I thought I’d got away with October.

I should learn that I never get away with October…

October is a DARK month.

October is a month I struggle.

October is a month in which I go backwards, to my very worst places.

October is when I am weary to the bone, but cannot rest.

It is when my heart is in my throat choking me as I lie down, so I can’t swallow and I can’t breathe, until my breath is all I can think about – and it won’t go in or out quite right and I am lightheaded with it, without it, with it.

It is when sleep is slow to come, and when it does the dreams drag at me, thick like treacle, wild and hopeless, and I am pulled in and out of awfulness not really knowing when I’m conscious and when I’m not.

It is when I wake up in a sweat, shaking, feeling sick, coming to with a sharp bump of reality and a descending doom and miscellaneous fear that settle deep and heavy inside me.

It is when I struggle to get up, to put one foot in front of the other to get to the shower, to go through the motions of every day under a fog that mutes everything – in a body that isn’t quite mine.

It is when I fixate and obsess and forget and abandon and lose sight of what’s important and what’s not.

It is when I stop eating because I am too full of nothing, or everything – or when I eat everything to drown the nothing, to bind the everything, to block it, to feel better.

It’s when I drink too much to forget. It’s when I exercise too much to hurt.

It’s when I pick at my skin.

It’s when I am too scared to open my email, and my ears buzz and my head fills with static and I feel dizzy with dread.

It’s when all the worst times and worst memories come back, flowing down well-worn grooves and I can’t tell what’s current and what’s not, what’s true and what’s an echo.

It’s when I feel clawingly desperate, with an unfounded but profound certainty that I’m going to lose everything, and I’m powerless to do anything but watch it slip away from me, water through my fingers.

It’s when everything feels too big and too hard, and making a cup of tea is too enormous a challenge to accomplish, and leaves me exhausted.

It’s when I am on the brink of panic always, ready to fly or fight but knowing deep down I’m not fit to do either and someone will see, someone will find out.

It’s when I stop doing things or seeing people because I can’t, because I can’t explain this, this heaviness, this wrongness, because I don’t fit in, because I am a beat behind – too aware of myself and the dull wall that separates me – out of step, other, unreal.

It is when I make plans I can’t enjoy and watch moments I should be happy slip past without touching the sides, without feeling them at all.

It’s when I feel too much and too little, all at once, all the time, over-sensitised and numb nerve by alternating nerve on confusing repeat.

It is when I am a ghost in my own life.

Maybe this is why October is mental health awareness month, because maybe it is a month in which the sun goes down and the grey mist rises for lots of other people, too.

So if you are here, l want to let you know that October doesn’t last. In fact this is the final day.

And more days will come afterwards, in an inexorable row, and eventually you will start feeling them again.

The mornings will get lighter.

You will remember how to breathe.

You will be able rest in yourself, as yourself, again.

You just have to hold on and wait.

And so do I.

Take care.

October is domestic abuse awareness month.

And the people who really need to be made aware of it, are the people in the middle of it WHO DON’T KNOW.

Because the question that really comes before ‘Why didn’t they leave?’ is ‘How didn’t they know?’

They didn’t know because they thought domestic abuse was about bruises.

They didn’t know because it was their ‘normal’.

They didn’t know because they’ve been trained not to see it, not to say it – and that it’s probably all in their minds or all their fault anyway.

They didn’t know because they’d been sitting in the water as it slowly started to boil around them, and it didn’t START hot…

I’ve spoken to yet another woman this week who is just coming to terms with how very Not Okay her relationship actually is. How warped the balance of power has become. It is like having your eyes peeled. And the raw view is so hard to see.

She doesn’t have the language, yet, for some of the things that have happened to her. She’s heard of ‘coercive control’ and ‘ emotional abuse’, but she’s never associated them with herself. She didn’t know what they looked like.

She didn’t know abuse doesn’t have to be massive explosions or incidents. That it can be insidious microaggressions and neglect and contempt and degradation that build up over time in a drip drip effect, drowning you as slowly and surely as a tidal wave. Just… invisibly. So any one thing witnessed by others looks insignificant. It doesn’t show the full picture, the history, the DAMAGE.

So here’s what it might look like. In case you need to know for yourself, or for someone else. Here’s what women have told me about.

