Just Keep Swimming……

September 16, 2008

Read this First…

When I read this post (link up there), of donkeys years ago, last year to be exact I shivered, perhaps you did too.

The reason I shivered is because something like this happened to me too…..

I was the typical “troubled teen” in school, always looking for a reason to be different, as if I didn’t have enough reasons.

Home life was rubbish and my Dad was ill, he has been a sufferer of manic depression since 23 (before I arrived). I use the word suffer deliberately as he does suffer, and he makes sure everyone around him does too.

Things came to a head for me when I was 16. I could no longer take the weight of a grown manic man’s problems on my teenage shoulders. I had enough of my own, my sexuality, my general difference, my lack of confidence, my lack of trust, my list was, it seemed, endless.

I thought about death and I planned for it, and I executed it, would have succeeded too…. except someone found me (I’m sure I wanted to be found really)

My “John” is that 16 yr old,

In the days and months after, I mourned her.

She died without my ever getting to talk to her, and from that waste of life I got the strength to stand up for myself.

To keep swimming…….

Its not always easy to keep my head above water, but every hour I manage it I am glad.

This life affords me such wonderful experiences (and some pretty shit ones too) but that empty joyless fearfull parallel life that could have been has given me reason to be very grateful for her passing.


Comic Timing….

September 16, 2008

My better half’s best mate Maeve’s online comic’s been Long-Listed for the Irish Web Awards!

I’m so happy for her, her comic is sheer genius and I really look forward to Friday morning reading!

So apart from it being on my blogroll, in my Twitter feed and on my facebook, and its not like she needs the hits (just over 3,000 hits since Feb) here is another shameless plug.

http://flatmatesthecomic.com/

Read it NOW!