I have not *been* with a man in over a year. I have not been held, touched, ached. Sure I have learnt how to pleasure myself, but it is not enough. But what if that is all I will ever have.

My son died recently. He was in his 20s, and died of a sudden and unexpected illness. I was widowed when he was young, and he was my only child. He was everything to me. I loved him more than anything or anybody and I would give anything right now, do anything, to get him back.

I know I can’t keep thinking like that, because he can’t come home. But I just can’t stop thinking it: I want my son back, I want my son back, I want my son back.

I don’t know how to make it stop. I don’t know how to make the hurting stop. I don’t know how to live with this. I managed to adjust to losing my husband, but this – this, how do I do this? How?

He was a joy, a gift, the love of my life, the real reason I got up in the morning. I have family and friends and other loved ones, but – none like him. They all seem so far away, like I have to squint to see them, now. All I can see is my son, my son, my son, my son, my son – the hole where he used to be – the who knows how many decades ahead of me, to be lived out without him. Without him?

The years feel like a sentence, a punishment now. I used to want to live a long time, to see my son marry, have children, grow and learn . . . to play with grandchildren. It’s all empty dreams and ashes, now.

My son! I want my son! I could talk about him forever, to everyone – but of course, I can’t, not really. It’s been over 3 months now. Who could tolerate the way I want to go on and on and on? No one.

Who wants to hear over and over and over about my son? How I can’t sleep, how I don’t even understand how I can breathe? I laugh, I smile, I go to work. I act normally and sometimes feel normally for up to several hours these days. But . . . I’m not normal. I’m not.

Well, I’d better stop now, or I might never stop. Because the drumbeat in my brain . . my son, my son, my son, my son!!! . . . it never really quits.

I was married this year, after many years. My husband isn’t ready for children, and doesn’t know when he will be. I’m worried as I’ll turn 30 next year and would like to have children before I’m 35 as a childhood trauma makes it a risk as I get older. I don’t want. To pressure him, we have a solid relationship and I love him with everything I’ve got and I know he reciprocates. What should I do?

I kept my old phone with all his lovely texts on it.Five yrs ago this christmas I met who I thought and still think is the one, I have that phone hidden away and when im feeling p****d off I read through all the lovely texts and I get such a lovely feeling, I still see him cos I deal with him in business every couple of months, we have a ‘nice’ relationship, I dont know if he has anyone else I dont think I want to know, we just chat about everyday things, weather, ecomony, price of things etc, I love chatting with him, I love him.

http://thelivesofothers.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/dont/

Despite what people are thinking this was not meant to be bullying.

You know who you are, you know well that I know what you’re doing. If you have done anything wrong I want you to tell me, however much that scares me I want to hear it from you and not someone else.

If you decide not to tell me, I’ll give you a week to change your mind then I am going to ask you. Tell me the truth, please.

These “ooh’s” and laughs are what I loath -
What have I to gain?
Less than you would ever profess to feel;
These fake works are horrid Spit upon
Whatever action I could take.

Fuck off you sprite.
I could never be the road less travelled by;
I am so much more gravelled and seen.
You are the one
quick repaired and new
Pampered and civil
End of the table would see your name.
Your face.

Welcome all who covet you.
I’m not so easily forgotten.
I live on!

I miss my son so much. He is my whole life. I can not begin to tell you the pain in my heart.

I know what you’re thinking of doing, if you do it trust me you will REGRET it.

I’ve lost the will to do anything, be anything.
I want to wake up.
But not enough to do it.

I want to wake up and swim, but also to slip under and sink.

I think I know which is easier, but don’t think it’s right.

Part 3 was here -

http://thelivesofothers.wordpress.com/2009/10/22/someones-watching-part-3/

My Father wasn’t convinced that anything was going on. He was a huge skeptic and figured that my brother was just picking up on what I had been describing in my dreams.

My mother objected, but I was told never to talk about that stuff around my youngest brother again.

I always thought that it was weird that my father didn’t believe in stuff like spirits and ghosts or whatever it was that was around us. I mean, he always dragged us to mass on Sundays, and he knew all the responses to the priest. How can you believe in one thing you’ve never seen and not another?

There were arguments between my parents. My mother wanted to get a priest in or a spiritual medium or anyone with any kind of knowledge. My father wouldn’t have any of it. All I really remember was that since my younger brother was moved out of my room, the dreams and visions were back.

Night after night the dark figure would haunt me, in every sense of the word. Despite my room having double glazed windows, and being extra insulated against heat loss because it was an extension, it was always freezing. It’s a cliché that the air gets frosty around paranormal activity, but until you experience it, you can’t understand it. The temperature drops immediately, your breath fogs in the air and a chill runs through your very core. Even with three layers of pyjamas on and two duvets, you would still feel as if you were on a polar ice trek in the nip. The very fact that you can’t explain it makes you fear it all the more. The fact that you know something is about to happen sends you into such a state of helplessness that you just want to cry.

I’d always try to sleep with the light on. This was tricky, because the light switch was on a timer. This meant that it would only stay on for three minutes at a time. So every night I battled with the task of trying to get to sleep before it went off, or getting up, in the dark to flick it back on and start again.

One night a new trend began.

As always, the light went out before I could doze off but I didn’t dare close my eyes before I was sure I was about to sleep. Footsteps. Not the familiar footsteps of my mother going to the kitchen to make herself a cocoa. These were inside my room. They started near the door. Deliberate and slow. It wasn’t a huge distance from the door to my bed, but it was enough to hear more footsteps that I cared to.

