Wednesday 28 July 2010

Stuff and Things and Babies that weren't.

This is hard to write.

I've been a bit absent. Something happened. I was sitting in Inception on Saturday the 17th, enjoying it thoroughly, and it struck me. 'I'm pregnant.' It wouldn't leave. I thought 'No I'm not' and a little voice in my head replied 'Yes, yes you are.' Since the only day I COULD have gotten pregnant was Friday the 16th, I thought it was ridiculous to even think that I could know 36hrs later. That's not possible, right?

Except it was. The next Saturday, Bug-Baby's first birthday, we found ourselves staring at a positive pregnancy test. We got a positive result after a week with her, too. Apparently my body reacts to pregnancy ridiculously. I was having symptoms before the result, and by Saturday I was having serious problems. I was nauseated, really tired, and all my joints hurt like hell. We went out to wonder around our favourite market and have a picnic for Beast's Birthday, and I hd to hobble around using an umbrella as a walking stick. I also dislocated my shoulder picking up a bag of shopping. It was a heavy bag, but still. On Monday I went to meet friends and by the end of the day I was leaning heavily on the pushchair, using it as a zimmer-frame, my hips rolling in and out of their sockets like they were doing The Twist.

My body is a total drama queen.

I went to bed early and dreamed about giving birth to a tiny baby boy. This morning I laughed with Mr A when he came to wake me up about what we named him, and how in my dream I didn't give birth, they just said 'We have to deliver the baby right now' and then brought me this tiny little baby that could fit in my cupped hands.

I got up and went to the bathroom for my morning wee.

I was bleeding.

A lot.


It's been a week of turmoil. Nerves, sadness, worry, stress, tears, anger, pain, now a feeling of confusion. We had decided not to continue the pregnancy, because it was making me too sick, and because we were too concerned about my health and ability to take care of a toddler while bedridden for nine months. So what right did I have to feel emotional - nay, hysterical- when I passed that solid white would-be-baby? I don't. I have no right at all.

Friday 16 July 2010

Nostalgia and why shopping doesn't work like prozac.

Last night I had a really EDS-y dream. I don't know why, I wasn't particularly researchy before I went to sleep, but there I was in my dream, dislocating and falling over like the best of them. And so was everyone else. And then there was Peter Pan*, an old flame, and we were madly in love again apparently. And I hate to admit it, but it felt really nice. It felt really, really nice to be in-love and excited and nervous.

It's hard to explain, I've been feeling sad recently. Today is Mr Arienette's birthday. He's on his way home from drinks after work. We used to always take each others birthday's off work, we used to spend the day having fun and showering the birthday-person with love and attention and whatever they wanted. This year was our first year of birthdays post-baby. My birthday was awful, as documented. Mr A's won't be a whole lot better, but at least I went to the effort today of spending a few pounds and a few spoons picking him up some presents. Only some fun socks, a pair of cool boxers and some (really expensive) jellybeans, but hey, presents is presents, right? It's three pairs of socks, a pair of boxers, and two packets of jellybeans MORE than I got.

We've been married two years and together for three. Whenever people give me That Look I tell them 'You don't get married at 19 unless you really love someone or they're really rich. And he's not rich.' In a way, it's true. We love each other a ridiculous amount, but in three years we've dealt with so much. Huge mental health problems, an affair, unemployment, homelessness, physical ill-health, constant poverty, pregnancy, a baby... We both came into this relationship damaged, and we both work hard to repair each other, but there are parts of me which will never really be fixed. I'm chronically fucked up. I have such severe abandonment issues that if he gets more than 2 text messages in a row I'm convinced he's having an affair. I have spent the last three and a half years waiting for him to realise he can do better and leave me. I'm the one who cheated but yet he's the one who trusts implicitly, I'm the one who's jealous. Because I'm the one who's bored. He always wanted to settle down, get married, have babies. That wasn't even on my radar until I met him. I haven't worked since 2 months after we met, he's been mostly employed the whole time (barring about 6 months over two periods when job markets crashed and his career-field was shoving people overboard faster than they could take a breath) so he has had adult contact, he has a feeling of security and grown-upness. I don't. Because I don't deal with the money, I never know how much there is. Due to the way my family moved around when I was a kid and my parents leaving England to live abroad when I was 19, this triggers off REALLY terrible anxiety attacks and makes me feel so insecure. I am constantly waiting for the rug to be pulled out from under me. Mr A is always trying to reassure me that things are fine, but then he'll come in and say 'Hey, can I used your account to pay the gas bill?' or I'll get a fucking summons notice for non-payment of council tax (it was a mix-up, but it nearly gave me a fucking coronary) and it makes me scared deep down to my core. If he leaves me, I'll be a young single divorced woman with a baby and no job skills or qualifications or family. It's a thought that makes me feel claustrophobic, like someone is putting a bag over my head. I can't even express how terrifying my position is. I am 22 and I haven't had a job since I was 18, and I've never kept a job longer than 2 months. Can anyone even comprehend how that, plus having a baby, will affect my chances of ever getting more than the most basic of employment? I'll never be able to fulfill my dreams of going to live in Australia because I couldn't take Beast so far away from her father. So I'd be stuck in England, with no connections, no family, no prospects. Terr. If. Eye. Ing.

