Medicinal Picnic

“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food”

Hippocrates

Life can be seen as a smorgasbord of experiences.

As we go through life, we automatically process these experiences and turn them into meanings. Meanings about ourself and others . And then we live our life based on these meanings and the reality that they have helped us create.

All of our experiences are different and how we deal with them is unique to us.

It is said that the word ‘picnic’ has a French origin – ‘pique-nique’  – and was used to describe a social event where people came together to eat and to drink and each person contributed their own food or wine to share with everyone else.

And in this sharing of sustenance – the picnickers found peace and connection and entertainment.

I see life as one big picnic!

And at this picnic each person brings something to share with others.

Some people bring sources of nourishment that enhance our wellbeing and feed our hearts, our minds, our very being. This soul food nourishment lasts long after we have eaten what these people bring – even though they may leave the picnic early.

Others bring things that have no nutritional value but are delicious and ‘more-ish’ so that we might want to gorge ourselves because it feels so good! It’s tempting to feast on only these eye candies – they are so yummy! But in the end they will only fulfil us temporarily and we will start to feel hungry again.

And then there are those that bring things that are damaging and that cause us harm. Fortunately these people are few and in time we can learn to avoid their offerings that look as though they will taste good but in reality will poison us and cause us pain. Some of the people who bring these things – do so with intent. They mean their offerings to cause us pain. They know that what they bring is poisonous and they are very good at fooling us by making it look delicious and nourishing. And some just got the recipe wrong and maybe need to try another recipe next time they bring something to the picnic.

Do we have to go to the picnic? Well – no, we don’t. The choice is ours.

The alternative is to hide inside and to eat at our own solitary table. And there are many that do this. Maybe they went to the picnic and felt ill afterwards? Maybe they didn’t know how to stop feeling ill and so they just avoided the experience of any future picnics in case these made them feel even more ill?

Me? I choose to go to the picnic and I bring with me things that I hope people will gain their own personal nourishment from – that may even be medicinal and empower others to heal any harm from their previous picnic choices.

I know what has nourished me before – and what has harmed me – and what I thought was fulfilling but just left me empty inside. I’m not saying that the things I bring are right for everyone and I am constantly learning new recipes that I try out and that other people can try if they wish.

And you? You are welcome to join me at the picnic, to take what you want and to leave whenever you wish.

Home

 

“Home is where the heart is.”

“There’s no place like home.”

“Home is where one starts from.”

There are many quotes about ‘home’ and what it means. Take your pick!

My favourite is “Home is not a place…it’s a feeling.”

Having made myself a ‘home’ in 15 different places by the age of 29, I will never forget the feelings that I had as I walked into my own, bought and paid for (or rather – mortgaged!) house for the very first time. Still now – coming home after a busy working day and walking through that same front door fills me with similar feelings.

I bought my house nearly 20 years ago. I was lucky enough to get on to the property ladder before the market went crazy-stupid with prices rocketing, leading to the situation that we are in now.

It is estimated that by 2020, the majority of under 30 year olds will be unable to either afford to rent independently or buy a property due to sky high prices and unaffordable private rent.

It’s a sad state of affairs which means that many young people are dependent on their parents to provide them with a home well into adulthood. Moving out and becoming truly independent, creating and managing your own home, is one of life’s milestones. So, I wonder- the fact that this has become unobtainable for many,  what psychological effect will this have on our current generation of young adults?

For me, buying my house meant that I could put a roof over my own and my daughter’s head. It meant somewhere to share with friends and family if they needed a place to turn to. It meant the end of restless moving. It meant roots. It meant hopes and dreams for the future. It meant peace and it meant safety.

At times over the past 20 years, my home has changed and altered in the way it looks – going through many transformations as I creatively experimented with various decorating techniques – many of which didn’t work! The contents have also changed as I upgraded, replaced or up-cycled the old and the worn.  Having various pets over the past 20 years has meant that at times, my home was damaged and having a teenager meant that at times my home was taken over by lots of other teenagers!

For a while, my home didn’t feel like my home. Struggling to sustain the boundaries needed to provide a safe, loving environment for myself and my daughter (which is a whole other blog post for another time), haunted by ghosts from the past and threatened by demons in the present, meant that my home didn’t feel like my home anymore. And it was at that time that both my daughter and myself moved out of our home, renting it out to a stranger and moving in to someone else’s home.

Now, looking back at that time, I think I was on autopilot, slightly disassociated from what I was doing, although I do remember being conscious of the words that my late Grandmother had said to me when she visited my house for the first time after I bought it: “Never sell this, it’s yours. Even if you meet someone and move in with them….do NOT sell this house.”

However, the promise of a new home shared with the man I loved, the promise of financially shared security, of restored safety and the end of doing everything on my own for many years, outweighed at that time the consequences of taking my daughter from the only home that she had ever lived in and the effect it would have on both her and me over the next few years.  But – as I said – over the preceding few years, my home hadn’t felt like my home. It felt invaded, under threat, tired, worn out and out of control. It was a reflection of how I felt.

And this is one of the greatest lessons that I learnt over the next few years.

My experience over the next few years taught me that you can move to a new house, you can change the way you decorate a house, you can change the fixtures and fittings and furnishings, the pictures on the wall and the curtains at the windows. You can add and extend and alter a house as much as you like but ultimately, you take ‘you’ with you. So no matter what you do, if you take you, your ‘issues’ and your unresolved problems with you, it doesn’t matter where you are or how far you run to a new place to live, you will never feel ‘at home’.

It’s not the physical building, how big it is or how beautiful it is, that makes a house a home. It’s how the people you share your space with deal with the everyday mundane – the washing, the ironing, the cooking and the cleaning and it’s how they deal with the emotional and the psychological, the challenges and the testing situations that life presents on a regular basis. It’s how they nurture, care and support one another. It’s how the space that you all dwell in meets the physical, emotional and psychological needs of all that live there -that makes a house a home. If it only meets the needs of some, there will always be for the others, a sense of not really feeling ‘at home’.

I remember at times when I lived with my new ‘blended’ family, of having an underlying, uneasy feeling and the thought that always accompanied these feelings, drifting from my unconscious to my conscious mind  was ‘I want to go home.’

This was odd – as here I was, living with the man that I adored and that I loved, in a house that we were altering and extending so that it met the physical needs of all of our family (having slept on a sofa bed in the living room for two years as we didn’t have our own bedroom), planning and working toward a future together and yet I still felt on some level, that I wasn’t at home.

