I do not remember a great deal about my childhood, what I do remember is that I was a very sensitive chid and that this sensitivity was criticised, there was a fairly constant retort to my upset of ?you?re too sensitive?. I became terribly confused about life seeing that the behaviour of my parents and others and what they said was at odds with what I was sensing. I can recall too feeling desperately sad for the elderly, infirm and just about anyone who looked unhappy. This was quite a lot to carry on young shoulders.
I absolutely adored my mother and yet I was also frightened that she might leave and I felt responsible for her remaining with us and made it my job to keep the peace. I was given and assumed responsibility for my younger sister and brother. I do not mean that I was physically and economically responsible for them but I was to ?set a good example? at the expense of my own needs. The two of them had childhood conditions that were very difficult to deal with at that time without the medical assistance that exists today, so looking after them was a strain for my mother, and she cast me as her helper. It became disadvantageous to be healthy, and it became my concern that the two younger ones should not behave in a way to upset our mother because she would lose her temper and there came to be an implied and later explicit threat to leave.
It wasn?t a carefree childhood for me, guilt was embedded in me, and our environment growing up was very critical. My father could be dismissive of us if we annoyed him. Both my parents had difficult childhoods in their own way so I do understand where they were coming from.
In my teens I felt an urgent need to break away and spent a lot of time with my friends, often running out of the house and staying out quite late. I lacked confidence and alcohol gave me the confidence to talk and joke and generally be at the centre of things.
My parents decided to move house when I was 17 just as I finished school, I didn?t want to move, I don?t think anyone did but my father?s job was moving. We ended up moving to a sea-side town a couple of hundred miles away from where we lived before. It was difficult there and I left soon after, the day before my 18th birthday.
Eventually I got myself a career, lived in London and lived and worked abroad which I had wanted to do. I always felt different and uncomfortable, and so drinking helped to ease that. Working abroad in an environment where there were a lot of foreigners in what was a liberal European country meant there was every opportunity to socialise with AL.
I met my husband whilst abroad and at some level I knew we weren?t suited but I went ahead anyway believing that I wouldn?t get another chance. He too was very critical, and unemotional as my father was.
I found myself back to doing many things I didn?t want to do, lots of responsibility, looking after others and doing things because I thought I should. When the two girls arrived I carried on working with a break of six years when I did freelance work, then back to work full-time, looking back I really have no idea how I did it, and I know I am not unique in that. I didn?t get support or appreciation from my husband he was very wrapped up in his own needs.
Eventually I initiated a separation nine years ago, little did I realise what was to come.
When I told my mother we were separating she was very angry with me and accused me of ruining my children?s lives. Until she died she always referred to my ex-husband as ?poor ***?, and both of my parents always asked how he was before they asked about me.
A couple of months after the separation when I was sorting things out my sister had a psychotic episode and was sectioned. She had called our mother up to see her, verbally abused her, accused our father of having sexually abused her as a child and her daughters, she told me my youngest one had been abused by him, and threw my mother out. My sister was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder and began to get better, eventually retracting the allegations of abuse. Once these things are said they?re out there, whatever the circumstances, I don?t think my mother ever got over it.
We got through the following year treading on egg-shells around my sister except that my mother was developing numbness in the big toe of one foot which didn?t go away and gradually began to affect the foot too.
Then my older daughter began to be unhappy at school, she simply hated it, she wasn?t bullied just bored and felt she could utilise her time better than at school. At the same time my mother?s condition worsened, the numbness and what was becoming paralysis was spreading upward in her body. Later that year the company I was working for went into liquidation and I was really struggling to get my daughter to school.
The diagnosis for my mother which came about after a process of elimination of other conditions was Motor Neurone Disease. Needless to say she was in a panic and chose denial, forcing herself to move about and falling often.
The next year my daughter withdrew herself from school totally at the age of 13 wishing to be home educated. My mother?s condition was getting worse and my financial situation was following the trend.
Then my sister had another psychotic episode, this time she wasn?t sectioned and was admitted voluntarily, she hadn?t been looking after the condition.
So I was dealing with my daughter, which I am happy to say had a good outcome with her taking her public exams outside of the school system and now she is at University, my mother, looking for another job in a difficult market and soothing the panic over my sister.
