Who runs the world? girls!

'No man has ever made me feel,ugly but women/girls have battered down my self esteem over and over'. I am going to start this post by quoting myself and hopefully by doing so I won't come across as conceited or trite. My latest question in life is why do we as females feel the need to put people of the same sex down? Why do we criticise, judge and chastise each other ? Is it because we are trying to quell our own deep insecurities, because we are suffering jealousy and are unconsciously projecting our own flaws onto others in order to feel better about ourselves ? I have been the victim of verbal and psychological bullying at the hands of girls. This involved name calling, malicious rumour spreading, exclusion and humiliation. After my operation three weeks ago I had a light bulb moment where I realised that I have lived for many years fearing the female population after losing my faith in them. I know first hand the extreme cruelty women can cause each other and I witness it daily on social media and in magazines. Women are so judgemental of each other but this no way to live. Whatever happened to 'sisters doing it for themselves' ? Was Rudyard Kipling right when he said that 'the female of the species is more deadlier than the male' ?

In the nineties The Spice Girls gave us Girl Power and suddenly women began celebrating being female and gained strength by uniting in their new found power. Since then technology has advanced and mobile phone cameras have created  'the selfie generation' and girls everywhere are uploading digitally enhanced photos of themselves or posing for multiple shots in order to get the 'perfect photo'.  This new fad combined with the extreme airbrushing in magazines has resulted in an obsession with plastic surgery and an unhealthy focus on appearance. Girls can be known as the bitchy sex. Girls get together and often chat about other girls. It's like some kind of shameful bonding exercise where we judge other girls on their looks, their social media status updates and photos. Women spend more time checking each other out than they do men. We are fascinated by every aspect of other women. Whether it is their clothes, hair, make up or even weight, we are constantly comparing ourselves to others. It's not healthy.  Society pushes women to try and adhere to unattainable standards of beauty which puts unbelievable pressure on us. Some girls take drastic measures to try and keep up resulting in low self esteem and even, at the severe end of the scale, body dysmorphia and eating disorders. Yet women still aren't supporting each other.

It is only this week that I have realised how badly the break up of an important childhood friendship has affected me and that revelation in itself is therapeutic. I have spoken about it before in my previous blog entries but I never realised how badly it hurt me. Annie* (not her real name) and I were like sisters. We would spent hours together and she came on several holidays with my parents and I. However, underneath the friendship ran a manipulative streak with her voicing constant threats of falling out with me. After two years as best friends I went on holiday abroad for two weeks and when I came back she wanted nothing to do with me. When we fell out it ripped my heart into a million pieces, I felt totally rejected and I assumed that there must have been something wrong with me. She flaunted her new friendship in my face by walking past my house on a daily basis arm in arm with a girl she knew I didn't get on with, a girl who had always disliked me. She spread rumours around the village about me, telling people I was a 'slag', making me sound strange by conjuring up bizarre stories about me. She may as well have stamped on my heart, I have truly never felt so alone. I was at a new school with people I barely knew and that's when the bullying started and girls constantly called me 'ugly'.  From then on I think I put a barrier up with girls because no girl had ever been truly nice to me. Despite going through a few friendships with girls I shut myself off emotionally from connecting with them. Some of that was because I picked the wrong friends again but some of it was because girls intimidated me.

Three weeks ago everything started to change. I never want to forget what I have just been through. I have faced something I so badly wanted to run away from and I have been fighting it so very well which I never imagined I would do. The past five days have been a roller coaster of emotions. I have been through a major four hour operation and I have done it miles from home and from my Mum and by doing so I have overcome so many hurdles. I had two procedures to remove two separate fibroids. One was removed laparoscopically and the other was done via a hysteroscopic resection (basically through the vagina!) . The fibroid that was removed via keyhole surgery measured 10.5cm and the surgeon discovered it was pressing on my organs, especially my bladder and blocking the tube up to my kidney and pushing everything up into my ribcage. The six month artificial menopause I had been put in to was supposed to shrink it by cutting off it's oestrogen supply (oestrogen makes them grow), but it hadn't shrunk it, it had probably just halted its growth. It is strange to say that during what should have been a bad time I have experienced the greatest lesson in empowerment and that during the hours of pain I was at the happiest I have been in twenty years. This is all because I met and bonded with the girls in my hospital ward and I realised that the female population can be kind and powerful. 

