A place to share my thoughts, struggles, experiences, reflections and, most importantly, my hope.
Featured Post By Faith Can’t find what you’re looking for? Use the search form to search the site. Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.
Read More
Featured Post The Unspoken Struggle of Self Harm Can’t find what you’re looking for? Use the search form to search the site. Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.
Read More
Having experienced anxiety and depression for over a decade, navigating life with mental illness is something that I have become very familiar with. But recently, after quite a thorough process, I received a new diagnosis: Borderline Personality Disorder, or BPD for short. Around a year ago I didn’t know much about BPD, and it’s still…
Read More
If I wanted to, there are probably a lot of letters that I could put after my name, though only one of them would bear any educational significance. Clare D, BA, BPD, SSA, PCOS, HSP. You may or may not know what all of these stand for, and some are more significant to me than others.
Read More
Last week it was my birthday. I often find birthdays weird and a little difficult. I think it’s a mixture of the expectation, the tendency to reflect on the last year and look at the year ahead to the next, and the subtle pressure to be happy the whole time. I spent a lot of…
Read More
I am pretty bad at self care. Just to be clear, when I say self care I don’t mean taking a spa day, having some ‘me time’ and buying myself some treats. I mean the kind of self care that is taken for granted. I mean making a bed so that I’m not sleeping an…
Read More
For someone who studied English Literature at university, I am a very slow reader. It didn’t take me long to realise I would never keep up. By my second second year (I did the year twice), I only read the books I would be writing essays on, and I’ll admit there were a couple of…
Read More
For me, social anxiety isn’t shyness,Nor is it a synonym for ‘introverted’,In my experience its one of several illnesses or diagnoses. And sometimes it really sucks. It can also be called social phobiaAnd yes, part of it is feeling anxious about speaking in front of people, avoiding crowds and seeming shy. But it’s also fearing…
Read More
As a new year begins we can be quick to start making plans for the months to come. For some this might be exciting, but for many others, like me, it often brings fear and anxiety. When we see other brimming with enthusiasm and opportunity, it can be easy to become overwhelmed. For those who…
Read More
Last January I took part in Move for Mind, and I would thoroughly recommend it. Mind is such a great charity and the fundraising challenge is a really great way of building up movement and motivation in way that is manageable and helpful for each person. You even get a free t-shirt when you sign…
Read More
To tell you the truth, this blog post has been in my drafts for about three years now. I didn’t want to delete it because it felt too important, but I couldn’t find the words to say to finish the post. What comfort do we have in the face of grief? Grief is unpredictable, confusing,…
Read More
Over a long time and in bursts of thoughts and sentences this blog has begun to form, as I worked out how best to talk about something that feels so rarely discussed. Self harm is a mostly hidden but very present struggle for so many people today. For those who have self harmed, or have…
Read More
The Lilies of the Field 