I think the time for recriminations, finger-pointing, division and blame re. “why Hillary lost” needs to stop at least yesterday. With enough blame to go around, we don’t need a circular firing squad; we need to quickly learn from what happened and begin the hard work of reimagining and rebuilding our broken country. Trump’s election stands as both a symptom and product of the deeper ills plaguing the United States.
Trump is a master showman & fraudster – solidly evidenced by his businesses, successful or not – specifically, regarding the KIND of businesses he gravitates toward. He builds big shiny skyscrapers, casinos and hawks steaks, wine, his “university”, clothing line, et cetera… All flashy, status-ey things with his name slapped on them; all of touted to be biggest, the best, and the glitziest; truthfully, the core is hollow and the glitter is just spray paint. We accepted the scam & sham as part of his persona until the 2016 election; he was a kind of national joke, “that’s just Donald Trump.” When he descended the golden, of course, escalator at Trump Tower to his (paid) adoring crowd, he remained a joke, and was treated by the media as a reality TV star, not a real presidential candidate. Then the spray paint & reality got conflated, and here we are, unsure of objective reality vs. spray paint fumes. The run for the presidency legitimized the scam, and people bought it lock, stock & barrel. Welcome to Trumpmerica, the dystopian theme park we can’t leave.
The Bill of Goods chosen for all of us by about 25% (not even the majority vote) of the entire electorate is full of a lot of big, and likely empty, promises. Let’s look at a few of the biggies:
1. Trump promises to “drain the swamp” in Washington.
Interestingly, the cast being chosen to play the principals in the tragicomedy are long-time residents of the swamp… hanging around in varying levels of marginalization, especially in recent years. Now they slither right up to lick their new master’s boots to ensure their parts of the swamp aren’t drained.
2. Trump promises to repeal & replace Obamacare with “something terrific”.
Well, if he means terrific in the archaic sense, “causing terror,” he is probably closer than if is trying to use the modern meaning. While Obamacare isn’t perfect, it’s better than what we didn’t have before, but we know that it will be repealed in short order come 20 January. Replacement details are vague, including elements about Health Savings Accounts and buying insurance across state lines. Beyond that, no plans for transition or implementation are out there. The Republicans have bitched about Obamacare for over 6 years, but have never given us any more than vague generalities – exactly zip, zilch & nada. Sadly those who bought into the scam are most likely to be the hardest hit or simply continue as they were, particularly if they live in a state that didn’t take part in the Medicare expansion.
3. Trump promises to have Mexico pay for the wall he wants to build, and deport all 11 million illegal immigrants.
Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto said clearly in July that Mexico will not pay for Trump’s estimated $7.8 trillion boondoggle. So, if Mexico won’t pay for it, who will? Will Congressional Republicans agree to it, considering how they prefer to take money from programs for the needy and redistribute it to their corporate masters? They might go along with it if their buddies can have a piece of the pie. It might be a great jobs program, along with hiring all the new deportation/corrections officers for the 11 million they plan on removing or incarcerating, starting 20 January.
4. Trump promises to bring jobs back to the country.
As mentioned above, his wall and deportation program may well be the cornerstone of his plan. Sadly though, his big plans are covered in that same flaky gold spray paint. The manufacturing jobs lost across the Midwest and South since the 1970s have devastated those regions. These very people are those who have hitched their wagon to Trump’s star power. These people have been largely taken for granted by the Democratic Party as a demographic, with no real help offered to help them pivot from the economy of the 1950s to the realities of today. In the meantime, the Republican Party simply disposed of them as just the “cost of doing business.” However, Trump’s slithery cast of characters marching in time with the Corporate Congress isn’t likely to help them. More corporate tax breaks, laissez-faire governance, lax labor laws, will only lead to lower wages, more offshoring of jobs and higher unemployment.
5. Trump promises registration and surveillance of Muslims.
Blatantly unconstitutional (for now), this will be fought in the courts as long and hard as people are able. Again there is the question of cost, and perhaps it’s another part of the shiny new jobs plan.
These are some of Trump’s biggest and baddest promises in the Bill of Goods. One need only look at the Corporate Republican Congress and the swamp dwellers slithering onstage to see what is happening. The corporate elites will enjoy even greater license to influence the halls of power. More of our tax dollars will flow into their pockets, while worthy social service programs will continue to face cuts under the guise of the welfare mother and all the tired old tropes that paint the poor as lazy, unworthy, et cetera. (Read as people of color.) Additionally more of the taxes that are to support the military will flow into the coffers of defense contractors, not service members.
