Tag Archives: essays

One more thing that pisses me off.

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radio

I can’t believe I forgot to put this on my pet peeve list: Morning radio shows suck. I can only say 4 things about them.

1. They are not funny. It seems everyone wants to be Howard Stern these days, and guess what–he was never that funny either.

2. They ALWAYS have a really irritating, maddeningly perky, female sidekick with the IQ of a sloth and a voice to make even Kim Kardashian cringe in embarrassment. They never have anything original to add, and just seem to exist to laugh idiotically at the Stern-wannabe’s lame jokes.

3. Speaking of the Kardashians, does anyone really give a shit?

4. And finally, the worst thing of all: What the heck is wrong with ACTUAL MUSIC?

So apparently God accepted my deal…(Part One of Two)

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outofthedarkness

For the past couple of days, I haven’t posted anything, mostly because something has happened I’ve been burning to write about, but am reluctant to because I’m afraid of what my atheist and agnostic followers will think (my feelings get hurt easily LOL). I know that’s silly, but if I don’t write about this I feel like I might explode. And I want to keep this blog active. I dearly hope my atheist and agnostic followers can keep an open mind and realize that this is something personal that has happened to ME, and in no way affects anyone else or my views about other faiths including agnosticism and atheism. I have a deep respect for all belief systems (including the right not to have one at all) and atheists and agnostics do make a lot of rational sense and I can understand why they feel the way they do about God and religion. Hell, I more or less felt that way myself until just a couple of days ago, and I don’t see myself as a person who would ever shut my mind off from their all too often very valid viewpoints.

But still. I have to blog about this, so here goes.

When I wrote my post, “I made a little deal with God,” I really didn’t expect anything to come out of it, other than a lively discussion about God and religion, which is what happened and I am grateful to all those who participated, no matter whether they’re Christians, pagans, atheists, or anything else. So after I wrote that post, I put it in the back of my mind and moved on to other things. After a couple of days, I concluded that because nothing dramatic had happened and there was no Saul-to-Paul-like “miracle” or sudden, earth-shattering change of heart, that perhaps the atheists were right and there was no God at all, that He was just a comforting construct invented by humans to deal with the stresses and injustices in our lives. Perhaps Napoleon was onto something when he said, “religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.”

But in spite of all that, I’ve always been a spiritual seeker and was never satisfied with the atheistic idea that we are just a random bunch of cells that happened to glom together and gradually shape-shift into our current form. I’ve always believed there was something more, much more, but never found a religion I was happy with. Apparently God saw my post and decided to take me up on my challenge. Because two days ago while browsing the web, I came across a Catholic website, called WhyImCatholic, which is basically a bunch of testimonials from people who converted to Catholicism from other faiths, ranging from born-again (Protestant) Christianity to hardcore atheism. I have no idea how I found this website or what I was looking for, but the subject matter was interesting so I started reading some of the testimonials. Why would anyone become a Catholic, of all things? So I started to read and I couldn’t stop reading. I found that, unlike the many born-again Christians who had tried and tried without avail to explain their faith to me, these stories ACTUALLY MADE SENSE! Imagine that.

More about that later, but let me give you a little background on my relationship with Catholicism. While I’m not Catholic myself, I was raised in northern New Jersey, where Catholics were as common as toadstools after a rainstorm. Almost all my neighbors were Catholic (with a sprinkling of Jews and atheists) and I was sent to Catholic schools (the one thing I’m really grateful to my parents for, due to the superior education Catholic schools usually provide) for most of my childhood. As a child, I remember envying my Catholic friends, because of all the cool stuff and rituals their Church had–such as rosary beads, incense, a new name they got at their confirmation, and statues and painting of Mary and the saints. The Methodist church my family sometimes went to (we were really an agnostic family, and while I was sent to Sunday school and was baptized by my paternal grandfather, who was a Methodist minister, my parents were never churchgoers) didn’t have any of those awesome tangibles and there was no “mystery” to Methodism (or any other Protestant church I ever attended) like there was at the Catholic masses I had the privilege to attend with my friends or at school. As I got older, and learned more about what Catholics actually believed, I found I didn’t agree with their doctrine and also had a number of problems with their stance on abortion, homosexuality, women in the clergy, the celibacy of the priesthood, etc. But despite my issues with their beliefs, and even with my ambivalence about God and Jesus, my attraction to the Catholic mass did not wane. From time to time throughout my adulthood, I’ve attended Catholic services, just because I like the ritual and the formality of the liturgy, the chanting and the hymns. There’s a lot to be said on an aesthetic level about Catholicism, but I never really embraced what they believed and in fact now realize I had closed my mind off to a lot and had developed a lot of preconceived notions (some which are simply not true).

