Category: Life

What is love, conditional or unconditional. A personal blog.

We love people, for what they do for us or others. So should we not ‘un love’ people for what they do to us or to others? I am beginning to think so. I spent 57 years loving the woman who gave me life, 57 years of getting nothing back and as a child, this hurts. I tried everything to have her love me and forgave her every time she showed she didn’t. The last 2 years of her life I thought she had changed, she pretended love for me whilst bad mouthing me to others. This is one kind of conditional love that is misguided on my part, the love because of who she was, my ‘mother’. That died after her death, when I discovered that she had lied and betrayed me, news happily given to me by my youngest sister Trisha, her favourite and her protégé. How many years did I waste loving her when it wasn’t deserved or I suspect even wanted. I didn’t learn.The love from and for your mother should be one of the strongest and I hope it is for most of you reading this.

Another love, that I had as a child, was my love for God, or Jesus. Love of my church, where I would escape to when life was tough. This is going to make some of you angry but as I have to write how I feel, I can’t apologise. All of my younger life I prayed to God to help me. To stop the horrors that were happening at the hands of an ‘uncle’ and to make my mother love me. He didn’t listen. But I didn’t stop that love. I religiously prayed at the side of my bed for years and years but it was futile. I am not writing any of this for your sympathy, just exploring what this thing called Love is. After losing  a baby boy, years later , my dear Dad William, said. ‘God is testing you’. He said ‘He will only give you what you are able to take. Each test you pass will show you this’. Well after the few years I have had, sorry Dad but I am all ‘tested out’. I don’t want to be tested anymore because I must keep failing. I just want to live a life without being tested with those who love me for me.

So what is this thing called Love? I hear about it. I know it myself in my own home. On my Prostate Cancer  groups I read of complete commitment, real love of women for their men in extremely difficult times. People can change under treatment for cancer and if the love between a couple has been waning, not as strong, PC can often destroy it completely. That saddens me. I also read of women at the end of their tether, not recognizing the men they married after treatment or even diagnosis, love is again tested. We need all the strength, courage and love to face this horrid illness and survive. I am lucky to have David, he is almost back to his old self and our love, already tried to the extremes is enduring, strong and true. It has passed every test sent and we are still standing close, loving and happy. I am one of the lucky ones. I wish this for all of my friends on here. But as I have said in many earlier blogs, PC changes us, this is how it has changed me and my outlook on life and love.

At this time of my life I ‘should’, a word I don’t encourage clients to use, have the love and support of my siblings. Sadly my eldest sister to whom I was close, is no longer here, I do have the love of Tony my beloved brother but he is terminally ill so I will lose that very soon. My middle sister June, has had her head filled with the circulating lies about me and is not psychologically equipped to know what is true and what are lies. I thought she knew me well enough to know the difference but it seems I was wrong. As for the baby of the family, Patricia, I hadn’t seen or heard from her for over 40 years, so we don’t know each other as who we are today, but that hasn’t stopped the lies and stories she has made up about me, being spread to anyone who will listen. I love my brother and sisters but I don’t like the youngest, one little bit. Why should I. Growing up in  a dysfunctional family like mine I should not be surprised at the family estrangement and dishonesty. Love was selective within it, as we grew up, dependent on how ‘Mother’ felt at the time; she loved my brother and sisters but not me, so they would have been affected by this. Sibling love? Sorry but not always there.

Love should be given freely for how we perceive the person and how they perceive us, it should never be given forcibly, never taken for granted and never given out of duty.

Unconditional love for your children. Now we broach an entirely different kind of love. When does this allow ‘conditions’? How many times has someone told you of really wicked treatment of a child to their mother? When questioned the person will say, ‘I can’t do anything because she is my daughter’, or ‘because he is my son?’ How much do we have to accept as mothers? How often do we have to let our children treat us badly? How often do we have to let them chip away at that love until it is gone for good?

Would you allow others to sell things that were yours and not theirs? Then do nothing? No.

I have had comments when mentioning all of this in earlier blogs , other Mums have spoken of things done to them by their children and the guilt they feel at not feeling love for that child any longer. That guilt is unfounded in my book, after the years I have had. How many times can someone use you and then you have your kindness thrown back in your face before it dawns on you that they are unworthy of your love? Does that make you wrong? Does  it make you less of a person? No. It makes you human.

Would you still love friends who betrayed and lied to you? No.

Would you still love your child if their lies have turned your grandchildren against you and your husband? No.

Would you still love someone who has cheated you out of your writing career, or tried to, by telling lies and ruining it for you, just out of spite? No of course you wouldn’t.

Would you still love people who turned others against you with horrific stories and lies that defamed you and hurt your reputation? No. So why do we let those we love do this?

If this is what unconditional love is, the rules need to be changed!

How much love does it take to keep taking the blows, the nasties etc. before we can say, enough’s enough.?

When I had my first child, my daughter Lisa Jayne, during my first marriage, I was overjoyed. She was my blessing, my life, my child. The best thing that had ever happened to me. Now life was good. As she grew she was a delight, a funny, kind loving little girl whom we all loved. As a young woman, she began to do things that hurt. She got married to her first husband of whom I was very fond, and them told me, after it was all over. There was no reason for this, I had been with her on the Tuesday excitedly,talking about the day she would marry her then fiance’. She married on the Friday of that same week.. I was mortified as were my husband and her sister. But we forgave her after a while. Over the next few years she did many things that hurt me, stole from me, lied to me but each time I forgave her. I have bailed her out as parents do, let things go that have hurt and always taken her back into my life. But I think my ‘unconditional’ must have run out, after the last 4 years of a vendetta of hatred towards me. During that time she has shown how nasty, cruel and vile she can be. How much ,like her wicked Aunt Patricia(Trisha) and her grandmother she has become. It breaks my heart. If anyone else had done to me the things she has done, I would have acted and taken things further. Why didn’t I ? Because I am her Mum. And mums don’t do that to their children, do they? But things have to change. After knowing my husband had cancer, she still did not let up, that to me, is a step too far.

As you know she has done the unforgivable to my dying brother, making these last months of life for him and his family, more painful and unhappy that they could have been. For that, ‘unconditional’ doesn’t get a look in. If I had read in the news, that a young woman had ‘conned a dying man’ out of thousands of pounds, I would certainly not have liked them, let alone loved them whoever they were. Why should I? How could I? So why should a mother’s unconditional love keep me loving someone so cruel, dishonest and without compassion?

She has told my grandsons and anyone else who she feels would be interested, that the man she was told is her father, is not her father and that as I slept around, she has no idea who he is. This is libel and I can’t let this stay around the internet, on social media, in the form she has taken on sites under her pseudonyms, any longer. She has also told then I tried to stop her adopting her little girl Hannah, I didn’t. I just told her,the truth about another child whom she was treating, in my eyes in a cruel manner. I wanted her to adopt the baby girl she was fostering but couldn’t lie on an official statement that said we were ‘very close, and that I was her ‘pivotal support’,when after my comments around the foster child, she shut me out of her life and blocked any way I had of communicating with her. That is the truth and Lisa knows this.I value my reputation and have worked hard to keep it honest and good. I begin my Professional work again tomorrow ,so have to put this evil to bed as soon as possible. I have taken enough. Three years of enough! Do I still love her? Yes. Or rather I love the child I gave birth to, the child and young woman I raised, although I failed somewhere, obviously, as she was like her sister, brought up honest, caring and kind. Marie is still a loving, straight talking, open and honest young woman who shows respect for others. As for Lisa,I love the daughter I raised, who I saw through motherhood, who gave me grandchildren. I still love that Lisa. But I don’t even like the person she is now. How could I when she is so destructive, so uncaring in what she does to others. Who lies, steals and maligns me. Why should I even consider ‘unconditional love’? Should it at least go both ways? In the past few weeks I have tried to give her a chance to make things right as I have written in earlier blogs but all I had in return were more lies and abuse. So that tact doesn’t work. I need to change.

Today after another sleepless night I decided it is time to act.

‘If you always do what you have always done. You will always get what you have always got!”

