IT'S PUPOSE IS NOT FORGOTTEN

I have not forgotten the original purpose of this blog being about surviving abuse. This last two years have been very full plus I had an unexpected BP episode myself. THAT really threw everything in the air but I am feeling  like I can start writing again and perhaps with some more insight.

I won't be doing so this evening as I am tired and need to rest. 

I will remind of a few things:

1. You were abused because there something wrong with your abuser and not with you. It was them not you.

2. it is very rare to get an acknowledgement from the abuser let alone an apology. You don';t neeed it anyway to have a happy life.

3. Hanging to anger and bitterness will ruin your life and the abuser will have won.

4. Having a good and happy life is by far the best  revenge there is. Nothing else will do.

JUST A HICCUP

I thought today was Tuesday when I was in bed and I woke John to tell him he had missed his train. Then I realised it was Monday. Later I finally got up because the pain had got too much to just try and sleep it away. So I got up and crawled downstairs only to discover it was Sunday!

John says he knew I'd be bad today because I groomed 4 coated dogs but I did it all sitting on the floor and was well drugged.  Just like others, I get my urges and I just had the urge and capacity to do the 4 I did. I will try and do one a day though. I am no longeer leaving them ungroomed and bathing them and grooming them wet. That takes a long time for each dog. And hurts me far more. Plus I enjoy it more. I am on the flooor, my music playing and the dog laying there being very accommodating. Even Fanny. Mind you just like ALL girls she gets difficult when I have brush around their fannies(vulva for Americans) and The boys are just the same about their willies. They do not like them being groomed at all. For some reason MG has a thing about constantly licking Xander's willly and thus creates more knots and tangles that I moaned at for removing them! I have ny idea my MG does this but I am very used to seeing girls and boys lick girls fannies. Those I have that have been mothers tend to wash the faces of the younger ones as well. Luque just wants to spend his life on John's lap or at his feet. You should here the manipulative noises he makes so that John will allow him to get up on his armchair. 

Speaking of armchairs, the electric armchair I had made professionally to suit my disease issues is here. It makes such a difference. Right from the beginnning. It felt odd for some minutes butt then I adjusted to it. It really does help me. I don't fidget. I am supported well. And it has this terrific light that bends ov er my left shoulder which is wonderful for my knitting.

I hope to do some dyeing today. 

I ma still having difficulty getting the second body piece done of John's aran sweater. I juts don't seem to it right. Now, I have the correct number of stitches but I am going wrong somewhere in the pattern. So I am having John help by read the finished piece out to me. He is not a knitter but he can count blocks of pattern sts and this method seems to be working so far. I hate to think this is a part of my disease process but my Dr assures me that I am not becoming senile but this is the effect of the pain and the drugs. It will get better again as I have relapses and good periods.  It's just this relapse has lasted a long time because of the major changes in my life this last 18mths-marriage and having the house remodelled to suit my disease and our comfort and then being blown over my a bi-polar episode which I never dreamed would ever come back. I did it at first but it went way past being able to hide it. I the high was over in a few months and I stupidly kept it at bay with heavy use of tranqs. I had a terrible fear of my Dr knowing I was having a manic episode because I wrongly thought I'd be treated like I was in the past-locked up, forced injected drugs and no care. When I could no longere keep it hidden she assured me that nothing like that would ever happen to me again and that I could really trust her to never do anything I didn't want. No one who knew me, including my Dr, missed that I was depressed. Suicidely so. I wasa able to telll my Dr this but she already knew I was depressed because my whole countenance had changed. I learned from this why she doesn't call her patients with a buzzer. She comes to the waiting room and no matter where you are sitting she can see you and one has a good distance to walk to get to her. So she sees how I am. She was quick to learn that "i'm fine' wasn't always true!

As with John who notices the effects of medication upon me before I do. The two that stand out when I started to take gabapentin which clearly made me less of a bear to live with and the next one was baclofen which he said that from the first dose he could see the difference in how I held myself that I wasn't all hunched up and tense.

