Butterfly Cauldron

Emmy has been gone a week and I am not doing well.

Since she's been gone, I have done pretty much nothing except crash on the couch, with all the windows and curtains closed, to watch Joan of Arcadia dvds in the dark. I cry at everything. I cry at nothing. In fact, I'm on the edge of crying right now. I feel really dumb about it too.

This is so much worse than last time. I had to leave work yesterday because I was so upset and sad. My stomach was in knots and I was stuffed up (likely from all the crying) and coughing and everytime I coughed it felt like I was going to throw up. I can't focus on anything. I have work to do but I just can't focus on it. I blew a phone interview for a new job because I've been so down I didn't look up the college so I could talk intelligently about it. I sounded like an idiot and I felt like one too. I don't have an engagement ring yet, but I've been looking around to see what I liked and it's only making me stressed and upset. (So Emmy's just going to pick something for me. Yay!) Since I didn't get the job teaching online, we don't know if we're going to be able to afford to go to Salem for the weeding or if we're going to have to stay somewhere closer to home. We wanted to go to Mass. so that the weeding would be legal regardless of gender. (Once Emmy gets her marker changed, no one would be able to challenge the legality since gender doesn't matter in Mass.) I like the idea of getting married where it's snowing. I wanna make snow bunnies and throw snow balls at my wife. Take pictures of us with a snowman. Wear super warm coats and drink hot chocolate by a fireplace. I don't know. I feel...everything. That's the problem. My mother wants pictures of us in our weeding clothing, which is all ARG. Cause now we have to think about what other people will say about our outfits and my mother is all No Goth! and we're thinking that's the direction we're going. So bah. I just feel....overwhelmed :(

On the heels of the last lovely piece, what did I find in my newspaper this morning? This lovely story about an attempted rape victim being terrorized by the men accused of the crime!

The men discovered the victim of the attempted rape and a witness to the incident were living in the Millerville area in Baton Rouge and went to their home at 3:45 a.m. Saturday, an affidavit says.

With the help of three unidentified men, Ristick and Mitchell kicked down the door of the house, the affidavit says.

Ristick, holding a black handgun, grabbed the woman who witnessed the rape attempt, threw her to the ground and threatened to kill her unless the charges were dropped, the affidavit says.

He then hit the woman on the head with the gun, the affidavit says.

Mitchell chased the victim of the attempted rape into the living room and held a gun to her head as he threatened to kill her and her family if she did not drop the charges against Ristick, an affidavit says.

Mitchell then pushed the woman’s head to the floor and fired the handgun into the wall, the affidavit says.

Mitchell, Ristick and the three other men then left the house, an affidavit says.

Both men have been charged with aggravated burglary, simple criminal damage to property, aggravated assault with a firearm and illegal use of a weapon. One man was also charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm. Bond is set at $500k.

So....anyone think that they're not guily of the attempted rape? Anyone?

Labels: assault, crime, Louisiana, outrage, police, rape, sick bastard, stupid people

This is so horrible and offensive, I don't have words to describe it. So, I'm just going to cut-and-paste the whole horrible thing. Note: this appeared in an indie paper geared toward college students. It's not affiliated with LSU, but it's freely distributed around town and is heavy on LSU-coverage. Given the rates of rape on college campuses, this is beyond appalling.

Ex-boyfriend teaches woman why it's important to lock doors

A man, who legally cannot be named, currently awaits trial after he entered the home of his ex-girlfriend and raped her with one of her own sex toys.

The assailant entered the woman's home and bound her hands and feet. He then raped her with a "large" sex toy and allegedly poured beer on the victim. After the attack, the assailant then untied the woman and brought her to her place of work.

The assailant has pleaded not guilty to all charges and insists that he committed the offense in order to scare his ex-girlfriend into locking her doors at night.

Yes. That's right. Look at that headline. Look at the lovely detail about the size of the instrument. Look at his rationalization. Which is re-enforced by the fucking headline. And this woman is a quite possible a resident of Baton Rouge, who lives near or even attends LSU. And even if she's not, maybe she's out eating one day (like I was) and sees The Tiger Weekly laying around. And you know, she thinks "Ah, something to read!" And then she reads this. Seriously? I mean, seriously????

