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Post-pardom is not random.

This documentary on Brooke Shields turned out to be a good example of widowisms and the tight loyalty bonds daughters develop with Black Widow (borderline) mothers. Brooke's mom sold her into Hollywood while projecting the need for Brooke to be the parent in the relationship. When Brooke had her first child, she imagined horrific deaths for her newborn. I know these thoughts all too well. It's only now that I realize that these thoughts are not some random depression. It's seething anger at the fact that mom has been neglected and negated by her parents for decades only to end up having a baby who she thought might give her the love and attention she'd been waiting for all of this time but instead, the innocent baby ends up stealing her thunder. Mom must now step aside, yet again, for the next 20 years to continue on as a caretaker for the baby.

This isn't random post-pardom depression. This is a deep seeded reminder of childhood neglect in violence and abuse, that mom has not faced and worked through. The film does a good job of covering how we tend to find ourselves through different states of mind.  For more details on borderline mother behaviors:

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When two borders coming off the line are dying to say, "I love you," but still aren't sure of the consequences or what that even means.

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A Borderline Post L.S.D. | Part I

I come from a disturbing family chemistry and my childhood was, at times, traumatic with violence, anger, harassment, neglect, humiliation, drugs, sexual misconduct, and adult expectations. I was trained to shrug it all off for so long that when I became an adult, allowed to leave that environment, I continuously re-created that environment around me while playing the role of child with my hand out looking for the adult guidance, care and love I waited patiently for during my 18 years of childhood. 

I was a ball of self-entitled anger by then because the job of raising me wasn’t done. I felt like somebody owed me a whole hell of a lot and I destroyed every relationship in my path to get what I was (and still am) owed. I spent the first 40 years of my life creating situations where I would be treated poorly in anger, neglect, and humiliation. I needed to be the victim in order to justify my own level of spent anger. 

My family is trained to understand that the most direct way to receive attention, which doubles as love, is to be sick. It’s not high-quality attention because the family member taking care of you is pissed because they have more important things to do. But at least we knew that family member would give us attention with a health concern near death. 

No one in my family pays many authentic compliments to each other. If they do, they would artfully go negative at the end of the same sentence in a gaslight flare. It’s a calling card way of leaving each of us with a sense of humiliation and shame that we absorb, remember, and repeat the experience to our own children, who would then absorb the same experience over the years, continuing the legacy.  Everyone would tell me that I had daddy issues but logically that didn’t make sense. He was never in my life. I didn’t know him enough to have a real issue with him. Granted his absence made a severe impact but that wasn’t what I was carrying. That didn’t create the venom I was made of. There was something hazardously toxic in my blood. I knew it but I couldn’t find it underneath my angry manifestations, selfishness, abuse to others, emotional addictions, and, the favorite, being the charming victim with a pretty face. My mom and I had a disconnected relationship where I carried the burden of creating ways for us to be connected. The vision was for her to one day see me, but, she continues to look through me over to something else more important to her. The closer I got to 18, the more I accepted that we’d never be close, but we were still attached by this thick toxic steel bond. I couldn’t really shake her loose in order to explore my own life and thoughts. I felt stuck fighting for a closeness from her that I knew I wasn’t going to get. 

Her behavior towards me reached high abuse levels at 17. What I didn’t understand at the time is that she was throwing a tantrum at the fact that I would be 18 in another year. As an adult, I could break this dysfunctional bond that she sees as love for her. She was acting out on very high levels like a teenager, except she was the mom and I was the teenager. 

One day we had reached an abuse plateau and this time when she raised her hand like the scene was choreographed for an action film, I raised mine to have her feel every swing that she was taking out on me. It took around 5 blows for her to realize that she was being hit by me at the same time in her fury.  She stopped confused and then looked amazed at me that I would fight back and amazed that I was stronger than her. She stepped back from me to regroup for a day, maybe two. That’s when her darkness hit a deeper level of mind control and she started her real work. Her vengeance focused on me for 30 years after that.  

A few days after this incident she initiated a makeup conversation where she did most of the talking and gently informed me that she was smart and knew that my anger was not for her. It was for my dad and I was directing my anger towards her because she was the only one who was and will ever be there for me. That was the first spark of information that told me that something was unusually wrong with her. By saying that, she absolved herself of any poor parenting and bad behavior. No apologies ever. Nothing. She’d reinvented herself from a raving sociopath to Mom the Hero who knew all in less than two days.

