ON SHAKY GROUND

This has been the best day since the fall. I think I know why I have been so shaky since it happened 3 weeks. Once again I cheated death. It was totally different than I thought.I wasn't completely floored until the person who ended helping me told me what I had asked her to do. I had lost a chunk of time. I hit my head several times, really hard. Yet I am still here. Always my damn head. My dads favourite spot. As a boy I also feel about 15ft str8 onto it, was unconscious, spent the night in hospital.

I wasn't completely floored until the person who ended helping me told me what I had asked her to do.The fall also forced me to see how vulnerable I was and I couldn't carry on as if nothing were wrong with me. I look back over the last 3 years of showing. killing myself with pain, putting myself and others at risk. Was I being stoic? Brave? No. I was still showing my dad that I was not the weak sissy he always said I was that he had no reason to be ashamed of me. I saying look dad, despite the agony and fatigue I am fighting it. I will not become dependent and disabled. I. have had quite enough of his fucking shit. He can have it back. Why on earth would I want to please that monster? A Big Man who beat on very young children. Who was cruel, sadistic, and just plain nasty. And a great liar and actor too.

It wasn't just that old tape though feeding what I was doing. I felt it was grossly unfair that I should survive mentally, emotionally and physically only to find I was becoming disabled. No way! This is NOT going to happen. But now? I accept it. I am defeated. In a good way. I just let it all go. I can deal with this too. This too is not my fault. Half a dozen Drs have said that my ailments are a direct result of the abuse. I suppose living for so long with such fear and torment and physical pain from violence and sexual abuse outside the home is bound to take it's toll. The evidence is all there.

I don't understand this. I still think it is grossly unfair. But so is a child being born to starve to death grossly unfair. So is the slaughter of 8000 muslim men and boys 20 years ago by Xians in Bosnia. The Holocaust. One can go and complain it is all so unfair.

Or one can find out one's purpose now. Look for the good in it all. The fall was definitely a demarcation line for me. The end of an era and the beginning of new one about which I know nothing. I seem to being pushed to write and write and write. I am sick to death of that suggestion. So I write and write and write. A book? Why? So I can placed among all the other abuse stories that now have their section in the book shops. I find that incredibly distasteful and I now doubt the voracity of those stories. They are a big money industry. Yes, I think some readers may be helped. I also think there are those that get their kicks from being voyeurs to our pain and suffering and so it is know these stories sell. I don't want to be part of that. I think I reach far more people right here on the 'net. Much more immediate. And much honest too. No editor. No one to say 'change this' 'change that' make it more 'dramatic. 'No, embellishing is not lying.'

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. 

CHOOSING LIFE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SHAMING THE DISABLED

KNITTING

 I am glad to say that my muse is back. I have several sweaters planned to hand knit and I am working up to using my knitting machines that are now set up.

I have been on a bit of a spending spree with regard to interchangeable needles sets. The latest acquisition is one which I still cannot quite believe that I bought. You can see them above. I have yet to knit with them as I have only just unpacked them. They feel lovely in the hand, are a good weight, and feel very smooth. if you want to know how much the set is, Google it!

 As you can see they are indeed Lantern Moon Ebony Interchangeable Needles.

These are the yarns I am intending to use:

 The Cascade yarn at the top is for John and it will be an Aran.  The  Drops alpaca is going to be a textured knit  for myself and I also have the same yarn in a lovely moss green. The Alaska will also be an Aran and that will be for me.   Finally,  the Peace Fleece  yarn will also be an Aran for myself.

 I use a design software program called Design A Knit  for my machine knitting. I have been wondering whether to upgrade to version 8 and I have decided that yes I will because I will be able to chart out my Aran designs.  This will make life much easier for me as I will not have too use pieces of paper and numbers that I keep in my head. I was still basically only need the chart to do my foundation rows  unless of course the pattern changes as the sweater progresses or I decide to do something like Raglan in which case I will print out the full instructions. I have always done all this in my head but I confess that it has been increasingly more difficult to do the more painkillers that I have to take.

Once I have found a folding table that is lightweight I will also be back to dyeing my yarns for sale.

 DISABILITY

This is such a sore subject for me, pardon the pun. On my really bad days there is a part of me that feels  I am earning my disability status and benefit.

