Biggus Dickus: Part 2

[beatrice]

Hi I subscribe to the view that at least some of our dreams are our subconscious trying to tell us things - you haven't been sleeping well recently, and there is likely a lot of stuff to deal with in your head.

Seems to me that you are acknowledging you still have feelings for your stbx, but that there is another life calling.

You correctly acknowledge that we do not dump our past - it is part of us, and that is why we talk about Karma. What goes around emotionally usually comes around. There is an emotional payback when those who hurt and abuse may be put in the position of dealing with the consequences of their actions. Not in our time, and by the time it happens we are usually sorry for them.

I am always sorry for Uriah Heep for example, odious as he was!!

So you know that there is work to be done to get there but if you take care of yourself and let others help you, you will go to the ball

Although I have grave doubts about the long term success of a marriage based on a shoe fetish!! LOL

[BklynMom]

OMG i love that song and totally forgot about.

I am gonna sing it all day.

Steven Tyler I think is a great role model for recovery. And he did somehow let her go and move on. We all have are sh!t to overcome and we need to rise above.

My kids, how I love them but man oh man can they make me bonkers!!

[LoisB]

I love Steven. I'm thinking he has "somehow let go" lots and lots of girls. :-)

I'm feeling a bit better today. Thanks.

I had another crazy dream...this one was really disturbing but really interesting. My subconscious kinda cracks me up.

I was back in time in the wild west.

I took a job working for the sheriff! I will add more later.

Bea, what I don't get about Karma...why are all these bad things happening to the people here. What did we do??

[willbwell]

my D too talks nonstop!! repeating the same thing over and again!

hope you are sleeping better. all that I want to do right now is sleep.

h's settlement proposal came today via email. he made no mention of time with kids.

on a good note S20 will be home from college Wednesday!!

[25yearsmlc]

He's only been here an hour and it feels like days.

I feel so badly for D11. He follows her around while she does her chores. It's awkward and weird.

I want to fix it for her, but I can't.

I may have missed it and I apologize in advance if I did. But is there any reason you had to stay? I mean, he's not actually unsafe with her, right?

So why not go out and have some free time of your own (to GAL!!) while he learns to bond with his daughter, on his own and without an audience?


Just Think about how you can restructure this ^^ scenario in a way where you don't make him a villain, and or in which you do not feel like a victim?

[25yearsmlc]

I love Steven. I'm thinking he has "somehow let go" lots and lots of girls. :-)

I'm feeling a bit better today. Thanks.

I had another crazy dream...this one was really disturbing but really interesting. My subconscious kinda cracks me up.

I was back in time in the wild west.

I took a job working for the sheriff! I will add more later.

Bea, what I don't get about Karma...why are all these bad things happening to the people here. What did we do??

Here's a bit of a 2 x 4 but I think you can handle it.

THIS comment to Bea ^^ about 'what did WE DO??"

Is known as "stinking thinking", and it gets you STUCK....so, just STOP IT.
Karma did not do this to you. Neither did God, or "the universe".

IF you ponder your mistakes --okay -- then finish pondering, learn from them, and LET THEM GO!

There's no value in guilt, if it simply means wallowing in shame. That keeps you stuck, and FEAR has been an issue for you,
b/c perhaps you fear you made mistakes that "mean" you are a lazy bad person.

Instead, if you can accept that you were probably missing some "coping tools and life skills", which led to many of your human errors, then you can get those tools and skills, & not repeat the mistakes. Pretty simple really. No, I'm not saying it's easy, (it's darn hard), but it's NOT complicated.

Once you have learned from the errors or revised your views, & know you won't repeat those mistakes, you can tell yourself "just for today" each night, to let go of the day's worries. And so, you also have to let go of the past mistakes. They are in the past. They passed....

So You can then pat yourself on the shoulder and say "well, self, we won't go THERE again...thank God"..and be at peace.

When we keep on asking the useless and unanswerable question about our WAS's or life or Karma, ("WHY???") or ask rhetorical questions such as "What did I DO to 'make this happen'?" Stop it.

It's Just a destructive habit and you can/must stop it. Because Here's the thing...If you don't stop the stinking thinking, your life won't improve. You'll stay stuck and perhaps create more problems, or see manageable problems as overwhelming, b/c your thoughts are distorted by fear and shame.

