Monday, December 31, 2012
Happy New Years 2013
And so what? I don't know.<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/annawiz/2208641735/" title="Lita in Kevin's hat by key lime pie yumyum, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2134/2208641735_25a701353e.jpg" width="500" height="400" alt="Lita in Kevin's hat"></a>
Friday, December 21, 2012
My Right to be a Victim
Victim is a bad word today. Yet by telling me if someone hurts me to my core it is my own fault for allowing myself to be a victim, you are letting the victimizer off the hook. And blaming me, shaming me, judging me.
You have no clue what it's like unless you've been there, or are willing to LISTEN to someone who has.
I suffered because I couldn't talk about what happened without someone slapping me in the face. I'm not a whiner. I am trying to understand. For myself, so it doesn't happen again, although it has, to a lesser degree.
And for others in this predicament. The thing with narcissists is they create an alternate reality to feed their own crashing-down egos. They live in terror of being imperfect, and terrified people lash out to save themselves without regard for who they hurt.
It's not the self-love that is bad. It's the disdain for everyone else.
I didn't know anything about narcissistic personality disorder until my spouse was diagnosed by our marriage counselor. It was a slap in the face awakening, a cosmic 2 by 4.
Still, I handled it terribly and hurt myself.
But I refuse to accept all the blame.
I had a scumbag lawyer who lied and did not do his job and ultimately offered to respond to my spouse's divorce demands for an additional $2500.00. Something he neglected to do in the first place, which I only discovered after talking to another lawyer who told me I had one day to respond or all would be lost.
This Key West lawyer, who I'll tell anyone his name, only I don't want it in writing...hey, it's public record anyway and I fired him... not knowing you can't just fire a lawyer, you have to petition. After the train wreck he made of the case, I couldn't find another lawyer willing to take me on and wasted enormous amounts of money to be told I had no case.
This lawyer painted a castle in the air, told me all was well, then fucked up the case entirely.
I was my own lawyer for a while, very stressful. There is no help for you out there, though they lie and say there is. Maybe it's just Key West incompetence. No one I spoke to knew anything, nor were they willing to help.
I was tempted to through a brick through a bank window, just so I could be arrested and have a lawyer assigned to me.
Some day I'll go into details. It's pretty funny, really. I used to sing Les Miserable to myself in court, feeling very like Jean val Jean, persecuted for life because of a loaf of bread. Well, Javert died, good for him, and so did Michelle, but it wasn't my doing.
Except that I was no longer caring for her. She was right when she said I was the reason she'd outlived her predicted lifespan by 20 years. She died less than a year after she kicked me out of her life. I suppose she wanted to die by then, miserable creature that she was.
Her obituary received hateful comments. I've never seen such a thing. Most people who knew her hated her. I'm still running into people in Key West who tell me what a shit she was and have sympathy for me. She alienated the business community but that's another story.
So many stories. What a weird person. I stayed with her because I knew life with her would never be boring. And so it wasn't.
I'm trying to re-create a life now. I had no idea it would be so hard. I thought I'd be rolling in clover but I'm not. Unfinished business. Leftover pain and shame from being verbally and emotionally abused for so many years it seemed normal.
I'm tougher than that. At least I used to be. But being fearless has gotten me into trouble. So I fear now. I wake up in the morning to panic. I have mantras to cool me down. I have friends I'm afraid to call or see.
I'm forcing myself to get out among peeps. When I do, it's good. I'll never be a normal person, but I am a good person. Wow, it's bizarre to write that.
I am a good person.
Peace.
You have no clue what it's like unless you've been there, or are willing to LISTEN to someone who has.
I suffered because I couldn't talk about what happened without someone slapping me in the face. I'm not a whiner. I am trying to understand. For myself, so it doesn't happen again, although it has, to a lesser degree.
And for others in this predicament. The thing with narcissists is they create an alternate reality to feed their own crashing-down egos. They live in terror of being imperfect, and terrified people lash out to save themselves without regard for who they hurt.
It's not the self-love that is bad. It's the disdain for everyone else.
I didn't know anything about narcissistic personality disorder until my spouse was diagnosed by our marriage counselor. It was a slap in the face awakening, a cosmic 2 by 4.
Still, I handled it terribly and hurt myself.
But I refuse to accept all the blame.
I had a scumbag lawyer who lied and did not do his job and ultimately offered to respond to my spouse's divorce demands for an additional $2500.00. Something he neglected to do in the first place, which I only discovered after talking to another lawyer who told me I had one day to respond or all would be lost.
This Key West lawyer, who I'll tell anyone his name, only I don't want it in writing...hey, it's public record anyway and I fired him... not knowing you can't just fire a lawyer, you have to petition. After the train wreck he made of the case, I couldn't find another lawyer willing to take me on and wasted enormous amounts of money to be told I had no case.
This lawyer painted a castle in the air, told me all was well, then fucked up the case entirely.
