Down at mouth city scapes and people

Writing as a tool.
This past week I've woken up most mornings feeling pretty flat an that's been mainly fuelled by sadness. I miss the contact with G and when I think of him, I think of his sad demeanour and that at times we had really fun and happy times. There was a problem though in that being the norm. That was the exception. I have to keep reminding myself as otherwise I have those "gaps" when there is nothing to do, nowhere to go and I'm just sitting with me ad guess what? I don't  sit in that spot too easily very often. I haven't taken quiet time for an age now. I find all sorts of reasons as to why not.
And then L. Well having sent him the message as follows:

"Good morning L.

For some unaccountable reason this week feels as if it's going by so slowly. It's only Thursday. I only work 4 days a week at the moment and it still feels too many.

Oh good news and quite a shock, I got a first in both of my last 2 assignments. I certainly didn't expect that! That probably means very little but to me it's amazing. I do everything at the last minute and I give very little time to my studying really. I could be quite clever I reckon if I applied myself. That's what my teachers used to say in so many words. I was never really disciplined at school or at home with this sort of thing. And yet expectations were high. Strange combination really.

I wanted to say something quite serious now ..... are you sitting.

Ha ha - for me it feels intense and then I think what the hell am I talking about how can this be so intense???

Fumble fumble for words to say things that are then actually very revealing about me the person.

As you will probably know by now I am interested in sex. I like to play, I like to enjoy sex. HOWEVER (there's always a but huh?). It's not enough for me to just be sexual.

Now here's the weird bit okay. I am very very aware that you're there and I'm here but to me this sex play is just a prelude to getting to know you. Despite the distance and plastic between me and you there's just a little wonder in me as to whether you are someone I would like to know and have time with. It's impossible so goodness knows how or why I should even entertain the idea.

And so then why on earth would I be entering into all this sexual play. When actually I don't want to do that with anyone other than a person I am in a relationship with.

I enjoy what we've been doing. It's a lot of fun. I like your adventurous spirit and I like being pushed as actually I am very shy especially with sex and yet not really - what a combination!!

It's not enough though really. Without all the other levels of intimacy even with adventuring it becomes simply sex.

This I guess is where men and women are so so different. I can play and adventure but I also like discussion and experiencing other things and so on.

It's impossible for you and I to do that together.

I was going to write that if you were here or I there or just together and going out and talking and stuff from time to time and then getting home and then making love with gusto and adventure - that's great!!

But as days have gone on I just wonder what I'm doing. Coz the other problem is that I am loyal to you despite the distance, the plastic and the not really knowing you at all.

So then I am investing myself in distance, plastic and cyber sex which is only partially fulfilling a sexual desire.

Intensity over.......

No doubt I'll get horny again. But oddly if I don't entertain that it doesn't become a longing and passes quickly.

Anyway I'm going off to work now. Boo hoo. I love it when I'm there it just seems too much this week. Why does that happen?

Well of the real content of this email.

I'd be interested in your thoughts. I enjoy the liaisons with you but ....

I would like to continue being "penfriends/telephone friends" but I'm not quite sure on what basis - I know I don't want it to be on a sexual basis.

Better than running off to consider what the fuck I am doing here. I thought I'd just be honest with my thoughts. "

 

So he replied saying he understood and he would telephone me over the weekend. Well he hasn't so far. He has respected my sexlessness though but also barely been in contact, unless I've initiated a chitty chatty nonsense text. I have stopped as of last night. I was demeaning myself and thinking it just confuses the issue. He is not someone I know to be chit chatting about my day to day experiences. An that's all I want really. Someone to just share the days and experiences with. Otherwise I have these experiences and ..... and what? They are experiences for myself not because of others. Sometimes I do wonder if I have them to show off. And sometimes as I'm say walking around a gallery learning and viewing I start questioning why bother with all this life experience when I'm going to die and the "knowledge" dies with me. What's the point?

For example I'm doing all this studying and may achieve my degree eventually. So what? I die soon. What benefit will it all have had?

I've had a few more heart flutters. The worst was on when? Thursday I think. P was in group and one started. Whereas usually it is a brief moment. This one went on beyond the brief and I didn't worry as I thought it was a slightly extended brief moment. But it continued. I was starting to consider getting some help. My first port of call was to go and get P. I didn't though as he was in group and I wouldn't want to disturb that process. Anyway it passed. I've noticed a few sensations since but actually not as strong and fleeting. I've mentioned it to AB and she wants me to phone A&E if it reoccurs but I don;t think it's serious enough for that. I'm moderately perturbed at this stage.

AB is drinking a lot. And bloody hell I'm feeling so irritated by her. I feel her trying to control all the time. She is over thinking everything and worrying about everything. And as a result she is infuriating. She is over intellectualising as well. She is rude. I keep entering into the affray with her and then realise I'm getting fraught and short with her and so step back out again. She is SO controlling. The thing is I can then see myself controlling to match and survive. It is so annoying that she will not do anything about her drinking. And actually it's annoying as GB won't do anything about hers either. She and AB then enable each other. GB drinks just as much but isn't the same in her manner with it. The family is riddled with codependency. I couldn't live there and understand why RB gets away so much. It's into the arms of D thought and there is something about him that is not trustworthy. I can't put my finger on it. He wants to rescue the world but has this sort of arrogance. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he wasn't still drinking in secret.

Anyway with AB I know my feeling swill pass when she reduces her drinking again - goodness knows what's triggering this bout of nastiness. Menopause I wouldn't wonder and fear of the future.

Yesterday going to London was lovely. I qualified at the FA meeting and it was a real uplifting thing to do. 90 days again yesterday. Hoping that I do not have to go back to day 1. The return to day 1 can be over silly little things. I talks about the relapse because of fear. Fear of saying what I needed and ending up eating food that wasn't enough and so ate bread as it was on the plate. It was like eating razor blades with every mouthful, knowing it was relapse. And then of course thinking well I've done that I might as well ... I didn't thankfully. I managed to sit but wasn't really that attentive. And then I did eat my evening meal as usual. Thank goodness I had prepared it all.

K looks great and S is blooming with her pregnancy despite being so unwell with Lymes. What a worry for the unborn baby too. Yet she looks serene and getting on with whatever is ahead of her with projecting too much. I wonder though if she is just covering up and yet knowing that with all my emotions and situations I really am okay overall. And I know it's all just feelings and even with projections about the possibility of the business not working and me being out of a job I am not agonising. Not like last year when I was desperate to get away from the situation with LK but didn't know what I'd do for work. I thought I'd do anything until I actually started looking and felt the life drain from me when considering office work. What would I do other than this? I love being able to work with people.

I I could see 11 people per week at £50 per session equals £550 would be about £28k per year. Hmm less tax. Not so much really but more than a lot of people. The problem is getting 11 people consistently. People are not consistent and then where do the referrals come from which is the exact same problem we have now.

And where the hell do I get a room cheaply enough. You see the costs haven't even been deducted from that. I can see myself doing that eventually though if this doesn't work out.

Oh I start my modelling career this week.

Lowry at Tate Britain.

 

Interesting. I really liked one of his paintings on the beach. It was a rare different setting from industrialised cities. It was different colour scheme as well. Most of his paintings were white skies and white ground. Lots of browns, greys and olive greens. And uplifted by red clothing on the matchstick men and dogs.

"I saw the industrial scene and I was affected by it. I tried to paint it all the time. I tried to paint the industrial scene as best I could. It wasn’t easy."

GB asked if I had a bundle of money whether I would buy a Lowry for the aesthetics. I'd buy one for the collection.But for aesthetics. Probably not, maybe the beach. They are depictive of the industrial city of Manchester. I hadn't realised that the scenes were not real but a cobbled collection of places. Like collages really. And apparently the people were really images of himself in a general way. Everyone looks busy, heads down and leaning forward. Unhappiness. That's what I generally got from them. It was an interesting viewing from the point of seeing his skill in perspective and being quite unique.

Influenced by the French impressionists with his colours apparently and taught by Valette and others. I see and influence of Pissaro, whom I like very much actually. His use of night lights especially.