As evidenced by the fact that I groomed for dogs yesterday I still not much good at pacing myself. But yesterday I really felt I had the energy and the ability to do it so I did. And despite my experience it has surprised me that today has been such a painful one despite my medication.

However, overall life is very good. I am not feeling so accepting of my difficulties but that too will pass. I'm not so daft that I had don't know that moaning or sulking about it will make it go away!

Just a Quicky

Just a quiky becuae I reallly feeel I miust strat beung mnore regular wirth my bog osts. I am riting this firm my hoitel rooom In Belgium. Antwerrp, to be preciise. It is oign tomtobe a fatasti rip I can feeel it is my nbones. A momonst of seredipity. A woma aked my abiut my show and we eneded up meeeeting the sone of a famous musician, big in he 70's and we have been invited to the concdeet of all the, Gloria Estefan ans others as personal provate guests, We willl be pickd uo in a wheeelchairnacrrying vehicle. I cannnot beiev it. Alll because I dare to me be and dress the way I like to dresss,  How luxkxy can I be?

My dogs havw dibne very welll at he shiws this year. We might have puppies on he way, from Ch SWhitney whos elast litter as 23rd October '12. This willl be her last. I have nvwer had 3 from one girl before but resllly felt i ouxldn't waste her tslrnt for producing top quaiity puppies.

Alexnder has won Best Puppp In Show, Fannny, his sister, Res, Best Pupppy in show and Megn was best pupppy tooo. `more than  once I thtink. So very pleased.MG has also one 2 mor reserve CC'sa he shows.

Anyway, tilll next time. xo

STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS(in other words I started to write one thing and my mind just took over.)

We rae home. Alll  but two of the dogs are at the holiday home. I have to oil MG and Megan in the morning and they willl be droppped offf on our way to Antwerp tomorrow as we have to passs the home on the way as it is on the same road we drive along.
It is cold. Winter has arrived with no autumn it seems.

WE went to pick up a tail coat jacket that had to be altered for me. Watch out for it , osssibly at Cruft's. I ended also buying a beutiful merino/cashmere sweatwr that zips up tp the neck, giving a nice cosy neck. It feeels funnny buying jumpers after 35 years of knitting y own. I stilll can but there are ceetrtain styles I just cannnot do. I am pleased to say that on of my outfits does include a cashmere sweater I knitting mhyself-the mint greeen one.

I juts dyed, using Dylon, a pair of white jeans and they have come out very badly. The first time eveer this has happened to me. I always found Dylon reliable. Not this time. I am no dying a pair Roewoood and will seee what happppens to them.

I am now excited about my trip. I am now ceetain that my down period of the Bi Polar is over as I ave been level for two weeks. I am nott too up either. Hopefullly if I have another episode it willl be in 15 yrs time, a little longer thna this one came. It reallly yoook  my by surprise and rather than frighten me or upset me it shamed me because I was embarrasssed. How could I possibly let people I have this didorder? Trouble is would have beeen bettter to have said at the beginnning because so mnay of uyou knew something was wrong me. When ever John was at a show with me, they always asked him how I was even though they had already asked me and go the usual 'i'm fine, thnak you indly'. I didn't know people cared so much how I was. I am not atupid and know I am not loved by alll, in fact by very few, but I am treated very friendly by a lot of people, even those I could have sworn disliked me. This means much to me. At schoool I was the one veryone bulllied or ignored becasue I was strange. Of course I was because I wa sbeing being abused. In those days no one ever asked those questions. I know a couple of teachers knew something bad washbapppenin g ot me bu they ouldn't or werte tooo scared rto, do anything BUT they treate dme very welll. One lady teacher would take moe out to tea and ven tooook me to the teachers quarters for crumpets and cocoa. Can you imagine a teracher being alllowed to do that now? Yet I am convinced this teacher saved  y life. She gave me love and I am certain that had she no given me that love and attion when I 6-8 yrs olf, I'h not be a nice or goood man today. I'd be dead or a sociopath. 

We never know what our actions mean to another and how they can save lives. Yes, that extreme. Imagine a person walking along the streeet, plannning on how they willl kill themselves. You walk past and smile at them and the suical person puts it offfbecasue just maybe there are more people like you.

