Flushes and Sweats!

 We have all heard stories of horrific ways that women are effected while going through 'The Change'. Women literally become monsters while going through the hormonal changes that happen while her body's reproductive system is shutting down. Not to mention, the changing body shape, the wrinkles and the dried up vagina! I certainly wasn't looking forward to it at all and put it to the back of my mind when at age 38 my last child was born.
 I remember having night sweats for two or three years after Yasmin's birth. I had heard about night sweats before and their being related to the peri menopause. I assumed that's what was now happening to me. I knew mine were night sweats because I would wake up every night soaking wet, especially around the neck area. I would have to change the sheets each morning. I assumed then that night sweats were the same thing as hot flushes, just with a different name.
When the sweats disappeared, everything seemed to go back to normal and I assumed my peri menopause had paused! (Take into account, my severe depression came on also after having my last child. I had seemed to manage previous post natal depressions from my other children. This one was more extreme. Was the clash of the menopause and my post natal depression together the cause of my very erratic behavior during that time? I wrote my first book 'My Beautiful Flower' three years ago to share my experiences of depression and my struggles to be a mother, available on amazon since March 2015. I have been mentally well most of this year and can feel myself having longer periods of wellness.)
My periods then disappeared when I was 46 years and as each month passed with no sign of them, I was sure I was now in 'The Change.'
Friends had told me that when your period is gone for two years altogether, you've indeed gone through it. However my 'friends' came back after a year for two months and now they've gone again which I'm only too happy about, needless to say!
So now I'm 48 years and I'm having 'Hot Flushes'. They started just a couple of weeks ago. I know they're hot flushes and not sweats because it's like someone has turned on the oven in me. It can happen anytime, day or night and I can feel myself going hot and red all over. Not one to overly sweat, I am not soaking wet, but I can feel beads of sweat coming out over my lip and forehead.
Hot flushes can be embarrassing because people only see you going red and when you're aware of that, you just go redder!
It's funny, because when I was in puberty, I used to go red all of the time, over any little thing. It was the shame of my youth. No wonder I was accused of things, I always looked guilty with a big red face all of the time! I remember when I was doing my trade in a barber shop. I must've been about seventeen at the time. I had finished my ladies hairdressing trade and thought it would be great to have a barbering trade also. I didn't stop to think what it would be like to work in an all men environment. In 1983, they had just started advertising controversial adds on the radio, like the necessity of sanitary pads! I mean, who needs to advertise sanitary pads on anywhere for God's sake? Half our population need them!
But oh my God, when the advertisement came on, it lasted about three whole minutes. Someone was very thorough! Me and every lad in the shop knew everything we needed to know about periods, pads and tampons. I was mortified. The barber shop would be quiet enough with just hair cutting going on, no distractions of a hairdryer at all. My face went beetroot red. I had to leave the room and go to the bathroom!
And each time after that when the ad came on, probably at least five times a day, I had to run out, for fear of anyone noticing my beetroot face! Of course they all did, but there was nothing I could do. I was so embarrassed! The shop would be packed with the whole population of nineteen year old boys!
Thankfully now at my age, there is little that would embarrass me, unless of course I make a fool of myself!
So, I think I'm doing ok with 'The Change'. I think I'm nearly through it. It's only been a short eleven years! My mental health is better, my relationships are better with my children, my husband, my family and friends. Is it a coincidence that while I was suffering depression I was also going through 'The Change'?
Was I that Monster woman?
Oh My God! Yes I was!
Jean xxx

And all because of a dress.....

