A Year on…

A couple of weeks back I wrote a post similar to this on my other blog, this will probably be very different in nature as it is intended for a different purpose and I have resisted the temptation to simply copy and paste sections from that post into here.

Anyhow, it is just over a year since my first suicide attempt, and approaching the aniversary of the second one.

I thought it was an appropriate time to review where I have been over the past year.

Well, loads has changed, primarily in my own outlook on life and how I feel about things in general but this is helped in no small part by the huge ammount of support and help that has been arround for us over the past year or so, the love that I have felt and we as a family have felt is incredible.

I am now nowhere hear as depressed as I was and yet at the same time I know I am not far from the doors of depression, I am far from out of the woods but certainly I am beginning to recognise the triggers and things that drag me down and work round them where possible, life is pretty full on in our lives, as it always has been but I am still able to take a break when I need to because I know it is neccesary and there is no point in trying to fight the tiredness or feelings of need for space.

I think it wasn’t until the middle of the summer that I began feeling anywhere near ‘normal’ and lost some of that hopeless despair that surrponded me 12 months ago.

In early December I was dischared from the CPN (Community Phsychiatric Nurse) I am still under the Phsych and reviewed every 3 months at the moment but I don’t see the CPN at all now, which is good because it shows progress but I did get on with her, she is lovely.

I am still having counselling, usually weekly although I have 2 weeks break from it at the moment as the counsellor is away for a couple of weeks, the counselling is going well too, its not as difficult as I had expected it to be. But it does leave me drained, mind you I still feel tired really easy at the moment, and I am finding it difficult to talk about whats going on in counselling, which I know my wife is struggling with but thats the way it is, its a journey I have to make on my own/with the counsellor, I am not sure sometimes where we are headed but things seem to be unraveling and getting sorted, counselling itself is a very different experience to what I had imagined it to be its really strange but it works.

I have had a couple of bad dreams in the past couple of weeks, which I have not had really for a long time, but these are strange in that I dont recal what the dream was about after the event, I am aware of a restless night and feelings of fear but not a single recollection of what the dream was about, my wife knows I am having them because I tend to talk out loud when having them, the last one had something to do with a Rabbit but I don’t have a clue what it means, I just don’t know whether this is my brain  processing stuff and dealing with it or just unprocessed stuff surfacing that will need dealing with, I hope its the first but suspect that it might be the latter. I guess time will tell.

I started back to work in September, initially just Monday, Thursday & Friday, I have now addd Tuesdays to that, I only ever did mornings in the office, Wednesday mornings I have counselling, usualy, so I use the day to get things clear in my mind, I am back to dealing with things at home during my out of office times and even, last week,a ttended my first church leadership team meeting for over a year, I didnt minute the meeting this time and not sure I will do next month but the fact that I am back at the meetings and coping, is a good sign.

In terms of how I feel about life in general, I am not too sure at the moment where I am up to, I still get huge feelings of failure and struggle to have any sense of worth or value in and of myself, I still feel as though I just scraped into God’s kingdom in error, like I went forward at the Crusade and prayed the prayer and God just looked at me and said ‘oh you came as well did you? OK I will let you in’ theologically yo could argue with me and say that I have got it wrong for a number of reasonsbut that still wont change the fact that I do feel that way.

I am a lot more positive in outlook than I was a year ago but not quite sure why, nothing much has changed around me other than the way I feel, perhaps an effect of good counselling.

I am not sure what the future holds, I can’t even guarantee that I won’t get back into a real bad cycle again or that I wont get the suicidal kind of feelings and thoughts, all I can hope is that I will be more aware of whats happening before it gets that bad and seek appropriate help, mind you I did seek help last time but it only came rather late on, however now that I am with a better GP and have a background of having attempted suicide I suspect that I will get the support and help put in place pretty quickly.

I know that whatever happens I need to keep myself safe because whatever else I feel about myself my wife and kids love me to pieces and will be seriously damaged by me trying to kill myself, and I can’t put them through that, I love the kids and my wife, they mean so much to me and give me a purpose for living, I owe such a huge amount especially to my wife who has stood by me through these very difficult times but also to some really good friends who have been there for us and helped and encouraged us in so many ways. I really do feel so fortunate to have such wonderful friends and hope that I wont do anything to let them down.

So, the future, its a walk into the unknown, lifes not as difficult as it was but its still not easy, tiredness is the main issue but there is so much going on in my brain that I just can’t express or communicate, leaving me feel rather foggy most of the time, we will just have to see how things unfold in the comming months, I think that I am going to begin using this blog to write a bit more about my experience, or rather my memories of my experiences as a child, my experiences of abuse, in all its forms, some of the posts are likelly to be recolections of specific incidents others much more general background stuff but I think I am about ready to start putting soem of this stuff down in writing and am sure it will help, certainly it is one of the things that my counsellor has been encouraging me to consider doing.