So, why does all of this have the effect it does on me, which is to make me fantasise about going out like a single person again, and to go shopping? I couldn't tell you. I could hazard a guess that the fantasising is my way of working through the worst-case-scenario. I'll be on the bus or walking down the high street, mentally assessing my chances of getting every vaguely good-looking guy that walks past. Usually, they are slim-to-none. Babies are MASSIVE cock-blockers. Pushchairs turn you invisible. Every now and again when it's not IMMEDIATELY obvious that I have a baby with me I'll catch a guy paying a bit more attention to me and flatter myself that instead of being a creepy stalker perv, he COULD be into me, and by extending that line of thought I think that maybe, men that I'M into could be into me too** I have little daydreams about going out and getting a boyfriend, living the life of a young twenty-something like all my friends (when Beast is with her dad, of course) and it's nice for the three minutes when I suspend disbelief and make myself forget that I'm disabled, damaged, a mother, and not that attractive, especially with my post-pregnancy funbags. I don't have anything to recommend me that wouldn't be cancelled out by the problems. It all falls apart, this strategizing and damage-limiting. But I keep doing it, maybe in the hope that one day I'll convince myself that if he left, I would have a chance of being ok.

The shopping is harder to explain. Whenever my emotions get too extreme, I get compulsions to spend money. It doesn't matter what one, but the more extreme the emotion, the more I feel I have to spend. I'm getting better at calming it down. When I was pregnant barely a week went by when something didn't arrive in the post, and often it was multiple things a week. Now I only really have to do it when I'm anxious, although the urge is always there, under the surface. It especially pops up when I'm anxious about how other people see me. For instance, next week is going to be insane. We have a really important function for Mr A's work n the same day and Beast's first birthday party. We're attending the function but I have no idea what to wear. This may not seem like a massive issue, but it is to me. I hold this fundamental belief that if I just look right, no one will suspect that I don't belong. Every time I step into a new situation I wait for everyone to turn, look at me, and then cast me out with a quivering finger, screeching 'YELLOW SHOES?! GET THEE OUT!' My aim in life is to stand out just enough to not stand out at all. I want people to see a perfectly put together mask so that they don't probe any further and realise I am fundamentally broken at my core. So I will spend WEEKS trying to put together an outfit that says 'Look at me, I'm so stylish and so together. You can forget I'm here now.' and then hours on the day deliberating the outfit I've spent weeks on. I literally cannot just throw a t-shirt on. Every time I get dressed I think about what my clothing choices will make people think of me. It's horrible. So I'll go into a shop and be worrying about money and social occasions and I'll spend three hours trying to find the perfect outfit that says what I need it to say and then I'll stand in line to pay and suddenly, between joining the line and leaving the shop, at some point I will get The Guilt. The nagging, sucking, joyless vacuum that says 'Happy now? You can't afford that, you know. It'll probably be uncomfortable or it won't suit you or you'll wear it once. Why do you even bother, you never look nice.' and my palms will sweat around my purchases and they'll feel heavy and my heart goes numb and I feel sick and suddenly I just want to run away and cry in a corner.
So far over the last 6 months for this work function I've already bought 5 items of clothing. I've considered many many many more, and am, as we speak, trying to decide on another. I don't know why I'm bothering, whatever I wear won't work and I'll either be over dressed or under dressed or wearing the wrong color or will stain my outfit on the way there or Beast will throw up on it. But still I feel the need to carry on trying. Like the scorpion, no matter how destructive me behaviour, it's in my nature.