I am having to play the game their way. Not lie, I don’t mean that but to stop the bullying and the lies I have to take steps to stop this. I don’t like writing this, but telling myself this is the only way to stop them from making me ill again and to redress the things she has done to me and others I love. Maybe, like them, no holds barred. Hit them where it hurts!  Stealing my love of writing, although I worked hard to get it back, maybe I have to do similar to her, take something from her and her aunt that they love. Spoil their ‘name’ and help Karma on its way. You think that wrong? That no mother should think like this?Lisa has told the world that I am no longer her Mum. That she hates me. So now maybe I have given her reason to hate me but I have to do something. After talking to my brother today, I have to act now. For those of you who have a belief in God, the bible says ‘ An eye for an eye’. I have allowed too many ‘eyes’ being damaged so now need to fight back. As a child, as I have told you all before, I was never allowed to say ‘It’s not fair’. When David was first diagnosed with PC, I said it. Talking to Tony and knowing his suffering has been made worse by my daughter’s lies and cheating. My having put up with constant bullying and verbal wickedness for many years, afraid to open my computer in case she has verbally abused me on social media. Today I shout it from the roof tops. ‘ITS NOT FAIR’!

I have now to take a stand. I have begun, I have to. Fight back with everything I have to gain some normality and peace ‘here on the farm’.

Fo those of you who think this wrong,;either to think as I am thinking, or writing as I have written, I can only talk and act as I think right. My way. I don’t like who I have become, for today at least, but I have to stop this and stop future pain for myself and those I love. Those of you who are able to keep your ‘unconditional’ love for your child, I envy you. It means that maybe you have not suffered in the way my family have. I wish you all the very best and hope nothing like this happens to change that love for your child. I still have it for 2 of mine and they for me, but as you see, the third has wavered under the strain.

Thankyou for reading x

 

Today’s blog marks a change in content of what I write. I began my entries back in June 2016, writing for family who I know read it, who didn’t know my side of a ‘war’ I found myself an unwitting and unwilling participant of. It was the only way I could tell the truth of what had I had become part of, and of what I was being accused. It was futile back then, as I know how believable those blackening my name could be, lying and maligning me at every opportunity. For 3 years plus, I was being worn down by this evil and found myself trying to put up a defence, the only one I had was my truth, my honesty trying to withstand this cruel  vendetta based on lies from my daughter Lisa. I wasn’t ready for what came next.

August 26th 2016, our lives ‘here on the farm’ took a different turn, David was diagnosed with Prostate cancer and I began logging my journey with PC; telling you of my perception of my life and everything in it. Oh how I needed some ‘normal’ back then. I needed to see photos of nieces, nephews and family, back in my home town, on Social media as I had always done. My way of keeping in touch. But when I was finding nasty comments, swearing and lies, on my social media ,even though I had blocked those already causing me pain, I had to take all family off my pages, after explaining to them why, to keep my sanity. Social media is important to me but having abuse from all corners every time I logged on, was making me ill. So I had no choice but to take family off. I so wanted to explain to them but was afraid of any repercussions for them and for me, so didn’t. Over the next few months, I was ostracized because family were turned against me. As I have said before, I don’t blame them. They were being fed such horrendous lies by a person expert in the field of lying. My sister Trisha. Life was already painful and difficult and then my beloved David had cancer and when that hit, it left me reeling. This was far worse than anything my sister or daughter who has been brainwashed by her evil aunt, worse than anything they could send my way.

David was the ‘victim’ of this horrid disease that changed our lives forever, but I felt like I had it too. Our life together, already hurt by family, was now being threatened in a different way. One we had no control over and I was terrified. Our marriage, our relationship was and is very strong and I am grateful for that. He was the brave one. He is so pragmatic and I tried hard not to show him my fear. As I have told before in my blog, the years before cancer struck, he had stood by me, supported me and helped me put my writing career back together after my sister and daughter, with lies and deceit, threatened to take my publisher to court for something they themselves did. Publishers are renowned for being afraid of litigation so my book was taken down. I was devastated but not for long. With David’s help I found another publisher and my books are back on sale. So in the end they failed. He has spent so many nights holding me while I cried, mostly for how my daughter was changing, how easily she found it to hurt me and to lie and cheat. David has always been there for me, for my children and my family and yet these two women have treated him so badly. He is my rock and he had a life threatening illness and I was helpless to do anything to stop it. I changed my blog entries and began my Journey.

My Journey with cancer with a little ‘c’ has taught me that I am stronger than I thought. Yes I almost fell apart ,as those of you who have read from the beginning, will know. If life had been easier, kinder before it hit us, maybe I would have coped better, I don’t know. But I did cope, just. My own health has not been good for the last few years and currently I am dealing with the fallout of the emotional stress caused me by family, and have been rendered quite poorly but I will bounce back. I always do. I’m still standing as they say. It hasn’t been easy, the worry , the F word, fear but those on the same journey know how hard it can be. All of you on here, reading this, know that although PC physically attacks our men, it affects us both, bigtime. I call it the ‘Couples cancer’ because that’s what it is. We both struggle with the diagnosis, we both have to battle with the endless waiting, it may be the men who have the treatment but in our own way, we suffer to the same extent. The changes forced upon us as a couple can, for some, be too huge to accept. Our man changes, our relationship changes and so do we. But for the fortunate ones, still here, I believe we can come out of the Journey stronger. That’s what I need to tell myself, because it is true.

We are now happy in the knowledge that David’s PSA is undetectable and the surgeon tells us that the cancer has gone! I will continue to support those on here, in the groups to which I belong, those who are just beginning their journey, those in it and struggling as I did and those, sadly at the end. I will raise awareness of the importance of PSA tests being carried out early in men and help raise money for PCUK. when I can. But my blog will go back, to the reasons I began writing ,early last year, after horrible nasty comments on my pages on Mothers Day by my daughter Lisa. My way of using the written word, as well as letting family know, how life is here, for me and most importantly to help me process the many events that keep happening in my ‘ordinary life’. I am coping, with the help from David and my daughter Marie and her husband Jason. I should have a large extended family and I am sure if I did, I wouldn’t be blogging but I don’t. Lisa and Trisha made sure of that, but I am not giving up having them all back in my life now they know the truth. I should have another sister, her family, one of which is still in touch, my daughter in Hampshire and my two grandsons, Harrison and Jordan and my granddaughter Hannah. They should all be part of my life but they are not and I will deal with that. I have to remove their power to hurt me and not allow the pain in. No, life is not how I envisaged it would be, not what I wanted back in the day but this is where I am. I don’t feel sad, well not as much now, because last night I had tried to contact my grandson who is 27 and so now a man and ask him to persuade his Mum, to see sense and do the right thing, for her own sake, I don’t like the thought of her being taken to court.Only to receive many tweets of abuse over open Twitter, using the name of her dog!! Not having the courage to use her own name;still telling her libelous lies and making me realize that he is under her thumb. I feel so sorry for him and my other grandchildren. I know he didn’t make this choice, I know how nasty she can make his life so I have to accept that our relationship won’t get back on track. All of this because I wouldn’t lie for her. But I have begun to realise that you should only want those in your life who want to be there, for you and so I accept things as they are. I have 2 beautiful nieces and my beloved brother Tony. And that’s the rub. As you know he has lung cancer and is currently very poorly. None of us know how long he may have, I am praying he doesn’t leave us yet, for himself, his family and for me. He is a dad, granddad and great granddad, brother and uncle and we all love him very much .His children and grandchildren are looking after him and spending time with him and for that I am so grateful. To me, he was my only childhood ally in an otherwise hostile childhood. All of my life Tony has been there, my only constant. In adulthood, it was Tony who I would call upon before I met David. It was Tony who rushed down to Portsmouth if I needed him. I have so much to thank him for and living so far away, with poor health myself and commitments that keep me here, distance sucks!  He is my brother, my ally and my friend. Losing him will be a huge blow. But not yet.

Yesterday was David s birthday and we spent the day with our daughter and son-in-law. They came again today for Sunday lunch. I wanted it to be special and it was. I haven’t told him about Lisa’s rants yesterday and I possibly won’t. We have given Marie and Jason a gift that will help them in the future and it was good to see their happiness. So my blog will continue to tell it as it is. It will always be truthful, honest and personal, my perception, my life. I need to do this. I have to do this, write I mean, you do not have to read it. I don’t want to upset anyone, hurt anyone but will always only tell it as it happens. My blog, my life, my page. I want to thank everyone who has commented, emailed me or messaged me throughout my journey and ask you to continue if you feel you want to . So in the future, when you see my blog, please remember that although PC will be mentioned, my relationship with David will be mentioned, PC is not now the reason for the blog. I will go back to writing ‘my Journal’ warts ‘n all, for anyone interested, as I know others also struggle with what we feel is an ‘ordinary’ life. As long as you only expect the truth.

