Health update & dystopian dinner

I have a bad chest infection again, so it’s back to bed life again until it blows over – oh such fun, you realise of course that was sarcasm?

Another one to three week delay in getting my body into shape, at this rate I won’t be my goal weight until October, it’s more than a little annoying!

What’s frustrating is I was throwing myself into reading and research to try and get me motivated to write again, so that’s been delayed too!

Because when I am sick like this, I can’t read a book and remember what I’ve read, the memory of what I’ve read gets coughed out of me!

The amount of poems I’ve started between Wednesday and today but didn’t finish, because a coughing fit or a sneezing fit literally blew me out of my zone, I tell you it was numerous!

My chest hurts so much, this chest infection actually feels worse than last Easters Covid which is weird, and it’s not Covid though.  I am scared to go to the doctor for two reasons, in recent years when I’ve had chest infections the doctor believes its viral and won’t give me antibiotics unless I literally get so bad it turns into pneumonia or pleurisy and I am in A&E with breathing difficulties – or I will get Covid whilst there on top of it.

I can’t afford to spend £10 taxi fares to see a doctor and get no help, what’ more, if a taxi drive sees me having coughing fits, of course he isn’t going to be happy to take me to the doctor – not after Covid issues in the world! 

Paul is in agreement with me, it’s one of the worst infections I’ve had in nearly 2yrs, he is saving money the best he can, because we’ve been down this road before – it’s likely in a week or two if it carries on, I will be going to hospital in Coventry which is more than just £10 transport fees then!

What’s more is, Paul will have to leave me there in Coventry hospital alone until I need to come home again, because Paul can’t afford to come and visit me every day and no one else will! 

Typing is slower, but it’s getting done.

I need to try and keep to a normal routine, even if my work is my crappiest at this time! 

If I make no sense in this post, you can at least appreciate and understand why?

I have 7 library books to read in just 3 weeks, with this illness, there’s no chance in getting them read in time!

I rarely have more than 4 books out from the library these days; this is how serious I was last week about reading and researching to get my work done!

A massive poetry book; a poetry exercise book, a screenwriting book, a book about the senses, a book against procrastination (lol, the irony), atomic habits and eating to extinction.  Eating to extinction is both environmental research and personal interest combined with contemplating ideas for Project AD.

Project AD has a beginning, middle and end planned now, but I am not happy with it and it needs to be fleshed out and needs to be more interesting.  The novel has not been written, but there are several scenes for a graphic novel done, there are in depth bullet points for 40 different scenes, but there is no actual structure yet.  It’s not properly done in my opinion, yet – no dialogue, just action scenes.

I can’t help but have this nagging feeling it needs more.

I know it does need more, I mean, that there should be a sub plot along with it, but I am struggling with this decision.

I tell you how much it’s bothering me, having this chest infection making me slower… I had a dream last night about post-apocalyptic characters from all my favourite movies, especially Mad Max and Tank Girl, I was slow and coughing and serving dinner for people worrying about things as I always do and the biggest Mad Max villain gave me a hug and told me to stop worrying about it all, things will get done in their own time and maybe it’s a sign I should slow down.

There’s those two words I hate again, “slow down”. 

Actually it’s quite common to dream about Mad Max villains, they inspire a lot of my stories – usually stories from their perspective.

Because I’ve learned in my life, those psychopaths in society, those who people cross the road to avoid, the social out casts that scare people because they are dressed like goth with “I love Satan” t-shirts or who are Hells Angel Harley Davidson types, in my experience, they have the highest morals and the biggest hearts and are hugely misunderstood!

Some are mean and twisted purely because it was their survival mechanism to be that way.  But in reality, they can be very protective and generous people by nature.

I am not suggesting that Mad Max villains are lovely people, but I often wondered what made them that way… how horrible was their lives before the world fell down as it were?

This is not something I am putting into Project AD by the way, this is another project – an adult dystopian – Project AD is a child’s dystopian and is a lot cleaner than my other idea.

As I mentioned in other posts in the past, one of the biggest tropes I love writing are the “descent into madness” tropes.

So yeah, last night in dream time, I was cooking dinner for Tank Girl, Cundalini, Toe Cutter, Gabriel Byrne’s Satan and Lola from Run Lola Run, amongst several others I forgot who!

Oh the throes of a writers mind!

Thanks for reading! 

Curious lost lines

Brain hurricane season is still present; I have had more ideas in the past few days than I knew what to do with.

This appears to be a long one and I blame it all down to the “Bluewater technique” I spoke about in a previous post.

I really did try to force myself to write something every day whether it’s going to be published or not, whether it’s more than a sentence or not and I got thinking about some very wacky things!

