If it is not broken

[Spideysenses]

https://www.wionews.com/south-asia/o...-report-414357

[Spideysenses]

Promises not to hit me were lacklustre. Promises are for girl guides singing: not I stole the cookies from the cookie jar. False claims. Lies. Those claims switched to violent threats.

[Spideysenses]

I must be too long in the tooth to appreciate the anti-heroes and allegory of Dune. I understand it as a thought experiment like sci-fi often is. A cautionary tale - dangers of messianic leaders (celebrity culture today?). As a set of novels crudely amalgamating religions, riddled with archetypes striving for power rather than relatable human characters maybe not so. I look forward to Avatar more than the second Dune film.

[Spideysenses]

Ward Four had not made my life more difficult to get back on track. It made it feel impossible. -Why did your relationship end?- I cannot say because my family made me feel like I did not deserve the person even though I was a nervous wreck after leaving them and was ultimately referred to Victim Support Scotland.
-Why are you doing ..this .... for work when you were a straight-A student who trained with the British Team? Do you have a social deficit disorder of some kind?- No. I am neurotypical. And neurodiverse people can have work and families for the record. I have Bipolar. So is the answer to my dilemna to just be straight and upfront about Bipolar at the very start? (Bar at interviews) No, if only it were that straightforward.
-But people with Bipolar often have high-powered jobs so why did you give up? Why did you stay with a person who put your life in danger? Why did you not move? You never committed a crime never mind a violent one so why would you be tarred with the brush of say someone who had been in Carstairs? -
You tell me. It is not unfair, it is cruel. It ruins a person's life. Leaves them in a hell they never put themselves in. When a person has a brain it is the worst that can happen. One month in a general hospital. Twenty-eight days. On suicide watch for a week. Tell me why everyone wanted conspiracy theories to be true making me feel like I had nothing to live for?

[Spideysenses]

What is wrong with you?

- It is comebacks. Hae tee be quick off the mark when oot wi the boys. Nae time to think.

I never say anything to you or call you any derogatory names so it is not "comebacks." You clearly do plan to say what you say. It is never once. It is putdowns. It is constant. I will leave you know.

- You hink? I will organise a meeting wi your folks. You, me and yur mam and Dumbo. You are goin nae far or we'll pit you in ward Fouwer. You wint at? You dinna hae a pot to #### in.

No, I won't run away like a bairn. Don't treat me like a child. What is the emphasis on organise for? That is a threat. Why on earth do you feel the need to threaten me? You do remember that they did not listen to a word my parents said?

- Quit bumpin yur gums. Hit me (puffs up his chest) Mon en (puts his forehead close to mine) The best way to solve hings hit me...you canna....see... I am the man....if you canna hit me ....

That is your answer to everything. Resorting to threats! I get it. You have to rule the roost. Me working fifty hours a week and study. The meals I cook. All the housework I do. I am done with this. I will leave. (Thinks: He actually said he is the man; he is a child)

-You winna cause someone like you is lucky to hae ....

But do you want a family with me? Do you just want me until someone better comes along? You do not want kids with me. So why do you want control over my life? You would not actually choose me and we do not have to bring up why. We should just end it. You are perfect and I am not. Right? Am I right? I do not have perfect eyesight and then the hospital even though I was the victim and the doctors pulled out all the stops. I get the message, I get it. Loud and clear. When will you leave the playground?

-I telt ye hit me...shut yur fat mush and hit me....you will never leave....efter fouwer

What the hell? I cannot handle you any longer. My head is literally buzzing some days. This is as close as we get to a conversation. You like this. Hurling insults at me. My ears are ringing. From the stress...

Stressed? Ma feel aunt could dae yur job. Fan yur greasy mopped gaffers business goes under fit'll ye dae? Aye bear at in mind aye. Nae a leg tee stand on wince yuv bin in bilbohaw. Mind hoo lucky ye are I am aroon. Its ah lose/lose fur you an abiddy kanes

Work and evening courses and cooking and housework and you every single day. My job is soul-destroying but you do not care. I am stressed about the future! You won't move. I would have had a better job yesterday if we had moved. You know it. Everything I do has to fit around you and what you want.

Move for you? Why should anyone dae at fur you? You? It is you. You we are talking aboot. Who'd move fur you? You wid hae the neck tee ask someone to go oot thur wiy fur you? Delusional. It is f###in funny if you werena so sad. Worried aboot yur future? You got at fae an advert sum far. Intellectual. Writer. Pfffttt. I git quines at wirk hinking they can hae trades an en at hame ...you....wimmin...if it wisnae fur whit wiz atween thurr legs...I'd dae wihoot....

(He said a tv advert, good god ) You? What do you call me at work? The bit oh stuff. But I am not nice-looking enough for that. The ball and chain? The Girrellfriend? You know I wish you would not speak like a yokel. What is it you want from me? Why are we still together if I am just your practice run?

Weel ah've bin hinking...

