Imagine a pair of old-fashioned scales with two dishes: the negatives for 2016 and the positive. Singular. In fact, the image I’ve chosen is a perfect representation of what I’m about to describe.

Weighing down the negative dish (some are individual and others are global)…

• Wife’s Nana had a stroke in November and prognosis is that she now has a week or so left.
• Mother-in-law’s MS is rapidly deteriorating.
• The passing of our eldest cats, who were siblings from the same litter,  within two months of one another.
• Being told I’m too fat to adopt (see earlier post for how this came about).
• No babies – we stopped home insemination in February.
• Bursting into tears – several times – when Christmas shopping this year as I couldn’t cope with the families around me (or the cashiers’ innumerate and emotionally illiterate comments).
• Accepting a job I knew I’d hate and then hating it in more ways than I predicted.
• Not succeeding (so far) in finding replacement job.
• Our dog’s tumour-cancer-scare-bladder-operation.
• My sister going into crisis – emotionally, psychologically and financially.
• Teenage nephew living with us during the week (see above).
• BREXIT (whatever your leanings, the knock on effect and increased racism in the city where I teach is vile).
• Trump.
• Orlando massacre at Pulse: no, I wasn’t there but we all felt the aftershock of increased homophobia both directly and indirectly.
• I know it happens and I’m not directly affected but it’s been sad to say goodbye to so many icons who were important to me as I grew up: Bowie, Prince, George Michael, Terry Wogan, Alan Rickman, Victoria Wood and Caroline Aherne.

On the positive dish…

Really, it’s been a shite year and there isn’t a list to counterbalance the negative. BUT I don’t need a list. No matter how crap things have been for me (and the world) in 2016, there is a single item on my scales which balances out all the wank.

• My wife.

I may be losing in so many ways but in terms of relationships, I’m winning.

We have three options. 

Option 1

Lose weight and take a break from the adoption process with our current local authority. This would mean, realistically, a break until January so I can drop my BMI from practically-dead-already to something in the obese range. Then we’d close off Stage One and hop back on the long, bumpy road through Stage Two. 

Option 2

Lose weight and take the same time to do it: January. Then we can change lanes by hunting around for a charity adoption agency (our more local local authority has closed its books for now). We can take all the bits we’ve done so far for Stage One with the local authority and transfer them to a charity.

Option 3

Well, if we’re battling to lose weight, we can get back on the TTC road. Losing weight may, obviously, help to conceive but it’ll also mean my GP is more willing to investigate fertility issues. It’s not that he’s not willing but when your BMI is this high, that’s always the first thing they want you to address anyway. 

Whichever option, we’re no closer to our destination. We got on this bloody road in 2012.

…isn’t that they’ve noticed I’m fat. 

…isn’t their assumption I’m fat because I make bad lifestyle choices. 

…isn’t their belief I would also make bad lifestyle choices for our children. 

…it’s the fact that they did it in this order. We’ve had to tell our parents we want to adopt and then our parents have had to write to our social worker to give their opinion. We’ve had to tell our friends and they’ve had to write references for us. We reached out to friends who’d adopted to get advice and guidance about the whole shenanigans. We’ve had to tell our current bosses and they, too, have had to comment on our potential ability to parent. Even our previous employers have been asked to give their opinion in writing. All of this happened and then they looked at our medical forms, our weight and our BMI. 

Why in that order?

Why make us publicise our hopes to adopt so widely and then say, “Whoa, you know what, you’re fat?!”* as though I was hiding it. Now we have to decide what to do. 

1. Take a break; try (again) to lose weight; restart the process?
2. Take a break; try (again) to lose weight; ask GP to investigate infertility issues; return to IUI or home insemination?

Thing is, whichever we do, people are now going to excitedly ask what’s going on, how things are progressing and when we might be getting some kids. So we’re faced with another decision about what we tell everyone because I have failed again to provide us with a family. I know that’s illogical and emotional and silly but it’s hard to turn those feelings off. I couldn’t get pregnant. When I did, I miscarried. This time, we can’t adopt because I’m overweight. 

* Almost verbatim what she said. What she actually said: “I knew you were overweight but I didn’t realise you were that overweight. I mean, did you know how much you weigh and what your BMI is? Were you surprised?” 

From the very start of this process, I have asked questions about whether or not my weight would prevent us from adopting. At every turn, we’ve been told it wouldn’t be an issue unless I’m unhealthy. My GP has completed his report which says I’m overweight but healthy (good blood pressure, active, no diabetes etc). I don’t smoke. I drink no more 14 units across the entire year (toasting someone at a celebration). We eat healthily and shop healthily (with the odd treat).

