Blogging, Life and the Universe

Once upon a time we were wedded to our blogs. Followed others with great passion from the safety of anonymous keyboards though with a genuine sense of care and affection. Then we move on and what happens to those bloggers, what happened to me?

At least two of those bloggers have passed on, one I knew in real life. My children are adults and live independently. Mr Doris and I celebrate 20 years with a renewed vigour that has taken some determination and effort. Friendships have evolved and careers have taken extraordinary changes. My father has a mixed dementia and after a year of intensive support we admitted him to a care home for his safety. Sometimes he is completely with it and shouldn't be in a care home and sometimes he is on another planet. He found a new woman to love, she too has dementia. He has never smiled and laughed as much as he did this past year, but they are now in different care homes because society can not cope as they may want to sleep in the same bed and cuddle.

Emotionally I am in the best place I have ever been. I now work for myself, in my own treatment room at home doing things the way I want. I've expanded my offerings and with ease go from doing a beauty treatment to sessions of therapy using EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) or tapping. A variation of tapping: Matrix Reimprinting, has been really significant to me rewriting traumatic events from my childhood so that I am able to move on and feel as if I had the nourishment I should have had back then. Writing this blog was cathartic in its day and helped along with the other learnings along the way of life, but it has been the tapping which has been significant. Now I get to work with others and help them too with this incredible therapy.

In the past years Mr Doris and I have travelled, with significant travels and lots of little travels this year. In the past year Mr Doris has studied and changed career. With just a few years off 60 I'll go with him to his graduation in a few weeks. I thought I did well to change career in my late 40s but it seems we are never too old to learn new tricks.

The sun has been shining in the UK for a sustained period of time. How lovely it has been to not have to wear many clothes!

And then there is Facebook. I got into it late, embraced it and now have a problem with it. The less I do social media the happier I am. I clearly still have issues to work with and whilst I appreciate being able to know friends and family are alive and well, there is a point where I value my privacy and don't wish X who I met once upon a time to know what I commented on such and such post. Then we either get the "everything is fabulous, I am fabulous" posts or the "woe is me, you don't understand" posts. That is unfair of me I know, because there are really good bits and snippets and information and I love seeing baby pictures. So I relate this back to the blogging years and how Facebook feels in comparison. Blogging was more sedate and, for me, could be done almost anonymously. I liked that, a safe place to consider, ponder and share.

PS. Oh yes, and thirteen years to the month since I first blogged. I was late to blogging too!

Steamrollered

It would not be any surprise in the least that I feel like a steam roller has slowly and unhesitatingly continued to mow me down. Not that I feel crushed, more that I can feel the weight of it sitting on my shoulders.

The weight of everything lately has felt enormous and I have tried hard not to feel bowed by it. Seeing a friend through her last months and to her last breath has been quite a journey and now to help organise her funeral and then there is the meeting of all these people I do not know who are going through their own grieving processes. I have already cried much and gone through what I have. In organising the funeral one needs to hold it together and so I wonder if these people who never knew me realise that although I did not seem to cry yesterday, that perhaps I had already done much of that. That I am not cold or heartless. Anyway, that is just an incidental. A curious thought rather than anything else.

Did I say how tired I felt? I suppose it does not help for me to keep saying that or else I'll never stop being tired unless I think more energetic thoughts. I still keep up with all my work and am scraping along where I can. My darling Mr Doris and even son too, were amazing yesterday. So helpful and charming. When guests were leaving I'd hear them specifically call my son by his name and say goodbye. I was very proud of him.

The speeches all went well. Our friend did a lovely introduction, bible reading and prayer. My friend's husband gave the most unexpectedly good welcome and personal tribute. For all his aspergers it was emotive and beautiful and he became slightly emotional. My Eulogy went down well and then my friend's son stood to give his tribute before he pressed the button for the final curtain. That was so beautiful and powerful. He is such a lovely lad and I shall do what I can to be there for him. It seems that he and my son have rekindled their friendship and are planning to meet up next week and then he'll be coming over to us at Easter for a few days.

It all still feels a bit unreal. I need to rest and recover. Yet I continue to move forward. My departed friend would be so proud of some of the work related things I have been doing.

Sacked

I am, I am, a good girl I am. Really. I've just been chatting to a friend and as you do, one conversation jumps to another and I suddenly worked out how many times I have been sacked in my time and it turns out four times! Actually, it would be nine times if you count the five times one mad employer sacked and re-employed me over a one week period when I was doing some work with her overseas, but then I am only counting that as one time. What is it about me that gets myself into these situations?

All these employers were women and very difficult ones who I had seemed to win over, at least for a while. With the exception of the last employer, I had worked very hard for them for over a year, and in one case on and off over several years. I worked and gave everything I had and yet something happened and obviously it was not enough.

My current employer knows about my last employer sacking me. Something happened today, something good I had done and was being acknowledged for, to which I cheekily asked my boss that if I ever do anything that she felt I overstepped the mark, to please speak to me about it and not to just sack me. Bless her, she was appalled at the thought and it was sweet the way she assured me she was not going to sack me. On the whole, this employer is not difficult. Actually, she is very kind and good at growing her business. A rather good state of affairs and reasons to be cheerful.

The middle ground

Our lovely neighbour has her Christmas wreath up on her door, which is about four foot from our apartment door. I saw it for the first time yesterday, which is quite late for her, and it made me smile. So I feel it is my duty to get ours out too so that she can have that reciprocal smile when she comes out her door too.

This is extremely late for me - not even an advent calender is to be seen in our place. Very unusual. Admittedly, I have a lot on my mind that "I do not know how I feel" this year.

Driving to work yesterday, I realised that phrase "I do not know how I feel" had become part of my vocabulary this year. I have always been one of extremes, not quite black and white extremes I'd like to think, more of, you either did or you didn't and in that, it was either with excitement or not at all. My mother either made a mega obscene fuss of you or you were abandoned to the outer reaches of her universe. I have long wondered if my enthusiasm for whatever was a mirror of her ways, so yesterday I realised I had this new aspect of just saying "I do not know how I feel". More of a middle ground and that was absolutely fine.

That phrase was borne for me out of some particularly difficult experiences with someone in my life this year. Actually with two completely different people. I wonder if they are as confused and baffled by it all as I am. Rather than me drawing any decision or judgement on them or the situation I have decided to leave it at the "I do not know how I feel" stage. On the basis that least said soonest mended, not that I have any energy or desire to fix anything. Another new one for me - not feeling the need to mend.

Meanwhile the sale of our house* has fallen through in the last few days. Once again. Over five years we have had the house on and off the market and now at a greatly reduced price. Another buyer has stepped back up, at an even lower price. Releasing that house before Christmas would wipe our slate clean. Using the phrase "I do not know how I feel" has helped me through this because at times when I let go of that phrase then the enormity of all the negatives weigh heavy on me in a hugely depressing way. At least the middle ground allows me to skate through and still have some happy times. Feeling depressed does not.

*This is the house that we once loved and lavished. We downsized and could not sell due to the economy, then we left and rented it out. The first family screwed us over and the second were lovely but decided to leave and the house has now been empty for nearly six months leaving us paying a mortgage plus rent on where we live now plus all the sundry costs. As we "own" a house we do not live in, we are not entitled to any help. Then there are all the accruing interest charges on the debts from doing up the house. "I do not know how I feel" helps!

Baggage

We all carry baggage of some sort. May try not to but it is inevitable. Some have beautiful, sleek items, some have joyful affairs stuffed full of love, some have pain and illness, and so forth. Mostly I bet, we have a combination to reflect who we are. I try to think of my baggage assortment and all I can see is a ratty, tatty odd ball assortment with one or two gems of potential.

Maybe it was always those gems of potential, or an inner faith if you like, that kept me going through my growing-up years and since. Not that I sit and wallow in my childhood and blame my parents and in fact it is the opposite and far too much that I blame myself time and again for every thing that goes wrong. In the past I have written a fair deal about my mother, who passed away last year, about her undiagnosed Aspergers* qualities that in her may have contributed to her psychological and physical violence towards us all. I have written a bit about my father's complicity in it as he too suffered and then also my brother's added violence towards me as the convenient family scapegoat.

All that adds up to quite a bit of baggage. Some of which has been processed through counselling and blogging and the love of good people around me. I may not talk or write about it much these days but all that stuff is still there. A rag of a rug ever present under my feet that I fear less will be pulled out from under me, but still often fear. It is very difficult living life always being on guard, trying to say things right and not make a mistake, always taking on board the blame, and many more self-destroying behaviours. All this without actually looking or behaving like I am a creepy-trying-to-do-right person. And there you go, I can kick myself for that behaviour too.

It would be easy to say to snap out of it. Very easy. If only.

