Osama Bin Laden: Dead

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/02/obama-binladen-idUSWNA743620110502

How many lives have been lost on and since 9/11?

What a horrible, horrible man.

The powerful pull of lust…

My friend Kitten and I have been in deep, ongoing discussion about our absurdly similar pasts and how events from those times are continuing to affect us now. The topic has to do with what my therapist calls “covert incest”¹ – something that I can claim for myself, and possibly Kitten would for herself too. The definition below does not make as big a deal as my therapist does about the sexual nature of the covert incest relationship. And no, I do not believe I was molested by my father. However, we “dated” for a year – my 16th year- when we were home alone. Inappropriateness occurred. Things happened and words were spoken that have been crucial in the shaping of what would become my adult life. Hell, my teen to present life.

As I shared about what seems like an addiction –but to a person, rather than a drug or other substance- Kitten said, “I wouldn't know how to reach through the powerful pull of lust combined with abandonment. Please don't leave me! Love me! F*ck me!”

That statement sums it all up for me: There’s the sense of abandonment –my parents were not always parental- and then the need for emotional support. And love. And being sexualized as a girl from early on, I believe, only seals the deal on what I’ll call my emotional paralysis.

This has been on my mind a lot lately, too, as it’s all interconnected: Being sexualized as a girl, that is. This seems to occur to varying degrees to most of us (females), at least those in western culture. But when a parent turns his daughter into his girlfriend, the sexualization is even more intense. Because the idea is that home is where we learn to function out there; dad teaches us (girls) how to relate to other males; parents and home should always be safe, and when they’re not, I believe the lack of safety gets woven into this whole mess of emotional paralysis.

The end result is messy, to say the least. I’m calling it “emotional paralysis,” but it’s anything but stagnant or unmoving. It really is like an addiction: An addiction to a FEELING. “This is the feeling [or like the feeling] I got when my needs for love and emotional support were met by my parent!” And no matter how insane the relationship is, no matter how potentially dangerous, unhealthy, or just plain WRONG it is, the covert incest survivor goes back for more. SHE HAS TO. It’s like getting a fix. Hell, it IS a fix.

And what happens when we don’t get that fix? My roommate likened it to sugar, which for me is a drug: “That blah feeling you get when you start to go off sugar,” he said, and that’s exactly how it feels. Empty, gray, meaningless… in need of that rush, the fill, the chase, the thrill. There is nothing good about this, I’m telling you.

Well, what may be good is that one can recover from this – I’m not sure how just yet, but there groups, and the website below (from which I snagged the description of covert incest) seems intent on doing some work around this issue.

So what am I telling you? You may be wondering, “FW, what the hell? Were you molested as a child?” No. “Are you in a sick or unhealthy relationship?” Chances are good that if I’m in a relationship, it is unhealthy (not necessarily a reflection on the other person – this is about me, my history, my reactions, and so on). The other person in the relationship is the “substance” and the addiction has everything to do with the addict – why do I need this? why do I obsess? why do I keep myself in a bad place when it’s interfering with my work/school/daily activities? (And it may interfere with some, all, or none of those.)

One would think that I would simply step away from relationships of all kinds, right? BACK IT UP, SISTER! But no, I think not. For now, I will continue to plunge myself into the churning waters of human interaction, because if nothing else, I do have hope that, like I have with other serious issues, I can work through this one.

Someone might want to mention to my therapist that we have in fact finally hit the tar pit… the power source of all this messiness.

^1. Covert incest typically occurs in families where one parent (the shadow parent) does not actively participate in family affairs, thus setting the stage for the other parent (the invasive parent) to turn to a child for emotional support. The invasive parent in effect makes the child a surrogate spouse who is forced to take on the responsibilities of the shadow parent. The roles are essentially reversed; instead of the parent looking after the child, the child is responsible for the parent's well being. This is a terrible burden for a child to carry, as a child is incapable of meeting the emotional needs of an adult. CovertIncest.org,
http://www.covertincest.org/content/why-it-happens

Technorati Tags: covert incest,sexualization of girls

What is love?

This song came to mind just now: Howard Jones' "What is Love?" (lyrics below)

The question is a good one - how do we know what it is, or if, when we feel it, it's real? How do you trust what appears to be love? They can change over time, they can ebb, flow, rise, fall... and not always in concert. That is, in a romantic couple, the feelings of one may not mirror the other's. Then what?

Love isn't limited to romance, of course. There is love among friends... I've loved friends, lost the friendships, and never stopped loving those people. Sometimes they even come back into my life.

People, they come, they go; sometimes they come back again. Even when they don’t, the spaces in my heart for them don’t close. (Okay, maybe a few times there’s been the echoing sounds of a chamber door slamming shut!)

I know a man who says that he’ll never trust another person (woman) so deep are the wounds from several past wives. It appears that he’s serious, too. I don’t think I could do that. It’s difficult to imagine what would have to happen to shut me down in that way.

Me… I’ll love again. Oh, hell – I already love. I didn’t stop loving. I think that from the minute I was born, I loved. There were sources that tried to keep me from loving, I suppose you could say; FelineWarrior is one resilient cat, that’s for sure.

For me, love goes on and on and on. It just looks different, feels different, in different situations. It scares people sometimes, I think, when they are the recipients of love. I wish it weren’t so; love is such a precious (if plentiful) commodity. To feel it, as to share it, is a wonderful, wonderful expression.

What is Love?

