Obama and AIG

whoa

DH’s hand looks almost normal now.  He really dodged a bullet.  His hand was so infected and he had a fever along with the grotesque swelling.  The area of redness had spread half way up his arm before the medication finally kicked in. He should have had surgery but I believe that he refused.

I continue to be very disturbed by my reaction.  I can understand some of it.  I was very worried and I believe this is understandable.  I was also very angry with him for letting it go.  Also understandable.  But not the out of control behavior.

I’m wondering if I am possibly still experiencing withdrawal from the Effexor, is my addled brain still reeling from discontinuing the med? Or is this proof that I really do need to be medicated?

This has brought to light issues that I really need to take care of, such as my unhealthy dependence on DH, the need for me to become independent, the thin line that I’m walking between sanity and insanity.  I thought I was stronger.

I’m afraid for the next real crisis, what the hell am I going to do to take care of my boys, DH and myself?  This has to change.

Quitting therapy right now is a bad idea.  I am going to have to put my discomfort aside and be brutally honest with t about lots of things, I’m going to have to push the tears aside and just grit my teeth and spit it out.  I feel that I have not time to pussy foot around, I need to work on this NOW.  I haven’t been dishonest with t about anything.  But there are issues such as our talk of religion, my feelings of being blown off, that will need to be resolved.

My inclination is to run when I feel rejected, but I know that DBT works if the tools are used.  My t has had insights into my issues that no other t has had before.  He has a way of validating me that I’ve felt from no other.  But he ain’t perfect.  I think I piss him off and that he’s giving up on me.  I need to voice this.

I put on 600 miles on the car this weekend.  I chose to just drive when my emotions ran too high.  I ran away.  I’m so conflicted, so many emotions.  I think I’m falling apart.

reckoning

(4-4-09, catching up still)

I’m sick of me.  I’m sick of I I I I I I, incessantly I.

My bones remember.  I was thin in high school.  People wondered if I was anorexic.  My sister showed some genuine concern, wanted me to drink Ensure.  Mom ignored it, but my dad WAS concerned.  My grandparents were very concerned.

Whatever it was, it didn’t get a label, wasn’t that important to mom, anyway.

So during Thursdays freak out, I didn’t eat.  It felt good, the hunger felt good, the power over my appetite felt good. My body remembered and it felt familiar and right, being hungry, not eating.

When I woke up this morning, my bones remembered.  I felt the sheets and blankets on my hip bones and my ribs, even though I’m currently overweight, something in my bones remembered and I was comforted by the feeling of my bones. I used to grab on to my hip bones, feel the scoop in my belly between them and grab onto the bones and get comforted by that…I want that feeling again.

I didn’t eat on Thursday or Friday, I ate a little bit today. I want to feel comforted by my bones again, god I love that feeling in my bones, I need to feel that again… comforted by control over my appetites, by my size…but most of all by my bones.

I hate myself.  I feel fragile, like whatever it is that is ME has been in a terrible accident, is really wounded and is not ok…

I’m confronting just how selfish, self centered I am and I hate what I’m seeing.  Confronting how dependent I am, confronting my total lack of inner resources to deal with crisis, no matter how small.  I hate me.  I really despise me.

I want to clam up in therapy.  I feel embarrassed for freaking out and I feel ashamed for showing  my vulnerability to T, for calling and being weak.

DH’s hand looked a lot better today.  Clinic called and he tested positive for staph, so continue meds.  I know that he dodged a bullet, and he doesn’t appreciate how close he came to some pretty bad shit happening. I’m not sure that he is out of the woods yet, either and he thinks that he is.

He puts me in such a horrid position, he refuses to take care of himself and I see the adverse effects, so I end up taking on one of many different roles: nagging fish wife; one of pleading him to take care of himself and I DESPISE being put in that position; one of letting what happens due to his behavior happen, but then I take on the blame for the consequences and I then have to live with the guilt of causing the bad shit to happen.

