If it is not broken

[Spideysenses]

After, it felt as if no one would ask me if I was ok ever again. So when I was exhausted, I knew that no one in my life would tell me I looked tired and worn out. Would even notice. The people around me did not look after themselves never mind looking out for anyone else. Odd would drink until he fell half asleep on his feet on the dance floor of a pub. He would beat strangers to a pulp because he knew, if it was reported, he would get a fine from a judge and a slap on the wrist. He would carry on being a thug until he was caught and penalised. He had a lifeline and would use it. The risks he took when driving put my heart in my mouth more times than I can recall.
All my hard work and sacrifice were for nought again but he was far too volatile to not have his own way. He would never have coped if he lost the house. He would not give up anything. Not for one day or one week. More. More. Take. Take. He was a ticking time bomb. To diffuse, everyone caved into him. His family cleaned up after him and his work covered for him. I was the one who looked after other people. Getting by and swimming against the tide. A pound of flesh. Would my pound of flesh ever pay off?

[Spideysenses]

I have no qualms with competition. Fair competition. You see your body as a temple. Yes. They did not ask if I took substances. They did not ask about alcohol consumption. They just saw a hard working youngster whom they wanted to get back on track. At overdose a different person, who also knew I was not "one of them." I knew I was believed. But years on I still felt like a failure. My life had not recovered in terms of what I was capable of, so I feared I would eternally be seen as a lost cause. I was working full time as well as writing with a mortgage but I still felt like a failure. I knew that it is better the devil you know than you don't but I was being pushed aside in every endeavour. If nobody cares if I leave why do I stay?

[Spideysenses]

How Does Emotional Abuse Compare to Physical Abuse?

It’s impossible to say that any type of abuse is worse than another. All kinds of abuse are damaging, and they all have a severe impact on the victim’s mental health. Also, physical abuse rarely happens without the accompaniment of emotional abuse and neglect. Research indicates that the resulting mental health problems are similar regardless of whether the maltreatment is physical, psychological, sexual, emotional, or some combination.

This principle is true whether the abuse is directed at the victim or if the violence is against someone else and only witnessed by the victim. For example, children who witness domestic violence between their parents may be equally as traumatized as those who suffer violence against their own bodies.

While the damage may be similar no matter the type of maltreatment, each type does have some hallmarks

From - www.mhs-dbt.com

[Spideysenses]

I was forced to sit on the fence. It may sound insignificant but I was really upset when he took his friend's daughter to pick and name my Grans dog. Why not me? His friend's daughter was loud and brash. It was a case of rejection. I felt rejected. I was a disappointment and he made sure I knew. A ten-year-old child does not know what they are going to be when they don't have someone to model themselves on and look up to. It was easy to figure out what would not do me good or make me happy. But his mental health was in bad shape so he would never understand my choices. It was not that I was too selfish to not fill the void of his failures. He wanted a boy who followed in his footsteps but succeeded or nothing. He would have sold his soul to the devil to buy a ticket back to his army days. I was well aware.
The last time. All my childhood possessions. Make my Horlicks. Get a "real" job. I raise my voice one solitary time. It was entirely justified. He replies with "selfish b#### like your mother." Show emotion. Weak. Woman. B####. Slander.

[Spideysenses]

I was protected by employment law. To a degree. I could request representation or attempt to sue. But a secure job meant more than winning a tribunal. But yes winning would help to get another job. I was committed and did not change jobs unless I had to.
An employer cannot request a person's medical records without consent. So they should never ask. It is a sign the employer does not want to keep you on. In smaller communities, it happens more frequently. A person can say they were cutting their losses and not forced out of the door. I always choose to cut my losses realsing that some struggles are not worth the time and pressure (ignorant idle gossip, backstabbing). Best to move on. Live to fight another day. Leave people to their own agendas. Carve one own's path.
But if I had work worth holding onto, I would have fought my case. Or I would have moved away. Something told me I needed to stay. Intuition. Foresight.
I had the ability to be a specialist in an academic field of study. I could have completed a doctorate. But life has other plans. Of course, I wish I had not had to go to rehab. No one on earth would subject themselves to stigmatisation. It is either get help or die self-medicating for some. I worked through the regret and the crushing depression that followed.