I was my own lawyer for a while, very stressful. There is no help for you out there, though they lie and say there is. Maybe it's just Key West incompetence. No one I spoke to knew anything, nor were they willing to help.
I was tempted to through a brick through a bank window, just so I could be arrested and have a lawyer assigned to me.
Some day I'll go into details. It's pretty funny, really. I used to sing Les Miserable to myself in court, feeling very like Jean val Jean, persecuted for life because of a loaf of bread. Well, Javert died, good for him, and so did Michelle, but it wasn't my doing.
Except that I was no longer caring for her. She was right when she said I was the reason she'd outlived her predicted lifespan by 20 years. She died less than a year after she kicked me out of her life. I suppose she wanted to die by then, miserable creature that she was.
Her obituary received hateful comments. I've never seen such a thing. Most people who knew her hated her. I'm still running into people in Key West who tell me what a shit she was and have sympathy for me. She alienated the business community but that's another story.
So many stories. What a weird person. I stayed with her because I knew life with her would never be boring. And so it wasn't.
I'm trying to re-create a life now. I had no idea it would be so hard. I thought I'd be rolling in clover but I'm not. Unfinished business. Leftover pain and shame from being verbally and emotionally abused for so many years it seemed normal.
I'm tougher than that. At least I used to be. But being fearless has gotten me into trouble. So I fear now. I wake up in the morning to panic. I have mantras to cool me down. I have friends I'm afraid to call or see.
I'm forcing myself to get out among peeps. When I do, it's good. I'll never be a normal person, but I am a good person. Wow, it's bizarre to write that.
I am a good person.
Peace.
Transsexuals and Narcissism
I don't agree with all of this, but there's some interesting stuff on the psychological stuff of transsexuals.
Michelle claims from as early as she (he) can remember, he believed he was meant to be a girl.
He told his father this, and his father said, "OK, let me get the hedge clippers and I'll chop it off."
Both Michelle/Peter's parents were drunks. Both were mean as snakes. (This is from relatives. I never had the pleasure of meeting either parent. Her father was dead when I met Michelle and her mother had disowned her when she/he put on a dress.)
Michelle never had the rigorous counseling that legitimate transsexuals go through before being allowed to have reassignment surgery. Entitled to be who he/she believed she was, she had a doctor friend in the Veterans Administration hospital in Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania prescribe female hormones.
Later, the VA gave her shots that are normally used for men with prostate cancer. It knocks down testosterone.
Still, once a boy goes through puberty, there's no real turning back.
This made Michelle furious. And furious at people who did not accept her as female. Now, she was well over 6 feet tall, with very masculine facial features and a deep voice. The female hormones made her breast grow to about raisin size. She was angular, not curvy at all.
When she had to use a motorized scooter full-time because of the emphysema (alpha-1 antitrypsin, a rare congenital emphysema not helped by her smoking 3 packs of cigarettes daily for many years) she liked that it made her shorter and more passable.
Although she never used the word "pass". She wasn't passing as female. She WAS female, in her own mind. I've met other MTF's and FTM's (male-to-female/female-to-male) and they were not insane like Michelle.
So I'm not judging any other gender-changers. I only have direct, intimate knowledge of one transie: Michelle. And her problems were way beyond "gender dysphoria". Gender-changers have a hard enough time.
One of the reasons I'm not fond of the article I referenced it it seems to lump all together in a really dysfunctional mess. That's not the case.
Trying to be fair. Trying to understand.
Peace.
Michelle claims from as early as she (he) can remember, he believed he was meant to be a girl.
He told his father this, and his father said, "OK, let me get the hedge clippers and I'll chop it off."
Both Michelle/Peter's parents were drunks. Both were mean as snakes. (This is from relatives. I never had the pleasure of meeting either parent. Her father was dead when I met Michelle and her mother had disowned her when she/he put on a dress.)
Michelle never had the rigorous counseling that legitimate transsexuals go through before being allowed to have reassignment surgery. Entitled to be who he/she believed she was, she had a doctor friend in the Veterans Administration hospital in Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania prescribe female hormones.
Later, the VA gave her shots that are normally used for men with prostate cancer. It knocks down testosterone.
Still, once a boy goes through puberty, there's no real turning back.
This made Michelle furious. And furious at people who did not accept her as female. Now, she was well over 6 feet tall, with very masculine facial features and a deep voice. The female hormones made her breast grow to about raisin size. She was angular, not curvy at all.
When she had to use a motorized scooter full-time because of the emphysema (alpha-1 antitrypsin, a rare congenital emphysema not helped by her smoking 3 packs of cigarettes daily for many years) she liked that it made her shorter and more passable.
Although she never used the word "pass". She wasn't passing as female. She WAS female, in her own mind. I've met other MTF's and FTM's (male-to-female/female-to-male) and they were not insane like Michelle.
