So today has been quite eventful, I got up at 6am to drive back up to Milton Keynes from London for work and 3 hours later I found myself back at my point of origin.
This was after running out of screen wash on the M11 and having to drive 10 miles being unable to see much until I got to a garage, doing my first "London U-Turn" (hooray!), facing accidents, snow, other people's rubbish driving while arguing with my SatNav the whole way. Honestly the woman is a such a bitch, she doesn't shut up and is obsessed with the North Circular Road!
That said, as irate as I was it did give me a chance to explore my very soon-to-be new neighbourhood - yes that's right I am moving on - and we've found (yesterday) and been accepted (today) on a flat - woohoo! So excited :)
It's in Walthamstow so yeah E17! - (I have to keep reining myself in from singing choruses of #Alright, alright, everything's gonna be alright # - so far I have managed to stick to just think-singing it!) - and this is where I went for a little exploration today.
So what's Walthamstow like? Well the short answer is Ketteringy (this is my new adjective of the day). Those of you either still based in or originally from Northants will get what I mean, the rest of you may not, but yeah it's a bit like Kettering!
It's got more shops than Wellingborough but not as many as Numptyville. The shopping centre is a bit nicer than either Swansgate or Newlands (am sure anyone who is local to it is thinking "eh?" but if you've never been to Wellingborough you just don't know!) but that kind of place.
That said I got everything I needed which is very often easier said than done even in Numpty - the staff in Natwest were very helpful and I had a nice cup of tea in a cafe while I was working so yeah I think it'll do nicely :)
Ooh excitement!
Will blog some more once things are completely sorted but for now....eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! :)
(Have managed to stick to just thinking that noise too!)
Tuesday, 21 December 2010
Tuesday, 14 December 2010
Me, knicker addiction and being sad
It occurred to me that I hadn't written anything for a little bit, so...
If you read my other blogs you know I've had a fairly shit year to put it mildly, but what of the real me, the one behind the veneer of trauma?
Well, let's see, I'm short, apparently cute, I have dyed red hair, I'm smart, I love scifi and books and films and..... I am addicted to buying knickers.
Seriously I have like 150 pairs I think! It's a compulsion, I see knickers with cute designs on and I have to buy them. I have an especial weakness for Floozie by FrostFrench undies, they tend to have the cutest designs, I have pants by them with designs on ranging from unicorns to strawberries to ladybirds, with frills, without, cotton, nylon and silk. I have some with matching bras, some without.
So why the knicker obsession? Well it started as a reaction to a comment by my ex-in laws (not from the recent ex, the one before) that I had a lot of underwear. To be honest at the time I really didn't I just had more than their idea of one pair per day of the week. I was also pretty ill at the time so having extras meant I didn't have to do laundry every 5 minutes!
Somewhere in my brain though, this comment stuck and for some reason caused me to go in the opposite direction to what I believe they were suggesting (that I be a good girl and have only 7 pairs of pants!). And thus my knicker obsession began. It is really becoming a bit of a problem, when I moved recently I actually had a full bin bag full of underwear!
So why am I telling you this? Well it just occurred to me really and I wanted to share something about myself that wasn't gloomy :)
That said this wouldn't be my blog without a touch of sadness....
I do sometimes feel so unutterably sad, like everything is bleak and flat and broken. Going on what has happened to me over the years this is probably not surprising but I have had these stages for as long as I can remember so it's not just about the trauma.
The sadness can hit at anytime, I mean the past two evenings/nights I have been beyond miserable and this is even in the sure knowledge that my future is bright, that I am moving to a new city and that I am wanted and cared for in a way I have never experienced before.
Why do I get these bouts and why do I behave like a total cow when I AM sad? It's almost to the "toys out of the pram" stage at times and there is no apparent immediate reason.
