Build it and they will come.

We have been in a dilemma, H and I, since we moved here, the local kids run wild, out and about until after dark, nobody checking on them and they are doing what unsupervised kids will do. We don't want our boys to do that, we think that boys, (the older they get the more they need it) need supervision, direction, to be kept busy and their attention held. They need to be occupied and feel as if they are doing something worthwhile and fun, get tired and hungry and their parents should be able to feel sure they aren't going to get a visit from the police any time soon!
The dilemma is this, if we keep the boys here then they will be known as the snobs, outcasts and there will be trouble for them in no time at all. If we let them be out and about the way other kids are then they will behave the way other kids behave. We live here, we have to belong and we need to be known and accepted. So we decided, my H and I that the way to go will be to make this a place the other kids want to be, make it so that they can look over the gate and really wish they were a part of it and then, well then we are in charge. We get to choose and say that good kids can come in whenever they like, they can have fun and snacks, they can laugh and be boys and they will be welcome but if they aren't nice, if they bully or swear, if they fight mean they leave and they can't come back until they know how to behave.
We knew that was a great plan but we weren't sure how to do it, or I wasn't, H knew of course.
H has been pruning and cutting back all the trees and bushses, I am watching from afar and so far it looks impressive and the hedges and trees look very bare and short and more than a little pathetic. What isn't pathetic however, is the growing mountain of sticks, twigs, branches, old rubbish, broken fencing, lattice, planks of wood. We have found an enormous iron garden roller ( he, listen to me saying "we", I am almost the queen) a trade sized tea urn and such treasure as you would never suspect could be hidden in an English country garden.
As well as the growing bonfire fodder there became the most fabulous little hidden space between some hedges and trees, a space that was screaming "DEN" at us, yesterday we bought some play bark and let the boys line the floor of the den and then we let them at it.
The plan is taking hold so beautifully we couldn't have dreamed of such success.
This morning, while I was having a lie in ( which seemed such a great idea at the time) the neighbourhood took over, when I got up I beheld a sight for scared eyes.
We have a bonfire pile ( or 3 ) that makes me shudder because it is going to take 3 weeks to burn this stuff, we have tables and chairs added to the pile, our neighbours must think the tip has come to our street because truly, I kid you not.
I looked out 30 minutes after I declared this bonfire was not my business and I was pretending I knew nought of it, to see the table and chairs ( all but 2) had disappeared and much excitement was coming from the Den.
Isaac had put the table back together again and put it in the Den.
 I had to take pictures because this was 'the plan' Oh it is such a marvellous thing to see, little boys all safe and happy, occupied in good activities and all feeling quite as though they have the world at their fingertips. I am sure that the novelty will wear off and then we may have to build on it somehow, come up with new ideas.
This afternoon we will have a bonfire and hot dogs, marshmallows and fizzy pop and the good kids will be here too, then they can run the streets tomorrow and tell their other friends what goes on in this house on the corner, where the new people live, the mum is a bit mean and she tells you off if you are rude, she makes you go home and tidy your bedroom before she lets you come back for the bonfire and hotdogs, the dad is quiet and lets you do stuff with hammers and drills and you don't get yelled at for smashing old furniture to bits with a hammer and put stuff on the pile for a bonfire. You can make stuff and break stuff, you get to climb the trees and kick stuff but you can't be mean, you can't swear and you can't fight else you have to go home and you can't come back til the next day or even the day after that.
I love it when a plan comes together.

This is the back door.

And the front door..

This is a mammoth task, is it not?

Grand Den.

And I am naively telling myself that this will all result in a beautiful garden, it is almost impossible to picture right now because oh my good grief this is an enormous pile of what the hell.

All is not always as it seems.

I think we have pictures, in our heads, of how certain people will look, how a pedophile will be a pasty faced man in his 50's with shifty eyes, grimy fingernails and a dirty mac'. A kind of loving soul will be a granny type with an apron and a home that smells of apple pies.
Drug addicts are dingy people with black circles under their eyes, skin and bone, hopeless expression and misery etched in their souls.
They don't look like this, do they?

The answer to that is, yes, they do.

