Stop Blaming the Innocent

As many of my friends and family know I was bullied relentlessly in school.  For those who are new to me and this blog I won't go into the gory details, but let's just say it was brutal and daily.  To the point where suicide was a very real option for me, one I tried and luckily didn't succeed.  But because of my experience I have become very loud about anti-bullying, especially in our schools.  I never want another child to go through the hell that I experienced day after day and year after year. 

To be treated as less than human and then be told by teachers and administrators to grow a thicker skin or ignore them was never acceptable, and it still isn't.  That puts the work on the victim to make their situation better when in reality they never did anything to make it bad to begin with.  My favorite was always "You must have done something to make them dislike you", oh yeah that was a good one.  Because no, I didn't.  I was the new kid all the time, and we didn't have a lot of money for new clothes so I wore a lot of thrift store finds.  Guess what?  Instant target.  The other good one was "If you don't react they will stop." Oh yeah, like you can just ignore having glue put in your hair or ignore being shoved to the ground every day, or ignore having rubber bands flung at you, or even better ignore a group of older kids beating you black and blue with their books...Yep I will just walk away and pretend that never happened.

See all of this is blaming the victim, and that has got to stop.  Our society loves to do this, and not just with bullies.  Rape victims get blamed all the time.  If she hadn't of dressed so provocatively, if she hadn't have drank so much or taken that drug.  If she hadn't have gone with that guy.  What the hell does that have to do with anything?  If there is no consent, or if there is no mental capacity to give consent then it is rape and the perpetrator is the one at fault.

Even certain murders society will look at and blame the victim based on that person's past.  Were they a sex worker, oh well then they led a risky lifestyle so it was bound to happen.  NO!  That does no excuse on person taking another person's life.  A person's life is not more valuable based on what choices they make in life.  Just because they are a gang member doesn't mean they aren't somebody's son, or brother, or even father.  We may not agree with their choices, but it doesn't mean a life wasn't lost.

Stop blaming the victims people.  Start placing the blame where it belongs, on the people committing the acts that make these people victims.  Nobody deserves to be bullied, nobody deserves to be raped, and nobody deserves to be murdered.  Let's get our priorities right here and stop blaming the innocent.

Mind Your Beeswax

Yeah, I get it, I call in sick a lot and I leave work early unexpectedly a lot.  But you know what?  That’s between me, my manager, and my doctors.  That’s right I said doctors with an “s” on the end.  You see that happy face I put on all the time is a carefully crafted mask.  It’s a mask designed to hide the physical and mental pain I endure every day.  Every once in a while it slips because I just can’t hold it anymore.  Those are the days you label me a bitch.

You think you know my struggle through observation and then you deign to tell me what I should do based on your keen powers of observation.  The reality is you only know the little bit I let the outside world see.  You don't see my pain, you don't see my anguish, and you don't see my tears because I don't let you.  I don't let you because it really is none of your business, and honestly I have too much pride to let you know that I am that far beaten.  Not beaten by you, but beaten by my own body and mind.  Beaten by the pain that rips through my joints and muscles and beaten by the angry and horrible thoughts that race through my mind day after day, hour after hour, minute by minute.  Thoughts that have been with me for years and now feel like an old companion that I will never be free of.  But that's none of your business either.

Yet you have decided it is your business.  You think it's okay to speak up and tell me what I can and can't do.  How I should live my life, when I should give up and roll over and play dead.  You think you know me better than I know myself.  You think you can tell me when I have had enough.  Well guess what, you don't know shit.  Yeah, you see the mask slipping so you think you are seeing me at my worst.  You think that's my breaking point.  The point where I am going to call it quits and go home.  You ain't seen nothin' yet toots.  For all I have been through and all I carry every day I am a hell of a lot stronger than you will ever know.  You would be amazed what I can push through.

Those times when I do go home, or even call in sick, those are the times when I just can't lift that mask up anymore.  Where the weight of it has gotten so heavy and the pain of carrying it around so great that I just can't muster up a smile to face the day.  Maybe the physical pain is so great that I can barely crawl to the bathroom and back, or maybe the mental anguish has gotten so bad that I am at the point of hysterical anxiety.  Either way, that's none of your business either.

So the next time you think you know what's best for me.  Or you think you have my life figured out based on your observations.  Just don't.  The best thing you can do for yourself and me is to close your mouth before you open it and mind your own beeswax.