I didn’t understand these feelings at the time, but through therapy and self awareness, I began to understand that despite the engraved initials of us all on the apex of the newly built part of the house, despite the trying out of new house names that combined our many names, despite the promise of an engagement on the first night spent in our new bedroom,  despite of all of this, the house that I lived in and the people that I lived with still didn’t feel like a space where I belonged.

This house didn’t provide me with the space to rest, recuperate and regenerate as the boundaries that I tried to negotiate were not respected by the people I shared my space with.

As time went on – and new things were revealed,  I came to realise that I could change the curtains, fill the new freezer with meals, bake cakes, make lunches, buy a new sofa, buy as many new rugs as I wanted and project manage the new build, but all of that meant nothing. This home would never be ‘mine’. I don’t mean in a financial ownership sense – (I was put under a certain amount of pressure to sell my house and invest the money in my partner’s house which would have given me a more equal financial standing) but in the ‘two adults being equal’ sense, in the ‘partnership’ sense.

It was made very clear during the end stages of the relationship who exactly was the ‘king of the castle’ and who exactly the ‘subservient subjects’ were. I slowly realised that I was nothing more that one of these subjects, there to meet the needs of the king.  All the while I denied my own and my daughter’s needs and kept on meeting his and those of his children – all would be fine. But woe betide that I should try to assert my own or my daughter’s needs! There was no equality and there never would be as the needs of myself and my daughter were never going to be observed, understood and met. It started to feel very unsafe.

Furthermore, that sense of belonging, of being respected for who I was, loved for what I stood for and trusted and appreciated for what I contributed was also lacking. I started to realise that I would never belong, no matter how many cups of tea I made for my partner’s brother when he visited, how many Sunday or Christmas dinners I cooked for his relatives, how many times I looked after his children or how many times I listened to his mother worrying about her health problems. That sense of intimacy, family and belonging was not really there. My daughter and myself would always be outsiders, not totally accepted ‘warts n’all’, unable to infiltrate this family’s structure that I began to realise was held together by collusion, it’s own set of values, passive aggression and an ‘everything is lovely and fine’ denial of an unhealthy reality.

Again this became explicitly evident toward the end of the relationship, when decisions were made behind my back and that sense of connection started to fade and was replaced by emotional and psychological distance.

Ultimately, I began to realise that it was my fundamental needs that were not being met. I began to slowly realise that these thoughts of wanting to ‘go home’ were a manifestation of not feeling sheltered, safe, loved or respected and that if I stayed in this space, I would not be able to be all that I could be and neither would my daughter. This place would never be my home. These people would never be my family. This man would never be my equal.

The first move I made was back to my childhood home. A stint of staying with my parents provided all that was previously lacking.  The nurture and care and love and acceptance that my parents provided meant that could I gradually started to build my life again, with that one thought driving me to get out of bed everyday and put things in place – “I want to go home.” It took eight months.

And so now, nearly two years on from the second time that I moved into my house,  I realise now more than ever that my humble little 1890’s terraced cottage, with it’s wonky walls, it’s steep stairs and terrible parking provision is more than just a house. It’s my shelter, it’s my security, it’s my freedom, it’s where I belong. It’s filled with respect, with friendship, with intimacy, with strength.  It’s my history and my future. It’s my home.

My wise, insightful, amazing daughter, during the depths of despair that I fell into during those eight months of regeneration sent me this song one day.

Listen to it if you will. Or not. I just want to share the lyrics of the chorus with you:

“With every small disaster, I’ll let the waters still. Take me away to some place real.

Cause they say home is where your heart is set in stone, it’s where you go when you’re alone, it’s where you go to rest your bones.

It’s not just where you lay your head, it’s not just where you make your bed. As long as we’re together does it matter where we go?”

My first home was with my mother and my grandmother and I think, if my Grandmother was alive today, she would agree with these song lyrics…. and I wonder if she would also be tempted to remind me of what she said the first time she visited?

Not that she would need to, as every day I am thankful that even though I mentally and physically moved, emotionally and spiritually my home was still there, waiting for me to return.

 

Being alone

 

I watched an interesting program on Channel 5 the other day – ‘In Solitary’.  It is described like this: “This gruelling, psychological ‘anti-social’ experiment challenges three members of the public to spend five days in solitary confinement, asking one of the most relevant questions of our time: in a world where we have never been more connected, when was the last time you were completely alone?” 

For most of my adult life- I have been in relationships. I guess – if I was going to label myself –  I might describe myself as a ‘serial monogamist’.  Some of these relationships have ended as I was not happy in them and some have ended as the other person was not happy in them. During three years of therapy I have reflected on why I was so insistent on looking for ‘Mr Right’, why I chose completely inappropriate men to have relationships with and what this all says about me and my patterns of relating and attachment style. I have learnt that my view of myself has been based on what feedback I got from my partner – rather than from my own internal judging mechanisms. So- I was constantly looking for approval from others to make me feel worthwhile or worthy.

Having been single for nearly two years now, I have spent what little free time I have investing in my self – physically and mentally. I have learnt to look after myself- instead of looking after others. An example would be loosing weight. In the past – whenever I have embarked on diet – it has been to try and please the person with whom I was in a relationship. This time, however, it has been for me, so that I feel healthier and better about myself.

Another thing that I have found during this ongoing journey is that I like spending time with myself. This has been quite a revelation. As the consummate extrovert (ENFP in Myers-Briggs terminology) I have always sought out the company of others. I have had a hobby for the last 13 years that involves living with people for the weekend, engaging in a team activity and being part of a community (and dressing up- which I love!) and although, through taking a break from my hobby at present,  I miss all of these people that I have come to regard as family, this is outweighed by the quality time I get to spend with myself.

Having brought up my daughter on my own (and balancing this with having relationships- which is a whole other blog post for another time) I have never really been ‘alone’ in nineteen years and there has always been this little person whose needs had to come first. Now she is grown and looking after her own needs –  with a good job, her own car and her many friends and her boyfriend – she is off doing her own thing for much of the time. This is how it ‘should’ be. I love that she enjoys her life and that we also spend some time together too. I consider her, now as an adult, to be one of my best friends. She is funny, smart, kind, loving, intelligent and wise. If I wasn’t related to her and we were in the same social circle- I would definitely chose her to be a friend – as I love spending time with her.

On many occasions – while she is getting ready to go out – she has checked in with me. “Mummy -do you want me to stay home tonight?” she will ask. “You will be on your own.”

