Hope

Apart from to say I had a good day at the show yesterday(Micah 5th and Whitney 2nd) and feel like a bus hit me today, I didn't know what else to write. Below though is a copy of an email I sent in response to someone reaching out . I think this will suffice for my post today.


I understand how you feel, really I do. I have been there. I know that ache, that loneliness, that despair. The homesickness you feel is the need to be loved. We all need to be loved and especially by our parents. When we are not loved by them, for whatever reason, it leaves us feeling empty and bereft. More than than it leaves us feeling shame and guilt because we believe that it is we who are to blame, that is we who are unlovable. It isn't true of course but it takes a lot of work and time to understand this.

The reason you are treated the way you are is not because there is something wrong with you but because there is something wrong with your parents.

You are absolutely right, your parents are unlikely to change and it isn't up to you to change them. The person you need to pay attention to is you. It is you who needs loving and nurture and you need to find ways of doing this. We can love and nurture ourselves but we also need others. Clearly you have others in your life, like your Aunt, who is nurturing.

When we are treated so by our family, it makes it very difficult to feel nurtured or loved by anyone because we feel so unworthy. We don't trust because our primary relationship, our parents, has been destroyed by them. They are supposed to love and care for us, not make us feel so terrible we would rather not be here.

I know the pain you are suffering. I know it intimately and I suffered it for many years. However, I did get through it because I wanted to. It wasn't easy, not at all. It took much work and a willingness to really look at myself, where I came from and to go through the pain and come out the other side.

Today I am happy to be who I am. I accept my family as they are and were and I have nothing to do with them. Nothing at all. They have not changed. I don't hate them. I don't love them. I do wish them well, I don't feel badly toward them at all. But I leave them be.( I have two siblings and a father alive)

I know today that I was never the problem. That all the years of self harm and self hatred were based on the lie that I was a bad person. I was not, am not, and will not be.

YOU are not a bad person either. You are not weak, You are not stupid. You are not at fault.

You have been taught to think in a way that suits those that taught you but is very detrimental to you and your life. You can change that thinking but it cannot be changed overnight. It takes time and persistence and a little trust in somebody. The difficulty with being in your situation, just as it was with me, is that is not easy to sort out the good guys from the bad guys because the bad guys kept telling us they were the good guys! So we form relationships with people who are toxic to us. They are often just like those parents we had or have. They make us feel bad and we blame ourselves all over again.

You are worthy and lovable just because you are you. You don't have to earn it and you do not have to try to earn to love of people who clearly cannot give it.

There is much pressure in society for us to honour our parents, no matter what. It's bullshit. Biological connection with people is meaningless really. It's the love that counts. Clearly this relationship is toxic to you, makes you feel terrible. Leaves you feeling bereft and so lonely it is it almost unbearable. They have made you feel worthless and bad in your core. That is appalling and REAL ABUSE. It is possible too that in the absence of physical and or sexual abuse that this abuse of you was not conscious. That doesn't alter the effect on you.

You need to put YOU first now. No matter what. It is the only way you will learn to feel good about yourself, the only way you will come to realise that the problem is truly not you. Your parents are not capable of being different. The good news is they do NOT have to be different in order for you to feel different. You can live a wonderful life and feel good about you, be loved, love others and love yourself without them changing. You can be whole with out them. You ere a separate person to them. You can and will survive without ever having what you want from them.

It is normal to want their love and for them to value you and validate you. Of course it is. And it hurts worse than anything I know to not have it. However, there are times we just have to let go of that hope. The hope that one day they will take you in their embrace and say to you 'I am sorry, I love with all my heart and you are a wonderful person'. That is not going to happen. They cannot do that. And the reason they cannot do that lies with them. It is not because YOU have a problem.

The reason we have to let go of that hope is because whilst hope is a good thing, it can also be a bad thing. A hope such as this keeps us stuck where we are, in all that pain and misery. The day I let go of that hope was the day I truly embarked on my journey to freedom. Freedom from despair. Freedom from fear. Freedom from self hatred. Freedom from shame. Freedom from guilt. In short, it was the day I gave myself permission to find out who I was and just be that.

I no longer feel I have to please anyone. I no longer feel I have to be different in order to gain love and respect. I have only those who show me love and respect in my life. The rest I leave be.

I am old enough to be your father now but where you are is as keen in my memory as if it were yesterday. The memory of the misery and pain is as sharp as it ever was. It will always be so because it is where I came from and what makes me who I am today. The difference is that I am not living that misery and pain today, I am not mired in it. I am free of it. But it is still there, in my memory.

I have not forgotten as so many people do. They forget. They sweep it under the carpet. But it is still there. People say that children are resilient, they forget. Rubbish! We do not forget! Instead we repress the memories and the pain and we harm ourselves or others instead! These people who say 'I was spanked/hit as a child and it did me no harm', don't realise that one of the harms it did them was to make them think it is okay to hit children and thereby objectify them! We are turned into objects by those who abuse us. Our thoughts and feelings count for nothing. If we were not objectified but empathised with instead, they could not treat us like we were nothing.

So you will not forget either but you can, if you want, get through this. You can grow and blossom into you despite them. You do not need them in order to live and be you.

Take good care of you and if you want to write again, please feel free to.

As for reading, I would recommend Dorothy Rowe and Alice Miller. Miller wrote The Drama of Being a Child and Rowe has written on depression and other stuff.

As for medication, that is not my business at all. You must do what you feel is right for you and this is matter for you and your healthcare provider.

One Of Those Days

SWIMMING

Up as usual and went to the pool as usual. However, I felt rough, my left arm went numb again and I found it really hard to swim. Felt like I was in treacle. I didn't push it as I am going to a show tomorrow so I got out after only 36 laps. I now feel quite knackered but cannot go to sleep until this evening so that I sleep plenty before the show.

BEREFT

I had those feelings again this morning. I was listening to my Ipod in car and Spanish guitar music was playing. Made me feel bereft. Not sure why Spanish music has this effect. It either does that or makes me feel 'homesick' but for where I have no idea. I got to thinking, whilst in the water, about trust and how much difficulty I have with trust. Not surprising considering my primary relationships-parents and brothers- were all destroyed by betrayal. Once you know you cannot trust your family, trust becomes a really serious and difficult feeling to have. I am not sure I trust at all today, certainly not 100%.

HAPPY TIMES

Between leaving Singapore and going to Australia, I spent several months living in Gibraltar with my mum and two brothers. Although I know we were all there, I don't recall my elder brother at all during this period. Mt father was not with us. This was the happiest time of my childhood. No abuse from anyone. No being yelled at, shamed, name called, hit. No daily reminders of what a disappointment I was. Nothing. It was heaven.

It was not entirely without incident. I remember having a crush on a bearded man, who was probably about 20. Hard to tell as I was only 12. I went out for the day with him on my own. It was great. Until something happened which made me feel very ashamed. As we were walking up the sheer face of the Rock, I became ill and I vomited. I was mortified. I don't recall him saying anything at all but I was sure his reaction was one of disgust, just like my dad would have reacted. Of course this man probably did not react like that. I don't know. I never saw him again.

My younger brother and I were also befriended by two female teachers from the Channel Islands. I liked these two women very much. They were kind and generous. I do recall clearly being shocked at them not hiding nudity from us. We were in the shower and one of them came in to the bathroom, naked, and took a pee. Upon seeing my shock, she pointed out that there was nothing to be ashamed of in the naked human body. I do not know, even now, if this was appropriate or not but all in all this woman I recall fondly. She didn't hurt me and she didn't touch me. She treated me with respect and warmth.