Thinking? I will believe that when I see evidence of it. Will you please for once speak normal English!!

nb. How arguments may have played out if Odd did not end them by violent force

[Spideysenses]

I still could have done this after:
Art school > psychology > art therapist

[Spideysenses]

I can remember just keep doing your art, taking an underhand pop at me when I was a teen. Saying that I should have been wearing make-up every day by my age. The old dear said I only wore make-up for special occasions. It is more often than that I said. I had to refrain from saying that I did not have a lot of money left for make-up after I paid for the things I needed because my sibling got everything and I got the minimum at best. By the time I paid for clothes, I had little left. I was not paid for helping out at the gym.

I knew that paddy had not just a bee in her bonnet but a major issue with the pencey prep scenario. And the other side of the fence, the poor counterparts do not talk about money. Avoiding the elephant in the room. We have done it the whole time. It has become normal. I hardly expected them to tell me that my old dear was the one who took all the drugs under the sun before moving up to Scotland. Do you want to know what a spoilt rotten forces brat puts everyone through?

She refused the statins multiple times from the doctor. Her heart has been failing for some time. She has been on blood pressure tablets since her twenties. She is out of breath from a five-minute walk. The only time she rests is to scroll through meta. When I stayed at Xmas it took minutes before her first screaming fit erupted. She had a suspected mini heart attack. And Dumbo's reaction? "You are fine, nothing happened." Get back to work. Canna rely on your pension and my landlord's packet. When I say you do not want to know. Take it from me she is the "coorse"/coarse witch.

Odd thought that our neighbours who had barbecues in winter like an episode of Shameless were bad? I said once: Try having my old dear. She was a spoiled brat too. Home barbecues cost less than going to the pub every second night.
Odd would do what he always did. So. Shrug. So whit. I know everything. I know more than you. "Abiddy kanes yur parents are drouths. The boy who came into my work said he looked efter you and yur ..... a good few weekends fan ye wur wee, cuz they iways were pawning you off at ither folks so they cud perty and get tanked up. And you telt me. Passed you fae pillar to post fan you werena at yur gran parents. Dinna hae tee tell me they were...."

When living with Odd I gave up make-up and heels to lessen his incessant toxic invective. For peace. Thinking I had to compromise and owed them. I gave up martial arts, running and other classes, all hobbies. I gave up dancing with friends when out. I did not pursue art school. I gave up hope of getting my career back on track (Four is not a prison but I still had to move to stand any chance of rekindling my old ambition). I would not give up writing. My only "luxury" was ordinary brand-name trainers. I do not know what pranks his old posse pulled on him at the holiday alongside trying to get him to cheat, but he was beyond mad with them. When Odd made up his mind. Final.

[Spideysenses]

I have started a novel about growing up. In a town in a cold country.
Odd and my family had pushed me into limbo. The in-between stage. Question was, where was that going to be? At an impasse, I had to take action. I knew I was beaten down. I did not know how close I was to breaking point but I knew it was possible. I knew my family idolised working men who went by the seat of their pants to roll the dice men. These were self-made men in their eyes. They always took the man's side. My old dear was head of the house. She thinks she is one of the boys. I was a hard-working woman who should have been in a career by then. I had nothing for a rainy day with Odd. If you walk on eggshells with someone like that you don't. I had nowhere to stay. Unless I agreed to impossible terms. To do both my parents and my grans house, be an enabler and a carer, on top of work to pay rent and the housing works. No time to rebuild my own life. It was no better than being with Odd. They deliberately made it impossible for me to push me back to him. If he beat me to a pulp? He is a boy. Boys have a lifeline to play in court, unlike girls. He will get off then you can stay in a womans aid place and stay out of everyone's hair. Keep that stigma to yourself. That is a reason in itself if he blew up we don't blame him. Imagine lumbering someone else with what they say about BilboHall? A young loon has choices. You don't. Who really gives ( a hoot)? Specially (no E) efter Four. Get it in your thick skull. Accept fit ye ar - a nae hoper. Get the number Four tattooed on your forearm so everyone can see. His family put a spare bed in the spare room thinking I may have gone back.

But we were over and he was a ticking time bomb. I was in danger if I stayed. I needed to recover after what he had put me through and my family were a reason I gravitated to someone like that. They made it impossible for me to stay. They did not think about me for one spare moment. Convert the loft? I would have had to pay for it somehow. Do all their housework. All my grans' housework. Be her carer and enabler. Have to take the first new job that popped up, to pay rent. In my home area after Four? I was a nervous wreck! I would have been dead on my feet. I was a young woman. Give my life up for my alcoholic manipulative vindictive gran so my ol' dear and dumbo could go to the boozer!? No. They deserved to be found out. It was insane. I needed someone to step in. To help me. I was a traitor. A grass. A clipe. A rat. But what else could I do? There was nothing else I could have done. Nothing.

My parents brought this all out into the open and not me. By telling everyone they possibly could that my blood father (his side had "coarse brats") was to blame. I had no choice but to overturn their crusade. They did not hesitate for a moment and went on the attack like animals. I know that other people have faced worse abuse behind closed doors than me. But my own family set out to make the breakdown impossible to put in the past by being the initiators and perpetrators of the vicious rumours that would inflame the stigma I was already facing. Knowing that by doing so I would not get a good job in the area and that friends would abandon me. I was believed by the doctor at eighteen and they dismissed my parents' agenda.