Happy New Year

Well, its the last day of 2009 and tomorrow, well in just under 8 hours time, we enter 2010, so it is traditionally a time when people choose to look back over the year gone by and make new years resolutions, with the hope of making a new start in the coming year.

I guess I am not the only one who hasn’t had the easiest year during 2009, certainly the first half was really lousy and things picked up from there but only slowly.

I am not really going to review the year as such, the bad bits are well enough documented on here and other places, I would rather gloss over the rough bits, but the thing that has shone through for me over the past couple of years actually is the commitment and loyalty, as well as love and care, of my/our friends, as things got tough it is true to say that some of our ‘friends’ effectively ignored us but there are so many who stepped up to the mark and were there at every turn, helping and supporting in so many ways, we have such wonderful friends and it would be rude of me to allow the old year to pass into the new without thanking those friends so much for their continued love and support.

Last New Years Eve, I rather hastily wrote a new years resolution, also available on here, you will have to look for it if you want to see what I wrote, I have to say that I failed pretty spectacularly at keeping any part of that resolution, within a very short time of posting that resolution I gave up on it, and on so much more, this year I am not going to attempt such a resolution but I am entering this coming year in a much better  place than where I was at last year, things are much more positive in so many ways, not least because I now have the right care and support in place and am working through some of the stuff that is at the root of the depths of my depression, so hopefully things are going to be very different over the coming year.

Anyhow, No New Years Resolution, no looking back and regretting, I can’t change what has happened all I can do is to try and make sure that I don’t repeat the mistakes of the past couple of years and also to commit to be there for my friends when they need me like they have been there, and continue to be there, for me.

Happy New Year to all my friends, old and new, may this coming year be a year of fulfilment and joy, of  love and peace, of all that is good and may good shine through everything.

The House

OK, so again its been a while, I have been posting a bit on my other blog but not a lot here, although readers of my regular blog will have been anticipating this post because I said some weeks ago that I might have something to write here.

It was about a year ago now, after I had been chatting to my mother, or more accurately she had been talking at me! Anyhow, that aside, she mentioned, as she had a few times before, about having been to our old house, this is the house where we moved to when I was 10 and I stayed there till I moved out, my mum stayed there after my step father left her, until she married her third husband.

It is still owned by my step father although he now lives in another country, Australia or America, not sure which!

He has rented it out a few times but it is currently empty, my mother was telling me about it being a right mess, all overgrown and going to waste.

As she spoke I felt that God was speaking to me saying that the house had been bound up and would never be a happy family house until I released the stronghold that had bound it up, I shared this with my wife and said that I felt I had, at some stage, to go there and pray around it, anyhow, we left it there and events overtook me a little.

So no more thinking about it until the other week when, by a chance number of things coming together I ended up in the car, on my own, in theory heading home from dropping our son into school late, with little to do for the rest of the morning, I went past the turn that took us to where I used to live, its a few miles from where we live now, in another village around here.

Anyhow, I suddenly realised that I hadn’t gone past the turning for where we used to live but had taken it! before I knew where I was I had arrived in the road where the house is, I parked in the lane, its a very quiet private road, the house is set well back off the road down a 100+ Yard drive, out of sight, I got out of the car and wandered down the drive, suddenly there it was, the house, standing jsut as it had always stood, except that the garden was rather overgrown.

I continued up the drive and stood on the front door, I knew it was empty but still rang the doorbell, which didn’t work, so I knocked the letterbox instead, just in case someone was lurking around inside I didn’t want to end up with the police taking me away!

So having got no reply I wandered around the property, the back is accessible without any problems, had a look in where I could, most of the curtains were drawn, but I saw enough to be pretty much drawn back in time, what I saw the place was still decorated with the same wallpaper, same carpets, same colours, same everything, that it had when I left over 20 years ago, and it needed decorating when I left!

Pretty spooky really, it was almost as if someone had shut the door after I left and it had just been left, but the garden was so overgrown, in places shrubs, some 4-6′ tall, had taken over about half the garden, the garden is, or was, about an acre in size so that’s a lot of shrubs.

Anyhow, the patio which went round 2 sides of the house (its a large 6 bed house so its a lot of patio!) was looking as if it had seen better days, sad really as I had laid most of those slabs.

And the grass, what was left of it, was so pitted and rough, it used to be a reasonable lawn but I am not sure how it goes from a normal well cared for lawn to resemble something you might see in a marsh land, really strange.