They weren’t loud, on the contrary. They were the sound of bare feet on carpet. You wouldn’t think you’d hear that, but when there’s nothing else to hear but your pounding heart and the footsteps, you’ll hear them perfectly. One by one they got closer to the bed. My eyes bulged and my face froze. I had never known fear like it. One last footstep that landed on the side of the bed I had my back to. I could feel someone’s presence in the room. That’s a feeling we can all relate to. The feeling of being watched, or knowing there’s someone else there without having to see them. The eerie feeling of another being in the room with me was so over whelming that I thought I’d pass out with the sheer terror of it. In my mind’s eye, I could see the dark figure looming over me as always, but this was different. Up until now it had just been in my dreams. Now it was, or at least seemed to be, happening for real.

With the footsteps stopped, the silence in the room was broken shortly after by a heavy breathing. A deep and forced breathing, almost like someone in a deep sleep and just a second away from snoring. Even in my panicked and frightened state I had some of my wits about me. I thought to myself:

“It’s your own breath you’re hearing. Don’t panic”

Then my brain kicked in and suggested that I stop breathing for a moment to test that theory. Internally I counted down from 10 to 1 and told myself that I’d stop breathing to see if I could still hear it. I’ve no idea how long it took me to make that countdown, but it wasn’t quick.

Eventually in a sink or swim moment and a battle with myself I took a deep breath and held it. The only part of my body that I willed to work were my ears. For a second there was silence around me. I could still hear my own heart beat, and it was going from a fast drum roll to a slow druming as I held my breath longer. Just as I was assuring myself that my mind was playing tricks on me it happened.

It wasn’t a growl, but like a whispered growl, if you can imagine that. I wasn’t holding my breath voluntarily any more. The growl was followed instantly by and exhale. I felt the crotches on all of my pyjamas soak through as I wet myself. The breath from that exhale brushed across the back of my neck. I was frozen. I thought my chest would explode. My legs wouldn’t work, my feet wouldn’t work. I couldn’t will my self out of the bed. My eyes hadn’t closed or even blinked this whole time and the deathly silence outside of the breathing behind my and my thumping chest was chilling in itself.

The breathing stopped after a few moments and a feeling of relief ran over me. Then a draught came from under my two duvets before I could realise that they had been lifted off of me. Not entirely, but enough to let me know I was no longer able to predict what was going to take place. I tried to scream, but nothing would come. I couldn’t even sense the fogged air of my breath in front of my face. I tried to force a noise, any noise that would bring my mother to me, but nothing. Not even a squeal. I felt hopeless, like I was paralyzed. The cold from the room around me came flooding into my bed from under the raised duvets and I suddenly became aware of my shaking and shivering. Some of it from the cold, but honestly I don’t think my body was as aware of the cold as much as my mind was aware of this situation.

I was crying at this stage. Actually I was in hysterics, but the sounds of desperation that would have come in handy at a time like this were no where to be summoned from. In my mind I kept telling myself it was a dream, but I could wake myself up from my dreams. I suppose you can’t wake up when you haven’t been asleep to begin with. I prayed to whatever god would listen and begged for this to end. I was this quivering, blubbering mess and all I wanted was my mammy.
Another breath, heavy and deliberate snapped me out of my prayers. This one was right in my left ear. The breath was cold and it clouded me and my senses. I felt a pressure on the matress behind me, like someone had just sat on it. I know I wasn’t imagining it because the matress sank a little and caused my motionless body to shift were it lay.

That did it.

I was up and out of that bed so fast I was in the hall way before the duvets hit the floor. I stood there in the fully lit hallway about to pass out from the fright, but for some reason I still couldn’t make a sound. Something just wouldn’t let me. I was just elated to be out of that room. I sat on the stairs, and just waited to calm myself down. My mother was in the living room and I wanted to be able to tell her what had happened, but I had to get it clear in my own head first.

She always waited up for my father to get in from work. He worked in a famous hotel in Dublin, so there was no telling when he’d get home from whatever celebrity party he was hosting. This usually meant that she’d fall asleep, curled up on the couch while the snow danced on the screen when the night’s programming had finished.

As I sat on the stairs trying to compose myself, I heard a voice coming from the living room. It was far too late for the tv to still be on. This was before the days of Play TV or any late night tv for that matter. We didn’t have a phone, so it wasn’t that either. I pushed the door open and saw my mother as expected, curled up on the couch asleep. But she was talking. I’d never seen anyone talk in their sleep before and it kind of strangely comforted me in a way. Here was my mother sleep talking, kind of funny which made her a person to me, not just my mother or a figure of authority or comfort. It calmed me. Just as I was about to think about going back to bed, she spoke again:

“I thought you were going to be home later than this”

There was no response, just the flicker of the tv snow.

“So are you off tomorrow?”

Once again, silence.

“Ok, but we have to talk about all the stuff that’s been going on”

Silence still, but this time in response the door to the living room was thrown violently open.

For a second I thought I’d been busted by my father, but instead the fear had me gripped again. Beside the couch my mother was curled up and asleep on was my father’s favourite arm chair. It faced the tv and was basked in the glow of the tv. Everything seemed normal about that, except it wasn’t my father sitting in the chair. The dark figure sat motionless in the arm chair, facing the tv.