The night after my operation I was dreading being alone and in pain but once I started chatting to the girls around me I realised I was anything but alone. Sammy, Nabila, Amanda and Michelle were all going through hard things and it was like we were united in our pain. Our lovely staff nurse made three of us tea, toast and jam and we all had a late night chat, bonding and smiling. The next day Sammy got her boyfriend to bring in a Subway sandwich for us both and because I had barely eaten in a day I swear it was like a little piece of heaven. Since I left hospital I have eaten four Subways and before I went in I hadn't eaten one in four years! Sammy made me laugh so hard it literally hurt. She was strong, fun, kind and most importantly very genuine and uplifting. There was not a single streak of jealousy or bitchiness in her. It felt so unbelievably good to spend such a difficult time with other girls. I always put on a mask but due to the circumstance I had no choice but to be myself and that helped me to push through pain and not once did I feel lonely. I often get annoyed with people who suggest curing depression or chronic illness by 'thinking positive' because I don't think it's that simple. However, being able to feed off of other people's positive energy, genuinely smiling (instead of my usual facade) and having a bright outlook really did pull me through. Despite me telling them how amazing they were they probably have no idea what they have done for me. They were my little guardian angels, my rays of light in what I thought was going to be a very dark place. They have restored my faith, my hope for the future, made me realise that have to start living life being more myself.  

A simple but really poignant act of human kindness touched me so deeply. Sammy and Amanda were both asleep but I couldn't get comfortable because of the pain so I messaged Michelle was was awake in the bed opposite me and we chatted via Facebook for a while so we didn't wake anyone up. I had barely any battery left on my mobile and I couldn't move because I was hooked up to a drip, an oxygen mask and a catheter and I was in pain. When I told Michelle she got up despite her own pain and hobbled over to plug mobile in. It was the sweetest thing ever. Women should have a fundamental urge to look after each other. We should be able to tell another woman she looks beautiful and not feel threatened or jealous of her looks but be full of admiration. Women fought for equal rights we were sick of men belittling us yet we constantly bring each other down. Girl Power is what we should be championing. We need to stop the bitchy war of words that's fought behind each other's backs. Get over the fights we had over insignificant things when we were 15, and tell each other when we are looking hot! Being green with envy is like a disease. It is soul destroying and bad for your self esteem because it takes so much effort to be hurtful, hateful and bitter. Life is much nicer when you smile and appreciate the beauty in others. Why not smile at that girl who disliked you 18 years ago...the past is the past!  The female form is something which has inspired art for centuries now, it is something of great beauty.  Beyoncé is right, girls do rule the world. However, let's make this is positive thing not something to fear. 

My Quest for a Cure...Part 1

I have health issues. I know that and you now know that (if you have read my previous blog entries). One thing I don't often talk to people in day to day life about is my M.E and that is for a variety of reasons which I will share with you now. One reason is the fact that I have accepted this condition is with me constantly. Not fully accepted it but I am on my way there. Getting to this stage had been and still is very hard and deeply emotional. It us pretty much like grieving for two people; the person I used to be and the person that I wanted to be in the future. The second reason is because I don't always want to compare my journey with other people's. In some instances it does help to talk to other people who are going through the same things but personally for me I find the concept of comparing my symptoms to someone else's very scary. I have anxiety already and when I hear people telling me about their pain or their symptoms getting worse or anything else negative I panic that I will end up worse which in theory I feel could be a self fulfilling prophecy. The third reason is because I don't have a money tree growing in my back garden. I can sense your confusion now so I will elaborate on that statement. When you have an incurable health condition especially one that is very difficult to treat, people like to suggest 'cures'. Their suggestions are I am sure, coming from a well meaning place (apart from the money maker who literally knocked on my door following a newspaper article I wrote on M.E many years ago) but I have chased almost every 'cure' suggested to me over the years and I can conclude that there is no simple answer. Not only is this soul crushing to someone who would do anything to get her life back so she could fulfil her dreams but it's also money devouring, especially to someone with no job related income. In a bid to help you understand what I have been through on my mission to beat this illness I am going to try and explain some of the 'treatments' I have tried. This may be a blog entry of many parts and this is part one. I would like to state that I am writing from my own personal point of view and experience and whilst they haven't worked for me it doesn't mean that they won't for you but please be aware of full financial costs involved before pursuing any treatment and do your research. Our desperation to be healthy again means that we are vulnerable to being taken advantage of by charlatans and that it is easier for people to turn our weaknesses to their advantage.

