Thank you Lucy Rocca xx

Yesterday was another inspiring, special day. As soon as I heard that the author and creator of sobersistas was doing a book reading as part of recovery month, I knew I had to be there. I was fortunate to be able to attend both personally but also in a work capacity, as this was part of Recovery Month. Lucy Rocca shared more than just about her experience and relationship with alcohol, she shared about her lack of identity, and the lack of a relationship she had with herself. The penultimate  moment in her life was finally #havingawordwihersen, taking a step back was the time a few years before, being a single parent, she found herself waking up in the hospital covered in her own vomit to be told they had found her out of it, outside her own home.

She shared her story about how she went from being the life and soul of every party to isolating herself, mainly out of shame about what she had become, fear of bumping into neighbours, who may have heard “she was an unfit mother” prompted her to realise that, surely she cannot be the only woman, mother out there, who is struggling with their relationship with themselves, with alcohol, with parenthood, and all the shit life throws at women, Soberistas was like an adult version of mom net.

For the first time in her life, she had started to have a ‘real ‘ relationship with herself. Her journey with soberista’s started with her blog,  she found that writing was a great form of therapy and being able to put it out there, off load her thoughts, feelings and emotions was liberating, not just for her, but for other mothers out there, feeling isolated, feeling alone, un heard, with no voice, but they had a voice via Soberista’s  

Alot of what she said personally resonated with me, whilst she was talking I was trying to be mindful and present, trying my best to give her my 100% attention that she duly earned. But if i am honest,  it was hard, her words, her story, resurrected memories, feelings I once felt myself many years ago. 

My penultimate moment was waking up in Middlewood and thinking “what the fuck have you become?” I knew deep down in my soul that this wasn’t who I really was, I was in pain from years of what felt like being suppressed, unheard, a sense of feeling undervalued, overlooked, I was quite simply “broken”. But despite feeling like a shell of a human, there ‘was’ some spirit left, not a lot, but enough for me to start questioning “how the fuck had I arrived in this place?”  I didn’t want me as a mom, let alone my kids? I didn’t want to see my kids in care?.

But being in there having the priceless opportunity to off load all these thoughts, feelings and emotions with a complete stranger, my therapist, I was able to start to see things more clearly, clearer than I have ever done in my life.

If I am perfectly honest, that was the first time I had been heard. Something that is wholly underestimated and undervalued in society and its not getting better neither, we live in a consumerist environment, were we are constantly being sold, told whats good for us, without questioning it? Just fucking plodding along  and ignoring the fact that every fucking single one of us “has a voice” and somewhere, somehow we have lost the ability to listen to it, to hear it or to even acknowledge it. 

I have never felt better than I have done this past three months, I know that with writing I have finally found a way of listening to myself, whilst I sit here typing away in my bedroom, come office, my personal space and I am learning to re-establish a relationship with myself. I have realised that in fact by doing this over the past 3 months, my relationships with others are improving too, but Instead of constantly giving myself to others I am saving a little back for me. 

I have always had a passion for the underdog, the unheard, those who have been rejected by society for “not fitting in”, because I know first hand just what that feels like and its the most loneliest place in the fucking world.

There have been a handful of people on the way since I woke up in Middlewood that morning, who by just giving me the time and space to “think for myself” that has enabled me to become the person I am today and over the past three months, i am coming into contact and realising that i am not alone, with my feelings, there are other people who feel the same way too.

Giving time, listening (which is not as easy as it sounds) to others, is far more precious than any fucking  latest gadget, car, house, job, fashion, weight, balance in the bank account.

But you gotta start with making time for YOU first, before giving your all to others, thinking that by doing and giving your all to everyone else, in return you will feel valued, loved, wanted, accepted, quite frankly its just a form of denial.

I see people shame and judge other people walking the streets of Sheffield, off their tits on SPICE “the walking dead”, but they need to look in the fucking mirror and #haveaword with their sens, because quite frankly they are no different to those so called “zombies” we all bleed the same, we all have feelings, we all have our own ways of coping with this thing called life, there ain’t no handbook, everyone is unique and everyone deserves to have the opportunity to be listened too, but more importantly to be heard. 

Right, now as much as i love sitting here and writing, i do have an actual job to go to, BUT at least i can face work, the world, knowing i have already been heard, listened to by me.

Have a good en, love Fordy