The warrior's guide to survival

Dear Darling It's been a while since I've written to you an in that time our lives have taken a very different turn. In December we move house and identity after all the trouble with your dad, an the courts finally saw fit to stop the abuse when we were given a no contact order. After the uncertainty and fear of the previous ten years, this year has been bliss. Throughout your whole life and for the the years before you were born my life revolved around a man who turned out to be an abuser, a stalker and paranoid delusionist. My life with you has been regularly interrupted by the court ordered abuse. I still live in fear of the mail, and the person who stalks us, and having to turn your life upside down again. You love our new life, and it troubles you to think that he will find us and make us move again. For the last nine months we have finally gotten to live in peace. We have been free to live and laugh and we have done a lot of that. Our new home is amazi

I'm writing this all up now, to draw a line under it and to provide the government with some insight into what it is like to have a baby with an abuser, and how easy it is for the abuser to find a nice backup team in the UK family courts. I blogged last year when I was in a bad way from the news that Judge Zara of Coventry Family Courts had allowed the stalker to have face to face contact with my beautiful innocent son.  Here comes a summary of what I have been through this past ten plus years, and where I am at now. My son's father is a drug addict. So was I when I met him.  I stopped using almost ten years ago - despite him not because of him as he claims.  Sexual abuse and coercive control and coercive rape were regular occurrences but at the time it didn't occur to me that it was wrong, even though it did not feel good. I walked on eggshells and tried to not rock to boat but this was normal for me and the people I had always loved and so like many victims, I minimi

Another one from the archives, originally published in 2011: When I planned to breastfeed my son, I really had little to no idea what to expect. Most of my peers bottle fed after a few weeks and I’d heard horror stories of pain and discomfort and not being able to produce enough milk. I attended a breastfeeding tutorial as apart of my antenatal course but the only plan I really had was to go with the flow and see what happened. I suffered a dreadful depression in my pregnancy and I doubted my ability to feed my son as well as doubting my capabilities as a mother in general. After an enormously long labour and assisted delivery, my baby lamb was put to my breast and miraculously latched on with little assistance. The first few days in hospital were a blur – remember they kept me in because my son wasn’t feeding properly, though I can’t really remember any serious problems other than he slept for a long time the first night, and so would I, if I’d been on a journey that

Here I'm adding a blast from the past, an old blog post from my other blog ( links may not be current): A friend is due to give birth soon, so I promised that I’d put together a breastfeeding kit list.  Breastfeeding is hard work, but these few things made my life a bit easier.  I’d also like to offer some advice, to all new Mums and that is: listen to your instincts.  That is the best advice my midwife told me and it has been the most valuable to me in the past three years. People will offer you advice, but listen to your heart, and listen to your baby and you won’t go far wrong.  Your baby is unique to you, and whilst you can always ask for help and tips, you need to adapt them to the very special and one-of-a-kind human being that you have just created. Breastfeeding made my boobs feel horrid. Hot and sticky, uncomfortable, painful and milky.  When I won an Emma Jane nursing bra my bosum finally felt as though it could breathe again.  Though it says on the websit