What follows is my response to one who expressed being disheartened by their being subject to the "baby boomers" generation:
While there are always exceptions, for the most part, we who are children of the baby boomers were subjected to parents either self-absorbed with secular achievements and mainstream traditional religions or the hippies, self-absorbed with their own enlightenment and love-making, relationships. Disillusioned by the self-centeredness and resulting abuse and/or neglect, those children grew up directionless. We sought neither because we saw both as fruitless. We cling to our children but are clueless as to how to connect with them, many get attached rather than bonded. Many try to parent and befriend. Basically my peers are all on drugs, abuse alcohol or are absorbed by some form of addiction, constantly seeking numbness to the emptiness resulting from a perceived forced participation in society's basic requirements: school, employment, and social interactions. This leaves our children confused and without foundations. It's a mess. And of course, baby boomers are products of their own parents who experienced financial prosperity and materialistic excesses.
And as I think further on it, the generation from which the baby boomers were born (our grandparents, baby boomer's parents) were themselves rebellious as they broke the rules of the church concerning birth control and divorce, etc. They rebelled against servitude in employment. They became, in their view, more "enlightened" and strived to be free of limitations. The boomers learned rebelliousness from them. Then the boomers' children learned disdain as the secular half disdained the hippies and the hippies disdained the secular. So, my generation became disillusioned with what their parents idolized while carrying in them their parents' disdain for the other perspective. Thus our children are full of rebellion, disillusionment and disdain. Yup, it's a mess.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OqwKfgLaeA&feature=player_detailpage#t=0s
"As above, so below, do we not sing this anthem to our god, too?" That is why they sleep in lonely beds of their own making.
Bruce Lipton The New Biology Where Mind and Matter Meet
A YouTube video
http://youtu.be/cLl7X5TkF_Q
In light of this, I think we can call the newest generation, age 25 and younger, "The Street Fighter Generation", children of the X Generation. Due to the New Age influence of non-violence on the literal streets, they take their street fighting to the their streets: the internet, waging war on places like Facebook. You can definitely see it in their mentality, the lack of discernment, critical and analytical thinking. They are all brawn and defensive instinct.
Monday, April 29, 2013
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Life, Liberty and the Persuit of Happiness
The American Founders acknowledged inalienable rights of all men: the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Our country's history has been a struggle to gain understanding of what exactly that means.
The right to life includes the right to everything that sustains it: food, shelter, clothing, protection and defense. But it is more than that. It is the right to be the embodiment of life, it's essence. It is the right to be life-affirming and life-giving.
The right to liberty is the right to be without chains, conditions, indoctrination, instructions and guidance. It is the right to learn lessons. But it is more than that. It is the right to aspire, be inspired and to be the source of inspiration. It is the right to spiritual well-being and it's expression.
The right to the pursuit of happiness is the right to movement toward our aspirations. It is the right to stop something and then restart it. It is the right to dream and sing in abundance, to dance and pursue our interests. We have the right to everything that supports such movement.
And yet, these are not the rights of ALL men. These rights belong only to those who possess them: those in whom they are recognized and acknowledged. If you believe you must work for a living, earn your keep, then of you it shall be expected. If you believe you need structure and guidance, to it you will be subjected. If you believe happiness has it's limits, for you it will be limited.
This is not a "your thoughts create your reality speech", in that you create this for yourself by thinking it as if you were God himself. It is because you believe it that people can take advantage of you and make you pay for these things, to enslave you to working for them for the benefit of the people who make money off your production. Because you refuse to believe differently, God cannot liberate you from your enslavement. His freedom, you call lazy. Did not the one you call Jesus say "work not for riches, material things or worry about what you shall wear or eat"? Did you know that in other countries people really do live and eat for free? Every citizen has a choice: when you graduate from basic education you can choose college and a career or a state stipend. You don't have to have an excuse or disability, there is no "welfare". Everyone eats, has housing, clothing and medical care. They work shorter days and have very long, frequent vacations so people will spend time with their families. We fear such a system as "communism", but our government has inspired us to fear the idea of us entrusting them with this. And probably for good reason.
The belief that we have to earn our keep and work to deserve to eat is an expression of fear and insecurity.
The right to life includes the right to everything that sustains it: food, shelter, clothing, protection and defense. But it is more than that. It is the right to be the embodiment of life, it's essence. It is the right to be life-affirming and life-giving.
The right to liberty is the right to be without chains, conditions, indoctrination, instructions and guidance. It is the right to learn lessons. But it is more than that. It is the right to aspire, be inspired and to be the source of inspiration. It is the right to spiritual well-being and it's expression.
The right to the pursuit of happiness is the right to movement toward our aspirations. It is the right to stop something and then restart it. It is the right to dream and sing in abundance, to dance and pursue our interests. We have the right to everything that supports such movement.
And yet, these are not the rights of ALL men. These rights belong only to those who possess them: those in whom they are recognized and acknowledged. If you believe you must work for a living, earn your keep, then of you it shall be expected. If you believe you need structure and guidance, to it you will be subjected. If you believe happiness has it's limits, for you it will be limited.
This is not a "your thoughts create your reality speech", in that you create this for yourself by thinking it as if you were God himself. It is because you believe it that people can take advantage of you and make you pay for these things, to enslave you to working for them for the benefit of the people who make money off your production. Because you refuse to believe differently, God cannot liberate you from your enslavement. His freedom, you call lazy. Did not the one you call Jesus say "work not for riches, material things or worry about what you shall wear or eat"? Did you know that in other countries people really do live and eat for free? Every citizen has a choice: when you graduate from basic education you can choose college and a career or a state stipend. You don't have to have an excuse or disability, there is no "welfare". Everyone eats, has housing, clothing and medical care. They work shorter days and have very long, frequent vacations so people will spend time with their families. We fear such a system as "communism", but our government has inspired us to fear the idea of us entrusting them with this. And probably for good reason.
The belief that we have to earn our keep and work to deserve to eat is an expression of fear and insecurity.
Mother receives restitution
Intangible to the rest, yet sure to manifest, the mother receives restitution, justification and revenge.
Saturday, April 27, 2013
Being a stand up person
Had some reflections earlier on becoming and being a stand-up kind of person:
"I've got to learn how to stand up for myself before I can be counted on to stand up for anyone else."
"It's only when I'm a stand-up kind of person that anyone else will stand up for me."
"I know my little son is going to be a stand-up kinda man, he nearly beat his sister to death for touching the flower he picked for me, heehee (expressed appreciation for the sentiment, but not for hitting sissy)......... There must be some kind of stand-up in me already for him to have gotten it......cool beans!"
"Self-awareness creates self confidence and self confidence reaps confidence in you from other people."
All of this is well and good, but what if there are no people around you who have their own self confidence, are not themselves stand-up kinds of people?
We live in a community where many people talk about each other but never to each other. It is a community where many people will rush to stand against one another but never for one another. They are like broken records asserting how great they are but unable to assert any greatness that exists in them. They boast of their own good deeds but never about anyone else's. From what I've witnessed, every act of giving, of generosity, from these people is actually an act of entrapment for which the receiver will pay later with debt held against them or a bad reputation given to them. That is why stand-up people in need of assistance don't ask for it unless truly desperate. That is why so many won't even give this group a second glance...they assume it won't be any different.
So, can we be different? Can we bring out the stand-up person within ourselves and each other? Can we draw to us any stand-up people who ARE out there?
"I've got to learn how to stand up for myself before I can be counted on to stand up for anyone else."
"It's only when I'm a stand-up kind of person that anyone else will stand up for me."
"I know my little son is going to be a stand-up kinda man, he nearly beat his sister to death for touching the flower he picked for me, heehee (expressed appreciation for the sentiment, but not for hitting sissy)......... There must be some kind of stand-up in me already for him to have gotten it......cool beans!"
"Self-awareness creates self confidence and self confidence reaps confidence in you from other people."
All of this is well and good, but what if there are no people around you who have their own self confidence, are not themselves stand-up kinds of people?
We live in a community where many people talk about each other but never to each other. It is a community where many people will rush to stand against one another but never for one another. They are like broken records asserting how great they are but unable to assert any greatness that exists in them. They boast of their own good deeds but never about anyone else's. From what I've witnessed, every act of giving, of generosity, from these people is actually an act of entrapment for which the receiver will pay later with debt held against them or a bad reputation given to them. That is why stand-up people in need of assistance don't ask for it unless truly desperate. That is why so many won't even give this group a second glance...they assume it won't be any different.
So, can we be different? Can we bring out the stand-up person within ourselves and each other? Can we draw to us any stand-up people who ARE out there?
Friday, April 26, 2013
Rolling Thunder Express Ad
http://www.rollingthunderexpress.com/
It was not printed as the submission was written, this is what was submitted:
Detroit Village Neighborly
Detroit Village Neighborly would like to introduce it's self to the community. We are a group of neighbors living in Detroit looking after each other and raising community awareness on topics of interest to us and our community such as domestic violence, bullying, homeschooling, and voting. To learn more, join in the conversation or become an active neighbor. You can find us online at http://detroitvillagegrandmashouse.blogspot.com/
Call 207-408-2016 or email morningstarcrystal@gmail.com
As you can see, there is quite a difference between what was submitted and the interpretation given to the editor of that submission. There is no intention to watch the community in an effort to seek out issues to contend with. 'first remove the beam in your own eye, then remove the sliver in your brother's' is a more appropriate approach to anything in life. 'These are our issues and this is how we are handling them' is more the approach we are taking. Thinking ourselves watched by someone on a fault-finding mission would make anyone paranoid and crazy, so that is the last thing we ought to be doing. This community is not, by this group, being "policed". There is a distinct difference between standing up and stating "this is what has been done to me, this is what I am doing myself to correct it, will you help me with the part I can't do alone?" and simply setting out accusing, doing nothing one's self but asking someone else to take vengeance. There is a difference between stating and complaining. We are making a statement or we are whining, taking responsibility or playing the victim. While the difference may be elusive to many, the difference too subtle to understand, it does exist. It is the line in the sand.
It was not printed as the submission was written, this is what was submitted:
Detroit Village Neighborly
Detroit Village Neighborly would like to introduce it's self to the community. We are a group of neighbors living in Detroit looking after each other and raising community awareness on topics of interest to us and our community such as domestic violence, bullying, homeschooling, and voting. To learn more, join in the conversation or become an active neighbor. You can find us online at http://detroitvillagegrandmashouse.blogspot.com/
Call 207-408-2016 or email morningstarcrystal@gmail.com
As you can see, there is quite a difference between what was submitted and the interpretation given to the editor of that submission. There is no intention to watch the community in an effort to seek out issues to contend with. 'first remove the beam in your own eye, then remove the sliver in your brother's' is a more appropriate approach to anything in life. 'These are our issues and this is how we are handling them' is more the approach we are taking. Thinking ourselves watched by someone on a fault-finding mission would make anyone paranoid and crazy, so that is the last thing we ought to be doing. This community is not, by this group, being "policed". There is a distinct difference between standing up and stating "this is what has been done to me, this is what I am doing myself to correct it, will you help me with the part I can't do alone?" and simply setting out accusing, doing nothing one's self but asking someone else to take vengeance. There is a difference between stating and complaining. We are making a statement or we are whining, taking responsibility or playing the victim. While the difference may be elusive to many, the difference too subtle to understand, it does exist. It is the line in the sand.
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Health Insurance Required: what that means to me.
Usually, a requirement from government is "prophetic". People in positions of power and authority usually know things common people don't. That doesn't neccessarily make it a consiparacy, they just have knowledge and insight the average person does not. Many times they keep it to themselves because the average person can't handle knowing what they know. They're just trying to keep widespread panic down so people don't go around destroying themselves and everyone else in the process. So, our government is now requiring everybody carry health insurance. That tells me that yes, medical treatment and supplies will be limited. That tells me yes, there are threats to our health and well-being coming over the horizen. And there the average person goes, fretting over the requirement to obtain health insurance. They stress out, develope heart conditions, start drinking or doing drugs, endagering their health, all of which leads to that person raising their own insurance premiums. That "prophesy" is already seeing fulfillment. Trying to stop where this world is going is like jumping in front of a train. Not going to happen. You only end up killing yourself.
So what is the best, most affordable health insurance you can get? Self-awareness and emotional self-sufficiency. Insurance you work and pay for is an outer security against inward self-destruction. Your health and well-being are determined by your emotions. Stress, an expression of fearful emotions like insecurity, causes health problems. Those health problems make you dependent upon the healthcare system. As the health care system gets more and more expensive, more and more difficult to access, the more out of reach it gets. The more out of reach it gets, the more fearful you get. Your reliance upon it leads you to your own destruction.
When a person knows themselves, their own strengths and weaknesses, their own insecurites, they know their limitations. Knowing our limitations gives us the strength and courage to defend them. This defense of ourselves stregthens us, we experience less limitation. This inner strength and resulting freedom from limitations gives us a sense of security. That sense of security is an inner insurance against poor health and promotes over-all well-being. God gave that to me.
Once we have that inner security, we just roll with the punches. Choices become easy. The issue of health insurance becomes easy. If you're amongst the truly poor, government provides it. If you're working, it will often come through the company you work for. If you can't afford it and it isn't part of job benefits, you either choose to go up or down the scale: make more money to provide for it or let yourself drop down to having it provided for you. Either that or you are in a place of inner security that makes you O.K. with not having it. If you or your family truly needs medical care, you will find a way to get it.
Believe it or not, there are still people in the United States who set their own children's broken arms. There are people who pull their own teeth. I myself feel better letting a doctor do those things. But I do alot of research on natural health treatments. Maintaining our own bodies is really our own responsibility, not somebody else's. It's up to each of us to seek out how best we can do that. Some rely on prayer. Some rely on family, neighbors, books, and other second-hand sources of information. Some go to doctors. Which we choose is determined by our own level of inner security which is dependent upon our own self-awareness of our own limitations. Your beliefs will determine your experience of fulfillment regarding the government's "prophesies". If you believe you need health insurance, worse and worse things will come upon you causing your need for it and your belief that you will die without it will come true. If, on the other hand, you believe you're safe and can handle what comes your way, choices become easier, your health gets better and you live to see another day. That prophecy did not see fulfillment. You didn't have to jump in front of a train and get flattened. Possibly, quite possibly, enough people did the same thing and the train had no tracks to take it your way, it was "stopped in it's tracks" or was never a train that existed anyways. As they say "Be the change you want to see in the world". If you want everyone to have health insurance, BE your own health insurance. Others will follow.
So what is the best, most affordable health insurance you can get? Self-awareness and emotional self-sufficiency. Insurance you work and pay for is an outer security against inward self-destruction. Your health and well-being are determined by your emotions. Stress, an expression of fearful emotions like insecurity, causes health problems. Those health problems make you dependent upon the healthcare system. As the health care system gets more and more expensive, more and more difficult to access, the more out of reach it gets. The more out of reach it gets, the more fearful you get. Your reliance upon it leads you to your own destruction.
When a person knows themselves, their own strengths and weaknesses, their own insecurites, they know their limitations. Knowing our limitations gives us the strength and courage to defend them. This defense of ourselves stregthens us, we experience less limitation. This inner strength and resulting freedom from limitations gives us a sense of security. That sense of security is an inner insurance against poor health and promotes over-all well-being. God gave that to me.
Once we have that inner security, we just roll with the punches. Choices become easy. The issue of health insurance becomes easy. If you're amongst the truly poor, government provides it. If you're working, it will often come through the company you work for. If you can't afford it and it isn't part of job benefits, you either choose to go up or down the scale: make more money to provide for it or let yourself drop down to having it provided for you. Either that or you are in a place of inner security that makes you O.K. with not having it. If you or your family truly needs medical care, you will find a way to get it.
Believe it or not, there are still people in the United States who set their own children's broken arms. There are people who pull their own teeth. I myself feel better letting a doctor do those things. But I do alot of research on natural health treatments. Maintaining our own bodies is really our own responsibility, not somebody else's. It's up to each of us to seek out how best we can do that. Some rely on prayer. Some rely on family, neighbors, books, and other second-hand sources of information. Some go to doctors. Which we choose is determined by our own level of inner security which is dependent upon our own self-awareness of our own limitations. Your beliefs will determine your experience of fulfillment regarding the government's "prophesies". If you believe you need health insurance, worse and worse things will come upon you causing your need for it and your belief that you will die without it will come true. If, on the other hand, you believe you're safe and can handle what comes your way, choices become easier, your health gets better and you live to see another day. That prophecy did not see fulfillment. You didn't have to jump in front of a train and get flattened. Possibly, quite possibly, enough people did the same thing and the train had no tracks to take it your way, it was "stopped in it's tracks" or was never a train that existed anyways. As they say "Be the change you want to see in the world". If you want everyone to have health insurance, BE your own health insurance. Others will follow.
