I have been depressed, this week, by the ongoing narrative across my news feed around consent, sexual assault, and domestic abuse.

From Kavanaugh to Cosby, Sally Challen to Faye Caliman (look the last two up).

Because it is the same.

And She is not equal to He.

She does not have the same standing in the eyes of the world watching – whether it’s in a courtroom broadcasting across the world, or whether it’s down the local pub, in your own social circle.

She is worth less.

She is not believed.

And without that, She is left broken. Like a real-life Tinkerbell – She doesn’t even exist.

And that’s why She is silent…

The fact is that His story is always more believable than Hers. Every time.

It is STILL easier for people to believe that She is mad, than that He is bad. It is more comfortable that way. More palatable.

(Perhaps She even believes it too. Or She doesn’t believe herself… Because She has been conditioned not to. Possibly she has learned that silence is safer).

When it comes out, when She breaks the silence around assault or abuse, She is lying, mistaken, exaggerating, remembering things wrong.

She is over emotional, unstable. Or maybe she is detached, dissociated. Both are wrong. They are evidence against Her.

The impact of Her behaviour in speaking, on His life, His future, is more important than the impact of His behaviour on Her life. Let’s all just get over it and move on, shall we?

He gets the excuses. Five minutes of madness. Cumulative unhappiness. He was drunk. The heat of the moment. Boys will be boys. Etc.

She gets the blame. She was drunk. She was asking for it. She should have known better. She didn’t say no. She stayed. Etc.

The proof is Her burden. His innocence is His right.

Her silence is wrong. Her noise is drama. His silence is dignified. His noise is righteous.

He always seems like a decent chap, can’t imagine him doing anything like that. The benefit of the doubt, in motion: believed.

She didn’t say anything before, why now? The doubt, in action: suspected.

The imbalance is ingrained and insidious, woven deep into society and psyche.

I read a tweet that’s been doing the rounds and said something like ‘I don’t know how women aren’t razing the world to the ground this week.’

The answer is that we are far less interested in destruction or revenge than men – and society at large – seem to think we are.

We are not lying when we speak. We are not making it up for the larks. We are not out to get the innocent.

We are starting to tell Our truth.

You should stop to hear it.

You should believe it.

You should freaking CLAP – like you would for Tinkerbell.

And then you should look around you and start to SEE it, before somebody else has to end up in a dock, judged by the world.

Before somebody else ends up in prison.

Before somebody else ends up in a damn morgue.

#BelieveHer
#MeToo

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time, right? Well that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to nibble away at the edges of this big awfulness and hope that one day I look up to find it’s gotten smaller.

I started with the toe nails. Now for another periphery: the hair.

I have quite long, limp hair, simultaneously prone to both greasiness and frizz. It spends most of its time scraped back into a ponytail – a style that does nothing for me (and even less for my increasingly gaunt and care-worn horse-face).

It can look okay if I spend considerable time straightening it or curling it, but THIS LITERALLY NEVER HAPPENS.

I think I like to think of my daily style as a messy ‘mum-bun’, but the truth of the matter is that my hair simply doesn’t have enough volume to achieve the look – it’s more like a disembodied rat’s tail left to curl up and dry.

And it finally occurred to me this week that the reason I have this hair is that Dadoffthenetheredge likes women with long hair.

And now I don’t have to please or appease anyone.

So in the manner of all divorcees I’m going to do something DRASTIC with it – or at least as drastic as one can possibly get with what will essentially be a bob – arguably the world’s most classic/conservative hairstyle.

The trouble is, I do not like going to the hairdresser.

It sets off my social anxiety in several key ways:

1. I’m not trendy enough. I feel the need to apply make-up and put on nice clothes just to enter most establishments – and then I just feel weird about having done so.

2. I do not like having to look at myself in the mirror for extended periods.

3. I don’t like to be touched. On the head. By strange teenagers. And having to make light conversation with them while doing so. WHY IS THIS A THING????

4. I don’t like bending over backwards to get my hair washed, which is either a showing my jugular thing, or the fact I once read an article in Closer (I was at the dentist, honest) about a woman who put her neck out in this position and essentially ended up paralysed 3 days after getting her hair done. This is exactly the kind of shit that would happen to me.

