.: Entry One-Hundred and Eight :.

My name is Elliot Parker.

So what are those wonderful things I am looking forward to? How can I rebuild myself?

Because that is what I have to do, I suppose it is the only choice I have.

So what do you do when you finally get your freedom after being trapped in some kind of bizarre horror show of an existence?

First, I get to stop beating myself up. It is ok to not be ok. It is fine to let yourself feel hurt and grieve as long as I can stop letting it consume me.

So I started by dying my hair. Not some crazy colour, not some false version of me I can project on the world and pretend that I am ok with like wearing a mask. No, I am stopping doing that. I am stopping this stupid need to hide how I feel. So I dyed my hair sort of close to my natural colour-ish, again, only this is the closest match I managed to find. So there it is, the first layer of my mask is gone.

I won’t be beating myself up or getting mad at myself for crying anymore. I am releasing resistance when I do, I am finding some semblance of healing when I free myself from pretending to have things together.

So what else?

I am going to paint my toes. It sounds small, but it is a little bit of pampering, it is a little self-care and self-love beyond doing the bare minimum to pretend to be ok. Painting my toes is for me, people at work don’t see my toes, I don’t wear peep-toe shoes, I don’t wear flip flops really, my toes are my private little pampering and sparkle that get to be my little nod to say it is ok.

What next?

I am going to listen to some music that feels more like summer, feels brighter and more fun and more sassy. I haven’t listened to music in a while so this will be a nice change.

I am going to be proud and draw a little bit. A little doodle once in a while.

I am going to check in more on here, write more on here, not keep bottling things up.

This can be my safe space for a while too.

I am going to meet up with Hal and spend some time with my brother from another mother. A good quality hang out just the two of us and catch up on everything. I am going to have fun and eat junk with him and talk about everything. I’m going to open up to him.

I am going to honour JJ in some way, however that is I will find a way that feels right. The best dog ever that would be the clown to make me laugh when I was broken hearted, my best friend and baby boy.

What else?

I am going to shave my legs and wear a pretty dress and go out with Dyl for dinner and have a lovely date and spend some time together. I want to make sure he knows just how much I appreciate him. And yes I know I started that sentence with I am going to shave my legs, it’s a special occasion so I won’t be doing the rushed ones I have done the last two weeks, I am going to take my time because I can’t keep scratching skin off with the razor when I rush. The razor is meant to cut my hair not my damn legs into ribbons.

…

This post was interrupted. I received a message from a friend. You see not long after thinking about trying to find some way to honour JJ, trying to think of a way that I could have some consistent reminder of him with me always an event fell into perfect place. The message said that my tattoo artist had had a cancellation, on a day that would have been impossible to get time on and my friend thought of me. I had asked about getting a time slot either yesterday or today but my artist was fully booked. So when the message came through I thought this is brilliant. So within twenty minutes I had gotten dressed and left to go to the studio.

So I got a tattoo on my right leg, the side that JJ had been trained to walk to. I got something that both JJ and I loved playing together, bubbles. It seemed like the most perfect way to honour him. I needed to do something, to give myself some way, some place to grieve.

Last night was the first night I wasn’t bursting in tears before I dozed off. That’s not to say I slept well, not at all, I woke up regularly. It drives me a little crazy that I haven’t slept through the night yet. But this was the step in the right direction. It didn’t even hurt that much today, it was fine at work and now here I am. Finally, with some way to feel like JJ is with me still, in some kind of way. I don’t feel so alone, JJ was wonderful like that, he was always there always excited to just be with me and spend time doing whatever. Being separated was always something very hard on the both of us, we were so in sync together. He was as much a part of me as I might have been to him. That’s the most precious thing about having a dog. They become part of you, they are impossible to forget but the most horrendous pain in their absence. He is so irreplaceable and he will always be a part of me, in my heart and now on my skin. It is the perfect way to have him with me always. Now hopefully as the ink heals I will heal at least a little with it.

.: Entry One-Hundred and Seven :.

