13 reasons why I love Halloween

Posted on October 13, 2014 by luckyotter

Most people probably love Christmas best, but for me it’s Halloween and here’s why.

1. It’s not overcommercialized like Christmas, but commercialized just enough to be fun.

2. It doesn’t cost a lot of money

3. It doesn’t cause a lot of stress or lead to family arguments or cause depression like Christmas does.

3. Chocolate. I like to buy bags of chocolate bars meant for kids and eat ’em myself. Unfortunately I live in an area where there are no trick or treaters. No sidewalks.

4. I don’t dress up in costume anymore, but really enjoy seeing other people’s costumes. Some are very creative!

5. The weather is still pretty nice–at least where I live.

6. Candy corn! I love it.

7. Pumpkins.

8. If you’re into getting into costume, it gives you permission to be someone or something outrageous for a day and still be socially acceptable.

9. I have very pleasant memories of Halloween as a child. It’s one of the few times during the year I actually felt happy. When I was a kid it was better though–my neighborhood was safe and parents did not accompany kids over age 6 or 7. The candy bars were regular size back then–not that “fun size” they give out now, and people would go all out decorating their houses. I remember one family even had a “haunted house” in their basement every year.

10. It’s not a Satanic holiday, as some Christians think. It’s a pagan holiday celebrating the harvest, that was later adopted by the Catholic Church (All Hallows Eve) as a preliminary celebration leading to All Souls Day (November 1)

11. It has just a little bit of a “forbidden” feel about it.

12. The movie “Halloween.” I love that movie and watch it every year on Halloween.

13. Black cats.

What’s your favorite holiday, and why?

Yes Virginia…evil people really do exist. Don’t think–run!

Posted on October 12, 2014 by luckyotter

Those of us in an active relationship with a psychopath usually either don’t see or choose to ignore how purely evil these characters are–and that they are set out to destroy the relationship, the victimized person, and even the children if there are any involved. Many times a victim feels like they can’t leave, especially if they don’t have financial resources (which is often the case when a person is enmeshed with a psychopath, who may have made any funds impossible to access), a supportive family to help them escape, or there are children involved.

Like most women (and men) enmeshed in a marriage or relationship with a psychopath, I waited far too long to leave my abuser. My son, although scapegoated by his father through most of his childhood, escaped relatively unscathed (although he has some anger and self esteem issues), but my daughter is another story. She was deeply damaged by her father’s manipulations and by having to play the role of his junior “flying monkey” and participate in his triangulation and gaslighting games when she was just a child and young teenager, not to mention being introduced to things a youngster should not have to deal with: drugs, alcohol, family violence (and even possible sexual abuse, though this has never been proven). She’s taken on a few of his narcissistic traits (she’s good at manipulation and isn’t always honest), although narcissism is to some extent genetic and her symptoms don’t seem to be too severe. She is also bipolar and suffers from C-PTSD, as I do.

For many years, I didn’t even see that he was an abuser. He wasn’t usually physically violent (except when drinking); his method of abuse was much more subtle–and more diabolical than that. I didn’t know what hit me and like most abused spouses, learned to blame myself and came to believe the discord was MY problem, because I “overreacted to everything” and was “crazy and unstable.” Having to spend time in a mental facility in the late 1990s was “proof” that I was the one with the mental problems–and in fact I did have serious mental problems, but they were brought on by my mind being played like a violin by a very evil man. He was a virtuoso crazymaker.

Other people saw how evil he was and couldn’t understand why I couldn’t see it too. I remember a friend of mine from work came over once with another friend when Michael was home, and while he was pleasant enough to them, neither of these friends ever wanted to come to my home again. When I asked Holly (one of the friends) why not, she said, “I don’t like your husband and neither does Teresa. He gave us the creeps, there’s just something not very nice about him.”

Parents of two of my daughter’s friends had met Michael, and would not allow their children to come to my home because of him. Oh, he was always on his best behavior with adult visitors, but one of the mothers told me, “he seems perfectly polite, but I just don’t feel comfortable around him and don’t want my daughter around him. I’m very sorry.”