This government have succeeded in making people on disability benefits the target of the general public's anger. They have succeeded in blaming us for the deficit. I find that on Facebook or people that I meet when I am out in my wheelchair frequently offend me by constantly bringing up unasked  the subject of disability fraud. They always add "we don't mean you of course". That is designed to make what they say not offensive and it does not work. The government's own independent enquiry found out that 0.07% of disability claims were fraudulent. I cannot understand why people's anger is not put where it belongs: upon the rich who do not pay their taxes, the banks for behaving like boys with Monopoly money, and the politicians.

Not long ago I received the most vile email attacking me for being on disability benefits and yet attending dog shows. They accused me of being a fraud and in their ignorant state that I should go to a hospital and see in mobile people in their beds-the real disabled as she put it. What shocked me the most was that this was somebody whom I actually knew. The venom and the ignorance truly caught me by surprise and devastated me for a couple of days. In fact it frightened me. I was not hurt in the sense that I am sorry to have lost this person out of my life because I am not. Know what frightened me was the venom with which the letter was written and for a while I thought I do not leave my house. I felt as if I would be watched during my every move.

People really have to get a grip with what disability is and is not. The vast majority of people who are disabled are not immobile. Look at the Paralympics!

 Chronic pain that is severe and 24/7 counts as disability. The fact that I am able to be on my feet for short periods of time and even walk very short distances with the aid of canes and lots of drugs does not make me able. I am still disabled.  My balance is such that I fall on a regular basis. My bowel and my bladder do not work properly, I have heart disease, my spine is falling apart, I have neurological disease, and on top of that  I am bipolar. 

As I write this I feel embarrassed because it feels like I am moaning and of course  being English I was brought up to have a stiff upper lip. I also feel very uncomfortable because I feel that I am justifying my disability benefit. A lot of the time I have even wondered myself if I deserve the status of disabled. My doctor could not believe that I even asked her the question. She told me to ignore the government and those resentful jealous people. She told me that I am in no way capable of work and that I am very fortunate to be able to do what I managed to do and she says I am only able to do that because I have courage and determination. She supports me in every way she can because she believes in quality-of-life and therefore I am prescribed strong opiates without which I would not be able to swim, walk, nor attend dog shows.

I have shared on here some very personal things regarding the abuse I went to was a child and I did so gladly and without shame. I know that it has been of benefit to others and I continue to write on that subject. I used to publicly speak on it and raise money but I can no longer do that. 

However, writing the above about my disability has been a very unpleasant experience and I feel very uncomfortable sharing my feelings about it. It makes me feel like I have stood naked in front of people. I know that other disabled people feel exactly this way. They too have been shamed. There are so many illnesses that make one disabled where one does not look it. Ignoring me completely, there are diseases like lupus and multiple sclerosis which are very disabling in many people  yet they are not necessarily visible. My best friend has multiple sclerosis and you would have no idea if you met her because like me she is a determined person and proud and she fights.

 It seems that those of us who show tremendous courage and fortitude  in the face of our disability and pain are penalised and shamed for it.

THE RCC CRIME SYNDICATE

It has been too long since I have written a blog post. The trouble is that since I have been on Facebook it is just so easy to share my thoughts on the spot. I am going to try to make blog writing part of my day like it used to be. I am certainly not going to leave Facebook so I can only endeavour to do as I have said. My blog has been very meaningful to me and I know that it is to other people also and I therefore feel that it is important to keep it up.

ABUSE

As any survivor of abuse will understand there is just no part of our lives and that is not informed by the abuse we suffered. This does not mean that we wallow in self-pity. It just means that we experience our world in a way that is different to others. It cannot be any other way. Our brains are programmed in that way because of our past. This is absolutely no different to any other living  human being.  All of us are informed by our past and it dictates how we see the world.

I recently had to intend a bladder clinic to get help for my bladder problem.  It did not go exceedingly well. Not at all. The specialist nurse that I saw, although very nice and amusing, left me feeling quite shaken. She asked me how much did I drink each day and I informed her that I drank  between six and eight litres a day.  She then informed me that she would not be giving me the pads that I needed nor really be doing anything else until I cut down to 2 L a day. I was greatly upset by this. Not straightaway. It didn't really hit me until the Sunday where her words basically brought me to tears. Because of my disease there is so much that I have to do each day and so much that I have to not do each day that I really felt that I just could not cope with having to restrict my water intake as well. From the moment I heard her words I immediately felt guilty every time I took a sip! Now this is one of those situations where past abuse certainly does inform the present! I overcame the situation rather quickly. I telephoned my doctor and I explained to the receptionist that I was in a bit of a mess and within an hour my doctor had called me. She immediately told me to ignore what I had been told, to have a blood test the following day, and to have an appointment with her today.

