Tilting At Windmills.. or Facing My Demons?

This was always designed to be a place where I wrote about travelling..about the places I have been to:  but reading back, I can see that it has, almost from the very beginning, also been about not just the process of getting physically from one place to another: but also about the way I approach it, and why: and where my difficulties come from.  It was never meant to be cathartic, (and frankly never has been)  but without intending to, I seem to have also been using this as a means of both exploring and explaining some of my own issues, and looking at some of the myriad ways they can both enhance and detract from the experiences that I have. And so far, I have shied away from any explanation of my 'other' condition, although I have made sideways references to the effects that it can have on my trips. My reasoning for that has always been that it is too difficult to try to explain the what and the where from, of that condition.

The reality is that wherever it comes from, and however difficult/embarrassing explaining it may be, the impact of it is immense. I suppose that, because I have lived with it for so long, I often don't respond to its ravages with the same distress as people on the outside who witness it. I'm not minimising either the condition or the resulting chaos it can cause in my daily life:  I'm simply stating that I am so used to what can happen that I have an automatic damage control response to it:  and have become extremely adept at hiding it from others.

Again:  what does that have to do with my travels?  Well... very simply put:  I may very well remember setting out on a journey... but whether I have so clear a memory of the travel itself is debatable. I can't even begin to explain the confusion and distress that I have felt in the past at finding myself in a new and unfamiliar place, with no memory of how I got there. and no idea how to get either home, or to my originally intended destination:  or even whether I have the means with me to do so. Over the years, I have developed ways of coping with, if not controlling it: and one of those is my seemingly obsessive over-planning of any travel, whether it be a bus journey into town for shopping, a medical appointment, or a longer trip. I start planning days, if not weeks in advance. I write everything down: not just bus or train times, but fares: where I need to get on or off the bus/train. how long a wait there is before the next one:  What to take, and what to carry it in. The telephone numbers of the bus/train/airline company. The telephone numbers of anyone I might be going to see, as well as email addresses. Booking references, MY telephone number.  Anything and everything I might need:  or that someone else trying to help me might need to know,  I carry a card detailing my mental health condition, and how it might manifest, the information in two formats: one side of the card explaining in laymans's terms: the other for medical professionals. I carry only a small amount of cash because I am so afraid that I will lose it, or it will be stolen while I am oblivious  because of my illness. I carry the various medications that I do/might need, in packaging with the prescription details on it in case I need to get more: or need help taking them. I treat myself, in fact, either like a child, or an adult with learning disabilities, because my condition can cause me to behave and feel that way: and to be seen that way by others.  I am not dangerous or threatening to either myself or others: but I have seem people shy away and avoid the crazylady, and it hurts and panics me to see that...

Do I do all of this because of my condition?  Perhaps.  I know that I do thousands of things despite it. I also know that other people feel far more comfortable helping the fat old lady with the physical disability, than the fat old crazy lady: so I hide:   I show my stick, and my infirmity of form:  but bury the chaos in my head so as to not make regular folks uncomfortable..

Didn't I just say that?

I just read an article from a link on facebook that had me thinking..

I don't come from any kind of well-to-do background.  The parents were both very much working class, but with definite aspirations, and since neither of them had really achieved the things they wanted for themselves, there was a kind of... determination that none of their children would be permitted to disadvantage themselves...  so, education was paramount:  it was drummed into us (quite literally at times) that we had to work hard at school:  that we were all expected to do well in our exams, and head out into the best possible careers:  for me, (after speaking at a parents evening with the amazing teacher in whose French and Spanish classes I was flourishing, due to her patience, humour, and willingness to work with me) the 'hope' thinly disguised as an instruction, was that I would continue into higher education. study more languages, and become an interpreter at the United Nations...   their bitter disappointment in me when I left school with very mediocre results, and flatly refused to follow the plan was palpable.. and regularly voiced.

But their social ambitions left me with a legacy that has been both a burden and a bonus over the years.  I grew up in the East Midlands, in the city where both of the parents had been  born. My maternal grandparents were both, I believe, from the same city.. my paternal grandparents both from Yorkshire, and had the accent that goes with it.. but were very well-spoken and pleasant-voiced: a trait shared by their children.

To the mother, this was, it seemed, the key to social success, and as soon as we began to speak, we were groomed to do so 'properly'.  Local slang terms were banned from our vocabularies:  the vagaries of local dialect a cardinal sin. Every word had to be carefully enunciated: and the coarseness of the regional accent smoothed out of our speech... even now, I am told that it is very difficult for people to get a fix on where I might be from:  and many have told me that they actually thought I was from the Home Counties.. or possibly the more salubrious parts of London.   And while as an adult this might be considered a good thing:  growing up on a council estate in one of the roughest parts of town, and attending an inner-city comprehensive school, it was pretty much akin to painting a target on our foreheads, tying our hands behind our backs, and shoving us through the door with 'kick me' signs hanging around our necks.  I lost count pretty early on, of the beatings I took for 'talking posh' or 'thinking yer better than us'.  at 4 and 5 years old, the hostility was met with absolute incomprehension...

What does any of this have to do with my journeys?

I have found that my accent, or rather my lack of a recognisable, strong regional accent is often commented on. When I travel, whether it is locally or to places further afield, I have regularly found that my speech, or my voice pique interest. I am asked where I am from: and find my reply met with surprise, and occasionally scepticism.   It has left me with some sense of.... isolation, to a degree.  A lack of anchor and roots: a feeling that while I may come from a certain place, I never belonged there: something that is surprisingly difficult for me to deal with.

I have no particular attachment to my birthplace:  it holds many more bad memories than good: and yet.. not to have that sense of belonging: of place, leaves me confused and shiftless: has me questioning myself and my identity: and wondering where, if not the place I was born, can I ever feel at home?