Monday 20 April 2020

Lock-down, Lock-up, Love and Life

I dreamed about my mother last night!

I am not sure if I have written about her in this blog, after all it has been almost a year since my last entry and, funnily enough, I don't spend hours re-reading my own ramblings! In fact this is the first time I have accessed this page since last year. But I have probably mentioned her....

Mothers come in all shapes and sizes; the good, the bad and the ugly. My mother was not a good one. Well not to me. Nor to my older brother. Nor it seems to my younger half-brother, as they are not in touch anymore. However, she must have done something right with my youngest half-sister, as her three children (my nieces) are my mother's profile picture on Facebook, and I have seen lots of "love you so much Nanna/love you so much Mum" posts between the pair of them.  Not that I should know this, as I am blocked on social media by both of them. But in today's internet age it is very easy to stalk someone, as I found out this morning when I woke from the dream where my mother died, and felt something was telling me to check her out. 

In my dream it was left to me to clear her house. A house I always hated, as it had so many dark, abusive memories. In my dream I hunted through drawers filled with letters, searching, I think, for something to explain away my childhood, my adulthood, her behaviours. I felt bereft in my dream. I was crying in my sleep. I felt I would never have the chance again to ask her why.

My ex-husband, Pete, died suddenly in February. He was the father of my older three children, my teenage best friend. I miss him like I would miss my legs. I invited her to his funeral; the funeral of her grandchildren's father. She didn't know it was me messaging her. She replied and said it was very sad. She didn't turn up. 

When you have been let down consistently by a parent for nearly 50 years, why is there that glimmer of hope?

So today I stalked. (Well you know what i mean, before you start phoning 999!). I found out she and her husband have moved from that terrible house, the place they've lived in for nearly 30 years. About two years ago. Moved to the place she lived in when she was married to my father. A man she hated. A man she has always lied about. A place she always claims is her happy place, yet a place that must have been so sad for her. A place where my brother and I lived with my Mum and my Dad together; a traumatic, difficult, emotionally scarring time, with parents who could not stand each other, where she had affairs, he gambled, and they lost the house. Where she gave away her children. Me and my brother Alan. I was four years old. 
 
According to the wonderful world wide web, she is becoming very active locally. She posts messages on the local grapevine site, goes for beach walks, visits and reviews the local cafes, has had photos of the view published in the paper. A "normal" grandmother with three lovely granddaughters. Facebook friends who tell her what a great nanna and mum she is. 
But.... that's not true is it? She has ten other grandchildren who do not appear on her social media. That she has no contact with. She has two other children (other than my older brother who died in Australia about 12 years ago) who do not appear on her social media. That she has no contact with. 

I do not often think about her. But this dream has really thrown me today. And more so, I think, because we are in lock-down due to Coronavirus. It has made us all feel vulnerable. It has rocked the stability we have often taken years to achieve. And this dream has rocked my fragile stability. 

I left the gated retreat in May 2015, five years ago now. And it mostly seems a distant memory. As I sit here now, and think about all those 81,454 members of our society locked away, without the ability to keep themselves safe right now, or make any decisions about their lives, I worry. I don't care that these people may or may not have committed a crime. How terrifying must it be right now to be a prisoner. In the media, here on the outside, our lock-down and self-isolation is compared to prison.... the utter naivety of those who have not faced the total despair of a prison sentence.

I stopped blogging last year. I gave up trying to infiltrate that closeted and incestuous world of those working in reform charities and groups. 
But, despite the brick walls from my own community, the CJS world, I am a success. My theatre company goes from strength to strength. We are a family. Tight. Our coronavirus NHS toilet roll challenge video has had 30,000 views in three days! It has become my life, 24/7. A life I love, and one which makes me happy. 

Yet here I am, a mum aged 50 (oh my word, 50 was positively ancient when I was young), still so mixed up from her traumatic childhood. And still with that self-critical and judgmental narrative, constantly running in my head. 

