Author Archives: Victoria

Shooting in San Bernardino, California

2 Replies

I was going to write about Syrian refugees and the difficult – if not impossible – position they find themselves in, just trying to get out of Syria.  I’ll probably publish that next week, depending on the news.

Yesterday as I left the gift shop where I volunteer, I saw a “breaking news” story on one of the televisions there.  Three Two people had entered a facility that assists developmentally-delayed people and started shooting.

14 people are dead.

There isn’t a lot of information at this point, though the shooting happened yesterday.

The latest report is that police chased an SUV into Redlands, stopped the vehicle and there was a shootout.  The man and a woman – the shooters – are dead.  A third suspect is in police custody, and not much is known about who that person is.

At least one shooter is a U.S. citizen.

The dead male shooter has been identified as Syed Reswan Farook. The dead female shooter has been identified as Tashfeen Malik.  No one is sure what her relationship to the man is, perhaps the dead man’s wife.

No one is commenting on a motive.  Initial reports indicate that one of the shooters had an argument with someone at the site of the shooting, and came back with one other person, or two other people, depending on the report, armed with AK-47s and dressed all in black.

Of course, there are the usual murmurs that it’s a terrorist attack.  NBC reports that “David Bowdich, the FBI’s assistant director in Los Angeles, said the incident was being regarded as ‘possibly terrorism’ ” (“At Least 14 Dead in California Shooting, Two Suspects Killed”, NBC website, M. Alex Johnson, Corky Seimaszko, Pete Williams, and Tom Winter, 12/2/2015, 9:49PM).

Police also found suspicious items in the building – “rudimentary explosive devices” connected to a remote control (which was found in their vehicle).  The shooters were also wearing body armor.  This apparently was a planned attack.

Some things struck me about this incident.  The first thing was, there were reports that the male shooter became angry during some kind of company function (either training or party, it’s not clear which).

I wonder if it had anything to do with the hateful, ignorant comments I hear on a daily basis about Muslims.  That doesn’t excuse the shooting, but it does kind of go a ways towards explaining it.

The second thing was, people were texting others during the attack – who does that?? – and asking for prayer.  People were seen outside, after the attack, holding hands and praying.

That pissed me off.  Sorry, but it did.  These kinds of things just serve to make whatever happened some kind of religious conflict between people and their gods.  It reduces a complicated set of circumstances to “our god will save us” and “their god is evil”.

If the Christian god was so involved in peoples’ lives, don’t you think he/she would have prevented the shooting in the first place?

When Muslims pray, do these Christians really think the prayer is re-routed to some other deity than the one they think is “all-knowing, all-present”?

What about the rest of us?  Why do we have to be stuck in the middle between fanatical Muslims and fanatical Christians?  Both groups incite and feed off one another.

Many Christians think they are entitled to force their religion on everyone, no matter where they are.  Any attempts to curb this are met with screams that they are being persecuted.

Many Muslims think they are entitled, also, to force their religion on everyone, but when they are determined to do that it is usually by violence.   Attempts to weed out the violent factions from the lesser, more mainstream followers are met with screams that they are being discriminated against.

I am sick of both groups.  Shut up already.

The rest of us don’t bother anyone.  We don’t hassle Christians for praying everywhere, and we don’t hassle Muslims for wearing hijabs.  We don’t hassle the Amish for dressing old-timey and traveling in buggies, and we don’t hassle Hassidic Jews for wearing beards and having different haircuts.

If any person does, they are usually arrested and punished in some way.  That’s as it should be.

What is the difference between, say, the Amish and fundamentalist Christians?  They both have what the rest of us might call “strict beliefs”.

The difference is, the Amish never make any attempt to convert or push their ideas on “the English” (what they call the rest of us).  They have their communities, and they follow U.S. laws and so on.  They don’t run for office or make political statements.

What on earth is the matter with these 2 religious sects – Muslims and Christians – that they cause so much destruction and heartache wherever they are?  Why is it these 2 particular religions feel that they have to get involved in politics and try to legislate their beliefs on the rest of us?

Yes, the people in these religions who do this are the fundamentalist sects.  But there seems to be no attempt made by others of their religion to tell them to knock it off, to explain to them that our country is not dictated by religious principles, and that it never will be unless they want to kill or jail sizable portions of the population.

Some people will brush this off as some kind of aberrant behavior that has nothing to do with religion.  A “workplace dispute”.  Yeah ok, but…

…we do this at our peril.  It depends on what the “workplace dispute” was about.

Was it a situation where the person had taken all he could take, hearing cracks about his culture and/or religion day in and day out?  Because, you know, anyone saying that this doesn’t happen is either very stupid or very foolish or just doesn’t want to see what’s going on.

Was it a personal situation where he just got angry about some job-related thing that happened one day?

I really doubt it, as most people do not have body armor, automatic weapons, and home-made bombs just sitting around their house for them to retrieve after some random argument.

This was planned.  So whatever “dispute” this guy had with others, it must have been pretty serious in order for him to not only do this, but to enlist the help of his wife/girlfriend to do it, too.

And they left behind a 6 month old baby.  That doesn’t sound like some random workplace dispute to me.

If we dismiss this, as we dismissed the shooting at Fort Hood in 2009 (psychiatrist enters base and starts shooting; he had contacted Al Quaeda and had become radicalized months before the shooting), as a “workplace dispute”, we’re not looking into a cause that might be preventable.

I am not sure why this seems to be such a taboo subject.  If the authorities are afraid it will increase anti-Islamic sentiment in this country by examining how this person thought and why, they’re too late.

This country is already experiencing a major anti-Islamic sentiment across the board.

I don’t think examining things is ever a bad thing.  I think it’s the only way we can understand the world.

But, of course, we just killed the two attackers, so it’s not likely we will ever know now.

And we will continue to kill attackers, because there just isn’t a decent policy in place to handle situations like these – not one that works, anyway.

This is not a good thing.  This reduces our police to combatants in a war they do not understand, battling people who may or may not have a political or religious agenda.

It will not decrease the inflammatory and disgusting language used by fundamentalist Christians, right-wing loudmouths, and now some mainstream “concerned citizens”.  And so, perhaps, the cycle continues.

If I, as a peaceful Pagan, get angry and feel intimidated by the things said on the bus by ignorant Fox News watchers, I can only imagine how someone whose beliefs are entrenched would react to people like that.  After all, they don’t even discuss Pagans.  They discuss Muslims.

And if that kind of language and pontificating upsets me to the point where I want to throw something at them, I cannot even begin to understand how upsetting it would be to a Muslim of any stripe.

I can, however, imagine how a fundamentalist Muslim who is fed up might react to it.

So, my opinion is, we ignore fundamentalists of any religion at our own risk.  Because they are not harmless.  Even if they never physically hurt anyone, they still do a great deal of damage…

…to the rest of us.

I see a big ol’ game of “let’s pretend” going on.  Let’s just ignore that there is any religious aspect to any of this, and maybe it will just go away.  Because we really do not want to offend any religious people, except for maybe Pagans and Rastas and other “weirdos” (who are usually the first ones rounded up and jailed/killed during a fascist regime).

We need to have a serious conversation in this country about what constitutes “religious freedom”, and what is just pushingpushingpushing beliefs on the community at large.

Christians are going to have to take a hard look at some of their brothers and sisters and examine how their religious views mask a more serious and hateful agenda. Or even just look at their flawed thinking where “religious freedom” is concerned.

I honestly think that a lot of Christians – or at least the ones I know – don’t realize how their constant assertion of their religion comes off to others who don’t believe as they do.  In other words, “smug”, and “self-righteous”.

A brief example would be of a woman I volunteer with.  Someone she didn’t know died in her apt building last week.  Yet this woman approached the man’s relatives as they were cleaning out the man’s apartment to ask if he had “known Jesus”.

She didn’t even know these people!  But she told me she just had to ask because she was so afraid the man had gone to hell “for not knowing our Lord”.

