19 Feb 2024

Why Did You Call Your Dog Something So Stupid?,

 I can imagine that a big question from the last blog post would be "Why Did You Call Your Dog Something So Stupid?" and honestly, I would a hundred percent understand why anyone asked that question, because it is a really dumb and ridiculous name, but I guess the first answer is it's not actually her name.

Chai wasn't Chai until she met me. Her name was China, and honestly, I like the idea of changing a rescue dogs name as something of an ending of a chapter and to try and help them partition in their mind that when things were like X I was called Whatever... I know that that is way too over complicated for a dog, but I kind of hope calling her something different she associates with something good, if that makes sense. Honestly, the intention was just to call her Chai and that was that. 

Except for sone reason, I called her Chai Pants once, and it stuck. And then a couple of weeks later I was packing a bag to go *somewhere* can't remember where, it's not like it matters, and she was on my bed (must have been a few months later because I wasn't worried about accidents at the time) and I was putting out things on my bed that I needed to pack and that included pants. And I'm setting them out on my bed and I go back to the drawer, turn around and see she's toddled across the bed to the pile of pants and she has a pair on her head. I honestly couldn't stop laughing. I don't know if it was something in the universe saying, well if you're going to call her something loopy she's going to have to earn it, but it was brilliant.

Then another time, I called her Chai Bean. And I have referred to her as just Bean a few times and she knows I mean her. Maybe it's just my tone or something, but she will occasionally answer to Bean, although I have also called her Chai Banana before and she doesn't answer to Banana in any tone. 

I picked her up at one stage and was playing around and jamming all of the names together and one of the things that came out was Chai Banana Vanilla Coca (I think I'm spelling that right, but I'm spelling it phonetically to how I was saying it so it doesn't matter) Bean, and it amused me, so it stuck. What helps with that is that she didn't care. I mean, obviously she didn't care, she's a dog, but some dogs get upset if you laugh at them, particularly if you dress them up for Hallowe'en and then laugh at them, but Chai isn't like that. She has this incredible expression that is like, what on Earth are you doing to me now you weirdo, but when I dressed her up in a dog safe doctor (or dogtor) costume and laughed, she wasn't fussed, and I honestly think her Percy Pig hoodie is her favourite thing in all the world, and honestly, it's mine, too, especially with the hood up. She's not a dog, she's a living ball of fur that I make ridiculous, but she's the light of my life. 

18 Feb 2024

Chai Banana Vanilla Coca Bean,

 Out of all the silly titles I have ever given my blogs, this one is probably one of the silliest and that's because it's named after a few of the silly names that I give to my silly little girl. 

This blog has been morphing in my head as I've been trying to get to write it (it's been a whole process - do not judge) and I have to admit that I think I've written something close to being like this before but decided for whatever reason I was not going to publish it and I don't know if I actually deleted it or not, because when I searched the blog for Chai's name, precious little actually came back, but I did find this little gem from around 2021 (note to self, write reference to the thing first before closing the page the thing is on so you can go back and check dates etc)

"She came from a breeding farm, peed all over the carpets and crawled her way into my heart when I wasn't looking, but she's wonderful - except when she is barking at three o'clock in the morning, at which point, she's a lot less cute. She petrified of everything, but getting braver, meeting the family and starting to have a life that doesn't involved producing and looking after puppies, and I couldn't want any more for her."

I stand by almost every word of this, but the thing I can't stand by is the 'I couldn't want any more for her' because honestly, I want her to have a sibling, and there is a big reason for that. 