What goes on inside a woman's mind? I'll never be sure, even though I am a woman! We are complicated, that's for sure. We're sensitive. We take things personally. We are competitive with other women. We don't want another woman having more than us; More beauty, more money, more boyfriends. We are defensive of ourselves. If it seems a woman is having it all, we are jealous of them. We find excuses to fall out with them.
  I hear stories day in and day out about women best friends falling out with each other. I've even experienced it myself as I shared in a previous blog. You have to wonder what happens to these women? They have been best friends for life! You know the type, they tell each other everything, they laugh at the same things, they love each other's company and they go everywhere together. But when the big fallout happens, that love soon turns to hate.
I suppose us women drive each other crazy at times, especially if we spend all of our free time with them. We're sure to irritate each other. I have also experienced times in the past, when other women friends had irritated me and I would judge them, blame them for the irritation. Something about them bugged me. I would take no responsibility at all for my own selfish behavior, maybe wanting everything my own way?
I also think our expectations of our woman friends are too high. We depend on them too much.  Somehow, we forget that they are only human and they make mistakes in friendships just like us.
 I also don't think that we are truly honest with them either and that's a big problem. We sometimes go along with things that might  not suit us. If we seem to be doing everything that the other woman friend wants to do, it will inevitably cause trouble, at the very least, unhappiness in the friendship.
When our women friends behave in a way that you may think is stupid or out of line and you criticize them for it, you are not allowing for that person to be who she is. You start to judge her. You compare her to you and all of a sudden you think your way might be better than hers and the little annoying things she does, begin to develop into huge things that really bother you about her. You of course begin to hold resentment towards her and don't speak to her about it. After all, how can you say anything to her? It's not really any of your business how she behaves in life, until one day, something totally irrelevant happens that you can say something about and all hell breaks loose.
 She chooses the same color dress as you for an important occasion! That's all it takes. It doesn't matter if the dress is completely different. It doesn't matter if you're prettier, smarter, richer than your friend. You've had it! You don't care if that color suits your friend better than the other colors. You forget all of the fun times and memories that you have shared together and you go in for the kill. You lose your head completely and you throw in how hurt YOU feel. (Notice you don't care how she feels?) You'll never be able to forgive her so you dump your friendship. You're done with her. You just can't take anymore of her.
 Your devastated girlfriend has no idea what's happening.
'Is this all because of a dress?' She wonders sadly.
  How many other people are effected by this same dress? The relevant families, siblings and other long time friends are all now taking sides and avoiding each other.
The rift grows too far apart to repair.
So are we women dishonest? Shallow?
We need to search deep inside our minds to work these issues out. We really need to think the issue through and own our stuff, acknowledge if we are being unreasonable. I think we all know when we are being unreasonable and stubborn and if we don't, we need to concentrate hard. If we accept our own responsibility for our own dishonesty in the friendship, we'll be able to accept that a lot of the issues that bothered us about our female friends were caused by ourselves. Because while we were laughing and giggling and playing around, we didn't express our real self to our friends. We women are always aiming for our own perfection. We don't express that we are weak and needy at times.
 So, we may feel we've been hard done by, because we feel we deserve more from our friend. After all, aren't we doing stuff for her that we don't want too?
 Does she know this? Is she a mind reader?
Don't dump her, talk to her!
Jean xxx

You think it's easy being a woman!

Isn't it funny how the most difficult thing to do in life is to get along with people? Any people, of all ages but especially women. Why are women so difficult to get along with? We're cagey around each other, cautious. As a woman myself, I have had to manoeuvre myself through my life amongst women. In the home, in the workplace, in social areas. When I was a little girl growing up in the streets of Dublin city, I had plenty of hairs pulled from my head in cat fights to state my place on the road. It was very similar in the workplace too without the physical hair pulling, but the women there would verbally hair pull you!
Why are we like this?
 It starts as early as when baby girls are born. They are adorably cute. They soon become assertive toddlers, then bossy little girls, then moody young women and then angry old women.
 Does our initial cuteness grow into attention neediness? And when we don't get the attention needed, do we become jealous? Spiteful?
 We are quite an emotional genre. We are so full of drama. We are so easily threatened!
 There's the initial threat from other women. How they look. If they're beautiful, God help them! That just makes us envious (and envy is the route of all evil as we know). Add in a bit of talent, deduct more more marks for that! If they're smart, mothers, career women and seem to carry it all off with relative ease, they will be hated!
God help the woman who has cute looking kids! Resentment will be passed on to the threatened women's kids who will happily torture the cute kids forever!
 It will be worse for the wealthy woman, she will be silently resented. The other women may allow her into their circles, but only to keep an eye on her, to find out her weakness's and use them against her when the time comes.
We all know it would be disastrous for a woman to run the world. One bad period and everybody would be blown up! Don't underestimate a woman's periods, or the damage they are allowed to do. (I say allowed because we can be controlled!) The woman spends 30 days in constant hormonal upheaval. She's happy, she's sad, she's moody, she's angry and she can turn into the Devil Incarnate at a moment's notice! Can you imagine her making Head of State decisions?
 Just look at the damage Margaret Thatcher and Marie Antoinette did. They were typical resentful women. They had no empathy for others. Both from completely different times had the same stubbornness that left their country man starving.
 Everything is so personal with a woman.
 So how do we women live together side by side, without constant bloodshed?
 Some of us become submissive. We give in. We know we have to do everything to keep the peace with the other women. We go along with things to be accepted. We suit them rather than ourselves.
We dress down and blend into the shadows.
 It's much easier to be no threat to another woman because if another woman decides to get her claws into you, she won't stop till she destroys.
Jean xxx

Some things never change!

