You guys *do* know how to make friends, because Stef used to make friends.
It's just a matter of being careful who you make friends with.
The solitary life does have its good points.
It's just a matter of being careful who you make friends with.
The solitary life does have its good points.
This is Brandon and Freddie.
We're very lonely. I don't think we'll ever be able to make and keep friends any more. And I don't think we can live the life that Forest lives, all alone.
We'd give just about anything to be able to turn to a friend at times like this.
We're very lonely. I don't think we'll ever be able to make and keep friends any more. And I don't think we can live the life that Forest lives, all alone.
We'd give just about anything to be able to turn to a friend at times like this.
I never knew I was a wild land.
Didn't know I was a land at all.
I thought I was a conscious being,
Sister to my brothers here on Earth.
But now it seems I was misled.
So now I'm conquered, claimed,
And farmed and strip-mined,
Left in subdivisions.
I run dry now, and my brothers
Search for greener planets
To subdue and conquer.
Let t hem go then. At my molten core,
I long for wlldness to return.
Didn't know I was a land at all.
I thought I was a conscious being,
Sister to my brothers here on Earth.
But now it seems I was misled.
So now I'm conquered, claimed,
And farmed and strip-mined,
Left in subdivisions.
I run dry now, and my brothers
Search for greener planets
To subdue and conquer.
Let t hem go then. At my molten core,
I long for wlldness to return.
Gage has opted to be placed in a medical coma, with no artificial feeding or breathing. He's hoping he will die. We hope the same for him - not out of any resentment towards him, but out of mercy for him. (We believe in euthanasia. We would euthanize him, except it almost never works to kill anyone off inside here. It's not like these people are characters. They're more than that.)
Anyway. We suspect his painful emotions will leak out through the remaining fronters, and when we feel these things we'll know it's coming from Gage. But that's all right. There are six of us to absorb the rage, it won't all be on Alex any more. Everybody's volunteered to do their part.
As far as what Gage will experience, we hope to keep him in a soft bed, with continually running TV shows and movies and music that he likes (there will definitely be some rock and roll involved in that one) - and we hope to maintain him at the point of the most blissful high we ever achieved during our get-high days. He certainly won't suffer, if we cam do that. He won't be aware of his scars any more. He'll feel soft and floaty and wonderful, and very loved.
We thought of trying to communicate to him, but he said no, that would only keep him in this world. So we wont' do that.
But we will go in an give him hugs and back rubs, that sort of thing. Some physical affection, since he might still be aware of the physical world around him. Because we know how much it means to Brandon, and also Freddie, to have that physical comfort on a regular basis.
Now. Our posture. A neighbor brought it to our attention that we're really 'spazzy' lately. In fact, she asked us if we were all right! She's right, we are a bit spazzy in our movements, without being aware of it. KInd of like, we're not completely aware that we're in out own skin. We think it may be the Prozac. So today we're going to start weaning off it again.
Also, we had the damn thyroid test to make the doctor happy, so now we'll be weaning off that as well, going back to the herbal supplements that don't have all those nasty side effects. I think we'll all feel much better.
Anyway. We suspect his painful emotions will leak out through the remaining fronters, and when we feel these things we'll know it's coming from Gage. But that's all right. There are six of us to absorb the rage, it won't all be on Alex any more. Everybody's volunteered to do their part.
As far as what Gage will experience, we hope to keep him in a soft bed, with continually running TV shows and movies and music that he likes (there will definitely be some rock and roll involved in that one) - and we hope to maintain him at the point of the most blissful high we ever achieved during our get-high days. He certainly won't suffer, if we cam do that. He won't be aware of his scars any more. He'll feel soft and floaty and wonderful, and very loved.
We thought of trying to communicate to him, but he said no, that would only keep him in this world. So we wont' do that.
But we will go in an give him hugs and back rubs, that sort of thing. Some physical affection, since he might still be aware of the physical world around him. Because we know how much it means to Brandon, and also Freddie, to have that physical comfort on a regular basis.
Now. Our posture. A neighbor brought it to our attention that we're really 'spazzy' lately. In fact, she asked us if we were all right! She's right, we are a bit spazzy in our movements, without being aware of it. KInd of like, we're not completely aware that we're in out own skin. We think it may be the Prozac. So today we're going to start weaning off it again.
Also, we had the damn thyroid test to make the doctor happy, so now we'll be weaning off that as well, going back to the herbal supplements that don't have all those nasty side effects. I think we'll all feel much better.
So maybe there is a God after all, and maybe He has mercy on aging rocker chicks.
This absolutely gorgeous young guy (I'm not making this up) started flirting a little bit with me today. And it felt *so* wonderful to be flirted with.
It didn't hurt that the guy looked exactly like Roger Daltrey. I was so struck by the resemblance, that I had to ask him to tell me his name again, so I wouldn't be calling him Roger. He said, "Why don't you call me Daltrey? It sounds so...." and I swear, I don't know what he said after that, because I couldn't listen to him for looking at him.
I'm sure he was probably just trying to be nice. But, God bless him, he succeeded.
If I didn't feel so bad about my body these days, I might keep going back there and see if he was just being nice, or if he was serious. But, I have no intention of actually doing that, because I *do* feel bad about my body.
Still. It's a nice thought.
All you young guys out there who flirt with middle-aged women, God bless your hearts, every one of you. Because some of us have husbands at home who are real assholes.
This absolutely gorgeous young guy (I'm not making this up) started flirting a little bit with me today. And it felt *so* wonderful to be flirted with.
It didn't hurt that the guy looked exactly like Roger Daltrey. I was so struck by the resemblance, that I had to ask him to tell me his name again, so I wouldn't be calling him Roger. He said, "Why don't you call me Daltrey? It sounds so...." and I swear, I don't know what he said after that, because I couldn't listen to him for looking at him.
I'm sure he was probably just trying to be nice. But, God bless him, he succeeded.
If I didn't feel so bad about my body these days, I might keep going back there and see if he was just being nice, or if he was serious. But, I have no intention of actually doing that, because I *do* feel bad about my body.
Still. It's a nice thought.
All you young guys out there who flirt with middle-aged women, God bless your hearts, every one of you. Because some of us have husbands at home who are real assholes.
- Music:Squeeze Box/Who Are You - The Who
Exhausted, unpacking. My arms hurt so bad from carrying things up and down the stairs at the shelter.
We're all actually excited about this celibacy thing. We know we shouldn't even hope that he'll stick to it.....but we've so got our hopes up that he'll stick to it.
Gage is saying, "Of *course* he won't stick to it! We can *never* trust him to be telling the truth!"
But we're not ready to let it go yet.
There was a time when we didn't feel like we could trust Russell....
Second day. Time to regroup.
First of all, we don't have to analyze or justify our decision to come back to Rusty. We're only strong enough to do what we're strong enough to do, and we're only sure of what we're sure of.
We got really sick and threw up all night, got the runs as well.....got really grateful early this morning when we could finally poop and not puke!
While we were sick, we watched the top 100 hard rock videos on VH1....and Gage forgot all about his appearance and forgot about hating anybody and forgot about all those bitter experiences. So now we know what he loves, and what floats his boat. (That's a relief. We've never had anybody in here think about murder before, even in passing. Suicide, yeah - but not murder.)
Well, I'm happy to report that this morning, Gage could no more kill a loved one than the rest of us could. It's scary to think that he got that tripped out....but, that was what it was. He doesn't have some deep, pathological difference from the rest of us, he's not a sociopath - but we don't like that he can get that tripped out. That's not okay, to make a gross understatement.
In fact, one of the reasons we chose to write about this here, was as a safeguard. As in, now you would never get away with anything like that, so (as our dad used to say) get that thought out of your mind.
(God. This whole train of thought, started with joking about wishing we could feed our mom some pot brownies to calm her down. It's like, once we opened that door, even jokingly, it was a real Pandora's Box. We've never liked barbed jokes like that, and we had no idea that one of us in here would really be capable of that kind of thinking. Well, it's probably better to know, than to not know.)
Speaking of Gage getting thoughts out of his head, the only effective way we've found to deal with that problem, outside of zombie meds, is through twelve-step programs. So we're thinking maybe AlAnon or Alateen for Gage, if this hard rock thing isn't enough. Brandon and Freddie found AlAnon step work too intense, due to some trauma stuff, so we picked up some Alateen step work books, and that was a lot better.
We're all actually excited about this celibacy thing. We know we shouldn't even hope that he'll stick to it.....but we've so got our hopes up that he'll stick to it.
Gage is saying, "Of *course* he won't stick to it! We can *never* trust him to be telling the truth!"
But we're not ready to let it go yet.
There was a time when we didn't feel like we could trust Russell....
Second day. Time to regroup.
First of all, we don't have to analyze or justify our decision to come back to Rusty. We're only strong enough to do what we're strong enough to do, and we're only sure of what we're sure of.
We got really sick and threw up all night, got the runs as well.....got really grateful early this morning when we could finally poop and not puke!
While we were sick, we watched the top 100 hard rock videos on VH1....and Gage forgot all about his appearance and forgot about hating anybody and forgot about all those bitter experiences. So now we know what he loves, and what floats his boat. (That's a relief. We've never had anybody in here think about murder before, even in passing. Suicide, yeah - but not murder.)
Well, I'm happy to report that this morning, Gage could no more kill a loved one than the rest of us could. It's scary to think that he got that tripped out....but, that was what it was. He doesn't have some deep, pathological difference from the rest of us, he's not a sociopath - but we don't like that he can get that tripped out. That's not okay, to make a gross understatement.
In fact, one of the reasons we chose to write about this here, was as a safeguard. As in, now you would never get away with anything like that, so (as our dad used to say) get that thought out of your mind.
(God. This whole train of thought, started with joking about wishing we could feed our mom some pot brownies to calm her down. It's like, once we opened that door, even jokingly, it was a real Pandora's Box. We've never liked barbed jokes like that, and we had no idea that one of us in here would really be capable of that kind of thinking. Well, it's probably better to know, than to not know.)
Speaking of Gage getting thoughts out of his head, the only effective way we've found to deal with that problem, outside of zombie meds, is through twelve-step programs. So we're thinking maybe AlAnon or Alateen for Gage, if this hard rock thing isn't enough. Brandon and Freddie found AlAnon step work too intense, due to some trauma stuff, so we picked up some Alateen step work books, and that was a lot better.
Dear Gage -
You've spent so much time thinking about things in life that are worse than death.
But not all of life is worse than death. Those bad things, are over.
I don't think you should have been euthanized. I think you should have been helped, and nobody helped you.....but you survivied it and now it's over.