5. Should I accept the coffee? When I know I’m not going to be able to lean forward and drink it whilst my hair is cut? Will it look ruder if I refuse it or if I just don’t drink it? How are other people imbibing this stuff while sitting still underneath someone with scissors??? Why do I care about this??????? And should I care that I care about it?

6. The small talk. Look, my life is really, really, REALLY dull. I literally don’t have anything to say to people that isn’t boring rubbish about children and work. No, I’m not going out this weekend. No, I’m not going on holiday. No, I didn’t watch Eastenders.

To save my own chagrin and the poor hairdresser’s inevitable disappointment, I have in the past taken to just making shit up to try and make everything less awkward for everyone. (I’ve always been prone to a bit of social hyperbole, and I can spin a good yarn, if I say so myself). Trouble is I forget what I’ve said to whom, rendering it impossible to go back to any one hairdresser – who probably wouldn’t remember me anyway because I’m deeply forgettable, AND CLEARLY NOBODY ELSE IS THINKING ABOUT THIS AS MUCH AS I AM.

7. I can’t hear without my glasses. Yes really. I’m as blind as a bat, and while it is always something of a relief to remove them (see no 2), no 6 becomes even more fraught with danger because I have no conversational clues – like what the other person is ACTUALLY saying.

Honestly – with all the hairdryers and background noise you’d be surprised how much you pick up from lip reading your hairdresser in the mirror. Take that away and you’re screwed. (Or at least I am).

It’s that kind of thing where you answer the wrong question, and then your brain catches up, so you realise what they said, and that what you’ve said is therefore stupid, and in my experience there’s no way to recover from that kind of awkwardness besides DEATH.

8. I cannot do confrontation of any sort, ever. They could dye my hair green, shave it off in random patches and set fire to the rest, and I’d still say “Oh lovely!” when they showed me the back in a hand mirror. (I once asked for a hairdresser to take a little more off my fringe. It took me a week to recover).

9. I do not understand the tipping system. I get tipping in restaurants – I know what I’m doing. I don’t get it in hairdressers. Do you add it to the card in the machine? Do you put a couple of quid in the jar? What if there is no jar? What if you don’t have any change? Can you ask for change? How much is the going rate? Do you look like a wanker if you do or if you don’t? Does it go to the stylist or is it shared? WHY ARE THERE NO RULES WRITTEN DOWN FOR THIS STUFF?

10. I already know I will never be able to replicate whatever the hairdresser does, even if I actually like it. So basically the knowledge of my impending failure walks in with me through the door. It is under impending failure conditions that I perform at my very, very worst.

SO ANYWAY –

What I need are your recommendations, Sheffielders!

Given all of the above, where can I go for a hair intervention that is going to cause me the least amount of anxiety – and give me that ‘just stepped out of a salon’ 80s-vidal-sassoon-advert feeling?

I’m going to need someone who can give me some guidance on what will suit me and what my hair will actually DO, and of course what I can actually maintain at home with no hairstyling skills, time, thought or care.

Money is no object (actually it’s a very serious object, but this one is on my lovely Mum).

HELP!

Mumonthenetheredge

x

Every New Year, when I sing Auld Lang Syne (now at 9pm – AKA Kid Midnight), I wonder what the hell it means. And then I wonder if I’m wondering that because Billy Crystal wonders it at the end of ‘When Harry Met Sally’, one of my favourite films in the world ever. And then I wonder when I last watched it and if it’s on Netflix. And then I forget all about Auld Lang Syne altogether.

But this year, for the first year, I think I finally get it.

Because it’s a song about forgetting. About forgetting as a blessing. About forgetting as a kindness – a cup to drink from well and often.

Because it is.

Amnesia is basically central to the human condition – and I’ve come to believe it’s what makes us so successful as a species. We can feel and then forget, and then remember and reflect anew – in a way other animals simply can’t. We process our lives and our experiences differently.

For instance, if we didn’t forget, the vast majority of women would definitely only ever have one child. But the horror of ripping and stitches and blood and pain recedes surprisingly quickly – and many of us are ready to go through it all over again in just a few short months or years.