Can't we all just get along?

I believe that when you have a specific issue you should seek the support of others going through a similar experience.  The camaraderie and feeling of not being alone can really help when you feel isolated and helpless.  Since I have what I consider to be more than my fair share of issues, or what my fiancé and I fondly refer to as subscriptions, I have reached out to various online support groups for, well, support. 

Some of these groups are quite large, tens of thousands of peoples, and when you get that many people together from various backgrounds you are bound to have differing opinions from time to time.  Now one would like to think that since we are all together for a common cause that we could set these differences aside and support one another regardless of race, gender, sexual preference, religion, etc.  And one would be oh so wrong.

The biggest hot button?  Religion.  In fact in some groups the discussion of religion is banned all together and anytime it is brought up the posts get deleted immediately.  In other groups they ask you to be respectful, and unfortunately that doesn't always work out so well.  Such was the case last night.

In one of the groups I belong to a person posted offering to pray for anyone who needed it.  A very sweet and generous offer.  It was quite simple, if you wanted prayers you posted and if you didn't you just moved along.  Then, someone else decided that this post offended them and replied with a message saying they were offended because it was a decidedly Christian post and they were not Christian.  The original poster then was upset because they didn't intend to offend anyone and so as not to upset anyone else deleted their own post.

And oh dear gods did this cause a tizzy.  Now half the group is jumping all over the admins because they assumed the admins removed the post because the one person was offended.  Then it turned to an us against them discussion about Christian vs. Non-Christian.  Everyone was weighing in, including me. 

I tried to remain neutral by saying that I am Wiccan, and that if someone offers to pray for me I simply say thank you.  Because to me a prayer is simply another way to send good energy and karma into the universe for someone.  Apparently that was the wrong thing to say because then this Southern Baptist from Georgia started ranting and raving about how we were all going to hell in a hand basket and they couldn't be around us godless creatures so they were leaving the group.  Aye aye aye!

Then the group's owner, who lives in the UK, was asking me what a Southern Baptist was and what the South and Georgia had to do with anything.  I was trying to explain it and I got screamed at for bashing all Southerners, which I was not doing if they had read all my words and not skipped over the important ones like the qualifiers of "some" and "most" and "many" and "a few".  But you know hey they look exactly like "all" and "every" so I can see the confusion.

The point was though, and I think more Non-Christians were trying to get this across than anything, it shouldn't matter.  We are all there to support each other, and we should just respect each other's beliefs or non-beliefs.  If you don't like a post because of its religious undertones then just move on to the next one.  There are always plenty more to read.  I think it is so sad that our society is still so stuck on who has to be right about which religion is the correct one.  What if we are all right?

My mom has this really amazing way of explaining religion, and I would like to leave you all with this.  Religion is like a giant wheel, and each type is just a spoke on the wheel.  They are all a different path, but they all lead to the same place in the universe.  The center.  It doesn't matter how you worship, or what you call your divine.  We are all heading to the same destination in the end.  So really, what is there to fight over?

That one word I can never remember

I feel like sometimes I get too serious here, and sometimes I may not show all the facets of who I really am.  I am one of those types that has so many different sides that every day with me is a new adventure, just ask my parents and my fiancé.  And it's not that I am two-faced or untrue, it's just that I am a very complex person.  My last post was about taking the high road in situations when dealing with a bully, and I am not contradicting that at all.  I am going to focus on another aspect of me though, my mischievous side. 

There is this person in my life who is making it pretty much miserable, and unfortunately I am stuck with them.  Much like the person in my last post, but a different person.  This person is making my life miserable through a complete and total lack of competence and common sense.  It is to the point where most days the thought of homicide crosses my mind only to be replaced by the realization that I love my nice fluffy bed too much.

Now, normally and up until recently, I would be as patient as possible on the outside and only suffer silently on the inside while venting to others not related to the situation.  This worked for several months, until one fateful day.  This person in question decided to do the unthinkable, they said something so offensively stupid that I just couldn't let it go.  Sorry, I am only human after all.  So what could they have possibly said?

Well, to make a very long story as short as possible.  A grown-up version of show and tell took place concerning holiday traditions.  A discussion between myself and another was taking place about Wicca, and this moron decides to ask "So, ds you sacrifice animals?".  I think my eyebrows peeled off my face and hit the ceiling.  My reply, a classic if I do say so myself, was "No, and we don't sacrifice babies either."  Apparently this freaked them out even more.  Perfect!

