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The opinions of the opinionated.
And the difference is:
Today I travelled to the UK-Birmingham to be precise, to stay with my sister as she was alone while the parents were on holiday.
Up at 4:30am to drive to Dublin airport and a million and one different forms of transport later I found myself at my dads house the only problem being that noone was home.
My sister had completely forgotten she had college classes till 4:30.
After forgiving her for this I walked to her college to meet her . While waiting for her class to finish I observed many 16-18 year olds coming out of her college.
What I observed was a huge difference to what you would see with Irish leaving cert students. The way they acted and talked appeared alot more grown up and “streetwise.” in fact I would go as far as saying the tv series “Skins” is a very close likeness.
Where’s Your Head At?
We all have a bad day sometimes, we all get down in the dumps. When do we draw the line between “feeling down” and suffering from depression?
I decided to make this blog post after a recent conversation with a close friend, both of us having previously been diagnosed as depressed and both of us having been successfully treated for it.
My depression manifested itself in 2007, symptoms included: a complete loss of motivation, unusual sleep patterns, frequent mood changes, complete lack of self-esteem.
I retreated to my bed whenever I felt particularly down and let everything slide – from friendships to college work. I attached myself to one person and suffered from severe panic attacks when I didn’t know where he was or who he was with. If I am completely honest I was very unfair and controlling towards this person, but I felt like my world would fall apart if he wasn’t with me.
I’ll always remember the day I was first prescribed anti-depressants - the 26th of Febuary 2008. I went to the doctor and broke down, I told her I couldn’t cope and that I was ashamed of myself for feeling the way I did. She talked me down and sent me home with a prescription. I got home and put my phone on the counter, walked into the living room and sat down. Right at that moment my phone began to ring. The news that came over that phone-line pulled my world apart.
My grandfather had passed away, he was only in his 60′s so didn’t qualify as an old man. While he was fighting cancer he was doing well and the death was quite sudden.This as you can imagine did nothing to help my state of mind and consequently I deffered my college course and spent a lot more time hiding in my bed. The person I attached myself to I was living with. Our close friendship broke down and we are no longer in touch. I see this as a positive now – it was a very destructive relationship and moving out was the best decision I had made in a long time. From there I managed to gather motivation to excercise. Making me feel great.
It had taken me untill the December of 2008 but I was having many more good days than bad days. I visited the doctor and told her of my progress. She lowered the dose of Lexapro and I started the weaning procedure. In March of 2009 I took my last antidepressant.
Now whenever I have a bad day I think about all the things I have to be thankful for. I eat healthier than I did previously, I make sure that when someone pays me a compliment I accept it. I can honestly say that I finally feel good being who I am.
Suffering from depression is a very private, scary and personal experience. No two people are the same. During the course of my treatment I told one person that I was on medication. That is how I personally coped with it.
The strangest thing though – when you are well again, you look back at things you did while you were sick and you laugh at how crazy you actually were! At my lowest point I was so crazy I wouldn’t let a friend of mine sit on the couch in the living room and I used to freak out if she did!!
I wanted to post this to say to people: You won’t be depressed for the rest of your life seek help and talk to someone you trust.
Goodnight Gerry
Sleep well Mr. Ryan. I hope to someday be a quater of the broadcaster you were
Xx
Dear Will Leahy,
Today I had to drive from Dublin to Tralee – a 4 hour drive. Leaning back into my seat and starting the engine I made sure the radio was tuned to 2fm.
I would normally listen to 2fm because I like the banter, I find all of the presenters entertaining and smart (excusing Hector).
However today I was left feeling very angry when the presenter Will Leahy decided to brand lesbians as ‘leprechans’. His reasoning being that there may be 5 year olds in the cars who would then need to be told what lesbians were. He also said that it had been used the other night in “Desperate Housewives.”
He went for a short commercial break and when he returned he seemed shocked at the negative response he received.
