Positions and Dilemmas

I have realised that my dilemma of principles versus greed and fear also involves anger. This has added a question to my quandary; am I cutting my nose to spite my face? I was just not equipped to manage the onslaught of LK when she took over as ATP Team Leader. Interestingly she insisted her job title was manager ad I conceded to this as she was very insistent but the job advertised is Team Leader and PD was Team Leader so I don't think now that she was right. To be honest it's a word thing but it seemed to mean so much to her that I had interpreted it to have meaning too and afforded her more importance in my skewed view of this authoritarian world we live in. Well according to my perception of things anyway.

It's fear yet again. Status and grandiosity and I am afraid of those people. Bloody hell I see as always where it comes from. It describes my dad not just who he thought he was an yet I saw through this time and time again. I was ashamed of him and played the lies with him because I was already indoctrinated by him that it mattered. I transferred that to LK and I do that everywhere. I do it with PD as well and actually with him there is a difference because at times I see the kind-hearted, caring him too. There are many ideas of his that I find bigoted and similar to my dad. Then there are other factors that for me are redeeming. I am feeling more gratitude for my job with him today having come up against this dilemma of job interviews and principles etc.

So I think if anything this Priory job application situation has at least shown me my gratitude for where I am despite the difficulties I have. The difficulties I have include how PD tells me how to or how not to feel my emotions. When he does this with the clients it infuriates me, after all hat's what's happened to them all their lives in the main and here's another person doing the same thing but this time under the label of treatment. Of course in the long run he's right, for example I realised yesterday how angry I feel with the priory and FC and PT too. I had such a difficult time when working for LK. I was difficult for her too I am very aware. I was always suspicious of her ethical practice and the little I have heard about how that escalated after the time I had left, well, it appals me!

No one listened seemed to listen to me and even when PT did seem to know what was going on he couldn't help me or support me int he way I needed him to. I needed someone to bring it to a stop and eventually I had to leave because it was not going to stop in the time before I was going to sink completely. What's worse is that because no one seemed to notice in the way I was noticing, I thought I MUST be wrong. I am disappointed in that, disappointed too, that I did not have the strength to stick to my convictions and principles.

Now I wonder if I would have the strength once again. PD mentioned only being able to do something about anything from the inside. Actually I agreed with him. The question is whether I have the energy and the inclination. I think I'd rather conserve the energy to develop my own business and complete my degree. I could do this more easily whilst with PD. I see that it would be better for me to stay with PD and learn to get over my difficulties. What an opportunity for gratitude and growth too.

It was great though to see my anger in myself because it comes out in spitful spite and seething vitriol. I just feel completely negative about the Priory group. They do not in anyway invest in their staff and I think that's pitiful. People work their socks off for them. Some don't, of course, there are always the shirkers. But with good strong management, the hard workers can be noticed and those that aren't can be brought into tow. For example I'm very aware that AW isn't a hard worker. She wants to do as little as possible, whereas SH works very hard at the things she works very hard at. However, it can be recognised that computers and the telephone are responsibilities within the team that AW is really not happy with doing. So, if it's a part of the job then she could be offered assistance to improve her techniques and skills. Just giving her the task to do and realising she finds elements of it frightening is not enough to leave her to it. If then she refuses to take on her fair share it needs to be discussed further either to find ways to do it or to take on the load of others in different ways to make time for them to do her extra workload.

Just airing my staff management ideas in thoughtfulness for the interview. So, you can see despite not wanting to work there I am hoping to do the best I can for the interview. I am going to the interview for one thing. Two days ago I was withdrawing my application. How things change. Some of which is linked with the concern of being out of work completely if PD decides finally to close shop. The options then are to be out of work and seeing how I could manage on the dole, which by all accounts is harder than the last time I was on benefits. I was on sick benefits, which I suspect would be better than the job seekers, or whatever it's called these days.

Being on benefits would afford me more time to complete my degree. That would be a benefit. And there would more time to promote my business and get things underway. A distinct lack of self-belief rushed in as I wrote that. I would like to get some more training but can't afford the time until my degree is over and if I was out of work I wouldn't be able to afford the courses. An increase in pay would help towards a new car, which is becoming much needed. More income would help with affording my trip to Singapore and also to starting a bundle of training. I would like to become more therapeutically knowledgeable. Benefits would give me more time an when I'm tired of travelling and tired because of lack of sleep and stressed to get my studying done, then this benefit of time seems appealing. Then, if I think it on further from that, I would have a lot less money. Rent I am guessing could be paid and other bills but there would still be utility bills and food bills. I doubt there would be anything left over for the odd trip to London and certainly no savings for holidays.

One thing I am sure about is, if PD continues I will continue with him and practice getting through the difficulties I have and try to practice more gratitude. I am allowed to have my moans I guess. Ultimately, I love PD. He's a good man and means well too. Sometimes he bloody infuriates me. I was so angry yesterday when he told me that I mustn't be angry with the Priory. I see PD get angry but he squashes his anger I believe and he tells me ad clients to do that too. I wanted to bloody bite his head off when he told me I must let go. I had just realised the extent of my anger for goodness sake and yes ultimately I need to let go. I KNOW that. But boy first of all hear me and let me process my anger to accepting me and them and letting go. I am glad to realise how angry I am and I constantly get infuriated with PD for shutting peoples feelings down. He often doesn't even acknowledge the sadness before he's telling them to think and feel a different way. I have learnt with help to follow that and ask the clients how they feel about what PD has said. Of course they are rarely able to say how they really feel. It's these kind of things then I end up criticising him for mentally. I have to constantly practise moving away as it is just another approach. Reveal the emotion and change the thinking so you feel differently. Heartless to me but swift and practical CBT type approach. It has value though.

