... Before I Carry On.... · 12:04am Jun 7th, 2021
Hello, Chaps And Chapettes.
How are you all doing? I hope you're staying safe. We might be on a turning point, but everything balances on a knife-edge, so only take risks if no other choice is apparent. That being said, it has been a hellish year and you all deserve something good to come out of the 2nd half of this year.
I thought I should write now to discuss where my life is, and more importantly for you where my writing aspirations are. Since there was a long gap between Luna Switched chapters, I decided I really needed to explain myself.
I have to admit, I started this year with optimism. I believed nothing could match the pain and difficulty of last year, the fear that COVID-19 might get one of my family or friends, or the trouble of being out of work due to redundancy between September and November. Particularly when I started a new job at the start of December and completed my mental health therapy shortly before that time, I was certain that 2021 would be Easy Street. I was very, very wrong.
In January, I came out of training for a new job in insurance believing my task would only be to arrange for engineers to go to properties and fix appliances that were already covered. If you've ever been in a job within insurance, you may already know that this was never going to be the case, but I was naive and believed the pitch given to me from the moment I applied for the job and throughout training. I knew there would be a sales aspect, but I was told it would be just that, an aspect and nothing more. But no, no, no, sweet child o' thine, as soon as I was on the phones, the drive to sell, sell, sell, even if the customer didn't want it, even if they didn't understand it, was hammered into me like nails in a baseball bat during a zombie apocalypse.
I tried my best to adapt to this, but from the off-set, it never sat right with me. I had old ladies crying that they just wanted their machines fixed, young mothers who didn't want to have to pay more before they had a working washer, families who just needed a working cooker, and I was being forced to make them buy something before I helped them. Not only that, these people were tricked, they believed they had their insurance with the brand they bought from or were calling that brand to get a problem resolved while their product was still in warranty. The majority of the time, the brand AND the company I worked for just wanted these people's money and had no interest in helping them. It was soul-destroying for me, and I couldn't stay there after barely a month on the phones. If I hadn't had rent and bills to pay, I may have left sooner than that.
I got a fresh job in March, and although it isn't perfect, I am happier. I now ensure that engineers go out to tenants of housing associations to fix their homes. There's no sales, there's a very small but helpful interaction with the general public, and best of all I am in an office with living breathing people, not cooped up at home like I'm stuck in prison. Everyone is safe, masks when not at desks, everything is spaced out, and we all get along. Within my first week, I felt settled and happy, and the ruined mental health from my last job was allowed to repair again.
I wish I could say it has all been roses since then, but a bigger storm has been rising, and this week has become a hurricane.
To explain, I need to go back over twenty years, to when I was in my early teens. My mum divorced my dad when I was eleven, when they drifted apart and he met another woman. That other woman turned out to be the start of my mental problems since she hated me for no good reason, but she hasn't been in my life for a long time and no longer impacts it. However, my mum also met a man she fell in love with, who she married, who became my stepfather. This man is a plague but for a very long time, I thought he was a good man with a drinking problem.
Now I know, he's the problem and his addiction is just an aspect of his toxic personality.
When I was a teenager, my stepdad met my mum in the laundrette where she worked. It wasn't too long, months mostly, after their first date that he proposed to her and she said yes. Right back at this point, he liked a drink, but he didn't seem worse for wear from it, although I never saw him without one. He was a good man back then, or at least he gave the impression of one, and we loved him. He swapped a tiny portable tv we watched for a big screen tv, got us a computer, the internet, introduced us to cable tv, the works. I remember those years fondly, but there were issues even then.
Many times, the drinking took hold of my stepdad and created arguments. He was delusional, he believed my mum was going to leave him for another man. He threatened to beat up and kill my dad, despite him never doing more than making sure we got home safely. My mum did a good job of diffusing this most times, but only just. When he lost his mum, this spiralled further out of control, and during shouting matches, I went and lived in my room. If people wonder why I can be a hermit at times, the reason likely bloomed here. At my dads, when he was with his first girlfriend, I had the same issue, although that was to avoid her. Avoiding people became easier than facing my problems...
