Blast from the past....

I have been lost.

I have had things inside my head for years and years, that swim round, surging into my consciousness whether I want them to or not.

It started with trains.

I have an absurd fear of trains, not so much being on a train, just the sound.

When I lived in London, I'd have to face away from the tube platform as the sound, the speed and the noise made me feel sick..

Now when I'm in London, I just burrow my head into Sarah's shoulder, because of course, she knows this strange fear of mine and she knows where it stems from.

My delightful birth mother, a woman who had chance after chance, with child after child, decided on one her failed attempts at relieving herself of her children, that the easiest course of action would be to leave my brother and I at Crewe train station as she fled as far and as fast as she could.

Not many people know that. At least not anyone outside of the special few who have read the child course records regarding my early years. Its like Stephen Kings books piled ontop of one another, horror after horror, but the more I think about it, the more I realise, it brought me here.

I said to Sarah on the way into London last weekend, it's a city of ghosts for me. From running away from home and ending up in a brothel on the north circular to cocaine fuelled nights in Kensington houses. To say I've been there and done that, would be an understatement.

The city draws me back. To find answers. To understand who I am and why I have lived the life I have.

I lived in fear. That I was destined to end up like Bridie. A sad story of a woman with everyone else to blame except me. That my decisions were the result of things out of my control. But thats just not true.

We make our own choices, no matter how distorted a place they come from. Whether they are right or wrong is irrelevant, it is our ability to stand by them and understand them that makes us human. That makes us honest.

Thats something she could never be. Honest. Honest about who she is. Why she is and how she came to be.

My big sisters baby shower.

I was late. I entered a room full of faces, all looking at me as if they knew me, like I had only been gone 5 minutes and it dawned on me that these women, did know me. I just had no idea who they were.

My Aunty Mary gave me a photo, the first ever photo I have ever seen in my 27 years on this earth, a photo I have craved all my life - a baby photo. Me. The day I was born. How much I weighed. What time. It was incredible. I will treasure it forever.

It made me cry. I can't look at it now as I will get tearful.

My beautiful Aunty Maggie, across the table from me, caught my eye when I was staring at the photo. We don't cry in the Barker family, its weak. Especially not in public. Let alone a room full of strangers.

But I had to. It was overwhelming. And as soon as one tear fell on my face, I was surrounded by family. Thats new!

I met aunties and uncles and cousins and siblings.

A loving family. Close. Caring.

So what happened?

Is she the ominous black sheep of Kehoe as I am of Barker?

I spent a weekend looking at people who look like me, feeling grateful, feeling peace. But I couldnt get her out of my head.

Surely when you have a family reunion of this magnitude, its mother and father you run to first. To ask all the questions you have in your heart.

I can't do that.

The mother is locked up quite rightly in a place she deserves to be and the father, should he have any sense is as far away from me finding him as he could ever be.

Monsters.

What was I to be?

The nature or the nurture?

With lack of nurture, it seems destined to be nature that wins out.

My grandmother described Bridie as a compulsive liar - snap?

That she lives in fantasy land where she may even believe what she says to be true?

I've been there, I've lived that. It's been 20 years of my life in la la land where Fran is right and the world is wrong. So we are not so different.

But I changed.

I chose the right path

The honest path

The path that leads to love and a future and happiness.

Why didn't she?

Why did she have Donna? My beautiful big sister, who I spent most of my weekend just in awe of, pregnant, happy, loved, I was overwhelmed just looking at her.

Bright eyes, high cheek bones.

Shes me and I am her. We just spent two decades apart.

Her love. Roger. The most incredible man I've ever met. Such kindness. The gentle giant. He's her salvation as Sarah is mine. I spent a weekend looking at them, together, in love and I thought, you've made it. You've escaped it. The past and the ghosts and the crazy mother, the baby girl you are about to have will be so loved that none of it will ever matter. Not anymore.

Looking at Donna, I see everything I want to be.

Happy. Loved. Family.

The weekend in London opened as many doors as it closed.

Aunties that are blonde, aunties that are brunette.

Some look like Bridie. Some don't.

Some talk about her. Some don't.

Why would you?

I asked about Wayne. Nobody knows.

It seems he cemented her downfall.

But no mother, no real mother could ever allow such things to happen.

There seems a lot of sad faces and a lot of excuses.

I don't do excuses anymore.

She chose her path. With alcohol and drugs aplenty.

She had a family who could have saved her.

She chose not to let them.

She chose Wayne. She chose his vulgar activities and friends.

She chose to throw her life away and compounded that in taking someone elses.