 

And most were painted as if out of a window from a top floor. How could he have got those views. Did he just take away the memory and a sketch. Now AB says he was quite a strange man and had painted some sexual life's with a theme of bondage in some. It's a pit the curator hadn't given the fuller story of him. Curators probably play safe huh? How snobby the art world is but how limiting. I'd like to have a fuller picture of the artists. It's then coming to life more.

 

 

Published in The Guardian

 

Lowry's dark imagination comes to light

• Vanessa Thorpe, arts and media correspondent
• The Observer, Sunday 25 March 2007

Behind the familiar images of factory workers and northern industrial city scapes that have made LS Lowry one of Britain's most easily recognised and frequently reproduced painters, there is a much darker, sadder group of work rarely seen by the public. These bleak sketches and paintings include a series of disturbing and sexually deviant drawings that remained hidden until after the artist's death in 1976.Today the novelist and Lowry enthusiast Howard Jacobson is to give the annual lecture in honour of the painter at the Lowry Centre. He will argue that ignoring the bleak side of the artist's imagination has led to him being under-rated and misunderstood by many art critics. Jacobson is to call for Lowry's fetishistic, private drawings to be more widely shown.'I don't feel we are prying. I don't think there is anything prurient about it. In fact, by avoiding looking at this work we are just shielding Lowry from imagined disapproval. It is pathetic,' said Jacobson.He will suggest the public do not yet appreciate the complexity of Lowry's work, partly because they see such a limited selection. For Jacobson, the secret drawings of women in outlandish outfits and strange bondage positions are just part of his melancholy and tortured view of the world.'I am not somebody who thinks we have a right to know about everything in an artist's life. There is a line, of course. But when it comes to the work itself, then it is not like that,' said Jacobson.'It shows what a serious modernist Lowry really was,' said Jacobson. 'If he was French, after all, there would be no fuss. In fact, people would probably expect him to have made work like this.'Many of the erotic sketches show single female figures in bizarre and restrictive costumes and they commonly have either a hinted or an explicitly violent content.Jacobson's call has prompted the Lowry estate to reveal this weekend that one of the erotic sketches held at the Lowry Centre, will be loaned to the Netherlands for an exhibition this autumn. The sketch is to be sent out along with three other more conventional works by Lowry.'We would always consider a request to show these works,' said a spokesman. 'It is always simply a question of context and of the level of scholarship involved.'The work being loaned for the show in Ghent is reproduced above by permission of the estate. The Lowry, which was set up in 2000 to commemorate the life and work of the painter, has also responded to Jacobson's plea.A spokeswoman for the gallery said that the group of erotic works, which are sometimes referred to collectively as 'the mannequin sketches' or 'marionette works' were, in fact, available for visitors to see on request and that many of the images are also brought up into the public display area according to a rotation system.'I am always happy to show this work on request,' said the Lowry's collection adminstrator, Ruth Salisbury.The arts establishment has frequently denigrated Lowry, who worked as a tax collector, and classed his work as part of an anodyne, heritage tradition. Dubbed a 'Sunday painter', his familiar paintings of factories and 'matchstick men and women' have been dismissed by some critics as a straightforward celebration of the northern industrial experience.Jacobson sees this as a major misunderstanding. The work is a brutal consideration of the modern world and the lack of communication between people, he argues, and is reminiscent of the work of the playwrights Harold Pinter and Samuel Beckett. As a fellow Mancunian, Jacobson will suggest in his lecture that Lowry's habit of running himself down has been counter-productive. Many critics have been taking his work at face value.

(I'm always impressed at the information AB manages to store in her memory)

 

 

Some of the paintings I saw .... And there were 6 rooms so this was just a very small selection. Some of the more well known city scenese were there of course. AB informs me that the Tate has a large collection that are never shown. Why?

 

 

Just one last ting to get off my mind. As I was walking across Lambeth Bridge towards Millbank and the Tate, a man approached me. Well dressed and shaven, he tried reassuring me that he wasn't going to snatch anything or mug me but wanted £2. He explained he had lost his wallett. he had not phone having decided to leave it at home. He was supposed to be meeting friends. He said he needed £24.50 or something to get a train home. I was suspiscious and offered tog et some change. But as he was walking and he was clearly needing the money so much I just gave him a tenner. I don;t really have moeny to be able to give away to strangrs who I didn;t really believe. But it didn't matter whether I believed him or not he clearly needed it so much to ask starngers and so I had it and gave it to him. A little bit of me is hanging on to the idea that i was conned but the other part of me knows I made a choice because he clearly needed it more than me whatever his reason.

I just hope he uses it wisely and it wouldn't contribute to his downfall. Happy days for him I hope

 

 

There is an irony somewhere in there that I can't wuit connect with - the poverty depicted in Lowry's art, cities, unhappiness and this man - well dressed and that desperate for money.

 

Bliss

xx

 

 

Principality

A lot of emotions I've felt last few days and last weekend. Grief - mum, dad, me. By me I have thought about my inability to really stand by my principles for myself. Particularly with men and ending up tolerating situations and ways that just do not fit me. Last night I was crying really missing my dad. I needed to find some photos for my qualifying today and gosh seeing pics of him and I and then wondering how it got to be so far away when he married Theresa. It's all so baffling. I have been talking a lot to him this past week. I have been relieved he's dead and now I'm beginning to miss this ideal version of him. Also I've really felt the remorse and guilt for all of my.behaviours and the impact on him. My dad was angry and stayed angry right to the bitter end - with me. I regret how people feel because of me. My dad was angry with me for existing it seemed to me. So much hurt and now loss of him to ever find out how to be friendly together
Bliss
xx 

Assymetry

A distorted image of who my parents were that I didn't want to let go of and then they both died without me ever being able to directly make amends.
Shit!

Bliss

Irretrievable loss

Women seem to deal with loss and grieve better than men it seems to me. Men don't seem to have a clue.
Loss seems a death to men is about losing and it makes men want to get even. There is anger. And get back at something or someone when there's nothing to really gain.

It seems that some people really liked my dad. The way his step daughters spoke about him.

How can I help anyone in my job without being a trained wife, daughter, partner, friend, human being.
It is different being a therapist, seeing someone else's lie is much easier with academic knowledge and training.

I learnt more about my father over the last years than I ever did beforehand.
Some things my dad did were just awful. But with T he seems to have done things that I just could not associate with my dad. Who was this man they talked about. A wicker coffin, a man who liked things he's never liked before. He was interested in things like the cinema and cruising when he wasn't before.
I had thought he was disregarding my mother somehow.
He chose this new life.
He chose other people when I was younger, other women, lies and not my mum and I. I thought for as long as I know that he didn't like me. He didn't like very much at all. He thought things I liked were pointless. I thought things he did were awful and his interests futile. And yet I looked up to him
Not everyone makes a good parent. My dad always said he would not make a good parent and didn;t ant to be a parent.
I guess he did the best he could with all the deficits of his own childhood and adulthood.
It's not me being defective but circumstances. I was not a bad person. I have to say that again - I was not a bad person as I believed I was.
I only really have learnt anything about myself - selfishly focused? I have been working on me and the sadness I wasn't able to be changed enough to really really make amends to my dad. I would have wanted him to know that I had changed and there were some things that really were still troublesome for me. Men.
I did say to him as he was struggling to breathe that I didn't understand what it had all been about. At that time I was still feeling the victim. I don't now. I took so much difficulty to his door simply because we were so different.
He didn't seem to hear me. He was unconscious at that time. They say hearing is the last thing to go. Maybe he heard me and knew I was there. I think I said sorry. I say sorry now dad.
I swear I felt his presence and a whisper in my ear of a mans voice saying sorry. I was falling asleep leaning on G but I heard it. It was before the reading of the Will and it was at the reading that I realised the sorry was for his disinheritance of me. He didn't come through for me. I didn't come through for him either.
It seems all so futile now.
I don't have anything of his that represents these last years. It would be something to hold onto as I try to let go oh him gradually a I did with my mum. Instead I have to do this in a more abstract way. He's dead and gone.
There is no time left. I see that clearly now. Time is precious and it's irretrievable.
I wanted him to say something meaningful to me and all he did was tell me off and feign sleep to get rid of me.
I wish I had been able to say something far more meaningful to me. I wished I had been able to ask him if he actually loved me. I wanted to ask him if he liked me at all, ever.
I should have been there more often - I was afraid. I was afraid of him doing and bein nasty to me.
I was afraid that after a litime of hating him he would be suddenly okay with me. If he could love me ... then what. It didn;t mean anything after all these years I suppose.
He hadn't been able to just accept me as I was. And so we were so far apart.
I remember the day I was about to get married and he said soething about not having to go through with it. I was too scared as I thought about the congregation, mum etc. I wish I had said that I was too scared for those reasons. I wonder what he would have said and done.
People say my fatherloved me and he did what he did. How do people know that?? I don;t think he did even though he said it. I loved him and hated him.
I can be the father to myself now. Really? But I don't know how to be the father I wanted to have!!
If a client asks me about me and my father I can say "I'm a therapist - what do you think?" and laugh.

