Saturday, September 25, 2010
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Sometimes it just hurts....no matter how hard you try to not let it.
*Note* this post was supposed to be on my other blog, but somehow it accidentally got in this blog...have non clue...oh well...it is what it is...you might want to check my other blog out as reference to the top far right side of this blog...just click on 'My life experiences"...it will take you there.
The last month or so, my sister and I have been talking about seeing my Father....maybe for the last time....he's been so sick for so long, one day it's bound to happen. Right before my sister came up here to Southern Oregon to live, she called my mom and dad (they call her and such through the years and especially since she fell and went into a coma last year (that's okay now she healed pretty much from that, but it was touch and go for a while then, and the Dr. told her she is lucky she lived and got through it. She started having liver and kidney failure during the coma, and the Dr. said that her drinking "hard" and being an active alcoholic for so long greatly contributed to the "touch and go" for a while)....okay, where was I again? Oh, yeah, in reference to my seeing my Father. Anyway she called my mom and dad and said she would like to go down to southern California and see them before she took the train up here to Oregon. My sister had told me that she thought it might be the last time she sees Dad, or maybe even my mother, you never know. She had not seen them in many years, but not as long as it's been for me. Let's see now...about 25 years or so? Yes, I know pretty bad. They never really wanted to see me. My mom upon almost losing her youngest daughter of the three (my younger sister here in Oregon) going into the coma last year, tried to "reconnect" with me via e-mail (if that's what you want to call it) but it was mostly she had a "plan"...for me to take care of my sister if she survived the coma. I understood her "plan" quite well, though she never made it blunt she may have well as. Nothing asked about me or how am I doing, etc...just stupid stuff in her e-mails...her little "mind games" with me. So, my mom and dad agreed told her to come on down and my sister made sure the friend that drove her down there had another place to stay, because my mom and dad DO NOT let their children ever spend the night or for a "visit"...that would freak them out! So, anyway my sister said the "meeting" and little chat they had went fairly "okay" she said. You never know when Dad is going to start "spouting off" or say the wrong thing...he's always been like that. She told me he told her she was getting "Fat"..for heavens sake my sister comes out of a coma and weeks later comes to California to stay with a friend and no home or place to call her own (her and I have that in common in the last few years or so) and my Father tells her she is "getting fat"...she has always been slim...and just had a few extra lbs. on her, due (I was pretty sure) to the anti-depressants she was on...when she told me what she was specifically taking I knew one of the major side affects was "weight gain". Well, thanks for that Dad!
My sister and I had talked about trying to go and see mom and dad once she got a bit settled here, so I was surprised to hear she had already gone to see them. Anyway, my sister and I talked about taking a train trip down there together to see my mom and dad soon. She understood where I was coming from and did have the understanding that I am "More" the black sheep than she, though I have never done anything really wrong, in my opinion other than "standing up and speaking up for my sisters and I" during our childhood and upon growing up. I was never mean and such. I know it really sucked the life out of my mom and dad to have to keep "bailing" my sister out of her "situations" she always found herself in through the years...with her addictions and all, car accidents, going to jail, them bailing her out and us going to court with her and an attorney, etc...through the years. It's funny I never had the "messed up addiction" issues, but I know that my mom and dad burned out from helping her out through the years, and her having a daughter I knew me not having one, that I was not as important to my mom and dad as my other two sisters who had children. Hate to say what I just wrote but it is really the honest truth. Believe me, I went through years of therapy working on that one! Ironic that out of the three of us sisters (I am the middle child) I married first. I tried to get pregnant for many years, went through a lot, emotionally and physically...there were other health issues, and through those years I ended up having 9 surgeries. That's another story in itself...and my whole family treated me awful about all that I went through with that...they literally "pretended" I was "fine" through those difficult years and I was also told time and time again by my mother and father, how I had "so disappointed them that I was not able to give them a grandchild".....they had no concern for what I was going through physically or emotionally trying to conceive...I never did...perhaps it was meant to be that way for me since I have a serious health problem that is genetic....I've often thought.