My mother was talking with it. She didn’t know it, or if she did, she didn’t realise I was there watching the whole episode. I ran for the hall door and bolted for the street. I stood there under the street light and didn’t know what to do.
I remained on the grass verge in front of our house for what seemed like the longest time. When my father eventually came home I hadn’t even noticed the sun coming up.

He was confused and a little pissed off to see me outside the house at such a weird time, shivering and smelling of pee. He demanded to know what had happened, but I couldn’t tell him. I knew it would just make him angry, so I lied and said I’d had a bad dream and didn’t remember how I got outside.

Even though he had just worked a 16 hour day, he took me to my room, flipped the matress, changed the sheets, washed me and gave me clean pyjamas and stayed with me stroking my forehead until I eventually drifted off to sleep. I have always loved him for that.

The next day, my father was still in bed when I stumbled up to find my mother in the kitchen having lunch. She asked me why I was outside the house. I broke down and told her everything. She looked sympathetic all the way through and cradled me as I bawled my eyes out until I got to the part about the figure in my father’s chair, and the things she’d said.

She went still and the blood ran from her face. I asked her what was wrong and I’ll never forget it:

“I was convinced I was talking to your father. He came in from work, sat in his chair and we had a conversation. I know it was a conversation because he answered me. He answered it all.”

We sat there and just sobbed for what seemed like an age. I asked her what was happening and she couldn’t tell me. But she did say that she was going to try and stop it.

She said that an old hair dressing friend of hers had always been into the spiritual so she’d call her and get her around. Over the years she had apparently honed her medium skills and was able to pick up on energies and aura. All sounds hippy to some people, but she was our proverbial knight in shinning armour. I knew my father didn’t want this, but I wouldn’t dare tell him. If there was a chance that she could put an end to it all, I’d risk lying to him. Or at least keeping the full truth from him.

My mother called her friend and arranged for her to come around that night. My father was due to be off, but his assistant had called in sick, so that meant another party to host until all hours.

We passed the time by watching the tv and trying not to let on to the other two boys what was going on. At about 9pm, with my brothers in bed, the door bell rang.

My mother rushed to open it and with me following her like a shadow, she pulled the latch and opened it up. The woman on the other side was in her 40’s and dressed just like you’d imagine her to be. Long flowing skirt, sandals, the works. I would have given a knowing smirk if I hadn’t just been put at ease by her smile. She hugged my mother with a genuine sincerity. She looked at me and knelt down to meet my eyes with hers. She stroked my face and made me feel completely safe, just with the look in her warm eyes and the glow from her smile.

“Don’t worry little man, we’ll get to the bottom of this”

With that, a gutteral noise literally shook the house to it’s very foundations. It was a deep, rumbling animalistic noise. The kind of growl that you’d hear in a film and think the engineers needed to take it down a notch. It echoed through every room in the house and ran a chill down the spine of everyone who heard it.

Our visitor didn’t look so calm and collected any more. She looked as terrified as I felt and I wasn’t to be comforted by the look on my mother’s face either.

The woman put one foot across the doorway, but before it touched carpet the noise erupted again. This time it was louder and shook the walls. So much so that pictures came off the wall. It was all topped off with a thump from the ceiling above us so violent and loud it was as if someone had dropped a double decker bus on the floor upstairs. My mother ran upstairs to see if the boys were ok, and to see what that noise was. She came back down saying all was ok and nothing was out of place.

The woman had turned a shade of white I’d never seen before. She had taken her foot back and placed it where it was before and took a step further back, off the door step.

She looked at my mother and said:

“It’s not safe for me in there. It would be best for us all if I didn’t cross the threshold. You need someone else”

Then she looked at me, her eyes filling up:

“I’m so sorry”

That was the last we saw of her.

The next and final part coming soon……

I fancy men. I date men. I sleep with men. I want a boyfriend. I love their smell.

So why did I have a very graphic lesbian dream last night? And why did I wake smiling?

I found out the other night my best friend  is cheating on her spouse. I ran into her in a pub with the man she is cheating with, doing things that were more than just having a drink. I’m shattered. Why? Because we’ve known each other for some long time and I thought I really did ‘know’ her. I also thought she was better than this – that she had good character and loved her spouse.. they seem happy enough when I see them together in our various circles of friends gatherings. She didn’t even seem embarrassed by me finding her with this other man – that’s the rub. In fact, she told me later that it doesn’t mean anything, its only sex when her husband is away for a few days and she gets lonely. God doesn’t she realize what fire she’s playing with? She’s got 2 kids -its always everyone else that gets hurt when the proverbial shit hits the fan. And what the fuck am I supposed to do now when I see her and smiling husband together at our next mutual friend gathering? I’m not saying a word of course, not my business.. but how am I gonna look him in the face knowing what she does behind his back? and no.. they dont have a ‘open’ relationship. Needless to say this has greatly affected our friendship at this point too.

I love my long term boyfriend.

I have almost cheated on him twice in the past year (with the same person).

Each time I stopped it because I didn’t want to hurt him and not because I didn’t want it to happen.

Sometimes I resent him for being so lovely, so sweet, so caring.

Sometimes I wish he was a dick so I could just dump him and have no conscience about it.

He’s a great guy and if we broke up it would kill him.

I don’t know what I want. But how do you ever really know?

