A Dose of Reality

I've either met or communicated with many victims of abuse--clergy abuse in particular. The betrayal is the same whether it's from a parent, member of the clergy, or anyone else in the authority position. It's a tough thing to overcome, but I'm so happy to say that there are many survivors. Betty is one who has gone far beyond the world she knew.

Writing their stories of abuse has helped the three people I've worked with. People need to tell their stories. I can see the look of relief on the faces of those abused who come into my store where I display my books. Just having someone to talk with who understands what they've been through seems to help.

You are such a help to folks--we need more people like you.

Thanks, Alice. It's not something I expected to happen or looked for. It just kinda happened that people came to me and I was able to help. It feels good to help others. You know how it is. You do the same thing!

We have angels here!

It takes one to know one, Zada!


I will have to say that having Parkinson's disease has opened my eyes to a completely different world than what I had been accustomed to.

One day a woman knocked at our front door. She was wild-eyed amd looked like she was ready to snap.

"I should not be here!" she said .

"Why not?" I asked.

"Because you have so much trouble." She answered.

"Well come on in," I said, It sounds to me like you are at the right place. Trouble needs trouble, you wouldn't be very welcome at a party. "

She spilled out the most gut-wrenching situation I have ever heard.

She had been diagnosed with double breast cancer.

Her husband had terminal lung cancer. He had never smoked.

She kept saying , "I can't stand it. "

Finally I asked , "Are you suicidal?

I was relieved when she said, " No, I am too squeamish for that."

What a reality.

Things like that make me grateful that my troubles are so few. It also reminds me of the very special friends I have. See? I knew that you would help someone who showed up at your door.

Zada,

I was the lucky one that day. She became a very dear friend. She is still alive--her husband died just before this last Christmas.

That is one reason I really want people to live in their reality now.

Trouble may be just around the corner.

I know it is not easy, but somehow we have to leave the past in the past and deal with today.

My friend has to deal with the reality of PD--it will not just go away.

If and when they find a cure fine, in the meantime she needs to live with it.

She had plenty of books and she would quote to me from them.

She said she needed to learn to say, " PD be gone. "

I thought she should read up on PD , get on a schedule with her meds, exercise, etc.

I heard Michael J. Fox say, "I won't die from PD, but I will die with it."

Oh, how nice it would be to find a cure for PD and my cancer.

But Alice, we're going to live as well as we can with these afflictions.

You do good work, my dear friend.

Love ya, Carol

It's true Alice, that we must live in the today. But if we sit and wallow in it, we go nowhere. Where would you be if you had just given up? You accepted, fought and worked on getting help for your self and you have done so very much with your life. I think that it is okay to look and work toward a brighter tomorrow.

N/A

Carol, Love your new picture!

zadaconnaway wrote:

It's true Alice, that we must live in the today. But if we sit and wallow in it, we go nowhere. Where would you be if you had just given up? You accepted, fought and worked on getting help for your self and you have done so very much with your life. I think that it is okay to look to a brighter tomorrow.

Exactly Zada, I don't want anyone to wallow in their past or present.

I want them to be realilistic.

I have a patient now who is a mess. She was stubborn. She was never going to have a brain job.

She is having one June the 10th .

I was offered one and jumped at it--good thing 7 months later I would not have even qualified for it.

No one should ever give up. What they need to do is deal with the problem don't try to wish it away.

Alice,

All recent pictures were turning out terrible. I looked like I was dead. Our camera was old and I told my husband it was either the camera or the photographer. I wasn't going to accept the reality that I really looked terrible when people said I looked good.

I told the lady at the store the camera better make me look good.

It did. The grey hair kind of throws me, but I'm getting used to it and there is always the reality of light brown hair in a bottle. You can see the pricey hair care products are working in growing hair, since I'm still taking the meds that lost my hair.

Carol

Still the same eyes and smile, Carol, as well as your quiet strength. I like the picture, too.

Ann

Thanks Ann.

Carol

Well, another charming day of the real world.

My longest friend on earth came today to update me on her life.

What a life she has had--sorry but she makes me feel so lucky.

Her first husband was a brute of the lowest type. He brought home a social disease to her, molested their daughter and beat both of their children every week after church.

I hate to be skeptical, but I am. How does someone beat your children while you are in the house and you not know it?

When I asked her she said he took them upstairs and told them not to tell. I said, "Didn't they look a bit sad when they came down?"

I fear for her reality. Especailly when she said the kids preferred to be with him than with her.

Dear Alice,
She knew.

Tell her she knew.

She will hate you forever, but you will have told her.

Love,
Betty

Kids in that situation often are angry at their mother for not helping them.

