Category: Uncategorized

My Love Affair with Knitting

I had some news recently that has been difficult to sit with. It probably will sound trivial saying it out loud and yet I have promised I will be honest with myself because there have been many years that I was not honest.

Okay, so here it is. My knitting teacher is shutting up shop. I will no longer be able to go to her for support and trouble shooting when the knitting goes wrong. And it feels like some of my grounding, or under pinning, has been taken away.

My love affair with knitting began at 17 when I was at college. Once a week I would sit in a class and was taught the basics of knitting. I learnt how to cast on and off and basic knitting stitches. Eventually I embarked on the first project – a thick jumper in a beautiful red colour. The jumper eventually was finished, ill fitting and rammed to the back of the wardrobe, never to see the light of day again! And so the knitting needles got put away for another few years.

My wonderful Grandad died and my Nan came to live with us. My Nan was blind and incredibly she still knitted! Nan knitted dish cloths with ease which were given to the Association for the Blind. I would help Nan count stitches and she showed me how to cast on neatly with the ‘continental method’ as Nan coined it. Knitting was shepherded back in and I began another project which in time… well – was relegated to the back of the wardrobe. The wardrobe of discarded knitting projects! The love affair with knitting was waning again.

Fast forward five or so years ago and the love affair was re-ignited. I searched for a knitting shop and a teacher. I found my knitting teacher in a little studio in Salisbury. Over the next two or three years, I learnt many old to new skills, made dish cloths aplenty, knitted squares for a blanket, and finally a jumper which I have indeed worn! I loved my knitting lessons with my teacher and grew in confidence and creative bliss. I started a lace pattern scarf and would often call into the shop when the pattern went wrong, which was rather often!

Then lockdown came and the knitting stopped again. My logic was that I didn’t have the physical hands on support and so I stopped knitting, thinking I wouldn’t be able to do this by myself. I feel sad that I took this decision and yet I totally understand why I did this.

Scroll forwards three years and I have begun to fall back in love with knitting again. I have many projects on the go and yet I feel back at the beginning, when I first walked into that knitting shop.

I thought I had more time with my knitting teacher, to regain my confidence and become more sure footed. And the realisation that this relationship is ending, has shocked me. I have never liked endings, and this ending feels extremely painful and raw. Knitting has been my saviour, my solace when times in my life have been difficult. The support I’ve had has been such a blessing in my life. It is difficult to comprehend that this support is now gone. I guess I am grieving that loss and I’m scared I will not be able to cope without my teacher’s support.

I feel this situation goes deeper than the knitting teacher and the knitting. It dovetails with my own feeling’s of inadequacy and not being able to cope. And yet working through my pain at this loss, I come to a place of knowing that I can find alternative means of support. I can sit with the panic and the scared parts of me. I can offer compassion and kindness and be honest with how I feel.

My knitting teacher and the knitting came back to me at a time when I greatly needed the grounding presence that knitting gives me. And my teacher acted as the reassuring presence, often in the background, and yet readily available for support. Maybe this is a recipe for good living in my life!

I am thankful that I have had this positive experience of support and the confidence to go back to a craft that I have loved. And when the shock settles, I will reaffirm that I will be okay and I will find other resources and people to help keep this love affair alive.

And now I can return to the day, more at peace than I was before. Thank you dear heart for your honesty. And thank you Heather, my incredible knitting teacher, for all that you have helped me to create these past years. I wish you well in your new ventures. x

Meanderings at 3 am ….

Today I am hopeful that I get answers to the questions of this ailing body. I have tried many things to fix what was broken, and yet I have felt that nothing I have done has had any lasting effect. I do truly believe that everything I have undertaken has been of some help, and yet I am here at this point where I have had to seek answers from lab tests and a forensic detective. In the huge hope that a pattern can emerge and a road map of healing can commence.

I have a mental picture of me at a crossroads and I took one path which led to many adventures on the quest for better health. And now I have come full circle and I am on a bridge and the bridge is very high and overlooks a luscious forest of beautiful trees, with a waterfall just glimpsed on the horizon. The landscape represents my hope for answers and a better journey forwards, and the possibility of brighter days and a better feeling body.

I feel that I am at a new place and that the answers will be good answers. Yes, I have to take a deep breath and hear about all the things that have gone wrong, and pick myself up from the feeling of failure. I have measured many things in my life by the scales of success and failure, the good and the bad. And the ‘trying to fix this body’ has been measured by me as a failure. And yet, what is the basis of that assessment? The fact that I have not alleviated these symptoms and a feeling of being in a worse place than at the start of all this. How can I definitively know that the things I have done, haven’t been helpful? And maybe they have done some level of healing. And yes I say ‘but I still have these symptoms’ and yet I have learnt much and have applied my learning wisely.