For everything that has happened, in a way I am grateful. Yesterday, the nastiness from my daughter helped me move on, make decisions about how I can put right all that she has made wrong for me and David. officially. No, my life is not how I envisaged it but it is good if I let it be. Someone told me last week, ‘Get out of your own way’. I didn’t at first understand, but today I do. I have a loving husband and friend in David, a wonderful daughter in Marie and a son-in-law of whom I am very fond. I am living in the most amazing part of West Wales and today can see the beauty out of my window, something I have not been able to see of late. I am surrounded by my lakes, ponds, ponies in their fields, ducks, and wildlife, dogs and cats. Who could want for more. Yes I will still bemoan the happenings in my world, but who doesn’t. I will still struggle at times, but today I feel I am a very lucky lady. I have so much more than little Carol Ann from her dysfunctional family would ever have dreamt of. We have worked hard for it all and will continue to work hard. Both here ‘on the farm’ and me in my Psychotherapy practice that I go back to next week. So life, bring it on!

I hope your Sunday is good and Thankyou for reading. Hopefully see some of you next week. x

 

 

In last weeks blog I was trying to say how the events of the past few years have taken their toll. How PC and family stuff has left legacies that are hard to shift. I had got into a kind of habit of worrying, being scared and now, even though I am overjoyed at David’s recovery, I can’t quite relax and feel safe in the moment. Disease can do this. Bullying can do this. Ill-health can do this so I am not really surprised at how I feel, having had all three. Not surprised but concerned.

I know only too well that PC and other cancers have and are, taking loved ones away. My beloved brother, is as we speak, fighting hard to stay with us, fighting lung cancer with all his might. I know ladies on here are, suffering pre-emptive grief, knowing the man they love will not win this horrid fight. Maybe that is part of my problem, thinking of my brother’s imminent departure and feeling the grief already. I don’t know. My heart goes out to all of you in this position today and those who have sadly been there. I won’t insult those whose husbands or partners are struggling or who have lost their men to PC, and say I know how you feel. Thankfully, I don’t. But I do know the terror of the early days, post diagnosis, when the fear took me almost to breaking point. David is my life, apart from my daughter, he is all I have. We don’t have extended family now, many have died, some, have for selfish reasons, turned their backs on us. So David is my all. Losing him would have sent me over the edge I am sure. Writing my story on here, with all its seemingly self indulgence, is my way of processing the things that scare me, those that I can’t make sense of and those that I want to tell others about so that they don’t feel alone in their own struggles. Nothing I write on here is ever meant to demean or belittle other struggles that the reader might have. I never write to hurt anyone who might be reading my blog, on any of the groups I belong to.I can only speak for me, my struggles, my truth.

What I do know is, that if the family ‘stuff’, the bullying and cowardly insults on social media and beyond had not happened, I would have been writing a completely different blog. I would have then and now, been able to cope so much better than I have done. I always did. Throughout the worries that a single mother has with 2 daughters, the financial and emotional battles I fought, ill-health etc. I coped. With everything thrown at me by ‘family, I coped, but I must admit, only just. But as I have said before, PC and other cancers don’t care about the other painful issues happening in your life, doesn’t care if you are already at rock bottom. It will still barge in and cause havoc and pain. Even if you ‘beat it’, even if you survive it will have changed you and often leave you reeling before it leaves.

Because PC does not only affect the sufferer but his wife or partner, it can change family dynamics. Often a man who has always been happy and positive, can become down and sad. In the same way this can happen to his partner. Becoming a carer to the man you married and chose to spend your life with, can sometimes seem a burden. Looking after him during the illness and any subsequent treatment can often change the way you feel about him. Most of the time this is temporary. It can be really hard to see the man you love, the man you married amidst all of the pills and treatment. If you are not careful you can lose yourself and your identity as a wife and woman and lose the relationship you once had. I have seen this with carers I work with but also seen that with the right help, this can be averted. The most important thing is to look after yourself in this process. That can be hard.

I have read on here of ladies who say they are at screaming pitch, wanting to shout and their men, even thinking about leaving them. I feel so sad and angry that a disease can do this to a couple. Again it makes me grateful that we did not get to that stage, that David is hopefully now, okay. But it doesn’t stop me feeling for those affected in this way. I hear women apologising for beginning to feel differently towards their men and that this is making them feel guilty. I don’t believe that guilt is justified and have written in earlier blogs about this. PC is a couple’s disease, it is different from most cancers, most illnesses, because the side effects involve the couple, not just the sufferer.Blog entitled (EMOTIONS I NEVER KNEW I HAD.THE WE IN PLACE OF HE) The blog talks of how the worries, the waiting and the changes, in us all, during and after this cancer, are unique. It’s very nature and the consequences of treatment make it such. It is a an illness that is physical for the man but emotionally hard for both in the relationship. As such, we as wives should give ourselves a break.

I was reminded this past week, that I need to be kinder to myself. I think every partner/wife of a man with PC should do the same. After the shock of diagnosis wears off, if it ever does, the anger sets in. The ‘why me? Why us?’ Then the sadness and the worry and apprehension, bring the ‘F’. word. Fear. All the waiting along the way, accompanied by the fear and ‘what if’s’, traumatise us, leaving us with the legacies I wrote about last week. Whether our men survive and will live many years or if the cancer metastasizes and becomes terminal, we are all on this journey none of us signed up for and it affects us all. For some of us this trauma and shock, along with whatever is going on in our emotional life, everything that life is already throwing at us, this trauma can cement the bad things into our minds. Sometimes making it hard for us to see the good things. Leaving us changed and worn down and in my case somewhat a lesser woman than I was before. As I said earlier, this is just my perspective, how I feel today.

I have read back over some of my blog entries and am shocked at some of the really black places my head visited on this journey. Shocked at the low days I experienced and am, to some extent still visiting on and off today. It is, not has been but still is, like a rollercoaster of emotions. One day I am strong, the woman I know I can be and am, when working in my professional role. I am positive, strong and can see the beauty around me. I am grateful for what I have and where I find myself. I have a wonderful husband and a beautiful caring daughter and now a new son-in-law who loves us all. I have horses and ponies, cats and dogs, ducks on my lake and I live in a beautiful house in a wonderful part of the country. I am grateful for all of this. But on other days, I am down, worried, sad and yes, scared. The ‘what ifs’ barge in uninvited, the past, few years, the wicked lies spread about me and my family by my daughter Lisa and her aunt, leave me saddened beyond words. None of it deserved but given so easily. I am still reeling from the wicked thing my daughter did to my brother at this critical time of his life, when all he did was trust her. I no longer feel her guilt as I acknowledge that she is not a child but a grown woman and is responsible for her own actions. None of any of this is down to me. So the guilt has gone but not the shame.

So back to my blog, what I promised from day one of writing, is the truth. ‘Say it as it is’ is my mantra. As long as it doesn’t offend or hurt, the truth is what you read here, on my page. I promised in the beginning and in all my works, my poetry, my books and on here, to write honestly, raw and open. It is only ever my perspective, and how I feel on the day I am writing. I could pretend on here, pretend all is well as I do ‘here on the farm’ on a daily basis. But I won’t. The whole reason for writing is to offload, to show how it really is for me, not everyone, but for me. I also write to let anyone identifying with my words, identifying themselves on their personal journey, to know they are no alone. That actually, for some of us, this is how we feel on this journey, the journey none of us signed up for , that this is the norm. Our norm. So that’s okay.

As the caption above says, it is easy to write the truth but also hard to bare your soul. I ask clients to do this all the time, during therapy. It was time I took that advice back a year or so ago. So write it all down is what I did and what I do. Warts ‘n all or it wouldn’t be the truth.

