Getting back in the saddle.....

I find it interesting that I only ever seem to write here when things aren't going so great. I mean, good things happen to me too, yet I never feel the need to write about them. I don't have many readers anymore, so maybe it's actually good for me to just write things down and reflect on them.

I'm gonna be brutally honest with myself in this entry, because I have to be.

Right now, I'm a mess. When I first started blogging years ago, I was a mess. Things got better when I won the part in that old boyband, and from there I got a job in a supermarket, to a job as a youth worker. Things were going great for a while!

Now I look at myself and wonder, WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?! I'm 26 years old, still living at home with my FANTASTIC Mother and her awkward husband. I have a gorgeous fiance that works his damn ass off while I do NOTHING day in, day out. I just don't know where it went wrong.

I should have my own place now, with Anthony. I should know how to drive and OWN a car. Not a fancy big thing, but ANY car. I should be getting IN that car every morning to drive to work, and then to come back home in the evening to spend the night with my Fiance in our OWN home, with our own dishes to wash, our own messes to clean up, our own animals to feed and walk, and paying our own damn bills.

Story is, last year, stuff happened and I just couldn't get a grip. My job suffered, my friendships suffered......everything in my life went to hell, and I let it! My panic attacks came back, I lost my confidence, stopped going out and I didn't even wanna answer the phone. The doctor's signed me off of work, and it's been that way for almost 6 months now.

I'm doing MUCH better in myself now and FINALLY have some new goals, but they're so far off, they might as well be on the Moon. Worst part of this revelation is, it involves quitting the job I'm in now. Truth be told, I HATE my job as a youth worker. It's not what I signed up for at all. The company I work for see all of the young people we work with as numbers. We have targets to achieve with dead lines. We have to report that we've been out and seen a certain number of 'N.e.e.t's (which stands for 'Not in Education, Employment or Training'). If we don't meet the quota, then we're not up to scratch. Don't get me wrong, I understand targets and deadlines, but when it involves the welfare and best interests of young people's lives, I think we need to look at the bigger picture and not just regard teenagers as a number.
I DID enjoy the job until I was treat like crap! After a year, I saw an advertisement for another job in youth work, in a different place, for a different company. It was more pay too, so after talking with the other staff and my boss, I decided to apply. After the interview process, I had to give a presentation on my knowledge of youth work, from sexual health to disabilities, to equal rights. I focused on the fact that equal rights doesn't always apply because we're not all the same. After what seemed like a disaster of a presentation, I got a callsaying that I'd got the job! I was over the moon. My self confidence shot up! During the wait to start my new job, my current manager basically promised me more hours, which meant more pay AND she offered to train me up properly. This left me in a very awkward situation, but in the end, I decided to decline my new job offer and stick with the same company. 7 months later, I was STILL waiting for these changes and it wasn't much longer before I realisedthat they weren't coming. When they finally did, it was too late. I felt like a puppet and a shmuck!

The tip of the iceberg was a situation last year where a new young person joined the Wednesday night youth club. He seemed a good kid, but obviously low confidence and I could tell he'd been bullied. It wasn't long until the other young people told us that this particular young lad had been expelled from school following accusations that he'd sexually abused a younger male.
It left us with a very awkward situation.
Do we ban him from the club to protect him with all the threats of violence he was getting?
Do we ban him to protect others of possible abuse?

Finally, it was decided that, for now, he'd be monitored at all times whilst in the building. He seemed to get attached to me (I've since found out that he considers himself to be gay). Everywhere I went, he'd follow me. If I had to yell at misbehaving teens, he'd copy me and yell at them himself, which I warned him about constantly! He began to take on the imaginary role of a youth worker, which did nothing but anger the other young people even more than they already were!

Anyways, to cut a longer story short, he asked to talk to me and finally admitted that he had been expelled from school following allegations of sexual abuse. He also denied those claims!
I was the only one that he'd talk to about the exact thing we needed to know about, but they suddenly stopped me in my tracks and said that I couldn't be the one he spoke to for my 'own protection'. Don't get me wrong, I DO understand there points, but I thought the welfare of the whole youth club should be priority! If he'd confess what he'd done to me, then we had grounds to suspend him until the matter had been through the courts, for the protection of all the other young people. But right then and there, right when my hard work had paid off, they snapped me back hard and I was told to back off. It left me feeling frustrated, useless and basically like I wasn't trusted.