Needless to say, I’d lost my way in young adulthood and wandered the East Coast from one self-destructive life to another for 25 years. I was always crying and screaming, “Why won’t someone help me?” Yet, I didn’t even know what that meant. What kind of help? I was able-bodied and highly intelligent enough to take on the world and turn just about any opportunity into gold. I’d done it several times. Working up success for myself only to fall into the trap I’d continually lay for myself to prevent actual success took a toll over the years. I must’ve reinvented myself every 3 months after a self-actualized trauma session.  Exhausting.

When I’d finally hit bottom in family court, facing life-sucking fines beyond my current means, I heard the voice in my head screaming, “Why is this happening to me??? I was only trying to do [whatever it was this time] because [someone/thing easy to blame] happened and it/they forced me into this position. Why won’t anyone help me????” My mind wandered from the court proceedings as I realized that I had run out of friends and family to feel sorry for me and get me out of this situation. I had sucked my friends dry of attention and care. They were exhausted by me. At this moment, the lightbulb went off. I couldn’t be helped. I had to decide if I wanted to live some type of life or keep descending down this dark well of self-invented sorrows. 

I was sick of hearing the wails, cries, and excuses in my head. I couldn’t sleep the voices were so loud. Talk talk talk talk, yet not saying much of anything that would help. I snapped back into the court proceedings while someone was explaining my legal responsibilities before I signed the financial agreement. I interrupted her by putting pen to paper and signing the document. The only way out of this situation was to sign the agreement and stop fighting the court. Many people live in worse situations. I could work out a way to live with this until paid off. It’s something that I am good at, so why not use it to help me find my way. Otherwise, those stressful proceedings would have gone on forever.

 It was my first adult decision. The idea of taking responsibility for this remarkable fine gave me an edge of power over my sociopathic ex-husband. What if one day I paid it? It was not fair that I had to pay it but.. if I paid it, that would close a very dark chapter of my life with this man. I would be free to truly live my life in a much different way. 

I started brainstorming on what I would do with my life next. Possible directions I could take. Unfortunately, I had nothing to go on because I did not see my value to anyone. I was nobody all of the time. There’s no life template for a nobody.  My mind had no capacity to imagine life only destruction, which was an avid addiction that I couldn’t just pour down the sink. Speaking of which, I drank 1 bottle of wine per night just to turn off the voices in my mind. 

I could reinvent myself into a new presentation at the drop of a hat but I didn’t have the capacity to see myself. It was way easier to just be nobody. I started my journey to a better life by investigating this internal darkness and found that my issue lived in my head. It was me. I was creating all of the need for desperate help. I hired a line of pointless therapists who knew that I was borderline but wouldn’t touch my mental illness with a 10-foot pole. 

Without proper mental interpretation, I felt like my only purpose in life was to be a burden or make others miserable. Why be on this earth then? I couldn’t think of a reason. After a couple of failed suicide attempts that I didn’t want to bother anyone about, because it would just agitate them or their lives, I started digging inside myself for happiness. It didn’t make sense for some people to be born with the ability to be happy and others not. Granted a therapist did tell me that could be the case with me but I just could believe that. 

Moving forward in search of what made me happy, I decided to make logical decisions based on the facts in front of me and my intuition. It was never wrong, I just never listened to it. That’s when I started traveling the world to place myself in genuinely joyful circumstances to study the behavior of happy people. I was moving in the right direction but I was still always the outsider looking in. I could join in a good time but couldn’t grasp the warm earthy happiness. Where is it? Life was better but I never fit in anywhere. I slowly developed physical limitations that resulted in massive pain. I knew that I was doing this to myself but how do I get out of my head to repair myself?

For the next ten years, I struggled to decipher and manage one tiny puzzle piece of my mind every few months when rumors began to surface about ayahuasca, mushrooms, peyote, and the ever-so-scant whispers of LSD. 

To be continued...

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In Utero

Great movie about how the environment affects the fetus, which connects to the state of adult mental health. "N UTERO is a cinematic rumination on life in the womb and its lasting impact on human development, human behavior, and the state of the world." You have the option to donate but are not encouraged or required to in order to see the movie.

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Victims Make for Nice Ladies

This story is two-fold:

Dealing with sexual harassment from the widowed edge

A widowed reaction to how I handled that harassment

Swapping COVID Shutdown stories one night, I shared the rare story about renting a room for the first time after living rent free traveling the world for 5 years as an international house sitter. I was not looking forward to paying rent but my business collapsed in 3 days once they called the shutdown. I had no job and no home. So I reached out to someone in my meditation group, which I’ve been participating in for around a year. He had mentioned at an event once that he rented out a room in his home from time to time and that if I ever felt the need for a stationary residence we could talk. So we talked during the first days of shutdown and struck up a deal.

