Monthly Archive for June, 2006

My Reply to Alien- The Hunted and All

Published
by
Austin
on June 30, 2006
in My reply
. 0 Comments

I was worried about ragging that guy out for coming here trying to sell me his songs but I’m happy readers were not offended by my blasting him like that. I started not to post it and just keep my anger to myself but as I got to talking about him so bad I got to enjoying it and I thought, heck, let me go ahead and post this. It’s just that when I saw his two spams I about flipped. Like I said, had he been trying to sell me the stuff Rush Limbough got caught with last week then okay, I expect that but this guy says he’s a shrink. Oh I was mad. But I’m wondering, can I get ad*v*an from him on the side? Does he sell street dr*gs too. I mean, since he throws all ethics aside I wonder if I could get a few unconventional scripts filled. I wonder if he knows of anyone that can “take care of” my roommate. No, I’m kidding. I dont want to start a whole journal on dashing this man so I suppose I’ll leave it at thanking everyone for their support. (I put those words with the little thingie between them because if those words end up on the journal then everyone looking to buy it or sell it will be pointed here. Dang search engines log every word and that’s how I end up getting people looking for p*rn coming to my blog. Some of the stuff they’r looking for is just sick. Ya sicko’s!! Now watch one of them send me a virus..and I dont mean an STD.

Alien - The Hunted Says:
June 30th, 2006 at 5:01 pm e I refuse to be cowed by quacktors trying to sell some cheap piece of trash and them saying “I’m not here to provide therapy.” I reply ver succinctly, “Kosimiroshi, Hijo de Puta.” OK, I’m mixing languages but then again it is the same, “Kiss my BUM BUMS, Son of a Whore” or actually another applicable, more familiar term. These quacktors are very chiak sai (chinese) - full of poop. Peace,
Alien - The Hunted

Austin says:
That is HI-LARIOUS!!! You win the first laugh of the day.

I like how you’ve used your knowledge of language for your own agenda, to dog him out. Gotta love it. I do know Puta is Spanish for bitch. I flunked Japanese and I never got around to Chinese but I did take Hebrew, Greek, Latin and German. I remember mostly the Hebrew and the German. At home we spoke Spanish mostly, not much English at all. I suppose that my family thought they were Spanish. I dont know, I guess that’s also why we spent so much time in Spain. They own land there and everything so I guess they just thought, heck, lets speak it at home. My mother grew up speaking Spanish at home but my grandmother grew up speaking German at home. It doesnt seem like anyone likes English much even though we were all born here. It’s odd I know but hey, what can I say or which language should I say it in. Oh, and you know what? I cant spell in English but I can in German and a bit better in Spanish than I do in English. What the heck is that about??? Strange.

Thank you for the comment. Too funny.

Joan of Arc

Not Good

Published
by
Austin
on June 30, 2006
in Dissociative Identity Disorder and Mental Health
. 0 Comments

I need to cut. I’ve needed to since last night. I never cut when someone is here with me so I didnt. Right now she’s not here and I was actually planning how I could do it and not have her know but then I realized, I’m planning to do this. She left thinking things were okay but if she found out that while she was gone for a bit I cut, how is she going to feel? I feel like crying and I may let myself do that before she gets back. I’m happy Gracie was so helpful last night. She’s a sweetheart. Sg had nightmares so Cap had quite the night of service. He went back and forth between my room and Sg’s. That’s why I call him Captain my Captain. The boy never quits.

Maureen

Still Up

Published
by
Austin
on June 30, 2006
in General Chatter, Mental Health and Pets
. 0 Comments

It’s 6:21AM

I’m still up. I’ve done nothing today. I haven’t opened my email box or sent an email or done anything but therapy and PC art. the messages on my phone are still blinking. I haven’t even listened to them. I intended to call my friend in Maryland to see if she was flooded out but somehow I spaced that. Goodness, great friend I am.

Everybody in the house was asleep but me. I was sitting here playing Bejeweled2 waiting for the sun to come up. It’s up. I still didn’t want to go to sleep. I call this voluntary insomnia. I was feeling quite low and doing poorly on my game I might add when Gracie (the older cat at age 1) came on my lap and insisted that she was going to love on me. I should blame her for the loss of that last game cause nobody can play a game with a cat in their face, licking their chin, purring in their ear just in case you didn’t hear them at your chin. I’d move her out of the way, she’d jump back up unfazed that I moved her. She crawled on the back of the chair then to my lap, purring and rubbing against my face with that long hair of hers. I was trying to keep her away while I played this game (poorly) but Gracie insisted that she was going to be petted and that she was going to lick my chin and my eye. I have to laugh because at one point she was holding my hand back so she could lick my face and rub up against it. It was like, hold still, i’m going to love you whether you want me to or not. See, Captain will sit at my side and let me mess around for hours and say nothing, not Gracie. She’ll come over like, okay, you’ve been screwing around long enough. It’s my time now, get off the PC. So, again today she forced me to come back from my depths of depression, the downward slope i was on got a brief interruption by the kitty that refused to