It's like something warm and alive in me switches off and the creeping cold of sadness starts to take over with that awful voice telling me that I shouldn't be optimistic, that I don't deserve to be happy....I mean for fuck's sake why does my brain tell me that?? I know I am not a naturally optimistic person but I try to be and succeed most of the time but the evil me is always waiting to start whispering badness in my ear :(
I think some of it has to do with the fact that I have not felt able to express how I really feel for so long, even now I do struggle to let the feelings out. I have internalised my feelings for years, swallowed so much pain and despair that should have been released and acknowledged that it has almost become personified as an evil side. And that evil side while mainly repressed finds its way out in sadness and stupid over-reactions to totally normal situations.
But I am trying to let the feelings out now, to talk about how I really feel about everything both good and bad, big and small. It helps so much but it's something I really am having to learn to do and it's really hard :( The one big difference now though is that I am being listened to and asked about how I feel which is both wonderful, weird and a little bit scary all at once but so very much appreciated :) x
Pants and misery, always a likely combination eh? For now that's it, tired and cold, need to at least try and sleep.
Abbi
If you read my other blogs you know I've had a fairly shit year to put it mildly, but what of the real me, the one behind the veneer of trauma?
Well, let's see, I'm short, apparently cute, I have dyed red hair, I'm smart, I love scifi and books and films and..... I am addicted to buying knickers.
Seriously I have like 150 pairs I think! It's a compulsion, I see knickers with cute designs on and I have to buy them. I have an especial weakness for Floozie by FrostFrench undies, they tend to have the cutest designs, I have pants by them with designs on ranging from unicorns to strawberries to ladybirds, with frills, without, cotton, nylon and silk. I have some with matching bras, some without.
So why the knicker obsession? Well it started as a reaction to a comment by my ex-in laws (not from the recent ex, the one before) that I had a lot of underwear. To be honest at the time I really didn't I just had more than their idea of one pair per day of the week. I was also pretty ill at the time so having extras meant I didn't have to do laundry every 5 minutes!
Somewhere in my brain though, this comment stuck and for some reason caused me to go in the opposite direction to what I believe they were suggesting (that I be a good girl and have only 7 pairs of pants!). And thus my knicker obsession began. It is really becoming a bit of a problem, when I moved recently I actually had a full bin bag full of underwear!
So why am I telling you this? Well it just occurred to me really and I wanted to share something about myself that wasn't gloomy :)
That said this wouldn't be my blog without a touch of sadness....
I do sometimes feel so unutterably sad, like everything is bleak and flat and broken. Going on what has happened to me over the years this is probably not surprising but I have had these stages for as long as I can remember so it's not just about the trauma.
The sadness can hit at anytime, I mean the past two evenings/nights I have been beyond miserable and this is even in the sure knowledge that my future is bright, that I am moving to a new city and that I am wanted and cared for in a way I have never experienced before.
Why do I get these bouts and why do I behave like a total cow when I AM sad? It's almost to the "toys out of the pram" stage at times and there is no apparent immediate reason.
It's like something warm and alive in me switches off and the creeping cold of sadness starts to take over with that awful voice telling me that I shouldn't be optimistic, that I don't deserve to be happy....I mean for fuck's sake why does my brain tell me that?? I know I am not a naturally optimistic person but I try to be and succeed most of the time but the evil me is always waiting to start whispering badness in my ear :(
I think some of it has to do with the fact that I have not felt able to express how I really feel for so long, even now I do struggle to let the feelings out. I have internalised my feelings for years, swallowed so much pain and despair that should have been released and acknowledged that it has almost become personified as an evil side. And that evil side while mainly repressed finds its way out in sadness and stupid over-reactions to totally normal situations.
But I am trying to let the feelings out now, to talk about how I really feel about everything both good and bad, big and small. It helps so much but it's something I really am having to learn to do and it's really hard :( The one big difference now though is that I am being listened to and asked about how I feel which is both wonderful, weird and a little bit scary all at once but so very much appreciated :) x
Pants and misery, always a likely combination eh? For now that's it, tired and cold, need to at least try and sleep.
