Category Archives: Emotions

Sticking plasters

29 Monday Feb 2016

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I love the NHS. I pretty much live and breathe it. I work full time for the NHS and at weekends I work as a contractor for NHS Trusts on front line ambulances.  When I have a day off I am often to be found at the doctors or the dentists with one of the kids.  The NHS is awesome, always there when you need it.  Anyone who has been ill abroad will tell you that the NHS is something to be proud of.  If I am ill , I don’t have to think about whether I can afford to go to the hospital or the GP,  I can just go.  I might have to wait, the hospital or GP surgery may be a bit tired looking, but I know that I will be looked after. 
However good the NHS is though, it is not a lot of things; it isn’t social care, it isn’t a hotel and it most certainly isn’t a miracle worker.  Much as those who work in it would like to work miracles and cure each and every person who walks through the door. 

The NHS is stretched to breaking point everyday. There are a lot of reasons for this but some of them are easy to see. I’ve lost count of the number of times that I have been called to patients who aren’t really patients at all. They are desperately in need of help,  but not medical help. They need social care. Or social housing. They need their basic needs to be met,  but they do not really need an ambulance,  it’s just that there is no one else that they can call on a Sunday afternoon when they are at the end of their tether. When the loneliness hits hard and the prospect of not seeing a friendly face for another week is more than they can bear.  Or when caring for their loved one just becomes too heavy a burden to carry for another day, another night.  When they are desperate for a little bit of respite from the ceaseless pressure of responsibility for an old or dying loved one.

In the past this would have been dealt with, perhaps, by ringing another family member, or by a carer or a respite centre to give the family a break.  These days though, families are spread far apart and so with cuts to Local Authority budgets meaning that social care has been decimated,  there is no one to call. There is no relief, no respite in sight for a lot of these people; and so, in desperation, they call an ambulance.  And, in turn, because the ambulance crew can see that the family cannot cope, that it’s just too much,  we have no choice. We take them to hospital in the hope that given a few hours of space the family feel better, more able to continue in the thankless task of caring. We put a sticking plaster over society’s failure. 

And so there goes a hospital bed. A nurse,  a doctor, all of who’s time is taken up, instead of looking after the sick. And there goes that ‘protected’ NHS budget. The one that the government has pledged to increase. Only it’s not really an increase or protected at all, because now, instead of the money being spent on social care, and coming out of local authority budgets, it is coming out of the NHS one. The one that we hold so dear. And all the while the NHS covers up this deficit elsewhere, the worse it will get.

Then there are the lost souls. Those who drift, who sofa surf or sleep on park benches. Many of them mentally unwell but not acutely so; they don’t need a hospital, they just need somewhere to be warm; to be safe. Again there is no reason for them to be taken to hospital, but where else is there for them to go?  It takes a cold hearted person to leave a person on a park bench when you know they have nowhere else to go and it is minus 3 centigrade outside. And so yet again we, the ambulance crew, paid for by the NHS spend our time and your money phoning around charities, forgotten contacts in our patients phone, in the hope that we can find them a warm bed for the night. And if not, due to cuts in social housing, there being by no easy access hostels, we take them to the warm waiting room of the hospital.  And as we sit there sticking plasters on the plight of the homeless, another cardiac arrest call goes unanswered. Another person dies. 

Other patients are just too old; their bodies far too weak.  Sometimes it happens slowly, other times it is quick.  I recently went to a patient who was nearly 100 years old and barely lucid.  Struggling to even open his eyes; despite that, there was nothing significantly wrong with him; if I had to hazard a guess (and as I am helping to treat we have to do an educated one), I’d probably say it was just his time to go.  His body was just worn out.  He was nearly 100! But his daughter insisted he had been fine until he got pneumonia previously and was taken in hospital for a month.  Obviously the hospital had made him ill; before that he had been fine. Before that he had lived alone; was fine. There was no point telling her that maybe it was just his time to go.  That he had lived longer than most people, that the hospital that she was blaming by for the state of her father, probably was to blame, only not in the way that she thought; because years ago, her dad wouldn’t have been taken to hospital to be treated for the pneumonia, that nearly killed him. He would likely have just died. At home. Peacefully in his bed. Instead we dragged him off to A & E,  for more interventions. To prolong his life further such that it is.  And when he isn’t restored back to full health, no doubt his daughter will claim that the hospital killed him.  Because blame, it would seem is easier than the truth; that sometimes we just need to allow people to die.  Not play God and attempt miracles. We all have to die sometime. We all, as individuals and the NHS just need to learn to let them. 

