Wednesday 17 March 2021

Does it Ever End?

Here I am again. I thought this door was closed. But it keeps being forced open by those who do not have permission to open it. 

Twice recently, I have been called out on social media. Once a few weeks ago, by a prosecution witness at my court case in 2013 (an ex friend), who lied her way through her evidence, and then again today, by someone who obviously is very right wing, led by reading false media, and who has a massive grudge. 

Social media is such a useful platform. And it is also so dangerous. 

I am always open to sharing my history, my emotions, my hurt, my past, my pain, my thoughts, my opinions, my beliefs. Sometimes I get responses I don't agree with. Sometimes I get responses that are painful. Sometimes people are simply unkind. Sometimes, most of the time, I get support, because I am very careful to evidence what I say, and to not be personally unkind. Because I know how that feels.

Mostly I pick myself up and move on. 

But my traumatic PTSD from my wrongful conviction and the treatment of my family leaves me shaking today, ridden with anxiety and fear, and it does not take much to set it off. No matter how well I am doing, how hard I am working, it just takes that one social media reference to my past to send me back to the period of 2009 to 2013, and the hell that we all went through. Why not 2015 you might ask, after being released from the gated retreat? Well, the time I spent inside from 2013 was actually OK. They believed me. They saw my evidence, met my children, spoke to me, and they believed me. Not hard to believe when you see all the evidence in front of you. They supported me, understood how terrible the whole situation was, and helped me as much as they could. 

But today I am sick with fear. Riddled with anxiety. It leaves me feeling very unwell, imagining driving to the top of a local beauty spot, and making it all go away. 

Would anyone care? 

The people who feel the need to remind me, all these years later, of that awful event, well I don't think they would care.

The person who started off this particular sequence of events, with posts on a Facebook status, he wouldn't care. He is simply making everything worse with his need to justify himself and rally his troops. 

My family? Well Lockdown has been hard. It has broken us all to a certain extent. We definitely aren't where we were. We need some massive therapy and support, to try to work through all the trauma and damage caused by DWP and the media. My adult children, who now have worse needs due to what happened to them, need therapy and support. I wouldn't want to leave them alone. 

But how long do I have to put up with this?

My life is filled with helping others, always has been. I support so many families of children with needs. My whole life is filled with trying to help and support others. Even when I was on my holiday, I spent all my time helping. Wing rep, teaching ladies to read, being a Maths mentor, taking food to women in their rooms, cleaning for others, working with charities, the list is endless. It is who I am and what I do. So why is it acceptable for people who do not know me, to call me manipulative, narcissistic and a bully! Have I not spent my life being bullied? Putting up with abuse? Do I not self-analyse enough already? Self-blame, dislike myself, struggle to sleep through all the nightmares?

It takes a lot for me to trust anyone. And I trusted and it failed. And now I am being hurt. Again. 

Where do I go from here? Is this the rest of my life? Does this hang over me like the gallows, always pushing me back into that dark space?

Even if I was a guilty person, surely the time was done, it was paid for?

What would have happened though, if the raid on my home was today? I do believe there would be a completely different ending. I am part of support groups now, the children are older and fully aware and able to talk about their difficulties, I have a network of friends and colleagues who know them well and can evidence and witness for them honestly. I've always maintained my innocence and always told the truth, It doesn't really help in a criminal court, it's a joke really. But I would be just as honest and truthful again. But with a support network wrapped around me. 

So I will block the haters, the ones who have their own agenda to fit, and again pick myself up and move forward. Today will be my terrified and anxious day. And tomorrow I will try again. I will continue to share my story, in the hope it will resonate with others. If my pain makes one other person's pain better? Then I didn't lose. I won.