In 2003 I attended a 5-day retreat sponsored by a local Catholic church that also happened to be extremely progressive on many issues. It was an amazing experience (and a lot of fun), and I was surprised that one of its leaders, a Cherokee Indian named Owl, was not even a Catholic. He taught us about Cherokee symbology and mysticism and we spent one golden August afternoon making stone carvings of a “totem animal” we had chosen to represent ourselves. This was Catholicism? It was all so New Age, even Pagan. Of course this was all balanced by a morning Mass, Bible readings and very personal and deep group discussions about spirituality and God. There were other non-Catholics attending the retreat, including another agnostic, two Protestants and a Jew. There was nothing about that retreat to offend the sensibilities of an agnostic like myself, and so I decided to take their RCIA classes (the classes you are required to take to become a Catholic). But in my current spiritual state and embroiled in an impending divorce, I quickly lost interest once the discussions in the classes became too Biblical and religious. I explained to Father Bill (the priest running the classes) that I’d learned a lot but I didn’t think I was ready. He was very understanding and told me he understood and to take my time finding my path. And so I moved on, chalking up this experience to one more thing I’d undertaken but eventually abandoned (my track record for sticking with anything to the end is embarrassing). Other than attending one Midnight Mass about 5 years ago, I never thought about Catholicism again until a few days ago.

So anyway. I was reading the above-mentioned website, and was riveted by the stories of people, many much like myself–intelligent, thoughtful, educated, forward-thinking people who were ambivalent or even opposed to the idea of religion and submission to God and Jesus–who had decided through various means that the Catholic Church was right for them. I found a link on that site to another website that explained Catholic theology in exhausting detail and is set up in encyclopedic form, so that you can type in anything you want to know about in the search bar, and get all the information you need about the Catholic stance on that topic. Sometimes there was just too much to read! But what surprised and shocked me more than anything is all the misunderstandings and preconceived notions I had about the Catholic church. It came as quite a shock to find I agreed with most of their views, or at least wasn’t particularly offended by them when I didn’t agree. For example, while abortion and artificial contraception is still unacceptable, unlike fundamentalists, who preach about sin and what the Bible says/doesn’t say on these issues, the Catholic stance on these things actually made rational sense! Imagine that. I won’t get into their stance on those things here, as it’s not my desire to convert anyone, but suffice to say that there is nothing about their reasoning that offends my rational mind. I’m not saying I agree with them on these things (I don’t), but simply that their stance does not offend me. Nor does it judge opposing viewpoints in the harsh way that fundamentalist Christianity does. Granted, there are a few Catholics who are also very harsh and judgmental (and a few in politics), but they are almost always evangelical Catholics, who are not really any different from other evangelical Christians. There are extremes in any religion. It also holds a great deal of weight for me that Catholics are opposed to killing in general (in spite of their bloody past, which they have publicly apologized for), and while against abortion (for sound reasons to my way of thinking), they are also against the death penalty.

