My soft side is Sansa

Although I have embraced many different Game of Thrones characters this week, my inside core is probably most like Sansa. Poor Sansa; she was slow to learn how to be strong and manipulate people. She is so naïve and gullible. I am an easy target for bullies and criticism despite an outer layer of confidence. Every time I think I have it figured out, someone will spot the weakness in my outer character and bait me. Sometimes it’s colleagues, employers or acquaintances.

My mother could be very critical, as was Sansa’s (mine died in less gory circumstances…) and she was determined that I would be a perfect little princess with immaculate clothes and hair. My mum and, ironically, one of my therapists reckoned that my best chance in this world was marrying a man of substance. Even my professor at college suggested that I take a typing course after completing a business management diploma. He reckoned I look too young for anyone to consider employing me as a junior executive and he was right. Thank goodness, I met and married an ‘ologist by age 21! Sometimes I think I would have had an easier life in another century but I like inside plumbing…

Sansa is a stoic character – as am I. I tolerate unacceptable conditions with little fuss for years before I finally snap. At a school reunion some years ago, I confronted a bully and she was astonished. She had no memory of doing anything unpleasant – the other one became a policewoman. On one stupid occasion at college, two boys that I thought were friends, offered to take me home in their car. I was too tipsy to realize there was a problem until one of them got in the back with me. I tried charm, humor but they both wanted to have sex with me against my will. There were childproof locks on the rear doors and I couldn’t get out. I snapped, thank goodness, and started beating one of them on the head with my umbrella until the one in the front let me out.

Like most victims of this kind of assault, I thought that I had deserved it because I was flirting and accepted their offer. I bet you thought this was going to be another funny blog? I am convinced that Sansa is going to be a very different character in the next series and I am just glad this princess married a man of substance who has looked after her.

This lovely photo is courtesy of Cris Woods who took it when I was going through an auburn stage… Which Game of Thrones character are you most like?

Help!

I love this photograph of my mum (blonde), mum in law and dad in law. They are on a vacation to Spain that my parents in law kindly paid for. My husband and I are both only children, so almost always had celebrated Christmas with all three parents. One particular holiday, we were staying in one of the guest bedrooms of my mother’s house. Her house adjoined another terraced house and our bedroom had paper thin walls to the bedroom next door. My mum lived in a nice public housing estate which was full of working class people. The next door neighbor was an older lady, now widowed, who lived there with two sisters – the oldest was single and the other was a widow. They had been neighbors for more than 20 years and both were respectfully quiet – except on this occasion…

It was around midnight on Christmas Eve and we were being disturbed by strange noises in the bedroom next door. It sounded like furniture being moved around which was odd at that time of night. Then we heard a little voice shouting, “Help” out of the neighbor’s window. It was a quiet street and one of the neighbors across the street came out in her dressing gown and curlers, shouting “Who’s that shouting help?” She was a rather loud lady who sounded like a female Billy Connolly. By this time half of the street was out in their nightclothes trying to figure out what was wrong. Despite my mum’s own mental health issues, she was the voice of reason in the street and many people confided their problems in her.

No-one in the house next door had come out to explain what the problem was so my mum knocked at the front door and said, “Its Kathleen, let me help.” They very tentatively opened the door and were clearly mortified at being the center of attention. In those days Alzheimer’s disease or dementia, much like mental illness, was something you didn’t talk about. The oldest single sister had one or the other, had been deteriorating for months while the family tried to keep her illness secret. On this occasion she was delusional, thinking it was World War II and had barricaded the bedroom with the furniture to protect her against Nazi soldiers.

It took half the night for my mum to help the situation while the poor deluded sister was still shouting, “Help!” out of the window. None of us got much sleep that Christmas night. My husband and I were very young, still in our twenties, and didn’t realize how difficult the situation was. Life turned around to teach us a sharp lesson as my lovely mother-in-law who was glowing in the photograph above was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s about 15 years ago. She was advantaged by new medical treatments, brain scans and therapy but it is still so hard to cope with. Now, she is the only parent we have still living and resides in a special care facility. People sometimes make very thoughtless comments such as, “I would never put my parent in a home” but how could you manage without specialist staff, hoists and all the other equipment they have? I couldn’t even change her diaper because of back problems.

We try to visit her every quarter, one or other of us, but she no longer remembers me which makes me sad. Everything about the situation makes my husband sad as he only sees glimmers of her former personality. I used to volunteer at a Dementia Ward in a hospital in Scotland and I know that we are very fortunate that she is calm, happy and easy for the staff to deal with. It is lovely to see them hug or kiss her with her smiling in response as she no longer has language. Despite all of this, we still laugh when we think of the very loud neighbor lady with the Billy Connolly voice – her heart was in the right place.