I saw the evil in him on one occasion while we were still married–and what I saw scared the shit out of me. It was one night when he was very drunk, we had been fighting all night and ended it by having sex. The sex was rough and angry though, and suddenly I looked up and saw a totally expressionless face. There was no love there, just pure hatred. I could feel the hate emanating from him. But worse than that was his eyes. Normally a steely gray-blue, they had turned solid black, very similar to the solid black eyes demons in horror movies have. I know I wasn’t imagining this–what I was seeing was what he really was but kept hidden. No, not a demon, but something worse–a person with no self, a person who had sold his soul or never had one. There was nothing there, and nothingness is what evil actually is. That’s why malignant narcissists and psychopaths need to wear masks, to cover up what isn’t there.

Michael knew I had seen it, and knew I knew, because he immediately ended the intimacy, pulled on his clothes, and left the house, but not before giving me the most hateful sneer I had ever seen.

My father had talked to him one night during one of our many fights. Now my father has never been a particularly religious man and never believed in Satan or hell, so he didn’t say anything about this to me at the time, but years later, after Michael and I separated, he confessed that night he had heard Michael speaking in a low, gutteral, demonic voice. It scared him so much he decided to read M. Scott Peck’s book,”People of the Lie,” and after he was done he sent me the book. I was riveted by the book and also shocked and scared to death. That was the first time I began to realize that I had been dealing with a malignant narcissist who was dead set on destroying me and my children and almost succeeded.

People outside the relationship–casual friends, mothers of my children’s friends, and my father had all seen immediately what he was, but because I was enmeshed and had young children, I couldn’t see it–or refused to. It gives me chills to this day to think I spent 28 years in the presence of pure evil, but that’s what it was. I’m lucky to be alive today and even luckier that I didn’t completely lose my soul. My children are lucky too, although my poor daughter is the most deeply damaged by him and may never fully recover.

If you are in a relationship and others are wary or uncomfortable around them and can’t explain why, or you see the countenance of pure hatred and evil that I did (and also the solid black eyes), run away as fast as you can. If there are kids, take them with you. You may think you can’t, but even if you don’t have a supportive family or are financially unable to find another place to live, most towns and cities have services and even shelters for abused women and their children. The shelter I stayed at with my kids was very nice, and the counselors were wonderful (I went back though). If you are a man, it may be more difficult to find this kind of help, and you might have to dig a little deeper or even move to another area to find services, but they do exist. Take advantage of the government programs that still exist–food stamps, Medicaid for the kids, in some communities even housing vouchers. Churches and other charitable organizations have limited funds, but may be able to provide some food, help with bills, or other services. Seek counseling–many communities have free or low cost mental health services for abused parents and their children. Don’t worry that you have to move out of that big house you bought together, or that your kids will be without their father (or mother). This is life or death–don’t think about what you’ll be losing because at the end of the day, it won’t be much. Just get the hell out.

Yikes! Does this mean I’m a narcissist?

Posted on October 12, 2014 by luckyotter

I just finished reading a Scientific American article that delineates narcissists into two categories: Overt Narcissists and Covert Narcissists:

When most people think of narcissism, they think of the public face of narcissism: extraversion, aggression, self-assuredness, grandiosity, vanity, and the need to be admired by others (see “How to Spot a Narcissist“). But as far back as 1938, Harvard psychologist Henry Murray noticed another breed of narcissist among his undergraduates: the covert narcissist. While the “overt” narcissists tended to be aggressive, self-aggrandizing, exploitative, and have extreme delusions of grandeur and a need for attention, “covert” narcissists were more prone to feelings of neglect or belittlement, hypersensitivity, anxiety, and delusions of persecution [I’ve also seen this referred to as “inverted narcissism,” whatever that means].

Um, I’m prone to feelings of neglect or belittlement, am known to be hypersensitive and anxious, and there are times I believe I’m being persecuted…

But it gets even worse…

In the 90s, psychologist Paul Wink analyzed a variety of narcissism scales and confirmed that there are indeed two distinct faces of narcissism, which they labeled “Grandiosity-Exhibitonism” and “Vulnerability-Sensitivity”. He found that both shades of narcissism shared a common core of conceit, arrogance, and the tendency to give in to one’s own needs and disregard others. But that’s where the similarities ended.