She didn’t see a thing wrong with that.  And therein lies the problem.

I have a friend who posts a lot on Facebook, who often makes the point that religions are the basis of conflict in the world.

I still believe the primary conflict in the world is class-based.

But he has a good point.  Religion can serve to justify some pretty horrific behavior, including wars.   And I think we as a society really need to have a few conversations about this.

Gone are the days of WWII, for example, when we could just declare that a god was on one side or another (America’s), and everyone seemed to just accept that and repeat it often.

But certainly not everyone felt or thought like that.  I’m pretty sure my parents didn’t.  Yes, they went to church but I never heard them express the idea that their god supported one side or another in war.

They kept quiet, though.  A lot of people kept quiet – they had to have done – because the popular culture at the time was in this “praise god and pass the ammunition” mode.

We keep quiet now at our peril.

We cannot reduce what happened to gun laws (or lack of), mental health issues, workplace disputes, Muslim terrorists, or lack of “values” (translation: Christian values).  We need to look at all aspects of what happened, with an objective eye, so we can figure out maybe how to prevent something like this happening again.

Knee-jerk reactions are not helpful.  We need people to analyze this with a dispassionate sensibility.

I wish, more than ever, that my dad was still alive.  He would have had an objective perspective on all this.  I really can’t think of anyone else who could even rise to the challenge.

Someone with “no dog in this fight”.

It’s a sad and scary holiday season this year.  I hope this is the last of the violence, but I won’t hold my breath.

Weirdness for this week: Sorry, even conducting a search that included Ripley’s Believe It or Not website, I got nothing.  Either I am just not in the mood, or my tolerance for “strange” has increased.

Recommendation for the week is a series on Netflix called “Miss Fisher’s Mysteries.”  It’s a continuing story about a female amateur detective in Australia, circa 1920.   Nearly everyone in it has English accents, not Australian – which, for me, is a good thing because I find Australian accents nearly as grating as Arkansas ones.  Anyway, it’s good for a look, even just for the costumes, sets, and vintage vehicles.

Be good.  Be kind.  Speak up and challenge people when they say ignorant, hateful things – no matter what their religion/political point of view is.

 

 

 

 

It’s the Most Difficult Time of the Year…

2 Replies

The title of this post was inspired (sort of) by this song:

Aside #1: By the way, at the very beginning you’ll hear a few notes of Andy Williams’ signature song “Moon River”.

This song – “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” – was a song he sang on his Christmas TV specials.  I grew up watching them all, along with Bing Crosby’s Christmas TV specials (here is Bing singing a duet with David Bowie!), “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” – featuring Burl Ives (watch it here), and “A Charlie Brown Christmas” (still being shown on TV every holiday).

And then, of course, “Holiday Inn”(watch it here), “White Christmas”(here’s a clip), and “It’s a Wonderful Life” (watch it here) were just some of the movies I watched as a child.

Anyway, this time of year you really can’t go anywhere without hearing Christmas music.  So this song has been stuck in my head for a few days.

But the contrast between what one thinks Christmas should be like, and what Christmas really is like, is starting to get to me.  I’m not alone, a lot of people feel the same way.  And it’s a struggle to not let it get to you.

My first reaction is to just not go anywhere, but that’s not an option this year because I volunteer at a hospital gift shop.  I can’t just grump out at home.

I don’t have any relatives near me.  My kids are grown and one is off to England to be with her fiance’s family for Christmas soon, one is stuck in Atlanta with no time off, and the place I usually go (Memphis, to visit my son and his wife) probably isn’t an option this year.

I say “probably”, because my son was intending to send a plane ticket, but he’s been so busy I haven’t heard anything yet – and buying a ticket at this late date will be pricey.

Adding to my missing my kids are the women I work with.  Questions about what I’m doing for Christmas, and descriptions of their own family gatherings just feel like a hot poker to the gut at times.   It’s a struggle for me to keep that happy, smiling face on in situations like that.

I’m glad for them, and I truly do like seeing pictures of their grandchildren and listening to their holiday decorating ideas and recipes, but…I’d be lying if I said it didn’t hurt.

Aside #2:  There’s this thing about grandmas and holidays.  I know they aren’t trying to make me feel bad, but I hate seeing that look in their eyes akin to something like pity.  It’s just a thing people my age do, I guess.

My life was not supposed to be like this.

My life was supposed to be with a husband of 38 years, living near at least one of my kids and probably traveling to see the other kids – trips that my husband and I would pay for.  Enjoying retirement, or enjoying a job, or at the very least having a car with which to find a job if need be.

Christmas in a house.  A house owned, not rented.  Being the female half of the “Grandparents hosting the Christmas dinner”, with a huge table where everyone sits, a pretty tree in the window, and lots of laughter and joy.

That’s not my life.

The marriage lasted almost 20 years, when I had had enough of the drinking and cheating.  I even dragged both of us to marriage counseling, and stopped going when the “counselor” (a pastor) wanted to have a session with my then-husband and his mistress.

Yep, he really did try to set that up.  I didn’t swear at him, because you know even I do not swear at clergy, but I was pissed off and I never went back – didn’t pay him, either.

To this day I cannot imagine what his rationale was.

Right, so…that kind of blew the “til death do us part” thing, and all that “couple growing old together” business, and the Norman Rockwell-esque Christmases.

My life at Christmas-time this year is living alone, without a Christmas tree, in a small rented apartment.  Maybe putting up some lights on the porch (if I can earn another gift card with which to buy them), so Nancy Downstairs has a nice view for when she comes home or just looks out her window.

I will (hopefully soon) have DirecTV come hook me up for basic channels, so I can avoid watching Christmas specials and distract myself with other kinds of TV.  Hey, $20/month I can do, and that’s their special rate for a year.

I am the kind of person who, I freely admit, cries while watching Hallmark Christmas specials alone, so I am not going to do that.  I don’t self-inflict.  I’ll watch a Doctor Who Christmas show, probably, and “Sherlock” when the new one comes out in January.

I am struggling – there’s that word again – to maintain a balanced mood, but it’s difficult.

One way to do that, of course, is to focus on others – and as a volunteer, I do that.  I do that 4 days a week.  It’s the “down time” that gets to me.

Come next weekend, I will be out and about finishing my Christmas shopping and hopefully will get it done so I can mail all the presents to my kids and grandson.  It won’t be very much – it never is – and sometimes the postage is more than the gift but…it’s Christmas.  That’s just what you do.

I don’t really know what the point of this blog post is, except just as maybe something I will look back at someday and think, “Wow, my life is so much better than it was back then.”

I have no rational reason to think that way, but if I don’t have any hope that the future will be better…

…I don’t need to fall down that hole.  I might not be able to climb out if I do.  And I certainly don’t want to stay down there so long that I make it a permanent living space for my psyche.

Oh, and the other point of this post is to suggest, once again this year, that if you have a neighbor or someone you know is alone, do something to cheer him or her up.  You’d be surprised at how far a small, kind gesture will go.

And because part of the reason for this blog is to describe what it’s like being disabled, alone, and living under the poverty level, I can tell you that it really sucks during the holidays.  So go make it less sucky for someone, ok?

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and that’s never been a huge holiday for me so it doesn’t sting quite so much to be alone.  And hey, at least I’m not a turkey!

So, I hope you all have a lovely Thanksgiving and travel safely if you go.

Today’s weirdness comes from the “IFLScience” website, about scientists having discovered an island only referred to in ancient texts but never before located, called Kane:

“Researchers Discover Lost Ancient Greek Island”, Josh L. Davis, IFLScience website, 11/23/15.

Recommendation for the week?  A really strange film starring Daniel Radcliffe (yep, of Harry Potter fame) called “Horns”.  It’s about a guy who, after his girlfriend is murdered, grows horns that only he and some others can see.

