Why are we not enough!

It was not until i had my first child that my relationship with my step father changed,he had always been a heavy drinker,he would easy drown 2 bottles of vodka a day,when drunk he was very abusive and spiteful. When my Scott was born it seemed to change something in him,he became suddenly human,he had this look in his eyes when he held the baby,it was a look that i had rarely seen before,it was this real look of love.

I know some people would say "why let your child around someone that was a drunk" but even though he did drink he kept himself at a certain level when he was around Scott,one of Scott's first words was gandad which elated Yovan,He would have him every weekend without fail from the age of 3 weeks till his death he would pick him up on the Friday and bring him home Sunday mornings.

Although I could never bring myself to call him dad i allowed all my children to call him Grandad because he earned that right and i was not going to take that away from him,he proved that he had a side that was special,even if i didn't see it myself growing up,as Scott got older he could see himself that his Grandad liked a drink and his Nanny as well and that's when the cracks started to appear,Yovan knew he had a problem my mum knew he had a problem and now my innocent little boy his grandson knew he had a problem,many arguments would start because of his drinking and many times we all asked him to give up the bottles,but to no avail.

One the weekend before he died he had Scott as usual but him and my mum started to row in front of him he was 10 years old at the time and rang me asking if we could pick him up.

Me and his dad got there and i can remember it like it was yesterday i stood in the front room doorway and started to shout at him that this had got to stop, that the kids cant keep seeing this happen,god knows it had fucked up my life and i was not gonna allow the same for my children,we exchanged some more harsh words and then he said to me "why don't you ever call me dad" i said to him "you are my dad but you know i cant say it" then he said the craziest thing i had ever heard him say "can i adopt you girl". I laughed out loud replying" don't be mad I'm 28 years old its a bit late to adopt me don't you think", "No its not"he said back to me it was the first time i had ever felt like he was being honest to me.

I sat down on the chair next to him and said with tears in my eyes "i would love you to adopt me but even more i would love you to stop drinking" he looked at me as i went on to say "I love you and the kids love you like mad,don't you want to see them grow up and become adults".

We stared into each others eyes and i started to cry begging him to get help,saying to him"you r gonna kill yourself if you cant give up for me please please give up for the kids,they need you around and i cant bear to watch them watch you kill yourself".

That was the first time and last time i had every seen him cry,he said "come here girl" and i did and sat on his knee,he was a very big man 6ft 7 and a heft 24 stone but as he hugged me he felt like a small child"i love ya girl you know that don't ya"he would always call me "girl' something that i felt was as close to being called daughter."I love you to".

The following weekend came and Scott for some strange reason didn't want to go down there,Saturday afternoon came round and the phone rang my brother was on the other end "Yovans dead"Everything stopped dead my head spun like crazy and my first thought was,how the hell am i gonna tell Scott,i had Kevin and Chey-anne as well but knew Scott would be in bits,the man that had him every weekend his Grandad,the one that taught him to read,write,tie his shoelaces and everything was gone,and then i realized if Scott had been there he would of seen his Grandad die from a massive heart attack to this day i thank the moon that he was not there,

The coroner stated cause of death to be a massive heart attack brought on by alcholisim and morbid obesity, I felt so beside myself that me and the kids was not enough reason to stop drinking and found that so hard to deal with until i convinced myself if only i had had that conversation a little bit sooner maybe he would of tried to fight it and beat his addiction,but my biggest regret is not getting the chance for him to adopt me,even if it was possible at 28 years old,he wanted to be my dad and all to late as is always the way i wanted the same thing.I'm proud to call him dad now even if hes not here he is always around me in music in his sayings and even though they was not real blood every time i see my Scott do something wonder full i say"god your grandad would of been so proud".

Inside the mind of a self harmer

I don't claim to know what goes on in the mind of all people that self harm,the fact being that people self harm for all sorts of reasons,I don't think self harmer's do it because they want to i suspect like myself its a sort of release from reality,and a coping strategy,not a great way to cope with things but a way none the less.

I had tried to pin point when my first encounter of harming myself was but for the life of me i can not say when it started,i suspect i have blocked it out somewhere so deep it knows its better off hiding,i can remember the very last time i put a razor blade to my skin,i can remember many,many times in between but not the first time,I can only say at first it was probably for some kind of attention,god knows i was lacking that in my childhood,but attention it did not bring,I can say that unless you have been in a situation where all u know is to inflict pain upon yourself to believe you are alive is very hard to understand,But to try to help all understand i will proceed.

To see your own blood pour from your body allows the mind to know you exist,to feel the pain allows your mind to believe nothing else can hurt you as much as you can hurt yourself,and to inflict a blade upon yourself allows the mind to believe you are in control,all the symptoms of some one who is lost, alone and knows no other coping strategy.

I never cut myself so that people would see yet i never like some self harmer's cut myself where ever i could.My left arm was the only battleground that i inflicted pain upon i don't know why but i never felt the need to expand to any other parts of the body,many people do as to why i cannot answer,I'm certainly not proud of it and would never recommend it to anyone but for a while if only a short while it worked.For me it would be easy when ever things got so low to pick up a disposable razor and perfectly dismantle it till i was left with the single sharp and very lethal blade and proceed to take all my anger out on myself,To say it hurts when doing it i suppose is true but in a strange kind of way it was also very euphoric to me.

The feeling of invincibility to other pain i was going through,nothing in this world could ever ever hurt me like i could hurt my self,if i was feeling hurt by a person,i would cut myself and believe that person never hurt me at all because i can hurt myself more,the world could treat me like shit,yet with a blade the world could not make me feel more shit then i could by using the blade upon myself.

I would spend much time just staring at the blood and watching it drip all down my arms onto the back of my hand along my fingers and drop to the floor,and with each drop of blood that hit the ground was one less bad feeling in my body,I could control it i would decide if i wanted to cut once twice three times or even fifty times depending on how depressed i felt at the time,i would cut and cut until i felt better.Of course that feel good factor never lasted to long one reason being the pain from all the wounds would really kick in and two the feeling of guilt would rear its ugly head,It is a somewhat nasty circle to be in,feel hurt,cut myself, feel better, feel pain, feel guilt, feel hurt, cut myself, feel better, feel pain, feel guilty........Sadly for many it is all they know all they can be in control of,and the only thing that they may be good at..

I'm 33 now and it was only just a few years ago that i last self harmed and i cant say for surety if i will never do it again,i found something in my life that was to top everything that was love,and all the while i have felt loved i have never felt the need to harm myself,I'm one of the lucky ones ,many people never find a way to control this habit of self harm,and i call it a habit because in a way it is ,when you start it is very hard to stop,like any kind of addiction,but i know that there is more out there for everyone if they don't give up fighting,i bear many many scars and hate going out in the sun because if my arm gets tanned the scars show up even more,my kids know all about it i mean there is no point in lying and they know rather then hurt themselves I'm here for them no matter what ,but even though i deeply regret doing so much self inflicted pain to myself i am what i am and that part of my life has made me stronger and wiser,each scar tells a story of some kind of heartbreak or pain i felt growing up and constantly seeing what i have done to myself only strengthens the passion i have to help anybody never to get to that point.