I came home intending to pass through on my way to Canada. Instead, family needs gave me reasons to stay, work gave me a route upwards—and then body, employment, housing and support systems failed in sequence.
family systemsboundariescareworksystems failure
How to read the pictures: the Bitmoji are visual shorthand for ideas, moods and transitions. They are not a literal photographic record.
Bad-Ass Barbecue
Weather became an equipment problem
Michigan taught me hardcore winter grilling. Cooking steaks outside at –15 to –20°C made me badass at barbecue in all weathers—and converted me from frying steaks to searing them properly over flames.
The climate changed when I came home, but that piece of ReeOS travelled intact: the weather does not automatically cancel the fun. Sometimes you simply need the right clothes, the right kit and a sufficiently determined cook.
Part one
Just Landed—But Not Staying
I landed on Christmas Day 2004 with an expanded operating system, a plan for Canada and no intention of settling permanently back in Birmingham.
01
Christmas Day: landed and immediately useful
Simon collected me from the airport and drove me back to Birmingham: Jamaican-side family breakfast at my aunt’s, time with Mum, then an evening babysitting Simon’s daughter and his ex-girlfriend’s daughter.
After the children were asleep, Simon tried to make a doll cry for somebody on the phone. He had to feed it, then tip it—and my camera flash caught the exact moment. He sighed, “Oh no.” Digital camera: x dollars. Ticket home: x dollars. Catching your brother playing with a doll: priceless.
02
Home was meant to be a layover
I had returned intending to arrange a visa and move to Canada. Early in 2005, I went to Cologne to help an American family I knew settle into their new home. Germany briefly looked like another possible route—but the language barrier made living there too difficult for Ree, so I came home.
I worked as a nanny for a couple in Balsall Common and quickly learned that British nannies did not enjoy the same protections around working hours and conditions that au pairs in America did. I won an employment tribunal against the employer, then switched to sales.
I rented a room first from my brother and then from my aunt, still treating Britain as somewhere temporary. But maps change when the people you love need something. My route towards Canada gradually became a route through Birmingham family life instead.
03
Mum and I got things done face to face
Mum was fighting Birmingham City Council at an educational tribunal, so I helped. Adam was being bullied in Birmingham and the support identified as necessary for his education was not available there.
We secured a place at Alderwasley in Derbyshire for the rest of his school career. Private school for the little twerp 😉. It was good to be physically present with Mum again—sharing the work, reading the systems and making something change.
04
The practical-navigation service reopened
I set up new phones for aunties, fixed computers, tackled DIY, helped with forms and found routes through whatever practical system had become stuck. I also helped Dad with jobs on days off from my own work, or whenever he needed a labourer.
I could usually find a way through. The family therefore kept routing things towards me—often without noticing that my time, energy and inclination were part of the system too.
Part two
The Family Helpdesk
Useful became available, and available quietly became expected. The skills were real; the off switch took much longer to build.
05
Mum’s 60th and the missing Dad
Dad missed Mum’s prepaid birthday meal, then refused to contribute because he had not attended. On the way home he complained that he would miss her birthday entirely unless we all diverted to one of his locals to meet him for a drink.
So the entire party had to reroute around the person who had missed the plan. Tit. It crystallised a pattern I had been recognising for years.
06
Getting to know Dad sideways
Working beside Dad gave us a way to talk. I learned more about him during those jobs than I had in the previous thirty years. He was smart as hell with electrical work, but computers, accounts, planning and workplace communication repeatedly brought everything unstuck.
I began to recognise what looked to me like ADHD running through Dad’s life and parts of his family: not a lack of intelligence or practical ability, but a striking mismatch between real capability and the systems required to organise, communicate and sustain it.
07
Care came with meals, laundry and logistics
I babysat Simon’s son, daughter and stepdaughter, as well as cousins’ and friends’ children. Feeding people, keeping them occupied, fixing the equipment and remembering what everybody needed were all ordinary parts of family life.
I was competent, nearby and accustomed to stepping in. That combination can quietly turn a kindness into a permanent job description.
08
Sue had already booked the technician
Sue would ring and send me to fix things at her friends’ houses—usually without checking whether I had the time or any desire to spend hours underneath a stranger’s desk. That was how I met Sister Bernadette, Jim and an assortment of unexpected people.
I was not yet volunteering with organisations; that belongs to the Sandwell chapter. This was the informal family network treating my practical competence as a shared resource. It helped me master a vital skill much later: saying No.
Part three
Two Bedrooms, One Boundary
I prepared a safe landing place for my sister. She mistook it for an all-inclusive hotel, and Canada slipped further from view.
09
A spare room changed the route
After renting rooms from my brother and then my aunt, I rented a two-bedroom house for Jo and me. My sister was unstable and her boyfriend planned to end their relationship once she was stable enough to cope, so I prepared a safe place for her when the break-up came.
She moved in—but treated the offer of a safe place as free accommodation, food, Coca-Cola and bills. Again and again, I came home to discover that the dinner I had planned was already gone and nothing had been replaced.
