family

I’m Back!

/ RachelMorrisMcGeethemyastheniakid / Leave a comment

I’m back after my two week sabbatical! I am so glad that I did take that time off as, things never ever go smoothly in the Myasthenia Kid household and this “holiday” was no different.

The first two days of our holiday had been written off due to the fact we were having a new boiler installed and two radiators replaced. Everything was going swimmingly until the Tuesday morning when the plumber managed to go through the stud wall when hanging the bathroom radiator. It isn’t the first time this has happened, when installing a toilet roll holder for me, my next door neighbour went straight through the stud wall. Yes our house is that poorly constructed and the shock of it is that this is apparently worth £224,000-£234,000 in today’s market. How on earth is anyone supposed to get on the housing ladder these days? Anyway I digress. The contractors were  fantastic, the plumber was straight onto his boss and by the evening I had been emailed with a very sincere apology and dates / times of when people would be around to sort out the damaged wall. This was all great but meant a further 3 extra early mornings for us as the boiler installation went over into another day, and three visits from the company’s decorators to fix the damage, sand the wall and then repaint.

*** for those of a delicate disposition skip the next paragraph!**

Hilariously on the second day of the boiler installation I came down with a stomach bug and not the throwing up kind. As I was sat on the sofa in the lounge I could start to hear every part of my intestines sloshing around and lots of gas also building up. Due to the stud walls in our house and it being a two up two down I didn’t wish to share my experience of the stomach bug with the contractor, so I spent from 2pm until 5.30pm with my arse cheeks firmly clenched hoping that there were no suddenly loud noises. I had to time letting rip with the guy using the drill so that he couldn’t hear me because the wind was so loud, honestly I could have filled a few helium balloons. Obviously as time ticked on it became more and more dangerous to break wind. Which led to the worse issue of my stomach just expanding due to the sheer amount of gas trapped. By the time the guy left after 5.30pm ,I raced up the stairs and over the course of the next several hours every thing I had ever eaten since 1973 proceeded to exit my body in liquid form.😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

** it’s safe now **

Anyway I was fine the next day, thank goodness as we had the plumber back to commission the boiler and a decorator to do the first part of the repair. By Thursday I was on my knee’s with tiredness as I really don’t cope with early morning starts. I can get up early but having to get showered and dressed by 08.30am is really hard because there is no time available for resting.

I had been sleeping really well for a change and hadn’t had to get up in the night and change my pillows to stop a headache . However for some reason on Thursday evening the neck pain I have been experiencing since 11th August 2020 ( RTC ) came back. I had a break of about a week and then on the 29th July the headaches and neck pain came back so severely I haven’t known what to do with myself. I am sat writing this with a neck brace on because my neck is just so painful and I am again experiencing headaches day and night. Some of them build up slowly over the course of a day and then become full blown migraines. I seem to be on a permanent diet of sumatriptan at least once a day at the moment. I have no idea why it has kicked off even worse than it has been in a while. It has pissed me off today as I had planned to get some bits and pieces done and due to my head and neck being so sore I can’t and that fucks me off when I am feeling ok(ish) with all the other health shit going on.

We did have a lovely two weeks together, even if we ended up with 5 days of contractors coming in. Mr Myasthenia Kid had to go down to his mum’s for two days of our holiday and help her with various things. I really feel for him having lost his dad 19 weeks ago he had to face the fact his mum is terminally ill. He feels awful for being an hour away but he also has me and Dembe to care for whilst working full time. It can’t be easy for him. He feels like he is never with his mum enough and no one should ever feel like that. I don’t think his father’s passing has hit him properly, I am fully expecting him to come down with a huge bump when the American Football season starts as this was the thing that he and his dad could talk about for hours. Although there are people at work that he can chat to about the football, it isn’t the same as chatting to your dad about your favourite team – they are Washington Fans. 

So I do the best I can keeping things on an even keel at home, managing my health to keep it stable. Try to support him when he lets me in and tells me what is going on in his head. It is hard but at least he has started telling me the days that he is struggling.