Financial abuse isn’t always as dramatic and obvious as cutting up someone’s credit card or taking control of their accounts.

Sometimes it’s managing ‘the bills’ or the joint account because ‘you’re not very good with money.’ It’s taken on as a favour, not to worry your pretty little head about – another household chore while you clean the bathrooms. And the kitchen. And do the hoovering. And the washing. Sometimes it’s having to beg for household expenditures – and having to be infinitely grateful for them. Sometimes it’s making you feel grateful when they bail you out from overspending the money you have been granted, while they’re still buying cars and new clothes and shiny gadgets. Because they earned it. They worked hard for it. They deserved a treat.

Sexual abuse within relationships isn’t always being pinned down and penetrated while you’re crying and saying no.

Sometimes it’s doing it when you don’t want to, when you’re tired, when you’re so dry it’s actually hurting you, but the discomfort is better than the names you’ll be called if you don’t, what’s wrong with you? are you frigid now? I’ve got needs you know, you’re killing me, other people are having more sex than us, if you loved me you’d do it. Sometimes it’s easier to do it and take the hit for the team, for the family, so you can have a nice day, so they’ll join in with you and go out and follow your plans for the day and not sulk, and slam and stomp and put a black cloud over everything until you do what they want anyway, for the peace. Sometimes it’s living under test conditions about how much ‘affection’ you’re showing to get something you want. A holiday. A night out. A baby.

Sometimes isolation isn’t about stopping you from seeing your friends and family.

Sometimes it’s coming away from friends with them slagging everyone off and being expected to agree, or having your own behaviour analysed – you teased them, you let your parents tease them, you didn’t stand up for them. Until it’s easier not to see some people at all – the people that cause the arguments. So you don’t have to face that swing of mood when you get back in the car, when they feel they have been disrespected, when the smiles for the crowd turn to accusations.

Sometimes control isn’t about taking your phone and tracking your email, or your whereabouts.

Sometimes it’s just sulking if you’re going out. Sometimes it’s getting ill on all your big events and complaining you’re not being sympathetic enough. Sometimes it’s flattery through jealousy, are you sure you don’t fancy so-and-so? I’m just checking, you don’t dress like that for me. So you WANT to reassure, you want to come home early to check on them – you feel guilty – or even lucky they love you that much.

Sometimes humiliation isn’t shouting insults at you as you cower in a corner.

Sometimes it’s telling you they don’t like your haircut, because it’s not feminine, and they’re just being honest. Sometimes it’s telling you you look classier when you’re not showing so much boob. Sometimes it’s you coming away from a night out together high on life and friends to be told to bring it down a notch, you were being too much, people were staring, people were laughing at you. Sometimes it’s hearing about a work day and telling you that you did it all wrong. Or that you’re doing the household chores wrong, or dealing with the kids wrong, that their mother or their friend or their ex used to do/does X or Y and why can’t you do it like that? Why aren’t you better? Why aren’t you coping?

Sometimes it’s telling you that you never follow through, that you’re not meeting your potential, that they’re only trying to help you by saying so. Sometimes it’s taking the mickey when you cry at a film, when you pronounce something wrong – and then they tell other people all about it, just for a laugh, can’t you take a joke? Sometimes it’s being told that the emotion you’re having is wrong, why are you like this? you’re overreacting, you’re a psycho, I’m not dealing with you when you’re like this, I’m going out.Sometimes it’s when they show more compassion and empathy for friends or strangers than for you, and they will rush to someone’s aid, and leave you in pain – but to say so is you being selfish. Or stupid. Or jealous. Or mad.

And somehow, by now, you believe it.

Sometimes it’s not all the time.

Sometimes there are good days. Sometimes they’re in a good mood. Sometimes they buy you expensive presents. Sometimes they join in and you think you imagined it. That you ARE a good couple, a good family, after all. Sometimes they praise you on social media, and you take it, even though they never said the same thing to your face… Sometimes you actually bring them up on something awful they’ve done or said, and they even apologise. It was a ‘bad call’. And sometimes you believe them, because you want to, because you remember that love bombing stage when you were on a pedestal, when you could do no wrong, when you were wonderful and beautiful, and the memory and tiny tastes of that are just enough to keep you going.

Sometimes it’s not even deliberate.