It’s kind of heavy-handed on the religion at the end, but most of it is nicely done (and there are some humourous parts) and he’s a splendid actor, so well worth a look.  On Hulu and Netflix.

Be good.  Be kind.  Be safe.

 

 

 

Jingo Bells, Jingo Bells, Jingo All The Way

2 Replies

Since part of this blog attempts to comment on/document current events for future readers, this post will be primarily about the terrorist attacks in Paris on November 13, 2015.  And I will also discuss some particularly hysterical, nationalistic American reactions to those attacks (hence the title).

The very nature of terrorism is such that attacks are designed to paralyze societies with fear.  In that way, the latest attacks were somewhat successful, because I read/hear/see a lot of very terrified people now.  Which is amazing, considering I live in Central Pennsylvania, a rather bucolic and boring part of the US.

I would say that the likelihood of a terrorist attack in Altoona or Hollidaysburg is basically non-existent.  But the people here are scared to death, or at least a very vocal sector is.

Here is the timeline of the attacks, courtesy of the Irish Times website (“Paris Terror Attacks: A Timeline from Friday to Thursday”, no author named, 11/19/2015):

~ At 9:20 PM, the first of 3 explosions is heard at the Stade de France, where fans were watching France play Germany in a “friendly” (soccer, or European football match, where the outcome does not affect a team’s rank).

~ At 9:25 PM, a black sedan pulls up near a crowded restaurant/bar, and 2 men with Kalashnikovs get out and spray the place with bullets, killing 15 people.

~ At 9:30 PM, the second bomb goes off at the Stade de France.  2 bombers and 1 unidentified man are killed.

~ At 9:33 PM, another black sedan pulls up outside a restaurant, men get out and start shooting.  5 people are killed and 8 are seriously injured.

~ At 9:36 PM, another shooting occurs outside a restaurant, killing 19 people.  Most of them had been sitting outside, enjoying the evening.

~ At 9:40 PM, a man walks into yet another restaurant and detonates an explosive vest.  He is killed and 15 people are injured.

~ At 9:46 PM, the president of France (who was also at the stadium at the time of the attacks) prepares to declare a state of emergency.

~ At 9:49 PM, gunmen enter a theater where a rock concert is taking place and start shooting. Some take hostages on the stage.  The police finally storm the theater at 12:20, but by that time 89 people are dead.

~ At 9:53 PM, an attacker detonates an explosive vest outside McDonald’s, apparently killing only himself.

~ At 11:30 PM, President Hollande declares a state of emergency.

~ In the next few days, places in Belgium and Germany are raided.  Arrests are made, mostly for people being connected to a person who police know was involved in the attacks – Bilal Hadfi, one of the jihadists who blew himself up outside the French stadium.

~ Police also raid a residence in Saint-Denis on Wednesday, killing the person who coordinated the attacks – Abdelhamid Abaaoud.  A woman detonated a vest during the raid, and was also killed.

At the time of this blog post, 129 people are dead, and 352 are injured (99 critically so).  The victims are from 15 different countries (Algeria, Belgium, Brazil, Britain, Chile, Mexico, Morocco, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tunisia, and the US).

All 7 attackers are dead – 6 from suicide and 1 shot by police (“Paris Attacks: French Terrorist Named as Vigils Held Around the World – As It Happened”, Chris Johnston, Ben Quinn, Raya Jalabi, and Claire Phipps, The Guardian online, 11/15/15).

One of the attackers is French, named Omar Ismail Mostefai, from the south of France (Ibid). Not a recent immigrant – he was born in France.  This is important, I think, when looking at the reaction of some people, who blame immigrants for this incident.

That’s all I am going to write about him, because I don’t think he deserves any more words.  I have read a lot of commentary about this incident, and about jihadists and their motivations and so on, but what it comes down to for me, as a psychologist, is this:

It doesn’t matter what happens outside of you, it is something internal to you that causes you to behave in this monstrous way.  YOU.  Not the US, not Israel, not religion, not your parents, not your poverty, not your race.  YOU are ultimately responsible for what you do, and it takes a very warped (or non-existent) moral compass to step over the line from hating to murdering.

So, anyway, that was the basic timeline.

Immediately, people made French-flag-colored avatars to paste over their Facebook pictures, to show their solidarity with France.

Aside #1: Really nice of them to do that, I guess, but what about the attacks in Nigeria recently? An 11 year old girl blew herself up in a marketplace, no doubt forced to by Boko Haram – who claimed responsibility (“Police: Bombers, One of Them 11, Target Nigeria Market”, Eliott C. McLaughlin, CNN website, 11/19/15).  Where’s her flag?  I guess some of us only care about what happens in white Europe.

Many posted extremely hateful things about Muslims and immigrants, blaming them for the tragedy.  A lot of Americans ranted about the US taking in and relocating refugees from Syria, claiming that jihadists are “sneaking in” that way.

This climate of fear is being fueled by sites such as Fox News, Breitbart, Allen West, Ben Carson, and Donald Trump.  These guys are right-wing “Christians”, who do not want the US to take in refugees.

But, according to WorldVision – which is an evangelical Christian organization founded in 1950 – half of the 12 million people who are fleeing Syria are children.  

They are fleeing due to violence (over 240,000 people have been killed since the Syrian civil war began, and 12,000 of them were children).  Aid groups have a hard time reaching people in Syria who need help, because the Syrian infrastructure has been destroyed (you know, things like hospitals and schools).  Sometimes children are used as combatants and shields, too (“What You Need to Know: Crisis in Syria, Refugees, and the Impact on Children”, World Vision Staff, World Vision website, 11/3/15).

When Americans say, “Well, why don’t they go to Saudi Arabia or Jordan, instead of coming here?”, the answer is simple: they are not welcome there.

Those countries do not even have resettlement programs – people can go there to work as skilled workers, or stay in refugee camps, but they are never allowed to become citizens and their stays can be cancelled at any time, for any reason (“Gulf States Fend Off Criticism About Doing Little for Syrian Refugees”, Deborah Amos, NPR website, 11/20/15).

So they flee to Europe, where they hope they will be safe.  And they also would like to come to the US, as our country still does have the reputation of taking in and caring for people who need us.

Do people forget the Statue of Liberty, given to us by France?  Oh, the irony.

Pages: 1 2

An Extra Post Just for Blog/Website Writers

2 Replies

The irony of this post is that the people I am complaining about will most likely never read it.

I’m annoyed with you, Mr or Ms “I-Wanna-Be-a-Famous ________”  (writer/artist/musician/social commentator).

I’m annoyed with you because you are so self-involved, so motivated by your dreams of fame and fortune, and so lacking in any boundaries that you routinely “like” something on my blog (usually it’s the “About” page, which of course is the shortest and easiest page to access) for the sole purpose of getting me to then read your blog and perhaps comment or follow you.

You don’t read a damn thing on this blog.  I know this because you don’t comment, or I go to your site and see page after page of people thanking you for “liking” their blog post.

Your comments to those, if you bother to write any, are always generic, such as “Thanks! Keep up the good work!”

If you bother to write anything else, it’s always because the commenter actually took the bait, read a blog post (or several) of yours, and made relevant comments.  Your response to those is always self-centered, never mentioning the other person’s blog at all.

Because you aren’t trying to generate a relationship between yourself and your readers.  You’re not trying to change the world with your philosophical leanings on things (I get a lot of “likes” from bloggers who want to be the next Dalai Lama or something).  You’re not even trying to start an exchange of ideas on a particular social problem.

No.  You just want a lot of followers.  Or you want to sell something on your site.  Or maybe both.

Now, look – I don’t “require” that anyone who reads this blog has to comment, or rate it, or “like” it.  I am thrilled to death when I find out anyone has read my blog – really read it, I mean. That’s a huge bonus for me, especially when people I don’t know read it.

So, if you’re reading posts on this blog, thank you!  I hope you enjoy them and you do not need to give me any feedback whatsoever.  This post is definitely not written with you in mind.