None of this has even touched on the inherent racism, misogyny, anti-LGBTQ, anti-Muslim rhetoric in his campaign. To a one, Trump and his surrogates have united in their message disavowing any of the above. He asserted that African Americans and Hispanic American communities are “living in hell” and vowed to help them (again shiny spray painted words) while saying that known African American communities like Chicago, St. Louis and Philadelphia should be watched for signs of fraud on election day. This isn’t even a dog whistle unless you are denser than dog snot, it’s a fucking flashing red neon sign that says, “Racism Here.” Couple that with his big plans for Muslims… oh boy.
The other flashing red neon sign says “Misogyny Here.” While Trumps claims to be more respectful of women than probably anyone ever, his boasts about being able to grab women by the pussy anytime he wants paints a different picture. When that revelation is followed by 12 women coming forward, his only form of denial is to call them all liars and threaten to sue them.
The racism, misogyny, and hatred of anyone not a white straight male is sort of like the secret menu that everyone knows about on the Bill of Goods. If you voted for Trump out of pure intention, you purchased the whole bill of goods, including the secret menu stuff. Your vote shows that you accept it. You knew it was there, you cannot say you didn’t see it. It was part and parcel of his campaign from day one. You did this, you cannot blame anyone else. You made this choice for the whole country and you have been had. All of us will have to live with the aftermath of your actions, some already are, especially the “others”, minorities, women, LGBTQ folks, non-Christians, et cetera. Thank for caring more about yourself than the country as a whole. Most of us didn’t choose the ticket to Trumpmerica.
Sunday, November 13, 2016
Friday, October 28, 2016
Marshmallow fluff vs. raw broccoli
This election season has been long, hard, and difficult to watch. The cockroaches of racism, sexism, homophobia, religious intolerance, etc.(!) have all felt comfortable enough to come out into the light. Mind you, the seeds of this emergence have been planted and carefully nurtured for the last 50 years by one political party in particular. The democrats, however, got complacent and lazy, and did nothing but to weakly yell “s-t-o-p” like a traffic cop on Quaaludes; allowed themselves/choosing to be drug further and further away from their core values in search of votes, especially after Reagan, attempting to regain the votes of the Reagan Democrats.
Additionally, it must be acknowledged that our educational system has been steadily gutted by Republican policies. The emphasis has been on education that will help our youth become cogs in a greater machine, but not necessarily become well-rounded citizens capable of critical thinking. Civics education, in which I got a good grounding, as recently as the 1980s, seems to be all but gone in our schools; my own children seemed woefully uneducated about it in the early 2000s. The “person-on-the-street” interviews in which people are unable to answer very basic questions about our democratic system are funny, but also frightening, especially when you realize these people are going to vote. It’s true that some people just really don’t care, but A LOT of people DO care, but haven’t been given the knowledge or tools that encourage critical thinking. They are more interested in the Dancing With the Stars, Snookie, or the Real Housewives of Schmuck City. Government and civics aren’t shiny or fun, but that knowledge is fundamental to a healthy republic. Education funding has been gutted, standards denigrated, and vouchers & testing raised up as the answers to all the problems, but our schools continue to worsen. Also, teachers bear all the blame (and get no respect) for all that is wrong with the education system; they continue to be loaded down with more and more regulation with little or no increases in pay, and are regarded in many quarters as lazy drains on the system. This has led to a wholesale hollowing out of our education system.
So, after years of dog-whistle politics by the Republicans, and the Democrats refusing to really fight strongly for their core beliefs, we arrive at where we are today. Combined with a deliberate dumbing down of society, this is a recipe for disaster. People look at their twitter & facebook feeds, shut out the things they don’t want to hear and allow themselves to be spoonfed lies, or absorb them through osmosis. It almost seems that the more outrageous the lie, the more they want to belive it, rather than taking the effort to go out and research the truth… and then even if they find the truth, if it doesn’t fit their views, they will ignore it anyway. I’d like to say that one side does it more than the other, but I mostly have created my own echo chamber too.
The election this year has boiled down to two choices. Most people don’t like the choices that feel forced on us. The Republicans are doing their best to maintain a semblance of unity, but it’s apparent that the chewing gum and baling wire is about ready to give at any time. The Democratic side hasn’t been without its issues. Bernie Sanders enthused a lot of people who wanted real change, who felt like he understood their concerns. But Hillary Clinton won out on the Dem side, and not without a lot of funky finagling that raised some very valid questions. However, like it or not, Hillary became the Democratic nominee, and Bernie Sanders has rallied to the cause and even managed to drag her quite a ways back towards the traditional issues of the left.