It was clear in the first few days that he had a problem interacting with women. Covert narcissist with a hero complex. Okay. I realized that if this arrangement were to work, I could never take the bait with him and get into arguments. I needed to focus on myself. My work. My future. He would regularly try to push my buttons because he knew what made women angry and what made them scared. I know this technique. I didn’t quite know how I knew but he reminded me of past boyfriends and I decided with him that I would not follow the same path as I had in the past with men. I would react in the exact opposite way to him until the shutdown was lifted with my focus squarely on renting my own place. 

After a few weeks, he acquired a girlfriend who distracted him from me, and I started getting secret requests (due to the shutdown) for overnight house sits. So our living arrangements, from my perspective, were working out. I would go on 7-14 day house sits and stay at the owner's homes with the love of animals and a space of my own. I’d check in for mail and belongings at my residence every few days. After a few weeks though, I had this insane feeling that he had been in my room. I thought that things had been moved but couldn’t be in any way sure. It was just a creepy feeling. I shook it off and regained focus. I needed to keep making money, paying bills, and raising my credit score to be attractive to leasing companies with nice apartments in the upcoming months.

Then the inevitable happened the following week. He put my mail in the neatest pile on the corner of my bed where I would see it when I walked through the bedroom door and took my shoes, which were to be left at the front door, neatly set on the bedroom floor at the corner of the bed under the mail. He wanted me to react by going out to him in fury waving my arms and confronting him about being in my room while he stood as the victim of my monstrous anger. A reason to ask me to leave without notice among other things; a reason to make his girlfriend jealous, a reason to get the passionate attention he’d been looking for from me. From his girlfriend. Who knows? Once again though, I couldn’t be 100% sure. Was it him? Was it his girlfriend? Was it me? Was I just nuts? I couldn’t really have that conversation with him without being sure of the details. I felt violated but I simply had no time to be violated. I refused to make my housing decisions out of desperation. I wasn’t going to live in a dump because I’d pick the first apt that would get me out of his place the soonest. Fuck that. I just did that very thing during the shutdown with this nut sack now doing who knows what in my room. Fact of the matter was, this guy was and may still be a freakshow. I wasn’t about to move the spotlight off of him by freaking out myself, so I cooled down and thought about an alternative move.

To buy myself some time I did not react. I was as nice as pie around the house. Syrup. Honey. Helpful. 

And then it came to me. I bought a camera and placed in right atop my headboard with a flashing red light that’s easy to see when walking in my door.

Sure enough. 2 mornings later. I caught him. I thought the notification was a false read of shadows crossing in front of the lens but no, it was this motherfucker rummaging through all my things. He was smelling my desk lamp. My desk lamp? And shaking his head in disapproval at it. He was in my closet rummaging. And smelling. As I watched him rummage around I just filled with horrific anger. Horrific anger… and sadness somewhat for Joe. It was clear that he was on this mission to get my attention to direct emotions at him. How does he not see how starved he is for… something in his life? In our agreement, he said that he needed to store some things in my closet that he didn’t ever use but now it was clear that he would use that as an excuse to always be in my room with no regard for my privacy or rental laws. After another anger cool-down session from catching him in my room yet again that night, I took a few deep long breaths and called him: Joe: Hello? Me: Hey Joe. Listen. I see that you are having a tough time getting to your things in the closet and I want to offer my help in getting you to you stuff a little easier by moving your things into the hall closet. I’m really good at Tetris and can fit a ton of stuff in~ Joe: Um. Uh uuuh um. Did? Do? You have? …a…camera …. In your closet? Me: Something like that. Look, I can help you with this. I don’t mind. Imagine not having that extra uncomfortable stress of having to go into my room and having to go through all of my stuff to get to yours on a regular basis. That must suck for you. [My heart was beating out of my chest and my face was hot tamale red. I could feel it. I refused to cry. I was getting what I needed out of this arrangement with dignity.] Joe: … … … L- Lem- Lemme call you back. [He hung up] I took a few deep breaths and waited out in the yard. I needed the air. “You cocksucker,” I thought, “Common. Call me. I dare you.”

