Oh Mr. Cameron...

So this morning I flicked on to the BBC News app on my phone to peruse the headlines, as I do every morning. On the "Top Stories" section, three headlines in particular caught my eye as they sat side-by-side in a pool of irony. Firstly: Benefits cap of £500 a week rolls out across Britain, closely followed by Rent 'unaffordable' for low-income families in third of UK, and finally - laughably - PM urged to tighten teenage mum benefit rules.

Wow! That's a lot of demonisation of the poor to digest on a Monday morning at 6am. I'm used to finding right-wing rhetoric saturating the likes of the Daily Heil and the Torygraph, but it seems to be encroaching on all walks of news media now. But what's wrong with these stories?! I hear you cry. Isn't it better for the country for us to discourage the workshy and stop rewarding laziness? Ah! If only that was the truth of what is happening to the low earners and non-earners in Great Britain today.

Here's some figures and facts to digest before we really get stuck into this one:

The UK government spending figure for 2013 stands at £509.4billion, of which £138.1billion is spent on pensions - that's 27.11% - and £62.3billion (12.23%, less than half that of pensions) on the entire welfare budget. To clarify, the welfare budget encompasses in-work as well as out of work benefits and disability benefits.

Here's a pretty bar chart:

(Source here)

Of that £62.3billion welfare budget, just £9.8billion - a measly 1.9% of the entire government expenditure- comprises unemployment benefits. The rest covers top-ups for low income families, disability, and so on, so forth. This means that the vast majority of welfare expenditure actually goes towards topping up the income of families who are WORKING but whose wages are not enough to meet the ever-increasing cost of living. 

Let's just dwell on that for a moment, shall we; Mr. Cameron would like us all to believe that his government's focus is on "making work pay", that the desperate state of the country's economy is down to years of the workshy poor committing the cardinal sins of greed and sloth, while inadequate previous governments hand them wads of cash to sit around in the lap of luxury. It is a lie we've been spun by politicians and the media over the years, conditioned to accept it all with the aim of demonising the undeserving poor and pitying the deserving poor. Thanks to ATOS, we now have a nifty method of disposing of those pesky disabled types, too unwell to be churned through industry but stamped with a "FIT TO WORK" badge and thrown out to fend for themselves anyway. The rate of suicide and attempted suicide amongst those deemed 'fit to work' by ATOS is frightening. What's even more frightening is how little attention these tragic deaths receive in the daily press. We can't risk undermining the government's stance, after all! 

And now look at the latest scapegoat: teenage mothers. Hardly new; they have been a favourite target for the red tops and sensationalised television shows for some time now. But now it seems the government may take a more official position against them. The article on the BBC website cites the oft-repeated myth that a young girl need only have a baby and she will be housed, fed, clothed and entertained all at the expense of the long-suffering tax payer. Those who have first hand experience of the welfare state, particularly those who have been young and/or single mothers, will know that this is a far cry from the truth. The papers would have us believe that faith in this myth has urged a generation of young women to become parents solely for the purpose of setting them up in life without having spent a day in paid employment. Yes, there are some girls out there who feel this way. I've met some; I'm sure many of you have as well. But rather than lambast them and bring in legislation that states they will only receive benefits if they live in a hostel or with parents - which is what the article states Mr. Cameron is being urged to do - why not look to the root of the problem? Why punish all young mothers for the tragic ignorance of the few? Where is the focus on education? Why not bring in more transparency about the welfare system and how hard it is to be housed even if you DO have children and no job, or about just how degrading and demoralising it is to live at the handouts of the state?

Practically, legislation like this wouldn't work let alone how morally abhorrent it is. Not all teenage mothers HAVE parents they can live with. The refuges and hostels that already exist are over-subscribed and under-funded. How can they take in a tidal wave of young parents and their babies too? I've got it! Just bring back the workhouses. We can shove all those disabled types and these damnable young parents into there and maybe get industry back on its feet too, if we get all these undesirables put to good use making stuff for the privileged bourgeoisie. 

The simple facts of the matter are that teenage mothers, the disabled, the unemployed and the low wage earners are NOT the cause of this country's troubles. Plunging them into further poverty and misery by capping benefits, imposing sanctions, forcing them into unpaid work and diabolical living conditions WILL NOT restore Great Britain to a position of prosperity. It will not "pay to work" until the cost of living is brought into line with the typical take-home pay of the average family. It is so expensive to put a roof over your head, feed yourself, cloth yourself and keep up with the basic utility bills even on what may appear to be a healthy wage. In this day and age, we should not see scores of families struggling to feed themselves on £14 a week, or men and women taking their own lives out of desperation and fear. 