Meeting my older brother, there is so much of Jay in his face. That made me even a little sad.

My stupidly naive little brother, parading through this family revelation like some sort of flight of fancy.

Having spent a lifetime denying its very existence, crucifying me for acknowledging it, wanting it, needing it and then waltzing on through it all once I gave him all the answers.

Nothing new there then! Always given, never earned.

Nieces. Beautiful beautiful nieces. With freckles and cheekbones. Beautiful hazel eyes. Like me. Like looking in a mirror. They sat opposite me eating their meal in fascination. Who was I. Why did I look so much like them. Like Donna. Like Edward. But as children, taking the news of Aunty Fran in their stride.

I have been blessed with a beautiful family, and feel very lucky and honoured to finally found them.

What a weekend.

Upon my return to Manchester, I emailed my dad. I missed him. But still harbouring anger and resentment for hiding all this from me for so long.

I told him I loved him and I missed him. Where I had been. How important it had been for me. That I felt happy, I felt peace.

I'm yet to receive a reply.

So here I am, a week on from meeting my incredible family. I'm on the road to recovery. I really really think this is the start of healing. Of learning. And of becoming a better person.

It's time to let go....

Mothers Day

When writing this, I was listening to songs I listened to as a teenager, sat crossed legged, on my bed, in my parents house, wondering why we weren't connected the way we should have been. Today I'm 27 and I'm learning its OK to be apart, because we shared a journey and now I'm living my own. It doesn't stop it hurting any less.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9WIM2zZ2nI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMt3_p04XaQ

I didn't send your card this year,
And I'm sat here thinking I did the wrong thing,
I should always put that card in the post,
Through that door,
Whatever it takes for it to find you.
Even if I can't do the same.

Should, should, should, should.
Would, would, would, would.
What is about you that brings out the "if only's" in me
I'm just fine the way I am.
I'm fine with the choices I've made,
The right and the wrong
They all brought me here
And that's perfect.
Because here is where I was always meant to be.

I've ripped my hair out, my heart out,
Torn my tongue out, shut up, screamed out, shouted out.
Love me, love me.
Why won't you?
Why don't you?
20 years of wasted emotion and a love lost on an ocean,
Because we won't find eachother,
We won't spend another Sunday like today in the same room,
Because every day I'm dead and buried,
Like someone who died a long time ago,
And I sit, in moments of silence, on Sundays, Mondays,
Christmases and birthdays.
My heart looks for you,
Like a text will get a reply,
That every word you hear me say isn't received as a lie.
Because I'm the daughter of a past life,
That you let go and let die.

It's a strange place to be,
Yesterday I found myself in hysteria for no reason at all,
I got caught up in the loss of you,
I felt my heart break inside my chest,
And I let it all go and crashed to the floor.
My knees hit the carpet of my lovely new home,
All I wanted to do was call you and say "I'm home"
And then it hit me harder than the fall,
Home will never be at your door,

I won't get to hear about the right way to the plump cushions on the bed,
Even if I do the exact same thing here
I won't get to hear any of it.
Because you just don't talk.

You come close to death,
And I hear it through the grapevine
I rush as fast as I can to the place I think you'll be,
I wait in the shadows, outcast, cast out,
Hoping to catch a glimpse of you,
God I want you to be OK,
I sneak gifts of diet coke and sponges to the receptionist,
I sneak peaks at whether you come and go,
Because I can't leap out and squeeze you like I need to.
This is a life. Hiding in a waiting room.
Trying to find out if the love of my life is dead or alive.
Would I even get to know that?

The day I came out of court,
My day of reckoning,
I was at my lowest ever point,
And then I bumped into you,
And the knife was plunged a little deeper.
In a court room, I was judged for an hour out of a day.
Given my life to make it right, and to pay,
But one look from you and it came flooding back,
The punishment, the resentment, the bitterness and the hate,
You looked at me with such disappointment,
It made the judge look like a happy clown.
Only you have the power to knock me further down.

I tricked myself you were there to see me,
To make sure I was OK.
That it wasn't worse case scenario and I didn't get sent away.
But you weren't.
You'd been to lunch
You were hob-knobbing on the street,
Having a chit-chat, obvlivious to your daughter,
Suited and booted and standing across the street,
Crossing traffic to get to you,
To reach out, in false hope,
And you turn and say, after years of silence,
With such disdain and exasperation
"Oh dear, they let you go,"

So mother dearest, Happy Mothers Day
I'm sure you will have a great one
Because you will spend it in your little land of Barker,
Where nothing bad ever happens
And the world is never darker,
Not now I'm out of the picture,
And I only seep into your life through Christmas cards
And Mothers Day texts.
You will forever be, my biggest regret.
I wanted to hold onto you,
For all of time,
To call you mummy, to call you mine,
But we are just not those kind of people,
We are meant to live apart,
Or I wouldn't be on this path,
And there would be space for me in your heart.