I also criticise him for not being so emotionally intelligent but he is bloody practical and can see a different way forward. The thing then is he only sees that way forward and there is no room for people to disagree. It's his way or the highway. He's the same about his own recovery. See that's me judging and criticising. Please God remove this from me as it seems I just don't know how to however much I try. Smiling at myself gently thinking poor little me. I lived, you see, with my dad who did nothing but judge and criticise people. We'd have guests and as soon as they left the house, my m um dad and later I would sit and judge them - always negatively. I know what that's about but having learnt it so thoroughly I find it difficult to arrest.

So I am very, very certain that if PD continues with the business I will too. If not I will apply myself to these forthcoming interviews and see what happens. If neither of those come to fruition I am at the drawing board. I will spend time promoting my business and see what happens with that. I guess God will guide all of this. I trust God will guide all of this. I will start looking for part time jobs I think so that I can continue working for myself and perhaps be entitled to some Government financial support perhaps - who knows?? ML gets some rent contribution so it's possible if there's no income.

I also have realised today that I put money and commitment to the art group over FA. I also am putting my studying on Sundays before FA. It's as if when my Uni comes to a close then I will really commit to FA. I need to discuss this with my sponsor but am loathe to because in every other way I feel committed because I am too scared not to be. I want to stand up though and take responsibility for this now I have realised it. I don;t mean with gay abandon and ego. Just to own my recovery exactly as it is. Thank you God for clarity as I have been even manipulating myself. I am not ready therefore for a full commitment. The Saturday meeting comes second to other things. And unless the AWOL is convenient for me that too. I don't feel clever about but at least honest. Perhaps my sponsor won't want to sponsor me under those conditions - then what??

Well God, please guide me. Thank you for keeping me abstinent today, despite myself. I am abstinent of food but not pure of thought. Thank you for continuing to give me clarity. You have an endless love and resource and I take, take, take. I'm not all take am I? I give back in various ways, I really do. I can do more, I know. When my degree is over ...... ha ha ha. I am joking with you God. It's not bad to have this focus of study is it and that it does fill my time other than work even when I'm skiving off, it's always in my mind. I could be doing that better too.

Please, please guide me God to be the best I can for you. It starts with honesty.

Thank you God for the gifts you give me.

Bliss
XX

Considered verdict

I was late in court to represent Lisa. I arrived just in the final throws whereby she received the verdict of guilty and to be thrown out or deported or something. AB was saying isn't there something you can do. To be honest Lisa was oblivious. I was so cross with myself, disappointed to the point of utter despondency and in writing this I'm realising that I do have an attitude of finality once an authority has made a decision or perhaps it's laziness or something else I'm not quite sure of. I just gave in to the verdict without a fight. Perhaps guided by my feeling of guilt and remorse for not being there at the right time. I do remember seeing the look of glee on the faces of the prosecuting team. And sad that they had gone hell for leather to get a girl who is so young and vulnerable. I of course was seeing Lisa aged 17 as she was when we were all in the Priory. Gosh she was so ill as well as so young. Completely vulnerable.
Anyway the next thing AB was talking with the judge across the pews of the court. And then the judge called over to me asking if this is true? I was given the chance to explain Lisa's circumstances, her bi-polar and so on. Suddenly the ruling was over turned and Lisa was declared innocent. I think the prosecuting team (is that an American term) had left. I was given a cardboard front of shirt thingamajig. I don't know if they have a name. You know similar to the cardboard fronts of a dress shirt men wear for formal functions. What is it called? Aha thank goodness for Wikipedia - a dickie - a sort of cardboard shirt bib. It was also known as a shirt bosom. All these things are going out of fashion for men as formal dress is worn less and less. Anyway I was given a large one of these in a sort of coral pink colour. I was also given a black skirt. Apparently the practise is more ceremonial when winning the case (according the knowledge I suddenly had in my dream - it's funny how there is a sort of internal running commentary in my dreams to explain the odd things that happen and make sense of the banal). Anyway this was all sort of handed over in a bundle, which I received with hands full of papers and carrying a briefcase, so it was all a bit of a muddle. And around me people were celebrating my win but I was thinking it wasn't me, it was AB persevering with her idea to challenge even though it was already decided and over. I have felt this recently with ideas she's had. I'm not necessarily the ideas person but can pick up on them and make them work when it's for someone else but for myself I am full of fear. And I feel inferior because I'm not the ideas person. I am a follower and sheeple as someone on FB would say.
I feel inadequate not being a creator and merely a follower.
So everyone was celebrating but Lisa remained oblivious.

I can recall in a following dream trying not to forget the court room dream but in the process I've forgotten the following dream.

