If it is not broken

[Spideysenses]

".....destroyed your mental health."
I do not need to answer. They are summarising to me what I have told them. I am stunned and manage a faint yes. This was the final line of the statement.

Yes, that was what they set out to do and accomplished. They did but they did not. At the time my self-worth had plummetted through the floor. At the time I would add. They pushed me to my wit's end. Almost destroyed my life. Left me for dead. With that line comes the realisation that I could have died because of the domestic abuse. Odd had more than "a temper." He was emotionally disturbed and an abuser.
I had been in Four and that did not give anyone the right to commit a crime against me. I always had the same rights as everyone else. Why was I made to feel like a lesser human being? Unless you have been in my shoes you can never underestimate the disabling power of stigmatisation. It is not in your mind. But you cannot disclose it to anyone. It has to be to trusted and trained people. Or people who have been through what you've been through.

[Spideysenses]

I never thought I would stop off at Four at such a young age. I was still young. The brain develops until a person is twenty-five. I had to rebel. I had no support or connections. I would be taking more risks than many. I was worn out and jaded. I was already feeling the pressure weighing on my shoulders. I was bright and intelligent and I had sense. I thought I was relieving the pressure I put on myself. To a young me rebelling was better than being a passing recipient of fate. If I did an arts and humanities course I was probably not going to be in a "high flying" profession. I was going to be behind a desk in human resources or back where I started in management in retail or hospitality. I was so disenfranchised with the education system that I was not lying when I said I never read a fictional book for years in High School. Apart from for English class.
I learned that creators have to take time away from other artist's narrative voice to find and strengthen their own.

I had chosen to pursue my art and I was admittedly too stubborn to turn back. And that maybe helped me recover at eighteen. I recovered as much as I could by my own graft. I went through the regrets and then I carried on. Like Brexit and people not knowing about the backstop, thinking that it would curb the immigration numbers from Europe (??) I was not aware of where my rebellion would lead. I just knew life had to be better than this. I did not compare myself to others, but it is inevitable that if you were supposed to have been using your brain in a fulfilling occupation, and you are stuck while others are moving ahead with life, there will be tinges, and waves of sadness and grief to contend with. Odd took my head and rubbed my face in failure constantly. Something emotionally was not operating properly in him. A person recovers from depression. I was not sure that he would address this.

I did not know that I would feel dehumanised for a decade and a half going on two decades. I was insightful enough to know that I had to act back then. A stitch in time. I was not the one to blame. I did not expect to have to live in fear of losing a revolving door job (whoever plans to stay in these jobs? But I needed work) and under the control of violence when I had

[Spideysenses]

That is the thing when a person chooses art. People do not realise the work you are putting in behind the scenes and in your own time. The brain is firing on all cylinders. The artistic process can be up and down. Gathering almost obsessively and then slowing down to reflect and record and get it down on paper. I was a one-trick pony at visual art. It had to be writing. You are or you are not.
You appear dark circles, a touch uninterested in others bragging about their home improvements and holidays overseas. They complain about the car MOT cost and everything at the supermarket not going up by five or ten pence as normal but by forty, fifty, sixty pence or even double. Taking five days to get spruced up for a prosecco or gin day. I will pass and have a bottle of beer. This pub is up for sale. Another business going under or opening fewer days a week with skyrocketing energy bills. A deposit on a house is impossible to raise. This generation will be poorer than their parents and grandparents. Unprecedented.

[Spideysenses]

If girls are harder to raise, why is suicide the leading cause of death in young men? Why is this the age of angry working-class men?

[Spideysenses]

It is a good job that I never wanted or expected anyone to apologise. The damage was done once I was in the hospital at eighteen. And no one was going to pause their lives for a second to think of me. In a psych ward for twenty-eight days. I went to rehab. Not my friends who were too young to be weighed down by something like reality or had woe and worries of their own. If it were a physical illness to recover from, they probably still would have been the same. Only spoke if they saw me or a relative of mine. They were eighteen and were supposed to be out enjoying life. Life was only starting for them. Mine was as good as over.
If they bumped into my parents they would ask how I was like they were held under duress or obligation. Or to make it look like they cared. They would lay it on thick and not send me a get well soon text. There are no get well soon cards in the psych ward for some. Why would there be if it is often family or violent partners who put them there in the first place?
I think (if it were possible) I may have felt worse if people were trying to cover up their guilt that way. My family lied to the doctors and told everyone that it was my blood father's fault. But would pretending everything was ok and rosy have been better? I was not granted an ounce of privacy in my hometown. So do I feel for public figures when they have meltdowns? Here I was being punished for what could be a lifetime if I could not take down the elephant and there was no crime or illegal drugs to speak of. This could not be right. The injustice of it all made me determined to get back the life I should have had. To win back a chance at a life I was going to have to fight against my own family and others who probably wish I had fled the country and not just a relationship. This is my home too.

