I thought I was an independent, strong minded women when I was 24. I wasn’t but I put on my protective shield, usually thick.. I mean cement thick make up and strutted to work in high heels that I couldn’t walk in. I suppose I was always worried about people seeing what and who I was. I don’t know why because I wasn’t a bad person. I just didn’t like my appearance very much. My dad’s side of the family are from Irish decent so the pale skin, freckles etc and my mums side have olive skin, dark hair. I was blessed with what I deemed to be god awful genetics from both sides. If you’re around my age you’ll remember the Raggy Dolls, well I was the one found in the reject bin with Sad Sack haha. So I have naturally mousy brown hair, ginger skin, freckles, 7 chins at the moment after having the kids and my mums erratic behavior.

After my father died when I was 23, it felt like my world had smashed into pieces and what once was a full human being I was now snippets of what I used to be scattered around what used to be an ok life. My dad seemed to know a lot about everything and not in a chauvinistic way. He had a beautiful humility to him, he was like a magnet to people who just wanted to know and be around him. God I loved that guy. I stayed up for 3 nights straight when he died just trying to get my head around where this full of life, singing, laughing human being was. Surely that’s not it? so one minute I have a dad and the next there’s a large silhouette in the family album that’s never going to be full again. Don’t get me wrong our family has grown because I have had two more children and gotten married twice after he passed. However, that dad shaped hole is still there. When I see my son laugh its beautiful but I often wish so hard that my dad could see him and his cheeky little run.

When my dad died, I was suddenly the person that everyone relied on. My daughter was 4 and my mum was just lost in grief. I just made each day up as I went along. The next summer after my dad had passed away I had gone out for a girls night. As I walked down the steps of the nightclub I heard someone shout Oi. It was who I know now as my ex husband. I turned around, and the next day and the next and the next day after that we saw each other.

To the periphery, he was the funniest, life and soul of the declining amount of parties we attended together. To me he was a fucking nightmare. We had good times, but for the majority of time we spent together he left me feeling on edge. I am still forever apologizing to people because I was so used to saying it to him. He would explode in rage and sometimes even in public and not even apologise for it. If any of my friends were getting married and we had been invited I would have to be on my best behavior for weeks before so that he wouldn’t throw his toys out the pram and tell me he wasn’t coming on the day.

In arguments I was regularly told I was fat, ugly, uneducated a slag you name it I was called it. This was the man who also told me he loved me. Many times I questioned why he was with me especially if he thought such things. He spat in my face numerous time which made me heave. He called me white trash and that my dad would be turning in his grave if he could see me. That comment hurt the most. I hated him sometimes and just wish that we weren’t together but then I remembered our good times and that our relationship was always a rollercoaster.

When we first started going on dates he once told me that he caught his ex girlfriend cheating on him with another man. He apparently beat this man up so badly the police were involved but the charges were later dropped. I always felt like I was getting punished for her actions. I never kissed another man let alone slept with one. I also know he cheated on me so I feel like he was letting his guilt spill onto me. I never wanted to cheat, my loyalty was always with him even though he gave me hell sometimes. I mean, this man would throw a hissy fit if I didn’t iron his work shirts, I wasn’t about to start cheating, I quite liked being alive.

I always made sure I kept my friends, I went on nights out every other Saturday night. He called me an alcoholic for this as most of the time when I was with them I would knock back shots of sambuca, let my hair down and dance like nobody was watching. I used to stay at my friends house if I was really drunk so that I wouldn’t have to face the consequences of him. One night, I went out with a separate set of friends, not ones that I knew well enough to stay at their houses. I came home tried to be as quiet as I could. I didn’t put the bedroom light on as I didn’t want to wake him. He must have heard me come in and moved to my side of the bed. As I went to lie down he was underneath me. He screamed in my face clenching his teeth. Not something someone would do straight from a deep sleep. He manipulated situations to take his anger out on me usually as a punishment for going out. When I apologised he screamed that I was an alcoholic and who was I sleeping with when I went out? honestly this was getting so boring because I heard it every time I went anywhere. No matter how much I tried to reassure him he still never believed me.

