WRITING IT OUT

 Over on my Facebook page someone left a photograph which showed a line of white plimsoles  amongst which was one pair of red  ankle trainers. The message was  "if you are lucky enough to be different,  don't ever change."

 The trouble is if you are different you cannot change.  You can try to change. You can pretend to change. You may even convince others that you have changed. But you won't have you will still be who you are.

I want to make it clear here that I'm not talking about such things as addiction, lying, being nasty to others, stealing. No. Those things can be changed.

Being who you really are is what cannot be changed. I know.

Being different is not being a teenager wearing shocking clothing or shocking hair or even being a fully grown adult doing the same thing.

No. Being different is the way you were the minute your mother's egg was fertilised in her womb. We will never ever fit in with the crowd. We may look like we do. We may do everything we possibly can to fit in with the crowd and when we do that we do it at the expense of our soul.

For me, it was a case of being myself or face death or a lifetime in psychiatric care.  I did not know this at the time. I had taken on board myself my families deeply negative opinion of me especially my fathers disgust of me and the opinion of the religionists that I was evil and always would be. I had also fallen for the psychiatric labels I had been given. I think I wanted those labels because I thought by accepting them by accepting that I had a mental disease that I would never get well from then all this pain would go away and I will just take medication and I would be okay and I could stop hating myself.

However as much as I dearly wanted to please the psychiatrists and myself it was very clear that nothing that they labelled me with and no drugs that they gave me made any difference to me. The self harm continued.  The only time it can be said that the self harm stopped was when I was in a manic state. For those who do not know mania, at least for me, was euphoric. I loved myself. I loved everybody else. But it was clear that I was crazy. Not at first. And not to everybody. I was accepted as a hairdresser apprentice, into drama school, and even as a psychotherapist! I'm not going to lie and say that I do not miss those periods of mania I do. Unfortunately, I cannot control them and so they become more and more intense until only a moron would not realise there was something wrong with me. I was very lucky that I did not get into any serious trouble.

I only ever ended up in hospital when I crashed. Meaning by this when the mania stopped. For me the stop would be sudden. And I would be left bewildered exhausted and extremely depressed and not wanting  to live and having very little recollection of the previous months that I had been high. One of the most painful things was that during those highs I would make friends with people. But the Colin they knew was the manic Colin and so of course when manic Colin disappeared so did they. Not all of them. Three of them didn't. Judy whom I have known since 1979, my husband John whom I have known since  1981 and my friend Dawn who I have known since the late 80s.

 What eventually freed me, was first of all accepting that I had been abused. You would think that this would be obvious. But now it wasn't. I never saw any of what happened to me as abuse. Not even what my teacher did to me who was a child pornographer. I never thought that my father banging my head into the wall or having his hands are my throat or saying how much  I disgusted him or my mother constantly telling me that I was a bad boy and deserved to be sent away and it was only because she was such a good person that I wasn't.  She would make Bedtime stories that were always about little boys and the horrors that awaited them if they were naughty. Both my parents were control freaks. Clearly they had their own issues.

It wasn't until the late 80s when I was watching an episode of Oprah Winfrey and I heard a young man and the young woman sitting on the couch telling their story of their childhood.  I heard them and I wondered why they were making such a fuss about it and I also wondered why Oprah was crying and why when that camera panned the audience they too were in tears. I knew then for the very first time in my life that what had happened to me was not right. It was not really a Eureka moment because I didn't immediately stop hating myself and I still thought I was a bad person.

It was not until 1994 when I started having such severe flashbacks that I thought I was going to die or go insane but I started looking for help. Of course I did not look for that help from my doctor. Oh, yes of course it was the first place I went when I had my first flashback and all they did was give me a prescription Valium and  chlorpromazine. They didn't much care. Colin was just having another one of his episodes. Well I knew better than that by then.

I found a private therapist who specialised in helping survivors of abuse. He was a survivor himself. I believe that only survivor can really help another survivor to recover enough to live a good and productive life. I say recover enough because we never fully recover. It is more a process without an end. I really hit bingo with this man. He made a promise to me that he would be there for me 24 hours a day seven days a week whenever I needed him. All I had to do was call and he would talk to me as soon as he could or even see me as soon as he could. I saw this man for five years. He never once labelled me. He never once criticised me or humiliated me. He never once told me anything. He listened. And he gently pointed out how their words different ways of thinking. This of course was extremely painful for me because I have been told there was only one way to think and at the time it was the way my religion taught me to think and my parents taught me to think. If I thought differently from them I would surely die because God would strike me down dead for being so evil as to even dare to think differently to the way I have been taught.

However, he was expert at the programming and slowly but surely over the five years he got through to me but in the most gentle manner. He was very parental. We are occasionally still in touch. There are professionals who think that what he did was very unprofessional in that he should have seen me for 50 minutes once a week and left it at that. My therapist new that I wasn't going to live very long and he knew that if he was really going to help me then it was going to be a full-time job. It did not prevent him having other clients. After five years it was my choice to end our sessions together. I felt I had done as much work as I could and there had been enormous change in me. There was still much more change needed but I didn't know that. It was still the right thing to stop my sessions when I did. And anyway he was always at the end of the phone for me if I needed him which on occasion I did. Generally, I just got on with living a life that was very much lighter than it used to be.

However I was still not happy, and I was still vastly overweight. I knew that the abuse that I suffered was wrong. I knew that the things that had been done to me were wrong. I am not talking just about my family nor my teacher who was the child pornographer, the bullies that I seem to come across everywhere I went, the so-called nursing staff in the psychiatric hospitals and this car chase in the evil drugs. Some of my absolute worst behaviour took place whilst I was full of chlorpromazine one of the things that I did still haunts me to this day. Knowing that it was not my fault, knowing that were it not for the drug I would never have done such thing does help but the memory of it stays with me forever. And no I did not kill anybody nor abuse anybody.

The real freedom came for me the day I realised that it truly was not my fault. Prior to that day I understood that it was wrong to abuse child or an adult in the manner that I had been. I still believed however that I was abused because of who I was. That little piece of evil was lying right at the bottom of the barrel and it had not been seen by anybody not even myself.

Strangely enough what brought that finally to the surface was meeting somebody that we had agreed to meet on a holiday in another country. From the moment we met this person was unpleasant to me and I do not wish to go into detail but at one point caused me humiliation and anger by doing something that she knew I could not tolerate. She had also left out a very important piece of information about herself.  anyway none of that matters. What follows is what matters and this person did me a huge huge favour.

