Suki Has Gone Insane At Last

Hypochondria: Living with Lies

I’ve often debated posting here about my childhood, the circumstances that have led me to where I am now, but the time never seemed right. I despise whinging about my life on LJ. I don’t do emo and I resent situations that make me resort to it. I there resent my grandfather with every ounce of my being. Actually, I resent a lot of people.

Here is, succinctly, the story of my life:

My mother gave birth at 17. She and my dad lived in this very house with my grandparents (my dad’s parents). She cheated on him and ran away with another man, leaving me behind. My dad pleaded for her return and when she didn’t come back, he left, too. I was taken into care and offered to my grandparents. There I stayed. I moved about a little in my twenties, lived with my boss as a lodger, with my boyfriend and in a little rented flat all by myself with my best friend in the flat above. I moved back home to take care of my grandfather in his twilight years. That was five years ago.

What do you think? Sort of sad, huh? Nobody wanted me. That’s what I grew up with. That’s what I was told nearly every day of life. ‘Your own mother didn’t want you.’

I lived with that story for thirty-two fucking years. I can’t and don’t want to explain why, but it never made sense to me. There were inconsistencies, contradictions. A year and a half ago I discovered another version.

My mother gave birth at 17. She and my dad lived in this very house with my grandparents (my dad’s parents). He cheated on her while she was still pregnant and eventually left, leaving me with my mother and his parents. My nan took over and my mum was pushed out of the equation. She moved into a friend’s house while he was in prison and while she was there, my dad put his hand through the glass door. She let him in to help him and he raped her. She came to get me. My nan chased her away with a six inch blade. She left.

I spent my childhood suffocated, imprisoned behind garden gates, not even allowed to play hopscotch on the path just outside. When I was in my late teens, after my nan died, my grandfather stalked me, became obsessed with my cousin, stole from me. I moved out and around, never wanting to go back. I kissed my lovely little flat that was all mine goodbye and moved to Winchester. I felt lonely. My granddad and I settled our differences and while he was at it, he manipulated me, as he has always done, into coming home.

I’ve been dwelling on the past for a long time, since my nan died, really. I’ve come to the conclusion that my whole family is completely fucked. My granddad has six children, one of whom lives four miles down the road. None of them visits. It was his birthday on 28th Feb and he didn’t get even one card from them. Is there a reason for that or are they just heartless motherfuckers?

I was resented when I was a child, because my nan ‘lavished’ attention and toys on me. My aunts hated me and I suspect still do. When my nan died, they flocked back to our house and cleaned us out. They stole from us, from their own father. The very day after she died, my granddad gave me her wedding rings because he couldn’t bear to look at them. For this, I was snubbed. I was 17 and just lost the person I thought of as my mother, and they literally turned their backs on me.

It’s very PC to be charitable and forgiving, isn’t it? I don’t forgive. For that and for neglecting their father and leaving me to struggle with him, they deserve to rot in hell. My uncle has a medical condition that I won’t go into but could potentially kill him. On the basis that he’s a cunt and he interfered with his own daughter, I hope it does kill him. I don’t say that in anger. I really do mean it.

My nan was quite ill when I was younger and she died at only 63. I love her and I miss her, and if one day we catch up with each other, we’re going to have a row, and it’s going to be a big one. There’s a massive part of me that holds her responsible for everything. She took me away from my mum, dressed me in Oxfam rejects, wouldn’t let me out to play. She isolated me and gave me a fucked-up view of the world. I grew up around elderly people and watched them all die, one by one. I have been watching my granddad die since I first open my eyes and gurgled. Sort of.

My granddad is hypochondriac. And it took two decades to realise it. I would come home from school and find him on the floor. Sometimes he wouldn’t speak, sometimes he would merely groan. There was never a day when something wasn’t wrong, headache, backache, legache, breathing trouble, heart condition, stomach acid, sore throat, flu, runny fucking nose. I spent my young life truly believing he was about to snuff it at any moment. The turning point in my beliefs came when he’d been taking a certain tablet for many years for a ‘serious heart condition’. The tablet was made available over the counter and Boots advertised it with a big poster in their shop window. It was for heartburn and indigestion.