Fat girl wants to wear a dress!

It's reeeaaaally hot here at the moment. Well, by British summer standards anyway. I think it must be about 28 - 29 degrees Celsius just now, which is freakin' WARM in my book. I am wearing cropped jeans and a flowery top. What I would really like to do is dig out the short-shorts and don a little vest to go with them. Nice and cool, easy to move around in - good times! Only... I can't. Because I'm overweight and according to internet memes there are RULES about how much flesh you're allowed to expose.

This has done the rounds recently on Facebook:

I hate it. Hate hate hate it. How anyone wants to dress should be their own choice, not subject to nasty jokes that basically suggest fatties should cover up. 

I much prefer this:

Fuck it. I'm getting out the shorts. Sorry, world, you'll just have to tolerate my wobbly thighs and pudgy belly. This fat bird isn't melting for anyone!

So no-one told you life was gonna be this way....

Friendships are strange things when you really think about it. How do you decide to align yourself with this person and not another? How many of us have friends that we've known since we were children, people we would trust with our deepest, darkest secrets or could turn to in a heartbeat over a crisis? Or people who feel they have no friends at all? Acquaintances, yes, but not friends. How do you even go about making friends as an adult?! You can't just walk up to someone in the street and say "hey! Wanna be my friend?". It works when you're 8 years old; not so much when you're 28.

What about when friendships turn sour? This week I reached five years since speaking to the person who, for 20 years, had been almost a sister to me. I don't want to dwell on the whys and wherefores of the relationship breaking down, but it occurred to me that five years on from when we stopped being friends, I still feel as raw and hurt as I did when it happened. Isn't that strange? I've gotten over romantic encounters more easily! Heck, one year after leaving my eldest son's father, I was free of any residual hurt or feelings towards him! A friendship breaking down feels somehow more.... I don't know. More something.

ETA: how's this for ironic. I write about this friendship for the first time, and as I log into Facebook for a cheeky break, wham! there's a load of photos of her with a mutual friend. Ha. 

The realisation that I miss this friendship so much got me thinking about what friends actually mean to each other. It's taken me a long time to let my guard down and really open up to other friends but I'm getting there. For a long time I kept the defences up just in case any one of those friendships broke down for whatever reason; I've deliberately distanced myself emotionally from new people and avoided investing too much in the hope that someone might want to be my friend. Don't get me wrong, I have friends! I'm not a loner at all. But it's that difference between having friends you would grab a coffee with and having friends who know you inside-out, with whom you can relax entirely and just be. That's what I miss; that closeness and familiarity. I see groups of friends who've known each other for years and I'm so envious, like I'm standing on the periphery silently howling "LIKE ME! BE MY FRIEND TOO!".

Maybe it's about time I get a grip and just start trusting people. I know some really amazing folk who are great to spend time with and I'm honoured to call my friends. I shall have a stern word with myself and stop pushing people away.

Wish me luck!

Fibromyalgia, innit.

There's not much point in writing a blog or keeping a diary if you're not going to be honest about stuff. It's taken me a while to build up to this post but I think I'm just about in the right place to start talking about being unwell.

I suffer with fibromyalgia.

It's a horrible condition, not least because it's one of those invisible illnesses that leaves you looking fine but feeling at death's door. It is usually triggered by a traumatic event or illness; in my case it was pregnancy.

My pregnancy with my daughter in 2008 wasn't easy. I felt horrendous for most of it. Very lethargic, mysterious aches and pains that couldn't be explained by any of the tests I had. My hips were agony, my chest was constantly tight, making it difficult to breathe, but the more doctors examined me, the more I appeared to be a picture of health on paper. By the time my daughter was born, I was convinced everything had been in my head. It must be otherwise something would have been flagged up by all the blood tests, scans, and consultations I had!

I pootled on through the next couple of years, dismissing each new complaint or incident as just "annoying things my body does". Suddenly developing lactose intolerance out of nowhere, saying goodbye to my previously glowing complexion and welcoming a visage resembling that of a greasy teenager, constant fevers, night sweats, insomnia, anxiety attacks, exhaustion,  joint pain over every inch of my body - all of it making daily life just that bit more of a battle than it ought to be.