I wandered up and down the garden and all the way round the house, looked inside the garage, where most of the sexual abuse took place,  it was as frightening a place as it always was, I then begun praying, praying for the life to be breathed back in that place, praying for the evil that had been done and any spiritual forces that remained to be lifted and cast out, praying for those who had lived there since that time, praying for those who would live there from now on, praying for my step father, and my mother and siblings, I really don’t know how long I was there but as I stood there, by the window of the garage I suddenly felt as though something lifted, something lifted from me that is, I felt as though all of a sudden I had been released from some of the pain and hurt, I looked back in the window and realised that it didn’t look anywhere near as terrifying as it had done a few minutes ago, it just looked like a normal garage, OK a few cobwebs but then my garage has a few of them, except it wasn’t like a normal garage because it was nearly empty, I could see, what I hadn’t noticed before, a few toys in there, a bike, a scooter, a cuddly teddy, a box that I recognised from my childhood as containing some of my bits and pieces, suddenly it dawned on me that ALL the toys in there, there were not many, were MY toys! strange! then i noticed also, the lawnmower, the shear and a variety of tools, spade, gardening fork, rake etc, these were also the tools that I had used when I lived there, I had been expected to do a fair bit of the gardening and other work round the garden as a child, but the things in the garage were all things that I had used! how strange, 25 years on!

It was then that I felt that something was lifting from the house, that it was as if the weeds that had been choking the place were being liberally sprayed with weed-killer and was dying off before my eyes.

Anyhow, I prayed some more and had some tears as I remembered what had gone on in that place it was painful but the fear had all gone, I wasn’t afraid any more of being in that place, and the house had taken on a very different appearance, as I looked around it didn’t seem as grey and miserable as it had been, even the garden didn’t seem as bad as it had been when I first arrived, I looked around and thought well it only needs a little TLC well quite a lot of TLC actually, and it could be a lovely garden.

Feeling that my time there was over and I had done what I had come to do I headed back to the car, by this time I  was starting to get those ‘why did you allow this to happen?’ questions, referring to the abuse I suffered not the mess of the garden/house, getting back into the car I felt compelled to the parish church, strange place for me to go but there we go, as I was driving up there I remembered that I used to cut the grass in the graveyard when I was a teenager, not sure how I got into it I think the vicar was using it to keep me out of trouble, anyhow I rolled up at the church and wandered up to the doors, assuming it would be locked up, but it wasn’t so I went in and slowly made my way down the aisle to a pew at the front of the church, I am not usually drawn to churches as a place to pray so it was rather strange that I was this day, anyhow, I went and sat down it was as I sat down that I had a touch of de-javo OK yes I had been in there a few times, when I first became a Christian it was where I went until I fell out with the vicar over his theology (that’s a story for another day, and probably for another blog! but this wasn’t the reason it seemed so familiar, it suddenly dawned on me that when I used to cut the grass in the graveyard i would sometimes come into the church and sit right where I had sat this time, in front of the altar, and cry out to God, asking him, if he existed why was he allowing this to happen to me? I realise now how I had come to the conclusion at that stage that there is no such thing as God because he was being so cruel to me in allowing me to be abused the was I had been/was being, anyhow, today I felt as though God was speaking to me, he was drawing me there for a purpose, he started to unravel stuff in my heart that I am still not able to express very clearly at the moment I think there is more unravelling to do, more tears to shed and more healing to be done before I am able to vocalise some of it. What I can say now is this, a couple of years ago, when I was having nightmares/flashbacks, of the years of abuse, in each of the flashbacks/images I had this impression of someone else being in the room, another person being present, I had always been confused over this as I had no recollection of any of the sexual abuse happening in the presence of any witnesses, that morning I realised, probably for the first time, that the 3rd person there was actually God, he was there with me, not standing by allowing the abuse to happen but actively restraining my step father from doing worse, and taking on himself some of the pain and hurt that was mine.

I think I am going to stop here for now, there was more but I am not able to write or express it at the moment, suffice to say it was a very significant morning to me and I felt it has broken the demonic spirits that have bound up that house as well as breaking something in me.

Mother, Manipulation and Moods

As some of you will be aware, I often struggle with contact with my mother, she always makes us regret seeing her or speaking to her because she is so manipulative and controlling.

On 8th September I wrote a post entitled Mother Issues I won’t go through the details of that post, you can click the link to see it if you wish.

Anyhow, My mother went to Ireland and said that she would call us on her return so we awaited her phone call, several weeks went by and we still hadn’t heard from her, I chose not to make contact with her but to hold her at her word, its not unusual for her to forget to ring us when she said she would, she is usually too engrossed in her own world and more concerned to contact her friends to be bothered with her family.

Anyhow, it has to be said that we were enjoying the peace and quiet and after the things mentioned in the last post we were not really in any mood to see, or speak to, her so the longer she took the better.

Then out of the blue she called on Friday, 24th Oct (6 weeks since we last heard from her) she was calling because my dads wife (they speak to each other from time to time, I guess my mum calls her first husbands wife more than she calls her son. Anyhow, my dad’s wife is now on Facebook and had picked up from there about my wife having hurt her back a few weeks ago, which she then mentioned to my mum.