We are quite privileged in Ireland to have our Dublin Airport in the midst of hectares of fields in Swords, County Dublin. There is plenty of room in the circumference of the airport for people to come and watch the planes taking off and landing. Isn't it amazing that this common day practice can hold people's attention for hours?
We know planes can fly, they've been doing it for nearly one hundred years now, but I think us common people are still fascinated by how they do it. It just seems so effortless for this tonne of weight to lift itself up into the air. Not too bothered about how things work myself, I don't really have that kind of interest in them but they do still amaze me. And as I was driving past the 'plane watchers' this morning, it brought me back to the time when my Dad used to bring me and my sisters to the exact same place to watch the planes during our very young years of three, four and five.
 My Dad died in 2006 at age 64 of cancer. I wrote a lot about him in my book, 'My Beautiful Flower', but there was so much that I didn't put in.
Dad would only have been a young man of about 29 years when I was a five year old. He was over six foot in height and was of lean build. He worked in Buckley's abattoir in Camden street, so he was used to lifting cows onto his back then. He had a head of thick, curly black hair and lovely blue eyes. He had always loved Elvis and he like most young teenage boys of even today had gone down the route of trying to be a guitar player before he married my Mam, (which apparently, he sold his guitar to buy her engagement ring!) I look at my own handsome son of almost 26 years and although he's fair haired, he reminds me a lot of my dad. He's not as tall as my dad, Anthony stops at six foot, but he has a lot of his mannerisms!
We lived in Ballymun flats till I was about seven years of age, so we had plenty of visits to Dublin airport to watch the planes. Dad was proud of his three little girls, Olive with brown curly hair, me with black curly hair and josie with blonde curly hair, (My Mam had red hair!) Sharon was only a baby back home and Eleanor and Christine hadn't come along yet. Dad would park the Buckley's van on the side of the airport road and he'd lift us onto the bonnet. He'd take out the sandwiches Mam made for us and we'd sit there for hours eagerly waiting for the planes to land and then take off again.
And you know, forty years on, there are still Dad's who are parked there in that very same place on the side of the road and they sit their children on their car bonnets. Things haven't even changed that much with aeroplanes! They still do more or less the same thing, they still look pretty much the same! The side of the road hasn't even changed, it hasn't been cemented in, it hasn't even been walled around. It still has the old hill right behind where the cars reverse in for the the best viewing spot. How many more Daddy's brought their kids there on a Sunday morning while the Mammy at home prepared the Sunday dinner? There should be some kind of monument for Daddy's right there in that spot.
I remember my Dad was so encouraging, telling us everything about the planes, how they took off, how they flew in the air. He had never even flown in an aeroplane before, but he always spoke of when he would and he would go to Australia too! He was such a young man, with great dreams for his life. Unfortunately, for Dad and the other young Irish Dad's of that time, the 1970's recession was about to hit and ten years on the dole queue killed my Dad's spirit and dreams.
When he was dying, he was wondering what he had done in his life. He really thought he was a failure. He said all he did was mess up in life. Thankfully, all his girls told him he was great and he did his best and he taught us loads. Because he did. He and many other Father's like him. He thought us to be tough. To work hard. To love your family. Was there anything more he could have done?
Jean xx

How come I'm so lucky?