I had to do it. I had to look at the pictures again. I frustrate myself sometimes. I found out that you are here, in this country. And I am afraid. So afraid that we will meet each other. I promised myself I wouldn’t let it get to me, that I was happy for you and that was that. But I had to go and look at the pictures again. My god, I thought you were gone, that you would never be back. That the chances of us meeting ever again would be slim. But now I know that’s not true and everything is so much more real.
I don’t know what to do.
I am so scared.
And I still love you.

This never happens to me. He is very kind. He is very nice. He is friends with my friends. So how do I tell him I am just not that into him without making him feel how men have made me feel in the past!

and doesn’t wake up, will anyone miss him?

I don’t know if I can still do it.  Keep being strong while all around me crumble.

The loss of a loved one started it all.  They’d been unwell for a while but it all ended very quickly.  Ever since then, we’ve been arguing about stupid stuff, but always managed to sort it out easily, even when I was hospitalised for a stress-related condition.

This time feels different though.  It started as usual over something small – the colour of paint – there were tears, some shouting, which ended in me being told to “just go.”  So I went, came back to check they were ok, they barely spoke, and we just got on with what we were doing.  It was tense but ok.

Then this morning, I did something small – scratched the floor – and for the first time, burst into tears.  So I called them to apologise for what I had done, and was shouted at for “walking around with a face like thunder” for weeks and for “calling in that state just as I am going to work”. And then was told “I don’t know if you are aware but I lost my *** a few months ago.”  Um, yes, I am aware – I carried the coffin.

Obviously I know that grief affects people in different ways, and deep down I know that we can ride this tough time out, but how the hell am I supposed to keep it together?

Power does not corrupt men. Fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power (GB Shaw)

http://thelivesofothers.wordpress.com/2009/10/02/calvin-do-you-believe-in-the-devil-you-know-a-supreme-evil-being-dedicated-to-the-temptation-corruption-and-destruction-of-man-hobbes-im-not-sure-that-man-needs-the-help/#comments

he said he was going to cruxify me and he said he would destroy my reputation and then I got this:-
“I was there watching.  I love a good execution haha and yours will go down in history..”

and all because I made a complaint against someone in power.

The dog’s bark is not might, but fright.

Part 2 was here:

http://thelivesofothers.wordpress.com/2009/10/05/someones-watching-part-2/

At the time I was too confused and scared to understand what my grandmother meant when she said my mother was “stuck with him”.  Did she mean me?  One of my brothers?  My father?

After a few months, our house sold and we could buy a new one.  Looking back and being honest I reckon my parents took the first house that was available and that they could afford just to get out of my grandmothers.  I can’t say I blame them really.  At the time I think we were all relieved to get out of that house.  I certainly was.  The last night we spent in that house I didn’t sleep a wink.  I’d try to but when I was just about to drift off I’d be interrupted by more visions of that dark figure.

We spent the whole day in moving vans back and forward from Howth to Blanchardstown where our new house was.  I think I slept the whole day in my dad’s car without as much as lifting a single box.  The feeling of safety and relief that it all might be over gave me the best sleep I could ever remember having.  I woke up the next morning on a matress on the floor of my new bedroom as the beds were arriving later.
It felt strange having lost so much time to sleep, but waking up and not being afraid to be in a room on my own felt so, normal.  I hadn’t felt that way in ages.

I was at the age now where I was left in charge whenever my parents went out for short periods of time.  This usually meant visiting my younger brother in hospital.  His asthma was pretty bad.  He couldn’t run around or play normally without having to need an inhaler in his pocket.  Being on steroids and different cocktails of antibiotics and drugs only delayed and reduced the severity of attacks.
On one particularly severe night, I looked across the bedroom to see what all the noise was about.  He was sat on the edge of the bed and white as a sheet, eyes wide open.  He couldn’t breath and he couldn’t call out for help.  I scrambled for his inhaler, but it had no effect on him.  I ran to my parent’s room and got them down.  My father must have broken every rule of the road getting him to the hospital.  Blanchardstown hospital transfered him to Temple Street and put him on a nebuliser.  Doctor’s reckoned that another half hour of going untreated and he would have basically suffocated to death.
The moment I heard that I was more scared than I’d ever been.

My grandmother came to visit him while I was there and I don’t remember much really apart from the argument.  My grandmother wanted to visit our new house but my mother was having none of it.  They both tried not to add to the stress my brother was going through by arguing in the corridoor, but we could hear everything:

“What do you mean, I’m not allowed near your house?”

“I don’t want you near me, my kids or my house.  Everything you touch turns”

“Turns what?”

“I don’t know, evil”

“Have you any idea how ludicrous that sounds?”

“I couldn’t care less, I will disown you if you come near us uninvited.  I swear”

And that was that.  My grandmother was made to promise never to come to our house and my mother came back into the hospital room looking shaken, but like a weight had been lifted.  On the way home we went to McDonalds and talked about how exciting it was to be in a new house.  It was in the summer so talk of the new school year was also topic.  I was oddly looking forward to starting a new school.  New friends and all the rest.  I saved the toy from my happy meal to take it to my brother the next day.
In the morning the hospital called to say that my brother could go home, so off my parents went to collect him.  I stayed home to watch the youngest of my brothers.

About an hour after they had left the door bell rang.  I went to answer it thinking it was my parents, but as I opened the door, it revealed my grandmother standing there.

“Can I come in?”

I remembered the conversation they’d had in the hospital, but in fairness, what was I going to do to stop her.

