Now I’m scared.

They got my hopes up, damn it. Now I’m actually scared. I had managed to get into a comfort zone, ignoring things or just getting on with it. Now I have a dangling hope of escape and it’s scaring the hell out of me.

I’ve been having some tests done on my memory. Not sure if I’ve mentioned my short term memory loss. I can’t hang on to a thought longer than a few seconds. Or as the old expression goes, in one ear and out the other.

About four years ago, I’d been tested for dementia. It was past due for a re-test. My memory is even worse. But they’ve been talking a lot about other things. Lots of side glances and knowing nods. Asking if I want to talk to people and being very willing to make sure it’s ‘on the sly’, or at least, so it’s stuck in with their normal scheduling. Talking about getting me my own income support, about women’s shelters, about emotional help. I didn’t even tell them about the murder attempts. Or maybe I did, using other phrases or word clues that they recognized, that I didn’t know I was giving.

They wanted to know, if I tested positive for dementia, what I wanted to be done. Would my partner care for me? Lots of other pointed questions.

A few years ago, I was free. But the government switched their position and so it was, it was the street or back in with my partner. I chose my partner. But if I ever leave again, there will be no going back. And the government has screwed me once. They can do it again. And I’ll have no backup, no net, no hope. I’ll be totally screwed.

The last (and only) time I tried calling a helpline, I hung up before they answered. My hands shook for hours after.

They’re going to have to do some almighty talking to make me think it can be a permanent freedom. If there’s a remote chance it can go sour I won’t even start it. I can’t take that kind of fear.

I’m too tired for this shit.

The other day, I asked my partner where the large ace bandages were. I’d done something to my knee while sleeping, suspect I’d laid on it in such a way the joint slid sideways slightly. It hurt like hades and was difficult to walk on. Now, I didn’t tell him why I wanted the bandage or what I think I’d done. I just asked him where the bandages were.

Two days later, he had a ‘broken rib’.

He can’t tolerate it when it isn’t him that is the sickest. Broken bones are the unprovable go-to for being suddenly, without reason, sick. His bones have been brittle in the past, but he’s been on the ‘normal’ scale for some years. Yet he can break bones by – breathing. Sitting. Laying down. When he has a broken rib, he finds it difficult to walk. Tells me constantly he’s an old man, now. He grunts with each step. Moans picking up a cup. Takes baby steps. The problem with all this – he only does it when he thinks I can see or hear him. He takes tiny steps until he can’t see me. Then he walks normally. It’s so incredibly childish. I tell him to go to the hospital. He says there’s nothing they can do for him. I think there’s only so much faking you can do and you can’t fake an x-ray.

This is only one example. It happens every single time.

And I’ve recently had a couple of things happen that have kind of freaked me out. He knows about one of them but not the other.

I was cooking some chicken legs. Put them in the oven, set the temp and the timer, gave them 30 minutes. The timer goes off, I check on them, and decide they need another 15 minutes. I could not, for the life of me, set the timer. I’d push the little clock icon and it kept telling me 17 hours – I couldn’t get it to change! (it was 5pm.) After messing with it for a few minutes I finally went to ask him for help. About 2 inches to the right of the clock icon is a dial, that you turn, to set the timer. Remember, I’d just set it 30 minutes previous! The second he turned it, I remembered, yeah, that’s how you do it. But when I was trying to do it…my vision kind of ended on the clock icon. I didn’t even see the dial just to the right. It wasn’t there. I didn’t think there was something there. It was just …blank. This hasn’t happened again since then, but that scared the crap out of me.

Then a few days later. I feel an abrasion on my finger. Look at it and see this scab like thing. My nose had been running so I thought it was a bit of dried snot I’d not noticed. Tried to wash it off. It didn’t wash off. I look closer. There’s a divot in my finger – a gouge about the size and shape of a long-grain rice, with this tiny, hard scab. It’s deep (rice size), but it’s not red. It’s not sore. No blistering. Just a gouge with a tiny scab. I have no memory at all of hurting myself. I have no idea how long I’d had it (must have been some time, it was pretty much healed by the time I saw it. Or noticed it, rather.) And that scared the fuck out of me. I didn’t tell him about it. I didn’t want to see what he’d do to himself to top that.