Okaaaaayyy, I admit I can be selfish, but I don’t think I’m arrogant or conceited. But read on…

While Grandiosity-Exhibitionism was associated with extraversion, aggressiveness, self-assuredness, and the need to be admired by others, Vulnerability-Sensitivity was associated with introversion, hypersensitivity, defensiveness, anxiety, and vulnerability. Further research by Jonathan Cheek and Jennifer Odessa Grimes at Wellesley College found a moderate correlation between covert narcissism and the Highly Sensitive Person Scale developed by Elaine Aron.

Uh…I’ve frequently mentioned being an HSP and I’m definitely introverted….

In other words, while introversion, sensitivity, and narcissism are all partially separate traits, hypersensitive covert narcissists are more likely to report that they are introverted and sensitive.

I’m so busted. I’m almost afraid to take the test at the end.

But if I am narcissistic, I think I’m a pretty benign narcissist, as the disorder runs on a continuum from somewhat narcissistic to murderous evil psychopath. I would guess the same is true of all HSPs (who I noticed tend to blog about narcissism a lot)–that we aren’t malignantly narcissistic. I think a lot of HSPs and people who tend toward introversion also tend to feel guilty about everything too and feel bad when we hurt others, so that doesn’t seem to indicate malignant narcissism or psychopathy anyway. I think they missed the mark here, because narcissists don’t feel guilt or care if they hurt others.

Narcissists who use 12-step programs to further their agenda

Posted on October 12, 2014 by luckyotter

Today I was reading a couple of new blog articles by Dr. George K. Simon, which can be found here and here. Dr. Simon has written a number of books about psychopathy, narcissism and other “character disorders” (his term for the DSM “Cluster B” personality disorders, which are in part characterized by a lack of empathy or capacity to feel remorse). The two articles I was reading focus on narcissistic/antisocial behavior and addiction.

Indeed, many disordered individuals have a concurrent alcohol or drug problem, but unlike neurotics (people with anxiety issues who have the capacity to feel shame, empathy and remorse–usually so much that they sabotage themselves), the character-disordered are not very likely to seek treatment for their addictions. This really isn’t any surprise, since Cluster B types (especially Narcissists and people with antisocial personality disorder) aren’t likely to seek any kind of psychological treatment or therapy because they’re not the ones suffering–they’re more likely to cause others to suffer. Narcissists and those with APD also think they’re superior human beings who don’t need any help. Instead, they blame their victims for being the ones with the mental or emotional problems.

But there are some character disordered people who do join 12 step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous. They may be aware they have a substance abuse issue, but that’s as far as any insight into themselves goes. These are the “recovered” addicts and alcoholics who lord their recovery over others, and treat their 12-step program like a religion that allows them to believe they are superior to everyone else.

My mother falls into this category. She’s a Narc who, back in the early 1980s, decided she was an alcoholic and became involved with AA. Speeding through the 12 steps at a pace that was most likely unrealistic for most people trying to recover, she went from being merely abusive to intolerably, infuriatingly abusive. While her drunkenness had been mostly unpleasant, at times she could almost be “fun,” or at least so out of it that she handled her abuse of me clumsily and sometimes forgot she was supposed to be abusing me and would shift into treating me as a younger woman she could party with. But after discovering AA, suddenly she became a self-righteous, judgmental, rigid you-know-what who lorded her new “religion” over me in particular. Mind you, I am not dissing AA or any other 12 step program, as they have helped many people turn their lives around and free themselves from addiction. But when narcissists find these programs, they use them to further their own agenda, and as they do with everything else, turn the steps of recovery into weapons to be used against others. Narcissists in recovery programs are as bad as the worst kind of religious zealots and treat the program as if they alone discovered it, seeming to equate themselves with Moses being hand picked by God to discover the Ten Commandments.

They also turn the various slogans associated with these 12 step programs into handy justifications for being even more self-centered, arrogant and unempathic than they already were. My Narc mother, for example, now had handy canned excuses for her horrific treatment of others. For example, if you called her out for a hurtful action or comment, she’d respond with “your feelings are your own responsibility, not mine” or “stop taking my inventory.” If she wanted to belittle you, she’d say “you’re on a dry drunk” (actually she was the one on the dry drunk) or “that’s your addiction talking.” (she thought everyone who wasn’t a teetotaler or occasionally indulged in a little pot was an alcoholic or drug addict).

