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Every word of this is true. I was inspired by a really interesting book called "I Thought My Father Was God" wherein people tell real stories from their lives, most of them truly fascinating. I thought a bit about what my life's story was, and this was the obvious answer. (written in 2005)
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Ha! Are you kidding? I was hoping the moral of the story here would be that you don't have to view a disaster as traumatic and cry and go all emo; you can insist instead on making the most of it.
And no, my mother will never get any better. An experience last year taught me that well. But I did learn a valuable lesson; it's okay to cut someone off when they've hurt you repeatedly. I will never, ever trust my mother again, and that way I know I'm safe from her forever. There are very rarely any Hollywoodlike happy endings. You have to make your own.
If it helps the situation, I'm quite spoiled.(not as much as I used to be though.) I've had only a few experiences were the female couterpart went balistic over spilt milk, and to make it worse she was dumb as dirt. She thought being expelled was where you were removed from school for a few days.
Are you in a bad mood? from your response I feel as if you want to be left alone for a bit. If thats the case I'm okay with that.
And to clarify to everyone; While I certainly don't hate all women, I'm just reallyreallyreally sure I don't want to live in the same house with them anymore. Yeep!
We all make mistakes. Thats what the backspace key is for. For those times where the rubber eraser doesn't quite work.
And my advice to you? Never go back to them! It's a hard lesson that you can never change another person. Once an abuser, almost always an abuser forever. Live your life free of their poison and be happy on your own terms! Good luck to you as well! ^__^
"they were really confused as to why I even wanted to leave."
Ha! So totally not surprising. Some crazy people genuinely can't believe they ever do anything wrong. It's like they've got some sort of selective memory-destroying-device in their brains.
And beware people like this apologizing for things they did in the past! I learned this the hard way from my mother. She sent me these long, long emails apologizing for everything she ever did to me and _swearing_ that everything was going to be fine now. As it turned out, her actions quite clearly showed that she hadn't changed an once. She then proceeded to treat me like utter shit and blame _me_ for it. It's like this; she's convinced she is perfect and never wrong. So when she said she was wrong in the past, 'was' is the operative word. She can blame her mistakes on her *old self*, and thusly convince herself that her current self is perfect and flawless.
BOOOOOLSHEET!!! ;)
And you're in the same state as I am, extra points for that. Good luck with your mother, and God bless.
Also, you my friend have had An Adventure. One for which my life has no comparison.
But given your reason, perhaps I've just never needed such for the very same reason you DID: my parents have always told me I can accomplish anything I set my mind to. And so, paradoxically, I've accomplished very little in the way of wacky hijinx.
But there is still hope. My mildly entertaining 8-to-4:30 office job offers 4 weeks of paid vacation time a year (3 this first year) and so, given the small amount of such time I have actual PLANS to use... the circumstances would seem ripe for adventure One Of These Days. The very near future.
Hell, it wouldn't be all that far-fetched for me to show up at your door for a weekend sometime soonish.
Also I want to go to Disneyland. Last time I was there, was the same trip when there was an earthquake that smashed a highway.
Looking it up, it might've been the Northridge earthquake--it's about the right time of night, and MAYBE the right year. (All I know is that it was sometime in the early-mid 90's or late 80's.) I woke up to the last of the aftershocks, having slept through nearly all of it. Mom woke up to see one of Grandpa Don's taxidermied ducks flapping its wings, as if alive and trying to fly away.
So yeah.
Whoa! And yes, I took a standard (non-internet) IQ test and got that result. I think we're in the top 0.05% of the country. Sweet.
>But given your reason, perhaps I've just never needed such for the very same reason you DID: my parents have always told me I can accomplish anything I set my mind to. And so, paradoxically, I've accomplished very little in the way of wacky hijinx.
I honestly envy you. I'd trade a dumptruckfull of California adventures for parents who aren't evil assholes.
>Hell, it wouldn't be all that far-fetched for me to show up at your door for a weekend sometime soonish.
Ooooooh! Of course, we'd want to go somewhere else; I do live with a relative who frowns on scandalous behavior. Tee hee.
>Also I want to go to Disneyland. Last time I was there, was the same trip when there was an earthquake that smashed a highway.
Ride Gadget's Go-Coaster. It's the best! :)
>...Mom woke up to see one of Grandpa Don's taxidermied ducks flapping its wings, as if alive and trying to fly away.
Wow. Now that is a truly surreal mental image. (Maybe I can steal it and use it in a story! ^__^)
As sweet as cane sugar! And to hell with high fructose corn syrup. :P
> I honestly envy you. I'd trade a dumptruckfull of California adventures for parents who aren't evil assholes.
*hugs* Yeah, we've talked about this before. Might've already mentioned, but: My parents are conservative Christians...but they are such GOOD people in spite of that, that when I came out as bisexual, even though they were flat-out opposed to it, they still love ME, and support ME, even if they don't agree with me. Pushing me out of the house was not even an option... though that did eventually happen for totally unrelated reasons: when they moved to another house while I was off at college. Had to pack my stuff up in bins and everything.
