What the Hell gives you the right...

Really? You're still calling me for help?

How pathetic are you?

It's bad enough that you distanced yourself from anything I ever did for you and your organization. It's bad enough that you bad-mouthed me to the entire community. It's bad enough that I had to explain to the Governor's aide that I don't work there anymore and can't help him.

What the &@%#$ is your problem!?!

No, I didn't withhold the login information from your new website. No, I will NOT fix your email server problem. NO! I'm not saving you from yourselves anymore! And if you keep asking me to, I'm going to use language that would make an African Rhino blush when I explain in small words how much I hate you and everything you stand for.

Dang, I saved a lot of money by no longer donating it to you guys. And by no longer buying everyone lunch 3 times a week. What the hell was I thinking? You didn't respect me anyway. Why was I doing nice things for you for so long?

Am I really that low on self respect?

Mothers

This week I've been talking to friends and family about mothers. Also, someone mentioned in a church meeting that "withholding affection" was a sin. It really got my brain cranking.... But probably not in a good way.

While I should've been thinking about the ways I could be a better person and Christian, I instead shifted to my childhood and my mother. A famous comedian once made the comment that having a child is your one shot to ruin a human being from scratch. It's true. How many of us have small, major, or even traumatic moments from childhood that we just can't get over? How many of us ended up hating parents for those things we feel they should have done and didn't? How many of us are making the same mistakes with our own kids?

There is too much personal trauma in my own childhood to bring it up here. I'd need more than my current 30 years of therapy to get there. Instead, I'm going to bring up others problems. What kind of childhood did you have? Was "affection" withheld from you when your parents thought you should be a better kid?

A friend of mine. Her mom would hug her whether she was being punished or not. Being "well behaved" wasn't a reason to stop loving the kids. Interestingly, that particular friend has a self-esteem these days and is just about the best person I know.

An 'sister' of mine. Her mom touched her inappropriately. Hugs were withheld when mom didn't like a behavior. Compliments never happened. Proud of the kids? NEVER! Her mom called her mean and crude names when my 'sister' wouldn't cooperate. She doesn't talk to her mom anymore. Her kids don't see their grandparents. For all intents and purposes, her mom is dead - and she'll tell people that. I don't blame her. I wouldn't claim that thing as a mom either. 

Why do we have regrets? Is there anything I can do about it now? Then why am I so focused on the past screw ups? Let it go, people. One word. Letitgo! There's a quote out there in the web about forgetting past mistakes and failures, deciding what you want and doing it now. Take a deep breath and feel the PTSD symptoms floating away...

Let's decide to be happy!

The Crazies

It feels like The Crazies aren't just something you can catch when you need an excuse or a break anymore. I feel like I have them ALL the time. I'm tired of being crazy. I'm tired of being depressed. I'm tired of trying to pretend like all the loonies around me are normal.

Too often I find myself thinking that comment from Indiana Jones - "Everybody's lost but me!"

I think most of the people around me that are constantly telling me to get my act together and accomplish something and be a good person and .... on and on and on .... they're the ones with the problem. What's wrong with trying to take a few minutes extra and enjoy life? Why can't I be happy even though I'm single?

I've got news for you! I have lots of friends with children and husbands. That didn't make them happier. It didn't make their lives easier. It sure didn't make them more beautiful and fun. What's wrong with taking care of my aging parents and making time to laugh every day. When did being happy become such a sin?!

School Daze

Just when I start to think things definitely can't get worse (knock on wood) something else happens. It's a big fat joke. And not the funny kind either.

So my nephew had a school project and family was invited to come. My soon-to-be-ex-brother-in-law showed up and his kids left the room. Literally ran to the bathroom to hide.

Later he asks why they won't let him take their picture but they stand grinning for me to snap a few. Well gee, what can I say. I don't mock, berate, or terrorize them. They're kids. Kids have attitude sometimes. That's no reason to tell them they have a brain injury and are mean to you for no reason.

I'm guessing he doesn't actually know anything about kids.

Double Down

There are definitely good days and bad days. Today is a mixture. I have kids again because some un-named yahoo made a dumb-ass decision. What ever happened to common sense?

So he takes the kids to the doctor in an effort to prove what a bitch he's married to. Did he bother with appointments? Nah. We'll show up 3 hours early and it will magically work out! Trust me!

Right. Trust ... Sure.

What does that mean to me? And why am I acting all frustrated about it? Who am I supposed to be babysitting here? The kids or the parent?

It irritates me that grown idiots get to behave this way and no one does anything. This, ladies and gentlemen, is why we have lights at the end of a freeway entrance ramp. Because someone acted like a brainless fool and we excused their behavior to the point that we assume everyone is completely stupid now. 

News flash! Not everyone is stupid. Not everyone is selfish. Not everyone has an ugly divorce. Grow the hell up!