Bliss
XX




 

You can say when .....

Naughty writing to LW. After a weekend of feeling flat and sad, grieving all that is goo about G and missing him it was a relief to hear from LW. I know it's a distraction and amidst I have little fantasies of hope that it might evolve  into THE relationship. How many times before I learn???

Anyway the texting and emailing produces the sexiness once again. It feels different from SL because .... ? Hmm not sure because. It's just him and I? It's not amidst avatars? I don't know if it really is any different. It's a speedier way than all those years ago when it could only be sexy letters between lovers. So it's different but it's not novel.

So here we go - read at your peril she said smiling and embarrassed ....

"This may be something you already know, however I wanted to write this as a very powerful turn on.I will write this as if it's what we have experienced in person together.

Whilst we've been paying with each other, arousing each other, touching and feeling each other, it's a real exquisite feeling to watch you masturbate yourself. To be able to be a part of that and join in by licking the droplets of cum whilst you touch yourself. And every so often you allow me to take you in my mouth, whilst holding your cock with my hands at the same time, feeling your balls gently, you trusting me with you.

When you tell me to play with myself, it's very exciting. You've already made me very wet, playing with my clit, with my pussy. Teasing me with your cock at times. And then when you tell me to play with me I know that you are going to tell me to stop as you notice that I am getting close to orgasm and you tell me to stop. At first I resist you but you firmly tell me to stop. I can feel the sensations seeping back into my body, slowly, slowly. And it's as if you've just taken possession of a little bit of me. Then just as I've started to ground you tell me to play with myself again, instructing me as to what I should do. You wait until I'm so highly aroused, getting there quicker this time and then tell me to stop. It's even harder to stop but you insist. And so I do. And again just when I'm relaxed you tell me to play. Very quickly I'm near to orgasm and you tell me to stop again. You leave me longer this time and talk about all sorts of things with me. Then when I think you will not tell me to play with myself you do and this time you let me keep playing and then you tell me to cum at the count of 10. You count down slowly and my god! At one you say cum and I do, my whole boy completely taken by the absolute orgasm that's been continuously absorbed into me and totally in your hands. You are holding me as I cum. I long for you to touch me but you just hold me and soothe me.

I am so utterly exhausted with this orgasm.

I know then that you have absolute control of my orgasm."

 

Now I have experienced this both virtually and actually. It is extremely powerful and why is it that I adore the control being with them so much. I feel pretty certain that it removes me from my vulnerability at some level and yet telling him about it is vulnerability. I didn't want to share this sort of thing with any man again until it was a proper relationship. I hadn't even shared this with G. I would hint at things hoping he would pick up on it. But of course it was up to me to be explicit. JH knew this stuff. He was very advanced and taught me a lot about accepting me sexually.

I am forever grateful to him for that but I don;t think he'll ever know.

 

Bliss

XX

 

 

 

 

Flowering wild labels enrich

On the first "date" with G (yes I am missing and reminiscing over the past 9 months - and wondering if it could have worked??) I made a statement to G about the label we give to things such as wild flowers and trees as he told me what this is or that is. I was enthralled but wondering about this labelling that we humans do. Things are what they are, conditions are what they are. Does a label not get us stuck in the label?
Dr G helped me with the moving hypothesis theory. Suggesting that as long as we remember that a label is a moving hypothesis and people say when labelled with this state of mind or other are not always in that condition. And there are many labels that merge into one another, nothing being so finite. In a picture this could be boxes with lids open and sides that are attached and sometimes pervious. I have always said that a label is a way of communicating so that there is a starting point. I have wondered then about the label of addiction. We say we are addicts but that's not all we are. And I am not always addicting. I think the point is that I have at some point crossed that line with many behaviours and substances and therefore can easily been addicting and the label helps me to identify a set of behaviours, attitudes and thought patterns that will be signals of potential danger that can be averted. I think so many people are afraid of the label and some people love to be labelled. It can define them. Fear or attachment of labels are both dangerous in their own ways in my opinion. I've been attached to labels as a way of making my point, excusing myself, understanding myself. It's been a useful and a destructive tool. Labels have helped me get to where I am though today.

And then just studying the concept of language and thought, I have been further enlightened with realisation. Language enriches thoughts. I see how the labels or names given to wild flowers has really drawn my attention to their existence as something of beauty. People call them weeds. My neighbour did yesterday. And yet I am loathe for them to be chopped away beacuse they are labelled as weeds, as to me every petal, every leaf is unique within it's family.

Indeed labels have enriched my world when people have used them to inform me. When they've boxed me with a label I feel cornered and savaged. But indeed if I stand back from reaction their boxing informs me about them.

I truly do entertain labels as worthwhile and how we communicate to each other. But if we can keep an open mind there is room for fullness and wholesome acceptance of all there is to behold

Although I acknowledged with G the comment I made about labels realising at the time that it impacted upon him, I would some day like the opportunity to say what I think today about the wild flower names. I love them. They are so imaginative sometimes and so unassociated at other times. Confusing. But I know that G spent a long time learning those names and they were a place of solace amongst such terors when he was young. He made it his job to learn the names. He has such a brain, a store but not only that he can apply the knowledge retained in creative and clever ways. I miss that so much.

Bliss
xx


 

Measured matter but not why matter matters just as it is. It just is

My name isn't Bliss, but it does for at least some anonymity whilst I write for public view about this crazy life I have that I chose today to call and adventure.
If you read back over these years I've been writing here, I'm sure that a lot of it will mundane, over-emotionalised nonsense. But between the lines there's a lot of profundity. A lot of potential lessons. With a view as an outsider, with the overview of this life I live in, you will be able to judge if the potential is realised to any degree.
I am inspired by peoples inspirations. Just the other day someone commented on FB about the film Romance and Cigarettes.This came to the fore with the sudden death of James Gandolfini. I barely know his acting to be honest but as always with fame, his death suddenly makes his young years of early 50's poignant of all deaths in this way. especially I suppose as I'm in my early 50's. 53 to be precise. Well 53 plus some days and hours and minutes etc if I am to be really precise. How did those many years happen to me. Anyway a point I wanted to make is that other peoples creative discoveries are a sort of introduction and education for me to discover these things. The more I am aware of the more of an education around things I have, by exposure if you life. The more exposure the more discerning I become of what I like. And I have given such power to people that I have actually liked what they like to get their approval. Nowadays that's moderating and I am better able to say what I like and hopefully keep an open mind. With ML if she likes something I am loathe to like it anymore as she gets such a ego with peoples approval of her in any shape or form. Why does this all rub me up the wrong way?

