I also felt very relieved when my dad died at 54. He had put my mum and us 8 kids through absolute hell for years. By then, I had kids and had been living away from home for some years. The same with my first sister. As I gazed at his body in the coffin, I could not muster one tear. I felt nothing. But relief for my mum and the younger kids that were still living at home. My dad left my mum with nothing but debts, including the house. The salvation army helped my mum and the kids to move somewhere that had better access to shops, schools, and transport. They also gave my mum a lounge suite and a washing machine. Everyone in my family developed a mental illness, as well as ptsd. For years afterward, my mum would have nightmares about my dad. My middle brother committed suicide at the age of 44. As a child, my dad had treated him the worst. Yet he was my dad's staunchest supporter. There are those in my family who want to focus on my dad's so called positive traits. I just can't. I always felt nervous when he seemed to be nice, as his mood often changed in the blink of an eye. I can quite confidently say that I hated my dad and I will always be glad that he's gone.

@kirrihug thanks for explaining this. It does sound quite complicated.

I had a daughter and a son with my first husband. He was happy when we had our daughter. But when I was pregnant with our son, and told him that I had a strong feeling that we were having a boy, he turned away from me. Before that, he said he was sure we were having a daughter. He would talk to my belly and call the baby Yvonne, which was the middle name of his mother, who he had dearly loved and been very close to. His mother had died suddenly at the age of 41, recently. He said he didn't want a boy, because boys were "grimey". A couple of years later, he told me that he didn't want a boy because it brought up unresolved issues that he had with his own dad. He left me seemingly suddenly, just 2 weeks before our boy was born early. He treated our son appalingly for the short 37 years that he lived on this earth. This contributed to my son having mental health and drug problems on and off. His death 3 years and 5 months ago was caused by his third bout of infective endocarditis, which in his case was caused by drug use. Why am I telling you my long story? It's because people like you and I are lucky to have whatever children we have, and we need to make them feel accepted, regardless of their gender.

@reallife I was thinking the same thing.

@kayme I had the same problem. I managed to breast feed my daughter for 10 weeks. But she obviously didn't like it. She would arch her back and cry. I think it was because the nurse at the hospital was very cruel in the way she supposedly "helped" me to get my daughter to latch on. My daughter had jaundice, so was very sleepy. The nurse would shake her to wake her, and dig her nails into my breast, to make me squirt milk into my daughter's mouth. The first time I gave her a bottle, she gulped it down, then cried for more and drank another bottle. My 3 boys however, took to the breast right from the start. 

Having lived through a very similar situation, I can thoroughly relate. I was the oldest of eight children. We were migrants, so were even more isolated. Daily life was hell and full of eggshells to tread on. There was verbal, emotional, psychological, sexual and sometimes physical abuse. There was plenty of coercive control. My mum never stood up for herself or us. I think she was too terrified.I was so glad when our dad passed away at 54. I was especially relieved for our mum. For me, it was like ding dong the witch is dead.

I had some rude awakenings with my first two miscarriages . With the first one, the hospital refused to help me, just because I didn't have private health cover. People said weird things to me, that they thought was helpful, but that just left me feeling more estranged. When one of my sisters found out i was having a miscarriage, she brought around a whole heap of second hand baby goods; as if to rub salt into the wound. This sister loved to portray herself as kind and sympathetic. When I had my second miscarriage, I found out how untrue that was. She rang me up at work and viciously abused me for all these grudges she had against me from years ago. Then, the cherry on top: she said I shouldn't be carrying on about my miscarriage so much, because it supposedly upset my youngest sister, who was going through ivf. Ifound out much later that my youngest sister never said that at all. My mean sister also said that after all, I had 3 living children, so I should just stop being upset. When I told my husband, he said he also felt the same way. When he drove me to the hospital for a d and c, to make sure nothing was left in my womb, he yelled at me the whole way, and just dumped me in front of the hospital. Just because I'd been crying. I felt so estranged and misunderstood.

Some people ask such rude questions about things that are really none of their business. People need to accept that not all people want to have children, and the reasons why are no one else's business. There are some people who should never have had children or even adopted children, as they mistreat their children. I admire your resolve, and that you are very in touch with yourself. I had 4 kids, which turned out to be a lot more challenging than I thought it would be. My first son ( who passed away 3 years ago ) has a son who is almost 15. But who I never get to see. My daughter, who is the oldest, has two daughters who are 13 and 11 . I don't get to see them much either, as they live interstate. My middle son, who is 34, is quite certain that he does not want any children. I support him in his decision. My youngest son, who is 25, does want 1 or 2 kids, but wants to wait until he has his own house and enough money in the bank. He is a very hard worker. What I've learned through 2 marriages with kids, is that if you have tensions in your marriage, especially financial problems, having kids will make those problems much worse. A person can only stretch themselves so far. I admire you.

When, some years ago, I brought up how abusive our dad had been to my siblings and I. and our mum, and how inappropriate he had been towards my first sister and I when we were teenagers, all of my sisters and my mum all came down on me like a ton of bricks,labelled me a liar, an attention seeker, too loud, and so called jealous of my first sister. I found out later that my mum was the worst accuser. Only my brothers stood up for me. I was on the point of committing suicide. I avoided my sisters for many years. I hated them for being such traitors. The only reason I occasionally visited my mum or rang her up was because she was in a nursing home and was old and frail. I didn't mention any problems I had with her because I didn't want to upset her or affect her poor health.

I'm so sorry that your husband was in so much pain. He was so brave to stick it out for as long as he did. It looks like ect is not such a great treatment. For your husband to have received around 100 or so sessions of it just does not sound right. I am so sorry that your husband did not respond well to the standard medications. Maybe being treated with mdma and/or Psilocybin might have helped him. Maybe not. I hope more funds will be spent on treating mental illness. 