Of the most amusing thing is that the blood tests showed that I was dehydrated!  I had not reduced my drinking. The test for my thyroid and my liver function also came back normal and so did whatever else was tested.

I had got into such a tiz that I had wanted to stop  taking most of my medications believing that they were stopping me from losing weight and had probably caused my weight gain of 14lbs.  in fact what had caused the gain was pain  which has been significantly worse over the last few months of last year not to mention all of the stress of last year. During the last two weeks my weight has started to drop significantly because I am able to swim again. 

The swimming regularly again has greatly been enabled by a drug called oxycodone. I take one of these with two of my morphine and I'm able to swim very well. The oxycodone has a rather peculiar effect on me in that it energises me rather than the sleepy effect it has on most people! Thus I am able to swim. I feel so much better as a result.

 KNITTING

 I have a few projects ready to be designed and knitted. Two of them will be simple knit and purl  chequered sweaters with either set in sleeves all raglan sleeves. I am using Drops alpaca for this.  I already have one sweater knitted with this yarn and it is beautiful. I use it double on 4 mm needles.

 I have three Aran sweaters to design.  For this I have Drops Alaska, Cascade 220, and Peace Fleece worsted weight which is 75% merino 25% mohair. 

 I will be able to design the cable patterns I will use on my computer which is going to make life much easier for me.  I have used a software program called Design A Knit 
 for my machine knitting for many years.  Now the upgrade allows me to design hand knits as well.  So I will be able to chart it all out before I  knit my swatch.   No more having to keep it in my head.

 I no longer knit small pieces of pattern, measured them, and put them all together for designing Aran.  I usually knit 150 stitch swatches.  this makes it much easier on me and also makes it much more accurate. I also know that the actual sweater will not be much wider than my test piece.

 I have yet to commence using my machines again even though my machine room is ready to use and just requires a little adjustment. However, I have a letter of 4 1/2 week old puppies  to deal with and they are wonderful time wasters! Although I consider it a joy to sit and play with them and joy is never a time waster.

ABUSE AGAIN

There is much more to share particularly on the ongoing situation with the Roman Catholic Church and its deliberate shielding of criminals. I just do not have the energy right now to write about this. Suffice to say I am sick of all of the people that comment on the written pieces about this all full crime trying to defend the Pope and his bishops who are responsible for covering up crimes for many years and yet they cannot find one word of kindness or empathy toward the victims of this abuse. This really angers me and I often weigh in  with my comments. This is on the Anne Rice page on Facebook.  The callous disregard  of the victims of abuse may anger me but the complete lack of self-awareness  shown by many of the writers  just astounds me. Not only do I not understand how they can at best ignore the victims and at worse blame the victims, I am at a total loss to understand how they can still venerate people who have proven to be criminals. Part of me understands the damage done to the mind when indoctrinating as children and then I think of the way that I was indoctrinated and how I have overcome my own indoctrination and I wonder why these people have not done the same instead of continuing to contribute to the evil.

TALL POPPIES

I have always known that being open about my past leaves me vulnerable to sick and cruel or just plain ignorant people. I have had my share of evil comments here and I even had a stalker for a while. I handled them fine.

Just very recently, I wrote a short version of my past in response to something that warranted the explanation I gave. There was no response part from one brief comment. No one else commented until a woman did and all she could do was criticise my paragraphs! She said other things, all dismissive. 

I cannot tell you how shaming it is to bare yourself like that only to have that sort of comment back. This type of ignorant cruelty still enrages me and I have realised that if I feel rage then I have been shamed first.

How can anyone read such a story and ignore it or criticise it in anyway? Why is their response not one of compassion and horror? I don't know and I guess I have always had a problem with people like this. What sort of person can only criticise a person who is brain damaged, has serious body and pain issues, who has been able to communicate anyway, and who still WANTS to?  I don't know about you, I find that really callous and sick. This isn't about agreeing with me or not saying you don't. It is about not shaming me just because I find writing and typing a mental and physical challenge. All of which was clear in what I wrote. She isn't the first and won't be the last callous so and so I come across but this is the first time I have been honest about how it really makes me feel and what I think of those who do it. 

No survivor is looking for pity. That does no one any good and pity is worthless and far too easy. Aside: would you believe the amount of women who say 'ah, bless' when they see me in my wheelchair? That is pity and it is patronizing and it means fuck all. It dehumanizes me.

The reason it takes so many of us such a long time to gain enough courage to tell our story is precisely because of reactions like that. We fear being shamed and humiliated. The abuse made us feel like that and we don no want more of it.