*Aspergers: please note that I do not for one minute say that people with Aspergers are necessarily violent or horrible. What I do say is that my mother's behaviour is consistent with the diagnosis. She struggled through life trying to cope with it herself and her own violent childhood, though mainly, she was in a world of her own not aware of how others were affected by her behaviour. She was never kept in check (my dad, her husband could have lovingly done that) and so knew no boundaries. I have written a few posts, this being one Parents with aspergers and on account of the many emails I have received over the years about it and what people say, I shall start to put in some labelling on the blog so that other childhood incidents can be more easily found. The reason for that, is that when one goes through this sort of living madness, to read that you are not alone is a Eureka moment. To know it is not all your fault.

Joining the dots

The last few weeks have felt particularly sluggish. Nothing specific and yet almost right across the board except in one notable area: show me an empty chariot for someone else's cause or business and I am right on in there. Never mind that my own life and income is sad and wilting, that I am feeling tired and miserable and sorry for myself. If there is something that I can do to help and the cause is worth the effort then I am leaping aboard with little hesitation. It strikes me that I am good for other people and at times quite questionable to myself.

It is a facet of me and how I operate which I know I do not want to eliminate so I do not think I will ever really change on that score: I just like to help and be useful. Like a lot of us really.

These days I am not feeling too fond of the ideology of karma, that what you do unto others comes back to you. Simply because too many bad things keep happening to good people and this is not stacking up too well in my mind. Karma might be useful when thinking about some sort of cosmic law for the bad things people do but it seems less and less relevant when the argument is flipped.

Perhaps when I take up the reins of someone else's chariot I am escaping my own life - that is the usual sub-conscious reasoning. Or perhaps I am looking for some sort of magic wand that will make everything right for me if I help make things right for other people?

After these last weeks and months of treacle could it be that somehow I have managed a double backflip with a triple twist landing with a certain amount of aplomb? The wheels are in motion in my life once again and I am very hopeful. Hope and Faith should have been my middle names as these seem irrepressible despite layers of depression heaped upon at times. Instead of me having to battle away, a proposition has come knocking on my door and one which I very much welcome. It would combine me riding someone else's chariot with being able to ride my own. A neat little answer to a business conundrum. It all feels good, looks good and sounds good. I don't have to work by myself, and will have the structures of someone else's enterprise combined with bringing in my own speciality and being able to develop.

It is a shot of confidence. I can see myself receiving substantial cheque payments for excellent services rendered. A win-win situation. This weekend should see something developing as long as I keep clear headed and provide information needed for a targeted email. Next week may start bearing fruit, or maybe it will become apparent in due course.

As ever in my life, I am aware of another big change or development and the fanfares that surround it. I am aware that in the past things have changed quite drastically and what was, no longer is. Just like that. Perhaps it is like being in a clothes shop and trying on different outfits, liking something so much thinking this is "the" outfit, only to take it off and hang it back up again. Maybe that is all it is and maybe that is an OK approach to life and I have been just too serious about it all.

My life is exciting and interesting, but then whose isn't in their own ways? There are amazing people in my life and I have been blessed on that score. Also, somewhere in my life there must be an attic with my picture because here I am in my 50th year and for some reason I am looking better than I feel I have ever looked. Which is pretty darned useful since I am now working in the beauty industry. Sure I am aging and could do with some better skincare, but on the whole, I can still get by without makeup and usually do though am transformed with a lick of powder and brow colour and lippy.

It is coming up to a year since my mother died, not yet, but soon. This is a new landmark in my life. This week I went to the funeral of a child and the wails of his mother were piercing. Another friend's son who was lost is finally found. So naturally I think about my own son and my own shortness with him over various issues and how I should be grateful my son is neither dead nor lost. Then magically out of the blue something shifts. He communicates. And now, he has landed a job with which he is happy and is good for his confdence. He starts next Monday. Oh please let this work out for him too.

Remembrance

Thinking about myself and my own family, this year is a poignant Remembrance Day. I feel our lives are bound up in the atrocities of World War I and the psychological aftermath on my grandfather which I wrote about in 2006. And then the effects on my mother which she in turn inflicted upon us and which I in turn have tried very hard not to inflict upon my children. Of my siblings, one is incredibly scarred and screwed-up and the other does a brilliant job of keeping all the hatches tightly bolted down. There is half-sibling with whom we sadly have no contact.

From 1917 when my grandfather was first gassed to 2011 when my mother died is ninety-four years. My grandfather had nine children of which the eldest committed suicide, the next died youngish in a road accident and the next is a recluse knowing he had to stay away from people though is quite charming when I visit him, and then the next is my mother, the eldest daughter. After my mother the rest of the siblings, although damaged, did not obviously inflict the level of pain and suffering on their children that my mother did. But then, by the time he had fathered the rest and they were still young, he was finally and forcibly evicted from the family home so the rest did not experience or really know the violence experienced by the elder siblings and were left with a loving mother.

This is not to say that everything is blamed on the aftermath of the war, but if someone has something like Aspergers, especially from way back then when it was not acknowledged, then the brutality my mother experienced and witnessed from her father was easier to replicate on us. What if she had been brought into a loving environment that cushioned and supported her, life could have been so very different. I would be someone completely different. I have said it before, I do not subscribe to the idea of giving thanks for my childhood making me into who I am. Such brutality and psychological traumas are barely able to be survived. Cue my elder sibling who amazingly is still alive despite a lifetime drowned in drugs to escape reality.

Yesterday I was asked by a friend how I am since my mother died a few months ago and I said how strange it feels. This person who was so omnipresent and such a character is suddenly not there. Nothing. Nada. Wiped out. Gone. It is puzzling as to why a person could ever have had such a hold. She hated Remembrance Day and condemned the going on about the past and these old fogeys dragged out each year. Yet there were years, as kids, we'd all be stood to attention at 7am in the cold greyness to get the "best" spot at the Cenotaph in London. I do not have fond memories to remember and I do not cry for her. Yet, it is Remembrance Day and I do feel an interconnection and strangely sad and tearful. More for what could have been than anything that actually was.

All those lives and families affected. In contrast, there is a lovely article on the BBC News website about the Thankful Villages.

Gobsmacking

Since my mother died in May my life is beginning to read like a fantasy. Unbelievable and fantastical. In my last post I wrote about "the" amazing new job and my upcoming journey to Thailand. So I started my new job and then jetted off to Thailand with my dear friend and saw her through another painful and difficult set of operations that were ultimately very successful. It was a privilege to be there and to really help though it was exhausting. I returned looking forward to my new job and developing my own business.

Within a few days of arriving back my name had been put forward for another job and if I had thought the other job was amazing this one turns out to be stellar. A part of me was terrified thinking who am I to even think I could dare to do it. Wondering if it went pear-shaped it would be down to my incompetence. On the other hand, a part of me thought "why not me". That actually I could be great for this job. And I get to get a salary that would make a difference to our lives.

So I said "yes". And I am doing amazing. It is a new business with big plans for the future. I am to help set it up and get it running and once I (yes, me!) have staff in place (under me!) then to go help set up the next branch. And then the next branch after that. A simple salary for now, increasing a bit in January, a pension plan and a car next year ..... whose life is this?

Something in me has shifted. Something in me says yes, I can do it for me. Something in me is not so scared of being successful, of earning some money. Something in me knows she can do it - at least most of the time. I'm still a bit scared, though less scared than I have ever been. I speak up and speak confidently from within. It feels like me. It sounds like me. I'm not having to pretend.

Doris Day is on Channel 4 in the background and her 70s fashions are just gob-smackingly distracting that I am not sure I can follow my thoughts any more. In some scenes she looks like something off a knitting pattern and the rest are a document to the outrageous or appalling 70s. Such bright lemon yellows. And thick striped blusher like a third degree burn!

Talking of fashions, thanks to my local dress agency I have a whole new fabulous wardrobe worthy of my new job. It is a joy to open my wardrobe doors and decide what to wear that day. All at a snip. Pay day has not yet arrived and I am already feeling it and feeling good. The old poverty mentality seems to have melted away.

There is a lot of work. I am working very hard and also having to up some of my qualifications with some sharpish distance learning. Let no-one ever say this is easy, or I have had it easy. On the other hard there is a flow and it is flowing smoothly. Like a dream. I almost can not wait for the next episode of my own life.

Here's to sharing the love. And luck.

Middle of the night

It is nearly four weeks later and I am not sure what I was thinking before but things sure are not whatever I thought they might be. I thought the holiday would create a brilliant curtain through which I walk from my old life into this brave new world. That all that was wrong would suddenly be right but hey, that has not exactly happened. The holiday was great, and just what the doctor ordered and am so glad we did it, but it didn't entirely provide that doorway. I have been up and down and in and out of some sort of stupor. Some parts of my life are getting back on track but other parts just lay around. From inside my body I look out and just look. Some things like answering the phone to clients are vital to any sort of a business but I just don't and I wonder why.