My reply is generally the same. “No. Go out and enjoy yourself. I’m fine and it’s not your job to be my companion.” – or something similar. And I mean this, sincerely.

The other weekend – where she had a jam packed schedule and I was chilling at home with my cats, housework, a glass of wine and a few films I wanted to watch – I explained this to her:

I spend so much time with other people, as a manager – dealing with problems and making decisions on the correct course of action, as a counsellor – listening and empathising with others’ lives and as a teacher – training others, catering for their learning needs and feeding back on how they can improve their learning  – that my time alone is my time to rejuvenate and think only about myself (and my cats). I tried to explain to my daughter that to not speak, listen or otherwise communicate with anyone for a few days at a time- to me, is bliss.

In my last relationship – it was all about the needs of my partner and his children (and his whole family for a lot of the other time). Although –  they were all off at school and work and I was at home during the day, in a sense, I had ‘alone time’, however  it was still about cooking, cleaning, laundry and helping with my partner’s business – so that everyone had everything they needed. Except me. I had nothing I needed – especially the space and time to rejuvenate and study for my counselling diploma in peace. As we slept on a sofa bed in the front room (we didn’t have our own bedroom for the duration of the relationship), when everyone was there, there was no place to escape to when I felt burnt out. Now, looking back on that relationship – this was one of the contributing factors to it ending. Ironically – the huge house extension that we were building would have given us all the physical space that we needed, but as the last bit of plaster went on the wall – I left. I realised that even with a house that had doubled in size, I still wouldn’t be able to meet my needs within that family – and more importantly – neither would my daughter. None of that relationship was about me, or even ‘us’ – my partner and I as a couple.

My Tutor once described a condition known as ’empathy fatigue’ and I can honestly say that sometimes at the end of a working week (which for me racks up nearly 50 hours) – this is how I feel. Tired. Not necessarily physically – but mentally and emotionally. As a counsellor- it is important to be aware of this as it can affect your effectiveness as a practitioner. As a human being- it is important to look after yourself but ‘Self care’- for me- is not only a personal necessity, but also a professional one. In fact – I am bound by the BACP Code of Ethics to take care of myself. Something – which I have had to learn to do.

So, I guess what I am saying in this blog post is – although I love my friends and my family and spending time with them, I am finding that spending time with myself is one of the most valuable things that I do and is now something that I guard and cherish.

In addition, being back in my own home after a three year hiatus, having spent a lot of money on getting it how I want it to be, after being in a relationship and living in a house that I was never really able to call my ‘home’ and after living with people that never really truly appreciated and accepted me for who I am and what I do, being at home for me is truly bliss and I am constantly thankful that despite past ‘persuasion’ to sell my house for a profit and bank the money – I kept it.

I am aware that it is also about balance. I have no wish to be a ‘hermit’ and to isolate myself from others.  I would still like a relationship – if the ‘right’ person came along but for now I am content to have a relationship with myself – which is (some might say) perhaps the most important relationship that anyone can have. So much so that having recently been on various dating sites, when it comes to actually arranging a date, giving up my Saturday night alone is something that I find really difficult to do.

There is a difference between being alone and being lonely – one is painful and the other is enlightening and blissful. Even though we live in a world where we are ‘more connected’ with others than ever before, how many of us actually connect with ourselves? I think I would have done well in Channel 5’s anti-social experiment. When is the next series?

 

 

 

 

 

Would you sack someone you employed who stole from you and then lied?

So – after my earlier FB post about whether you would sack someone you employed if you found out they were stealing from you and lying about it, I would like to follow it up with this:

An average MP salary is £76, 000.00 (after the pay rise in April 2017) – paid for out of your taxes. So- you are paying their wages. Technically you employ them. They work for you.

In fact, £30 billion of our money that we pay through tax in the UK goes to running the country – of which approx £74,000,000 is spent on MP salaries (give or take a few million).

£180 billion goes on ‘helping others’.

• The largest slice of this goes on ‘old age’ (£85 billion)
• £35 billion is spent on sickness and disability,
• £21 billion on Family and Children’s services,
• £24 billion on the socially excluded,
• £8 billion on unemployment benefits, and
• £658 million spent on housing.

 

£122 billion goes on Health – which includes

• £120 billion on medical supplies and
• just under £2 billion on public health.

 

£35 billion is spent on Defence, with most of this – £32 billion spent on The Military.

£32 billion is spent on education.

• £13 billion of this is spent on Secondary and Further education.
• £13 billion is spent on Universities.
• £814 million is spent on pre school and primary education.

 

£16 billion is spent on Order and Safety. Of this

• £4 billion is spent on the Police (not the popular 80’s pop band – but our exceptional and hardworking police service).
• £4 billion is spent on prisons,
• £6 billion is spent on the Courts.
• £252 million is spent on the Fire Service.

 

£6 billion is spent on our streets – with £4 billion of this spent on housing and £600 million spent on community.

£5 billion is spent on the environment. £2 billion of this is spent on waste disposal.

 

In total this adds up to £502 billion per year.

 

Recently, as we all know, the Government spent £1 billion on remaining in power by making a deal with the DUP.

That is equivalent to:

• More than the amount spent annually on Pre and primary school education.
• More than the amount spent annually on The Fire Service.
• One quarter of the amount spent on our Police Service.
• One quarter of the amount spent on housing.
• One fifth of the amount spent on the environment.

 

Furthermore, in 2012, the Health and Social Care Act brought in the right for the government to commission private services to run the NHS and also gave the commissioned services responsible the right to withdraw NHS services and also charge us for using services. So is that us – the public –  being charged for services that we already pay £122 billion for?

Also – this whole commissioning process has already cost £250 billion – enough to run the NHS for two whole years.

Next, it is estimated that only 33% (that’s one in three) companies in the UK pay tax. Tax avoidance is a practice that has a profoundly negative effect on the UK economy. What’s more small and micro-businesses and individuals with complex financial affairs are major contributors to the risks associated with tax evasion and the hidden economy.

Estimates on how much these practices cost the public purse every year vary with one putting it as high as £69.9billion. HM Revenue and Customs differ, estimating it at £35 billion.

Then you have the Super-rich – the likes of Starbucks, Google, Amazon, Apple, Barclays, Boots, Vodafone, Topshop as well as BP, BT, McDonalds, Shell, Unilever, Lloyds Bank and British American Tobacco and Facebook using legal (but some would say not ethical) loopholes to pay a fraction of the tax that they should be paying.