My first attempts were met with 'you are too sensitive'. What do you think I felt? Yes, shame and humiliation. Another attempt was met with seeming understanding and I was invited to a prayer circle. I accepted, feeling that for the first time I was being listened to. That is until it began and they started to pray that I,(!ME!), be forgiven. Now what type of person is privileged to gain such trust only to throw it back in the face of the person trusting them?

I was taken by surprise today. I started to shake, my heart pounded. This despite the beta blockers and pain killers. One can safely assume by button was well and truly pushed!

Anyone who makes me feel shame, is out. I do not entertain having them in my life. I experienced the same shame, humiliation and anger with the person to whom I was kind and supportive yet they chose to interpret what I wrote as the opposite. I take responsibility for this though as I already knew what they were like but I had given them the benefit of the doubt only to be severely burned. (A situation another would have just brushed off I know but I am who I am.)

However, and this is what is important. I will never be silent. I will not acquiesce. There will always be victims of abuse who need to know my story and the stories of other survivors so that they know there is hope. So that they know that a semblance of peace is possible. That a good life can be lived regardless of how they feel in the moment. They need to know that happiness, joy, real friendship is possible. That love does not mean sex and violence. That love does not mean name calling, undermining ones confidence. Love does not have to be earned.

Most of all, they need to know that is not they who at fault. they need to know that they were abused (are being) because of who the abuser is and NOT  because of who they are.

My experience of writing about my life on this blog has been hugely positive. In ways I could never have foreseen. At first I remained anonymous and I was writing just as away of ordering my story for myself, of making some sense of it. I had no idea how it was going to affect others.

I very soon got comments and emails from other survivors. From professionals in the field child protection. I was astounded. I was also scared. I then realised that if I was telling my story and stating that shame does not belong with us, why was I hiding my identity. So I came out. Obviously I made sure to never identify anyone.

What we all need to know about recovery is this: there will never be a time when we will be as if the abuse the never happened. I used to think that I would come out of recovery wholly new, with the abuse and it's effects wiped away. Not so.

One learns to live well despite it. The severe PTSD symptoms do lessen. They do become further apart. But you will still have them. You will still have buttons that can be pushed, as happened to me today. There will be times when out of the blue, you will be plunged right back into that hell hole. Only now one can get out of it quickly and unaided, shake it off and carry on living a good and happy life.

Peace and joy do come but they don't stay. They come and go. But instead of plunging back into darkness when they go, one just lives well. One feels, one enjoys, and some of what we feel will not be nice and some of what we feel will be wonderful. Overall though we will be content. We will know who we are, where we have come from. We will know we are loved. we will love ourselves and we will not be at the mercy of the whims of others and their opinions about us. Only you really know what you feel.

No person who has not been through this torment has any idea at all what it is like. Remember that next time some ignorant soul judges you, they have not walked in your shoes. They understand nothing. There are those whose ability to empathise allows them to understand that we suffered/suffer and they treat us accordingly. They are safe people. Sadly, far to many do not have this gift.

I know that when one is in the depths of the shame and humiliation, the fear and the pain, it is nigh on impossible to see that the shame does not belong with one. The light seems very far away and it also seems that it must be us. After all, that person seems to be living a functional life. it is we who are not. it must be our fault. It is often just easier to blame ourselves than to accept that yes, other people can be so callous. It is not a safe feeling, yet we are strong enough to deal with it. No everyone is not coming from the same place. there those who will seek to harm you. There are those that do not seek to harm you but just do not care a joy. But there are those who not only will not harm you, they will love you and they will hold you and help you. You will become strong enough to accept them too.

CHILD PORNOGRAPHY ON FACEBOOK

THE KID

I watched a film last night called The Kid.  I almost turned it off within the first few minutes when I realised what the subject was going to be.

This is the true story of the successful author Kevin Lewis.  It was a very moving film.  Extremely well acted.  And it was brutal.  I defy anyone to watch this film and not see the miracle in those of us who have survived childhood abuse intact.

Kevin’s life was very different to mine.  The fear was the same and the school nightmare was the same. 

I did not have disturbed dreams last night.  I had no flashbacks. what the film left me with was a feeling of awe and wonder at the life that I have today.

I do not want to romanticise this at all. People like Kevin and myself did survive to become decent positive people.  Far far more did not survive. Many did not survive physically and many of those that did did not survive emotionally and mentally or spiritually.  I do not know why.

