January 2019 – Notes from an Invisible Woman

A Married Single Parent

I’m revisiting significant memories from my past. My therapist wants me to think about the messages I’ve been subconsciously given about myself through the things I’ve experienced. I’m hoping to gain some understanding of how I ever reached the point where I became invisible. This is part of my backstory.

I haven’t spent many nights away from my children (although they’ve had plenty of nights away from me at sleepovers, school camps, etc). Excluding a few days in hospital after the birth of each child and a few small overnight trips with only one, I’ve pretty much always been at home for them.

The reality is that managing the logistics for being away from them was always so draining it was less exhausting to stay home. It wasn’t about separation anxiety (mine or theirs). It was because unable to rely on their father noticing or responding to any needs that didn’t coincide with his own. A case in point:

When my children were 7, 10 and 12, I organised a night away for myself. I travelled a few hours from home with two friends to get our old lady groove on at a Hall & Oates concert. I checked with my then husband (The Ex) before buying tickets (months in advance) and he said it would be fine.

As the date grew closer, I reminded The Ex that I’d be away overnight. He hadn’t made note of the date and seemed surprised. He quietly made it clear that it would be inconvenient but he’d be willing to help, provided I had everything organised in advance before I left. He’d have to care for the children and supervise care of our pet guinea pigs for just over 24 hours – I’d take the kids to school and then get home in time to collect them the following afternoon.

In the final week before the concert, The Ex informed me that he hadn’t realised it was this week and his work commitments would make it too hard for him to manage things with the children. He couldn’t finish work early to collect them from school. I organised for my mother to pick up the children, spend the afternoon with them and prepare dinner. The Ex was in charge of bedtime and getting the kids to school the following morning. I’d left lists on the fridge regarding pet care, school morning prep, and various other significant details like bedtimes, school hours, GP phone number, etc. The kids were also assigned responsibilities.

I left home enthusiastic about 36 hours where I was responsible for no-one but myself. In theory.

The trip was great – a French film, dinner in Chinatown, a great concert and interesting conversation. And then…

As I woke the following morning I received two text messages almost simultaneously. One from my older son letting me know that my younger son’s favourite guinea pig (Mojo) had died during the night, then one from The Ex stating ‘It appears we’ve had a death in the family’ before following up with a brief explanation. I rang the house. My older son answered.

He explained that Mojo had been found dead in the guinea pig cage that morning with the other guinea pig quite distressed, attempting to feed her lettuce to revive her. I asked if his younger brother, our ‘Guinea Pig Whisperer’, knew yet. He said no, he was still eating breakfast but was talking about how he would feed the guinea pigs before he finished getting ready for school. I asked to speak with The Ex.

I asked how he planned to deal with the situation. He explained he was busy making lunches and couldn’t do anything about it straight away. I said that it was important that our son be told before he discovered the body for himself. The Ex said he’d get to it, but he really needed to concentrate on getting the lunches made and other things organised for school and work. I asked for the phone to be given back to the 12yo.

Following my instructions, my son sat on the lounge holding his younger brother while over the phone, hours away from being able to hold him myself, I explained that his beloved Mojo had died. With his older brother’s arms around him and my voice in his ear, he cried. My heart broke.

I comforted him as best I could, and then spoke with my older son again and with my daughter. I guess I spoke with The Ex again. Or maybe not. I hung up and felt the full impact of knowing my children were dealing with one of the significant emotional milestones of childhood on their own.

On the bus on the way to school a little while later, my older son called me with an update and to ask for the phone number for his younger siblings’ school. He took the initiative of calling the office and asking for their classroom teachers to be told they’d had an upsetting morning and might need some extra care during the day. I was so proud of his thoughtfulness and maturity.

At school pick up that afternoon, the younger children started crying as they climbed into the car. I leaned across to hug my daughter, who said it was the first comfort she’d received; that she’d had no hug or sympathy for her grief at home. I’d been so focused on encouraging my older son to comfort his younger brother that I’d forgotten to suggest he hug his sister as well. I felt awful, compounding the guilt caused by my absence at such an upsetting moment for them.

This is not an isolated example. This is how I lived my life – as a married single parent, responsible for everything and everyone, always. I had full responsibility for the emotional wellbeing of three children and almost 100% of the physical, logistical and decision-making responsibilities as well. The only aspects of the children’s lives that The Ex noticed were the ones that coincided with his own needs. I created the image of the family he wanted others to believe we had. He believed it was real. I did such a good job that even I believed it for the longest time, until I was so damn tired I couldn’t do it any more.