 My first ex husband  used to complain about this woman at work, who he said was too uppity. Halfway through my second pregnancy, his behaviour suddenly changed. He was really mean to me, would go out two or three nights a week, supposedly to visit his friend. But, he was suddenly showering and getting dressed up on these nights, which he never used to do when visiting his friend. When I commented on this, he casually said that he liked to dress up when seeing his friend. He also would come home later and later; sometimes at 6 in the morning. He denied that he was having an affair, but he was so bloody obvious, a blind person could have seen it. I checked his little black book. Each phone number had the name of the person beside it. Except for one. It was just initials: V.A. I rang the number a few times and a woman answered it. Then my husband kept saying that he was going to leave me once the new baby was 3 months old. Just a couple of weeks later,he was packing his bags and moving out. Some mutual friends came over later that day and told me that he'd been having an affair with that woman from work and she was the one in the black book. I had my new baby a few weeks early.

My father was abusive in both subtle and not so subtle ways. I remember hating him by the time I was 8. I noticed the ways he treated our mother, myself and our siblings. He was constantly angry and nothing was ever good enough. He was abusive on all levels. These were the days when domestic violence was not taken seriously. I felt I had no one to turn to. I wondered why our mum would never stand up for us. She put up with him for 27 plus years. She later admitted that this was because she was afraid that, if she left him, that he might get custody of us, and treat us even worse, out of spite towards her. By the time she was about to leave him, he was diagnosed with cancer, and so, out of some sense of guilty conscience or whatever, she stayed with him for the last year of his miserable life. During this year, he was even worse. I couldn't cry at his funeral. I only felt relief, that this burden to my mum was finally over. He left her with nothing but debt, which was paid once the house was sold. Yet there are still people in my family who refuse to acknowledge what a monster my dad was.

Being bullied, labeled and dismissed because of our weight is not a positive incentive to try to lose weight. In the past, I asked a few doctors about my bloated belly. They dismissed it and said it was just fat. When I had a hysterectomy some years ago, the surgeon wanted to recommend me for weight loss surgery. No thanks. I've seen the nasty side effects that people can get from that surgery. I wonder if doctors are that aggressive towards males who are overweight ?

@gypsy Um yeah, we all know that. But while one is overweight, or perhaps during their weight loss journey, one should still be able to wear nice clothes.

I gave up going clothes shopping in person years ago. Too frustrating and disappointing. There are people who don't think that larger women deserve to have nice clothes that they feel confident in. And they mistakenly think that having plus sized models modelling plus sized clothes will make people think that it's good to be overweight or obese. These people want to have us disappear into dark shadows. I discovered Shein a few years ago. Their clothes, shoes, and accessories are so colourful, cute, and are very affordable. 

Hell yes she was wrong to publicly embarrass the guests who, for whatever reason, had not brought gifts. Some people do this because they'd rather spend more on gifts for the baby, once the baby is born. I would never turn away a guest from my baby shower, just because they hadn't brought a gift. In my experience, in most baby showers, gift giving is optional, and the gifts given are usually just small and inexpensive. Though one of my sisters got greedy and made up a list of really expensive gifts she expected for her baby shower. A baby shower should be a fun and joyful time, not having to follow a bunch of strict rules and regulations.

How could you even put such a pic of Kim Kardashian next to one of the Queen ? How could you even suggest that Kim and her fat, bare, plastic surgery enhanced arse, represent feminism ? I will be so glad when the era of women flaunting their bare arses, plus tight leggings that leave nothing to the imagination, to an end. I would feel exactly the same if it were men wearing bathers and leggings like this. 

My middle brother seemingly suddenly took his own life at the end of 2009. It seemed such a shock, as none of us knew how much he had been struggling. My mum intuitively felt that all was not well with him, and had tried to speak with him on the phone about it, but he kept insisting that he was fine. It didn't help that he was living in Western Australia, and most of us were living in Victoria. My brother rang up on boxing day, when he knew that most of the family would be there, and asked to speak to each of us. He sounded good. Two days later, he was dead. We went to Perth to view his body and hold a small wake. It was heartbreaking and surreal. We met up briefly with his girlfriend and a few friends, who told us that my brother had not been doing well for at least a year. I wish someone would have told us. Could one of us have possibly prevented my brother's suicide ? I don't know. But at least we could have tried. My family became very fractured after my brother's suicide. My mum often told me that she couldn't cry after that. I also had trouble crying, even at the funeral of my oldest son, who died from natural causes. I try to remember my brother as a whole person; one who did do and say some pretty bad things, but who also could be very kind or funny. 

My first husband had been unemployed and literally bludging off the dole for some time when I got together with him. I was in a secure job that didn't pay very well, but was more than the dole. He kept on pestering me to leave my job, so that supposedly he could spend all of his time with me. Eventually I caved in and left my job. Things between us went downhill soon after. He spent some of the pitiful amount of super that I got, on an old car that kept on breaking down. The rest of my super soon got swallowed up. He liked to smoke weed. When, at the age of 22, after we'd been together for a year, I found out I was pregnant, he tried to bully me into having an abortion. I stood my ground and went ahead with the pregnancy. We got married but it was a really grim affair. He got a low paying job with the government, as I had had. We were not able to save up anything. We were lucky that family members on both sides gave us new and second hand baby goods and clothing, including lots of nappies. So it was not that hard. 

You are lucky that you have nice hair, and that grey suits you. It doesn't suit me. It makes me look washed out and much older. I will be colouring my hair until the day I die.