If we didn’t forget, no one would ever survive a loss. But even though we don’t want it to – even though we feel guilty when we notice – normality creeps insidiously back in. We learn, in time, to breathe in and out again without having to think about it. We hear the birds again. We smile at jokes. We come out of the other side, eventually, perhaps just a little bit different.

We are also able to forget not just experiences and feelings, but even the bits of ourselves we like the least. We are all able to conveniently edit our narratives so we remain the hero of our own stories. So we can carry on.

We forget, in time, our greatest joys, our deepest griefs, and our most shameful moments. Because no one can hold onto that intensity of emotion for too long – it’s just not how people work. You literally can’t live there. You will be gripped by fear or sorrow or anger or desire or mortification or sheer despair so fiercely it bulges your eyeballs – and just a few minutes later it will recede back to manageable levels – at least for a while.

It’s how we’re built.

It’s how we survive.

And it’s a very strong instinct.

When we are teaching our Small People to recognise, name and pass through their very big feelings, we are really teaching them to forget. We are teaching them that those intense moments will pass. We are teaching them how to survive their own internal storms – even if we still battle our own.

The other day, for instance, I wrote a poem about missing my kids when they’re at their Dad’s house. And someone told me I was acting like they’d died, and that basically I needed to get a grip.

They were kind of right.

I was. And I should.

I deleted the post. But it was a description of a moment – a painful spike – that then dropped back down to normal – my new normal at any rate. And it was a pain not just about the now, but about missing them in the future too – all the holidays, and days out, and family times we won’t have, and all the conversations, cute moments and milestones I won’t be there for.

It was all of those things at once, in one moment…

… and then the moment passed. I could breathe again.

And it passed partly because I grabbed hold of it, dug my claws in, thrashed it around, pulled it apart and thoroughly dissected and understood it. I felt it to the nth degree. I then posted the resulting poem because I thought it was a moment that other people going through the same thing might identify with. And afterwards I had a good cry, re-read an old and soothing Georgette Heyer book –

and forgot.

Mostly.

Writing is basically my way of forgetting. Because if I really wallow, style and lose myself in one of those moments, I purge it. And once it’s out, it’s almost always easier to deal with. Sometimes it comes back, but certainly it is better. And I can re-read it and remember that moment – but it won’t own me anymore. I own it.

(Occasionally this may make my writing a bit repetitive – for which I apologise – but I quite literally cannot always remember what I’ve written).

But here’s the thing: If your natural human capacity for amnesia is missing, or broken, or itself forgotten – YOU ARE IN SOME VERY SERIOUS TROUBLE.

Because if you can’t forget something – at least temporarily – you will almost certainly go mad with it.

Whenever I have struggled most with my mental health, I think it is my ability to forget that’s really what has gone haywire. It is when the balance has tipped – and I either remember too much in too much horrific detail, or forget too much, and am unable to hold onto a single thought or truth.

In fact, the inability to forget in the right, healthy ratios is probably part and parcel of pretty much every experience of mental illness. It is the core of bitterness, of depression, of obsession, addiction, anxiety, grief, PTSD, insomnia – and so much more.

Right now, alongside that sadness in my poem, I’m battling to forget my anger. The sheer rage I feel at my lost family, my betrayed love, my absent kids. When I am blinded by it, the only thing I can really do is to remember that it will pass. And hold onto that until it finally does. And then I breathe. And then I write it out.

And then I anaesthetise what’s left it with 18th Century romances, Meg Ryan classics, or a bath.

And then when it creeps back in I do it all over again.

Forgetting doesn’t just make the world go round; it isn’t just a skill to be learned; it’s a GIFT. And we should be grateful for it.

But it is not without pain.

Sometimes forgetting hurts.

It hurts to look at pictures of our babies as babies, but not to be able to remember them being that small. It was so all consuming and all encompassing – but gone with the wind.

It hurts to realise that even though you have pictures of a loved one who died, one day you can’t quite remember their face in your own head – you’re remembering the picture. And that memory slipped away without you even noticing.  

