About Me
In my childhood, it was thought at one time that I was educationally sub-normal. It turned out that quite the reverse was true and I'm highly intelligent. An under-achiever, I barely spoke to other kids and was scared of everyone and everything. I now think I might have Asperger's. An amateur youth theatre group helped me a great deal and taught me many coping strategies. After a general education and then Drama School (acting college?) in London, I moved to Amsterdam for personal reasons. I love acting but not the life of an actor. Hardly finding any work in the biz that is show, I drifted via chambermaiding into office work. I learned to type, learned Dutch and, for nearly 20 years and with only a couple of periods of unemployment, worked my way up past Executive Assistant to Office Manager. But I hated secretarial work and these days I can't even get that, except sporadically and for lower hourly wages than a cleaner. During this time, I completed bookkeeping courses, several modules of informatics (IT) and business studies with the Dutch Open University and obtained a Diploma in Translation from the Institute of Linguists (in London). I worked as a free-lance translator sometimes, and as a full-time one for a few months but I found it drove me crazy - withdrawn, kranky and clinically depressed. I struggled with depression for many years and got away from drug therapy after a few years, following frightening side effects on Prozac (sleepwalking and alarming absences, skipping time) and the next few things they tried on me. One made me want to sleep about 16 hours a day and, every time I woke up, to eat sugary rubbish; I gained about 50 pounds in three months with this drug, and have never completely lost the extra fat. I can't remember the name of the drug but a psychiatrist friend of mine told me at the time that it was indicated only for extremely nervous, skinny individuals who can't sleep. One psychiatrist described the diagnosis as double depression: cyclical acute depressive disorder with an underlying distymia. I now find that an occasional course (1 month or 6 weeks) of St John's wort controls it sufficiently although it's still an uphill struggle getting through the days sometimes. I'm experimenting with EFT. The birth of a child made me even more aware of healthy eating and the avoidance of toxins. She exhibited ADHD symptoms at an early age but I refused to have her drugged, researching instead which led to parenting books and courses and an even more rigorous removal of harmful substances from our diet. I banned sodium laurel sulphate from all our personal care products and I'm sure we're better for it. My daughter, now a teenager, is embarrassed by her mother going on and on about nutrition but it is gratifying that she often asks for water when we're eating out rather than some carbonated disaster. Meanwhile, I developed an interest in nutrition and organic gardening. I fight a losing battle against slugs and snails, the numbers of which are increasing every year in my garden, even though I've spent a fortune on environment-friendly remedies as well as going slug-hunting three times a day in the Spring (dusk, late night and dawn) and I've lost most of my cruciferous crops (cabbage, etc) to Cabbage White caterpillars despite spending many hours a week removing them by hand. At least nothing seems to eat the Swiss Chard except me. Having moved back to England a few years ago following a divorce and the death of my beloved dog, last year I attempted to train as a driving instructor to be able to earn a reasonable living, but could not complete this training because I have neither the use of a car nor money to acquire one. Attempts at securing funding have met brick walls; the banks don't want to know until one is qualified. So now I'm stuck with the loan I had to take out to pay for the entire training in advance and that's the end of that. In any case, I only ever meant it as a means of financing a reasonable standard of living while studying what really interests me. So I probably should write it off and not waste any more effort on it. After years of unofficially 'studying' nutrition and natural health, I am now (2007/2008) officially studying it. Yes, I finally know what I want to be when I grow up (apart from young, thin and rich, obviously). Rather late in life to be starting a new career, I have severe doubts about ever being able to earn a living as a naturopath or nutritional therapist but at least I'm working on something I consider important and valuable. My goal for the past few years has been, and still is, to move to a certain village with an unusually high proportion of health-aware and nature-respecting people. Housing is expensive there because it's both cute and desirable (I'm told that Tom and Nicole were looking for a place there before they broke up). Competition would be tough as they have several natural therapists based there already and even their convential physicians work within anthroposophic principles. But it's the food! They have two bio-dynamic (organic and then some; also known as Demeter) farms producing grass-reared, free-range meat & poultry, and raw milk, from happy animals, and the best vegetables you can find. I've read that some of London's top chefs shop there. When I was able to get there, my daughter has loved helping out with the milking and they once let her bottle-feed a calf with still-warm milk straight from the cow. She said she'd love to work there, even after learning that wages are abysmal. Alas, without a car we can't get there and now my daughter is more interested in going into town to buy cheap jewellery from China. Oh well. If I ever have the resources, I also hope to develop my own no-nonsense, safe, reasonably priced range of skin care, and possibly cosmetics.
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