Where to begin?....

Following a chat with my daughter yesterday, she said that it would be really good to know some of our family's past (including my own) as we have lost so much information by not asking either my mother or aunts about our history. Both she and myself have something in common - in that we don't know anything of our paternal history. Hers is more complicated but that is something to be written about at a later time - even after all these years, guilt and the sense of betrayal by those concerned mean that it is still hard to talk about - that betrayal for want of a better word seems to follow me all through my life - why do I still trust anyone - maybe because I have a stupid belief that people are in fact nice - and it always comes as such a surprise when I find that is not quite the case.

I always think that what people say is in fact what they mean but 9 out of 10 it isn't - I really should learn to become tougher instead of being all weak and soppy. I know deep down I am strong - after all I am still here  and have a wonderful daughter as a brilliant testimony that I have done a good job and for all of those people who have decided that it is "them not me" that is your problem - you have missed out on such a lot.

So, having got that off my chest, it is really a case of where to begin? So much of my past has now been shovelled into a deep cavern inside me - I have always tried to work out why do people hide so much from themselves, is it because it hurts too much to remember and it is therefore so much easier to forget the hurt - oh I can still remember the total pain and humiliation that I used to feel when my father made fun of me - I know now that it was because of the agony he was going through with his cancer, but as an 11 year old you don't know that - the image of his thin legs and having to help him into bed still remains with me - also his terrible cough and how I used to hide in my bedroom to escape it - I also remember having my hair long so that I could hide my tears from him - as they say, you always try to hurt the ones that you love the most and from reading my mum's diaries after she'd died, I know that they were so pleased when I came along - my mother had to have treatment to have both myself and my brother and so they must have gone through a lot to actually produce us!

I also wonder if depression, anxiety can be genetic or be continued through the generations? - my mother had had such a horrible life with her own mother that I wonder if she couldn't help what she put us through after my dad died - but that is for the next chapter...

So, this is perhaps where to begin....