OK so my mum calls out of the blue, she says something like, you haven’t called me recently so i explain that I had assumed that she was still in Ireland as she had said she would call on her return, she says that she had assumed that I wasn’t talking to her coz i was upset with her, I guess that in truth she wasn’t calling me because she was upset at me!

Anyhow, she basically takes off from where she left off, she tries justifying her attitude towards my niece and my sister, I just say I really don’t want to know or get involved but I think she ought to speak to my sister and sort it out, as she was after all her mum!

OK so we leave that pretty much at a stalemate, it’s a long conversation of going round in circles! now my mother has made contact we ought to see her so my wife and I agree that we would see her the next day, Saturday, with the kids, I really didn’t want our first contact since the issues raised last time to be when the kids were around but as it was the beginning of half term and the kids were around all week and I really didn’t want to leave it any longer than necessary because of the thought of the barbs etc, we decided that seeing her with the kids was best.

It was never going to be easy to see her again but leaving it would only stretch out the difficulty, at least with little time to get worked up it should be easier.

We picked her up that afternoon from her house and took her to a garden centre near where she lives, experience tells us that a neutral venue is usually best.

I had decided that we had little to loose and I wasn’t going to take any nonsense from her, if she started on at us I was just going to give her an earful, i think I have reached the position now where I think if there is too much silliness from her I will just cut off contact with her, simple as that, well its not really that simple I think its still very difficult to come to that decision even now but I think it is necessary and knowing that is where we have got to means that in a sense we don’t have anything to loose, but she does.

I drove there, its about half an hours drive, I wasn’t feeling great all day but by the time we were at my mums I was feeling really sick! It was nerves and anticipation, by the time she got into the car I couldn’t bring myself to even talk to her, I chose to ignore most of what was going on, easy enough to do when I was driving anyhow.

The afternoon wasn’t as bad as it could have been, my mum didn’t mention the issues to do with my sister and niece, she also avoided saying anything aimed at me or the family, conversation was initially rather strained but we soon got chatting about her trip to Ireland etc, she was still focused on herself but not as bad as she can be sometimes.

She displayed, as normal, her inability to understand or listen to what others have to say but again not as bad as she has been, we are still unsure whether she is suffering early signs of some form of dementia or just playing games but we are choosing to ignore most of it at the moment.

Anyhow, we dropped her back off home, thinking well at least that’s out of the way we can now get on with enjoying half term with the kids, knowing that wasn’t hanging over our heads all week.

My stomach and sickness improved pretty quickly once we had seen my mother.

One chromosome too many | James Maybe

A Portrayal of the last supper by people with Downs Syndrome

An update – of sorts!

Sorry for being a bit evasive of late, I have been pretty well caught up with counselling, its made it difficult to interact easily, especially on abuse issues, I have been working through stuff that I need to work through in my own time and space, its going well but very draining, leaving me emotionally and physically exhausted.

I know that my wife gets frustrated that I am unable to communicate where things are at with the counselling but its just so difficult I need to get things sorted in my own head.

I thought I might at least be able to communicate in writing, as I have usually been able to at even the darkest times but I just don’t seem able to express in any way what’s going on inside me, its not a shutting down of emotions or cutting people off emotionally, its just, well its rather strange, a feeling of things are happening, the healing is happening but I am unable to express or talk about what’s going on, but there is less pain inside me than there was before I started the counselling, the events of the abuse are still clear but the pain of it is not as acute as it was.

I am managing to cope pretty well with every day life at the moment, I have got back to work 3 mornings a week, plus a far bit of extra stuff from home but I am having to be very careful not to over do anything, even things I enjoy, as it has the potential to tip me over the edge, although I am getting far better at realising when I am close to the edge and forcing myself to stop and rest.

So, apologies again for my lack of communication, I will try and post as much as I can when I can, I am sure that you all understand this.

In the meantime what I really need, and am valuing, is your ongoing support, in prayer and in practical ways, as well as just in knowing that your there for me when I need you.

Book Review: Hearing Jesus Speak into your sorrow

I recently came across the concept of Book Review Bloggers, this is a deal between blog writers and book publishers whereby the publisher sends the blogger a copy of a book that I read and then I write a review and post it on my blog, this seems like a fair deal to me so I decided to sign up to a couple such publishers, this is the first review for one of those publishers.

Title: Hearing Jesus Speak Into Your Sorrow

Author: Nancy Guthrie

Publisher: Tyndale

ISBN: 978-1-4143-2548-4

When I chose to receive this book to review I choose it because the write-up suggested that this was not simply a ‘nice book’ that would seek to placate the reader or give the reader ‘nice’ verses to hold onto or the cliché lines I have come to know over the past few years but would instead turn to the depths of scripture and seek to provide honest real answers to honest real thoughts, emotions and problems. Just goes to prove the old saying ‘you can’t judge a book by its cover’ is still true.