Soon after arriving back I was at a dog show and I was feeling a lot of fear in my stomach I mentioned it to my friend and she said it was just nerves and it would go away. It didn't. It grew. And it grew. And it grew. I was petrified and I couldn't stop crying. I was absolutely convinced that I had a tumour in my belly.  fortunately I had a wonderful doctor. She sent me for all of the requisite tests and she showed me the results which said that I did not have a cancer in my gut. And I would sit there crying and saying but I can feel this lump there and it hurts badly and I am terrified. And she would reassure me and tell me that it would be okay and that this needed to happen and I would get through it. I had no idea what she was talking about but I trusted her.  over a period of five months this continued. Then one day I had come to the end. I knew that at on that day I was going to die I could feel it. I didn't call anybody. Instead I walked round and round and round my room not knowing what to do. I eventually screamed out that I couldn't take any more of this and that if you loved me you needed to show me now. I don't know who I was talking to. I fell to my knees and my telephone rang and it was my oldest friend Judy and she seemed to understand immediately what was happening and she spoke to me very gently and very motherly and as if I was a small child and she was telling me over and over that it wasn't my fault that it wasn't because of who I was and then this awful tumour in my gut burst and I must've sounded like a wild animal but my friend stayed on the phone just saying comforting things as I howled out the very last of the pain inside me. What I have written I don't think comes that close to what actually happened but I cannot find words to describe the agony of those months and the agony of those last moments when the monster finally left me.

I lost a great deal of weight after this, eight stone, or over 100lb, and the way I dress started to change. The people I had in my life also started to change new ones came in and a lot of old ones went out.

I am still learning and still growing. I still have flashbacks occasionally. I recently had the most humiliating experience of having somebody pushed one of my buttons hidden very deeply inside me. I was in public and I could not get away. I could feel myself crumbling and all I could think of openly is no not here not here not here.  a very dear friend  saw what was happening and she took me back to my wheelchair and made me sit and she did not say more than a couple of words to me before  the tears flowed.  I didn't need to explain anything to her. She is a very good friend with a very good heart and a very good intuition. She knew that something had occurred which pushed one of my abuse buttons.  and then later as I was going home another dear friend could see that I was a distressed and she was very kind to me and she offered me a piece of jewellery that I had admired earlier and jokingly took off her jacket to put  on mine. It was such a lovely gesture but of course I did not take it. But I will never forget that she offered it to me and she meant it. If I had taken it she would have been happy. But I didn't take it her friendship is enough.

Recently and this is very difficult, I have not been feeling good at all. I feel in a very low mood a lot of the time low enough to feel that I would rather not be here. (It is not something I would do now so there is no need to worry.)  I keep telling myself that should not be feeling like this since everything is going so well. 

I really cannot understand… As soon as I wrote that I realised that of course I understand. My disease has worsened a lot. And it is now really beginning to interfere with what I can do and cannot do. And right at this moment I don't really give a dam that there are other people worse off than me. This is me that I'm talking about not anybody else. I asked John last night if he thought I would still be able to be doing this in two years time then he said yes of course you can. How long do you think then? Seven or eight he said or even longer. I am only 54 even eight years only takes me to 62 and that is far too young to become incapable. this recent trip to Scotland I really enjoyed and I handled well because I was well medicated but I was so ill on the Tuesday. The days after dog shows are becoming much worse. Fortunately John is mainly here because most dog shows full on Friday Saturday or Sunday and John only works Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday now that he has retired.

I know people think that I am very much an extrovert are well of course I must be because of the way that I dress. No. It is part of my act. I can't really explain it but it is like putting on a costume and a different me comes out. It is almost like a different version of the manic me, all rather I mean are toned down version. It also distracts from the fact that I'm disabled because people do not remember me for that and I am no longer described as such. If people want to know who I am they don't say looks and a man in a wheelchair all ups and man in the walking sticks they described the man who dresses up or who has odd coloured boots. Don't misunderstand me. I love the show's and I enjoy the nice comments I receive about my outfits. But I am so glad when I get home and I can take it all off and just be me and stay indoors until the next show. I live quietly. I knit, I watched DVDs, I read, and I spend my time on here. I rarely go out I really enjoy my own company and the company of my dogs. So this really extrovert man everybody thinks they know doesn't exist at all. I am very glad though the I have pulled it off.  I am also very proud of myself for doing it. Know one is more surprised than myself that I dress the way I do and that I make myself so visible when all I want to do is shrink away into a hole and be on my own. I certainly wouldn't have thought that I could cope with being stared at but then I also didn't know that being stared at was not always a negative thing. twice at Scotland professional photographers asked if they could photograph me. This is not the first time this has happened. I find it truly amazing. It makes me laugh inside.

 I won. 

BHAJI FEVER

 I slept and have only just got up. John made his own way to the station or rather got a taxi. I am feeling much better today in fact I feel my normal crappy self rather than my horrible crappy self. I was thinking that Indian food is very fatty and they use clarified butter to cook and the meals that I enjoy the most are the SAG bhaji and the onion bhaji  and mushroom bhaji.  all of which have liberal amounts of clarified butter. I think this on top of the fact that I had had such a long trip and that I normally only eat chicken and plain steamed vegetables is what made me really sick.

Anyway this has completely cocked up the doctors seven day trial of knocking me out to try and get to grips with the exhaustion. I of course am totally unaware that I am exhausted because you get used to feeling a particular way. But she says that the reason my symptoms have worsened so much so quickly recently is because I am only sleeping for two or three hours and then waking and dosing for a couple more. The reason the trial got cocked up was because as I was preparing my drugs to take with me to Scotland John talked to me. I don't know how many times I have to tell that man not to interfere with me when I have to concentrate on something.  As a result I had all my drugs together except for the knockout pills so that has completely buggered up the seven-day trial. I have just called the doctor and am waiting for a call back to find out what I'm supposed to do.

It is just as well that the swimming pool is closed until Monday or it might actually be until Tuesday. This means I cannot swim and I have to rest and so I should be able to get on with some knitting as I am still stuck on the same bloody socks and the same second side of John's Aran sweater. I have had to frog that sweater several times now and am going to have to frog back at least four rows because I have noticed the mistake with the travelling stitches travelling the wrong way-again! 

For anybody that has not use Lantern Moon Needles and can afford to I would highly recommend them I love them. These are ebony circulars. I bought them in a set. I now have several sets of various brands some of which are fixed and some of which are interchangeable.

It is so good to have Luque and Whitney home.  It is really very sweet to watch the other dogs greeting their pack leaders.

 I have just noticed that Monday is 2 September server pool will be reopened. although I doubt that I shall be going on that day because I have a dog show the day before!