Sometimes it’s not a campaign of dominance, plotted with purpose by someone evil. Sometimes it’s someone ordinary. Sometimes it’s thwarted expectations. Sometimes it just… develops. A lot more often than ‘sometimes’, human beings are the meanest to those who mean the most, and they grow to hate what they once loved. The two are so close they just blur and one just – tips – into the other – without you even realising it.

If any of this sounds familiar, I want you to know that it IS abuse.

It does not have to be dramatic. It just needs to be consistent.

And YOU do not need to live with it.

ational Domestic Abuse Helpline 0808 2000247

Respect Men’s Advice Line 0808 8010 327

Women’s Aid

Refuge

Mums in Need 0800 852 7414

When the streets have jaws
that tear us and swallow 
when we are made Things
for others to borrow
when the law has rules
that bind and control us -
when society’s tools
are designed to patrol us
when our homes have monsters
that lie in our beds - 
when the world believes them,
because it’s all in our heads
when we’re trapped in a nightmare
with nowhere to hide
when we know that most judges
will not take our side 
when we have to do more
just to get on -
when ‘having it all’
is still doing it wrong
when we’re told we’re too much
but never enough
when we’re ‘frigid’ or ‘sluts’
boxed up and rebuffed
when no ears will hear
the shape of our pain
when ‘what was she wearing?’
becomes a refrain -
when our unfurling
is stopped in its tracks
when we lose basic rights
we cannot claw back
when ‘not all men’
is the best they can give us
when they shrug it off
and aren’t raging with us
when we know our daughters
will go through the same
when we stifle their wild
and hand them the blame -
when we grieve a sister
whose life was just taken
when we learn her story
and the waste leaves us shaken -
when we see her mother
reliving her torture
when we think of the fear
in that moment he caught her -
when having a womb
means we’re always beneath
when we are reduced
to just muff, tits and teeth
when ‘I’d give her one’
is lads having a lark 
when we are too scared
to walk in a park -
when bruises bloom purple
on our body and heart -

We gather. 

We stand.

And we light up the dark. 


This is for Sabina Nessa. For Sarah Everard. Terri Harris. Bibaa Henry. Nicole Smallman. And many, too many more. We will remember you. 

It is also for anyone who hasn’t made it to a vigil but wanted to. Share this instead. 
[Photograph: The Guardian, James Veysey/Rex/Shutterstock]

You don’t have to get over it. 

God, I hate it when people say that. 

You don’t have to let it go. 

You don’t have to move on, love. 

You don’t have to forgive. 

You don’t have to bury your trauma to make other people more comfortable. 

No one else gets to say when or how you climb out and forwards and upwards on the jagged shards of something that shattered you and everything inside and around you so utterly. 

No one else gets to tell you how high those walls are. 

No one else gets to define your pain. 

You DO have to process. 

You do have to look at the pieces. And that’s often the hardest part… 

You do have to pick them up so you can clear a path to carry on, and carry them with you.

Sometimes they will be heavy. 

Sometimes you will forget you have them. 

Sometimes they will drop out of your arms or pockets, when you least expect, and they will cut you again and you will bleed - new wounds on top of old scars. 

You may use some to make something new. 

You may find you can discard others along the way. 

You may look at them one day and find that like pebbles they have been smoothed by the ride, by your own tide, and their sharp edges have somehow rounded out.

They can’t hurt you anymore. 

They are memories; they are souvenirs; they are old friends.  

You may find that they are beautiful. 

You may even start a collection, in a jar, that you get out and look at, holding their smoothness in your palm - remembering. 

And every time you visit you will see them a bit differently; you will learn something new. 

When they were a mountain, you couldn’t ‘get over them’, these stones, these rocks. 

But you DID conquer them. 

You lifted them, even when you didn’t think you could. 

You changed them, just as they changed you. 

You got through it, not over it. 

With a little help from time, and tears. The tools of erosion.

I have several friends who are going through a divorce right now. 

One of them told me she didn't know if she would ever find someone else, if she wasn't too damaged to try. So I wanted to say, there's an other side. It's hard, it doesn't always look how you think it will, and the tough stuff doesn't disappear over night. But there IS an other side. 