First of all I want to talk about food intolerance tests. I have had a variety. One was done at a well know health food shop so long ago I can barely remember when but let's say 12 years ago. This involved some kind of meter thing which you touched at the same time as touching a bottle conataining various food substances and if you were intolerant the needle would move. I ended up with a massive list of foods I couldn't eat and my new diet didn't last long. It was impossible to cut them all out and when I did I didn't feel any benefit. Another test I had was the more well known York Food tests. This was around about 8years ago (ish). Basically, I supplied a small home blood sample (2 or 3 drops) and paid a low fee to get a yes or no answer to the question 'do I have food intolerances'. If the test came back as a yes you then had a choice to pay more (rather a lot more) to test your blood against a variety of foods, or food and drinks. I chose the option containing the wider variety of food and drink which of course was the most expensive. The test came back showing various intolerances. From what I can remember there was yeast, dairy, and a lower reaction to garlic, liquorice and cola. You were advised to cut these out of your diet for a period of time and that in the future you may be able to reintroduce them slowly. It's a long while ago so my recollection is a bit sketchy. They test for IgG reactions in your blood.  However you have to remember this test checks for intolerances NOT allergies. True allergies to food affect only 2% of the population and can be life threatening whereas Intolerances affect many many more people and although they can cause upsetting symptoms, they are never life threatening.  I was a bit miffed that you had to answer a question about what symptoms you were experiencing because I felt that it would have been better to not have to reveal any medical problems until after your result. I remember being suspicious that knowing your symptoms could provide them with information they didn't need to know and that they could just suggest food intolerances commonly linked to whatever symptoms you were experiencing. A nutritionalist at my local hospital was shocked at how many foods I had cut from my diet because he said my body could be lacking in vitamins and minerals (I did indeed become calcium deficient when I cut dairy out). York tests do provide information on how to replace vitamins and minerals etc but I obviously hadn't done enough. The nutritionalist didn't believe that any test could reveal intolerances and informed me that the only real way to know was to live on a bland/basic elimination diet before reintroducing foods one at a time. I avoided the foods that York tests had showed an intolerance to for a long time. I ordered special bread online that didn't contain yeast and had to have eight loaves delivered at once to ensure the postage was worth it. I struggled when I went abroad and had to sneak my special bread and rice milk into Spain. It was such a pain having to look through every ingredient in the foods I was consuming and shopping would take ages, I didn't feel a massive benefit and I lost quite a lot of weight over the year (which I didn't need to because I was already skinny). I really don't feel that it was helpful to me and I felt that being so restricted was impacting my life in a negative way. To this day I still use rice milk on my cereal and it's only in the past year or so that I have begun eating cheese again. I feel that food tests and label reading has given me a bit of a problem with food. I eat a LOT and always have, I have a strong appetite but it has taken a massive edge off of the enjoyment I get from food. I worry that everything I eat is making me ill. I worry before I eat and long after because I just don't know what makes me so bad. There is so many stories in the media about certain foods being really good for you and certain foods being bad for you and when you have had years of 'label reading' it makes you analyse everything. I feel this causes you to develop a non weight related eating disorder because your relationship with food changes and worrying about every thing you eat is a really unhealthy in to do. I guess with some people it really helps to have food intolerance tests and to follow certain restricted diets especially with people who suffer from coeliac disease and can't eat gluten. However coeliac disease is an auto immune system disease and not an intolerance or allergy so it is different.

The next thing I want to tell you about is something called The Lightning Process. Esther Rantzen's daughter Emily tried the treatment for her M.E and at the time she claimed that it had cured her (it didn't and she has since spoken out a bit more about it) and it apparently cured a few people in my local M.E support group. I was curious but the first thing that put me off was the cost of this treatment. I seem to recall it was a couple of grand ish and for someone who didn't work that seemed totally out of my reach. I wondered why someone who wanted to help people get better would charge such an extortionate amount of money for what appeared to be a very simple thing. Secondly, it went against everything I believed about my illness. From the limited info you could get about it without actually paying to do it I learnt that it was 'a training programme' and able to treat a long list of conditions. Now, many years later the website seems to have a lot more information on the treatment but it is still worded a bit confusingly 'The Lightning Process will teach you how to use Neuroplasticity to break out of any destructive unconscious patterns that are keeping you stuck, and learn to use new, life and health enhancing ones instead' www.lightningprocess.com.