You know, when I was struggling with depression, one of the things I couldn't do was look at the television news or read the newspaper, as I shared in my book, 'My Beautiful Flower'.
The devastation effected me; The murders, the plane crashes, the individual country catastrophes. Everything was bad news. I wasn't alone in this respect, lots of people without depression can find the news upsetting to watch. It's the instant media coverage that shows you people's tragedy's and pain right at their moment of despair. You can't help but feel their pain and add it to your own. Every station seemed to have  reports on serious events around the world. Bad news in that instantaneous appearance is like an epidemic. It can seem like it's on your own doorstep and that it will soon happen to you.
Especially when something happens to citizens of your country. I'm not sure anything can top the sadness of the 'Berkley Tragedy', when six of our beautiful young Irish college students were killed in the freak incident of the balcony collapsing. That pain was shared by all of us Irish at home. The loss of these youth in the prime of their lives was a difficult burden for us, but inevitably, it is the parents and families and friends who have to carry the real burden of loss. It's easy to understand why people then live in fear. Preventing themselves living to the fullness of their lives.
As a mother who has given the freedom of travel to my second child, this time a girl of only gone twenty, I am indeed so grateful to God that he doesn't give me that difficult cross to carry. Because I know the weight would be too great to bear. Sarah will finish her three month job placement with Busch Garden's in Virginia on the 7th September and thankfully her experience is a safe and fun one.
But do we all get our own type of cross to carry? I think we do. Although I think nothing can ever compare to the loss of your child, each person in life has a challenge to deal with.
 I've been fairly lucky in life, accident wise. And thank God again, my children and extended family seem to be lucky physically also. But we do have our challenges, none the less.
Things don't come easy to us dysfunctional women of Ireland. We learn the hard way in life. Maybe because we had little education growing up and fathers who spent a lot of our growing up time angry and drunk. Speaking for myself, I take a long time to learn about life and I more times walk myself into trouble rather than out of it, (Actually, I think I'm getting a bit better on that issue, I'm 48 now after all!)
And again, maybe because we didn't have great education, we found ourselves in minimum wage jobs. We have to work much harder than anyone else just to be able to borrow to have the things we want.
I'm not whinging about this and I know that probably 80% of the population is in the same boat as well as suffering the stress of sickness and loss in their families.
But let's not underestimate the stress that money worries can cause.
When 'The Celtic Tiger' arrived in the 1990's Ireland, our cost of living rose rapidly. It was the first time that ordinary Irish trade workers could afford material things that they had only seen the rich enjoy, like dressing up in designer brands, going on cruises, having new homes and new cars. We began to invest in the stock and property market as advised by the government for better returns on our hard earned cash;
 Remember, we earned this money, we were doing nothing wrong! We were all trying to aim for that comfortable retirement plan. When the crash came in 2006, it wasn't that we weren't able to cope with being poor again, we had only had a short taste of wealth to begin with, but now, we were back to the 80's on an earning thresh hold. Our payouts are now rising at the current inflation rates and our income is heavily taxed so there never seems to be enough money to cover it all.
I dressed one growing primary school girl in uniforms yesterday and got all her books and supply's for the coming year. I'll have a college fee due for my second year art student daughter in September and I just wonder how people manage with more than two dependent children!
I really feel sorry for my husband who has managed so far to keep his construction business going through-out these past eight years, pay his employees and keep a family going. Myself and my husband argue over money. I guess he thinks I spend more than I should, that I might be able to get some things cheaper. He honestly doesn't believe that I am a very contentious shopper! Especially since the recession, I can tell you the price of milk in various stores! I really do know where to get the best value. Both my girls were born with learning difficulties, Yasmin's were more severe, but Sarah's was quite social. Sarah's love of horses since she was age three has helped her grow and mature through her life. It has given her a skill that she is confident in. Yasmin's difficulties were more physical, but she loved horses too! Having her own pony has given her great physical strength and personal confidence. Having your own horses in livery and at competition level, I will tell you, takes every penny you have; But if you could see how it's helped my girls, you would follow that route for your children also!
I wouldn't change a thing. I gladly do without my own luxuries to make sure that I am educating my children, physically, emotionally and nutritionally. This is my challenge.
Jean xx

Having depression in the work place.