I love you.
Happy Mother's Day

International Womens Day 2015

This time last year, a beautiful lady and friend of mine wrote a little piece about me in her epic blog (http://ginfuelledbluestocking.co.uk/international-womens-day-inspiring-women/) and since she wrote those lovely words a lot has changed in my life.
When a woman like that see's the good in you, the potential and the hope, you know you are on the right track, even if you went the ass-backwards way of getting there!
Charlie, it's been a year. I've worked my socks off. Won two awards. Taught over 60 workshops. Talked at events all over the country sharing my story. And if I didn't have people like you, Debs, and a few other stars tucked away in the side lines spurring me on, it would have taken me a long time to realise that everything I want is entirely possible, because I can make it so!


So. A year ago.

I almost lost it all. Again.
For the sake of the money that lead me here, the money I stole and squandered. The thief, the fraudster, the druggie and the whore.
I've had a lot of names, I've been a lot of people, but who I am today is the girl who was fighting throughout it all, shinning, in dark spaces and horrors of places, I was in there. Glimmers of hope trying to rise to the surface, but too overshadowed by the sorrow, the wallow, the pessimism, the anger and the hate.
So a free bird becomes a new bird, and I let it all go.... The anger that bubbles within me, like a volcano that just won't go out, there's a constant danger that it will rise up in me and destroy everything that stands tall. But I won't ever let that happen.. Not anymore.

When you have lived a life like I have and you've covered emotions over, papered up every single crack, you slapped on a fake smile and never shed a tear, because emotions are just weakness, that how I have lived all these years.

This week I opened up the ultimate pandora's box, the box that came before the box, the box that pre-dates Barker fucks ups, fights, and losses.
I opened up the Kehoe files and had a peek inside.
For the first time in my life, I have photos of the woman I thought I might be. I have photos of the monster that lurks somewhere deep inside. And she is beautiful, but you can see shes lost with no way back.
Is that what my photos look like? Smiles on the outside, gone forever on the inside?
I was so scared that everything in me was her. Our mental health disorder. Our drug addictions. Our promiscuous nature, the eternal whore. The broken families. The broken minds. The self pity and the anger. But I'm not.
I'm Francesca BARKER, and whether they love or hate me, they gave me more. The bridges burnt between us showed me how strong I have to be, to live this life, eternal, with no love from a family.
I have lost two mothers in my lifetime and I don't know if either loved me at all. They both let me go. Like I was nothing. Like I don't even exist anymore.
I can't live like that.
With empty spaces and memories. I love them both. And I will fight for them.

International Womens Day, I celebrate two very different women. Both who made me who I am.

There is Mrs Barker, the first woman I ever fell in love with. Blonde hair, eyes just like mine, the day I met her it was like a fairytale playing out before me.
White Mercedes pulls up, wind in her hair, she steps out, flawless. I knew she was the one. So I asked her. Blunt as I have always been; I asked her if she would be my mummy. And she said yes.

We have had moments of bliss in the 22 years we spent together, where shes been my mummy and I've been her Fran, we've made summer puddings, we've plaited hair, we've had moments where we love each other and I've thought she will always be there.
It will be a sunny Sunday, she is sat on the big leather sofa she dragged us around DFS for hours just to buy and shes drinking tea, a pot. Laid out on the table. Like the queen is chilling out on the other sofa across the room. Newspaper in hand, shes pensive. The intelligent woman. Shes thinking. And then she says into the silence "Pick up a bargain? 8 letters"
She will look at me for the answer, because she knows our common love is knowledge and we are both the brains of the family and always have been.
I look at her, thinking.
She asks me to sit, but says to grab a pencil. And there we stay until the bitter end, when its just 4 down to go, and we are human and we are love. And she is perfect. We both are, for a few moments in time.

It's Wigan A and E, I've shattered my ankle, it's horrendous and I've never felt such pain.
She rushes to me, down the M6, for-goes the Thursday night manicure to be at my side.
I'm off my tits on morphiene and take her hand in mine.
"Mummy your nails look beautiful"
She laughs, with tears in her eyes and says "Oh I do love you you know"
I'm obviously overdosing and have misheard this illusion and exclaim to the whole ward "Fuck me, someone break the other leg just so I can hear that again"

And so we are broken, like the ankle. Horrendous and I've never felt such pain.
I love her, and I've hurt her, and she's hurt me, but shes my mum and thats a love affair that will never end. I will never give up the hope she will see me, her daughter, as the girl she loved once, as the girl she was hoping for.