It was shortly after this that things just turned to crap and the panic attacks started again. To make things worse, me and Anthony were seperated and I didn't handle that well at all. I was a wreck. I even went to church, sat down and sobbed. There was nobody else there. I just felt desperate and I've never done that before.

But now, me and Anthony are getting engaged within the next couple of months and we're throwing a huge party to celebrate. All in all, we've been together for 8 years now! It just feels right. I just wish that right now, I had more to offer him.


In gay relationships, the first thing that people wonder is usually 'who's the guy and who's the girl?'. Truth is, we don't work like that. We each make up for something that the other lacks. I can be more emotional and romantic than Anthony, but yet he enjoys cooking and cleaning more than I do. We're a good team, but secretly I see him as the 'girl'. In a fight, I'd be the one that pushes him outta the way to protect him. I'm so protetive, maybe too much at times. But looking at it from this perspective, it frustrates me so much that I'm not the provider in this relationship. After 8 years, we should be able to afford to rent a place. We should be able to afford for me to come home and surprise him by taking him out. I should be able to afford to send him flowers every now and then. All these things I wanna do, but he just doesn't know it! I just feel like an absolute failure to him and my family.

My sick pay has now been cut down to half (I'm just grateful that they've been paying me for all these months) and I'm still under the doctors. But the counsellor has dropped me because I forgot our last appointment and truth is, it wasn't for the first time. She cancelled one appointment herself, but I forgot one of them, and the following one I had to cancel 'cos Mum slipped in the snow and landed on her head. There was no WAY I was gonna leave her that day. I figured I'd be in hospital with her all day. As it turns out, the paramedics said she was fine and she didn't need hospital, but I still wasn't gonna leave her that day. The counsellor didn't believe me, so she dropped me. She said I'd missed three appointments'. I argued the case that I'd only missed two as she cancelled one herself, and she took me back for a further appointment which should have taken place at 10:00am on the 2nd February. I reminded myself about it for a whole week before that date, but on that morning, I completely forgot! I couldn't even call to apologise. There are no excuses for it. I just feel ashamed! My place of work gave me a dyslexia test and it turned out positive, so they blame my forgetfulness on that, but I'm not convinced. I had no idea I was dyslexic. I have no trouble with English, but apparently, it affects moods, numbers, and time keeping! It DOES explain a lot though.

Me and my Brother had a HUGE bust up because he treats our Mother like shit! He always has, but I've managed to comfort her without saying anything to him, but this time, he went too far and we had a big fight. We're out of each others lives now, and it might sound bad but, I don't feel any different.

Me and Mum's husband almost came to blows recentlytoo. I had him up against a wall while he was trying to get me to hit him, which I'd never do, but god I was so close. I have no desire to hit an old man with arthritis, but my temper is fierce when it wants to be, and for that moment, I just lost control, but I didn't hit him and never would. I just took a long walk in the snow until my arms were too numb to lash out.....lol!

I'm also trying to break away from the habit of the internet. I found myself hiding behind it. I made friends in chat rooms on various sites. I tried to glam up my myspace to stop me from thinking about actual life and I became obsessed with a programme called 'Paltalk'. So now, I've sent a request to myspace to delete my profile, I've deleted accounts on numerous other sites and I've not been on paltalk properly for three weeks. I even deleted my whole paltalk profile today,and it felt good. I FEEL GOOD!

Now I'm getting back in the saddle. I wanna go to college for Photography and graphic design, but need a job in the mean time. I'm gonna go through an agency and try to get a small job doing ANYTHING to do with photography. I love digitally restoring old photo's, so I'm gonna take a shot at maybe doing it professionally. I've also been planning out my ideas for 'Stevie's Diner', which was gonna be a kinda 50's American vinatge pancake/waffle house. My good friend Peter has offered me £5000 to start with, but I need to get MUCH more to begin anything. Right now, no bank would offer me any kind of loan. They'd be INSANE if they did!! lol!!

But first things first, how the hell do I quit a job that's been paying me sick pay for 6 months?!


If you read through all of that, thank you. I just had to get this off my chest and maybe ask, WHAT THE HELL DO I DO NOW?! lol!
xx