Thankyou for reading x

 

 

This past week has been full of days of worry and apprehension. One of the legacies of caring for a man with Prostate cancer is the worry that this will always be a worry. It’s like the ‘F’ word, fear, it renders you unable to allow yourself the indulgence of feeling safe. Of being able to stop the ‘what ifs’. To be able to relax in the recovery and enjoy the fact that at the moment, life is good. It’s like it’s always there, in the back and sometimes much nearer the front of your mind all the time. Even when, like today, I have tried to be happy, enjoy my family being here. It’s my birthday but even now, the nagging feeling is present in my head. This time last year I didn’t know whether this year, on our birthdays, both in November, my beloved man would still be with me. We didn’t know the extent of the cancer with a little ‘c’. We didn’t know how fate was going to treat us. We just didn’t know much. What we did know was the PC had barged into our lives, trampling over our ‘happy’ trying to destroy our peace. I know that this disease and others can leave legacies , symptoms of PTSD that can last a long time. I recognise some of the symptoms back from writing my book about my life, Remembering where these horrid feelings came from. My childhood.  Revisiting the horrors of my abuse,I began once again back then, experiencing many of the symptoms  such as Heightened startle reflex, jumping at every little sound. Ruminating, going over everything that happened and then catastrophising them. One day being happy then falling into deep depression and sadness. After the bullying from my daughter Lisa and her aunt Trisha, these came back big time. Just as I needed to be strong to fight the cancer with David, they rendered me almost unable to cope.Now, my birthday being here, my wonderful husband spoiling me along with my daughter and son-in-law and friends, life should be good. Don’t get me wrong, I am happy and so glad he has recovered so well, but a little voice inside keeps telling me not to relax, don’t take this respite for granted. Don’t get smug about your life.Then they are back. The ‘what if it comes back.’ ‘What if he is ill again’. What if, what if. Damn the what ifs!

November is a hard month but with happy parts if that makes sense. As a little girl my birthday was always a day to worry about, not one to look forward to. Not only did I get treated differently than my siblings on their day, not in a good way but life was always painful for other reasons. So my adult birthdays and those of my children and now husband, I always made a great deal of them and spoilt the person whose day it was. I married my first husband Terry, Lisa’s dad, on my 21st birthday so this, at the time was a happy. Recently, for a few years, my birthday was ruined by my daughter’s comments on my social media.At least this year, the nasties haven’t ruined my day and are leaving me alone, thank goodness. My dad, William, whose photo I placed as my profile on Facebook, had his birthday in November and so does my husband David. So it is a special month. Then of course there is so much to be thankful for. Remembrance day being the day before my birthday, Dad always made an extra effort, was always extra smart and stood wherever he was at 11am on the 11th day of the 11th month, and gave a salute. I often saw tears in his eyes for those he had as friends and those who never returned. I have always made  a point of doing the same, not the salute but always stop everything at this time. This is the first year since his death in 1985, that I have been almost glad he is no longer here. I loved him although I wasn’t born to him, he was a good dad and loved us all. He adored Lisa when she was a child and a young woman and would have been horrified to know how badly she has treated me and her uncle, assisted by her aunt. It would have broken his heart to see how these two women have turned out and how easily they both hurt others. Especially me.

This past week.

Monday was a worrying time, living so far from my brother and knowing it would be a harrowing day for him, something he doesn’t need in these last months of his life. I was concerned all day and wished I was at his side. Distance sucks.

Tuesday David had an appointment with a consultant about a small lump at the side of his nose. It is a basal cell carcinoma, throwing us back to the early days of diagnosis last year. We know it is not the same but it’s that word, ‘cancer’, sends shivers down my spine. He is being referred to another hospital, Morriston in Swansea,the one he attends for the PC, to have it removed and have plastic surgery.

Wednesday saw me unwell, giddiness and unsteadiness is back and I am always concerned that I might become ill and then can’t support and care for my family.

Thursday saw us at the vets. Cody is losing his sight and ,we found, his hearing. I know he is getting old but don’t want to face that. He is 12 years and 8 months , good they say for his breed. Ellie Mae, out little Shih Tzu who has mammary cancer, is losing weight, this can be a sign of the disease progressing. She is well but slower and they both don’t eat well so I finger feed him and then she eats. I love these pets like family and can’t imagine facing their loss.

Saturday as I was cooking dinner, my cooker went ‘Bang!’ At first I thought my birthday lunch with family would have to be postponed but then remembered, yes we had not used it for a long time, that we had a Rayburn. Easy to forget not! Stress does that, messes with your head. So although I had been thinking this week couldn’t get any worse, Bang went the cooker but crisis averted.

Throughout this past week, I haven’t slept very much. When I do I have horrendous nightmares. I dream that David is in hospital and they won’t allow him home. I fight to get him discharged only to be told, he won’t make it through the night if they do that. He desperately wants to come home but the hospital won’t let him. I am in a dilemma and because it takes so long to get  permission to have him home, I go back into his room, to find he his dead. I wake with tears streaming down my face. The other nightmare is the same or similar to one I had as a young mum. That was about having my daughter Lisa taken away from me by my ‘mother’ and my youngest sister Trisha, who always undermined me where Lisa was concerned, up until she stopped contact with us when Lisa was around 8 years old and Marie was around 3. Although no one knows why she broke contact I was relieved because of the way she was with my daughter. Now, as a Mum who knows that I have lost my daughter to her, for the wrong reasons and in a devious self-serving way on  her part, the nightmares are back. Different but back.  Maybe it is because of all the worry over the past years I don’t know. Maybe it is because PC has left me wanting, left me bereft of my life as it was. I don’t know, but they are back. Hearing in my dreams, Lisa calling out to me as I wrote in last weeks blog, and I can’t reach her, just as I couldn’t in my dreams when she was a small child, destroys me. My safe ‘here on the farm’ was stolen from me by these two women and then PC triggering all the symptoms of PTSD I had felt before.  These legacies are so hard to deal with. When awoken by the intensity of these dreams, I try not to go back to sleep in case they creep back in, so I lie awake for hours.

Last night I tried to tell myself that I am lucky. In reality and on a good day, I know that. I watched the Remembrance show on TV and felt proud to be British. Proud of my father and brother, both who saw combat in the Royal Marines. Yes today I feel relief that Dad doesn’t feel the hurt around his granddaughter but sad that she has turned into to someone I no longer can be proud of. The concert last night was as always, full of pride, bravery and people united in remembering those who died so that we could have the life we have today. I have tried every why to unite my dysfunctional family but failed.So it is time, as I know I have said before, that I step forward into a life of gratitude, happiness and love.The damage done by the disease called cancer and the cancer that is within my own family have done their best to destroy me. I am today, one year older, wiser? Not sure but older. I have to push all the negative out of my life.

We in the groups I belong to have our own fight, I have seen how good people try so hard to support those going through their own battles of PC and am immensely proud to be part of this fight, to know these brave people. This is how we should behave, helping each other as they did in both world wars. I see bravery and courage in men and their partners fighting PC. every time I look at my page. I hope, if it becomes necessary again, I can draw strength from them and be courageous in my own battles.

So yes, life continues to throw ‘stuff’ at me but I have been told, ‘you can always try to throw it back.’ So I have decided that I will.

Watch this space!

Thankyou for reading.x

 

Last week’s blog may have made some of you cross with me, the comments I received didn’t show that but today, reading it back for the first time, it was self-indulgent I suppose. I am not going to apologise because from the first blog, I have said, I will write as I feel, honest, raw and open. So I can’t apologise for my feeling that way. I still feel confused, sad and can’t summon the anger I need. Not yet.

This week we were to have travelled to Hampshire for my sister in law’s funeral. We would have seen my brother Tony and I was going to ‘drop in’ to my eldest daughter’s unannounced. That would have been interesting to say the least but I would have done it. My youngest daughter Marie was to move into our home to care for my ponies, cats and dogs and her husband was to look after their animals. Sadly, Jason, my son In law was taken ill and so Marie couldn’t leave him. We didn’t go. We both understood that illness strikes at the most inopportune times and can’t be helped. I was disappointed not to have seen Tony but know I will go down quite soon. David however surprised me by being more than disappointed, became very down and this is new to me. What this emphasized, is the one downside to living in beautiful West Wales, the distance from those we love. We never chose to move but the M.O.D. in their wisdom, moved the entire Portsmouth teams down to Bristol and David had no choice but to go. We fought it, all of us wives and families but we lost that fight. Not wanting to live in a city and having animals, horses and ponies, we chose to live just over the border in South Wales. We had 14 lovely years there and life changed drastically. I went to college then University and gained my Masters in Counselling. I wrote my autobiography and began Private Practice. When David retired, we moved over to West Wales and as they say, the rest is history.

