We need a Citizens Assembly. Donna Fox Anniversary 2023. Road Safety,

Tragedy upon tragedy on our roads united us all the last few weeks. We must build upon this collective sadness and shock now and make walking, cycling, driving on our roads as safe as possible. Almost every loss or injury or bereavement are preventable, this is why we are so passionate about fighting for road safety.

Today marks the seventh anniversary since my sister Donna Fox was killed cycling to work in Dublin city. Almost every year since I have took to the airwaves in one form or another in trying to promote the importance of road safety and how it impacts absolutely every person. We all are road users after all. I never take for granted the support and coverage, and will always pay tribute to the media for highlighting stories and issues relating to road safety. With the media things would be far far worse. 

Donna was 30 years old, a normal person going about a normal day like all the 25 people who never made it home in August just gone. Donna was a kind, caring, loving sister to me, beyond loyal and supportive. Not a day goes by without missing her but yet her spirit always feels close by. 

Due to the enormity of recent losses including of infants and young students, all ages of course, but the loss of the young brings such a mourning for what might have been and as for infants...it just is beyond heart-breaking; I opted against the usual simple "Give Time, Give Space" memorial today on cycling directed at motorists. It is postponed. However, it would be impossible to stay silent totally today given the fact Road Safety is the main news on Donna's anniversary and there has been an announcement from the Minister of State Jack Chambers and the department of Justice regarding speeding limits. 

While I warmly welcome this move and will support it and any other measures that RSA, Government, An Gardai Siochana bring about or try to, with a clear aim of saving lives, it simply is not enough. It also is crazy to think it has took this long for them to come to this decision. A child could have told them it was required decades ago! 

Having repeatedly spoke against the decision to drop road safety to a junior position in government since Shane Ross left office in 2020, I think my position is clear on this as outlined most recently last week in The Irish Examiner. 

Today I am calling for what is actually required. 

What is a must! 

We need a root and branch overhaul where road safety is concerned. 

We need to go to the drawing board, we need to look at international best practice, we need all stake holders to listen to one another, we need the voices of support organizations for victims of road traffic collisions heard. We must see this for what it is, a mess but one that can be righted with proper focus.

I am asking for a Citizens Assembly to be set up as soon as possible on road safety strategy to assist the government, gardai, RSA and all tasked with this enormous responsibility to keep us and our loved ones safe on the roads. 

I have Borderline Personality Disorder. Blog1 "Diagnosis"

 Personality. "You have a great personality". 

"One thing you don't lack is personality."

And as I am Irish an oft expression would be "Ah Neil is great craic", "Sure Foxy is a good skin." 

Not to make out that I have no detractors, critics or those who might struggle to say a nice word about me, but I am pretty sure nobody would have ever thought I had a personality condition that was harming my life and affecting not just me but those close to me too. 

Fond of a drink at times. He has his demons. Searching soul. Let's things get on top of him. Deep. But a gas character when he is himself.... 

But personality disorder...nah!

"You know about personality traits?" My psychiatrist asks me after a lengthy session. 

I had been watching England beat Morocco in the first half of one of their games in the waiting area. Assuming an ordinary session was on the cards just as I assumed a win was England's too. I was right on the latter at least. Caught on the hop on the former. My boyfriend said afterwards, and probably rightly so "Just as well you didn't know what was coming..." 

For decades I have had depression, at times severe and even profound, always there at best moderate. It is normally manageable, with some major flare ups but it's with me so long that I probably felt as I entered the psychiatrist's office in the hospital, that I knew what type questions and chat we would have. I knew I would be given the same prescription for the depression. I'd let him know about the progress in the last couple of months, about the weekly talk therapy I have committed to and the like.

I always feel the need to stress some positive in sessions as it can otherwise seem like a moan fest or drain me and I often think, probably wrongly, them also if I just focus solely on what's worsening, not improving or causing me problems, the chaos, the pain, the fears, the desperation of a mind at war with itself. I class myself as an eternal optimist, odd I know given my mind can be so negative and self destructive. But in the chair I think it is important to give some positive, and the good thing is I can always pluck some positives out without resorting to polly-anna syndrome or lies. 