A Great Wrestling
The first thoughts to hit my mind this morning after waking were how those who share photos with the comments "If you would step in and help a child who is being bullied repost this", have heard the stories I have posted of how each of my children are being bullied by their fathers, and yet do nothing are hypocrits and liars. They "see" my children and I being bullied and yet do nothing about it. We are but a part of their "bread and circuses". But that thought led me to a very dark place in my mind, one I associate and fear as being full of hatred and judgement and condemnation, of being anything but loving. That is not who I want to be, it is not where I want to dwell; there, in that inner darkness so emotionally distressed I can't even think reasonably. So, how do I set myself free?, I wondered. Thus began the great wrestling that ended in peace.
To fight what is happening to me and my children would be rebellion and resistence (that which we resist persists, "do not resist evil", we are told in scripture, and God hates rebelliousness). I am reminded of a message God gave me:"Do you think I am unable to give you your children?". It CAN be that easy. So God is allowing it to happen this way for now for some reason. God never does anything without a reason. So, God is not giving it to these people to help me. Scripture says a person cannot do one righteous act unless God gives him the will and means to do it. God is not giving it to these people to do this, what does that mean? Does that mean God hates them, that God hates what they are doing? The thought strikes me: if they condemn these men by helping me, they condemn their own families who did the same to them, they condemn what they themselves are doing. That takes courage, to do what I do, to live life as I live it, honestly, openly, with integrity and self-reflection in the face of everything. "He who loves father or mother or brother or sister more than me is not worthy of me", the saying is recorded to be. If we fear offending family, making them angry, more than we fear God, then we are loving them more than we love truth, justice, honesty and integrity, which is the essence of God's state of being. If we do not kill within us that which causes us to be abusive, we are loving our lives, our existence in darkness, more than our neighbor, the ones we call friends, our families, and "God who is in me".
And I do admit to having had reticence concerning this thing: bringing such children into my life, the life of my younger children. My older daughters are full of strife, fear and meanness, just plain viscious like the fathers who raised them. Do I really want them in my home abusing me and my younger children? But I also know that deep within them lie my genes. If ever the kingdom of God was written within them, it can be retrieved. God would give that to me. So, I simply need to wait and be patient, apparently to "do nothing" but allow God to choose for me. Inaction is a choice in it's self and my inaction is the choosing to allow God to do for me whatever it is He is willing.
Part of the arguement within me this morning concerned eyes being opened. How many times in scripture do we read God saying "If their eyes are opened, I would have to heal them". That is why it is reported the one called Jesus spoke in parables. It is why God prophesied in parables to Isreal. I think of how I have seen eyes opened, most dramatically in my mother. With sudden clarity she looked at my youngest children and exclaimed "All they want to do is love me! They do not want anything from me". It was an intense realization and reminded me of when she was driving me back to Maine after they first took my older children. She was ranting at me how we just needed to stop trying to control what the other was doing. She caught herself for a moment and turned to me with dawning clarity and said "You have never tried to control me". Then it was as if a black metal door dropped before her face as it darkened and she went back to ranting at me. What was her choice of action after each of these "eyes being opened" experiences? With my younger children, she bought them shovels this past winter so they could learn to do chores and 'earn their keep'. They may not have wanted anyting from her, but she sure as hell wanted to impose her beliefs on them. Back then after her eyes were opened concerning me, she betrayed me helping them take my children from me, treating me like a suspicious criminal, being informant for the enemy. Even most recently, when we desperately needed diapers, I asked her. She delivered a big ol' box of them but while handing them over, she tapped on the box pointendly and told me I would have to make a greater effort potty training. Conditional giving, still trying to control me. Putting off information on how to switch the electric bill over to my name: so she could hold it against me that I wasn't paying it. I am no longer naive. From that point on I sought diapers from other sources who would not give conditionally and discovered for myself how to get the bills in my name.
Eyes will be opened but only for a moment so when they stand before God, they cannot claim to have never been allowed to see. The end for such people is misery. And what about these "great things" people do in fact do for me? like allowing me to live here rent free. Number one, the place is not rentable and yet she wanted every penny I got to pay full rent. Her original intent was no "great deed". But she still benefits as I am keeping the place in good repair, it is not falling down due to neglect, being filled with mold, mildew, dust and insects like the rest left unoccupied. My presence is as good as any security system. And I will tell you what I know of God's justice. You see, every time God liberated Isreal from her oppressors, they left with the wealth of the nations they were leaving. In Egypt, for their labors they got whips and chains, their children murdered. When they left they were commanded to ask of their neighbors all the riches, gold and jewelry. They got it. When Isreal left Babylon to rebuild the temple, not only did they get back the gold utensils taken from the temple, but also the wood and money to rebuild it, their lives and their cities. They took the wealth of that nation with them. So, if I leave with anything, having had anything given me, it is God giving me what I should have received while I was here and God raping them as they raped me. If there are feelings of hurt, anger, of being used and abused, of ingratitude, it is only what is being returned to you for all the hurt, neglect, abuse and lack of gratitude for what I was and did for you. For, you see, I do feel grateful for every bit given, the feelings left behind are a misrepresentation of what I am feeling, but an experience deserved in return for the experience given me. It is an ILLUSION that YOU will suffer under. And then for your condemnation of me for that illusion, you yourself will receive condemnation instead of me. For when I had means, I did more for you than you ever did for me. The path of destruction I have been reported as leaving, is only destruction revisted on the people who destroyed me. It is evil returning to it's source of origins, not a conscious effort from me. I am simply *aware* of what is coming, I am in no way consciously creating it for me. The desire for vengence does not live in me. I am innocent and only observing and reporting on what I see happening.
This is my legacy. In my heart lives peace. Today fear and hatred found no home in me. I am God's Magenta Flame. The Bright and Morning Star lives in me with Crystal clarity. "Only the righteous will fly with me."
To fight what is happening to me and my children would be rebellion and resistence (that which we resist persists, "do not resist evil", we are told in scripture, and God hates rebelliousness). I am reminded of a message God gave me:"Do you think I am unable to give you your children?". It CAN be that easy. So God is allowing it to happen this way for now for some reason. God never does anything without a reason. So, God is not giving it to these people to help me. Scripture says a person cannot do one righteous act unless God gives him the will and means to do it. God is not giving it to these people to do this, what does that mean? Does that mean God hates them, that God hates what they are doing? The thought strikes me: if they condemn these men by helping me, they condemn their own families who did the same to them, they condemn what they themselves are doing. That takes courage, to do what I do, to live life as I live it, honestly, openly, with integrity and self-reflection in the face of everything. "He who loves father or mother or brother or sister more than me is not worthy of me", the saying is recorded to be. If we fear offending family, making them angry, more than we fear God, then we are loving them more than we love truth, justice, honesty and integrity, which is the essence of God's state of being. If we do not kill within us that which causes us to be abusive, we are loving our lives, our existence in darkness, more than our neighbor, the ones we call friends, our families, and "God who is in me".
And I do admit to having had reticence concerning this thing: bringing such children into my life, the life of my younger children. My older daughters are full of strife, fear and meanness, just plain viscious like the fathers who raised them. Do I really want them in my home abusing me and my younger children? But I also know that deep within them lie my genes. If ever the kingdom of God was written within them, it can be retrieved. God would give that to me. So, I simply need to wait and be patient, apparently to "do nothing" but allow God to choose for me. Inaction is a choice in it's self and my inaction is the choosing to allow God to do for me whatever it is He is willing.
Part of the arguement within me this morning concerned eyes being opened. How many times in scripture do we read God saying "If their eyes are opened, I would have to heal them". That is why it is reported the one called Jesus spoke in parables. It is why God prophesied in parables to Isreal. I think of how I have seen eyes opened, most dramatically in my mother. With sudden clarity she looked at my youngest children and exclaimed "All they want to do is love me! They do not want anything from me". It was an intense realization and reminded me of when she was driving me back to Maine after they first took my older children. She was ranting at me how we just needed to stop trying to control what the other was doing. She caught herself for a moment and turned to me with dawning clarity and said "You have never tried to control me". Then it was as if a black metal door dropped before her face as it darkened and she went back to ranting at me. What was her choice of action after each of these "eyes being opened" experiences? With my younger children, she bought them shovels this past winter so they could learn to do chores and 'earn their keep'. They may not have wanted anyting from her, but she sure as hell wanted to impose her beliefs on them. Back then after her eyes were opened concerning me, she betrayed me helping them take my children from me, treating me like a suspicious criminal, being informant for the enemy. Even most recently, when we desperately needed diapers, I asked her. She delivered a big ol' box of them but while handing them over, she tapped on the box pointendly and told me I would have to make a greater effort potty training. Conditional giving, still trying to control me. Putting off information on how to switch the electric bill over to my name: so she could hold it against me that I wasn't paying it. I am no longer naive. From that point on I sought diapers from other sources who would not give conditionally and discovered for myself how to get the bills in my name.
Eyes will be opened but only for a moment so when they stand before God, they cannot claim to have never been allowed to see. The end for such people is misery. And what about these "great things" people do in fact do for me? like allowing me to live here rent free. Number one, the place is not rentable and yet she wanted every penny I got to pay full rent. Her original intent was no "great deed". But she still benefits as I am keeping the place in good repair, it is not falling down due to neglect, being filled with mold, mildew, dust and insects like the rest left unoccupied. My presence is as good as any security system. And I will tell you what I know of God's justice. You see, every time God liberated Isreal from her oppressors, they left with the wealth of the nations they were leaving. In Egypt, for their labors they got whips and chains, their children murdered. When they left they were commanded to ask of their neighbors all the riches, gold and jewelry. They got it. When Isreal left Babylon to rebuild the temple, not only did they get back the gold utensils taken from the temple, but also the wood and money to rebuild it, their lives and their cities. They took the wealth of that nation with them. So, if I leave with anything, having had anything given me, it is God giving me what I should have received while I was here and God raping them as they raped me. If there are feelings of hurt, anger, of being used and abused, of ingratitude, it is only what is being returned to you for all the hurt, neglect, abuse and lack of gratitude for what I was and did for you. For, you see, I do feel grateful for every bit given, the feelings left behind are a misrepresentation of what I am feeling, but an experience deserved in return for the experience given me. It is an ILLUSION that YOU will suffer under. And then for your condemnation of me for that illusion, you yourself will receive condemnation instead of me. For when I had means, I did more for you than you ever did for me. The path of destruction I have been reported as leaving, is only destruction revisted on the people who destroyed me. It is evil returning to it's source of origins, not a conscious effort from me. I am simply *aware* of what is coming, I am in no way consciously creating it for me. The desire for vengence does not live in me. I am innocent and only observing and reporting on what I see happening.
This is my legacy. In my heart lives peace. Today fear and hatred found no home in me. I am God's Magenta Flame. The Bright and Morning Star lives in me with Crystal clarity. "Only the righteous will fly with me."
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Not living up to our full potential
Just some train of thought writing that can probably be more fully explored and developed later:
I am sure we have all seen it; especially teachers in schools, when smart people do "bad things" and when "bad things happen to good people", etc. The cheerleader prom queen and class valedictorian end up pregnant drug addicts and no one understands because they came from such a good family. They see it in the super jock that beats up on his girlfriend. We see it in the "eccentric" billionaires and "mad" scientists. I remember in the private high school I attended, I was called into the principle's office because none of the teachers nor the principle could figure out why I was getting such poor grades. "You have one of the highest IQs in your class and yet you are barely making Ds, why is this?" I didn't know. I was just a kid. I was depressed. The depression was a shut down, a self-defense mechanism triggered by stress.
You can be intellectually advanced, but the emphasis and reliance upon that intelligence can cause a diminishing of the importance of emotions. One becomes imbalanced and even handicapped if the emotional aspects are not nurtured and brought to maturity. The immature emotional development then drags down the intelligence, causing it to make poor decisions. "You should know better than that!". Um, no we shouldn't. Wisdom, knowing, is not just an intellectual intelligence, it is knowledge coupled with understanding, the emotional experience of something. We are not truly smart unless we are intellectually and emotionally mature. And it is precisely other people's focus on my own intellectual abilities and maturity that led me to believe I had nothing wrong with me, when in fact, my emotional development was never acknowledged or adequately addressed. This is how geniuses make stupid choices.
This is why when sent to a counselor as a teen I responded logically, perfectly coherent and the counselor told me I didn't have to be there, I was just fine. It is why I believed him.
This is why we can intellectually answer something but people sense we are fakes: we are not feeling it. Because they sense our insecurity and doubt about "knowing" a thing, they accuse us of lying. We are experiencing cognitive dissonance as our head believes one thing: we are telling the truth, but our hearts are telling us another: we are experiencing self doubt due to insecurity born of emotional immaturity or invalidation or immaturity due to invalidation.
Anyone can know anything and yet not understand it. They can have the knowledge yet not apply it.
And anyone can understand something but not have the words/knowledge of it.
That is why people we think should know we love them for reasons we may give, don't actually know it. That is why people love someone and treat them like they hate them. It why we love people who treat us badly.
Once again, emotions, like fear or love, over ride the brain, causing damage through self-destructive behaviors and choices.
This is why we need to give our emotional intelligence words to express it's self. It is why intellectual intelligence cannot tell us what terrorism is. It is why intellectual intelligence cannot tell us what abuse it. It is only the emotional intelligence that can define and explain these things to us.
But at the same time, an emotionally healthy and happy person can make poor decisions when they lack or ignore their intellectual warnings, the rules, laws, and guidence set forth naturally, by parents with more worldly experience or an educated society.
That is where limitations come in, which may seem controlling or abusive if they were applied inappropriately. It is why limitations may be placed on one individual yet not another whose capacities might be more maturely developed. That is why people may see what they believe are "unfair" or inconsistent applications of rules, treatment, or laws. We may have all been born with equal rights, but we are not all born with equal capabilities nor into equally nurturing environments. It is why one victim of domestic violence may be granted custody while another victim of domestic violence may have custody taken from them. Both were born into traumatic environments, but only one has overcome it and moved on to maturity. That is why I can have compassion for my exes, yet understand that what I will ask of the courts is neither hypocritical nor detrimental to my children. I was once asked "What?! It's OK for you to do but not me?", to which I replied honestly "Yes". I hate to say it, but yes, what is good for the goose is not always good for the gander. One can divulge personal information to extend understanding of a situation for the greater good of themselves, their family and their community, whereas another will be doing it untrained, resulting in it simply being gossip and a cause for unnecessary drama. And there is productive drama as well as non-productive drama; drama we should engage in and that which we shouldn't.
This is why I may choose to do that which was done to me, not as an act of vengence, out of maliciousness, or wanting to bring trouble upon anyone, but because of careful consideration of knowledge and understanding gained over the past few years concerning what is in the best interests of all involved. As much as I detest the legal process, it is needed to limit the immaturity dependent upon it for it's own legitimacy. It is the only thing it will respect because it has no self control nor understanding of what respect is in it's self.
I am sure we have all seen it; especially teachers in schools, when smart people do "bad things" and when "bad things happen to good people", etc. The cheerleader prom queen and class valedictorian end up pregnant drug addicts and no one understands because they came from such a good family. They see it in the super jock that beats up on his girlfriend. We see it in the "eccentric" billionaires and "mad" scientists. I remember in the private high school I attended, I was called into the principle's office because none of the teachers nor the principle could figure out why I was getting such poor grades. "You have one of the highest IQs in your class and yet you are barely making Ds, why is this?" I didn't know. I was just a kid. I was depressed. The depression was a shut down, a self-defense mechanism triggered by stress.
You can be intellectually advanced, but the emphasis and reliance upon that intelligence can cause a diminishing of the importance of emotions. One becomes imbalanced and even handicapped if the emotional aspects are not nurtured and brought to maturity. The immature emotional development then drags down the intelligence, causing it to make poor decisions. "You should know better than that!". Um, no we shouldn't. Wisdom, knowing, is not just an intellectual intelligence, it is knowledge coupled with understanding, the emotional experience of something. We are not truly smart unless we are intellectually and emotionally mature. And it is precisely other people's focus on my own intellectual abilities and maturity that led me to believe I had nothing wrong with me, when in fact, my emotional development was never acknowledged or adequately addressed. This is how geniuses make stupid choices.
This is why when sent to a counselor as a teen I responded logically, perfectly coherent and the counselor told me I didn't have to be there, I was just fine. It is why I believed him.
This is why we can intellectually answer something but people sense we are fakes: we are not feeling it. Because they sense our insecurity and doubt about "knowing" a thing, they accuse us of lying. We are experiencing cognitive dissonance as our head believes one thing: we are telling the truth, but our hearts are telling us another: we are experiencing self doubt due to insecurity born of emotional immaturity or invalidation or immaturity due to invalidation.
Anyone can know anything and yet not understand it. They can have the knowledge yet not apply it.
And anyone can understand something but not have the words/knowledge of it.
That is why people we think should know we love them for reasons we may give, don't actually know it. That is why people love someone and treat them like they hate them. It why we love people who treat us badly.
Once again, emotions, like fear or love, over ride the brain, causing damage through self-destructive behaviors and choices.
This is why we need to give our emotional intelligence words to express it's self. It is why intellectual intelligence cannot tell us what terrorism is. It is why intellectual intelligence cannot tell us what abuse it. It is only the emotional intelligence that can define and explain these things to us.
