The Reason I Write

Ode to Books

When I was growing up, I was a voracious reader. Books were my escape to another world, another timeline, another family. I imagined there was no better vocation that to be an author.

So it’s no surprise that from as early as I could first hold a pen, I loved to write stories. Sometimes they were fiction. Sometime they were narratives of my day to day life such as the journals Mum encouraged us to write during our annual holiday to Cornwall.

Growing up in a noisy house filled with younger brothers and warring parents, writing was my safe place and my sanity. But the only place I could guarantee to be alone with my thoughts and ideas was when I was on toilet! So I unashamedly admit that I whiled away many a half hour sitting on the loo, the plastic seat digging into my thighs while I scribbled ideas in a note pad or made up stories in my head.

Thankfully our house had a downstairs loo off the kitchen and next to the back door. Whilst it was freezing cold and full of spiders, it was good enough for my little brothers to have a quick wee. Of course, they soon turfed me out of the upstairs bathroom if they needed a number two!

The Tricky thing about Fiction…

As I got older I realized that I wasn’t great at bringing my creative ideas to a satisfactory conclusion. My head was bursting with opening scenes, colorful characters and surprising plot twists, but my imagination didn’t stretch to satisfactory endings that pulled all the parts of the story together.

That’s when I decided I was better at writing about real stuff, real life. I could still show off my wit, my tenderness, my fire, my powers of description…but writing about what I saw and experienced. This epiphany proved true when the autobiography I wrote at high school earned me my first ever A+ from my beloved English teacher.

Plan B – aka the Lois Lane effect

So then I set my sights on becoming a journalist. I pictured myself in high heels and a sharp suit, clipboard and pen at the ready like Lois Lane reporting for the Daily Planet. I’d investigate important issues and wow the Editor with my passion for words and keen eye for detail.

Of course, what you aspire to be at 13 rarely comes true, in my experience anyway. I lacked focus; I couldn’t see the individual steps that would lead me to my goal. Careers advice at school was virtually non existent. I do remember doing a questionnaire that was fed into a computer, which spat out a priority list of career options based on my answers. Number 1, was Librarian. At least half my class also had Librarian in their top three! Now I’ve nothing against Librarians, in fact my very favourite place to escape to as a child was our local library. The smell, the feel, the weight of a book in my hand. The cosy corners where you can become invisible and lose yourself in someone else’s story… but I guess I’d always imagined that I’d be something more; something important, someone who left their imprint on the World.

Many years later…

It’s safe to say that at 46, I’m neither a published author nor an investigative journalist. But I still write. I write for pleasure. I write for me. When I went on a round the world trip with my second husband in 2005, I religiously kept a journal of our adventures for the whole 10 months. I’d email the entries to our family and friends. It brought them closer to us and it felt wonderful to share the new and fascinating experiences I was having compared to my very sheltered and controlled upbringing.

The Birth of my Blog

About 18 months ago, I started writing this blog. I’d ummed and ahhed about it for a while, unsure if I really wanted to open my life up to strangers. I had experienced judgement and criticism in the past from Facebook ‘friends’ for the my very honest, direct and passionate posts. But my desire to tell my story outweighed the fear of keyboard warriors and typewriter trolls. So I began to share my story, my life as a late diagnosed Autistic wife and mum to two Autistic boys.

I shared my mental health struggles and diagnosis with Bipolar 2 disorder. I shared my experience of losing our first child and my battle with breast cancer whilst pregnant with our youngest son H. As you can see, my life has been rather eventful and with each story I shared I felt lighter. The feedback as my readership grew was overwhelmingly positive. I received private messages from total strangers who said they could relate to me, that I’d helped them, inspired them, encouraged them. That’s pretty powerful stuff, especially for someone with such low self esteem.

Life after Estrangement

When I became permanently estranged from my birth family some 8 months ago now, I faced an onslaught of judgment, threats and lies. I experienced complete and utter rejection as they refused to listen to any of my feelings or experiences. I was viciously gaslighted by my birth family in their attempts to silence me, invalidate my past and prevent me from spotlighting the truth about my upbringing and the damage my parents had caused me throughout my life. I was ridiculed for even discussing gaslighting, as if it was something I’d invented, a fake term.

Suddenly my blog became my lifeline. It tethered me to reality, it became my place to defend myself, it was my act of defiance, that I would NOT be suffocated by their lies and bullying. In those early months especially, my blog was the place I could retreat to, to reflect and learn from this horrible experience.

Recently, I’ve had unpleasant messages from my various brothers criticizing me for writing my blog and sharing it publicly. I’m told it is embarrassing, sadistic and unnecessary. I don’t know how to adequately describe that overwhelming, suffocating feeling of injustice that the family I once loved slavishly and supported completely were STILL trying to hurt me by invading my personal platform for expressing myself. I also felt angry and indignant that they would assume my writing was for them. It was NEVER for them and never will be.