There is a funny time in my life when I was suffering with depression in work and I was unaware of it.
When I was about 34 years old, I decide I needed a change from hair dressing. I had always been helping out in my hubby's office, so I had some computer skills. I decided to apply for a cashier job in Ulster bank. I had to go to that huge impressive Ulster Bank building on the keys there in Dublin city centre for an interview with human resources. I didn't even know then fully what human resources meant, imagine, and me going for a bank job!
 It was the year 2000/01 and Dublin was booming still with the 'Celtic Tiger'. Anyway, somehow I had enough skills to convince the young woman that I could do the job. I was so excited! I couldn't believe I had actually got a job in a bank!
I had to do a couple of weeks training and I for my position in Ballsbridge branch.
Listen, all I can say is that it is a great job, with great hours and proper pay. Why I had never known there was an easier way of making money than hairdressing, is probably because I never paid attention in school.
 Anyway it was great. I had a 10am till 2pm job and I settled in grand. There was a great buzz in the air and because of the location, there were various famous people that banked there, one of which was Gerry Ryan. I remember one occasion with Gerry when he had come to my station. He was lodging his yearly salary and no I won't tell you how much it was for, but I will tell you I was holding the check for quite some time counting the zero's! Well, I needed to be sure!
Let's just say it was better pay than the bank, so broadcasting could be even better folks!
"It's real," he interrupted my counting, LOL, "Oh, yes, sorry," I giggled! (mmmm starstruck)"I just want to lodge the right amount!" I'm not sure gerry quite believed me but he laughed along with me.
You see in my first week, I had counted up my cash balance wrong and the staff were all running around looking for 17,000 missing euros in coin. And I was sitting at my station unaware that the hullaballoo was all because of me! I promise I didn't put it in my handbag.
Well, I soon learned to do an excellent job, if I do say so myself and I really liked working with finance. I liked the bureau de change the best, it was great figuring out the difference and I realised I may have been good at maths again if I had have paid attention in school!
Around this time, the young female college graduates that worked in the accounts section decided they didn't like me. I was doing too good a job, (sorry) and they were typical 'Celtic Tiger' spoilt kids who only did what they had to do. I was from a different time, you know, born in the 60's, we were only taught to work hard and bring home the money. But these kids had no idea of going without. They decided to exclude me from conversations and believe it or not, I caught making fun of me behind my back, or more seriously jeering me,"Who does she think she is? She never even went to college! I'd like to know who she know's in this bank…. sneer." This is what I heard as I walked up the stairs behind them one morning. I did pull them up on it and they were embarrassed, but never the less, it made me feel bad about myself. (I had already experienced severe bullying in Peter mark's in Tallaght that had really knocked my confidence, another day's blogging, I promise!)
So, I was sad. It's hard to work in a place where you're not included.
Anyway I got on with it and some time afterwards I became pregnant. We had wanted a third child so I was delighted with the news and as on all my pregnancies I was really well physically so I just carried on. I couldn't share the news with my colleagues as I knew they wouldn't be interested. But at seven weeks I knew I wasn't pregnant anymore as my boobs had stopped being sore and I had spots of blood coming from me.
I was really fine about losing the 'baby' because I knew realistically it was only still a bunch of cells and I would try again later on. But because hormones do their own thing, they took over my body and I went into post natal depression. Now I really had no idea that I was in post natal depression at the time but my emotions were all over the place. I used to cry spontaneously in work while I was serving customers! I knew the staff saw me, but they ignored me. At one point I asked a senior member of staff could I go home and she said I had to wait till all the lunches were finished, so I continued to serve customers with snots running down my nose. I kid you not.
You know, when you have to suffer that experience in front of everybody, it really doesn't help your self esteem. I was really embarrassed. I thought maybe it was time I asked for a transfer. There was no point working with these un-compassionate people. I did talk to my manager (a female, my own age, very attractive in her own right, but for some reason didn't gel with me), I told her I was thinking about leaving and she said yes, maybe it was for the best.
So, I left. I hadn't gone to a Doctor during that time apart from the experience of the D and C, so, I really didn't know I should have gone out sick with depression. A few weeks later, I did write into Human Resources with a complaint and I received a letter saying, 'Good luck with your future'.
Now listen, I don't have any regrets now or resentments towards anybody during that time. I needed to be on that road in life to find me now.
But depression is a real illness. If you're mentally ill you cannot work. You can't do a proper job. Managers need to be more aware of their employees. It might seem annoying that someone is coming and going sick a lot of the time, but inevitably, if there was more information out there for suffers or if the Doctor's were on the ball, people would be getting the right help. Ireland has a long way still to go in helping people suffering from mental illness. And it's starts with patients trusting in their doctor or health service. If there was more compassion from these services or indeed work mates and employers, people would open up more about their illness and go and get the help they need.
Lucky for Ulster Bank that I got rid of their little headache for them.

The difference between 'Your Nerves' and Depression!

