Its hard to know whats self defence and what will get you in trouble. But what I’m going to talk about is self defence against an abusive partner; wether that be male or female. Now, when you look at yourself you may think “yes I’m strong I could take him/her on if things got worse”. But, don’t be mistaken just because you look strong does not necessarily mean you would be able to defend yourself.

Now, I guess you could say that the best form of self defence is to get out of that kind of relationship; but what about when it isn’t as easy as that. Getting out of an abusive relationship is far from easy, saying it from the point of view of someone who was abused by her ex for 2 years and just couldn’t bring myself to walk away; despite the abuse becoming gradually worse almost leaving me in hospital on many occasions. It is not only walking away from something physical; but it is also walking away from something that is emotional and a mental game, because you love this person you don’t want to by this point but you still do.

To this day it is still a war keeping myself out of that relationship, however there are many different obstacles it would mean passing in order to go back to this; and it isn’t something I would be proud to do; so by the first obstacle which in my case is my friends; it could be the same for others or it could be a different first obstacle, but as mine is my friends; I know for a fact that if I don’t want to lose what few friends have stuck by me then I need to not only physically defend myself against it; but I also need to mentally defend myself against it.

Opening up about your problems is a very important thing to do, by bottling them up it will only allow the problem to fester which will in turn make you feel an intense amount worse. Recently I have been struggling to talk about my problems and it has led to my life becoming very difficult; but it didn’t only become difficult for me; it also made it very hard for my friends to watch me going through it, leading to me pushing them away and them not knowing what to honestly do; causing many arguments, not because we wanted to hurt each other but because neither of us knew what to do.

So, I finished work for the half term on tuesday and went straight over to cleobury to see some of my friends and it took me a long; long time to finally begin talking, but normally it would take me a couple of drinks to get me talking, however not this time I didn’t consume a single alcoholic beverage and once we went home we decided that neither of us were actually tired; so we went for a walk up to the playing field and sat there watching the stars; then it began I started talking and from then it must of been an hour before I actually stopped talking, it took me becoming ice cold, insanely shaky and unable to hold things let alone able to hold myself very well; so at this point we decided maybe it was late enough and should go home to get some sleep.

I didn’t necessarily talk about everything that was bothering me; because in fact I didn’t talk about everything and there is an ever increasing amount more that I need to get out of my system, but by opening up once to one of my very amazing friends, it aided me to realise how much I actually do trust her completely and it was good to put the feeling into words.I don’t think once I put my thoughts into words this time, I would hesitate to talk to her again since spilling my feelings once.

So, what I’m saying is find someone you trust completely; you could have a couple of people but generally it is good to have one main person to talk to; because that way it means that you don’t have to go over your problems over and over again; causing you to be emotional on more than just one occasion about something. Im not saying that you will instantly feel better, because I wouldn’t say that I feel on top of the world again its a process; but if you have someone to talk to it means that you can share and they may in fact be a massive help or may have something similar that they are working through, which will help to work you through your issues. Don’t just sit awake at night worrying about what people will think, or crying, or being unable to sleep because so much is going through your head. Also, don’t allow yourself to get to the point of wanting to hurt yourself or end your life; don’t even get to the point where you want to run away from everyone around you because you feel alone or isolated.

When I first started writing my blog I said that I would try to post a little something every single day possible. But, one thing led to another between being extremely busy and not knowing quite what to write about topic wise; I ground to a holt and hit what many call writers block. How does this link to the subject title of storm, well while there have been a few physical storms recently, I have been fighting a storm in my mind of various little things but the main storm being this writers block; I have 24 days until I go on holiday for 2 weeks and for each day I’m away I hope I can have a post coming up on my blog which means preparing them in advance which is proving very difficult.

But, onto the physical storms that have been occurring all over the country; haven’t they been so idillic and beautiful despite the fact that they are loud and in some cases end in doing damage to whats around them. I consider it a privilege that I have been awake to watch at least two of them. The lightning lighting up the sky, the thunder rumbling around in the sky travelling all around your head either moving closer or moving further away and as for the rain well personally that is the annoying part it bashes against the windows and anything below it creating intense noise louder than the thunder in many a case not only does the rain make lots of noise but it leaves a wet muddy mess all around on the floors.