Tomorrow, we’re due to sign off Stage One with an exit interview. To get this far, we’ve had to do the following or had the following done to us:

• Initial phone call.*
• Another phone call.*
• An adoption information evening.*
• A house visit from two social workers – we’ve never met them / spoken to them before they launch the first intrusive interrogation.*
• Initial report stating if we’re suitable to proceed to Stage One.*
• Administration meeting to start some of the paperwork.*
• A three day preparing to adopt course.*
• DBS checks.
• Medical examinations.*
• Completion of 5 online modules of e-learning.
• 4 references.*
• Letters from the future grandparents.*
• An additional-not-following-the-rules interview with my brother.
• A financial form (several pages).
• Our own histories written down as chronologies, detailing everything that has happened to you as a child and adult (mine is 10 pages long).
• Extensive reading and notes to prove it.
• A joint family tree (our families are massive).
• An Eco-Map to show your support network – like a family tree of the friends and family you choose to lean on.
• References from your current employer.*
• References from every employer you’ve ever had who has seen you work with children (great, if you’re a teacher).*
• A mid-point meeting to check you’re cracking on with everything.*

It means that everything is quite public. My boss knows what’s going on. My friends and family know because they’re either referees or I’ve had to ask them for information for the family tree and Eco-Map. My doctor knows. Ex-employers know because they sent a reference request claiming that they wanted to know if I’d be a good candidate to do voluntary work with children. They think this is a great ruse for masking the fact we are trying to adopt. It doesn’t work because it’s sent from the Local Authority Adoption Team with their organisation name and address all over it. Smart.

Moreover, this shows how often I’ve had a chance to mention my weight and ask if there are any concerns. In fact, I’ve starred each activity / experience in the list during which my weight was mentioned or investigated. All of the reference requests (including the letters to grandparents, employers and ex-employers) ask the writer to consider our health and all of mine have said that I am overweight (you can’t miss it) but fit and active.

You’d think, if there was a problem, they’d have raised it by now?

Pfft.

Tomorrow, at 10 a.m., we have our exit interview. This means a rubber stamp to close Stage One and move onto Stage Two. Not only that, our social worker had arranged two interviews with us for next week to start Stage Two because she was so confident all would be well. She has, of course, already seen me several times and read our references and medical form. We had faith that this meant they acknowledged my weight, it would probably be discussed again as we proceeded, but that we would proceed.

As you are probably already figuring out, there’s a problem. Was this raised in a timely and clear fashion? Was it fuck. Our social worker has rung my wife (not me?!) today at about 11.15 a.m., less than 24 hours before our exit interview.

There’s something wrong. The medical examiner isn’t happy. My wife pushed for details but our social worker was taciturn and insisted she needs to meet us today – never mind the fact my wife is at work or that I’m at home nursing a dog who’s 6 days post-op and peeing everywhere. We have to accept the meeting today or things can’t progress. The wife pushed for more info: are we being stopped? The answer isn’t clear. Is it about weight? The answer isn’t forthcoming. What’s going on? Our social worker wants to discuss it in person in our home.

I imagine they’re going to tell us that either to progress to Stage Two or to get to panel (which is at the end of Stage Two), I’m going to have to lose X amount of weight. As my older blogs will explain, I’ve tried. I’ve tried every which way and with all supports: Slimming World, Weight Watchers, gym membership, gym programmes, personal trainers. My weight hits a point and won’t drop lower. My GP has investigated my thyroid and has tested for diabetes. Both aren’t a problem. He is so perplexed that, during our adoption medical, he said to me that we should get through the hoops currently in front of us and then return to him for more help. By help, he means surgery. There you have it, for whatever reason, this weight won’t shift through healthy eating / diet / exercise.

If they set me an arbitrary task of losing X weight by Y date, I won’t be able to. Then what? Surgery and a massive delay: maybe 2 or 3 years. First, I’ll be on a slow NHS waiting list. Then, there’s the pre-surgery work which takes months. Then the surgery to recuperate from and, finally, the weight loss.

Perhaps for others, this delay wouldn’t be a worry but we’ve been trying to have a family since 2012. These delays stretch out the unpleasant aspects of adopting – all the intrusions into your life, your history and the most private things about yourself. I wanted that over, like ripping a plaster off.