So I've been lying in bed all morning since 5 am. I went to bed just after 10pm. I simply was not able to stay awake any longer. Today I want to really read chapter 10 and then take some notes on it. I want to try and keep the assignment question in mind so that I study it with that in view. And then tomorrow I'd like to read chapter 16 and make some notes on that. It's a lot to ask of myself. So I will actually start at 8:30.
I have plans to visit SS for a walk this afternoon and tomorrow I will walk with AB. It's good that I see other people at the weekends other than AB. For some reason I felt limited but safe being there all those weeks and months before. But AB is limited with her paranoia and desire to drink. Her drinking limits her and I do get irritated. It's such a waste of talent and ability. It's the same thoughts I have of G and JB. All that genius seems wasted and yet that's where they are. I wouldn't say I seem them happy, not even content but that's where they choose to stay. And I could be wrong. The alternative, the doing something about it is obviously harder than staying there.
Gosh that makes me sad as if G were to step forward I think we could have had a wonderful time together forever. But that's gone it really has. The hope for that relationship has truly died.
Even now if he were to step away from some of the things that I found were limiting of me, I think there could just not be a reigniting of anything. Isn't that a strange thing?
I saw the film Romance and Cigarettes. Not a great film. But the infidelity in the end was the thing that allowed him to see he actually loved his wife. And her hatred was actually her hurting for the love of him. When he showed up she could not avoid her love for him. And then he was ill and died. Redemption of true love in the end away from lust.
But this was actually a discovery that G's brilliance was overshadowed by things that just weren't a good match with me. That's the reason for courting. I just do it from the inside instead of the more reserved way, i.e. no sex and intense involvement as in almost living together. My parents so frowned upon this I've thought it was wrong all the time. It was as if like them after 6 months I should get married and make it work. That's what they did despite my mum knowing really it wasn't for her. She left him at the beginning but went back. She was probably compelled to as I have been - but her shackles were of her background - Catholicism no doubt being a large part of the familial influence.
And D said again yesterday the way in which some women flirt is learnt from their mothers. She's possibly got a good point there. My mum was a flirt. With everyone. She flirted with people. I beguile by showing interest in peoples interests and learning more about their interest. I like to delve around finding out what music they like or films or passions and join them in those things. The other day my flirting involved asking LW about music and we spent an evening swapping tunes. I enjoyed listening to what he likes. And then threw a few of the things I've enjoyed. I mentioned art to see if he likes any. He likes theatre and I'm not sure about cinema. It's all flirting. I am more me but also enjoy discovery so feel others introduce me to more. I like new and interesting. Learning about wild flowers with G has really ignited an awareness of the things I've walked by, not unnoticed but definitely I'm even more aware. I like that.

I am thoughtful. and some remorse has appeared in the recent week AG (after G). It's grief I think in connection with my dad being gone and no way of making amends when I now see the error of my past ways including recent years. I have been so filled with resentment and hatred. My behaviour reflected this. I am seeing it so much clearer but with no way of making direct amends to either of my parents. I am truly sorry mum and dad. Knowing that I am helps but its also so sad that I cannot show them in person only to their spirit. I am sure to continue making mistakes but I think my direction is less self-centred.
I feel so sad that G will be hurting in any way. I am probably hugely projecting my sadness for his story so far of rejection since a young child. He has been on the receiving end of what seems like rejection of him. He appears to me to be a raging child without any way of expressing the extraordinarily and talented man he actually is. I have been endowed with the trust of meeting some of the G within that is usually reserved behind a wall of grump and disdain. I feel fortunate and will carry that man forever with me. I am sad that the other parts of him and parts of me just didn't work out. I am truly sad and without LW around I am suddenly able to feel the loss and sadness.
And with it the grief around my dad too. I was fuelled in anger and glad to start letting go of some of that with G gone.
I feel lonely right now and need to sit with that. I was so fortunate yesterday to have a surprise call from JM. I haven't seen or heard from her for some several years now, perhaps since 2009. Yes since April 2009 when I left N and joined P group.
It was tiring but also lovely to see her. She is on a therapeutic journey and enjoying the discovery. She still has so much anger but it's understandable. I liked the way she talked of her parents unit ad she is on the outside. It does make me wonder why people have children. But it's life and each person has to come to terms with their lot and get on with the experience. Me included.
This has been my journey so far. It's not something to be angry with me for or judge. it's juge been the route anad the lessons with it are something to be cherished. I feel that way for everyone more and more. I have such feelings though for people as they are in their pain.

And the relationship with S has evolved further having met last week. We spoke yesterday. We were texting and then had the novel idea of talking. I was nice to know this friendship is growing. How marvellous that techno pen friends can develop real life. There's so much negativity about virtual chats but it's possibly just a broader faster way to meet people. Hasn't human history been a story of everything speeding up decade upon decade. Is it bad? I doubt it it just is. Experience it, adjust. Nature adjusts. We are within the process of creating the speed and experiencing it. We are it's cause and it's effect.

Bliss
XX

 

Insider ops

The Skype call was lovely for the purposes of someone calling me when I can see a long empty of people day ahead of me. But the little noises, the echoing sound and plop plop of rising bubbles from the depths of the deep, I just can't think of a summarising phrase that really captures the sound. JH could do that somehow.
A call from FA J. She had tried several contacts so was pleased to make contact. I was pleased of the connection with the "god-shaped hole" she mentioned. That was a reminder to bring HP into this. I suppose it's the first Saturday after the euphoria of feeling free for a week.
I think the high is beginning to deflate. The descent isn't quite as attractive and exciting as the exhilarating ride up. So here we are. Oh and LW has not been as intent with his contact this week. I suppose he's a lot more sensible than I am. A couple of days of late calls and intense contact and then he is getting on with his other interests - time out with friends (agh!), time with his boys (perfectly understood), work (when I still check even though I'm busy at work).

I don't even wonder what G is doing because I assume everything has returned to what it was. Time at D's sitting in Elstead doing what he did here, being grumpy and critical. Then reluctantly going to his revoltingly kept flat and attending meetings just not to be there with himself. I hope he managed to stay off the cigarettes. Gosh! Just 3 days off and then an end of a relationship, What a perfect excuse to start again rather than ride through the cravings. No doubt I'll be the selfish one to be so unkind at a vulnerable time.

It's interesting with LW. He had asked me to send him daily a description of my clothes. He likes that I am dressing thinking of him. It is arousing. I start to feel sexy and even walk a little more sexily. It contributed to my high. The low descends as the contact with him does not keep my excitement going. I am writing these things all sexually heightened without any return from him. I exaggerate because he has acknowledged me during the week. I think that's thoughtful.
I feel a little crude by continuing to write. I asked him to let me know if I should stop. He sent me a little carrot yesterday saying that he had masturbated over me. How thrilling! And then I think about it and think why is that thrilling, a man masturbating thinking of me. Ha ha. What exactly is this sex stuff all about. It's so compelling. Am I an addict? Or is this normal?
If there are consequence and I still don't stop then surely that's when the problem should be noticed. There have been consequences. I've become so obsessed there have been times when I harm myself emotionally, mentally and/or physically. I have put myself in risky situations, i.e. unsafe sex, multiple partners and feeling disgusted with myself - is it against my principles or is it because others have different principles.
I am carrying on with the request but I am not sure how long I will continue. Is it a test? He said he likes to tease. Would he tease so much to see how far he can push me. He said he likes to push to a persons limits. This too can at times feel really sexy, like he's controlling me but is he really or is that all in my imagination. We talked about the M/s roles. He likes to be in charge and it was him that sussed out the roles I might enjoy but I don't want to return to that. I like someone being in charge.
But of course I am realising he's created the precedent but it's me who's doing it. After all what he can he actually do. I'm here, he's there. He talks about wanting to spank me. Oh blah blah blah. So I've created this scenario that actually is not necessarily real.
I also have the laughable fantasy that somehow this will escalate. Because of course I have an ideal in my head of who he is. As I did G. I saw glimpses of it and overlooked all the things that weren't actually what I wanted. I would disregard so much if there is actually the person I am looking for within the enfolds of garbage. But that's not how it works. The layers give an indication of how the whole person is when the layers come together.
I am glad though to have principles. Sad that I don't always live up to them!

