My Relationship with Books

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books

My mother taught us three daughters to read by the time we were three. I didn’t realise how difficult this was until I tried and failed with my own children who had to wait until the more usual age of six. Whether as a result of this early practice or not I do not know, but I read very fast, going through normal fiction at 150 pages per hour, which will go down to 50 pph for the densest tome and much faster for the light weight or well known. I read about 250 books a year, a number that I think has been fairly constant throughout my life.

Books have saved me: they have always been there, ready to whisk me away to an unknown or even a familiar land. They take me away from reality and teach me, mostly without lecture or hectoring tone.

I remember picking my first adult book off the adult shelves and wondering what it was doing there. To be fair to the six year old it was purple and called “Five Little Pigs”. I picked up Agatha Christie and Alistair Maclean and read them voraciously and repeatedly until I was sick to the sight of them. I’ve never been able to read them since.

My sister went off to university and disposed of her childish things. She gave me two Airey Neaves and two Asimovs, unwittingly doing me a great favour and stimulating life long interests. However my relationship with books is not about a list of authors: it’s what the books do for me.

I have a selection of books that are my comfort blankets. When times are tough, or I’m feeling ill and I just want to cuddle with a book then I have a set of “go to” books; some are a series, a world in which I can immerse myself for a couple of weeks; others are individual stories; several make me cry. When I’m feeling unable to cry about whatever’s going on in my life a book can trigger the release of a good cry. Some are children’s books. A few are ones my mother read as a child. I’ve never stopped reading books for the young and find they can be more imaginative and magical than anything written for adults which in itself is a shame. My favourite librarian and I could happily spend an hour talking about books together if undisturbed by other customers.

About ten years ago I made the amazing discovery that I could not read all the books in the world that I wanted to before I died. Not even if I ceased doing anything else. Before then I had been a haphazard reader, going through my own library on repeat, scouring the shelves of my local library, ordering books from them as I felt like it. I read non fiction as well but noted how much more attention I needed to give. I had previously always finished books that I started on the basis that it might improve, giving up on only about five books in some twenty odd years.

A parallel thought process to this was the need to step out of my comfort zone, that reading and repeating might be comforting but it wasn’t stimulating. The same applied to films in a lesser degree. My parents who have yet to really discover DVDs would play the same videos until they wore out, such was their preference (and still is) for safety and comfort. I started off by banishing formulaic if enjoyable crime novels where the same detective cracks the same sort of cases each time in the same town and the same style with the slight personal development along the way. For me these stories have the comfort of the familiar without taking me anywhere the first few stories in a series haven’t been.

I started cataloguing my books online and vowed never to repeat a read until I have read all my fiction. I still haven’t managed to read all of them although I have not repeated. My fiction is now divided into the majority which I have read and the minority yet to read. Inevitably the easier lighter books have been done and the harder ones remain. I have managed to throw away a few hundred books in the process, teaching myself that if it hasn’t grabbed me in the first fifty pages then I can bin it without finishing it. I intersperse my own books with library books and books that I mostly buy from AbeBooks. I tend to buy second-hand and have always enjoyed a good rummage round a second-hand bookshop. That pleasure has been greatly diminished by the arrival of the internet and the ability to search bookshops the world over for the wanted book, subject only to an ability to pay the price. Currently most of the non-fiction I read is about counselling but random others slip through as and when I need a break. I have a book list with some hundreds of titles, gleaned by reviews, friends, cursory mentions in online articles and of courses books recommended by the author. It was the growth of this list that really made me realise how impossible my desire was to satiate.

I love the physical book. The old hardback that lasts for ever with the fading paper; the cheap and nasty paperback; the war prints with the yellowing paper; the really expensive ones I barely dare read; the different covers; the smell of musty books; the variety in size, colour, cover, design and hue; the memories a particular cover will have, even if the book itself is lost. Books brighten up a room and save the need for decorating.

