I'm grateful for: the ability to be useful to others; a slight reduction in the unbearable heat; a room of my own with a bed that goes up when I can't hold myself up.

It's before ten in the morning. I didn't get enough sleep. It's grody flashbacks, or something. Just s**t in my head. I don't know what.

I don't know why I'm writing about it here. This is definitely the part where this is more my diary than anything about anyone else who might be reading it. I am not writing to connect or to entertain, but only because I can't sit in my skin and my fingers dancing over the keyboard (they are! They are dancing!) is the only thing keeping me from acting even more insane in real life.

I don't know what's going on with me. I wanted to write that in all caps, but I'm not going back and changing it. I don't know. I'm assuming it's grody flashbacks, because I had a new one yesterday and because it usually is. But I just don't know. I wish I could have slept, or could get more sleep now.

It's kind of grossly unfair that the weather is actually giving me the teensiest bit of a break, and now I can't do anything because of M.S. and incest flashbacks. Can I have a life, please? Something that, just maybe, doesn't hurt all the time and doesn't involve so many hours of not sleeping, and not being able to function, while gazing grumpily out through the haze of sleep-deprivation? I would *really* like to get enough sleep for more than a couple of day in a row. Someday. I can't blame this one on the kids. Or the dogs. Or the cats. Or the neighbours. No, this is just me being totally f**ked up by my life. Gaaah!

Talking about those three women I wrote about last night. There is definitely something bad about talking pleasantly to people who've behaved horribly to me. I don't just mean it is a bad thing to do - it has really bad consequences for me. Like, getting all (or further) messed up in the head, thinking about them, thinking about the situation, I'd really like to have nothing further to do with any of them. It's not like I don't have enough people in my life that I need to work to include people who obviously aren't a positive addition.

Of course, the ONLY reason I was talking to them was because their sons are my son's friends, and he wants them to sleep over for his birthday. I suppose that is a good enough reason - but the consequences are pretty extreme for me. I don't want people like that in my life at all. I don't seem to have that choice. I haven't yet worked out how to live with that. Maybe that is today's lesson/struggle? The is not, to me, a clue.

One thing I don't get is that the people I meet here on the moshav aren't like that at all. I mean, maybe some of them don't like me, and maybe some of them could/would behave horribly in a given situation, but I don't really know that as no one has. Except the mom who showed up drunk last night, who has been somewhat contemptuous in the past. She sure isn't singing that song any longer. It's interesting that Hashem - with her help - has put her in a situation where she literally has no one else to come to besides me. At least on shabbos.

So is it something wrong with the homeschoolers, or the homeschoolers I seem to have 'chosen' to associate with, or is it simply dumb luck? I'd like to try another homeschoolers group just to find out if they aren't all like that. I don't know how that would play out, as the only one I know of else is in Tel Aviv - just too far a shlep for me. There are homeschoolers in Modi'in, which is closer, a bit. There might be some in Be'er Sheva, but if so I haven't heard of them. Then there is the problem that my Hebrew isn't good enough for even a simple conversation... but that might improve given people willing to make the effort to converse with me. Which I certainly don't have with this group.

The other thing is that this group is the only group that is largely religiously observant. Not hareidi, not even necessarily dati, but would be considered Orthodox in the states. Orthoid even. I have nothing against secular Jews. I do have something against being trashed by them for being religious myself. It is a problem.

When we first made aliyah, the first English speakers we met, and with whom we made friends, turned out to be hostile to religious Jews of any stripe. While they had some reason (being attacked by a bunch of Hareidim when they made a wrong turn in J'lem), WE are not hareidim, WE do not attack people for driving on shabbos or anything really. That didn't matter. We were constantly being asked how can we be religious when some religious people act like that? I don't know, how can we be human beings when some human beings act as they do? The problem is not with being religious. The problem is intolerance. They were just as intolerant of us. Rock-throwing Hareidim are an excuse, as are secular Jews who deliberately ride their motorcycles through religious neighbourhoods on shabbos in order to incite them. The problem is intolerance. Lack of acceptance. Fear and hatred generally. I cover my head in public and it is not a judgment on anyone who doesn't, it is a choice I make for reasons that make sense to me.

Secular Jews who can't or won't differentiate between me and rock-throwing hareidim scare me. I don't want to be around them.

And my hopefully only comment on politics or this election. I don't like any of them. I don't like McCain, or Obama, or Palin or Biden. I really don't like Biden. McCain has bothered me for years - and I'm not the only one. There is a reason that in more than one presidential election he hasn't been nominated. Palin is someone who, if I lived next door to her, I would avoid her when possible, be gritted-teeth polite when necessary, and make nasty comments about behind her back. Yes, I would. I am not such a wonderful person sometimes. I certainly don't want someone like her running the country. Scary doesn't begin to cover it. I think l-empress said it better than I ever could. I don't like Biden, he's been around a long time, and has a sleaze factor that quite probably outweighs the sleaze factor of the other three added together (you don't have to agree with me, it's just my opinion). And Obama. The ONLY reason I would have for voting for Obama is because he is black. I don't like what he says, I don't like how he presents himself, I don't like his background, associates, wife. I WOULD like to have an African-American candidate I could vote for - but he isn't it.

So, IF I vote in this election, which is uncertain due to a certain uncertainty in my residency status and thereby my voting registration, I will be voting for a candidate I would hate to see win the election. How is that? *sigh* And that's all my politics for this election, I hope.

