If it is not broken

[Spideysenses]

Si
Siwang



Brightly lit on a frosted shore.
Eventually. Say nothing.
Time to be positive.
Hopeful without optimism.
Wanted me where they wanted me.
Stuck. Imprisoned. Ostracised. Committed.
Circles. I had potential for other doorways.
Before and after. It didn't matter.
Burned. Branded. A Holocaust tattoo.
A number had permeated
and infected every part of my life.
It wasn't my life anymore.
A faded shadow of what formerly could have been.
Burdened with feeling bereft of
A life I should have had. Mourning the death of a future.

[Spideysenses]

An eye for an eye makes everyone blind.
Anonymously highlighting abuse and harassment is not revenge. It is taking your life back from those who tried to extinguish it without remorse and used reprehensible tactics to cover their tracks. My life was not someone else's to play Russian roulette with. Or put their oar in - to be everywhere is to be nowhere. You wanted to ruin my life. You did for many years after I left and possibly indefinitely. If I were not a writer?

[Spideysenses]

Originally Posted by Nanuq

That must have taken ages to write out?
Do you not have Netflix or something to pass the time if you feel bored?

Chance would be a fine thing.
In all fairness, this blogging business is not time-consuming. It is about being in a fortunate enough position to rip open old wounds and then recover. I have posted while working or while on courses. I am not a person who holes myself up indoors. My family wish I was sometimes. This memoir writing is my fail safe/fallback. Life sorted.
I have been studying Horticulture at college. Next year(s) I am moving on to do Botanical Illustration. So I am studying watercolour techniques from the comfort of my own home. I can sketch and am a dab hand at acrylic. I have been watching videos on Gouache. Watercolour and Gouache are my summer endeavours. Botanical Illustrator in the making. Author and Illustrator.

[Spideysenses]

The area I live in is indeed beautiful. But the town itself makes me feel miserable. Compared to nearby towns and villages it appears as a neglected cousin. An "In Bloom" project is desperately needed here too. I wish I could kick-start this. The park could use some sprucing up with some colour and warmth.
What local authority cuts spending on the cutting of grass and maintaining public areas when we all know about the dangers of abandoned drug needles? Stops maintaining ALL areas across the whole entire town/budding city.
Leaving a whole town to fall into disrepair. Beggars belief. Small business owners took it upon themselves to mow parks and everywhere as the town was starting to look like a dystopian post-apocalyptic wasteland. You may live in a countryside estate and can pay a gardener or contractor. The rest of us underlings had to witness our home metamorphose into an uninhabitable wilderness and fear the safety of kids and even pets in the overgrowth. And worry about what will go next. Change is supposed to move communities forward. What has happened?
This Scotland. Land of the brave and proud of our roots and heritage. Millions of visitors a year. Can you imagine what the tourists who came for the whiskey trail thought of our town? A country known for its dramatic luscious scenery and pulling up in what looks akin to a toxic waste dump. Do people live here? Wait was there a fallout here? Who holds the purse strings here? The UK is rolling in it no? What a shame. The potential. The beauty going to waste. Cannot see what is right in front of their eyes. Capitalist brainwashing at its finest. These pollution masks won't do. Get the Geiger counter. Where is the nearest reactor to here? They would have warned us in this country, freedom of information. Check that Geiger counter.

Young children still play at play parks. People walk their dogs. People run and go walking. People drive past these areas every day. There was a festival in the park and I was hoping it would be the start of more to come and not a once-off.
Was the brass trying to deter people from moving here by making the place an eyesore? They should be doing more and yet we are sliding backwards. Would they have rectified the situation if they could have gotten away with it? What ran through their minds: people will just have to get used to it? Maybe the grass will die off when it gets too long? It is not like it rains often in this country. The Highlands of Scotland only have an average of 250 days a year where it rains on. The sun always shines on tv. Maybe the grim reaper will slash it down with his scythe when he is sick of getting people dying prematurely from tainted needles.
I would resign from shame if I were the one making these decisions. I won't label them anything less than shameful. It was embarrassing for everyone in my hometown. It is not forgotten.
Was the plan to get community service to do the work? Considering some are not trusted with a spade or pitchfork then what were the chances of putting some offenders on the ride-on mowers or having them use strimmers? I cannot be the only one who wonders why a basic public service was not just cut but completely abolished.