Come to think of it, I think he did top it. Maybe a week later we were expecting an amazon delivery and his medication. The door buzzes, he goes to answer it. He thanks the amazon guy, sets the box next to the door and goes into the kitchen. I ask what the delivery is. He bitches that the medical people only delivered one box. I’m looking at the amazon box. I tell him its an amazon box. He says his dry goods delivery got shorted, he’s only got one box. He has gotten very forgetful lately. But that kind of confusion, I don’t know. I do know it happened after the oven incident.

I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. The problem with dealing with a known lier is you can’t tell when they’re telling the truth. And I’m sounding paranoid. One of the tells for getting gaslighted is you start thinking you’re crazy.

Or, as one of my ‘friends’ once said, maybe you are crazy.

I did have an appointment to have an MRI, before an as yet unset appointment with the memory people. I had a massive asthma attack and had to cancel the MRI. I asked him to call the memory people to see if I could still be seen without it. The front desk woman wanted to ‘reschedule’ the (as yet unset) appointment for six months. Partner said that the decision was above her pay grade and to have the doctor call. The doctor has not called. He has not followed up on it. They already ‘lost’ me once, missing two years of follow-ups. I guess I’m going to get lost again. I could call, myself, of course. But for two things. I’ve developed some weird-ass phone phobia. And I have a real hard time with accents, I have to watch people’s lips.

One of the reasons I put these two incidences on this post was to help me remember them when I ever get to see the memory clinic again. It may not matter.

I’m tired. Not necessarily physically tired, but emotionally tired. I don’t feel like I have any endurance left. I can’t just keep on fighting it.

I’m also having some language problems and the social problems that come from it. But that is for another post.

I’m not the only one, it seems.

A while back a young man from our family, let’s call him HA, visited for a while. I walk into the living room to find HA pacing furiously back and forth, his hands waving, talking passionately about – well, taxes, I think. My partner, his uncle, is calmly sitting, interjecting something every once in a while, which would, no surprise, set HA off on another tangent.

I thought I was the only one my partner did that to. I’d never seen him play ‘devil’s advocate’ (read: provoking) with anyone in his family. Oh, he lied to them, constantly, but he didn’t play those kinds of mind games. At least, that I could see. It surprised me. I thought about telling the kid, hey, look at what he’s doing. He’s just saying whatever it takes to rile you up. But I didn’t. He wouldn’t have believed me. I guess I’m not the only one, after all.

I am a meat sack with no value.

Many years ago, I saw a meme/questionnaire or something, that posed this question.

A woman was at a funeral and saw a man she really liked. She wanted to know him better, but he left before she could talk to him. What did she do, to find and meet with him again?
Answer: she killed someone, so he would show up at their funeral.

To a sociopath, people aren’t people, they’re just meat sacks to manipulate into doing what is wanted.

First, Trump tweets something incendiary. Then waits.

Someone with a gun, usually young, white and male, goes out to kill those people that Trump doesn’t like. And, also, maybe these young white men don’t like. He is being patriotic by taking care of a problem Trump has identified.

Next, lots of people are dead, sometimes including the shooter, and a city goes into shock and mourning.

Trump announces he’s going to go visit them, at the place of shooting or survivers in hospitals. Sometimes, they ask that he doesn’t come, but he does anyway.

Protesters are fenced off a long way away.

Trump supporters are found and given the opportunity to meet with the president. They take selfies, lots of smiles, handshakes, and compliments. Media are not allowed in, but there are WH photographers there to catch the heart-melting moments.

This is a pattern that has happened how many times? 4? 6? Enough that I see a very distinct pattern.

Trump knows when he goes to these places of mourning, people will give him an ego boost. Trump’s handlers are making very sure of this, by ensuring the place he is at, brings in the Trump supporters. (Like the last one, with the infant that had been release, being brought back for a photo op. Babys, aww.*) How long have they been doing this?

To me, this is the pattern of a sociopath. In his case, it’s murder-by-proxy, with his twitter posts. Waits for the deaths. Goes to the place of the tragedy. Meets his supporters who shower him with love. He is desperate for the accolades. Repeat.