There is a str8 man I know, two actualllly, who gbreeet me with a ug and a kiss. Neither of them k ow what that means to me. It means a tremendous amount.  They have  no reason to do it. They want notinhg in return. It is juts one man showing love to another in a way we are not used to. It means so much me because my dad never touched me unless with his fists. So these two men have no idea the good efffect they have on me because there is no abuse of any kind intended and neither want anything from me. It is hard for me when people are kind to me because it mkaes me wonder what they want OR that they are setttng me up to be humiliated or tobe hurt in some way.
I am scared of people to put it mildly. I know people think I am extrovert because I ahev learned to play thta role, especiallly at the dog shows. It is my big perfromance day and I can telll you sometimes I arrrive in my car abd I feeel so sick and wonder if i cna pulll iy offf again. I always manage. It is why hyou seee me quiet an dk itting in the corner-it is how I put myself in y bubble when the noise and bustle od those around em becomes too much and my skin feeels electried and as if it's juts tooo much and I want to be at home listening to usic on  y own. And no, I dn;t feeel bad, I LOVE going to shows once I can get over tat feeeling. Sometimes I don't manage the act all or someon e willl piush a buttton either deiberately or my acccident. Afetr alll not very one knows me. In fcat very few know me. I think those who I let in  are often surprised to discoveert that I am not this loud extroverted show off i apppear to be at alll. Quite the opppoiste if fact. So my close friends are special. They acccpet that to be my friend, ther are friends with a Colin who is often different and t ehy don'/t try and ch age me but supppoort me when I am hurt scared boy Colin or loud and overbearing scared boy colin and when I am juts level Colin who is ecccentric. I was going to say and when Colin is ;norma' but I never am. I think meven my Dr would worrry if I appeared normal! Didd It elll she was going to pout on my noyes tat I have IPM once she is has read more of the medical literature on it. She fullly agreees that it is very fitting and expolains much. 

Gosh I wonder how mnay of you got this far! Congrats if you did. Right now if there was a groiup of you I'd talk and talk and talk and talk......Sometimes I just neeed to purge myself and be sure my friends are my friends even when they knw alll of me. I have experienced toooo mnay friend lossses because they could not tkae me as I am.  I do un erstand whay they can't but it stilll hurts. I know how complictaed and diffficult I cna be. I am not an easy ride. But I am not boering eikther and my love for others is real and is given quite quickly but I no longer acccept shit from others so whilst I may relustcantly let go of you, the goood feeeling i initiallly hbad is stilll there, much to my annoyance!

THIS TO SHALL PASS

 well my doctor was right again. It was going to take awhile for the drug that was causing the delirium to get out of my system. I have woken this morning feeling very blue indeed. But I know why at least and that it will pass again.

I will knit and listen to music for now after I have groomed the dogs that need to be if any need to be. I think if I were a dog I'd be quite happy living with somebody like me because I'd get lots of attention and I wouldn't be locked up all day and I would more or less get to do what I wanted. I suppose I just described my life pretty much.

If you have never felt depressed you have no idea what it feels like because it isn't feeling sad and it isn't feeling grief both of which I have felt. This is entirely different. To use a television as an analogy which is about the only stupid thing I can think of right now the system is set so that the contrast and light and balance and volume are all set very low and movement is like trying to move through treacle. Even that doesn't really describe the awfulness of it. And it is very hard to write about without sounding self pitying. But people need to understand that depression is not just feeling low is not just having an off day thinking these things about depression  is very dangerous because it can result in death in that the depressed person not only doesn't understand themselves but is surrounded by people who don't understand and so they do what very depressed people do often, they end their life.