In those moments of sadness, it is worth thinking about the true opposite of forgetting. Not just forgetting interrupted; but forgetting reversed.

A very long time ago I worked in the kitchens of an old people’s home as a holiday job. I was basically responsible for mushing up the food and taking it upstairs to what was then called an EMI unit (people with dementia). And the woman in charge of the kitchen once said to me that the real tragedy wasn’t in what people forgot, BUT IN WHAT THEY REMEMBERED.

At the time it made even less sense to me than Auld Lang Syne, because I was young and pretty stupid. But now I get that too.

It is unbelievably painful to see someone you love forget so much – sometimes forget you. But it must also be so very, very painful to relive old memories and old feelings – to be back in those moments of rapture or rage or despair, to feel all of those things brightly and profoundly like they’re happening right now – and then find yourself suddenly, disorientingly plunged back into a time, place and a body that make absolutely no sense to you.

It is a cruelty that is almost too awful to think about.

And it makes me glad and grateful for forgetting. And it makes me determined to forget a little more. To practice it – and to keep teaching it to my children.

So this new year, I wish amnesia for you. Just the right amount – just enough to get you through.

I hope you find your own way to forget, what and when you need to.

I hope that you forget old acquaintances, old mistakes, and old hurts.

I hope you forget for old times sake, for your own sake, and for your own sanity.

I hope you drink from that cup of kindness that is the power and beauty of forgetting.

Because the more you forget, the more space you will have in your heart for forgiveness, and in your brain for new and wonderful memories.

Happy New Year.

Mumonthenetheredge

xx

It’s the most wonderful time, of the year.

Only sometimes, it’s not.

Christmas isn’t always Merry for everyone. And sometimes you can’t always tell.

Sometimes it looks like wrapped presents, a reindeer jumper, and a smile. But underneath it is barely contained panic, the weight of expectation, a bra that hasn’t been washed in 8 months, and a broken heart.

Sometimes things aren’t what they seem.

Sometimes people with depression don’t look like people with depression.

Sometimes they make jokes.

Sometimes they dress up.

Sometimes they join in.

Sometimes they look like they’re having a good time.

But it might have cost them dearly to force themselves out of the house. They might be looking at the world through a veil of gray. They might not actually feel like part of their surroundings. They might be waiting, watching for judgement, for your condemnation, for their own mistakes – for signs they are really there at all. They might go home and fall apart. They might even be falling apart in front of you, within the walls of their head.

Sometimes grief doesn’t look like grief.

Sometimes it looks like normality.

Sometimes it looks like coping.

Sometimes it looks like moving on, appropriately, as people expect.

But underneath it might be rage, and despair, and snot and spit. It might be a loneliness so deep and sharp it would cut you if looked at it too closely. They might be resenting your happiness, and berating themselves for their selfishness. They might be wandering through Christmas like it’s a bad dream, without feeling it, and feeling it too much, all at once. They might go home and fall apart, wishing they could forget, praying they won’t, within the walls of their head.

Sometimes victims don’t look like victims.

Sometimes it’s not sticks and stones, it’s not clear cut, and it’s never, ever as simple as just walking away.

Sometimes they don’t even realise it’s happening to them.

Sometimes they take the piss – out of that person, or themselves. They make it a joke. They even make it public.

Sometimes they roll their eyes and appear to let it roll off them.

Sometimes they make excuses.

Sometimes they just don’t talk about it, even to themselves. They have bright eyes, a bright voice, and stick to safe subjects.

Sometimes, they even find the energy to fight back.

But it might be that in private it is worse than you can know. It might be that each attack, each criticism, each disappointment, each unattainable goal, each impossible, invisible test set and then failed, each attempt belittled and berated, each feeling invalidated – each of those has left a mark. And it might be that Christmas is where it all comes to a head, where it all becomes just too much. They might go home and fall apart in the tiny space left to them where they are allowed to do so – within the walls of their head.

Christmas is hard time of year for a lot of people in a lot of different ways. It is also all about appearances – and appearances can be deceptive.