None of this would be complete without mentioning my parents’ relationship with books. When they moved back to London my father managed to get rid of 1,000 books although he struggled over each and every one. It sounds like a lot but still he remains with some 6,000 odd. My parents bought a house that was double the size of their needs but sufficient to neatly house all the books which provide a comfort blanket to my father. He reserves just one bookcase for fiction which is always kept upstairs out of sight. The vast majority of his are history, economics and current affairs. Both my parents have become increasingly obsessed with thrillers and crime novels, which they call “crimmies”, reading an author thoroughly, completely and repeatedly until they get bored and replace him with another. Only the selected few works of fiction are allowed on the downstairs shelves like Bronte and Kipling. Some of my reading joys overlap with my parents and led from theirs, others are a natural opposite.

Books are so vitally important: they educate through stories as well as non-fiction; they comfort and provide succour. They stimulate through presenting topics in multi-faceted ways, whether it’s thinking about sociology through science-fiction or reading the graphic novel version of “The Origin of the Species”. There is no need for text books to be the dull tomes they usually are. Books have saved me and they will continue to save me. They will also continue to delight, provoke, prod, entertain and make me laugh. No wonder they’re so important.

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Interview is Done

Tags

anxiety, interview, self-esteem, talking crap

Well we did it. Interview done and ticked off. I hate interviews. I really hate them. I don’t like selling myself and I’m not good at it. Then as I’m walking out I’m already wondering why I said this or that, why I didn’t mention whatever and my amazing ability to tongue tie myself.

I wasn’t even that worried about it. I was really calm the day before, by my standards at least and it was good to meet up with my two companions before hand. We had a lovely woman interviewing us, who was very classical person-centred and the group interview went well and she told us we were all fine.

We heard that there were only a few others in the second batch of interviews, looked round the room and decided that unless any of us messed it all up we were in. The integrative pathway is clearly a lot more fashionable.

We were sent off to do our own piece of work on a rather terrible quotation which we did and then went and lounged in the park until it was time for interviews. I feel that I talked complete crap. I mentioned effect of my childhood a couple of times, words said in therapy a few and referred to the need for balance a lot. A few times I found it really hard to say what was in my head. I walked out feeling like a total idiot. My two friends both told me I was fine. They had both asked about competition for places at the end of theirs and had been told not to worry about getting in.

Having said all that, we then went off and had nice drinks and walks and dinner, had a very amicable late afternoon and evening before making our way home. We talked about all sorts and bonded. It looks like we are probably spending the next two years together but I shan’t relax until I get the letter.

Housing Benefits Saga

Tags

anxiety, benefits, housing benefit, parents

My local councillor offered me an appointment next week to talk to a benefits person about my long going dispute and it scared me. Writing letters is one thing; a face to face is another. I need to do it as I need to get it sorted but this feels like putting my life in someone else’s hands and I don’t like doing it. My anxieties rise to the fore: will they listen, will they answer, will they belittle, will they engage. I feel like I’m going with my begging bowl rather than as a capable adult who just wants some explanations.

It’s not just the six years they investigated either. It’s ongoing as children get older and their status changes. I have no means of checking the figures if they don’t provide them and I feel helpless.

Some aspects of this bizarrely remind me of my feelings towards my parents. You think it is one thing, that happened but is lingering and yet it keeps come back to annoy and each time they don’t respond I feel invisible, ignored and aged about ten.

However, I recognise the need to get it out of my head so, unlike with my parents, I will make the appointment and I will try and resolve it so it stops taking up headspace.

 

 

 

Beginnings and Endings

Tags

alarm, beginnings, endings

Today was full of emotions really. Both 3son and 4son had their final exams after which the alarm has been turned off for ten weeks or so. As 4son now enters his final two years it feels like the beginning of the end after so many years of schooling.

At the same time, my eldest celebrates a birthday and I reflect that I have been a parent for well over twenty years. It’s big chunk of life and although I will never stop, at least I am done with the school run and I do not expect 4son to have any real problems during his last two years although of course he could surprise me.

