Category Archives: Random Thoughts.

Walking Through Fog.

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I wrote today, not just edited, but wrote a little, it was for part of book three. I don’t know why, it felt good though, somewhere in my mind I have been hiding, but I hear the whispers inside. Maybe I am coming out of wherever I have been, I’m not really sure. It feels like my mind is bursting with a story to tell once again, but at the moment it just goes around in my mind.

I’m not sure if I’m getting better on this part, or I’m just transferring it to another condition. I know I am fighting at the moment with my OCD. I am sure people don’t believe me when I tell them I have it. I think there’s a stigma to it and people use it so often that it’s like a joke or a term for some to throw around, but I was officially diagnosed with it in 2006 when it was so bad, that I could not live.

I cope with it now, it flares up on occasion and I have to find out why, my mind shuts down and I can never just say, such and such is on my mind. I’m at that point at the moment. My hands are sore; I can’t get my skin clean. I’m fighting the need to make the words feel in my throat as I say them; I don’t want to sound like I have some odd tick, because I have to repeat a word just to feel it, so I fight it and try not to, but it’s there, like a lump in my throat I have to scratch. I make myself feel my breathing in my nose, all these things tell me I have something going on, but I don’t know what it is yet. I’ve detached still, I can feel it, or not as the case may be. I know I have easily lost myself in the world of fiction; it is a good escape of course.

Everything feels numb, like I’m not focused in the real world. I don’t feel like I am real. It’s very hard to explain, and I probably can’t do a good job of it. It feels like the world is moving and I am not. I can hear myself talking, but I stop because the words are not mine. I am not me.

It’s the self harm that does it, or contributes to it. I think I self harmed a couple of days ago, but I can’t remember. Even this morning seems like I was somewhere else. I feel like I’m walking through a fog and I can’t see.

Floating

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Floating

I’m floating somewhere, endless hours spent staring out through eyes that aren’t mine. I’m trapped inside a body with no escape in a place filled with people that I see truthfully, I see behind the facades that they portray, their smiles, jokes, jibes. I see the person, I hear the tick, tick of how they work.

I feel like I’m walking on the outside of life and I’m looking in. My eyes aren’t blind to acts each person continues to show, they are sad.

Maybe one day everything will click inside of me and I’ll know who I am. what I am. Why I am supposed to be here. It feels like I’m running with no destination, no purpose.

I’m lost and I don’t fit.

If your reading this, maybe you have no idea what I’m talking about, I guess I don’t either. These are nothing more than the thoughts in my head as I try to get myself back.

My mind is fuzzy and I’ve detached. It’s like I’ve woken inside myself and someone’s taken over and lived as me for one day, two? I’m not sure. I have glimpses of things, but where I went I’m don’t know.

I self harmed I know that, I vaguely remember letting go, but was it yesterday or the day before? It all feels like a daydream.

Many things led me to that point. The fake friends from my last post. I was grateful that one emailed me and apologised, I understand what the motives were, and I have respect for the admittance.

The other one, I had to look at what happened and why. It hurt to be lied about and then lied too. It hurt furthermore when I saw doctored evidence in a bid to clear their name that certain things weren’t said about me, but I had the original for comparison.

While I stared at this I learned my father had told anyone who will listen that he has now disowned me. That I’m nothing and he’s washed his hands of me. He’s told people I said some nasty things to him and he’s sick of how I am. So we’re done because he doesn’t want to be hurt by me any longer.

In truth, it was the other way around. I asked him to not contact me any more.

I’ve had to look at these three events in this one week, I’ve hidden from the pain and wondered what it is about me that makes people lie.

The one that lied about her age, I get it. I understand, she explained things that I already knew.

My father, it’s his ego I suppose, his narcissistic need to be the one that’s suffering. He can have this one, either way I get what I wanted, I get peace, in a way it’s better. He lifted my guilt of walking away, because in the eyes of our family, it was him that left.

