I like grime

Cos it’s poetry

From my home town

And the stories it tells

connect with people like me

But that’s not meant to be

You see I’m

Well past my prime

Washed up wife

Just turned 35

Middle class; tryin’a be polite

But deep inside

The past keeps leaking like

I burst a pipe

And no one knows

It’s a tale I’ve got to hide

Cos I got a mortgage like

And I gotta fake this life

Till I get it right

When deep inside

I’m still a yute on a bike

Hitchin rides

Stealing highs

Playing with matches and kitchen knives

Killing the kid inside

Talking bout how we’ll die or end up

inside

Now I got kids

They’re my life

But I’m all mixed up inside

Et up inside

Can’t think can’t write

Can’t drink

Don’t wanna drive

Anxiety raging all the time

They say it’s okay, not to be okay

But what about when your not ok

Every fucking day

Your not the they they mean when they say

You should talk

About it

There’s no space

You can’t breath

Not waving

But drowning

So staring in solitary

Confinement at Stormzy’s

Your secret escape

Cos you get what they’re saying

You feel that frustration

And the beat in your brain

Cancels out all the chaos

The rhythm it holds

Transports and propels you

It’s not that I wanna go back

It’s just she never grew up

Street robbery right

Took her out of my sight

The lost boys the lost girls

lost years

Now it helps

To be mindful

I hear that

But I’ve always felt mindless

And if you don’t mind

I lost mine

Way back

When the school bell

Rang out

Like a death knell

And chained to my school skirt

Like Marley

In my own hell

I chased dreams and dragons

Prince Charming

Got shat on

I kept fighting

Kept battling

Hid my scars, kept my mask on

Trying to show I’m surviving

Blank it out

Don’t look back

Cos that’s not where you’re heading

But it’s just where my head is

Tho I keep

Tryna turn it

These turnstiles

Keep on returning

I’m burning

My bridges

My lips

So bright

Don’t stop shining

Cos I need your light

In the darkness

My iPhone

Glows out like a beacon

Of hope and connection

Of simple reflection

The selfie that’s in me’s a face

That I can’t see

As I lay my head down to rest in the nighttime

And I thank god almighty for all that he’s gave me

But heavy are the thoughts that weigh down upon me.

I wanna reach out but I’m stuck

I want to reach you but I’m trapped

You’ve always been

Too Far away

I sit alone here and I’m lost

Lost in a sea of searching thoughts

Of long forgotten gusts

Of memory

I call your name

But you don’t come

And I’m too far away to know if

You can hear

Or can you see?

See where I’m sat

Know where I’m at

How I have got here and might please I

get the chance to stay?

I need a friend

I need another soul that I can tell

Seems like it’s destined only ever to be me

And I’ve searched within

Never thought I could

But see I’ve learnt somehow

This magic recipe

I’ve dug real deep

Tried real hard

And I grew brand new parts, of personality

Now I play to win

But still there’s yearning deep within

for connection that’s complete with meaning

Out in the cold I am shut out

Inside the mind candle still burning:

These walls and chambers

Keep defying me

I sing for hope

I look to change

It’s clear that changing

took a look to liking me

Sing out your hearts

We lift them up

It’s moments then we’re in embroiled right there in community

Then come the dark and they are gone the midnight hour creeping in

She tries so calmly to stay still and just, to breath.

He’s always gone

And on your own

You just can’t hide from

Lonely

How far we’ve come

I have my song

My new found friend inside of me

And it’s enough

Though not enough

I happy but I’m

Still so lonely

The path has changed

And I walk in hope

Don’t plan to go

Back down the road

I wish I’d never been

The rock face was

Too much for me

And I saw things

Girls shouldn’t see

I found deep pits of

Satan’s misery

Turned around and stumbled on

I’m wounded from that tiresome journey

I need an inn to take me in

I’m reaching out

Please let me in

I’ve walked alone

Please walk beside and steady me

I’ll take the lead

Or have you back

I’ll hold your hand

Or you can lean your wait on me

I just want to feel your company

As one step at a time

We will proceed towards

Our (consequential) destiny

I’ve just passed the 6th month mark on my sober journey. I’m immensely proud. It’s been better than I ever imagined and easier than I ever thought it could be. I want to be this way, I feel at peace here. And by and large I’ve had an easy ride of it in terms of not having social pressures around me. My husband has just rolled over and accepted it with very little acknowledgement; buys me ginger ale and doesn’t seem phased that the woman he married has radically changed.

It was my birthday last week, and my Dad gave me, as usual, a bottle of Prosecco. I panicked and instead of explaining I hurried to the fridge to let it chill for dinner. I then forgot to offer anyone any and ended up giving it to a friend at her wedding reception a few days later. But I don’t know why I haven’t told people.