The NHS cannot put a sticking plaster on the whole of society. As an ambulance crew friend once told me: if you just need a plaster, you don’t need us. 

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33 Reasons. 

23 Tuesday Feb 2016

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We have fundamentally been doing it all wrong. Our approach has been flawed. We need a change in our justice system and it needs to happen soon. We are putting often the most vulnerable people in our society into places where they can never be expected to change, to thrive. We need to rehabilitate these children, these adults, not induct them into a life of unending criminality. We need to ensure that they are given opportunities for education, for employment, for change. To rehabilitate. 

Obviously for a few this may not be possible but for most it is. 

Our justice system should be less about just banging people up, and more about rehabilitation, re-education. It makes sense, and it’s about time that we stop keep saying it, and actually started to do something that will begin to achieve it. A shake up of prisons and children’s custody, away from just punishment, moving toward change. Hope, education; rehabilitation.  

I know this absolutely. I know this because I have experienced it. From both sides of the fence; as a criminal, a habitual offender who found herself locked up in one of these establishments; and also, perhaps uniquely as one of those who has the keys, literally, to assisting in that rehabilitation. 

If we were to meet today, I would introduce myself as Kate, a successful career woman. A mother of 3 with ambitions and goals and a plan as to how to achieve them. You would see a smartly dressed, probably crazy haired, confident woman, literally holding the keys to a prison in my hands. 

Had I met you 11 years ago it would have been a very different story. I would have likely been introduced to you as a prisoner within that very same prison. A heroin addict, with 33 criminal convictions; shoplifting, theft, possession of class A drugs. 26 years old, weighing 5.5 stone, I would have looked a very different person to the one I am today. 
In my early teens I began to take drugs and swiftly found myself  with a heroin addiction. Crime was my way of life and I was a repeat offender, with no hope of anything really, certainly not of ever living. 
At the age of 25, after 33 convictions I finally wound up in prison, just for a few weeks, but I was lucky. In those few weeks I was nurtured and helped and I found an idiom of peace. A snippet of chance that things could be different. I was offered respite from the continual drudgery of crime, and drug taking and I glimpsed a different life. 

I volunteered to help people. I optimised Big Society. I helped set up a charity and I found work. I got a degree and my life continued in an upward trajectory. Today I find myself responsible for the substance misuse needs of large groups of vulnerable people; adults and children. I run a budget of many millions a year. I hold keys to the prison I was once locked up in. I am rehabilitation personified. 

So it absolutely pains me to tell you that whilst rehabilitation is the key to changing lives for the better, there is a fundamental flaw. People in the UK today cannot be rehabilitated and move forward, away from their pasts. They can absolutely be rehabilitated, but there is no point in rehabilitating them because, as it stands they can never be seen to have changed. Their past haunts them like a shadow in the night; threatening at any point to pull it all away. I know this because I have experienced it myself. 

Part of my recovery and rehabilitation has been to help others. I went to university, I got a degree and a post graduate certificate, I gained a teaching qualification, sharing what I have learnt with others. I spend my days demanding the best services for the patients within prisons that I am responsible for. I trained as a first aider and gave up my weekends setting up and then volunteering on an SOS bus,  helping those who were drunk or ill, making sure they were safe. I followed on from this by training as an Emergency Care Assistant and working one day a week on frontline ambulances. I love it, I’m good at it. So you can imagine my devastation when I suddenly found out that I wasn’t able to do a job that I love, might not be able to again.  The reason? A renewed DBS check which this time (not sure how they missed it last time) they had seen my 11-20 year old criminal convictions. Never mind that I have a demonstrable track record, much more recent, of being a stand up citizen. Never mind that in my full time job I hold a position of significant responsibility. Never mind that I regularly walk in and out of the prisons that I am responsible for using the keys I am trusted to hold. No; convictions, from what feels to me like another life, indeed are from over a decade ago appeared to supersede it all. I can no longer work in a job that I am good at, that I love, because I made bad decisions at 13 years of age. 

