Getting started …

So, I first started writing a blog about six years ago, when my younger daughter Martha, was three. I wanted to document our journey towards getting a diagnosis of Autism for her and how we went about putting  in place all the support she would need in her life. I suppose I wanted to help others who might be embarking on a similar journey, by sharing our experiences, highlighting some of the difficulties we faced and most importantly, how we ultimately overcame them. In essence, I suppose I thought that putting it all down on paper (or computer at least) might also be cathartic for me – a way of coping and making sense of the whole process in some way.

Even then, I felt the blog market was saturated and wondered whether it was worth the effort, and my then, not particularly supportive partner didn’t exactly encourage the idea. To be honest, with all the dramas that then went on to unfold in the coming year, the whole idea just got swept up with the rubbish and no longer seemed to be a priority. Months of paperwork followed in order to get what we needed for Martha, in terms of health, education and financial support (it’s a minefield!), and quite quickly, writing became a chore rather than a pleasure and something I ‘had’ to do to get us to the next stage.

Looking back, I wish i had continued that blog. Or even just that I’d continued to write it all down, without necessarily sharing it with the world. Things got so complicated and challenging, that I can hardly remember the detail of it all now, and if someone asks me how we did this or achieved that, I misplace the timeline of it in my overflowing mind and feel a fraud. I can’t remember how i felt about it all or what my innermost thoughts were at any given moment in time. I know it was confusing, tiring, emotionally exhausting and felt like a continuous battle for a number of years but I’m not always able to pinpoint specific feelings in a specific moment.

Anyway, a lot happened in the years that followed and over that time I have become increasingly frustrated with myself for not writing; for not documenting stuff so that I can remember when it happened and how I felt about it; mostly as a way of managing my own thoughts and feelings about things and working through them. There has been a subconscious niggle that something is missing from my life, that I’m not quite fulfilling some inner desire. I still don’t know that blogging or even writing is it but I’ve decided to give it a go anyway and see what happens. If nothing else, I hope that jotting down my thoughts and feelings about things, telling you my stories, perhaps helps someone else. That what I have to say resonates with someone else and that we can connect on similar subjects, feelings and passions.

So here it begins. I don’t just want my blog to be specifically about Martha or our journey with Autism – that’s just one part of our very full life! But it is a very large and important part so I will definitely be talking about it and hope that I can engage with others in a similar place with familiar experiences. However, I am also mum to another amazing girl, Elke, who is 11 and presents her own rewards and challenges (pre-teen Mums, you know what I mean!). I am also 40, which is an interesting point in any woman’s life (I have never considered Botox but it’s starting to appeal). I am a business owner (I run two quite different business with two quite different partners!), I have navigated a divorce (fuck me!) and I’m sure a plethora of other interesting stories and anecdotes will emerge over time.

I hope I can be consistent and regular in terms of producing content. I hope I can provide interesting reading and I hope I am able to connect with others. But most of all, I hope that I enjoy it and find that it gives me some creative satisfaction, despite what anyone else thinks ;0).