So I'm not judging any other gender-changers. I only have direct, intimate knowledge of one transie: Michelle. And her problems were way beyond "gender dysphoria". Gender-changers have a hard enough time.
One of the reasons I'm not fond of the article I referenced it it seems to lump all together in a really dysfunctional mess. That's not the case.
Trying to be fair. Trying to understand.
Peace.
JD Salinger's Tattlers.
Two women wrote about JD Salinger and got all kinds of crap for blowing his cover. One was his daughter, the other Joyce Maynard, his lover for a year or so.
Joyce Maynard was a speaker at a Key West Literary Seminar I attended. The other writers disdained her. Agreed, she is not the most healthy psychologically. Her writing is, well, I use her memoir, At Home in the World as an example of how not to write my own.
Still, I absolutely support her telling her tale. She comes across as self-justifying, and every other sentence is "my father drank," without really opening up. She uses her children to justify her existence, which annoys me. Still, she writes well. She's a compelling read.
Many have dissed her for not maintaining Salinger's bizarre retreat from the world. (Hence her title--after living under his spell of hatred for everything and everyone except himself, his son, and a few people who he deemed worthy of existing--she was one of those, until she wasn't.)
I totally recognize the narcissistic personality disorder Salinger suffered from. He was a less mature version of his hero, Holden Caufield, the adolescent anti-hero of the book that still inspires psycho killers, Catcher in the Rye
Salinger reminds me of my ex-husband/wife. A mean, solipsistic bastard with zero insight. I don't know what causes personality disorders, but as a psychiatric nurse, I know they are impossible to treat.
Well, some claim to be able to treat, say borderlines. But only by giving yourself entirely to their treatment and well-being to convince them the world isn't out to get them. Exhausting and of dubious efficacy.
I tried it with my narcissistic personality disordered spouse. After a decade of self-effacement and dedication to Michelle's comfort, I rebelled. I was a zombie. I had no personality left. All was sublimated to her well-being.
When I began to get my own voice back, she cracked. I was no longer part of her charmed circle. She'd tell me her worst fear was losing me, then verbally batter me, bringing up crap from my past that she had no idea about.
Michelle lied like a rug. Salinger's daughter said of her mother (another narcissist-- and/or codependent from hell. They tend to go together) would accuse her daughter of all sorts of garbage only to make the mother look good. Yeah, exactly.
I once asked Michelle why she yelled at me, brought up crap from long past, made me feel like shit. Caught off-guard, she would be disarmingly honest.
"It makes me feel better" she said.
Oh. Fine. Batter your wife because it makes you feel better. It has nothing to do with what the wife did or did not do.
I'm not alone in this. I don't want this to be a justification for myself. I was a victim, yes. But we all have free will. Sometimes we choose not to exercise it.
I have fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, Epstien-Barr, recurring... I am exhausted most of the time. No, all of the time. Activities of daily living are like climbing Mt. Everest. My Aunt Lottie was like that, before it had a name. They simply called her a hypochondriac. I used to visit her. I probably got the virus from those visits.
The visits were torture. As were my weekly visits to my grandmother. Babci (Polish for grandmother) never got over my mother's death of cancer. Why did I go? Duty.
I'm a Virgo. I'm moon in Leo and Sag rising, two signs very different from Virgo's dutiful, anal-retentive goodness. Conflicts. Each side of me despises the other. I know that's self-defeating now.
Not that I believe in astrology 100%. But it's as good a system as any for decyphering human action.
I believe in Western medicine, and have been on anti-depressents since Prozac was brand new.
I have to pack now to go to Pennsylvania for Christmas/New Years. My brother bought me a ticket--an expensive gift, as I fly from small airport to small airport. (EYW to Avoca). I will miss my cats. I will worry they will not be here when I get back.
I am working to be happy and look forward to seeing my family, whom I love--all of them. There's no reason for my fear, but airports scare me. I have no fear of flying, only of airports.
I was busted last time for a bottle of water I'd forgotten I left in my purse. The security guy was cool about it and didn't strip search me. Everyone is a terrorist and no one has a sense of humor anymore.
Okay. I must pack.
I am love. So are you. Peace out.
Joyce Maynard was a speaker at a Key West Literary Seminar I attended. The other writers disdained her. Agreed, she is not the most healthy psychologically. Her writing is, well, I use her memoir, At Home in the World as an example of how not to write my own.
Still, I absolutely support her telling her tale. She comes across as self-justifying, and every other sentence is "my father drank," without really opening up. She uses her children to justify her existence, which annoys me. Still, she writes well. She's a compelling read.
Many have dissed her for not maintaining Salinger's bizarre retreat from the world. (Hence her title--after living under his spell of hatred for everything and everyone except himself, his son, and a few people who he deemed worthy of existing--she was one of those, until she wasn't.)