I'm feeling heartsick and lonely. That is mostly about the grody flashbacks. And some memories I had from working at Walgreen's back in the early 1980's. I don't think anything in my life more clearly demonstrated to me that I was 'broken' than my year+ at Walgreen's. It took me several years after that to be able to really start working on myself. No, that's not true. It really was a year or less I think. Wow, it's good to look back and see these things sometimes. I worked at Walgreen's as a cashier. I was good at it. I liked the job. But as time went on I got more and more non-functional - 'til I was acting really insane at the end. I think. Maybe I was acting insane the whole time. It is painful to look back on that time-period. It is painful to remember conversations I had with assistant-managers, things I did while on the job (I did steal from the register, but not that much, and I've repaid it all now I think). I took a few items without paying for them, and gave away a pack of cigarettes for nothing which I should not have - but didn't have the sense/sanity/knowledge to *not* do it. I didn't know how to say 'no.'

'Just say no' only works, in any context, if you've ever had the opportunity to say no, repeatedly, and stand by your 'no.' A thought for the day.

I'm curious (just looking to the right here for a moment) does anyone know why some names show up in bold and others not? In different sizes? is this significant of anything? Please let me know if you know, I'm tired of wondering.

Remembering being at Walgreen's is painful. It's like I have to twist my head to do it, and then there are all the embarrassing or potentially embarrassing things I said and did. I don't wish I hadn't been there, I wish I hadn't been so broken in the first place. Functioning in this world is not for the ill-prepared.

Walgreen's was actually a terrific place from the point of view of being a cushion against harsh reality. I had a job I could do no matter what was wrong between my ears, my interactions with people, customers, co-workers and managers, were all at a level I could handle. Not too intimate but not entirely anonymous. I was able to make friends, and they didn't stay long enough for my craziness to get in the way. It didn't hurt when any of them left.

I was a good Walgreen's doobie. And I worked there for just over a year. The transition from being the hopeless lost soul of my mother's creation to being a functional (ish) adult. I suppose if I hadn't been broken when I started working there I would still have left- its not a long-term job for a smart young person. It's a stepping stone, a start.

I left there and ran away to Calif. with my husband-to-be (we weren't engaged yet). I was pregnant and that was D1, who I gave up to friends of the family (another painful thing), and we got married and I got into therapy. Real therapy as opposed to when my mother would drop me off at a shrink's office with the general announcement of 'there is something wrong with her, fix her.' and then leave me on my own.

I found a good therapist. Which was possibly the best thing that could have happened to me, because if I'd found only a string of bad ones I might have kept banging on that closed door. Having a good therapist meant that when I'd gotten all I could out of therapy, I could walk away. Unfortunately getting all I could out of therapy was not the same as being all better. Not even close. Not even in the same universe. Getting all I could out of therapy meant that delving into what I knew of my past, and getting another person's insight, wasn't what I needed.

I didn't need insight. I needed to be safe. I didn't know that, couldn't let myself know that at the time. I had to move to the other side of the continent, with a husband, to a whole new life, before I could be safe enough to look at what my life had been. Safe from retaliation, safe from further abuse. Safe from people who would and could kill me, or worse, get me locked up in some institution, until or unless I would willingly accept the lies.

What am I going on about this for? I don't know... I guess I need to. Or something.

I am not paranoid. There were (and possibly still are) people who would go to any lengths necessary to protect themselves if they felt threatened by me. Fortunately, none of them are here in Israel. Fortunately, I have learned how to tell my truths without needing to shout about it in public. Fortunately, there are people with open minds and warm hearts, who don't need me to 'prove' what I say before they will take my word on what my life was.

The other ones who drive me crazy (besides the ones who demand 'proof'), are the ones who want to know 'Why?' They would ask me 'why did they do that?' and I would get really incensed. I mean, I mean, I mean...! Do you really think they told me? Do you really thing these people with their secrets and their rituals and their sick turn-ons bothered to EXPLAIN to me just why they were doing the particular set of weird s**t they were doing? I mean, really. I was the kid, the object, the sacrifice or whatever-the-hell. I didn't need to know, they certainly didn't bother to tell me.

There is nothing for me to be afraid of here, but I would want to make sure I had a heck of a lot of armour/insurance/backup before I would ever go visit or (heaven forbid) stay near my mother again. I doubt there is much she could do, but I wouldn't want to test it the hard way.

But anyway...

Walgreen's. Flashbacks (being tied so I couldn't move, sex, over-stimulation, some kind of trance/hypnosis thing, I can't speak or cry out, I don't know why. Could be a gag, or I could be mute. Yucky stuff). Unpleasant people in my life. A new puppy. I didn't write about the new puppy.

S1 has adopted a puppy. Which makes, if you are counting, four dogs in our household. Four. I never was that much of a dog person. Still, she is the sweetest little thing. She looks like she's going to be a big thing though. S1 has named her Samantha. She looks like a Samantha. Photos, sometime, I promise.

I'm still tired and cranky, I need more sleep and less heat. And I want someone I can pour my heart out to who is warm (but not too warm in this heat), and non-judgmental, and loving, who can listen and I can lean on for a little bit. I want someone to put his/her arms around me and love me until the present horror goes back to the past where it belongs and I can function again. Why is this too much to ask?

You know - I wish I hadn't had such horrible things happen to me. Since they did, I AM glad that I can use my experiences to help other people, if only to be able to be non-judgmental and put my arms around them lovingly until they are ready to sit up and move on. I am grateful for the ability to be useful to other people. I am not yet better enough, though, to not want what I've never had. What it seems I am not going to get in this lifetime. Why isn't it possible to accept that it is not for me, and get on with my life already? I am so tired of fussing about what is missing in my life. I have so much...

:: Yesterdays : Tomorrows ::

~~~Last Five Entries~~~
Hi and goodbye - 2010-10-15
I'll be moving on - 2010-10-10
Gold membership and stuff - 2010-10-10
Decisions, decisions - 2010-10-07
Days to go - 2010-10-06