My name is Elliot Parker. My heart is still broken.

The sense of loss is still overwhelming. Two weeks, my dog is gone, my childhood home, my childhood, my memories, my belongings, what little of the relationship I had with my mother. It’s all gone. I won’t get any of that back. The memories are all tainted with the poison of all the deception and lies. My mother might have been happy living with all those damn lies, every single one, she might have been fine with living, but I see it for what it was, what it is and it makes me feel sick.

All I want more than anything is my dog. I want him to know I love him that I never got that chance to say goodbye. There’s no body for my grief to get closure. There will never be closure where my mother is involved. Finding out all those lies, that is the closest I will ever come to any kind of closure. I am so far beyond things.

In those two weeks? The first two days Madam basically manipulated everything, told my nana I was yelling at her, that I threw stuff at her, that it was all my fault that I ruined her relationship. Everything ridiculous under the sun, even though I had told nana everything the moment it was over. She managed to get nana to blame me too. That hurt. Though I wouldn’t admit that to her. Instead I said she wouldn’t have had a problem in any of her relationships if she hadn’t lied so freaking much about every single damn thing.

How is it she can make everything my fault when all I did was discover the truth, all of it. Finding out the truth wasn’t free for me, I had to give him the answers to his questions. I had to stand in a room with her *vomit creeps up the back of the throat* husband. I wasn’t the one who lied to everyone for three years after getting married in secret. I wasn’t the one who rehomed JJ without my consent, let alone even telling me.

How the hell am I meant to be ok with this, why is it that my nana won’t accept the fact that her daughter destroyed everything her own damn self, told horrific lies, tried to scam out a new TV and yet I am the monster?

I will never forgive my mother’s actions. I will never accept them. I feel like I will never make peace with them. She takes any joy I have ever had and has single headedly destroyed it and then found some angle some way to blame me for it every way, every time since I can remember. How the hell is that fair?

How am I always the monster? How am I always the villain and her some poor defenceless victim?

When I had my CBT after the event I found one word that could accurately describe my mother, narcissist. The other word is delusional, but I think she knows what she is doing. She knows she is manipulating things to suit her.

CBT has helped but that hasn’t cured barely sleeping at all, my record sleep was maybe about 5 hours in one night, not solid, but it was still more sleep in one night than any of the other nights. Every day I wake up with that horrid pounding head you get after crying yourself to sleep and every day I am pulling the threads of myself together so people don’t know that I am only pretending to be ok. I am very much not ok.

But one thing I am proud of myself for over all of this, I haven’t resulted to my old coping mechanisms. I am still eating, I haven’t been harming myself, I haven’t had a drink. I am sober in all my vices. I am clinging onto my life, on to any stability by the finest of threads.

I don’t think I would be this sort of stable if it wasn’t for that wonderfully abundant influence in my life, the biggest source of joy, Dyl. So far I think I have only broken down properly in front of him over the two weeks twice at most. It’s not that I am hiding how I feel from him, but that I want some to keep things joyful to a degree, I know he knows I am really struggling. But he is still very much being there for me. I know I couldn’t be luckier than to have him by my side.

I broke down a few nights ago, I was afraid I would lose him to like I lost everything else. He reassured me the opposite. But I suppose I hadn’t realised just how this pain was seeping into my thoughts. I know my relationship with Dyl is secure. I know it is safe, and yet with losing all those ropes I was afraid I’d lose him too. It makes sense in some logic. I know I won’t.

I just wish I could get free of this feeling of holding myself together using something like dental floss. Because I can do it. I can survive. I can get back to knowing happiness again. I don’t have to be in this trapped prison of still feeling caged because I am free and I know I am free and I am trying so hard to look forward to life. Look forward to the future that I am building with Dyl. I know it’s stupid, and I know I said it and I mean it that my mother will never be there for anything else in my life and I know that is my choice. But every girl wants their mother at their one-day wedding. I can’t even trust my mother enough to tell me if the sky is blue without checking there is no way I would risk anything remotely important near her no matter what.