I’m about to lay down with the fur family and Sg. Sg is in the other room. She has to be up at noon. I hope I’m asleep by then but I don’t know. I plan to lay down and relax and keep Gracie from licking my eye but so far i’ve been unsuccessful. She will lick the lid right off if I don’t fight her. My goodness, Sg has a red spot where the skin is missing from where her cat Tor-ti licked her in her sleep. This is my thought, if you didn’t feel the first layer of your skin being removed then your sleep medication is wayyyy tooo strong. I’m just sayin maybe Ambien is not for you!!! She has this nickle size skinned area on her forehead. Thank goodness I don’t sleep much or I’d be One Eye’d Aussie cause man does Gracie go after that eye with fury. When she cleans the kitten she holds her down and when the kitten starts screaming for mercy I tell Gracie to let her up. Sometimes I think they’re playing Uncle. See who can hurt the other and make them beg them to stop. But I have to break in when little Bella is yelling Uncle cause, well, she’s tiny and Gracie isn’t. It’s not a fair fight. But it is funny when Bella stalks her then Gracie pounces on her first. Bella starts screaming like, why did you do that to me I was minding my own business and here you come and hurt me. The girl has mental issues. I worry about her. she is such the talker….meow, meow, meow! Anyway, I have to hit the sheets. Cap is dead to the world and in my bed, Gracie is barely being held back and Bella is at the foot of the bed a safe distance from Captain. He kinda….no kinda nothing..he kicks a lot in his sleep. She learned very quickly that she will go airborne if she is behind Cappy when he’s sleeping.

Okay, so I’m now giving in, crying Uncle and going to bed. the sun is up, Gracie is purring, Sg is snoring, Cappy is kicking and Bella, well Bella is sleeping peacefully until Gracie decides its time to give her a bath. I’ve already had mine.

Austin, on the wrong side of the sheets.

Therapy Today

Published
by
Austin
on June 29, 2006
in General Chatter and Therapy
. 1 Comment

Therapy Day
Sg will be here shortly. I needed the company. On the phone she asked me why it was that I was still having so much trouble with nightmares and flashbacks. I told her, I’ve only been completely separated from my mother for 4 years and that the last time she asked me for sex was when I was 24. But she still brought it up the abuse from time to time. She brought up the physical abuse the most. She thought it was funny. She’d bring it up in public just to humiliate us. I was an adult then. My come backs to some of her statements took onlookers by surprise just as much as the mother’s statements did. “Do you remember that time I hog tied you?” My reply, “Yes, I talked about it in therapy last week.” We were standing at the check out in a local department store when this conversation took place.

Dr.B and I talked about the things I use to do as a child that were way beyond my years. I told him about the thing with the checkbook and about how when she left I told her she couldn’t take the money that she’d have to go pennyless. I told him, if I had that kind of strength then and determination to live despite her actions why do I feel so tired now? I wondered if I’d spent all I had just surviving her. He said that I lived in a state of emergency. I did what I had to do to keep living but when I moved out of her house in ‘92 I no longer had to live in that emergency state. He said I might have just shut down from exhaustion. Then he added, why wouldn’t you be tired after that? I did a double take like, what did you say? I hardly ever look him in the eye. I keep my eyes to the floor but when he said this I looked up at him, turned my head in wonder then looked at him again. My eyes returned to the floor and a soft smile fell across my face. I told him that the people that comment on my journal say that he’s a keeper. He said, I have my own fan club? I said yeah, it’s the Dr. B fan club.

The session was hard because we got into some stuff but all in all it was another assurance that this guy can do me some good. I’m thrilled beyond belief to have his support. He is looking to get me into a support group that lasts for 10 weeks and is based on sexual abuse survivors. I told him I didn’t want to be in the Borderline Personality Disorder group because the last time I was in a room full of borderlines I wanted to start popping pills and drinking. He laughed. I said, I’ll skip on the borderline group. One or two of us together is one thing but you put a bunch of us in one room and it is chaos personified. Oh the manipulation is as thick as the mud in the Mississippi river or the Indiana retention ponds. Everyone is talking but no one is really saying what they mean or asking for what they need in an appropriate manner. You couldn’t cut the tension with a.Ginsu. In fact there is no tension felt because as borderlines we are able to simply numb it and pretend we feel nothing. We can laugh and cross each others boundaries at full speed while disregarding our own..all without blinking and eye. So no thank you Dr.B, I’ll pass the plate on that one.

I’ve got to get some sleep. I’ve been up all night because I was trying to be at my 9am appointment. Why on earth would anyone want to do anything at 9am? That is an ungodly hour I must say. If I’d gone to sleep I wouldn’t have gotten up on time and I would have missed out on my therapy session lesson. I have to try not to put this guy on a pedestal because when he fucks up, and he will because he’s human I don’t want to have to resort to old coping skills to deal with his fuck up. You know like, oh my goodness. I thought you were different but you’re like everybody else. I have to go home and do some comfort eating and sulk around the house all day remembering every single person on the face of the earth that has turned their back on me or put a knife in my back. Woe is me! So see, ever once in awhile I’ll have to diss him publicly to make sure that I keep him down on a fallible human level.