I am not good with change, I like familiarity, people and places I know near to hand. PC brought about changes, some of which I have written in earlier blogs, so many that I couldn’t keep up. I know I changed from the day of diagnosis and am still trying to find who I am now, almost out the other side. It bestowed changes on us as a couple that we didn’t like but the alternative was unthinkable. Life changed but I still had my beloved husband. This disease, cancer with a little ’c’ has not and will not define us or beat us. But change we have. But most of what followed after the first move was the ‘Good’, from my title. Another Good that happened this week was very moving and although sad in one way, positive in another. David has never shown his feelings to others, never become emotional at TV films etc. and I am the only person in whom he confides his emotions. He openly showed his disappointment at missing his sister’s funeral. Sheila being the eldest, took on the role of ‘mum’ to the family after David’s mum’s death. I knew my husband was more upset than he had been when his brother died but was not sure why. The evening before the goodbye, he had to ring my brother-in-law and make our apologies. He was visibly moved to tears. Not like him at all. On Friday morning, while he was out with the ponies, I lit a beautiful rose candle in our sitting room, for Sheila. When he came in and we spoke about it, he cried. I felt so sad he couldn’t say goodbye but also relieved that he is now able to let his emotions show. Her death has taken its toll and took David back to his Mum’s death, both from breast cancer, I also think it reminded him of his own mortality. All of this is good. Watching TV with him since his diagnosis and more so since surgery, is enlightening. Throughout the last 3 years, he has been strong for me, holding me initially, when the things my eldest daughter Lisa and sister Trisha were doing to me, became too much to bear and I was at breaking point. He would hug me tightly while trying to make sense of things. He doesn’t know my youngest sister, had never met her in the 32 years we have been together, so she means nothing to him, but my daughter had been treated as a daughter by him since he came into our lives. But now all he can see is the damage that was being done to me and my family here, by these two, financially and emotionally, they had hurt me more than words could say. At my lowest moments from this and then PC barging into our lives, he was so brave and pragmatic about the course the cancer might take and how it would affect us both. He didn’t cry, he didn’t bemoan ‘why me’. I did. But now, he seems to have recognised his mortality, doesn’t want to waste any time on things and people who do not matter. Now, sometimes, I find myself comforting him. Holding him when I can see he is thinking of people he has lost or often of things lying ahead of us that will be sad and huge losses to come. We have elderly animals and two of them sick, these losses will be unbearable. In the past I have often felt inadequate as I am hit by the hugeness at losing a beloved pet. David again has always been very sensible and practical but I am not so sure now. He is my rock and one of the strongest men I know. I don’t see the changes in him as making him less than that but more. He no longer keeps his feelings hidden and talks more about emotions and feelings. From being a very private reticent man, he is becoming much more open and able to show how he really feels. He says now, he understand me a great deal more and can empathise with how I feel, on occasions he struggled with before. He has also developed a wonderful sense of humour, mostly to do with his private personal bodily functions. Something I struggled with at first but no longer. Humour has always been a huge part of my life, sometimes to hide fear admittedly. But David and I have always managed to smile in adversity and so can now share very funny intimate things. Again, he now has more empathy with women.

The other change in David is that he will now, ask for help. Never did, would do it himself, sometimes with difficulty and never ask for any assistance whatsoever. He has always been reluctant to get someone in to help with the fields, the gardens, the animals, saying they were his responsibility and he loved all of it. After having surgery, he had to let me do more, we had a man come in to do the garden, at first under my husband’s watchful eye. Now we have a gardener, a ‘groundsman’ and the paddocks will be cleared very soon by a couple of local men who need the work. David is still finding it hard but recognizes he now has limitations. The good if there is any, of having this nasty disease and travelling this road together. All positive. During this unwanted journey, his courage, bravery, fortitude and humour have made me so proud to be his wife. Perhaps, having PC he can now appreciate things we both took for granted. These are, the Good.

The biggest change PC has brought about and that I am still working on, is that the only people who deserve our consideration, love and time, are those who show they are in our lives because they want to be. David told me today that the only regret he has in life is that he ‘hadn’t found me sooner, so that he could love me longer’. How beautiful is that!

Now for the Bad.

During this week, there have been many good people leaving our PC groups. Some of the posts on here took on a change, that I and many others, did not like or want. Some left for other reasons than the one I am talking about, because they did not agree with some postings on here. I have to admit to commenting and giving my opinion on one of the posts, because the whole reason for social media is to share ideas, topics, and opinions. Whilst I did not like the original post or the photo attached, I admire anyone who is now back to the life they had before PC.I am very happy for them as I am with David getting back to normal. I just didn’t need to see the photo posted. We all have the right to comment and freedom of speech, as a writer, is something I hold very dear. But photos that could upset others, I am not in favour of so I posted my comments, my opinion. Not rudely, not angry, just how I felt. Others became angry, some were very upset and I understand that, and it got out of hand and that makes me very sad. The groups on here are for support. That means supporting each other, not judging, not getting angry but being supportive. But as human beings first, and group members second, we will often have differing opinions, religious beliefs etc. We are all here for the same reason and perhaps we need to remember that at times. Me included. But I am sad because we have lost some good members and I would love them to come back. If controversial posts appear, I will have to scroll by as was suggested, I don’t want anyone else to leave this very important group. Without the men and women on social media, in the groups I belong to, these past years would have been unbearable. Make us smile, make us laugh, send in funny photos, give us uplifting news. Please keep these groups together, we all need them.

The other Bad is that I have read of many who have not survived the onslaught that is PC and my heart goes out to their families and friends. Reading of those struggling and seeing their bravery and courage uplifts me and gets me thinking that maybe having their kind of faith is the way to go. Been there before and lost faith. Maybe it is time to revisit that part of my life. Not sure yet. Maybe I can turn that into a Good.

The other bad about PC is the ‘F’ word. The fear it leaves us with. I have read that a man is never cured of PC. I won’t believe this. Naive? Maybe but I need to think positive or I can’t survive this. Many posts this week have said that no one is ever cured, even if ‘undetectable’. I disagree. I must have read everything ever written about cancer and it can be cured. We are cured. I will keep telling, myself and David this until or if, I have reason not to. I have to believe this or the fear of the ‘what ifs’ will return. The other change is how association is blotting my brain. Any new pain, ache, feeling David has brings the worry back again. Not only in our lives but that of people and animals we love. My little dog has cancer. Before David having it, I would have been very sad but would have been very sensible and not worried every-time she coughs or doesn’t eat. But now I hold my breath, wondering if this is the beginning of the end for her. As some of you know, my brother Tony is dying of lung cancer. He rings me now and again and that makes me feel so good. But now, if I see his number come up on my phone, I immediately fear the worst. My apprehension has been quadrupled by PC. A Bad.

Now for the Ugly.

Over the past weeks, I have been looking at photos, letters etc. reminiscing and holding on to the life I used to have. Bad thing to do in the circumstances. One of these memories was a photograph of my eldest daughter and her family on holiday in Tenerife. She looked so happy and the boys were loving it. She rang me a few times whilst there. When they came home and visited, her husband told us of a journey by jeep they took up into the mountains. There was a sheer drop one side and Lisa was scared and called out for me. Her Mum. Natural? Yes. I had always been there for her and she for me. It was the natural thing for a daughter to do when afraid. Now, we have no contact, her choice. There is a family matter that means she is having to face up to something she has done that was bad and yes, an ugly deed. What she has done, hurting my brother in the way that she has, I can’t be there for her even if I had wanted to be. I can’t help her. In any other circumstance, as a good Mum, I would have wanted to be at her side. Wanted to have been there for her and comforted her. But not this time. But I know, if she had not changed into the person she is now, she would not have put herself in this position. Change in this case is ugly. The beautiful girl she was has changed into someone I no longer recognise. Change is not always good.

In life, we think of cancer as always being negative and of course it is but sometimes the changes thrust upon us, if not immediately looking positive, can be. I have seen the vulnerable soft side of the man I married and I like it. Didn’t show because of anything good but because PC changes us in ways we don’t expect. It brings us changes that at first can only be negative and unwanted. It showers us with tiny subtle changes at first but them a deluge of things in our life change and the storm batters us into somewhat unrecognizable forms of ourselves. But we can retrieve the good from the bad. We can salvage positive from the Ugly and become better people from the journey. Some who read my blog have commented on my being strong. I am not. As you can see if you read right through from the beginning, I have been pushed to the points of despair with this nasty disease but somehow, always bounce back. Not the same as before, not always as the same person but bounce back I do.

