the question

has the climate changed in the office, or is it just me? well, it only seems that way with one person, so i dont want to behave as though it were everyone. so maybe it isnt just me then. not my imagination, and perhaps not my subconscious doing.

a couple of weeks ago i played a video at work of a ventriloquist with a very funny puppet for the girls at work who hadnt seen it. the puppet is a dead suicide terrorist, and the act deals with terrorist racism, but in such a funny way. the office manager was among those watching and laughing as much as the rest of us. we laughed at the fun made of muslim extremists. we laughed at the fun made of an anorexic celebrity, and the suggestion that another was gay. we laughed when certain muslim beliefs were joked about. we laughed when the jews were the target of the jokes. but when pedophilic priests were brought up, the room went dead silent. two or three of the women i work with are catholic, and two of them were among those watching the online video. one of them was the office manager. her demeanor toward me hasnt been the same since. i really think she was personally offended.

the thing is, catholicism wasnt made fun of. pedophilia among a well known religious leadership was. and why was it ok to laugh about other peoples religious beliefs, especially when it was the belief itself that was the joke, but not ok to laugh at the abuse of power by leaders in another belief system, when their beliefs werent even in the equation? why was it ok to laugh about anorexia and homosexuality, but not pedophilia? these same women would not hesitate to laugh about non catholic christian leaders who have been publicly reprimanded for misusing organizational funds.

of the two women who didnt like the joke about pedophilic priests, only the office manager has changed her attitude towards me. and i didnt write the guys material, i just played the video because overall it was a pretty funny gig. the other one hasnt changed towards me that i can tell.

truth is, the office manager hasnt been herself since she came back from her last vacation. the general consensus is that its her daughter that is on her mind. she has a daughter that has an addiction to alcohol. given what ive heard over time, i sort of wonder if she is bipolar. i know it wears on her mother deeply, and has been going on for years. her mother is broken hearted over it. i feel for her, because being a mother i can understand what it must be like.

id like to reach out and just turn the whole thing around for her.

still, its hard working with her with this weight on her, because its making her a little crazy.

guess im just rambling on. this started out on one direction, and as often happens, has worked itself into a whole other light. thats what i like about talking things out.

Technorati Tags: work

getting over it

i had my own conversation with a friend, not long ago, on the challenges of overcoming abuse. i have heard sermons on living the overcoming life, and often interjected into them have been statements about getting over the past and moving on. but those statements have been made with little understanding of what it is one who was abused is really having to get over.

my friend was sexually abused by her step father for most of her childhood. i was verbally and emotionally abused by my peers, my step family, and some of my cousins, for the duration of my childhood. the kind of abuse isnt the real issue. what happened isnt the real issue. and there is more to it than simply healing the hurt feelings over such betrayal and assault. its not about hurt feelings.

the harm that people did to us when we were children, whether physically or not, carries with it greater psychological harm. that is what traumatized us the most, and what followed us like a stalker long after those people had been left behind. what they did was terrible. but why they did it, and did it over and over, is what bewildered us, confused us, and convinced us to be victims. if that were not the truth, then once we left those people behind we would have been fine, and there would have been no more problem.

if you grew up in a good home with loving parents, or even a single parent who loves you, if they are supportive and involved in your development, and teach you how to handle situations with wisdom, and instill confidence in you not only for what you can do but for who you are, then living the overcoming life is not the impossible dream. but if you grow up in house where you are constantly told you are the problem, you are the reason these things happen to you, then overcoming is a foreign word. you will have to overcome yourself, and change yourself, with no tools or resources with which to accomplish this. and no blueprint with which to redesign yourself. and nothing with which to accurately gage your progress.

and you can be sure of one thing. there will be no shortage of significant people to tell you you are failing in that too.

im sorry. does this sound overly dramatic? it may be, to the person who did not grow up used and rejected. that person has no concept of how utterly fundamentally undermined a person can be in their very inner structure as a person. that is what i had to get over. to become a person, to stand on the earth and believe i am as significant as anyone else. even to believe that whether i have anything to offer or not, i am here and i will not be chased off. i will live and have my being as freely as anyone else. it just had more challenges for me than for most to pull this off.

but we can get over it. it takes more than just choosing to. it takes learning a whole new way of being. it takes the attitude that other people dont determine who you are, and dont have the right to do you harm. it takes practice. just acting like you believe in yourself is enough to cause strangers to react differently to you than before. walking with your head up suggests strength, and makes you a less desirable target. and less of a jerk magnet. and its a good beginning place.

getting over it wont happen overnight. but it doesnt have to be never either.