No, this post is aimed at people who are shallow and manipulative, and who use the “like” button as a way to lure others to their blog with the misassumption that the blog writer has actually deigned to read someone else’s blog.

Because all they care about is their “stats” – how many read their blog, how many follow them, and so on.

If you have only “liked” a page of mine on this blog you probably don’t know this, but…

…I hate it when people attempt to manipulate me.  And, as a therapist, I catch on to it pretty quickly.

I also have a very low tolerance for self-important blowhards who think that every single thought that pops into their head is worthy of a blog post.

You might think this is hypocritical, coming from someone who writes, in the words of a former friend, a “vanity blog”.

But I don’t actually write every single thing that pops into my head.  I consider long and hard before picking a topic to comment on.  And, nearly always, that topic fits into the area of “what it’s like to be poor in the US”, “how people ought to be kinder to one another”, or “don’t be a jerk when you’re interacting with people who are different from you”.

I write because I want my family and friends to understand what I think.  Some of this is for future family members to read once I have passed on.  Because I wish – so very much – that my deceased family members had written commentary on who they were, what life was like for them, and what life was like in the country in which they lived (US, Ireland, England).

My sisters, my parents, my grandparents, my great-grandparents, my friends who have passed…I wish every day that they had recorded their thoughts and feelings for the rest of us to read, even if it was just a diary.

It’s not a crazy leap of logic to think that some future generation of my family might want to read what I thought and felt.

So, Mr and Ms Self-Important Blogger/Website owner (that almost sounds like the opening for a Bud ad in the “Real Men of Genius” series, doesn’t it?)…

Um anyway, got sidetracked (loved those ads!).

Ok so look, I know you’ll do what you want anyway – if you even read this far – but I just wanted to vent and tell you that at least one person knows what a complete dick you are for using the “like” button in this manner.

To the rest of you, I hope you enjoy the Bud ad!  And again, thanks for reading my blog!

 

Small World, Small Minds

2 Replies

Note: I started my volunteer gig on Monday.  My very first day, I sort of got in trouble for reporting a problem that the “powers that be” subsequently told me wasn’t a problem.  

So, I am going to avoid situations where the “not-a-problem” comes up, in order to stay clean if the shit hits the fan.  Because I take these kinds of “not-a-problem” things really seriously and will not risk my reputation – such as it is – for social reasons and to “get along”.  

Yesterday I atoned for it by repackaging 160 bags of candy for resale.  And was chatty and pretended to like being bossed around by 80 year old women who get sarcastic and mean if things are not done “just so”.

I marveled at the fact that they were able to sit and stand for much longer periods of time than I was. Physically, these first days were hard on me.  The walk to the bus stop to go home is uphill and difficult.  I fell asleep both days during the hour-long trip on the bus going home.

Thankfully, I have today off.

Today’s blog post is about something that happened last week on the van…

I recently wrote a blog post called “Free Garbage is Still…Garbage”, in which I mentioned that many people do not understand how poor folk live in America.  I was writing mainly about people who have never “been there”, people who never think about unpleasant things like hunger and poverty, or people who basically think that being poor is self-inflicted.

Well, I ran into another representative of a group of people who like to complain about people who live on disability – that small but vocal percentage of people who are on disability themselves, but who deserve it!  Because they’re really sick!  They really can’t work!

But those “other” lazy bums, they can!  It’s not right!

I was riding the senior van to a facility, going to my volunteer gig orientation.  A very obese man sat in a wheelchair behind me and started the conversation with, “I used to be in a workfare program, and they were supposed to hire me at the job I worked after 2 years, but after 4 years I hadn’t been hired so I demanded that they hire me!”

“Uh oh,” thought I, “a real charmer.”

“Of course,” he continued, “they said why should they hire me when they can get welfare to pay me?”

By now I am rolling my eyes.  Because you just know that no one said any such thing.

Aside #1: It may have actually been true, but I don’t think they would have told him that to his face – that kind of stuff results in lawsuits.

So he was embellishing somewhat, ok.  We all do it sometimes.

“But then I got arthritis,” he said, “and I couldn’t work.”

He paused, then angrily stated, “It doesn’t matter anyway, because you have to know someone or be related to someone in order to get a job here.  I even went to go see the guy I used to caddy for, and told him I needed a job, but he wouldn’t hire me!  I told him he could either hire me, or pay my way through his social security payments!”

Yeah, because that will surely convince someone to give you a job.

Aside #2: Again, there is some truth to the idea that, in provincial Altoona and in the even more provincial surrounding small towns, you have to know someone/be related to someone to get a job. Mostly because everyone around here is related to someone, or knows someone who is connected to them in some way, who is in a position to hire them/give them a reference (or talk unkindly about them being a troublemaker, in my case).

He was on a roll now. “But you know what makes me so mad?  All these bums on social security who say they can’t work because they have drug and alcohol problems.  They just have to set their minds to not using or drinking, and go back to work!  They’re just lazy!”

Ding ding ding – hot button pushed, right there.

“Now wait a minute,” I objected, “people who are addicted to drugs or alcohol do have a hard time holding a job.  They have a problem that needs to be addressed.”

“Yeah, but it’s all in their heads!  They could work if they wanted to!” he argued.

I sighed.  “You would agree that these substances affect your brain, right?”

“Yeah,” he replied.

“And you would agree that your brain is the thing you think with?  So these substances cause an impairment in the way people think,” I tried to explain.

“Exactly!” he beamed.  “That’s why they can just set their minds to not doing it anymore, and go to work!”

I gave up.  He clearly wasn’t going to get it.  I tried another tactic.

“Welfare and social security fraud is only at about 2%, that’s less than just about at any other government program.  So it’s not that many people,” I stated.

“I know TONS of guys who just sit around all day.  Why, just look at THEM!”  He pointed to 3 guys crossing the street.  They were all about 30, I guess, and were not white.

“Do you know them?” I asked.

“Well, no, but they should be at work!” he exclaimed.

Ok, this guy was just not going to get it.  He has decided that any minority person who is ambulatory and “doesn’t look sick” is just scamming the system.  People like him never seem to change.

So I dropped the subject and stared out the window at the scenery, annoyed.

With all the problems this guy has – health being the major one – he is worried about people he thinks might be taking advantage of the opulent living we on social security disability have?

But he himself is on social security disability.  Surely he knows this ain’t no “high-on-the-hog” living.

Pages: 1 2

Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor…

Leave a reply

…no, on second thought, please don’t.  I am tired and poor enough for at least 2 people.

This week has been busy – I am ramping up to become more active, both in the community and just in general.

I was feeling somewhat guilty asking Nancy Downstairs for rides; even though she has never complained, or even said “no”, her schedule is so draining and I can see how tired she is.  I decided I needed to get out more on my own, without taking the senior van all the time (too expensive).

I decided to start taking the bus.

There is a bus stop at the end of my block – close enough so that, on some days, I can walk there with minimal effort.  I still need to use my cane, but that’s ok.

The bus that stops here goes to the courthouse, a small grocery store, and downtown Hollidaysburg, then heads out to Altoona – Walmart, the local shopping mall, and all the way downtown to the Transit Center (basically a large bus stop where you can transfer to other buses).  It takes about 1 1/2 hours to get from my house to the Transit Center.

It’s a relatively easy system to travel on, with one exception: Central PA has a “thing” about crosswalks.  Meaning, they don’t have many.

Drive anywhere in Altoona, in particular, and you’ll see street after street with a sign that has a pedestrian with a circle and a line across it – no crossing here.  It’s on nearly every street corner.

And, yes, I have spoken to at least 3 people who have gotten tickets for jaywalking.  The cops really don’t like to see people crossing where they aren’t supposed to.

But the thing is, it makes it really hard to ride the buses, or indeed even to walk anywhere.

