Dear Anita,

Thank you for writing that message. I’ve been asking so many people for years the same question, and no one has ever been able to answer me in a way that really addresses that monumental confusion/ tragedy that is placed upon someone who has had to go through so much abuse with people who make them believe that they love them. It’s such a conflict in the mind, and one that I might never really come to terms with. But I am trying.

It’s funny that you started with the manic part – because I’ve been feeling manic since Thursday, being obsessed with keeping a positive energy (which can feel like ecstasy) and be a drug. Literally, I haven’t been able to sleep because I’ve been so positive. But then something happened with someone yesterday which brought my mood down a bit. I woke up today and realised that I had just been manic since Thursday. So today I thought,  “Right, I’m ready to go on Tinybuddha and tell Anita about it”, because when I’m manic/ fixated on something, it’s difficult for me to get to a place where I am rational, I tend to just get fixated on what it is that is making me manic, and staying in my pjamas being obsessed (for real).

I’ve been manic since the gig on Thursday, just from all the positive vibes that was there. Everyone was really happy, and I was really confident. I guess I wanted to keep that going, and I realised how much I haven’t been in control of my own vibration, and instead have been allowing outside circumstances dictate how I feel. I’ve been super confident this week, again, as I said it felt like I was on ecstasy with how much confidence and positivity I was feeling. I went to another gig on Monday, to see my friend play, and it’s funny seeing how since I’ve given myself more confidence and respect, other people are starting too as well. I can see people actually noticing me now, which is strange.

At the Monday gig (at the same venue), there was a guy sat next to me as I was watching my friend and recording. A guy sat down next to me, and he accidentally spilt his drink, he looked at me and said really loudly “WHAT DID YOU DO THAT FOR” so that people could hear, to try and humiliate me, so I said back “DON’T BE A TWAT”. I went to the bar, asked for roll, went back and handed it to him and said “Do you want to clear it up then?” And he instantly shot up and started scrubbing it from the floor xD He moved away from me after that. I saw him later on in the evening – I was talking to a homeless person and he walked past with a group of friends, he looked at me and looked really scared/ shocked/ embarrassed. It was a great moment.

Since then I’ve been really quite high. And haven’t been able to sleep properly as too excited – like a child at christmas. It was only until yesterday, when I was talking to my friend on webcam, and we were both tired and he said something which offended me, that I began to come down again. I guess in my head, the world was fixed, everyone was happy and positive, and I needed to maintain that energy. It was like, I felt like I had become like everyone else who is also happy all the time. It was a strange feeling, I can’t really explain it well.

The lack of empathy and love that my parents had for my and my sister has been very…..challenging to work through. It’s given us both the impression that our personalities were not worth investing in, it made us so dissociate from ourselves when we were young, we never really knew ourselves at all or were allowed to explore that or express ourselves. It has made us feel that life is pain, and that you owe it to other people to suffer. It taught us that Love is money, Love is suffering for someone else, and that Love is prioritising someone else over . It taught us that self love was selfish, and that it was bad if someone loved themselves. It taught us that being gay was wrong (they were homophobic) 🙁 and that not being white was a peculiar thing to be (they’re racist too – from lack of world experience).

My grandad said that gay people should be shot. I don’t like him at all. But my sister still talks to him even though she’s gay. He refused to say the word wife when he referred to her wife for ages, but at christmas he wrote them both a card and wrote my sisters wifes name in it. Which I think shows that he kind of understands, but still refuses to accept it. Does this show that people can change?? Does this mean that I should tolerate the bad traits of his behaviour? Should I endure the negativity and criticism that I get by being around my family, just because they aren’t as bad as they were?

