Letting go

[Maxie]

Honeybera, your posts are like opening Christmas presents - full of wonder and magic! I so appreciate your personal replies here - it's been invaluable to me. I'm planning to continue making positive changes in my house, yard, self, etc!! and YOU have helped tremendously! I am lacking energy for a long reply - just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate your generosity!!!
Maxie

[Maxie]

Honeybera,
P.S. When I said I was about to leave this website, I meant only for the day. I will never leave this website! I apologize for my vague comment about that, and I so appreciate your concern!!
Maxie

[honeybera]

Thanks so much, Maxie! You are very kind.

I'm hearing that we are helping one another greatly. My garden loves you! I got all the cuttings from my apple tree picked up, cut up, and bagged, FINISHED my Early Girl tomato (chopped straw, tall tomato cage, and all! - it looks so pretty!), watered the ENTIRE yard, and pulled many of those darned "whippy weeds" off my struggling Salvia (aka invasive Morning Glory vines that love to trip me out there by slipping a nearly unbreakable vine runner around my ankle). They have smothered all my trees and planters on that side of the house and was even encroaching on my a/c out there, trying to slither into it, unmercifully clogging it, and smothering it to death, too! Blessedly, DS saw the encroachment and took care of that area and then I put down styrofoam and straw so NOTHING will grow there. And if it tries to grow back, I have the good old INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH 30% vinegar + Dawn detergent + salt routine, which kills weeds better than RoundUp and is organic and won't hurt my dogs! It really looks like such a peaceful area out there, everything covered in these vines with big purple flowers that the hummers and bumblebees both love, but it's really an evil weed that mounts the neighbors fence and INVADES my backyard. So yesterday I ripped it off the tops of my beloved salvia (Hot Lips and Purple Lighthouse) so they could breathe and grow again.

So thanks to you, too. As I do this work, which is very strenuous for me, but is also extremely good for me, I anticipate letting you know what I've accomplished. I did so much work out there yesterday that I didn't have the "oomph" to begin the messing up of my bedroom - but the mess I'll be creating in a cleaned room is actually necessary to move that damnable rolltop!! That "computer" room is really in need of a cleaning, but that is impossible with that desk in there. Once it's out of there, I can do the old KEEP/DONATE/TRASH routine. I'm even renaming it from Computer Room to Storage Room. It will only have KEEP things in there. On shelves. But that desk is stopping me from doing that. It's blocking my way. One shelf is already in there, but boxes AND THAT DESK are keeping me from accessing anything else, so today I will begin the bring those boxes into my nice clean room...UGH! I need to overcome my resistance to messing up my room again!! I have to remember the ultimate outcome and just keep chipping away at it, KNOWING that it will be cleaned up again.

(Hummingbird outside my WOW sipping nectar from my salvia AND the tiny blossoms on my tomato plant! So nice to see...)

I realize that it's rather late in the year to PLANT my squash, but I love squash and yesterday spotted 2 of last year's 30 gallon Smart Pots for my tomatoes over in the corner, semi-filled with soil. Why not make that one of my "tasks" for the day? Empty out the "tomato vine skeletons", move them closer to my WOW view, fill them up with potting soil, plant some Fordhook Zucchini AND some yellow crookneck squash? I may even plant some Patty Pans in another 30 gallon pot that I uncovered near the apple tree! But that's a LOT of toting those pots around with my Garden Glide (a large heavy plastic disc with a tow rope on it - MARVELOUS INVENTION!! Google it to see it), however, with the Garden Glide I can manage it even if it is slowly and one pot at a time.

And the exercise is SO helping me!! My pitting edema in my legs is getting better all the time, even in all this heat. Besides, once outside, it doesn't bother me at all. I'd better get out there now...it's nearly August and I want me some squash!! And hey, if I like this setup, I can just plant everything in the Spring next time without all the moving around of the SmartPots!

Honeybera

PS - I'll let you know about the Battle of the Boxes (and rolltop desk) and how it's going! Eewwww!