I managed to find another job that year, and for the six months I had between the two jobs I underwent a spiritual awakening and was able to deal with my mother and later my father?s deaths.
I?ve barely mentioned AL, I drank more and more wine to cope with the fears, responsibilities, and the distressing nature of what was happening.
The company I was working for was a rather unethical organisation and I found it very difficult to be there and expected to lie to customers. In the meantime my mother was getting much worse and terribly angry. My sister had decided to separate from her husband. My brother was in a way a bit player to this point, terribly depressed about what was happening.
Eventually in the summer my mother fell and was admitted to hospital. I drove down to see her and it was heartbreaking, she finally had nowhere to hide from the Motor Neurone Disease. My father had managed to have a minor car accident in the car park arriving at the hospital and so it seemed better for all if she came home, but the hospital wouldn?t discharge her, however we took her anyway, I think that was actually very liberating for her being able to make a decision and act on it.
I should also mention that whilst in hospital I discovered that she was addicted to tranquilisers and had been for around 40 years, most of those repeat prescribed. That was a shock to everyone, no one knew. At the time I remember thinking that it was an escape just like AL.
She died in the December of that year; my sister who hadn?t seen her for two years visited, thankfully it was a peaceful visit. All were in denial and I dealt with social workers etc etc. I was lucky in that I had seen her a couple of days before she died and I knew she was going.
My father and brother went to collect the death certificate and my brother ended up accusing the doctor of having been responsible for her death, the tranquilisers, so a post mortem was advised, and the funeral was cancelled. My brother and father had been arranging the funeral and had had her embalmed, so no post-mortem.
My brother then stayed with our father and kept him pretty much in isolation from the rest of us. Within six months he had got my father to sell the house pack everything up and buy a house together with my brother with no consultation with anyone else.
In the meantime my sister had divorced and received a very large settlement with which she was supposed to buy a house. She ended up blowing the money within three years on renting large houses, buying pedigree dogs, a motor home, musical instruments, furniture and goodness knows what else.
The year after my mother?s death my father met a lady and moved in with her. He spent Christmases with her and her family in America, we hardly saw him. My brother worked abroad and my sister moved to Scotland (a long way from me) a year later.
If you?re still with me, fast forward. In 2007 my sister had spent all the money she had and was homeless except she didn?t tell anyone. She conned (yes conned) my father out of the keys to the house he owned with my brother and moved in. She was there for around six months before my brother came back from working abroad, there followed a big row as she had completely trashed the house, serious trashing. She fled after lodging a complaint with the police for assault by him and informed me she was coming to stay with me for a few days, this was December and I hadn?t heard from her in two years.
After taking advice I did not let her and her daughter?s into the house, that might sound harsh but if you had experienced untreated bi-polar you would do the same. I might add that she took her middle daughter of out school just before her public exams, and had also taken her younger daughter out of school. Her intention I am certain was to make sure they could not be independent of her. As she left I took down her registration number and reported her as a missing person. This was necessary to protect her younger child who was only 14 and whose father was desperately worried about her.
Moving on, by January the younger child was with her father. In May that year I received a call to say that my father had been found collapsed in his car and was in the Intensive Care unit of the hospital in the town he was living in. He?d had a stroke. It was this that brought me back into contact with my brother and sister, a very difficult time for me. I was the one who sorted everything out, visited him, miles away from where I live and finally found a residential care home for him, managed the financial side and so on. He eventually died in November last year.
My sister was expected at the funeral but she didn?t turn up, nor did she visit him when he was ill. Over the last three months I?ve sorted out his estate, such as it was, having to get the money back from the house which was in my brother?s name not my father?s, and distribute the money.
About two months ago my sister and her middle daughter arrived in the city her older daughter lives, they had been homeless for at least three months, and living in the car until it was crushed for being untaxed. Before that she followed my younger daughter to her place of work and made sure my daughter saw her and dropped an unpleasant note through my door accusing me of denying her her inheritance.
Anyway, following many evictions where she trashed the houses allowing them to fill with animal excrement she is now in temporary accommodation, the middle girl has gone to live with her father and the older girl was already doing well. That?s untreated bi-polar for you, her choice. My brother wishes me to be the replacement for our parents so that he can tell me how bad things are for him.
