I know I’ve done a blog already about being single but I just had the urge to write some more on it as certain things have come to my attention lately and I feel like I NEED to say all this!! Haha

I used to be one of those people who jumped from one relationship to the next. I didn’t feel happy on my own, perhaps I didn’t feel validated on my own, I know I didn’t LIKE being on my own. Years ago it seemed like all anyone wanted was to be in a relationship, and to be seen as “normal” you too had to be in one, or at least be looking for one. It was as if the sole purpose of us being here was to find our “soul mate” and our own happy ever after with a partner (and then kids). It was what everyone worked toward. If one relationship failed: find another one! And so I did, I went from one straight into the other (like many around me) and I didn’t take any time to just be ME.

Now I’m 38 (and like to think of myself as old and wise) and I’ve been single for around 8 years (ignoring that little blip in the middle where I married The Tosser) and I think I’ve figured it all out. The purpose of life is not to find a partner and settle down; the purpose of life is to ENJOY IT! And that means; doing things you love, making the most of your time, finding things that make you smile every day, laughing every day, eating well, looking after yourself, focusing on what’s important and not stressing about the rest! We’re only here the once (well, depending on your beliefs) so we NEED to have a good time! And being in the wrong relationship (just to be IN a relationship) is NOT having a good time. It’s hard work, stressful, damaging, unhealthy, miserable and depressing. It saps your physical and mental energy. We’ve all been in the kind of relationship where you’re too scared to look at your phone when it beeps (even though you’ve done nothing wrong and never would) for fear of your other half kicking off and causing a drama. And we’ve probably also all been in the kind of relationship where we’re not totally being ourselves and feel like we’re walking on egg shells the whole time (you know the drill: having to pass everything you do past them, having to ask permission to do things, having to think about how to word something so as not to cause an argument, having to say “yes” to everything they want, compromising or actually giving up on everything you want or like, never being able to make simple choices like where you go for dinner, maybe having limited access to or communication with certain friends or family members because your other half doesn’t like them or feels jealous of them etc etc). Yep, THOSE type of relationships. Then there are the relationships where you’re just made to feel worthless. Like, you have an awful feeling they are cheating on you, or you have a gut feeling they don’t actually love you as much as you love them.

Someone said to me last night “I see love as a sacrifice – what are you willing to sacrifice to be with someone?” and when I thought about it, I realised that I’ve never been prepared to sacrifice too much to be with someone. For example, I wouldn’t leave my beautiful home to move in with someone else just to be with them. I wouldn’t move country to be with someone. I wouldn’t give up work to be with someone. Now, of course this could change, I could meet the love of my life one day and want to give up everything for them (not that you should have to give up anything for anyone IMO, but you know what I’m saying). The point is that love IS a sacrifice and it’s also a compromise. Now call me selfish but I’ve been on my own too long and become too independent to compromise. If I want to go to my local pub and have battered halloumi and chips and he’s wanting to go to Burger King and then a pub for beers and football, I’m out. Of course, we could do things separately and he could go off to the pub while I indulge in my favourite naughty meal but I’m not just talking about the odd time this might happen, I’m talking about the sort of relationship where you’re either constantly doing different things and have separate lives (then, what’s the point – I might as well just have a f*ck buddy and I don’t want sex either so that would be a waste of time) or the type where you really just don’t have the same interests and neither of you wants to (or should have to) change. I am too old and too stubborn now to do things I don’t want to do. Being single means ONLY doing what I want to do and always being happy about that.

You see, being single for me means; being focused, doing what I want to do, being happy, making my own choices, eating what I want, lying on the sofa when I want, watching what I want on TV, spending Christmas with my family (and not someone else’s family), giving all my love and affection to my animals (and not being made to feel guilty about that – yes unbelievably I’ve had boyfriends who were JEALOUS of the attention I gave my animals), waking up when I want, going to bed when I want, having holidays when I want (and for as long as I want), dressing how I want, going out when I want. Basically being single means FREEDOM.

I’m going to elaborate on all the above so you understand where I’m coming from. I understand that everyone is different and may not have had the same experiences as me but I can only talk from my own so therefore, allow me to explain:

Eating what I want: sometimes I can’t be bothered to cook and I can’t even be bothered to go and get a take away. Sometimes when I’m really busy and being naughty, I just have a mars bar for dinner. Unless my partner is a chef then I always feel obliged to be cooking dinner for them and I always feel obliged to make it a good dinner! I love cooking and I love feeding people. I love looking after people and it’s just my nature to want to offer people things (like dinner). I couldn’t possibly have a partner sitting in my house from say 6pm until 11pm without offering them dinner. And therefore, those nights when I do just want to eat a mars bar for dinner go out the window. Because even if I want to do that, I would feel obliged to offer them something. Maybe I need to toughen up and not be so generous but I’ve been this way all my life. I LIKE that when I’m on my own, I can eat whatever the hell I want without having to worry about feeding someone else. Now, I know the obvious answer to this is “if he’s at yours and hungry, let him get his own dinner” but in reality it doesn’t often work like that. I would have to explain that “tonight, I’m not hungry and I really just want to eat a mars bar” and then he would probably think I’m weird (not that I care) and also, certainly the men I’ve been with in the past don’t tend to have much initiative so they’ll happily sit there starving and never say “I’m going to get food”!! Not my problem I know but again, I pride myself on being a good host! Being on my own means I decide when I want to cook for others (and for how many) and I PLAN it and I prepare for it. Every other night is mine to eat whatever I want. And those nights when I can’t be arsed to cook and I want to eat something ridiculous – I can!

Lying on the sofa when I want: I run two businesses (three if you count this website, blog writing, gym videos etc). I am very often working late in to the night and I rarely have a day off or even a night off! Generally I finish working at about 11pm and then I go and lie on the sofa with the cats for an hour or so before I go to bed. A partner would HATE how much I work. I have so little spare time as it is and after fitting in family and friends too (and meals out, which I always make time for), all I want to do is lie on the sofa in my tiny bit of spare time. And sometimes when I lie on the sofa I don’t even want to talk to ANYONE. I just want to cuddle a cat or dog (or both) and be silent. I definitely don’t want to share my precious sofa time with anyone full time!!

Watching what I want on TV: Do I even need to explain this? No woman wants to watch endless runs of Top Gear and neither do I want to sit and watch a bloke obsess over real life Police shows (he only used to watch them in sheer fear that his face would pop up on it one day anyway).

Spending Christmas with my family: who on earth actually WANTS to spend Christmas (or any important day) with someone else’s family? Unless you hate your family or have no family of course, then maybe you’d relish the idea of being with a “nice” family. For me, I want my dad’s Christmas dinner (and his amazing roast potatoes) and I want all the home comforts and things I’m used to. Other people don’t do Christmas (or the dinner) the same way I’m used to (and what I mean by that is, it’s never as good as our way haha). Also, there’s always some drama, the mother never likes me, the sister is a spoilt cow who wants everything her own way and who weirdly and incestuously tries to beat her brother up in some odd display of “marking her territory” (trust me love, if you touch his bum once more I’ll be dumping him), the dad is a perve and they don’t even have a dog I can pet. I mean, urrrggggh……..

I don’t need to go into too much detail about giving my animals affection: I mean, a guy gets jealous because he thinks I love Bobcat more than I love him (I do), he gets jealous that in my spare hour of the day I have to walk the dogs (deal with it), he gets jealous that I buy nice things for the animals (he’s a ponce who just wants me to spend my money on him!), he gets jealous that Ralph is better looking than him (he is), and he gets jealous that I talk to the animals more than I talk to him (I do). Get over it mate – I’ll never love you more than the animals. If you were a real man you’d know that and accept it. Treat my animals as if I gave birth to them. If I were a single mother, my child would always come before any new boyfriend – it works the same way……

Waking up when I want and going to bed when I want: I’m aware that I talked about this in another blog about being single so I won’t elaborate too much but basically, I’ve had boyfriends in the past who work a 9-5 and who “need” to be in bed by 10pm and who also “need” me to come to bed with them. NEVER AGAIN do I want to be in that position. The Tosser used to demand that I went to bed at the same time as him even though I had another 3 hours work to do and also needed some cat cuddles! He would act like a baby, getting more and more needy and annoying if I didn’t go up at the same time as him. It drove me mad. I just want to be able to go to bed when I want and get up when I want without some annoying bloke trying to have a say in it. Also, on this subject: I don’t really want a big sweaty bloke in my lovely clean bed at all to be honest……

Holidays: I get to choose where I go, when I go and for how long I go. It’s fabulous. I choose the best of what I can afford without having to consider anyone else. I get to choose what restaurants I go to each night (or whether I want to get a dirty great pizza take away and eat it on the balcony), I get to lie in the sun all day with my kindle, totally undisturbed and I get to properly RELAX! And that’s what a holiday SHOULD be! The last thing I want is some adult baby hanging around who can’t amuse himself and is “bored” because he “doesn’t like sunbathing” and he hasn’t got enough brain cells to go and find something else to do. I once had a boyfriend actually throw a book at my head while I was sunbathing on the beach. He got so angry that I dared read my book instead of babysit him that he grabbed it and threw it at me. Obviously he was also a tosser, not The Tosser but a tosser all the same.

Dressing how I want: Now obviously, I’m not the sort of girl who can be told what to wear, however there have definitely been many times a boyfriend has tried to influence me as to my clothing choices. Sometimes they WANT you to dress sexily (that type is a perve and WANTS to show you off), sometimes they want you to completely cover up (go join a mosque if you like burquas). The Tosser had a foot fetish and always wanted me to wear open toe shoes. Not a problem, you think at first, but after a year of him staring at your feet and getting the hump every time you wear your favourite winter boots, it becomes very tedious.

Going out when I want: Well, as previously mentioned, I work very hard, I have little time for a social life and I have lots of animals to look after. When I do go out, I like to go to a nice restaurant with friends or family. We spend most of the meal laughing and having orgasms over the food and it’s great fun. I don’t want to sit in a restaurant with just one guy (unless he’s as funny as Jim Carey, and then after an hour I think he’d be too much). I love that all my friends and family have the same taste in food and places as me. The Tosser, you see, didn’t like half the restaurants I went to (mainly because before me he’d only ever eaten in KFC and “posh” restaurants intimidated him). We would argue over where to go for dinner (he only ever wanted KFC takeaways). He would then sulk if I got my own way and would be moody throughout the meal. The obvious answer is not to go out with (or marry) a total Neanderthal in the first place, of course, but the thing is, I’m of an age now (and so would any potential dates be) that I KNOW what I like. I’m prepared to try new things all the time, so long as they are still nice (and not just a new Nandos). There are at least 5 local restaurants that I love and eat at regularly and then there are a good 10 restaurants round London that I also LOVE and go to occasionally. Anyone who dates me has to be prepared to want to go to these places (and like them) or else we won’t get to spend time together. In fact, no, scrap that – I’m talking like there might be a potential date – there won’t be. I don’t even want some bloke coming to those places with me because I know for a FACT that I have a better time (and laugh more) when I’m with friends and family. I genuinely do enjoy their company more than any bloke I’ve been with. Yes, clearly I’ve been with the wrong men, but after a life time of that I have realised I’m no longer capable of choosing a good one and therefore I just won’t choose one at all………

Let’s talk about the perks of being single.

I once ordered THREE desserts in Sandy Lane in Barbados. I would never have done that if I was eating with a partner. I would have had manners and ordered just the one like a normal person. However, sitting eating alone and not being able to choose which dessert I wanted, I decided that what I really wanted to do was have three. So I did. And it was amazing. And I nearly finished all three too!

If, when I’m working from home, I want to stay in my pyjamas all day, I do. There’s no one to impress and there’s no one to care what I look like. Most people (even if they won’t admit to it), will make SOME sort of effort with their appearance in front of a partner. I don’t have that worry and therefore I can be red carpet glam or I can not shower and wear my pyjamas and there’s absolutely no one to judge me!!

All my energy and focus is on my work, my home, my family, my friends and my animals. And none of those things stress me out. There’s no mind games, no worry about where someone is or what time they’ll be home, there’s no one bugging ME asking what time I’ll be home, there’s no extra washing to do or meals to cook, there’s more money to spend on myself, there’s no extra mess to tidy up. My fridge is full of bottled water and not beer (more room in the fridge full stop for all MY stuff) and the list goes one.

God how I relish not having to wash someone’s dirty underpants!! And how I LOVE coming home to find all my favourite food still in the fridge! And how I LOVE never running out of toilet roll. There are so many perks to being single, I’d be here forever listing them out. My life is my own and my house is my own. More importantly my TIME is my own! I get to choose how I spend every minute of every day! And I bloody love it!

Maybe it’s just the TYPE of relationships I’ve had (or the absolute wrong-un men I’ve chosen) but relationships really aren’t all they’re cracked up to be! There’s a lot of time and effort involved in maintaining one and of course there’s that person who’s ALWAYS in your space (and face). I’m pretty sure every straight woman alive has been through the dreaded “I don’t want sex tonight but he does and I need to keep him happy so I’ll just grit my teeth and get on with it (and hope he cums quickly)”…. Yep… that….. God it gives me shivers just thinking about it. Obviously there have been times when the sex has been amazing with a partner and I wanted it as much as they did but years down the line with someone who doesn’t make every part of your body tingle (just by LOOKING at them!) will get you to a point where you’d rather have a tub of ice cream than sex but he makes you feel guilty and then of course you don’t want him to cheat so you find yourself having the obligatory sex to shut him up. Sounds quite dark actually when you vocalise it (or write it down) and I’m not suggesting that women should be forced to have sex but I just know that most women I speak to have at some point had sex with their husband or partner to keep them happy when they really couldn’t be arsed to…..

