Help with spilt milk

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Just had another row with my mother.

Spent the weekend "hiding" from everything and feeling angry about everything and since it's a very complicated problem, I'm not sure where to begin. It's party political, but I seem to have internalised it, so it becomes personal. I kept a cartoon diary for two years where I advised one of our party leaders what he should do in order to become prime minister - who stood down after the election on May 5 but decided to carry on for seven months afterwards in order to get the party through a transition period. But I have stopped that for the moment as it doesn't seem to be worth continuing without the major character. (E.g. say Scooby Doo decided to quit his own cartoon - doesn't make sense does it to carry on?!) No-one else is half as inspiring or interesting to replace him.

Didn't get up until nearly four o'clock which is v unusual even for me. Didn't really feel there was any need to. Mum now moaning that I prefer to lie in bed all day rather than use my talents for the greater good or get a shelf-stacking job. (I'm unemployed except for a bit of selling on eBay).

First of all I had a nice hot shower.

Then mother came in and told me that the papers were very positive about David Cameron, and I made the remark that they were like this two years ago at the last change of Conservative leader. That sparked off the usual, "you're not a Conservative, you just fancied MH" which is difficult as I am trying to wrestle with that and the interest in MH was much more of a creative one, I was fascinated by him...he had much more substance and character, even if he wasn't liked by the media after the initial six-seven month honeymoon (which most people now deny happen, but I wrote and wrote and wrote during it so I have a record of it...). I have a letter and CV prepared to send off to someone who might want to employ me as a researcher (and was sympathetic at least to the substance of the political challenge I face, but obviously doesn't know about the emotional roots of this).

I must have sounded unduly pessimistic and hypocritical, since I had always tried to persuade people to put aside differences in opinion and support a leader whom I had confidence in, now I'm on the other side of the fence. This is something that is fair enough and I'm angry at myself for not being able to rise and use the momentum we have rather than wanting something perfect. Part of me "knows" that in six or seven months time the honeymoon will be over and the whole thing will just fall apart again, but then again maybe not. It's always "the next best thing" yet MH had the substance and will to carry on and DC looks like he's going to be blown away if the media ever stop liking him as much. I reckon MH was as much pushed as went of his own accord, or needed to generate a party debate which he thought he could keep a handle on yet spun out of control. Judging by the facts at my disposal and independent witnesses and testimony I reckon I have a pretty good idea of what was going on. I suppose I'm crying over spilt milk, but I just need to find my way out of this or through it or come to terms with it, and I don't know what to do.

However it seems as if my tongue has been cut out, I can't find anything substantial to latch onto that can keep me even ticking over or looking forward to things. Mum thinks I can create that out of thin air...it's not easy to do that. Also of course it's getting close to Christmas and I need to help with getting everything ready including clearing things out of the spare room for my grandmother, but I just don't want to do anything...I want her to speak ASAP to my counsellor who understands what's going on inside my brain quite well, but of course the NTs around me just think I'm a lazy old cow who's crying over spilt milk.

Need help, advice or just a hug...if this isn't the right place to post, I'm sorry but I looked at the other forums and nothing seemed to quite fit. Also I'm sorry if I upset any non-Conservatives, it's not necessarily a strictly political issue, as I said I internalised things so it's a sort of personal battle of sorts.

I think this might be what the new forum called "The Haven" is for.

Sorry, Alex. Shall I post it there or can you move it?

Losing the gig didnt stop Alan Partridge reaching new heights! I hope that doesnt sound insensitive, but it is a cartoon afterall.

I think maybe i went through something similar earlier in the year. I had a favourite hobby (pro-gambling) violently snatched away suddenly (someone grassed me up for benefit fraud). It had become the focus of my life, more than just a hobby. A sense of belonging, a lifestyle and the hope of (finally) a future career path. So the sense of loss was initially very difficult. I suppose thats the pitfall of single-minded obsessions. I think if you get outside and try and carry on with life, you will soon discover (or rediscover) a wonderful new obsession, almost by accident. they (obsessions) are much like relationships in that respect (or so im told!).

no need to apologise, hon - moved in the twinkle of an eye.

and here's a ((((hug)))).