And so whilst I wholeheartedly agree that rehabilitation needs to happen, that can work, the sad truth is that society is not currently set up to see it that way. We rehabilitate people and then cut them off at the knees when they try to apply for any decent job, because employers don’t see the rehabilitation. They don’t see that someone has desisted from reoffending because they have changed; what they see is a six page long DBS check giving them 33 reasons not to employ that rehabilitated ex offender. 

And so whilst I believe wholeheartedly in rehabilitation, I think that we are in danger of setting people up to fail if we don’t address the issue of how we recognise that rehabilitation as a society. People can change, but only if we let them. 

Under a microscope. 

17 Sunday Jan 2016

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I’ve got a bikini bridge, a thigh gap, what looks like a fairly flat tummy with no stretch marks and a BMI of 18.6. That’s just in the healthy section for those who don’t know (I had to Google it myself); if I lost just over 1lb I’d be considered underweight. I wear a UK size 8. I’m fairly tall. So according to the popular websites and magazines I have all of the ingredients of “the perfect body.” 

This is me fully clothed the way others see me:   
  
I get told I’m lovely and slim by people I hardly know, as if it’s something I should be proud of, but I’m not. If asked to describe my body I would, like nearly every woman I know immediately reel off a list of things and it would go something like this: 

  • No boobs (despite them being covered in thin white stretch marks!?!)
  • I have bingo wings 
  • My teeth are too long
  • I have big feet and very skinny calves
  • I have saddle bag thighs
  • My nose is crooked 
  • One eye is higher than the other
  • I currently have a huge spot brewing on the side of my face
  • I have ugly hands
  • Did I already mention my saggy boobs…?

In fact if asked to draw a picture of my body (I daren’t attempt a face) it would look something like (excuse my appalling drawing skills) this:  

Hardly the image that the magazines would have you believe you will look and feel if you had all of the attributes that they infer that perfect women should aspire to be.  

I think there are a number of reasons for this, not least being the overly photoshopped perfection that we are constantly bombarded with. But also because when we look at ourselves we don’t see what others see; we concentrate on specific areas, like me with my saddle bag thighs; in my head they are huge, but unless I point them out people don’t really notice them. 

And my knees, well, where do I start, I had never really looked at them until fairly recently when I suddenly noticed that they seemed a bit saggy. I’m perfectly sure I’d never looked at them before and thought how unsaggy they were, but all of a sudden I am mildly obsessed with the fact that they might be making their way down my ultra skinny calves to get into a loving relationship with my ankles. 

No one has ever told me that I have ugly hands, I have just seen lots of nicer hands in my time, I’ve also seen lots of worse hands but I don’t compare myself to the ones who’s hands are worse than mine, I compare to those who s hands are beautiful. No one has ever recoiled from the sight of them, except me. 

In all reality who on earth else is looking at me in that kind of detail? Maybe a few, but I seriously doubt that even my husband, who has seen me naked more times than he can probably care to remember, would have written a list of my body faults anywhere near as l did above. My other faults maybe, but not all those specific areas of my body! 

The problem with the way we look at ourselves is that we almost never see the whole picture. We focus in in tiny detail on specific areas that we don’t like, thereby ignoring all of the other stuff that counters it. Like the fact that my  eyes are a nice colour and shape (or so I’m told) which is probably counterbalancing the fact that they are slightly crooked. 

