LIVING IN TREACLE

 It would be nice if I could think of something witty or terribly intelligent to say but I cannot.

One of the things that has concerned me about the new bed is the possibility of falling out of it. Well, I need not have worried because I automatically woke up and stopped myself from turning. I was right on the edge about to fall. Now I know that my subconscious will take care of it for me.

It has been a dreadful day with regard to my health. I cannot think of any reason why.  I was not good yesterday after my swim and I had not swam the previous two days  so I don't think I could have been overdoing it. Yesterday, after my swim, I more or less did nothing I had difficulty getting to sleep last night and I was convinced I had the flu when I woke up but of course I do not. This is part of my problem it just has not been as marked as this for a while.

We went to a local computer shop as I prefer to support local traders if I can but the information they gave me on the telephone did not match up with what was actually available. I found it very difficult because I could barely talk and I must have appeared really confused. I wasn't but I just could not get my brain and my mouth to cooperate. I did meet Fay there who is the mother of my friendLaura Granger.  it was nice to see her because it just made me feel better because I knew that she could tell that I was not with it and I didn't have to explain anything.

We ended up going to  Currys. I was on the edge of losing it there but I think the sales man must have picked up the vibe or something because he suddenly said I'll leave you to have a look and make up your mind what you want. I was so relieved because that is exactly what I needed him to do was go away and leave me alone. The effort of trying to think and talk was just too much.

I did find what I wanted and that half the original price. I got a Samsung laptop with the correct bells and whistles for the two things I need to use it for-music and HD video.

It is extremely cold today. It was cold last night that today it has not been above 2°C.

The puppies are doing very well and they are eating regularly now. Pussy is not eating very well at all about this is very common with pregnant females at this time. Between three and five weeks pregnant and they often go off their food. Whitley not only goes off her food but refuses to eat raw food which is her normal diet and which she is now back on and eating like a horse but while she was pregnant and feeling the puppies she only eight the Royal Canin.  weird.

I have no idea if today is the beginning of the more difficult phase or if it is just today. It is normal to cycle with good periods and bad periods or rather bad periods and better periods because there's never really a good period. However, when I am so challenged mentally like this I find it much more difficult to deal with. It is not easy to explain to other people although I do not explain anyway but they are used to seeing a physically challenged man who is very chatty and friendly and not this physically challenged man who also appears to be in another world. It is such a difficult thing to explain. Inside I seem to be working perfectly all right and I have am thinking alright. At least I think I think that is okay. It is just difficult to get it out into words and so I seem to be mentally damaged. I am using my speech to type program for this and it has taken me a long time just because going from thinking to speaking is very difficult right now. I have no idea why this happens. I made myself a lovely latter-day coffee and then I went to sit down in my chair and John said to me "where is your coffee"?  I had made it and then just left it there on the side. I'm physically very slow as well today.  in fact it would have just been easier for me to say today has been Crap! That I always feel I have to explain! Besides which it can help me seem clearly when I write things out but this is not particularly helpful today. All it is doing is confirming that I am f*cked today.

 I still have not got accustomed to John being retired although he works Tuesday Wednesday Thursday. I keep thinking that today is Saturday because he is home and I have done this ever since he went into retirement mode back in May! I think when he retires fully in five years time I might have worked it out! And then it won't matter anyway! We have to do Tesco tonight because we both need to pick up our drugs and we both need food.

MY BOOTS AND SHOES

BI-POLAR AND ME

I have been promising for a while that I was going to talk about my experience with bipolar disorder. I have mentioned it before but I've never been into any detail about it. I guess it is not the easiest of subjects to discuss.

No matter what people say there is still a stigma attached to mental illness and people are afraid of it.

My mood swings started in my teens. They in fact started in my early teens but I guess they were not so obvious then. They did not become really obvious until I was 16 and 17 years old and even then nothing was done about them and in fact they were not even recognised.

I had long periods of the most crippling depression. I did not want to go out I thought that I was the ugliest and most repulsive person on the planet. I thought that just by going out people would know that I had been violently and sexually abused throughout most of my childhood and they would see what an evil person I was. This is what I remember the most. The crippling depression.

However I also had periods of elation. During these periods of elation I felt absolutely wonderful and I felt that nothing but nothing could stand in my way and I could in fact do anything. I was accepted into drama school. I cannot remember the name of it but I believe it was in  Chiswick. Of course by the time term time came around I was no longer manic so of course I did not take up the course.

These periods of elation became more frequent and more extreme. I would talk non-stop to anybody and my subjects would flit from one to another.

John came home from work  one day to discover that between him leaving in the morning and him returning we had somehow gained seven Persian cats.

These highs had their downsides because I could turn nasty in a split second if I felt that you were trying to make me unhappy. The man I was during these periods of being high was not the bullied victimised sexually abused little wretch. No! I was the very talented Colin who could conquer the world and show the world just how worthy and just how talented and just how truly wonderful he was.

And then, just like that, the little pathetic self hating terrified Colin would return and with it the consequences of my manic behaviour. I had to turn up at a hairdressers to tell them that I did not indeed want to be a hairdresser. I did not go as far as to say that the very idea horrified me. They were not at all pleased with me because they had put quite some effort into a person they thought had a talent and flair. But those poor people did not know that the person they were dealing with did not exist.

The worst of this to me was that I was then involved in the passion of my life the  Lhasa Apso.  Now I know I do not need to tell you who are involved in the world of dogs just how awful people can be.  I quickly earned a very negative reputation. I would perhaps be more understanding of it if that reputation was based upon my inability to look after dogs well, or cruelty towards dogs. However no matter how ill I was my dogs always came first and they were always spotless and loved.