My 7yo son lost his beloved pet.

My 10yo daughter was upset and unnoticed.

My 12yo son was sad, but held his brother while he heard the news and did what he could to care for his siblings.

I broke my son’s heart by telling him his pet had died, offered words of comfort to the children, and organised the preliminary logistics of dealing with the death of a pet while 180km away. I felt guilty and worried and heartbroken for my children and their loss.

Their father made their lunches.

Exhaustion by a Thousand Thoughts

Exhaustion by a thousand thoughts – it’s like death by a thousand cuts, but inside my head.

There’s all the surface thoughts. They’re continuous and the usual mix of good and bad. They’re tiring, but not exhausting and they’re often little more than a vaguely annoying buzz in the back of my mind while I’m focused on other things.

There’s the thought loops. These are often also in the background. Upsetting, rather than vaguely annoying. Demoralising. They’re the thoughts that take all the positive minor thoughts hostage by reminding me of all the things I’ve been conditioned to believe about myself – I’m not good enough, I’m inadequate, and I’m a disappointment. Everything is my fault and everything is my responsibility. Who I am and what I feel is unimportant. These thoughts are so familiar I’m not sure could call them exhausting either. They just are.

There’s the thoughts I consciously take hostage myself. Opinions, suggestions, thoughts about what I feel, what I want, how I want things to change. Those thoughts aren’t exhausting, but the constant monitoring to make sure I don’t inflict my needs on someone else is. Not that it always works. Those opinions, suggestions, complaints and requests sneak out anyway. And then there’s the wave of self recriminating thoughts that follow those breaches. They’re exhausting too.

The most exhausting thoughts, the ones that wear me down, are the ones where I’m constantly debating with myself. Constantly reminding myself that it’s okay to want things, to be myself, to make mistakes, to let go of feeling responsible for every one and every thing. The thoughts where I’m reminding myself that my life is good and that I’m so very lucky to love and be loved in the way that I am, that it’s okay to believe that will last. The ones where I’m trying to convince myself that I’m safe now. That I can be myself.

The thoughts where I’m trying to work out who I actually am and what I want for myself after so many years of prioritising the happiness of others ahead of my own. Instead of my own. Those thoughts are beyond exhausting. They’re a mix of frightening and overwhelming. And they make me sad because I never have any answers.

Most days I’m okay. There’s a kind of fragile balance. Other days I’m good. My life is genuinely wonderful and I’m exceptionally grateful for all that I have.

And other days, something happens to shift the balance and I don’t have the energy to put forward all those arguments for why I love my life so much. I feel weak and broken and selfish and needy and so incapable of ever getting to the point where the reality of my life isn’t in conflict with all the things I tell myself inside my head.

So today I will just accept that I am exhausted. Tomorrow is another day where hopefully the fragile balance will be back in place.

A Tale of Two Grandmothers

When I was young (I’m not sure how young, pre-school aged, I guess), I was apparently in a bakery with my mother. The bakery was on the main road in the suburb where my paternal grandmother lived.

According to my mother, she and I were standing in line to be served at the bakery when my grandmother walked in, pushed in front of us so she would be served ahead of us, then left without acknowledging my mother or me. She apparently saw us as she was driving past with her partner, made him stop the car, and deliberately came into the shop to ignore and inconvenience her daughter-in-law before leaving without a word.

I can picture the bakery – where it was positioned on the street and the long glass display counter filled with all the traditional 70s bakery treats. I have a hazy sense of random people and a wire display rack with loaves of bread within the store filling the space and providing a backdrop for our little family drama.

My memories of the store are an amalgam of multiple visits and probably multiple similar stores, not an accurate backdrop for that specific memory. To be honest, I have absolutely no memory of that event at all. I know that my ‘recollection’ is based entirely on my mother sharing the story multiple times over years. There has never been a spark of personal recognition when she’s told it to me, other than the familiarity of hearing her voice shape the words.

The story always ended with my mother reminding me that my grandmother’s behaviour was unnecessarily cruel and selfish. My grandmother and parents were apparently at odds about some issue at the time, but to ignore your own grandchild because you are unhappy with their parents was, in my mother’s view, unforgivable.