I do think this is the very first time I have watched such a film and been left with such a positive feeling.

I think also I perhaps have seen a glimpse of how remarkable my own recovery has been.  The film brought to mind how I used to be.  The me I am now is so completely different.  And I am awestruck.

SWILL OF SHAME

I do not watch programs on the TV as they air.  If there is something that I want to watch I record it.  I cannot understand how people can watch programs as they air because of all the damn adverts.

It seems to me that the vast majority of adverts are giving people the message that they are not good enough as they are.  Most of these adverts lie.

It angers me when famous men and women, though mainly women, are being paid vast sums of money to lie to us.They KNOW that they do not look like they are made to look on-screen.  They only look the way they do because of clever lighting photography and make up.  Yet they seem to have no qualms in telling you, the viewer, that if you use this cream or that powder or this eyelash thingamebob, you too will look like they do. It is a lie, they know it is a lie, but as long as their bank accounts grow, they do not care.

Men do not escape the constant drip drip of inferiority complexes.  Take a look at the covers of men’s magazines, particularly those aimed at health.  The men on these covers have no body fat, are too thin, are over muscled, and have fake sixpacks.  As a doctor said on TV these sixpacks are not possible without the use of steroids and are made to look the way they do with make up and lighting.

The only equality there now seems to be between men and women is that those have been made to feel unworthy!

Take a look down any high street on any day and you will see that most of us are very ordinary looking and come in all shapes and sizes. You rarely see anybody who looks remotely like the people we see in the adverts or in the movies. Yet many of those people will be desperately trying to look like the people they see in the media, sadly not understanding that they never will because not even the people in the media look like they do!

On top of this we are constantly castigated by the medical profession for being fat.  The mean weight of people in the West has increased dramatically since the 70s.  The reason for this is not because we have become greedy and lazy.  No, it is because nutritionists have been feeding us the wrong information!  We have been told that a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet is what is best.  This is why we are fat.

The human body is not made to tolerate high amounts of carbohydrate, be they whole carbohydrates or refined carbohydrates.  We did not evolve to eat this way.  In the beginning we were hunter gatherers and we ate mainly meat and fish with a few berries and fruits and vegetables.

Carbohydrate is very easily turned into fat.  Carbohydrate also makes you hungry! This is one reason why after eating a Chinese meal or a meal of pasta one is hungry soon afterwards. The body releases insulin to deal with the sudden rush of sugar and thus blood sugar level drops but it drops below normal thus triggering hunger.

I know from personal experience that until I went on a low-fat low carb way of eating, I remained overweight and in the vicious cycle of trying to lose weight whilst at the same time always feeling hungry.  Now I am not obsessed by food, I lost 100lbs, and I have kept it off.

I often have people ask me about losing weight.  When I tell them how I did it many will immediately say “ I could not do without my bread” and they do not see or hear the addict! These people would rather stay fat than give up their addiction.

However, being fat or thin has absolutely nothing to do with one’s worth as a person. I know  that I was not really able to lose the weight and keep it off until I realised that being fat was not a sin and was not a sign of my unworthiness.  I had to accept myself as I was before I could change.

I truly believe that the world would be a vastly different place if we all valued ourselves. If we respect ourselves, we are likely to respect others.  If we value ourselves we are likely to value others.  If we have compassion for ourselves we are likely to have compassion for others.

Instead children are taught that they are not good enough from the very beginning.  Even if they are not told this directly, the way that we rear children gives them this message: that they are not good enough as they are.  We fear children and so we try and control and mould them.  We force them to be how we think they ought to be and in so doing we create adults who are damaged and who behave in ways that are detrimental to themselves and to others and it becomes a self-perpetuating cycle. The worst results of this can lead to a lack of empathy for others. In extremis, this creates people that we label psychopaths or sociopaths.

Add to this religion, which teaches that you are not good enough unless you believe or do a particular thing. Now you have an even better recipe for discord and strife and the production of yet more evil.

The results of how we raise our children can be seen across the world today.  It has always been thus.The big difference is that to day with the advent of the Internet, and satellite media, the results are very visible.

The powerful have a vested interest in keeping the general population steeped in self-hatred.  People who hate themselves or who find themselves unacceptable will do anything to be rid of the pain that this causes.  Teach a child that it is not good enough and you will have a slave to your will.  Governments or people who seek to have power over others understand this only too well.  Without naming any specific church, churches have understood this for centuries.  This is the reason why the religious are so adamant that faith schools are a necessity or that homeschooling for religious reasons is a necessity.  The Jesuit priest who said give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man knew what he was talking about!