It is the middle of the night and I can not sleep so I have made camomile tea and sit here writing. I am about to dig out some of my writings about my childhood. All those things bounce around and seem to need some further processing. Some sort of attention. I am not crying but I am shocked and amazed and can not quite figure it all out in relation to the daughter I have been these past couple of years caring for my mother and looking out for her.

The night before last there was an episode of CSI Miami that had me pinned to my seat hardly daring to breathe. It was the case of the murder of the soccer mom who it turned out was abusive to her children in private. Her husband was complicit in the silence and web of lies to cope with her behaviour. The writer pressed buttons I had forgotten I had. One of the characters said she had an abuse test where she would go to brush a bit of fluff off a child's shoulder and if the child flinched she knew there was abuse. I am not sure what age I was before I stopped ducking but it did get a bit embarrassing when as a young independent adult no longer living at home that I still did it. All the way through the programme, the CSIs showed their disapproval of this deceased mother's behaviour and yet they showed only a mere fraction of what went on in our household. It once again struck me the night before last that I was abused as a child. And I suppose I can not reconcile that with now.

Tomorrow, or later today, I have a second session of counselling and then later a well woman check up. I think it a good idea in the light of my mother's illness that it is recorded on my notes that she did die and what from. I think I am in shock but I don't know why. I didn't expect this.

A new era

Yesterday - Saturday - my mother died. Her body closed down bit by bit and when she finally went, after a false alarm over twelve hours before, it was peaceful. I was not with her when she went but had been with her the entire first night in the hospice and during the false alarm. My brave and wonderful daughter stayed with me throughout it all and has been a rock.

It is a curious and strange time. Adjusting. Reflecting. Thinking and coping. I feel stronger and maturer than ever before. I have had moments of complete tears crying for the wasted times and the good emotions that could have been. But I have not cried since she died and wonder about that. The song "All cried out" comes to mind.

The funeral is this Wednesday and I am looking at going on holiday as soon as possible afterwards with my darling Mr Doris. As a sort of physical recovery time and a curtain between my old life and the new life to come.

More words and reflections will be forthcoming in due course.

Searing pain

Since the early hours of Tuesday morning she is now on the happy meds and stronger morphine. She has stopped fighting my dad. Mostly sleeps. And keeps saying "thank you" in a servile way, which was always a contradiction within her that would come out at times. Tomorrow, a bed may become available at the local hospice.

Monday night was possibly the worst with her screams of pain, and saying she wanted to throw herself on the floor and die. I looked at the pillows and wondered if there was anything I could do. At times she would hold my sister's and my hand, gripping tightly through the spasms of pain. She said this was worse than childbirth. And then she could not bear to be touched - anywhere. What do you say? It is going to get better? Soothing nothingness words are hard to find especially when my mother does not put up with any patronising. The nurses finally arrived with their hypodermics and arranged for a syringe driver to be fitted up at midnight so that it could automatically dispense pain relief and happy meds.

According to a district nurse, the difference in her between Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning makes her wonder if the cancer has gone to the brain. Last night we began bringing the grandchildren to see her and maybe say their goodbyes. My 21 year old daughter arrived late last night to visit today and my 17 year old son later today.

My life had been put on hold with clients being postponed or cancelled and no new enquiries being taken. Yesterday evening I was expecting a call from someone about after life arrangements and instead picked up the phone on a potential new client. I was obviously distressed but tried to not let her feel bad on intruding. Poor thing. I bet she will remember that call!

Yesterday was emotionally the worst for me. And I continue to feel raw. Is there ever a straightforward death with emotions that express sadness for the person passing? I do not think I am crying for her and I think that is sad. So sad. Meanwhile, we would not let a four legged animal endure that level of pain.

Yesterday my father gave me the name of an obscure book he wanted to obtain for my mother. Something about science and healing and the scriptures. I look at this slip of paper in disbelief trying to work out the purpose of this book for someone who was at the last days of life and was out of it. I delicately probed. He told me it was for her to carry on her journey. Stupidly I couldn't quite get my head around any journey my mother might be taking and wondered to myself if he had gone mad or something. Thinking of hot holidays in Tenerife. He matter of factly told me it was for her to hold in the coffin. I think I missed a breath and had to hold myself from doubling up from the emotion of it all. Service resumed within seconds. That possibly began my very bad day yesterday. I sobbed and sobbed all the way home later that day. But I am not crying for my mother and do not know why I am crying.

As for the book, I texted the details to my darling Mr Doris and within minutes he had located a good copy, purchased it and it is in the first class post. My dad was really delighted.

Dying is hard to do

We didn't think my mother would last until Christmas but she did. And to each family event since. Not that we knew it but she's been living with a falling blood count, it went down to a fraction off 5 just a few weeks ago and after a transfusion that went some way to immediately relieving pain and her struggle to move. That honeymoon lasted all of a day or two and the pain returned. This is the psychotic, aspergers mother who refuses to have anything to do with the medical profession or any proper pain relief. Such that me, her sane-ish and non-drug using daughter has procured weed and made her weed cakes to help with the pain. That only worked for one night.

The latest news from the one specialist she will have anything to do with is that the secondaries have spread significantly to her neck and spine. He spoke in hushed tones to me on the phone - I was the one that then had to relay this news to her - with regret about how no operations could be done on those bones and we could only make her comfortable. He was going to write to the GP she never uses and also the local hospice. He had previously arranged a Macmillan nurse for her which up until now she had refused to have owt to do with her. Coincidentally, the same day that news came through I had forced my mother's hand and begun to organise an appointment with the Mac nurse. At this time my mother felt she had some other condition entirely which was responsible for her symptoms and not the diagnosed one of cancer and bone secondaries. I suggested to my mum that she accept pain relief even though she might think differently about what the diagnosis might be. And I also broke the news to her that although her chosen diagnosis might have those symptoms so do the symptoms of bone secondaries.

The Mac nurse was brilliant and pitched it just right with my mother. I had previously spoken to her about my mother's singular ways which I am sure must have helped but I suspect this nurse was just brilliant anyway and used to dealing with people at this stage. All that was discussed at the first meeting was pain relief and some technical details regarding benefits my parents had not been claiming. It was all in the tone of getting my mother more comfortable and and back in action rather than comfortable to die.

My dad insists on having my mother at home for as long as possible and doing what he can. The thing is, he continues to be the poster boy for the abused husband. For some months now she has remained on her sofa only making sorties to the toilet and the rare visit out to us. Screaming that this or that has not been done right. She has a mobile phone on her and calls dad in the kitchen on his to demand this or that. He has no imagination for cooking or anything much, which is no surprise, and therefore his food is pretty dull and uninteresting or just plain wrong. So she is eating less. And then blames him with no reference at all to her condition because of course she doesn't have cancer or secondaries.

Last week the Mac nurse prescribed morphine. I was with them for that appointment and I left my parents in a good mood at home waiting for the prescription to come through later that day. In a very few hours I had the first of the really hysterical phone calls from my mother on my work mobile. Incoherent but simultaneously screaming at my father. In the background I can hear my father wailing and saying he has had enough. On an important afternoon I drop everything and drive back over to them and find the diplomacy to calm things down - dad is sent off early to get the prescription (or just wait for it) and I sit with mum trying to find soothing words, listening to the diatribe coming out of her mouth, and then making her the fastest most delicious chicken soup in the history of the universe. By the time dad is back with the morphine she has eaten a little and calmed a lot. The morphine liquid is wonderful. A second dose an hour later and then she is sleeping calmly for the next eight hours.

For the past week or so I have been going every single day to see my parents and to give my dad some respite. Easter has been very useful. Since that episode though, there have been a further two hysterical phone calls - the last one late last night. No, she doesn't want me to drive over, she just wants me to tell dad to co-operate with her and to be kind and yet does not give the phone over to him. My direct number has become a crutch over which she can still, at times, spit out her words with such daggers that they come flying through the ether. It distresses me and yet I feel I have to help.

At other times, she lays there propped up on her sofa, physically crumbling into herself going over inane stuff again and again. Telling me how good her strategies are with setting out her cups and bottles on her "bedside" table. She is meticulous to the nth degree with things having to be just so and woe-betide if it isn't. That old chestnut of her wanting things in one way and then suddenly out of the blue it is now another way it should be done. My dad clearly does not listen to what my mother is actually saying which does not help, but I find I am increasingly unable to hear what she is saying too.

