CharlotteClarkeUK

I first started blogging back in 2013/14 when I returned to the Professional Dance Industry after my 2nd heart operation. It was more of a portfolio kind of blog talking about jobs, shoots, rehearsals and all that I encountered as a professional dancer, model and some TV work I did too. It was actually more of a way to keep friends and family happy and informed with what I was doing. I’d perhaps post a beautiful sunrise photo on facebook on my way to set at 5am and I’d get so many ‘where were you going?’ ‘what were you doing’ comments that I couldn’t talk about in some cases due to NDAs until the work was released. So I set up my blog and everyone knew that once I could talk about it, I would and it would be here.

I then left that world and got into health and fitness blogging. I was preparing for my first bikini competition, I was vegan and I was sharing it all with you. I was working towards my Level 3 Personal Training qualification and reviewing classes, kit and places to eat and train over London. I used to create lots of recipes from scratch and write them to share with you.

A few years passed and I had a great time doing this and then I stopped the bikini competitions and changed my place of work and with that I also lost and drive to write about what I was doing. I entered into a relationship that evolved to be something I would never wish on anyone else.

In that relationship I lost who I was, I lost my voice, my power and spent 8 months explicitly being told by my partner to be scared of my partner. So that’s how it was. In that relationship I deleted my entire blog content, I didn’t feel like the same person anymore. ALL of my hard work over the years, gone. (believe me, I regret it now). I overhauled my blog and it became a space called ‘Adulting…’ It was a place for me to write about navigating adult life. I felt like I had nothing else to talk about. I was injured after a bad fall so I wasn’t training. I needed an outlet but I didn’t feel interesting. I posted a few times and then left it.

After 8 months or fear, being shouted at until I was shaking and unable to stand, my things being thrown in the street, the promises to change, it all exploded one night and enough was enough. I packed up my life and moved out of our home with my puppy with nowhere to live and I’ve never been more proud of a decision in my life! I’ll talk about it a little more another time but I did self refer for help with my Mental Health following this. I received treatment for PTSD to help me move on with my life and not take this experience and how I was treated into a future relationship.

I’ve blogged a little since then sharing parts of my experience. The trauma didn’t end there. My previous post to this one, ‘The one with the inappropriate Airbnb host’ goes into just one of the awful experiences. I wanted to share some of my struggles to normalise talking about these things so that people don’t feel alone in their experiences.

Now we are here. Whilst I am back and seemingly starting over, my blog will now be a mixture of all of the entities it has held the form of. I am LOVING training so much again and am training for an Ultramarathon at the moment. (Fingers crossed it still goes ahead!) My fitness posts shall return documenting some of my journey and helping you with yours. I am back baking and writing recipes so those kinds of posts will return too. I have had such great feedback from my recent posts on here and Instagram where I have spoken about my mental health, being open about therapy and that it’s okay not to be okay. I will continue posting about this and together we can normalise this kind of conversation. Fitness, Food, Wellbeing.

I’m in the last year of my twenties, I am happier than ever and am so happy to have you here for the ride with me.

Lets go.

Char x