I totally recognize the narcissistic personality disorder Salinger suffered from. He was a less mature version of his hero, Holden Caufield, the adolescent anti-hero of the book that still inspires psycho killers, Catcher in the Rye
Salinger reminds me of my ex-husband/wife. A mean, solipsistic bastard with zero insight. I don't know what causes personality disorders, but as a psychiatric nurse, I know they are impossible to treat.
Well, some claim to be able to treat, say borderlines. But only by giving yourself entirely to their treatment and well-being to convince them the world isn't out to get them. Exhausting and of dubious efficacy.
I tried it with my narcissistic personality disordered spouse. After a decade of self-effacement and dedication to Michelle's comfort, I rebelled. I was a zombie. I had no personality left. All was sublimated to her well-being.
When I began to get my own voice back, she cracked. I was no longer part of her charmed circle. She'd tell me her worst fear was losing me, then verbally batter me, bringing up crap from my past that she had no idea about.
Michelle lied like a rug. Salinger's daughter said of her mother (another narcissist-- and/or codependent from hell. They tend to go together) would accuse her daughter of all sorts of garbage only to make the mother look good. Yeah, exactly.
I once asked Michelle why she yelled at me, brought up crap from long past, made me feel like shit. Caught off-guard, she would be disarmingly honest.
"It makes me feel better" she said.
Oh. Fine. Batter your wife because it makes you feel better. It has nothing to do with what the wife did or did not do.
I'm not alone in this. I don't want this to be a justification for myself. I was a victim, yes. But we all have free will. Sometimes we choose not to exercise it.
I have fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, Epstien-Barr, recurring... I am exhausted most of the time. No, all of the time. Activities of daily living are like climbing Mt. Everest. My Aunt Lottie was like that, before it had a name. They simply called her a hypochondriac. I used to visit her. I probably got the virus from those visits.
The visits were torture. As were my weekly visits to my grandmother. Babci (Polish for grandmother) never got over my mother's death of cancer. Why did I go? Duty.
I'm a Virgo. I'm moon in Leo and Sag rising, two signs very different from Virgo's dutiful, anal-retentive goodness. Conflicts. Each side of me despises the other. I know that's self-defeating now.
Not that I believe in astrology 100%. But it's as good a system as any for decyphering human action.
I believe in Western medicine, and have been on anti-depressents since Prozac was brand new.
I have to pack now to go to Pennsylvania for Christmas/New Years. My brother bought me a ticket--an expensive gift, as I fly from small airport to small airport. (EYW to Avoca). I will miss my cats. I will worry they will not be here when I get back.
I am working to be happy and look forward to seeing my family, whom I love--all of them. There's no reason for my fear, but airports scare me. I have no fear of flying, only of airports.
I was busted last time for a bottle of water I'd forgotten I left in my purse. The security guy was cool about it and didn't strip search me. Everyone is a terrorist and no one has a sense of humor anymore.
Okay. I must pack.
I am love. So are you. Peace out.
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Winter Picnics
I moved to Key West after the worst winter in a hundred years (statistics). As an adult, driving, I learned to dread winter.
But as a kid, I always loved the snow. I loved autumn more than spring. Leaves crunching underfoot, spicing the air with crisp-burnt smoke, carpeting the earth in moist soft piles for jumping.
Our mother used to take us on winter picnics. On a cold sunny day she'd cook up thermosfulls of chicken pot pie (no recipe here... they were frozen and delicious. I remember the savory taste, the creaminess of the sauce, steaming up to warm red cheeks and noses and hands. They never tasted quite as good at home.)
We'd go to Niag Park. I should remember how to spell it but I don't. It was voted one of the 10 top worst zoos in the nation, back in the 1980's I believe. The cages were small, painted vile green, and smelled of Spic N Span. I didn't even know that's what they smelled like, as I'd never used Spic n Span until I worked as a housecleaner after law school...oh, it smells like the zoo! Nay-aug.
I think they actually did have the animals out in the winter, but I'm not sure. I may be crossing summer and winter wires. Memories are like that.
The coal mine was mysterious and the ride was always broken. I wanted to go into the mine. I used to look forward to things like that. Instead of dreading everything. What turned me into such a chicken?
But the winter picnics were a blast. There were plenty of little hills for sleds. I can't recall specifics. The most vivid memory is opening that thermos and steaming my face with chicken pot pie.
But as a kid, I always loved the snow. I loved autumn more than spring. Leaves crunching underfoot, spicing the air with crisp-burnt smoke, carpeting the earth in moist soft piles for jumping.
Our mother used to take us on winter picnics. On a cold sunny day she'd cook up thermosfulls of chicken pot pie (no recipe here... they were frozen and delicious. I remember the savory taste, the creaminess of the sauce, steaming up to warm red cheeks and noses and hands. They never tasted quite as good at home.)