No I am not suggesting for a minute that that is what I have in mind. I'm lucky I am informed and I do know that this will pass. Look at yesterday I had a really good day yesterday and today I wake up and it's horrible again but tomorrow will be good again and eventually this feeling will go for good. It is now rather difficult to tell whether this is the bipolar having reared its head after 15 years will whether it is just the wrong mixture of drugs. All of the drugs I take effect this central nervous system.  Since that is where my problems lie mainly. Perhaps once I have weaned off it I shall feel very different. Or not. The night-time delirium and the daytime depression may have nothing to do with each other.

 at least I have a few months break from dog showing and so I can keep show Colin in the closet and give him a rest as well. John has suggested and finding somewhere to take all of the dogs. I can be in my wheelchair and he would have no trouble holding the leads of six dogs because they do tend to behave civilly. Our only concern and it is a serious one is that they each stay well away from my wheelchair. I have already practice showing my dogs from my wheelchair and in fact it was very easy and my dogs came nowhere near the wheels. I only did it to see if it was possible. I have no intention of doing so. If it comes to that I will either have to stop showing dogs or have somebody show them for me. I suppose when I start writing about the things that are on my mind it's hardly surprising that I'm not in a good mood. It is surprising that the positive Colin who will face anything and find a way and always see the positive side seemed to have taken a break as well. My dear friend with the MS tells me that doing what I do, even if I only do it once a week which is all I do it for is exhausting and will always catch up on me. Not only do I find this very difficult to accept but very difficult to understand and so I consistently get myself into a mess. I understand needing two days off after a dog show. There is no understanding the first day as it is so obvious I racked with pain and can barely move and I feel like I've been run over by a truck so of course I rest I have no  choice. The following day does annoy me because I can't see why I am still not back to normal I am no longer suffering so much pain but I need quiet and still need to just sit and knit or watch TV and certainly do not even want to go out to the supermarket. So if the dog show was on a Sunday it will be Wednesday before I'm fit enough again and if I have another dog show say on the Saturday and then on Thursday and Friday I have to prepare for that. I want to make something very clear here this is my CHOICE.  I do not have to go to dog shows. I also need to rest the day after having been in a shopping mall all day even though I have been in my wheelchair. I can see why that is exhausting because I'm one of those people that find a lot of people and noise really gets to me. I take more drugs on those days with the full knowledge of my Dr who understands why I need them I have to have some form of barrier between me and the hards of people ans noise.

 the postman just delivered my illuminated cock. Eyewear to watches and I cannot wear either of them no let me try that again. Eyewear to watches neither of which I can see in the dark so I have no idea what it is when I wake up now I will be able to because this clock will sit on the side lit up and telling me.

Well I think this Facebook status has become so long it needs to be a blog post. I wonder how many Facebook people actually read such long statuses!

BI POLAR AND SHAME

 If you have followed my blog over the years you will know that I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder 30 years ago. I never did take it that seriously despite the fact that my frequent periods of mania followed by deep depression were obvious.

After a break of almost 15 years I find myself in the middle of a bipolar episode.

I have felt incredibly ashamed of this and I have therefore hidden it hidden it including my doctor. And when I realised that the mania was beginning to rise was during the house reconstruction last year. Particularly Clearly when we came back from France  To a new kitchen and bathroom but with all the floors downstairs ripped up with dust everywhere. I freaked and this is when John wondered if I was going manic because my reaction to the house was completely over the top. Strangely a friend who knows nothing about this later said that she thought something was wrong with me because of the way that I spoke to her and that much of what I said made no sense even though I sounded very happy.

I was not about to let myself have a manic phase because it is always followed by depression. What I did was use tranquillisers which brought me down and also hid the symptoms.  Not even my doctor was aware.

Unfortunately my brilliant scheme backfired on me. I knew that the mania had finished by December. Despite the tranquillisers I was still very active and did not sleep much and didn't eat much. By December I became normal again so I stop the drugs and spent a rather nasty week of withdrawals which I did not expect which was really stupid of me. As my behaviour during the withdrawals was crazy to say the least it built up to the point that I had serious panic attacks. It was then that I call but Dr butter called the doctor service, the night-time service, and I was very lucky in that I got a very nice man called Michael who understood what I was going through and he did not lecture me. He was very understanding once he knew why I had done what did and also pointed out to me that I was not the only one who had been badly affected by the Jimmy Savile affair. (If you want to know what that is all about just Google it.) 