I need sleep. The dog is snoring and kicking, farting and throws out an occasional squeal as he chases the squirrel that always alludes him in his dreams. The two cats have chased each other so much that they are worn out and crashed. It’s my turn now. Blue plaid sheets, here I come.

so what does a person do all night instead of sleep? Well, the floors have been steam cleaned. i used flea soap on it then rinced it with downey. Downy is a good flea killer and it makes the carpet soft and it smells nice. I did two loads of laundry, washed the dog and played Bejeweled2. I’m exhausted. 


Joan of Arc, on the wrong side of the covers

My Reply to The Doctor aka King of BR

Published
by
Austin
on June 28, 2006
in My reply
. 5 Comments

(This person left 2 spam comments on the entry I Can’t Get Over it. His name has been trunkated to prevent further spam and to make sure my blog isn’t linked to his in search engines. He calls himself Dr so and so and then adds king of….)

-
The Doctor aka King of (name removed) says: I’m a shrink, but I’m not here to provide therapy. When I’m not doing therapy, I am participating in a new form of expression I call (name removed) Here are a few original songs that folks here may find therapeutic:

Destiny says:

Dear Doctor and King of What The Hell Ever,

Clearly you were not here to provide therapy, just to sell us some songs you wrote about PTSD and some other crap. I wasn’t up to spam from a professional today. Today was the wrong day to send this crap to me. I would have overlooked it and simply deleted your comments (like I’ve already done) and moved on but nope, not today. You caught me in a vile mood.

I expect spam from idiots selling drugs or things that supposedly will make my life better but when a professional, a therapist no less, comes to a recovery journal and spams me on the basis of my disorder I find it quite offensive.

How dare you use your profession and knowledge of PTSD to target sufferers and sell them your songs at the ever so low price of 99 cents each? Who the hell do you think you are? That is unethical to the extreme. My goodness. It would have been different if your site was about therapy in some way shape or form but it’s not, it’s about buying songs that you want to sell to PTSD sufferers from Japan, the UK, Canada and everywhere else. See, I verify shit like this before I approve the comment. Dr. King of what the fuck ever, my standards are very low for comments I’ll approve. It shocks me that you, a professional, fell below the already sub-standard levels. WTF?

Don’t come here with your title and what not trying to sell anything to anybody with PTSD. This is your own agenda. I have mine, it’s to heal and not be bothered by so-called professionals that come here to sell me a product with the premise that it’ll help me. God help your clients or your former clients if they too were part of your personal agenda.

Thank you for proving that there are people in the world that can fall below the lowest standards possible. You have set a world record here. While recording this world record I was able to step aside from my PTSD issues to deal with your sorry ass. You fake therapist with a real ethics problem! I hope, oh how I hope that this does not give you PTSD. If it does I know of some songs at the low price of 99 cents that might help you “get over it.”

And let this be a lesson to all other therapists, psychologists, medical processionals and fake wannabe’s . Don’t come to me with this shit!!!

Sincerely,

Destiny in collaboration with Sundrip Journals and a proud soldier of Morton’s Pride

-

Miserable Dreams - Entry To Bring In To Therapy

Published
by
Austin
on June 28, 2006
in Dreams, Mental Health, Therapy and Therapy Assignments
. 0 Comments

We were in that house we use to live in, the one from the fourth grade where she made life miserable for us. She always made it miserable but it seemed there were 2 houses that were the worst. The second house in the 4th grade where all that stuff happened in the entry about Mother’s Talk To Your daughters, this is that house in last night’s dream. In the dream we were visiting the grandmother. She needed assistance to walk so I built her a wheelchair. I had to go in that infamous downstairs billiard room to move a bunch of stuff around so she could go down there and sleep. She and my grandfather were getting a divorce and she was moving out of the top floor bedroom. The dream switched to me, as an adult, shopping in a store with the mother and my sister. I dream about that store often. It has pretty much everything a person would want to buy save a lung or a kidney. In the dream I’m usually there to buy a huge bag of dog food which they are always out of. The dream then switched to me walking down the hall of a junior high school that I use to go to. I was walking with my sister looking for a restroom. We found one and I went in to do my business. As we walked out my sister shoved me behind the door and let two people come in before we could leave. I was squeezed behind the door and kind of squealing about it. When I was set loose I realized that it was two men that came into the restroom. They were looking at us oddly. That’s when I realized that my sister tricked me and took me to the men’s restroom. I didn’t think it was funny. She tried to laugh it off and said she was just messing around but I felt tricked and that didn’t feel to good. She tried to console me by rubbing her hand on my face but I pushed her away. She tried rubbing her hand on my hand and I pushed her away and told her not to try and be sensitive NOW because it was too late.

