Friday Update (Patreon)

Sadly, I did not manage to complete any chapters like I'd hoped. Or even get much in the way of any writing done.

To make a painfully long story short, my mother and I are looking at moving out at last, and will, hopefully, see me somewhere that I am no longer so stressed before christmas. Here's hoping.

The process of moving is, in of itself, going to be distruptive. But I rather doubt it can be any more disruptive than the rest of my life has been lately – who knows, the new location might just give me the feeling of safety to settle down and just write.

--- Everything past here is the, somewhat overshared and definitely longwinded, explanation of what has been going on in my life that has caused so many issues.

You neither need to read this, nor have any actual reason to do so, but honestly venting will probably help.

To begin, I live with my grandmother and aunt in my grandmother's house, which is also my mother's animal sanctuary; technically I live with my mother also, but after being made entirely unwelcome she moved into one of the sanctuary's sheds. Wooden shed, meant for rabbits, that she turned livable because being woken at all hours of the night, haranged for her need to access the bathroom repeatedly, and just generally not wanting to live in a pig-sty that the pigs got angry at you for cleaning, she left the house itself.

Being blamed for causing 'panic attacks' (mild surprise recovered from within minutes) by my aunt, her sister, for opening doors didn't help either of course.

It was an unpleasant, but tolerable, situation for years. Until my aunt's drug-addict friend shows up one night, moving in with her blessing. I, of course, was not consulted; nor was I even informed. 

Instead I heard noises in the night and, heart pounding, I snuck around trying to find out what was going on. Wondering if we were being burgled. Not smart, to be sure, but when I found out I'd been right the next day I was freaked out and ended up locking myself in my room away from the strange newcomer.

Cue months passing, various attempts to stop me being so nervous about him, and...

We learn he had stabbed his brother with a knife. And he had been bailed, to this house, again without any consultation with me or my mother, which meant he had to stay. 

What had been irrational fear, at least at the time, became rational. Only made worse by his drunken behaviour – he was always drunk, unless he was high – which included slamming my aunt into walls and locking her in his bedroom. Not that she, despite giving a statement to the police at the time while I was watching, will admit that ever happened.

He started smoking, marajuana – weed – to be specific. Now, I'm mildly asthmatic, no problems in day-to-day life but smokers literally kill me.

Choke-me-to-death kill me.

So every part of the house outside my bedroom quickly became off-limits if I wanted to breath. From the toilet to the kitchen, I was denied the ability to live in my hone.

Then he threatened to bash my head in for shutting doors to try and keep the smoke out. And feel safe at all while doing things in the house, but that was, by that point, secondary.

More months pass, I end up suicidally depressed and get taken to the hospital by the police because they're worried about me killing myself. Oh, and I got called violent for... throwing a piece of clothing at a wall when my aunt tried to barge into my room. To 'help' me by telling me that her friend, boyfriend by this point, wasn't worth being afraid of.

Little comes of it, the system churns too slowly for anything to happen, and months later I start writing.

Six months pass where, even if I have to use a gas-mask to go to the toilet without suffocating myself, I'm living and functioning. Things are mildly improved by a guest of my grandmother's, an old friend of hers, visiting from Africa, who acts as a stabilising influence on everyone's behaviour. 

Then I open my door to peer out after I heard something smash. And there he is, my aunt's beloved boyfriend, who immediately threatens to stab me. For existing somewhere he was aware of.

Within that same hour he goes downstairs, takes a knife, and threatens my grandmother's guest with it.

I end up sitting with him as he cries, weeping over the fact he's getting death threats here that he thought he'd escaped from in his home country.

I practically stop leaving my room if he's in the house after that. My mother takes over cooking for me entirely because I'm too terrified to go past my aunt's and her boyfriend's room except in the extreme hours when they're gone or asleep.

And we, at last, come to what finally caused the breakdown in updating – none of this caused hiccups in my schedule, remarkably – where my aunt decided to be a criminal.

See, I never called the police, made a statement, or anything, because I knew it'd risk my home. My mother's home. That my aunt and grandmother would hold it against me. But my aunt is a narcissistic moron who doesn't understand that other people aren't *her*. That her believing something is fine doesn't mean they will think it's fine as well.

So, she, quite happily, told her boyfriend's drug counsellors how 'he was doing so well, he only threatened to gut my sister's child like a pig once in the last couple of weeks!' Or something that effect.

He got arrested, again, and the police talked to me. As in, came in, got the whole story out of me, and kept following things up. And as part of this... my grandmother tells me 'that (you being threatened) doesn't matter! (aunt's boyfriend) matters!' My fear, anxiexty, the threat of being killed in my own home, didn't matter to her.

Just the 'injustice' of her precious little suffering martyr mattered.

Capping all of that off, when they learned the police were getting a statement from me, they told me – ordered, corced, threatened to evict me if I didn't comply – to drop the charges against him. To stop him going to prison because it was 'unfair'.

My aunt betraying me, choosing to harm me and simply denying it ever happened, I am used to over decades of living with her.

That my grandmother did it also was a betrayal that near knocked me unconcious from the shock.

I caved. I said I wouldn't give a statement because I was too anxious. 

But, at last, after everything, he was gone. His bail conditions got changed to 'not here'. I was free. The house was safe from threats and I could live again – it was amazing and I left like I was living in a cloud, free and floating safely in a world of peace and harmony.

Of course, that didn't last. My aunt had no plan yet dedicated herself to 'help' her boyfriend, who was not her boyfriend, nor her fiancee (she's still married, as a note) as she claimed, because then they'd be committing benefit fraud (UK housing benefits don't apply while living with a partner, let alone when sleeping in the same bed) and failed to get housing, a place of residence, or... anything.

She got a van, failed to do it up like she thought would be 'easy', after all my mother... spent literal years making her shed habitable, so of course she could do it in a month!

And now it's gone cold. Staying in it is intolerable to her precious 'not boyfriend'. So now she needs a house: thus my grandmother is selling this one.

Contacted an estate agent, we weren't even told. Photographer came around to take pictures: We found out by walking in on them. Surveyers checked out the garden, and we were told 'they had a buyer', and they tried to foist the job of dealing with the sale on the people who don't want it to happen because 'they can't cope' with doing it.

Now they don't have a buyer, but they do, but they don't. And we have no idea if the house will be sold, will all of our things in it, tomorrow, next month, or a year from now.

Because they, quite literally, refuse to tell us anything. Any requests for information come to 'you should do it for us! You're good at things like this!' instead of answering even yes or no questions.

Oh, and just today, I got in a fight where, apparently, I was never threatened at all and why don't I talk about all those myriad of (non-existent) times my mother went after my aunt with a knife? (she was cooking, cutting veg, and my aunt was on the other side of the goddamn kitchen. But 'holding knife in same room' is enough for my narcissistic monster of an aunt to twist into her being threatened).

And that's the last two years of my life 'summarised'. This is probably far, far, too much, but... I fell apart and I guess I feel you, my supporters who I can still barely believe are there at all, should know why.