*Name changed to protect my sanity.
**Not massively likely. Almost every man I've ever been into based on looks alone has been completely indifferent to me. My 'type' is quite specific and they don't tend to look twice at me, because they're sucking-face with infinitely better looking women. Sucks. I think Mr A is slammin', and truly beautiful, but as he looks now I wouldn't pick him out of a crowded room.

Thursday 15 July 2010

Write despite it.

A friend posted a link to "I Write Like..." and I have been having a lot of fun since plugging in different poems and bits of writing and seeing the results. I'm also having a lot of fun reading through my old work. I used to write a LOT. It was what I was going to do. I felt really really passionate about it. Also? I was good. And I don't say that with smugness. I haven't written much since I got pregnant, I have nothing to be smug about. But I consistantly got very high praise from anyone who read my writing, including my university teachers, who were writers themselves. A teacher at school was willing to pull strings to get me into the best Creative Writing course in the country. I Was Good. Especially looking back on things I wrote when I was 16/17. I really did have quite a remarkable way with words and language for such a young person. I miss it, but more than that? I miss being YOUNG and being good. Somehow being good now wouldn't have the same impact as being good at 17. Although of course when I was 17 I had no idea I was good. I thought I was rubbish and I wrote despite that, and I think that's probably what made me good. That I wrote anyway and that I was never complacent because I never had an inflated sense f my own skill.

Today was a good day again. I'm still in lots of pain (what's new?!) but I just had a good experience, on the whole, of the day. It rained again and that sucked but both A.B and I were in a good mood and there was much less grumping than usual. On both sides. The phone got re-connected and so now I can phone my mom and dad again and it'll make our lives easier to not have to rely on our mobile phones.

I wish it would stop raining and get warm again. I can't do washing if I can't dry it and I can't be bothered with all the lifting necessary to dry it inside.

We had a paediatric appointment yesterday, the paediatrician is very pleased with Beastlet's progress but once again managed to upset me with her anti-breastfeeding attitude. She's genuinely a nice person and I couldn't have coped without her listening to me when Beast was small and no one else did, but while she doesn't out-and-out tell me to stop feeding, she's really dismissive of it in a way. She'll be all 'You've done really well, she's thriving, but you know I had all mine off the breast at a year old' or '...but she really can do without the breast now.' or '...you just need to break her will, she'll get hungry enough eventually and just give in.' Which really really upsets me. The idea of trying to break the will of a 12 month old baby, just starving her until she 'gives in' is just horrendous to me. I would make a complaint but other than her very un-hippy attitudes she's a great doctor and has helped us so much. I do worry about a less determined mother seeing her and maybe giving up breastfeeding because of what she says but I worry MORE about the mothers who desperately need help their GP's can't or won't provide, for whom Dr S might be a godsend. After our first appointment with her I sat in the car crying in relief. She bouyed my spirits. Without her I'd still be living in a nightmare and i definitely would NOT still be breastfeeding, because I wouldn't have been able to keep up with Beasties demand for extra milk to soothe the pain her allergy caused. So I put up with her occasional upsetting aside, because it's a compromise, and if there's one thing the NHS has taught me, it's that you compromise, every step of the way. You have to. You don't have a choice.

Monday 12 July 2010

Good days

Today was a Good Day. I woke up at 2pm, which is more or less unheard of on weekends unless Mr A drags me out of bed. Weekends are when I catch up on the sleep I miss during the week. Without them I would collapse from exhaustion pretty quickly. I have two days a week to catch up on running myself down the other 5 days, so I usually sleep in what most people would consider a ridiculous amount. On saturday I got up at 4pm. Hey, walk a mile in my shoes, ok?

I literally collapsed into bed sometime between 3 and 5 this morning. I don't remember going to bed, Mr A woke up to A.B awake and 'playing' with my hair at 5am, I was out cold with no blanket on me (UNHEARD OF!) and when Mr A went downstairs all the lights were on, the TV was on, the netbook was open and running. It looks like I went up to feed A.B and then just passed out in exhaustion. Mr A thought I was dead! Ho ho ho.

Anyway, I woke up at 2pm, confused and groggy but feeling rested. I did a bit of laundry and then we decided to go for a drive. This is more or less unheard of for us, we never seem to go out on weekends except when we're running errands. We never go out just to go out. It always seems to be us hurrying out in a rush to rush around some place. It was really nice though. We had a really good long chat, we listened to some good music, we enjoyed ourselves. I'm so glad we did it.