Anyway, a lady in my M.E group trained in it a couple of years after I first heard of it so as soon as she started up her practice I decided to do it. I have to admit the fact that she was charging half of what you would pay to go to London was what made me go for it plus I spoke to a young girl who had been 'cured' by her and had gone from bedridden to travelling around the world. I can't explain the process so I am going to quote from the website. www.actionforme.org.uk and their description reads like this.. 'The website describes LP as a training program (not a therapy) that combines concepts from Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), hypnotherapy and life coaching. It claims to help with a range of conditions from fear of failure to depression, addiction, procrastination and stage fright. According to the website “it’s also effective for enhancing happiness, business success, peak performance issues, relationships” and more. The main aim of the process is to “teach you how to regain the control in your life, and so give you the opportunity to break the spiral of illness, M.E., anxiety & stress, overwhelmedness, stuckness or low self esteem, or any other destructive patterns you have.”To achieve this “the key steps are: recognising the patterns which cause the destructive feelings in your life; creating an effective way of stopping these patterns; creating more useful alternative patterns of thinking and action.”it's all about dampening down your adrenaline'

From my own experience I would briefly say that it involves telling yourself to 'stop' the minute you have a negative thought or notice a symptom, to imagine yourself well and living your perfect life and to go on and live it. They also make sure you are 'ready and committed' to do the process before they will let you sign up for it as they believe that any doubts etc can hinder your progress and prevent you from being well again. I have to admit I was very dubious from the beginning and it may be that this did reduce its effectiveness on me. Or maybe it just didn't work? Who knows. Like I have stated before I honestly believe that most alternative treatments are reliant upon your belief in them and this has been proved in the medical world by the placebo effect. Anyway to cut a long story short I went for the treatment hoping for a major change in my condition but it didn't happen. I felt like I was living a lie, trying to act well when I felt the same pain and trying to tell myself I wasn't ill which really felt weird. It seemed confusing because they were saying that they believed in M.E yet you wouldn't tell someone with Diabetes to imagine themselves well and that it would happen. I feel the need to say that the lady who I saw for the treatment was a bit scatty and confused and that she had borrowed a friends house and had cats running in and out of the room. The fact that she was scared of cats and wouldn't move them didn't help! She was lovely but it felt like I was in the hands of a rookie and who knows, maybe if I had gone to London to see the original creator of the process things would have been different. Following my treatment I had a car accident and ended up totally wrecking my Mum's car because I was just so tired and shouldn't have been on the road. I tried to ignore my exhaustion and carried on driving trying to picture myself feeling healthy. It was outside the police station at my local shopping centre where I pulled out not looking to my right at the roundabout and a lorry went right into the side of me. Luckily it only left me with shock and whiplash. I want to be clear that I am not directly linking my accident to the Lightning Process but it is fair to say that it was a contributory factor because I wasn't listening to my body. 

My next blog entry will list all the medical procedures and tests that I have ever had done and also I will share some more of my experiences with alternative therapies. 

Not every oven is for cooking buns....

If there is one sentence I am sick of hearing its 'when you have a child' because I always want to shout in response 'what do you mean WHEN don't you mean IF?' . Why is it that society seems to assume that every childless female is just a waiting womb, desperate to be fertilised so that she can fulfil her so called purpose in life as a woman? The 'norm' is expected of every person, man or woman. You grow up, you get married, you have babies and spend your time looking after them, then you have Grandchildren which you also end up looking after. Apparently every little girl dreams of their wedding day and having their own family but I didn't so that makes me different. Don't get me wrong I'm not totally against the idea it was just never a definite part of my plan in life. I grew up wanting to have a successful career so I just didn't think about that kind of stuff and it is only recently that due to medical reasons I have had to think about what I want from my future. I get very frustrated by the insinuation that I am getting old and 'running out of time'. I am 32 for goodness sake and what's to say I even want kids? It's the expectation that I want to be a Mother that bugs me, the belief that it's a path in life everyone wants to take.

I read an article recently where a woman had decided at the age of 25 that she didn't ever want to have children. In this article she explained that nobody would take her seriously and that despite maturely explaining to many doctors that she was one hundred percent sure that she would never want a baby she couldn't get anyone to sterilise her. She said that saying someone is 'Childless' implies that their life is missing ('less') something and that we should use the term childfree instead because it sounds more liberating. 

