Saving Myself

Hello my blessed darlings!  I am sending you love and light from here.  I’ve spent the morning reading threw my articles trying to figure out, where I left off with you.  I forget sometimes you are not here with me.  So the small stuff first and then we will have time to talk about my big developments.

Team Ilsa

In May it seems I pulled a muscle in my hip and knee.  We believe that because I pushed myself so hard in the beginning, ignoring the pain, believing it was part of the process from years of not using my muscles, that I did in fact injure myself.  At the urging of Coach Jay, who used to work training football players, I took almost two weeks off and did no floor exercises and walked no farther than the barn.  I was extremely upset at the whole process.  My muscles that had lengthened and relaxed with exercise, contracted again, and caused me pain again when I worked them. 

I have had to start everything back over.  I had to start my floor exercises back at 5, down from 30.  I had days where if I made it to the gravel road, I was doing good.  We have learned that I just cannot push myself that hard.  I cannot walk and do floor exercises on the same day.  So now I am doing my floor exercises 3 days a week and walking the other four.  No matter how upset I am at myself for being fat, I have to let my body rest. All of this is still an adjustment. Just in the last few days I have made it to the first driveway, on the road across from my house. a victory, for me for sure, but a bittersweet one.  My back spasms had started to get bad again, but in the last week or two they have gotten better.  Slowly and surely it is all coming back. 

I am happy to say the new medicine the dr. put me on seems to have stopped most of my swelling, but I still continue with my exercises for fear it will return. 

I finished reading my book on nutrition.  I took many notes and it has helped, so has listening to my own body, and honoring my wants and desires.  The world of fruits and vegetables continues to be exciting one for me.  I am learning to keep certain vegetables on hand.  I have learned what is in season, is usually what is on sale.  I am learning how to freeze what I buy, but also how to incorporate more vegetables in what I cook.  My tastes seem to rotate on what vegetables I want to eat like, for instance, the last two pay checks we have bought cabbage and squash.  I probable will not buy them again this pay check.  I am kind of tired of them. 

We have also learned that a half a cabbage is plenty for us for dinner.  Three squash, sweated down with half and onion is also enough for a side dish.  I usually only want 1 or 2 bok choy and Jay does not like them.  We buy meat in bulk, divide it and freeze it ourselves.  Before we would put 4 pork chops in a container, now 2 is plenty, same with chicken.  So there has been a substantial reduction in the quantity of food we eat, verses what it was a year or even 6 months ago. 

As I have reduced my usage of salt in my diet, I have picked up my love for hot stuff again.  I just can’t get enough heat in my diet.  In the fajitas the other night I sautéed 3 jalapenos and a half a green Serrano in with my onions, garlic, and mushrooms.  Oh it was so good!  I finally got enough heat!  My craving for sugar has been going for some months now, but the other day I went to make myself a bowl of Lucky Charms, and it was just way too sweet for me.  I cannot explain it.  Maybe it is tied to us reducing our salt, maybe it is tied to my emotions.  I am still not sure.

Mom

Those of you who are following along know that I posted my article, All her sins laid bare, in May.  What most of you don’t know is that it had been on my blog almost a month before that.  I waited, kept trying, and finally gave up.  On May 27^th, the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, I sent my mom an intensely private and condemning email.  I have shared it with a few of you privately, but will not print it here.  It was 7 pages and 3,700 or so words.  It was a goodbye letter.  I have finally given up that our relationship will ever get any better.  She will continue to emotionally, mentally, and verbally abuse me, whenever she thinks she can get away with it.  As I did four years ago when she robbed me (My mother - part 2), I am trying to pick up the pieces of my broken heart and go on.

I pray that this time will be different and that I will not go back, no matter how much it pains other family members, or how I feel I am causing them pain, or hurting them.  I for the first time in many years, perhaps my life, am putting my own health and feelings ahead of everybody else.  Something, perhaps some of you will condemn me for.  That is something I will have to learn to live with. 

I have received no contact from her, since I sent the email and posted the link to my article on my Facebook.  The fact that I have blocked her from my Facebook also helps I think.  She has blessedly not responded by letter, phone, carrier pigeon, text, or email to any of this.  And for that I am grateful.  My father, Jef, has at this time remained silent on this subject as well.  I miss him dearly.  I also sent him an email, at the same time I sent mom’s, telling him how sorry I was that I had caused him any pain, and how much I loved him.  Telling him that the last year and a half that I had contact with her was because I loved him so much. 

I have picked up a good book called, “Healing the daughters of narcissistic mothers:  Will I ever be good enough?” by Dr. Karyl McBride.  It is a tremendous book.  It is causing me to look at all that was skewed in our relationship.  Why she did the things she did?  How we functioned as a family?  And I think a major cause as to why I have so many mental problems.  I know I am not alone in all this work.  It is my hope by going public with my mother’s abuse and working diligently threw all of this crap, threw all of this dirty laundry, I will in the end save myself.  And by posting this, perhaps it will help you too.

Ilsa

 

 

A year since I found myself

I just wrote down on my to do list, to remember to get out the hot glue gun out, to fix Jay’s headliner in his truck.  The irony of that is I have been staring at that problem for several years.  It’s just in the last few weeks that it has begun to bug me, and I have finally figured out how to fix it, and that is indicative of many things over this last year. 


Today is June 6^th, 2016, and it’s been a year since I started taking Buspar.  It has been perhaps the most incredible year of my life.  I could never have believed life could be this good.  For the first time in many years I feel I have come home to myself again.  Opened to new experiences, and found myself again.  My brain and heart, once dulled by sadness and pain, now seeks out beauty in each day. 

I wanted to write you about all the things that Buspar has allowed me to do, but as I have thought about it over night, I have come to realized, half of what Buspar has done for me, is about what is gone in my life.  Gone is the daily anxiety, the tapes in my head that tell me I am an awful and horrible person, that I will never be good enough, the thoughts of suicide, that all I do will just end in failure.  For the first time, that I can remember, I want to live.  I am eager to greet the dawn of each new day, not angry that I am still alive.  I don’t remember feeling this good, at least, since before Oma died, when I was 7. 

