The time between Christmas and New Year

 27/12/24

It's a good time and a bad time. I'm autistic and suddenly there's no routine, so I have restless sleep, nightmares and flashbacks. But I like the peace and quiet and the potential writing time, although I'm spending too much of it not writing.

Last night I wasn't sleeping, so this morning I was asleep on the sofa, not writing. 

I had a fantastic and very simple Christmas, mainly doing a jigsaw puzzle and watching films, which was all I wanted. I also enjoyed Mass and Christmas Dinner. I had no alcohol and very little by way of goodies, but enough to keep me content. I don't need much for Christmas, just having a roof over my head, warmth, food and tea, made it very special. I enjoyed a good walk on Christmas Day and so many people were out, there were loads of people to exchange greetings with. 

30/12/24

I didn't sleep well last night, again the lack of normal routine got to me a bit, I was having flashbacks about the man who left me on the streets of Limerick and then I was having bad dreams about him. It hurts me eternally that he illegally intercepted and accessed my medical and personal information and then tried to make me out to be nuts after leaving me homeless.

So I'm tired today but today we are almost back to normal, with the usual long day in Limerick, we got to Limerick in the dark with the Christmas lights still shining, and this normality really helped me. I stood on Sarsfield Bridge and looked at the Strand Apartments, which were in total darkness against a brooding heavy sky, amazing.

My Screensaver. Strand against storm clouds.

My next part of the routine was a bit spoiled when I got to the church and found it closed. Christmas does change things, the church usually opens early, long before 8.30 Mass, and today there is no 8.30 Mass. So I went to Arthurs Quay and did my recycling, went to the toilet, and walked down the Quay to look at the Shannon. It's good to be in Limerick again. It is different today, so quiet, especially after the pre-Christmas traffic. It felt so funny, so alien, walking up towards the station and the road so quiet, everything empty and rain-washed, the morning light against the Christmas lights.

It's a strange time. Christmas week. It can be depressing for some, and it's best to keep occupied in any way you can, jigsaw puzzles, housework, children, writing and so on.

I got two excellent books for Christmas, the Writers and Artists Yearbook 2025 and a book called 'The Organised Writer' and I've been reading 'The Organised Writer' as I needed to get my writing projects in order, and it's really helping. I have also been reading a novel called 'Call me Star Girl' which is a bit dark but interesting. I did my jigsaw puzzle and I've been watching films, but I'm still struggling a bit, mainly with trauma to do with the man who left me on the streets of Limerick and the matters surrounding that, and it triggers deeper traumas, so if you're finding things hard at this time of year, you're not alone, and remember, there are crisis hotlines, there are people a phone call away.

Don't suffer in silence. I talked to my friend as we drove into Limerick this morning, and that helped me, and then I've been into the church and talked to God. Keep communicating, this is what helps, and I'm still learning this, as an autistic and traumatised person, I'm still learning that I must reach out. My official supports don't kick in again until next week, and I think despite the bad patches, I've done very well and am doing well, it has been one of my happiest and most peaceful Christmases. 

So here I am, in the ubiquitous coffee shop on O'Connell Street in Limerick, the one where the men talk and talk, and it's another thing about today, the talking men are not here, but I'm glad to have some relative normality. Tomorrow I also have some normality as I go ahead with necessary arrangements for my life, and then we go back into holiday mode until Friday, and after that, well, Christmas is over. 

I hope you're doing well. Don't be alone, well, not too much. I need alone time in large chunks but I can get worse with depression and trauma when I'm alone, so I reach out, and then if I spend too much time with others, I get anxious and stressed, this is why a conventional job is hard for me, why self employment with short shifts for a variety of people is looking to be my best option.

Anyway, Happy New Year, or Peaceful New Year, whichever you'd like to take. Seek company and help if you're struggling, but find a balance, a healthy balance of time alone and time with people, it can be hard to do this in the Christmas week but it's a good idea. Get out of stressful or toxic or alcoholic social situations for your own sake, but don't fester alone.

I'll leave you with the 198 Theme Tune as I'm listening to it now, it is beautiful and life can be beautiful. Limerick is beautiful, if you don't know Limerick, come and visit. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sklYzudgOPU&list=RDsklYzudgOPU&start_radio=1

Memory and Music

There are days when people with difficulties and traumas can't do much. I had a day like that recently. 

What matters in life is every day. Every minute. And on days when your present is disrupted by the past, sometimes remembering and putting the memories to bed again is all you can do.

A few weeks ago I came home upset and sad. All I could do is listen to music, cry, and let some of the emotion out. I don't do that often. As an autistic person and a survivor, I am very static and can seem without the sad and angry emotions at all unless I'm really provoked, and of course there was no one to see me cry. 

Sometimes it helps to let the emotions out, to use music, as I do, to bring up the memories and then put them to bed again so I can feel better.

I started writing this post back on that day when I came home feeling bad, but so much happens in life, and it is now the week between Christmas and New Year. I had a nice Christmas, for me it isn't piles of gifts, there were no piles of gifts, but a Christmas without violence, without suffering, without squalid accommodation, without grief and anger and pain, a Christmas in a warm clean place with plenty of food and tea, a jigsaw puzzle, films, music, Mass on Christmas Day, a very nice dinner and a long walk. That's all I need, and I know I am luckier than some, that for once in all those hard, lonely, violent or desperate Christmases, I now have had a nice Christmas. If you are a survivor as I am, you may be wondering if that means things will go wrong in the New Year - yes, we do that don't we? 

Not everyone loves music or uses it to rouse and put to bed memories, but it's something I do, and it helps me, as you may have read, I walk round Limerick with my headphones or earphones and my music on, it makes me less afraid of being out among people, a thing I have never shaken off but which lessened a little with the help of a psychologist.

Music can be an incredible help to mental health, and a large percentage of the population like music and can access it. Do you like music? Treat yourself to some music if you can, whatever genre or style you like, or explore new genres. I do a virtual travel project and as I virtually travel, I learn about new styles of music from around the world. 

What do I mean by virtual travel? Well it started when I lived in France during the first part of the 'Covid Pandemic' and we were all fairly static then, and I had a feeling I'd always be poor and never be able to travel as I dreamed, so I started to explore the world virtually. I do most of this visually with comprehensive Youtube videos on the history, geography, topography and demographics of each country plus all notable places, features and culture, and then I use travel vlogs to actually visit each country. I've learned a lot, I write out what I learn but it's not for publication, it's purely for my own interest, and it's a geek thing, it's just for me, because even now, living in Ireland. I feel I may never get to travel much. I am on my 147th country and will also go on to disputed and overseas territories when I've done the official countries.