[Spideysenses]

I can pretend that what hurt the most was that I was the one who was supposed to have had a future where I used my brain to help others and I had to swallow my pride and accept help. Help I deserved and had earned because of circumstances that were out of my hands. Help is given to victims. I did what was right. Got back on track. But I had pushed passed exhaustion and burnout. I did not scapegoat myself from my family. I was a child and still young when the breakdown occurred. It was an unconscious ill collectively, exacerbated by the draconian conspiracy theories. And I tried to leave. I wanted to leave. I could have left if it were not for siwang. I did not need to start over. I had to start to get back to the old me who was not afraid to dream. That's all.

[Nanuq]

Originally Posted by Spideysenses

Chance would be a fine thing.
In all fairness this blogging business, is not time consuming. It is about being in a fortunate enough position to rip open old wounds and then recover. I have posted while working or while on courses. I am not a person who holes themselves up indoors. My family wish I was sometimes. This memoir writing is my fail safe/fall back. Life sorted.
I have been studying Horticulture at college and believe me it is full on! Next year(s) I am moving on to do Botanical Illustration. So I am studying watercolour techniques from the comfort of my own home. I can sketch and am a dab hand at acrylic. I have been watching videos on Gouache. Watercolour and Gouache are my summer endeavours. Botanical Illustrator in the making. Author and Illustrator.

Oh exciting, I'm starting my MA in illustration next year..it's a peaceful endeavour. Best of luck with yours.

[Spideysenses]

Originally Posted by Nanuq

Oh exciting, I'm starting my MA in illustration next year..it's a peaceful endeavour. Best of luck with yours.

Thanks! Drawing/painting and the great doors should be nice and peaceful.
MA in illustration. I always admire artists who can draw from their imagination to make a story. I used to read graphic novels like the walking dead series. Will it include digital design, drawing/presenting your work on screen through digital formats and programmes?

[Nanuq]

I don’t know really, I’m meeting with the course leader this week, so will find more out. Interestingly she mentioned graphic novels...not something I know much about.
It’s definitely the peace and....timelessness(?) that getting involved in creating something that appeals, I just started a thread about it because as soon as I start thinking about it needing an end point, or presenting work or trying to promote my work in any way, I just feel panicked. I just really want an excuse to sit in my own house, draw and listen to music! I do that already anyway, but could do with a bit of structure and human interaction too...
Horticulture and illustration go together so well, I love botanical illustration

[Spideysenses]

Do you think that you are the only person who has had to work for everything they have?

I would not have gotten off as "lightly" as his work colleague's wife. My family may have said it was the financial pressure but if we had moved I would have had much better employment opportunities. I had little choice without moving. Having to take work where my health was taking a beating.
He wanted control above all else and he would never move for me. At the end of the day, my family and others knew that finances were only a drop in the ocean compared to the feared stigma I was forced to carry. I was earning more than a fifty to sixty-hour week in a supermarket when I switched jobs. But it still was not enough to assuage the wrath and temper. For long. And some colleagues thought it still did not do me justice. It was the best I could do without moving away. I can say now that I tried everything. I really did not give up. For a brief second I sometimes forget and ask myself: why did I put up with it for years? That cannot have been me, cowering in fear. And then I see the dome.
Whit outburst? Whit did I say? So whit you deserve it. Simple Simon saft haed. It is ah in your mind. You brought it on yursell.

[Spideysenses]