Trump knows what he’s doing. He knows some ‘crazy/patriot’ will go out and kill a lot of people. He’s not just okay with this, he needs it. He doesn’t see the dead people as people. They are pawns, just as the shooters are, in him getting what he needs. Approval. Love. Accolades. People calling him ‘sir’.

*When I first saw that photograph, of Melania holding the infant and Donald standing next to him, thumbs up and a big smile, my first thought was he’s happy because this infants Mexican parents were dead. I read that the brother of one of the dead parents said they were Trump supporters. So I guess they’re happy their baby got to meet their hero.

What does this have to do with me? It’s background anxiety, ratcheting up more each day. America, a country I love and respect, is going crazy. Russia, blows up a nuclear-powered rocket, echoes of Chernobyl. China is building up to a social cleansing in Hong Kong, reminiscent of Tiananmen Square. Central and South America are in melt down. The United Kingdom is pushing hard for a hard Brexit, cause …oh hell, that’s complicated. Dictators and death are on the rise. There is nothing I can do about it, except go about my daily life and hope I’m not blown out of existence some day. I’m collateral damage. I am a meat sack that has no value.

I’m a woman of means!

I was once advised there were two subjects that would have the most negative impact on your marriage. Sex and money. And boy, ain’t that the truth.

Up until now, I felt fairly confident I couldn’t lay the charge of financial abuse at his feet. Sure, there were a couple of times where he was on shaky grounds. Like when he sold the family car to a friend of his. He didn’t volunteer how much he sold it for – and I didn’t ask. I didn’t ask because I knew very well he basically gave it away. I never saw a dime of it – he didn’t even just give me a couple of bucks. It went into a drawer and was handed out over the weeks, you guessed it, to his friends.

Or the time he was given an envelope of cash, which he kept in my desk drawer. I didn’t count how much was in it, I really didn’t care. But a few months down the line, I happen to see the envelope and wonder how much it was. I opened it to find 120 USD in there. When we got it, it was a good 1 inch thick. He refused to say what he’d done with it, except when I said, What did you do with it? he said: I can’t do anything with dollars! Which is, you notice, not an answer. He gave it to ‘friends’, I’m sure. For me not to notice him taking it, he had to have come sneaking in while I slept, and take out a few bills, here and there. He really can’t be trusted with large sums of money. He gives it away to ‘friends’. And I’m sure his ‘friends’ would dry up if he suddenly didn’t have cash to give away.

So, now we are caught up.

His brother recently gave him some money. Ah, let us tell it like it happened. He comes in, and says, while I was visiting brother, he told me he’s giving away some money to all his brothers and their wives. He gave me Eleventy-Thousand dollars!* in this breathless, over the top voice, that tells me he’s lying. This voice is one I recognize when he’s trying to either get a rise out of me or when he doesn’t want me to look too closely at it, but at whatever he says next. He says: He gave me Eleventy-Thousand dollars and I’m giving you half! You’re going to get Sixity-Hundred dollars! You are a woman of means! You’re rich! You can do anything you want with it, it’s yours! The money arrived last week, you’re rich!

At this point, it’d been almost 6 weeks since he got back from his family trip. I said: so it took you a month before you got around to telling me, and another week since you’ve actually had the cash?

He looks at me blankly. I don’t think this was part of his pre-planned conversation. He continues: now that you’re rich, you can help pay for any appliances that need to be replaced. ahh. There it is. The take back. Every single thing he has given me, he has taken something back. There is no free gift. New paint on the bedroom walls? Get rid of the hundreds of book. New carpet? Give away the dvds. Trip to Egypt? Stop smoking. New monitor? Oo-aw, so pretty, I think I’ll keep it.

Then the next day; you’re a woman of means, now! You can pay for your own charity. Me: you’ve always paid for both of us. Are you saying you refuse to pay mine now? Him: you’re a woman of means now! …nickel, dime, nickel, dime. And he’s clawed back a good portion of the money.