The 4th step of AA is “taking a fearless moral inventory” and a later step is “making amends to those you have harmed.” While these two steps would seem like holy water is to the devil for a Narc, sending them off flailing and screaming, some narcissists can and do take these steps (others get “stuck” at step 4, and may quit the program), but if they do, they work these steps in a shallow, glib manner, usually only addressing the substance abuse itself, while glossing over any pain they caused others. This is how my mother handled these steps, and when she “made amends” to me, I didn’t feel any sincerity there at all. Her “amends” seemed as phony as an mass-mailed Christmas card from your local bail bondsman. I suppose I’m guilty of “taking her inventory” but that’s how it felt to me. She was never one to apologize for anything, ever. No narcissist is.

Another interesting thing about Narcs who join 12 step programs is they don’t dig any deeper. Many non-narcissist alcoholics and drug addicts come to a point in recovery where they want to learn more about themselves, what makes them tick, and perhaps what led them to self-medicate in the first place. They realize that the addiction, while it very likely has a genetic component, can also be caused by psychological factors and they want to dig deeper to find out why they drank or used in the first place. A Narc will never do that, because any sort of therapy requires introspection into their own behavior and that is terrifying to them–because even they know that all they’ll see when they look into the mirror is….an endless black void of nothingness. As I’ve talked about in previous posts, for whatever reason, narcissists don’t have a true “self”–instead they wear a series of masks meant to dupe others into believing there is something there when there isn’t anything there at all.

So beware of the recovered addict or alcoholic who treats their 12-step program like a religion and uses it as a pedestal to make others feel deficient–you’re almost certainly dealing with a narcissist. And as you might expect, many narcissists are active in churches, especially those that are autocratic, evangelical or fundamentalist in nature, because it allows them an easy way to feel superior even if they haven’t achieved anything notable in life: they’re “saved” and you’re going to hell. Narcissists in 12 step programs use the program’s tenets almost exactly the same way.

Post #50: on the beach

Posted on October 11, 2014 by luckyotter

My son is a talented photographer and filmmaker. Today he shared a few photographs he took of an approaching storm and the sunset (not on the same day) off the beach on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, which is five minutes from where he lives outside Port Richey, Florida. I thought these deserved to be shared here. There are a lot of others, but I’m not able to upload the file type.
Click the pictures on for larger views.

The water looks like liquid gold. Those are his feet.

There’s something haunting about the child’s swing in the approaching storm, and that’s what makes the photo.

Sunset off the Gulf.

Shit happens

Posted on October 10, 2014 by luckyotter

I haven’t blogged for the past two days because my daughter was in a car accident yesterday. She is fine, but the car was totalled. I’ve been too overwhelmed to blog about anything, but tomorrow I’ll post the entire story.

It will be my 50th post. I’ve been blogging for one month, so that’s about two posts a day on average.

ETA: I just added a photo of her car (actually my car) and the damage done to it by a Hyundai SUV driven by an 80 year old with no license. He failed to yield and smashed into her front end. In the background you can see his vehicle, with a small dent on the left front end. At least she is okay. It could have been much worse.

Actually I think I’ve written enough already about this (what more is there to say?), and tomorrow’s post is going to be about something else.

You can see more detail by clicking on the photo.

How “positive thinking” nazis jettison responsibility

Posted on October 9, 2014 by luckyotter

We live in an unempathic, selfish, narcissistic society. It’s social Darwinism at its finest, an Ayn Rand wet dream–a society that values selfishness over altruism, greed over empathy, money and material goods over timeless human virtues, fake smiles and phony platitudes over honest emotion.

Nowhere is this sickness more prevalent than it is in America today. One of the most irritating symptoms of how shallow a nation we’ve become is the plethora of corny “positive thinking” platitudes, cliches, and memes.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with some healthy positive thinking, and attempting to see the glass as half full rather than half empty–as long as the positivity is tempered by realism. If you spend your entire life thinking how awful your life is and don’t even try to look for the silver linings, chances are you’re not going to see much improvement in your life. Daily affirmations are a good idea, as long as we don’t delude ourselves into thinking problems don’t exist and therefore don’t need to be addressed.