So here I am avoiding starting the studying. I have an opportunity to read ahead and get the final TMA done - although it seems the last TMA doesn't count towards the overall score. So what is the point? Anyway it has to be done. And then I could catch up on a bit of the reading I haven't done. What am I doing???? Sitting here watching You Tube music so that I can send the links to LW and look cultural, exciting, diverse. I seem to think because I'm attracted to that sort of thing it'll make me attractive.
And then watching episodes of In Treatment. Interesting as it is - truly. I am getting insight into me as a therapist, into me and my issues.
Perhaps I'll allow this morning off to rest and come down after a busy week in the therapy world. People relapsing - it's shit. But it's the complexity of this thing called addiction if that's what it is.
I met with AH. He is so aware and yet so not. He talks about his life with clarity but then utter confusion as well. It's good to work with him.
This is a client I really like. He is thinking about risk assessing every situation to help decide whether he takes a particular action or not. Sensible. And the agreement is that if he finds he cannot stick with his decision he may need some further assistance.
He just lacks connectedness. He has so much loving to give but it's sort of free floating wating for a place to land and be picked up by someone. Where he thought it had been picked up it's being squeezed out of him and he's left almost lifeless in that situation. He's an entrepreneur but without that final umph. He'd describe it as that extra special something that launches one about the glass ceiling. He's a grafter though and prides himself on his way with people.
I like working with him. He's not too proud to ask for help and really really wants something different. He will get it purely because he is somewhat willing.
It's nice to work with someone so fresh and inquisitve about himself.

Good for him.

Okay a friend has called - second week in a rwo. Out of the blue and is local. So we are going to meet for a cuppa and a walk. I really should tidy - these are like little hints that I could tidy and then people coulkd just be free to call around whenever they want. Part of my demotivation is the effect of the moths! I loathe them and their devastation so why bother tidying up. It can never look perfect. I want wooden floors now - get clinical looking. And no possesssions.

So extreme - bless me.
There is an HP, I see it through my friends. :)

Bliss
XX






 

Indelible traces of my past that are falsified

Memories can be very unreliable. We like to think of them as indelible records of our past. Every time we pull out a scene we fiddle with it a little bit before we put it back in
We are constantly altering our memories so the past won't conflict with the present.
It isn't questioning our feelings about our childhood but specific incidents might not necessarily be exactly as they were.
One event though doesn't tell us everything about the entirety of our childhood.

Emotional injury in families can feel so unfair.
It's like an accident in the car when I'm the only who went through the windshield.
And people think they are doing different tings from how it actually feels.

I want to stop all these people I see at work from going through the windshield.
My mum has gone through the windshield. I am now the orphan I have always felt I have been. I felt separated and different. Different values.
How ca I be a good daughter to my parents even though they are dead?
I get so busy. I don't want to go to their graves. It's just nothingness there. I don't want to tend the little area.

I do what my parents did I suspect ... to my friends.
I can be such a fabricator of the truth - well less so now unless I'm careful to be truthful.
I omit things so that people don't know what is actually going on.













 

SC's response the the Arms of Mary

Dear Bliss

To offer you thoughts, opinions or perspectives about what you have shared with me would miss understand the importance of the truth that you seek to express. I can therefore only offer you a response

I feel privileged that you would share such a very personal and private agony. I am most struck by the Unfathomable, confusing, torturous and terrifying Truth that you have lived with for much of your life.

I congratulate you for your relentless efforts to confront injustice, in the hope that you may be free. Maybe you have arrived at a place where it is time to relinquish the painful search for 'why'. The answer is embodied in the impossibility of ever knowing why

Freedom is the recognition that in the face of trauma, we can define our own Truth with the help of God or Higher Power.

Warm regards

An artists model or just a high?

Well this last couple of days I have decided that I'd like to be an artists model. I Googled it. And yesterday found an artist in Hampshire. He was on an artists chat site. He would be offering £25 for life drawing sessions. THEN ... on my FB page was a post from The Barn in Farnham advertising a life drawing evening class. I read the details and about the artist. I write to him saying that I'd like to model and would he require a novice. He offered me some dates subject to meeting. I went along this evening to an art class that happens each week on a Wednesday. The was the model naked as the day that she was born being drawn by a group of artists. Fab. I am starting a four evening modelling session. I will be dressed in a costume. I am excited. Very excited. I met and chatted with the artists and was able to take a look at their work.
I had a long chat with C the model. She has been doing it for 10 years. Her mother pimped her she said laughing. Having returned from India she was unemployed. Her mother ran a gallery and when someone asked her if she knew of anyone who would do some life modelling she put C forward. C shared some tips. Just be me, Choose a point to look at which in turn helps her ensure her head is in the same position. She said I would probably be nervous but that's okay but most importantly find a comfortable position and enjoy.
So my first session is on 3rd July, then the 5th, 9th and 10th. I will be paid which is great - it's £10 per hour.
I have no idea if I'll be able to sit so perfectly still for the long sit. It's not for the entire 2 1/2 hours. To begin with there are some exercises where I'll be moving about every few minutes. But then there is a point where I settle for the long sit. There is a break and I can say if I am feeling uncomfortable and need to move for a moment.
If I'd been seeing G I wouldn't have been able to do this I am pretty certain. He would not have liked it.
I told A and G this evening and A was wondering why? It's an experience I've never had. To be a part of someones creative process. The artists may not care about that but I do. I may hate. I may not be able to sit for long enough. But I will do my best.

I also did a private hour session - therapy this evening. At the insistence of a guy from AA. I met with his brother. My assessment is that that they have some deep issues between them. Goodness knows what will happen. I made some suggestions to the client. I was very non-specif with the AA guy. And I doubt whether I will hear from them again. We will see. But I charged £50 and the AA guy said he'll make sure he gets it to me.

What an interesting evening.

As if I've got loads of spare time - ha ha ha.

Bliss
 

Taking posession of the cherry

Since G sketched me - naked, I have been intrigued by life drawings. Van Dongen's Torse L'Idole fascinated me. Even more so when I discovered it was his wife. Now I want to be a model for life drawings. I think I'm even turned on by the idea.
I have made contact with an artist. He wants to keep me on his list of models for his own work and will also get me along for life drawing classes he holds. He invited me along for 26 Jun but I can't get to the location from work by 6pm.
I feel excited about doing it although I'd be nervous.I think the sexual connotation is there because I feel the similar nervousness I felt the first time I did an escorting job.
It was sexually arousing which disgusted me because the man wasn't himself. He was always after the real newbies. I understand why though. Very quickly the cynicism creeps in. Not a virgin but virginal to that, he got that innocence, he took it and made it his!
I am fascinated by the exotic relationships that artists and models must have had. No wonder artists had so many relationships.
I have had too.

I have been aroused by LW's exotica with me. It is similar to experiences on SL when some people could really sink in and take hold of the sexual sensual me. If only love could be tied in with it. But I am not sure it would ever work for me that way. Who knows?
I would like to find companionship with a man. But I don't think I could be tied to them. So far that has proven to be true.

Anyway, I'll keep you posted on the modelling career -  tee hee

Bliss
 

Quick-witted devastation

It's a really busy day here at work today. I'm not looking forward to it actually. It can be even more exhausting when PD is like he is. He gets overly excited when we have lots of clients and it's a different stress than when he's worrying about money. He becomes sooooo controlling. He's controlling anyway. I just have to let go and turn towards patience and tolerance. When I do it's so much easier and I can smile and support him. Good to write that as it's remind me. Okay now I can let go of the exhausting bit which is the attempt to cling on to a little bit of control. Yield to empower!!

Relax and let go. I need some help from my HP to do this as it doesn't come naturally.
I could feel the tension, the pressure "got to get it right as P's wanting it all perfect"

Well the day went okay really. A good group. Supervision was as ever helpful. I'm tired.
However I wat to write down the past months. A lot as always has happened. I haven't written much about it.
Another adventure with lots of lessons. I wonder if I've learnt them. It appears not.