Dembe adored having his dad home for two weeks. The first week Mr Myasthenia Kid was home I barely got a look in. It was the Dembe and daddy show. His little boy followed him everywhere. On the second week Dembe suddenly realised I was still here and then shared his cuddles out equally. To be honest I never mind about the Dembe and daddy Love In, as I know I get Dembe to myself for 5 days a week around 9 hours a day most weeks of the year. I love the fact that when Jay is home Dembe has to show him how much he loves him.

Dembe also enjoyed barking at all the contractors we had here as well! It was only on the third day that he stopped barking at the plumber. On the day when the wall was repainted we got him a Venison leg to chew on. He absolutely adored that and it kept him busy for a good 90 minutes allowing the decorator to come and go without being barked at.

The two week’s went by so quickly, Dembe and I are now getting ourselves back into a routine again. Thankfully we have both slipped back into our usual work day routines nice and easily.

I forgot to say on the first weekend of Mr Myasthenia Kids holiday we attended a wedding reception in the evening. Dembe went in his Tuxedo and was the belle of the ball! Even the official wedding photographer took his photograph.

To attend the wedding reception we had to do Lateral Flow tests for Covid. Up until then Jay and I had managed to not have to be tested for Covid. Jay was a bloody nightmare, he is useless with stuff like this. I dread anything where he may need eye drops etc as he can’t relax and allow you to do it. He scrunches up his eyes and then tells me he isn’t scrunching up his eyes. So I knew the covid tests were going to be a barrel of laughs. Our Lateral Flow tests needed us to swab our tonsils 4 times each and then using the same swab, go up our nose and almost tickle our brains with the end of the swab. I did mine myself no issue. I have virtually no gag reflex, nothing happens when something hits the back of my throat. I can’t even make myself sick. I knew Jay would be the complete opposite.

I ended up having to get a teaspoon from the cutlery drawer to hold his tongue down as every time I swabbed his tonsils he gagged and his tongue hit the swab. When I did up his nose with the swab he couldn’t stop laughing and then he sneezed around 4 times. Poor sod as the first test he did came back as null and void so I had to repeat the process for him. We were both negative.

When Jay was walking Dembe around the block later that day our neighbour asked him if his test result was negative. Thanks to the open patio door in the kitchen as I had done the swabs our neighbours had been entertained by me telling Jay to pull himself together and allow me to swab his tonsils. Only in our house!😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

So as you can see it has been a fun packed two weeks. We enjoyed the wedding reception and got to catch up with a few people I haven’t seen since I left work, so that’s 13 years. We only stayed 2 hours as I was struggling with pain and temperature control. But it was worth it to just see everyone’s reaction to Dembe who was treated like a Prince and brought his own water bowl by the staff who worked there.

It did seem strange not to be blogging or thinking up blog posts whilst I took two weeks off.

 I’m back!

Charades

/ RachelMorrisMcGeethemyastheniakid / 6 Comments

At some point in your life you decide that no matter what you do, for some people it will never be enough. That you come so far down their list of priorities that you have to look yourself in the eye and say I am worth so much more than an after thought.

I have always tried to be honest in what I write about but since I started this blog I have felt like I have always had to write it with one aspect of my life never commented on. I can’t do it any longer and I am not prepared to do it any more. Pretending that I have a supportive family who love me is over. It has been for years but I have been scared into silence by them. I’m not scared anymore.

I have left friendships  due to being treated badly, people grow apart or something happens and their mask has slipped and you decided enough is enough. I never ever thought that I would have to close the door on family. For years I have been shamed into secrecy and silence. Playing a game of charades pretending that we were the perfect family when we were anything but. The decision has been about 5 years in the making, as I gained the strength and knowledge to know that this had never ever been about me about about three terribly damaged individuals who were incapable of change because they couldn’t see what they were doing was wrong.

I am not here to drag it all into the light, I am past caring what you do because nothing you could do to me now would be worse than what I have suffered at your hands for the past 47 years. I am sad that I wasn’t enough for you, that you felt I only warranted “good” treatment when I was doing things for you. Well don’t worry your pretty little heads the door is firmly shut and I won’t be opening it. 

There wasn’t one thing or action that determined this turn of events, as I say the decision had been 5 years in the making. My eyes were well and truly opened in 2015 in the way that you ran to my siblings defence and cast me as the bad guy as per usual, without even speaking to me. The way you treated me really broke my heart, I was so upset I couldn’t eat or sleep, I was distraught.  Oh and by the way I told E exactly what to write in that message and I approved it before she sent it.  