Mrs Barker, the incredibly brave but incredibly stupid woman. Determined to stand by her choice. Determined to prove I'm nothing like her.
I still do the Times crossword, on the sofa, on a Sunday, with a cup of tea and I bet so does she.

Bridie.
Where does one start.
My mother. By blood. By the lovely gifts of genetics. A legacy of utter crazy.
I've spent my whole life wondering who she is, what she is like, why she abandoned us, why she let bad things happen to me.
I've been angry. But I've been sad.
I've never understood how she got so lost.
Until I was that lost.
I faced the blackhole and turned my back on it before it sucked me in and kept me there.
She didn't.
She walked right into it and made it her home.

So why am I writing about her on International Womens Day, a day for inspiring women?
Having met my beautiful older sister this week, I came to understand a few things. Things I have been grappling with my whole life.
You reach a point on the road to destruction where there is no turning back, because even if you wanted to, the guilt of it all would devour you.
I had a small taste of that with my colossal fuck up. The guilt of it all still haunts me. Keeps me awake at night. Makes me doubt myself and my choices. I second guess everything that I do and check and double check to make sure I've got it right, so there can be no margin for error or bad choices.
Imagine the guilt lingering in the mind of a woman who lost herself, lost her children, lost her freedom and caused the loss of another humans life?
Overwhelming and never ending I should imagine.
There is no greater punishment in the world, than that of self-punishment. No prison sentence, no rehab, no mental health intervention that can make you feel so guilty and so remorseful than your own conscience.

Upon hearing about her progress and her fight against her wrongs, I was proud. That even a woman so destroyed has found a glimmer of hope and understanding that no matter how great the wrong, there is always a way back. She can't give back what she took, not like I could. She can't give me and my sister and older brother back our childhoods and the repair the damage she caused.
But she can live a life understanding what she did and taking responsibility for it.

SO

I have two mothers in my life. One is a brilliant woman, with a heart I can't thaw and one is a broken woman, who is trying to be a better person.
I respect both. I admire both. And that's just plain odd.

As for my third mother, well - the mother-in-law, now there is a woman International Womens Day is all about, she is strong and she in kind, she is loving and she is honest, she cares for me in a way that sees my past and see my future and she supports every part of it.
A true gem <3


Today is about great women.

We all are

Long Lost little girls in London

So, yesterday will be remembered for a long time to come.
I met my sister.
How's that for your average Tuesday?

On Friday 27th February, I won an award, award number two in the short space of 6 months. Epic.

On Friday 27th February, I found out my long lost relatives had been searching for me for over 20 years.
And I found them.
We found eachother.
And yesterday my big sister (still weird to say it) travelled from London to Manchester, whilst 6 months pregnant with her incredible other half to meet me, to stay with me and to have a conversation with me that we've both been waiting for our entire lives.

She looks like me. Shes the beautiful version, with big, kind eyes and pretty hair. When your a lost little girl, you fantasize about families. Big sisters, little brothers, mummy's and daddy's and babies and pets. Big houses and cars, and holidays. School, friends, love.

I've been the lost little girl living in fantasy land for over 20 years and yesterday parts of me fell into place.
Like looking in a mirror and for the first time realising, I'm just fine. Me, Francesca Barker - perfectly OK to be just me.

This is a woman who lived a life like me on paper, with a sadness behind the beautiful eyes that only I would recognise, because I have the exact same look. It's the "I'm smiling but I'm broken" look.
You learn to perfect such a thing after years of practice. And yesterday, we both had that look.

I was worried. What to do, what to say. what to wear. I spent hours with Sarah turning our little house in the country into a palace, fluffing cushions, hoovering like a cleaner on crack, brushing the cat so even he was on top form to meet my long lost relative.
Sheer insanity. But when mad meets mad, that turns out, normal.