Now, there are things that could make you happy. Little things. And more than that, you can make other people happy. We have three kids, and Rusty, and a few friends, that we can give our love to. You're a part of us. You're more than the things that have happened to you.
Inside, under those scars, you're very much like me. We're twins. You are not a monster, you've never killed anybody, you've only thought about it and felt like it. But you couldn't do it. And you don't wish your scars on anybody. You don't really want to hurt anybody. Those thoughts are more of a habit than anything else, I think.
I don't know, maybe you're stuck with those scars on your skin - maybe if Stef has her face fixed, that will make your scars go away and you can see who you are again. I don't know the answer to that.
But for tonight, things are okay - you know we'll do the best we can to take good care of you and not let you suffer. Let's just do tonight, okay ? It's not so bad here, really.
I like it that you're my brother. I want to see what we become now that we know you're here.
Rusty has agreed to be celibate. For now, maybe for ever. We're not going to have him in the bedroom any more, so there won't be any gray area there. He will either have no feelings for us, or if he does feel anything for us it won't be a pretense to get sex. So that's settled.
There's hope that this will turn out okay.
You've spent so much time thinking about things in life that are worse than death.
But not all of life is worse than death. Those bad things, are over.
I don't think you should have been euthanized. I think you should have been helped, and nobody helped you.....but you survivied it and now it's over.
Now, there are things that could make you happy. Little things. And more than that, you can make other people happy. We have three kids, and Rusty, and a few friends, that we can give our love to. You're a part of us. You're more than the things that have happened to you.
Inside, under those scars, you're very much like me. We're twins. You are not a monster, you've never killed anybody, you've only thought about it and felt like it. But you couldn't do it. And you don't wish your scars on anybody. You don't really want to hurt anybody. Those thoughts are more of a habit than anything else, I think.
I don't know, maybe you're stuck with those scars on your skin - maybe if Stef has her face fixed, that will make your scars go away and you can see who you are again. I don't know the answer to that.
But for tonight, things are okay - you know we'll do the best we can to take good care of you and not let you suffer. Let's just do tonight, okay ? It's not so bad here, really.
I like it that you're my brother. I want to see what we become now that we know you're here.
Rusty has agreed to be celibate. For now, maybe for ever. We're not going to have him in the bedroom any more, so there won't be any gray area there. He will either have no feelings for us, or if he does feel anything for us it won't be a pretense to get sex. So that's settled.
There's hope that this will turn out okay.
So much for thinking our shelter days were over.
We thought we had this great plan, that whenever we got that upset at Rusty, unless there was physical danger, we would take a couple of extra Ambien and sleep it off.
Well, that was a lousy idea. Turns out when we're upset, Ambien doesn't put us to sleep, it just makes us high as hell.
We're so humiliated and mortified.....we stumbled out of the bedroom stark naked, thinking we had put our robe on (that's how high we were) - and our son was home.
Gage told Rusty, "I should have killed you and mom both, back when we lived in the log house." That scares the f******k out of the rest of us. Yeah, on some levels, we hate Rusty's guts. We also love him. And we'd be absolutely shattered if anything were to happen to him - not to mention if it was our fault. We can't even wrap our brain around that idea. And that's not even going in to what it would do to the kids, to lose their dad. We know how that one feels, our dad passed away about fifteen years ago, and some days his physical absence is still a fresh hole torn right out of the middle of us.
(Deep breath....this is going to take a few entries to sort out, we're very tired right now.)
Anyway. We went to a shelter in another county, until those thoughts and feelings passed. We got to interact with Gage a lot, and find out some of the particular things that trigger him. Forest went ahead and made him officially one of the fronters, because obviously that's what he is anyway, there's no point trying to keep him sheltered in the house somewhere away from what's going on in the outside world.
We need to take care of him, the way we take care of Brandon and Freddie. We need to take care of Lige that way, also, but we forget that because he acts so capable. Actually, he's no older or stronger than the other three boys. So what we have here, is four boys who have been through a lot, and who need to be cared for.
And while we're on the subject of boys, Alex seems to have age regressed a bit since Gage showed up. He's still an adult - but he's back to being a young adult. He's lost what he had achieved as far as maturity - he was middle-aged. Hopefully this is a temporary age-slide for him...we're not sure how old he is now, but....
Oh. He says he thinks he's 27.
That's the age we were at physically, when Stef had her nervous breakdown and ended up in the mental health system. And of course it's that notorious age when rock stars tend to commit suicide.
Forest is the only one of our fronters who hasn't age-regressed. (We're glad *somebody* hasn't.)
Anyway. Back to the boys.
While we were at the shelter, it *really* hit Brandon that Gage is, as he puts it, his 'twin'. (Brandon, Freddie, Lige, and Gage, are quadruplets. At one time, originally, there was only one of them, and it was Brandon. He was the original of the four boys.)
It also came to all of us, particularly Alex, that at one time, Alex was also Brandon, or a part of Brandon. Even though Alex doesn't look like the quadruplets, he has red hair and green eyes and the four boys have brown hair and blue eyes (except for Lige, sometimes his eyes are green, like Alex. Some kind of symbolism there, I'm sure.....but what it is, I don't know.)
We've never really thought of Alex as an older version of Brandon before.
Brandon was really taken aback by that. He's still reeling from Gage, in the first place.....now he's looking at Alex, and going, "You mean that's what I grow up to be ? I thought I would grow up to be Lige!" He's okay with the thought of someday being like Lige, his capable worker-provider brother, Mister Social. He's not okay with becoming Alex, who has some rage of his own, and is rather antisocial and even paranoid, and feels safest among people who are actually somewhat violent and dangerous, particularly motorcycle gangs.
We've been wishing for a way to get Gage's scars to leave him, without physically removing them and causing him pain. On the drive home, Forest hugged him and went through the motions of stroking his hair, as he would do with Brandon.....and Gage's hair appeared. Also, some undamaged skin reappeared on his back and his arms. Enough so that he could feel that he was being hugged in a loving way. We wish we could make *all* his scars disappear, just by wanting it or imagining it....but things don't work that way in here. None of us expected *any* of his scars to recede, we're almost afraid to be happy about it, afraid of jinxing it. But I guess gateful is the word we're looking for. Yeah. We're grateful that at least now Gage can feel that kind of warm, comforting affection. Forest would have given it to him anyway, and Gage would have *known* it.....but now he can actually *feel* it.
This is the kind of thing we long for, from Rusty. We always have. As something apart from sex. Just a hug, and some affection. If we could feel safe with him and trust him, we'd be perfectly willing to give him sex.....but God, we feel so used, that he would pretend to give us affection in order to wheedle us into sex. I mean, he's free to just *ask*, for God's sake! And, he knows how we feel about this, how much we long for hugs and affection that we don't have to pay for sexually. We don't understand why he has to have it this way, why h
We thought we had this great plan, that whenever we got that upset at Rusty, unless there was physical danger, we would take a couple of extra Ambien and sleep it off.
Well, that was a lousy idea. Turns out when we're upset, Ambien doesn't put us to sleep, it just makes us high as hell.
We're so humiliated and mortified.....we stumbled out of the bedroom stark naked, thinking we had put our robe on (that's how high we were) - and our son was home.
Gage told Rusty, "I should have killed you and mom both, back when we lived in the log house." That scares the f******k out of the rest of us. Yeah, on some levels, we hate Rusty's guts. We also love him. And we'd be absolutely shattered if anything were to happen to him - not to mention if it was our fault. We can't even wrap our brain around that idea. And that's not even going in to what it would do to the kids, to lose their dad. We know how that one feels, our dad passed away about fifteen years ago, and some days his physical absence is still a fresh hole torn right out of the middle of us.
(Deep breath....this is going to take a few entries to sort out, we're very tired right now.)
Anyway. We went to a shelter in another county, until those thoughts and feelings passed. We got to interact with Gage a lot, and find out some of the particular things that trigger him. Forest went ahead and made him officially one of the fronters, because obviously that's what he is anyway, there's no point trying to keep him sheltered in the house somewhere away from what's going on in the outside world.
We need to take care of him, the way we take care of Brandon and Freddie. We need to take care of Lige that way, also, but we forget that because he acts so capable. Actually, he's no older or stronger than the other three boys. So what we have here, is four boys who have been through a lot, and who need to be cared for.
And while we're on the subject of boys, Alex seems to have age regressed a bit since Gage showed up. He's still an adult - but he's back to being a young adult. He's lost what he had achieved as far as maturity - he was middle-aged. Hopefully this is a temporary age-slide for him...we're not sure how old he is now, but....
Oh. He says he thinks he's 27.
That's the age we were at physically, when Stef had her nervous breakdown and ended up in the mental health system. And of course it's that notorious age when rock stars tend to commit suicide.
Forest is the only one of our fronters who hasn't age-regressed. (We're glad *somebody* hasn't.)
Anyway. Back to the boys.
While we were at the shelter, it *really* hit Brandon that Gage is, as he puts it, his 'twin'. (Brandon, Freddie, Lige, and Gage, are quadruplets. At one time, originally, there was only one of them, and it was Brandon. He was the original of the four boys.)
It also came to all of us, particularly Alex, that at one time, Alex was also Brandon, or a part of Brandon. Even though Alex doesn't look like the quadruplets, he has red hair and green eyes and the four boys have brown hair and blue eyes (except for Lige, sometimes his eyes are green, like Alex. Some kind of symbolism there, I'm sure.....but what it is, I don't know.)
We've never really thought of Alex as an older version of Brandon before.
Brandon was really taken aback by that. He's still reeling from Gage, in the first place.....now he's looking at Alex, and going, "You mean that's what I grow up to be ? I thought I would grow up to be Lige!" He's okay with the thought of someday being like Lige, his capable worker-provider brother, Mister Social. He's not okay with becoming Alex, who has some rage of his own, and is rather antisocial and even paranoid, and feels safest among people who are actually somewhat violent and dangerous, particularly motorcycle gangs.
We've been wishing for a way to get Gage's scars to leave him, without physically removing them and causing him pain. On the drive home, Forest hugged him and went through the motions of stroking his hair, as he would do with Brandon.....and Gage's hair appeared. Also, some undamaged skin reappeared on his back and his arms. Enough so that he could feel that he was being hugged in a loving way. We wish we could make *all* his scars disappear, just by wanting it or imagining it....but things don't work that way in here. None of us expected *any* of his scars to recede, we're almost afraid to be happy about it, afraid of jinxing it. But I guess gateful is the word we're looking for. Yeah. We're grateful that at least now Gage can feel that kind of warm, comforting affection. Forest would have given it to him anyway, and Gage would have *known* it.....but now he can actually *feel* it.