I'm not trying to mommy-brag or anthing, it's just... Geez. I wish you could've been my brother. Not that I'd trade Scott away for the world--it'd be cool to have you as _another_ brother. *hugs*
> Ooooooh! Of course, we'd want to go somewhere else; I do live with a relative who frowns on scandalous behavior. Tee hee.
Would this relative suspect any hanky-panky if you were having another boy over? :3 Or would we be better off getting a motel room? Hee hee.
> Ride Gadget's Go-Coaster. It's the best! :)
GASPZ
I must.
> Wow. Now that is a truly surreal mental image. (Maybe I can steal it and use it in a story! ^__^) Feel free to! You can even put in there: Based on a true story! XD
You're a total sweetie. ^__^ I know you're not bragging, and I do enjoy knowing that what I went through isn't what *everyone* did (heaven forbid!). I've always been comfortable being an only child. Maybe we could've been best-friendly-neighbors with a tree inbetween the houses so I could climb over to your side whenever Mom was being a bitchtornado.
>Would this relative suspect any hanky-panky if you were having another boy over? :3 Or would we be better off getting a motel room? Hee hee.
MOTEL ROOM. I'm sure he thinks I'm a little odd, but I don't know if he quite comprehends I like teh penis.
Mmm, penis... :3
What's the difference between a penis and a Ball Park frankfurter?
One plumps when you cook it. The other is a hot dog.
I must tell Kuma that one.
wow.
Thank you for sharing this peice of your life.
You have some very good coping skills, and they don't look like the "suck it up and press on" type either but the "think of a clever way out" kind. Nicely done!
Heh. Your description of your mother makes my parents look tame. Mine are only paranoid. At least if you conform to expected behavior, they leave you alone. It sucks to have to hide what I am, but it's only for one more semester of college.
I do know what you mean about having to decide when you're just not going to make any headway. When my dad commented that, "everything after and including the fall of the Berlin Wall was all a carefully-orchestrated, staged event by communism to fake it's demise so that it could resurrect itself in thirty years to threaten the free world again, complete with a faked border war between Russia and China to fool everyone about their secret alliance", I realized that there just wasn't any point anymore. When politics comes up, I just smile and nod.
Although you think I would have figured that out long ago. That's the only story to tell...
Hmm... I checked my humongous list is Arcade ROMS and found a game by the name of Moonwalker. It's by SEGA. I can't tell if it's the right one though.
"There are known problems with this game
THIS GAME DOESN'T WORK. You won't be able to make it work correctly. Don't bother.
Type OK or move the joystick left then right to continue"
That error message is the best error message in the world! (closely followed by "Keyboard not connected. Press F1 to continue")
However, I do remember a game of similar name called "Michael Jackson's Moonwalker". Amazingly enough, I do not have this game despite it's cult potential. MUST GET! Anyway, having played it before, I remember a sound similar to the one you stated. Does this website ring any bells?
http://www.sydlexia.com/moonwalker.htm
If you didn't play, you're not missing much. But the cult following means that a working arcade machine would be worth a mint on eBay...
Sucks about the wheelchair thing. I have to admit that this is one problem I don't have. Interesting story behind it actually. I used to work as a phone representative for GEICO, and later as tech support for Intuit, a software company. There is a surprising amount of pressure to start smoking in call centers. (dealing with stress) And I'm the fidgity, energetic type, so I need to blow off steam on breaks. So I came up with an alternative: The exercise break. I would walk up and down a flight of stairs at GEICO. Later at Intuit, I would invent a sockball (by stuffing five socks inside a sixth and tying it off with a rubber band) and walk around the building while tossing it up in the air. Heh, I've got stories to tell there too, but that's for another day. In any event, I quickly realized walking was a great way to burn off excess energy and the hobby has grown.
Okay, I think I've rambled about just about everything that came to mind. Enjoyed the story.
Conclusion-type Stuff.
Personal experiance? Ive been lost a handfull of times, in different countries, and on different continents. And never once did I panic, cry, weep, scream, or lose my head. Silly as it is to draw life lessons from fantasy novels, I learned a great one. "Think of the solution, not the problem."
I bet you could walk across a state now with all that practice huh?
And walking across a state? Ehhhh, my feet would not like that. I think I'll stick with doing it in theory only. ;)
I was born in Santa Monica.
I mean, awesome story! But geez, poor you.
Though given the number of times I've filled my juice glass with milk and/or poured OJ on my cereal, I can certainly relate.
Also, I hate the fact that you had a mother like that. I've got big sympathies for you, but you seem to have won the war. You don't appear to let that kind of expierence hold you down. I really respect that.
*hugs*
NO, YOU DON'T!! Trust me, it's far better to plan your adventures out more and leave signifigantly less up to chance like I did. F'rinstance, my trip to Anthrocon this summer was the best vacation I've ever had and went (mostly) smooth as silk. Terrible shit happening to you makes for a great story, but it's considerably preferable to avoid if possible! ;)
>Also, I hate the fact that you had a mother like that. I've got big sympathies for you, but you seem to have won the war. You don't appear to let that kind of expierence hold you down. I really respect that.