Of anyone, I knew that genetics was only one part of the vast puzzle. I was the one who had to work on the full picture. And anyway, he had heard stories of my parents and their escapades. Enough without me having to fill him in, that my parents were more interested in their own social lives and drinking at the pub, than giving me or my sibling a good start in life. Boys from working-class backgrounds have it drummed into them to get a trade as young as possible. Set for life. Get there before someone else does. Snap it up quickly. Or miss the boat. Get a trade or be a shelf monkey or trolley boy.
Girls. Well, do not pregnant and do not get involved with drugs. That is all good and well for under sixteens but then what? Be glad that you can "switch off and not worry" once you leave work and don't have to take it home. Stay numb and blissfully ignorant. Stay in never never land. University is not the be-all or end-all. Go for the social life. If you are lucky you might get connections. Do not be a school teacher or a nurse. Overworked and drastically underpaid. There are not enough jobs for graduates who end up underemployed and in debt. Enjoy life while you are young. It is all downhill at twenty-two.
The money is in tech. The world is your oyster. Do computing. Computer science. If not work in admin or human resources. In the social care sector. That is the safest bet. For women. Ambition or delusion? Either way, you will be sitting at a desk at some point. Your brain and body will be chained to a desk. Unless you work with animals or children. Be a yoga instructor or personal trainer or something. Teach something or help people if you want a rewarding livelihood. Cannot have it all ways. Leave business, engineering and finance to the men. Or do you want to get divorced and end up old and lonely? Be a stuck-up b or c.
Let's highlight people skills over anything else. That way an interview is more likely. I had very good computer skills and knowledge for my age and potential to learn and build. If I could avoid a computer screen, I would fight tooth and nail for that chance. So ok. Let's see where this takes me. Nowhere in my hometown. Anything but retail or hospitality. This cv screams I am no good for much else but that. It is not me or a representation of what I can do. I chose my art so better conceal the Agrades in sciences to avoid questions.
My future was not clear. I needed luck. Luck had not been on my side thus far. When in a job and established with good references it is easier to get the job you want and deserve.
To beat a few hundred-plus applicants, pretend to be a naturally confident of confident assertive extroverted people person. Get the edge. I will be foiled in no time. Then there is number four. I did not choose to write because I could not get a "proper" job or career. I knew I could be an artist OR a writer. Where I lived it was going to be extremely difficult to muscle my way in and maintain an act. After. It was hard without four hanging over my head! I can still work in the Horticulture sector - landscaping, garden design, illustration, and floristry. I could have gone to art school. If push came to shove I may have endured admin for some years. But once a person knows what they want to be and do, then spreading the self too thin to please others is madness.

[Spideysenses]

Higher principles. I understood that he had different principles the more I got to know him. Not that he would volunteer to talk. Our values were not alike. My life was not important to him. I don't think life as a whole was important to him. The fighting and violence to get what he wanted. No regard for the tribulations of other people. Lazy. Arrogant. Self-centred tipping to ego-centric. Nothing nice to say about anyone. Why was I lucky? I never believed that for a second. Four.
A thousand cuts. After. I did not deserve to be happy or respected or have choices or even be loved? I had had a breakdown. I was in the hospital for one month. I understood the enormity. It must be harder for me said a doctor understanding, reassuring me I would fully recover. You need a career said others I spoke to. Plural. Others. Many. Wildfire.
Words cannot describe the aftermath of a breakdown. Opening the floodgates was not possible so soon. I never thought I would be handed this. Not in the free world. You cannot know what stigma feels like unless you have lived it. Not by listening to a person or reading their story. To be made to feel inhuman. I would not have anyone go through this in the short time on earth we do have. What good is sorry without taking the right action?

[Spideysenses]

I am not your slave. It feels like it is more days than not.

You are lucky to hae.....

(Here we go again) Ohmygod just don't...

I will lock you up if you dinna dae fit yur telt. Do ye wint tae go back to thone place? Aw nut you were sent hame like ah hopeless nae hopers are. Zip at mush oh yours or I'll dae summit aboot it. Boot time you kane't (he laughs)

You cannot tell whether it is a joke or if you would try.
I know when you are threatening. And the jokes are not jokes. It does not start as a joke. It is always an attack or a threat. I won't stand for it. (Grow up you are a child)

[Spideysenses]

In modern warfare, more innocent civilians die than soldiers.
Amendment: in war people die like dogs for no good reason

[Spideysenses]