This is the kind of thing we long for, from Rusty. We always have. As something apart from sex. Just a hug, and some affection. If we could feel safe with him and trust him, we'd be perfectly willing to give him sex.....but God, we feel so used, that he would pretend to give us affection in order to wheedle us into sex. I mean, he's free to just *ask*, for God's sake! And, he knows how we feel about this, how much we long for hugs and affection that we don't have to pay for sexually. We don't understand why he has to have it this way, why h
Dinner with our neighbors was actually fun.
Then we came home.
We were relaxing on the bed, Rusty asked if he could join us. We said sure. We were talking, relaxed.....Branond asked Rusty if he would pet him. (Which means stroke his hair, usually - just some form of physical comfort. Rusty likes getting his back scratched - and seems to like getting hugs, although we're not sure if the hugs are supposed to lead to sex. Brandon often longs to have somebody pet his hair or give him a hug - just some nonsexual physical affection.
So Rusty was stroking Brandon's hair, we thought everything was cool for now (we knew it wouldn't be for ever, but it seemed okay for tonight....) then Rusty came out with it.
"Question," he said. "Are we ever going to have sex again - ?"
Right now Rage, doesn't want a human name. He wants to be called Rage.
We told Rusty we're not prepared to have sex with him, and may not ever be. We told him we realize he has certain needs, and we would understand if he got those needs met elsewhere, as long as he was discreet and careful and didn't disrespect us about it. (LIke, just go get laid, dude! But quite pretending you love us just so you can get what you want! God! We've *begged* you to stop that, for so long!
THIS IS RAGE NOW.
YOU KNOW WHAT ? I DON'T GIVE A SHIT WHAT YOU PEOPLE READING THIS, THINK ABOUT US! YOU DON'T LIVE IN OUR SHOES, WE DO!
BRANDON JUST WANTS TO BE LOVED, THAT'S ALL! GOD! THESE PEOPLE IN HERE HAVE DONE SO MUCH TO KEEP THIS ASSHOLE SEXUALLY SATISFIED!
I FUCKING HATE PEOPLE, I HATE YOUR FUCKING OPINIONS, EVERYBODY'S A FUCKING LIAR!
BRANDON JUST WANTS A FRIEND OR TWO, A HUG ONCE IN A WHILE!
(Okay. An*********e, you did send him a free hug. Thank you. I hope you won't turn your back on him, for not kissing Rusty's ass. Sorry for putting it that way, but goddamn, is there one person on the face of this earth outside our own skin that we can be fucking honest with ? Did you ever just want to feel accepted, even during a bad moment ?
We've given this guy sex. Lots of it. Whether we wanted to or not. Right now the only reason he's being nice to us, is he wants to get laid. I Fucking HATE hi for teasing Brandon with the promise of love and affection, for no other reason than to ge some honey on his stinger. That;s not fair. And then when we *do* fuck him (which mostly falls to Freddie), where is all that "affection" ? Gone, baby! Out the fucking window! Because he's got what he wanted, so piss on us!
Yeah. I could be wrong. I know. That's me. Wrong, wrong, wrong. I'm just a walking, talking bundle of wrongness.
But, you don't have to hate the others for how I feel. You can hate me. Go ahead. I don't give a shit any more.
And my name is not Gage. It's Rage. I am NOT human any more. And i don't even remember whether i was originally male or female. Moot point, really. Now I'm a hideaous monster. I didn't do this to myself, but here it is, and here I am.
So now I wonder how many people are going to turn their backs on us because we hate what Rusty just did, the dishonesty of it.
So Brandon feels sorry for me ? Well, Ifeel sorry for him, too. Really sorry. Because he tries to be a good person, he only wants to be loved and accepted, and he's got a lot of love and affection to give in return. But.....the thing he wants most, he'll never get.
I think I'm much better off than he is. Because I dont' WANT anybody's stupid, phony affection any more. I know I'm not going to get it, and so I don't lose any sleep worrrying about it.
I know that people FUCKING SUCK!!!!!
Then we came home.
We were relaxing on the bed, Rusty asked if he could join us. We said sure. We were talking, relaxed.....Branond asked Rusty if he would pet him. (Which means stroke his hair, usually - just some form of physical comfort. Rusty likes getting his back scratched - and seems to like getting hugs, although we're not sure if the hugs are supposed to lead to sex. Brandon often longs to have somebody pet his hair or give him a hug - just some nonsexual physical affection.
So Rusty was stroking Brandon's hair, we thought everything was cool for now (we knew it wouldn't be for ever, but it seemed okay for tonight....) then Rusty came out with it.
"Question," he said. "Are we ever going to have sex again - ?"
Right now Rage, doesn't want a human name. He wants to be called Rage.
We told Rusty we're not prepared to have sex with him, and may not ever be. We told him we realize he has certain needs, and we would understand if he got those needs met elsewhere, as long as he was discreet and careful and didn't disrespect us about it. (LIke, just go get laid, dude! But quite pretending you love us just so you can get what you want! God! We've *begged* you to stop that, for so long!
THIS IS RAGE NOW.
YOU KNOW WHAT ? I DON'T GIVE A SHIT WHAT YOU PEOPLE READING THIS, THINK ABOUT US! YOU DON'T LIVE IN OUR SHOES, WE DO!
BRANDON JUST WANTS TO BE LOVED, THAT'S ALL! GOD! THESE PEOPLE IN HERE HAVE DONE SO MUCH TO KEEP THIS ASSHOLE SEXUALLY SATISFIED!
I FUCKING HATE PEOPLE, I HATE YOUR FUCKING OPINIONS, EVERYBODY'S A FUCKING LIAR!
BRANDON JUST WANTS A FRIEND OR TWO, A HUG ONCE IN A WHILE!
(Okay. An*********e, you did send him a free hug. Thank you. I hope you won't turn your back on him, for not kissing Rusty's ass. Sorry for putting it that way, but goddamn, is there one person on the face of this earth outside our own skin that we can be fucking honest with ? Did you ever just want to feel accepted, even during a bad moment ?
We've given this guy sex. Lots of it. Whether we wanted to or not. Right now the only reason he's being nice to us, is he wants to get laid. I Fucking HATE hi for teasing Brandon with the promise of love and affection, for no other reason than to ge some honey on his stinger. That;s not fair. And then when we *do* fuck him (which mostly falls to Freddie), where is all that "affection" ? Gone, baby! Out the fucking window! Because he's got what he wanted, so piss on us!
Yeah. I could be wrong. I know. That's me. Wrong, wrong, wrong. I'm just a walking, talking bundle of wrongness.
But, you don't have to hate the others for how I feel. You can hate me. Go ahead. I don't give a shit any more.
And my name is not Gage. It's Rage. I am NOT human any more. And i don't even remember whether i was originally male or female. Moot point, really. Now I'm a hideaous monster. I didn't do this to myself, but here it is, and here I am.
So now I wonder how many people are going to turn their backs on us because we hate what Rusty just did, the dishonesty of it.
So Brandon feels sorry for me ? Well, Ifeel sorry for him, too. Really sorry. Because he tries to be a good person, he only wants to be loved and accepted, and he's got a lot of love and affection to give in return. But.....the thing he wants most, he'll never get.
I think I'm much better off than he is. Because I dont' WANT anybody's stupid, phony affection any more. I know I'm not going to get it, and so I don't lose any sleep worrrying about it.
I know that people FUCKING SUCK!!!!!
Brandon is getting a bit tripped out about Gage now.
So is Freddie, but to a lesser extent - Freddie sometimes has some spiritual resources that Brandon doesn't have.
Anyway, the deal is this:
Symbolically, to Brandon, when he looks as Gage's scars, he's thinking, "What does that mean for me ? It was me that had all those burn-dreams, me and Freddie."
And then he's thinking, "Symbolically, it's like this: because of where Freddie and I have been and the effect it's had on us, no one is ever going to love us or really even like us again. People will find us repulsive now, once they start encountering our scars. We're screwed."
There's a lot that plays in to this - Stef's early depression around feeling 'unlovable'. Doing (and doing, and doing) that AA Fourth Step until we'd uncovered all those deep-down character defects.....and finding out we actually are pretty f*****ked up inside. And then, going on Internet groups for multiples, watching mostly Brandon but also Forest and Freddie and even Lige make some close friendships.....and then watching those friendships crumble during our near-divorce, as some of our uglier emotions came out.
Not to mention the changes in our marriage....yes, it's still on, and yes, Rusty and I do seem to still have some sort of affection for one another.....but it's nowhere near the thing that it used to be.
Also, our relationship with our two youngest children.....we don't know whether to count that or not, as the kids are young adults and trying their wings, and we remember being pretty distant from our folks at that age. So, maybe that's nothing, no reflection of what we've become.
The one bright spot in all of it, is Russell. We're very close to him, in spite of all the ugliness he witnessed while he was growing up. He's on that other side of 25 now, very much a man, knows himself - so he's past that cutting-the-apron-strings stage.
(This makes us sad, around our mom. We still have some love for the woman who's always been our mother. We just don't feel like we can reach her any more, even if we go to her house and wrap our arms around the body she used to live in. It's hard to explain....)
Anyway. We're jsut now beginning to figure out Gage's place, in all this. (Still hard not to call him Rage. But, he deserves a human name. Whatever it was that made him this way, he certainly didn't ask for it. And we know he didn't deserve it, because nobody deserves it.)
Brandon is really tripped out. He's saying, "That's me. I'm him. We've been to the same place. I just don't carry the physical scars, and I got to lose a lot of the memory. He didn't. Underneath all that, he's another me."
That's a scary thing in other ways besides just visually. Gage is dangerous, full of hate, and wants to lash out. At whole groups of people. Individuals who haven't even done anything to him. None of us has ever felt like that before. Like, Gage could be one of those people who could go postal somewhere and hurt a bunch of people. We hate to say it, but he might even be capable of murder if he thought he could get away with it. That's saying a mouth full, for us. Not even Alex, has ever been a murderer at heart. (Which reminds me....Alex won't go anywhere near Gage. Because Gage has affected his emotions before, Alex has soaked up some of what Gage was feeling, and now that Alex knows where it's coming from, he says "I want no part of that action!")
Wow. What to do about this. We know we can't just kill him, that never works. Also, he's here for a reason, though we're not sure what it is. Now that he's appeared, the rest of us are less tormented by anger and resentment.
It's like, Gage is the sacrifice (burnt offering) for the rest of us.
But....we don't want to sacrifice anybody! Especially not someone so young. (Forest says, "I would take his place if I could. If the rest of you can think of a way, I will take it.")
That's saying a lot, Fo. You might want to think about that one....
Oh. Gage does have a heart! He doesn't want Forest to do it. He doesn't want any of us to carry his scars....the outer ones, or the inner ones.
Gage is volunteering to keep them.