In the past when I’ve randomly thought about this anecdote, the mental and emotional pathways have been reasonably linear. It’s a memory from my childhood where my grandmother was mean to my mother in my presence. There are no associated emotions. It’s consistent with what I know about my grandmother, but I don’t remember feeling hurt or rejected at the time (because I don’t remember it at all), so it’s not really a factor in how I feel about my grandmother except in a purely academic sense of being another (small) facet of the picture of her that I have in my mind.

The reality is that this story isn’t really about my grandmother, it’s about my mother. I have no memory of this event, but I have strong memories of my mother sharing it with me – repeating it to me over and over. I have clear memories of my mother using this story as an example of how difficult my grandmother was and how inappropriately conditional her love was, that she reserved her affection for those who made choices she approved of and that she was superficial and inconsistent in the way she demonstrated her love.

And that fact – that this memory says more about my connection with my mother than with my grandmother – means that this is no longer a linear family anecdote, mentally or emotionally.

I’ve wondered at times about the details of this particular story, although when it comes down to it the details don’t really matter. It doesn’t even matter if it actually happened because I don’t remember it and so nothing I’ve ever heard about it has been about explaining my perception of things. It’s always been about creating a memory, not explaining it or providing reassurance. (ETA: extended family has confirmed that it did happen and it was something my grandmother bragged about doing after the event.)

Taking that into account, why would my mother share this story with me so frequently that it’s become a pseudo-memory that feels like it belongs to me when it really belongs to her? What was there for her to gain in demonstrating to me that my grandmother didn’t care about my feelings? Why would she choose to remind me that I’d been rejected by someone I should have been able to trust unconditionally? If my grandmother’s behaviour was so hurtful and inappropriate, why did my mother put so much effort into making me relive a hurtful moment?

Perhaps she felt she was helping to protect me from my grandmother’s inconsistency – forewarned is forearmed, so the saying goes, and what better warning than a real-life example of her selfishness? That doesn’t explain why she continued to share the story with me into my adulthood, however, and well beyond my grandmother’s death. What protection would I need from her at that point? And I was always encouraged to spend time with my grandmother and to show affection towards her. I was encouraged to stay with her in school holidays and visit her regularly on my own as I grew older, so why encourage me to do that while giving me reasons to keep my distance?

I have several pseudo-memories like this one and as far as I’m aware, my mother hasn’t bombarded either of my sisters with hurtful memories from her life or their childhood. Why was I the one selected to hear my mother’s memories of hurts inflicted by others and reminders of how many times I’ve personally hurt and disappointed her?

And more relevant to my life now, why did my mother put so much effort into passing judgement on my grandmother’s lack of love and concern for her grandchild when she’s distanced herself from my children because she’s so disappointed in the way I managed my separation and divorce? Barely any contact with the children for the first 18 months of the separation and nothing for the past 12 months – no cards or texts for Christmas or their birthdays. She’s even moved to a different town without letting them know or making any effort to contact them, even though they’re all in their teens and she has their phone numbers. By her own standards, her rejection has been heartless and inexcusable and my children will remember not because I embed a pseudo-memory for them, but because they are all old enough to understand that their grandmother rejected them for no reason at a time when they most needed her support and unconditional love.

In many ways it’s an innocuous anecdote and as memories from my childhood go, this one is far less traumatic than many others. For me, the significance is how it contributes to my growing awareness that my mother’s baseline for choosing right and wrong behaviour is how it makes her feel. It’s a skewed way of looking at the world and it’s given me a lot to think about as I look back over my relationship with her.

Decisions and Expectations

I have, at various times in my life, been quite fit. I’ve had gym memberships I’ve actually used and at one stage even walked to the gym a couple of mornings a week, worked out for half an hour, then walked home in time to get ready for work. I’ve enjoyed bike riding and walking for exercise and pleasure. I even took dressage riding lessons for a year or so. I’ve gone to fitness classes and I’ve worked out at home.

I have also, at various times in my life, been quite unfit. I was a child of average weight who became a teenager of more than average weight in a family of significantly more than average weight. In my early 20s I was seriously under average weight for a period of time.

None of that is particularly remarkable, except to demonstrate that I’ve had the usual range of fitness experiences including fluctuations in weight and varying interest in exercise. I’ve always found focused exercise mindlessly boring, but not stressful – simply a necessary evil to ensure I don’t head down the same path as most of my family.

