publicity for himself said a series of truly reprehensible things yesterday. First, a sexist tweet against Nigella, then a farcical attack against “feminist cranks” who objected (I gladly accept that title if it’s from him) and then essentially a wish that Diane Abbott would suffer from domestic violence after she objected to his asinine comments too. Freedom of speech is one thing, but this man is a politician paid by the taxpayer, surely we can do something about that? But then I also know of one politician currently in court facing charges of domestic abuse, and he’s still getting paid. I guess women don’t matter as much as we think we do huh?

As if that wasn’t enough, also yesterday, I signed a petition asking the Prime Minister to ban websites which are titled “rape porn”. These are pornographic films which glorify rape and act out rape scenes. In 2013, a modern world where possibilities are endless, this is a thing. I could cry. What sort of human being gets their kicks from seeing a woman pretending to be raped on screen?

But then I listened to a song and I thought, well its endemic isn’t it? The quickest way to stop a woman getting ahead of herself, to keep them in their place, is to debase them and make them aware their role in life is either Madonna or whore. It’s as old as time. One of the songs of the summer is called Blurred Lines. The blurred lines between what exactly? Expressing consent?  The video is full of half naked women and choice lyrics I don’t particularly want to write about – just another music video I guess? But again it’s 2013 so why should we still have to put up with this?

And so I woke up this morning, thinking ‘it’s a new day, things will be better today’.

Not so for I woke up to a magazine spread in Vice Magazine featuring models depicting the suicide scenes of some of our finest female writers. Debasing and humiliating them, reducing their limitless achievements to their final tragic moments. But hey, at least we know where to buy an excellent pair of tights should we feel the need to hang ourselves?

As Caitlin Moran says, “would men have to put up with this shit?”

http://www.scottishwomensaid.org.uk/

http://www.womensaid.org.uk/ 0808 2000 247

http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/close-the-rape-pornography-loophole?utm_campaign=signature_receipt&utm_medium=email&utm_source=share_petition