I don't want to bore you with the above, but it's another example of how life is limitless, you can learn and travel when you're disabled and a pandemic restricts the whole world from travel, so there I was, a UK citizen, living in France and then Ireland during the pandemic, and travelling all the time. It's as I said in previous posts, there are ways round roadblocks and barriers, you just have to find them.

Back to music. What music reminds you of childhood? What music reminds you of dating? What music reminds you of bad times? What music reminds you of good times? What music reminds you of grief? Use music to help you with emotions, you'll be surprised.

That night when I came home in a sad mood and had a rare cry, I went through a huge selection of music from present to distant past. The Limerick Love Song which is in my daily playlist 'By your side' by 10th Avenue North was in there of course: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdjRmM0Q0qs

Then there were songs such as 'Memory' from the musical 'Cats' and 'Old Toy Trains' by Roger Miller, which reminds me of my brother and Christmas. I haven't spoken to my brother for many years and probably never will again, he and I were close but my family are unstable and abusive and I have no contact with them. But if you can imagine growing up in a big family and then being totally separated from them, it's times like Christmas that it can hurt, but I have to think that it's the right thing for me, for my well-being. Music helps me to remember and then put the memories to bed. 

Trains and the railway were a central part of my life when I was young, and I remain an extreme train fan, and am sorely disappointed with trains and railways in Ireland, unfortunately, but I remember the trains and railways in the UK, back when they were good, yes, I'm old enough to remember. To remember slam door trains with windows which opened so that you could put your head out and the diesel locos. A big piece of my heart is with the old train days and the railway which was. 

All of us were hooked on the railway, and a family in crisis and distress found comfort in the familiarity of the railways, the trains and the stations. My brothers and sister would spend a lot of time down at the stations, passing the time and escaping the hellish situations at home, and they got to know all the station staff by name. Things are different now, you wouldn't be sitting chatting to the sparse station staff, on stations which have staff, but back then, even on that busy mainline, the staff were genial and happy to chat, a bit like in 'The Railway Children' perhaps. 

When I was aged between 8 and 11, my sister was suicidal, badly abused and with no one to turn to as my parents refused to engage about abuse and were too caught up in their own problems, so she'd go and stand on the foot crossing or the foobridge on the railway line and try to find the courage to be killed by a train, and then she'd come home and tell me about it, no one else, she'd tell me. I was close to my older sister just as I was close to my older brother, they were essentially pseudo parents to me and of course my sister's suicide ideation and the fact that she only confided in me, had a lifelong effect on me. It's one of the reasons I'm writing this blog. I want you to live. 

One of the places where my sister used to consider suicide is unfortunately too often a scene of suicide even now, as the train tracks are so accessible, and when I was researching last year, there was a suicide there. It made me think, what happens to the train and driver if the train he's driving hits someone? I looked it up and it's a lengthy and complicated process and the driver is of course affected. Suicides on train lines are too common in the UK, I don't know about Ireland but there have certainly been a few while I've been here. 

My sister used to be down at the railway every day, and often on the trains as well, she used to go in the Guard's Van with her bike, another old tradition that's been lost, the guard's van was for the train guard, parcels and bikes, she used to ride in the guard's van and talk to the guard. It's good that she got away from the family and talked to people, I didn't get so much opportunity to get away, we didn't normally go to school, a gypsy family and outside of society including schools. My sister would come home and she'd listen to 'Another Town Another Train' by Abba, 'Move On' also by Abba, 'Where the Waves Roll out to Sea'... and so those songs were part of my life. It was indeed the end of 89 when we listened to 'Happy New Year' and looked out at the darkness and the sea with the foghorns from the different ports shouting out the New Year's greeting in turn. 'What lies waiting down the line, at the end of 89...' another song and memory which stays with me. 

 'Another Town Another Train' became my theme tune, still partly is, the song of a brokenhearted traveller who lived and died on the railway line, only I didn't die, neither did my sister, we went on through life, damaged and full of problems. When I hear 'Another Town Another Train' I'm back there on that seashore in the dark, I'm back there by that railway line, and my sister, who is long gone from my life and who I will never see again, is there with me. Day to day I barely think of that family I was in, I barely give them thought, which sounds harsh, but it's the right thing for me to be separated from them, for the sake of my health, but if or when I need or want to remember, then songs wake the memories and then put them to bed. 

I wish I could tell you that things got better and we all lived happily ever after, but no, things only got worse, and by age 16, my sister had left the family and gone back there, to the town between the beach and the railway which we'd left behind, moved away from. Aged 16 and severely damaged, she tried to make her own way rather than going on being part of the family, and she ended up injured and starving. She left me her photo albums and her music. She was obviously a great Abba fan and said that 'When all is said and Done' was the song that made her realise that our parents didn't care if she lived or died. And that song reminds me of my bewilderment over her leaving us, and leaving me alone with no one to talk to, as my brother was preoccupied with other things now. My sister was one of the great influences on my early life. Then when we moved again, and Christmas was coming, my brother remembered me and took me under his wing again, we listened to Greg Lake's 'I believe in Father Christmas' as we secretly tried to make Christmas in poor conditions special for the other children.

You can possibly see a pattern there with me and my brother and Christmas. It started when we were 7 years old in that terrifying unregulated hostel with the addicts and alcoholics, secretly preparing gifts and goodies to make Christmas special for our siblings. And until this year, he would be in my thoughts at Christmas, but now my family are really fading from my memory, family are important, they shape who you are, they shape your brain, and I'm damaged for life, but they were important, it's just now they've been gone so long and hurt me so badly that as I grow, I am moving away from them and the memories, they are too far beyond forever and are not the children I grew up with anymore. And this is something I mentioned, it can be very hard to leave hurtful and abusive relationships, but when we leave, despite the pain, we then start to grow.

The worst year of my young life was when I was 12 years old. During that whole year we were caught up in serious gang violence, and I suffered a breakdown defending my mother and sibling's lives until help arrived, this was just one of the many many incidents of extreme violence during that year and throughout my childhood. I had a breakdown, but because my parents didn't allow and were against medical and psychological help, I didn't get help and became elective mute, non-speaking. The song that reminds me of those times is 'Both side of the Story' by Phil Collins. What I describe is sometimes assumed to be Belfast when people hear parts of my story, but it wasn't. In recent times, the world has expressed horror at the UK riots and the excuses made for those riots, and of how school children were involved, but it isn't new, it is part of UK culture and was around in the 80s and 90s. It isn't new but it wasn't original bred on racial hatred or immigration propaganda, there were other things behind it back then, but it has to feed off something and so race and immigration became the target. 

