Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser
Sharing experiences of a traumatic time
A Coatbridge author turned to the written word to help her cope with a traumatising and troubling time in her life which included her mum committing suicide and suffering childhood sexual abuse at the hands of her brother, who also took his own life.
Anneliese Mcdaid, 30, turned tragedy into a conduit on how to survive and thrive by penning the book Grief: The Guide to Be Unguided.
The book has been written and dedicated to her mum Mary, who suffered a fatal overdose, aged just 56, last October, to help “normalise people’s pain”.
Anneliese penned the novel when the Covid lockdown led to her job in hospitality being put on the back-burner, and she poured out every raw and painful detail of her turbulent life in the hope her book “might inspire others to find a way through their own grief ”.
Anneliese told the Advertiser: “It’s fair to say I had a very difficult time of it for a long period. My mum committed suicide on October 20 last year and I had to essentially ‘delete’ her.
“All government bodies, passport office, rent office, benefits agencies, council tax. The list was long, and it was so easy. It just felt all too simple for a life that was so complex. Mum was gone.
“Mum’s suicide was obviously a very heavy subject matter that people avoid like the plague.
“I was also sexually abused as a child by my brother, who was convicted and sentenced to six years’ detention.
“Later, when he was due to be released, he also committed suicide, aged just 18.
“I also cared for my gran while she was dying of cancer in my early 20s, so I have experienced many deaths.
“Grief can consume you, or it can grow you. You decide which one it is going to be.”
Speaking about her new book, Anneliese added: “It touches on all of the grief I have suffered, and there are lost friendships spoken about too.
“The book has been written and dedicated to my mum to help normalise people’s pain, help people learn to forgive for themselves and move on.
“It is based on what I have been through, and how I have chosen to deal with these issues throughout my life, and how I have come out the other side a genuinely happy human being.
“The book also highlights the issues of 2020 and how coronavirus played a huge part in my mum’s death.
“When my mum died, I realised she had been grieving all those years. People associate grief with death, but she was grieving for things like the expectations she’d had for her son when he was young that never happened.
“The things you will experience when someone dies are insane, from people asking for my mum’s living room carpet to people who should really be messaging and contacting you every day not doing so. People will try and test your patience.
“They will try and blame you for their actions.”
Grief: The Guide to Be Unguided also touches on how professional counselling and therapy sessions were less helpful for Anneliese than sharing her experiences with another child abuse survivor.
She explained: “It doesn’t matter how many degrees someone has, they can’t understand what it feels like unless they feel it themselves.
“You have to live through it to understand it. The whole purpose of being so open in the book is to help people understand that, no matter what you get thrown at you, we all have the capacity and can make the choice to get over it.”
Grief: The Guide to Be Unguided is available now on Amazon.
North Lanarkshire Council faces a shortfall of more than £300,000 in revenue it expected to bring in through the controversial reintroduction of community alarm charges.
There are over 2000 fewer households now using the service since charges were reintroduced last September.
The local authority revealed in its budget last February that it was going to introduce a charge of £3.40 a week to residents requiring the alarms.
The charges, which were projected to bring in £1.41 million a year, were due to commence last April but were delayed until September because of the pandemic. However, income lost during that period was fully offset by Scottish Government funding.
It was expected that user numbers would reduce by around 15 per cent this time around but that estimate has been greatly exceeded.
A report going before councillors sitting on the adult health and social care committee noted that the number of households who have cancelled the alarms is 2038, around 25 per cent.
North Lanarkshire Council previously introduced charges of £5 per week for the service back in August 2016 but the fee was scrapped eight months later following a backlash from the public, with many service users scrapping it at that point.
The council now expects to bring in £1.1 million for the current financial year.
The original £1.41 million was calculated on the assumption 7975 of 9180 households would continue using the service.
But hundreds of residents whose circumstances had changed weren’t taken into account, such as those moving to care homes, or others who had sadly passed away.
After recalculating, the total number of households using the service was established at 8250, it was estimated that would fall to 7013 after charging commenced.
However, the actual number has dropped to 6212 – 800 less than predicted – and 1673 fewer than was originally used to calculate the saving.
By the end of March, there were 1272 people who no longer required the alarm service. The circumstances of a further 650 people changed, resulting in the alarm service no longer being needed by them.
Health & Social Care North Lanarkshire (HSCNL) administers the service and insists its long-term future had been safeguarded by the introduction of the charge.
Diane Fraser, head of adult social work for HSCNL, said: “The service in North Lanarkshire, unlike many other areas in the country, is more than solely a phone helpline which diverts calls to families or emergency services. We have three dedicated response teams – operating 24 hours a day.
“Financial circumstances of users are always taken into consideration. In addition, there is discretion where a person is deemed to be vulnerable and also does not have the means to pay.
“Demand for this service will only become greater due to an ageing population and we must be in a position to meet this demand and protect the service. As a result, the small charge introduced has resulted in increased funding which will play a vital role in maintaining and safeguarding the service.”