Transgender origins

I often have pretty random thoughts, that I personally think are insight from another realm. These random thoughts are often not based on any research, and when I do research them, I often find nothing to support my idea. Meaning that it has not been researched or possibly even explored or thought of. While that may make it seem like my ideas are far-fetched and caused by my eccentricity, I beg to reason that every time tested theory began as a wild idea at some point, something that people thought was completely far-fetched and impossible.

I often receive many of my answers to life’s questions in the same manner that I download these random thoughts. While I have no background in science and the medical field whatsoever, I feel that there are some things that I have an innate ‘knowing’ about. Perhaps, if you believe in reincarnation, I was in the medical field in a past life and have carried over some of the natural logic in to this life with me. My husband often makes fun of me for “over-diagnosing” everyone and everything, but I am often right. While many of the things I have proven to be right on have not been proven by scientific tests, after I have come up with a medical diagnosis theory on someone, I have ended up having a doctor confirm those diagnoses or some other piece of hard evidence favor my opinion. For example, years ago I began to suspect I had ADHD. While I know this is a very over-diagnosed syndrome, I found definitive relief in taking medication for it. Years later when I found my birth family, I found out that ADHD ran in my genetic line, one of the few things that my birthdad mentioned when I asked about any health concerns on his side.

So, this particular random thought of which I speak is regarding children/people who end up being transgender. My daughter has Asperger’s, and often with Autism and Asperger’s, many of the children end up being transgender or more comfortable dressing as and acting more in the role of the opposite sex than the one they were born in. This is mentioned in what is considered by many to be “The Bible” of Asperger’s research, the book by Tony Attwood about Asperger’s Syndrome. My daughter started to show many signs of feeling more comfortable with boys toys and speaking of wishing she was a boy as early as age 5. She is now 11 and cut her hair in a “boy cut” 2 years ago. Most people who don’t know her refer to her as a boy when they first meet her.

While I know that her propensity towards transgenderism is linked to the fact that she has Asperger’s, the thought ran through my mind one day that I had a miscarriage only 3 months before I got pregnant with her. I was 11 weeks and 5 days pregnant with twins when I miscarried. I had a D&C. Because I have a negative blood type, I always had to get the rhogam shot with each pregnancy, miscarriage and delivery so as not to affect any subsequent pregnancy. So, if a former pregnancy blood type can affect a subsequent pregnancy, and there is research that cells do stay behind and affect the mother sometimes and subsequent pregnancies, is there a possibility that cells from former pregnancies could affect gender tendencies. I wasn’t far enough along to find out whether the twins I was pregnant with were boys or girls. But I wonder if perhpas they were boys and the male hormones were left in my body and perhpas absorbed in my daughter once I conceived her, thus giving her a higher percentage of male hormones, especially if both of the twins were boys, it would have been an even higher concentration.

I thought of this again today because a friend of mine sent me a video about chimera twins. I was always obsessed with twins as a child. Being adopted, there was always something in the back of my mind wondering if it was a possibility if I was a twin. My adoptive parents told me that of both twins were put up for adoption that they would have adopted my twin as well. At one point I read a statistic that 92% of all people who were born left handed were originally conceived as a twin and that the other twin was absorbed before being detected if they werent born as live twin births. I was born left handed (and switched because my adoptive parents were raised Catholic and under the spell that left handed people were the mark of the devil). When I went for my sonogram and found out I was pregnant with twins, the first thing they asked was whether I was a twin or whether there were twins on my side because twins usually run genetically on the mothers side. There is one set of twins on my birthmoms side, two of my first cousins are twins. But the video today about chimera is about the absorbtion of twins and having two sets of genetics in the same person, which my best friend sent me because she knows my obsession with twins and how I’ve felt that maybe I was a twin. One of the things included in the research about chimera was also about the cells left behind from pregnancies as well and how they can affect the mother and subsequent pregnancies, which reminded me of my theory of transgender and whether it might be due to previous miscarriages of opposite genders.

I would really love to do or see some research done on this. If you are reading this article and are transgender, or know someone who is transgender, if you could comment with whether you were born after a miscarriage that your mother had, that would be really awesome. And ifiyou were and know the gender of the miscarriage that your mother had and whether it was opposite to the one you were born as, that would be even better. This is all just to placate my whim of a thought/idea  and to see whether it would even be worth pursuing any further. Even if it just strips the varnish off my idea, I’d still rather know whether it’s worth thinking about any further. Thanks in advance if you do comment with any info that could help, in either direction. I am always willing to be wrong too.

 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/varnish/

Sick Cycle Carousel

I feel like my life is in a constant state of emergency. And it is always such mainly due to the choices that everyone else makes that is in my life. And while I do take responsibility for making the choice for who I married which brought some of those people in to my life, and every day that I choose to stay married, I guess is also my choice, but there were choices that I didn’t make at the beginning of my life that shaped who I am. I did not choose to be taken from my birth mother. I did not choose to be put up for adoption. I did not choose the narcissistic parents that raised me. And all of this impacts, every day, how I react to my environment and the people that are in it. And yes, I know that no one chooses who they are born to. At least we don’t make those choices here on Earth. However, people who experience a normal birth with their parents, do not come in to this world with trauma from the second they were born, or even before that, from the moment they were conceived.

