10 Random Facts

Finally I've remembered and found the spoons to do this fun thing that was passed on to me from Michele, who writes one of my favourite blogs on dysautonomia- Dysautonomia Normal

I hope I can think of 10 facts that will be funny/interesting/entertaining...

1. I'm a hypnotherapist. Many people find that interesting and/or freaky, but it's really not freaky at all. It's quite simple and anyone could learn it (though not anyone could necessarily be good at it). I don't take control of anyone's mind. I just help them to use it in a way that brings them good feelings and solutions to problems. I've worked with people with depression, anxiety, weight problems, flying phobias, smokers who want to stop, people with lack of confidence, people with stress- and had mostly successes. It's been rewarding and interesting and although didn't earn me enough money to move into my own place, it's at least given me a way I can earn some spending money whilst I was trying to figure out what the heck was wrong with me and where all my energy went when I used to have it in what felt like unlimited supply!

2. I also do something called reiki. It was something I did for myself (so I could help myself feel better) but I have also used it on a few customers, though not anymore because a) you have to stand up for an hour and b)it hurts my wrists to hold them out over people's chakras. I can vouch for it being very real and vert wonderful though- I've received treatments from others (which is what made me want to do it) and I give myself treatments too- NOTHING is better than when you get an awful period pain cramp than just holding your own hands over it and feeling really warm energy flowing in and soothing that pain. It's just like having your own portable hot water bottles!

3. I love bees. When a bee buzzes near me in the garden I get this feeling (vibe) that the bee is a happy creature, I know this sounds weird but I do pick up 'feelings' from things sometimes and the feeling I always get from bees is that they are happy creatures that enjoy being busy and having a very concrete purpose. I also get a very giggly, happy feeling but that could be just because I think they are such lovely creatures- I'm talking mainly about our bumble bees, black and white stripey with fat, fuzzy bums. hehehe.

4. I can identify the bird songs of pretty much every British bird, so when I go for a walk in the countryside, I don't just hear 'birds singing' I will be able to hear a chaffinch over there, a blackbird there, a Song thrush there, a robin there... you get the idea. I can't even imagine what it's like to just hear song and not know what it is that is singing because it's such a natural part of my life and has been since I was growing up as a child who loved birdwatching. If ever I hear a birdsong I don't recognise (or have forgotten- my memory isn't as sharp as when I was a child and there are some I will sometimes hear that I think- darn it, I USED to know what that was but can't remember!!) I will get very keen on trying to find the bird making the sound so I can identify it by sight (I know most without looking in a bird book too). I certainly CANNOT imagine people seeing 'a bird' and not knowing what species it is!

5. I'd like to write a book one day. In fact no, I HAVE written a book, I'd like to get one published. Whether I actually will or not though, I don't know. My levels of fatigue and brain fog have sadly exhausted my writing talent (I feel) and I can't even think of what sort of book I'd write now.

6. I'm running out of 'interesting' facts now... must wrack brains!

Oh. This one is interesting, although I remember a bad experience at school when we were doing the topic "All about me" and I stood up and told this story to the whole class and they laughed at me and didn't believe it.

Remember when the space shuttle (I think it was Discovery?) blew up on take off, in 1986? I was only 4 then and I foresaw it happening. I used to watch Button Moon as a child and I must have had a dream about the explosion, and then that next day (the day the shuttle really exploded) I was at my Grandma's house and asked her to play the episode of Button Moon where the rocket explodes. She said she didn't think there was such an episode and I was very adamant that there MUST be because I had SEEN it! She told my Mum about it when my Mum came to pick me up and they both kept telling me the episode did not exist but I was so certain I'd seen it. Well, on the news later that night when it showed the shuttle blowing up, apparently I said to my Mum "There, I TOLD you I'd seen it and you wouldn't believe me, I KNEW I was right!"

How weird is that?! My Grandma then ended up ringing my Mum.
I only have a very vague memory of this now, but I remember seeing the explosion and not being surprised or shocked because I HAD seen it happen already, but I doubt I knew what was really going on. In my little child's mind the TV was just entertainment. It wasn't the last time I had pre-cognitive dreams though, but it was the first time it was over something as public and memorable as that event.

7. I used to have horrible nightmares about the end of the world, a big meteor hitting earth and me getting burried alive and telling myself (whilst burried) it'll be okay, someone will dig me out- then having this awful thought that NO ONE is going to come and dig me out because EVERYONE will be burried or dead! It was a hideous dream!

8. Oh, I'm on a role now about freaky dreams and things! lol. When I was little I used to have a dream about a severed hairy hand that would come and pat me on the back- it sounds funny but it was REALLY scary. Well one night when I was 17 it was really strange because I had that dream again- I dreamt "Handpatter" (as I called him) came to my window and tried to get into my room. What was freaky about me dreaming about it again after all those years was that my Mum asked me what I was doing at 4am banging my window shut? My window hadn't been open- so I must have been 'acting out' my dream somehow and trying to 'shoo away' handpatter and then shutting the window hard!! Weird!

9. I've had general anaesthetic twice and I always go really loopy from the morphine- I suppose everyone does- it makes me happy happy! lol. I remember awakening from my laparascopic surgery and thanking everyone for being so good to me, shaking their hands and thinking that I was fine and asking was it really necessary to keep wearing the oxygen mask? (I was told yes). The first time I'd had anasethesia was when I had my tonsils removed at 15, the second time I was reminded of how morphine weirdly makes your nose really itchy! It's such a bizarre (but not unpleasant) feeling.

10. I seem to suffer terribly from sunlight deprivation. If the weather is cloudy for a prolonged period I get really down in the dumps and even more tired. I remember one day in the Winter last year, when I was suffering a POTS crash and had been feeling like I was well into my 'energy overdraught' and then one day, it had snowed and the sky was bright and blue, and with the bright sunlight plus the bright white snow reflecting the sunlight, the luminosity (amount of light perceived by the eye) must have been soooo high, and I suddenly felt as if I had lots of energy that day and felt great! It makes me very sad that it's not sunny often in this country anymore- we seem to now get a lot of dull, overcast weather in the summer too, and a lot of foggy, dreary weather in the winter. I think its the effect of global warming changing the climate :( I wouldn't like to move away from England because I wouldn't want to move away from my family, friends and culture, but I often wish I'd been born somewhere that gets more sun as I'd probably FEEL a lot better.

So, that's my facts for the sugar doll award- and now I am to pass it on. So, I'd like to pass it on to Candice who writes Infectiously Optimistic: a wonderful blog about living with Late Stage Lyme disease (and dysautonomia as a result of that!) and to Ash, another fellow POTSy blogger! Ash's POTS Blog