We cannot even age without feeling shame for ageing! We cannot be sick without being blamed for being sick.  Even when we die we are blamed! No wonder the vast majority of us live in the swill of shame.

The human body is fragile and it is not built to last.  It is built to fail.  We as human beings get sick.  Yes we can do things to ourselves that are detrimental to our health but most of these things are behaviours that come about because of shame! Once again it is a self-perpetuating cycle.

The overriding message we are all fed is “Hate Thyself”.  Whilst we do, we are slaves to the powerful, be they governments or business or religions.

DARK SOULS

Edna and her puppies are doing really well. Whitney is fascinated by them and disturbs Edna by hanging head over the edge to stare at the puppies!

I have been doing a fair bit of dying and I have been trying out new techniques, one of which I call Flash Dyeing. This is what I got: I am very pleased with these and I shall be using the technique again.

Yesterday a person inadvertently sent an e-mail with reactionary content to one of my knitting lists.  This one advocates the spanking of children.  I am not alone in considering this is an appalling abuse of children.  I wrote to the list and I said that I did not want to see such things on my knitting lists especially emails that encourage  child abuse.

This is my opinion and I am entitled to it.  I am not alone and this is why it the spanking and hitting of children is illegal in several countries.  However, this does not entitle anyone to send me vile e-mails like the one I received this morning.  The dark soul who sent it chose abusive words to defend her right to abuse her children.  I am not surprised that she chose abusive words to defend her position.

What always surprises me is how dark a soul can become without the said soul noticing the light fading.

Yesterday I went for my swim and I also went for a walk.  However, the walk was too much and I only just made it home.  I ate my breakfast and soon after I went back to bed because I was in a great deal of pain despite having taken my medication.  It turned out to be a really bad day pain wise and I was woken from my nap by the pain. I lay there for half an hour and then realised I just had to go and get the morphine. Once I had I was able to function again and then I enjoyed myself playing around, the results of which you can see above.

xoxo

HEALED BY EVIDENCE

I am not one who believes easily.I am highly sceptical.Trust does not come easily.

My heavily Christian background left me an atheist for some time. However, atheism did not sit comfortably with me. Christian people often say that my unbelief is the result of my childhood abuse and of meeting bad Christians. It never occurs to them that my unbelief is quite simply because I think the Christian story is ridiculous, without foundation, a pernicious lie created to keep people acquiescent to those who sought power. It’s story of redemption is not original. It is also nonsensical and no matter how it is explained away the whole idea is not compatible with a God of unconditional love.

So how did I come to the position of not being an atheist?

Quite simply, I discovered that my sensing of beings beyond the physical was not a symptom of mental illness. I came to understand that my vivid childhood imagination was not responsible for my experiences and certainly were not the work of Demons!

The certainty that I could not die, that I could not escape myself, came about as a result of me being in a coma. When I recovered, far from being happy and euphoric (because it was this incident that showed me that life continues after the death of the physical body), I was furious and terrified.

Fast forward.

Most of what I believe today I believe because of direct experience and evidence. The main concept of spirit teaching is that thought is all important. That our lives depend on entirely upon that which we believe. When I first became aware of this I thought it was absolute nonsense. How could my suffering possibly be to do with anything that I think or believe? What is more, how could I stop suffering just by changing my belief?

Today I am in no doubt that this is true. No, I do not believe in magical thinking. I do not believe that I can make myself rich, prevent myself ageing, cure all my physical ills, by believing in a fantasy.

I do know for sure that I can change the way that I experience life, react to life, and feel, according to what I believe. Much of my life was miserable and painful because of just one belief that I held deeply ingrained in myself that I was unaware of: I was a bad defective person which is why I had been abused.

Since the experience I had back in the 70s during the coma, I have slowly grown. Gradually many of my extreme symptoms of mental and emotional distress began to fall away. My periods of mania became less manic, less often, and of shorter duration. The same is true of the depression I suffered. My OCD behaviours, my eating disorder, my self harming all lessened. It was a very slow and painful process.

Gradually my beliefs changed. Firstly, I came to believe that people could be genuinely kind to me without wishing anything in return. I came to believe, and this is most important, that I could change. I came to understand that the beliefs I had been indoctrinated with were just ideas, not Truth. I came to understand that nobody on this earth knows what Absolute Truth is. I came to understand that as a human being I could not know what Absolute Truth is. I came to understand that all I had and all others had is the meanings that they had created. (It is not possible for a human being to be objective as we filter everything through our brains and our meaning creations.)