It is estimated that in 2018, the tax evasion gap for the UK will be over £100 billion. £100 billion in one year’s unpaid taxes.  That’s one fifth more added to our public purse. And then there is also the cumulative tax deficit that could be sought.

So- I am no economist. I just see it like this.

 

We have been told that the cuts made to our public services are necessary in a time of austerity.  Austerity means that:

• Typical real incomes, after housing costs, are lower today in low- to middle-income households than they were in 2003 .
• More and more people are using foodbanks.
• Children come back after the summer holidays thinner than they were before.
• Mental health issues are on a massive rise (estimated at least 43% of people will suffer with a mental health issue at one time in their life) with waiting times for health services steadily rising.
• Students are paying for their higher education – (hold on…..didn’t their parents  already paying for it for years?) and so less and less working and middle class people are going to university.
• Primary Schools are having to fundraise so that they can afford to meet basic costs.
• We have an affordable housing crisis which means that people under the age of 30 will likely not be able to rent or buy their own house and will have to share accommodation.
• Drugs and alcohol related exclusions in schools have risen dramatically over the past few years (since the work previously paid for by public health was cut in 2010)

 

And yet…..

In Kent – County Councillors have voted to give themselves a pay rise- as did MP’s this April.

The Government are cutting the amount of revenue they put into making companies – both small and large – pay the tax that they should be paying.

And we are told time and time again that it is the unemployed, the sick, the university students, the public sector or immigrants who are to blame for the need for austerity measures. We are told that if you have too little – it’s because someone else is taking too much.

Let’s just recap:

• £8 billion spent on unemployment benefits.
• £35 billion spent on sickness and disability.
• £122 billion spent on the NHS.
• £21 billion spent on children and families services.
• £32 billion spent on all education.

Yet – £100 billion in unpaid taxes…….per year….plus the backlog deficit of fuck knows how much. Imagine what that would pay for?

Labour’s proposed spending on their reforms would cost £48 billion for

• a higher living wage,
• more police,
• more nurses,
• more pensions,
• more healthcare,
• more (and free) education and
• more investment in public services.

I did not see a pay rise for MPs mentioned in their manifesto.

So – if you employed someone to work for you – let’s say as a business manager – and you found out that they were basically stealing from you and lying about it, would you continue to employ them?

Because you do employ the Government and okay – the Government are not ‘stealing’ from us. We are taxed on our income. We ‘give’ them our money to pay for the myriad of services listed above. The services that they say they have to cut.

Technically – we employ them to run the business of this country.

And are they lying? Or are they just shit at their job?

Either way…..I’d fire them.

Becoming

Today I received this:

…..which means that I now have the certificate to prove that I am a qualified counsellor – and can practice privately and in an agency setting.

I have many qualifications – from school, university and since I have been working. Continuing my professional development is something that I have constantly engaged with all of my adult life. Having worked in education for most of my career – I have found that my employers have been very willing to help me develop and I have been lucky enough to have many of my qualifications funded or part funded.

So – I can add this certificate to the folder that I have that contains all of my others – including my Post Graduate Certificate of Education – which I gained in 2001 and means that I am a qualified teacher, my Level 5 in Management and Leadership – which means that I am competent to manage and lead projects, services and teams (not sure about that! You may have to ask my team!) and of course my degree in Psychology and Communications – which means that I can….well….communicate I guess?

But this qualification is different. This one doesn’t just get put in the folder. This one goes in a frame on the wall. This one means so much more to me.

I started my counselling training in 1993. I did two years and then decided to leave it there. I was very young at the time- in fact at one time I was the youngest person in the UK to have completed my Level 2 in Skills – and I felt that I needed more life experience before I continued my training.

Over the next few years – life certainly gave me that experience! I became a mother in 1998 and then a single mother a few months later. I went back to work in 1999 – and then did my teacher training and started teaching the students and training the staff at the College where I worked – which I really enjoyed. In 2003, I got an amazing job that seemed as though it had been created just for me. I worked in this role for eleven years until I was made redundant. During those eleven years, I carried on learning – courses in lots of work related subjects – including my Management and Leadership training. And then in 2014, I got made redundant.

It was at this point that I started to reevaluate what I wanted to do with the rest of my working life. I always knew I would go back to finish my counselling training and this seemed like the ideal time to do that.

At the time, I was living with my (now ex) partner. I discussed with him the option of doing my Level 4 in Counselling  and although he wasn’t very supportive – saying to me that he would rather I go and get another well paid job and do the training in a year or so – I knew that those well paid jobs in public service were no longer around any more with all the cuts that had happened over the past few years and that the niche that I had held in Drugs Education training and consultancy wasn’t a viable concern in the then current political climate. So- the compromise was that I got another job – less better paid but flexible enough that I could do my counselling training as well.

We were also just beginning to plan an extension to our (his) house so that each of our children could have a bedroom and so that we too could have a bedroom (we were sleeping on the sofa and living out of any wardrobe space we could find at the time). In the plans for this extension – we also decided to build an office – large enough that I could use it as a counselling room when I had qualified. So the plans for the house were drawn up and the plans for my future career were also drawn up. I would do my training and then start my own counselling practice from home – which would allow me to also be there for our children when necessary and to also play a part in supporting my partner with his business, keep house and do other domestic related tasks.

So in September 2014, I excitedly enrolled-  after an interview  – and began my training. What I hadn’t bargained on was what this course was going to throw up for me over the next couple of years and how all of the plans that we had made would drastically and suddenly change.

Firstly – I hadn’t realised how much I would change. Training as a counsellor demands that you look at yourself. That you look into your self. That you understand and recognise what makes you do the things that you do in the way that you do them. This self awareness is completely necessary in order to be an effective counsellor. It’s not a qualification that you can approach like every other qualification I had done. You have to undergo your own personal therapy as part of the training requirements.  That along with the self awareness you gain from the training strips you back to your bare bones and drags every last incongruence out of you! It’s painful, it’s hard work, it’s challenging and at the end – you are not the same person as you were at the beginning. Or- I wasn’t.

For me- what I found was that I actually found my ‘self’. I realised that throughout my life I had frequently given away my power and my self in relationships. I had ‘disappeared’ whenever I was ‘in love’ and I realised that actually in my then current relationship – I was doing the same.

