Rather than try to lurk, or stay away can you at least try limiting the # of posts or something? Seems like you need support too, just like the rest of us do. Maybe just limiting the # of two-way conversations that we sometimes get going and sticking to responses to individual posts for awhile?
Can you explain what you meant about the decision concerning your Dad? Holidays are hard on me still - wouldn't it help to lean just a tad on a friend or three here??
I don't know if it's coincidence but did I bring this on? Was I in the wrong place at the wrong time to get you to bring your 'stuff' to the surface when maybe you weren't ready for it? If so, VERY sorry.
WOW ~ now I'm feeling like a drama queen, and I'm not even gay...
NO Hedge, it was NOT you, it IS me...
I am the fool that grows obsessive with most anything that gives positive feedback, and I am the one that went further and further (it doesn't matter whose post I was responding to, and for what it's worth, it was my response to a completely different thread about knowing if it was time to give up working)...
I have the problem...
As Ruth said in another thread I didn't respond to ~ asking a BP like me to engage in moderation is like asking Hannibal Lechter to become a vegetarian...
I can TRY to limit my stuff (which I actually do limit), but it's a little like doing a little whiskey as a recovering alcoholic...
I'll get over it... Maybe today, maybe tomorrow ~ but for certain I NEED TO CUT DOWN...
Recalling the trigger of events that led to my present situation got further under my skin than my defenses could ward-off...
Specifically, Ruth, on Christmas Eve a few years ago, I received a harassment letter from a thief who happened to be in the administration of my district... Per usual legal channels, I had 10 business days to counter, or face revocation of credentials, job and the whole shooting match... This individual had already called me to his office to demand I resign my job (*see PS below), as he knew that I knew how and where he was embezzling funds... He was one of those pompous SOB'S that think they're above the law... After all, ANY questioning of HIS methods or motives would be INSUBORDINATION ~ absolute grounds for dismissal !!!
That particular Christmas Eve bore a more horrid suprize in the evening... I got a phone call from a hospital in North Carolina... My father was in a coma, and IF they hooked up life support, then he could linger in a vegetative state for years... The doctor assured me for an HOUR that if it was HIS father he would NOT allow the life-support to be started, as under the circumstances, my father was so far gone that his kidneys would fail, flooding his system with nitrates, and allow him to pass with no pain - no hope of regaining consciousness, as nature intended...
I trusted the doctor...
The doctor was wrong...
After 3 days, my father awoke, only to be in an organ-failure advanced state of decomposition that led to a slow and painful death...
There's more, but I'll be brief...
That same A-Hole administrator, after I'd warded-off his legal crappolla, saw an opportunity in my grief, and brought on the dogs en-extremise !!!
I lashed back ~ big time, trying to take the whole rotten-to-the-core pack of central administration "good-olde-boy" corrupt SOB'S with him...
It led to a firestorm (some might say "sh*tstorm" that lasted 5 initial months, with repercussions that went on in legal channels for 2 years)...
As I produced evidence, the only thing they could attack was ME...
It got hella-ugly !!! I kid you not, at one point there was literally a "contract" out on my fat as*...
I've tried like the devil to move on ~ put it behind me...
But, as you can see in my tone, I easilly slip into an angry ******-off state of an unsatisfied martyr...
That's about it, without all the window dressing...
Hence the name "downtrodden"...
Hope I didn't offend anyone !!!
* PS ~ What had more or less started that ball rolling was when 3 old friends who ran "sites" called asking for assistence, as THEIR books were getting "cooked" downtown, to cover malicious funds mismanagement... IF they'd been audited, my innocent friends would have taken the "fall" ~ until I hooked them up with another friend that happened to be a good attorney... Someone ratted me out to downtown ~ and there you go...
PPS ~ In a truly sad twist to all of this, those same individuals later REFUSED to testify on my behalf, as they had been threatened with THEIR jobs and retirements !!! Oh lord...
Last edited by downtrodden; 11-30-2004 at 05:04 PM.
And just where the hell was the pain medication for your father when he had organ failure??
My dad died of colon cancer that had metastisized from his colon, to liver, to abdominal cavity, to spine & bones, to lungs, to we assume the brain since he also appeared to slip into a coma (morphine or coma, coma or morphine?) He was kept "comfortable" as his organs shut down...
And given the choice of some sort of death extending "life support" I would have done the same thing. How are we humans (even the doctor kind) to play God and get it right 100% of the time.
You have every right to be angry, and I can't pretend to understand the legal crappola on the business front that you have been through - but I can be your friend and I can listen to whatever it is you have to say or how many different ways you need to express it.
One thing I know for sure is that we bipolars know how to FEEL. Not be able to hide it behind some polished facade.
That's why it's such a blessing to have a "safe spot" like this.
And that's why you have a home away from home here.
Always.
P.S. If I was the one who used the Hannibal Lector metaphor I would be surprised - not my type of phrase, but loved Silence of the Lambs... Hard to believe that Buffalo Bill morphed into the police commissioner on 'Monk'.
But I digress - badly...