The Reason I Write

There is a famous book ‘The Reason I Jump’ by a non verbal Autistic teen from Japan, Naoki Higashida. With great humor and empathy, Naoki opens people’s eyes to what it’s really like to be Autistic and sets the record straight about things like stimming and sensory needs, hence the title of his book.

I was thinking about Naoki before I wrote this blog post. Thinking about ‘The Reason I Write’…

The only person I write my blog for, is ME. It’s my therapy. It’s what I owe myself after years and years of being forced to keep silent about what happened in our house, about how my Mum still treated me. My birth family did not care about my well-being, their priority was to avoid the shame and discomfort it would bring upon them if I sought answers, accountability and apologies.

It is my right to tell my story and in doing so I know I’m helping many other people who’ve been victims of family violence, emotional abuse and gaslighting.

I’m helping other people who have lived a lifetime with an undiagnosed disability like me, a lifetime of feeling different, judged and misunderstood.

I’m helping people who have suffered mental health problems like me, people who have been too afraid to discuss their struggles before because of the stigma and judgement that abounds.

I’m helping other people who’ve relied on alcohol to cope with stress, or to make social situations tolerable. People like me, who have drunk themselves into oblivion, to fit in and feel normal, when in fact alcohol only brings out the worst in you.

I’m helping people who binge and comfort eat to make themselves feel better when they are sad or bored. People like me who are in an endless battle with their weight, simultaneously exercising then rewarding themselves by over eating.

I write because as an Autistic woman, I struggle to communicate verbally. I mean of course I can talk and if you are in my circle of trust or you attend one of my training courses you’ll know I could compete at a national level in the Talking Championships. I specialize in oversharing, going off on tangents and crying while I talk. But when it comes to telling you how I feel, sharing important messages, dealing with conflict, I am very quickly triggered into a meltdown.

If you’ve seen me in a meltdown you’ll know it’s not pretty. It’s angry and sad and shouty and tearful and snotty and verbally spiteful. It’s me when I’ve lost control of my behavior. It’s irrational and scary. That’s what an Autistic meltdown is!

So I prefer to write. I have long been teased by my friends and family for my texts and emails of epic proportions. But writing is so much easier for me. It allows me essential extra time to think about what I want to say and gives me something to refer back to if needed. It works better for me as an Autistic person because of my slower processing speed than when I’m receiving information verbally.

Most of all, I’m a really good writer and I love finding out how I’m helping other people. I love reading people’s comments and messages telling me that they relate, that what I’ve written resonates with them. That they laughed or they were moved to tears.

Don’t look back in Anger

If I was the vengeful, sadistic person my brothers tell me I am, I would name every member of my birth family in my blog, rather than keep their names private. I’d share their darkest moments and secrets. I’d expose all their wrongdoings.

But I am NOT that person. I don’t make threats like they do. All I want is for them to stay out of my life and let me process what has happened to me, in my own way. There is so much I hold back on because I feel too embarrassed and ashamed to explain the full extent of my hurt and exploitation.

Also, I genuinely don’t want to harm my birth family because they’ve all suffered too. The abuse I’ve been subjected to has played out through generations. They just don’t have the desire, the skills, the courage or the energy to challenge and stand up to it like I have.

No one HAS to read my blog. Why can’t they just ignore it?! I have them blocked on every possible channel; phone, messenger, email, Facebook….because I am safer and happier when there is no contact between me and them.

But on WordPress (which allows me to have a proper published version of my blog that looks beautiful) I can only block people if they contact my site directly. Which is how my brothers insist on tormenting me, even using fake email accounts to overcome me blocking them.

My parents have caused irreparable harm to me in this life, and my siblings have enabled that by trying to silence me. I am living free now doing the things I love; my writing, my photography, my rock-pooling, being a Mum and a wife. I will never stop telling MY TRUTH.

The irony is the brothers (and their partners) judging me haven’t walked in my shoes! One of the most critical was born almost 10 years after me! He missed out on ‘Domestic Violence – the beginning’. I was kicked out of home at 16, so he never saw or experienced even of fraction of what I went through. That same brother has spent most of his adult life travelling and living abroad, in blissful ignorance of the pain, worry and trauma that my parents have caused me.

Over and Out

Have I made my point yet?

To those of your reading this blog who know and love me, thank you. Your support is everything.

To the followers who don’t know me but enjoy my writing, please keep reading and sharing my blog. I am honored that you make time to read my ramblings.

To the family who broke my heart and abandoned me, please leave me alone now. Let me be happy. Stop torturing yourself reading my blog and stop torturing me with your spiteful and manipulative messages. I wish you no harm, I only want to forget you and move forward with my own family that I have built with my husband, a family built on love, trust and honesty. I have my happy ending now and I hope you find yours one day.

So that’s the reason I write. My writing is as much a part of me as my hair, my eyes, my scars from childbirth and cancer. Asking me not to write is like telling me not to breathe. I have had so much taken from me in this life but my writing is one thing that cannot be taken. And who knows, maybe one day I’ll get to be the Author I always dreamed of becoming.

Lizzy Van Tromp

22/01/21