I had a friend who’s going through a break up say to me today “if I hadn’t gone away working perhaps it would have worked” – but why should she have stayed at home and given up that fabulous opportunity? Why should she have passed up the chance to further her career? Why should she have said no to all that extra money she made? The truth is that if the relationship was right in the first place then it just would have worked and it wouldn’t and shouldn’t have mattered if she went away for a few months! Let me tell you something; probably the one and only time I felt like I was truly in love, my then partner got offered a part in a film in America. It meant he had to go there for a whole year. I ended the relationship. Not because I minded being away from him for a year but because I had zero trust (past bastard experiences) and I didn’t think he’d be faithful to me for a year, so rather than deal with the heartbreak of him cheating on me and me finding out, I ended it and doing that broke my heart anyway. I was young, I was stupid and I didn’t trust anyone. Now as we all know, everything happens for a reason and I genuinely don’t feel like he was “the one” I thought he was. When I see him now I have no feelings for him, so although it broke my heart at the time, it really wasn’t meant to be!! Thinking about that today in the same context as my friend saying “the relationship would have worked if I didn’t go away for work” and I realised that, my guy wasn’t right for me and I wasn’t ready for that level of commitment. Let’s imagine that today I met “the one” and he had to go away working for a year, I’d be adult enough to deal with it and perhaps try to make it work (instead of being rash and just ending it). I wouldn’t ever tell someone they couldn’t do something so I would absolutely encourage them to go and do it and then we would see how it panned out. But, like I keep saying, I’m older and wiser now. I don’t make such rash decisions based on my own insecurities. The only rash decision I made any time recently was kicking my ex out of my house and changing the locks when I realised what an absolute liar and scum-bag he was. And I know that getting rid of him was the best thing I’ve done!

Being single to me means focusing entirely on myself and constantly having a clear head. It means getting things done, achieving things and spending my time wisely. I genuinely love being single. I’m happy in my own skin, I’m happy with my own company and I LOVE not having to “look after” another person. I feel free!!

I whole-heartedly believe that everyone should have a period of being properly single. In other words, next time a relationship ends (IF yours ends), you should stay on your own for a bit and find out who you really are. Don’t go jumping straight into a relationship just because you’re scared of being on your own! Once you over-come that fear of being alone, it’s fabulous! Everything good and amazing that I’ve ever achieved (bodybuilding and becoming Champion of America, writing an autobiography, setting up this website, setting up JST Nutrition, becoming Executive Producer of my own TV shows etc) has been achieved whilst I’ve been single! And that’s no coincidence!

I LOVE being single. I genuinely do……

Give me cat cuddles, an episode of Ray Donovan, my pyjamas and a clean bed ANY day over a man by my side all the time 

The post Reason number 542 as to why I LOVE being single….. appeared first on Jodie Marsh.

That said, I DO still have the odd day where I feel fat (much like an “ugly” day where you just feel hideous, or your hair isn’t behaving and looks terrible). And on those days I think “when I’m in the gym next I’m going to push myself harder” – and I do. I’m a size 10 and my body is fairly toned all over. I have good muscle definition, my arms, shoulders and back look great, my stomach is flat (and still showing definition) and my legs (especially my thighs) are hard and defined. I have a body some women would be envious of right? Yet I still have days where I feel fat. Thank you BD….

Now get this: On days when I shoot with Natalie (my plus size model, who’s a size 18), I stand next to her and I feel scrawny, uninteresting and “too thin” – not too thin like underweight but thin as in, I feel I look like a stick next to her (straight up and down like an actual stick!). She’s so voluptuous and curvy and sex-goddess-ey that I genuinely feel like an old, boring, skinny hag next to her! I joked yesterday that I feel like her “scrawny Grandma” and it’s true! I do!! You see, Natalie glows with the vitality of youth and beauty and her curves are sexy as hell. She shines in every photo we take and she always looks amazing.

So, how can this be? How can I feel fat one day and then too scrawny the next? Aside from the BD, I think this is a problem we ALL have daily. Men and women, young and old. Some of our insecurities come from within ourselves; a lack of self-worth or confidence and some come from the media/social media ramming perfect images down our throats constantly. It’s a combination of all of it. For me, I never look at pictures of say, the Kardashians, and think “they’re so perfect, it’s not fair, why don’t I look like that?” because, working in this industry, I know how heavily images are airbrushed and also how much work some stars have to get the “perfect” body/face. I never feel pressured by these images because I know that I too could have more surgery if I wanted (I don’t want to) and I too could spend hours a day preening myself and basically looking better than I do now! The truth is, I don’t want to spend any more time preening. I wait as long as physically possible in between hair and nail appointments (literally until my nails are hanging off and breaking and my weave is half way out and looking like a rat-tail) for the simple fact that I am too busy and got too many other important/enjoyable things to do. I see hair and nails as a necessity (even that seems weird now come to think of it – the world we live in has me thinking that I MUST have nice hair and nails) and it’s not something I do for enjoyment. I’m partial to the odd facial treatment too and love to try out new treatments. I don’t want a bloated face full of filler but anything to help with wrinkles is alright by me! Although, even with my love of facials, I still only have maybe two a year! So, if I’m not threatened by images online or in magazines and I don’t feel pressured to change the way I look now, what’s got me feeling all fat and scrawny at the same time?

Yesterday after Natalie and I finished shooting, I said to her “you are so beautiful” and she said “thank you, I needed that, I’ve been feeling crap lately and I needed a confidence boost” – my first thought was “WHAT??????!!! How can she possibly feel crap when she looks like she does?” And then it dawned on me (and inspired me to write this blog) – we ALL feel crap at times. We are all different, we all have different insecurities and hang-ups and issues. We all look different and care about different things. We all have different goals and ambitions. We all have a different idea of what “beautiful” is, we all like different things. And that’s what makes us unique! And it’s also what makes us human.

Natalie feeling “crap” seemed so odd to me because she looks so amazing every time I see her and I genuinely feel hideous (old and scrawny) next to her! But you’ve got to remember that, while I look at her and see someone sexy, curvy, youthful and beautiful with the most incredible eyes I’ve ever looked in to, Natalie might look in the mirror and see someone who’s overweight. She might not focus on all her beautiful points. She might be tearing herself to pieces and getting upset about body parts she dislikes.

So here’s the thing. No matter who we are or where we come from, we will all have things about ourselves we’re not happy with (apart from my dad who genuinely believes he’s the most handsome man in the world). And we have to learn to accept those things, work around them (and with them) and, most importantly, to LOVE them. As long as your insecurities aren’t holding you back in life then it’s ok to know and own and deal with your “flaws”. You see, I won’t let MY insecurities stop me from modelling with Natalie. Do I think she looks better than me? Yes. Do I think she’s sexier than me? Yes. Do I think I look old and haggard next to her? Yes. Am I going to stop shooting with her and beside her? No. Absolutely not! Because I’m building a business (hopefully a fashion EMPIRE) and because I love what I do and because right now, I NEED to do it. People need to see what the clothes look like on and, being a brand new business, I can’t afford to be paying all different models all the time when it’s free if I do it and my mum takes the photos!! 😉

Here’s another example….

I used to do glamour modelling for Zoo magazine (RIP Zoo). When I got my 8 pack, Zoo were very unhappy with me and didn’t want me to look muscly in the magazine! It was the best I’ve ever felt in my life but Zoo kept telling me they didn’t like it and when we did shoots in that time, we would find ways to not show my muscles too much. A few years after I had stopped competing in bodybuilding, I relaxed my diet and I put on some weight. I actually put on a LOT of weight for someone who was a size 4 and having to wear kids clothes! I went up to a size 12! I couldn’t train at the time due to an injury so the weight piled on. And at that point, I felt so uncomfortable in my body that I didn’t want to pose naked or topless for Zoo. Zoo, however had other ideas – they told me “This is the BEST you’ve ever looked! We need MORE shoots while you’re like this” – I couldn’t understand. I’d gone from a mega ripped size 4 to a wobbly, rounded size 12! I thought I looked awful. Zoo told me they MUCH preferred me curvy and persuaded me to shoot. I didn’t particularly feel amazing doing shoots at this size but here’s the thing: I still did them and I still made money and I still had confidence. Once they got me lying naked on the fluffy rug in front of the fireplace, I turned back into sex-queen Jodie and did what I always do on shoots (hammed it up and made love to the camera).

So I suppose what I’m trying to say is that, we all have very different ideas about what’s beautiful and sexy and also about ourselves and how the world sees us. While I felt fat and frumpy, Zoo thought I looked my best. While Natalie has a dip in self-confidence, I think she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, While I feel amazing with an 8 pack, men all around me are running for the hills with a flaccid penis. What’s a girl to do??

Well, here’s what: we’re going to practice what I have been doing for years now, which is to ACT like you’re happy and confident even if you’re not. We’re going to recognise and appreciate all our GOOD points (and make a note to consciously acknowledge these good points every day by focusing on them and NOT on our flaws). We’re going to learn to love ourselves just the way we are! Yes, there might be changes we want to make, like we might want to lose weight or put on weight (so let’s do it!) but over-all we’re going to make the very best of what we’ve got and we’re going to never let how we look hold us back!

No matter how gorgeous someone appears to be in YOUR eyes, they may be fighting an inner battle or dealing with severe issues that you know nothing about! You’re there thinking “it’s alright for them!” when really that person might have even more problems than you. Remember, no matter how gorgeous you are on the outside, it will NEVER bring you inner happiness. You could be an aesthetically perfect Goddess but also the loneliest, saddest person in the world.

This also goes hand in hand with the old adages “ beauty is only skin deep” and “it’s what’s on the inside that counts” – lines we’ve all heard countless times, but the older I get the more I KNOW these are true. Have you ever thought a person is beautiful until you got to know them, seen they were an awful, horrible human being and started to see all their physical flaws too, so that suddenly they really don’t seem as attractive anymore? I do it all the time!! Likewise I meet someone and am not blown away by their looks at all but, on getting to know them and realising that they’re an AMAZING person, I suddenly start to see how blue their eyes are or how gorgeous their hair is or how perfect their button nose is! You see, beauty REALLY does come from within. What truly matters in life is that we are all happy and that we are GOOD (or as good as can be when you have an addiction to shopping, chocolate, men, gin – delete where appropriate).

Life really is too short to waste time worrying about what’s wrong with us – let’s all start focusing on what’s RIGHT with us (men, I’m talking to you too here). We all have good and bad points and we all have the ability to make someone’s day (whether that’s being friendly & helpful to a stranger or whether it’s going out of your way to make someone laugh!) so let’s start doing more of that…..

The more time spent having fun, the less time spent worrying and the better life will be! I thoroughly enjoyed my shoot with Natalie yesterday and can’t wait to do it again. We laughed and danced and both of us came away smiling. And that for me, was a GREAT day!

I’m not saying we shouldn’t make an effort with our appearance; God I LOVE putting my slap on and getting dressed up for a night out and I will NEVER give up the gym (it makes me feel good and I love it and MORE people should do exercise in my opinion), I’m saying; if we are making the best of what we are, if we are clean and washed and fed and watered and if we have a roof over our head then we’re a LOT better off than others in this world so let’s just knuckle down and get on with life and make sure we bloody well enjoy it!!!!!!!!

The post Body Confidence….. appeared first on Jodie Marsh.

I am currently stuck in a whirlwind of work that seems to be never-ending. I’m not complaining by the way, although I might take this opportunity to have a mini rant about how some people don’t seem to understand just what “busy” means and are constantly asking for my time or attention, even though I’ve told them dozens of times that I just can’t do anything at the moment due to working until midnight all the time. The first social “event” I’ve had in ages was last Sunday morning where I got up at 3.45am, had friends come over at 4am and we all watched the McGregor fight. We didn’t “stay up” to watch it, we GOT UP to watch it. Haha. Gone are the days when we stay up right through. I was hoping to be in bed by 10pm (that didn’t happen due to an unforeseen car/motorbike accident right outside my house at 8pm that I became part of helping at the scene), however I didn’t go to bed until 1am and my alarm went off at 3.45am. I baked fresh croissants and made jugs of freshly brewed coffee for everyone. I wanted McGregor to win obviously but I still struggle with whether I even want to watch people being violent (yes, yes it’s a “discipline” but I’ve had very strong involvements with boxing over the years and believe me, it IS about being violent, and it’s also sometimes fixed, in my opinion). For this particular fight I was more excited about the showmanship. I wanted to see what music they came out to and how they acted. I like McGregor’s confidence and swagger. He’s mad as a box of frogs but that’s why I like him.

The car/bike accident earlier in the evening was awful and one of the worst things I’ve ever seen. I managed to capture the whole crash on my CCTV so the police were at mine until gone 11pm that night downloading it. I have CCTV literally everywhere covering every possible inch of my property and the road outside. I don’t want to make this a rant about safe driving, but I can assure you that the crash could 100% have been avoided and I will maybe do a blog about it another time (since I am also a biker). All I’ll say for now is that it will stay with me forever. The biker came off worse than the car driver and his injuries are life-changing. I honestly thought he was going to die at the side of the road. The only positive thing about the night was the fact that I realised just how amazing all my neighbours are. Everyone rallied round and did everything they could while we were waiting for police and ambulance to arrive. The following day I took flowers to one of the ladies who laid beside the biker for an hour trying to keep him conscious. It was kind of like a “pay it forward” moment. I had tears in my eyes watching how amazing she was and how caring and patient and the next day I wanted to do a nice deed back for her. The whole thing was so traumatic and I am praying for the biker to be ok and to pull through.

Back to happier topics:

I was talking to a friend the other day about my favourite things to do socially and other than go to nice restaurants and eat, my favourite thing is to throw a house party or dinner party. The only problem I have there is that it only ever seems to be ME who throws them. Over the years you will have seen my Halloween parties and Christmas parties (I post pictures on my social media) and I’ve even had a few psychic parties where I’ve had a psychic come to my house and then give private readings to all my guests one at a time, while the rest of us eat, drink and be merry. The last Halloween party I threw was in 2015. I spent a fortune on decorations (if you can be bothered to go back that far on my insta, you will see just how amazing my house looked), I spent a fortune on food and drink and I also paid for a psychic to stay with us for the whole night to give everyone readings. The party was fancy dress and everyone came and looked FANTASTIC! The pictures from the night were amazing! My twatty ex (The Tosser) ruined the night by kicking off some time after midnight, threatening all my friends and screaming at people, before I kicked him out and told him not to come back. It was somewhat of a downer on the night – and a bloody cheek if you ask me!! He was living with me at this point and he didn’t pay a penny towards this extravagant bash (obviously) so to kick off and ruin it like he did is highly disrespectful. However it wasn’t even him that stopped me throwing a posh Halloween party the following year. It was the fact that since then, not one person who came to that party has invited me to their house (for a party or anything else). Now, I know not everyone has the money to just throw random parties and that’s fine. But a take away on the sofa would do me!! It’s annoying that for years and years it’s always been me who throws the parties and gatherings and then I never get an invite anywhere else. I know I talked in my last blog about my fear of going out (FOGO) but my fear doesn’t extend to going to a friend’s house for dinner or a take away, nor does it extend to a restaurant. I’d be happy with food from the kebab shop to be honest, and I’ll pay for my own; I just want someone to INVITE me somewhere to do that! And has one of these f*ckers invited me anywhere?? No is the answer. Not one. I finally snapped after that last Halloween party and decided I just wasn’t doing it any more. It’s a shame because I do throw the best parties in the whole world but I just can’t keep giving while everyone keeps taking! I know at the moment I don’t have time to go to anyone’s house, for a party or take away or anything, but the invite alone would make me feel happy in the knowledge that they’re not just all there for the free drink and food!!