[honeybera]

We have baby birds out there today. They must have just learned how to fly and they stick closely to their mothers. I find it rather odd that birds, directly related to the dinosaurs, dutifully and patiently care for their chicks until the tiny bird is up to being on their own. They never are harsh to them and certainly aren't abusive towards them. No, that is only for the "advanced" humans to do.

Not that birds are peaceful at all times with other birds, and their lives are absolutely difficult at times, but as far as raising their young is concerned, they are the best parents. I've sat here quietly at my WOW and observed the tiny chicks at the feeder, still doing the wing flapping behavior, mouths wide open and chirping furiously while the mother eats not only for herself, but also occasionally drops seeds into the demanding chick's gaping mouth between her pecking away for her own sustenance. What a trip these birds are! Life lessons are everywhere for me these days.

Off to the garden this morning. Lots more clean up to do! The more I do, the more there is to do! "I can't do this until that is done" sort of thing. I worked so hard out there in the garden yesterday pruning up my Eureka lemon tree and chopping up and bagging the cuttings that I was too tired to begin the BOXES CHORE inside the computer room. But that is absolutely imperative to do, too!! I did clear out all that I will be needing (copy paper, sheet protectors for my cookbooks) from the storage area under my TV/"fireplace" where I'll have to stack many boxes and block all of that (TEMPORARILY!), so I've already done a tiny step towards that end. But yard clean up and moving those big tubs in the garden have got to come first if I want it to look nice out there and plus have some squash this year.

BTW, I totally LOVE my anvil pruner!! First time using it! It's for dead wood, whereas my ratchet loppers are for pruning living wood and I love those, too. Both are wonderful tools. And the birds are LOVING to perch on my TALL tomato supports! One of the babies is valiantly trying to perch on it like the big birds do, but it's not quite gotten the hang of it yet and is only able to hang on to it by hanging upside down while flapping its wings like crazy. The mother keeps on giving it a push, but when it lands elsewhere on the support, it flips upside down again. My TV is off at the moment, but this is great entertainment at its best!

Honeybera

[honeybera]

OK, taking a break from some very heavy lifting (for me)...CLEARING OUT THE BOXES!! I'm all the way up to the rolltop desk. I have "found" several "lost" things in there...AMAZING! You never know what you'll find. I may yet do some yard cleaning today, but this is WAY more important. And it was easier than I thought! I may do what my DS did and take some of this stuff (the KEEP stuff) and put it in the Front room TEMPORARILY. Once I get that damnable desk moved out of there and into the garage, I will have PLENTY of room to clean out that rather large room, have DS assemble the shelves, and THEN PROMPTLY undo the mess I've made in the front room. That can really work! So much puttering to do!!!

I found a nice working fan in there. I found my Sonic Care toothbrush kit. (My old one just died.) I found my monitor for my computer (which I will put in the front room with my new computer). I even found MORE 30 gallon Smart Pots (sans potting soil)! So yeah, lots to do! I still have the mystery boxes out in the garage to clear away and unpack to make room for some of this stuff that belongs in the garage, but not today. NOT TODAY!

==========================(an hour later)

I finally opened up and USED my new Sonic Care!! I bought a double SET "Diamond" one for DS about a year or two ago, but my old one worked just fine so I kept it until it died the other day (or at least I thought it did) and has DS used his new one. Mine did die, sort of, and I can find no replacement heads for it, so I DUMPED IT in the garbage! I never do that! And I'm proud of myself for doing that. But the minute it hit the garbage pail, it sprang to life again and began to buzz pathetically! So what to do?! It's old and nasty and needs that replacement head (if they even make them for such an ancient model) and one heck of a good cleaning.