When I was a child, I would often hear people whispering about 'so and so' suffering with her nerves. I didn't really know what that was. I suppose I thought they were very nervous people and would eventually have to go and see the doctor or go into hospital. Indeed the person did seem to behave nervously and their hands did seem to shake.
When I had my first quite scary panic attach three years ago, I was in my local Mall for my usual weekly browse around. I had just ordered a coffee in Butler's coffee shop when my legs went numb. Then the numbness spread up through my body. I had no idea what was happening, but I had heard a lot about stokes and assumed that was what was happening to me.
I sat down beside a woman on her own at a table and said I needed help, I was having a stroke. My heart was racing and I was terrified. And I'm sure the poor woman got the shock of her life too!
 But she held my hand while the lovely young staff ran around getting me help and calling an ambulance.
When the ambulance men had me secured in the ambulance, they ran some little tests of their own, to assess the urgency. One of the paramedics asked me did I suffer with my nerves?
I looked at him surprised, 'no, I don't think I suffer with my nerves.' Was I nervous? I didn't think I was.
That was the first time that I had to acknowledge my mental condition.
They brought me off to the hospital where I underwent the usual standard tests for heart attack or stroke, which of course all came back clear. I realised after seven hours in the hospital that my stroke was indeed a panic attack. I was amazed firstly that I had a panic attack and secondly that my panic attack came in the guise of a stroke. Thirdly, I was amazed that the hospital staff didn't tell me it was a panic attack and send me in the right direction for help.
So I went home. The following day my body felt completely weak from the experience, so although it came from my mind, it drained my body as well.
It took three more ambulance experiences for me to finally get the message. I was suffering with panic attacks and now I needed to find out the root cause and control them. Panic attacks are scary because you don't know when they are going to strike and it can be very embarrassing. They can also make you afraid to leave your home.
So, I had a lot going on in my life. I knew I suffered with depression, as I always had post natal depression on each of my children but it never seemed to go after I had my last child (10 now).
With my depression, I was very low. I could barely function. I could do the basic duties as a mother and then I' d head to the bed. I couldn't communicate with anyone. And I couldn't look at my phone for messages. I was scared of what I would read, bad news that I wouldn't have been able to cope with.
 I also had a lot of worries with my husband, my children, our finances, my family, my failed career. I was full of fear. I suppose you could say that all of this together made me nervous, anxious.
 Nervousness and anxiety left unsolved will more than likely result in panic attacks. So in this case I guess I did suffer with my nerves! I was surprised to figure that out about myself.
So you can see, I suffered from depression and nerves.
 Two separate conditions of the mind, but yet so importantly connected. The nervousness and anxieties in myself were a main cause of my depression!
That may not be the case for everybody. A person in the early stages of worry or nervousness may not be suffering with depression just yet.
When I began to identify each of my issues, I was able to work on them. And I soon saw signs of my recovery. My panic attacks stopped! And I can honestly tell you, that every other area of my mental health is on the right road also. I now take care of my mental health by identifying any new issue that comes up and dealing with it straight away. I now know what I can do in life and what I can't do. I am not restricted by no means, on the contrary, I can do much more now, but it is everything that is good for me; I haven't worked in the work place for three years now but I have been writing and I feel this is my right path which will earn me an income one day; I Walk my dogs, swim, spend time with my kids.
I am blessed I have been able to make this discovery about my nerves and my depression.
Who knows where I would be otherwise?
xxx Jean

She makes me smile!

