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a friend of mine posted this in response to my post yesterday, they left if as a facebook comment so it can’t be directly shared here. however i feel it summed up exactly my thoughts about what i posted. so i hope they don’t mind me sharing it here.

“Andie, first of all, you are very much like me in the respect that you keep stuff close to your chest/secretive. I never knew/realised alot of this had happened to you in the past. I’m sorry it did.
Secondly, I’m assuming (I may be wrong in this) that you don’t want sympathy?

As with regards to domestic violence, it is never, ever justified. Ever. Whether it’s mental, emotional, physical abuse, whether it’s a man in a relationship doing it to the woman or even the other way around.

I understand (more now than when I was a teenager) that emotional abuse and someone grinding you down/making you feel 2 inches high by whatever means can be far worse than physical abuse. It’s wearing and can last alot longer, even when you are not with that certain person anymore. It bring up issues of self worth, self confidence, doubting yourself as a person and your abilities.

I can also understand how you can feel trapped and let it continue. I get it, I have no idea how it feels but I get it. It doesn’t make you (or anyone else currently in a situation like this) stupid or deserving of it.

I can also see why you kept it to yourself or only told a hand full of people about it. I get that too. You were/are still ashamed, ashamed that you allowed to to happen and didn’t say “no” right at the start or walked away.

It doesn’t make you a bad person or even weak. That person who abused you by whatever means, is the twat here. No respect or kindness whatsoever. He controlled you.

You are with Pete now

I completely understand why you don’t want to be reminded about it via association in the media about the whole Rhianna/Chris Brown thing and people giving their 2 cents on Twitter/Facebook, newspapers, online blogs, tv etc. It brings back memories you don’t want to have in the first place.

As I say, people are generally selfish. The world needs to be tolerant and considerate of others. If everyone treated everyone how like to be treated, as a golden rule, ideally the world would be alot less violent and peaceful place (aye I know I sound like a hippy!).”

Disclaimer number one. At any one point in this post, I may have been crying lots of tears.

Disclaimer number two. That stops me from seeing spelling and grammar errors.

So: There’s been this whole heap of shit in the news recently about this whole Rhianna/Chris Brown/Grammys thing. I’ve also seen a good deal of debate about it all on twitter, whether that be through the people I follow, the occasional hashtags I click on or to be more specific, clicking on a hashtag because  a friend posted it and I was curious.

A friend of mine recently posted the #famousabusers hashtag with some examples . Said friend shortly afterwards admitted to feeling guilty if the hashtag (and its contents I assume) were disrespectful to those who had survived abuse. I repeat her tweet that i wholeheartedly agree with: “I feel like having people who are known to have beaten, raped, molested still famous & still celebrated is disrespectful to abuse survivors.”

As i said, i wholeheartedly agree with my friend’s sentiment, and indeed her intention too. Violence in general, whether it be domestic or whatever the alternative, is not acceptable in any way. If we could all learn to stop using each others weaknesses  to further our own means i’m sure we’d be in a much better place (but that’s a long topic for another day).

Specifically looking at the issue of domestic violence, it’s something i’m ashamed to have been through, i know, you’re going to tell me I shouldn’t be ashamed that I let someone treat me like that, and I’m afraid to tell you, not that I want to offend you, that you are preaching to the choir. The thing is, as a ‘survivor’ (who now has a partner who is the loveliest person in the world) the physical abuse i suffered was a secondary to me.

I don’t mean it didn’t hurt, and i mean that physically and mentally. but the most pain, the most suffering and the most long term effects remain from the day to day, not the occasional violence, to my knowledge psychological abuse is not a crime. Yet how would you feel if every morning, when you wake up, someone tells you you’re useless, that your life is pointless, that they don’t know why you even bother and that you should probably just give up now… wouldn’t you after a while start to believe them, start to think that the physical violence that you’re receiving is what you deserve? wouldn’t you start to think that the physical violence is OK, and what people like you get every day?

Fortunately I’ve learned it’s not what I ‘Deserve’ not what i’m ‘Destined For’ and not what I’m going to have to deal with for the rest of my life. I’ve got Pete in my life now and he understands and listens and never gets angry.

I’m not really sure what the point i’m trying to make is, but it’s true from my perspective. I’ve been through domestic abuse, i’ve suffered mental abuse, i’ve suffered sexual abuse, despite these things I don’t want to read about it on twitter. Whether it be me or anyone on else going through that, selfish it might be. but i don’t want to remember.

Sorry.

I know I’ve not updated here in a while, I’d apologise but i’m not sure anyone cares that much…anyhow, something (on twitter, natch) has been bugging me. Something that has been brought to my attention by someone who I follow who shall remain nameless.

Anyhow, said person is (I assume) a fan of a well known musical group whose names ends in ‘life’ and starts with ‘west’. Now… said group are not to my taste, but I don’t begrudge any person in their own personal musical taste… Now, while said person seems to be a well rounded, generally nice if a little bitchy occasionally, (but i’m sure she’d admit that herself if I’ve got her style of pen down as I think) fan of this group she has also through her tweets exposed me to the scary other world of the boyband fantypes.

To give an example, another nameless tweeter told someone they should kill themselves because they were the unfortunate messenger to bear the bad news that said group were doing no more press appearances?! No malice or owt in that particular statement, replied to with an (i’d hope) idle suggestion.

This brings me on to this whole ‘Celebrity Culture’ thing that really annoys me. Yes, I get it. I understand that celebrities are y’know… famous and shit. I do get that having a celeb (damn, I hate to abbreviate) as a follower or a friend (I mean an actual friend) or some shit may make you feel special. For me? no, i’d rather have friends who I know are good people, and by good I mean good of heart, not well behaved or famous enough that everyone is meant to love them, friends who remember my birthday, who come and cheer me up when i’m sad, who are always there on the end of the phone when I need to conduct an hour long bitching session…. I seriously doubt any ‘Celeb’ has the time to do this with me, and I wouldn’t expect them to.

So I say to those who are too busy worrying about that stuff, try to look at the people who care about you, not the people you’re vapidly trying to impress.

Maybe.

Hose?

One Ronnie

another picture post I hear you say? oh well, deal with it. ’tis my blog! this is where i work. it’s a good place to work. mostly because it’s pretty.

ok, so i’m not going to try and kid anyone into thinking i’ve been up all night. i just woke up, i know i should have blogged before i went to sleep, but i was having this whole existential crisis thing and it just got put on the back burner for  a bit.

Anyhow, i had planned another photo post, seeing as the lake just round the lane from my work has babyducks and babycoots and stuffs. stopped by yesterday (CAST AS TODAY) and took some photos.

I have always been an aficionado of fluffeh things. Kittens, hamsters, llamas, guinea pics etc. I find however that an oft forgetten category of fluffeh is Donkeys.

Donkeys have the best ears in the world, they turn like all the way around… not like a cat’s ears that just kinda flinch… proper rotation action…. In addition to the awesome ear thing… donkeys just don’t give a shit.. you poke a donkey…it’ll glare at you for 30 seconds then go back to eating grass… let’s face it, if donkeys drove instead of people… there really would be no road rage.

I once went to the donkey sanctury in Sidmouth. It were ace. I recommend it. Donkeys are the SHIT.

so, i bought a new lil lego piece today, just a helicopter from the tesco extra down the road, but i thought i’d like to share with y’all how much I love lego and stuffs, so here is a gallery exhibiting how much i heart the lil nubbled blocks.

Went up to westbury white horse to fly kites and admire the view on Sunday. Took some pictures of the Paragliders, here’s some of the better ones.