Wicked witch

I am feeling a little emotional this morning. As I watched breakfast tv they were talking about a man charged with abduction and coercive control having his sentence increased.

Normally whenever anything involving coercive control is on TV it makes me either angry or reflective. Today it made me feel emotional. I have no idea why I had this reaction today.

Thinking about my past. What was it like living with coercive control? To be honest it took a long long time to realise that that was the case. In those days I had never heard of that phrase. It became more familiar a few years after I got out of that situation, when law was changed to make it a criminal offence. When I was going through it, the more common name was emotional abuse.

Domestic abuse as we generally think of it is violent. Although victims can be in denial, believing that their partner can/will change or that they themselves are at fault. Domestic abuse is recognisable.

Emotional abuse is much more subtle. When my family were small it didn’t occur to me that there was anything odd about the other parent checking up on me constantly. This was before the days of mobile/cell phones. If I missed a call I had to account for where I had been, even if it was just chatting to other mums after the school run.

Being isolated from friends was so gradual that I didn’t recognise it for what it was. I was told that my friends were using me, I would be better off without them. I only had one friend who he approved of.

I wanted to work part time to earn extra money. He would be late home from work or the pub so that I couldn’t get to work on time. I needed him to take over looking after the children. It got so bad that I began thinking I was becoming unemployable because I was so unreliable. Looking back I see now that he didn’t want me doing anything away from the home or mixing with other people.

As the years went by and mobile phones were common place, the checking up increased. I might only be with my mother but the calls would be constant. On the rare occasions I was going out he would get home at the very last minute so that I never knew if I would be able to go out. 9 out of 10 times there would be an emergency that meant I had to rush home early.

How many times over the years was I told that I was “Fat, stupid with a brain like a seive.”

I could go on but I don’t want to.

When I divorced the other parent I was granted a quick divorce in 6 months. It was only recently that I realised my family probably think I divorced their father because he is an alcoholic. Although his alcoholism was a problem it wasn’t why I divorced him.

I am now aware that at least one of my sons never noticed that anything was amiss (other than the drinking), he didn’t have anything to compare our family with.

Part of me feels that I am glad they didn’t notice the abuse that I experienced. Another part of me thinks that maybe they should know about it. Perhaps if this was talked about more then it would happen less frequently. If everyone knew more about the subtleties involved in coercive control, victims could recognise the signs before it’s too late for them.

I can’t decide whether I should talk to my now grown up sons about what life was like for me when they were growing up. They already have a poor opinion of their father but are now building bridges with him. I don’t want to destroy that for them.

I have just remembered what I called this post. When I told my mother in law that I was divorcing her son her response was that she was surprised I has stuck it out so long. However her attitude towards me soon changed when she realised that her son would have to move out of the family home (that took 7 months). Suddenly I became the wicked witch turning her son out of his home.

It’s a waiting game

Mother finally came home on Tuesday 25th January 2022. She had gone for an x-ray on her ankle which turned out to be broken, on Wednesday 17th November 2021. It is taking a bit of getting used to her being home for both of us.

I was told that she would have her lunch before she came home and the carers would be here soon after she arrived. She is due to have 2 carers 4 times a day. Well it seems that she was about to have her lunch when she was whisked away in an ambulance. It took 4 paramedics to get her into the house on a Southampton sling/stretcher. This was at approximately 1.15pm.

We waited for the carers to arrive. Mum was left laying on her back on her new downstairs bed. Giving her a half cup of tea was a bit tricky. She did manage a sandwich. Eventually at 7.20 there was a knock at the door. One! yes just one carer had arrived. I did ask if there was anyone else coming. No he said its just me for the first night. There will be a care manger coming in the morning to do an assessment.

Although he wasn’t able to get her standing so she could use the commode he did get her cleaned up, changed and ready for sleep.

In the morning I got up at 6am not sure what time to expect the morning visit. It was a little after 9am when the care manger arrived to assess mum. One of the many questions she asked was does she need help with laundry, meals etc. She said no, so the next question was who does that for you? I couldn’t help it, the words escaped my mouth… “Her Slave!” Although she laughed she said she couldn’t put that. Anyway, she left and we continued to wait. It was 10.20am by the time the first set of 2 carers arrived. They were both very efficient and within 25 minutes she was up washed, dressed and put in her armchair. She was so pleased to be back in her chair after all this time. She had forgotten how to use the controls.

It was a bit after 12 noon when the next pair arrived. There wasn’t a lot for them to do on this occasion but they were very good with mum and soon had her comfortable. Around 5pm they were back to get her comfortable again. By then we knew what the time slots were.

Morning 7 to 10.30

Lunchtime 11 to 2

teatime 3 to 5.30

Bedtime 6.30 to 10

The carers cannot tell us what time they will arrive.