[Spideysenses]

It was because of the drug users who make themselves worse that I was branded with this terrible stigmatisation. Blame that alone and not others' actions? Because some of the young (usually men) ones were into drugs. The doctor knew I was not one of them. Yet so many people wanted me to be or spread rumours that it was only a matter of time before I joined the living dead. I mean who wanted a girlfriend who'd been in Thirteen? Thirteen is a curse for life. It never goes away. Stigma is created by people. Stigma is not an entity in itself. People create a stigma against a person. Yes, I do know that fear is a reason why many are closed off. That is because of a lack of knowledge and competition for work. People who have treatment for mental health are victims of violence as was in my case.
I was training with the Olympic team while working. I could have gone back to education anytime with my brain and work ethic. The bottom of everyone's list seemed to be trauma in life when it should have been the top and it WAS the top reason. But I guess in more informed and educated families this may be the case and reasoning. Not where I am from. Scotland has a problem with drugs. Understatement. Don't we all know it? The figures speak volumes. The comedies and comedians try and make light of it. The highest drug-related deaths in Europe. (And one of the bottom-ranked European healthcare service performances in line with Slovakia may I add)
But why automatically put me in that zone? Because it can be seen as "self-inflicted." So that everyone else can move on. I was just one person. So better sully and tarnish my name as quickly as possible because when I recovered there could be hell to pay.
Drugs are a socio-economic problem. It is a person's background and life that can lead to addiction. It was twisted to lump me into a bracket with the "lost boys." That was what my community did to me. I was anything but. My brain was not damaged by illicit substances because I did not go near them. And some people recover from addiction anyway! Either way, it was wrong.

[Spideysenses]

I could not see what I had to live for. I was made to feel unlovable. I could not see a way. I was tired of fighting for means to an end jobs. I had to chop and change. Never settling. No chance to get to know anyone properly. I had run out of options in my home area. My friends were acquaintances. Hope was something I had very little of. And I was wiped out, my nerves were frayed. I knew I was reaching breaking point. I wrote End on the calendar. Just like the overdose, I was going to be blamed again I despaired. In the months afterwards where I could not face a soul due to wildfire but without it I'd have been dead. The brain goes numb to protect itself. What was the point of moving to feel even more alone than I did then? Would moving remove the hospital stay? For a while. I would need to tell someone I was in a relationship with.

After I was supposed to have been in the big leagues, maybe there was some bruised ego to contend with. I did not have to move to know how the world of work operated and the politics of people that made many workers happy to do their own job and then go home. If moving up the ladder means I have to be more like suchnsuch or be their partner in crime, I am fine where I am thankyou.

I think of what I had to do to get employment when leaving school. Look I am fresh from leaving mould me shape me give me a job. I only got the job because I had friends who worked there, and a relative in management (I did not mention them at the interview) and my gran worked there for years and years. Still, I got one of the back-breaking jobs. I hated it. And the bulls####ers who blagged and would (literally in a few managers' cases) charm the pants off of someone because they could, were not my type of people. I could not look at myself in the mirror if I turned into one of them. A vein pulsating on the temple of my forehead due to stress, and I could not work alongside them when they had to be indulged as an unwritten part of the contract. Full of patter. Banter is how you survive. I know how to live and you do not. Everyone wants my secret.
No. I know your secret that is why I do not want it (so does everyone else after working here for one month) Sometimes when an employer is looking for a recruit they are covertly looking for a new playmate for someone on their team or themselves. Being able to convince and play people - regardless of whether it is right or ethical - in the short term is viewed as an important asset.

My old friend thought she could do the same as my first manager who was pally with sympathiser and found that it only worked for the men and then could not go back and change her approach. Then post rehab I missed out on work by a whisker. I had some will left in me which started to fade. It knocks a person's confidence. I became a shadow of my former self. Everything practically WAS against me. I wasn't imagining it or blowing it out of proportion. I thought I had left worrying about esteem, confidence, anxiety and existential angst behind. Four brought a new wave crashing. And Odd took his chances. Would gladly see me drown to get his way. Four.

I did not move because I would have been completely at the mercy of an employer, to begin with as I had to rely on myself alone and I knew how dog-eat-dog work was. I should have been able to apply for something better in future or do college alongside. But getting going after I had been knocked back when reality had bitten me harder than some will ever know, left a wound.

It is who you know. If all I was doing was working to pay for rent unable to go out often, then the underground would have been more beckoning to a youngster who had been through the mill. In reality, there was more danger than opportunity. Like the vultures at Four, some people can spot an unhappy, restless and hurt albeit healing young lady. Just being young. It does not take supermodel looks to make a girl vulnerable prey. Cycling to work every day for shifts in a care home or a supermarket, renting a room. Living hand to mouth. Working to survive. Convinced that after Odd, I could never put myself through another relationship again. Someone may kindly set me up. Four. I would have ran, ducked and dived it. It is all too easy to fall and cling to a routine. To safety. You are too young to give up! As long as no one kept saying smile it will never happen.

The American dream in little America was smoke and mirrors. So why not try and write a Great American novel instead? I was already doomed. Writing books was an endeavour worth battling for. Trying to beat the rats was a real waste of a life in my eyes.
I think some possibly thought I was full of surprises after Four. But I don't know. I was called talented. At the end of the day, everyone had their own life to sort out and jobs to do and aim for. Gossip was unavoidable at work. You don't have to be a gossip to know the "gen." I know some of my teachers were incandescent when it looked like I had decided to not use my brain. After wildfire, it was about more than myself.

[Spideysenses]

Without publishing I really do not have many options. Do paid drug trials or sell a kidney. Born in this country. Are we becoming a failed state?

[Seagull]

Originally Posted by Spideysenses

Without publishing I really do not have many options. Do paid drug trials or sell a kidney. Born in this country. Are we becoming a failed state?

There is no money in the so called ‘misery memoirs’ genre (Dave Peltzer et al) any more unfortunately. Done to death in the 1990s/early millennium and literary agents generally specify on their website submissions guidelines that they won’t consider such manuscripts.

[Spideysenses]

Originally Posted by Seagull

There is no money in the so-called ‘misery memoirs’ genre (Dave Peltzer et al) any more unfortunately. Done to death in the 1990s/early millennium and literary agents generally specify on their website submissions guidelines that they won’t consider such manuscripts.

Writing will ensure that I do not have to settle for what makes me depressed. It is to challenge stigma. How will things improve if people do not share their stories? Let's not forget about gaining back dignity and respect. I have never been lured into thinking I need a title or into work by a salary. That is probably seen as one of my problems by some!

[Spideysenses]

Originally Posted by Seagull

There is no money in the so-called ‘misery memoirs’ genre (Dave Peltzer et al) any more unfortunately. Done to death in the 1990s/early millennium and literary agents generally specify on their website submissions guidelines that they won’t consider such manuscripts.

You are right in saying that I do not wish to write some misery-laden sob story. I have a sense of humour in real life. Parody and satire are probably more my domain. The Brits do humour best : )
Come to think of it The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland may not remain as it stands presently. The Scottish do humour best by telling it like it is.

[Spideysenses]

The art of Kintsugi involves repairing cracks - often those in shattered porcelain - not with something that disguises the break, but with gold. The concept that a vessel can be even more prized, even more valuable after being broken is a wonderful way to look not merely at objects, but at the challenges of ones own life. How we repair the breaks is what makes us stronger and our past more beautiful.
https://esprit-kintsugi.com/en/quest...intsugi/?amp=1

[Spideysenses]

Pinch an inch. Child-bearing hips. Laughing and making cruel derisions about my blood father who was out of work with a blue disability badge. Brainwashed. Taking part of my lunch money that was on the fireplace from the night before to pay for his morning newspaper, bottles of carbonated juice and other junk. Robbing a child's dinner money. Then laughing when my mum lost it. "Doing homework? Sad b###ard. People with brains hae nae common savvy." (sound familiar). Be thankful you hae a roof over your head that I pay for. I can take it back when I feel like it." He was the worst dad. He could not have cared less if he never had kids. He was hard on the loon, but he was far more abusive to me. I was not his. I was a strain on his finances he made that clear. I was an inconvenience that he "could not be f###ed with." I was goosed because look at the "nick" of my blood father's side. Full of coarse brats. No one ever really got behind me even though I was called talented. Money makes the world go around. Bullet in the leg paid no maintenance so when money was seen as tight I came last. It was always me. I did not feel like I was in the picture at all. There was enough. The stacked pyramid of beer crates told a different story. That's what made it worse. They chose to make my life miserable. Instead of helping me get to where I could have been, almost everyone made it more difficult. Made me doubt myself. Made me feel alone. I had no idea what I was good at anymore at eighteen. Sometimes you have to lose yourself to find yourself. I had found where my creativity had to be poured into.

If I had "dobbed in the neighbour" .....would slug down his pints and say: "I dinna believe the dreeb. She is too ugly for starters..." He was the worst. He was my old dears meal ticket so I came bottom of the pecking order and she would have hit me harder if she was not a tiny dot and so would he have if I would not speak out.
The old dear, she wanted it to just be her, their loon and the thick as a thief. She wanted to forget her marriage to my blood father and that included me. I felt cut off before the culmination. Why would I have stayed with and bowed down to Odd? My life was unbearable. So much so that I overdosed. Why should I have felt indebted to anyone? I left. We were over so he was a ticking time bomb. I left because my health was taking a beating. I had to live in perpetual fear. Fear of his deep-seated emotional troubles. He hit out at everyone else. His unnatural strength that men were wary and scared of. Fear of losing my job every day I left the house because my family and Odd fanned the flames against me. As well as pillar who was still trying to save his own skin. My teachers fumed at him. He stirred the pot with demoted. Bang went my first impression.

[Spideysenses]

No new job yet glake?
Looking hard enough gleeb?

I have a paid job!
I cannot do any better here
I need to move
I am not asking you to
Because you never will.

You brought it ah on yursel.

One month!

[Spideysenses]

In the years following four what hurt the most, was that my pain and my loss were not seen as significant as other people's. My own family took the time and effort to tell everyone not to feel guilty because there must be a defect (a gene) that came from my blood father's side that caused a nervous breakdown. I am not saying that everyone "paid any heed" to their lies/bullsh (selfish idiocy). The doctor and close associates did not listen to them as they did to me. They were running from their own guilt and trying to cover up their own wrongdoings. I did not expect any less of them which is why I pressed on. I was used to having to figure everything out on my own.

On the other side of the coin, this also meant that my wins and happy moments were also going to be minimised. I somehow did not deserve to have some joy in my life anymore. To have any silver linings. To have what I could have had before four. Some people would be aggrieved if I had done well or was happy when they weren't and I had been in four. I was cursed after all. Regardless of everything stacking up against me, I did not have to accept an imitation of life or never be more than a shadow of my former myself. It was one month. I had turned eighteen two months before. Thank you to everyone who killed me off.

[Spideysenses]

I am glad I have been sidetracked with writing real-life recollections. I would have written some dark novels after my experiences in life otherwise. Since being referred to VSS, I feel like I may be able to open up. Lighten up.

[Spideysenses]

The manager overseeing hated my old dear with a passion. Every tom n harry found out about Four. One of the top brass had family whom I had a disagreement with in the past (this alone ensured I would not last). Same old rigmarole. A woman in the department was struggling to get pregnant and she had a face like thunder when Odd spoke to me while working. She was nasty to me. I mean a verbal for not smiling? Overriding a legitimate price change. But that was retail anyway. People go on power trips. I have seen people fired on the spot for being five pounds short in the till on one occasion. People with issues can thrive. Normal-adjusted people often just want to do their work and go on home to relax with family. Looking up articles on The cult of personality uk

[Spideysenses]