Since January I have basically been depressed but not so much that it interfered with my life but this last few weeks or months really it has seriously impacted my life. I have gone to dog shows and I have gone swimming but that is really all I've been doing. Most of the time I think about how worthless life is and that I would be much better out of it.  two weeks ago when I had the trouble with the people I sold the puppy to it may be longer than that because it happened at Darlington. And it only became worse. During that week I came very close to acting upon my thoughts. This is when I saw my doctor. She was very calm and levelheaded about it and she said to me that I was all right because all I was doing was thinking about it thinking that life wasn't worth it all that you are just very tired are really very normal thoughts when one is depressed even thinking about suicide is normal. What isn't normal is a strong desire to carry it out and she knows me well enough to know that if it got to that point I'd reach out.

My doctor is also very much aware of how ashamed I feel for having this bipolar episode. It isn't just John and a couple of friends who know but a whole load of people who read this.

I am writing this because I'm fully aware that many people who follow my blog have bipolar in their lives in one way or another. My reaction is shame and wanting to hide it and certainly not wanting my dog people to know  After all look at the way I dress!  And I am seen as a very  as a very positive person with a bright outlook and people are always telling me how I cheer them up. How could I possibly not continue with my act and disappoint these people and tell them that I'm not like that all the time. I truly wish that I was. One thing I'm not is fake. The person you see at dog shows is the person I am except occasionally you see a different than one who shows.

Unfortunately the good news from my doctor is that as people with bipolar I eat they experience more depression than mania BUT  they are much less frequent and much less severe. I guess I believe that because it has been well over 10 years since I last had an episode and this episode has not been as bad although the depression does seem to be taking its time in lifting.

I write this despite the shame I feel because I think it is important for the people that read my blog who read it because they to are abuse survivors  and I have always sworn to tell the truth no matter how it makes me feel. 

This does not mean that I have not recovered or am not well into recovery it just means that I have experienced a blip, quite a serious blip, but just a blip. Back in the dark days this would not have been a blip this would have meant me being sectioned to make sure I did not harm myself. So I am still well into the recovery phase and as long as I continue the work and share about it I will grow and recover even more so that when I next have a blip it won't be as severe as this and if I have blips after that they will hardly show at all.

KNOB TROUBLE

SERIOUS WARNING: I have had to remove my knob. It has proved to be dangerous. Lorry drivers use them because their steering wheels are very heavy despite the power steering. The power steering on my Galaxy is very light and the slightest movement of my hand caused my car to swerve. It would drift in to the hard shoulder or into the other lane. I did find it very comfortable to use and very convenient that I am not prepared to kill myself or kill other people. I was stopped by the police in Scotland as I think you know because somebody thought I was drunk and the same thing happened yesterday. I arrived home and not long afterwards there was a knock at my door and it was the police saying that they had reports that I had been weaving in and out of the lane on my way home. as soon as he saw me he knew that I was not drunk but he did want an explanation and I was truthful. I told him we had been at Queensgate all day and that I was now tired and as I used only one hand on my knob it was very easy to go either left or right when I ought to be going straight. He was very pleasant about it. But he did tell me that and when I am tired I should stop and sleep. I said to him that I perfectly agree with him but I was within miles of home and I chose not to. He accepted by explanation but I think he would still expect me to stop and rest no matter how close to home I was. So please take my story seriously. This is how people die. If you have a knob, then remove it immediately. Mine was removed and is now in the bin.



KNOB TROUBLE: When I first got the Ford Galaxy MPV I remember how light I found the steering to be and I really had to adjust to it. It moved left or right with the slightest move of my hand. Then I saw a disabled vehicle which had a knob on the steering wheel and the driver happened to be reversing out of a parking space when I saw this and it gave me the idea that having my own knob would be of help to me. It certainly was a great help for reversing. I remember though having to learn to be very careful with my hand on the knob because that was most comfortable place for it to be with my left hand on my thigh. I even asked to please people a man and a woman if they were legal and they said yes of course they are especially if you are disabled and need one. So that satisfied me. However I don't know what has made it become very apparent recently but the slightest move my hand and my car veers either left or right. I have hit the curb and I have gone into the other lane not by much but enough to almost hit other cars. Now that I have taken the knob of it is not happening my drive to the swimming pool and back from the swimming pool was much steadier and I felt better and certainly feel that it gave me more control. even with power steering lorries are not easy to do big turn such as in reversing which is why they use knobs. But the power steering on cars is very much lighter or what I mean is it makes the steering very much lighter and so the addition of the knob was a serious error and I'm very lucky not to have had an accident. 

