Happy to meet you all! Oof, where do I begin?!

Happy to be a part of Steemit!

Oof, where do I begin?? My name is Katie. I live in Cornwall. I’ve bounced around from East coast to West coast in the UK a fair bit during my 30 years on this planet, but so far Cornwall has been my home for the longest duration.

Maybe to understand my posts and the subjects I find most important to write about, and maybe even the ones that are more trivial or personal, you should first hear a bit about me.

I grew up mostly divided between Kent and Cornwall, my parents were foster carers, so along with the many biological siblings I have, we also had the pleasure of growing up with many other children who needed a loving family. Needless to say, it could be chaotic, but we were kids and it was like living with friends and having more playmates to charge around the garden with. We embraced the chaos!

My father worked away all week and would come home on the weekends. So my Mum would be raising us mostly alone, and looking back on it, I honestly don’t have a fricking clue how she managed it! Wonder Woman and her bracelets have NOTHING on my Mother!

As a girl, I wasn’t particularly interested in anything “girly”. Dresses after my 5th Christmas? No, my brother didn’t have to wear anything special, why should I? My sister trying to teach me about makeup? Um, no. I liked my face and instead of sitting in front of a mirror I’d rather be outside with my friends playing football and having fun! And as for Barbies? Hell no, Action Man had a parachute!! And for anyone wondering, it did not work! I remember my brother and I throwing the thing repeatedly out of the window and going down to retrieve it and back up, and then the parachute strings became more tangled than the Christmas lights that have been in the loft for years.
Kids don’t have the patience to rectify that mess!

I was also very keen at football! My primary school in Kent allowed students to choose between netball and football for PE each week, and there were no girls on the football team, and no boys on the netball team. But my male best friend was on the football team and I didn’t think twice about joining him! As we lined up to go to our respective playing surfaces, all the girls in the netball line, and me with the boys in the other. I was completely geared up and feeling chuffed, shin pads, high socks and football boots. But then I noticed the girls in the other line pointing and laughing. Now, considering I’m a fairly sensitive adult when it comes to judgement these days, it’s fairly surprising to me now that their pointing and laughing didn’t phase me! I had a blast on the pitch, coming back covered in mud and the biggest grin!
The next week, the day before PE a few of my girlfriends asked was football any good and I told them how much fun it was. The next day, I wasn’t the only girl in the line for football! The change in the gender/sports divide didn’t escape the notice of my PE teacher, I got a few kind words and was sent before the Headmaster to tell him all about it. I didn’t think much of it at the time. I was just there for the football and my friends.
In hindsight, I’m glad I wasn’t bothered by the initial teasing. I had made a difference, even if I was only 7 years old!

Football has always been part of me. When we moved to Cornwall when I was 9, I somehow lucked out and ended up moving next to one of my friends I’d had from nursery group (We’d lived in Cornwall prior to Kent, so I knew a few of the kids at least!). We became firm friends over the years and after every school day, we’d hop the wall between our gardens and play football until dinner time!
I’ve played for my youth group, my under 15’s secondary school team and then eventually with Penzance Women’s team.
It came to a stop after a fairly nasty tackle and had physio on my knee for a long time. This was during Sixth Form, and at that point I was starting to think about university and a career. At the time, women’s football wasn’t on the TV or in the media and I didn’t really see it as, or even know it could be a career option.

I also had a very keen interest in music. I played guitar and drums to a high grade and just loved it. It felt freeing. Dave Grohl was a huge inspiration for me. He’d been the drummer in Nirvana, and obviously the front man for the Foo Fighters. I couldn’t sing, but loved being able to put on my favourite Foo Fighter album after school and just play along to the album. Although I knew my grading and even with my teacher encouraging me to pursue it as a career option, I began to suffer with panic attacks during my teenage years and performing in front of people felt too overwhelming. I’d like to think if Grohl or P!nk were in need of a drummer that I might go for it!

In the end, I chose to major in psychology, with the intention of becoming a therapist for children. After all the children who had come to stay with us, many were from awful situations and unthinkable experiences, but beyond my Mum and social workers, there wasn’t any further help for them. So I took those memories and experiences and decided I wanted to be the help that some of them really needed.
I’d also had experiences with panic attacks during my adolescent years, and a traumatic incident as a child, so I felt I could also benefit from knowing how to deal with mental health.

I spent 4 years in university, and whilst the presentations were terrifying, the experience overall was great. I was the youngest on the courses. We had to have an interview process prior to being accepted onto the courses, and I was told that normally I’d be encouraged to go for a gap year and gain some life experience, but they thought my maturity and life experiences so far were enough to be accepted.

Right around the time I was doing my dissertation for my BA, I began suffering with lower back pain. My GP dismissed the pain at first, saying because I was so young that it was unlikely to be anything serious and expected it to disappear soon. So I carried on with university and my part-time job and my back continually became worse. It began to affect my ability to walk or stand for any real duration. When the pain kicked in, every step would feel like my back was getting tighter and tighter, and the pain would become so agonising that I’d drop to my knees in pain.

My GP eventually sent me for an X-ray and MRI, 8 months after the pain had begun to present.
An extremely long story short; we went from NHS blunder to many more blunders, and I ended up losing most of my twenties to being bed bound and unable to walk more than a few metres without that excruciating pain kicking in and having to stop altogether.

I will do a post about my medical experience and our experience with the UK benefit system soon, I know some of you will be interested in those stories, but I don’t want to bore you all to death with the length of this post!

So, I guess I haven’t achieved the goal of being a child therapist (yet!). But I did get my two degrees and more life experience in these past ten years than I could’ve ever predicted!!

The blessing is I didn’t have to go through it alone. I had no family within 200 miles, but I had my boyfriend, my dog, and a few long distance friends to talk to every now and then. My love for them, and for gaming, music, and media got me through the worst of the worst days, and the sleepless and painful nights.

I don’t take for granted the fact I had those people in my life when I really needed them most. It definitely put a strain on our relationship, but he got me to the point I’m at today. I wouldn’t be here without him or those few friends.

There were definitely times when I didn’t think I was going to make it, even now I still have those days.
But there are good days, too and the whole experience definitely makes you realise what truly matters in life: people.
We aren’t built to go through life alone, we are a social species and whether we like to admit it or not, we do need people at times in life when we cannot get through something alone, without support or love.

Love is definitely another thing that on it’s own can make even the most painful life worth living. It also has the power to bring us to our knees. Love definitely got me through.

We’ve tried a few things over the years to generate a bit of extra income, and I was recently introduced to Steemit. I’ve read some incredible articles and stories from the community so far and decided I’d like to try and be a part of it. I’ve been away from people for so long and it felt like the perfect way to meet new people and try to integrate back into normalcy as I heal physically and mentally.

I can’t wait to read more about you all and your life stories. It’s really comforting to read, and to see your experiences and the places you’ve been. And it might sound cliche but I am here to talk to if anyone feels they need to. It’s what I was trained to do and helping others has always given me comfort. If I can help anyone because of my own experiences, then that is always a welcomed silver lining!
I look forward to meeting you all.

Take care.