Happily, the editors provided us with an email address to give them feedback. How thoughtful! Feel free to comment. E-mail the author at Jenna@tigerweekly.com

Labels: assault, crime, Louisiana, outrage, police, rape, sick bastard, stupid country, stupid people, stupid state

Working full-time with FMS and Lupus is sometimes agony for me. I am often exhausted and in serious pain. That pain causes me to be short with people, or to be slow to volunteer to help out with projects around the office. The pain is sometimes so severe, that it gets noted on my evaluations that I seem unenthusiastic or unwilling to help out. That's not true, of course. The truth is that I simply don't have the strength or energy to do more than come to work and sit at my desk all day. Some days, even sitting for long periods of time is too difficult for me.

In order to control the pain, I take pain killers. They kill the pain, but they usually make me a bit loopy and unfocused. (In fact, I've had to take medication today, so this post may be a bit disjointed. Sorry about that.) Since I work as an editor, loopy and unfocused is not a good thing to be.

In the past, I've had to take extremely strong meds at fairly precise intervals. Even though I work full-time, I have limited sick/vacation days. So the week I was on the drugs that made me, essentially, stoned, I had to go to work. Luckily I had an understanding boss and co-workers who looked out for me -- but I let some serious errors get through because I just couldn't catch them in my drugged state.

To the outside world -- which, let's face it, is pretty much everyone -- I don't look like a person with a disability. I don't look like a person who requires strong medications to successfully get out of bed and make it through the day sometimes. Most people look at me, I don't look sick, so they assume that behaviour -- the occasional snappishness, the apparent unwillingness to be a team player, the failure to catch errors -- is due to either laziness, incompetence or apathy. None of those things are true, but that is often what people think when they see me.

They can't see the thwarted ambition. They can't see the life plan thrown irrevocably off track. I am 34 years old. I finished my Masters program when I was 24. I had planned on getting my Doctorate by 27 -- a completely doable plan and considering how dedicated and in love with my research I was, I would probably have finished early. By my age now, I should be safely settled in a teaching job somewhere. I had always dreamed of teaching at a small, liberal arts college, probably somewhere in New England or the Northwest. I love the coasts, always been drawn that way.

I had hopes of being tenure track by now. I had dreams of owning my own home by now, of being settled and an adult by now. Instead, my disability has trapped me in a sort of perpetual thwarted adolescence -- yes, I work full-time. But the work I am able to do does not pay well and I am barely able to pay my bills. Many able-bodied people are in the same situation. But they have something I don't -- the ability to move upward. If a job requires 60 hours a week? Well, they may not like it, but they know they can do it for awhile. Me? I can't. I absolutely cannot. I have the mental ability to work at a much, much higher level than I am now. I have the education, I have the intelligence, I have the drive -- but I don't have the physical ability anymore.

It drives me crazy sometimes, feeling like a failure. In my head, I know that I'm not. I know that I am not the person other people see. I know that I am not lazy or apathetic or incompetent. I know I'm not a chronic whiner when I say I'm tired.

Other people don't understand how much of my money goes to pay for medication. I take six different medications each day. Even with insurance, that's a couple hundred a month. Now add in the cost for doctor's visits -- a GP, a chiropractor, a rheumatologist, a neurologist and a pulminologist. Tack on the cost for lab work -- regular blood work, the occasional MRI and neurological work up. That's thousands of dollars a year, on a salary of less than 30K.

This disability is a heavy, hard thing to tackle. Until very recently, I've been dealing with it on my own. Do you know how sad it is to go to doctor's visit after visit alone? Do you know how utterly desolate you feel sitting in a waiting room, waiting for an MRI, looking at everyone else in the room and noticing that they all have people with them? Supporting them? And you're sitting there, alone again, praying that the MRI comes out clean, that there isn't any damage on your brain, that you really are just having stupidly complicated migraines and aren't having seizures like the doctors suspect?

It is lonely and isolating. You lose friends, your family can't understand. Everyone just seems to fade away.

And still -- up every morning, off to work with bones that feel like concrete and muscles that are stretch and sore. My mother asked me once what the pain felt like and I told her -- it feels like my spine has turned to broken glass and is grinding against my spinal cord. I'm afraid to move because it always feels like I'm about to be cut in half. She doesn't appreciate my language. She thinks I'm being dramatic. But she asked and it's true.