I have been traveling down a very independent spiritual path which began mainly once I reached college. There was always something inside of me that knew the religion(s) I was being taught and raised by when I was young weren’t the ones for me. When I made my confirmation at 13, I cried as I walked down the aisle, not because I was happy or moved, but because the priest had told us that confirmation was now our decision as opposed to Baptism which was our parents decision. But I still felt at 13 that it was my parents decision, because I was highly controlled by my parents at 13. There was no way I could tell them at 13 I didn’t want to be confirmed in the Catholic faith and that I didn’t really agree with what I was attesting to. I began researching many of the different religions when I reached college. I wrote all my research down in a large text book sized book with blank pages that I called a Book of Shadows, after the sacred book of Wicca.

I abandoned the research for a while after I filled the book and just did my own thing spiritually/religiously for a while and just floated about. Recently I began to seek more again in that realm and to read more on the topics again.

On my point that I made earlier about the fact that we don’t make our own choices about who we are born to, at least not while we’re here on Earth. I was alluding to my newly gained knowledge regarding the Akashic Records. While I don’t know much about the topic yet, it is something I intend to explore. Many of those that I have been in conversation with about spiritual topics speak of the fact that we/our souls write our own script and contract (in the Akashic Records) before each life time on Earth and that we do choose our own path, no matter how hard that may be to accept, that we may have chosen a hard path for ourselves for a specific reason. This is a hard nut for me to swallow as I have struggled a lot in this lifetime. And it feels as though the way that I have chosen to love my life in terms of my virtues and actions are not in karmic relation to what I am dealt. I am told that karma is built up over multiple lifetimes though. This is also a very difficult nut to swallow. It is hard to continue living a virtuous life in this lifetime when it doesn’t seem as though I will reap any benefit from it in this lifetime. I feel as though I am destined for a constant life of hardships this go around. It is hard to continue to live for the advancement of my soul to raise to a higher level for the next lifetime or dimension or plane when I won’t remember the experience as the person that I am right now. Somehow I know people make good with themselves for the idea of life in Heaven or whatever it is they believe for the afterlife. And maybe it is selfish of me to want to get some sort of reprieve within this lifetime. It is hard for me to look around at those for whom life sometimes seems so easy.

I have always been afraid of death. And I still am, but my soul and earthly psyche is exhausted. I am weary of all of this pain and struggle and horrifying stuff I keep experiencing and witnessing on Earth. I am mentally more and more ready to leave this Earth as each day passes. I am ready at age 40 to step off this Sick Cycle of a Carousel for good. This entire reincarnation journey. I hope I am awakened enough that I am close to the end of my path and ready to ascend the final staircase to Nirvana or Heaven or the highest astral plane, or whatever the final destination may be.

In my newer research studies of religions and spirituality, I have come upon another new term as well. Starseed. A starseed is defined as someone who originates from another planet or star/celestial body but resides here on Earth. This concept is one that is difficult for me to grasp as I was raised by very closed minded parents who are very conventional and poo-poo anything that is esoteric in nature. I feel as though I need to keep my mind open to things that I cannot know to be untrue. Especially when the characteristics of those who are defined as a Starseed fit who I am to a tee. There are very few qualities that do not describe me. Here are the traits of a Starseed.

• From a young age, you have had an inherent wisdom that usually comes later in life for other people.

• You’ve been told you’re an old soul and you agree. You feel ancient to the core

• No matter where you are, you always have a feeling of homesickness. You know what home feels like, even if you can’t express it, and you know that your house is not it. This may even lead to depression in some cases.

• Even as a child, you have always felt different, as though you are unique and others cannot understand you. You feel divided from the world — as if it is a constant battle of “them” vs. “you.”

• You often feel morally superior to others, regardless of education or social stature.

• Your sense of empathy is overwhelming.

• You feel different from those around you, however, you have a natural inclination to relate to their struggles.

• Your physical body is an enigma to doctors. It functions differently than everyone else’s and the medical world struggles to understand it. This may manifest itself in ways as small as a lower than average body temperature or inability to withstand heat.

• You are incredibly intelligent, but bored easily by traditional academics.

• You have had a paranormal or psychic experience. You may have seen a ghost, heard other’s thoughts, had dreams that became reality, etc.

• You feel as though you have a purpose or mission to fulfill, but struggle to find what you want to do with your life.

• You lack the passion or intrigue to truly devote yourself to one area and understand the banality of life.

• The physical limitations of your body often frustrate you.

• You feel as though you should be able to do more but are vexed by your restrictions. This is because Starseeds remember far more freedom in their physical form.

• Your dreams are vivid and exceptional, and waking life never seems to measure up. Often, your dreams will seem other worldly — as though your mind has created a completely separate universe.

• Others are often wary of you or feel uncomfortable in your presence. People instinctually know that you are different, but struggle to verbalize why. You may even feel isolated within your own family.

• You have very few friends, but those who are seem to understand you without need of explanation

• Animals trust you and are naturally drawn to you. You understand them to the point that it feels as though you can communicate. The same is true for babies and small children. They find you fascinating and seem mesmerized in your presence.

• You are interested in spirituality but see the divine beyond books and religion. You may not be able to put it into words, but you have a deep understanding that spirituality has always been an intrinsic part of you.

• You are drawn to metaphysics and the science behind other worlds.

• You can feel who people are without them ever saying a word. You see beyond the external façade and instinctually know when they are lying. You may seem rude in conversations because you know what the other person is going to say before they’ve even started. People think you are disinterested, when in reality you are frustrated by the pace of the conversation.

