To explain genetic attraction someone who’s never experienced growing up without their biological family is a huge challenge, because it’s something most people take for granted. It’s an even bigger challenge if you call it by the name it usually goes by, and that’s genetic sexual attraction (because er, incest). As I’ve stipulated elsewhere on my site, I believe, in … Read More
How I Became The Broken Woman
Illegitimacy was in my blood, and it had tainted me. By the circumstances of my birth my honour was smirched, I was already a broken woman.
The Rapist in the Mirror
But what of the men who were genetic fathers to these lost children? Male privilege absolved them of personal responsibility.
The Gift of Amorality and Alcohol in Dark Times
But the loss of religion, shame and guilt left me without morals. Quite by chance, I found that I was amoral by choice.
Destined to be a Burden
It seems impossible to me now that I shouldn’t have known this. Yet I didn’t ever, ever consider the label C-PTSD, despite overwhelming evidence.
Square Peg, Round hole
I didn’t feel odd, or unconventional. I fit. I felt like this was my family, my tribe, with all its weird and wonderful troubles and joys.
No, Doesn’t Always Mean No
I’ve been raped twice already so it’s not like I believe in my own self-worth enough to even make a legitimate attempt to refuse you.
Is Love just Relief from Anxiety?
It’s less about the dopamine high and more about the euphoria of finally feeling confident and capable. Feeling relaxed. Trusting that my children are safe.
The Story of the High Speed Train
This is what my anxiety feels like. There is a valve which regulates my stress levels and it needs to be maintained, and strengthened through self-care.
Like The Poppy
When my self esteem was low, my relationships were abusive. Yet I always assumed that when my self-esteem was higher that my relationships would be healthy.
How do I deal with Sexual Fantasies About My Mother?
It is usually called Genetic Sexual Attraction, but I believe that it is simply ‘genetic attraction’, a hunger to connect with those who look like you.
I Called It Love
But it wasn’t about love, it was about power. About how far I would be willing to go. About how much abuse I might be prepared to accept.
Beware of Feeding Sharks
Addiction might be called a curse, but that’s only one way to look at it. Alcohol addiction used to be a way of tapping into a power I didn’t have, a release of pain I had trapped inside me.
Child Knows Best
Agency was conspicuous by its absence in my upbringing. My adoptive mother neither trusted in me, nor in my agency and this might be regarded by many as wise. After all what can a child know about the consequences of their decisions?
Why Doesn’t She Leave Him?
The smallness of each indicator made it impossible. But then you made a mistake, and you punched me in the face.
A Proper Family Christmas
My children do not count as ‘proper’ grandchildren because I didn’t grow up with our mother. For him there are two criteria. Blood AND environment.
When To Call it Quits With Your Toxic Mother
You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but its there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad.
Why are all the Men I date Assholes?
I have a son and a daughter (with a man who is as far removed from being an asshole as it is possible to be). If either of them were ever caught up in a situation where they were the perpetrator or the victim of such a situation, I don’t know how I would contain my vitriol …or my guilt. Because in both positions, my children would be operating out of a place of low self-esteem. One who needed to feed their ego by taking power to control and manipulate. One who felt they were worth very little and that this was the only relationship they deserved.
Grieving the Grandmother I Never Knew
My grandmother was the essence of respectability, sometimes sharp tongued and very much cultured. And to insiders – who knows? For I am not one of them.
What it’s Like to be a 24 year Old Alcoholic
It’s not what I know I’ve done. But what I don’t know I’ve done. Yawning black holes of nothingness taunt me with their awful possibilities.
Is Loving Without Attachment An Enlightened Disorder?
Lack of object constancy occurs in adults when there is a failure to form normal attachments to primary care giving figures in early childhood.
The Bouncer
The guilt of who I am, what I have done is so shameful that I cannot face the pain. There is no point in holding someone who is shattered and worthless.
Not Giving a Shit is a Good Thing (Part 3)
The most useful tool I’ve discovered on our life journey is compassionate honesty. It heals so many wounds. This month has given me the chance to compassionately and honestly re-examine the relationship between my adopted Mother and I, to see whether the wound has healed between us. But my mother continues to want to play the game of ‘who-is-right-and-wrong’, and … Read More
Quelling Anxiety with the Oblivion of Alcohol
I knew, even at 21, that my ‘off’ button didn’t function in the same way as other people’s. I lost 4 pairs of shoes out drinking over the course of 2 years.
How Freedom Nearly Killed Me
My unhappy oppressed soul had been searching for escape. Any escape. And the escape I needed, was to be an adult even as a child. Because an adult was free.
The Last Fight
I don’t know whether the roaring was in my head or from his throat, but it felt like I had gone mad.
How Alcohol Made Me Love Myself
And in an instant, late at night, I changed. This person was in pain. Ugly and blank. My features were twisted into a belligerent mask.
When Giving Birth Is Traumatic
Pethidine locked me away in my own pain prison far away from the delivery room. I rocked myself moaning quietly in the foetal position whilst blue shadows flitted across the room ignoring me, now I was ‘manageable’ and in an altered state of reality.