So last September, after several weeks or months of some sort of flirting between G and I, he invited me for a walk. I had for the entire time prior to this been thrilled by his texts and when that shifted into telephone conversations, I listened to his voive and started to fall in love with this person of my imagination. When I saw him I just kept asking myself what am I doing. I was not attracted to him physically. I imagine when younger he was a really good looking guy. But now he's a very aged and grumpy looking face. He is in fact grumpy.
On the first walk I was charmed by the way he knew the names of wild flowers. he took me to Winchester HIll. I had never been. So there was a romatic gentle him I encountered. Someone who was loving nature. Yup I was beginning to be hooked.
That evening I didn't want the time with him to end. We went to a nearby pub for a cup of tea/coffee. I was flirtatious in my whole body. He touched my knee. I noticed and the feeling lingered long after he had removed his finger. It was not a full hand just a few finger points on my knee.
As we drive towards home, it was getting late. I needed to eat. My place was so messy i wouldn't consider for a second inviting him in where I could have made my food and some for him. So late as it was, I suggested we go out for something to eat. I couldn't affird and somehow I already knew he didn't work or something. Anyway we had a cheapish meal. It was as abstinent as it could be and certainly less than I am required to eat. It was food and you know how it is when you're flirting? Food doesn't really come into things. So I'd done well.
Then he drove me home. Sitting in the car I asked him what was going on? He asked "what between thee and me?". I said yes. He said something I can't remember now and as I turned to look at him he kissed me. I was surprised to say the least I was not expecting that.
I said that I was not available for a relationship. He said he wasn't either. So we parted company.
I had texts from him in the week and calls and we went on a second walk. On this occassion I was more than intersted despite not being available for a relationship. In between all of this there were conversations with my FA sponsor who was saying that I needed to cut contact, I agree, I cut contact but then reengaged with him.
So on the second walk ... I was standing overlooking a wonderful view, when suddenly G put his arms around me from behind. He asked if this was okay, I said yes. I liked the feel of his arms around me. He had been so nice to me and was different really from the grumpy man I thought he was.
Boy was I mistaken. Over the last 9 months I have met his moodiness. Sometimes I could joke about something that one day would be laughed at and the next would be rude and insulting.
The relationship has been tumultuous at times but when it was (note the was) good it was great.
G really is a quite remarkable man. Even though he would screw his face up in disbelief, he is incredibly astute. He is intelligent way beyond the majority and also very bright. He has knowledge whish he would insist anyone can have but he cane use the learnt knowledge. He can use it both destructively and positively.
He has this relationship with D. He talks about his attachment to the dog M. Strangely enough I think the dogs are an analogy for his feelings. He is strgonly attached to M (D in my mind) and dislikes T (J the husband, they are still together and it's a strange 3-some really). Then he was being unkind to LL (me, growling at hr and making her unhappy). And that's how it's been really.
I tried to out aside insecurity re D and decided to trust him when he said they were close mates and that there was nothing other than that leel of feeling. He goes there pretty much every day unless he's avoiding doing some work that she's asked him to do, such as stroimming, or he's got annoyed (which can be regular with me) or she doesn't want him there. It's all very odd. i wonder what her wife thinks. And knowing the way G is he probably has made it home without that ever being anyone's intention. Well not to the extent he took ownrship of my place. He didn't want to leave. I ad to strat getting boundaried and saying I needed my time. he was getting angrier about that. BUt he came here to stay and after a couple of days I notied his tyres had been slashed. All four. He did nothing about for over a week. Eventually I asked him what he was going to do. He had no money. I loaned him the £240 to get the tyres replaed. He said he would pay me back. Guess what.
However, he put in a shower. I said I wanted it but had I known it was a payment for the tyres I wouldn't have had it. Plus it's not really finished, I had to buy some parts which I suppose were in all about £80 in the end. The housing association would have put one in for £70 and it would probably have been a better job in that it would have been finished. He promised a shower panel. It's never happened and he got cross about it as well because he's have to do some tiling. His workmanship leaves something to be desired so I am glad he didn't do that. So I paid £240 for a shower. And then he bought me a kettle and a loely jacket and some underear for my birthday. Again I was embarrassed to take this but no offer to ay back the money despite getting his rebate. I took the presents. Again I would rather have had the money to spend on my own tyres and a car service desparately needed.
Chrsitmas was awful. He wanted to be with D. She knew about at this time. He came for a visit on Christmas Day. I had not made arrangements thinking that we would be together.
He was marvellous support thourhg my dads; death - 3rd February and then the funeral 13th February. BUt bloody hell he projected his anger onto the whole thing including me.
He often did. Telling me off for being the way I am. I am so glad to have ended this relationship.
However I miss the intelligent him, the bright him, the quick-witted him, the thoughtful him, the gentle him, the intimate him. This man exists behond the gossip, the anger, the overly sensitive him.
Bloody hell is his story one that is so dreaful. I have cried for what he has been through. And it affects him deeply today. He does not move on from it. He says that it cannot be changed. He blames the circumstances on him being an alcoholic. I don't know if that's true or not. Is it there anyway to be had at any opportunity?
It's been a hellish time and an amazing time. In the end it was more hell than great. I hadn't been sure about the relationship throughou really. Things like this 3-some he was on, the lack of any desire to work, the lack of any money really, the anger, the gossip, etc etc. All these things were under my question from early on. I just wasn't sure though. I came to know last week when he shouted at me publicly for not wanting more than a glass of water. And then he was starting to get worse with LL. That was the final straw. That cannot happen to LL. S made a comment to me soemthing about valuing myself as much as LL.
And I have I ended the relationship on Saturday. It was not easy to do in the sense of fear of telling him. This FEAR in me is so immense. I could have said something Wednesday. He gave me the opportunity. I could have said somethign Friday and planned to but bottled out.
I knew I needed to say something Saturday morning as he thought he was coming over for a nie stay. He was civil on the phone. He put the phone down. Then I got a sharp text.

"you have always been dishonest. A fake, self-seeking and very much blind to yourself. Maybe the result of hiding in your therapy work!! The sex was a sham and I think you will always have fantasies about your father".
I smiled. I think this was hurt being lashed out. There was some dishonesty on my part. He'd asked me if I'd ever prostituted myself. I said no.
The rest, well. I don't think there's any truth in it at all. The last comment is something he alluded to before. I had asked him then what he had said as I didn't hear it or maybe he didn't actually say anything more than a start of something. I can't quite remember, perhaps the latter. Anyway. I think G was projecting so much onto me.
So it's over.
And then in walks LW or rather I invited the advance.
In my mind the fantasy has begun. I'm married living in Sweden. We are great together.
You see he is good looking. This one is. I do find him physically attractive. We have had virual sex. He's donw it before he must have done although he said he's had phone sex with an ex.
He says that he fancied me when we were at scaool. I am finding it difficult to beleive that someone so good looking could have or does find me attractive. You see I see ugly. well maybe just unattractive.
It's amazing though that I am so comfortable in my body now.
Another adventure begins. I'm alrady in something else. No time as they say like the present .... toescape the emotions!

Well I'm tired. Late night cyber ses these day knackers me out. Gosh how I was managing with SL goodness only knows. I was up until 2 or 3 am and then up at 6 to leave for work and do a full day rush home and SL again.
Crazy!! I can't do it now.

Bliss
 

I rang I wrote I implored but nobody came

I rang I wrote I implored but not a single one of the sparkling hundreds attended the funeral and from Daisy not een a flower. I was all he had, the only one who cared.
.... After Gatsbys' death, New York was haunted for me. That city! My once golden shinmmering mirage, now made me sick.
On my last night in NY I returned to that huge incoherent house once more. Wolfshimes associates had cleared it out.
I remembered how we had all come to Gatsby's and guessed at his corruption. How he stood before us concealing the incorruptible dream.
The moon rose higher and as I stood there brooding on the old, unknown world.
I thought of Gatsbys wonder as he picked out the green light at the end of Daisys dock. He had come such a long way and his dream must have seemed so close he could hardly fail to grasp it.
But he did know it was already behind him
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then but that's no matter
Tomorrow we will run faster and stretch out our arms farther, and one fine morning
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back, ceaselessly into the past.

