Things I Would Tell Myself, Aged Almost 28

Hey, you! You over there with the giant belly. Ready to go into labour any day. This is the you who has a baby about to turn one. I'm here to tell you, things are going to be just fine.

1. You are more resourceful than you know. 
2. You are more resilient than you can imagine.
3. You are braver than you hope.
4. You are bold.
5. You persevere.
6. You're ok.

Thinking of You

Today, I return to fertility and rejoin the fellowship of women engaging with the circle of life and death; a fellowship so strong, so resilient, so brave.

I see your strength, you women three; the strength that shines like a golden cloak.

I think of you there, clothed in grief. I think of you and those arms that should be holding a baby boy. I think of you and your man and that empty space beside you. I hold you, we hold you, he holds you, but know that it can only fall far short of that which your body aches for. I think of you, entering the tunnel through which there is only one way, a lonely way. I think of you reaching out for that first hidden stepping stone, blind as we all are to the road ahead but suddenly more aware, more alive than we. I think of you gritting your teeth, steeling yourself to keep going, to keep fighting, to keep searching for that next stepping stone.

I think of us, standing with you. Wishing we could journey with you. Cheering you on. Holding your hand. Wiping away tears. Feeling so lost and so privileged to share this time with you, sacred time, time on the edge, the loss of a baby. I think of us, all around the world, united in grief with you. I think of our countless thoughts and prayers for you, and hope that together they might bring about a small shift in the atmosphere; in the cloud surrounding you.

I think of angels, surrounding you. I think of a radiant glow around your bed as you sleep at night. I think of unseen hands stroking cheeks late at night. I think of a beautiful song, that which no man can hear, forming a mist around you; a mist protecting against the darkness that is sure to come.

I think of you there, announcing with joy. I see the courage that took. I see the pain you feel, the losses carried deep within your heart, the pain of the journey carried all around. I see the strength your choice brings. I see people around you, desperate to share your joy.

I see you, and I applaud. I see your bump, so ripe and proud. I see your belly, growing in completion of it's mission. I see your baby, arriving with shouts so triumphant. I see you there, choosing hope and faith. I see you there, choosing joy after loss. I see you there, appreciating beauty.

I think of you there, with that baby in your belly. I think of you there, with arms still aching. I think of you there, mama to three. I think of you there. I see you stepping forward every day. I see the road you travelled. I see the person you have become, the motherhood you have grown into, the destiny you fulfill. I see your boys, lying in your arms as they always have. I see them, you see them, we see them. Others may not see them. That's ok, they are still there.

I see your circle of joyful cheerleaders, willing you onwards with every breath, not towards forgetting, but towards the motherhood of three.

I see you there, you women three. Bravely engaging with this most painful of dances. And I salute.

Where We Are: 12 Months

It was your birthday last week! What a super special week it has been. Love you little man.

What we've been up to: This past week we have been so busy with birthday events. I took you to the farm with some little friends. On your birthday, our doula and her daughters came over and spent the day. On Saturday, we had family over for a party, you were given some great toys. Your favourite is definitely the zebra walker/trike/scooter Nana & Grandad bought you. On Sunday, we had one year pics taken and it made me feel very emotional to think you have been alive a whole year. Very emotional indeed! I feel so lucky. You are so great. Then yesterday we went to Leicester for a joint birthday picnic with a little pal of yours who's birthday it was yesterday.

Your teeth are really bothering you & your sleep has been really disturbed the past couple of days, so you are having a well earned nap right now. This morning we took Charlie for a long walk with our friend Emma and a dog she is looking after called Guinness, who is a dog mountain. Hoping for some better sleep tonight little man! You were supposed to have your injections today, but I have rearranged them for a couple of weeks time due to the teeth - your temperature is also running a little high.

My favourite moment of today: Snuggling up with you in bed after you drifted off for your nap peacefully. Those moments really are perfection.

What you are up to at the moment: You are taking a few steps on your own (for about a month now, and getting more confident), and standing for short periods on your own more confidently. At the farm trip you walked between a rabbit hutch and Oliver's pushchair, I was so proud. You also took some steps for the photographer so we have it on camera finally!!!

Tricky moment this week: Your lack of sleep over the past couple of nights (I think Daddy would agree!). Much Calpol utilised. Last night you were unsettled between me coming to bed and about 1:30am. Then woke again at 4, wide awake and unsettled. After 2.5 hours sleep (and about 2 hours sleep total the night before) I couldn't handle it, called daddy in and went to sleep myself in our bed while Daddy lay with you. That was very tricky for me and I imagine for Daddy too. I was struggling to keep my cool when giving you Calpol at about 1:30am as you wouldn't take it and I was so so tired.

Best moment this week: You wanting to play in the garden with Emma's daughters (6 & 12), like a big boy. That was a good one.