And still, there is no mention of dying. In fact the opposite and you can feel that vibe in her - that strong will to live even though she gives lip service to saying she is not afraid to die. We have not been given a time and in some ways I quite agree with that. In other ways I find my life is on such hold as she becomes the focus with the fear that maybe she isn't really going to die any time soon, or indeed ever!, and she has finally ensnared me into her egotistical web of making her the focus of the world.

Coincidentally at this time, my brother has been getting help from a psychiatrist who could not believe the stories of our childhood and wanted to check with me. My brother is a pathological liar so once I had stripped away the heroic and exciting stuff, as I told the psychiatrist, that the truth is actually far worse. And then I asked her had my brother told her about the way he used to beat me up and no he hadn't but that there was stuff he was not proud of and did not want to talk about. So I coolly told her that I was not just getting it from my mother but also from him too. Those wounds of my youth ripping open once again.

News of contact with this psychiatrist finally blows my sister apart after some week or so of mulling it over, so angry our brother has continued to impinge upon my life. Even though I was more than happy to help and would prefer to have helped than not. And finally my sister now speaks about our awful childhood and her experiences afraid that if she goes much further the cork will pop and never go back on the bottle again. The addictive drug of choice for her throughout her life has been work and a stiff upper lip. And suddenly she is stopped. Apologising to me that she has not been able to help out more with our parents at this time. Me being the big older sister and actually feeling bold and brave and together I am taking charge. Some days I am OK and some days I am not though I still keep doing for my mother. It might only be a couple of hours out of the day but each time it wipes me out for the entire day. Emotionally and mentally. The self-destruct button in me is eating lots of sugary foods and alcohol - that is my current addiction. In due course I will sort that out again and luckily my weight has not ballooned too much and I've escaped from the migraines. Darling Mr Doris continues to be amazing and supportive.

On the practical front, I've been visiting possible green burial sites and sorting out potential details for my mother's last wishes which she had talked about a lot up until she became really poorly. I've found the most amazing and beautiful place that I think my dad and sister would agree to too. A place where I think I would visit and sit with the wide open sky above; the birds tweeting in the trees and the farmlands rolling in the distance. I could see relatives coming to visit there, reflecting on our lives that have been so impacted by my mother's presence. I do not know if I will be crying for her or for me. I can see her cardboard coffin in the grave and I am horrified at the thought.

For now I am her strongest advocate for living and making the most of what there is of life. She clearly has no intention of letting go, even as she screams with pain at the slightest movement.

Reflections

The day began with a communication from my mother once again waxing lyrical about my childhood. About the recordings of us as kids and me all laughing fit to bust. Along with the photographs we all knew we had to pose for, she has every evidence for our charming childhoods. The stains of our youth wrapped up in pretty gauze and ribbon. It stung me as I read and it bounced around my brain pointing a finger at me laughing.

The night before I had a new client and found myself agreeing to work in the smoky atmosphere of her house as she volunteered to open the windows and put on a fan. Two young women, soon expecting babies, and it is I who was bothered about the smell in case it gave me a headache. Then I am waxing eyebrows in a bad-for-me bending over position because I am working within her environment and not in my own carefully set out beauty salon. On the way home I realised how accommodating I had been and no longer wish to be in life.

Mixed in with my monthly hormones, by mid-morning, I was feeling a fist I so wanted to use against the world. Angry. This has to be a good thing that instead of my previous imploding I was turning my anger elsewhere. Pity son chose this time to question something I had said. His sixteen year old self not knowing where to draw the line and me getting angrier by the moment was not a pretty sight so by the time I reached over to get a sharp knife from the washing up son jumped back and I felt the world stop as even dearest Mr Doris looked on concerned. As angry as I was, I did know where to draw the line and just needed to cut up my lunch.

Two bars of chocolate later, and for someone who hasn't eaten that much sugar in six months, I was on my pre-booked train to London and quite high on a sugar-rush. A whole £4.99 spent on a glossy magazine with a freebie Celia Aherne novel, along with the two bars of chocolate. It was not until I was on a tube train and saw my headless reflection in the curved door that I felt a calm descend. Looking at my trim shoulders encased in a thin peacock blue cardigan atop a fitted fuschia top, and then a circular gingham skirt I looked quite striking. My bare legs set off with lovely toenails, a fashionable cuff (which I learned was so from the purchased glossy) on one wrist as my manicured fingers held onto the handle, giving the picture of a well looked after person. It was a moment of reflection that said I looked good and I had not needed to hide in a cave.

For two days I stayed with a friend and lived her life. She is blind and not "just" visually impaired but utterly and totally in the dark. No longer any light or shadows. No flickers. I watched as she washed up and sorted her fridge after the dinner she had prepared us. Darkness had fallen and the street lights shone just a little into the kitchen but I made no attempt to switch on the light. When she descended into the dark cellar to sort out her recycling for the collection the next day it really hit me the way she happily lives life and not only gets on but does some amazing stuff. Using public transport she gets across London quicker than a sighted person. Between her and her seeing dog, they know where all the tunnels are, where to turn to get to the lifts and how to make detours when some lines are closed. Using my eyes I couldn't work it out quicker than her.

On the Manchester bound train from London, several chapters into my Celia Aherne novel, the passing world absorbs my attention. Clouds heavy with greyness crowned with the late afternoon sun, float above green English hills. A wicker sculpture of a man fishing sits beside a pond, and cattle pose by water as if in a Constable painting. Passing by a distant country house, winding canals and old stone bridges as the chirrup-chirrup of someone's mobile in the next row along draws my attention to the fine suspension in the Pendolino train I am travelling as it tilts deeply into each bend and then straightens out. Reflecting on the Celia Aherne novel I had been reading and the child lost before it was even born and I wonder about my own children lost since their childhood. They are here or are around, but not the same sparkling eyes that looked back at me when they were little. Different eyes from different people. I feel like a bad mother floating with the clouds, inconsistent with my love and affection and there is simply no denying that. It just is.

At least I am returning with my passion softened and my anger gone. The hormones have done their work. Son's hired white tuxedo for his prom is delivered and I see him wearing it looking all delighted and happy with it. He went the whole hog and ordered up a fancy waistcoat and cane which along with his afro and dark skin he looks for all the world like some sharp pimp from a 1970s movie. I manage to crack a smile at him for a change.

The world revolves and I have to grow up. There are some good bits to me and there are some not so good bits. And just like the protagonist in the "Naughtiest Girl in the School" books, when she is good, she is very, very good and when she is bad she is awful. And that is okay.

There's a hole in my bucket

The more I fill it the more it leaks. So much so it is hard to know whether the bucket is ever half full or half empty and to that end I decided to do myself a Tarot spread with the question "What do I need to do in order to feel more confident about myself and happier with life?".

It has been nearly a year since I posted here and life hasn't stood still. In fact there has been some really big stuff and big head clearing going on, but how much head clearing and sorting does one person need? And with that criticism I have another thing to scold myself with, more self-chastising because if it has gone wrong it is my fault and if it has gone well then that is just good luck or good fortune but not due to my own hand. And that contradiction is not lost on me.  So I can self-examine and still more stuff keeps coming up. I just want to be. To be me and for that to be good enough. But somewhere deep inside there is a monstrous me I work hard to suppress, so that no-one can discover her. So that she doesn't leak out. Probably that ugly, mean, sneaky and selfish child I was told I was in childhood. Yet here I am all these decades later and surely those ghosts don't still have a grip but more than ever seem to have an impact on me.

These are wobbly times just now, and according to my cards quite a big time. Perhaps this is the final clear out or at least a major fundamental one. I am trying to move forward a big project and although I am tinkering away and making progress I feel it is so slow (but it really is) a big hand has me gripped round the throat throwing diversions my way. The latest being discontent with my youngest who is now 15 years old. What I need to remember is that I am not a failure and to not let myself be diverted down the self-pitying route. That remembering that as a teenager he really is not so bad and that actually I have had it really good with him for much longer than I ever did with my daughter. So, this seems like a good point to take stock and put it out there publicly as a means to get it through to my core just how full my cup is.

Reasons to be cheerful:

1. Darling Mr Doris and I have been happily married for over ten years. He is my stalwart partner and rock. He puts up with my emotions and he still chooses to hold my hand, and makes me frothy coffee and puddings and much more.
2. Daughter is now 20 years old and previously I have talked about the pain and anguish I felt in my non-existent relationship with her as a teen, but now she and I are very close and she is a darling to me. She has acknowledged who we are as parents and how we are and talks to me as if I might have something useful to say!
3. Son is actually a good kid on the whole. He does not do drugs (except the alcoholic fuelled mishap a few months ago), has some nice friends and is mostly polite. He has ideas about his future and occasionally sounds intelligent.
4. We live in a lovely home. It is very compact but it does. It is energy efficient, warm and cosy and a very good rent in a lovely little English town with essential shops just a minute away.
   
