thebutterflywake: Under my Skin!

thebutterflywake: Under my Skin!: Under My Skin! Alarm ringing! Please stop. In bed on this cold December morning, willing myself to get up. Six a.m., another day...

Under my Skin!

Under My Skin!

Alarm ringing!

Please stop.

In bed on this cold December morning, willing myself to get up.

Six a.m., another day and once again I am filled with regret and self-loathing, and I have not even made it out of bed yet.

God, it is a nightmare living inside my head sometimes.  Did I say sometimes, well I meant most days.

Inside my stomach I have this empty feeling and my throat is dry. 

I can taste my morning breath.  Last night I must have over-indulged.

I feel sick.

Forcing myself to get up out of bed, I switch on the light, and suddenly, I am struck by the odorous stench of stale food and alcohol, cigarettes and sweat. 

My bedroom lies in chaos from the previous night, my surrounding reflect small traces of the debauchery, the remnants of what occurred last night. 

I cannot recall what exactly happened in my bedroom!

All that remains is a recollection of what had been, and even that is fading into a shameful memory. Yet another memory that I will add to the others that I keep inside my head, all those secret skeletons in the cupboard of my mind.

I see that he had slipped away in the early hours of the morning, back to his life, and back to his wife. 

Why do I allow him to come here, and mess with my body and my head?

Why do I allow him to have sex with me and then disappear, as if nothing had happened!

We separate and then we carry on with our average lives. 

Do not misinterpret my conceived intentions. I am not a woman who wants a man to leave his wife. 

No, I am a realist, and fully understand the odds of that happening. 

I prefer to share him with her as then it keeps me safe.

If the truth be known, I do not know how to have a relationship that is functional and “normal”.

However, I find that I do battle with the guilt of seeing another woman’s husband.  And on my rational days, I know that is should end, and that I should have the strength to stop this affair.  But I do not have many rational days anymore, and I feel that without him, I would not cope.

I need him, as he allows me to stay stuck inside my deepest pit of self-pity, and reaffirms that fact that I am never good enough to have my own man.

God, I am mentally unwell.

I have been so obsessed by him for so long now that I hardly remember what it feels like to be without this dysfunctional relationship. I fear the effect of it, as much as I fear the end.   

I walk into the bathroom and as I stand staring into the bathroom mirror.  I wonder when our affair spiralled so complete out-of-control.   

Where I lost myself, where my values became those of the other woman who has lost all her moral righteousness and pride. 

A woman who is stimulated by late night calls and unexpected visits from a man whose only intention is to release his load and feed his ego at the expense of the scarlet woman, yet it is she who allows him to do so, willingly, desperately, and compulsively.

I am looking older. 

When this affair began I was twenty years younger, and I wonder how much longer I will fulfil his need.  If I am to keep myself stuck inside this misery then I need to do something about my appearance.

I need to lose some weight or change my hair colour, hide those grey hairs before they become apparent and I am exposed.  Perhaps I could have surgery, ‘a cut here and a nip there’, remodelling myself into a young form so that he may continue to frequent my door. 

I fear the thought of losing him, and dread the day he lets me go. 

What can I possibly do to keep him interested in me? 

The mirror stares back at me with its honesty and rationale, it tells me that all hope is lost and there is only so much that time can do to keep a face, and then it is time to face the truth.

What I should do is let him go. 

If I allowed the rational part of my brain to take over and think about this situation, I know I would make sense of it all and see that I am hurting myself.  I would realise I deserve more than just being second best, and that there is a man out there who would love me for myself.

If I had any logic, I would allow myself to feel the pain and regretful sorrow, that truth and shame both hold.   Then I could walk into the darkest night and face the facts and be on my own.  However, here I stand, not ten feet tall, but feeling tiny, and alone.

And then, as if by macabre magic and without reason, I think of him.   And once again, I know that it is he who can and will be the knight in the shining armour, who rides in to save this maiden from this day. 

How many times have I waited, and yet he would not arrived. 

All day long I will think of him, as if he is all that I have to keep my fires burning.

I wonder if he is eating his breakfast with wife and kids, all sat around the breakfast table.  In my mind’s eye I see him leaving for the office, as he waves his wife good-bye, and drives along the motorway, while singing to the radio, perhaps.

I question if he thinks of me, or her. 