I left odd, literally with the clothes on my back. I had to leave. We were over. I was in danger. He was a ticking timebomb. I was sleeping on the couch. There was nothing I could do but leave. I had tried and tried and better tried as the phrase goes. Working in a sweatshop. No air conditioning or windows. I contracted a chest infection. One of my teeth crumbled due to dehydration. My back was in pain from being static and operating the same one machine day in day out. I had no one young to talk to. I did it to get a reference from a person who could be trusted.
I went to college while working. But my confidence had taken a hammering. When asked what I aspired to be I closed up like a clam. I had top grades including in sciences. I was working two jobs. I was looking for something taking the course.
I said that I just wanted a rewarding job with better conditions where I felt appreciated. I could not explain the hell I went through to get work without bringing up the hospital. I could not say why no one in my life was encouraging me to get better work (that I was clearly capable of and desperately wanting) without talking in depth about eighteen and meltdown.
Who would give me a job after Four when I would be up against hundreds of applicants? I needed to be more than squeaky clean with the competition fighting for work in the area I live in. So I did blame myself. I was the victim and I had been penalised, punished and had a millstone around my neck.
It always came down to Four. I had this dirty little secret to hide. That was why my ambition was replaced with this slightly nihilistic attitude and sense of foreboding. I was smart and young so why the hell didn't I want to take on the world? Come back out of your shell again and the world can be your oyster. Did you never have a dream to be a firefighter or a veterinarian? Saving people or saving animals. Girls can be electricians and plumbers today. Go to the art school here. Design gardens if you like the outdoors. Your writing is good. Why not do Journalism or Creative writing?
Take the bull by the horns while you are young. Look at what is out there. Why are you selling yourself short? Why did you give up?
These were not the direct questions but along those lines. I should have been happy that people were asking well-meaning questions. It may never happen. It already had. Maybe I should have said what was weighing on me. Hinted.
But like I have said, disclosing has to be a thought-out decision. I was not sure who I could trust. It was me who had trouble trusting but I was right to be extra cautious. It was not a fault of my own when I had no one in my life I could trust and have been through what I had been through. I did not want pity or sympathy though.

How could I trust when Odd would threaten to phone my parents behind my back to try and have me admitted to the hospital for trying to leave him? I was a grown woman. I stepped up and applied for better work. Took any old stopgap. But I was not giving up writing. Would he have stepped up? No. He wanted more money there and then. Wave a magic wand. Driving a poor man's Subaru when his sibling had the real deal? (How much torture could a man take? It must be my fault? ) The sibling in question had a bad reputation for treating his car better than his own family wife and kids. His family did not care less about saving face. People knew or suspected that Odd treated me like dirt as well. His delusion of believing that he'd be able to pull the wool over everyone's eyes without a flicker of sweat left me more than incredulous. Dumbfounded. Greed would get the better of him.

Then I had Pillar with his duplicitous lies and scheming. My family who I had to make ALL the effort to see and keep in touch with. Friends who were too young to want someone who had been bitten by reality in their lives. I did want to do creative writing. But I was superstitious and did not want to tempt fate by saying. I had to tackle this elephant. It was not the right time to open up straight after a meltdown. I was going nowhere until this elephant was brought down and burned to ashes. I faced up to it. But I knew it could not be done in one fell swoop. People noticed that I was discontented with my life. I was a shadow of my former self. I was not supposed to be where I was. And Odd wanted me to give up more thinking that no one would know or notice. It was all or nothing. But I was not caving in. Abusers like Odd never apologise.

[Spideysenses]

Why had I appeared to have given up? I left to work. I needed my job. To pay for the level I was competing at. Teachers told pillar I was lazy for dropping out so he told nestle that I was lazy. So my next manager would not give me time off and treated me differently than the younger male colleagues my age. Not with the same esteem and respect. I was self-medicating because I had nowhere to go where I could relax for a single moment. It was before Four that I needed to unravel. I had nowhere to practice art so it had to be something else. I only did art to fill a gap where I was finding my writing voice but I could have aimed for art school. This was my home too and if writing could ensure I stayed...

[Mr. Nobody]

I am getting an audit soon
Who knows where it will lead?
All that stress for not very much hopefully
It seems odd to judge someone on one hour of one day,
When week in week out I'm busy, conscientiously trying to do everything I can to make things work.