Why am I moaning about the weather; well in fact its not so much that I am moaning as the weather is a beautiful things and a long with the gorgeous sunny days we have been having by night the skies are lit up by flashes of light ranging in a variation of colours as they flash sometimes yellow, sometimes purple and even sometimes blue.

So guys and girls, I am working on a new project along side my blog, I am aware I haven’t really been putting much up on here as have been very busy and then today I have been very poorly. Hopefully I will get a few new blog posts up soon. I will be going away on holiday for 2 weeks in August which means that access to my blog won’t be as easy, but hopefully I will be able to throw together some posts that should appear up on the blog while I am away.
But, my new project I am hoping to be working on is I am hoping to write a book, so while I am away that is very much likely what i will be working on during those 2 weeks.

So, two weeks ago now I turned 19, now leading up to this and even on the actual day I wasn’t too bothered about it and just saw it as another day really. But, then my friends started planning on us going out for a couple drinks and it felt positively awesome and made the fact it was a special day even if wasn’t a big birthday it was important to celebrate it. So, we went over to the temeside and the drinks were on me the whole night and I wasn’t allowing anyone to say otherwise, we also had some food together which was awesome as I don’t see them quite as much in the recent weeks; which is fine as it makes spending time together all the more special. During the time that we were at the Temeside the weather decided to take a rather expected turn for the worst that didn’t stop any of us enjoying ourselves; instead we just went inside and sat watching out the window as the storm became more and more impressive torrential rain, thunder and lightning; it was like a show in itself, which I personally felt had more meaning to me than it probably did to any of the others in that building; which I will get onto in a few minutes. So, my birthday went from having absolutely no meaning to me to being one of the best nights I had; had for quite a while and although having a few drinking managed to stay sober for so I and my friends could enjoy every living minute of it and still remember the entire thing the following day, which made me very proud of myself. As our night out came to a close when the rain temporarily stopped we ran to the car and quickly jumped in before it began to pour it down again. So, all round a brilliant night indeed and a very special birthday that I can treasure. However, there was one all so very special person who wasn’t there because the plan had some what changed leaving it to late to get her with us, but we can’t have everything otherwise it will be all too amazing all at once and I knew id see her at my baptism which was even more special to have her there with me instead 😀

Now, to explain why I was feeling like this storm had meaning for me. Well, I had still been having a bit of a rough time here and there and it was taking its toll on me quite intensely and it was attempting to drag me back into my depression that I had been in, but on the sunday after my birthday I was getting baptised, so I needed to come back out of whatever was taking its toll on me, so while I was sat there with my friends watching this storm I just let everything was a way this beautiful storm felt like a cleansing God had sent to me to prepare me for my baptism and it felt honestly amazing. So much so that the following morning I was out with my father and I felt different I felt any reminance of negativity or depression had completely left my body and I was fresh and completely free ready for sunday it felt amazing and from then on I was so excited for my baptism all because of this beautifully created storm that helped me clear my mind.

So sunday came; Baptism time!!! I was to say the least so excited but I must admit a little nervous as it was a very big thing that I had been waiting for; for an enormous amount of time and that day had finally arrived. I was also going to be getting baptised with one of my very good friends that I haven’t known all that long at all but together we took on the next step of getting to know Jesus (big or what)!!! Not only that but I had my best friends all there except one and I even had my aunty and uncle there now this just made my excitement go through the roof. I went there with a plan of what I wanted to say as my testimony but then I felt that isn’t what I needed to say after all and I went with what Jesus had put on my heart to say instead the more daring option id like to say because you have nothing really to go from other than what your feeling is being fed to you in order to say.