Interestingly, Donald Trump tapped a similar type of voter to those who rallied to Sanders, mainly those who have felt left behind by the real but sometimes painfully slow economic recovery since the crash of 2008. So the appeal of both Trump & Sanders is understandable, however their approach is sort of like comparing mini pineapples to hand grenades. Whereas Sanders took a message of equality, increased minimum wage, peace, education, equal pay, and came up with relatively realistic ways to achieve his agenda with a message of building to a better brighter future; Trump has painted a picture of a dark now and darker future, always dragging us back to a past that we need to get back to achieve greatness again, and he has dwelt on blaming the “other”, which in his mind anyone who opposes him or who is not white & male.
Trump is marshmallow fluff, it's fun to eat now but makes you sick later. He’s also a false fronted old building with a beautiful chair gold chair behind a fancy wooden desk inside (in reality, the chair is spray-painted gold and upholstered with cheap polyester velvet & the plywood desk is covered with wood patterned contact paper). He spouts and repeats lies ad nauseum about how he is the only one who can fix things.
Clinton is raw broccoli without cheese sauce or salt, the thing you know you should be eating. She is a stodgy cinder-block building with a beat up wooden straight-backed chair behind an equally beat up wooden desk. Her message encourages people working together to effect change, but she promises no quick fixes.
Sometimes you have to eat the broccoli and take the long term and thousand mile view because it’s the best thing to do.
Additionally, it must be acknowledged that our educational system has been steadily gutted by Republican policies. The emphasis has been on education that will help our youth become cogs in a greater machine, but not necessarily become well-rounded citizens capable of critical thinking. Civics education, in which I got a good grounding, as recently as the 1980s, seems to be all but gone in our schools; my own children seemed woefully uneducated about it in the early 2000s. The “person-on-the-street” interviews in which people are unable to answer very basic questions about our democratic system are funny, but also frightening, especially when you realize these people are going to vote. It’s true that some people just really don’t care, but A LOT of people DO care, but haven’t been given the knowledge or tools that encourage critical thinking. They are more interested in the Dancing With the Stars, Snookie, or the Real Housewives of Schmuck City. Government and civics aren’t shiny or fun, but that knowledge is fundamental to a healthy republic. Education funding has been gutted, standards denigrated, and vouchers & testing raised up as the answers to all the problems, but our schools continue to worsen. Also, teachers bear all the blame (and get no respect) for all that is wrong with the education system; they continue to be loaded down with more and more regulation with little or no increases in pay, and are regarded in many quarters as lazy drains on the system. This has led to a wholesale hollowing out of our education system.
So, after years of dog-whistle politics by the Republicans, and the Democrats refusing to really fight strongly for their core beliefs, we arrive at where we are today. Combined with a deliberate dumbing down of society, this is a recipe for disaster. People look at their twitter & facebook feeds, shut out the things they don’t want to hear and allow themselves to be spoonfed lies, or absorb them through osmosis. It almost seems that the more outrageous the lie, the more they want to belive it, rather than taking the effort to go out and research the truth… and then even if they find the truth, if it doesn’t fit their views, they will ignore it anyway. I’d like to say that one side does it more than the other, but I mostly have created my own echo chamber too.
The election this year has boiled down to two choices. Most people don’t like the choices that feel forced on us. The Republicans are doing their best to maintain a semblance of unity, but it’s apparent that the chewing gum and baling wire is about ready to give at any time. The Democratic side hasn’t been without its issues. Bernie Sanders enthused a lot of people who wanted real change, who felt like he understood their concerns. But Hillary Clinton won out on the Dem side, and not without a lot of funky finagling that raised some very valid questions. However, like it or not, Hillary became the Democratic nominee, and Bernie Sanders has rallied to the cause and even managed to drag her quite a ways back towards the traditional issues of the left.