Some of the explanations the site offered seemed to be a perfect reconcilation between spirituality and science. They spoke to ME. For example, their stance on evolution is one that I’ve held myself for a very long time: that evolution is most likely a fact, proved by science (as well as the 3.5 billion year timeframe for the age of the earth), but was divinely inspired by a higher intelligence we call God. Now, they don’t actually take an official stance on this, and there are some Catholics who do buy the Creation story in the Bible, but Catholic theology doesn’t dispute evolution and it is acceptable to believe in it, as long as God is given credit for being behind it all. As for Adam and Eve, you have the choice to think of them as a literal couple in the Bible, or a figurative story about early civilized humans falling from grace. They acknowledge that while humans have probably been around for several million years, and evolved from ape-like ancestors, that shortly after we became sentient, and developed the capacity for self-awareness and the idea there was something greater overseeing things (which happened about 10,000 years ago), we fell from grace (which I won’t get into here as that’s not my aim in this article and it would take too long). Adam and Eve represent tribes of ancient peoples in the near East, not actual persons. I won’t get into all the theology behind that now, but that’s the gist of it, and it actually made sense to my skeptical, science-loving brain. Taken this way, it was possible to read the Bible as truth but realize at the same time that the details in the stories were allegorical, not a literal account of historical events. I always wondered how so many of the world’s greatest scientists could also be devout Catholics, and this explained how that could be possible. The Church’s support of science and encouragement of scientific thought is cetainly impressive: a very high emphasis is put on education and this is shown by how many Catholic-run colleges and universities there are today.

This article is getting too long and unwieldy to contain in one post, so Part Two will be posted later today. I have to run a few errands first.

Next up: Catholic mysticism, the concepts of grace vs. works, the Trinity, Jesus as Savior, and more.

Note to my atheist and agnostic readers: I certainly you continue to read and follow my blog! I value your contributions, and am in no way attempting to convert anyone, just relating what has happened to me in the past few days. I hope you keep reading!

I made a little deal with God today

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rainbow

In my post from a few days ago about my problems with Christianity, I discussed how lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about God and religion and how it all fits into my worldview.

I have a sort of dilemma though. I believe in God, and I want to be on his/her/its good side when I die, just in case there really is a hell, which I don’t think there is. But there’s still that niggling little voice in the back of my mind just the same: what if hell is real? What if the born again Christians are right and I am going there, no matter how moral a life I try to lead, because I have not accepted Jesus as my personal savior? I can’t accept their dogma (my brain and heart just can’t get on board with it). I have serious issues with biblical literalism and the divinity of Jesus, but…what if hell is real? I don’t want to go there!

Now, I’ve heard of Pascal’s wager, which basically means going ahead and getting “saved,” even if you have doubts, just in case they’re right. The logic goes like this: if they’re wrong, nothing’s lost but if they’re right then you’re safe from eternal torment. But my problem with Pascal’s wager is that I simply don’t believe in evangelical Christian doctrine. If my brain and heart don’t buy what they’re selling, then taking Pascal’s wager means I’d be living a lie, something I think is much worse (and probably more offensive to God) than being honest about my true feelings about evangelical Christianity. If God really is omnicient and knows what’s in my heart and mind, then he’d know I was being dishonest. It makes me wonder how many born-again Christians actually really believe the doctrine they’ve embraced–and how many of them converted only because they were afraid of what might happen if they didn’t. That alone is a huge problem for me. Religious fear tactics just seem so…wrong.

So I made a little deal with God. Not to challenge or test God or anything, but to help me out of this conundrum. Since I actually believe in God, this part wasn’t too hard. I told God I didn’t believe what fundamentalist Christians were selling, and that “praying for faith” in the past hadn’t worked. I told him that if in order to escape the fiery pit I had to embrace dogma I simply didn’t believe, then could he please give me some sort of concrete sign that would show me this was actually the truth. If I could believe it was real, maybe then I could accept it. I reminded him that conversions like this were performed all the time in the Bible–heathen Saul’s miraculous vision and subsequent conversion to Paul, for example–so if things like that happened so often back then, why couldn’t it happen today? I reminded him that sending me yet another person trying to save my soul or coming across some Bible tract in a laundromat or gas station would not work. It hasn’t worked before and it wouldn’t work now. I would need something more dramatic, much more dramatic than that. I would need an actual miracle, something like, oh, maybe Jesus himself talking to me (hey, some Christians say that’s happened to them). I told God that I was open to it, if it was his will for that to happen, but if nothing happened, I wouldn’t have any other choice than to go on assuming Jesus was just a man, heaven and hell are probably mythical places, and the Bible is nothing more than a collection of ancient fairy tales.