3son has during the week gone for another interview for an apprenticeship. No more are in the pipeline as yet and I’m just pleased that he managed to attend his exams for the one A level he had left. He did say they were both really easy which is of course worrying. He has spent more time preparing for his debut battle rap this weekend.

4son has taken his first solo trip tonight, flying away like he’s used to it. I am very aware that I was overly mothering him, offering to hang around the airport until he was through security just in case. Just in case of what I have no idea but he was fine. I am not used to his absence and I was trying to not make him apprehensive about his journey when he clearly wasn’t.

So yes, endings need to happen in order to make space for new beginnings and I am really aware that I am making a new beginning as being more than just a parent, as are my sons in their own way.

Ten Minutes

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back pain, helicopter, social worker, ten minutes

I’m going to give it a try. Ten minutes every night, using a timer.

Today I’m in pain. I had a fantastic weekend, four days almost with children and I got so much done. I hoovered, gardened, washed up, washed clothes and towels, swept the floor and more. Not exciting. I also did work, and some computer tidying up which was all necessary. I went out and had fun every day with friends. I also found time to have a bath without interruption.

My downfall was collecting my latest acquisition, a twisted willow or corkscrew willow, from the sorting office as I didn’t think it could last a few more days in the heat without watering. I felt my back complain but didn’t really pay it attention as the tree was small and light but clearly I didn’t carry it properly. Doing hoovering and other such activities added to the pressure and I woke up in pain on Monday.

I did immediately revert to doing my physio and lying on the floor but I haven’t had to sleep on it which only happens when it’s really bad. I’m annoyed with myself as I wanted to do more digging in the garden and even reading is difficult as it’s hard to stay comfortable for more than a short while.

I also today met our new social worker. Oh yes, the last one lasted eight months. I got a phone call out of the blue last week asking whether I knew the previous social worker had left. Nope, not a clue but it explains why she wasn’t returning my emails. This one  had draft copies of documents that we drafted back in November with a couple more questions to complete before getting them finally approved. We will see what happens.  His job title is “Child in need worker” and I don’t know whether he’s a qualified social worker or not. I must ask him or find out.

I am planning on concentrating on 2son next, getting up the nose of anyone I can to get this through.

The helicopter is circulating overhead and has been for ten minutes. This normally means that the police are chasing someone. It’s incredibly loud and distracting.

Th

Endings

Tags

endings

We didn’t have triads this time and I felt miffed. I wanted it. I was ready to carry on from the week before. But we didn’t and we’re finished. If we’d realised that our previous sessions was going to be the last one of the course we might have handled it differently.

We spent half an hour talking about endings and then mucked about checking our portfolio which felt like a bit of a waste of time although we did put it to good using by arranging our first post course meet up in July.

I seemed to feel better about endings than most people, or at least the ones who verbalised their feelings. I sat there considering the amount of endings I’d had over my life and how many of them were through choice. Every house move was an ending as well as a beginning, let alone schools and later jobs. I have learned to say goodbye to people and accept that we will drift apart and may never renew contact. Social media, especially Facebook is bad for this as you can stay in contact without ever having to make an effort so you don’t quite lose people you would otherwise and you keep people ticking over without making the effort to actually see them.

I feel quite accepting of the fact the we move on and let go. I try and be better at keeping up contact with people but I tend to do it with the very few rather than the larger pool of not-very-close-but-quite-nice-friends who I should try and keep up with as some of them may become closer friends. However for me it is enough to keep up with the quality few.

Endings are a two-sided coin. There is a sense of achievement at having completed, with a sense of relief at getting that time back. There is also excitement about moving on to the next stage and the next stage couldn’t happen without the initial ending. There is much low level trepidation about starting all over again with a mostly new bunch. There is absolute recognition that the ending is necessary to enable the new beginning and that it’s all part of progress through life.

So yes, it will be sad to see this year’s course finish but most of us will continue, either with person-centred or integrative diploma and that will give us motivation to catch up.