I quickly gave mum some dinner to make sure she was fed before bedtime whenever that would be.

I was surprised when they were back to put her to bed at 7.30

This morning I was up early again. Mum was quite uncomfortable laying flat on her back. I am unable to get her into a sitting position. If I raise the head of the bed it just pushes her head up which is painful for her. We waited and waited. Eventually I gave her some toast ( no porridge today) as that was possible to eat laying down. I couldn’t even give her a cup of tea. I think maybe a sippy cup might be in the future sooner rather than later.

The carers arrived to get mum up, the same two as yesterday morning, but it was already 10.10am. Again very efficient. However they had been gone less than an hour before the next two carers arrived. 11.20am.

Then we waited until 5.30 before the tea time visit. so this morning there was a wait of just an hour, then a wait of 6 hours before the next visit. Mum has now had her tea and we wait to see what time she wil be going to bed tonight. I hope for her sake it will be a little later.

Having been told that mum would get 2 carers 4 times a day for 6 weeks we are now told it is 14 days. We have a lady from Adult services coming next week. I wonder what will happen then. Even mum has realised that she will now need carers for the rest of her life although she thinks that as she gets stronger she will only need help getting up and washed. I think she will need more than that.

We will see.

When

There is a post on Facebook. When did you last hug your dad?

There are many responses with dates being the day of or days before their fathers died. My dad died in January 1995. I didn’t hug him the day he died. He died suddenly of a heart attack.

I didn’t hug him the last time I saw him. To be honest I hadn’t hugged him in many many years. Searching my memory I can’t recall hugging him although I am pretty sure I did as a child. When I was little he took great delight in tickling me. We were touchy feely when I was a small child. However even before I became a teenager the distance had already begun.

Neither of my parents were huggy or kissy people. I have always felt that my dad had no idea how to be part of a family. He was sent off to boarding school when he was 7. His sister is 10 years younger than him. By the time he left school she was at boarding school herself. I don’t think I remember either of my parents telling us kids that they love us. I know that they did love us though.

Even now my mother doesn’t enjoy hugs. She doesn’t like being touched. There have been times in my adult life when I have given my mother a hug. It is awkward because it isn’t natural but there have been times when she has needed a hug even if she doesn’t realise it. Now that my family have grown up they and their partners give her a hug. She accepts those but they still don’t come naturally to her.

Growing up I would see how other families interacted. It made me sad not to have that with my family. When I had my own children I vowed to be different. Everyday I made sure that there were lots of kisses and cuddles. I told them every day that I love them. Unfortunately their father was somewhat like my father, not knowing how to show his love for his children. He would ask me to tell them that he loved them.

After we divorced I had a few relationships. I always asked the new man whether he hugged his children and told them he loved them. They all said yes.

My boys have all grown up to be affectionate young men. Two are now fathers themselves. I can see the difference between them and their father and mine.

My sister in law tells me that my brother is so affected by the lack of affection growing up that he also has difficulty showing affection to his children.

I have many friends who hug everyone, I’m not like that but over the years I have become more comfortable with giving hugs but I am selective over who gets a hug from me.

Hopefully my family will teach their children and eventually their grandchildren that affection is wonderful to have and give.

Do you come from an affectionate family or one like mine?

Tissue Issue

Ever since I have been doing my mother’s laundry I have complained about her tissue issue.

I have no idea how many times I have emptied the washing machine to find that a tissue had been in among her clothes.

I lost count of the number of times I told her to remove the tissues before putting her clothes in the laundry.

She has now been in hospital since mid November. When I visit her (that has become more difficult this week with the rise in covid). I am given a bag of laundry to take home and wash. Not a problem. The bag of laundry I washed last week included a tissue.

If she is to be believed her tissues get removed and thrown away as soon as she has used them once. The nurses are always trying to tidy up her space.

Either she has been sneaky or the nurses have missed a few tissues.

Yesterday when I did the latest bag of laundry, even though I took each item out of the bag individually she still managed to get a couple of tissues in. Emptying the washing machine there was even more tissue bits all over the floor than normal.

Why oh why does she insist on hiding tissues in her clothing.

Do you know anyone who does this?

This is My Life

In a few months I shall hit that milestone birthday the big Six O. For nearly 40 years I have been running my own household.

For the last 4 weeks my mother has been in hospital with a broken ankle.

I know that being stuck in hospital with not much to do leaves a lot of time to over think things.

When I visited her the other day she asked me how I am coping being on my own running the house. She asks if I have enough money, am I eating enough.

On the radio a little while ago I heard the words of the great Billy Joel. He says exactly how I’m feeling.

This is my life, just leave me alone. For years I have wished that I lived alone. One day that will happen but not until my mother eventually goes into a nursing home.

