[winkle]

I grew up in a village and to everyone that knew me i was just an ordinary child. I didnt feel very ordinary though. I could never put my finger on what i felt like, but mostly i felt that i was’nt worthy or deserved anything or anybody to like or even love me.
I married at 21 and had my first son a year later. The moment he was put in my arms i had this terrible fear that he would either die or go to prison. Irrational or what? But that was how i felt. I didnt have that “rushing and overwhelming” feeling of love, just fear.
I had my second son 2 years later but unfortunately had postnatal depression so i had allsorts of negative feelings in my head.
Both my boys grew up in the village that i grew up in, both were popular and the eldest was very good at sports, the younger very academic. I left their dad when they were 6 and 9 years old but stayed in the same village close to him so my sons could have as much contact as they wanted. I thought , at the time that they took this in their stride, they said and acted as if they did.
At the age of 12 both of them had started to smoke weed. This progressed into MDMA ans Cocaine. Although i never condoned this i always knew and me and my boys were quite open about the fact that they took drugs. In their teenage years this didnt seem to have a large impact on their lives ( or so i thought ) and most of their peers were doing the same as them. I was a stay at home mum through all their school years and when they had left school i started to volunteer in a drug service. I myself have always been interested in addictions and during my life struggled with alcohol, food and depression. I took an NVQ in Substance Misuse and Drugs awareness and my volunteering led to a job which i very much enjoyed. After all i had first hand experience of addiction myself and my boys were dabbling. I moved on to mentoring offenders and ex offenders and very much enjoyed that which then led me to apply to be on an IMB at a category A prison. Ive worked for probation, with the homeless and with people with mental health problems. About 7 years ago my eldest son was using a large amount of speed. He was in a corrosive relationship and had 2 sons with his partner whilst working long hours as a bricklayer. He tried on occasions to come off the speed and just smoke the weed but always gravitated back as he couldnt cope with the come downs. By this point my younger son wasnt as heavily in to drugs as his brother and could take them or leave them , although he was dealing class A’s at times. My eldest son was involved in an inedent where he attacked his brother in law with a hammer after many months of bullying from his estranged baby mother and her family. He was sentenced to 5 years in prison and did a total of 2 and 1/2 then came out on license. I was devistated. It absolutely broke my heart. Whilst in prison he started smoking legal highs and toward the end of his sentence was part of the operation of smuggling it in to the prison. At around this point my younger son was caught with class A’s in his car outside the HMP his brother was in when he went to visit him one saturday afternoon. My younger son was extremely luck and got off very lightly only getting community payback, a fine and a suspended sentence. After this scare he turned his life around, however, my eldest son didnt turn his life around. After he was released from prison it was party party party, which to be fair was only to be expected but in june last year he started smoking crack and this then led to him smoking heroin. He has been smoking heroin for around 8 months now. He says he is only smoking it. He has been street homeless and caught shop lifting several times. He is currently wanted as he has missed multiple probation appointments and has not paid a fine from 3 months ago when he had another court appearance. He phones me or texts me begging for money, i wont give him any. Ive been through all the self blame, the what if’s, i should of done this or should’nt of done that but ultimately i know none of this is my fault. Its the most horrible thing a parent can go through. Its worse than prison hands down. I have had huge upheavals in my own life over the last 18 months ( which i may write another blog about when i have time) and have at times felt so low with no inclination to continue with my life. I just want to know when its all gonna stop? When will these self for filling prophecies end?

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