RIP USA

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usrip

50 days in. The United States is a far different and sadder place than it was on January 19. America is now run more like an organized crime syndicate than a proper country — and no one seems to have a clue as to what to do to reverse the devastation, or any power to stop him. Trump could murder someone and he’d get away with it. He’d just find a way to blame Obama and he’d be believed — the same way he’s taking credit for the “job growth” which actually began on Obama’s watch, not Trump’s.

We are no longer a democracy, we are a third world country run by a lying, corrupt dictator and his minions.   We need a new name.  The United States of Russia, perhaps?

If Paul Ryan’s horrific “replacement” for the ACA goes through (and it probably will, since no one seems to have any power to stop any of them), expect more crime (the sick poor will have to commit serious crimes in order to receive healthcare in the prison system), more suicides (by newly uninsured people who develop a life threatening illness), and possibly rioting and even civil war.    “Just let them die” seems to be what Ryan wants for the “nonproducers.”   Unfortunately, I’ll be one of the 15-20 million who will lose their insurance if this bill passes.  At my age, that is terrifying.   It’s also extremely unsettling the way this disaster of a replacement is being jammed down our throats without even giving us time to process what is happening.

Medicare and social security are next.  Expect any environmental protections, public education, and unemployment benefits to go too.  Expect more police and more laws (against the little people, not the rich and powerful) and no more freedom.   Expect depression, despair, and terror on  a level that would make the Great Depression look like a warmup.    Causing mass human suffering for their own enrichment is the Trump administration’s idea of “making America great again.”

We were lied to, and people still believe the lies, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that this presidency is a massive bait and switch.

We are told to just “get over it” and “stop being sore losers.”   I could go on and on about this evil and corrupt administration and the many ways it’s gutting our democracy and thumbing its nose contemptuously at the Constitution.

I can’t deal with this anymore.   I wish I could pack my bags and just leave.  I have no idea how much worse things are going to get.

2timothy

Unexpected angels.

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judgingothers

During the past few months — since Trump got elected — I’ve become more judgmental and less trusting.   Now it’s true that due to being a victim of narcissistic abuse and suffering from several disorders and C-PTSD due to the abuse I endured, I’ve always been suspicious and hypervigilant of others’ intentions, always assuming the worst, or that they have some hidden agenda.    My motto has always been, “if you think the worst will happen, you will never be disappointed and your heart will never be broken.  If the worst does happen, you won’t be devastated because you will have expected it.”   It seemed foolhardy, even stupid, to be an optimist or expect the best from others.    Emotionally,  I couldn’t do it anyway.

But that’s a rotten way to live and certainly not a recipe for happiness or even contentment.  You walk through life being paranoid and suspicious of everyone all the time, always wondering what others are planning to do to hurt you.  You can never attain any semblance of happiness with a mindset like that.

Since I’ve been blogging and been in therapy, and since I’ve become a Christian, this had been improving.  I was feeling happier, trusting others a little more, and not always assuming everyone had a knife hidden behind their back.     I was beginning to find what I think God’s purpose for me is.    I noticed that people were actually treating me better, fewer negative things were happening, and best of all, more positive things were happening.  Changing my mindset to a more positive, hopeful one did indeed seem to attract even more positive things in my life. I realized that while it’s perfectly normal and even desirable to acknowledge and express “negative” emotions, that walking around with a perpetual black thunderhead hanging over my head wasn’t helping me or anyone else.  It was a defense mechanism that worked in its way, but was never going to allow me to be happy.

Trump got elected just as my SAD was kicking in, and the combination of the two sent me into a depression that seemed as bad as those I had when I was still married to my abusive husband.    It got even worse since his inauguration, and the ensuing (and immediate) shitstorm of chaos and fear-mongering that seems to have been unleashed since January 20.    It was so triggering for me that I began to distrust almost everyone again, no matter if they were on the right or the left.  It seemed as if there were no good people left in the world, and the world itself was going insane.   After all, how could a good person vote for such a leader, and yet, here he was.   Somehow, evil appeared to have won.     I’ve been scanning the news every day like a meerkat scanning the horizon for predators.