But as human beings, we all need a shoulder to cry on sometimes, someone we can tell our troubles to without fear of being judged or our concerns dismissed or criticized. There are times when we all need a little empathy and someone who understands what we are going through. Being told in our darkest moments that we need to “smile and the world smiles with you,” “lighten up,” or “this is a learning experience” is the last thing we need or want to hear. Corny “positive thinking” platitudes can sound like an invalidation or dismissal of what’s close to our hearts and in some cases even make us feel shame in addition to the pain we’re already experiencing.

Both my parents and my stepmother are on the phony positive thinking brigade. A long time ago, I used to actually try to talk to my parents about my fears and heartbreaks, but never felt supported by them. All I wanted was a hug and some encouraging, genuine words, maybe something like “I understand why you’d be so upset” or “You have every right to be angry.” Sometimes even an attentive silence would have done, since really listening to someone doesn’t always require words and sometimes just being heard without judgment is all that’s needed.

Instead I’d get simplistic “think positive” cliches and slogans, if not straight up invalidation and criticism of my feelings. My narcissistic mother was notorious for emailing me these corny platitudes that were as phony and devoid of true emotion as a smiley face bumper sticker on a hearse. Receiving her brand of “encouragement” made my blood boil. I spent a long time trying to figure out why it bothered me so much when she (or my stepmother or father) did this, and I finally figured out why. It was a dismissal, not only of my feelings, but a method of jettisoning any responsibility or having to take any time away from themselves to provide genuine help or comfort. It was, in effect, the same thing as tossing a lollipop to a crying child instead of trying to find out why the child is so upset. “Alright kid, here’s a lollipop, now leave me alone and stop crying.” By sending me pictures of kittens with happy slogans under them or a rainbow with an “inspirational” sentiment, they were avoiding taking any responsibility or showing any empathy, while still being able to say, “Well, what’s your problem? I acknowledged your pain–I sent you that “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” video.”

Positive thinking nazis are pervasive, they’re fake as hell, they’re complacent, and they’re everywhere. Every day we’re bombarded with Internet memes (Facebook is notorious for them), slogans, bumper stickers, and politicians (usually Republican) telling us to “just be happy and everything else will take care of itself.” It’s enough to drive me insane. How do you “just be happy?” I’m sorry, but I’m not a machine with a “happy” button. I can’t switch my emotions on and off because you’re uncomfortable with my negative moods.

There’s also a huge disconnect from reality. Poverty, homelessness, mental illness, and addiction actually do exist and they’re everywhere, in every town, every city, every neighborhood. Positive thinking nazis choose to not see these realities and even blame those suffering from poverty, homelessness, addiction, and mental illness for “their own condition” by not being “positive” enough. If only it were that simple. But it’s not simple at all because for those who can’t even procure basic food, medical care, and shelter, or who have a chemical imbalance in their brain that causes severe depression or addiction, thinking happy thoughts is just about impossible.

There needs to be a balance between the deluded positive thinking tyranny and providing authentic support. The first does not replace the second and in fact can exacerbate the situation by making the person needing help feel guilty and ashamed for feeling the way they do.

We need to stop being a nation concerned only with ourselves and stop dismissing the very real concerns of our friends, family and neighbors. Saying “smile!” to an upset person doesn’t cut it. We are all in this together, and authentic care and support are in very short supply and are needed now more than ever. We will never heal as a nation if we continue to equate slapping happy face stickers on everything with actually going out of our way to do good for others.

This is what I was born to do.

Posted on October 8, 2014 by luckyotter

Writing has always been what I’ve excelled at more than anything else, but because of the emotional and mental damage done to me by my psychopaths throughout my life, I never pursued it seriously and always felt I didn’t know what I should be or do. At an early age I started to believe I wasn’t much good at anything anyway.