'Both sides of the Story' by Phil Collins takes me from that terrible year as a 12 year old on the dangerous sink estates, to the ghettos of the big city not long after, out of the frying pan and into the frying pan with no relief. 

I always tell everyone if I tell them anything about my life 'I'm only telling you the tip of the iceberg'. And that's all I can do here. I manage my memories and emotions and file them safely through music, I've only named a few songs here but for me, every place, person and emotion has a song, and I believe that is what has saved me. Does music help you? Could it help you? I have so many more memories and songs but I think I've shared enough for today and will continue the music theme another time. If you don't already, try using music to help you with life. 

My Limerick/198 playlist includes:

• 'Snow in August' Patrick Doyle's composition from Nanny McPhee. The 198 Theme. 
• 'By your Side' 10th Avenue North - The Limerick Love Song.
• 'Long before your Time' Johnny McEvoy. 
• 'Goodbye Yellowbrick Road' Elton John.
• 'Ship to Shore' Chris deBurgh. 
• 'See beneath you're Beautiful' Emile Sande and Labrinth. 
• 'Limerick you're a Lady' Various. 
• 'Three leaf Shamrock' Various
• 'Are you right there Michael' Various - I know it's a Clare song but I'm a hybrid like many people. 
• 'Brahm's Lullaby' Jewel - for O'Brien's Bridge (a village near Limerick). 
• 'Any Tipperary Town' Various - just to be controversial. 

A note on the last one. Hurling is a fiercely competitive sport, especially in County Clare, but also Limerick and Tipperary. And the little town of Clarecastle has three sports, hurling, hurling missiles, and Mass when you stop hurling things. If someone really angers you, you get the lads to bundle him into a van, drop him blindfold at Clarecastle with a hurley in his hand and shout out 'Hey lads! The Tipperary Team are here!' and drive off, hoping you remembered to give Michael a bullet proof hat and some body armour. I'll tell you the one about Mass next time. 

I wish I could put Limerick November and December 2024 in a freeze frame, in a snow globe, and keep it forever. Some of the happiest days of my life. That fecker who left me on the streets sold the property he was supposedly putting me in to rent, early in December, interesting. He wasn't really going to give me a tenancy, but didn't I fall for his games? And it devastated me but didn't kill me, because bad things happen in life, and life doesn't need to end, even if we carry the wounds, the scars. Life is limitless and beautiful. Shock, anger, grief, they are normal when bad things happen, and then slowly, we start to move forward, maybe to change things as a result of what's happened. 

I use music to help me with everything, and in the early days, sometimes all I could do was listen to my Limerick playlist, go in church to rage to God, and sit quietly.

Platitudes

 Good afternoon.

I was writing a post earlier but blogger deleted it, then the handyman arrived to measure up and I was in pyjamas and the houswork wasn't done.

Then there was another post and it's not finished. So I'm just going to write this one.

Vulnerable and disabled people do suffer a lot of being misunderstood and treated unfairly and as if we aren't valid. And when we stand up for ourselves, get angry, sometimes that makes people's attitude to us even worse. Take heart, it's not just you, people can be shitty. But platitudes can be the worst when you're struggling, the glib fake-wise repeated stuff that people come out with because they think it will solve you.

• This one is a favourite of the church 'God will never send you more than you can handle'. So are they saying it's your own fault you can't handle what is sent? Or are they suggesting that God is up there calculating what you can handle and then throwing troubles at you? Don't you believe it, God isn't that petty, bad things happen to good people and you shouldn't feel guilty for not being able to handle crisis.
• People make their own happiness - really? None of us are beset with disasters we had no control over and none of us suffer pain and loss, we can just make our own lives as we please? That wretched platitude was said to me by a millionaire who had never known hardship, at a time where I was homeless and suffering. Yes mate. 
• What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Nope, I have survived a lifetime of suffering and trauma, trauma leaves you with weaknesses. You may have found the strength and courage to get through, you may be gritting your teeth at tough times but there's nothing helpful in someone saying that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. So tell them to walk a mile in your shoes, post the shoes back and stay a mile away.
• There's a lesson in every trial we endure. Yes, the lesson is not to listen to idiots when we are in crisis or suffering.

That's as much as I'm saying for now. Just trust yourself, no one knows you better than you, and other people who don't understand what it is like to be you and have your life do not always know better than you. Stand up for yourself, but try to do it calmly, my experience is that anger makes things worse. I'm still learning. 

Remember that what other people say is not necessarily true. We are human and have a habit of swallowing what we're told, especially if it is a popular saying and often bandied around, it doesn't mean it's true or that it's true for you! You know you best, and the strongest thing you can do for yourself is back yourself and believe in yourself no matter what other people say or do. Not always easy, believe me I know. But you back you and do whatever you can to help yourself and never mind other people being glib or criticizing you.

Here are my 'Platitudes' for you. 'Choose Life', 'Life is limitless, there is always more' and 'Back yourself'. 

You can be your own best friend, best resource and guiding light, you can find ways forward, sometimes that means going through the pain of letting go of people or places, but don't let go of life, it may not be easy, but there are ways forward. I say this as someone who chose life and to find out what life can offer, when I will always suffer from what I've been through. And the health services can be frustratingly useless with trauma survivors, but life is well worth living.

When it is Darkest

 When it is Darkest is a book by Rory O'Connor, it's about suicide. Should I be putting it up here? 

Yes. It can be a bit harrowing to read but helpful. 

One of the things that he observes is that if people are considering suicide, they often see there being no way out, they feel that they are in a tunnel with nothing but the present situation. I know what it is like to feel trapped like that. It is often possible for life to go on and move on even if it doesn't feel like it at the time. I stayed alive and although the things that led to me feeling desperate didn't go away, I'm glad I'm alive now.

Another thing the book tells is how suicide impacts on other people. It affects a lot more people around us than we think, and stays with them in their lives. 

Patchworld

It's a patchworld, not perfect. My mother was a patchwork quilter, she patchworked like mad, and all her creations were unique. I once read a story about a woman who was creating a patchwork from life, the dark patches and the light. I didn't know my birth mother well, but I remember she was an outstanding quilter, and it's quite a skill, making each patch fit and belong. Life can be that quilt. 

I get dropped off in Limerick and I walk over Sarsfield Bridge in the early morning. I always stop and look at the Strand Apartments in the dark. I love looking at the Shannon in the dark with the lights shining but I also look over at the Strand Apartments, which tend to be mostly in darkness at all hours, even though the 2017 scandal where a corporate landlord tried to evict all their tenants there was so long ago.

I'm just recovering from an episode of my life where someone took me over, messed with my head, gaslit me, and among other things, promised me a wonderful HAP tenancy, in the many changes of potential tenancy, he offered me tenancies at the Strand Apartments, but in the end I realised there was no tenancy, he was messing with me. He left me on the streets of Limerick, shattered.