When I fell pregnant with Baby T in 2011, I didn't really give too much thought to being unwell again. I had trundled along for the past couple of years constantly feeling A Bit Rubbish but with no individual thing causing SO much trouble that it warranted a trip to the doctor. This pregnancy made that with my daughter look like a Caribbean cruise, however. There were many days when I couldn't even get out of bed; where the dizziness, nausea, aches and pains would leave me utterly unable to function. If I managed to get out of bed, shower, get dressed, do the school run and walk back home, that was a Good Day. If I wanted to have the energy to walk back to school in the afternoon and pick my children up, I needed to lie on the sofa for the remainder of the day. Occasionally I was stupid enough to try and do a bit of housework while I was home - after all, it's bloody miserable to lie down and look at the dreadful state your house is in, knowing you shouldn't try to remedy it. I really regretted it afterwards though. They usually ended with me in floods of tears, sitting on the kitchen floor trying to muster the energy to crawl back to the sofa.

I told myself and my husband that this would end when the baby was born and I would be back to "normal"- my normal anyway, where I feel rubbish but can function for the most part. Baby T was born in May last year and I waited patiently for the pain in my hips and knees to subside, for the breathlessness to go away, the lethargy to ease off and the "morning sickness" to leave me alone. I'm still waiting. It hasn't gone anywhere and I wake up each day feeling like I've just run a marathon before going ten rounds in the boxing ring. Attempts to do housework are met with stern warnings from my husband not to overdo it and break myself. Day trips are carefully planned around the knowledge that it will take me 2 - 3 days to recover. Even a trip to the supermarket can put me out of action for the rest of the day!

It's really hard to explain this to people because I look fine. There's no blood test to diagnose fibromyalgia. No x-ray or scan to pinpoint the origin of the pain. It's what they tell you is wrong when they've ruled out autoimmune diseases like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis and there's nothing left to explain why everything hurts all the time.

My mum also has fibromyalgia, so I have an ally in her and can ring her to complain about the frustration and misery of just wanting to LIVE each day instead of existing and 'getting through' to the evening or the weekend or the end of term. She gets it when I say I just want to give up, or when I get upset with my husband for wanting to plan days out that I know I just can't do anymore.

What really brought it home to me was a trip to hospital with Baby T a few weeks ago. He had had a nasty reaction to his latest round of jabs, culminating in an ambulance ride to A&E whereupon various doctors and nurses gave him the once over before packing us off back home around 2am. I had to carry T round the different bits of the hospital, sit up to hold him, stay awake and alert enough to explain the situation to different medical staff, and then get a taxi home in the small hours of the morning. No big deal, right? After a couple of hours sleep at home, my alarm went off ready to get up for the school run. I couldn't move. Not "didn't feel like moving". COULDN'T move. The will was there, but my arms and legs were dead weights. My husband had already been up and about for a while so he brought me a cup of tea and struck up a conversation. I couldn't talk. The thoughts were in my head but my mouth just wasn't cooperating. I managed to mumble half a word but I'm not convinced it made any sense. My husband asked if I was being grumpy with him over something but it took me a few minutes to process the question and try to respond. That was really frightening, and all because I had had a couple of hours running round a hospital the night before.

Conversely, in 2010 my other son was ill just before Christmas and also spent the night at A&E. I stayed with him 'til we were discharged around 3am, went home, grabbed a short sleep then - this is amazing - I got up and went to work. I can't imagine doing that now. Just getting up without even having to think about it... going to work for the whole day without it seeming like an insurmountable task... These days it's an achievement if I get as far as showering and getting dressed without having to sit for 10 minutes to recover from a dizzy spell.

I miss the person I used to be. It's hard to accept that my life will never be like that again, that I will forevermore be measuring out what I can and can't do in a day. I used to love going to music festivals and am dying to go to one next year for my 30th birthday. At some point, I will have to sit and work out if I could actually do it anymore. Four nights of camping with three days stomping round a field listening to heavy metal? Is it even realistic anymore?

I made a thing!

First, let me point out that I am not creative or arty at all. Neither am I musical, and though I believe I can sing magnificently in my head, the grimaces of my peers suggest otherwise. Long have I yearned to be able to Do Something, to make Beautiful Things that inspire others, and long have such talents evaded me. Until, that is, I discovered crocheting. I don't care what anyone says; it may well be the past time of grannies, the fruits of my labour may well be more twee than a doily underneath a chintz lamp - I don't care because it is bloody good fun and I have finally found something I am GOOD at.

LOOK! Look at the things I made yesterday:

For those who say they can't tell what it is, sod off! It's clearly a heart shape. <sniffle> Ok, so I may be taking slight liberties by saying I'm good at this, but this is the first time I've tried to make stuff without it looking like a postmodern interpretation of pre-schoolers' craft activities. I can bake a pretty mean cake, but having just rejoined Slimming World in another attempt to stop being a massive fatty, I need a hobby that is slightly less calorie-laden. I can't say that crocheting is a fabulous workout, but it does keep my hands sufficiently busy to stop reaching for another custard cream.

