free's something or other | Social Issues | Forum

Oh My that came out oober big.  I copied it from facebook.  It's so true!  There's lots of things that come across facebook that I just wanna share here.  They add to my journey by defining thoughts thot, feelings felt, lessons learned.

Hey Free,

I get mad at the Pawn Stars, because I think they rip people off. How bout Parking Wars?  That's a stupid one.  Lol. When I watch HOarders, I can only watch one episode before I run to clean something.  i look in my cabinets, drawers.   Fold panties.  Haha – I usually just throw those in a drawer.  It's great to motivate me – watch Hoarders, clean house.  Have you seen Obsession?  It's about all forms of OCD, from clean freaks to skin picking.  I don't see how those people can agree to have a camera on them all the time.  Like, I wondered if Clean HOuse was staged, but I don't think Hoarders is, maybe heavily edited.

Intervention tactics are tough.  Sticking to boundaries are tough. i never demanded my sister stop, I just told her what I would not do. When I reached my limit with her, 8 years ago, long before my daddy's illness threw us back together?  I told her I would only support her emotionally, and only in sobriety.  She's been angry with me ever since. SHe knew there would be no more money, or "validation", and audience to her drama.  Sober or not, she's … quite the attention gettin gal.  When she is sober, she is the authority on rehab.   I was the first in the family to do it, and it upset both my parents that we weren't talking.  SHE needed my support.  My dad saw it a few years later, but never made her sobriety a condition to see her. I'm not sure my mom is there, yet.  Even so, my sissy has a network.  She has a job!!  At a liquor store … and a dealer bf.  She has one friend that lets her stay with her when Sissy isn't comfy with the bf.  (don't know exactly what that means, and I figure the less I know about that, the better it is for me).  One daughter that still wants to help mommy.   

My sister hates me for the stand I have taken.  When we are together at family functions, she picks and jabs at me, trying to make me angry.  I don't know where it came from, but I only responded rarely.  I would stare over her shoulder, until she turned around to see what I was looking at. Even before the drug use, she was very paranoid.  If she is not the center of attention, she will do her best to turn it around to her. If she can't she will cry, stomp, or feign illness or discomfort of some kind.  If people ignore her, she gets to texting, looking out of the corner of her eyes at the person she is texting about, or running outside to make calls on her cell.  She'll grab her younger daughter, pull her in a corner and whisper loudly about whoever it is she's angry at.  

Exhausting.   She's a drama queen, and I imagine she believes she's the star of her own show, "Gruge Match" Starring Sissy in the leading role, and bevdee as the Nemesis.  Follow on Facebook.  lol.  When she ramps up, the rest of the family gets very very still, waiting to see what will happen.  They look nervously at me.  When my daddy was ill, she held court in the kitchen, while the older daughter and I tended to him in his room.  

Later

Something somebody posted reminded me of a time in my life.  I was on the stand testifying at a trial.  Attorney asks something along the lines of "so you completed your graduate classes, chaperoned field trips, started a new career, volunteered in the community, amongst all of this?  How?"  And I was on meds, xanax I think, so talking openly (albeit slowly)wasn't too difficult for me and I answered along the lines "well how could I not?  Three kids depend on me.  I can't stop him, I tried, so I figure I can either remain wrapped up in all this negative energy and the drama that ensues from everything he does, or I can build a new and productive and satisfying life DESPITE it all occurring.  I chose the latter."  And the courtroom was silent, I look over and the judge is just staring at me with his mouth dropped.  The attorney was speechless.

It all turned out for the best.  Isn't it true though?  Really crappy things happen in our lives.  People hurt us.  Tragedies happen.  We survive trauma. People we love don't.  Grief envelops.  Amidst all of that there are two options- live life fully, or don't.

free

peeve: people who are steamrollers . . . that run over and squash anyone to further their own agenda. grrrrrrrrrr (aka narcissists).

Well hi Isis! Thank you for your post. Well that's weird. I clicked on the smiley icon and it didn't
pop in. hmmm

Went to the casino, dang that place rakes in the money. It was crowded. Was walking around looking for a
machine to play and I couldn't help but notice: so many overweight people and so much money. Americans, no
wonder so many people in this world have an issue with us. People popping hundred dollar bills into machines.
Long line at the seafood buffet restaurant. I hope this doesn't offend anybody, I just find it interesting.

The hooplah surrounding Whitney Houston perplexes me. Seems like she threw so much away, I wonder if that's what
has people all in a humph. The groupie thing never appealed to me. She had a problem with drugs- I'd sure like
to know why. Not in a mean or judgemental way, in a curious way. What IS it that those who "have everything" struggle with? Finding love? Attachment? Purpose? why would she want to escape her life? I wish she could answer. Sure does substantiate Plato's "be kind today, everyone you meet is fighting a tough battle."

Hittin the hay

free

Sure hope you do wd!  What's your journey been like?  I haven't seen mammac and zinnie or guest.  Lolli, destiny and shani still hang out, as lovely as ever.

