Category: Mental health

Bloggage · Life · Links · Mental health · Notions · purchases · Rant · Social Media

Decisions

MsWalshLeave a comment
This is just a small follow up from the post on the 25th of Jan – It’s time to nuke my X/Twitter accounts – I’ve two – one where I’m me and one where I’m not me and therefore a little bit more me. Yes I know that makes no sense whatsoever!  So a quick explanation – on my This Is Deirdre accounts all over the internet – there is a social circle of people I know and they know me (they think). but the thing is I have very thin skin and find ribaldry difficult.  So if I say that I like something and somebody takes the mick and makes fun of that – I’ll just never mention it again because I just don’t want to have to put up with that.  So in order for me to like what I like without have to put MY head above the parapet, I found another name and that profiles likes the things that i like without the fear of ridicule from my friends and acquaintances.  Funnily the ridicule of strangers doesn’t bother me – I just think who the hell are you – and Blocked.  So I have ME and a me in a few places. For now it’s X that’s getting targeted.  I know lots of people have deleted their accounts – well we’re all on Bluesky so a sidestep and keep moving forward – actually Bluesky (https://bsky.app) is waaay better!  I’ve kept both X accounts for different reasons – the ME account – I’m not sure why I just haven’t – I suppose it’s ’cause there are people on there that I like to follow – so yeah I’ve been reluctant – I’ve had the account for YEARS – just checked – I joined in 2009 – now in fairness I’m not a prolific user so my absence won’t make an overall difference.  I’ve had the me account since 2013 – and that was even less of a user – but this one was kept because of one single tweet I made and didn’t want to lose.   Sentimental isn’t even in it!! For the past few weeks I’ve been watching the absolute CarCrash that is America and I just can’t be part of X.  I just can’t.  Everything I’ve read has just given me anxiety – I really think that there will be boots on the ground before his 4 years are up – and the 22nd amendment will have been shredded – I hope I’m wrong – I hope I’m very very wrong.  Last night I decided it’s time – X has to go and so this morning I’ve requested my data and while I’m waiting for that to come in – I’ll go through my follow lists and see if I can find folk elsewhere.  Once my data is secured, the accounts and the apps are all going to be deleted. Like I said in the overall scheme of things it makes no difference – however it does mean that I can look myself in the eye and know that I’m taking a small stand. I’ve also downloaded all of my books from Amazon so that they are mine and not under the control of somebody else’s decisions as to what is and isn’t appropriate, what cover should be on it etc.  I think the only time I’ll be using Amazon for shopping will be to source something and go directly to the shop or the author etc to purchase.  Jeff Bezos doesn’t need my few quid (again not exactly a prolific user) but it soothes my soul.  Mind you the ebooks might be a bit of an issue – I’ll work on it. I’m also contemplating jettisoning my gmail accounts – the me & ME – so I’m investigating alternatives – for my I’m looking to go a bit more Eurocentric ’cause I’m not liking the way the Tech bros are all queuing up.  It’s making me feel a bit queasy and uneasy – so right now I’m looking at what https://european-alternatives.eu/  has to offer.  I think I don’t mind paying a minimum fee and having secured rights.  Again like I said – it’s all being looked at. Is this all a knee jerk reaction – possibly. Is it an exaggerated reaction – no I’ve long wanted to make my internet a little bit more Europe based/Europe Sponsored so it’s time – it’s the push I’ve needed.
Bloggage · Life · Mental health · Notions · Photography · Rain · Weather