Donna Kehoe, daughter of Bridie Kehoe, my older sister. A girl lost in time.
We have one big difference, she tried to save our mother from the demons that took her, from the life she let slip away, and she failed, because the sad truth is, some people just don't want to be saved.
I found myself glad to hear about her, out of prison, in a hospital, cared for, caring for herself, something I would never have expected in a million years. I have hated this woman for a long time, resentful she would let such horrors happen to me, that she would let me be passed around by my father and his friends, such anger. Harboured for such a long time.
Horrors trapped in a little girls mind and growing stronger every day. Horrors never spoken about and certainly never fixed.
So yesterday opened up pandora's box. Anger. Like I've never felt it.
Anger at my parents. They adopted a girl who had been passed around like Christmas, so broken and bruised, at the age of 4, there was no coming back. At the age of 4, Francesca Barker was the whore she turned out to be at 20 something.
The worst of it? My parents had been communicating with my birth mother every step of the way. Whilst I was living in middle class surburbia with a broken heart and a broken mind with 101 questions to ask and no answers given, they were sending photos and updates and whats more, they were getting letters and photos back.
My brother had the luxury of sitting down with my mum and dad with a box full of memories, photos, letters, stories and truths. He got to learn, in the safety of my parents arms, that his sister was a plaything passed from pillar to post and that was probably why she had ended up in a crown court room and due to go to prison - just like her real mother.
Such anger.
I have struggled all morning between being the girl I have become, the honest, hard working, positive and optimistic human being I am proud to have become. I am brave and I am kind, I am guilt ridden and I am broken. But I am happy. I am in love. I am loved and most of all, I am lucky.
But I am angry and I am sad, I am resentful and bitter, that a boy who needed no answers, got them handed to him with a bow, with a hug and a kiss, with an open door. A boy who gets to pursue this if he wants to, if he cares to, and denies my very existence on a daily basis.
So he gets his happy ending and the big sister, it just so happens, that big sister isnt me.

Alas, I strive for more than sadness and wallow. My life is built for more than that, so after the tears and the rants, and the vacant expressions. I am grateful.
Today is the 4th March. I have a sister.
I am happy. I am in love. I am loved and I am lucky.
And quite frankly, no past demon, or present broken heart can take away from that.
I am hopeful and I am driven.

Today is a day that is a Barker Baker day - #positivesovernegatives and nothing will ever change that.

My goodness, I have grown.

February 8th 2015 #positivesovernegatives

In my 2 years of growth and understanding, what have I learned? What have I done with my life and second chance?

Let me share with you the most incredible journey of my life... and it's only just begun!

Friday 8th February 2013 saw my life going one of two ways; 1) I would go to HMP Styal and stay there for up to 2 years of my life or 2) I would walk out of that court room a very fortunate young woman. As you all know, I was lucky enough to be allowed to leave the Crown Court, with my bag full of knickers, pens and paper, enough stamps to sink a ship and £50 in cash.

That walk to my sentencing hearing haunts me every day of my life, I remember how the air felt on my face, walking through the streets of Manchester, breathing in like I would some how forget the feeling if the worse happened, it was like seeing the city for the first time and lo' in my darkest hour, a mirage in the distance, a face I had wished for throughout the whole process, the fact I had wanted to scream and shout and tell my truths too, my father. Suited and booted and ready for court. A knight in shining armor arriving after the battle had already been fought. A sorry face. An apology. That somehow in the perfect land of Barker, there had been an acknowledgement of a failure on their side, that maybe the broken Barker should have been fixed before spinning out of control, alone, excommunicated and erased from afar.
It was my day. The day of reckoning, all my bullshit and all my stupidity had lead me here. To this day of cleansing, of repenting, of trying to make things right - to be punished.
And there he was, as bold as brass, caring.
I look back on that moment, where he handed me a Carluccio's coffee and told me to leave my packed bag outside of the court room with him, because I wouldn't be needing it, anger flared, resentment, sorrow. I knew my fate, I had made my choices and I was ready to take the consequences, I walked into the police station, I plead guilty, I said sorry, all my choices.
I took the money. I spent the money. I warped my morality that it was somehow acceptable behaviour living in the land of disillusion and broken truths. Dramatic but true.
The most poignant change in my behaviour has been the absolute acknowledgment that I and I alone are to blame for the wrongs in my life, for the mistakes I have made. I was a fucked up child with a horror story past, a complicated life of memories and hate but my parents taught me right from wrong, and I chose not to adhere to those rules, because I never have. I have lived my life inside my own head, with rules laid out by an angry child who reigns my kingdom of crazy.

D-day came and went and I learned my lesson the hard way and have spent every day since unraveling the wrongs I reaped and built my life upon the foundations of truth and honesty, no matter how ugly a truth.
I've been to hell and back with mental health intervention, crisis teams, hospitalization, anti-depressants, medication a-plenty, drug rehabilitation running alongside, Wigan, Manchester, all over the bloody north west. It's been quite the journey. I've been job hunting, rejected, praised, hated and loved.
And after soul searching and understanding, I accidentally found my purpose.
To be a baker.
A baker that changes the world, my world, Sarah's world, my mother in laws world, the people I meet, the people I teach, with one aim, to bring positive change; no matter how big or small.