It has taught me to stop and appreciate the simple, beautiful things in life. I'm more than a little prone to getting bogged down with the big, bad ills of the world (no! you don't say!) but it's good for the soul to take a step back, smell the flowers, look at the butterflies and turn a bit of wool into a pointless frilly thingy.

To boob, or not to boob.

It makes sense to ease myself back into regular blogging with a familiar topic, but this time I'm writing from a new perspective. Something I've never encountered before. I'm apprehensive about saying the words out loud or writing them down here, so this post feels a bit brave for me.

I would like to stop breastfeeding.

There we are; just six little words that have caused me a huge headache in the last month or so!

This concept is new to me because, although I've breastfed all of my other children when they were babies, they each lost interest by the time they turned a year old. I've never had to wean a baby off before, or find alternative ways to get them to sleep at night! Ted is coming up to 13 months old and still very much my little squashy baby. He likes food, but still breastfeeds half a dozen times a day at least, as well as on average twice a night. He still sleeps in my bed, although we've tried (and failed!) to move him into his cot once he's nodded off. He knows! He can be in the deepest sleep, snoring his head off and the very moment he touches the cot mattress, his eyes fling open and he cries as though he's been abandoned for tigers to eat.

I don't mind him sleeping in my bed for the foreseeable future. He's a lovely, cuddly companion and a big part of me will miss having baby snuggles once he's outgrown us. I don't actually know why I feel I would like to stop breastfeeding. I just would. I've loved every minute of it, never minded missing out on nights out, never felt it was a burden to be his sole source of nutrition for the first 6 months. It doesn't bother me now; people tell me he's only using me for comfort, but that's fine. That's what I'm there for! It's just... I don't know. I'd like my body back. I'd like to be able to buy pretty summer clothes without first evaluating them for ease of boob access and degree of discretion for feeding. It's a vanity thing, pure and simple. I don't mind admitting that. Or maybe I do... I don't want to be called selfish for feeling this way and I don't think anyone with a shred of sense about them would say anything like that, but there's a lingering voice at the back of my mind that knows Ted still needs me, in his own little world.

So! Lovely readers... I need some help. I need some tips and advice for gently easing him off breastfeeding. It doesn't matter if it takes weeks or months, so long as it works without breaking his heart! He's quite fond of his sippy cup but all my attempts to introduce formula or cows milk as a drink (I cannot for the life of me express more than a few drops!) have been met with a look of disgust.

I'm sort of trying "don't offer, don't refuse" at the moment but he's quite persistant and doesn't mind letting me know when he thinks it's time! Dummies get thrown at my head. Bottles make excellent tools for banging on the coffee table, but nothing more.

Any suggestions?

2013!

Hello dear blog! How I have missed you these last... 10 (10!!!) months. I have had so many ideas for posts since my last entry in August, but it transpires that life with four children leaves very little time for writing anything constructive.

We've had an eventful time so far this year; we moved house again after an utter disaster involving blocked drains, a lounge full of sewage and surprise asbestos. Not as much fun as it sounds, and it doesn't sound much fun at all. 

Alongside that, we've started down the long road of assessing my middle son for Autistic Spectrum Disorder. All being well, we should have a diagnosis within 4 - 5 months. That's been quite an emotional rollercoaster already and is something I would like to write about. There is so much information out there and some of the parents I've met through online communities already are incredibly clued up. It's rather intimidating! More than anything, it's a huge relief to finally be a step closer to getting the support my son needs and maybe learning how to see the world through his eyes. 

Finally came my own diagnosis of fibromyalgia. In a previous post, I briefly alluded to ongoing joint pain I was experiencing. To begin with I really expected it to ease off as my body recovered from pregnancy, but at 6 months post partum it was no better. After 8 months, the pain had worsened to the degree that it kept me awake at night. Once I took a step back and put that into context with a bunch of other niggles and minor complaints I'd been treating in isolation, I realised that for the last 3 years I have felt rubbish just about every single day. Some days I just feel a bit crap. Others I literally cannot get out of bed. After blood tests, x-rays, consultations with a rheumatologist and much prodding and poking, the doctors told me that I have both fibromyalgia and early signs of osteoarthritis. I haven't really got my head around either of those yet, but once I do, I'd like to write about that too. 

So there's a great big group of topics right there for me to focus on this year! I've really missed blogging  and have a notebook with dozens of ideas for posts and half-written entries. I'm determined to make time now to finish some of them and get back to what I love doing.