Technorati Tags: abuse

and the beat goes on …

Technorati Tags: work,conflict

this morning we wont be taking the phones off service at the usual 830 time. the office manager is going to talk to us about resolving conflict in the workplace. great. just great. we had two employees who were all upset and in tears yesterday, both for entirely different situations. there are ten of us, all female, all between the ages of 40 and 60. it was the two who have been there the longest, one twenty years and one nineteen years, who were so up in arms. and it usually is. they are both the kind you have to walk on eggshells around, or they get their feelings hurt. but neither of them is careful for anyone elses feelings. not that i dont like both of them. i like everyone i work with. it just kind of surprises me the lack of professionalism and maturity i see at work. its so often ‘all about me’. we have four doctors in this office, all who are of the utmost professionalism. its not that they are without conflict, because they have to hammer out their own scheduling differences too. that was what one of the outbursts was about yesterday - which IV nurse was going to work labor day weekend. i cant imagine what would happen if the doctors acted like that. the other outburst im not really sure about. the nurse involved had just come back from a few days off. her friend and coworker had given her a heads up about a fussy patient who was on the phone, or on voicemail, or something, and she just flew into a tizzy about having just her brother - who, incidentally passed away several months ago. the friend-coworker finally had enough of walking on eggshells, and told her she wasnt going to apologize for delivering messages anymore. i was proud of her for that. i told her she wasnt responsible for anyone elses emotional well being. we do what we can to be respectful and courteous, but we cant go around trying to protect every one from any little thing that might set them off. everyone is responsible for their own reactions and responses. we are theoretically adults. yeah right.

edgy today

today is one of those days i feel really jittery.  like i cant focus, sit still, or write. i want to write. i want to express this. but when i feel like this i have a harder time being clear. i feel like this more often than i let on. its like irritable, restless, and a bit obsessive. im glad it my early friday, and i will get off work at 1pm. one of my coworkers might be back today. she was gone for three days because her mother, who just moved to wyoming to live with her son, had a heart attack. if she is there, she will want to talk about it, and as is common where i work, will tell the story every time someone get in to work and asks about her trip. probably like that most places, but where i work since we all know each other and care about each other, stories get told 5 or 6 times. at least. its not a bad thing, and normally i dont mind. normally i am laid back, for all my hyper ness, and dont mind most of the irregularities people have. and believe me, my coworkers have irregularities. but when i feel like this, it really taxes me to have to hear someone else tell their experience over and over. never the less, i will focus on my job, and all the things i need to get done so i can leave at 1. it will help me escape. not that i dont also want to know how her trip went and how her mother is. but i will be first to hear it, and then i will hear it again every time someone comes in and asks. then i will have to hear every ones opinions, and blah blah blah. but i wont say anything, because that would be cold. its just me. im just edgy, and i dont want to put that on her since she has enough to deal with with her mother being ill.

on the other hand, i may get to work and have a completely different mood. i dont talk about my edgy feelings much because i feel so impatient when i feel this way. i can mask it as well as i want to, and when i want to no one even knows when i am edgy. today i want to, because i dont want to overshadow my friend at work. i dont even want to be in the radar. i want to be invisible. i also know the other coworker who shares the front office with us will want to share all her opinions and similar experiences. even if i wanted to say anything, i wont get a chance once she starts.

google Tags: moods, disorders

is it just me?