Okay, so the whole point of this post is to give you a little idea of how my mom and dad went through a lot with my younger sister, paying her bills, renting her places to live for her and her daughter...me on my own "always" taking care of myself once my marriage ended in divorce. I was far away in another state, easy to forget and "pretend" I didn't exist. There is much more about how the way they treated me all this time but won't get into that now. I had always felt that they had always rewarded my younger sister for her bad behavior and constant screw ups and oh her poor daughter having as a teenager go drag mom out of a bar and be "the grown up"...her hurt is still there but since my sister went into that coma, much has changed for her and I...we have changed and trying to let a lot of stuff "go"...but things do come up. As a matter of fact my sister's daughter has similar feelings to how she was treated by her mom and the "divorced dad who married my sisters best friend"....she and I are more independent because of the tough times we've gone through and being the "little adults" trying to take care of the adults.
So, I finally got up the nerve to agree to go with my sister on a train to visit with my Mom and Dad. It took a lot of talking it out in therapy and with my sister. I did try to warn her that it had been over 25 years since my seeing them, and I tried to warn her, that my relationship with mom and dad was very different than hers with them. Like non existent! I tried to tell her that because I had no children mom and dad had mostly just "brushed me off" and I had to learn how to be very independent and "tougher" than I would have liked to be but that that is why I am still alive after all. I took care of "me" all these years and nobody else did...no one..not even when I really desperately needed help and my family "knew I was alone and did need help big time"...my sister just wasn't getting it....so okay, she calls me up and tells me that mom called her to check on her and she told her all excited "mom guess what I got Barbara to agree for us to go together on a train to come and see you and dad"!.....I could tell when my sister called me and told me this that she was upset and I knew why.....she said she felt bad to tell me of mom and dad's reaction. I was prepared it there was a 50-50 chance they would agree or say "no way"....they said "no way"! big time! My sister was crying said she felt awful and how sorry she was...she said she was stunned to know and now she said she "understood" what I had tried to warn her about...I was more prepared than she was. After all to me at this time, it was more about me doing this for Dad, as who knows how long he has.....even mom....but they were very curt and upset and abrupt about it she said in their rejecting the offer of the visit.
So, anyway I am trying to absorb this "rejection" along with their general "rejection" and my sister saying to me "this is my fault I burdened them so much all those years and they only helped me because I had a daughter and you didn't"....I said well yes that's mainly true but there were "other reasons"...which I did not get into....however I must say I have felt for many many years now, like I was being "punished" for not "screwing up" or becoming an addict" and or getting myself into constant trouble and trying to always be responsible and do the right thing and to take care of myself and to "survive" and my sister has been rewarded for not taking care of herself and her life! That I did...survive that is...but at times I have felt this is all that I have done..
The main issue is that I don't get enough time in between to "live a life"...and so the deal with the ex boyfriend and the "Bitch manager landlord" here trying to intimidate me because she can't seem to do her job and be a "professional" or "mature grown up person" along with the assistant manager showing up at my apartment during the night "drunk as a skunk" and in a "rage of anger" well you can see that I am pretty hurt and overwhelmed here! My therapists daughter had cancer and she just recently passed away, so I have started of late with a new therapist....as long "we single women without families" keep going through this stuff and me having PTSD they say we will always need some kind of ongoing therapy....sad to say. I studied psychology years back and have always been told in therapy through the years that I am "emotionally intelligent" and smart....but a lot of good it does me hey?...:o(...I know the "intimidating games" these people play and "prey" on a single women, thinking we will not speak up or stand up for ourselves out of fear. I have faced many fears and walked through many fires...but with PTSD along with my medical health issue.....it's getting to just be like a rerun..