One of MD's favorite things to mentally torture me with was to tease me about caring about "things". I am autistic and, according to MD, have trouble by getting too attached to "things", like my old bike Lizzie (who was my method of escape from MD oftentimes) that she convinced my father to replace with a new bike for Xmas, or other favorite things, like my models that I would painstakingly glue together and paint (and she would smash them while I was at school, so I finally quit making them). If I complained in any way, she would S-H-A-M-E me for "caring about things"!!! TO THIS DAY, she won't tell me what they did with Lizzie! I woke up on Xmas Day and my best friend was GONE!!! Merry F---ing Xmas!!! She loved to mess me up like this! AND THEN CAME THE RIDICULE!! She'd wait until I was completely heartbroken...and then she'd POUNCE!! "Why did you CARE about that old bike??" or "Oh, come on, (my name)!! So YOUR MODEL got broken ACCIDENTALLY while I was vacuuming your room! You shouldn't care about THINGS so much!!" And I'd yell back, "You do it EVERY TIME I complete a model!! You've done it SO MANY TIMES!!!" and she'd smirk and walk away, or she'd repeatedly slap me in the face for yelling at her, forehand and backhand, and I'd stand there just taking it, FURIOUS knowing she'd broken my model to bits YET AGAIN and I could do NOTHING about it!! She is truly EVIL!!

This sort of treatment is what Dr. Les Carter on YouTube helps me with so much! MD is a flaming EVIL narcissistic control freak who has to be "better than" and Dr. Carter calmly helps me see what a monster MD was/is and how I can cope with it NOW! I threw my old "friend" toothbrush in the garbage can, exhausted after about 20 yrs. of use...and then it BUZZED at me, like, "Get me OUT of here!!" I did pick it up, and indeed, it did buzz, but after I had looked around to see if I could find a replacement head for it, maybe to clean it up and donate it, I came to a peaceful place, thanked my old toothbrush for many years spent cleaning my teeth, and gently placed it back into the garbage can. It won't work without the replacement head and I can't find one around here. It's the same sense of loss I felt when my dogs died last year. There's no shame in that.

Honeybera

[dancingfish]

Oh what a wonderful moment you describe with parting with your old dear toothbrush. That sounds so kind and full of gentleness and appreciation. :) I'm not autistic yet have had many close bonds with what are technically only objects, but have been or still are very dear to me. I think that's perfectly natural when we want closeness and can't have (enough of) it from the people in our lives. Learning to part with those we no longer need or really wish to keep is hard, but somehow an important step to take I think. As you say, it can be done with kindness and not shame or violence.

Thank you so much for sharing all those gardening tips, too! My tomato plants are still alive, so we'll see if I can get the fruit to redness!

Wishing you all the best in your ongoing clear-up, it sounds so good how you're managing to do this for yourself. Love the description of the little baby bird that kept flipping round, too. :D Aw!

[honeybera]

Oh, dancingfish! THANK YOU SO VERY, VERY MUCH for your post!!!

Oh what a wonderful moment you describe with parting with your old dear toothbrush. That sounds so kind and full of gentleness and appreciation. I'm not autistic yet have had many close bonds with what are technically only objects, but have been or still are very dear to me. I think that's perfectly natural when we want closeness and can't have (enough of) it from the people in our lives. Learning to part with those we no longer need or really wish to keep is hard, but somehow an important step to take I think. As you say, it can be done with kindness and not shame or violence.

Thank you for that!! It generously gives validity to my own feelings of loss, something that I was never afforded when MD was involved or was even aware of how I was feeling. If it meant nothing to HER, it thereby SHOULD mean nothing to ME. (Her logic, not mine.) Or so she said. But considering her "mean girl" status, she would even seek out my feelings and sensitivities and use them against me, and she did this all the time. Oh, she was a real blast to live with!! What a "good mother"...hence aka Mommie Dearest.

BUT she is no longer in my life, is old and unable to do her dirty tricks on me anymore, especially as long as I quell the shenanigans of my Inner Critic which still speaks in HER VOICE. Quell, quell, QUELL!!!

Definition of quell
transitive verb
1 : to thoroughly overwhelm and reduce to submission or passivity "quell a riot"
2 : quiet, pacify "quell fears"

I have been recently understanding how MD is no longer attacking me or deliberately trying to upset and hurt me, get under my skin, and "gaslight" me all to make HER feel "better than". No, my OWN inner recordings (even in her voice!) are being played by ME! OK then...WHY am I doing that??? THE CAGE IS OPEN!! THE SHOCKS ARE GONE!! I AM FREE TO GO!! But still I sit there like the tortured dog, expressing LEARNED HELPLESSNESS needlessly, listening to some false, ancient tape of negativity playing incessantly in my head!