Vivi

You're right. It's a bit of a chicken and egg, if I can get something of my internal monologue in some shape back I'll be more able to get back out there and spread my wings a bit, but I need a bit of a push to get me started and there's nothing out there apart from the odd movie that seems interesting at the moment.

I'm writing to Boris Johnson tomorrow - am not intimate but we're on first name terms - very nice btw, interesting bloke and knows a lot about Soviet politics, which is one of my other interests (read it at uni, though I couldn't get any funding to research it) - about doing some research for the party...so life goes on, it just tends to grind to a halt at weekends without someone interesting to draw. Buildings have never interested me, it's the people who inhabit them who are most interesting - but...

Thanks a lot .

{{{{vivi}}}}

I am certainly not a Conservative, but you sound like a very interesting person, and I hope things sort themselves out!!

Hi, not been for a while, other things on the agenda.

Thanks, Robert. I appreciate all your comments. It's really nice to find someone who "agrees to disagree". If I was in your area I would have responded to your SOS call for a girlfriend! My last (Labour apparatchik) boyfriend went round trying to put my politics down to "don't bother your pretty little head about it" which did my head in no end.

Mum has now spoken to the AS counsellor but is still talking in terms of "going forward together" etc etc. It's really difficult finding the one area I want to work in but not being able to take it forward at the moment, yet it means more to be able to do something about it than just leave it and go to work in a coffee shop or etc. etc. It's something that may be resolved or may not be, and I've tried to get out of the house more but I need real help. Most things at the moment seem to lack a point to them - I've been drawing off-and-on since I last posted and I go in cycles of feeling hopeful and feeling that there's no point even to that.

The AS counsellor is really reassuring and that but I don't have contact with her when I need her most. She couldn't really speak properly with mum as she was preserving my confidentiality but I will have to say to her that since mum knows the basic situation she can be a little more open. I get the feeling Mum is treating this as a "two adults and a child" situation, as she usually does, rather than "three adults".

As for politics, Cameron is proving to be less exciting than a wet weekend in Weston-Super-Mare. Part of me wants to keep on in there, but part of me knows that if he can't hold people's attention at this stage, he is never going to be able to. At the moment he seems to make IDS look positively noisy...he needs to be obnoxious, make a nuisance of himself, be offensive - it's the only way he is going to persuade anyone, north, south, east or west to vote for him. People in the North want a PM with clout, not a wimpy liberal southerner. From what I heard on the ground in the north, we weren't doing too badly with our previous leader.

That's what Blair and Thatcher did to win power, and Howard did so well during his tenure. The siren sound of my mother's Nice Liberal Bourgeois Radio 4 Party has effectively emasculated the opposition to Labour (hey, nice trick!)...which is the death knell for any kind of politics whatsoever. (The environment is going to win very few votes where the Tories need it most - e.g. provincial towns. Also the selection of candidates via a local primary system is a good idea but is not on its own going to transform the party. And a smile is not enough to convince people you can run a highly sophisticated western economy.) Speaking to non-party-political people they seem to agree, and the proportion of spoiled ballots and abstentions in the party was pretty significant, as away from the cameras neither of the Davids really succeeded in energising anyone. I don't have the heart to feel vindicated, but once the novelty wears off, there is going to be a serious problem. At least Howard said what he felt, even if it wasn't politically correct - and by my experience that in the long run won us many more votes in the right places by people who were seriously p*ssed off with the nice fluffy liberal media consensus which allowed Blair to get away with murder. With both Blair and Brown now on the run, DC won't provide any kind of alternative to them unless he goes for the jugular, and he's done b*gger all of much consequence since he became leader.

By this time in his leadership Howard had already made his "grammar school boy" remark and had Blair over a barrel on Hutton. I wouldn't be surprised if the old man engineered this to make people realise what they'd lost.

I can't say I'm happy to have been proved right.