I loved my partner with my whole being. I would have done anything for him – and I did. But I started to realise that actually – by doing everything that he wanted me to do –  I had little left for me. I spent no time on me – putting his needs and the needs of our children before my own and by doing that I found that I  wasn’t allowing my own feelings. I squashed them. I compromised my values. I let go of my personal boundaries – the ones that kept me safe psychologically.  I slowly and gradually adapted into what he wanted me to be. A housewife that made his sandwiches in the morning, tidied up after the children, washed and ironed their clothes, got them ready for school, helped them with their homework, batch cooked meals so that everyone had food to eat while I was at work or college. I had become a ‘good’ wife that put on a smile whenever his parents dropped round, hosted Christmas parties for friends and relatives and went to the gym in my ‘spare’ time because that pleased my partner. In truth – I felt desperately lonely….in a house with six other people.

This ‘disappearing’ phenemenon was particularly illustrated by the conversation we had at Christmas 2014, where he said that he would like me to give up my job as he felt that I was always working or studying and that I wasn’t spending enough time with him or our blended family. He said that he would be happy to financially support me while I finished my qualification. It seemed like the sensible thing to do. I was struggling with the workload and I knew that in my final year – this would only increase with the demands of a counselling placement and supervision.  So in April 2015, I resigned from my job. And that was the final part of my transformation.  I had never not worked before – since the age of 14. I enjoy work. It gives me a purpose. Now – the only purpose I had was in trying to keep other people happy and to finish my qualification.

However- what I realise now, looking back, was that no matter how hard I tried, it was never going to be good enough.

I was never going to be good enough.

I was not slim enough- which I was constantly reminded of.  (I have since lost nearly 3 stone since we spilt up). In truth – I was actually eating my feelings for the entire duration of our relationship.

The dinners I made were rejected constantly by his children (even though – I am an adequate cook and have a few spectacular signature dishes up my sleeve and have managed to bring up my own daughter on a diet of healthy, nutritious food) and so that was never good enough.

It didn’t matter how hard I tried to keep the house clean amidst the dust of walls being knocked down- I was never a competent cleaner. This one always confused me as we actually employed a cleaner – and so I thought cleaning was her job. But apparently – it was actually mine.

I was always ‘behind’ with the washing and ironing – and there were always piles of clothes waiting to be put away. This may have been to do with fact that we were, for many weeks during the house renovations – all six of us –  living out of one bedroom, with one wardrobe, two chests of drawers and a couple of clothes rails. I tried to bring order to the chaos – but I couldn’t and so I failed on that one too.

I wasn’t sociable enough.  I found it hard to live with the interruptions of his family who would constantly drop round for cups of tea and inane chats (mainly revolving around what money making scheme my partner and his brother could wheedle their way into next).

I spent too much money on the shopping and was constantly grilled over the credit card statements – and yet ‘told off’ when I didn’t buy fillet steak and then taken out for meals that cost in excess of £100.00.

I wasn’t ‘dirty’ enough in bed – and didn’t ‘perform’ like the women in the porn that my partner liked to frequently watch. I refused to entirely wax off my pubic hair – so that too was a bone of contention.

I didn’t wear the ‘right’ clothes. And yet – when ever I spent money on clothes that I  thought might be acceptable – again I was grilled over my expenditure.

And I wasn’t strict enough with my daughter who was 17 at the time. Apparently I had raised ‘the devil’ and yet confusedly – my partner’s children were allowed to do exactly as they wanted the whole time and I wasn’t allowed to complain or comment about any of their behaviour. This included being downright rude to me and my daughter and other people, never tidying away their things, taking things that didn’t belong to them without asking and constantly fighting among themselves. And yet when I tried to help them work through their feelings beneath their behaviour and put in some boundaries- I wasn’t allowed to do that.

I was also bad at managing my time and apparently had to be told by the man who left school with two GCSE’s and was constantly late all of the time for everything how I should organise my study time (i.e. fit it around all of the other things that he wanted me to do).

So – no matter how hard I tried to be the person that he wanted me to be…… I was never good enough.

Except, of course……I realised one day……that he was talking absolute and complete bollocks. I realised that actually, me – the real me – I am good enough.

 

And I realised that actually, the person that I had been trying hard to be – wasn’t me.

I realised that actually- the real me- the slightly eccentric, over thinker who works hard and plays hard, has healthy boundaries, is kind and thoughtful, swears occasionally, speaks her mind, likes the odd cigarette, processes her feelings – and helps others process  their feelings, wears a lot of black clothes, is happiest in jeans and t-shirts, who has ethics and values that do not include making money to the detriment of others and who has brought her daughter up to be a person with values who wants to make a difference to others……..that was the real me. And more importantly,  I realised –  I actually liked this real me and yet – I had lost her. She had disappeared under piles of washing and brick dust and trying to be ‘perfect’ so that she wouldn’t be rejected.

If I hadn’t have been doing my counselling course at the time, I think she would have remained lost. I would still be living in a house that wasn’t my home and yet I was expected to maintain, looking after children that  I wasn’t allowed to have any relationship with except to feed, clothe and pander to, in a relationship with a man who in the end made it clear that I was to do what I was told, when I was told to do it and I had to do all of this while my own daughter lived somewhere else. I would still be trying to be what someone else wanted me to be so that their own needs were met- whilst mine (and my daughter’s) remained suppressed, minimised and denied.

And this is why my counselling certificate that arrived today is perhaps the most valuable and important bit of paper that I have ever received. It empowered me to save me.

It’s more than just a qualification to me. It represents my journey over the past few years. A journey where I learned to look after and to love and accept myself. It taught me that I am not a ‘victim’ who needs to be rescued. It taught me that I do not have to go around ‘rescuing’ people because it gives me my self worth. It taught me that I am worthy, that I deserve to be loved and it taught me that any person who does not does not love and accept me the way that I am is not worth my precious time or energy.

And if I never get to the stage where I have my own counselling practice, the fact that I now know myself and why I did the things I did with the people that I did them with in the relationships that I have had….. that fact alone is enough.

But I am starting my own counselling practice – this September. It’s not the practice that I imagined it would be back when I began my qualification. It won’t take place in a big house with a large drive that impresses people and makes them slightly envious. It will take place at my humble, comfortable home which is welcoming and safe.  I won’t be doing it for the money that it makes me as I will be doing it on top of the other jobs that I do to pay my mortgage. I will be doing it because I know that it will make a difference.  And it will be ethical, purposeful and  empower a lot of people who become my clients to love and accept themselves and become the ‘real’ them.