The first day we were there, my younger brother and I went down to Camp Bay to swim. There was a sea pool on the beach, as well as the sea itself. I dived str8 into the sea pool and got a really painful shock. The water was freezing cold. Despite the hot temperatures. However, I was used to the very warm sea in Singapore and this was the Mediterranean and very much cooler. My skin felt like it was on fire. Really quite unpleasant.

Then it was over. We flew to England before flying a couple of months later to Australia. My father had met us at the airport. I recall vividly the way he greeted my mum, with an open mouthed passionate kiss which made my stomach churn. He barely said anything to us, his sons, and certainly did not hug us.

This brief time in England before setting off on what I was promised was our last move, was my first depression. Of course I had come from 4 years in a hot sunny climate to a dank dark and cold winter. My father was also back in my life.

We flew out to Australia in Nov 71. I was delivered str8 into the hands of a child pornographer. I have already written about him in a previous post. Of course, I wasn't delivered to him but it felt like that. I had hardly set foot on Ozzie soil before I was his victim.

Today, with the advent of the Internet, it bothers me that film and photographs of me may well be on child porn sites.

WHO KNEW?

I had no idea what I would do with a blog when I first set one up. Little did I know then that I would find what I had always wanted-an outlet for my story. Nor did I think I would have the courage to write it. I certainly did not know that I would benefit so well from it. Nor that it apparently helps others see their own demons.

I have often been encouraged to write a book of my life and I have always resisted the idea. I do so now especially. Memoirs of Misery have become so popular now that the supermarkets have given over a whole section to them. This makes me very uncomfortable. The only one I read was by David Peltzer. I had my doubts about that book, especially it's New Age message and it's insistence on forgiveness. The whole thing had an air of a story having been made up in order to sell a point of view. I hope I am wrong. I have no proof that I am right. Just my feelings of something not being right. However, he then went on to publish a string of books on abuse and then his brother got in on the act and I really did have strong doubts then. Then all these 'misery memoirs' started to appear and I realised they had become just another genre, like Thrillers, Horror, Romance, Crime etc. It makes me feel very queasy and I wonder at the people who lap these up. Perhaps some of them are as desperate as I was in looking for answers.

Perhaps I am a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black. I do hope not. I do hope my writing here is not just another misery memoir. I still don't want to write a book. I think I reach more people read me here than would read a book . You'd have to go buy a book. This you get for free if you are fortunate enough to have net access. I also think it is clear that whilst I do indeed have my own view of things, I don't think I am pushing this view as 'the right way to think and if you were well enough you'd agree with me'! That is definitely the impression many such books, and New Age gurus, give.

I am not writing to convert anyone to my way of thinking. I am writing purely for myself. After years of silence, I feel free to tell it as I see it. I have no wish to debate with anyone. My ideas and views are fluid and I hope they remain so. Nothing is so dangerous as a closed mind. I know from the comments section that some people are offended by my ideas or object to them or disagree with them. I am only surprised more are not! However, I don't argue and I let the comments stand as they are. I don't censor. I also do not as a rule, argue a point, and only comment on a comment sometimes, to clarify my own point, not to try and change someone else's' point of view.

If someone is helped along their path by what I share here, I am pleased. I doubt very much it will stop an active abuser or indeed change anyone with a closed mind, fundamentalists for example.

The more aware we are, the less fear we have, the less misery we create.

Stop That Shrink!

I awoke, as I am wont to do, at 5.30am, half an hour before the alarm is set to go off. So I got up. Let the dogs out, fed them, than sat with my sock knitting, took my drugs and coffee. Then it was off to do another 80laps of the pool. Home again. Bathed Nechung. More knitting. Watched the last ever episode of DEAD LIKE ME.

It has not been a bad at all pain wise. I do find it very irritating that I suffer so much with the dropsy. I bought a plastic stone effect bowl the other day and I now use that for salads and stir-fries. At least when I drop that it won't smash. I am pleased to say that so far my coffee glasses are still intact. Funny, how the cheaper ones have survived this long whilst my two expensive ones lasted about 10 days before an attack of the dropsy smashed them to smithereens on my kitchen floor. There are times I cannot open a bottle of diet cola. At the SKC show I had to ask the woman sitting next to me to do it for me!

I knew at least one person would have objections to Dr Dorothy Rowe. Of course many do. She doesn't agree that depression or manic depression (and other 'illnesses' ) are biological which can be treated with drugs. No she believes it is our experiences and how we interpret them, in other words, how we think and have been taught to think, which causes these. Undoing all that is very hard, very painful, and very hard work. It is not surprising to me that anyone who dares suggest this route rather than the 'magic pill I have a biological problem' route, is going to be lambasted. I used to be one of those people who believed what the Dr's said. I had a brain problem and would be ill the rest of my life and have to take psych drugs forever, which may well shorten my miserable life anyway. There was this tiny little, teeny weeny really, voice in me though that baulked at such a diagnosis and eventually that voice got louder and louder and was took over once I knew I had good reason to think I could be cured.

Oh if the pills and potions had worked, I would not be here now as I am. I would be living in fantasy land, still believing my childhood was healthy and normal, that it was my fault, that I was a bad person and had a brain malfunction to boot! Now that was an easier thing to think when I had no support.

The pain and effort of doing the work are enormous but worth it.

I used to get so manic that 30mg of valium, 400 mg of chlorpromazine (Largactil) and whatever else would not stop it. Haloperidol (Haldol?) was another which failed but made me hallucinate and have crawling skin, streaming eyes, drooling mouth and vertigo. I used to get so suicidally down that nothing penetrated. I have known so many depressed people on anti-depressants and all of them were depressed despite being on the pills for years! No matter which one was tried, none of them ever made a jot of difference to me. Lithium didn't work. It is a foul and dangerous drug but I needed it, I was told. It did nothing for my moods. It didn't make me feel batter about me. It didn't wipe out my past. It didn't show me how being abused was not my fault. It didn't show me how I was not at fault at all, that there was nothing wrong with me but with those who treated me so badly. No pill ever did that for me. If only it had, I would have been saved a lot of grief.

I think there is an awful lot invested in keeping people believing they have a biological reason for feeling so bad. It suits the power hungry and the abusers to keep the abusees in their place.

I have met many many Psychiatrists in my life and without a doubt none of them had a clue. They shared a few traits in common one of which was arrogance and the other was ignorance. None of them ever showed the slightest interest in me, how I felt, or thought or how I had grown up. They were not at all interested in my suffering. They were merely interested in how to get the mix of drugs right so I would shut up and fit their theories and behave and they could then point at me and show the world how clever they were. Oh and i had the best. I was under two of the world's renowned experts in eating disorders. To me they were renowned prats (idiots) who knew f*ck all about it and whose methods were abusive. Needless to say, I left their 'care' with more problems and pain than I entered with.

Caveat: there is a biologically sound reason for what is commonly called Winter Blues. Lack of light affects hormones-those which send us to sleep and wake us up and effect mood. many people are affected negatively by lack of light. There is a cure: Move to a country near the equator. Failing that, buy yourself a light box and use it for 20 mins a day during the no light days and months. However, even this will take any issues you may have away!

Tomorrow I shall go for my swim and then bath Micah and Whitney ready for Southern Counties. I shall be in bed by 7pm and up at 2AM to leave by 4AM.