BoyNotQuiteOnTheNetheredge and I recently went on our first week's holiday, just the two of us. As we usually only see each other a couple of times a month, it could have gone either way, frankly. Fortunately it went well. It was lovely, and it was very, very different. So I wrote this about it. 

With so much Ooof going down, globally and personally, I thought a glimpse of an other side might not go amiss. 

When gentle shadows cast

Tall traumas cast long shadows,
that tick past on a dial -
and it’s in the very brightest sun
that contrast is revealed. 

I wake up and without free will
I’m watching for your mood 
and trying to work out what I’ll need
to do to make it good -

but your quiet isn’t dangerous
your pleasure isn’t held 
a hostage to my subjugation -
to joy that must be felled.

When we’re driving I’m too scared to say 
I need to stop, slow down,
but then you turn and smile and ask -
and care - and that astounds. 

You’re interested in people,
and you’re interested in things,
you want to explore and learn and try
and ask me what I think

I’ve never heard you utter
a complaint or unkind word -
you’re always ready to be pleased -
and laugh at the absurd. 

You don’t have expectations, 
you don’t set tests to pass
I’m not a trophy, disappointment -
under-performing piece of arse.

You say I’d have loved another
who could show kindness in a trace,
but you don’t know, how much it means
when the shadows stop their chase.

Oh, they still turn round the sun clock 
but shorter and less black,
it’s your light that’s helped diminish them -
and helped mine burn brighter back. 

I didn’t know - that I could rest 
in the calm of someone’s shade 
I didn’t know the easiness 
of a game so softly played.

You take up space but not from me
you set my crazy free -
you let me say everything and nothing
and be a new - or old - real me.

I don’t have to think before I speak 
in case I set you off -
I don’t have to do anything, because,
for you, I am enough.

You say you’re nothing special
that you’ve forgotten how to love,
but it shines through everything you do
and everything you touch.

So however long we are an us -
however long it lasts,
I’ll remember what it feels like 
when a gentle shadow’s cast.

There’s a lot of existential angst in my house. 

Here’s an example from last Tuesday, circa 7.30pm. 

Small small: “It hurts, Mummy.”

Me: “Where?”

Small small: “My finger hurts where I caught it on the tree, and my knee hurts because I fell over and I cried, and then it hurts to be ALIVE, because you know that you’re going to die and you don’t know what it feels like because no one can write a letter back.” **Crying**

Me: “Um…..”

I mean, it’s sort of funny. 

And sort of exhausting, because I really want (in relative terms) to be doing the washing up and putting the big one to bed, and sorting some washing, and answering that email, and pretending I’m going to have an early night but scrolling my phone instead - and generally not dealing with what-is-the-meaning-of-life type of philosophical questions from someone who still can’t pronounce the word ‘ambulance’. (Actually that’s me, too)
. 
And it’s sort of… not funny. 

Because it sort of gave me a glimpse into what life looks like when you’re six, and you’re still (mostly) supremely confident that you’re the centre of the world, and when you suddenly fear you aren’t you haven’t yet learned yet to distract yourself – or learned that weird amnesia that is an essential part of being a human being so you can conveniently FORGET that you’re tiny and insignificant in a massive, uncaring multiverse and that it’s all transient, and fleeting, and probably meaningless. 

It was a glimpse into what life looks like if you take the Red Pill. Or at least if you’re a bit late in remembering to take your nice safe Blue pill...

And I remembered in a rushing vacuum what I’ve learned to forget every morning, that this spiralling panic happens to me, too, most nights as I go to sleep, and my world twists and I am suddenly convinced I’m going to die, or she is, or the Big Small, and I can’t stop it or make it better, and no one can write a letter back - she’s right - and it HURTS to be so out of control and how the hell does anyone put one foot in front of the other when there is so much to be clawingly, howlingly terrified of – random attacks in the park, collapsed buildings, sick children, climate change - pandemics let loose and no masks and no rules and too much REAL – a gaping chasm of chaos and pain a hairsbreadth away if you forget to look the other way, for a moment.

But then I remembered that what we do to fill the empty void with, to anchor us when it screams back, to help us forget and carry on - is connections. Moments. The smell of after-bath child skin, and the softness of solid still-squishy arms around you, and the feel of hot tears on your skin, and the heart-swell of being someone else’s safe harbour. I remembered that the small stuff is the big stuff if you look at it right, and I remembered that looking at the big stuff gives you much needed perspective. I remembered that when looking up at it gets too hard all you have to do is look in front of you, instead, because hope isn’t big. Hope is tiny, shining breadcrumbs of light. 