Hell-o

I've unfriended most of the bullies on facebook. The sad part is that there are a few I can't seem to let go. Some of them weren't awful. Some were okay people. Some were and are still, good friends. Why does this bother me so very much.

I got a call the other day from an old co-worker. One of the good ones of course. Even though she's the best co-worker and friend EVER the name on caller ID still throws me off and sends shivers down my spine. Which is quite the trick seeing as I'm paralysed. I hate that I even question her motives. I hate that I wonder if anyone I know is a real friend.

I don't trust my own judgment. I don't trust most people around me. I learned very young not to trust people. Especially people in authority. I never had real friends. I figured out after being betrayed and abandoned that the ones pretending to be friends would attack at the least provocation. It wasn't even my actions that caused me to believe I was worthless. I've been taught to be this way. I was well-trained.

I absolutely love my friends. I'll do anything for them. The shirt off my back. My last $20. Anything. Perhaps it's my problem. Maybe I offer so much and then they start to think about what they might have. They start making demands. They insist that I help them with things that I don't want to do. It progresses until I have to unfriend them in order to find peace. Perhaps its me that drive them crazy.

The common link between all of my problems is still ... me.

Tax Stupidity

You'll like this. His latest move is to threaten my sister with having to file taxes separate. He insisted that they get a CPA to prepare taxes for 2014. My sister told him to hurry up and get it done. She visited several tax places and talked to the IRS about good CPA's. He hated her ideas.

He found a tax preparer - who he claims needs no education and my sister should shut up about her not being a CPA. He says that this tax preparer is good enough and one of my sisters good friends. My sister has never met her. Really, man?

Change the rules mid-stream? And once you've changed the rules, you threaten anyone not willing to follow what you claim the new rules to be? Because, ladies and gentlemen, he's just going to change the rules again in another hour. That's his MO. Once you figure out what he's doing, he abruptly changes direction or language or attitude or whatever will throw people off.

The sad part is that his new 'girlfriend' has no idea what he's really like. Oh boy is that going to come as a shock to her. My sister survived 16 years with the nut-job. After a 6-month separation, he's already on girlfriend number 2. Number 2!

Obviously the crazy is sneaking out while he's not looking....

Dickhead Alert

Today was hilarious! So now he's claiming that I'm biasing his kids. Yep, because between trying to find a job, helping his children with homework, doing my own homework, and finding time to make dinner & do laundry I have SOOO much time available! Of course any time I have left after that is spent thinking about the short, fat, balding, idiot my sister married. Must be. Of course I think, talk, and write about the dickhead all the time. Of course!

What else would I do with my time?!

And naturally I have nothing better to do with my life than sit around and bad-mouth him. Sure, stupid soon-to-be-ex. Of course I have nothing better to do.... Are ex-any-relations really so self-absorbed to think we have no life outside of them? Do they really think we care enough to spend that much time thinking about them? I'm seriously concerned. Maybe it's just my nearly-ex-brother-in-law who is doing this? Maybe no one else has a similar problem?

If that's the case, why did a therapist (NOT for nearly-ex-brother-in-law problems) tell me to blog about the minor irritants in my life? Blogging is supposed to be a stress reliever. Why do a million other people complain about their ex's each day? What makes them think we even care about them? Because seriously, if they think we care about them after everything they've done we are totally DOING SOMETHING WRONG!

Maybe that's where I need to focus. What have I done to make him think I care in any way about him? Like or hate? And who on earth is even telling him that I'm saying mean things about him to his children? It's not his nearly-ex-wife. It can't be the kids. Because I'm not. I'm going out of my way to make sure the kids have to form their own opinions about everything. I've told the little buggers to stop hating him. I've bribed them to be nicer to him. Damnit! It's not my job to make his kids like him!

Suck up to your own kids, dickhead!

Jaws of Hell

I accidently drifted off in my after-workout massage chair this morning. My first mistake of the day. Seriously, like five minutes and I was in the middle of another nightmare. When are they going to stop? I quit my job from hell a year ago! The nightmares should be done by now.

I've looked at the workplace bullying symptoms, forums, and help blogs with no change. Nothing helped while I was being tormented by those bee-otches from an un-heaven-like place. Nothing is helping now that I've grown a pair and left there.

You'd think something would change.

I would think something would change!

I still can't drive on that street. I still can't see black Kia's without breaking into a sweat. I still can't talk to people on Facebook who are friends of friends of them. I've had to completely distance myself from life in my efforts to recover. I'm thinking now that I may never recover.

This is my new normal.

I hate nightmares.

Nearly isn't soon enough

In an effort to continue avoiding people thinking he's a douche bag, my nearly-ex-brother-in-law has adopted a new coping mechanism. Rather than simply depend on his ability to schmooze and charm people into believing anything he wants, he is now terrorizing his children.

I'm seriously not kidding.