.: Entry One-Hundred and Six :.

My name is Elliot Parker. Yes, I was finally getting what was left of my belongings but what happened that day still isn’t over.

So as I was packing Madam came upstairs and asked me “how much have you told him?” I said we were only having a conversation; could she leave me alone so I could get on with it. She disappeared back downstairs for a few minutes and came back upstairs this time she said “you told him nana was giving me money” I responded in saying that it’s the truth. I told her to leave me alone again. I suppose she went back downstairs yet again talking to him. By this point all that I could say was that I was proud of myself for not flying off the handle or anything. Even though, it probably would have made me feel better she would have found a way to create a victim stance against it.

Well the next time she came up she said “it’s all your fault I am losing everything you ruined everything. I’m losing you and I’m losing him and it’s all your fault.”

My fault? Really? Because I told one ridiculous lie after another, played everyone off of one another to get what I wanted and then blamed everyone else when it got found out? Are you freaking kidding me? None of this was my fault. I didn’t ask for any of this, I didn’t want any of this. I told her to leave me alone but she didn’t she just kept on blaming me and trying to make me feel bad and guilty that she got told off so I finally raised my voice and told her to leave me alone. She walked away and went back downstairs. I finished packing my stuff. It was a few carrier bags full when you took out what was broken and damaged.

Sure I felt even more bitter, they had thrown out the bedside unit of my grandads that I had inherited and it hurt more, she had stolen my last chance to say goodbye to him years ago as it was by taking her then boyfriend now *vomits more in the mouth* husband up there to see him. I couldn’t hate her more if I tried in that moment, another memory stolen, ruined and desecrated by lies. More lies and more of her making herself a victim and making herself more and what she wants more important than anyone else.

Her *eww* husband helped me carry my stuff down stairs and into the front garden. I said a goodbye and I said “quite frankly I am proud of myself for keeping my shit together and not letting my temper fly. I made lots of progress.” Then I spoke to her directly this time “if you want any sort of forgiveness or to sort things out you need to go get help and sort yourself out. Go see a shrink.” I said goodbye the door closed.

Dyl came to my rescue, I took my stuff to him at the end of the road and he helped me carry it to his. As far as I am concerned I’ve never wanted him to meet her, for the simple reason, I don’t want her toxic influence to spread onto something that makes me so unbelievably happy.

On the way to Dyl’s I called my nana and told her every single thing that was said and done in those two hours all that I found out and she still didn’t believe me. She refused to believe Madam being married until she saw the certificate. I told her everything regardless. I told her simply that I am done with Madam. I told her that she will not ever come to my wedding when I get married, she will never meet any children I have and she will not be a part of my future. I told nana to not try to change that.

That evening, when it came to bed time, that was the first night that I cried and it felt like every cell in my body was crying too. It was like I was screaming on the inside and struggling to breathe through the tears. I lost so much in such a quick amount of time. My dog baby JJ, what little relationship I had left with my mother, what little connection I had with her, with my house, my home and my childhood, however good or bad was smashed and destroyed.

It felt like I had lost everything, but not quite, I know I had Dyl. But it felt like I had finally let go of those ropes that had been burning me and had me chained up and in agony for my entire life. Part of me couldn’t understand what I was crying about, I had my freedom. My entire freedom, something I needed and wanted for so long. I had it. Yet, all I could feel was this horrific feeling of loss. Like a giant black whale crushing me, like that elephant had come to destroy me with his friend. Breathing just hurt. Trying to hold it together was like trying to capture the ocean in your fingers. Impossible.

That was the start of me not being able to sleep properly at all. While I lay there all night in the dark, the warmth of Dyl beside me could only soothe the pain so much, I lay awake almost all night, unable to sleep. I saw nearly all the hours of that night other than two. When I woke up it began again. Trying to pretend like I was ok. Like rearranging the bags so that I could take them back to mine wasn’t tearing me to shreds inside. Being able to examine all the damage of what I could save close up. Remembering all the things I couldn’t, all the things that were absent from my rescue attempt.