Due to some circumstances beyond our control, he has the money in an account of his other brother. Technically, it’s not ours. But we have access to it. Or rather, he has access to it, I do not. But all I need to do is ask him for any of it that I want, and he’ll get it to me. In my world, that’s called a gatekeeper.

Now I was already suspicious over the way he presented this wonderful opportunity to be a woman of means. And the take-backs. I’m suspecting something is off. So I asked him to show me the money in the account. He pulls it up, but does not open the full monthly account. The total shows not Eleventy-Thousand bucks – it shows Twentity-Two Thousand… and change. It showed, in other words, double the amount he told me.

My heart died just a little bit.

And I’m not sure why, but I didn’t press him to open it fully. I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Why the hell I did that, I don’t know. I’m a coward? I couldn’t face that he would do that to me.

Now I sit here and wonder what I should do. I can;

Take the money, literally, have him pull the amount given to me, in cash, and stuff my pillow with it. It can be bolt money – used if I need to run.
Leave the money in the account and use as wished, because hello, even the fraction he’s willing to give me is more than I’ll ever see in my life.
Refuse the money, because my sense of moral outrage wants to one-upmanship him.

I could also ask him to again open the account. After all, he’s told me I can have access to the money any time. So that account holds ‘my’ money. Then, open the account fully and make sure there was only Twentity-Two Thousand in there, and that there hadn’t been One-Hundredity-Thousand at first, before it being moved along.

He’s starting to sound like a drug lord. But no, he’s not smart enough to be a drug lord. I will take his reason his brother was giving away his money before he died, so it doesn’t get tied up in taxes and lawyers. His brother would have to give away money to everyone, so no one contested they didn’t get what they should have.

The thing is, this whole thing has really stressed me out. What do I do? I’m such a damn coward. My heart is having a rough time of it. And by that I mean, it’s beating arhythmicity. I’m hyperventilating, breathing on the top of my lungs. I’m dizzy. My hands shake. I’m actually afraid I won’t make it through the night. I could die in my sleep.

And he gets all the money to himself, gets rid of me, and he’s innocent as hell. Fuck that. If I go, I want to take him with me.

No, I’m not going to kill him. I’d have to clean up the blood. No. I … seriously. The only thing I’ve ever, ever wanted, is for his family to know what a fucking dick he is. They all think he’s this kind, generous, caring, sweet guy. don’t you just love him to bits? But he’s not.

And his ganking me out of a lot of money (and making sure I have to go through him to get at it) means I can add financial abuse to his list.

*Eleventy-Thousand dollars exaggerated for comedic effect.

EDIT: all kidding aside. I realize I need to make something clear. The amount of money gifted to my partner is peanuts. I am poor – I’ve been poor all my life. Any amount of money that pays at least my monthly rent is a lot of money. Most people would consider it their coffee money for the month.

Hysterical

Back in my day, says the granny, they were called buttons, or hot buttons. When someone was emotionally manipulating you, they were pushing your buttons. I don’t think, or at least don’t remember, an expression for getting triggered. Perhaps ‘trip’, as in having a bad trip, which could happen even without pharmaceuticals.

I do have buttons that are going to guarantee setting me off. Injustice. any-ism. Inequality. Abuse. I get angry.

I had recently watched an Australian show about a woman with 2500 ‘split personalities’, which they now call Dissociative Identity Disorder. I didn’t buy it at first, come on, 2,500 of them? But by the end of the show, I was willing to concede it could have happened. A couple of weeks later, I saw a show about Sybil. Rember that movie/book? With Sally Fields. Sybil had 12 ‘personalities’. This show was called Sybil; a brilliant hysterical? Filmed in 2014. The premise for this show was Sybil was a con, her psychiatrist was a con. It was all faked – seriously, 12 personalities?

I don’t have any triggers about Sybil. I watched it with my kids, I only had good memories of it. So I wasn’t sure what had triggered me. And boy, was I triggered. I couldn’t sleep, my heart was racing. My hands shaking. My mind spun around. They wanted us to believe 2500 personalities in one person, but not 12 in another? And my god – hysterical? They called Sybil hysterical?

And boom, that was it. They called her hysterical. She was angry. She was hurt. She was defending herself. Hysterical? Oh, hell no.