So how do I unwind?

These last few weeks I have been taking a cat or dog up to bed with me every night, usually just one at a time and I’ve done it in a set order. So I change the bedsheets and put fresh ones on on say a Sunday, then I have three nights of fresh sheets. Come Wednesday I take the first cat/dog up and then a different one each night until I change the sheets again on a Sunday. I’ve lived in this house now for 4 years and I never used to even let the animals upstairs, let alone on the bed. The only time I would take them up would be on a special occasion, like if one of them was poorly or had had an operation or something. Then I’d take them up for extra cuddles and love. In my old house I used to have the dogs upstairs all the time but in this house I wanted to keep it totally pristine. I’m SO house proud and always cleaning. My whole upstairs has cream carpets and my bedroom is a girlie dream! I didn’t want it to turn into a place where the animals just had free reign to make mess everywhere however these last few weeks have been so manic and stressful that I felt I NEEDED a warm furry baby to cuddle in bed. My favourite is when it’s the turn of one of the Rottweilers. They let me spoon them and they give the BEST cuddles!

The cats are so funny, it’s like they have a totally different personality when they come to bed. Downstairs I sit with them in the room watching TV and it normally goes like this: Maggie immediately sits on my stomach and Smudge sits on my legs. Bobcat sits beside me and Spider always just does his own thing and normally lies on top of the sideboard. They all stay like this until they either get too hot or bored and then they each go to different spots on the cat trees where they curl up and sleep. As soon as I get up to go to bed, all four cats jump up and surround my legs in the hallway while I’m locking up and all start crying (loudly). It’s like they either don’t want me to go to bed or they want to come with me. Probably the latter because as soon as I take one to bed they start doing that cat massaging thing on the bed and they strut up and down the bed, demanding my attention and strokes. They want the maximum level of fuss and they purr LOUDLY! They nudge my kindle out of the way and make sure they are the focus of my attention. Until the light goes out and they curl up next to me and sleep until morning. They are so cute and they make me laugh every single day without fail.

I always used to think I was a “dog” person more than a cat one but since rescuing my first two rescue cats 4 years ago (who I named Fatty and Skinny), I fell head over heels in love with cats. I’ve since rescued 3 more and bought one (I should never have bought him as he came from a kitten farm however he IS amazing and I wouldn’t change my decision for the world). I love all my fur babies equally, I really do, but the cats probably make me laugh more than the dogs. They’re nowhere near as loyal or needy but the things they do have me snorting with laughter constantly. When I’m old I’m definitely going to be the crazy cat lady and have loads! I want to have dreadlocks and be wearing crazy outfits and surrounded by cats (with maybe a couple who constantly sit on my shoulders everywhere I go). I’m gonna be PROUD to be a crazy cat lady! Ha

As for the dogs, well you all know how much I love them. My animals are literally my whole world. They all make me smile and laugh every single day. If you’ve read my blog about the secret to happiness then you will know that any time a negative thought pops into my head, I only have to picture one of the animal’s faces to make myself smile and think happy thoughts. They’re the true loves of my life. I’ve had boyfriend’s/husbands over the years who have been jealous of my animals and the love I have for them. It sounds too crazy to be true but honestly, they were pig sick JEALOUS. I mean, normal sane people would think “how could you be jealous of a DOG?” and I thought there was something seriously wrong with them at the time (still do) but with hindsight I can kind of see their point. If at any point I had been made to choose between them or my animals, the animals would have won every time. Never yet has a man meant more to me than my animals. True story.

Other ways I like to unwind are to go in the gym (I know this might sound crazy to some people). Burning off some energy and smashing some weights about does actually relax me and makes me sleep better. Plus, when you exercise you release endorphins that make you feel good. In my opinion doctors should prescribe personal trainers or gym memberships instead of anti-depressants! So many people are hooked on tablets when a good work out every day could make them feel incredible. I also often hear people saying “I don’t have the time” – at this point I’d like to remind you that it’s 10.54pm at night right now as I write this and I still haven’t cleaned my teeth today. I was in my pyjamas until 1pm (from 7am I was working, lugging bags of clothes out the car and unpacking them – new stock for the website), I finally managed to throw a tracksuit on at 1pm and I glugged back a protein shake (first thing I’d had to eat all day) and then I carried on working solidly until 7pm where I managed to squeeze an hour’s gym session in. By the time I made dinner for myself it was 9.30pm and now I’m writing this. So, when I say I’m BUSY, you get the idea. When I do finally get to chill out at midnight, the last thing I want to do is get in the shower. I’m so tired physically but my brain is buzzing and all I want to do is be warm and snuggled in bed with my kindle. Anyhow, if I can still squeeze a work out in most days then so can everyone else. It’s about MAKING the time. And I can just about manage a work out even on my busiest days, so long as I don’t clean my teeth, shower or eat….. hahaha. Furry teeth or amazing body?? Hmmmmm. Body wins.

My dad popped over today and was moaning at me to do something or other and I said “dad, I’ve been working since 7am today and I haven’t even had time to eat or clean my teeth”, the builder who is currently working at my house shouted to my dad “ that’s true! I arrived at 7am and she was humping boxes out of the car by herself” haha. I LOVE the builder sticking up for me! My dad ALWAYS does that though. In any one day alone I have unloaded the dishwasher, done 3 loads of clothes washing, hung it all out to dry, walked the dogs twice, hoovered the whole downstairs of my house, mopped the floors, packaged up 50 clothing orders and taken them to the post office, helped my neighbour, trained in the gym, put the bins out, written a blog, been to the Osteopath, argued with suppliers, had a meeting with a TV person, changed the bedsheets, restocked the cat litter, been food shopping, cooked a meal, painted the fence, phoned a builder for a quote, changed a lightbulb (or two), replied to 50 emails and brushed all the cats and my dad turns up and says “this door needs painting, you still haven’t done it” – Aaaaaaaargh. No dad, I haven’t got round to it yet….

My other favourite thing to do to relax and enjoy myself is to ride my motorbike. Nothing beats the feeling of being out on the road. I definitely do want to write a blog about being a biker; especially after last week’s crash, I feel like there are some things I need to get off my chest about the way some people ride (my own friends I mean, NOT the guy in the crash). Seeing that has made me think about the way I ride (which is good) versus the way certain people I know. Anyway, that’s for another time.

I am looking forward to the day that I can employ hundreds of people and I can work shorter days. That’s the thing about starting your own business though; you have to be prepared to do a LOT of hard work. The clothing side of this website alone is probably already a two person job and I’m doing it all alone (from the buying, to the sorting stock, to the photos, to the editing, to the uploading, to the packing, to the reordering, to the social media, to the answering questions, to the reports, to the invoices and bills….. the list goes on and on). I’ve got to say though, I’m loving it! I LOVE buying new stock. I went yesterday to the wholesalers and stocked up on tons of new items. I got shoes and handbags this time as well as clothing. I haven’t yet put any of the new clothing on the site (the handbags are on though) but I am SO excited for people to see what I’ve got! I just love clothes and shoes so much and I love nothing more than choosing stock and seeing customers wearing it!! Clothes have always excited me and as you know, I don’t tend to follow fashion. I prefer to create my own looks and have fun with it. My favourite new purchase from yesterday is a baby pink faux fur gillet!! Wait til you see it! I’m swooning over it with love hearts in my eyes!

I suppose I had better be off. It’s now gone 11pm and I still have a few more things to do before I can choose an animal to take to bed and have a cuddle. I hope you’re all having a nice week!! Lots of love x

The post I haven’t showered since Monday (it’s Thursday)….. appeared first on Jodie Marsh.

Even I’m not sure if I’m serious or joking……

• Must love animals as much as I do
• Must ride a motorbike
• Must be kind
• Must be funny
• Must have a proper job
• Must have some form of transport (either motorbike, car, lorry, tank or helicopter)
• Must have tattoos (yes I’m that shallow)
• Must have their own house (I don’t want someone moving in with me and I am NOT sitting at someone’s parents house when I want to visit my partner)
• Must be clever
• Must be generous
• Must be spontaneous
• Must not be too clingy
• Must not be too vain
• Must like good food (Nandos, Mcdonalds, Burger King does NOT count as good food)
• Must be appreciative
• Must like cosy nights in
• Must like watching films (and be able to watch a whole one without falling asleep)
• Must understand that my kindle ALWAYS comes second
• Must understand that my animals ALWAYS come first
• Must not talk to me when I’m reading my kindle
• Must not be violent in any way
• Must not be controlling
• Must support me and encourage me
• Must not be jealous
• Must have their own dreams and ambitions (and be actively doing something to work towards these i.e not just sitting dreaming from the sofa)
• Must be able to take me out at least once a week for dinner
• Must not like nightclubs
• Must not do drugs
• Must not drink too much (once a week is fine as long as they are in control and not a drunken mess)
• Must not want kids (but also prepared to change their mind on this if I do)
• Must like gardening
• Must like long country walks
• Must like lazy holidays spent lying by the pool or on a beach with a kindle
• Must be active and healthy and fit
• Must like the gym
• Mustn’t be jealous that I can lift heavier weights than them in the gym
• Must NEVER tell lies
• Must love my parents
• I must love their parents
• Must dress appropriately for any given situation
• Must have good table manners
• Must know the difference between “bought” and “brought”
• Must know the difference between “they’re, their and there”
• Must NEVER say “yous” – as in “I was gonna invite yous two but then I didn’t”
• Must allow me to bring up our kids (if I change my mind about wanting them) as vegetarians
• Must not work in an abattoir
• Must not be a policeman, “fake” policeman, traffic warden or any kind of litter police for the council
• Must not do steroids
• Must like shopping
• Must give me space and not be under my feet 24/7
• Must be ok with sleeping in separate beds
• Must be good at foot massage (and willing to give them at least twice a week)
• Must appreciate the love I have for shoes
• Must shower daily
• Must know how to put up a shelf
• Must know how to do basic DIY
• Must own wellies
• Must be thoughtful
• Must like quad bikes, dune buggies and scramblers
• Must not have any children
• Must be able to teach me something
• Must like music (REAL music, preferably MJ, Simply Red, Seasick Steve and anything from the 1950’s)
• Must know who Buddy Holly is
• Must like going to concerts
• Must know how social media works (and not get annoyed at me replying to people on there)
• Must have a phone in their own name (i.e not in their mum’s name)
• Must have a good credit rating
• Must have something on finance (e.g house, car….)
• Must not possess the ability to steal (not even a strawberry from the PYO)
• Must want to open an animal sanctuary with me
• Must be happy to live in the middle of nowhere
• Must not be scared of ghosts
• Must not be scared of spiders
• Must not be allergic to ANY animal
• Must be willing to do domestic chores
• Must know the basics of how a washing machine/dishwasher works
• Must stop immediately upon seeing an injured/lost animal and try to help
• Must have strength of character
• Must be a “do-er” (e.g when they say they are going to do something, they DO it)
• Must be happy and positive
• Must never try to belittle people
• Must be good with kids (but still not want one, unless I change my mind – as above)
• Must like dancing
• Must like watching shite TV reality shows
• Must have their own mind and not be afraid to speak it
• Must like dinner parties
• Must like fancy dress
• Must be game for a laugh at all times
• Must never dwell on the past
• Must not be hung up on an ex
• Must not care that I am in the public eye
• Must not only want to be with because I’m in the public eye
• Must not get starstruck when meeting other people in the public eye
• Must not ask for photos with other people in the public eye
• Must not think Jeremy Corbyn is “cool”
• Must never EVER utter the words “Katie Price” to me
• Must like fruit and vegetables
• Must be able to clean up after themselves
• Must put the toilet lid down
• Must never leave skid marks
• Must smell nice
• Must own aftershave/perfume
• Must not want sex (unless I rediscover my sex drive and then must want it 4 times a day)
• Must always have my back
• Must not eat veal
• Must not eat KFC
• Must not eat organs (ie. Liver, heart etc) – I can handle “normal” meat just about
• Must not chew loudly
• Must like talking
• Must be physically strong
• Must not moan about life/chores/odd jobs or being tired
• Must understand how much I love my work
• Must love their work
• Must never be unfaithful
• Must not have any weird fetishes like pony-play or wearing nappies
• Must not be tight with money
• Must be a good driver
• Must know that I am ALWAYS right
• Must like me with make-up and without
• Must understand how much fun make-up is
• Must NEVER ever rub or touch my face when wearing make-up
• Must never eat my secret stash of chocolate
• Must never raid my fridge
• Must never drink the last bottle of water
• Must not wear Vans
• Must be easy going
• Must like food from ALL countries (or at least be up for trying it)

Ok, so you’re starting to get the idea, yes? I could go on and on and on. As I said above, I don’t even know if I’m joking or not. I don’t think I am. I think this list is real. It’s an actual “thing”.
I might need help…….. Muhahahaha

The post Why I’m still single and what I want in a partner… appeared first on Jodie Marsh.

The worst of it manifests itself when I am invited to go somewhere. Restaurants with friends and family I can cope with but events, parties and social gatherings I can’t. I never know what to wear, I can be painfully socially awkward, I have a fear of not fitting in or people staring at me (unfortunately because I’m Jodie Marsh they ALWAYS stare) and I HATE being that one person in a room that everyone is staring at.

I’ve always dressed “a little differently”. From the age of 3 I was choosing my own clothes and wearing things that made me happy. My mum used to pick out a gorgeous girlie dress and I would snub it in favour of a pair of jeans and a Mr Happy T shirt! Nothing changes; I’ve never really followed fashion and still now I wear things that I like and that make me happy. I love bright colours and different textures. I love animals prints, fluorescent gym wear and faux fur. Dressing up to me is fun and I believe your clothes should reflect your personality. Contrary to what people may think about me, I don’t dress to get attention (you definitely know by now that I DO NOT want to attract a man), and I definitely don’t dress to make people stare at me: I dress in things that visually please ME. And I believe that’s right and normal. I dress for myself. So much so that I’ve worn things in the past that ex-boyfriends hated because they said it looked like a “granny” dress – did I care? NO – I wore it anyway because I loved it. So here’s the weird thing: I feel 100% confident in my choices these days. I know what suits me and I love to flit between looks. From rock-chick to girlie, from elegant to sexy, from biker to hippy, from urban to chic, from princess to tomboy. You get the idea. My clothes represent different parts of my personality on different days. I wake up one day feeling cute and other days I wake up feeling like a kick-arse B*tch…. However, even with this total confidence and being in love with my “look” for the day, try to make me go out to a public place or event and half the time I’ll have a melt-down. You see, when I look in the mirror, I think “damn girl you look FINE” but when it comes to being in a crowd of unfamiliar people all I can think is “I won’t fit in” or “they will think I’m an idiot”. And that is definitely a result of years of bullying.