I began to notice that they were starting to keep their distance now.  And the "Witch is In/Out" sign I had kept up since Halloween was no longer a topic of conversation.  Muwhahaha.  Time to have some fun.  I began to repay all the times they had quietly walked up behind me and scared the crap out of me.  Apparently, the subject startles easily.  I bought a magnet of the Wicked Witch of the West from the Wizard of Oz for my file cabinet.  That bought me a whole lot of space and we have now resorted to email only communication unless forced otherwise.  I am highly amused by this.

Of course when I reported this to my therapist he said there is a word for it, shadenfreude.  It is a German word that translates to harm-joy.  It means that you derive pleasure from someone else's misfortune.  Problem is, I can never remember the blasted thing.  I even had to Google it for this post.  But I like that there is a word for it.

Is it probably wrong for me to be this happy over this person being so freaked out by me?  Probably.  Still isn't going to stop it from happening.  Not sorry, I have put up with too much of their BS and cleaned up too many of their messes to be sorry.  So, until that changes I say shadenfreude on!

The Higher Road

Sometimes in life you have to take the higher road, even if it is the road less traveled and you have to blaze the trail yourself.  I often find myself trying to take this road because in the end I believe it makes me a stronger and better person.  Sometimes it leads to a dead end, and sometimes it leads to one of the most magnificent views in the world.  Either way, I have never once regretted this decision.

When I was a kid I was bullied, a lot.  I have talked about this before so I won't go into too much detail here.  But suffice to say it made a huge impact on me and I vowed never to stoop to that level and bully someone, even if they bullied me first.  I still stick by this even as an adult, and even though I could often win a battle of wits.  Instead, I choose to take the high road.  Now that doesn't mean I let them walk all over me.  No, I take actions to stop the abuse either by removing myself from the situation, or if that's not possible making changes to the situation.

But I also try to understand the person, and where they may be coming from.  Some people are just plain mean, but a wise person once told me "Kill 'em with kindness.", thanks Mom.  That's what I do, and you know what, it works, a lot.  You would be amazed at how many people who are miserable and out to make other people miserable respond to someone going out of their way to smile and make them happy.  Especially when that person is someone they have been mean to.  Once they know their behavior is not acceptable, and that I am still accepting of them, they usually soften up quite a bit.

Now I am not saying this is the case all the time, like I said before, some people are just plain mean.  See above for the dead ends I was talking about.  In those cases it's best to just walk away and/or put your foot down and let them know their behavior is not acceptable.

For an example, I have someone in my life that I have no choice but to be in contact with on an almost daily basis.  This person has, at times, gone out of their way to make my life miserable both in big and little ways.  Sometimes intentionally hurting my feelings.  I have others try to intercede on my behalf as well as trying to confront this individual on my own.  To my credit through it all I have maintained a positive attitude towards this person where others would most likely retaliate or turn sour.  I continued to greet this person daily with a cheerful smile, and I was usually ignored.

Today I noticed this person was in a really bad mood, not just the usual sour mood either, but actually sad and depressed like something was really wrong.  I reached out to this person in an email offering my support if needed.  Now I don't know where this high road will go, and whether it is a dead end or a beautiful sunset I will feel good about myself for having set foot down it.  I will know that no matter how hard it may have been to not lash out at this person I didn't, in fact I did the opposite, I reached out instead.

In the immortal words of The Beatles "All You Need Is Love..."

Oh No You Didn't!

So this morning my wonderful and loving fiancé posted the image below to me on Facebook and invited me to get out my soapbox.  After reading the article on the image the challenge was accepted.

 

 

 

 

The picture is an advice column from a Christian website where a father is asking for advice about his son who came to him saying he was transgendered and felt that he was born in the wrong body and was actually gendered as female.  The father states that his child says they still believe in God in keeping with the family's obvious faith.  The father is asking for guidance in how to talk with his child.

 

 

The advice given by the columnist is not only ludicrous, it is downright dangerous.  She says the father should tell his child that the child is flat out wrong for feeling this way therefore totally invalidating the child's feelings.  She says that the father should tell the child that the child's thoughts and feelings are even "disgusting".  This is bad enough, but then she makes the leap from transgendered to homosexual.  I am not sure how that leap was made since not all transgendered people are actually homosexual.