Buspar works a bit like water, it wears away and repairs the bad stuff, drop by drop.  Slowly your eyes begin to open to things around you.  I feel like I have been asleep for at least the last 10 years, if not longer.  My PTSD, from years of abuse, had left my emotions dulled.  I have had to deal with each new intense emotion as they surged in my life.  I cry at the drop of a hat, but I don’t use it like a weapon, like my mom did.  I smile.  I am happy, truly happy with my life.  I fall in love with Mr. Jay, every day all over again.  It’s not that Buspar has given me back my life, it has given me a life I never dreamed possible.

A year ago today, the computer I am typing on, sat in a dusty bag.  The desk it sits on, was covered in junk, and I felt did not belong to me.  The dirty clothes and dirty dishes were more numerous.  My grooming and personal hygiene were subpar.  I was terrified of the next moment, not knowing when I would have a panic attack, or what the cause was.  I was a woman who frequently denied or felt ashamed of her biological genealogy.  I rarely cooked dinner.  I had no energy to exercise, and back spasms ruled my life.  I was blind to the problems in my life, big or small, and had no ability to think up how to fix them.  And I seemed to constantly be seeking out people and animals to save, when the only person I wanted saved was me. 

Today I write you from this computer, no longer dusty, on a desk I now claim as mine, above it a wall of inspiration for both my book and my life.  The dishes and clothes are not piled up.  The floor has been recently swept.  My nails are chipped, but painted, as they are every week.  My grooming and personal hygiene are exemplary.  I am no longer ashamed of my biological genealogy, and in fact I am quite proud of it.  Dinner is already defrosted, and I am thinking of how to cook it, and it’s not even noon yet.  I am looking forward to my evening floor exercises, and my walk in the morning.  Now when I see a project that needs to be fixed, it does not take me long to figure out how to fix it, emotional, mechanical, or otherwise, as if my brain was spinning at a faster rpm.  Drop by drop I am saving myself. 

I find there are not enough hours in a day to listen to all the music, read, clean, or write as much as I want to, but damn it I keep trying. 

In one year, not only have I increased my reading, introduced new music in my life, have a cleaner house, but I think my greatest accomplishment has been my writing.  Since August 2015 I have produced and posted over 95 articles to this blog, and at last count 152,368 words give or take a few.  My book currently has 17 chapters and 82,959 words.  In less than a year I have produced 235,327 words. This does not include plot outline notes, articles that will not be published, interview notes, and notes taken from the self-help books I read.  Not to mention hundreds of hours of research.  It is a staggering amount, even for me.  Saturday, I introduced myself to a new person and told them I was a writer, and for the first time, I didn’t feel like a fraud when I said that. 

When I picked up my pen, proverbially, to begin writing again, and started my blog, I wrote incessantly at first, terrified it was just a side affect of the medication and that all this would go away.  I know now, it is not.  My writing is here to stay. 

I am ever grateful for all Buspar has done from me.  It has given me courage to end relationships, go on without people in my life I thought I could not, start and deepen new relationships.  I can’t wait to see what the next year holds.

Ilsa

 

 

All her sins laid bare

I have tried really hard to delay the writing of this article as long as possible, but like any good pot left to cook on the stove, my cauldron is boiling over.  This might be a little long so grab your drink and follow along if you can.

In October, Jay and I headed to Desoto Parish for a cousin’s baby shower.  We never made it.  We blew a tire, and having no spare, ‘cause you know, we are poor like that, we called for a tow truck to get us home.  It was only free for the first 15 miles, so we were towed to my parent’s house.  It was a pleasant afternoon and we had several dogs with us.  I called my parents to come and rescue us.  They came and picked me and the fur kids up, while Jay waited in the car, with lots of water, his book, and his phone for several hours, until the tow truck arrived.  Meanwhile I went home with my folks. 

I spent the next few hours on the back porch working on sketching out my book, reading, and talking to mom.  I began to talk about writing and asked if she was reading my blog.  She told me point blank, “I don’t have time for that.”  And then the story gets very strange.  She begins to tell me that someone in the family has called her, and told her how upset they are about my blog, but she refuses to tell me who it is.  She says, this person is very upset over what I have been writing, is considering blocking me, and can’t believe some of the things I have said, especially what I said about Grandpa possible molesting me.  When I confirm with mom that yes in fact I believe this happened to me, she dismisses it out of hand.  I then ask her a question about something that happened in my childhood, something I have had confirmed by others that I know did in fact happen.  She blows me off and then tells me, “Hump, You must have dreamed that.” 

The finally straw of that afternoon was mom telling me she loved me, to which I responded, “How nice.”  She then pipes up and says, “What you don’t love me too?”  I then have to explain to her, that after all she has done to me, including robbing me, I don’t know that I will ever love her again.  She seems to be devastated and is unable to comprehend this.  She has since thrown this back in my face a time or two.  Saying, “Well I know you don’t love me, but I will do this for you anyways.”

Seven months later she finally tells me who it was that called her.  This family member said that it was not fair me coming forward with my story of Grandpa abusing me, because he was not here to defend himself.  That’s right people as if it was not hard enough to tell y’all this.  I should take my attackers emotions and motives into consideration.  But hey, he is still trying to think the best of him.  More power to him.  He doesn’t want to be part of my life because I spoke my truth, more power to him. 

Even though now I know my mom was not lying about his part, this conversation on the back porch planted the seeds y’all.  My councilor, Barb, had said after my mother robbed me in March of 2012, (Read about that here in My Mother - Part 2) that she was probable a narcissist.  I had of course done the research, and yes in many ways she fit the profile, but I knew she never had lied to me, so I was unsure.  All my growing up, she would tell me, “Don’t lie to me, you will make it worse!”  and my personal favorite, “I would never lie to you!  I am your mother!!”  And I believed her.

The day this conversation took place, I had actually just started working on my book, that morning.  I was making notes, drawing up genealogy charts, and figuring out names for my characters.  As time went on, I began to delve into the psychology of some of them.  I began to look at the characteristics of emotional and mental abuse, now simply called psychological abuse.  I began to ask friends who had dealt with similar parents in their lives, how they have coped with a mother like mine. 