My beautiful girl has been back down the road of destruction and it is quite the most heartbreaking thing. She told me though, after a massive binge and a few days of oblivion she told me what she was doing and like a 5 year old with a broken toy she handed me her fear and left it with me. I don't know why my children trust me the way they do, I don't know why they believe that I will know what to do. Me. The teetotal, prudish mormon who has never so much as rebelled by drinking a cup of tea, who waited to be married before having sex, who has spent 49 years avoiding even the appearance of evil, I am supposed to know what to do about cocaine addiction, homosexuality, alcoholism and paying off debts to drug dealers. I have perfected, over the years the calm exterior when being told the most  terrifying and heart stopping details of the situations my children place themselves and have been placed by evil at large. Each experience makes me both know without doubt that God exists because really, how else would I know what to do? It also makes me wonder why, why me? Why not THAT women with more kids that me? Why can't just one of hers have one of the trials faced by my kids, how does she get to have that many kids and have all hers stay safe and unaffected? What is it that makes it necessary for me to know this stuff? I don't know. I find myself less able to care as I deal with these unbelievable circumstances because one day at a time is all I can do. I swear a lot, in my head mostly because WHAT THE FUCK? Is pretty much all that will run through your head as you sit in a dark car while your only daughter leaves to pay a drug dealer the money she owes him, swiftly followed by "Dear Lord, please keep her safe, please keep her safe, please keep her safe" until she walks back, as beautiful and precious as ever, with a smile and a look of relief. When I ask her why she tells me this stuff she says " because I don't want to to do it and I need you to help me" Then I am overwhelmed by a relief and a joy because she trusts me, as well as a rage and a sadness so deep it makes me long for oblivion and in that moment, right then, I understand why she slips, why for her, getting something that takes her away from her thoughts for even a few minutes makes all the risks worth it.

She has been diagnosed with bi polar disorder and she was so sad about that she sought a release from it all, what she got was an even more muddled brain, more misery and a big old debt to boot.

She has agreed to go on a course for addiction recovery and starts this week, she seems keen to go and I think I am glad about that, I am just a bit jaded and weary of hoping and thinking we have cracked it all.

One day at a time. One day at a time. 

Within these walls.

We're home. My family and I, we are home.
Funny, isn't it, how you deal with something and live something and it all feels so endless and miserable and you just know that it will never be over and then, quite suddenly, it is over and you immediately feel as though that wasn't so bad after all? I think I feel a bit like that.
When did the rats come? Can you remember? I can't remember exactly when they came to that house we were living in, I remember how horrified I felt and how helpless and useless, how filthy and miserable it was to see and hear and above all, smell those creatures as they took over out home. The trapping, poisoning, fearing, month after month and then year after year. You don't get used to it, you get less horrified or perhaps actually you just get numb. Dead inside and you give up. I say you, I mean me. Me, I gave up. I stopped being able to care about anything in that house, H stopped caring and we just got through each day.
The house had the potential to be beautiful, a big solid house with character and promise, had the house been mine, who knows, it may have been beautiful but it wasn't, it belonged to a man who didn't care about much else getting his rent. So, that, as they say, was that.
Mould didn't matter, neither did leaking showers, no matter how often ( every 6 months for 4 years) we reported that the shower poured water through the ceiling onto the floor outside the lounge, it didn't get fixed and so we just got used to putting towels on the floor and we almost got used to the smell of damp, moldy floors.
We became accustomed to, thoug never used to, the smell of the rats. We didn't see any for the last few months of living in that house but we could still smell them, you know that saying" I smell a rat"? I can't tell you how many times I thought that over the last 3 years, what a foul, putrid stench that is.
Oh enough of the rats, we've been there and overdone that subject more than once. Enough because they may still be there but we're not. We left and we came home. Just like that, as if it was meant to be.
2 weeks ago I got a call from the council to say that our name had come up for a house and would we like to view it? Um YES we would. So we went to see this house, this ordinary house at the end of a street and we liked it.

It has 4 bedrooms, 2 toilets and a huge garden, a big, beautiful garden and when I stand in the garden I can see the river and trees,  you see that? That is what I can see from my garden. Oh joy.
We had a week to move, one week, well to be specific, nine days. From start to finish, nine days. Day 1 as the ' would you like to see this house?' call and day 9, move in.
We did it. In nine days we packed, sold, dumped, bought, gave away, shifted, the new house is miles away from the old one and I drove 80=100 miles every day for those nine days taking boxes and bags. H stayed at the old house and he packed and cleaned and emptied and I drove and delivered, I advertised and  sold all that we didn't want or need and by some miracle I made enough money to pay for the move and but what we needed for the new house. Almost to the penny, don't tell me that's a coincidence because I won't believe you.
We did this pretty much without any help, I paid a man with a van and a great man from church to move the big stuff, Sophie, my Sophie was like a pack horse, she and I have done so much lifting and dragging, cleaning and scrubbing, she has been my right hand woman and she is a star.
H is a veritable treasure, not a word has he muttered but he worked his fingers to the bone, we have been the 3 muskateers, a formidable team, if I say so myself.
At the end of each day I have literally crawled into bed, not a muscle has escaped the torture. My poor bones and back have been screaming in their poor old determination to be left alone, yesterday was the final day, the day to shut the door, hand the keys to the letting agency and walka away. H and I drove to the old house to collect the final load of bags and boxes and as we drove away the floodgates opened, the the relief and the sheer exhaustion came pouring out in a marvellously satisfying snot cry.
And so, here we are. At home, where we can stay forever, where we can choose exactly how we want things.
 One thing that struck me, when we got the keys and could come here and look properly at the house is that there are no picture hooks, the walls are all bare and it's a blank canvas, this house. When you move into a rental house there are always picture hooks and that's where you hang your pictures, if there aren't enough hooks you can add your own but you never actually get to choose exactly where your pictures go, I was so thrilled to see that we can hang our pictures wherever we want.
We've been here 7 weeks now, 7 weeks and still, not a day passes by where we don't pinch ourselves and remind ourselves that this is it, our home, for real and for as long we choose to live here!
We have already done so much to make it ours. H and Isaac have built a pantry, a glorious, walk in pantry that is on it's way to being stocked and full of all the things we use.

I found some fabulous beds on Ebay and a Facebook selling site for the boys, they have great bedrooms...

Seth's room is small but pretty cool too,

Sophie's room is small as well but she has made it look beautiful!

Our room is one in progress and one of the things I love is knowing that there isn't a rush, we can take our time and do it all as we find what we need.

 No carpet yet, that's something to look forward to!

I love this house, the garden is going to be such a joy, so much space, such glorious views, fresh ,sea air and a huge vegetable plot!

Isn't it great?

Look at the view on Christmas eve , standing in our garden....

Heaven is what this is. We had to wait a while but my goodness, this is so worth it.

Every mother's nightmare.

I have a story to tell, it isn't my story but it's a gripping one, a sad one a terrifying and breath taking tale. The most terrifying part of the story is that it is true and it is happening right now.
I have a friend and because I love her I will not use her name but she needs help, as much help as we can muster between us and so here's her story.
My friend is a single mother of 6 boys, she has raised her sons alone for many years, since they were all quite little. 3 of them are now adults, the other 3 are still young enough to be at home with their mum, where they have always been happy and loved.
The problem now is that they aren't at home. They have been split up and spread out, sent to a foster family and family friends where they are beautifully looked after but they are not free.
They cannot see their mother unless they have a chaperon, one of the boys cannot see his mother at all unless a social worker is present, the social worker is always busy, never has time to take this wonderful young boy to see his mum. He has had health problems since he was a baby, he had trouble thriving and after being fed with a nasal tube, where his mum loved him and nurtured him, where she asked to be taught how to care for him so she wouldn't have to keep taking him back to the hospital every time he pulled his tube out. He grew and he learned and he did thrive and he grew to be a polite, friendly, happy teenager who then developed hydrocephalus, water on the brain as it used to be called.
He has had surgery and shunts put in his brain and as often happens sometimes he gets infections and complications, his mum is always there, always helping him and loving him, always putting him and his brothers before herself.
We spend a lot of time with this family because those boys are amazing, they are so polite and gentle, they are fabulous with my young boys are attentive and kind. We love being with them because in this unkind world they are an example to our boys, they show them how they can have fun without swearing and behaving badly.
I have never heard this mother raise her voice to her boys, I am sure she does, she has 6 boys, who could have 6 boys and not yell sometimes? I have never heard her though.
We go on picnics and have BBQs and her boys show mine how to cook, how to inflate the dinghy, they take them on the water and watch over them.
When this mum has to go to the hospital with the young man who has his shunts and surgeries, she can leave the younger boys in the care of the older ones and they are a credit to her. They go to church and that alone amazes me because usually. give a teenage boy the chance to skip church and they will grab it and run! These boys though, they go to church and they look after themselves and she doesn't have to worry if they are trashing the house, if they are going to school, if they are living the way she has taught them. She doesn't worry because she has taught them well, these are not regular boys, they are extraordinary boys.
In the summer, mother and son had to go to hospital for tests again, the tests showed that more tests were needed and a probe was inserted in his head to measure the pressure inside his brain. He was poorly and got an infection, he was really unwell and his mum stayed right with him, the way she always does. We, her friends, would text her and ask after her and her boy and she would reply, as she always does "Oh, he's doing OK, I am fine, no we don't need anything" she doesn't like a fuss, she doesn't believe she is worthy of fuss, she doesn't see that she is a great mum and that we love her and WANT to help her, she just goes on, day to day and does what a mother needs to do.
She is accused often of being too soft, her 2 eldest boys have left home and live in a flat and she buys them food when they need it and she will give them petrol money when they run out. Some say she should let them figure it out and that gong without won't hurt them but she is a good mother and so she will go without so they don't have to.
So she was at the hospital with her poorly boy and she slept in a chair for a week , then another week and she watched her boy in pain and have tests and more tests and she posted a few pictures of him with his probe in his head and told us all that he was doing OK and that he was being looked after and no, she didn't need anything, thank you.
On his birthday he seemed better and so she asked if she could take him to the local KFC for a treat, the Drs said that was fine and off they went, when they got there he said he didn't feel good and he started to look really sick so this mother took him straight back to the hospital, by the time they got there he was really sick, another infection, more surgery, more drugs, more praying. Thankfully he recovered and although weak he was still delightful, happy, polite, looking after the little kids in the hospital, enjoying visits from his friends and while he enjoyed the visits, mum sat in the background and enjoyed watching him have a good time with friends who cared enough to drive for 3 hours to see him.
For the whole of  the summer holidays she stayed in the hospital while her boy got better, the nurses knew her and trusted her to help with his care, he is not a baby he is a teenager, a smart, cheerful, intelligent teenager who clearly has been raised well.  She kept his hair shaved around the dressing and would put a new dressing on top of the old, never removing the old because that would have risked the probe/ shunt coming out. He had a drain in to drain fluid from his head to relive the pressure, fluid drained OUT of this tube, that was what it was supposed to do.
One day, after he had had the dressing tidied up and a new piece of dressing film added, he noticed when he was in the playroom that it was leaking and so he tod his mum, who immediately showed the nurse, it was fixed and cleaned up and that was that. Except it wasn't.
Someone, who knows who, some faceless person who undoubtedly had not spent anytime with this mother and son, perhaps someone who had been in and out and looked at the medical problem and not the person, decided that the infections and the fevers, the leaking and the sickness were not usual and that someone was making this awful stuff happen.
This faceless person decided it must be the mother.
The police were called and the mother was arrested.
She was locked in a cell and her boys were taken away from her.
The faceless people had decided and they had made a decision and here is where hell begins for this family.
No formal charges have been made, no results of any testing have been issued, no proof has been found and the police, it seems can take as long as they like to gather evidence. If there IS no evidence, oh well, they'll wait until someone somewhere finds some. Or not.
Social services do not, we are told need proof, if the police drop all charges, it won't matter because Social services do not need to prove those kids are in danger, they can keep these boys away from their mother and their mother away from them. They can insist that this boy can not speak to his mother unless a social worker is present. They kept him away from his brothers because they want him to open up and tell his foster family how his mother has been harming him all this time. They do not have to prove that the boys are or have ever been in danger, they are allowed to do whatever they think fit just because they believe there may be a tiny possibility that at some stage she has harmed him.
Do you know what is most terrifying? the fact that NOBODY, not the police, the social services or the faceless do gooder who started all this have ONCE spoken to any of these boys, they say the adult children don't count because they are adults and they don't care if these adults tell them they have been cared for and loved by their mother all their lives. They don't want to hear what the younger boys have to say because...WHY? Why don't they ASK these intelligent, polite, articulate young men what THEY think? Why don't they ask this splendid young 15 year old boy if his mother has ever, in any way done anything to hurt him?
These boys are not meek, feeble, anxious boys, they are not children with anger issues who have been problematic at school, these boys are ALL known for their good manners, for their great sense of humour, their kindness, they are open, well adjusted, funny boys. They are not shy, not aggressive, not attention seeking, trouble makers or in any way victims. Why will the powers that be, who have decided they must 'save' these boys not taken the time to speak to them? They are refused EVERY time they ask to speak. The are told it doesn't matter what they say.
Why is it OK to keep this family apart, why is it legal to do nothing? For social services to say they haven't the time or funding to arrange visits with their mother? Two of the boys are with friends, social services go to this home, a humble 2 bedroom bungalow that already has 2 adults and another teen boy in it and insist that the boys have to have their own rooms that the front room has to be a bedroom and that no-one can sit in in.They visit and they lay down rules and say what HAS to be...but they have yet to pay this family for caring for the boys. Oh red tape and hold ups and it's all someone else's fault and soon they will get around to it but for now, RULES!! Abide by the RULES!!
This week, the police were supposed to make a decision and either charge or drop all charges, it was thought that if charges were dropped ( and because there is ZERO evidence, we, the optimistic and naive believed that charges would be dropped) the boys could go home. The police, who, by the way, came into the home and tool everything away, computers, phones, every paracetamol tablet, foot cream, ( !?!?) the boys prescribed inhalers, diaries, every manner of personal items and left, without an inventory of what they have taken. Well, the police decided that they haven't had enough time and they tagged another 6-8 weeks on to the time they gave and so no charges were dropped. More waiting for this family.
Christmas is coming. Where will these boys be? Not at home with their mum, that's for sure. Unless social service relax their ridiculous chaperoning rules, they will not even see their mother on Christmas day, the boys are now allowed to meet each other and so she, this mother who has been accused of hurting her children has said that she would rather the boys all get together so they can enjoy each other's company rather than have them split up. If she were to go anywhere and bump into this one special boy, she will be in such serious trouble we can't even stand to imagine it. So she doesn't go to church, where she is so loved and so welcomed, she doesn't go to any of the social events that she used to take her boys to because she wants them to still be able to and have fun.
If she is there then a social worker has to be there too, she can spend time with the 2 boys who are staying with friends as long as the friends are there too, but if the young man who has been poorly is there, she has to leave, she leaves so her boys can be together, she doesn't think of how sad SHE is to not be able to see her children together, she wants THEM to be happy together.
This is a terrible injustice, it would have been marginally more acceptable if the faceless accuser had made his/her accusation, it had been investigated and then dealt with but this isn't what has happened.
They made these dreadful accusations without any evidence to prove what they were saying, they caused this family enormous pain and fear....how would YOU feel if someone suddenly said you were hurting your child and then have ALL of them taken away, to be treated with disgust, and then to be shoved in a corner and ignored?
What can we do?
I am writing this because I am hoping that someone who reads this will have some advice, where can we go? Who can we see? How can we get these boys an advocate? Who will be their voice and refuse to be pushed down and ignored?
This is a family, a great family. A happy family. A loving and kind family and they are being hurt, THEY are being abused by the very people who say that the children are the most important people here, yet they are not listening or caring for the children. There has be someone who can help this family, the solicitor assigned, from what I can gather is helpless, does nothing but relay messages saying "nothing can be done." That's because until charges have been made, if they are made, she isn't allowed to see ANY of the documents or paperwork about the case.
If anyone has any idea, if there is anyone who can spread this story and get this family help, please contact me and I will send your information to the places it will be best used.  Thank you.

Bring it on, just be gentle.

Oh, Hi! Hello! It's me. ME, the actual me. The one I used to be, back in the day when I could think and see things, when I could discern real from unreal, when things were hilarious and boring, sad and ordinary. All those different emotions in one, who knew how great they were, way back when I took them all for granted. When I would walk through town as though this was something everyone did, wandering in and out of shops without digging my fingers until they bled.
I'm back. Like some kind of glorious and unexpected miracle, by the power of medicinal marvellousness I am here. 
Thank you Lord and Doctor R.
I have been ridiculously thrilled by things like being able to walk around a supermarket and look at what the shelves hold.
Walking from a car park to shops without a master plan of where to go, what to buy and how quickly I can retreat to the safety of my car again.
Waking up and realising that this feeling I have is a good mood, right from the get go, first thing in the morning, really...just like that!
Nothing else has changed, we still don't have anywhere to live, we still have no idea where we will be this time next month or the month after but now that is, as is should be, a worry that we will deal with when we need to, as we learn we have to leave this one, we'll deal with where we will go.
Actually, something has changed. Elijah is headed back to school and oh I had no idea how worried I was about homeschooling him until he said he wanted to go back  to school and H agreed. I loved having him  home for the first 9 months, then it seemed we got tired of each other's company all day every day. I am not a teacher, I never said I was a teacher, I never wanted to be a teacher and suddenly, I was a teacher. H did a lot of the homeschooling to start with and then I realised he was spending less time as a teacher/dad and I stepped in, between us we did a good job with what we have and having checked out how a few other homeschoolers do it, I think we did a really good job.
* Startling generalisation ahead*
I have had a bit of a mental image of people who home school, crunchy is the main descriptive word that springs to mind, all home baked goods and long knotty hair, mismatched stripey socks and a fierce determination that precious babies should never be made to do anything that makes them unhappy.
I am so not one of those people but never mind, we were up for this! Eli was sad at school and we had to take him out and teach him at home, build his confidence, teach him how to learn and we did that. I will admit that as time passed I became more grumpy about it and H became less enthusiastic about it and Elijah most definitely became less attentive, happy, co-operative and nice. Oh he so forgot nice, my Eli the nicest of nice children, that smiley little chap who buffoons his way through the day was a feisty little door kicker.
He didn't like Seth and he was cross at his used to be best friend Isaac, he has kicked and thrown and wobbled and sighed and none of us has had any fun for a few weeks.
I like my own company, I used to be happy just going out and doing whatever I felt like doing, meeting friends, not meeting friends, shopping or driving or just being here reading and cleaning.
I lost that, I had this little boy here who needed his day filled with not just company and fun but IMPORTANT stuff, learning stuff, informative and developing stuff and the responsibility of that is HUGE. I wasn't worried particularly about the here and now, that was working, he is reading and writing and learning times tables, he was making and building, going with H to the allotment and making Cob walls, like they used to back in the day. He was digging and planting and climbing and running, we have been to the zoo and the moors, the airport and the beach. We have looked at and learned and written and remembered, charted and journalled and all was fine. For now.
I couldn't help but keep creeping into the future and as we prepare Seth for the grammar school in September, as we watch his excitement and begin Isaac's  preparations for the same journey, I would look at the little boy left here with us and wonder 'what about him?' He is so different to Seth and Isaac, I can't imagine him ever going to a grammar school, that's not a 'he's not as smart' comment, it's a mother knowing her child. He is more like Dan and Jordan and I imagine that he will be like them and decide what he wants to do and then go for it, do what needs doing and do it beautifully.
Whether he goes to the grammar school or not isn't the point, what worried me was doing something that would scupper his chance to choose.
So the other day, when Isaac was poorly and had the day home from school, he and Eli were inseparable all day, just like old times, at 2 o'clock in the afternoon Eli said, as he leaned against Isaac "What am I feeling? Oh, I know. I'm not lonely sometimes, I am lonely ALL the time...would it be a happy thing to go back to school?"
YES! Yes it would indeed!

Eli has been a delightful happy chappy ever since, he has a great teacher next year and is thrilled that he will be in Alfie's class. I can't help but think of the time H and I will have to do the things we like to do. To clean the house and have it stay that way for 6 hours, to hand over all that responsibility of schedules and lesson plans, of projects and plans to the teachers and to go back to being the supporter in all that stuff.
I may be so excited that I have already bought his school uniform!
Excited....did you read that? Excited, how long since I had any emotion other than sadness or fear? I am so grateful to feel better, I don't even care that meds are to thank, just the fact that I feel better, that I can think clearly again and see there is hope and all is not bleak. I felt as though I was walking under filthy water, thick, dirty, stagnant water. I love being back in the fresh air and being able to hold my head up again.
Now I can get on and do what needs doing. I just hope the universe is kind to me..... bring on the good stuff. Please.  

Let's not go there again.

This morning, I woke up at 11 o'clock and I did not feel utter despair.
Look at that sentence, one little sentence that means something so huge I can barely think how to start explaining. It has been so long since I woke up feeling anything but complete and overwhelming sadness that I almost didn't understand what was happening this morning.
For longer than I care to remember, each morning as I wake up I would surface from whatever kind of disturbed sleep I had been having and almost immediately I am swamped with a sinking misery at the thought of starting another day, with almost a pleading thought of wishing it wasn't true.
I used to try and shake that feeling off, take a deep breath and mentally pull myself together and get on with it. Slowly that got harder and harder to do and eventually, a few months ago I was unable to do anything more than not cry, stand up and drag myself down to do what needed doing.
This morning, when I woke up and I opened my eyes I knew something had changed, to start with I had slept for 9 hours straight. Nine hours, oh my goodness. Nine solid hours of dream free, proper sleep. That is enough to make most things seem easier to deal with but I knew something else was happening.
After my terrifying foray into suicidal thoughts I knew I had to get more help, I went straight to my lovely and patient doctor who listened to me ( again) and so kindly said ' Helen, please don't believe those things you were thinking, you are the best mother your children could ever ask for and only you can be that, I know they love you, I know Howard needs you and I know that they would never get over it if anything happened to you" and then she said " You don't believe me, do you? I can see you don't believe me but it is true and if ever you start to think that way again, call someone, anyone and get them to come to you"
As she was speaking I saw that she meant what she said, I knew she believed it and I knew that I couldn't take my own life....and all I felt was sad and more trapped but I listened to her and I took the prescription for the new medicine and I listened to her instructions on how to taper off one and increase the new one and in my head I was hearing  "blah blah blah"
I took one new tablet in the morning and cut down to one of the old ones in the evening for a week, then I took 2 new ones in the morning and tried one night without the old one and that was a rough day, a miserably rough day, dizzy and headachey and the following day was one of lowest of low emotions. That day I tried one new med in the morning, one in the evening and no old medicine. I was awake all night but I didn't feel the same desperate misery the next day, so then I tried 2 new tablets in the morning and no old ones at all.
I think I have found the right balance.
I can feel that the new ones are starting to do what they are meant to do.
I still have unbelievable dizziness and also a low grade headache, which I am told may last for 2 or 3 weeks. The thought that in 2 weeks I can really feel alive again is so exciting.
I have acquired a whole new understanding of depression, I have thought I was depressed for 20 years but honestly, whatever that was was a walk in the park compared to this latest black hole of despair. I have felt as though I was trapped in a cage, able to see what was happening outside but completely unable to either care, or join in . Nothing but an echoing nothingness. The very worst part is feeling as though this is how it will always be, not having any belief that it can get better. That's what made me imagine that dying was the only way out, I understand why people give up and take that way out. I hope I never, ever feel so desperate again.
I did the ironing today, another tiny sentence that means so little until you look behind what I actually just wrote.
I looked at a pile of crumpled clothes and I got out my glorious Elna press and I sat for 2 hours and ironed them all. That basket or ironing has been in the middle of the kitchen for months. I take out what people need as they need it and I tut and sigh as I iron it, I hang clothes up without ironing it, I put clothes away without ironing them unless they are so crumpled that even I, in my bleak pit of misery can't pretend they will 'do' and then they go in the green laundry basket in the kitchen and I scowl at it every time I walk in there. I know lots of people don't iron, I have more friends who will admit to never using an iron than friends who do but the thing is I DO iron, I love crease free clothes, I love my Elna press, I can look at a mountain of newly pressed cotton pillowcases and feel actual joy...so for me to walk past a basket of clothes that need ironing is a huge misery flag that has been flapping in the face of pernickitiness for month after month. Bye bye crumpled bleakness, hello sharp creases and beautiful crisp pillowcases!
I feel like I have been let out in the fresh air after months of being shut under the stairs.

Unsurprisingly I had a letter to say that I scored ZERO in the govt medical, I have absolutely no reasons at all why I can't go to work full time, apparently. That means our benefits are cut down again and I either have to accept that or fight it, I can't even begin to imagine fighting it until I imagine not fighting and then I am so incensed that I can feel this way, have to live with this crippling and miserable depression and yet have some stranger tell me that all I have to do is pull myself together and stop faking it all, that is enough to make me want to go and face these people and make them understand what depression can do to a person.
Depression can take a perfectly normal, happy person and strip them of every ounce of joy, steal from them the ability to do even the most mundane and formerly taken for granted daily activity. Rip away the ability to shop, eat normally, sleep, speak. I have become expert at shopping in under 20 minutes. 20 minutes inside a supermarket seems to be my limit. Walk in, find what we need ( forget anything we may rather like) grab it, get to a check out and leave before the sweating, hyperventilating, leg trembling fear takes over.
I think ( though I secretly doubt) that I have managed to stand while people I know speak to me, if we meet unexpectedly in the street ( Oh no, ON NO! Please don't talk to me, please don't see me, please walk past me, please)   I think I may be quite good at  nodding in the right places and hiding the fact that in my head I am thinking " please stop talking, please go away, I can't answer you, I have nothing to say anymore, I am so dull, can you walk away now......thank you"
I am more tired that I imagine it possible to be, with all that thinking and more thinking and rethinking, the effort it takes to avoid people is exhausting in itself.
I am relieved to see a tiny chink of light at the end of that interminable tunnel.
I hope I am nearing the end of this particular trip, I don't care that drugs seem to be the vehicle that is taking me to the finishing line, I will take whatever works and most of all I will shout it from the rooftops when I get to the land of happiness and light. When I get there, I will step off the train, walk out onto the platform and say, as loudly as I can manage, " Let's not ever go there again."

On being here.