I stomped downstairs and said that I would sleep on the sofa. He shouted at me throwing insults one by one after each step we took. He was so angry, saying that no one actually liked me, my friends felt sorry for me that’s why they hung around with me and that all his friends hated me. Well that made me feel amazing! I got a cover and lay on the sofa. He said that the sofa was in his name and that I’m not allowed on it. I did mention that the bed was in my name yet he lay in it like King Mufasa every fucking night. I just wanted to go to sleep so everything he called me I agreed with. This technique was just making him more angry but I honestly didn’t want to argue. He then topped off his list of insults with, “your dad would be turning in his grave if he could see what a pathetic shit mum and slag you are”. No one mentions my dad like that and he didn’t even know my dad. I felt this red hot wave of anger come over me so I reached out and grabbed a pot of lily’s and threw them against the wall and screamed “will you just fuck off”. He then went quiet. The crazy eyes left him and from the second the pot hit the wall it brought a sense of calm to him, almost like the devil had left in body. He then smirked, and said calmly “I told you you were cuckoo” he then walked off slowly with a sinister air to each step. I just wanted to die, I just didn’t want to live feeling judged, manipulated and a lot of the time bullied anymore.

I lived in a house with 3 floors. I was in my 20’s and had a daughter who was 11. The man I chose to live with was not her father. Towards the end of the relationship I camped out on the middle floor which had 3 bedrooms. My daughter had one bedroom, the hamster had the study and I had the spare room. I suppose I’m starting from this point although the abuse came much earlier because it’s like somebody has stuck a pin in time and I always land back in these traitorous weeks. We had a blow up camp bed in there. I hated it, even when I put a duvet underneath me I would wake up cold. I wasn’t allowed to decorate that room, so I had the basics, a bed, a wardrobe, the clothes maiden, and a chest of drawers. I wasn’t allowed a TV in there as a way of punishment that I didn’t want to stay in my old bedroom with him anymore. I knew every creek in the house. I would go to bed on the shitty air mattress, that my cousin once popped with his bloody toenail when him and his wife came to stay so it slowly used to deflate which was absolutely brilliant. I would watch ITV player on my IPad like a naughty petulant child and when I heard certain creeks in the stairs I knew he was on his way upstairs. I would turn my Ipad off and pretend to be asleep. He always checked to see if I was awake. I could feel his presence lurch over my body as I held myself still and tried to think of a black plain canvass just so that I didn’t move my eyes under my eyelids. I would hear the door creek, the light switch flick off on the landing and every different sounding squeak and groan of the stairs leading up to the main bedroom.

I would lie in bed and think, I wonder if he would kill me in one of his anger episodes? I would ponder over this for about an hour. Jeremy Kyle brain would now be hosting its bespoke show on how I thought he would do it and how likely it was. I’d then stratigise my escape plan, tell myself not to be stupid with lines like “he’s from a lovely family he wouldn’t do that”. I would then tell myself that I feel vulnerable because when he lost his temper I felt he lost control. That for me was when I felt he was capable of anything. When I had finished writing the great escape in my mind for the 100th time and tried to put logic into mind cupboards I was finally satisfied that an hour had passed from him breathing over me and fast asleep in a comfy bed. I was safe to go to close my eyes and drift off to sleep in my ever delating, cold camp bed.

I quite liked living in the “basic room” there were no distractions. All I had was my IPad and my thoughts. Sometimes I would think that my thoughts took me to weird and whacky places but when I look back now I think it was my basic instinct telling me to get the hell out of the house and out of the relationship. My mind would always lead me back and try and make it work.