This whole post has come about because I saw a beautiful and broken dog on the page of one of the rescues I really need to unfollow for the moment, because I know there are things I need to do before committing myself to getting another dog, and it's not fair to Chai, to me, or to any other dog to even think about rushing that because I've seen 'the perfect dog' on a Facebook page. This isn't going to make a lot of sense outside of my head, or has the potential not to anyway, but here goes nothing... there is no such thing as THE perfect dog, because every dog is the perfect dog, what there is such thing as is the perfect home for each dog. I know that Dogtor Chai (she was dressed up as a dogtor for Hallowe'en and it is still the funniest thing I have ever seen bar one video about flags in the Six Nations) and I would both love to have another dog living with us, and I also know both of our minds would be totally blown and worlds would be turned upside down when the new girl (because let's face it, we're probably going for another girl because we're an all girl household/ Coven of Bitches) arrived, but we have plenty of love, blankets and tuna to spare and I think we could help another traumatised girl to find herself again, but this time it might not be as hard as it was before. 

What do I mean? Well, the topic of conversation which cropped up around aforementioned beautiful and broken dog was this "unfair" stipulation of having to have a resident dog to adopt dogs with certain backgrounds and issues, and how *IT'S NOT FAIR*. Firstly, any adulting using that phrase makes me want to sarcastically ask ARE YOU NEW? and secondly, that depends who you're trying to be fair to, and the rescues are trying to be fair to the dog, and that is the right thing to do. It might make you feel all happy and special to think, oh, I can nurse this dog back to whatever with all my love and affection, but there is a reason that they need another dog. I say this as someone who is one hundred percent a dog lover and not anything close to a dog or animal behaviour expert, but also someone with first hand experience with dogs who are shut down. If someone is saying 'must be homed with another dog' it's not to stop you owning a dog, it's not to be unfair to those without a dog and it's not discrimination, it's putting what the dog needs first and not producing a situation like Chai and I.

I'm not going to get too much into the circumstances Chai was in before I got her, because it's not fair for me to do that. I got a snapshot of her life, I don't think the people had her were bad people at all, but she was a part of a business and the product they were selling was her pups. Being a breeder does not make a person inherently bad; not by a long chalk. What I will say is that she was not lead trained, didn't wear a collar, wasn't socialised with people and she had had multiple litters of puppies.

I turned up to get her with a gorgeous new collar and lead (yellow and bees, a thousand percent me, definitely not something the dog gave a single sh!t about. She was running around the garden refusing to come near me or the person who who had just transferred her ownership chip to me, but eventually they got ahold of her and I clipped the collar on, and bingo, we're off to go home. Except we're not because it took her less than two seconds to slip the collar and go back to playing the game of Round and Round the Garden. So we try tightening the collar and go again. Same result. No dice. Thankfully, they had a spare harness, which despite a lot of wriggling in protect, Chai couldn't slip, but not for lack of trying, and at this point both the humans are thinking this is taking an age and we're getting nowhere, so she's carried to the car by them and then my mum drove me and Chai back to my place for the simple reason that I can't drive and when I said to my mum, she's nervous as hell, just don't engage with her, don't try and stroke her, just don't even look at her if you don't need to, because she's going to need time, my mum does just that. She drops us off and she leaves me to it. 

It's mid August, but not the hot kind of mid August, and my house feels pretty cool, but this scruffy little ragamuffin is panting like she's being cooked and I know enough to know she's terrified, because she's in a new place with a new person and she doesn't know what's happening, so I just think, screw it, I'm going to sit on the floor in the same room, I'm going to put on some easy background noise (didn't think about the fact that she wasn't used to a TV) so Beauty and the Beast live action on, and I'm just talking to the air occasionally, calmly, quietly, just to let her get used to the sound of my voice. When I tried to take her outside to see if she might pee outside (I was trying to save the carpet - it didn't work) she found the dip in the grass (she says as though there is one single dip and not a multitude of them) and sat in it, and she didn't want to come out. If I had a jar that I had to pay every time I thought 'What the DUCK have I done?' for that first day, week, month, probably four months, I would be simultaneously rich and poor, because all of my money would be in it and I would have a heavy reliance on IOUs. 