If I made a statement. It had to be done. Not for me. To get through to other people. I had nowhere to go. I did everything I could and more after Four. You know I am naturally not a nervous or anxious type of person. Everyone used to comment on how calm and composed I was as a youngster. A breakdown at eighteen does that to a person. Shakes the foundation of everything you know. No one around me wanted to know what was happening. But art therapy was not the be-all and end-all for me. I needed a life and work after that. I tried for better. To get what I could do. I stayed because I knew: it is better the devil you know. I should start with that. Why did I stay? I was not getting either what I needed or wanted. That is a protagonist. Add in imminent danger and raise the stakes. Doorway of no return.

[Spideysenses]

Some see art as a way out. True, some people are lucky and born into a privilege by way of art. But essentially that belief is false. Getting out of the rat race is never at the forefront of an artist's mind, or even unconsciously at the back of the mind. It is never a reason. Art matters. Art is needed. Taking the path of uncertainty is brave. It is not a way out. For me, post Four, writing was a chance to get fully back into life. If a person wants money so they do not have to grind sixty hours a week, they do not make art, they gamble (I do not condone this but people fall into that trap and it ruins lives) and play the lottery and work more overtime hoping to be the gaffer who can escape to the comfort of the office. I was willing to sacrifice for my writing. But for a greedy twott who was only trying to use me as target practice to see what he could get away with? How far could he flex his need for control in order to break my spirit? Should have picked one's battles wiser.

[Spideysenses]

Even if you do get better, you will never have anyone or be anything. That was the "prognosis on the street." I know that it is not this way for people from other backgrounds. Because I was a high-flying youth, my "fall from grace" was amplified and compounded. This was what people wanted. If it was only rumours and spiteful gossip I could have moved on and rolled my eyes at how fickle and ignorant some people are. But getting a job to keep a roof over my head, when I had to live with the fear that I would be "found out" for having been in hospital for one month, and then forced out of the door, was proving to be a fight for survival. I could barely scrape a living. I could hardly find a job with enough hours. Part-time can lead to full time sure. I managed to get the hours but it was hard. I tried to get into organisations but the competition was stiff and my heart was not in it. Did I deserve better? Could I give up on being a writer? I was a writer. I did not want to be. I just was.
My first impression was more or less gone. Pillar and my school teachers ensured that. If I could prove myself and keep four under wraps. What were the chances? Men do it for other men. Offer them real physical jobs. Men have families to provide for. A man not having a job means less chance of a girlfriend, potentially drugs, and prison. It is inhumane to prevent a man from getting work. A woman? Well, a man will still take care of her if she gets a little job at the food bank or charity shop. If she looks well-kept, nicely dressed and done up every day. Keeps the house spick and span, kids fed and clothed. Keep the peace. Do not rock the boat. Some men still like the woman at home. This is how my family still think. Odd: comes out with a monologue: " When we ah were asked fit we winted to be, quine in my class just wanted to be a mum." I said: "I do not want kids until I have written and published a book and have a job where I am using my brain. Even Dumbo said I need to use the brain god gave me. They never criticised my supermarket job. Not once. As for never left the Army. You and your pal saw him in action. That was him talking and not the whisky. It was not just me he called the cats mother. I mean he said my Gran with dementia put the whisky in the decanter. You do not joke about dementia. Come on if Dumbo realises I need to use my brain?"

Women don't often help out one another. Usually just words of encouragement. But they often do not have the power or means to offer work. An agency finding people work where it is their actual profession and paid role is different. Chances are if you are polite, friendly, well-spoken, bright, willing to put your nose to the grindstone, competent, and have a spoon-fed Bahons/Hnd in I do not know what the hell I want to do but I know what I don't and look your best nine and three-quarters of the time out of ten, you will still be punted towards Hospitality or Retail. And the Hospitality sector is volatile and temporary half of the time. A job hopping wagon you do not get off of. Supervisor gets paid a pound extra an hour. Managers have to deal with a constant turnover of staff who get bored or move on to better things. Owners taking big risks looking for the next enterprising idea.

When a woman has work worth having she will cling to it for dear life and not give away how she got there. There is no room for compassion. She will have to pursue it herself and take flack and scrutiny as that is seen as aggressive. It is not self-centred but self-preservation. Society does not give a woman "a chance to prove herself." A woman gets there by herself a lot of the time. By not making a single mistake. That ship sailed before Four it felt for me. Because of where I came from and how I looked. I always had more to prove.

I did not expect anyone to take a risk for me. I was capable of having work that guaranteed my independence and that had been snatched from me. One month. I felt aggrieved and bereft of a future. And those in my life wanted it that way. I felt like I had a black mark against my name. I passed my pvgs checks because I had done nothing criminal. I had a meltdown. I was being punished over and over when my life had been cruel and abusive enough. There had to be more for me than: it is better than nothing. Why did I have to atone for being the victim in all this?

I told myself it was better happening young. I had time to forgive myself. For having a breakdown. Sorry for having a breakdown? It should have been other people who were apologising to me. I had to accept that would never happen and find a way to make peace with the past.

