83 days - Where it all began

Hi everyone, I hope you're all ok and for those who are home-schooling are getting through it!  Looks like schools wont be opening in February and the thought of home schooling up until my daughters birthday in mid April is more than I can bare! My mental health has taken a real hit since I had COVID and now with lockdown it can be hard.  Rob is brilliant and really tries to make me feel better and keeps me positive, he is the one that tells me to STOP.....I struggle to let go of control so sometimes I need to be told just to stop going and if sometimes things are not in place then so be it!  I am still working on that lol.  I have spoken with my doctor and she has suggested that I change tablets as I have been on my other ones for so long and they may not be as effective anymore. This takes quite a while to come off slowly over the next couple of months and then I am going to start taking something called venlafaxine which is known to treat people of suffer with PMDD.  Once Rob and I discussed it, we decided it is best to wait until lockdown is over to come off the tablets and onto new ones.  I could be ok but then I may not be whilst trying to change over, and whilst we are in lockdown and the added pressure of home school we decided it was not the right thing yet.  However I will 100% be doing this once this is all over.  I am also taking vitamin B, D and Agnus cactus which I have just started taking so will see if this helps my PMS symptoms, fingers crossed. I would love to one day feel the difference and not suffer so much, 1-2 weeks out of the month is hard sometimes.  I will let you know if it works and then recommend them for anyone who suffers badly. 

As far back as I can remember 

Age 11 – At primary school in year 6 getting a call from either my Mum or Dad, I went to the school office and spoke to one of them.  I don’t know how that conversation went but I left and went out to my school friends crying saying my Mum and Dad were splitting up.  I don’t know if I made that up as I can’t imagine either of my parents telling me that at school and over the phone.  Chances are I lied to get a dramatic effect which is what I certainly got.   I knew my Mum had been having an affair for a long time, she didn’t think I knew but I was 10 and not stupid.  My friend Stacey and I would ask my now Step Father questions about liking my Mum.  He would give us money to stop us talking and yes that sounds bad but I also now as an adult see it was a desperate act.   I walked into my garden one time and see him drinking out my Dads beer glass, I then went upstairs to see the bed broken. I knew what had happened or what I thought had happened but I wasn’t sure how to deal with that emotion and the fact is I don’t actually remember feeling any emotion whatsoever.  I eventually told my Dad, it wasn’t planned of course. I ran in from school and told him that this man called Joe wanted to marry Mum and we see him all the time at the school. Stacey and I were standing there and my Dad dragged her outside in the garden and Stacey started crying, I just remember telling her it will be ok whilst we were looking out the back door.  That was the first time I see my Dad behave in an aggressive way.  After that my Mum was out a lot after work, I remember walking downstairs and seeing him sitting there with his head in his hands waiting for my Mum to come home, this seemed to happen a lot.  Now I look back I see my Mum was desperately unhappy and yes there are certain ways to deal with it and yes it probably made her slightly selfish but these things we cannot change in life, if we could we would all be pretty perfect wouldn’t we?  I don’t have much memory of my parents arguing, really none at all.  I had a wonderful childhood, better than many, we were very comfortable, had 2 holidays abroad a year, close friends and just a normal happy life.  This changed overnight when my Mum and Dad separated.

