Monday, 12th August, 2013
21:45 Aug 12 2013
Times Read: 343
~Of Cats & Remote Controls~
Since having to have my bed moved downstairs I have come face to face again with the horror of tv, so many channels, so little worth watching. Still most of it has just become background noise & I'll always be glad my children dislike shows like x-factor, soap operas & glee, but yesterday... *shudders*
The day started normal enough, meds, morning exercises to try & start building strength in my back & legs, visits from my carers, midday exercises & more meds. My younger child flitting about the house with her usual bursts of energy -she had decided she was going to be a cat for the day, I did try to point out that our actual cat spends most of each day sleeping, to which I was reliably informed “Yes mum, but she always falls off what she's sleeping on”. Like any good mother I resisted the urge to reply “So do you honey”, no stranger was I to bangs in the night & a little voice calling “I'm ok!”.
Then it happened, on the tv came my first ever rom-com movie.
Chick-flicks had always given me hives, but compared to this -Bride Wars- even the most sappiest chick-flick suddenly seemed a modern day classic. Between the desperate scramble to find the suddenly missing remote control & the lost soul mutterings of despair coming from my daughter, I was almost willing to find religion in my pleas for salvation. Finally the blessed remote control was found, it had been hiding under a chair all that time, franticly I pressed the channel change button only to find nothing happened. Over & over I pressed somehow convinced that even though it had not worked so far, pressing it repeatedly would bring fore a sudden miracle -nope, so then came the frantic search for batteries... Then for batteries that would actually fit the damn thing!
By now we were almost halfway through the film & fading fast, to discover that none of the batteries seemed to be working, & in a breathless show of loyalty my daughter wondered off at that point to hide elsewhere. So there I am, stuck with the horror of a rom-com & searching vainly for at least the comedy part, cursing my inability to walk over to the tv to smash it -while also being glad of this so I wouldn't have to then buy a new one, & it happened. Just as the credits were starting to roll, the tv channel suddenly changed due to my leaning on the remote control.
What had changed you might ask yourself, as I certainly did.
Well... The afore mentioned cat had done what she often does & fallen off the tv box she had been sleeping on... Removing her tail & back leg that had been blocking any signal to get passed.
To think that I once really liked cats!
Saturday, 10th August, 2013
14:47 Aug 10 2013
Times Read: 349
~My Inspiration~
A little while ago now I met someone who went on to become one of my greatest friends -my grumpy Texan cowboy, at that time he was facing something that thankfully didn't come to pass & has been in remission for almost a year now. During one of our many talks I took a risk & told him about my past & where I am now, expecting a negative response I was shocked when he instead told me I should share my story with others.
So in honour of the times we laughed, cried & held each other up, I am going to use this journal as a record of my life.
At times this may not be easy reading, but it will be the honest sharing of just another person's life.
~The Story So Far~
The result of a drunken one night stand & a pregnancy involving heavy drinking, I was given up at birth to a foster mother that fed me wrong & left me with permanent nappy-rash scars. Adopted at a few months old by a family that already had adopted an older child, except for the bullying due to sibling jealousy the first few years went well. Till in a short space of time the grandparent that lived with us died & my adopted father got ill, & an adult friend of one of the families who's child we all played with exposed himself to me making an obscene suggestion. Making the mistake of so many young children, I ran from him but never told anyone till I was an adult myself of what he had done.
Ill & having trouble finding work my father turned to the bottle & my mother started working to try & keep food on the table & the bills paid. That we were poor never occurred to me, I didn't long for the things the children around me had & loved leaning how to make things like clothes, curtains & to do upholstery, & as they had days out I had the whole world at my fingers thanks to the local library. The downside of this was while my mother was out working, my father would be out drinking leaving me in the care of the older child, a child that had never forgiven me for being adopted into 'their' family. I would pray for the times he would leave me at home alone & go off with his friends, for the other times I couldn't move without his permission. I remember one time trying to defy him only to be chased up the road by him holding a carving knife, needless to say I learnt quickly never to do that again, just as I learnt to live in fear of being sent to a children's home which was his main hold over me.
To cut the telling short & to stay away from too much detail, my drunken father was not shy of taking his hands to me, every time my jaw dislocates I think of him. My mother had become a distant figure to me, so scared of saying the wrong thing to her bringing on the wrath of either my father or the older child, I went far inside myself cutting her off from me & slowly cutting myself off from everyone around me. As this was happening the older child had become interested in sex, & used me for his experimenting. Trapped & scared this began my long history of suicide attempts, self-harm, insomnia, depression & trying to make myself as ugly & nothing as I could, battles that almost 30 years later I still fight every day.
As I became a teen I was completely locked inside myself, only feeling safe when lost amongst the shelves of books in that library, falling readily into drink & drugs in the hope of dulling the pain. It left me open to abusive relationships & rape, but still I always stayed silent believing that was all I deserved & so should just get on with things. Even the miscarriage of a child I saw as me not being worthy to be a mother.
Next followed an abusive marriage that at least gave me my oldest child, my reason to fight back & get out of that situation, & a year later I met my now ex, again the only good thing from those 11 years was my second child. During that relationship I became ill. Slowly my body wore out till I became unable to walk & now unable to sit up for long, years were spent trying to find medication that would work, & doctors willing to take on the complexity of my diagnoses. I have a rare genetic disorder along with other things. Still I have tried to be a good mother to my two children, finding ways to deal with & make positive my older child's autism & my younger child's inheriting of my genetic disorder.
Now I face starting again, finally free from the controlling influence & abuse of a man who swore he loved me, a man who isolated me from everything keeping me trapped in a bedroom away from everything. This freedom comes at a high price as in the next few weeks I will have to watch my younger child be put with a foster family as social services say I am too disabled to be her mother, my only conciliation being that she would rather go into foster care than live with her father, & if you continue to read this journal you will see that I plan to work towards getting her back by trying to get back into a wheelchair. I have no illusions, I know I face a hard, pain filled path, but what is pain compared to the loss of a child & if nothing else I know I'm a survivor.
Everyone has a path they must follow & this just happens to be the path I have, it may not have been the easiest one but life owes us nothing & compared to many my life hasn't been as hard as theirs. That's why my grumpy cowboy will always have a Special place in my heart & I will always admire him for the battle that he faced & won.
COMMENTS
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NLW
05:02 Aug 13 2013
I'm sorry, but hahaha!