Latest Blogs....

  • Cowardly lions and Caravans...

    My name is Denise and I am a writer. I write about "the darker stuff", homelessness, mental health, addiction and trauma, and I'm known by my followers  for calling a spade a spade, and just “chucking it out there"...no fake fairydust, no candy coloured sugar-coating...just honest emotions mixed with cold, hard, facts. People call me "inspiring" and think that I'm brave.
     
    And yes, at times, I think I'm brave too. It takes guts to do the things that I do...to lay yourself bare and to leave yourself open, especially when you don't feel very brave because you secretly live like the cowardly lion from that epic movie The Wizard Of Oz.
     
    I'll let you into a secret...
     
    I live in a caravan that I share with my cat (who's not actually my cat but is convinced that he is, which is why he is now a permanant fixture) 
    It's compact and cosy and a roof over my head. It's also my hiding place where I live like a recluse, and it shelters me from the outside world that just a few years ago was terrifying to me. 
     
    I work, and I write and I talk to my cat, and very few people are allowed past my threshold. My firewalls are huge (but for very good reason).  The chosen few who are allowed through clearly adore me and I adore them, and our interactions help keep me sane.
     
    I'm a huge, huge  fan of “voice notes" now... they're my new bestest thing...(especially now that we are in lockdown again and most of my “ real” friends live hundreds of miles away) so our friendships rely on these interactions...it also helps to disguise the fact that I'm actually scared to answer my phone.
     
    If we do physically talk on the phone, you need to know this...you are very, very, high up in my world (Emma, Clare, Sally and Sarah, yes, I do mean you!)
     
    I have PTSD, in case you are wondering, on quite an epic scale. Mostly I manage, I have safeguards in place, and if I'm absolutely honest I choose not to talk about it much, but lockdown for me is “recovery time"... which basically means “not having to do things that freak me out or trigger me” - like going to work with people who think that I'm weird, because they don't have a clue about why I'm so guarded. It means that I get to spend more time inside, unravelling my head, in the hope that one day maybe I can fix myself.
     
    The journey that I went on has scarred me for life. I am never, ever going to be fully the woman that I was before, and sometimes I miss that person a ridiculous amount. I miss her sass and her bravery and her not being scared or intimidated by anyone...I miss the woman who gave precisely no fucks what people thought about her, and who was happy just being in her own skin and doing her own thing. 
     
    My blog allows me to be that woman...to bring her out and dust her off, and show people just what I'm actually capable of, and I feel brave and resillient and everything I yearn to be again  when I am her...And then I'll go to put the kettle on and my phone will ring, or there's a knock on my door,  and I'm peeling myself off the ceiling again  because hypervigilance kicks in,  and in seconds I'm a hot  mess of adrenaline and fear.
     
    Which brings me back to earth with a bump and reminds me once more that I've still got quite a big mountain to climb, and an awful lot more unravelling  to do in order to get my bravery back... Something that sadly can't be fixed by a pair of ruby slippers and a journey down the yellow brick road...
     
     
     
     
     

  • Street Life....

    So this is a blog about a woman. Hundreds of miles away from me. Who I've never met.

    A woman with a smile the size of a small country. A woman who likes to see the good in everyone and everything, even when those people and those things turn out to be really really shit. A woman with issues and a lot on her plate.

    A woman who loves her service dog. A woman with health problems and disabilities. A woman  who is homeless, and therefore a woman I can relate to on many different levels. Only when I was homeless at least  I had a sofa....

    Continue reading

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