Travelling

I am on my way to New Zealand. I didn't know if I would write my blog, I have a lot of conflicting feelings about writing it. For starters, there has been so much shaming from the government on the subject of mental health and disability that I was concerned that people think I just waltz over to the other side the world without  care, that because I do it, it must come easily and that I should be able to do other things. I am differently abled, I can't necessarily do what others can do, and sometimes I can do things which do not come easily to others. This, travelling, it's necessary for my recovery, it's also immensely difficult, but doing something immensely difficult once a year is one thing, and if I fail, there are no long term implications, whereas doing something immensely difficult every day while knowing it has an effect on your life, well that's the stuff that I find too hard to do. Every day it takes on average, an hour to get dressed. No, not an hour from waking up, an hour from starting to get dressed to finish. Some days I can't face it, some days it takes longer, some days I just put different pyjamas on. I'd like to be capable of just going about the day to day stuff without all this terror, honesty I would, but I can't and while I'll continue to work on myself, I accept that's who I am and it's okay. I need the rest of the world to accept that too. And probably they do, probably it's only the government who want to shame us both for what we can do and what we can't, who want to tell us what they think we can do irrespective of all evidence to the contrary. Who take any positivity about what we can do and turn it into a threat to our welfare, but honestly, this is me, laid out and bare, I can't do those things, I know it and the people who know me know it, I don't want to be afraid anymore, I want to leave the shadow of The Man in my childhood, just a story to scare kids, I don't want him following me into adulthood and threatening my existence. So I will share my travels with you my friends, and when The Man comes I will put up a fight.