5. We have tenants living in our old house which we were not able to sell but having tenants is a viable alternative. Magically, within three weeks of us taking the risk to leap from our old house leaving it empty to be where we are now our tenants materialised and signed the contract. There have been issues with unpaid rent which have been a tad challenging but these are resolved and the prospects are good. One day, when the markets have recovered, we'll be able to sell it and end up with something in hand but if we had managed to sell it in the past year or so it would have been for very little and swallowed up by debts. So this appears to be a good investment after all.
6. Financially we have taken a huge dive but thank you to a very generous gift we have gotten by, and with me finally getting a grip on our finances, we will one day be in a very strong position. It is very tight just now and has been for a while but we'll be okay.
   
7. I have great siblings, especially the one we now live near who is wonderful along with her family.
   
8. And then I have some amazing friends and for that I am very honoured. I love them and they love me and this is a state of affairs for which I am very grateful. In the last year there has been some ups and downs due to my own actions concerning a couple of friends that has been very painful but these are thankfully resolved.

There are many more things for me to give thanks but this is a start in thanking for all the treasures that are part of my life.

As one of the curiosities of life, I have found myself in a most extraordinary position this year with my mother being potentially seriously ill. This woman who cut through my young life like a mad woman and whose love I once wanted but was cured of at the age of 30, and with whom I have had a tolerating relationship in recent years. But this year I have held her hand through some scary stuff and been her advocate with the health people being an intermediary to help them cope with her and to help her to cope with this foreign world of hospitals. She is not in any immediate danger but who knows what the months ahead may show. I have sat with her as she has told consultants about her terrible childhood with not a single blink of acknowledgement as to what happened to me and what she did. She has said that I have been like a mother to her during these months. And so I have. It has been all so bloody odd. It is like watching a movie of someone else's life which is perhaps no bad thing as a means of coping as one's once all powerful mother shows signs of fragility and a possible end.

Tarot
That picture above is my Celtic Cross spread using the Gilded Tarot. One possible reading says that the Page of Cups is me holding the mirror up to my life considering the question was "What do I need to do in order to feel more confident about myself and happier with life?". The Queen of Swords probably represents my mother and the effect of her cutting words on my life. The Lovers above represents the positive impression I give out to the world whilst the 10 of swords below reveals my depression hidden underneath, but that I can choose to get up and not be depressed. And so it goes on ultimately to say I will get out of it but I need to let go and to stop trying quite so hard. Living for the present and enjoying what I have is not a bad strategy and obvious really. Putting it into practise is easy to say and rationalise but I have concerns for the doing.

Blogging
It has been beneficial in the past so I may be back. Who knows. Each day is as it comes.

Love and hugs to the world.

Message in a bottle

It is hard to feel any optimism, yet optimistic news might be on the horizon. It might all work out jolly well actually, but I don't feel like that and find it hard to summon up any enthusiasm. Just in case it falls through, and just because it might not happen I must try to hold tight.

Holding tight these days means hiding away. Curled up and hidden in my bed alternating between tears, blankness and tapping away at my Nintendo brain training "germ buster" game. Like a helpless vegetable on the chopping board knowing that once upon a time I grew vigourously and fought back. My fight seems to have gotten up and walked off leaving me shockingly bitter and sour on the inside and I don't like this person. Not one bit. But in a contradiction, I know this isn't really me and some very tiny, far off voice inside me is shouting help, let me out.

On the outside, very few people know all this, but increasingly my friends are finding out - because I am talking more - and they have been magnificent throwing me lifelines. This year has been extraordinary on the friends front so the one thing I don't feel is alone. But this is still my life and despite a wonderful husband and friends I have this path to tread, but my feet just don't seem to be working.

Chastising myself and trying to get things into perspective has only contributed to the darkness. I feel enough guilt without adding more to the mix. "For God's sake, pull yourself together" I tell myself to little physical effect.

In early August my mother was showing strong intentions to blog therefore I felt an obviously stronger need to withdraw mine from eyesight. The whole world might be blogging but life is stranger than fiction and coincidences happen and she might just come across mine and recognise this or that. As it happens, I don't think she has taken forward blogging after all!

In mid August depression gripped so tight that after a weekend of tears I resolved to do something. On the Monday I went out to job agencies and by the Thursday I had started a temp job as a medical secretary in the oncology department of the local hospital. So maybe I might have fibbed about the extent of my experience as an audio typist but that did tickle me that I could go out and get a job and push the boundaries a tad. The pay is little above the minimum UK wage, but it is a regular 25 hours of work/income each week. Even through my depressions I continued to work, letting my hair fall over my eyes on those days the tears would not stop. I am still there and the work itself is a blog by itself.

Since that time I have also been plotting my morning temperature and my depressions and anything else of note. I had thought my monthly cycle had become irregular but so far it seems not, though the frequency of my severe one day depressions have been alarming, but they have actually been better of late. No surprise to know that I am writing this through one at present.

Currently 14 year old son has measles which I have been helping to nurse him through. He is having a rough time especially now with the itchyness of the rash. I never knew measles could be so itchy but it is like his skin is crawling and alive. I have tried various alternative aids but today Mr Doris has bought some Piriton so we will see if that eases and whether a better night sleep can be had by all.

Outside the leaves are creating rich blankets and as I passed through them earlier today I thought about a year ago when I didn't expect we would still be living here for another Autumn. That makes over 18 months our house has been on the market and we have slashed the price down to give it away but still nowt. Over a year my son has lived weekdays at my sister to go to school near her and comes home for the weekends. What was originally a six week exercise has pushed us beyond anything. I am not being physically beaten like as a child and yet I am not sure I have ever felt quite so cowed. My chest has sunken in and my right shoulder has dropped putting stress on the wrong muscles leading to a frozen shoulder. I have been in a lot of pain and my movements have been restricted. I sit typing at work wincing at times with discomfort. But no-one there knows, and the bigger picture is that the income, no matter how small, has been regular and well needed. I could, and should, be doing bigger and better things but I am unable.

Something so heavy is sitting on me and holding me back for something. Or, in my dark hours I ponder that I am done with and my life and usefulness is over.

Actually, my arm is on the mend. As is my belief in myself. The wonders of kinsesiology and the support of lovely friends hold me through. We might be renting our house instead of selling. An option I once dismissed might now turn out to be a viable and excellent way forward. This could even mean us moving before Christmas, maybe even in as little as three weeks! Then we can be together as a family. Finally landed. Starting afresh. I can't quite believe it will happen and that scares me.

Thank you dear kind blog friends for reading my message in a bottle!

Anger, not fear

A book has come my way from "The Adult Children of Alcoholics Series". Entitled "The Self-Sabotage Syndrome: Adult Children in the Workplace". My parents are not apparently alcoholics, though at times they have not behaved well with alcohol but ACoCs is a term that can be used for anyone who has grown up in a dysfunctional family.

As an aside, I wonder how many people it takes for a family to become dysfunctional? Is just one mad parent enough and then everyone else runs around them? Or are we all within the family dysfunctional in our own sweet ways?

The term "adult children" speaks to me. Just by itself. And then the book begins with ascertaining that because of their upbringing ACoCs have no sense of what is "normal" saying "Adult Children of Alcoholics Guess at What Normal Is". Oh yes, that so resonates. That feeling of being always out on a limb and never being sure, of always feeling that I was making things up, of making up my own definitions to anything and everything. Which means that at any moment everything can come crashing down. Because I just made it up. Because I'm a fraud and I'm going to be caught out.

There is an aspect about ACoCs that I've read so far that I don't identify with and that is concerning my relationships and friendships. In fact just this month I have been realising that my friendships are one area of my life in which I am blessed and function really well. I'd don't feel all the pain and angst that I feel in other areas of my life and I wonder why that it is. Why, when my parents have not set any good examples of friendships in my childhood or since.

Laying in bed this morning thinking about this, with my constant self-analysis: stepping stones that tangle across my mind sometimes leaving me marooned in scary waters with no clear way across; I had a eureka moment. As a child we moved house and location about every two years. I never had good friendships as a kid so the moving actually became quite useful. I may not have had to face up to difficult situations in the long term, on the other hand I had plenty of experience of starting again. I actually welcomed the chance to start again and each time we moved, and being a kid, relationships were my priority. And I had plenty of chances to experiment. They were never right and I took a lot of hard knocks. I learned not to expect anything from anyone which was probably mainly due to my relationship with my parents, but reinforced by childhood relationships. I'm not sure what good things I learned from those times but I think I had the chance to find out what didn't work.

