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  a little over 18 months ago I went on a journey to discover if I was autistic. I did a lot of self exploration, read several books on the topic, watched a lot of content to see if I did indeed relate and even went to talk to a neuro affirming therapist to explore the possibility out loud. The therapist was not able to diagnose me in any officially capacity but she did help me to self diagnose.  In truth I have been comfortable here, I felt I had done adequate research to be certain my own experiences align with the autism criteria and have comfortably been talking to anyone who will listen about my experiences of being autistic. I feel like there is so much to unpack and to discover about myself and the more I have learned the better I have been able to articulate my own lived experiences and to accommodate myself. I have always had a deep interest in psychology and exploring autism has felt like that on a deeper level. To me it is inherently fascinating but I do need to wor...

I guess in terms of redefining bravery, most people would not list going on a holiday alone but for me it was actually a really big deal. It was more than the sum of its parts. Me packing half my worldly belongings into car and driving into the unknown (okay relatively unknown given that I was going to Wicklow and not Timbuktu). For me it was about reclaiming parts of myself that I felt had been lost down through the years. I think on some level I felt it was something I would manage badly. Like I would stick out as a lone woman traveler and my own social ineptitude would somehow render me incapable of travelling solo. If life has taught me nothing else it is that I am capable of so much more than I would have previously given myself credit for. Also I have come to accept over time that I actively enjoy my own company and its okay to embrace that provided I don't find myself moving into a cabin up a hill with a recently purchased pet goat (I am just not a cat person). With all ...

After much planning, fundraising and panicking about fundraising, the day for The Great Night Hike had arrived and I was both excited and hopelessly disorganized.  Despite all this I soon found myself on the road to Wicklow with many layers,  snacks and deep mistrust in Google maps.  I did arrive in Wicklow with time to spare after taking a slightly more circuitous and scenic route than planned. As I drove through the Wicklow way I was overwhelmed by how beautiful it was there and wondered why no one had pushed me to make the trip before or perhaps they had and I just wasn't listening. Mostly what I was feeling was excitement about the upcoming hike and even more do the few days I will be spending exploring Glendalough. I stopped to eat a mini picnic right where there was a stunning view of the Wicklow way and I felt like a woman on an adventure . There is something wonderfully freeing about getting into your car alone and taking off. After my Pit stop I r...

I am sure if you are following me   on any form of social media you won't have missed me rabbiting on about an upcoming hike Im going on. I haven't been posting about it non stop out of a pressing desire to let everyone know how active I am because if that was the reason all my previous hikes would have garnered similar social media coverage. This however is not an ordinary hike. So the hike this coming Saturday is in Glendalough but that's not what makes it different. It will finish in the dark which I'm sure will be magical but that's not why I'm telling everyone about it. It's a hike for charity,  in aid of the Irish Heart Foundation. They have organised the guides, sent out the fundraising packs and ensured that everyone attending the event has paid their €30 to register. Then it's up to all of us taking part to fundraise at least €120 for the charity. Which is fair because obviously they organise events like this in order to raise some much need...

Do you ever have one of those conversations in which you confess to something totally normal for you and the other person looks at you like you're completely bonkers? This is a reasonably common occurrence for me. I was recently talking to someone about how I occasionally chose an online or self service option if I don't feel up to interacting with someone and I was left wondering if they didn't get it because they are not an introvert or maybe it's just a me thing and I'm a weirdo. I have something I like to refer to as my social battery. It is not a physical thing that I carry around but more a feeling that I have only so much social interaction in me per week and some days I am able for more interaction and others I go far out out of my way to minimize it. For me recharging can involve; time alone to think, reading, watching bad shows, napping or long walks. Without this quality time spent by myself I am especially grouchy and unfriendly and I find it...

I like to say I am fairly new to hiking  but to say that overlooks the fact that I spent much of my childhood being cajoled up mountains around Tipperary. It is only in the last year that I have rediscovered this pursuit and finally realized why my parents were so eager to ensure we got out into the great outdoors. I do enjoy being fit and I find Crossfit helps me nicely in my pursuit of better physical health. I also make an effort to get out for walks, weather allowing, as often as I can, even when I am not really in the mood because fresh air always makes me feel a bit better. I find my renewed interest in hill walking came about when I dared to try it ( a scary proposition at the time as it combined the equally daunting strangers and mountains) and realised I got something I wasn't getting elsewhere in life from the experience. The fresh air, scenery and the way it cleared my head entirely left me feeling recharged and so regatta boots were bought an interest was sparked....