And I let her into that secret, and I filled her void and she filled mine and we remembered each other - and biscuits, and cats, and swings, and paddling, and painting and friends and playdates and fish and chips. And then we made plans for the next day, and together we blindly believed it would come despite all the odds stacked against it. 

Because that is what people do to be people. 

And she went to sleep, and I went to do the washing up, and her world was a little bit bluer, and mine was somewhat redder somewhat earlier than usual - but I think we were both a better purple for it. 

If you have a bedtime philosopher I’d love to hear some of their gambits. 

And if you’re a betime worrier I’d like you to know you’re not the only one (not least because I am clearly breeding the next generation).

Love Island News! 

Producers have decided to replace all the girls on the show with women over 40 looking for love. 

Here’s the new cast: 

Name: Jen
Age: 46
Occupation: Retail assistant 
From: Birmingham
Overview/Personality: Expert at wrangling kids and the Great British Shopper. Doesn’t take any crap. Tells anyone who will listen how great oestrogen gel is. Swears like a sailor.
Looks/Vital statistics: Pear and proud.
Outfits: Tummy control one piece in black, empire-line floral maxi-dresses or kaftan/housecoats. Always wears a hat and factor 50 in the shade.
Reason for being on the show: Taking a break from the kids.
Best feature: Dirty laugh. Beautiful handwriting. 
Ideal man: Beer belly and belly laughs. 
Best sex tip [Respondent free text]: No one actually wants a Sting-a-thon. Get on with it so we can have a quick wash and proper kip. A cup of tea wouldn’t go amiss, either. 
Most likely to: Smuggle in Nutella, re-enact key scenes from Dirty Dancing with Aaron, teach the girls how to do a smoky eye in 30 seconds using a Number 7 palette from 2003. 
Best quote so far: “Mate, I think she understood you perfectly. So do I. Do one.”

Name: Mae
Age 47: 
Occupation: ex-Social worker turned writer
From: South London
Overview/Personality: Capable. Has seen everything. EVERYTHING. Loves life anyway. 3 ex-husband, still friends will all of them.
Looks/Vital statistics: 38HH. (Yes there is that much alphabet in bras). 
Outfits: String bikini with everything hanging out, WORKING IT LIKE A GODDESS. 300 matching head scarfs and sarongs. Yellow toe nail polish and sunglasses like dinner plates. 
Reason for being on the show: Why not? 
Best feature: Could bum for Great Britain in the Olympics. 
Ideal man: Tom Selleck. 
Best sex tip [Respendent free text]: God gave you a tongue. Use it.
Most likely to: Perform a can-can and fall into the pool, demand popcorn to watch the boys workout.
Best quote so far: “The drinks are free, and so am I!” *shimmies* *knocks out Brad with a flying boob* 

Name: Sarah
Age: 40
Occupation: Stay at home Mum/part time accountant
From: Swansea
Overview/Personality: Extrovert/Introvert hybrid. Avoids conflict AT ALL COSTS right up until she FLIPS THE FLIP OUT. 
Looks/Vital statistics: Tall and used to hate it. More tattoos than you’d think.
Outfits: Old maternity swimsuit slightly baggy in the belly. Floaty skirts and flipflops. Knitwear even though it’s 32 degrees. Messy bun.
Reason for being on the show: Actually I’m married, but I needed some me-time and my sister in law knows one of the camera people, so… 
Best feature: Matching cheek and thigh dimples. 
Ideal man: Someone that can change nappies, run the house for a week without me, AND DON’T CALL ME AGAIN, BRIAN, I LEFT YOU A LIST OF NOTES. Or Bandit from Bluey.
Best sex tip [Respondent free text]: Contraception. 
Most likely to: Nap, comfort bruised egos, show everyone pictures of her kids, and ROCK OUT. 
Best quote so far: “Put it away, love, will you? I haven’t had my breakfast yet.”

