Multiple sclerosis  is My Living Hell

family secrets

All posts tagged family secrets by Multiple sclerosis is My Living Hell
  • Posted on

    Monday morning. Well, looks like it’s going to be one of those days. Chemists first, then the auction rooms to pick up the Metal Monkey’s car. Pity about the box though. When we got it, the box was destroyed – it had become home to a few families of earwigs and yukky bug eggs. But the car itself was pristine. The box would’ve trebled its value, but now it sits happily among my Davros, Beavis & Butthead stuff. My sorta man cave. Many PCs from many ages. So much stuff. So much I’ve collected.

    I’ve thrown out mostly all my old things. I had clothes older than my children and grandchildren. I don’t do “style” as such. I’ve had the beard and long hair for years. Last time I had even a slight trim was 20 years ago. Now my hair is falling out, the beard is thinning. That sucks. But such is life.

    Went to the chemists today and the Machine of Death was working well. It did make funny sounds but did its job for a change.

    Last night I was deep in thought about my mother. About not being told about her funeral. I get the impression they didn’t want me there. It’s a long story. I’m probably to blame. But when you’re suffering chronic cognitive issues, it’s fucking hard.

    My sister never told me. No details. Nothing. I looked in the obits. Nothing. So they just didn’t want me to say one last goodbye.

    They didn’t speak to me for over 14 years. I was cut off completely. Like I never existed.

    I’m adopted. The cuckoo in the nest. I get that.

    Everywhere I went, they blamed me for everything. Another family secret buried deep – I found out I had an older sister who was also adopted. They only really wanted to know her. But she was so fucked up she didn’t want to meet our mother. She was very angry about it all.

    And all those lies my mother told about my father – saying he was dead, getting his family to lie too. More and more lies. Until one day I found out everything. One day I will write it all down, for all to see. How an adopted person was treated like a piece of crap by the family who put him up for adoption, and the family who adopted him.

    They treated me like a slave. Constant beatings and head games.

    You ever been told at six years old that you were naughty for accidentally breaking a plate – and then have your mother go berserk? She was Welsh, not that tall, but violent, and she knew how to work people. She screamed at me:

    “You’re adopted. Go find your real mother.”

    That broke me.

    So I went to my bedroom, packed a little bag with my teddy, and walked away. I walked to the road with my bag and teddy bear, thinking I’d never come back. No one came looking for me. I hid until dark, then went back home.

    And when I finally found my real mother years later, she called me:

    “A little shit.”

    Like I was nothing. Like I never mattered to anyone.

    The people who were supposed to nurture me… didn’t. They would have been better with a dog than with a child.

    I know what beatings are like. What it’s like to be kept in, not allowed out, because of the bruises and cuts I had accumulated. No one listened. No one helped me. I was alone and fucking hurting.

    I remember those nights, crying myself to sleep in pain. Feeling so out of it, so different. No matter what I did, it was wrong.

    I was adopted in 1959 at six weeks old to a Christian family through a Church of England adoption society. The vicar I spoke with about my issues was a cunt. He told my parents confidential stuff, and I got a trashing for it.

    No one ever listened. Who would take the word of a poor waif and stray child? The vicar? No. The school? No. Anyone? No.

    So yeah. Around about 10-ish, I started getting early MS symptoms. They plagued me, and the doctors and NHS gaslit me for decades.

    I hate my life.

     “The views in this post are based on my personal             
        experience. I do not intend harm, only honesty.”   
    
           “By ink and breath and sacred rage, I write.
                   By storm and silence, I survive.”
    

    enter image description here

            @goblinbloggeruk - sick@mylivinghell.co.uk
    
  • Posted on

    It’s kind of crazy — I never knew my grandfather. Not even a photo, not even a whisper. He died suddenly, somewhere in the Aylesbury area, back in the 1950s — that golden age when secrets were sealed with shame and buried under floral carpets.