I know what time he arrives at the office, and then I suffer the long wait until he will call me again.  He may call again today, though I doubt it.  He saw me last night and that means he will not call again for another month or two, or three. 

Our rendezvous have become less, and the time between each meeting longer than before.  There was a time when he would visit me once a week, and then, as the years matured and we faded, so did the excitement, and the surprises, and the gifts. 

Now all I have are the bi-monthly visits late at night, unannounced and from a drunken lover who slurs his words of passion and lust. 

He mounts me as if he was the shining knight, and yet the only armour I see is the condom he wears to protect himself from me.

Suddenly, I vomit into the bathroom basin, and to the floor I sink. I sit there for at least an hour, as the truth allows itself to settle in. 

This is my life!

This has been my existence for the last twenty years. 

Where have I been in all of this? Was I so lost that I could not see the truth that was surrounding me? 

I could not tell another soul of this, my life, as they could never understand my choice.

In fact, I doubt I even understand it now and I know that I will never entirely comprehend this nightmarish saga that has my name on it.

Three hours pass, or is it four?  I have lost all time, as I sit here on that bathroom floor, surrounded by snotty tissues and an empty tissue box. 

I cry until I cannot cry anymore. 

All cried out, I eventually rise and wash my face. 

The water feels so cold, and I realise that I have forgotten how to feel. 

I have been so numbed by this affair, and I have suppressed the knowledge that it is destroying me.   I have blocked out the truth and along with the pain, I have forgotten how to be and how to feel. 

Something happened today, different than before and I let go of shame and the lies and the games.  I have had enough of this one-sided obsession, and the love for a man to whom I am no more than a call-girl. 

Just as truth has a way of breaking ones heart, when you emerge on the other side of the darkest day, you will find that there is strength within and self-esteem that can once again shine.  My light had been rubbed out by the way he would shine, but he has now lost his sparkle, and I have re-discovered mine.

C2012Medusa

Within The Big Society

“Morning Molly,” announced Dora brightly as she opened the door, “it is so kind of you to come and collect me again today, I don’t get out much these days”.

Molly reached out for Dora’s arm and helped her towards the parked minibus where the rest of the group eagerly waited. Every week a charitable organisation collected Dora, along with a group of four to five other ladies, and they all went out for a cup of tea and a piece of cake. This weekly outing was at times the only form of outside contact that members of the group encountered from week to week; Molly found this heartbreaking.

Molly, who was in her mid-forties, needed the company just as much as they did, therefore she too enjoyed these coffee mornings. She found that she gained incredible insight, and a deeper understanding, into surviving the hardships of life listening to the ladies talk about post-war Britain. Regardless of what life had thrown at them, they laughed it off and their outlook towards life was always so positive; Molly admired their courage and strength and was grateful for what the group, unbeknown to them, gave her in return.

Molly had recently started her new voluntary position helping out at a local charity, having being made redundant from her job six years earlier. As a result of her redundancy, she had suffered a bout of depression, which lasted for five years. She had been through the mill, and after this period, which she referred to as her stolen years, she had decided to get out and re-connect with her community once again. Her depression had been a long and tiresome process, and there were days were she felt that she would never see the light again, feeling completely lost, as if she were at the bottom of a dark pit.

Prior to these five years, Molly had been a proactive member of society, helping out at most of the community events and getting involved in every cause that was occurring in her local area. She was a fighter and protested for the rights of others, and would do all she could for those in need; hence, when she saw the advert in her local jobcentre, she jumped at the chance to help with this local charity. She felt this voluntary work was a new start and a move in the right direction, and once again she felt as if she had a purpose, that she was active, something worthwhile.

Once Dora and Molly had fastened their seat beats, the minibus drove off towards the popular little café on the corner of the High Street, the very one that the ladies had been frequenting for years. Suddenly, the air was filled with excited conversations, reviews of last week’s television programmes, and the local gossip all needed to be discussed.  The group exchanged what they felt was relevant, alongside what each of them ‘needed to know’. Molly felt a warm surge inside her and was touched by their closeness.