[Mr. Nobody]

Mr Bobby walks in the room and rustled some processed meat product,
Such is life... *sighs*

[Spideysenses]

Squandering a glimmer of creativity was a shameful waste. When my blood father had math and engineering books on his shelf and nothing else, I asked why he had no real books as in books that tell a story or factual stories. Literature or History. Even true crime or thrillers. He never read? So what on earth did he do?
To him, that was real books. Hard Math. Hard Science. He had a flight simulator on the computer. And scalpels in a pen holder. Black and white war films were recorded and rewatched. No colour. No interest in culture. Blinkered. Not brainwashed.

Real books to me were Charles Dickens and Jack London. Ernest Hemmingway and George Orwell. Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. The Bronte sisters. Daphne Du Maurier. Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft.
Games were supposed to be fun and admired for their imagination and story. I did not want to fly a plane or sail a yacht or ship. I did not need to know how everything worked to have it as part of my life. I care about the bleaching of the coral reefs due to climate change without ever having been deep sea diving. The beaches here are truly awesome. When our actions and inaction to change our ways are leading to the death and extinction of life.

I knew that his mental health was in bad shape by being stuck in the past. By wishing to be in the past. I was a child but I knew. He was completely wound up in his own misery and loss. No room for someone else. Never would he snap out of it.
Writing as therapy where a person has to revisit the past is different. Because if you turn everything inside out again and again you will see the past differently. You can re-weave it into a different tapestry. One that is more colourful where the flowers grow to reach towards the light. Life is like an arrow - you have to pull back to go forward sometimes.

[Mr. Nobody]

Another day,...
Once more into the breach my dear boy,
You can do it,..
*drags his metaphorical self out of bed and into the shower *

[Spideysenses]

I am aware I was never in the picture and now even less so. Everyone got a stake aside from me. Scarf took the camera I wanted. What did I get? I was being forced into becoming an enabler and a carer to a lifelong alcoholic. I needed room and board? Here this will do you. Where is your fether? Go ask him to help. Cruel. Psychologically abusive.
No one person could have done it. Expecting one person to do it was intentionally making me a sacrificial lamb. It does not happen in normal healthy loving families. After Four, my family believed that like them, no one saw me as a person with the same needs and necessities in life as others anymore. I recovered and my life had not. What did I get?
I told them that the furniture and carpet were irredeemable. I could not stand to be in that room for a few minutes with the smell. Death and decay. Stale smoke. Dog. It smelled as bad as Yuri Gellers pub. You can smell that pub a mile down the street when the doors are closed.
I would have ripped it up and the whole place apart. The trolley with the crates of beer taking pride of place. I was embarrassed to see it so I can only imagine what other people say.

What about me?
Everything revolves around you.
I gave up art school for you!
I have to take horrible back breaking jobs here
Instead of moving.
My life is on hold.
What do you want? Money? Then move! You won't.

-Odd: Fit aboot yay?
-kane hoo lucky someone like you is....

Of course, I told him I was not his ####ing slave. And he blew his top. When going to hospital rehab grants you more peace than you have had for the duration of your life, then it goes without saying that you must have had a hell of a home life.

When a person comes from a "disadvantaged" background, studying hard is never enough. Working hard and being friendly will give you a "cushy" job in retail, hospitality etc.
You may become a supervisor at customer service, checkouts or the clothing department if you are lucky (that's how it was when I was there). Learn how to bull#### and you could get a sales job with commission somewhere else. You will never get the night shift. The significantly higher pay, made it seem like "man's work." Why are you after a "man's job"? Take a man's job shame on you. Selfish, stuck up......
It would have stoked jealousy. That is how scarce work is. Night shift at a supermarket is like winning the lottery. I was not going to work in hair and beauty for crying out loud. Being a florist was just a whimsy fantasy. It would have been an "easy way out" (running a small business never is) and I would have been called scared of hard work. Horticulture was not up and running for higher-level students where I live back when I was unsure what to do. I was neither here nor there. Working in the same circles as pillar was never an option. Go offshore and make beds? It was not appealing. And I was one face-piercing away from being a vegan tree hugger. So I sort of fell off the grid. Embraced the artist's identity. Having a means to an end could have been seen as a protest if Four was not Thirteen.