• From a young age, you questioned the ways of society and still feel perplexed as to how other’s don’t see its mistakes.

• Though your dreams are exceptional, you’ve always had trouble sleeping.

• You have a natural ability to make others feel better – whether through medicine or your words. Strangers will often open up about their problems without even realizing it.

• People’s first impression of you is often aloof or cold, however, once they get to know you, they consider you to be one of the most loving people that they know.

• You avoid large crowds and find it hard to handle people in large doses — even friends. To you, people are overwhelming and their emotions and actions seem chaotic.

• You have an ability to emotionally or spiritually grow much faster than those around you. Your sense of morality keeps you grounded, even when presented with emotions that are difficult for others to handle.

 

The older I get, the more solitary I feel in my plight in life. And yet I feel like all I am made to do these days is to serve others. And this is weighing me down and stifling the greatness that I know of inside of me. There are so many things I want to accomplish in life that have gone on the back burner because I am burdened by dealing with everyone else’s “stuff” in life. It feels like my life’s direction is hardly ever due to my own needs and desires and path. And even though I might not be the bread winner, as always, that is one of the driving forces as to why my own pursuits take a back seat. My role as a woman and mother is another reason that I become the responsible one for everyone else and have to be the self sacrificing one. And the fact that I take responsibility for my actions and deal with my problems instead of trying to escape them furthers my stuckedness. And right now the only vision I have to shift my priorities is to abandon my current life path altogether. And that is much easier said than done. But I have been making real steps towards this instead of just imagining it in my head and talking about it. It feels as though it will be a when rather than an if at this point. I’m scared and I’m sad, but I don’t know how else to fix things anymore for everyone. And I need my 40s to be better than my 30s. I spent 10 years stuck in a holding pattern, and my souls signature is better than this. The world deserves all I have to offer, and there is so much more that I have to put out there that I haven’t been able to with where I’m at and I won’t be able to if life continues this way. Working on finding my power.

Sick Cycle Carousel
By: Lifehouse

If shame had a face I think it
would kind of look like mine
If it had a home would it be my eyes
Would you believe me if I said I’m tired of this
Well here we go now one more timeI tried to climb your steps
I tried to chase you down
I tried to see how low I could get it down to the ground
I tried to earn my way
I tried to tame this mind
You better believe that I tried to beat this[CHORUS]
So when will this end it goes on and on
Over and over and over again
Keep spinning around I know that it won’t stop
Till I step down from this for goodI never thought I’d end up here
Never thought I’d be standing where I am
I guess I kinda thought it would be easier than this
I guess I was wrong now one more timeI tried to climb your steps
I tried to chase you down
I tried to see how long I could get it down to the ground
I tried to earn my way
I tried to tame this mind
You better believe that I tried yo beat this

[REPEAT CHORUS]
Sick cycle carousel
This is a sick sycle, yeah
Sick cycle carousel
This is a sick cycle, yeah

[REPEAT CHORUS TWICE]
Sick cycle carousel
Sick cycle carousel
Sick cycle carousel…

 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/carousel/

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/solitary/

 

Suffocate to freedom

Another day,

Another dollar,

Another dish,

Another holler.

 

Is this to what I’ve been reduced?

 

Where are the floodlit stages,

The music filled pages,

The circumstance and pomp,

The willowing womp?

 

For it is mine that takes a

back seat,

lack street.

Just because it doesn’t earn as much

cash flow,

roll in dough.

 

But at least with mine I

stretch it out,

fetch it out.

With yours, you only

hide it,

snide it.

 

I’m sick of all the

secrets, lies,

vices, ties.

 

It makes me cringe,

come unhinged.

 

Once I learn to free myself,

I can be myself.

I will suffocate no more.

 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/cringe/

Emotional Rollercoaster

I know I’ve been MIA a bit…with my stepdaughter moving back in after her break up with her boyfriend and subsequent stay in the psych hospital, my life has been turned upside down again. I know this is the time I need to write the most, but I just haven’t even been able to pull myself together enough to do that. This is why I’m just trying to even drop this little note to get back in to it, even if only the first step. At least it serves as a reminder of what I need to do to keep sane through a time I can already feel myself sliding down a slippery slope, very quickly. As things start to settle in, I will make it a priority again to get back to writing here. It is essential for my well being. I haven’t even been able to express myself through my music, because the school year came to a culmination and I hadn’t even been able to get myself together enough to email everyone about scheduling, especially since I teach a decent amount out of my house, and my house has been a holy wreck for a month now due to my crazy end of the year recital stuff and my step daughter moving back in, which entails a whole ton of moving things around within our house to get a room ready for her again and moving a lot in to a storage unit. One big ball of chaos and in flux again. I just don’t know how much more of this life (style) I can handle. I’m tired of my life being shaken up by everyone else. It might be time for me to do some shaking of my own…

Juxtapose my love

You are correct. I don’t know what it’s like for MY child to want to snuff herself out. Even though I treat of and think of my stepdaughter that I raised beginning at age 11 full time as my own, it is different than it being my own child. But you presume that it means that my pain is less than yours.

I know I always speak of my adoptive parents saying how they thought of me as their own but that I always felt the difference and that I always knew deep down that I was second best to them. They wanted their own biological child first, when they couldn’t have that child, they sought out the “backup plan” which was adoption…ME. And when I didn’t live up to their expectations, they were quick to point out how my genetics were to blame. My adoptive parents are Narcissists. They never wanted what was best for me. They wanted what was best for themselves. They wanted a child for themselves, so that THEY could feel loved, so that THEY could fill the hole they felt.