People tend to assume if you don't have a child your life is missing something or that your life is somehow inferior to theirs because you have not reproduced. I know quite a few childfree couples over the age of 50 who have very happy lives after choosing not to have a child. Jennifer Aniston, Cameron Diaz, Kylie and the most well respected celebrity of all Dame Helen Mirren are all well known women in the spotlight who haven't given birth. Many celebrities these days are childfree either through choice or the simple fact that they haven't found the right partner yet but society makes people feel abnormal if they are over 30 and unmarried or childless. Jennifer Aniston who is often the focus of intense scrutiny over her childfree life said 'There's all sorts of reasons why children aren't in people's lives and no one has the right to assume. It's quite rude, insulting and ignorant'.  If a woman over the age of 40 doesn't have a child it can be assumed that they sacrificed motherhood for other things in life such as a career or in the case if celebrities, fame and fortune. People also assume that all women are maternal and go gooey eyed at the mere sight of a 'little bundle of joy' . Don't get me wrong I love my friends babies because I know them but strangers babies are just crying, pooing, milk suckling small humans to me. I can honestly say I prefer puppies and kittens because not only are they incredibly interactive and forever innocent they are just so fluffy.  I like it when babies pass the six month stage and are more animated but what I like more is the fact that I can hand them back for all the hard stuff. Random babies just don't appeal to me, I don't see the cute factor. I am sure if I do decide to have one of my own then I will think mine is the most amazing baby on the planet but every Mother thinks that of their own. 

Latest estimates suggest that 25% of women of childbearing age will remain childfree. Personally I find it liberating for women to make the choice to live without children yet society is still struggling with the concept. The contraceptive pill was made widely available in 1961 and it was invented to give women a choice so why are we negating the reason behind that invention by analysing women so negatively who make that choice on a permanent basis? Some people can be threatened by the fact other people are able to make different choices to the ones that they do, whether it is having children or anything else in life. It can be argued that having children and raising them is the greatest possible act a woman can do as it is what she was put on the planet for but those views are out dated and sexist. It is 2015 people, not the 1920's!  Yes, having children gives life meaning but becoming a parent is definitely not the only way to live a meaningful life. In my opinion carving out a spectacular career or becoming a strong independent woman is something which should be highly respected and having a child to 'fit in' or to be an old age care taker is just plain selfish and immoral. Is it not better that a woman who doesn't want to be a parent never has a child than tries to force herself into a role that she was never meant to fulfil? I'm no feminist but the age old belief that every woman is maternal is like I have said, damn right sexist. A man is subject to far less speculation if he is childless yet a woman is nearly always viewed as having some reason behind her child free life. She must have a medical condition or maybe she just left it too late but rarely would someone come to the conclusion that she just doesn't want to hear the pitter patter of tiny feet. In society's eyes a women without children becomes a cat keeping spinster whilst a bachelor remains a bachelor until he dies. A childless woman often finds herself having to justify or explain her decision not only to strangers but to friends and family who comment that her biological clock must be ticking. The thing is, some people just dont have a clock and it's about time society accepted that. Women should not be made to feel like they are a failure in life if they don't reproduce and less emphasis should be placed on being 'normal' because it makes people feel inadequate.  Having or not having a child should not define who you are as a person. You can be a great Sister, Daughter, Wife, Friend or Auntie without giving birth but you can also enjoy the freedom of holidays and being without ties. You can go wherever you please whenever you please. It is your life so live it the way you want to whether it be with child or without. One childfree,couple I know go on five holidays abroad, never stop chatting to each other and are one of the happiest couples I have met. My point is that everyone has a right to choose and to not be judged for their decision just because it is different to what society expects. So for now I am quite happy to call my dog my baby and if that is what I decide for my future then I will be content knowing that I wasn't pressured into a role that wasn't for me.

Silent Bruises..psychological abuse in relationships

As time floats on by past memories get blurred as they are replaced and touched by the present day and new memories created in the here and now. Sometimes it is good to write down (or in this case type up) all the shit you have gone through so you never forget what it felt like and so that you learn and grow from it all. The old saying is true to some extent, time is a healer but that is not due to the minutes or hours that have ticked by it is due to the personal growth you have made. Every life experience is a lesson and the ones that are bloody hard, the ones that push you to the edge of your existence or test your sanity are the ones that educate you the most. I wouldn't be sitting here today if I had given up at every hurdle. I consider myself to be quite negative at times yet I know I am a fighter. My counsellor said he hadn't met anyone who had been through so much and come out the other side still managing a smile. I know I have explained that my smile is often used to hide how I am feeling inside but I refuse to look miserable, it is not the answer to gaining understanding. We all have stories to tell, we all have regrets in life, things we would have done differently, things we wish we had said but didn't. I too have regrets but these are about the things I didn't do or say. I wouldn't change these things because they have taught me a lot and made me who I am today. These are life experiences and very valuable ones at that. For example, there are the two people I had huge feelings for many years ago and despite the fact that it may have been for the right reasons, I regret not speaking up and telling them how I felt because I will never know would could have happened. There was the person I let walk all over me and speak to me in a degrading way. I regret that it took too long for me to walk away and that I did so without sticking up for myself or speaking my mind. I recently found a diary I kept from that period of my life so I am going to share my story about it here. I think it's important that you don't let people dominate you and belittle you and I believe that there isn't enough awareness of emotional abuse. It is harder to write this blog entry as it was a while ago and despite having detailed memories about this relationship I feel written down I feel detached from it because it was a relationship that would have never worked and that I have no longer have any emotional connection to.