Since the age of seven I had the companionship and love of my little sister. This can not be under-estimated. I "had" to love her and protect her from the madness that was my mother. I became a mini-parent but more than that I was able to love her and she let me. Physical affection came from her, even if it was me holding her hand. When it came to me choosing between life or something else at 16 I had to walk away and leave her. Without saying a word. That was incredibly painful but she was already on her own destiny pathway and I knew she would make it. And she did. And we are very close now, but I think I still don't know the half of what she went through which makes me feel a little sad and selfish.

So when I left home at sixteen for the world of work I became the perfect ACoC employee and was easily exploited. But I was wide-eyed and enthralled by adult people. I loved meeting people and listening to them. I still am that wide-eyed girl and embrace people and situations in that way. I suppose luck comes into play that some beautiful people came into my life at different times throughout my life. I have had some friends come and go and I am still able to move on from places and leave people behind which does sound rather harsh and cold-hearted. But a core of people remain very special. A growing core even.

Boundaries in my friendships might have been a problem but I sorted that one pretty early by, on the one hand being able to love and be truly interested in other people and on the other to keep a tight reign on myself and not actually truly say too much about me. It wasn't until I was 31 years old that I told one of my girlfriends about some of my more difficult memories and then years go by and I only let out little tiny snippets. And then with my darling Mr Doris, one of my dearest friends, early on in our relationship I gave him something to read that I had written about me. Because I wanted him to know about the deep and dark depths I have. I didn't want to con him or for him to be shocked by someone different one day "when I might leak out". And then into my life comes someone who I had known of for years but suddenly we click and become immense friends and I find myself sharing depths. And then I get to my blogging years and I am haemorraghing all over the blog but in a way that has been constructive to me and now another friend is drawing depths out of me too that I didn't know I could share and I find I am changing.

Always a work in progress, for the first time in a very long time I feel like I am making progress. And this brings me to my anger. With the current financial situation in this world, life has dealt some interesting cards. Such that it seems likely when we sell our house, it won't be at a loss but there will not be much in the way of a profit. We will go into private rented and will start again with a clean slate. No debts. Just going forward and reconstruct. And in my self-analysis this morning I realised I am not scared of starting again. Picking myself and starting again is second nature to me. What I recognise is that I am so flaming angry about having to start again. My anger is such that it seethes underneath and leaks out in all the wrong places at the wrong times to the wrong people. Usually my kids but mainly directed back at me and internalised. I can feel it like a pit of badness inside me that I know has to stop or I'll be thoroughly ill.

Part of the ACoA thing is anger and anger issues. They flip out at the wrong time and inappropriately. I said that already but this is what the book says. I've never been allowed to be angry. Never known how to process anger properly. It always had to be subsumed and hidden because only my mother (or brother) could be angry. For a few months I have been aware of my feelings of anger. Like arrows flying off in all sorts of different directions and yet always avoiding the target but I don't know what the target is or should be. I don't want to be feeling this as I am not an angry and aggressive person but I suppose that is where the problem lays. I can not just feel anger and move on from it because I have seen anger as something to do with aggressiveness and as a whole character trait when that should not be the case. This area is a work in progress. And another diversion from what is probably needed - another ACoA trait. Apparently ACoAs have procrastination down to a fine art.

Spring Cleaning of the Mind

Laying in bed this Saturday morning all cosy and hugged up, my mind drifted back, way back and maybe it is a sign to me to write it down. These last weeks I have been feeling better about my life and my past in a "letting go" kind of way. I've blogged about epsiodes from my past but I have deleted the mainly painful posts. It was really helpful to write them but there came a point when I felt it was all just dirty linen pegged up in public. I often run by instincts and if I feel to hang up some more washing then I'll put it down to some more spring cleaning and see it constructively too.

Summer of 1978
Aged fifteen during the punk years should have been the prime of my life. Instead I led a cloistered existence between school and home attending to every need of my mother and never getting it quite right. My mother was handy with anything wooden, in particular wooden handled feather dusters and long wooden spoons. She only used the handles and could create quite a swish and pain. They were her weapons of choice in administering punishment to us kids, and the number she got through as they broke across our bodies was quite impressive. I am surprised she could afford to keep replacing them but she did. One of her mantras then, quite public to us kids, was to never, ever leave a mark that could be seen. In those days, that meant if it was under your clothes then no-one would have to see the marks.

My older brother was the apple of her eye and she obviously preferred his company back then, though he wasn't immune to the blows. He in turn, used to take it out on me. So on the one side there was my mother and on the other my brother was beating me up. He knew what my mother was up to but I don't think she particularly knew what he was up to with me. In the pecking order of things I was pretty low down. So I kept quiet in order to keep the peace giving my brother free reign to continue his battery of me throughout our childhood.

I was six/seven years old when my mother was pregnant with my younger sibling. I was terrified she would have another girl and treat her like me so when my little sister was born I both adored her and vowed to myself to always love and protect her so she wouldn't get what I had. In the end, my sister's life took a different path being the angel blonde-haired child with a musical gift. Unlike dark haired me who reminded my mother of one of her sisters who she (unfairly) felt was cruel and devious. But my sister was also subjected to my mother's physical and mental brutality though she ended up with a different brand of it that I don't think I could have coped with it!

The Turning Points
In 1978 I can't remember which of these two events happened first but they were fairly close. I have written before about the first of these events, not that it was the only example nor was it the most serious, because it wasn't. It was because it had such a mental effect on me. The indignation and sense of self that it created inasmuch as I finally realised this was not acceptable.

It was washing day and as requested, presented my clothes for washing. There were times my mother insisted all clothes were turned inside out and other times that they must be in the right way and one never knew what was the right or wrong way anymore. I'm not talking about socks being scrunched up, I mean seriously all must be turned completely inside out. Now, I can see that is typically Aspergers but her way of handling it was her. I had gotten it wrong on this occasion and in her fury she lashed out at me with bare fists. In the impact I was knocked to the floor which she thought was wimpish of me since she reckoned she hadn't hit me that hard. This infuriated her more so she launched into me with kicks as I lay prone on the floor protecting my face. What got me was laying there, being kicked by my own mother and thinking I'm fifteen years old and this shouldn't be happening. I was developing a sense of self.

At some other point during the summer, us three kids were home alone and doing the chores. Things got out of hand as they often do ..... I think my brother was messing around with the vacuum cleaner and attacking us with it as it sucked. I think I might have struck back for a change and so my brother blew up in the way he does. His arms lengthen as his fists tighten, his face puffs up, his body goes red and seems to grow six inches. (Maybe the creator of the Incredible Hulk saw my brother in action once!) He launched into me with anger, as I cowered on the sofa trying to be a tiny ball he couldn't hurt. Don't forget I was very tiny until the age of sixteen. He took hold of my ankles and pulled me up into the air, upside down and began to hammer my body, head first into the floor. It might be relevant to say that we lived in a inner city tower block in those days with floors made of concrete with only thin carpet covering it. My little sister looked on horrified and remembers it to this day.

Somehow, with my sister's help I managed to escape and with my sister ran to the bedroom I shared with her and barricaded ourselves in. My brother was still on the warpath and proceeded to kick the door in. His foot didn't go all the way through and just smashed a hole through the front of the door. That door was the first door one saw as one came into the flat. The hallway that my mother had recently decorated with orange and green carpet tiles (it was the 70s!) and created almost a mock conservatory with vines and whatnot. That was it, I knew we were going to be in big trouble with my mother. Never mind that I had just been beaten up!

Taking the managerial role I set about trying to fix the door so that I could cover up my brother's actions. That now seems like sheer madness on my part but at the time I knew we had to keep my mother calm and sweet or else it would be more hellish. The door was one of those cheap construction doors with thin panels and corrugated cardboard in the middle. So I packed it up with stuffing from newspapers and then applied a coat of polyfilla. But the whole mass just sagged in the middle of the door and at some point my parents were going to be coming home. Plan B (or it could have been C or D by then!) was to apply a thin but strong layer of card over the hole and its wet stuffing and pin it into place. That worked quite well but the door was orange (it was the 70s!) to match the orange and green carpet tiles. There was paint left over so I quickly applied a coat to that area, but of course I didn't appreciate about undercoats and applying just a top coat didn't work well at first. Undeterred, and not having a full 24 hours for drying time I went ahead with a second coat of paint. We had to do lots of airing and lots of woodwork polishing elsewhere in the hallway to try and cover up the smell of paint.

With the paint still wet, my parents arrived home and us three kids were the picture of lightness and bright to try not to give anything away. My mother stood transfixed looking down at the patch on the bedroom door, she had a quizzical look on her face but said nothing and carried on. The patch would fool no-one so maybe the thought of how this could be was too much so she left it alone on this occasion. She never did find out about it.

