I dreamed a dream...

The stress I've been feeling about the badman review has been causing me a few sleep problems. I wake very early, suddenly wide awake with sleep a million miles away, but with my eyes feeling gritty and sore. There follows a sickening thudding of the heart as I realise what has woken me so rudely, again. Every morning is like groundhog day. An endless stream of worry, anger, disbelief, helplesness, and despair with no sign of relief in sight. Usually I manage to get back to sleep, but when that happens I wake up later than I'd like and less alert than at stupid o'clock in the morning.

The time between the two unhappy awakenings is often filled with weird and vivid dreams, two of which have stayed with me recently. In the first dream I discovered I was pregnant. The only reason I knew this was that I was in labour. No one seemed willing to either believe me or to help. So I was having to deal with my own shock at the unexpected state of affairs and others' callous disregard for my pain. I used to be very interested in the meaning of dreams and would have interepreted this one to mean that I have a new project, which has been forced upon me and which came out of nowhere. Those whom I should have been able to rely on for help were actively making things worse. Or maybe I just had a bad stomach ache in my sleep and this dream was a manifestation of that.

The second dream appears to need no interpretation. I was at a party where the guest of honour was the badman. He asked people to tell him what they thought of the review, so I joined the queue and when it was my turn I tried to explain to him exactly how destructive and disrespectful the recommendations were to me and my family, but he appeared not to be listening, constantly turning to the more entertaining people around him. I ended up shouting at him in an effort to be heard, but although he had his ear turned towards me it was clear that he wasn't hearing.

However depressing the situation is I'm determined not to be brought low by it all. I have to find the confidence in myself and in what we do as a family to stand up and draw my own line in the sand. Writing this I am suddenly reminded of my eldest daughter's first day at school. I am thinking more specifically of my sad, ponderous walk home on my own after having dropped her off. I felt that I had left her entirely in the company of strangers, who had no idea of, or respect for, my views and values and who would do their best to overwrite these with their own. I remember feeling completely helpless then, as helpless as I often feel now. The difference now is that I know that there is an alternative, one that works not just for me and my family but for countless families all over the world. It can't be shoved aside no matter how often one person 'believes' it can. It is worth fighting for. I will never, ever walk that walk again.