If it is not broken - Page 22

Spideysenses · #**631** 7th October 2022, 16:57

What is the allure of this dreary, rainy, grey-skied, cold part of the planet? My blood father and my Grandfather, one an Army man, the other Navy, both felt so attached to this place. I knew without them warning to not ask questions.
I was passive-aggressive one time when I was deadbeat tired and Nestle had lumped me into a bracket with a colleague whose mouth hung open on shifts where he had been smoking too much pot. It does not matter that the person deserved it and had been far nastier to me beforehand. I still hated myself for it and knew it had to be a once-off. I am the stark opposite of mum. More over I vowed never to be passive like my blood father. His mental scarring scared me more than my ol' dear. His secrets unsettled me more than my ol'dears toxic two-faced games.

Spideysenses · #**632** 7th October 2022, 18:03

I thought that I was the biggest disappointment in your life. I think that your biggest disappointment in life is that you never got to spill blood on a battlefield. I will be a war journalist to make you happy? Report on the horrors of war. The deaths and rape of innocents. Chemical weapons that kill innocents and turn land into unliveable wastelands. The dread of nuclear fallout. Write about veterans with PTSD. Young soldiers who take their own lives. What do you want from me? Why contact the solicitor to see me when you did not want me in the first place?

Spideysenses · #**633** 9th October 2022, 09:21

What is said about people who've had treatment "in there" (it is a ward in a general hospital) is that most have suffered trauma and abuse in their childhood. And what about the mum who has had postpartum? Drug addict? The soldier with PTSD. Drug addict? The rape victim with PTSD. Not a drug addict. The bullied teen or worker whose long-term suffering results in complex PTSD and depression. Drug addiction is not the cause here. Young men and women with eating disorders or other body image issues like body dysmorphia because of the toxic celebrity culture that began in the nineties and before. The person who has lost someone close to them or too many people in a short space of time is hospitalised after a suicide attempt. A person who breaks down after years because too much has happened and no one was there or the people in their life scapegoated them. Survivors of domestic abuse. People who have grown up in relative poverty. Had alcoholic or drug-addicted parents. Had unrealistic expectations placed on their shoulders? We adopt coping mechanisms that helped or were essential at the time but can then backfire. A need to find order in chaos could manifest as Ocd for example. I can tick boxes I wish I could leave blank. Stigma at a young age made it near impossible to get my life back. I needed employment/a purpose to keep me stimulated and hopeful about my future. I had to find another way and develop my art as my life purpose if all I could get was a means to an end job. Pushed myself too hard ignoring stress. But I was young. I was hurting and had no support.

Spideysenses · #**634** 9th October 2022, 09:22

I accept that I will never write the next "Pillars of the Earth" or "Wolf Hall."

Spideysenses · #**635** 9th October 2022, 12:39

I had to pray that the dust would settle. But being in an awful job was also a spotlight and a source of gossip because I was intelligent and trained at a high level in sport. I was right to decide that rebelling was better than being a passing recipient of fate. I knew I was a writer long before I said I would be. I was not going to allow the way I was ill-treated to go unreported. No one is born to have a breakdown.

Spideysenses · #**636** 9th October 2022, 15:02

Provide the privilege of rest. Correction: the necessity to rest up.

Spideysenses · #**637** 9th October 2022, 19:25

Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today
- Thich Nhat Hanh

Spideysenses · #**638** 10th October 2022, 20:28

When you know the rules like a pro
You can break them like an artist

There is no heavier burden
Than unfulfilled potential

Spideysenses · #**639** 11th October 2022, 09:48

I knew what I wanted to be. When your heart is not invested in something, someone will pick up on it sooner or later. The mask will slip.

Spideysenses · #**640** 12th October 2022, 19:38

Couldnotevensaveface. I admit that in a dystopian novel, a robot could have done the job couldnotevensaveface claimed his "feel aunt" could do. And I corrected him every time he mocked his poor relative. Just like when he referred to a baby or young kids as "hit" (it) He or she. Not IT like the Stephen King Horror. Looks out of the window. My life is well and truly...you did this to trap me...You won't ever find...
A robot could be programmed to do both the jobs couldnotevensaveface had. If the planet survives long enough to see such marvels (or atrocities). Artificial intelligence could never replace humanity in healthcare or write fiction and prose. Who would root for a robot playing sport? There will never be an AI that is aware or sentient like in sci-fi films and humanity will never colonise another planet. We have only this planet.

Spideysenses · #**641** 13th October 2022, 09:26

After, mack sure, I purged social media. Deleted deleted deleted unsubscribed unfriended. Kept only the closest people to me. It was out of the blue. It had been five years since I had anything to do with this club. I knew it was a psychological attack on me. It was psychological bullying online. The first and last time it would happen.
I did wonder what would drive them to do it. Seeing as I had been in rehab and taken an overdose due to couldnotevenshowface. It was hate. Directed at me. A hateful need to destroy.
I never scrolled ever again. I used it to see photos of family and friends with their family. I did not use it. Thankfully it was in its infancy when I was at school. I would have said my parents would not let me use it.
My mum nearly flew off the handle, when she thought her tablet had not charged after work as she was dying to get onto her social media page. She almost shouted at me thinking I had knocked the magnetic charger off. It was over her addiction to social media. My parents have never been in tune with me and my life, my emotions, my needs and my wants. And yet they want to know everything about everyone else. Just gossip. They live for gossip. It is sad. I roll my eyes and think: grow the heck up.
"They will never change." They have. "Suchandsuch has changed." No, they have not. "They did not speak: they are a queer soandso." It is them? They are not avoiding you? Did that never cross your mind?
Seeing my mum slouched on the couch attached for hours scrolling made me immensely sad and a little worried. I don't think she knows about the hate post that made me press delete. Seeing the way it is affecting her mood and temper. Her mental health. An addiction. How she'd shout at the grandkids for interrupting and almost me. None of them leaves comments yet they spend hours a day gripped to it.
And for the record, the ol'man never told me about the climbing wall. It came up months later. Oh, that job would have been yours. I would have refused it as it was a stone's throw from sympathisers' haunts but that is beside the point. Now you tell me.
Talking to her "adopted" daughter (young lass from work) on the phone "oh me daughters been here for alf an hour and I've not spoken to er at all yet."

Spideysenses · #**642** 13th October 2022, 10:19

Not that my parents ever tried at all to connect with me. I was a drain on their finances therefore an inconvenience to their social life i.e. pub drinking finances. They worked for the money they earned so they should reap the rewards. Help me get a good start in life? Help me escape destitution? They would tell any unsuspecting ear that they did not want kids they just get in the way and they wish they never had any. They are know it all's who know much much less than they think they know, but they knew that in working-class circles that it was not hard to flip blame onto a woman or it was not difficult to blacken my name. They would latch onto the negative and amplify it and enforce it. Intelligent women had more challenges than men. So I had more chance of failing. They looked for all the pitfalls that are the reasons why they saw them. It was not great insight or higher life knowledge.
I thought that it was maybe better that way than being brought up in a protective bubble that could burst. But neither extreme is favourable. Being brought up in extreme conditions takes its toll. But a young person needs their elders to help when life overwhelms them. I had no one emotionally available to me and being intelligent and creative enough to problem-solve placed heavy expectations on my shoulders. Without a shadow of a doubt, I was not: all brains and no common sense.

Parents night first year of High School, my English teacher told my parents to start saving as I was by far university material. That was the only one they attended. My parents said to me that I could pack my bags and join the Army at sixteen. I could learn about life there and see if I was as smart as my English teacher claimed I was. I chose to feel my emotions and follow my heart and intuition so that life was never going to be for me. I did not need an institution to give me discipline or direction. I worked on my art projects without any help. I applied for jobs times over to secure them. I had what I needed. I just needed time and space to nurture the talents I had worked on all my life. I was in charge of my destiny and that is why I could never join. I was never lost. I rebelled sure but I was never lost. I was young. I had been let down by the very people who should have been there for me.

I respected my blood father and grandfather for serving. I was not weaker. Not lesser. Not undisciplined. Not lazy. I was just different. I was smarter. I had a sharp keen awareness. I never questioned them outright but I asked questions. Asked myself why they made my life harder to escape, and pulled me back and under instead of pushing me to strive for more. I had to fall back on music and books. I had built this wall. With reason.
A neighbour tried to assault me. He was a few years older. I had been jumped after school. My family did not respect and value women. I knew what men could do, what they could get away with and how some women will defend and deny their wrongdoing to the death. Enabling them. Knowing all this, I could never be a soldier. Knowing why my blood father was discharged. What I had been through. I wanted to break down the walls. Get it quick. Get it now. No. Collision course.

The Army had wrecked my blood father's mental health and physical health. More accurately his over-dependence and yearning for the life it gave him. Him feeling inadequate for being discharged. Then the chainsmoking leading to a stroke. Some people thrive. It exacerbated my father's depression in the long run. But if he felt he had no choice but to leave at fifteen then that was what he had to do.
My Grandfather had to leave the Navy due to the pressure on his mental health and he had a meltdown. The guilt from leaving his former family perhaps. He was brought up in an orphanage from age seven too. So he joined up because he had no family. He would never admit that my family had presented me with limited life options in order to prevent their exposure. An unconscious ill ran in my family and I bore the brunt of it. As long as I lived I would not be silenced. I would need therapy for my upbringing at some point whether I saw myself as a failure or a success. As a victim of fate or an imposter leading a good life, I had built for myself.

My parents as good as handed me a gun and said: you either become strong enough to kill or you turn it on yourself and that is all you will get from us. A gun. Now buy the bullets on your own. Madness. I cannot call my life choices a gamble when I already had a gun pointed at my head. I was not going to become the adult who had to accept the lesser of evils like I had in my childhood. That was the reason I left couldnotsaveface.
*title - Anton Chekhov

Spideysenses · #**643** 13th October 2022, 18:53

When I broke down, I would have moments of doubt. I would think that I should have given up on sport to study more. I should never have let my friends lead me astray. I should have spoken to a doctor about my family before I had a breakdown. I should have reported my school to the SPSO. Why was I made to shoulder ALL the blame?
At the time I felt cursed. The breakdown was a curse. Everyone is pointing the blame at my blood father's side. He broke my mum's patience and now I had a curse around my neck. Maybe there is a real curse on his side. I was young and my brain was exhausted. To think it was a curse was not that irrational. Enough of the superstition. I am not cursed.

Spideysenses · #**644** 14th October 2022, 09:32

They are not a complete a###hole. Yes, but they were to me.

Seagull · #**645** 14th October 2022, 09:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spideysenses

They are not a complete a###hole. Yes but they were to me.

Certainly getting that impression, Spidey. It doesn’t sound great!

Spideysenses · #**646** 15th October 2022, 11:19

Growing up all I had was my brain. Was I going to throw it away and cave in? Never. You do not know me at all.

Spideysenses · #**647** 15th October 2022, 15:08

I was not respected or appreciated at home. I was not respected or appreciated at work. I was trapped. But to move I needed solid references to get a better job and time to save for a deposit on a rental property. Borrow from who or where? There was nothing available to me. Everything I had was to stop Odd from blowing up or losing it.
If I moved I would have to tell the full truth eventually. Of course, it held me back. My life of hell had led me to Four. And now because of Four, my life was still hell. Drinking my tea in the cold outside at daybreak I would feel: "nothing has changed." I need changes. I want to live but I cannot live like this forever. Not with the elephant. I had to take it down. Wildfire was the breakthrough. However, it was only the start. Perfect the book then write fiction. To kill the elephant I had to put the past to right. I think I may have accomplished that. Now the real work begins.

Spideysenses · #**648** 17th October 2022, 19:23

I was backed into a corner. I had to leave pintandafight. We were over and I was sleeping on the couch. I let my family know we were over. I had worked my socks off for years. Took care of him and the house. They could not say I owed him anything.
I could not tell anyone I was on borrowed time at my work again because people were questioning why I was not in a better job. My stay in the hospital would be doing the gossip rounds soon and I would hand in notice. I knew how tough the working world was. It did not matter what type of job it is, jobs are scarce so someone will always make your life difficult or stab you in the back for the meagre pay packet at the end of the month. Why did I fall into working in a female-dominated job? Women are the worst to one another.

I was terrified of pintandafight. He would have carried on longer. He did not want me to leave. And that was scary. What if he followed through with his threats? I left before anyone changed their minds. I fled with myself intact and that was the best I could hope for at that moment in time. After my life and Four, I was still in a survival fight or flight mindset.
My family would put me up for a few months. But thing's would sour. I had to find work somewhere else. I needed a few months to establish in a job. I was used to paying bills and living on essentials. I only bought brand-name trainers. I could cook. I had two jobs while studying before I went and got "a real job" with "real responsibility." I did have enough experience to start afresh. I could work like a trooper and I knew my ps and qs and to dot the i's and cross the t's. I always chatted effortlessly with colleagues. But I knew how dog-eat-dog it had been for me in every single one of my jobs. I had to land lucky. And I had not been lucky in anything. Love or life or career. The only thing I had been forced to feel partially lucky in was getting sympathetic doctors at eighteen. But I did not realise how lucky I had been. I knew all about the grass not being greener on the other side. Leaving did not feel right. I knew I was on the verge of collapse. I had barely had a second to rest up and think properly in the years since. Or my entire life when it boils down to it.

I had not had the rest and recuperation I needed from part one. I had had no time to myself. When doing my college homework was probably the most restful time I had. I had had no authentic rest time. I was worn thin. But that does not stop people from putting pressure on you. Life does not stop and wait for you to recover when you are in my position. Four had placed a target on my back. Odd made sure that while with him it was " you will rest when you are dead."

Spideysenses · #**649** 18th October 2022, 10:00

An arsonist who turns up at the fire with a bucket of water is still an arsonist

Spideysenses · #**650** 19th October 2022, 10:13

Would I have been as aware of coulnotsavefaces abuse and the damage it was doing if I had not grown up with the games and abuse I suffered through? I know that I would not have given him a chance in the first place once I learned about the fighting and his temper. He would take my shoulder out of its socket. The way he spoke. He was not my type of person at all. "Sweatin oot ah the drink fae the weekend ay blocker'

Spideysenses · #**651** 19th October 2022, 18:44

Pot works like a trooper when he gets pulled up. No. He goes in a mood and bucks up for half a shift. My work is consistent. He is the one who needs a rocket up there and should aim for management here. I have other options. I am currently training with the Olympic team. I can go back to college anytime. I do not appreciate being made out to have his rotten attitude and disregard for others. Or his drug habits and a faint sense of responsibility. Being compared to a pothead. I was livid.

Spideysenses · #**652** 19th October 2022, 18:57

Itisaflatandnotahouse was delivering it as blackmail and I knew the minute I opened it. I was leaving so when I saw the papers I knew they were delivering a message. If I were staying they would ask for my medical records out of spite and vindictiveness. They probably thought it was legal. And if it was not? Who cares because they could deny they asked and I would know I was marked for slaughter and my future in this company or another in the area would be crushed by this golden nugget prime piece of information when they were done spreading the muck far and wide.

And since I was leaving they wanted me to know that they knew about one month and that the team would all know soon enough when they were through. It was a ward in a general hospital. A breakdown. Not prison. Ruthless. Tyrannical. Nobody will take my stripes. Fear me. Look what I can do. Keep your stripes.
I was sick to my back teeth of getting blamed for what I never did. Nails. A faulty key safe and it was not my error. It was probably the same person who I did not report for not locking a key safe. Four and this target. Not wiping a few crumbs from a worktop. Crumbs! And a one-woman mission who phoned up about me concurrently for being late when the client was only asking and not complaining and I was not late. The boss would want to trump everyone so would set out earlier than everyone else. And it became apparent that the one-woman mission had asked the boss when my shifts were because when I was early there was complaints. My time keeping was fine. Other client's compmained that they wanted earlier slots to get ready. The time slot was not in the frontline workers hands. And bringing it up at minutes was not the done thing.

It did not add up. Complaints for being five minutes late when I was held up and that was the nature of the job. They would have known I was in the building! Was it one of those close-to-retiring types who hated that I was young? She was itching to complain. When working with frail and vulnerable people unexpected turns happen so sometimes you need more time with one and are late for the next. I knew the one-woman mission was coming the bag with me. I did not need to accept this. Keep your games and your henchmen. Glaring at me when saying she trusted her team.

Keep moving the goalposts. Have all the glory. The glee when they decided to make it an announcement after the minutes. It took me back to gangster gangster making a joke about being in a sauna and laughing when he recognised me. Schadenfreude. Some people have a need to shed blood. It was not going to be mine. Should not have picked me. Could have let me go quietly as I had opted for and saved face.

Some people could not care less about saving face. My ex was destined to be one of those common as mud ¿r##khead foremen after all. Brass neck sympathiser. Some ally.

Spideysenses · #**653** 24th October 2022, 11:24

Books read in silence have sound

Spideysenses · #**654** 26th October 2022, 10:55

After. I felt like everyone around me saw a person who was not worth getting attached to or having any emotional feelings or caring for. The doctor saw how fast I recovered in four weeks. It did not take me long to figure out that I was not the one who had failed. I had been failed. I was a victim of up-bringing and then the draconian conspiracy theories.