I want to give you a real example of this. On Saturday I was invited to a garden party by some good friends of mine, a married couple. The couple themselves are quite posh and the wife in particular always looks immaculate. The party was that of an older gay guy and I was told that there would be loads of gay men attending. Now, you know I LOVE a gay man and they tend to reciprocate the love with me. All week I had been psyching myself up to go to this party and had told myself that it would be fine because gay men love me and I could go and be a fabulous doll. I got dressed Saturday morning and wore the biggest false lashes, the highest most fabulous heels, a faux fur coat and a ton of make-up. Gay men tend to be flamboyant and I know I can have even more fun with the way I dress when around them. You see, even though I dress to please ME, I also take into consideration my surroundings and dress appropriately (I wouldn’t wear the pink faux fur coat to a funeral for example, unless the family requested it, of course). Because I thought this party was going to be full of over-the-top, excited, wonderful gay men, I took full advantage and dressed to the nines. Anyway, half an hour before I was due to leave, my friend text me and said “oh I got it wrong, it’s not all his gay friends, it’s all the people from the local village”. Well, I had a proper melt-down. I couldn’t possibly go to a party full of posh, local villagers looking like a drag queen! Immediately I thought “I’m not going” and proceeded to lie down on my bed feeling sick. I told my friend I was no longer coming and luckily for me he refused to accept that and insisted that I still come. He reassured me that everyone was nice and that I would enjoy it. Because I trust this particular friend, I somehow reluctantly dragged myself into the car (still looking like a pink-haired drag queen) and drove to the party (feeling sick the whole way). I must add at this point, I had also laid on my bed feeling sick for a full hour before I did actually get in the car. I wanted to change outfits but as it had taken me so long to choose one in the first place, I knew I’d never leave the house if I were to even contemplate another change! The end result was that I had an AMAZING time at the party, everyone was lovely, I met some gorgeous puppies (and had lots of cuddles obvs) and I had a tour of what is going to be the biggest house in the UK when the host of the party, and owner of said house, has finished construction work on it (FYI it was the most incredible house I’ve ever seen with it’s own underground Olympic swimming pool, staff car park, staff quarters, 4 elevators, shooting range and it’s own 50,000 sq ft panic room with cars on stand by in a secret escape tunnel). If I hadn’t gone to the party it definitely would have been MY loss. Not only did I see the incredible house and puppies but I got to spend time with my friend and his wife (who I really don’t see enough due to all of our work commitments and living 50 miles apart). I’m SO glad I went.

My problem is not the feeling good in what I choose to wear, or lacking any kind of self-worth; it’s feeling fabulous in my own skin but then worrying that everyone is going to laugh at me or stare at me as soon as I leave the house. You see, partly I think it comes from the bullying (the laughing at me) and partly it’s from being in the public eye. I always thought being famous would be fun but actually I’m the WORST famous person ever! I’m very friendly and sociable but I HATE people talking to me just because I’m “famous”. When someone starts a conversation with “do you really hate Katie Price?” (yes, she’s a knob) or “can I get a selfie?”, I feel physically sick. I know I shouldn’t. I asked for this life. But I can’t help it. I’d far rather someone start a conversation with “oh, you have loads of dogs don’t you?” or “you ride a motorbike don’t you?” – that way I can talk about things I love, like a normal person having a normal conversation. When the conversation revolves around fame and celebrity, I end up feeling like a circus act that’s been wheeled out to perform. And you know what; sometimes I can give the “crowd” what they want. When I feel really comfortable in a group, I will happily regale them with tales of drunken celebs in nightclubs and who’s shagged who in showbiz (or who’s sucked off a producer to land a lucrative TV job) but when I feel like people have me cornered and they’re baying for information JUST because I’m in the public eye, I start to feel like they’re just rubber-necking out of sheer morbid and weird fascination. Then it starts to feel like I’m not human. And that is when I fear I’ll be laughed at, or somehow they are being nice to my face but they’re going to go away and be mean about me. You see, the ugliness of the scars…

It’s so crazy because like I said, I have so much confidence in so many ways. Nothing really phases me, I never get nervous (not for a sky-dive, a live TV interview nor giving a speech to 1,000 people – these are things that would have many quaking in their boots), I can hold my own in any conversation, I’m confident in my own ability and in my personality. I learned to love how I look years ago and I feel like I’ve come quite far in life considering at 15 I was contemplating suicide. I have two successful businesses and a home and family I love with all my heart. I’m good! Really good! So why is it then that I have a melt down every time I’m expected to go a social event? And why do I lose the ability to dress myself? When I go to a restaurant with mum and dad, I easily choose a lovely outfit that I feel elegant and classy, or fun and feisty in. When it comes to going to a party with a load of strangers, it’s like I forget that I have a load of gorgeous chic dresses and I start pulling out the skin tight cat suit with the thigh high boots. I sometimes wonder if I do it because I think “well, they’re going to stare anyway, may as well give them something to really stare at!”. It’s madness. It’s like my brain can’t do “normal” when it comes to social events. And this is why I tend to avoid them at all costs. Even when I agree to go to one, I find myself lying on the floor of my dressing room on the day crying that I’ve got nothing to wear and trying to come up with a feasible excuse not to go.

And I know I’m not alone. The other day I was talking to a good friend and this “fear of going out” came up in conversation. Turns out she has it too! We couldn’t believe we’ve known each other ten years and never discussed it or known that each other had a FOGO! She has all the same feelings as me of panic and stress when it comes to getting ready for a social event and more often than not finds an excuse not to go. Her reasons may be slightly different to mine (i.e she wasn’t bullied and she’s not in the public eye) but the outcome is the same. She ends up spending most nights at home snuggled on the sofa in her PJs! I know I’ve talked in previous blogs about the fact that I LOVE staying in with the animals and snuggling so please don’t think I’m trying to say that I WANT to go out. I don’t. Not because of this weird panic thing but because I’m genuinely happy being at home in my little piece of heaven with my animals and I’m of an age now that I don’t feel like I’m missing anything. However the panic thing definitely contributes towards my lack of a social life. There are definitely more things I could go to that I find myself turning down. I don’t sit at home thinking “I wish I’d gone to that party” but I do sometimes feel guilty that I’m letting a friend down if I don’t go and then I feel like I have to make it up to them by taking them out for dinner or something.

I’m also of an age where I just want to be happy every day and I don’t want to feel forced into doing something I don’t want to do. And this fear is REAL. If it’s a choice between getting dressed up to go to a party with complete strangers (bar the host) or getting a take away and chilling with the cats, I’m choosing food & fur every time! It’s just too stressful for me to try to make myself fit in. I don’t feel like I fit in AT ALL. I’m a walking contradiction. I like to wear pink and glitter and false lashes but then I’d rather hang with the boys at a party and talk motorbikes. Or, people think I’m a party animal but I’m in the corner sipping water, talking to the oldest person there about how best to bake a moist muffin. I’m not what anyone thinks I’m going to be like. I’m complex (aren’t we all) and deep down I’m still a bit of a geek. I like deep conversations and good food. I’m the person at a party who will seek out the family pet and spend all night cuddling him/her. I’m just not good at socialising. I feel like everything I say is being analysed (that’s probably come from years of being interviewed by journalists) and I always want to make people laugh but hardly anyone ever “gets” my dry sarcastic humour. It’s all very tricky for me. I feel like such an odd ball at events. Also, the fact that I don’t really drink doesn’t really help matters. I’m happy not drinking, I can have just as good a time sober as I can drunk. I don’t like the hangover, I don’t like the taste of alcohol and I like always having a clear head. This is all good for me. It’s not good however for the other party-goers. They seem to NEED to see a drink in my hand and I get badgered all night to “have a drink!!”. No matter how many times I say “I’m ok thanks”, they just won’t leave off. Then I end up feeling like the weirdo who won’t drink!! Somehow it offends them that I won’t have a drink. It’s like they can’t relax until I have a large glass of rosé in my hand! Why is this? I don’t care if anyone else drinks or not so why do they make such a big fuss if I don’t want one? It still baffles me now. The only conclusion I came to about it was that it makes people feel uncomfortable when someone doesn’t drink as it highlights THEIR OWN need for alcohol?! Who knows? I do know that every time someone is pestering me to have a drink, I’m smiling through gritted teeth whilst thinking to myself “just fuck off and leave me alone you annoying piss-head” haha.

On a side note, I have a fab trick for people who don’t drink a lot but are fed up with being pestered about it: years ago there was a nightclub who used to regularly pay me to go there for nights out (which they would then advertise). I would take a crowd of friends and we’d get free drink all night. Inevitably we’d all end up doing shots. I made friends with the bar staff and would get them to lay the shots out on a tray with mine being bottom left every time. They would approach me first and I would take the bottom left one. It was a shot glass filled with water while all the others were Sambuca or Tequila. By the end of the night my friends would be paralytic crawling around with one shoe on, retching into the gutter and I would be slightly merry (from one or two vodkas). They all thought I was such a heavyweight drinker! Muahahahaha. It bloody saved me a lot of agg though. The abuse and hassle I would have got if I’d said at the time “no thanks, I don’t want a shot” would not have been worth it. The fake water shot saved me AND my sanity.

Back to confidence: The thing is that we aren’t all confident in every area of our lives. My downfall is going to a social event (I end up a shaking wreck on the dressing room floor), yours might be giving a presentation at work. What we can ALL do though is PRETEND to be confident. When I turned up to the garden party on Saturday, nobody there had a clue that I’d been lying on my bed for an hour panicking. They knew nothing of my stress. And after 5 minutes of being there, I found that I was actually ok and that instead of pretending to be confident, I actually WAS confident. Of course, it’s all in our own heads. We control it all. I know this! It’s a shame I can’t just kill these panicky thoughts instantly so that they never affect my life but I live in hope that one day I might get over it. Until then, I am going to say “yes!!!” to the events that sound amazing (normally ones involving animals, giant mansions and free food) and I’m going to try not to feel too guilty at the ones I’ve said no to. Sometimes we all have to step out of our comfort zone and it’s only by doing that that we learn to adapt and overcome things. If I had listened to my inner voice of panic on Saturday I would truly have missed an amazing party and the chance to see my wonderful friends who I love. Sometimes, hard as it seems, we need to stamp down on these negative feelings and thoughts and just GO DO IT! And the other thing that really helps is to tell someone how you feel so that they can help and support and encourage you. Today, I spoke on the phone to the friend who invited me to the garden party. I thanked him and I also told him of my fears leading up to going. He told me he had already guessed and that’s why he was so insistent that I went. He knew it was a good party full of good people and I also know to trust him and his wife as they are GOOD people. Now, in the future when I’m having a melt-down, they can maybe help me to get over it by sending me menacing texts, like he did on Saturday, basically saying I was a horrendous person if I let them down (it worked!). A problem shared is a problem halved. And since opening up to TWO friends about this problem of mine in the last week, I knew I had to write a blog about it. I bet so many people have hidden fears and worries and so many people lack confidence in different ways. The trick is to PRETEND to be confident until you actually are! With practice comes perfection. No matter how hard it is, sometimes we just need to take a deep breath and take the plunge. And when we do that, we often find it’s not nearly as bad as we thought it was going to be! In fact, the thing we were so scared of can end up being just wonderful and leaves us feeling euphoric. Conquering any fear is an achievement which is guaranteed to make us feel good. And as I drove home from the party on Saturday, I felt on top of the world, and also wondered what the HELL I was so nervous about. Now I’m pestering my friend to organise a meal out with some of the other people I met at the party because they were just so NICE and I genuinely want to see them again!

The post The Secret to having Confidence appeared first on Jodie Marsh.

Years ago I used to let people get under my skin. I used to let people upset me and bother me and I used to get angry (VERY angry). I’ve always been the type of person to help others and I’ve always been kind and generous. I like to think I’m a really nice, decent person. Over the years I have helped SO many people, both close to me and not. I’ve given away tons of stuff to friends, family members and charities, I’ve bought things for people (LOTS of things), I’ve given my time to help numerous people, from being a shoulder to cry on to helping them to turn their life around. I’ve helped people to push themselves in business, I’ve helped people to get over their ex, I’ve trained people in the gym for hours on end, I’ve babysat for people, I’ve given people powerful contacts, helped them to “rediscover” themselves and even given them jobs! I’ve never taken a penny for my time (maybe I should have!) and I’ve done it all because, like I said, I’m a decent person. When I see someone struggling, it’s natural to me to want to help them. Probably 98% of the people above I’m talking about doing things for over the years have stabbed me in the back and then when we’ve fallen out (because of THEM), they’ve spent every day since telling lies about me to anyone who’ll listen (well, obviously, they’re not going to tell the truth, which would go something like this: “Oh yeah, Jodie was nothing but lovely to me, she gave me a ton of free protein and supplements and trained me in the gym and then I kicked off at her one day for no reason at all and called her all the names under the sun and told her to get the fuck out of my life. I regret it now because actually she did nothing wrong and I was a greedy, bitter, jealous old hag who kept taking from her and now I don’t have any real friends and to be honest I feel quite stupid” – haha I mean, NO ONE is gonna be THAT honest!).

Anyhow, I want to talk about why it never bothers me when I’m stabbed in the back, why haters don’t bother me, why I’m so calm all the time (I’m amazing in a crisis – have you SEEN the video of me resuscitating my bulldog Louie??) and how YOU can get to this stage in life too.