What I am looking forward to: Going for lunch with Auntie Helena on Friday and seeing Rachel, James, Albert and Edith on Sunday.

My Inspiration: I am still thinking about my voice. It is hard. I used to not post on facebook for fear of rejection. Now I feel more confident and post more, but sometimes the fear of rejection gets me so hard. Last night I posted about the need for religious tolerance, just a little short post, but I couldn't sleep because I was tormenting myself thinking I shouldn't have posted it and that it's only my narcissistic tendencies that lead me to (thinking that believing I have something to say equals narcissism), & I was overanalysing what I had said. This is such bullshit and I am looking forward to moving past it and glad I am engaging with it. I wish I was less narcissistic and hope it will die away a little as I heal more and get more confident. Painful, challenging times.

I wrote about your conception story - as a comment on somebody's post in the BT group yesterday. It encouraged a couple of people to believe in signs and wonders and that was very inspiring. Reminded me how powerful and capable God is. I forget to believe so often.

My Jagged Edges

Where to start talking about the things that give me the jagged edges? 



Do I start from birth? How many episodes do I include? Good writing is concise and direct. There is definitely no waffle. So how little do you need to know? 


I was always sensitive, always a feeler, always vulnerable. I always said the wrong thing. When I was a tiny, I remember my dad saying I had the biggest heart of anyone he knew. There was too much space in my heart for his pain.


When I was eight, he left. My mum left too, one day she just wasn't there any more. There was a grey husk instead. I snuggled up to that husk in bed at night, desperate for warmth, but I didn't feel any. 


We left. I started a new school. None of the kids there had such big hearts. I shut mine down. I became a husk too.


I spent break time running up and down the grassy bank, thinking about my hairy legs, my unpierced ears, and how I still slept with my mum. I was ten.


Life stopped having colour. A hole grew inside.


The bigger the hole, the less people wanted me.


I was too much.


At home, I became a fiery red ball. I consumed everything around me. When I was with my father, I was alive. He saw me. He told me about how the world is ending. About how little time there was to save it. About how it was his mission and purpose. About how damaging my mother-husk was. He was very angry when I didn't do as I was told. Why was I always so lazy? 


I didn't see much of school.


When I was seventeen, I left. 


I found a home.


My edges got a little smoother. People spoke to me. They liked me. I went out for drinks. A lot of drinks. I kissed boys. A lot of boys. I fell in love. I gave everything. There was nothing left inside, no empty space. No time alone. There couldn't be any time alone. Empty spaces were full of fear, of possibility, of uncertainty, of the future. There was no future. 


I loved.


Why wasn't I doing my school work? Why must I self-sabotage? Why was I pushing self-destruct?


I cut myself off.


Keep going. Keep going Kitty. Never be alone. Never slow down.


Live live live.


Feel feel feel.


I lived alone, but I was never alone. I slept in beds all over. Never alone. Never stop talking. Never let them see.


I saw Ruth. In a small, safe space, we talked. She was so beautiful. She believed. I met her with last night's sperm in my vagina.


I went to university. Why was I so disappointing? Why did I need to be liked, to be accepted? How weak. An ex poly. A total disappointment. He was better. He was smarter, funnier, more acceptable. Smoother. No sharp edges. He had it all.


I met her. I met them. My family. I saw Jesus, but I didn't know Him.


Run run run. Fast as you can. You can't catch me. Never be alone.


Bed hop bed hop bed hop. Waking up with funny smell all over. Vomit down the toilet. Keep going. Don't let it in.


Stop.


I met him.


We loved. He was full of jagged edges too. We knew each other. He never stopped either. His hair was thick, dark and curly. He had the joker's smile, and such sparkling eyes. We loved. And loved. He was all of me. I was all of him. I became less, to be more for him. Must. Keep. Hold. Never. Be. Alone.


Stop.


Suddenly, I might die, I went to the doctor with a neck pain, and I came out with a brain tumour and urgent specialist appointment. The husk was frantic. The appointment. The anxiety. The anxiety. The MRI. The all clear.


Where was the relief?


The depression. The depression. The depression. Same four walls. All the fucking time. Lying. So. Still. Ghosts. Want me dead. 


He is there, he's with me, but he doesn't know how to be with me. What does he do? How can his jagged edges cope with this? He drinks. He smokes. He spends.


I stop. Eating. I start. Exercising. I go. I go. I go. So thin. So beautiful. So alive. Spend. Spend. Spend. South Africa. Warm and sunny. Acceptance.


Death. Everywhere I fucking look. Where's she gone? Why has she left me? I didn't know. Nobody told me. I'm a grown up.


You're going to kill your children. Your eggs are diseased. There's nothing you can do about it. No future. 


Got to give up. Can't keep going. But wait. Now he's hurting. His dad is gone. He's a grown up. Two grown ups together, with their jagged edges, bumping alongside each other. Where did the curvy sex go? I'm so thin now. I think I'm dying all the time.