I'm always struggling, in some way, with reconciling the image I have/had of myself and the reality of my situation. I fight the urge to blame myself, to give in to the delusion that I'm just imaging things, that they're not as bad as they seem, that I don't really hurt this much, it's all in my mind. Now that I'm getting married, I have to fight my instincts to do everything on my own. I fight the urge to put on my public face, to pretend that I can do all the housework. That I can do all the shopping. That I'm feeling well enough to go out. It's instinct to keep quiet about how bad a day I'm having. It's hard to ask for help. It's harder to accept help.

And I'm afraid to give into the hope that my life will get better. I've been slapped down so long, that I'm almost afraid to dream of the day when I'll be able to stop working full-time. We have the plan -- as soon as Emmy has a full-time job with enough salary and benefits, I stop working. I keep my part-time job teaching online or I start my own freelance editing business. But I don't work full-time anymore. I don't have to go to work stoned on prescription drugs because I don't have sick time or disability to take. I don't have to deal with people thinking I'm lazy because I only take on as many projects as I can reasonably handle. We have that plan. And I can see it is a real possibility. It's something I can actually have, a life I could love, with a partner I love. And I want it and I reach for it, but I'm scared it will disappear like so many other plans I've had even as I believe it will happen.

Disability isn't just about the physical. It isn't just about difficultly walking or difficulty finding reasonable accommodation. It goes deeper and hits harder. And it can happen to anyone, at any time. You could be a first year Master's student, with a clear 5 year plan and perfect health and wake up one morning in pain, unable to move. It happens everyday. And no one wants to think about it, no one wants to talk about it, no one wants to admit it's real. And by denying it, you give it power. By denying it, you make it shameful. By denying it, you create an atmosphere where you have to work full-time, with your shattered glass spine, in order to pay your medical bills and everyone thinks you're lazy or incompetent or apathetic.

(BTW -- I always imagine my FMS/Lupus as a school of sharks swimming around my body. Hence the title.)

Labels: disability

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Colbert Coalition's Anti-Gay Marriage Ad
colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Gay Marriage Commercial

Also? I love this video.

Labels: bisexuality, homosexuality, marriage, stupid people

Iowa Supreme Court struck down the state's ban on same-sex marriage. Read more here.

Suddenly, I feel happy. Not that we plan on moving to Iowa, but it did just become a state that looks much better in our job search for Emmy.

Labels: marriage

My mother believes I've never allowed myself to be happy.

She says she doesn't know why that is. She says she doesn't know why I don't always seem to believe she loves me. And, I could explain it all to her, but I'm not sure she'd understand.

I was raised in a very conservative Southern Baptist Church, by parents who were and who remain wholly devoted to their faith. It is their very breath, my mother has said, and she is not exaggerating. Our lives revolved around the church when I was a child. We went at least three times a week: Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night. Our weekends were generally filled with church-related activities: youth rallies, revivals, prayer meetings. My friends were made at church. The first time a boy actively hit on me was at church. The first concert I attended was a church concert. The first play I performed in was a church play. The church and it's teaching were the core of my life.

So, when the teachers tell you that Jesus loves you, you believe it. And when they tell you that Jesus will also send you to Hell, you believe that too. That these things were incompatible never seemed to occur to anyone else, but they certainly occured to me.

My mother would never understand that the very thing that gives her such great peace is the source of my greatest pains. She'd never understand that being told, repeatedly, that I was not worthy of God's love made me feel I wasn't worthy of anyone's love. After all, if God couldn't love me, how could any human being? If I deserved to die and then to burn eternally in Hellfire, regardless of my sincere desire to be good, to do good, then how was anything I could ever possibly do good enough? How could I ever be good enough? How could I ever try hard enough? I threw myself into Bible study, into prayer. I begged God to love me, to accept me, to tell me I was Good Enough.

But that never happened. No matter how much I tried to assure myself that I had done all the right things, I had prayed all the right prayers, I had opened myself completely to God. That fear never went away. That terror that still wakes me in the middle of the night -- that Jesus has come again and I've been left alone, abandoned, forgotten. Because I wasn't Enough. I could never be Enough. God loves me, but I'm going to Hell. My sins, such as they were, were too great. I was too broken. I was too unlovable, too unsalvagable.

