Category Archives: Love and sex

Post separation abuse

08 Tuesday Mar 2022

Posted by in Divorce, Love and sex, mental health

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I’m not particularly interested in Kim Kardashian. But I am interested in post separation abuse.

Post separation abuse is coercive control or emotional abuse that continues after a break-up. And that’s what’s happening in a very public way to Kim.

It will be familiar to a lot of people who’ve been through it, because it is depressingly common.

One of the many complex answers to the facile question ‘Why didn’t they just leave?’ is post separation abuse.

Because far from getting away from the abusive situation, leaving actually puts you at more risk of abuse.

In the worst cases we all read about, post separation abuse kills women. Sometimes it kills children, too.

In less dramatic, or at least less fatal, cases, post separation abuse still causes immeasurable harm.

[I am going to put the usual caveat in here that it has been statistically proven many times over that women are more likely to be the victims of domestic abuse, coercive control, and post separation abuse than men. This is not to say men cannot be victims, and women cannot be perpetrators. They absolutely can].

WHAT DOES POST SEPARATION ABUSE LOOK LIKE?

Post separation abuse takes many forms, but there are consistent and recognisable patterns of behavior.

It can be financial. That can mean cutting off access to money, evading child support, closing credit cards or accounts, moving funds, not passing on bills or important financial correspondence/information, or running up debt in your name.

It can be legal – a constant barrage of frightening solicitors letters, dragging you through the court system arguing over every point (especially if you are experiencing financial hardship and can’t afford a solicitor). It is common for perpetrators to claim safe-guarding issues or parental alienation – and to use mediation to intimidate you under the cloak of reasonability.

It can take the form of harassment. That might look like ‘love-boming’, extravagant gestures and gifts, often in public, turning up randomly at your home or work, refusing to give up house keys, letting themselves in, constant direct messages, social media bombardment, or enlisting messengers to get to you. That is often alternated with criticism, online tirades (either angry or sympathy-seeking), and attempts to isolate you, discrediting your reputation, your sanity or your parenting – again often publicly or even directly to the authorities.

It can be intimidation – direct threats, stalking, making sure you know you are watched, that you are monitored, that you will be punished. It could be damaging property, or threatening your children if you don’t do what they want.

It can be through co-parenting – or ‘counter-parenting’ – undermining you and your ability to parent, arguing over every little parenting point – often through the courts. It could be refusing to honour bedtimes, feeding schedules, school hours, clubs or commitments. It could be not giving children back at agreed times, constantly changing or pushing for extra contact time. It could also be taking them to inappropriate places or to see inappropriate people.

It can be directly through children – getting them onside with extravagant gifts or treats, telling them you’re to blame, asking them to report on your movements. It could look like emotionally abusing them, or coercing them. It could also look like physical abuse.

HOW DO I DEAL WITH POST SEPARATION ABUSE?

If you think you could be physical danger, or think your children are in danger, or if you think someone you KNOW is in danger, it is imperative to call the police and report it. Every time something happens. Awareness of coercive control is improving, and they CAN do things to help.

It’s really important to get a solicitor on board to help fight your corner, particularly in cases of legal abuse. If you can’t afford it, you might be eligible for legal aid, and it’s time to turn to places like Refuge, Women’s Aid, and other agencies who can offer you specialist advice and support.

In the meantime, here are 6 things you can do TODAY that might also help.

1. Keep a record

Start a diary of every interaction. I know you’re tired. I know it’s the last thing you want to do. But record it. Dates, times, incidences. Take pictures of abusive messages and save them. Record your conversations. Document, document, document.

Not least because once you see it all together, maybe you’ll finally believe yourself that it’s true, and happening, and you’re not actually mad or misinterpreting it.

2. Talk to authorities

It might not be time to call in the police, but it IS definitely time to talk this through with your GP, and with your kids’ school.

It’s part of keeping an official record of what’s going on, and it’s part of how you can get access to expert support and extra resources.

3. Ditch social media

Social media is a great way to torture you, if only with pictures of how great their life is without you. More ominously, it’s a great way to keep a track of you.

Even if you think you’ve culled every one of the people ‘not on your side’, I promise you some sucker who belives your abuser’s propaganda is still lurking – and has possibly been persuaded to report back on you.

Start over. Go anonymous. Keep your contact lists very, very small. Never post pictures or personal information, especially about your whereabouts. Tell your friends not to tag you.

Consider just using social media apps as a news feed – or to follow your favorite pages or influencers.

4. Get a burner phone and email account

It can be really traumatic to see the name of your abuser constantly popping up on your phone and email – places you can’t escape from. Get a cheap burner phone, and get a new email account that is just for them. Set very clear boundaries about when they can contact you, and ONLY check for messages a couple of times a week.

This will take discipline. You’re going to have to put it on silent and make yourself not look. If they continue to use your other, banned, channels, you may need to get solicitors involved – or the police.

5. Go ‘Grey Rock’

Grey Rock is a method you can use to make yourself a less attractive victim. It means being factual and functional and taking out all emotion and expression from every single interaction you have. Make it so boring to talk to you and so impossible to get a rise out of you that they don’t have ANY of your energy to feed off.

They don’t deserve it.

It’s important to understand that Grey Rock is not about being rude, or curt – it’s about being dull, and pragmatic, and not wasting your words.

6. Cut out the flying monkeys

Flying monkey is the term given to the enablers and entourage of abusers.

Some of them are the people telling (Kan)Ye they’ll ‘get’ Kim’s new boyfriend if he says the word.

Some of them are the people saying, Ahhh, he’s just fighting for his family, look how much he still loves her.

Some of them are the people that think the love-bombing actually has something to DO with love.

Some of them are the people that don’t believe it, or minimise the experience, or believe the lies being told about the victim.

Some of them will be saying, look, it didn’t look that bad to me – they’ve never treated me that way, so it can’t be true.

Some of them are the mutual friends and family who turn a blind eye, justify the behaviour, or justify their own inaction by ‘staying neutral’.