Spideysenses · #**655** 26th October 2022, 18:38

There's no need to dig into memories when I have turned them inside out already. I had to. There are almost one thousand posts of shorthand on this blog alone so collating and paring down will be no small feat when the time comes. I had a first draft which I picked apart so it is no longer a book! Striving for perfection in one's art comes with a price. But artistic regret would last longer I predict. Could be a year, could be ten years before I get back to non-fiction. Onward with writing poetry and novels.

Spideysenses · #**656** 27th October 2022, 19:01

But hate and violence are not. When you continually lie to someone you rob them of their dignity. I tried to leave. I wanted to leave. I took an overdose because I wanted and needed out of it. I missed out on good jobs by a whisker. I was used to walking on a tightrope. I dealt with my hurt and pain in a constructive fashion. Leaving no stone unturned. I am not a liar. I am a terrible liar. Being with a person who lies and can only see their lie, day in and day out, is nothing short of torture. You do not live in the same universe as me. What planet are you living on? That was taking a chance. Living in fear takes its toll. When there is nothing in your life that feels like it is yours and you were supposed to have been a high flyer- I did not choose any of this and here I am - it is soul destroying. Feeling hopeless and powerless. I read that breakdowns can cut people down in their prime. I did not feel that way. It was not that way for me. The breakdown did not cut me down. It was the following years after trying to pick up the pieces that would decide my outlook. The time to think was what I needed. Live longer and have a meltdown.

Spideysenses · #**657** 27th October 2022, 20:44

My biggest gripe with social media platforms, and why I do not participate in augmented reality, is that sometimes we have to say goodbye to people and parts of our life.

Spideysenses · #**658** 28th October 2022, 14:55

I would never speak or write about the dome because I would not write about people who were at a very low place in their life and wished to forget it. Or more importantly, have recovered from the trauma they went through at their time. Why would I ever re-traumatise a person? I was never going to write about anyone else. Only my own life.
I would never rub salt into another's wounds. Not because I know what it is like but because it is not me. Fear is a compass. Victim to victor is not impossible. Letting time go is the first crucial step. Keep a routine for the important stuff but do not count the days and be present in the moment. A breakdown cannot be made light of. Being kind and compassionate is more important for a person's dignity than using dark humour in my book. "Banter" may help some people through the day. Act in haste, repent at leisure. Be judicious. First, do no harm.

Spideysenses · #**659** 29th October 2022, 14:10

"And who will back YOU up or stand up for YOU? The like oh YOU? Yur parents dinna visit and live in the same toon. Your mam hasna seen oor place. Yur dad only saw it cause he painted it. Wi paint he got fur free that he nabbed fae the warehoose. Goes to show who isna worth spendin money on in your drama-seeking and responsibility shirkin femly. He doesna pay the taxman on thone homers. Thinks he's superman. Hardly any winder you turnt oot the way you did. I stayed efter fouwer ana. They dinna gie a fleein fig aboot you. Flea in the air. Dogs body.
Yur mam is jealous oh you. Jealous that you hae me and the hoose. Nae oh you and yur s####y number oh a job. Ma feel aunt could dae fit you dae. Open up yur eyes glake. Kane hoo lucky you are! Dinna bump yur gums tee me. I can pit you on paid expenses holiday full board. Aye tee bilbohall retreat. Mind at. Mind who butters yur bread. Mind. (Laughs and digs his fingers into my temples until I fall onto the floor) Scrubber. Aye, bide on the f###in fleer like ye belong."
You are a maniac! Get off of me!

Spideysenses · #**660** 29th October 2022, 14:45

One week and you flip from Jekyll to Hyde and you cannot blame alcohol. Are you going to apologise?

Fur whit?

The outbursts?

Whit outbursts? Fit did I dae? It is ah in yur mind. Yur saft haed ye glakid .....whitever...

Aha, so you had a memory blank? That is not a good sign you know.

Shut yur mush. Or I will (nods) end of...

No that is not the end of it. Do not tell me to shut up. Do you have no memory or no remorse?

So whit if I did dae anyhin. You deserve it... naebiddy will believe you ower me .....cause oh thone place. So f###in whit. A man oh my calibre and then thurs you.....

Sighs and thinks -I have to give in, it is like trying to get blood from a stone-

You are not clever OR funny!