Well of course I do, it’s because then it’d be real and I’d be accountable and I might have to stick to it longer, or suffer shame if I…’mess up’/’drink’/’relapse’? Whereas this way I remain in control. And the door is left open. And I don’t have to offer anyone an explanation. Or receive the speculations of others. But, I am starting to think about telling a select few. Namely, my old drinking buddies. It’s funny because it’s become brutally apparent that it’s only actually hard to tell those that have a questionable relationship with booze themselves. Telling a girl at work wasn’t tough at al, in fact I felt proud and…even a bit cool! As she often goes weeks or months without booze herself, my abstinence wasn’t of great importance to her.

But it was to my old buddy. Last Saturday was the aforementioned wedding reception. I did wonder about messaging her in advance, to deflect the attention from it, but it was hard, I didn’t know what to say so I didn’t. On the way there she messaged me asking if I was drinking or driving. I said driving (true!) and felt relieved that that was that.

It wasn’t.

She arrived and straight away started on at me, about how awful my husband was for making me drive, questioning it over and over, telling me I was crazy to bring my kids, no fun, where had her real friend gone…etc etc. On and on all evening, every time she saw me, the only conversation was why I wasn’t drinking. She even went through the possibility of pregnancy, ruling it out because I’d be ‘mad’ to have any more. Charming. She was pretty drunk by this point, and spent an unnecessarily long time explaining what she had and hadn’t meant by that but ultimately, I watched my old behaviour in her and I didn’t like it. She wasn’t fun, she was annoying, rude, repetitive. Her conversation was focused only on boozing.

It’s not who I want to be anymore. But I don’t know how to tell her. We’ve been friends since school. Spent our teenage years hammered together at house parties, cuddled up in fits of emotion in bathrooms, lost in night clubs together, wandering aimlessly home from pubs at 2am, crying to each other as our hearts were broken, tallying each other to the bar, sending each other bottles of champagne at life’s achievements and pouring the gin on its disappointments. Best friends. Or enablers? Our whole lives intertwined and bonded with booze. From teens through womanhood and into mothers. How can I leave her this way? How can we carry on with one of us opting out. I don’t think her drinking’s healthy. For alllll the damn drinking we’ve done, neither of us are good with drink in us. How do I tell her I’ve left?how do I say goodby to that life? I don’t think she’ll like me anymore.

We were free;

We ran, we skipped, we played,

And how we sang

Through sun-kissed fields.

Those endless days

Adorned with the naivety of youth

We searched we scoured we spread

our wings were restless

our will was wild

we found company with them

wizened; wise

the wasted

years

had left their bitter marks

upon their butchered arms

And we turned

To them

For answers: quizzed them, watched them, followed them,

enveloped our seeking souls among them

our empty selves, like mooring vessels

Found something

new in something old, something damaged

Something lost

Something now gone

Those goblin men

Forgotten?

Buried

What was learnt? What got burnt?

Just fun, but more too

Exploration and adventure. We found

the radical in our mundane

We, together, ventured out alone.

In a place of childhood we grew, cultivating danger among the bushes

that grew and hid and overgrew and threatened

And were torn down

Abandoned

Banished

To the wild woods of memory; of thorny fairytales

Nothing more than shadows cast

By the latent summer sun

As our curfews came and went

As the day drew to a close

the imprints remained

and we’re alright

The mood the laughter

Coming home

Losing control, while gaining

A freedom that would hold me prisoner;

As You came and left again

Those sacred days You gave me.

I’m all over the place today. I’m tired, and finding it hard to concentrate. My mood keeps bouncing, I’m too happy, too excited, agitated, trying to ignore things that are weighing me down (like the work I’m avoiding doing and life admin that needs sorting). I can’t give anything my full attention, I’m ‘flitting’. I want to make lots of plans. I want to over commit myself. I’m bored with things that already are, I’m hankering for excitement and feeling impulsive. I might book a holiday or by a house.

I don’t know if this is well or sick. I don’t know if I’m ‘too high’, or this is a bpd lurch, or if this is ‘the pink cloud’ or if this is what being well and normal feel like. I don’t know, and I have no way of finding out. So Im just enjoying it and rolling with it and trying to keep an eye on the madness (financially) and not lose total site of the things that need doing…but I would love to know if this is good or not. Or maybe it’s a ‘grey area’. Apparently that’s a thing lol. It can’t be bpd because I don’t have it, I’m not important enough for ‘professionals’ to listen to, I’m too well to give the time of day to. So it must just be me being silly.

That’s bad thinking that’s not helpful, doesn’t get me anywhere.

My husband has gone out this evening and I have to try and not lose it if he’s what I consider late, I need to not get anxious that he’ll come back too drunk to take my daughter to school or that he won’t come home at all. I need to. Not. Freak. Out.