In theory, that should mean that exercise is a non-issue. I’m currently not happy with my general fitness and weight, exercise produces lovely endorphins to help counteract some of the less happy stuff circling in my brain, and I have a track record of finding regular exercise useful and achievable (if uninspiring). It should be a no brainer.

But recently, when my husband returned from a run and was talking about his fitness goals, the app he’s using to track his stats, and his plans to regularly join one of the local Park Run groups, the fluttery ache in my chest became more pronounced and my thoughts started to spiral. I could feel my heart rate accelerate.

The train of thought that triggered the anxiety quickly progressed from thinking about exercising with my husband to thinking about how that would involve tracking goals and stats, to feeling completely overwhelmed by the knowledge that I’d never be able to keep up and I’d just slow him down. I felt irrationally pressured to have stats worth tracking. And I was already bracing myself for my husband to be disappointed that I’m not fitter and more interested in running (which he loves) and feeling a sense of abandonment because this would something he would pursue without me. [Those negative thoughts are all a reflection of the mess in my head, not anything he’s said or done.]

By the end I was feeling teary and anxious and frustrated that the thought of exercising (or more specifically someone else exercising) could derail me so quickly, when it’s something I’ve done in the past with so little effort. It’s an overwhelming irony that I seemed to cope so much better with life when my life was so much worse.

But the anxiety isn’t about the exercise, of course. it’s about the dysfunctional assumptions about implied goals and targets and expectations. All the expectations of what I should be able to achieve and how I should be prioritising this over something else. The expectation that I should be able to make decisions and follow through without everything becoming some kind of existential crisis. All the things I should do and be and think, that I never manage to achieve. All the ways I think I disappoint people.

A lifetime of failing to live up to the expectations of my parents and ex-husband and an awareness from my earliest memories of what I should be doing means that just the thought of setting fitness goals made me panic. I felt useless and like a failure before I even started.

I have a friend who has deal with some tough times by setting herself fitness goals and focusing on achieving them. She’s explained it as something that’s completely independent of others – she sets her own targets, pushes herself to achieve them, then sets the next goal. She doesn’t have to rely on anyone else and she gets the satisfaction of knowing that she’s achieved something by herself, for herself. It’s an empowering thought and I can understand the appeal for her.

But it’s hard to shake a lifetime of being told implicitly and explicitly that my focus should be helping others achieve their goals, or achieving the goals set for me by others. Pushing past those well established mental and emotional barriers is painful and exhausting, as ridiculous as that sounds.

I should be able to push past this – I know exercise and fitness is something I need to prioritise. And if this was the only decision where I was battling my expectation trauma response, then maybe I would find it easier to force myself past the initial resistance. But it isn’t the only decision. I fight this battle dozens of times each day at home and work. I’m exhausted by the constant need to review each emotion and thought to ensure they aren’t shadows of my past rather than a reflection of my present.

Exercise. Social commitments. Music choice. Work. Parenting. Relaxation time. Family priorities. Writing. Health. Hobbies. Everyday life. The decisions each day seem endless and most of them involve effort to override the anxious thought that whatever I decide, the decision will be the wrong one.

I’m counting it as progress that I can think this through and recognise the dysfunctional thought patterns. I was able to continue to function after the conversation with my husband, where previously the thought loops would have gained momentum and the rest of my evening would have been lost to panic and damage control.

I’m getting better, I think. It’s slow and painful and exhausting, but I’m hoping that these tiny steps forward will gradually gain momentum. Until then, I’ll just keep putting one foot in front of the other (but won’t be tracking my step count).

When Getting Better Means Feeling Worse

I wonder sometimes why I feel so anxious now, when my life now is so much safer and I’m surrounded by so much love and acceptance. I don’t remember feeling anxious ‘before’, when I felt so sad and lonely and insignificant so often. I don’t remember having to talk myself out of panic attacks or even having panic attacks. I don’t remember a constant fluttery ache in my chest or being self-conscious about joining conversations, or avoiding certain places or people or songs or words because I knew the emotions they triggered would feel overwhelming. I would never have described myself as anxious.

I do remember attempting to get support for depression on multiple occasions. I tried different medications (which resulted in unbearable side effects). I went to several different psychologists over the years, who focused on encouraging me to find ways to take care of and prioritise myself as a way of counteracting my feelings of sadness and lack of energy. I consulted with my pastors and church elders, who recommended prayer, a heart of service and humility, reading the Bible, and focusing on being a better wife and mother.