Personally it is very rare that I would look at someone in that sort of detail. Generally I see them as a whole, and that doesn’t just mean their body part shapes or individual facial features, but to the whole including their personality and also their mood and emotions. I’m much more likely to refer to someone as “brown hair, always smiling” than I am to say “tall, with crooked teeth and saggy elbows, you know the one”. And in my experience that is how others see things too. My eye is drawn to the good parts and my feelings a about someone, and not one small imperfect part of them that I’ve examined in detail. In all honesty, who has the time to examine others as much as we do to ourselves? 

So in future, I’m planning on stopping examining myself under a microscope and instead I will try to view myself as I would anyone else, as a whole. 

      A tiny fraction. 

      07 Thursday Jan 2016

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      I went to see Justin yesterday. I actually didn’t want to. I was terrified. Silly really, given that I’ve been around dead people before, I know that they can’t harm us. But I have never seen a person 3 weeks after they have died, and certainly not after the circumstances in which Justin died. 

      You see he died of what they assume was a heroin overdose in someone’s flat. That somebody, didn’t call the emergency services, instead they panicked. They set about pretending like it didn’t happen, they cleaned and tidied and they left it 2 days. 48 hours. They did nothing for 2 days. And then they called the police and ambulance. By then it was obviously far too late. In all honesty it probably was by the time they realised that he was dead. 
      Anyway, in my head I couldn’t really get it sorted out. Despite being close to Justin I’d not seen him for months. He lived hundreds of miles away. We’d spoken via text and Facebook and had phone calls but I didn’t see him regularly so I was used to him not actually being there. That made it hard to register that I’d never see him again. That he was gone. Forever. And then the circumstances of his death haunted me. 48 hours. That’s a long time in death. And three weeks had passed since then. I didn’t really build a picture in my head of how he would look, but I imagined that in death he would not be my Justin. The man I have known for nearly 2 decades the man I cared for, who looked after me, who saved me despite not being able to save himself. My mind played nasty tricks on me and it made me scared of someone that I loved. 

      Anyway Justin’s eldest son was the one who made me go. He was insistent that he had to go and see him and he couldn’t be persuaded otherwise. And so after a few phone calls the mortuary said they would let us visit before he got taken to the funeral home (who coincidentally charge an awful lot to go visit your loved ones). We booked a slot and I picked up the boy and his mum and we went together to the hospital and I was nervous and terrified and didn’t really know what to expect. 

      The lady at the hospital was amazing. Caring and loving and sympathetic. She took his son through and his mum and I sat sobbing and holding each other admitting that we didn’t want to do this. And then his son came out and instead of crying he was smiling. He called us in and told us it was ok. And so we all went in together and the minute I saw him I knew i had done the right thing. 

      He looked like he was sleeping. So much so that I almost imagined I could see him breathe. He looked peaceful and calm. Most of all he looked like Justin. And we all laughed at the fact they had clearly taken his dentures out which we’d discussed on the journey there that he looked like an old man without them. And we talked to him and admired the lack of grey in his hair, pondering whether he’d dyed it. We joked about the fact he’d accidentally shaven half an eyebrow off before he’d died and it hasn’t grown back. He told him he should have shaved for our visit and we told him off for leaving us. 

      And it was a whole bunch of things; funny, sad, heartbreaking, comforting, reassuring and cathartic.  None of which is how I expected to feel; but the one thing it wasn’t was scary or distressing. And it helped me to heal. Not a lot, but a tiny fraction. Enough to let me know that in time I will not only feel the acuteness of grief, but the warmth of the light and love he gave to me. That the things we did together and laughed at have not changed in value just because he has gone. And I am glad that I went. 

      Crushed. 

      21 Monday Dec 2015

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      Crushed. I am crushed. 

      The grief comes in waves, great big tsunamis that don’t just knock me over, they throw me off my feet with a staggering ferociousness, ripping chunks out of me. 

      To the outsider perhaps, I have too much grief. Too many tears. But they just cannot understand the connection that we had. The shit that we went through.they don’t know the times that I just had a feeling that he needed me, and I tracked him down, sometimes just to check that he was actually alive. 

      Then today, out of the blue, the ending I half knew was coming but fought at every opportunity materialised . And the finality is almost too much to bear. It’s not fair. How come so many get to live, hateful and cruel and yet you, you who loved so much despite all the reasons not to, weren’t given that chance. 