By now, I knew I couldn't do this much more and had to get out but couldn't do anything until I was of legal age to leave school. I plotted and planned to leave school and home at the age of sixteen. Otherwise known, as running away from home. I was fifteen and a half and I knew from the news that other kids who disappear their photos are splashed all over the news. The answer was to make sure I didn't have any recent photos taken of me so that I couldn't be identified. Not that there were many photos being taken of me in those last few years as I was always snivelling and obviously an abomination to my mother who was the photographer of the family. For about six months I consciously avoided any camera activity whatsoever.

1979 - The First Great Escape
As soon as I turned sixteen I started applying for jobs and bunked off school to attend interviews. Other kids at the time were bunking off to do wild things but not me.... job interviews were my lot. It was difficult juggling my time with the postman to make sure that any job letters were not seen by my parents but in those days the posties were reliable. I secured an office job in the city. In the City of London at an insurance company and they seemed to really like me, even though I had applied for a basic office job. That was it. I organised a hostel place, which was much cheaper than renting a room of my own and packed my bags. No-one was at home and my mum was out at work and I wrote a long "I'm sorry" letter to my family.

I was sixteen and a matter of weeks old and seemed to have packed everything except the kitchen sink. I struggled downstairs to the taxi cab office with my load (it might have taken two trips in the lift!) and set off for my new life. Meanwhile, my brother returned home early and found my letter. Somehow he knew to go to the cab office. I had only gone a few streets in the cab when over the cab radio came a message "RTB POB". I knew nothing about cabs, nor about codes but as the driver amended his speed I instantly realised that the message was "Return To Base Passenger On Board". I didn't fight it, I don't know why but I knew it would be futile to fight.

My brother was waiting at the cab office and ushered me back home with all my stuff. We stood in the hallway, the one with the green and orange carpet tiles and for once he spoke gently to me and asked me why. I told him a bit of how he and mum treated me. In his own unique "Mr Innocent" way, utterly believable, he told me that I had imagined it all. The way he said it was chilling and potentially dangerous. Faced with me or my brother, my mother would always believe him even though he was already a known accomplished liar. I knew then that if I stayed I would truly go mad. But I would have to bide my time.

My brother kept quiet about that escape because, like us all, he knew it was better to keep the peace. Besides, he was the kid in the family who had a history of running away and had been doing so since about the age of six (I kid ye not!) and I was the one who always took the flak for him and kept my parents sweet. Or tried to. My mother needed someone to attack to take the pressure off my brother. Yup, he was seventeen years old at this point and busy looking after his own interests.

Pity about the job because I wasn't able to go. I wonder where I would be now in the insurance business if I had followed that path?

1979 - The Second Great Escape
I kept my head down for a while but not too long. I applied for more jobs and secured one as a filing clerk in a branch of the Civil Service. Lowly paid but what one would expect for my age at that time. I told a friend of mine at school what I was doing but not exactly where I was going. I would have been 16 and a couple of months old by then and must have left home on a Friday so that I could settle into the hostel and start work on the Monday. My room in the hostel was shared with a number of other women. No privacy, no security but it was very cheap. I lived on cans of cold baked beans as they were cheap and sustaining. Cold baked beans can taste sweet and delicious when eaten with a peace of mind.

On the Monday I was shown how to do my filing job. Filing and making coffee for the other staff was my role. The staff were really sweet and were much older than me and found me curious. I remember one particularly kind woman was shocked to find that I ate cold baked beans as I had no other money. By the Wednesday I had sussed my job and was doing so well that I had completed all filing tasks, plus the back log, by about midday. Without any qualifications it was clear I was able to do more. On the Friday I was called into the manager's office and given my first week's pay and told that I should come and see the manager again on Monday. From what little was said, it was hinted that I was in for some sort of promotion before too long. I had my first foot in the rung of the Civil Service ladder.

On my way back to the hostel, with my pay in my pocket (paid in cash in a brown envelope at the end of every week in those days) and already assigned to rent and travel leaving barely anything else for food I was feeling really happy and triumphant that I treated myself to a strawberry shake from McDonalds which were fairly new to London in those days.

Adding to the triumphant feeling was having been taken out to dinner at a proper restaurant the night before by one of the women who shared the room in the hostel. I had only been at the hostel a week but we had become friends in the first weekend and not only that, I was fascinated that she worked as an agency nurse and worked all hours for a lot of money but lived in a hostel. She was from the Middle East and had come to the UK because qualified nurses were needed. Living in the hostel cost more than paying for a mortgage and of course there was no privacy and no real life. She was quite able but for some reason hadn't got herself together to sort out accommodation. So I offered to look around for her and found her the perfect house in North London not far from her work. She liked it so much she put in an offer on the Thursday and began the process of buying the house. She took me out for dinner on the Thursday night to celebrate and to thank me. She kindly offered that I would have a room in her house for nothing to help me in return.

No wonder that after my first week of freedom I was feeling so good. My job was going brilliantly well and accommodation was going to improve. Slurping my exotic strawberry shake (that first one was exotic!) I arrived back at the hostel to have the hostel manager call me into her room. Another kindly woman, she made me sit down and told me that my father and brother were in the next room. She told me I had rights and that I didn't have to go home with them. I think she might have guessed the situation. Going back into child mode I knew I couldn't hold out against my parents and packed my bags. I wonder what would have happened if I had taken on board what she had said and refused to go home.

I wonder what happened to my nurse friend. I wonder if she completed on the purchase of that property and I wonder if she ever thinks of me. I don't even remember her name or what she looks like. I don't even remember anything else about her, but she was part of giving me hope.

My father had tracked me down because he interrogated my school friends (he was an ex-police officer) and although didn't have any precise hostel location knew the general area and knocked on every door until he found mine.

On my return my mother said one nice thing. Out of my entire childhood I can remember just one nice thing she said to me. Yes, that still makes me cry. Sat at dinner that night I said something like "thank you for having me back" and she returned with "It's good to have you back". I sat quietly crying into my food with such fucking gratitude. They knew nothing of what I had achieved during that week away and still don't know.

I was returned to school as I was told that I was not legally allowed to leave. When one's birthday falls on a certain date then you are not allowed to leave school until the end of the summer term, and not at the actual age of sixteen. Back at school my meeting with the headmaster is told here!

1979 - The Third Great Escape
Once again, my head was down and I trawled onwards. Life at home was as rubbish as ever and nothing changed. As a result of my previous escapes I learned a number of things: tell no-one anything; leave no clues; travel light; and get a live-in job as there are no accommodation costs to worry about. The writing was on the wall and surely my parents must have seen it. Being a year ahead of myself at school I had to re-sit all my O levels at the normal age and knew I was flunking them all over again. Once more I was secretly job hunting and found a live-in job in a bed and breakfast hotel in West London. There was no point trying to trace my nurse friend as my father could do that too. I graciously waited for my brother to have his birthday and made a quiet exit the day after with only what I could carry. An overstuffed rucksack and a bag and caught a bus down the road. I prayed as the bus drove away. Prayed that nothing would go wrong. I left a little "I'm sorry" note in the back of the fridge, just so that my parents knew I wasn't actually dead. A year later, I was still away discovering life and me. A body of an unidentified young woman had recently been pulled out of a canal and was on the news. She had a scar on her foot, as do I, so I sent my parents some flowers via Interflora to say I was OK. I went to an Interflora well away from my area and paid by cash (a whole week's wage back then!) and used false contact details. I knew well to cover my tracks.

Two and a half years after leaving home and after one too many breakdowns and with the support of my wonderful boyfriend of a year I contacted my parents again. I wonder where I'd be now if I hadn't done that! Those depressions would have been there anyway and I just had to work through them.

My mother would like nothing more than to know we are where we are at because of her. She appears on the whole to like me now and takes a glow from my achievements. Sad to say but it is just too late. I don't like the way I don't give her a second chance and make allowance that we all make mistakes, but I truly feel I have tried so many times before and had it thrown back in my face and trashed. So I protect myself by keeping from her emotionally. We have lots of contact now, which quite frankly, she is lucky to have but I wonder if she and my father are aware of the emptiness from me.

My father is not beloved by me nor innocent in all this. He was struggling too, to keep the peace with my mother. Often he would allow things to happen because it meant that my mother got whatever it was through her system and order was restored. If that meant me taking punishments for what I didn't do then he allowed it and told me to get on with it because it was better. No! In the long run it wasn't better. Someone should have stopped my mother. Should have set up boundaries of what was acceptable. But there we are. It is done. It is life.

Interestingly, my brother, still with anger issues even now, acknowledged to me in my twenties that what he did to me as a kid was wrong. He has apologised. Thoroughly. Acknowledgment and apologies go a huge way that if he goes before me I know that at his funeral I will be crying with all my heart for his mixed-up soul.

