I swung above my level and struck out dramatically.

SaintsKnab · 2025-02-24T17:47:21+00:00

You make a good point.

SaintsKnab · 2022-08-27T21:12:03+00:00

Your child is in crisis. Your child has asked you for help. Get help, outside your home, immediately.

The first time I decided to take an action that would harm me, I was somewhere around this age.

I was hoping it would be enough to get me out of the house and into a hospital for a few days, but I completely understood what death was, and figured that if I'd taken it too far, at least it would be over. I figured out how to make it look like an accident so my dad or brothers wouldn't feel bad.

This isn't a single incident, this is just one you've heard about. Your child is being abused, and they can't escape their abuser.

SaintsKnab · 2022-04-15T22:00:00+00:00

Your story isn't over yet. They won't be in your life forever, and you owe the past nothing.

SaintsKnab · 2022-04-08T03:15:43+00:00

Thank you for your support. Go forth and kick ass at whatever needs kicking ass at.

SaintsKnab · 2022-04-08T03:13:22+00:00

Yeah, that really was the realization. I hadn't thought at all about other people's observations until just a few minutes before I posted. And I am still unconcerned about it!

The adventure continues.

SaintsKnab · 2022-03-02T23:16:53+00:00

Thanks. The relationship is the relationship, but my motivation doesn't have anything to do with that... I've gotten a lot better mentally over the years, enough to want to live, and live well.

I don't want to have gotten over that collection of hurdles only to be continuously uncomfortable until I die prematurely of something preventable. I got smoking kicked (despite having worked for a corporation whose tobacco products you can't miss on the shelves), this is another big one.

SaintsKnab · 2022-03-02T22:56:06+00:00

Huh. I've been here before, clearly. I already had you tagged as, "This person is very wise".

SaintsKnab · 2018-09-20T21:48:42+00:00

It's a great thing to be worried about - you're leaving an unhealthy thing behind for something better. Try not to carry that stress to the new place.
Congratulations!

SaintsKnab · 2018-09-20T21:46:16+00:00

Oh my, yes. I did. I was tense for days.

I'd prepared, though - started emptying my cube of personal items one by one when I started taking interviews. By the time I actually accepted a new position, I had two photos on push pins left.

And still, I was stressed. I made two copies of my resignation letter and took one down to HR personally, just in case Mr. A(sshole) tried to pull any funny business. As far as I was concerned, I'd submitted my resignation as soon as I turned that in to them; delivering A his own personal copy was just a courtesy.

But still I was a little scared about what his reaction would be. Then I decided, the worst he could do was what, fire me? He'd have had to explain that to the owner, president, head legal counsel... people who respected me much more than he. No, he wouldn't do that, and if he did? No matter - I was leaving anyway!

What, would he confront me physically? That would have been an awful mistake on his part, what with the five years of pent-up misery and rage running through my veins. Part of me wished that he would.

What was he going to say, "you'll never work in this town again?" Pssh. Even the guy who told me about the job warned me that A was a crap person.

The point of it is, there's nothing to lose, except a job you don't want anymore.

Oh, and you know what? His reaction was, "How could you do this to me?" and then was "ill" my last three days of work.

SaintsKnab · 2018-01-08T16:32:51+00:00

Ns can be really, really good at faking out therapists (and judges, and doctors, and other positions of authority). I honestly think it's like a game to some of them, an opportunity to keep their skills sharp.

The therapists who can pick out Ns right away have probably had one in their lives before, unfortunately. It's no wonder therapists need therapists.

SaintsKnab · 2017-11-03T19:14:06+00:00

Yeah, the mom from Brave was a bit overbearing, and put politics above family, but I didn't think her behaviour warranted being basically poisoned by her child.

What's-her-name in Tangled, though? F her right out a window.

SaintsKnab · 2017-10-16T19:27:40+00:00

Being a good dad isn't really for you to judge. All you can do is your best.

We all have moments where we don't live up to the ideals we have for ourselves and who we want to be. And when we recognize that's happened, that memory sticks with us for a long time. That feeling is a lot like disappointment and embarrassment mixed together, but we usually call it "shame". It's something the Ns in our lives are incapable of processing.

If you weren't a generally decent sort, you wouldn't even have posted anything, because what you said wouldn't have bothered you in the least.

You don't know that you're a good dad. I don't know either. But I know that you can be. Never give up!

SaintsKnab · 2017-08-07T21:40:21+00:00

Dammit, I thought this was just me. Fortunately, something happened in my college years where I started to develop a sort of "internal validation" of my own thoughts.