I felt sad and overwhelmed and, at times, hopeless, but not anxious. Outwardly I maintained the facade of a happy if tired stay-at-home mother busy with children, volunteer work and hobbies, raising three wonderful children, supporting my busy professional husband, and trying to be an active part of my extended family, church, and school community. Inwardly, I was exhausted and emotionally depleted. Maybe people noticed that, but I don’t think so. If they did, very few cared enough to do anything about it, so that’s pretty much the same as not noticing, right?

While I was undeniably depressed throughout my marriage, I think the depression was a symptom of a bigger problem. I think I felt sad and trapped and inadequate beyond the ability of my brain to process those feelings and that presented as depression. I wasn’t depressed, I was distraught. And abused.

It’s almost three years since I left that marriage. It’s just over a year since the last time I had to talk to the police to report harassment and intimidation from my ex. Almost one year since his most recent openly expressed harassing demands, delivered via his lawyer with the threat of legal action. (More subtle acts of intimidation and emotional manipulation continue.) More than 18 months since my last conversation with my mother (which lasted less than two minutes) and ranting text message from my father. One year since I wrote my parents a letter saying that their ongoing indifference to me and my children and support of my ex meant that I was choosing to no longer include them in my life.

It’s been thirteen months since I commenced trauma/C-PTSD therapy with an incredibly helpful supportive therapist, attending sessions on an almost weekly basis to find ways to understand and counteract the coping mechanisms and conditioned behaviours of a lifetime of emotional neglect and abuse. And it’s been just over a year since I married a man who reminds me daily that I am loved and valued and safe and who always treats me like I matter. Always.

My children are safe and happy. I’m surrounded daily by people I love. I have a good job working for a man I respect, and I am slowly, slowly regaining the ability to connect with people and with words. I have everything I need, and more.

Yet the fluttering ache of anxiety in my chest remains a constant companion. I often start the day slowly, not because I struggle to wake up, but because I have to give myself a pep talk to convince myself that I can cope with whatever the day might bring my way. That I’m not useless and inadequate and vulnerable. That I’m safe.

It has surprised me that even though I am in such a safe and happy place, that the anxiety still feels so intense. I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that anxiety isn’t a reaction to my environment (as the depression was), but it is now part of who I am. Maybe I’ve always felt this way, but now I’m more aware of physical and emotional signs of my anxiety. Maybe I can simply better recognise anxiety, instead of grouping all my feelings together and labelling them as depression because that was much easier to deal with than being honest with myself about how trapped and hopeless and awful I felt for so long.

Or maybe I’m still riding the wave of those suppressed emotions now that they are free to be acknowledged after almost 44 years of putting in so much effort to convince others, and myself, that everything was fine when so much of it was awful. I guess it will take time for those previously unacknowledged feelings to run their course (because ignoring them doesn’t make them go away).

I am so much more aware of myself now. I struggle daily with feelings of inadequacy and anxiety and low self-worth (well, mostly non-existent self-worth, actually). I have no idea why my husband loves me. I blame myself for everything (including things I have no control over). I anticipate my failure in every situation and I anticipate the worst case scenario for everything I do. I accept all criticism as being justified, and shrug off compliments as unwarranted kindness. Simple acts of love and caring from my husband and my children leave me feeling overwhelmed and confused. I need to talk myself back from the edge of tears and panic far more often than I should.

But despite all of this, because of it really, I can see that I’m getting better. Because I can write all of this down. I can see that the way I’m responding is dysfunctional. I can see that my view of myself is distorted through the lens of the disapproval and unrealistic, narcissistic, self-focused expectations of people who only ever valued me for how I made them feel and never for myself.

I feel worse because I’m more aware of my own emotions and because acknowledging the reality of my past is hard. It’s all part of the process of recovering myself after a lifetime of abuse that conditioned me to believe that only the parts of me that supported others had any value.

My anxiety is part of who I am now and I’m finding ways to deal with it. It sounds like things are worse, but the reality is that despite the anxiety and challenging truths and emotional triggers and the effort required to counteract so many emotionally undermining conditioned responses, I am starting to make active choices to care for myself. And I am starting to slowly believe that I deserve to be happy. And that’s a sign that things are getting better.

What’s in a Name

I’ve had several names throughout my life.