I was really disappointed when I opened the package and saw the book as, based purely from the cover, it looked like it was just going to be full of sickly verses and clichés, just what I didn’t wanted! However that disappointment didn’t last for long as I got stuck into the content of the book it touched base with me at many levels.

This book is written for those who have been through, or are going through, tough times in their lives and who need to hear Jesus speak into their situation, Guthrie is a woman who has experienced tragedy and sorrow in her own life, this tragedy and sorrow has caused her to turn to the scriptures and dig deep to find meaning in the situations she has faced.

Having lost 2 children to a rare genetic condition, both less than 2 years old, she has experienced some of the most difficult pain any mother, or father, could imagine, yet she has come out of it with a stronger and more balanced faith than ever, what could so easily have crushed her faith has enabled her faith to grown and blossom.

I read this book at a time when I was going through, just coming out of, a very severe bout of depression, one which was just about as serious and deep as it gets and almost cost me my life.

Reading this book has not been easy, there have been times when I have felt that God was piercing my heart with some of the truths revealed in this book but I believe that the perspective this book has given me has played at least a small part in helping bring me out of depression, re-focusing my minds and giving me new perspective, in ways that I had not expected.

Because of my depression, my concentration span has not been great recently however I have not found this to be an issue with this book, it is the kind of book best read slowly, a chapter or 2 at a time, to allow the truths to sink in and each chapter stands on its own so there is no loss of thread to contend with.

This book is written from a very deep and theological perspective and yet I feel can be read by anyone as it touches the reader on many different levels, as I went through the book there were a number of theological issues it raised in my own mind and yet at this stage I felt unable to delve deeper into these matters but not delving did not in any way detract from the book, at some stage I will go back over the book and pick up on these themes at a much deeper level.

Guthrie turns to the words of Jesus to seek answers to the big questions raised in her own life, questions that I have no doubt are common for anyone who has suffered loss or pain, but she does not turn to the scriptures that you might expect, she finds her source of encouragement and comfort in scriptures which you might least expect but expounds them very well and brings her depth of theological knowledge to these scriptures to really give the reader something to think about.

At the conclusion to each chapter there was a ‘letter’ written as if from God to the reader, this ‘letter’ is a paraphrase of several (mainly well known) bible verses put together in a highly readable format, this could have ventured on the cliché and well meaning words of comfort and indeed still could do (in my opinion) if taken out of the context of the preceding chapter, however I felt that she walked the balance here just right.

I for one want to thank Guthrie for writing this book and Tyndale for giving me the privilege of reviewing it (not the kind of book I would normally have picked up, especially from the cover) as it has impacted my life.

I will conclude this review with one paragraph from the very end of this book ‘In the midst of your heartache, Jesus will hold you in his arms, he will teach you, and he will speak into your sorrow. Hear his promise to be there in the days ahead to help shoulder the load of sorrow in your heart’ it is my belief that this book will enable you to realise those words in your life.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who has know what it is to suffer, to experience deep sorrow to suffer pain and loss, if you are seeking answers to the difficult questions in your life this book will not answer them all but it will point you in the right direction and enable you to change your perspective and your thinking in those areas..

Mother Issues!

I have said in the past that my blog posts are a little like busses, none for ages and then loads at once, well I have not written much for ages but feel that there are a few blog posts coming for one or other of my blogs.

So, where to start, well a good place to start is with my mother! Always a topic to get me wound up.

I will input into this post some stuff I chatted over with my counsellor today about this subject, spent my whole session chatting round issues related to my mother.

OK so a few weeks ago my niece was staying with my mother, my niece is 15 and it was a surprise that she had wanted to spend some time with my mother, as they have never really got on together, mind you my mother doesn’t really get on with anyone.

We felt a little sorry for my niece so decided that we would invite them both to join us on an afternoon at a local country park, our son was in respite so it was only our daughter with us, my mother was her usual self, very self-centred and whenever the conversation went to discussing anything other than her, e.g. when I asked my niece how school was going etc, she rapidly brought the subject back to herself, this happened several times.

Anyhow, whilst there, our daughter wet herself, as you will be aware she has learning difficulties and, at the age of 8, can still be a little unreliable with her toileting, but usually pretty reliable, my wife got on and change her and I alerted members of staff who cleared up the mess, with no fuss or problems. No more was mentioned and we didn’t think it was a big deal.

Right, now fast forward a couple of weeks to Saturday just gone, I had a phone call from my mother asking if I could check her oil and water on her car as she is due to go away shortly, during this conversation she asked whether I had heard from my sister, which I hadn’t, she then went on to say that she had fallen out with her, why? Because my niece has decided that she wants to change her name from her birth fathers surname to my sisters maiden name, you will need to read this carefully to follow it all, my sister is a divorce, her ex, my nieces father, was abusive to the kids, and continues to be (VERBALLY MAINLY) so there are good reasons why my niece might want to have little to do with him, my sister being a divorce has taken her maiden name back, this is the name she acquired through her father, my step father, although I use this surname simply because it’s what everyone knew me as all my life, anyhow, my mother and step father split up about 22 years ago when he had an affair with a younger woman, he now lives somewhere abroad, America or Australia, with his second wife and their 2 children.