I am halfway through another pair of socks, both at once. I am again using Lorna's Lace Shepherd Sock yarn. I really like this yarn for handle and colour but I am rather tired of its' boring striping effect. I wish it would pool or something. I have enough for 2 or 3 more pairs in 2 or 3 different colourways but I think that will be with this yarn, as nice as the handle and wear is. I just find the striping too dull.

Tyrol Socks

THE YARN

Bergere de France - Cablenyl - Colour: Cannelle

THE NEEDLE

KnitPicks 2.25mm - one circular needle.

TENSION (GAUGE)

38 / 50 10 cm ( 9.5 / 12.5 pi)

THE PATTERN

My own toe up twisted stitch design.

THE HEEL

My own Andersson Heel Mach 2.

I knitted both at same time. Yarn came in 50gm balls and much to my surprise both were the same length!

Bi-Polar : my answer

The amazing and important thing here---what caused you to “turn around” so to speak? And how do you control your mood swings and thoughts without meds?

I find this very hard to explain. I really don't know why I succeeded and others didn't. I really really wanted to recover, I never gave that up. I think that in a perverse way, because I believed it was all my fault, I found it easier to look at myself and not baulk at stuff I read or was told.

I found 12 step groups helpful, though they do have their down side for very vulnerable people. However, they were a lifeline for me. I did find an excellent therapist whom I saw for 5 years. He committed to me 24/7 until I didn't need him any more. It was not a traditional 50 minute hour sessions only. If I needed him at 3am, I got him. He never once told me what was wrong with me. He listened and pointed out my seriously flawed thinking and that was it. He gave me the space to discover and grow without judging me. I also read as much as I could. I found Alice Miller and Dorothy Rowe to be the most helpful.

Dorothy Rowe really changed me. It was reading her that gave me my epiphany. Reading her explanation of how we create meaning from our experience and how all we, any of us, have to go on is our ideas and the meanings we create. AND HOW WE COULD CHANGE THOSE IDEAS AND MEANINGS. It was that that truly awakened me and pulled me out of Hell. I would recommend her above all else. (She is an athiest, which I might agree with her on, and she believes that death is the end-I don't agree on that - but please don't let that put you off.) In fact I'd go as far as to say I think she should be mandatory reading for all teenagers in school. The powers that be will not like that though so it won't happen.

Oh and for me, I use a light box during the winter months and that has stopped the depressions I always got during that period.

I believe I don't get manic any more because I have nothing to run from. I don't get depressed because I think differently now but also because of the light box. I am sure that for me, there was a physical component to the depression-the lack of light. The reasons are scientific and well documented. And of course, as i don't manic, i don't experience the let down and exhaustion brought on by the mania ending which was another motor for the depression.

So this is the best short explanation I can give for being able to live without mood medicine. This plus what I have written and will continue to write on my blog.

Dogs n Stuff

Micah has Brylcreem in his head hair to protect it and stop the plaits matting.




FUNNY

A Dog is for life, not just Friday nights.

I saw it on a t-shirt and it made me laugh out loud and caused other people to stare at me. Another older one I saw which I thought was clever and funny was 'if you think I'm a bitch you should meet my mother'.

SWIMMING

Well, I managed only 70 laps today. The water was cold. Deliberately because they are holding a gala tomorrow and the water needs to be cold for competitive swimming. It didn't make me faster at all, the opposite in fact. It hurt. My muscles and bones do not do cold very well. No swimming tomorrow or Monday as Monday is a public holiday.

VISITORS

Yesterday, Paul and Fiona came up from Havant to show me Micah's litter. Very nice they were two. A boy, Hugo and a girl, Lara will be run on. I just realised that we didn't photograph them! Still we did picture the others. My favourite was a tiny little toy poodle named Ellie. She was a real character. Not my type of dog at all but she won my heart in about a minute. I'd have had her. She weighed about 2lbs I would think. A real show off and a future champion I am sure.

CLOTHES

I have bought 4 new jackets recently, all in a 42R (UK size i.e. inches). I have had to take most of my other jackets and clothes to the charity shops. I also have another waistcoat and two new bow ties. Now I have several different outfits to show my dogs wearing. I may have to start taking two pairs of trousers to shows, one light and one dark, as Micah is golden and Whitney is black.

HOW WE ARE

I am sure you know that we see the world how we are and not how it is. We see the world through the filter of our brains. We do not see it as it is but how our brains interpret it to be. There is much we do not see as our brains are not equipped to so.

The same can be said about each other. We don't see others how they are but how we are. We react to others according to how we are, not how they are. One person may feel compassion for another, whilst that same other person may elicit anger in someone else. You and I may feel very differently about the same person. We may not understand this is so, so we are caused more discomfort when we discover that people we might consider bad or worthless are not considered by others. Adolph Hitler was loved, (and was lovable), by those close to him. This makes many of us really uncomfortable. It makes him human, which of course he was, though that thought makes us even more uncomfortable. Again, not because of who he was and what he did but because of who we are and the meanings we have created.

Don't misunderstand, no one is saying that this man did not do evil things, but that we see him and his acts according to how we are. There are those who, because how they are, see him as a hero. We who see him differently do so because we are different and have created different meanings.

These thoughts spring from the understanding that children are abused(or adults for that matter) not because of the way the abusee is but because of the way the abuser is. A child is not battered because s/he is naughty but because the adult is deficient. A woman is not raped because she wore provocative clothes but because the man was deficient. A child is not molested because they were pretty, or because they had already been victimised, or because they craved love and attention, or because they asked for it. They are molested because the person doing it is deficient.

WEIRD

I went to Simpson's for my dog supplies on Thursday. I was chatting to Jackie and during our conversation, I told he of my blog. Her response was to say 'well, that's your legacy isn't it?'. I was astounded by her comment in light of my post the other day! I hadn't said anything at all to her about my blog or about my feeling of not having contributed anything or being remembered.
It is stuff like that makes leaves one awestruck. Why would she say such a thing, out of the blue like that? I bet she isn't even aware that she said it.

I was thinking about what I wrote the other day and realised that
1. I was tired and in pain.
2. not feeling brilliant in my mood and
3. buying into old programming that taught me that a man is nothing without a job and nothing if he doesn't pass on his genes. Bollocks of course. (Old family voices are not always easy to quiet and whilst one would love to be rid of them for good, it is not likely to happen.)

SHE'S FUNNY, IS GOD

I have thought for many years that God, if She exists, has a sense of humour and sense of when to quit. My parents had three gay sons. No daughters. I think that God suits God's sense of humour, or at least mine at any rate, and makes damn sure it really does end with this generation. We will not be passing on our crap to any other children. So it is both funny and sensible to me.

KNITTING

I have got very close to finishing off those socks I keep going on about! At least I know have aname for them. Tirol.

A Bigger Splash

I have been and done my swim. 80 laps this morning. I didn't want to get up either but the dogs don't let me lie in. I have increased my laps because 64(a mile) had become much easier to do and faster, without me trying to increase speed. In fact, speed is not what i want but endurance-better for my heart, my joints. My left arm went to sleep more or less as soon as I started this morning and it is still not right now. It'll wake up at some point, it always does. It feels strange though until then.

I also went to Tesco on the way back from the pool. They are refitting it and there is very little disabled parking out the front now and many of those spaces are taken by non disabled badge holders. Not only did I find a space out front but the store was actually stocked!