I read some article about Wisconsin education.  It was discovered that the health insurance agency that covered kids without medical insurance while at school, knowing they'd get their money, was raising premiums every year to ridonculous rates.  This money was being filtered to fund politicians and their agendas.  My first thought is how come these politicians, or somebody, isn't in jail?  Now the school districts who were using that insurance company have bid for competitive rates, saving millions, and are operating in the surplus, hiring teachers instead of laying them off.  I'm beginning to think that government agencies just can't operate due to bad people who take advantage of any way to get a dollar.  Not just get the dollar, steal it.  Scam for it.  I had an HMO a few years back.  Had to go to Sansum Clinic.  Never saw the same doctor twice.  Many times never even saw a doctor, saw an RN or physicians assistant.  I broke my hand one afternoon.  Go to the clinic.  They xray it, yep it's broke, refer me to an orthopedic surgeon, I'm like what the heck?  Just set the thing and put a cast on.  But here's the clincher, I couldn't be seen by the orthopedic surgeon until he got the referral from the clinic and I needed to be on standby so I could go in.  THREE days I was off work at home, waiting.  On the third day I get a call from the clinic:  have you had your hand set yet?  I'm like "seriously?  No, the surgeon can't see me until he gets your referral, and I can't hand carry that to his office because you have to send it by fax, that's your policy or so I've been told."  The next day, four days after I break my hand, I get seen to get it casted. BUT:  he doesn't have the xrays.  So I go back to SAnsum, tell them the problem, tell them if they don't give me the xrays, which are mine, to carry back to him within the next 15 minutes, I'm calling a lawyer, and I'm calling right there, in the waiting area, loudly, in front of everybody."  So they gave them to me and I was able to go back to the surgeons office to get it casted.  

Government run health care.  Do you really want it?  I sure as hell don't.  But then I'm not flying without healthcare.  Somebody is making alot of money off the insurance companies, and that's what's driving the rates so high.  I'm convinced.  It's a scam.  All these agencies are a scam.

Little Bear's birthday was yesterday.  He's six now.  Nobody from his family called or sent a card.  Nobody.  Not mom.  Dad.  Gramma 1.  Gramma 2.  How can a little boy be born into the world with nobody waiting to love him? I thought this was so sad, until the saddest thing of all happened.  I was tucking him in and he was saying prayers, thank you for free and everybody here, naming each of us one by one, and his new found friends and his teacher and his counselor and our pets.  Yeah, nobody in his family thought of him. 

He didn't think of them either. 

free

REad this article about a man in New Hampshire.  He saw a burglar crawling out his neighbor's window and got his gun and told the guy to freeze, he didn't, so the man fired it into the ground and yelled at the guy to freeze.  The burglar figured he was serious, and the man held him at gunpoint until the cops got there.  They arrested the burglar, but also the man with the gun for reckless conduct for shooting the gun into the ground.  The man with the gun, a grandpa, faces a worse sentence than the burglar.  I'm like wow, un friggin believable!  This senventy something year old woman in LA was leaving her church office one evening ans was beaten, raped, left for dead.  She applied for a permit to carry a concealed weapon and it was denied.  The first line in the article says something along the lines of "if but 5% of ducks carried guns, there'd be alot less duck hunting."  Boy ain't that the truth.

So I know this couple who are splitting up and they have a child together.  One parent uses the child as a pawn.  This parent doesn't care about the child, or so it seems, the child is not clean, misses school frequently, rarely has homework done, etc etc.  Does this parent not care about the child or is it lack of awareness?  The desire to lash out at any cost, like a drive, an obsession.  The child is being trampled in this battle.  Years ago one of my own kids asks me "mom, why do people say such cruel things about me when they don't even know me?  I told her I don't know, but I think it's because those people wish to hurt me.  "WEll then why don't they just say cruel things about you" she says.  Well, they did, but they knew the deepest stab, the bloodiest wound, the most effective attack, was to attack my kids.  To this day, one of my kids remembers this and talks about it periodically.  I wonder if those people knew what they were doing, that their words hurt  an innocent child.  Did they know and not care?  I realize some people have darkened hearts, dark souls, some I think don't have souls.  Or maybe they weren't aware in their fury.  Like storming off in a car after a bitter fight and speeding down the road, running over a little puppy and never even knowing.  Or maybe they knew, but didn't feel.  Are there people that don't feel?  Sometimes I wonder.  The movie "Collateral Damage" comes to mind.  Kids can be collateral damage when adults fight or wish to lash out at another adult.  Caught in the crossfire. How different this world would be if every single adult vowed to love and do his/her best to protect but one child from being collateral damage.

free

Hey Free.  I just wanted to let you know I went and I'm back.  Nice service, the usual family antics.  I don't want my personal

disclosures to be called funny or considered material for stand up comedy, so I won't say much more, here.  It's good to be home.  And it

IS home, where love and friends are.   Every time I make that trip, I realise it more and more.  

I hope you're doing well.