In the meantime let me enjoy these weeks of living to my own timetable. I can eat what I want when I want. I can do what I want without keeping an eye on the clock (except for visiting time).

I know that no matter my age my mother will always think of me as her little girl. I know how hard it was for her when she thought she would lose me to cancer but that was 20 years ago.

All my life I have felt that my mother is disappointed in me. She says that isn’t so, but it’s how I have felt. It doesn’t help when she talks to me as though I am a child who has to be supervised at all times. I know that isn’t what she thinks.

In hospital she complains to me that the staff talk to the patients as though they are children.

I don’t know how that feels … Much!

Getting everything organised for when my mother comes home has been exhausting, especially as my energy levels are still so very low. I am enjoying being able to pretend that this is my life for a while at least.

All change

So much is going on. I don’t have the time or energy to process it all just yet.

Know that I am relatively OK. I will check back in when everything has settled down a bit.

Mother’s MS has progressed

Mother has broken her ankle currently in hospital

Rearranging house so that Mother has her bedroom downstairs

Everything else is just life as normal squeezed into the gaps between hospital visits etc

Visible or not

My ex has a dog who is he believes Labrador and German shepherd Cross.

When my ex calls round for coffee a couple of times a week he tells us about the other dogs they have met on their walks. Gus is a very sociable dog and likes to play and run with the other dogs.

A few months ago he was telling us about the time a Dalmatian wanted to play but Gus just ignored him.

Today the same happened. We are beginning to think maybe Gus just doesn’t see the Dalmatian. (I don’t know if this was the same dog or a different one).

Could it be the broken pattern of his cost that makes him invisible to Gus?

Lots to think about

I had asked for this a few weeks ago and today was the day. Two very pleasant young women (young to us) came to see us. They asked lots of questions and answered our questions.

Caring for my mother who has Multiple Sclerosis has become gradually more challenging. Having talked to these two specialist nurses we now know where we are at with this progressive condition.

It takes two of us to get mum in and out of the car. They suggested that we forget about taking her anywhere in the car. This doesn’t mean that she will never leave the house again. Instead I need to apply to our local council for taxi vouchers. For hospital visits etc we need to call a wheelchair accessible taxi so that she can leave the house in her wheelchair and stay in it from start to end.

She can also go to exercise classes run by MS society so that she can meet with others in the same boat and give me some alone time. We can get dial a ride to collect her and bring her back.

Then there is the question of getting her in and out of bed. The time is fast approaching for us to engage a carer to come in each morning to assist her with getting up washed and dressed. We both knew this was inevitable but being told that the time has come is kind of a weight off my shoulders deciding when and how to do this

There is also the decision that it’s time to think about moving her bed downstairs. When we do this I will move my things out of the dining room up to the bedroom.

We discuss other things to make life easier for both of us but that’s enough for today.

I feel as though a weight has been lifted off my shoulders but at the same time a feeling of deflation.

We have both been in reflective mood today with random thoughts about it all being spoken.

Mother had said that she now has to accept that her life has changed. She needs to go with it rather than fighting it.

Wendy

During my teenage years I lived with my family in the town of Tonbridge in Kent. I attended Hugh Christie Secondary school. The most famous pupil at my school was Dame Kelly Holmes (after I had left).

Today another girl from my school has been in the national news but not for a good reason. Wendy Knell was one of my class mates. I wouldn’t say we were best friends but we were friends whilst we were at school.

In my early twenties I lived in s bedsit in the nearby town of Tunbridge Wells along with the man who later became my husband and father of my children.

Unbeknown to me at the time my friend Wendy was also living in a bedsit in Tunbridge Wells. I don’t remember it being in the news at the time but at some point I learnt that Wendy had been murdered. The killer was never found.

Today though it has been announced that the man who murdered Wendy and another girl who I didn’t know has been charged. The same man has been charged with sexually assaulting the dead bodies of women in the hospital mortuary.

It won’t bring Wendy back but at least her family can now have closure.

Also in the news today Cervical Cancer in young women is much reduced since the introduction of the vaccine.

It was obviously too late for me. I had treatment for stage three cervical cancer about 8 years before the vaccine went live in UK.

I am so pleased that the majority of girls who might have developed cervical cancer are now being saved from what I went through.

Enjoy the rest of your day.

Tomorrow we are expecting a visit from a local specialist MS nurse to assess my mother’s current condition and give us help and advice to make life easier for both of us.

It’s dark down here

Over the last few months I have reluctantly come to the realisation that once again I am suffering from depression.

Depression has been part of my life on and off for the last 40 years. Most of the time I manage to keep it at bay. I try to be a cheerful happy person. Now and again I have off days. Every few years it goes beyond that.

Seeing as this has not been my first bout of depression, I am able to recognise it even though I tried so hard to reject it.