If you have children, you are obliged to have what can hopefully become a working relationship with their other parent.

You are NOT obliged to have a relationship with the people who knew about how they treated you, but didn’t care enough to help you – or the people who were more ready to believe you were a ‘psycho’ than that they were an abuser.

Women in particular place a lot of value on social relationships, and peace-keeping. Setting new boundaries can be very, very hard. Cutting people off may feel dramatic – it even may feel like you’re giving the flying monkeys more ‘evidence’ that you were the unreasonable one in the first place. But who really cares? This is not your circus, and these are very definitely not your monkeys – or your friends.

They do not get to be part of your new life.

HOW DO I HELP SOMEONE GOING THROUGH POST SEPARATION ABUSE?

You can listen, and you can signpost, but one of the most important things to remember if you know someone this is happening to, is that THEY might not know it’s happening to them.

Because before the question ‘Why didn’t they leave?’ comes the far starker question ‘How didn’t they know?’

And the answer is because they’ve been trained not to see it, and not to believe themselves.

One of the best things you can do in this situation is to keep that person’s incident diary on their behalf. Write down everything they tell you, everything you witness.

And maybe, when they’re ready to see it – before or after separation – it will help them believe it, and ultimately deal with it.

The argument

08 Tuesday Mar 2022

Posted by in Divorce, Love and sex

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I recently had my first argument with the Boy Not Quite On The Nether Edge.

And when I say I had my first argument with him, what I mean is that I had it entirely in my own head – without his knowledge.

And when I say I had it entirely in my own head, I mean I actually had it with my ex. Or at least my memories of conflict with him.

God. My life, both personal and professional, would be SO MUCH BETTER if I could successfully handle conflict. Or any sort of difficult conversation.

In this case, instead of saying, ‘My feelings are hurt’ when they were hurt – and sorting things out like a grown-up – I got the wrong end of the stick and ran with it.

I proceeded to wind myself up, make assumptions about intent and responses based on old echoes rather than current facts, find familiar red-flags to obsess over, flash-back to all the powerlessness of the past – and generally dive off the deep end.

When I did finally let The Boy know about this process – of which he’d been blissfully unaware – in written form BECAUSE THAT’S HOW I PROCESS – needless to say he was somewhat surprised.

And immediately apologetic.

And he didn’t say he couldn’t be bothered to read it.

Or respond to my written diatribe point by point to prove me wrong.

Or try and justify himself.

Or call me a psycho.

He just said sorry.

And asked if I was okay.

And no, I’m not.

I’m not okay. And the annoying thing is I thought I was. I thought I was done healing from these wounds. But I went right back to the state I was in when conflict was all at its worst. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t breathe.

That’s the trouble with trauma. It’s never quite finished with you. But this time I’d done it entirely to myself.

Because this isn’t on my old relationship, it’s on me. These are MY mistakes. Because I stopped watching. I stopped watching myself so I didn’t fall back into old unhealthy behaviours and patterns. So they snuck up. I stopped thinking. And learning. And growing. And trying. I… settled. Into numbness, into routine. And I inevitably went back to what I know in my bones.

I’m a natural born conflict avoider, you see. And to be fair to me, I can usually charm difficult people to get what I need out of situations. And I do it by giving up power to them, so they feel comfortable. But sometimes the charm wears off. Sometimes it doesn’t work. And then I struggle to take the power back, and advocate for myself when I need to.

I have lost jobs because of this.

I have lost friends.

Because I’m scared of conflict, the feelings get so big they stick in my throat and I can’t explain them. And that affects my behaviour, and my judgement. And I can fall into an explosion, but more often into retreat – or into victimhood – none of which are great reactions. And then even worse – I can’t hold onto the big feelings when the moment passes. Like they weren’t real – and then I feel stupid, and deflated, and the one at fault – the one to blame. Like the feelings were wrong in the first place and I can’t keep the narrative straight in my head. And then because that makes me feel bad I bury the feelings, and I don’t bring up things that bother me, and I tell myself I’m not stressing the small stuff – but I am – and it’s building up slowly in the background until it’s something worse than it was if I just dealt with it in the moment. And the whole thing starts all over again.

I went back to look at the beginning, and the very first messages the Boy and I sent to each other. We were both rather broken, and we both wanted something different. So we promised to be honest with each other. And I haven’t been. But not so much with him – with me.

I stopped being honest. I stopped being introspective. I stopped being vigilant.

And the thing is, the work to work on me DOESN’T stop. I’m not fixed. I’m not perfect. No one is. But it’s been a reminder to me that I need to check in with myself, and not get bogged down in the daily drudgery of life and forget who I am, where I came from, who I want to be and where I want to go. A reminder to start working on myself again.

I wish this is the sort of stuff they would teach in schools. A mixture of management training and therapy – like how to have difficult conversations.

How to deal with different types of people.

How to give and receive negative feedback.

How to be outcome focussed, how to keep the end in mind, how to work towards a goal.

How to lead people.

How to manage yourself.

How to communicate well.

How to feel your big emotions and acknowledge them, but also how to not act on them in the moment.

How to look for facts, and evidence, and truth – how to make a plan to respond after the feeling.

How to argue well.

How to persuade.

How to manage anxiety.

How not to hold onto resentment.

How to say sorry.

How to be angry.

How to be happy.

How to be sad.

Because these are the skills of people who are successful at life. I really wish I’d learnt them before now, because I’m a pretty old dog – and I’m still getting it wrong A LOT.

But more than anything, I really, really wish I wasn’t in charge of having to try and teach these skills to my children, because they deserve a better teacher.

So to them, and to the Boy, I’m sorry.

And I promise I’m going to remember to keep moving forwards, keep thinking, and keep trying to do, and be, and get, better.

And I will respectfully and healthily fight anyone who gets in my way. Especially me.

xxx

Lockdown love

12 Thursday Nov 2020

Posted by in Aging, Humour, Love and sex

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So today I’m going to see Boynotquiteonthenetheredge for the first time in 2 months.