My feelings of self-worth were in such jeopardy that I left only when in fear for my life. I prayed that odd did not hold sway over my parents as strongly as before. Phoned them to let them know it was over and I left. Fled. The old me would not have dug in all those years. The shadow that shrank away while I was threatened and abused. Stuck and trapped. The hope of escape withering. Chances of a life fading. So jaded and tired that the light at the end of the tunnel - getting back to the old me - was moving further out of reach. Nerves fraying from unrelenting pressure on top of pressure. Constant exposure to ghosts of the past. Holding up the scales through searching and grit. Feeling replaced with survival instinct perseverance tomorrow might be better than today. Work until exhaustion. Stuck in the cycle of deprivation. There is no reward in heaven. No reincarnation. One life.
What does everyone want from me blood? Ground into dust and float away on an ethereal current like I never existed. To have or to be. To exist or to live. To let a good brain go to waste is...? To me, it felt soul-destroying. Every day reminded of the mountain I had to climb. Being able to see its blurred form on the horizon and shackled with crushing doubt as to whether I would ever rest up enough to scale the summit.

[Spideysenses]

Global warming and climate change are not a stubborn relative who we cannot prevent pouring alcohol down their throats. We are the ones pouring harmful greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. We are the ones destroying the rainforests and ecosystems and polluting the oceans. It is not mother nature that is out of balance. She would burn our bones to ashes to halt the Anthropocene if we have left enough worth saving.

[Spideysenses]

The meritocracy is a lie

[Spideysenses]

Fortunately, my blood father never had a boy instead of me. He would have expected miracles. No support in any fashion. Go to a sports club and grow a magical money tree to fund the training and equipment and travel. Realising that university would not be an option, the armed forces would have been inevitable. This life works wonders for some youths who may struggle to find their place in the world. But for some who have broken homes, and unstable, disadvantaged backgrounds, it does not always remove the anger and hurt. Or in my blood father's case the deep-set feelings of inferiority and insignificance.

After hospital rehab at eighteen, knowing I was a writer helped me so far. All my blood father seemed to care about was to be able to say that I was going to be someone with a title. He never got over leaving the army and not moving up the ranks, even though his own comrades shattered his leg in a football game. I never understood it as a child and now I am still incredulous. He did not say it was deliberate or premeditated. Here he was bitter, broken, defeated and chain-smoking, whiskey in the decanter. Stuck in the past. Watching black and white war films. Telling a child about bamboo shoots in fingernails and fabricating stories of lost siblings. If I was a girl I could at least be loud and outgoing. That is the women who can compete with their male counterparts. The ones who get noticed.

I was a grade A student (then rebelled), obtained a second-degree black belt, taught at the gym every night and found time to develop my artistic abilities and see friends and do my chores yet I was labelled lazy.

I was not going to be a soldier so I was lazy. I was not going to live my life trying to please the unpleasable so I was lazy and a snob. I knew that if I went on to higher education, I had no connections and nothing to fall back on and being sat at a desk would have made me eternally depressed. Spreadsheets, databases, PowerPoint, tip tap space bar repeat repeat, number crunching, office politics. God help me. Why did I not aim for art school? Did fear and doubt hold me back? I felt like a one-trick pony. That is the god's honest truth.

I had a brain so young me thought that I had to have work where I helped or protected people and made a difference. Felt the pressure intensely and it weighed on me psychologically. I was not well off and my family were not supportive. It was lonely at times I will confess. Making a good living for myself in a livelihood I enjoyed would have brought me guilt and scrutiny. I would have needed therapy for succeeding. Therapy for failing. Doing art was a self-indulgent cop-out. I'd have been called a self-centred full of herself so and so and so on. Scared of hard work. Out for myself. It did not matter what I did, my choices would have been seen as the easy way out. Working to my strengths was somehow cheating. Art and writing are more than mentally tiring. A person has to pour more than time and energy and hard grafting but their whole heart and fibre of their being into the process. There will be sacrifice. My family did not and may never understand mental tiredness. No respect. A pound of flesh, blood, health and life. Someone needs to do it.

I was restless but calm and proactive. I had the discipline and resources to be my own boss and work for myself. I did not need to join the army or cadets. If my grandfather thought that the armed forces were the life for me to thrive in, then he would have encouraged me to join the cadets. But seeing as he had a breakdown and had to leave then he knew there were other ways. My grandfather moved on and kept going and my mum moved on after the marriage broke down too. My blood father eventually got back to the men's world of work and downed me in one fell swoop not a second thought for me. I do not care what I'll be as long as I am not as cruel, heartless and blinkered as you are. That was what a youngster feels but won't say. My parents were blinded by their hate for each other and the unfairness of life.