My own children, the younger ones, don't see their Dad. He decided to disappear about 4 years ago, when the mediation, that I arranged for my children's sake, told him how to be a proper parent. Needless to say he didn't agree, and instead, he decided the best parenting technique was to dump his children. At the time, I have to say, I was relieved. But again, with Covid-19 in the air, I am now concerned. No matter how awful a parent he is, he is still the other person who created my children. He is also a type 1 diabetic and that is currently a risk factor. As is our youngest son, although his Dad does not know that, as he was already long gone when the diagnosis happened. I know his children are now thinking of him too. Why could he not be a parent? Am I the only person to feel this pain when parents cannot put their children first?

As I get older I become more frustrated with people. Personally I am loving the enforced lock-down because it means I don't have to be around people! I am enjoying the break I think we all need. The calmness. The lack of demands. The peace. 

But I am still sad. For the life I didn't have. The decisions I couldn't make. The options that just were not there for me. 

A couple of years ago I wrote to my foster family. In France. My foster sister who had been my hero, and her husband who I had adored. And my other foster sister, 8 years older than me, who had the bedroom next to me, who I irritated and annoyed with my piano playing and loud singing! I tried to explain that they had been my real/only family. That I missed them. That they were the ones in my childhood memories, the memories that nobody can share with me anymore. (which is actually really hard to deal with). After all, I lived with them from the age of 5 to 13. And stayed in touch for a while after. I wrote about how that felt, to lose the only family that had been there. They wrote back, with little empathy or interest, and said "I had made my own decisions".....
How does a traumatically damaged child, with major attachment issues, who becomes an equally damaged adult, have the ability to make well-thought out and conscious decisions! I have spent my adult life surviving! Simply managing from one day to the next, with no childhood pattern to rely on.Trying to give my children everything I didn't have, while coping with children on the autistic spectrum, with other needs, with no family support at all! 

I still feel I run my life in survival mode. Does that ever stop?

Oh and in case you are wondering? I am blocked by my mother on social media because I didn't send her a Mother's Day card. She reconnected with me when I was publicly shamed in the tabloid press, for that crime I didn't actually commit back in 2013. It took me a long time to allow her back in, she came to visit me in the gated retreat, and it wasn't too bad. But, I can never think of her as a mother, in the way my children see me as Mummy. Which is why I did not send her a mothers day card in 2014. And never will. 

She left me (and my brother) when I was 4 years old. From birth to that time my life was traumatic and I was neglected. I then spent 10 years in foster care followed by two years back with her, in a very, very emotionally and physically abusive situation. Throughout my adult life I wanted to connect (God knows why, but as I always tell people who adopt and foster, the child will always crave their birth parent). She would come in and out of my life. There was always a banal reason for her to walk out each time. And out of my children's life. As a mum myself, I know it is the parent's responsibility to always be there. No matter what. And the same for a grand-parent. So how can she be a "mum" to me?

As for my own love life? Well I have been pretty honest so far in my blogs. I mean, what's the point in being otherwise? Since my last entry in 2019 we have moved house, and separated from my older children. A new start. 
What I didn't write about, before, was that in 2018 the wife and I separated. And then in December 2018 she ended our marriage, and broke off all contact. It was such an incredibly hard time. I broke. After a few months we did get back together to try again. And to be fair, she has tried. It's difficult. It is up and down. I am someone living with serious abandonment issues, So I am not doing great with it. Some days I think it will work. Some days I am sure it won't. I am damaged and hurt. I am a product of my traumatic, neglected childhood. She doesn't know how to love, to give, to put the other person at the top of your list. All the things I need. 

Maybe this will be my second "last entry" in my blog! All I know is, I was so disturbed by my dream, and by my stalking today, that I felt this was my way to deal with it. To write and to get my emotions and thoughts out there. 

Lock-down continues; I wish you all safety and health. Lock-up continues for many of our friends and family, I think of them often and continue to fight prejudice on a daily basis. I wish them too safety and health, and a future. Love goes from me to every one of you who supports me and who reads my blog, and please, I beg you, live a life that is exactly what YOU want it to be, and not what anyone else thinks it should be. 

Love your life, but more than that, love yourself. I am trying to.