Abbi
Tuesday, 30 November 2010
On being brave and my slightly geeky tattoo
I'm not brave, so many of you have described me that way today in your wonderful and overwhelming comments and messages, but I'm not, I'm just an ordinary person who got caught up in extraordinarily awful circumstances and had to deal with them the best I could.
If you only knew how frightened I was at the time, how I didn't sleep without medication for more than 40 mins to an hour a night because I didn't know what was going to happen next. How it was like I was wound so tight that the slightest thing and I would shatter into pieces. How I even kept it all vaguely together I will never know...well honestly I didn't, I was a mess I just tried very hard to keep up the pretence that "everything was fine".
I truthfully can't see myself as brave and maybe that is a remnant, one of those invisible scars, that what has happened has left me with, and indelible mark that blurs my view of myself.
You see for me a brave person would have gone long before I did, a brave person would have walked away from the vicious, nasty mind games... but I didn't go, I did try, but I went back when he called. I kept telling myself it would be ok, that I could fix it, I could be better, I could make him better, but I couldn't. You know at the end I don't think I even loved him anymore, I didn't know him, I was just afraid, not brave, just terrified and hurt.
What I will say about myself is that I do seem to have this enormous tenacity to keep going despite everything, but I don't believe that makes me brave, it just makes me a fighter and a survivor. When faced with the choice of life or death, I choose to live, to keep going, the alternative, despite having seemed tempting in darker days, is no alternative. We have to live, we have to survive, life can be good, no, life can be fucking amazing, the bad times never last forever. I am walking, talking and, thank fuck, breathing proof of that.
I have a tattoo on my left wrist which reads, "So it goes", I only got it done recently and I wanted something that meant something to me after all that had happened.
To explain, it's a quote from Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5, which is probably best described as a science fiction war novel although that really sells it short. The aliens within the story, the Tralmafadorians, being infinitely superior to homo sapiens, can see all of time, all at once, so when people die for them there is no need for sadness because they are only dead in that particular moment, in another moment they are alive. They simply say "So it goes", because well, it does.
I love the idea that all the moments that make up our lives are playing out simultaneously that my bad moments can play out because my good moments are always there.
So for me my (slightly geeky) tattoo is a testament to how I have survived and how despite the bad, the good is always there and that I will always move forward. Does that make sense? I want to live for now and for the future, not be held back by the past because the past can't be changed and though you can look back, it will always be to your detriment to dwell for too long on what is unchangeable. Things have happened, are happening and will continue to happen, both good and bad, but as my left wrist says, So it goes.
(N.B. The Tralmafadorians maintain in the novel that the future is also fixed and known but hey I'm an earthling and I still rail against predestination!)
If you only knew how frightened I was at the time, how I didn't sleep without medication for more than 40 mins to an hour a night because I didn't know what was going to happen next. How it was like I was wound so tight that the slightest thing and I would shatter into pieces. How I even kept it all vaguely together I will never know...well honestly I didn't, I was a mess I just tried very hard to keep up the pretence that "everything was fine".
I truthfully can't see myself as brave and maybe that is a remnant, one of those invisible scars, that what has happened has left me with, and indelible mark that blurs my view of myself.
You see for me a brave person would have gone long before I did, a brave person would have walked away from the vicious, nasty mind games... but I didn't go, I did try, but I went back when he called. I kept telling myself it would be ok, that I could fix it, I could be better, I could make him better, but I couldn't. You know at the end I don't think I even loved him anymore, I didn't know him, I was just afraid, not brave, just terrified and hurt.
What I will say about myself is that I do seem to have this enormous tenacity to keep going despite everything, but I don't believe that makes me brave, it just makes me a fighter and a survivor. When faced with the choice of life or death, I choose to live, to keep going, the alternative, despite having seemed tempting in darker days, is no alternative. We have to live, we have to survive, life can be good, no, life can be fucking amazing, the bad times never last forever. I am walking, talking and, thank fuck, breathing proof of that.