Encounters

MsWalsh3 Comments
Why did I let my neighbour erode my joy? Ok – scene – my apartment faces out to a carpark – that’s a spot of exaggeration – my apartment is built behind a row of houses and all the houses have their parking spaces at the back – so the view from one side of the apartment is all cars.  So headlights going on can blind you if you look the wrong way at the wrong time.  By now I’m used to it. Anyway – last year I said to a neighbour, if she sees me taking a photo of her car, I’m not really – I just like the way the headlights catch the light on the road after the rain.  If she thinks I’m being weird, don’t worry.  Now between the light changing and the weather not being what I’d like, curtains being pulled and not having a camera at the ready, I simply haven’t taken the photo – despite looking out the window several times and thinking oh that would have been nice. YESTERDAY! Yesterday I spotted that she had come back and then went out – which meant that she’d be coming back and it had been raining.  So I ran to get my camera – couldn’t get it to do what I wanted so decided the phone was probably the handiest, and all I had to do was wait for her to come back!  She came back and I grabbed my chance. As I finished she beeped, and I went out to her.  She asked what was I doing?  Of course me taking the photo means something to me – me telling her, I’ll take a photo of something, it’s not going to stay in her memory because it’s of no consequence.  So she insisted on me showing her the photo and looked at me as if I was making problems and told me I was crazy and repeated that as she walked away with an annoyed demeanour. I felt at a loss, to be told you’re crazy as in wacky fun etc is ok but to be told you’re crazy like it’s a bad thing, is not nice- it bothered me for the entire evening.  To make matters worse – it was also a rubbish photo – even by my standards.  It’s encounters like this that tend to make me go into myself, to hide away, to hide my interests, to hide who I am, to hide what I like.  So my next challenge to try and not let it upset me too much (- I won’t kid myself and say at all) I don’t take many photos for various reasons but I do love it, I wish I was better at it, in so many different ways – so the trick will be to continue to try to do the thing that I love. I know it’s just a misunderstanding – her of me and most likely me of her. This is the best I could do, out of sorts and just not feeling the love –
Coffee in a mug with a spoon, on a counter top with a light shining on the surface Slow Sunday Morning
Bloggage · Food · Life · Mental health · Notions · purchases · Rain · Weather

Slow Sunday Morning

MsWalshLeave a comment
It’s been a relaxing morning I woke up had a look at the weather forecast and decided that comfort was going to be the order of the day. I eventually got out of the bed and went to the kitchen and blended stuff to make a smoothie type thing.  I’d previously bought a smoothie thing from Lidl and had a fight with it every time I tried it – so I went back and bought the nutribullet thing.  This morning was my first time giving it a go and it worked without any fuss or persuasion. While I was drinking my yogurt, blueberry & banana, I put a coffee on to brew and a pain au chocolat into the airfryer.  I love the treat of it all. I took the coffee and pastry back to bed, put on some jazz to plink away in the background and decided to read the Good Housekeeping on the iPad – it’s pure decadence! Outside I can hear a bit of wind (it’s actually the trees rustling) and the rain is hitting the window, so I have a feeling that the rest of the day is going to continue in this vein
Bloggage · Life · Mental health · Notions · Rant · Social Media

Moving Over

MsWalsh1 Comment

The past evening or two I’ve been going through the list of folk I follow on X and looking to see if they have made the jump to BlueSky. Some have and some haven’t, some even got skipped, and that it possibly the part that made me happy.
Looking at the list and the batches of people – I can tell what I was watching or what was popular at the time – it’s like strata. However I’m a polite hoarder – and while I was interested in some folk at a specific time they have moved on, as have I, and the interests diverged.  My problem is that I find it difficult to unfollow after that – not impossible though – but it just feels like I’m being mean.  I know – totally weird!
Anyway – I could say that after the latest exploits of Mr Musk, I’ve decided to jump ship, but given that I was a poor user of the app in the first place, I can only say that it’s given me a bit more impetuous to move house to BlueSky.

What I like about BlueSky is the different feeds – and the different manipulations you can have.  I have friends that repost a lot of things and some of it is outside of my interest base, so I can jump to an only posts feed that shows only the posts that they have written something in – yes it can have repost in it –  but it gives a context as to why it was reposted.  Or there’s the Mutuals feed where you see the posts of the people you follow, that follow you back.  There’s also feeds for interests that doesn’t only contain the people you follow – it is open to all in sundry, introducing you to new people, ways of thinking, opinions – helps reduce the echo chamber.

