quenjamin's avatar

quenjamin

316 Watchers152 Deviations
142.8K
Pageviews

Today is Fibromyalgia International Awareness Day. For those who don't know, I suffer with fibromyalgia, and it is a very real and debilitating illness. This post is an informational one - if there's anything you've ever wanted to know abou
t fibromyalgia, you can ask me here - no matter how personal - and I will attempt to answer you, either here or in a private message. I want to raise awareness of this condition which is so maligned by media and dismissed by the medical profession.

Head over to the Fibromyalgia Association UK where you can find out more and even donate to the charity if you want to.


Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In

Stuff n' Fluff

4 min read

I like this journal. I have to be relatively constrained, because it's public (unlike my LiveJournal, where I write everything) and I know people who pretend they don't care about my life are reading it. :P But I can use it for things that don't seem 'important' enough to go on my blog. It's a nice half-way house, and I should use it more often.

Wee Chum was made a 'free reader'. This means he's finished with the reading scheme books, and can read whatever he chooses for reading time both at school and at home. He is chuffed to bits. Considering this is a child who I've always had to cajole into reading, and completing the ten minutes per night that the school mandates, I'm really, really pleased with this. I think it has a lot to do with allowing him an hour after bedtime to sit up (or lay on his belly!) in bed and just read whatever he wants to. He's been doing this for about a year, and his reading has come on leaps and bounds. I has a clever Chum. :D

My physical health hasn't been so good lately. I'll write about Fibromyalgia International Awareness Day in a bit, but suffice it to say I've been in a lot of pain and experiencing a lot of fatigue recently. My new antipsychotic helps me to sleep at night, which is helping the pain/fatigue a lot, but it's still screwing with my ability to lead a 'normal' life a lot. I manage to be a good parent, husband and student, and that's what matters I suppose.

Studying is going well - I'm three years into my six-year degree right now, and I only have one more assignment (the dreaded EMA) to do before I'm free until October. Looking forward to that four month break SO much. Especially because it encompasses Wee Chum's school summer holidays. Hopefully we'll get to go camping again this year, because last year was so idyllic and wonderful. Just the three of us as a family getting to know each other better. :)

I don't have anything exciting or groundbreaking to report, basically - that's yer lot. Hope everyone's doing well? Let me know what you've been up to!

Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
In case you're confused, I was ghostlove before.

So yeah, there's that.

I'm nearly at the end of my Open University module for the year, just one assignment due in a couple of days and then my EMA due on 2nd June and then I'm free until October when my next module (Children's Literature) begins. I'm doing okay, I can still get a first if I get a distinction in one of my next three modules, which should be fairly straightforward, though not easy.

I'm not writing as much as I'd like to be. What I do write is technically and contextually bollocks. For an English Language and Literature student I'm not very good at writing the way I wish I could. But that's by the by; only with practice can I improve, and there are lots of wonderful, wonderful writers around, even here on deviantART, who inspire me to try more, work harder, get better.

I have two gay vicars coming to visit my family tonight. That should be interesting.

Also, we seem to have gained another cat.

Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In

Today marks exactly NINE YEARS since I first joined deviantART. I've been a user on and off since then, usually corresponding with my mental health issues; when I'm very mentally unwell I tend to write more, strangely, and then when I get well again I pootle off and get on with real life. 

This time, though, I'm back for good and really trying to integrate myself, trying to become a useful member of the deviantART community. I truly love this website, I love everything about it really, especially what its members have done for me and my writing over the years. I hope to become one of those members who is truly valued!

Can you believe that on 20th July 2004, when I first signed up for deviantART, Wee Chum didn't even exist yet? Can you believe I was still living with my parents, in a house that isn't even their home any more? 

Between then and now, I've left my parents' home for my own place (nearly eight years I've lived here now!) had two failed relationships, had Wee Chum, worked and lost several different jobs (some paid and some voluntary), had two mental illnesses diagnosed, become physically disabled and learned to embrace my limitations, come out as transgender and met and married Jesse (my spouse)! Phew! And all this time I've been writing about it all - sometimes here in the form of poetry, sometimes on my LiveJournal (yes, some of us still use LJ!).

I'm so grateful to deviantART for being here for me for the past nine years, and hopefully it'll still be around in another nine. Wee Chum will be nearly seventeen by then, and I will be approaching forty. And hopefully I'll still be writing, and who knows - maybe he'll be a member here by then, too.

Take care everyone, and thanks for reading.


Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In

I wrote a new blog post over at Shut Up, Sit Down on the word "queer" and why it is an important word to me and the queer community. I hope you enjoy it.


Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
Featured

Fibromyalgia International Awareness Day by quenjamin, journal

Stuff n' Fluff by quenjamin, journal

So I changed my username by quenjamin, journal

deviantART Birthday by quenjamin, journal

QUEER and why it's an important word by quenjamin, journal