If it is not broken

[Spideysenses]

My family are too selfish and their addictions rule the roost. I have to focus on my own life. I can happily say I have found my next move. I am staying here for that.

Everyone was giving me reasons to die. I would never have what I could have had or be what I was supposed to be anymore. A good person would not look twice at me when finding out about ward death. People in ward death end up being a burden on their partners or families. I was no longer needed. I was not allowed to have wants or the same needs as other people. I was given these conspiracy theories directly, not just insinuations or malicious gossip although there was much of that, even year's down the line when I had recovered. I had to find reasons to live when everyone was doing the opposite and made me feel like I was doomed. Damned no matter what I did.

[Spideysenses]

It was the years of my life I gave up on a doomed relationship. I had worked hard to get work, stay in work with the fear of being pushed out at any moment and obtain better work. I could not do better in my home area with the shadow of ward death hanging over me. I had experience outside of retail and teaching fitness classes so I had the experience to move somewhere else and land work easier than before.
I was a nervous wreck before I left and when I left and people noticed. At work, someone always picked up on it and knew something was amiss at home. I was young and had recovered and had more healing to do if I was given a chance. I was tired of defending the indefensible. Defending a violent bully who left me with little choice. I don't need to defend my choices.

[Spideysenses]

My father was giving me his version of an ultimatum. "Find better work now and if you cannot, you join the Army or one of the armed forces, otherwise I won't speak to you. My son would have joined by now if he did not have a trade. Find an employer and go to the technical college."
Every time I visit he does not speak to me unless he is ordering me to make horlicks or coffee or get him something from the kitchen. You heard me right. He sent me to the kitchen and ignored me. He said that he had a real job unlike some. What a child will say when in a snappy mood. Unlike me. Unlike you. Unlike some.

Is there someone in my family who acts like an adult? If he set out to anger and upset me, it worked, but not in the way he wanted. I dealt with it the way I should have - I cut the tie with my father realising it was madness. Do not speak to me it has to be. He mourned his army days. His comrades shattered his leg leading to a medical discharge. My mum leaving crushed him. He never got his boy. He never shed blood on the battlefield. Some people are never satisfied until they spill blood. To make them feel powerful? Think it will justify the painful life they have been through? It won't.

My "real" father's nephew could and should have put in a good word for me to counteract unscrupulous, so I was able to transfer from the most backbreaking department. I was working to pay for the high level of sport I was competing in to represent my country. Maybe the department nobody wanted and had the heaviest lifting was no place for a young woman who was training so high up and should be back to studying after a year out. That was all he had to say.
It felt that everyone was saying my life was none of their concern. Your parents or family do not give a hoot, what do you expect me to do about it? I had no one to rely on so I needed my job! I had just left school, my life WAS the concern of teachers and employers. I needed my job to support myself and my first impression was torn to shreds by teachers and unscrupulous. A reference from a tutor is the first step for many. I was not given a chance to even get a foothold on anything.

[Spideysenses]

I had no one to rely on. Not my parents. Not my friends. Mentors and teachers made my life difficult when my home life was already hell. Pressure on top of pressure. So trusting was hard. Maybe that is why I have not committed to a serious relationship in a long time. It is not just the shadow of ward death and old flames abuse. I have not given up. Trust. Maybe counselling is an option. Someone who does not know about rehab at the very start therefore will listen to what I have been through.

[Spideysenses]

Maturity is learning to walk away from people and situations that threaten your peace of mind, self-respect, values, morals and self-worth

[Spideysenses]

No one was more disappointed in me than myself. My mum did not want me to escape and to have a better life. They were wrapped up in their own social lives. Their own little world where everyone who did not embrace them with open arms was "queer." To them, the person was strange and not them.
Snubbing my parents granted the person the title of a "queer" something or other. They believed that people who did not live the way they did were missing out on life and their watering hole was the fountain of knowledge and a secret wonder of the world. Their haunt. Their castle. Their altar. Their wasted life. A pub was no place to take children.

My Grandfather and Father did have expectations. It was blinkered ambition. When I broke down it was me who was made to feel like the one who had failed. Like they had a reason to cast me out. Like my family were an order and followers who broke the code had to be dealt with. Silenced. Banished. The secrets of the cult came above the life of one "little girl." Not feeling a part of their cult, did not make me a failure or weak. I had learned to depend on myself, and build my resources and be strong because I had to. I knew I had to get help out with my family and undependable friends so I had to learn how to speak up and ask questions to find what I needed.

My parents do have a problem with people who are gay. They see them as inferior to straight people. They may not have issues with the existence of being gay by wrongly interpreting Christian scripture. They have no religious beliefs. My parents believe that everyone should share their view of the social standing of people who are not straight as below those who are.