It was September and I was a week into year 7 in my new secondary school, I was 11.  I was walking across the playground to my next class and my Mum came running in the gates and pulled me out the school. She put me into a blue car, my little brother was in the back and I saw my Step Dad in the drivers seat.  I knew straight away what was happening and I just held my brothers hand, he was only 5.  We got taken to a house that that my Step Dad was renting, my Mum sat me down and said that she and my Dad had split up and I would be living here and see my Dad every other weekend. I was in shock and just sat there not knowing what to say, all I wanted was to go home.  I am very home person even now so when I was younger my home comforts were everything to me.  They made me feel safe and warm inside. To hear that I would be living in this house was the last thing I wanted.  I don't know all the detail but apparently there was a big row with my Mum and Dad and they basically raced in there cars to see who could get us first.  My Mum wanted my Dad to leave but he refused to let my Step Dad move in, even if that would be later down the line.  That night my Mum drove me home to see my Dad and I remember her being very blunt about it all and adamant that I would see my Dad every other weekend because that's how it works when parents separate.  I went into my house, walked upstairs and saw my Dad sitting on my Mum and Dads bed.  I walked over to him, didn't say a word and just sat on his lap and hugged him.  He started to cry, I had never seen my Dad cry and haven't seen him cry since.  At that very moment I hated my Mum and Joe, seeing the pain they had caused made my heart hurt.  From then on it was awful, I hated them, I hated Joe.  To me he was horrible and I made it known too.  I used to hide his things, rub his toothbrush on soap, through toy bricks down the stairs on his head.  He treated me like I was a nuisance, I knew and felt he did not want me there and at the time he probably didn't.  There was a lot of arguing with my Mum and Dad, a lot of name calling and I was smack bang in the middle of it.  My Mum then had a brain haemorrhage and got rushed to hospital, I didn't know this at the time and I don't think I cared.  I blamed my Mum for everything she had done, all the pain she had caused and I didn't want to live with her.  As a child of course you only see what you see at that moment and do not understand.  Now I am older I of course realise there was a lot more too it and no one should stay in an unhappy relationship, she simply didn't love my Dad anymore.  However I say and always have said that my Mum went the complete wrong way about it and it had a huge impact on me.  I still don't know how difficult it was for my Mum to leave or how difficult my Dad made it.  The one thing I took from my Mum and Dads separation is that when I left my ex husband I was determined to make it as easy for them as possible and put up and still put up with so much from there Father so they have an easier time with it.  

So my Mum went into hospital with a subarachnoid haemorrhage on the brain, this is an uncommon type of stroke caused by bleeding on the surface of the brain. It's a very serious condition and can be fatal. Obviously at the age I was I didn’t know that and believed my Mum had a water infection in hospital!  God knows why I thought it was a water infection.  My Dad said it was up to me if to go see her which now I look back I think it’s wrong as there was a huge chance my Mum was going to die. My Dad was full of anger towards my Mum and used to often put her down which again now I look back is wrong and something I would not to do with my children about their Father.  To cut a long story short me and my little brother went back to live with my Dad, my eldest brother stayed with my Step Dad as he had fallen out with my Dad.  My Mum come out of hospital and wanted Lewis and I back, I wouldn’t go and Lewis stayed with me.  Just like that we no longer lived with my Mum and was now back at home with Dad and my Dad had us back where he wanted us.  My Mum just ended getting more mentally ill and more addicted to alcohol and I am not at all surprised. None of it went the way my Mum wanted it to go, she didn't want to be with my Dad and be with my Step Dad but for that she lost us and that was a hard loss to bare. I don't think Joe was the best influence on my Mum, she needed taking care off but because he was drinking too so was not able to help her in the way she needed.  

