Oh! I hugged Mini T!

Hooray for me!  I have been alive for 38 years.  It was my birthday yesterday, I indulged in pork pie and beer (because it was my birthday).  Hooray for me!

Its Mental Health Awareness Week this week, just a week or so after Piss Morgan (I am aware of that typo) complained that too many men are oversharing and should Man Up.  One twitter user replied saying that their brother tried to Man Up, failed and ended up killing himself due to anxiety and depression; he felt he couldn’t talk about it because it’s not manly to share your feelings.  This is the myth that Piss continues to perpetuate, in this day and age where the biggest killer of young men (under the age of 45).  He seems to think it’s not okay to talk about your feelings, because if you do it makes you less of a man.  He then posed the question "Is James Bond not a real man, then?" on Twitter and the internet laughed at him, because that’s all he’s good for.

Regular readers of this blog will have seen my documented struggles with anxiety, depression, incredibly low self-esteem and suicidal ideation.  These aren’t daily feelings (thankfully), and the suicide thing hasn’t reared its head in a long while.  But from time to time, it hits me.  Yesterday whilst out with David for my birthday, he took a photograph of me holding a pint (because it was my birthday).  This might not seem strange, in fact, it’s almost obligatory that he do this on my birthday.  But I hated the photograph.  I look enormous (which I am), like the size of a fully grown manatee.  He posted it to FB because that’s what he does, and soon the compliments flooded in as well as more birthday greetings.  And my dark half came out and she started her up her old game of telling me how shit I look:

‘They don’t really like you’. 

‘They’re just complimenting you because that’s what you do when someone posts a photo of themselves or their significant other on FB’ 

‘They really want to post up the truth, YOUR truth, Tara, and post ‘Sorry Dave, your wife looks like a manatee with a stupid smile where her top lip disappears so it shows all her stupid teeth’.   

Managed to get to the cinema without too much trouble and then finally enclosed my dark half back in her cupboard.  Then, as we left the cinema, (which is situated next to a gym), two blokes came out of the gym, one looked over at me then whispered something to his mate, then they both looked over and openly laughed at me.  And it was definitely not because I’d told them a hilarious joke (You know what I hate about Russian dolls?  They’re so full of themselves ).  So I was made to feel like utter dogshit on my birthday – fair dos, they didn’t know it was my birthday; they didn’t know I have such a low self-opinion but yeah, they made me feel like utter garbage.  David and James, bless them, tried to help by saying ‘forget about them, they’re idiots’ and ‘They don’t matter’ but that’s exactly how anxiety can get you. It’s true, why SHOULD I care that two blokes I don’t even know openly laughed at me?  Because I do.  Because anxiety and my dark half make me.  And I’m finding it difficult to cope at the moment.  Got another birthday night out planned with the gal pals for Saturday.  I hope my dark half fucks off by then.  

If you’re being affected by low mood, anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation or any other kind of worrying thoughts or feelings, please do share your thoughts and feelings with others, whether its friends family or MIND or Samaritans, or even contact me through this blog.  Just please don’t suffer alone.   And writing my feelings helps me out so much.  I find it cathartic, which is why there are so many posts on here about mental health.

FUCK Piss Morgan.