They are antagonistic for the sake of confrontation. To get a reaction, a bite, a retaliation, to draw blood. Their bark is worse than their bite but they bark continually and loudly and don't let up. Like harpies. I have learned how to be civil with them. I wish I could ignore them more like they do to me, as the effort they require is draining. But if they won't put the effort in, then I have to. Don't give them what they want they turn and attack you. So I distance myself for a while. As is happening now. I am on a family break. It feels like a long-deserved holiday.

They tried to scapegoat me because I would topple their shrine. After all, I saw them for who they were and their life for what it was. They are not mentally sound of mind. They are not nice people. It was their fault I stayed with old flame as long as I did. They tried to portray me as a bad person. They were the ones who brought this all out into the open first. I had to fight back because it worked for many years and I lost more than jobs and friends. My self-respect, self-worth, dignity and right to privacy. They were the source of all the lies and manipulation. I could not move on until the elephant was addressed. I pulled through because a person wrongly convicted and imprisoned will stand firm in their innocence.

[Spideysenses]

I watch Ted Talks because some are not as self-indulgent as I thought they'd be. Now I have videos pop up on narcissism and all these poor people thinking that their abusive parents were "narcissistic" therefore their parents are only partially responsible for the abuse inflicted on them. I am sceptical about the validity of narcissistic personality disorder. I won't be surprised if it is removed and replaced from the DSM manual in future.

My father was depressed. I would stake my life on the fact that my mother has histrionic traits and is not simply a law unto herself or "a character." My step-dad is just a selfish ###hole. I think he must have had learning difficulties. He resented having to support me as a kid. He would rather have had no kids. He boasts that he has never read a book in his whole life. That is the type of person he is. I have found that many from working-class backgrounds do their work and don't care about anybody or anything else. As long as I have what I need, #### everything else. Nobody or nothing will get in the way. Even at the expense of their children. Someone else will pick up the pieces. Does anyone give a big enough toss to look further into it? I got nothing from my parents so why should I help you? I have worked hard for this, it is mine. I am not responsible for anyone else aside from myself. Even then it is not always my fault. What is it to you? Grass. Rat. Clipe. I put food on the table what else do you want? You drip, dreeb, wimp, pansy weakling.

My mum showed me her passport photos (and then did not invite me to an all-family holiday) and it is pretty shocking to me. She is imitating my stepdad. They both had the same hard nut expression, alcoholic skin. It was disturbing.

I know she enabled and pandered to him but I did not realise how much she attempted to be like him. I put her military background and moving around down to the way she goes to extremes to fit in and change to do so. To put on an almighty act. It is a sign of borderline. Look I know that borderline is supposed to get better with age for some who engage with help. A person can have borderline and never emotionally abuses anyone from what I have read. Not my area of expertise. I have Bipolar. It is a condition.
Bipolar is like diabetes. It is a physical-chemical imbalance in the brain that can be treated and responds well to medication. It is as much physical as mental. Take medication, exercise, eat well, keep the mind engaged and no mood fluctuations.
I am not the type of person who would take my moods out on anyone anyway even when stressed out. That would be a wrong assumption of bipolar and of me. I was contained as a youth then I got the highs as a teen but it was nipped in the bud. I don't get highs and lows. I have experienced the hypomania. I can see why people use it to work long hours but it leads to crashes. I felt a depressive crash at eighteen and then five years later. It does not matter if they could have been prevented. I know my life was to blame. I like calm and equilibrium. I am passionate about my writing and art. I always found creative outlets. So when I see talks of people saying their ADHD is a superpower, I do not scoff at it because there is truth in it.

I only fight back when I have to. I am not argumentative or confrontational. I stick up for myself. Always was the case. Always will be. Ok, so it is trickier than just taking care of yourself. But I had a difficult childhood. My parents split was a bitter never ending feud. I am creative. My family - mum's side - are musical and good at sports. I am the only one who was good at art. My father actually knew how to paint. Yeah, mother. My father where "coarse brats" ran on his side had some creativity buried within. But he was a man. Art was a woman's game. Stories. That's for women to see to.
Maybe the "coarse brats" comment was a bit of snobbery. Saying that to a doctor? That my father had "coarse brats" on his side. What was she trying to achieve aside from deflecting the heat off of herself? With that technical jargon. They dug their own grave without me.
I spoke to the doctors. I had hopes before sessions but reality was different. They knew what type of parents I had. They could see I was beaten down. Distressed and traumatised. They knew I was supposed to be a high flyer. That I could recover and heal. They wanted to know what was holding me back.