[Spideysenses]

A child views a defeated parent as having given up on life. I knew that my blood father was his own enemy. That depression had bested him. I did not suspect any worse. I knew that the SAD lamp was just a front and a way for him to not confront the real reasons. So when I was in an unhealthy and abusive relationship with a person who tried to make me believe that I was weak and broken, I asked myself if I had given up. I was disenchanted with academia. For good reason. I carried on learning and building on my knowledge. I read like books may be burned on the streets and deleted from cyberspace. I had not given up or lost hope.
I knew that I had to try and see if the dust would settle. I hoped it might. In my hometown, it was going to be a struggle. All I needed was to move and get back in the game. But the person I was with would never move for me or did anything for me. Nothing. Did not wash a single teaspoon. He took a few buckets of water out of the fish tank. The only one single solo job. I was made to feel like I owed him just for sticking with me after being in rehab for one month.
The only game of life he played was the game of everything for himself and daring to play roulette with my life. He spun the barrel too many times. I was scared of his temper and what he would resort to next so I left. Losing the battle. Phoning my mum first so he knew my parents knew. Knew that my family recognised how hard I had worked throughout the years and needed more. From work. From life. From the relationship. Needing different understanding friends than I had had. That I was stuck where I was not supposed to be. As one door closes another opens. I could not convince anyone in my life of this. So I had to reach out.

[Spideysenses]

There is no elephant in the room. It is in your head. You are imagining it. Nobody thinks or speaks about you. You will never be anything. What is there to write about? What is there to say about being in that place? Do you want people to feel sorry for you? You think that you can have anything at all after...? You? You?
[I think: you have screw loose that cannot be fixed, not me]

[Spideysenses]

There is a way and I will find it

[choirgirl]

I don't know man. You seem very hard working and determined and strong. Lots of props for that.

[Spideysenses]

It all came to a head when my blood father did not ask if I wanted any of my possessions when he moved. All my memories were abandoned. I was already uneasy about him not getting any help for my gran when dementia crept in. When I got a job, fresh from school, he was not only critical but scathingly cruel and nasty.
He told me to go to the technical college and get a real job i.e. a trade. But I had heard the conversations my stepdad and his friends and our neighbours would have about the "quieter loons" and I knew I would never fit in. It was not just about having a thick skin to cope with banter or the confidence to get your hands dirty and learn the skills. If young men struggled to secure apprenticeships then it was going to be tougher for a young woman. My blood father was speaking from his wants. He wanted a lad who played or watched football at the weekend and then joined the army or had a trade. Plan B is the forces for many working-class youngsters. With my brain, I should not have needed a plan B. Thankfully I could skip B as I had found plan C early on - my art. I never once took the easy option. I did what I needed to at the time. When in work, it is easier to find better work. Or have a little breathing space to find out what it is you really want to do. I knew I was a writer.

After rehab, my p##s head parents told neighbours and friends that we fell out because he thought I was weak for having had mental health treatment in the hospital. I was not strong enough. The bipolar was a flaw. An imperfection. A blemish. A stain. I was defunct. Faulty. No, we fell out before the hospital fiasco. I had cut the tie. I chose to. I had to. I could not put up with his sneering and snarling at everything anymore. When he called me the cat's mother in the pub to nose, it was clear I had done what was right. We would never talk again.

They tried to present a case to the doctors that the reason I had a meltdown was something from my blood father's side. There were "coarse brats" on his side and he was verbally and psychologically abusive to my mum. This was true to some extent but I was my own person. I was called "good quine" at work. Too nice by relatives. Toughen up by some friends.

If I had known what my parents were concocting at the time I would have made the doctor I saw aware that my parent's divorce was acrimonious and that they used me as a pawn at times. I found out at a later date about the lengths they went to to try and save their own skin at expense of my life. I did not need to explain because I was the one believed from the offset. Stress and suspected trauma were the conclusions for what brought on bipolar. And I agreed. So after 28 days, I was cleared to recover at home. There was no guidebook explaining how long it would take, what to do and how to do it.