That makes Brandon really sad. Brandon is saying he doensn't think he could carry the inner scars, because they would kill him, he wouldn't be himself any more. But that he'd take the physical scars, and let Gage walk around looking like Brandon and Freddie.
Freddie is volunteering to take *all* the scars, to trade places with Gage, just trade across the board. He says it's not like Gage would get off easy, Freddie's had a hard journey of his own - but people do tend to like Freddie. We can't imagine anyone feeling any real affection for Gage. Even we ourselves have trouble feeling affection for him, not so much due to his appearance, as his spite.
(Except for Brandon and Freddie. They seem to feel something for Gage, that is beyond kindness and pity.)
Freddie is inviting Gage to stay with him at his home part of the time, so he doesn't have to be confined to the house and the yard all the time.
I really don't know where this is going to go.
But in the physical world, Rusty and I have a dinner invitation at seven, and it's ten after four right now.
Lige is freaking out - social phobia.
Freddie is volunteering to be out front for this one.
There are two other couples invitied to this place as well, so that takes some of the pressure off.....it will be easy to just nod and smile and let everybody else talk. Ask questions, all that.
If it wasn't for the neighbors who issued the invitation, we'd fear this was an Amway thing. But we don't think these particular neighbors would do that.
It's been a very long time since we've been invited to someone's house for dinner. That used to be a common thing, when Rusty and I were first married, and when the kids were young.....going to someone's house for dinner, having people over for dinner. Somewhere along the line, it all changed.....
But tonight, whatever this turns out to be, Freddie has volunteered to front, and Lige is coaching him. We're nervous as hell, because we no longer have the social confidence we used to - we've gone from fearing we're unlikable, to *knowing* we're unlikable, an
So is Freddie, but to a lesser extent - Freddie sometimes has some spiritual resources that Brandon doesn't have.
Anyway, the deal is this:
Symbolically, to Brandon, when he looks as Gage's scars, he's thinking, "What does that mean for me ? It was me that had all those burn-dreams, me and Freddie."
And then he's thinking, "Symbolically, it's like this: because of where Freddie and I have been and the effect it's had on us, no one is ever going to love us or really even like us again. People will find us repulsive now, once they start encountering our scars. We're screwed."
There's a lot that plays in to this - Stef's early depression around feeling 'unlovable'. Doing (and doing, and doing) that AA Fourth Step until we'd uncovered all those deep-down character defects.....and finding out we actually are pretty f*****ked up inside. And then, going on Internet groups for multiples, watching mostly Brandon but also Forest and Freddie and even Lige make some close friendships.....and then watching those friendships crumble during our near-divorce, as some of our uglier emotions came out.
Not to mention the changes in our marriage....yes, it's still on, and yes, Rusty and I do seem to still have some sort of affection for one another.....but it's nowhere near the thing that it used to be.
Also, our relationship with our two youngest children.....we don't know whether to count that or not, as the kids are young adults and trying their wings, and we remember being pretty distant from our folks at that age. So, maybe that's nothing, no reflection of what we've become.
The one bright spot in all of it, is Russell. We're very close to him, in spite of all the ugliness he witnessed while he was growing up. He's on that other side of 25 now, very much a man, knows himself - so he's past that cutting-the-apron-strings stage.
(This makes us sad, around our mom. We still have some love for the woman who's always been our mother. We just don't feel like we can reach her any more, even if we go to her house and wrap our arms around the body she used to live in. It's hard to explain....)
Anyway. We're jsut now beginning to figure out Gage's place, in all this. (Still hard not to call him Rage. But, he deserves a human name. Whatever it was that made him this way, he certainly didn't ask for it. And we know he didn't deserve it, because nobody deserves it.)
Brandon is really tripped out. He's saying, "That's me. I'm him. We've been to the same place. I just don't carry the physical scars, and I got to lose a lot of the memory. He didn't. Underneath all that, he's another me."
That's a scary thing in other ways besides just visually. Gage is dangerous, full of hate, and wants to lash out. At whole groups of people. Individuals who haven't even done anything to him. None of us has ever felt like that before. Like, Gage could be one of those people who could go postal somewhere and hurt a bunch of people. We hate to say it, but he might even be capable of murder if he thought he could get away with it. That's saying a mouth full, for us. Not even Alex, has ever been a murderer at heart. (Which reminds me....Alex won't go anywhere near Gage. Because Gage has affected his emotions before, Alex has soaked up some of what Gage was feeling, and now that Alex knows where it's coming from, he says "I want no part of that action!")
Wow. What to do about this. We know we can't just kill him, that never works. Also, he's here for a reason, though we're not sure what it is. Now that he's appeared, the rest of us are less tormented by anger and resentment.
It's like, Gage is the sacrifice (burnt offering) for the rest of us.
But....we don't want to sacrifice anybody! Especially not someone so young. (Forest says, "I would take his place if I could. If the rest of you can think of a way, I will take it.")
That's saying a lot, Fo. You might want to think about that one....
Oh. Gage does have a heart! He doesn't want Forest to do it. He doesn't want any of us to carry his scars....the outer ones, or the inner ones.
Gage is volunteering to keep them.
That makes Brandon really sad. Brandon is saying he doensn't think he could carry the inner scars, because they would kill him, he wouldn't be himself any more. But that he'd take the physical scars, and let Gage walk around looking like Brandon and Freddie.
Freddie is volunteering to take *all* the scars, to trade places with Gage, just trade across the board. He says it's not like Gage would get off easy, Freddie's had a hard journey of his own - but people do tend to like Freddie. We can't imagine anyone feeling any real affection for Gage. Even we ourselves have trouble feeling affection for him, not so much due to his appearance, as his spite.
(Except for Brandon and Freddie. They seem to feel something for Gage, that is beyond kindness and pity.)
Freddie is inviting Gage to stay with him at his home part of the time, so he doesn't have to be confined to the house and the yard all the time.
I really don't know where this is going to go.
But in the physical world, Rusty and I have a dinner invitation at seven, and it's ten after four right now.
Lige is freaking out - social phobia.
Freddie is volunteering to be out front for this one.
There are two other couples invitied to this place as well, so that takes some of the pressure off.....it will be easy to just nod and smile and let everybody else talk. Ask questions, all that.
If it wasn't for the neighbors who issued the invitation, we'd fear this was an Amway thing. But we don't think these particular neighbors would do that.
It's been a very long time since we've been invited to someone's house for dinner. That used to be a common thing, when Rusty and I were first married, and when the kids were young.....going to someone's house for dinner, having people over for dinner. Somewhere along the line, it all changed.....
But tonight, whatever this turns out to be, Freddie has volunteered to front, and Lige is coaching him. We're nervous as hell, because we no longer have the social confidence we used to - we've gone from fearing we're unlikable, to *knowing* we're unlikable, an
Saturday. Trying to write this with Rusty in and out of the kitchen, so it may come off pretty disjointed, we'll see.
It's a *beautiful* day out, and we did luck out enough to get this great view from our living room window.
That helped me go internal - something I haven't had enough time for lately. Going inside really helps me with the rest of life.
Inside, it's a beautiful day too. I only had time to check with the fronters - I briefly saw Forest, Alex, Lige, Freddie, and Brandon.
Then we all remembered Rage - he's in the house, where the women can take care of him. We were wondering what kind of clothes to get him, then we remembered, wearing anything more than pajama bottoms for modesty is kind of a moot point, as he's completely covered with scars. Really the pajama bottoms aren't that necessary, they just help him feel more human.
It occurred to us that he's probably one of the biggest parts of us, that needs medication. And of course it would make sense that the kind of meds that speed you up, like Levoxyl and Prozac, would irritate him to no end. He needs to be calmed and comforted, not jacked up some more. And he needs to be medicated when the rest of us wouldn't.
We're thinking of renaming him Gage, instead of Rage. Because what kind of name is Rage, for a human being - ? And he is still human, underneath all those physical and emotional scars.
This is all a bit weird for Brandon and Freddie. They really identify with him, and have a bit of survivor guilt because they got off easier.
Actually, we're not so sure Rage/Gage is male. We jsut pray to God he's not female. Because we know that to be physically transformed in that way, would be even harder for a girl than for a boy. Girls have it pounded in to them from birth, that they're supposed to be 'pretty'. Males absolutely do not understand the effect of that constant training.
Yeah. We hope for Gage's sake, that he's male.
(Well, if he wasn't, he is now.)
Going to be a little weird, remembering to call him Gage. (Ironic, as well - that's the name of a Stephen King character.)
Need to stop here, get this day underway. But we all do need to spend more time aware of what's going on inside.
It's a *beautiful* day out, and we did luck out enough to get this great view from our living room window.
That helped me go internal - something I haven't had enough time for lately. Going inside really helps me with the rest of life.
Inside, it's a beautiful day too. I only had time to check with the fronters - I briefly saw Forest, Alex, Lige, Freddie, and Brandon.
Then we all remembered Rage - he's in the house, where the women can take care of him. We were wondering what kind of clothes to get him, then we remembered, wearing anything more than pajama bottoms for modesty is kind of a moot point, as he's completely covered with scars. Really the pajama bottoms aren't that necessary, they just help him feel more human.
It occurred to us that he's probably one of the biggest parts of us, that needs medication. And of course it would make sense that the kind of meds that speed you up, like Levoxyl and Prozac, would irritate him to no end. He needs to be calmed and comforted, not jacked up some more. And he needs to be medicated when the rest of us wouldn't.
We're thinking of renaming him Gage, instead of Rage. Because what kind of name is Rage, for a human being - ? And he is still human, underneath all those physical and emotional scars.
This is all a bit weird for Brandon and Freddie. They really identify with him, and have a bit of survivor guilt because they got off easier.
Actually, we're not so sure Rage/Gage is male. We jsut pray to God he's not female. Because we know that to be physically transformed in that way, would be even harder for a girl than for a boy. Girls have it pounded in to them from birth, that they're supposed to be 'pretty'. Males absolutely do not understand the effect of that constant training.
Yeah. We hope for Gage's sake, that he's male.
(Well, if he wasn't, he is now.)
Going to be a little weird, remembering to call him Gage. (Ironic, as well - that's the name of a Stephen King character.)
Need to stop here, get this day underway. But we all do need to spend more time aware of what's going on inside.
A weird pattern here. Since the Levoxyl makes the Ambien ineffective, we've been taking Xanax with it....and every time we take enough Xanax to sleep, we have very vivid dreams that Lige is crying and crying about something very tragic. It's always Lige, never any of the others. One time when this happened, it was the loss of a relationship. Last night, it was either the death of a loved one.....or else he was back at the old house, mourning the loss of our home and family life.