You’ll see them as posts such as “If I were a fairy” or “life of a mermaid” though the latter is due in the first week of June, so you won’t see that just yet.

Somethings I consider unpublishable or are unfinished poems or plays.

I don’t like to leave poems unfinished but it is a habit I am trying to get out of because a book I’ve been reading called “How to grow your own poem” by Kate Clanchy says, it is easy to lose a good line, never delete the line when you don’t know where its taking you, store them in a folder called “lost lines” and come back to them later, a poem doesn’t need to be rushed.

So I’ve done that and have accumulated approximately twenty unfinished and would be deleted poems in just a week!

They don’t even have to be poems actually; they could be good prose lines for a short story or a novel.

Who knows where those lost lines will lead us?

There is a whole paragraph which seems exciting, but I don’t know why yet.  But it’s very intriguing and it’s called “The Masters of Dream”.

I haven’t been able to add more to it yet, because in all honesty I was busy with other things today and working on those things with a raging head and ear ache.

But I could not ignore that paragraph, which started like that.

I hope I have time tomorrow to think about it and see what this is!

Thanks for reading!

Currently reading May 2023

I am currently reading quite a few book according to my Goodreads.com list, but I would say I am only really active in four of them for the past week now, despite there actually being 22 books on the list, a handful have been slowly slogged through for the past year!

But never mind – it’s just the result of an ever increasing chaotic and information starved mind!

The four I am currently reading are from the library so I have to whip myself to read them before the 21 days is up!

They are;

The High Five Habit by Mel Robbins

Grow your own poem by Kate Clanchy

A nature poem for every day of the year Edited by Jane McMorland Hunter

Eating to extinction by Dan Saladino

“The high five habit” by Mel Robbins is being read the fastest because I am trying to get my act together basically!  I finished a free Mel Robbins course a couple of weeks back and I wanted to learn more about this “high five habit” I’ve heard about and although I have been doing it for a few days now I have forgot on two days, so it’s not ingrained to do that yet for me. 

But I have noticed a difference with me approaching mirrors nonetheless, I have a faint smile these days, which is something – because I was a pretty miserable person whenever I look in mirrors before this thing.

I’m really trying to motivate myself to fight for a life and I tell you it is hard, it is a battle and I have virtually no support in doing this – I am on my own!

So I have to haul my own ass to change, as Mel Robbins says time and time again “nobody is going to save you, only you can save you”.

So that’s what I am trying to do.  Save myself.

“Grow your own poem” by Kate Clanchy has been borrowed and reordered to borrow from the library with small breaks in between since November!  Why?  Because there are a lot of small tasks in them and I would like to do them spread out, so I could learn better that way – it will stick better.  If I read the whole book then go back to do the essay one after the other I am more likely to forget what I am learning.

So I am doing it my way and it works!

I have noticed an improvement in the quality of my work and so has Paul and I thank this book for it!

“Eating to extinction” by Dan Saladino, is a gripping read about how humanities social progress and diet is actually going to eventually starve out humanity because it is unsustainable and not very diverse; monocultures and picky farmers are literally making extinct thousands of alternate food sources around the world yearly, in order to condense our diets down to a few of our favourites.

Which by and large is not healthy for us and not a wise thing to do in the long run because of climate change, but also our microbiota is starving which is causing all kinds of auto-immunity problems and other health risks.

And if you know me, from reading things about me in the dim and distant past, not only am I a huge advocate for sustainability and paleo thinking, but I am also incredibly geeky about microbiomes!

“A nature poem for every day of the year” by Jane McMorland Hunter – again I am reading this to kind of study poetry but also because of Ray Bradbury’s idea of reading a poem, an essay and a short story every day. 

I read a lot of non-fiction daily anyway, it’s a habit I’ve always had, I don’t read much fiction to be honest but when I do I tend to like picking up short story anthologies and I virtually never read poetry until recently, so I felt like a kindred spirit of Ray Bradbury when I read this quote the other week!

I used to read fiction a lot when I was younger but I got out of the habit of it because I started to panic that my ideas were like this and that and this too!  So it made me worry constantly about plagiarism.

Again, if you know me, you’d know by now I am an incessant worry wart!

So to ensure I don’t give up my current words in progress (WIP) I got out of the habit of reading too much fiction.

Which is kind of stupid, but there you go.

Thanks for reading!

Top of the wheel

I’m not setting goals anymore in regards to novel writing, they get done when they get done but I haven’t given up; Yes I’ve had a respite since September 2022 and that is a long time, unreasonably long, but I had to have it due to mental health healing.  I had a hard time, there were lots of things happening in my life I had to think about – think a lot.

Lots of things in fact, lots of different problems to solve and many of them just needed me to try and calm myself enough to allow myself to think, then once I had managed to do that, I needed to calm myself again and stop thinking in order to heal from it all.