My mental health believe started around the age of 11/12.  My first memory is lighting up a cigarette in the back of my year 7 class, I loved the attention and at the same time didn’t care less what my parents said.   From then on the problems started, I lied that I was pregnant at the age of 12. 12!!!!!!! I made up the man I had slept with, this is crazy to admit now but it’s what happened and I still don’t understand why I did it.  I hadn’t even started my period and was a little girl so it makes me sad to think I would make up such a lie.   School was bad, I wasn’t just rebellious I was doing serious things.  I skived off school A LOT, I did what I wanted because I didn’t care, I faked a bomb scare by using a talk boy (a toy back in the 90’s) this caused for fire engines and police to raid the school, when I walked back to school I knew it was serious.  Everyone knew it was me but I am ashamed to admit that I got away with it which at that time I thought was funny.  I smashed up the school one night with a few of my friends, I was arrested for that and got a caution.  I done many things that were awful and nearly got expelled, I can only thank the teachers at the time and for not giving up on me.  I remember a teacher called Ms Carter, she was the head of year in year 9, I remember her saying “Stacey, I know you are a nice, good girl deep down, you can change this”.  The truth was she could see through me, she could see the little girl that was screaming for attention and the girl already at the tender age of 14 was showing signs of a mental disorder.  I look back and see a child but a child who got caught up with bad people, dodgy people in fact, people that were so different to me but I pretended I was like.  I was drinking at this time, the typical things, cider and vodka.  I put my little brother in horrible situations and let him see things and little boy shouldn’t see, I knew it was wrong but I took him along anyway.   I was never involved in these antics but still I went along and took my little brother with me.  I started to have panic attacks by the age of 15 normally brought on by being drunk, I put myself in danger many times.  The first time I self-harmed was with a piece of glass down the back of some garages, I knew then I started to hate myself.  I had been raped so this played a massive part. I have been told I suffer with abonnement issues, one day I had a lovely life and literally the next day this was all gone. It wasn't my parents splitting up it was more to do with my life being turned upside down overnight and another man in bed with my Mum when the night before it was my Dad.  I didn't introduce the kids to Rob for a long time, I was adamant to do it better and not put them through what I went through. We moved in together 2 years after introducing him to the kids and it has worked really well and they are happy. I also know you cant help who you fall in love with and who is meant for you, I just wish my parents had done it differently.  I behaved this way because I wanted to hurt them and I am pretty sure I did that! I can only now imagine what I put my parents through, I ran away, I stole, I drank, I smoked (didn’t do drugs yet!) By year 10 close to being expelled I got my shit together and knuckled down to do my GCSE’s just so I didn’t leave school with no grades.   When I finished school my Dad broke the news to me that we were moving to Newquay, right on the road where I was violently raped only the year before!  I was devastated but he insisted buying a hotel would give us a better quality of life.  So we were moving to Cornwall, I was upset to say the least, upset about leaving my house which was my safe haven, upset about leaving my Mum but I believed I would be ok without her, how wrong I was. 

The first few months were ok in Cornwall, up and down I guess.  I was doing my normal crazy stuff that I did, sometimes I was sensible and going out having a couple of drinks, other times I was mad and going home drinking wine out of a smashed bottle.  I moved my friend Faye down there with me and we were having fun in the summer months. I was seeing a much older man than me, I seemed to go towards the older man it seemed.  He was a DJ in the local nightclub and I loved that he could get us in for free and get us drinks etc. I was 16 after all and thought it was cool.  Once September came, I started collage.  That's when reality kicked in, the hotel got quiet, the holiday people went home.  It was just the locals now who was not my sort of people, they were all high on coke, acid and ecstasy, the most I had tried was a joint and that was only a few puffs!  I didnt have anything in common with these people, they all danced to house and took acid, I drank and listened to soul and cheesy classics!  I missed my Mum terribly and the reality kicked in, I got worse and worse.  My Dad walked into my bedroom and saw me in a ball on the bedroom floor and told me I need to go to Mum and get better, he didn't believe in putting me on tablets. 

I moved back to my Mums and whilst living with my Mum I attempted to take my own life, a lot of tablets along with a bottle of barcadi, these tablets were iron tablets, I just took a whole box of what I thought were paracetamol!  I started to vomit up black sick and realised what I done was terrible and rang the ambulance, they came and got me and took me to hospital.  They called my Mum and said if I had taken a few more chances are I would have died.  This was a cry for help as I don’t believe I ever wanted to take my own life.  I had never spoken to anyone about the rape and it tormented me most days, the visons I would see and his face over me.  I was to young to deal with such a trauma and not speak to anybody, it just got worse and worse for me. 

My Mum at this time was still suffering with an illness herself, she had depression, she had a drinking problem, of course now I understand, she lost her children, her youngest was growing up 250miles away from her, it was bad enough just being round the corner.  If my son was taken away from me and I didn’t see him and have him every day my life would be worthless.  I again was only 17 and didn’t really look that deep into it, I understood and then blamed my Dad for hurting Mum like that.  The tables had turned! I didn’t understand it the way I do now though, nowhere near.