During all of this I?ve had instability in my work and finances. I sincerely hope that the business I have started will begin to flourish and I can build a new life.
I really needed to write this so that I can finally move on from it all, thanks for reading.
I absolutely adored my mother and yet I was also frightened that she might leave and I felt responsible for her remaining with us and made it my job to keep the peace. I was given and assumed responsibility for my younger sister and brother. I do not mean that I was physically and economically responsible for them but I was to ?set a good example? at the expense of my own needs. The two of them had childhood conditions that were very difficult to deal with at that time without the medical assistance that exists today, so looking after them was a strain for my mother, and she cast me as her helper. It became disadvantageous to be healthy, and it became my concern that the two younger ones should not behave in a way to upset our mother because she would lose her temper and there came to be an implied and later explicit threat to leave.
It wasn?t a carefree childhood for me, guilt was embedded in me, and our environment growing up was very critical. My father could be dismissive of us if we annoyed him. Both my parents had difficult childhoods in their own way so I do understand where they were coming from.
In my teens I felt an urgent need to break away and spent a lot of time with my friends, often running out of the house and staying out quite late. I lacked confidence and alcohol gave me the confidence to talk and joke and generally be at the centre of things.
My parents decided to move house when I was 17 just as I finished school, I didn?t want to move, I don?t think anyone did but my father?s job was moving. We ended up moving to a sea-side town a couple of hundred miles away from where we lived before. It was difficult there and I left soon after, the day before my 18th birthday.
Eventually I got myself a career, lived in London and lived and worked abroad which I had wanted to do. I always felt different and uncomfortable, and so drinking helped to ease that. Working abroad in an environment where there were a lot of foreigners in what was a liberal European country meant there was every opportunity to socialise with AL.
I met my husband whilst abroad and at some level I knew we weren?t suited but I went ahead anyway believing that I wouldn?t get another chance. He too was very critical, and unemotional as my father was.
I found myself back to doing many things I didn?t want to do, lots of responsibility, looking after others and doing things because I thought I should. When the two girls arrived I carried on working with a break of six years when I did freelance work, then back to work full-time, looking back I really have no idea how I did it, and I know I am not unique in that. I didn?t get support or appreciation from my husband he was very wrapped up in his own needs.
Eventually I initiated a separation nine years ago, little did I realise what was to come.
When I told my mother we were separating she was very angry with me and accused me of ruining my children?s lives. Until she died she always referred to my ex-husband as ?poor ***?, and both of my parents always asked how he was before they asked about me.
A couple of months after the separation when I was sorting things out my sister had a psychotic episode and was sectioned. She had called our mother up to see her, verbally abused her, accused our father of having sexually abused her as a child and her daughters, she told me my youngest one had been abused by him, and threw my mother out. My sister was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder and began to get better, eventually retracting the allegations of abuse. Once these things are said they?re out there, whatever the circumstances, I don?t think my mother ever got over it.
We got through the following year treading on egg-shells around my sister except that my mother was developing numbness in the big toe of one foot which didn?t go away and gradually began to affect the foot too.
Then my older daughter began to be unhappy at school, she simply hated it, she wasn?t bullied just bored and felt she could utilise her time better than at school. At the same time my mother?s condition worsened, the numbness and what was becoming paralysis was spreading upward in her body. Later that year the company I was working for went into liquidation and I was really struggling to get my daughter to school.
The diagnosis for my mother which came about after a process of elimination of other conditions was Motor Neurone Disease. Needless to say she was in a panic and chose denial, forcing herself to move about and falling often.
The next year my daughter withdrew herself from school totally at the age of 13 wishing to be home educated. My mother?s condition was getting worse and my financial situation was following the trend.
Then my sister had another psychotic episode, this time she wasn?t sectioned and was admitted voluntarily, she hadn?t been looking after the condition.
So I was dealing with my daughter, which I am happy to say had a good outcome with her taking her public exams outside of the school system and now she is at University, my mother, looking for another job in a difficult market and soothing the panic over my sister.
I managed to find another job that year, and for the six months I had between the two jobs I underwent a spiritual awakening and was able to deal with my mother and later my father?s deaths.