OK so my mother was upset that my niece has decided to take his surname because of the hurt he has caused her, now the only hurt he has caused my mother is to have an affair with someone, I do not mean to belittle this BUT compared to the ongoing abuse I suffered its nothing, and it happens all the time! In-fact I have a suspicion, although my mother would deny it, that her relationship with my step father started as her having an affair with him whilst still with my birth father.

So, again considering the fact that my niece has suffered at the hands of her father I can understand why she might want to take the surname that her mother is currently using. Anyhow, my reaction to my mother was pretty swift and unusually assertive with her, she usually makes me feel like that little boy again and I find it difficult to be so assertive, but anyhow I simply told her that it was a silly thing to fall out over and my niece has the right to make this decision herself! My mother was hurt by this but I stood my ground and she swiftly turned the subject back to her car, I said I would get back in touch, but was already not very keen on doing anything for her.

Anyhow, I then rang my sister to discuss with her, I have found it pays to get her story ready for my next encounter with my mother. And had an enlightening discussion. Yes my niece did want to change her name and yes my sister had told my mother this was her decision and hers alone, so my mother put the phone down on her!

Ok so the relevance of the wetting incident? Simply that my sister, who can be a bit of a trouble maker it has to be said, informed me that my niece really didn’t enjoy staying with my mother, surprise, surprise, but mainly because my mother was so critical of so many people, including apparently telling my niece that my daughter wetting herself was embarrassing! As was the fact that my daughter is so clearly over weight! Now this just about shows the level of my mothers selfishness ignorance and arrogance and made me see red! After all the times we have gone out of our way to take my mother out and al the hours spent with her saying how ‘lovely’ & how ‘sweet’ our daughter is and all the time she was embarrassed by things like that! Yes our daughter does have a weight issue and she does have bladder (and bowel) control problems, but that’s all part of the disability, as our niece pointed out but my mother apparently dismissed it and said it had nothing to do with it! Presumably she blames the parents!

So now I was faced with a real dilemma, do I go and sort my mothers car out or do I throw my dummy out of the pram and refuse? And if I do go, do I mention the matter or not?

Well, for the sake of good relations I choose to go, although we made pretty sure we didn’t have to spend long there, went on the way back from being out and had some dinner in the oven! So the kids and my wife stayed in the car as I sorted her car out, I also choose not to raise the subject although would have had a thing or 2 to say if she had mentioned anything along those lines!

Basically I am at the point where I am considering severing ties with my own mother because her attitude is totally unacceptable, we have chosen to give life and opportunities to 2 children with special needs and they do NOT need this kind of attitude from their own grandmother.

This raises again the whole, honouring your parents issue, which would be easy to do if she were keeping the commandments too as she wouldn’t be so awkward and difficult to be honouring to.

Anyhow, in chatting with my counsellor today we discussed some of the issues and reasons why I find it difficult to tackle issues directly with my mother, on this occasion it wasn’t that I found it difficult to tackle it I deliberately chose not to raise the issue myself but generally I always feel as though she turns me into a little child again, primarily because she has always, for as long as I can remember belittled me and run me down, she has always treated my views and opinions as if they don’t count and actually she pays very little attention to anything that I, or my sister say, as if our views are unimportant, also through my childhood she has pretty much made me feel as a small child, not allowed to have a view or opinion of myself, I have to listen to what my parents say as they are always right!

Another part of this is the whole honouring issue, how can you disagree with your parents and still honour them? Well I have good cause to disagree with my mother, she is so often wrong, and bigoted and ignorant and doesn’t listen to another persons opinion or point of view! But that doesn’t mean I don’t honour her, and respect her, as another human being that is! As my mother, no, all she did was to give birth to me and accommodate me for a few years, she has never earned the right to be honoured as my mother.

Anyhow, some of you might think that I am being rather harsh on her, well if that’s you feel free to contact me and you can take her as your mother! Lets see how long you survive!

Basically my mother falls out regularly with all sorts of people, for all sorts of silly reasons, this issue with my sister is just the latest (that I know of) in a long line of issues over which she falls out with people.

At the moment she is away on holiday (kind of!) with her sister but she has regularly fallen out with her too, my mum has said several times that her sister ‘always has to be right, she can’t accept that she is ever wrong’ sounds familiar to me!