I am very grateful to all who stepped forward and helped me when I landed on the streets of Limerick and helped me towards what may be a more hopeful future. The patchwork of life brings both dark and light patches. We are not superhuman, things that happen to us affect us, and we have to find ways of finding the light patches, easier said than done when you're shrieking 'What light patches?!' I know, I've been there. 

My days on the streets of Limerick quickly developed into a routine. I always had my music in my ears and I would listen to songs such as 'By your side' by 10th Avenue North as I walked around the town, stood on Sarsfield Bridge or walked down to my storage unit at the Docks. That song is a real Limerick song for me now, it's great for walking to, and I'm autistic so I play it on repeat. I used to go in the church and pray for help in the early morning, and even when help came, I have always included the church in my early morning routine. I stop on the bridge, I go the church, I get my cup of tea, and I go to Arthurs Quay, in that order. I am typical autistic, I like my routines. 

I was hungry in my early days in Limerick, I found the daily soup run unwelcoming and too chaotic, and I have a tendency to hang back when there's noise and stress, I was going hungry, so as I sat on the street, I put up a little sign saying 'Hungry, please feed'. You know how autistic people put things exactly how they are sometimes. 'Hungry, please feed'. Someone obliged, and I was so happy to have a full tummy that I put up a sign with a smiling face saying 'Smile!' At the time, a female drug addict who was constantly bothering me came along and started abusing me for the sign. 

It turned out all I had to say to this addict every time she bothered me was 'Stop making a fool of yourself, addict, go home' and she'd go. A lot of addicts don't like someone saying to their face that they're an addict. I'm autistic, no one else would actually call someone an addict out loud, I'm very naughty, but she was being hurtful. 

Anyway, a few weeks later, I was sitting there watching the world, and a lovely young woman came along, she told me she'd seen my 'Smile' sign and she'd been feeling down, and she was inspired that a homeless woman with nothing could hold up a sign like that, and she'd gone away smiling. She was really nice, we talked for a while and she got me some food, but it made me think, I managed to get some bright patches alongside the dark ones.

I have survived all kinds of hell and horror and I have to live day to day with flashbacks and terrible memories, nightmares, night terrors and self doubt, but I live, and I rejoice in life. I love seeing the Shannon and the lights in the dark first thing in the morning and as I walk back in the evening. I love the cold dark winter days and nights, beautiful, I love the Christmas lights, I love Limerick. There is so much in life, and as I learned when I was youngster being used as slave labour on a farm, there is always more, this isn't it, and things won't stay like this forever, no matter what your situation. In my case, I want things to stay as they are, I want the long days in Limerick and the rest days in that little place out in the countryside to be forever, but they won't last, winter will pass and I will move into the town and onto the next step in my life. Live every moment and find reasons to live, and do as I did with the fake tenancies man, at great cost, get away from people who hurt you, the hurt will last, heartbreak is real, yes, but find ways to live with it, maybe write a blog. Writing things out, drawing it, painting it, cartooning it, talking it out, will help. 

As I said, I don't get paid to mention anything, I'm not advertising, but as I mentioned the song earlier, I find music essential to soothe and cope with daily life, and I'm always reading helpful books. A recent one is 'You will get through this night' by Daniel Howell. It's very comprehensive and if you're struggling you may find it helpful.

Stopping and looking at the world rather than hurrying past it can really help when you're feeling bad. I find looking at the Shannon so helpful. Life isn't just problems and looking and seeing the world doesn't need to wait until holiday time, if you have any holiday. Stop and see the world now. Even big inner city built up areas have charms worth looking at, indeed you can ponder for hours on how long and how many people it might take to remove all the rubbish. 

Surviving Christmas

This is a long post, I'm chattering away like the old men in the cafe again. 

The thing with Christmas is, it's not about alcohol, don't let anyone tell you that it is or insist you drink, if they do, get away from them, you deserve better. Christmas doesn't even need to be about parties, they are a nice option rather than something it kills you to be left out of. Look after yourself. 

I was once given some advice by a good person. I was facing another difficult Christmas and I asked 'Why does everyone else get to have fun and have a good time and not be alone at Christmas?'

She said to me 'It's an illusion, not everyone is having a good Christmas, there are many people fearful, unhappy, lonely, getting into debt in order to provide Christmas for their loved ones, suffering violence, facing homelessness, family fights, breakups, and many many more problems. All you can do is try to make some Christmas for yourself as best you can'. She was right, and I'll talk about making Christmas later. 

That Christmas, I had to flee where I was, running down the road in the snow with no shoes on, utterly broken, suffering devastating and lasting damage, and there was nowhere to go, no food, nothing but huge pain. I crept into a church left unlocked after Mass, and drank Holy Water from the font because I was so thirsty. The termperature was minus 10 and blizzards. I was as helpless as the Baby Jesus when He was born. I couldn't make much of that Christmas, but I have never forgotten what that wise lady said to me, which helped me to understand that Christmas simply isn't good for everyone every year. Christmas is a time of year, the same as May 9th or October 11th, it's a time. And we cannot produce a good Christmas every year, and what is a good Christmas? Do we have to travel back to old times with thick snow and everything sparkling perfect in the way films and videos depict it? Life is changing and so is Christmas, some elements stay the same, company, food, music, lights and decorations, church for some of us, gifts, parties, and so on, but we can have autonomy and make Christmas, the season, more flexible to suit us, we can make it more ours, and we can be reminded that other people aren't all having a perfect Christmas. 

Now, humour break, let me tell you about last Christmas, I hope you find it as funny as I now do, it wasn't at the time, it was mad.

Ireland has a shortage of dentists. I was living in Dublin but house sitting at Killaloe in County Clare at the beginning of December last year and I realised, after a lot of telling myself to stop being fussy and weak, that I was in agony from a toothache, a molar, one of them big back teef. There were not dentists available in Dublin, so I sat there in Kilaloe, enjoying the stunning view across Lough Derg, and I searched for emergency dental treatment. I found Dublin Dental Hospital, a teaching hospital for Trinity College. I had a medical card so I was entitled to free treatment and I asked the hospital, unsure, if I could attend their emergency department. They told me I could, but I may or may not be deemed an emergency. 

I came home to Dublin and into another house sit for a family who were going for a long break to their family in the USA, and I attended the dental hospital emergency department. They deemed me an emergency very quickly and had me admitted for day surgery, a complex extraction. An extraction like that is a major job and I needed stitches and was told to rest up and be very careful. 'Fine' I thought 'It's a few days before Christmas and all I will be doing is relaxing with television and writing, walking the dogs I'm minding, and going to church'. 