 

She blames the kid's desires one homosexuality in the media and exposure to it at school, which I would have thought was pretty funny if she weren't serious.  I really think the icing on the cake though was when she compared being transgendered to doing drugs.  Again, not sure on how that logical leap happens, but in her warped head it did.

 

 

So other than being sickly amusing to those of us who know better; this is also highly dangerous.  This right her has the potential of being the beginning of another transgendered teens suicide.  Here you have a vulnerable teenager, we all remember our teen years they suck to begin with, struggling to come to terms with feelings that are obviously conflicting with how they was raised.  This teen then goes to their father looking for help and instead of support they are about to get, if the father follows this advice, invalidated at best and humiliated at worst. 

 

This is the type of action from parents and the religious communities that leads to depression and suicide in our LGBTQ teens.  It needs to stop.  We need to find a way to reach out to these young people and offer them the support they need when their parents and religious communities fail them.  In some communities, like here in Portland Oregon, where there are stronger LGBTQ communities there are some resources available.  But usually you have to seek them out.  In smaller communities, and especially in the Bible Belt, resources can be scarce.

 

We have been making some powerful strides in equality for the members of our community.  Marriage equality has had great gains in the last few years.  The transgendered community is seeing equality in the ability to use their preferred gender facilities in public places as well as reassignment medical expenses now being covered by Medicare.  These are all great advances, and I know there have been more I have missed. 

 

We still have a ways to go, and we need to start focusing on our youth.  That's a hard one too.  You have legal issues there because you don't want to get in the way of the legal parents or guardians, but on the other hand we want what's best for these kids who are struggling to find their place in this crazy and ever changing world.  I don't have the answer, but I'm putting it out in the universe that we need one and maybe somebody somewhere reading this will be more brilliant than me and come up with it.  I just know that the answer given by Amber on ChristWire.org is definitely not it. 

 



The Anti-Diet D…Nope not going to say it

I have struggled with my weight all my life.  This is not news to anyone who knows me.  Some very well-meaning people in my life have also made this struggle a whole lot worse.  I am not going to use this space to talk about that or re-hash the past.  What’s done is done.  Suffice to say my weight is still an issue, and because of the things in the past I have struggled to take it off and keep it off.  There are a lot of emotions attached to weight and weight loss for me, and my number one enemy is the scale.

Over the years I have tried so many diets, too many to even count.  I have tried low carb, no carb, low fat, no fat, don’t eat any of this, eat all of that, the grapefruit diet ( I still hate grapefruits), and every other stupid diet you can think of.  I’ve tried the programs like Weight Watchers, did I mention I have social anxiety and seriously dislike scales let alone being weighed in front of a group of people.  But in every one of them I fail, or as I have figured out, they failed me.  They were too restrictive, too controlling, and too rigid.  All things I don’t respond well too, just ask my parents.  I need flexibility, options, and more importantly I need to be in control.

So I gave up.  For years I gave up.  I dreaded going to the doctor and being weighed because the scale is not my friend.  I hate that number.  I hated hearing these well-meaning people in my life commenting on how much better I would feel if I lost the weight and how I would be oh so much healthier.  I hated the doctors’ silent disapproving stares when I tried to explain my anxieties and issues around diets and weight loss.  I was stuck at an impasse.  I knew I needed to lose the weight, but every time I think about weight loss I freak.  I get sick to my stomach and I want to cry.  It’s that bad.  I knew my health was suffering, but what could I do.  Then it happened, what I knew was coming for years.  My blood work came back that I was diabetic, Type II.  I had been borderline diabetic for a few years so it was not a real shock.  But it still stung.  I did what I do best; I ignored it and hoped it would just go away.

Then recently I got sick, really sick, like I stopped eating sick, which for me is super sick.  It turned out to be a simple bladder infection that was easily treatable, but in the course being sick I lost almost 20 pounds.  I thought ok, this is it.  I can make some changes here and make a difference in my life.  BUT, I am going to do it on my terms.  So I created my own anti-diet.

It’s pretty simple actually.  The first thing I am going to do is get rid of my bathroom scale, yes you heard me, there will be no weighing myself and no tracking of my weight.  It’s not like I have actually used it, but its presence has haunted me every time I go in there.  My unit of measurement will not be a number on a scale, nor will it be a dress size.  I am not doing this to be thinner or to weigh less.  I am doing it to be healthier.  Instead, every three months I will go to my doctor and have my blood drawn and have my fasting blood sugar panels run.  The goal is to bring them down. not by a certain percentage or number, just down.  Every 6 months I will have my cholesterol checked; again the goal is for healthier numbers.  I will only be weighed when the doctor’s office requests it, and I will ask not to know.  I am serious, the scale numbers mess me up in the head.  The goal here is just a healthier me, not a skinnier me.