The difference is, that where my adoptive parents told me the chosen child story, the reality of it was that I was the backup plan. But I really did chose my life with my stepchildren. I fell in love with the thought of a life with them. And that was never something I would have seen for myself at 23. And despite everything I went through in raising them, being extremely young, fighting a battle against a mother who made me out to be a monster, fighting my own demons, and feeling like my stepchildren despised me, I stood by my stepchildren and you through it all.

And even when things got so hard that my stepdaughter and I parted ways, even when I was so hurt that I couldn’t even look at her when she was in the room, we began to work through it a couple of years later. And now, we are in such a good place and we understand each other and are extremely close, a place I never imagined 10 years ago that we would ever be.

Despite how much hurt I endured, how much I put in to my relationship with my step kids, to feel rejection time and time again for so long, my biggest fear because of my birth story, I still opened myself up to it again and took a chance again with both of them.

So although it is different for me than it is for you when you juxtapose how you feel about your daughter wanting to snuff herself out with how I feel about my stepdaughter wanting to snuff herself out, please don’t presume that you know how I feel. Because you don’t. It might be different, but that doesn’t mean that my pain is any less than yours. I do have a biological child, so I can compare and put myself in the headspace of what it might feel like if it was my biological daughter. You have never been a stepparent, you have never been an Adoptee, you have never experienced what I have experienced and still continued to care and come back because you can’t stop loving those children. My adoptive parents never modeled unconditional love for me, and yet somehow I found out what that was through being a stepparent, because despite my many mistakes through their teenage years, I did always try and have tried to better myself and have worked on things so that I can be a better stepmom for them, something my adoptive parents never afforded me. So, my pain should not be looked down upon or invalidated simply because she’s my stepdaughter. You have no clue what my experience has been, so please, stop comparing our pain just to show how much worse your life is than mine right now.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/juxtapose/

Archaic Diagnoses/Archaic Parenting

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As she asked to print more pictures to color after yesterday’s batch for the ride to the amusement park tomorrow, she originally said 1-3. Then she said it might be 4. Later on when she started to actually look them up, I specified no more than 4. As I said it, I knew she would ask for more. Because I know my daughter has Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) in addition to her extremely high functioning Asperger’s Autism. Sure enough, within 5 minutes she said, it might be more like 5, and I said gently, no, I said no more than 4. I had already let her increase the 1-3 up to 4. Even though PDA is currently only recognized in the UK, it is starting to gain more clout in the US. She is not officially diagnosed with this, but I know without a shadow of a doubt she has it. She is officially diagnosed by her pediatrician with Asperger’s Autism. Technically, it is now Autism Level 1. Asperger’s is now an archaic term since they released the DSM-5. All Autism diagnoses are just a spectrum and divided in to 3 levels. Level 1 is High Functioning which is where those who would have formerly been diagnosed as Asperger’s are now placed. I personally still prefer the term Asperger’s and continue to use it.

Giving children sentences with multiple directions to follow is an actual developmental milestone. It is one for the age of 3 year olds. But children with PDA are overwhelmed by demands that are thrown at them at the same time. Any instruction is processed as a demand, and thus, this developmental milestone becomes a hotbed for attitude because it puts these children in a pressure cooker. Today when I told my 10 year old that it was time to take a shower, and then followed that up with the sentence of to make sure she also cleans up the mess she had left downstairs from her homework, she answers with an attitude how she knows she knows…When her father comes down, all of her stuff is in front of his seat and he comments how he sees a tornado passed through. I told him how I told her to do that part after I told her to take the shower so of course she has to do them in order. But when she comes down the stairs, for how much attitude I get the “I know, I know” when I remind her earlier of cleaning the homework mess up, do you think she goes right to cleaning that up? Of course she doesn’t. She tries to avoid that demand altogether. She goes right in to the other room to color and begin making another mess in there. It’s a never ending battle. And I know in many ways this sounds like typical child behavior, but it’s the constant attitude that I get when I ask daily for the simple task of her to clean up after herself. You would think I was asking her to move a mountain. You would think I had never made her clean up after herself before. You would think I had never held her accountable for herself before the way she speaks to me when I ask her for a simple request. And that, my friends, is definitely not a typical 10 year old.

Still, at 10 years old, even with no wait at a restaurant, she has no patience. When we are done with our meal, she wants to leave so badly and is so bored that she is blowing bubbles in her water and playing with it like a 3 year old. Before we were ready to leave, because she was ready to go (as in, showered, dressed etc, far enough in advance) she wanted to leave 15 minutes earlier just so we could get to the parking lot and wait, just because she didn’t want to wait any longer at home (which is honestly a better place for her to wait where all of her stuff is to occupy her). But the idea of waiting in any way is torturous to her.

I have definitely learned to allow a few minutes of leeway whenever I need her to be ready to do something or go somewhere because when I give her a warning or tell her it’s time to go to bed, or to stop what she’s doing because it’s time to go, I often get told to wait till she’s done with this game or this video or this episode etc….And I know that if I don’t, she will have a fit. And while I understand that children need to know how to not get their way, this is a little different because if it is a real time constraint and I can explain to her a real reason as to why she must stop right then and there, I’d rather save those demand times for important times when it is absolutely necessary and have her cooperative on those days rather than force her compliance every single time.