The dream switched to me as an adult laying next to my naked mother in her bed at the 4th grade house. We were talking about my grandparents divorcing. I jokingly said that does Granddaddy realize that after all these years of marriage he’ll be lucky to be awarded his toothbrush? She laughed. He wont even have enough money to buy a new one, I added. That’s when my sister walked in the room, fully dressed like I was. My mother then said that her heart was bothering her. She laid in the middle of the bed and said she was having a heart attack. I tried to do chest compressions but my hands were not strong enough to do it. (In waking hours I have strong hands, it’s the grip that I have problems with but pushing down or up is not a problem.) I called 911 and told them she was having a heart attack. The operator didn’t believe me. She said that sometimes a mother will have a “heart attack” when her kids go off to college or when some mother-child separating event pops up. I asked, are you saying she’s faking this? She said, I wouldn’t have chosen that word but since you did, yes, she’s faking. Just then I looked over and the mother is sitting at a dinner table (which suddenly appeared in the dream) eating with my sister beside her. She said to me, I didn’t think she would believe me. I asked her if she still wanted an ambulance and she said no, she was feeling better. I rolled over and woke up.

When I opened my eyes I had this sick dreadful feeling, the feeling I get when I’ve had a dream that has touched some deep issues.

It is something of note that the sister would rub her hand on my face or arm to try and sooth me. That is what our main caretaker Adam does when we are upset. He rubs the back of his hand very softly on our cheek to sooth us. It’s quite helpful.

I didn’t think I could handle any company so I called and canceled with Sg. She was coming to dinner but today isn’t a good day for company. I have to try and get grounded and I worry that with her here I’ll be distracted but not grounded.

The things in this dream that actually happened in real life are:

  • The divorce of my grandparents on their 60th anniversary.
  • The faked heart attack and seeking help for the fake heart attack

Recurrent dream themes:

  • The house from the 4th grade.
  • The We Have Everything store.
  • Restrooms (My strongest OCD stuff has to do with the restroom and toilets.)

What I plan on doing to get grounded:

  • First and foremost I have to take some clonapin.
  • Get a cup of coffee.
  • Play Yo-Yo Ma and pet the dog.
  • Say my name, birth date, current age and that I’m an adult and the I’m save. I’ll say this OUT LOUD as often as I feel I’m slipping into a dissociative stupor.
  • I have to do ADL’s: shower, brush teeth, eat dinner, take meds, etc.
  • journal only when absolutely necessary. If my head gets too full and I’ve got to purge it that’s when I’ll journal but other than that no journaling and pretty much staying off the PC.
  • I will not be reading any of the book today.

I feel:

  • numb with an occasional bit of
  • worry
  • and a slight tingle of fear.

Destiny of Morton’s Pride
Miserable Dreams - Entry To Bring In To Therapy-Wednesday, June 28, 2006-6:08 pm

**comments have been closed. This is now an archived post. Feel free to drop me a line at the guest book link found on the sidebar**

Therapy Assignment: I Can’t Get Over It

Published
by
Austin
on June 28, 2006
in Abuse, Borderline Personality Disorder, Female Sadist, Mental Health, PTSD, Therapy and Therapy Assignments
. 2 Comments

Therapy Assignment: I Can’t Get Over It! -Tuesday, June 28th , 2006-11:42 pm

I started reading the book my therapist gave me to read because I figured that I wasn’t getting any better or any worse with this newest bought of depression. I’m happy I started it. This entry might not make any sense to anyone else but these are just some notes for me to come back to. They said to start an I Can’t Get Over It journal but I’m just going to add a category and leave it on this journal.

Intro page 2

Quote:PTSD - A Normal Reaction to an Abnormal Amount of Stress
If you suspect that you suffer from PTSD, do not be alarmed. PTSD is an entirely normal reaction to an abnormal amount of stress. Having PTSD does not mean you are mentally ill, nor does it mean that you are weak or somehow deficient. Think of it this way: no matter how strong your leg bones, if enough force is applied, they will break. Given the proper care, they can also heal. And so can you.  End quote.

A normal response to an abnormal situation. Okay, that means that I’m not weak for feeling trapped by the events. It just means that the trauma was severe enough that it will take more than a bit of help to move forward. Hm. Okay.

From the quote I’d say that those who can handle life’s trauma and the symptoms that follow all that person is abnormal. If we are all made of clay then we are all capable of falling off the potters wheel.

I always said that I hated being called strong because when someone says that it usually ends up meaning that the assistance I get is limited. Say there are two people in an equal amount of pain but they both display it differently. You have one person screaming and crying and falling apart and showing outwardly that they are hurt. You have the other person sitting motionless, looking at the floor, staying to himself who will the support run to first? Do I have to scream in agony every time I’m hurting at that level or can I just talk it out and receive the same level of care as those who are have the ability to cry out? I don’t understand why if I say I need help and here is why that it translates to, I’m just venting you know I can handle this on my own AND your problems too. Somehow it translates that way. Yeah, I have a lot of coping skills but I’m just as weak and tired as the next person. I’m just as fallible, just as fearful, just as unsure as the next person. Having an arsenal of coping skills doesn’t mean that I should have to cope alone.