Another example of how awkward and stubborn my mother can be is also connected to names, my sister has chosen, since leaving home, to be known by her middle name rather than her first name, I have to say I can’t blame her because in my view her middle name is much nicer, this again is a decision that she is entitled, as an adult, to make, it’s all part of her stamping her own identity and personality on her life but my mother refuses to refer to her by her middle name, this leads to a lot of confusion especially when my mum was living not far from my sister, everyone there knew my sister by her middle name so got pretty confused when my mum called her by her first name, changing your preferred name in this way, either using your middle name or abbreviating your name or taking on a nick name etc is pretty common place in society, but my mum just wants her little girl to shrink away and conform to her mum’s standards and expectations. In fact I think I am going to make a conscious decision to call my sister by her preferred name, at least when addressing her in person even if my mother is around, regardless of the consequences because this is what my sister WANTS! And she is old enough to make this decision, it might be difficult for a while as I am so used to her being called, and me calling her, by her first name.

Anyhow, at this point in time I am having to make a conscious decision that I will NOT be sucked into my mothers games and manipulation that I WILL NOT allow her to control me or to turn me into that little child that I will act as the adult and address the issues in an adult and grown up way, without loosing my temper and without allowing myself to be turned into the little child again, regardless of how she reacts, even to the point where I can make the conscious decision to NOT tackle an issue if I feel it would not be constructive, or would even be detrimental to do some but this would be a decision would be a conscious decision made in my adult self rather than one made because I have become the weak child that she wants me to become.

Fortunately for us we have always made a point of refusing to allow my mother to have any stronghold over us in the form of having given ups money to help us out, there have been times that she has offered to help us financially with some significant expenditure, most recently the cost of re-wiring the house, but we have always turned down these offers because we do not want to allow her to be able to use this against us. A good policy and one my sister wishes she had adopted but she has taken money from my mother at various times and always regrets it.

Anyhow, I do feel that, in the right time and in the right way I need to tackle some of this stuff directly with my mother, addressing her general attitude towards other people and telling her that her attitude is only going to result in her being very lonely into her old age, certainly myself and my sister feel that we are reaching the end of what we can tolerate from her. But also addressing directly her attitudes and prejudices about our children, telling her that if she is that embarrassed by our kids then she best not come out with us! But timing and wording will be crucial, I need to ensure that my attitude and actions are from right motives and done in a right way but also being prepared to accept that this MAY result in the severing of relationships, for at least a time, depending on her response, this is obviously not an issue I can tackle with the kids present either, so wisdom beyond wisdom is needed to know how best to tackle this.

I think that’s about all I need to say on this, the post is a lot longer than I expected but that’s not unusual, as I said at the beginning there may well be a couple of others to follow this if I can get my head round it all.

core belief’s and evidenced based belief

OK so that sounds quite a heavy title for a post but hopefully it won’t be as heavy as all that!

Over the past couple of weeks in counselling we have chatted around issues of ‘core beliefs’ some of my core beliefs being that I am useless, stupid, ugly, no one likes me, unable to do anything, the list could go on! Pretty much all my core belief’s are negative. As if you needed to know that!

She said that core beliefs are really set during childhood, we develop our core beliefs through what our parents & other influential adults tell us and then they are set and it becomes difficult to change them.

So what about the evidence based belief part of this? Well my counsellor was saying that when we have core beliefs we always look for evidence that supports those core beliefs and dismiss evidence that doesn’t support them, so for example, I see myself as stupid, I build this belief up by looking for all the evidence to support it, when I don’t know the answers to the things people ask or I cant solve a problem etc and dismiss all the clever things I manage to do, when I manage to solve problems or sort things out for myself or for others. Yep that about sums me up!

How else can someone who as a Transport Manager was head hunted on more than one occasion because they thought I was good at the job manage to decide that he is stupid? Quite simply, I dismiss others belief that I am pretty good at it by saying they don’t really know me, etc.

Anyhow, you can see how this whole issue swims round and round in circles, for me I am working very hard on trying to correct some of my core beliefs because I know that others do not share the same view of me that I share of myself, as has been evidenced by some of the things they say and the way that they have spoken about me, I must dig out that list of positive things people spoke about/over me a few months back.

Having gone through my childhood believing that I was useless, ugly, stupid etc I have carried those beliefs into adult life and perfected the belief in my own mind so it takes a lot to over come those beliefs and I need to constantly look for and validate the evidence that supports the opposite views to those that I have thus far believed. After all, as my wife regularly says, do I want to believe the things that my parents said about me when I was a child (and my mother continues to say to this day) or will I believe the things that those who are nearest to me and who love me most say about me? Well there is no contention really when you put it like that BUT life is never quite as easy, its not a matter of flicking a switch and hey presto your mind set has changed.

OK now for the other part of this post, hadn’t intended to write most of the above! What I really wanted to say was, it occurred to me earlier today that the vast majority of people, even those who are highly educated and respected leaders in the field of science, can and do fall into the trap of developing core beliefs then looking for evidence to support their belief rather than looking at all the evidence before forming a belief, indeed it would be pretty impossible to do the latter as the evidence sometimes changes over time.