Many people disagree with the way it is recommended to parent children with Asperger’s and PDA. But I know for a fact that the old school hard knocks version of parenting was NOT working with mine. And although mine can still be a handful at times, I think all in all she has done much better, and I think the times she is at her worst is also when we are and that we need to remain calm and model for her the way we want her to act in a situations so she can learn by example. It just makes more logical sense than to instill the fear of God in her with something like spanking. That just teaches her that when our level.of frustration rises that it’s ok to hit and that’s not the proper message to send her. Just my personal opinion.

 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/archaic/

Feeling Famous

Today I received an email from a professor at Fairleigh Dickenson University, a composer, asking me if I would be interested in taking a look at some of his recent compositions for clarinet. I just resigned from two different community colleges as the Adjunct Clarinet Instructor, but he sent this email to my direct email address, and it wasn’t flagged as coming through my website either. I think I may have the actual email address written out on my website somewhere, so he could have just copied it rather than linking to it. I never attended or taught at or that close to that University, nor do I have any connections at that University. I have NO idea how he found me. It is times like these that make me feel semi-famous in my little music world. To know that I was scouted out in some way, that my opinion matters in the clarinet and University/Professional level composer world means something to me.

I know I will never be the principal of the New York Philharmonic, or a big shot soloist. I made the decision a long time ago while I was still in college and met my to be husband that I wanted a family and I knew that meant I would need to make sacrifices in my career. Right now I’m still not quite where I want to be, especially recently because my husband has had to take 2 full time jobs to help us out financially which has meant that I have even had to turn down some gig opportunities because I need someone home with our 10 year old, and I don’t have many sitter options. I am hoping that as she gets older and within the next few years when she is able to start staying home by herself at night as well that I am able to start taking and seeking out more gig opportunities again. I miss playing more. I still perform, but hardly anywhere near what I used to, and even then it wasn’t as much as I had wanted to. I am 40. I’m getting up there in terms of music career to be feeling like I haven’t even really broken in the way that I have wanted to. I started a bit later having a kid (I started by raising my older step kids first, so I didn’t have my biological daughter till I was 29). I hope it’s not too late by the time I’m actually able to get myself back out there. The one thing I have going for me that’s unique is that I can play 3 instruments almost equally well, Clarinet (my primary), Flute and Sax. There are people who play all three in order to play pit orchestras, but not many can actually play the level of solo repertoire on all 3 the way that I can. I am able to play a full length solo recital and play all 3 instruments with equivalent level solo material on all 3 instruments, which makes for something that is not really done. So I hope that I am able to begin re-pursuing that in a few years again.

Emails like the one I got today are little reminders that my name is out there. People in other states have heard of me. I hope that this will work to my advantage 6 years from now when I really work on becoming famous for real. Fingers crossed.

My Professional YouTube Channel

Would love for you to give a listen to  my recordings of me playing and subscribe to my channel 😘

 

(Yes, those are all my instruments, I played all of them in the pit orchestra for a musical a few years ago)

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/famous/

Making an a$$ out of u and me

So, yesterday’s bully situation exploded in my face today. When doesn’t standing up for myself or my daughter backfires. Learning to love myself entails using my voice, defending what needs defending and not letting people walk all over me (or my daughter) any longer. And of course, just because I didn’t hear any of the specific words that were said by the girl running her mouth, I can’t really defend my position and it becomes hearsay/he said she said. The girl went and “told” on me to the teacher and her mother, who then emailed the school. She claims that someone else said something derogatory about my daughter and that she was defending my daughter. So, I get a call from the principal today to kindly reprimand me for my assumption about what it was that she was saying since I hadn’t actually heard what she said because the mother of the girl also emailed the teacher. So now I’m painted to be the bad guy because I didn’t approach the teacher. But I have approached teachers before, and in fact, my daughter one and only friend, her best friend, had issues with kids in the class and her mom had a conference with the teacher, guidance counselor and principal earlier this year and my daughter became a huge topic of her own conference about her daughter. Because she pointed out to all of them that her daughter is constantly put in the middle and kids tell her she can only hang out with their group at recess if she ditches my daughter. She told them all how mean the kids are to my daughter. Has anything changed this year when teachers and principals are told? No. By the end of this year my daughter is wanting to change schools for next year. I’m tired of leaving it up to everyone else. No one advocates for my daughter. The girl who was talking about my daughter has been known to say and do mean things to my daughter in the past, so I have NO reason in the world to believe that she has a sudden change of heart and is coming to my daughter’s defense. Her mother is also part of the “in crowd” over there at the school because my daughter attends a private school where those who volunteer and give lots of money to the school will always come out on top. And I’m not one of them. So of course I’m the bad parent who is making bad assumptions and scolding kids according to them that should have been handled by a teacher.

Everytime I speak out throughout my entire life, people try to shut me up and/or tell me I’m wrong. It is so defeating. I am tired of being complacent and feeling like everyone else in this world is right…..except me. Everyone else can get away with the same exact stuff that I say and do and defend, but it’s only ever me that gets told I’m wrong every single time, it’s only me who is constantly shoved down so far to the bottom of the trash pile that I do my own compacting. When I’m told over and over and over and over and over and over and over again that I am wrong, it’s pretty hard to tell myself and believe that I am right. Ever. It’s pretty hard to build self esteem and self love and have confidence enough to defend my honor and the honor of my daughter when everyone constantly tells me that everything I do or the way I do it is fucking wrong. I write here because this is the only place I feel validated. Very few in my real world of people validate me. Somehow, they tell me I’m wrong, or challenge everything I say or play devil’s advocate or tell me it’s not as bad as I make it out to be or compare it to something in their lives that are worse. I’m just done with it all. I’m tired of feeling guilty for speaking up. I’m tired of people telling me where my place is in this world. I decide where my place is in this world. Everyone else needs to stop trying to rule over me and put me in some sort of little box they can contain.