Then when we got home I finished off the laundry and we made a kick-ass dinner and ate it outside on our deck. The deck is coming together really well, I'm really proud of myself. It was really bad befre, covered in junk and unusable. I worked really hard to get it to a state where we can use it. We've bought a string of solar lights and a kick-ass solar lamp. Added to the barbeque and the lettuce that I'm growing, it's looking really homely. Not spectacular, not Home & Garden-worthy, but there's space and we can eat out there and it makes me smile. Working on the deck is slow, four years ago I could have done in a weekend what it's taken me over a month to do now, but it is what it is. I get tired really easily working outside, especially in this weather, so I have to accept that I can do two, maybe three hours over as many days, maybe just that in a whole week, and that's ok. I have limits, that's ok.

Right now it's 3am and I'm taking a little break from tidying up the living room. We have a phone technician coming to the house on Wednesday because our phone hasn't been working for almost three months. The room is a MESS though so I'm a bit stressed out. Tuesday we have a paediatrician appointment so I only have tomorrow to get it sorted out to the point where I'm not embarassed to have someone see it!

I dyed my hair from pink back to blonde and I'm already a lot happier with it. I needed to go through a stage of dying my hair funky colors, I needed to be able to say I'd done it, but I would be lying if I said I felt happy with it the last few weeks. It just didn't look good and it was affecting my self-confidence, because I felt other people looked down on me and as much as I SHOULD just not care what they think, I do. I always do, always have, always will. I feel more confident now that I feel like a look more normal. I wish I had the self-confidence to carry off looking as alternative as I am at heart, but I've discovered that unless you have a community around you of alternative people to reinforce that what you're doing and wearing is ok, it's really hard. It's hard to be one person standing against a wave. I'm content that that doesn't make me a sell-out or a poser, it just means that I don't have enough support, and that's just not my fault, at the end of the day. It wasn't ME that stepped back when I got pregnant, it was my friends. They left me.

Today I am feeling peaceful. Now, back to cleaning!

Thursday 8 July 2010

Knock knock. Who's there? No one, I fell over halfway to the door.

So I promised I would come back and expand on Round Seventy Gazillion of the 'Ari Is Tired' game.

Last Week I was invited to attend a play on July 1st with a relative of Mr A's. This was exciting, and also anxious-making. It would involve a longer stint away from Baby A than I had ever had. I am also currently not on speaking terms with Mr A's parents and grandparents, so spending a whole evening with his brother and aunt? Ummmm. I had to think long and hard about it, but eventually decided that actually, I really did need an evening out, away from the house, being a grown-up. I was a Theatre and Drama student at school, I used to love nothing more than checking out plays. I haven't been to one since I finished my A-levels in '06. I haven't been out during the evening without Mr A or Baby A for 2 years. I really, really, really needed a few hours in adult company, doing something I enjoyed.

So, with much trepidation, I started to get ready. What to wear was a major issue. On one hand, I wanted/needed to be comfortable. On the other, this is my first adult evening in two years, and I wanted to look NICE. I ended up settling on a long red skirt with white spots, worn as a shorter dress, with a black silk belt, with red high heels and my hair pinned back as best I could (it's very short). Once I'd slapped on a bit of slap, I was looking pretty smoking.

We had an amazing dinner (steeeeeaaaakkkk MMMMMM) and the play (Women Beware Women) was spectacular, as was the conversation. I came home buzzing, elated, refreshed, and best of all, missing Baby A (why is that a good thing? Because 99% of the time I just resent her and want someone else to come and help me with her. To MISS her, to feel excited and elated to see her? Awesome feeling.) It was, on the whole, and amazing success and I'm so pleased Mr A bullied me into going.


However.

The effort required to pull this night together was enormous, and it knocked me flat on my ass. I got home barely able to walk, despite having worn flip-flops all the way into London from Home, only putting on my heels at the last minute. Sitting in the theatre for three hours and the all of maybe 15-20 minutes walking I did in total was too much for me. I burned out in a major way. It's now a week later and I'm still hurting. On Tuesday we went to IKEA for me second birthday, and we hd a great time but by the time we had zipped round to the market hall (maybe 45 minutes, tops, of light strolling) I was really hurting, could barely support myself, leaning heavily on the trolley to keep upright and avoid the embarassment of Making A Scene.
Apart from Tuesday I've been stuck to the sofa every day since Thursday, and sleeping til almost 1pm. I'm exhausted, in a huge amount of pain, and now, tonight, my chest has started hurting as well. It feels like I'm having an asthma attack, but a really low-grade one, for hours and hours now. I could scream. Mr A sent me to bed early (9pm) after a chat about how I'm not doing terribly well, but then we had sex and it woke me up and now it's 1:30am and I CAN'T SLEEP. I was supposed to be seeing a friend and her new baby tomorrow but may have to cancel at this rate. Luckily, she is AWESOME and understands and is willing to be cancelled on at the last minute. I'm frustrated, because I really wanted to get out, but what use is it pushing myself to the point of collapse? Where I'm at right now, I can honestly se myself passing out and leaving this poor woman trying to get help for me while looking after two babies. No, not fair.