I see the good in most people and I hope, they see it in me. I now also can see the bad in people, and situations especially if they do harm to me, or those I love. Now, I have been made to see the Ugly but I am still here. Change is growth so they say. Maybe that is right. Maybe it isn’t. I certainly am not the person who started out on this journey and who really, as most of us, didn’t want to be here. So, I will in the future, try to embrace anything that is different about my man, the people around me and the life I live. The seasons have moved on, Autumn is here and the silly season that is Christmas is almost knocking on our door. Try and remember that sometimes change can be for the better. As long as it is a change for the good.

Thank you for reading. x

Started Saturday 21^st October

It’s a wet grey miserable day ‘here on the farm’, as Storm Brian arrived in its fury. We had been talking about this past year and the family ‘nasties’ that have happened and how we were glad to be out of most of it now, travelling the rest of 2017 close to those  we love and who love us. Reading PC posts this week, I have been very sad at some posts saying that some members, have left the groups I belong to, because comments made have hurt them or caused them pain. Not upset with them, but just the fact that they have felt hurt or angry within groups we all belong. Places where we should feel safe and respected. I myself have not seen anything that has upset me and for that I am grateful but it seems that the reason for the groups I belong to, support, awareness and friendship, seem to have been forgotten by some members. Admin has had a difficult time and taken a lot of flak for allowing people into the groups and this being the result. I know nothing about how Admin work but I am sure they allowed these members in good faith. It saddens me that people I have become close to, my new virtual ‘family’ have left groups and been disillusioned by these events. As I said, I don’t know the facts ,only that some have left, so can’t comment further on this .

When David was first diagnosed with PC, I came onto Facebook and looked for people going through the same pain as we were going through. I found 3 or 4 groups and many many ‘friends’. I have had support, genuine understanding and yes, love from my fellow travelers on this horrid not signed up for journey. I could name some of these people, men and women but because of privacy I won’t. They all know how I feel about them and how grateful and full of affection I am for them all. Without them, because of David’s diagnosis and the family ‘stuff’ I have endured these past 3 years, these groups have been my salvation and I would never have survived. They listened when I cried out. They sent love and support down the line to me and gave me strength and time. Something I now don’t get from family I have lost through my honesty. Members have become as close as family, as close as being the same blood, could ever be. Apart from support from a few members of my birth family, the past years particularly the last year, would have been unbearable and very lonely. So thank you all.

Today, we had a fierce reminder of how fragile the thread of life can be. How, out of the blue a family can suffer a huge loss without warning. A phone-call hit us very hard. I saw the colour drain from my husband’s face, saw the shock in his eyes. For me this look brought back the ‘’F’ word with all the ferocity of the storm raging outside. Fear. Family is a strange place in which we find ourselves. No choice, no being allowed to refuse entry. Family is where we began and where we find ourselves. Even when they live a huge distance away, even when they are estranged from us, family can still hurt us, cause us pain and leave us in a heart-beat, rendering us grief-stricken and wanting. David’s family, although not in touch often, are still a close-knit family and in earlier years when everyone lived in Portsmouth or surrounding areas, still gathered together for family celebrations. None of them had ever ‘fallen out’, no cross words. But as life took us all in different directions, contact was not often enough. When we visited Hampshire we would try to visit them all, but sometimes this wasn’t possible. During all the pain of the past years at the hands of my family, David’s youngest brother died of a brain tumour. It was a huge shock and we were not able to go to the funeral because our daughter Marie was suffering Thyroid storms and couldn’t be left. Another horrid time for us both but especially my husband. The call that shattered our Saturday was David’s brother in law informing us that David’s eldest sister had died. We didn’t know she had been ill, possibly for the same reason we never told his family, except for his son, about the PC. Didn’t want to worry them. Sheila, his sister, had breast cancer and it spread to her liver, just as it had with his Mum and my eldest sister Georgina. I can’t express on here how I feel about the ‘c’ word. I hate it! I am angry again today. Another life lost to this evil disease. Damn! Damn! Damn! cancer!! It steals people we love, it takes our peace of mind. It steals our calm, our happy and our hope. For me, it is a trigger for the ‘F’ the word to appear in all its ferocity bringing back feelings of fear,helplessness and anger. Coming up here to my peaceful study, to write my blog is my way of dealing with the anger. As some of you know, I use this emotion, at times, to deal with the huge ‘sad’ that I feel. Anger helps me do this and I have no qualms about using the hate word in relation to this destructive, damaging, evil thief of people we love. David is out with his beloved ponies, gaining strength from our little rescues that only they seem able to give when I am in this place. This evening we will sit together on the sofa with our cats and dogs and comfort each other. What a year my poor man has had.

This has been yet another massive reminder of how life can be snatched away in a flash. We are now in the autumn of our lives, our little dogs are also getting old and poor cat older. Just after this phone-call, Cody our eldest dog, began to be very sick and shaky. I know we have to expect this as he is almost 13, but part of me wanted to shout, ‘Not now’. ‘I can’t do this now!’  The negatives, the pain and loss these past years have far outweighed the positives. I had been feeling quite strong but now this. What next screams my heart.

I try to look ahead, I really do. I plan to go back to work, work I love and everything is in place for this. But every-time I try to move forward, wallop another nasty barges into our lives and leaves us breathless. It is times like this that I also avoid answering the phone. My brother Tony is terminally ill as some of you know, I expect that call any day but pray it won’t be yet. The pain he feels at the betrayal of my eldest daughter Lisa and our sister Trisha, hurts so much and I am helpless to put that right. Losing him will break my heart. My family is getting smaller and this will please those who have caused so much pain, especially my eldest daughter who hopes, I ‘will grow old and alone, die on my own’, her words. What a cruel unkind person she has become. This won’t happen as I have Marie and good friends but one by one my circle is getting smaller. Hence the value I put on my FB friends, friends who understand my pain and fear. Some I have met, some I will never meet but that doesn’t make them any less real or valued. Virtual yes, but trustworthy always. If I write or comment on my groups, someone will always write back. I do the same, I write and comment on posts where I think I can be of help or support. I write to some members privately and offer support as a friend and sometimes as a professional. These are my new family. I think myself very lucky and feel proud to have them as such.

Today’s blog is to talk about ‘family’, my expectations, my surprises and my losses and gains. I find myself on the outside of some lives where I should be very much a part of. Not my choice. Not my doing. Bad dishonest behavior should not happen within a family but it does. Family should be there for you as I have always been for mine. Not showing off just saying it as is it and always has been. Many of those who have turned their backs on me will, if they look back, remember the times I have been there for them. That isn’t why I have helped in the past, it isn’t that I am a do-gooder either, it was always because….. they are family. In the same way, we take so much more pain from people, just because they are family. If anyone was in trouble, I would try to help. If someone was lonely, scared or sad, I have always done my best to comfort them. Why? Because they are my family and because I love them. Family should be with you at times of grief. Times of worry. During illness and especially at times of the ‘f’ word. When Fear enters your life for whatever reason. Were they there for me, when I was going through hellish times? Were they there when David was first diagnosed with PC and our lives were turned on their heads? Marie my youngest daughter was. My son was also. My brother Tony was and always has been there although not able to help as much as in the earlier days, because of his own illness but he was always at the end of the phone. I have few real friends and yes I know they would be there for me if I asked. But family outside of us ‘here on the farm’? No. Listening and believing lies and stories with no foundation, they turned their backs on me. I had done nothing wrong and I so needed my family.

Joining PC groups on Social Media was a life saver for me. To talk to like-minded people, those who were travelling the same road, those who had travelled and reached the other end and were living their lives to the full. Some who sadly will not be cured and are living with an incurable, life shortening type of this cruel disease. They all gave me a place to vent, scream, swear and question anytime I needed. I received a listening ear, people giving me one of life’s precious gifts, their time. They encouraged me, giving me the strength to go on. Each showed me support, strength, calm and yes, love. Just as a real family would give. This showed me that you don’t have to have been born into a group of people, to belong, to be family. You can reach out, you can then accept all that you need from people who are sincere, caring, and full of empathy. Real warm human beings. That is what makes a family. The depth of feeling and understanding, both from those who have been there on this journey none of us asked to take, and those new to it, makes me both humble and proud at the same time. Yes they are ‘friends’ but to me they have been as good, and sometimes better, than family and I love and respect  each and every-one of them.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my ‘real’ family and my virtual one. On Social Media, I have been allowed to share my story and hear those of others in the groups, bringing us together in a unique way. I have been given trust, read individual stories of pain, fear and loss in a way that is priceless to me. All of this has given me the courage to fight on, not only with David on the cancer journey but for my own self-respect and self-love. Referring to the beginning of this blog, I really hope those who have used the groups in the wrong way, will not spoil the integrity of each group for other sincere members, including myself.