I have had some very strange platonic friendships throughout my life and at the time I was oblivious to the fact that I was being manipulated within these relationships. Romantically, my ex's have all been very different people yet nearly all of them have all had one thing in common, a need to control. Our society seems not to focus much on emotional or verbally abusive relationships and instead the emphasis is placed on physical abuse. Verbal, emotional, psychological (or whatever you want to call it) abuse is like brain washing in that it systematically wears away at its victims self confidence. Victims often blame themselves, question their judgement or their physical traits and believe that it is somehow their fault for upsetting their partner or making them jealous. Psychological abuse can be difficult to identify but the most common sign is manipulation and ostracising a partner from their own friends and family. This abuse can also include Ignoring or ridiculing a partner in order to create self doubt or criticising her behaviour, choice of clothing or skills and making false accusations or manipulating a person to influence her decision-making by employing guilt or some other method. This kind of abuse can be verbal or non verbal but the intention is to wear away at the victims confidence and independence in order to make them more compliant and less likely to leave.

I experienced some aspects of emotional abuse a few years back but I didn't realise what it was until I spoke to my psychologist about it and that's when everything became crystal clear. Tom* (not his real name) and I started talking via Facebook because he knew one of my relatives. At first it was friendly with no romantic pretext but after a few weeks he said that he wanted to take me on a date sometime soon as he had always thought I was attractive. I agreed but I did have my reservations because he had only just split up with his girlfriend and they were still living together. I kept putting it off as I was anxious about getting into another relationship but one night my parents and I were passing through his village and he suggested we all meet him for a drink. Weird, I hear you say but they knew him from years ago and it seemed less scary to have them with me as I didn't have much positive dating experience. It was a nice evening and my parents had one drink with us before leaving us on our own for an hour. I didn't notice anything strange but I noticed he was very different to my previous boyfriend in that he was a man's man and in comparison to the carefree boy I had been with a year ago he was very mature. This made me believe he was more stable than my previous boyfriend and would be far more understanding. I had wanted to take it slow but our relationship seemed to progress more rapidly than I had originally wanted it to. Tom knew that I didn't want to rush things and was scared of commitment yet he was talking about 'this time next year' and it scared me that he was so serious so quickly. Looking back I realise that at this time in my life I didn't have the emotional maturity or strength to deal with a relationship with a man five years older than me but Tom had been in a lot of relationships and I think he knew that I was quite vulnerable and struggling to cope. Things started to get a bit weird and I just assumed that it was my fault because I didn't know how to act within a relationship. However, I now know better but feel free to read on and judge for yourself. 

I will start with the first incident three months in to our time together. We were walking down to my brothers house one night just before Christmas and it was a cold and breezy night. I was wearing a short skirt which was blowing in the wind but it was dark and nobody was around so it seemed pointless to keep holding it down particularly as one hand was in his hand as we walked along. 'My skirt keeps blowing up!' I laughed, my voice being carried away by the wind. 'Well hold it down then' he said looking around. 'There is no point' I replied giggling at the wind and finding the situation funny. He clearly didn't 'why?' he asked 'you keep telling me you are shy so it doesn't make sense. Why won't you hold it down, do you like people looking? are you hoping someone sees?'. I was taken aback by his response and explained that nobody was around so it didn't matter but his face looked stern. We didn't speak until we were almost at my brothers front door when I told him he had upset me but he acted like I was the one who was overreacting. Nothing more was said about this incident but it turned out to be the first of many strange incidents....