      And I’m raging at the insanity of a world where evil lives and kindness dies. Where you don’t reap what you sow. The randomness of it all is baffling.

      And it terrifies me, because there was never anything I could do.  And I tried. I honestly did. Me; who’s job it is to help save addicts, albeit not personally, but through my work; I couldn’t even save you. And if I can’t do that knowing how much I cared, I don’t know how I can help others. 

      But I know I need to try. I know that you would want to give anyone the chance to be free of addiction. And if I can’t save you maybe I can help someone else. Maybe it will be their turn even though it was never yours. 

      You told me so many times how proud you were of me, but I want you to know that I am proud of you too; for being you despite of all the pain. For living in the face of despair and continuing to love. 

      Most of all I want you to know that no matter what happened I love you, in our own fucked up way we loved each other despite not being a couple. Despite everything I hope you know I still cared.  

      Open letter to an addict.

      01 Monday Jun 2015

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      letterI’ve been asked to write to you; to say something that will make you realise the error of your ways and to stop the madness, the craziness that is your world.

      I can’t though. What they don’t realise is that there is nothing that I can say that will do that. There is nothing anyone can say, that in a moment will flip a switch to turn off the craving, the need for that drug or that drink. It doesn’t work like that. If only it did. If it did you would likely have stopped years ago. Perhaps you would never have started. Who knows.

      What I do know is that the world of an addict is tumultuous. People, and by people I mean non addicts, those “normal people” we are supposed to strive to be,  would like to think it is one of misery and of desperation. There is no denying that is true, but it is also a world which is exciting and slightly or sometimes a lot, dangerous. A world where rules are there to be broken and adrenaline flows in abundance. There is a certain attraction in the lifestyle, in fitting in where many wouldn’t, you can be someone that you couldn’t be in the “normal” world; respected, strong. It is not always grey in the world of an addict and it is important to remember that. To deny it would be to deny the truth.
      In a world that you’ve never completely felt at ease in, you have, as an addict, carved a niche, a place where expectations are few, or at least are ones that you can live up to. If you don’t live up to anyone’s expectations you have an excuse, a reason; what do they expect? They know you have problems don’t they? They shouldn’t expect so much from you.

      So next let’s think about your children and your family. If you loved them you would stop. If you cared enough it would be easy. Every addict has been told it many many times. What they don’t realise is that in some way this is the only way you can be a parent. The only way you can get through the moments where you feel helpless and useless. That the drugs have nothing to do with you loving your children or otherwise, and much more to do with the fact that you need them to even function as a human let alone as a parent. The drugs or drink are what allow you do as much as you are doing. And you are doing your best aren’t you?

      And the criminal acts? They are just necessities in the lifestyle of an addict. How the hell else are you going to earn the money you require to feed the hunger of your addiction? What do people expect from you? That constant ache that grumbles constantly lest you forget that soon it will need more fuel. It’s constant demanding to be fed. It’s like a constant voice in your ear, whispering at you incessantly, warning you of the consequences if you fail to fulfil it.

      But I want to tell you this: it can be done; that switch is there, it’s just not possible for anyone else to flip it for you. You have to find it yourself. And right now that might feel like a fumble in the dark, but hopefully, you will find it. Actually, in some cases it is more like a dimmer switch that slowly turns off, gradually you will realise that there is another way to live. A way that is more than survival, and perhaps a little bit more like living.

      And life can be exciting in different ways. You can get an adrenaline rush from the simple act of being able to lay still on your bed without the incessant chatter of your addiction whispering in your ear. You can wake up and realise that you didn’t think about drink or drugs all of yesterday and find yourself smiling that you went a day without thinking of it.

      And you can learn a whole new side to your children. A side you never knew existed due to your previous unstable state. You can see the pleasure in their face when you lay in bed in the morning, snuggling up to them rather than making excuses to leave, so that you can feed the hunger of the addiction. You can get to know them again, on different, fairer terms. You can love them for the amazing people they are rather than just because they are your children.  And it may take a long time to build the bridges that you didn’t even realise you had burned, but it will be worth it. Every moment.