A good example of this is my bank.  On Monday, instead of asking Nancy Downstairs to take me to the nearest bank, I decided to take the bus.  I realized I could take the bus to my closest bank branch in Altoona – about a 20 minute ride – but…

…I had no way of getting back.

Ok, that’s not strictly true – I could have gotten back by standing at the same bus stop at which I disembarked, then have ridden the bus further into Altoona and to the Transit Center, where I would have sat on the bus and waited for it to then head off towards Hollidaysburg.

Total trip time: about 2 hours, not including “waiting-for-the-bus-to-come” time.

And it’s all because there is no way of crossing the street (Plank Rd/Pleasant Valley Rd, for those of you who might be familiar).

So…my alternate plan was to go to the branch of my bank that actually had a crosswalk.  That took me nearly to the Transit Center anyway, but at least I managed to get off the bus, cross the street to the bank, do my business, walk a few blocks and catch the same bus on the other side of the street when it headed back – not such a long wait.

But a fairly taxing walk for someone with no lumbar disks.

By the time I got back home, I was pooped.

Yesterday, I took the bus to get my hair cut, and came home.

Total bus time (including waiting) – an hour.  Total fare – $1.50

So, not so bad.  Had I taken the senior van, the wait may have been shorter but it would have cost me $6.  Again, though, I came home very tired.

Today I decided to pick up something at the mall I had bought – why pay for shipping? – but miscalculated.   The ride to the mall was ok, but the store…that was at the opposite end of the mall and I was not having a particularly “spry” day.  That took me a very long time, and was very tiring.

I expect this to get better, though.

After all, when I lived in Dublin 15 years ago, I thought my feet were going to fall off my legs, they hurt so much from all the walking I did.

I lost 5 dress sizes in less than a year.

Of course, my back was ok then.  But I think the stamina issue is similar.  My back will probably continue to cause me issues, but I think as I walk more – I hope so, anyway – it will get easier.

I think I just need to know my limitations.

Tomorrow, I am going to the local hospital to meet the volunteer coordinator.  The Senior Companion Program has assigned me there.  My idea is to take the senior van to the hospital ($3 and half an hour), then take the bus home (.75 and almost 2 hours) – I can’t afford to volunteer, otherwise.

But I am bringing my cane, because the last thing I want to do is give the impression that I can stand for prolonged periods of time or do other things that I cannot do right now.  I hate that, but when I expressed that to Nancy Downstairs, and said, “I hate giving the impression I am disabled”, she said…

“But you are.”

And she’s right.  I am a person with a disability.  There’s nothing wrong with that, and pretending otherwise just results in misunderstandings and a lot of pain/fatigue for me.

It is not my defining characteristic, as it isn’t anyone’s defining characteristic.  This is one of those “talk the talk, walk the walk” experiences now.

I realize that 15 years is a long time ago, and having flat lumbar disks is also a factor that wasn’t in play then…but I feel as if I have to try.   Like anything in my life (my former marriage, for example), I have to give it all I’ve got before I decide to throw in the towel and give up.

Or, in this case, not exactly “give up”, but “adjust”.  There’s nothing wrong with that, as I am not one of those “you create your own reality” lunatics who think every issue in life – from health to finances to relationships – is something you can just “visualize” better and poof! so it is.

That’s kind of funny coming from a Wiccan, isn’t it?

But even I know that there is no spell that can make my disks grow back – magick just doesn’t work that way.

So, anyway…changes.  Attempts.  Adjustments.  And hopefully, a schedule at the hospital that doesn’t involve more than 3 days/week, because honestly I think that’s all I can handle right now.

Today’s weirdness comes from CBS, and it’s a story about a giant inflated jack-o-lantern that caught a gust of wind and bounced down the highway:

“Caught on Video: Arizona Drivers Dodge Giant Inflatable Pumpkin” (CBS News website, 10/30/15).   It just made me giggle.

Recommendation for this week is a 2-part movie (I guess it was originally on TV) called “The Five People You Meet in Heaven”, based on the book by Mitch Albom (“Tuesdays with Morrie”).  I liked it because it stars Jon Voight, who was terrific.  Sure, the movie is kind of sappy, with emotional music and some tired platitudes but…

…what you do affects others, sometimes (many times) in good and wonderful ways of which you are oblivious.  This is something I tried to get across to patients/clients who thought their lives were meaningless, who thought they had no impact on anyone else except in bad ways.

People underestimate how much a kind word, a smile, a small kindness can mean to another person.  I will blog more about that at some point, but it’s a mistake to discount the impact one human being can have on another.  This movie points that out.

Be good.  Be kind.  What you do really does matter.

Free Garbage is Still…Garbage.

5 Replies

I remember talking to someone a few years back, about the local food pantry here in our little town (which is also the county seat, so it’s not exactly unsophisticated).   I had good and bad comments about the food pantry, but the whole experience left me wondering about how that and the healthcare system are somewhat intertwined.

First, the positive – the food pantry here delivers.  That’s really awesome and helpful, especially since the pantry is on the outskirts of town, where buses don’t go.  So, for those of us without a car, that’s a really nice thing for them to do.

The people who deliver the food are very nice, and when you try to thank them they say, “Don’t thank me, thank God,” which I take as the modest statement it is.  They are using their own cars to bring food to my apartment, and I think it’s really nice of them to do that.

Aside #1: Contrary to some misconceptions, I do not argue with every Christian who expresses thoughts about Jesus or saints or whatever deity they choose.  I fully support their right to believe as they wish.  My complaints only come into play when they try to force others to believe as they do, or force others to participate in their worship, or make judgments about neo-Pagans/non-believers being evil and so on.

The bad part about the food pantry here?  It’s nothing but unhealthy food.

Day-old baked goods like cake and cookies (which are, of course, yummy), white bread, canned vegetables with high salt content and lined with BPA, juice “drinks” (basically the ones with juice flavoring and sugar), hot dogs, beans (in cans, not dried beans), and tomato soup (very high in sodium).  And usually ramen – lots and lots of ramen.

Aside #2: Beans are the only things that are remotely healthy on this list, but they always seem to come in extremely large cans, are processed, and in general are not all that good for you. I don’t know why they don’t give out dried beans, as these are much cheaper, keep longer, and are easy to make – and better for you.

I received this a couple of times when my son was living here with me, as we had a very hard time making ends meet on just my food stamps.  Thankfully, he got some assistance and we didn’t have to call these folks again.

Thankfully, too, he got a job down south years ago and never has to live like this again.

I mentioned the unhealthiness of this stuff to someone, who then turned to me and said, “At least it’s free.”

Garbage out of dumpsters is free, too, but it’s still garbage.

Since the person I was talking to was somewhat conservative, I asked him what he thought the extra cost to the healthcare system is, due to people eating unhealthy food for prolonged periods of time.

Aside #3: Heart disease, hypertension, obesity, diabetes, and other diseases can sometimes be prevented, or often can be ameliorated, by eating decent food.  That means little or no sugar, fresh vegetables (or at least frozen ones), fruit, fiber (like beans), and grains.

He thought for a minute and said, “I think we should pass laws so people can only buy certain things with food stamps.   That way, they would have to eat healthy food.”

Sigh.  I should have known – conservatives are not known for their generosity.  Or for their understanding of how po’ folk live.  Or for supporting other peoples’ self-determination.

Should we also pass laws telling private charities what they can and cannot give out at the food pantry, too?

Of course not.  The answer lies in education.  Education for everyone.

The people running the food pantries need to be educated so they can in turn educate their donors on what to give.  I think most people would love to know that what they give could make a huge difference in someone’s health.  And I think if they knew what to buy, and were shown how cheaply they can buy it, it would be a win/win kind of thing.

The people receiving food from the pantry could use some education, too (no, not all of them, and it’s not just the poor – most Americans don’t eat healthily).  I don’t mean about the food groups and so on, I mean education regarding how to prepare meals from scratch.