There was a very well-known lady named Daphne Hesketh Williams who was one of the people who took me under her wing because she knew that I was very disturbed young man and she had met my family and had immediately understood why was so disturbed. I will always remember that woman with gratitude. 

There were other people  who also accepted me as I was. They did not seem to object to the constant phone calls. Let me explain that these phone calls might arrive 30 minutes after the previous one only to repeat everything that I'd said in the previous phone conversation. You see, I did not remember. When I was manic my memory was like that of a blackout. And so coming down from   a manic episode was a pretty terrifying experience to me because it meant that I had lost weeks if not months of my memory. And I would find that there were people in my life that I had no idea who they were and I would also find that I had upset or offended other people  whom I knew before I went into my manic phase.

This story could become extremely long and probably extremely dull. The trouble is there are people still involved in my breed who remember the mad and unstable person that I used to be and those people still judge me for how I used to be and they still cause me trouble.  They don't appear to understand that people can change.  I guess if I am honest I think these people do not give a shit  about how painful my life was then nor how painful was my recovery to become the man that I am today. No, I think these people feel superior to me. I think that this is what is behind some shit that has been flung in my direction which I cannot really talk about right now  but there will come a time when I shall be able to talk about it and I most certainly will.

 The other thing of course is that some of the so-called friends that I had who often reminded me what wonderful friends they were for sticking by me when others did not, turned out to not be friends at all but people who were able to see the advantage that could be taken of my mental and emotional state.  This they certainly did.

I am still reeling from the shock of discovering that people I looked up to and trusted were not my friends but were people who used my good nature and generosity and also what they knew about my psychological state in order to benefit themselves. I cannot think of anything more wicked than to  become a friend and confidant to somebody who is severely disturbed because of the abuse by others, only so that they may use that psychological disturbance to their own advantage. This they clearly did. When I think of the years of painful self-doubt that I suffered with because sometimes I did feel in my gut that something was not right with my  friendship with these two people but instead of acting upon it I punished myself severely for being so wicked as to even think such a thing of people who were so good to me as they kept telling me.

  Today life is very different. My mood is stable. I enjoy happiness and fun and joy and excitement and pleasure. And like anybody else I have my dark days.

The miracle for me is that I dress the way that I do and I dare to attend dog shows with thousands of people dressed in a manner that I know makes me stand out. I love every minute of it. Yes, it really does terrify me but I do it anyway. The amount of times I have arrived at a dog show and the first thing that I do is throw open my door and  retch; but then I pull myself together and I enjoy my day and I can honestly say that I do not care one jot about any negative comments I may or may not receive. Instead I concentrate on the good and decent people.  One need have no fear of me suddenly becoming manic at a dog show and attempting to show my dog completely naked!!

 I have put in an enormous amount of work into becoming the man that I am today. Even this year which has been extremely stressful with the house renovations and with my wedding has not brought upon any serious mood alteration. Yes, I have had periods of hyperactivity and I have also had periods of depression but these are very mild when compared to what they used to be.

Just to show how far and how genuine my recovery is I have remained unmedicated for bipolar disorder for over 10 years now.

For those of you who would bring me down, or who would try to because there's absolutely no way that you will succeed, I feel nothing but sorrow for you. You must truly be hurting deep inside your soul to wish to add misery to a person who has had such a life. You also betray yourself by revealing how much less you think of yourself and how much you think of me. Instead though of hating me and trying to pull me down you could try working upon yourself and ridding yourself of the poison within you that causes you to attack me. I am well aware that I'm not your only target but this blog is about me and I'm just letting you know that not only do I know the game you are playing and the moves that you are making, I am also letting you know that you will fail and you will feel as miserable as you always do because bringing me down is not where you will find your happiness.

For the rest of you the mostly kind and generous people, there truly is nothing to be afraid of when it comes to mental illness. What you see with me is what you get. I am recovered. I am who I am. I am who you see me to be. It is up to you to decide whether you take a chance and gain one of the most honourable friends who could possibly have or you decide the opposite and play safe and never get to know me.

Whitney pups 4weeks 21 Nov2012

SELF SABOTAGE

 As old as it may seem I feel more comfortable writing on my blog than I do on Facebook. I think because most people on Facebook would not bother to click on a link to come and read this. I also know that my blog followers follow it precisely because they identify with what I write about and quite often we do or think or feel the same things.

I am in a situation that I just do not understand. John tells me that it is all to do with the stress of the house this year. We started the renovations back in March and it will not be finished now until Christmas. I certainly did not expect it to take that long.

I also had a great deal of success at dog shows and I really loved them. Not just because I was winning so well with Whitney but because I felt so good about myself and this was shown in the way that I dressed and the fact that I kept my weight at the right level for me for a period of a few years.

Now it seems I'm sabotaging myself. I have absolutely no idea why. Yesterday, we had friends come to visit which was really lovely. We went out for the day. Now my best friend has multiple sclerosis and yet she walked whilst I was in my wheelchair. You could see the pain that she was in and have much tired she was getting. Eventually I persuaded her to use one of my walking sticks. I'm not sure why even mentioning this. I can't see that this would have upset me in any way. Yet I chose, and there is no point me saying anything other than that, because I did choose, to eat bread last night for dinner. And of course I do not mean just plain ordinary bread I mean bread full of seeds and heavy and Brown. Now I allergic to these foods. Seriously so. Not only does it make me bloated. It makes me in flames and gives me diarrhoea. And I wake with a headache and feel truly terrible and miserable.