Name: Anita
Age: 42
Occupation: Consultant surgeon
From: Durham
Overview/Personality: Confident. Slightly harried. Startlingly direct. 
Looks/Vital statistics: Really? We’re still doing this? It’s 2021. Come on people. 
Outfits: Tankinis in graphic prints, wrap dresses and wedges.
Reason for being on the show: Burnout. 
Best feature: Startling directness (see burnout). 
Ideal man: Idris Elba but really really in touch with his femine side.
Best sex tip [Respondent free text]: For the men, I second Mae, but think lapping cat and not washing machine, Mmm? Gently pull back the labia and lift the hood so you see what you’re doing, and listen to your partner. For the women, it’s all lubrication, undulation and pelvic floor kisses. 
Most likely to: Organise everyone, cook amazing meals, insist on her own bed afterwards.
Best quote so far: “What is making you so sad you have to lift weights all day to like yourself?” 

Name: Gail
Age: 45
Occupation: Marketing Manager
From: Manchester
Overview/Personality: Can’t remember any more. Recently divorced. Doing a lot of self-reflection and re-building. Mascara is life. 
Looks/Vital statistics: Choppy bob. Slightly loose skin after 3 stone trauma weight loss. 
Outfits: New 1950s style high-rise bikini and mens shirts as cover-ups. One nice Reiss dress and the rest from F&F. 
Reason for being on the show: Emotional recovery.
Best feature: Killer smile. Can still do the splits.
Ideal man: Just looking for a bit of fun, and to remember what that actually is. So basically anyone that’s not her ex and who shows a bit of trouser interest. 
Best sex tip [Respondent free text]: Suction vibrator. Seriously. It’ll change your life. Oh, and always go for a wee after penetrative sex. I used to have constant thrush and water infections until I did this. That’ll change your life, too. 
Most likely to: Laugh uproariously and ugly-cry noisily within the same 60 seconds, drunkenly sing Alanis Morrisette’s Jagged Little Pill with Jen.
Best quote so far: “Men are all gits. If only they didn’t have the penises!”

Producers note: 

Most of the content is so filthy we can’t air anything. It’s been 48 hours, we’re out of gin, and they’re already bezzie mates and planning a holiday to Ibiza next year. They may have solved world hunger, but we’re spending a fortune on emotional support for the traumatised lads after a single game of Never Have I Ever. Send help. Jen, no, I’m not one of the contestants….. You can’t… no…… I can’t……………..-----------------------------------------------------------------------

*Transmission ends*

I am home. 

Not AT home, because of the pandemic. I mean METAPHORICALLY. Or conceptually. Or something.

I am HOME. 

I’ve talked before about how difficult it was for me to learn that you can’t build a home inside other people - especially your kids. You just won’t fit, you see. You need to be your OWN home (not least so you’ve got somewhere to live when they grow up and evict you). 

What you CAN do is invite people to make their home in YOU - but then there’s an even harder lesson to learn and it is this: How to lay down some basic house rules so you don’t end up squeezed out anyway, or living in a ruin.  

This is something of a work in progress right now...

I am home for my children. I am their ‘safe space’. 

But sometimes that doesn’t feel very safe for me. 

Sometimes it is heavy. 
Sometimes it is hard. 
And sometimes it hurts. 

Being someone’s safe space, their home, is a privilege. I know this. It’s one I’ve always craved (and is probably where I originally went wrong building my home IN them and not in myself for them to nest in). 
I have always wanted to be the one they turn to when they are hurt or confused or sad. To be their default. 

And I am. 

I am where they go to tell small secrets and big feelings, to sort through complicated thoughts and uncomfortable truths. I am where they go to feel better. 

But that also means I am the one they go to when they feel worse; when they are at their worst. 

I am the one who gets the moods and the meltdowns. I get the post-school restraint collapse, the sore-losers, the sister-abusers, the thundering anger and the roiling anxiety, the lashings out and flouncings off, the talking back and walking over. I am where they practice snark, push boundaries, and experiment with emotions. 

I am home, where they can be awful and still be awfully loved. 

Of course sometimes that means I feel like everyone else gets the good kids and I get the rubbish ones - when they’ve used up all their nice on other people and there’s none left over. 

Sometimes I ask if they would speak to their teachers or their dad in the same way, and they admit they wouldn’t. 

