It’s still rock and roll to me……

Early on, I think I was a happy kid, you know experiencing life through the eyes of a child, falling down picking myself up, being picked up by those around me, normal stuff, well as normal as normal feels when it’s happening to you!

The first few years of my life were Ok, living with my parents and sisters was what I was doing and to be honest enjoying it, then the bad days came, I guess as early as 5 or 6 years old, I realised my parents didn’t really like each other, the reasons I didn’t discover until later, but at about 5 I knew that violence was the way my father ruled his kingdom and I truly believe it was at this age I learned that fear is a way of being.

I want to say I am not looking for pity or comfort, I am stating that for my journey towards liking me and ultimately loving me, I really did need to understand where the f*@k I came from and letting you know is a way of sharing with you the tools I’ve used to lose the weight I needed to and finding the love I wanted.

So having realised fear is a way of being, I began being fearful. Being full of fear is all consuming, you wait for the gaps when you can relax, but they don’t come too often, so you wake each day tense waiting for “it” to start and as regular as clockwork it does start.

My father was always disappointed, with everything, his life, his marriage, and his children and definitely with himself. So to stop his pain he metered it out to those around him, he couldn’t decide how to express it best, and shouting when he was annoyed was the first clue to the violence that he would resort to if the shouting didn’t stop his pain. As kids we learned to listen out for the shouting, this taught us that pretty soon there would be a beating, for who, we couldn’t be sure, but for one of us a certainty.

My mother “ate” her pain, I have so very few memories of her but one that I am sure of is that for the time I had with her she was sad! Sad is such a perfect word to describe her, unfortunately, as I cannot recount hearing her laugh or seeing her smile or even knowing what she found joy in, my older sisters have memories of her that are different, I know, but they had more time with her then my younger sister and I did and therefore they have memories that I don’t.