I am not saying that weight shouldn’t be investigated. Of course they need to know that we aren’t going to raise (already vulnerable) children in an unhealthy way. I see the logic that they’d think I wouldn’t know how to feed children well or keep them fit. They don’t know me yet and I have to prove myself to them. What I’m angry and frustrated and sad about is that this was ignored. All the time I was yelling about it and willing to open up a dialogue about it but they didn’t. We were left thinking all was well and tomorrow was the day that we’d inch up the ladder.

BAM.

A sucker punch to my sizeable gut.

Now I get to spend the day cleaning and cleaning (dog pee, remember?) and fretting that, once again, I’ve let the side down. All of this is so public that any break in the process will be known by our friends, family and bosses. Fab. I have to figure out ways to explain that my fatness has hindered our chances to parent children. As though this process isn’t humiliating enough.

A brief update on our adoption story so far.

* We did the three day ‘preparing to adopt’ course. 

> Guest speaker (family finding social worker) forgot their was a gay couple in the room. Everything was hetero-centred until my wife asked a deliberately probing (but polite) question. At that point, all the social workers became very defensive. 

> The presenter (who also happens to be our assessing social worker) took us through the PAR report (which is a tome) and all the documents we have to produce to support it. Twice, she pointed at me and said I’d probably need extra pages because of my background and past. In. Front. Of. A. Room. Of. Strangers. 

* Our friends and family have completed and returned their references (we know because they naughtily showed us).

> When we arrived at a mid-way-through-Stage-One check up meeting, we were scolded for late references. When they realised it was their error (and that they hadn’t even sent the grandparent references to our parents), they apologised. Not. We found ourselves apologising despite the fact they have clearly been losing confidential paperwork about us. 

* We had our medicals and the doctor was lovely; he even showed us what he’d written. 

> We had to pay a contribution: £140 as a couple. 

> We were told off at aforementioned meeting because our doctor had refused to hand over his report until Adoption Services had paid their contribution. They didn’t like that our doctor was ‘difficult.’ Strikes me, given the Adoption Services’ lack of efficiency and organisation, as sound business sense. 

* My brother is home from Tokyo for 3 weeks. 

> I know it seems unrelated but our assessing social worker wants to meet him to validate the reasons why I don’t see my father. I’m anxious about this as my brother is not a referee (because he isn’t here most of the year and doesn’t have children) and she will be speaking to him about it before she speaks to me. Whilst I trust my brother, both of these make the interview with him non-standard and not in the rule book. I foresee issues at a later date. 

* We want to adopt a sibling pair, under 6, of any sex. 

> Our assessing social worker keeps making worrying noises about this. She’s implied that if we progress to Stage Two, she will only be assessing us to adopt a child at this point. My wife asked her to specify exactly what would prevent us from being considered for two. She squirmed and didn’t answer. My wife asked again. Reason 1: my wife only plans to have a year off work. Reason 2: we haven’t got the access to the third room (loft conversion) sorted yet. When we explained both of these were surmountable (wife could have longer off work and access to the loft could be fixed this summer, before Stage Two), we were told we were thinking too far ahead and to slow down. What. The. Fuck? “Here are two potential problems. Oh, you have solutions? No, we don’t want that! Stop it!”

* We have kept in touch with five people from the ‘preparing to adopt’ course: a young couple, a single woman and a couple our age. 

> Turns out our feedback from the course (i.e. made about us by our assessing social worker and her co-presenter) is hilarious. So hilarious, in fact, that I cried all the way home from the aforementioned meeting, which is when we were told – even though she said she isn’t meant to tell us until our Stage Two meetings?! Are you ready? It’s epic. 

1) We have too much experience of children and of vulnerable children, in particular. 

2) They don’t like couples who seem to get on really well as it worries them. 

I SHIT YOU NOT. 

So, we have to pretend to believe these are stunning insights and that we want to work on them because we are the puppets and they are our puppeteers. One wrong move and our strings are snipped. Game over. 

It’s Saturday. I’ve just spent two days training to mark an exam paper… it’s embargoed so can’t mention details here. Suffice to say, as always, it’s been gruelling to use my brain so intensively without a break. Now I have to get through standardisation tomorrow and prove I’ve remembered all the minutiae and details for (inset large number*) questions.

That said, it’s been a useful way for me to avoid panic and over-analysis and worry and anxiety about Monday.

Monday will bring our first home visit from a social worker. It’s the unofficial one before the process really starts… we need to make a good impression and tick various boxes in order to be allowed to formally express our interest and progress to Stage One.