I use to say that I was like everyone else that I have weaknesses, strengths and fears just like every other human being on the face of the earth. I use to say that people expected me to be strong and to be able to handle what I’m going through right now. It angered me because it was like, why would my reaction be any different than the reaction of the next person? I’m made of clay like everyone else so why would friends expect me to react to this ordeal with strength and the ability to shoulder all of this? A friend of mine said that she thinks that her friends and family believe she is strong and able to handle everything. She said when she talks to them about problems they seem to think she’s venting and she doesn’t really need any help, just a place to vent because after all she’s strong, she can handle this.

I’m your average woman, 32, overweight, single living with a dog, a few cats and a bastard roommate. This isn’t an uncommon profile and neither is it uncommon that I’d be an incest survivor or a survivor of rape as an adult. If these things are common and my reaction to them is common (PTSD) then why on earth do people keep seeing me as capable of handling life on my own? Some people don’t outwardly say it but the way they respond to my “break downs” says they think it. A therapist of mine use to tell me how strong I am when I was messed up and hurting myself daily. It use to piss me off so badly because she wasn’t hearing me. She wasn’t hearing that I was unable to continue life as the current level of anxiety, flashbacks and fear. I needed her to hear me not to tell me in effect that I could handle it. She said I’d gotten through much worse and that I could get through this. How is that helpful? And don’t say, “this too shall pass” because that just makes me want to choke people.

Intro page 2

Quote: The symptoms of PTSD are not “in someone’s head” or a play for attention. Rather, they are the aftereffects of an event or series of events severe enough to profoundly alter a person’s thinking, feelings, and physical reactions. These events need not have gone on for years, months or even hours. A single life-or-death incident lasting as little as a few seconds is enough to traumatize you. In those few moments, your emotions, identity, and sense of the world as an orderly, secure place can be severely shaken or shattered. The rupture can be so profound that, try as you might, you just “can’t get over it.” Unquote

I like this because it shows that the event doesn’t have to be something that took hours or years or months to happen it could have been a few seconds that were bad enough to change your total self image and the world around you. This is a very validating statement.

Quote: Developing symptoms as a result of reading this book or being in therapy does not reflect an inability to heal or a hidden unwillingness to heal. Instead, your reactions probably reflect the degree of traumatization you endured, which was not under your control. Your reactions have nothing to do with strength of character. … Remember that it is not necessary for you to remember all or even most of the past in order to function or for healing to begin. Unquote.

Goodness, everyday with my mother was a life or death struggle. You know, I use to know by how hard she hit if she was angry at me or upset about something else. I took it worse when she was angry at me because something inside told me that if I could just change then the next time she hit me it wouldn’t be about this daughter that disappointed her.

I want very much to not think about that life every day. I want very much to not be triggered by a white van, a green Ford, the word Florida, the word fantasize, pleasure or the colour gray or yellow. I want to not flinch when I hear the name of others who have my birth name. There’s an example in the book about a lady who went out dancing and she suddenly realized that it was the first time in 24 hours that she thought of the abuse. I’d like to have a 24 hour relief very soon. Heck, I think that just like they do in AA or NA I should get a One Day Free coin and when I have so many years under my belt where the abuse does not rule my life I should also get a ring or a necklace like recovering alcoholics and drug addicts do

Shesh, their lives were filled and controlled in the same way mine is. They loose their family, their job, the house, the car and threaten their future day in and day. PTSD has the same consequences. Fear of leaving the house, fear of running into my mother, fear in general, my reactions to that fear it all prevents me from working outside the home. When I do get a job I don’t keep it long because the PTSD stuff comes up. PTSD issues influence my relationships and they influence where I’ll move to or why I move from a house. PTSD can break up families the same as addiction can. If the losses are the same then I figure I deserve a ring too. I want my ring.

The truth is nobody is so proud of recovery that they would display a ring or wear a necklace like a recovering addict does. Recovering from an addiction is much less tabu than talking about and working through childhood issues and PTSD issues out loud.

I’ve seen a lot of sites on the web but one that really impresses me is by a guy that calls himself The Godfather. That name is funny to me but hey, whatever right? I thought about his understanding of victimization and the stigma attached to it when I read in the book that the victims of sexual assault are often blamed for what happened to them. With alcoholism or drug addiction you get to use the word disease to explain why you did certain things and it is more acceptable of an apology than the apology from an abuse survivor who acted out because they didn’t have the skills to behave appropriately. Somehow sexual assault is hush-hush in our society to the point where we’d rather talk about an addiction and wear an AA ring than to sport a ring saying we survived rape, we survived incest and we have led a functional life for the past 30 years. Asking for and receiving this kind of acceptance and pride almost seems …odd, uncomfortable, unthinkable and maybe even a little bit foolish.