Many people do not know how to cook from scratch, poor or not.  But it’s not hard.  Cooking rice and beans from scratch takes time, mostly, not brains.  You can cook a whole bunch on the weekend and freeze it all, if need be.

Some poor people do actually work (for Walmart, too, but that’s another blog post).  They have families.  They might not have the energy or time to cook from scratch, unless they are given the tools by which to do so.

By “tools”, I mean…cookbooks.  Heck, you can have volunteers cut recipes from magazines, punch holes in them, and put them in binders for very little effort or money.  Or you could get people to donate cookbooks (though that’s probably a bit harder – most people’s cookbooks are not basic like Adele Davis’ “Let’s Eat Right to Keep Fit”).

Aside #4: I always thought Adele Davis wrote “Recipes for a Small Planet”, but that was Frances Moore Lappe.   Adele Davis, by the way, was the person who coined the phrase “You are what you eat.”

You could even – gasp – ask businesses to donate crockpots.  They are not very expensive, and you can dump all the ingredients into one, set it, go to work, and have dinner by the time you get home.

You could get people to donate freezer-ware, and include instructions.  You can get containers to freeze things in at Dollar Tree – and all their stuff is BPA-free, I asked.  $1 for a set of 3 or more – cheaper if you buy by the case.

All of these things still add up to a lot less than hospitalizing someone who’s had a heart attack or other possibly preventable illness.  Which would keep healthcare costs down – that wouldn’t satisfy Libertarians or right-wingers, who both want to see po’ folk not get any healthcare at all – but for most normal people, this would be a good thing.

And why should we think about how we can help the poor eat more healthy food, and save on Medicare/Medicaid costs?  Because it’s the decent thing to do, and because it saves money in the long run (i.e., your tax dollars – and theirs, too, by the way, since many of them work).

But…what about people who work and don’t qualify for food stamps or government health insurance?

To them I say, “Be quiet, and be grateful that your life isn’t so horrible that you have to sit in someone’s office for an hour and explain to them why you don’t have enough food to eat each month.”

Aside #5: The intake process at most food pantries is pretty hard on one’s pride.  They ask you how you got to where you are, and that’s a fairly painful question to answer.  Not even welfare workers ask such nosy questions, or look at you like you’re trying to put one over on them.

To them I also say, “You own a car and a house, have a retirement plan, savings account, and other things that poor people will probably never have.  We would all trade our food stamps and Medicare/Medicaid to have the income you have to afford all those things.”

We’d trade it all just to be able to work at a decent job.  To just have a shot at a life out of poverty.  Most of us aren’t lazy – if people who thought that had to live for a month as we do, where everything takes twice as long to do, or in some cases isn’t even doable, I think they would understand the amount of effort it takes just to survive.

Pages: 1 2

“You Kids Get Off My Lawn!”

2 Replies

The above title is often used on the internet to denote cranky old folks.  It evokes a picture of an elderly person on his or her porch, shaking a cane and yelling at kids who are crossing his or her lawn.  It is the “old people are crabby” trope.

I am here to tell you, it’s not completely inaccurate.

I didn’t post last week because I was back and forth to a local social service agency, going through orientation and doing paperwork, so I can volunteer there.

The purpose of the volunteer program is to provide assistance to older people so that they can remain in their homes and not have to go to an institution of some kind to live.

I think it’s a great idea – the longer someone can stay independent, the better.  I am not a fan of institutionalizing anyone, for any reason, actually.  Not the elderly, not people with mental illness, not children with developmental problems, not anyone with any kind of special need.

Years ago, when I was taking special education classes at the University of Memphis, my professor talked a lot about how just being in an institution affects someone, whether or not the institution itself is a good one.

Think about it this way: If you had to live day in and day out being told what to do and when to do it, it would take a toll on your feelings of independence and autonomy, don’t you think?

We as a society talk a lot about how prison affects people, but don’t talk quite so much about how institutions as a whole affect people who have committed no crimes at all.  Yet many of the same conditions exist in institutions as in prisons (told when to eat, when to sleep, when you can go out, whether or not to take meds, and so on).

So, anyway, this program is in place to try to prevent people from being institutionalized.  I support that whole-heartedly.

The experiences at orientation and training last week are what prompted this week’s blog post.

Here comes the rant.

Everyone in this volunteer program (all 5 other volunteers) is older than I am. And, almost everyone who uses the services in this agency is older than I am, by at least 10 years.

Services start at age 60, but I have yet to see anyone younger than 70 participating.

But really, they are some of the crabbiest people I have met lately.

When there were breaks in the training, the main topics of conversation amongst the other volunteers were:

~ How schools today are wrecking our youth because they don’t have dress codes or prayer

~ How persecuted Christians are in this country because they can’t say “Merry Christmas” in Walmart and/or are prevented from exercising their religion wherever they see fit

~ How many Christian churches are different in how they worship, but “we all worship one god so we’re all saved anyway”

Do you see a pattern here?

These were also the frequent topics amongst different groups of people who were there to get lunch.  That, and passing around cartoons on smartphones that were less than respectful of President Obama, and that’s putting it kindly.

Added to that mix – what I guess was supposed to be flirting but came off more like sexist comments and raunchy remarks.

Now, anyone who knows me, knows I am not easily offended by sexual content.  But it struck me as bizarre that people who were in such a snit about the “lack of morality in today’s world” would then turn around and make a crack to someone about his private parts.

The response to that was a rape joke.

Let’s be clear about this: the people who talked this way do not have dementia or Alzheimer’s. They’re just jerks.  It’s been my experience that age doesn’t necessarily mean “nice” – young jerks turn into old jerks, it seems.

My mind was boggled.  Sitting there, waiting for lunch (which they so graciously provided for free), and listening to all that.

This, in a publicly-funded non-profit, where the volunteer coordinator asks before every lunch, “Who wants to lead the prayer?”

How persecuted are you when your own social service agency, which should know better, promotes Christian prayer before eating?

This is what drives me ’round the bend about fundamentalist Christians: They don’t appear to understand that they are not, in any way shape or form, persecuted in the US.

What they think of as “persecution”, others see as “letting others believe as they will”, “not forcing Christianity on the public at large”, or “realizing that we all – whatever we do or do not believe – fund public organizations and therefore do not have the right to favor one religion over another”.

Quite frankly, I am sick to death of listening to them complain about this.

But I kept quiet.  You know why?  Because I have an agenda, and I plan on sticking to it.

Part of that agenda is getting volunteer experience, part of it is also getting out and about and using my skills as a counselor again, and part of it is seeing how much I can physically handle in terms of work.

The bonus to all that is being able to help others.  And I wonder how many “others” mentally roll their eyes at a lot of this dialogue that goes on.

You see, the people that complain the loudest are assuming that everyone is like them: straight, white, conservative, Christian.

I’m fairly sure that, statistically, at least some of the people at the agency are none of those things, or at least not most of those things.

Pages: 1 2

October, Gently.

4 Replies

domesticviolence1

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

This is an issue that I feel very strongly about, and the following is a re-write of a blog post I wrote one year ago.

I will continue to write at least yearly about this problem, forever.

I am not going to quote statistics.  I don’t think that’s necessary.

It is easy to see the violence that is perpetuated upon women, unfortunately, on a daily basis.  Even if you never leave your house, it’s on the news and it’s certainly on the internet.  I don’t think any reasonably sane person would argue that it doesn’t exist.

What I am here to write about is what you, as just an ordinary person, can do to help eliminate this problem.  It doesn’t have to cost money, and it doesn’t even have to take up much time.  But you can make a difference to some woman, somewhere, and I am going to tell you how.

For the edification of people who do not know me well, I have just a brief explanation of how this issue came to affect me.

I am a survivor of domestic violence.

Not just once, but a few times, beginning with the very first household where I grew up.  I witnessed it, and I was a target of it.

