Just a number

People often ask me if writing memoir is a form of therapy. I usually tell them that the act of pouring thoughts onto a page can be therapeutic - cathartic even - but it’s not the same as therapy.

Writing memoir is not journalling. Making something beautiful from the mess of ideas in my head is something that requires creativity and imagination. No one would want to read the narrative running through my head on a daily basis.

The therapy I’ve done over the years is nothing like my approach to writing, though it does give me an insight into myself that sometimes informs my work. But therapy is transactional: I pay for the opportunity to show up messy and unfinished. It’s one of the only places I can feel completely safe in my vulnerability. Writing memoir leaves me exposed and open to judgement - in that sense it is not therapeutic. I share thoughts about my life because the connection it brings me is more important than the criticism my work can sometimes invoke. All this is to say that writing is difficult.

People who are familiar with my words know that I write against a backdrop of considerable challenge. I’m not the most marginalised person in the world, but I face more barriers than many - to be honest, those barriers fuel me. I wrote Twelve Moons in between lockdowns, alone with my daughters, including one who was seriously unwell. My second book, Unschooled, was written in snatches of time while I was in the middle of tribunals and legal battles, trying to move my world with four children in tow. I know how to write when life is busy.

But writing also demands that I am emotionally open. My style of memoir writing - urgent and raw - suits my crammed, chaotic life: I know I’m good at translating the race of my heart onto the page.

I’m working on my third book now and it is taking much longer than I’d like. I’m trying to create something a bit different to my previous work, and it requires me to explore and research. I’ve mostly relied on my big feelings to inform my stories until now, but I want to dig deeper this time. I need space and clarity inside my head to form the ideas of this third book into a proposal, and I have neither.

There is something, too, about starting a new book, however many books I might have written or had published in the past, that means I am not sure I can still write, and that doubt is unhelpful. Currently, my imposter syndrome is compounded by a precarious personal life and a growing sense of shame. One of the reasons I haven’t been writing or sharing much recently, is because my life is in disarray.

As a full time carer, I’m heavily reliant on benefits. Universal Credit is my main source of income. I also earn a little from my magazine column and the odd writing commission. I educate one of my daughters full time, and receive no funding for her. She is a lost child who no one wants to claim. Too complex for school, and there is nothing else on offer. I would love to work every day, have a proper career, but I can’t. And so every month I declare my ingoings and my outgoings, type them into an online portal, and my benefits are calculated. On the 14th of every month I receive a payment and I am grateful. I am also disappointed and ashamed, because I want to pay my own way, but mostly I am grateful. I need my benefits.

Earlier this month I finally managed to sell my house near the sea. I know it is a huge privilege to own a home and again, I am so grateful. It took a year to sell and caused me a lot of worry. In the interim I’ve been renting a flat in the city. My cat is not allowed to live here, so my daughters and I walk across the park to visit her at my boyfriend’s place. One daughter prefers not to visit the cat at all because she misses her so much. I ask my boyfriend to send videos or take photos, but it is not the same.

In this rented flat we are not allowed to put pictures up. I am trying to make it feel like our home, especially for my autistic children, but it’s not easy. I want to splash colour everywhere, hammer nails into the wall. Instead I light candles and fling blankets over the sofa. Try to create an illusion of home. I am desperate to build a home.

Occasionally I dream of returning to Northumberland, where I was safe, even if I was often isolated, bored and lonely. Those dreams don’t last for long - I love the city, and my kids are thriving here in a way they couldn’t before. I have done the right thing for us all. I want this big life for us all, but a little voice keeps creeping into my head telling my I want too much, I should have kept us all small.

I thought it was really great when I sold my house, because it meant I was finally free to buy a little flat for me and the kids. Our cat could come home. I did what I was told by the benefits people, declared the sale of my house and explained that the funds would be used imminently for a new property. And then my benefits stopped.

It’s happened before, the sudden stop. The glaring absence of funds needed to pay the bills that don’t stop coming. I felt the sickness in my stomach, the lurch in my chest. The next day the phone rang and it was a Decision Maker. Decision Makers are the top dogs in Benefit Land. Only a Decision Maker can restart your benefits. Last time the Decision Maker was a woman, and she said ‘oh bless you’ when I started crying with relief. It must be a wild job, wielding that amount of power over a family.

This time though, the phone has not rung. I was ordered to visit my local job office over a week ago to show evidence of my finances. The guy in the office was apologetic, acknowledged the stress this must be causing me. Hopefully this will sort everything out for you, he told me, and I walked out into the sun and the blossom feeling hopeful.

Ten days later my hope is darkly tinged with desperation. I have left message after message on my online journal, which is the only way I can contact Universal Credit. The system is set up so that it’s impossible to see any one face to face. There is no one to tell my story to. I am not a number, I want to say. I am a person. I want to work. I don’t want to be grateful on the 14th of every month. I want to be in control of my life, not reliant on you. I want my children to be able to access school so that I can have a career.

No one wants to hear this though, because it would humanise the issue. And so I type messages into my journal that I hope are just the right amount of desperate. I am warned that Universal Credit will not tolerate abuse, and it’s terrible they feel the need to say this. But I am starting to understand more why people might completely lose their shit with the system. I’ve always been a good girl, polite and respectful, but my perfect manners are getting me nowhere right now.

I have appreciated this weekend as a chance to jump off the hamster wheel of life and hide away. Universal Credit is closed on Saturday and Sunday, I am powerless to do anything until Monday morning. Even then, all I can do is type another note into my journal and hope it doesn’t irritate my case worker so much that he de-escalates my claim.

I want to write my next book, which is about love, desire, convention and wild abandon. I want to lose myself in stories. But right now all I can do is contain myself inside each day and try not to spiral. I am ashamed that I can’t do more to provide for my family. I am angry that we live in a society that has so little regard for families who look a bit different. And I am too distracted by my troubles to write anything beautiful at the moment. I am only writing this in an attempt to challenge the shame that so often accompanies a reliance on state support. Pinning these words down makes me feel a little more in control. It helps me to harness my anger instead of sinking inside my shame. I know that I am not less than because I am not wealthy, but it’s easy to lose sight of our value when the safety net is pulled away.

For now, on this sunny Sunday, I will drink one more cup of coffee and keep playing gentle melodies. I’ll be surprised once more that my youngest daughter is so tall, pull her head towards me so I can kiss it, smell the shampoo in her hair. I’ll try not to feel like this horrible mess is a reflection of me and my personal failings. I’ll close my eyes and think about my cat and my boyfriend across the park. And I’ll remember that we tell each other every day that we are poor in some ways, but at least we are rich in love.