Most of the ladies were fragile and struggled to get out and about, except to the local shops once a week to collect milk, bread and other essentials. Cirencester was a small town with many hills; therefore, a large amount of walking was difficult for most of the group, so they only ventured out if they needed to go get in milk or bread.  Molly recalled thinking how lucky she was and that she took her mobility for granted. Hearing their stories of how hard it was to walk to town, Molly suddenly remembered the days when she herself had felt unable to leave the house, when the thought of going out into the sunlight was impossible, and so she had an understanding of what it feels like to be a prisoner in one’s own home. This may have been for different reasons; nevertheless the inability to leave the house was a similar feeling, a feeling of helplessness.

The minibus pulled up outside the café and the group shuffled out onto the pavement. This was a slow procedure as each of the ladies needed to be helped into the café one by one. Once they were all seated, they looked eagerly at the menu, excited as they decided what delight they were going to treat themselves with this week.

“Oh look!” said Dora, “Scones and clotted cream, oh yes, that’s my order”.

One of the other ladies saw the chocolate éclairs in the display cabinet, then, letting out an animated shriek, she said that she was going to have one of them, regardless of what her doctor had told her about watching her weight.

“At my age,” she said, “I am hardly going to pull a young man, am I?”

With this the ladies let out a chorus of laughter, as not only did they fully understand how she felt, but they felt exactly the same.

Molly smiled because she too knew how they felt, as into the third year of her depression, her husband proclaimed one evening that he was unable to cope with her mood-swings and was leaving. The truth of the matter was that he had been having an affair with her secretary, twenty years his junior. She did not blame him; however, when she was younger she had hoped that she would never fall into that category, the “husband leaves wife for secretary half his age” clique. She imagined the gossip as a shudder ran up her spine.

As the cakes and pots of tea arrived, the ladies began to tuck in to their chosen treats and the conversation fell silent for a while. Suddenly, Molly felt low, as memories of the past five years replayed in her mind.

“Are you alright my dear?” asked Dora, noting the Molly was slightly distant today.

“Yes, thank you” replied Molly, bringing herself back into the present and pushing her thoughts into the back of her mind.

Then suddenly something strange happened. As if Dora had read Molly’s thoughts, she began to tell the group a story about a young man that she had met during the war. She had thought the ‘sun shone out of his backside”, and when he had promised her the world, she had believed him.  She went on to tell a sad tale of how he had deceived her and left her with child, never to return. In order to keep her child, she needed to leave her small town where she lived with her family, and move into what is now known as a mother and child unit.  

Furthermore, she described the years she struggled to make ends meet as a single parent at a time when having a child outside wedlock was seen as sinful and frowned upon. She was unable to have contact with her family, as her father had disowned her, and without her family to support her, she felt so isolated and alone. After the birth of her son, she suffered from postnatal depression, once again explaining how this illness was hardly recognised in those days. People would tell her that she ‘needed to get a grip’, and she ‘had made her bed and had to lay in it’. She spoke of how she felt as if no-one understood her battle against postnatal depression, alongside her years of alcoholism.

Molly was amazed at Dora’s open and honest story, and admired the risk Dora had taken exposing this part of her life. Watching Dora as she sat here in the café eating her scone and cream, one would never have thought that she may have been though such a misfortunate life.  Molly felt a great sadness, not only for Dora but for herself too. Dora took hold of Molly’s hand and squeezed it tightly, as if she knew exactly what Molly was feeling; it was a very special moment.

The coffee morning had come to an end and the ladies were escorted into the minibus individually. Dora was the last to be collected, and as she walked arm-in-arm with Molly she said, “I see myself in you, I recognise the pain you are suffering. One day you will wake up and things will all make sense!”

Molly smiled as she admired Dora’s resilience. She knew that Dora was right, that one day she would wake up from this nightmare. After dropping all the ladies off and saying goodbye to Dora, Molly sat at home with a cup of tea while recalling the morning’s events. She marvelled at Dora’s bravery and admired her, for she had survived such a challenging life with no support neither from her family nor the community.

Molly suddenly realised how lucky she was to have the support of her children and parents, whom she had been pushing away for so long now. Molly wept softy for a while and felt the last five years release themselves from her memory; suddenly, things made sense.


MM C2012

The Butterflywake 1

Chapter One: Sophia’s Choice!

The deafening sound of banging tin, and the noisy chatter of men, must have been what woke Sophia.

Lying in bed, she wondering what time it was at this seemingly dark hour. Listening to the racket the dustmen made, and the raining falling, drumming against the window, Sophia realised another wet November morning awaited her.