This is a tough one and one that I would rather not write but I started this and so I owe it to me to keep a track of what is happening so I can look back and see what worked for me, or what didn't. What isn't working right now is the medicine they gave me. It's not working at all.
When my dad was 19, his dad committed suicide, my dad never recovered from that. He and his dad were very close, best friends, with mathematically brilliant like minds. They did everything together and grandpa was the only person who truly understood my dad. He was angry about how his dad could choose to remove himself from their lives and didn't understand why he would do what he did.  As a result we have grown up thinking suicide is a selfish and unthinking act and one that we could never understand.
I often have thought how people who choose to end their lives must be so wrapped up in their troubles that they must forget about even the most loved people around them, if you loved your family then you couldn't put them through such a thing, could you?
I have, over the past few days had an insight into why and how someone can begin to feel that this is the only choice available.
I went to the dreaded government medical and it wasn't at all the way it usually is, the doctor had called in sick ( Ironic? Yes, indeed, I wonder if anyone called him to ask if he was incontinent and if he was able to pick up and move an empty cardboard box because if he can then why wasn't he AT WORK DAMMIT? ) I have no idea why but the other people were sent home and they looked at me and said " let's see what we can do" What they did was have a lovely nurse interview me and I was left completely befuddled because she was nice and she was friendly. She asked me questions like " do you self harm?" and then said " this is a yes or no question, you are entitled to a private life, they do not need specifics, just tell me yes or no. So I did just that. I left feeling as though I had no idea what that was all about, it was nice to have not been interrogated but I felt so useless and as usual after these things as though I have no real value in this world at all.
She asked me questions that I just couldn't answer because my brain isn't working. I can't remember anything, time is a big old fuddled mess, I can't remember if I did something this week or when I was 12. I can't get words out even if I can remember so really, it doesn't matter.
I don't know what is real lately, I find it almost impossible to discern peoples' intentions which means I take enormous offence where there is none or I laugh when someone is being serious. I am, quite frankly, an actual idiot.
I am overwhelmed with being overwhelmed. I find normal noise unbearable to the point where I am reduced to a sobbing heap when all 3 boys are being boys at the same time,  in the same room.
I sleep for 2 hours at a time, 2 hours of coma like sleep then WIDE AWAKE in a second and awake for an hour or two and  then back to sleep for 2 hours and then UP for the day until 3 o'clock in the afternoon and I can't stay awake and so I fall asleep but only for one hour and then AWAKE and so frantic, my mind never stops, never stops, I dream when I sleep and I dream about being tired and busy and unable to stop so when I wake up I am SO AWAKE AND SO ....yes, like that.
And so, here we are. Or I am. I am here and I'm glad about that because it's been a bit touch and go to be honest.
I was on my own yesterday, or the day before, I can't tell. I lay on my bed and as I started to relax my mind started to race and all I could think about was how impossible it must be to live with me or actually have anything to do with me lately and how, even though I have tried, I am not getting better. I am considerably worse. I can't leave the house unless I have someone with me, I cannot speak to people without feeling so overwhelmed with panic that I avoid it at all costs. I can shop if I know what I need and I know where it is and I can get in and get out in 20 minutes or so. I am more likely to drive Sophie to the shop and tell her what to buy. (The great part of that is the amount of money I am saving, but wait, when will I ever be able to spend it? I'd better get healed soon or this could end in tears.)
The more my brain raced the more hopeless I felt because I really thought this would be over by now. I have had periods before when my depression has spiralled and I have been unable to function as well as usual but I have always been able to force myself to do what is really important. Those times were fleeting in comparison to this round, those times were like little practise runs for this real go.
I felt completely helpless. I feel completely helpless and all I could think was " this is it, this is how I am and I won't get better, there is no-one that can help me and this is what everyone has to deal with" and I couldn't imagine doing this for ever. I could not imagine H and the children having to put up with this level of crazy and my being so unpredictable any more and the feeling was so terrifying I understood what drives people to just give up and give in.
I was so afraid of feeling that way that I told H, I told him because I knew that would stop my mind going any further down that path. I thought of my dad and how devastated he was for his whole life and how he never recovered and I knew that my family would feel the same way.
I cut my medicine down to half the dose, tomorrow I am going to see my Dr and ask her to change it completely, I have to believe that it is the medicine that is making me feel this way. Whatever it is, I have to stop it, I hate being so out of control of how I feel and it's like watching this miserable existence from a distance, my life feels as though it is all in slow motion and I'm standing on the sidelines, watching, while the devil takes control.
My skin is crawling 24 hours a day, my face feels as though it is being eaten by ants, hurty bitey ants with sharp and burning fangs. When I start to relax at 3am when I eventually go to bed, I see bugs, creepy crawly bugs on my pillow.
This is FUN isn't it?
I am glad that I could think about my dad. I am happy that there was still enough of MY mind left that I knew there was more than one choice. I don't think I will ever say again that I don't understand why anyone would kill themselves. I think I do understand and I am so sorry that those people didn't have just one person or one thing to think of that stopped them from believing that the world would be better off without them.
H told me that I am loved and that this world wouldn't be a better place without me and because he doesn't say those words randomly, I knew I could believe him. I wish I could feel the words instead of just hearing them and thinking that they must be true if he is saying them.
I hope this is over soon....in the happy ever after way of course!