[Spideysenses]

28 Days and after
Stigma, scapegoating, dead and gone before you are gone

[Spideysenses]

How could I free up the time? Working all the hours I did and then evening classes. I had the ability to better myself but I did not have a home to call my own at the end of the day. I should have been beginning my career at twenty-one, back on the horse. Not overdosing because I was stuck in a cycle of abuse. His mantra was: He would be a hermit without my wage. His first and seemingly only concern was losing my wage packet.

When I went back to get my sports memories from the attic, he followed me around and snapped: yurr done, get out. I had sweat dripping down my face. I had not been in an anxious and scared state like that before, from just being in someone's presence. Genuine overriding fear. The other times he blew were not like this. I could feel him simmering about to boil over. I had to leave.
A spare bed in the spare room? That would fix this mess? Sometimes it is better not to know what is going on in someone else's head. He was a man and he had it in his mind that he could get what he wanted and avoid consequences but was it entirely his fault? No one stepped up to give him a man-to-man talk. Working-class men get away with murder compared to women.
He wanted to work the bare minimum. Drink. Have money for cars and motorbikes. Someone to cover his tracks and be complicit like his family did and not question. Everyone bowed down to him so he would never learn.
I could think for myself. That is why we were destined to flounder from day one. He would have jumped off of a cliff if his posse did. Like a Lemming following the ant trail.
He had survived a car crash. It should have made him wary and more careful. He thought he was invincible behind the wheel. A motorbike? Not ready. Never ready. All the men he knew who had been brought up on assault charges - against men or women - were let off with a slap on the wrist. Be it a fine and/or community service. This lifeline was used in full force by Odd. Not just on me. He followed a renowned hard nut who did nothing to him and cornered him like a psychopath with chloroform, stalking a victim. Bottle up. Bottle top spinning.

If Odds' work had not covered up what he did, and the man had reported the incident to the Police, as the medical staff would have advised him to, then I would have stood more of a chance. If I had reported Odd the times he blew up and reported his threats. I ended up overdosing. But I was used to living in fear my entire upbringing. I did not need to find out if I had a fight or flight response when an old flame went to attack me for not doing their bidding. But I had no fight left in me. The last push to leave was because I was terrified of the anger that he bottled up and always intended to use. If you had seen the wild look that he had in his eyes when he punched a punchbag, lost his temper, and started a fight. Wide eyes, unflinching, a blue flame.

It was over. It was over the first few weeks we moved into that godforsaken house. My family were never there or behind me. My friends had become acquaintances. I had all I needed to have a career and be free and independent. But the shadow of Four was ever-present. I do not blame anyone for not wanting to be in my life anymore after it. Even if it was only one month.

I could have switched companies or gone back to the one where they had kindly left the door open for me. They would have given me the hours. I could have done agency shifts, nights or days. It was a tough job. Starting at 6 am and not finishing until 11 pm some days. They tried to give people either the morning or evening off. But staff retention was hard as it always is in healthcare. I tried to write in between but I was tired. I was working and blogging and reading. What I needed was to write.

I was taking jobs that were not my strong suit and not suited for my personality and brain. So I was swimming upstream. I could not just switch my brain off when it needed more. Worked against the grain, taking what was thrown at me at work and then home. I felt the pressure of external forces. A family and Odd using the stigma to keep me where they wanted. At eighteen I was still a child compared to my parents. Here, sixteen is the age at which a person is seen as an adult in the eyes of the law. I was listened to. I always spoke to the right person when I needed to. Odd would drop the bombshell: I think that you need help. He was just acting out of his own insecurities because I was not the easy target he thought I was. He was using reverse psychology (yeh I know obvious trick, what a...) to try and prevent me from opening up to someone else. Stay as the shadow. I had not created or spread the fear caused by stigma and conspiracy theories. But I had no choice but to rally against it. Did I need to be reminded of the enormity of being in the general hospital for a month in the mental health ward?

[Spideysenses]

Four had locked me out of life. I was not weak. I was one person. A breakdown is due to remaining strong for too long. I was spoken about like I was dead and gone. One month.

[Spideysenses]

Some think that Bipolar cannot be managed or how some would put it "controlled." Of course, others know that people at the top of their game have got there by harnessing or "using" their mental "differences." Perfection of an OCD trait. The Hyperfocus of ADHD. The Hypomania of Bipolar. The Insight of depression.
Considering that my family would say that depression and anxiety diagnosed by a General Practitioner was just another excuse for "sheer bone idleness" then you can imagine what I was up against after a meltdown. Their ignorance rubbed off on other people who knew just as little.
I learned that Bipolar, it can be managed. You can live. You just have to sometimes avoid stressors or triggers until you are back up to full strength. Not all the time. A person with Bipolar should not live in flux - up and down- once on top of things. But I know not everyone has my insight. Some people deny they have it altogether. I may have been born predisposed to having it, but that does not mean I would have developed it. I do not know what the odds were. My background should not have been an overriding factor. Indisputably, it was a leading one.
Mental Health affects every single person in their life at some point. We all experience grief and bereavement. The depressive feeling's. I bet that many women experience imposter syndrome. I had to play the cards I had. I could not survive by folding or running from it.