And all of that is enough. Enough for me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you for being a friend.

“The strong bond of friendship is not always a balanced equation; friendship is not always about giving and taking in equal shares. Instead, friendship is grounded in a feeling that you know exactly who will be there for you when you need something, no matter what or when.”

Simon Sinek

This weekend, I spent time with one of my friends. I’ve known her since 2004 and she is wise, beautiful inside and out and always, always there for me (except on one occasion when she was meant to be nursing me and instead I ended up nursing her after a few too many Zambucas, then – after she passed out – left to my own devices, I somehow ended up giving a lap dance in four inches of mud to a male friend of mine and then kissing a random stranger…but that’s another story).

Anyway, after we had had a couple of drinks, gone for some food and then spent the evening in the company of Robbie Williams and a few thousand other people, we got back to the hotel and crashed out with a room service pizza. We chatted and I confided in her about another friend of mine and how I thought that the ten year relationship that I had been in with this other friend was over.

I have read a few articles on the interweb about the phenomena that is ‘ghosting’ – when one person in a relationship suddenly stops all communication with the other. And this is kind of where my relationship with my other friend had got to but rather than being sudden – this had happened over the last 18 months.

The reasons for this I am still trying to understand .

We met back in 2006, when we became neighbours. She moved in two doors down from me and we chatted and gradually got closer. We are similar in age, we were both single then and we both had similar outlooks on life. She was intelligent, hard working and kind. We socialised – including her popping round for coffee, chats and cigarettes most nights and over time we built a friendship based on mutual respect and fun. We got close- confiding in each other and sharing fears, secrets, hopes and dreams.

We socialised – I introduced her to a group of my friends and we all went camping and had some nights out together. We also planned to go to Glastonbury together – which we did eventually and had great fun – although we nearly both melted in the heat.

When she met her now husband in 2007 and then got engaged in 2008 – I could not have been happier for her. She asked me to be one of her bridesmaids – along with her sister in law – I felt honoured and excitedly agreed.

Life took a bit of a turn for me in 2009. Another really good friend of mine (who she also knew) died suddenly. Like the loyal, empathic friend that she was, she was there for me every step of the way from the shocking news of his death to the funeral and beyond. I couldn’t have got through it without her.

It was her that eventually persuaded me that I needed to take some time out from work to recover a bit –  as mentally I wasn’t coping. Again- she was there as a constant source of support.

At about the same time my  ex partner and father of my daughter  decided to take me to court (the details of which are so boring and not worth writing about) and my friend was there for me again. She took the day off work and came with me to the court room to hold my hand. Again, I could not have got through it without her.

Another time, I remember was when I hurt my back so badly that I could not stand up for a few days. Again, my friend was there for me. She quite often worked from home and so she was on call to help me when I needed her.

On the odd occasion she would look after my daughter – whom she seemed to be very fond of – and her cousin also became a regular babysitter for me.

My daughter was having problems at school at the time – and again- my friend was supportive, wise and kind. Again, I couldn’t have got through it without her.

So -as you can see- she was a wonderful, supportive and loving friend.

When her wedding day was approaching, I  arranged her Hen weekend and was really proud to walk behind her down the aisle. It was a lovely day, one that she truly deserved.  Very well organised and planned and executed. I was so proud of her and she looked so beautiful in the dress that I had helped her choose. Through this process, I also got to know her family a bit better – one of her sisters in law and her parents. I got on well with them – they seemed nice. We had a few meals together over this time period. I also really fancied  one of her brothers- whom I had met on a number of occasions. He was married with three children – so clearly a ‘no go’.

After she got married at the end of 2009, she immediately wanted to try for a family. This proved difficult. She miscarried a few times. She became very focussed on getting pregnant and I like to think I was there for her. I tried to get her to relax a bit about it, knowing that she had, for many years, suffered with anxiety and seeing that the sadness and pain of finding it hard to conceive was taking a mental toll.  Eventually, she did fall pregnant and this time, thankfully- she didn’t miscarry.  Someway into her pregnancy, her husband and her decided to move house- closer to her family – but still only 20 minutes or so away from me. They sold the house, packed up and moved.

The day after she moved, I was there, along with her parents- cleaning the house (as she was heavily pregnant by this time) and taking time off work to help her when I could.

The day came when she gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. She had a difficult time in labour and some complications, but as soon as I heard that she was well enough for visitors- I was there- at the hospital to comfort, support and share in her joy.

Her husband was away in the army – so as she was a new mum- I tried to help where I could – even if it was just popping ’round to try and give her an hand and a bit of a break when I could. Her daughter was (and still is) adorable. She had a very definite idea of how she wanted to parent her daughter – one which her family quite often didn’t agree with. We talked a lot about this.  I understood what she wanted to do regarding parenting and I whole heartedly supported her.

From there- my daughter and I were kind of treated like family. Family BBQs at her house- we were always invited, her daughter’s christening – we were invited. That sort of thing. Close family friends.

When her brother got divorced in 2011, he stayed at her house for a while. I was sad to hear of the end of his 10 year marriage and the circumstances around it. His now ex-wife was ‘painted’ very badly by the whole of my friend’s family. I remember thinking that were two sides to every story and that affairs don’t happen for no reason. When I saw her brother at my friends’ house- he looked broken, but was also very swiftly putting plans in place regarding finances and their children.  I remember having a jokey conversation with my friend about how it was a shame that I was in a relationship as I would have like to ‘help to distract’ her brother from his pain. I still fancied him. Apparently- he too had a similar conversation with her.

Within a week though – he was in a new relationship. I met his girlfriend on a number of occasions. She seemed nice, young and totally unsuited to him. Still, he moved her in with him and so there they were – him newly divorced – getting on with a new relationship. I remember thinking at the time that it was all very quick.

Early in 2013, I received a text from my friend that her brother had broken up from his new girlfriend and was single and would like my phone number. I too was single and so I happily and excitedly told her to pass on my number.

From there – we texted a few times and arranged a date. The morning after our date- I called my friend and told her all the details. We carried on dating and got more serious and after six months of falling in love, he asked if my daughter and I would like to move in with him – which we did a few months later.

I’m not going to rehash my relationship with my friend’s brother in this post. This post is not really about him. But suffice to say that being with him felt like the final piece of the jigsaw. I was madly in love with him and him with me- and the family that I had got to know through being friends with his sister for seven years became my family and his sister became more than my friend – she became my sister.

