This probably looks like whining but I'm going to post it anyway.

As you all know, the bulk of my attention goes on caring for my daughter and keeping body and soul together. It keeps me around the house a lot, and I dont get much of a break from it. I do get respite, which takes the form of Bea going to a care home around the corner from where we live that's run by the state. Bea has some friends resident there who she then gets to spend a few days with once a month. Naturally, the focus is on Bea having a break from routine.

Nobody gives a damn about the carer who handles the routine though. Unpaid, unsupported, unappreciated and largely ignored for 9 out of every 10 days by the system set up to address her welfare. I dont understand what's kept me sane over the decades of abuse either, but sane I am. Allegedly...

Bea is largely not bothered, if she understands she doesnt communicate it and just gets on with bea-ing... She bothers no-one, and those that know her, like her. Mostly anyway. Well she's just been away on her break, returning Thursday night in her usual manner, looking like she'd been through a hedge, with pockets full of stones, in clothes she traded with her mates. I've about given up and just accept this as part of life; despite having rules and regulations, procedures, routines, steering meetings and buzzwords used to avoid addressing it directly the system basically cant look after her. Oh she's well fed, protected and respected, all the things you'd expect to work do, but plait a couple of feet of hair and make sure her socks arent odd? Well, we are talking parenting skills and not everybody has them, but the system employs carers who really should. Its just irritating, particularly after another branch of the same system basically accused me of neglect.

So Friday night, with the return of Summer's longer evenings Bea sneaked out on the balcony and normally that isnt an issue with the neighbour kids around. I pay attention, its not like she'd wander off but I dont let myself get absorbed in things and it isnt long before I wonder what she's up to. (if you have children, you will understand the prickling sensation of silence in a house normally populated by screams and thuds that sound like murder. Quiet usually precedes actual trouble...) I had one eye on HackChat, waiting for the audio session which I've yet to read because I missed it, and one eye on the news, Bea vanished upstairs after dinner so the next thing I knew was her upset, bawling her head off. The neighbour kids scattered and I couldnt get out of them or Bea exactly what happened. Somebody had been nasty to her I think, some teenagers on their way to the play-park to smoke and hang out with their equally rancid friends from what I could make of it.

This upsets me at the best of times, but last night really got to me. Had I been able to prove this or at least identify the little b*d who caused it, I would have caused him significant trauma teaching him some respect for others, and it frightened even me. I'm not the kind of man who easily gets enraged, it takes a lot. I'll growl and bark before I bite because I dont do anything by halves and violence is no exception.

I cant even write eloquently about this, or paint it, and it even interferes with my ability to play an instrument. I dont want to dump it on my friends, and it seems I'm pitied for it if I say anything but thats not what I want when I do. The feeling of being trapped by this is tangible, and sometimes it reaches a point where I would literally beat some troll senseless with my fists. And I do not like this at all, I normally will put myself in harms way before another without thinking about it. And I like that about myself, I've proven myself capable of dealing with some pretty intense stuff.

I wish it didnt cause me black depression but it does, I look to others to behave like humans too, and when I get let down by filth like that it only highlights the decency I find among you guys. Thats why I stayed out of Hackchat too despite really needing the support.

Enough is a f*ing-nough, I cant live like this any more.