I was forced to take the first job that arose. Taking time off to answer a phone call while working and then to go to an interview was a trial in itself. Time off equalled unreliable. Time off equalled no wages. Meaning I got it in the neck at work and home. I was tied to the machine. I needed to get myself out. Nobody was going to help me. My art. My way. The only way.
I knew that jobs were like gold dust for women. I had to leave. On principle. I did not get one appointment with a career advisor. Never got my choices of study. I did not know what I was good at anymore. I was made to feel like I was all to blame and lazy. In a small community where finding out other people's business was how it was. Nothing you can do about it. Struggle was all I knew. What can you do? Aye, you. The like oh you. Someone like you. I felt like I had a record when I did not. Yes, people will ask for your medical records even though that is illegal, to flex their authority and force you out of the door. Knowing they can deny having asked. Haha, we have dirt on you. Muck spreading. If I was not with a real rotter I would have gone to another company in that field of work. Was it too much to ask for a person who respected me?
I never had a problem with authority or authority figures. I felt let down by the very people who were supposed to guide and help me. It was not just one rogue person going through a hard time in their lives that made my life difficult. Even when I adapted or gave people leeway it was always the same. I should have felt a little weight of expectation on my shoulders but not that people were out for blood at every corner. I was not described as bright. I was known as highly intelligent.
All along I always felt that because I was intelligent I had to have a career where I helped other people. That has not gone away. It never went away. I still can. I have a voice.

[Spideysenses]

....and their brother was anything but. His issues that made him violent were not normal. Bottling it all up and waiting to use it on someone? I am lucky that I am a creative type who can live harmoniously with the Bipolar affliction. I chose not to use it. To stay on top of it. To look after my brain. Art matters.

Arsonist gave me the wrong advice. I made the right decision. The summary was "You won't stay at this job." Precisely. I needed a career. I had chosen art. Look Arsonist was not the only person due to the conspiracy theories to say "you look ok on the outside still at least. (Not like a drug-addled junkie waste of space ward fouwer reject) Let's work with that if it is all you have now. Even if your brain is fine and well everyone finds out...four....whisper....four....whisper. Save you the heartache. I am doing you a favour."
Talk about a power trip. I did not need that job or that type of job. I was never going to fit the mould after culmination seeing as I was even more determined to do my art. I had had a breakdown. I had recovered. Arsonist made a complete fool out of me when I was encouraged to ask for a few pointers for the future and they copied the job specification online word for word. I knew I would never get a job in any of the main headquarters. My old dear had lied through her teeth to them and was caught red-handed. I needed to know what to expect from an interview. What I needed to brush up on at college or a course online.
I was no wannabe. I needed work to survive. I was too bright at school for that career path. I trained at the top level. I could have taken all three sciences. Creativity was a narrower gate to aim for. The path of uncertainty. I just had to be brave. Stop cowering behind the shadow of a Four, a number. It was a number. It was one month.

[Spideysenses]

I had lost everything before I had anything. I thought that it was better to melt down and get help when I did (I was lucky I even got help so I had better make something of my life afterwards). There is never a good time to have a meltdown. It never needed to happen at all. I thought that I had more of a chance. I was young. Too young to have been pushed to a breaking point. I was reluctant to lay the blame on anyone when I had the heaviest millstone now. I was the one who'd been in treatment for a collapse. When you grow up with emotionally hardened people, you learn.
There is nothing like a nervous breakdown to help a person see the truth and see the worst brought out in people. Everyone in my life (it was practically everyone) was banking on everyone else to see me as weak. I had to see rats scrabbling to save their own skin, and it made my heart sink. Coming up to seventeen years. I could not have done more than I had. I did too much hence a meltdown! No regrets anymore. I've paid my toll ten times over.

[Spideysenses]

Yes, we all know that there are families who prioritise "fags, booze and sky tv." It is the children who suffer. The kids who cannot see a way out.
My parents partied and went to the pub putting themselves first. It was their wages! They were the earners so they needed what they needed first. I could have been angry about it. In sorrow not in anger.

