I’m still not properly living with Andrew yet. The plan was that when I started my new job, which is near Andrew’s place, I’d move in with him. I was planning to start out just taking a week’s worth of clothes on Sunday nights, and go back to mine at weekends. Then, around March time,…
On my last working day of 2019, Friday 18th December, after putting my Out of Office on, I went for a drink with a few work friends. We sat around a table in the pub, sweating next to a slightly too hot, roaring fire, trying not to kick bags of last minute Christmas shopping, bought…
For the last 4-5 weeks, my body has been kind of attacking itself. I’m 99% sure I have coeliac disease, but I’ve never been formally diagnosed with it. I saw my doctor about this a few months ago, and he confirmed what I already knew: I need to start eating gluten again for 6 weeks,…
I have previously written about the state of Andrew’s flat. He is a perfectionist, and this has the opposite effect of what you might expect. You’d think that a perfectionist would have a pristine, immaculate home, and some perfectionists probably do, but there’s actually quite a strong relationship between hoarding and perfectionism. I don’t think…
Last week, I saw my brother for the first time in 6 years. He has lived in Australia since 2003. For the first ten years, we saw each other every year or two, but it’s been more difficult since he had children, because the flights are so expensive and they no longer have space for…
I haven’t been around much recently. I haven’t posted very much, or read or commented on other people’s posts. I’ve been feeling quite depressed. I’ve had lots of ideas for things to write about, but felt like it would be too difficult to start writing, or I was too tired, or I couldn’t do it.…
I had an absolutely lovely weekend with Andrew. Since I recently wrote about excessive amounts of sexual trauma at work, I’m still feeling quite jumpy, but overall less anxious. I have been quite depressed though. After feeling miserable at work this week, it’s been such a lovely weekend. I saw Andrew earlier in the week.…
This is an excerpt from my diary, when I was 19. It was coming towards the end of my year out, and I had been working in a nursing home for elderly people all year. I had just passed my driving test. It’s about 11:45pm and I’m lying on my bed, listening to Royksopp. I’ve…
This is an extract from my diary, when I was 18 and got my A-level results. I didn’t get any As. I had hoped that the university would still let me in because I’d done an extra A-level, but they didn’t. In the end, I re-applied in my year out and got into a better…
It’s probably obvious that my writing patterns have changed a bit, since I was single and started this blog. I used to write 1-2 posts a week, often posting a new one on Saturday mornings. Now, I’ve been with Andrew for over a year, and I’m writing less. This is for a few reasons. Firstly,…
As a therapist, people sometimes ask me how I cope, spending all day, listening to people’s problems. And they’re right to ask. In a standard week, I have several conversations about suicide, as well as talking to people about how they were abused as children, or attacked, tortured, trafficked or nearly killed as adults. Most…
Once, at Christmas, I saw a lady crying, in a toy shop. It was one the saddest things I’d ever seen. I was Christmas shopping with Balthazar, and we went into a big toy shop, to buy presents for our nieces and nephews. It was busy and there were Christmas carols playing. There was a…
There’s never a dull moment. The last few weeks have been hell at work. It’s the ever-increasing cuts and equally fast-growing targets and pressure. The last few weeks I’ve been trying to see too many patients and been staying late for hours, trying to get letters, referrals and notes written. Just as I was approaching…
When I was driving us home from our troubled weekend away, occasionally Andrew kissed my shoulder. “Ah, that’s nice. What was that for?” I asked. “Because you’re brilliant,” he replied. When we got back to mine, he stayed for half an hour or so, then went back to his place. Things seemed slightly less easy…
I’m going to write about the last few weekends in the wrong order. The last post was about Andrew meeting my parents. It went OK, but I found aspects of it a bit disappointing. The next weekends: we celebrated our one year anniversary, which was OK but, again, a bit disappointing then we were supposed…
