I’m Not OK

My niece, Medusa, turned fifteen at the beginning of this month. She is a big fan of the, now defunct, band My Chemical Romance – or My Chem to those of us in the know – and one of her presents was a t-shirt bearing the above legend. It seems apposite to borrow it for the title of this post.

It’s been very quiet on Shedward lately, hasn’t it? In fact there’s only really been a drip feed of posts from me for the longest time.

For the past 18 months I have been unable to work. I tell people it’s because I fell and tore a tendon in my arm in February last year. This is true, I did fall, I did tear a tendon and despite various treatments, it’s getting more painful and debilitating but … The real reason I’m not sailing the ocean blue or trying to operate a cashdesk in the supermarket is because I am suffering from…

wait for it …

Post

Traumatic

Stress

Disorder.

(There, you said it. It wasn’t that difficult was it Lorraine?)

To me, PTSD is what the troops returning from war zones have to deal with, not middle-aged women buried in the English countryside but there you go. You live and learn. I won’t bore you with the causes or symptoms, I mention it by way of explanation for my dilatory blogging. I have got terrible writer’s block and I am now too poor to top up the data allowance on my internet dongle – hence the silence. Sorry about that. St F and I are struggling. Even food shopping is a stretch so internet time is a long way down the list. I’m only online now because I rebelled and decided I really did need to check my emails and internet banking etc. And to come here to make my excuses.

So there you have it. Writer’s are famously supposed to be tortured souls. I can vouch for the tortured bit but as to whether I’m still a writer, my jury’s out.