Where does a person start when it was not only family but then teachers who told pillar who then told my work? Will they think I am paranoid if I say I was getting grief in all these places? Will they think I am under the delusion that the world is against me? If I open the floodgates a little will it burst like a dam and I will crumble and break? Will anyone believe me now I went through ward death? The place that no one is supposed to ever recover from.
My mother has gotten worse. She is worse than ever. I got help and chose my art. I don't have to prove that I can work sixty-plus hours a week in a physically demanding mind-numbing slog. I have done that and got no respect or reprieve. No feeling of accomplishment. I was a modern-day slave. Some people will never understand the artistic process and that is their loss.

[Spideysenses]

I think it is about time I got a puppy. The abuse from the past, from old flame is fading more and more. I like dogs and I should not let him ruin that for me any longer.
Time alone does not heal all wounds. Yes, ten years before I can safely say I can get a puppy without being reminded of the hell another person turned my life into; kept my life as.

[Spideysenses]

Science fiction is often described, and even defined, as extrapolative. The science fiction writer is supposed to take a trend or phenomenon of the here-and-now, purify it and intensify it for dramatic effect, and extend it into the future."If this goes on, this is what will happen." A prediction is made. Method and results much resemble those of a scientist who.....

[Spideysenses]

The purpose of a thought-experiment, as the term was used by Shroedinger and other physicists, is to not predict the future - indeed Shroedinger's most famous thought-experiment goes to show that the "future", on a quantum level, cannot be predicted - but to describe reality, the present world.
Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive.

[Spideysenses]

I went from having high expectations on my shoulders to having no expectations. It was all too easy to believe that I deserved this reversal of fortune. Like I had been fighting a losing battle all along. Then I shake away that descending fog of doubt. I may have lost the battle but I can win the war.

[Spideysenses]

Predictions are uttered by prophets (free of charge), by clairvoyant (who usually charge a fee, and are therefore more honoured in their day than prophets), and by futurologists (salaried). Prediction is the business of prophets, clairvoyant's, and futurologists. It is not the business of novelists. A novelist's business is lying.

But they don't tell you what you will see and hear. All they can tell you is what they have seen and heard, in their time in this world.

"The truth against the world!" - Yes. Certainly. Fiction writers, at least in their braver moments, do desire the truth: to know it, speak, serve it. But they go about it in a peculiar and devious way which consists in inventing persons, places, and events which never did and never will exist or occur, and telling about these fictions in detail and at length and with a great deal of emotion, and then when they are done writing

[Spideysenses]

I don't think I will ever be in a serious relationship ever again. I won't be the type who is good enough for a fling and nothing more. My professional life comes first. There is no way I will move in with anyone ever again, after old flame. After moving in with them ruined my life and without wildfire would have sent me to the grave. So here I stay like an immovable stone. Here I am saying I don't give up, never say never. It just feels that way. Maybe I will move.

[Spideysenses]

https://zenhabits.net/respond/

[Spideysenses]

I am aware that I did not get jobs because my face did not fit. I am first and foremost British. I was born here. I could push myself out of my comfort zone, and make my voice louder and more assertive. I could not change my face.

[Spideysenses]

Documentaries are not always a great source for realistic portrayals of mental health. Not for sources of hope. In documentaries, the people who consent are often clinically unwell and not people who have recovered and are back out there living and working and/or being parents. People who recover usually wish to be able to move on with life, and do not wish for their mental health condition to be known when they are on top of things and know the dangers of "ripping off the plaster."

[Spideysenses]

Originally Posted by Seagull

There is no money in the so called ‘misery memoirs’ genre (Dave Peltzer et al) them 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.

There is a market and a need for light-hearted memoirs on serious subjects. I have read funny books by ordinary folks on depression, addiction or OCD. We do need more books on mental health struggles and journeys! Not ones filled with doom and gloom you make a good point. There are memoirs with humour and heart and silver linings.

[Spideysenses]

So let's get American for the final time. I hope this is the last time. At eighteen I was messed up because my family were messed up and the cult of personality was ubiquitous and infectious. I knew it and thought that most people knew at some level. I wound up with an old flame who was violent because of my family who scapegoated me and the elephant from ward death. I struggled to leave because of a stay in the hospital because my family made the stigma of being there, worse by tenfold. It was textbook scapegoating. I was in the centre of it when I did not want to be and I did all I could with what was available to me at the time. I can live to fight another day. Maybe one day I will be able to do more than survive.

The education system could have helped me. Not helped me but did their job! Guided and inspired me instead of making me question if I was as smart as people said I was.
I left education not knowing what I was truly good at. Feeling that I was being set up to fail and fall. Education WAS a chance. But here it failed me. I was angry at them to start with. Angry that they had placed all the blame on me. Battling with this enforced silence that my family had placed on me. Like a witch had put a binding spell on me preventing me from talking. Psychological trauma. A sorcerer. An ancient power. Inherited repression.