This was two and a half years ago, so the exact details of every day that happened between then and now is obviously not seared into my brain like the lines on a steak, but there were some highlights. She seems a bit more chilled so introduce her to the person who was my intro to the person I got her from. She's a woman, so not someone Chai will be immediately terrified of... except I then needed to get the sofa cleaned because she went from sat on one side of it to jumping across it and over the air to the floor, peeing all the way. She would hide behind the sofa if there was even a small gap for her to squeeze through, she peed all over me because a motorbike went past when we attempted a walk, she tried to get through the fence at the park to get away, she got away from me on a walk once and ran across every exit of a five exit roundabout and nearly got hit by two cars. I was screaming her name after her, crying my eyes out and I couldn't find her, so I called my mum devastated and not sure what to do. One of her best friends is decidedly not a dog person (both my dog and my mum's get called Mutley by this person and I'm not sure it's a compliment) but when I called my mum because I had found her - her lead got caught up in brambles that I cut my hands to ribbons getting her out of - was just about to drive my mother to me so they could both help me search and find her. I felt like the worst dog owner for losing her in the first place, and in my head it just meant that she didn't want to be with me and effectively saw me as her captor. I know that was daft, but I was spiralling.

There were times where I sat on the stairs with Chai in the living room, and I cried on the phone to my mum because I felt like I was failing her. I felt like the worst dog mum (and yes, I do call myself a dog mum) in the world and like everyone else was so put together and it was so easy, and here I was with this little fluff ball who thought I was the devil. I said a few times that if she had been from a rescue I would have taken her back. It wasn't a lack of love, because I did love her, but I just couldn't cope, I didn't know how, and neither did she. The big turn around, the part where I thought MAYBE I can get through this, maybe we can get through this, was having my mum's dog stay with me for two weeks.

All she wanted was to be close to him, to follow him, to do what he did, and although they both had accidents, during those two weeks, we got the hang of toilet training and there was a significant amount less p!ss on the living room carpet, and it felt like I could breath again. Not just because there wasn't the cloying smell of piss coming from a fresh puddle, but because there was light at the end of the tunnel. When Ted went home she did backslide a bit, but not so much with the toilet training, and honestly, I was thanking the gods because it got to me far more than I thought it would. When that carpet went, I wanted to throw it on a bonfire, but also felt like it should go into an incinerator for toxic waste because it was disgusting (I spot cleaned it thoroughly as things happened, but some things will never come off of a carpet, and I'm so glad I now have a solid floor there). As she's been out more, been to cafes and pubs and things, she's grown more used to people and noise and different smells, and whilst she isn't completely food motivated (giving her sausage won't make her like you, if she's scared, she won't eat it) she's started to understand that people aren't all bad, that noisy cafes might serves sausages and she can swim. She's been on holidays, she's ridden up front in the car (with the airbag turned off and appropriately restrained), she's been paddle boarding (wearing a life jacket and with me refusing to try and stand up so I don't knock her in without the ability to pull her out again) and there are a few things lined up for her to do this year which will mean she's done even more. It's a big life, but she would be more comfortable with another dog to share it with, because she is always happier when she has Teddy with her, and they spend A LOT of time together. 

I'm glad I didn't give up on her, because it would have broken my heart to do it, but I also know that it very nearly broke me keeping her, more than once. She was a lot for one person, with no other dog, and she has learnt so much and become so brave, but when I think about how challenging it has been for me, I can't help but think what I put her through to be with me, and to an extent I do feel really guilty. She could have been homed with someone else with another dog or with a pack of shih tzus and whilst she wouldn't have the life she has with me, she would have maybe been calmer quicker, and maybe she wouldn't have needed to be learning to love pubs, like paddling and maybe more. She might never have had to get used to kids, which is the really challenging one at the moment. There are reasons why I decided I needed to take her and they were mostly good reasons mixed with maybe a little bit of selfishness and a lot of misunderstanding of what it was going to take to look after her and help her, but I would like to think she wouldn't trade me for anyone else, and I definitely wouldn't trade her, but if we can one day adopt another, and she can be a big sister to a girl who is recovering from what she went through, I will be glad, because for as long as dogs are treated this way, I would like to help, and I know now what it takes and how much it takes to do that. 