Soooo much easier said than done. But I’m going to try, I’m going to type this, have a bath, watch some telly and BE CHILL. I will be. I can be. I am completely normal. I just have to remember to ignore how I feel in order to be normal. Ugh.

Will I ever not feel itchy and restless? It seems like this is as good as it gets, it’s either this, distressed or depressed. When do I get to be content, relaxed or…peaceful??? Lol.

My head feels like there’s flies in it, whizzing haphazardly round it like they do in the kitchen in summer, too dozy from stealing sugar to find the door; too high to stop, frantic and fierce, bashing bluntly into obstacles that inadvertently cross their paths. Rolling with the blows, with their loud, buzzing drone keeping irregular rhythm to their melodic jamboree.

A history, in brief. One of the most traumatic events of my past was the loss of my older brother when I was nearly 4. This was something my mother never recovered from, and something that would profoundly impact the rest of my life. Looking back I’ve come to believe that my lack of understanding as a child led to psychological disturbances. I think I had childhood anxiety and something I once read described as ‘magical thinking’.

I don’t remember anyone explaining properly to me what had happened. Perhaps they did, but I don’t remember it and I grew up with very confused thoughts about the matter. I wished every single night, for what I recall as years, for him to come back. I prayed tirelessly and made silent pacts with God. If I could just behave well enough, he’d be back.

I felt intensely lonely and shame ridden. I imagined my brother as a perfect person and couldn’t understand why he had gone. The fact everyone was so upset showed me he was perfect and that I wasn’t enough to make them happy. I learnt that he was good and I was bad. I was convinced God had taken the wrong one. And I grew with these thoughts. It was only many many years later, after much mental torment and a life lived through symptoms of BPD that I looked back on this thinking and realised how damaging it was for the personality that was forming.

I have a lot of sympathy now for that little girl, and anger that she was failed. Surely someone should have seen I wasn’t ok? That my family wasn’t? Surely someone could have helped? It was the 80s and things were different, maybe now they would, maybe not. But anyway these realisations are important to me and I think I need to invest in caring for that poor girl now.

So here is my blog space! I’m writing this because I need to get me story out. I’m 5months sober, which is a complete miracle, but I’m entirely alone in my sobriety. And it needs to start leaking out.

An introduction.

I’m Katy. I’m an English teacher, a mother to two small children, a wife, a BPD sufferer and an alcoholic. Oh and a seriously struggling PhD student, but that aside for now. I’ve been drinking heavily since I was a young teen. I’m 35 in three weeks’ time and on the first of this year I woke up knowing I couldn’t drink again. Scared to drink again because I’m terrified I may never stop again. I’m the child of an alcoholic mother and I don’t want to live the life she’s living, so I began my foray into sobriety. Clueless and planless, I did what days before was unthinkable. I stopped drinking.

And so far, I’ve stayed stopped. But I need to start writing down my thoughts and my feelings, I need to start telling my story. It feels too much for me to hold, and I also am edging increasingly toward a need to be heard. To share, to open up about all this crazy, exhausting stuff I’ve had bottled up and rattling around inside me my whole damn life. Edging mind, anonymous blog yes, discuss with real live human being anytime soon, uh uh.

I am loving sobriety. It’s like a whole new world has been released to me, like Jasmine on her carpet I cannot believe the sites I’m seeing. It was here all along but so far out of reach. I’ve spent the last 20odd years locked in a prison of despair, and suddenly I’m free. But I can’t tell anyone. Utter madness.

And alongside my alcoholism, there the righteous rollicks of BPD. For transparency, I am not ‘officially’ diagnosed. I have had 3 professionals concur it is suspected. I also have numerous disastrous encounters with the nhs mental health system that I have retreated from each time, more pained, more sick, and more desperate. I do not blame the nhs, but the shit state of this country and the chronic underfunding our health service endures, the continual dismissal of the social epidemic of poor mental health in our society and the lack of research and training leading to poor professional care. But this isn’t about that. If you’re reading this and you fundamentally object to any sort of self diagnosis or your only belief is that mental health should be managed by professionals this is not the blog for you. I have spent forever dreaming of professionals who will come and rescue me and each attempt I’ve bitterly failed to find that help. So rather than, literally, die waiting, I am here, attempting to help myself, the only way I know how with the resources I have right now. And right now, that happens to be this blog space.

What I hope to gain? Clarity through the therapeutic process of formulating the written word. A bunch of stuff I can plough back through when I need to, perhaps with the help of that mystical professional that will one day find me. A record of the next incredible few months as I continue my sober journey. And perhaps even a connection with a like minded soul who may stumble across my ramblings some day. Who knows. For now, I’ll go back to pretending I’m normal, until next time reader…

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton