Surrounded by love

Surrounded by love

Written March 28^th, 2017

I’m sitting in the truck outside of Jay’s office, waiting on him.  It’s a warm and beautiful spring day.  The sun is warm, but it’s not too hot.  I’m wearing one of my favorite dresses and new shade of lipstick that Jay helped me pick out last night on our date.

Driving here a minute ago, I was just enraptured by the idea that I am surrounded by love.  People who truly love me and want what is best for me.  I feel happy and damn near joyful, strong and almost indomitable.

More of my mother’s indiscretions have come to light.  For several weeks I have been heart sick and damn near heartbroken over all this news.  But all her indiscretions, and to what depths they go I am still not sure, have confirmed some things to me.  Despite the fact that my mother clothed me, fed me, and gave me medical attention and affection when it suited her.  My mother has a heart of stone, and it seems always has.  The term, “love is for suckers,” seems to sum up her ideology best I think.  But I now know it wasn’t just me.  I am not her only victim. 

Most of my life I have abused by her emotionally, mentally, and sometimes verbally.  She truly is a narcissist, and when you peel back the layers is hollow inside, despite what you might see.  When you look in her eyes there is an emptiness that goes down to her soul. 

But I am not here to talk about her psychology or her diagnoses.

I want to say this, in finding out that her abuse and use of me was just a continuation of her pattern, and I am not the only one, has made me feel, strange as it sounds, worthy of love.  I have in the last few days been able to truly feel Jay’s love and marvel in my own strength.  I look at him and when he says, “I love you,” for the first time I truly, to my bright orange toenail polish believe him.  I don’t feel he is just saying it and has an ulterior motive.  Not that he ever did mind you, but years under my mother’s rule, makes you question ever word that people utter, ever look they cast, and every thought that goes unsaid.  You are constantly trying to decide who is playing you, and who is not. 

I have in the past few days truly felt that I was loveable, and worthy of love.  That people truly wanted me around and I was not just to be tolerated.  In a way the world feels like a friend again.  I am surrounded by the love of my husband, my children, my grove, and the family I am piecing back together for myself.  And it feels at time almost overwhelming.

I read my cards the other night and they were beautiful, wonderful, and full of prosperity.  After so much tragedy it is almost scary to believe good will come my way.  I keep waiting for the other shoe to fall.  You know culture of poverty her people.  I told Jay the other day, “Tragedy I take in stride, happiness I have to handle in increments.”

I keep hearing my heart say, “It wasn’t just me.  I’m not the bad one here.”  Yes I am flawed.  Yes I am broken.  Yes I am human and imperfect, but maybe, just maybe I am not the monster here.

Ilsa

A Goodbye of Sorts

December 30^th, 2016

This is my 101^st post.  Wow!  I can’t believe it, and in a way it is the end of this blog.  Oh sure I will post when the fancy strikes, or when I need to say something important, but for now I think this blog has worked it’s magic. 

Those of you who have been following along have no doubt noticed that I have only posted a few articles this year.  There is a reason for that, I have been working on my first novel and completed it in November.  We are now in the editing phase and I hope to self publish by this summer, Goddess willing.  Of course I will post when it is available.  It is called, “We are all a little broken.”  It is a really good book about two women’s struggle to overcome their abusive past and find their voice with the help of a loving family, as they come to terms with what their mother has done to them.  It is set here in Northwest Louisiana.  I think you will enjoy it.  I hope to start major work on the next book next week. 

As for me and Jay, we are well.  Jay is trying to get his sugar under control, it is out of wack again.  I told him I think it is the stress, and hustle and bustle of the holidays.  I think it will calm down after the first of the year.  His sugar had been doing really good, but I think he is frustrated.

Team Ilsa is currently in hiatus, every time I start back up, I get sick.  Team Plaisance never got off the ground.  But I am still busy, cleaning house, and doing my thing. 

Our food trailer, Garson duBayou, is doing great.  We are busy, and making good money.  Working lots of events and I have been helping out a lot.  In September we were in the local food truck rally.  We were ecstatic to take home second place, especially since it was our first year to enter. 

This fall I started putting in applications for work.  I have started with a state program called Louisiana Rehabilitation Services.  They help people who have mental and / or physical disabilities get and keep a job with the accommodations they need.  I have had my orientation, my intake interview, been sent to a specialist, and at the moment I am awaiting to hear back on whether or not they can help me.  I am hopeful, but I still fear that my past will come back to bite me.  We will see. 

In December of last year Juno left us.  She fell in love with a nice man on line and one night he drove down from New York and came to get her.  I have not told you this, because I didn’t know how the situation would end, and if she would come back to Kay.  So we waited.  Juno is happy and has yet to come home.  We wish her the best.  Kay remained in the house and in October we asked her to leave.  She did.  The house that was already falling apart, is now beyond what Jay and I want to deal with and we are in process of tearing it down and turn it into new and better things.  I will let you know how it turns out.

In late September we made the heart breaking decision to put Princess down.  You can read about all that went on here, in Homage to Princess.

In May I made the decision to go “No Communication,” with my mom.  You can read about that here in All her sins laid bare.  It has not been easy, and there are times that I miss her, or the idea of a mother, greatly.  I was not sure what would happen between me and Daddy.  It took seven months before I got a response from him, and it was only to ask for my change of address.  He didn’t want to start back a relationship with me.  On the phone messages he left when he said, he loved me and he wanted to visit with me, it was as if they were after thoughts.  As I always do with these types of major events and decisions in my life, I sought the council of those wiser then myself, as well as searched my own heart.  For what I wanted, and what I needed to do seemed to be a step too big to take.

I know threw now fault of his own, my mother uses my dad like a spy.  He told me so himself.  In those two and a half years that mom and I did not speak, about nine months in Daddy came back into my life.  We would go to dinner, and visit.  Just us two.  Dad told me he had to come home and give mom the report on what I wore, how I looked, how I seemed, what we talked about.  Everything I told him I might as well have been telling her.  I made the heart breaking decision to sever my ties with Daddy, for my own mental health, until she is either dead or he leaves her.  In my letter I spoke to him as if it was the last thing I would ever say to him.  It was one of the toughest things I have ever had to do.  My pain is still great and it is not easy to talk about.  Sometimes what we want is not good for us, and it is best for me to stay away.  Self care is an act of survival, not selfishness.

Your saying to yourself, ‘well maybe he wanted to send you a letter.’ No, it was a tax bill he wanted to send me.  My mother is crazy about mail.  So once I gave him my address, she would have it.  She will hound you with cards, and packages of gifts that you don’t want, and then tell you she has no money for food.  Once you open that flood gate you can’t go back.  We have done this before.  I would tell Dad, “I only want mail from you.”  I would get cards from her.  I would refuse them.  Finally I told him, it’s not your hand writing on the envelope or inside.  So he would address the envelope in a card she had picked out, and then sent from their home, not where he was working.  No thank you.  I have been through this song and dance before.  It is not worth the anxiety every time I go to the mail box.

And then this little tid bit to just make the wound all that much worse.  I was telling this story to a family member, who said, and I will paraphrase here, “Oh I remember when you and your Dad would go to dinner.  Your mom bitched about it the whole time.”  Ouch.  It was not my mom was pissed off my dad was spending $40 bucks to take me to lunch once a week, it was that he was spending time with me.  It was not that they didn’t have money.  I know in those years he paid over $20,000 just in taxes off the money he made.  I didn’t ask for gold, or diamonds, or for him to pay my bills.  I just asked for time.  Time she could not even begrudge me.  Another relationship she is jealous of.  Every time I think she has shown me how black her heart is, she shows her contempt for me all over again.  Is it because I am Beau’s child?  Because I look like him?  Does she remember me before the surgery?  I still have no idea why she wants to do me like this. 

When I think about her I am always reminded of a scene from Ever After.  Cinderella asks her step mother, “Was there ever a moment, even in its smallest, that you loved me?”  The step mother responds, “How can you love a pebble in your shoe?”  Loving her is exhausting and gets me nowhere.  I just end up chasing my tail.  Even a beaten dog, still tries to please it’s owner.  Until the day it finally has enough and turns around and bites the crap out of the one doing the beating.

So 2016 has been a year of change, of emotional growth in leaps and bounds, and of goals accomplished I did not believe were possible.  I hope the next year is just as good, but not so emotionally taxing. 

So this is our goodbye of sorts.  I want to tell all of you that I love you, and send you all bright blessings no matter where you are on this big, round, blue, spinning ball, that is drifting through space.  In the end this blog produced 160,000 words in a year and a half, and laid end to end is over 300 pages long.  I would love to turn it into an auto biography, but who would want to read something so boring and trivial.  “It’ll never play in Peoria,” as they would say in vaudeville. 

But beside what it produced in numbers of words and pages, telling you my story, the whole story and nothing but the truth of my life, created the biggest impact on me and those around me.  It made me give my own thoughts and feelings validation, and I saw so many things from another perspective, and was able to give forgiveness where it was deserved.  It gave me the courage to establish new relationships, try again at others, and let go of several toxic relationships.  I think the biggest person I finally forgave was myself.  I began to see myself as a survivor, a thriver, a writer, a mother, a wife, a daughter to two great men, and an incredible resilient human being who is broken yes, but still has so much to give. 

So from all of us here on my little hill, we wish you a blessed Yule, and a Happy New Year.  Bright blessings to you and those you love,

Our love,

Ilsa

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

 

 

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

 

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

 

 

Hello Ilsa, Goodbye Beau

My mother and my biological father, Beau, met in school in the early 1970’s.  He was a few years older than her.  They were introduced by mutual friends at a local festival. My mother graduated high school in 1973.  She and Beau married the following year in May of 1974.  They were married in Oma’s living room by a Justice of the Peace.

The story goes that I am conceived in a hotel room in Texarkana, after a Star Trek episode in June or July of 1975.  I am born in March of 1976, in a hospital in Shreveport, just like most people from Desoto Parish are.  In the days before ultrasounds, the old women told my mom she would have a boy, because of the way she was carrying me.  She was going to name me Mike, after her brother.  When I was born a girl they were all surprised, but happy.  Mom took a bit to figure out what to name me.  She settled on Ilse in honor of her mother.  Oma begged Momma not to name me Ilse, she says, “They will never say it right.  They will never spell it right.”  And what she said is still most defiantly true, but Mom decided to name me Ilse anyways. 

I am glad to have a unique name, even if I can’t find it on a cup or a key chain.  Well I can now, because of the internet.  I think unique names make unique people, never wanted to be a Jennifer anyways.  Sorry to you Jennifer’s ahead of time.  If you have a unique name, you always know when someone is about to say your name for the first time, by that confused look on their face.  I’ve always said I would answer to anything but, “Hey Bitch!” 

My first few years seem to have been uneventful.  We were living at the time, in a yellow and white little trailer next door to my great Aunt Ruby, outside of Longstreet.  Beau worked for UPS driving a truck and mom stayed home with me. 

Now here is where things seem to get kind of murky.  In the Spring of 1978 my mother became very ill.  She began to have paralysis on the right side of her body.  It took them several weeks, to come up with a reason, why a healthy 23 year old would be having these types of problems.  Many theories were thrown around.  In conversations, I would have with Beau later in my life. He would tell me, that the Doctors came to him, and believed that he may have unintentionally spread a Zoonosis to mom, from the cows he had been keeping. 

Mom had 13 CAT scans during this time.  The Doctors saw what they believed to be a tumor in her frontal lobe region. She was taken into surgery on April 13^th, 1978, after 13 ½ hours she immerged alive.  They found no tumor.  They did try to grow a culture, on what I don’t know, but it did not work.  During surgery they had scratched a nerve and this permanently left Mom with seizures.  She remains on medications today, due to complications of this surgery.  Before the statue of limitations ran out on filling a malpractice suit, Mom went to her pastor to ask what she should do.  He told her she should not file a suit.  She has also been denied disability. 

There are many things I still do not know about this time period in my life.  Many of the players are dead, won’t talk about this, or are no longer involved in my life.  My mother would suffer a mild stroke on December 9^th, 2014.  We learned a lot during that stroke.  As they loaded Mom into the MRI machine they asked, “Do you have any metal in your body?”  She said, “No.”   She got in the machine and they found that she did in fact have metal in her body.  She has a metal plate in her head, put there during the 1978 surgery.  No one had ever told her that.  They also find evidence that she has had two significant strokes in her life time.  I believe that one of these strokes, may explain the events surrounding the 1978 brain surgery.  My mother does not share that belief.  There were no MRI machines around, in this area in 1978, and a CAT scan would not have necessarily picked up a stoke. 

Beau decided to take the events surrounding Mom’s 1978 surgery as a chance to leave.  He tells me years later that he had gone to my mother, while she is sick in the hospital bed, and asked her to choose him or her family.  She chose her family.  My mother has no memory of any such conversation ever taking place.  But then her memories of her being in the hospital seem to be a bit hazy.  Something from that time she remembers and something’s she does not.

While all this is going on you’ve got to remember, my Grandpa is right in the center of all of this.  He was a controlling, manipulative, conniving, brilliant, mother fucker.   It is my guess, that he had a hand in all that went down.  Grandpa, I am sure, was trying to assert his dominance in the situation.  What he and Oma wanted to have happen.  As for me, I am with family members at this time. 

After Mom’s surgery she was given Amphotericin B, is an antifungal drug often used intravenously for systemic fungal infections.  It made her deathly sick.  After the surgery Mom had to walk and talk all over again.  She was never given rehab.  Oma helped her to relearn all these things. After 3 months Mom is sent home. Divorce papers for her and Beau had been filed, and our little trailer had been moved, about 15 miles south to Logansport, next door to Oma’s house.  It is on this 5 acre spread that I would grow up, constantly going between Oma’s house and my own. 

Mom would begin to make trips to a place called Scott and White Hospital in Texas, for her follow up care.  She and the rest of the family could no longer trust the doctors here, after what they had done to her.  Scott and White hospital was very advanced for its time.  They believed that Mom had an abscess from a tooth go to her brain and cause her paralysis.  She had gone in to have some dental work three months before she became ill.  Funny thing is Mom never remembers having had the pain of an abscessed tooth.  Mom would continue to go to Scott and White for a good majority of my life.  She recently told me she has made peace with the man who butchered her, Neurologist, Dr. Donald Smith.  Maybe one day I will be able to too. 

I have watched the story of what Beau did change over the years.  At first I was told he left mom for a 17 year old.  Now it has become a 16 year old, who was pregnant at the time.  Part of this is a lie.  My sister Elisha was not born until the 1980’s.  When Beau began his relationship with his second wife Sandy, and the mother of my 3 siblings, is really of no consequence to me.  Beau and Sandy have both told me they do not remember when they met.  Sandy has assured me she was of age at the time of their meeting.  I have not felt it is my place to dig into her life.  The important thing is that Beau chose to leave this situation, maybe he had been looking for an out for a while.  I don’t know.

In the few years that I have known Sandy, she has been nothing but gracious to me, including opening her home, so that I might meet and visit with my siblings. I am not sure, if I was in her shoes, that I would have been so kind. The first time I met all of them, which you can read about in My Mother, I learned a few things. 

It was hammered into me, from the time I could remember, “Beau left US!  Your Daddy left US!”  US is an awful big word to use for a kid.  It means me and you.  For most of my life I felt Beau had left me.  Sometimes I felt that it was because of something I did, even if that was just existing.  It took a lot of therapy for me to understand that Beau did not leave US.  Beau left my mother.  I was a causality of a war that I never even knew was being fought. Nothing I ever could have done, could have resulted in this outcome.  One day I had a father and the next day I didn’t.   I still have abandonment issues because of it, and a deep distrust of all men.  From an early age I remember my mother telling me, “Don’t ever trust a man!”

My mother never spoke a kind word about Beau in my life, or shared with me a pleasant memory of him.  I grew up hating him, and any part of me that reminded her of him.  Anything that I knew was like Beau I squashed and dismissed.  When I smile you can see my teeth.  It’s a natural response on my part.  My mother would tell me, “You smile like Beau.”  I learned to smile without showing my teeth.  I remember this often the moment, before a photo is snapped.  For years I wanted to rip out my brown eyes, because they were his.  I wanted to rip out my own DNA. 

For most of my life, I would not even look, at his old family home in Longstreet, as I passed by it. One day I would have a large family that loved me and one day I wouldn’t. When Mom erased Beau from my life, she erased the whole family.  He’s extended family, who carried for me while Mom was in the hospital, was forbidden to see me, or have any contact with me.  Attempts to visit me were met by my shotgun wielding Grandpa.  I was taught to hate all of them, as much as I was taught to hate Beau.  I was told how horrible they were, how dirty they were, and what white trash they were.  Only two members of that family were ever allowed to have anything to do with me, Aunt Ruby and my cousin Bobby Joe.

I remember receiving a phone call, from Beau’s mother, around my 18^th birthday.  I thought she was someone else, so I talked to her at length.  It wasn’t until the end of the conversation that I began to understand who she was.  No caller Id back in those days kido’s.  She told me, “Well you are 18 now darling.  You can make your own decisions.”  When she said that, and I realized who she was I hung up on her.  I have no idea how long she had waited to make that call. I see now what courage it took for her to call.  She died a few years later, and I never got to say how sorry I was, about what I had done. 

My mother destroyed all pictures of Beau.  What few I found I horded.  After spending a summer putting together photo albums, when I was 19, I found about 5 or 6 that had not been destroyed.  I put them in a little yellow photo album that I kept hid under my bed for years.  I was terrified she would find them and destroy them too.  When I had my bad days I would pull it out, and stare at them and wonder.  Wonder what he was like and why he didn’t want me. 

Even my own name, part of my identity was taken from me.  Not long after Jef, my Daddy, legal adopted me, which I wanted.  I came home with my birth last name on one of my school papers.  I remember my mom telling me, this is not your name anymore, and making me erase it and put my new name.  While I was proud to be Daddy’s, it came at the price of having to erase who I felt I was at the time, who I knew myself to be.  It caused a shit storm in my family, when I added my birth last name back to my Facebook page.  It was a way to reclaim my identity, and help others in the family find me.  I am proud now to be associated with the rest of my birth family and with Beau. 

If Beau had not left Mom, I would never have had Jef, my Dad.  I asked Beau why he never fought for me.  He said, “I knew Jef.   I knew he was a good man and would be a good father to you.  I did not want to disrupt your life.”  I am glad for what he did.   

The moral of this part of the story is if you are angry at your partner due to divorce or whatever, PLEASE I implore you, don’t bad mouth them in front of the kids, or even in the same house!!!  Those little ears are listening.  You never know how a child will take this kind of stuff, how they will internalize it, and how long they will carry it.  Your anger at your partner may make your kids hate who they are, what they are, and anything that came from that parent.  Clean up your own shit!  Don’t make your kids carry it too!  If you need to vent do it away from them, do it with a friend, or better yet in therapy.  These kids already have enough to deal with, having a parent gone, without having to hating themselves too, because of your anger.   

Ilsa