So why did I write this? Because no one should feel entitled to rehome an ex-breeding dog, and because the thing to remember is it's not about you. I know when Chai and I are ready, there will be a dog out there who we can help, and that's what it's about. We can help them, not a we need them to come and live with us to help us be more of a family or whatever.

8 Feb 2024

Being Unhealthy Makes You Unhealthy,

I realise that sounds like stating the obvious; honestly, I do, but there's something more to it than just saying being ill means being ill. 

Over the past sixteen ish months I've learnt a lot about myself and some of it is stuff I was having to re-learn about living with anxiety and low moods, and some of it was learning about the issues I've had for a long time that were attributed to other things, like laziness. 

I took a period of time off work because I was not well, and it took me a while to feel better, and whilst I am feeling better in general these days, I am not back to "normal", I don't know when I will be and actually I don't know if I ever will be, because the normal that I was then might not be the normal that I get to when I feel normal again. 

In the midst of all of this, I'm realising that recovery isn't this perfect upswing; it's a bunch of tiny steps and back slides and then deciding to keep going and keep trying. Most of those back slides are going to be unintentional, because the brain is a weird little place and sometimes we feel worse than we did the day before just because. Those are the days that are the most difficult and on those days it is really difficult to fall into good habits which mean we make those little back slides in a recovery journey.

For me a big part of a good day is being able to focus on things, but I have a bad habit of hyper-focusing on things and it makes me forget to do other things, so I can end up forgetting to go and make myself food until I'm too hungry to think about it and I just want something I can eat in the moment, which means I eat a lot of ready in minutes things, which aren't exactly healthy, and I sometimes forget whether I bought bananas or not. (I also know that bananas aren't the answer to everything but they're pretty good.)

Thing is, when I forget to eat until I get like that, I end up eating late, which means I sleep late, because that's always been a thing. If I eat just before bed I won't settle, partly because my stomach won't settle and partly because it wakes me up. 

As soon as I don't sleep, whether because I've leant into the fact I was tired and haven't really moved much during the day, whether it's because I have eaten late, or whether it's because I just don't feel safe a lot of the time and that doesn't make it easy to sleep, it causes me to have other issues. I don't really know what causes me to feel like I'm not safe, but it's how I am, and it means that I'm going to lend the problems of one day over to the next day, because lack of sleep gives me headaches, makes me grouchy, makes me feel like I'm having a low mood and also makes me inclined to feel quite nauseated which doesn't help convince me to eat properly the next day.

As long as it's something you recognise and do your best to stop, as much as is humanly possible at the time, recovery is still possible. Sometimes that will be a monumental effort and other times it will be easier, but on bad days it's going to be the hardest thing you've ever tried to do, and what is worth remembering that the good days can outweigh the bad if you let them.

3 Feb 2024

Saturday,

 I was going to write this as two different blogs, but the reasons for one of them are the reasons it's going to be one instead.

Today has been a great day because not only has the rugby been back on (it actually started yesterday with the joys of Ireland giving France a good walloping) but also England were playing WITHOUT FARRELL and they won, even though they made a hash of it (Italy got the losing bonus point because the England defence is utterly shocking at the moment) and then Wales got their heads out of their asses in the second half of their match to pull the game back to almost level and denied Scotland a bonus point by a last minute hold up. Whilst the ball wasn't grounded because it went down onto an ankle as opposed to because it was actively held up, the defence through the second half of the game had been incredible and in those last minutes of the game they gave it everything. And it was incredible. To me, even though I know Wales lost and they only got a losing bonus point, this felt like a massive win. I took much more joy from the Wales game than the England game, probably because I love an underdog story, and it was good to see the litany of newer players coming up, where England are still relying a bit too much on the older generation, and that does not bode well for the next couple of years. So yes, rugby, loved it, and not just because one of the players was working so hard to get a try that he didn't seem to realise he had his ass out to the wind for a bloody long while. Or because I got a bit overexcited when I saw one of the players was wearing Oddballs on the pitch.