And I’m a bit nervous.

A lot of people seem to have been very interested in how BNQOTNE and I have been doing in lockdown, when not locked down together. HOW HAVE WE BEEN KEEPING THE MAGIC ALIVE, I’ve been asked. Well, we have followed a simple 5 step plan.

And no, none of them are about Zanking. (Zoom Wanking). Sorry.

1. Realism

First and foremost, we haven’t been.

Keeping the magic alive, that is, obvs. (I can’t comment on the other thing, clearly, as I’m a model of discretion and patron saint of personal boundaries).

The thing is that this is not a particularly magical time, is it? Anyone feeling super magical? No? We’ve both been trying to do our jobs, entertain and home school (haahahahahhaaaaaa) small children, on our own, without any of our normal anchors or support mechanisms, including each other.

It’s boring and exhausting. It’s also weird and worrying. And LONELY. And HARD. That’s not particularly… magical.

2. Shared hobbies

When we have managed to escape reality for a bit and aren’t too bloody busy or depressed, we’ve been throwing ourselves into new hobbies.

Have you seen that brilliant Museum Challenge thing where people are recreating fine art paintings with props from home? Please look it up, you won’t be disappointed! BNQOTNE and I have been doing this, but with nudes.

I’ve never been much into sending nude photographs because I’m old, it’s never been on my radar – and frankly I wasn’t born with the natural knack of the selfie.

Despite this, so far I have managed to recreate Boticelli’s Birth of Venus standing in a suitcase rather than a giant clam shell, Eve with a supporting cast of stuffed toys including sequined snake – and several reclining nudes from Degas to Schiele.

In return The Boy has sent me an image of him as David wrestling a lion (a giant bouncy unicorn) and Franz Von Stuck’s Mermaid (with a Barbie). My favourite has probably been a self portrait by Egon Schiele again, of the artist in an orange towel – only the Boy used a Sainsbury’s bag. I literally laughed until I cried.

We have both become competitive over attention to detail, lighting and prop absurdity.

Getting the right shot takes time and considerable dedication. You need to balance your phone on something the right height at the right angle. You get a better image with the front facing camera, which gives you the maximum of 10 seconds on timer to get yourself in front of it and in the right pose.

Sadly in my rush to mount the rocking horse for my John Collier Lady Godiva parody, I stubbed my little toe on my makeshift washing basket tripod, and I think I actually broke it.

Still got the damn shot, though.

They do say love hurts. So does taking nudes, the way I do it. Anyway, I defy this not to be the most middle class thing you hear today. KEEP ME POSTED.

3. Theme Zoom dates

Why wouldn’t you?

We’ve done Buffy fancy dress and binged watched series 6, and a slightly different kind of art date, where we both did various self portraits in different mediums, with wine.

Mostly clothed.

4. Bad puns

There’s been a great deal of exchanging memes, or general word play and punning.

I still think I got too little credit for my recent cheese/sex puns, which somehow came up in conversation, and included cum-embert and mask’n’boneme. (It is possible the lack of physical intimacy is taking its toll).

5. Sharing the small stuff

We’re still sharing the cute stuff the various smalls say, the less cute stuff when they’re whinging, fighting, refusing to do any bloody work or generally being ungrateful little eejits, what’s for tea, what we’ve done at work that day, political thoughts, bad dreams, daily highs and lows.

That’s really what life boils down to, after all. And if you’ve not got the small stuff you can’t have the big stuff.

But now.

Now we’re going to see each other in person for the first time in 8 weeks, and I’m NERVOUS.

It sort of feels like a much higher-stakes first date.

I’m nervous because I haven’t driven the car more than to the shops and back once a week, and he’s a 40 minute drive away, and I’m rusty. And a terrible driver at the best of times.

I’m nervous because when I get there (presuming I do) 2 metres is still so damn FAR.

I’m nervous becuase I’m supposed to be going for a long walk on my stupid broken toe, which is still sore.

I’m nervous about all the garlic I ate yesterday and that he’ll be close enough to smell it on my breath. I’m nervous he won’t be.

I’m nervous because I’m touch starved and haven’t touched another adult – or indeed been touched by anyone not launching a killer-bee-wasp attack, demanding a strictly lift, handing me something nasty, or requiring an injury to be tended to – for a really, really long time.

I’m nervous because I could really, really use a damn hug.

I’m nervous in case I don’t have anything to say because we’ve said it all on text and everyday is exactly the same anyway, and even if the small stuff is what matters in the end it’s ALSO true that there’s nothing new or interesting, and we’re basically living in the film groundhog day.

I’m nervous because I’m different on text, and that’s a large part of how we’ve been keeping in touch – I’m funnier, I’m quicker, I’m more honest.

Given the last few weeks, I’m also a lot bloody thinner too…

I’m nervous because I can’t disguise the lockdown weight gain by controlling my lighting or angles. Or props.

I’m nervous because we’ve both been having good days and bad days and they haven’t always coincided.

I’m nervous because everywhere people are so fed up and so confused by the patently stupid new rules that they’re making up their own, and that worries me, and I don’t want to give him anything, or get anything and bring it home.

I’m nervous that I’ve been looking forward to seeing him so much, and what if he’s not as pleased to see me as I am to see him.

I’m nervous that I’ve pinned a lot on being able to see him, and it making my life so much better, but what if it doesn’t: what if everything still feels awful, what if it makes it WORSE? What if it’s snatched away again in another lockdown?

I’m nervous, because I want him like me, still. And life is hard and confusing and I’M not sure I like me much at the moment, and everything about being locked away is setting off all my abandonment issues, but on acid.

I’m nervous about everything, because everything is scary right now.

The one thing I’m NOT nervous about is him dumping me and sharing my nude photographs – partly because I doubt he’s that much of a Zanker, and partly because if he does I look great and they’re bloody hilarious.

Wish me luck.