Yeah, right. The three dogs I was minding weren't trained, had to stay on the lead, and had no garden at their little house, so I had to take them out frequently. And one of them was an escape artist who never came back if she escaped. She got away from me, there was no one around to help, and I had to chase her, really chase her, she was a lurcher by the way and she wanted to eat as many squirrels as possible before I caught her. A few hours of huge stress and effort and I got her. The tooth socket was bleeding heavily though, I nearly ended up back in the dental hospital. I had to contact them for advice, on the afternoon of the Friday before the Christmas weekend. 

To be honest, I was happier to be recovering from a major dental operation over Christmas than I would have been if I'd been in pain over Christmas and I had a roof over my head and everything I needed to aid recovery, rather than being on the streets. Now let me tell you something, I was homeless while I did these house sits. I have done house sitting for years and am well referenced, but house sitting now got me off the streets at Christmas, literally, yes really, I would have been on the streets for Christmas without that house sit. So there I was, Christmas day with these rather lively dogs, first thing, I walked them down along the docks and back first thing, needing to get showered and go down to the RDS for the Christmas Day Community Meal - if you are alone this Christmas, it's worth looking up community Christmas events by the way - anyway, I got home with the dogs, hurrying to shower, dress and go, put the key in the lock, and the lock broke, the door wouldn't open. Christmas day, stuck outside the house, three dogs getting restless and mad and I needed to be showered and dressed and off to the RDS asap. And guess what? I didn't have my phone with me, it was in the house! 

Thank God for the neighbours, going out to do their charity walk, that one in Ireland where people walk a short distance on Christmas Day for charity. They saw my distress and came over, and tried and tried to help me to open the door before giving up as there was no hope. They fortunately had phone numbers for the family and the emergency contact family member of the people I was house and pet sitting for and they called him and went off, leaving me alone with three furious dogs. 

In the meantime I managed to get into the house. There was a small glass panel among the door panels and I could see it had been removed before, someone had been locked out before. I carefully removed the panel and tried the lock from inside, and to my relief, it unlocked and were in! I went to the shower, and at that moment the emergency contact turned up, I recounted everything, the poor man had been on the northside (the other side of Dublin) with his girlfriend, just trying to survive Christmas himself, and here he was after a confusing phone message and he arrived to find I'd got into the house. He kindly took the dogs for a longer walk while I showered, and then he dropped me off at the RDS, it was a better outcome of a nearly ruined day. I was treated like a Princess at the RDS and surrounded by friends old and new, it was a fantastic Christmas Day and I was even given a lift home, laden down with gifts and very happy, to rest, watch films and write, and of course walk those dogs again. To me, it was a good Christmas despite everything. It's a question of seeing the good in it. The lock itself had been very badly fitted and it breaking was the fault of the person fitting it, it was just luck it waited until Christmas Day to break, the door had another lock and so the house was secure until the locksmith arrived a few days later, the glass panel was easy enough to secure. 

As I write this, it's a beautiful Sunday in December, we survived Storm Darragh without losing power out here. I'm going to Mass with with my friend shortly, and I'm just thinking about old friends and Christmas. 

I've lost two friends at Christmas, five years apart, both from cancer. One friend lived with cancer for 5 years and tried everything, including drug trials, but she died in the end. The second friend was already dying of cancer when she was diagnosed, and I remain angry with the medical practice who were also my medical practice and persistently failed me as well, they kept sending her away and treating her like a malingerer, as they did with me, she was dying by the time they actually took her seriously (In my case they never took me seriously but I proved them wrong, but that's another story), so anyway, my friend was dying when she was diagnosed in the October, and the last time I saw her alive was Christmas Day evening, after dinner and dog walks, she gave me a hug and a kiss and said goodbye, and that was the last time I saw her alive. She was loved and she lived a lot of life, she and I met because we were volunteers together in a charity shop, a cancer care shop. Now, let me talk about my first friend who had died of cancer at Christmas 5 years before. 

My friend was hugely popular, she knew everyone in the village and everyone in the town and everyone everywhere in between. She was everything, she was in the choir in the village, she was in the choir in the cathedral, she was head of floral art at the church, she was head of everything, she was on every committee, she did everything, knew everything, and she had a family, a big close family and extended family, she was full of life and always smiling, laughing, talking loudly with everyone and grabbing my hand as she talked to everyone when I came over to her after church. She was a good friend to me when I was still young and struggling badly with the after-effects of my childhood, she would send me texts saying 'Just hold my hand' if she knew I was facing challenges. I loved my friend and I always remember her smiling.

She died naturally one Christmas after years of fighting, seeking new treatments, praying and sending newsletters to us all about her cancer. She drifted into sleep and stopped waking up. She was at peace with the world and looking forward to meeting Jesus. Her funeral was so well-attended that a marquee had to be put up outside the church with a video link. 

There's a lot more to the story than I'm telling you here, but I remember my two friends dying at Christmas as another Christmas approaches, but I remember without breaking down with grief, because time has passed, life has moved on dramatically since those deaths, new friends have come and gone and stayed. I loved those two friends, and they will remain in my memory and in my heart. For me, Christmas isn't marred by their deaths, but the memories will be part of my Christmas. The memories of those two friends and Christmases spent with them. 

I'm just going to share something about the friend who battled cancer for 5 years. She was popular and very well known, was part of so much. But I was away overseas for a long time after her death. I came back and went to visit her grave. The small square memorial stone where her ashes were placed. Despite her popularity and the many family, friends, clubs and societies, her little memorial stone was overgrown and with just a dead primrose in a pot from the spring. She had been so popular in life, so loved, so special, but people had moved on, kept her memory but finished grieving, to different degrees. 

Suicide to 'Make someone pay' or to make someone feel guilty for life or to spite someone or even as a result of unkind things they've said, doesn't pay off. Because no matter how popular, or loved or special someone is, when they die, people may grieve or feel sad or sorry, but eventually they move on, and then the person who died simply isn't there. It is better to live, and live life to the fullest that we can, because this life is all we know and we have to make the best of it.

If you can't make a Christmas for yourself, remember it's only a time, it's only a date, never mind what anyone else is doing, you can't see that they may be having problems too. Christmas is a date, a time, like September 10th, October 11th, May 9th, but unfortunately Christmas tends to start in November, intensify to the end of December and go into January, so yeah, it takes a while and a bit of strength to get through it if you're struggling for whatever reason. It can be done, don't give up. It isn't forever, and next Christmas may be better. 