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Writing all that has been interesting. I bawled my eyes out at one point but am OK now. Re-reading it seems to distance me from the events and brings perhaps more objectivity. Perhaps I might print a copy of it and go outside and burn it and see what happens.

The Dinner Thing

The last week my delightful ten year old niece was telling me about the mini Easter plays taking place each assembly at her primary school. Wittering on she told me quite casually about "The Dinner Thing" which took me a few moments to realise she meant "The Last Supper". I'd never thought of that particular event as a dinner or a human meal as such, and rather, just about the impending betrayal. Nothing like saying it as it is and pointing out the obvious.

The Dinner Thing (1495-1498) by Leonardo da Vinci

It is a glorious Friday here with the sun pouring in the windows from early on. It has been like a divine light that has lit up my soul and made me want to sing, and I have. I'm not rushing off anywhere and I feel in charge .... I can decide to do this or that or nothing at all. Perhaps I have crossed another threshold in my life and now that I am finally here I can throw open the windows and let the light in.

All those darling people in my life, near and far, know that you have helped and I am beaming back to you mega energy, love and light. :-)

Doris OS Version 2.0.0.8

Suggestions and snippets of advice have come from all quarters which I have not been too proud to listen to, accept or act upon. In fact I have listened carefully to all sorts and am grateful that the universe saw fit to inspire a number of people to say or offer all the right triggers. This has happened in the past but maybe not quite as fulsomely as recently, but perhaps that was because I was in the just the right place in my head.

This last weekend I had the therapy I said I was going for, that coincidently was booked in before the whole Aspergers thing arose. My session with a brilliant Kinesiologist was, as ever, just amazing. This form of kinesiology requires four years study in Professional Kinesiology Practice and is not the same as some forms of kinesiology which are usefully tacked onto other therapies. Kinesiology uses muscle testing to detect and correct imbalances in the body's energy which then relate to pain and injury etc and emotional imbalances. Perfect for me and my emotional system.

This was a longer session than usual and was maybe one and a half hours but what a difference that makes to me. (Compared to the same time vegging in front of the telly.) I had the idea that I wanted to upgrade or re-install a new Operating System (OS) into me! To supplant the one I have from my childhood which has so many negative ways of operating. For example: my mother has an upset and I knee jerk into thinking I must help fix her or feel attacked by her; or that I am so unnecessarily down on myself. Whereas I have had enough experiences and feelings in my life to have a rich and worthwhile way of operating that I don't need the negative stuff. With the kinesiology one works in the positive so instead of saying all the negatives I want changing my brilliant Kinesiologist helped me find the perfect words for me to describe what I wanted:

"My choices and behaviour are connected to my Higher Self and enable me to create a life of love, joy, good health and prosperity."

So that's it, I have my new operating system. [Edit! It wasn't just stating a goal that did it, but it sure helped. There was quite a bit of work done during the session to get to the point at the end that it was done.] I also had three pieces of homework. One of which involved saying something specific to my mother on the telephone. Until we knew what it was I was terrified it would be something I couldn't handle or would be too confrontational but it wasn't. That really surprised me and didn't seem so insurmountable. The sort of thing that could arise anyway and one I should respond to in this way. And suddenly, I feel free of any idea of seeking any sort of acknowledgment of the past from my parents. It just isn't relevant.

Part of my balance included a mini balance around money. Apparently (and not surprisingly really) money just stresses me out. Receiving it, giving it and just seeing it. And part and parcel of all that was such a low impression of myself that I found it impossible at first to say the following statement,

"I, _____ _____, love and honour whatever I create"

Just couldn't get the words out and bawled my eyes at the thought and as I was finally saying it. However, I could easily enough say the reverse of the statement so that thought pattern had to be reversed, and with a few exercises it was restored to the rightful way. Such that I can sit here and say it out loud without wavering. During the mini money balance I had a massive realisation that money was such a screwed up issue in my childhood I was held back from earning a decent amount because I was unable to spend it without stress. After all, why earn it if I am not free to spend it?! Doh!

So what else is new? Instead of focussing my energy on breaking the family cycle of being estranged from ones parents (at least three generations in both my parents) I now focus my energy on enjoying the wonderful relationships I have with my kids. It doesn't sound like much but is a huge shift that makes my children the important ones and not about running around my mother's whims.

In other areas I have been exercising again almost daily for the past couple of weeks. Starting off small using my air walker I am comfortably up to 12 minutes continuous activity. Though I can walk for miles this does involve more energy. I haven't drunk any red wine (my tipple of choice) for the past couple of weeks. Two reasons for this, one was to salvage a few of my brain cells which I was regularly annihilating into slumber and the other reason was get the stains off my teeth. And that is another physical thing I have been working on - to get some sort of whiteness back into my teeth (such as the tetracycline staining allows) and to try and salvage my receding gums. For the teeth whitening I am using Pearl Drops Replenishing White toothpolish with liquid calcium and for the gums I am using Gengigel mouthrinse which contains hyaluronan. Internet research suggests that hyaluronon aids the natural healing process of the gums .... although there are no claims on the side of the box that it can help receding gums to regrow. It is a very strange heavy liquid that one has to keep swilling in your mouth for one to two minutes. Not unpleasant, quite pricy as I estimate the £7.50 150 ml bottle at 10 mls per session times 3 to 4 swills per day will last a week at most, but is well worth the trying. I'll report back in due course.

Yesterday, I even ended up at the dentist which is not my favourite place at all. But son needed minor dental treatment and to get him in as a National Health patient at a recommended private dentist required that I submit to the pleasures. I had wanted to get my teeth whiter and into a better state before any dental visit but that's the way. Turns out my teeth are very good hygiene wise and if anything I am brushing too hard. The dentist heard of Gengigel but seemed to not want to comment on it and was noncommittal about my gums too but it doesn't take a trained dentist to see that more tooth is being revealed than ought to be.

I'm still keeping my desk area clear. And did I say that after my big car clear out the other week that the car promptly broke down - with an existing electrical fault we had been nursemaiding - and needed garaging and a large repair bill? But it's fixed now so that is good. In the meantime, I had the privilege to hire a car that was absolutely brand new with only 4 miles on the clock. After all my driving this last week I shall be returning it with an impressive 500+ miles on the clock. Which I think is a lot for little ole England.

Onwards and upwards with my new OS :-)

The Value of Pain and Struggle

The last couple of days I have been on fast forward. Like a sponge soaking up as much information as I can find online about adults and parents with Aspergers. Like I am a large 33rpm album with so much information being played at 78rpm. There is an end, or rather a resolve, to the research and the process of my pain and struggle and I am whizzing towards it. Yes, I might have ambitious ideas about resolving but I am determined I am not going to sit here wallowing for the next few years. My life is getting on and I want it to be my life and not one with the shadows of the past looming over.

Realising for sure that my mother is Aspergers doesn't take away the pain she inflicted upon me because I do not believe it was the Aspergers that did it. Though the Aspergers adds to the mix that made her her, and is clearly the person she is now, because on the whole, she can not get away with what she did to us as children. So I have two issues. One is me and processing the anger I now acknowledge I have (and quite rightly so because I did not imagine what happened) and the other issue is learning to understand the Aspergers and being able to manage the fall out from my mother's behaviour from now on.

With regards me, I am talking to friends and family; sharing; and getting some therapy this weekend that might just make a fundamental difference.

With regards to my mother I am still trying to understand the Aspergers. What gets me, is that one of my mother's current special interests is in a particular alternative therapy she "practises". I was wondering how does giving such a "hands on" therapy fit with someone with Aspergers so I did a google for the therapy name and Aspergers. Three million pages (I exaggerate!) into google and I find a discussion forum on some sort of politics where someone explains a bit about themselves including my two keywords. I am hoping I might drop them an email to see if I can chew over some thoughts privately with them so a quick flick to their profile and I find a link to a website that just blows me away!

The Nibiruan Council was not what I was expecting to find when it starts off with "Welcome to the official website of the Nibiruan Council, a multidimensional off-world council whose members are connected to the planet Nibiru." I am really not making fun of it, but I am kind of shocked. After all, like a lot of other things, I have never heard of the planet Nubiru and it puts me in mind of a certain make of car: Daewoo Nubira! Anyway, I am fascinated and once I put my jaw socket back into place I continue exploring, though I didn't find the person I was looking for and if I did am not sure I can embark on the conversation I had in mind.

Their leader, Jelaila Starr is the Nibiruan Councils’ messenger and channel, has produced a number of videos on youtube. If one can put aside any of the more way out aspects such as the end of the world (as we know it) in 2012 and the ascension ideas, they contain a lot of good stuff for living life. Really good. And most pertinent to me at this time was the first video I watched:

The Value of Pain and Struggle