In one respect, the informality is good; however, we could be stopped before we’ve even started. See? Over-analysis.

Sigh.

On a really positive note, we’ve got loads done to the house: DIY, decoration and de-cluttering. 

* I’m being obscure so no one can guess which paper!

Not sure how to write our update… so many things are happening at the same time (like a sprawling spider web but much prettier) that chronologically isn’t the right approach. 

I’m going to go with a list: bad writing, not fun to read but easier to get down.

We have:

• chosen our adoption service (Local Authority – LA for short);
• expressed our interest to the LA;
• told our parents;
• spoken to potential referees;
• been interviewed on the phone;
• been invited to an information evening;
• attended an information evening;
• tweaked our referee list based on the information evening;
• received the full support of our referees and other friends who are ready to fight our corner;
• ordered key literature and guide books to start reading;
• ordered a new wardrobe for our room;
• prepped to decorate our room;
• prepped to decorate the spare room (just basic and clean, not child-focused yet);
• spoken to our parents again; 
• ordered flooring for both bedrooms;
• told our eldest nephew;
• undertaken some internet research;
• prepared one of our bosses for what’ll happen next (he’s also a referee!);
• spoken to my GP;
• taken advice from Adoption UK;
• looked into access to the converted loft-bedroom (currently a ladder);
• talked and talked and talked to each other;
• sought advice from three families we know (medium close friends) who have adopted over the last 2 years.

We don’t think this is bad for three weeks’ worth of work. 

It’s been so long since my last blog (plus I’ve changed my tablet and my phone) that I’ve spent the last half an hour trying to reset my damn password. 

What’s new since the last post?

1) I completed the #100HappyDays challenge. Oops, it really has been ages since I blogged. 

2) Our eldest nephew is living with us Tuesday-Thursday to help him with school (Year 10). His attendance is now 100% and his grades have rocketed. 

3) I’ve decided to apply for a senior role at work and then work towards a headship – something I’ve been putting off “in case we’re pregnant next month.” Who knows, I may even open a free school in reaction to the terrible Tory plan to acadamise all schools. 

4) We’re clearly not pregnant despite 9 x IUIs, 1 x miscarriage and about 7 x home insemination attempts… This spanning a total of 3.5 years and an amount of money I’m too nervous to total up. 

5) We’ve had enough of the emotionally-monotonous-rollercoaster that is TTC (yes, I appreciate that seems oxymoronic).

6) We’ve decided to adopt. 

This is not a decision we’ve taken lightly. In fact, Mrs P wanted to adopt from the off. It was my biological-she-wolf that meant we tried to conceive in the first place. You know what I mean: that all consuming urge to have a baby that affects every waking and sleeping second of your day. How, then, have I made the u-turn? With a lot of soul searching. 

I hate that clichéd phrase but it really sums up what I did. For two days straight, although I went to work and plodded through all the motions, I was actually inside my own head, with my own consciousness. For ease, let’s call her Priscilla – it’s a name that conjures up the right level of acerbic honesty and bluntness to represent my (often brutal) consciousness. 

So, Priscilla and I drew up lists of pros and cons; we ran through what-if scenarios; we undertook extensive reading; we trawled social media; we discussed the fact I am most likely infertile (or at least challenged in that area); we mulled over why Mrs P wanted to adopt; we thought about why I hadn’t wanted to and my prejudices in that area. 

In the end, we reached several conclusions in (more or less) this order. To clarify, I hadn’t spoken to Mrs P about my change of heart by this stage; this was all introspective with my chum, Priscilla. 

1) My desire for a family trumps all other desires, including the method of creating said family. Yes, Priscilla made me admit that the fact I’m running out of time – biologically – has influenced this conclusion. 

2) I am not fertile and, given my serious body hang-ups, I’m not physically or emotionally prepared to undertake the necessary investigations to figure out why or what I’d need to do to conceive naturally. 

3) I am probably too fat to have a healthy and safe pregnancy for myself or the child (I could rue the money we’ve thus far invested but I refuse to nurture any regrets). 

4) The idea of giving children a home who would otherwise be lost in a system makes me feel good. Priscilla worries this makes me sound sanctimonious and middle-classed. 

5) I’m not naïve enough to think this will go smoothly or easily but a naturally conceived family could end up with its own issues in so many ways. Also, without boring anyone, my work background might mean I’m better prepared than others for what could follow.  