“Erm, ok”

She wasted no time in pushing past me, slamming the door shut and shouting at me to go to my room.  I ran, grabbing my youngest brother and went to my room.  She stood in the door way and burned into me with eyes of intensity I’d never known before.

“If you tell your mother abou this, I’ll make you sorry”

With that the door was shut and locked from the outside.

At first all I could hear was like a chanting.  I couldn’t make out the words, but by the tone and the beats in her speech it sounded to me at the time like a prayer in church.  Rehearsed and deliberate.  She did this for a while, moving from room to room and after about 15 minutes, I heard her move to the kitchen which was next to my downstairs bedroom.  The speech changed.  Not so forced and panicked as it was before.  This time it was like hearing only one side of a telephone conversation.  She sounded worried though, like she was pleading.  Again I couldn’t make out the words, but her voice was raised enough for me to wonder what was going on.  This didn’t last long.  It stopped pretty suddenly when I heard what was unmistakably a

“NO!”

A stony silence followed that was only broken by the sound of the lock turning in the door again.  Instead of it flying open like I was expecting, it was slowly pushed aside and my grandmother stood there.  With tears making her mascara run, she wasn’t the severe figure she had been when she had locked us in that room, she was a broken person.

Her voice was nearly inaudible:

“I’m so sorry.  Please don’t tell your mother I was here.  I’m sorry”

With that, she left.

I really hoped she’d call my mother to confess to her visit at some point, but she never did.  I also hoped that my mother wouldn’t ask me or my brother if anything had happened while they were away.  Partly because I was, and still am a terrible liar, and my brother was far too young to understand why he shouldn’t tell the truth.  Thankfully though, she never asked.  Why would she?  She came home to see us playing the Atari without as much as a cushion out of place.

I felt uneasy for the rest of the day, despite the fact that my brother was safely at home again, this time with a shiny new nebuliser of his own.  I couldn’t concentrate for the rest of the evening on anything.  I was getting sleepy later on the couch, so I was put to bed.  I was sharing a room with my youngest brother, as his room was being converted in the attic.  He was already out cold when I got there, so I climbed into bed.

The feeling of dread at bedtime was around me again, simply because of my grandmother’s visit.  But much to my relief I just fell asleep.  It was one of the best sleeps I’d had, out for the count, like a baby.
Until about 5am when I was woken by the sound of my brother squealing at the top of his lungs.  Not a cry from a nightmare, but a cry that let you know he had gone through something that he just didn’t know how to deal with.  The high pitch yowl was joined by a loud thumping on the bedroom door.  My parent’s were literally trying to burst the door off it’s hinges to see what was going on.  My senses were shot, I didn’t know where to start.  Open the door?  Comfort my brother?  Turn on the lights?
I put my hand on my brother’s shoulder to comfort him but before I could get the words of “It’s ok” out, his screech went higher in pitch again, and louder too.  It made me jump back in shock.  He was freaking the shite out of me now.

I jumped across the room and flicked on the light.  My brother was sat there in the fetal position, swaying back and forward.  His face soaked from tears, but his eyes cried dry.  The banging and demands to open up from my parents couldn’t even distract me from what I was seeing.  My little 4 year old brother utterly inconsolable.  But what got me were the markings on him.  His face was red like he’d been slapped.  A giant red hand marked wrapped itself around his pale calf and shin of his left leg.

My father eventually kicked in the door, saw my brother, looked at me and freaked out:

“What did you do?”

“Nothing, I was asleep”

“Why was the door locked?”

“I don’t know I was asleep”

He picked up my brother and took him trembling to the living room.

I was out of it.  I didn’t know what was going on

I could hear my father trying to get sense out of my brother, but he was too far gone to string the words together for at least an hour.
My mother looked at me, and got down on her knees to meet my eye level.

“I’m going to ask you two questions, and if you don’t answer truthfully, I’ll know”

“Ok”

“Did you do this to your brother”

“Of course I didn’t.  I was asleep, I swear.  I woke up and he was screaming”

“Ok, sshssh.  This next one is very important.”

“Ok”

“Did your gran ever visit here when we were out?”

I said nothing, I didn’t know what to be afraid of more.  What had just happened, or my gran.

“I’ll ask you again.  Was she here today when we were at the hospital?  You can tell me, I’ll never let her hurt you”

“Yes she was here”

She held me for the longest time and whispered promises that she would never blame me for anything that happened.

When they eventually calmed my brother down they asked him who had hurt him.  My dad played good cop:

“Did your brother do this?”

“n,no he was ’sleep”

“Who did this to you, you can tell me, I’ll keep you safe”

“The man”

“What man?”

“The man”

“What man?  Who was in there?”

“The black man”

“The black man?”

“He was all black”

My mother looked at me and a shiver ran down my spine.

Part 4 coming soon….

Three weeks later and I’m still so excited….

We had our first date, lunch – it went really well.
We’ve had several dates since and he’s really great.
I think he thinks I’m pretty great too!

Thanks to all of you who encouraged me on the last post.
Sometimes I have to pinch myself, and, I’m smiling alot!
Hope is a lovely thing to have in life.

My boyfriend of four months told me this week that he’s never been in love, he doesn’t know what being in love should feel like and he doesn’t know if he’s in love with me. He says he feels closer to me than any other girl he’s ever been with before, that there are so many things about me he loves, but he can’t say he’s in love with me.