I have done this quite a lot in this last year.

On the positive side of things I have started to use my light box every morning. When I get up and I am having my coffee waiting for my drugs to work I sit in front of my computer and my lightbox is on and I am getting my 30 minutes of light therapy. The other positive thing of course is the fact that I'm going swimming almost daily. I don't want to but I am making myself do it. I very much enjoy the swim and I feel very pleased with myself once I have done it. And whilst physically the effect is not immediately good in that my gate is very wobbly and I am very likely to fall over and it takes me a long time to get to my dressing room and to change to come home I don't half feel good with myself.

And yet I find I'm still sabotaging myself by eating foods that I just cannot tolerate and which can cause me serious gut problems. My mother died because of this although as  I'm aware she was never treated.  like me like me she alternated between diarrhoea and constipation and eventually her bowel burst because of constipation and she died.

There is not much that I can do about my brain damage or my spondylosis other than take the medication. I find the medication works really rather well. Yes, it does really piss me off that I get so tired and cannot do everything that I would like to do in one day. I have to plan my days so that on a day that I bath and groom one dog I have not got anything else that I must do. That annoys me. It annoys me that going to a dog show in effect costs me four days. But anyway all of that I am quite used to and that is not what the problem is.

But I have no idea what the problem is. I just do not understand why I am making life more difficult for myself and why the man I became and was so happy with is now slowly becoming the man he used to be.

Was my epiphany false? Did I not really recover?

As I wrote the above something else came to mind. I also lost what to me were very dear friends. As it turns out they were not friends at all. I feel really bad about that and in fact I can feel the emotion in my voice as I type this (I can can no longer type so I use a voice dictation program.) the main reason I feel bad about it is because I feel so humiliated that I did not see what these people were really like a long time ago. Yes, I did have my doubts but I just thought of myself as being wicked and paranoid and I shut my doubts away. In many ways it was a huge relief once they showed their true colours because a great weight was lifted off me. I no longer felt wicked and sick for having doubts about them.

On top of this I have also had a few people become very nasty towards me for no reason that I can think of. Meaning that I have done nothing to them. In fact I have very little dealing with any of them. And much to my anger I feel hurt and upset by their behaviour.

Winning with Whitney had its downside which at the time I did not know about. I had heard people say that dog people could be very nasty and once I started winning I would find this out. But I never did. The only thing that happened was that a friend stopped being a friend the minute Whitley won her first CC. I was not devastated because I expected it. The way she continually tore other people down  warned me that this was not a friend because if she could do that to other people then she could do it to me.

I also became well-known and popular just because of the way that I dress. It came very much as a surprise to me. I did not plan it.  in fact as naive as it may seem it took me quite a long time to realise why I got such attention. I enjoyed it. Of course I did. I was a lonely child. I did not get attention apart from being bullied. So of course I very much liked what was happening at the dog shows.

So why the hell am I ruining it all for myself? I know that my weight gain is not disastrous but it is enough to make it not feasible to wear the clothes that I was wearing. It only takes a few pounds to make one's trousers too uncomfortable and I have put on a stone (14lb).

 So I have written all of this. I can see that this year has been stressful and it has been hurtful. And I have not even mentioned my wedding! And that is the most wonderful thing that happened this year. Yet until now I thought not to mention it.

I need to sort this out and sort it out quickly. I need to understand why the old Colin who feels bad and wicked and undeserving is suddenly back with a vengeance. I truly never thought I would see him again. That day when I realised that I had been abused because of who my abusers were and not because of who I was made such a huge difference to my life. It turned it from monochrome to Technicolor. Seriously. I would never have dressed the way that I now dress prior to that day.  I would not have had the nerve nor the stamina to turn up at each and every show even though being amongst so many people terrifies me. I know without a shred of doubt that I was not abused because of who I was, that I did not deserve it, that I did not ask for it, and there was nothing about me that asked for it. That has not changed. I still know in my heart that this is true. Yet why my behaving now is this I no longer thought that was true.

It has crossed my mind that this last few years have been really very very good. And this year with our wedding and the house renovations and having my first homebred champion made up should also have been very good but in fact I have to say that it has been awful. The wedding wasn't I will never forget the wedding I was so happy that day the happiest I have ever felt. But the rest of this year both before the wedding and after the wedding has been pretty much a nightmare.

I also find it very very difficult to deal with the fact that there are people out there who don't just not like me but actually want to harm me through gossip etc I just do not understand this I have never been a malicious person. Not ever. I have never wanted to hurt another person. Not even those people who abused me. All I ever wanted was for them to stop and for them to recognise what harm they were doing.  I just do not understand people who want to hurt.

I can see from what I have written that perhaps the self sabotaging behaviour is hardly surprising.  I don't know and I would welcome any thoughts on this.