6) I’m unhappy with my career. I’ve been opting out of opportunities because I’ve felt I couldn’t apply for jobs in case I immediately fell pregnant and screwed over my employer. I am currently working with a professional friend; he wants me to apply for a promotion and will also support me through the adoption process. I’m going to apply. 

The day I’d planned to sit Mrs P down and talk all this through with her was the day the Tory twassocks announced their bugger-schools-and-teachers-money-grabbing plans. Suffice to say, this had all my brain cogs whirring again thinking of the ramifications for my career. Priscilla told me to calm the fuck down and proceed as planned. 

Once the nephew was in bed, I filled her in. 

Mrs P was stunned into silence. This never happens; it was quite pleasant! She is also so excited… I haven’t seen her this excited about our family plans since we had a BFP before Christmas 2014. For her, it means staying in her current role/place of work despite the fact she was looking elsewhere. She recognises the need to have a support network around her and a sympathetic employer during the process rather than a new role, team, responsibilities and boss. 

That’s how the decision was made. I’ll blog separately about what the first steps have entailed and who is helping us. And I promise I won’t wait another 4 months to blog. 

I started a new job in September (2 days a week which has rapidly become 4 days a week) and it’s hindered my capacity to play online as much. That would be annoying save for the fact I love the job.

Anyway, the last three cycles didn’t work; I’m particularly gutted about this cycle as the timing was theoretically perfect. Harrumph. We’ve chosen the sperm for our next cycle and we will persevere.

In the mean time, I’m going to focus on some positivity because it will do me good. To force me to focus, I’m going to try the #100HappyDays challenge.

I am still not sure whether or not I want to really blog about my relationship with my Mother. To reduce its complexities to a few hundred words seems both impossible and belittling of the issues…

Before I continue, please note that my extended maternal-family are fantastic, as are my in-laws and my siblings. We are from a fairly middle-classed family. I am who I am because of two epic aunts, my Nana and Grandpa and, latterly, my wife and her family.

You may have noticed a complete lack of comment, in my blog or on Twitter, about my Father. He’s been, through my choice, out of my life since I was 14. I’ve seen him, since then, at my brother’s civil partnership and my sister’s wedding. Like many Brits, I find it hard to discuss my emotions and feel that admitting his moral crimes would be a reflection on me as a person. I know: absurd. Essentially, he is an alcoholic, gambling adulterer. There, I’ve said it. His boozing and betting lost the family so much money that we never stayed in a property for longer than 2 years; by the time I went to university, I’d known 9 homes.

Three examples of his top parenting skills…

• Disappearing with me, for 48 hours whilst on a “bender” when I was 3 years old.
• Driving my teenage sister in his Jaguar (in the era before mobiles), over the speed limit, on winding lanes, blind drunk. Twice.
• Having an affair (he had countless) with my science teacher/mentor’s wife and breaking up their marriage (NB said science teacher was also the father of my older brother’s closest friend – it’s a bit Eastenders, isn’t it?).

There are limitless incidents like these. So, obviously, for many years, he was painted as the villain. He is a villain. But, in a way, he wears most of his villainy on his sleeve in broad daylight.

It wasn’t until I hit college, I realised that his villainy did not automatically make my Mother a hero. Or even, simply, a good mum. Her cruelty was more discreet and She hid behind the pretence it was a generational quality. She raised us in such a way we would never dare to tell others what happened at home, ergo, there was no way for me to know any different.

With trepidation (it’s an anonymous blog but I’m still scared She’ll figure it out), I’ll try to explain some examples and, remember, I was born in the 80s not the 50s.

Physical

A normal punishment was to be smacked, hard, across the bare legs or bottom. Just my sister and I, never my older brother. This would be for simple things like the losing of a pen. If our crimes were deemed awful (such as not bringing dirty washing downstairs), She would soak a wooden spoon in water, first, and then use that. If She couldn’t figure out who had committed the crime, She’d beat us both until one of us relented. This continued into secondary school.

Emotional

She was never satisfied. Any grades we got at school were never high enough. Any household chores were never completed well enough. We were mediocre and She made sure we knew.

“I got 98% in my test, today!”

“What happened to the other 2%?”

Equally, any hint of telling a teacher or family member or friend we were unhappy at home was met with more physical punishment and the emotional punishment of being told we’d betrayed Her. In Secondary School, my sister and I would walk home praying that Her car would not be there, indicating She wasn’t at home.