And the other, the one that showed me evidence of a conversation she’d had, but fixed it so it didn’t read the same. I’ve had to ask myself why, what was the reason to try and gain my trust with something else that wasn’t quite true. I don’t think it was to hurt me, if that was the case she wouldn’t be trying to dig her way out of some odd mess we found ourselves in. The motive perhaps is so I didn’t get mad and tell her to leave me alone. Maybe I am wrong I don’t know. It puts me in a strange place, while I’m upset at the dishonesty, I’m not mad, nor angry, if anything I’m a little sad that maybe she thought I would be cruel in the end.

I guess I forgive them all in different ways, because I understand their motives. I’m just sorry these things happened. I’m sorry I can’t fix those things and I’m sorry I can’t fix whatever it is about me.

I know the outside package, while I cannot look in a mirror, is not ugly to the outside world. I wonder if it was, would people stop hurting me?

Blog Flash Day 3 – Colour

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When I was little I used to think that when I was big and all grown up maybe I’d be able to touch the sky, maybe I could touch the colours of a rainbow and they’d feel funny, blue would be cold and red would be hot, yellow would be like touching the warmth of sunshine and green would tickle like soft blades of grass. When I was small I touched colour with my mind.

Ten Pence to Save a Life

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Coal to Cat

It’s an odd story really, how she came about. One I feel maybe I should tell. She was tangled within the world I lived in. Yet, she was a survivor.

I lived in a place that wasn’t so special. It was above an adult shop, to be honest, and a little bit of a dive but, I didn’t care. It was close to my friends, close to my work, but more importantly, it was close to my dealer.

I spent my nights tending the bar in one of the local night spots. I had a cat whose name was Sooty and as his name might suggest, he was all black. He was my pal. He didn’t care who I was or what I did. I’d get home at 4am and he’d greet me each time; this pure black thing pouncing on me in the darkened alleyway as I let myself in. I’d have a coffee and a smoke, and maybe watch some television while he sat on my lap sharing whatever I’d brought home. Pizza or kebab; he wasn’t so fussy.

I felt bad leaving Sooty alone each evening as I went to work or saw my friends and decided to get him a companion. Three weeks old; as black as Sooty, and bright blue eyes, Coal came into our life.

The owner of the store I got her from told me he didn’t think she would live. She was the runt of the litter and when she died I could just return the body and get a refund or a replacement.

She wasn’t going to die. I wasn’t going to let her. I took her home and fed her. I kept her with me while Sooty investigated this strange thing that was in his home. She grew, she thrived, and she lived.

One night when I was off work, my dealer came around.  Of course, I had a little bit of a debt and he was asking when I would pay him. We got in a slight argument about it, but I promised I was working the next night and could pay him after work. He seemed happy with that. The acquaintance that was with him, of course, did not seem happy.

I watched as Sooty climbed across the top of my cabinets and got himself stuck as always. I wasn’t sure what he was going to do. Maybe he was going to jump on my dealer’s friend, or maybe he was just going to sit there, I don’t know. But the acquaintance got hold of Sooty and before I knew what happened, slammed him down on the floor. Sooty ran off and my dealer and his thug left.

I found Sooty struggling to breathe. He tried to cry. He lay in my arms and I ran outside desperate to call someone to help me. I had no money. I ran along the street with Sooty in my arms asking anyone if I could borrow a coin so I could call a vet. People ignored me like I was crazy. It was just ten pence. I didn’t have it.

I ran back home wondering if I could find it lying about, but I knew deep down there wasn’t a penny in my home. There wasn’t even food. All my money went in drugs and cigarettes.

I slid down to the kitchen floor and hugged Sooty to me. I cradled him in my arms and felt as his little life slipped away. Sooty died because I couldn’t afford ten pence.

I buried him the next day.

By then, Coal was a few months old. I didn’t want to lose her too. Not like that. Not another victim of my sorry excuse for a life. I did the best thing I could for her. I gave her to the one person who would care the most.

My father.

For fifteen years she lived with him. He refused to give her back. Maybe it was the best thing. She stayed with him until two days ago, when she passed away too.

 

Telling Teddy Is Out

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Telling Teddy is out

My new book Telling Teddy, the sequel to the #1 ranked book, Dear Teddy, has now been released on Kindle. Please check it out.

