emmadotnott

I decided today to start a WordPress blog. It was a snap decision based on a Facebook status I was writing in my mind that got lengthier and lengthier and thus the Mummybearbeans page was born. Mummybearbeans being one of my names as part of our family unit, Daddy Bear Mash, Mummy Bear Beans and Baby Bear Sausage.  Don’t ask.

I’ve always loved to write; from being a child and revelling in the big writing projects at school that everybody else hated, writing a diary through my angsty teenage years, to starting a book at 21 (that of course was never completed and since cast into Silicone Hell along with all the calculators and toasters) to deciding to freelance as a recruitment writing consultant and proof reader after not returning to work following maternity leave. Understandably the way I write has evolved and developed as I’ve gotten older; my writing now at nearly 29 is vastly different and probably superior to those musings offered at 21, 25 and will no doubt leave me cringing and hitting delete when read back at 35, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Since becoming a parent, my views on the world have changed radically. Suddenly having another human being’s very existence in your hands gifts you a new found sense of responsibility, worry and desire for change. A desire for change, a desire to right wrongs and a desire for knowledge and better understanding of the things you deem in need of change. However my favourite change to my attitude is my ever-growing sense of not giving a fuck. For years I’d agonise over what other people thought of me, how I could be more liked, how I must be doing something wrong if people had a negative opinion of me and why do they think that? I avoided confrontation like the plague, I would try in earnest not to rock the boat and instead dwelled on all my over analysis, worries and theories in silence and invariably suffering.

But no more!

My first and probably most trivial and tragically 21st Century step in not giving a fuck was a Facebook cull. I asked myself “Am I friends with this person because they are genuinely my friend or because I felt obligated to be at some point?” If the answer leaned towards the latter, they went. Poof! Gone. I also rekindled a friendship with a person so divisive amongst my other friends that I had previously and quite unreasonably, dropped like a stone in another attempt to quell boat rocking. I began posting more opinionated updates on social media; showing my political alignments, my ideals, myself. Don’t like it? Don’t read it, easy as. This was a revelation to me, it felt like a suppressive and dominating weight had disappeared and as the relief grew, so did my confidence to continue.

Since recovering from post natal depression, and following a number of periods of depression through my adult life, I can see a definite and strong correlation between not giving a fuck and good mental health. I had recognised in my early twenties that my depressions were fuelled by over-analysing myself and my life and the subsequent cycles of scrutiny, self-deprecation, guilt and feelings of failure. Without worrying whether or what other people were thinking about me, I didn’t look at myself so carefully or so adversely either and the cycle was broken.

Writing has always been my salvation and now I’ve got this blog in place, I’ve got the ideal location to ramble on without worrying what anybody thinks about it.

So there you have it folks, the key to happiness is children, writing and not giving a fuck.

Simples.