Perhaps all that I have done has kept me alive and has offered some solace to an ailing environment. Yes, maybe I have been patching holes, and yet perhaps that has been my saving grace in these very difficult years.

I asked my son today if he could remember a time before this mother of his was sick. And in his honesty (of which he is always honest) he said ‘no’. I said that I used to be this amazing woman who went back to uni at 39 and achieved a first class honours degree. I asked him what he remembered of that time, and he said with much humour ‘I remember the chips at your graduation because they were the worse chips I have ever tasted!’. And we laughed at that one and it made me feel better.

I used to be this person who forged ahead and achieved many things. I remember 10 years of attempting to pass my GCSE maths, and feeling so proud when I finally passed an equivalent Level 3 grade. I remember my best friend saying ‘you are the most driven person I have ever met!’. I used to laugh and think ‘mm you haven’t seen the rest of my family my love!’. I come from a family of hard grafters and I saw that as ‘just the way it goes’. And so I pushed myself ever onwards and never gave up. And then we come full circle and I am back on this bridge, looking at the beautiful forest and wishing I was there.

This ailing body has taught me much, even if the teaching has not been easy to hear or accept. I have learnt that the driven part of me, had a price, and that price was the body’s undoing. I pushed hard for so long, endured immense stress and didn’t listen to the signs. And the body said ‘no more’ and collapsed in a heap.

I have had to build myself anew. Learning patience when I have felt impatience. acceptance when I didn’t want to accept, and compassion when I was wanting to rage and throw things. Time and time again I’ve had to literally sit with this pain, the physical pain of the body and the emotional pain of the mind. To sit with the fear that this wouldn’t get better anytime soon, and with a deep feeling of shame every time the spewing stomach led to the squelching humiliation of having to rush home or rush to find a toilet.

Today I am hopeful that I get the answers I seek and a road map to follow which leads to better health. To a time when I can freely live, to be able to go out on adventures and just be in the moment. I have learnt much through this period of my life and I hope that all the tools I have learnt will be helpful in this new chapter of bringing wellness back to this body and mind.

Fingers crossed. x

Idiot… Trailblazer… Radical .. ?

There is an aspect of me that I have sometimes accepted and sometimes vilified. I have been called a ‘radical’ and a ‘trailblazer’ and lately more an activist. Sometimes viewed by one particular family member as an ‘effing idiot’ (yes thank you family member for that one) and by friends as ‘inspirational’. Some of these judgements I have truly liked and others, I have nursed wounds over. The ‘me’ that writes this now, is very different to the ‘me’ of twenty years ago, or the me of three years ago. My life has been shaped by circumstances. Some that have been deliberately chosen, and some that have not. Each of these defining moments have made me a stronger person and for that I am grateful. Meeting my husband and a twenty five year marriage has given me a loving relationship where I’ve been able to grow and be accepted. Being a mother to an ASD child – now a grown up – has given me a voice in which to roar. And the ill thing has given me the gift of flexibility and so much more. Each part of this life has enriched me and at times completely flawed me. I have likened it to the ebb and flow of water. Sometimes the currant has been gentle and meandering, and at other times it has felt like a raging torrent, with me as the small boat bobbing up and down on the stormy waters.

I have weathered much and I have survived. My lighthouse has been my inner strength not to give up. I entered counselling to challenge my limiting beliefs about myself as a woman and as a sexual being. A story for another time I trust. And I dealt with post-natal depression with respectful reverence – in time. For the changing role of being a Mum was very hard. And then at 39 I dealt with a new career and a University degree to train as a Psychotherapist.

I’ve kept the child alive who said at 11 ‘I want to kill myself Mummy’ and navigated us through an education system that failed to nurture this beloved being. And then I dealt with the blow of ailing health and a medical system that couldn’t help me get better.

I have never accepted the answers that I was given and because of this I have been judged the ‘radical’ or the ‘trailblazer’ or the ‘idiot’. I guess it is just down to perspective. I define myself by my actions. The Mother that has never given up on her child, the wife that never accepted her beliefs about sex being wrong, or the ill thing that they said could not be fixed, only managed. And I’m rather glad I am this determined ‘Warrior Woman’ and today, I give thanks for her presence in my life.

Motherhood and Me

Sleep is my ‘lost’ commodity, and sleep is one of the things I need. I have a propensity to wake up at 3 am, 4am or 5 am with the mind alert and wanting to play. I have my most reflective meanderings in the wee small hours and often I just get up and set my pen to paper and see what is delivered.