I have a tattoo on my left wrist which reads, "So it goes", I only got it done recently and I wanted something that meant something to me after all that had happened.
To explain, it's a quote from Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5, which is probably best described as a science fiction war novel although that really sells it short. The aliens within the story, the Tralmafadorians, being infinitely superior to homo sapiens, can see all of time, all at once, so when people die for them there is no need for sadness because they are only dead in that particular moment, in another moment they are alive. They simply say "So it goes", because well, it does.
I love the idea that all the moments that make up our lives are playing out simultaneously that my bad moments can play out because my good moments are always there.
So for me my (slightly geeky) tattoo is a testament to how I have survived and how despite the bad, the good is always there and that I will always move forward. Does that make sense? I want to live for now and for the future, not be held back by the past because the past can't be changed and though you can look back, it will always be to your detriment to dwell for too long on what is unchangeable. Things have happened, are happening and will continue to happen, both good and bad, but as my left wrist says, So it goes.
(N.B. The Tralmafadorians maintain in the novel that the future is also fixed and known but hey I'm an earthling and I still rail against predestination!)
Monday, 29 November 2010
Ok so...
... this is my first ever blog, I thought I might give it a go as an outlet for the thoughts that overcrowd my mind. I suppose really this should carry a warning that it may not be either linear or sensible but hey we shall see....
Anyway today my thoughts have been preoccupied how much my life has changed in just over a year...the things I have experienced, especially in the last 8 months, I never expected or dreamed could happen.
For example I never dreamed that age 33 I could technically be called a battered woman, a victim of domestic violence, someone who has been threatened with death, and honestly thought she was going to die at the hands of someone who professed to love her. My god it sounds so dramatic written down but it is true, 4 months ago, after months of mental abuse and some minor physical incidents my (now ex) partner attacked me in our home.
I can't actually bring myself to write down all the details of what happened, suffice to say that he has since been convicted of threat to kill, threats to kill, ABH and assault with beating. His sentence was negligible, passed by a court system that cares more for saving money than for representing the victims of crime.
Even now I struggle to understand what really happened, how things got so bad so quickly...but then I think was it really that fast? There were signs before, odd things he would do, strange threats of violence if I did something he didn't like and not to mention his systematic dismantling of me as a person in my own right. I spent so long trying to fit myself around him that I lost me. He was scornful of my education, my thoughts, so I stopped thinking, stopped learning, stopped being interested in the world. I was in a cage and I couldn't even see it.
I have seen domestic violence before, it happened to someone very close to me, I have seen how it destroys you, leaves you with unseen scars even when bruises fade away and I always thought I would never ever put up with being treated that way.
So the first time he put his hands on me I left, right? Wrong, I told myself it was my fault, I wouldn't let the argument go, I pushed him into it, and he didn't hit me anyway, he just grabbed me, shook me hard, threw me on the bed and banged my head against the headboard, that's not a beating is it? I mean sure I had fingermarks on my arms for a week and a bruise on the back of my head, but he didn't hit me and I had asked for it (that's what he told me). And anyway he loves me, that's what he says, I just have to not argue, not shout, not be offended by his behaviour. Sound familiar? It's the tired and tested (ir)rationalisation of domestic violence that so many women get trapped by...the whole argument that I did this so therefore I asked for it...it's wrong, no-one deserves to be hurt no matter the provocation. I mean how can a man who is twice my size be justified in throwing me into a headboard because I was angry and shouted and told him to stop being so ridiculous? He wasn't, never was, and never will be...
I was told recently that it takes an average of 100 attacks before a woman will leave an abusive partner, my tally was nowhere near that, maybe 5 in total, but the final attack did involve a knife, strangulation and an attempt to smother me with a pillow. It was fairly extreme(!) and as I say I REALLY did think I was going die, but even then it took me 8 hours to ask for help after the attack. I didn't know which end was up, I couldn't even get out of bed. To my shame I couldn't even call the police myself, I should have done that, but I was so weak, so scared, so hurt. He had damaged me so badly mentally in the weeks building up to the attack (with threats of suicide amongst other things) that even after all that I was still frightened for him. How fucked up is that??