“All the lesbians in the country are after texting in and saying they are changing their radio stations.”
“I didn’t mean it negatively I was just trying to protect little ears.”
“The listeners don’t understand the context”
Those are just snippets of the things he said.
I put it to you Mr. Leahy that it is not the gay community that do not understand; it is you. May I ask why you feel the need to “Protect little ears?” Is the gay community something that children should not be made aware of? Are we a shameful little secret that parents should do their utmost to hide from their children? Obviously you believe that children should be brought up believing that being a heterosexual is correct, otherwise why on earth should they grow up thinking that a straight partnership is the only one that exists?
With RTÉ taking a giant leap these last weeks and airing the series “Growing up Gay”, many among the gay community are starting to believe that education about gay issues may finally be coming to fruition. Too many LGBT young people self harm, turn to alcohol or drugs and unfortunately commit suicide because of a lack of education and support in this country. This education needs to start at a younger age as many LGBT people realise that they are LGBT at a young age, in fact a recent poll taken by BelongTo shows that most know at 12, yet they come out at 19.
Thats 7 years of emotional turmoil – worrying that someone will find out, worrying that you are not normal and being worried that you will be rejected.
Surely you can see the need to educate and not hide homosexuality for the younger members of our community?
In my opinion it is then, and only then that we can build the kind of equal society that we should be bringing forward in the 21st century.
Yours sincerely
Ben
Marriage is like climbing a mountain? Well, start it that way!
What image comes into you mind when the country Nepal is mentioned?
For me I imagine; Buddhist monks, mountains, scenery, Hindu shrines. I imagine the Nepalese people to be conservative and extremely religious, in fact this country is so religious that its two major religions seem to have fused, with Buddhist and Hindu shrines respected by all . A poor country with 50% of its population living below the poverty line. A country that is crippled with young girls being trafficked into India and being forced into the sex trade.
While everything that I have written there is true I have one more fact that you may find interesting.
In May of this year the country is going to ratify a new constitution. Under this constitution same-sex marriage will be legal. Currently there are travel agents offering wedding packages so that you can quite literally get married on top of the world – Mt Everest.
“Sunil Babu Pant, a Communist legislator and leader of the country’s gay rights movement, launched Pink Mountain, a travel agency offering wedding ceremonies on Mount Everest, the world’s tallest peak.” DailyTelegraph.com
I find this to be absolutely amazing, I mean I live in a western country, a country with considerably more money than Nepal. Irish people consider themselves to be just a civilised and á la mode as continental Europe and yet same-sex marriage is still 10 years in the distance!
The Nepalese government are marketing this as a tourism strategy, surely the Irish government could do that too? Think of all the American gays that would just love to get married on the Cliffs of Moher, have a ceremony in the adorable town that is Killarney, dammit if they even want their nuptials presided over by Funghi on a boat in Dingle Bay – I say let them!
Its up to the people of this country to take this tale to Dermot Ahern and say; We will not take your civil partneship bill as is, we will NOT take second class citizenship.
I do wonder though, does Nepal have its own Brenda Power?
What i’ve learned this week;
So I decided to make a personal post today on this blog- I want to share what I’ve learned this week with you guys.
1. Never trust the democratic system
Democracy – the way of the civilised world. Everyone gets a say: sounds perfect.
It’s not. People never vote for the best candidate. People don’t vote for the candidate that will do the work. People generally vote for what’s “cool” or for who is the most popular.
Then you have the people who don’t vote – because they don’t care. How can you not care!!?? Politics isn’t a sport and it’s certainly not a game. It’s your job to get involved and make sure you are represented by the best-if you don’t vote you have no right (in my opinion) to any redress for what the current government is doing or has done.
2. Just when you think something isn’t going to happen it will.
The last three weeks I’ve been waiting for a phonecall – yesterday morning I told myself that was it and that it obviously wasn’t coming, stopped waiting and put my next plan of action into play.
Three hours later the phonecall came.