      And perhaps one day you will know the pleasure of paying a bill with your own hard earned cash. Not stealing it, not begging for it or borrowing. The feeling of doing something so mundane and simple that you are surprised to realise that you are doing something that those “normal” people do. It may sound stupid to you right now, but maybe not, but it’s true, one day it will be an achievement.

      The main thing I want you to know is that you can do it. You and only you can change the path of your life. It won’t be easy, and it will not be a straight path. More likely, it will be hilly, and rocky and the road will not be straight, but there are many routes along it that you can take, there is not just one road to follow, you can do it your way.  And you can make it. I know you can. Because if I can make it, the pathetic person that I had become, you can make it. Don’t expect it to be easy. Nothing worth it ever is; remember the things you’ve had to do to feed your addiction, it wasn’t always easy, but you did it anyway. All you need to do is put one foot in front of the other and grasp every helping hand on the way.

      The best laid plans.

      25 Monday May 2015

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      Some days it is like I wake up and it just doesn’t matter what I do, what good intentions I may have,  I mess it up. Every thing I touch turns to crap.  In my head I will see a picture of how something is going to be; it could be anything,  a day out with the kids,  a meeting at work,  and yet no matter my intentions it all goes to pot.

      Take a day out with the kids for instance. The kids might all moan about getting their shoes on when I ask, they might sulk and whinge that they can’t find them,  or they don’t want to go out they’d rather watch TV. And I’ll get pissed off. Don’t they know that this is supposed to be fun?  Don’t they realise that I took a day off work to spend with them. How ungrateful are they?  So what do I do?  I shout at them,  they don’t understand how this is supposed to be fun and so I tell them; In no uncertain terms I shout at them and let them know how they are ruining the day. They are selfish and ungrateful and they should appreciate me wanting to take them out.

      They will then,  9/10 times all jump up and get moving and apologise to me. We will get going to wherever we were going to go,  but the day will feel slightly tarnished,  slightly forced and I will spend most of it chastising myself for being a terrible person/mother.

      It happens in other areas of my life too. When I am tired or feeling low and all I actually want is to feel loved and needed and wanted,  I often seem to express it in extremely unlovable ways. I might pick a fight with a loved one,  then end up in floods of tears because,  actually the last thing I wanted to do was alienate them. I just needed something from them (love,  reassurance, support) and couldn’t express it in a way that showed how much I needed it.  Maybe I tried to be loving and it was missed,  or I’m sad and want to know that someone is there for me and so I behave badly. It is a child-like response that I am aware of but seem to have little control over it. I want the dream. I want it perfect.

      And yet it’s almost like I self sabotage things that are good in my life. Seriously, why am I so bothered by the fact that kids would rather stay home watching the TV rather than come out and do something that I think is better for them. They were happy, perhaps I should have been happy too. But no,  I have an image in my head as to how the day is going to go and so I relentlessly pursue it against all opposition.  I need to learn to chill out more. To let things go. To know that the way things are in my head isn’t the way that things have to be. If anyone should know that it’s me.

      Its not just me that does this though,  I see it or hear it all the time from my friends, or people on the street. Somehow we are conditioned into thinking that things are always going to be perfect,  that we will get married and live happily ever after,  that our friends will drop everything because we need them, our kids will be beautiful and angelic and well behaved. And maybe that is a reality for some people.  Maybe all of my friends are as bat shit crazy as I am and actually there is a whole community of “normal”  people out their living the lives of their dreams. 

      Whatever. I honestly don’t think I care,  because do you know what?  Sometimes it is from the shadows of our failings that the best things happen. Perhaps if I didn’t feel that guilt for shouting at the kids I wouldn’t have made the extra effort to ride the zip wire with them. We wouldn’t have made those memories that hopefully they will remember forever. Perhaps I wouldn’t have reached out to a friend and reaffirmed our friendship over the stories of my fuck ups and their commiserations and affirmation that I am, indeed bat shit crazy.