Things went pretty downhill when I was there, my Mum was in a bad way, not every day but she was definitely ill now I look back.  I started seeing for my own eyes what my Mum was going through and this images still haunt me to this day.  My Step Dads father died whilst he was in Cyprus and this was the time when my Mum had a blood clot in her lung and she was on a high dose of worfrin.  My Mum would take herself to bed for days and drinking.  One evening was so bad that I went upstairs and I had to call the ambulance as she was self-harming badly.  There was blood everywhere and she was in and out of conscious.  I screamed for Dean my eldest Brother and we had no choice but to call 999.  My Mum was reluctant to go and was awful the whole time in the hospital.  I felt it was my responsibility and I think those times were some of the worst times of my life.  Whatever I said to my Mum I couldn’t get through to her, I felt I lost my Mum I felt like she was going to die.  She was coughing blood and was ill.  Up until this point I didn’t know my Mum self-harmed and she self-harmed deeply, not a few scratches but very deeply. I was waiting for her to cut so deep she would die.  I found her once drunk and she had overdosed on antidepressants, she was slumped on the kitchen table.  I lived in fear in what I would next find and if and when I would find her dead.  I used to think to myself, how could she be so selfish, how can she do this to me and Dean, why were we not enough, I was only 17, I didn't know!  Well if you're an alcoholic and mentally ill then you will know that everything comes after the drink, nothing is as important.  Now I am older and if its possible I truly believe that everything I went through with my Mum had made our bond even stronger than ever, I couldn't possibly love her anymore than I do.  My Mum is the most selfless, loving, generous Mother I know, her kids are her life.  That poison can bring down the very best and literally turn you into a demon!  She was living with a severe mental illness and she picked herself back up, went to AA and got sober and I am and will always be incredibly proud of her.  She drinks now but very rarely and when she does she is such a light weight lol, a few prosecco's and its goodnight Mum.   

I want to dedicate this blog to my Mum because she is the most amazing, strong, selfless person I know.  She has gone through hell and back for many years and stuff that I wouldn't put in here because its too personal.  What beat my Mum was losing her children, that was her downfall and if I could turn back time and change it then I would.  Being a Mum myself, my life would be over if I lost my children. She is the person I love more than anything, yet she is also my biggest fear.  The older I get the more I worry because like all of us, the thought of losing our parents is agonising.  Everything she has gone through and everything I have watched has made me love her even more, she is brave, strong and determined and I am so proud to be her daughter.

For years now we have all been really happy as a family, everything fell into place.  My parents, my Step Dad, Rob and I and my brothers have all been away a few times now to Poland (that is where my older brother lives).  My Dad and step Dad go drinking together, and we have all had a great time. These are the two men that hated eachother once upon a time.  Just shows even the damaged of families can make it through and make there lovely blended family a normal one.  I love my Step Dad and have done for many many many years now, I could not imagine my life without him.  If you had told me that when I was younger I would not have believed you.  It really is strange how it all comes together, I used to think I had the worst family when all the shit kicked off all those years ago.  I now think I have the best family and I am so lucky that I have 2 amazing parents who guide and protect me, a step Dad who protects me, 2 amazing brothers and of course my own little blended family, Rob, my kids and my step kids and I love them all so so much. 

So I thought this may give you a little insight and a bit of a glimpse into my mental health.  I may suffer with mental health and it may not ever go away but one things for sure, I am the happiest I have ever been.  I cannot change the past and its had huge affects on my life but it has also made me, me!  The biggest thing I do is work on myself, all the time in fact and more than I ever have.  My brain works differently to some people because of the scarring left in my brain, its not my fault and its an illness. I have my babies, I have the most supportive man in the world next to me and the most supportive friends and family and of course my Mum. 💓

Thank you for reading everyone. 

Lots of love

Stacey

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