As you will know from reading from reading my other blog entries I have multiple health issues. Tom* was actually very understanding about my health and most of the time very caring when I was having bad days. However, one night after I had spent 48 hours with a tube that went up my nose and into my stomach taped to my face and neck we had an argument that sent alarm bells ringing in my mind. We were in his lounge, I kissed him then felt something itchy on my neck and asked him to see what it was for me. He replied 'a bruise I think, but it looks like a love bite' and I joked 'haha yeah right, did you do that when I wasn't paying attention ?!' And suddenly his facial expression changed from friendly to concerned. He had the kind of face that was totally transformed by negative expressions so I knew something was wrong. 'You know I didn't, where did you get it from?' He questioned . I laughed, trying to brush it off because I felt sure he couldn't seriously think it was something of a sexual nature. 'Its just where I have scratched, I have really sensitive skin' I replied. The atmosphere changed rapidly as he had started to look angry and it scared me a bit because at this point in my life I couldn't deal with confrontation and had avoided it ever since the bullying at school. 'It doesn't look like a scratch' he remarked, taking a second look. I went and sat on the sofa and tried to change the atmosphere between us by making small talk. He came over to join me, sitting on the other end. A few minutes passed until his voice pierced the silence. 'What is the name of that guy you were once seeing?' he asked. 'Kevin?'. I knew what he was implying and I was totally astounded at the unspoken accusation. 'Yeah, why?' I answered. 'I was just wondering' he murmured. There followed a long uncomfortable silence where I was literally unable to speak? I will never forget that feeling, it was like someone had removed my voice. I tried to open my mouth but the words would not come out, I have never experienced a suffocation like it. I retreated to the bathroom where I stayed for about ten minutes, sobbing silently into a tissue. When I returned to the sofa it was obvious that I had been crying and he asked me what was wrong, acting like the past twenty minutes hadn't happened. 'I can't talk I am too upset' was all I managed but he smiled and asked 'why?'. I didn't speak because I still couldn't so he asked me again. I told him in the fewest amount of words possible that I was upset he would even question something like that when I had been in hospital on and off for days and been with him. He said he had only asked what Kevin's name was and he had never thought I had a love bite or accused me of having one. I didn't say anything but silent tears were running down my face. 'Why aren't you talking?' he asked before snapping 'grow up, grow a backbone and learn to argue back'. I was totally astounded by the sudden nastiness and the shock stopped me from crying as a numbness started to spread through my body. My Dad was due to pick me up in half an hour so I killed time by visiting the bathroom once more and staring out the window. Rain was lashing down, bouncing off of the glass like mini bullets and the somber night outside reflected my introspective state of mind. We didn't speak until my Dad arrived when I just said a brief goodbye and he gave me a questioning look as though I was blowing stuff out of proportion. When I got home I only briefly told my Mum about the argument, making light of the situation so she didn't worry but I felt incredibly hurt by his accusations. We spoke on the phone later that night and I told him it had really upset me to think that after everything I had been through with men and how hard it had been for me to let him in my life and to be intimate with him he would think I could just randomly be unfaithful. After the days I had spent in hospital I don't know how he had the audacity to question my fidelity and I told him that but he said I was blowing it up out of proportions and that he never thought I was cheating but had to ask as he 'would have thought about it all night' if he hadn't. He thought it was 'ridiculous' that I  had thought about ending the relationship because of such a 'small disagreement'. He honestly thought that he had done nothing wrong and that I was at fault for taking it so personally. He said that we would have to agree to disagree on the matter as 'that's what adults do'.

A couple of months later my Dad and I were at his Mum's retirement party and Tom* had drank quite a few beers. We were outside and he turned to me, looked at me intensely and said 'I really care about you, you know'. I was a bit freaked out because he was drunk and I really don't like drunk men because in the past they have intimidated me so I just giggled nervously. I could tell immediately by his face that he didn't like the fact I hadn't said the same back to him. 'I have just declared my feelings for you and all you can do is stand there and laugh. I don't know why we are even bothering why don't you just fuck off home' he spat, his face ablaze with anger. I was totally taken aback but nerves had made me stand there like an idiot with a grin plastered on my face. I didn't speak because I felt vulnerable and I really disliked drunk men not because I wanted to hurt him yet he was treating me like I was someone he hated not loved. He barely spoke to me the rest of the evening and the tension between us hung in the air like a thick fog. When I got home that night I just felt very ashamed of myself for not saying something nice back to him. I also felt very confused and wounded.