So be kind to yourself this Christmas. Be kind to others. And have the happiest holiday you can – inside and outside your own walls. Perhaps you are lucky and that is the same space. And if it isn’t, perhaps one day soon it will be.

Mumonthenetheredge

Xx

As the great and wise philosopher Natalie Imbruglia once said:

Nothing’s fine, I’m torn
I’m all out of faith
This is how I feel, I’m cold and I am shamed
Lying naked on the floor.
Illusion never changed
Into something real
Wide awake and I can see the perfect sky is torn.

If that isn’t an accurate description of motherhood, I don’t know what is!

OK, I’m rarely naked on the floor, because this is, after all, Sheffield, and it’s a bit nippy – but I’ve been down there sobbing in my dressing gown for sure.

I’ve lost faith – in myself, in my ability to cope, in the system, in the Sleep Gods.

I’ve had my pre-kid illusions shattered a billion times.

I’ve been so tired I can’t tell what’s real anymore.

And I’ve been wide awake at dawn helplessly watching the day inevitably rip through the night.

Frankly, if you don’t recognise any of this in your own experience of parenting I think you might have been doing it wrong.

The thing that resonates most for me in this 90s classic, though, (and yes, I do know it’s not a Natalie Imbruglia original – I also don’t care) is that feeling of being torn.

Torn is pretty much the average state of your average parent. And I’m not just talking about work-life balance and spreading yourself thin by being a slightly failing mother/employee/spouse/friend/person. (Also note, the other side of slightly failing is MOSTLY ROCKING).

I’m talking about the kind of torn that’s soul deep – I’m talking about the Parent Paradox.

The Parent Paradox is the phenomenon where (through the medium of children) you suddenly feel so many conflicting and contrasting things all at once. And you can’t tell or trust which one is true because they all are, and they all aren’t.

Where you are so very happy and so very in love with your baby, but so deep-down tired and miserable and lost and afraid at the same time.

Where you are surrounded by people big and small, but still feel lonely and isolated.

Where you crave time alone but ache for your children when you’re apart.

Where you’re desperate to have your pre-kid life back, but wouldn’t change a thing.

Where you want them to stay in the right now and not grow up too fast, but love it when they hit each new developmental milestone.

Where you long to squeeze them but don’t want anyone to touch you back. (Possibly ever again).

Where you love them so much is stops your heart, but they make you SO UNBELIEVABLY ANGRY it kind of scares you, too. (Just put the fricking shoes on!!!!!)

Where you can be so busy all day, and yet have achieved nothing by the end of it.

Where you love to spend time with them, but are also are bored to tears by the hell that is imaginative play within 10 long, long minutes.

Where your heart is full but you’re running on empty.

Where the hours until bedtime tick by so slowly, but they grow up way too fast.

Where the poo is disgusting, but the nappy bums are so damn cute.

See what I mean?

You are living in the a state of constant duality and it is incredibly, astoundingly disorientating.

I have often seen the Parent Paradox as something which must be endured, until your vision, decision-making capacity, emotions and hormones return to some sort of rational, predictable normality.

But in retrospect, maybe it’s not a curse that’s rocked you off your axis, but a gift.

A gift that comes free with your first baby and lets you see the world in a whole new light – split into hundreds of twisting kaleidoscope parts.

By being in two (or more) minds, by not being certain, or sedate, or grounded; you get to see every side of your own story and your own heart in glorious technicolour.

It’s like going from two-dimensional black and white to suddenly being able to see the Magic Eye pictures hiding in your life – a new multi-dimensional, multi-faceted perspective.

The only thing you can really do is to sit back and let the colours flow over you.

Maybe the perfect sky IS torn.

And maybe it’s not a tear, but an opening.

Maybe, just by having looked through that dazzling, confounding, refracting lense – you get to go into the rest of your life with new eyes and new empathy.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s actually making you a better parent.

Thanks Natalie.

(But not for convincing me I could pull off that elfin haircut from the video – I couldn’t).

Mumonthenetheredge

xx

Today is my very first night being a mother without my kids.

Okay, so it’s not my FIRST night. I go out. Sometimes. I’ve been away with work the odd night and with friends the odd weekend – the latter perhaps three times, and only once in the lifetime of the smallest small.