It all started with my ex The Tosser I think. The day I realised he wasn’t who he said he was and I booted him out of my house, I didn’t shed a single tear. To this day I still haven’t shed a single tear over him. It went from being in love with who I thought was my soul mate to feeling absolute relief that he’d gone and that the locks had been changed so that he couldn’t get back in! Why didn’t I cry? Because it would have been a waste of energy AND tears! He wasn’t who I thought he was so I would have been crying over something that didn’t exist. The man I thought I married was fictional. He didn’t exist. He wasn’t real. So you see, it would be like crying over the discovery that Unicorns aren’t real. And why would I cry over that? You see, to me, the only tears worth shedding are for something that was real and good and that’s now gone (i.e my beloved Louie). Often when a relationship breaks down we cry, not for the guy/girl but just for the loss of something that was a constant in our lives. When we really stop to think about the real situation we can often see that it’s not the person we miss (many times the relationship wasn’t great anyway, hence the break up), it’s just the sheer rejection or fear of being alone or embarrassment or frustration. This has certainly been the case for me over the years. In the past when a relationship ended mutually (because we just weren’t making each other happy), I would cry for the loss of it. When I look back at it now, years later, I feel embarrassed that I cried. I mean, WHAT was I crying over??! (you can read some of my other blogs to see the sort of relationships I had, with a special mention to the Mummies boy, the Plastic Gangster and the Essex boy – once you’ve read those you’ll see that I had no reason to cry when it ended, if anything I should have felt relief, hell, I shouldn’t have gone there in the first place!!).

You see, I think that we CAN control how we feel. Our emotions shouldn’t control us, we should control them. Years ago, someone I thought was a friend stabbed me in the back so badly. She did nothing but take from me and ended up cutting me out of her life and telling lies about me to anyone who would listen. I was devastated by it. I cried, I ranted, I couldn’t believe how unfair it all was and how she was getting away with actually turning others against me based on her lies. Fast forward to now and this hag is still around my life (albeit I don’t have to see her and she’s very much on the periphery) and she’s STILL trying to wind me up. Her most recent wind-up was commenting on a photo of my dad’s on Facebook knowing that I would see it and purposely saying something about her party that “everyone” was going to except me as I wasn’t invited. She wasn’t my friend on Facebook (I unfriended her years ago) but I had already commented on that particular photo of my dad’s (which, by the way, was nothing to do with a party) so she knew that if she also commented I would definitely see it because I’d get a notification. And I did. I immediately blocked her. No more of those silly games thanks love. I LOVE blocking people. It takes away their power, you see. The only way she could try and get to me was to brag about her party knowing that I wasn’t invited. It didn’t bother me at all (I couldn’t think of anything worse than going to her party), however I didn’t like her using my own father to try and hurt me. That was low. But you know what? All that does is show HER character, not mine. It shows how vindictive she is and how desperate for my attention she is. And that’s why I happily blocked her and didn’t give it another thought until now writing this for you. The woman is an idiot. Now, I could dwell on this and all her other lies and malicious shenanigans all day long. I could let it eat me up, I could cry over it, I could stew on it. But I don’t. I CHOOSE not to. She’s dead to me (and even more so now that she’s blocked because she can’t access me at all). She means nothing to me. She never benefitted my life even when we were friends, so why would I let her into my thoughts now to consume me and annoy me and frustrate me? I won’t. I know she wants to hurt me, I know she’s a sad, bitter person but I also know that I control my own mind and can either give this time and attention, or not.

You see, nowadays when I catch myself thinking a negative thought like “I can’t believe that bitch did that” or “it makes me sick that he stole from me and got away with it” (and these thoughts do occasionally pop into my head, rarely now though thank goodness), I immediately stop myself, knowing that this is a negative thought, and I force myself to think of something positive. More often than not I think of one of my animal’s faces. And just thinking about their face makes me smile (I’m smiling now as I write this). I think of something silly one of them did recently or I think of a funny situation I shared with a friend recently. What happens when I do this is that my mind turns from being dark and moody and resentful to being light and happy and clear. It’s a simple trick but it works every time. You see, it’s almost like I’ve become scared to have a negative thought. I’m a big believer in the Law of Attraction (which basically means that you attract what you think, so if you always think negative thoughts, you’ll attract MORE negative into your life) and because of this, I force myself to not even give room to negative thoughts in my brain. I choose to reject it as a thought and instead replace it with a happy thought. And because of this I generally feel happy all day every day. It really has changed my life for the better.

An ex manager of mine stole a LOT of money from me. I never got it back and I never will. If I allowed myself to dwell on that, I would be a very angry, very resentful person. You see, it was a life-changing amount of money. It’s enough to make me feel sick and want to start hurting people. However, what’s done is done. I can’t change it. What I can do is choose how it affects me now. I can think angry negative thoughts and stay bitter or I can choose to forget it and never give it another thought (and know that Karma will have it’s wicked way with him one day). If I carry on thinking hateful thoughts about him and the money then the only person it’s hurting is ME. He doesn’t care, he swanned off into the sunset with my money. Do you think he’s given it another thought since? Probably not. So why should I? It ruined me once (when it first happened) so I’m sure as Hell not going to let it ruin me again by keeping on thinking about it. The outcome is the same regardless of how I deal with it now. He still has the money and I don’t. So therefore I can forget it and think about things I love or I can dwell on it and be bitter. And I’d far rather be happy and smiling every day. And I DO believe in Karma. At the end of the day, he’s a terrible person who’s only success in life is stealing from a woman. I mean, come on….. He’s already living his Karma by being such a rat with no morals or achievements… 🙂

When you know how to be happy then most things can’t hurt you. There will be times that someone you really love or trust does something that feels like a knife through the heart (and then you have to weigh up whether you love them enough to forgive them), but mostly these friends and colleagues and acquaintances who shit on you are people you can very easily disregard from your thoughts and refuse to cry or get angry over. Like, your boss bullied you and forced you to leave. Ok, that’s terrible, but why would you still care now, like 6 months on? Or, your so-called best friend slept with your boyfriend; ok, good riddance to them both – NEITHER of them deserved you. Or, a boyfriend dumps you: ok, if someone doesn’t want to be in your life, then why would you want them to be in it? You might be reading this thinking “oh well that’s easy to say” but I want you to really really think about it. If that person doesn’t want to be in your life then they’re never going to add anything TO your life, they’re never going to bring you joy or happiness so cut your losses, realise it’s a blessing in disguise and walk away with your head held high, knowing how much you still have to offer, even if that person couldn’t see it. Because that’s what this is about. It’s about knowing your own self-worth. And just because one malicious, dumb or jealous person can’t see that, it doesn’t mean it’s not there! I don’t need the old hag who I talked about above to validate me; I know my own worth. Whether she wants to try having childish digs on Facebook doesn’t have any relevance to who I am or what I’ve achieved in life or to my character. The same as the times I’ve been told I’m not good enough to do a certain job or “not right” for the brand. Ok, that’s YOUR opinion. Personally I think I’d do a better job than anyone else you could possibly get, so GOOD LUCK finding anyone as hard-working, competent, dedicated and passionate as I am. You see, I don’t sulk over it. I think “I’ll find a better job” and then I use that passion and that energy to go out there and prove myself. I’m not going to let one person’s opinion of me change my own opinion of me!!

In conclusion, to be happy you firstly need to find what makes you happy. For me, those things are (in no particular order); the gym, my animals, motorbikes, cooking, gardening, making TV shows, writing, reading, eating, my parents, my friends, etc. So when I’m not working, my time is filled with these things I love. Then, after discovering what makes you happy and actually doing those things, you need to learn to love yourself. How do you do that? You take time every day to praise yourself, to respect yourself, to be proud of your achievements (no matter how small), to remember things you’ve done in life that you’re proud of, to recognise your good traits and to acknowledge your best strengths.

Another trick I’ve found useful for me over the years is to have reminders all over my house of some of the things I’ve achieved and also of happy memories and objects that make me happy. There was a time years ago when I was really depressed. I had gotten into such a negative rut that I couldn’t drag myself out of it. I felt worthless, ugly and like there was no point to my life. One day I happened to stumble across an old Zoo magazine with me on the cover and it was like I didn’t even recognise myself. The girl on the front looked like a glamourous, sexy, confident women and I was a miserable, crying husk. It made me think about some of the things I’d done in life (front covers for magazines being one of them) and from then on, I decided to surround myself with images and objects which symbolised what I’d done so that, in the future, when I was feeling down I only had to look around me to see how far I’ve come and how many things I’ve done. You may notice in some of my photos I put on social media that there are photos of me all over the house (as well as photos of my parents, friends and animals), there are certificates in frames from things like, when I did a bungee jump for charity or when I did a sky dive, there are awards I’ve been given over the years for things and mementos from some of my favourite TV shows I’ve made. There is a copy of my own book I wrote on the bookshelf and there are flowers in every room (once when I was totally skint, I promised myself that if I ever did have money again I would always have fresh flowers in the house). All of these things are there for a reason (and it’s NOT because I’m a narcissist) – these photos and objects all serve to remind me that that IS ME and that I am someone who has achieved a lot and enjoyed many great things. They remind me of who I am and what I’ve done. And no one can ever take that away from me. Not the hag on Facebook, nor the thieving agent…..

So, find what makes you happy, learn to love yourself (definitely use my tip and start putting things around the house that make you happy or are happy memories) and then, when you realise that you ARE a very cool person, who’s achieved a lot and who has overcome a lot and who is still standing and refusing to be beaten – well, then you will have self-confidence and self-worth. And when you have that, no one can hurt you. You will start to see life as it really is. That you ARE a valuable member of society and that you DO have a lot to give and that if someone else can’t see that or is trying to tear you down, well that’s their problem, not yours. And that is how I laugh at the haters, how I never shed a tear over a man, how I laugh at my ex-mates who stabbed me in the back and how I stand here now smiling and feeling the happiest I’ve ever felt.

I know who I am, I know what makes me happy, I know that life is one big learning curve and I know that we often can’t change a situation but we CAN choose how we deal with it. I spend as much time as possible doing things that make me happy and I stay busy. When I have an hour spare, I clean the downstairs bathroom. When I sit down at night on the sofa with the cats and dogs, I know that I’ve had a good day and that everything is where I want it to be. Obviously there are things in my life that aren’t perfect but I rest easy knowing that things change and that one day it might be perfect. Until then I make damn sure things are as close to perfect for ME as they can be. I enjoy everything I do and I throw my heart and soul into it. I believe in doing a job to the best of your ability and I believe in being a good person. There are many nasty people out there (I think I’ve met most of them) but there are also many good people. There are those who will put you down, or let you down and there are those who will pull through for you and always be there. And there will ALWAYS be things in life to find enjoyment from. Do more of those things. Take time for YOU. Even if it means pulling all the weeds up in the garden for hours on end on your own: at the end of it, you’ll feel like you achieved something and your heart will be that little bit lighter. All these tips and tricks have worked for me over the years and I promise you now, the only people in my life who have the ability to hurt me are my parents. They’re the only ones I love enough to care about their actions. Of course, I love my friends dearly, they’re amazing. But I know that as the years go by, friendships drift apart, people change, people move etc. You can’t always expect every friendship to stand the test of time. And because I’ve seen so much shady behaviour over the years, I know what people are capable of. You can spend hours, days, weeks, months helping someone and then they can drop you like a hot brick the minute they “fall in love” or whatever. All I can do is carry on being me. And carry on LIKING me. And as long as I do that, I know I’ll be alright and I’ll never be hurt by malicious behaviour or by silly comments.

Lastly, a woman who I’ve known a few years (but am in no way close to) said to me the other week “blimey, you look rough!” (it was the same week that Louie died). I rolled my eyes and turned away. I didn’t even dignify it with an answer. I drove home later that day and my mum called me to ask if I was ok (she had witnessed this woman’s negative comment). I laughed and told her “yes I’m fine”. My mum was more upset than I was. I told her, “Mum, she looks rough every time I see her but I’d NEVER say that to her! My dog just died, I haven’t slept properly, I’m not wearing any make up, I’m stressed out with work stuff, I had a staff member walk out costing me thousands of pounds worth of business and I have a million things going on. If she thinks I look rough then that is her opinion. And it really is no reflection of me at all. And besides which, if I can’t look rough when all this is going on, then when can I? Plus, even on my roughest day, I’d STILL rather look like me than her”. Sounds big-headed? Sounds cocky? Nope, just being honest. I genuinely wasn’t upset that some woman thinks I look rough. Why would I be? I had far bigger things to worry about that day than what I looked like. It’s the same when I get silly comments on social media very occasionally from women who say things like “you look amazing but I wish you would style your hair better” – Love, when I’m a billionaire, I’ll have someone come to the house every day just to professionally style my hair (actually, no, even then I won’t because I’ll be too busy riding a Harley or something) but my goodness, if YOU have time to get your hair professionally done every day then good luck to you. I’m too busy looking after 9 animals and building my empire. But that’s me. And right now, my animals and my businesses are far more important to me than having my hair blow-dried. I make the best of myself when I do get dressed up and go out for dinner and normally, if I’m lucky, I get about an hour to have a shower, shave my legs, do my make-up, dry my hair and choose an outfit. And then I have to feed all the animals before I go out and make sure they’re all ok. I juggle everything and do the best I can. And you know what? I’m happy with my best because it works for me. I feel good, I’m happy and I’m fulfilled. No amount of nasty or silly comments can ever get under my skin.

I hope this has been an insightful and helpful blog for you. Thank you so much for signing up! I so appreciate your support and please do let me know if there’s anything in particular you want me to write about (best way is to tweet me!). Lots of love x x x

The post The Secret to Happiness appeared first on Jodie Marsh.

I LOVE going out with my parents. They’re literally my best friends. We do a lot together. We’ve always been close and I love that now as a “proper” adult (at least I think I am?!), we get to socialise together doing civilised things. My favourite thing to do is go out for meals and eat amazing food and lucky for me, that’s my parents’ favourite thing too.

I was watching Big Brother the other night and Shaun was telling the youngsters how now that he’s in his 50’s he enjoys life more because he likes to put his feet up and stay in, knowing that he’s not missing anything! I laughed because it’s true. I’m in my 30’s but I feel like this! I LOVE staying in now! Aside from eating in lovely restaurants, it’s my number one favourite thing. Get some friends or my parents over, put pyjamas on and snuggle on the sofa with a cat or dog (or nine)…. I now know, like Shaun, that I’m really NOT missing anything by staying in. In fact, I have a BETTER time at home on the sofa in my PJs. I do remember that feeling of when you absolutely HAD to go out at the weekend (and for me, basically EVERY night of the week), but I sure as Hell don’t miss it! I used to think I’d be missing so much if I didn’t go out and I lived for the weekends. Now I just crave a good restaurant or a good film to watch. I even remember when I was 18, I dragged my poor parents to the Ministry of Sound for a night out!! They were 48 at the time! They must have hated it! Hah bless them! I worked there at the time and I was like “ but you MUST come, it’s so fab!” and good on them; they came! They basically watched me and my friends get drunk and dance on podiums! I don’t think it was the best night of their lives and it’s only now I realise how horrendous and weird that would have been for them. I’m 38 and I can’t think of anything worse than being in a nightclub! Haha. I was like an excited puppy at the time though and just wanted them to see it through my eyes and see how good it was! Hilarious. I love that my parents had that one crazy night out at the Ministry (although I also feel a bit guilty now, sorry mum!!). I think they met Nigel Benn the boxer that night too. And also my old mate Dave Courtney, friend of the Krays. They’ve met Dave loads of times and he’s always charming and lovely. What funny memories.