Today is prevent domestic violence day, cancer awareness day, nutrition awareness day, black history month, gay and lesbian history month, fathers day, mother’s day, bosses day but you’ll have to wait even longer if you want a survivors day on the books. I have to wonder how Hallmark would handle that one. LOL. Damn! That would be kinda hard. Would Macy’s have a Survivors Day Sale with an early bird special? That could get complicated so I suppose that for now I must be satisfied with a therapist and a support system. The truth is, I don’t need the world to recognize that I’m better. I just need them to not contribute to me getting worse. I need them to not get in the way of me getting better.

I sure hope this book offers more than a pat on the back. I want tools. I don’t want to hear “take deep breaths” or “do something you enjoy”. I want answers. I want step by step instructions on how to change my thinking or at least look at my thinking and figure out how it got that way. I want this book to show me how to be free and clear.

I should mention that I didn’t mean any disrespect for recovering addicts. I only mean that it is more acceptable to talk about than surviving sexual abuse.

But I still want my ring!!! I have just the finger for it too.

Joan of Arc for Morton’s Pride

Smoke Screen to the blogger of Charming

Published
by
Austin
on June 27, 2006
in General Chatter, My reply and Soapbox
. 2 Comments

Smoke Screen on the Journal Charming, Just Charming

I left a comment on a journal about flag burning and how the reader believes it to be a smoke screen. I left the beginning of a comment but when I realized it was going to be so long I decided to post my comment here so as not to leave a whole dang on book on his journal.

Before I start with the rest of my comment let me say this: My opinions seem to be as strong as yours. I hope you see these comments for what they are, questions and observations with some judgment thrown in. I do not intend to make this a slam against you because this subject has come up in my private life again and again. I appreciate a good thinker and you seem to be just that which is why I didn’t feel too intimidated to leave a comment with an opposing view. Enough of the disclaimer.

You say that the govt worrying about flag burning is a smoke screen and that there are bigger issues to address. The comment I left was: I have to wonder how on earth “they” came up with the number of “illegals” in the country. If they know how many are in the country why did “they” wait for it to get so large before calling it a problem? And how do you count someone that doesn’t register themselves? And how do you count the taxes lost if you don’t know the exact number of people not registering and paying taxes. If they know the number then they know where they are so why is it just now after they somehow counted the unregistered illegals that they publicize the problem? What good timing they have, eh? Right in the middle of a costly war that most do not support the government now makes a big issue of those who have crossed the borders illegally. They site that they are a drain on the economy but how do you know just how much “they” are draining if you don’t really know the exact number of “them?” I’m confused about why now this is a problem that has to be addressed with such fervor and urgency. I believe this in itself is a smoke screen to draw attention away from this war.

This is where my comment continues: The truth is, the US is it’s worst enemy. Yes there are a heck of a lot of people that hate the US but as a citizen of this country I can see clearly that our worst enemy is not over seas and is not wearing a ” head towel” or speaking a foreign language. We hurt ourselves by being so arrogant and being so bullheaded and willing to overlook social crimes committed by registered citizens. You are correct, there are larger issues at stake than the burning of the flag. There are many more issues such as protecting children, preventing sexual violence and prosecuting it to the fullest and keeping track of predators who seek out victims. There are issues such as gender equality or the lack thereof, issues of privacy, of global warming, of cruelty to animals and other acts against the earth and those who live on it. What good is a flag if there are no relatively safe, healthy, well fed, housed and educated people to stand under it?


If you want to talk about how illegal it is for “them” to be here then we have to stop and think about all of the other illegal things that go on that you and I do not benefit from. Although people say that these “illegals” drain the economy those same people benefit from the “illegals” every time they buy fresh produce from a grocery store or every time they go to a restaurant that has an immigrant doing a job others feel they are too good to do. We benefit from the fact that such desperate people will take very little money and live under horrible conditions. When was the last time you benefitted from a corrupt politician? When was the last time you benefitted from the thief next door or others that have been considered to practice illegal behaviors? I do not mean to say that illegal immigrants are criminals. I’m just saying that if one chooses to view them this way they have to ask themselves if they have ever benefitted almost daily by other illegal activities the way they do with illegal immigrants.

I keep hearing about how “they” are taking our jobs but I hear little about how companies will take their business to Mexico or India for the sole purpose of hiring desperate people who will not complain about not having medical insurance or workers compensation or lunch breaks and all the things that we demand here. As a matter of fact we joke about little Chinese kids making Wal-mart products and we joke about other hardships that third world countries face. Is that funny, that a small child would work so hard to send the US a shirt, a trinket, a doll so they can have a few dollars to eat with? It is obvious to me that it is corporate America that is taking jobs away from “us” and targeting people who have nothing to loose by taking a job for considerably less than the legal minimum wage. These people take these jobs for the same reasons American’s work, for their family, for a home, food and basic needs. So I have to ask again, why now is this such a huge issue and something I hear about daily? Is this not also a smoke screen? Why isn’t anyone totally focusing on how much Bush has to gain from this war? Why isn’t everyone and their brother upset that Bush has ties with oil and that he himself probably shits oil? Why isn’t anyone passing laws to keep the V.P from capitalizing on Katrina with his own companies doing a lot of the clean up work? These issues get overlooked when words like, “our way of life is threatened” and “American jobs are being taken.” If you use words and phrases to make a person feel that they are immediately threatened then you can get them to look away from the illegal and immoral acts of the speaker.