As expected, the first was given to me by my parents. My surname represented my father’s family (also assumed by my mother when they married). My middle name was a common one for girls of my generation with a Catholic family background. I was one of a significant number of girls at my high school with Anne or a variation of Mary as a middle name.

My first name was chosen by my mother at the last minute, when asked by the hospital staff for the name of the baby (or so the story goes). Up to that point she had planned to name me Bernadette, but instead in the moment of truth another name was given. I’m kind of glad for that – that my name wasn’t one she claimed and cherished as she approached the birth of her first child. Given everything that has happened since that moment, I’m glad my name doesn’t feel like something precious that she and I share somehow, but which she retains ownership of. I am me, with a name allocated at random that I’ve made my own.

The second ‘name’, a minor variation of the original, was gained when I married at the age of 22. I took my now ex-husband’s surname without no thought of considering the options. A church wedding, Christian background, early 90s social expectations. It wasn’t even something I thought about, other than looking forward to having a surname that was easier for people to spell (my maiden name was of Irish origin with a ‘Mc’ invariably spelled as ‘Mac’ and generally requiring repeated spellings to ensure accuracy if I had to give it over the phone).

I was married for 22 years and that second surname (my ex-husband’s) was a label for ‘adult me’ in the same way the first surname (my father’s) represented ‘childhood me’.

Then I left my marriage in my early 40s and that second name no longer seemed right – it no longer represented me and it was a reminder of a version of myself that I no longer identified with. I know many women revert to their maiden name in such circumstances, particularly if they are trying to emotionally distance themselves from an abusive relationship (as I was), however my parents made it clear that they remained connected with and supportive of my ex-husband, and my childhood surname no longer felt safe. It was just a further reminder that I was defined by my connection with people who didn’t value me and treated me like an extension of themselves instead of someone with value in my own right.

I felt like neither name was the right fit for the transition into my new life, but picking a name at random also felt wrong, like assuming someone else’s identity. So, I continued to use my married name, changed ‘Mrs’ to ‘Ms’, and tried to suppress the wave of revulsion whenever I saw it written anywhere (or had to write it myself).

This revulsion became a particular issue as my third book was published, almost 18 months after I left my marriage. I had one book published pre-separation, and another that was in the final stages of production during those first months after I left the marriage. Both of these books were published under my married name.

[Side note: interestingly, this revulsion was never triggered by my children’s names, perhaps because there is no sense of them being something that belongs to me (like the books I’ve created or my own identity). Instead, their names reflect who *they* are and aren’t connected with the challenges and internal conflicts I face as I redefine myself.]

For the third book, where I had time to consider options, I decided to use a pseudonym, but I once again came up against the challenge of what name to use. I didn’t want my parents’ or ex-husband’s surname on my book (the thought actually made me feel physically ill), but I didn’t have a name that felt like my own to use. In the end, I chose a pen name that was a variation of my own first name and a surname that was a connection with my grandmother. It appears on my third book, and is linked by the publisher with the other two. If I write more books in this genre I will probably use it, but it doesn’t really feel like my name. It’s more like a label. It’s something functional created to solve a problem, not something I feel a connection with. It doesn’t really represent me, any more than my other ‘hats’ of wife, mother, sister, friend, secretary, writer, or any of a dozen others do. It’s a fragment of a whole.

I’ve married again and now I have another name, once again taking my husband’s surname as my own. This time I thought about it. I considered my options. I’m still working out how this name fits, but it’s a name I selected by conscious choice, shared by someone who made it clear that I was welcome to claim this outward connection to him, but it was certainly not something that was expected or requested.

And at the other end of the spectrum is this blog, a place where I chose to have no name, because I needed to feel safe and needed a space where I could simply be, without having to conform to or protect a particular identity. There were privacy issues too, of course. I wanted a space where I could write honestly and directly without worrying about extended family, who were actively trying to undermine me, taking things out of context. And I wanted to minimise the possibility of my writing being connected with my children and further complicating things for them as they processed the impact of the separation and divorce, and their father’s past and ongoing abuse.

But it’s been almost 3 years since the end of my first marriage, and my children have largely worked out what boundaries they need to maintain for their own wellbeing (although this is under regular review). The anonymity of the blog, though necessary, has always felt like a contradiction to its purpose, which was to help me feel less ‘invisible’ after decades of relationships that forced me to suppress who I really am. So, as I head into the New Year, I’m claiming back another piece of myself by establishing some tenuous links between these words and myself.

Hello world. My name is Susan.