There was grief, death of a relative, a revelation I wasn’t sure was a trick or not, an announcement, an opportunity, a break up, a diagnosis and so many things all rolled into one major thing for me – that I could not cope.

Ultimately my entire life has been turned upside down and I am still in the situation of not really knowing if it is a good or bad thing just yet, I am still teetering on the edge of trying to determine which – it could be either!

It’s a strange situation to be in.

I feel at the moment I am standing on top of a wheel and if I fall backwards I will land in shark filled waters and if I fall forwards I will fall safe into someone’s arms.

At present I am still on top of the wheel.

It’s like sitting on a bomb really.

My mind has been so preoccupied with all these things that I haven’t been able to keep to my reading goals, my writing or practising of my art.  I haven’t even been able to hold a conversation without my mind wandering off, worrying about things.

It’s only been this past week I have manage to slowly and surely restart my habits.  I have started to write a little again, I have started to read a little again and I have even done some art.

Not as much as I would normally do in a day, in fact, I am doing less than ten paragraphs every couple of days towards anything, my one poem a day has become three or four again; my art practises are happening every couple of days.  It’s more than what has happened between September 2022 to March 2023 in any case and I am proud it’s coming back together again.

The frustrating thing is this – my typing speed has got extremely slow and I can’t seem to speed it up again.  I used to write 90 to 120 words per minute and now I struggle to get above 40.

I am making a lot of spelling mistakes and errors, cognitively I am suffering a lot and I don’t know what to make of it.

My Easter Project and Project AD has hopes to be finished before Midsummer, but I am not going to force myself, it’s still early days for me, I still haven’t fully healed.

In reality, I need a holiday – get out of this environment, get out into nature and remember how to laugh and play again – playfully scream – wash my hair with the rays of the sun – chase faeries – hug trees – and try to learn how to feel happy again.  Because happiness is a distant memory, one I am not sure I can remember how it feels anymore.  Strange as that sounds…

I also need to learn to trust again.

Trust in the process, trust to love again, trust that I have self-worth, that I am someone deserving and someone who can be free to laugh without someone complaining about the noise or worrying I am going to get over excited and hurt myself.

Because a couple of years ago I was bedbound sick and laughing really did hurt me, because it would cause a coughing fit and my spleen was swollen and so it genuinely was rather painful to laugh – but those things are behind me now.  But still, out of habit I have people trying to calm me down, because they’ve forgotten how much I have healed.

I need to lose myself in feelings that are opposite to negative ones – I need to, because I don’t feel very human anymore.

There are times I have sat back and realised all the negativity around me, all the bitterness, envy, jealousy, contempt and discomfort and I wonder what am I becoming exactly?  Am I becoming a demon?  Because the only things I can feel are variations of darkness…

It’s a scary place to be – see, there – fear – another negative emotion… but you see, I try to remember something a motivational speaker called Mel Robbins once said – that fear is the exact same chemical in the brain to excitement and that you have to change your perspective and realise when you fear something that you might actually need to try and tell yourself it’s exciting, rather than something to fear.

Odd… but I am trying this trick.

I am on the cusp of something amazing which is about to happen in my life and all I can think about is how scary it is – I know there are wonderful things coming with it, especially a lot of love and tenderness and protection – but I still can’t help but focus on that one major problem.  I have like 30 pros and only around five cons to this chance, yet it’s the cons that are taking up brain space!

When you see it like that, you realise there is something seriously wrong with how you are wired!

Wired might not be correct actually… trained is perhaps the best way to describe it.   Because I used to be such a Positive Pollyanna and it has only really been in the past decade that the Pollyanna in me has started to die.

I need to do what happened in the book Pollyanna – I need to find my tribe to help resuscitate me, bring me back to the light.

Although saying that, I think I don’t need to, I think – if I am reading things correctly, my tribe has come to find me and all I need to do is wait a little while longer, then reach out my hand fearlessly and say to myself – I am excited to be a part of your life!

Thanks for reading!

A silly dream

One thing I didn’t realise or remember about having an Alexa Echo Dot thingy, is that I can get to hear my kindle books on it, spoken aloud by Alexa herself!  I am excited about that because my Kindle stopped working around two years ago I had loads of books on it, downloaded a load of free classic literature.

Today I sat through and heard the first three chapters of The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole, for the first time – it’s quite a good read actually.  I have wanted to read that story for years!

I can totally understand why so many classic horror novelists have owed their inspiration to it!

Because of the book and because of the music, I have found myself daydreaming about my vampires again – yes I know there are no vampires in the story, but still, the thought is there.