Again, with my grandad, I have no idea how to relate to him at all. He’s my mums dad, and obviously I couldn’t relate to my mum. She was always so focused on taking care of him, and was mean to us all of the time, it was awful. She’s help him, but then tell us to shutup etc. She forced us to go and visit him everyday, and most of the time he would just talk about himself. He would give me and my sister money everytime we left, and when I said I didn’t want it he’d be like “Go on, just take it” and making out that he’s such a good person 🙁 When I became a teenager I started refusing to go up to my grandads because I wasn’t gaining anything from doing it. It was boring and pointless. My mum would go up everyday because she looks after him and cares for him – it’s sad because I think this really dictates her life. My family don’t have much money and so in a way I feel sorry for them and pity them (as I do my grandad) but at the same time they took this all out on me and my sister when we were young, and made it clear that they regretted having kids. (My mum told my sister that she wish she’d never been born – to this day my sister still feels like she isn’t worthy to be here). Before I went to uni my mum and dad said it would be a struggle for them so I felt bad (think I mentioned this before), so I said I wouldn’t go. As soon as I stopped taking their money, my mum bought a convertible car from it. The last time I saw my parents before we stopped talking, was when I was sat outside with my friend in my garden (I was going through a break up – I was 18), my Mum came out and told me to not sit on the grass because it was wet. I told her it was dry. Next thing, my dad comes storming out, grabs be violently and drags me back in to the house. Very embarassing and heart breaking, and then they were screaming and shouting at me about my appearance and how I’d never get a job. I said I was going back to Bath, and then in the car I was sobbing my eyes out in the back seat. And what was my Dad trying to talk to me about??? Money.

I got out at the train station, and then my Dad tried to give me a hug – ?!?!?!?!?!?!?! – mental. And he said “You’ve got some things you need to work through”, and I said “Yeah, without you” and walked to my train. That was the point where I no longer wanted to be treated like that anymore. It was so hard to do as I’d always been taught that they were right about everything. From that day onwards I didn’t speak to them for 5 years – until I got sectioned in Amsterdam (which I’ve mentioned before).

My mum was incredibly controlling. Really controlling. OCD controlling. She’d look through my bags, move things around in my room when I wasn’t in. I felt invaded all the time, like I never really had my own space. I wasn’t allowed to do much growing up and had to ask to do everything. When I had friends home from school she’d make us sit with her in the kitchen and give us crisps, chocolate. This was when I was like 9. And then I got bullied cus my Mum was like that and everyone talked about it.

It was an extremely extremely repressed household. I realise now, after writing about this, that I’ve never really been able to talk to people about this – not even my psychotherapist. Because the shame/ humiliation has always felt like too much… Thank you for providing me with a safe dialogue/ responses where I feel like I am able to.

I should probably say now that I’ve heard from my sister that other members of the family have experienced abuse as well, such as being locked in closets and stuff 🙁 When I heard that I thought :O that’s awful, that’s terrible. I feel like that experience is more terrible than the experiences that I’ve had…. Whether I am right or not, I cannot say. But part of me is starting to wonder whether that’s because I have been desensitised to abuse and so fail to recognise it as such – even though I talk about my experiences on here and how I have struggled with them.

When I was born to my parents, I do remember a time where they were nice, and my mum being loving. It was short moments but fleeting, a time when both of them were more creative, and didn’t care about what people thought. Although I was talking to my sister the other day, and she said that she can still remember times when my mum was selfish. Like my sister was allergic to facepaint, and she’d tell my mum that it was hurting, but my mum would continue, as she wanted to look like she was doing something in front of the other mums. It was all about appearances with my mum, and worrying what other people thought in public whereas when we were on our own as a family we were deeply miserable. I remember the term “You don’t tell anyone what goes on in this house” used 🙁 I think that my mum and dad were both extremely paranoid people. I think both of their parents never really encouraged them to care for themselves properly or encourage them to follow their dreams etc.

As we grew up my parents became worse and worse, mainly towards my sister. I always stayed the quiet one.  The one that hid away (maybe thats why I still stay in my room so much now).

I do feel sorry for the children, who didn’t get a happy life… But was that because of their upbringing? Or do you think they had a choice in how they behaved?

What if people have been desensitised to abuse and genuinely cant see anything wrong in their actions….How would you view them then?

Thank you for taking the time again to reply so in depth,

Cat