The US was built on dishonesty and illegal activities wasn’t it? Heck, we live on land that was stolen. We put those people on reservations and we celebrate every single year some false idea of thankfulness when in reality we are celebrating the theft of the land we live on. Heck, don’t get me started on slavery, on rounding up the Japanese during World War II or about the fact that it hasn’t even been a hundred years that every citizen no matter race or gender can vote without harm coming to them or their family. This country was built and exists because of acts of injustice but those acts get pushed under the carpet and “forgotten” or replaced with words like, “Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.” I do not mean to sound like I hate this country or anything and I don’t intend to suggest that we become a lawless country. I’m just saying that if you blow away all the smoke it will become clear that the biggest issues in the US are US born.

Ps. I saw the word cackleberry on a comment you left at another journal. I wanted to know what it meant so I looked it up. It’s an egg. And heck, there’s a whole urban dictionary out there to explain words like cackleberry, chavs and other words that I never knew existed. Thanks for the new word. I had fun looking it up.
With much respect,

Austin’s August

Mother’s Talk To Your Daughters

Published
by
Austin
on June 26, 2006
in General Chatter and Soapbox
. 2 Comments

Mother’s Talk To Your Daughters -Monday, June 26, 2006-10:05 pm
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Note: I’d been saying I was going to write this entry for weeks but then I ran across a journal today where a woman said she wasn’t given the knowledge to care for herself as an adult. She wasn’t taught to balance a checkbook or anything like that. Once I read that I figured I’d go ahead and write this then do a backtrack to her. I can’t remember the link for the life of me. So, if she reads this then could you leave a comment so I can post your link. Sorry ’bout that.

I was doing missionary work in the Mennonite and Amish part of Indiana. It was only a 4 day tour and the group and I talked to a lot of people. It was quite nice. The funny thing is, before the group of 15 black people showed up we had to inform the police that we were coming. There were not a lot of black people in the area, to show up in a group of 15 unannounced would have really been a bad idea. As I said, the trip went well but half way through I started itching terribly. This horrible vaginal itch lasted the entire trip and for 6 days total before I finally couldn’t take it anymore. Back at home I went to the ER and told the doctor that I feared I had AIDS. He put me in a room where I clutched my Bible and thought of how I would tell my mother that her Christian daughter contracted HIV or AIDS. When the doc did the exam I cried uncontrollably. I had flashbacks but when he asked if I was okay I said I was. I cried so hard and so deep that he didn’t want to let me go home. The result of the exam was that I had a yeast infection. He had to explain what a yeast infection is to a twenty year old woman. When I left I was happy that I didn’t have an STD but angry that I lacked the information to understand what my body does.

I was about 23 before I knew the ins and outs of my period. Before then I only I knew I had it and I knew that it had to do with why a woman gets pregnant. That minimal knowledge wasn’t enough to take care of myself as an adult. I didn’t know that the walls wash themselves out if I wasn’t pregnant and the passing of that wall is the flow. I had no idea what ovulation was. My mother didn’t tell me these things but she should have.

A few days ago Sg was telling me things about the female body that I didn’t know. I was in awe that she knew so much about how her body works and why it works that way. She was telling me about tissues in the breast behind the nipple and the presence of that tissue determines if the nipple is upright or is facing down. I was enlightened and asked a lot of questions that she could answer. Sg use to be a midwife so I figure she did know the answers. Some things like the presence or the absense of tissue behind the nipple is stuff that isn’t vital to know. But when it comes to how my body works and why it works that way I should have know before I left home. I should have known more about my period and I should have known about common things like yeast infections and other vaginal issues. She failed to teach me those things. I learned them in humiliating situations or through conversation with adult friends. The day I walked out of my mothers house was the day I truly began to live. I left with little information about how my body worked as well as information about the male body. I left with little information about sex and about basic things that an adult should know.

My mother taught me how to balance a checkbook. She gave me my own bank account. They called it a Squirrel account back then. Whatever money I put in my mother matched dollar for dollar and my grandmother doubled the amount. I knew how to write a check at age 8. I knew how to withdraw money from the back, how to deliver the rent check and how to mail off bills at a very early age. As a matter of fact I had possession of my mothers check book and bank card because I was the one who was writing the checks for her. I even wrote the checks at the grocery store. The time that she said she was leaving me and my sister I told her to go but that she would leave pennyless because I refused to give her the checks or her bank card. When she left I went and checked the balance to see just how much time we had alone in the house before we would be discovered. Did we have enough money to stay in that house for 6 months with lights and a phone? I sent my sister to bed and planned out how we would live there without the mother. I was 8 years old at the time. So when it came to finances I was pretty good. When it came to organizing the house, helping my older sister with homework and adapting to my mothers moods I was certainly a master. Somehow though, through all of this the mother still said that there was no way I could live without her. She said the world is a cruel place and that she is the only person I can trust. I feared she was right. I feared that I would not be able to move out on my own and take care of myself. I worried that I’d be home alone and some guy would come crawling through the window and hurt me. I worried about having to go back home after that and see the “I told you so.” look on her face. I stayed there. Even though living with her as an adult was horrible I stayed because 1) I believed that I couldn’t do it on my own and 2) I knew what the pain of living at home but I didn’t really know what was out in the world. Known pain is more “comfortable” than the pain of what could be. I am so happy that I left. It was a good decision that I will never regret. FYI: my older sister still lives at home with the mother.