It was my gp  that told me that she was using her children as weapons. In fact it was my gp that opened my eyes to the fact that our family relationship was dysfunctional and that their was an element of coercive control / narcissism to it. Whilst I was there at the appointment begging for anxiety medication and sleeping tablets because your combined actions had destroyed me. But what did you care? Not a jot after revelling in telling me that when my father dies you would no longer have a relationship with me.

When my father asked me to apologise for what I had done and when I said tell me what it is that I have done wrong so that I don’t do it again, I was treated like I was being the unreasonable one. No, asking someone to apologise for “everything” as you put it but without quantifying what everything is, is a fucking mind game. You all know that and so do I. But ever the scapegoat  and peacemaker, I apologised for everything whilst my estranged sibling hurled accusations at me going back as far childhood all of which were untrue or she had twisted the context to ensure yet again she was the victim.

So I went on a 5 year journey trying initially to discover what was so wrong with me that my sister could walk out of my life without a backwards glance and my parents could side with her without even speaking to me. Why my parents had always seemed to love me less than her. For two people who claim they were treated so badly growing up as the youngest child was favoured by your parents, you really do miss the fucking irony of repeating exactly the same pattern don’t you? I read websites, blogs, mountains of books all on the subject of narcissism. Once I scratched the surface of your behaviour it became crystal fucking clear that the issue wasn’t me, it was all of you and your twisted fucking minds.

Before anyone claims that it takes two to tango, I am not saying I am a perfect human being. I have flaws as everyone does. But their is a huge difference between flaws and taking positive enjoyment out of causing your own child mental anguish and harm.

Initially I truly believed that the issue was my sibling and now that we were estranged perhaps my relationship with my parents would improve? Unluckily for you, all that research had shown me how narcissists abuse their victims and how they always go through a cycle of love bombing and then when they feel the target has fallen for their lies hook, line and sinker they withdraw or have you walking on eggshells again never knowing when you might take offence or withdraw from me for weeks on end. I soon realised that the narcissism gene wasn’t carried by my estranged sibling alone. It could be applied to the pair of you. 

For a long time I tried to excuse the way that you behaved. I became a world expert at practising cognitive dissonance  but my body / unconscious mind kept sending me more and more warning signals when I was dealing with you. I would get anxious and panicky at the thought of having to speak to you or see you. Covid-19 in 2020 was a positive blessing as it helped me realise that closing the door on that chapter of my life was not going to be some huge deal because as I said earlier you had humiliated me, hurt me, attempted to break up my marriage, ignored me, destroyed my friendships and just so much more, there really wasn’t anything left in your arsenal to hit me with.

 My dear friends, who know my family be prepared for the smear campaign to start after this blog post if it hasn’t already. No doubt they are claiming that I am mentally ill / having a breakdown – that’s the usual line or that Mr Myasthenia Kid has brain washed me against them and is controlling everything I do. For the record yes I suffer with anxiety and depression on and off, also the reason they don’t like my husband is the fact he saw through their bullshit from the start and wouldn’t get involved in their mind games.

Suddenly the slow drip drip effect of your behaviour became a Tsunami, there was no holding back from seeing straight through it. Since stepping away from all the bullshit and continuous hurt I have never been happier. Despite everything you have put us both through, the lies you have told about us to anyone will listen, I am sad that I don’t miss you. A child should miss their parents presence but I don’t. I thought their would be a grieving period but there wasn’t. There is anger, anger that you tried to hijack my husbands grief and push your agenda on us. Stupidly if you had rung up and apologised for that, we would still be in contact because despite all the shit you have pulled over the years, all I ever wanted was to be loved by you and to know that I was enough.

Thankfully after having had 3 months out of your circus I know I am enough, that without you I won’t shatter and break. That my life will continue on. I will no longer lie awake at night wondering what it is I have done to upset you this time. My exit, on my own terms and I won’t be keeping quiet. If someone asks I will tell them. If you don’t like that I no longer care.

I have never felt like a victim, I am a survivor no longer the scapegoat and no longer playing your twisted game of charades.