Not that all of us are so important, but we need you and I'm pretty sure you need us too!! Who better to help and listen than here? Ruth was right about maybe cut down, but it sounds like you have alot to pour out; don't draw into yourself and go so far into depression that we may never pull you out!!!!! You called me out from cyberspace and I owe you 1.
I'll miss you and wait for you to reappear from your electronic hide-away!
Take care of yourself, take your meds on time and change your underwear daily!!!
All my best-
Sandee
xoxox
From the heart - I think WE need YOUR input as much as you need to 'hang around'
I feel so much better for getting into this board and letting it out of my system. What I didn't stop to consider was how MY actions could injure(as well as help) another person. Most of us have a tough past. Some a difficult past. A few a HARD past. We ALL need sombody to talk to. Try slowing it down a little bit, but PLEASE keep talking...
I once told somebody ... Let it go... Perhaps I should have thought more about the consequences of MY actions... (isn't THAT classic Bi-P) and added... a bit at a time...
LORD OF THE RINGS 2 " On the 5th day... look to the EAST"
(hope you can picture the scene...) (if not, rent the film, NOW and watch it)
We will ALL be here... Hedge...
ps. PLEASE change your underwear, I'm 5(ish) time zones away and I can smell them...
Thanks... Your thoughtful support is greatly appreciated...
I am probably NOT resolved within myself concerning the items mentioned earlier due to one of my own most profound weaknesses... namely a total fear of failure linked to a delusional belief that you can't fail so long as you keep trying...
I tried... and tried... and tried...
I have to try to resolve within myself that I did NOT fail (even though it's how I feel)...
I made the conscious choice to abandon the corporate world in the '70's, and sacrificed lots of money and material prestige for a "noble" job away from the dog-eat-dog laissez-faire free market... My salary was reduced by 80%, and the perquisites reduced to near zero... (As we got informed when asking for a few more morsals in our salary schedules, we could feed the masses on the satisfaction "dollars" intrinsically found in our field...)...
I thought I was LEAVING a world where back-stabbing and politics were commonplace, only to land in the mother-of-all nasties (at least Corporate Execs must account precisely for their "bottom line")...
I have a copy of the Serenity Prayer in the desk below this keyboard...
I just don't seem to be able to accept those things I could not change...
Much like a Klingon might think ~ I fought... I did not win a satisfying victory... Yet I'm still holding my shield... Something's wrong with this picture !!!
My problem...
Thanks for listenning ~ but I do hate to go on about this stuff, as NO amount of discussion is going to change one dad-blasted part of it...
Hence I'm unresolved in it - a sure formula for losing sleep and gaining agitation...
MY PROBLEM...
The olde addage is "get over it"... Hmmmmmmm... Not my style, I guess (or not my neural genetic structure)... Gotta let it sink back into the dungeon of sub-conscious supression (which means not keep on endlessly going over the stuff)... another conundrum... I shared so you might understand what it is I'm so wound-up about...
Thanks for all the supportiveness ~ with a little space and time I should get this nicely tucked back where it belongs !!!
How did they happen to have Hedge and Nonny in there ???
I think I'm gettin' better (I even posted to 2 other threads this AM)...
Today's new idiom ~ " P D " (just coined that)... Short for Pharmaceutical Defenestration (from the Latin for WINDOW ~ as in tossing something out the window)... Seems it just got honorable mention as the 10th most looked-up word in the dictionary last year !!! Been around since 4x420 (1620 AD)...
You don't have to accept your failures or even your wins, but you must accept that EVERYONE has a failure or 2 in their lives; Ruth, Hedge and yes, even me. That's what makes us the people we are. We accept you for you, goof-ups and all. Don't try to resolve them or try to rehash old memories; "I should've done this, could've done that".
Remember I told you-Don't suffer from your insanity; enjoy every minute of it!!!!
Glad you're back, even if it's just for today!
xoxox
PS
I was 2 days without my Marlboros (no money; had to smoke the old man's Mediums; now THAT was a problem!!!!!)
Nonny (thanks) I know you're right, but a lifetime of trying to NOT be like my father has conditioned me to an aweful non-acceptance of myself...
I will try to challenge that, but frankly - it's so engrained it's almost scary to start screwing around with all the defense mechanisms that are woven together, now...
A very good and respected (now deceased) friend (who happened to be the rare good administrator AND ex-football coach AND ex-private practice Family Psychologist) once handed me this on a platter (almost 20 years ago)... I paraphrase...
" When you are engaging others to challenge their internal belief structures, tread VERY softly... YOU will become responsible for bringing THEM out the other side in at least as whole a condition as when you started... Be certain before you do start, that you know where you're going - what you're dealing with - and exactly how to get to the intended goal. People develop their internal defenses over YEARS, and have survived to the point that you met them... If you start tearing those defenses down, you'd better have something in place to prevent leaving them totally defenseless and unprepared to deal with life's struggles... " ( ~ Akio Iwanaga )
HE was giving ME sage advice about doing informal counselling concerning my students and their families...
I now try to apply it to myself...
My defenses might suck, but they're the only ones I've got, and as I nudge at them, my foundations start to shimmy and shake !!!
Just a thought !!!
Last edited by downtrodden; 12-02-2004 at 06:15 AM.