He doesn't tend to be one to cry very much, so we don't know why these dreams are always about him.....just some weird chemical trigger maybe. This is always so vivid that we wake ourselves up crying.
He doesn't tend to be one to cry very much, so we don't know why these dreams are always about him.....just some weird chemical trigger maybe. This is always so vivid that we wake ourselves up crying.
It's hard to function, taking this Levoxyl. But for right now it's important to stay on our doctor's good side. So, yes, we're doing something devious. We're going to take this (pardon language, badass shit) for a week, have the blood test, (pardon again) kiss the doctor's ass, and then get back to normal.
(Thank you for your input there, Alex....)
Levoxyl makes our insomnia worse, which of course screws up *everything in life*. (!)
(Thanks again, Alex. I think we all agree with you, on this one.)
When (those stupid) numbers come out right on our thyroid test, everybody's happy but us. When the numbers are a little off, it seems like we feel better and function better.
It's frustrating. We know the doctor is a *doctor*....but he doesn't live in this body, we do.
(Sigh) We used to be so trusting. It used to be unlike most of us, to do anything devious. Nowdays, we simply vote on the next devious thing we're about to do.....
Forest wants us to stop using that word repeatedly, and stop feeling bad about it, he's saying that survival is survival.
Well, it's a done deal, whichever way you look at it. We've learned a lot of hard lessons around the whole medical industry.
Met a kid in class today who's studing to be a psychiatrist, and his girl friend is studying to be a writer. It was fun, getting to discuss with him how the two fields can be related. (And this was in a math class. It might get really interesting, as we get in to more subjects!)
Math still sucks, though. Did, does, and always will. But, it's easier this term because our teacher for this term is an absolute saint and we love her.
The medication dillemma, maybe there's hope for in the long run. There's a local pharmacist who's also a naturopath - we intend to talk to him about alternatives for treating low thyroid. (Levoxyl sucks worse than math.)
Did we already write that Russell's friend Brian has moved back into the old house with him, so we're no longer free to hang out there ? That's probably for the best. So for now, much as we don't like this apartment, we're concentrating on making it feel more like home.
Mostly we're suiting it to Forest's taste, except for the part of the kitchen that we use as an office, which is where I am now. This space, we're decorating around Lige. Which is kind of exactly the opposite of Forest.
Gotta go, pizza's here.
(Thank you for your input there, Alex....)
Levoxyl makes our insomnia worse, which of course screws up *everything in life*. (!)
(Thanks again, Alex. I think we all agree with you, on this one.)
When (those stupid) numbers come out right on our thyroid test, everybody's happy but us. When the numbers are a little off, it seems like we feel better and function better.
It's frustrating. We know the doctor is a *doctor*....but he doesn't live in this body, we do.
(Sigh) We used to be so trusting. It used to be unlike most of us, to do anything devious. Nowdays, we simply vote on the next devious thing we're about to do.....
Forest wants us to stop using that word repeatedly, and stop feeling bad about it, he's saying that survival is survival.
Well, it's a done deal, whichever way you look at it. We've learned a lot of hard lessons around the whole medical industry.
Met a kid in class today who's studing to be a psychiatrist, and his girl friend is studying to be a writer. It was fun, getting to discuss with him how the two fields can be related. (And this was in a math class. It might get really interesting, as we get in to more subjects!)
Math still sucks, though. Did, does, and always will. But, it's easier this term because our teacher for this term is an absolute saint and we love her.
The medication dillemma, maybe there's hope for in the long run. There's a local pharmacist who's also a naturopath - we intend to talk to him about alternatives for treating low thyroid. (Levoxyl sucks worse than math.)
Did we already write that Russell's friend Brian has moved back into the old house with him, so we're no longer free to hang out there ? That's probably for the best. So for now, much as we don't like this apartment, we're concentrating on making it feel more like home.
Mostly we're suiting it to Forest's taste, except for the part of the kitchen that we use as an office, which is where I am now. This space, we're decorating around Lige. Which is kind of exactly the opposite of Forest.
Gotta go, pizza's here.
Plans for the face lift coming along. We've saved up some cash, going to schedule a consultation today. (Our face is a bit disfigured after all those years of being prescribed antipsychotics for off-label reasons. No one ever told us it could cause facial disfigurement. We were told it could cause "moon face", but that would be temporary. We were never told what we would look like when the moon face wore off.
We love weekdays now. Because Rusty isn't here until late afternoon. We woke up early this morning and hopped out of bed, because Forest wanted to watch the last of the sunrise from the balcony. Then we went for a long walk....it was in town and on concrete, but it was still pleasant because the weather's beautiful, and walking on concrete makes our back stronger. (When we first moved here, it killed us to walk as far as we did today.)
Lige was out for most of the walk, and for getting coffee at Starbuck's by the bookstore. That's big progress for him....he used to get so social-phobic there, that he felt like people were staring at him and judging him (negatively, of course), and it was like torture for him to be out front in that particular place. (Looking back, I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that we're on Social Security, and the coffee shop and book store are ususally full of professionals with briefcases and laptops. That really affected Lige, way back when. He used to say, "I feel like they can smell me." No, it didn't make sense.....but his social phobia was that bad.)
Last night we got a bit of writing done on the new novella - plus dodged Rusty in the process. (So that was a doble win.)
Today we're thinking, if our son who has a bed in our living room right now blows off this new job for some dumb reason (one more time), we think it will be time to give him thirty days' notice and tell him we're evicting him, and it's not negotiable. He's still drinking, still gambling, still quick-tempered and explosive, still maniplulative and full of excuses.
In the old house, we could never have set such a boundary with any of the kids, because all they would have had to do was call Grandma, who owned the house. That's one of the best things about living here, much as it's broken our heart to make the move. Here, we can set some boundaries with family members. Mom doesn't own this, and she can't pull it out from under us any time we don't do things her way.
Right now, we feel like the move, heart-wrenching as it's been, was definitely worth it.
On the subject of the old house - Russell's old room mate Brian has moved back in. So now we no longer feel free to just hang out there and do our laundry and sit in the old back yard, when Russell's not home. That's probably for the best. As much as we enjoyed being able to visit the old back yard, in a way it was an emotional torture, always having to leave when we longed to stay, being back in that setting when it wasn't ours any more. It was driving us over the edge a little bit. I'm glad we can't do it now.
(Oh. We didn't get ahold of our mother, for the holiday. Rage won that one.)
We love weekdays now. Because Rusty isn't here until late afternoon. We woke up early this morning and hopped out of bed, because Forest wanted to watch the last of the sunrise from the balcony. Then we went for a long walk....it was in town and on concrete, but it was still pleasant because the weather's beautiful, and walking on concrete makes our back stronger. (When we first moved here, it killed us to walk as far as we did today.)
Lige was out for most of the walk, and for getting coffee at Starbuck's by the bookstore. That's big progress for him....he used to get so social-phobic there, that he felt like people were staring at him and judging him (negatively, of course), and it was like torture for him to be out front in that particular place. (Looking back, I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that we're on Social Security, and the coffee shop and book store are ususally full of professionals with briefcases and laptops. That really affected Lige, way back when. He used to say, "I feel like they can smell me." No, it didn't make sense.....but his social phobia was that bad.)
Last night we got a bit of writing done on the new novella - plus dodged Rusty in the process. (So that was a doble win.)
Today we're thinking, if our son who has a bed in our living room right now blows off this new job for some dumb reason (one more time), we think it will be time to give him thirty days' notice and tell him we're evicting him, and it's not negotiable. He's still drinking, still gambling, still quick-tempered and explosive, still maniplulative and full of excuses.
In the old house, we could never have set such a boundary with any of the kids, because all they would have had to do was call Grandma, who owned the house. That's one of the best things about living here, much as it's broken our heart to make the move. Here, we can set some boundaries with family members. Mom doesn't own this, and she can't pull it out from under us any time we don't do things her way.
Right now, we feel like the move, heart-wrenching as it's been, was definitely worth it.
On the subject of the old house - Russell's old room mate Brian has moved back in. So now we no longer feel free to just hang out there and do our laundry and sit in the old back yard, when Russell's not home. That's probably for the best. As much as we enjoyed being able to visit the old back yard, in a way it was an emotional torture, always having to leave when we longed to stay, being back in that setting when it wasn't ours any more. It was driving us over the edge a little bit. I'm glad we can't do it now.
(Oh. We didn't get ahold of our mother, for the holiday. Rage won that one.)
It's been such a long year. It seems like it's been about four years, since this time last year.
From the outside it looks like little has changed. But for us a lot has changed, because the changes are ones we can stick with.
For one thing, looking back over old journals, before we moved from the old house we still couldn't work or go to school, due to insomnia. (Even on the same meds we're on now. Which, probably means we were still not sleeping due to stress.) In our old journal we wrote, "I never know what day it is, or what time it is." Now, all we need is a calendar and a clock, and we know where we're at in time (or pretty close). People didn't believe us back then, it sounded like an excuse. But it was a real problem. Ever show up to a volunteer job on your day off ? Well if you're volunteering on a political campaign, that's a good way to get politely asked to leave because "you must be tired".
Nowdays, we're in school. Yes, it's part time - but we're still in school. We're used to getting to bed at a certain time, we wake up at the same time each morning without an alarm clock.
And another big change - we've made the adjustment to waking up every morning with the intention of getting dressed and getting out the door. That is huge, after all those decades of, make sure everybody's support work is done (laundry, picking up, etcetera) before you even get dressed, much less out the door.
Gotta go - need to get to bed.
But we had a terrific mother's day. Russell came over and ate with us, Rachel called, and Ross came home with a card and without the grouchy mood.
The most fun part, was visiting with Russell. We miss his company in the evenings.
From the outside it looks like little has changed. But for us a lot has changed, because the changes are ones we can stick with.
For one thing, looking back over old journals, before we moved from the old house we still couldn't work or go to school, due to insomnia. (Even on the same meds we're on now. Which, probably means we were still not sleeping due to stress.) In our old journal we wrote, "I never know what day it is, or what time it is." Now, all we need is a calendar and a clock, and we know where we're at in time (or pretty close). People didn't believe us back then, it sounded like an excuse. But it was a real problem. Ever show up to a volunteer job on your day off ? Well if you're volunteering on a political campaign, that's a good way to get politely asked to leave because "you must be tired".
Nowdays, we're in school. Yes, it's part time - but we're still in school. We're used to getting to bed at a certain time, we wake up at the same time each morning without an alarm clock.
And another big change - we've made the adjustment to waking up every morning with the intention of getting dressed and getting out the door. That is huge, after all those decades of, make sure everybody's support work is done (laundry, picking up, etcetera) before you even get dressed, much less out the door.
Gotta go - need to get to bed.