The dustbins were being collected, which meant it was Monday, she reminded herself. Trying to see through sleepy eyes, she tried to focus on the electric alarm clock, trying to see the time, six-thirty a.m.

She reluctantly forced herself to get out of bed whilst wishing she could return to her peaceful sleep. Once again she had overslept, and would be late for school.

“Mom, MOM, you downstairs?” she shouted, as she strolled into the kitchen still half-asleep, briefly glancing into a vacant smoke stained sitting room. Yet, her mother was no-where to be seen.

She did not hold much hope to be graced by her mother’s presence this morning. Her mother had disappeared into the night.

After having half the tenants of the local pub over all day for a ‘piss-up’, and they must have run out of booze. So they would have returned to the local lair to continue their festivity, there was no particular reason as to why they were getting pissed, just that it was Sunday.

She had not heard her mother and the gang of local drinkers return. Most nights she lie in bed and listen for the door, until the early hours of the morning, hoping her mother would return safely. Perhaps she had fallen asleep, whilst her mother had returned, Sophia mused!

Suddenly, unexpectedly, there was incoherent noise resounding from upstairs.

Her mother’s voice!

She went back upstairs to greet her mother, wondering what condition she would be in today.

Every day, Sophia’s life consisted of unpredictably, and she was regularly greeted by the unknown.

Every morning, she hoped she would not be exposed to her mothers’ addiction, or to discover her mother in a semi-conscious state, yet again.

More importantly, that she would not have to tolerate the aftermath of her mother promiscuity, to be greeted by some strange man, coming out of her mother’s bedroom or the bathroom, semi-naked.

At only thirteen years old, Sophia was much older than her years. She needed to be!

Caretaker to her mother, was the role she had played for a long time, this had been her adopted role for as long as she could remember, well for most of her young life. Yet, she did not blame her mother for her behaviour, or her addiction, nor did she hold her responsible for the countless men that frequented their flat at all hours.

No, Sophia loved her mother, she loved her very much.

Sophia reached the top of the stairs, and stood at the doorway that led into her mother’s bedroom. Where she waited until her mother instructed her to enter, learning from an early age never to run into to her mother’s bedroom unannounced. So, to save her mother’s grace, she would only to enter on instruction.

“Come in silly girl, its ok”, her mother beckoned.

As she entered, she was thankful to find her mother alone this morning, probably hung over from the night before, but alone all the same.

“Morning mom”, said Sophia, as delicately as she could.

Another lesson learnt from an early age was never to be too boisterous, or noisy. From the age of two, she had learnt to be as quiet as a mouse.

“Can I get you anything?” she whispered.

“No Sophia, wait yes, a cup of tea please”, answered her mom, while clutching her head.

“And bring my pack of cigs from the sitting room, oh and my lighter” she added as an afterthought.

Sophia located her mother discarded pack of cigarettes and put the kettle on. She stood in the kitchen staring out of the window and hoped her school uniform would be dry, because the central heating was switched off again last night. Her mother had forgotten to charge the electric key, she forgot many things, and it was up to Sophia to remember the practicalities of life, most of the time.

She was startled out of her daydreaming by the sound of the kettle whistling away, she made the tea for her mother, as she had done on countless morning.

Then she returned upstairs with the cup of tea, and her mom’s cigarettes as requested. Her mother lay in bed with her eyes closed, so she placed the items down on the side and left, quietly. One task done, another awaits her! She went into the kitchen to set up the ironing board to iron a rather damp school uniform.

Life was not always this hectic, Sophia thought as she prepared herself for another day at school. She remembered a time when she was younger, when her mother had ‘managed’ her addiction, and would only smoke marijuana, or drink late at night.

She wondered, when did it all go so wrong for her mother, was it her father disappearance that caused her mother’s drinking to increase, along with her substance misuse. Following his departure, her mother disintegrated, and she stopped caring about her appearance, yes it was then when she became very depressed.

Sophia never understood why her mother was so affected by his disappearance, given their history, and following the legal banishment that prevented him from frequenting their door. But then several things adults did, Sophia just did not understand.

The doctor had diagnosed her mother with bipolar five years ago, and since then she had been on an assortment of prescription drugs. She swallowed so many different pills that in the end, Sophia did not know what medication her mother took for what aliment.