The real problem is, he had actually told me before he was in love with me so now he’s taken it back, but I’ve fallen madly in love with him. We haven’t broken up despite his revelations, he says he still wants to be with me and in a relationship with me, says he loves my company, the sex is amazing, he feels close to me and cares very deeply about me and I know I’m lucky that he feels that at least but I’m scared. I’m scared if he doesn’t feel he’s in love with me now, maybe he never will be. I know it’s only been four months and because of that I’m staying with him, to give our relationship a chance, to give it time, to give him time to see how he feels.

But as each day goes by I love him more and I let him in more but now I feel there’s this gap between us because I’m there, at the point where I know I’m in love, and he’s not.

I really thought this was it, that I had found the person I could one day maybe share a home and the rest of my life with but his uncertainty has completely thrown me. I feel disappointed, stupid for believing he was in love with me, and so helpless. I am who I am and if that’s not enough for him to fall in love with after four months, then will it ever be enough?

But I don’t want to walk away, he’s who I want, I can’t imagine him out of my life, I don’t want him out of my life. We have so much fun together, my heart jumps when I see him, he literally takes my breath away. I felt that way only once before in my life and I lost it because the guy didn’t feel the same. The idea of that happening to me again kills me.

Maybe I’m just not the kind of girl that men fall in love with.

I’m genuinely scared of someday losing my mind.

That said, i’m not sure what that’s meant to mean. Losing implies having one in the first place. I have a lot of very strange behaviour. I know this myself – so what does that say about me?

When i’m alone, I talk to myself, I have unintended outbursts from my thoughts, my mind races, my body tires but under the skin lights up like it’s being electrocuted.

I sing and shout randomly. Things I don’t mean. I talk to myself like I hate “me”. When I do this, I have to remind myself that it’s “me” saying this to me, and not “you”. I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together…

When I go to sleep at night, I feel like i’m rising from the bed. I feel fear, and anxiety, and jealousy, and inadequacy. I don’t sleep easy.

I have strange fantasies. Nothing dubious. My mind will wander and invent scenarios that haven’t and won’t happen. I’m tempted to write these, as if I were some kind of fiction machine.

Am I going crazy, or am I just human? I’m not sure how to deal with this anymore.

The new guy i’m seeing since you sent me the text saying we should “cool things for a bit” is lovely. He is really handsome (much better looking than you) he makes a really big effort with me and my friends. He texts everyday and i dont even have to text him first, he gets me cute thoughtful gifts, he is everything i could want in a man. But everytime you pop into my head i’m reminded of the one thing he’s not, he’s not you.I miss you,do you ever miss me?

I’m the head editor of a sociology journal. One of my best friends is on the editorial board with me, and her work is unreliable. Every time she reviews an article, I have to erase the vast majority her comments and start editing from scratch. Resentment is beginning to simmer and sizzle. Steam has started to issue in a caballine fashion from my usually placid nostrils. I want to be straight up, but history has shown that criticism and she don’t mesh. Instead, I spend half my life re-doing the work that she has done. The difficult thing is that she works really hard. Like, really hard. It would be one thing if she were a lazy so-and-so. Then I’d be all like ‘yo, you, lazy so-and-so, stay away from my journal be-atch.’ But it’s not so simple. She works harder than anyone else on the team. If only there were fruit to her labours; if only she turned tawdry sociological steel into solid sociological gold! Alas, alack, the editing she produces is just… it’s just… ah feck it, there’s no point pulling punches – it’s unbelievably useless, utterly misguided, incomparably ridiculous shite. Reading her comments and suggestions for our submitting authors is like reading instructions on how to land an airplane by someone who has only ever ridden a bicycle. Her syntactical advice to our would-be publishees might best be likened to the sex education I received from the presentation Nuns in the nineties. I am increasingly of the opinion that her notes on restructuring have been generated a magic eight ball. Oh magic eight ball, should I tell the writer to remove the methodological information from his introduction and insert it willy-nilly at random points into the body of the paper? LOOKS LIKELY. Okey dokey then, random methodological nuggets it is!

If someone were harping on like this at me, I would tell them that they needed to sit their esteemed friend and associate down for a chat. That would be sound advice. And I will. I will sit her down and talk to her about it. But right now she is feeling proud as punch that she has gotten all her reviews to me – happy that she’s put in so much genuine hard work and effort. I don’t want to have to tell her it’s not good enough. I know her, and there’s no way she wouldn’t take it personally. And anyways, right now there’s a deadline to make; it’s not going to make itself. Potentially friendship wrecking chats will just have to wait.

I am dreading the impending unpleasantness. She might be a crap editor, but she’s pretty awesome in just about every other way. Now pass the caffeine tablets, it’s going to be a long long night.

This is a bit… different.

I think I’m addicted to the internet. Seriously.

I’m on the laptop every single day for maybe 12 hours, few proper breaks, doing wide variety of things. Varying levels of attentiveness. Possibly addicted to new information/not being in the dark. An insecurity that I’m missing out on something?

Sure I might be more knowledgeable and up-to-date but at this point its starting to affect my social skills. Lame and embarassing I know. I’m almost laughing at myself. It doesn’t feel like a bad addiction, more like a realisation that I’ve been tricked by a scammer. I’m only really posting here because I’ve almost wanted an excuse to use this site since it went live and is probably a better forum. I don’t mind about anonymity. Can’t believe I’ve let myself get into this situation. And then confess it anonymously on a blog of all places! Lulz!

