My last two posts have been like chalk and cheese. In some ways, the great relationship I have with my daughter, despite the traumas surrounding her own childhood, make my mother’s bitterness and venom, even more painful. We each have only one lifetime, no matter how long or short that is, it’s too short to live it with someone constantly twisting an emotional sword in my heart every so often. I have decided that I am going to write to my mother, but not in the way I think she expects. For once, I am simply going to point out, that despite my attempts to be in contact, until this month, nearly three years after she disappeared from her home, that she could have written or phoned me, but she didn’t. She knew where I was, I didn’t have the slightest idea where she was. I am not going to be so blunt as to tell her where to go, but I am going to make it clear, that I don’t have the strength any longer to play her games and I too, am content with those that surround me.

Life at the minute feels as though it is just one thing after another that is stretching my ability to cope with life. It started with the mix up over the grave deeds, then the letter telling me I had to apply for PIP, then my mother’s card and Teressa’s visit, and all of it has been emotionally draining, as I expected. I honestly don’t feel as there has been a day of normality for weeks. Tomorrow, Adam has booked the morning off work, so that we can go over all the PIP stuff and actually make the phone call, that will start the whole procedure. I have tried hard to sort out what this PIP thing is all about, but I fail time after time. For a couple of years, my brain simply hasn’t been able to take in details just by reading what is online, or in a letter. It feels as though it just can’t process anything, that it hasn’t known about before. I will grasp some of it, but as I continue to read, my brain just starts to explode. Within a couple of paragraphs, I start to feel as though I am reading a foreign language and every word I have read before, has somehow been translated into yet another. The more I try, the more distressing it becomes and I have to stop, as I simply can’t make sense out of any of it. Which was the reason that I passed over the responsibility to Adam for reading all my mail. Yes, I can read, but if it is above the level that maybe a school child could fully understand, I can’t make sense out of what it is telling me, and my distress at finding something that should be so easy, actually being so hard, just isn’t worth it.

I am so glad that I, at least, have today, to start to get myself in a state that might help us get through it all. The last few days have been exhausting. It doesn’t matter how much you love someone, or how much you don’t want to miss a second of being with them. It is draining. Even Adam said last night that he was shattered. It isn’t just all the preparations or the excitement and expectation of their arrival, but when your not used to being around other people, even their very presence in the house, is draining in its own way. My life is normally during the day, very much a solitary existence. Being around other people, just intensifies my own knowledge of what has happened to me. In fact, these last few weeks, have highlighted it, in ways that I haven’t felt before, just how far my health has destroyed the person I once was. I know that my memory is a mess, that I can’t find words when I always need them or remember things or their names, or even people, who once was a huge part of my life. In total honesty, I don’t think I completed more than a couple of sentences, without asking for help. That doesn’t happen so much when I’m just with Adam, but then again, we mainly stick to everyday small talk, not digging into the past. The topics that Teressa, John and I, who for those who don’t know, are all IT and SciFi geeks, for me, that was an eye-opening nightmare, where has it all gone.

Unless you too are housebound, this is probably not an experience that makes a great deal of sense, but this is my ninth year of living with just one person in my life. Yes, I speak to doctors, but never for more than 10 minutes, it’s not half as mind-blowingly difficult as really having to interact with others. Of course, I didn’t realise just how bad it had become, why would I, there has been no one to test it. It did though make sense of the feeling that I have had now for years, that avoiding people, is probably the safest life for me. Being housebound was imposed on me, and over the years, I have found that although it has huge disadvantages to life, it also has its advantages too. I couldn’t make sense of why I found strangers so distressing, now I do. I silently knew that interacting with them, would just show up the true mess that I am. It’s difficult enough when I’m with people that I know, people that to an extent, I know what they will be talking about before they say it. Strangers, well they can choose to talk about what to me, is something totally unknown. I have always sung the praises of social media, because writing allows you to think, to rewrite and to be sure my words make sense, a luxury that being face to face with people, just doesn’t allow. The volume of my praise has just risen.

I know that the stress of all the different things that are surrounding me just now, isn’t, making life any easier. I also know, that most of it is totally out of my control and that I just have to sit here and wait, that waiting isn’t making it any easier. It might be easier if it were just my mind that was making my life hard, but, my body doesn’t like any of this at all either, but that’s another story, just as tomorrow is another day. All I can do right now is wait and maybe, try and catch a few more hours sleep. No, I haven’t lost any, but right now, a few more would be very welcome.

Please read my blog from 2 years ago today – 17/02/2014 – Wild protection

I found myself thinking back for some reason to the first couple of years after I left my husband and all the ridicules things that I did, just because I could. For the first time since I was 16 I was earning and supporting myself, but more than that…..