So back to these nights in, Shaun is right. We’re not missing anything. I’ve done my mad partying in the nightclubs and bars. I worked in nightclubs all over London before I was famous! As well as working at MOS, I worked at the O Bar in Soho (I danced in a cage hanging from the ceiling), the K Bar in Chelsea (very messy star-studded parties in there – that’s a blog for another time) and Café De Paris (podium dancing), to name a few. I really was the ultimate London party girl and I got paid to dance and hang out in the clubs. I loved every second of it but I wouldn’t do it now! Give me a blanket and a cat on my lap and I’m happy. I don’t even want to go to a country pub now! I hardly drink and I’m not interested in watching other people drink. Unless I’m drinking too, which is rare, then I find drunk people quite annoying.

The main reasons I rarely drink are that A. I don’t like the taste of alcohol B. I don’t like the hangovers C. It’s a waste of calories (if I’m going to put useless calories in my gym-honed body then I’d rather eat a huge slice of cake, or a 4 course meal like last night) and D. I don’t like to be out of control. Not that I get very out of control when I’m drunk but I’m a really happy, childish drunk and I’m a lightweight. Two glasses of wine and I would be dancing on a table or trying to climb on the roof of the house “cos it’s funny”??????!!!! Yes, go figure. They say your true personality comes out when you’re drunk, well that must mean I have the mental age of 6. I literally turn into a laughing, happy, child who wants to just “have fun” and do “crazy” things. I remember one night being in a big people-mover car coming home from a club in London with friends and the car had a sun-roof. We were on the M11 doing about 60mph and before the driver knew what I was doing I had climbed out of the sun-roof onto the actual roof. I thought it was “funny” – clearly not and very dangerous but you get the idea of the sort of drunk I am (a liability). I also remember that for my first shambolic and embarrassing marriage, we had a joint hen and stag do at a giant 3,000 capacity nightclub. We hired a double decker bus to take all our friends there (I say “we”, of course, I paid for it, not him). It was a proper red London bus with an open back and on the way home I thought it was “hilarious” to jump off the back onto a grass verge of the M25. It took the bus an hour to turn round, drive back up the M25 and turn round again so it was back on my side of the road, to be able to pick me up. My friends were all hysterically upset & crying but I thought it was funny. I should have known then it was really a sign to myself screaming “DON’T DO IT – DON’T GET MARRIED!!!!!!!!” haha – it was like the drunk me was trying to tell the sober me something?! (albeit in a very stupid and dangerous way)

Anyway, I’m off to get a take away and catch up on Big Brother. I have a few episodes recorded so I’m having a heavenly night in with food and TV and animals. And I honestly can’t think of anything I’d rather be doing! Love you x

The post Why I don’t like drinking anymore (I’m a liability)…. appeared first on Jodie Marsh.

There are loads of reasons why I don’t want a partner (allow me to list some): I don’t want to share my beautiful home with anyone (and certainly don’t want someone making a mess which I then have to tidy – yes this has happened in the past and yes it’s annoying), I don’t want to have to take someone else’s thoughts into consideration when I’m deciding what to do with my evening (if I want to get dressed up and go out for dinner, I do, and equally if I want to lie on the sofa with the cats, I do!), I don’t want to sit listening to someone’s life story and it would bore me to tears to tell mine – I’ve already lived it once, I have no desire to repeat it all (and let’s face it, you can never really know a person without knowing as much of their back story as possible), I don’t want to have to negotiate or compromise on where I want to go on holiday, I don’t want to have to cook for someone (ok, I could date a chef which would be fab but seriously, every fella I’ve had I’ve ended up cooking gourmet meals for with no thanks or appreciation – read my mummies boy blog to see how tinned carrots ruined one relationship for me!!!), I don’t want a smelly man around me all the time (this is probably why these days I’d prefer a woman, sorry guys!), I don’t want to have to base any decision I make on whether it will upset, offend or annoy someone else (ie. Going to bed at 2am because I’ve been working so hard and then wanting to keep the light on when I’m reading my kindle – if I do ever date again, separate bedrooms will be a MUST), I don’t want to buy presents for someone (other than friends and family – too much money has been wasted over the years on fabulous birthday and Christmas presents for blokes who A. didn’t deserve it and B. are no longer in my life – think of all the shoes I could have had for myself with that money!!), I don’t want arguments (let’s face it, even the best and healthiest relationships have arguments and being single means they just don’t happen – it’s bliss!), I don’t want someone trying to tell me what to do (every partner I’ve had, no matter how nice they seemed has always at some point tried to control me, even if in a small way, like, telling me they don’t like what I’m wearing in the hope that I change). Is that enough to be starting with? I think so.

The thing is; I’m genuinely happy on my own. I don’t need a man (or woman) to validate me or make me feel happy or secure or loved. My parents and friends and animals make me feel loved on a daily basis and I have self-worth in bucket-loads (built from years of grafting and making something of myself and learning to love myself). I honestly believe that right now in my life, there isn’t a single person who could “romance” me and who, in doing so, would make my life better. My life is just how I want it to be. I work hard, I own two businesses. I have 9 animals and a house to take care of. I have a great social life (which mainly involves my favourite hobby of eating), I go to the gym most days, I have lots of other hobbies and things I enjoy doing, like; gardening, riding my motorbikes, cooking (for myself and friends and family, NOT an unappreciative man), I even enjoy cleaning the house! I am a very busy person with a very full life. And I love it! Every bit of it! It’s constantly changing and evolving, no two days are the same, it’s manic and I am flat out most of the time so that when I do get to sit down on the sofa at the end of a long day, I relish every second of watching shite TV and doing nothing except stroke a cat! I have created my perfect life. So why then does everybody else seem to want me to meet someone so much? Do they think I’m lying when I say I’m not lonely? Do they think I’m lying when I say I really don’t want to meet someone? I find this whole thing very bizarre. Is it because THEY themselves can’t function without an ‘other half’ and they can’t seem to work out how I could possibly be happy alone? I don’t know the answers, I really don’t. I can only speculate. And my guess is that some of these people really have found true love and it’s so great that they just want that same love and happiness for me and that’s a NICE thing (but trust me, I DO already have it, just in other forms, like; furry ones with smelly breath) and the other half just couldn’t be alone themselves and have done the whole marriage and kids thing, even if it’s not quite as perfect as they thought it was going to be. That’s the problem you see, I see too many people “settling” – and what I mean by that is settling for someone just to BE in a relationship/marriage or to have kids. I don’t mean settling as in settling down, I mean settling as in “for second best” ie. They’re not as truly happy as they make out. I have lots of married friends and friends in long term relationships and I can honestly say that out of all of them, there are probably only 3 couples (4 including my parents) who genuinely seem to have got it right, meaning, they do genuinely love each other and they have a very happy life together. Everyone else; not so much. I see wives who secretly hate their husband, I see wives who think their husband is having an affair, I see husbands who spend as much time away from home as possible (probably due to the suspicious, nagging wife), I see couples taking separate holidays (sorry but I honestly don’t think that’s conducive to a healthy and loving relationship – my fella going off with “the boys” for a lads one in Vegas – I DON’T THINK SO MATE!), I see couples arguing over the most stupid things (like, who’s eaten the last scotch egg from the fridge) and I see couples who just generally seem miserable a lot of the time. I look at these couples and I listen to their woes and I think “Thank GOD I’m single”. And then when I see the amazing happy couples I know, even that doesn’t make me want a relationship, in fact I find myself often thinking how lovely they are together but also on the side thinking “how are they still into each other after all this time?” – come on guys – what’s the secret?). I genuinely don’t know if I even have it in me to love just one person (and find them attractive) for the rest of my life?!

I cannot stress enough how happy I am alone. I don’t have any worries, I don’t have emotional break downs, I don’t have another person consuming my thoughts (and therefore taking my focus off my businesses and my enjoyment of life), I don’t have those horrible niggling doubts and frustrations that come with a relationship and I don’t have anyone annoying me (there are various ways to annoy me: falling asleep on the sofa in my house when watching a film together, farting lots, telling lies, having no manners or consideration, being tight with money, drinking too much and too often, the list goes on). I am literally living my life MY way and enjoying every second of it. Even when I do have work-related stress, it’s a GOOD stress and I feel proud of myself when I find a solution. Achieving things makes me feel good and there is nothing so satisfying as achieving things by yourself with no help!

Just because for hundreds of years, society has force-fed us this image of the “perfect” family set-up, it doesn’t mean that it’s for everyone. My perfect family has a combined 36 legs and is very furry and I wouldn’t change it for a thing. My other pet-hate is when people think women are weird when they don’t want children. I don’t know if I want children or not. The jury is still out. But I do know that I don’t want them right now. From what I can see, they scream a lot, they take up your attention 24/7, you can’t even take a shit without them being in your space (let alone take 5 minutes to read a kindle or do a face mask), they make a LOT of mess and they’re hard bloody work. I love kids, I have 3 nieces who I adore and some of my friend’s kids are AMAZING (some are horrible, rude, ill-mannered little shits), but I still wouldn’t want to be around them all day every day. They’re great fun when I do see them and they make me laugh a lot. One of my friends (I’ve talked about her publicly before: I call her “Supermum”) has 3 beautiful kids and they are such a delight that they make me broody every time I see them, But then I realise that me and Supermum are the same age and her kids are now 13, 11 and 8 and for me to have kids as well behaved and lovely as hers, we’re talking another 14 years away (or minimum 9) and that’s if I get pregnant right now! And I’m really not sure I’m up to the nappy and potty training stage (I have to go through all that to get to the good bit? I’d rather adopt from age 3 upwards). Kids are fab and hilarious and cute but they’re just not something I want at the moment. I enjoy my holidays to Lake Garda too much where I lay and read my kindle all day without moving from the sun lounger. Some may say selfish, I say clever.

So now let’s look at YOU. Yes you, reading this now. Those of you in a relationship: Are you happy? Is your partner the absolute love of your life? Does your partner make your life better just by being in it? Does your partner make you feel loved? Does your partner make you feel like together you’re a team and can tackle anything? And if the answer to any or all of this is “no” then why are you still with them? Are you scared of being alone? Are you scared of hurting them? Are you scared OF them? You have to ask yourself all these things because why would you stay in a relationship that isn’t making your life better? I’m not saying every relationship is perfect, far from it, but surely there should be more ups than downs and surely your partner SHOULD make you happy and should make you feel loved and secure and fabulous. If you think you have “settled” (as in, my use of the word above ie. Settled for something other than the best for YOU) then you should seriously consider your options going forwards. Why would you stay in an unhappy relationship? Yes I know there are many reasons as to why people stay, but there probably aren’t many of those reasons that can’t be changed with growing a pair of balls and facing the challenge of changing your life for the better. I suppose what I’m saying is that you only YOU can make YOU happy and don’t put off anything that will improve your life. Whether it’s ending a crappy relationship, taking up a new hobby, applying for that promotion at work – fact is, your life is in your hands. And when I realised this, it was the moment I also realised I didn’t need a partner to be happy. There are so many things I do that make me happy that right now there aren’t enough hours in the day! If anything, I need the days to be longer so I can cram more stuff into them. On my journey of self-discovery, I found so many things I loved doing that now I almost need to NOT enjoy stuff so much as then I’d have more time on my hands! And what a bloody brilliant place to be!

My parents recently celebrated their 45th Wedding Anniversary and I can honestly say that they are 100% in love. They have each other’s backs, they’re a team, they look out for each other, they help and support each other, they still FANCY each other. They’re amazing. They’re what I aspire to be (if I were ever to have a relationship again). They are a shining example of what a happy marriage looks like. They’re loyal and fun and loving. They’re considerate of each other, they have their own hobbies but they wouldn’t go off on holiday without each other and they make the most of every day. I love them both so much and I love how much they love each other. They give hope to the whole world that true love DOES exist and that there IS such a thing as a happy ever after. However, I still don’t want it. MY happy ever after involves an animal sanctuary, a mansion in Norfolk with 20 acres of land, holidays to the Maldives twice a year (alone to just lie and read my kindle in peace) and food, LOTS of food (I had to stop half way through writing this blog to go and make peanut butter on toast)……

Til the next time. Big love x

The post Why I’d rather be single than settle… appeared first on Jodie Marsh.

There was the girl who had split up with her violent ex (let’s call her Openlegs). I’d known her years (and the violent ex, who nobody liked) and one day I posted on my private Facebook asking if anyone fancied doing a dog walk. She responded saying she would love to and off we went. She told me immediately that she had split with the ex and that she was in a bit of a mess as he had controlled her whole life. She didn’t have a lot of friends (most had distanced themselves because of HIM). Anyway, cut a long story short, I took her under my wing and brought her into my friendship group. I took her on holiday with me, I invited her to join me and my family on Mother’s Day when her own 15 yr old son didn’t want to see her (she was distraught and I didn’t want her to be alone on such a big day). I took her out numerous times for dinner and cooked for her at home constantly. She ended up having a room in my house that she had started to call “her room” and she stayed over all the time.