I cry on the GP. He sends me to another safe room, with Wendy. I breathe. In that room, I breathe. She hears me. 


Seroxat.


Screaming screaming screaming. Pulling out my hair. Scratching at my face. Can't get away from the fucking pain. Everywhere. It all hurts. He doesn't know what to do. Everything about him hurts too. I exercise. And I hurt. And I have sex. And sex. And sex. I can't study, I work. I love work. 8 hours a day of normal. Of busy. Of being good.


I go to church.


It saves me.


I miscarry.


It kills me.


Screaming. The trees are trying to get me. Why is everything trying to fucking get me? He doesn't know what to do, he laughs at me, I can't walk. I crawl. Hands and knees. The space is scary. The ghosts are trying to get me. I look so good. How can I feel so bad.


Now his mum. Hooked up to a ventilator. She's gone. She smoked. She was forty nine.


What are we to do.


He's angry. He doesn't have time for my childish games. I'm just messing around. He punches someone. We go to a and e. He drinks. He drinks. I don't eat. I don't eat. We have sex. I exercise. Keep it all contained. Keep it all in.


I sleep with women. I cheat. No one can stop me. It's all about sex. Need me. Some one fucking need me. This isn't fun any more. I didn't sign up for this. He says it's ok. We meet a couple for a four way. It doesn't happen. Thank God.


I'm broken. I can't stop.


I leave him. I have to. But I love him so much. He's all of me, I'm all of him. We're too much, together. I'm alone. Shit, I thought I could do this, but the world is so frickin big. It's going to end. I'm never safe.


He preys on me. Sex sex sex. It's all I know. Spend spend spend. Exercise. Don't eat. Chaos.


When we're together, we're alright. I love him. Why can't I love him? When I'm with him, it's terrible, he's awful, why am I with him? I end them both. Can't be alone for a second.


Church, peace.


I meet him. 


He's mine.


He fixes me.


Slowly. Peace by peace. He puts me back together. He's gentle. He has no jagged edges, he's smooth inside. He's kind. I don't know why he loves me. Hosea. He shows me Jesus.


I stop spending. I start eating. I walk. I walk. I walk. I think.


Every day I think. It's exhausting. Every day I'm alone. It's good. There's no drink any more. No more spending. 


I have a home.


It heals me. 


He heals me.


Jesus, my husband. They heal me.


I look at my wrists. I see how close I came to death, every day. I'm so lucky. I'm so grateful. I'm so glad to be alive. I'm twenty four.


Borderline.personality.disorder.

Hope and Change

When I first met my husband, about 5.5 years ago, I had no idea who I was. Life was a chaotic, terrifying mess. Because I didn't have a sense of self, I couldn't spend time alone. The walls would seem to crush in on me. For the previous 7 years I had filled my time with anything and everything I could. And I mean anything - I made some extremely risky choices that could have led at any time to me not being here today. I needed these exhilarating, risky experiences to remind me that I was alive, that I felt, that I was a person. I lived for the moment, spending all I had, drinking without thought for the responsibilities of the following day, sleeping with whoever was around, regardless of whether I liked them or not. All the time trying to escape spending a moment alone and being forced to hang out with the monsters inside.


As a child, I loved to read. I read almost constantly. But now I couldn't read, because I couldn't spend that much time alone. I couldn't complete university assignments. Everything I turned my hand to fell apart, because I didn't have any focus or internal motivation.


And then, I met Pete. And he was the opposite of me in so many ways. Such a stable, secure sense of self. I wanted what he had.


Over the next few years, he supported me unconditionally as I fumbled my way forwards. I spent a lot of time alone. I knew I needed to, in order to move forward. A lot of stuff came up, and it was extremely painful. I joke that I cried for the entire first year of our relationship. I grieved for the childhood that had led me to where I was; for the bullying, for the loneliness, for the self-loathing. I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, and that diagnosis took me one step further towards self-acceptance.


I didn't work for three and a half years. I walked, I prayed, I cried, I felt pain. I spoke with my counsellor. Towards the end of that time, I volunteered with asylum seekers, and that helped renew my vision, to help me to see and understand how lucky I was, and how much was available to me. The pace was slow. Oftentimes, I would wonder whether I had really taken any steps forward. Whether I was really doing anything.


I went back to work. I managed to hold down that job, if only for a short period, in a way that I had never been able to before. Stable. It was only for a short while, because I became pregnant, and gave birth to our son in July 2013. He was such a longed for child. Everything I had done over the previous few years had been in the hope that he would join us one day.


This year I have found myself in uncharted territory. I knew that I had inherited my issues, but when I looked online to find reassurance that I could avoid passing them onto my son, I couldn't find anything. And that's what motivates me to write this. 