We'd go to Niag Park. I should remember how to spell it but I don't. It was voted one of the 10 top worst zoos in the nation, back in the 1980's I believe. The cages were small, painted vile green, and smelled of Spic N Span. I didn't even know that's what they smelled like, as I'd never used Spic n Span until I worked as a housecleaner after law school...oh, it smells like the zoo! Nay-aug.
I think they actually did have the animals out in the winter, but I'm not sure. I may be crossing summer and winter wires. Memories are like that.
The coal mine was mysterious and the ride was always broken. I wanted to go into the mine. I used to look forward to things like that. Instead of dreading everything. What turned me into such a chicken?
But the winter picnics were a blast. There were plenty of little hills for sleds. I can't recall specifics. The most vivid memory is opening that thermos and steaming my face with chicken pot pie.
Thursday, December 13, 2012
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About Narcissistic Personality Disorder
Wiki is as good a place as any to start.
Some may have a limited or minimal capability of experiencing love
Narcissistic_supplyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_supply
as my friend (who Michelle actively hated) asked me, what is the prey to the predator. I replied:
lunch.
Ours was a textbook narcissist/codependent marriage.
"Otto Kernberg as part of his description of what he called the malignant narcissist. Kernberg referred to the coldness in a such narcissist's relationships as the "tendency to disregard others except in temporary idealization of narcissistic supply" and he suggested that this was a feature which distinguished pathological from normal narcissism"
Narcissistic rage
oceanic feeling
Narcissistic personality disorder
Main article: Narcissistic personality disorder
Although most individuals have some narcissistic traits, high levels of narcissism can manifest themselves in a pathological
form as narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), whereby the patient
overestimates his or her abilities and has an excessive need for
admiration and affirmation. NPD is a condition defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders version 4, but a proposal has been made to remove it from the DSM-5.Some may have a limited or minimal capability of experiencing love
Narcissistic_supplyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_supply
as my friend (who Michelle actively hated) asked me, what is the prey to the predator. I replied:
lunch.
Ours was a textbook narcissist/codependent marriage.
"Otto Kernberg as part of his description of what he called the malignant narcissist. Kernberg referred to the coldness in a such narcissist's relationships as the "tendency to disregard others except in temporary idealization of narcissistic supply" and he suggested that this was a feature which distinguished pathological from normal narcissism"
Narcissistic rage
oceanic feeling
Within psychology, there are two main branches of research into narcissism, clinical and social psychology. These approaches differ in their view of narcissism with the former treating it as a disorder, thus as discrete, and the latter treating it as a personality trait, thus as a continuum. These two strands of research tend loosely to stand in a divergent relation to one another, although they converge in places.
But She's a Doctor
Being a doctor in our culture allows you to get away with a lot. Look at Augusten Burrough's adoptive (well, sort of) father, a psychiatrist who was crazier than many of his patients.
Doctors also vouch for one another. Like a tribe. There was no way a VA psychiatrist was going to listen to a dependent over a vet, especially a vet with MD after her name. It's to their credit that the VA people didn't seem too bothered by Michelle's switch from male to female. The bonds of being in a war together.
I worked with an RN who married a vet. She was convinced one of the VA's goals was to kill dependents. She wasn't the first, nor the last to say this, but she'd given birth in VA hospitals, so her words had weight. Bitterness, yes. Hyperbole, maybe. Still, it speaks of an attitude that's hard to overcome. Dependents are whale shit.
I got no help from the VA in trying to find help for Michelle. Michelle was fine. Cured of PTSD. It was her crazy wife that was the problem. I believed it because on the surface I seemed crazy, even to me.
It's the plight of the spouse of someone with a severe personality disorder to have all the craziness foisted off onto her. And the more you protest, the crazier you sound. I had good people helping me. The glass got clearer and clearer as I realized Michelle's world was the crazy one, Alice's Looking Glass world. But when you're in the midst of it, it's so hard to see the forest or the trees.
And when you're out of it, you're out in the cold and scrambling to forge a life from scraps. I wasn't strong. I made a lot of mistakes. Everything happens for a reason, we say. Of course, what choice do we have?
If there's a reason, I'm determined to discover it. I'm a Virgo; my purpose in life is to serve. So maybe the reason is elucidation for others. Maybe I'm a lightworker, however you want to define that. A little light, a single candle, while trying not to curse the darkness.
Anyway, my father accepted Michelle, which blew me away. I think because he saw Michelle, 6'2'' and wearing a dress, could take care of me. My family had an odd definition of "care." Keeping someone alive, which is a good thing. I'm not blaming. But emotional support only came through the next generation.
It did come through, and for that I'm grateful. I believe my mother and my brother's wife were the key to that blossoming. Michelle despised my family. But where was hers, I would ask. My family wasn't perfect, not sophisticated, not by Michelle's rancid definition, but they didn't disown me.