As we now only lived five minutes away – we saw a lot of each other. I baby sat on a few occasions. We had family weekends away together. I hosted Christmas for the whole family – the first one that they had ever had all together. My now sister would pop round with her (now two) daughters for lunch/tea/chats and coffee. On the very odd occasion she had some time away from her daughters – we went out. I naturally became closer to her parents and her sister in law and her other brother. I confided in them. They confided in me. We were all close.

My daughter was going through a hard time during this period – suffering from what we now know was depression and anxiety. My friend’s family were very supportive and understanding to us all. I cherished and valued them.

My friend’s marriage  went through bit of a blip after her second child was born. Being the type of family where the difficult things never really got talked about – she turned to me for support – when her parents didn’t really seem to have any insight. I tried to talk and listen to both her and her husband and tried in my way to help them the best I could. I loved them and cared about them both and it hurt to see them struggling. They got through it though. Her husband was also suffering from depression due to various life changes – and I also tried to listen and counsel him. That’s what family does, right? You help where you can when your loved ones are having problems. You take a step back, see the bigger picture, you listen and you try to empower them to make it work.

So – as you can see – we were family – my friend and I.  I was now officially ‘Aunty Kate’ to her daughters . I was step mum to her nieces and nephew. She was now officially ‘Aunty’  to my daughter. We talked about a possible future wedding – that her brother had hinted at on several occasions and got excited.  My partner and I were also having a massive amount of house renovations at the time and she helped me with the planning and was supportive through what was proving to be a very stressful experience.

And now we get to the bit that I am still processing, still working through, still trying to understand.

You see – in November 2015, the relationship that I thought was going to last forever   – ended. Again I am not going to rehash this in great detail in this post. I have been over and over it in my head, in therapy sessions, with friends and with  family and still – nearly two years on-  I can not make any real sense of it.

It happened very suddenly. Looking back – we had been having a few issues for a while – although knowing what I know now- these were issues that many ‘blended’ families have around boundaries and adjustment- made more difficult with the undiagnosed anxiety and depression that my daughter was suffering from, my partner’s  ex wife having a new baby, a massive amount of house renovations and my partner’s inability to put in boundaries with his children or to discuss anything ‘difficult’. That family trait of brushing things under the carpet was very present.

So, yes. It ended. I left as I could not live in a house where my daughter was no longer welcome. Without her there – it could no longer be my home and my partner had decided that she was a ‘danger’  to his children (in fact I think the word he used to describe her to his mother was ‘satan’) and that she could no longer live there. Anyone who knows my daughter – knows how utterly ridiculous this is.

In the two weeks between him chucking her out of the house and me leaving – I tried to talk to him about it, but he was resolute. I had no choice. I had to leave. It broke me. Properly broke me. I had had relationships before. These had ended. This, though was very different. I’m tough, strong, resilient – I know this to be true of myself and I hung on to this knowledge for dear life because for the first time in my life I now felt as though I wouldn’t ever recover. For the first time in my life, I was properly broken.

Despite every bone in my body telling me to stay – I had to leave. I had to leave behind the children that I had grown to love as my own . I knew the damage this would do to them and this tore me up inside- and yet I had no choice. The home that we had lovingly designed and built and that was near to being completed – I walked away from. Most of all – the man that I thought was my soul mate, my lover and my best friend – I had to leave.   It broke me.

And it broke my daughter. The man she had come to regard as her father had rejected her. She tried to persuade me to stay – but how could I?  I could not abandon my daughter. She had been through enough in her 17 years. She felt like it was all her fault. It wasn’t of course. It was no-one’s fault. It was two adults trying to cope with difficult step family dynamics. One of them gave up and so the other one had to go.  They failed. They failed each other. They failed their children – their family. They needed help.

And yet that help didn’t come. In fact- I discovered that rather than helping us to repair our relationship, his family had been having discussions behind my back about us and what he should do to minimise the damage that the end of the relationship would have. This hurt. This hurt especially as I had turned to my partner’s mother for support and she promised that she would help us, that she would talk to my partner, that she believed that it was a blip and we would get over it as we were ‘so perfect’ for each other.

But it wasn’t a blip. And so I walked away when it got to the point where it seemed like it was irreparable, when my partner said that he wouldn’t go to couples counselling, that he was done trying. I walked away when I realised that the man I loved was incapable of taking any responsibility for what had gone wrong and when I realised that the family that I had grown to regard as my own had now taken sides. I walked away and it broke me.

Now- I was no longer the woman that my partner’s mother had said had healed her son and allowed him to be himself and that had made him so ecstatically happy. Now I was no longer the step mother who was ‘brilliant’ with the children, who cooked for them, washed they clothes, tidied their rooms, took them out, looked after them, did their homework with them, talked to them when they had problems, tried to maintain some normality when the house was covered in brick dust and loved them.  Now I was no longer the bridesmaid, the counsellor, the family friend of ten years. Now- I was just some inconvenience to be got rid of – someone that my partner told his mother via text he would replace ‘ with another girlfriend who doesn’t have a psychotic daughter’.  Ironic – coming from a man whose sister, sister in law and mother have all been dependent on mental health medication for many years. I mistakenly thought he understood my daughter.

Now homeless – and living back with my parents – jobless and without a penny in the bank – I had lost everything. I still had my own house- rented out at the time – but I had no way of paying for it- so couldn’t go back there. It was a very dark time. . The loss was huge and so painful. All those hopes, dreams and plans that we had made for the future – gone. All that love, joy and laughter. Gone. Looking back- I am not sure how I got through it. I know that my own family and my dear friends were a massive support through it all.

The one thing I thought would survive – was my relationship with my friend. We had been friends for many years before – and so I thought that we would – after the dust had settled – remain friends. I knew this would be difficult. I knew our relationship would change. But I thought we would survive this.

In the early days after I left – we met up for coffee and talked. Things had become very difficult with the separation at this point – concerning finances. I was forced to take some action that I did not really want to do in order to claim back what was mine.

I remember thinking as we sat and drank our coffee – that as my friend had known me for so long, she knew my values, my morals and my heart. I remember thinking that she would understand that I had to take the action that I did. I remember thinking that she knew that I would never do anything out of spite and bitterness and that now I was in ‘survival’ mode- I was doing what I had to do to survive.  I discussed all of this with her and it seemed like she understood.