From what I can see here, the biggest mistakes you made seem mostly related to fear, or "stinking thinking"...so it's one thing IF your guilt or "karma beliefs" simply mean you have a guilty CONSCIENCE, then learn from that, and move along.

But either way, no more being stuck asking questions that weigh you down.

You need to move forward. One step in front of the other, keeping your eye on the ball and moving...not looking over your shoulder to see what Smokey is doing or saying or might be feeling, and NOT constantly analyzing non information...b/c you will never swim to the other side if you are swimming and turning around all the time "just checking".

Please, no more wallowing in shame or fear of shame, or fear that you are in fact a horrible worthless person....that's not healthy thinking. It's false data. Move on.
(Even if it were somehow true, you'd change that, and the real "reality" would be that you are a better happier more loving, loved woman!)

Your goal is to be the best you, to become a woman only a fool would leave.
If Smokey stays gone OR if you decide to drop the rope and truly let him go, think what a great catch you're going to be for YOURSELF, and maybe someday if you feel like it, some OM.
But GAL, which will help you detach. In fact, I do not believe anyone can detach successfully, without GAL.
I hope you'll stop wondering about how you "deserve" this. Learn from that thing we all do, (i.e., we all make mistakes.)

IMO
Being terrified that "Karma, or God, and or the universe" somehow decided that you "Deserve" this,

will actually prevent you from honest objective analysis, that would help you learn and move forward, & Not repeat the mistake.

Asking "why is this happening?" Also means a lost perspective.

I know you feel life & Smokey have been unfair to you. I felt the same way back then, but I kept seeing my healthy loving children...

Then I told them of an epiphany I'd had. I said "you know, if I had it all over to do again, and IF the only way to have you 3 young people in my life, was to go thru all this (for years) I'd do it ALL over again, in a heartbeat"...soooo, yes its not fair to feel this way. But how UNFAIR...??

Last week 230+ girls young teens were brutally kidnapped in Nigeria so they can be child brides (read, "slaves") of men much older, of a different faith --Sharia law-- and most of those girls will never see or hear from their families, again. They were on a field trip!
(That's happening as we type & read right now.
FacBuuk posts about it to pressure the government there to act more to rescue them)

On a more personal note, I've lost people in my family and no, it was NOT fair.

Some years ago, I had a truly stunning blonde friend, a statuesque woman who turned heads but seemed oblivious to that,(much as I wanted to Not like her, she was generous and funny as heck and she LOVED being a mom). I loved her for how much she laughed & loved, & her Live well approach to life.

She was 42 y/o with a very HAPPY m, (seriously, they were still in love after 16 years)...they had 4 kids, aged 7-13.

She came to play poker at our house, bringing her h and her children...(not a "girl's night) and then, about 6 hours later she announced to her h she had a "splitting headache, something's wrong"--------

and she dropped dead of an undiagnosed aneurysm.

You think she or her h or her kids did something to deserve it? IS God really that petty and wrathful? (I'm a New Testament type of believer). Were her sins really so grave that he'd NOT wait to judge her, but took her from those young innocents b/c of anything she did?

Oh, & Today, her now 14 y/o d, has acute B leukemia. She has not responded well to the chemo either, so she's not on the "probable cure" list.

^^^ THAT IS UNFAIR. NO ONE DESERVES THAT.^^^
NO family deserves it, no child deserves that, and no father or husband "deserves" it.

IF that widower told me he was "wondering WHY this happened to HIM" and what HE DID to "make it happen", what would you suggest I tell him?

B/C he did wonder...and that made me, and him, and his children, sadder.
Only when he stopped that part of his grieving, the disordered beliefs/fears,

could he clear his head to start rebuilding their family life, HIS life and career, and take care of his ill daughter.

Yes Lois, you got a real curve ball thrown at you. It's horrible. I get it.

But it's not the end of the world. No one is dying b/c of it, and you are in the best nation in the world for women. No one tells you or your d's what to wear (or cover).
No one says you cannot drive or vote or have a job, or show your ankle without being assaulted. No one tells you or yours how to worship, and no one is kidnapping your d's, or slaughtering your family for being in the wrong tribe.

You have shelter over your head, food in the ELECTRIC refrigerator (so you're not heating your shack with dung) and there will be food there later on this week. You are healthy enough to walk & talk, as are your d's, and you are literate, and you all have some form of health insurance.