At school age, I watched the news and dispatches on nursing and teaching and where I come from everyone emphasised personality and charisma, so I thought I would not flourish. Where does someone like me fit in? I was a normal neurotypical introvert who had good emotional intelligence. I had common sense and a brain. I was good at my sport. I did martial arts and running. I was fine at team sports. I could have played netball or basketball. I never had that chance. Growing up in the nineties and journalism awash with celebrity culture, scandal and phone hacking cast many publications in a bad light. Yes, broad sheets and tabloids are very different, catering for different readers. Still, I was working class, so politics, finance and foreign affairs seemed out of reach for someone like me. Know thine place. Anyway I broke down at eighteen and had made up my mind that this elephant had to be dealt with above anything else.

A double period of Administration leads to a headache. Thank god I never took computing further as well as admin. My creative brain does not enjoy this torture even if the work is easy, the labour of typing up itineraries, looking up hotels for a fictional fatcat boss, spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations. It makes me despair internally. I hope I never have to give my time to this. I feel like a robot or a brain-dead puppet.
This feels like a bigger waste of time than Home Economics and that is saying something. If I go to art school, to make a living, I may have to use digital illustration software programs. I hate the idea of it. It feels confining and limiting. I can only do what the programme can do. Is this why photography does not make me feel passionate? I can only capture what my camera is capable of and restricted to. Moments. Moments can lie. One snapshot is never the whole picture. There is skill in photography. Photography is painting pictures with light. My Grandfather was the photographer. I went between art and writing.

One Christmas, when I was young, my Grandparents bought me a typewriter. It ran out of ink and my parents threw it out so I did not ask them to buy replacement ink. They needed money for their habit, and my stepdad and sibling were ruled above me. I was acutely aware I had to depend on myself. When I had had so many bad experiences in education at the hands of mentors and teachers why on earth would I feel like I could continue? The people I was supposed to turn and speak to were the ones making my life difficult and miserable by putting undue pressure on my mental health so who would I speak to? If you have read any of my posts you will guess what my family would have said: Leave school and join the army and get out of our hair, you are a wuss. After what happened to my father? They were more insane than he was.

I was going to feel the same or worse being amongst people who had had a privileged life compared to me in further education. I didn't leave because I was bullied by my peers. I didn't leave because I was not well off. I left because I felt depressed. The depression was a result of what had happened in my life. I left because I was discriminated against and treated so poorly that staying was not an option. I had hopes and ambitions. I was never given a single meeting with a careers advisor. I was placed in some wrong classes and did not get my subject choices. I tried to keep my head down. The damage was done. I was a child and a teenager. I needed support in my life. But I was not broken. I was not made of fine bone china. A mind heals like kintsugi. Neuroplasticity. Maybe some people can see that. Some can't. Which is sad. But some do. It changes a person. Change is part of life. No shortcuts. No quick fixes.

[Spideysenses]

Living in a town where everyone knows your business eventually, was not great for my job prospects. I had p###heads for parents and I stayed in an undesirable rundown street. Sleekit unscrupulous did not have a good reputation. A reference from him was not honest or reliable. It was not worth salt.

That did not give anyone the right to do what they did to a young school leaver. One who was said to be intelligent and talented. What they said and did was wrong. I was a working-class woman and my chances were limited enough as it was without the ones who were supposed to help me, giving me fewer choices and blocking my path.

It ruined my life. My whole twenties. Part of my thirties. I did what was right. I taught at a gym every night to keep off the streets. I was training at a high level. I turned to creative outlets to help with study. Every corner I went around was blocked off by someone. Until there was nowhere else to go aside from a breakdown.

In my hour of need, I was let down again and again. Talking to the doctor stopped me from what could have been a real spiral but I never felt fully back on track; still a shadow of my former self. I recovered but my life had not. I still had no home to relax and feel at peace in. A house is not always a home. My room was not my room at my parents. It was theirs. They paid for it. Then I stayed with the last type of person I needed. It was worse knowing I had a brain and I could support myself and I had worked and fought so hard, to end up stuck. Soul destroying.

After a month and a breakdown, I was not certain who had let me down more. I knew it was not all my fault. To plant a seed, was an all-round horses ### and everyone knew, but he was good at his sport with some talented players under his wing so people excused him. That did not make him good at his job. He used and abused people and hung them out to dry and kept that trend going.

The education system failed me on a colossal scale. I was supposed to be intelligent and talented and I left feeling like I was smart but just a bigish fish in a tiny pond who would find that out sooner or later. A company did not want a woman like me in a leading role. Quietly confident, conscientious, creative and studious. I no longer had these kinds of remarks. In a competitive working world, a person has to be more. More. More. More. Tougher. More ruthless. Beat the competition and that is all that counts?