It is really beginning to concern me how terrible I feel the day after a dog show. And no I do not feel tired or headachy I am talking about feeling totally incapacitated unable to get out of bed, John having to bring my drugs upstairs and even then it can take an hour or so before I am even able to take them and then another couple of hours if I am lucky for them to work enough for me to get out of bed only to go downstairs and plop in the's armchair  and stare at the TV. I am completely used to feeling very tired after dog show but I'm not used to feeling this bad. Perhaps it is just a relapse and I will go back to normal soon. For those that don't know I have good periods and I have bad periods the bad period so what are called relapses. Although the good periods are not exactly good they are just much better than the relapse!

I am so glad that John decided at the last minute to also take today off, I mean yesterday, because goodness knows what I would have done without him  there to help me. As it was my heart pills which I'm supposed to take 12 hourly did not get taken until 4 PM along with my other drugs because I just couldn't swallow anything without fear of it coming back. And of course he helped me by bringing me drinks and generally holding me while I shook. He is very good at looking after me but when he is sick he gets very stroppy if I try and look after him. Men are funny creatures.  Men always go on about how difficult women are and how unfathomable they are and yet exactly that the same can be said of men. I think of myself as just Colin because although I am a man and have no wish to lose my Dick and become a woman I tend to think more right brained than left brained but do think left brained in certain areas. I feel I understand women much better  And I get on much better with them.

 I had to call the doctor to explain that I had not taken my drugs to Scotland, the   knock out drugs,  and this because John interfered with me whilst I was counting out all the pills that I needed to take with me and I had forgotten to take sleeping pills stop I have told him time and time again not to interfere with me while I am working on something like that..

This of course messes up the trial completely so I had to call and make other arrangements another appointment and the new prescription. I could not imagine what had happened to the 28 description that I had already been given stop I searched in my jackets and in his jackets and could not find them so I phoned him up on the off chance that he had them. The twat  had put them in the right hand side of his desk!  quite why we did not go to Tesco the day that we got the prescription I do not know stop anyway I did test Tesco to make sure that they had not had a 28 prescription for me and they had not and I also checked that there was not a 20 X fiction waiting for me at the surgery there were not. Later today there will be a prescription at Tesco waiting for me.

 I have quite clearly been in a relapse in quite some time and so I am about to have a remission I hope.

 while, that is about it  that is about it today.Now it is time tonight and watch DVDs and cuddle  the dogs.  in a way I am looking forward to doing nothing for the next few days. I will probably even do some dying and get around to putting yarn in my shop.

TOWARD ACCEPTANCE

Times are very strange at the moment for me.  emotionally I seem to be all over the place. And my body is worse than it ever has been.

I have had to accept the fact that I can no longer do long-distance driving. I must have someone to share the driving with me or to do the driving completely.

The last two longest and shows I have attended I was driven both to and from entirely by somebody else. I therefore did not expect that I would feel terrible next day. In fact I have felt worse! Very much worse.

This I know is not anything to do with the long-distance driving and the dog show about to do with my disease because recently John and I attended a barbecue with some friends who live about 90 miles away. All I did was drive their did some chitchat and drove home. It was easy and a very nice day. The following morning I could not even get out of bed with the help of the electric bed and with John. I eventually was able to get out of bed at 6 PM with John holding me up even though I was using both walking sticks.

My doctor is arranging for me to see a psychotherapist who specialises in people  with diseases that are progressive and caused 24 seven pain.

WHY?

 Well, as much as I thought that I had been dealing with my disease very well for the last nine years in fact all I've been doing is ignoring it and using my drugs to enable me to do what I want to do. I'm not quite so daft as to believe that I had made myself well in manner but I was daft enough to believe that if I took the drugs I could behave as if I was not ill and  and get on with life as normal. I have found out that this is certainly not true.  At least that is the case now as my disease has progressed.

 I know that I will come to terms that this and I'm so very lucky that there are people around me who are also thinking of ways to make my life physically easier.

I had at least become accepting of the drugs that the doctor gives me.   I no longer feel that I'm going to turn into some addicted maniac who it's going to start robbing people and bashing people over the head in the street for their wallets. She explained to me in very clear terms that there is no avoiding becoming addicted to morphine. It is my body that has become addicted to it not me. I recently put myself through a self-imposed ban on taking morphine. I did feel pretty awful and then quite suddenly on the fourth day I develop severe stomach cramps and vary bad diarrhoea. I did not eat because food was the last thing that I wanted and yet the terrible diarrhoea continued along with the cramps. I restarted taking the morphine because I knew enough about morphine  and withdrawal  to know that things were about to get very serious indeed. In fact I very lucky because I am prescribed 2400 mg of gabapentin every day which is a antiepileptic which also has other neuropathic uses. Had I not been taking those drugs I might well have been experiencing seizures long before I got to the cramps or after I got to the cramps am not sure.

Now I take my pills and I just accept that I have to. I no longer feel guilty for taking drugs. I no longer feel like I am a week person who is just the legal prescribed addict. It was a couple of consultations ago that the penny dropped with my doctor about what the problem with me was and my pills. I was not really ordering them enough if I were taking the correct dosages. It came to her of her own volition what my concern was and we spoke about it. I know that elsewhere in my writings I have completely contradicted myself in what I have written here but I believe it has all been part of my denial.

I have very much been enjoying my dog shows and have been successful. I am especially pleased that Mary Grace has now won the limit bitch class VI times and has two RCC. she needs 3 CC  to be a champion and I feel more and more confident that she will become so.

Megan has done very well for herself having one firsts and Best Puppy . Alexander has had 1sts and a Best Puppy in Show.(this is where my stubbornness comes in and my frustration; I have written most of this using my voice to type recognition software but some of it I have typed by hand. What I have typed by hand has had to be corrected as it was mainly gobbledygook. yet I still whenever I approach my computer go immediately to the keyboard with my fingers and sometimes I am so stubborn I will sit there and go through the  laborious correction myself.)

So whilst life it's good and I enjoy my dog shows I do need to speak to a professional long-term disease person because I am not dealing with this as well as I thought.

One thing that my doctor has prescribed is double sleeping pills because she wants me to have seven nights of solid sleep and then do the same thing every third night. She says it is a regime that they have followed with other patients and it has worked for them. Much of the worsening of my problems is due to lack of sleep particularly my neurological disorder.  I drop things constantly and I have been finding knitting very difficult indeed recently and for one week I just wasn't able to do it which really did frighten me.

I think this is going to take some time to work out but I also think that I will carry on doing my best and living as best as I can rather than just sit back in my seat and give up.

OH TO BE NORMAL

As stupid as it sounds I am writing here on my blog because I can't face writing anything on Facebook.