These are the lies and half lies that were told about and to me by the various psychopaths who got to control me (some are based on half truths):
1. Suzanne is smart, but will never excel at anything because she doesn’t apply herself (true, but I didn’t apply myself because I was told I couldn’t do anything).
2. She is too sensitive to make it in this world (you can be sensitive and be successful).
3. She doesn’t make friends easily because she has a terrible personality (I am shy and not very social but I do not have a terrible personality).
4. She’s negative and lives on the pity pot so she will never achieve anything (this has been true at times).
5. She’s lazy and unmotivated and always gives up (see # 1).
6. She doesn’t stick with anything long enough to get really good at anything (see #1).
7. No one wants to be around Suzanne because she’s such a Debbie downer (depression and PTSD caused by being abused by psychopaths).
8. She isn’t any good at office politics (This is true).
9. She should have become a nurse or a teacher because then she’d always have a good job. (I am totally unsuited for nursing and teaching).
10. If Suzanne was thinner she would be more successful and get better jobs (I have never been seriously overweight so this is a lie).
11. If Suzanne smiled more people would like her better (probably true, but smiling doesn’t come second nature to me–I am working on that).
12. She’s stupid and has no common sense (I am not stupid but it’s true I can be a bit of the “absentminded professor”)
13. She’s insane (insanity implies someone who isn’t aware of their own actions or motives or is deluded–I suffer and have suffered from major depression, C-PTSD, autism and avoidant personality disorder. These are not “insane” diagnoses).

You get the idea.

The closest I ever came to having a writing career were my two jobs as an editor–I was a technical writer and editor back in the late 1980s, then became a copy editor and later associate editor for a medical journal from 1989-1991. My job included writing a one page regular column, and I also used to write freelance reviews for self help and pop psychology books. These were all good jobs but none paid well. But honestly, I didn’t really like what I was doing (except for writing the book reviews). It was a very corporate environment and there was a lot of office politics so I was never 100% comfortable there.

After moving to North Carolina in 1993 after my second child was born, I never again had a job even remotely related to publishing or writing, and I thought I never would again.

I wrote a novel in 2003 but it was rejected by several publishers (and my narcissist mother said she hated it and I wasn’t ready to write a novel) so I put it in a box in the back of my closet and never looked at it again. It embarrassed me. So from then on I limited my writing to posts on forums or comments on other people’s blogs. I believed I had forgotten how to write, and even worse, I thought I lost my creativity. I never seemed to be able to come up with ideas anymore. What was really happening was I was so terrified of failure (and so brainwashed by my abusers that I always would fail) that it was just safer to never try anything new or take any risks. If I never tried anything, then I couldn’t really fail, could I? Why have ideas if you’re never going to act on them?

That’s faulty logic though, because if you never try anything new, accept a challenge, or take a risk, you may not fail at any activity but you will fail at life, and that’s a lot worse.

One of the benefits of freeing myself from the psychopaths in my life is occasional unexpected bursts of inspiration, and that’s how this blog came to be. Now that I write something every day, my creative muscle is strengthening and I feel like new ideas pop into my head several times a day now. I thought I’d have trouble even coming up with one post a day, but most days I have ideas for two or three. Blogging is something I should have started years ago; it might have led to something bigger and maybe even become a career.

But you know what? There’s no reason why it still can’t. I feel like I finally found my purpose after so many years of feeling like a lost ship without a rudder. I have a good feeling about it.

Blogging drunk

Posted on October 7, 2014 by luckyotter

I’ve had almost three glasses of Merlot and I feel like the buzz just got vacuum-suctioned from my brain. See, I had almost finished a writing this post but in my half drunken state I hit some key I shouldn’t have and the whole thing was deleted, and the nice buzz I’d been working on was gone. I wanted to ram my laptop through the wall. I couldn’t get my post back so now I have to start over. I want to kick a puppy right now. And now I can barely type because although my mind is suddenly clear, my body is apparently still drunk.

I’m pouring a little more wine into my glass now and taking a sip. Aaaahhhhh! I must rewrite that post, but it won’t be as good as the first one, which was awesome. Arrrrghhhh!

So today I decided to get drunk. Now, I’m not a big drinker at all, and in fact don’t even like alcohol too much. It makes me feel sick and doesn’t give me the same pleasant buzz it did when I was in my 20s. Today, in my 50s, I can have just one or two drinks and stop. I drink very rarely and when I do I don’t care for it much. Back in my prime I spent a lot of time drunk and didn’t know when to stop. I even joined AA (and met Michael, my psychopathic sperm donor there) but evidently I was just a problem drinker and hadn’t crossed the line to alcoholism because according to their beliefs, a true alcoholic can never ever drink again because if they do, they will fall off the side of the sobriety ship, get abducted by Jack Daniels, whose goons will waterboard you with booze for all eternity. Well, anyway, that didn’t happened to me. The last time I got this drunk was on New Years Eve almost two years ago.