The reason I go all the way back to my childhood is two-fold: first, to illustrate that violence against women has never really been taken seriously until recently.

Second, it is to show that the effects of domestic abuse can have far-reaching consequences, even for intelligent women with advanced degrees in psychology (I once had a policeman in Memphis ask me, when called to my apartment while an ex was destroying it, “Don’t you know any better? You’re a psychologist!”).

There were no shelters, really, back in the day.  I am talking late 1950s up until around 1990 (in Memphis, in 2015, there is one domestic violence shelter, one, in a population of over 653,000).  Growing up in a pre-feminist era, just in time to see the growth of that movement, it’s hard for me to explain what it was like growing up in the 1950s, 60s, and early 70s.

ALL abuse – child, spousal, and to a certain extent animal, was pretty much blamed on the object of the violence, not the perpetrator.

People did not want to “cause trouble” by raising these issues – though thank goodness people did, or we would still be living in a world where certain members of the population are blamed for acts of violence they neither started, perpetuated, nor deserved (as if anyone deserves to be assaulted!).

Women covered up bruises and other evidence of violence – and we still do that today.  People saw the evidence but didn’t ask what happened, as it made them uncomfortable (“What if her husband hit her? What if he didn’t? Am I making a big deal out of nothing?”).

Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to have changed.

The police were not often called, and if they were, it was usually the man’s version of events that was believed (“She fell, she attacked me, she’s making a big deal out of nothing”, etc).

That has changed, thankfully.

I am not going to chronicle in detail the events that led up to me fleeing for my life to a domestic violence shelter in Altoona 5 years ago, because I am acutely aware of how very uncomfortable that makes people.

5 years ago, I was slapped, punched, kicked, tied to a chair, hit with various objects, strangled, smothered, had my hair pulled, spit on, pinched, bit (yes, really), screamed at, had my money/keys taken away, was isolated from everyone, had my spiritual beliefs mocked, had my pets threatened (I took them with me when I left), was stalked at work, and had my car sabotaged so I couldn’t leave.

I was humiliated in public several times.  No one who witnessed those incidences said or did anything to stop it.

The long-term effects of this experience are PTSD, dental issues from having things thrown at my mouth, and probably a lifetime of second-guessing any future romantic involvements I might ever have.

I am recovering from it.  Each year gets better. This blog helps.

I want to make people aware of what these things are, these aspects of abuse, so if you or someone you know is experiencing them you can know it’s not right/normal/deserved.

Physical abuse: I have detailed that previously but I think everyone knows this is anything that physically hurts or terrifies you – including throwing things, breaking things, and slamming doors. Oh and not letting you call an ambulance when he injures you.

Emotional abuse: Telling you who you can/cannot talk to/be around/communicate with on the internet, making fun of you (the kind that isn’t playful teasing), isolating you from friends and family by telling you they don’t care about you, telling you “no one can love you like I love you/no one will ever want you”.

Deriding your education/skills/talents, calling you ugly/stupid/worthless/crazy/fat and other awful things, putting you down to others, threatening to kill your pets, and generally making you feel like less than nothing.

If you already have self-esteem issues, and/or if you grew up in an abusive environment, this isn’t hard for someone to do to you.

Economic abuse: Controlling your money, hiding your money/keys/personal effects, interfering with your job, getting you fired or forcing you to quit (neglecting your children when you are working and he is home – for me, that wasn’t this last time, it was when I was married).  Telling you what you can and cannot buy.  Returning things you bought without your knowledge or consent.

Spiritual abuse: Making fun of your beliefs, not allowing you to attend services (or, in my case, conduct ceremonies), or threatening violence if you do not convert to whatever belief system your abuser has (this did not what happen to me, but to women I have known). Making it really uncomfortable for you by arguing with you about your beliefs, or making it uncomfortable for you to even express those beliefs.

It comes down to a lack of respect, really, and a lack of acceptance of you as a person.

No one who loves you is going to act like this.

Sexual abuse: I think most of us know what that is, but it also includes forcing someone into lifestyles they are not comfortable with (swinging, bdsm, etc).  The key is “something they are not comfortable with” – I make no judgments about lifestyle choices, as long as they are choices.

Basically, your body is yours, not someone else’s, and you are the one who says what is or isn’t done to it.

If you are experiencing any of this – and I would hope, as someone connected to me, you would come to me for help – get to a safe place.

Call me!  Email me!

Call the National Domestic Violence Hotline (1-800-799-7223) or visit their website.

Go to a friend’s house, or a relative’s.

You do not have to live like this.  I know it seems hopeless and scary and exhausting and deeply sad, but you can get out.  You can live a life that you want.  You can be happy.  You are worthwhile, and there are people who really do care.

If you know someone you suspect is being abused, there are many things you can do. Most of them will not cost you anything in terms of time or money:

1.  If you hear screaming or yelling or crying coming from out on the street or from         someone’s home/car, call the police. Don’t be hesitant that “maybe it’s nothing”.  It’s the job of the police to assess the situation and deal with it.  They will not think you are wasting their time.  You could save someone from being hurt or killed.

I cannot express to you the horror I felt when a neighbor passed by my previous residence and told my ex to “keep your woman quiet next time”, even as he noticed the scratches on my ex’s arm from where I attempted to dislodge it from around my throat.

Another time, a neighbor – this time a woman – passed by as I was sitting on the porch and said to me, “You shouldn’t let him hit you like that.”  Then turned to my ex and said, “You know, if it was me I would have beat your ass.”  Later that night, I paid for her remarks.  I know she meant well, but these things do not help.

Those 2 experiences left no doubt in my mind that the neighbors heard my screaming, but did nothing. 

And all anyone had to do was pick up a cell phone and push 3 buttons.

2.  If you must intervene, tackle the abuser at the time of the attack, and disable him while someone else calls the police. Making angry or snide comments may only serve to get your friend hurt.  Not all the time, but just be aware the person she is dealing with is unstable.

If someone comes to you for help, by everything that is righteous, help her!  Listen to her, take her for medical care if she needs it, take her in or take her to a shelter.

Call her relatives and explain how serious it is (they might not know) and ask for their help.  I don’t think my family had any idea how bad things were with me; I like to think they would have come and gotten me if they had (they all live out of state).

If she won’t leave, or she returns to her abuser, be patient – a woman leaves an average of 7 times before she leaves for good (“50 Obstacles To Leaving: 1-10”, National Domestic Violence Hotline article, 2013).

3.  Remember that every little kindness helps.  And here is something you might not know – the longer someone is away from their abuser and around normal caring people, the more likely she is to leave for good.  So take your friend out somewhere – to lunch, to a park, to have coffee, whatever, and do it often.  Show her that the way you act is normal, and the way he acts is not.

This way she can see that it’s not something she has done, she can see that he’s the one with the problem.

4.  Get her a copy of “Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men” by Lundy Bancroft.  It not only explains (doesn’t excuse) the different types of abuse and the warped minds behind it, it also reinforces that it’s not her fault.

Lundy Bancroft runs a treatment center for men who are abusive, and it’s not the (ineffective) “anger management” stuff most social service agencies who attempt to deal with abusers use.

His program is confrontational and hits at the heart of what’s going on – the power issues and the beliefs that these men hold about women. It is based on Ellen Pence’s (1948-2012) excellent Duluth Domestic Abuse Intervention Project (aka The Duluth Model).

Here’s the link to Bancroft’s site, where you can buy the book and also read some interesting and helpful thing.

5.  Help your friend make a safety plan.  Some of this might involve you holding her   important papers for her (birth certificate, etc).  It might involve a code word she can use so you know when you need to call the police.

There are other things you can do, too, of course.  You can donate money to your local shelter.  You can attend any number of domestic violence month programs in your area. You can wear a purple ribbon this month, and speak to people who ask you about it.

If you are really ambitious, you can help me start a shelter – the one I was in was woefully inadequate, had no counselors, and sometimes took in people who did not belong there.