Meeting my new therapist and us starting "the work" is different this time. She is trying to help me "work on retraining my brain" to not jump out of fear and literally my "bed" when this Bitchy woman comes banging and banging at my front door early in morning with no call or warning she is coming...she is doing it because I call the housing authority "very politely" about the issues and problems and how nothing is being done or repaired or incorrect financial issues that the landlord does not know what she is doing...she smokes too..so she will "NOT" instill the new "no smoking outside anywhere near the apartment"...they have to walk to a public sidewalk and not in the apartment complex parking lot. This landlord will not do it because she smokes! Duh! So it went into affect on Sept. 1st this month and no one has seen any change..they are all hanging out there near the apartment window taking their "drags" and it makes me and others sick. My new therapist upon meeting her looks like a younger version of me...she could be my younger sister...though she is not blond but brunette like me...I swear I felt like I was looking at myself in the mirror upon meeting her. I like her attitude. "well, "B", your "Bitch landlord" (don't get mad at me this is what my therapist has labeled her and we are to call her that in therapy "the Bitch"...cannot legally come banging at my door without "a suitable time frame of notice"...so my therapist has given me an assignment...it's to "practice" to pretend that the "Bitch" is banging on my door without stopping and ringing and ringing my doorbell early in the morning and I try to not jump "awake" in a fright with my heart racing...I practice taking a deep breath coming out of a deep sleep and walking slowly to the front door, look out of my peephole on the door, and if it is the "Bitch" landlord I am to ignore her, walk slowly back to the bedroom, make sure I pick up my cat and take her into the bedroom with me, as she freaks out with all this also! Then I shut the bedroom door and have a nice calm cd in my cd player and turn it on and sit down in bed and try to "stay calm"....as time goes on I hopefully will not "jump" as the landlord wants to barge in and go "at me" when I am not dressed nor even half awake! As time goes on we are hoping that said landlord will finally "pick up" on why I am doing this and if she does not and were to phone me or ask upon seeing me downstairs why I am not answering the door when she "comes banging at it early in the morning because housing called her and she is pissed at me because of my calling them and making her look bad" without notice, only then my therapist said I am to say "You are to give me a suitable time frame call notice of 8 to 24 hrs. before I am to then either give you permission or "not permission" to enter my apartment, read it, it's in the lease"...so we will see...
All for now aren't you glad? Oh by the way many women here are "livid" when the gossip spread around her like wildfire that the assistant manager was in a "raging drunk" when he came up to fix my toilet. Now many here are beginning to ask what their rights are and things are "a changing" here slowly but surely. But most of all my new therapist who I feel very comfortable with doesn't want me to have to go through this "crap" anymore and she says's if she has to, down the road, since she is with the county, she is able to call the housing authority and let them know what is going on here!
Well, today was the 9/11 and I prayed and hoped for a huge healing for all of us...let's make it so...in regards to prejudging, bigotry, arguing about who's "religion is the best or "real one'...time to stop breaking us all apart and more of a "coming together" of acceptance and tolerance. There are also very radical fundamental Christians who are brought up on "hate" and believe me I know I grew up in a family like this...Thank to higher power that I decided to get out of it all before it was too late for me! As there are also radical muslims spreading hate and anger and "pay back" but at the same time, we have used their countries for oil and spilled the blood of so many there we don't count or talk about enough! Innocent women, children and men! Also many young muslim men and women are "brainwashed" and taken advantage of by the radical muslim taliban terrorist type people who convince them that it is the muslim way to kill and punish those who are Americans or invading their country and or claiming they are there to make "Democracy" happen...how can you have a democracy there? They have their own muslim traditions and rules....democracy there is impossible!...these young men and women often have no recourse or no place to go and are brainwashed easily when young and innocent to become young taliban soldiers.....what a sick way to try to recruit them!....sound familiar? I have seen some Christian families teach their children similar traits to have and feel towards others who are "different" than them and who they tell them are going to "hell"...well enough of this...the anniversary of 9/11 has gone and past now for this year...let's make the horrific thing that happened way back when into a learning experience...to turn the other cheek, stop getting mean and angry and "bigoted" and stop turning into what you say you hate seeing...stop being a hypocrite. Let's not "divide" this county and let's not have one side always say "no" no matter what it is or who it is helping...stop paying Obama back because you think he is a Muslim (he is NOT!) and stop fearing that he is partly black...big deal...who cares...accept and grow and learn to love others and turn night into daylight...let the sun shine on us all. Accept that life changes as we grow...stop living in the past we are in the here and now!! And please as Crosby, Stills, and Nash said in their song "Teach your children well" !