Last page of
The Great Gatsbyby F. Scott Fitzgerald

Most of the big shore places were closed now and there were hardly any lights except the shadowy, moving glow of a ferryboat across the Sound. And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes—a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby’s house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an æsthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.

And as I sat there, brooding on the old unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning——

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

I was compelled to watch this film. It is a great story. I lovved it with Robert Redford. By great I mean a very well told story. ML raved about the book, which I've never read. I rarely read these days.
I suspect it's my lack of focused attention. When I do read I so enjoy it. Another excuse is the long days, the studying, the too much else to do attitude.

What did I pick up on - well the obvious decadence,
I found it so frustrating when Tom was showing Gatsby's true background and implying that he, Tom, was from "real" money. What is that about. How do people come to be monied people and make it their own. They are then born into it, genrations of money makes them a line of somebodies. Yet Gatsby had gone away to become a somebody and despite his enormous wealth was not considered a somebody. And then the clean money too. The orginal makers of money in Tom's line probably made their money through dubious morals. Am I a cynic?
The decadence, money meant people could treat people however they wanted and all in the name of desire because I could sort of attitude.
So Gatsby never left the past. He journied in the present, making money, corruption, fabricating his persona as his money grew. But he was always in his past, trying to bring it in today. Too much had happened.
She was in two minds. But when his rage manifested .... did she suddenly see the unbred version, what would happen if pushed. She changed her mind from that moment.
Love did not conquer something. Money? Was it all about money. He thought he had to have money for her. He went and got it but it didn't do the trick.

I'm very interested to learn what ML thought of the film.

Bliss

 

Letter to SC

It has just occurred to me to share this memory I've kept and never given air time before. I was writing this morning and it popped out for the first time and yet it's been a memory that comes ito consciousness from time to time.

I once bought a record called Lying in the Arms of Mary. At the time I just loved it. I knew all the words. (I'e listend to it since just once and it's dreary - thank goodness for changing sphistications - or maybe not too - )

I would have been about 16 years of age. I have no idea where my mumwas - she may havebeen away on a business trip, she may even have been in bed. I don't recall the build up to the situaiton but this one evening my dad and I were sitting in the dark. He was in one sofa and I was on the other. I think I had asked him to listen to the record with me. This in itself was not usual as generally my dad didn't like listenting to music unless it was the radio. INterestingly I was gping to write and so will that he let me put the record on over and over and over and over and over again. Every time it sopped I put it on again. I can remember thinking any minute now he will tell me tos top but he didn't and so I didn't stop. I found it all strange at the time. I judder to the very core, a cringe that's a familiar sensation in my body when I think of us sitting there.I evven hate using the word sensation as somehow it has connotations of being pleasant.

We said nothing at all, not a sound.

I sometimes feel much that this memory is worse than some of the physical things that happened. Isn't that bizarre? The physical things are so obvious and wrong but things like that are much creepier and more evil,more sinister.

It's etched deeply in my memory. We weren't even sitting next to each other (thank goodness) but I have this impending feeling that he will get up and move closer. Ugh - judders from the inside right the way to the outside. And as if waiting forever that I can't get away from as if I'm locked into that seat. Waiting, waiting, waiting.

Stuart I have meant to contact you. My dad died in February. For me it's a relief. I say that sometimes and think people will think I'm evil, but it's true. I wonder if it's a delay tactic to ward away the grief that's been there my entire life. But so far I have trickles of sadness and whenI realise I won't hear from him again but mainly a feeling of freedom that I won't hear from him again. Not in the sense of ghosts, but I do feel his presence. One night I even heard a whisper in my ear - "sorry".

My dad disinherited me. That hurt more than anything.

His last words for me were the most hurtful. He had been saying horrible things to me, telling me off when his consultant spoke to me in my dads opinion me taking too much of the consultants time. He complained about my clothes and then wanted me to leave. He pretended to fall asleep and that was the last time I saw him conscious. That hurts deeply. The final rejection. People say my dad deep down loved me but honestly I do not think this is true. I think deep down he disliked me intensely. I know people will dispute that but I know it. Some thinsk we do just know.

I do know the soul of the man did feel that hatred for anyone really. But that is different. My dad was not in touch with his soul.

Since his death I have discovered many horrible things about him. In fact I have discovered that his entire persona was fabricated. It rocked me. Somehow it meant that everything about my existance wasn't what I had thought it had been. I feel so sad for my mum. She must have known. But she did nothing. perhaps in the final years of her life she was fighting back. I realise she used to say "stop it John" when he was torturing me somehow - mentally or physically but she did nothing to actually change the situation.I understand that she must have been very afraid of him.

I think now she must have known something about what was going on with me. I have learnt that her boss and a few friends had approached her and said that it wasn't decent that I was left alone after school. I had looked after myself since the age of 5 and at 9 people started to notice and said something. I have also learnt that a family who were firnds of our family since I was little always felt that I was not a happy child and were worried that there was something going on, even wondering if I was being abused. Gosh if only we all had the courage to confront situations when we are suspicious. I know how difficult I found it when I was suspicious of a neighbours activities and a very damaged little girl. But I was afraid I would be out of order. I did say something in the end and it turned out to be true. Thankully the little girl is getting help and the fatjer has been removed. The mother dislikes me intensely. It must be odd for a wife to suddenly have no husband for reasons so foul. The love cannot be switched off and the grief yet all mixed up with the horrors of what had been going on.

So I do understand these people's dilemma but wow I wish someone had rescued little me.

Sometimes it still pops into my head that I made it all up but not as often. But it's more in a way that this ca't possibly have happened to me, to us within our family. We were just a normal family.

I have learnt more about my dads affairs. I was absolutely disgusted through my body when an old army pal told me that my dad was the randiest man any of the regiment had ever known and they did actually worry about it!! Ugh! I wanted to run out and vomit. Strangely I had a slip with my food that lunchtime whilst there in the regiment headquarters - no surprise really. But oddly I didn't want to eat the trigger food it was actually but I was too scared to say I couldn't eat it.

I suddenly realised the full extent of my fear of people. Ad have plenty more situations to face where the fear of people has been so mountainous to be almost too big to deal with.Thank goodness for recovery and for a lot of support.

I am learning Stuart - I am learning so much.

I have also learnt about lies my dad has told about me. It's horrid to hear. But then there are so many truths when I was in my using days that oddly he hasn't talked about to people. That's strange but I recognise it too in me. I remember doing my first step one in treatment and I fabricated these awful things connected with drinking and drugs yet didn't talk about any of the actual awful things I was doing. But I didn't connect those things with my using I thoght they were me so in shame as I realise now had to hide those things. How flipping convoluted I am which is what scares me as I see that I am similar to my dad.

I am afraid that I am a pathological liar as I now believe he was. I am afraid that I am never able to hold down a relationship because I am as sick as he was.

I am afraid that I didn't have children because I would abuse them as he did. I did once think of feeling my little cousin when she was about 3 - thankfully she ran off. I was 13. I loed her so so much. She was just the cutest thing. I wouldn't want to hurt her.

She died just voer a year ago - 41 and left behind her three lovely young girls.

I am far too distant from my family members. I have ketp it that way since I left home at 17. I don't know why but I'm scared that I do keep a distance because I'm like my dad. Yet I love people and really love my frinds and socialising. IN fact I've had to learn how to be by myself. Now I enjoy my alone time but with a constant healthy size and feeling confiddent it is easy now to socialise. I used to a lot but be so uncomfortable when I was overweight.

I know lots of things I write are sort of classic symptoms of .... whatever label. But when it's me it's difficult to rationalise everything sometimes.

I have no idea why this morning the memory of Lying in the Arms of Mary suddenly came to mind again. However, it did and for the first time I wrote about and felt that feeling of impending doom that comes with it.

I know my dad can't get up and move closer now but of course in my psyche he still can.