So how am I going to achieve this?  Well that part is a little bit trickier.  It starts in my head, and it’s something that everyone has to figure out for themselves.  First off, I refuse to weigh, measure, or count anything.  I will not be documenting every bite I put in my mouth, and nothing will be off-limits.  I am making this about choices and moderation.  I am going to make a conscious effort to change my relationship with food one bite at a time.  It won’t be easy, and I know I will have slip ups, and that’s okay.

You see, food for me is a comfort thing.  It’s not just about fuel for the body, it’s fuel for the soul.  I need to learn to balance that, and I need to find other things to fill the gaps and holes in myself other than comfort eating.  So it starts from within.  I need to ask myself each time I am eating; why am I eating?  Am I eating because I am hungry, because it tastes good, because I am bored, or because I need something else?  If it’s because I am hungry then I need to pay attention to my body and stop when I am full.  If it is because it tastes good, like a treat, then I need to allow myself to indulge and eat slow and mindfully so I really enjoy it and then eat less than I used to.  If it is for one of the other two reasons then I should look into what else is going on around me and find another way to fill my time or that void, whatever it may be.

Again, without measuring or weighing, I am also making my portions a little smaller than they would have been previously.  The key here is I am making the portions smaller than they used to be for me.  This means that while I may have used to eaten a cup of something before maybe now I have cut it down to 2/3 of a cup, whereas a typical diet would have cut it back to ½ or even 1/3 of a cup.  I find that most diets tend to cut the portions too far back too fast for most people, especially those like me who are very heavy, and we end up feeling like we are starving and miserable.  By slowly cutting back my portions and eating just until I feel full, I feel like I am more in control of my food instead of food being in control of me.

The last piece of this is the food itself.  I am not only trying to change how I view food, but also the foods that I choose to eat.  This is a difficult one because I am probably one of the pickiest eaters you will ever encounter.  And this is one of the reasons most diets fail me.  Because of their rigidity in what you can and can’t have, and because of what I will and won’t eat my list of acceptable foods was usually pretty short and I would get bored with my menu options really fast.  With my anti-diet though nothing is off-limits so I am free to make up my own combinations and menus.  I am making a conscious effort to add more whole grains, fruits, and vegetables and to eliminate as many prepared foods as possible.  It’s all about being mindful of the choices I make each day and each meal.  I am also trying to work in more meals so that I am maintaining my energy and blood sugars throughout the day.

Will this work?  I don’t know, honestly, but it sure beats doing nothing.  And for the first time I feel confident about food choices and not ashamed of what I am doing for myself.  In the past going on diets always made me feel ashamed of myself for some reason.  This time I feel good, like I am making a positive change in my life, not just a fly by night attempt to shed pounds.  Who knows, maybe if it works I will write a book and become a millionaire peddling the next diet fad with my anti-diet, HA!  I will just be happy if I can finally change my relationship with food and become a healthier me.

 

So I am asking all my friends and family who read this to help me out here.  If you see me and you see that I am looking better because you think I have lost weight please don't comment on the weight loss.  Comment on how much healthier I seem to be.  Tell me I look happy.  Tell me I look healthy.  Tell me anything but I look smaller, or that I have lost weight.  Don't tell me you are proud of me because I am not doing it for your approval.  I am doing it for me.  If you see me eating something you don't think fits in my above philosophy don't comment on it and don't give me any disapproving looks.  Maybe I'm having a bad day and I am going to pick myself up later, or maybe I am allowing myself to indulge because I know I have balanced it out earlier or will later.  Also, if I say I don't want something or I am done don't push it.  No matter how little I have eaten or how good whatever it is tastes.  I have to listen to my body now and give it what it needs when it needs it.  Don't judge, just let me figure it out.  I know you all mean well, and I know you love me, and I need to do this myself.  I know this is a lot to ask, and I am asking it anyway.  Please.  If I have tagged you in this and you think someone else should see it feel free to forward it on to them.  I love you all so much, and right now I need to love myself like I never have.