But at the same time, an emotionally healthy and happy person can make poor decisions when they lack or ignore their intellectual warnings, the rules, laws, and guidence set forth naturally, by parents with more worldly experience or an educated society.
That is where limitations come in, which may seem controlling or abusive if they were applied inappropriately. It is why limitations may be placed on one individual yet not another whose capacities might be more maturely developed. That is why people may see what they believe are "unfair" or inconsistent applications of rules, treatment, or laws. We may have all been born with equal rights, but we are not all born with equal capabilities nor into equally nurturing environments. It is why one victim of domestic violence may be granted custody while another victim of domestic violence may have custody taken from them. Both were born into traumatic environments, but only one has overcome it and moved on to maturity. That is why I can have compassion for my exes, yet understand that what I will ask of the courts is neither hypocritical nor detrimental to my children. I was once asked "What?! It's OK for you to do but not me?", to which I replied honestly "Yes". I hate to say it, but yes, what is good for the goose is not always good for the gander. One can divulge personal information to extend understanding of a situation for the greater good of themselves, their family and their community, whereas another will be doing it untrained, resulting in it simply being gossip and a cause for unnecessary drama. And there is productive drama as well as non-productive drama; drama we should engage in and that which we shouldn't.
This is why I may choose to do that which was done to me, not as an act of vengence, out of maliciousness, or wanting to bring trouble upon anyone, but because of careful consideration of knowledge and understanding gained over the past few years concerning what is in the best interests of all involved. As much as I detest the legal process, it is needed to limit the immaturity dependent upon it for it's own legitimacy. It is the only thing it will respect because it has no self control nor understanding of what respect is in it's self.
Throwing a big word into the mix: "cognitive dissonance"
Cognitive dissonance is the inability to intellectually grasp a situation due to emotional interference. For example: frustrated mother expresses frustrations. In response some people she associates with offer to help her, maybe even hide her and her children. Mother discusses things openly, maybe considers the repercussions but chooses not to do such a thing. Instead, she chooses to give the legally required notice before moving into a new residence, starts a legitimate job and lives openly. Her exes and those who enable them fail to grasp the facts of the situation: the mother did NOT try to run off and hide herself and children. It was paranoia/fear causing cognitive dissonance which caused the exes and their abettors to act as if the mother had chosen to run off instead.
Cognitive dissonance is a common condition amongst those whose environments are unhealthy, traumatic and/or abusive. It is prevalent whenever an environment is hostile unless a person's intellectual and emotional maturity makes them immune to it. It blurs the mind so effectively that a person fails to be able to read words clearly written in black and white before them. I have seen people actualy read words that did not exist on a piece of paper due to cognitive dissonance. I have witnessed people not hearing what was said, but instead hearing what they feared would be said. It causes offense to be taken when no offense has been committed, it "reads into" expressions and actions what is not existent in them. It is a malfunction of the brain where emotions cause imagination to blend with reality creating a distortion of actual events and memory of them. They cannot accurately see what is directly in front of them.
The condition of cognitive dissonance is prevalent amongst those who are part of "high control groups" religions or relationships, where a single person or a small group of people are very controlling and manipulative of the people they influence. The unhealthy levels of control create stress which overloads the subjected parties senses, traumatizes them and disrupts their ability to think, their brain function. This becomes a physical problem as it has disrupted the neuron pathways of the brain. Like a muscle, healthy thought patterns need to be introduced and exercised to overcome the physical handicap created by the abusive situation/traumatic environment.
We see this amongst people who engage in a lot of gossip and judementalism. The pressure of constantly being criticized and under scrutiny causes people to snap, spreading false rumors and exaggerations, causing more damage in ever elevating levels of community upheaval, leading to the violence of bullying and such extreme examples as murder within families, witch hunts, hangings, and genocides.
We see this in those who work high stress jobs. When people "go postal" they had already begun to experience cognitive dissonance, paranoid delusions, etc.
We see it a lot in those highly impacted by events like terrorism, violence in society, natural disasters, etc., which is much of the world's and our country's population.
You see it happen in courtrooms where lawyers try to create cognitive dissonance in those they are questioning and you see it in people questioned by police who give false confessions.
Fear causes brain damage. That brain damage manifests as cognitive dissonance. We've probably all been a victim of it at one time or another, either having misunderstood/misperceived a situation or been on the receiving end of someone else's misunderstanding/misperception of a situation.
Wikipedia's explanation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
Cognitive dissonance is a common condition amongst those whose environments are unhealthy, traumatic and/or abusive. It is prevalent whenever an environment is hostile unless a person's intellectual and emotional maturity makes them immune to it. It blurs the mind so effectively that a person fails to be able to read words clearly written in black and white before them. I have seen people actualy read words that did not exist on a piece of paper due to cognitive dissonance. I have witnessed people not hearing what was said, but instead hearing what they feared would be said. It causes offense to be taken when no offense has been committed, it "reads into" expressions and actions what is not existent in them. It is a malfunction of the brain where emotions cause imagination to blend with reality creating a distortion of actual events and memory of them. They cannot accurately see what is directly in front of them.
The condition of cognitive dissonance is prevalent amongst those who are part of "high control groups" religions or relationships, where a single person or a small group of people are very controlling and manipulative of the people they influence. The unhealthy levels of control create stress which overloads the subjected parties senses, traumatizes them and disrupts their ability to think, their brain function. This becomes a physical problem as it has disrupted the neuron pathways of the brain. Like a muscle, healthy thought patterns need to be introduced and exercised to overcome the physical handicap created by the abusive situation/traumatic environment.
We see this amongst people who engage in a lot of gossip and judementalism. The pressure of constantly being criticized and under scrutiny causes people to snap, spreading false rumors and exaggerations, causing more damage in ever elevating levels of community upheaval, leading to the violence of bullying and such extreme examples as murder within families, witch hunts, hangings, and genocides.
We see this in those who work high stress jobs. When people "go postal" they had already begun to experience cognitive dissonance, paranoid delusions, etc.
We see it a lot in those highly impacted by events like terrorism, violence in society, natural disasters, etc., which is much of the world's and our country's population.
You see it happen in courtrooms where lawyers try to create cognitive dissonance in those they are questioning and you see it in people questioned by police who give false confessions.
Fear causes brain damage. That brain damage manifests as cognitive dissonance. We've probably all been a victim of it at one time or another, either having misunderstood/misperceived a situation or been on the receiving end of someone else's misunderstanding/misperception of a situation.
Wikipedia's explanation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
A judge I can respect and a public thank you
This morning I have been given to reflect on what we do have going for us in what I face ahead of me.
As I sat and listened in the Skowhegan courtroom to the case that went before me, I was truly impressed by the judge. Rather than arrogantly presiding over the courtroom and then cooly dismissing the case before him because there wasn't enough evidence, he read the law more than once out loud. He admitted the wording of the law was new to him, new in Maine, and he was exploring how it could be applied to the case of the man before him. He compassionately explained why he believed the law could not be applied to the man's case. He asked the man questions, phrased in a variety of ways to try to draw out of the man an answser that would allow him to apply the law in this man's case. Unfortunately, the man did not have the words to do this. The man was clearly terrified of having his drug addicted son in his home. You could see his sense of powerlessness, the same powerlessness so common in many parents today, a powerlessness I myself have felt against the angry onslought of a teen. But you could see he was a strong man who had swallowed alot of pride to even bring this before a court, to admit his son intimidated him. He just didn't have the words.
I had the words because I had the guidence and counseling while in a different state. Because of that education, I also had the empowerment to speak the words clearly, giving the judge what he needed before my case was even called before him, so that when my case was called there was no hesitation or struggle. The requested order was granted. I was given even more protection than I had asked for.
Ten years ago I did not have the words and Maine did not have the laws worded to protect me or my children. These things are only now just in place. When I say that the domestic violence scene is behind the rest of the nation, it is not to make anyone feel bad, condemn them, or belitle them. It is not to prop myself up as smarter or better than anyone else. I am no smarter, I have only been blessed with the inner drive to leave this state and seek out what was needed to empower myself to change things for my children. Then God drove me back here, bringing with me what I had gained. I am humbled by what it must have taken for those who did supply the words for the new laws to get them on the books. They are foreign words here. They are foreign concepts as they redefine behaviors accepted as normal for generations. Change is not easy for anyone and is usually met with great resistence, anger and resentment. The men and women who have fought to bring these concepts and words into greater awareness here in Maine have my grattitude and respect. I know what I met with when I brought them to my family ten years ago. The resistence, anger and resentment was strong enough to drive me away and keep me away. I could not imagine taking this before an entire state.
So, no, I don't believe all laws are bad. Nor do I believe everyone who works in government is evil. There may be laws to vote yes on. It's just too bad we need to.
This is a public thank you to judges such as the one in Skowhegan and all those bringing the words and laws to Maine that give us what we need to make us better able to give to our children what they need to be safe, healthy and happy.
As I sat and listened in the Skowhegan courtroom to the case that went before me, I was truly impressed by the judge. Rather than arrogantly presiding over the courtroom and then cooly dismissing the case before him because there wasn't enough evidence, he read the law more than once out loud. He admitted the wording of the law was new to him, new in Maine, and he was exploring how it could be applied to the case of the man before him. He compassionately explained why he believed the law could not be applied to the man's case. He asked the man questions, phrased in a variety of ways to try to draw out of the man an answser that would allow him to apply the law in this man's case. Unfortunately, the man did not have the words to do this. The man was clearly terrified of having his drug addicted son in his home. You could see his sense of powerlessness, the same powerlessness so common in many parents today, a powerlessness I myself have felt against the angry onslought of a teen. But you could see he was a strong man who had swallowed alot of pride to even bring this before a court, to admit his son intimidated him. He just didn't have the words.
I had the words because I had the guidence and counseling while in a different state. Because of that education, I also had the empowerment to speak the words clearly, giving the judge what he needed before my case was even called before him, so that when my case was called there was no hesitation or struggle. The requested order was granted. I was given even more protection than I had asked for.
Ten years ago I did not have the words and Maine did not have the laws worded to protect me or my children. These things are only now just in place. When I say that the domestic violence scene is behind the rest of the nation, it is not to make anyone feel bad, condemn them, or belitle them. It is not to prop myself up as smarter or better than anyone else. I am no smarter, I have only been blessed with the inner drive to leave this state and seek out what was needed to empower myself to change things for my children. Then God drove me back here, bringing with me what I had gained. I am humbled by what it must have taken for those who did supply the words for the new laws to get them on the books. They are foreign words here. They are foreign concepts as they redefine behaviors accepted as normal for generations. Change is not easy for anyone and is usually met with great resistence, anger and resentment. The men and women who have fought to bring these concepts and words into greater awareness here in Maine have my grattitude and respect. I know what I met with when I brought them to my family ten years ago. The resistence, anger and resentment was strong enough to drive me away and keep me away. I could not imagine taking this before an entire state.
So, no, I don't believe all laws are bad. Nor do I believe everyone who works in government is evil. There may be laws to vote yes on. It's just too bad we need to.
This is a public thank you to judges such as the one in Skowhegan and all those bringing the words and laws to Maine that give us what we need to make us better able to give to our children what they need to be safe, healthy and happy.
Friday, April 19, 2013
"My Space, My Body!"
"My space, my body!" I heard from my daughter this morning as she stood up for herself against her brother's jumping onto her. I had just taught her about that the other day, that she can stand up for herself, her own body. I realize I was not only teaching her how to defend herself, empowering her, but also how to take responsibility for herself and her body. I was never taught that, so I took responsibility for everyone else's assaults on me and lived as a victim, blaming everyone else. Now that I can stand up for myself and defend my rights, my thoughts, my emotions, my spirituality, now that I can call someone else's speech abusive, I am finally taking responsibility for myself instead of blaming everybody else by accepting responsibility for their actions. Following are arguments I've had thrown at me this morning by an abuser who has custody of one of my children. I post them here so they can be of use to someone else who might be intellectually and emotionally intimidated in similar fashion. I will add to it as anything comes up.
Emotional influence does not make the providing of emotional guidance healthy: my father was a child molester and provided for us emotionally. Yet what he provided was definitely not healthy.
Financial support of a child does not necessarily indicate exceptional responsibility or fitness as a parent. I had a house to live in, clothes to wear, and fod to eat as a child, even had horses, snowmobiles, four-wheelers, etc, yet my parents were unfit.
"You always blame everyone else". No, when I was avoiding confrontation, I was being a victim which is in essence blaming everyone else for my inactivity. Standing up for myself and pointing the finger in the RIGHT direction is taking responsibility for my own situation. Not pointing the finger in the right direction is taking responsibility from everyone else, which is irresponsible. I had no right taking their responsibility away by taking it upon myself.
Living in the same house and working the same job for 50 years does not make a person "stable". Consistence in emotional maturity is what makes an environment stable. Persistence in pursuing mental health and well-being is consistency and stability. Each change provides an increasingly stable environment for a child.
"Everyone who knows you....." yeah, and "everyone" who knew Hitler had good things to say about him. Public opinion really does not prove anyone's character.
PTSD may have affected my "fitness" as a parent, but it did not make me any LESS fit than the men who were abusing me and ARE abusing my daughters.
Speaking of my daughter: "She will see right through you!". "I hope she does, then she will see in me a mother who truly loves her."
"Do not yell at me." or "Do not raise your voice to me". to which I reply: "I am not yelling, I am speaking clearly and assertively" They just aren't used to hearing it from a woman.
Accusation: "Everywhere you went, you left a path of destruction behind".
Reply: No, I didn't. I left more than I ever took. The accountant was a renter, employed, and pushed around by a trainer. When I left, he had a house, became self-employed, and had his own barn, did his own training.
The unemployed JW adherent went from trailer-trash nobody to popular with the ladies, remarried, had a job with benefits.
They have absolutely beautiful children by me.
Any broken hearts can be laid upon their doorstep, if they had been good to me, I would never have had to leave.
The path of destruction is only now going to begin. But "destroying" or taking power from abusers is a GOOD thing.
Accusation: It was you who made poor choices in choosing these men.
Response: I am no more flawed in my decision making than those who recommended them to me nor those who would presently stand in their defense.
priceless: the look on my daughter's face when she tried poking at and provoking her brother and I told her "Your brother's space, his body, you will respect it".
My son won't be anyone's victim either
In empowering him, I also decrease the chances he will ever become an abuser.
Threat from ex: She is old enough that the court is going to go with her opinion and she wants nothing to do with you.
My response: No, she is old enough that the court will take her feelings into consideration, but will decide what is best for her regardless.
Another accusation from the ex: We have spent the last 10 years in fear of you coming back and kidnapping her or something. I might rejoice at them having also experienced a bit of discomfort over the past years, however it is nothing to rejoice over when one realizes that this means for the past ten years my daughters have been indoctrinated with my return being a worst nightmare. No wonder they don't want anything to do with me, if their fathers speak honestly, their fathers instilled in them a very deep fear of me. Now THAT is evil.
I had another response to the multiple attempts to degrade me with their stating that at least they are working to support their family. Working is easy. You follow a set of directions and get to it. I was relieved this summer every time I could stack wood or mow a lawn to earn money to take care of my children. Not only did it provide a means to do that, but it gives a person a sense of accomplishment and self worth. Physical labor gets energy moving, makes the heart and soul feel liberated, cleaned out. It is invigorating. Interacting with other adults can be refreshing after spending most of one's time with children. You know what ISN'T easy? Doing the inner work it takes to become a mature, healthy, happy person who can be a real asset to their children and their community. It is a grueling daily confrontation of one's own fears, faults, and thinking processes. I am sacrificing my own self-fulfillment a job could bring in exchange for attending to what needs attending to for the health and well-being of my children. There aren't even those living lives of luxury wiling to make that journey, yet I am doing it in circumstances that require I wash our clothes daily by hand in a bucket. If that's not dedication, I don't know what is.
And the ex's lie, an opportunity to "push his weight around": "I have no phone number or physical address on you. "
I included my new number in a letter I sent, but let's just humor him an apologize if I was mistaken in believing that. As for my physical address, I know for a fact he's had it for a year and half now. Not only was my mailing address in California also my residential one, but my own oldest daughter informed me she would be telling my exes I was coming and what I would be doing when I got here "because they have a right to know". From comments he made on the phone, I know they have all been in contact with one another discussing me, my every move. You don't let your worst nightmare move into town and NOT keep up with what they're doing. As if when I decided to come back, I didn't already realize the whole conspiring mob would reconnect. "The enemy of my enemy is my best friend" goes the saying. No matter what has divided them over the past ten years, I have no doubt they have "gotten over it" real quick once I stepped up and out.
But I humored him and carefully stated the physical address anyways.
What proof do I have that I have been abused? The very track record they condemn me for. No one "in their right mind" would have lived the life I lived. No one who had grown up in a healthy environment would have made the choices I have made.