[Spideysenses]

I unintentionally paint the Bipolar as a separate entity at times. Like a beast of burden. A haunting. I have called it an affliction. Never a demon. It is at odds with the type of person I am. Before the stress of my life set it off, I was a calm composed, quiet and conscientious youth who took pride in their work (yes I am thinking of my early accurate school reports here in some instances * the wall left ) I was not erratic or unpredictable. Once I got to grips with it, I quelled the mood fluctuations. It was not as easy as simply accepting. I had my life to contend with at the same time.
I had a rebellious streak. I was young. I stood up for myself. I have said things I regret. I clashed with people. I have a brain. That was what life required of me. I grew up in a school of hard knocks. I did not really go off the rails. I did not run off with a soldier or follow a heavy metal band at every tour stop. Knowledge can get a person so far. I do not think art school was the right place for me at Eighteen. My rebellious side did not need to be encouraged (by up-and-coming fellow artists) I felt like a one-trick pony anyway. Creative outlets can be put to bed. Sleeping dogs. It was not only a thousand papercuts. There were lacerating blows there that changed me. Made me jaded and despair at how I had to push myself so hard to end up in a hell I should never have wound up in.
A family who scapegoated me. Failed by those in education. With work, it is who you know. My first impression was gone thanks to pillar and my teachers. Mental health treatment to put you back on your feet? Do not laugh. The approach most adopt is: Give up and die quietly. Do it alone so you do not bring someone else down with you.
My trust in humankind was badly shaken.

[Spideysenses]

By reducing animals to automata, Descartes paved the way for their commoditisation.
Perspective magazine article Dec22/Jan23

[Spideysenses]

The Novel Solaris is a masterpiece because it theorizes how it would not be possible to communicate with alien beings/races/forms/civilisations.

[Spideysenses]

Threatening to have someone admitted to the hospital is not a joke. Just triggering old traumatic memories is abuse in itself. I would have needed to quit my job undoing all my hard work and building up. It is the ultimate control measure. A line that no person in sound mind would cross without expressing remorse afterwards. Odd was never apologetic or contrite. He bragged and boasted. Blamed everyone else. "Whit dae you expect fan YOU are why I hae the life oh a dog noo. Abiddy kanes it is YOU and your fault."

It is called growing up! I was lucky at Eighteen and then overdose? I did not know how lucky? I am one of the lucky ones and I have had to fight for my life just to get what should be available for everyone.
I worked through my regrets and took responsibility for what was my fault and what was not. My family were informed that I had had a genuine breakdown due to genuine reasons. In the end, my parents decided this was not in their best interests. The conspiracy theories were. I was not the blood of my old dears meal ticket. I had to be dealt with. Odd capitalised on all of this. Capitalised on another person's misery. On my precarious situation. This situation caused by the stigma of Four, my family, and what led up to a collapse. Here I was thinking I had escaped the vultures. Odd would pick every scrap off of the carcass and shrug: "abiddy else gets their tuppence in life, their blood, the knife in, survival of the fittest. Dae what you have to dae or cop it. Grind em doon or get groond doon yursel. Ats hoo life operates. Nae a ghoster ah'll git finger oh blame pointed at me." Let them go but do not fully forgive or forget.

[Spideysenses]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/robertbur.../the_twa_dogs/

Yur family treat you like a two pitt junkie? Ma cousin wiz a real junkie. Noo he wiz scum oh the earth. Thone boy who got ......... tee sell coke wiz ana. Kane fit I wiz forced tee dae? Cerry the coffin. Hink that I wiz sad in the slightest tee see at junkie waste oh skin go intee the groond? Drove ma gran folks tee an early grave. Nick the sugar fae yur cuppa tae. Type that wid nab steaks fae markie hinking he cud sell em. Pit a cattle bolt tee ah oh their heeds so my taxes dinna hae tee keep em goin an terrorizin good workin folk. I pay fur food on ither folks tables. F###in joke.

You always have to be worse. A little compassion would not go amiss you know. Some people fall in with the wrong crowd. Your world is so black and white for everyone. Nothing you do wrong is ever you or your family's fault.

Worse tshhh. Nae point feelin sorry for summin you brought on yursell. Yur job that ma feel aunt could dae? It is ah yur ane daen. Who wiz in bilbohaw ward fouwer? Ats why yurr family are the wiyy they are an ye will never git a decent job. Yur nae eese tee any man, dug or beast. Yur lucky you hae me. If folk widna talk....

( Lucky that I live with a fascist? Don't antagonise him further he always has to have the last word. He only opens his mouth to eat, drink or to throw out strings of insults)

[Spideysenses]

Survival of the friendliest: understanding our origins and rediscovering our common humanity - Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods

[Spideysenses]

Genre: Memoir. Category: Domestic violence

I could not have brought kids into an atmosphere where they had to witness one parent continually belittling, threatening and blaming the other for their violence in the home and when out. To see one parent who would blame money for all his anger issues. To have one parent who would teach them that anger and hate were the only acceptable emotions to feel and show for men. One parent who would say that men get what they want and women don't. Women don't so that men can have what they want. If this did not happen he could eventually try and turn my own kids against me.
I had been in hospital for a month and now I did not need anything? I did not need what a person needs? What type of message is that to give to children? That some people can be treated like an animal. Food and a roof over your head and that is your lot. I did not deserve to have needs never mind wants. It was delusional and sadistic to treat a person that way. I needed to be on the career ladder. Everything in my life was shot. But I could not erase the hospital stay. And he could not use it as an excuse to explain his violent outbursts when he was just as bad when we met and before! He fought less in pubs when we were together but it did not stop. Those who know him know it. Knew he was going to put whoever he wound up with through hell. That his first serious girlfriend would have their hands full with him. That he would not change. But people have their own lives. I did not need anyone to point that out to me.