But we had a terrific mother's day. Russell came over and ate with us, Rachel called, and Ross came home with a card and without the grouchy mood.
The most fun part, was visiting with Russell. We miss his company in the evenings.
Well, Rusty and I went up to the campground and day-camped. Going up and coming back down it was *so beautiful*.
He started bringing up sex quite a bit, and also made some snide remark about my mother as compared to his mother. But, the mother-remark I defused pretty quickly, and he didn't persist. Also the hinting at sex, around camping - I told him this body's too old to return to some of the past things that he was talking about. He dropped the subject of sex then, and in fact on the way home he said he does think maybe we should start either day-camping or camping in a cabin. That's fine with me.
The rest of the day, was actually very pleasant - a lot better than I thought it would be. I was dreading going, but went only because I had agreed to it and didn't want to go back on my word. Now I'm glad I went. (And in all fairness, he didn't drop the camping thing altogether when I made it clear I was no longer interested in sex in the wild.)
I never know how much of his affection is real, and how much is a ploy for sex. What I do know, is that I will possibly never have the answer to that. I just know that he treats me worse when we're having sex, than when we're not, and I don't like to be treated worse, so that one's pretty easy to solve.
We stopped by Russell's (which is our old house) on the way out of town, to get some firewood and use the bathroom. No one was home, we just went in, and then I went on out to the back yard. I didn't expect Forest's reaction. We visit there often, but today for some reason the smells of home and the sounds and the sights just struck him wrong, and he started to cry, so I was sitting out in the back yard with tears running down my face, hoping Rusty wouldn't notice. (He didn't.)
I think it might have been a combination of, Russell's been talking about letting the house go; we know we can't get it back; and we were there with Rusty, in a very different way than we ever thought we'd be.
Anyway, we all survived it, and had a great time day-camping.
Last night I had a version of the house-dream again, though that wasn't the main 'plot' of the dream. In this dream, we as a family lived in both sides of a duplex - the family on one side, and the other side as like a guest house where I could go and live by myself if Rusty and I were fighting. The kids were little again, and there was a screened-in porch all around, that we used for a smoking porch. Ross (who was about seven or eight in the dream) lit up a cigarette in the house, and I told him, "take that nasty thing out to the smoking porch." In a real smart-alcky tone, he said, "Why is it nasty, when you and dad both smoke ?" I said, "It's nasty because we're your parents and we said so, now take it outside where it belongs!" Then he took his cigarette outside, and was very well behaved after that.
Then, in the dream, I was looking in the cabinets of the guest-side of the duplex....and there was so much extra food stocked up for an emergency. I thought, "Why don't we ever use this ? Some of this stuff the kids would enjoy, and some of it we run out of on the family side. But I never come over here and draw from this supply." Thinking now that the extra food supply might have symbolized love, or some kind of warm emotion, something that I keep all to myself instead of sharing it with the rest of the family.
(In real life, I've had to do that for a long time....or at least I did back in the old house. Never really got to that point, before we moved there....the bedroom was my sanctuary and I often shut everybody else out to get away from their demands, but in the house on Grape Street I started to stock up food and empty coffee cans and toilet paper, so I'd have what i needed and I wouldn't have to go out into the rest of the house.)
Oh. That reminds me now...while we were back at the old house this morning, Rage started to act up. He was in tears as well as Forest, but then he started complaining. It was Forest who cut him off, by telling him, "You had your part in us losing this place, it wasn't just mom and Rusty. Also, things were not as rosy as you remember. We often escaped out the bedroom window, and rented a motel room until we ran out of money, in order to let things cool down. The bucket we used for a step-stool is still on the ground outside the bedroom window. We couldn't do anything about the constant tension and undertone of violence, because if we did Mom would take back the house. Now at least we're in a place where we don't have to take *that*."
He was right. Things here at the apartment don't ever build up to the explosive point like they did back at the old house.
Also, at the old house, we felt more and more like we were already dead and we were rotting. Other than the seasons changing and Russell and Brittany, every day and every night were exactly the same. Rusty and Ross always had the same story to tell at the end of the day. We never could sleep, never could get on the computer and write.....we couldn't cook or keep house. We didn't have friends or any activities. And we dislike TV, so we fell into watching the same movies over and over again. (We went to AA, but it was the same meeting at the same place with the same people telling the same tales!) At one point, we thought we'd rather do anything than to be up at pre-dawn hours one more time, staring into the same corner over the TV and listening to those last repetitive strains of music at the end of "Shawshank Redemption." It was very weird, because of course we knew that we only needed to do something different....but we didn't have the energy. Seriously. That damn music would come on,a nd we didn't ahve enough energy to get to the remote in time to cut it off. We wound up watching the movie too much, because it was often the only thing that would relax us. When people talk about boredom and depression, I think they often don't realize that such small but serious minutae is what they're really talking about. That it's easy for someone who isn't depressed, to say, "Well why don't you watch a different movie tonight, and go somewhere different tomorrow ? And maybe paint that corner and put up some different curtains, for crying out loud....?"
We once had the same attitude, towards and acquaintance who was in a wheelchair. She had a fit when she missed a trip to the pet store because a wheel ame off the chiar again. We thought, Why don't you just do maintenance on the chair, and then this wouldn't happen ? But then we thought, wait a minute, that's pretty easy for us to say, sitting here able-bodied. If we had to deal with the constant dependence and stress and possibly boredom of being in a wheelchair, plus the hopelessness of knowing it would never get any better, would we have the energy left to perform repeat maintenance ? Or would we be trying desperately to take our mind off it every chance we got ? Personally, for me, I know the answer to that one. My energy would run out, I would *not* be doing what I "should", instead I would be doing every kind of mental gymnastics in the world in an attempt to save my own sanity. Because I would find it very hard to be in a wheelchair, in a world full of peole who walked upright.
Hope it's not wrong of me to say that - but that's me.
Anyway. Being that depressed, has taught me some stuff about judging what others can or can not do. Maybe some people really *won't* do for themselves. I don't know anything about that. What I do know about, is not having the inner resources left to do something that appears easy from the outside.
Writing all this, makes losing the house (our home - it was never just a house) look completely different. Yes, it really broke our hearts, and it still does. We know it's possible to love an object now, because we love that place. Still, that was what it took to break us out of that depressive ditch we were in. Now, we have some options that we simply couldn't reach out and take hold of while we were still in that house, in that situation.
He started bringing up sex quite a bit, and also made some snide remark about my mother as compared to his mother. But, the mother-remark I defused pretty quickly, and he didn't persist. Also the hinting at sex, around camping - I told him this body's too old to return to some of the past things that he was talking about. He dropped the subject of sex then, and in fact on the way home he said he does think maybe we should start either day-camping or camping in a cabin. That's fine with me.
The rest of the day, was actually very pleasant - a lot better than I thought it would be. I was dreading going, but went only because I had agreed to it and didn't want to go back on my word. Now I'm glad I went. (And in all fairness, he didn't drop the camping thing altogether when I made it clear I was no longer interested in sex in the wild.)
I never know how much of his affection is real, and how much is a ploy for sex. What I do know, is that I will possibly never have the answer to that. I just know that he treats me worse when we're having sex, than when we're not, and I don't like to be treated worse, so that one's pretty easy to solve.
We stopped by Russell's (which is our old house) on the way out of town, to get some firewood and use the bathroom. No one was home, we just went in, and then I went on out to the back yard. I didn't expect Forest's reaction. We visit there often, but today for some reason the smells of home and the sounds and the sights just struck him wrong, and he started to cry, so I was sitting out in the back yard with tears running down my face, hoping Rusty wouldn't notice. (He didn't.)
I think it might have been a combination of, Russell's been talking about letting the house go; we know we can't get it back; and we were there with Rusty, in a very different way than we ever thought we'd be.
Anyway, we all survived it, and had a great time day-camping.
Last night I had a version of the house-dream again, though that wasn't the main 'plot' of the dream. In this dream, we as a family lived in both sides of a duplex - the family on one side, and the other side as like a guest house where I could go and live by myself if Rusty and I were fighting. The kids were little again, and there was a screened-in porch all around, that we used for a smoking porch. Ross (who was about seven or eight in the dream) lit up a cigarette in the house, and I told him, "take that nasty thing out to the smoking porch." In a real smart-alcky tone, he said, "Why is it nasty, when you and dad both smoke ?" I said, "It's nasty because we're your parents and we said so, now take it outside where it belongs!" Then he took his cigarette outside, and was very well behaved after that.
Then, in the dream, I was looking in the cabinets of the guest-side of the duplex....and there was so much extra food stocked up for an emergency. I thought, "Why don't we ever use this ? Some of this stuff the kids would enjoy, and some of it we run out of on the family side. But I never come over here and draw from this supply." Thinking now that the extra food supply might have symbolized love, or some kind of warm emotion, something that I keep all to myself instead of sharing it with the rest of the family.
(In real life, I've had to do that for a long time....or at least I did back in the old house. Never really got to that point, before we moved there....the bedroom was my sanctuary and I often shut everybody else out to get away from their demands, but in the house on Grape Street I started to stock up food and empty coffee cans and toilet paper, so I'd have what i needed and I wouldn't have to go out into the rest of the house.)
Oh. That reminds me now...while we were back at the old house this morning, Rage started to act up. He was in tears as well as Forest, but then he started complaining. It was Forest who cut him off, by telling him, "You had your part in us losing this place, it wasn't just mom and Rusty. Also, things were not as rosy as you remember. We often escaped out the bedroom window, and rented a motel room until we ran out of money, in order to let things cool down. The bucket we used for a step-stool is still on the ground outside the bedroom window. We couldn't do anything about the constant tension and undertone of violence, because if we did Mom would take back the house. Now at least we're in a place where we don't have to take *that*."
He was right. Things here at the apartment don't ever build up to the explosive point like they did back at the old house.
Also, at the old house, we felt more and more like we were already dead and we were rotting. Other than the seasons changing and Russell and Brittany, every day and every night were exactly the same. Rusty and Ross always had the same story to tell at the end of the day. We never could sleep, never could get on the computer and write.....we couldn't cook or keep house. We didn't have friends or any activities. And we dislike TV, so we fell into watching the same movies over and over again. (We went to AA, but it was the same meeting at the same place with the same people telling the same tales!) At one point, we thought we'd rather do anything than to be up at pre-dawn hours one more time, staring into the same corner over the TV and listening to those last repetitive strains of music at the end of "Shawshank Redemption." It was very weird, because of course we knew that we only needed to do something different....but we didn't have the energy. Seriously. That damn music would come on,a nd we didn't ahve enough energy to get to the remote in time to cut it off. We wound up watching the movie too much, because it was often the only thing that would relax us. When people talk about boredom and depression, I think they often don't realize that such small but serious minutae is what they're really talking about. That it's easy for someone who isn't depressed, to say, "Well why don't you watch a different movie tonight, and go somewhere different tomorrow ? And maybe paint that corner and put up some different curtains, for crying out loud....?"
