it's another day....
Mood:  don't ask
Now Playing: whatz been happening with me? did someone out there ask?
Topic: general
hahaha like anyone is ever going to post even a "hello" on this blog....

it's been a week from hell, literally. my computer crashed. that's right. with all this editting, re-formatting and so on, trying to catch up on transferring sites, going thru each page of every site to change over the "d" word's underlined links to the new emotional feelings, 4 site.... just a million and a half things to do and the damn thing gets an exploit virus worm and i can't fix it.

so i have to make a decision. do i wait and see if someone can help me down the road, like within a week's time...? (time lost working on the sites) or do I just wipe it all clean and start over?

I lost everything. I wiped it clean. I chose "b" option because I can't obsess over it any longer. it drives me crazy when things go wrong. while i was making the decision to "wipe or wait" i ended up choosing the three worse jobs in my house to do.

1. clean out the clown cabinet. my husband has hundreds of clowns. he collects them. they're all in a wood & glass cabinet so he can keep them "dust free" hahahah it hadn't been cleaned out since before I broke my leg, three years ago. there was a lot of dust in there. I cleaned that whole extravaganza.... personal punishment...

2. when i met my husband almost 12 years ago, i ended up moving into his house. he had lived here alone, yes alone, a man in a house, and wasn't the best house keeper, although he'd never admit it.

he had two cabinets in the kitchen that were like a tornado struck town. he told me to never touch those 2 cabinets because they were the way he liked them. Well I touched one of them the other day. I cleaned it out & it was sheer horror! It was his medicine cabinet. He had prescriptions in there from before i met him. something sticky had spilled on the top shelf (that's the way it always is) and I had to take out the shelves and scrub out the whole cabinet.

the kid's are cheering now, "go mom go!!!"

and then #3... please god, give me back my computer.... the bathroom cabinet... or linen closet.... whatever... another huge job that hadn't been done since before i broke my leg and spent almost 2 years in a wheel chair. i did it. all the loose q-tips, the endless partial boxes of "hair for men" coloring, used up make-up, rubber gloves, loose bandaids, empty bottles of mouthwash, you name it... it was in there... i cleaned that whole mess out.

then i wiped the c drive of my computer. toot sweet.

i hadn't been back here because of the computer glitch, so i finally get here and no one has posted anything... once again... no one wants to get their fingertips dirty i guess... telling everyone how they feel...

i guess no one out there wants or needs to vent like i just did because their computer didn't go down the toilet this past week. well...it's another sunday morning and everyone is asleep in the house except me.

i get elected to let all 4 dogs out. i almost forgot... that just reminded me that we've been watching my daughter's dog, oscar, all week as well. he has peed and pooped on everything he can all week long too, and he's not a lap dog - if you know what I mean.... so we've had 4 dogs in the house all week instead of 3.

then i had to make my own coffee and the damn coffee pot is acting up and it leaked all over my counter...

now I'm here again and no one left me a little "cheer" or a straightforward, "i hate your sites and everything in them..." or even a belief or opinion to debate... okay.. i see how you all are!

i'll get back to those sites now... i know they're calling my name... kathleen it's time to fix the typos!!!

kathleen.... we give the dog back today so all's not that bad!

it's sunday... who's going to church today?
Mood:  chillin'
Now Playing: what's your spiritual life like?
Topic: living in recovery
i've been challenged. don't you hate when that happens? i'm slightly comptetive. i used to be more so, but after having all the wind taken out of my sails with trauma, i'm much tamer.

what have i been challenged about? religion. i've been challenged to commit to a "certain religion." i am so leery of organized religion. i want to have my own personal relationship with my God & i don't want "man" to enter into it. i want to leave out all the power & control mongers. i want to leave out the judgmental preachers, parishoners & all the committe members.

even so, my own personal relationship has suffered greatly. i do feel some guilt in not reading my scriptures & trying harder to ask for forgiveness for my faults or sins if you call them that. weaknesses is more like it. i'm not praying like i need to. i don't rely on the Lord like I need to. i'm not living my own personal relationship with the Lord like i know i can. like i NEED to. it's much more fulfilling to live life in thanks, being grateful to HIM that gives us everything.

my question is... do you have to go to church to prove your love for the Lord? do you have to be a member of an organized religion?

i have been so traumatized from organized religion. if you read about religious abuse - or abandonment by the Lord on those two pages - you can see my own testimony of living in very frugal, humble means for almost two years. I was visiting people, going to church almost 7 days a week, reading my scriptures every day, volunteering for church duties constantly, tithing consistently..... i didn't wear pants because it was their belief, no make up, no friends outside our membership, no car, no phone, no television and my son went to the church's school for free. i was allowed to be labeled a "widow" because i was divorced and poor so the church would help take care of me - per the preacher....

yeah, it was cultlike. the preacher ended up betraying me, but at least he never forced himself on me sexually like he ended up doing with other so labeled, "widows." he was kicked out. divorced by his wife. disowned by his kids. yeah, i was betrayed in a most intimate way.

