Claire Walsh writes:
I wrote a blog on my struggle with anxiety and thought it might be good to share…
I went for a nap at 4 in the day. That’s the norm after a night on the trot in Ibiza followed by too much sun the following day. Usually I’d nod off almost immediately but that afternoon I couldn’t. I was tossing and turning and I could hear my friend dozing in the bed beside me. I was so frustrated, I started to feel dizzy, the room was spinning. Panic set in. Nothing felt right. Turns out I had a bad case of sunstroke, I went to the doctor the following day just so he would confirm that it was sunstroke and not cancer, yes cancer or a brain tumour, that was my overactive mind rearing it’s ugly head. He gave me some nurofen and within a day or two I was feeling better. Unfortunately, those few days were filled with the most unbearable anxiety you can imagine. I was making myself think it wasn’t sunstroke and that I was actually really ill, I couldn’t focus on anything other than the constant tightness I that took over my chest.
I came home from that holiday and got back to work. From the day I returned for the 6 months that followed, my whole life was turned upside down. My whole soul, heart, all I knew about myself was indisputably tangled up in a web of this unfamiliar and unwelcome feeling of despair. It was a task to leave my house, to go shopping for a new dress with friends, to go for a meal, even planning a trip would bring with it sheer panic and total fear. My life came to a standstill and I spent more time trying to control my heart rate in secret than actually living and enjoying the wonderful things around me.
I visited the doctor and my desperation was evident from the tears that streamed down my tired face that morning. I started anti depressants and was told to give them 6-8 weeks before they’d even start making a difference. The days passed and I didn’t really feel like much was changing. I still couldn’t do any simple daily task without completely breaking down inside. Keeping it all a secret was the worst, sitting at my desk in work pretending I was fine was hell, forcing that smile and trying to be bubbly when really I was struggling to breathe. There was times when I was convinced I was choking on my own tongue, it was terrifying.
MORE to folly.
Thanks Nick Sutton (UK covers); Kevin Cramer (The Irish Examiner); Enda Cunningham (The Galway City Tribune); Brian Oliver (The Irish Times); Paul Murphy (The Irish Sun); Meliosa Fitzgibbon (The irish Daily Mail)
Covers to broadsheet@broadsheet.ie
Blackly comedic, defiant price gouging.
Up the Dubs.
Charleville Lodge Hotel (Facebook)
Thanks Niall O’Keeffe
Update:
Meanwhile…
back in February 5…
A hotel in Dublin’s north city, the Charleville Lodge, has advertised a campaign on its Facebook page, offering guests 50% off their room bill if they turn up with their Water Charges Application Form in the shape of a paper airplane.
….Just as interestingly, the Charleville seems like it’s not averse to wringing every last cent it can out of the public when it suits their own requirements. Consider the fact that a double room this summer is currently priced at €118, except on the night of Saturday 20th June, when the price curiously shoots up to €227. How could this be?
Well, just like every hotel within a 5-mile radius of Croke Park, it celebrates the announcement of a concert in Croke Park by doubling its prices, and with The Script playing Croker that night, they know that the average punter will have no choice but to fork out for a room as the gigs don’t finish much before 11pm.
And with the imminent announcement of two Bruce Springsteen concerts in the same venue this summer, the Charleville Lodge is no doubt licking its lips at the chance to fleece the ordinary people of Ireland, about whom it cares so much, once again.
Just like so many hotels in Dublin city centre, its message is quite clear. It’s not OK to rip off the public, unless its them doing the ripping-off…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Egm29xbgr44
A Munster fan, a Leinster fan, an Ulster fan, and a Connacht fan gather to watch Ireland play in The Six Nations. They don’t necessarily agree on everything, but this is what makes Irish rugby fans the best rugby fans in the world.
YOU decide
Salthill, Galway, Co Galway this evening.
Thanks annexbis
“I believe there is an upper room feeling about the church in many parts of the world today. People cowering behind closed doors, afraid to express opinions, in case it will bring the wrath of the oppressors down on them, but if you focus on witnessing, you have a certain calm about outcomes. Most of the time.
“When I found myself, earlier this year, accused with other people of being a homophobe, for weeks on end, everywhere from our national parliament to our State broadcaster and it continued to the extent that my 15-year-old daughter turned to me and said, ‘Mammy are you safe? Is it safe for you to go out?’ – I had to hold on very tightly to witnessing, not winning.
And in a major irony, the article which sparked off the whole incident was about gay men in the priesthood. And I asked a rhetorical question which was that if every single priest were gay, if they were faithful to their vocation, and actively seeking to do the will of god, what would it matter?
It was a rhetorical question. And this article was what caused a very well-known drag queen to accuse me of homophobia.”
Iona Institute’s Irish Times columnist Breda O’Brien speaking at a Catholic conference in Madrid, Spain in September, 2014.
Rep writes:
“…31 mins. and 42 seconds in, Breda begins to talk about the Pantigate Affair…A very dishonest account of the whole affair….”
Previously: Pantigate on broadsheet
Ever.
Shelbourne Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4.
Thanks Katie K