Interestingly, Donald Trump tapped a similar type of voter to those who rallied to Sanders, mainly those who have felt left behind by the real but sometimes painfully slow economic recovery since the crash of 2008. So the appeal of both Trump & Sanders is understandable, however their approach is sort of like comparing mini pineapples to hand grenades. Whereas Sanders took a message of equality, increased minimum wage, peace, education, equal pay, and came up with relatively realistic ways to achieve his agenda with a message of building to a better brighter future; Trump has painted a picture of a dark now and darker future, always dragging us back to a past that we need to get back to achieve greatness again, and he has dwelt on blaming the “other”, which in his mind anyone who opposes him or who is not white & male.
Trump is marshmallow fluff, it's fun to eat now but makes you sick later. He’s also a false fronted old building with a beautiful chair gold chair behind a fancy wooden desk inside (in reality, the chair is spray-painted gold and upholstered with cheap polyester velvet & the plywood desk is covered with wood patterned contact paper). He spouts and repeats lies ad nauseum about how he is the only one who can fix things.
Clinton is raw broccoli without cheese sauce or salt, the thing you know you should be eating. She is a stodgy cinder-block building with a beat up wooden straight-backed chair behind an equally beat up wooden desk. Her message encourages people working together to effect change, but she promises no quick fixes.
Sometimes you have to eat the broccoli and take the long term and thousand mile view because it’s the best thing to do.
Saturday, September 17, 2016
two and a half years of post morteming...
It's been an interesting week. I have finally put the bulk of the King Co. experience behind me. I think spending the weekend with Susan, who was there with me and pretty much is the only person who knows and understands completely how bad it really was. That much validation helps alleviate the insidious effects of the personally targeted gaslighting that they practiced with almost surgical precision. I have long had a habit of post mortem-ing events that go wrong to try and have a good understanding of what went wrong, and what I can learn about it.
I have spent far too much time over the last 2.5 years in post-mortem mode... and the only thing is that it really was personal, it is the only thing that even makes sense. Especially considering that I went into that opportunity with a solid 7 year run and an Army Commendation Medal for my year in Texas. For the first time in my life, I don't think I made any glaring mistakes apart from simply being myself. And if there is one thing that I have learned about myself, trying to change to fit in with others doesn't work... I did try to conform... and it didn't work, yet again... Funny that. "It wasn't me, it was them."
So this week has had several unasked for affirmations of my value to people who DO count in my life. It also made it easier for me to cut loose some ties that I was maintaining out of (what I thought was) mutual respect and affection... which were apparently not the case, as I found out via a backdoor source. It's sad but I do not deserve to have so-called friends 2K miles away gossiping away behind my back. So the unfriending shears came out. They don't have anything to gossip about, if they even notice. I could be hurt, but there really isn't a reason, just let it go. We had known diffs, but again, "it isn't me, it's them."
As I get older, I am getting feisty... and my deep seated anger is coming out. It's not uncontrolled, but is being carefully channeled... and I am using it to establish myself in the world. I have spent most of my life sitting down and shutting up. Honestly I am sick of it. I am pretty much single handedly supporting my family plus some other folks, I joined the Army as an officer and had great run with that as well. It also got me to where I am now, as did the King Co disaster. I am glad to be where I am now, and I think the rough journey has made success now even sweeter.
Saturday, June 13, 2015
When rose-colored glasses lose their bloom
I'm in a strange limbo right now. I have amazing news I want to share with the world, but can't until everything is officially official... and after the false start with the VA offer last year, I'm a little gun shy.
So I'm sitting with a job offer contingent upon passing the background checks and urine test. I know I have nothing to worry about, as far as I know.... but there is always the niggling worry that I missed something. But all the information I gave was given in good faith and as completely as I could do. But "VA debacle" echoes in my mind... with the caveat that the VA digs a helluva lot deeper than most usual jobs who call and verify dates of employment... or just rejected me due to a box mis-checked somewhere. I chose to not find out, it was just too much last year.
So I'm sitting with a job offer contingent upon passing the background checks and urine test. I know I have nothing to worry about, as far as I know.... but there is always the niggling worry that I missed something. But all the information I gave was given in good faith and as completely as I could do. But "VA debacle" echoes in my mind... with the caveat that the VA digs a helluva lot deeper than most usual jobs who call and verify dates of employment... or just rejected me due to a box mis-checked somewhere. I chose to not find out, it was just too much last year.
Overall I've been really happy at CUP, but when things went south, they did so with a vengeance... I've been accused (directly & indirectly) of procrastination, bad time management, too much chatting... basically being blamed for all that is wrong in this work situation... I'm not blameless, because no one ever is... but management has set this system up for failure.
