Ellen - Mum Carer & Fitness

RESILIENCE
Being flexible, adjusting our expectations, learning how to navigate the stressful times and understanding how to pick ourselves up again after we get knocked down is how we develop a resilient mindset.

RESPITE
If you need 5 minutes of quiet, let your family know that you do not want to be disturbed. It may not always work out, but share how important this is and others will (hopefully) start to respect your wishes. When we aren’t able to access ‘official’ respite, you will need to work it into your life. It may not initially feel as relaxing as a full break, but it’s still important.

Drinking a hot cup of tea can be done anywhere, even just getting up a few minutes earlier to enjoy any silence before you begin your day can make such a difference to your routine.

Practice putting yourself first.
You also need good boundaries with yourself. Prioritise the things you need and want to do, or they will forever slip down the to-do list. Be as ruthless at setting aside the time for yourself as you are about the healthcare needs of the person you look after.

Invest in noise-cancelling headphones! It may not always be safe to use them, but they really do block out the noise and chaos around you so you can get an undisturbed peaceful moment.

RELATIONSHIPS
Try and plan something - It may feel dull but planning time for your partner or friends makes life easier and ensures you keep your human contact at a decent level. Plan date nights (even if it is staying home), allocate one evening a week to calling friends and family and see if you can organise a regular group meet up/Zoom to keep you in the loop with your friends.

Practice - Like anything, it will take a while to make it a fully formed habit. Put your calls/social events in the diary and treat them with the gravitas of a hospital appointment that cannot be easily cancelled.

Perseverance - As above, you need a commitment to make your social life happen, but it’s not ideal if it feels like a burden or another thing on your plate. What ways can you make it easier to manage?

Continued in the comments

Ellen - Mum Carer & Fitness updated their website address.

Part 2

Second pay came, he paid his, but mine was in trouble, I couldn’t do it.  I had stuff to pay and what he promised didn’t cover my debt.  So, he told me to go to another company, take that debt out and pay this one.  I was soon in a position where I had nothing.  I never told my family because I didn’t know what I was actually doing.  They soon realised that he was garbage and there was nothing to convince me that he was.  I wanted to stay with him, no matter how or who told me to chuck him.  I lost my phone because my bill couldn’t be paid on time, I took out a pay as you go sim which helped.

I soon found out, from the loans not being paid that my credit score was sh*t when I tried to get a laptop on finance. I lost my car so he said ‘don’t worry, you can get a car on finance’.  I thought ok that’s alright, pay as you go.  Found a fiat 500 that I could afford alone but he refused to accept it because he didn’t want to be seen in such a small car by his friends, he had to have a bigger car.  His sister had a Vauxhall Corsa, and he wanted to match her.  This car was about £100 max a week.  Two of us paying, I thought ok £50 each.  Can’t go wrong.

9 years ago, about 5 weeks into our relationship I discovered my ex had money problems.  Did not know the extent of it but they were his, not mine, figured he would sort himself out.  Grown man, knows what he is doing.  Plus, I had known him a few weeks, so I didn’t know him at all.  I had only just moved out of London, didn’t have any savings yet as I had to leave my events job earlier than expected.
 
I got a job in our local popular food shop chain, met him and things went from there.  Got my first pay which wouldn’t have been much because I only worked two days a week.  I watched him pay off his monthly debts and then retake out another loan to survive.  I wondered how he was surviving like it and how would ever get out of it.  I never understood why his mum or family didn’t help him, my family did if I needed it. His life seemed ‘odd’. 

We planned our first trip together to London on his day off so I could go and see my nan and ‘show him off’.  Again, he took out another loan, but somehow a little while later he asked me to join the loan company and max out my account.  I naïvely did it because he was going to pay my debt and his.  I wondered how but trusted that he would. 

First photo I think that the dog isn’t scared of one of them 😂.

He was such an old dog, I don’t think he would have a chance to run away, especially with Ellie’s hard grip 😂.

He’s missed very much

Drop a ❤️ if you have been through

1.    Physical abuse – blocking you from leaving a room, grabbing you, forcing you to look at him by grabbing your face, kicking, punching, slapping, punching walls or kicking doors the list is endless.

2.    Emotional abuse – intimidating, insulting, degrading, shaming, humiliating, embarrassing you, being condescending, not listening to you, talking over the top of you, disrespecting you (privately or publicly), being possessive and overly jealous.

3.    Verbal abuse - screaming, yelling, swearing, name calling, interrupting, mocking, intimidating,  humiliating you with abusive language and derogatory remarks.

4.    Economic abuse – withholding money from you, not allowing you to have access to funds, making you account for every penny you spend, preventing you from having access to a car, not allowing you to have your name on any assets or bank accounts.

5.    Mental abuse – accusing you of doing bad behaviors that they have engaged in (such as infidelity); saying/doing bad behavior and then denying it and claiming that you have mental problems and don’t know what you’re talking about; twisting and distorting truth and eventually getting you to believe that you are losing your mind; mentally abusive people are very skilled at lying and manipulating. 

6.    Sexual abuse – unwanted s*x or touching,  pressuring you for s*x, forcing you to have s*x or unprotected s*x, forcing you to do anything s*xually that is unwanted or against your will.

7.    Spiritual abuse – forcing and manipulating you to do things against your will (forcing s*x, forcing submission) by distorting scripture and threatening punishment by God if you don’t comply; preventing and denying  you from doing things (such as getting a job, attending college, having access to money, having certain friends, reading and interpreting the bible for yourself, making choices for yourself, attending functions) by distorting scriptures on female submission to support their power and control of you.