I've been feeling a bit fuzzy-brained since I think Saturday evening. I was sitting in the meeting listening to V doing her chair. G was there which threw me slightly. I was aware of thinking he'd be criticising me in some way for my lace gloves and what I shared. And I imagine his criticism of me being secretary as well was rife. Anyway all of that took over perhaps. I felt sad that we had had a something and now it's quite bitter from him. I was cheerful to see him and friendly. He was dour and the way he is with people he doesn't trust and like. Well it's his issue really. That's how he is. Then on Sunday evening I received some texts from him. Mainly moaning about someone sharing and then glad to have the opportunity to have a go on the following evening when doing a chair at another meeting.
I found it funny that V shared about being in a relationship and there was abusive discourse from the ex. I found G's behaviour abusive and I expect he found my behaviour abusive. I didn't ever set out to be abusive of offensive but I'm pretty sure at times I could be because we tap into each others hurt and issues. I want to be beyond that somehow and with someone who is beyond that. I wonder if it's possible.
I feel sad today that my mum is not alive. A person on FB was saying how they are going to Australia with their mum. The person is the same age as me. And she believes that due to her mums ailments wouldn't make this journey again. I am sad that I haven't got my ageing mum with me. It was sad last evening with the Kaleidoscope magazine with AB and GB remembering how my mum would select clothes for me that were not always what I'd select for myself. She knew what might look good on me. She'd buy tings for me too. I have none of that now. I took it for granted then. And I'd manipulate too. All went when she died. So many things I only appreciate when they no longer exist. My dad. And the sorrow I feel for not being able to let him into my life in any shape or form. Holding onto deep resentment and now he's gone.
LouLou is sneezing. she is getting older and I have so taken her for granted too. She no longer likes to sleep with me and doesn't cuddle up with me on the settee anymore.
I have such a good friendship with AB. I don't know if I show it. I am there practically everyday. But do I show my appreciation in any way. I will tell her today how much I value her friendship and I will tell GB how much I admire her and value how she includes me. That brings on a real feeling of sadness. I do feel lonely at times.
I can't be bothered to get going today. I have had this feeling of nothingless and I have been fighting it. Trying to work out how I feel. Wondering why I don't know. Wondering if it's hormones related. Trying to work it out and then with the answer I'll have control of it. Instead I simply need to accept it and give in to it and let it be. I trust it will pass as it has before but even if it doesn't, it will all be okay. I worry I suppose that I operate so much on an emotions level with people that without it I won't be able to do my job well.
It's a funny feeling. Just can't put my finger on something that seems to be there underlying everything. It will become clear if it's meant to.
Regret I think is there. Regrets about the past and the way I've been and still can be. Regrets that I have no children. That came to the fore earlier this morning when I was reading the 24 Hours a Day book. It focused on the impact of alcoholism on the children. The impact has been that I've terminated them as soon as they've got to conception. How dreadful. How sad that I will never know those little soles as human beings. I am so so sorry to those little souls. Ad yes sorry that there was a them not even just a one. I've had a whole big family but not much beyond conception. One was months rather than just weeks. It was that I was too scared on that occasion to go with the draw to have the baby. Scared to tell my parents I was pregnant yet they would have been horrified about a termination. God help me with these thoughts.
I've rarely spoken about these things. This morning when I was reading about the impact of alcoholism I hadn't even thought of the decision I had made as an impact on the souls. All I ever think about is the impact on me - poor, poor me!

I suppose I need to get up. I don't want to. It's my last study day or rather free day off this year. I don;t want to work 5 days a week. I want to work 4 days per week. I wonder if I'd be able to manage on the pay.
God I would like to guidance please about how to go forward and if I should go forward with my own little business. I have some ideas of my own that PD will not allow me to do at Addiction Care. I would like to talk to him about some evening work at a shared cost. These are referrals directly to me. He asked me if I'd see them privately or through AC. I need to sit down and discuss things with him. Thursday is busy with 1:1's for me.
But I have some ideas I'd like to follow through. Some private 1:1's in the evenings a women's closed group, a writing group with a view to putting a book together of experiences and to publish it.
I would like to start some training courses for counsellors too. But I need premises. God is this the way forward? If so how do I do it?
I have visions of the little therapeutic writing group on a Sunday morning in a quaint tea shop private room. Something cosy and friendly. Not in the "work" environment.

I need to get up. I will call AB and see if she'd like a walk this morning. Then I can come home for the rest of the day and speak with TH later on and a meeting with CT this evening. An AA adventure as we have called them.

I need a wee too. I can feel a little lighter I think. Oh I wonder if this is not my nothinglessness and a clients stuckness I am experiencing. And I think the stuckness maybe A's when I would have more likely thought M's. Hmmm now that's interesting. It could be stuckness not nothinglessness.
God please show me the way. Thank you.
Oh I wonder if it's if I feel a bit attracted to A and it's my stuckness then with that. I need to bring that out in supervision I think. Ew yuch - exposure.

Bliss
XX
 

Mum? Dad? Stuck in an irretrievable moment

Nightmares! Horrid - waking up each time stuck in really intense emotion. My mum and dad. All the unresolved hurt, loss, fear. Ugh! And even after waking up because I was unable to change the nightmare despite my efforts, I went back to sleep and had a new nightmare. Same cast different scenario. Uncomfortable. Obviously feelings either needed stirring up or have been stirred. Don't know how to describe how I feel now; shaky, racing thoughts, anger, hurt, missing my mum, regrets, grief, unsettled. Thank God I have a sense of serenity I can turn to and ask for help and guidance. A sense of something bigger than me. No need for external comforting. I just needed someone close up me to know and that can be through my writing.