[Spideysenses]

Odd : What is worse than being a waste oh skin scrounging scum oh the earth druggie?
-I am not entertaining your so called jokes today or any day for that matter
Odd: Being a buftyboy or a ####diver is. Should eat a bullet. Ah oh em. Cattle bolt tae the haed.
-Who upset you today?
Odd: Countries gone to the dogs. Wimmen hinkin they can dae fit I can dae. The quine will niver. Why get her hopes up? Get er telt.....En I came hame tee...if it wizna fur whit wiz atween wimmens legs men wid dae wihoot....
-Come home to what?
Odd: You. Anither delusional ....wimmen...dae wihoot....
- You get worse instead of better. You are mad because you had to work with a girl for one day? You were going to say your life has gone to the dogs. And anyway I am out working aswell. If we moved I would have had a better job yesterday. I get no peace at home. You will never change.

Trigger warning - homophobic language, extreme ideology

[Spideysenses]

I wish you would go out without me.
Odd: Why do you wint me out the hoose hm? So you can s##p around behind my back?
I can't believe you would say that. I won't ask for an apology as I will never get one. I will leave. I should have left long before now. You do not respect women at all.
Odd: Respect? Whit you a spear chucker noo jungle bunny? Fit ye gan tae dae glake?
I am not going to warrant that with an answer

[Spideysenses]

I could have adopted the mindset that rehab had robbed me of everything. Had stolen everything that made life worth living. My family enforced that it was my blood father's genes to blame. So effin whit. Well en. Game over. The professionals I spoke to were positive and gave a good prognosis to both me and my parents. So I forgave the meetings I was not present for. What type of parents ignore a good prognosis in favour of conspiracy theory? I have learned that some people will be machiavellian because they believe they will get away with it.

[Spideysenses]

Ma cousin was a real junkie.

So taking anti-depressants makes me an unwitting junkie?

Nut but...you'll niver be anyhin noo...and you brought it ah on yursell...pipe doon...get ower it....face you will niver....

Because of one month? I was not in prison

May as weel ave bin..you are lucky..

So you can treat me how you please? And do you think the doctors fed me a pack of lies through pity? Just to make me feel better? No. That would be malpractice! Would a doctor tell a stage four cancer patient that they have a hundred percent chance of survival? Think about it. When there is promise of recovery that is the prognosis.

One month in thone place.. and nae c### will hae you. Yer ane femly dinna wint you.. you have brought me doon.....saddled me....kane hoo lucky you are tae hae me...

I would have moved long before now. What has staying with you brought me but grief? You have used violence to get what you want. Your work are scared you will go off like a ticking time bomb and go to prison so they cave in. I am fed up of caving in to you. For what? Everyone cleans up after you. I am done with this.

Whit do ye expect ye saft haeded glake? Ward Fouwer. That is ah am gan tee say gleeb. Who was in ward number fou-wer ? So who should quit bumpin their gums hm? Glakid b^##h.

Thinks: God his primary school must have been a real hellhole. Worse than mine. What messed him up or is it just his brain is not wired correctly? He can have the last word I am not arguing

[Spideysenses]

If we had had kids, him, his family and my family would have painted a picture of him looking after me and the family. I could not live under that lie. Should never have had to accept that. The converse would have been true. I would have raised the family while he drank, slouched around with his hands in his pockets, looked for fights and brawls, called everyone from heaven to hell, went out on his motorbike or car and pounded his chest claiming he was a saint. At work when "the boy does nothing" came on the radio, I would be joining in with colleagues. It is inevitable. The long-suffering down trodden trouble and strife. Everyone has their own lives to be getting on with so die quietly will you?

Knowing that my family think that men should work and go to the pub unencumbered by no other stresses. That his sister tried to advise me to beg to get a stop-gap job back that I chose to leave as I did not gel with the click and layoffs were on the horizon anyway. Why advise me to beg or play a sympathy card for a temporary job? It would have been humiliating. Clearly, their only line of thinking was: What options did I have after four? Take a punt but you will never. No. I was nothing like the other women. I could not fit any mould. I am not like that. I was not going to let one month dictate my life for as long as I lived. I had to escape limbo. No other option.

I would have had to not only shelve my dream but give up entirely on gaining employment that gave me the challenge I needed and coveted. I would have had to give up my career and independence for an abuser. Everything for a person who planned to leave me at some point. He was clueless. He lied to himself and he lied to everyone. I could not trust him. He was the one who would have cheated if he had a clue. After five years together, he did not know that I could have taken all the sciences at Higher and Advanced- physics, biology and chemistry or gone to art school and developed my talent.