Love,
Rhiannon
The last month or so, my sister and I have been talking about seeing my Father....maybe for the last time....he's been so sick for so long, one day it's bound to happen. Right before my sister came up here to Southern Oregon to live, she called my mom and dad (they call her and such through the years and especially since she fell and went into a coma last year (that's okay now she healed pretty much from that, but it was touch and go for a while then, and the Dr. told her she is lucky she lived and got through it. She started having liver and kidney failure during the coma, and the Dr. said that her drinking "hard" and being an active alcoholic for so long greatly contributed to the "touch and go" for a while)....okay, where was I again? Oh, yeah, in reference to my seeing my Father. Anyway she called my mom and dad and said she would like to go down to southern California and see them before she took the train up here to Oregon. My sister had told me that she thought it might be the last time she sees Dad, or maybe even my mother, you never know. She had not seen them in many years, but not as long as it's been for me. Let's see now...about 25 years or so? Yes, I know pretty bad. They never really wanted to see me. My mom upon almost losing her youngest daughter of the three (my younger sister here in Oregon) going into the coma last year, tried to "reconnect" with me via e-mail (if that's what you want to call it) but it was mostly she had a "plan"...for me to take care of my sister if she survived the coma. I understood her "plan" quite well, though she never made it blunt she may have well as. Nothing asked about me or how am I doing, etc...just stupid stuff in her e-mails...her little "mind games" with me. So, my mom and dad agreed told her to come on down and my sister made sure the friend that drove her down there had another place to stay, because my mom and dad DO NOT let their children ever spend the night or for a "visit"...that would freak them out! So, anyway my sister said the "meeting" and little chat they had went fairly "okay" she said. You never know when Dad is going to start "spouting off" or say the wrong thing...he's always been like that. She told me he told her she was getting "Fat"..for heavens sake my sister comes out of a coma and weeks later comes to California to stay with a friend and no home or place to call her own (her and I have that in common in the last few years or so) and my Father tells her she is "getting fat"...she has always been slim...and just had a few extra lbs. on her, due (I was pretty sure) to the anti-depressants she was on...when she told me what she was specifically taking I knew one of the major side affects was "weight gain". Well, thanks for that Dad!
My sister and I had talked about trying to go and see mom and dad once she got a bit settled here, so I was surprised to hear she had already gone to see them. Anyway, my sister and I talked about taking a train trip down there together to see my mom and dad soon. She understood where I was coming from and did have the understanding that I am "More" the black sheep than she, though I have never done anything really wrong, in my opinion other than "standing up and speaking up for my sisters and I" during our childhood and upon growing up. I was never mean and such. I know it really sucked the life out of my mom and dad to have to keep "bailing" my sister out of her "situations" she always found herself in through the years...with her addictions and all, car accidents, going to jail, them bailing her out and us going to court with her and an attorney, etc...through the years. It's funny I never had the "messed up addiction" issues, but I know that my mom and dad burned out from helping her out through the years, and her having a daughter I knew me not having one, that I was not as important to my mom and dad as my other two sisters who had children. Hate to say what I just wrote but it is really the honest truth. Believe me, I went through years of therapy working on that one! Ironic that out of the three of us sisters (I am the middle child) I married first. I tried to get pregnant for many years, went through a lot, emotionally and physically...there were other health issues, and through those years I ended up having 9 surgeries. That's another story in itself...and my whole family treated me awful about all that I went through with that...they literally "pretended" I was "fine" through those difficult years and I was also told time and time again by my mother and father, how I had "so disappointed them that I was not able to give them a grandchild".....they had no concern for what I was going through physically or emotionally trying to conceive...I never did...perhaps it was meant to be that way for me since I have a serious health problem that is genetic....I've often thought.
Okay, so the whole point of this post is to give you a little idea of how my mom and dad went through a lot with my younger sister, paying her bills, renting her places to live for her and her daughter...me on my own "always" taking care of myself once my marriage ended in divorce. I was far away in another state, easy to forget and "pretend" I didn't exist. There is much more about how the way they treated me all this time but won't get into that now. I had always felt that they had always rewarded my younger sister for her bad behavior and constant screw ups and oh her poor daughter having as a teenager go drag mom out of a bar and be "the grown up"...her hurt is still there but since my sister went into that coma, much has changed for her and I...we have changed and trying to let a lot of stuff "go"...but things do come up. As a matter of fact my sister's daughter has similar feelings to how she was treated by her mom and the "divorced dad who married my sisters best friend"....she and I are more independent because of the tough times we've gone through and being the "little adults" trying to take care of the adults.