[Spideysenses]

Writing an autobiographical novel is not trying to save people. It is about healing and in the process being able to help others help themselves. A self-help story. Now I know I must write books because of them and not about them. Write novels despite them. My books are my stage. In the heart concealed. We all have at least one book inside of us.

[Spideysenses]

The elephant. Damage limitation.

[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 and had white hair already. 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. A grafter? Do true grafters only want to do the bare bare minimum and expect maximum paychecks? 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 him. I never had that "privilege." 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 had lost my sports career before it had begun. I felt that I may have lost a chance at a career. After. I'd lost friends. Cut ties with some family. I went through hell to get jobs. The heat and humidity made me exhausted at the end of the week. I was on a machine in a back room with one or two other people or alone. But I needed a job. And I needed references for the future. I would not wish my worst enemy to lose what I had through stigma, ignorance, draconian conspiracy theories and plain vicious toxic gossip. Some people are not happy until they spill blood. Some regret it. Some run and don't face it. Some do not regret it. Some puff up their chest. Abusive people never apologise.

[Spideysenses]

My stepdad ol' man was more of a dad than my blood father. My mum said that when he showed up on the doorstep, I was settled until he appeared. Out of blue it felt to a young me. They got so much wrong but my mum was usually right about my blood father. Until culmination. My ol'man would say that I was not fully committed to anything. It was not a discipline problem. I just got bored if something if it was not challenging or stimulating enough. Well, I have bipolar. It comes with the territory. More importantly, I was an intelligent youth with potential. So people often looked for my flaws and weaknesses and highlighted them. They thought they were trying to help and evening out the playing field. Then some take delight in bringing someone down " a peg or two."

I did not have to say I split with Odd due to his possessiveness. He was a thug who would fight with his own shadow. My ol'dear said it herself. But Four. I think Odd knew it was over. We were on the property ladder but what I needed was to be on the career ladder. And he would not move. I would not bend to what he wanted. Part of me could not commit because I had already given up more than I should have needed to and my health was suffering. My mental health was at stake because of where I found myself in life. Not only with Odd and my family. I had bigger fish to fry and the will to take action. If I could kill my elephant in the room, I could help others believe they could do the same.

[Spideysenses]

We sometimes have to give up something to gain growth. For peace of mind. For our health and future health. Or for a person who would do the same for us. For a higher purpose. Without this understanding, a person is a failure. But not everything in return for nothing.
I was getting by from eighteen to twenty-one. I was still young and still had hopes and dreams. The newspaper article was not the first time. It was further along the line of other abuse. What would he have done if it had not happened? The overdose. Beat me up at his discretion? He did not get it. I was expected to give up more when what I had given up was already making me ill. I was not getting anything back in return. I did not have a steady guaranteed job because of where I stayed and the stigma, of nevermind a career. I had a job. But I could lose it anytime if the hospital came to light. I would have felt forced to leave. That is stressful. Having to chop and change workplaces because of the elephant. And I had worked so hard to get where I did in sport and I did my own creative projects as well as do well at my studies. I missed going out with my friends too. There was too much water under my bridges but I was made to feel guilty for the ones he burned when I advised him not to. Four made me a target, and I was having none of it.

[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 successful 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 be seen as a lost cause. I was working full time as well as studying or 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? That was then. Now it is different.

[Spideysenses]

I could not stay with my family for long. It was them who had not sorted themselves out. I had not had the opportunity to recover the old me. I knew that I needed to find myself again.
I planned to go somewhere new as I was twenty-three. Do a vocational course. Carry on writing. But after not only years of abuse from Odd, there was the trauma from before, in different areas of my life not just at home. Look, I was not bullied by peers, on the contrary, I felt respected. I felt like I did not have someone to look up to and aspire to be like. My elders and mentors let me down. Catastrophically.