He ignored me and spoke at me and not with me. What did he see me as? How did he perceive me? More accurately why did he have such a low and distorted view of women? I don't think I believe that someone hurt him. He just did not know how to treat and respect women. It was not only that being in rehab made him think that I was "damaged goods" in some misinformed people's eyes. One chance. Nae chance.
He honestly believed that women belonged as caregivers. Any other career women were trying to live in a man's world. The odd one or two can do it but so what. They must have had help. They only got in on equal opportunities or some "nonsense." That was odds view of women. They only "got places" because of their "feminine wiles" or for sectors and companies to "appear inclusive." Clueless.
My leaving would have shaken him enough to know that he could not try and use another person as his emotional punchbag. But it did not sting him that deeply. The only emotion he ever expressed was anger and rage. Hence why I was torn between despair and an SOS. He was angry that I left before he planned to move on. An egocentric infant. I want. I want. Take. Take. Mine. All mine. Fit aboot yay? Who gies a fleein frig aboot you?

I felt like I was just there to fill a hole in his life until he found someone else. We could not erase the elephant but I would have moved away to art school with or without the elephant if I had had a caring family. I could crush the elephant given time. For him it was: now now now time is money money is time. Be hard and be feared to get money. I was not supposed to be with him and he did not want someone who had been in rehab in hospital so must be weak. I admit that I saw the relationship at times as a marriage of convenience. My family had made me feel like I owed him because we did not break-up when I was in rehab. He had - if it is not broken do not fix it - plastered across his social media page. Now that is hard nosed brazen.

[Spideysenses]

Many books written on the suffering of emotional and psychological abuse and how to heal, are written by medical practitioners who use a collection of personal stories from patients they have worked with. It is a good introduction and place to start. Are more mental health memoirs needed? Without a doubt. But it won't be from me.

[Spideysenses]

-Why don't you ever say what you want to be when you are older?

I am a realist and I don't like to tempt fate.

-You are superstitious. Why don't you want to teach?

Kids are impressionable and soak up things like sponges. I argue with teachers all the time in case you haven't noticed. I actually admire teachers, I could not do their job

-You have to say something draft dodger.

I would like to write books.

-As in an author of real books?

If you mean fiction then yes.

-So you will be a professional liar...

No. There is a universal truth in fiction and stories. A storyteller is not a liar. If I had taken all three sciences I could have been a veterinarian. I could still be a veterinarian nurse. I want to see where art takes me. I do not have well-off or well-connected parents. Whatever I do I am taking a risk. So why take the safer risk? Or the risk I am supposed to take?

-Good job you don't have pushy parents who draw up your study schedule

Thank god. Those types of parents would have referred me to a psychiatrist.

-That would be fun and games.

I would run away. Nah I could endure it til I was old enough. And psychiatrists have an oath of confidentiality to patients you know. My family would not want me to speak about anyone in my family. How religious they are in going to the body of the kirk.

-Why did odd draw a mask on the leader of?

It was football bigotry. He thinks he is a football casual on the weekend. What do you do to go back to being single? Does not listen to anyone.

[Spideysenses]

Desensitised. That attempt at sympathy was embarrassing. I had a mortgage and a good, honest, rewarding and responsible occupation. A company left the door open for me. I was crushed. I was terrified and I fled. I was pulling away and the tectonic plates in the relationship had shifted since the night I should have phoned the police to make a statement. The quake had rattled me to the core. He phoned my parents and hashed a story knowing he had committed an offence. Knowing that I should have reported him. Four. Four. Four. Four. He shouts at me.

I cry and fall asleep on the sofa. Feeling powerless. He acts at the drop of hat. A switch goes off in his brain and it can't be stopped or contained. His reflex of defending himself at all costs no matter the damage to someone else is not natural but he won't ever face it. He won't do anything but drink. The wild look in his eyes. I saw what he was capable of. That I was seen as an adversary and not an equal. I do not set out to trigger his anger. We can all get triggered emotionally but what we do and how we act and deal with hurt is what counts and if we apologise and admit wrongdoing.

I leave without my family directly forcing me back to him. I need more than this and won't tolerate the abusive treatment any longer. The next time I would have brought charges. Because the next time he lost it, he would have pummelled me and he could not deny it. But I know how strong he is, and how he has the propensity to flip out and lose control. That is one risk no sane person would take. Leaving was not a risk. It was escaping with my life. He is not only physically unnaturally strong but he flies into a rage.