I’m tired of people being so insistent on holding all the cards and for feeling the need to dominate me and disagree with me and all my ways. I’ve let this type of thing push me back in to my shell every time I get push back. But this time it might just be the fuel to my fire. It might just be the anger drive I need to keep my convictions that I will stand ground and hold the power that they all actually do see and are trying to hold back because they are actually afraid of what could be unleashed if I am not contained. I think everyone who keeps pushing down on me sees me bubbling at the surface and is wholly afraid of real truth rather than their controlled world of “truth” and they know they need to keep me at Bay. So I will not be shaken by this. I refuse to feel guilty because I know how my daughter is treated there. I’ve seen it with my own two eyes time and again. And no one ever defends my child except her best friend. Ever. I had every right to do what I did and I don’t care if it wasn’t within the little container inside which the niceness committee wants to operate. Because their niceness is not going very far in protecting my child from the meanness she experiences, regardless of their claims for not tolerating that behavior. It happens every day right in front of their noses and when my friend brought it up to them in the meeting how mean everyone is to my daughter they all said they had no clue about that….Because no one there cares about her well being nor do they really watch or listen for what truly goes on over there. I’ve been a classroom teacher before and I know you can’t catch everything, but I also know that they are missing far more than they should. And I have every right to say that as a teacher who knows EXACTLY what it’s like.

So they can continue their assumptions about me, and I will continue mine about all of them…

 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/assumption/

 

 

Bully disappear

Today, I hope I made a child feel like she wanted to disappear in the moment…Sound cruel? Sound harsh? Do I have your attention? Good……….

This may sound out of character for me, but this is because this is the Mama Bear side of me.

Today was the Awards Assembly at my daughter’s school. She was only getting one award this year, but it was a pretty big one for her. 3rd place in the 4th and 5th grade Spelling Bee, where she gets to go up on stage and receives a medal this year (there are 12 competitors in the Bee). She’s never placed that high before. My husband, my mother-in-law and I were all there, sitting through an hour and a half assembly just for the 2 minutes she’s on stage for her one award. We listened and clapped for every other kid who received an award.

We were sitting right behind her class, but she was sitting with the band quite a ways away because they play during the assembly. My daughter has Asperger’s Autism. She isn’t treated well at school. On top of her quirkiness, she happens to have inherited the bad luck from both sides of her genetics to have landed in an ill mannered, nasty, bratty class of kids. This was quite apparent even just today by observing her class in comparison to all of the others during the assembly. They are more rowdy then classes 3 years younger than them, and it’s not because they’re just silly nice kids that can’t contain themselves. They are disrespectful, arrogant kids who have no reverance for other children receiving awards or the sovereignty of organized gatherings and the type of behavior that should be modeled. This is not how I raise my daughter. But, of course, these are the children she needs to get along with because they are her social life every day, 5 days a week.

As soon as my daughter was called up to receive her medal, the girl directly in front of me from her class starts running her mouth to the kid next to her. My mother in law told me that she saw her mouth my daughter’s name. While I didn’t hear anything she said, it was apparent that she was speaking condescendingly about her because the kid she was talking to (who knew who I was) kept looking back at me, then looking at her, then looking at me, then looking at her….as in….shut up, stop talking about her, her parents are right behind you….

I wasn’t about to let that go. It’s bad enough my child doesn’t stand up for herself enough against these kids who make her feel worthless and invisible every day. There was no way I was going to allow that to happen in my presence. There was also another girl that, while she didn’t partake of the conversation, she continued to turn around and give us nasty glances, which she has a knack of doing, and she has said some incredibly nasty things to my daughter in the past as well. She has no fear of glaring at adults in the nastiest of manners. So I had quite alot to say in their direction. When I got through with my comments in letting them know they need to stop talking about my child when I’m sitting right behind them and that I can stare too, and that while I might not have heard what was said, body language said it all and that I’m not stupid-my daughter ranked third in the Spelling Bee for a reason. My mother in law also chimed in and said, “That’s right, we’re right here”. My husband gave them the stare down. The girl who was talking about her was literally scared straight. She wouldn’t even turn sideways and she was rigid and breathing heavily….all signs that she knew she was caught red-handed and was guilty. Those kids need to know that while my daughter might not stand up for herself, that their behavior does not go unnoticed and that her parents are more than aware of how they all treat her and that we won’t tolerate it and that we can be big and scary. Maybe they will remember that the next time they go to pick on my daughter.

Besides being bullied by my adoptive dad my entire life, because that’s just what narcissists do, I was bullied quite a lot in school.

I will do all I can to try and help my child through these tough years. Childhood sucks when you’re not popular and you are an easy target. I will advocate for her every step of the way.