    Nobody in the family ever told me what he died of. “A very sudden illness,” was all I got. Probably delivered in the same tone someone might use to comment on the weather or sweep dust under the rug. Mysterious death, mysterious family — very on brand.

    I asked my mother when I finally tracked her down, years later. She couldn’t (or wouldn’t) tell me either. Possibly she’d forgotten. Possibly she never knew. Possibly she just couldn’t be bothered giving answers to the cuckoo in the nest.

    Here’s where it gets interesting, or tragic, or ironic — depending on your mood: Turns out my mum’s sister — my long-lost Auntie Valerie — also has multiple sclerosis. Same as me. Apparently, the same type. As if MS comes in flavours, like trauma gelato. She also has heart issues. Guess it runs in the family, right? The family that doesn’t know I exist.

    Valerie lives in Australia. I’ve never spoken to her. Because, of course, I was adopted. Filed away like an inconvenient tax receipt from the 1950s.

    I’ve spent years — decades, even — trying to find out how my grandfather died. But there’s nothing. It's like he evaporated. Maybe he was abducted by aliens. That would at least give me something to put on the family tree. As it stands, it’s just: [Grandfather] — cause of death: TBD. Whole existence: classified.

    So I tried to contact Auntie Valerie. I figured maybe we could bond over mutual nerve damage and existential dread. But being a bastard (and not just in the literary, Victorian orphan sense, but in the real, modern “you’re not supposed to exist” sense), there was no reply. Not even a bounce-back email. Just the long, digital silence of “you don’t belong here.”

    It’s sad, really. I wanted to know how she copes. I wanted to know what her life with MS looks like — or looked like. She’s probably in her 80s or 90s now. Maybe already gone. But I never got that chance.

    No one in the family helped. They didn’t want to. I’m the cuckoo in the nest. I ruin the tidy little mythologies they built for themselves. The "perfect family" free of blemishes, scandals, or inconvenient babies. It’s easier, I suppose, to pretend I never happened. Easier to scroll past the DNA test notifications and sip tea with clenched jaws.

    And just when you think it couldn’t get more delightful, you discover your own mother believed you were faking multiple sclerosis. Like I’m pulling a fast one for sympathy and early boarding privileges. As if I filled out a form to get chronic illness just to be dramatic.

    But hey — she felt guilty. She gave two kids up for adoption and never told anyone. Probably thought she’d be judged. I mean, yeah, it was the 1950s — women were practically burned at the stake for sneezing out of wedlock. I get it. Sort of. Still, honesty would’ve been cheaper than all this generational denial.

    Maybe one day, one of Valerie’s kids will spit in a tube, upload their DNA, and stumble across me. Maybe they’ll be curious. Maybe they’ll click “connect.” Maybe we’ll have one awkward, meaningful email exchange about shared symptoms and shattered mugs.

    Speaking of which — Albertine just broke my Bob Lazar mug. Snapped the handle clean off. We got that thing 20 years ago at a Richard D. Hall show. Back when I still thought conspiracy theories were fun, not autobiographical. That mug had survived four moves, three breakups, and countless microwaved teas. And now? One slippery hand and it’s history. Just like my connection to my real family.

    Let’s be real: I probably won’t get to meet Auntie Val. Or her kids. Or get that WhatsApp message that says, “Hey, turns out we’re related, and wow, MS sucks.” I’m the embarrassment. The smudge on the family photo. The ghost in the family machine.

    I am the that which is not spoken of. The pecadillo best left in the footnotes of someone else’s better story. The unwanted chapter. The child made of shame and secrets.

    But I’m still here. Drinking tea from a cracked cup. Waiting. Maybe for an email. Maybe for a match. Or maybe just for someone, somewhere, to admit I existed.

               “The views in this post are based on my personal      
                 experience. I do not intend harm, only honesty.”   
    
                   “By ink and breath and sacred rage, I write.
                           By storm and silence, I survive.”
    

    enter image description here

                          🧌✨ @goblinbloggeruk ✨🧌