I could see if I had been one of those parents who showed up once a year or every couple of years stirring up trouble, as they say, making empty promises and then wandering off again why someone might question my intentions or my ability to provide a healthy, stable environment for my children. However, I am not. I am a parent who knew her own limitations and dragged no one on a roller-coaster ride of emotionally instability while I did what I needed to get what I needed to become the parent I always wanted to be. I did not come in all aggressive, "guns blazing", wreaking havoc on anyone's life. No, I came back as quietly and patiently as possible out of respect for the discomfort I knew people would have at my presence. I quietly, respectfully and patiently sent cards and letters, not being intrusive, simply observing and allowing others their time and space, freedom of expression. I questioned myself, examined my own intentions, and waited until I was sure I had it in me to do what is needed to be what my children need. Only then did I begin to take more assertive action. This proves I am responsible and willing to sacrifice my own desires in the best interests of my children and because I can tell you, every day for the past ten years I have wanted nothing more than to kick some butt and hold my children again. I have demonstrated self control, respect for authority, and a willingness to be guided/cooperative/reasonable/open to conversation, working toward agreement. I did not get the same in return. I got ignored, belittled behind my back, discouraged, hindered, and outright attacked. It is not I who am unreasonable, paranoid nor unwilling to engage in cooperation, incapable of mature conversation.
In our society, one cannot be prosecuted for a crime unless they commit it. Yet, I am constantly treated as if I stole away and hid my children. Sure, people offered to help me do it, but in the end I sent the letters telling everyone exactly where I was and what I was doing. I am paying for a crime a never committed. I cannot even be found guilty of conspiring for in response to the offer, I waited and prayed for another option to manifest. When that opportunity came, I was relieved. Noting in me wanted to be responsible for or be forced into kidnaping my own children.
Emotional influence does not make the providing of emotional guidance healthy: my father was a child molester and provided for us emotionally. Yet what he provided was definitely not healthy.
Financial support of a child does not necessarily indicate exceptional responsibility or fitness as a parent. I had a house to live in, clothes to wear, and fod to eat as a child, even had horses, snowmobiles, four-wheelers, etc, yet my parents were unfit.
"You always blame everyone else". No, when I was avoiding confrontation, I was being a victim which is in essence blaming everyone else for my inactivity. Standing up for myself and pointing the finger in the RIGHT direction is taking responsibility for my own situation. Not pointing the finger in the right direction is taking responsibility from everyone else, which is irresponsible. I had no right taking their responsibility away by taking it upon myself.
Living in the same house and working the same job for 50 years does not make a person "stable". Consistence in emotional maturity is what makes an environment stable. Persistence in pursuing mental health and well-being is consistency and stability. Each change provides an increasingly stable environment for a child.
"Everyone who knows you....." yeah, and "everyone" who knew Hitler had good things to say about him. Public opinion really does not prove anyone's character.
PTSD may have affected my "fitness" as a parent, but it did not make me any LESS fit than the men who were abusing me and ARE abusing my daughters.
Speaking of my daughter: "She will see right through you!". "I hope she does, then she will see in me a mother who truly loves her."
"Do not yell at me." or "Do not raise your voice to me". to which I reply: "I am not yelling, I am speaking clearly and assertively" They just aren't used to hearing it from a woman.
Accusation: "Everywhere you went, you left a path of destruction behind".
Reply: No, I didn't. I left more than I ever took. The accountant was a renter, employed, and pushed around by a trainer. When I left, he had a house, became self-employed, and had his own barn, did his own training.
The unemployed JW adherent went from trailer-trash nobody to popular with the ladies, remarried, had a job with benefits.
They have absolutely beautiful children by me.
Any broken hearts can be laid upon their doorstep, if they had been good to me, I would never have had to leave.
The path of destruction is only now going to begin. But "destroying" or taking power from abusers is a GOOD thing.
Accusation: It was you who made poor choices in choosing these men.
Response: I am no more flawed in my decision making than those who recommended them to me nor those who would presently stand in their defense.
priceless: the look on my daughter's face when she tried poking at and provoking her brother and I told her "Your brother's space, his body, you will respect it".
My son won't be anyone's victim either
In empowering him, I also decrease the chances he will ever become an abuser.
Threat from ex: She is old enough that the court is going to go with her opinion and she wants nothing to do with you.
My response: No, she is old enough that the court will take her feelings into consideration, but will decide what is best for her regardless.
Another accusation from the ex: We have spent the last 10 years in fear of you coming back and kidnapping her or something. I might rejoice at them having also experienced a bit of discomfort over the past years, however it is nothing to rejoice over when one realizes that this means for the past ten years my daughters have been indoctrinated with my return being a worst nightmare. No wonder they don't want anything to do with me, if their fathers speak honestly, their fathers instilled in them a very deep fear of me. Now THAT is evil.
I had another response to the multiple attempts to degrade me with their stating that at least they are working to support their family. Working is easy. You follow a set of directions and get to it. I was relieved this summer every time I could stack wood or mow a lawn to earn money to take care of my children. Not only did it provide a means to do that, but it gives a person a sense of accomplishment and self worth. Physical labor gets energy moving, makes the heart and soul feel liberated, cleaned out. It is invigorating. Interacting with other adults can be refreshing after spending most of one's time with children. You know what ISN'T easy? Doing the inner work it takes to become a mature, healthy, happy person who can be a real asset to their children and their community. It is a grueling daily confrontation of one's own fears, faults, and thinking processes. I am sacrificing my own self-fulfillment a job could bring in exchange for attending to what needs attending to for the health and well-being of my children. There aren't even those living lives of luxury wiling to make that journey, yet I am doing it in circumstances that require I wash our clothes daily by hand in a bucket. If that's not dedication, I don't know what is.
And the ex's lie, an opportunity to "push his weight around": "I have no phone number or physical address on you. "
I included my new number in a letter I sent, but let's just humor him an apologize if I was mistaken in believing that. As for my physical address, I know for a fact he's had it for a year and half now. Not only was my mailing address in California also my residential one, but my own oldest daughter informed me she would be telling my exes I was coming and what I would be doing when I got here "because they have a right to know". From comments he made on the phone, I know they have all been in contact with one another discussing me, my every move. You don't let your worst nightmare move into town and NOT keep up with what they're doing. As if when I decided to come back, I didn't already realize the whole conspiring mob would reconnect. "The enemy of my enemy is my best friend" goes the saying. No matter what has divided them over the past ten years, I have no doubt they have "gotten over it" real quick once I stepped up and out.
But I humored him and carefully stated the physical address anyways.
What proof do I have that I have been abused? The very track record they condemn me for. No one "in their right mind" would have lived the life I lived. No one who had grown up in a healthy environment would have made the choices I have made.
I could see if I had been one of those parents who showed up once a year or every couple of years stirring up trouble, as they say, making empty promises and then wandering off again why someone might question my intentions or my ability to provide a healthy, stable environment for my children. However, I am not. I am a parent who knew her own limitations and dragged no one on a roller-coaster ride of emotionally instability while I did what I needed to get what I needed to become the parent I always wanted to be. I did not come in all aggressive, "guns blazing", wreaking havoc on anyone's life. No, I came back as quietly and patiently as possible out of respect for the discomfort I knew people would have at my presence. I quietly, respectfully and patiently sent cards and letters, not being intrusive, simply observing and allowing others their time and space, freedom of expression. I questioned myself, examined my own intentions, and waited until I was sure I had it in me to do what is needed to be what my children need. Only then did I begin to take more assertive action. This proves I am responsible and willing to sacrifice my own desires in the best interests of my children and because I can tell you, every day for the past ten years I have wanted nothing more than to kick some butt and hold my children again. I have demonstrated self control, respect for authority, and a willingness to be guided/cooperative/reasonable/open to conversation, working toward agreement. I did not get the same in return. I got ignored, belittled behind my back, discouraged, hindered, and outright attacked. It is not I who am unreasonable, paranoid nor unwilling to engage in cooperation, incapable of mature conversation.
In our society, one cannot be prosecuted for a crime unless they commit it. Yet, I am constantly treated as if I stole away and hid my children. Sure, people offered to help me do it, but in the end I sent the letters telling everyone exactly where I was and what I was doing. I am paying for a crime a never committed. I cannot even be found guilty of conspiring for in response to the offer, I waited and prayed for another option to manifest. When that opportunity came, I was relieved. Noting in me wanted to be responsible for or be forced into kidnaping my own children.
Where are thier flowers?
3 people died in the Boston bombing. 55 died in the Texas explosion. Within moments of the Boston bombing Facebook was flooded with prayer requests, candles and calls for vengence. A day later and not a single prayer request, candle nor call for action has been made on behalf of the 55 nor thier community. Those 55 died in a plant that exists to support our mass consumerism, our lifestyle. That's 55 lives lost doing a job that makes our lives easier. Are we so resistent to change that we would rather focus on kiling a boy from Chechnya than look in the mirror and ask: could I change me? Could I change my lifestyle? Could I become a little more self sufficient so people don't have to work jobs like that, putting their lives on the line each and every day? Can I do it for thier children who just lost thier parents? But no, unless our society is willing to prove me wrong, it will be the government to blame, it will be the company, the inspection officials, etc. And everyone will go back to sleep at night, content because they will have fertilizer for their pretty little gardens and farmers growing our vegetables will have them at the grocery store when it's convenient for us.....and we will have someone else to blame.
Take the money for your cable TV and invest it instead on pots and seeds, get some manure from your local farmer, plant a garden on your balcony and feed those fresh vegetables to your family.
Take the money for your cable TV and invest it instead on pots and seeds, get some manure from your local farmer, plant a garden on your balcony and feed those fresh vegetables to your family.
Thursday, April 18, 2013
The Bowl of Water
The Bowl of Water;
A Journey
Take a large glass bowl to the ocean, river, lake or stream. Fill it with water. Bring it home. Place it as a centerpiece on your table. Look into that water. what would it feel like to swim in that water, to drink that water, be refreshed and renewed by it? Love that bowl of water.
That bowl of water is you.
Now go back to the ocean with a glass. Fill the glass with water and bring it home. Pour that glass of water into your bowl. This is that which we call God coming to visit you. Can you see the difference between the new water and old? No.
But there are differences when it arrives and when it leaves. Maybe you saw ripples in your bowl, a disturbance of sorts. Maybe the temperature of the water in your bowl changed as your moods change. Maybe some of the water spilled over onto the table out into the world or into another vessel or container. Maybe the spill was in the form of tears you cried, the impact for good or evil you had on someone else. Maybe it was the birth of a child or a healing miracle. Maybe the wind blew in a way that was unusual.
One day you notice the water level is lower. You never noticed the evaporation occuring, but there it is; water has left your bowl. After some time without that water moving or being refreshed, scum might begin to apear. The water begins to grow stale, grow mold, not have enough oxygen in it to sustain life. It ceases to breathe.
We may be closer to God than we think, closer than the world would have us to believe because it does not like the ripples, the temperature changes, the impact we leave. Maybe we feel abandoned because we are not perceiving God as anything but ourselves making ourselves crazy, conflicting with what the world would have us believe.
Be assured, so long as those inner waters are moving, overflowing, disagreeing,....God is visiting.
Maybe someone else has let their water grow old and we don't want it spilling into our bowl. Maybe someone else's mold is floating at the top of our bowl until our next over flow. Maybe we can sense an overflow about to occur and choose how to use it, where to direct it. We never know.....some of it is under our control. But we cannot always control other bowls. we cannot always control our own bowl.
Sometimes the ocean comes to us. Sometimes we go to the ocean. Sometimes someone else has gone to the ocean for us. Sometimes a stranger comes to our town, someone from the past "out of the blue", overflowing with water and stirring up trouble, the mold out of old, stagnant waters. mold going from bowl to bowl, back and forth again and again, never ending.
Explore the potentials, follow the water. Where does it flow? Is someone else's overflow just your old mold coming back to be returned to your bowl? Know your own mold. if you're a regular flower, know that it wasn't. You may have carried it so long, it has become so familar, you don't remember when it wasn't there. And sometimes, maybe ya just don't care. it's mold. It's water. It's there.
Maybe we wonder why we are always the center of trouble, all we are ever doing is flowing.
All rivers flow back to the ocean, all waters seek to return to their source. The more the source is in you, the more rivers come seeking to overflow into you. the muddy ones, the crystal clear springs......
So dance. So sing. So keep those waters flowing.
Sometimes they'll be crazy spirits. Sometimes they'll be animals hurting.
It is all water and it is all flowing.
it is all madness. It is all peace. It is all moving.
Even in the least.
It is ever flowing, washing you right out of your seat, knocking you off your feet, out of your comfort zone, leaving you someplace alone.
It comes in waves.
It flows steady.
It's oceans are stormy.
It's rivers are glistening.
Are you listening?
In it's vessels it is speaking.
Do we only hear it when it is a wave crashing, or do we notice gurgling and splashing? Can we discern a trickle? When it causes a leaf to be set to rustling?
Do we set up great dams within ourselves so it does come crashing and foaming, so we know we are alive and flowing because we failed to notice or believe the slow, steady trickle?
Do we only allow ourselves to flow when others are flowing?
Do we only allow it for special occassions?
How often DO we choose our own reality, our stagnation, our own death and dying?
When is it giving us answers but we add our dams to it, our mold, corrupting it's intention and effectiveness?
How often do we take it personally when it shouldn't be?
It is the ocean making them angry, not the individual.
It is the ocean they are fighting, not you or me.
We are simply all they can see.
we are the only part of the ocean they know.
It is the part of which they are aware.
It's the only part for which they care.
All those flowing emotions are symptoms of God speaking to me.
When I rail at something outside me, to change something, it is a symptom of God within me speaking, with whom I am arguing. I am running, I am refusing an opportunity to see something.
It is the water flowing, trying to overcome the dams within me.
And sometimes it is telling me it is something that needs doing, something I am refusing.
Sometimes it wants me alone, to it's self, so it's gift can be fully developed within me. So a process can become complete. So, I miss an opportunity, I am deprived of something, the computer won't be working, a ship keeps on sailing. I wasn't yet ready, full, complete. I was too busy, I wasn't listening.
God only yells at you when you aren't listening.
But if you do listen, he is quiet and patient and long-suffering. He is entertaining.
It is a He when it is in control of things. (get the meaning, not the words that I here speak)
Do you feel the energy?
Did you take the journey?
Do you 'see' the peace?
Do you now recognize me?
This is me.
Recognize me.
It is God who is speaking.
http://crystalmorningstar.blogspot.com/
A Journey
Take a large glass bowl to the ocean, river, lake or stream. Fill it with water. Bring it home. Place it as a centerpiece on your table. Look into that water. what would it feel like to swim in that water, to drink that water, be refreshed and renewed by it? Love that bowl of water.
That bowl of water is you.
Now go back to the ocean with a glass. Fill the glass with water and bring it home. Pour that glass of water into your bowl. This is that which we call God coming to visit you. Can you see the difference between the new water and old? No.
But there are differences when it arrives and when it leaves. Maybe you saw ripples in your bowl, a disturbance of sorts. Maybe the temperature of the water in your bowl changed as your moods change. Maybe some of the water spilled over onto the table out into the world or into another vessel or container. Maybe the spill was in the form of tears you cried, the impact for good or evil you had on someone else. Maybe it was the birth of a child or a healing miracle. Maybe the wind blew in a way that was unusual.
One day you notice the water level is lower. You never noticed the evaporation occuring, but there it is; water has left your bowl. After some time without that water moving or being refreshed, scum might begin to apear. The water begins to grow stale, grow mold, not have enough oxygen in it to sustain life. It ceases to breathe.
We may be closer to God than we think, closer than the world would have us to believe because it does not like the ripples, the temperature changes, the impact we leave. Maybe we feel abandoned because we are not perceiving God as anything but ourselves making ourselves crazy, conflicting with what the world would have us believe.
Be assured, so long as those inner waters are moving, overflowing, disagreeing,....God is visiting.
Maybe someone else has let their water grow old and we don't want it spilling into our bowl. Maybe someone else's mold is floating at the top of our bowl until our next over flow. Maybe we can sense an overflow about to occur and choose how to use it, where to direct it. We never know.....some of it is under our control. But we cannot always control other bowls. we cannot always control our own bowl.
Sometimes the ocean comes to us. Sometimes we go to the ocean. Sometimes someone else has gone to the ocean for us. Sometimes a stranger comes to our town, someone from the past "out of the blue", overflowing with water and stirring up trouble, the mold out of old, stagnant waters. mold going from bowl to bowl, back and forth again and again, never ending.
Explore the potentials, follow the water. Where does it flow? Is someone else's overflow just your old mold coming back to be returned to your bowl? Know your own mold. if you're a regular flower, know that it wasn't. You may have carried it so long, it has become so familar, you don't remember when it wasn't there. And sometimes, maybe ya just don't care. it's mold. It's water. It's there.
Maybe we wonder why we are always the center of trouble, all we are ever doing is flowing.
All rivers flow back to the ocean, all waters seek to return to their source. The more the source is in you, the more rivers come seeking to overflow into you. the muddy ones, the crystal clear springs......
So dance. So sing. So keep those waters flowing.
Sometimes they'll be crazy spirits. Sometimes they'll be animals hurting.