I remember a time before my child was born, where I had no problem with sleep. I would sleep, I would dream and then I would wake up. I loved sleeping! I was good at it and welcomed it as my friend. And then I became a Mother and sleep became deprived, snatched and resented for its brevity. Ah the 4 am feeding and the tiredness that followed! Even now, I have that element of remembered resentment. And my sleep has never really recovered.

I truly believe Motherhood brought this inbuilt alarm of ‘child listening’ as I was forever unconsciously listening out for the first snuffle, the first, cry, the first needing moments between sleep and awake-ness. And maybe years and years later, I am still primed for those listening moments when he needed me to be alert and ready.

Motherhood was all encompassing for me and it was a role in which I gave my all. I have had a fierce love and I have dedicated my life (up till this point) in ensuring he survived. I remember when we got to the eighteenth birthday, and for me there was a sense of such relief that we were all still here, intact after the hell years.

I have navigated rather a lot as a mother to an ASD child. And a lot of it has been rather hard graft, down in the ‘mines’ so to speak. Wading and pushing and feeling helpless. It has not been easy and yet my fierce love has always been the saving grace. I have loved deeply, I have loved determinedly and I have never given up.

My innate curiosity and probably quite a lot of bloody mindedness, has made me look for solutions to problems that most people would never question. I have never accepted that ‘this is the way of things, so put up and shut up and just manage’. I have found therapies that have helped us and therapies that have not. And through all of this I have loved passionately, this child who is now a young man. And over the years I have felt so much pain, and then so much love and tenderness when something difficult has been made better. The child who managed a sports day, and a deep outpouring of love seeing him run round the running track. The boy who played ghosts in the dark with me, laughing and chuckling at the top of his voice. The picture of ‘Magic Mumma’ with her wand that he drew for me, with the words ‘I love you Mummy’. And the child that broke my heart when he said ‘I hate this Mummy, I cannot cope anymore’ when school became impossible for him.

And I think that the hell years of his and my trauma, the shutting down years and the uncommunicative years, finally broke this woman’s body and this mind. I could not comprehend how it could all go so wrong as I had showered so much love. And yet autism is a hard master, and autism takes prisoners. In our case love was not enough, or I would say love helps and yet it is in the letting go that has actually been the precursor to things getting better. No blame, no shame, no guilt. I held the blame/guilt card for so long and so tightly did she reign that finally the cord broke. I remember a moment when I realised that it hadn’t all been my fault and that gave me the reality to be willing to let go. And this has given me my freedom, and my child is growing because of it. Child to man, a beautiful symphony.

I now realise that my forever pushing, my feelings of guilt and my anger and rage are beginning to recede. It was detrimentally damaging to my psyche and was not serving either of us. And I feel so much lighter these days, and I’m now ‘ready to party like it’s 1995’ in the words of Prince.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Rest and Digest

I had a nice time away with my man in an idyllic forest retreat in the depths of the trees. Such a wonderful time away, and now I am home again. There is a feeling of un-wellness and it is hard to deal with that, this morning. I say ‘morning’ and yet it is 4 am and everything is still, except for this body. I put the ‘menopause’ magnet on and there has been a feeling of overwhelm, of needing to catch one’s breath, and an almost urge to take the ‘thing’ off and gently breathe. Maybe that is what the body is telling me to do. When it feels too much I need to pause, and recalibrate, and right now it feels quite right to take it off. I battle with myself in these hours! I so want the magnet to resolve all the symptoms that this body is going through. And perhaps it will, in time. I just need to be patient. Ah! Patience! Not a word I have liked or wanted or accepted. Patience has been very hard to work with, and yes I say ‘work’ because it has felt so hard to be and accept this waiting. Waiting for the magic to work, for the right remedy to help support this body to heal.

This body, she grumbles and she moans, she whines and she hurts. And I attempt to listen over and over to decipher her hidden messages that I find so hard to understand. It’s like deep inside there is a tight ball of anxiety, in the depths of the solar plexus. And the ball is very tight and very scared. And it feels like a band of something woven tightly, and does not know how to relax her grip for even a moment.

I say ‘relax’ and she doesn’t hear me, and I feel that the relaxation does not come. This body has been ailing for so long, and it’s hard to remember a time when the stomach was welcoming and soft. There have been years and years of such immense emotional rages and its hard to switch that off.

Rest and digest feels an alien concept in a life where I have been fighting for so long. I fought for my right to my own life, and then I fought for my sexuality and the concept of being a woman. I fought for the child that didn’t have a choice and then for my own dear one who arrived struggling and out of kilter with the world. And I fought for his right to be, in a world that hasn’t understood him and wouldn’t listen to him.