not only once... but twice. the second time in search of an organized religion that wasn't cultlike, but one that i could feel the same peace with myself & the Lord with. that preacher told me that i wasn't walking with the Lord because i was on the run, living in domestic violence shelters, away from my husband because of his desire to kill me. he thought i needed to invite him back into my life & get pastoral counseling from him. is that a power trip? did he really think he could help us or was it the ultimate challenge for him?

i ended up pregnant and almost losing my baby in the 4th month of pregnancy. i loved that preacher and his family tho. i really did. i recently wrote him a letter and wished he and his family well. he finally wrote me back and it thrilled me. i was grateful for his consideration. it was the polite thing to do. i admired his faith in the Lord.

my concern for my own self, for my recovery is that i am able to give myself to the Lord. I need to obey him more. I need to remind myself that all things are possible thru his power. i need to work harder to be a good servant.

tell me... what do you think about it all? i'm curious!

Kathleen

I wonder what will happen
Mood:  caffeinated
Now Playing: Resolving unresolved emotions & feelings
Topic: emotions & feelings
As I've already mentioned here, my mother is visiting from Wyoming & my son, 22, from Grand Rapids, Michigan. They arrived both on Tuesday & today my son is leaving. He has a concert to go to tonight & it's about a 6 hour drive home. It's been over a year since we saw him because as he so dutifully states, "I have a life." in Grand Rapids. He is a busy kid, he goes to school full time and works full time, paying for his own education as well as his own bills, (apt. with 2 other students) and such, but it was really a long time since he visited us the last time. We have all been painfully missing him.

I was having the conversation, posted below, about what he believes concerning discipline & we got into some deep & previously untouchable topics. I have wanted to ask him certain questions for a long time, but I didn't know how to "go there" without making him get defensive. So last night when he was already defensive, I found myself not caring if he got more defensive - so I asked him a few questions that have been on my mind for years, so I could resolve some raw feelings & emotions that I still have concerning him.

I asked him, "Was there ever a time, when your father got custody of you, that you thought I didn't love you anymore?"

That topic had torn my heart into shreads millions of times over the past 14 years. I know that I did damage to myself on a regular basis concerning my feelings & emotions over the custody fight & how hurt I was in result, but I had never known how he felt about me for moving from Grand Rapids to Dayton, Ohio. It had bothered me constantly.

He said he never thought, one time, that I didn't love him. He said his father never said anything bad about me either. I can't believe the second statement. I really can't. His father was so emotionally abusive. I can't believe in his conniving & threatening methods, that there weren't words said that put me in a negative light with our son.

I just can't believe it. That doesn't matter to me though, because I expected it. I just wonder how true my son's recollections are of his youth when we were so abusively separated. I can't believe that the day he went to live with his dad, they told him to start calling his step mother - "mom."

I cried off and on during our conversation last night. I couldn't help it and I didn't want to stop crying. It was upsetting my younger daughter, who is almost 12, and she offered me comfort with hugs & kisses, caressing the top of my head & telling me that she loved me. I was proud of her empathy, but I also told her emphatically that it was okay to cry. It was okay to express that emotion by crying because I was feeling so hurt by her brother's opinions & belief system. I was hurt by his defensiveness as well. He's always been defensive for some reason.

It felt really good to cry out those tears last night. I was so happy that I took my opportunity while it was available to me to ask him some questions. I want to know what my adult children believe, think about, are interested in & how they live their lives. I think it's important for me to know them that well.

I realized though, in a mounting frustration, that my children do not know me very well, although they talk to me most everyday, (not my older son, but my girls do) and it hurt abit to admit that. My own husband doesn't know who I am either. They are all wound up in their own worlds, doing this & thinking about that, and it's always all about them. I wonder if that will always be true. I hope not because I've learned that life isn't always about us. It's about others, and how we can help others.

Resolving old hurts, painful feelings & emotions happens everyday anymore for me. I keep concentrating so hard on staying open, mindful, living in the present, so I can grasp every afforded opportunity to resolve something. It's truly helping me feel stronger, more confident & hopefully causing me to grow even more - personally - every day.

Keep it in mind, during your day, that if there is ever an opportunity to resolve an issue, emotion, feeling or painful experience in your life, to grasp it, embrace it, reflect upon it & feel it. Then you can let it go, finally, after holding it in, raw & hurtful for so long.