I feel absolutely terrible I don't just feel tired but I am very tearful also. I am not prone to feeling sorry for myself but recently I've been having trouble with dealing with life or mainly people.

The amount of energy I need to expend to get to a dog show is becoming harder and harder. By this I mean the getting dressed up and the act not so much the driving and the physical pain the brief walk around the ring causes me. Now it's putting on my show face and my show gear. I know people don't believe me but I am very shy person and I prefer to spend a lot of time on my own. On Tuesdays Wednesdays and Thursdays when John is not here it is rare that I go out unless I absolutely have to. Yesterday after Tuesday's show there was no way I was going to be able to keep my 1020 appointment with my doctor so it became a telephone consult. She is going to try and find a psychotherapist who is also a pain specialist and a drug specialist. I'm not having so much difficulty taking my drugs at the moment.

This is so embarrassing to say that the feelings that I'm experiencing and the constant crying seems to be about a very strong wish to be normal. To be able to go to a dog show without it causing me two days of pain and exhaustion. To be able to go out and not have to worry about am I going to find suitable food to eat because of my food difficulties. Am I going to be able to interact with people without them misunderstanding my intention.

It makes me sick to my stomach when I realise that I have been misunderstood and the pain that this has caused others as well as myself. I found out recently that I made somebody feel abused by me. They felt that I was aggressive and attacking. I was totally devastated and I still am I am so shocked. Here I am writing about the effects of abuse on myself  and on other people and yet I still made somebody else feel like this.

It isn't just this. I just feel that my life is out of control. My hands are working really badly I keep dropping things or my hand suddenly decides to make a jerking movement and so I drop whatever it is I have in my hand and if it has hot liquid in it then I get burned. I am falling over a lot and twice in the ring I have become muddled about what I'm supposed to be doing. 

KINDNESS AND NOT BEING A SAINT

I discovered something very moving today at the swimming pool. I was speaking to the lifeguard about how the lane next to the wall is always free and if I get to the pool late in the session has already started that Lane usually isn't free but becomes free the minute I get in the pool.  I discovered that this is because the other swimmers make sure that no one swims in that lane when I am there. even if the non-regular users are there they are told to leave that lane free for me.

I have to say that I was truly touched by the kindness of people whom I don't even know. And all they know of me is that I have a physical condition and that I have a need for some reason to swim next to the wall which they wouldn't know about. The reason being is that sometimes my body goes into complete spasm and I will be able to grab hold of the wall more quickly than the lifeguard seeing me struggle.

Anyhow I really was very moved to find miss out and I had been wondering to such a long time why I was always free in that lane. Personally, I would never ask anybody to vacate that lane if they were swimming in it when I arrived.

One of the things that has been bothering me and please please do not take this the wrong way. You're very kind letters to me really lift me up and it keeps me writing about the personal struggles of an abuse survivor on a day-to-day basis.

Abuse never goes away. I cannot really think of a suitable analogy for it. I had thought it would be a bit like losing a limb which would cause daily challenges. However, except in rare circumstances limbs that are not there do not cause pain. Perhaps having the lower portion of each arm amputated would be closer as an analogy because I believe that would cause pain and difficulty 24 seven. However I have no wish to insult any amputees and so I am still stuck with not really having an analogy.

I have just had one of those DUH! moments.  A really good analogy  is my disease. It is permanent and it will never go away. I have to face it every single day and on every single day it causes me challenges and pain. The only difference between it and the abuse survival is that the abuse survival improves over time. It never ends but it does get better and it does not cause me 24 seven pain like my physical problems do.

It is hard to explain how abuse survival affects me every single day but it does. It may wish me not to go out but to stay safe in my house with all of the blinds drawn. It may make me feel uncertain of my friends and it most certainly makes me uncertain of the motives of people who become friendly towards me. It can make me worry that I had inadvertently upset somebody. In the past it would enable me to obsess upon whether I was like to not. In those days not being liked was very dangerous in my mind because it meant you were very likely to harm me. This is one of the recoveries because I no longer believe this. And there are people that I do not like which was quite a revelation to me. I don't treat them as if I don't like them. I do not let other people dictate how I behave. I am a warm and friendly person  and I try not to let the behaviour of others toward me alter that. At the same time I'm no doormat.

So what is it that has been bothering me about the lovely emails that I get? Quite simply it is this: the letters are really beautiful letters to receive and may make me feel very good and I would not wish for them to discontinue. However at the same time I also do not want people thinking that I have it made, that I have the answers, that I am wonderfully happy and content  and sane! No, this could not be further from the truth. Yes I am happy generally speaking. Yes I have a very good life. Yes I have a very loving husband. Yes I have my dogs and I have a wonderful home and security. But none of these things wipe out the abuse and its effects. I have worked very hard to get here and I have to continue to work hard to stay here. There is no goal and if there were a goal I certainly have not reached it.

I am an abuse survivor. If you are an abuse survivor then you are no different to me and I am no different to you. We are both abuse survivors. We both experience the same horrors in the same agonies and we both find each day a challenge. I guess this is what I wanted to say. But I very much appreciate the wonderfully kind emails I get but I also felt the need to point out that I am no hero I am just abuse survivor the same as you are.

CATHCING UP

 Once again I find that I am neglecting to write on my blog.

Recently John and I went to Frankfurt for a week. We both solely enjoyed it. Admittedly we spend most of our time shopping. The shopping in Frankfurt is excellent. Not expensive or rather what I mean is it can be very expensive than also not so much. So we did a mixture of both.

I finally found a shop that specialised in making men's floral suits! They were fully prepared to sell me just the jacket of the suit but unfortunately it was not my size. They said that they could easily make my size and they would take my measurements and I would have to come back for a fitting. They clearly thought we had much more money than we actually have and I explained to them that I could not possibly come back for a fitting but I made it clear that the reason for this was my disability and the fact that I have to use a wheelchair. After all why should I let on the  fact I'm not rich!  I did however by the most fabulous pair of shoes.

 Even just looking at these makes me feel breathless! Before we went away John relented and we bought the Tiffany lamp that I wanted. He wanted it to them but he was having difficulty justifying it.  Like me he still feels funny about spending money just for the hell of it but this lamp is absolutely gorgeous and it does look just right where I knew that it would.

 I have been doing very well at the dog shows recently. I've had some really good wins and some rather poor losses. For instance my Mary-Grace was thrown out of one class. This is dog talks in meaning that she was not placed. I was shocked and upset because she deserved much better than that and I was not the only person who felt that way. However this is the dog game and one has to accept the good along with the bad. At the same show Alexander at his first show was placed second and Fannie was placed fifth. At their second show Alexander won Best puppy in show and Fanny was placed second and Mary Grace was placed third so this was a much better result for me.