It is all water and it is all flowing.
it is all madness. It is all peace. It is all moving.
Even in the least.
It is ever flowing, washing you right out of your seat, knocking you off your feet, out of your comfort zone, leaving you someplace alone.
It comes in waves.
It flows steady.
It's oceans are stormy.
It's rivers are glistening.
Are you listening?
In it's vessels it is speaking.
Do we only hear it when it is a wave crashing, or do we notice gurgling and splashing? Can we discern a trickle? When it causes a leaf to be set to rustling?
Do we set up great dams within ourselves so it does come crashing and foaming, so we know we are alive and flowing because we failed to notice or believe the slow, steady trickle?
Do we only allow ourselves to flow when others are flowing?
Do we only allow it for special occassions?
How often DO we choose our own reality, our stagnation, our own death and dying?
When is it giving us answers but we add our dams to it, our mold, corrupting it's intention and effectiveness?
How often do we take it personally when it shouldn't be?
It is the ocean making them angry, not the individual.
It is the ocean they are fighting, not you or me.
We are simply all they can see.
we are the only part of the ocean they know.
It is the part of which they are aware.
It's the only part for which they care.
All those flowing emotions are symptoms of God speaking to me.
When I rail at something outside me, to change something, it is a symptom of God within me speaking, with whom I am arguing. I am running, I am refusing an opportunity to see something.
It is the water flowing, trying to overcome the dams within me.
And sometimes it is telling me it is something that needs doing, something I am refusing.
Sometimes it wants me alone, to it's self, so it's gift can be fully developed within me. So a process can become complete. So, I miss an opportunity, I am deprived of something, the computer won't be working, a ship keeps on sailing. I wasn't yet ready, full, complete. I was too busy, I wasn't listening.
God only yells at you when you aren't listening.
But if you do listen, he is quiet and patient and long-suffering. He is entertaining.
It is a He when it is in control of things. (get the meaning, not the words that I here speak)
Do you feel the energy?
Did you take the journey?
Do you 'see' the peace?
Do you now recognize me?
This is me.
Recognize me.
It is God who is speaking.
http://crystalmorningstar.blogspot.com/
In Plain Sight When Nobody is Looking
For me, this was one of the most traumatic aspects of the abuse I received. Amongst other people when focus was distracted elsewhere, the abuser would quick grab me. First was the embarrassment at being fondled in the presence of other people. That comes with the smug look of the abuser daring and implying: I can get you any time, anywhere and nobody will notice or care. Sure enough, people turn their attention back, I'm a mess I think anyone could see and maybe one intuitive person might ask if everything is alright, but for the most part nobody notices and thus the implied threat-nobody cares. And as for the one who might ask, you don't even consider answering honestly. The abuser, you know is listening, is watching intently for your response to the question. Waking in the middle of the night to hands under your nightgown already tells you he will even get you while everyone is sleeping. Saying something does not guarantee he won't get you later.
It got especially devastating as I got older. Sitting in the truck, as close to the passenger door as possible, Dad stops for gas. The attendant is one of my classmates. He asks what is wanted, Dad answers and as the attendant turns away, my dad quick reaches over before I know it and squeezes between my legs, drawing his arm back quickly as the attendant steps away from the pump and can again see into the truck. My father laughs at me as I fight back crying. It's humiliating.
Then the day came when we were standing on the front lawn. He walks straight up to me and grabs my breast. Infuriated, I scream "I'm going to tell Mom!". He steps up into my face with a glint in his eye and says "I dare you". So, I did. Mom says she was going to divorce him anyways. She took the information, told my dad she wanted everything in the divorce or she would go to the police with what I told her. She got everything but the John Deere tractor. That was to be sold and put in savings for our college educations. That never happened and became the end of the story. No one was ever told what happened, but somewhere the rumor surfaced that the reason I didn't spend time with my dad was because I was mad at him because he caught me having sex with my boyfriend. I was still a virgin. I was labeled as whore while yet a virgin. By family. And when I did finally have sex with my first real boyfriend, my mother was right there to remind me: "You're disgusting! You're filthy" Slut! Whore! Trash!" went the rant. Was already one anyways. damage was already done, it couldn't hurt any more than it did already.
He was right. Nobody cared about what he did to me.
Unless it made them angry. I remember on one occasion my mother got that plotting look in her eye. She was angry with me and wanted to instigate my sister against me. She began with some little grudges she reminded my sister she had against me and once she began to get her riled she told my sister "Oh, yeah. And she said your father raped her". My sister in a blind rage shoved me up against a refrigerator so hard it smashed and punctured the wall behind it. My mother gloated over her misdeed. There is one thing in which both my sister and I agree: my mother is not happy unless her children are suffering. Yes, she loves us to a degree, but it is overshadowed by an intense hate, resentment and jealousy. Something she no doubt had ingrained into her as a child. It is her own self loathing being projected at us. But again: she is twenty years older than I am. She could have learned what she needed to overcome her own issues and stop being abusive to her children. Instead she has been instrumental in conspiring with our children's fathers to have them removed from our custody. Even now she is interfering with my sister's exes, manipulating them into keeping one son from her and trying to convince the older to leave his mother. A world never feels safe when we are betrayed by our own parents and some people, some things just never change.
Of course I've been out in the world extensively and have found very caring people, appalled by what has happened to me, though I have never told so much of the story before this. When people are too shocked or outraged, I don't really respond well to them. Their anger as intense as that which abused me it feels like sometimes. For some people it's an all too common story they have heard many versions of and their acceptance that yes, this really does happen all the time, is reassuring. While other's non-chalance and complete indifference feels belittling. The nicest thing is when someone just listens and believes. A hug is reassuring if we are at a point where we can let that in. But for me, hugs from grown adults without any sexual intent were as foreign as another language. Something I was very uncomfortable with at first. and then couldn't get enough of as I received that which I had been deprived of all my life: warm, loving, nurturing.
In plain sight, somebody loved me. That. Is priceless.
It got especially devastating as I got older. Sitting in the truck, as close to the passenger door as possible, Dad stops for gas. The attendant is one of my classmates. He asks what is wanted, Dad answers and as the attendant turns away, my dad quick reaches over before I know it and squeezes between my legs, drawing his arm back quickly as the attendant steps away from the pump and can again see into the truck. My father laughs at me as I fight back crying. It's humiliating.
Then the day came when we were standing on the front lawn. He walks straight up to me and grabs my breast. Infuriated, I scream "I'm going to tell Mom!". He steps up into my face with a glint in his eye and says "I dare you". So, I did. Mom says she was going to divorce him anyways. She took the information, told my dad she wanted everything in the divorce or she would go to the police with what I told her. She got everything but the John Deere tractor. That was to be sold and put in savings for our college educations. That never happened and became the end of the story. No one was ever told what happened, but somewhere the rumor surfaced that the reason I didn't spend time with my dad was because I was mad at him because he caught me having sex with my boyfriend. I was still a virgin. I was labeled as whore while yet a virgin. By family. And when I did finally have sex with my first real boyfriend, my mother was right there to remind me: "You're disgusting! You're filthy" Slut! Whore! Trash!" went the rant. Was already one anyways. damage was already done, it couldn't hurt any more than it did already.
He was right. Nobody cared about what he did to me.
Unless it made them angry. I remember on one occasion my mother got that plotting look in her eye. She was angry with me and wanted to instigate my sister against me. She began with some little grudges she reminded my sister she had against me and once she began to get her riled she told my sister "Oh, yeah. And she said your father raped her". My sister in a blind rage shoved me up against a refrigerator so hard it smashed and punctured the wall behind it. My mother gloated over her misdeed. There is one thing in which both my sister and I agree: my mother is not happy unless her children are suffering. Yes, she loves us to a degree, but it is overshadowed by an intense hate, resentment and jealousy. Something she no doubt had ingrained into her as a child. It is her own self loathing being projected at us. But again: she is twenty years older than I am. She could have learned what she needed to overcome her own issues and stop being abusive to her children. Instead she has been instrumental in conspiring with our children's fathers to have them removed from our custody. Even now she is interfering with my sister's exes, manipulating them into keeping one son from her and trying to convince the older to leave his mother. A world never feels safe when we are betrayed by our own parents and some people, some things just never change.
Of course I've been out in the world extensively and have found very caring people, appalled by what has happened to me, though I have never told so much of the story before this. When people are too shocked or outraged, I don't really respond well to them. Their anger as intense as that which abused me it feels like sometimes. For some people it's an all too common story they have heard many versions of and their acceptance that yes, this really does happen all the time, is reassuring. While other's non-chalance and complete indifference feels belittling. The nicest thing is when someone just listens and believes. A hug is reassuring if we are at a point where we can let that in. But for me, hugs from grown adults without any sexual intent were as foreign as another language. Something I was very uncomfortable with at first. and then couldn't get enough of as I received that which I had been deprived of all my life: warm, loving, nurturing.
In plain sight, somebody loved me. That. Is priceless.
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
I think I might be ready to start voting
All the fervor about the Boston Marathon bombs, the screaming out for vengence by some, reminded me of something: At 18 or 19 years old I was working in a convenience store when the propaganda for Desert Storm began. In the beggining the public was against the war. Then began all the patriotic fervor, the patriotic songs on the radio, anything glorifying America and war. The tide of public opinion was turned in favor of the war. I sat there amazed that people could be so easily manipulated. Because of emotional manipulations, my male classmates were going to be sent off to be killed and we are going to be expected to feel sorry for their families because they were so darn gullible. I never registered to vote. Could anyone guarentee me that the man I voted for wouldn't do such a thing? Could I ever get to know a candidate that intimately? I think not.
Sam Walton, founder of Walmart had a store policy. It was included in his will that every Walmart would allow overnight camping and sleeping in cars. His son had been murdered because he was homeless and did not have a safe place ot sleep in his car. In recent history the baby boomers became reborn hippies, but in comfort and style: they'd rubber tramp it in RV's. The sheer size of their generation opened the door to increased opportunity in RV park bussiness. But how were they to get the baby boomer's money if they were just camping out at Walmart? So, in one community after another laws making it illegal to camp out within city limits were voted in. Oh, it was for "the good of the children", I'm sure. Homeless people were the only ones staying at Walmart, they left messes and robbed people, right? Well, now there are homeless children sleeping in cars in dark, unsafe areas.
Some woman, loving wife to a husband, probably rushed to vote in a law that would make her husband safer at work. Little did she know she was instead voting him out of work and her children out of a home. You see, my uncle had a large business. He started a safety program with it. He then had the Maine lawmakers sign in a law requiring all material handling bussiness be required to send their employees through the safety program. Most of his competition was made up of smaller bussiness who could not afford it. Thus, they would be forced out of bussiness. I remember the family drinking and celebrating it. There was no illusion of any other intent. My mother helped in establishing the program. I guess they didn't expect any of us there to have a problem with it.
It's things like these that made me not even consider registering to vote. How could anyone trust any law would accomplish what they advertised as it's intentions? How could anyone truly know what was behind one? I have only seen evil accomplished. Then there are those that would say it is people like me who would look behind the propaganda, inform themselves and thus be best equipped to vote. As a matter of fact, they would probably insist we need voters like me.
Then I remember when I took a stand in my community. Many were complaining about the animal control officer in Plymouth. They accused her of things like stealing a purebred dog, breeding it to her purebreed, charging fees for recovering the dog and then selling off the puppies. When aproached to take action, I filled out the appropriate paperwork for such complaints. I then went back to the individuals who asked such action to be taken, letting them know we now needed first hand accounts written by them, their stories. Every single one of them backed down. The most significant one was a riding instructor who backed out because "I'll lose clients". Oh, so I stood up, stuck my neck out and ya'll leave me hanging looking like a fool making empty accusation against a woman I do not know. Thanks. In the end it was that very same riding instructor whose false accusations against me as a mother were quoted in an illegally applied restraining order removing my children from me. And I should be concerned about this community why? They may need voters like me, but they sure as heck won't have their backs, in my experience.
But now I am hit with another perception. Not everyone would abandon me. And I don't have to be an activist to vote, or I could limit my activism to voting. In the least, I could just simply be one "no" to cancel out one gullible mother or wife out there voting "yes" to "protect the children". And when it comes to president: "none of the above" would be accurate. I could do it for my own children, their rights to be free of more and more limitations and legalities. And as for the Boston Marathon, the bombs were probably someone's act of vengence against you, oh holy vengence seeker "for the sake of the children". Whether it be the "terrorist" whose country is being blown up by America's bombs, killing their children or whether it be someone who was bullied exacting vengence on society in general. No one who has not experienced pain wakes up one morning and suddenly decides to entertain themselves by killing people. No matter who it was, without a doubt, their motive, conscious or unconscious, was vengence "for the sake of the children"......just like you.
Sam Walton, founder of Walmart had a store policy. It was included in his will that every Walmart would allow overnight camping and sleeping in cars. His son had been murdered because he was homeless and did not have a safe place ot sleep in his car. In recent history the baby boomers became reborn hippies, but in comfort and style: they'd rubber tramp it in RV's. The sheer size of their generation opened the door to increased opportunity in RV park bussiness. But how were they to get the baby boomer's money if they were just camping out at Walmart? So, in one community after another laws making it illegal to camp out within city limits were voted in. Oh, it was for "the good of the children", I'm sure. Homeless people were the only ones staying at Walmart, they left messes and robbed people, right? Well, now there are homeless children sleeping in cars in dark, unsafe areas.
Some woman, loving wife to a husband, probably rushed to vote in a law that would make her husband safer at work. Little did she know she was instead voting him out of work and her children out of a home. You see, my uncle had a large business. He started a safety program with it. He then had the Maine lawmakers sign in a law requiring all material handling bussiness be required to send their employees through the safety program. Most of his competition was made up of smaller bussiness who could not afford it. Thus, they would be forced out of bussiness. I remember the family drinking and celebrating it. There was no illusion of any other intent. My mother helped in establishing the program. I guess they didn't expect any of us there to have a problem with it.
It's things like these that made me not even consider registering to vote. How could anyone trust any law would accomplish what they advertised as it's intentions? How could anyone truly know what was behind one? I have only seen evil accomplished. Then there are those that would say it is people like me who would look behind the propaganda, inform themselves and thus be best equipped to vote. As a matter of fact, they would probably insist we need voters like me.
Then I remember when I took a stand in my community. Many were complaining about the animal control officer in Plymouth. They accused her of things like stealing a purebred dog, breeding it to her purebreed, charging fees for recovering the dog and then selling off the puppies. When aproached to take action, I filled out the appropriate paperwork for such complaints. I then went back to the individuals who asked such action to be taken, letting them know we now needed first hand accounts written by them, their stories. Every single one of them backed down. The most significant one was a riding instructor who backed out because "I'll lose clients". Oh, so I stood up, stuck my neck out and ya'll leave me hanging looking like a fool making empty accusation against a woman I do not know. Thanks. In the end it was that very same riding instructor whose false accusations against me as a mother were quoted in an illegally applied restraining order removing my children from me. And I should be concerned about this community why? They may need voters like me, but they sure as heck won't have their backs, in my experience.
But now I am hit with another perception. Not everyone would abandon me. And I don't have to be an activist to vote, or I could limit my activism to voting. In the least, I could just simply be one "no" to cancel out one gullible mother or wife out there voting "yes" to "protect the children". And when it comes to president: "none of the above" would be accurate. I could do it for my own children, their rights to be free of more and more limitations and legalities. And as for the Boston Marathon, the bombs were probably someone's act of vengence against you, oh holy vengence seeker "for the sake of the children". Whether it be the "terrorist" whose country is being blown up by America's bombs, killing their children or whether it be someone who was bullied exacting vengence on society in general. No one who has not experienced pain wakes up one morning and suddenly decides to entertain themselves by killing people. No matter who it was, without a doubt, their motive, conscious or unconscious, was vengence "for the sake of the children"......just like you.
Healing the children
I intended to begin with the huge steps of healing I have seen occur within my youngest daughter as she gained trust in me with each step I took in becoming the sole, supreme authority in our environment. The more I appropriately asserted myself, the more she opened up and began to heal. The more I defended her, the more she trusted me, opened up to me, became reliant upon me for example and guidence. But it occurs to me, we cannot give to another what is not already within us. Before I could even begin to know what to do for my children, I had to rise to the defense of myself, my own inner child, the parts of me that have been wounded, twisted and repressed.