We would map out a little plan perhaps building on what's helping and looking at what isn't. We would discuss the suicidal end of things, something I always dread. It always makes me anxious as it's so hard to know what way to phrase things that will ensure I won't have Gardai coming running! It is something nobody says, but discussing being suicidal is a real tough one. We are told by every mental health campaign out there to tell someone but it puts an onus on them to report it, its a tricky area most of us don't fully understand and the notion that my thoughts need the attention of police just seems absurd to me. I will say yes I am still having suicidal thoughts regularly but not as bad as a few months ago. But aside from that, I am always an open book so I was not pre-empting what I would be saying to him.

An appointment with a psychiatrist is never something I see as just routine, no matter how relaxed I may be about needing to be under their care. However, I was not in the least worried about it. I was glad of the support and the profession which is unfairly maligned in my opinion. 

Borderline Personality Disorder. I am glad he didn't use abbreviations, BPD seemed too casual, too glib for what was like a time bomb going off....

It has been 12 days now since the conversation. The consultation. Session. 

On the tenth day I opted to press post on X, but until that moment I was in honesty shell-shocked and bewildered. Somehow, putting it out into the world is easier than telling people individually. That might sound ridiculous perhaps it is. I had just told two friends and Robert before that. It is weird as obviously it is something old not new, as in I have had the symptoms and issues for decades, but the idea of it being an actual disorder, a named condition just somehow floored me. 

I sat in the park staring out at the trees. 

It was a shock because it hits the nail on the head. It fits. It fits in a way nothing else ever has. 

Today I walked the beach nearest me, glorious Tramore. I have walked it many times in many states of mind. 

The psychiatrist printed off some information for me to read at leisure. Weirdly I did just that, I am a fast reader and avid scribbler on pages normally, always taking notes and drawing analogies. But these pages I held in my hands the other week sat on a bench in The People's Park, I read slowly, very slowly. 

At least there is a cool song that keeps coming to my mind these last days as I digest the news that I have borderline personality disorder. 

"Borderline feels like I'm going to lose my mind

You just keep on pushing my love over the borderline"

Good ole Madonna.

The days of walk-mans and Bermuda shorts come to mind.

The days when the seeds had already been planted it seems for this disorder and the depression to come. 

Chat next Tuesday night.

Thanks to all on X in particular for the messages and likes and  the 112,000 views so far of my coming out as Borderline. 

Borderline personality disorder - Wikipedia Strangely Wikipedia is pretty good on it overall. 

GDPR and RSA and #RoadSafety

There aren't words to describe how much it would help if RSA and similar bodies revealed appropriate details on collisions. It's difficult to fathom how it currently doesn't. 

We must address the carnage on our roads in a robust way, all of us. There can be no hiding behind gdpr or the like where the common good is concerned.

Donna Fox was my sister, she was a fatal statistic in 2016. The ninth of the ten cyclists killed. One out of the  188 who were killed on our roads that year.

Donna was killed in an unprotected cycle lane on her way to work. A painted line since altered thankfully.

A lorry driver hit and killed her sadly. Since then I've met countless men and women who have lost loved ones, but I'm possibly more passionate about those who survive with bad injuries... They need a voice. Life altering injuries, even milder ones, destroy and change lives. 

This must be addressed. 

If GDPR is an obstacle to saving lives we must as a country look at it. We can't sleep walk here.

Serious injuries destroy lives effect our economy and hamper family life all over our country, absolutely anything that can contribute to addressing this is a must.

I'm a huge supporter of RSA on a personal level and also professionally but we must look at GDPR. If it negatively affects road safety and the information and action upon it which will save lives and reduce and hopefully eliminate injuries and fatalities, the RSA , our government and the dept of Transport and Justice must pull their heads together and do something.

I like all road victims and their loved ones support all investigation into this and into how things can be improved. Statistics seem cold but when unrevealed it's worse. We must have statistics and information to protect lives on our roads, to learn best practice, to educate and to figure the best way forward. I support any endeavor to improve this. 

A poem