I’m shaking again, my whole being is shaking just writing this out. I think I’m going to lose it again, have a break down.  It takes little for me to start having physical symptoms, shaking, heart pounding…I’m too far gone to relax.

so I look for pills to take but I have none right now.  No wine.  Maybe I can find comfort in my bones again, for a season, because I need them right now, they got me through hell in the past, my bones and my hunger can get me through this, too…

catching up, making sense of it all

(4-3-09)

DH isn’t out of the woods yet.  If his hand isn’t noticeably better by tomorrow evening, he has to have surgery. Doc thinks he has an abscess.  He told DH to soak it 4x daily in Dreft but DH “forgot” about it until I asked him if the doc wanted him to do any think like soaking it.  Why?  Why does DH refuse to ACT unless someone TELLS him to?  I get pissed off all over again and go to the store to buy the damn Dreft.

I’m thinking more rationally today.  I am embarrassed by my freak out.  I feel very fragile though.  Tears and another freak out are just under the surface.  I’m very tired.

I think that some of this weird over-reaction also has to do with the fact that the boys and I are so very dependent on DH for everything that I really freak out when that is threatened in any way.  I need to become independent, I really need to be able to provide for us. I’ve been emotionally dependent on him ever since I met him.  I didn’t realize how strong that still is. I feel so frantic when I feel that he might be taken away from me.  I can’t even name the emotion, but it’s a terrible feeling, a panicked, hysterical, terrified feeling. It’s primal.  I am ashamed of this. It’s not normal or healthy.

I’m worried that if DH does need surgery, which will be done out patient but under general anesthesia in the CITY, where I am totally unfamiliar and have no idea where anything is or where I’m going, I’m worried that DH wont be able to tell me how to get home due to the anesthesia, and I wont be able to figure it out.  But this is a few days away, IF it happens at all.  I need to stay present, in THIS moment.

I’m disturbed by how easily I spun into some very dangerous thinking and actions.

Just some thoughts on calling T for help yesterday.  I honestly don’t even remember what I told him, I think I remember most of what he told me.  The big thing is, I called.  I really HATE calling for help.  Just making the call, knowing that someone actually gave a shit, at least at that moment anyway, grounded me a little, brought me down. Hearing the voice of reason brought me down.  When I found myself ruminating, I could hear T’s voice telling me to focus on other things so I don’t ruminate.

and I lose it.

(4-2-09)

Looks like I wont be alone after all.

How to put the story together so it will makes sense….here goes:

DH cut his hand a couple of weeks ago.  When I first saw it, it looked red, inflamed and dirty.  I told him to wash it, put some antibiotic ointment on it and bandage it.  He refused to do so. I felt very frustrated, but decided that I couldn’t make him take care of it so I let it go.

Fast-forward to yesterday afternoon. DS1 (my son) had a med check with his pdoc.  DH took him.  Pdoc sees DH’s very swollen, red hand and says, let me look at that.  You need to see the doc, it’s infected.  You need to see the doc NOW.

DS1 runs into the house when they get home and tells me what his doc said to DH.  I demand to see DH’s hand, demand that DH tell me what DS1’s doc said, and proceed to call the clinic to get him in.

After a frustrating conversation with our local clinic, I contact urgent care and get him in to be seen within the hour.

I lose it.

Here is my secret. I feel that this is my fault.  I feel guilty that I didn’t realize, or even notice how bad his hand was.  I didn’t tell him to go to the doctor. I didn’t insist that he take care of the wound.   I was too self centered, too occupied with my own damn self to even consider that other people have problems, too.  But I did this to him. It doesn’t make any sense, but I really feel responsible for this.

I feel tremendous guilt.  I feel extreme worry, I think he’ll be put in the hospital, and he may be put in tomorrow by the hand specialist, but that’s getting ahead of the story. I feel tremendous anger at DH for allowing it to get this bad.  He’s not stupid.  He knew it was getting really bad last week he admitted to me tonight.    So I yell at him.  I yell at him and I yell at him and I yell some more.  I feel frantic. I want to yell and scream and hit him.  I need to chill.  I refuse to go to the clinic with him get my hair cut instead.  I’m a jumble of conflicting emotions.