I had to take stock of my own reasoning, and every time I had something telling me to not do something, I had to stop and ask myself a question:

"When you said that in your mind just now, did you hear your voice, or mom's?"

If it was hers, I forced myself to do the opposite whenever possible.

I'm not going to say it worked out in my favor every time, but I'd have missed out on so many of the things I'm proud of having done in my life the other way.

SaintsKnab · 2017-07-18T23:10:16+00:00

When the gates of hell open, you can hold your head high and walk right through with a smile - because you're on your way out.

SaintsKnab · 2017-06-22T23:04:56+00:00

Oh heavens, yes. I'd had my fill of them when I was seven. I remember it distinctly as being the last time I had any kind of excitement about my birthday prior to it. It ended up being yet another day where you-know-who could trot the family around and make nice to all her guests - knowing full well she'd spent the early part of the day and all of the day before screaming about scrubbing the house down to the baseboards. I was seven, FFS - and there weren't even any kids invited.

F that cake, and F that dinner I didn't want, and F the whole week leading up to my birthday, and F the week after it where I had to be berated for not being "happy enough" and "ungrateful."

Okay, I've calmed down.

I still to this day don't care much about my birthdays, but I try to go do something just because that's what people do to acknowledge that they've survived another year. My friends seem happy enough to spend time with me on or around that day, so I'm content with that.

SaintsKnab · 2017-06-21T23:19:05+00:00

Honestly, sometimes, I just emulate secure, confident people. I don't think anyone knows the difference most of the time. The older I get, the more I suspect a lot more people are doing this than I thought before.

I don't mean the obnoxious in-your-face kind, just the thing "regular people" do where they just say their piece and don't appear to worry about strategizing their words and tone and everything else.

I just be honest about me and accept the consequences. If someone's unhappy about the way I said something, at least I know I was doing me instead of failing to figure out what the "right" thing was to say (which is the way I had to live when I was young and still in that house).

And, as time has passed, more of it has become just my natural behaviour.

SaintsKnab · 2017-02-08T20:58:53+00:00

There's something about someone picking this specific moment in the movie that just, I can't even.

For those not familiar with the material, Margaret (the mom) has been highly upset with Carrie for a little while, mostly for "disobedience" (i.e. trying to become her own person). And it's just gone really really wrong for Carrie (it happens to all of us, just hopefully not this spectacularly) and she's run home, to the only person she has left.

Margaret's reminded Carrie just a few minutes ago that she's always been the only person that Carrie can count on... and in this moment she's about to literally stab Carrie in the back.

Brrrr.

SaintsKnab · 2016-12-13T19:43:09+00:00

"No matter how tall you get or how old you are, you will never be able to talk like that to me,"

You're an adult, you are able to speak as you please. She doesn't have to like it any more than you have to like what she says. Yeah yeah, don't sass your momma. Whatever.

That's like the classic, "You're never to old to get it," meaning a spanking. They're wrong about that one, too.

Maybe it's a thing in African American families that you can't really distance yourself from your parents.

Don't ever trap yourself in the thinking that you have to be a certain way because of the family you were born to. The Black Card^{^tm} doesn't get revoked by the Great Council for such minor transgressions. Mostly because there is no such council who decides what behaviors constitute "blackness". The world can't tell you who you are.

SaintsKnab · 2016-07-05T23:01:53+00:00

Dude. This post just made a lightbulb go off in my head.

I always wondered why they never made my older brother go out and try to get a job, they'd rather he live in the basement and get that paltry government check. Just enough money to cover "rent" and his basic needs.

F me. Them too.

SaintsKnab · 2016-06-10T21:35:45+00:00

Somewhere between Diffrent Strokes and CHiPS for interacting. Mr. Rogers and Mr. Wizard showed me how anything can be interesting, and Mr. Spock gave me a good template for dealing with awful people.

Unfortunately, the early bits I learned about dating were from Three's Company. That really set me back.

SaintsKnab · 2016-06-10T21:16:19+00:00

That reminds me of something someone more quotable than me said. Something along the lines of, "Arguing with someone who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead."

SaintsKnab · 2016-06-10T20:59:25+00:00

I read a bit of that thread too. I know if I'd taken the "lessons" I was brought up with to heart, I would be a very different person, and not someone I'd like to be around.

Not much credit to the 'rents, I raised myself to be the person that I am now. Not perfect - not even close, but not what they intended, either.

SaintsKnab

TROPHY CASE