Destination, unbeknown

Walking closer to window edge

I feel so empty, cold, alone

Unlucky me, I’ve laid my bed

Would not wish me on another

Masochistic masterpiece

Blood drains from face

Pale, paler, disappearance

Restless nights, I toss and turn

Deep inside a hunger stirs

Nightmarish pictures consuming me

Don’t stand too close, you’re bound to burn

Drifting in, out of consciousness

Tubes running inward, outwardly

Iron, frame crib to contain me

New diagnostic label, mild to sever

Din noise outside the wall

Voices, perhaps, shall I whisper

Come closer, touch me

Feel me just once

Fading, fast into the abyss,

Until the end,

No-where else to go!

Sophia would visit the chemist, to collect the repeat prescriptions for her mother; however, she never knew what all those plastic bottles of pills were for, or what they were meant to do. Her mother blamed the doctors for her addiction to drugs in the first instance, and claimed if she had not started taking all those pills, she would not be addicted at all.

Sophia believed her, although in reality her mother was addicted long before she consulted a doctor, and Sophia remembers how her mother used to self-medicate, however, she doubted her mother knew what was truth was anymore.

Nonetheless, Sophia needed to believe her mother, otherwise, what else was there to believe in the truth; well the truth hurt!

“Sophia”, her mother said as she came stumbling down the stairs, she looked like hell, and Sophia recognised a throbbing hangover.

“Here, I have some money for you to buy yourself some lunch. Oh, and will you get me some things I need, on your way home from school today?”

“Mom, you can not stay in bed all day today!” pleaded Sophia in a desperate tone. “Social Services are coming to visit today, and you will need to make sure the sitting room and kitchen are spotless”, as she glanced at the disarray that surrounded her.

“Mom, we can not let them see the place in this state, as they are bound to say something”.

Body aches, muscles sore

Pain seeps though every pore

Crawling towards blotted door

Slightly messed up, dysfunctional state

Pitch blackness becomes bitter hate

Choking to swallow, what’s left on my plate

I heard I’m crazy, or slightly mad-hatter

Never destroyed no-one, despite all the chatter

What a fool am I, to think I’d matter

Poor little girl, so full of shame

She hurts for someone else to blame

So incomplete, without her name

Reaches the bottom, approaches the end

They say she truly on the mend

She floats in circles and rounds the bend

Closes door, returns to bed

Sits alone, hands on head

Lights go out, the room turns red.

Social Services featured in their lives for a while now, and Sophia was on first-name basis with their Social Worker named Alice.

Alice was kind, friendly, non-judgemental and helpful, and she had dedicated much of her time trying to reconstruct some kind of normality into Sophia and her mom’s fragmented lives. Sophia had been placed on the Child Protection register, seven years ago, after her mom had tried to commit suicide.

Ironically, she was grateful to be on the register. This guaranteed someone attending to her mother’s needs once a week, while ensuring that everything ran smoothly. And without this extra assistance, Sophia was doubtful that she would manage.

Furthermore, without this weekly check up, she thought her mother would admit defeat. Therefore, this intervention gave her mother some form of motivation.

Sophia was guilt ridden thinking these things about her mother’s inability. But she knew that for both their sakes, other people needed to be involved in their lives.

Her mother complained constantly about Social Services involvement in their lives, and always badmouthed Alice. Sophia knew that her mother was secretly just as pleased as she was that they had Alice, to keep the chaos from spilling completely out-of-control.

“Oh for god’s sake!” her mother protested, “not today of all days”.

And with that she placed a five pound note on the side-table for Sophia, while heading towards the kitchen and scanning the chaos. She started to collect the unwanted cans and bottles, along with the empty cigarette packets that were discarded all over the kitchen, throwing them into a black rubbish bag.

Her head hurt as she remembered vaguely the people she invited back from the pub at lunchtime, and had flashes of yesterday’s debauchery.

“Don’t tell her that I went out again and left you alone again last night, ok!” her mother remembered.

“You know I don’t tell Alice anything any more. I won’t say a word”, replied Sophia.

She dare not speak out, as she knew what would happening if Social Services thought that she was been neglected. She would be forced to live with another foster family. And after experiencing that horrific experience just once, Sophia promised herself that she would do everything in her power to avoid those fearsome situations.

In her reality, her mother did not neglect her. And listening to the stories most of the children she met in care had told, she was more fortunate than those she had encountered in care. Compared to the narrative they told, Sophia’s life seem as if it was a picnic in comparison.