google Tags: abusei dont think ive ever met someone else whose childhood abuse came from their classmates in school, the neighborhood kids, and just their peers in general. perhaps thats why it took me a while to recognize those situations as genuine abuse. certainly society doesnt recognize that kind of thing as abuse. only recently has schoolyard bullying gotten any attention, and that only because someone got a gun. even then the shooters have all been branded as the villain. well, yeah, some of them have been. some of them have been psychotic or whatever. its kind of hard to know for sure when they all end up dead as well.

but this isnt about shooting people at school, or work, or any other place. its not even about bullying. thats only part of the larger picture. what i endured was way more than bullying. bullies tend to be kind of obvious, because there is physical violence involved.

but what about torment? for the seven years i went to st peters grade school in portland i was tormented by nearly the entire class of kids in my grade. it wasnt the overt kind of teasing and laughing at that gets noticed by those in charge. it was the subtle day to day exchanges that, when directed to me, were filled with such vehement disgust, disdain, and contempt. there was no apparent reason for this attitude towards me. i was the same color, size, and background as the rest of the school. i was the same religion, as it was a catholic school. i was from the same general financial class. and yet i was singled out from sometime during the first grade as not being good enough to be part of the whole. so i was made the object of ridicule. sometimes a few of the other kids would act as my friends for a few days, only to publicly humiliate me in the presence of some of the others once my guard was down a little. at recess the team leaders would literally argue over who got stuck with me on their team. even though i wasnt any worse player than any other. when i came to my mother with this, she always said the same thing, ‘youre too bossy’. so it was my fault, in her opinion. she hadnt thought it out, because it was the more bossy of the kids who were revered by the others. she simply threw it out there as a blanket answer for something she had no tools for dealing with. she certainly never went to bat for me. maybe the fact that she was chased home with rocks and called ‘cat licker’ when she was in school, for being a catholic in a protestant school. certainly catholic children couldnt be at fault, so it must be my own fault somehow. right.

i didnt fare much better with the kids in my neighborhood. what few there were. my next door neighbor was friendly part of the time. then she would turn on me as if i had leprosy with no warning, refusing to associate with me. always with that air of disdain. especially if she had someone else to play with. her mother had her in so many activities she rarely had time except on weekends anyway. i was usually her down time.

i met with similar attitudes from my own cousins when they came to visit from out of state.

when a child is abused by adults, everyone agrees that its not the childs fault. but when a child is the scorn of her own peers, no one seems to question why this might be happening. the child is simply told its her own fault somehow. at least i was.

the thought process

i had my annual eye exam last friday. my eyes are healthy, and the floaters i had last year have disappeared. glad for that, they were really annoying. only thing is my vision is a little bit more blurry, so im getting bifocals. thats ok, because my distance vision has always been a little indistinct. lately when i take off my reading glasses, after wearing them all day at work, my eyes dont want to shift back to normal. the nose pieces really bother my nose anyway.

i had glasses when i was about 8, because i was diagnosed with amblyopia, but they bothered my nose too much so i quit wearing them. i got them again when i was 26, because i have trouble reading the signs between grocery aisles from the end of the aisle, and they really made everything clear. i could see needles on fir trees from a block away. but, they bothered my nose, and constantly slipped down. so i abandoned the idea of wearing glasses. i always had 20/30 vision anyway. it was just this left eye that has the mild amblyopia. its only since i had the onset of all those floaters last year that prompted me to see the optometrist in the first place. besides, its good to get check ups since i have good insurance now and can afford id it.

so the new bifocals, which will be ready tuesday, will be different. they will be a lightweight plastic with no nose pieces, and they will fit differently so they wont slip down. at least i hope not. but they wont bother my nose. they will also get darker when i go out, which will be a plus because i can wear them driving. the best little add on will be the rose tint over the lenses, to minimize the harsh fluorescence i work under. this is wonderful, because colored tinting helps a dyslexic with reading, and rose works best for me.