Let's set the stage a bit: a small (mostly) managed Medicaid company trying to really become a player in a bigger market and is expanding lines of business rapidly including trying to become an early adopter for behavioral health integration... which will have to be done now or later. However, the push for this has led to the neglect of existing programs and personnel, most of which are state-audited. The program that I work, Health Homes, was pretty much seen as "flavor of the month" for most of the first year, but has since become the premier model for care management as far as the state is concerned.
The next piece is that the State of Washington has no single documentation system for the program, thus leaving it up to each Health Homes lead agency to come up with their own system as long as they can meet requirements. Enter in my company: we were under one company in 2013-14 and then switched to another in 2015. They knew this was happening and assured us that the switch in systems should be smooth and no data would be lost. Can you say "famous last words"? Sure, knew you could... Anyway, the rollout went worse than anyone could have imagined... We just got full access to everything we need a few weeks ago... Member services just got their access for making appointments in May... We didn't get all existing member lists completely loaded until early April... We still haven't gotten old charting imported... Mind you, my compatriot was asking questions in every meeting about many of the problems that have come to pass...
Add in the fact that we have lost 2 people working the program, one of whom was full time and the other who is sure that her preterm labor was from the stress. Also, include that my job entails all the utilization review, several call attempts monthly, hospital visits, follow up calls for transition, calls to doctors for members, concurrent review when hospitalized, intake of new members, crisis & general calls, and quarterly face to face visits... For nearly 70 members. I'm finding out that at most health insurance companies, these jobs are split out over a team...
So, this is what we have been scrambling to deal with since the beginning of the year. We have had periodic moments of "get this done now" and "Help this other group! They are swamped!" while being told not to worry about health homes... Until the last few weeks with the state audit coming up.
So now they are freaking out and denying time off, stating that it's due to people not being caught up... funny that the audit is coming up and management had the reporting requirements in hand on 25 May. But we paeans didn't get the directions & our directives until June 11th (Thursday) to be completed by June 15th (Monday). By placing the blame on non-management, they are trying to deny their own culpability.
I just see a lot of planning for the next big expansion and not a lot of routine maintenance type activities. There has pretty much been little or no support from management for the program I have been working. My fellow coworkers are amazing.... they are what makes working there worthwhile... and I love my clients and the work that I'm doing. I feel like I'm making a difference.
But, things have started going south, as previously mentioned, but I am determined to not go down the same road as I did with King Co. This hasn't even gotten close to that bad, but I have been paying close attention to my gut and the situation was irretrievably broken when our amazing admin let my compatriot and I know that she'd been told to only communicate with us via e-mail since her coming over to talk to us would "distract us" from our work. That level of BS was intolerable, considering I'd spent the greater part of the previous 2 months working through lunches and spending several hours, sometimes up to half the day, usually three days weekly, out of the office on member visits for follow up or new patient assessments. It just pissed me off. It's hard to get all your work done when you aren't in the office to get it done.
So, I had my interview for the new gig on Tuesday, I went out feeling like there was a good rapport, but it was short... and I kept thinking about what I should have said, asked, etc. It was a first round interview, I was just hoping it went well enough to get to the 2nd round. It was interesting, though, since they were all taking careful notes about exactly when I was going to be in Kentucky and when I might want to start. I thought it was a little unusual for a first round interview, but let it be what it was. The next morning, just 25 hours 45 minutes after I left the interview, I got a call and was offered the job at a substantial pay increase. I accepted it straight away and admitted I was a little stunned and she said that they usually don't move so quickly, but they also super impressed with me and didn't want me to get away. My start date is the Monday, 20 July after I get back from Kentucky.
Giving notice will be interesting. I don't want to give notice until I have the officially official word, which should be Tuesday or Wednesday this week. It will be a fitting revenge for my massively passive aggressive supervisor, who has been described by another coworker with Katy Perry's help.
I have also kept myself from Unravelling ala Deb Talan:
The other song in my head is:
Another good one is:
Thursday, March 12, 2015
Waiting for Ferguson
The killing of a teenaged boy is not a flap-a-doodle
A community being outraged over a pattern of disproportionate arrests, fines, etc for one race isn't playing the race card, especially after years of the same behavior.
Blaming the victims of a situation for their reactions only serves to minimize and obfuscate the root cause.
A statement of how someone different than you views or deals with the world is not rhetoric, it is you showing a stunning lack of respect for that person and a great deal of arrogance about your own position.