In reality, I was an over-achiever. I wanted to escape the fate of my mum and gran so badly it hurt. I liked to learn and I still adopt the mindset that I am always learning. Born in a more loving home, I could have gone into teaching as my profession. Then wrote.

[Spideysenses]

I left school and worked at a supermarket not because I was lazy. I had to fund my training. My blood father did not understand at all. I was not a boy who could make millions playing football. He was fifteen when he went out into the big bad world and became a soldier. Beat that. Can't can you?
-You are so intelligent so what exactly are you going to be? He tuts and rolls his eyes. Art school? He snarls like a wolf. Call that a real job? A boy would want to be an architect or engineer. Design what the world needs. You? Just like your mither. Scared of hard work. Snob who does not want to get their hands dirty. No child of mine.-
My "real" dad did not ever try and hide his disapproval and disappointment. He rejected me openly. He never got his boy. It was not to do with ward death. I cut the tie before one month, after I gave him several second chances.

When I had to get physiotherapy and my fitness levels plummeted, I had to quit. It was not long before I was drinking to get to sleep. I felt lost. Rehab could have helped if it was not for the conspiracy theories that followed. I needed an intervention at that moment in my life. I accepted it and worked through it. It was not luck. I am lucky compared to some people and lucky that I live where I live.

I searched high and low for how to get better and back to full strength. I took any job, and read book after book every day. I read to see how a writer wrote and not to see what happened. I read as a writer. Studied the art of storytelling.

My family did not believe in anxiety and depression. I would hear them denigrating someone who was off work with depression and saying it was just a cover for: "sheer bone idleness." Considering my old dear had worked twenty hours a week "tops" in a pub for fifteen years I took her and her gossip buddies with a large pinch of salt.
They would never acknowledge that I had reasons for breaking down when they had scapegoated me my whole life. It is still happening now. My old dear had convinced herself that I had a "faulty gene" that came from my blood father's side. This was what she and my stepdad wanted everyone to believe to let them off the hook. They would never abandon their theory. I am being frozen out as I write. I cannot change them or the past.
On a positive note, going back to rehab was better than living in fear of the place for the rest of my life

[Spideysenses]

The restaurant opening where old flame broke a man's ribs and shattered his cheekbone. That was going to be me next. That is why I had to leave. He pushed me around. He pushed me over, tripped me up, knelt on my chest and neck, put his full weight on me against the wall had me by the throat. He would grab my arms so tight I had bruises. It was only going to escalate. When I took an overdose, everyone's attitude was: what did I expect after ward death? I was lucky to have anyone?

My parents barked and it frightened people or some fools thought it was cool to be tough and "hard" until realising they were playing childish games and had to grow up and leave the playground. Old flames threats would be matched with a vicious onslaught. When he flipped and red mist descended he was not in charge. Sometimes he managed to pick his victims. Other times it was who was close by. He bottled up anger and unleashed brute strength and started the process all over again. Bottling emotions to prepare for a physical attack: assaulting someone.

I recognised the flooding. But he enjoyed using the rage against someone else. He thought it was a superhuman strength that other men wished they had and not a pathology that he needed help with.
When the emotional and psychological threats were not enough destruction for him, he would say: Hit me instead of arguing. He knew I would not and it was not an argument, I usually just asked him an ordinary question. I avoided triggering him, not only because I was terrified, but I would not do that to someone. If I hit a nerve it was inadvertent and I apologised. When he found triggers he used them time over to cause damage intentionally. He was dangerous when he did not get what he wanted so I had to take the hits. Everyone else caved into him. I think I was the only one who ever stood up to him. I saw what others turned a blind eye to.

Bottling up anger never ends well. But feeling angry and acknowledging hurt is normal. A person does not have to act on anger or offload to the nearest person. There is a way to channel emotions constructively. There is a way to harbour and it is not the same as bottling up.

[Spideysenses]

I have a fruity sauvignon blanc chilling and waiting for me until I get home. Once a week I have a glass. Losing weight from gym. I ran an hour and twenty mins on treadmill. Back on track.
https://messyeverafter.com/self-empl...-as-a-creator/

[Spideysenses]

Scapegoating is too evil to forgive.
Family and old flame. Not family. For the family that I do have, I won't say anymore. I have come through so no dredging up family past. I will talk about old flame in future. Or base a novel. There is nothing that can prevent that. Just old flame.

When the elephant is being fed and kept alive, used as a threat by the people closest to a person, what is the answer? In my case, a decade of damage limitation. Change is long and hard. There are elements of luck. Cutting ties is not an act of war. War is cold and thoughtless. Detachment is necessary.