LET ME STATE RIGHT HERE: MD IS AN INSANE BITCH WHO LOVED TO TORTURE ME SO SHE COULD FEEL BETTER AT MY DISCOMFORT AND EXPENSE! And she'd do it again in a NY minute given half a chance!! But she no longer exists except in my own head!! The reality is she's now a feeble old woman in a nursing home that is right across the driveway from the Hospice that patiently waits for her, sitting there all day in her Depends, miserably unhappy and alone, her protective husband long gone now, while she just waits to die. UGH. But SHE is NOT my problem...I AM. I really do need to LET GO of what happened to me as an infant, a child, a teen, and an adult at her hands. Not for HER, but for ME. I need to concentrate on SHUTTING UP THAT INNER CRITIC!! It's not even MD anymore. It's ME. I just need to LET GO. Yes, it happened. YES, it was UNFAIR! But I need to take control of that INNER VOICE that tells me that I am wanting! Just not quite good enough. Never going to make it. "Used (or damaged) goods!" (A MD direct quote.) No, I need to take my life back. AND I need to FORGIVE MD, even if she DOESN'T deserve it!!!

============================(later)

I'm taking a break right now from the conversion of the Computer Room into the Storage Room and the freeing of the old rolltop desk. I knew it would be bad, BUT...what I'm finding in there is even WORSE! Box after box, bag after bag, of OLD "STUFF"! ALL needs to be sorted out, everything in there has been piled into cardboard boxes/black plastic bags, from old junk mail to keepsakes, from my kid's drawings from kindergarten to owner's manuals and receipts, etc. etc., and everything in between, just dumped in there for one reason or another.

A LOT of this mish-mash of "things" from now that were blocking the rolltop desk was stuff that needed to be IN THE YET-UNSORTED GARAGE. Unfortunately, that is precisely where the rolltop is going, so we can't just dump it all out there, causing the same sort of problem of clutter blocking everything! This entire scene make me wonder: How can you use a power washer (still full of water and cords unwound) or FIVE MORE 30 gallon (unfilled, of course) Smart Pots BURIED under a TON of stuff in a carpeted bedroom??? I'm beginning to see that there's a possibility for me living somewhere IN BETWEEN the maniacally, spotlessly C-L-E-A-N, and STERILIZED condition of MD's VERY UNCOMFORTABLE house vs an episode of HOARDERS! I want to create somewhere that I can be clean, yet comfortable!

I HAVE SO MUCH SORTING AND CHOOSING TO DO! It may take me a long, long time to accomplish, but I CAN DO IT! I still maintain that that desk HAS TO come out of there ASAP and gotten rid of! Then the shelves and boxes in the garage should be CLEARED OFF, CLEANED UP, and...yes, SORTED. UGH! And not all at once, but in "small manageable tasks" (ie, ONE box or two, FINISHED on that day - thank you, dear Mark Twain!!). If I find myself doing an easy task ("Oh, THIS! No, I don't need ANY of THIS! Out it goes!" <dump!>), I can move to the next box/shelf/whatever. If I can't be kind or patient with myself, who else should be expected to??

===========================(even later!)

As I am going through all these "things", some valuable, some not, I found a paper, two pages copied from a magazine called Mothering, Fall, 1994 (how appropriate!) and the article is named Forgiveness Meditation by Jack Kornfield. WOW! I'm going to slip this small blessing into a sheet protector and read it further as I sip my collagen-chamomile tea combination tonight (and probably shall for many more nights to come). It is spot on! How to LET GO through meditation. I really need to do this in conjunction with physically cleaning out old garbage from my home! I've given this 'person of MD' WAY too much of my life and my time and energy! Other things exist that DESERVE my attention and love.