      A helping hand. 

      25 Saturday Apr 2015

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      I’ve spent a lot of time this week speaking to recovered and recovering addicts. It’s uplifting, it is reassuring and most of all it is inspiring. 

      I spoke to a man who used to deal drugs to keep his own drug habit. In his words he “terrorised the town”. He sold drugs and threatened people and stole and was generally a “pain in the arse”. He finally got sent to prison where he got into treatment for his addiction. He described his journey and how he’d moved from terrorising people to becoming a peer mentor and volunteering to help others through their treatment journey. 

      I was at an event on Friday and I heard many men and women telling their stories of addiction and their paths to recovery. There was a woman who had been gang raped at 16 and who had hidden her shame by drinking copious amounts of alcohol every day for the next 19 years. Losing everything and everyone that she’d ever loved in the process. There was the man who was so broken by drugs that he didn’t even know who he was. His mental health deteriorated so much that he completely lost his way. There was a lady who came from a broken home and had been rejected by everyone her entire life. Who had cut herself to pieces in the hope that it might make someone care. That maybe someone would stop her. The stories went on. Some were horrific, others mundane. Not everyone had a sad tale, others had just somehow, inexplicably really, found themselves in the midst of addiction, the wrong time, the wrong place. They struggled to explain how or why they had got there. It didn’t really matter in the end, the result was the same; days filled with the torture of wanting, no needing a substance to survive. And yet somehow all of these people were now substance free and giving back to others. 

      There was a lady from NA, Narcotics Anonymous who spoke of how the 12 step model is based on mutual aid, one addict supporting another. She spoke of how going into the NA rooms saved her life, how she is now giving back to others in the rooms as a result. 

      There was a question and answer session with these people at the end of the event, an event filled with addicts at differing stages of their journeys, plus their friends and families. During the question and answer session one family member asked the million dollar question; what  was it that changed for you to make you able to get well? And more to the point, what made you stay well? 
      It being the million dollar question, everyone had a thought but not one person could state with absolute certainty what exact thing had changed them, what had made them able to completely let go of everything that they knew and move forward in the world they had hidden from for so long. But the one thing that each and everyone had in common was that now they had moved forward, they were helping others to move forward too. They were giving up their time to pass on strength and hope to those still locked in addiction. In the words of the terrorist drug dealer, it was time he helped rebuild the town he helped to destroy. 

      All of these people had struggled in the world prior to taking drugs. Their addiction had isolated them further. To face the world that has rejected you once, twice because of who you are or who you feel yourself to be, takes strength. To do so after continual rejection and social isolation, and bearing the stigma of drug addict, alcoholic, drug dealer or thief while not using a substance to soothe the way is courageous. To then reach out, determined to help other people to follow them, commands a respect that I feel they are very rarely given. 

      Moving forward, looking back. 

      20 Monday Apr 2015

      Posted by in Emotions, Motherhood, Relationships

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      I’ve never thought about it before, and have probably been guilty of it many many times; but how come everyone seems to feel that they can judge on my life. Or more to the point, my life decisions, marriage, separation and/or divorce. I don’t mean I expect people to not comment or ask about it or acknowledge it. That’s normal, it’s what friends do. They care. They check that you are ok. They offer support. 

      The thing is some people go past that. They offer, no they give, you their view on your own life and then try to tell you how to live it. The thing is it’s just that, their view, their opinion, their experience. Not mine. My experience is completely different to anyone else’s, and thank goodness it is too, especially after hearing some of the divorce stories I’ve heard this week. 

      I know that people are trying to be nice, they care, but my experience is completely unique to me. It’s not even the same as P’s experience of our divorce. We are all different and we experience things differently. 

      The thing that appears to have shocked people most and that they have strong opinions about, is that P and I have moved on fairly quickly. Within weeks we have both begun testing the path of dating again. People assume that we were both having affairs, or tell us that it’s too soon; we need to let the dust settle. Maybe they are right, heaven knows I’ve been wrong many many times in my life, as anyone who reads this blog will know, but maybe P and I are right. Maybe the decision to separate was long overdue and has just drawn a formal line in the sand of our relationship. What if we both end up with the partners of our dreams? Should we turn down the opportunity of happiness to please people who don’t have to live our lives? 