I was discussing all this one day on-line with Aunt Cathy’s daughter.  She had grown up knowing Beau, my mother, and me.  She said, “You know my parents lamented the fact that it seemed your mom was brainwashing you.”  I was confused and befuddled.  I asked what she meant?  She then goes on to tell me that Beau had tried to see me, and my mother would not let him.  I was taken aback.  I knew for a fact that he had not, that is what my mother had told me my entire life, “Your father abandoned us!” again and again since I can remember.  I had even recently asked her if she thought he ever loved me.  I believe mom answered with, “I don’t know, or I don’t think so.”  Sorry little fuzzy there. 

As I began to look into psychological abuse, I saw how much of that fit my life.  I decided to try a little experiment.  My mom called to ask what I wanted for my Christmas.  I told her nothing.  I knew they were struggling to put food on the table, and I said I wanted nothing. I put out an article that week or so called, Christmas 2015.  In it, I said the only thing I wanted for Christmas was socks.  I never told my mom this.  Christmas Eve, on the Christmas tree, is a pair of socks.  When I saw those socks, I knew she was reading along.  She had lied to me, point blank.  She was in fact reading along. 

A month or so later I got the chance to go to a house warming party down in Longstreet with Beau’s family.  I had the opportunity to sit down with Bobby Joe.  He was one of the few family members that were allowed to stay in my life.  I knew he loved me.  I knew he would be impartial, just as he always had been about all this.  He had always been a great resource for me to talk to about all things.  So at the party I got the chance to talk to Bobby Joe at length about these things. 

I said, “I think my Mother is lying to me.  I have lots of questions.  Things are not adding up.” 

He said, “You ask the questions and I will tell you what’s true and what’s not.”

I asked the following questions:

I: Does Beau lie?

BJ:  He would have no reason to.

I: Did Beau try to see me?  I was told he did not.

BJ:  Yes, but your Mom would not allow it.  Beau kept trying, but he finally, gave up.  After the day you came home talking about Elisha (my sister), your Mom was pissed and told Beau he was not to bring you around Sandy (Beau’s new wife) or Elisha.  Basically she cut him off and told him he couldn’t see you anymore.

 

I:  Why didn’t he sue for parental rights?

BJ: In Louisiana at that time, a man had no rights to his kids.  (It is still damned impossible in this state for a man to get sole custody of his kids, and this was 40 years ago. Judges still almost always find in favor of the mother.  The two men I know that have sole custody of their kids, got it because the mother surrendered her rights.)

I:  I know I stayed with Aunt Ruby, while mom was in the hospital, recovering from brain surgery?  Did Beau pick me up in the evening times and take me home?  I was told he did not.

BJ:  Yes, Aunt Ruby had a have a break.  Beau picked you up every night and took you home.

I:  Did Beau come to see Mom in the hospital?  I was told he only came a few times.

BJ:  That’s a lie.  Beau came every day or every other day.  He came to pick up your mom’s clothes, took them home, washed them, and brought them back.

I:  Did Beau pay child support?  I was told he did not.

BJ:  When your Beau worked for UPS it was deducted from his pay check.  He paid so much child support, he couldn’t rent a place to live.

Another family member chimed in to confirm all of this.  They then talked at length about which relatives Beau had lived with, while all this was going on.  So now I have three independent, non bias sources tell me, basically that everything that my mother told me was a lie, but then again she has been telling this story so long, she probable believes all of it.  The above conversation has had a profound impact on my life. 

In February, I dispatched an email to Beau, telling him most of what I have just told you, and with the above conversation between Bobby Joe and me.  Within a few days I received a wonderful reply back to my letter.  Confirming yes, all of the above was true.  He was so grateful that all this had come to light.  He felt like his heart was healing from all this.  I wrote to tell him how sorry I was, that for years I had continued to tell these lies.  And that now I finally believed what I had felt all along in my heart.  He loved me, he tried to see me, my mother kept him from me, and he did not abandon me. 

I have talked with councilors, family, friends, and strangers about how does one stay in relationship with a person like my mother after all this, yet keep a relationship with my Dad, Jef.  I do not want to lose him.  I love him so dearly.  Even Beau has great respect for him, because he is such an awesome guy.  And to Beau’s great testament, he refuses to speak ill of either one.  I have thought of trying to warn Dad, and tell him about all this, but I know he would side with mom, and just see it as me trying to hurt and upset his dear precious, emotional disturbed wife.  He has no idea she is a psychic vampire and has been draining both of us for years.  It’s not like they would break up, or she would get help.  He would not divorce her.  He loves her too much.

There are days I don’t want to believe all of this.  Days I just want to go back in my shell, say they are all liars, confess my sin of betraying my mother to her.  The sin you know of loving, being with, and believing my other family, beg and grovel to her, and hope above all hope she will forgive me, and give me just a morsel of the unconditional love that I need.  There are days I want to blame this all on her surgery.  There are days I want to say, “If you had a father like Grandpa you would be fucked up too, and not know how to love.”  But most of all, I worry about the phone call that will come from my Daddy Jef, when this is posted.  Saying, “Your momma’s in there crying again.  She had to take one of her panic pills and lay down.  You hurt her real bad this time Ilsa, real bad.  Those people have an agenda.”  Which will make me cry and grieve, and hurt and panic, but I am not the one who lied here, and the evidence is overwhelming.  As of this writing I now have 5 sources confirming this story.  I am not the one who is playing mind games.  It is a vicious loop, the snake biting its tail, consuming itself. 

The stress she has put me under for so long has taken a tremendous toll on my health.  My blood pressure is through the roof.  In the last year since I have started talking to her again, my periods have become all out of wack again.  In those two years while I didn’t talk to her, they were damn near perfect.  I have anxiety and panic attacks, because I am so afraid all the time of who will emotional attack me next, and not being able to get my life perfect so my mom will stop critiquing what I do, even if it is just with her tone of voice or body language.  In so many ways it has become her or me. 

As I have thought on all of this I have also considered how she has treated not just Beau’s side of the family, but other family members as well.  Her brothers she adores, their wives she calls bitches, and I have often seen her have contempt for her nieces as well.  All behind closed doors you understand.  She is polite to your face, and stabs you in the back as soon as the door closes.  Everyone she seems to find flawed and horrible. 