So far nothing’s happened. Maybe tomorrow.

The narcissism of blogging

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I saw this and just had to reblog it. It’s hilarious because it’s so true!

We Need a 12-Step Program for the Self Absorbed

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I came across this article in the Reader and was really impressed by it. It’s also a nice counterpoint to my article from a few days ago, Narcissists who use 12-Step Programs to further Their Agenda.
Enjoy!

insanitybytes22's avatarSee, there's this thing called biology...

speak

Desperately. We’ve become a nation-cult of narcissists, so enamored by our own selves it’s a wonder we don’t just spontaneously combust. It’s so bad people are actually taking selfies of our very own selves. People are  consumed by our own health issues, our various disorders, our own particular brokenness, our social concerns. Even in our social concerns it’s become all about us, our martyrdom, we’re the only one who cares, look at me, I’m so socially conscious and aware! Filthy rags, indeed.

Even faith frequently becomes something we like to lord over others, evidence of our own vast moral superiority. Not all of course, but our TV’s are constantly selling prosperity, beauty, and power, for three easy payments of 19.95. Become a Christian, you’ll get free stuff! CS Lewis was right when he said that kind of happiness was to be found in a bottle of port, not in Christianity.

So, in the 12…

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How “positive thinking” nazis jettison responsibility

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upwardbattle

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.

discontent

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.

positive2

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.

Blogging drunk

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drunkwriter

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.

How writing every day has changed me

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journaling

Before I started to blog, I was stuck in a quagmire of self pity and resentment. Most of you know I’m a survivor of abuse and hence suffer from depression and PTSD as a result of my abusers’ mental and emotional shenanigans and mindgames.

Even though I disconnected from my abusive ex-husband almost a year ago, my negative thinking patterns remained. Every day was the same as the one before; I was bored with my life and bored with myself, and felt like there was nothing else to look forward to, ever. I felt like I had lost my writing ability, creative vision and intelligence. I tried praying and it wasn’t helping very much–because the faith in myself and my future wasn’t there. It just seemed like a waste of time.

For a long time I had wanted to blog, but several things were stopping me: first, I was terrified to find out I may have forgotten how to write (since I hadn’t written anything besides a forum post in years). Second, blogging seemed like something you had to have computer or technical savvy to do. People told me WordPress and Blogger were hard to use, and I assumed they were right and that I was too stupid to learn (because I really truly believed I lost my ability to learn anything new). Finally, I couldn’t seem to get motivated. I was stuck in a rut and wanted out of it badly, yet couldn’t seem to pull myself out of the murky quicksand of my own ennui.

I really thought there was no place for me in this world and that I was simply too old, too tired, too dumb, and too boring to make any sort of meaningful impact on the world or even on just a few people. Actually it turned out I wasn’t any of those things–people with depression and PTSD often feel this way about themselves.

I thought about suicide because the prospect of just getting up every morning, going to my boring, low paying job, coming home, spending a couple of hours on other people’s websites before turning into bed, then having to repeat the same thing the next day and the next day and every day for the rest of my life until the pain of illness and old age finally took over was something I just didn’t want to face. But as depressed as I’ve been, I’ve never seriously entertained the idea of suicide because, well, I’m just too scared of it. Death scares the shit out of me. Not so much the state of death itself, but the process of dying.

But guess what? I was already dying. I was walking around like a dead person, spiritually and emotionally numb.

But writing has changed all that.

One day about a month ago, some spark of motivation came out of nowhere and momentarily penetrated the stagnant murk inside my brain. I don’t know if it was God, or the better part of myself doing it but it doesn’t matter because there it was like the beam from a lighthouse first seen in a stormy sea. Rather than ignore it or tell myself I’d act on it later, I didn’t even think about it, I just obeyed it. I opened up my laptop, found WordPress, and immediately set up my blog. It was much easier than I’d been led to believe, and by my third article I felt like I knew what I was doing.