<nods> Thank you. that's exactly the point I wanted to get across. No matter what horrible shit's happened in your past, you don't have to be a slave to it forever. You can take whatever positives you can salvage from the situation and choose to be happy.
That's good advice. I actually do have planns to plan things out because I could wind up in terribly screwed-up situation if I just rolled the dice on a vacation and left it up to fate.
><nods> Thank you. that's exactly the point I wanted to get across. No matter what horrible shit's happened in your past, you don't have to be a slave to it forever. You can take whatever positives you can salvage from the situation and choose to be happy.
More good advice! It just seems like people chose to shut out that piece of wisdom and use their misfortunes as crutch to get attention.
Javier from Summer Vacation Of The Living Dead said a line that was considerably wiser than I thought I could be: "It is always a good idea to be more prepared than you think you need to be."
>More good advice! It just seems like people chose to shut out that piece of wisdom and use their misfortunes as crutch to get attention.
Some do, and some just don't think they CAN get over what happened, so they don't try. People are so quick to label something as traumatic, to label someone as a victim, and so those people can't be blamed for feeling traumatized and victimized. We'd all be better off if people were told in times of tragedy, "It's going to hurt a lot, and it may take a long time to get over it, but it's up to you to decide how long you're going to feel that way."
*nods* I agree.
On a related note, I've noticed that people with troubled or very unglamorous pasts seem to be the most level-headed. I mean, Jesus himself was born in a cave smelling of donkey poo. Perhaps when there's so much bad in your life, you cherish all the good you can get and thus have a better ability to tell the difference.
Though I am curious: I know your mom was batshit bonkers, but what was your father like? If it's too personal a question you don't have to answer.
Yaaay! I appreciate your envy, but even more, I'm glad the 'moral' of the story I was trying to convey came through. A lot of people have said, "Oh, you had such a tragic life!" and I'm like, "No, the point is, the tragic parts don't define you if you choose not to let them."
>Perhaps when there's so much bad in your life, you cherish all the good you can get and thus have a better ability to tell the difference.
Very, very likely. Similarly, my current frugality nowadays is probably due a lot to being on welfare 'n food stamps as a kid. So, I always make sure I get the absolute most out of my money. And, also, my life.
>Though I am curious: I know your mom was batshit bonkers, but what was your father like?
I got tons of my personality, creativity, even my likes and dislikes from him, but only through genetics. He skipped out before I was two and never looked back. He'd been an avant-garde fashion designer (he looked like Edward Scissorhands YEARS before that movie came out) and my mom says she thought his reason was that having a kid just didn't fit into his cool life. (Of course, he also could have been escaping from *her*, which I would completely understand). I never knew him, so I'm not really angry at him. Plus, about a decade ago I stumbled upon him from seeing some of his art in a show, and we talked on the phone a few times and finally met in person. It was like seeing myself, with my creativity in overdrive, but also virtually every one of my personality traits that I'm ashamed of magnified as well. It was like looking in a time-mirror of what I could have become if I never cared about other people and just let myself become totally head-in-the-clouds narcissistic. After that, I realized he may very well have done me a favor by leaving when he did.
Are those really genetic? Then again, I've heard studies on similar findings...
It was like seeing myself, with my creativity in overdrive, but also virtually every one of my personality traits that I'm ashamed of magnified as well.
Huh. What did he think about you?
It was like looking in a time-mirror of what I could have become if I never cared about other people and just let myself become totally head-in-the-clouds narcissistic. After that, I realized he may very well have done me a favor by leaving when he did.
Ya know, for a while I actually tried to become a head-in-the-clouds narcissist, but I cared too much about other people to do it (it was a mentally and emotionally confusing time for me).
How else to explain my love of Monty Python, Frank Zappa and Brian Eno?
>Huh. What did he think about you?
It felt like I was an audience to him, and that he very likely treated everyone like that.
>Ya know, for a while I actually tried to become a head-in-the-clouds narcissist, but I cared too much about other people to do it (it was a mentally and emotionally confusing time for me).
I've seen what selfishness turns people into. I try to stay as far away from it as I reasonably can.
One of these days they're going to isolate the gene that causes one to like Monty Python. Then they'll inject it into jellyfish and watch them perform silly walks.
>I've seen what selfishness turns people into. I try to stay as far away from it as I reasonably can.
Yeah, it was back when I was prepared for my confirmation into the Catholic church. I went through at least half a dozen new personalities in the span of two weeks.
I personally recommend pretty much all of Bob the Angry Flower.
Also, 155? holy crap! Explains the quality of your writing. ^^
<nods> I'd be that way if I hadn't made a firm, personal choice to change. I honestly think that for most people with mental illness, there's at least one point where you have the choice to try to be better or just say 'fuck it' and let the illness take over. People who can do something to fight their mental illness and choose not to, i have zero sympathy for them.
>Also, 155? holy crap! Explains the quality of your writing. ^^
Naw. Intelligence is only a small factor. It comes from inborn talent and practice, mostly.