The Mix Tape

08 Saturday Feb 2020

Posted by in Humour, Love and sex

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Back in the late 80s to early 90s, I was young, and I dreamt of being allowed pierced ears, a Dynasty perm, and Blossom’s wardrobe.

I dreamt of being swept off my feet by either Philip Schofield (then in his gopher days), The Undertaker (a bit of early kink coming through), or possibly Kevin Costner from Robin Hood and/or WesTly from The Princess Bride.

(I also had a bit of a thing for Noel Edmonds, then hosting his House Party, which it’s best we don’t talk about. Or think about. Although I’m still very partial to a beard…)

Back then, True Love in its Real Life form was expressed in one way, and one way only – a way that perhaps remains to this day it’s very truest and purest manifestation:

The Mix Tape.

Being presented with a Mix Tape was a declaration of adoration akin to to a Knight presenting his Lady with a handkerchief. Or a head. Or something. Look, I’m not that hot on medieval; just know it was pretty damn hallowed.

It was a labour of love.

The maker of the Mix Tape would have to listen to the radio, ghetto blaster poised, ready to click record as their chosen song was played in the charts. It was a matter of pride and exquisite timing to be able to get the very beginning notes without them being sullied by the DJ’s voice.

Masters of the Mix Tape Art would slave over a playlist designed not only to the taste of the object of their love, but to weave a secret narrative through the words of pop, rock and early indie bands that would speak to them, only them, and bind them together forever.

Next they would practice their penmanship, another lost art, in the creation of the cassette tape case, listing the songs and artists. Possibly there was LETTERING.

I never received a Mix Tape. Lettered or otherwise.

This might have had something to do with the fact I was a speccy, spotty, swotty type, with social and coordination skills constantly vying for the bottom place of any list, pack, or anything with a bottom. Or slightly below that.

It may also have had to do with the fact that through some odd quirk of statistical fate, or just that open-minded (or in my case entirely oblivious) people tend to be spun together by pre-teen/teen social centrafugal forces, I was friends with the entire quota of lesbian, gay and bisexual persons from the GCSE class of 95.

As a heterosexual, romance just wasn’t on my radar. I was far too busy with tin-pot philosophy, ordinary pot, and quaffing Diamond White in the park to be very much bothered with any Noel Edmunds stirrings. I really didn’t miss it.

I did miss Mix Tapes though.

And then, I got my very first Mix Tape…

…a couple of weeks ago.

OK, so it was in the modern form of a Spotify playlist, but still. I’ll take what I can get.

It is called ‘My wardrobe is sill from the 90s’, and it was gifted to my by Boynotquiteonthenetheredge, so-called because the git is still basking in his mid thirties and we’re not rushing into anything.

This is not just a Mix Tape title but a commonly voiced opinion from the Boy, countered by me on the double grounds that a) I’m 40 and therefore dressing weird is no longer weird but ADORABLY ECCENTRIC, and b) combat trousers and crop tops ARE STILL COOL, DAMMIT.

Anyway, it is the soundtrack to my youth, and it’s basically the best thing anyone’s ever given me.

(Although he’s also got me at various points my favourite kind of pillow to keep at his house, a digital watch because I can’t tell the time, a book of clever word-play type poetry, a pile of stones from Scottish beaches and a voicemail pretending to be some sort of Russian contractor, just to cheer me up).

The point is that it’s a seriously brilliant present. Because it’s not grand or expensive, or a gesture that somehow says more about him than me, or boringly practical, or dutiful, or transactional, or 3 seconds to order off Amazon, or really actually for the children or house but justified as a large expenditure for my birthday- or in fact any of the gifts I’ve ever received before.

It’s something I’d always wanted but didn’t even know I’d always wanted.

It’s the fact he sat down and thought about what he knows about me and what music I like and how old I am and what was in the charts when I was young (and he was in nappies), and the mood and the FLOW of it.

It’s the fact it wasn’t even for an occasion – he just randomly did it.

It’s that he probably doesn’t even know why it means a lot to me and would be slightly perturbed I think it’s such a big deal. (No one tell him).

It’s that it’s quiet, and thoughtful, and teasing, and considerate, and KIND. And I’m still getting used to kind.

It’s the realisation, in physical (or at least audio) form, of something I’ve always known but haven’t always experienced – that real true love isn’t actually Things.

It isn’t words.
It isn’t even music.

Love is Actions… and not necessarily very big ones.

So this Valentine’s Day I hope you DON’T get diamonds.

I hope you don’t get roses (gold gilded or otherwise), or truffles, or God forbid some knobhead doing a dance routine marriage proposal – less in the hope you’ll marry them and more in the expectation of viral fame.

I hope you don’t get a last minute bunch of wilting flowers from the 24 hour garage, either.

I hope you get daffodils because they were all over your garden when you were a kid and you were just talking about it the other day.

I hope you get chocolate hobnobs because you’d really much rather eat them than the fancy posh stuff anyway – and I hope they come lavishly wrapped, with LETTERING.

I hope you get a Mix Tape.

I hope you give one.

In very Mixed Up times, perhaps it’s only little actions of thought and affection that can make sense of things. Perhaps they’re the only things that can really change the world for the better.

Although Alanis Morrisette, Ocean Colour Scene and The Goo Goo Dolls can probably help.

xxx

The Coil

08 Saturday Feb 2020

Posted by in Aging, Humour, Love and sex

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I feel like I spent most of my 20s trying not to get pregnant.

Then I feel like I spent most of my 30s trying TO get pregnant. With varying degrees of success.

Now I’m entering my 40s I’m back on NOT, again, other than the odd womb pang when I see a small baby asleep – which usually disappears pretty fast when it wakes up.

The trouble with not wanting to be pregnant in your 40s is that there really aren’t any brilliant options.

First of all, my vagina is old. And grumpy. Possibly, you might say, CROTCH-ety.

To be fair, it’s been through some crap… Like children, which I suppose technically have been through it. Not in my case, obviously, because of the c-sections – but still.

All of this has left it with very little sympathy for womb pangs, and some Very Fixed Ideas.

