Beneath The Bottle

Tag: honesty

Dusk At The End Of It

The dreaded return to school after more than a two week break. Early nights that do not quite happen and kids who will not sleep because, let’s be honest, routines rarely survive the holidays. Early mornings. School uniforms that fitted a mere three weeks ago now suddenly too tight. The youngest barking instructions at me while I chase my tail trying to do everything, as they sit there quite happily with cereal in front of the TV.

Then came the missing shoe saga.

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For the life of me, I could not find the youngest’s second shoe. We were bordering on late and had to settle for trainers just to get him out of the house. I am sure the shoe will turn up eventually. There are, after all, nine of us in this house, and the big ones’ size nines and tens seem to swallow every little shoe in sight. And do not even get me started on how fed up I am of shoes being flung and abandoned all over the place. If they think I am going to spend my life tidying them, they are mistaken. Life is too short to be that pedantic.

But aside from the one missing shoe, the missing water bottle, and the too tight uniform, we made it to school on time. Looking smart. And somehow a little less sleep deprived than I thought possible.

I got my daughter off with her carer. My older ones were all away to work. And then the house fell silent.

A rarity.

Almost an impossible thing.

So what did I do with that silence? I tucked myself under my duvet and tried to sleep. My anxiety was brutal. I could not breathe properly and lying there felt like the only thing I could do to contain it.

Then my phone rang.

My twenty two year old.

I did not even get the chance to say hello before the words came pouring out of him in a panicked rush. Before long he was crying. Properly crying. Upset, distraught, overwhelmed. His car had broken down again. He had only just spent £1100 fixing it at the start of the month, but to save money he had bought a second hand part, even though he had been advised not to.

And he hates his job.

He is not cut out for office work. He loves being outdoors. He loves movement, freedom, fresh air. Not sitting at a desk, not office politics, not cliques and quiet bitterness dressed up as professionalism. Even though he does his job well, he does not slot neatly into those kinds of spaces. He likes to talk, to joke, to be himself. Less so recently. Recently he mostly keeps himself to himself and gets on with what he is meant to do. He was being looked at for promotion after only six months because he worked so well. But if you do not fit the office clique, it does not usually end in your favour. My son is not a people pleaser. He does not know how to be anything other than himself.

But more than anything, he was upset. He did not have the full amount to fix the car, and he needed someone safe to unravel in front of.

That someone is always me.

So I started at the beginning. I worked out how much it would cost, what needed doing, and when he got paid. I offered to lend him the rest until payday. I told him gently that while he might think he knows best, he does not always, and that this time he should have bought the new part instead of the second hand one. But I was not cruel. I was honest. As a mam, I have to be, whether they want to hear it or not.

I did not shout. I did not raise my voice. I just spoke evenly and told him the truth. But I also reminded myself that this is his first playthrough of life too. He is learning. He is trying. And in moments like that, judgement helps no one. Cruelty teaches nothing. Sometimes what people need most is truth delivered with kindness.

By the end of the call, he had stopped crying. He felt calmer. We had a plan.

But it was more than just a plan.

I have always tried to give my boys a place where they can bring their emotions without shame. A place where sadness is allowed. Where upset is not weakness. Where being overwhelmed does not make you less of a man. So many men move through life feeling like they must always be strong, always keep it in, always carry it silently. But no one can be strong all the time. Sometimes we all need to lean. To ask for help. To let it out. To say this hurts and I do not know what to do with it. That is human. It does not matter whether you are male or female. We all need somewhere soft to land.

And then came the school run. The first day back with their friends, their noise, their renewed confidence, and those usual extra cheeky attitudes that seem to come home with them.

So with that, I took my daughter, who has to come wherever I go when she is not with her carer for fear she may hurt one of her siblings, and we went to watch the sunset in all its majesty.

Then I stayed for my favourite part of the day.

Dusk.

Not dark, because I am scared of the dark, but that in between place where everything begins to soften. The day loosens its grip. The noise fades. The world exhales. The evening air washed over me and for a moment everything felt still.

And even with all the chaos, all the demands, all the challenges that eight children had delivered across the day, I made it to the end of it.

And it was okay.

And really, I think that is all that matters some days.

Not perfection. Not productivity. Not having every shoe lined up in the porch or every emotion neatly folded away.

Just surviving one day at a time. Doing the best you can with what you have. First making sure you do no harm, and then simply being yourself and helping where you can.

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April 21, 2026
Survival Is Still Worthy Of Being Seen

I do write about light moments too. The laughter, the softness, the ordinary things that still matter. They are part of me just as much as the harder things are. I think that matters to say, because sometimes I worry my writing may seem too heavy to people looking in from the outside.