I have spent 27 years on this earth, and over 20 years of that has been torture, trapped in a life I didn't know, pretending to be someone I'm not, with people around me I don't like, I don't want, but they were people, so I didn't feel so alone.

And now I'm here, and I'm happy and the road to recovery is nearing it's end, because I understand its purpose, to teach me, to help me learn and to grow, to be a better person, to tell the truth, to love, and the best way to compound that is when I say my wedding vows to the incredible girl who has stood by me and held me tightly in her arms.
We've lived, sickness and health, richer and poorer and we are still standing side by side. She tried to save me many years ago and I wreaked havoc and broke her heart, but she saw the good in me and nurtured it to this beautiful place, so now we move forward together, stronger than we could ever imagined possible. It's love and it is incredible.

So NOW THEN!

Yesterday saw the 2 year anniversary, a strange thing to commemorate but I have told you all why.
Friends and family came together and shared a beautiful meal, laughter and love, around a table in a bloody brilliant place, a place I happen to be a part of now, working with a magical woman who fate seems to have thrust into my path.
When we met, I knew, there was some bizarre connection, and whilst in that moment, I thought this woman could be a friend, not someone I would end up working with, I have a strange feeling when I'm with her that the familiarity and safety she makes me feel makes me sure of a happy ending, whichever direction life takes me.
There have been stark moments over the past two years where I have met people and felt a piece of me jump into place, the kind of lightening bolt moments where you know you were meant to find eachother, it sounds a romantic notion, but I have lived a life of false friendships and failures due to disastrous life choices and somehow fate has brought things full circle and given me beautiful people who I will build my life around and feel proud to have a part of theirs.

I could name and shame you sorry few ;) but you know who you are by now.

The creative : beautiful, with eyes that grab you by the balls, because every word is honest and passionate. It's food, it's friends, it's family, it's futures. All things I hold dear. And theres hurt and loss along the way, and somehow with coffees and pizzas and beautiful gifts that made me have a little cry on the way home, its true friendship found in a strange place and will stand the test of time, after all my friend, you are only 30 ;)

The baker : the reason for my weight gain perhaps? But a woman of great vision and passion, hope and ambition, the cutest tea drinker on the earth, summarised by the beautiful gift she gave me yesterday! We met on a day where my life took off, a market, the day I decided to take the baking to the next level. And as she has a special day coming up pretty soon, it's time to say OI! WE ARE TAKING YOU AWAY TO THE COUNTRYSIDE FOR A DAY OUT! No boys allowed!

The blogger : hiding in the shadows of social media, with a social life I can't even comprehend, a woman whos life and love balance is so spot on, I think she must be part cyborg! One of my first crowd funding donors, first bread buyers, first glimpses of true fashion and style on the streets of Levy, always first port of call for good advice, whether life, love or alcohol!
Brilliant and dependable, thank you for your wise words <3

The wife : For the hugs and the kisses and the allowance of some moderate snoring, you are an incredible woman. You lost your way holding me together and its time you will never get back so I will spend the rest of my life making you happy, making you bread and making you buy bowties for our over-pampered cat.
I love you and you are perfect, and you have a beautifully kind soul, you are your mothers daughter and the two of you in my life make me feel very special. I feel loved and I feel safe. I will always make you (both) feel the same way.

The brilliant and brave : To the people who read this blog, to the strong and honest who have lost their way and are taking it back bit by bit, inspiring as always, knowing I'm not doing this alone. The point of this paragraph is neither are you! <3

<3

So that's my little ramble over and done with! Let's see what February 8th 2016 will bring!

Happy New Year?