So far, my son is thriving. So far, I have coped with parenthood better then I ever dreamt I could. The stable sense of self I have started to build has really paid off, and since Sam was born, I have found I've taken huge leaps forward in learning confident selfhood. He needs me to. Every day, I try and liberate him to be him, and I feel that in doing so, I am using my experiences to help create something of beauty. 


As I see him grow, I understand more about what went wrong for me. This is often painful, and something I am struggling to integrate is how to work through this pain whilst caring for my son and being a wife. But I feel reassured that we will find a way through, when I look back over all that has changed so far.


And I just wanted to share my belief that for the next generation, the best thing we can do is to be the best us that we can be. That change is possible. And that treating and understanding our mental health liberates and empowers our children, whether future, present, or grown.


For anyone struggling with similar issues, I would highly recommend finding a counsellor or therapeutic environment, and to not discount private counselling. I saw my counsellor through a charity called The Haven (based in Ashby de la Zouch) and because our household income was low, they charged me a very affordable rate. The benefits paid dividends as it meant I could see her as long as I needed, rather than being constrained by NHS funding (I feel that having a long term therapeutic relationship, with me controlling the end of the relationship, greatly helped me towards overcoming attachment issues). I had person centred therapy, and found it great for supporting me as I tentatively constructed a positive self image.


For those with children, or hoping to have children, I would really recommend Daniel Siegel's book, 'Parenting from the Inside Out'. It gave me hope when I needed it.


I feel very lucky. I applied for benefits during my time off, but I only received them for a year of the 3.5 I needed to get to a place where I was stable enough to work. So I feel very lucky that we could afford for me to have the rest of the time I needed. I also feel lucky in having found my counsellor. I had great NHS support in Cambridge (where I lived before meeting my husband), but appropriate psychological support was not offered in Loughborough. So I feel very lucky to have had affordable treatment locally, and to have had the time to invest in it.


I wish there were better provisions for people with mental health issues. The right support helps to turn everything around. I was surprised that no help was offered while I was pregnant, and when my son was newborn. What is the point of giving people life altering diagnoses if the support is not in place to help them turn their lives around? Without the support I have received from my husband and counsellor, I would have greatly struggled to care for my son, and his life prospects would have looked very different.


Btw, I still struggle to read. But I believe in change... So who knows? The sky is the limit!

This day

This day I chose. I chose to come to the party. To celebrate the first year of a beautiful little person.

This day I chose. This day I chose to unlock my bike. To strap my wriggly infant in a seat. To fear every car, every junction, every sudden stop. This day I chose to feel the wind in my hair, to expose my child to the elements, to let the sun beat upon our arms. This day I chose to work my legs, my arms, my muscles.

This day I chose. To only bring food that would fit in my backpack. To ask the cashier to refill my water bottle. To pass you my unwanted books.

This day I chose. To stand waiting at the platform with the others. To hear the chug, chug, chug of the wheels beneath my feet. To soothe my fractious babe whilst you watch me at the end of the carriage.

This day I chose to travel an hour thirty for a journey of sixteen miles. To celebrate at the party.

This day you asked. Does anybody fancy swimming. I said yes, me. Is anybody going my way.

She said yes, yes me.

You said, aren't there any buses. Are you really going that way. How much will it add to your journey.

You said, she's inconvenient. You said, don't choose her.

This day I chose. I chose for my babe. I chose for yours. You may not see my choice. It's still mine.

You may not see my choice. It is still mine.

I don't drive

I am not trying to waste your time. Take your money. I am not lazy.

Since I gave birth, I notice more and more the activities I am excluded from participating in. I notice more and more that people don't offer lifts. That I am at an age and a life stage where I am now 'expected' to drive.

The attitude of people that I am in some way being selfish.

Even from my husband.

You know what?

I am trying to be the opposite of selfish. I am trying to help your kids, and mine. I am trying to help the animals, and those in poorer countries. I am trying to help the us who exist in just a few short years time.

My belief is that the actions of the one matters. Our individual actions are the sum of the whole. Together, you and I decide how the world will look, in ten years time, in twenty years time, in one hundred years time.

I don't drive.

I choose not to drive.

For now. I don't think I can keep it up. Why not drive? Everyone else is doing it and nobody (let me repeat, nobody) values my choice. My husband says my choice excludes our son from social activities and will negatively affect him as he grows up.

There are three truths:
1) Not driving is a more environmentally beneficial way of life. Not just in terms of CO2 omissions. Also in terms of making roads safer, for children and cyclists. For runners. For those who choose to use their bodies. For animals.
2) Not driving is healthier way of life, for me. For my son, as he grows up seeing what life is like when you use your body.
3) Not driving is bloody difficult in our society. It is not accepted, not valued as a lifestyle choice, viewed as lesser, and not facilitated in any way. The public transport links do not exist. Car pooling is not a typical transport choice.

What's so wrong with driving anyway?