The relief was buried under the enormity of what I had done. I was so tired from the immense mental strength it had taken to leave and the stress and strain of what to do next. My family would not help. They wanted me to stay with Odd.

[Spideysenses]

My mum let me know whose side she was on. He did not leave me at eighteen so how dare I leave him and not expect any backlash? Lumbering him with years of stigma? I expected too much. After Four? No, I just wanted to not be a shadow of my former self any longer. I never asked much of him and I was the one expected to give up as much as he expected of me. Never happening in a month of Sundays. So yes we argued. I did not shout. The arguements were cut short by him. I carved the lines in the stone. No further.

My mum had been exposed to violence and wrongly accredited violence as strength. My Grandfather and Grandmother could not have been easy to live with. My Grandfather had a very short temper, and let it be known he ruled the roost. My Gran was a fully-fledged alcoholic who was dependent on alcohol. My Grandfather was the workaholic. I am sure my mum believed: violence is normal in men and that it is part of being a man. My repressed Grandparents led to her taking all the drugs under the sun at fifteen years old to her early twenties in her counterculture. She was messed up and messed herself up even more. A prime example of a spoilt a## forces brat.
My blood father broke her patience with his abuse. Everyone tried to make me out to be the broken one. I was not like her at home. Growing up where I am from, was I honestly going to not stand up for myself?

When I said she made my homelife hell I was not saying that phrase lightly. She lashed out at me and not my sibling which is hard for a young girl to comprehend. She fought with my stepdad of course. But he was her meal ticket. Just seeing me, was a reminder of the worst time of her life - my blood father's abuse. I could open my mouth to ask a question and be told before saying a single word -

My blood father had caused this. He mourned his army days and if he could not have a manly man's tradesman's job then he would spite the sky until he passed. Bitter, broken and defeated. Life is a b*### and then you marry one. That was his life motto that he would hang onto til the grave. It was hard to see that he had given up and that life had beaten him.

[Spideysenses]

And test your luck. It is not safe for young women. I was not a drug user. I was going to fully recover with space and time. I was already on the right track. I had art and scope for new work once I did it right this time and I was away from everyone. But I knew I had to finish what was started or I would need to in the future. I had to see it through to the end. I had support outwith.
I would not have a chance to work through trauma living with and going back to family. A family who had put me through a lifetime of trauma and abuse. When questioned, they were more interested in my family than odd. Ok, you are away from the bad relationship now, and the family you are staying with you cannot stay with any longer. Just look forward. You need a career of your own. No one knows what happens behind closed doors. Welcome to a club no one wants to be a part of. It is not the way it is supposed to be, it is the way that it is (Not at all dismissive of my pain and what I had been through)

[Spideysenses]

Did you study Horticulture? They don't even cut the grass in Tornay!
They will be advertising for unpaid volunteers so the cats get to keep their bonuses and feather their nests. Give the youth experience, cut the grass for nought. A local company can provide the ride on mowers through the goodness of their hearts and community spirit.
Give up you. Do any Landscaping companies actually take on women at all, even at apprenticeship age?
Fair point. I don't think they even take on school leaver girls for the soft landscaping. The course is for those who want to start up on their own. It is most definitely geared towards self-start up. There was a garden design unit. I know my next move..Botanical Illustration.
Why did you not do art at college?
Because no one encouraged me when I needed it. Cause I am a snob. I did not see the point of doing it in Tornay. I thought that writing would be a faster exit. Nope. The rest is history.

[Spideysenses]

Hiccups. You have had more than ten pints. Not taking a dig. Maybe you will answer: why did you want to stay together?
F##k knows. Abiddy kanes I can dae better. You are nuhin special
Same every time. That is all I need to know.
Whit do you wint? Whit do YOU wint?

*This was more like the length of our disagreements

[Spideysenses]

I know the difference between impulsivity and spontaneity.