I get my hair cut, call home and lose it again.  I call my T for coaching.  He understands that I’m upset, he understands that there is something else driving this reaction but I can’t tell him that this is all my fault.  I can see him using rational mind, asking questions like, did you smear crap in it to infect it, did you keep him from going to the doctor or cleaning and dressing the wound…and of course I did not.

But he wont understand that I feel that this really is my fault anyway, he wont understand the guilt and I cannot explain it.

This is what my mind is telling me….You are such a self centered bitch that you couldn’t see that your husband’s hand is cooking an infection that could kill him?? And that’s all you can do is piss and moan and whine about your own damn self?  You piece of shit. You selfish, whining, cunt.  You deserve to die. I try to push these thoughts away but can’t.  They are no longer words, they’ve become imprinted on my soul.

I freak out every time I see DH and his grotesquely swollen, reddened hand. When I spoke with T, I told him that I wouldn’t go for a long drive, but I did.  After I get home, after talking to T, I freak out.  If I stay I’m gonna take pills.  I lose control, am on the brink of yelling and yelling and yelling some more so I leave.

I lose the fucking cell phone somewhere in my car.  It’s turned on, I can’t figure out how to turn the fucking ringer on, I can’t talk and drive at the same time so I throw it and now I can’t find it.

I want to drive hard and fast.  The music is cranked so loud I can’t think.   I blow the speakers.  I set the cruise because I keep finding myself really going fast. I realize that I have no cell, no money and it’s late. This scares me, but not enough to make me go home.

The radio blares the song “Spirit In The Sky.”  I start to sing along.  Then I start to actually listen to what I’m singing:

When I die and they lay me to rest
Gonna go to the place that’s the best
When I lay me down to die
Goin’ up to the spirit in the sky
Goin’ up to the spirit in the sky
That’s where I’m gonna go when I die
When I die and they lay me to rest
Gonna go to the place that’s the best…

Is the “Spirit in the Sky” telling me to get my ass home, that DH  is dying of this raging infection and worthless piece of shit that I am, I’m driving because I’m too selfish to put aside my own shit to help DH??  I drive until the urge to drive is gone. I drive until I am burnt out.  I turn the car around and go home.

It’s after midnight.  I wake DH and take his temperature.  Only 98.3.  This is good news, I hope.  I look at the boundary of infection marked in ink by the doctor to assess if the infection has spread.  Who the hell am I trying to kid, I’m no doctor.  He doesn’t feel worse.  Still angry, I tell him that if he ever does this again I will kill him he wont have to worry about any infection rotting his arm away. Of course I don’t mean this literally.

I turn on the TV.  John Edward is talking to the dead.  I’m not kidding.  If this “Spirit in the Sky” is trying to tell me something, it really has a twisted sense of humor.  John Edwards has not graced our TV screen for quite a few years.

I feel like I have to clean.  I do the dishes, clean the counters, mop the floor.  Aside from 2 antibiotic shots in the ass and a tetanus shot in the arm, DH has to take Keflex around the clock.  Next dose is at 4 am.  I wait until 4:00, wake him and give him his medicine and go to my room.

I haven’t eaten today.  I don’t deserve to eat. Fuck eating. Fuck hunger.

It’s 5:00 am and I’m too wound up to sleep.  Do I take extra seroquel or not?  He has to see a hand specialist in the morning, who will most likely admit him to the hospital from what DH tells me.  I need to be awake and strong and advocate for him.  I have to make up for giving him this infection.  For being a selfish bitch.  For being worthless and thankless.  I have to atone.

I’m shaking deep within my belly my whole being is shaking and I cannot relax.  I’m hanging on to sanity by my fingernails.  I’m assaulted by guilt, by crazy thoughts but I have to hold on and be strong and I can’t let anyone know what is going on because I know that it’s crazy but I can’t get myself to believe that it is not true. So I try to shove it down but it keeps coming back so I push it away again and again and again.