My dad seemed to be in a dream of turmoil sitting on the settee ( goodness knows where we were, I didn't recognize it). His eyes were opening and he was shifting his head from side to side, his eyes rolling in his head. He looked frightening, menacing. At one point I wasn't sure if he was actaully asleep as he seemed to look at me from a distortd face and evil eyes.
Suddenly he did wake up! He went upstairs ranting about all the people there to help mum. She was seriously ill upstairs in bed. Again I did not recognize the stairs or the front door, through which he was turfing all the nurses and doctors out. He was banishing them. I was crying, screamnig for hism to stop knowing that mum needed these people to help manage the pain. She was ying there helpless and saying nothing. Letting it happen. I was distraught and furious.
I have felt these emotions to varying degrees and off and on - the fear of him the frustration. The injustice. The helplessness. The fury and the despair.

There was a second dream which I've now forgotten  ut again involved them both!
It took a while to get out of the emotions that seemed stuck

Bliss
XX

Frazzling nerves and endings

4 am. Bloody hell! A tummy ache, dizziness and nerve frazzles. That's the only way I know ow to describe them. I have been wondering if it's another hormonal "phase". I've had backache for 2 weeks now. All the de-stressing hasn't made it go away. Pilates seems to help a little but it's still there niggling away. And I was really, really sweaty with damp patches showing on my dress yesterday. Now albeit the day was extremely humid and probably even the newer, thinner, fitter, full of healthy foods me wouldn't avoid a glow. But somehow I have a real sense that there is another hormonal manoeuvre going on.
I didn't even want to go for a wee as is the usual these days. Gosh! How I used to vaguely listen to the elders talking about these sort of things. I know it was real for them but I never imagined it was real for women in general. But here it is a part of my reality now. Fuzzy eyesight and fuzzying even more, especially in these hormonal manoeuvres, not able to sleep through until I'm supposed to wake up, aches and pains that don't go away, headaches, and a sort of irritability.
And I had a dream about G. I think about him a lot. Friends might worry that this is me thinking of getting together with him again. That I am most certainly not thinking. I have no desire nor intention. But I can't seem to get him right away from me. After the last contact I created; I sent an email from Peda. It was a link to Mumford & Sons Sigh No More, together with the lyrics.
"Sigh No More"

Serve God, love me and mend
This is not the end
Lived unbruised, we are friends
And I'm sorry
I'm sorry

Sigh no more, no more
One foot in sea, one on shore
My heart was never pure
You know me
You know me

But man is a giddy thing
Oh man is a giddy thing
Oh man is a giddy thing
Oh man is a giddy thing

Love; it will not betray you
Dismay or enslave you, it will set you free
Be more like the man you were made to be

There is a design, an alignment to cry
Of my heart to see,
The beauty of love as it was made to be

Love; it will not betray you
Dismay or enslave you, it will set you free
Be more like the man you were made to be

There is a design, an alignment to cry
Of my heart to see,
The beauty of love as it was made to be

Love; it will not betray you
Dismay or enslave you, it will set you free
Be more like the man you were made to be

And there is a design, an alignment to cry
Of my heart to see,
The beauty of love as it was made to be

 

 

Having sent it I then did check a few times to see if he'd responded and when he didn't I left it. part of me really didn't want to send it. I knew as I did that it was not a good thing to have done. However, a week later maybe I received a text from hims asking it had been me that sent it. I left responding for a few days and then owned it. I said yes it was me and had been silly of me to send it from a friends email. I said I thought if he hadn't heard Mumford & Sons he might like them. Then I finished it saying I hope you're well.

Last Sunday I received a text in the morning asking what I was up to that day. I left it all day and responded saying I had been studying all day and was going to sleep now. I didn't and don't want to meet up with him.

I realised that the friendship I want to maintain is actually a desire for there to be no hard feelings. And that is out of my control and any attempts to try and make that the case are potential to cause more bad feeling. So it's better that time passes and then maybe someday we can be friendly. I think G is a remarkable man. Incredibly intelligent and bright. A memory for information that is so interesting. He has a passion in him that shows through in certain ways. He is caring and considerate in his way. I will always honour that in my heart but together it just didn't work.

I wonder why I can't clear G from my thoughts and dreams though. It's not a longing or anything simply he's there.

I wrote this morning that this is probably a part of the grieving process. Despite not wanting the relationship and being relieved that it's over there is still a part of him that will forever be in my heart and I miss the nice things and good times. I think too there is a similarity with my father. I am relieved that the relationship has ended. I couldn't make that ending whilst he was alive. I was hanging on and hanging on just in case something worked out. It never did. Right up to the end he was cutting and critical of me. That hurts less as I write it now but has been a point of real pain before now. I do miss the opportunity to have contact with him and put right some of the things of the past I know I did badly; the irresponsibility, the debts, the self-centred desire for hedonism. There were times when it was okay between my dad and I and it was those times that I clung onto in the hope that we could have the father/daughter relationship I wanted to have with him. I don;t think either of were capable. I feel sad about that. I grieve the relationship we didn't have as some say. For whatever reason it was not compatible between my father and I. I feel a concern that I am the common denominator in the many many failed relationship with men. My concern that it is not possible for the future either. But I also think that the people I've been attracted to have been incompatible and that draw has been looking for the wrong things plus not being able to like myself and look for things that I deserve