Physically I am doing okay. I seem to be having much more of the neurological problems than I am the physical problems i.e. the pain problems. My balance is terrible and I have already mentioned that I'm having a lot of difficulty using my hands and my speech has also been slurring and I sometimes worry that if people saw me walking along to get into a car to drive it they may call the police to say that a drunk man was about to get into a car and drive it! As awful as that sounds I really am not in any difficulty at all behind the wheel in the car. It is just being on my feet and walking that causes the problems.

One of the most serious problems to raise its head is my inability to drive long distances now without falling asleep and I that am talking just 100 miles. I have been very stubborn about this but I realise that I cannot be because I will kill myself or worse,far worse, kill others.  I have accepted this and have made the decision to have somebody else do the driving. I am very lucky to have somebody who is willing to do this and on the days that it is possible it will also include bringing an extra person and the dog. I think I am extremely fortunate. I was very worried and upset about it because I really thought that this was putting an end to my dog showing days and just when my dreams are beginning to come to fruition.

Isn't it indeed strange how life works out?

 This is my friend Sarah holding Alexander.

LOCKING MYSELF OUT AND MY HEROIC RE-ENTRY

 it turned out to be a rather exciting day. I really didn't want to but I decided that I needed to go and do my swim. I got everything ready including making sure all the locks were locked and that the dogs were safely put away. It gathered together my slimming togs  and my Pepsi Max and off I went out of the door. Leaving my keys on the wrong side of the door.

BUGGER.

What was I going to do. All of our little windows were locked. No child could possibly reach through the letterbox and upwards to where the keys hang. My friend with the spare key is one of these lazy people who works and so therefore was of no use to me whatsoever.

I called using my neighbours telephone the company that made the doors and windows and conservatory. They could not help me as all of their workers were out on jobs. However whilst talking with the gentleman I suddenly remembered that my bathroom window was open! 

Now how the hell was I going to manage to get up there with my fear of heights and ladders. My neighbour placed a ladder against the outhouse (posh shed not a toilet although there is a toilet in there.) and asked me if I was sure that it was secure. Yes it is I said because it was built when mated the rest of the house and we have just had worked men up there replacing all the guttering.

Well guess what I put my walking stick down and I climbed up the ladder myself and I got onto the roof. I opened the  bathroom window as far as it would go which is only halfway because of the security hinges. I cleared everything off the shelf and made sure that it all landed inside the shower.

And now for the real challenge. How the FAQ was I going to get in there!?  Oh I had forgotten to add that my neighbour had brought up onto the roof a step ladder. I climbed this stepladder and by holding on to whatever I could hold onto I put one leg through the window and just kept putting it through until it hit the ground. So I had 1 foot on my bathroom floor and the other foot sticking out of the bathroom window. With a little bit of fidgeting I managed to get the other foot through as well until I was stood upright and then Julienne passed me my walking stick. Of course now not only was I very shaky but very unbalanced but oh I felt so very pleased with myself. I still can't believe that I did this.

And do you know what the most important thing is? The fact that I was slim enough to get through that window! Needless to say I have not gone to my swim and I have just pilled up. I have a feeling I am going to pay for this because I can feel parts that I have not felt for quite some time. I have always had very supple legs and I can still sit in the half lotus position and I have always done so since I was a boy. No one taught me how to do it I just do it it's my natural position.

So whilst I am very disappointed I did not get my swim I am also feeling good and very pleased with myself for having done what I've done. We do have spare keys that other people have but of course they're no FAQ in good if they are out at work .

 I have a feeling that I'm going to pay for this escapade but I do not care because I feel really proud of myself. I would never have believed that I could do what I have done today.  I can feel it beginning to grumble now but all I think is well you can shut the fact up! Look what I did to get here! 

SO THAT'S WHY!

I love to go away.  Yet I have only done so on regular basis since 2002. I went once in 1997 and I did a road trip on my own to the United States. Although it was very exciting it was also the very worst time I can remember because I was in such a state with full-blown PTSD and not understanding why.

 Each time before we go away I start to get very anxious and I start to think of all sorts of reasons why we should not go. In fact prior to 2002 this is exactly what I used to do which is why we didn't go away. It was never an issue with money. In fact financially it would have been much easier to have gone away and to have stayed five-star every time had we chosen to because we had very little in the way of living expenses as our home came free because of my disability.

However, it was not to be. I gave up all idea of going away.

It was my love of the dogs that eventually got me going away. I used to find going away very exciting. I was always on my own all I was with adult and John was at home and he was looking after the dogs that were here. I used a telly phone him every day if not twice a day. So you see my fear of going away was negated by the fact that he was still at home with the dogs

No, the problem was all of us going away. This set off very old alarm bells. I moved constantly when I was a child and the lie that I was always told was that my friends my pets my home would all still be there when I got back. I never got back. I was always heartbroken. And I never had any comfort. Because I had no right to be upset. I was a sissy for being upset. I therefore learn to hide my heartbreak.

Unfortunately, what I also did was learn to disassociate. I never allowed myself to get emotionally involved with anybody or anything. It didn't always work but for the most part it did. As a result I was a very lonely child and teenager. The fact that I will serve nerd or a dork or just the sort of child but no one wanted to associate with made it easier because then I didn't have any friends to lose.

Well today as I was writing about the fact that we are away on holiday on Saturday and how nervous I was about it, it suddenly came to me why I go through this fear every time we go away. The fear is only there if we both go away. If John stays at home then my fear is assuaged although not completely because I then have to wonder if he will be there when I get back. However that fear is not as great.

When I write about such insights I do not wish to give the impression that I am miserable  and in bits.  Far from it. I am excited about going away. I am also excited that I have finally understood why I have a fear of doing something that I really want to do. I find these little discoveries exhilarating because it is yet another nail in the Coffin of my past yet another way in which its power over me today has been diminished.

I also share it because as you know that the main reason for me writing my blog is that it helps others to understand their own issues. I must apologise I have just lied. The main reason for me writing my blog is because it helps me feel better and it helps me understand my past and my present better. I only found out after writing my blog for some time that in doing so I was helping other survivors. So forgive me for writing that it was my main reason for writing this blog it is not. I am very glad that you gain something from my ramblings but it is an outright lie to say that I write solely for that reason. No, the fact that it helps you is a blessed side effect.  I could not be happier that by baring my soul on here has such a good effect upon other people. You will never know how good that makes me feel. But I never lose sight of the fact that I am writing this blog for myself. I learn about myself as I write. Although I wasn't writing on this particular blog I was writing when I suddenly made the connection between the leaving for the holiday and the constant leaving of my childhood.  Be experience of the latter explains the fear of the former. Now that this has been brought to light experience tells me that it will take care of itself.