I can’t stop shaking.  My arms are shaking, my legs are shaking, my gut is shaking, my chest is tight.  Why the fuck can’t I just die? Why the fuck couldn’t this horrid infection have happened to me instead?  So I sit in my bed and rock and rock and rock some more.

therapy

(catching up, written on 4-1-09)

I was in a foul mood today.  It was strange, it started out ok, but my mood was swinging fast and hard.  I finally left.  Went driving alone at night.  Drove 200 miles.

I’m seriously thinking about quitting DBT and therapy.  I should say good-bye to one of the people there, first.  I feel I owe her that.

(The following is what I perceived, and is not necessarily the message intended by t):

I’m feeling like t has pulled the rug out from under me.  I was beginning to validate within myself that I have legitimate reasons for being fucking nuts.  T basically said that I’m just like anyone else.  Lots of people have emotion mind thoughts that keep them down. He doesn’t know what percent, but lots.

I should have listened to my inner wisdom and stopped going to church. I have no right to be angry with God.  Shouldn’t have expected God to work miracles in my life.  It was an unreasonable expectation that God would bless me with friendships within His Body. The way of Jesus is the way of the cross and rife with pain and suffering, DUH  I shouldn’t have expected anything less.

If I dissociated the other day, it’s because I read a book about it.  I don’t recall sharing with him any books about dissociation, but what the hell.

(My thoughts) It’s just me.  There is something intrinsically wrong with me, that’s not mental illness or diagnosable or worthy of a label, I’m one of society’s pieces of trash. I’m wasting resources.

I’m really hoping that DH takes the boys to visit his parents so I can be alone.  I’m feeling very self destructive right now, hearing that siren song and it’s irresistible.

battles

T thinks I’m possessed, or influenced by spirits.  Well, that’s one hypothesis, it’s as good as any I suppose.  This thought makes me giggle and seems absurd in one sense, considering my total change of heart in matters of spirit. In another sense, the old fundie, charismatic ghosts whisper that possession makes total sense, considering how far I’ve strayed and what I’ve dabbled in.

Therapy felt like battle tonight.  I wanted T to affirm my experiences with the church as being spiritually damaging. T refused to blame the church for anything, rather he blamed me for not listening to my inner wisdom.  I felt unheard and attacked. I feel the church bares at least some responsibility for my experience.  Especially since I was very green and did “all the right things.”  T didn’t seem to think so.  I don’t know.  Maybe I’m just full of shit.

T also said something puzzling….I said that I felt attacked by him and he said something to the affect of I’m not attacking him, how could he be attacking me?  I said, “I’m attacking your beliefs.”  I don’t get it.  Why was he arguing with me about my feeling of being attacked?

On to my inner critic, or emotion mind thoughts or whatever the hell it is.  I don’t want to talk about it anymore.  It’s too hard.  I feel like my experience with it is minimized when it is reduced to being merely “emotion mind thoughts.”  I want to give up and give in to them.  I’m too tired to fight them anymore. They are too strong and I am felled by their relentlessness, by the way they crush my spirit. But they are merely thoughts, judgements.  I don’t know what’s wrong with me.  I don’t care what’s wrong with me. I’m embarrassed to have brought it up.

I’m going to be alone this weekend.  I’m already planning.  Actually, I’m of many minds here.   What shall we call this part of me…seeker of sanity wants to call T and tell him that I’m already making plans to at least indulge in a target behavior. I imagine T would discourage me from being alone and want me to promise shit that I can’t promise.  The tired one says, what the hell, I’ve been good for a few days and he’ll never know unless I decide to tell him…and destructo wants to get all riled up, delve into some dark, emotional depths by watching triggering movies, reading triggering books and nurture along some nice suicidal ideation to get things started. I’ve got a few days to do whatever it is I end up doing.

I’m starting to wonder if rebel me is sort of saying, “I’ll show you how benign those “emotion mind thoughts” are, if that is where this self destructiveness is coming from. Probably to some extent.  I’m such a piece of shit.

therapy, dbt skills

another tough therapy session.  My inner critic was brought up.  T was wondering what role it plays in my battle with feeling worthy of God’s love, and ability to receive God’s love.

So it came out that IC (inner critic) is always there, beating me down whenever I try to move forward in my life in any context.