But even worse, I’ve become judgmental.   I never used to judge others for their political or religious beliefs, even if I disagreed with them.  I always believed that people have a right to believe what they believe, for whatever reason, and just because I disagreed with them doesn’t mean they are inherently bad people.   But lately, I’ve been adopting a hateful belief that all Trump supporters must be horrible people.    This is unlike me, and I knew judging others this way was wrong, but I couldn’t help it.    If someone was an asshole to me, even if they were just a driver acting like an asshole on the road, I’d say to myself dismissively, “they must be a Trump supporter.”   To my way of thinking, anyone who voted for Trump had to be a “bad person.”   Even though I knew several Trump supporters who are actually very kind people, I couldn’t seem to shake the judgmental thinking and stereotyping of Trump supporters as being a bunch of “deplorables.”

Today I was working in the home of an older retired couple who I knew had voted for Trump.   They listen to Rush Limbaugh and have a “Make America Great Again” bumper sticker on their SUV.   I also knew these were very nice people. The wife, Doris, always has homemade baked goodies, and they always tip.   Both are extremely friendly and just seem like good, salt of the earth people.  Okay, so I knew intellectually that Trump supporters weren’t all asshats, but I couldn’t accept this on an emotional level.   I also haven’t been able to accept on an emotional level that there are ANY really good people left in this country.

Today they proved me wrong on both.    The husband, Alan, started asking me questions about my car and then went out to look at it.  I thought it was a little odd, but maybe he was just a car buff and curious about my car.

He came back inside and said, “Your tires look like shit.”  He knew I was driving to Florida in a few weeks.  Somehow I felt on the defensive.   I started to explain I intended to get new tires before my road trip, but he interrupted me.   “I want to buy you a new set of tires.   There’s a tire shop down the road.”   Whoa, what?   I stood there, my mouth hanging open like a dimwit.

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“Oh, no!”  I said.  “I can’t let you do that.”

“I want to and I will,” Alan said.   That was final.  He wasn’t giving me a choice.    “Wait here a few minutes, it’s just down the road.”

I gave Alan my car keys.  I was in shock.    I felt like I should offer to pay him back or something, but he wasn’t having it.

When he got back from dropping off the car, Doris and Alan invited me into the kitchen where we sat down and had some cake she had baked and some Cokes.   Alan started talking about God.  It turned out he’s actually agnostic.  He said, “I don’t know if God exists or not, but if He does,  then He works through people helping others.   I want you to understand why I did this today.  Doris and I never had children, and we are retired and comfortable.   We’re not going to take all this with us when we die, so we like to help our friends and neighbors when we can.”

Driving home on my four brand new tires, I realized in my heart and not just in my mind, that angels can be found in the most unexpected places.   There are genuinely good and even altruistic people left in the world after all, and yes, some of them are even Trump supporters!

We should never judge the hearts of individuals, regardless of their beliefs.   We are all brothers and sisters under God.

That “off” feeling in dreams.

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Have you ever tried to explain something that can’t be explained?   Well, this subject came up in my post from last week about my subway dream (I have a lot of subway dreams even though I haven’t lived in a big city in many years ; vast-house dreams probably come in second — my dream houses seem like they go on and on for miles).

Most, if not all, of my dreams have that weird “off” feeling about them.   I don’t know how to explain it at all. It’s very strange, but not necessarily unpleasant.   It’s a kind of flatness but it’s not really that either.   Maybe “otherworldly” but that doesn’t really describe it either.   It’s not really an emotion, though it is kind of a “mood.”