My next mission is to see who, from my FB F-list, is on BlueSky, because as with twitter I’m less and less on FB too.  I’m not mad about Meta and it kills me because I loved Instagram.  I’m a photos girl (girl – ha!  ok – photos lady) and the massive push on videos & reels is just putting me off – Why they just couldn’t develope a new app to rival TikTok – they could have used what they had as a foundation but instead they mashed out the photo aspect and it’s now all videos or selling stuff.  I’m still there ’cause I love the feed that I’ve collected.
I can’t help but feel that FB destroyed the internet (ok that might be a bit strong) While it made is accessible to all, it homogenised it – gone are the various websites – the individuality. People no longer site hop, it’s all there in their feed. I know on Livejournal we had our friends page but each journal was created to the users taste – the different templates – (the same as here on WordPress)  – your profile where you could list things you were interested in etc. Some of that is on FB but it’s not for people to find you or you to find them -it’s for companies to sell you things, to use the information – it’s not about friends it’s about profits, Metas profits. It just gives me dystopian jitters.

They know that people find it hard to step away from the familiar, to strike out on their own. It’s funny but moving to another app (no matter which or why) it really does feel akin to emigrating – you’re leaving all of your friends and family behind and you can just hope that some of them will find you again.

Bloggage · general · Life · Mental health · Notions

What do you do, when you don’t do anything?

MsWalshLeave a comment

I want to blog or write or whatever this is – but I don’t do anything – I’m not joking – I really don’t do anything at all!  It’s like I’m still living in lockdown.

I occasionally have an opinion on things but it’s never fully formed enough to even try to coax into words – I have been known to answer the questions “what do you think?” or “Did you like it?” with a simple yes or no.  I’m not great on expanding my thoughts internally or externally.

I do journal – but it’s very stream of consciousness – planning what i might do in the day, what will I eat etc – or trying to figure out what is causing a particular bout of emotions that are being inconvenient.  I rarely go back and do a what i did today – I write forward rather than backward.  And you wouldn’t want to be looking for world events ’cause in the journal they don’t happen.

Previously I said this was going to be a bit of a mirror for my social media – that didn’t happen but I think I might have to pull up my socks and start filling this with little bits and pieces – just snippets.

So my big news is – I bought a skipping rope, gave it a try and now my left leg feels like it’s been tortured.  I’m going to try and persist with it, as it was recommended when I went for a Lymphatic Drainage massage.

However if we know anything about me – it’s persistent and consistent aren’t always within my nature…

Must Try Harder

Bloggage · craft · Holidays · Life · Mental health · Notions · Photography

Self Confidence / Self Belief

MsWalshLeave a comment

I’ve been trying to unpick this for a while and I’m not really getting anywhere, so I think I can say this is going to be a rambling.

I went on holiday recently and although I brought my camera but I didn’t take photos – well I took 4 or 5 but it was more a figuring out how to use the camera type of photo, not a photographing something for my memories.  Why??

I think that if you were to meet me you would not think I am shy – my mother sent me to the Girl Guides and drama classes in the hopes that it would help, it did in a manner of speaking.  But I’m the kind of person that doesn’t want to be noticed, doesn’t want to take up too much space.  I can’t handle criticism and I definitely don’t want praise.  The people who are most likely to do either, are people close to me, if they criticise I feel I have let them down and if they praise, I feel it’s too biased (we’ve all seen those talent shows where the parents think their child is the best thing since sliced bread, when they obviously aren’t).  I’ve also been a victim of the “Oh you should photograph this, no do it this way” by people who aren’t actually taking photos.  I say victim…. and yes, I’m busy trying to find my own way, but people in all of their oblivious good will, have steered me off of my own course and made me doubt myself.  I’m thinking, why is what I was doing not right? Why can’t I just turn around and say it’s of no interest to me, why don’t you take the photo?  Mind you that last sentence wouldn’t even have occurred to me a few years ago, I’d have just been a sheep being leeched of self-confidence.  Ok I have never said that sentence but at least it has occurred to me.

I also think that I have a slight touch of the autism – I haven’t had a diagnosis and I’m not interested in one, I am what I am and I work within my limitations.  One of those limitations is, I find it difficult to create.  I can recreate, that’s no bother ( again within the limitation of talent ) but initiating almost puts me into a paralysis – I know I want to do something but it’s behind frosted glass.  Because of this, crochet is easy because it predominantly relies on patterns, cooking less so, it has recipes but I can’t adjust them, however, Photography has too many obstacles for me.  Personality, mental capabilities, talent limits all conspire against me.  