But today I decided I wanted to not only drink, but get drunk. I didn’t wake up wanting to do that though. There were important things to take care of.

I guess I need to provide a little background as to what motivated me to want to get sloshed. My 21 year old daughter Molly has had her share of issues. She was a rebellious teenager and her rebellion and rash, impulsive behavior hasn’t let up much since she was 15. I blame a lot of this on her dad and his ex-girlfriend, who took my then 12-year old daughter to drug parties where my girl developed a taste for the illicit and mind-bending.

I just finished my third glass of Merlot (the one I was refilling a few minutes ago) and just took a couple of hits of weed too, another thing I don’t indulge in much. I like to be clearheaded most of the time but today? Honestly, IDGAF.

Molly’s had a few run ins with the law–petty charges like shoplifing and a DWI. Back in April, when she turned 21, she received an inheritance from my father for $20K. My son received the same, but has spent his wisely on his education and camera and computer equipment so he can keep making films which he hopes get him into that industry (I never got any inheritance from my father but that’s irrelevant right now and I’ve talked about that before anyway). Within two months, the money was gone. Neither she nor I have any idea what happened to it, but she did help me pay a few bills and bought herself a used dark blue Honda Acura. The car is fine but needs a little work. Because Molly had a DWI the car was put in my name, and I would have to put it on my insurance and not allow her to drive it until she finished her probation requirements and her license was reinstated.

I’m not typing very well and spellcheck is sure getting a workout too because my fat drunk fingers are flapping around the keyboard like dead baby flounders. Please, dear God, don’t let me hit the delete key or whatever it was by accident again. >< (Does that smilie exist? It's supposed to be that face you make when you're frustrated beyond all reason and you squint your eyes real tight.) Yep, I'm feeling it.

So anyway back in July, about a week before her probation was up, Molly decided to break up with her boyfriend. It was her idea but she went batshit for about a month, laying in bed and not eating for a week (she is bipolar and has BPD), and then suddenly leaving–in the car she isn't supposed to be driving–and not returning for almost a week. Her psychopathic sperm donor texted me and told me she was hanging with a group of junkies and pushers and was shooting heroin herself and I had better do something ~~abou tit.~~ about it.

He was lying through his teeth. It was just him trying to start drama again in his psychopathic, sadistic way, but the situation with Molly was still concerning at the very least. That night she brought home a group of the kind of boys we call "skells" around these parts–according to the Urban Dictionary, a skell is basically a lowlife or redneck type of guy who sells drugs because they're really not otherwise employable. (I just had to go back and correct "employable" three times and twice on this quoted one). My daughter is very intelligent, far too intelligent for the type of company she keeps. So it turned out the guys were really only into weed and Molly had no tracks or marks on her arms and she looked okay. She said they were taking good care of her. I wanted to believe her, but of course I'm not stupid and I know they were very bad for her. But she's 21 and can do whatever she wants. I have no control over what she does. She seems to have no interests in a career or a future, but maybe she's not ready yet. I have to remember I was much the same way at her age (which has a lot to do with why I'm a 50ish unpaid blogger and former medical editor recovering from a bad marriage and currently obliged to clean houses for a living). God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.

But then she disappeared again, with the car. And I didn’t see her for three more days.

I’m pouring a 4th glass. Would you like some? Am I still coherent? Soon I won’t be able to type at all.

Instead of going into my usual panic of biblical proportions and imagining she had been abducted and taken into an abandoned field to be gang raped and strangled and left lying in a bed of tall weeds, I felt…angry. ~~dducted bductedd~~ (That was me trying to type ~~abdduted~~ abducted. (spellcheck said that was right). I decided to leave it there.