Parenting is a huge, huge responsibility that sometimes gets passed onto schools and day care programs. But in day care programs and in school the child does not get the individual attention they need to fully understand themselves. If a parent is there for his or her child they can make sure the child understands. Age appropriate knowledge will help the child grow into an informed adult. If you don’t teach them you may someday stumble on their website and see where they’ve written that you failed them in this area.


Austin’s August

Gratitude Monday: Mismatch Socks

Published
by
Austin
on June 26, 2006
in General Chatter and Gratitude Journal
. 3 Comments

Gratitude: being thankful, having the desire or reason to thank somebody, to value something of quality, to understand the importance, meaning and significance of something.

Gratitude Monday: a loose rendering of gratitude, a list or just a few words to show appreciation for or recognition for big and small accomplishments.

Subject: Mismatch Socks

I’m one of the few people that actually enjoys doing laundry. An old friend said she liked seeing them swirl around in soapy water because when the clothes came out and she put them on it was like getting a new clean start. I personally don’t stand and watch the water swirl but I understood her point. Sometimes we look to anything to make us not feel so dirty inside.

I love the fresh Downy smell right out of the dryer. Warm blankets and clean sheets every Monday evening has been a ritual of mine for years. Not every part of laundry is pleasant for me. Washing and matching socks is tedious work that often requires Valium and several packs of cigarettes. The whole process is a dreadful fiasco that must be done or I’ll really be upset walking around with athletes foot and what not. Okay so, putting the load in I’m fine. After taking the load out of the dryer true tension begins. I’ve got all these socks that look very similar to one another. The slight differences are in length and rounded toes or squared toes but other than that they appear to be the same. This makes matching them difficult. I’ll spend what feels like hours trying to match socks. Just when I’m ready to chuck the whole thing I find a match. I’m thrilled, “Well, maybe I wont give up now. I’ll keep trying to match them.” Another hour seems to go by slowly without a match. I’ve hit a low, cursing inside, slamming square toes and rounded toes on the floor when suddenly I’ve got a match. I think to myself, I can do this. It wont take that much longer. Another hour goes by without a match. I’m pissed, then I find a match, another long wait with irritation increasing then I find a match. Over and over again I do this. It’s a frikin’ emotional roller coaster. When I finally abandon this debacle I’ve got 5 matches and 300 socks left without a match. I shake my head because I now believe that there really is a sock gnome that comes to take these nearly identical socks so that Aussie’s blood pressure can raise to the roof, come back down filled with hope then have those hopes dashes again. This gnome is a cruel something-something that visits every single time I do socks. After going through all of this imagine the expression of revolt when I pull the very last clean pair of socks out of the drawer. Damn! Damn! Damn! Stupid gnome! It’s a visit I do not look forward to.


How does the subject of mismatched socks find itself on a Gratitude Monday journal entry? Because there was a time when I did not have all that I needed. There was a time when I was homeless that socks seemed like a luxury, something that only happened when Christmas rolled around and housed people passed out mittens, socks and scarves. The way I worded that sounds rather ungrateful. I suppose there is an air of bitterness and resentment towards those who only think of the homeless when a certain day rolls around. Nevertheless, I needed those socks and thanked them for passing them out. There is a lot of bitterness that homeless people have because of how they are treated by the housed. There was a time in this city that the homeless were not considered citizens. People didn’t look you in the eye for fear that you’d ask them for something. When they did look at you it was with pity. Sometimes they would throw money at Mr. Austin and myself and keep on walking. I can not remember a time when anyone handed me a dollar bill. People usually threw it all waddled up so that it would travel to where they wanted it to go without them having to pick it up and hand it to us. Homelessness is a devastating blow to the ego. It can break the spirit in no time and break it so that repair is hard or impossible.

It is easy to take for granted the things you have until you no longer have them. Something as simple as a clean pair of socks, a clean pair of underclothes, a hair brush and basic household items like Kleenex can easily be seen as “basic” until you’re waiting for someone to come around and pass them out once a year.

Today, I have a home. I have food, shelter, clothing and a good support system. Now, when I don’t eat it’s because I choose not to eat. Now, if I don’t have clean clothing it’s because I simply didn’t load the washer. It is a warm comforting feeling to have the things and the people I need. So even though this stupid something-something gnome steals my nearly identical socks I am grateful every single time I slip them on.

Austin’s August

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