The music I have been listening today have been my vampire playlist, but I have started to create a new vampire playlist now, one that concentrates mostly on classical music because of the time period I am thinking about.

My music tastes are more than just a little bit eclectic; I do in fact listen to classical music about half the time actually and my paternal family has always been into classical music and that side of the family has always been musical and involved with entertainment in some manner of speaking.

I for example, was classically trained in opera as a young child, until my mum got fed up forking out the money for something she didn’t find productive, my dad and his family were very distressed at her stopping this.

I love a lot of different types of musical interests, Jazz, soul, rock and alternative with classical or classical fusion and world music.  I have never been to a music concert before, unless you include local classical orchestra that is and nobody really wants to hear that I have gone to those, because they expect you to say some cooler like a rock band or something.

But I have always been a huge fan of Vivaldi, George Gershwin, Beethoven, Vaughn Williams and Tchaikovsky to name but a few.  I even like modern classical from John Williams, Alan Silvestre and Brad Fiedel which are movie composers.

I am one of these strange people that when she watches a movie, she lets the whole thing consume her – the visuals, the acting, the audio – background music, it is all taken in by me.  I am not happy to just watch a movie and enjoy it; I like to know where that music came from in scene whatever and well that’s just me, I am a geek, what can I say?

Since I was very small I had loads of dreams about being some kind of composer myself, lyricist, but also a director or something along those lines.  But the thing is I could never narrow down what I wanted to focus on, because I like the whole caboodle. 

I want to be an artist, I want to do the music, I want to design the costumes, I want to help the props, I want to write songs, I want to write the stories and for a good few years as a child I used to roleplay being a radio DJ too!

But because I can’t focus which one, I never threw myself into it, because I would literally run around trying to do the whole thing!

I have so many interests and I let a project consume me, I remember when I was in college I was part of an amateur dramatics group and I couldn’t choose my focus and my friends loved me, but found my lack of focus on one or two aspects very frustrating and distracting!

They loved my dedication but would often cry into their hands about “Tina, please just focus”!

Most of them pushed me into the acting, writing or prop making as they felt those things were my best strengths.  But I wasn’t keen on the acting, though they kept trying to steer me into it as they believed I was amazing.  But I didn’t want that, I knew that, I knew that I didn’t want that part of it, but I wanted everything else, lol.

In the last few weeks of being in that group, I was primarily writer and they enjoyed it – but then they started to try and shift my genre focus.   “You do better horror and psychological thrillers than anything else” they said.

By that time I knew my time was up, because my mum didn’t like me doing this in my spare time after college, she wanted me home in the evenings and didn’t like how many friends I was making and didn’t like me leaving the college to go into London with my friends to do things like street miming.

I love mime artists.

Recently I have new desires and I am not taking myself seriously over it, because I am starting way too late.

This new desire is one of the reasons why I am losing weight and trying to get good fitness levels back.  I want to join an adult beginner’s gymnastics class, as silly as that sounds.

Because my whole life I have wanted to do something and I had never confessed it to anyone because of how stupid it is!

I am one of these people who want to run away with the circus, kind of – but not quite!

Since I was a child I would often find myself listening to classical music and imagining myself as a circus acrobat, primarily trapeze, trampolines or tight rope walking.  I often saw myself in the circus glamour and doing my stuff – but more recently, as silly as it sounds, I have thought of myself doing this in a comedy sketch form.  A clown in fact, but I am not interested in any circus.  I am inspired by the Cirque Du Soleil.

I know it will take me around fifteen years to get to the standard they would hire, so this is why I am not taking myself seriously.

It’s just a stupid big dream of mine.

I have even thought about the clown design I would have for myself.

I don’t want it as a long term career, I just want to do my show on tour for a year and then give up, because it is something I would have worked hard to do and ticked off my bucket list – one of the BIG dream tick offs!

But as I said, I don’t think it will ever happen and it is just a silly dream after all, I can barely walk two miles without coming to my knees right now – still recovering from eight years of bedbound sickness, this is why I am not taking it seriously.

But I am totally in love with The Cirque Du Soleil.

I sent an email to a local disabled adult beginners gymnastics tutor today, she said twenty hours a week for ten to fifteen years and I could do my dream and no, forty years old is not too old to be accomplished in that!

There are many silly dreams I don’t share.

Thanks for reading!

I hate silence

I have another victory within the home today, a small one.

I can now have music in my bedroom without relying on YouTube videos on the TV and I no longer need to work on a lagging laptop because Amazon music is on the background online.  Instead, Paul has agreed to surrender the living rooms Echo Dot to be taken upstairs as I am the only person who really listens to music.

This has already boosted my writing productivity hugely and it’s only been upstairs for two days now.

Music does a lot for me in regards to writing and doing art.

