...I have been away from the family for the last week because I was struggling with the power of the spoken word...realising that some can be so horribly cruel, others can be so incrediblly healing whilst the absence of a softly spoken word can be devastating.

Humility seems to be the one lesson that I am learning more and more as I listen to this family and feel the pain, the heartbreak, the destruction and the waste. 

However, I also see the tremendous courage, determination, care and support that each one of you lavish upon the members of this family.

During this week, I have read some awful things, things that I can relate to so much that it caused me to relive my own experiences too.  This was not as negative as it may at first seem.  I felt silenced for a reason.  I had to go through this time to read the words and understand the situations, and face my own situations that I had pushed down into a corner of my being and padlocked shut.

Your words burst those padlocks and out they all came to be confronted and worked through.

The power of the spoken word must not be undermined...once we have spoken our words, we cannot take them back...we have to live with them and work at understanding the why's and wherefore's that these words have, or had, been spoken to us.

I found I had no words to say that I felt could take the pain away from so many of you, and I felt silenced into handing each one over to my HP [gosh, now I am even using this term HP, which until now I found so difficult to say - for my HP is God and I always felt it blasphemous to use that term HP and not name my HP].

Anyway, for all my words I find that I am singing an old Bee Gee's song in my head as I write this, but I am substituting friend ,you and pain, in the chorus line, for the words in brackets, and dedicating this song to all of you my dear family in recovery:

Smile,an ever lasting smile, a smile could bring you near to me.
Don't ever let me find you gone 'cause that would bring a tear to me.
This world has lost it's glory, let's start a brand new story now my friend [love].
Talk in ever lasting words and dedicate them all to you [me].
You think that I don't even mean a single word I say.
It's only words, and words are all I have to take your pain [heart] away.
It's only words, and words are all I have to take your pain [heart] away.
It's only words, and words are all I have to take your pain [heart] away.

Thank you all for your painful sharings, for your honest courage and for helping to heal me on my way to recovery, and I hope that you all feel the love and support that I sent your way to help heal and bind your wounds too.


Heartbroken.