I bathed Nechung yesterday, much to her disgust. Shameless is being groomed daily and has 20 days to go now, though probably only about 17 as mine tend to come early.

I am dying to show off my new twisted stitch socks but will not until they are completed. Almost there. I am also on the final sleeve of the sweater I buggered up by doing raglan sleeves for a set in body!

I am eyeing some cashmere/viscose I have in a deep purple/blue. I think I shall turn it into a plain raglan sleeved sweater with a roll collar.

I am still hoping someone out there is going to offer suggestions as to what to do with my 16 machines and tonnes of coned yarn. Anyone interested? Is ebay the way to go? Whatya thunk?

A Just World?

I have given much thought to the subject of justice. It is apparent to me that we do not live in a just world. 'The wicked prosper and their young frolic like dear', to quote Joni Mitchell in her 'Job's Sad Song'.

There was a time I thought my brothers and father (my mother is dead) did not mean the harm they caused me and would be horrified to know they had caused me so much pain. I know now that it is not true. They have made a conscious choice to do as they have done and are doing. How people can live with such wickedness I have no idea.

If we have free will and there is justice, the only way i can see that being so is if we chose to come into this physical world. In other words we exist before we are born and decide to be born and decide the circumstances we are born into. I do not believe we decide the events of our lives before hand. This is of course a pretty big IF.

There are those that say life is a gift. I don't see that. If it was a gift, it is a gift I'd rather have done without. No, I do not have a death wish, far from it. I enjoy what I have now but that is because i have done the best I can with what I had. I am just still of the opinion that I would rather not have had my life at all.

I fail to see life as a gift when babies are born into war and famines and pain and disease.

We are so obsessed with this idea of life being a gift that we allow people, human beings, to die in agony rather than show them compassion as we do animals. In this country at least if we allowed an animal to die the way some people do, we would be prosecuted and rightly so.

There is nothing that can be done to give me back my youth, my childhood, my mental capacity, the use of my intelligence, the freedom that was taken from me. The years of which I had to spend surviving instead of making a career for myself, perhaps as a vet. Yes I was lucky, I met John and he kept me out of the gutter. I am profoundly grateful for that. I am profoundly grateful I was not born in a prison camp, an aids baby or any number of worse situations. However, none of those considerations alters the fact I had what I had and will leave this life having taken much from those who helped me survive and given very little. I won't be remembered and rightly so. I have contributed very little. I am somewhat surprised this means so much to me but it does. I please myself, I have the freedom to do as I wish (within financial constraints) and that is an enviable position, I know. yet I have gone from being so f'd up that I couldn't function and therefore needed help to now being not so f'd up but now physically f'd up so that I continue to be in the debt of others.

Whatever it is, it isn't just. I don't know what is. I am not of the opinion that vengeance and punishment serve any purpose. None at all. There is nothing I can do to anyone that will make it okay, that will recompense me, that will wipe it clean. Nothing.

The only defence one has left is to not drink of the poison of hatred. Instead let go and live. Justice will perhaps come after death or if death is it, then it will not matter a jot anyway. It will all have been for naught.

There is so much more to life than we understand. Life is short and painful and certainly far too short to grow enough in one life time. God forbid there be more than one life time though :-0

Or maybe it is just as we see it-it ends and that is it.

A Thousand Faces

I'D RATHER BE HATED FOR WHO I AM THAN LOVED FOR WHO I AM NOT.

I first came across this saying a few years ago. It resonated with me then but today I really understand how true it is for me.

If I recall correctly, it was originally a reference to coming out as gay. In other words, I'd rather take the shit than not be who I really am.

To me it means far more than this.

In an ideal word, I would have loved, and still would, a family that loved me and accepted me. I never had that and I never will. The only way I could have a semblance of one is by me becoming someone else. I say a semblance of one because of course if I have to not be me in order for them to accept me, then it would be a big lie.

I would have to pretend that my childhood didn't happen. I would have to pretend that I had kind and loving parents who always treated me well and taught me self love and not self hate. I would have to pretend that I had two brothers who were loyal and moral. In short I would have to deny myself totally. I have spent almost 50 years in the battle to preserve me and I will not give that up for anything or anyone.

I spent much of my life being whatever I thought those around me wanted. I was different things to different people. I never succeeded. Certainly as regards my family, no matter what, I'd end up battered and hurt. I could never figure it out. I could never be what they wanted me to be nor could I figure out what they wanted me to be. I just knew I wasn't good enough for them. I realised eventually that it wasn't about who I was but about who they were.

Being liked used to be very important. It was my priority. It meant safety to me. If you liked me, I was safe. You wouldn't abuse me. Being liked meant not being killed.

The need to be liked caused me to behave in ways I don't like, that I consider wrong. It caused me to not speak up when I ought to have, to not do what I ought to have and to do what I ought not have. It caused me more and more shame. Inside I knew I was not enough. I had been taught this well. I certainly was not enough for my father and mother or for the Church or any other form of religion I was exposed to. I had to earn love and safety. I had to not be me.

In class once the teacher was going around the room asking each of us what we wanted to be when we grew up. We were all about 14 I think. The answers were varied, anything from a doctor to a teacher to a mechanic. When it came to me, I answered 'I want to be someone else'. The teacher found it easier to assume I was being smart.

Today, I do not want to be anyone else. I am happy with who I am. I no longer pretend. I no longer try and earn anyone's like or love. I have people in my life who love me as I am. They know the real me, not a me I pretend to be. I am not liked or loved because of what I do for them or because I agree with their world view or because I flatter their ego. They like and love ME.

Carly Simon wrote a song (with Jacon Brackman) on her second album, Anticipation, called The Girl You Think You See and this song is about being what you think others want you to be.

Tell me who you long for
In your secret dreams
Go on and tell me who you wish I was
Instead of me

*******************************
Who cares what I might be for real
Underneath my games
Ill let you chose from a thousand faces
And a thousand names


Even back when I was 15 and first heard this, it made me uncomfortable. I was not fully conscious of why back then and wasn't to be until recently.

This freedom I feel is breathtaking. It is new. It is scary. It is weird. I have to remind myself a lot that I am free now. I am not awaking with dread in my gut daily. Sometimes I do and I just have to tell myself that I am safe, not a child , my family are not around, and there is no school today.


I hated school from 12 onwards. I was bullied on a daily basis. Spat on, punched, kicked, nicknamed 'shit', called, queer and pansy,mocked, and treated like I didn't matter. Not just by pupils but my teachers too who either were just as nasty or ignored my plight. To me, it was all just confirmation of the opinion my parents had of me and an extension of their treatment of me. Like a good boy, I never truanted either. I went and faced it daily. I never ran. I never defended myself. Instead I disassociated and went somewhere else inside me when the bad stuff was happening. I never showed any emotion at all.


I thought for many years that my peers treated me like that and name called because they knew that I was involved sexually with the paedophile teacher. That is how I saw it. I didn't know I was being abused. I also didn't understand that I had no choice. It did not occur to me then, because I had been taught so well, to not do as I was told. If I had said no to this man he might have done what my father did when I was not obedient and I was too sacred of that.


Besides, I wanted to do I was told, to be a good boy. More than anything I wanted to be a good boy. This man treated me well, so I thought. He didn't hit me or shout at me. He spoke nicely and touched me without hurting me. He hugged me, something my own never has never done. He didn't look at me with disgust. He didn't tell me I disgusted him. He didn't tell me how stupid I was, or how useless I was. In fact he treated me the opposite of the way my father treated me. And I fell for it. The fact I would not have dared not do as this man said didn't occur to me. I didn't see the price I was paying. I didn't see the evil in what he was doing. I didn't see how I was being lied to.