My mother yelled at me this past summer "You need to stop blaming everyone else and take responsibility for yourself" and "You just show up every ten years blaming everyone else for everything". Number one) as an abused child whose motives were always brought into question, who was always blamed for everyone else's emotions and problems, I am always the first to blame me for ANYTHING wrong in my environment. I was raised hearing constantly how we children were the cause of all my mother's troubles. Even upon this return to Maine, the response was "I have to check with ("my boyfriend"). After all we have been through because of you kids I am not sure he will want me to help you. I will not lose him because of you. He has stuck by me these past ten years through everything you kids have put us through", but even more revealing "I am getting old and no one else will want me". So, now we are responsible for her age, her insecurities, and worse, those will take priority over mine and my young children's well-being. She, in essence, is saying we will have to remain homeless and peniless if this man does not agree to allow her to take us in. I highly doubt this man would deny a home to my children. He is, if anything, overprotective. But who knows what twisted version of events my mother would tell him. She is a praticed liar and denier. I do not blame her completely. I love her dearly and passionately. I know her growing up environment. At the same time, I balance it out with the fact that I am 43 years old. She has had 20 years more of life and far more resources available to her than I ever did, and yet I am taking responsibility in defending myself and scratching my way through minimal resources to access books and programs to help myself help my children. And number two) 10 years ago I only began to ask people not to speak to my children in certain ways and not to touch them in certain ways. I blamed no one for anything, I simply changed the standard of behaviors I would accept in our envirnment. It is not my fault anyone else took it personally. It was not my fault their own consciences condemned them , because I certainly didn't. As a matter of fact, the reason I ended up being the one punished for their irresponsibility with 10 years of exile from my children and family was because I failed to make other people take responsibility for THEIR mistreating me and my children, THIER emotions, and THEIR poor choices. I accepted responsibility for everything. No one need preach to me about taking responsibility. I need reminding NOT to take responsibility for everything.
THAT is what I am now changing. As a child I did not invite my father to touch me inapropriately. It was not because I failed to put my clothes away in a timely fashion that my mother smashed my head against the wall. My father had predatory sexual dysfunctions and my mother couldn't hold her temper. Another accusation that comes from my mother is "You only remember the bad things". This is a lie. I remember the good, I live in the good. The god is why I am even alive. The problem is that the good is the only thing anyone else acknowledges. They do it forcefully, defensively, publically, before any accusations are ever made because they are determined to avoid and deny the bad for themselves. They claim to be above "drama". They claim to be focused only on positive, making them "good", "positive", "upbuilding" people to be around, making them oh, so much better, politically correct and socially acceptable. This only forces the equal and opposite to assert it's self. I am, in essence, forced to assert and acknowledge for myself the rest of the picture. It is a matter of FULL acceptence. It is a matter of complete honesty. It is a matter of intellectual and emotional survival. THIS is all of me. This is ALL of my family. This is ALL of my community. THIS is the true picture. Forcefully projecting and emphasizing only the positive is only allowing the existence of one half of the truth. It is crippling one's self and everyone else. It is a lie. It is lopsided, imbalanced, unhealthy. It creates the need for those who do not want to die inside with courage to explode with "the rest of the story". It is the cause for the increase in violence in our society and amongst families.
So, ten years later I come back facing the same projecting of responsibility for everyone else's problems and I defend myself. That is hardly blaming everyone else for everything. You know what is blaming everyone else for everything? When I was accused with blame for my neighbor's daughter's drug habit because I moved my daughter (who was her best friend 10 years ago) away. I was blamed for a former friend's hurt and her world suddenly growing smaller because she never even offered to help me escape my abusive circumstances, so I instead moved out of state. Of course I'm going to deny responsibility for any of those problems. They are not mine. I did not create them. Those people created them for themselves. I already sacrificed my soul for these people once. It won't be happening a second time. They have had 10 years to learn how to love and take responsibility for themselves. It is they who have failed, not I. And now a part of me wants to declare instinctively "Just give me my children and I will go in peace". But is that in essence what I long for? Is it what any of needs? No. I just want to be able to love and help heal my children. I just want to stop being blamed for everything. I want to stay and love my neighbors and family, even if they choose to stay in a state of denial. I do not wish to change anyone else, I just want the freedom to be my whole compassionate self. And the reason why I can be so compassionate is because I understand from first hand experience why people behave as they do. I have been there myself. By accepting and asserting all of me, I am better able to accept, respect and assert, defend, other people appropriately.
I remember as a child once going to a classmate's house for an after school visit. Her house was clean and spacious, bright and sunny. Her mom was baking and her dad came home, giving her mom an affectionate kiss on the cheek. They were pleasant to eachother and their children. Inside I panicked and screamed. This was abnormal, it had to be a trick, deceit. I wanted to run out of the house screaming. I wanted to cry and ask to go home. That place was not natural. Later in life I worked at Subway. I was promoted because one customer came in and told the manager how unsafe they had felt when a drunk came in. The customer raved about how I had adeptly handled it and the man left without hurting anyone or causing damage. I didn't think I had done anything special. Isn't it only natural to know how to diffuse an angry drunk with laughter? To question why I may not have been able to make "better" choices in men or to go without them completely is unreasonable. I grew up with my environment teaching me you always had do whatever it took to have the attention and approval of men. A woman could not live without one. If she did not have one, there was something wrong with her. And ther type of men a woman wanted to please where men like these. Anyone's natural basis of self-approval is a product of their environment.
It is only now that I come back and see what is here as unhealthy. It is only now I am metaphorically at a friend's house watching the interactions and shocked by how unnatural it is. Respectful, honest, affectionate interactions are now what is natural to me. If I did not perceive myself as having to be subject to it, I would perceive no need to defend myself against it. But it has something I need: my children. It will not give them back willingly. It tells me not even trying is the best thing through the mouths of my mother and grandmother. Do I really need my children? No, but I want them. I would heal any child in this world I am able. But these children are the only ones my environment will even recognize any possibility of a right to do that with. And in good conscience, I cannot replace my children. They are a part of me, a piece of my very flesh quickened to life, released from my body and given a voice of it's own. A voice that is twisted and oppressed. A voice I wish to release into this world for it's own benefit. They are each unique and valuable. In my heart they each have a place of special affection, a connection of shared memories and experiences. A need within them to be loved and fully accepted by the parent from whom they were born. That cannot be replaced for them. I am not replaceable for them no matter what anyone tells them. And I know it.
Part of my healing is occuring in a small part because my mother is allowing me to stay here after all. Because of the stand I took, she no longer stalks me and harrasses me about money or responsibilities. I am able to at least take on the electric bill now that I have an income. I did so freely without anyone asking. It's only natural to want to, not only for my own sense of security, self-worth, etc but also out of love, affection and appreciation for my mother's allowing me to be here. I know it is not easy for her. I would lift all her burdens from her if I could. If she lay sick and dying I would lay in her hospital bed with her if she allowed it. But that is the problem. We who have been twisted into thinking we do not deserve love and respect, simple honor, do not allow it in. We shove it away. We deny our need for it. We won't even accept it from ourselves, so why would we take it from someone else? Thanks be to God, I am beyond that. I absolutely prefer love, respect and honor. It is no longer even awkard for me to receive and allow it. I naturally return it freely. I naturaly offer it first, before even asked or invited. I assume it's natural right to existence and to be given priority in my environment while allowing and overlooking it's occassional absense in those around me if able, if appropriate.
The road home can be a long, hard journey when it seems everything is working against you. But that journey home within one's self is well worth it, in my opinion. And if it brings you home to your family, we are all that much better off for it.
Be the change you wish to see in the world.
My mother yelled at me this past summer "You need to stop blaming everyone else and take responsibility for yourself" and "You just show up every ten years blaming everyone else for everything". Number one) as an abused child whose motives were always brought into question, who was always blamed for everyone else's emotions and problems, I am always the first to blame me for ANYTHING wrong in my environment. I was raised hearing constantly how we children were the cause of all my mother's troubles. Even upon this return to Maine, the response was "I have to check with ("my boyfriend"). After all we have been through because of you kids I am not sure he will want me to help you. I will not lose him because of you. He has stuck by me these past ten years through everything you kids have put us through", but even more revealing "I am getting old and no one else will want me". So, now we are responsible for her age, her insecurities, and worse, those will take priority over mine and my young children's well-being. She, in essence, is saying we will have to remain homeless and peniless if this man does not agree to allow her to take us in. I highly doubt this man would deny a home to my children. He is, if anything, overprotective. But who knows what twisted version of events my mother would tell him. She is a praticed liar and denier. I do not blame her completely. I love her dearly and passionately. I know her growing up environment. At the same time, I balance it out with the fact that I am 43 years old. She has had 20 years more of life and far more resources available to her than I ever did, and yet I am taking responsibility in defending myself and scratching my way through minimal resources to access books and programs to help myself help my children. And number two) 10 years ago I only began to ask people not to speak to my children in certain ways and not to touch them in certain ways. I blamed no one for anything, I simply changed the standard of behaviors I would accept in our envirnment. It is not my fault anyone else took it personally. It was not my fault their own consciences condemned them , because I certainly didn't. As a matter of fact, the reason I ended up being the one punished for their irresponsibility with 10 years of exile from my children and family was because I failed to make other people take responsibility for THEIR mistreating me and my children, THIER emotions, and THEIR poor choices. I accepted responsibility for everything. No one need preach to me about taking responsibility. I need reminding NOT to take responsibility for everything.
THAT is what I am now changing. As a child I did not invite my father to touch me inapropriately. It was not because I failed to put my clothes away in a timely fashion that my mother smashed my head against the wall. My father had predatory sexual dysfunctions and my mother couldn't hold her temper. Another accusation that comes from my mother is "You only remember the bad things". This is a lie. I remember the good, I live in the good. The god is why I am even alive. The problem is that the good is the only thing anyone else acknowledges. They do it forcefully, defensively, publically, before any accusations are ever made because they are determined to avoid and deny the bad for themselves. They claim to be above "drama". They claim to be focused only on positive, making them "good", "positive", "upbuilding" people to be around, making them oh, so much better, politically correct and socially acceptable. This only forces the equal and opposite to assert it's self. I am, in essence, forced to assert and acknowledge for myself the rest of the picture. It is a matter of FULL acceptence. It is a matter of complete honesty. It is a matter of intellectual and emotional survival. THIS is all of me. This is ALL of my family. This is ALL of my community. THIS is the true picture. Forcefully projecting and emphasizing only the positive is only allowing the existence of one half of the truth. It is crippling one's self and everyone else. It is a lie. It is lopsided, imbalanced, unhealthy. It creates the need for those who do not want to die inside with courage to explode with "the rest of the story". It is the cause for the increase in violence in our society and amongst families.
So, ten years later I come back facing the same projecting of responsibility for everyone else's problems and I defend myself. That is hardly blaming everyone else for everything. You know what is blaming everyone else for everything? When I was accused with blame for my neighbor's daughter's drug habit because I moved my daughter (who was her best friend 10 years ago) away. I was blamed for a former friend's hurt and her world suddenly growing smaller because she never even offered to help me escape my abusive circumstances, so I instead moved out of state. Of course I'm going to deny responsibility for any of those problems. They are not mine. I did not create them. Those people created them for themselves. I already sacrificed my soul for these people once. It won't be happening a second time. They have had 10 years to learn how to love and take responsibility for themselves. It is they who have failed, not I. And now a part of me wants to declare instinctively "Just give me my children and I will go in peace". But is that in essence what I long for? Is it what any of needs? No. I just want to be able to love and help heal my children. I just want to stop being blamed for everything. I want to stay and love my neighbors and family, even if they choose to stay in a state of denial. I do not wish to change anyone else, I just want the freedom to be my whole compassionate self. And the reason why I can be so compassionate is because I understand from first hand experience why people behave as they do. I have been there myself. By accepting and asserting all of me, I am better able to accept, respect and assert, defend, other people appropriately.
I remember as a child once going to a classmate's house for an after school visit. Her house was clean and spacious, bright and sunny. Her mom was baking and her dad came home, giving her mom an affectionate kiss on the cheek. They were pleasant to eachother and their children. Inside I panicked and screamed. This was abnormal, it had to be a trick, deceit. I wanted to run out of the house screaming. I wanted to cry and ask to go home. That place was not natural. Later in life I worked at Subway. I was promoted because one customer came in and told the manager how unsafe they had felt when a drunk came in. The customer raved about how I had adeptly handled it and the man left without hurting anyone or causing damage. I didn't think I had done anything special. Isn't it only natural to know how to diffuse an angry drunk with laughter? To question why I may not have been able to make "better" choices in men or to go without them completely is unreasonable. I grew up with my environment teaching me you always had do whatever it took to have the attention and approval of men. A woman could not live without one. If she did not have one, there was something wrong with her. And ther type of men a woman wanted to please where men like these. Anyone's natural basis of self-approval is a product of their environment.
It is only now that I come back and see what is here as unhealthy. It is only now I am metaphorically at a friend's house watching the interactions and shocked by how unnatural it is. Respectful, honest, affectionate interactions are now what is natural to me. If I did not perceive myself as having to be subject to it, I would perceive no need to defend myself against it. But it has something I need: my children. It will not give them back willingly. It tells me not even trying is the best thing through the mouths of my mother and grandmother. Do I really need my children? No, but I want them. I would heal any child in this world I am able. But these children are the only ones my environment will even recognize any possibility of a right to do that with. And in good conscience, I cannot replace my children. They are a part of me, a piece of my very flesh quickened to life, released from my body and given a voice of it's own. A voice that is twisted and oppressed. A voice I wish to release into this world for it's own benefit. They are each unique and valuable. In my heart they each have a place of special affection, a connection of shared memories and experiences. A need within them to be loved and fully accepted by the parent from whom they were born. That cannot be replaced for them. I am not replaceable for them no matter what anyone tells them. And I know it.
Part of my healing is occuring in a small part because my mother is allowing me to stay here after all. Because of the stand I took, she no longer stalks me and harrasses me about money or responsibilities. I am able to at least take on the electric bill now that I have an income. I did so freely without anyone asking. It's only natural to want to, not only for my own sense of security, self-worth, etc but also out of love, affection and appreciation for my mother's allowing me to be here. I know it is not easy for her. I would lift all her burdens from her if I could. If she lay sick and dying I would lay in her hospital bed with her if she allowed it. But that is the problem. We who have been twisted into thinking we do not deserve love and respect, simple honor, do not allow it in. We shove it away. We deny our need for it. We won't even accept it from ourselves, so why would we take it from someone else? Thanks be to God, I am beyond that. I absolutely prefer love, respect and honor. It is no longer even awkard for me to receive and allow it. I naturally return it freely. I naturaly offer it first, before even asked or invited. I assume it's natural right to existence and to be given priority in my environment while allowing and overlooking it's occassional absense in those around me if able, if appropriate.
The road home can be a long, hard journey when it seems everything is working against you. But that journey home within one's self is well worth it, in my opinion. And if it brings you home to your family, we are all that much better off for it.
Be the change you wish to see in the world.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Some Welfare Falacies
I was reflecting on a conversation I had with an ASPIRE worker. Here in Maine that is the program one must participate in to receive welfare. The worker was focused on pressuring her client to come up with a career paths. The client couldn't focus on anything but healing and her children. The worker emphasized that the goal was to make her a success. It is becoming common knowledge that a successful person is one who succeeds in reaching mental, emotional, and spiritual maturity, health and well-being. Such a person then naturally becomes successful in the aspects of common every day living. That is not the view or purpose driving the ASPIRE program, however. A society tired of making welfare payments and paranoid with hunting of people who commit welfare fraud have led to a merciless get them on and off quick as possible policy. Sure, state health insurance will pay for counseling if you get a doctor's referral, but what is one hour per week squeezed in between the stresses of work, schooling, parenting, paying bills on money barely enough to pay an average rent, etc. going to accomplish against a whole lifetime of abuse? Not much, I think. I explained to that worker that I seen it's idea of success: the clients do get a career such as managing those waitresses and cashiers they used to be but they just go home, get drunk, and pass their dysfunctions on to their children who end up on welfare and so on.
The first thought that pops into my head as response to such a point is: "Well, at least they're buying their own beer instead of spending welfare money on it". But are they spending "their own money" on it? Are they truly saving the tax-payers money? No, they aren't. Every product you purchase is marked up to cover the costs of petty thefts. Every service and product you buy is loaded with the costs of insurance to cover the potential costs of embezzlement and other more major financial losses. Added to those costs on every product and service is the costs of potential legal fees, to protect against crimes committed by dysfunctional employees, clients, property destruction, etc. In the end, the tax-payer is still paying for it's dysfunctional citizens, including it's "functional" dysfunctionals and their drug-addicted children. In the end, that's as big a success as the ASPIRE program can ever be.
Then person might reply with: "Well, at least we are getting a product or service in exchange for our money!" At what cost? Increased dysfunctional, as noted above creates an increased cost of living for every citizen. As the cost of living increases, so does the cost of doing business. As the cost of business rises, business must close or move to friendly business environments. Either way, increasing dysfunction in it's citizens leads to job loss. This leads to more welfare recipients, unemployment benefits paid out, social security disability claims, etc.
So, just as giving a child who can't read a passing grade just to increase statistics on how many actually graduate, programs like ASPIRE are a glossing over of society's real failures with inflated statistics of "success". If we instead focus on welfare to be used to relieve financial stresses to aid healing, there is a greater chance of financial success for everybody.