No, her mother loved her, and even though she was partially responsible for the up-keep of the house and was totally self-sufficient, she thought these small insignificant duties she need to do where irrelevant in contrast to what she had heard that other children were forced to endure.

Her mother did not always drink herself into oblivion. There was a cycle that she followed, there was a pattern to her disorganised chaos, and one she would adhere to like clockwork. The rest of the time she was fully-present at home playing “happy families” and cooking dinner for her daughter.

On those days, Sophia felt as if they were best mates, and she was “normal”, just as any other teenage girl she knew. They would sit and watch the television together and everything felt just rosy. Those were the days she loved the most.

Sophia appreciated the difficulty her mother faced when trying to refrain from drinking and using drugs. On countless occasions, she had tried, and even joined a local woman’s group who specialised in drug and alcohol issues.

Every day, she battled against her addiction, and Sophia was fully aware how complex this illness was to cure, and the challenge in staying sober. Sophia was well educated on the struggle that people faced when attempting sobriety. This she had learnt from listening to the woman chatter at the centre.

She had escorted her mother on a weekly basis as she attended these groups that addressed the issues of addiction. She would be left to entertain herself, along with the other children whose mothers would visit the centre. She was a fast learner and eager listener, and she listened to everything that was mentioned about addiction.

For her age, she had a sound understanding of the dangers and perils of using drugs, and the seemingly impossible task of getting one’s life back together.

This experience was enough to prevent Sophia from ever wanting to indulge in drugs or drink alcohol. She told herself on many occasions that she would never go down that dark and lonely road. How did she know it was a dark and lonely existence? Well she just had to look at what it had done, or what it was still doing to her mother to know that it was a ‘mug’s game’.

Sophia blamed her father, and felt it was his abusive execution of her mother’s spirit, that drove her to drink.

He was a cruel man.

Her mother’s account of his character, and the stories she had told, frighten Sophia immensely. Tales of how he would beat her mother senseless almost every day in their existence together, and verbally abuse her too.

Yes, he was a merciless man.

Sophia was aged seven when he was escorted out of the house, and she remembered the blue lights flashing outside her window, and the policemen dragging him out into the waiting van. He was drunk, completely out of his mind and shouting abuse for all to hear and the entire neighbourhood was out that night, “to see the show”. She did not hold fond memories of her father. No, she hated him!

“Roses are red, 
Violence is blue,
Scars that I carry, 
Reminders of you!”

When her father did grace them with his presence, he would treat the flat as if it were a bed and breakfast, arriving whenever it pleased him, and staying only long enough to spend her mother’s child-care money. Refusing him had dire consequences; so they waited until he had exhausted their resources and disappeared, probably to pester some other poor soul.

Intoxicated by your hate

Domination and control

Suffered so long in silence

It’s time to let it go

Suffocating drowning in tears

Can't be a way of living

Catatonic, swimming, sea blue

Unrealistic state of duja-ve

Reincarnated unhappiness

Repeats of movies blue

No longer exist, deranged

Blood completely drain

State of confusion

Disappointment

Rejection, masochistic too long

Constantly in a dream like state

Before I crumble break and fall

Under your spell I have broken

Freedom awaits the lonely child

Dogmatic words too often spoken

All so crazy, hazy, wild

Last exist before destruction

This is where I depart

Before I no longer feel human

Just a cask, which holds a heart

Fortunately, he had not arrived unannounced at their door for some time, rumour has it that he was in prison. But if the truth be known, he had vanished since her mother had an injunction taken out against him, thereafter, he no longer harassed them.

The Magistrate’s verdict was very clear, and she had stated that under no circumstance was Sophia’s father to go anywhere near their neighbourhood. Her mother’s lawyer had presented a case that had highlighted the entirety of what her mother had had to endure since she first met Sophia’s father. And it was not a case for the faint hearted.

The lawyer had explicitly explained in great detail just how challenging her mother’s life was living with his brutal bullying and cruel ways. Sophia had no love lost for her father, and had sworn never to have anything to do with him again, not ever!

Even though she did not want to see him, or speak to him, it still hurt not having a father in her life. She felt so alone without him, and she had to tolerate the mockery she received after the rumour of his arrest spread through the town. And at school, some of the other kids would tease her and call her names.

It felt as if everyone knew that her father was a violent man, and her mother was a drunk, or so they would say.