But now I will be away from them every other weekend and a night in the week, at least. And it is hurting, very, very badly.

I feel like someone has hollowed out my heart and womb with a melon scoop, and I can feel the scrape of every curl of flesh that’s been removed.

The void inside me is reflected in the empty beds upstairs.

And I cannot bear to look.

To catch you up, Dadonthenetheredge is now officially DadOFFthenetheredge.

As we all know, small children are pretty hard on relationships.

For my part, perhaps it would have been better if I HAD been away a bit more often. If I hadn’t fallen so hard and fast for them that they became my everything…

But I have found the process of parenting, particularly after pregnancy loss, all-consuming.

Trying to manage, trying to cope, trying to get through – has been all I’ve been able to do. All I’ve known how to do. And it has been up to me to manage. I have been the primary carer; him the primary bread winner – often working away. I have had to LEARN to cope – and to do it on my own.

Perhaps I have learned too well.

My life changed drastically with the onset of children. His didn’t. I threw myself into my new world and found meaning and validation there. He threw himself into his world and found the same.

Looking up, we have found we are actually in very different places.

And the place we occupy together is not a nice one.

It is a mess. Made up of his ambition; my anxiety.
His drive; my depression.
His lack of empathy; my lack of attention.

And of course the normal underappreciation on both sides, lack of communication, resentments building, misunderstandings simmering – and the endless tiredness competition in which most parents are engaged.

BOOM. There you have it.

Had it.

The fact is that we are both better versions of ourselves when we are not together.

And when we are together, we are not showing our girls what a relationship ought to look like. We are showing them something ugly. And that can’t go on.

I am not worried about going it alone with the kids – practically and emotionally I’ve been doing that for some time.

But I’m afraid going it alone WITHOUT them feels very much like heart is being sucked out through my c-section scar, leaving a throbbing vacuum in my chest.

I don’t know how to fill it.

I don’t remember what was there before. I don’t even remember who I was before I had them. And I’m not sure I want to.

Oh, I am sure eventually having some space for self-care will be good for me.

I’m sure having my 8th lie in in 6 years will be good for me.

I’m sure building a life outside of them will be good for me – and ultimately for them.

But tonight, it doesn’t feel like it.

Tonight, I feel like I am breaking apart.

My hands are itching to touch them. My ears are roaring with their silence. I do not think I am capable of going upstairs and going through the motions of going to bed like it is a normal night. I don’t know if I will ever find a normal again.

Tonight, I am going to wallow.

I am going to let myself fill up with this heavy, jagged sadness – because it is better than nothing.

I am going to mourn the loss of my family – a vision which I’ve worked so very hard to achieve – but which never seemed to quite materialise with us as a foursome.

Tonight I’m going to miss my babies.

I’m going to contemplate the sheer insanity that is loving someone so much it feels like it is fighting to burst from your skin, and you have to grit your teeth, clench your fists and hold your breath against its force.
I’m going to wonder at the the utter madness that is loving someone so completely and so fiercely when they will inevitably, every day, grow further and further away from you.
When they will – by design – love you less and less. When they will be a little less yours with every passing moment – like mine are tonight. When they will eventually leave you forever.

I mean, who the FECK decided this would be a thing???

And why in God’s name did I sign up for it?

Tonight, I am going to cry big, face-contorting, grotesque tears.

I am going to howl at the Nether Edge moon about injustice, unfairness, and loneliness.

And then I’m going to plan how to show none of this to them when they come back to me.

I’m going to plan something wonderful for us to do together that will bind us with memories, and create us a family that just looks just a little bit different to the one I always dreamed of.

And whether you are with or without your children tonight, I’m going to suggest you do the same.

Delighted to be featured in the Yorkshire Post http://bit.ly/2z6CviG this week as part of their campaign combating loneliness – #happytochat.

I’m alongside two wonderful women and mothers I’ve met along the way – Hannah from Childcare Adventures and Kate from Little Sheffield.

Motherhood can be isolating in a lot of different ways. But what’s really clear from this article is that if you feel this way – YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

xxx