Michelle's family did. She found out her mother died by letter from her sister, which arrived too late for Michelle to attend the funeral. She found out her sister died by seeing the obituary on the internet. Michelle had to hire a detective to locate her sons when they turned 18, and even then they refused to see her. I don't blame them. Michelle wrote a horrible letter, chastising them and justifying herself. I was embarassed to read it. Michelle asked me, why did you let me send it?
Blame blame blame. Because you sent it without showing it to me, dummy. Remember? Michelle professed to love Truth but she had no idea what was the truth. I think she made so much up that she couldn't tell truth from lies and it all blended in her mind. She was terrified of the truth. Terrified to seem less-than in her own eyes. I pity her that now. Then it was infuriating.
She could convince herself of anything. She convinced herself the one person who had her best interest at heart was her worst enemy. Her lies destroyed two lives: hers and mine.
I'm trying to be a phoenix.
Doctors also vouch for one another. Like a tribe. There was no way a VA psychiatrist was going to listen to a dependent over a vet, especially a vet with MD after her name. It's to their credit that the VA people didn't seem too bothered by Michelle's switch from male to female. The bonds of being in a war together.
I worked with an RN who married a vet. She was convinced one of the VA's goals was to kill dependents. She wasn't the first, nor the last to say this, but she'd given birth in VA hospitals, so her words had weight. Bitterness, yes. Hyperbole, maybe. Still, it speaks of an attitude that's hard to overcome. Dependents are whale shit.
I got no help from the VA in trying to find help for Michelle. Michelle was fine. Cured of PTSD. It was her crazy wife that was the problem. I believed it because on the surface I seemed crazy, even to me.
It's the plight of the spouse of someone with a severe personality disorder to have all the craziness foisted off onto her. And the more you protest, the crazier you sound. I had good people helping me. The glass got clearer and clearer as I realized Michelle's world was the crazy one, Alice's Looking Glass world. But when you're in the midst of it, it's so hard to see the forest or the trees.
And when you're out of it, you're out in the cold and scrambling to forge a life from scraps. I wasn't strong. I made a lot of mistakes. Everything happens for a reason, we say. Of course, what choice do we have?
If there's a reason, I'm determined to discover it. I'm a Virgo; my purpose in life is to serve. So maybe the reason is elucidation for others. Maybe I'm a lightworker, however you want to define that. A little light, a single candle, while trying not to curse the darkness.
Anyway, my father accepted Michelle, which blew me away. I think because he saw Michelle, 6'2'' and wearing a dress, could take care of me. My family had an odd definition of "care." Keeping someone alive, which is a good thing. I'm not blaming. But emotional support only came through the next generation.
It did come through, and for that I'm grateful. I believe my mother and my brother's wife were the key to that blossoming. Michelle despised my family. But where was hers, I would ask. My family wasn't perfect, not sophisticated, not by Michelle's rancid definition, but they didn't disown me.
Michelle's family did. She found out her mother died by letter from her sister, which arrived too late for Michelle to attend the funeral. She found out her sister died by seeing the obituary on the internet. Michelle had to hire a detective to locate her sons when they turned 18, and even then they refused to see her. I don't blame them. Michelle wrote a horrible letter, chastising them and justifying herself. I was embarassed to read it. Michelle asked me, why did you let me send it?
Blame blame blame. Because you sent it without showing it to me, dummy. Remember? Michelle professed to love Truth but she had no idea what was the truth. I think she made so much up that she couldn't tell truth from lies and it all blended in her mind. She was terrified of the truth. Terrified to seem less-than in her own eyes. I pity her that now. Then it was infuriating.
She could convince herself of anything. She convinced herself the one person who had her best interest at heart was her worst enemy. Her lies destroyed two lives: hers and mine.
I'm trying to be a phoenix.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
She was Glamorous
When I first met her, she was glamorous. Maybe she was just glamorous for Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. But to me, her life was fantastic. As a man, Peter Michael was a paratrooper in Vietnam. He lived with the Vietnamese as an adviser. He wouldn't talk much about his military experience. PTSD.
Although I was a psychiatric nurse, I didn't recognize her PTSD, likely because I didn't recognize my own PTSD. We shared the weird world view of PTSD victims but that didn't help us understand one another. It did, but as I learned very young, the best way to deal with it was to not deal with it. The compassion I felt I could not translate into action. All my fussing for her comfort seemed to backfire eventually. I did not realize I was trying to appease someone who could not be appeased.
As Peter, he'd gone to medical school, set up a million-dollar practice, married a Hungarian countess and fathered 2 children. At the same time, he was dressing as a woman and going to gay bars. He was Ms. Provincetown of 1980 at the Fanasia Fair (check name) gathering of transvestites and transsexuals. He took me there one year and I was impressed with the wild freedom in the streets.
Before, Michelle was full of fun and high spirits. The bitter little person hunched over in her mobility scooter was very different from the person I met. But the diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder explained the pitched battle and ultimate defeat.