 Mr. Ted. I love you very much.

 I love my Mr. Ted. He is all mine and he is magic. He keeps me safe from the bad man. I hug him all tight. We sit on the floor by the fire. I don’t be allowed to sit on the chairs. I am too evil.

Me and Mr. Ted like to write stories. He tells me what to write. Then I draw the pictures about it and we make it all nice. I put it in my scrap book. My Nan bought me the scrap book. It is big and has lots of pages. It has a car on the front and my name.

Mr. Ted holds the hand of his six-year-old friend as they share more of his deepest secrets. Poignant and bold, the boy’s courageous words are detailed and real. He takes you farther into his abusive life and broken mind as he survives the tangled deceit and lies of his everydays. Sit alongside him. Hear his voice and listen with your heart as he opens it up once more.

His story continues…

 Buy at Amazon.com 

Buy at Amazon.co.uk 

Goodbyes.

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It’s been two days since my brother died. Two days of feeling something strange. I made it to Monday and he didn’t. He stopped walking.

 

I never know how to handle grief, I’ve never been taught. The only thing I know about things that hurt, is to not feel them. I was stood in the queue at Starbucks in Manchester when my father called me. He could barely get his words out as he told me. It’s been a long time since I have heard my father cry, at least I think I have heard him, I am not really sure.

 

I realised as he was talking that I really felt nothing for his grief I detached. I was listening to his words, and my mouth was saying all the right things to him, but I had stepped out of myself. Each sentence that came from his mouth, my mind took it and pointed at his behaviour. When I asked how he was doing, he told me he felt sick and couldn’t believe it. Then he went on to tell me about my other brother and sister being upset by it all. His words were, ‘we are all in a state of shock about it, and we have been just sat all morning,”

 

I got clarity. I saw it right there. I am not a part of that family. He has never allowed me to be. I keep trying and keep getting the door slammed. Maybe it is natural to him to do that now.  Perhaps he has made it natural for me too. I felt nothing for him. Not even pity, he had just lost a son, but he might as well have been a stranger telling me. Perhaps my emotions decided to take their own line of revenge on him. I remember when my daughter passed, she was still born and I understand that it is not the same, my father didn’t attend her funeral, because in his words, “what did it matter, she was never alive.” Those were the words that struck me this Saturday.

 

He’s grieving to the world for a son he had with another woman, a son he denied was his so many times. It leaves me somewhat torn I think. A battle within me, which side of me is going to win out. The man who just lost a brother or the son that feels anger towards his father.

 

I didn’t sleep so well on Saturday night, not because I was upset with my brothers passing, though I am, but because my mind was on the fact, would my father even tell me when the funeral is. Would he allow me to go? Would this be just another event when I am not allowed to be part of the family? When his own father passed away, I did not get told. He was dead and buried and I never heard a word about it.

 

Today I see clear.

 

To my brother. I wish we’d got around to that beer. I’m glad I knew you.

Not Through My Eyes.

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ImageToday I sent off a picture of the child I was to someone who is doing a collage of survivors. I didn’t think so much of it until I was staring at his face. Looking at the bruise on his forehead. Looking at the smile on his face that hid the horrors he had endured the night before.

He still smiled.

My therapist used to tell me often to take out a picture of myself when I was a child and to really look at the face and the innocence that’s there. I never really did it. I didn’t see the point. I didn’t believe what she was telling me.  She wanted me to look at him with my eyes and not my parents.

I couldn’t do it.

I hate that child. I agree with what he endured. I wish I could go back in time and push him down the stairs and tell him how much I hate him. Because I do. Some days I hate him so bad that I wish I could reach in and rip him out and throw him away.

I see him through my parent’s eyes. I see that he is unworthy. That he caused his parents to do the things they did to him. That he didn’t fit and wasn’t good enough to be part of anything, including his family. I don’t even see him as a child. I’d never hurt a real child, I’d never hate one, but him, I loathe.

He made his parents that way. They were not abusers until he came into their lives. It was his fault that they did things people would think as awful. Yet they were not awful people. They were good; they just got landed with a child that made them do bad things.