I'm finally getting hungry right now. I'm at hour 20 of my fast, and a meal of leftover Keto meatloaf (made with my special homemade "breading" made of pork rinds and spices, ground together, and then combined with hamburger meat, bacon bits, eggs, SF ketchup, HWC, and so on - SO SO GOOD!) with cauliflower "fried rice" fried up on the side (also SO GOOD!) is on the menu tonight with some steamed cabbage with garlic butter, salt, and lots of pepper, and some Keto granola for dessert. VERY FILLING, TOO. (My mouth is watering!!)

============================(after OMAD meal)

I ended up with the meatloaf, sliced fresh yellow squash in garlic butter, almond butter toast, and my cabbage. I ate it with Dr. Phil and had dessert of a low carb granola bar. Sorted a BUNCH of papers and such.

=============================(Friday, the next day)

Thank you so much for sharing all those gardening tips, too! My tomato plants are still alive, so we'll see if I can get the fruit to redness!

I have another tip for you (if you'd like): Save your eggshells. They're made of calcium and tomatoes LOVE calcium so they don't get Blossom End Rot (Google it to see images), so don't waste those useful eggshells. Throw them into a blender with lots of water and blend thoroughly so they resemble a puree to make a "calcium rich tea" to pour on your tomatoes (not on the leaves but into the soil). If you then water them faithfully and throw some fish emulsion + water into a bucket or watering can and water them with that mixture periodically, you'll have more gorgeous red ripe tomatoes that you'll know what to do with! Your family, friends, neighbors, and/or local food bank will love you!

It's also good to trim them up as well so they don't get too wild. Lots of videos on YouTube describing the techniques. "How to prune tomatoes" should get you started on Google or YouTube. If you'd like MORE tomato plants, just take your trimmings and put them in a sunny window sill in a 1 qt. mason jar (or similar container) filled with plain water and watch them grow roots! If you plant them, you'll have more tomato plants FOR FREE!

You should see my garden right now!! I did SO MUCH out there today!! I can hardly wait to get back out there tomorrow!! I even had DS pull up two HUMONGOUS weeds that had been thriving away for a couple of years now with roots that went to China I think! Even he had a heck of a time pulling them up! But he did it!!! And GOOD RIDDANCE to the weeds! He also removed an old dead stump of a Meyer lemon tree for me, and tomorrow morning I'm going to set a 30 gal. pot on top of that space and plant my Fordhook zucchini!! YAY!!! I'm moving a total of 3 of those BIG 30 gallon pots to that same general area for squash, and FINALLY plant the remainder of my Yolo Wonder peppers in a few 20 gallon pots that had squash in them last year (too crowded for squash pots). If I get any peppers, great. If not, there's always next year and I will be MUCH more ready for them than this year. Mother Nature doesn't care about MY schedule. Only hers counts. I can only get everything set up and be ready for the Spring, and besides, the winters here are VERY mild! I even had my tomatoes OVERWINTER here, that's how mild it is. NO snow and only occasional rain. And then UBER-HOT in the summers!

I've got a LOT more yard clean up to do, but I've made a very large DENT in it! It's not nearly as creepy/spidery as it was. I have LOTS of "cut up and DUMP" work to do out there tomorrow morning and moving the 3 pots (from last year) over to under my Eureka lemon (which is undergoing some radical pruning ATM), but there's NO MORE WEEDS over there clogging everything up. I didn't realize just how much of a mess there was to clean up out there. My "take-a-break" chair is under the shade of the house, and today I just sat there admiring my improved yard. SO NICE! I am pleased with my progress...AND the weight is beginning to come off as well! I guess I just needed more movement, and doing my gardening is beneficial in multiple ways as exercise.

Well, I need to do my bills right now...oh, and eat my dinner (OMAD). Even my DS commented tonight how lucky we are. And we are! We are truly blessed. For today, all is well. What more do I need?