Remember when I said that there were 2 stories? Well this is the point where my story was interrupted by a woman in the conversation. She burst out to me, “Oh my god, you… manipulated him.” I replied, “Yes. Instead of being a desperate, defensive, violated victim, a game that I am used to playing, I utilized my other skills for a more powerful turnout in my favor and to a certain extent help out Joe as he clearly has a problem. She looked at me a little amazed, not sure what to do with me now. What? I didn't call the police, have him beat up, or simply suffer from an anxiety disorder that I'm on medication for? I could see her searching her mind on a non-sympathetic response. Then it dawned on me that if women do not react defensively out of desperation or fear, they are designated as evil, witch, cunning, and dangerously manipulative. In addition, that person, regardless of gender, is no longer the submissive. Therefore, those looking for submissives in order to gain power or just self-confidence have no leverage.

If women see the whole situation not just their perspective and make a move out of sheer logic to live their lives, not for an agenda, they are considered dangerous or crazy. Toxic. They certainly can be toxic because manipulation is a powerful thing. But what if that power were used, however, to debunk our programming as women, daughters, and mothers? What if that power were used to re-masculate men? Even lamp-smelling Joe. Sounds scary doesn’t it? But… what if we could train men to be themselves as creatures in this world with women without emasculating them by calling them predators and designating their penises as weapons of female and child destruction? 

I started to observe this woman more deeply to find that she starts and maintains friendships by putting friends on pedestals and showing them off in groups without the friend’s permission. It looks like support but she chooses personal things about her friends to praise them to others about. It’s uncomfortable. Degrading. It makes her seem like Mother Teresa because she rains this uncomfortable praise that friends then feel obligated to accept as friendship support. Even Love. The thing about a widow putting someone on a pedestal is how the widow craves to knock them off. One is always slapped and blindsided in the process. Her wife is the opposite; quiet and looking to leave her marriage and her own ego. There was talk a while back that they might split up among acts of depression, but an odd accident occurred where the Quiet wife’s leg was broken in a few places during a walk one morning. No one can really understand how. So they stayed together and Quiet wife was cared for by Pedestal wife but Quiet wife couldn’t seem to get 100% better. Still in pain over time, she decided to fast for 14 days and is getting better but living as the martyr not eating and as a shadow under Pedestal wife who announces to the group what a trooper she is to cook a meal for us all while fasting. I can't quite tell who manifested the leg break but I see widowhood in both. I’m not really sure if Quiet wife knows of her widowed behavior but Pedestal wife knows of the manipulative skills that she is capable of and rides the border between extrovert in public and child regression in private. Yes. I used my widow skills to get myself out of a jam without publicly shaming Joe or causing a scene. Joe may have actually learned something about himself, no police were called or mutual friends dragged into the situation to take sides. I didn't need to be saved and neither did he. We each took responsibility for our individual positions in our situation and uncomfortably saw the situation through to the other side. Had I just taken the popular way out and completely lost my shit, that would not have been the case.

Before hearing my story, the Pedestal wife thought that she had me in her "praise game"… but she'd never met my mother. It would take a lot more than compliments to hook me in. Mother. That’s a story for another lifetime.

Back to Joe. He never called me again. That night he texted a refreshed version of our agreement where he said that he needed to be in my room with no explanation as to why. I reminded him that I needed the legal 24 hours notice.  He agreed and then never entered my room again. He must’ve called a lawyer for advice who told him to get everything in writing. I immediately hunted for the right apartment in my price range and found a great little place in 2 months. I rarely slept in my room but his girlfriend was living there by then, which helped Joe and I keep up the facade. The first time I got back after our talk he was sweating balls when I came through the front door. His girlfriend was hanging a picture I think. I chose to be a ray of sunshine wishing everyone a big hello. He was beside himself with the unknown of what I might do or say or do in the future. I did nothing. I packed up as soon as I could and live the rest of my life in peace. Otherwise known as the best revenge.

He gave me a rave review as the best tenant he ever had when the leasing company called for a reference. I mean... I have the camera tapes.

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Letting go gives us freedom and freedom is the only condition for happiness.

Thich Nhat Hanh (via onlinecounsellingcollege)

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Letting go isn’t the end of the world; it’s the beginning of a new life.

Unknown (via onlinecounsellingcollege)

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You get to try for as many things as you want for as much as you want for the remainder of your life.

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The worst loneliness is not to be comfortable with yourself.