Over time I started to notice more little anomalies in his behaviour towards me which now I realise were his insecurities not mine but at that time I blamed myself for his behaviour. He got very annoyed one evening when I said that I got dressed without the curtains closed, despite me informing him that I knew 100% that nobody could see me. He asked me if I liked people watching me and said that I was obviously an ecerbitionist who enjoyed the attention. He gave me an angry look and then he closed the curtains telling me that he didn't like it. On another occasion I had to be admitted into hospital as an emergency because something was wrong with my womb and my Mum came with me. We had been there for hours and I never leave my little dog at home alone for more than three so because I knew Tom was on his way I asked Mum to go and look after him for me. My Mum didn't want to go but my dog is my world and she knew that I couldn't bear him being on his own so she left just before Tom got there. When he arrived he said 'why has she gone home? what is more important to your Mum, you or the dog?' . I thought it was particularly cruel because Tom knew that for eleven years my Mum had accompanied me to every single hospital, doctor or physio appointment I had been to and that she was and still is the most supportive Mother anyone could wish for. Tom also knew how very close I am to my dog and that I never leave him for more than a few hours. I also felt like he was criticising my Mum and trying to make me feel like I wasn't important enough to her.

I am being careful not to paint this guy as a total monster because he wasn't and compared to what some poor people go through it was a pretty mild case of jealousy and emotional degradation. However, it did affect me at the time because I felt like I was walking on eggshells and being hyper vigilant of both my behaviour and his reinforced my intimacy issues and made my memories of the childhood bullying resurface. No woman should ever feel intimidated or afraid of a man and there is no excuse for making a woman feel that way. Recently Hollyoaks has been running a very well written storyline where school Head Teacher Patrick Blake (Jeremy Sheffield) both physically and emotionally abuses his younger girlfriend Maxine Minniver (Nikki Sanderson) . They have also produced a TV advert raising awareness of the issue and highlighting the fact that abuse takes many different (often silent) forms. Many of their scenes over the past few months have been incredibly harrowing to watch. Patrick has humiliated, degraded, beaten and played mind games with her all because of his overwhelming need to control everything around him. Then he turns on the charm and acts like the 'nice, respectable' man everyone else sees and makes her forgive him. He is pretty much like Jekyll and Hyde which is what a lot of these abusive partners are like and why they can hide their behaviour so well. 

Tom and I lasted just over a year. I think I stayed in the relationship this long because he was so understanding about my illness and because he was self sufficient and able to look after himself as well as me. I also think it was because my self esteem was so low that I felt it was me who had to change not him and that the reason he talked to me so bad at times was because I was doing something wrong. The final straw was when we were out with his daughter. He made a joke about his own trainers and when I made a similar comment he told me 'you've taken the joke too far now, we'll talk about this when we get home'. I felt humiliated in front of her. It suddenly clicked in my head that he talked to me like I was a child. I was tired of him silencing me and by this time I had realised there was zero spark between us. I rang him and very tearfully explained that I couldn't be with him any more. Over the next few days he asked me to remove my single status on facebook (despite blocking me on there within ten minutes of our phone call) because it was offensive and like 'rubbing salt into the wound' and also asked me not to go down to my local pub for a while so he didn't have to see me. I agreed because I stupidly felt guilty for ending the relationship. 

His last cutting words were, 'if you can't get over friendships that have broken down then how on earth are you going to get over me?'...Well I did and I grew up a great deal in the process. 

It's easy to let someone speak to you negatively when you don't know any different but nobody deserves to be manipulated or made to feel like they are walking on eggshells. I was sad at first especially at the fact I had lost a really good friend but leaving him gave me the chance to analyse things properly. I felt like a weight had been lifted and the feeling of freedom was extremely liberating. It was like I could finally breathe again. Getting over him was the easiest thing I have ever done because I knew all along in my heart that it wasn't right for me. I became stronger and more relaxed with men because I was determined not to let this defeat me. It could have easily gone the other way and made me more scared, more frightened and less confident but I wanted to progress not reverse back into celibacy and fear. In my next relationship I opened my mouth and argued back despite the fact it was like banging my head against a brick wall. I was with someone very selfish and unreasonable but I wasn't going to be silenced again. Part of the reason for that was because I knew what I wanted from a partner and even though he was totally self centred I was so passionate about the relationship and him. It wasn't a miracle turnaround as I still ended up letting him treat me badly (see my previous post on narcissism) but I no longer felt lost for words and afraid to voice my opinion. 

I consider myself a nice girl, a kind girl, someone with a conscience and a heart. I try to treat people as I would want them to treat me. As I have explained in this post along with others, I have been walked all over and I have let people speak to me in ways that nobody should be spoken to yet I refuse to succumb to the same level and become a bitch. However. I have realised the importance of standing up for myself and it's something I continue to work on as well as my confidence...one thing I know for sure is if I ever got even a hint of this behaviour in a partner I would run in the opposite direction and I truly hope that you would too.