As a young kid, I remember, my parents held me up by my neck like a dog who is thrown by the scruff of its neck, in front of a mirror and told me my cheeks were bright red so I was a liar. They held me up by the skin on the back of my neck. I was not smart, I was a liar. I might think I was a miss perfect but people with brains have no common sense. I was too quiet and shy to be anything in the real world. I would come down to earth with a bang one day and they would be waiting to applaud me "waayy". You think you are so smart you can figure it all out by yourself. If you do not eff off and join the army or they "boot you oot" for being a drip, not our problem. You are big enough and ugly enough to take care of yourself. You will look back one day and thank us for putting a roof over your head. More than that brainwashing deadbeat biological father had ever done.
I told Odd the story. That my parents held me up by the scruff of the neck like I was a dog. It made no difference. Did he think I made it up to stop him and his post work out bursts? My stepdad was physically violent. He just stopped when I could hit him back. It was not kicking and punching. Slap to the back of the head usually. And if you knew what my ol'dear was like with hangovers. Yes, the Glaswegian with a baseball bat. That summed it up. Drunk parents screaming at me for conducting myself in the right manner and doing well. Miss effing perfect. My ol' dears favourite putdown. Making my life hell for having the potential to escape to sunnier shores.

My mum screamed at my blood father on the stairs every single time he came to collect me. Him having to park around the corner and me having to look for the car going passed to avoid her histrionics. Odd was almost right when he said my mum was jealous of me. Her hate for my father was projected onto me. My ol'dear pretty much gave her meal ticket permission to hit me with full strength as she would never stick up for me. I had no rescuer. Her temper was worse than his though. The mirror and taking a cup across my head were the two worst instances. I was not beaten. But my parents were very cruel and abusive. My ol'dear was not to my sibling. My ol'man was tough on him. I had both to deal with. And he got sanctuary at his grandparents. My ol'dear was the apple of my grandfather's eye. So I could go visit but I could not get away for nights at a time like my sibling. Who was there to look out for me as a child? No one at times. Beans. I was not with Odd because he was this tough six-foot-two brawler. I was made to feel like I was from the wrong side of the tracks so I only deserved a bad boy who was rough around the edges. I had failed to escape the cycle. I was with an emotional and psychological bully who threatened to not only hit me but put me in the hospital if I tried to leave.
I guess the martial arts made me feel strong, to begin with. And then it kept me from loitering streets with the undesirables my group of friends were in tow with. Away from weed and older boys. At eighteen I was supposed to have been going to university and branching out on my own teaching martial arts while I studied. No no no. Instead, I went to rehab. Then I stayed with a real rotter. I tried to end it over and over. I took an overdose my life was unbearable.
I knew that not everyone believed conspiracy. Or the lies of two p###heads who bought their ex-social house for less than a new Ford Focus. People are well aware that trauma and abuse play a role in a person who breaks down and has treatment in a psych ward.
Alcohol gets a hold on a person quicker than we realise I was told by professionals. It does get its tendrils in quickly. But trust me, weed is not safer than alcohol because stoners are not usually violent when smoking unlike drinking on a night out. I am not speaking from experience. I have heard from mental health nurses and psychiatrists who know that weed can cause damage to mental health and the brain that is irreversible. There are violent prisoners whose crimes were caused by so-called "softer drugs" leading to "hard drugs." My parents were violent drunks. I was one of those who suffered their hangovers. You will grow up and say that you never wanted for anything. You will learn the hard way. Boys get more. You are a girl, you will learn. Never have girls. They won't move for you can't you see the way they look down on you like you are stuck to the bottom of their shoe? If it is good enough for me it is more than good enough for you.

Not all alcoholics are violent. Or drug addicts for that matter. Hard life. Bad choices. My parents were not seen as alcoholics. But their drinking and taking it all out on me is the reason I had a breakdown. So my step dads dad was an alcoholic and my mum's mum was an alcoholic. My father suffered from depression. But I know in my heart of hearts that if I had parents who were loving and caring, even if I did have bipolar, I would have recovered and gone to art school or would have applied for more jobs as I missed out on some by a whisker. I would not have landed in rehab at all. I am certain that I was/still am suffering from and working through Complex- Ptsd. I do not need to say that I have endured intense emotional and psychological abuse and physical violence. A neighbour did try and assault me as a youth many times. I was jumped walking home from school once. Needs a good seeing to sympathiser. And Odd made a scene at a jam-packed event when drunk. Screaming obscenities.The s words. There is no male equivalent. When in rehab a man was placed in a room not far from me and I heard him screaming that he did not rape a woman. Why on earth was he placed in a mixed ward with no security in a general hospital for attempted rape? He should have been placed in a locked secure ward until he was assessed.