But this blog was never created to perform happiness or to dress pain up in something more comfortable for other people to read. It was created to be honest. To tell the truth about what life looks like when you have lived through abuse, addiction, and the long aftermath of both. Not every day is dark.
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Not every post is painful. But survival is not neat, and it is not always inspiring in the way people like to package it. Sometimes it is messy. Sometimes it is exhausting. Sometimes it is simply getting through.

I understand what this space is. It is not just a collection of hard memories or heavy thoughts. It is the survival of someone who has suffered, and who is still here. It is the proof that even with all that life has taken, there can still be warmth, humour, tenderness, and light. Those moments do not erase the struggle. They sit beside it.

I do not write to be negative. I write to be truthful. And I know there is value in that truth, especially for the people who may need to see that survival does not have to look polished to be real.

Survival is not always pretty, but it is still worthy of being seen.

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April 16, 2026
I Have A Confession

I have a confession to make.

I’m actually quite scared to divulge this really quite petite fact that holds little significance in the grand scheme of things.

But I need to make it less powerful, to reduce the imaginary pull that seems to reel me in to the hold it has on me.

Under my desk is a bag, and inside the bag is a can of lager. The bag is covered with my blanket. It’s a safe space, one nobody in the house would dare to go near or touch, and I know this. The place was chosen to keep it safe, hidden by choice. If I had wanted it to be found, if I had wanted sanctuary from the mental battle currently engulfing me, I’d have put it in the fridge where everyone would see it.

The deviousness of hiding it somewhere nobody goes is a choice. There is always a choice.

That solitary can is my get out of jail free card. For me, it’s how I move around the board when everything becomes too impossible to handle or cope with. I’m still trying to decipher whether I’ve kept it as a deterrent, a safety net, perhaps; a reminder that the choice is there but I choose not to take it.

Or whether it’s actually there as an emergency, like a defibrillator placed perfectly. Just in case.

Alcohol has become my “just in case.”

It was my crutch. My reliance. But I’m tired of the monotony of drinking to excess and the downward regression into anxiety, pain, dread, and shame. Yet I’m also painfully aware of my inner need to survive, to survive to raise my children, to survive to simply exist. Alcohol, in a twisted way, allows me to survive.

It destroys me, I know. My drinking crushes me. Mentally, it pulls me under. I isolate, I hide, I retract from a world that feels too loud and demanding.

But the noise. The endless noise; it stops me from seeing clearly. Everything becomes blurry when I’m sober. I hear too much, feel too much, and my brain can’t keep up with the incessant waves of fear, panic, and expectation. Alcohol dulls it down.

Because the withdrawal from society in active drinking gives me peace; but the withdrawal from alcohol in sobriety terrifies me.

To others, it might look like oversensitivity.

To me, it’s survival.

I know alcohol won’t solve anything. I know it doesn’t fix the pain, but do they see me? Do they feel the ache that floods every nerve? Living hurts, and there’s no softer way to say it. The pain may change form, but it still exists. And it can be utterly debilitating.

So this can of lager, this confession, I need to take the power out of it.

Perhaps binning it would solve everything. But it would also take away my safety card, and sometimes, holding onto something, even the wrong thing, feels safer than letting go completely.

I know my thinking is flawed.

I know that the problem isn’t the can of lager. It’s me. My inability to cope without something that helps me to breathe through the pain.

Because right now, I feel like I’m sinking, and there is no anchor.

If this were anyone else, I’d know exactly what to say.

I’d tell them tenderly that alcohol doesn’t heal pain; it only mutes it until it comes back screaming. I’d remind them that what they’re really reaching for isn’t the drink; it’s peace.

But when it’s me, everything changes.

Logic becomes fog. My own advice turns to whispers I can’t quite hear over the noise.

Because I know what it’s like to sit in the dark, heart racing, eyes burning, wanting the world to stop spinning for just a moment. I know the exhaustion of surviving when every breath feels heavy.

I know I’m damaged. I know I’m broken in ways that words can’t capture. I see it in my shaking hands, in the silence that follows my tears, in the way I pretend strength to protect those I love. Some days it feels like I’m hanging on by my fingernails and they’re bleeding.

That can under my desk isn’t just alcohol.

It’s a symbol. A promise of escape. A threat dressed as comfort. A reminder that control is both my safety and my prison.

I tell myself I keep it as a choice, that as long as it stays there, I hold the power. But maybe the truth is this; the real power lies in not reaching for it.

Maybe one day I’ll throw it away. Maybe one day the pull will fade.

But tonight, this confession, these words, are my first step.

Because saying it out loud, admitting that it exists, that I exist like this, is me taking the power back, even if just for a moment.

October 26, 2025