That's me 15 years ago today. The day I handed in my final university assignment. This post is not going to be a positive celebration of going to university and being awarded a first because I fucking worked hard for that goddamn degree while living in pretty unbearable circumstances with my mother and while being in an abusive relationship (instead of my father saying, hey let's get you out of that abusive relationship, I was told, "you're going to loose him" - good, he was fucking abusive and that should not have been normalised by my family or by society).
I fucking worked hard for that degree against a bad back drop. I did it because I was told that once I finish the degree, people would back off me and let me live my life as I see fit.
But that didn't happen. The law had to change first. It took ten more years before I was finally allowed to live life as I see fit. And before people say, well you could have got out, what was I meant to do? Pull my child out of school. It wasn't just my family or my personal relationships, it was all of society not letting me live my life. The teachers at my son's primary school were just as nasty to me as my family and as people socially, who would cause a lot of drama and keep the decent people away (it is only about 10 per cent of the world's population that are disordered like that). People knew exactly what they were doing because I explained it to them but they thought they were special and did it anyways.
Five years after legal and cultural changes, I'm nearly where I wanted to be one year after leaving university. Nearly. I'll be getting InDesign in a few weeks and I plan on spending all summer recovering lost skills. Then I'll be applying for new jobs (although I'm still applying but I think that if I'm patient and work hard this summer, I can get a better job in the autumn on a higher wage).
So, I'm very nearly where I wanted to be. However, it took a few years of therapy for my son to develop any ambition in life because him witnessing all of that coming from everywhere and everyone told him there wasn't much point in trying (every time I've been in therapy, some asshat in Liverpool had decided what me and the doctors were saying was wrong and they were right, so I can't have anymore while I'm in Liverpool). I've only been paying into a pension for less than a year. I still don't own a house, which if you scroll through the blog, you can see what living in social housing is like (it isn't pleasant, but better than a private landlord). I haven't had a holiday since about 2005 (I don't consider travelling to the USA a holiday, especially given how I get treated when I'm over there - I need a holiday and therapy after visiting that country, but I last went there in 2008 anyways, a few weeks after that photo was taken, which started the ten years of Hell). I suggested to my child that we go to Tel Aviv not next year but the year after and he said he'd rather travel to Paris. I said that's fine I'll see how much flights are and maybe we can go next year because that's cheaper than Israel and we can go to Disney. But my child wants to go on the train. After those ten additional years of bullshit, I don't have the energy to take the train to Paris. My child doesn't understand this. The train takes more spoons than flying. I still attract people with untreated cluster b disorders (although I'm much better at telling them to fuck off and not tolerating it, but at least on social media, these people get cooed over and everyone seems frightened of saying the wrong thing because the disordered person will take it the wrong way and blow up and then ruin your life because that's what disordered people do).
And those are the problems that can be dealt with. Once I move out of Liverpool, I can have more therapy. My son isn't going to throw his life away because I've worked with him and a therapist has worked with him. I can recover my lost skills. I'm already working in the field I went to university to work in to begin with, I just need the skills to get what job I wanted. I can earn more money and therefore pay in more to a pension and go on holiday and not worry about bills. I've received training to recognise when someone has a cluster b personality disorder. I can write to members of parliament to ensure that active steps are being taken to prevent society returning to the way it was. I can let people know that this has happened and it isn't acceptable and with what they're saying or doing, they risk things returning to the way they were. I can push for teachers and school staff to get the same treatment as the police (I'm aware there's a campaign for NHS staff to go through the vetting and weeding out of the bad seeds next, but you know, police, the NHS or education shouldn't have these bad seeds to begin with).
Unfortunately my energy levels won't recover. The abysmal way I was treated in Liverpool unfortunately involved some life destroying things. I can't fix those, but I can move away (once my son finishes school), which will help me trust people again (because as I said, it is only about ten per cent of the population that behave like this, most people, even in Liverpool, aren't douchebags and are more concerned with their own lives to interfere in others).
So, at least, five years after the law changed, my degree is being put to use and I'm nearly where I wanted to be. I have been active in making sure what happened to me doesn't happen to others. I'm making sure people know what abuse is. I'm hoping that the laws that apply on a domestic level will also start to apply on a society level because it isn't acceptable that a school can gaslight children (when my son was sick, I had an email from his school telling me that they'll decide if he's sick, the response they had back wasn't nice) or tell parents that the parent hasn't done anything to improve their life (because apparently a degree and waking up at 5AM every fucking morning to write books isn't good enough, those books I wrote kept my writing skills fresh, which after the kind people on social media bought me that old MacBook allowed me to get my first freelance clients).
Hopefully in another 12 months, I'll be where I wanted to be after I graduated.
And no, this post is not a reason for people with cluster b personality disorders to reach out and inflict their life advice on me. You know, most cluster b disorders can be treated. I know a lot of people with cluster b diagnoses who don't behave in that manner and function as part of society so there really isn't any excuse anymore, especially with the legal changes.