My feeling of sadness, sleeping all the time, being disheartened at everything. Even the simplest of chores are a huge effort, have gone on for too long to be ignored now.

My advice to anyone else would be go see your Dr. So why have I not done this myself? I don’t see any point in seeing a Dr this time around. They have two solutions, drugs and or therapy.

In the past I have been prescribed anti depressants. I hated the way they made me feel as though I was walking an inch off the ground. I felt like I had no control.

After taking a couple of different ones over the years I vowed not to touch them again. I understand that for many people these tablets can be helpful.

To my mind they mask the problem without getting to the bottom of it. They might make you feel able to carry on but don’t solve the reason you got depression in the first place.

Way back in my early 20s I had a severe bout of depression. So bad that I had to give up my job. I felt I couldn’t survive the next hour let alone the next day. Obviously I managed to get through it. I asked my Dr if I could have councelling instead of drugs. A councellor came to see me at home. (Once). He was changing jobs, nobody came again. Even that one session talking through my problems helped me get back on track

Because I was out of work due to my mental state I needed to sign on for unemployment benefit as it then was. I had to give my reason for being out of work. How could I say that it was my severe depression. In those days any mention of having problems with mental health were taboo. Finding a new job would be difficult in the future if I explained the gap in employment was my mental health.

Anyway further down the line and several bouts of depression later I asked for help. All my Dr could offer was for me to self refer myself for councelling. I did that but it was several months before I was even offered any sessions (by phone not even in person).

So now here I am again. I don’t want to be prescribed medication. There is no point in asking for councelling. I know the reasons (yes there are more than one) for my current depression. Neither of my most pressing problems are going to be solved by councelling.

Firstly, my health is my biggest reason. Dealing with the aftermath of my cancer treatment 20 years ago. I am only too well aware that my insides are eroding. My bladder is nolonger an issue as I am now a bag lady. Oh yes I have recently decided to name my stoma Betty. Because life isn’t great but it’s Better than it would be without Betty. I am currently going through more scans, cameras and investigations to figure out the next course of action to give me some quality of life.

I am fed up of this body which constantly lets me down. The good days are now less frequent than the bad days. I am acutely aware of how my insides feel nearly all the time. If I get up in the night to visit the bathroom, I then spend anything up to another two hours waiting for my stomach to either settle down or send me rushing back to the bathroom. This can be two or three time a night.

I have a very limited diet, not only being diabetic but also fibre intolerant. I have many windy days/nights. I get bloated. I find eating meals increasingly difficult. I’m better off picking at food.

So although I am aware that my body problems are causing me to feel so bad, there is no quick fix. Hopefully after the endoscopy I am having next week my consultant will have a better idea of what he can do for me. I am due to have my appendix out sometime in the new year.

I would imagine that any further surgery won’t be until later next year. If I’m lucky I could be in a better place this time next year.

As if that wasn’t enough I am finding living with and caring for my mother is making me depressed too.

I do love my mother, I am also grateful for a place to live. What can I say. I don’t mind picking up after her, just generally being her housemaid ( she nicknamed me Daisy). We are now starting to get into the realms of personal care. I am not made that way. Caring for my children was one thing. Caring for an adult, even my own mum is not something I care to do and she doesn’t want me to either.

I’m not sure how much is her MS and how much her declining years possibly even early onset dementia but her memory is going. Anyone seeing her for a short time wouldn’t notice but in her day to day living it is becoming more noticeable to me. I don’t know how much she has noticed.

What is really making me depressed about all this is that I feel trapped. Living with my mother is not too dissimilar to living with my alcoholic husbands. Yes there were two of them. Not at the same time obviously.

Getting my mum out of the house is extremely difficult. When I go out on my own. I can guarantee that if I’m more than a couple of hours even if she knows it will be. Like my four hour round trip to see my granddaughter for her birthday. I will get a phone call asking when I’m coming home.

Before covid I was visiting my son and his family every 6 to 8 weeks, staying overnight so I could spend time with my little grandson. Now I don’t feel confident enough to stay away overnight.

It was bad enough when I was in hospital. I was speaking to her on the phone twice a day and my ex was checking on her daily.

Since then she has become more reliant on me at night too

Although I have now been living with my mother for more that three years I don’t feel that this is my home. It is the place I live. I know that there are so many people who are worse off than me. That just makes me feel guilty for not being happy.

I try not to let it worry me, I will be ok when the time comes. My future is uncertain. This house belongs to my mother. I live here rent free. If my mother dies whilst living at home the house will be sold and divided between myself and my two brothers. That’s not such a problem, I will find somewhere to live. What I don’t know is, what I will do if she has to go into a home. The house will go towards paying for her care.

So I know that any amount of councelling is not going to sort out my problems. Only time can do that.