We said good-bye to one person who will miss the very last session and I really enjoyed having a few drinks afterwards and getting to know her much better. She is someone I struggled with a bit on occasion and was really glad to get closer.

In PD we are having a show and tell for the final two sessions when we talk about something that represents us. I have in mind to quote my son’s poem that references myself. I did consider a whole one but decided I’m not up to it and it might be too long. Other people’s were really interesting. One person talked about a piece of jewellery that belonged to her grandmother and how important it was to have that to represent their relationship and I couldn’t but think of my grandmother with my sister ending up with the house and contents. Also I did have her necklace but suspect that  ex2 nicked it. Another talked about her journal that she has kept for over a dozen years where she writes for ten minutes each and every night and includes tickets and tokens to act as reminders. She flicked through hers and read out extremely short extracts. I didn’t mention this blog although thought about the comparison. I wonder whether writing on a daily basis is something I could do if I were to keep it short and whether I would want to.

So there we were, a part ending, to be finished off this week. A time when also 3son takes his only exams and 4son finished all his GCSE exams which are big endings and bigger beginnings.

 

Self-esteem and Earrings

Tags

#, appearance, earrings, jewellery, progress, self-image, size acceptance, weight

It turns out that taking pictures of earrings while wearing them is not easy.

I did something I never thought I would in my last skills practice session: I talked about my self-esteem. This is probably me at my most vulnerable, so talking about it was actually quite a surprise to me, let alone anyone else. My listener and observer were the two who are also going for the person-centred course next year and certainly people I feel safe with, even though I’ve barely worked with one of them. I didn’t know this was what I was going to talk about until my mouth opened and out came the words.

Last week, in the same triad, we had talked about earrings. I had bought a pair at the art gallery just visited and was wondering what to talk about so C challenged me to discuss them. So I did and it was more interesting than I thought. C followed me and also talked about earrings with H leaving it until the following week to talk about her thoughts on earrings and appearance.

What is it about earrings? I had mine pierced when I was 12 or 14. I actually have no idea what age, other than my mother was with me and supportive. It took her a few ears before she then had hers pierced as she got envious of the wider choice of jewellery for me. I just liked the look of them on other people and quickly veered towards the long dangly type. For many years I wouldn’t be seen leaving the house without earrings: it was just as much a part of getting dressed as putting on clothes was. But that stopped, and I think it stopped due to the very practical reasons of having babies. If you’ve ever had an earring yanked out of your ear by a very small hand you’ll know the sense of it. I could have moved to studs but they weren’t me and as a mother of small people, I just stopped doing things I didn’t have to and this included self care.

I simply never went back to them. I would sometimes put them on if I was going out somewhere “nice”, but not if I was just going out, and not as part of getting dressed. And yet I was aware, as the year progressed, that I was putting more effort into trying to remember to wear earrings on my college day. There is certainly something about it transferring from being a day at college to a day spent with friends that merited a bit more care. I have increasingly been wearing earrings whenever I go out and since we had this discussion I’ve been wearing them most days, putting them on first thing regardless of whether I’m going anywhere that day or not. So in some almost sad way, they reflect some aspect of my self-esteem.

Going back to my childhood, my mother found it difficult to treat me to things as dad would question her spending. Whether this was the reason or not I don’t know but we bought a lot of earrings. I had found a gallery (no longer as good as it was) full of jewellery stalls and there were always a few pairs worth buying that were cheap and fun. As such they probably passed under my father’s financial radar and he did enjoy seeing us both in them. So they were also an expression of freedom.

So although it seems trivial, earrings are both a reflection of my self-esteem and a reminder of my pre/teenage relationship with my mother.

Having discussed all this in triad the previous week, this week I talked about my self-image. I was, for me, brutally honest. I talked about my history with weight, how I was not fat until I had pregnancies, that I lost weight after each one just as I had put it on until the last ten years when I’d started putting on weight after quitting smoking and it had never come off.