My 10 year old Yasmin is so excited to be going on holidays soon. She loves all the excitement of going on a plane journey. She is counting down the days and her suitcase is ready to go!
She will rise early every morning in eagerness to being a day closer!
We have been very fortunate in life to be able to visit our family in the USA every year. But it's a long journey for children and the restricted seats are small and uncomfortable.
Yasmin was born with a delayed mental development. She didn't crawl till 15 months, she walked at 20 months and her speech was very poor up till age five.
I wasn't overly concerned about this late development because my previous daughter Sarah (almost 20 now) had been diagnosed with dyslexia. She was also a late developer but had met all of her milestones normally enough. I thought Yasmin was going to be the same.
I was however concerned about Yasmin's temper tantrums from an early age, especially in the car. She had severe motion sickness from about 11 months of age and she would also start screaming crying for no apparent reason. When she was three I felt her behaviour was very like ADHD. She never sat still and she was very impulsive. She had many accidents and broken joints before she was even five years of age! She also never seemed to hear me!
 At this point, (she was about four years old) I rang the ADHD helpline and got some great advise from them, which I put into practice straight away and there was an immediate improvement.
When Yasmin was finally diagnosed with Dyspraxia at age five, it explained a lot. Inside this diagnosis, Yasmin had a severe language and comprehension disorder, (she didn't understand what was going on around her) She had a severe sensory disorder, which meant, everything hurt her, smells made her sick, water hurt her skin among lots of other things. I think the sensory problems caused me the most upset because they really pained Yasmin!
She had a muscular coordination difficulty which made her body uncomfortable and clumsy.
And that was just the physical element.
 Yasmin also had dyslexia and dyscalculia, quite severe on the spectrum of learning difficulties.
So, she had a lot going on, but she looked like any other child so no one could really tell.
So plane journeys were something that always had me in tears, but not from my beautiful child. From other passengers.
People on the plane always had a comment to make or a disgusted glare directed at me, because I guess  we bothered them!
Yasmin was hyper yes, she was easily upset, yes, but I was right there beside her, coloring, drawing, playing play dough, walking her up and down the isles! Under no circumstances would I allow her kick the chair in frustration or be loud or rude to me or others on the plane or elsewhere for that matter!
But I was saddened. I wanted people to see my little girl for the beautiful child that she was. (I wrote my poem, My Beautiful child, because I couldn't understand why people didn't see her beauty and indeed other disabled people's beauty). You might understand young people not having patients for children, but these were mostly people in their late sixties.
Anyway, myself and my husband got every help we could for Yasmin, expensive help and some free from the HSE. Yasmin and I had to do an awful lot of work at home and I have seen the benefits of this and all of the outside help. Yasmin is an amazing child, no more amazing than all of the other children out there I know, but to me, she is my inspiration. Almost 11 now, she is really tall and her body is starting puberty. She is behind her mental age of maturity. I think she is about 6/7 maybe. She can read, she can write and she can do sums as a seven year old. And she can ride her pony Eclipse beautifully!
A keen outdoor person myself, I was worried that Yasmin wouldn't be able to participate in sports of any kind. I needn't have worried! Through Yasmin's own choice, over the last five years, she tried hip hop, ballet, drama, guitar, swimming and singing. But finally said to me recently, "Mam, horse riding is my passion!"
She's such a great girl! And you know? Horse riding is a very good exercise for children with any or no difficulties as it strengthens their muscles!
Anyway, I am very grateful for my gift from God, who turned my life around! And I really want her to have a great plane journey, so if you are reading this out there, will you think again when you sit in your seat beside an exhausted mother and her busy child. A little bit of understanding goes a long way.
xx Jean

The most amazing thing has happened!

I've just had an actual experience of 'When you let go and let God.' You know, things have a funny way of working out. (As long as you do it with genuine kindness and not resentment!)
I had a big test recently, a humanity test, and I had to ask God to guide me. I wasn't sure if God wanted me to be completely selfless as I would have in the past or in this case to be selfish and put my own needs first.
Now, you know I have just started to discover myself in my last three years of writing and I've shared a lot about myself in my book, 'My Beautiful Flower' and my blog page skyestorm.blogspot.com, the mistakes I've made, lessons I've learned and how to make things right.
I certainly feel more comfortable in myself these days, so I think I'm on the right road.
When I was in the debts of my depression, one of the things I couldn't do was look at my phone for messages or even answer it. I know it's sounds strange, but I would delete messages even without looking at them. I would delete voice messages while holding the phone away from me, not wanting to hear anyone's kind or inquisitive voice. I remember at the time that I couldn't do anything for anybody and I didn't want to let them down, so I couldn't acknowledge the call.
I think when my mind was sick, it couldn't handle any pressure at all or anymore responsibilities it already had.
Anyway, I still am very cautious about looking at my phone when I receive messages. It's also a deliverer of insults too and I had made those mistakes also, sending messages of insults and abuse in my time of resentments. I'm not proud of my actions and now, incoming messages are a reminder of the pain a phone can deliver.
 I'm not one of these people who will look at the phone straight away and give instant gratification to the caller. In fact, if I have to send a message to someone to say I have to let them down, I put my phone where I can't see it or I turn it off! So now you know why you don't get me immediately!
When I do pick up my phone mostly the next morning, I kind of look at it sideways to see how bad the news is going to be! It's crazy but true!
Well, in my recent test from God, I decided I had to be selfish. I didn't rush into it. I thought it through. I felt it was the right decision for me, my family and indeed the person involved. So, I did feel in my gut I had the support from God.
 So I let it Go. I continued on my walks and thanking God for my gifts in life and asking him to guide me and help this person in the situation.
And as it turned out, the person was able to take responsibility and find a solution!
When I looked at my phone this morning with a sideways glance, I got good news!
So maybe I passed the test from God?
xxx Jean