The reason this is all one blog is because I am so tired right now. 

I started my ADHD medication a few days ago and whilst it is helping to give me a bit of clarity and honestly, this is the best I have felt in a long time and is definitely the best I have ever felt on any form of medication, one of the less fun side effects is tiredness. I was looking forward to being tired, because it meant that I would be able to sleep, and I have been able to sleep and that is great, but because I've not got to the point (because it's only been a few days) where I am getting up earlier, because of being able to sleep earlier and sleep better, I'm tired when I want to do things like write, or watch TV, and it slightly feels like the sort of tiredness that stops me from doing things. I know that consistency with my medication is one of the things which helps it to work better for me and I know that my head is in a better place with the medication than without it, I don't feel like I can live my normal weekend, because I can't drink if I'm not at home (or rather I won't drink if I'm not at home, because it feels too risky), I need to try and keep a similar schedule to my weekday so that I keep working towards functioning better at work, and because I like going out and getting lost in something and spending hours out, and I am getting too tired to be able to do that, because I need to focus on my ability to get home. 

But overall, the side effects I was warned of with the medication haven't been anything like as bad as they could have been, I'm not resistant to the medication that I need, and actually the fact that it's working is proving I wasn't misdiagnosed with ADHD, which was something I was very worried about. Whilst I know that it's early days and I'm nowhere near a hundred percent, this feels like a really positive thing. 

The Cost of Existing,

There are a lot of times when we discuss the idea of the difference between living and surviving or living and existing, and it's about trying to make us see what's important in our lives. Some people are tied into a fight for existence, because it's all that they can afford to do. Some people say it is their own faults, some people say it's a fact of life and others still will say it is the society we live in. And then we start talking about the cost of living crisis.

The cost of living crisis isn't a cost of living issue, it's a cost of existing. Having a room over your head isn't about living, it's a basic survival need. Having electricity and gas and water, whether that's for cooking, warming you're space, drinking, washing yourself or washing your clothes, whatever, that's not about living, it's a simple existence. We need to eat, we need to wash, we need somewhere safe to sleep. Every time there is good news that seems to 'steady the ship' like the government budget giving people a little more money a month if they pay National Insurance, you get an announcement from something like the water company where they are putting the prices up despite the fact that they are failing in their duties to do even basic environmental clean up from things that they have done wrong.

Why am I talking about all of this doom and gloom? Because this, and the National Housing Crisis we are also experiencing are being perpetuated because of a few different things that could probably be changed pretty easily.

Firstly, there are homes in the UK that are only available if you have cash to buy them and not if you need to take a mortgage and that's because mortgage companies will not lend on homes under a certain square footage. I don't know what the reason for this is, other than the potential that it could limit the saleability of the property later, but particularly at the moment where there is big interest in things like tiny houses and van life, it seems crazy that you can only look to own one of those homes if you have fifty or sixty thousand pounds in the bank, or more, plus legal fees and moving expenses, plus anything you need to kit out your studio or tiny home or whatever you want to call it to work for you and to be to your taste. There are less issues in the rental market in terms of size - if someone will pay to live there, you can rent it. There are some issues when it comes to number of people for the size of a place and fire safety regulations in order to evacuate a building, but these two things basically make these properties available only to landlords who charge the earth for them.