All of this has had a profound effect on me.  For the first time, in probable 30 years, I no longer believe I am crazy.  I am perhaps troubled, scared, gifted and / or mental ill, but not crazy, a word that has defined me for so long.  I believe that living under her rule, was like trying to build a house with broken bricks.  It just won’t stand very long.  She lied to me.  She gaslighted me, basically told me I was crazy or wrong for believing things I knew to be true, therefore making me question everything I did and not believing in myself, or that I had a stable mind.  She kept me isolated, and lied to me and made nasty comments, so I would hate not just Beau’s family, but my other family as well, at the very least keeping strong bonds from forming with those around me.  Making it seem like it was just me and her against the world. 

You know I was the good kid.  I never got in Jef’s face and said, “You’re not my real Daddy!”  I never threatened to leave and go live with Beau.  I toed the line and hated Beau, just the way she taught me too.  And in the process I hated myself because I was half his.  I wonder now if she did all this so I would not run away, or fight her, and she could keep control over me, so she could keep using me.  So she could keep me to herself and feed off of me.  No longer.

The idea that I can trust myself, and that I am not crazy, and that people are not just waiting around to hurt me, has changed my outlook on life, so has learning the truth about Beau.  I am beginning to think maybe all men are not bad, and I am beginning to lose my fear of them.  But I can still hear her in my head saying, “Don’t you ever trust no man!  You better be able to do it on your own!” 

As all this began to come to the surface, as it all began to bubble and boil if you will, it felt really familiar.  It felt like Mike.  It felt like Melinda, Marie, and Paige all over again.  In my mind, once a liar, always a liar.  I felt like I had been used all over again, like I had been a pawn in her sick game, like I had been run over by this truck before.  I began to see the connections and of course the psychological abuse all in my life.  It began to answer the questions I had of why I got involved with these people, even all the way back to Sonya in grade school.  Why I had fought for them, been so fiercely loyal to them?  They were all copies of my mother.  They say you attract to you what you want to heal, people with issues you are not done with yet.  I always thought I chose, on a subconscious level, to be an abusive relationship with Michael, because of issues with my Grandfather.  I think now it was because of issues with my mom.  All five of them were in many ways very much alike.  So much of my life has been a repeating pattern.  Here I am trying to hang on to people, and be good to them, when they didn’t deserve it.  All in the hopes they would love me back. 

For so long I have associated being loved, with being controlled.  I think that’s part of what has been hardest on my relationship with Jay, is that because he has always been so wonderful to me, there was always this thought in my mind that it was somehow not real, or I didn’t deserve it.  I know now, I am worthy of his love, and I love him more deeply today, then I did 6 month or 6 years ago.

I have yet to reveal any of this to my mother, like any of it would make a difference.  Those of you who are following along know she has seizures from her brain surgery 38 years ago.  If not you can read all about that in, Hello Ilsa, Goodbye Beau.  My mom goes for long periods of time without being nasty to me, or lying to me.  The other day she calls me and says she, “had a night seizure.”  Now she had not had a seizure in 30 or so years, not since they got her meds right.  I remember being about 5 or so, when she had her last one.  She has had no more since then.  So mom proceeds to tell me about this night seizure. 

She says, “I sat bolt right up in bed and said, ‘oh no!’  Then I saw a seizure in my head.” 

I ask if she is trying to tell me it was a “Focal Aura,” which feels like a mini seizure.  It is what would have been a seizure, had she not been on meds. 

She tells me, “No”

I said, “Wow you haven’t had a seizure in 30 years.”

She says, “Well I’ve had my night seizures.”

I am like, “What?  What the hell are you talking about?!  This is the first time you have ever said this to me!  You have consistently told me for 30 years, that you have been seizure free all these years!  No!  I think this was something else.”  She forgets I have seen her have a seizures.  She has Grand Mal’s.  She falls out on the floor, and has no memory of what has happened to her. 

She then corrects herself and says, “Oh well, maybe it was something else then.”

She’s on the phone fucking trying to lie to me, gaslight me.  And in my head I am screaming she is fucking lying to me again!  She’s still doing this to me.’  I got off the phone real quick and hung up with her. 

My parents came the other day for my birthday.  I begged them not to spend money on me.  That the greatest gift to me would be for them to buy some food, cause I knew she was going to guilt trip me and tell me how little they had at home.  They came to see me and brought pizza, at least I talked them down from taking me out to dinner. 

As she is getting ready to leave, I show her a few things with her camera, and before she leaves I show her my binder, with the first 100 pages of my book in it.  She looks up at me kind of dumbstruck and says, “Ilsa this could really turn into an income for you.”  I said, “That is what I am hoping for.”  In my mind I am thinking, you should have told me that, all the years before when you saw that I could write.  “Darling you are so talented,” is not, “Darling I think you could make a career out of this.  I believe in you.  Do what you dream.”  We have a nice time, she goes to leave and wants to kiss me.  I kiss her on the cheek.  She says no she wants a lip kiss, just as we always do.  Instead of standing my ground and saying, “No,” I kissed her.  When she left I smeared hand sanitizer on my lips.  It felt so dirty, ‘cause I know I don’t love her.  How could I?

One more thing, and then I am going to quit for the day.  My mother’s childhood friend, who I call Aunt Diane, calls me the other day, and we chat and visit about mom and other things.  I tell her about the book and then I ask her if she is following along, reading my blog. 

She says, “Ilsa, I didn’t know you were writing a blog or a book!  Why didn’t your mom tell me all this?” 

I said, “Guess it wasn’t high on her priority list.”

And I don’t want y’all to read this, and think, “Oh she’s just ragging on her mom.  Everybody’s got troubles, and crazy parents.”  And that is so true.  Beau even told me the other day, “remember your mom fed you when you were hungry, and took care of you.”  So writing this article feels in many ways like a betrayal.  But I have to tell y’all.  I think I owe that much to y’all, to keep telling you what is going on in my life.  Y’all know I do a lot of thinking on paper, it helps me to get all this stuff out.  But for those of you who know me, in person, have been concerned about over the years, have loved me, I wanted you to know I feel as if I have turned another corner, come back to myself, grown a back bone, and have become hellaciously stronger in the last few months. 

And I have tried, and tried, and tried, and I have given her every opportunity to right these wrongs and the ways she treats me.  I get nothing in return.  I have begged and pleaded for her to go to counseling.  She refuses.  I have even said I would sit down with her and her priest or her pastor.  Nothing.  She still continues to believe there is nothing wrong with her, or our relationship.  She makes me feel it is all my fault. 