As for the conversation with Mr A earlier... I am having a bit o a wibble at the moment, about my health. I'm 22. I should feel this fucking old. I feel geriatric. I'm always tired and always in pain. my life is a never ending list of compromises. Want t go out for a walk? Well you can't. Go sit on the balcony instead. Want to clean the house? Well you can't, settle for putting a single load of laundry on instead. Want to cook up a batch of food to freeze? Well you CAN'T. Settle for buying the ingredients and hoping you having the energy at some point and that this lot won't get thrown out like the last six lots (it did get thrown out, by the way.) I'm tired of all of this never-ending tiredness.
I finally narrowed down the list of GP's and found one nearby that ticks all the right boxes. Close by (although it IS uphill. Compromise.), two female GP's, excellent reviews on NHS Choices of the GP's treatment (although not of the support-staff's behaviour. Compromise). Next stage is phoning to ask if they're registering new patients and then finding a time when we can go and register.

I've had to stop driving lessons/practise because I wasn't safe behind the wheel. That was a massive blow. I love my car, it's a thing of beauty, and I love the wy I feel when I drive. But I was not safe. I kept forgetting about the handbrake, I forgot to check for red lights, I would zone out while driving. At one point I became REALLY sick while driving home and started greying out, trying not to vomit. I couldn't pull over because I couldn't turn my head or use my brain to figure out where would be safe. It was scary, and dangerous. This is bad news, because without a license I am really really limited. I'm getting better at taking public transport, because I HAVE to, but it's still difficult and it's still enough to keep me much more housebound than I would otherwise be.

I'm frustrated. I'm scared I'm never going to get any better, that my life goes downhill from here and never, ever gets better. I don't want to have peaked at 21. 21 is supposed to be the beginning, not the beginning of the end. I get so down about it. I shouldn't be reading all of this stuff about the DLA and benefits reviews, because I'm internalising a lot of the things being said by stupid, ignorant people. I'm internalising the belief that I'm scummy, scrounger, useless, work-shy. I already had a gold-medal in self-criticism, something I've fought hard to put aside in the last couple of years, only to have it all come crashing in on me now. Without any work or possibility or hope of work, without any indication that things will GET BETTER SOON, I feel like I'm collapsing.

(next morning)

I had to run upstairs to feed the baby and subsequently couldn't post this last night. I woke up at 6 this morning with a dodgy tummy and so had to cancel my outing today. Bah. Still having chest pains.

Monday 5 July 2010

3am and that-time-at-the-bus-stop


I've spent the last day or so in a lot of pain* and so I've been just chilling out reading this and all the comments below it. And for some reason it dredged up this memory that I systematically repress every time it comes to the surface.

For back-story, I have been subject to sexual, emotional and physical abuse from many people in the course of my life-time. This ranges from childhood sexual abuse, to stranger-rape, to acquaintance rape, to parental violence/emotional abuse to extremely controlling emotional abuse from an ex. Until I met my now-husband, there wasn't a year in my life that went by that I wasn't subjected to some form of abuse. So I did not come to this situation wide-eyed and bushy-tailed and full of the fluff and joys of the world.

I had an office job in London Bridge. It's a densely populated area, with a wide-range of people. There are offices, shops, cafe's, homes...all sorts of people around, all the time, for all sorts of reasons. I left work one day and stood at my usual bus-stop, waiting for my usual bus. There were at least 10 people there, possibly as many as 25. It was on the main road, not tucked out of the way. I've included a picture of the street, the bus-stop is next to the black streetlamp that goes halfway over the road. You can see there is very obviously a lot of people that would have been around or within sight around the time that this particular incident occurred.