I was in my 30's and telling my therapist about one of the few people who had treated me kindly and I was telling him about this man. As I was telling about him, it dawned on me that I had been abused. That this man who I had thought had loved me in fact hated me. In fact didn't care for me at all. I had been conned. It broke my heart. Again.

SKC

I got back from the SKC show in Scotland at 1am Monday. I had been up 24 hrs by that point. I will not do that again. I'll stay the night and before and the night after with my friend or in a hotel. I shall also have to think seriously about attending the Scottish shows. Yesterday, I was fit for nothing, not even knitting. However, I did much sleeping and resting and this morning have done 74 laps of the pool.

Micah was 2nd (again!) in his class and Whitney was 3rd in hers. This was her first show and she qualified for Cruft's 09 with this placement. She is the 10th dog I have qualified for Cruft's. 8 Lhasa Apso that I have bred myself, 2 I didn't breed and two Mini Longhaired Dax that I bred.

Whitney was such a good girl, she showed her heart out. Like another I use dot have, at training school and home she didn't really do it and I was concerned that she wouldn't at the show. However, she knew when to 'switch it on' and did so. Funny how they know this. The other one I had, like Whitney, flatly refused to 'show' unless she was at a show. How they know I do not know.

Micah always shows well because he struts at the shows. whenever he is around other dogs, he thinks he is going to get lucky!

I had heard many complaints about the judge over the last few years. My feeling was it was sour grapes and I trusted that this man knew his stuff. He did. however, the complaints are well founded! His manner and apparent attitude left an awful lot to be desired. Still, it is principle before personality with me and so how he is is not important but his knowledge of the breed and his fairness is what counts. Those that want to bitch needn't enter. they do of course and continue to bitch!

Scotland

I am off to Scotland today. Or rather I am off to Hartlepool as I will sleep with my friend Linda tonight and we will go together to Edinburgh in the early hours.

As it was last year, it is going to be cold so I will wear my tights and sweater. I will still dress as I normally do in the ring-hat, jacket, shirt, tie etc but will still need to keep warm when not in the ring. I already started to dose up. I hope I don't fall in the ring as I did at WELKS. no harm done to any dogs or to me but it does reinforce the need to make sure I rest enough before going in the ring and that I take my time and do not try and do things as if I am not disabled! Silly really as the stick sort of gives it away and my gait....

I am taking Micah who is already bathed up and ready. I am also taking Whitney. She is exactly 6mths old and this is her first show.

A Civilised Nation?

The Land Of The Free?


Hopefully, those who do believe in equal rights and treatment and opportunity under the law will hold sway.

Ouch! Pardon? Snip! Suck and Saved

OUCH!

I have discovered something which I suppose should have been obvious. Yesterday I felt capable of walking the dogs. I have to do it in two rounds as I can't handle all of them together. Between rounds i took pain killers as I was limping badly after the first round. The pills did their job. I had no impinging pain the rest of the day. I remembered to take another dose before I went to give my talk and demonstration. I knew to do this as last time I had to sit down after only a few minutes into my work. It worked well and though I was tired when done, again no impinging pain.

That is until this morning! I awoke and was in pain. I couldn't get out of bed immediately. I laid there annoyed and thinking to myself that I would not be going swimming. I didn't go. I got up an hour later than usual, after I had figured out how to launch myself out of bed. Lui had already announced by his barking that it was time I was up! This encouraged the others to join in the call for me get up. I politely yelled at them to shut the **** up. Nechung chose this morning to be all lovey dovey with me and made it harder for to get up.

The long and short of it is I stupidly thought that as I was taking meds I could do as I wished and my body would not react. I really didn't expect to have the pain associated with what I did once the meds wore of. So today I will do nothing except the essentials. I need to be fit for Scotland this weekend.

PARDON?

I received an email from a person who truly believes that the Church ( I assume the RC) is and has been a staunch supporter of the rights of women and children and slaves and that they have been at the forefront of bringing education to the masses and also at the forefront of the discoveries made in science. The Church has also always stood up for Jews.

I wonder where this person went to school and by whom she was taught.

I have no trust at all in people whose faith involves damnation for disbelief. Having such a belief can only bring heartache and evil. World Trade Centre? Killing in the name of their God. Committing evil acts because to do otherwise would bring personal damnation. Rejecting ones own children for ones God. The list is endless of what these people will do in order to preserve their meaning structure.

It is wise to bear in mind though that if one is taught such a belief from the cradle onwards, it is very very difficult to free oneself from that mindset. It is imperative that one does though. It is imperative, for the sake of peace on this planet, that one does so.

SNIP

It is widely held, at least here in the west, that the circumcision of women is an evil thing to do.

Yet very few stop to think that is just as wrong to circumcise a man. Or rather a male child for it is usually only done to those who have no choice. It is a mutilation, an abusive act perpetrated on children. It reduces sexual pleasure in that it desensitises the head of the penis. I think it is one reason why it done though it would be denied of course.

Now if an adult man wishes to have the snip, that is up to him. Obviously in the rare of case of being medically necessary, then sad but so be it.

I am uncut but Iknow of a person who is and sees the act as having been a crime committed against him. I agree with that.

You know, in New York, a court case ensued form a religious ceremony where a baby boy's penis was taken into the mouth of the attending official and his foreskin was bitten off. This was an old religious ritual of this particular sect of well known religion. The case ended with a not guilty. Anyone else would have been found guilty of child abuse but due to 'religious sensitivity' this abuser was let off, given the seal of approval by the court to continue abusing in this way.

I saw a TV program which showed a circumcision ceremony. Relatives were gathered whilst this toddler boy was brought in, had his penis pulled out of his shorts and had the end cut off. The relatives smiled and clapped. I was appalled.I couldn't believe what I had just witnessed. i couldn't believe that these people were participating in an evil act and they could not see it. Such is the strength of the abuse of young minds. Give me a child till he is seven and I will show you the the man. So true. had these people not been indoctrinated from the cradle, they would not have been able to suppress/repress their horror nor would they have been able to stand by and watch and smile and clap as a child was objectified and abused.

SUCK

Our new Dyson just arrived. Nothing sucks like a Dyson does. The old one gave in after 9 years. John seems to think that such items ought to last forever. They don't. Our Indesit washer dryer is also 9 years old and never been trouble but I fear it too will quit in the not too distant future. I have already been forewarned though that they don't make them like they used to and was recommended a different brand like Miele or Bosch.

SAVED

I thought the other day about how upset I would be if my blog crashed and it disappeared into the ether. I just spent a couple of hours saving it all. Unfortunately the comments are not saved. Unless I went through the blog page by page and as there are over a 1000 of them......

Being A Man

As far as I am concerned, the only requisite for being man is having the physical/biological attributes that delineate sex.

I once said to a bully who was asking me why I had 'women's dogs' (he was with a Stafford) , That 'I did not need a dog to tell me I am a man'. It worked and he went away.

Anyway, my father never thought I was man enough. It would appear though that his definition of manliness was being able to bully, frighten, and hit young boys. I was very well aware from the earliest age that I was not what my father considered enough. Not masculine enough, too sensitive, not obedient enough. Unquestioning obedience was what he wanted and expected and when he didn't get it, he flipped and bashed one silly. Oh, he was not a spanker. Nothing so bad as that! No he used his fists and he like to throttle. He also thought a good hard clout to the head was a sure way to gain respect. He didn't gain mine. In fact the more he treated me thus, the less respect I had for him.

When I was about 10, he threw a case of books at me. Why? Probably because I didn't jump high enough or quick enough. Not that I did, but even if I had told him to f**k himself, there was no excuse to justify what he did.

This book case (like a small suitcase which we used for school) hit one side of my head, smashing the other side of my head into the head of an ornate bird head which graced the corner of the coffee table. I was stunned. Literally. My mother laid me down on the settee and put a cold compress to me head, soothing me and telling me how bad I was and that if I behaved, he wouldn't do such things.

At that point, I knew I was on my own here. I knew they didn't love me. What I didn't know was that they didn't love me because of what was wrong with them, not because of what was wrong with me. I was fine as I was. They just couldn't accept that. They wanted a different child. My not understanding that it was them and not me casued somuch suffering to me. I spent most of my life until now trying to someone different, someone worthy of their love. I don't think that now, at the deepest level, I know I was always loveable. I also know it is they who do not deserve mine.They have it anyway in that I wish only peace for them.I just don't wnat them near me for they are the same toxic people they always were.

This incident was one of many-all around the same time. I know it was the same time frame because of the country we lived in at the time. My memories are anchored by where we we were living at the time. Another time, he screamed and bullied and hit me whilst he was helping me with my math homework. I was too stupid, of course, to understand the math, hence his hitting and screaming and bullying. This of course was a very effective way of teaching math to children. I was just too stupid to get it. The more he hit and shouted the more stupid I became. The fact I might be very stressed and upset at this bullying and gross mistreatment which is why I was having difficulty absorbing the math would not have entered y father's head. My father has always been right. Never ever wrong. 'Sorry' or 'I was wrong' are a foreign language to him.

During this same time frame he lost it with me at the dinner table.He was so angry he broke his own dinner plate? Why? I didn't like what my mother had made. A very rare thing as I adore food, always did, and still do. This one dish I found detestable-the rice had the look and texture of maggots. He forced me to eat it. Eating disorder, anyone?

The night of the day he the the bookcase at me, I stopped kissing him goodnight. The fool took this as sign that I was becoming 'a man'. It was no such thing, but he wouldn't have known that because he hadn't done anything wrong had he? To this day, this man seems to think I ought to love him and respect him and be thankful I had such a good upbringing. Dream on.

I have never felt hatred. Nor malice. I have been very very angry, rageful, but I don't wish anyone any harm. In fact the opposite-I wish nothing but peace for anyone regardless. My family, the paedophiles, the teachers and pupils of my high school in Oz who bullied me mercilessly. My nick name there was 'shit'. I hated school. To this day, I cannot walk past a school without fear. On the days I can walk, I walk the dogs and am sure to not be doing so at break time during term.

Anyway, back to my point about hatred. I have not only not felt it but never seen the point of it. I knew that to feel such would make me as bad as those who objectified me and treated me so badly. My younger brother says he wished for me to have a painful death and that he would go and dance and spit on my grave. I was shocked. Not hurt. Just shocked that he would harbour such vileness. When you consider that his feelings are misplaced, meaning he blames the wrong person. Such is the nature of denial and self preservation. He can't face the real the source of his pain so he displaces it onto someone else, me, an object, who doesn't have feelings and doesn't matter.

All I have ever wanted was an acknowledgement of the pain and suffering I endured at the hands of my family. Nothing else. What possible good would revenge bring? How would revenge be even possible? No the only 'justice' that makes any sense to me is that they find peace and that can only come with the truth. That would make me very happy. Their suffering would bring me nothing.

Ultimately, my lack of hatred and or malice is selfish. Neither will bring me peace. Someone said that to hate is to drink poison and expect someone else to die. Of course as a child I did not know these things, yet still I didn't hate. Another reason for me to have scorn heaped upon me.

Among the things my younger brother accuses me of(violence toward him is one-which is true) is that I 'showed him pornography'. I was 16 and he 14. I had no access to such things then. It transpires that he got hold of my copy of Fear Of Flying by Erica Jong-a boring big hit of 70's which was about casual sex but was not porn. This accusation of abuse is so desperate as to be laughable. What did I do? Tie him up and make him listen as I read to him? Did I hover over him
and force him to read it, whilst holding a dagger to his heart?

The violence was real enough.I was violent toward him.This was druing the years that he told me I was not worthy of God's love, that as a homosexual I was evil and possessed by demons.The onslaught of his words was never ending. He'd quote me stuff from The Watch Tower and the Jehovah's Witness version of the Bible, all confirming that I was wikced and no good. I htink what really really got to him was when I flipped and believed I was possessed by demons and flew in terror to the Kingdom Hall and burst threw the doors, interupting their meeting and begging them to release me from the demons. This must have mortified him.To this day he does not see how he brought this about and how he also brought about the violence. I was not an adult, I was highly disturbed.Evemn when i wa solder, an adult in years, late tenns, I wa sunder th influence of neuroleptics whcih made my beahviour even mor volatile and erratic and increased my suffering a hundred fold. They are vile drugs. Vile. The side effects are awful It is why they are used to troture people by wicked regimes. I deeply regret the violence, of course I do.

Me thinks my brother is trying very hard to hang on to his story of our past, which puts me in the role of the Devil. Good luck to him. I wonder if the incongruity of his treatment of me, his vile words expressed in emails, and his position as a family healing guru ever strikes him? It would seem not.

I know his suffering has been enormous s has that of my older borther. I am not responsible for it.

You know, I have never felt so free. Now I know that they are reading, or have read, this blog, I have lost the inhibition I felt. Our family motto was 'never tell anyone what goes on at home'. I can tell my story in it's entirety and I shall. In bits though otherwise these posts would be very long. Too long for me to write and to long for anyone to read.

Machine Knitting Stuff To Sell

Just to make it clear, I am NOT giving up machine knitting.

I am cutting back on my machines and the coned yarn.

So if anyone out there is looking for something, ask me, I might have it and then we can think of cost.

In Bed With Me And A Dog

The new memory foam mattress still feels strange when I first go to bed. I sit on it before lying, and it is that part that feels odd as it is not as high as the previous mattress and without all the extra layers on top-double duvet folded on to top of a memory foam topper-I'd sink in as this mattress is very firm.

It was the best thing to buy for me. Most definitely. I sleep well on it and am in much less pain when I wake up.

I have also confirmed to my satisfaction that the pain I get in my ribs at the back is not acid at all but to do with the spine problem and muscle problem. I know this now for sure. It started up whilst I was on my left side, and it was in my left side. I moved and it stopped immediately. Later, I was on my right and sure enough so was the pain. It too stopped the second I moved. The great thing about this new mattress is that I can lay on my back which I have not been able to do for years.

Nechung seems to like the new mattress too. Either she has stopped snoring or is doing it more quietly because she has not woken me up with it.

The swim this morning took more effort than usual and I felt it more, despite taking Tramadol first thing. The pool was almost empty when I arrived-only two in there. Most unusual. I really do enjoy the swim as it sets me up for the day. Even if I am too pained to do anything else, I have at least done my swim. I have swum 4 days in a row and hopefully will swim the next two days also. I will not be swimming Saturday or Sunday as I will be going to a dog show in Edinburgh, Scotland. Although I will get back here Sunday night, I will need to rest on Monday.