KNITTING MACHINES

LIVING IN COLOUR

I get very tired of those people who moan about the Internet and how bad it is for people especially social spaces like Facebook. These people clearly are able-bodied and have such lives that they have no time to discover new people and new experiences and new intelligence. I first came upon the Internet in 1997 in July. My life changed completely as a result I have travelled from Norway to Barcelona to Budapest to Stockholm to Denmark all over Germany France Belgium Holland. I would have done none of these without the Internet. I started my line of Lhasa apso because of the Internet. On a much more serious note on days like today where I am barely able to move what the fat could I do with myself? Just sit and watch telly and listen to music and feel lonely. No instead I am able to communicate with real people through this medium. That is all that this is it is a medium through which people are able to reach out to each other. Yes the place is full of Dick heads but you soon learn to worm them out all you tolerate them. On an even more serious note I have found that by writing my blog and being open about the effects of childhood abuse both physical sexual and emotional upon children and adults has been the most rewarding thing I have ever done. Without this Internet I could never have done it. It started out as an anonymous blog and just as a way for me to vent and to write about the abuse to make some sort of chronological sense out of it because I lived in firmly different countries and was abused in each one of them. My memories consist of which country are losing and which abuse happened. That is how I remember things. It is perfectly natural. If you ask me about Singapore the first thing will come to mind is being accosted and worse in the jungle. I have been into detail on my blog but I'm not going to do so here. However I also have some very exciting memories of Singapore the point I'm trying to make is that for all people who have been abused this is how we remember things. It is always marked by the abuse it is insidious it effects absolutely everything. In fact it is more wise to say that it infects absolutely everything. It infects the way that we react to people today. It can appear to others that we have been traumatised by something minor that has happened this week old today but which for a survivor it is not the little thing that has been the trauma but rather that the little thing has brought up something far more dramatic. Hence our reputation for overreaction. It has nothing to do with being a drama queen it has nothing to do with wanting attention. It just happens and we have no control over it all very little control over it and it takes a long time to learn to control it. There is no way of getting around it we are most definitely weird people but one always have to remember why. And one has to realise that the weirdness is our way of coping it is our way of keeping hold of our shattered selves. perhaps people do not truly understand that at the moment of the abuse a child psyche is split into 1 million pieces and those pieces will never ever come back together. They may form and a semblance of being a joined up whole but they never are. Instead our lives are an act. No I do not mean that we pretend to be somebody else although to the unrecovered survivor that is exactly what we do. We pretend to be many different people and the people that we pretend to be very much depends on those people around us. Carly Simon sings a song in which she says that she isn't necessarily the person you think you see and she will be whoever you want her to be. To me this describes the succinctly what I'm trying to describe. today I do not do that I am who I am. My friends understand this and they know that there are days that Colin is completely different to the Colin of yesterday that he is still essentially Colin and he will come back to being the Colin that they know and love. These are my real friends those who truly accept me as I am. Writing as I do not just here but on my blog has brought me so much personal satisfaction that I could never have dreamt it be possible. I have had professional people, those whose job it is to work with abused children, write to me to tell me how much reading me has helped them understand their clients better. I have been told that they often think of me when dealing with a particularly challenging child and they wonder what Colin would want in this particular situation. I cannot tell you how this makes my heart feel to know that just by writing how I feel and what I think can have such an effect. I have also had mails from people who have told me that on the day that they found my blog they had decided to end their life but that reading me gave them hope that the terrible pain that they were suffering could indeed get better. This is all that this is about. Be abused person just wants the pain to stop. The pain is not just the pain of the rape all the violence. That pain is over very quickly. It is the psychic pain that stays and eats away at 224 and was a day seven days a week 365 days a year without a break. I am living proof that despite the most devastating effects of abuse one can end up with a happy life. It is never a good idea to compare abuse. We all react differently to different abuse or even to the same abuse. The abuse that I suffered nearly destroyed me physically and mentally. Even when steps were taken to make sure that I could never physically and my life again, it was knowing that John would have to live with always wondering if he had done enough. This is what kept me alive. I knew that I could not do that to him. And I can tell you that I continued to waste my life to end right up until the end of 2007. The last few months of 2007 were the most agonising I have ever experienced but I came out the other side truly understanding that the abuse had never been my fault and it had not even been about me. I had not been abused because of who I was I had been abused because of who my abusers were. Since that day I have lived in colour whereas prior to that I lived a monochrome existence. I know that every time I open up and I talk about how I really feel at any given time I am helping myself but at the same time I am fully aware that I am also in the very privileged position of being able to help other people. I have come to realise that this is the purpose I have two my life. Regular readers of me will know that I have often struggled with the point of my life. I am completely dependent upon John and upon medication. I may be a survivor but I cannot function on my own. Much of my physical condition can be laid squarely at the feet of those who abused me as I grew up. This to is yet another affect of childhood abuse. However I do not dwell upon that. Instead I have come to realise that I do have a sense of purpose and that I do have a reason to be living. And it is my writing. Through my writing I am reaching out to other survivors and on any given day what I write may help another survivor to get through another day and learn something that will eventually lead them to not just getting through each day but actually living each day. The difference between existing and living. existing is just trying to get through another day from waking up to going to sleep with doing as little harm as possible during those waking hours. Trying not to starve oneself or purge ONESELF or cut oneself or maybe even to avoid harming somebody else. This is not living this is a living hell and existence it is a monochrome existence where all one feels his pain and whose only goal is to stop feeling pain. It was many years into my recovery before I realised that there was possibly more to recovery than just the cessation of pain I began to realise that I could actually enjoy life that I might actually feel joy and that it was okay to feel happy that there was no guilt in feeling happy. Of course this was a slow process and it came bit by bit. Despite the physical challenges I still have and the mental challenges, which will never go away, I do indeed live a life in full colour. I FEEL.. I I feel laughter I feel joy I feel silly I feel pain I feel tired I feel my body from which I was switched off for many years. Will that is enough for me now I had no idea that this was what I was going to write when I started and I wonder how many of you got this far today has been a good day because despite the fact that physically I feel terrible I have not fought it and I have still had a productive day just sitting in my arm chair.

THIS LION DOESN'T ALWAYS SLEEP!