I was a young-looking 18, 5'6 and maybe 8 and a half stone, wearing office-clothes. It was April or May so still light out. I was standing with my back against the building, the normal London-Appropriate amount of space between me and the people around me, allowing for crowded-bus-stop-adjustments, of course. As I waited, I barely registered that a man was approaching, walking down the pavement. Without resorting to class-privileged snubs, he was clearly either homeless, or mentally ill or both. He was what most people would term a hobo, dressed in baggy dirty clothes, unwashed, long matted hair, carrying a blue plastic bag I would later realise was the type usually given out at cornershops and off-licences. As he came up to the bus-stop, he very marginally sped-up, and with no warning, swung out his arm and smacked me full in the head with his bag, which had cans in it. He swung it again, without even breaking stride, only missing my face because I somehow, through my shock, put my arm up and caught the blow. He didn't even turn, or slow down, he just carried on going.

And not a single one of those 10-25 people did a thing.
Not one of them tried to stop him.
Not one of them moved to protect me (although the speed at which the attack happened, I don't blame them for this really)
Not one single person asked if I was ok. In fact, they pointedly avoided even making eye-contact with me.

I was a teenage girl, alone, who had just been assaulted by a strange man, and sustained a serious blow to the head, and not one person acted as though anything had even happened.

I was fine, physically apart from a sore head. There was no concussion, no head injury. But there was a much much worse injury, which was mental and emotional. It was the knowledge that I was not safe in public, not because people might attack me, which was something I had learned many years before, but because no one cared. It was deeply and profoundly shocking to me to discover that my previous assumptions, that if any of my attacks or abuses had happened in front of witnesses that someone would have stepped in or helped, were completely off-base. That was worse, in a way, than the attack itself. I felt like by being silent and ignoring the attack, these people were sending me a message. Shut up. Don't make a fuss. Don't embarrass us with your hysterical display. We don't want to know or hear about your problem. Just forget it. I bit my lip and tried to stop my shoulders from visibly shaking as I cried in pain, fear, and humiliation. I got on my bus and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with people who clearly wished the ground would just swallow me the fuck up so I would go away. I ended up getting off the bus two stops later and walking the few miles home, chain-smoking and crying, calling my then-boyfriend (Mr A) and blubbering about how much I wanted to vomit.

Soon after this incident, abnormally soon, in fact, within days, I suppressed it to the point whereupon reading a line about it in my diary a year later, I couldn't remember what on earth it was referencing. In fact, I didn't remember it until I randomly remembered it about 6 months ago. I then immediately forgot about it again, after feeling overwhelmed by the apathy shown by those strangers at that bus-stop.

This isn't really going anywhere. Just a memory that cropped up in response to a lot of reading about rape-culture and it surprised me that I've suppressed it not once, but twice. It surprised me that at a crowded bus-stop a young girl can sustain a vicious and unprovoked attack and even when there is no risk of danger to them, the people around her will decide not to get involved, not even to ask if she's ok. Even as I write this, I'm making excuses in my head. I should have gone back into work and told someone what had happened. I should have screamed, to alert my fellow bus-stoppers that what had happened was Serious Business (because they might otherwise have assumed that getting hit in the head with a few full cans of beer wouldn't have bothered me, obviously). If I didn't scream, it's my fault, right?

NO. NO IT'S FUCKING NOT. This is rape apologist language applied to a much milder assault. And don't get me wrong. I know that this is nowhere near the worst thing that could have happened to me. I would rather take another 100 blows to the head than ever be raped again. But this particular instance and something that happened around the same time, when work-colleagues got me way-way-way fucked up, took me to a strange place and then completely failed to even attempt to throw up the vaguest concern for my well-being, which in turn led to them watching a complete stranger walk me out the door and into a cab despite the fact that I could barely stand, did a lot to wreck my trust of the average person. We live in a culture that allows this sort of shit to happen by not ACTIVELY and LOUDLY stepping in and stopping it happening. Why did not one single person at that bus-stop ask if I was ok, or offer to take me to the tube-station so I could find a police officer? I shouldn't have been getting on a bus. I should have been being checked out for a concussion and making an incident report. Because not one single person there acknowledged that something had even happened, I somehow felt like it was my FAULT. Like I was making a big deal over nothing, like this was something I should just accept, that he was allowed to assault me and why was I getting all fucking uppity over it?

This has been a blog about why I wish I had a son so I could teach him to be a Good Man. This has also been a blog about why I cried some tears of sadness when I found out I was going to be raising a daughter.


*I will talk about this soon. And not in a general 'I'm tired and in pain' way like usual!