Music is in my soul, it’s a part of who I am.

Why did I get the victory?

Because I was watching a YouTube video with Paul the other day and they had a choose an item thing on the video about what your spirit guides want to tell you about why you are having obstacles or ill health in your life. 

The advice I got was, music is in your soul, sound leads your way, you do not do well in silence – music affects your health and your productivity, listen to the music that lifts you up and you will see a rapid change in your life!

I said to Paul – see, I told you, I need to buy an Echo Dot for up here, I think I will do that with my next allowance as I have seen them cheap online for £18.  He wouldn’t let me buy it, instead he said, have the one downstairs no one uses it but you anyway, I will bring it up here for you right away and lo and behold he did!  Instantaneously without waiting…. My goodness, something he did on the spur of the moment, a rare event!

I am so happy!

It’s only been two days and I have done more than I have for ages!

Also I am starting to read more too, because the break in the silence is making it feel less monotonous.

I hate silence, I have never been once to like pure silence – it actually gives me a headache!

Thanks for reading!

Precious time

For the past few weeks my brain has been more than just a tad topsy-turvy. 

I have been suffering from insomnia for years but since around November my insomnia has got far worse, sleeping an average of just four hours a day and it really is day time sleeping too – often getting to sleep around 8am to wake up around noon.

It feels so alien and wrong to me, I have never been one who likes to sleep and I have never been one who accepts people who sleep-in; I am one of those people who generally have little respect for people who sleep in bed past 10am (even on a Sunday)and here I am, doing just that!  In fact, before I got sick, I was disgusted by people who couldn’t get out of bed by 8:30am!

But there you go, things change and not always for the better!

For me it is inconvenient to be asleep during the day because Henry is at school and whilst I am fighting with my insomnia and sleeping whilst he is at school it means I am practically getting nothing done at all for weeks now!

No reading, hardly much writing, no art yet, listening to music, not much meditation or conversation, not much of anything. 

When I am awake I am tired to the extent of feeling faint most of the time that all I am able to do is sit and stare and try to maintain consciousness.

So if the quality of the writing in my blog has been really bad lately, you now know why!

Last night was an exception for me considering these past few weeks, I managed to get to sleep by 2:30am and wake up around 10am, which is amazing considering what’s happened sleep wise for the past two months!

I’ve done more in these three hours today, than I have for the whole of last week!

If anybody out there knows me, they know that one thing I can’t stand more than sleepy heads, is people who waste their time by choosing to do nothing!

I have a huge intolerance for time wasting, unless it’s purely for relaxation, recuperation or fun!

I am easily frustrated by myself if I find I am not being productive in at least something – it doesn’t have to consistently be the same one thing, as long as I am being productive in something!  Such as cleaning, reading, honing a skill, writing, socialising, exercising, bonding with a pet, gardening or keeping my brain sharp with a strategy or puzzle game.  Anything which doesn’t contribute to some kind of betterment in the future, or productivity is a waste of time!  Unless as I have said, it is for fun or recuperation – this is where TV and music comes into play for me.

Because for me, the TV and music can be very productive, even though I might just be sitting and watching or sitting and listening, because not only am I relaxing and having fun, it adds to the stimulus for ideas to be creatively productive in the future or a form of research – this is something non creative people can never understand!

Though even watching TV these days is a task not worth fighting for as I can never watch anything in full without being disturbed or someone randomly coming over and turning the channel without asking if I am watching it and to fight to keep it on is not worth it and too much energy!  I live with selfish people who don’t care and are stronger minded than I am, so they walk all over me! 

The idea of sitting down and doing nothing in a brainless manner, even for relaxation has never really made sense to me; Paul does it all the time, he sits down sometimes for hours and I ask him what he is thinking about and it is always the same answer “nothing”, I don’t get it!

Even when I meditate I never go into that state of “no mind” so I suppose then by meditation standards I am doing it all wrong?  But I just can’t seem to grip the state of “no mind” relaxation.  For me, when I relax I suppose it’s a sort of astral travel?  I am wondering round in the throes of my mind in forests, having conversations with people, thinking deeply about anything and often find myself doing the things in my head that I would like to do physically if only!

When I was bedbound sick, you have no idea how crazy it made me just sitting in bed all day every day for so many years just existing as it appeared to me to just suffer!

I exist purely for germs, was my everyday thought – to give life to infectious little bugs as a host and nothing more.  As dramatic as it seems, that’s how I felt!

Sickness, procrastination and doing nothing, is highly inconvenient for me – as is sleep, going to the toilet and travelling in a car, because of the little activities I can do during those times!  Time wasting, can’t stand it!

Yet I’ve done it so much over the past eight years whilst recuperating from ill-health and you have no idea how much guilt I put on myself for it either!

The only time that time wasting is ok for me, is in pleasurable pursuits, then I can waste lots of time doing those things!  I am a hedonist after all! 

But yes, time wasting is my biggest frustration in life and the idea that my health and now insomnia is getting in the way of so much I want to do, life is short as well – is there any wonder why I am often finding myself suicidal?

I wasn’t suicidal before I got sick, in fact I used to be scared of death – but since being ill and lonely, I often crave it now, in fact some days, on bad days, I want to run towards it!

It’s a huge contrast to how I used to be when I lived with my mother, I wanted to be immortal, wanted to become rich enough to invest in discovering the immortal elixir of life and silly ideas like that!

Rich enough to put in research to life extending sciences!

It’s funny now how I don’t think this way anymore, how I just want to fade away because my body insists on being a time wasting shit head, a bum – I don’t like being a bum – don’t respect bums and hate being one, but I am one and you have no idea how much I loathe it and I am fighting against the odds to stop being one!

But the thing is, there is only so much you can do with four hours sleep and a compromised immune system and an NHS system that constantly fails to support you and poverty to boot!

There comes a time when you think about just giving up…

It’s exhausting trying to fight for the little freedoms of everyday life which almost everyone else seems to take for granted!

Those little things other people take for granted, are just mere dreams to me right now.

Thanks for reading!

Sorry if I ruin your day

I had a bout of depression yesterday that was pretty bad because I felt extra lonely.

So I created a lot of really down in the dumps poetry scheduled for today, but as the day moved on I felt happier in myself and so all of those poems are really passé now.

Please don’t worry, I was feeling dramatic – but I keep myself to myself when I am like that and start creating morose poetry and songs, like a sad vampire at a piano… think of The Vampire Lestat at the piano talking to Louis in the 1995 movie Interview with a vampire… it was that kind of creative vibe for me yesterday afternoon!

Hey it got work done didn’t it?

I don’t like to drown people in my sorrows offline and in my home; I like to keep my home and family at a happy place… I suppose then that Pollyanna hasn’t died yet in me, like I said she had a couple of months back!

There is hope for the little dear yet!

Thanks for reading… and I am sorry if I ruin your day with what’s to come!

I know it’s hard… but enjoy it?  *cringe*

Maybe she couldn’t help it?

As hard as it might be to believe it, but I am starting to understand things a bit better about how I was treated as a child.

I am starting to realise as I am getting older that both of my parents were not really normal at all, I had my suspicions about my dad, but he was lovely, I kind of felt my mother was also a bit odd but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it… I presumed she was a bit off because she too, had a hard life – but no, there was more.

I may be entirely wrong with my suspicions, but it is making me wonder…

I’ll get to the gist shall I? 

I have been reading a book called “An adult with an autism diagnosis” by Gillan Drew, because I wanted to better understand my son Henry’s autism diagnosis better.  But as I was reading the book I realise more and more that the book was describing my parents!

Both had their obsessions, extreme OCD, both self-neglected when things went into turmoil in their lives, both were excessively awkward with strangers and would never leave the house if it meant leaving a specific three mile radius and would abandon trips altogether if they needed an alternate route because of roadworks or accidents.

Both had irrational ideas and were easily triggered into aggressive mood swings that held grudges sometimes for months and in some cases forever!

They also took everything literally, they never questioned what they were told and they were both excessively stubborn about any knowledge that they had.

Multi-tasking was also a trait none of them had; they were easily flustered whenever they had to do more than one thing at a time and were easily irritated by sudden changes of plan.  Everything in their lives were run by a tight schedule and outside of that schedule they were easily lost and confused.

The main trait of autistic parents according to the book is emotional distance from people, especially their children, though they focus on them a lot and they will do everything for the child in usually a suffocating manner, they often neglect their emotional needs.  They often fail to comfort their child, or cuddle them or support them verbally, but are quick to criticisms if it is outside of their idea of perfection.

I remember my parents thinking that cuddles was silly, get off, what do you think you are doing?  Do you think that is appropriate?  I remember my parents cancelling things if it meant that their dinner had to wait even by fifteen minutes, because the idea of not eating dinner by 4:30pm every day except Sunday was alien to them!

I know a lot of the time my mother would refer on the telephone to relatives she respected about the behaviour of all of her children and based on their advice she would change her parenting method quickly and react to whatever was suggested to her.

Throughout most of my childhood the parenting was delegated as much as possible, I was passed onto relative to relative a lot of the time and in between that she arranged for live in help in the form of au pairs and home helps.

Sometimes my mum would let me get away with things because in her opinion she didn’t see that something was wrong, if someone mentioned that it was wrong to her she’d instantly panic and respond in a very aggressive and often violent manner in the embarrassment that someone else had judged her.