But I don't understand how a person can decide to have no ties and attachments and not be aware. Cutting ties for me was agonising and I considered all my options. As repressed as my grandparents were, they were the ones who encouraged me to read and that is what I should remember them by. I would have been ok with tv and music and a little gaming thrown in.

I don't know how a man can regret not having spilt blood on the battlefield. How did I know? I just listened and picked up on the telltale signs. I have heard many jealous comments from men who were not made for a soldier's life. It was easy to spot. I never felt inferior to my grandfather or father. I was very different. I was not blinkered and I was self-motivated. They needed it and I did not.

Somewhere down the line, I knew it was a failure on their part. I knew there was something very wrong with my mother and that my grandparents were repressed. I also knew that there were people who had privileges I had not, who would be able to spot the trauma scars that I carried around. Artists take that risk. Conflict is part of life.
It was strange to feel like I was in a fast lane, with not enough time to think yet my life was leaving me with nothing to hang onto. I was exhausted and barely scraping by. Am I just being taken advantage of or is it more? Somebody has to do it after all. I had pressure on my shoulders and I felt it and no one listened. The god's truth was that no one listened to me until I had a breakdown. No person as young as I was could have predicted that. So I knew that other people would realise this.
Where I am from it is easy to think: I am not living; I am surviving so what is the point? I had to use my mind and creative outlets or I'd have given up. There were roads I would never take and it was cruel for people to try and throw me on the wrong path. When I wrote, THAT was when I was really listened to. For a writer to feel like their voice was going to be silenced and invalidated, was a soul-crushing fate.

I took the artist's road instead of science and I felt like I had to write a book, to apologise. I regretted rebelling and I wanted to make sense of it. There's no longer parts of my life that are in fog. I am in a good place now so no more throwing stones.

Old flame thought that ward death had already ruined my life so they could do what they wanted and no one would care or notice? That I was not an equal in the eyes of the law? He thought that he had the right to abuse and threaten someone else because he was angry at his upbringing, did not make enough to have a homemaker wife and had a lifeline in court that some working-class men used to their full advantage. The law protects everyone. Just as the same standard of healthcare is universal and available for everyone here. My family were not like the majority of families. Their crusade was evil and it worked, to begin with.

My stepdad never told me about that job offer. Months later he brought it up to cover his selfish lies. Abusers do not change. They do as they have always done. They make life miserable for other people because they can. They find joy in making and seeing others miserable. They try and protect their own interests no matter how badly they ruin someone else's life.

Why would old flame's pathological intent to carry on an evil crusade not flounder once I found my voice again and revealed the truth? He was counting on me not finding it. Counting on people not finding out what he did because I was in rehab so if it came to my word against his, he thought that no one would give me a chance. He thought that about the job situation which was also false. I just needed to move.
Old flames abuse and threats were from his own deep-set potential to be evil. It was not learned behaviour but no one ever stood up to him and everyone bowed down to him. I did not bow and I stood up to him. I still have moments of doubt where I find my inner dialogue asks questions. Will they do that for me? Do I deserve this?

Aye, you. The likes oh you. Who will do at fur you? You hink the doctor would stay behind their hame time cuz you had mare tae say? One nae hoper is same as ither nae hopers. You canna change at. Fit are u? Who'll gie you a job sumbiddy else wints?
-Hometime? It is not school you know.

Some people take out their troubles on the outside world. They may bully someone at work so their family don't see a cruel side of them. Old flame was a combination of the two. He had to take his anger out on someone so he initiated fights when (usually) drunk and tried to use me as target practice. He was not exactly the same as my parents but his violent nature was not in check. That's what it was. It was part of him and he wanted to keep it. He would not help himself. Am I permitted to say that I was wasting my life if I stayed with old flame? Without ward death some would have said yes.

I had parents who took everything out on me (and each other) and then put on a face and an act to their friends and co-workers. The behind closed doors abusers. Of course, it did not work all the time. They had their enemies and people who did not like or trust them. But after being in hospital rehab, they did not hesitate for one single second and set out to try and put all the blame on me. It was more than blame. This was my life. The scapegoating they put in place, was an attempt to leave me cut off and stranded.
Love and abuse do not coexist. My old dear chose to freeze me out. It was an active decision. My stepdad resented having to take on not just my sibling who was his but me as well. I was not his so as soon as I was sixteen I was on borrowed time.
He would gladly have had no kids or responsibilities and just worked and then drank at the weekend and updated his motorbike at his pleasure. My mum probably did trap him. He was young when she fell pregnant and they were not officially together or a couple.There is never one bad parent, there is two. I feel sorry for my stepdad for having to deal with my old dear. Truly I do.