It is always a learning experience. I know that I have weakness in my hands sometimes and they are jerky sometimes but they do not affect me holding a steering wheel in the conventional manner. For some reason I just did not think about that when I attach the knob. I was so taken by how easy it was for me to reverse and reverse round round corners etc that I forgot about my other problems which may have caused problems with the knob. Disability that gradually creeps up on you and gradually gets worse as time goes on makes it more difficult to learn to change the way one does things. I have had to change the way I manage the dogs coats and I now groom them daily so that when they are bathed the drying takes much less time because I don't have to groom them through. I still do not groom and dry coat and I use sprays when I do the grooming. By by.

I GAVE IN AND WENT FOR MY MOT

BP 112/68, cholesterol 2.9 liver function normal heart function normal and nothing unusual in my blood. And I remembered to ask if it was okay to eat just chicken and vegetables and I was told yes but to remember to eat plenty of dark green vegetables. I do anyway. You would have thought that after nine months I would be sick to death of chicken but I am not. I love chicken. I have one or two meals a day consisting of two ready cooked chicken legs with half a pound of vegetables. Believe it or not it is cheaper to buy the ready cooked chicken legs then is to buy raw chicken legs and cook them although I sometimes do that because we have this laser glass oven thing. I know it isn't a laser. I just can't recall right at this minute what it is.  go now I remember it's a halogen knob.

By the time I got dressed I was absolutely knackered. I did consider going in my pyjamas with the hat and jacket on. That is never really a problem because people always assume it's a snazzy outfit. And they also expect me to be eccentric. But I know that it's my pyjamas and more or less the only place I will go in my pyjamas is the supermarket. Because I'm usually surrounded by slobs in there so it doesn't take much to look good! ;-)

 I had been worried about the colour of my P a few months back but then the colour became normal again and so I forgot all about it. Well today it was back to this very strange colour. So I mentioned it to the practitioner and she asked me if I had eaten any beetroot. I had! And I ate quite a bit of it. I love beetroot. Since we were on the subject I decided to tell her of the problem I was having with my knob, not the one I use for driving. The last time I had antibiotics for a chest infection I got thrush but I got it in my throat. I was beginning to wonder if my problem was thrush and it turns out that it probably is so I have stuff for that now. I'm quite certain you all wanted to know about this.

The fourth series of The Good  Wife arrive through my door yesterday and I am almost all the way through disc to already. I really enjoyed this series. I also finally finished Private Practice. There are no more series of this. It was okay but not brilliant.

I forgot to add that I also asked my practitioner if it was normal for my disease to make a sudden downward step instead of the more gradual worsening that isn't quite so obvious. The answer was very helpful. In some people it's gradual and in other people it's in steps. I would much prefer it was gradual. To suddenly not be able to do something it's much harder to deal with than gradually becoming aware that you can no longer do it.

Today I feel really knackered so I'm not going to do anything. In fact I think I might even go back to bed. I have dog show at the weekend. I want to be fresh for that.

MISSING COMMENTS

I have  just approved a bunch of commnets that go back yto Julu. I am sorrry but Yahooo idid not inofrm me of them arriving. So if you are wondering why I didn't appove you, tat is why and it was NOIT personal. xo

WRITING IT OUT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 I won. 

BHAJI FEVER

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TOWARD ACCEPTANCE

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

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

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

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

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

WHY?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

OH TO BE NORMAL

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

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

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

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

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

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

KINDNESS AND NOT BEING A SAINT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CATHCING UP

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Isn't it indeed strange how life works out?

 This is my friend Sarah holding Alexander.

LOCKING MYSELF OUT AND MY HEROIC RE-ENTRY

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

BUGGER.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SO THAT'S WHY!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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