All of these things are very much like a high on the spectrum autistic parent.

This would totally explain to me the constant inconsistencies in her parenting style and her ways and how extreme she was.

I know she hasn’t been diagnosed with autism because she has lived in a time where those things were not widely known, but I do know that my mother went to a prove school and was expelled for her behaviour a lot of the time and she had psychiatric tests a lot throughout her childhood because of her strangeness.

My dad isn’t so high up in the spectrum I think; I think he is just socially awkward and easily manipulated by my mother.

My mother had what I called “flaps” she often had to try and control herself, it is making total sense to me now and it is a confusing emotion to consider forgiving her because she may have had this condition and didn’t know any better!

Seriously, that is what is going through my head right now.

Her behaviour on many occasions was inexcusable, but I never once considered that she isolated me because she was suffering from social anxieties herself – because throughout my childhood she kept saying it was I who was not normal and that she simply didn’t socialise because she didn’t have the time or energy because of running a family and a home along with ridiculous work schedules. 

I didn’t realise when I grew up that most of the people she socialised with were in actual fact distant relatives and not friends at all!

This fact only came about near the end of my nans life as she revealed several family friends to be 3^rd to fifth cousins and then it was confirmed on GenesReunited on more than one occasion that it was true!

Yet growing up I was led to believe my mum was cool and extroverted and wild, because of her stories and ways.

How she berated me for being a strange creature who was the complete opposite to her.  She said she feared that I was too trusting of strangers and that I didn’t know how to properly behave in public as I am too forward and innocent all at once, that strangers would get mixed signals from me!

Every therapist I have ever gone to has felt that socially there doesn’t seem to be anything amiss – that perhaps some of my problems are based around my mother putting scary thoughts into my head – but to them they thought I was rather mature and worldly and acting very appropriately in fact splendidly.

It’s very strange to consider I got this book to understand my son, but instead it made me understand my mother!

I remember growing up and hearing my mother ask me why I would do such and such and to have me explain things to her almost constantly and she would always ask me why I reacted that way!

I often used to cry about not being cuddled or having attention as much as other children with their parents – she honestly looked awkward and frustrated and often said “why is that important?  I don’t like to do this, so you should respect that – why can’t you just understand I am not the cuddly sort of mother”?

It was bad enough her rejecting me, but when I was around ten years old my dad started to say he won’t cuddle me anymore because my mother finds it inappropriate now!

Henry doesn’t like cuddles either he doesnt understand how they are important in families.

She was always asking me why about everything –why is this important to you, I don’t think that should be, you should think this way instead (her way).

She’d also never understood how people had their own hobbies, likes and dislikes and would easily get offended if you said you didn’t like something that she liked.

She always tried to tell me that as we have a mother and daughter relationship, it is the daughters duty to be as much like her mother as possible, therefore I should endeavour to dress like her, think like her, choose the same hobbies as her and want to be with her as much as possible doing things as a team!

She couldn’t fathom for the life of her that things don’t work out that way!

She was so self-absorbed that for years I didn’t realise that brushing teeth and washing outside of the once a week on a Sunday bath was important, until other relatives I lived with raised concerns about my hygiene standards when I was thirteen!

When I told my mother about this conversation, she said that she presumed I would know to have done it, because she did it to me right up until I was 5yrs old and she presumed that I would carry it on now I knew the basics… no children don’t work like that… children don’t understand those sorts of things unless you tell them specifically and remind them regularly!

When I moved in with Paul in 2009 my mother couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t have the usual meal time schedules, why I had breakfast now whereas in London I never had one – why I don’t do lunch at 12:15pm sharp instead it floats around 1pm to 3pm and why on Earth is dinner anywhere between 6:30pm and 8pm when it should be 4:30pm? 

Why do I now have an 11:15pm bedtime and a 5:45am wake up time? 

Why do I insist in going out at 8am every morning for a long walk?

Why do I want to have yellow and purple walls instead of ivory white?

Why am I wearing pink instead of black and white all the time suddenly?

Why… why… why…

Why can’t I be like her?

She couldn’t cope with all the changes, the idea of travelling up to visit me made her ill because it was an hour and twenty minute car journey, a whole 87 miles too far!

The panic of me leaving home caused her to phone me approximately twenty five times a day!

When she temporarily moved in with me because I wasn’t coping a the last month of pregnancy as I needed bed rest due to chronic oedema and blood pressure – she went around the house changing furniture to her taste, painting my walls her colours and throwing out anything she found ugly whether I wanted to keep it or not, whether they were special things of                 Paul’s or not too!