My dreams aren’t especially surreal, except for that weird “mood.” Most of my dreams take place in rather boring but realistic locations — like vast houses or subways, or city streets at night.   I don’t dream about fantastical creatures, demons or fairies, or fantasy realms.  My dreams are prosaic: peopled by real people, or by no one at all.    Sometimes I dream about being in space — and in those dreams, the universe seems even more infinite than it actually is.   I don’t know how to explain why or how I feel that way either, since real space is freaking huger than any of us can imagine.

Sometimes though, everyday reality in my dreams is experienced as somehow enhanced — the grass in a field is greener, the house I’m exploring is endless, the streets I wander at night are more ominous, the mountains in the distance are higher.   But that doesn’t really explain the weirdness either, though it may be a part of it.

It’s not that the dream content itself that’s weird (because usually it is in some way, though you might not realize it until you wake up), because even the dreams I have that take place in everyday places or where nothing really strange happens still have that “off” feeling about them.

On rare occasions, during dissociative episodes (derealization), I get that “off” feeling about reality, and everything becomes very dreamlike.   I haven’t had that experience in a while, but when it happens when you’re awake, it’s extremely unpleasant.  Not so much in dreams.

What the hell is that “off” feeling?   I’ve searched Google and found nothing about it.  Does anyone know what I’m talking about?  Is it just me who experiences this or does everyone?   I don’t even think I can find a graphic for this post that captures that feeling so I’m just using a picture of a person sleeping.

*****

ETA:  I just saw this under “related posts” — I wrote about this same thing almost a year ago.  Oh well.  I still wonder about it.

The Weirdness of My Dreams

Putting stupidity in perspective.

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parksavingsaccount

The same goes for “health savings accounts” which is Trump’s lame “replacement” for Obamacare.

Why some people won’t change their minds even when faced with evidence they are wrong.

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cognitive_dissonance2

Where I stand on “positive thinking.”

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I was going through some old posts, and the last sentence of this one demanded my attention, because it looks like it has finally happened. Time for a reblog.

luckyotter's avatarLucky Otters Haven

positive_thinking_problem
Positive thinking taken to extremes is deluded thinking.

I’ve seen several blog posts about the problem of forced positive thinking lately, and since this is an issue that has concerned me for a long time, I thought I’d add my own take on it.

In recent years, there’s been an increased societal pressure toward “positive thinking.” I think two factors have led to this trend–the New Age philosophy that we can “be as gods ourselves,” and the continued glorification of the Reaganistic optimism of the 1980s. The signs are everywhere, in self-help and pop psychology books, in countless popular slogans and memes that appear on bumper stickers and coffee mugs, on motivational posters, on calendars, on the political campaign trail, and all over social media such as Facebook. The forced positive thinking brigade has even infiltrated churches. Motivational speakers like Tony Robbins and preachers of the “Prosperity Gospel” like Joel…

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My Fundamentalism of the 1960s Has Changed for the Worse—Considerably Worse

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This article from one of my favorite bloggers is about how religious fundamentalism, like politics, has also moved so far to the “right” since the 1960s that these churches now resemble dangerous cults more than churches, and they seem preoccupied with control, a doctrine of hate and punishment, and make excuses for the abuse of women and children.

jesuswithoutbaggage's avatarJesus Without Baggage

We became fundamentalists in 1958 when I was 7, and I ate it up! We joined a Freewill Baptist Church and I was with those churches until 1970. However, I did not absorb fundamentalism only from FWB churches; my strongest influences were from the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) movement which was even more fundamentalist than the FWB churches.

We subscribed to John R. Rice’s influential paper The Sword of the Lord, which I read devotedly. I also read many of John Rice’s booklets, including Bobbed Hair, Bossy Wives, and Women Preachers. In addition, I read articles and books by other IFB leaders such as Bob Jones, Jack Hyles, and Oliver Greene. I listened to Lester Roloff on the radio. Other fundamentalist influences were Carl McIntire and the Moody radio station. I was pretty much saturated with fundamentalism.

fundamentalism

Characteristics of Fundamentalism in the 1960s

Like evangelicals, fundamentalists subscribed to…

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Back to the Gulf Coast!