This was a very confusing and painful time. I knew she couldn’t say much. My ex is her brother after all. Blood. I knew she couldn’t hold my hand through this, like she had done so many times before and I knew that the action I was taking was causing a strain to her family.  But I thought she would understand.

I thought perhaps she might even say to her brother and the rest of her family “Hold on- this is Kate we are talking about. The woman I have known intimately for ten years – not some random that was picked up in a bar. This is the woman who does not have a mean bone in her body, who walked behind me down the aisle, who comforted me when I needed it – who comforted us all when we needed it – who would never intentionally hurt anyone –  but if she has to – she will fight. Be kind to her. Be fair. Give her back what is rightfully hers. Don’ t make her fight when she has lost everything and is hurting so deeply”.  I guess I hoped that out of the wreckage – out of the way that I guessed I was now being portrayed,  I hoped that she would still know me. Would still believe in me.

When my ex partner and I started ‘seeing’ each other again – some two months after we split up – I confided in my friend. I was still at  this point – wanting so much to be back in the relationship – as did my ex. For a while it seemed like there was some hope and so I spoke about it briefly with her.

But the reconciliation never happened. There was, I guess, too much damage to repair. The financial affairs were sorted eventually and I began to move on with my life. To put myself back together bit by bit. A long and slow process with one step at a time.

I saw my friend again shortly after I stopped seeing my ex.  She popped round to my house that I had since moved back in to. We chatted and she told me that my ex had  moved on to someone new.

I thought about this for a while….quite a while. And I thought about all of the things he had said while we were trying to repair our relationship.  His patterns of fixing the pain, brushing it under the carpet and moving on – were still in place – whereas I have had to work hard at learning from the past and altering my habitual patterns of relating. The definition of an idiot after all- it is said – is someone who does the same thing over and over and expects different results.  I’m not an idiot. Naive maybe. Too trusting maybe. But not an idiot.

And so now – it’s 18 months since the split and nine months since I last saw my friend.

The ‘ghosting’ gradually started a few months ago.

At first it was not replying to my messages – or taking ages to reply – always with some excuse. Still- I kept on messaging. Not about her brother or anything like that- just messages enquiring about how she was or how her girls were. I missed her. I missed her girls.

It’s now been three months or so since we last messaged and spoke about meeting up when she has time, chatting  about various bits and bobs.

Also –  what happened was she started ignoring my posts on social media – even when they were directly about her girls or things that directly related to her. This has been going on for months.

Now,  very recently, more and more frequent posts from my ex’s new girlfriend have been turning up on my friend’s timeline and popping up on my newsfeed. Family BBQ’s round at my friend’s house. Days out. Weddings.

To be honest – I don’ t want to see these posts. It causes me pain. But the pain I feel is not down to seeing my ex with someone new. No. I am quite clear about that.  It looks like my friend is now forming a close, intimate friendship with my ex’s new girlfriend. And again- the pain that I feel from this is not one of jealousy.

The pain I feel is that when I see these posts – it reminds me of the friendship that we once had. The sister that I once had. And the pain I feel now, I realise is part of the grieving process that I had not realised that I had to go through.  The loss that I thought that I would never have to face. The loss of the one thing that was salvageable – or so I thought from the wreckage of 18 months ago.

Seeing those posts from my ex’s new girlfriend was a slap in the face- and it woke me up.

Our friendship is over.

So over in fact  – that on my birthday last week – despite over one hundred of my friends and associates wishing me a happy birthday…….the one person that I thought would definitely post a “Happy Birthday” on my timeline – like she had done for so many years before – didn’t.

I teach about ‘endings’ to my counselling students. But the end that I am faced with now is not one that I have ever had to deal with before. I have a few close friends – some I have known from childhood. Some I have made in adulthood. All of which I am loyal to.

But I have never had to deal with the end of a friendship until now. How does it work?

I have tried to empathise with why this ending might be. That’s the thing about friendship. Friends have empathy for each other. Friends get when there is hurt, when there is anger, when you are facing something hard and painful and they do what they can to help and support and nurture and sometimes tell you things that are really hard to to take- but that need to be said. I got it that is was hard for her when I split from her brother – I didn’t turn to her for support for that very reason. I understood that her family had put me firmly in my designated role of ‘the bad one’. I knew this must have been conflicting for her. But I still always thought that she knew me better.

Maybe it was too hard for her – having a friendship with her brother’s ex?  Maybe she didn’t like some of the things I posted on social media which referred to her brother? The truth is sometimes painful to swallow and as in most cases- there are two sides – two truths –  to every story. Maybe my truth was one that she didn’t want to hear? Maybe she doesn’t actually know me as well as I thought she did? Maybe she was so taken in by the ‘victimisation’ of her brother that she really does believe that I am to blame for everything that happened. Maybe to admit that actually her brother also had responsibility for the failure of our relationship, would mean that she would have to try and reconcile this with the role of ‘victim’ that he had taken up? Maybe stepping off of the drama triangle was too much for her to do?

Whatever the reason, there was no communication from her about it.  Ten years of friendship were just brushed under the carpet. No honest conversations. Nothing. No proper ending. Just ‘ghosting’.

So – as I lay in my hotel bed on Saturday night, I realised that I had been in denial, it seemed, for many months. I now needed to go through the hurt, the anger, to the acceptance in order to heal.

I thought about sending one last message, but realised it was pointless. Ghosting actions speak louder than words. I know it’s over. And what would I say?

I guess, if anything,  it would be this:

“Thank you. Thank you for the fun, the laughter, the chance to share your life for the ten years that we were friends. I wish you the best of everything for the future for you and your girls and your husband and I am sorry that you have lost your friend. She was a very dear one. A very loyal one. A sister who tried to be there for you whenever you needed her, that defended you at times to your own family  and  I know how much this loss must have hurt you and I am sorry for us both that it’s over. And I get it. It’s okay. ” 

But I didn’t send anything. I removed her from my friend’s list. I doubt she will even notice.

And I know that this is not a healthy ending. I know that I could have been the adult and tried to have a conversation with her about it. I could have advocated for our friendship, I know all of this. Just like she could have been the adult when my relationship with her brother was ending and advocated for me. But I guess it was too hard for her to do that. And I guess it’s too hard right now for me to say anything to her.

And as I said, I am trying to change my patterns of relating, to unravel my attachment style and that includes not holding on to things that really I need to let go of and to cherish and nurture what is present and real and lasting.

And true friendship lasts, no matter what……

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Loss

Source: Loss