There’s been no turning back, and I feel so much more alive and optimistic about my future and what I can contribute to the world. Blogging is certainly helping me, but maybe I can even help others too. For the first time in a long time, I feel like I have a purpose, a place in this world, and that I’m here for a better reason than just marking time until death and have more to offer than just providing an example to others of how not to live their lives (which is something I used to really believe).

But writing is a discipline, and sometimes I have to talk myself into it. It was hard at first to commit to writing one post a day. But for the most part I’ve not only managed to write a post a day, but sometimes two or three a day. I find that rather than being a chore(as I had feared), the more I write the more I want to write, and the ideas just keep coming. I thought I had no ideas. I was so wrong.

The most obnoxious thing you can say

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idontwannahearit

“There but for the grace of God go I.”

My blood boils every time I hear those words. Now, you may be thinking, why would someone get upset about that? It’s meant to be kind, to assure someone it could have just as easily been you the bad thing happened to. Surely there are much worse things you could say.

See, I don’t hear it that way, even if that’s how it’s meant. What I hear is smarmy, self-righteous judgment. By uttering that phrase, you are in effect saying, “God must like me more than he likes you” (which means I’m better and have higher moral standards than you). It’s like saying, “I’m going to heaven and you’re not, nyah nyah,” only even more obnoxious because it’s less direct than that. Wrong headed or not, that’s the way I hear it, and that’s why I fly into a rage if someone says it to me. So just don’t.

Don’t judge me because I’m poor.

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impoverished
The topic that’s on my mind right now is potentially volatile and can open a huge, rotten, festering can of political worms, so that’s why I’ve been hesitant to write this. But heck, it’s on my mind, and I promised myself and my readers I would hide NOTHING, and I NEED to rant about it because it hits so close to home, so here goes.

Recently, there’s been an increasing number of conservatives (the loudest and most extreme are in the Republican Party) who have abandoned all pretense of caring about those who have less than they do–in fact, they are openly (even proudly) hostile toward the poor, blame-shifting the lousy economy, lack of jobs, and basically all of America’s problems onto the most vulnerable people in our society. American society in particular has become narcissistic, worshiping and rewarding those who have the most money and the most toys, while punishing those who have nothing more than ever before, rubbing salt into their wounds. Their contempt used to be limited to the poor who didn’t work (and those who were milking the system and might have deserved their wrath), but lately it’s extended even to the working poor–men and women who hold up to 2 or 3 jobs and work full-time (and many supporting young children), but due to the low wages they earn that haven’t kept up with an economy rife with inflation and where good jobs are scarce, still can’t lift themselves out of poverty. Empathy is seen as a liability rather than a virtue, and those who have empathy for others are seen as weak. Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” has become the bible of the greedy and self-centered, and no one bats an eyelash, even though Rand herself was a narcissist whose role model was a serial killer.
The verdict is, if you don’t have money, you don’t deserve to live. There are no extenuating circumstances. If you’re poor, it’s your own fault.

Hatred of the poor isn’t anything new (and has been going on throughout human history, but enjoys spurts of popularity from time to time), but lately there hasn’t even been any effort to mask the hatred–it’s in your face constantly. Just watch FOX News, which I don’t. There’s no civility any more, and even less empathy.

It’s really a form of prejudice, no different really than a person of color ostracized and shamed because of the color of their skin. As a person who is currently under severe financial stress and trying to survive on an income barely above minimum wage (and having no outside help or assistance) as well as being a Highly Sensitive Person, I feel these insults keenly and feel diminished and enraged every time I read another article or watch another news show where some self-righteous cretin blathers on about how “the poor choose to be poor,” or that we are lazy, entitled, “welfare queens” with no morals and even less intelligence–and worse yet, dare to hide their ugly and mean-spirited self-righteousness under a cloak of piousness: many (not all) of these small-minded people call themselves Christians. I actually remember hearing some politician (I can’t remember who) who said Jesus wouldn’t give handouts to the poor, and cutting Food Stamps would be the most Christian thing one could do. What I’d like to know is, what God does he worship and what Bible is he reading? How dare he presume to put words like that into Jesus’ mouth, when Jesus himself was all about acceptance and love of the downtrodden and oppressed of his society.