Later in life, ailments started to appear. On several occasions, he had heart problems. I remember on at least one of these occasions, his heart had to be stopped and restarted. This seemed to solve that problem, but he's always had some complaint with his body whether it be his arms, his heart, his legs, something has always been wrong. Throughout this, my mum has always been there for him, but he would still drink, to the point he would pass out in front of the TV and stay there 'til the early hours of the morning before he got up to go to bed.
Then, while I was out in Canada visiting someone I'd met and for a time romanced, I got an unbelievable message. My stepdad had been in a car accident. He had been behind the wheel of a car, with a drink, and ploughed into a wall. When the police found him, they immediately took him away and locked him up for the night. He had his licence temporarily revoked and could not drive for a year, from what I recall. He was ashamed and vowed it wouldn't happen again... You know where this is going.
Soon they started to make new plans. They wanted to move to a coastal fishing village called Whitby that is a tourist hotspot and start a business. They planned to take my nan, mum's mum, as she had shown health problems before this - there was a mild dementia forming and she was more confrontational than she'd been in her life. They felt this way they could be close to her in the last few years of her life. Unfortunately, before they finalized everything and were ready to move, my nan had an aneurism. It was like switching off a light.
By this point, things were already in motion, my parent's house had sold but my nan's had not, so they came up with a new strategy. I moved into Nan's old house and paid my parents the rent while they went to live in Whitby to see if they could start a business there. They now lived two and a half hours away, so visiting them became a treat, getting to visit a very picturesque part of England while having my own independence in Nottingham. Yet, at this point, the problems with my stepdad grew more noticeable.
It started with him acting dopey after a few drinks, making dumb jokes that were more insulting than funny, trying to play fight with us. From that, it turned into him rolling around in the streets, falling over, at one point getting seriously hurt and needing stitches. Later, it grew more concerning, as he started a fight in a shop causing them to be banned for life from the place. His daughter (he has three sons and a daughter) chose at this point that she did not want to have any more to do with her dad, and he responded by calling her almost daily telling her he was going to kill himself. This impacted her mental health, which was already rocky, but he didn't notice or didn't care that he was hurting his daughter. The man has only ever thought of one person, himself, and that has never been more apparent to me than it is now.
Due to his drinking, my parents' funds from selling their house plummeted too quickly for them to revive it. He wasn't just drinking beer, he was buying whiskey, sometimes daily, sometimes more than once in a day. As a result, there was no way they could start a business in Whitby, and with expenses climbing in the tourist location, they had no choice but to come home.
There was one other event that occurred before they had returned completely. My stepdad could drive again, something that would quickly become clear as a mistake. They had come back to visit and were stopping a few days, and he'd drunk heavily throughout the day. As night fell, an argument came up over his condition, and he decided to walk out of the room. Moments later, we heard the front door slam and the car rev. He drove out of the driveway, and despite our attempts to stop him, he set off in the direction of Whitby. Knowing how much he'd had to drink, we realised we could only do one thing. I had to make a call to the police and warn them about my stepdad.
Luckily, he stopped about ten minutes down the road. Unluckily, the police found him there, with a bottle and the car keys, and charged him. He chose to blame me rather than himself for this, I shouldn't have called the cops, and I created this problem. Now he lost his licence for ten years, and so far he has not had it back. This decision has saved lives, I am in no doubt of it.
Since moving back to Nottingham, the spiral downwards has only got worse. They returned to my nan's old house, fixed it up and decided to try and rebuild their lives here. However, there have been nights where he's gone missing, only to turn up and insult my mother before going to bed. He has lost job after job, gained new jobs and tell everyone he's turned over a new leaf only to prove this to be a lie several weeks into the career. The man has more than one addiction, one is to drinking, the other is a compulsion to lie. These have hurt more than his desire to get drunk. Often, he denies having touched alcohol, and when things go wrong it is other people's fault. When my stepbrother's daughter was put in harm's way because he was too inebriated to understand, it was my stepbrother's fault. My stepbrother made a decision to take his family away and have nothing to do with my stepfather. He was willing to change this the day he got married if my stepdad ensured not to drink on the day. Instead of accepting the olive branch, my stepdad never went to the wedding and shattered any chance of a relationship with his son and his family.