Meeting with SH and her husband today, I felt so sad for her. She sat there being criticised by her husband. He spent the entire time running her down to me as if he was the hard done by one. I thoguht SH looked so hurt and her voice was so quiet. And I know that she is used to that really. Her father was never complimentary, instead putting her down even comparing her unfavourably with the others showing his favouritism for TH and the youngest who died from a heroin overdose. How tragically sad. These put downs from childhood that influence how we feel about ourselves and in turn meaning that we continue to accept that as the norm and right yet knowing it's not true too. So confusing. Well I may be projecting myself onto SH but she did go quiet and he was relentless in a sort of jokey way, but horribly sneering and self-righteous manner.

His little boy listening is being given such a bad example and he was even implicated in it. How manipulative of L. He referred to the presents the little boy had bought SH that she had disregarded in some way or lost. How fucking mean of L.

Anyhow. I relate. And the influences from my childhood I feel sure have influenced what I have thought I wanted and needed. I do not want nor need that anymore and in beginning to like myself more I am less willing to accept what for me are crumbs. I'm not saying they are crumbs merely that for me they are.

I want to be cherished and respected. I want someone who is self respecting too and feels comfortable. Someone who is thoughtful and kind. Someone who is generous of heart, loyal and decent. Someone with humour not sarcasm nor mocking. Someone who has opinions and thought but not opinionated or closed-minded. I'd like to meet someone who is gentle and who is available emotionally, mentally and physically. Someone who puts importance of dignity both giving and being. A person who has interests that can be shared and is willing to share interests. Who is friendly and sociable, open and interested in people. Who has dealt with issues of anger and who is willing to continue working on themselves and togetherness. Someone who respects my space and has respect for their own space. Someone who is measured and balanced - at least working on it. Spirituality would be a big part to share between us - thinks such as meditation and exploration and adventure. Honest and open. Someone who turns away from temptation of women. I'd like him to be good looking and charming too but not flirtatious or beguiling except with me. Fun and creative, spirited and homely too but with a sense of the bigger world and a curiosity about cultures and everything else that is out there to discover. Musical, arty, a little fey. Willing to develop intimacy and enjoy sexual intimacy. About 6 foot something with a smile that warms my heart and smiles in his eyes. A twinkle in them just for me and one that I can reflect back just for him. Someone non-judgemental and accepting. Slim and health conscious but not obsessed. A sense of the other and willing to be playful with these things and generally playful but not childish. Responsible, accountable, flexible, dependable. Money would be nice to have.

HP please can you bring us together? If you think this is the right path for me I believe you will have already got us on the path to meet.

 

Bliss

xx

 

 

 

 

Freebird tethered

Then L called. Gosh I could relate to her too. She too was worrying about her sisters state of mind, her mum's health and feeling self-centred and selfish wanting or needing emotional support from them. She is working on Step 4 on her AWOL. And to be honest I really could relate to being right in the Step 4 and everything feeling so flipping difficult. When I was working on Step 4 my dad was dying and there I was trying to look at my part in my resentment. I felt so bloody resentful and angry. Yet was giving myself such a hard time. Tying to keep the focus on me meant I was taking on EVERYTHING as my fault. I was to blame and yet I didn't feel to blame all at the same time. It was so so challenging a time for me. I think to some degree I am still stuck in step 6/7 which is when I left the AWOL because I relapsed. I hadn't really fully grasped the responsibility for the bad feeling I had caused my dad and my mum come to that. And since then it's been sinking in and feeling heavy at times. I feel awful for the irresponsibility of my decisions in the name of wanting hedonism. Hedonism came in the shape of wanting parties and men and drink and just a good time all the time. I didn't want what felt like the shackles of responsibility such as financial commitments. I thought my parents were simply boring and trying to tie down this freebird in me. Which always reminds me of the Lynnard Skynnard record and wanting to be that free spirit, drugging and slightly fey, unknown to people. Yet in my behaviours I was without any depth at all really. Of course the depth was in my desperate quest for something but didn't know what. So with that not even knowing I was looking demeanour, I became very one dimensional. How despairing my parents must have been with their strong values to build their finances and status and knowing the importance of financial security in this very demanding society and watching me time after time fritter away properties and actual cash. I was just so irresponsible. Also getting them onto bad debtors lists as I was resident in their home. My dad had a right to not want me around as I caused them trouble. And all of this was happening without them really knowing I was drinking excessively or eventually drugging and always promiscuous in my desperate bid to have someone to love me. I didn't like or love myself and felt unlovable so it was never going to fulfil me. That behaviour just got worse. In fact I see how the drink was just a reason to make my behaviour acceptable to me. I thought it was giving me courage to do that. Actually it was overriding my values so that i could behave in a way I didn't approve of. All the time blaming my dad for being so Victorian. He was strict and very judgemental but it wasn't his fault and I had values but disregarded them. They were muddled up with his dangerous messages through abuse and imposition over me.
I need to go and get ready. There is more to write but not now.
Bliss
X
 