I’m proud of this ‘Warrior Mother’ that I am and yet it has cost me dear. It has cost me my health and my sanity at times, and now I am going to resolve that and get ‘Rest and Digest’ back.

A Homage to my Bestie

I first met my Bestie in the middle of the 90’s. We were in our early twenties when we were footloose and fancy free. We bonded over a complicated computer programme called NOSS and our ambivalence to the firm we were both working for. We laughed over the boys we were dating and we cried when our love lives fell apart. She was the first friend that I told my deepest secrets to and the first friend I ever went on a ‘I’ve split up with my boyfriend road-trip’ and that was epic for someone like me, who hadn’t ever experienced a friendship like that.

My Bestie and I have been pals for almost 30 years. We have spanned three decades of life together. She was the bridesmaid at my wedding – and darling I’m so sorry I put you in that floral ‘curtain’ of a bridesmaid dress when you are the ‘Queen of Victorian Goth’. Bestie put up with the drunken wedding guest who tried to pick her up and the Bride who cried when her shoes were lost. She supported me over every detail of the wedding, and pretended enthusiasm when I likely bored her to death.

We have travelled the road of marriage and motherhood together. Through the dark days of my post-natal depression and the utter confusion of motherhood. You helped me to navigate the ‘war zone’ years of being a mother to an ASD child, and you helped me put ‘my hard hat on’ when I needed to be a Warrior Woman looking after her cub. And through all that, you have made me laugh with your wonderful spontaneity and your ability to chuck yoghurt pots on the back seat. I admire your freedom of expression, and you admire my organisation abilities. Together we are a total package, and a great team.

When I needed my Bestie, she was there. She took a day off work and came to London to walk round for hours and hours, taking my mind off my mother’s terrifying surgery. I will never forget your undivided support that day, and all those days after when Mum was slowly dying. 10 pm every night, for many weeks, my Bestie was on the end of the phone ready to chat with me about the awfulness of dying and also lighting my mind with her loving presence.

And her spontaneity is so brilliant. She texted me one Weds and said ‘keep Saturday free please’ and on Friday told me we had tickets to see Take That at Wembley. The most amazing concert with the most amazing friend. I remember us getting to the top of that escalator and looing out on to Wembley arena and looking at each other and saying ‘omg this view is amazing’. I was so excited and so elated to be there with you, and I shall remember that moment and that feeling forever.

Today it is my Bestie’s birthday. We have shared three decades of birthdays together. And yes we may have changed, and the presents have changed, and the people in our lives may have changed, and yet we are still us. This is my homage to my Bestie, her name is Liz and I am very proud to say she is my Soul Sister, and my lovely Friend even if she has some very loud electric blue trousers which she swears she’s not going to throw out.

Happy Birthday Darling Girl xx

Imagination

At the age of seven I found a whole new world. She was called Sindy, and I had my very first Sindy Doll. She was ‘Ballerina Sindy’. Sindy had blonde hair and blue eyes. Slim, pretty with pink ballet shoes and very bendy legs. I LOVED her. She went everywhere with me. My Mum made her some clothes, and I gave her my love. Over time, Sindy got given a Beach Buggy, a Caravan and a 3 storey house. My Grandad bought her a coffee table with coffee set and chocolate cake. My Mum and Dad bought her a bedroom set complete with beautiful dressing table with brush and comb set. Ooh I loved my Sindy. Sindy gave me the gift of imagination. I would spend hours making up stories of where Sindy was going and what friend’s she would meet. She partied at the beach, and camped under the stars. She had friend’s round for coffee and sat on the sun deck bathing. And I followed Sindy in her travels, living a life of fun and happiness. Sindy was my friend and Sindy was my inner world which was full of imagination and promise.

When I was twelve I went to senior school and Sindy got left behind. The Dolls house got packed away in a box and all the furniture and clothes went in another box. And to extent my imagination went in those boxes with her. I remember that writing was my way back to my imagination. I had a wonderful English teacher that encouraged me to write stories. I found a love of books and a spent many dreamy hours in the library just reading. Reading and writing was my solace from an outer world that I didn’t understand. I am so glad that I had my reading and my imagination to help me through those difficult adolescent years.

In my late teens I forgot about writing and the books that I wanted to read were deemed ‘unacceptable for a young lady to read’! Now that really hurt. The books were put in big bags and I was forbidden to read them. They felt like a guilty stain on my consciousness and I put books and writing aside. It is only now in the last few years that I have been able to reclaim that part of me. I was and am a fan of Mills & Boon books and I am no longer ashamed to say it out loud. Yes the stories may be romantic and flowery and maybe a little raunchy, and yet what harm is that doing to anyone? I find escapism in these books, when I’m feeling I need some escape. And the permission to read them has given me back the permission to dream, to imagine and to create beauty in my life. And that has to be the best gift there is.