Do I love my birth family? Yes. Some are misguided and have been fooled by my daughter and younger nasty sister, but I still love them. Lisa was my first-born and loved beyond belief. I still love her, or rather love who she was. The betrayal of my trust over the years, the betrayal of her dying uncle has made it very hard to like who she is today. That happens in families, I know that now from experiences of others. But the love will always be for my daughter, the child I raised. She can’t change that, as much as she thinks she wants to, I am her mum and there is not a damn thing she can do about it!

So the purpose of today is exactly what it says in the picture and words above. Family is not always those born to us. I never really belonged in the one I was born into. Throughout life, I have been treated differently because of my parentage and so never belonged. I have a wonderful husband and daughter, a new son-in-law and my son in Hampshire. I also have some very close old friends and some new. More than a lot of others on here. But the family I have been welcomed into because of the PC, is something I value beyond understanding. Of course I would rather not have become a member for the reasons we all join, but a huge positive out of this horrid time is meeting everyone I have met. No, family does not have to be blood. It is a shared empathy, a shared kindness borne out of deep understanding and respect for each other. What is it they say, ‘God gave you your family, Thank God you can choose your friends’. I chose to join my PC groups and now would like to think of you as my friends but more than that. My family. Aren’t I a lucky lady!

Thank you for reading.xx

Whilst working on an essay today on Schema, I realised that one thing has followed me around all of my life. One emotion. Shame. When I was a little girl it was something I was told over and over, to feel shame. Whenever the woman they called my mother was angry with me she would shout, ‘You should be ashamed’ or ‘I am ashamed of you’. What had I done? I never knew. Perhaps I upset her by not being the same as my siblings whom she loved. Not sure. When I realised that the things that were happening to me were wrong, abuse, then I knew shame. It was something I carried around for all of my childhood and early adult hood until I broke free. Even then, until I accepted that the shame belonged to the abuser and the woman who allowed it to continue, that it was theirs, not mine, I held it. Acknowledging and placing the guilt in the correct place, was a momentous discovery and came far too late in my life. But then a new stronger emotion, the same one but based around all the people they had hurt and they were my flesh and blood, so the shame and guilt became mine.

During my Journey with PC I felt it happen again. It came back with huge force and rendered me even lower. I almost fell apart at this time, I cried tears, something that had not happened for around 25 years. But they came then. Yes I felt shame that I was weak. Shame that I was so scared, terrified. Shame that although David was strong and facing up to this blow life had dealt him, although people around me thought I was strong, that I was okay; I wasn’t. Inside I was like a jelly, shaky, quivery and weak. I felt on the very edge of breaking. ‘You have to be strong’, I told myself but to me, it seemed a futile order. That brought the shame.

Writing the essay mentioned, I realised that actually there is no reason for any of us to be ashamed of being angry, sad, scared during this horrid time. I have tried giving myself permission and you, in past blogs but today it all made so much more sense. We have no reason to feel this nasty emotion. You know why? Because there is a reason, for every emotion, we as wives and partners feel. Yes we are there for our men, we try our hardest to be strong or appear so but we need to be in touch with us, our inner self, our child if you like. When emotions like this hit us we often revert to the way we would react in childhood. The same way as we do when we are very happy, or really want something, the child is us comes to the front and is often acted out. Shame, fear, pain, anger and more, all reach in to the child we used to be and hurt us. Once we understand that, we can identify with it, then we can give ourselves permission for these emotions. Then we can cope and make things feel better. Even if they are not, we can work on feeling better about having them without these unwarranted emotions coming into play.

Everything we feel on this journey is because we love, because we care. That is why the feelings are so raw, so painful and so strong. Yes we are adult now but we are also still the child we were. How often have you said, ‘he acts like a child’? Or us girls, fall about in hysterical giggles? That is when our child is present. We may grow up and mature but we are still who we have always been and emotions bring that out.

I see people on the group apologise for venting, for not feeling able to cope, for wanting to run away. All feeling these draining emotions. Shame or guilt. This is unwarranted. Guilt and shame should only be present if we have done something bad. Hurt someone intentionally. Done something wrong, aware that it is wrong. Been cruel or dishonest willingly. Then the shame and guilt are deserved. But PC hits us like a thunderbolt and renders us helpless and scared. We don’t always recognize who we are. So firstly, we have to acknowledge that we are human, and as such we have human frailties. We are not always equipped to withstand the nasty that is cancer with a little ’c’. We can only do our very best and we do. When it hit us, I wanted to shout from the rooftops, ‘It’s not fair’. Something as a child I was forbidden ever to say. The child in me wanted to scream it at the top of my voice. But of course I didn’t. I tried my hardest to deal with everything as we all do. Sometimes I am sure, I bluffed my way through so that nobody could see how scared I was. We cope. Maybe badly, maybe well but we cope and we are all still here coping. For that we should be the opposite of shame. We should all stand proud.

I have spoken before about my fear during the early part of my PC journey. Lately it has returned. Not only about David and cancer but horrible family stuff. If a client told me they were not handling these emotions, were confused as to why they had manifested themselves, we would look at any other times they had felt this way and work with the earlier times, before trying to work with the current issues. Sometimes, after doing this, the problems they came to see me with, will have all made sense. As children, our memories are stored away, most of these will be hopefully, happy times, or some can be, as I talked about a few weeks ago, traumatic events. Trauma cements memory. If traumatic or painful and not dealt with at the time, the emotional part will remain in your psychological makeup. How many of you think, ‘I haven’t felt like this since……’ That is enough to make the emotions you are having now, twice as strong. I know I do and have. Sometimes these emotional times in earlier life, are still raw. In your current life, you may go through intense periods of fear, pain, guilt etc. and cope. Then one day, drop and break a cup. Then the tears come. Then the emotions are raw. You then feel guilty for getting far too upset about the incident. These feelings are not for the broken china but stored up emotions you need to let go of.

I have reason to look back over the past few years and feel warranted shame. The emotions that were forced upon me whilst trying to hang on to my integrity, fight for my good name, save my very sanity, all at the beginning of David’s fight with PC. being the reasons. I was overwhelmed, not only by the diagnosis but with family stuff that was ongoing and is still ongoing. Today I feel ashamed of letting all of this get the better of me and for doing somethings I regret. The fear prevented me from thinking straight, of sometimes thinking at all. I acknowledge that at times, at my wit’s end at the onslaught of abuse, theft and pain inflicted on me by my youngest sister Trisha and eldest daughter Lisa, I was so low I acted first and then thought about things. Sometimes openly on social media. I was desperate and this was, I thought, the only way to get my point across. It was wrong but it was real. Yes the shame I feel is warranted but brought about by circumstances I had no control over. They had driven me to the point I was desperate and handled some things very badly. Today I forgive myself for these times because hurting, broken-hearted by events, anger was the only emotion I could summon. Anger being my sad’s bodyguard.

So after growing up with shame, I now know it was not my shame but that of the people who gave me life. Taking on their shame was almost my norm. But it was wrong. Unwarranted. ‘The sins of the Father’ etc. They are their sins not mine. Never were.

Now as a mum I sadly know another shame. Unwarranted but unavoidable as any mother will tell you. Now I have shame by proxy. My eldest daughter has and is behaving appallingly and seems to know no shame. But I do. I know she is not a child now but a woman. I know none of what she has done is my fault, my responsibility, my shame but as a Mum, it becomes mine. My guilt. Not for the child I brought up but for the actions of the woman she has become. I can’t rid myself of that shame and guilt. I will try to but it won’t happen. This is unwarranted emotion.