Today I looked at his face and saw him with my eyes.

It was one of the hardest things I have done.

The many sides of a mental person.

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The many sides of a mental person.

I say that in jest really. Sometimes it’s the only way to deal with myself without self-diagnosing and committing myself to an asylum. But, this is what happens when you take a child and steal their innocence. The mind copes in the only way it can fathom because a child’s tools are limited.

Like a child playing an innocent game of hide and seek, they close their eyes and believe that the magic makes it so no one can see them. That is what the mind does when bad things happen. The mind closes its eyes and makes the child disappear to a better place. As time goes on, this develops into a dissociative disorder until parts of the child stays in hiding for many years.

I hurt someone close to me this week. It wasn’t on purpose, yet I know that is not a good excuse. My actions were mean and partly on purpose, not with the purpose to upset this person, but with the purpose to say, I’m hurt please try and break down this wall and help me. I was stomping my feet and hiding away like a child.

I get hurt, the wall goes up, and my weapons of choice are the cold shoulder, a pointing finger and a snapping tongue. They may not seem like anything so scary, but to the person on the other side of the wall, they better be wearing armour. My defence mechanism is well-trained, relentless and led by a nasty mouth. It has contingency plans for every possible fight. It has been training for years.

Calling the shots at the top of this is a hurt child. He is going to stand at the other side and use every piece of weaponry he has at his disposal. And he does.

Often.
I cannot help it when it happens. I am mostly unaware. It is only after when I, the adult, comes back to grab the reins once more that I realise what I did.

It feels like I daydreamed for an entire week.

I want to be normal

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I want to be normal.

I want to live.
I want to be free.
I want to get out of this prison I got locked into so long ago, by people that get to be free.

They are free physically.
They are free mentally.
They have choices and a life because they took mine.

I want to be normal.

I say it many of times. To no one. Just me. In my head, to the darkness. In those moments when I’m as far from normal as I can be. When I’m lost. When I’m hurt. When it all crashes so bad I want to hide.

What is normal? People ask. People that don’t understand. People that don’t see the world the way I do.

I got taken and placed outside of life. I see the world different. I wish people could see the world through my eyes. It’s tainted and darker. Things that people take for granted seem bigger.

A mother

A father.

Normality.

I’m looking out through the shell of the man I was supposed to be. My breaths are slow and I am watching. Watching everyone live a normal everyday life and wishing I could be like them.

The pain is like a silent ringing in my ears. Nothing I can hear. It’s pressure. Like lying in a bath full of water until the pressure makes me hear my heart beat. I lay there until I can’t take it anymore. And just like someone would sit up and take their head out of the water, I take something sharp to my skin and I cut.

It goes quiet. I can breathe. No longer does my heartbeat pound in my ears until I’m begging it to stop.

My count slipped. It has been 36 hours since I last self harmed.

Why did I give in?

Because I dreamt of a man I don’t remember so well. He and my mother holding me down. I dreamt of tape across my mouth and my arms bound. Like many memories, that’s all I have.

They bound me and made me silent.

The bad man. I want to take my life back from him and make it normal like it started.

I want to get to the evening and not be faced with my PTSD. I want to go upstairs and not feel the fears of a five year old. I want to lie in bed and close my eyes and not be afraid that tonight someone from long ago will come back.

I want to sleep.

I want to be normal.

Fathers Day

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Fathers Day.

I know it’s been and gone now, but I’m sure I’m not the only one this day feels like something forced upon us with no choice and yet another way of having no voice.

I stare at my fireplace. There’s three cards on there and for fathers day I got made cake. I don’t need anything else.

Yet, in my inbox is an email from my father. This is the first year I didn’t send him a card. After writing my book, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bring myself to send a card that bore a lie on the front. Unfortunately hallmark do not have a section of cards for the narcissistic parent. Maybe there’s an idea.

He emailed me each day with some reminder, including today that I have not taken him a card. I’m sure I’ll have to cave and give him one, but it grates deeply to know that even now, so many years later my voice is still silent.