From that point I became aware of his antics. I knew, on the day he collapsed in a restaurant at Tillgate that he was faking. And sure enough, when the ambulance arrived, they could find nothing wrong with him. (I could explain his weirdo reasons for the fakeout, but it’s another long story.)

Every day, there is something new wrong with him. If I have a headache, a cold, I have to hide it or he will mysteriously develop the same symptoms in a matter of seconds.

It’s not just the hypochondria that upsets me, because I do believe that, often, he believes it himself, and it’s an illness just like any other. It’s the fact that he uses it to manipulate me. I’ve already said that my family are useless so you know it’s just me. I’m the only one he’s got to look after him, to cook and clean and provide him with comfort and company. I’m happy to do it. In his odd and totally fucked-up way, he looked after me, but sometimes, most of the time, it feels like this is all my life is. It shouldn’t be like this. I should have help. But there’s no one. The family won’t help and any respite we’ve been offered by Social Services has been refused by my granddad.

I got out maybe a handful of times a year. That’s not a lot compare with other thirty-three year olds. I don’t go to work do’s, I go to the cinema maybe once a year, I go to my best friend’s flat maybe twice a year (she lives ten miles away, btw). But every now and again, I need a break. I need to get away from granddad and his daily list of complaints and discussions about nurses and bloodtests and flaky skin and tablets and doctors.

At this time, my grandfather does NOT need twenty-four hour care. He is capable of making sandwiches, cooking pies, toasting, making tea and all sorts of other clever little activities. He still does his own washing, dresses and undresses and washes himself. He has an alarm that he wears around his neck. He pushes it if he needs help and an ambulance will automatically be called. Great, eh? Hey, maybe this means I can go out for an evening once a week? No? Once a fortnight? No? Once a month????? You’d think, wouldn’t you.

No, every time I get to go somewhere, he suddenly feels faint, he ‘almost’ passes out, his throat becomes ‘funny’ and he gets terrible headaches. When I tell him I’m still going, there’s an almighty tantrum and a sulk. Then he ups the stakes. I go to the Hub in four days and we have hand-cramps and he’s ‘overdosed’ on his inhaler. He even told me earlier that he wanted me to call the doctor out, although after I explained that if he tells the doctor what he just told me, he’ll have to go to hospital. Or maybe I should call an ambulance myself if he was feeling that bad. Miraculously, he’s now fit as a fiddle! You should have seen him almost bouncing around the kitchen!

I go through this every time. You might think I would be used to it and you would be right. And the fact that I’m used to is what really gets me down. It doesn’t matter how much I look forward to a night out or a weekend away, he’ll make me anxious and guilty. I get scared to tell him that I’m going out, I cancel arrangements with friends because I’m so anxious I feel sick and it defeats the point in going out in the first place. I would like to get to know my mum and sister, but the pain I suffer in trying to do that makes it too difficult. Even if the bus makes me late home from work, I get a performance, and it’s not just that he’s old. I get fucking fed up with people saying, ‘Oh of course he’s clingy, he’s old. Poor old man.’ No, he’s always been this clingy. Remember I told you he stalked me when I was a teenager? I wasn’t joking.

I’m so excited about the Hub. I can’t wait to get away and see Gareth and meet up with new people and squish my Kitty again. He is desperately trying to spoil it for me and even though I’m determined that he won’t, he’ll still leave me with this underlying sick feeling all weekend. I resent that. I do my best not to cause others pain. Why can’t he do the same for me?

That’s all for now. I need to snap out of this dull mood so I shall do a happier post in just a moment. I have disbaled comments because I don't wish to discuss things because that will only lead to more whinging and possible tears. I just wanted to get a few things off my chest and maybe it will help some of you to understand me a bit better :o)