A song for Dad

If I were to sing a song to my dad what would it be?
It needs to be one of forgiveness, forgiveness of myself right now. I watched a film call Song for Marion. My gosh it was full of similarities. A father and son who did not get along as their mother and wife was dying of Cancer. She was upbeat and loved both her husband and son. She loved her husband even though he was a grump. She loved her son, saying "he's a good boy". That hurt as I can only think that over the years I brought my parent a lot of trouble.
I was burning the candle at both ends, I was financially irresponsible, I was hedonistic and selfish with it, I chose men that were really inappropriate and unavailable in many ways. I worked addictively and then burnt out. I drank addictively and ended up using drugs. I just wanted to be loved.
I don;t know if I could have a drink again without it getting out of hand. I do tend to think it was circumstantial. I think I fell into using drugs and quite frankly I know I couldn't use them recretionally and intermittently. I wanted them and more very quickly. I should go along to an NA meeting. I probably need an AA meeting as I was really thinking I might have a drink. If it weren't for my job and my food recovery I would drink I think. FA says no alcohol. It's sugar and mind altering.
I have so many regrets about my behaviour and please God I need to find forgiveness as right now it feels painful seeing my part in the animosity in the relationship with my dad.
For goodness sake, resorting to escorting. My parents must have been despairing, thankfully they didn't know. As far as I'm aware.
Well I just had a call from an FA friend C. It was interesting talking with her as she is questioning the whole alcohol abstinence.Not believeing she is an alcoholic she wants to be able to have a drink but more importantly it's to do with what others will think. I'm long past that I said, havinf just had the same thoughts I suppose with LW. When he said we can share time over a good glass of wine. My, that's a very tempting thought. And being in Paris with ML would be a lovely time to be in a cafe having a glass of good French wine. The thing is when I used to visit places I used to spend most of my time frequenting drinking venues and staying there. There are some cities, like Zurich that I found a bar and a few of us stayed there all day. Then spent the vening drinking as well. Too lazy to tour around. Sometimes it was because I felt too large to tour around and so easier to just jabba the hut it in a bar drinking. So yes it was a usefyul call for me. Then a call from L who has decided to have a breka from meetings completely. She was struggling to make it a bridge to normal living. Somehow the commitment was not suiting her. Maybe she won't need that constant feeling of fellowship and the reminder. Some people don't. They stop drinking and live happily ever after. I like the fellowship, the understanding of difficulites with day to day living and thinking. I am no longer so despairing but an evening like yesterday can still flaw me. It's good to have people to help step out of the potential quagmire and downward spiral.
This morning I still have a feeling of remorse hanging over me and some of it involves G.
I am thinking of sending this email .... I suspect he would delete it without een reading it. But at least I would have said what I truly think.

Hello G

I am a friend of yours whether you want that friendship or not. Whatever happens I will always think so very highly of you. I have thought that since meeting you and think it today still.

I am very sad that the relationship between us didn't work out and I regret even more that you feel so badly about me as a person.

I do make a lot of mistakes, fumbling through life situations. I don't find it easy. Amidst all of that, it is NEVER my intention to do any kind of harm to YOU or anyone.

You are a good person G and I am truly, truly grateful for the great times I have shared with you. I will hold those in my heart always.

I knew that I needed some time without contact and maybe could have expressed that more clearly. I didn't mean to piss you off so. I hoped you might be understanding of that and although you don't trust me, trust that it is not because of you.

I wish you only good and really mean that from the very bottom of my heart.

 

Bliss

 

 

What do you think? Should I or shouldn't I? I guess if unsure I will wait and re-read and see if it's still the right think to do. The intent behind it is valid. I would like him to know that I have no evil thoughts of him. I didn't like things that happened between us. The mix just wasn't right as a couple. Perhaps there isn't anyone that will be the right chemistry with me as I am. But it doesn's stop me liking these people.

On Friday I went out with a flurry of petticoats, red cha cha heels and hat boxes. As a result I left my keys in the door and the door unlocked. I sudenly remembered this when I was too into my journey to work to turn back. The I was agonisig about whether it was valid enough reason to phone the vicar of the local church. I might know people to say hello to but I don;t have people's numbers. My downstairs neighbour has given me his number  now. I think I may have lost that too now! I'm a bit all over the place at the moment. I keep losing words again and get fearful that this is the onset of dementia or something serious. Especially with these dizzy spells and heart flutters. On the otherhand it could be menopause connected and just less noticeable as some of the more noticeable side effects when larger are not present now. Anhyway in my clumsy way I phoned him having talked with an FA person (as nuts I think as me, S) who agreed that it would be an okay thing to do to ease my fears. Break ins etc. I called, told him I was a bit bonkers and he did walk around to my flat, finding the keys in the door. He didn't want to disturb T (downstairs neighbour) so early but delivered the keys to him later in the day. How very kind. Now I will make a donation to the church - what should I donate?
Which reminds me. I need to count up the AA pot and pay the two lots of rent outstanding by cheque and bank the £198 into my account. I'm so lapse about this. I'd like to ahnd that commitment over actually. I'd much rather do something I'm better at. Oh well.

Being a "modelle" has so far been fun. I'm a model for an art class. They have thanked me for sitting so still. It's hardly the pose in the Girl with the pearl earring painted by Vemeers. And I'm far from a girl. Their paintings are not at all like me. Even the artists very fast impression is nothing like me I find. This were the creations I managed to photograph on Day 1 and then Day 2. 2 more days to go. Some people are only doing 2 days some people are doing the one piece over the days they are there. Some people are doing lots each time. It's interesting the references he makes to other painters and discussions about techniques. I think I should like to have lessons. I guess this is what the masters did and how they found proteges perhaps.