Peter Kay Misheard Lyrics

MY HUSBAND THE SAINT

My husband never ceases to astonish me. He is very patient kind and loving.

We had been to a barbecue on Sunday. In the early hours of Monday morning I awoke with a very bad case of the shakes.  And the sheiks are very violent shivering and they hurt. I woke up and he held me until they stopped. The next time I woke he wasn't in bed. It was late. He had done what was necessary to do with the dogs including feeding the puppies. He then came upstairs with my drugs draw and woke me up and told me I needed to take my drugs. He had also thought to bring up four bottles of flavoured water. Once I had taken my drugs I just went back to sleep again.

I eventually got up at 6 PM and he was there with both my walking sticks and his hands on my elbows because I was very wobbly and kept falling over or rather would have fallen over had he not got hold of me.

He brought me down and sat me in front of the TV and made me a coffee. He asked me if I wanted to eat or rather told me that I should eat so to appease him I hate some ham and a piece of cheese. Within a couple of hours I had gone back to bed.

John has had to put up with me and my health problems for many years now and he never complains. I am very rude to him, can be extremely bad tempered, I throw things, not at him I might add, but I am very continental in my temperament and I like to smash things when I am in a tizz. Of course I'm not like this all of the time and I'm also very affectionate and loving and I also do everything that I can for him.

 I am in awe of him.  Not only would I find it very difficult to have to physically look after somebody as much as he does me but I really don't think that I could take the badtemperedness  and the rudeness.  In fact I am sure I would find it frightening.  I am fairly certain that this is why he never reacts to me in a way that he knows would frighten me. Just another way in which he really does think of me. He understands my past and its effect upon me and so he would understand that certain behaviour towards me would frighten me and would cause serious trust issues between us. This of course makes me feel even more guilty for the fact that  I treat him so badly at times.  In my defence it can be extremely difficult to remain civil when one is in during unrelenting pain and/or fatigue.  However, I am more than well aware that this is no excuse for abusive behaviour and so when I behave really rudely I always apologise. I'm not exactly sure that apologising is enough and the ideal would be to not be rude at all but I can't see me ever succeeding at that.

So this is all that this post is going to be about. My wonderful husband who has stuck by me for 32 years now. Our anniversary is on the seventh of the seventh 2013. It will also be exactly one year after we went through our civil partnership which we fully intend to convert to a full-blown marriage as soon as the law has finished its passage through Parliament.

I have never met anybody who has disliked John. And they nearly all say what a calm and gentle man that he is. I agree completely.

DON'T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU READ

 Since I had decided to withdraw somewhat from the Internet I have been feeling so much better. I had found that being immersed in all of the news articles I read which were linked to me by well-meaning friends or just friends from Facebook gave me a very slewed view of what was going on in the world.

I came to believe that the maturity of the world were hateful homophobic racists and that I was surrounded by them. These articles of course had comments allowed and so I got involved in leaving comments which in turn had comments left and which I interned replied to ad infinitum.

I did eventually stopped the commenting or at least I left my comment and then I did not go back as I had no wish to get into arguments.

However this still left me with the erroneous view that the vast majority of people were hateful bigots. I received the following hateful and ignorant letter from a from a  person who then  said tehy knew I would be hurt t=but they were going to defriend me!


"I am lost for words over your writing and rants against me and my kind!!!! as you put it. (This is my writing about how furious I was at those , soem friends, who would vote away my legal rights to line their pocket)
What have we done to deserve it ..............I ask you!!!
Well the answer is simple really.....
We work 24 hours a day seven days a week to keep ourselves, our families and you!!
We never claimed benefits preferring to do whatever it takes to earn a decent living to look after our families and ourselves and to pay our taxes , yet we are at the mercy of those like yourself, that would run us down and make judgement against us.
I have absolutely no problem with contributing to society and the needs of it, however, I do object to the abuse it can throw in my direction for doing so.
I do object to you having me on your friends list and using me to ram your thoughts, political or otherwise down my throat as a thank you for the support I give.
Where do you think your benefits come from..........some politicians pocket.........no...it comes from mine!! and THE MAN IN THE STREET!! that you are happy to run down for being what we consider decent and normal..........(There we have it she is normal because she si heterosexual!)
I have many heterosexual, bi sexual and gay friends. They are friends, I don't see them by their sexual orientation, but as good honest human beings, leading a full and productive life and contributing to society and the world around us, as do many others.(She just doesn't see them as normal)
You have obviously had a traumatic upbringing and every decent human being would have sympathy towards you..........(utter tosh-no one with any empathy would have written such a vile and cruel letter)how much more productive would it be to seek out organisations or individuals going through the same trauma that you did and offer help and support to them. How much more benefit to mankind would be the hours you put into having a go at us, have on an individual needing time and love and support from someone that has gone through what you say you have be to them.(How arrogant can you get? She knows NOTHING about my work with the abused 24/7. Would she put herself out there so publicly as an childhood raper surivivor who parents hated her? No she wouldn't have the balls))
We all have our own personal demons to deal with, cruelty and emotional problems inflicted on us as children and adults, it is what we choose to make of those moments in our lives and how we move on from them. (once again she has the arrogance to write as if she knows me and clearly knows nothing about me)
There always comes a time of understanding of the people that inflicted them, our responses and how we can rise from the ashes they wished to create. (out of the mouth of the ignorant again. I HAVE risen out of the ashes. As for understanding people mwho hate their children, I admit to failing that.))
Since I have been back in the UK I see at shows those that claim and abuse the Disability and Mobility Allowance and have cars etc provided for them by the tax payer, and all the support that is rightly afforded to someone that has complete mobility problems, claiming for helpers etc.
How do they justify, getting up in the early hours, preparing their dogs the same day or the day before, and if it is a coated breed bathing and grooming for hours on end, bending over baths, twisting and turning, using back muscles, shoulder muscles, leg muscles etc etc, bending down to poop scope, spinal cords in operation here, plus supporting muscles.
The exercise that is needed for a dog to be at its prime, walking or running it according to the breed, week in week out. More than a normal office worker would use.
The energy to get up in the early hours, drive for miles , unload a car, load a trolley, pull a loaded trolley, sometimes over the worst terrain, push the bonds of energy and strength, not to mention a day travelling and showing at a show......
Then they run around the ring..............bend over almost to touch their toes...........and say HEY...............I AM DISABLED!! Sorry but if you can do all this you are not DISABLED or IMMOBILE!!!
Does not all this sound more like the commitment of an athlete..............
Oh I forgot they are on medication. would not the same medication be able to help them work!!!!
Take a look in a hospital word...........see the true disabled and immobile......
(This really shows how bitter and jealous and ignorant she is and show she does NOT know me. None has ever seen me run in the ring, many have seen me fall in the ring, many have been kind enough to keep me on my feet. PLUS she has no idea if I am in receipt of DLA or not. All assumptions made from bitterness and jealousy. Why? Maybe because I have a husband of 32 years who loves me and who takes care of me and she has no one.)
MAKE A DIFFENCE USE THE ABUSE YOU HAD............get out there and talk to the young help them with your experiences...........who better than someone that is gone through it....... (Now this is true ignorance and arrogance talking-I have spent years raising money, travelling the country talking, until my diseases stopped it, and I still daily answer emails and suggest healing resources to the hundreds who write to me.How dare she assume I I do nothing?)
So I say......do not sit in judgement of those that you do not wish to judge you !!!!!!!!! (Precisely!)

