Sunday ponderings

Hi Guys

Wasn't going to post today, but was just checking my email and I thought - hey, it wouldn't hurt to do just a little blog... And maybe in a minute I'll just have a really quick look at the memoir.

I haven't turned on my computer all day until now and it was actually quite hard not to - which is awful. But it was good to spend some time with the family - cooked a proper dinner, with vegetables, both days this weekend. It was getting to the point where I was worried that the children might forget what veggies are.

Bought some grass seed today and scattered it over the front mud patch. I don't hold out all that much hope of it working, but I can't help being a tiny bit excited at the thought of maybe having a front lawn. Fingers crossed.

Apart from that, I am not sure where the day has gone. Walked the dog at the beach this morning with elder son - he is the one that gets the least attention in this house, because he demands the least. He really appreciated the time this morning, so I must make a point of doing it more often.

Finished reading a book last night - called 'Forget you Had a Daughter' by Sandra Gregory. I am really picky these days about the quality of writing when I read anything and I found loads of holes in this one - surprising, because she had help in writing it from a journalist. Anyway, the story was interesting - a true tale of a British girl caught drug smuggling and her experiences in prison in Thailand and England. She carried drugs for money, because she was desperate to get home and didn't want to ask for help from her family.

She certainly suffered, and reading the book made me realise something - although I didn't do anything wrong to get ill, nor was I an angel. I mean, I took some wrong turns, and things could have been a lot worse than they ended up.

I mean, mental hospital is awful, but the shame and stigma of being in prison must be even more awful. Not that I ever did anything against the law exactly (except smoking dope, and I'm not sure that is an imprisonable offence. But I should have known better than to do it - it always made me so darn paranoid, and yet I persisted against all common sense).

I tend to feel sorry for myself far more than I should, when it comes to the illness and the aftermath. Because there are also loads of people in the world who suffer tragedy for no reason whatsoever - and for whom things never improve. I am actually very lucky, in lots of ways.

Anyway. If only I could go back and do it all again, with the benefit of hindsight... It would have been great then, to have someone appear to me as a nineteen year old in hospital and tell me that in twenty years time I would be married with four kids and happily settled in life.

Which is what I am saying to those of you reading this who are in the throes of mental illness now, or with family who are. That there is a way through, and out. I promise. There is no reason why anybody who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia should not get better. Don't let anyone tell you different.

Enough for now. x.