I said that I could wear clothes that I felt good in, a hair style I like that I feel reflects my personality and wear jewellery that makes me feel good. And yet, even with all that, I look in the mirror and I say fat. I struggle to see the confident person who dares to be different in appearance. I say fat; I see fat. I am well aware that this is not the reaction I want. Looking through past blog posts on fat I have actually come a long way in the last few years. I no longer hate the way I look although I do wish I were different. I struggle to see anything but the size but I’m also increasingly aware that I try to set that to one side and think about clothes and appearance without taking size into consideration. I occasionally see myself in a photo and think it isn’t all that bad really. That is an improvement on total hate.

That paragraph feels like a jumble of incoherent thought.

Going out with my friend last week we went to a tourist town fully of independent jewellers, from the cheap to the highly expensive. I bought the most expensive piece of jewellery I have ever bought myself . If this isn’t a symbol of improved self-esteem then I don’t know what is. I admit I thought it was slightly cheaper that it turned out to be but by that point I was well into “fuck it mode” and my friend was highly enjoying watching me spend money. And I didn’t just buy one piece either. Not going there again in a hurry.

I have received comments about nice dresses and where can I buy them, comments about nice hair (having gone from red highlights to all over red last year) and I do feel better about myself. And yet there’s something that needs untangling. My cut in alcohol intake has got a small voice inside my head telling me I might lose weight because of it and I’m trying not to be pleased about it. I want to lose weight but I also want to not care about losing weight.

And yet, and yet I talked about this. I feel that this is me at my most vulnerable, mainly because I still assume that people look at me and see fat as I do. So I’m also amazed that I did, in a positive way.

#HomeToVote #voteYes #RepealThe8th

Tags

#hometovote, #repealthe8th, abortion, present moment

Just some of the gang coming #HomeToVote from Gatwick right now! #Together4yes pic.twitter.com/HMnnHfKqke

— London-Irish ARC (@LdnIrishARC) May 24, 2018

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I’m not Irish. It’s not my decision. It’s not my uterus at risk.

And yet I keep looking at twitter, looking at all these photos of people, mostly women but not all, flying off from some airport somewhere in the world to come home to vote. Some have a personal tale to tell, or that of a friend; many don’t. They’re just coming home because it’s the right thing to do and how often do you get the chance to really do the right thing? Someone tweeted this morning that her friend had literally just found out she was still eligible to vote so she was running for the airport.

Read this for a story:

A story about the 8th amendment and miscarriage:

“I’ve been trying to write this since this page was set up. Today marks the 8th anniversary of when the 8th amendment put my life in danger so it seems apt to share my story now…

— In Her Shoes (@InHerIrishShoes) May 20, 2018

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How many stories do you need to read about women who lost their life or almost lost their life because doctors weren’t allowed to do what they knew how to do because the law said no. The risk, the emotional anguish and heart ache all so much worse at a time of your life when you need all the support you can get.

There’s a facebook group where those who don’t have the right to vote are funding travel for those who can vote but can’t afford to. Once you’ve left Ireland for eighteen months you lose the right to vote and there is no postal vote other than for a few exceptions. So those who can’t are helping those who could. Visit Abroad for Yes if you want.

What gets to me is the sheer solidarity and compassion shown here. Normally when social media goes mad over some campaign there a litany of why are you getting excited about this when you didn’t get excited about that. And it’s often right. A reasonable campaign gets the piss taken because it’s not perfect. People are just getting together and joining in with love and good wishes if they can’t do anything else.

In this world it is very easy to think that those without power can’t do anything to make change. Oppression of women, of gay people. transgenders, disabled, black, not white, young, old is prevalent, to greater or lesser degrees the world over. And yet, those without the power are more numerous and capable of coming together in a great show of force. Belgium’s motto is “l’union fait la force”, or strength in unity and that applies here. It is so genuinely heart-warming to see people put aside their day-to-day lives to travel home to vote for something that *may* never affect them.

Anyway, love and best wishes to all those who are voting yes and sorrow for those voting no.

What Happens to the Anger?