Here are a few reasons people struggle at Christmas:

• Financial concerns
• Death of a loved one
• Domestic Violence
• Abuse of any kind
• Arrests, criminal or civil proceedings
• Family tensions
• Homelessness
• Divorce or relationship breakup
• New baby 
• Loss of a baby
• Bad memories
• Conflict
• Fraud
• Job loss
• Disasters such as fire and flood. 
• Car accident - from experience the roads get dangerous around this time. 
• Having to work - I was a delivery driver in winter - see the last bullet point. 

That's a few, add your own. Christmas is far from merry for more people than we realise. I will not go back to that list and tell you I've been through a number of those at Christmas and I won't tell you which ones, but Christmas, depicted as 'Merry and Bright', just isn't Merry and Bright for everyone.

I was once walking home from Midnight Mass in England, I was on my own as my church didn't do Midnight Mass and so I was a guest at another church near my home. In England they include communion wine and not just the wafer as they do in Ireland and France. I don't drink, so that's the only wine I would have all Christmas, but I thought I'd had too much when I saw the bus coming up the road towards me on the wrong side of the one-way road.

The road had been closed and the bus sent back because a man had been killed on the road outside the pub, he was killed by a single punch. 

I sidestepped the terrified chaos at the pub and walked down to the sea, looking at the waves in the dark, I thought of someone else who had died there, and someone who was in prison for 17 years, my thoughts and memories were dark. The friends and family of the man who'd been killed by a single blow would be marking Christmas as the anniversary of his death forever. Such things although they fade, they are never erased, and grief can live on forever if a closed loved one - a partner, parent or child dies this way.

You are not alone, Christmas and pre-Christmas go on for a while, they change normal ways of life, routines, work patterns, and if something goes wrong at Christmas it can be so much worse than in 'normal time'. I haven't told you my worst Christmases but I can tell you about some things which help me to get through and to enjoy Christmas. Not all of this will apply to everyone, it's just thoughts based on what I do. 

• Keep an open mind and don't 'hate' Christmas, just let it be Christmas, from November onwards, let the beautiful lights and cheerful music and events and everything be there, don't avoid them, the lights in town, the trees everywhere, the music, they can be all yours to enjoy, the church festively decked out and open for private prayer, so nice, so cheerful, so hopeful, and free to everyone. Christmas is part of life, it will keep coming back, just let it be. 
• No Christmas Dinner? It's not essential, there's no rule. If you want Christmas Dinner and there's a community meal, they are good, they are great and you'll meet people, unless you don't want to, and the organisers will find you a corner on your own. If you don't want or need or can't get a dinner, it is personal choice. I remember one year, no money, alone, and all I could get was some chicken wings, which I cooked and shared with the 9 cats I was minding. It was okay. Another year I was with my friend who was dying, for Christmas Day, and the next day I went to a person who I knew was alone over Christmas and I cooked us a full Christmas meal and we celebrated Christmas together that St. Stephen's Day. Christmas is a lot more flexible than people imagine and flexibility, something different, can make a memorable Christmas, can start traditions. 
• No cards, no presents? Let me tell you, you can have as many as you like. I remember one year I was close to suicide, things were terrible, one of the things that kept me alive was that I got a list of the names of every resident in the nearby retirement and nursing home, a big place, and I found out if they preferred to be known by first name or 'Mr/Mrs' as older people sometimes do, and I wrote out a card for all of them. I made a lot of new friends, but I was told by the activities co-ordinator that it made Christmas very special for some of those people who had no card. I'm not boasting, but it made my Christmas, it helped me to turn away from suicide, because I reached out and people reached out to me in return, not just residents who were delighted to get a card, but the staff too, and families of residents. I made friends. Now these days I wrap many many presents for people who I will never meet and who very much deserve them and will be delighted with them. I am a volunteer with the national Shoe Box appeal and I wrap hundreds of gifts. So you can have as many presents and cards as you can ever handle, just send them to other people. No one except shallow people will be looking at you yourself and judging how loved or unloved you are judging by what you actually get for Christmas yourself, and you don't have to discuss it or tell anyone what you get or don't get. As an adult, and I'm assuming my readers are adults, we don't 'need' presents, but they are nice, aren't they? I know, but I like my presents to be the ones sent to children in poverty and cards to be sent to lonely older people. Be nice for Christmas, don't feel downhearted that it's not an easy Christmas, personal presents and cards are a nice option. Keep in mind, if you can't afford to get someone something they want for Christmas, you can tell them, and if they love you, they'll understand, you can talk about it. A small gift with love is better than a gift you can't afford, just to please someone. 
• The whole Christmas experience. There are always Christmas markets dotted around, they are great fun to visit, very atmospheric, and don't worry, most people can't buy anything there, it's the atmosphere, the experience. I can't buy anything, but I love to go.  Any music device has Christmas songs and carols, and I'm listening to those Christmas songs from November onwards and just enjoying the upbeat themes, the memories of old Christmases and the familiarity of the songs at this time of year. I watch Christmas lights tours on YouTube. Christmas craft materials are very cheap, I love making wreaths and decorations, and as for traditional decorations, as cheap as 10 cents a piece at the charity shop. Then there's my favourite thing, the advent calendar. But mine is a special advent calendar, keep in mind again that I am not paid for mentions or links or anything, I get the Jacqui Lawson interactive advent calendar on my devices. If any element is missing from your Christmas, you can have it artificially on the Jacqui Lawson calendar. Decorating trees, making Christmas biscuits and recipes, wrapping presents, taking part in Christmas activities, building snowmen, and much more. I have that underpinning my every Christmas, no matter what is missing due to poverty, homelessness, domestic problems or whatever. Christmas is to celebrate the birth of Jesus, it may not be his correct birthday but nonetheless, it's a celebration, it's meant to be fun.  Christmas to suit you is simple and relatively cheap to put together, never mind what others do or expect, Christmas isn't just for others, it's for you as well. I have been to numerous houses of millionaires and wealthy and powerful people at Christmas, yes I really have, because I worked for the big houses and lived in wealthy areas, and all I can tell you is, they don't have a better time than people who are struggling but choose to be happy, because to wealthy families, it is hard to make Christmas more than just another day surrounded by good things, they aren't necessarily happy, indeed I have yet to meet a very wealthy person who is happy.
• Christmas is a holiday, things are different. I may be autistic but I say rejoice in it, if you're off work, watch films and programmes, there's loads of good stuff on, relax, enjoy the differentness of the time, get extra rest, do different things, go for walks if you can, put the mobile phone down. Work shifts at Christmas are unique, different, more chocolatey, and sometimes a good opportunity to earn some extra money. Sometimes I used to do the job of 5 drivers because the others were off drunk, but the money was fantastic. The Christmas week, when everything is down is also a good time enjoy change and difference, to make some New Year's Revolutions, plan for change in the new year.
• Christmas is no time for drinking to excess and feeling terrible, it's a time for you, and for looking after yourself, for overcoming bad feelings and ending the year as positively as possible even if things are tough. Sometimes it's time to make that resolution to make sure things change for the better, that tough resolution to leave, end or change the situation which has been making Christmas so hard. 