This is embarrassing to say and if any of my friends think it better tI remove it, please tell me. 
Anyonwe who knows me and has read about my past, knows the hell I have lived through. Most will also know how well I live with it. I have been left with brain damage and a diseased body which causes sever 24/7 pain, but I get on within it and live each day the best i can. I live very well, I have

 a very good life and I had some good. What i do not not understand are those people who want to ADD to my pain. The friends Iost when I became successful with Whitney. They judges who took great delight putting me down the line in favour of their friends. Then those who are deliberately mean spirited toward me when I have never ever done anything to them. I am no malicious, I have never been. I give people the benefit of the doubt and the last time resulted in this woman shitting all over me again, making up more malicious lies about me, and now seems to to be stirring the pot again. Why? I have no ideea why people do this type of thing. I am not malicipous, I don't understabnd the need to be, I don;t understand trhsoe who pretend friendship but use what they kn iw about me to manipulate me. One really good thing about having been iopen about my shilchood sexiual abuse, the time ine hosptitls, etc means that pwople cannot use this against me as everyone already knows!

It has taken me more courage and more strength of character than of of these wankers could possibly muster. I have more bottle in my little finger than they will ever ever have. I survived seeing my best friend murdered in fron of me when I was seven. I survived a vioplent, nasty bully of a father. I survived him knocking me out. I surived the bullies. I survived the teaxhers who thought I was as issiy and therefore deserved rthe bullying. I survived the nuns and priests, one qof who siuggested that jesus wiuykld forgive my suicide bu not my homosexuality. I surviderd being held down and forcibly drugged, many times, all in an attemp to shiut me up so i could not would not talk about the abuse. I wa sinvoled in the inquiry into one of the hospitals where the absue wqs funallly frecognized. When asked why i said nothing, my resoonse was to say 'whio would have belkieved me?"

I went through hours of police interviews about waht the teaher diud to me who was a child pornarapher. I was 11/12. I had to be de detalied about thwat her did. When it wa sall over I was told my yestimony was of no use use because I had a mental health record and therfroe couyld not be relied upon to be truthful. People didn't belive victims. So this man as far as I know was ver stopped and now wioth the internet, it is likely that pornogrpahoich film and images of me are around there and other pervs are watching me abused and getting their jopllies. And no one give a shit.

So iof yohu think I am odd, yes I am. I could ajve been a total fruitcake. I could be 'shut down' completely. I could be a sociopath. I could be anything but what I am: a kind and generous eman who hold no hatred for any one but but who is very hiurt by the con tinued abuse I recieve from people for no apparent reason. It seesm that having an opiniopn in dogs is not allowe dun less you are part of a cliqie and having a dioffering opinion is enough to be trashed and gossiped about. You know I was thrwon out of a aclub because I was not the ype of memeber anted. Why? Becsusei Kept my dogs coppped inncages right up the the celing, I had tooo many and I bredd loys of litterrs(this could ahev checked with the KC and wouyld ahve seen that tha the max in oine is 3 and moatly just 1.)

I have NEVER done any people harm. I have never done anything that deserves tyhis disgusting trreatment. I have gtried to begfriend soem people and have been re
buffed. They don't even give me the chance of getting to know me.

What shames me the most is how hburt I feel about it. I find it hard to acceopt that there peope who are just plainbn nasty. They do not care at all about the feelin gs of othertrs. They seem to enjopy causing pain to others.

I am deeply cponfounded. I don't get it. I know I can't stlop it but I need to fiond a way of it not hurtingn me, making me feel afarid. It does make me feel afarid. All the fear from tmy childhood comes back at timees like this and I have to work hard to remind myself I a,m not a child and this is not the same thing,

I will tell you now: I will NOT sgtop showing my dogs. I will keepi going as long as I posissinly can and maybe even end up having to hve someone else sjow my fodg for me or sell them for tohers to show.

My apologies for the typing. I have not used the vopice to thype thing because I don't want John to hear how upset I am. I feel like am immagture chgild allowing myself to get so wound uo by this h=nastiness. I feel tupid for feeling hurt, stupid for allowing these people to affect me, and I still would rather they go to nknbow me and see I am not the monster they believe tI am.

ABUSE TRIGGERS

t is not surprising that I am emotionally all over the place and I know that there are many other survivors who will be feeling exactly the same way and for exactly the same reasons.

JIMMY SAVILLE

it is all over the news every day and has been for a few weeks now. For those of you who do not live in Britain you will not know what this is about. Jimmy Savile was a highly entertaining philanthro

pist. He raised millions of pounds for children. For their hospitals for their treatments for their holidays. He was considered a saint.

We now know that he was a paedophile. We now know that he abused hundreds. We also now know that those people whose job it was to protect those that he abused failed in their job. We now also know that plenty of people knew that he was a paedophile and that he was abusing but they were too afraid to say anything in case they lost their job or were made to look foolish if they were wrong. I have always said that child abuse happens because we the general public and allow it to. In this case of Jimmy Savile it could not be more clear how the public not only did nothing to stop him that actively helped him.

Anybody who is a survivor of childhood abuse will be in emotional turmoil over this particular case because it covers just about every area of our lives that were destroyed. First of all our trust, the ability to trust, was destroyed by the abuser but also by those who refuse to believe us or who blamed us all who diagnosed us as mentally ill and therefore nothing we said was of any value. If we still refused to shut up we were forcibly drugged and kept in a stupor for months on end and when these drugs affected our behaviour in a negative way, with extreme agitation and violence even towards oneself or towards one's others, we were then deemed to be suffering from a highly unpredictable personality disorder.