 Day one

 Day one

 Day two

 Day Two

 Day two

 Day two (one of many)

 Day two

 Day two

 Day two later on

 Day two

 Day two (tutors fast start)

 

 

 

A very emotive film for me. A Song for Marion

 

Cast includes Terence Stamp, Vanessa Redgrave, Christopher Ecclestone, Gemma Arterton in

Paul Andrew Williams.

Humour but truly a pluck on grief within me. I think the acting was as ever outstanding by these very professional actors. It's a snippet in time before death and only a brief glimpse of the interactions around that.

I am not sure if it is sheer brillance because it's so real or if being so close to some of my reality makes it seem master work.

I have been thrown into my grief as a result of watching it, hence the opening theme of this entry today. Remorse, loss, sadness, internal turmoil, reconciliation.

 

It was a lovely light relief and a nice surprise when LW phoned me just as I was getting ready to go out for something to eat.

I would really like it if I had freinds with males as well. A mix of social people in a group. There was a largegroup of men at the pub last night. A team of some sort I would suggest. A wedding was taking place and the bride was so young looking and pretty. The guys were all so young as well. I was cynical in my thoughts and wish for them all that none of them follow a journey like mine has been. However, I can turn to the gloom of it all and forget to see the wonder of the journey too.

And today I've had a call with L, C and now my friend S too. It's lovely to have this friendship and connection.

Thank you Universe - beaming smiles

 

Bliss

x



 

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




 

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

 

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

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

For a long marriage don't divorce!

The secret to a long marriage, according to Olivia Harrison wife of George Harrison, is not to divorce. This means working through things. For me this means standing up for myself, being decent, honest, respectful, honourable and being ME. I need to say to G that I'm really looking forward to seeing him and spending time with him. And if he's free to stay over Sunday then I'd really like that. Monday I'm off work to study so would need Monday to actually study. And then in the afternoon I'm meeting Miranda for a walk and a cuppa. I just don't want him staying during the day and that night too.
It's hard to be firm about this. What's the light-hearted way to say that? I don't want to hurt him and yet need to take care of myself as well.

I'm sitting here, sunny afternoon, and there's the sound of a lawn mower. I have always LOATHED that sound. And I've just pieced it together. The feel I get from it is the similar balmy feel to the weather, me indoors, upstairs alone and something has happened. In the meantime my dad has just got on with "normal" things as if nothing has happened at all. Noone knows how lonely I am and doesn't seem to care. Am I making this up? Or is it real. The LOATHING is very strong and the feel on loneliness and isolation is too. I want to believe it but can never be sure of myself. Perhaps I'm a pathological liar as I think my dad was. Am I?

God show me please.
Actually I don;t feel dramatic or traumatised by this connection, real or not. In the past it would have been a dramatic reaction; panic attacks, tears, frozen and needy. Not today. It's just a sort of "oh is that what is is?"
Yet again I'm not reading. I need to read just the discussion bits - a walk with Loobs and then an hour of reading. An hour walk takes me to 16:00 and hour reading to 17:00. And G reckons he'll be arriving early evening.
I am not sure he's visiting to be with me or to avoid being at "the pit" or more widely known as his flat. I want to say that I'm looking forward to his visit and stay tonight. I'd prefer it if her went home tomorrow whilst I'm out in London and then if he'd like to come and stay again Sunday evening then that would be nice. BUT he will need to leave Monday am as I want to start studying in earnest. I an no longer mess around as I'm getting so far behind.
How on earth do I say that so that I'm taking him into consideration as well. You see I'm assuming that he'll do what he's done in the past and stay tonight expecting to stay tomorrow.
However I texted already asking him what he'd like to do. Bugger. I was easy going about these things but realise he takes it beyond my easy going point and I haven't said anything. So clawing back the boundaries is very difficult. However, I want to do it for myself.
Right a walk up the hill.

Oh did I mention that I got the courage to speak to my sponsor about not being comfortable with weight increase and wanting to take some food out. She removed 1oz of oats with my breakfast. She asked how I felt about it and I felt happy. She is considering the anorexic in me which I am grateful about. This happened a few days ago. I said I'd also like to reduce the oil at some time. If I could maintain 120 lbs I'd be at my optimum happiness with my size and weight. She thinks it's too low. I don't want to be less but I am not feeling size-wise comfy at 125 +.

Right the walk

Bliss
XX
 

Oh That's Crap! Unsettling.Revealing.

