This probably should have gone at the very negining of my blog, who am I? What do I do? Where have I come from? Where I am going?
I was borm into the stereotypical English middle class family. I was the younger of two children, I have an older sister. By and large the first eleven years of my life was 'normal'. Our parents were more concerned with how much money they could be making than us, this was the eighties remember - greed is good. Then they could show off to their friends, "look at what we've got". They had affairs behind each others back and pretended not to know. My sister and I were just given money to "shut us up". This was normal for the eighties in Britain. By and large though me and my sis got on with things, we both did well at school, had lots of friends, took part in just about every club going, etc - we were 'normal' middle class children.
Then just before my twelfth birthday my entire life fell apart and I feel I have never recovered from it. My mum ran away one day while I was at school. It felt as though the colour had gone from my life. Everyday was the same monotonous black and grey vista. There was no-one there to ask "how was your day at school today?", to cuddle me when I was sad, share in my joy when I was happy, do all the mummy things that a mum does. Dad was no use whatsoever, he was completely withdrawn, he basically shut down. He could not understand why she had left, the answer was obvious to us though, a decade and a half of physical abuse will stop anyone from loving you and eventually my sister and I were no longer enough to keep her there.
My sister had been starting to go off the rails before mum went. She started taking drugs, having vicious mood-swings, stopped going to school, disappearing for days at a time. She near enough moved out after mum went as well. With that the cupboards started to empty, there was no food in the house, the house itself was a mess, there was no structure or routine to my life. I was too young to deal with the problems that were facing me. Then the insomnia started. I couldn't sleep for more than an hour or so at a time and every time I woke up the first thing I would do is check that my Dad was still there. I was desperate to go and find my mum. She would be able to make everything alright.
Thats it for today. I might carry on tommorrow, I might not as it quite painful to tell. I will finish it eventually though.