10
A safe place still needs a boundary
I gave her a reality check: she was welcome to stay, but she needed to contribute to the bills and buy her own damned food—or find somewhere else to live.
She moved out that weekend. Her friends glared at me throughout the move, so goodness knows what they had been told. At least I was no longer at risk of going hungry because a selfish tit had eaten my dinner and not replaced it.
11
Built-in adventure auntie
I shared the joy with nieces, nephews and whichever children were in the orbit: forts, pillow fights, adventures, performances and theme parks.
Ree loves rollercoasters. The children provided excellent cover for an adult who was quite happy to spend the day chasing the biggest drop and loudest scream.
12
Care worked better when everybody could move
Football, games and running around gave the energy somewhere useful to go. Activities were not extras added after childcare; they were part of the regulation system.
I had learned young that organised activity can create both freedom and structure. Now I was passing that system forward.
Part four
Joy Is Infrastructure Too
Animals, celebrations, practical competence and workplace rituals helped hold daily life together while I built another version of home.
13
Wild things make sense
Trips to the safari park and Dudley Zoo worked for children and Ree alike. Animals, nature, movement and something interesting to learn created a reliable day out without demanding endless artificial conversation.
14
Make the ordinary worth remembering
Food, costumes, dens, games and ridiculous seasonal creations turned ordinary care into shared memories. Mum had modelled that kind of practical creativity; I carried it into the next generation in my own way.
15
Recovery needs somewhere safe
I could fix the phone, mind the children, assemble the furniture, interpret the form and make the day more fun. From the outside, it looked like effortless competence.
But every rescue drew from the same finite pool of time, energy and attention. AuDHD is not a renewable power source.
Mine is a nervous system with fluctuating capacity, and time alone was how I recharged. But an unruly neighbour turned recovery time into extended periods hiding inside my own home, while I repeatedly asked mental-health services for support and the anti-social behaviour team and West Midlands Police for protection.
16
I mastered the water-cooler mysteries
Work moved beyond the initial sales jobs. I learned the unwritten rituals around offices and water coolers: the small talk, social timing and apparently casual exchanges through which workplace relationships actually functioned.
I was building stability through learned systems, one interaction at a time.
Part five
When the Body Forces a Stop
I built another home and another working life. Then one unrecognised illness triggered a chain of losses that individual effort could not out-organise.
17
A home being prepared for care
The new-build townhouse was not simply evidence that my work systems were succeeding. I needed to finish making it a home because I planned to foster.
I applied almost as soon as I moved in and was progressing through the fostering application when I became ill. I still intended to offer fostering or respite care at weekends, alongside babysitting my nieces and nephews. That was why a second bedroom mattered to me: it was part of the care system I was trying to build.
I had come home intending to leave. Instead, I was preparing to offer somebody else a safe place to land.
18
Ten months asking about the cyst
The delay ran from November 2008 until September 2009. In November, I told my GP that a possible cyst might explain the pain and asked for gynaecology follow-up.
I continued seeking help, including repeated visits to A&E, but the answer kept returning as IBS. Around April 2009—six months after I first raised the possible cyst and still without an answer—the pain made working impossible and I lost my job.
My body kept raising the alarm. The system kept returning the wrong explanation.
19
I had to leave Sandwell to receive help
In September 2009, ambulance staff directed the crew to take me to Dudley rather than Sandwell Hospital. I had to leave Sandwell’s hospital system to receive appropriate medical help.
Dudley identified the massive cyst adhering to my pelvis, womb, ovary and intestine, and I required urgent surgery.
By the time the cause was finally found, the prolonged medical delay had already become an employment and housing problem.
20
Four months without a secure front door
After losing my job, I downsized to a private two-bedroom flat. Police later forced entry and the damaged front door was left insecure for four months.
I repeatedly tried to get the police and other services involved to resolve it. The planned solution still did not happen. Eventually, after months without a properly secure home, I had a meltdown.
I accepted responsibility for what I did during that meltdown, and the magistrate treated the documented circumstances fairly. The contemporary records describe mental-health difficulties; they do not identify neurodivergence or describe an AuDHD meltdown. That understanding came much later.
The sequence was not one isolated mishap:
unanswered gynaecological concern → prolonged disabling pain → job loss → surgery → downsizing → insecure door for four months → continued service failure → meltdown → court → eviction → Groveland Road
The breakdown period had begun.
The Home Coming soundtrack
Old geography, expanded ears
This playlist holds the music from 2005–2013 that reached my life while family, work, care, home and health changed the route around me.
Follow my selection, or let your own memories and ears take you elsewhere.
I came home intending to pass through. Family needs gave me reasons to stay, work gave me a route upwards, and I built another home.
Then body, employment, housing and support systems failed in sequence. By the time Groveland Road was chosen for me, the Sandwell chapter had begun.
In 2017, I applied to buy the Groveland Road flat. It was worth about £70,000 and my discount as a Sandwell tenant would have reduced the price to roughly £37,000. But the discount required me to remain there for five years. I could not commit to five more years living beside Carl while SMBC refused to deal with his behaviour.