My first blog of 2015 and I have never entered a new year with such optimism and drive in all my life.
2014 saw many highs and lows, from court cases to winning awards, it couldn't have been any more of a year of contrasts.
Every December, a rollercoaster of emotion begins, like clockwork, an annual turbulence decends upon my life and I hold on to save my life in the hope I'll make it to the New Year in one piece.
Everyone has a sad story, and I have a few more than most, but it's December 24th 2010 that creates a madness and sadness I can't shake. The year I broke away from my family and my mother decided to call me and tell me so on Christmas Eve 2010, that after some thought, I wasn't welcome and wasn't wanted for Christmas Day, little did I know at the time, that she actually meant forever. So in a crazed state of mind, I zoomed into Manchester city centre and bought up half of Marks and Spencers, spending money I shouldn't have, I blew it all on a turkey, all the trimmings, posh gravy, champagne, cocktails and just for a bit of class, I stopped off at Tesco on the way home and pick up a 24 pack of Strongbow.
Christmas Day came, I awoke in my halls of residence, alone. My last minute £1 asda tiny plastic Christmas tree dimly lit my little room and surrounding it were all the gifts I had bought my family. I went into the kitchen, poured a large glass of champagne and sat crossed leg, as I did with my family every Christmas morning and I opened the gifts I had bought and wrapped them as if they were mine. Quite genuinely having some sort of mental breakdown, I laughed, I cried, I acted surprised by said gifts, tearing open a reideer wrapping papered DVD I had bought for my mum - a copy of Elizabeth I with Cate Blanchett, quelle surprise! What a thoughtful gift....! A copy of Fivel Goes West for my brother, what a joy! And on it went... surrounded by crumpled wrapping paper and useless gifts, I engaged Barker cruise control. I was going to have my Christmas day the way we always had Christmas day. Champagne. Gifts. Breakfast. Silly TV. Cooking. Lunch. More silly TV. So a bottle of champagne in, the Marks and Spencers turkey joint to feed 4-5 went into the little University oven and I sat down on a plastic chair and watched The Grinch. In my drunken, epicly sad and lonley stupour, I text Sarah, who I was dating at the time. She had know idea the car crash she was involved with at the time. On the outside, I was a hard working, ambitious, lovely normal girl. She was the only person who text me on Christmas Day.
I laid the tiny table in the kitchen/common room, posh napkin, wine glass, cracker. All laid for one. The only fruit cake in halls of residence over Christmas. Total silence.
I ate. I drank. I cried. I laughed. And after I had finished my dinner, washed my plates, tidied the kitchen, I went out to a party. I made my way through the Strongbow, got a taxi back to halls around midnight and decided to take every pill I had in the flat. I had a frustrated, angry thrash around the flat, smashing plates and crying, and then I passed out on the kitchen floor, only for the warden to open my flat up to find out what was going on and duly rush me to hospital (which was convieniently for him just across the road)
I woke up in the MRI, angry. Angry at my failed attempt and angry at the man who saved my life for interferring in my Christmas present to myself.
Boxing day on a hospital ward, being assessed by the psych team, Merry Christmas Fran. The doctor asked me if there was anyone I wanted to notify, let them know I was ok, I laughed as the nurse asked "Is your next of kin still Kevin?"
Needless to say, I told them not to, a phone call to let me father know I had tried to off myself would only interupt their family Christmas, to this day, he doesn't know what ripping the family from me did to me that year.
I have text my mum, my brother and my dad, every Christmas Day and New Years Eve since - needless to say, the responses I get are not the ones I hope I will.

Sarah shouts at me and says I'm wasting my time, punishing myself and that I should let them go, but for a girl whos craved family for so long, to loose mine, no matter how fragile we always were, broke my heart.
2010 saw the beginning of the end, I went off the rails. Angry. Hurt. Bitter. Despite falling in love with Sarah, the girl that woke up on boxing day was determined to destroy it all and I did a pretty good job of it, ending up in court, nearly sent to prison, it's only pushing my life to limit I realised just how stupid and selfish I had been. Pity gets you nowhere and I had been wallowing. There were no excuses for my behaviour. No sad story to aleviate such dishonesty. So upon walking out of court in 2013, I was a bundle of sad, mad and guilty. Such guilt. For wasting my life, for hurting those in it, such anger, for being so alone, left to disappear whether behind bars or dead.
How do you tackle demons like that?
You build great things upon them.
2014 saw me, Francesca Barker, win an award, for Best Female Entrepreneur. I've never won anything before and to achieve something like that, in recognition of my passion for change, hard work and rehabilitation.... it changed my life.
I feel proud of myself every day. From February 8th 2013, I have worked harder than I have ever worked in my life. I have fought to change, to live, to love. I have made friends that are true and kind (Becky, Luci, Charlie, Debbie, Kathleen, Dom) I have found people who have made me understand its ok to be broken, as long as you strive not to be more than just broken.
Christmas Day 2014 saw me waking up in a lovely warm bed, with my fiance wrapped around me (snoring her tits off might I add) having a glass of cava while crossed legged under the tree opening our presents together, we are an amalgimation of our family traditions and we will continue them into the future as we build our own. This year will see us married, becoming the Barker-Mills, so Christmas Day 2015 is definitely something to look forward to!
We are all the walking wounded, but we walk hand in hand for a better tomorrow. That is what 2015 is for me. To work for tomorrow, to live for today and to love every bloody second of it!