Far from being loosened by the two pregnancies/children, for instance, it has now adopted a very strict shut-door policy to any lumps of dry cotton shoved up it from a cold standing start. Nope. Nopity nope nope nope.

This makes swimming on my period rather inconvenient, and I’ve tried explaining it nicely, but it doesn’t care. It feels much the same way about moon cups.

Another of its new and Very Fixed Ideas is that condoms are evil, and it will stage an unholy Thrush Protest if faced with one. This is also somewhat inconvenient to the mid-life dater.

It is also Over the pill. Nothing but break-through bleeding, cramps, and mood swings FROM MERRY RED HELL.

See? Definitely crotchety.

Not that the pill is now much of an option anyway….I’ve spent at least 25 years on the combination pill, on and off, but apparently when you hit your fourth decade it’s pretty much out of bounds – I think on the grounds of thrombosis/cancer/misc other horrifying side effects.

Your GP will of course offer you the MINI-pill.
This is in no way the same thing.

For a start, some of them come with a 3 hour window of pill-taking-opportunity, and if you miss it, you’re not covered. Now I got used to the 12 hour window of the combination pill, and the 7 day rule because I kept missing it, but 3 hours is TIGHT. Tighter than my lady bits faced with a tampon. Even now I’m old and boring and don’t actually go out partying, and even now there are mobile phones with alarms on, I still honestly couldn’t guarantee I’d take this reliably. And then if you have a dicky stomach or put on a few pounds, IT MIGHT NOT WORK ANYWAY.

Of course after that there’s then patches and implants and injections – but it’s all more hormones, isn’t it? Pretty much like the ones in the pill that aren’t good for me and my vag is throwing tantrums over.

The fact is I’ve had a LOT of artificial hormones in my life. Decades worth. And when I’m staring sweating and anxious down the barrel of pre-menopausal hormonal doo-lallyness, do I really want to carry on? Does my vagina? Don’t we deserve a… break? A bit of au naturale? All it really wants in life, after all, is nice comfortable cotton underwear, no harsh detergents, and regular orgasms. It doesn’t really seem like a lot to ask.

So next up on the list is the coil, the middle-aged woman’s contraception of choice. Well it was my choice, anyway.

You can rest assured that my vagina was really NOT happy about having a coil put in, although it relented on the second attempt. After being probed with a camera. And then a ruler. Don’t ask.

A very nice if rather blunt doctor explained to me that in this version there was still local hormones involved (as opposed to national ones), and that I could still expect significant cramping, weight gain, acne breakouts, and break-through bleeding for up to six months. Oh, and while he was in there he might perforate my womb and would I just sign this waver thingy?

I hand on heart honestly can’t imagine there being any health situation other than Women’s Things where this level of risk plus HALF A YEAR’S worth of side effects were considered normal and acceptable. It’s madness. But it didn’t really feel like there were any other good options that didn’t involve absitenance, which me, my vagina AND my womb all voted against in practically unprecedented unity.

Then I was told I had to periodically check it was in right, by feeling for the strings.

Now while it does seem to be a demonstrable fact that the length of arm between someone’s wrist and elbow is the exact same size as their foot, I can, after a brief survey of friends, inform you that there is not the same universal correlation between middle fingers and cervexis. Cervi? Who knows? Anyway, unless I am making friends with particularly digitally stunted people, it’s not possible to feel the bloody thing. So the coil is very much an act of faith as much as contraception. As indeed is all contraception…

I feel like I could now go on a very long feminist rant about women’s rights over their reproductive organs and how limited or rubbish the options are and why better options with less side effects aren’t a priority in modern medicine and why our pain and long term symptoms hormonal and otherwise are ignored or miniminsed – and don’t get me started on the menopause – or abortion – and the impact all that has not just on women’s physical health but mental health, on their families and on thier careers, and on workplaces and the whole bloody GDP – and this is in a first world country and just think about what women go through around the world – but time is short and January is depressing enough.

At the end of my appointment, Dr Blunt gave me a nice wee card, and cheerfully told me to come back in 5 years.

“We’ll whip this one out, pop another one in, and then that’s you done love.”

THAT’S YOU DONE, LOVE.

So I am now one coil away from the end of my child-bearing years.

I swear even my vagina thought that was a bit harsh.

Certainly it’s been crying blood ever since, trying to get used to the idea. Or to the coil. One or the other.

World Mental Health Day, Baby Loss Awareness Week, International Day of the Girl

08 Saturday Feb 2020

Posted by in Love and sex, mental health, Miscarriage, Motherhood, Parenting, Postnatal depression, Pregnancy, Returning to work

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So this week it was World Mental Health Day, Baby Loss Awareness Week, and International Day of the Girl.

For me these are all sort of related. And I’ve struggled to say one thing about any of them.

I think being a girl brings with it particular mental health challenges. I suppose they start with hormonal imbalances… and power imbalances. Expectations, from others and then from yourself. Pregnancy, pregnancy loss, baby loss, infertility, post birth PTSD, post natal depression, the whole-life upheaval of motherhood, shaped by both biology and society.

Life batters women’s bodies and minds and it’s supposed to be normal but when it’s you it’s not – and the thwarted expectation of normal is probably the hardest of them all. It feels like there’s a conspiracy of silence around being a girl, that minimises our pain, and leaves women very much isolated as a result.

We’re not supposed to tell anyone we’re pregnant until 3 months, becuase early miscarriage is just a thing that happens and should be gotten over, and God forbid it might make others uncomfortable.
We have to grieve our losses, appropriately, in private, at the correct volume, for the correct duration or we are unstable, hysterical, need to get over it now, have you considered taking up a new hobby?
We’re supposed to live with the pain of endometriosis because that’s normal and we should stop complaining when the decorators are in, it can’t be that bad.
We’re not allowed to address or even process a traumatic birth because at least the baby is healthy and that’s the main thing, isn’t it?
We can’t say how awful and hard and boring our new baby is because that’s ungrateful and some people would kill to be in your position, you know – you don’t deserve to be a mother.
We can’t share the thought the baby would be better off without us, in case they take it away.
We can’t say we are struggling – with motherhood, work, life, our marriages and relationships, with crippling loneliness and disconnection because that’s failure, other people are doing it all, look at the Facebook pictures.
We can’t talk about waking up in the middle of the night terrified the baby has stopped breathing, even when they’re 8, living the worst case scenario in our heads and fighting off crippling fear every waking moment of every single day – of which there are too many – in case the world thinks we’re mad, because maybe we are.