I have been sitting on this article for over a month, because mom is playing nice at the moment, even pretending to care.  But as I was doing some reading this morning, I realized I was trying to give her one more chance.  If she hurt me again, I would publish this article.  She will hurt me again.  She will say nasty things to me again, that is her nature.  So to wait is kind of moot point.  I am just so very tired of all of this.  I have tried for the last year and a half to play nice for the sake of my dad, but it continues to take an emotional and physical toll on me.  I have to be content that I have done everything in this relationship I could.  I will not continue to jump across an ocean for a woman who won’t cross a puddle for me.  A woman who’s hate has consumed her so much that she has destroyed lives in the process.  Hate is the enemy, love and truth are the answer. 

Writing this will not fix her, will not change her.  I will only change me.  I feel like a shield maiden, a warrior queen, Freya, Boudicca, Xena, and Holda and Kali in their dark mother furry.  I am mad as hell.  I have given up hope I will ever please her, or that she will ever stop playing games with me.  I am just going to have to release her in light and love, and give her to the Gods, ‘cause there is not a damn thing I can do with her.  As my mother always says, “A leopard, don’t change its spots.”

Ilsa

 

The Brett Incident

I had spent much of my teenage years wanting to be an Oceanographer, like Dr. Bob Ballard.  I even ran my bath scalding hot, so I might prepare for diving in the hot water around the underwater volcanoes.  When I tried to get into LSMSA, see Cold Hands, I had to take the SAT’s.  I began to understand I was smart, but not that smart.  Math is the bane of my existence.  I also began to understand I would have to leave the state to study, something I was not prepared to do.  I did not want to leave my family.  I also did not want to leave the area, go away, build a life, get married, have kids, own a home, and have to give up everything many years later, to come home and care for aging and dying parents.  I am an only child.  I don’t get the luxury of handing it off to another family member.  It is going to be me, doing it all, in the end.  I was brought up to believe you do not put your loved ones in a nursing home.  It is dishonorable and distasteful. 

So I knew I could not be an Oceanographer, although I loved writing, I figured I could never make a living at it, besides I knew I wasn’t very good at it.  I knew people who could write circles around me.  I didn’t want to be a teacher like my mom was working on becoming, and two of my Aunts were already.  I didn’t want to be a nurse like my other Aunt.  I had been training in the wifely arts of cooking, cleaning, sewing, and hand work since I could remember.  My mom always said she wanted to prepare me.  So I thought I am a pretty good cook and I love food, maybe I will be a chef, so that is what I started out going to college to do.  I was also in love with the Frugal Gourmet about this time.

As my senior year approached I began to look at colleges.  My father then stepped in and said, “You may only apply to colleges where I may get to you in less than a day’s drive.”  That sealed the deal, no Oceanography for me.  I remember measuring off the distance and marking my large US map with my compass and setting up the radius.  I decided to apply in state.  I asked, my family, for help filling out the forms for both financial aid and college applications, they refused.  It taught me how to do them though.  I always found it odd some colleges required you send a picture.  What the hell did that tell them about your brain or who you were???  I applied all over the state: to Northwestern in Natchitoches, LSU in Baton Rouge, USL in Lafayette, Louisiana Tech in Ruston, NLU in Monroe, Southeastern in Hammond, and McNeese in Lake Charles.  I got in to all of them.  I was very surprised I got into LSU, but I did. 

I was so ecstatic when my letter came from Louisiana Tech that I had been accepted.  My entire life my father had told me, “You’re going to college.”  I never had a say in it.  I wanted to go to Tech, desperately, like my father before me.  I have always wanted to be just like my Dad.  I still remember going into the living room to tell him.  He held the letter and said, “That’s great, but you can’t go there.  You will have no one to watch over you.  You can go to NSU, where you Mom is attending, and she can watch other you, or you can go to USL where your aunt can watch over you.”  I was devastated.  All that work, applying to all the other colleges, only to be told, again that what I wanted, didn’t matter.  I am sure he had his reasons, but he broke my heart that day.  Still makes me angry to this day.

I thought for a moment.  I wanted to get as far away from my mother as possible, and I knew others from my school were going to NSU.  I was terrified the bullying would continue there, so I said, “I guess I will go to USL then.” 

USL became my battle cry, it became my hope, and thinking of going there and getting away from the daily abuse, which was only getting worse now that Cajun Rink had been added to he bunch, became my refuge.  Cajun helped crank the daily taunts up to 11.  But I was trying so hard to be a good Christian and turn the other cheek, and to do what my parents asked.  But with every word he hurled at me, I died inside.  He even went so far as to paint penis on my car windows, in shoe polish. I am still thankful for the cheerleaders who helped me remove enough from my window, to drive home, with spit and a Kleenex, and held me while I cried.

Into my life came Brett.  He was beautiful or so I thought.  He had this long curly black mullet.  He was of Native American decent, and covered in pimples.  I didn’t care.  I was on him like white on rice.  He was fresh meat and I wanted him.  In my mind he had not been tainted by my tormentors.  So it was game on.  He was from Shreveport.  He was always crying, come to find out his father had recently died.  His mother had remarried.  She and her new husband had moved to Keatchie.  Brett and I became fast friends.  I was always trying to comfort him, rubbing his back and trying to help him through this difficult time. 

As I sit here looking at my annual, I don’t know that we were ever officially boyfriend and girlfriend.  I was invited to a bonfire at his house.  Our parents met and they liked each other.  They encourage us to be together.  I went to a Christmas party at his house, where he danced with me.  He gave me a cassette single of Dwight Yoakam’s “Fast as you.”  I spent hours listening to it, to see if Brett was trying to give me a secret message.  I hate that song now, it reminds me of all of this.

Brett was strange.  He spent hours on his hair and although it was my guess he liked me, he didn’t want to hold my hand, and kissed me only once.  When he kissed me it was not like Adam’s kisses, full of passion and want.  No it was like kissing a rock.  I was confused.  I liked him, was falling in love with him, but he did not seem to reciprocate.  I knew, deep down, it was going to be another one of my one sided love affairs.  I often fell “In love” with a guy and then waited for him to say he liked me, even tried to buddy up to some of them, but none of them ever got the hint.  So it was always on sided.