There's so much that has happened that I don't think this ever scratches the surface, but the reason this is relevant is that up until now, I have still held out hope for him. When we were younger he was fun. He took us on trips, he supported us, he went to things with us and wanted to have a happy family. I have fond memories of him being a good stepdad, looking after us, feeding and clothing us. Yet, interspersed with this is a violent uncontrollable monster, like Jekyll and Hyde. Sadly, I now know that Hyde was the real man all along, and Jekyll was the creation to hide the true ego.
The reason I say this is because of the latest thing my stepdad wants to do.
As of Friday, he lost a new job he'd only had for a month working as a carer. That's right, this drunken idiot was allowed to look after people's grandparents because he lied during his interview and told them he'd been treated for alcoholism and was now sober. He kept up this pretence with us, only ever drinking non-alcoholic beer around us, but often sneaking off or disappearing on walks. This was when he was going to buy booze, and he believed we didn't have a clue. In the end, it took one employee to report him swaying about, for them to investigate and discover him drinking on the job, and he was kicked out.
Was this his fault? No. According to him, the employee had it out for him. What has really been the straw that broke the camel's back, though, was that he also blamed my mother. He said that she had never supported him, that she was too quick to toss away the idea of starting a business with him, and that he would be okay now if it was not for her. As a result, he wants a divorce. GREAT. This would FINALLY get him out of our lives...
... But he wants her to sell her mother's house, the place she grew up in, and split the money with him so that he can 'go start a business on his own'.
My mother does not want to lose this house, and nor do we. Even his own kids have turned on him at this decision, as we all know the real reason he wants that money. He wants to piss it down one of the drains or ditches that he will fall into. There will never be a business, just him drinking himself into the grave, while my mother is forced to give up the home she loves.
So, this is where my mentality is at this moment in time. I am doing alright because therapy has helped me see when these challenges will hurt me and given me the tools to combat it, but only just. Really, I don't know what I am going to do, or if I should do anything. All I can in fact do is be there for my mum and ensure my stepdad's damage is reduced as much as possible. She might lose the house, but we are all going to do what we can to avoid that.
Really, I wanted to explain that if my writing ever seems choppy, or slow, or utter nonsense, more often than not it is because I have had to deal with the above. If my mind isn't on task, I move on and try something else. Lately, that's happened a lot. I have tried to avoid it, to carry on and complete tasks, and side note this has worked for my English Literature studies, but in other areas, it has suffered, and my writing hobby has been one of those areas. I am sorry if you've ever felt let down because I didn't deliver my best in any capacity.
If there's ever a need to update you on the above, I will, but for now, consider this just a way of me exorcising a demon that has been in my life for a very long time. It has been a healing process and I will say now what I have said about past demons who have been in my life.
I am glad I met him because I now know I will never let myself become him.
If you ever need to talk about your own problems, or anything else, never hesitate. Reach out. I don't mind talking, sometimes I am slow, but I always reply when I get the opportunity. Never force yourself to be silent because you think people do not or will not care. There is always someone who will care. Talk about your problems before they become someone else's.
Stay safe you massive legends, and have a great week.
All the love,
Scara. x
I have my own family drama as many other people likely do but nothing this bad. Like dear god, I hope everything comes full circle sooner rather later before something terrible happens.
I pray your stepdad fixs himself, destroying one's life with the bottle is never a fine way to go. Good to hear your recovering though, always use the tragies in life to better yourself.
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Thank you both. The good news is that my mother has taken his cards off of him so he cannot easily get alcohol and is speaking to a solicitor. Either way we’re going to fight for the house.
I still want him to get help and fix himself, but I know he never will, because lying is always going to be the route he takes.
I will hold you and your family in my prayers,
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Thank you <3 I appreciate that.
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It's the least I can do friend ^_^