And those silences leave women alone in their heads. They leave women’s mental health untreated. They leave too many too normal things a taboo.

If there’s anything that I’ve learned about my own mental health, over the years but particularly recently, it’s that you need to be able to feel your feelings. They are not wrong. Ever. No one else should tell you how to feel, when, for how long, or how to express it.

Not feeling a feeling, suppressing it, denying it, trying to shape it to fit someone else’s expectations, replacing it with another feeling like anger instead of fear or sadness – turns it dark. And it will eat you up from the inside out.

We owe it to ourselves – and to each other – to come out of hiding. To say the things we’re afraid to think out loud. To share our pain, so it is heard and we are witnessed, and so that others can find comfort in the mirror of their own feelings.

I suppose really, that’s what this page has become about. It’s a bit about motherhood, sure. It’s a bit about mental health. It’s a bit about being a girl. But mostly it’s about truth. It’s about not being afraid anymore. And stepping out of the shadows.

No photo description available.

The Alt To Do List

11 Saturday May 2019

Posted by in Divorce, Humour, Love and sex, mental health, Motherhood

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Last weekend, I went to a GIG.

The last time I went to see someone play live it was probably Placebo, or Crowded House, back in their (and my) heyday.
Don’t judge me.

I’d genuinely forgotten how exhilarating live music is.

The beat through your feet, up into your heart, pounding in your head and ringing in your ears, the atmosphere of the crowd, the movement and mood created by lots of people in one space – none of them under 3 foot and demanding sole possession of the Ikea pink plastic cup.

For the first time in a long time, I felt ALIVE.

While NOT HAVING SEX.

Because actually, that’s something I struggle with.
(Remembering I’m alive – not not having sex).

There are very few moments in my life, right now, that are truly mine.

And I often find it hard to BE in them, when they come along.

There is always so much to be done, so many deadlines, so many responsibilities, so many interdependencies, that I end up living in a constantly ticking-over To Do list.

You’ve probably got your own List.

And sometimes, sometimes it takes over.

For me, when The List gets out of hand, it means my eye is always on what’s next, what’s got to happen before the next thing can happen, what adulting I need to tick off right now before someone starts yelling at me – from my boss, to the school office, to people who need their bills paid, to the children who need their tea/playdate/project/insert-random-Small-Person-goal-here.

Boy, adulting is TOUGH. And The List is relentless…

It’s particularly gruelling living under The List at the moment, because I’m trying to sell my house, and sift through 20 years of rubbish to downsize to a new one. It’s adulting on acid. And I DON’T KNOW if there’s drains or wires crossing the property. I CAN’T REMEMBER when we had the damn windows done, and if I have to make another tip trip halfway across the city I’m going to SCREAM. (Also if I meet any more mahoosive spiders in the garage).

There is also always washing to sort, bags to pack, forms to fill in, errands to run, chores to do, and places to be by certain times, hurry up, put your shoes on, WE’RE GOING TO BE LATE.

If I stop, The List just keeps piling up ready to break in at 3am, and whirl endlessly around my head.

Sometimes writing The List down can tame it.
Other times, it just confirms that it’s a really, really TWONKINGLY LONG LIST.

Right now, it’s like I am always on a countdown trajectory to bedtime, theirs and mine, going through The List of what needs to be done to get to the next day without getting into deep or difficult waters, and then starting all over again from the top. And never, ever reaching the end.

The trouble is, that in the thunder of doing, in my enslavement to The List, I miss out on LIVING.

I am too focussed on the next moment and the path to it, to enjoy the one I’m in. And even the nice stuff ends up feeling like things I’ve just got to tick off and move on from.

Watching the Dropkick Murphys gave me no choice but to be there and to FEEL.

The noise, heat, life, beat filled me up and pushed out everything else, buoyed me up, so I could just… be.

There was no room for The List.

And that’s something I need more of.

So this week I’ve been trying to remember the things that fill me up, that allow me to feel present, and happy, and ALIVE. All the things that transcend The List. And then to do more of them.

So here’s my ALTERNATIVE To Do List:

1. Listen to music
I don’t use it enough to change my mood and our mood as a family – and it’s right there on tap in my house. Yay Spotify! And when the roller coaster of TO DO is about to tip me over the edge, I’m going to use it.

2. Dance
I love to dance. At the moment I still have a big living room. I can PHYSICALLY shake off the weights pulling me away from the ‘moments’ I should be savouring. And I can teach the Smalls how to use it to do the same.

3. Have sex
Recently my go to solution for remembering I’m alive.

4. Talk to friends
I forget so easily how much I enjoy being with other people. When The List gets too long I batan down the hatches and attempt to power through, go to bed and try and get enough rest in to tackle it the next day. I don’t go out, brainstorm, ask for help, or take respite in others’ company or experiences. I get such a buzz from connection, I just need to remember to… connect.

5. Writing
I’ve struggled to write in recent weeks. I’ve got so much to say, things I can’t say, thoughts I can’t form, and other things that just seem to take priority. Like packing.
But look, here I am getting over myself and just doing it without creating imaginary barriers!!! Go me. And it DOES make me feel more present.

6. Playing
I love to play. I’m probably the only person over 35 in the whole world who genuinely LOVES PLAY CENTRES.
Don’t judge me again.
But when there’s so damn much to do, playing too often goes to the very bottom of The List – if it makes it on there at all. Playing takes energy, and when all that’s going on the adulting, accessing your inner kid is HARD.
This week though, I spent an entire day with the Small Small getting ‘stuck’ speaking in nonsense every other time she kissed me. With a lot of wild gesticulation – and a LOT of laughing.