I know as only survivor can possibly know how this news story has ripped open our wounds yet again. I can only hope that those survivors that are reading this are in the same fortunate position that I am: I live a very good life and I have a husband who loves me dearly and who not only puts up with the swings and roundabouts of living with a survivor but he has actually learned what being a survivor means and how it affects our behaviour. Of course because I love him and he is the closest person to me he is often the one that I lash out at. He understands when I zone out. By this I mean he understands that I am not ignoring him but that my mind has shut down because something rather has triggered off a memory. And this man slept on a settee for nearly a year because my night terrors were so bad that he would be battered and bruised. This of course would make me feel terribly ashamed but also frightened because I would have absolutely no recollection at all of having had a night terror. I rarely have them now.

To my survivor friends please believe me when I say that this will pass. Not only will this new story wane but we will be less affected by it as each day goes by. We will process it. We will once again go back to where we were. This emotional turmoil will not stay with us. It will settle down again.
To all of you non-survivors I have absolutely no idea if any of this makes any sense at all to you. I hope that it does and I hope that it helps you better understand those people in your life who are survivors. Hopefully you will understand that when you are the brunt of the survivors pain that it is not you that is the real aim. Even if you do not experience such reactions. You may find that your survivor friends withdraw from you. Or they seem to be moody for no apparent reason. They become ultrasensitive. They can react emotionally over the slightest thing. They can be offended easily. They can cry easily. Suddenly daily tasks will become as if they were mountains to be climbed. Whatever you experience from your survivor friends just bearing mind that it is not about you it is about the people who abused them and in situations like this the emotions all come flooding back and abuse that may have taken place 50 years ago is as fresh as if it were yesterday because to us that is when it was: yesterday, today, now,. You see we suddenly find we are living it again. And again.

Just know that this too will pass but also no that it will never be the end but that there is still hope because a good life can be lived despite the horror of our pasts. The memories, the flashbacks, the emotional outbursts, the terror, all of it becomes much less powerful and much less frequent.

I am living proof to you that you can survive to live a good life even though one has to carry the past with you. Some people who consider themselves super spiritual believe that you can put the pass down and leave it. This is a lie. What actually happens with recovery and the right help and support is that we are able to carry the load in such a way that it does not wear us down. Our past will always be with us. It is what made us who we are today. There will always be triggers. The only way to stop the past from intruding upon today is by making sure that we do not have any today's. And that my friend is not an option. That would mean that the abuser or abusers have one. trust me when I tell you that one can live a truly wonderful authentic life even with this terrible evil that was inflicted upon us.

If only I could show you film of what I used to be like. I used to starve myself. I used to cut myself. I regularly overdosed. I was too afraid to go out. My body dysmorphic was so extreme that I could not have any mirrors in my house and if I caught sight of myself in the mirror all reflection in a window all I saw was something like the hunchback of Notre Dame, something dark and evil. Today I am able to have mirrors in my house. Today I able to stand in front of my mirror and feel pleased with what I see there are days I choose not to look in the mirror. I had extremely violent mood swings where I would have long periods of mania followed by long periods of depression. This made relationships extremely difficult to maintain. I was always in and out of hospital. I have been in locked wards. I have been taken to hospital in handcuffs. And I have been held down and injected with large doses of largactil, the liquid cosh. back then I could not imagine the life I have today I fully expected that my life would be lived in mental hospitals until the day I was successful in killing myself.

Today I live a normal life. I have a wonderful husband and I have my dogs. Yes I live with brain damage and with body damage, Such that I need large doses of painkiller and epilepsy medication but I need take nothing at all to control my moods because today I am in charge. Today I know what I want you to know: it was never me it was always them. In other words I was treated the way that I was treated because of the way my abusers were. I was not abused because of who I was. I was abused because of who they were. Once you truly understand and believe that fact you will be free to be who you are and to have a good life. My prayer for you, my wish for you, my good thoughts to you, are that you come to the same understanding that I did. I no longer live in a world that was black-and-white with shades of grey. I now live in full glorious technicolour. you can too. There is nothing special about me. If I can get to this point then so can you.          

SHOE COLLECTION

WHITNEY'S PUPS 3 WEEKS OLD 13112012

RETAIL THERAPY

 We went out to Queensgate in Peterborough today.  there was no reason to go other than to have a break from all the turmoil of the house and the fact that I have been stuck very close to home since the babies were born three weeks ago. It turned out to be a far better day than either of us expected. We met a lot of truly nice people. Yes they were working in shops but you can tell when people are being genuinely nice and friendly or not. I find that I hand up having quite in-depth conversations with such people about all manner of things. It really gives me pleasure to meet new people of all different ages and races and to feel that we have bonded for a short time. It is amazing how much income and you find out that you have with total strangers.

  This is me eating at  Patisserie Valerie.  I had a super salad and a really good coffee. John took the photograph of me while I knitted between courses. As others have already said knitting prevents me murdering people.

  I bought this shop in a boutique in side Queensgate. I cannot remember its name. However I am rather flattered that the owner of the shop always asks my opinion about the layout of the shop and whether or not he has got the right mix of clothing. I think that he has and my gut feeling is that he will be successful. One half of his shop has closed that are aimed more at teenagers and those in their 20s. The other half of the shop he said is aimed more at the truly fashion conscious mature man in his 30s and 40s. Since I am in my mid-50s I found that quite flattering! But I guess it is clear from the way that I address that I really enjoy  clothing so it isn't too much of a stretch that he would ask my opinion since every time I have been in their I have been dressed in a completely different outfit. However I never think of myself  As fashionable. I just wear what I enjoy wearing but of course I enjoy the compliments that the way that I am dressed elicits. I do think that people find it much easier to approach me because I'm in my wheelchair although John thinks that it is just the fact that I have obviously open and caring personality and so people find it easy to approach me. I think he is just being kind because he loves me. I really do feel that people feel more able to talk to me because I am in a wheelchair and therefore less threatening to them. Please do not  misunderstand. I am not saying that they are patronising me. Some people do patronise me and I find that very irksome and I am not particularly friendly in response. Particularly the stupid women who say 'ah. bless.'!!!!  what on earth are they thinking? Even if they think that surely they have the manners or the insight to know that you don't say something like that to the face of a cripple! I have to say that most of the time it just makes me laugh because I think if only they knew how stupid they sound.  I mean really.

