Carol Ann Townend
Bio
I'm a writer who doesn't believe in sticking with one niche.
My book Please Stay! is out now
Follow my Amazon author profile for more books and releases!
Stories (906)
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You Need to Look After Yourself as a Carer.
Self-care is something that I became practically good at after I did therapy for my mental health problems a few years back. However, I became a registered carer last year. I am now writer, cleaner, gardener, wife and carer and I am doing most of this at home, by myself. Most carers who work in the paid profession of caring seem to think it should be easier for me because I am caring and working at home. Let me tell you straight, it is not. I do not get to have holidays or breaks from caring. I am a carer seven days a week, both day and night, I do not get a day off.
By Carol Ann Townend5 years ago in Longevity
A True Story: What It is like To be Homeless.
I have told many stories of my past. Many of which are deeply painful. This story is about my experience of struggling to survive as a young homeless person. Many people today have at least some support with homelessness, but I survived my ordeal alone. Before you read further, this is no light-hearted story. It is revealing and honest without anything hidden, but it must be told.
By Carol Ann Townend5 years ago in Psyche
I hate Bonfire Night for a Reason
When my friends talk about November the 5th, they mention fire-work displays, wonder how big the bonfire will be, sparklers and Toffee Apples. They are usually excited planning their night out. However, they don't understand why I don't react in the same way, so for the first time since I was a young child, I am opening up about it.
By Carol Ann Townend5 years ago in Psyche
Walk to maintain your Mental and Physical Health.
I had to make the switch from running to walking when I was in my teens because I discovered that I had an in-turning ankle which made walking painful. This means that the bone of my ankle supporting my foot is not straight, it turns in which means that the bone-structure is weak, and does not have the strength to support my foot. This can cause excruciating pain to both my foot and ankle when running, and I had to find an alternative way to maintain my cardio and fitness levels, so I chose walking.
By Carol Ann Townend5 years ago in Psyche
Writing a Book: A Whole new Journey
Many years ago, if someone had told me that one day I'd be writing a book, I would have laughed at them and told them that my writing wasn't good enough. I have been writing all my life; stories, journals, poems, and many other things that often got put on paper, and then disappeared into thin air because they never made it into publication because I was too damn embarrassed to send them. Hell! even a teacher at school told me that I had the potential to write a book, after viewing the 12- page short fiction (which was only supposed to be 2 pages long!) I wrote for an English lesson. Yes sir! I was only 13, but I still have not forgiven you for making me prove I didn't copy that out of a book. Yes, he really did that after all my hard labor of putting that story together! Nonetheless I still thoroughly enjoyed writing that story, which encouraged me to write many more, of which went untold to the public, but always got read out in class at school.
By Carol Ann Townend5 years ago in Journal
Having a topsy-turvy Day? Well, it is normal (for some anyway!)
telling each other to stop complaininEveryone complains. I mean hell, some of us (including me and my husband can't get out of this one!) can spend an entire day doing just that. The funny thing is when we are complaining ourselves we barely notice. We are ignorant to our own voice, and we go on about our day oblivious to how our complaint affects others, who, if I may say, also have this uncanny way of noticing us complain about the most minor of events. There is one problem with this though, people will complain you're complaining, but will deny it when you tell them you heard them complaining!
By Carol Ann Townend5 years ago in Humans
The Other Woman
I'm staring out of the window of a moving train, my eyes taking in the lush view of velvet green fields blanketed in a beautiful vibrant rainbow of different flowers and animals feeding on green pastures. I am bored out of my skull! My husband is sat beside me with his head in a book, he has been reading this book for almost an hour and a half of our journey. We are heading to Scarborough, North Yorkshire, from Bournemouth in Dorset. The journey is going to take at least seven hours, and the silence is doing my head in. After many long hours of traveling in total silence, the train stops at a station to pick up other travelers, and that was when I saw her.
By Carol Ann Townend5 years ago in Filthy
Dear Mum
I have had a bumpy ride in my life, and a hell of a lot more trauma than I deserved. My mum often feels guilty for not being able to protect me from what I have been through, but what she taught me afterward is more important, and I have decided to show her what I learned from her after many long years of trauma.
By Carol Ann Townend5 years ago in Families
To Hell with Society, just be your Authentic Self.
'You're too childish, You need to grow up, You're too soft, You're lazy, Your not clean enough, You're too sensitive.' These are words I have put up with most of my life. It's actually soul-destroying that people in society think that it's okay to change people into something they are not. Trying to keep up with this change during my childhood and early adulthood put me in a state of depression and various other mental health problems. Even when I became a parent, I was picked on for not being spotless or for my behaviour, but nobody considered how other people were behaving towards me. No! They were too focused on my ability to cry or get a little angry and then turning the blame on me for speaking out about the trauma I was going through. They seemed to think that my 'sensitivity and over-friendliness' caused the problem. Well I have something to say to that, being sensitive or over-friendly is NOT an excuse to be abused, nor was this an excuse to assume that I was the problem for speaking out, crying or showing my angry feelings over it. However, me speaking out after so many years of silence should have been a reason to have been 'seen and heard.' I have spent so much time having to overcome the hurt feelings, the pain and get to grips with the losses that was the price I paid for not only going through something that I could have been helped through but having being forced into silence over for many years. Well, that's not me anymore, I still stand by my truth today, because not standing by my truth means lying to myself, and after doing much work on myself I know I and my family are worth more than my abusers.
By Carol Ann Townend5 years ago in Humans
New Ways to Cope with Writers Block
I love writing, it is one of my biggest passions. Writing enables us to express what is going on inside our heads. Every one of us has a story to tell whether it's about our latest crush or life in general. However, there are days we can have days where our minds can go blank, and we just can't think what to write about. We end up exhausted on these days just trying to think about it, and then we end up writing nothing.
By Carol Ann Townend5 years ago in Journal