Then a very interesting and scary thing happened, something that hasn’t happened like this before.  T seemed to recognize that IC is more than just thoughts.  He asked me if they were  my  thoughts or were another voice.  They are my thoughts.  I became very uncomfortable, physically tense to the point of shaking, unable to relax.  T asked me when IC first showed up.  I suddenly felt very tired, confused and couldn’t think. I wondered if I was losing it…wondered what in the hell was happening. Wondered if I would be able to get back into myself. And my perception is off.  Maybe I’ve been playing with Bryce too much, but the text on this page feels like it’s bubbling out and banking to the right.

I said how IC will beat me down with abusive remarks until I stop doing whatever it is that has provoked it’s response…whether that be reaching out and sharing my heart with someone, sharing homework in DBT, showing t what I’ve written, seriously considering college or a job….and that I feel a sense of betrayal when this happens.

When t asked me to elaborate, my mind simply shut down.  I felt confused, giggly and just plain weird.  I began thinking of IC as a separate entity within my  self.   I would comment only half jokingly that I was possessed, remark that I’m speaking of this as if it were a separate entity and that I found that really weird. But I remember feeling this way (strange, confused, tired, foggy, giggly) before, but not with the same intensity.  I voiced all of this to t and he remarked that whatever IC is, it does not want him to ask me these questions and dig around for answers.

IC gets especially powerful if I’ve had the audacity to actually believe something positive, for example thinking that I looked good that day, and then I see a picture taken that day that is really ugly and repulsive. I feel betrayed, I feel ashamed to be alive and IC reminds me over and over again that I cannot trust my judgement and keeps me in that shamed state, makes me feel ashamed to be seen in public, like I’m the Gorgon or something, tells me that I should die.  Or playing guitar with the worship team.  I make a mistake.  IC tells me that I’m fooling myself, I’m not talented and those who say I am are liars, I shouldn’t even be in the team, why would God want to use me, that it’s very presumptuous and absurd to even think that. And it never shuts up.  Not while I’m engaged in life at least. It could be anything, really, those are just some examples of how it’s happened before.

I don’t remember when this began, but I know it wasn’t always there. I don’t remember it being there as a young kid.  I remember it being there in high school. I don’t know about junior high/middle school.  I have thought of this inner critic as having much power over me for a long time. I remember thinking many times before that if I, for example, expose myself in some way that I will pay.  (By that I mean go to AA and share something or ask someone to exchange phone numbers or go to school or whatever. It could be anything. )

Writing this out provokes the same physical response as it did in session, anxiety, muscle tension and shaking and this sense of a tidal wave of emotion threatening to engulf me, of being out of control. Yet I want to enter into this weird state of being. Part of me wonders if I’m playing with fire but I don’t care. And part of me thinks that my inner critic will keep me safe.

T pointedly told me that he wants me to tell my pdoc that I’m having intrusive thoughts.  He reiterated it as I was leaving. I really don’t want to tell pdoc this.  Pdoc isn’t exactly a tactful person.  I don’t want to have to explain myself to him. And I went off the Effexor without his knowledge. I can just see pdoc asking me pushy questions about those thoughts and me being unable to answer his questions and being blown off.

When I got home, I noticed that I felt small.  I wanted to hide, to curl up in a ball and hide, and I don’t know why.

3-26-09

So it’s a few days later and I’ve been feeling ashamed.  I feel ashamed to go back to therapy.  I feel anxious.  I want to tell therapist that I’m full of shit and that this is all bullshit and that I’m not worth his time.  I’m not going to get better because  there is nothing wrong with me, it’s just ME.  I’m a lazy piece of shit and not worthy of DBT, therapy, medication, whatever.  I feel like I’ve done something wrong, that I’ve been caught or found out and that I’m a fraud. I feel like I can never rest in healing because I’ll be found out, it’ll come out that I’m not legitimate. I can never reveal what’s inside because it’s not worthy, that what’s inside is only worthy of condemnation, banishment.

I can sense something just under the surface and I feel a lot of anxiety when I focus on it.  My heart pounds, chest gets tight, feel that grinding in my gut.  So I try to push it away.