Reality is neither all good nor all bad, but a little of both, except in the situation you speak of with your friend, Alice. That reality was bad.

I had a good day. I went out to lunch with a lot of ladies, some I didn't know before.

I sat next to a woman who raved about my book and the woman across from her asked to borrow it. The woman who had read the book was a history teacher and is very knowledgeable of the history in my book. She said I made the people come alive and the history real.

Carol

Betty,

Please elaborate further. I don't want her to hate me or herself.

I just don't buy everything that is fed to me. I do not think
she is trying to fool me.

I think she is fooled.

Dear Alice,
It is like if I had to confront my own mother with her knowledge of my sisters and my abuse. She would have been so angry and beaten me for even thinking such a thing. She would have said I made it up to get attention. Not a single one of my sisters would ever have been strong enough to tell her it was true.

The reason she would have been so angry is that she would have been expected to do something about it. Call the police, have him arrested, sent to jail. She was not willing to take the chance. She would have gone to jail with him.

She sacrificed all her children to save her own self . A mealy mouthed bat.

I wish I could say that I am not influenced by anger. It washes right over me. But, there are so many people who do not confront their fear and the anger of other people is the biggest fear they know.

I am brave in the face of anger this day. The power of anger is fierce because it puts you on the defense. You can have the choice of responding with anger or thinking about what is really said.

I read most of these post and see gentle posts. some turn into angry, but there is no reason for it. Communication takes a few more words, and a little more thought than the knee jert blab that causes a lot of hurt feeling.

We are writers, people who are supposed to communicate abstract ideas through the written word.

In my mind, there is no need for anger.

Perhaps we just fail at communication. It is important.

Love,
Betty

I just read this who diatribe and wondered what I was trying to say. I will say no more. hahha

Betty, the chameleon continues to visit Sport each evening I put her on the porch. It is quite amazing to me.

My friend of many years did tell her mother - to try and save her younger sister. Her mother threw her out of the house and you can just imagine what she called her. She suffered first the abuse, then the shunning, for a lifetime.of further traumas.

She didn't save her sister. She did eventually save herself; but it took a long road. In the last ten years, her sister told her what happened - but she knew better than to tell - and still has a relationship with her mother.

My friend has never reconciled with her mother; she did go to her father's dying bedside hoping for an apology but none was forthcoming. Her mother still says horrid things about her to whomever will listen.

I can only say that my friend's career has given hope and serenity to hundreds of souls living at death's door. Her compassion may be the result of her own traumatic life. We are shaped by the traumas and the joys of our life; and who we are in this moment; well, it's what we've got. It may just be okay.

Dear Diane,
For all the small children in this world who would be able to change their skins and live with all the colors they can imagine, God bless Camille and God bless Sport.

Isn't is nice for you and I to know these things about changing hides and being beautiful and seeing all the colors of the world.

I used to read the old tales of fantasy in my youth. Stories of things so far from my reality that they took me away from the real world. I remember them all by my heart. Every word, every Once Upon A Time.

There comes a time when one grows up and society demands that one pay attentions to reality. But, a part of me goes back to the I wish it was so days and the stories I read that made every princess beautiful and every dream prince brave.

I am encouraged in these thoughts by the animals that live here. Margaret, the fierce chicken, is laying eggs. I go out to gather eggs each day.

She squacks, faces me in the nest, jumps down, flies back up, bites me if she can and defends the egg that the other brown chicken is covering up.

You know, I love these little animals.

Love,
Betty

One can only do so much and we do have choices on how to react to the reality that faces us. And sometimes forgiveness doesn't happen and courage is in short supply.

Betty, you chose to live differently.

What is important is that you believe life can be better, that not everyone is a savage, but there are lots of good people.

Carol

I see the friendship between my bird and that chameleon that I would not have noticed if it wasn't for Betty's book, Wooffer. What else could it be that brings that chameleon to the same place on the screen at the same time each night right across from Sport's cage? And when I open the door to look, the chameleon does not move.

Whatever beauty we find in nature and in fanciful tales is part of the great mind we have for images of beauty that block out ugliness. I choose beauty.

DK,

Wooffer has had that effect on many of us. There is beauty in nature, from spider webs to chattering squirrels to pesky chipmunks. I realize there is savagery also, as there is in human life.

Betty's imaginings that brought her through a bad time, have brought joy to many.

I sometimes see anger on this messageboard, but not on this thread. I think people have resilience, some more than others. Some cannot make it in life, and others do so with dignity.

I choose to live in peace, knowing there is danger and nasty people, but decided long ago not to live in fear.

Carol