And that – that’s LIVING.

Not existing. Not listing – sideways, about to capsize.

The thing is, with The List, you see, is there ISN’T an end.
It’s a trick, to drown you.
And it LIES.

It helps perpetuate that nagging sense I’m not enough, not doing enough, not being enough, not achieving enough…

But when I get out from under it – when you get out from under yours – when you’re really present and really alive and really yourself, when you remember to let yourself fill up, and let that anchor you in the moment – you ARE enough.

And this last week I actually felt it – in Rose Tattoo in Birmingham, in a 4 year-olds laugh in the car, and in dancing to ‘Holding out for a Hero’ in the living room.

I felt it, and it felt wonderful.

So if you have currently lost yourself in a List, if you are sinking under its weight, try making a new one…

I’d love to hear what’s on it.

New relationships, old ghosts

06 Wednesday Mar 2019

Posted by in Divorce, Love and sex, Motherhood

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Conducting a relationship after a bad relationship is surprisingly difficult.

It’s not like it’s right back to the drawing board, with a clean slate, walking off into a fresh sunset without a backwards glance. Or at least it shouldn’t be…

If you were doing stuff right, those roots went deep, and if you’re not vigilant they try and regrow in your freshly tilled field.

Which is not a euphemism. Fnrr.

If you’re doing the break-up bit right, you’ve been going over what went wrong, where, when, how, your part in it, the bits you did wrong, the bits done wrong to you – and trying to decide from there where your boundaries are now, what’s acceptable to you, what’s not, what you’d do differently, what you need to change, and what’s really important to you.

But putting that into practice in the field (tilled or otherwise) is much harder than I thought it would be.

I don’t know what’s a red flag, what’s a red herring, what’s me defending my new borders too robustly and failing to compromise, and what’s falling back into old grooves of just accepting stuff I shouldn’t to keep people happy.

I don’t know what’s giving enough of myself, and what’s giving up too much.

I’m not sure how much is true, new connection and how much is auto-stretching to replace that phantom limb that is a missing long term relationship, however it ended. From either side…

I can’t tell what’s the instant comfort of a kindred, and what are old habits dying hard.

I struggle with my confidence, that all the bad things I’ve ever been told are really true and how could anyone REALLY like me, torn between not wanting to seem needy and wanting to be the kind of person who can ask for reassurance from someone I care about when I need it.

I don’t know what are the fluttering ghosts of old pain and what are the butterflies of new hope.

I can’t tell when I’m overthinking, when I’m over sensitive – or when I’m listening and responding to a good instinct. I still don’t always believe I can trust them.

Some days I don’t quite know what’s love and what’s loneliness.

And it’s not just about dating and romance, either.

I didn’t realise how much each big, key relationship in your life affects all the others. Like having a baby, when that connection changes your dynamic with your partner, your own parents, and your friends with and without children…

Those central relationships can spread joy or rot throughout all your other attachments, and in the aftermath of one it means all of the others have to be re-explored, and re-written.

I have had to examine myself, my motivations and my values to build new bonds with my children as a solo me and as a trio, and with the family and friends I became isolated from while I battened down the hatches and denied everything, even to myself. It’s taken work.

The flip side is that now I get to start seeing and shaping those same relationships through a different light, with something opened up within me via a new one… I think.

Fortunately, OTHER days I realise I should get over myself, stop analysing everything to death, have fun, and just enjoy the wild hot monkey sex.

Fnrr.

9 things I have learned in 2018

01 Tuesday Jan 2019

Posted by in Divorce, Humour, Love and sex, mental health, Motherhood

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Here are 9 things I have learned in 2018.

1. I CAN PERSUADE OTHER PEOPLE TO HAVE SEX WITH ME!
My self esteem has never been that high, and was frankly AWOL this time last year, so this came as something of a surprise.
I started dating at the end of the summer and it turns out I’m actually quite successful in this department.
(I’ve literally quadrupled my lifetime penis exposure in 4 months).
Either I’m more attractive than I thought I was or I’m just giving off some serious desperate middle-aged housewife pheromones…
At this point who cares?

2. I CAN ADULT
No not that kind of adulting – already covered.
I mean I can face my post, pay my bills, do my finances, mend shizzle, and organise single-working-parent life.
Mostly.
Okay, look, stuff is mostly mended with gaffa tape or by looking pathetically at neighbours, I rely on school mums and nursery staff to remind me about important stuff, friends often have to support the post opening and form filling-in, and I have to call my dad before I can look my bank account in the face,
BUT
I’m not quite the 1950s helpless housewife I was.
And you know what? Sometimes asking for help IS adulting.

3. I AM FLAWED
I’ve done a lot of soul searching, and a lot of counselling in 2018. And sometimes when you take a good hard look at yourself, you don’t like what you see.
I’ve learned a lot of hard things about myself.
I don’t like how I handle stress, how I become obsessive or fixated under it, how I batan down the hatches under fire, how much I peace-keep, avoid conflict, and how much I crave approval. I don’t like my need to be liked. I don’t like that I change myself to please others.
I don’t like living with the resulting imposter syndrome and inferiority complex, the continuous self-doubt, and that nagging, un-continuous dialogue – where no matter what our history, with 90% of people I know I still feel like I have to start at square one to prove myself to them, every time I see them.
All of that has seriously damaged my career, my friendships… and my marriage.
And all my worst bits – all of the above – basically stem from one thing. My fear of abandonment.
And recognising that is helping me start to change it.

4. I AM FABULOUS
Sure, I’ve done things wrong. I’m flawed.
But I am not mean.
I am not callous. I have never been cruel.
I’m nice. I’m funny. I’m kind.
The people I’ve had to cut from my life in 2018 are seriously missing out. Because I really am pretty okay, actually.
In fact, no.
I’m GREAT*.