We once had the same attitude, towards and acquaintance who was in a wheelchair. She had a fit when she missed a trip to the pet store because a wheel ame off the chiar again. We thought, Why don't you just do maintenance on the chair, and then this wouldn't happen ? But then we thought, wait a minute, that's pretty easy for us to say, sitting here able-bodied. If we had to deal with the constant dependence and stress and possibly boredom of being in a wheelchair, plus the hopelessness of knowing it would never get any better, would we have the energy left to perform repeat maintenance ? Or would we be trying desperately to take our mind off it every chance we got ? Personally, for me, I know the answer to that one. My energy would run out, I would *not* be doing what I "should", instead I would be doing every kind of mental gymnastics in the world in an attempt to save my own sanity. Because I would find it very hard to be in a wheelchair, in a world full of peole who walked upright.
Hope it's not wrong of me to say that - but that's me.
Anyway. Being that depressed, has taught me some stuff about judging what others can or can not do. Maybe some people really *won't* do for themselves. I don't know anything about that. What I do know about, is not having the inner resources left to do something that appears easy from the outside.
Writing all this, makes losing the house (our home - it was never just a house) look completely different. Yes, it really broke our hearts, and it still does. We know it's possible to love an object now, because we love that place. Still, that was what it took to break us out of that depressive ditch we were in. Now, we have some options that we simply couldn't reach out and take hold of while we were still in that house, in that situation.
We are so totally not fitting in with others, the way we thought we would if we were only out among more people. Moving to this apartment complex, has made that painfully obvious. So has going back to school. When we were physically in our twenties and still didn't remember a lot of our past, it seemed we had some social skills. We were still a misfit, but on a much smaller scale.
Now, it's like, after all that therapy.....we're back to being the misfit kid we once were, only older. We really wish we hadn't done the therapy, but it's a little late in the day to worry about it now.
And now it turns out we're blanking out things, more than just words. (We often lose words when we speak - it's embarrassing. We didn't used to do that. It's a weird feeling, to know you know a familiar word or someone's name, but you just can't find it in your brain at the moment.)
Now we're thinking, if we're to keep from being totally isolated and miserable, we will need to offer up some semblance of an explanation to people. We don't want to say, "I have a mental illness." That elicits fear or pity - we don't want either one. (Goddammit, we just want a normal life.....but, another thing it's a little late for is self-pity. Not to mention that would only make things worse. It's time to marshal our resources, not fall apart.
(Can tell Forest is close by - I'm using some of the terms he uses.)
This midlife crisis thing, for a multiple, is a real pickle. We all have our different feelings about it - lost hopes and dreams, etc.
Our marriage to Rusty being what it is right now, is a fine example of awful timing. (Before we became disabled, sounds better.....but, that's all in the past, and now it's today.)
So we have to realize, and deal with, the fact that we obviously still have blackouts. (As Skeet2431, we have a beautiful icon of a tree. As Brandon 2431, we haven't been able to figure out how to use icons on LJ. Looking at that old journal, was such a shock.)
Anyway. The age thing. Forest is the least affected by it, because to him 48 is actually young. But to others of us, it's difficult. Brandon in particular - he's afraid no one outside ourselves will ever love him or like him, because they won't ever be able to see him.
This is a lot to deal with tonight, so I'm not going to deal with it tonight, I'm going to wait.
Now, it's like, after all that therapy.....we're back to being the misfit kid we once were, only older. We really wish we hadn't done the therapy, but it's a little late in the day to worry about it now.
And now it turns out we're blanking out things, more than just words. (We often lose words when we speak - it's embarrassing. We didn't used to do that. It's a weird feeling, to know you know a familiar word or someone's name, but you just can't find it in your brain at the moment.)
Now we're thinking, if we're to keep from being totally isolated and miserable, we will need to offer up some semblance of an explanation to people. We don't want to say, "I have a mental illness." That elicits fear or pity - we don't want either one. (Goddammit, we just want a normal life.....but, another thing it's a little late for is self-pity. Not to mention that would only make things worse. It's time to marshal our resources, not fall apart.
(Can tell Forest is close by - I'm using some of the terms he uses.)
This midlife crisis thing, for a multiple, is a real pickle. We all have our different feelings about it - lost hopes and dreams, etc.
Our marriage to Rusty being what it is right now, is a fine example of awful timing. (Before we became disabled, sounds better.....but, that's all in the past, and now it's today.)
So we have to realize, and deal with, the fact that we obviously still have blackouts. (As Skeet2431, we have a beautiful icon of a tree. As Brandon 2431, we haven't been able to figure out how to use icons on LJ. Looking at that old journal, was such a shock.)
Anyway. The age thing. Forest is the least affected by it, because to him 48 is actually young. But to others of us, it's difficult. Brandon in particular - he's afraid no one outside ourselves will ever love him or like him, because they won't ever be able to see him.
This is a lot to deal with tonight, so I'm not going to deal with it tonight, I'm going to wait.
Okay, this is weird.
We would have sworn up and down that we haven't had blackouts for a very long time. But we just found some old entries on Livejournal, where we used the tag name Skeet2431.....and they were all written in a blackout. We remember discovering Livejournal and using the tag name Brandon 2431....and being so delighted at this wonderful new thing called Livejournal, that we'd never encountered before. Now it turns out we not only encountered it, we started an earlier journal on it. Forest wrote in it, and Alex.....Lige didn't write in it, but we were speaking back and forth with him while we wrote in it.....and *none* of us remembered a damn thing about it.
That, is really freaking weird.
Also, the first journal isn't that old. It was written not long before we started the second one, thinking the second was the first.
This is a stone cold trip, and nobody in here is okay with it. Right now we're thinking, no wonder people look at us weird and treat us weird. How many things do we do for the 'first' time, that we've done before and don't remember ? How many conversations, that type of thing ? How often is there just a bit of a glitch, and we don't remember....?
This is really making us doubt ourselves.
We would have sworn up and down that we haven't had blackouts for a very long time. But we just found some old entries on Livejournal, where we used the tag name Skeet2431.....and they were all written in a blackout. We remember discovering Livejournal and using the tag name Brandon 2431....and being so delighted at this wonderful new thing called Livejournal, that we'd never encountered before. Now it turns out we not only encountered it, we started an earlier journal on it. Forest wrote in it, and Alex.....Lige didn't write in it, but we were speaking back and forth with him while we wrote in it.....and *none* of us remembered a damn thing about it.
That, is really freaking weird.
Also, the first journal isn't that old. It was written not long before we started the second one, thinking the second was the first.
This is a stone cold trip, and nobody in here is okay with it. Right now we're thinking, no wonder people look at us weird and treat us weird. How many things do we do for the 'first' time, that we've done before and don't remember ? How many conversations, that type of thing ? How often is there just a bit of a glitch, and we don't remember....?
This is really making us doubt ourselves.
I went back to school for all the wrong reasons, and I've bitten off more than I can chew at this point. (This is Stef, but all the fronters are aware I'm writing this.)
These past few days have been especially hard for Lige, as well as myself. We've had to look at *really* having a disability, *really* having PTSD, *really* having paranoia, and quite possibly *really* being bipolar as well. Also, we've had to look at the possibility that this stuff is never going to go away.
At the same time, every one of us has had to look at what we're left to work with now as far as our physical body, at the age of almost 48, and after a great deal of trauma and a dreat deal of very damaging overmedication. Most of us have trouble dealing with our appearance. Alex and Forest (especially Forest) have trouble dealing with our physical limitations, as far as being fit and able to fight. (A manifestation of paranoia, I know....but to us it's very real and very important.)
To add to that, one thing we've learned over time, is that Rusty simply does not have it in him to understand these things. To him, if we can get up and get dressed, we should be able to work or go to school like everybody else. (Al Anon issue here, we need to let this be his stuff and not ours.) All the years we've spent together, make no difference in this area. This is just part of his makeup. To him, a person is either fully capable, or an invalid. If someone can't work due to mental illness, that someone becomes less of a person, period.
Or, that's how it seems to us, and has seemed for a very long time.
Anyway. School. We're back in a class now, but it's not a college class, it's another Adult Basic Education math class. (Because we really do need the math.) It's not a for-credit class, so we skip it as often as not, and just do the homework on the computer. (Which actually *is* very helpful as far as learning it.....the repetition.)
We're thinking of trying for our CNA license, *just in case* something happens to our SSI and we have to support ourselves. (Mostly Lige's influence there. He simply can not get okay with having no Plan B. He's never trusted anyone else, including the government or our husband, to support us if it comes down to it. I don't think he ever will.)
Twelve-step issuse here. (TRIGGER - CHILD ABUSE, MENTALLY ILL PARENT, RELIGION.)
We've been asked if we can't simply trust in our Higher Power to care for us. And the answer, to a certain extent, is no. Our Higher Power has kept us alive.....but has not kept us from abuse and misery, not even in childhood. So, we trust our Higher Power to keep us alive until we die - but we feel like avoiding misery and abuse and deprivation, is on us.
Our parents (partly due to our mother being bipolar and paranoid) abused us and neglected us, including some pretty severe medical neglect. In our marriage, Rusty has deprived us of some basic human needs, and also abused us. And the mental health system, we don't even want to go there....
So, yeah. We've learned waht we've learned, and where we're at right now is where we're at right now.
We do *not* believe that this was our Higher Power's specific will for us; that our Higher Power chose this for us. (Or for Rusty or our parents or our kids, for that matter.) This creates a rift between us and many people in AA and Al Anon locally.....some popular local sayings are around God having a plan. Well, we don't believe God (whoever or wahtever God is) planned for horrible things to happen to specific indivuals. To us, it's obvious that God *allows* these things to happen, the possibility is there.....but the specific things happen rather randomly, and no one is immune.
That's what we have to believe, at this point. Otherwise we couldn't do this.
Anyway, that's all getting pretty deep, and I need to get dressed and see if I can catch part of class today.
These past few days have been especially hard for Lige, as well as myself. We've had to look at *really* having a disability, *really* having PTSD, *really* having paranoia, and quite possibly *really* being bipolar as well. Also, we've had to look at the possibility that this stuff is never going to go away.
At the same time, every one of us has had to look at what we're left to work with now as far as our physical body, at the age of almost 48, and after a great deal of trauma and a dreat deal of very damaging overmedication. Most of us have trouble dealing with our appearance. Alex and Forest (especially Forest) have trouble dealing with our physical limitations, as far as being fit and able to fight. (A manifestation of paranoia, I know....but to us it's very real and very important.)