I didn’t recognise it as abuse. Abuse was physical right? I used to tell myself that it was just a rough patch and that all couples go through it. From the outside looking in he was funny, outgoing and full of life. He was known for his temper but not everybody saw that. It started with branding me as his princess, his friends knew me as his princess, he even had his name put on a dressing gown with “x’s Princess”. At first I thought it was cute, I had come out of a relationship with my daughters father where I had meant nothing and was massively disrespected and humiliated so for someone to love me so much and hold me in such high regard made me feel good.

Cracks appeared when we had first booked a holiday to Egypt. We hadn’t been dating long, probably around 4 months. We went shopping in the Trafford Centre and he just went from the nicest person to absolutely raging. He thought because he drove that he had the upper hand and that I would be vulnerable 10 miles away from home. One thing my previous relationship taught me was not to take shit. So I rang my mum and got her to pick me up.

We made up as most people would as it was a stupid argument and shit happens. We went to Egypt and he proposed to me. He hired a speed boat to take us to a deserted island where he got down on one knee. I thought I was happy and I thought I could handle his occasional outbursts. I texted all my friends to let them know but none of them seemed particularly happy for us. I would receive either a one word “congrats” or nothing at all. I bet they could see the massive mistake I was making but for this 24 year old girl, a handsome fiance with drive and ambition was all I wanted.

In the whole 8 years we were together I think we went on about 5 nights out together. He would say horrible things to me whilst we were out especially if we were in company. Where I would say I was going to the toilet but just go and get a taxi because I couldn’t be arsed with his attitude and his put downs. One night I just got a taxi to my mums on my own, obviously called by Subway for the 6 inch steak and cheese on the way there. My phone would non stop be flashing up with his name. What part of just leave me alone and I’ll speak to you in the morning did he not understand from the pre- 10000000 phone calls he was making to me? Unfortunately for my mum he had the home phone number that was on her bedroom cabinet. He would ring 2, 3, 4am and be unapologetic for it. My mum would stagger in my room with slit tired eyes wobbling the phone next to me whispering “it’s him”. I would hear my daughter say “Ganma what’s happening?” mum would answer “don’t worry sweetheart just go back to sleep”. I didn’t even get to “hello” and the rant would start. If I’m totally honest I don’t even know what he was saying because the pitch was deafening. I turned my mobile off, put the home phone down and then take it off the hook so that he wouldn’t wake my mum and daughter up again. You would think it stopped there wouldn’t you? 10 minutes later the doorbell incessantly rang. I got up in haze, went downstairs which meant the burglar alarm chirped up only to find a hysterical boyfriend crying and shouting on the doorstep. I told him to go upstairs and for the love of god shut the fuck up and stop waking my family up. He then pretended to fall off my bed made spit bubbles and fake foamed at the mouth. It wasn’t great. I told my mum to ring an ambulance just incase he had been bit by a wild dog on the way here. As soon as the ambulance men arrived the younger one said, mate you’re just drunk but we’ll take you in for observations. Me and mum could hear him banging and punching the sides on the ambulance. I just wanted him to go so I could get some sleep and stop a very emotional person repeating whilst spitting the same sentence at me 100 miles an hour. It was not our night, the ambulance men refused to take him. So I tried to calm him down in my bedroom whilst I rang his older brother to come and get him. His brother came, who was a calmer and more approachable version of my then fiancé. He got him out of the house and then called a taxi. The relief and the knowing that I could finally get some sleep and that my poor mum could finally retire back to her bed was immense.

I live in Edgeley. For those people who know Edgeley well, I can see the tracksuit and gold hooped earring image running through the cloudy yet …

I’m Just a Girl from Edgeley

I live in Edgeley. For those people who know Edgeley well, I can see the tracksuit and gold hooped earring image running through the cloudy yet somewhat accurate image you may have. To throw the fact I have a mental illness into the mix might just set your creative imagination on fire. However, contrary to that image, I don’t wear my pajamas to Morrisons and I don’t drink White Lightning on a park bench. However, I do believe that good and bad experiences leave their story strongly engraved in the vessels of our soul.