Depression, PTSD, Apathy and rediscovering my intrinsic value as a human being
It’s been over a year now since I was fired from King County,
but the sequelae of that experience is taking a long time to heal. Honestly I
am healing, but the process is slow… much slower than I would like it to be. It
was a devastating 3 ½ months, so much so that I am still trying to root out the
messages that were driven deep into my psyche. She’s “Not good enough”, “not
perfect enough”, “doesn’t ‘get it’”, “doesn’t fit in”, “untrainable”, etc. were
pretty much the spoken and unspoken refrain… to use an Army term, I pretty much
got the message that I was a “soup sandwich” over and over. Perhaps the
experience would not have established such deep roots had not been at such a
vulnerable transition in my life. I went to Seattle full of confidence,
but missing my support system dreadfully…. heck, I’d done this with my
mobilization to Texas with the Army, why would this be any different? I could
do this… but I didn’t have the familiarity and support of my Army unit… so it
was different. No number of video chats, phone calls, or other virtual
contacts could make up for the lack of that support system.
Mark moved out in February, soon after my being spit out of King
County. We have discussed whether his presence would have made any difference
during my short tenure, and we really don’t think it would have. Their apparent
prejudice against me started quite early on, within 3-4 weeks, my gut knew
something was off.
So the last year has been a rebuilding effort, very slow,
sometimes 3 steps forward-4 steps back, but forward overall. It has led a
re-evaluation of my self-worth, my capabilities, and a slow schlog out of
depression, doubt, anxiety. Fall down seven times, stand up eight has
been kind of where I have had to live while the ground has shifted repeatedly under
my unsteady feet. There have also been roadblocks… unexpected, sudden, and
devastating. So I have had to re-evaluate my reasons for moving to the
Pacific NW at all… looking back with both longing and a strong sense of having
made the right move.
Starting slowly to regain confidence began with the temporary
gig with the Highline Schools in an LPN role. I am eternally grateful to
everyone there for their acceptance, friendship, and support during that period
of time. It was a great experience during which I learned a lot and regained a
good deal of confidence and trust. It was nice to have the expectation of
competence back. I really did love working with the kids, too. It was the
bridge that I needed to get started on the road to a new sense of self.
The next step was spending 3 weeks at Ft Knox KY for my summer
Army training. I was there mostly alone but did get to meet up with some
friends from my old unit. I was pretty much embedded with another unit entirely
and did quite well with them, building my confidence even more. Before leaving
for Kentucky, I had interviewed for several positions and while I was there, I
interviewed for a Case Management position for the Portland VA. So in addition
to my confidence rebuilding, things were definitely looking up.
We decided to make the switch to Portland and found an
apartment. On the way back from getting the apartment, I got a call with the
tentative offer from the VA… I was over the moon. So I called all the places that were pending
and withdrew my applications from them… then the VA withdrew the job offer…
which had something to do with their inability to credential me. I was crushed and a lot of my confidence bled
out with that. I still don’t know what happened and I chose not to find
out. However, I had no choice but to
start the whole job search merry go round again.
Very soon, I was in the running for 5 jobs and had a crazy week
of interviews and second interviews. I
finally came down to two jobs in Vancouver, at the Vancouver Clinic and at a
small insurance company called Columbia United Providers. Exactly one month
after I applied, I started at CUP. This company has been a blessing. I am
totally in the right place for me. I fit, I am accepted and I feel good about the
work that I’m doing.
But I am still working off the reflexes caused by PTSD. If
called for a meeting to look over a mistake, my gut clenches up with no reason-but
that reflex exists. I hate this, I want this to end, but it’s a careful pruning
process, one nerve at a time. Is there a type of RoundUp for emotional scar
tissue?
The deepest thing I am fighting now is trying to lose the weight that I have put on in the last 13 months... I have a deep seated apathy. I just don't give a flying rat's rear end because I had my lack of self worth drilled in so deeply. So I eat to feel something. Doing what I want to do is my own way of having control, of feeling like I have a say in my situation. It's not healthy, but now I have to get myself back to feeling like I have a level of self worth that merits self control.
Friday, October 3, 2014
The year in purgatory...
I feel as though I'm finally coming out of a long dark tunnel that I entered when I left Missouri last year on October 8th. I can't believe it has been a year.
Last year when I left, I felt I was leaving a good place to come to a good place... it just took me a lot longer to find my good place than I thought. But sometimes those journeys make you appreciate the before and afters a bit more... make that a whole lot more.