The car Molly was driving was in my name, under my insurance, and she was driving it illegally and not very responsibly. She was transporting God knows what sort of lowlifes in it. If anything happened I would be responsible and the car impounded, not to mention that I’d never be able to live with myself if something happened to her in it and I hadn’t at least made an effort to put a stop to it. So I went to the magistrate and filed a charge against her for a stolen vehicle. I hated doing this but I felt like if I didn’t something terrible might happen.

Now Molly’s basically a good kid, but she was ~~veyr~~ very angry with me, understandably. I finally agreed to drop the charges on her not because of her anger, but because she was almost done with her probation requirements (and she had been very good about paying her fines and doing whatever else they told her to) and I didn’t want her record to be further sullied. I made an arrangement to have someone else I trusted hold onto the car temporarily and agreed to drop the charges. In order to do that, I had to be back in court with her this morning.

Sometime last month the friend who was holding the car moved so had to return it, which means Molly has acces to it. I’ve given up trying to hide the keys. She’s returning it every night in pristine condition and seems more responsible but I keep warning her she is driving it illegally. Apparently she’s willing to take that risk. I didn’t change my mind about dropping the charges.

To make a long story short, she was supposed to be home this morning so we could go to court together without her having to drive–but guess what. When I woke up this morning she wasn’t here. I couldn’t call her either because she lost her phone (again). We were due in court at 9, and by 8:45 she still hadn’t shown up and it takes forever just to find parking at the courthouse. So I went there myself, stood in line, and told the person at the desk who I was and that I wanted to drop charges on my daughter. The officious lady at the desk said that would be fine as long as my daughter showed up but she was nowhere to be seen. And I had taken a day off work to help her out in court, and that’s not exactly something I can afford to do in the financial straits I’m in.

I drove home in a self righteous fury and that’s when I decided I wanted to drink today. I ~~thought~~ ~~rationalized~~ mused to myself, “we’re all entitled to indulge in some excess on occasion, and after all, I spend so much time and energy trying to always be good and having so little to show for it. Fuck that shit.”

I pulled into an Ingles supermarket and bought a jug of Merlot. Livingston Merlot, to be exact. It’s cheap and doesn’t taste too bad. It does the job, which is to get me pleasantly tipsy. Expensive wines drive me insane because of those goddamn corks which I always wind up mangling in my pitiful efforts to pry them out with a corkscrew or a damn fork if a corkscrew isn’t at hand. And then in my enraged defeat, I wind up pushing the entire mutilated cork down into the wine itself and then have to drink good wine peppered with stuff that tastes like sawdust (though I bet cork does add healthy fiber to your diet).

I picked up some of their delicious homemade chicken salad to go with the wine, because I knew if I didn’t eat anything I’d get sick, and I just wanted to get drunk, not sick.

Today may be the last day I have Internet service (though I will have it set up again soon and in the meantime I can always use the WiFi at the hipster coffee place, the library, or even freaking McDonalds or Bojangles) so I was cheered up a little when I got home from my useless morning in court and found the Interwebs still working.

I decided to blog about how furious I was at my daughter and get drunk while doing it. I could retreat into my own private little alcohol infused world in the comfort of my postage stamp living room and pretend to be fucking Dorothy Parker.

I’m almost finished with the Merlot jug and that’s it for me. I can’t type anymore (this sentence took ~~& 9 8 tries to get right) and my thinking is getting fuzzy.~~

Molly just got home and she said she was late to court because she overslept and had to go strauight there instread of coming home (spelling mistakes left intact) and then opn the way she ran out of gas (again! she is such a blonde!) but made it to court just after I left and the charges for unathorized use are now dropped.

She just noticed the wine and is now rolling on the floor in hysterics because of the face I just made at her that was supposed to look angry but just looked drunk and goofy.

Can you still understand what I’m writing?

Thank God she didn’t have her camera phone with her. If it was my son Ethan, he’d be filming my reaction and putting ~~init~~ it up on Youtube. And with my luck, it would go viral. “My crazy drunk mom trying to look angry”–43,864,301 views. I’m in that weird part of ~~Youtube~~ my brain again.

I’m so relieved my post is still here and my daughter is still okay. I’m so relieved I’m going to take a hot bath and then a nap and then wake up sober and eat a good meal.
Today wasn’t a disaster. I’m just an overstressed nutcase. I don’t have to drive anywhere today. It’s all good.