So yes, this feeling has followed me around but I refuse to feel bad about any of the feelings and emotions, some I have never experienced before PC, but have expressed in this blog. I will not apologise for these and neither should any of you reading this. I ask every wife, partner, girlfriend on here to learn to love yourself. Nurture the child you are who is present at your worst and best of times. Your adult pain, fear and sadness may come from where you find yourself today but they can also touch the you, that is far too often hidden, so far down she can only be reached at times of great emotions. How would you treat a child who came to you with these emotions? What would you say to a child telling you how afraid, angry, or hurting they are? You would care for her, love her and nurture her. So today, I ask you to do that for yourself. I am going to try to give little Carol Ann all of that and more. We deserve it. PC has turned our worlds on their heads and we are the ones left feeling bad. Life itself has changed and all our emotions are warranted at the time of feeling them. So we must stop feeling the unwarranted ones today and give ourselves a pat on the back. We did okay.

Thanks for reading x

 

 

Looking back over the past few years, I wonder how I got through. There have been times I thought I wouldn’t, get through I mean. That I would break. Even times when I felt broken, like a broken china doll. Not that I was fragile, well not before 2013. I was strong. I had my own Private Practice, ran the home, ‘here on the farm’. Had 7 ponies and 1 horse and enjoyed my life to the full. 2012 was a bad year, at least most of it.   My beloved Evening Star, my horse for 24 years, died leaving me bereft. The following day, the day of the Queens Jubilee, I received an email that changed my direction and I became entrenched in a nasty online hoax that took me back to places I never wanted to revisit. It came to an end when the hoaxer was taken to court and punished. But there was a positive, in the guise of  a new arrival, a baby girl, Hannah, whom my eldest daughter wanted to adopt. Most of you reading this know what happened next. So even that itself, although it began as a good, ended as a bad. Since then, early 2013, parts of my life have spiraled out of control. Events happened and my whole life changed. Collapsed like a pack of playing cards. But life is not a game, we don’t always have choices and sometimes have to just work with the life cards dealt us. The Carol Ann who had always been so strong, went missing.

I began blogging a year ago. My first blog was ‘To Air My Thoughts’. This was personal and the only way I had of defending myself from libelous lies being spread about me. ‘The Truth about Family’ was an open honest account of something that has been lied about in the most horrendous manner by my daughter Lisa and her aunt Trisha. Maybe that was wrong. But I have always done the right thing, all of my life, always been honest and it had resulted in my losing so much. This was the only way. I had been so badly hurt and re reading it brought everything back. It was a very personal blog but I felt so vulnerable and sad at that time. Beaten down by ‘family’.

I am trying to paint the picture of ‘where’ I found myself after these recent events, why I was in such a weak, low place. At a time when my strength had ebbed away and I felt at rock bottom, David was diagnosed with PC, my world was turned on its head and I was full of terror and pain. Reading over my blog, I am reminded of my fragility, my fear and my helplessness. My beloved husband had cancer and I was falling apart. Not David but me, his wife.

I had no one to talk to, living so far from family who are still in my life and so, taking the advice that I give to my clients, I wrote it all down, to offload. Hence ‘The Journey’ here, in my blog. After the biopsy I was in shock, as I said last week. I wasn’t prepared. How could I be? How can any of us be prepared? Any of you beginning your journey as the wife or partner of a man with PC might find yourself on my pages. Recognise the terrors I felt initially. You may see yourself struggling like I did trying hard to make sense of things since the diagnosis turned your world upside down.

It is said that life is what you make it. I don’t believe that. You have to make your life with what you have, what you are given. Life is like a pack of cards, sometimes you are dealt a good hand and sometimes you are not. Sometimes you can lay all the cards out in sequence and then someone leaves the door open and the wind blows them all in the air. They fall, out of sequence. No order. Muddled. Starting again, retrieving those blown away, you try to continue. You have to work hard with whatever hand you are next dealt, to make the best as good as you can. At other times you can lay your cards out, spend time putting them in order and feel good that the whole pack is complete. But someone or something will come along and steal one and like losing a piece of a jigsaw puzzle, you can’t rest until you find it. Sometimes the card is lost forever and you need to either find another pack or find another game. Life is never the same with one card missing. Other times you may stack them feeling good at what you have achieved, cleverly making a tower as children do. Then suddenly, wallop they all come crashing down. For no apparent reason. Nothing you did caused it, life just made it happen.

But. If you are clever, you can rebuild, using just the cards you have left. Yes the finished effect may be different, minus any missing, but it can still be good.

That’s life.

As a child I always felt I was not in the ‘pack’ at home. I was different. Didn’t belong. The ‘Joker’ perhaps. As I grew up, I was determined to make a life where I was part of something. School was good, I was always happy and again at college but not at home, outside of my ‘family’, where I found myself. Married and with children, I tried to teach them that they shouldn’t try to ‘fit in’, it never works, but try and fit life around themselves, with whatever it has given them. To be honest, caring and show others kindness at all times. That way, they would always belong. I also made sure my children felt loved and wanted, something I never had. The hand life had dealt me was not a good one and try as I did, over and over, I always lost the game. I didn’t want this for my daughters.

So like a pack of cards, the game of life can deal us a good hand or a bad hand. PC was definitely a bad hand. Try as I might, in the beginning it seemed to be a futile attempt at winning and I feared the game would be over far too soon. There were many times in the early part of My Journey, I felt like throwing the cards out of the window and running for the hills, I felt life had dealt me every bad hand it could, this was the last one I could handle. And handle it I wasn’t. Childhood, full of cruelty and abuse. The wicked hoax. Nasty cruel family stuff for 3 years previous to this and lots and lots of loss. Now the worst hand of all. PC. and the threat of losing my beloved husband. Sometimes it became just too much. But I didn’t, run for the hills I mean. I love David and with the support from the PC groups on social media I am still here to tell the tale and hopefully encourage others, to either play the hand you are dealt, even if it means cheating, Yes, cheating, as playing fair in a fight with cancer with a little ’c’, is no game at all.

Joining the PC groups when I was feeling isolated by ‘family’ at a time I needed them, was the best thing I had done at that time. I had felt terrified of where I found myself and unburdened these fears, on the pages and here, in my blog. I thought I had been rendered weak, that I was the only wife falling apart. Helpless, angry, sad and different. Other members soon replied to my comments. They wrote offering support, re-assurance and advice. Although it was a group none of us wanted to be part of I felt I belonged. I wasn’t alone. A good feeling at a not so good time in my life. I have gained so much, learned so much and will be forever grateful.

So ultimately, I believe that life isn’t what you make it, it depends on outside forces, other people’s actions and the cards Fate deals us. If we are dealt a bad hand, perhaps we can turn it around and make the game different, somehow better.

PC taught me, more than any other ‘nasty’ in my life, that even though it is horrid, cruel and scary. Even though it can change us, change how we react to things, change how we are with each other, how we cope; we do cope.

Life is complex and can deal you bad hand after bad hand, blow after blow and so consequently, things change. We change. Life changes. After David’s surgery, our life changed. It will never be the same again. David has changed, but he is still the man I married, the man I love. My friend and my rock. Have I changed? I was doing so in the few years prior to the cancer, but not for the better. The pain inflicted, the betrayal and hurt, courtesy of my eldest daughter had changed me, almost beyond recognition. Brought the worst out in me. When she hurt my brother in such a wicked way, my own self esteem dropped to rock bottom with shame. The hurt and pain had stolen my self-confidence and sense of self. I felt a shell of the woman I had been. She was my daughter and behaving in way alien to me. But David’s recovery from PC has restored me to the strong woman I used to be. It happened slowly and without my knowledge. The fear of losing him was the worst thing ever. He is my life. He says he couldn’t have got through any of it without me, without my support and encouragement but most of all my love. This warms my heart and makes me feel better about the woman I am. Better about Carol Ann and growing stronger every day.

Life is different yes but still good. We are different but we are good. Whatever hand life deals us, even a bad one, with self-belief and strength we can turn it into winning hand. Yes it will be hard sometimes, but oh so worth it. This game called life will, from now on, be enjoyed and faced with a ferocity never seen from us before.

In most games we get to choose the part we play but life doesn’t give us that option. But even at the worst of times, we can use the cards dealt us and make something out of them. Even if some are missing. We can do that. We do that all the time, in some way or another. Just because it isn’t the hand we would have chosen, it doesn’t have to be a bad one. Life always throws something at us, good or bad and somehow we manage to stay here, making the most of what we have. Sometimes happy, sometimes not so. Belonging is good, so join things. Being supported is good, so Share in a group. Being loved is essential, so appreciate that. Loving ,caring and giving, is even better than receiving. Make sure you do that at every opportunity. Life itself is a good hand so play it. Beginning today.

Thank you for reading.x