I hope you all have a great day, for me, it's off to the kitchen to make my son some chocolate chip cookies to take back home with him, he's leaving around noon.... I'll be crying again I'm sure, but I am thankful for the tears for the first time in my life.

kathleen

what do you think?
Mood:  hug me
Now Playing: what do you do to help your children recover?
Topic: living in recovery
okay, i want to know if anyone else's young adults are as closed minded as my son is. he drove 6 hours from grand rapids, michigan to visit us this week. it's been a very emotional week for us all. my mother is also visiting from wyoming.

my son had told me previously to coming that he intended on beating up his younger brother who lives here in Dayton when he visits. he wants to beat him up to make him understand that as an almost 14 year old he is screwing up his life, not listening to me, getting in trouble, not concentrating on school, and the normal teenage goop.... and if he continues to act out - he'll get beat up again - but worse. he thinks that it's time that someone beat the shit out of my almost 14 year old son to make him behave.

i had a talk with my older son, who is 22 by the way. i asked him if he thought violence was necessary. he says that it is why he is such a good kid, because his step brother used to beat the crap out of him when he was out of line or not being good.

oh god, please help him. his father is my ex-husband who was a cop. now he's a body guard or something for the owner of amway corporation. that's right. he's some bigwig over there and look what he's done to his son. we talked about when he called me up when he was 14 telling me about his father beating him up, throwing him across the room and so forth. we talked about him telling his father that he wanted to come live with me and his father told him that if he came to live with me that his father would disown him as a son, deny him, not love him anymore.

my son didn't think he meant it. i told him of course he didn't mean it. he was just trying to control him.

i tried to talk about love. i asked him what was the greater power in the world, love or hate. he thinks hate is more powerful. i told him that love could beat hate if there was enough of it.

we touched on the subject of unconditional love. we touched on the subject of mental health issues due to trauma.

my son is insulted because he thinks he knows what is right and wrong, 100% of the time at his young age. he doesn't think that his belief systems will change much more and that they've changed alot since he moved out of his father's house about 2 years ago. i don't know.

he didn't know how to debate the topics. he got so defensive. he was so closed minded. i asked him to just think about things. i asked him to remain open to other possibilities.

anyone else every deal with this? i am really upset about the violence. why didn't i tell him not to beat up his brother? i really didn't think he would do it. he was always such a gentle boy, back when i had custody of him, (before the age of 9)i am just shattered still over the fact that he was raised by an abusive man and an overly controlling ex-best friend now stepmother. it's a shame. i had the best little boy and they turned him into someone else. it's very hard to handle. it's very sad.

well... let me know what you think! i told my son that my younger son wasn't going to change because of this beating. i don't know how bad he hurt him. he said he choked him abit and then laid on him and held him down while he talked to him.... i am so disappointed.

oh well... another day... kathleen

does anyone else want to post?
Mood:  crushed out
Now Playing: please add some comments, opinions or whatever to let me know you stopped by
Topic: general
i get lots of traffic on the websites... i'd really like to hear some feedback about the sites, about the topics, about emotions & feelings... well feedback about just anything! it would be really nice!

Kathleen

Today's topic... gaslighting
Mood:  incredulous
Now Playing: Gaslighting, I didn't know it was called this....
Topic: An abuse issue
Geez, see what I mean about sharing is caring! Today I got an email from a visitor who was concerned about gaslighting. I had to scratch my head, then excitedly type it into a google search box! That doesn't happen that often for me so, geez, I got that little "tingle" I get when I feel like I'm going to learn something.

Once I discovered what it was, I had to gasp with that all too well known familarity, "Ahhh that's what you call that crap!"

I put up with that for years from an abusive husband who was a police officer. That was so horrible. I don't miss that stuff one bit.

But until today I'd just included those details (of gaslighting) into the mix of ways abusers abuse us. Read about gaslighting now on the realistic pageas I put it there because I believe it's got way too much to do about finding out what is truly realistic and what's not!

I'm going to look into it more, but please anyone who knows more about it, let me know!

Kathleen

Welcoming everyone to the emotional feelings network of sites blog
Mood:  not sure
Now Playing: why are people so intimidated by discussing emotions & feelings?
Topic: emotions & feelings
Hey all...
I've been working really hard on the sites, the emotional feelings network of sites, that is... & I'm hoping that this blog will be useful for all my visitors.

I often write a few comments or columns in the sites, but I think that adding what my thoughts are day in and day out, as far as my own personal dealings with emotions & feelings will he especially helpful to me & hopefully just as helpful to those of you who are on the special journey of recovery from "something," in life.

I guess I began realizing how important emotions & feelings were when I had completed anxieties 101,the mental health website. I was realizing that there were things that I felt deep inside me that had to to with the symptoms of the post traumatic stress I was experiencing.

I decided to look into it more & before I knew it - the emotional feelings network of sites became a reality.

The thing I don't get is, why are people so intimidated about sharing what they feel? I'm wondering if it's hurtful? to them to simply explore an emotion or feeling, embarrassing? or just unacceptable?

I've passed the point of caring about being judged by anyone. It's not important to me. What I hold precious is listening to what other people think about things. I've found that thru my correspondences with others thru the websites that I learn such valuable lessons, those I may have never thought of or those that may have taken me a decade to discover myself.

I'm so happy when I can identify with someone that is feeling what I am feeling. I'm excited when I can debate an issue, an emotion, a feeling or a belief... it's great, sharing is really caring. So why are some so closed to the idea of sending an email of inquiry?

I'm hoping that this blog can be helpful for those exploring their emotions & feelings.... I'm really hopeful about it!

kathleen