"I am because we are"
The first thought that pops into my head as response to such a point is: "Well, at least they're buying their own beer instead of spending welfare money on it". But are they spending "their own money" on it? Are they truly saving the tax-payers money? No, they aren't. Every product you purchase is marked up to cover the costs of petty thefts. Every service and product you buy is loaded with the costs of insurance to cover the potential costs of embezzlement and other more major financial losses. Added to those costs on every product and service is the costs of potential legal fees, to protect against crimes committed by dysfunctional employees, clients, property destruction, etc. In the end, the tax-payer is still paying for it's dysfunctional citizens, including it's "functional" dysfunctionals and their drug-addicted children. In the end, that's as big a success as the ASPIRE program can ever be.
Then person might reply with: "Well, at least we are getting a product or service in exchange for our money!" At what cost? Increased dysfunctional, as noted above creates an increased cost of living for every citizen. As the cost of living increases, so does the cost of doing business. As the cost of business rises, business must close or move to friendly business environments. Either way, increasing dysfunction in it's citizens leads to job loss. This leads to more welfare recipients, unemployment benefits paid out, social security disability claims, etc.
So, just as giving a child who can't read a passing grade just to increase statistics on how many actually graduate, programs like ASPIRE are a glossing over of society's real failures with inflated statistics of "success". If we instead focus on welfare to be used to relieve financial stresses to aid healing, there is a greater chance of financial success for everybody.
"I am because we are"
The stink about a pig farm
There was recently a big "stink" made from a local community over one of it's resident's pig farms. The neighbors of the farm wanted something done about it. It reminded me of an article I read about an entire town being electrically self-sufficient due to it's pig farmers. The methane was hatrnessed from the manure to produce electricity that supplied the whole town. I wonder if any Plymouth residents had considered that option: figured out how to cap off the smell, making everyone more comfortable and then further serving the community by providing electricity.
Monday, April 15, 2013
Silly no more
It beagn when my son was tiny. I found myself about to use common adult phrases such as "You're so silly." I caught myself. I stopped myself from saying it. I didn't know why, but I knew it would not be an appropriate practice for me to begin. I didn't do it with my older children, what was this? So, when they would be trying to be doing something funny, I would ask them "Are you trying to be funny?". It felt more appropriate and I began to differentiate it's various uses. By replacing that one catch-all phrase, I began to be able to differentiate behaviors and address them indidivually. When inapropriately invading another person's space, I was no longer excusing it by calling it silly behavior. I became more confident in what I was doing, in my own parenting. Another way we use silly I picked up on was to minimize undesirable behaviors such as "story telling" so we don't have to feel the full impact of calling it lying. In so doing, we repress our own feelings of it and teach our children to minimize stealing and lying: "What is wrong with me stealing a little or a little bit of lying? I'm just being silly".
Then my daughter began with charector voices and calling everything by a variety of phrases such as "crazy", "gross", etc. when something wasn't even offensive or distasteful to her, "scary" when she didn't even find it frightening, she was simply expressing popular opinion and practicing imitating behavior which she did not know was popular. She was imitating a friend. I hadn't realized that yet when she began doing it. I only knew it made me uncomfortable. She was degrading everyone and everything around her for no apparent reason. The charectorization I knew came from my grandson, but I wasn't sure why I was uncomfortable with it so I only hesitantly objected. Then my grandson stopped coming around for a while but the behavior intensified. It was like living with an ornery, arrogant, disrespectful teen. She began commanding me about. Then it dawned on me; the source of it was a child my grandson had spent alot of his time with and my daughter was spending all her social time with.
Eventualy I saw how phrases like that are our way of trying to gently dismiss behaviors we are finding annoying, invalid, innapropriate, lacking sufficient intelligence, behavior not to be taken seriously. No matter how gently we put it, it is merely excusing ourselves from the plain fact that we are being condescending or we are using it to try to avoid sounding condescending, defeating our own purposes because we are experiencing embarrassment, insecurity about our children's behaviors. Our children are not lacking intelligence, it is simply not as expereinced or developed as our own, it is not acclimated to our environment would probably be the most accurate way to put it. And as far as the tendency to offer up complaint and judgement about things that have nothing to do with us, that is inappropriate. We become aware of someone else's choices or express them to us in answer to our question, we observe others interacting, it is not our place to butt in with "that's stupid" or "that's crazy". We have not only disrespected authortiy, freedom, but have engaged in abusive practices. We have declared war on our neighbor.
If I say I am going to homeschool my children in answer to your inquiry as to why they are not in school and you respond with all the reasons you may find that idea ridiculous or illigitimate, invalid: number one) it is not your concern why they are not in school so you are invading my privacy, undermining my authority and questioning my freedom, number two) you are abusing my intellect and emotions, declaring war on my inner kingdom. You are not "just being friendly" even if that's what you are convinced you believe. And when one realizes that this is what they are doing, instead of acknowledging it, they choose instead to avoid responsibility for it, justifying it by saying they are simply concerned about the children. They have turned the focus of blame due to their own insecurites and laying the blame on the innocent victim of their own offensive behavior, wondering why on earth the recipient would become insecure or defensive. Offensive and defensive aproaches are qualities of war and competitive sports. It's violence, pure and simple. And when you get authorities involved, it becomes oppressive acts of bullying and physical violence, intimidation.
And this is where anxiety began to press in. I knew from experience that respectfully requesting such behavior not include my children, people get offended and I lose friends. I had to remind myself: I am not responsible for their emotions. Their reactions are their problem. I cannot sacrifice my children's entire future's well-being simply because I might be uncomfortable losing associations. For, if they are too offended due to their own insecurities to respect my wishes, they never truly were a friend. Their own misery was of more value to them than any love they might have felt for me. But I am not black and white about this. I don't simply write people off because they might take breaks from me. I try to be aware of it and not become offended when maybe they display reluctance, don't call or visit for a while.
In going through this process I have learned that it can be exhausting and trying. Even I take breaks and engross myself in "poison" in retreat. I read a quote recently in Dr. Mate's book about how the path to enlightenment is peppered with days of drunkeness. For me, that drunkeness is epic movie binges. Grand, epic trilogies that unavoidably involve violence. It is a way of not having to think, but also an acceptence of who we have been, if we allow it to be. If we beat ourselves up for it, we are only engaging in an addiction simply created by our own resistence to our own choice of activity we believe is nothing but evil, bad for us. We judge ourselves about it and give it power over us, creating an addiction to it. But if we simply allow ourselves a break and accept that this is where we have been most comfortable in the past, we are engaging in self-acceptence and eventually we move on from it. It is no longer needed. It strikes me now how Dr. Mate and others treating those with addictions believe the brain's functioning must be changed before letting go of a drug of choice can happen. We first change the physical make-up of the brain that causes the addiction and then the addiction is released. It would be backwards and ineffective to first force upon ourselves or anyone else absitnence from the addiction then try to change the brain. It causes too much stress and undermines what we are trying to achieve. Knowing I must have patience with my own process, I have no problem being patient with others who are inadvertently triggered to begin their own inner journey or might feel they are being forced into it simply by associating with me.
And a real friend knows that it is the love in you that motivates such honest, open comunication.
Then my daughter began with charector voices and calling everything by a variety of phrases such as "crazy", "gross", etc. when something wasn't even offensive or distasteful to her, "scary" when she didn't even find it frightening, she was simply expressing popular opinion and practicing imitating behavior which she did not know was popular. She was imitating a friend. I hadn't realized that yet when she began doing it. I only knew it made me uncomfortable. She was degrading everyone and everything around her for no apparent reason. The charectorization I knew came from my grandson, but I wasn't sure why I was uncomfortable with it so I only hesitantly objected. Then my grandson stopped coming around for a while but the behavior intensified. It was like living with an ornery, arrogant, disrespectful teen. She began commanding me about. Then it dawned on me; the source of it was a child my grandson had spent alot of his time with and my daughter was spending all her social time with.
Eventualy I saw how phrases like that are our way of trying to gently dismiss behaviors we are finding annoying, invalid, innapropriate, lacking sufficient intelligence, behavior not to be taken seriously. No matter how gently we put it, it is merely excusing ourselves from the plain fact that we are being condescending or we are using it to try to avoid sounding condescending, defeating our own purposes because we are experiencing embarrassment, insecurity about our children's behaviors. Our children are not lacking intelligence, it is simply not as expereinced or developed as our own, it is not acclimated to our environment would probably be the most accurate way to put it. And as far as the tendency to offer up complaint and judgement about things that have nothing to do with us, that is inappropriate. We become aware of someone else's choices or express them to us in answer to our question, we observe others interacting, it is not our place to butt in with "that's stupid" or "that's crazy". We have not only disrespected authortiy, freedom, but have engaged in abusive practices. We have declared war on our neighbor.
If I say I am going to homeschool my children in answer to your inquiry as to why they are not in school and you respond with all the reasons you may find that idea ridiculous or illigitimate, invalid: number one) it is not your concern why they are not in school so you are invading my privacy, undermining my authority and questioning my freedom, number two) you are abusing my intellect and emotions, declaring war on my inner kingdom. You are not "just being friendly" even if that's what you are convinced you believe. And when one realizes that this is what they are doing, instead of acknowledging it, they choose instead to avoid responsibility for it, justifying it by saying they are simply concerned about the children. They have turned the focus of blame due to their own insecurites and laying the blame on the innocent victim of their own offensive behavior, wondering why on earth the recipient would become insecure or defensive. Offensive and defensive aproaches are qualities of war and competitive sports. It's violence, pure and simple. And when you get authorities involved, it becomes oppressive acts of bullying and physical violence, intimidation.
And this is where anxiety began to press in. I knew from experience that respectfully requesting such behavior not include my children, people get offended and I lose friends. I had to remind myself: I am not responsible for their emotions. Their reactions are their problem. I cannot sacrifice my children's entire future's well-being simply because I might be uncomfortable losing associations. For, if they are too offended due to their own insecurities to respect my wishes, they never truly were a friend. Their own misery was of more value to them than any love they might have felt for me. But I am not black and white about this. I don't simply write people off because they might take breaks from me. I try to be aware of it and not become offended when maybe they display reluctance, don't call or visit for a while.
In going through this process I have learned that it can be exhausting and trying. Even I take breaks and engross myself in "poison" in retreat. I read a quote recently in Dr. Mate's book about how the path to enlightenment is peppered with days of drunkeness. For me, that drunkeness is epic movie binges. Grand, epic trilogies that unavoidably involve violence. It is a way of not having to think, but also an acceptence of who we have been, if we allow it to be. If we beat ourselves up for it, we are only engaging in an addiction simply created by our own resistence to our own choice of activity we believe is nothing but evil, bad for us. We judge ourselves about it and give it power over us, creating an addiction to it. But if we simply allow ourselves a break and accept that this is where we have been most comfortable in the past, we are engaging in self-acceptence and eventually we move on from it. It is no longer needed. It strikes me now how Dr. Mate and others treating those with addictions believe the brain's functioning must be changed before letting go of a drug of choice can happen. We first change the physical make-up of the brain that causes the addiction and then the addiction is released. It would be backwards and ineffective to first force upon ourselves or anyone else absitnence from the addiction then try to change the brain. It causes too much stress and undermines what we are trying to achieve. Knowing I must have patience with my own process, I have no problem being patient with others who are inadvertently triggered to begin their own inner journey or might feel they are being forced into it simply by associating with me.
And a real friend knows that it is the love in you that motivates such honest, open comunication.
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Nitty criticisms
People who love us listen to us. They hear what we are saying, undistracted by mispronunciations or misspellings. Only insecure people too busy projecting their own insecurities about their own intelligence point out such minor, common mistakes rather than rejoice in our ability and willingness to share our heartfelt joys. Or maybe they are simply jealous, insecure about their inability to draw positive attention to themselves at the moment. In that moment they are not loving us, even if they insist they are "just helping", even if their mannerism is attempting to be consoling or reassuring. They are really being condescending, screwing with our emotions and trying to manipulate us into self-doubt. Their criticism is nothing but an assault to bring us down with them. Misery loves company and isn't even satisfied with that when accomplished. Such acts aren't the end of a matter, they are only the beginning of an abuser's emotional cycle....They will only hate us more if we let them bring us down to their level. Loving unconditionally includes setting boundaries. Such behavior does not have to be tolerated. Respecting ourselves and holding others accountable to doing the same helps them respect themselves. They're experiencing an overload and need to give themselves a break. They need to step away from the mirror: the people around them, give themselves space. Nip the nit-picking in the bud and show them the door. It's the most loving thing we can do for them. If it's an abusive child, put them in time-out no matter how old they are.
Nit-picking also includes nit-picking our responses, rejections of our expressions of being able to relate, of empathy, compassion, sympathy, condolences, etc.
With this, for me, comes further self-liberation and realization:
I am not over-sensitive. I am acutely cognitive to pain someone is causing and subtle attempts at manipulations of my thinking and emotions. If anything, it demonstrates a very healthy, mature, highly developed brain function. I'm no where near as crazy as the person in question might be trying to make me ;)
Nit-picking also includes nit-picking our responses, rejections of our expressions of being able to relate, of empathy, compassion, sympathy, condolences, etc.
With this, for me, comes further self-liberation and realization:
I am not over-sensitive. I am acutely cognitive to pain someone is causing and subtle attempts at manipulations of my thinking and emotions. If anything, it demonstrates a very healthy, mature, highly developed brain function. I'm no where near as crazy as the person in question might be trying to make me ;)
Saturday, April 13, 2013
The Hillbilly and the Ogie- men with addictions plus one hippie
I was camping out on a piece of land being bought for me by a neighbor who appreciated some spiritual guidance I had given her. I was waiting for my husband to bring my daughter to visit, keeping busy living naturally (my big dream), spending the summer blissfully alone and healing until fall when a trailer would be moved down for the winter. The first time someone walked up my hill I was angry to have my peaceful space invaded. Turns out in neighboring hollers down there in Kentucky were speculating many things about why a woman would be alone out there. Someone had to come found me out. Was I a tough commando woman fresh out of the army? Was I hiding from a big, mean abuser? Sure, the world of mankind as I knew it to specific. But, eventually I got to know a few neighbors. I went to a Fourth of July gathering where I met the Hillbilly. Tall, long dark hair, into all natural living like me. He was staying with his father there in Kentucky. They were hunting ginseng and eventually I joined them in gathering ginseng and rattle weed. We went fishing, hiking, four wheeling. Spiritually we shared a lot of similarities of experience. He told me his story and told me it was the first time he had ever been able to cry about it. He asked me to go back to Ohio for a bit with him to help him clean up his mother's place. The woman who was buying me the land had come for a visit and hadn't heard anything from my husband and daughter. They were supposed to get directions from her so they knew for sure where to find me. I figured they wouldn't be coming anytime soon, so I agreed.
His mother's place was a disaster; mice running right over you in broad daylight, cockroaches covering any food set down immediately, no running water. I was allowed to clean up a smaller trailer on the land that we would stay in. Thankfully free of mice and cockroaches and stayed that way as long as I was in it. I would go to a spring to get water for drinking, washing and flushing the toilet; to the Hillbilly's complaining. What did I need so much water for? He could afford to fix the well pump, but it turns out he had a drug problem while at his mother's. That is why he was told to go spend time at his father's, he couldn't do drugs down there. So, yeah, it got ugly. Especially when I realized I was pregnant. he was into natural, but not that natural! I had called my friend who lived in the hollar where my land was in Kentucky. She said there was a for sale sign back up on the land and a sign I had hung was taken down. I guessed the woman who had been buying it for me simply stopped making payments on it and never told me. I was devastated. There was no going back.
One day he said we were going to go back down to Kentucky. Just over the bridge from Ohio he stopped at a store and gave me $5 to get us something to drink. It was a very hot day. All I had on was a pair of camouflage pants and tank top, leather slippers. When I came out he was no where to be found. I was dumbfounded. I ended up at a park just to the side of the bridge wondering how I was going to get back over it to get my belongings. I couldn't walk across it. A man was parked by the river so I approached him for a ride over. He drove me but said he was a bit disappointed. Quite a few women had been dumped there similarly by boyfriends lately and most of them were offering blowjobs in exchange for money. I was happy to get out of that van. I began walking northward and was picked up by a couple who happened to be going where I needed to. they dropped me off at the end of the driveway. Hillbilly was sleeping, so I woke him asking where my jewelry bag was. He had already gone through all my stuff and was organizing it for selling. He had a fit. Finally his mom talked him into giving me my jewelry bag, which he had turned into his change purse. I took it anyways, I had no money. I grabbed a change of clothes, my backpack and walked out of there to shouts of him threatening to call police. I got a ride to town but there was nothing there. I started walking down a bigger road and was stopped by some people hanging out around a bonfire. They advised me not to walk down that road because only criminals ever walked down it and police were likely to harass me. One gave me a ride to the nearest truck stop. I stayed there a few days, sleeping in the trucker's lounge. The staff looked after me. One day I took a ride with a man to West Virginia in exchange for food, new clothes and $40 just so he would have someone to talk to. So, I had food money. I knew I couldn't stay there much longer so when a trucker offered to let me stay at his trailer because he was never there anyways, I accepted. He got drunk, I got raped, snuck out while he was passed out, ducking behind trees when I'd hear a vehicle coming.