all this got me to thinking. amblyopia, dyslexia, hyperglycemia, and a history of migraines. these are the things i have challenged me for half a century, in a world designed for none of them. none of them is severe, except the migraines, and the most frequent trigger for them is gone now. yet not being severe has made it challenging in other ways. it is just enough to make me stumble, but not enough to be evident there is a challenge. it has played hell with my interactions with other people, and strained my relationships. add to this the borderline personality disorder, or whatever it is. now the picture gets even more grim.

i was raised not to complain. actually, my mother couldnt deal with my personal struggles, so i was shamed for complaining about them. and truly, i have an innate trait that wont allow me to cave to my own problems. i know there are others with far worse afflictions. and so i am not complaining now. merely introspecting.

i do not define myself by these anomalies. i dont even claim them as mine. i do, however, identify with people who have challenges that arent apparent to the outside world. i actually enjoy membership in the island of misfit toys. this may seem contradictory to my stance as a covenant woman, but it isnt. rather, its a part of my testimony.

i define myself by who the bible says i am. i am more than an overcomer. i am a new creation. but what i am in Christ isnt always apparent either. this is where my testimony is. this is where my walk of faith lies. the Word of God is like a mirror, reflecting the image of Jesus, Who is the image of God. the more i look into that mirror at that image looking back at me, the more i begin to look like that image. that image really is what my born again spirit looks like, created in His image. its my mind, my will, and my emotions, that look like the old me. the body is just where i live. as my mind begins to conform to the new me, i gain more and more victory over the anomalies. and any other thing that rises up against what the Word says is mine. i get freer and freer of the old things that held me captive. like the rages. they are getting less severe, and further between, and less easily triggered. i havent got there yet, but im pressing on.

so in spite of my challenges with how my brain is wired, my struggles with my past, and the ever constant stream of things that weigh on me, i cant but hold my head up, because i know im a champion in the making.

retroflection

Technorati Tags: rage

this could prove triggering to some. use your own discretion.

 

the other night the beau and i were talking about rages, and what triggers them. we both have had rages, where one goes beyond angry to something that almost has a life of its own. i have never seen him raging, and when he told me of one of three instances, im glad i havent. however, in his recounting of what he was feeling, what he remembers, i understood.

i have come close to really going off the edge, but have never plunged into that black hole because i know if i did i would be capable of something truly horrible. these days, im not nearly so susceptible to those triggers as i once was, and yet, i still feel them as i always have. they just dont take me as far as they once did.

after our conversation the other night, i see more clearly what those triggers are.

when i entered grade school, my whole life changed. as early as first grade i found out what it is to be the social outcast and the scapegoat. it was a catholic school, so everyone wore the same uniform, and the rich and the poor all looked the same. but nothing could be done to blur the lines between the ‘entitled’ and the ‘unentitled’. in my class, it seems i was about the only one in the latter group. to this day, i still dont have an answer for why i was cast off from the rest. i only know how it molded me.

early on it was made clear to me that whatever it was that one needed to belong, i didnt have it and i never would. but they took it much further than simple rejection. it became a sport to humiliate me. this is the kind of thing that adults dont recognize children doing to one another. furthermore, if they did, they are powerless to stop it, because once the other children decide you are their target, they refuse to see you as their classmate. if you cry, they make fun of it. if you take it, they act justified. if you try to ignore it, they step it up a few notches until you are worn down. physical bullying would have been better, because its recognizable. but my abusers used words. my teachers responded as though it was all in my head. my mother, who herself had been chased home from school with rocks, and called ‘cat licker’ for being catholic, simply told me i was to blame for being too bossy.

seven years i faced this at school. i hated school. strangely, i didnt get angry then. i spent my time feeling bewildered. but the stress was building. at the same time, i was learning how people play mind games, and i could recognize a game in anyone. i could also recognize the motive. when i fell prey, it was not because i was fooled, but because i wanted to belong so badly. i possessed all that understanding, and no coping skills to deal with it.

