Thanks for the address, although the phone number will be wrong as London numbers were changed to 020 instead of 0171, about 3 or 4 years ago.
That's awful about your friend's son being murdered. I hope his killer is locked up where he belongs, ugh. It gives me the shivers.
I know part of what my mother feels (from what her husband told me 2 years ago). In essence, she saved my life because they were living in Greece at the time (my sister was born there) and she got this premonition that something would go wrong with me, so when she was 5 and a bit months pregnant with me, she moved to the UK with my dad and stayed in this flat that he had for when he was working there. I was born about a week or two later, at only 24 weeks gestation, and since Greek hospitals weren't as good (so she said), I probably would have died had I not been born in the UK. I spent the first 3 months of my life in a London Hospital.
Despite the fact that I wouldn't be here if it weren't for her quick thinking, she blamed herself for birthing me early (so her husband said to me) and I stopped breathing several times, even after she brought me home, so she just became paranoid around me.
I was not allowed out as a teenager. She let me to the village youth club (sleepy country village) and to the girl who had arthritis, and I was allowed to eat my dinner at Andy's mum's house once a week, but no parties, no shopping, no going out with other friends on my own, I wasn't allowed to go to the dr on my own - even at 15, she would insist on being in the room with me. Dr would ask me a question, she'd answer.
I wasn't allowed to wash dishes ('you might break them'), tried to iron my jeans once and she went mad ('what on earth are you doing? You'll burn yourself').
Then of course she told me to choose between her and Andy and when I chose him she threw me out and it was a relief, an absolute relief, because I felt as if I had been in prison for years and moving in with him was freedom.
I didn't even know how to peel a potato when I moved in. He taught me all the household chores I know.
She carried on suffocating me afterwards, but through my children instead of me directly. She told me once that she still sees me as that tiny baby fighting for my life, but I said I'm not that baby anymore. You have to let go of that image. And well, after what she did when I was going through court, I just decided I've had enough of her and her prejudices and her fear.
Screw Andy?? I did, several million times, that's what got me in this awful mess, LOL
I have an 8 year old DD too. What's up with your DD (If that's not too personal?).
There is a question mark over my 8 year DD's health. She was born normally after a 5 hour labour, weighed 8lbs, 5ozs and fed well etc, was 11 days overdue.
She was a bit slow at developing, though. For instance, she never sat up until 10 months old, never crawled (just rolled everywhere), didn't walk till nearly 16 months and didn't toilet train till about four. She was never trained at night, even now at 8 years of age, she still wets herself every night.
Her concentration levels are poor. If you give her an instruction, you usually have to say it twice and she seems to have no awareness of danger or her surroundings etc, i.e, she'll run in front of a car without thinking, still does this now, or she'll walk into something because she wasn't looking where she was going.
Her balance is poor and when she was little she would fall over all the time (more than normal). We seemed to spend our life in ER. She broke one arm one week, and then 6 weeks after that, broke the other arm.
At first I thought it was HMSN, like her dad, but she had all the blood tests and the electrical tests (agony to watch ) which say she hasn't got that, and she hasn't degenerated like you would expect if she had got it.
Then they told us they thought it might be a mild form of spina bifida, and I was with her when they sedated her for an MRI but her brain and spinal scans showed she was normal. Spine is normal, there is no brain damage.
In the end, they just told me she was 'clumsy' and that she'd 'grow out of it' - and maybe, I don't know, this whole M break up and not having me has put her behind, too. She was still wetting when visiting me, and still when I was at Andy's house. It does worry me, though, to think my child is ill but not know with what.
) which say she hasn't got that, and she hasn't degenerated like you would expect if she had got it.