Psychological

This is the hardest to describe. Perhaps a specifc example will illuminate what I mean: She told us that my Father raped Her. I was 14 (you can correlate that with the time I stopped seeing him) and my sister was 13. She screamed it at us, in the car, during a tirade when She was raging he wouldn’t give Her maintenance. We were not defending him; as ever, we were actually mute. At 16, I then experienced “correctional” rape by a man who wanted to fix me of my sexuality. I do feel it was even harder to deal with because of that thought and those mental images of my Father.

Favouritism

My brother is Her favourite, to such an extent that he knows it and is ashamed of it. This took many shapes: he could have an instrument and we couldn’t; he joined clubs and we weren’t allowed; we were beaten and he wasn’t; She would drive him to events or pick him up at 2a.m., drunk, from parties and Her daughters were left to their own devices. Most often, it was fiscal. For instance, three years my elder, he went to university first. He received a government grant and had no fees. My Mother sent him a £200 cheque every month for every year he was at university. My first year overlapped with his last year, as he did a sandwich year abroad, and I was saddled with loans and tuition fees (thanks Blair). And no financial support from Her. So, as She sat and wrote his cheque, addressed his envelope and posted it, She didn’t ever do the same for me. One Christmas, I could only afford the train home because my friends passed ’round a kitty. Many times, in my first year, I had to choose between eating and doing my washing. Desperate, I got through university in London with a nearly full time job, a maxed credit card and every hardship loan out there. My student loan debt + credit card + overdraft: £28,000. My brother’s total debt: £2,500.

Neglect

There’s building independence and then there’s a latch key upbringing. From 11, I was responsible for 80% of the ironing and cleaning. From 13, I did all the ironing, all the cleaning, all the cooking. I was punished and shouted out if it wasn’t to Her standards. I made my sister’s lunch. I brought her new clothes and trainers, as she was too scared to ask Her. When I went to college, I had to pay my own train fare. I had to care for my sister, almost full time, from the age of 15.

I had suspected meningitis aged 16 (turned out to be glandular fever) and She was away on a sailing holiday. My 15 year old sister cared for me, involving emergency doctors and my Nana. My Mother didn’t know I was ill until She returned three days later because She’d turned her mobile phone off.

My Grandpa passed away on my sister’s 10th birthday. It was tragic as he was delightful and we all adored him (my Mother is one of seven, so it’s a big family). From that point onwards, my sister and her birthdays were forgotten. Our Mother would spend all Her time mourning her father, 150 miles away. She would leave a couple of gifts and that was that. Since I turned 12 and she turned 11, I’ve organised every birthday treat my sister has had, saving all year to make it possible: theme parks, shopping sprees, parties, 18th, 21st. Doing my best to erase the guilt she has of sharing her birthday with such an awful anniversary.

Uncategorised

This is hard to write. Apologies if it’s clumsy. As a culmination of my own rape, struggling with my sexuality, the death of someone I loved, the ending of a clandestine relationship, my brother moving away for university and coping with my Mother in general, I am ashamed to say I made two attempts to take my own life whilst at college. My sister found and saved me the first time and friends found me the second. I don’t want to deal with the suicide attempts in this entry – well probably never – as I am healed now. However, Her reaction to me on both occasions is a true indication of our relationship.

She didn’t hold me. She didn’t ask if I needed anything. She didn’t ask why. She didn’t get me help or support me when I sought it out for myself.

She screamed at me. She told me She hadn’t wasted the best years of Her life, when She should have been free and single, raising us for me to selfishly throw my life away. She told me I was disgusting. She told me I hadn’t even tried to do it properly, critiquing the cuts on my arm, the second time around. She told me She didn’t even know who I was.

Clearly, I’m now more than ok; I’ve had help and worked through things with professionals. This was 17 years ago. I don’t suffer from mental health issues but do believe I reacted poorly to some pretty shitty things which unluckily happened at the same time. It was Her reaction, however, that really drove home to me that in terms of parents, I am alone.

Her behaviour has continued into my adulthood but changed to reflect the fact I am now a fully fledged grown up. Not only that, I am a formidable grown up. My sister, however, is not. So my role of protector continues as I act as a buffer between my sister and Her. She calls me Sister-Mum, in recognition of all I do for her.

There isn’t really a conclusion to this other than to say this is just a snippet of it all. Perhaps, one day, I’ll write episode two and entertain you all with Her freaky antics now I’m grown up. She has taught me one, very key skill: how not to be a Mother.