Happy New Year my friends, may 2015 be filled with laughter and love.
xx

From Friday 13th to Halloweeeeeeeeen

Well my friends, today is the first step to some real closure.

I made the decision a few months ago, having boarded a bus and been trapped on the top floor sat a few seats away from the man who attacked me 7 years ago, that I wasn't going to live with it in my life anymore.

Rape is a strange thing, as we all deal with it in different ways. Denial. Acceptance. Suppression. Repression and outright fantasy living.

I have lived all of these. The day I was raped (so strange to be so forthright and direct, but I find it eases the process, apologies if the bluntness offends in any way) was Friday 13th 2006.
Saturday 14th 2006 was the day denial began. With blood and bruises a plenty, I chose to ignore what had happened, got on the train back to University and carried on as normal.

I drank. More than I have ever drunk in my life. All of the time. SO much money, but I didn't know what else to do to make it go away. I drank so much I ended up in hospital, having collapsed in pain.
The doctors asked me if I knew I was pregnant and I thought my head was going to explode.

There is only so far denial can take you...but pregnancy in gay woman, is something you can't quite ignore any longer. I didn't cry. I just looked the doctor in the eye and said "How do I go about getting an abortion, can I get it done here" my only instinct is that I wanted all reminders of that night out, away, destroyed, as far away from me as humanly possible.

My GP in Aberystwyth was incredible, he held my hand, listened to my story, made me promise I would have some therapy and he agreed to arrange an abortion, the only problem was that I would have to wait. It was the longest wait of my life. By the time I had my abortion I was nearly 3 months pregnant. I sat in the hospital office waiting for my scan to date the pregnancy and decide what the best option was. The doctor left the room for 5 minutes without realizing she had left the photo of the scan on her desk. It's all I could look at. I felt sick. I felt guilty. I felt angry.

I was 19. It was an abortion that went wrong from the get-go, ended in surgery and left me with an uncertain future as to whether I can have children. When I was 19 it didn't hit me like it does now. Now I'm 27 and we are talking to my GP about babies, IVF, what our options are, if we have any.

From being a lost little girl, all I've ever wanted is to fall in love, be loved, get married and have babies. Have a family to call my own. To love another human with all my heart and to know that I will be a great mother. To know that may not be my future, breaks my heart. And so, there is anger.

I got on that bus a few months ago and the man that destroyed me sat there and he winked. He winked at me, he licked his lips and he winked at Sarah.
I got off that bus and went to a business meeting with my head so far up my arse I didn't know if I was coming or I was going. I was on auto-pilot, it was a great bloody meeting and I felt proud that I didn't let it destroy another day.

I decided it was time to face the music, to talk to my lawyer and find a way to bring some justice.
That's what we have been doing for the past few months, working, researching, statements, medical records, recounting horrible details, but liberating myself with every word spoken.

I wish I could have been so brave back then, maybe then the damage wouldn't have seeped so far into my life and I wouldn't have run off into fantasy land where lies were first nature and not second. I wish I had punished him the way he deserved it and I worry that because I didn't, there are other girls who suffered the same fate. How many were left pregnant and with an STD and happened to be gay, well I'm not so sure, but jesus, I should have protected them all the same.

When Sarah was attacked in Piccadilly Gardens, I went into fight mode, I couldn't let what happened to me happen to her, I pulled that fucker off her and pinned him until the Police took him away. I thought we were getting justice, I thought I was making up for lost time, but he walked free as a bird out of a court room and she was left with nightmares and a £150 compensation cheque for an attempted rape.

I think the point of this blog is, it's never too late. If you have something you need to say, if you have something you need to share, then share it, speak it, free it.
Save yourself the hassle of eroding mental health and get talking!!!

I've been broken for a long time, not quite right from the start and in many ways, I think what happened in 2006 compounded all that I thought was wrong with me. I lie awake at night and sometimes wonder - is it me? Because I can't process the fact that as a child, I was a plaything for perverts and as student, I ended up with the same fate.
I wonder how Sarah loves me when my life and my body are so tainted, that these horrible things have happened to me, how will she love me, how will she touch me, knowing whats been before.

The past can be toxic. Don't let it.
I'm Francesca Barker my friends, you beautiful people, you have been my salvation, allowing me to be me, taking my sweet time on this journey of self discovery, my god, I'm far from perfect, but I am on my way to happiness and sharing my thoughts with you has helped me find the good in the world and in myself.

And on that hippy note, Happy Halloween everyone - there is one less monster on the streets tonight, if you are out and about and getting a little bit merry, be careful and stay safe xx