Sometimes I feel like I’m the doormat in my home. 
Sometimes I feel overwhelmed. 
Sometimes I am tired. 
Sometimes I am bruised. 

The worst times though, are when I am reminded...

I think if you’ve been in a place where being ‘home’ for someone meant getting hurt, where they were their most awful, where they couldn’t say a kind word or use a kind voice and everything you did was wrong and everything you tried wasn’t enough, where you got their dregs and others got their best, where you were de-humanised because you didn’t count… I think if you’ve been in that place, that un-safe home, then repeating the pattern over again with slightly smaller people is triggeringly familiar. 

And I think that if you’re then reacting to it all on red alert in fight or flight mode then you’re going to get it wrong. 

I know I am. 

My tenants are out of control and they’ve already trashed the kitchen...

The trick of course, is setting boundaries and enforcing those house rules, calmly and consistently as the homeowner and landlord. 

HA.

That’s the kind of parent I was before I was actually a parent. Before I was home. 

And it’s been even harder to get right over the last 18 months. The rules have faded, my boundaries have slipped, my walls have crumbled, subsidence has set in and the whole thing is listing precariously… 
Because it’s hard to be someone’s landlord when you’re locked and isolated in the house together for months at a time. It changes the relationship. 

It’s hard to maintain your home without a village of other homes to shield it and share the load. It changes your walls. 

The fact is my kids were the only people I saw for a good long while, and they are still the people I see the most, and the boundaries have gone all... skew-whiff.  For such a long stretch it was all about making it through as best we could, and I let too much go and too much slide because I was out of energy, and out of options - and out of bricks.

Now it means I have to do some rebuilding. 

Because safe for them has to be safe for me, too. Their home has to be MY home first. And it is high time for a Spring/Summer clean. 

So I a writing it down, here, because that’s how I process. That’s how I resolve. 

Kids, I am happy to be Home, but I will not be a doormat ever again. 

In my home, we will use nice voices.
In my home, we will use kind hands. 
In my home, we will treat each other with respect. 
In my home, love does not hurt. 

This is the sort of home you deserve, the sort of home you need to learn so you can create it for yourself and within yourself, so you know what to look for and what to look out for. 

And you need to learn all that from me, by example. 

Because home is inside you. If it’s done right, you can carry it wherever you go, seek its shelter whenever you need, invite people in when you choose. When everything else goes to crap it’s there to turn to, to remember, to fall back on and to emulate. It’s what’s UNDERNEATH. 

Home is everything. 

And I am home. 

xxx

If you are home too, if you are struggling with its double-edged sword of privilege and punch bag, let me know - #Iamhome 

And if you’ve invited someone bigger to make their home in you and they’ve made it feel un-safe, that’s not okay. Mums In Need 0800 852 7414, National Abuse Helpline 0808 2000 247.

I persuaded the Big Small to read children’s classic ‘Little House On The Prairie’ be telling her it was a bit like Minecraft, only Pa builds a house from scratch out of oak blocks called 'Logs.' 

She’s actually nearing the end. This may be the single greatest piece of parenting I have ever done.

The Big Small does not like Boynotquiteonthenetheredge. 

This is a situation I have basically been avoiding, because I don’t really know what to do about it. 

But I think I need to do something, and I need to do something because I’m ill. 

I’ve been ill for nearly a month now, and being ill and being alone with two kids is really bloody difficult. 

Whether this is true of all children or just my Smalls I don’t know, but they have literally NO empathy. 
I had to go to the Dr the other day and they had to miss a swimming lesson, and they complained I had ruined their lives, and that this was therefore the worst day EVER. 

I’ve had to get a babysitter on two other occasions, both for medical appointments, and both times one or other of them has been hysterical, and then proceeded to guilt-trip me for days afterwards. 

All of this is part of the same possessiveness problem that’s ultimately behind the Big Small’s dislike of Boynotquiteonthenetheredge. And has meant that he feels further off the edge than ever...

God, it would have been so nice to have someone to look after me. 

To take up some slack. 
To make a dinner. 
To put a wash on. 
To do a school run. 
To be in charge for a bit. 
To have a cuddle and tell me it’s all going to be okay. 

In many ways I’ve kept Boynotquiteonthenetheredge at arms length over the last couple of years for my own reasons, and not just the Big Smalls’. 