So, I finally got up the nerve to agree to go with my sister on a train to visit with my Mom and Dad. It took a lot of talking it out in therapy and with my sister. I did try to warn her that it had been over 25 years since my seeing them, and I tried to warn her, that my relationship with mom and dad was very different than hers with them. Like non existent! I tried to tell her that because I had no children mom and dad had mostly just "brushed me off" and I had to learn how to be very independent and "tougher" than I would have liked to be but that that is why I am still alive after all. I took care of "me" all these years and nobody else did...no one..not even when I really desperately needed help and my family "knew I was alone and did need help big time"...my sister just wasn't getting it....so okay, she calls me up and tells me that mom called her to check on her and she told her all excited "mom guess what I got Barbara to agree for us to go together on a train to come and see you and dad"!.....I could tell when my sister called me and told me this that she was upset and I knew why.....she said she felt bad to tell me of mom and dad's reaction. I was prepared it there was a 50-50 chance they would agree or say "no way"....they said "no way"! big time! My sister was crying said she felt awful and how sorry she was...she said she was stunned to know and now she said she "understood" what I had tried to warn her about...I was more prepared than she was. After all to me at this time, it was more about me doing this for Dad, as who knows how long he has.....even mom....but they were very curt and upset and abrupt about it she said in their rejecting the offer of the visit.
So, anyway I am trying to absorb this "rejection" along with their general "rejection" and my sister saying to me "this is my fault I burdened them so much all those years and they only helped me because I had a daughter and you didn't"....I said well yes that's mainly true but there were "other reasons"...which I did not get into....however I must say I have felt for many many years now, like I was being "punished" for not "screwing up" or becoming an addict" and or getting myself into constant trouble and trying to always be responsible and do the right thing and to take care of myself and to "survive" and my sister has been rewarded for not taking care of herself and her life! That I did...survive that is...but at times I have felt this is all that I have done..
The main issue is that I don't get enough time in between to "live a life"...and so the deal with the ex boyfriend and the "Bitch manager landlord" here trying to intimidate me because she can't seem to do her job and be a "professional" or "mature grown up person" along with the assistant manager showing up at my apartment during the night "drunk as a skunk" and in a "rage of anger" well you can see that I am pretty hurt and overwhelmed here! My therapists daughter had cancer and she just recently passed away, so I have started of late with a new therapist....as long "we single women without families" keep going through this stuff and me having PTSD they say we will always need some kind of ongoing therapy....sad to say. I studied psychology years back and have always been told in therapy through the years that I am "emotionally intelligent" and smart....but a lot of good it does me hey?...:o(...I know the "intimidating games" these people play and "prey" on a single women, thinking we will not speak up or stand up for ourselves out of fear. I have faced many fears and walked through many fires...but with PTSD along with my medical health issue.....it's getting to just be like a rerun..
