I Never Thought I Could Do This.

If I had a penny for every person who told me to write about my life I would be rich, but I never thought I’d attempt it.

I never thought I would be able to write down the things I’ve experienced or be able to explain how I feel about them.

I was taken out of school at 8 years old and “Home Educated” which actually meant almost no real education except for cooking, cleaning and indoctrination from the cult I ended up in.

So I know I cannot write, I can’t spell adequately and I have no understanding of grammar I don’t know what Nouns, Adjectives, colons, semi-colons are or how to properly use commas and full-stops.

Nor do I know how to structure sentences – if you’ve read enough of these posts you’ll see the difficulty I have in writing in a uniform manner, I write down what I think and that is all.

Luckily I have friends with a better education than me who at least do some minor editing of the structure of these posts.

SHOUT OUT to Pauline, Emrys and Johnathan – thank you so much, couldn’t do this without your help!

It’s not just my lack of education that has stopped me from attempting to be heard or listened to but the way I was raised not to create waves. I was never to listen to my feelings, as feelings were inherently irrational and illogical.

I was told that expressing feelings was impolite, when I did show any feelings they were met with shock, disgust and would often cause further violence and so I learnt to hold it back and this way of thinking has spilled unconsciously into my adult life.

I have spent so long being silent for my own safety that I find it’s hard just to even think about expressing them to other people.

Its also not easy to write it down as this is expressing an emotion, just in a written format – I feel exposed and vulnerable I worry a lot about what I write, whether it’s safe to do so and I also worry about the reader, are these too much? Are they overly distressing or hard to read for any other reason? I feel like I’m bothering people.

Recently I took a long journey, several hours several trains nothing unusual but as a disabled person with heavy luggage it was not easy but when I got back I got a call from a friend who asked me “Is everything ok?” I responded “Oh the train journey was longer than expected but not too bad” and he replied “No stupid I’m asking about YOU, I was worried about YOU?!”

I’m so used to being ignored and treated like nothing that it didn’t naturally occur to me that that was what he meant!

But I do have something to contribute – my life experiences can be used for good we can all learn from them – as a child of abuse I can tell you how it affects your life; how it affects your mental and physical health.

I know what it’s like to be homeless, I know what it’s like to live in poverty, I know what its like to be crippled by mental health problems, I know what its like to be suicidal, I know what its like to be surrounded by violence, I know what its like to be raped and sexually abused – I know what its like to be alone.

I know what it’s like to be so unimportant to everybody that if I’m ill or physically injured my main concern is not my well-being but whether the situation will be a bother to anyone!

When we educate ourselves we learn from someone who knows more about that subject than us, someone who has experience.

Yet for some reason we elect and allow people who have NO IDEA about these social problems – people whose lives have never been hard or trying at all and expect them to be able fix these social problems.

How would someone like Homer Simpson be capable of understanding the intricacies of poverty and its affects let alone know how to fix them.

Isn’t it time we asked people with actual expertise  and experience rather than people who buy their way into positions of power and can wax lyrical about it.

I know I’m not an expert but my life experiences are worth something, they’re worth understanding because you may gain perspective about life, on a life that’s different to yours.

To be a truly productive society we need to acknowledge that we don’t already know everything and that’s ok – as long as we’re all willing to learn.