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Sunset off Clearwater Beach.

In just a month (April 7th), I’ll be driving back to the Tampa Bay area again to visit my son. I’ll be there for 5 days, until the 12th.   This time, my daughter is coming along with me, since she hasn’t seen where he lives before.

When I went in August last year, it was the first time I’d ever been in Florida, and since my son was working most of the week I was there, I had time to spend alone exploring the area.  One of my favorite discoveries was the bath-warm waters of the Gulf near his home, with its ever-shifting tides that expose the silt-like sand at low tide.   There aren’t a lot of tourists there in August (too hot), so that trip actually turned out to  be not only a peaceful, but also a spiritual experience — not to mention that I got to see my son and spend time with him and do some fun things together.

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The tide going out at Rees Park.

For me, the worst part of any vacation is returning from one.    I remember how hard it was to re-adjust to my daily routine when I came home.  For a while, I wanted to move to Florida, but I have changed my mind about that for a few reasons, mostly because of global warming.  Central-west Florida may be submerged in the near future.   I also don’t think I’d care much for the weather, due to the near-constant threat of severe storms, tornadoes, and hurricanes.

This time, I won’t be returning home just as my SAD (seasonal affective disorder) sets in.  Spring is my best time of year, and my mood improves with the lengthening days, so I shouldn’t be blindsided by the double whammy of oncoming SAD and post-vacation blues at the same time.

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My son may have to work again for part of the time I’m there, but he thinks he can get off most of the days I’m there, so that means more time spent together.   Clearwater Beach is definitely on the agenda, and this time we are going to visit the famous aquarium there too.   We might even drive to Disney World, but  I’m not sure yet.   None of us have ever been there.   I might try my hand at fishing again.

Whatever we wind up doing, it’s going to be a lot of fun.  I’ve already booked the room (because there are two of us this time, we’re staying at a nearby motel). I’m   getting excited about our road trip!

I’ll be bringing my laptop along with me, just as I did in August, so I can still blog while I’m there.

All photos you see here were taken by me during my trip in August of last year.

Meet and Greet: 3/4/17

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“You people” and “I will pray for you.”

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youpeople

This came up in the comments under another post, but I think these two phrases are important red flags to identify toxic people,  so I’m going to copy what I said in the comments here.

Language is a powerful tool.   It can be used to control, abuse or even destroy others, even whole nations.  The children’s rhyme “sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me” couldn’t be more wrong.   Sometimes the language abusers use isn’t straight up name-calling or unjustified and cruel criticism.  Sometimes the language used to hurt or demean others can actually seem “nice.”     This gives the speaker an easy excuse later on to say, “I never said anything wrong.  I was only trying to help!”

“You people.”

“You people” is used both on- and offline by people, usually narcissists or other toxic types of people, who consider you part of a group they can’t identify with or may outright despise.   It’s often used by racists to separate “us” from “them.”    It’s a form of splitting, and is an insidious way of dehumanizing a group of “others” who the speaker regards as inferior or different from them (in a bad way).   By dehumanizing people by making them the “other,” that justifies hatred or even abuse of “those people.”

“You people” seems innocuous enough, but it’s damaging because it implies that “you” are not like “me,” meaning “I” am better. The judgment and condescension are implied but are very clear.

ill-pray-for-you

“I will pray for you.”

A similar thing can be seen with certain religious types who say in a simpering, patronizing voice, “I will pray for you.” On the surface, the message SEEMS charitable enough, but when said in that condescending way, it implies that they believe you have some moral or other failing that led to your situation, and the implication is that they are “better” and therefore you are inferior to them.

I don’t want any prayers from people like that.

Both “You people…” and “I will pray for you” (said in a sickly sweet, condescending way, sometimes with an insincere “dear” or “honey” tacked on) are favorite phrases among narcissists intended to belittle you. You can bet the minute you’re out of earshot, they will be stabbing you in the back and definitely NOT praying for you.