Meeting my new therapist and us starting "the work" is different this time. She is trying to help me "work on retraining my brain" to not jump out of fear and literally my "bed" when this Bitchy woman comes banging and banging at my front door early in morning with no call or warning she is coming...she is doing it because I call the housing authority "very politely" about the issues and problems and how nothing is being done or repaired or incorrect financial issues that the landlord does not know what she is doing...she smokes too..so she will "NOT" instill the new "no smoking outside anywhere near the apartment"...they have to walk to a public sidewalk and not in the apartment complex parking lot. This landlord will not do it because she smokes! Duh! So it went into affect on Sept. 1st this month and no one has seen any change..they are all hanging out there near the apartment window taking their "drags" and it makes me and others sick. My new therapist upon meeting her looks like a younger version of me...she could be my younger sister...though she is not blond but brunette like me...I swear I felt like I was looking at myself in the mirror upon meeting her. I like her attitude. "well, "B", your "Bitch landlord" (don't get mad at me this is what my therapist has labeled her and we are to call her that in therapy "the Bitch"...cannot legally come banging at my door without "a suitable time frame of notice"...so my therapist has given me an assignment...it's to "practice" to pretend that the "Bitch" is banging on my door without stopping and ringing and ringing my doorbell early in the morning and I try to not jump "awake" in a fright with my heart racing...I practice taking a deep breath coming out of a deep sleep and walking slowly to the front door, look out of my peephole on the door, and if it is the "Bitch" landlord I am to ignore her, walk slowly back to the bedroom, make sure I pick up my cat and take her into the bedroom with me, as she freaks out with all this also! Then I shut the bedroom door and have a nice calm cd in my cd player and turn it on and sit down in bed and try to "stay calm"....as time goes on I hopefully will not "jump" as the landlord wants to barge in and go "at me" when I am not dressed nor even half awake! As time goes on we are hoping that said landlord will finally "pick up" on why I am doing this and if she does not and were to phone me or ask upon seeing me downstairs why I am not answering the door when she "comes banging at it early in the morning because housing called her and she is pissed at me because of my calling them and making her look bad" without notice, only then my therapist said I am to say "You are to give me a suitable time frame call notice of 8 to 24 hrs. before I am to then either give you permission or "not permission" to enter my apartment, read it, it's in the lease"...so we will see...
All for now aren't you glad? Oh by the way many women here are "livid" when the gossip spread around her like wildfire that the assistant manager was in a "raging drunk" when he came up to fix my toilet. Now many here are beginning to ask what their rights are and things are "a changing" here slowly but surely. But most of all my new therapist who I feel very comfortable with doesn't want me to have to go through this "crap" anymore and she says's if she has to, down the road, since she is with the county, she is able to call the housing authority and let them know what is going on here!
Well, today was the 9/11 and I prayed and hoped for a huge healing for all of us...let's make it so...in regards to prejudging, bigotry, arguing about who's "religion is the best or "real one'...time to stop breaking us all apart and more of a "coming together" of acceptance and tolerance. There are also very radical fundamental Christians who are brought up on "hate" and believe me I know I grew up in a family like this...Thank to higher power that I decided to get out of it all before it was too late for me! As there are also radical muslims spreading hate and anger and "pay back" but at the same time, we have used their countries for oil and spilled the blood of so many there we don't count or talk about enough! Innocent women, children and men! Also many young muslim men and women are "brainwashed" and taken advantage of by the radical muslim taliban terrorist type people who convince them that it is the muslim way to kill and punish those who are Americans or invading their country and or claiming they are there to make "Democracy" happen...how can you have a democracy there? They have their own muslim traditions and rules....democracy there is impossible!...these young men and women often have no recourse or no place to go and are brainwashed easily when young and innocent to become young taliban soldiers.....what a sick way to try to recruit them!....sound familiar? I have seen some Christian families teach their children similar traits to have and feel towards others who are "different" than them and who they tell them are going to "hell"...well enough of this...the anniversary of 9/11 has gone and past now for this year...let's make the horrific thing that happened way back when into a learning experience...to turn the other cheek, stop getting mean and angry and "bigoted" and stop turning into what you say you hate seeing...stop being a hypocrite. Let's not "divide" this county and let's not have one side always say "no" no matter what it is or who it is helping...stop paying Obama back because you think he is a Muslim (he is NOT!) and stop fearing that he is partly black...big deal...who cares...accept and grow and learn to love others and turn night into daylight...let the sun shine on us all. Accept that life changes as we grow...stop living in the past we are in the here and now!! And please as Crosby, Stills, and Nash said in their song "Teach your children well" !
Love,
Rhiannon
Thursday, September 09, 2010
Melanie - Mr. Tambourine Man
I always thought Melanie's version of this song was the best. Bob Dylan even met up with her many many years ago and he said upon hearing her sing his song he thought she sang it in such a beautiful poetic way that it was his favorite version and better than his own version. I agree it's like she is singing and speaking the song at the same time...how very beautiful....give it a listen...it takes you back to our hearts and souls.
Friday, September 03, 2010
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