Drop a ❤️ if you ever let your kids practice on you.

Ellie has bugged me for weeks to open this tattoo box. After spending 20 minutes trying to figure out how to work it, I let her try it on me.

I look like I have blood stains on my arms now 🤦🏻‍♀️. Unfortunately forgot to photograph the end result.

Drop an 💪🏼 if this is you.

I’m so glad my ex isn’t in my life anymore. As much as it killed me when it first happened, I’m grateful his head turned when he laid his eyes on his ex again and the fights started…AGAIN because I would not be where I am now.

Stronger, healthier, fitter, happier and doing my own thing and my children are not around someone who causes nothing but hurt just by looking at you.

William decided he wanted to test his muscles and asked me to photograph him.

Are your kids camera shy?

Flashback Friday alert 🚨

Looking at the above photos, you can’t physically see a difference between them. I was happy in each with my babies, smiling, posing with them. No visible difference. Not ALL abuse is VISIBLE. Little would anyone know, the first photo I was in (not knowingly) a domestic abusive (DA) relationship.

DA is not always visible, it comes in all forms. Mostly you can’t see the person going through it.

What is domestic abuse? According to Woman’s Aid, DA is an incident or patterns of incidents, controlling, coercive, threatening, degrading and violent behaviour. It can include, psychological and/or emotional abuse, physical or s*xual, financial or economic harassment and stalking, online or digital.

At the top, my ex had taken me to a mobile network company shop with full intentions of making me open an account in my name, my bank details so he could have sole use and would ‘pay’ me every month in return. I knew there was no way he would be keeping up with the payments but if I dared raise this (especially publicly with witnesses) there would be another fight. He would slam something, shout at me and walk off.

Thankfully where he had destroyed my credit score so much, my name didn’t pass their checks. I was so relieved. No arguments.

Bottom photo, 5 years away from him, my daughter doesn’t know him (she was 1 year when we split and he’s never bothered since). We had just finished another workout and she wanted a photo.

Literally just printed these phonics sheets off from her school and she’s already started reading them.

Any of these familiar to you?

Most of these are actually what happened to me. My ex didn’t like the fact I had a talent for being able to do DIY or just the fact I was doing something on my own so he had to either take over or put me down and say he could do it better. 9/10 he made it worse. He tried ‘fixing’ my loft door and it actually broke.

If I spoke to another guy, (especially if it was a guy he hated and the guy would just simply say hi how are you?) I could always feel his eyes staring at me because I dare laugh or even smile at someone else. But if he spoke to another girl then he would turn it into a fight that I was jealous and then the ‘I will end this relationship’ threats start.

Want to know what’s in my mummy muscle gaining drink? Drop a 🙋🏻‍♀️ below or message me.

Ok well this was supposed to be my shake, but my lovely girl wanted ‘some’. She drunk almost half of it.

I wouldn’t be without this shake. Thanks to drinking it everyday, it’s helped me to gain more muscle plus it’s also packed with vitamins and more. It also tastes delicious with the other ingredients I am using in it.

Drop an emoji if you filter your children’s faces just to wind them up.

I love taking photos of my kids when they can’t see I have filtered their faces.

Williams reaction to this wasn’t quite excitable and he did tell me off because he thought he’d grown antlers through the phone 🙈.

❤️

Tidying up the bedrooms to make room for my workout space, hear ‘mummy mummy’. Found this.

Still don’t know how she got in there, the basket is bigger/taller than her 😂

Emotional honesty post….

3 months after, he decided he wanted to see me again and talk. We met up, never spoke about what happened but decided to see each other. I missed him and did still love him (or so I though). 2 years later, we were still together and had our son and daughter. In this time there were still fights, controlling of money, stopping me seeing a friend to do our hobby together (Eddie Stobart spotters). He believed this guy was after me and didn’t want me doing my hobby alone with him, but he wouldn’t come with me so I didn’t have to stop doing something I loved. During the last 6 months of our relationship, I had just stopped loving him. It was him contacting his ex and wanting her to be in his life that finally started to break us. He told me he hid for 6 months that when he came face to face with her by chance that he realised he missed her and her ‘friendship’. That broke me, he couldn’t see why I was so upset.

January 2017, a message was exchanged between them involving me and because I dare speak up and say she was lying, we split. It was either I accepted he wanted her back in his life or it was over. He walked from his family. It took me a good few months before I was in a right state mentally to sort my life out and make sure my kids were still happy. They never knew what happened. My son started preschool, flourished and my daughter followed a year later. During this time, I built my life back, I did the walk for life for dementia because my nan passed from it. It was doing the longest walk that I decided I wanted to actually get fit and joined a PT thinking I would only do one session and it would stop. Two years later, (this year 2021) two workouts a week I built my muscle and strength back. During lockdown, my sessions were over WhatsApp and I used paint tins for weights. Come may, I hit financial difficulty, my mum had major heart surgery which we didn’t know if she would come back from (she thankfully did and it was the best day ever when I heard her ‘drugged out voice’ the following day) and I just lost interest in everything. If it wasn’t for my kids, I don’t know what I would be doing.

Do you resonate?

Took him here for his birthday, as much as he loves to pose I literally have no idea if he’s trying to pull or push this trolley 😂