The latest move is right out of an old elementary school movie. Stand in front of someone and block them every time they try to step around you. Also, tell them that you're the parent and you can do anything you want anytime you want to. Yessiree, that'll make your alienated kids like you again. Nothing childish about that.

Really?

That's the best idea you can think of?

I guess that's better than last week when he was telling the kids that they couldn't talk to each other. Or sit alone together in a bedroom trying to memorize the periodic table. Because a barely-teenage girl will naturally not be thinking about homework with her barely-double-digit-age brother.

Can you hear yourself, dude? Your brain is puking crap all over your face. You don't seem to realize how utterly stupid you are. And worst of all, I told you how to be friends with your kids! I told you what two behaviors would get them to like you again! You never listen to me and now your kids hate you even more than they did before you abandoned them.

Serves you right.

That One Guy

Ahh, the joke that is my sister's marriage. Her nearly-ex-husband is ... interesting at best. The divorce proceedings are a joke and his behavior is so much worse than even his autistic son. If you've ever seen a grown man acting like a snotty 2-year-old, you can already see where this is going.

Recently, he threw a fit about his daughter not liking him. He insists that it's everybody else's job to make her like him. Mostly my sister's job. Her responsibility, actually. Guess what, doofus? If you abandon your family and divorce your wife, it's no longer her job to make your life easier in ANY way. You screwed up. You deal with it.

Hopefully he understands one day.

Hopefully.

He won't. If it isn't about him, it doesn't exist. Self-centered people really cause a lot of problems. And they're so difficult deal with. Too bad it's illegal to kill stupid, self-centered people.

Not only no, hell no...

*continued*

So I walked away from Hell (my job of 1 year prior). I left contact information. I expected someone to call or email or text me. Especially my 'friend' who I'd been helping with her job for the last 2 years. No one called.

About a month later, I got an email from the President of the Board of Directors of Hell. Lets call him .... Burns. Burns said in the email that they needed me to tell them the password on my office phone and computer as no one could access anything. Obviously it was rude of me to place passwords on everything before walking out the door with no notice and no way for them to access me.

BIG FAT LIES!

I've never had a password on my phone. If there was one, it wasn't me that put it on. I had no idea what the computer password was because the new Dictator locked me out of everything technology related because she claimed I was "incompetent". If there are passwords, I left the list with the lying Business Manager. The Business Manager I thought was my friend.

Betrayal ripped through me. I'd been ignoring other office staff who would Facebook me to tell me that my friend was badmouthing me. I dismissed all the claims that she and several others were blaming all the office problems on me. I thought they were my friends. I'd been protecting them for years. I'd been buying them lunch and helping their kids with homework. I thought....

Oh boy was I wrong.

No one believed me. No one believed that I hadn't sabotaged Hell on my way out. No one offered sympathy. No one said anything about a going away party. No one sad anything at all. I even tried contacting my friend about things. She had handed in her resignation the same day I did. Turned out she was still working there. They assured her changes would happen and things would improve. Turns out I was right all along... they were trying to drive me out.

The hilarious part is that in November Hell contacted me. They needed help with a fundraiser they were knee deep in. I was hugely offended. Yep, that's how they work. Only demand assistance when they need something. I cried for an hour after that phone call. And the worst part of it? They had the only person left that I would have answered for do the calling.

I don't answer the phone anymore.

Oh Hell no ...

Last year about this time I had a job. As work goes, it sucked. Literally. It sucked the life and joy right out of my soul. After 8 years, I hated it. I was only holding on mentally for a few people that I thought were my friends.

Let's call this particular workplace Hell. I'm trying to be professional, after all, while I deal with my problems and insecurities. (I think I'm trying anyway...) At Hell, we had a Dictator who was a good boss. She listened and thought things through before making decisions. Being a small 'company' everyone wanted a voice in decision making. The Dictator gave them that voice. We all felt happy and fulfilled because of the good we were sharing with the world.

Until the Manager was hired. Yelling, throwing things, back-biting, manipulating, slander, and on and on and on. Things went south incredibly quickly. I was publicly ridiculed on so many occasions - which is truly sad because I was a grunt that wasn't a threat to ANYONE's job. The Manager hated me. Except on days that she would hug me and offer back rubs while I was working. It was creepy psycho. I didn't know how to react.

Until the Dictator got a better offer. She'd been beaten pretty badly herself through a few recent mutinous rebellions and she needed a break. So she left. She left Hell. She left the city. She left the state. She went somewhere else to be happy. I'm proud of her.

Things got worse and worse. I was removed from my job and instructed to find my replacement via outsourcing. I found irrefutable proof that the one person I was staying for had lied to me. Big lies. Big fat hairy lies. So I left. I handed in my resignation and left contact information for my final week. No one called. Not even my so-called friend.

Apparently I wasn't as useful as I had thought.