5. I HAVE BOUNDARIES
If you follow this blog you know I struggle with the boundaries. I overshare. Like, a LOT. (See point 1, for instance).
They became confused by an interesting and toxic combination of baby brain, depression, fatigue, isolation and emotional abuse.
My instincts, my social skills, my confidence – were all eroded.
But I can and have set NEW boundaries.
I don’t keep the peace for the sake of it, anymore.
I’m learning what’s picking my battles and what’s losing my voice.
I don’t let people treat me badly, or watch others treat me badly and pretend it’s okay, because otherwise they might have to face some awkward truths. Wah.
I am learning where my borders are, and how to defend them more effectively.

6. MY EMOTIONS ARE NOT A WEAKNESS
I’m not mad. I’m not sensitive. I’m not over-emotional. I’m not unstable. I’m not over-reacting. I’m not intense. I’m not over-thinking. I’m not misinterpreting.
My feelings are valid. They’re telling me something important. They ARE my instincts.
They are my heart, my empathy, my essence – the core of my okay. My GREAT*.
And it’s okay to have them. It’s okay to be sad. Sometimes that’s an appropriate and reasonable response to external stimuli. It’s okay to be angry. It’s okay to be as happy and as exuberant as I like.
When I listen to my what my emotions are telling me, I make GOOD choices.
I will no longer let my emotions be used against me.
They are my superpower; not my kryptonite.

7. CONNECTION IS EVERYTHING
For me, life is about connections, first and last.
It’s about sharing meaningful, joyful and tragic times.
It’s about family, friends old and new, my village offline and online – all the connections I was starved of because I was lost and hiding.
Each one of them is a lifeline I am grateful for.
Thank you all.

8. I AM STRONG
So I don’t look it (I weight just over 6 stone after the divorce diet), and often I don’t feel it.
But then I remember.
At the end, when things were SO bad, he wouldn’t have behaved to a friend, acquaintance or a goddam stranger the way he behaved towards me.
And when I finally saw on one particular evening that it was having an impact on the on the Big Small, too, I said STOP.
I did that.
I did that for me. For the Smalls. And actually, for him, too.
That’s how bloody strong I am.

9. I AM LUCKY
When everything has been razed to the ground, at first it looks like utter devastation. But then there are new tentative shoots, reaching for the sun again.
There is new life, new growth, and new opportunity.
I’m going to be 40 this year, and I’m starting over. And I’m also starting to see how wonderful that is…
How many people get the chance to rebuild themselves, reassess their life, their choices, their values, their direction? How many people get to change the patterns they’ve fallen into? The grooves they’ve worn in their relationships, their work, their own sense of themselves?
That’s what I get in 2019:
I get to change the habits of half a lifetime.
I get to live more than the half-life I was living.

The truth is that I’ve been blinkered and buried and stifled and stumbling. Now I get to look up and see clearly again, with new eyes. Or at least slightly cleaner glasses. Now I get another chance.
Oh, I didn’t want it – I had to be exploded out of the old life, and there were some injuries. Some of them serious.
But there it is.
The last present of Christmas. A new future…

I get to carve out time to write, and paint, and run, and read, and dance, and LEARN again. All the things that make me feel like me. All the things I compromised. All the things I abandoned in survival mode. I get to be the mother I want to be. I get to be silly when I want and sad when I want. I get to have the art I want on the walls, and the cushions on the sofa, and to let the books get out of control again. I get to go to bed when I want. I get to pick up the strings of my career. I get to pursue the friendships I neglected, and the ones I have since forged in grief and relief. I get to have the sort of sex I always wanted but was too tired for – or assumed was just for other people. I get to fall for someone again. I get to have the flipping stomach, and the butterflies, and the giddy HEAVINESS of it.
And in all of that, through all of that, I get to fall for ME again.
I get… POSSIBILITIES.

Now all I have to do is make the most of them.

Happy New Year.

*(Some days).

Dating translations – what he says and what that means in REAL life

21 Sunday Oct 2018

Posted by in Divorce, Humour, Love and sex, Motherhood

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Being on the dating scene later in life usually means you’ll be meeting people who’ve been around the relationship block a few times. That’s inevitable, and actually GOOD news, because it means people are capable of forming committed relationships. Probably.

On the other hand, it turns out there are A LOT more frogs than princes out there…

WHO KNEW???

One of the red flags for me is how people talk about their previous relationships, break-ups and partners.

So based on a couple of months internet dating, here’s my quick guide to what he says, and what that ACTUALLY means in, you know, real life.

He says: “It had been over for ages”
He means: I was still going through all the motions (including sex) but had an eye on the horizon and was waiting for something better to come along and/or for her to chuck me out.

He says: “There was a lack of intimacy in the relationship”
He means: I didn’t get sex as often as I wanted because she was always knackered from work/childcare/washing/cleaning – most of which I didn’t help with.

He says: “I am/am not the sort of person who does xxx”
He means: I’m exactly the opposite of that sort of person, but hope that by reiterating it constantly either you or I will start to believe it.

He says: “I was staying for the kids”
He means: I was too lazy/cowardly to leave but I think this makes me look like a bit of a noble hero and might get me into your pants.

He says: “She didn’t support my career”
He means: She baulked at yet another golf day/night out with the team/late night at the office/work trip/cancelled arrangement.

He says: “She didn’t understand me”
He means: She disagreed with some of the things I said/did.

He says: “She’s a psycho”
He means: She got upset and called me out when I behaved badly and/or she had basic human emotions – and I found those really uncomfortable and inconvenient to have to deal with.

He says: “She neglected our relationship”
He means: Yeah, not enough sex again. It’s like I wasn’t constantly the centre of her attention.

Look – at this point if you find out he left when a kid was still under, say, 3, RUN FOR THE DAMN HILLS.

In fact, I’m willing to guess no woman over 30 or with her own kids is actually falling for this gubbins.

And if you are, you’ve now got a working translation to help you avoid the idiots!

Good luck out there daters.