If you're struggling with Christmas, hang on for my sake, I want you to be okay. See if things get better in the new year, face it with determination and fight for you, for your best interests.

Gerry and the incident in Dublin

Norf Earl Street

My friend Gerry and I were sitting and chatting on Dublin's North Earl Street once. North Earl Street is where people used to meet and put the world to rights before the council put that money-draining crowd-drawing monstrosity in.  So there we were, chatting away on my fave doorstep, and all of a sudden, this woman tried to commit suicide in front of us. 

We were startled, someone shouted. This woman was right by us, slashing her arms with a razor in earnest. It isn't clear whether she was out of her mind in distress or under the influence, but for anyone to get into such a state is a terrible thing, because life is precious. We got the razor off her and held onto her as she reverted to slamming her head on the wall and the ground. We held her with all our might and shielded her head, as she was determined to die. Neither Gerry nor I could call an ambulance, we both have difficulties phones and had our hands rather full, but plenty of other people were around to help with that. It was Gerry and myself holding onto this distressed woman, who had thankfully managed to miss any major arteries despite slashing determinedly all down her arms, there was plenty of blood. 

In the meantime, Greedy Bob the seagull and his gang were busy raiding my bag and taking my lunch, thanks a bundle, Greedy Bob, I've never forgotten and will get revenge. 

A crowd had gathered, and where there are normally loads of Gardai (police officers) in the area, this day it took 10 minutes for a lone bike Garda to appear and he forcussed on (quite rightly) giving out to some ghoul who was filming the whole incident. The ambulance then arrived and the woman was safely conveyed to hospital. In the aftermath, people were talking to me, Irish people, as you know, like to talk, and I got caught up with being talked to, lost sight of poor Gerry. In the days that followed, he told me he'd been very shocked, he hadn't dealt with anything like that before, while for me, blood and violence and extremes of behaviour have been a constant part of my life experience, so I was less affected, but not unaffected. I remember how the blood stains stayed on the ground near my doorstep on North Earl Street for so long. As far as I know the woman was set for a good recovery physically, although she'd be scarred, and hopefully she would get some help and I wish her well, although sadly the beautiful country of Ireland is low on resources with too many people needing the limited help that's available. Ireland is a modern country struggling to cope with change and a growing population and changing world and generational wounds, and is not providing the capacity of medical and support services needed for the current population. 

The woman's suicide attempt impacted on her and on all of us who were there. Suicide does. Suicide has a lasting impact on other people. If you try and fail, you live with the consequences and the issues that caused the attempt. It's better to stay alive and try to find solutions, which isn't easy either. 

Suicide and attempted suicide affect everyone, and people don't always understand, despair, desperation, can lead to people attempting suicide, not just 'mental health problems'. People who attempt suicide are in desperate need of help, not necessarily 'Mentally ill', but society has been taught to hear and parrot 'click phrases' rather than see what's behind someone wanting to end their life.  

I am not a medical professional or an 'expert' except in lived experiences. I have survived all kinds of hell and horror and decided to live, and I want to help others if I can. If I can help one person, if I can return one starfish to the sea, then I've made a difference. Choose life. 

First Post, nice to meet you.

Good morning, 

I am so glad that you are here and reading this, I'm honoured. This is my first blog post for this blog (I've been blogging for 14 years), this is the first post on the 198 blog, although by the time you read it, it may not be the only post on the blog. It's nice to have some company on the blog, so if you're reading this, hi, I'm pleased to connect with you. Here we are on a street corner called 198 Street, and I'd like to talk to you, because your life is precious and special, no matter how you're feeling - hey, it's okay, I'm not an evangelist, even if I started to sound like one for a second, okay I have been known to hand out tracts for Rob in Dublin - tell him I quit over no pay rise if you see him - but this is about life, your life, my life, our connection and the fact that I want you to live, to live and to see how life is worth living. 

Unusually for me, a quiet person, I'm doing all the talking, like the old men in the cafe over there on O'Connell. They're there every day, they almost live there, and they talk, oh they talk, they never stop talking, when I sit in there with my tea, my ears ache. I'm talking to you though, because you looked up this blog, for whatever reason, perhaps because you are finding it hard to live but you are looking for reasons to live. I'm glad you came here, It's a big responsibility for me, so I hope that I can help you. Okay so I'm going to ramble like the old men, but please do join me on this ramble, I'd love your company. If you want to grab a cup of tea or coffee or whatever it is, you can pretend we're in the cafe and I'm talking your ears off. 

Keep in mind, I'm an amateur, not an expert not a mental health professional, don't replace a professional with my writing, I'm an extra, and so on and blablabla - don't groan every time mental health is mentioned...believe me, I know, I know that reactions, distress, trauma, psychological damage and other desperate situations are labelled 'mental health' and this can cause distress and trauma to already distressed people and make it hard to seek help, especially when the news and the public and their precious social media start chanting 'history of mental health problems' whenever an act of public violence occurs, although these days they also unhelpfully use the terms 'migrant' and 'terrorist' as well. Am I being controversial? I'm autistic, I am habitually controversial, contrary, and apparently occasionally incorrigable, but what I want you to know is that I understand that desperation, despair and circumstances that drive people to feeling that they can't live, are life circumstances, but when someone takes their life, it is always labelled as 'mental health problems' and people are always told to 'talk to someone if they're having feelings'. Now I understand where it comes from, but I do sometimes wish the press and people would change the bloody record! I'm speaking as a survivor of attempted suicide (non recent) who knows it's not always as simple as 'talk to someone' because no amount of talking was stopping the people who were hurting me, who I attempted suicide to get away from. I didn't die or get away from my abusers, who's reign of horror over my life never really ended and still affects me now, but now as I write this, I am relatively safe and have a good quality of life. 

However, I would say that talking is the right thing to do, if and however you can, because talking relieves what you're carrying and helps you to feel better, and talking means you're not alone, I am autistic and have been conditioned wrongly and habitually shy away from company and conversation but I know that I need to talk sometimes and that it is the best thing for me, it just has to be the right person, someone who respects my confidences and privacy and understands me. We can't all 'phone the Samaritans' but if you're feeling in a dead end, desperate, overwhelmed, do talk to someone and see if it changes perspective, never mind the public and media or popular view of desperation and despair. Do talk, do reach out, and make sure you reach out to safe understanding people, people who will listen and hear you, not people who will criticise you. 

