Caring for a Chameleon

Look into these eyes...what do you see?

Pound shop glasses...that's what. I've got some expensive prescription glasses that I should wear at all times, but they annoy me. So I take 'em off, put them down, then can't find them. Not necessarily because I'm blind as a bat, but because they seem to blend into the background, Chameleon-like. So this is me, wearing sight-damaging pound-shop glasses, in the magnificent National Library of Scotland. 

'What the fuck was a half-witted, tattooed Cockney doing in such a respected and majesterial centre of academia and research?' I hear you ask. I was there last week to view and photograph a 120-year-old copy of the London Scottish Rifles Regimental Gazette. I'm doing a PhD, doncha know? I'm researching a prosopographic history of the London Scottish Regiment from formation in 1859 to the end of the Great War. Mental defectives can also be Chameleon-like and mix amongst genteel, intelligent company. 

I accept I might not appear to be a standard aspiring academic. I never have. When I did my undergraduate degree, I arrived at Manchester University for Summer School, and the administration staff believed I was a coach driver. 

Anyway, I've been instructed that there needs to be some positivity included here if positivity does, indeed, exist. And of course, it does, but there are occasional hurdles that are pretty unique mixed amongst that positivity. For example, it was suggested that the person accompanying me to the Library was my full-time carer. That was in an attempt to overcome some bureaucratic red tape, but it wasn't too far from the truth.

Once was a respected Station Officer in charge of a busy, central-London fire station and a watch of challenging individuals. Now I need a carer to venture out of the house safely. 

So anyway, expect some more positivity within this blog/journal (I'm only terming it a journal because journaling is a recognised therapy activity).

So has any positivity resulted from journaling thus far? Writing the entry about the fatal RTA in Sutton was somewhat upsetting. However, it's kinda led me to understand some of my more extreme reactions to unpleasant events. I won't bore you with detail, but I've felt the need to mount a ferocious defence of several women that I've been aware of being victimised, harassed and worse over the years. The ferocity of that defence has possibly been over the top at times. Still, former friendships have been terminated without any confusion around the likelihood of that friendship ever being rekindled. 

My cod-psychotherapy has alerted me that I'm still rescuing that young girl in Sutton in executing that ferocious defence. 

I’ve got you.

You’re safe here with me.

I'll not lose her a second time.

Laters.