My being in ward death was a triumph for my parents. But I realised that if it showed I was different to them, then it was not necessarily completely bad. I was not different, just different to them. I had a different view of life and the world. A clearer view. With my life I would have needed to talk at some point and have anti-depressants to reverse the damage that my life and the scapegoating had done to me. The worse my life appeared, the happier my old dear became. It was twisted.

[biscuits]

^ absolutely

[Spideysenses]

I don't feel more intensely than others. I don't take things to heart and get upset more easily. Bipolar is more like an undercurrent of overall mood for me at least. A person - who knows how to remain healthy with bipolar - can very easily disguise how they are feeling. I had the highs about my teens. The depression part was always something I could live with. The low mood never seemed to take over and was gone as quickly as it came when I took action. I would not say I ever had rapid cycling.
I did not enjoy either state at the extreme ends so when I decided to get to grips with it, which was more or less straight away after rehab, I chose not to use the hypo-mania and to seek equilibrium. Writing had to be what I fell back on. I could work like a trooper in a job with unfavourable conditions knowing I could write and had found my calling.

When I was depressed due to old flame and everything from my life, I saw a change in way towards me - a shift in attitude. I did not like how it felt from some, that it was not done through genuine contrition that they had treated me as intellectually inferior, or from respect for what I could go on to achieve, but from fear. I did not like that feeling at all. I had lived my whole life under a degree of fear, from my abusive parents to an abusive relationship. I had a right to ask for the dignity and respect healthcare is supposed to deliver.
They had been informed, and their line of thinking was that if I did not sue, my partner or family member (clearly not my parents) might do so on my behalf somewhere down the line.

I knew that I did not have a case against them. There was only one person who had sued and won their case, and in their instance, their husband had taken their own life while an inpatient in the hospital. The only way I was going to court would be if someone tried to sue me for something I wrote. Not about anyone who had been through mental health trials. I would never write about anyone at low point of their lives. People from my life and past. It is a funny old world. Reality can be stranger than fiction. As long as I do not speculate and write the cold hard truth.

I could not sue the health service for the action of individuals who had spoken to my family outside of the doctor's treatment room and had given them the wrong prognosis off their own backs inflaming the conspiracy theories. It was disrespectful to my privacy rights, they forgot their responsibility as a health professional and they were wrong to compare me to other people who were nothing like me. There was no proof but they were not alone in their prejudice and ignorance or weary cynicism. I will never forget and yes I am working on forgiving still.
An old flame and my family had left me in a precarious position (in the lurch) and I needed time to recover. And the only way I could get that was by doing it right and explaining my situation. I only had to confirm what was known already.

[Spideysenses]

# months at gym and five K is a piece of cake. Easy peasy.

[Spideysenses]

Lost without their troupe. Do the bare minimum. Crunch time. Old flame wanted to be "babied." Coddled, indulged, ran after, everything done for them. I am afraid I do not see that as normal and never did. Glass of wine is in order tonight.

It was never about what I wanted. He wanted to break my boundaries down. I did not let that happen. Whether it was right or wrong, I knew that he would get what he wanted eventually. From someone else and not me. Working-class boys often have all the women cleaning up after them. They get what they want by persisting until everyone is tired out. His first serious girlfriend was always going to have been a victim of his violent games. Making me collateral damage was not seen as a heinous crime, not because of ward death, but because some men from working-class backgrounds are encouraged to get what they (think they) want and need and disregard the consequences to others in the process. The violent fights he went after were a mask for what he wanted. To be babied and be looked after.

All the reverse psychology was about what he wanted and I did not fall for it but it was still tiring and draining to have to deal with it. I told him straight: "reverse psychology are you for real? I am done with you trying to make my life into a joke."
I knew what he wanted from his trouble and strife and I would not cave in to his madness. It was not because I was stubborn or self-absorbed. He was wrong and always will have issues. The violence was tied to his demands. I left because of the violence, that was a cover for what he wanted - to be babied. The violence and rage were a symptom of his wants. Caving in was never an option for a healthy mind. I wanted to be healthy and not miserable so I left. I was in danger - physically and mentally - so I left.

My abusive ex had no regard or respect for my mental health and well-being. I needed a career and not a job where I was exploited and sneered at. My stepdad resented having to support me my whole childhood so to have my ex constantly talking about resentment, was mentally gruelling. I did not resent him. I was just unhappy because I needed more. I needed a purposeful career. My stepdad took my dinner money some mornings because all he thought about was himself until I confronted my parents and they realised that I would speak up.