Mark Twain (via onlinecounsellingcollege)

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Do you have ever gone in silence? Find out the purpose of life after enjoying the silence in your mind. Peace is so essential that’s what conventional Dharma is talking about. If you know your purpose in life and live your purpose. A day come sooner when you will become the successful in your life. Watch this Spiritual Guru’s video and find your purpose in life.

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In his book seven spiritual laws of success Deepak Chopra’s one essential law is the law of intention and desire. In this post Power of Intention explain the meaning of powerful intentions and desire. What kind of techniques you can apply to attract the desirable things in your life? In fact you can compare law of intention and desires law with law of attraction. Find Intention law correction definition by Deepak Chopra in this video.

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The brain makes happen what it sees. What are you showing your brain?

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Always defend your right to heal at your own pace. You are taking your time. You are allowed to take your time.

Unknown (via onlinecounsellingcollege)

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No one ever needs to settle for anything. Set your boundaries and they will love you like you need to be loved. 

WHAT THE FUCK! 

“i have been desired, but i have not been loved.”

what the fuck. WHAT THE FUCK. i have never known how to say that.

Even now. 

I swear to god. 

they just want an idea of me. 

And I know…

I know that I will have to settle for that.

… for the rest of my life. 

 I don’t know if I’ll ever have past that. 

maybe i’m wrong. 

There’s some love in it. there’s wanting love in it. 

but I know I’m mostly an idea. 

[widowbits-blog]

Yup! It looks like you are doing just fine. It’s *we* who could not live in the terra zone *we were* living in. Our relationship turned ugly with resentment and distrust. How long can 2 people live like that? Don’t you think we’d done it long enough? Didn’t we need a break for repairs? Although you are angry for things that you are not comfortable discussing, I see those things, my dear, and I raise you up to get passed exhausting survival and consider living in peace comfort and happiness. True happiness. That takes some courage for both of us. I’m here to make good because I owe it to you, it’s right and it comes from true love. We need a *way* different relationship than we had before. I know exactly where your head is at because you are now who I have been. I know, Cheyfaun, you never got your turn girl. You waited patiently for me, but you never got your turn. After 20-something years... I know. Let’s talk about that and start over. It’s okay to start something over from scratch to get it right. Whatever blossoms from that will be what it is. Could be deep or it could be mild but the support will be there for you none the less. I’m glad you kept the things that I sent you. They had your name all over them. They were otherwise going to charity and I placed too much value on those things :) to just give them to *anybody*. Talk to me when you are ready, but I’ll always be checking in. Life is quite different now. Life is clear, concise and peaceful. How do I eat an elephant? 1 piece at a time. (I don’t actually eat elephants)   ~ Love mom who deeply loves you. (You’ve always been my girl and I never transcended that. Always busy with some self spun drama. I know. I remember that lady painfully but honestly)

My mother told me once, when I was 19, with a therapist present, that I didn’t have a way of living and that that’s why we couldn’t have a healthy relationship. She said that once I’d figured that out, then we could have something. Then, we could be okay. She’s looking for me now, my mother. Trying to… be there, trying to make me… come back to her trying to… trick me, even. It feels like tricking, at least. It’s like wanting the sun after you tried to make it feel like nothing for burning, for being itself, for protecting itself when it’s being blasted upon- by you! It’s like after all that, telling the sun- hold on a second, wait! This has gone on long enough. lets be friends, cause I want to now. Not that I’m the sun. Not really. I mean, sometimes. It’s just a comparison so you get what I’m saying. I believed her, for a long time I think. I may very well have believed her up until today. I mean, what do I know about living, about life? I’m young. And I know how to survive. That’s about it. What I, and many many others forget is that surviving means being resourceful. It means making something out of absolutely nothing out of less than nothing. That’s what being black means too. That’s what being femme means. That’s what being us means, doesn’t it? That’s what being us means. So, as it turns out, I know something about living. I know something about putting a life together, I know something about putting my life together and keeping my life together and flourishing MY life. This is MY life. This is what my life looks like. And it’s something, it is everything actually, to me. It is everything. Get used to it. Me, my mother, my sister we are so… so similar to the gilmore’s it’s scary. “Look around… this is a life! It has a little color in it, so it might look unfamiliar to you, but it’s a life.” It is a life. This *is* indeed a life and and it is indeed colorful it is indeed a life and it has indeed always, ALWAYS, been here. I never needed to find anything- I mean I did but everybody has to find things- what I mean is I NEVER needed to to find a way to be better I never needed to be better I never needed to change I was ALWAYS better. I was always me, and I was always enough. This was always enough.