Callaway was a wonderful place with the best of people... and I so miss them all. I wish I could tell them how much they have truly been a wind beneath my wings.
I had to journey to a very dark place before I could get back to a good place... I have travelled some interesting by-ways, and met some great folks as well... the nurses at the Highline School District were wonderful. So despite the depths and the negative people I encountered in one place, it has been almost universally refuted by every other person that I have met... and by all the other experiences that I have had. Sadly, sometimes it takes reaching the end of the dark journey to realize the gifts that have been given along the way.
However, being on uneven ground in terms of employment and everything else made for an unstable year. I think all I had was my anger and desire for revenge against those who wronged me.
I have now been in my new job for three weeks, I cannot even believe it's gone so fast. I am loving what I'm doing, I'm loving the people, I'm loving feeling like I'm doing a good job. My confidence is growing with my knowledge.
My feet feel like they are on solid ground and now I can move forward and leave all the bitterness and anger behind... and really embrace forgiveness for them and solace for myself.
I wrote this poem at possibly my darkest, lowest time emotionally:
They start out so kind
You let them in
But then you disappoint
And they are in your mind
By opening that door
You allow them to destroy your peace
Your confidence
Your hope... that anything will work again
You run over & over -
Details that are done
Things you cannot change
(Though you wish you could)
You defend yourself to the destroyers
The cold, stone cold, mouths
Who you could never have had hope of pleasing
And the fear seeps in
-ice in the veins
-sickness in the stomach
And all visions of the future dim
The door is shut tight behind you
You are in a pit, feeling for handholds
Fumbling, blind, with no plan
There is only pain, darkness
fear illuminated by angry flashes
Fumbling for a handhold to open a door forward - anything to get out of the pit.
Time ticks by
You drown in the accumulating minutes - the only sound is your breathing and the rush of your blood in your ears.
You look back and the wound that had barely begun to heal is ripped open afresh by circumstance
The dry leaves of what was swirl up in a bone dry dance if pain,, darkness, and fear... repeating the cycle you worked so hard to rest.
Go forward, guarded - ready to play the expected role - it's your only protection.
And this is where I am now:
Last year when I left, I felt I was leaving a good place to come to a good place... it just took me a lot longer to find my good place than I thought. But sometimes those journeys make you appreciate the before and afters a bit more... make that a whole lot more.
Callaway was a wonderful place with the best of people... and I so miss them all. I wish I could tell them how much they have truly been a wind beneath my wings.
I had to journey to a very dark place before I could get back to a good place... I have travelled some interesting by-ways, and met some great folks as well... the nurses at the Highline School District were wonderful. So despite the depths and the negative people I encountered in one place, it has been almost universally refuted by every other person that I have met... and by all the other experiences that I have had. Sadly, sometimes it takes reaching the end of the dark journey to realize the gifts that have been given along the way.
However, being on uneven ground in terms of employment and everything else made for an unstable year. I think all I had was my anger and desire for revenge against those who wronged me.
I have now been in my new job for three weeks, I cannot even believe it's gone so fast. I am loving what I'm doing, I'm loving the people, I'm loving feeling like I'm doing a good job. My confidence is growing with my knowledge.
My feet feel like they are on solid ground and now I can move forward and leave all the bitterness and anger behind... and really embrace forgiveness for them and solace for myself.
I wrote this poem at possibly my darkest, lowest time emotionally:
They start out so kind
You let them in
But then you disappoint
And they are in your mind
By opening that door
You allow them to destroy your peace
Your confidence
Your hope... that anything will work again
You run over & over -
Details that are done
Things you cannot change
(Though you wish you could)
You defend yourself to the destroyers
The cold, stone cold, mouths
Who you could never have had hope of pleasing
And the fear seeps in
-ice in the veins
-sickness in the stomach
And all visions of the future dim
The door is shut tight behind you
You are in a pit, feeling for handholds
Fumbling, blind, with no plan
There is only pain, darkness
fear illuminated by angry flashes
Fumbling for a handhold to open a door forward - anything to get out of the pit.
Time ticks by
You drown in the accumulating minutes - the only sound is your breathing and the rush of your blood in your ears.
You look back and the wound that had barely begun to heal is ripped open afresh by circumstance
The dry leaves of what was swirl up in a bone dry dance if pain,, darkness, and fear... repeating the cycle you worked so hard to rest.
Go forward, guarded - ready to play the expected role - it's your only protection.
And this is where I am now:
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