Everything happens for a reason

I sat on the train on my way back to Brighton today with a huge smile on my face. I was sad to leave my mum and dreading going back because of my treatment. However, the last few days have been very uplifting. Since writing these blogs, not only is it very therapeutic for me but it is already helping people.

 I have had an abundance of positive and kind words from people, some of whom I do not know. For friends, its helping them understand what I am going through and they now feel like they can be more supportive. For others it has made them realise that they have issues from the past that they have buried and really need to confront before its too late. Amazingly I have heard its already reached someone with who has recently been diagnosed with cancer and found my blog comforting. Some people have lost loved once and those dear to them to the big 'C', and it is now helping them understand what they might have gone through.

 I have had friends open up to me who might have not done so before, which I know is a huge thing for some people to do. Up until about 4 years ago I found it impossible to open up. I am not sure what or how things changed but I am now very open and am not ashamed of that.

My homeopath and and wonderful friend, Paolo made me realise why I had certain physical illness's. They explained to me that your emotional well being had a huge impact on your physical. Louise Hays' book, How to heal your  life also explains this theory and lists every illness with the emotional cause.

I never really had too many health problems and thought I was quite lucky. I did however seem to suffer with a lot of emotional problems. The first illness I suffered from at high school was streptococci, a throat infection. I suffered with swollen glands for many years. It would make me feel so ill but the doctors kept giving me antibiotics and said I would grow out of it. The last time I remember having it was 4 years ago. (notice how the 4 years fit in with when I started to open up)

I remember a guy I was going out with (who was slightly deluded) would never listen to me.  One night we'd had a huge argument and he would not listen to what I was saying. I cried with the pain my throat was in. Paolo told me that I suffered with sore throats because I could not express myself to other people and when I tried to no body listened to me. I felt invisible to some people at some point in my life or other. What Paolo had told me made absolute sense.

My sore throats seemed to disappear about 4 years ago and I then started to get urine infections, not too bad until 2 years ago when I started traveling though. When I spoke to my homeopath about my life she noticed that I kept saying the words 'pissed off' and that wasn't it strange that I was suffering from urine infections and I was always pissed off. She was right, I WAS still 'pissed off' with so many thing about my life. 

A naturapath I spoke to in New Zealand who was amazing, but have sadly lost touch with also explained to me why I seemed to suffer with the throat infections and then the UTI's. She explained that because of my introverted nature I may have been attempting to swallow down my true feelings and that sore throats were connected with not saying something to someone. She wondered if this had since been swallowed so deep down that it was now buried in my digestion and causing the yeast infection, candida.

It all made so much sense to me. To be honest I feel like it is no surprise that I now have breast cancer. Looking back on my life I have noticed a pattern occurring. I kept trying to run away from my problems without realising it. How strange that every time I went away traveling my trips were always cut short, when all I wanted to do was to stay away and travel the world. I always hated Leicester and was so desperate to leave and find somewhere I was happy and accepted. Where ever I went things seemed to go wrong and not work out. I would end up right back where I started in Leicester again. It drove me mad!! Why did this keep happening to me, I kept thinking.

It is not until now that I realise all I was doing my whole life was running away from my problems. Well as we all know its impossible to run away from issues you have as they are in your own head. You can't just dump them and say "Toodle Ooh" and hope they don't follow you. If only it WERE that simple! 

I must of been in total denial. I thought I WAS OK with my past and the way I was. Like the naturapath said I must have buried them deep down and hoped they'd disappear. I also used to try and find happiness in other things rather then in myself. I pretty much hated myself for a long time. I thought I would find happiness in Love, places, career etc. I was not to find it in any of those places. I thought I was destined to be unhappy for the rest of my life. 

I often found myself very depressed and feeling sorry for myself. I felt like I was trying so hard in relationships (where I thought I would find ultimate happiness) The relationships never worked out and I'd end up even more lost then ever. When people say to you, "You can not love someone else until you love yourself", listen to them! I used to hate that saying. I knew deep down it was the truth but I never like listening to the truth.

I think as a British nation we are quite a miserable and sarcastic bunch! We are too proud, don't like to open up and sweep all our problems under the carpet. Well it drives me insane! OK I used to be like this but I feel so much better for being a more open. Why are we so ashamed of our problems. After all, we all have them don't we? 

 I feel this country has so many things wrong. Why do have so many teenage pregnancy's for example, compared to a country like The Netherlands? Perhaps it is because we don't like to talk about sex so openly. Like a lot of things is this country its a taboo subject. We shy away and are too afraid and embarrassed  to talk about subjects so openly. Why can't we see that we are damaging our younger generations to come. We need to learn from our mistakes and change the way we think. Why we are we so afraid to teach our children sex education. Look at what the world is turning into.

Global warming, violence, child abuse, poverty, war, animal cruelty and even vanity and this ridiculous obsession with celebrities, some who are famous for what? apart from appearing on a reality TV show or getting their kit off for some sleazy magazine, NOTHING!!  So many things (as you can see) frustrate me about the world I live in and there is only so much I can do about it. 

I have always said I love animals more then people. I guess this is because so many people are cruel to animals and there is nothing they can do. We are destroying their natural habitat and causing many beautiful creatures to become extinct. People kill them no matter if they are becoming extinct or not so that some stinking rich and ignorant person can enjoy wearing a beautiful fur coat. It makes me sick to the teeth. We are killing animals every day without even realising it. How would we like it if aliens came down from space and did this to us? We could fight back with our 'weapons of mass destruction' and defend and protect ourselves. Animals can not.

Phew..... I really am going off on a tangent now, maybe that's all for another blog for another time!! I ll get back to the point shall I.

So where was I? Oh yes, British people!  We seem to sweep our problems under the carpet. My family like a lot of families have also done this. Maybe that's why I found it hard to open up to them and tell them how I was really feeling, and made me feel distant from them all. I am not saying it is there fault one bit, if anything I'm as much to blame to.

I never opened up to them and they are probably getting to know me a lot better then they ever have now. I have led a completely different life outside that I kept separate from them and that's why they have never really got to know me. I don't feel like I have given them a chance to get to know me but being quiet and having very outspoken sisters I thought by just blending into the background, getting on with it and not bothering to do anything about it I would be OK with this.

I am however not OK with this. I would like nothing more to feel just as close to my sisters as I do to my best friends. To be just as loud as they are at our family gatherings and voice my crazy hippy ideas and opinions without feeling like a weirdo and most of all to BE myself! 

I do feel things already changing between me and my family. I feel closer to them. It feels wonderful and makes me so much happier. I'd almost resigned to the fact that I would always feel a slight distance from them and that would be that.  I'm so happy that isn't going to be the case. 

Writing these blogs are an amazing way of expressing how you feel with out having to tell people face to face. I don't think I could ever have sat down with them and told them how I felt all these years.I did do that with my brother in law and I had him in tears. He was sad that I couldn't feel like I could talk to any of them and had no idea this was what I was feeling.

 I love my family dearly and I know that despite having a horrible disease and that times are going to be tough, this is the best thing that will come out of it. It's a pretty horrible way for me to have to go through but I do know things probably wouldn't have changed otherwise.

I realised all this quite early on. Not only was it going to bring me closer to my family but it was going to make me a stronger person and give the confidence I have always needed to achieve what I want out of life. Most importantly of all I will learn how to love myself.

I told my McMillan nurse that in some weird way I was glad this was happening to me. She looked at me like I was mad and said "Yes, that is weird."