I had been seeing a guy I liked around that time and one day he was in London with a friend and he suggested that I bring my friend and we go on a double date. I took her. The four of us went for a lovely meal and then back to the hotel the boys were staying at (they had a suite at the Dorchester – very posh). When I go out for a night like that, I always keep comfy clothes in the car to change into so that I don’t end up getting stuck in a dress and heels for hours, so once back at the hotel I changed (I actually put on a onesie – highly embarrassing when I look back as it was THE most unattractive item of clothing in the world). Openlegs then started to whinge that she too wanted to change but didn’t have anything with her and proceeded to beg both guys to borrow something of theirs. Eventually, the guy I was seeing said “I might have some shorts and a T shirt in my case” (they had flown to London fresh from a holiday before going back up North where they lived). Off he went to have a look in his room, leaving the three of us chatting. He’d only been gone about a minute when Openlegs said “I’m gonna go and change then” and followed him to his room. They were then both gone a total of about 2 minutes and she came back wearing his shorts and T shirt. I thought nothing of it until the next day when my guy called me up and said “your mate is a wrong-un and you shouldn’t trust her”. He then explained that when she walked into his room, he was still bent over his suitcase trying to dig out clothes and when he stood up and turned around, she had unzipped her mini dress and allowed it to drop to the floor and she had no underwear on. She was stood there stark naked looking at him with come-to-bed eyes. He averted his eyes and threw the clothes at her before joining us back in the other room. He was sure of her intentions. Later that day I confronted her about it and she admitted to it straight away. She came up with some bullshit excuse about how she didn’t want me to like him and that she thought he was no good and was trying to make me see that he was an idiot. The truth is that SHE was no good. After everything I’d done for her as a friend, I knew I’d never trust her again! If I ever fell in love, I could never have left her alone with my fella in a room!!! She continued to send me messages saying how much she cared about me and was only doing it for my own good. I never responded. The trust was broken. She’d never done anything to ADD to my life, she’d simply taken from me all that time and then done THAT! No love, not for me that….

Then we have “Egg gate”. This is a particular favourite story of mine. At the time of Egg-gate I was exhausted, scared, confused and distraught. Now though, I LOVE telling this story as it makes me laugh out loud. So, let’s go back to the night I was arrested. It was 4am and the two twatty officers basically dragged me out of my bed (for TEXTING my OWN HUSBAND asking for money he owed to my dad – yeah I know – WTF?????!!!!). I had a friend staying over in a spare room that night (let’s call him Richard, as in TURD). It was the first time Richard had stayed over and he was only staying as he didn’t drive and I live in the middle of nowhere and we were doing a bit of work together on something that was to continue the next day. Bearing in mind, I had 6 dogs at the time who he had only just met. I went into the room he was staying in and woke him up at 4am to tell him I was being arrested and begged him to stay and look after the animals. I didn’t want him leaving and not securing the house plus I thought he could feed the animals and look after them until I got back (aside from the fact that he doesn’t drive and the nearest train station is about 10 miles away and he didn’t have any money on him – yes yes I know, I need new friends – this is the point of this blog!! Haha). Anyway, I got slung in a cell and didn’t leave the police station until around 5pm the next day. My parents were away on holiday and Richard had called them to tell them what had happened so of course they are now panicking too. That particular day I had arranged for another friend to come over and walk the dogs with me and hang out. Let’s call her Soozi. The twatty police were confiscating my phone as part of my arrest and by around 4pm I had persuaded them to let me take some important numbers out of my phone (it was a business phone) and they watched me do it. At this point the phone rang and it was Soozi. I asked if I could answer it to see if she could come and pick me up from the pig station and they said yes. I told her briefly that I had been arrested and she was about to leave to come to mine anyway so she kindly offered to come and pick me up. When she arrived to get me, I got in her car and promptly burst into tears with the unfairness of it all and the sheer worry for my animals who had now been left with Richard, for over 12 hours, who didn’t know them and no doubt would have been scared of the two rottweilers. I cried the whole way home. I had no phone, I knew my parents would be worried sick (I guessed Richard would have called to tell them), I didn’t know if the animals had been fed, I didn’t know if Richard had even managed to venture into the room the dogs were in!! I was dirty, tired, starving hungry (the police kept me there all that time without giving me any food but that’s a story for another time) and overly emotional. I knew there was food in the house but I didn’t know if Richard had managed to make himself something to eat.

Upon arriving home, I flew into the house and asked Richard all the above. He said that no, he hadn’t fed the animals, no he hadn’t made himself any food and that yes he had called my parents. In my state of sheer panic for the animals, I borrowed Richard’s phone, called my parents and set about doing the animal food at the same time. I was still crying. Richard and Soozi sat ranting about the horror of it all at the dining table while I flew about trying to feed animals. Animals fed, I then stated that the next most important thing was feeding myself and Richard as we hadn’t eaten since 7pm the previous day (which is now, like 24 hours!). I was still crying down the phone to my parents at this point, ranting about how vile the police were to me, how hungry and tired I was and how disgusting it was that I had even been arrested in the first place. They were out of their minds with worry. While I’m rambling on (in clearly a very distressed state), Soozi had made herself busy in the kitchen and was mouthing to me every few seconds “where’s the frying pan?” or “where’s the butter?” – each time I pointed to where things were. “That’s nice”, a distant part of my brain thought while still wailing to my parents – “she’s making me and Richard some food”. Soozi proceeded to use up my last 4 eggs and made scrambled egg on toast. THEN Soozi proceeded to take that scrambled egg to the table and sit and EAT IT BY HERSELF. Yep, you read that right. She made HERSELF scrambled eggs on toast in my house after the single biggest disaster and trauma to happen to me since I started my period and then she ate it in front of us (the two people who hadn’t eaten in 24 hours and who were BOTH shaken up and traumatised). Neither Richard nor I could believe our eyes. She didn’t offer us any, she didn’t bat an eyelid. She just used my eggs, my bread and my butter and made herself food and then had the cheek to ask “where’s the black pepper?”. As you can well imagine, I have never seen her the same way since. It’s still known as “Egg gate” and, as I said above, it makes me laugh now but at the time I just couldn’t believe it. She then admitted that she’d been in bed most of the day (it was a Sunday) and that it had been lovely. More salt in the wound to us then since we had both had THE WORST day. She didn’t even wash up the frying pan afterwards!! The cheek!!!!! I mean, don’t get me wrong, making yourself eggs on toast in someone else’s house isn’t the worst thing a friend could do, but honestly if you could have seen the pure rage, carnage and exhaustion at the time – to then watch her do this was just beyond anything I could comprehend. I needed someone to be making a cup of tea for ME (or I’ll be really over-expectant and say a slice of toast even). As she sat scoffing my eggs, my next task was to make RICHARD some food, not even myself! On a side note, Richard turned out to be a twat too but more about him later…

Next we have a friend I’ll call Jessica. Jessica and I had been friends for most of our adult life. As we grew older we did end up growing apart slightly as I no longer really drink alcohol and she drinks a LOT. I’m a health and fitness lover and she’s a party girl still. All I want to do is walk the dogs and have nice meals, all she wants to do is get drunk and shag a fit bloke. However, over the years our friendship had stood the test of time and we had always been there for each other. I encouraged her to do things like come to the cinema with me and come over for dinner (things that didn’t involve her drinking) and I also took her and her young son out for dinners and to the theatre and concerts. I worried about her drinking (especially when she got caught drink driving and got banned for 18 months) and I did as much as I could to be a good friend to her. I picked her up from the airport after her holiday, I helped her move house, I even helped her catch her two feral cats one day when they had gone wild and were on a rampage (and I got scratched to pieces in the process).

A few years back, Jessica and I fell out because she started dating a VERY dubious character who may or may not have been a drug dealer. He cheated on his wife with Jessica and then left his wife. When Jessica asked for my honest opinion, I gave her it. I said he wasn’t the sort of guy I wanted to see her with, that he had already cheated on his wife and mother of his children and that I was worried about her and her son. She accused me of being a “miserable negative cow” and promptly disowned me and didn’t talk to me for 3 years. After these 3 years, she got back in touch (they had split up – quell surprise!) and she wanted to be friends again. I said that of course I would be friends again but explained to her that I was only being a true friend when I told her how I felt about the ex. She seemingly understood and was also full of apology. Turns out the “best thing since sliced bread” was also a controlling, horrible man who had a scary obsession with his own daughter and had repeatedly ruined things like Christmasses and birthdays by just not turning up and then going missing for days. Anyhow, we were “friends” again…

So, Jessica had her own business making dresses and one night there was an event in London where she could showcase some of them. She asked me to go to it and also asked if I would wear one of the dresses. Basically I was to be her model for the night to get her dresses more attention. Two days before the event my dog Wendy was spayed and I had arranged for my parents to come over and dog-sit while I was at the event. I knew Wendy wouldn’t take kindly to wearing the cone of shame and as she’s quite a nervous dog, I was worried that she would be stressed after the op. The day before the event Wendy had managed to pull apart her wound and make it bleed quite severely. The vet had seen it and told me to keep a close eye on her. My parents were due to arrive at 6pm the next day and the event didn’t start until 7.30pm in East London. It only takes me an hour or so from my house to get to East London and Jessica’s house is way past mine, another half an hour’s drive away so for her to get to London is an hour and half at the very least. I called Jessica that morning (the day before the event) to explain that I was worried about Wendy and to ask what time she was coming to mine. She had previously stated that she would drive us there and I assumed that as she had to go past mine to get London, she would pick me up on route. Well….. WELL….. When I asked what time she was coming to mine all HELL broke loose! She immediately started ranting that I should be going to her house (an hour out of my way, meaning I would have to leave an hour earlier). When I gently explained that I didn’t want to leave Wendy until my parents got to mine, she exploded further, called me a “selfish bitch” and told me she “knew this would happen” and that she wished she’d never invited me. Her rant continued for some time. Even at the end of it I was still saying “babe, I’m not letting you down, I’m still coming, and I’m just asking you if I can meet you there instead of coming an hour out of my way and leaving the dog alone”. She wouldn’t have it. The following day (the day of the actual event) I even text her again to say “I’m still coming if you want me to – let me know!” and she never replied. I’ve never heard from her since! Bizarre yet kind of good for me I guess. Jessica was always claiming to be totally skint and I paid for EVERYTHING we did in our friendship, yet one day, not long before we fell out for good, I watched her drop £2,000 on dresses for a wedding (she didn’t know what she wanted to wear so bought 12 and said “I’ll wear them all at some point anyway”). Cunning cow! She’d never bought me so much as a portion of cheesy chips while I’d been splashing out on her AND her son for fancy dinners and trips that whole time!!!

Now these examples above are obviously small examples of people’s over-all weird, poncing or not very nice behaviour. We also have the sinister ones. The ones who REALLY take from you. The ones who try to ruin you. The ones who have no morals at all. The ones who REALLY screw you over and the ones who REALLY take the piss. I’ve had the ex manager who stole a TON of money from me, the ex colleague who stole money out of the company, the other ex colleague who changed all my business passwords so that only HE could get into all my business accounts (for what reason I don’t know), the control-freak ex staff member who emailed everyone I worked with and told them all to only deal with him and to never talk to me directly and who also tried to turn me against all my true friends (looking back I think he wanted me all to himself), the ex staff member who screamed in my face “I’m irreplaceable, you’ll never find someone with my skill set (before quitting his job with no notice) – note – when someone arrogantly says/shouts “I’m irreplaceable”, you DEFINITELY need to replace them!!!!!!! I’ve had the ex friend who I gave over 20 free tubs of protein and 5 tubs of Semtex to because he wanted to lose weight and the deal was he would give me before and after pictures for me to use to promote my products; he lost 2 stone using only my protein (JMEAL) and Semtex and then never gave me the before and after pictures. I’ve had the ex friend who tried to come in between me and my family and who actually managed to get other friends to disown me yet who still now copies everything I do and wear – she even copies how I do my make up and what tattoos I get. She recently started posting pictures of herself online with an ex boyfriend of mine – I blocked her at that point – not because I care but because it was starting to get a little “Single White Female” for my liking. I’ve had the ex friend who begged me to post pictures to my 2.5 million followers when his dog went missing for an hour (which I did – the dog was found) yet hasn’t called or text me once since, even though over the last few years SEVEN of my own animals have died and I have been distraught every time. There’s the ex friend who I paid to house sit for me when I went on holiday and who threw a party in my house (after me setting the rule of “absolutely NO ONE except your mum, dad and sister to come in to my house). There’s the other ex friend who had agreed to house sit for me so I could go on holiday, only to let me down 2 weeks before knowing that I had absolutely no one else I could trust with my home and animals (he didn’t even have a reason to let me down, he simply said “I’m not doing it anymore” and I was going to pay him £600 to do it!).

And of course I’ve had all the ponces along the way, the people who have let me pay for everything, including dinners at mine, meals out, trips out, theatre, holidays, adventure days etc and who have NEVER once put their hand in their pocket. Richard, who I mentioned above, stopped taking his wallet out after a few months of working together. He literally would just leave it at home and expect me to pay for everything, which I did for months on end. I took him to a mega posh restaurant for his birthday, I took him to concerts, theatres, for days out, I cooked for him, I paid his train fare for him numerous times when he moaned that he was skint, I literally did EVERYTHING for him. Did he ever do anything for me? No, course not! I just allowed it to happen for so long because I felt sorry for him. Because he WAS a bit of a sad case. He didn’t drive, he still lived at home with his parents, he had been sacked from his previous job, he had never had a boyfriend or girlfriend and he basically had NO social life (or any friends at all in fact) – so OBVIOUSLY – these traits all mean one thing: GO TO JODIE!!!!! Jodie will take care of you. Jodie will help you. You can take advantage of Jodie’s kind and generous nature. Play on your own uselessness and general lack of money and she’ll feed you as well as buy you nice things!! Haha!!! How these people find me I don’t know, like I said when I started this, I think I’m a magnet for them. They see me as a meal ticket and someone who will be nice to them. And I always have been that!! It’s only now at the ripe old age of 38 that I have finally STAMPED my size 5’s down and decided to never be taken for a ride again. Now I look after number one and you know what? It’s so refreshing.

I don’t have any ponces around me anymore. Not one. I’m definitely a soft touch and I definitely do far too much for people but I always have a breaking point and when I reach it, I’m the Queen of cutting people off. And believe me, with the exception of Jessica (above) that one time, I do NOT let people back in once they’re gone from my life. Because it takes me so long to reach that breaking point, there can’t be any second chances because they’ve already had TEN chances before I snap!! Now I’m the ice queen as well as the cut off queen. Nowadays I have little trust for any human. And I don’t say this in a negative way; far from it, I’m the happiest I’ve ever been! I know for 100% fact that the friends I have around me now are people I’ve known a very long time and who NEVER take the piss out of me. They are people who are happy to pay for a meal for me when it’s “their turn”, they’re people who would 100% be there in an emergency if I needed them (and wouldn’t dream of making themselves some eggs haha). They’re people who have morals and decency and kindness. They’re people I love and adore, admire and respect. And there may only be a small handful of them, but that small handful is worth a million fake friends who do nothing but use you and take from you.