Dealing with her pain on top of my own healing is one thing. But what escapes me is that she takes it one step further, as many kids with Asperger’s and PDA do, and she takes all of her frustrations out on me. Now, I know that all kids do this to a degree with their parents because home is a safe haven. But she does it to a ridiculous point. She is like a battering ram coming at me many days. It often feels like she bullies me. And no, it is not because I don’t know how to parent my kid or because I let her run rampant and out of control. She only acts like this to a few select people that she is close with. She is a perfect angel in school. She knows how to behave extremely well. But all of the anger and sadness and frustration from her life gone wrong and from how the children at school have made her feel gets turned on me. There is nothing I can ever seem to do right for this child. And once again, my common thread of….Nothing I ever do is right or enough. I am never good enough for anyone.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/disappear/

Second song of the day: Bully by Shinedown….another one of my favorite bands

It’s 8 A.M.
This hell I’m in
Seems I’ve crossed the line again
For being nothing more than who I am

So break my bones
And throw your stones
We all know that life ain’t fair
But there is more of us
We’re everywhere

[Pre-Chorus]
We don’t have to take this
Back against the wall
We don’t have to take this
We can end it all

[Chorus]
All you’ll ever be
Is a faded memory of a bully
Make another joke
While they hang another rope
So lonely
Push him to the dirt
‘Til the words don’t hurt
Can you hear me?
No ones gonna cry
On the very day you die
You’re a bully

Hey!
Hey!

[Verse 2]
Think it through
You can’t undo
Whenever I see black and blue
I feel the past
I share the bruise

With everyone
Who’s come and gone
My head is clear
My voice is strong
Now I’m right here to right the wrong

[Pre-Chorus]
We don’t have to take this
Back against the wall
We don’t have to take this
We can end it all

[Chorus]
All you’ll ever be
Is a faded memory of a bully
Make another joke
While they hang another rope
So lonely
Push him to the dirt
‘Til the words don’t hurt
Can you hear me?
No ones gonna cry
On the very day you die
You’re a bully

[Solo]

[Bridge]
It’s 8 A.M.!
The Hell I’m in!
Your voice is strong!
Now right the wrong!

[Chorus]
All you’ll ever be
Is a faded memory of a bully.
Make another joke
While they hang another rope
So lonely.
Push him to the dirt
‘Til the words don’t hurt
Can you hear me?
No ones gonna cry
On the very day you die
You’re a bully

[Repeat Chorus]

Hey!

Surviving Narcissism

It’s as if they aimed today’s word prompt right at me. Narcissism is something I am all too familiar with. I always knew my home life wasn’t quite right growing up. But it wasn’t until 3 years ago when my adoptive dad created a huge situation over my daughter’s communion, that resonated back to situations over my wedding that was 12 years prior to that, when I finally realized that he truly had Narcissistic Personality Disorder and exactly what that entailed. Prior to that, I was still blaming myself, questioning myself, second guessing myself, still wanting to think the best about my adoptive parents. But it was during that time frame that the veil came down and I could see everything so clearly for the first time. Everything that was dysfunctional about my perspectives were because of what THEY had done to me, not because of me being inherently a messed up person like they always led me to believe.

I have been working very hard for the past 3 years to find myself and learn to shed the voice of my Narcissist that always rules my head. I had struggled for a long time to figure out quite what my adoptive mother is. She herself doesn’t have Narcissistic Personality Disorder as she is not vain in the way my father is, she does not have a grandiose sense of self, she does not manipulate the whole world in the same way my father does. But I realized within these past 3 years many truths about her as well. I figured out that she will always defend my father over me, she will always believe my father over me, even when he has done so many horrific things to her. The only thing I really did to her was to not give her the kind of love she craved. I realized I was her pawn, she saw me as a way to get unconditional love rather than give it, since her own mother was incapable of giving it to her. And as an Adoptee, I needed extra love myself after the trauma I had gone through. And she didn’t give me the love I needed. So I didn’t have any love to give her back. I wasn’t being shown what love was by anyone.

I lost the only mother I knew at birth and had no language to reason why I was abandoned. She was replaced by strangers first for two months (foster care) until I was adopted. As I got older, when I didn’t show my adoptive mother the love she wanted from me, she then didn’t love me the way I needed love. I came to the conclusion that after her hysterectomy when I was 7 which led in to her becoming addicted to sleeping pills and tranquilizers, followed by the death of my grandfather when I was 9, my adoptive mother essentially disappeared from my life. Prior to that, she was the one who took me to dance class, she was the one who took me to vacation Bible school, she was the one who took me to Brownies. After that, it was my dad who took me to dance class, it was my dad who became the co-leader to my junior, Cadette and Senior Girl Scout Troops and it was my dad who was on the Band Parents Board of Directors when I was in high school. And then she went on to actually complain to me and be mad at me (read: jealous) when I had a better relationship with my dad. That was because he picked up the slack when she became non-existent. And then when he decided to use me as his surrogate wife/companion through all of these activities, her jealousy caused her to hate me. She saw me as some sort of competition for her husband.

I posted the above meme on one of my other posts, but this was how my life was as a child. A while ago I had given my mother this set for Mother’s Day that were these get to know you cards that have questions on them where she answers it, then mails it to me, I answer the same question and mail it back and she keeps them all together. She did them for a while, until one of them where the question asked: “What was the best gift you ever received”….Her answer: When your dad gave me my engagement ring at Christmas (and more details about that) My answer: My daughter……..She never sent another after that. She probably knew exactly how she looked with her response and then my response.