Foundations

I have been thinking about teeth. I know a surprising subject for a blog post! I remember aged 3, running out of the dentist’s chair and running down the stairs and refusing to come back into the dental room. I remember the smell of cloves and the awful breath of the dentist. I cannot recall the dentist’s name, just that I hated him and that it felt like he took great pleasure in making me feel really scared. So I have had a fear of dentist’s and dental work since I was 3 years old!

Last night I broke a tooth. I was merrily snacking on a chocolate minstrel and wham bam my mouth felt weird. I thought it was a bit of chocolate or peanut stuck in my teeth, and when I brushed I realised with a feeling of doom that a piece had broken off the tooth. Then I started down the road of remembering THAT dentist and all the thoughts of being 3 came bubbling up again.

I reflect that teeth are the foundations of my life. Or I would clarify and say that my teeth are a symbol of my foundations being compromised. I reflect back to at time in the early 2000s when I first embarked on therapy. I went through a period of great exploration and my teeth became inflamed and an abscess formed and caused immense, crippling pain. And it was only the physical nerve of the tooth being severed, that gave me a reprieve from all that pain. And the physical pain said to me that the exploration of my head and heart was causing this, and I seriously began to believe that therapy was going to kill me. So I stopped going to my weekly sessions and stayed away with immense fear for six weeks, until my therapist sent me a letter and asked me to come back and talk about it. I felt that she was caring for me, ‘bothering with me’ (a phrase that came up alot in my therapy sessions) for the first time ever in my life and to this day I will be forever grateful that she got me to resume my exploration of my inner world.

So when the tooth broke off yesterday evening, I knew this was another sign that my foundations were being rocked. I had the appointment with the functional medical practitioner coming up today and I was feeling very hopeful, very scared, very optimistic about getting some relief from this body that has been ill for so long. And the tooth was showing me that there is a lot at stake for me here and I need to look within and find my inner strength to embark on this journey of discovering answers and then embarking on a new way of being with myself, with this body, with this life that I have.

Well I did the appointment and I went and got the tooth fixed. And I am slowly beginning this journey of healing. And yes the foundations have shifted, and the tooth has been sorted and I carry on for another day.

I remember that sad little girl who ran out of the dentist’s chair. I reflect that she has come a long way and compassion and kindness have been the things that have helped her. And now I am all grown up and I am facing my difficulties, slowly finding that compassion and kindness that I need to get better.

Labels

I have been contemplating the labels that I give myself. The obvious ones are wife, mother, friend, daughter, sister. The others are less easy to define. There’s the ‘ill’ one and the ‘failure’ one and the ‘hell on earth’ one and the ‘artist’ one and the ‘creative’ one. All are parts of me, some I really, really like and others that I do not. The ill one… well she is pretty much front and centre at the moment, and it is hard to remember a time when she wasn’t present in my life. The creative-artist one has been a complete surprise and delight to me and that one I wanna hold on to very tight. I never thought I was creative. Or I would say I defined ‘creativity’ by the others in my life and I never imagined that I had that hidden inside. So deep inside that it took until my 50th year, and the first lockdown for her to emerge front and centre. She has totally engaged me, beguiled me, surprised me, delighted me and saved me. She has brought aliveness, colour and love into my life – and I love her! When people say to me ‘You are very creative’ or ‘you are an artist’ I find myself wanting to look behind and see who they might be talking to. And then I realise …. that is me!

Today I went for an appointment, or I would say I had the right time and the wrong day.  My head is in a spin and I hadn’t checked my diary.  I am usually rather organised, together and at the moment I am not.  I am reaching a limit I think.  I scraped the car on Saturday and I got an appointment wrong today.  I have reached capacity and I am having to step back and wait for the fog to clear from the mind. 

The body has been ill for a long time, 8 years this year.  The pivotal point was 2015 when everything kicked off and the body has not been right since.  I say ‘the body’ because I cannot own it as my illness.  The body has been ailing, the body has become weak and it has made me feel vulnerable and at times out of control.  To not have control over bodily functions has been a tsunami of emotions both physically and emotionally.  To go out and have stuff spewing out of your back passage is not a happy event.  For me it has happened so many times that I have lost count.  The first time was the worse time and every other time is probably etched on my memory.  I cannot remember a time when I wasn’t thinking about what the body might do, and where a toilet might be.  The shame of having stuff coming out and walking down the street squelching.  This is my story and I will tell it as it is, with nothing held back.