Tags

acceptance, anger, calm

So I recently wrote a post on anger and all the people I am angry at. This list basically comprises my parents, my middle sister 2sis, one teacher in particular, and myself. I am less angry at boyfriends for being damaging twats and schools for being blind. I say less angry because I recognise that I hid my pain so school staff would have had to be paying attention to pick up on it and I chose my boyfriends because it was almost inevitable that i would pick men who would walk over me.

The question is though, what do I do with this anger?

There is no point in trying to have confrontations with my parents and try and get them to understand how much they buggered things up for me. I have tried it and I end up more emotionally drained than when I started and I don’t get any understanding from my parents, more a bewildered confusion as they try to work out what it is I’m blethering on about. I end up angrier. Also, and I don’t really know if this is still about protecting them or not, they are both 80+ and increasingly fragile and lacking sense of the world anyway so having a go at them would seem mean.

While my sister isn’t fragile I have to a great extent wiped her out of my life. We met up some five years ago for the first time in five years and talked for a few hours and that was the last time we spoke. I have no desire to do it again. What I realised after that conversation was that I still don’t trust her; I don’t know who she is; I don’t really care about her one way or another. She has shown minimal effort in wanting to get to know me and so have I. So we leave it there, which is fine except that it means I am never going to have any sort of reconciliatory conversation with her. Again, what’s the point?
Moving away from family to schools and teachers. Nowadays children who don’t speak the local language are much more commonplace and schools are a lot better at looking after them and integrating them. Teachers are a lot more aware of bullying and that unhappy children can be really quiet and well-behaved. Teachers still struggle to deal with it. After all they are supposed to be educators and not social workers and they can’t go and sort out parents for the child’s well-being even when they recognise the issue. However I would like to think that I would get more understanding if I was going through the same situation this decade.

My French teacher is probably dead by now. Even if she wasn’t and I tracked her down, what would I say? You were an unsupportive bitch and made me cry a lot? What would that get me?

I can now recognise that my choice in boyfriends or partners is poor, not because I’m a failure but because it is the natural consequences of my upbringing. My mother taught me to be passive and deceitful in a relationship and to hide my true feelings and never argue. My father taught me that what the man wants, the man gets, or else. There was the biting sarcasm and trenchant wit, the put-downs that my sister then repeated. He was master of the house with intellectual superiority. Despite writing all that down, I still feel that somehow, somewhen I should have worked out what I was doing earlier and stopped making bad choices with regards to relationships. As it was it was only ten years ago that I realised and went stop, no more. Whilst I think I would now make better choices, I’ve also become a lot pickier as well as being aware that my own self-esteem is still not strong enough to make me look at developing a relationship with anything but horror. Acceptance and regard for my own body is still some way off (something else to blame my parents for).

And that leaves me.

I am still angry with myself for making “bad” decisions, however much I accept the inevitability of them. I’m angry at myself for leaving it for so long to finally start working on myself. I haven’t really forgiven myself. This is something I still need to work on.
The other issue I need to think about when it comes to anger is, what do I do with anger now? I spent my childhood learning to not display temper or anger, to squash it and try and ignore it. I tried dealing with it my understanding why my parents were that way inclined and to feel sorry for their behaviour rather than scream and shout. That all helped diffuse the anger. But even now I simply don’t get angry. 3son drives me nuts at times. He is extremely frustrating. And yet I rarely get angry with him. I will tell him when he irritates me and why. I will express my annoyance. We may have a productive conversation about it or he may just get really defensive and it not be worth the effort. Sometimes he will tell me what an idiot he’s just been so I don’t have to bother. I will use words like frustrated, exasperated, infuriated which come so close to anger, but I will not say I’m angry. Am I still suppressing my anger or do I genuinely not feel anger?

That as a question sounds ridiculous. How can one deny ever feeling an emotion that is such an important one. I feel that I have transferred the anger into acceptance. My peers on my course tell me my demeanour when practising skills is that of calm acceptance with a willingness to hear anything. 3son told his girlfriend a year or so ago that he didn’t think he could say anything that would shock me. My meditation practice is transforming anxiety into calm and I have become a lot less stressed person. Have I transformed this anger into a positive acceptance and willingness to be open that makes me a better person? Do I need to dig up the anger from childhood, something that takes me a lot of effort to do?