Some of them are practical. 

He lives a good way away. His kid-care schedule is complex. We only really cross over WITHOUT  kids for one day twice a month... and that’s not a lot of time to build a relationship. 

And that’s been okay because some of my reasons have been personal, too. 

I haven’t WANTED him too close. 

I’m still so raw, and so cautious, and so protective of my freedom, my space, my independence - protective of myself - the bit that got lost in someone else - and protective of my relationship with my girls, our little family of three. 

And I’ve poured everything into making that three work, into making up for the break-up. 

In many ways I suppose Boynotquiteonthenetheredge has only ever had the bits not quite used up by them. The bits left over. The bits at the edge. 

Our rule has always been that the children (all four of them) come first, and that we maintain their lives and their stability as a priority. 

It’s a good rule. 

But as a result I live MY life in two different halves that I struggle to reconcile. And I am always either half lonely for him and for the me I am with him, or for them, and for the me I am with them. 

One of the Big Small’s biggest complaints about Boynotquiteonthenetheredge is that I’m ‘not the same when he’s around.’ 

And she’s right. 

I’m not. 

Partly I’m different in the catch-22 of knowing I’m different and being weird because I’m conscious of it, and weird in general, obviously. And partly I’m different because he feeds different things in me. 

Partly that half of my life - the half of ‘me’ that’s not a Mum - just IS different to what the Big Small sees.... because I AM her mum. 

Probably, I’m actually a bit different with ALL of my friends for similar reasons - only she doesn’t see that because when I’m with them she’s usually off playing with their kids, or in bed because it’s night time, or at her Dad’s. 

And of course we’ve had so little interaction with people over the last year anyway she’s forgotten what it’s like, and what I’m like in ‘public’. I’ve forgotten that, too, if I'm honest. 

I suppose the real truth is I’ve never known how to reconcile the different parts of me with ME, let alone with or for anyone else. Different bits just... come out. Largely at random. Or stay in. I don’t know anymore. It’s been a long 18 months. 

Despite this, I think the real crux of the matter isn’t actually ME at all - or in fact the Boy. Who’s really very nice (despite breaking her cat’s leg, see previous blogs). 

It’s her Dad. 

He’s conducted his relationship very differently, at a speed and rate of integration I’ve always found difficult, and I think the Big Small has, too. (The Small Small doesn’t care one way or the other). She doesn’t get time on her own with her Dad, and they’ve never done ‘just them’ as a family of three. And that’s made her more possessive of me, and my time, and my consistency. 

Basically if the kid could wee in a circle round me to mark her territory, she would. 

It’s got to the point where she doesn’t even like to HEAR about my time with Boynotquiteonthenetehredge, because she’s so jealous of it. And the hysteria and emotional backlash I get - often late at night as she cries herself to sleep with imaginary scenarios I can’t combat with logic - are more than I can manage. 

Particularly right now. 

In some ways I think maybe my ex has got this whole shabang right, by living one single authentic life - and by not entertaining this level of drama. And in a great many ways I’m jealous that he’s got the whole - the 2.4 family life I wanted - picked up where I exited with someone new. Someone who I bet brings him a cup of tea when he’s under the weather, and maybe puts the kids to bed. 

God, imagine that. 

And I’ve realised this last month that actually that’s what I want. Or at an approximation of it - two halves of my life slightly less regimentally separated.   

I know I deserve this - and to have my own life beyond my children. And I know I NEED this, because they will go. The Big Small in particular is already starting to fly further and higher away from me... But she still needs me to be there, where she left me. 

EXACTLY where she left me. 

Sometimes she needs that so violently it scares me -  like she’s had so much change in her life she can’t bear any more. 

So I’m stuck. 

(And ill). 

And very open to experiences and suggestions from ‘blended’ families who’ve been through this before and maybe even figured it out. 

This is it - the biggest lie we were ever fed, and are continually fed - in movies, and books and social media: The lie of Happily Ever After. 

Boy Meets Girl, The Substantially Less Engaging  Sequel. 

Because the bit after the happy ending is bloody hard, isn’t it? 

Maybe the best we can hope for is ‘Authentically Moving Forwards’. 

And maybe somebody can help me work out what the next step here actually looks like, so I can start moving forwards again. 

xxx