She had to pretend that she did not care, when she heard the giggling and taunts directed at her, she just kept walking. She could have informed her mother of the bullying that she faced on a regular basis, but she knew that her mother would arrive at the school and cause a scene, and how would that help.

No-one could protect her from the constant taunting and mockery, she had to deal with this all on her own. The same as she had to deal with most things alone.

She would come home and hide in her bedroom, and there she would let her feelings be known. As she wept into her pillow, and allowed all the hurt and frustration to dispel from her body, she would sob until she was exhausted, and then fall into a deep yet peaceful sleep.

Where she would dream of a different time and place, and have visions of another girl in a distant life, yes, she would dream of being free.

“I float upon the ceiling

No higher, to the sky
I dream of life so gentle
As my tears run dry.
I wish I was an angel
Someone who is free
In fact, I would be any one
As long as just not me.”

Gratefully, Sophia had Alice. Alice was the only person she could truly talk to who understood her desperate plight. Alice had been very informative concerning her mother’s illness, and tried to answer most of the many questions Sophia asked.

Questions she needed answered, as she tried to grasp an understanding on addiction.

In fact, it was Alice who suggested that Sophia attend a youth group which was run by the council, and held at the local youth centre. Sophia would do anything she could to please Alice, so she went along to the group.

At the youth centre, she was to encounter some of the local children and young people from surrounding neighbourhoods, who would all meet up once a week to ‘play games’, and gossip, and feel as if they were ‘part of a gang’. Yet the only true thing that they all shared, the one thing they all had in common was addicted parental figures and carers.

This was the place where they could all “hangout” and “identify” with each other, and discuss the troubles and misdemeanours that they had to face unsupervised. Sophia felt so out of place!

After the first time she attended the ‘group sessions’, she determined that she was left feeling low, so she did not return. Moreover, she refused to acknowledge that her family were dysfunctional. She had heard other children at the centre confess, in a nonchalant manner, how their families were so dysfunctional.

Undeniably, these children who frequented the youth centre, they too were older than their years. Attending this group, forced Sophia to face reality about what was truly going on for her family and her life. She preferred convincing herself that things at home were ‘normal’. This way she stood a chance.

If she had to label herself as ‘the child of an addict or ‘drunk’’, then little hope remained. She needed to believe, believe that one day things would be very different, one day things would change. She had faith in her mother.

Sophia knew that the people who ran the Children Services at the Council would possibly judge her mother, and anyone standing on the outside looking into her life, would feel that her life seemed to be in constant turmoil. She had overheard conversations that suggested she should be in foster care, and not have to endure this harsh treatment, as they pointed a disapproving finger.

She listened while they discussed her, and determined how her life should be, and what was best for her, but how did they know?

No-one ever asked her.

What would they know about her life!

As far as Sophia was concerned, her mother was kind and considerate, she would attend to her when she was unwell, and hold her hand when she was frightened. Her mother was the same as any other mother. The only difference was her mother had an illness, but her mother did not ‘do these things’ with an intention to harm her.

More importantly, she had never hit Sophia nor caused her intentional harm.

And her mother had a watchful eye, scrutinizing the men who frequented their home, and would not allow them to converse with Sophia, except to say hello and other such pleasantries. Moreover, she would enquire what they wanted if she saw them chatting with Sophia on the ‘quiet’.

She was very protective over Sophia and would have fought anyone who tried to touch her little girl. No, the only protection that was needed in their home was her mothers’ protection from her own self-destructive side. Her mothers’ protection from herself!

“Enough daydreaming Sophia” she heard her mother say.“It’s time to go to school!”

“Yes mom, I am nearly ready”, she answered, and with that she ran upstairs to dress.

Shortly thereafter, she hurried back downstairs dressed and ready for school. Amazed to see how her mother had cleaned the entire downstairs and was now sitting down having a cup of tea.

“After this cup of tea and ‘cig’ I will go upstairs and have a bath, and then I will be ready for our Alice”, said her mother.

She smiled, then she walked over to where her mother sat and kissed her goodbye, while embracing her with all the love she could manage.

“Hey honey, everything ok?” asked her mother, taken aback by her daughter’s sudden overtly display of affection.

“Sure mom, everything is just fine”, she replied and with that she raced out the door towards the bus stop, where her best-friend Zoë was waiting for her.