I almost cried in the bookstore today.  I thought of Ruby. I had to bite my tongue really hard to stop the tears.  I don’t know if anniversaries as old as this are relevant or not, but this it the time of year that the sexual abuse began.  But that is ancient history.

I thought that I had missed my psychiatrist appointment but I had the wrong date written down.  Felt kind of stupid calling the office telling them that I’d have to reschedule only to find out that my appointment isn’t for another month…oops.

I have been urge surfing.  I had a strong urge today to just drive, to keep driving until there was no where to drive anymore. I had this urge while driving so it was strong.  I’ve done this before, just up and left and drove for hours. But I didn’t do it.  I have had urges to use.  I’ve had urges to dive into that vat of emotion.  Every damn night I have urges to take more seroquel than I’ve been taking because it can knock me into oblivion and the escape is nice. But I have not caved.

I don’t know about alternate rebellion.  I feel like this will only make me feel like a bigger fraud right now.

And for something positive, I’ve been laughing my ass off reading the LOLCat Bible!  1Samuel 5 and 6 are particularly hilarious, as is the banishment from the garden of Eden, Moses and the burning bush, the plagues in Egypt,  Balaam’s Ass and the LOLCat Creed. So what skill is this?

But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.

I asked my daughters how their experiences at church affected them.  Although not surprised, I was saddened and filled with righteous indignation against the church when I read their response.

I think my church experience has affected me in a pretty negative way, and I have basically no desire to go back to those times. Not that I’ve left spirituality or anything, I just see christianity as one big hypocrisy and that’s even wrecked my idea of Jesus. I don’t know how to explain…..

And honestly, when I think back to that song “Jesus, Lover of my Soul,” it brings me back to some youth group retreat where we were indoctrinated with fear and self-loathing, and no one wanted to talk to me.

D

Reading this arouses tremendous anger in my spirit.  R thinks back on our church years with resentment and pain as well.   They both have come to a place of peace with their Spirituality, D through theology courses at her liberal, catholic college, and R through dialogue with various people and listening to her own spirit.

… I’ve come to a place of peace, I think after taking a lot of theology classes at college from people who I feel like are much more, umm… reasonable. Honestly, as geeky as it sounds, learning from the liberal nuns at college helped me to not hate christianity.

However, Christian pop music still brings me there lol.

D

Here is how R came to her peace with God:

…I had a moment of reckoning with my ‘god’ (which was not really mine, but someone else’s perception) when I was 14. Every now and then it comes back to me, which is why I’m a deist…

I had a discussion with a pretty right wing, conservative, christian (from the cult church that lucas goes to) and she was open to discussion and could back up a lot of her stuff (but it was still very disputable). She asked me something about how I find God in life.

(She assumed that I would come to some “A ha” moment and realize that God is all around in talking to her)

We were walking near a lake at sunset – probably the most ’spiritual’ setting that I know for myself. I told her, “I see God in the sunset, and the sunrise – in the hills and in the fields. I hear God when I hear children laughing, birds in the morning, and crickets in the evening. I smell God in the rain, in the spring when the snow is melting, and in the decay of fall. I touch him when I hold those that I love.” I was not a Christian at that point. (Because I converted back, sorta, though not entirely, when I dated “L” (ex-boyfriend).  Ann (the Christian Friend) was part of the “L” plot to convert me – though she was a good friend as well.

I feel such remorse that I didn’t listen to my gut and keep my daughters away from that destructive atmosphere.  Early on, I remember feeling very uneasy at services when altar calls were accompanied by people being slain in the spirit.  I remember not wanting my kids to witness that, thinking that it would scare them, thinking that nothing about God, Jesus and Church should scare anyone, let alone little kids.

When the girls were young, 3 and 5 years old, they were involved in Sunday School. At the time, WOTC was on a Warrior for Christ kick and this is what was taught even to those young ones.  Again, I felt really uncomfortable with this teaching but felt that my discomfort was sinful, that the church knew what they were doing so I turned a deaf ear to my inner wisdom.