.: Entry One-Hundred and Five :.

My name is Elliot Parker, and the story of that two hours of my life is still not finished.

So, there we were, in the kitchen. I said the new floor looked good, turned out he had laid it himself. Credit where credit is due, it looked better than the last load of lino. So I asked what else was different. The old living room, the one I had painted was all new with a carpet and everything I had put in there was gone. That was the first clue.

He asked me if I saw her on Sundays, the day he wasn’t about. I said no, I work Sundays. He said he thinks she’s been having an affair. I shrugged. Not my business, but I don’t see her Sundays. I said I was only there because things were tense when she came over earlier. He said she had told him she was off out at a breakfast with her mates. I shrugged again. I told him where she was, I explained it was the only day I could make. She had been hounding to spend time with me and that was the only day I was willing to give her. She had told him she goes to visit her mother and she can’t help it if I am there, she wasn’t happy about it. I wondered how much more ridiculousness we were enduring.

I asked to go to see my room. He told me there wasn’t much there. He was right, the units I had brought, built and installed in my room a few months before I left were gone, thrown in a skip apparently. My bed was gone. What little of my stuff remained was likely to be in the bin bags stacked in the corner of the room. The little she hadn’t thrown away was in bin bags. The last of my life was there, crumpled up in a heap in the corner of the room. That’s when it hit me, how little she cared for my existence, it made me in that moment question if she ever did. I wouldn’t have the questioning lingering much longer though.

We went back downstairs and talked some more. Some of it was catching up, some of it was dispelling Madam’s myths. This was beginning to get ridiculous. I asked him if he had a job, he said no, she had been telling him not to that she was insisting he didn’t get a job, didn’t apply and didn’t interview. And I believed him, she did the exact same thing to me all the time, she hated when I did get a job in that hell of a school. Surprising, considering how badly she was desperate to kick me out again. I told her that she was making it seem like he was scrounging money off her and putting her into debt, she was always making it seem like she had no money at all. She had been taking money from my nana. He was surprised. I explained to him that I wasn’t blackmailing her at all, fact of the matter was when he left for prison she made me move back in and I managed to get rid of some of her debts for her. She made me delete all my social medias at the time so that him and his family couldn’t find me (telling me he was threatening me, but telling him and his family that I died) for that she gave me a little bit of money in her words as a present to make up for it.

The more we spoke the more we found out, I wanted to take the little of my stuff and leave. We were discussing if we going to confront her with it or walk away when the choice was taken from us. The key was in the door and she was walking in. So we sat in the other room and waited in silence waiting for her to walk in. We sat there as she walked in the room and waited for her to speak, she stood there staring at us sat as physically as far apart on opposite ends of the room, sure it was a civilised conversation, but I am certain neither of us felt safe at all. In any way shape or form. She didn’t speak. So I did, “I thought I’d stop by for a chat and to see JJ, but apparently he’s not been here for months.” She stood there for a minute realising her lies were exposed. She just said “Oh, yeah.”

Rather than speaking to her directly I asked if I could borrow some bags so I could take my things from the bin bags upstairs. Her *vomits in mouth* husband got up and took some carrier bags out of the cupboard under the stairs. I took the bags and I went upstairs and began to undo the top bag. I got into it and leafed through trying to find what I hadn’t wanted to be parted from. I found some of the family photos cramped into the bottom of one and took it out and began putting things into bags sorting through the stuff. It was stressful and it hurt me to do it. To have to work out what was salvageable and what I had to give up on. I had to give up on a lot. Luckily the things I wanted most I could rescue, just about, however bent and squashed they were I could take them. And I had no intention of leaving the things behind. Even though this was less than a quarter of what I had in my room when I had to leave. Whether it was the dust or how I felt about it making it hard to breathe I couldn’t tell. I guess that’s when that elephant of emotions found its homing beacon. It was painful and I wanted to break down and cry but now was not the time, I wasn’t in a safe place. Not yet.