Either that(internet regresses social skills) or it has allowed me to pursue divergent interests to nearly all my friends to the point where I don’t really have much to talk to them about. My ability to trawl through my memories has turned to mush because with Google I can just search the answer instantly, then disregard it as quick. It feels like I don’t properly digest information anymore. Feels like it has sapped my charisma.

My conversational skills have gotten absolutely dire. I semi-joke that I might even be a bit agoraphobic at this stage. I’ve depression too so this isn’t helping things. I’ll spend all day on the laptop surfing reading up on things, msn. Its just so good. I have zero desire or intention to do my course work though. I have an essay due tomorrow for a course I’ve barely attended and its 4am I’m reading blogs, music and watching megavideo and I’m not as concerned as I should be.

When I heard stories like this in China I thought it was related to censorship, but maybe its the truth. And it’s more obvious in their culture.

Though, I’ve never been one for balance or self-discipline. In my mind its the cause of most depressions out there, chicken and the egg situation. Which came first the depression or the lack of self-discipline? Hence I require a one-time, quick. silver bullet solution please! I’m a shell of a man! I am the internet in human form. I gather and display information, but I cannot compose new information(charisma?) myself. I feel I’ve gotten boring and it’s the worst feeling in the world. To clarify I’m not a tech geek, but a knowledge junkie/aspiring journo. Regular chump. Broke arts student.

Are my points valid though? Is the internet something you can be “addicted” to? Is it a bad thing to be addicted to it? Can I maintain this addiction and just seek ways to improve my social skills elsewhere? Anyone else experience this? Anyone else notice a deterioration in social skills? Is this just how people are these days? I noticed Saturday night on Twitter during the Web Awards, it seems everyone there was mobile tweeting constantly. Was that at the expense of live conversation? Were the tweets composed to fill awkward silences caused by said deterioration? … I do recognize that suggestion sounds crazy.

Is there a steady way to wean onself off it? Has anyone found a balance/solution/discipline or succesful method to sustainably disconnect?

Part 1 was here: http://thelivesofothers.wordpress.com/2009/09/29/someones-watching-part-one/

Despite what some might think, this is not a fake “meme” being circulated through email.

______________________________________________________________________

The reason my mother wanted out of the house was because she was being bullied by the neighbours. Never one to stand and chat over the garden fence or gossip over tea and biscuits she was branded a snob. While the husbands were all out at work, the wives would scream at her from across the road and put notes through the letter box with insults so juvenile they’d make a nursery pupil cringe. The thing is that when it’s coming from all angles, it’s hard to look at it that way.

My mother was at the stage where she’d do anything to get out of that house. Looking back I don’t blame her, even if at the time I thought she was the worst in the world for taking me away from my friends. The usual 7 year old emotional stuff.

Within a fortnight we were completely moved out of that house and living in my nana’s front room. Not ideal, but temporary situations aren’t supposed to be. This was the nana who would visit us ocassionally with ornaments. Her house smelled like old people and incense and there were eyes everywhere. Not actual eyes, it’s not that kind of story.
The eyes of her little trinkets and ornaments that looked so familiar yet different at the same time. The eyes from paintings of crying children that would follow you around every room and chill you to the core. I hated being in that house alone, even if it was just for a few minutes, because you never felt like you were alone.

Anything from a shiver down the spine to a whisper that you weren’t quite sure you really heard would make you want to run screaming from this house.

The nightmares were back too, only this time they were so vivid I began to wet the bed. This is an embarrassing thing for any kid, but even more so when you’re crammed into a bed with your younger brother.

This time the figures in the dream were visible to me, and not just a dark figure. They were the little religious wotsits that my nana had almost strategically placed everywhere. Little ceramic figurines that would chase me about the place while I tried to sleep.
Each time I woke up in a puddle of my own fear and shame, a random ornament would be at the foot of the bed.
Even though the dark figure from before wasn’t the main player in the dreams anymore, his presence was still very much felt. It was as if he was in the background taking control but not actually taking part.

It wasn’t long before I was just terrified to sleep. Terrified of what I’d dream about and terrified at my body’s reaction to it. One night I fell asleep out of pure exhaustion and it was a night I’d remember over all others up to that point.

In my dream I was being chased by these figures of the different religious ornaments in the house. The dark figure was more promanent this time and I was fully aware that he was controlling them. The crying children from the paintings were sobbing and pleading for help. It’s a weird thing for a child to experience fear so extreme that he can feel himself screaming to the point that would make his lungs burst, but being unable to wake up.
They were chanting something that I couldn’t make out, but as they did their eyes would stare into the very depths of me and conjure up and even more irrational fear.

Dreams are sometimes fuzzy and cloudy, such are dreams. Not this one, it was as clear as a HDTV today complete with surround sound. I screamed and screamed and tried to wake myself up but it just wasn’t working. The dark figure emerged from the shadows of the background and loomed over me. The chanting got louder and drowned out the sobs of the children from the paintings. He stood there seemingly taking pleasure from my panic. I could feel my heart thumping in my chest. Suddenly it went pitch black around me and I felt what I can only now describe as a swift and extremely powerful punch to the stomach that winded me instantly.