That's the thing about abusers, they have to have control of the person they abuse. He had complete control of me, I was spending whole days crying and terrified in the days and weeks leading up to the attack. I can see it now looking back, how his behaviour was manipulative and cruel, but at the time I was so spun about that I think I thought it was all my fault, that he was suffering and I should be able to fix it but I couldn't...But do you know what he was acting, it was all bullshit, he was never going to kill himself, it was all for attention.
What his actual motive for hurting me in the way he did I will never know, I will never speak to or see him again...but knowing things that I do now about I doubt there was one, or not a fully formed one...I was closest to him, I was under his control, it was easy....
I'd like to be able to say I bear no ill will against my ex but that would be a lie, once the initial shock of the attack subsided the realisation dawned that what he did was despicable and unforgivable and he has shown no remorse for his crimes since. Would I like to see him suffer? Yes, I would like him to be made to feel how he made me feel, to know how it is to be so afraid, to think you are going to die, to know that absolute betrayal, but he never will so there is no point in dwelling on it.
....so what of me now, today? I have been to hell this year but I have come back stronger, the cage I was living in has been broken open and I have a new a bright horizon to move toward. I am free to be me again. I feel like I have woken up, that I am seeing the world afresh and it feels so good.
I do have my dark days, times when I feel intense anger or cripplingly down but that is to be expected I guess. The trauma I suffered will stay with me forever, it will heal but I will never forget and nor should I, because only by remembering can I be sure that I never allow myself to be hurt again in that way.
I do have some special people in my life that have helped me through the dark times, that I wouldn't have made it through without. In that way I am so very fortunate as there are many women out there who are so isolated by their abusers that they have no-one to call. That awful day I called my friends and they came, they packed my things and helped me dress and made sure I got to my Dad's, where he called the police and kept me safe.
As an addendum to this there is one person in particular who realised before anyone else that I was suffering and who was always there, if only just to say "hey", even as his own life was spiralling. That person is now in my life, and I in his, in a way neither of us foresaw. He has shown me that I am worth so much more than I thought I was, that I am smart and funny and pretty and that the world is just waiting for me. To him I say thank-you and that I look forward to the future xx
So there you have it, first blog done, I will be writing more, it feels quite cathartic putting this out into the world. It's not something that should be hidden, there should be no shame for the victims of domestic abuse, it is the abusers who should feel that.
Anyway today my thoughts have been preoccupied how much my life has changed in just over a year...the things I have experienced, especially in the last 8 months, I never expected or dreamed could happen.
For example I never dreamed that age 33 I could technically be called a battered woman, a victim of domestic violence, someone who has been threatened with death, and honestly thought she was going to die at the hands of someone who professed to love her. My god it sounds so dramatic written down but it is true, 4 months ago, after months of mental abuse and some minor physical incidents my (now ex) partner attacked me in our home.
I can't actually bring myself to write down all the details of what happened, suffice to say that he has since been convicted of threat to kill, threats to kill, ABH and assault with beating. His sentence was negligible, passed by a court system that cares more for saving money than for representing the victims of crime.
Even now I struggle to understand what really happened, how things got so bad so quickly...but then I think was it really that fast? There were signs before, odd things he would do, strange threats of violence if I did something he didn't like and not to mention his systematic dismantling of me as a person in my own right. I spent so long trying to fit myself around him that I lost me. He was scornful of my education, my thoughts, so I stopped thinking, stopped learning, stopped being interested in the world. I was in a cage and I couldn't even see it.
I have seen domestic violence before, it happened to someone very close to me, I have seen how it destroys you, leaves you with unseen scars even when bruises fade away and I always thought I would never ever put up with being treated that way.