  Once again I was lucky. This hat was in the ladies section of the   millinery department in John Lewis. It was a perfect fit. And I have a leopard skin care of Doc Martens boots and a leopardskin pair of Doc Martin shoes so the hat is a perfect match.

 these shoes are not my normal fare. But I really think they are very handsome shoes. I will find just the right outfit to wear them with. Before you ask, yes there are two more shoes that match. I had to buy two pairs. I know of no  Cobbler that will make to different shoes as a pair.   alas, I am not sufficiently rich to be able to have whatever I desire made for me. Life is so unfair. I see so many rich people with the most appalling taste and yet here I am with nowhere near enough money to show these rich people held dressing up should be done! :-) 

WHAT MY DISABILITY MEANS

These are Whitney's puppies at 10 days old. They are doing very well. I have to say that the underfloor heating in the sunroom is clearly doing these puppies very well. Most of the time they are sleeping apart from each other and certainly apart from their mother who they only go to when they want milk. They are also very quiet. Of course the sun room is a definite no-no if I had a spring or summer litter as they would definitely be far too hot. Even now that it is winter any son will raise the temperature to about 26-27°c.

I have had a rather strange week. I have spent most of it asleep. I have been getting up at 5:30 AM every morning to go for a swim and I am very pleased about that. You would not believe the difference it makes  to me. I feel that if I have done my swim whatever else happens for the rest of the day is perfectly all right. However, I did not expect that I would go to sleep! I sit down in my armchair to listen to some  music  and before I know it I have gone to sleep. Last night I also fell asleep in my armchair and I was so deeply asleep that John had to call me three times before I was aware that the phone was ringing! I went to bed and I still slept well.

 The house renovations are almost at an end but it will be December before we can even begin to sort out our close and shoes and put them away. At the moment the office where my computer is is full of clothes and shoes and so is the sunroom. The house feels very crowded indeed.

The two bedrooms upstairs are now completely decorated. We now need them to  be carpeted. The large bedroom where my knitting machines are will have shelving all the way around in order to accommodate all of my Doc Martens. The smaller bedroom will be my dressing room it will have inbuilt wardrobes and a chair and also a grab rail on the wall because John is not always here when I need to dress. 

I am now on to new drugs. This takes my daily intake to morphine, tramadol, gabapentin,paracetamol, rosuvastatin, amitriptyline, aspirin, baclofen,  Valium occasionally and to daily tablets which I cannot remember the name of one of which is to rid myself of excess water and the other is to control my bowel.  all in all about 42 pills a day.  The Valium is very occasional. It enables me to sit still long enough to watch a film as long as I get the dosage right. Too little and I am unable to keep still and too much sends me to sleep! However having said that the baclofen works really well with regard to my muscles and the spasms and so I have had no need to take Valium for quite some time and maybe I won't have to again.

I am going to write a blog post which details all the symptoms as far as I can recall that my disease causes. The reason for doing this is because it has become very apparent to me recently that I am not really aware of what is normal and what is my disability because I have become so used to it. The reason this has become important is because my doctor for want of a better word is annoyed or disappointed that I am not telling her the whole truth. I have not explained that well my doctor is absolutely lovely. But even my John has noticed that I do not tell the truth when I am asked detailed questions about how my disease affects my daily life. It isn't partly because of my training about  one must keep a stiff upper lip and not complain  and partly because I have got so used to the way my body is that I just do not see it as abnormal. I do not view myself as a disabled person and John says I am far more disabled then I think  I am. And for John to say something like that I know that he is speaking the truth

I was brought up not to complain. And certainly not to complain about the abuse. If I tried to I was abused even further or I was called a sissy who was making a fuss about nothing. This is why my disease went and diagnosed for so many years because I did not go to the doctor to complain about the things that my body was doing. At that time my body was doing things intermittently which did not help.

There are other symptoms of course which I have not spoken about because much to my surprise I realise that I am embarrassed by them. I really did not think I was that sort of person and am normally willing to talk about anything. However the problems I have with my bowel and my bladder I have been keeping to myself. Oh yes I have said that I have IBS and I make jokes about it.  What I do not say is that although normally I would get quite severe pain which would warn me that I need to go and go quickly there  are other times when I have  no warning whatsoever which inevitably leads to accidents. Apart from once or twice this has always been at home because when I go out especially to dog shows I take a lot of morphine and this ensures that I will not need to go. If I did I would have problems because I would need help to get dressed again.

Now as regards my bladder. The new drug baclofen has really helped in that regard that as a side-effect. It would seem that I had an irritable bladder as well and the baclofen has reduced the amount of times I need to go and when I do I do a lot instead of just small amounts very frequently. However the one thing it has not cured is my inability to know whether I have finished or not. So I need to change my underwear frequently during the day. For dog shows I wear a woman's pad.