Why did I not just dump this email? Well, for one, this person is charming. I wanted a constant remeinder to never fall for her wicked charms again. It has taken this long to find the answers I wanted to respond with. Her homophobia and her bigotry toward the disabled could not be more obvious nor could her ignorance of both.

The letter really really hurt me. It shocked me. I had no idea it was coming. I was shocked from whom it came. The venom it displayed toward me is truly astounding. It is the letter of a narcissist. I am only glad I found out early on what they were like because I could easily have grown to love this person and then get hit by this which would have been far more painful. If  I deleted this email I might never remember that it was sent and could easily be convinced that it didn't say what it did.

 I did not expect to include this letter in this article but it is fitting because it came during that very dark time when I believe that the world was full of hateful bigots and this letter did nothing to contradict that.

I know that people like this exist but they are not the majority.

So you see that for many months I was immersed in reading hateful article is about hateful people in the news and thinking that this was the majority of what was going on around me. It is not. Journalists like nothing better than a good controversial story so they flood us with them. In turn this can make us feel that our world is very much worse than it actually is. I am not kidding when I say that I was completely shocked at the passing in Parliament and the House of Lords with such a huge majority of the same-sex marriage Bill. To also then discover that the vast majority of the British public are in favour of marriage equality was also a real eye-opener.

So since I have dropped all this negative shit out of my life, as best I can, I have not only been happier, I have lost more weight, I am not constantly craving food, and I am being much more creative, I have just finished hand knitting a pair of socks and I have just finished machine knitting a cashmere and cotton sweater which I am in the process of selling up and I have died half a dozen hanks of yarn. (My speech to type does not differentiate between die and die  but I know that my readers are intelligent enough to know what I mean.) I am much less of a bear to live with and I no longer feel that the Nazi jackboots are about to kick my adoring and haul me off  to a concentration camp.  however I am not so stupid as to think that this could not happen if the evil bigots grew vastly in number and power and iamb not stupid enough to think that many who know me would allow them to.

But for today this is not happening and full today I am happy and iamb living life to the very best of my ability f*cked body and all.

FABULOUS FANNY AND ALEXANDER

I am thrilled to report that Fanny, Tantra's Fabulous Fanny, has relented. Tonight at ring craft she did precisely what she is supposed to do. She walked, strutting, head held high, tail wagging. We had an argument on Monday, which I won, and it seems she now accepts that I really am the boss. She had a bath on Monday. One of many. However, she didn't want a bath and she went berserk. Literally. If John had not been here I don't know what I would have done. I only just managed to keep hold of her but she sent bottles and glasses and water everywhere. She was like a whirling dervish. I had her by the scruff and I did NOT let go. Eventually she relented. Then when I went to dry her, she started again. I held her firmly and she stopped struggling and decided to scream instead. When I still didn't let her go, she again relented. Although she wasn't perfect at ring craft tonight, she almost was and it was the first time she did as asked, which is only to walk on a lead. I am sure she did it because she now knows I will not give in to her. In 40 years I have never had one as stubborn as she. Mind you, she is also very loving and she will lick you spotless given the chance. Yet she is very weird. She will not eat in her crate with the door closed. She will refuse to eat for a week, seriously, and will not relent. So she is fed just outside her crate. Her limit for sleeping in it is 5 hours. I cannot have disturbed nights as mu nights are bad enough as they are so she has her crate door left open. She has figured out what the newspaper is for. There are soem battles not worth fighting. 

I cannot wait to bring both Fanny and Alexander out. I am thrilled with them both. Alexander is just so very different. I have never had to train him. It seems he just knew what to do. he is a very happy dog. One cannot fail to notice him. Not just the striking black and white coat but his whole attitude. He such a sweet natured boy. It also seems that i may not have to get down with him in the ring. He self stacks and stands when asked. This will be a great help to me. Getting up and down in the ring is the most difficult part for me and is when I am likely to topple over. Mind you, i will still have to for the others but he I think will be perfectly fine without me kneeling.

I can't believe my luck in getting these two. I planned this breeding a few years ago and I was lucky enough to be able to follow through. When their parents were mating, I told them I wanted a black and white dog and a black bitch, show quality please. Look what I got! Serendipity I think is the word.
Now of course we shall have to wait and see how they grow and develop. At 5 months nothing is certain. Especially not in this breed.

CHOOSING LIFE

  So this is what I have been doing today. I knitted the back and front and collar of this sweater. The yarn is 2/28 and a cashmere and cotton mix. The sweater is going to be for myself. When it is finished I will photograph it so that the colour is more true to life. It is a lovely orange.

Above are some yarns that I have dyed.  These will go into my Knitman's Kitchen shop.

   Those who have read my blog on a regular basis know that I have written extensively about my life and about recovery from childhood trauma, namely physical emotional and sexual abuse. I am able to do this without it having a negative effect upon myself. In fact I find my interaction with other people who write to me as a result of what they read on my blog to be very positive.

 However, what I am not good at is debating or campaigning  or constantly reading about the terrible things human beings do to human beings.

Recently an idea had begun to float around in my mind that perhaps reading all the articles that people posted on Facebook or sent to me directly was perhaps not good for me. Then a friend mentioned in passing that perhaps it wasn't a good idea that I got so involved. Then much to my surprise my husband said very forcefully to me that he thought it was my involvement  in this that was causing me to have difficulties in my own life. He felt that I was just constantly reliving the pain of my past.

About 10 days ago I quite simply stopped. I stopped reading articles. I stopped commenting on articles. I ignored racist comments. I ignored homophobic comments. I ignored religious fundamentalists.