After recently reading an article on narcissistic parents, I realized that while my mother might not have Narcissistic Personality Disorder, I think she is a Narcissistic parent. She was parented by someone with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, my grandmother was a very wicked woman-thats another couple of blog posts in an of themselves. And she was married to a Narcissist. Plus she craved the love she wasn’t getting from either of her Narcissists, so she was trying to use Narcissists parenting techniques to extract the love from me that she wanted, or to use me for the attention she wanted from her husband. So I was really parented by two Narcissistic parents.

I realized within these past 3 years of my “Great Depression” that I am truly alone. My mother will never defend me. She will always be on his side. Even though he was in a relationship with another man while they’ve been married for maybe 15 years until the man passed away. Somehow, my father does no wrong in her eyes. She has never sided with me, but both of them expected me to side with them when they put me in the middle of all of their issues when I was a child, when they spoke badly about each other to me as if I was the pawn child between two divorced parents, yet they weren’t. The fighting was so bad between them, I wished for my.parents to get divorced, beginning from the time I was 7, and everyone told me be careful what I wished for and that was such a horrible thing to say. But they knew nothing of the war zone I grew up in. It may not have been physically abusive between them (they saved the wooden spoon and belt for me), the verbal and psychological torture was more than I could bear.

Deconstructing every little reaction and thought process, now that I know all of my background and all of the effect it had had on me, has had a harrowing effect on the jail cell of my mind as well. As if it wasn’t hard enough to figure out that all of the people.in your world were not who you thought they were, or that you were deceived in some huge way all within a short period of time (the reasons for my depression-other people involved as well)- to learn to dissect how all of these elements of these important people in my life affect who I am and how I can change those patterns is an entirely different ballgame.

This one came up just yesterday in a small spat between my husband and I. I was trying to clarify something he was asking me to do on the phone to be sure I was understanding him properly. He got frustrated with me not understanding him or asking too many questions which upset me. But I do that in order to avoid doing it wrong because I don’t want him getting mad at me for doing it wrong because then I feel stupid which triggers emotions that lead me right back to my dad as well as an abusive ex boyfriend I had. So much of who I am stems back to my childhood.

And then there is always the narcissism of my husband’s ex-wife that I get to deal with from time to time. And such irony that this is the topic of the day when today was one of the days I had to deal with her when I hadn’t seen her in about a year and a half. Had to see her today because of my stepsons gender reveal party for his new baby that his girlfriend is pregnant with. And she is such a narcissist that she had her daughter from another man ask my step daughters friend to give them a ride to the party (even though my stepdaughter hasn’t spoken to her in over 4 years), her friend agreed only because it was my stepdaughters sister asking her. But then this morning my husband’s ex-wife (who has never had her driver’s license), had the nerve to tell the friend who was driving them that she needed to be home an hour and a half after the party started….Beggars can’t be choosers you narcissist. My stepdaughter took everything she had in her and stood up to the mother she doesn’t speak to and told her she’d have to get an Uber or another ride home because she wasn’t going to make her best friend leave the party early just because she made other plans, the day of no less.

I am learning how to cope with my Narcissists and learning how replace their voices with my own. Most people can only do what my stepdaughter has done, which is cut them out of their lives. I guess I’m a chicken for not being able to do that. The added guilt that was programmed in to me early in life of them being my savior’s as an Adoptee might have done a number on my psyche over it as well. I just try to remain three steps ahead all the time (while everyone else thinks I over think everything and think I’m nuts for thinking every single thing is a game or has a hidden agenda), and I will keep working on healing my reactions and my thoughts as much as I can and to the best of my ability. But most people cut the narcissism out of their lives. I guess I still don’t believe I’m worthy of love since I continue to torture myself by keeping them in my life. I keep still believing somehow that they still do enough good for me or try the best they can. They still have enough people convinced to convince me that they aren’t the worst people in the world. And so, I stick around. Unable to have enough self-esteem to believe that no one else knows what I’ve endured. No one else could possibly see them the way I do because they still only see a fraction of their true side. Because my Narcissists are the actors extraordinare.

 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/narcissism/

My Song of the Day: This songs holds such irony for me because the person who is Narcissus in my life is the reason I don’t use a Hammer and a Nail enough and that I do look behind my ears for the green too much and that my sweat smells clean more than it should. While he did make me work in one sense and I don’t have a sense of entitlement, I also wasn’t ever taught the basics of life and simple things that should be common sense around the house types of chores for a grown woman. Because he never really did much of anything for himself either, he just called someone to do it for him, and so the incompetence was passed right along…

“Hammer And A Nail”
By: The Indigo Girls

Clearing webs from the hovel
a blistered hand on the handle of a shovel
I’ve been digging too deep, I always do.
I see my face on the surface
I look a lot like narcissus
A dark abyss of an emptiness
Standing on the edge of a drowning blue.
I look behind my ears for the green
Even my sweat smells clean
Glare off the white hurts my eyes
Gotta get out of bed get a hammer and a nail
Learn how to use my hands, not just my head
I think myself into jail
Now I know a refuge never grows
From a chin in a hand in a thoughtful pose
Gotta tend the earth if you want a rose.
I had a lot of good intentions
Sit around for fifty years and then collect a pension,
Started seeing the road to hell and just where it starts.
But my life is more than a vision
The sweetest part is acting after making a decision
I started seeing the whole as a sum of its parts.
My life is part of the global life
I’d found myself becoming more immobile
When I’d think a little girl in the world can’t do anything.
A distant nation my community
A street person my responsibility
If I have a care in the world I have a gift to bring.