When I told my grandparents I was made out to be the bad one. My stepdad took care of me, I was being ungrateful. Case closed. A scapegoat never wins with family. Speaking the truth makes matters worse with family at the start but it has to be done. There is a conviction that a scapegoat cannot break away if their options are taken away. Giving me no choice was going to backfire but they gambled anyway. Just as my ex played roulette with my life. I was intelligent and stuck in the cycle of abuse. I rue having to have taken drastic actions. But I was not welcome in the family's inner circle but they still wanted to control me and my life. My only option was to break away from as much as I possibly could.

My mum would say to people that kids ruin your life so don't have kids. My father never wanted me, he wanted a boy and my old dear trapped my stepdad who did not want kids and resented having to support a family when he would happily have just worked and drank and bought motorcycles like some of his coworkers and some of his friends.

[Spideysenses]

I feel for young men. To see "influencers" infiltrate their psyches by targeting their insecurities. Young women developing complexes due to social media too.
I know it is hard for working-class women AND men. Men think they have to be tough. Women are not supposed to cry or get emotional and to make jokes instead. It is worse for men. So they don't take care of their mental health. My step-uncle took his own life by hanging. My sibling takes anti-anxiety medication. My parents lives revolve around alcohol. My father would not admit he was depressed due to life and his thinking so he had a seasonal affective depression lamp. He was not working in what he thought society viewed as a "manly man's" job, so he destroyed his health further instead.

My grandfather and father had to join the armed forces because of their disadvantaged backgrounds. They were both intelligent. I honestly thought that my ex was capable of change. But with the water under the bridge, they could not take back what they had said and done to me. The abuse and violence came the minute after I had a breakdown meaning I never had a chance to recover my full strength. He took the opportunity to attack me when I was already down. I had nowhere to recover.

[Spideysenses]

I am proud to live in a country where healthcare is not a privilege but a right for all. At least I was. I fear for the future of the NHS.

[Spideysenses]

My old dear and stepdad went on a crusade to blame my father's side for ward death. But my grandfather had a breakdown either before or just after leaving the armed forces. My old dear messed herself up with drugs before taking a year-long "sabbatical" where as I was forced to go back to work and not allowed to rest. Above all my Gran was probably the worst when it came to mental health. My mum's mum. Apart from allowing herself to become ill on purpose to gain attention and being more spoiled as a child than my old dear, her circadian rhythm appeared to be virtually non-existent (or shot with whiskey.)

She used to say she would have been more suited to night shift work. She was highly intelligent. But she was cruel to me when she wanted to be. She would order me to take the blame for things even if it was not me. Saying that she would do so when she was younger. Even if it was the male neighbour, take the blame. Even if it was your brother, take the blame. Even if you saw it was a man you do not "clipe" on them. I felt sorry for her. For how scared she was and the learned helplessness. To gain attention she would allow herself to get unwell. I never wanted sympathy. One month should have been the only time.

She had the same story on loop that she would regale to me, about how when she was young and when she and her siblings would fight or take something they should not have taken, that she would end the argument over who was responsible by confessing it was her all of the time. It was a lie. It was a lie to cover up the way I was scapegoated and blamed. Be seen and not heard. Get what you are given and be thankful. But they were my family.

I think she was trying to prove (to herself?) she was a good Christian. I also believe that she was afraid of my Grandfather and what men could do. She was god fearing and feared the violence that some men were capable of. Her family were brought up Baptist Christian and it is a very strict branch of Christianity. I think that her upbringing was very protected and sheltered. She was musical and could play the organ and could dance. When my Grandfather came along with his motorbike and pipe, she saw it as an escape. But the armed forces life was not the escape she thought it may provide. She had to stay at home when my mum and uncle were young. She would never have work where she could use her brain. She wanted to be a Chemist.

She was spoiled rotten so letting my mum do as she wished seemed like nothing out of the ordinary. They allowed a fifteen year old to go to all night clubs. Her life was so different to mine. She was the one who was "ruined." My Grandfather was the workaholic, and my Gran drank. They gave to charity and left nothing for me or my sibling at the time. I know that he will get all three properties in time. My old dear manipulated her brother to get the place to rent out and make easy money. My Grandparents who I was close to and I will get nothing. But I had been prepared for that my whole life so I never got overwhelmed with anger, bitterness or jealousy. I won't fall out with my sibling. I won't dredge up the past. That is why I needed to write. I didn't need rescuing. I needed my creative outlet and to act.

My Grans alcohol use was clearly a way of self-medicating. There is probably a link between bipolar and circadian rhythms. But I am a morning lark. I fall into a new routine very easily. Admittedly before treatment, I used to be more of a night owl. I have not inherited my mums affliction or my grandmother's. But none the less the trauma affected me. I spent a chunk of my life recovering from my upbringing.