Well I've learnt even more about my father. From Auntie E and then I picked up the courage to call Auntie V.
Now she seemed to be asking several times what I wanted. I said that I want peace of mind. She said that if that's what I wanted then I need to let go. She suggested going to church. I said that also wanted to know things about my dad. I think she thought I might be phoning to ask for money. He had told her that I'd had 2 lots of £15,000 loans which I'd never paid back. What a liar! That's so infuriating but a relief to know that he told such bloody idiotic lies. He had said that I'd cost him a lot with my first marriage. That's probably true. As much as I hate to admit it. My mum and went for it. I think it could have been more costly. I mean I didn't have or want an evening bash. He knew as well that I didn't really want to get married but didn't have the courage to step away from it. I was too scared. Perhaps he could have helped me there. It was a sham of a wedding and a marriage. And I've done it a couple of time since. I know he had no respect for me in my attitude towards money and spending it. Yes I did have a couple of loans. But I did pay them back and they were no more than a couple of thousand each time. He did act as guarantor but again didn't have to pay anything. He did give me the deposit on the first house £2000 and that was lost when I ran away from the whole relationship, everything. I was foolish to do that. I should have stayed and fought but I didn't and didn't have the courage to ask for help to get what was rightly mine. Lukcy MP, he got the lot. I don't think my mum and dad did naything with regard the place in Guildford with AV.
Anyway Auntie V did confimr the name-swapping business of my fathers father. The family name was Boulger and they came from Southern Ireland. They cam from New Ross apparently. I'd like some time to go there. But with Boulger being such a popular name. .... I wonder if Auntie V would give me some more details when I go and visit her.
She sounded as is she were talking through a psychic voice. She said that T would spend what little money was left very quickly. She said that there would be something for me from the house. Well we'll see.
I'd love it if Auntie V after all these years of knocking her psychic skills was right. I think my mum might have been jealous of Anutnie V and Uncle F. My dad always held them in high esteem but my mum an dI were snobby about them. Look at them now. A very very rich family. But never forgetting where they came from. Unlike my mum. And I.
Good for them. I am very pleased for them. Truly I am. And they look after each other which is also a real beautiful thing. Unlike the snobbishness and distancing and self-gain. I have had that too. I really am very very happy for them making it good but jealous too. I wish I had their get up and go and humility to do what it takes to get there. I was  not interested in grubby looking things. Ha! More fool me. Last laugh and all that!!!
Anyway Auntie E was aware of affairs. She said that Auntie V had always known about affairs. I will ask her directly when I visit. I said I would visit in early May. I want to follow that through. I've arranged a date to get up to the Wirrall to see Auntie E and Uncle M.
They have always been mocked by my father. And I would never say that to them - please God. I was able to say to Auntie V how highly he regarded bith her and Uncle M. She knew that.
She gave me some snippets of information and understandably was cagey to begin with.

I am fucking furious with him for being a liar, a cheat, a cad, a womaniser, a complete fabrication. I am pleased that he found happiness in recent years according to Auntie V. I'm also glad that he wasn't completely happy according to Auntie E and also to N. They all think there was something not right. I wonder why Auntie V then says he loved T and was contented and also she finds T to be a nice lady. When so many others don't think she is. I feel for her with a difficult childhood as described by her cousin. I am pleased that she has no financial worries in her illness. One less thing to stress about. I am jelaous that she had good times with my father especially as I was so excluded. I am jealous that I didn't get any inheritance. I don't like being jealous and would really like this to be removed from me please God and let go. Help me to let go please.
Should I stand up for my rights? I suppose there's no harm in asking another solicitor. But if they also say no then I will let go of pursuing it. I am coming to terms with this being my lot. It is not necessary to have material wealth to be hapy.
It immediately made me more content with G. Before then I was agnonising over the fact that  he has nothing too.
So what. If we can be happy in our strange way together, then that's enough. I can adjust more easily than ever I imagined I would.
I feel a sense of loss of the freedom to travel. I'd truly like to find ways to get to the Far East and to India to meet with Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo. I'd like to see other cultures and worlds. Perhaps I'll just have to be content with the wonders I've been privileged to experience through my work before. I have chosen a different career and it's an amazing honour to work with people and their private lives.

I have a lot to be grateful for. I can learn and move on from this. It's been a lot of turmoil but doesn't have to stay turmoil.
HP help me to be happy for others good fortune and to be grateful for what I have.

In the meantime, my father was not someone I am proud to own the genes of. I am furious with him for being such a fuckwit! I am furious with him for cheating on my mum and for lying so much. There was no bloody need. I think I can see a way of dropping the resentment though. Not by thinking it through. Simply by ust acknowledging the anger and fury and letting go of the desire for it to be different. It is what is it. The past was what it was. I'm angry and that's that. But not longing right at this moment. I annot get reconciliation from anyone. The only person who could have shed light on what the reality actually was is dead, my father. And he was never capable of honesty when he was alive. I just need to accept that.
I amscared that I am a pathological liar too. Please God help me to be honest.
I will tell G, sponsor that G, boyfriend, and I are going to stay in the relationship. Both a little tentatively and accepting that it's quite a lively relationship.

I didn't know any other way. I wasn't given the tools for some reason. Some of it my make-up, some of it the lacking within my relationships and guidance. I became an addict and do not blame him/them for this. I need to take responsibility for my behaviours which I do. I was not pleasant and very irresponsible. I became out of control and was a worry for my parents. I really don't think there was any other way to go though. I didn't have the capability for life yet was thrust into it anyway. I had to get away from home. I was self-willed too. A bit of a handful. Very, very angry, understandably. And then I got into recovery. My father didn;t want to see any changes in me. And I've learnt was lying about me anyway. He had to make it worse that it was probably to ease his conscience in some way. I and my father probably have a lot of similarities. I was tuaght to be a liar. The truth was never ever enough.

So an interesting morning. And a lot of study avoidance. Okay - I have at least half an hour to get some done

Bliss
XX