My old dears' work was her social life entwined. Then came the kids. I was bottom of the pecking order. They never wanted kids. Or was this my old dears' way of offsetting how my "biological father" wanted a boy and never got his boy? It was probably a reason why she left him. He had no interest in me and treated her abysmally. Abusively.
He shows up out of the blue; this strange man on my doorstep. Did he intentionally uproot the family setting? I helped him when it should have been the other way around. My childhood was thrown into disarray because of him. If I was not intelligent and he went back to a man's job like welding sooner, I may never have seen the hide or hair of him and his spite.
My grandparents expected me to do everything alone. If I did not get into the course at university I wanted then join the armed forces. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. No excuses. Go to a local college get spoon-fed and fight for the scraps. Go. Go. Go. Get into a mountain of debt to get a title or just a normal humdrum office-based job. I knew there were not enough jobs. I knew how ruthless people were. Teachers having nervous breakdowns, worked ragged. Nursing is a predominately female profession so the ones seen as "good" and "nice" were the loud, extroverted, big personality women. Getting vaccinated: are they related to you? The moody and soor-faced one? I stood no chance (as a teen I believed I know better now). We place expectations on women. Having to never complain. Be sunshine every minute of every day.
It was unfair that I was going to have to spend three, four, five years and onwards getting into debt, just to get a job that did not take up to six years of intense training!
I may not have been able to secure a start-up loan for a small business in floristry or garden design. I would have done my three-plus years in academia and then another three or four years in horticulture. So at closer to thirty, no secure home, no job security, no car, and friends all moved to get work, self-centred family. Up to eyeballs in debt. My job has become all the hour's god can send just to tide me over. At least I could prove I was not lazy whatsoever. I did what everyone expected to try and please them and not rock the boat. In the vain hope of getting some peace. It has made no difference. Now I was a failure with two degrees. Look at so and so they did this and ended up...I would be asking breathing space: Where has my life gone? I do not know if I can face being talked about for being an abysmal failure any longer.

If I wanted to make a difference and hang onto my modicum of talent, then killing myself to prevent people from talking about me was ludicrous. I had to let them talk. Keep my eyes on my end goal and ignore the noise. My family would never be proud of me. I was not going to ever please my grandfather or father unless I was in finance or engineering. (so yes I did decide: f*** them I am my own person) I learned early on not to rely on external validation.
The women and my friends at home would never be happy for me. Women compete against each other and it is draining. Would I have got so sloshed at the weekends if I saw a future for myself? My mum had turned my Grandparents against me before I was scrubbed out of the picture for not being on the mantlepiece.
As an intelligent working-class woman if I did not get into nursing or social care or teaching or (very begrudgingly) settled for administration/human resources, I had to find a gap in the market. I would always have chosen the latter
-the gap- because to be listened to I would have needed to pretend to be something I was not. I know the importance of putting on a mask and tactfully thinking before speaking but I would have been pushed to change my personality. Make my speaking voice decibels louder when it was fine the way it was. I was never going to feel good enough. Be in fight mode all the time. Burn out. As "one of the quiet ones" be the first inline for the chop with redundancies. First impressions count.
I learnt that being friendly, diplomatic and good at your job does not make you immune to the b###s@!^^ers who know how to elbow past you and gain attention. Many of them burn out faster for different reasons; not from frustrations of not being able to do the job properly due to lack of funding and resources but personal ones.
I appeared to have taken the long shot. To me, it was the only option I had a chance to be happy in. True contentment comes from within. Story is in the heart concealed.

[Spideysenses]

-join that football team!
It is your fault you are
More or less banned from the cottage cheese
After the scene, you caused at the Scotland game
Do not blame me.
You won't do anything.
You won't come to the gym with me or anything.
God, I try and better try.
Start looking for another job
If you cannot take the face-to-face side of the job.
You do not know how to speak to people.
It is not me and my job. It is you.
I would have a better job yesterday
And that is why you won't move.

Why do you wint me oot the hoose hmm?
So you can slap aroon behind my back?

-See that is you all over ....
I try and help.
You just cannot help yourself.
I am never at home alone anyway.
I am chained to a machine
In one spot most of the time.
For all I know
You are looking for someone else right now.
I am always to blame. It is always me who is wrong.
Everything is me. The universe revolves around you.

[Seagull]

Spidey, I thought you’d finally escaped this place and ‘Four’ had finally been laid to rest! Apparently not.

[Spideysenses]

https://www.buzzfeed.com/jonmichaelp...ado-toast-post