      We think not. It is difficult. It is strange, what people might find even stranger is that P and I have openly discussed this. P knew I was dating before almost anyone else. I knew he was almost from the moment that it started. Turns out that we were right; we are really good friends. We talk more now than we did married and living together. The cynics might say that will change; that things will turn out acrimoniously in the end. Perhaps they will, but at the moment we are going through a transition period and it is working for us. 

      That’s not to say that it hasn’t been tough. I will always think of this as one of the toughest periods of my life. I have had doubts and worries and I may (once or twice) have been found snivelling on the bathroom floor sobbing that I can’t cope with being on my own. I’m terrible at decision making when it comes to my personal life.  Things that I used to find easy, such as parenting our boys seem so much tougher knowing I’m where the buck stops. Only, in reality it doesn’t. P will always be there for our 3 boys. Whilst not conventional, we are a family. It may be different, people may think it strange but it is most definitely true, like it or not we are stuck with each other. And we will work it out our way. Probably with a lot of shouting and screaming on my part. So thank you all for your support, and your well meaning words but excuse me if I carry on regardless. 

       

      New beginnings. 

      10 Friday Apr 2015

      Posted by in Emotions, love, Relationships, Uncategorized

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      Yesterday  was a big, life changing day. A day that I never really imagined would happen and yet at the same time had become more and more inevitable. Yesterday  my husband and I separated. We had decided to do it 10 days ago, but it was only today that he moved out; at 18:13 on 9th April 2015 I became a single parent of three boisterous boys. 

      I say single parent, even though I know that P will be there for them whenever they (or indeed I) need him to be. Still it’s a place I never imagined that I’d be. 

      Ever since the decision was made on 30th March, my life has been full of firsts. There is the obvious first time that I have ever split up a marriage, and had to tell my children that my and Daddy aren’t going to live together anymore (which, in case you are wondering is heart wrenching) but there are also a lot of other firsts that I hadn’t really ever considered; things like not wearing a wedding ring.  I’ve had a ring on my finger engagement or wedding ring for over 8 years, I suddenly realised that I feel quite naked without it. It’s been off a while now and I still feel like I’ve lost something every time I touch my fingers together. I never realised that I noticed it that much. 

      Last night I had to sort out the internet and tv all on my own for the first time. Given that I’ve spent 10 years deliberately not being able to do that so I’m never asked to, it was a struggle and I’m ashamed to say I gave up and ended up reading instead. 

      Another first is having to ask my husband (ex husband?) if he will look after the children so I can go away on holiday, on my own. 

      Today I am in the house alone. That’s the first time I’ve ever spent a night in my house with no one else in it. No husband no children. It is weird. The house feels empty.

      P and I haven’t had a row in this process. I think we both agreed that our relationship wasn’t where we would both like it to be a long time ago but have been stuck in a quagmire of emotion around what to do about it. We know a couple who are still really good friends despite getting divorced. So much so that they go to the same parties with their new partners and all get along fine. We have agreed that we would like things to be like that. No recriminations, no blame. I’m hoping that we can stick to it. Interestingly since we called a halt to our relationship we have got on better than we have for ages. It seems as friends we get on brilliantly, not that we didn’t before, things had just changed. 

      And so today came another first; I went and did a shop for P, so that he doesn’t starve to death in the next week or so while he gets used to being on his own. I dropped it off at his house and then walked away. It might seem odd to other people but I honestly truly care for him and hope that this is the start of something good for both of us. Life changes. People change. We are different people to who we were a decade ago and that’s no ones fault it’s just the way it is. 

      I don’t know what the future holds for us, but I believe that if you can’t do any good for someone then, like the picture says at least you shouldn’t harm them.  Together we will try to do what is good for our children and also for us as individuals.  Hopefully we won’t hurt each other too much along the way. And I will always love him but maybe it’s time for new beginnings.