As a result, I find myself much more at peace and in a much better mood! It wasn't actually that easy because I felt that I was burying my head in the sand by doing this and that I was somehow betraying abuse survivors and those who are still being abused. Strangely writing about the subject on my blog or replying to the heartbreaking letters that I get does not cause me any difficulties at all. I feel that I am giving to these people that which has helped me. This way of helping helps me. However debating and campaigning and constantly speaking up is not for me. I am unable to do that and remain detached at the same time.

John very rarely says anything to me forcefully nor does he give his opinion unasked.  The fact that he did certainly made me listen  and because I trust him I was able to see that what he was saying was true. I recalled leaving the forum about a year ago precisely because it unsettled me greatly. I was thus able to see what John was talking about. However, I felt that to stop doing what I was doing was betrayal but having spoken it through with John and I realise that that is not the case.

Consequently I find I have more time for myself and doing the things that I enjoy doing like knitting and dyeing yarn and just being with my dogs. I play with them and talk to them and take care of their needs. I find I am much lighter  in mood.

John and I also discussed my medications. I have had a hard time accepting my use of painkillers since I started in 2007. Prior to that I just lived with the pain and to be frank I have absolutely no idea how I managed that. It wasn't until I took my first dose of painkiller that I realise just how much pain I had been putting up with. Yet I've never really been able to shake the ideas that I'm doing something I'll not to be doing. I constantly worry about whether the drug is killing the pain or altering my mood. When I spoke about this with my doctor she laughed and she said I should hope it does alter your mood! She said of course you are feeling like you are high because you are not in pain. She said you only had to look at my face. But she assured me that my changing countenance was due to a lack of pain.  However, I have not really come to terms with this.  I give myself a hard time about it as a result. So anyway, the other day I said to John that I really did not like being dependent upon drugs. His response was that he understood that but that I had a choice. I take the drugs and have a life or I don't take the drugs and go back to not having a life. He is right. Without drugs I could not go to dog shows. I could not even take care of the dogs. I could not go to Tesco let alone go out for the day. Holidays would be out of the question. 

Prior to 2007 I did these things but with great difficulty. I was also a very difficult person to be around and to live with. And of course since 2007 my disease has progressed somewhat so there is no going back!   Perhaps I will come to terms with this though it would help if I could figure out  exactly what it is about medication for pain that bothers me. I have absolutely no qualms at all about taking my heart and my gut medication. I am fairly certain it is not a roundabout way of not accepting my disease. I think I have a good attitude with regard to that and I know that there is no cure and that it is progressive and that I get worse as time goes on. I never find myself sitting feeling sorry for myself about that or even sitting and giving it much thought at all.  from the moment I understood my condition I never thought "what if?" I didn't go running around looking for cures. No instead  I gradually found ways of living with it and making my life easier-walking sticks, wheelchair, electric bed, memory foam pillows-and losing weight.  None of those things bother me. The drugs do. I am uncertain as to why. I have deliberately not taken them and the way that I felt was absolutely no different to the way that I always felt. In other words I didn't feel anything other than dreadful and much pain. Just like I did for the years leading up to finally agreeing to take pain medication. So why cannot I not feel comfortable taking them?

MY HUSBAND'S LATEST PAIR

These socks were knitted for my husband, John.

I used 2.25mm Chiao Goo needles. I knitted them toe up using my own Andersson Tow Up Method. The yarn is one I picked up in a German hypermarket named GLOBUS.

 The design is my own using st st and garter stitch.

I used the Andersson Heel Mach II with a varied gusset.

SHAME AGAIN PLEASE 1

DON'T PANIC

I watched part of the debate about the Marriage Equality Bill in Parliament today. A bill that might mean homosexual people are treated equally under the law. I am not naive enough to think it will change peoples bigotries.  As I watched I listend to all sorts of reasons why I should not be treated as fully human, and why some people, like religious people, should be allowed to continue to treat me as sub human, how teachers woulds till be allowed to teach children that same sex love is wrong, that no registrars will be forced to marry homosexual people. The exclusions grew. I realised with mounting rage that this is not going to be a law making us equal in law at all. It is merely going to be window dressing, a appeasement. No such conscience clauses are given to racists, to those who oppose inter faith and inter race marriage, to those who think people of differing races are less than equal. It is not legal to bar blacks, irish, Gypsies etc from hotels because of conscience. But it is going to be allowed if the matter of conscience is against me and my kind. You know a woman recently wrote to me angry that i was upset with 'normal' [people for thinking this way. she has the nerve to still touch me at shows, as if I think well of her or am such a wimp I need her fucking approval.

I got so angry whilst watching and listening and then it hit me...I am HURT and I am tired. From the day i was born I knew I was not acceptable. My father made that very clear. Only I didn't know why until I was 16. Yes I finally realised that those evil people they kept on about was ME! I then spent far too many years believing I was the one at fault.

Not any more. No. Those who know me well know when the change happened. 
I don't really know how I can ignore this. I don't know how I can continue to read and hear injustice and not react. Not just the injustice toward me and my brothers and sisters but toward others too. i juts read of a woman who lost her children, by order of a judge, because she wasn't going to bring them up fundamentalist!

I cannot live like this, enraged at the cruelty all around me. The mean spiritedness. The shit flung at me day in and day out. Seeing how people treat other people, how women are treated, how children, mostly children, are treated. the casual way people refer to immigrants as if they are not human, calling them names, blaming them for our lot. 

It sickens me. It truly does. I do not know HOW people can be so cruel, can think so poorly. Even those I know and love are guilty of seeing people as disposable, as different, as to blame. 
It frightens me. The atmosphere around now is how I understand it was like in 30's Germany. It led to the Holocaust. I imagined those MPs who spoke so eloquently and cruelly about me in Parliament today being no different to those who spoke the same way about those who were different back in Nazi Germany. i hear friends today call others 'filth' and it cuts like a blade and sends a chill through me because I know that come the crunch they will either too late see their error or they will turn their back.
I am totally at a loss. I think I have to immerse myself in fiction books, my knitting, my dyeing, my dogs, light films, comedies and push ti all out and away from me. But if I do that I fear i won't hear the jackboots as they stop at our door.

I lived in fear as a child with good reason. It was violent. I've spent my life trying to assuage that fear, to find somewhere safe. To feel safe. Physically removing myself from the childhood situation has not altered that fear one bit.  I now know it wasn't just my family. Opening my eyes to them opened my eyes to rest of this world. There is no safety. No peace. People don't want that. They prefer to hate. I won't join the hate club. I am so glad today that i never fitted in. 
One day that long sleep will come and perhaps safety too.