She couldn’t understand when I had my baby, that my baby was priority over everything, including her!  She was hurt and often whimpered and cried if I ignored her to attend to my baby, because I never used to just ignore and abandon her when she spoke to me.  She really didn’t understand the transition!

All of this makes me wonder if my mother was a high functioning autistic person.

It makes me wonder if she deserved my sympathy because she really didn’t understand anything at all and still probably doesn’t understand why I decided I had enough of her controlling, aggressive and oftentimes childish ways.

I remember before I decided to wash my hands of her, I told Paul; my mother is harder work than our two year old over there!  He is a doddle; she is driving me around the twist and endangering him with her stupid antics!

Thanks for reading!

Habits lost & found

Trying to wake myself up from this sleepwalk from life, get back into semi-normality at least because I am starting to lose my identity a bit – no a lot.

Up until six months ago, I might not have done much with my life due to sickness, but I did things regularly and daily – since September, most of my regular daily habits have dropped totally!

The good ones that is, a lot of the bad ones have been dropped too – which is a good thing!

I no longer drink two litres of caffeinated sodas a day like I used to, but I do still drink them occasionally, in fact it’s dropped to a litre every two weeks, which in my mind is excellent – yes I did go cold turkey on that for a while and it worked, but I do miss it as an occasional treat and went back to buying a litre bottle every two weeks.

The potato snacks have also dropped hugely, still a regular habit, but at least it’s not a disgusting three to yes, shockingly sometimes six bags a day anymore!  Yes, crisps were always my biggest vice since I was a kid!

But the good things that made me productive daily have dropped and I feel really bad about it, so today I am trying really hard to force myself to get back into them again. 

Reading thirty pages of something a day.

Practising even If it’s just a five minute lesson on Duo Lingo French or Italian per day!

Writing at least five hundred words per day to a novel!

Researching or looking for inspiration and keeping up to date with relevant genre news for ninety minutes per day!

Practising drawings for an hour a day!

Daydreaming for my stories at least ten minutes an hour throughout the day! 

All those things were regular habits I had daily, but for some reason or another since September the desire to do any of them seems to have gone and I have gone into a state of severe apathy.

I have replaced what I did do, with things that don’t make me feel like I am valuing my time – things such as studying tarot cards as my grandmother never taught me that no card is an island and that you get things such as blocked cards and different spreads and don’t forget not all reversals are really reversed in their meanings.

I have made more effort with my appearance and being mindful about the kind of nutrition I am putting in my body for the first time in years.

I am staring into nothingness, but I don’t call that meditation, because I am not relaxed, I am finding myself having a lot of emotional blips and being tearful and I don’t really understand why – but I am starting to get shy even around the family now.  Putting up hoodies and avoiding people.

I am becoming much more withdrawn, the most difficult time of the day for me is sitting with the family at the dinner table to eat – because as soon as someone says something negative I get a lurch in my stomach and I can’t finish the meal.  I am under eating, though I am dieting – it’s not ideal how little I am actually eating!

I have even asked Paul to perhaps consider a separate meal time for me, just so I get to eat properly, but it really isn’t convenient for any of us to do that!

I am feeling trapped and it’s making me become a little snippy with Paul in particular lately and I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I just can’t help it!  I think it’s because I know what’s going through his head, we’ve separated but still living together and none of us really wants to be around each other anymore.  Though saying that, Paul is starting to come and sit close to me a lot lately, even if he isn’t talking to me – this is something he has never done throughout the whole of our relationship.  I know that sounds odd, but he has never been the type to actually sit next to me, even when we we’re OK with each other – because he has always been too fond of his laptop.

The other day I was so shocked by this unusual behaviour I looked at him in the eyes and said “You’re sitting next to me”?  He smiled and said that he knew – I then said “you smiled, are you feeling OK?” because honestly, Paul doesn’t do that much either!

He just nodded and smiled wider… freaky…

Honestly if you knew him you’d be freaked out too!

So today I am trying to wake myself out of this sleepwalk in life.

Though I sometimes wonder about this writing habit… I know in September we got news our finances are going to be much worse and we can’t afford ink for the printer and I tend to print everything I write and look at the papers multi-tasking whilst I write, which I can’t do anymore because of funds.  So I try to keep lots of tabs opened to keep peeping at folders from my cloud, but it’s irritating as it means I am staring at screens more than I want to and it’s making me tired faster.

I know it sounds like an excuse, but paper helps me be more productive – maybe that’s the factor here – but it doesn’t explain why all the other habits have dropped!

Talking of which, Paul admitted an underestimate of our financial capabilities, I have now learned we will be better than we thought, in fact our diet can improve very slightly and we can now afford to go out once a week via taxi or bus now, which will mean there is transport money for me to see doctors if I need them now.

Thanks for reading!