Down the line, him trying to make me out to be the bad parent instead of him. History repeating. I may have been left even more stranded than I was when I did leave him at the five-year itch mark. Why would I stay with a person who was unstable enough to destroy lives like that? It was not just my own life to consider in the future. He resented me because I wore glasses for crying out loud's sake. I would have needed to protect a child from their own Dad picking on them if they were not as strong as he wanted or expected? I was respected by my peers. No one made me feel self-conscious about wearing glasses. So of course I knew Odd had issues galore. He looked for fights like a football casual every weekend. How on earth did I get involved with someone like that?

But I had been in Four. He thought I had no voice anymore and it would be my word against his. All he thought he had to say was: "she was in ward Four when she was Eighteen, she's the ane lying, so put that in your pipe and let me hame." Ok so has your partner opened up about their past trauma to you? Do you think you could have triggered them and that caused an argument? Was there an argument? Or was it you who lost your temper? Are you experiencing more stress at work? Did you trigger them on purpose? I do not see a scratch on you and there is nothing broken in the house so that rules out provocation and self-defence. A tiny tear on your shirt? Was that when you held them down before they lost consciousness? You assaulted them because they do not make enough money? You assaulted them because they had been in hospital and you thought no one would believe them? My ..... was in the hospital four times this year. Your ex-partner has said that you threatened to try and put her in the hospital if she tried to leave.

[Spideysenses]

Under Eighteen: I do not want kids. Ever. I would be a better parent than mine and give my kids more love than I received but I think I am a career gal.
Just after Eighteen: I do not want kids until I have a career and have published my first book. Just because my parents were the worst, it does not mean that I would not flourish. I am nothing like them.
Twenty-three: (to odd) you do not want a family with me. Maybe you want a family. Not with me. Do not string me further along, if you cannot say vows or do not want a family. It is not fair to me. Do you think that we cannot afford kids because of what "the boy" at work says? But you won't move for me. I am too young for kids. I cannot work at these types of jobs for much longer. It is soul-destroying for me. I won't let my brain go to waste. I should not be forced to.
Rest of my twenties: I cannot put myself through that again with another person.
Now: My writing career comes before everything else. I genuinely do not think having kids is in my future. I can still be happy. Two more years. The first twelve years are the hardest in a writer's career.

[Spideysenses]

I have never felt at a disadvantage. My life taught me to not take the importance of having a place to call home for granted.

[Spideysenses]

There was no shame or disappointing feelings from not fitting into a workplace clique notorious for bullying. I was not supposed to be there. I was supposed to have spread my wings. Been at art school somewhere fresh.
They offered me a reference for another job at the end of the day. At the time I did not think it was to deter me from reporting them to citizens' advice and beyond. What is it with power trippers? Good jobs are scarce for women. It may be a reason but it does not excuse the behaviour. Women throw other women under the bus for their work all the time. I am a big girl now and so are you. Deal with it. My male colleagues may be soft on the girls but not me. Woe betide I will be seen as a sympathiser to women and called a.....feminist

[Spideysenses]

Who did my parents think they were, convinced that they would be listened to over Psychiatric Doctors? To try and condemn their own blood to an early grave? Lying to everyone. I know that coarse brats on the cats' mother's side are the reason I have no inheritance. Reopening old wounds and scars (cannot stand the sight of you). I was settled until then and I do believe that. My grandparents who I spent time with every single week of my life until my old dear turned them against me and now Dumbo who stole a kids' dinner money in the morning will be in charge of both properties. My old dear wants it that way. "You are born a man or tough ti##y. It is a mans world deal with it." She always tried to act harder than the men around her. Why? I think it was a defence mechanism gone awry. Tough. You are so hard done by. Get what you are given. You will look back and thank us. Before you ask the answer is: no.
One person will in effect own three properties down the line. Will that help with their spiralling drinking habit? A motorbike if they cannot stay sober?

That seems to be the way in this country. Consolidating wealth to the hands of one party while gaslighting with lies and creating scapegoats ( those who staunchly believe that non-indigenous take from the indigenous but what does that misdirected mirth mean in the UK? Am I classed as thus because I have some roots outwith the UK? I have seen and experienced the collective anger projected outward) and building nothing but smoke and mirrors. Attract wealthy people to further exploit the ordinary punters at the "lower" end of the gap. Because people are bricks on a pyramid to be placed lowly or highly? Oh state the obvious say's the philanthropist. The elusive obvious.
It was my Grandparents' place and the place of my old dear initially and not a sausage will be left for me. I have been through hell and always worked or studied. None of it was going to matter to them. I had to do it for myself to survive.
I was always going to have to make it on my own and I am fine with it. I acknowledged the hurt, pain and brief self-destructive feelings my life caused and worked through it. I made my peace with it long ago. If a memoir was my only option left would my own parents have taken me to court? Not growing up by choice is not a cover excuse for having been cruel, abusive, selfish and heartless.