Brett, me and our families went out New Years Eve to the American Legion Hall dance.  Brett was prone to migraines.  He had one that night.  I would learn later he faked it to get away from me. 

Not long after we were due to give blood.  I talked all my friends into doing it.  It ended up that I could not because had an ear infection and was on antibiotics.  Brett, Sonya and some more of my friends gave blood.  A few weeks later Brett received a letter, or so I was told, that said he had a devastating medical condition.  I wrote him a letter and told him how much I loved him and I would stay beside him through this diagnosis.

Within a few days later I was given a note from him, by Sonya, he said wanted nothing to do with me anymore.  I was devastated.  For once in my life, I thought I had found love.  I have always said the worst thing about all of this, was that for a few weeks, I had hope that I was not this horrible, ugly, fat, crazy monster that everyone told me I was.  When I read his letter, all that hope was destroyed.

It was not just the relationship that hurt, what did the most damage is what came after.  Sonya, my best friend since 2^nd grade, was also friends with Brett.  What I didn’t know, is that many nights that I was on the phone with Brett, she was quietly listening in.  He had called her, before he called me.  I didn’t know until later that she was acting as a conduit to help get him hooked up to another friend, who Brett began dating a few weeks later.

This friend he dated, a few months later, when the relationship was over, turned to me in class and said, “He lies doesn’t he?”  I said, “Yes he does.” 

I still do not know what was said.  I don’t know what rumor was spread, but from the time that Brett broke up with me in January of 1994 until about a month before I graduated in May of 1995, I was basically shunned.  Suddenly none of my friends, or anyone for that matter, would speak to me.  No one would eat lunch with me.  I was treated like a pariah.  My only clue is what one friend said to me one day.  He had the courage to break whatever taboo they had set against me.  He said, “They have told me to hate you and I just can’t do it anymore.  You have always been nice to me.”  And he sat with me and ate lunch.  It was finally over.  He was the first, more would join us as they year drew to a close. 

I cannot tell you how desperate I was.  I cannot tell you how many nights I wanted to kill myself.  How I wanted to jump from the river bridge.  In one swoop I had lost everything I understood.  My people, my tribe, my friends, or however you want to call it.  My sociology professor years later, would call it a “social death.”  When I finally got up the courage to talk to my parents, tell them what was going on and I was suicidal, my Dad said, “Oh It’s just puppy love.  It will pass.”  Twenty-Two years later it hurts, almost as bad as it did when it happened.  At least I now have some understanding to go with all of this.

I stayed friends with Brett’s parents.  I have seen his mother several times over the years.  When I saw her, I told her all that had happened, and she confirmed for me what I had begun to suspect many years before.  Brett was gay.  I now understand what he did.  He used me for cover.  He was pretending to be interested in me to appease his family and hide his homosexuality.  That I could have lived with, and would have even happily participated in it had I known. 

I found Brett many years ago on Facebook, we discussed much of the above.  To say he has a different idea of what happened is an understatement.  He said we were never in a relationship and he never cared for me, that he has always been gay.  I am sure there is much truth to that.  I have known for a long time what I felt for him, was not reciprocated.  I had hoped for an apology, but that will never happened.  Never got one from Sonya either or knew what was actually said about me.  Would love to know now, if someone wanted to PM me, I would be open to hearing it now.  Ten years, after all this, I would see Sonya again.  Who just hugged my neck and could not understand why I was so mad at her.  What a Bitch!

While all this was going on, all I could do was pray and count the days until I would go to USL.  I was in Hell and I had to find my own way out.  I was like Rapunzel.  I was trapped in the tower, no one was coming to save me, I had to cut my hair and save myself. 

There was a young man in my class who came in everyday, with the most beautiful smile.  As corny as it sounds his smile, gave me hope.  Seeing him smile, and hearing him laugh helped me in ways he has no idea of.  I even developed a little crush on him, but my fate was sealed and I was too broken and afraid to try to find love again.  I was leaving for Lafayette after I graduated, and that was that.

I began what I called “Smile Therapy.”  I would force myself to smile, just for a few seconds every few hours.  I noticed when I did so I would feel better.  Turns out smiling releases all kinds of endorphins in your brain, that are good for you.  Slowly, ever so slowly I feel it began to pull me out of the worst of my depression.  The first few weeks were the worst.  I would get two or three seconds and then burst into tears again.  I cried so much during class, during this whole thing, me a woman who hates to cry and used to see it as a sign of weakness. 

A few weeks before we graduated someone told me something I would never have dreamed.  They said, “Melvin has been in love with you for years.  He would have done anything for you.”  I remember sitting in our drafting room, looking at him and just smiling.  I have no idea if it was even true, but it helped me none the less.  And today I regret not doing anything about it.  The idea that Melvin had once loved me, along with my friends smile, gave me comfort in one of the darkest times of my life.  Stupid and corny, right?  I know.  But I love stupid and corny. 

Ilsa

 

 

 

 

 

A Visit with Juno

A few days after I threw out Paige, I went to visit with Juno.  Oh it was so good to see her face!  I just embraced her.  We both just cried.  We sat and drank tea, while she told me what had happened to them since they had moved.  They had lived with D & K for over 6 months, in some really scary neighborhoods.  It took her a bit to see what I had seen in D.  She said, “You were right.  I just didn’t want to see it.”  D ended up using Juno like a slave.  Juno and Kay had decided they had to get out.  They saved up their money and gotten a little rent trailer.  It was tiny, but it was theirs.  It was the first place they had lived all by themselves.

Juno told me that after our fight, she believed I would never speak to her again.  She had a flashback during part of the fight and did not remember what she had said.  I reminded her.  She said, “I’m surprised you even want to talk to me after that.”  I assured her I knew she had been under D’s influence and had not been herself that day. 

I asked if D & K were still attending Druid.  Juno confirmed they were not.  I asked if it would be okay with her if I began to attend again.  She said that would be up to me.  I celebrated Beltane 2014 with my Druid group.  It was my first ritual since Mabon, more than 6 months before.  It felt so good.  It felt like home.