I love you whether or not you love me
I love you even if you think that I don't.
Sometimes I find you doubt my love for you but I don't mind.
Why should I mind? Why should I mind?
What is love anyway?
Does anybody love anybody anyway?
What is love anyway?
Does anybody love anybody anyway?
Can anybody love anyone so much that they will never fear
Never worry never be sad?The answer is they cannot love this much
nobody can.
This is why I don't mind you doubting.
What is love anyway?. . .
And maybe love is letting people be just
what they want to be
The door always must be left unlocked.
To love when circumstance may lead someone away from you
And not to spend the time just doubting.What is love anyway? . . .

America’s Sweetheart is at it again… Coulter speech cancelled over fears of violence

CTV Montreal - Coulter speech cancelled over fears of violence - CTV News

Updated: Tue Mar. 23 2010 9:03:01 PM
CTV.ca News Staff

“The University of Ottawa cancelled a speech by U.S. firebrand conservative Ann Coulter late Tuesday, just moments before its scheduled start, because organizers feared protesters would turn violent.

As people were still making their way into the venue, the building had to be evacuated when a fire alarm was triggered.

The incident followed a Monday night lecture at the University of Western Ontario, where Coulter told a Muslim student to "take a camel" as an alternative to flying.””

 

Technorati Tags: Coulter,racism

Conspiracy Theorist: Taylor Swift wins “Artist of the Year” - American Music Awards Nominees and Winners 2009 | HULIQ

Oh GAWD. I’ve just become a conspiracy theorist.

Taylor Swift won Artist of the Year.

 

Clearly I should start making records. I can use the money from all those record sales, concerts, and such. And a sparkly guitar would be REALLY cool.

 

American Music Awards Nominees and Winners 2009 | HULIQ

Technorati Tags: Taylor-fucking-swift,"artist of the year",conspiracy theories

Taylor Swift… really?!

 

Why, God, WHY?!?!

ABC.com - 2009 American Music Awards – Home

 

 

Technorati Tags: taylor-fucking-swift,american music awards,nonsense

Interracial couple denied marriage license in La.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091015/ap_on_re_us/us_interracial_rebuff

"NEW ORLEANS – A Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have. Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long."

FAVORITE (bad) QUOTE: "I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way," Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. "I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else."

Sheer insanity. What year is it?

Interracial couple denied marriage license in La.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091015/ap_on_re_us/us_interracial_rebuff

"NEW ORLEANS – A Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have. Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long."

FAVORITE (bad) QUOTE: "I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way," Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. "I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else."

Sheer insanity. What year is it?

What about a sense of security?

Just recently I drove several hours east of my home to fetch a friend who was being evicted from her place of residence. She’d lived there for 16 years and while she hadn’t accumulated as much stuff as I have (you’d have to really try to do that), she certainly had some belongings. The people who were evicting her told her that she needed to take what she wanted; no guarantees regarding anything she left behind.

Her belongings –everything that would fit in my PT Cruiser and 9 plastic bins another friend had been able to take for her (and drop off on my porch)- were in my garage for about 5 days and she slept on the floor on my featherbed.

It amazed and frightened me to see that one’s possessions –the things that most mattered to a person, collected items, family memories, important papers, etc.- could line one side of a garage. Knowing that we left a bunch of stuff behind added to my worries. This friend is 58.

I have another friend who owns a house but I’m sure earns far less than what she needs to pay her mortgage. She sometimes has to have her cable turned off, or maybe the internet connection, so that she can make ends meet. She often pawns jewelry for the same reason. Her family has means, so I don’t think that she’ll end up on the streets. This friend is a social person and enjoys inexpensive lunches with her friends, an expense that probably puts her closer to the edge that most of us realize. She’s in her late 50s and that she has to pawn her belongings or do without such simple stuff as cable, for crying out loud… it pisses me off.

Of course you all remember my mother, homeless at the age of 71, her boxes being shipped to and fro across the country. She’s still at my aunt & uncle’s house and they’re none too pleased about it. They’d like to have their house back; neither is well and they’d like to live out the rest of their days as a couple, not a couple with a roommate. She’s got an income made up solely of social security and for reasons only she knows, is not willing to do anything for work. Physical restrictions do play a part – with her knees having had surgery and still needing more, of course, she can’t stand for any length of time, for example.

When my mother was staying with us, I got annoyed sometimes because I thought, “Here she is, on

a fixed income, and yet she has to have a really good (read: expensive) bottle of Irish whiskey; she has to have a $50 salon haircut rather than a less expensive one at a budget-friendly shop; she wants to dine out all the time, buy the best cuts of meat,” and on and on. I wanted her to live on a real budget, save her money, get ready to be independent again.

Yet at the same time, I’d sometimes feel bad for even thinking those things. At her age, why CAN’T she enjoy a good bottle of whiskey or a really good haircut?

Naturally, these stories worry me because they give me cause to think ahead to my own older years. (And those late 50’s aren’t THAT far away, folks.)

But when I can stop thinking of myself for a minute, the real and original source of my anxiety splashes through the surface: How can it be that I know three women over the age of 55 who have recently either become homeless or are living so close to the edge that they have to pawn their belongings to keep the water on? What’s going on that someone can reach a more mature age, perhaps a time of life that I think should allow one some simple pleasures (lunching with friends, good haircuts, keeping ALL of one’s belongings), and have one’s security so unstable?

I’m sure there are plenty of men in the same boat, but I know women dealing with this. I think a bit of research is in order.

 

 

Technorati Tags: security,women,eviction