Additionally, when people are interested in things like van life, the cost of buying a van (especially a ready converted one) maintaining it, let alone insuring it! can feel like a drop in the ocean compared to finding places to park it. There is a growing community online assisting in finding free parking spaces, and particularly Scotland are becoming more accommodating allowing for such places in touristy areas where they know there will be demand for them, but it's still not easy, and it's still the sort of thing where places to clean your composting or chemical toilet are not readily available facilities, and there aren't places like Walmart from the USA where it is possible to fill the large vats people use for water onboard, so even that can be a challenge. It's not insurmountable, but it makes this sort of life more difficult than it needs to be. There are similar issues for people living on narrow boats as well. 

Whilst people can use narrow boats and campers as a cheaper alternative to a second home with the added benefit of being able to move it to anywhere you want - within reason - there are people who have found a way to make it work as a cheaper way of existing (providing the fundamental things they need to survive) or even as a way of life. I would love to be able to live in a wan and travel, but with my job being what it is and particularly the political decisions around spending more time in the office than at home, it's not feasible, because I would need to spend so much time in one city, and this is in spite of the fact I can do my job completely successfully with a laptop and a decent internet connection which I can get from almost anywhere. 

This isn't just a moan about me and what I want and what I can't have in my life, even if it sounds like it. I guess it's me saying I believe that the rules of law, and mortgages and insurance and so many other things are contributing to the fact that most people are in survival mode and we're basically saving to have a life in the future, or to live whilst we're on holiday, on annual leave or for the weekends, and we put it off so much I'm not sure we ever even really remember to do it. People talk about life being what happens whilst you're busy making your excuses, and to some extent that can really be true, and it's why it's important to squeeze as much life into the time you have as you can. If I knew how to change things to make it possible to get a loan like a mortgage on a camper van, I would change it. If I knew how to make changes so that people could get a mortgage on a tiny home so that they could have somewhere to live that was affordable, believe me, I would, and if it helped more people to break out of the rent cycle, where rent takes up over a third of a lot of people's incomes, I really would, but it's not something within my personal gift.

31 Jan 2024

I Can't Believe I Finally Get To Write This,

A couple of days ago I finally got an appointment I was waiting to have for a very long time, and the result of it is finally getting some meds to try and help me manage the symptoms of ADHD that have been causing me a lot of problems recently. But saying it like that feels like glossing over some of what happened so I'm going to take a step back. 

I have been trying to get a diagnosis for what I struggle with for a long time, definitely since I was 16, but possibly longer than that as well without me remembering the details. In places I feel like I have had little support on this, and other times I've had support that hinged upon conditions. We can help you if it's this, but since it's not that, the support has now gone, and you need to look elsewhere, but we're not going to tell you where. It's not what we thought it was, but we're not going to tell you what we think it might be. Maybe that's because specialists are very focused on their own areas, and anything outside of that is kind of just the void. It was difficult and there were times I struggled with it a lot more than other times and plenty of times where I thought just accept that this is your life. The idea of advocating for myself wasn't something I really understood for a while, and it's something I haven't always had the energy or capacity for. 

I walked into the appointment that I had a couple of days ago with a coffee in my hand and a splitting headache because I had barely slept due to worrying, and because I needed to get up rather early to get there. I thought I was going to have to advocate for myself to be able to get the medication that will hopefully help me. Without trialing the medication I have no idea if it will work, but I honestly thought I was going to have a fight on my hands to get to trial it, because hey, there's a lot of other things we can try first, but then the clinicians pretty much told me that they know that trialing the medication is the best thing, that for eighty percent of people it works and the hope is that I'm in that eighty percent. They needed to run a couple of tests to make sure that my physical health could cope with the type of medication I would be prescribed, and then they got me the prescription. I honestly didn't expect to feel disappointed at not needing to fight, but I guess that I had worked myself up to it so much that I couldn't comprehend not having to fight. I guess that when I have spent so long feeling like I was banging my head against the wall, getting somewhere without having to argue, getting support without having to demand it just feels weird. It's not bad, of course, but it is weird. And unexpected. 