the dye was cast. when i entered junior high school, i was twisted enough to attract the cruel kids. but at least then it was only a certain few. however, my mother had remarried, and my stepfather had a daughter two years older than me. i tried to be friends with her, but she was insanely bitter about the divorce of her parents, and hotly resented the marriage. she came to live with us, and everything i had endured in grade school was now living in my house. i cannot tell you all she put me through, and all without any repercussions from the adults. again. she stole from me, and i was not allowed to protest. she skipped school by playing sick, and was allowed to out with her friends. i stayed home sick, and had to stay in my room all day. daily she filled my airspace with hateful words and accusations. i reached a point where i no longer wanted to belong. i wanted to end her life. and her fathers life, as he also would humiliate me, sometimes in front of my few friends. my mother never protected me in all this. had someone laid a hand on me, she would have become the mama bear, and ripped them into pieces. but the drama of everyday life, she would not jeopardize her marriage for that. she had her own abandonment issues, and i pitied her and didnt hold her responsible. i knew innately that she wasnt capable. still, i quietly lost my mind for a while.

over the years these mind games and humiliating messages have been the things that set me off. looking back, i see that the only people who have accused me of being crazy are the ones who play the games. im not crazy. i simply have a low tolerance for cruelty. and when its directed at me, my first response is reason, and when that fails, escape. it is only when i am cornered, or prevented from escape, that i have become enraged. as the Word of God has changed me, the circle of influence that can trigger me has grown smaller and closer in to me, so there are fewer who can move me to that point. with that change has come more wisdom on how to deal with it effectively. but im not there yet.

at least now, after that conversation the other night, i see thing for what it is much better. and with more understanding comes more liberty.

sammys life

since 2001, when sammy was first diagnosed with diabetes, many things have changed in my way of life. back then we also had spook, lee’s black cat of the same age. they were both fourteen then. spook, because of tartar and resulting gingivitis, developed acute kidney failure and almost died. the vet gave us two days at best. that’s when we first began to stand on psalm 145. we claimed spooks life back, and he recovered, although we did have to give him a new diet to accommodate his loss of kidney function. he went on to live for two more years.

sammy, during this time, was contending with the diabetes, or rather the treatment of it. we tried humulin, and she kept crashing. she was on a restricted calorie diet because she was overweight, and she was constantly hungry because of the insulin. she became dehydrated, and then her kidneys and her liver crashed, she got down to 4lbs, and she nearly died. we continued to stand on psalm 145, and she began to recover. eventually we settled on .5mg of glipizide before meals, twice daily. this, and lee’s work schedule, resulted in my getting up early every morning to feed the two elderly cats before getting him up to get ready for work. a schedule i still maintain, even though spook is no longer with us.

recently i had to put her on insulin again, because her kidneys began to fail again. she had been on a low carb high protein kitten food diet along with the oral medication to keep her blood sugar down, and it was working fine. but years of high protein had taken a toll on her kidneys. this meant a new diet for her, sort of upsetting the balance we had maintained for so long. the new diet was lower in protein, but higher in carbs. i was apprehensive about the insulin, but now feline insulin was available. she tolerated it well, and we moved on again. soon we had to start giving her subcutaneous fluids at home, because her kidneys dont do an adequate job hydrating her. so she gets 200ml three times a week.

another thing a diabetic cat encounters is neuropathy. her hind legs do not work like they used to. she walks okay, but her hind legs do not have the strength they once had. this also contributes to some recent incontinence. its all because of nerve damage due to the higher levels of glucose that we cant avoid now. she sleeps on the couch in the evenings, after dinner, and sleeps so deeply she doesnt know she has to pee. she starts to pee before she wakes up. this is a problem, obviously. she can get into the big litterbox, but doesnt always make it all the way in before she starts to go. so i have a rug under the box, with a rubber bathmat under the rug, to save my wood floor. she has been hard on the floors over the last seven years. it works out, but there is the couch to consider now.

so, i looked up pet diapers online - handicapedpets.com -  and found a site that offers a free sample to try first. i ordered one for sammy, xs plus up to 4lbs. of course.

ah how things have changed for sammy and me over the years. but i will continue to do what i must for her to live comfortably and retain as much freedom of movement as possible. she is more than a pet to me. she is, on many levels, my friend.