Honeybera

[Maxie]

Honeybera,
I just read your posts starting Tuesday (when my P.C. quit working and I took it to shop) to present.
I got p.c. back today, and it's working great.
Losing p.c. last few days threw me into another depressed "helpless" state.
I can so relate to your words about learned helplessness, and about your abusive "MD".
I've never asked you what MD stands for because I instinctively know! (I saw the movie, and lived it as you did!)
I'm not doing so good at accomplishing stuff lately, but the enthusiasm in your posts is contagious.
Thank you soooo much,
Maxie

[honeybera]

Hey Maxie! Yeah, I missed you, too. Glad your computer is back up and running. I thought you had just faded away and am VERY glad that that is NOT the case!

My garden is looking better. I have promised myself that I'd fix it all up before buying new plants for out there. I LOVE salvia (sage) plants because hummingbirds also love them and even fight over them. I've even seen them chase off those big black bumblebees. We have some pretty amazing zippy acrobatics done by competing hummers out there on almost a daily basis. They even come right up to my WOW and challenge "the other hummer" that they see reflected there in the mirrored windows, zigzagging rapidly right up next to the glass. I'm sure that that would be the only way that I could see those tiny birds just inches away from my face as I calmly and quietly watched them. I LOVE my home, too!

Regarding all my many salvia plants, I found a nursery ONLINE relatively close to me called Flowers By The Sea (FBTS dot com) that loves salvia and hummers about as much as I do. They have one that I MUST HAVE called...(ready for this?)...Minnie Mouse Ears! (Cuphea pinetorum) OMG!! Well, it's actually a Cuphea, but it looks just like something that the hummers would LOVE as well! Nice tubular salmon-colored flowers with two tiny black "mouse ears" at the tip, hence "Minnie Mouse". OMG!! I have GOT to have this plant! I'm also getting the Cuphea nelsonii which has the same set up except this one has larger RED heart shaped "mouse ears". I positively ♥adore♥ this mainly Salvia nursery!! What a find!!

They even have an updated Black and Blue Salvia called Salvia BODACIOUS 'Rhythm and Blues'!! So if my old Black and Blue Salvias (CURRENTLY the hummers favorites out there) don't survive the necessary and eminent transplant in my backyard or the sun gets too hot for them, I can now replace them! YAY!! It gives me some wiggle room for error back there (just in case) - and it allows me to make a mistake or two without hurting my precious hummer's plants/food sources or feeling incredible guilt if I inadvertently mess up. Bye, bye, Inner Critic!!

Speaking of the heat (which amazingly hasn't been too bad this summer...YET! It's been right around 100ºF +/- ), it should be around the mid-80s on Wed. and Thurs. of this week and I can hardly wait! If I get a good assist from DS, I should get a lot done. He and I need to get a few more things moved about in the "Storage Room" so he and his friend can get in there and move the rolltop. Before that happens though, I need to start clearing out the garage a bit so we have a place to set it down and sell it. One step at a time.

I just read your posts starting Tuesday (when my P.C. quit working and I took it to shop) to present.

Like reading a novel, right?

I got p.c. back today, and it's working great.
Losing p.c. last few days threw me into another depressed "helpless" state.

Well, you're back now, and that's what counts.

I can so relate to your words about learned helplessness, and about your abusive "MD".

I was taking Psych. 101 in college (in my 30s) when I first read about that experiment with the dog (poor dog!) and "LEARNED HELPLESSNESS". Thank heavens I was sitting outside studying for my final when I read it because I burst into tears, SOBBING OUT LOUD, while other students walked by staring at me, but I couldn't stop the flood of tears of pure relief that overtook me. I'll never forget that. It explained everything that had happened to me so well!!

I've never asked you what MD stands for because I instinctively know! (I saw the movie, and lived it as you did!)

I've always said that MD is a poor man's Joan Crawford! She even looks a bit like her, or at least she used to! I have a picture of her and I over at my Aunt M's (MD's older sister) house that says it all: she (in her best Joan Crawford pose) stands posed behind me, stern faced, with 4-5 yr. old me before her, her hand AUTHORITATIVELY on my shoulder, and me straight-faced and blank stare, no smile at all. I was an exuberant child, not the serious child in that picture.