Tomorrow night I have another demonstration to do. Not far away, 18miles. I enjoy working this particular hall. The atmosphere is excellent and the evening usually goes well.

I am pleased with my new socks so far, a twisted, travelling stitch pattern in the burnt orange yarn I bought in Ghent, Belgium.

Shameless is over the worst of her morning sickness and is eating well again. She is 5 weeks gone today and technically has 4 weeks to go but my girls usually come 3-5 days early.

Today is going to be a lazy day. Nechung must get bathed but other than that, nothing I must do. I shall do as I feel.

Letters from My Brother

As I have said, I am trying to clear out stuff hoarded over the years.

I have found two letters written by my brother dated September 22nd 1995. One of the letters is to me and the other is a copy of a letter he says he sent to my parents.

Not only does he deny ever having written these (I asked him in 05 in our email exchange if he still thought what he wrote was true and he denied ever having written it. I am thankful I kept all of our email correspondence!)) but as far as my family is concerned, the accusations he makes in these letters were made by me! How that came about I have no idea.

Yet again I was blamed for something I did not do and scapegoated.

I quote from the letter to my parents:

'My therapy is now centred on assisting me to heal the pain caused by the horrifying trauma of emotional, physical and sexual abuse. I am helped to deal with the deep and lasting scars that have had a grip on my life as a result of experiencing being raped by '
(here he names my father and two others). These sickening and repulsive crimes were also committed against my brother Colin, and not only did I witness these crimes, I was also subject to their loathesome savagery.'

He goes on to be rather graphic in detailing the abuse and also to write:

'i also remember having a mother that witnessed one of the crimes and then chose to be silent instead of protecting the children she claims to love.'

The above are extracts from his letter copied to my parents and my other brother.

To me he writes:

'My heart weeps not only for myself, but also for you. My heart weeps for your years of torment and rejection, and for my years of silence. Please find it in your heart to forgive me for my silence.'

'Please, please show these letters to your therapist.'

'If you cannot find it in your heart to release me from your anger and to accept where I am at this moment, rest assured that i will pray for you and will send you you my love and light unconditionally.' You, like myself, were a beautiful little boy who had his dignity, heart and soul ripped away from as an innocent child. I am determined to reclaim my divine right to live with dignity, peace and love and I wish the same for you.'

At the time of receiving these, I did not believe him and still do not. I was angry. Angry because my father was a bully. Making such far fetched accusations would allow him to ignore his bullying. After all, if the sexual stuff was not true then nothing was. That is how I saw it. I might add soon after receiving these letters, my brother was on the phone calling me all the evil names under the sun.

What I really do not get is how it came to be that it was ME who got the blame for these accusations? How it was me who was never spoken to again? How it was me who was not told of his mother's death? How is it that it is me who is blamed for it all?

And they wonder why I want nothing from them or to have any of them in my life now? They have given me nothing but pain. My father made me feel worthless. He hurt me deeply with his physical violence and his verbalised disgust of me. 'You disgust me.' He did not show me love in any way whatsoever. And now they think I am the one who is mad and bad?
My brother came from the same family. I have very mixed feelings about him and his continued abuse of me. (by his scapegoating and lying now.) I am aware that he must do what he needs to do to keep his 'story' together so that he doesn't have to go thru what I did and really feel his feelings. It takes courage.

I only wanted to know if my father was still alive. I had no reason to believe I would be told. Instead this f***ing shit gets opened up again.

I have received nothing but hatred from these people. Not love at all. Only an insane person would want to have anything to do with them.

Oh and just like I did before, I shall be certain to keep these signed letters just so that i cannot be told they were not written or sent. you know, that is a huge part of their game and a huge part of why I was so ill for so long: I kept being told that what I knew happened did not. In the end I had no trust at all for own self or my own perceptions. Wonder why I was so ill? It is very common for people who are constantly told that their perceptions and reality are false to fall apart. Thank fully for me, there was always a part of me, deep and hidden but there, that knew, and kept me from losing it altogether.

My father was physically violent and cold and verbally abusive. As was my mother. I was sexually abused outside of the home-by a stranger in Singapore. I told my mother, despite being warned not to, when something happened to a neighbours child. I though I had better say what I knew. My mother slapped me and called me disgusting and told me it was my fault. She also never stopped my father from being violent and could have.

I was also the victim of a child pornographer in Australia. He was one of my teachers. Of course I said nothing. Past experience taught that was dangerous to do. Besides, by that time I believed I was evil and this man treated me a lot better than my father did so I was unlikely to blab.(I have a deep concern that these films and photographs of me might now be on the net-but there is nothing I can do about that. Oh and in 94 I was contacted by Interpol and then interviewed for 2 days by detectives with regard to this teacher. It was dreadful. I had to be specific. Only to then be told that because I had been in a psych ward, my testimony could not be used as I was not a 'reliable witness'. I didn't matter and as far as I know the case was dropped)

How I feel now? I emptied myself of all the grief, all those years of loss and pain. I want to be left in peace. I have no wish for anything from family. I wish them nothing but the peace I have found. I don't believe nay of them are evil, just in a great deal of pain without the courage to do right by themselves or me.
Long gone are the days of hoping for love and acceptance. I love and accept myself which is all that matters.

I live my life well. I live with my past and with my present. I live with 24/7 physical pain and my disability. Yet I enjoy each day, have good people in my life whom I love and who love me. I have my dogs. I am not the worthless shit I was taught I was. I am me and those who I let into my life love me for that. They don't expect me to change to suit them. And they know ALL of me, I don't pretend to be what i am not. I spent most of my life doing that and it nearly killed me.

The thought of my family still inspires fear in me and perhaps it will always be so. The difference is that whilst I feel it, I understand there is no need of it now. Old habits die hard.

Drunk again

Yesterday was an odd day. My balance was crap. Don't know why. I fell getting out of the pool and I had almost fallen whilst getting in. Fortunately, as always, one of the guards, this time John, was waiting to hand me my stick and his reflexes were fast. Only my stick ended up in the water. Later, I stumbled about 3 times more, once at home and twice out. My speech has been odd too. Yet I am having a better period pain wise. I only took pills yesterday so I could sit still to watch a film.

John and I had gone str8 to the huge Tesco at Serpentine Green when I picked him from the station in Peterborough. He said he wasn't tired but I thought he looked it. My wheelchair was wobbly and we noticed that one of the wheels looked like it was coming off. So we used one supplied by Tesco until we got home. Even though Tesco couldn't get their act together though - they had run out of all sorts of foodstuffs. Typical. John slept in the car on the way home, at home in the armchair and all night too. No he wasn't tired.


Last night was watched Le Vie En Rose, a French film about Edith Piaf. It was a very well made film and I found it moving to say the least. I felt rather melancholy by it's end. the performance given by Marion Cotillard in the lead role was astounding. No wonder she won the Oscar for it in 07. The first ever given to a performance entirely in French. If you do not object to subtitles, this is a film well worth watching.

Further to my post about the knitting disaster, I can't use those sleeves for anything because whilst the sides of the sleeve head were decreased as if I were doing a raglan, the top was not!

I finished off a second sock still left over from when I was knitting one sock at a time. Now I knit both at the same time to save this happening.

We took a car load of stuff to the tip yesterday and still my rooms upstairs look hardly touched. I have still to throw out so much.