scheduling mishap

im not going to be angry about it, because i have done it before to patients where i work. but i was sorely disappointed yesterday, when my phone rang as i was getting ready for my long awaited dyslexia testing. the person calling was the receptionist from dr sweet’s office, asking why i missed my appointment thursday. thursday?  i asked for good friday when i stopped by the clinic to see what it was like, and to make the appointment in person. somehow i got put on the schedule for thursday. and yes, she had called me on wednesday to remind me, but with my week being so crazy busy i guess it didnt register that she said “confirm for tomorrow’, and my days were a bit off anyway. happens when i have a short week sometimes. so i didnt get to go friday like i had asked for. sigh. we decided to reschedule when i am at work, so i can see when i can get another day off. i guess i will get to experience a little more anticipation.

on the bright side, i was able to get a bottle of xyience ’seVen’ weight loss formula finally! xyience is a good product, from what the research shows, so in thirty days i will see if it works as well as they say. i am excited, anyway. started it this morning.

i am enjoying my three day weekend, in spite of my minor disappointment yesterday. i had a really good hair day. today we are going to go see a movie at the theater. have to find a good one. and i HAVE to do my taxes this weekend. its not that hard, because i use turbo tax, and that really makes it easy. walks me through it, prompts me to all the write offs and deductions, and gets my returns sent to my bank account. sound like a commercial, dont i?

next weekend i also get a three day weekend, but friday i have more dr’s appointments. just wellness stuff. poking, prodding, smushing. fun stuff. *bleh*

so, what are your plans for the weekend?

some things ive been thinking about

next friday i will be going to see an ophthalmologist. i havent seen an eye doctor in many years. my eyes have always been good - 23/30 vision. but in the last year working at the clinic my eyes have had to endure severe fluorescence and heavy computer use. the floaters have increased to the point of distraction

this has me thinking about things.

when i was little, i was diagnosed with amblyopia, or lazy eye. it seems my brain didnt completely receive all the signal from my left eye, for whatever reason, and favored my right eye. this caused me to have mild depth perception problems. things always look a little closer than they are. really messed up my attempts at racket ball, tennis, and other ball games. in the sixth grade i was given a pair of glasses, but they slid down my nose so much i couldnt stand them. they did make things crystal clear, but were so annoying i finally left off wearing them. in my twenties i had a second pair, after my last eye exam. same thing happened.

thinking about the amblyopia made me think about dyslexia. i have never been diagnosed with this, but i know i am dyslexic. perhaps not as severely as some, but enough to contend with.

i have always had to stop and think which way is left and which is right. columns of numbers are next to impossible to cope with. as are rows of numbers. i have to place my finger on the numbers to read them. otherwise they dance around and change places, and become other numbers. makes entering patient information interesting. in grade school i took piano lessons. i think i could have become a good player, but i could not read the music. i understood the sheet music, but had to work out the song by reading each note aloud, counting the spaces to determine which note it was. once i had learned the song, i could play it with my heart, and forget about the sheet. but it was such an effort getting there. i had the same problem learning the routines in dance classes. i could not easily tell what the teacher was doing. so to do the same was harder for me than the rest of the class. again, once i learned the dance, i could soar.

the other side of this is the visual thinking. i think in pictures. everyone visualizes, but i think in mostly pictures. i see the thing. when i plan my day, or a series of tasks, i watch it play out in my head first, making adjustments or changes to the movie in my head. then i do it, and it falls together wonderfully. i solve problems the same way. the funny thing is, language is one of my strengths. understanding composition, how to string words to create the right image in my listeners mind, and such. as long as i dont have to read much, or write by hand much … and yet i love to write. its like drawing, in a way. but my spelling is challenged by certain letter combinations, and often the order is wrong or there are letters missing. texting is a breeze. typing is not. and why are the numbers on the keypad upside down to the numbers on the phone? sigh …

i love spellcheck!

add to this mix hyperactive, which i was diagnosed with around age three, and given ritalin for a brief time as treatment, and you have a very different sort of person.

me.