This is a post to say that I am working on getting to where I want to be. I was always working on it, even during those ten years because I knew where I wanted to go. I resent when people project their own insecurities on me. Go fuck yourself.
I fucking worked hard for that degree against a bad back drop. I did it because I was told that once I finish the degree, people would back off me and let me live my life as I see fit.
But that didn't happen. The law had to change first. It took ten more years before I was finally allowed to live life as I see fit. And before people say, well you could have got out, what was I meant to do? Pull my child out of school. It wasn't just my family or my personal relationships, it was all of society not letting me live my life. The teachers at my son's primary school were just as nasty to me as my family and as people socially, who would cause a lot of drama and keep the decent people away (it is only about 10 per cent of the world's population that are disordered like that). People knew exactly what they were doing because I explained it to them but they thought they were special and did it anyways.
Five years after legal and cultural changes, I'm nearly where I wanted to be one year after leaving university. Nearly. I'll be getting InDesign in a few weeks and I plan on spending all summer recovering lost skills. Then I'll be applying for new jobs (although I'm still applying but I think that if I'm patient and work hard this summer, I can get a better job in the autumn on a higher wage).
So, I'm very nearly where I wanted to be. However, it took a few years of therapy for my son to develop any ambition in life because him witnessing all of that coming from everywhere and everyone told him there wasn't much point in trying (every time I've been in therapy, some asshat in Liverpool had decided what me and the doctors were saying was wrong and they were right, so I can't have anymore while I'm in Liverpool). I've only been paying into a pension for less than a year. I still don't own a house, which if you scroll through the blog, you can see what living in social housing is like (it isn't pleasant, but better than a private landlord). I haven't had a holiday since about 2005 (I don't consider travelling to the USA a holiday, especially given how I get treated when I'm over there - I need a holiday and therapy after visiting that country, but I last went there in 2008 anyways, a few weeks after that photo was taken, which started the ten years of Hell). I suggested to my child that we go to Tel Aviv not next year but the year after and he said he'd rather travel to Paris. I said that's fine I'll see how much flights are and maybe we can go next year because that's cheaper than Israel and we can go to Disney. But my child wants to go on the train. After those ten additional years of bullshit, I don't have the energy to take the train to Paris. My child doesn't understand this. The train takes more spoons than flying. I still attract people with untreated cluster b disorders (although I'm much better at telling them to fuck off and not tolerating it, but at least on social media, these people get cooed over and everyone seems frightened of saying the wrong thing because the disordered person will take it the wrong way and blow up and then ruin your life because that's what disordered people do).
And those are the problems that can be dealt with. Once I move out of Liverpool, I can have more therapy. My son isn't going to throw his life away because I've worked with him and a therapist has worked with him. I can recover my lost skills. I'm already working in the field I went to university to work in to begin with, I just need the skills to get what job I wanted. I can earn more money and therefore pay in more to a pension and go on holiday and not worry about bills. I've received training to recognise when someone has a cluster b personality disorder. I can write to members of parliament to ensure that active steps are being taken to prevent society returning to the way it was. I can let people know that this has happened and it isn't acceptable and with what they're saying or doing, they risk things returning to the way they were. I can push for teachers and school staff to get the same treatment as the police (I'm aware there's a campaign for NHS staff to go through the vetting and weeding out of the bad seeds next, but you know, police, the NHS or education shouldn't have these bad seeds to begin with).
Unfortunately my energy levels won't recover. The abysmal way I was treated in Liverpool unfortunately involved some life destroying things. I can't fix those, but I can move away (once my son finishes school), which will help me trust people again (because as I said, it is only about ten per cent of the population that behave like this, most people, even in Liverpool, aren't douchebags and are more concerned with their own lives to interfere in others).
So, at least, five years after the law changed, my degree is being put to use and I'm nearly where I wanted to be. I have been active in making sure what happened to me doesn't happen to others. I'm making sure people know what abuse is. I'm hoping that the laws that apply on a domestic level will also start to apply on a society level because it isn't acceptable that a school can gaslight children (when my son was sick, I had an email from his school telling me that they'll decide if he's sick, the response they had back wasn't nice) or tell parents that the parent hasn't done anything to improve their life (because apparently a degree and waking up at 5AM every fucking morning to write books isn't good enough, those books I wrote kept my writing skills fresh, which after the kind people on social media bought me that old MacBook allowed me to get my first freelance clients).
Hopefully in another 12 months, I'll be where I wanted to be after I graduated.
And no, this post is not a reason for people with cluster b personality disorders to reach out and inflict their life advice on me. You know, most cluster b disorders can be treated. I know a lot of people with cluster b diagnoses who don't behave in that manner and function as part of society so there really isn't any excuse anymore, especially with the legal changes.
This is a post to say that I am working on getting to where I want to be. I was always working on it, even during those ten years because I knew where I wanted to go. I resent when people project their own insecurities on me. Go fuck yourself.