I know I’ve been far too nice to far too many people over the years but I also know that I wouldn’t want to change who I am as a person. I LIKE being nice and kind. I LIKE being the person who looks after others. I LIKE feeling like I’ve made a difference. The only thing I have changed about myself is that I won’t do too much for someone else now (apart from my small handful of true friends). Until I see that someone is a genuine, decent, honest person then I will NOT be taking them out for dinner or cooking for them or generally bending over backwards for them. And to be honest, this is a good thing!! It means I have more time to focus on me and my animals and my businesses. It means I don’t have to worry about some wailing emotional wreck of a “friend” who drains my time and energy by crying on my shoulder about the guy who just mugged him off! It means I don’t have to listen to people ranting about their “annoying parents” (even though they are 30 and still live with them and their parents are lovely and clearly very patient). It means that I don’t have to help train people in my gym who are “desperate” to lose weight (even though once in the gym with me it’s very clear that they’re not serious at all as they pretend to struggle with a 2KG dumbbell and end up eating a dirty great kebab straight after – normally one that I’ve paid for). It means the people I do see are people who don’t drain me in any way. When I get together with my real friends we laugh, we rant, we share stories, we reminisce, we moan, we do all the things you should do with real friends but it never feels like a chore, in fact it’s the opposite – even when we’re ranting we somehow make it fun. We turn negatives into positives and find ways to laugh at things that would have previously stressed us out. I LOVE every minute I spend with them. And when I’m not with them I’m with my parents and of course I’m with my animals 24/7 (and they bring me more joy than anything!). Life is better than it’s ever been. I’m focused and happy. I’m living for me and my animals and the people who matter to me. I’m doing what I want to do and I’m LOVING it. My purse is definitely heavier, my fridge is fuller and my mind is clearer. Maybe Jessica predicted the future? Maybe I AM a selfish bitch now, but you know what? If this is selfish then selfish is a GOOD thing and I encourage more people to be selfish……

P.S

Since I tweeted earlier that I was writing a blog about people stabbing you in the back, I have had so many responses from people saying they know how it feels. Some of you may have had it far worse than me. I feel your pain, I really do. Take a leaf out of my book and cut these losers out. They will never add to your life, they will only take away. As I always say; people are either drains or radiators. A drain will do exactly that: DRAIN you (of brain power, money, energy, time, resources), a radiator is warm and giving and makes you feel good. They radiate warmth, happiness, kindness and generosity. Dump all those drains and give the radiators a hug and lastly, BE A RADIATOR YOURSELF, NOT A DRAIN. Ain’t nobody got time for no drains…. 

The post People who stab you in the back and what to do about it… appeared first on Jodie Marsh.

Anyway, last Sunday, Louie collapsed and my parents and a friend were here. I’d been saying to my mum for months “if Louie ever collapses when you’re here, please film what I do to resuscitate him” as I wanted to make other bulldog owners aware of this. Many a time a bulldog will collapse (either due to the heat, or due to a problem with their soft palate or trachea) and will then die and the owner will nearly always be told “heart attack” – which, in my humble non-expert opinion is not true. If it is anything to do with the heat or their throat, you CAN bring them back and they don’t need to die. If they’re young enough they can have surgery on their soft palate, which isn’t guaranteed to work or give them a better quality of life, but it’s something worth considering. Anyway, Louie always used to collapse when I was alone and last Sunday was the first time my parents were here. I didn’t even know my mum was filming until I’d brought him back round and I’m gobsmacked she remembered to be honest! I’m glad she did though as the video has had nearly 9 million views on facebook!! If it helps even ONE pet owner then Louie has left a legacy behind!! I just wanted to make sure that the precious time you waste throwing your non-breathing pet into a car to take to the vets could cost his/her life and there IS action you can take. Also there are plenty of canine first aid courses you can go on (which I highly recommend to Bulldog/squash faced dog owners).

So, fast forward to Wednesday and from Sunday to then, Louie had been fine. Wednesday though, he didn’t want his breakfast (which is very unusual for him). I was worried and called my dad, who said “he might just be having an off day”. I tried to hand feed him a little (which he took) and then I kept a close eye on him. Later on in the day, the dogs were all playing in the garden and I went inside to do some work. When I went outside an hour later, Louie was lying on the grass as if he was asleep and I just KNEW as I looked at him that he had gone. I ran to him and crouched down and he had passed away. It was as if he went peacefully in his sleep. My parents rushed over to be with me and to help me bury him in the garden. I was (and still am) truly heartbroken. Louie was the best dog in the world. He was loyal and loving and soppy and hilarious. He has given me so much laughter and love over the last 11 years and I am so grateful that it was me who got asked to rehome him!! He has made my life better for having him in it. If any of you are pet owners then you will know how devastating it is to lose one. It’s like losing a member of your family. The thing that’s making me even more sad (and therefore making it harder to get over) is the fact that the other 5 dogs are now still moping around and being weird and down. Louie was the alpha male and Ralph my big Rottie respected that totally. Now he’s gone, not only are they all clearly pining for him but I think Ralph is a little confused as to what to do. Naturally he would step up and become the alpha male now but it’s like he doesn’t want to. He keeps lying in his bed and just looking up at me with sad eyes. It’s killing me! I have obviously given them all tons of love and attention this week but there’s definitely a sombre feeling in the house (aside from the fact that I can’t stop crying). Even my dad said he couldn’t believe how sad Ralph was acting when he popped over a couple of days ago. Hopefully the dogs will get over it quicker than I will anyway.

My bloody garden is like a pet cemetery!! Since moving into this house 5 years ago, I have lost 7 pets!! The first, Paddy my bulldog had cancer and I had to make the heart-breaking decision to have him put to sleep when it got so bad that he was suffering terribly. He was also 13 when he died which is an incredible age for a bulldog! The vets came to my house and he died in my arms and I sat on the floor with him for half an hour afterwards sobbing and cuddling him. It seemed like the worst day of my life and I didn’t think I would EVER get over it.

Then I had Fatty, he was my cat I had rehomed. I rehomed him at the age of 10 and had only had him 3 years but I was sooooo in love with him. He got run over and managed to drag himself back to the house with broken back legs before dying on the floor by the front door. I came home to find him and the grief hit me like a ton of bricks. I was also devastated for Skinny (my other cat I rehomed at the same time – they came as a pair) as she had clearly seen his dead body and wouldn’t come back in the house for 3 days. She was so upset and acting all wild and I didn’t know what to do to placate her. She did this horrible pained crying for 2 weeks afterwards, which was when I decided to get another cat or two. After much googling and researching, I decided that even if she didn’t like the new cat(s), it would be a good distraction for her to stop her crying and being alone. It worked a treat anyway, from the day I brought Spider and Sugar home, she perked up and stopped crying.

The next, Peggy Sue, my pug had to be put to sleep after she developed a problem with her back and lost the use of her back legs. There really wasn’t another option for her, I looked into wheels and everything but she had also lost control of her bladder and was in a terrible state. The vet said it was for the best and she was put to sleep in my arms in the vets. I howled and yet again the grief was over-whelming.

The next was Cybil, another bulldog I rehomed. She was only 8 when she passed. I was away filming and my tosser of an ex (he will forever be referred to as “The Tosser”) called me while I was in Ireland to say that she had died. Apparently she died in her sleep peacefully. When I got home the next day (I couldn’t get a sooner flight and was beside myself), The Tosser had wrapped her in a blanket and already dug a hole in the garden. I kissed her face repeatedly and said my goodbyes before he put her in the ground. I still feel sick that I let anyone aside from my parents look after my animals.
The next was Sugar, my kitten. She was only 8 weeks when I got her and she very quickly showed signs of FIP (google it). The type she had is always fatal and I spent 2 months nursing her in the animal hospital while they did the 5 tests used to determine if it is FIP (I knew it was and argued with the vets all along that it was but they kept doing other stupid tests for AIDS and leukaemia and at one point even told me “she just has laryngitis”). I wanted Sugar to know that she was loved so went to visit her every day and spent around 3 hours a day with her just cuddling her and talking to her. It was so tough because the virus that causes FIP is highly contagious to other cats so each day I went to see her I would have to strip all my clothes off at the front door and leave them outside so as not to carry the virus into the house (I was so paranoid about my other cats getting it as Spider and Bobcat were only tiny kittens too at the time). Eventually when Sugar’s stomach swelled to the size of a football (a sure sign of FIP along with all the other symptoms), she too was put to sleep in my arms and I cried for a week. I was filming my TV show at the time “making babies” and I literally kept bursting into tears at work. It was so hard. Trying to hold it together while interviewing women about getting pregnant was tough and they were very dark days for me.

The next was Skinny, my other rescue cat. I found her in the garden one day and it looked like she had had a heart attack or died from old age. She was old, I can’t be sure but I found vet records which showed she would have been maybe 13 when I rehomed her and I had had her 4 years. Skinny too broke my heart as the love she and I shared was incredible. She was the most affectionate cat in the world and even my training partner sobbed when she found out as Skinny used to come in the gym with us every day and sit on us while we trained.
So yeah, it’s been emotional. My mum said to me the day Louie died that she wouldn’t get another pet because she couldn’t handle it when they passed. I told her “I’d rather lose Louie after 11 amazing years with him than never have had him at all” and it’s true! All my animals that have passed have been amazing in their own way and have brought me so much joy and love and laughter. I’m glad I had them all and I don’t regret it for a second. I now have 5 dogs and 4 cats (Ralph Rottie, Rosie Rottie, Marshall Pug, Wendy cross breed, Jeff Jack Russell and Smudge, Maggie, Bobcat and Spider the cats). And I can honestly say my animals are my whole life. I wouldn’t be without them!!

Anyway, I don’t want this whole blog to be depressing so let’s talk about other things that have happened this week:

This week I received a package in the post addressed to MY HOUSE. As I opened it, I could see that whatever was inside looked weird (it was a small parcel wrapped in plastic and duct tape) so I took it over to my neighbour’s house and asked them to open if for me. Turns out it was a package of skunk (as in, drugs!). I called the police yesterday to report it as I was worried that this might be the start of something weird. I already have a stalker in prison who was sending me obscene things for a year and ended up getting caught peering through my windows. Also, I’ve never done drugs and am VERY anti-drugs so I worried that this may have been done maliciously (as in, someone trying to set me up). After I called the police to tell them about it and they offered to come and pick it up, I then panicked. Remember the police ARRESTED me for TEXTING MY OWN HUSBAND asking for money he owes my dad?????!!!!!!!!??????!!!!!!!! Yes: WTF???? So I then thought “what if they try something silly, like arresting me for possession”? After all, I wouldn’t put anything past them these days. They are due to come tonight at 7pm. I have big electric gates on my property so I’m tempted to wait outside the gates with my parents (with the gates closed) and film the whole exchange. I genuinely am that paranoid about them! Believe me, after spending 12 hours lying on a concrete bed in a cell for sending a non-violent, non-abusive text, you know that anything is possible when it comes to me and Essex Police! I shall keep you updated as to what happens!

Also, this week I am still juggling the brand new website – the one you are reading right now!! It’s all a learning curve for me. With the shop section, no matter what I do I get people moaning at me. Either the sizes aren’t big enough, or they aren’t small enough! What they don’t stop to think about is that as yet I am not making these clothes myself. I plan to make them myself (not actually by my own hand haha, but design them and have them made) but until then I am stocking items from other designers. So I can only stock the sizes that the designers make! And a lot of designers only go up to a size 14 (ridiculous I know, which is why I want to design them myself and have them made). I think I’ve now got a good selection of sizes and a good selection of styles but the way I’m working is this: If I like something, I buy it. I don’t want to stock big OR small sizes in anything just for the sake of it. I want to sell unique and beautiful clothes so there’s no point in me stocking some ugly item just because it goes up to a size 26! Also, I’m doing all this alone with no help. I’m going and buying the clothes, I’m dealing with all the orders and packaging them up (if you’ve bought anything you will see my hand writing on the packaging). So basically people need to calm their knickers and realise that my aim is to stock amazing items in ALL sizes. But I have to start somewhere and every new business starts off small. I think I’m doing ok considering I have no help!! Haha. Remember I’m also running my protein and supplement business jstjodie.com!!! I am surviving on about 4 hours sleep a night at the moment but as soon as I can I will be taking on staff. I want to be bigger than ASOS! The good thing about me is that I don’t and have never followed fashion (at least I think that’s a good thing). What that means is that I cater for all those who like to be different or quirky or crazy or who want to stand out. I LOVE clothes and shoes so much and I hate the idea of being told what to wear by the fashion industry. I wear what I like and I wear things that I think are beautiful. Whether it’s a certain fabric or some beautiful bright colours; to me, what you wear should be fun and make you feel good and say something about you (other than just “I FOLLOW FASHION”). Every time I get dressed to go out, I feel good because I know I love what I’m wearing. And this is something I want to promote more of in the future!

I hope you’re all enjoying the recipe section of this website! I am SO enjoying creating the recipes. I have so much good stuff up my sleeve! But again, this all takes time. Not only do I create the dish by myself, but I also write it up and upload it to here and also I take all the pictures of the food myself too. It’s time-consuming but I love it! I especially love the cheese biscuits I made yesterday as I ate them last night and again for breakfast today. I know this isn’t an ideal breakfast nutritionally but what with it being such a hard week, my eating habits have been all over the place. I’ve lost a bit of weight this week through stress and not eating right but these things happen when you lose a precious family member. Even so, the cheese biscuits were divine – you should make them!!

Today, when I finish writing this I have loads of orders to process for the clothing on the website and then I am going in the gym to train and then I am going to hoover the whole house before my parents come over. Oh the glamour!!! I’d LOVE to hire a cleaner but the older I get, the less I trust people and so I find myself doing it all. Nearly everyone I’ve ever been close to has stabbed me in the back at one point or another (that can be my next blog) so it’s hard even finding something as simple as a good cleaner.
For tonight I have bought myself a Pizza Express margarita pizza for dinner. It’s quick and easy and I will throw a ton of veg on the top to make it “healthier”. I’m looking forward to it to be honest. As you probably know, I LOVE my food and every day I wake up thinking about what to have for dinner. Last night was a salad and pitta and cheesy chips from the kebab shop (terrible I know, but I think it’s allowed during this week from Hell). Next week I will be back to eating proper healthy food and will hopefully feel better too! It’s been emotional and exhausting and I don’t know how I’ve coped to be honest.
Tweet me if there’s anything you’d like me to write about! I’ll do my next blog about people who stab you in the back. It’ll be amusing to say the least! I’m off to do some work. Thanks for subscribing and sorry I’ve been lame for the last couple of weeks but I’ve had a ton of stress (aside from Louie and being over worked, more another time!). I hope you’re all having a lovely weekend. All my love Jodie x

RIP LOUIE, I love you x

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