So the first time he put his hands on me I left, right? Wrong, I told myself it was my fault, I wouldn't let the argument go, I pushed him into it, and he didn't hit me anyway, he just grabbed me, shook me hard, threw me on the bed and banged my head against the headboard, that's not a beating is it? I mean sure I had fingermarks on my arms for a week and a bruise on the back of my head, but he didn't hit me and I had asked for it (that's what he told me). And anyway he loves me, that's what he says, I just have to not argue, not shout, not be offended by his behaviour. Sound familiar? It's the tired and tested (ir)rationalisation of domestic violence that so many women get trapped by...the whole argument that I did this so therefore I asked for it...it's wrong, no-one deserves to be hurt no matter the provocation. I mean how can a man who is twice my size be justified in throwing me into a headboard because I was angry and shouted and told him to stop being so ridiculous? He wasn't, never was, and never will be...
I was told recently that it takes an average of 100 attacks before a woman will leave an abusive partner, my tally was nowhere near that, maybe 5 in total, but the final attack did involve a knife, strangulation and an attempt to smother me with a pillow. It was fairly extreme(!) and as I say I REALLY did think I was going die, but even then it took me 8 hours to ask for help after the attack. I didn't know which end was up, I couldn't even get out of bed. To my shame I couldn't even call the police myself, I should have done that, but I was so weak, so scared, so hurt. He had damaged me so badly mentally in the weeks building up to the attack (with threats of suicide amongst other things) that even after all that I was still frightened for him. How fucked up is that??
That's the thing about abusers, they have to have control of the person they abuse. He had complete control of me, I was spending whole days crying and terrified in the days and weeks leading up to the attack. I can see it now looking back, how his behaviour was manipulative and cruel, but at the time I was so spun about that I think I thought it was all my fault, that he was suffering and I should be able to fix it but I couldn't...But do you know what he was acting, it was all bullshit, he was never going to kill himself, it was all for attention.
What his actual motive for hurting me in the way he did I will never know, I will never speak to or see him again...but knowing things that I do now about I doubt there was one, or not a fully formed one...I was closest to him, I was under his control, it was easy....
I'd like to be able to say I bear no ill will against my ex but that would be a lie, once the initial shock of the attack subsided the realisation dawned that what he did was despicable and unforgivable and he has shown no remorse for his crimes since. Would I like to see him suffer? Yes, I would like him to be made to feel how he made me feel, to know how it is to be so afraid, to think you are going to die, to know that absolute betrayal, but he never will so there is no point in dwelling on it.
....so what of me now, today? I have been to hell this year but I have come back stronger, the cage I was living in has been broken open and I have a new a bright horizon to move toward. I am free to be me again. I feel like I have woken up, that I am seeing the world afresh and it feels so good.
I do have my dark days, times when I feel intense anger or cripplingly down but that is to be expected I guess. The trauma I suffered will stay with me forever, it will heal but I will never forget and nor should I, because only by remembering can I be sure that I never allow myself to be hurt again in that way.
I do have some special people in my life that have helped me through the dark times, that I wouldn't have made it through without. In that way I am so very fortunate as there are many women out there who are so isolated by their abusers that they have no-one to call. That awful day I called my friends and they came, they packed my things and helped me dress and made sure I got to my Dad's, where he called the police and kept me safe.
As an addendum to this there is one person in particular who realised before anyone else that I was suffering and who was always there, if only just to say "hey", even as his own life was spiralling. That person is now in my life, and I in his, in a way neither of us foresaw. He has shown me that I am worth so much more than I thought I was, that I am smart and funny and pretty and that the world is just waiting for me. To him I say thank-you and that I look forward to the future xx
So there you have it, first blog done, I will be writing more, it feels quite cathartic putting this out into the world. It's not something that should be hidden, there should be no shame for the victims of domestic abuse, it is the abusers who should feel that.
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