The girls remember being taught that they were part of the Army of God.  They remember thinking that this army was literal, not figurative.  One Sunday, all the kids in Sunday School marched into the congregation, some holding banners, to the tune of “Mighty Warrior”

Mighty Warrior, dressed for battle. Holy Lord of All is He.
Commander in Chief, bring us to attention.
Lead us into battle to crush the enemy.

Satan has no authority in this place,
He has no authority here.
For this habitation was fashioned for the Lords presence,
No authority here.

I kept them out of Sunday School after that.  I just couldn’t let that burden fall on my very young girls.  The image of all of those young children being trained up to be Warriors of Christ seemed obscene and so very sad.

What absolutely amazes me is that the leadership, youth and adult, thought at that time anyway, that they were in the will of God.  They were absolutely certain that they really had to train these little ones up to be warriors and that the burden that must have put on those little kids was the will of God.  It didn’t even cross their mind that this burden was not appropriate for little, impressionable children to bear. On the contrary, they felt that children should be trained to be warriors as early as possible.

Their experiences at Living Waters was worse.  Old enough for Youth Group, they felt assaulted by shame and guilt ridden teachings.  They felt pressured to conform and speak in tongues and  they didn’t fit in, they didn’t toe the line, they were ostracized.

I think all of the youth, aside from my girls, were from the same area and went to the same schools, so they were close. They did not want to let my daughters in to their clique.

When I finally realized this, I stopped making them go.

The hypocrisy astounds me.  The preachers would preach the parable of the lost sheep:

luke 15:3-7 He told them this parable.
“Which of you men, if you had one hundred sheep, and lost one of them, wouldn’t leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one that was lost, until he found it?  When he has found it, he carries it on his shoulders, rejoicing.  When he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ I tell you that even so there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance.” (web)

with such compassion, such certainty that they would never allow one of theirs to wander in the wilderness while my daughters were lost and hurting, not allowed in the fold for whatever reason, right before their very eyes.  But they did not see their lost sheep, for they were busy rejoicing  over their 99 righteous.

“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe to stumble, it would be better for him if, with a heavy millstone hung around his neck, he had been cast into the sea.  Mark 9:42

When I spoke with my sister, who was in a positon of leadership and who’s son was in the same youth group, about  my daughters who were being left out, no one would talk to them, etc, she blew me off, saying that her son didn’t have a problem with it, the implication being that the trouble was with my girls and not with the group.

My daughters did not learn the love of Christ at that church.  They learned the pain of being an outcast.  They learned rejection and fear and shame, all while the love of Jesus was being proclaimed and their self righteous proclamation that the love of Christ would be found with them. This makes me very, very angry.

And I ignored that still small voice that screamed foul and instead submitted to the teachings of this church. I held out hope that they would find acceptance and love in the church, but it wasn’t to be.

How can I forgive myself for being a part of this, for exposing them to this pain at the hands of the church, the one place where they should have found unconditional love and acceptance?

DBT: when the rubber meets the road

I just lost it with DH (which stands for dick head in this instance). The Asshole kept talking over me and trying to intimidate me with his voice, you know, making it sound deep and stern and scary. After interrupting and arguing with me,  He used this stupid voice and attitude to “thank” me for cleaning up HIS mess.

Pissed me off. So I leaned in to him and bellowed “I don’t accept it” at him as loud as I could. Then I walked away.

Asshole went outside for a smoke. When he came back in, I told him don’t try to talk over me again. And I walked away. Asshole.

It felt good to do that. Really good. I hope the asshole got the message. But it wasn’t an “effective” behavior in DBT speak. What is effective isn’t always what feels good. I would imagine that the effective thing to do in that situation would have been to walk away, because asshole wasn’t in a listening kind of mood. In fact, asshole was in an intimidating kind of mood and not interested in hearing anyone else.

It’s hard to do the skills and be effective when you are interacting with someone who has no interest in being “effective.” It’s hard for me to do the skills when I’m being disrespected. I want to retaliate when that happens.

Being effective isn’t what comes to mind when in that situation. Trouble with this is it’s not nearly as rewarding as bellowing in his face was at that time.