Although I was a psychiatric nurse, I didn't recognize her PTSD, likely because I didn't recognize my own PTSD. We shared the weird world view of PTSD victims but that didn't help us understand one another. It did, but as I learned very young, the best way to deal with it was to not deal with it. The compassion I felt I could not translate into action. All my fussing for her comfort seemed to backfire eventually. I did not realize I was trying to appease someone who could not be appeased.
As Peter, he'd gone to medical school, set up a million-dollar practice, married a Hungarian countess and fathered 2 children. At the same time, he was dressing as a woman and going to gay bars. He was Ms. Provincetown of 1980 at the Fanasia Fair (check name) gathering of transvestites and transsexuals. He took me there one year and I was impressed with the wild freedom in the streets.
Before, Michelle was full of fun and high spirits. The bitter little person hunched over in her mobility scooter was very different from the person I met. But the diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder explained the pitched battle and ultimate defeat.
She Cheated me out of her Death
In the beginning, I worried she'd die any day. She put that fear in me. I don't know how deliberate her manipulation was. I was so naive...still am. Less so, but, well...
Can you un-learn innocence? Or is it a terminal condition?
She was dying tomorrow for 20 years. And like a fool I worried daily for 20 years that she'd die tomorrow. You tend to spoil someone you think might die any day. When I finally decided that was a ridiculous way to live, that's when she decided I was bad news. I didn't realize it. I thought it would help her not to live in a funeral procession. My bad.
She said I was the reason she'd lived so long. Obviously. She died less than a year after she kicked me out. As I said to her "you'll never find anyone as soft-hearted and soft-headed as me again."
She didn't. Soft-headed, oh, yes. Traded me in for a born-again Christian. I saw that coming but by then I was the evil one who wanted her dead so who listened to me?
She must have wanted to die by then. Even she couldn't stand her own company and she had no friends.
Can you un-learn innocence? Or is it a terminal condition?
She was dying tomorrow for 20 years. And like a fool I worried daily for 20 years that she'd die tomorrow. You tend to spoil someone you think might die any day. When I finally decided that was a ridiculous way to live, that's when she decided I was bad news. I didn't realize it. I thought it would help her not to live in a funeral procession. My bad.
She said I was the reason she'd lived so long. Obviously. She died less than a year after she kicked me out. As I said to her "you'll never find anyone as soft-hearted and soft-headed as me again."
She didn't. Soft-headed, oh, yes. Traded me in for a born-again Christian. I saw that coming but by then I was the evil one who wanted her dead so who listened to me?
She must have wanted to die by then. Even she couldn't stand her own company and she had no friends.
Death = Silence
Like she never existed. That's how I dealt with it.
No one taught me otherwise. No one told me a goddamned thing.
Idiots.
No one taught me otherwise. No one told me a goddamned thing.
Idiots.
Pregnant with Tumor
My friend's mother was pregnant. Her youngest daughter was a couple years younger than (Susan) and I were. She was horribly embarrassed, as we all were, but it set a precedent.
Maybe my mother was pregnant?
Then I overheard her talking to someone, saying the doctor thought it might be pregnancy, but she KNEW it couldn't be. I guess that meant they hadn't had sex. Hopes dashed.
How did I know to even imagine a pregnancy? Was she talking about her waist expanding but not from overeating? Was there a mid-point when I thought maybe she was just getting fat with fat and in denial, though I would not have thought to call it "denial" back then.
Denial, that whole concept came later, with the 12-steps that brought me back to life then let me down utterly, but that was in the future.
I almost said "way" in the future, but it really wasn't that far off. I was 11 or 12 and the cancer was back. It would kill her in a year or so, got all the way to her brain before it did.
That's when I stopped believing in God. I mean, the way I saw it, the whole religion is based on how bad Jesus suffered on the cross. And I thought, he didn't suffer worth shit. Three hours on a cross? Big deal. Try getting breast cancer and have it eat away at you for years and years and just when you think you are okay bam it comes back and finishes you off.
Not before making your children hope you are pregnant with a child, not a tumor. I
Maybe my mother was pregnant?
Then I overheard her talking to someone, saying the doctor thought it might be pregnancy, but she KNEW it couldn't be. I guess that meant they hadn't had sex. Hopes dashed.
How did I know to even imagine a pregnancy? Was she talking about her waist expanding but not from overeating? Was there a mid-point when I thought maybe she was just getting fat with fat and in denial, though I would not have thought to call it "denial" back then.
Denial, that whole concept came later, with the 12-steps that brought me back to life then let me down utterly, but that was in the future.
I almost said "way" in the future, but it really wasn't that far off. I was 11 or 12 and the cancer was back. It would kill her in a year or so, got all the way to her brain before it did.