I continued that summer to pick up the pieces of my broken heart, recover from Paige, and from Punka’s death.  One night in July I was in the tub when Tami came in the door.  She was holding the most beautiful little black and tan Dachshund.  She had been working at the Bossier Animal Control that day and someone had brought him in.  They turned him in because he had eaten a pair of headphones.  I told him it was the best thing they had ever done.  They were full at the time, and were having to put dogs down.  So Tami had snatched him up, because she knew he would be perfect for our family.  “He looks like a Scooter to me,” I said.  And so it was that Scooter entered our lives.

Jay had been working for Unifirst for almost 5 years at that point.  We both wanted him out of that job so bad.  One warm day, I think it was in the upper 80’s, Jay called me and did not sound right.  He was exhausted and hot. He had stopped sweating and was slurring his words.  I knew he was in danger.  I told him to get off the road, and into some AC and cool off.  Jay was heat exhausted and was close to having a heat stroke.  I made him tell me where he was.  He was somewhere at a stop in Arkansas.  I told him if he did not get in some AC I was going to call 911 and get the first responders to him.  He promised me he would. 

I hung up with him and called his boss and told him what was going on.  I called back and Jay was safe and cooling off.  It was enough to scare both of us.  I told him I didn’t care if we went broke, I wanted him to find a new job, even if it was for less money.  His job was not worth his health or his life.

Tami would buy her first home in August of 2014, and move out of Momma Muriel’s house.  I was honored when she told me one of the reasons they were staying in Louisiana was to be close to me.  They chose a home about 10 miles from me.  I can be to her house in about 15 minutes.  As we could not figure out how to move Mr. Henry, the pot bellied pig, without traumatizing him, Tami gave him to me and he stayed here.  She comes to visit him and bring him treats often. 

In September Jay had to go in for his DOTD physical.  He struck up a conversation with the male medical assistant there, Robert.  Jay just happened to mention that he was trained as a medical assistant, but had been unable to find work in his field.  Robert told Jay they were hiring, and looking for a male medical assistant.  He ran to get his supervisor and introduce her to Jay.  Jay was hired a few weeks later.  Jay has never been happier! 

Jay gave his two weeks at Unifirst.  We decided for Samhain to take a vacation and go to south Texas and visit with my Druid buddies, Mother Marie, Mother Gloria and Father Dave.  Hell after the last few years we needed a break.  Tami looked after the farm for us.  We had the best time.  They are still talking about our cooking down there.  I told Mother Gloria about my trip on Marijuana, and about not wanting to be possessed by the Gods again.  She warded me and that warding has held.  I have not been taken by the Gods since December of 2013.  It is my hope that it will not happen again.  I think my mind is too fragile at this point.

On December 2^nd, 2014 Paige left my parents house.  I meet with Mom for the first time in two and a half years on December 7^th.  Two days later Mom had a stroke.  She still thinks it had to do with all the stress she was under with Paige.

Tami called me in December and told me she was having trouble with Lu-Lu and Pippy.  Both of them kept getting out of the gate and terrorizing the neighborhood.  She had asked me to take them before, but I was never ready.  We both weren’t.  I think we were both ready this time.  So close to Christmas we added Lu-Lu, a 10 year old Chihuahua, and Pippy, a 4 year old black and white mutt, into our pack.  They are very happy here.  Pippy is quite a kisser, and loves to play with Scooter.  Lu-Lu is a primadonna and Sophia’s BFF. 

Juno had told me she had never really had a Christmas, so Jay and I decided to give her one.  I had so much fun shopping for them.  It is one of my favorite Christmases’ so far, and much better than the Christmas I had spent the year before. 

Jay had started his new job in November.  We knew we would have to spend 90 days or so without insurance. We stocked up our meds as best we could, and prepared to make it through.  Thank gods for the oil well checks.  When it came time to buy my two depression meds at, $250 and $800, a bottle we obviously could not afford it. 

I made the decision to get off of my meds, for the first time in at least 10 years.  We buckled down and prepared for the worst.  What happened next we did not expect.  I began to feel better.  I was not sleeping 17 hours a day anymore.  I was not so fuzzy.  Jay and I’s love relationship got better.  I had been having problems for at least a year.  I figured, as in all things, that I was to blame and it was just all in my head.  I had had so many Dr’s tell me that, I started to believe it.  Turns out it was the meds.  I think I had been overmedicated for a long time.  I started to feel so good, I began sewing again.  Something I had not done in a long time. 

My life was finally starting to get better.  Jay was no longer exhausted all the time.  He was only working 40 hours a week.  He was not in that hot truck.  He would come home singing.  Then he would start cooking and doing clothes.  I was overjoyed to see him so happy.

In February of 2015 Juno wanted to get a service dog, to help with her mental problems.  The people in her trailer park began to give her trouble as to size and breed.  She would find a dog, and then try to talk to them about getting said dog and by the time they got back to her the dog would not be available anymore.  Then they wanted to charge them more rent because of this new dog.  Juno and I were talking one day over lunch and I said, “I will have to check with Jay, but why don’t you and Kay move out to Momma Muriel’s trailer.  You would have lots of room, and could have any dog you wanted.”  Juno and Kay moved out here the first part of April. 

Ilsa

 

 

Melinda goes to Jail

 In August of 2012 Melinda went to Jail.   She had always been funny about the police.  She had told us she had been sexual assaulted by an officer many years before.  One night in early August, she and her boyfriend were coming back from Alexandria, in her truck, and for whatever reason the cops in her town pulled her over, about 5 miles from her house.  The truck was registered in one of her son’s name, and the insurance was also in his name.  Melinda produced an expired out of state license.  Her boyfriend also produced an out of state license, as he had recently moved to Louisiana.  Melinda had been in Louisiana for 11 years.  She always gave me some bull shit about, somebody else had stolen her identity, and that’s why she had never got a new license.  I do believe she had a state issued ID however.  They usually don’t run you when you get those.

Since they were out of state, the police officer ran a nationwide search on their licenses.  My guess is to make sure the truck was not stolen.  Melinda’s boyfriend came up clean, but Melinda’s past had come back to haunt her.  She popped on a warrant out of Tennessee.  She was wanted for stealing an excess of $10,000.  The warrant seemed to have been issued about the time she moved to Louisiana.  She called me crying, told me she was being arrested, and to come and get JB. I got in the car and immediately drove the 15 or so miles to her. 