If you are suffering, if you are desperate because you are trapped in abuse of any kind, or you've suffered great loss that you can't get over, if you feel responsible for something that's happened, if you feel worthless or a burden, no one should be making your feelings and reactions out to be an illness, reaction is not an illness, it is human, if we didn't react, by paradox, we also might be considered ill. You are human, hang onto my hand and stay alive, believe me when I say wholeheartedly that it isn't always easy to hang on but it's worth it. In my case I got to a point where I could choose to die or choose to live and live with what has happened and how it will affect me for the rest of my life. I chose to live, I want you to live. 

Does it help you to know that everyone suffers, everyone goes through problems? Maybe not, sounds a bit glib, doesn't it? People who make such comments can make your head explode because such comments don't always help. I remember being horrified as a teenager, when my landlady told me that life is about problems and once you've overcome one lot, the next lot comes along. Having just escaped an upbringing of unremitting abuse, neglect and violence, I thought I was now in paradise, problems over, despite the fact that I was so badly maladjusted to the normal world that I was in real difficulties and of course vulnerable to future abuse. Everyone does suffer, but in different ways and to different degrees, and just because we don't see another person's suffering and problems doesn't mean they don't have them. 

Life doesn't just need to be about the problems and focussing on them, accept the problems are a part of life but live despite them and with them, also, in another post I may talk about how to create your own problems in order to improve your life, challenging yourself in order to grow. Life is about life, and life is limitless, it really is, you might think it can't be because of your own circumstances, but it is. We can't always do what we really want to do, the way we want, but we can find ways round the roadblocks, we can re-draw the map, we can fight for what we believe, we can change how we feel and relate to people and situations and we can do the impossible, because we are alive, and we have great power and strength in us, we have life force and each person can be autonomous rather than relying on others for who we are to be. 

It's important to stay alive and keep that tremendous power and use if for good. So hang on. In Stephen King's book 'Dreamcatcher' one of the non human beings was describing to Ralph how the power he and Louis were using was like sand on a beach, it didn't run out. While you are alive, your life force, your inner strength and power are limitless like sand on a beach, you may not feel strong right now, indeed you may feel fatigued, but inner strength is a bottomless well. There are ways forward, it's just a question of finding them. We have to find ways of living what we're living with and living the best life that we can, and sometimes making the changes to do this can be daunting, traumatic, risky.  

Let me pause there. I'm autistic and I'm off for a shave. Yeah, I know I'm female, but these days we're all equal. I'm just thinking about a book called 'A Manual for Heartache' by Cathy Rentzenbrink. This is a cracking book, maybe a little triggering for some, but really really good if you're suffering. I read it during a patch of severe depression and it snapped me out of the depressive fit. If you can get a copy from the library or book shop, I'd recommend it. I am not advertising books or getting paid for any sales as a result of people using my blog, not at this point in time. I will simply recommend books, actions and attitudes which help me, so that you can decide if they help you, I hope something I suggest will help you but we are all different and we are in different circumstances. One of the challenges of this blog is that it can be viewed by people in all kinds of situations, and I have to keep it general. 

A very useful thing I learned which helps me is that when people try to push me towards what they think is right is to stop and think and say 'Is this for me, or is it what the other person wants or has been led to believe is right?' Let me give you an example, not everyone knows a lot about depression or other conditions, but one thing people repeat to someone they think is depressed, because 'they've heard it helps' is that things like art and exercise will help. Now you and I know that everyone is different, so one size doesn't fit all. Let me tell you, I was forced into art over and over again, I'm not an artist and I'm no good, so it was demeaning and unproductive, I am disabled and the exercises that people are determined would help me was tough on me and made me tired, which doesn't help depression. 

What you need is things that you enjoy. I am no artist and am not interested in art, but I'm a writer, I love writing and am bursting with writing, I need to write, writing helps me. I cannot do exercise classes and they hurt me, but I walk, I walk at my own pace, I will always struggle a bit with walking, but walking is what I can do, as long as I wear boots and am careful. So those are the things I can do and which help me, versus what other people decided what was best for me. You too may be misadvised and under pressure to do things which aren't right for you. Time to stop, say no, and choose the activities which you love and which help you. It's your life force and your power, you need to do what's best for you. Start by hanging onto that precious life of yours and understanding that it is your soul and mind and no-one else's, do what's best for you and live. What's best for you won't usually harm you, if it harms you, it's not what's best for you.

• Thought. If someone is hurting you, if someone is harming you. Get away from them, or if you can't, create safe boundaries and understand that that person should not be hurting you. It is not easy to get away from people such as family members and people in authority over you, but do get help and advice, talk it through with someone, or create safe boundaries, understand that that person should not be hurting you and that you need distance and you need to use your strength to know it's not okay for someone to hurt you even if they do not do it intentionally and you need space and boundaries. This isn't easy. You need your strength, your life force, to ensure safe boundaries. 
• Thought 2. You will know what is best for you more than another person will, even sometimes a professional, so stand up for yourself and do what helps you. You'd be surprised how many people simply go along with others to avoid conflict or because they think other people know best. Don't just drop treatments or help or support for the sake of it in your new quest to help yourself though, only if something is not helping you or doing more harm than good and if that's the case, discuss it with a professional. You may not like some forms of help, but if they are helping and not harming you, persist. It's a balance. Look after yourself. Look for every possible way to help yourself and improve your life. In my early days of trying to learn to be 'normal' as a teenager, I was left doing slave labour on remote land on a farm and no one cared about me, so I would take self help books and tapes with me, I would listen to self help tapes as I worked and would read self help books in my break. It was a grim time, but I was doing my best to help myself while everyone around me was failing me. Invest in yourself, through help being offered, as long as it does help, and through help you find for yourself, and there are limitless resources, never stop looking.

Bad things happen to good people, unjust things happen. Don't give up on life. Every day you go on living, things move forwards, bad people may be brought to justice by others if your efforts for justice fail, bad people die or move away, bad systems change, grief and shock become easier to bear, new people come along, new starts, new happiness, new ways of life. Life is very fluid. If that sounds a little glib, I'm speaking from experience and I've been through all kinds of hell and horror, and although the hell and horror is indelible and it happened, I chose life and I want to help other people to choose life. Never give up hope. 

One of the things that really helps me to live, survive and thrive is autonomy, choosing my own way and not needing to rely on others completely for approval or opinion. There is only one me, I am alive, I will do what I want, need and feel is best to live the best life I can. I won't be a better person by following the crowd and feeling the need to do what others are doing, I will be a better person by looking after myself as well as I can and finding new ways to develop and help myself.