Eventually I stopped to rest in a parking lot of a tractor dealership. A man who worked there saw me and pulled in. He offered me a ride to the nearest truck stop and offered to get me a motel room after he dropped his kids off. "Yeah, right, I imagined; you'll just want in." he bought me a piece of pizza and left me at the truck stop. I got a feeling I was headed somewhere. when I looked at a newspaper there was a help wanted ad in exactly the place I had thought of. A place I had never been to. Just so happened there was a trucker headed there. He had just immigrated from South America and was sincerely nice ot me. He left me at the truck stop where help was wanted. there another trucker saw me and asked me if I needed someplace to go. I said yes. He said his grandmother worked in a domestic violence shelter, a place that helped women who had things happen to them as what had happened to me. I had never heard of such a place before, but I got hopeful. There might be some help for me. So, I agreed. Fondling, days and days on the road as he made several more deliveries before he could head back home.
His grandmother invited me to stay with her. They told me I really wouldn't like it at the shelter. I would be shut in, unable to leave or receive visitors, etc. The whole family was extremely abusive, which is probably what motivated this grandmother to become an advocate. She had been shot by her husband. But one quiet, simple man became interested in. An "Ogie from Misgogie", native of Oklahoma. Not at all pushy or attempting to come on to me. Just respectfully saying "If you want a man I'm interested." He would raise my child as his own. He was non-threatening. everyone spoke well of him. He was not pretentious. Until he got me where he wanted me, that is. Typical story of my life it seemed. He had a gambling habit which cost us our housing. He began making payments on a little trailer we had dropped off behind the house of that grandmother. He didn't want to have to empty a septic, so he let it all fall right out onto the ground under the trailer. I brought my daughter home to a trailer that wreaked of feces. He returned her bassinet to Wal-Mart because "we need the money". he refused to continue to make payment on the trailer. He kept me with him under threat that the grandmother's family would have the baby taken from me because they all believed the trucker was the father, which made relations with his wife uncomfortable. But, the Ogie kept me away from her and everybody with divisive rumors to everyone. They believed bad things about me and I was told bad things about them. eventually we moved to a house out in the country. $200 a month rent, who couldn't make that getting paid $100 day. A gambling addict couldn't. He got increasingly intimidating, including bringing home a gun and hiding it. My daughter found it at the end of the bed wedged between it and the wall. I had enough of the threats. He shoved my daughter over onto her head with his foot while she was bent over playing. I ended up leaving with her , nothing but a bag and a direction to hike in.
At the first house I came across the man made some calls and found a domestic violence shelter that would take me. They made arrangements to move me to another immediately. I couldn't take it. They had to take my picture, note of any identifying marks on my body in case something ever happened to me, information for backround checks, criminal history, etc. I had nothing on my record, but the invasion was overwhelming and the rules for your day's movement very strict. I was so uncomfortable! What shelters do if they don't have enough funding to get you where you need to be is what they call shelter hopping. they would bring me to the next closest shelter and that one would bring me further, etc. I ended up coming back to Maine, hoping to be "caught", recognized, whatever, anything! Was I wanted for non-payment of child support? Take me to prison! Doesn't ANYBODY care about me? The shelter in Maine wouldn't provide diapers, no organization or church would help, so I accepted help with transportation back to my abuser. What the hell, said me. Nobody else wants me and at least my daughter would have diapers. We arrived back in Arkansas to the Ogie just as her last diaper gave out. he was sorry, had changed, etc. After a few days in a motel room, he told me the grandmother's family wanted to kill me so we had to get out of town fast. I didn't believe him, but wasn't certain I shouldn't. We hopped on a bus to Missouri where one of his friends said we would get help with housing, etc. We did eventually end up receiving help with an apartment and there is where I gave birth to our son. The Ogie became increasingly irritable, whining about his job. He would constantly say they were going to run out of work soon anyways. So, instead of paying rent he bought a car and hustled us out of there. No longer able to keep me intimidated by telling me the grandmother's family would take my daughter, we headed for his sister's where he told me his family would help him take the children away from me, they did it with his oldest daughter. They took custody from his oldest daughter's mother by means of trickery. He was proud of it.
We stayed with his niece. His first big paycheck: instead of it being used to get us a place ot live or help his family with bills never even made it home. He had stopped at a casino. His sister had been buying us diapers and food. She had enough at that decision of his. We were asked to leave his niece's. We didn't even have gas in the car. But when we got in, his sister must have snuck in because there was a big bag of collectable coins and quarters. The threat then became "I will call the police and tell them lies about you being an unfit mother and by the time they figure out they're lies, I'l be three states away and you'll never find me. That is when we began going from city to city, town to town, crisscrossing the country. He would be referred here or there for the pot of gold over the rainbow. Eventually he agreed to buy a camper so at least I could put the children in the same bed every night. When broken down or stuck outside a casino or while he was on a corner with a sign I could cook meals, bathe the children, etc. It was some sense of stability anyways. And he couldn't sell it because he had messed up getting the title on it. I saw that as a blessing. Usually he'd gamle away all the money, sell the car we were living out of, get help in new town with temporary housing and buy another vehicle, over and over again so he could gamble away any money he could get ahold of. There were nights nearly freezing as we'd run out of propane. He intentionally terrorized my daughter. There were the scams for refills for propane, food stamp scams, scam selling puppies, etc. It was exhausting but quite the education in outlaw living for certain. He knew or quickly learned all the tools of the trade.
Finally he left me and the children on some land in the camper at the house of a couple who said they would help me and the children. What a relief! Until late one evening, he barged into the camper drunk and tore out of there while I woke from sleep. I told him that he was taking me against my will and that it was kidnaping. "You can't kidnap your own woman and children!", he laughed at me. He passed out at a rest area. I took the kids to the restroom and dialed 911. No reception. I waited until he stopped in civilization, took some diapers, the children into Wal-Mart and dialed 911 again. I ended up in a shelter in Davis, California. The program for that shelter was 14 weeks. I learned a lot, healed a lot, became quite a bit re-empowered though somewhat abused and traumatized there. But I couldn't find help with housing or anything for after the 14 weeks had ended. So, the children and I were out on the street. We camped out by the railroad tracks for the summer. We did well, stayed well fed, clean and healthy.
Finally a man offered us a place ot stay on a farm were he had taken in several others. It went OK. I kept the place clean and played caretaker when the Hippie went away for weeks at a time. But then came Christmas. He had gone to visit family. Some bad stuff happened to him and when he came back he took it out on me and the children. Shutting off power, heat, water, everything. One night he tried terrorizing the children and it was time to leave. I left. I stayed with an acquaintance who gave me two days to find something else. Time was up and I was on my own again. I did what I had to. I ended up back in the shelter I had left already. They were giving me one week. I found an agency that helped with air travel, but with no ID they could only do a private small plane and a couple of states. So, I ended up in Arizona and another shelter that was just plain crazy. My kids got so malnourished an dehydrated they were peeing dark brown. They wouldn't let me keep any of the food or juice I had brought with me. We weren't allowed ot leave for 72 hours.
Once again "Finally", lol, we got bus tickets to Maine and a family member reluctantly agreed to take me in. Thankfully there were observant and generous people along the way because neither the shelter we left from nor the organization that paid for the bus tickets would provide food or the means for it despite knowing we'd be on that bus for 5 days. Our journey through abusive circumstances and people didn't end with our arrival in Maine, however that is a story for another day.
His mother's place was a disaster; mice running right over you in broad daylight, cockroaches covering any food set down immediately, no running water. I was allowed to clean up a smaller trailer on the land that we would stay in. Thankfully free of mice and cockroaches and stayed that way as long as I was in it. I would go to a spring to get water for drinking, washing and flushing the toilet; to the Hillbilly's complaining. What did I need so much water for? He could afford to fix the well pump, but it turns out he had a drug problem while at his mother's. That is why he was told to go spend time at his father's, he couldn't do drugs down there. So, yeah, it got ugly. Especially when I realized I was pregnant. he was into natural, but not that natural! I had called my friend who lived in the hollar where my land was in Kentucky. She said there was a for sale sign back up on the land and a sign I had hung was taken down. I guessed the woman who had been buying it for me simply stopped making payments on it and never told me. I was devastated. There was no going back.
One day he said we were going to go back down to Kentucky. Just over the bridge from Ohio he stopped at a store and gave me $5 to get us something to drink. It was a very hot day. All I had on was a pair of camouflage pants and tank top, leather slippers. When I came out he was no where to be found. I was dumbfounded. I ended up at a park just to the side of the bridge wondering how I was going to get back over it to get my belongings. I couldn't walk across it. A man was parked by the river so I approached him for a ride over. He drove me but said he was a bit disappointed. Quite a few women had been dumped there similarly by boyfriends lately and most of them were offering blowjobs in exchange for money. I was happy to get out of that van. I began walking northward and was picked up by a couple who happened to be going where I needed to. they dropped me off at the end of the driveway. Hillbilly was sleeping, so I woke him asking where my jewelry bag was. He had already gone through all my stuff and was organizing it for selling. He had a fit. Finally his mom talked him into giving me my jewelry bag, which he had turned into his change purse. I took it anyways, I had no money. I grabbed a change of clothes, my backpack and walked out of there to shouts of him threatening to call police. I got a ride to town but there was nothing there. I started walking down a bigger road and was stopped by some people hanging out around a bonfire. They advised me not to walk down that road because only criminals ever walked down it and police were likely to harass me. One gave me a ride to the nearest truck stop. I stayed there a few days, sleeping in the trucker's lounge. The staff looked after me. One day I took a ride with a man to West Virginia in exchange for food, new clothes and $40 just so he would have someone to talk to. So, I had food money. I knew I couldn't stay there much longer so when a trucker offered to let me stay at his trailer because he was never there anyways, I accepted. He got drunk, I got raped, snuck out while he was passed out, ducking behind trees when I'd hear a vehicle coming.
Eventually I stopped to rest in a parking lot of a tractor dealership. A man who worked there saw me and pulled in. He offered me a ride to the nearest truck stop and offered to get me a motel room after he dropped his kids off. "Yeah, right, I imagined; you'll just want in." he bought me a piece of pizza and left me at the truck stop. I got a feeling I was headed somewhere. when I looked at a newspaper there was a help wanted ad in exactly the place I had thought of. A place I had never been to. Just so happened there was a trucker headed there. He had just immigrated from South America and was sincerely nice ot me. He left me at the truck stop where help was wanted. there another trucker saw me and asked me if I needed someplace to go. I said yes. He said his grandmother worked in a domestic violence shelter, a place that helped women who had things happen to them as what had happened to me. I had never heard of such a place before, but I got hopeful. There might be some help for me. So, I agreed. Fondling, days and days on the road as he made several more deliveries before he could head back home.
His grandmother invited me to stay with her. They told me I really wouldn't like it at the shelter. I would be shut in, unable to leave or receive visitors, etc. The whole family was extremely abusive, which is probably what motivated this grandmother to become an advocate. She had been shot by her husband. But one quiet, simple man became interested in. An "Ogie from Misgogie", native of Oklahoma. Not at all pushy or attempting to come on to me. Just respectfully saying "If you want a man I'm interested." He would raise my child as his own. He was non-threatening. everyone spoke well of him. He was not pretentious. Until he got me where he wanted me, that is. Typical story of my life it seemed. He had a gambling habit which cost us our housing. He began making payments on a little trailer we had dropped off behind the house of that grandmother. He didn't want to have to empty a septic, so he let it all fall right out onto the ground under the trailer. I brought my daughter home to a trailer that wreaked of feces. He returned her bassinet to Wal-Mart because "we need the money". he refused to continue to make payment on the trailer. He kept me with him under threat that the grandmother's family would have the baby taken from me because they all believed the trucker was the father, which made relations with his wife uncomfortable. But, the Ogie kept me away from her and everybody with divisive rumors to everyone. They believed bad things about me and I was told bad things about them. eventually we moved to a house out in the country. $200 a month rent, who couldn't make that getting paid $100 day. A gambling addict couldn't. He got increasingly intimidating, including bringing home a gun and hiding it. My daughter found it at the end of the bed wedged between it and the wall. I had enough of the threats. He shoved my daughter over onto her head with his foot while she was bent over playing. I ended up leaving with her , nothing but a bag and a direction to hike in.
At the first house I came across the man made some calls and found a domestic violence shelter that would take me. They made arrangements to move me to another immediately. I couldn't take it. They had to take my picture, note of any identifying marks on my body in case something ever happened to me, information for backround checks, criminal history, etc. I had nothing on my record, but the invasion was overwhelming and the rules for your day's movement very strict. I was so uncomfortable! What shelters do if they don't have enough funding to get you where you need to be is what they call shelter hopping. they would bring me to the next closest shelter and that one would bring me further, etc. I ended up coming back to Maine, hoping to be "caught", recognized, whatever, anything! Was I wanted for non-payment of child support? Take me to prison! Doesn't ANYBODY care about me? The shelter in Maine wouldn't provide diapers, no organization or church would help, so I accepted help with transportation back to my abuser. What the hell, said me. Nobody else wants me and at least my daughter would have diapers. We arrived back in Arkansas to the Ogie just as her last diaper gave out. he was sorry, had changed, etc. After a few days in a motel room, he told me the grandmother's family wanted to kill me so we had to get out of town fast. I didn't believe him, but wasn't certain I shouldn't. We hopped on a bus to Missouri where one of his friends said we would get help with housing, etc. We did eventually end up receiving help with an apartment and there is where I gave birth to our son. The Ogie became increasingly irritable, whining about his job. He would constantly say they were going to run out of work soon anyways. So, instead of paying rent he bought a car and hustled us out of there. No longer able to keep me intimidated by telling me the grandmother's family would take my daughter, we headed for his sister's where he told me his family would help him take the children away from me, they did it with his oldest daughter. They took custody from his oldest daughter's mother by means of trickery. He was proud of it.
We stayed with his niece. His first big paycheck: instead of it being used to get us a place ot live or help his family with bills never even made it home. He had stopped at a casino. His sister had been buying us diapers and food. She had enough at that decision of his. We were asked to leave his niece's. We didn't even have gas in the car. But when we got in, his sister must have snuck in because there was a big bag of collectable coins and quarters. The threat then became "I will call the police and tell them lies about you being an unfit mother and by the time they figure out they're lies, I'l be three states away and you'll never find me. That is when we began going from city to city, town to town, crisscrossing the country. He would be referred here or there for the pot of gold over the rainbow. Eventually he agreed to buy a camper so at least I could put the children in the same bed every night. When broken down or stuck outside a casino or while he was on a corner with a sign I could cook meals, bathe the children, etc. It was some sense of stability anyways. And he couldn't sell it because he had messed up getting the title on it. I saw that as a blessing. Usually he'd gamle away all the money, sell the car we were living out of, get help in new town with temporary housing and buy another vehicle, over and over again so he could gamble away any money he could get ahold of. There were nights nearly freezing as we'd run out of propane. He intentionally terrorized my daughter. There were the scams for refills for propane, food stamp scams, scam selling puppies, etc. It was exhausting but quite the education in outlaw living for certain. He knew or quickly learned all the tools of the trade.
Finally he left me and the children on some land in the camper at the house of a couple who said they would help me and the children. What a relief! Until late one evening, he barged into the camper drunk and tore out of there while I woke from sleep. I told him that he was taking me against my will and that it was kidnaping. "You can't kidnap your own woman and children!", he laughed at me. He passed out at a rest area. I took the kids to the restroom and dialed 911. No reception. I waited until he stopped in civilization, took some diapers, the children into Wal-Mart and dialed 911 again. I ended up in a shelter in Davis, California. The program for that shelter was 14 weeks. I learned a lot, healed a lot, became quite a bit re-empowered though somewhat abused and traumatized there. But I couldn't find help with housing or anything for after the 14 weeks had ended. So, the children and I were out on the street. We camped out by the railroad tracks for the summer. We did well, stayed well fed, clean and healthy.
Finally a man offered us a place ot stay on a farm were he had taken in several others. It went OK. I kept the place clean and played caretaker when the Hippie went away for weeks at a time. But then came Christmas. He had gone to visit family. Some bad stuff happened to him and when he came back he took it out on me and the children. Shutting off power, heat, water, everything. One night he tried terrorizing the children and it was time to leave. I left. I stayed with an acquaintance who gave me two days to find something else. Time was up and I was on my own again. I did what I had to. I ended up back in the shelter I had left already. They were giving me one week. I found an agency that helped with air travel, but with no ID they could only do a private small plane and a couple of states. So, I ended up in Arizona and another shelter that was just plain crazy. My kids got so malnourished an dehydrated they were peeing dark brown. They wouldn't let me keep any of the food or juice I had brought with me. We weren't allowed ot leave for 72 hours.
Once again "Finally", lol, we got bus tickets to Maine and a family member reluctantly agreed to take me in. Thankfully there were observant and generous people along the way because neither the shelter we left from nor the organization that paid for the bus tickets would provide food or the means for it despite knowing we'd be on that bus for 5 days. Our journey through abusive circumstances and people didn't end with our arrival in Maine, however that is a story for another day.
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