I’m not a psychologist, nor do I possess the answers to everything. I’m what I like to call a physiological traveler. My mind doesn’t let me stay in one place, or have one set definition of a condition. It’s like a school hamper your nana won at Christmas with all the things you never wanted, like spam and something else just as random, like a spanner. All these different items make up the complete hamper of my mind. However, just to make life interesting, bad decisions, life and genetics have meant that some of the horrendous food combinations in nana’s school hamper got damaged, twisted and even turned into something else completely.

I’ve always been “a little worrier”, so my mum used to say. Only recently have I discovered one of the main contributing factors to this with my CBT therapist. It stems from incidents as a child where I would particularly worry about things like exams or arguments with friends etc. It seems from an early age I have convinced myself that if I worry hard enough the actual event that I was worried about won’t happen. I’ve taken that concept into adulthood and hop, skipped and full on belly dived into believing and embracing my inner child mentality. For example, I hate flying, I don’t like that the seats are small, I always get a Debbie who loves a long chat and impromptu elbow to the chest when getting her food tray down, and the worse, worse, horrendous worse thing ever is that I cant get off if I want to. I’ve held in a wee on a 7 hour flight before now because no way on God’s green grass of home am I walking on air. However, I am extremely mindful not to pass my fears and anxieties on to my children, plus I always think I want to die with great memories and to see the world so deal with it. My way of ensuring the plane won’t crash and me not to be eaten alive by Jaws through a window on the sunken titanic is to non-stop worry about it for at least 4 days before. Crazy, right?

Apparently I possess elements of OCD, which came as a massive shock as I always associated OCD with tidiness. When I lived with my parents they described my carpet as a ‘floordrobe’, so the whole OCD label made me feel proud that my mum and dad finally got that tidy child they used to throw pennies in a wishing well for. Obviously the glass was half empty on that particular concept as OCD can relate to so much more that just cleaning and tidying.

OCD has two main elements which include obsessions and compulsions. My obsession comes in different waves and forms. It creates extreme anxiety and leaves me feeling vulnerable and not in control. For example, I can have intrusive thoughts, ones that I can usually bat away. These thoughts can range from ridiculous to borderline scary. I always have the urge to object at weddings and have unwelcome thoughts like “What would happen if I threw my dog over the fence” or “I could just crash my car into that motorway bridge”. At this stage of the blog, you will either relate or think I’m bat shit crazy. The latter sort of thoughts create panic attacks; I don’t want to end my life, I want to live a life with my children and they deserve a mum. I can also confirm that I have not and would never throw my dogs, Phyllis and Frank, over a fence. I then feel guilty for having such thoughts. I’m like a walking piece of sticky back plastic but instead of fluff, half a rizla and button stuck to me, I have thoughts that I never thought I would have any association with. Having thoughts such as “I would be better off dead.” What? Why? I don’t even think that, so why are these random bits of information causing such a problem?

This leads to the compulsion element. My plane pre-worry is a sign of the compulsion. I have a plan b for absolutely everything. What would I do if there was a bomb at the Trafford Centre, what is the escape route should there be a fire in the house – the list goes on. I worry that hard about all these things in order for it not to happen. I check that my children (all three including my 19 year old) are breathing whilst they are asleep. I stand there like a wide-eyed meerkat on steds watching their chest rise and fall. God help them if they ever wake up mid respiratory check the poor things would be scarred for life. Probably writing future blogs “why was my mum a wide-eyed meerkat warrior” In my own quirky but compulsive way I’m trying to protect them. If I check on them enough they will be ok.

In no way am I making a mockery of this disorder because I am aware that some individuals have OCD that is absolutely debilitating to their activities of daily living. I can only offer my experiences of my own mental health and my angle is to show my conditions with analogies that make sense to me. These can be simplistic, childlike even, but that’s how my mind works and I won’t apologise for that. I really hope this is helpful and relative for some people. Peace n Love Peeps x x x x