Once I hid from my Aunt M while she was babysitting me. I hid a lot, even at school. They looked everywhere for me and the police were even called when I was finally spotted by a playmate as I hid in a bush in front of my Aunt's home. When I came out, I got on my knees and in tears BEGGED my Aunt "not to beat me"! My Aunt M. was always a VERY kind woman to me and to everyone else, and it even embarrassed her in front of the gathered neighbors and the police with me on my knees and wailing like that. Only recently did I understand that preschool children do NOT expect to be beaten by others like that for a misunderstanding or slight, and that I had LEARNED that "a good beating" was what happened IF I so-called "misbehaved" (according to MD).

Narcissistic MD also felt a deep need to be BETTER THAN anyone else (and does to this day!). I was usually the target, but my aunts (Aunt M and Aunt J) were also targets, and she LOVED to rub it in to them. MD loved to do the spectacular (eg., BIG birthday parties for me (but not "FOR ME") with honest-to-God tiered birthday cakes, a nice swimming pool with BBQs for the family to admire, a 1951 Pontiac green and white convertible, boats, lavish vacations, the works!!). At my birthdays, or at least afterwards, she would shame me while beating me, screaming at me about how "UNGRATEFUL" I was. It got to where I didn't WANT any parties or presents anymore. Nowadays, both DS and I don't celebrate ANYTHING, even Xmas.

That movie floored me regarding the MD and Joan comparison!! That first part around the swimming pool where Christine was set up to fail a swimming competition? MD to a T!!!! I began to bawl my eyes out when I saw it! One of MD's games to be sure!!! My birthday parties didn't have ponies or celebrities, but would have if MD could have afforded it, and then she would've invited her sisters to come so she could gloat about it and laugh in their faces, even as she did do despite her lesser circumstances. She always had a bright smile whenever she did this. And after all this show, after the party was over, I would get my "holiday" beating and shaming and screams of "UNGRATEFUL", for I was always left feeling sadness rather than happiness and she wanted and expected JOY. Hard to come up with JOY when my child's heart was filled with sadness which she mistook for not being sufficiently grateful. Or maybe she just wanted an outlet for her own misery and it would look bad if she just beat her older sisters at Xmas or a birthday party. So she smiled at all of them while displaying and touting her good life, and later on beat the crap out of me. Wow.

Both of my Aunts and my father are now passed away. And MD deserves the 91 yr. long life she has now. I could wish nothing worse for her than the nursing home existence that she lives now, all insisted on by my DB. She hates life. I love life. I love my home, too, and my dogs, and the garden and the birds. What's not to love? Life has its ups and downs for me, but I appreciate each day that I wake up on the right side of the dirt! She may have bent me some, but she never could break me!! SO THERE!!!

I'm not doing so good at accomplishing stuff lately, but the enthusiasm in your posts is contagious.
Thank you soooo much,

Hey, one hand washes the other! You encourage me, too, and I'm glad you write to me, too. I believe I'll make some Polish Sausage for dinner after seeing this tempting Der Wienerschnitzel commercial on TV! YUM! I can have all the goodies inside the bun on keto (grilled onions, peppers, SF ketchup, mustard, SF pickles, even mayo or sauerkraut), so just add one slice of my keto bread from the fridge, toasted, nuke a frozen Polish Sausage for 2 min. and I'm golden!!!

==============================later

It was SO GOOD!!

Honeybera

[Maxie]

Honeybera,
Yeh that movie is cathartic for me because such a good illustration of mother/daughter emotional/psychological abuse.
You know how when you grow up literally surrounded by abuse, it alters your perspective on the world? Well, I remember hearing in the news Gwyneth Paltrow had named her baby daughter "Apple".
[NOTE: I actually now think that's a sweet name, but following is my point:]
I remember thinking at the time "What a horrible name. Mothers hate their daughters." as if that was a matter of fact I didn't question.
I actually held the belief that "Mothers Hate Their Daughters", as a universal truth.
I heard myself expressing that opinion about the baby name to a friend, and I realized: "Wait a minute: You think all mothers hate their daughters???"
With a tiny bit of self-reflection, I saw I held a belief that can't be true, but that merely reflects my own experience!