Without care

Things continue  to change- for the better. Its almost seemless and although I am still a long way from my destination I can at least now see it. I can at the very least take some comfort in knowing I will get there however long it takes. Its a fact rather than a hope. The CBT I have read and done teaches that these things cannot be unlearned. A couple of times in the past I contacted the author worried that I was going backwards and he assured me I cannot and that has proved to be the case. So that gives me the confidence to push on and with that confidence I see more and more when I reflect on things I have done recently I see I am thinking about consequences less and less. And that is a good thing. That is the way it is supposed to be. If I could go anywhere and not be apprehensive before hand and worried about getting home with every step while out then I would be recovered. As Dr Claire Weekes used to say its not about stopping the panic its about not caring whether we panic or not. And that is the state I am getting closer and closer to each time I go out. That is the difference. My path began with a thought before each step and is now moving to each step without care.

It is though not without incident. I do not expect it to keep going incident free and this year I have posted about a few occassions where I have been reminded of how bad panic can be but I am at least not allowing those to hold me back. Its given me freedom to a greater extent than I had before. I have to look back and remind myself just how far I have come. I was reading the other day "Little Girl Adventure" which I posted 5 years ago. It all takes place around the block- less than a third of a mile and never more than a fifth of a mile from home. Even then it was hard. That is what the kids were used to. It got me thinking to the time before that. I remember one walk a day. Almost halfway around the block. One day I'd go one way. The next day I'd go the other way. And at that it took a long time to overlap. I remember the first time I crossed that no man's land. I remember the panic. From there it developed into walking around the block without fear- or not much at least. Now its much better. The lead photo is the two youngest at Bothwell Bridge- an area actually known as "The Lido Gardens". I walked them down there on my own. Over a mile one way and so well over two miles there and back. Changed days but the fact I am still counting the distances says I still have some work to do. I have also taken them down to the David Livingstone Centre this week which is another round trip of over 2 miles.

Its not just the walks on my own. We have also been going places in the car thanks to my wife driving. The photo above is from one of the hides around swampland knows as Baron's Haugh. I've never before wished for a big soom lens but as I sat tucked away in there looking out at all of nature I sure did. Not just me but my oldest girl too who has suddenly taken an interest in wildlife photography in the past few months. That was today. It was actually our second trip to that area in the past week as there are two parts to it. This is the bird nature reserve which is situated to the east of the Dalzell Estate. We went there on Thursday and it was lovely. Lots of good walks and plenty of things of interest to see. The focal point of the estate is Dalzell House but that is now privately owned so we could not go in there. Below is a selection of photos from there. Its a nice place to visit.


We also visited another place of interest but I will leave that for another post as we plan to go back again soon. For now some photos from Dalzell Estate and Baron's Haugh.