I am constantly falling over because my balance is terrible. I cannot walk in a straight line and I  Always veer to the left. I have done this for many years but now it is very much worse. I must fall by at least half a dozen times a day. When I say fall I do not mean that I fall enough to hit the ground. I do sometimes but most of the time I was somebody else manages to stop me from falling. In my own house it is very easy because there's always something I can grab hold of. Outside it is not so easy. For some reason most of the time that I fall will be when I am standing still and I always fall backwards. It is this falling backwards that is a common symptom of my spinal  disease.

Then of course my speech is affected also. There are times when I can barely get my words out and other times I sound as if I'm drunk. My memory is absolutely appalling. I will lose in mid sentence what I am talking about and sometimes I can be listening to somebody talking to me and I become completely unaware of what they are saying it is as though my brain just switches off.

My hands will not write any more and I have many problems trying to do up buttons on shirts and trousers. My shoes already have theirs laces tied up and I do not undo them when I remove my shoes and I use a shoehorn to get my shoes back on. With my boots John ties them up for me.

Getting out of bed in the morning has become easier because of the electric bed. I pressed the button until my back is vertical  and I am then able to get my feet on the ground. If I still cannot stand I can press another button which will push my bottom-up until I am in a standing position. You can imagine what a nightmare it was to get out of bed before we had this bed. I used to have to roll out of bed until I fell onto the floor and then I would get up onto my knees and I would use the radiator and the bed to haul myself up. With John's help I will remove my pyjamas and I will have a shower. Then we must sort out what I shall wear that day. I forgot to add that before I can even think of getting undressed I must take my drugs  and wait for them to take effect. It would usually be about 90 minutes between getting out of bed and getting out of the shower. I will then need to rest before I get dressed. All in all it takes about 2 1/2 hours before I am ready to go out and this is with John helping me.

Our toilet and bathroom are upstairs. There is no way that I can go upstairs every time I need to urinate. Fortunately there is a drain outside the front door, I mean the back door. 

 This article has been typed using a voice to type recognition software, DragonDictate for Mac, because without this I cannot type any more. oh, I can type but the amount of errors I make that makes it not worthwhile.

Fortunately for me I can drive and I drive very well. I do not lose concentration and because I have an automatic and a very comfortable and upright chair I find that driving is one of the most comfortable things that I can do. Having said that I still need to stop at intervals to get out of the car because my body seizes up from being in the one position for too long.

Part of the reason for the new hi-fi system, well in fact all of the reason, is because of my disability. All of my music is on my Mac and I can control that from my lap. No we did not have to buy high-end British handmade hi-fi equipment but it was John's retirement present to us both as we both really appreciate good music.

 it is also more expensive for disabled people to live day to day lives. Now that the weather has become cooler the house has to be heated 24-hour was a day because cold is a real killer for me. And I do not exaggerate. Getting cold is not only painful but dangerous. I seem unable to regulate my own body temperature very well. Their heating in the house must be on 24-hour was a day. Although this year we are definitely feeling the benefits of the new insulation because we have so far only had to have the heating on in the house  for short periods.  the heating in the sunroom is of course on 24/7 because of the puppies.

I am unable to use knives and so therefore I'd buy my vegetables already prepared and ready to cook. I cannot lift a pot safely. Most of my food is microwaved. When John is here then my food choices are different because he is able to do what I am not

One of the things that I suppose annoys me is the comments people have made to me about showing my dogs. Well if you have read this far you will understand why I have to get up a full two hours before I can leave for a dog show and this is without having a shower. For me to do a dog show requires 120mg  of morphine.  400 mg of tramadol.  3 g  of paracetamol and 1600 g of gabapentin.  This is how I manage to do a dog show.  Drugs themselves are not enough. Grit and determination and stubbornness  and a strong desire to do what I want to do is what gets me through. You would not believe the agony  I am in after a dog so or even during a dog show. However, it is my choice to do this and I will continue to do this for as long as I am able.

There are some sick people at dog shows who have gone as far as to say that they believe that my condition is all an act so that the judges will feel sorry for me and that is why my dogs win! And there are other people who are just plain ignorant and it does not occur to them how difficult it is for me. No, the last thing I want is pity but it would be helpful if people understood that there is a limit to how fast I can move when in the ring and that it takes me longer to get my dog on the table. I do all of this with a smile on my face because I really do enjoy the dog shows and I am very proud of myself that I and doing them. I had no idea that I had the sort of gumption that I am most certainly have

The reason for this article is that recently I have felt that I have had to justify myself.  Not only that but for medical reasons I have had to give a lot of thought to the way my daily life is. As my darling John has pointed out I have become so used to my disabilities that I have become unaware of maps of what I do or don't do and I no longer see what is normal and what is not. For instance it takes him about five minutes to get out of bed and get dressed if he is not showering. It takes me about 90. My doctor needs to know about every single symptom but I get because they are important because it shows the deterioration of my disease. Like for example when my neck fell forward so that my chin was touching my chest and I could not move it because of pain. Although this was very frightening it was not the permanent thing that I thought it would be. All that it required was the baclofen which keeps my muscles relaxed.

So there we have it. I am sure that I have still left things out but this is the best I can do for now. I will say to the survivors who are reading this this is just another example of how invasive into every single part of our lives the after-effects of the abuse is. I would have had treatment for my disease many years previous had I not felt that I was just making a fuss about nothing because that is what I was always taught. Even when I broke my foot I was told that I was making a lot of fuss about nothing and in fact my foot went untreated because of this I think it was something like 18 months before my foot was put in plaster to straighten out the bone and the way it had healed or something like that I was very young and I cannot really remember the details I only remember that I was constantly told that might complaining about my foot hurting was just me being a sissy. So you see we do need to speak up.