I would just like to apologise to all those who read my blog i have not posted up a new blog post recently hopefully over the next couple of days there will be something appearing on my blog as i have been insanely busy and am still very busy for the next month and a half but i shall do my best to have something up for you all very soon

When England went out if the World Cup there was a 38% increase in domestic violence.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=21RABxHmrP4

Failure is NOT an Option!!

In all walks of life failure shouldn’t be an option. But when I’m talking about failure in my case I am generally referring to my fitness and training. I am going through the process of joining up to the army hopefully but in order to be able to do this I have to be on the top of my fitness, now this has been no easy task for me seeing as I would much prefer to just take a seat somewhere and do something; anything that doesn’t involve exercise. But, when I decided that I would like to join the army this meant needing to choose to get up from that easy lifestyle of scraping by to keep skinny and actually get fit to go with that skinny.

It has meant me needing to do 1.5 mile runs in a time of under 14 minutes preferably under 12 minutes, now for me this is no easy challenge at all I have never been a distance runner at all; now you might say don’t be silly you can’t call that any distance, but when I am used to doing sprints meaning short distances it is in fact more difficult than you would think. Tonight I was ready to give up, this would have meant failing to get into the army due to my own lack of self discipline and confidence, so when I failed in doing it in even under 20 minutes I no longer saw the point in carrying on; but when I sat for a few minutes and remembered why I was insanely wanted to get into the army I went back out and I tried again this time getting an approximate time of 13 minutes. Now, that isn’t quite the under 12 minutes I want to be getting with every run that I do but it proved to me that if I keep of hold solidly as to why I am putting myself through the pain of these runs then I can blooming well do it easily in fact. Failure is NOT an Option!!

Now, the runs aren’t the only area that its meant working on I have also been doing a lot of strength work; which has meant weights and lots of different core exercises. Even here I had to start off quite slowly barely being able to lift much at all, now on the dumbbells I can lift 14 kg on the single ones, 25 kg on the bigger ones and on the machines for my arms I can pull 82.5 kg and push 50 kg; so this is a big difference from what I was originally able to do and on legs weights I can push 112.5kg. Again this has been no easy ride, slightly easier than the running; but I have had to put in a lot of hours and a lot of commitment, in some cases to not even being able to move much the following day or following couple of days. Core exercises have mainly been quite a wide range of different things; I won’t name them all but the main ones that have been essential are sit ups and press ups. Now, the sit ups well they have been a doddle, but well the press ups have been evil, I have really struggled with press ups and they had been the disappointment of many a work out session, but with much patiences and a lot of self discipline I am now becoming more and more able to do them with the numbers of them I can successfully do increasing each time by at least 3 I am now up to being able to do 17 press ups. Doing all my core exercises has even started having a visible affect in the form of loosing weight, toning up and getting to the point I am now slowly gaining a noticeable six pack 🙂 Failure is NOT an Option!!

But moving on from the army aspect of Failure NOT being an Option!! There are also other areas in which it also hasn’t been an option. The Spiritual Aspect of my life has been quite a battle of mine over the last couple of months if not a year, I had been allowing myself to hold onto bad things that had happened in my life; which in turn were having ties on what I could achieve physically, mentally, emotionally and even spiritually. Now with the help of some very good friends of mine have been able to put all of those being behind me and on the 29th of June I shall finally be getting baptised, I have waited for this for so long; I have been a Christian for 3 years and have wanted to get baptised for a long time, but every time an opportunity came up God was saying to me not this time Amy, not this time. But, now has come the time that he has said. “Now Amy you are ready to go through the process of being baptised”, the excitement of this is insane and to make it even better its my birthday 2 days before which means when I turn 19 my new life starts and it starts with my family and friends there with me. If this in itself doesn’t prove Failure is NOT an Option!! Then not much else can. God is an amazing person and he helps us finish everything to the best that we can at the right time for us!!

So, in case you hadn’t figured Failure is NOT an Option!! It hasn’t been one for me, so don’t let it be one for you either. You can be successful in every aspect of your life if you only keep plodding on through the easy times and the tough time because it will be then that you see the fruits of all your hard work and perseverance!!