That's when I stopped believing in God. I mean, the way I saw it, the whole religion is based on how bad Jesus suffered on the cross. And I thought, he didn't suffer worth shit. Three hours on a cross? Big deal. Try getting breast cancer and have it eat away at you for years and years and just when you think you are okay bam it comes back and finishes you off.
Not before making your children hope you are pregnant with a child, not a tumor. I
I Dream Dead People
The dream is never the same, but the theme is. I've been having this dream since my mother died, when I was 13, Thanksgiving Eve, 1975.
In the dream, there's been a mistake. She never really died. Oops. We thought she did, but she got better actually.
Actually.
The dreams are usually banal: washing dishes, cooking meals, packing for vacations we never took. I'm surprised she's alive, but accept with relief that Mommy didn't really die.
I mean, that makes more sense than what really happened.
And we get on with life. Like it is supposed to be.
The dream used to break my heart. It still does, but only for a moment. Like dangling a chocolate in front of a starving child who is allergic to chocolate so even if he does get the candy he will be sick to death from eating it. I'm not a child anymore.
When I was in my 20's, I dreamed I say in the dream "this is just a dream and Mommy is dead." I thought that would stop the dream. It did for a while, but then it came back.
I dreamed it again just yesterday. Maybe had something to do with having a wicked bad cold. This time we were setting up the house for some grand affair, like an amusement park almost. I remember my brother tossing blue paint at me as I dove for a wave. It was colorful and fun and Mommy was there. My dream self is savvy enough by now that I realized she wasn't really REALLY back from the dead, but then I woke up in the dream and she was still alive so it fooled me again.
I never wanted to wake up from that dream. That was my thought on really REALLY awakening.
Not that I consciously miss my mother. I'm 50, seven years older than she ever got to be. Honestly, when will this shit stop?
In the dream, there's been a mistake. She never really died. Oops. We thought she did, but she got better actually.
Actually.
The dreams are usually banal: washing dishes, cooking meals, packing for vacations we never took. I'm surprised she's alive, but accept with relief that Mommy didn't really die.
I mean, that makes more sense than what really happened.
And we get on with life. Like it is supposed to be.
The dream used to break my heart. It still does, but only for a moment. Like dangling a chocolate in front of a starving child who is allergic to chocolate so even if he does get the candy he will be sick to death from eating it. I'm not a child anymore.
When I was in my 20's, I dreamed I say in the dream "this is just a dream and Mommy is dead." I thought that would stop the dream. It did for a while, but then it came back.
I dreamed it again just yesterday. Maybe had something to do with having a wicked bad cold. This time we were setting up the house for some grand affair, like an amusement park almost. I remember my brother tossing blue paint at me as I dove for a wave. It was colorful and fun and Mommy was there. My dream self is savvy enough by now that I realized she wasn't really REALLY back from the dead, but then I woke up in the dream and she was still alive so it fooled me again.
I never wanted to wake up from that dream. That was my thought on really REALLY awakening.
Not that I consciously miss my mother. I'm 50, seven years older than she ever got to be. Honestly, when will this shit stop?
12 12 12 Numerology and such truck
I'm not invested in whether or not the world will end per the Mayan calandar on 12=21-12. I'm not invested in this life, so why would I care? Why does anyone care? We won't be there to know if the world ends, now, will we?
Unless there's a big bad terrible Other world. Ah, there's the rub. It was the rub then and it's the rub now. But what could be worse than this world? So say some. I don't buy that the world is so terrible. I mean, no more terrible than it's ever been. Holocausts, hatred, violence, illness, flesh falling from bones. Why did Christianity take root so well?
It can be whatever you want it to be. Authoritarian, liberal, self-centered, other-centered. Pagan rituals given saintly reasons. Flexibility. Is also why it's evil. Too flexible. too easy to call yourself a christian. Should have more stringent entry requirements.
Kindness. Love your neighbor, but do not covet his wife. Well, what if I love his wife? When 50 % of the married population chooses divorce, you can't really rule against it and expect to stay a religion peeps will invest in.
Focus on the wrong stuff.
Yes, Anna, you do.
What is right stuff?
Your fucking book.
Unless there's a big bad terrible Other world. Ah, there's the rub. It was the rub then and it's the rub now. But what could be worse than this world? So say some. I don't buy that the world is so terrible. I mean, no more terrible than it's ever been. Holocausts, hatred, violence, illness, flesh falling from bones. Why did Christianity take root so well?
It can be whatever you want it to be. Authoritarian, liberal, self-centered, other-centered. Pagan rituals given saintly reasons. Flexibility. Is also why it's evil. Too flexible. too easy to call yourself a christian. Should have more stringent entry requirements.
Kindness. Love your neighbor, but do not covet his wife. Well, what if I love his wife? When 50 % of the married population chooses divorce, you can't really rule against it and expect to stay a religion peeps will invest in.
Focus on the wrong stuff.
Yes, Anna, you do.
What is right stuff?
Your fucking book.
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