I came to understand that I did not have to accept the meanings that others created! Following on from that I came to understand that many of the meanings I had accepted and / or created myself could be changed.

This is how my life changed. I changed from the miserable wretch that I was to the happy content person I am today. Throughout all of this process, I have been guided by others, by reading, and by messages through genuine and accurate mediums. Those who helped me the most were NOT those who told me what to think!

Thus that which I believe today has been shown to be true, as far as I am able to understand, to my satisfaction. From the very beginning spirit told me that I was loved and that what I thought and believed was what was important. Through their evidence and steadfastness, I slowly came to my present position. I do not have fixed ideas or beliefs or try not to. One must always keep the door open.

Three years ago, I went through what I can only call my “dark night of the soul”.This was the most painful period of my life. It was also the most healing period of my life. During that time, spirit never let me down, and they kept repeating the same message over and over and over again through various different mediums in various different places (churches and halls) and in various different ways. Until finally I got it.

I finally came to understand that I was still holding the belief that was holding me back. That belief was that despite me understanding that the sexual and physical and emotional abuse of me was wrong, I still believed that the people who did this to me did this because of who I am.

Spirit showed me that this was wrong. In a moment of absolute anguish, when I was on my knees in my bedroom begging to either be released or taken, it suddenly came to me that I had never been at fault. That the problem had lain with those who abused me. It was not anything about me that made them abuse me. It was about them. With that I released the pain at the very core of me. I will never forget that pain no matter how long I live. (I now also understand why healing is necessarily slow. I think that had the four several months long “dark nights of the soul” happen all at once I would either be insane or my body would have given out. Grief is physically very painful.)

My beliefs today are evidence-based.I have no time for religion.I am much more inclined towards science though I am obviously aware that the idea that consciousness survives physical death, and precognition, are two ideas that many, though not all, scientists reject. I therefore view everything that I read and watch to do with physics and science in general through the lens of knowing this. I understand completely that for many to accept this would mean having to completely reassess the meanings they have created. I know how difficult that is.

Posted by Knitman

CLOSING DOORS

The following is my response to a question I was asked and I share it here because I know others have similar questions.

Thank you for trusting me.

I am not at all surprised by your mother. The idea that her father is a paedophile is just too much for her to bear and so rather than face this she rejects you.  It is highly unlikely that your mother felt loved by her parents and she cannot admit this.  In order for her to continue living in her fantasy of having good loving parents she must reject you. I would not be at all surprised if your mother was also sexually abused by her father.

This does not mean that your mother is not wrong and nor does it mean that her behaviour is acceptable.  It is understandable.  My two brothers rejected me many years ago and they think of me as evil and twisted.  They do this so that they can live with the fantasy that they have loving kind good parents.  They have not got the courage to feel the pain that I felt in realising that my parents did not love us and that they were not kind and good.  This does not mean that I do not feel anger towards my brothers nor does it mean that I excuse them.  It is what it is.  I cannot change them.  I do not want to change them.  I do not need them to see me differently in order for me to be happy.  I do not need them at all and what they think is not my concern any more.

It is better for us that we do not allow toxic people in our lives no matter who they are.  Just because people are related to us, even if they are our parent, does not mean that we must interact with them.  It also does not mean that we must love them.  Love comes freely and naturally and it does not come via abuse.  Whilst I do not have hatred for my parents or my brothers I do not love them.I do not even like them.However, I love them in the same way that I love you and everybody else on this planet: I want them to be at peace with themselves.  There is nothing I can do to make this happen but it is what I wish for everyone.  Imagine what sort of world we would live in if we were at peace with ourselves!

Please do not beat yourself up for how you feel.  It is natural that you do so.  For me the realisation that my parents did not love me and never would released me.  Not all hope is good and the hope that one day they would love me and treat me well was crushing me.  The day I let that hope go was a real turning point in my recovery.  My parents were never going to be the people I wanted them to be.I thought I needed them to be different in order for me to recover.This was not true.I have recovered.I live a good and happy life.

This does not mean that I am as if it never happened. Of course not.  I still have my struggles but nowhere near to the same extent.  I am rarely troubled by night terrors now and although occasionally I do have PTSD symptoms still they are much less strong and the episodes are further apart.

I do not know if any of this is of any help to you.  Just know that your feelings are normal.What we went through is an abomination and we will never be who we would have been had it not happened. However, I can truly say that I like who I am today and I am who I am because of all that I went through. 