I am going to be selling my coned yarn, not all of it, but a lot of it. So if you want anything, tell me and I will see if I have it. ALL my yarn is unbranded top quality natural yarn. Many different fibres, many different weights from 2/60 to 2/6.

I also will be selling off machines, punch card Brothers mainly, maybe a Silver fine gauge punchcard and Passap parts and possibly an MB75 motor.

Oh and my Dr reckons I have hay fever. Never had it before. However, my nose is running all the time and when I return from the pool, I can barely keep my eyes open, they sting and stream. I wear goggles swimming so not that. Sunlight thru the car window makes my eyes really run and sore. Weird. My eyes recover more or less half an hour after getting home, and my nose might take all day to stop being runny. Annoying more than anything else.

Experienced Knitter ?

I have some lovely green merino/angora yarn. I have used it two fold to make myself a set in sleeve sweater using my own design and the garter carriage.

I washed and tumble dried each piece as I knitted them.

Tonight, I eagerly set about sewing it up. As I sewed in the first sleeve top, or rather when I had reached the shoulder, I noticed that I had knit a raglan sleeve head for my set in sleeve body.......

It's bad enough I made such a mistake after all these years, worse that I didn't notice after the first sleeve, nor the second, but only when I ran out of body to sew said sleeve head to!

No,I don't drink. Maybe it's the new medication? Maybe I am just getting old? Maybe I have lost half my IQ somewhere along the line?

Thankfully, I have just enough left to knit two othjer sleeves. I can't rip back to the two i have already done because I already washed and pre shrunk the pieces.

Note to self: make sure you knit body and sleeves of same ******* sweater next time!

This, That And The Other

I heard so much negative stuff about Vista that I was loath to buy a PC with it on it. However, that is what i did having considered the options. I don't see what the fuss was about. It seems fine to me. Yes, it is different to XP but I like the changes so far.

Re my post of last night. I was feeling somewhat vulnerable knowing that family are probably reading me, at least that is what the email from my father implied. Baring all to such people is rather daunting. However, it's done now,I shall continue to be myself.

Strangely, or maybe not, over the last week I have had several emails from people who I have not heard from before. These emails have been either sharing the writers pain with me which is a great privilege that they should trust me enough to do that. Other emails have been from people telling me juts how much my writing has been of positive help to others. I say strangely, because these emails arrived at a time when I am feeling vulnerable and feeling less like revealing myself here.

I am up an hour earlier than usual this morning as I set my clock incorrectly last night. I was tired when I went to bed, having fallen asleep whilst watching a film, Stardust. So despite the hour earlier, I am still rested and will leave for the pool soon.

The dental work went very well yesterday. Bobbie, the woman who does it, is very nice and gentle and takes great care not to hurt me or make me feel uncomfortable. I need different physical support whilst in the chair and they are very careful how they move that back and I have a cushion thing in my lumber region. It is not an unpleasant experience at all having her work on my teeth.

Shameless has begun to eat better now but not as well as was. Nothing I can do. She won't starve herself. My hunch is that she is carrying a large litter.

John called me from his hotel in Washington DC. He flew out in the upstairs part of a jumbo and his room is more than we would pay for if we went!

I loved my 97 road trip in New England and would really like to go to the USA again, with John this time. However, as I think I have mentioned before, the last time I flew I was petrified. I wasn't before that flight, I used to love flying. Now the idea makes me very nervous indeed. I am pissed off about that. I am not too pleased either with the fact I can't knit whilst on a plane because of not being to take needles on board with me. In case I knit someone to death I suppose.

I spent two whole days not knitting! I did a little last evening though and have come up with a new sock design, I think. Plain colour with texture. I haven't knit enough yet to know if it will work out. I just didn't wan to knit another variegated colour ribbed sock, even if I do love them.

Next weekend, not this, I am going to the SKC show in Scotland. It will be Whitney's first show. She is a little madam and up to now she has only consented to behave and show off in an orderly fashion occasionally. I have a feeling she is going to be one of these that will only do it when she has an audience. I hope so anyway. Fortunately, she only has to do it for a short while. It isn't that she doesn't like the dog club or the other dogs and people. Far from it. She is very pleased to meet them all. She just doesn't like not being in charge!

Danger

I am nervous about writing on my blog now that it appears that people who do not have my best interests at heart,and never have, are seemingly reading it. Yes I know they have no power over me now but it still I feel very uncomfortable. I put noting past them, they have already shown just how wicked they are prepared to be in order to preserve their fantasy. Though I guess things are very different now in that I no longer accept their role of villain and am beyond their reach.Still, to know they the same as they always were makes me shudder.

It is just a blip I am sure. Nothing can take away from me all that I have gained. Nothing. How good it is to be in my position, free and honest, no story to desperately keep together.

Somehow, I sense their fantasy is unravelling thus the desperate attempt to see me still as their scapegoat. Without me in the game, they are in danger of having to see themselves.

Hoarding

John is away in Washington DC. He will return on Sunday.

Yesterday was another beautiful day weather wise. I did my swim of 70 lengths instead of 64 as I just felt like it. Recently, without trying, I have shave 8minutes off the time it takes me to swim a mile, 64 lengths.

I spent the rest of the day on the new PC. It does so much more than I realised. I love the widescreen HD screen, now that I have got the pixels right.

The search facility is good too. I am going through and deleting many files I don't need or have multiple copies of, stuff I saved 'in case'.

I am doing the same in the house. With John, I sorted through a whole load of jackets and shirts that are too big for me now. Also shoes, some 20 years old, hardly worn, but no longer my size. All kept 'in case'. They have gone.

We are going to do the same with my yarn and machines.

The room I am in now, my PC and knitting machine room, is just a tip, so full of stuff. I have started to clear it up. Just a little corner at a time otherwise it just appears overwhelming.

I was sorting through dvd's last night too, to see what was recorded on them. It is time consuming and not always easy to keep track of which ones have been checked. I then realised that as they have sat in a pile for years, they don't contain anything important. So they went in the bin. A bit more junk in my life gone.

Whilst swimming yesterday, I was thinking about how so many don't realise that love is a verb.

Love is not a just feeling but action.

Many people wonder if they are loved by whoever. If we just looked at how we are treated by a person, we know if they love us or not by how they treat us.

The trouble is some of us are treated very badly by people who say they love us or it is assumed they do(parents). Therefore we can take a long time to realise that love is not being treated badly.

I have been with my John for almost 27 years and I know he loves me because of the way he treats me. I didn't used to know this. In fact I found him very confusing for a long time. He never shouted at me, he never hit me, he did things for me I didn't even know needed doing. He was kind and gentle with me and still is. I thought he didn't care about me! Then when I began to see he was treating me well and that maybe he loved me, I thought he was deranged because I already knew I was not worth loving. If he knew what I was really like, he wouldn't. After a while, and I knew he did know me, I then thought he must be a man with a secret - like he was serial killer or something. Seriously. I just couldn't get my head around the concept that he was a good a a sane who person who saw ME and loved me.

I don't have people in my life who don't love me. Oh, there are people I speak with, say hello too, and spend a little time with but those I am close with treat me with respect. They show show how they feel about me by their actions. They don't say and don't act it. They know, like I do, that love is a verb. It is expressed in our actions.

Today I have a dental appointment. I am so excited about that. I have dogs to groom and bath and plenty more clearing out of dross to do. I did not go swimming today.

On Saturday, I am speaking at an eating disorder convention. My first time. I have spoken at smaller meetings before but not at a big do.