I tell you this ^^^ b/c I realized all these things when I was feeling very sorry for myself about 25 years ago. I was in the hospital with pneumonia, 8 months pregnant with a 2 y/o son, a very stressful job and a very busy h in his med residency, and I was looking out the window at the full moon. I was sick as a dog.

It hit me that "there are other pregnant women who don't feel well either, right now, maybe seeing that same moon..." and I felt a kinship.

Then it hit me...OMG, I was SO MUCH better off than over 90% of females in the world! No comparison.I was IN a hospital for one thing. My & son were not "missing" on the mountain.
I had to "get a grip", sukk it up and MOVE ON. So yeah, Some perspective really does help.

It's not just that 'there will always be those who have it worse"--which is true.

It's that you (and ME) have it way better than most. WE must remember that or we risk being ungrateful for the bounty around us, for seeing the glass as half empty instead of half full...
It's true.

Let's go now, and begin to GAL.

((( )))

[BklynMom]

Yesterday I was in a yoga class with a woman that had 1 leg. She was not wearing a prosthetic and was amputated up to the hip socket. How the heck did she do this class?? Wow. I was impressed.

Write a gratitude list. Check out the book Unbroken.

We can do it!!!

25 - please!!! google Emma Whitehead Leukemia NY Times.

My SIL was cured by the same treatment after 6 or 7 rounds of chemo and 3/4 rounds of radiation were non effective.

[Puffy]

25years has great points as always. Not to start a religious debate, but A LOT of religious people have the notion that God is somehow involved in their pain, and that they are lowly sinners that deserve the worst - it's in their book. How someone maintains adequate self-esteem when their book tells them they're a lowly worm, worthy of death, I'm not sure.

Whatever your beliefs, to rely on a supernatural diety to fix your sitch is foolish - you fix it, as best you can. If there are things beyond your control, and there are, you must forget them. Same thing for the past.

[LoisB]

Wow, have had one crazeee busy morning. Just had a chance to respond.

Thanks!!!!!

Gratitude Item Number ONE:

I'm grateful for this virtual community of people who understand the pain but also push me, prod me to move forward because they want to see me succeed. :-)

And, I'm grateful for God and His Way of giving me some serious bonks on the head this past few days in regards to my needing to GAL and take inventory of my blessings.

Last night, I was at a girls' night campfire down the street. A friend lost her husband last week to lung cancer. She has four kids under 17. Another girlfriend invited us all over to sit around the campfire. The kids were running around like wild things and it was much needed.

I also went over to my mom's and cleaned her kitchen. I still owe her money for North Carolina and...while it hadn't occurred to me BEFORE I started, in the middle of cleaning, it dawned on me that THIS is something I can do--something she really needs help with--something which I can do to help pay her back. She doesn't want to hire a cleaning lady right now and I can help put things straight for her.

25, Thanks for all the encouragement and thoughts. It means a lot to me.

D11 has asked me to remain present during the visits. She isn't quite to the place of wanting to be alone with Smokey. He hasn't been a real fixture in her life for quite some time and I think she needs a safety net for a time. I am waiting for her to give the go ahead for real alone time with him. If Saturday is any indication, however, I'm sure she will be able to handle herself in no time.

Side note: Smokey also has a tendency to be his sneakiest alcoholic self while visiting. He has pilfered items from the house and likes to "rummage" by walking around and looking into closets/cupboards and so forth. When I'm here, he doesn't.

I'm remaining in a separate room while he visits.

There's so much more to say...I need to stop for a minute.

[LoisB]

One other thought;

25, Smokey hasn't earned the right to visit without my presence yet. Not sure if he will or not. He needs to earn her trust. D11 has special needs and his M.O. of dropping back into her life when it suits HIS needs is something I've allowed for too long. This visitation situation is a boundary I'm setting and I'm setting it by listening carefully to what D11 requests. She hasn't had a voice and, now, I'm honoring her voice in a way I never have before.

Wow, that felt good. I needed to get that bit of anger and frustration and defense out of my system. I think Smokey's voice and my inlaws and their insanity has still been swirling in my head a bit more than I thought. I could hear them saying, "Heather makes too much of D11's Asperger's and yadda, yadda..."

NO. Heather hasn't respected D11's needs ENOUGH. D11 has a right to dictate how she sees her dad and her grandparents. They haven't proven their ability to provide a safe and nurturing atmosphere for her.

That felt good. Jerks.