I went to see his dead body. It was strange. You see the situation with his wife was so swkward and horrible things were happening with her during the day when he was in the throws of dying. It was so uncomfortable with her behaviour that I decided to leave knowing that I would not see my dad again. It was horrid sitting next to his dying self ad touching his arm. I didn;t want to touch him because I elt disgusted by the feel of him. Not in dying jsut the repulsion of him. HIs smell had been different for some years but him lying there dying it was there again. I touched him because I was too scared not to inc ase his wife continued to think I was just cold. She had no idea of course. I so wanted to scream out what had actually happened. I wanted to scream out in the curch for his funeral. They all looked at me as if I was the evil one. It was so difficult. I could not stop my body from shaking.

But anyway before that I went to see his body. They were waiting for his coffin. A really weird choice of his I thought - a wicer coffin. Every time I think of that I think how odd. Occassionally my dad did odd things.

So the warned me that he was on a plinth with just a veil over him. It looked therefore as if he was floating. He looked as if he was alive too. When my mum died I was there as she died and she definitely looked gone - dead - noone there. with my dad he looked as if he was still there and I thought at any moment he was going to ump up and start telling me off.

Stuart I did the weirdest thing ever. I took a picture of his dead body. I really wasscard to do it because he would get up and shout at me. He would have hated me doing that he would have found me disgusting I know that.

I have kept the photo. I don't look at it. Well once or twice but I know it's there. every so often when flicking through my album I see if flit past.

I think I must be so weird.

I rally can see how over the years of using, since I was 17 really things started getting ou of hand and escalated to a peak but which was the level setting through my thirties. iw as a mess and I know that I hurt my mum and dad. The thing is my dad could never forgive me.

I ahve been forgiving him. IN the last year and a half I have been shoiwing up being friendly and keeping some light contact. Partly I wanted to and partly to be kept in the will - ha ha ha - last laugh on him with that. I despise his wife and have to pray extra hard.

She really was awful but everyone found her awful it would seem. I saw how her daughters were affected by her and jst elt sad. I pary for her for my resnetments to be lifted.

I also know a little of her story now and feel very sad for her.

As much as I hate to admit it I think perhaps she and my dad found som happiness together. I don't think either of them were actually happy but maybe there was a reprieve for them when they shut everyone else out which is what they did.

I hope so anyway.

What I am tryiong to reconcile is how the lies I've leant about seem to invlidate all that I thought as true. Everything about him was so fabriated that it means nothing was as it actually appeared. My mum and used to know that stories didn't actually fit. We used to cover up for him so became a part of the fabrication. I no longer know what the truth of my lifetime actually is. It feels odd. I feel odd.

I feel ashamed for people to know I am his daughter. I feel enbarrassed now taling to family friends. I feel ridiculous talking to his military friends and yet I want to be friendly as they ahve been so good to me.

I want to run and be someone else somewhere else at the worst moments. But I also know that it snot a solution. I tried it and it didn;t work. Ha ha.

I don't have the urges to do anything at all. My life overall is so good. Food recovery has been a remarkable root of change.

All the work I have done with you has been an incredible grounding to be able to even get into food recovery. Weird that it had to be that way around when all addictions therapy suggests sensibly that change the addictive behaviour andthe rest will become clear.

I wasn't intending on writing all of this but it seemed to flow out. Amidst a lot of tears at some points too.

I do not struggle with living on a day to day basis anymore. Sometimes things seem to hit me in the pit of my stomach and wind me temporarily. I actually enjoy living. I am tentative to write that as it also means letting go of my old friend bleakness and inertia and deatliness. There is a slight reluctance to let go. If I've got a hold of them then I know where they are. If I let go then they are free to wonder around and catch me out.

They were always there until one day they took me over without me even knowing they could. Now I am cautious with a fear that is becoming a healthy respect.

S I've written this and just want to hear what you think of it all. I am not looking for THE one solution but I just want to hear what you think of it all. Your honest thoughts. I trust you and when I sat and thought I need to tell someone you were the only person I could tell. It's because you are impartial yet know me. I don't want the food recovery talk of it all or the friends versions of their own experiences similar to mine or anything like that.

Of course I would do that too but first of all this is me - does that makes sense.

What would you suggest?

I don't necessarily want to say any more than all that has just come out.

Phewff I feel exhausted.

Thank you for reading this

warm regards

The judderman is back

.... this morning at 4 am I was woken by a call - blocked number (which G had been doing with his phone) and no one spoke. I feel pretty certain it was him. He has very disturbed sleep - terrible dreams in the early hours - so I hope he's not going to have a period of making calls to disturb me.

It may not have been him of course.

I really pray for his hurt to heal.

I feel dreadful for being any part of hurting him at all. I have no regrets about this time with George apart from there being any hurt. It happens though. "Adventuring" brings the full array of joy, fear, anger, plus hurt and sadness. I would rather have had my experiences than not I think. I say this now in hindsight and with the knowledge i have today. But in the pain of course I don't want it. I don't just mean this time with G, I mean every time with everything. Including all the stuff with my dad. I'd still rather not have been on the receiving end of sexual abuse in all it's shapes and forms with my dad and indeed through my adult life too. BUT I can better live with these memories and impacts today I think. I am changing and improving. And for this I am truly grateful.

Do you know? I do feel regret when I look back and see the men I have allowed into my life. Not all. I've been out with many men who I have truly fancied. But in the same progressive manner with other obsessions, I have allowed men into my life that I really have not fancied at all. JH was one of them. My dealer. Oh my god if you had met him. I was repulsed by him but you know what - drugged of course - the paranoia that he was seeing someone else - baffling. Of course he was, like me women were hooked in with the drugs. Shit I feel the shame of wanting these men. And indicative of my self-worth they just have to pay that little bit extra attention. Just clawing at anyone who shows even a crumb of love. It's so sad that anyone should not feel worthy enough ....

It's so compelling that at times I really don't know I can have what I want.

But each time I learn a little more. What is incredible is that I am perfectly okay on my own. I like people and enjoy sharing experiences with people. But to be home on my own is so easy and relaxing. From a child that has never been the case. I spent so much time alone as a child. From a little girl I would return home from school and be alone. I made up people and played make believe games. There was always silence in the house apart from in my head. I think that's why I liked music so much but when my dad came home music had to be switched off. Yet when he wanted music we had no choice. My mum liked classical music and especially the arias, my dad never ever let her listen to it. She like the Beatles too and had loads of records but she was never allowed to listen to them. Instead we had to listen to music he liked if we had the radio on.

I feel quite sick thinking of this but I once bought a record called Lying in the Arms of Mary. (Now I've listened to it and its dreary ha ha ha). The song carries a bit of me with it forever. However I want to continue to unlock the binding chains.

I really loved this record. When I bought it one night my mum was away on a trip. My dad and I sat in the dark listening to it over and over and over and over again. He let me keep putting it on. I never normally was allowed to play my records on the stereo I had to play it on the old fashioned portable in my bedroom. God how old I am as for ages they were the only record players ha ha ha ha . I wish I still had it and all my records. As usual I got rid of them in one of my many geographicals.

Whenever I think of that evening I cringe to the very core. Sometimes feel much that memory can be worse than some of the physical things that happened. Isn't that bizarre. The physical things are so obvious and wrong but things like that are much creepier and more evil and more sinister.

It's etched deeply in my memory. We weren't even sitting next to each other (thank goodness) but I have this impending feeling that he will get up and move closer. Ugh - judders from the inside out and one of those forever waiting moments that I can't get away from as if I'm locked into that seat waiting forever.

It's been a big thing in my psyche from then and this is the first time I've ever written about it. I shan't of course send this email. And now know I need to talk to someone about this. It has to be someone very safe. And that person is SC. I think I will email him.

 

But then step in LW. This flirtatious contretemps has been fun but I know it's a distraction from feeling the feelings. There is one difference, he is very fanciable to look at and by the sounds of it lives a way more in tune with my own, i.e. working and earning. G was very different in this way, preferring not to work and making doing with little money. Of course I immediately have fantasies and he talks of just arriving. He is very naughty and I've gone along with it. I have fantasy as hopes but not really that disillusioned. I will just go along with it but terrified of course of the insecurity setting in as attachment grows. How can I stay detached? God help me.

 Bliss