So, for example, many years ago people believed that the world was flat and the whole of their world view was based in the belief that the world was flat, they never challenged this because all the evidence (that the found) pointed to the world being flat, it took a lateral thinker to challenge this assumption and re-define the whole way we saw the world when he discovered that the world was actually a globe, can you imagine what it would be like if we still thought the world was flat?

There are still those who don’t believe that smoking causes any health problems, these people will point to the evidence of great uncle bob or granddad who at the age of 90+ is still going strong and has smoked 40 a day fro most of their life, indeed if you look only at this evidence you can see why people come to the conclusion that smoking cant be that bad for you, but that is to dismiss the huge number of deaths each week from the effects of smoke, lung cancer etc.

Another example might be the pro & anti Europe camps in this country, those who are anti Europe will look for all the beurocratic decisions all the stupid rules, the costs to us as a nation of being a part of the community whereas those who believe we should be in Europe will look at all the benefits, the grants we receive the good laws that come out of Europe (at which point the euro sceptics say what good laws?) the investment and security the EU offers us, oh and before you ask, I am pretty neutral on the issue of Europe!

When is comes to faith, religious beliefs, we all have a faith, whether we acknowledge it or not, and our faith usually provides the basis of our world view, for some their faith is a belief on God, in some form or another, for others it is a belief that there is no God, whichever camp you fall into I can guarantee that you look for the evidence to support that belief rather than looking at the evidence that exists to see what it tells you, your thought patterns are affected by your belief system.

As a Christian I freely admit that I look for, and see, evidence of God’s creative work in every day life, I can see the way that he has created and written DNA into every living thing, the way that he made the planet to be such a beautiful place, the way that he made everything good.

Of course those who are evolutionists will point to the glaciers and carbon dating and various other aspects of the world to show how clear it is that the world was formed out of a big bang and we are all evolved from microscopic beings, or whatever is their particular conviction of how we came to be.

The evidence on any side can and will be overwhelming to the people who hold to that particular belief.

So, who can claim to have THE answers and know the truth? Well I believe that the truth can only be known separate from the ‘evidence’ and comes out of an inner evidence, as a Christian I have had a personal encounter with God and know from my inner evidence that he exists and that there is truth to be discovered, however I can not provide you the reader with evidence that will sway you because you will filter all the evidence based on your pre-conceived views and beliefs.

Many people who have grown up with an abusive father have struggled with the concept of God as Father, until recently, well the past couple of years, I would have denied this was me, I could relate to the concept of God as father, but the truth is that I still had a wrong perception, I have always believed that I pretty much sneaked into the kingdom, I wasn’t actually chosen, at the meeting where I went forward to give my life to God I was just one of a number of people and I have always felt that when I stood there God looked at me and just said ‘oh you came forward too did you? OK I will let you in’ this view was really due to the relationship I had with my parents in growing up, always feeling as if I was just tolerated rather than loved, not wanted but there, not being kicked out but still not really being welcomed as a valued part of the family. This mind set has been really clear in the way I have felt about going through the depths of depression over the past couple of years.

Are there issues where you filter evidence through your own belief system rather than filter your belief system through all the evidence open to you? I know that there are still definitely areas that I need to work on, areas where I still believe things and stack the evidence in support of that belief. Mainly for me in relation to my perception of myself, but bit by bit I am dismantling my belief system in an effort to rebuild it on the security of all the evidence available.

Painting

I am really proud of myself today, I have achieved something I would have never thought possible 18 months ago, I have begun decorating my daughters bedroom, and that means painting the walls.

We did have friends offer to help with this task but when push came to shove we realised that it would be easier to do the decorating whilst our son was in respite so that our daughter could sleep in his room whilst the decorating was being done, this meant doing it over Thursday & Friday this week, so unfortunately we have had to turn down the help offered, which is a shame but it has given me an opportunity to face my phobia head on once more.

Its not the physical achievement of decorating her bedroom as much as the emotional achievement of overcoming a huge phobia in my life to be able to paint, with which I am please and proud of.

Anyone who has read this post will be aware that the phobia I have over paint is pretty deep rooted and has been a real big issue in my life for far too many year and one that I never expected to be able to rise above.

I can’t pretend that painting has been easy, its been emotionally draining because of the associations it holds but I have done it, I haven’t enjoyed doing it but I have succeeded and for that I am really pleased in my achievement, we have set out to give our daughter a beautiful bedroom, and I think we will have succeeded once the project is finished but this would not have been possible without me facing my paint phobia once more and doing the painting.

Tomorrow I have to put a final coat of paint on the walls, put up the border paper (along the top of the wall) hang curtains and go shopping for her new bed (pink one of course!) and furniture/put them together, well some of it will have to wait until next week!

For the time being I am just happy to dwell on my achievements today.