That woke me up for sure, but I wasn’t in the clear yet. I was still winded. Having never had the wind knocked out of me up until then I didn’t know what was happening or how to deal with it. Still frightened from the dream I was now frightened even more because things that happen in dreams are not supposed to happen really.
My brother as always, was still out cold oblivious to what I was going through. I hadn’t wet the bed this time, but that was the least of my worries. As I began to get my breath back and calm down a little I was snapped back into panic as at the foot of my bed were all of the ceramic and plastic figures that had terrorised me in my dream. About 20 or so of these little fuckers were lined up and facing me, motionless, looking at me.
I screamed. I screeched. I brought the house down, but nothing. My brother just turned over and kept snoring. My mother never came to see how I was. My nana never came, my father, no one. I had a choice to make, stay here with those things or do a runner and take my chances from there.

My mother’s parents were rich, proper rich. They built a house in Howth when they married. A proper rich person’s house. Three stories and a basement because my nana always loved the old movies that showed people with basements in their houses.

I decided to run. I lept out of the bed and over the watchful eyes, out the door and down the four flights of stairs where I should have found my mother and nana either in the kitchen or living room.
I called out like a wounded puppy, but still no one came.

I heard something from the basement and when I got closer I could smell the familiar incense and see the flicker of candles. I wasted no time in bolting for the door to rush down to the safety of who ever was down there.

My blood ran cold.

The incense was familiar. The candles were familiar. The old person smell was familiar. The voices were familiar. What was also familiar however, was what I heard.
I heard my mother and my nana chant the very same incomprehensable chant that I had heard in my dream.

Now, some would say that I heard it in my dream and my mind incorporated that into my dream as something I didn’t understand and turned it into a nightmare. Last I checked I wasn’t Superman’s lovechild so I wasn’t born with supersonic hearing that could detect the exact thing I’d heard minutes earlier in my bed, 3 floors up, while I slept.

I was stopped dead in my tracks. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and suddenly I got that feeling of not being alone again. Yes I was in a room with two other people, but I felt a heavy presence of someone behind me. Just as I was about to run down the rest of the stairs to the safety of my mother’s arms and comforting words, my nana cried out:

“You leave my grandson alone. Do you hear me? LEAVE HIM BE!”

My mother panicked and asked:

“Who’s after him? What have you done?”

“We have to send him back”

“Send who back?”

“LEAVE HIM BE!”

At that moment I wished I’d trusted my instincts because that feeling of not being alone got stronger and instantly I remembered the time I was pushed down the stairs. It happened this time again. I felt the air around me chill and a hand between my shoulders threw me forward. I didn’t have far to go this time, just a few steps until I hit the bend in the stairs where I stopped like a rag doll.

My mother and nana looked on shocked as I brought myself to my feet only to be shoved the rest of the way down the stairs.

“Don’t leave the table, we have to send him back this time”, came my nana’s response.

“What are you doing to my son?”

“DO NOT leave the table, we have to SEND HIM BACK!”

At the time I could have kissed my mother for not listening to my nana and coming to pick my limp body from the cold concrete floor. She held me for the longest time and we cried each other to sleep.
I wasn’t entirely sure what my nana meant by “send him back”, but it may have had something to do with the same board and drinking glass that my mother had been talking to the last time.

Nana wasn’t happy and as she walked passed us she just sneered, void of all emotion:

“Stupid cow, now you’re stuck with him”

Part 3 coming soon…..

How much loyalty do I really owe my employer?

Lets face it, if they had to lay people off they’d do it. Hard luck chump here’s your P45.

So if I was offered a better, higher paid job that I didn’t go looking for in any way, do I need to consider my employer? Or is it dog eat dog?

Cure for the unhappy people clogging this site:
Long story short! I was so sad but after I took to talking about it, exercise (exert yourself more than 1/2 hour,) music, new things, hot baths, good deeds, and designated non-depression breaks I was a new man!

Garda corruption is still alive and well and brewing….

I’m being harassed by the Gardai. Going on nine years now. Simply because I made a complaint against one of them, which inevitably led to a domino effect amongst their fellow colleagues.

I want to shout it and scream it and broadcast it on every gawd damn newspaper and media outlet in the country! but.. I bide my time, I’m waiting for the most opportune moment. What they have done is simply beyond comprehension. I couldn’t make it up even if I wanted to. I’ve gone through a series of complaints to the Garda Complaints Board and the Garda Ombusman.

They have tried to break me down, chipping away at me bit by bit, but I’m strong and every time they knock me down, I rise bigger and stronger. I’m a good person. I’m their easy target.

I’ve been threatened, physically threatened. Simply because I made a complaint against one of their colleagues. They threatened me in my place of work, tried to humiliate me in front of my work colleagues and neighbours and all because I made a complaint against one of their colleagues. Why, because I was being stalked and harassed and I reported a number of incidents to one the most corrupt Gardai in the country who tried to cover up for the person stalking/harassing me.

I often wonder am I the only person going through something like this.

This corruption is rampant from the top down.

This is what they do to innocent people, their easy targets.

But I’m not easy any more, they have made me tough as nails and now they have a fight on their hands and I’m damn well going to expose the lot of them for what they are! They will never see my tears..

I just wish he’d tell me he loves me more often or that he misses me when we’re apart. He tells me sometimes when he’s drunk so why can’t he tell me when he’s sober. I know he feels it but I still need to hear it. He tells me I’m sexy and hot but he still keeps this distance between us, I really don’t know if he’s truly let me in his heart yet. I just wish he would because I’ve let him into mine and I don’t want to get hurt again