3. While driving wear sun cream on your right arm.
I know have an extremely tanned right arm and a slightly tanned left one. This is cause my arm often rests on the window while driving and therefore it gets more sun.
So that’s it- three little points I’m gonna go sleep
Ben xx
The Sunshine State: Overcast With Discrimination.
The weather is amazing at the moment. People are smiling and the general mood of my friends and acquaintances is good.
Yet I come home and a news headline catches my attention:
“Elderly Gay Couple Forcibly Separated, Abused, Robbed By County Officials in California”
Harold(88) and Clay(77) had been together for 20 years, they lived together, owned a house together but most importantly they had a life together.
Being two smart men they had all the necessary paperwork together; each one giving power of attorney to the other should anything happen, they had wills made out and medical directives created. Unfortunately the State of California thought all of these things to be irrelevant.
Harold leaving home one evening took a tumble, down the stairs outside their home. An ambulance arrived and took him to hospital, consulting the medical directives they would have been instructed to contact Clay, however they did not.
Instead they refused Clay access to the hospital and then placed Harold and Clay into separate nursing homes, the county then applied to court to gain control over Harold’s finances, calling Clay a “roommate” and denying that he had any family at all. The court ruled against the county but allowed them to take money out of Harold’s finances in order to pay for his nursing home costs.
This is where the story changes from a nightmare and into a full blown denial of rights.
With the two men tucked up in separate nursing homes – and with no authority the county seized all of Harold and Clay’s belongings and auctioned them off. The county tore up the lease on the two mens home and handed the house back to the landlord.Thus confining Clay to a nursing home against his will!
Three months later – Harold passed away; robbing Clay of the last 3 precious months with his partner.
Last month Constance McMillen was barred from attending her prom because she wanted to bring her girlfriend. This caused shock waves around the world. This story should be just as big, if not bigger.
This story proves to me that we NEED full marriage rights in Ireland – Dermot Aherne needs to take notice.
As Panti said at Dublin Pride last year – “Where is your righteous anger?”
That pretty picture at the top doesn’t look as pretty now does it?
full article available here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alvin-mcewen/elderly-gay-couple-robbed_b_542501.html
Facebook bashing gays or is GCN running the rumour mill?
Late night surfing has helped me come across this little gem from GCN
http://www.gcn.ie/feature.aspx?articleid=2570§ionid=15
Stored under the Gossip section. It’s a preposterous idea and badly reported by GCN
“After some unexplained deletions speculation is growing.” – is it? Says who? Having worked with computers for close to 7 years now I can safely say that technical errors occur everyday – profiles disappear from working servers continuously, you cannot account for gremlins!
”Author Frank Anthony Polito’s fan page for his critically acclaimed book ‘Band Fags!’ The only explanaition given was the message: “You created a Page that has violated our Terms of Use”,” The violation may be the term “Fags” – understandable being that it is a derogatory term.
“Shortly after, photographer and co-creator of the NOH8 Campaign Adam Bouska’s profile page went down for more than a day, though this has since been reinstated.”
Problem resolved……..He’s a popular guy – I seem to be seeing the NOH8 slogan everywhere recently – maybe too much traffic caused his page to crash? No no – its because he’s gay of course!
“The social networking site has not yet offered a reasonable explanation for either case.”
I’m sure they have millions of bugs a day – they dont release a press statement for all of them.
GCN forever? I think not.
Ben’s Tweets
- oh the heat! have to work #forshame! 3 days ago
- @gregg_seymour18 only got your tweet now - cant wait for america! So far away tho! 3 weeks ago
- Awh man, that chinese was only massive!!! #stuffedandtired 1 month ago
- @lucyslimm @gregg_seymour18 LOOOOOSSSSEEEERRRRRSSSSS! #TDA 1 month ago
- @nickyodnl see here: workersliberty.org/story/2008/12/… "A section of the student union, the “Campaigns Group”, broke from the union" 1 month ago