I have a good camera, so the automatic assumption is, you must be a photographer – or is that something that is just in my head?  Anyway – I’m not, when I get a good photo it’s an accident.  On the other hand I’m not looking to take good photographs – I’m looking to be snap happy on my holidays but that means being seen and taking up space.  If I want to improve, that means practice, which means going out and taking photos…

So while I have a vague idea of what is the issue – me & my head, I’m not entirely sure how to get beyond it.  I might have to start with something that could almost be pre starting-line.  I might have to start wearing the camera outside and feel comfortable being seen with it.  

(I should also point out that I’m not confident to take up space while using my phone camera either)  

Maybe I should just put my earphones / earplugs in and become oblivious to everything around me and that might help me…

(Actually that’s a rather good idea to try!)

Bloggage · Celebration · general · Life · Mental health · Notions

Let Me Inspire You

MsWalshLeave a comment

The other day I was reading a substack.  The author was saying how in general she doesn’t compare herself with others – and yes I can identify with that notion – I’m happily playing away at being me, because although we are all the same, we are different.  The author also decided that this steadfast reluctance to compare herself to others was impacting her negatively – she found that although she enjoyed doing the things that she does, she was reluctant to write or publicise it because there are others out there doing exactly the same, but doing it better.  This I can truly identify with.  I know my limits, I know what I can and can’t do – I know where my finesse ends!.

There’s a world of blogs out there that you can dive into and love, well I’ve decided to blog so that you can look at this and say, you know what? I can do better than this.  You see I’m happy with my limits, and pushing to expand them a little every so often, but there are people out there that do want a push, that do feel the need to try and produce things they are proud of.  If I was to think that way, I’d be stuck in a paralysis because my talent falls well short of my minds eye.

So in future, if you like what you see, but thing that you can do better – then do it!  Seriously, just do it!  If I can produce this then I know that you can do it so much better.  Break out your flat lays, construct your photos, write your reviews (mine mainly consist of yes or no and let’s face it – that doesn’t really count – it barely has a word count!), show us what you’ve been working on – I’ve been working on a blanket for the last year and I’ve only done about 25 rows!.

It’s just about finding your voice.  I love the word JUST as if it’s the simplest thing in the world!  In a year and a half I’ll be 50, I’ve been married, and now separated. I never had children, but did have 4 cats.  I’ve loved and experienced the heartbreak that lurks in the shadows.  However I’m only now starting to have the courage to be me, it’s taken a lot and I still haven’t really gotten there – so in fairness there’s no JUST about it – but it’s still something that needs to be done.

So there you have it.  I’m going to be ordinary, so you can shine.  I’m happy to trundle along slowly improving (or not) but I’ve decided not to be ashamed of being ordinary because there’s billions of us out there and it’s not really a bad thing.

Bloggage · general · Home · Life · Mental health · Notions · Seasons

Sitting in the Shade

MsWalshLeave a comment

It’s just after 8am and I’m out in the garden with the laptop and a coffee.  I think this is the hour that everybody seems to emerge – I can hear windows opening and voices – chattering about what needs to happen in order for the day to start.  The dogs have been left outside, they too, are chatting over the garden fences.  It’s the same every morning, an unconscious way of marking what time it is.  The various different birds flying about and singing in their dawn chorus are joined by aeroplanes.  I see their con trails in the sky – why has that reminded me of slugs and snails? – when I can’t see them like the birds, I can hear them somewhere high above and off in the distance.

Because of the angle of the building, I have a choice, I can sit in a warm sunny carpark or sit in a slightly colder shaded garden.  I’ve picked the garden, nobody goes near me.  The closest I have to that are the bees who are investigating the raspberries.  They’re not in the lavender yet, although I can smell it sometimes if the breeze goes in the right direction. I’m waiting for the honeysuckle, now that is a beautiful smell.
Occasionally I will be joined by the cat but this morning she has chosen to go back to bed.  I will probably make the same choice when I’m her age.  But for now, for this season, for this day, I chose to get up earlier and and enjoy the sounds.   It’s a gentle way to start the day and for that I’m lucky.  There’s no hurry hurry hurry.  It’s strange that 30mins less time in bed gives my day much more than 30mins extra.