I've admittedly not had the easiest of weeks. In my previous blog post I was telling everyone about a herbal remedy I was trying to clear up a UTI. I had tried an anti biotic and was no better for it so I felt it was worth a shot. Spoiler alert, the remedy didn't work. Now that doesn't mean that the remedy is no good as such but more likely that I was too sick for it to be much help. I'd had the infection for two weeks. Anyway over my long weekend in work I continued to get considerably sicker so much so that I found myself contacting Care doc as my shift ended Sunday night. It probably didn't help matters that I had only finished night duty a week prior and had not managed to catch up on my sleep because the combination of sunburn, UTI and the heat meant I was getting less sleep than I can manage to function on and so adding to the sleep debt rather than recovering. Caredoc managed to fit me in at 10.30. By the time I got into a DR, I was tired, in discomfort a...

My parents didn't exactly follow the norm, they raised a family of vegetarians at a time when people didn't really know that was and as much as they possibly could. Sure we were all vaccinated and if we got really sick then we saw a doctor but for everything else there was an alternative remedy. I will admit knowing what to keep in your medicine cupboard (bar panadol) in case of illness or for the avoidance of same has come in handy but I don't follow this lifestyle exactly to the letter. I will admit to having a low pain threshold and basically being a bit of a wimp when it comes to illness. So I'll take extra garlic and oil of oregano at the first signs of a head cold but if I'm working long hours or really feeling unwell, I am straight into the nearest chemist asking for whatever drugs they are willing to give me over the counter.  In my social care job we have a night duty rotation every five weeks as I am sure I have mentioned in many other blog posts. Ni...

The first time I can remember really noticing my body as a thing one might like or dislike was in my teens. I was a slim teenager with clear skin, one spot at a time was unusual for me and I will be damned if it wasn't wasted on me because it was only looking back at photos of that time that I realized what I had not then appreciated. Since then my body and lifestyle choices have changed many times. I have had lots of different feelings about how I look and been a number of dress sizes and learned a lot of hard lessons along the way. I used to idealize slimness. It was this ultimate goal and once I arrived in this beautiful place all my problems would go away. I let myself off the hook too many times in not taking responsibility for my own happiness because I believed it couldn't be achieved without a smaller jean size. I think somewhere in my head I remembered being a size 8 at 16 and being happy and I thought all I needed to do was get back there in jean size at least and...

Sometimes you have days where even simple things seem impossible. I think this idea is prevalent in my mind because I am coming to the end of a fortnight of night shifts and I feel like every day has been a bit like this. It is possible however that tiredness is skewing my perception of time. I have said before in my blog that from time to time I suffer from depression which comes and goes (thankfully self managed so I consider myself lucky in that respect) and anxiety is my constant companion to one degree or another. Mostly right now my anxiety is about not getting enough sleep. I think I might just have generalized sleep anxiety while on nights and this ironically keeps me from getting as much sleep as I need post night shift. Now some people can cope admirably on very little sleep but I am definitely not one of them. I fall apart and have been known to lose basic adulting skills like cooking and driving for hours at a time. I don't think I realized quite how much I needed g...

A funny thing has happened to me lately. I have always had an interest in Crossfit (and by always I mean since I discovered it several years ago because before then I had never even heard of it !) but on some level it was a half hearted flirtation. I would get really into it and then take a sabbatical and eat loads of crap, put on weight and generally feel terrible about myself before crawling back to the gym like a prodigal daughter returned with muttered excuses to explain my absence. Since I have moved to Kilkenny that has changed. I felt as though my life in Waterford was stuck in a rut and so many things there made me very unhappy so I promised myself when I moved that it would not be a case of same shit, different city and put some effort into improving my life in various ways. One of the steps I took was tracking down a Crossfit gym and joining before I had fully unpacked even though I balked a little when I realised how much Crossfit actually costs. The gym is 15 mins from ...