What could an 8-year-old child do that was so horrible she could never be forgiven? I didn't know, but I was sure I had done it. I was 8 when my first phobia manifested. I became terribly afraid of water. Why water? I don't know. But I was stricken with a certainty that something, some demon was going to come up the pipes while I took a shower or a bath. I used to grab my cat and my radio, go into the bathroom and lock the door, run a bath, turn the music up really loud and then lay on the floor, sobbing into my cat's fur, too petrified to actually get into the water. But I knew I couldn't tell my parents. I was certain they'd tell me I was being stupid. I was certain they'd tell me no such thing could happen. But, if demons were real -- and the Bible said they were -- then why couldn't it happen? Why couldn't a demon decide to possess me? It had happened in the Bible, to people who were seemingly innocent. And I, well I was worse than that. I was certain of it. I'd been told. I'd been taught. No one is good enough for God. No one deserves to go to Heaven. We all deserve to burn forever. I deserved to burn forever. So why not a demon?

So I didn't tell my parents and I continued to go to church. Three, four, sometimes seven times a week or more. Year after year, drummed into my head: You're bad. You're broken. You're a sinner. Sin is evil, therefore, you are evil. All the tacked on platitudes that God will save me anyway, if I just do what he wants meant nothing. I was doing what God wanted! So where was my peace? Where my rest? My parents had it. My brother had it. Everyone else around me had it. But it was not for me. Was I one of those the Bible spoke about, the ones whose hearts God would harden? The ones God had given all the chances allowed too, so that even if I begged on my knees, even if I ripped out my hair and gashed out my eyes, he would refuse me? It says that, you know. That God has a limit to the number of chances he'll give a person to be saved. And, I was told, you never know how many you're going to get. You? Maybe you get only one chance. That guy over there? Maybe God gives him 100. No one knows and when your chances are up, they're up. It's Hellfire for you, even if you realize you're wrong. Even if you beg, even if you plead, even if you sacrifice yourself on the altar, God won't care. He won't hear you. Because you're evil, you're rotten, you deserve to burn.

All the other stories? The ones about Jesus loving people, the ones about the shephard leaving his flock to search out one single lost lamb and bring it home to safety? Those stories didn't make sense, not in the face of a God who would randomly cut people off. How could God care so much about one single lamb, when he didn't really give a damn about that other lamb over there? And how could you know which lamb you were? It was impossible!

And they said, God is a Father. An eternal, immortal parent. Parents are supposed to love you, to protect you, care for you. They are not supposed to decide some of their children deserve to burn forever, while others get to loll about Heaven. And if your God Parent can't be counted on to love you, to protect you, to keep you from eternal damnation, how can you count on your human parents? Aren't they much more failable? Aren't they much more fickle? If a single lie told by my 8-year-old self was enough to make God cast me into fire -- a fire where I would not actually die, but live, feeling the fire and the pain and the agony, over and over and over for eternity -- then what would it make my human parents do to me? No. No. I had to try harder, I had to be better, I had to find something, some way to be better, to be worthy. But it was impossible, because the Bible said so.

And this haunts me. No matter how much therapy I do, no matter how much processing or talking it out or reasoning through I do, it haunts me. No matter that I've rejected it all, it's still there. And so, no. I don't always believe my mother loves me. On one level, I know that she does, of course. On one level, I don't doubt it. So long as I do what I'm supposed to do. So long as she doesn't find out about the ways my life differs from what she thinks it is. I doubt anyone really, genuinely loves me -- not once they know who I really am. Not once they find out where I diverge from the path. I am constantly, eternally on edge -- even when I'm not consciously aware of it -- that I may wake up and everyone will Know Me and that they'll leave. The trumpet will sound and *poof* they're all gone, scooped up by that vicious God, leaving me abandoned and alone.

So there it is, why I have such a hard time being happy. Every bad thing in my life, some part of me believes I deserve it for being such a rotten, horrible person. And I blame my parents for it, even though I know they didn't realize what they were doing, for sending me to church, over and over and over, despite my pleas not to go. My parents, whose only answer to the obvious suicidal depression I endured as a teenager was to send me to church MORE often. And I don't think I can tell my mother this, because I know it would break her heart.

Labels: childhood memories, childhood trauma, depression, family, fundies, mothers, pain, parents, religion, sadness