I?ve barely mentioned AL, I drank more and more wine to cope with the fears, responsibilities, and the distressing nature of what was happening.
The company I was working for was a rather unethical organisation and I found it very difficult to be there and expected to lie to customers. In the meantime my mother was getting much worse and terribly angry. My sister had decided to separate from her husband. My brother was in a way a bit player to this point, terribly depressed about what was happening.
Eventually in the summer my mother fell and was admitted to hospital. I drove down to see her and it was heartbreaking, she finally had nowhere to hide from the Motor Neurone Disease. My father had managed to have a minor car accident in the car park arriving at the hospital and so it seemed better for all if she came home, but the hospital wouldn?t discharge her, however we took her anyway, I think that was actually very liberating for her being able to make a decision and act on it.
I should also mention that whilst in hospital I discovered that she was addicted to tranquilisers and had been for around 40 years, most of those repeat prescribed. That was a shock to everyone, no one knew. At the time I remember thinking that it was an escape just like AL.
She died in the December of that year; my sister who hadn?t seen her for two years visited, thankfully it was a peaceful visit. All were in denial and I dealt with social workers etc etc. I was lucky in that I had seen her a couple of days before she died and I knew she was going.
My father and brother went to collect the death certificate and my brother ended up accusing the doctor of having been responsible for her death, the tranquilisers, so a post mortem was advised, and the funeral was cancelled. My brother and father had been arranging the funeral and had had her embalmed, so no post-mortem.
My brother then stayed with our father and kept him pretty much in isolation from the rest of us. Within six months he had got my father to sell the house pack everything up and buy a house together with my brother with no consultation with anyone else.
In the meantime my sister had divorced and received a very large settlement with which she was supposed to buy a house. She ended up blowing the money within three years on renting large houses, buying pedigree dogs, a motor home, musical instruments, furniture and goodness knows what else.
The year after my mother?s death my father met a lady and moved in with her. He spent Christmases with her and her family in America, we hardly saw him. My brother worked abroad and my sister moved to Scotland (a long way from me) a year later.
If you?re still with me, fast forward. In 2007 my sister had spent all the money she had and was homeless except she didn?t tell anyone. She conned (yes conned) my father out of the keys to the house he owned with my brother and moved in. She was there for around six months before my brother came back from working abroad, there followed a big row as she had completely trashed the house, serious trashing. She fled after lodging a complaint with the police for assault by him and informed me she was coming to stay with me for a few days, this was December and I hadn?t heard from her in two years.
After taking advice I did not let her and her daughter?s into the house, that might sound harsh but if you had experienced untreated bi-polar you would do the same. I might add that she took her middle daughter of out school just before her public exams, and had also taken her younger daughter out of school. Her intention I am certain was to make sure they could not be independent of her. As she left I took down her registration number and reported her as a missing person. This was necessary to protect her younger child who was only 14 and whose father was desperately worried about her.
Moving on, by January the younger child was with her father. In May that year I received a call to say that my father had been found collapsed in his car and was in the Intensive Care unit of the hospital in the town he was living in. He?d had a stroke. It was this that brought me back into contact with my brother and sister, a very difficult time for me. I was the one who sorted everything out, visited him, miles away from where I live and finally found a residential care home for him, managed the financial side and so on. He eventually died in November last year.
My sister was expected at the funeral but she didn?t turn up, nor did she visit him when he was ill. Over the last three months I?ve sorted out his estate, such as it was, having to get the money back from the house which was in my brother?s name not my father?s, and distribute the money.
About two months ago my sister and her middle daughter arrived in the city her older daughter lives, they had been homeless for at least three months, and living in the car until it was crushed for being untaxed. Before that she followed my younger daughter to her place of work and made sure my daughter saw her and dropped an unpleasant note through my door accusing me of denying her her inheritance.
Anyway, following many evictions where she trashed the houses allowing them to fill with animal excrement she is now in temporary accommodation, the middle girl has gone to live with her father and the older girl was already doing well. That?s untreated bi-polar for you, her choice. My brother wishes me to be the replacement for our parents so that he can tell me how bad things are for him.
During all of this I?ve had instability in my work and finances. I sincerely hope that the business I have started will begin to flourish and I can build a new life.
I really needed to write this so that I can finally move on from it all, thanks for reading.
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