To add to that, one thing we've learned over time, is that Rusty simply does not have it in him to understand these things. To him, if we can get up and get dressed, we should be able to work or go to school like everybody else. (Al Anon issue here, we need to let this be his stuff and not ours.) All the years we've spent together, make no difference in this area. This is just part of his makeup. To him, a person is either fully capable, or an invalid. If someone can't work due to mental illness, that someone becomes less of a person, period.
Or, that's how it seems to us, and has seemed for a very long time.
Anyway. School. We're back in a class now, but it's not a college class, it's another Adult Basic Education math class. (Because we really do need the math.) It's not a for-credit class, so we skip it as often as not, and just do the homework on the computer. (Which actually *is* very helpful as far as learning it.....the repetition.)
We're thinking of trying for our CNA license, *just in case* something happens to our SSI and we have to support ourselves. (Mostly Lige's influence there. He simply can not get okay with having no Plan B. He's never trusted anyone else, including the government or our husband, to support us if it comes down to it. I don't think he ever will.)
Twelve-step issuse here. (TRIGGER - CHILD ABUSE, MENTALLY ILL PARENT, RELIGION.)
We've been asked if we can't simply trust in our Higher Power to care for us. And the answer, to a certain extent, is no. Our Higher Power has kept us alive.....but has not kept us from abuse and misery, not even in childhood. So, we trust our Higher Power to keep us alive until we die - but we feel like avoiding misery and abuse and deprivation, is on us.
Our parents (partly due to our mother being bipolar and paranoid) abused us and neglected us, including some pretty severe medical neglect. In our marriage, Rusty has deprived us of some basic human needs, and also abused us. And the mental health system, we don't even want to go there....
So, yeah. We've learned waht we've learned, and where we're at right now is where we're at right now.
We do *not* believe that this was our Higher Power's specific will for us; that our Higher Power chose this for us. (Or for Rusty or our parents or our kids, for that matter.) This creates a rift between us and many people in AA and Al Anon locally.....some popular local sayings are around God having a plan. Well, we don't believe God (whoever or wahtever God is) planned for horrible things to happen to specific indivuals. To us, it's obvious that God *allows* these things to happen, the possibility is there.....but the specific things happen rather randomly, and no one is immune.
That's what we have to believe, at this point. Otherwise we couldn't do this.
Anyway, that's all getting pretty deep, and I need to get dressed and see if I can catch part of class today.
But I know there isn't any. I don't know what to do. I'm really scared. (This is Brandon, by the way.)
I don't even know where to start with what's wrong. EVERYTHING is wrong. This is not my home! This is not my body! I'm not 47 - I'm 14! It's too hard, going around pretending to be 47! Elijah's scaring the FUCK out of me, talking about how there are people he'd like to kill, and he's not kidding.....Freddie thinks we're going to hell unless we go back to doing the Christian thing. I don't know whether to think there's a God or not, if there is I CERTAINLY hope it's not that one in the Bible because he's mean! I could live with a Jesus, in fact it I like the idea of him being for real. He was nice. But none of us, not even Freddie could live up to all that stuff that it takes to follow him. Because the person who used to be our mom is a monster now, the woman who was our mother at one time doesn't even exist any more.....and we can't be a good Christian and abandon our own mother. But we can't stand to be around her, talk to her.....even think about her very much.
And then there's Rusty. We used to think he loved us. Now, we hate him on so many levels. We don't trust him.
My words are getting all bottled up, I can't even write....
I just want my mom, but I don't have one. I want to go home, and this isn't my home. In the old house, I felt safe with Russell and Brittany there. They never knew it was me who was out, they never knew about me being younger than them.....and Russell just makes me feel safe.
I wish I had a real mom, and she would put her arms around me and hug me and tell me everything was going to be all right.
I feel like such a baby. I wish I was brave. But I'm not.
Forest is brave.....why doesn't he come out any more ?
Elijah is scaring me. He's obsessed with being ready to go back to work, in case we have to, in case things get weird with Rusty again....
what I think is, what if it really is true that we ARE disabled ? What if our best option is life IS to stay with Rusty ?
He's being nicer these days....but he's been nice before.
We never tell him who's out any more. We all pretend to be Stef. We've thought and thought about lying to him, and to everybody else in our face to face life, and saying we're not multiple any more, that we've integrated. Because, what if we get a chance for a job or for another relationship, and then we can't have that because of our multiplicity ?
A couple of weeks ago, Stef actually did think we existed only inside now, that we didn't come out any more now that she was in school. But then there was a thing on TV about this couple with ten kids, and they took all ten kids to the dentist.....and that really tripped me out,
thinking about dentists again. (I hate myself for being such a.....well, I won't use the word I was thinking. Such a wuss. I'm too old for that.)
I wish I could just TELL someone that I'm here and I want somebody to hug me and I want somebody to talk to that will just listen to me. I wish I could tell somebody how lonely I am. I don't feel comfortable around most women in their forties! We don't have anything to talk about, and they just think I'm weird!
If I was in my own body, there wouldn't be anything weird about me other than being such a coward around dentists and doctors. But in this body, in this life, all of a sudden I'm weird, even though I'm exactly the same person. It's so hard to pretend to be Stef all the time, I'd rather just be left alone, if it wasn't for getting so lonely.
Nobody just listens. And nobody has any hugs that are for free.
Yeah, I know, that's self-pitying. Tough. Tough shit. I get to have my feelings.
This is going to sound wrong, too....but it all seems to come back to Rusty. I feel like if we could trust the relationship with him, we could relax. But, we know we can't trust him.
No, it's not all his fault. We know our part(s) in it. But.....to just clean up our side of the street, and then 'trust our Higher Power'.....the truth is, we don't trust our Higher Power. Now Freddie's really scared because I wrote that, and I feel guilty too, because we have a lot to be grateful for. But then, every so often it all goes to pieces, and I'm supposed to be all serene about it but I'm not!
I wish I had somebody here that I could reveal myself to tonight. But I'm sure not going to trust Rusty with anything!
I don't know. I don't know what to do. It's so lonely here, and it's so lonely just being around middle aged people that I have NOTHING in common with....people don't think this is real, but it IS.
If anybody's reading this and you feel like chewing my ass out right now, please don't. I really do need a break. I know, I'm not supposed to need a break. But I do. I need to be able to write this stuff. I need to be able to either tell somebody and not get chewed out about it, or at least write it down and sort it out myself. Or let one of the others sort it out. Something. I need something. I'm lost, and I'm hidden. I walk by a lot of people on days when I go out of the house - but nobody sees me.
I don't even know where to start with what's wrong. EVERYTHING is wrong. This is not my home! This is not my body! I'm not 47 - I'm 14! It's too hard, going around pretending to be 47! Elijah's scaring the FUCK out of me, talking about how there are people he'd like to kill, and he's not kidding.....Freddie thinks we're going to hell unless we go back to doing the Christian thing. I don't know whether to think there's a God or not, if there is I CERTAINLY hope it's not that one in the Bible because he's mean! I could live with a Jesus, in fact it I like the idea of him being for real. He was nice. But none of us, not even Freddie could live up to all that stuff that it takes to follow him. Because the person who used to be our mom is a monster now, the woman who was our mother at one time doesn't even exist any more.....and we can't be a good Christian and abandon our own mother. But we can't stand to be around her, talk to her.....even think about her very much.
And then there's Rusty. We used to think he loved us. Now, we hate him on so many levels. We don't trust him.
My words are getting all bottled up, I can't even write....
I just want my mom, but I don't have one. I want to go home, and this isn't my home. In the old house, I felt safe with Russell and Brittany there. They never knew it was me who was out, they never knew about me being younger than them.....and Russell just makes me feel safe.
I wish I had a real mom, and she would put her arms around me and hug me and tell me everything was going to be all right.
I feel like such a baby. I wish I was brave. But I'm not.
Forest is brave.....why doesn't he come out any more ?
Elijah is scaring me. He's obsessed with being ready to go back to work, in case we have to, in case things get weird with Rusty again....
what I think is, what if it really is true that we ARE disabled ? What if our best option is life IS to stay with Rusty ?
He's being nicer these days....but he's been nice before.
We never tell him who's out any more. We all pretend to be Stef. We've thought and thought about lying to him, and to everybody else in our face to face life, and saying we're not multiple any more, that we've integrated. Because, what if we get a chance for a job or for another relationship, and then we can't have that because of our multiplicity ?
A couple of weeks ago, Stef actually did think we existed only inside now, that we didn't come out any more now that she was in school. But then there was a thing on TV about this couple with ten kids, and they took all ten kids to the dentist.....and that really tripped me out,
thinking about dentists again. (I hate myself for being such a.....well, I won't use the word I was thinking. Such a wuss. I'm too old for that.)
I wish I could just TELL someone that I'm here and I want somebody to hug me and I want somebody to talk to that will just listen to me. I wish I could tell somebody how lonely I am. I don't feel comfortable around most women in their forties! We don't have anything to talk about, and they just think I'm weird!
If I was in my own body, there wouldn't be anything weird about me other than being such a coward around dentists and doctors. But in this body, in this life, all of a sudden I'm weird, even though I'm exactly the same person. It's so hard to pretend to be Stef all the time, I'd rather just be left alone, if it wasn't for getting so lonely.
Nobody just listens. And nobody has any hugs that are for free.
Yeah, I know, that's self-pitying. Tough. Tough shit. I get to have my feelings.
This is going to sound wrong, too....but it all seems to come back to Rusty. I feel like if we could trust the relationship with him, we could relax. But, we know we can't trust him.
No, it's not all his fault. We know our part(s) in it. But.....to just clean up our side of the street, and then 'trust our Higher Power'.....the truth is, we don't trust our Higher Power. Now Freddie's really scared because I wrote that, and I feel guilty too, because we have a lot to be grateful for. But then, every so often it all goes to pieces, and I'm supposed to be all serene about it but I'm not!
I wish I had somebody here that I could reveal myself to tonight. But I'm sure not going to trust Rusty with anything!
I don't know. I don't know what to do. It's so lonely here, and it's so lonely just being around middle aged people that I have NOTHING in common with....people don't think this is real, but it IS.
If anybody's reading this and you feel like chewing my ass out right now, please don't. I really do need a break. I know, I'm not supposed to need a break. But I do. I need to be able to write this stuff. I need to be able to either tell somebody and not get chewed out about it, or at least write it down and sort it out myself. Or let one of the others sort it out. Something. I need something. I'm lost, and I'm hidden. I walk by a lot of people on days when I go out of the house - but nobody sees me.
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