It also didn’t have any space for pets or women who had adult children with special needs (you think a woman is going to leave if she can’t take her child – no matter how old – with her??).

Some of this is funding, but some of it is a lack of education and training in disability issues and substance abuse assessment.

But the result is that women who need help are not getting it.

I want to change that.  I WILL change that.  And I hope when future generations read this blog, they can see the history of this problem and be thankful it’s either been eradicated or dealt with properly (I can only hope things will get better).

Domestic violence survivors/victims are your mothers, your sisters, your aunts, your grandmothers, your daughters….and me.

I am a survivor of domestic abuse.

Pages: 1 2

So Creepy…and It’s Not Even Halloween Yet!

4 Replies

No, this isn’t about the further adventures of “whatever-it-is” that rattles around the apartment, though “it” will be mentioned briefly, in the introduction.  No, this post is about online bullying.

Let me preface this to state, it’s not been a good week.

I got restless on Sunday night – late Sunday night – and decided to go down and leave some mail out for the postman to take.  So I opened my apartment door and left it open for the kitties to ramble up and down the stairs if they wished, went downstairs, opened the front door, went outside to set the mail out, turned around and…

…realized I had locked myself out.

I was dressed only in pajamas.  Barefoot.  It was about 1 AM.  About 58 degrees without wind, though that would pick up later.

My downstairs neighbor and friend Nancy was at work, working an overnight shift.  So I spent about 8 1/2 hours outside, on the porch, until she came home.  We live in a 2-story house with two apartments, one upstairs (mine) and one downstairs (hers).

The good news is, I don’t think it’s possible to break into our house.  I tried, even attempting to throw a patio table (with metal legs) through the door window – it just bounced off.

The bad news is, I got quite ill from the experience.  “Exposure” is a real thing, folks.

We now have extra keys hidden outside to prevent this from happening again.

And the “ghost”?  You’d think that something that can fling a bunch of objects off a dresser would be able to unlock/open a door, wouldn’t you?  Useless thing!

So, not a good start to the week.  But it was starting to “go south” earlier that evening, when I was online.

Before I so stupidly locked myself out, I had engaged in a conversation of sorts on Facebook, with some fans of, yes, you guessed it, General Hospital.  It was a subgroup of people who like two of the actors on the show, whose characters are engaged to one another.

These people are a bit on the strange side, I think, but I also think their behavior is rather typical of social media childishness.

You see, they like the pairing so much, that they are “enemies” with another group of fans who would like to see the actor’s character paired with another actress’ character.

And both “sides” are quite nasty about it.

That wasn’t why I joined.  I thought this group was just a positive expression of fan appreciation.

Boy, was I wrong!

Someone had posted an article about the actor’s storyline (back from the dead, new face, no one recognises him, etc), and tried to say that if it were her husband, in real life, she would know who he was from his mannerisms and so on.

The implication was, “Not like that dummy he’s married to” – which, of course, is the character’s on-screen wife – and the female character that this group really hates.

I commented that it would be very unlikely that would ever happen in real life, but even if it did, how many people actually would think that a stranger in town is really their dead husband with a new face?  (Who, by the way, has amnesia, so he can’t tell anyone who he is because he doesn’t know)

I also said it was not really fair to compare a soap plotline to real life.  And that maybe it would be good to be more positive and not focus on the character people dislike, but on the character who is supposed to be the focus of the page.

I ended it with, “We’re better than that!”

It was not a tirade, by any means. But, wow.

Someone wrote a long missive about why she thought the author was right, and so on, and I commented, “Ok, well, we’ll just have to agree to disagree”, after actually agreeing with one thing she said (I was trying to be nice).

Then someone jumped in and wanted to know why I thought the author was bashing the character.  Because, in the online world, if someone implies something (and it’s quite clear what they meant by it), and you want to start an argument, then you have to get literal and demand to know exactly what was said, line for line, so you can state that, oh no, that really wasn’t the implication.

I have neither the time nor the energy to respond to that.  I recognise abuse when I see it, and this kind of thing routinely happened to me when I was in my last relationship.  He would challenge and pick and on and on and on until I was in tears over the most trivial of things.

So I stated that I just was expressing an opinion and wouldn’t say more about it, since I had upset people.

Wow, was that the wrong thing to say!

To prove how “not-upset” several posters were, they flooded the page with demands that I tell them exactly how the author was bashing the character, and also demanding that I tell them exactly how they were upset.

Ignoring it was fruitless, as it just kept snowballing.

So I quit the group.  Sent a message to the admin stating I wasn’t going to be bullied, but I did appreciate the work she has done on the page – as she is a nice person and wasn’t involved in any of this.

You have to understand, this group does things like post pictures of their beloved character brandishing a gun (photoshopped, the character doesn’t use guns on the show) with captions implying she ought to murder this other character.

I do not see that as “harmless fun”.  I do not see that as “it’s just the internet”.

These things, these ideas, come from peoples’ minds, and it takes a particularly warped mind to come up with violent posts like that.

I mean, really – do you ever have those kinds of thoughts about anyone, TV character or not?

I don’t thnk most normal people do.

To then attempt to defend it by stating, “It’s only a TV show”, or “It’s only the internet” is really disingenuous because the fact of the matter is, someone is expressing a violent fantasy of theirs.

And that’s scary.

Most of us who were taught from a very early age to empathize with others and to not use violence to resolve conflict do not ever deal with anyone, fictional or not, animal or human, in a violent manner.

It just doesn’t occur to us.

I brought this up in a post on Facebook last night, stating only that I didn’t understand fans who wished violence on characters, or called them names and so on, and that I had quit a group because of it.

I didn’t name the group.

One poster responded she didn’t mind character-bashing, what she didn’t like was fans bashing the actual actor/actress.

I agreed and added that my problem with it was, once you do not agree with what someone has said (such as calling a character a slut) or suggest they not bash characters that way, then they turn on you.

Oops.

The next thing I knew, my post was flooded with these people from the group I just quit, and as soon as I saw the first name I knew it wasn’t going to be nice.  So I didn’t read any posts but the last one, which read “Maybe you should quit this group too, because you complain too much.”

This situation I found myself in is really mild, as far as bullying goes.  I have read some things that “trolls” and others have posted online that ought to be criminal (and probably are), such as threatening to rape or kill someone.  Things that have driven women offline, or caused them to change their addresses/phone numbers and so on.

So, in the grand scheme of things, this is not important.  And, like I said, I didn’t bother reading any of the posts – why upset myself that way?

I have a sneaking suspicion that, as described in my previous blog posts, some of these women are of the same ilk as the room mothers who told me not to come back to the school carnival (see the post entitled “Just Bring Cups”).  Women who really do not like other women, outside of their own little clique.

Sometimes I wonder how far we’ve really evolved, when we are still behaving like the kids in “Lord of the Flies”, ready to pounce on anyone who doesn’t fit in.  Trying to drive people offline, or worse.  It’s really pathological, and scary.

And thinking that these people do not do real damage in their real lives, I think, is a mistake.

As a therapist, I find it all disturbing.  As a woman, I wonder why we seem to be disproportionately singled out.  As a human, I am sad for everyone who’s a target.

Today’s weirdness comes from a website called “Science Alert”, and it’s an article stating that NASA is fairly sure there is water on Mars (everyone cheer!!), but that they can’t get a sample of it (everyone boo!!).  It has to do with contamination, and a treaty signed in 1967 forbidding “anyone sending a mission, robot or human, close to a water source in the fear of contaminating it with life from Earth” (“Here’s Why NASA’s Mars Rovers are Banned from Investigating that Liquid Water”, BEC Crew, Science Alert website, 9/3/2105).

My recommendation for the week is a cute cozy mystery about a chef, his friend, and a pig called Hamilton: “Chef Maurice and a Spot of Truffle”, by British author J. L. Lang.

Be good.  Be kind – online and off.