Melinda was booked into jail, and spent the next 17 days there while things were sorted out.  I was not involved in the process to bond her out, and after a few days one of JB’s brothers came to get him.  I think he had about 5 brothers or so.  I wrote Melinda in jail, went to see her, did what I could for her, and talked to her the phone.  Our Lughnasa ritual that year, consisted of us talking to her in jail.  We were on the phone in ritual circle, telling her how much we believed in her innocence, and how much we loved her.

About that time I had a conversation with one of her sons, because some of this stuff was just not adding up.   I begin to ask him a host of questions such as:

Is your mother a witch?  Did she raise your pagan?  Was your grandmother really a witch?  Is there a family tradition of witches in your family?  He told me no to all the above, and that as far as he knew, his mother had been raised a Jehovah Witness, and still was.

I asked him if she had worked as contractor and built houses, as she told us she had.  He said No.  That she had worked with them in the office, but never in the field.  Which made since to me.  Melinda had been having electrical problems for a long time in her house.  She said she knew all about electricity, but would not fix her problems.  A few weeks before she was arrested, Melinda had seen sparks coming from a socket in her bedroom.  She replaced it herself.   On our workday, Jay looked at the socket.  He found it was improperly installed.  He told me that if he had not fixed it could have burned the house down.  Now don’t you think someone with electrical experience should know how to redo a simple socket? 

I finally asked Melinda’s son if he thought the charges against his mother could be true?  Could she have really stolen the money?  He said, while he thought she would never steal from an individual, he believed she could defiantly steal from a company. 

This made a lot of since to me, occasionally she would tell me she had to borrow against her check. She told me she had something to do with payroll.  I knew she bought heavily on Ebay.  In cleaning out her house I found what had been an old bathroom, full of Ebay boxes.  Most of them contained yarn.  She called it her yarn room.  It was stacked floor to ceiling. It was on of those rooms that if you opened the door you would kill yourself.   It just did not add up.  Melinda was very poor, where in the hell was she getting money for that much yarn? 

Melinda was fired while she was in jail.  When she asked to come and get her things, she was told that the lawyers had advised against it.  She was told that everything she had had her hands on was now being scrutinized by accountants.  I still have no idea, if she had been stealing from her current job.  I have heard rumors, but I will not print them here.  It was my guess that if she was not allowed back on the property, she probable had been, and it had probable been a lot.

Melinda would spend her 50^th birthday in jail.  While she was there, she called to tell us that she thought she was pregnant.  This ruse she would keep up for months, even after she and were no long friends.  Melinda had told Juno, the baby was not viable, or she had miscarried. I forget which one.  We ran into Melinda’s old boyfriend some years later, he told us they had finally gone to the dr., who told them  she not pregnant.  When she insisted, she was.  The Dr. told them they had run the test twice and not only was she not pregnant, she had not been pregnant at any time as of late.  We were not the only ones she was conning.  

When Melinda got out of jail she refused to go home.  Even with JB she did not want to be alone in that house, so JB stayed with his brother, and she came to live with me.   That lasted all of two weeks.  You never really know someone, until you live with them.  Melinda showed us her true colors during that time. 

My feelings towards Melinda, as oh-highly-exalted-one, had begun to change that summer, as I watched the way she treated JB and me, while we worked so hard to clean her house.  There were few thank you’s, lots of discussion on how we had done it things wrong, and her unwillingness to help in most of that project.  I still have no idea if she cleaned between the times I was there.  I was beginning to see that everything was about Melinda.

On the one year anniversary of my hospitalization, I could feel my stress level rising.  I had a feeling that I was going to have another attack, and I was right.    Melinda had taken to cleaning my house, doing the wash and the cooking, all the while telling me how I was doing it wrong.  I never asked her to do any of that, she just took it upon herself.  I remember getting frustrated at Melinda, and going to be in my bedroom. I was sitting in Princess’ bed when Jay walked in.  I told him, “I’m going to pop.   You’ve got to get her out of my house!”  He said, “She’s your friend.  You get her out.” 

Within a few minutes I was in a full blown panic attack.  My pills did not help and I regressed to about 6 years old.  I spent most of that day coloring.  I was not taken to the hospital, to my great relief.  We knew it would pass.  Melinda could not have been more wonderful to me, while all this was going on.  She sat and colored with me, and fixed me grill cheese sandwiches.  It took most of the day, to “grow up,” but by the time I went to bed that night I felt like my normal self.  No one outside the family, and doctors had ever seen me have an attack.

I was still in counseling with Barb at the time.  I had a session with her not long after my attack.  I told her what was going on with Melinda.  Barb told me I needed to set boundaries with her.  I needed to start telling her, “No.” I did and that’s when things started getting really ugly. 

JB had gone back to school and had broken his arm.  Now whether his bullies did it, or he did it on accident, I was never really clear on.  So Melinda was terrified to drive, so we went to pick up JB and take him to the hospital.  He is in quite a bit of pain at this point.  Melinda is insistent that we must stop at the library to make copies, and then to the post office. “I must get Tennessee off my back,” she kept insisting.  She was more concerned about her own shit, then her child’s own pain.

The warrant Melinda had been arrested on was expired, but had never been taken out of the system.  When she called the clerk’s office, to find out who had filed charges against her, the folder was blank.  At least that is what she told me.  Who knows if it was true?  All they could tell her is the date that the incident was said to have occurred and where.  Melinda was released when Tennessee decided, they did not want her.  She was trying to prove her innocence, by mailing affidavits that she was not even in the county, where this had occurred, on the date in question. 

So she made me make all these stops, before we even could really get going, to take JB to the hospital.  We were about 15 miles from her house when she says, “Stop!  We’ve got to go back to the house.  I forgot to get the ham.”

“No Melinda.  I am tried, JB is hurting.  There are other things to eat at my house.”  I said.  I also knew that ham was more than two weeks old, and probable no good.  Melinda becomes angry and suddenly hits her phone hard against the car door.  Now it was a nice day and were ridding with the windows down.  So when she hit the phone against the door, it suddenly goes flying out the window, going 60 mph.  Melinda yells at me to pull over.  She has to have her phone.  I did, and I let her and JB search for it.  I was getting really tired of her attitude, the way she was treating me, and I was feeling like I was being used.

Ilsa