I'm writing this on the eve of beginning the medication, because I needed to drive today and I couldn't start a new medication and then drive, and on the day that I got the tablets it was too late when I had them for me to be able to then start them that day. (I also wouldn't have started them and then been driving the next day because that sounds like a recipe for disaster, not knowing how they would impact me overnight.) Obviously, I'm probably going to write something when I've had a few days or weeks to settle on them, but I guess that is dependent on how they make me feel and whether or not they realise my biggest fear, which is that the medication to help me function stops me from being me, or it limits me in how much *me* I can be.

29 Jan 2024

Please Try Not To Laugh,

Because right now I am serious. This is an issue and it becomes an issue every camp. And what is immediately obvious or what I should make immediately obvious is that I have sensory issues. I react to a lot of things a lot of the time and my skin has what can literally be thought of as an allergic reaction to stress when I am unwell, struggling, not coping, whatever you want to call it. I get what Americans call Hives as a reaction across my body, as such I stick to things I know, I stick to what I like, I stick to washing liquids I know I am okay with and sadly it still happens, but whatever, that's life, right? 

Okay, so what the hell do I wear to a sleepover with the Cubs? 
I know, it's that whole joke of having a wardrobe (or several) full of clothes and sitting there saying you have nothing to wear. Why do you own it if you don't or can't wear it? It's not always I can't, sometimes it is just an I can't *right now* or I can't *when I'm away from home and can't change*, or the fun one I can't *wear that in a semi-public place*. At home, I can sleep in whatever because the only person at risk of seeing me is the dog (who doesn't care, I know, she told me) or the delivery guy and that's with me wearing some form of dressing gown or coat over the top, and hiding behind the door. (Seriously, don't laugh, I'm not in the minority of people, most of us have done it even if we don't admit to it.)

When you're in a tent all by yourself then you are able to just wear whatever you want even if that is just your sleeping bag, but what you need to keep in mind is that if, in the middle of the night, one of the kids has an emergency or is sick or sad or whatever, the time it takes to respond is not just, let me wake up slightly and put a hoodie or something warm because it's cold outside of the tent and leg it across to where the kids are and becomes something about getting on a whole set of clothes. In the dark. Because I often lose things in the middle of the night because I kick them so they move, or I move and I have ended up waking up having somehow rolled so my head is where my feet were when I went to sleep so trying to sort myself out to be able to get dressed, particularly without getting too cold by getting out of my sleeping bag. 

Staying in a building can actually make it more difficult as well, because some of the buildings we stay in, all the leaders are in together and my Pack has a majority of male leaders. I'm not saying that as a bad thing, but it is something that needs to be taken into consideration when thinking about what to wear. All guys being in together and sleeping in their pants or pants and a t-shirt is one thing, but it's a bit different when it's a mixed room, or a room with people you don't know overly well or at all well. I've been on a couple of camps where I have shared a tent with someone else or have planned to share a tent with someone else, and honestly, for me it only really works in the sort of tents where there's a divider down the middle and either with older kids who are unlikely to have an issue overnight or with a significant plan of what to do if one of the kids wakes me up and needs me. 

This isn't even really a new thing. 

When I was in Scouts myself I went to a sleepover and was having an issue with pyjamas - I didn't know about the ADHD at the time, and I didn't know it was going to become a lifelong issue, which I guess I'm just assuming it will be at the moment because it's not got better since then - and I needed to get up in the middle of the night because of an asthma attack, and the only thing I could find to wear whilst being around my leader was my camp blanket. Thankfully she had known me enough years to know it was me and I'm a bit weird and the best thing to do is just ignore me and let me do whatever weird thing I am doing. 
Anyway I managed to find something to wear, took my giant fluffy hoodie with me not because I thought I would be cold, but because no one could say this thing is inappropriate (except if I want to wear it into the office, which I don't do) and thankfully, I didn't react to anything clothing wise, and whatever it was that did upset some my skin was calmed down by Doublebase before it got too bad.