This does NOT mean that I believe I was meant to go through what I went through.  Not at all.  It just means that I have been lucky and I have turned what was very negative into something positive.  The very idea that I was meant to suffer in order for me to be who I am is offensive to me and I think that people who think this have really not thought through. What they are saying, then, is that people who abuse children are carrying out God's will for some higher purpose.  BOLLOCKS!

People make up these things in their attempt to live with evil and make sense of it.  In effect it only causes more damage because when it boils right down, it is just blaming the victim.  Those who really believe that we had childhoods such as ours as retribution for a previous life's actions are sadly distorted. Once again if this was so it means that perpetrators are carrying out some divine plan.  It follows that the millions of people who died in the Holocaust did so as payment for past wrongs and the Nazis were working for God.

You do not need your mother's approval all love to live well.You do not have to have her in your life.you are not the bad person you have been made to believe that you are and it is neither wrong nor sinful to close the door on someone who has not got your best interests at heart.

Just remember that people treat you the way they treat you because of who they are and not because of who you are.

THE POPE-CHILD ABUSE IS UNIMPORTANT

This is the message the papal visit to Britain has spread this week. Neither the politicians, the Roman Catholics, the Church of England nor the many flag-waving citizens give a dam about the abuse of children and the lives that such abuse distorts or destroys.

The man at the head of this church who has protected child abusers, who had hidden evidence, who refuses to hand over evidence to the proper authorities, the police, instead of being rebuked and told he is not welcome is in fact welcomed with open arms with all the pomp and ceremony we can conjure up.

What particularly raises my ire is seeing the children involved in this vile spectacle. And they are being used and abused in this great lie. I wonder how they would feel if they understood the full horror of priests fucking children.

I am ashamed. I am disgusted. I am appalled. This mighty show of man’s inhumanity to man- of man’s arrogance.

They truly do not give a dam about anything other than their own aggrandisement. And what makes it worse is that we have colluded in this lie and have shit all over those children whose lives were forever altered by the evil that they oversaw and they have done nothing to protect the children of today. They have shown us in no uncertain terms that the rape and spiritual abuse of children means nothing to them. More important to them is their persona, their wealth, their church, their power. They lie in front of their God and we like fools turned a blind eye to it all.

WE are responsible for this. All of us who refuse to see what is right under our noses. We are responsible for the cover-up, for the lies, for the crimes. All those flag-waving fools smitten by men in fancy frocks.

Forgive Them Father For They Know Not What They Do. If only.

I think they know precisely the evil that they do.

CONQUERING FEAR

Most people do not believe that I am shy. After all look at the way I dress for dog shows. And when I go and give a talk and demonstration sometimes in front of 100 or so people.

Quite simply it's true. The fear I often feel before any of these events is quite nauseating. Sometimes it is even an effort for me to leave my house. I often have to force myself to leave for the dog shows in the morning of the day of one. Once I have, I am okay.

I think I am what I would describe as an introverted extrovert! Don't get me wrong I am not saying that I am afraid all the time. I enjoy other people's company I just can't deal with it for too long. I also enjoy the lovely comments that some people make. It amazes me that any one would take the time to go up to somebody they do not know and pay them a compliment.

This is all so very different to past experience. I know when I first started showing four years ago I was terrified. For me it was like going back into the lion's den. No one has yelled abuse at me, kicked me, punched me, or spat on me.

I think the conquering of fear is a major work for all of us. A certain amount of fear is necessary to keep us out of danger. Yet fear can keep us from living, keeper some loving, and can prevent us having wonderful experiences.

Fear is pretty much at the root of all of the world's ills. Fear of not having enough. Fear of death. Fear of humiliation. Fear that we are not good enough.

Fear of not being good enough is constantly reinforced by religion and the media. Right from birth most of us learn that we are not good enough. People who fear that they are not good enough have their capacity to love themselves and others severely diminished. And there lies our problem. If the very young I loved and accepted as they are they grow up into adults to love and accept themselves and as a result love and except other people. This means that they can empathise with others. Without empathy it is not possible to treat others well and it becomes very easy to demonise others and either to stand by when evil is perpetrated upon others, like in the Holocaust, or even to commit evil acts ourselves.

In this country we have a high rate of teen age pregnancy, drug addiction, alcohol abuse, and general delinquency. We also have a high rate of child incarceration. We have a reputation in Europe for not loving our children.

If we do not love and respect children we cannot hope to produce adults who love and respect others. Worse we produce adults who do not love and respect themselves. And hence the cycle is not broken.