My Substack, My Choice on What I Write

A rant about writing what I want to write about my truth - avoid if you want

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Dear Red Cabbage Heads,

I somehow feel the need to make some things clear for you all after my last post. Other than my husband and my middle child I have no idea if any of my siblings or other relatives follow me on here, and I doubt they do. Of my 190 ish subscribers (probably less after this) I know 6 others of you in real life, the rest of you are very welcome strangers. Yes, I scrolled through all the email addresses and I recognised 6. I don’t cross post to other social media sites either, I did at the start but haven’t for very many months now. What goes on Substack stays on Substack - unless it’s works of fiction or poetry, they might eventually make their way out into the big wide real world.

Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Firstly; the step-witch and why she is called so.

At the wedding of her and my father, my now official step mother took a moment to pull me close and whisper loudly in my ear, “Now I’m your evil step mother, an evil witch”. As she grinned wildly. And yes maybe a little part of it was in jest, though her behaviour and the pinching she delivered at my waist at the same time did not indicate as such. The name stuck. I avoid calling her her real name on here deliberately, not even her initial, and she is blocked from accessing this Substack so will only see anything I write if someone else is stupid enough to show her. She is blocked on every other channel too. That’s the most I will do to protect her whilst I deliver and work through my own personal experiences, trauma, and remembrances on here. (It’s cheaper than therapy.) They are mine, my personal take on what I see and hear, and my understanding of that. I am not putting words into anyone else’s mouth or assuming stuff about others without proof I’ve seen or been told about from reliable sources, I’m using my life experiences to analyse and make sense of what I see, hear, and am told.

At the wedding we didn’t get a seat in the main room for the reception. We were among the few not to and we didn’t want to not be in the room as the speeches were happening during the meal. So we gathered our food, and the children and we sat on the floor so we could be present.

We were later informed, by her, that this was completely the wrong thing to do. We should have gone into a different room in the hotel to eat, across the hallway and on the other side of the hotel where we wouldn’t be able to hear the speeches. When we mentioned we wanted to hear the speeches this was poo pooed greatly and we were told it was inappropriate to sit on the floor (so provide enough chairs for the numbers of guests, there was room as you can see, we would have taken up less space on chairs). We actually didn’t mind sitting on the floor, but I did mind being told off about it later when it could so easily have been avoided, and I minded being made to feel bad for wanting to hear the speeches. Of course, had we not been in the room for the speeches that also would have been wrong.

The same thing happened at my father’s wake, where I was called away to cut up loaves of bread 🤷🏼‍♀️ when almost all the others were gathered together for the telling of tales of my father. I was not able to hear what others said about him, as I was expected to help with the catering.

Secondly; this is my personal Substack and I will talk about all and everything I want to.

I won’t deliberately be cruel or horrid, I won’t be slanderous, I won’t say anything other than my truth and how it all was/is for me. But I reserve the right to write my truth. I’ve sent years and years not telling my truth for fear of offending others, and of them hurting me for it. I’ve subsumed and suppressed myself, my wants, my needs, and my truth for almost all my life. I turned myself into a person I no longer recognised, and all for other people’s sensibilities. No more. I will not be told to be quiet anymore. I will not censor my own personal lived experience in anyway for anyone anymore. If you don’t like that please feel free to no longer subscribe to me, or remove the ‘Life’ sections from your notifications, details of which are at the top of this post.

Thirdly; my relationships

Those with my father and my stepmother deteriorated over many years. The first year after my mother’s death once the step-witch was on the scene was good enough, then a slow gradual descent until we were barely talking, for very many reasons that added up over the years. All of them very good reasons as far as I’m concerned. I may go into them one day, or I may not, and that’s my right, to present my side of the story. However, only I can know what those relationships were like to me, how I was treated, how I felt. No one else can tell me what they were, for they are not me. Yes, I can only present one side, a side I couldn’t present whilst my father lived, and yes, he doesn’t have the ability to defend himself now. I did try at one point to sort it out, needless to say, I was vilified more for daring to question and being ungrateful. It was really not nice being on the wrong side of his ire. I was forced to wait until he was dead.

I knew my father didn’t love me. My mother asked him to tell me on my wedding day before the car came to take me to church for him to walk me up the very short aisle. He had never told me before. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t lie. And I actually respected him for that. I had never felt loved by him and even if he had managed to force it out (I begged my mum to stop pressuring him to do so) I wouldn’t have believed him. I was carefully tolerated, sometimes with fondness, liked at times, but never really loved, especially not once I grew into a person with opinions and feelings. Sometimes he was proud of me, sometimes disappointed; that’s what life is like. You can’t please everyone all of the time, and I certainly couldn’t please my father most of the time, let alone all. And I didn’t mind really. By that point I knew what I knew and had sort of come to terms with, enough to not wanting it all brought up on my wedding day. My worth went up when I got married, and then again when I gave him grandchildren, and then slowly slid down again to an all time bleak low the year before he died. Other people’s relationships with him looked very different. I only say what I saw and knew.

I hope that makes things more clear, and people will understand more why I write about sensitive subjects and will continue to do so - a) to process it all myself but mainly b) to show others that they are not alone and that there are things that they can do to help themselves and not feel guilty about it. If we don’t talk about these issues they remain a taboo and whole lives could go by where people never feel connected.

So, that’s all folks, til next time…. Tx

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