[Spideysenses]

The end (of blogging) is nigh

[Spideysenses]

The ego says,I shouldn't have to suffer and that thought makes you suffer so much more. It is a distortion of the truth, which is always paradoxical. The truth is that you need to say yes to suffering before you can transcend it.
Ekhartt Tolle

[Spideysenses]

I am slightly worried about the reports I am reading claiming that it is a myth to believe that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance . I have bipolar which has been scientifically proven to be a chemical imbalance. The causes are disputed. I have spoken to and spent time with many people who have recovered from spells of depression, and they would agree that medication is needed to get a person out of the "thick of it." Medication is often needed to lift a person out of depression before the causes can be targeted.
Yes, medication alone, may not treat causes rooted in trauma or the past. But medication is sometimes the only way to get a person out and through crisis point. Medication along with therapies is needed. Not just one or the other. Talking about trauma while at a crisis point can do more harm than good. If a person has experienced prolonged trauma, sometimes medication is needed indefinitely for the long term. It is worrying that doctors may feel pressurised to not prescribe medication to a person who is in pain and anguish and instead advise a six-session course of cognitive behavioural therapy to fix a "way of thinking flaw."

[Spideysenses]

Stop making excuses for other people and own the pain.

[Spideysenses]

My parents: He has a fairly good job and does not take drugs, his head must be screwed on the right way right? He has never been up in court so it must be the booze that he cannot handle? He cannot hold his drink so fights with his own shadow.
You would know, you check the court websites, as if there is not enough drama in this family

[Spideysenses]

I never believed that anyone wrote a memoir to garner sympathy. I cannot remain silent. I have to heal. It is time that I set my voice down. My posts will disintegrate in cyberspace.

[Spideysenses]

We could bury the elephant
The rain would still pour
The wind never ceases
As the world turned
Our defences would erode
And the bones fossilised with amber
Glowing bright encased
For the founders to show.
I had to light the remains
Ablaze reduced to cinders
And the particles scatter
The earth to ecosystems entwined.
While the captors marked the grave,
Its shadow would return.

[Spideysenses]

*gross exaggeration. Ammend: False threat. Straw clutching. A few months tops, of less alcohol, until someone else came on the scene as everybody caved into him. My purpose in life was not to be someone's emotional punchbag and then be discarded at their whim. Before. After.

[Spideysenses]

I needed my job. I had a mum who did not want me to do well in life and hated my father so much, she told anyone who would listen that rehab was due to his side of the family. My own family set out to ruin me. I needed my job. My selfish stepdad wanted me to leave at sixteen. He was young when my mum fell pregnant with my younger sibling and he was visibly angry at being "trapped" by the responsibility. The loon. I have one kid. The other isna my blood.

There was no room at the Inn for me when they bought the ex-social house. It is not your room. We pay for it. It belongs to us. I paid rent to my parents. I paid for the sport I had invested my sweat blood and tears in. My teachers told pillar that I dropped out because I was lazy. Covering up their own incompetence. So pillar told my then-manager whom he was friendly, that I was lazy. So I often got the blame for cutting corners and not stacking the empty crates at the bottom out front when it was my male colleague my age who happened to be a forces brat ( my luck). The type I did not need to be friends with.

This was my life. One hit after another and another, not getting a break from anyone. I knew I was a writer. It was not a fool's errand. I got far in sport and it was not my strong suit. My brain was. I dropped out because I was placed in the wrong classes, did not get my subject choices, and I knew what I wanted to be. Pillar started to pick on me. He would say I was talented to people. Just like my parents. Two faced. Then he slipped up.

[Spideysenses]

My mental health was not destroyed indefinitely. My self-worth and self-esteem were depleted but these can be regained and restored. He may attempt to argue that it was my family, the ward stigma, and pillar who were the destroyers. He drank more than me. I worked more hours than him and exercised more. I did everything in the house. He fed into the stigma I was already facing and threatened to put me in the hospital to prevent me from leaving him. In his eyes, women are commodities to be traded by his terms. I would leave when he wanted me to. When?

He wanted control. Nothing more. Nothing less. He set out to bring me down and did not realise that I was willing to keep going until my fortunes turned. It was his view of women that was grossly skewed. Why did he want me to stay as a shadow of my former self? It was cruel and sadistic to use the games and abuse.
The conflict was not between what was right and wrong. The options he was weighing out were between what he wanted to do and what he could get away with.

[Spideysenses]

...mental health continues to plague our society on multiple levels. Experts advise that mental ill-health has little to do with genetic predisposition but rather is to do with adverse social circumstances including discrimination and hardship
- article in Happiful magazine

[Spideysenses]

True contentment comes from within
True reward comes from within