[Spideysenses]

Odd: You are gittin nixx. Nae one teaspoon. I will mack sure you dinna hae a pot tee p##s in. Nae ma fault you will hae tee bide in a hostel. Nae address so nae work. Ho ho ho hostel. Ha ha ha f###in ha. I am a nice person whose good at nuhin. Whoopy doo ding dong. Be amung the junkies who have lost thur tenth flat. Dross. Scum. Pathetic. Lowest oh the low. Ats you. You'll be tarred as a junkie by mare than yur femly. On ye go. Git crackin. Fleas, scabies an needles. Diseases. Git raped by a junkie scumbag. Who'll touch you efter being in air? Ward number Fouwer and noo I will pit you wi yurr kind. The like oh ya.
You dinna kane hoo lucky ye are tee hae me. Yur family dinna gie a fleein #### aboot ye. Lose yur job wihoot a car and hae to stay in a hostel for years wi junkies. Yur femly still winna pitt ye up. Nae c### wints yay.


It IS your fault. I gave up the years I should have been studying towards a career for you. All my money, hard work and time has gone into this god-forsaken house and you will beat me to a pulp rather than give me my dues. Why don't you let me go? I know you do not want any more with me. I have realised you are using me. I was just your target practice. I am going. I already buy some second-hand stuff. I can go back to the other company or work in a home. If you want me to do what your colleague had to do. So be it. You will have to take the stick for making me sleep on the couch when I needed rest to work and make me be the one to declare. I have local connections I will be fine. I am leaving tomorrow ok.

Odd: Thank f###. Thank f### we never booked thone holiday or got a mutt. I will need ah the money I can git. You will niver find anither mug as good as me. Aye on ye go, on ye go and get yursell a junkie f### best chance you hae ....you'll nivir hae someone normal ...

(Let the remorseless reprobate have the last punt, the final word, he won't stop until he does. Thank god I won't have to listen to an overgrown manchild trash talk anymore)

* I realise that addiction does not make a person violent. Often it leads to violent crime and some are bad apples but some addicts are self-destructive and have socio-economic factors stacked against them.

[Spideysenses]

It must be harder for you. Yes. Try walking a mile in my shoes and you'd feel what it has been like for me. I don't say that. Walk a mile in my shoes and you would see why I find it difficult to trust people at times would be the fitting answer. I shrank back into my shell. Where else could I go after?

[Spideysenses]

I feel inclined to put my opinion on the table and say that cancelling a person (especially a young person) from social media spaces, should not be done unless in cases where such a person is involved in organisations that threaten national security or that the comments can be proven to have the ability to incite hate, harm and danger to a person or group of persons.
I know that hate speech towards any group of people is extremely dangerous. Inflammatory rhetoric can be the precursor to violent action. If they intentionally knew they were directly or indirectly causing harm then removal for a long stretch is just.
However, young people are impressionable and this includes young adults into their twenties. It is easy to become desensitised to terms and language used by family or peers or from "influencers." There is the issue of wishing to fit in and assimilate at all costs. This is an old primitive survival instinct. A young person can be under the influence of substances and/or struggling emotionally and not realise the dangers of the hate speech they have learned.
Criminals are given sentences according to the crime committed. A punishment should fit the crime. We are passed the stage of publicly putting people in stocks for humiliation. I think that removing a person's platform is denying them our long-fought-for civil liberties and is not befitting of the "crime."
As an artist, getting carried away with freedom of expression is a common occurrence. A high-profile person may have a crisis of faith and resent or become weary of the responsibilities that come with their immense creative talents. Feel like a fraud or have imposter syndrome. Make a mistake like human beings do for once and see what happens. Give me a chance to see the error of my ways. Do I deserve no mercy?

To get a point across, sometimes it feels like one side should be dogmatically taken like it is a courtroom: you are the prosecution or the defence. The initial concern gets lost amongst the evidence to back it up. I know here we are too good at saying: get a spine, grow a backbone, choose a side, speak with conviction, and do not be a flake. I have no time for wishy-washy liberals. We would never get anything done if we all were.

Should there be school uniforms or should fox hunting be banned? These were hardly the big problematic social issues festering in the UK. My High School critiques were a waste of time. Euthanasia gets you to think. I do not know, every situation is different. Open one door it may lead to others so keep it locked. Death penalty. Against. Our officers only have batons; only specialised units have training for arms. Tasers are too dangerous in the Nanny State where leaders say a family can eat a nutritious meal for thirty whole pence. When? Fifty years ago? The electricity/gas for the cooker is excluded. I am no nutritionist or dietician, but a child cannot grow healthy and strong and escape impoverished lives if they subsist on a handful of staples. If you do not feel horrified and disgusted by an elitist out-of-touch dismissal of the existence of poverty, then you have no humanity.

