Oh Blimey.... I've finally blogged

I’ve been meaning to do the blog thing for some time now, mainly because I like scribbling (or tapping) and also because I find it therapeutic to write stuff down and share it out a bit. I learned about writing stuff down and sharing it this some time ago. You see I was ill with depression long before I worked in the Scottish Parliament and had undergone all sorts of treatment. I’ve sat down and ‘chatted’ with more therapists than I could shake a stick at and in fairness all of them from their many diciplines gave me something good to take away with me and sometimes I learned things by accident from my therapist. I remember leaving the office of a brilliant psychotherapist in Glasgow, it was my final session and I wondered how I would cope without my weekly ‘chat’ he had been so helpful, he had made me really work on my problems and had never once said 2tell me about your childhood” Anyway, I’m walking up a busy Glasgow street when I suddenly feel a sneeze coming on, there are folk about and I don’t have a hanky….. so I cover my mouth and nose with my hand and severely stifle my sneeze by holding my face hard and keeping my mouth closed. The big sneeze rattled through my body: battered into my back and my spine responded with a loud click. I couldn’t move, my back locked and I was is agony. I managed to flag down a taxi and crawl into the back seat. Once I had explained to the driver that I would be lying down in his cab I forced out the words “casualty please”. Anyhoo, I ended up in hospital for a few hours where a few wee jabs were administered allowing me to get into a taxi, like a human being this time, and home safely. The lesson being…. Don’t hold stuff in, it WILL damage you. A few years later an entirely different therapist built on this notion when she suggested I bottle stuff up. She suggested I write down some of the stuff that was annoying me. She felt that it was better oot than in. We practiced in her therapy room. I could write wee things, big things, names, place even draw pictures! Anything I fancied as long as I was getting stuff out. Once it was down on paper I could then share it; burn it; post it or chuck it in the nearest river, bin, sea or any other place I liked. Basically it didn’t matter what I did with my ‘stuff’ as long as I did something to take it out and have a wee look at it. I found this worked for me I even posted a letter with no names, no address, no date just stuff in the local post box. I was bold at getting rid of my ‘stuff’ ask the River Clyde, she received a lot of my grief and from various bridges throughout Glasgow. The pond in Queens Park on the south side also got its fair share of my personal litter as did some bins, stanks, puddles, hedges etc. I was a like some sort of problem litter lout. I told my therapist a;l about how I had chucked various problems in various places. I think she started to worry I could end up being fined because she appeared one day with a lovely wee box she had bought for me in a second hand shop. Loved it immediately and started tormenting it with my etchings, writings, poems, letters and once my wee round box was full I would shred up my ‘stuff’ and start again.

Now all of that started way back in the early nineties and my wee round box has served me well. I had no idea back then what was ahead of me and the many amazing things I would experience, my life would change dramatically and it would not all be good. However, the changed me would cope a lot better with the tests I would be set…. I think.

Either way I would need a bigger box… a much bigger box and here it is. It started with Facebook then Twitter and now Blogging will be my round box but I will remember at all times that this round box is huge and public and I’m betting I will press ‘delete’ far more often than ‘send’ I will clear my head regularly and it will be mine.. it will be Therablog.

So, welcome to my wee round box.