The reason why this open hostility toward the poor is such a huge trigger for me is because that attitude assumes something about me that isn’t true. People who embrace the “you chose to be poor” mindset haven’t walked in my shoes, and they don’t know me or what led to my circumstances. They are presuming something about me based on an ugly stereotype. How is saying all poor people are lazy, stupid and entitled any different from saying all blacks are criminals, or all Jews are dishonest and greedy, or all Italians are dirty and don’t bathe? Now I’m not saying I didn’t make some bad choices because I have. I’m not saying I bear no responsibility for my own circumstances, because I do. I’m not saying it’s my government’s responsibility to lift me into the middle class, because it is not.

But you don’t know me. You have no idea who I am or why I am poor. You can’t, since you probably either never were poor, or if you had to “pull yourself up by your bootstraps,” you probably didn’t really–you probably had a grandpa, a mom and dad, or a long-lost uncle who helped you through college and graduate school, or helped you get the job you have today, or a loving mother who gave you a place to stay when you were down on your luck. Don’t tell me this does not apply to you. Hillary Clinton said “it takes a village” to raise a child, and she was right: it’s a fact that kids who were not given the opportunities–either in the form of college tuition or some other type of tangible or even just emotional support, are far less likely to become successful.

As an only child of narcissist parents (mostly my mother, but my father was an enabler and N-apologist), I had no financial, physical, or emotional support once I reached the age of 18. I had to pay for my own college education with student loans, while working full time. When I hit rough spots later in life, I never had the option to return home while I got back on my feet. On top of this I was suffering from depression, PTSD, autism, and avoidant personality disorder–and every one of these disorders causes people to become withdrawn, isolated and introverted. I think it’s a legacy a lot of us children of narcissists have been saddled with–there does seem to be some sort of correlation between narcissistic parents and autism (as well as the obvious PTSD and avoidant personality). Back in the 1960s and 1970s, it was believed autism was caused by “refrigerator mothers” but this theory was later rejected–however I do think there is something to it and should be studied further. Autistic adults (and non-autistics who have nevertheless turned inward due to their abuse) have a real handicap in today’s fast paced, competitive society where aggression, brashness and great social skills are a huge plus. Those of us who are intelligent but who don’t do well in a social setting are likely to become lost in the world because we lack the ability to connect and make friends with successful people who could help us. If an autistic adult (or just a painfully shy adult) doesn’t have family support and also lacks a specialized degree or talent (that may or may not be “discovered”), it’s not likely they’ll get very far in life, regardless of their native intelligence. It has nothing to do with how hard they work: I’ve worked my butt off most of my life, at times holding 2-3 jobs AND attending college, so I don’t think my poverty is due to my being “lazy and entitled.” I do not get any “welfare” or even food stamps. Everything I have, I pay from my own pocket, so shut the hell up.

So that’s why I hate it when people make assumptions about why I’m poor, and tell me what I’m doing wrong when they know diddly squat about what makes me tick or what motivates me. I don’t think poverty is a lifestyle “choice”–no one in their right mind would choose a life of struggle, want and heartache. For most of us, it was foisted upon us. And the more you have to worry about basic things like food and shelter, the less energy and time you have to “improve yourself.” But I don’t expect outside assistance or a “government handout” and haven’t asked for any. I try to take the steps necessary to pull myself out of the mire, but I REALLY resent being blamed for my situation when I lacked the advantages most other kids had, then had to somehow find my place in an unempathic, narcissistic, materialistic society where people who are introverted or highly sensitive or who live inside their heads are considered weak, stupid and incompetent because we don’t “schmooze” well with others.