These days, we seem quick to categorise ourselves. Sometimes I wonder ‘WHY’

Newsletter 1

These days, we seem quick to categorise ourselves.

Sometimes I wonder why.

Is it about being vulnerable and showing others, we are human?
Is it about helping people understand what we are dealing with?
Is it about excusing mistakes, or perhaps trying to make sense of ourselves in a complicated world?

I was born in 1973. Growing up, speaking about weakness in the body or the mind wasn’t common. Things like PMS, stress, or emotional struggles weren’t openly discussed.

The attitude was simple: suck it up and get on with it.

Life was something you dealt with quietly.

It was accepted for a man to drink every day in silence. People around him might have known what life had dealt him, but drinking was simply seen as his way of coping with life. Nothing more was said. No help was offered, and none was expected.

Women, on the other hand, were expected to keep going — cooking, cleaning, raising children, holding the household together.

In the early years of my marriage, when I got my period my husband barely knew. The only sign was that there would be no sex for the next seven days. I hid any evidence around the house that it was that time of the month.

Looking back, I carry guilt about passing that mindset on to my daughters. I told them not to talk about it either.

“No one will listen anyway,” I said.

And that’s what many of us believed.

When someone struggled or found everyday tasks difficult, they were simply labelled as slow or a little different. There was little curiosity about what might actually be going on.

So now I sometimes find myself surprised when someone says,
“Forgive me, I have ADHD,” or “Excuse my menopausal brain,” when I meet them for the first time.

Part of me doesn’t quite know what to do with that information.

Not because I judge it, but because when I first met you, I didn’t know any of that. I was simply getting to know you as a person.

Without labels.

Which makes me reflect on my own life.

For years I called myself a drinker.

Now I call myself a non-drinker.

And for a long time I worried about what people might think of that.

Was being a non-drinker a weakness? Would people assume I had a “problem” with alcohol?

But deep down I knew something important.

I wasn’t actually enjoying alcohol anymore. I had to stop waking up hating myself for what I did and said the night before. I had to stop overeating. I wanted to experience life differently.

When I decided to stop drinking, the decision wasn’t just about alcohol. It was about my future. It was about being more present for my children. It was about showing more love to the people around me and learning to show more love to myself.

So now I sometimes ask myself:

Do I need to introduce myself as a non-drinker?
Do I need a label at all?

Or am I simply a woman who has made a decision about how she wants to live her life?

Perhaps we don’t always need a category.

Perhaps we can simply meet each other as humans learning who we are as we go.

And perhaps choosing to live alcohol-free isn’t about weakness at all.

Perhaps it is simply a woman deciding to take care of her life.

No alcohol required.