I honestly don’t know what the answer is here. I feel the positive aspect of the increased calm and acceptance but I still don’t really know whether I’m ignoring an elephant in the room.

Personal Development over the Last Year

Tags

anger, control, inner child, progress

An essay on personal development was the one essay I was looking forward to doing this year as I have plenty to say.

Unfortunately once I read the criteria this is not for general personal development but for personal development resulting from interaction when using counselling skills. This is somewhat limiting, to say the least. I am frustrated by the essay so I thought I’d write the one I want to write.

I have changed a lot over the last year.

I am finding my inner calm. Daily meditation most days has resulted in my stressing less and not getting quite as wound up as I used to. I cannot recommend enough the Calm app which has been perfect for me.

To some extent as a consequence of this my alcohol consumption has diminished, both in frequency and in quantity, which in itself is no bad thing. I’m more aware of my body reacting to alcohol  and would prefer to stay relaxed.

I have felt the need to leave the house in the evening less. I have craved less for generic adult company. This is because my children are growing up and are more companionable when we do talk and less difficult to deal with. Maybe I’m also reacting to them better.

I have put greater effort into keeping up with those few friends I really want to. I have got better at initiating contact and making arrangements.

It seems a small matter but I have succeeded in swapping my daily routine and working on me or my sons before I start working in the day. It is a specific change in priorities.

An even smaller matter, seemingly, is that I’m getting in touch with my sweet tooth. I’m starting to eat peanut butter, jam, sweeter ice cream just a little bit more often. I’ve always stayed with the tart lemony puddings or sorbets and the less sugary ice creams. I’ve been trying to pay attention when I feel like something sweet and actually have it.

I’ve been eating more fruit. My parents were never fond of fruit but always had apples and satsumas in a bowl and ate them because they are good for you. The occasional pineapple was a treat and my father would carve it up after much discussion of the best way. I have been shaking all that off and going for mangos and melons, sometimes in chunks in little plastic pots that make me feel guilty.

I go through phases of being a bit more active and going out for walks, sometimes for twenty minutes and sometimes for a couple of hours. I have tried to stop telling myself off when I don’t.

In therapy I am trying to force myself to concentrate on the important stuff but it’s not easy and I am so willing to sidetrack myself. Over the last few months I have been trying to get more in touch with the “inner child”, with the way I felt as a child. Not the narrative, not what happened, but how I felt as a result. Hence the few letters that I’ve written to me and to both parents.

What have I learned from this so far? I have well and truly buried past emotions as there was never any point in complaining hence I just squashed it all and that stayed with me with subsequent partners. At the time I was aware of some of what I was suppressing, but not all. So I find it difficult to remember how I felt without really thinking hard about it. I’ve never been one for reminiscing about my childhood. I also do not like to lose control. Since I was not allowed to get angry I learned to keep a stiff upper lip and to keep my tears for privacy. Eventually of course it was a matter of pride that I wouldn’t let my father see me cry so I ended up doing the opposite of what I wanted to. I bottled everything up. I still don’t tell them anything. Now that feels out of choice rather than necessity but it is still because I don’t want to have the arguments with them as I won’t win.

My inability to lose control, or my unwillingness, has meant that although I got drunk as a teenager, and indeed as an adult, I never got falling drown drunk and I never blacked out as a result. For the same reason I would never, could never do drugs. I did promise 1son when we discussed this that if I ever would smoke a spliff I would do it in his company first. I doubt it will ever happen. I have also felt the need to keep control for the sake of my children. When they were younger I didn’t want them to see me unhappy or angry or in a mess and I have had to learn to let them see me in such ways so they appreciate that I too am human.

Do I need to let my anger out? I need to acknowledge it and that’s another post to do. I need to hear that child who felt so ignored and so frustrated.