Are you a better person for pouring salt into someone's wound time and again? To not even try and see their side of the story even if what they said was misguided and unbalanced? Will you not be happy until you have punished, tortured and broken an individual because they do not agree with you? I am right so you are wrong? Who is the thought criminal here? The "perpetrator" or the self-appointed prosecutors? When a person has achieved so much let's make an example of them? Or should they have known better? I think most of us have been told we should know better at any age.

"..... cancel culture is unproductive on the basis that the shame associated with being wrong deters people from moving forward"
."..We think that shaming is a great moral compass, that we can shame people into being better, but that’s not true "

"What it isn’t is call-out culture, which is highlighting a mistake, condemning it if it’s harmful and asking them to do better so that the individual doesn’t make the same error again. Both are linked to public shaming, and both have been used as a way of achieving social justice."

The right to free speech is “the lifeblood of a liberal society”,

[Spideysenses]

I told my old dear on the phone that it was over. Before the thank god monologues, Odd said: "I thought that we were getting on better." No. We were pulling apart.

We were not getting on better. The main reason for the lull was that I was scared of him. He bottled up his anger and always intended to use it on someone. When would he use his full might on me? This was the calm before the storm. He wants more money coming in. I feel guilty for encouraging him to switch to that job where he is already overpaid and does not know how to speak to people. It does stress him out but he will never admit it or listen to me. So I feel the financial pressure (created by Odd as we had no debt at all. The mortgage was the same outgoing as renting would have been) is on me and my fault and I do not know for certain if the dust will settle for me without moving. He is completely conflicted and I cannot watch it anymore. He does not want me to better myself. I am not his choice but he does not want me to leave. All he wants is control and more money. He listens to no one. Never mind a woman. Never mind one who must be weak because they had a collapse as a teenager. He only changed jobs because the pay was better and his old work was "like a morgue" on breaks.

The second main reason was that I was exhausted and my nerves were fraying. I was tired of trying to get him to see sense. I had to remain in a heightened state of fear. I had never felt safe anywhere. Safety and comfort seemed a long way off for me. I had not given up. I realised, so the proverb goes that I was "in it for the long haul." Life and the people in my life had put me here and the only person who could remove this crippling and all-encompassing stigma was myself by speaking and finding the right people to help me out. Odd was fanning the flame instead of helping therefore he was damaging my all-around health. Stress takes its toll on the body and the mind.

Lastly, I had a different job. My confidence was coming back day by day. I was finding myself again. I was reminded that I was still intelligent and physically and mentally sharp and fit. Albeit I was a nervous wreck. I dug down and kept going knowing I could heal. I had to. The pieces of the puzzle were starting to fit together and with more time I would get there. I did not think that I would be given the time I needed until the wildfire. That was all I ever needed. Time and space.

[Spideysenses]

I was made to feel like I had nothing to lose instead of feeling like I had it all to gain. That explains my rebellious stage. I was with someone who made me feel like I was lost and who continued to fan the flames of the hospital stay. Before and after. Before I was somebody. After I was lost and broken.
There was no going back to before. The before was a life of promise with choices. Was this a belief or did people want the conspiracy to be true so they could be let off the hook? I know the answer. I was lying when I said that I do not feel regret anymore. I do not dread remembering as profoundly as before. I do not feel guilty anymore, for having had a breakdown, as some tried to make me feel, as I have been through the motions. I do still feel sad and anguished that it happened. From the way my own family treated me. How I was not listened to as a youngster and was made to shoulder all the blame. It seemed that I was one of the few who realised that because I had a meltdown due to a tough life, I was more likely to be listened to by people outside my past circles. Everyone seemed to think that I had no voice after, and no way to retrieve it.

The young me could not have known (I would break down) so I was the one let down by others and not the other way around. I blamed myself for way too long. But that was not entirely bad because no one else in my life was ever going to admit their guilt when they had the chance to run. I had to do the opposite. I took the right path by concentrating on what only I could do. I was not the only person who knew that I did not end up in a psych ward for a month because of a "faulty gene" that came from my blood father's side. There was no proof of this. Just a deranged unfounded extremist theory that belonged in a Nazi eugenics manifesto. Eighty eight years ago. Almost a hundred years ago.

My blood father was depressed. There were many reasons. He was discharged from the Army - the only real love of his life. He had a stroke. My old dear left him. Cutting the tie was the toughest decision I ever made. I gave him chances. He reverted back every time. His bitterness at life had left him twisted and for the sake of my mental well-being, we parted ways. Would a parent really cut someone off because their daughter's job was not worth bragging about? He came into my work. Did not apologise but it showed that he saw the error of his ways. It changed in no time at all. Every time I saw him he heckled me. Go to the technical college. Find an employer then. Get a real job. He did not talk to me unless he was suggesting how I was going to get a better job. His game was: I won't talk to you until you find a better job. That was the final nail in the coffin. I was not playing his or anyone else's game. It is my life. People need to know they cannot play around with it. Do I need conditions attached to give you my time? No. So I won't accept yours.

Modern medicine agrees that the causes are rooted in the environment and conditions a person grows up in. That can include outside the home too. Look, I know no parent is ever in perfect condition or in a good place their whole lives sometimes, but scapegoating is an evil, deliberate and prolonged crusade.