That’s how it happens. A woman get angry? no no no. She’s hysterical. A man can be angry. He can be enraged to the point of murder. But its women who are infantized. Demeaned. Crippled by the social expectation to eat it. Swallow it down. Don’t show anger. If you don’t, you will be called ‘hysterical’.

Fine, you think the Sybil case is just a big con. Fine. Say that. But say she was hysterical? Fuuuuuuuuck no.

I am not hysterical. I’m angry. I am fucking pissed. In the immortal words of JI Jane, ‘Bite my dick‘.

Shake it off

My partner was gone a couple of weeks. When he got back, lots of things were discussed. But the thing I want to talk about first is my hand waving.

A few hours after getting back, he says ‘come here’. He’s standing about 5 inches in front of me. I figure I’m going to get a hug. I brace myself. I can do it. I can take a hug. His hands reach up – but it’s not a hug. He’s going for my face. He’s going to touch my face. Not hit, just touch. I can’t stand having my face touched. I don’t know if he saw something in my expression or if my face wasn’t his target. His hands sweep up, past my face, and bury themselves in my hair. He says: you washed your hair.

I don’t know why he feels compelled to make these kinds of comments. Every time he touches me, he mentions my skin is dry, like I didn’t know that. I won’t let him put lotion on my back (the only place I can’t reach) because every single time he does, he hurts me. He puts so much pressure on, it’s like he’s trying to oil bovine leather. I can feel every ridge of his fingerprints, as he scrapes up and down my back. How does he even do that? Is my skin so sensitive I can feel them, or is he doing some kind of angle and pressure that turns them into sandpaper?

So, he says ‘you washed your hair’. I back up, smack up against the refrigerator. I slide to the right, away from him. I walk into the living room (only a few steps) and I see I’m making ‘go away’ motions with my hands. At least, in my head, they are ‘go away’ motions. Also seeing it as someone standing, looking at myself, they look remarkably like ‘flapping.’ I was so distressed, I was literally beside myself.

I think the main problem was I got surprised. I was braced for a hug and that didn’t happen. But for pete’s sake, all he did was touch my hair. How that triggered hand flapping, I don’t know.

Munchausen by proxy?

A while back, forget which day, I mentioned on this blog that I’d really wished I could talk to a psychologist over the phone. It was the Ellen Show post if you want to glance at it. As far as I remember, it is the only time I’ve mentioned it.

Last week, partner came home from a meeting with his psychologist. (I was unaware he’d even gone, I thought he was giving a blood sample.) He hands me a note, which was the telephone number he’d gotten from his psyc, a number for phone consultations for a psychologist. I thanked him. And a few minutes later, my heart broke.

I do not recall saying anything to him on the subject. I’d only mentioned it here.

Now, I know at one point he was monitoring my online activity. Things he’d say on subjects I’d googled a few days previously. I found the dongle on the back of my computer. If he is – well, basically stalking me – I don’t know how he’s doing it. He’s the tech-savvy one, not me.

So him coming home with this number shattered me. I felt very violated.

But I checked the stats on that page, and it only looks like it was me that reviewed the page. So let’s say I did say something to him about it and have forgotten I did.

This is the person who says he’ll get me water/tea and ‘forgets’ by the time he’s out the bedroom door. If he forgets so easily, or quickly, how did he remember I wanted that phone number? Because if I had said something, it would have been months ago. Long enough that I’ve forgotten I said it.

I can only imagine what he’s telling his shrink about me. I know how he lies, with silence and a downward look. Maybe a little handwringing and a sniff. A monotone ‘she does the best she can.’ which is true – but the monotone voice says ‘not a damn thing’.

Sometimes, yes, he does need to look after me. When he remembers. What is he telling his shrink? I’ll be damned if I know. But… here’s the rub. I’m starting to feel crazy.

He has never had to look after any person other than himself. Ever. He’ll help his mom or dad, sure, but there’s always someone else there, as ‘back up’. It is not his job! He’s the ‘sicko’. HE IS THE SICKO. It’s everyone else’s job to take care of him. That is the way things are. It’s how it’s ever been. And he seriously resents having to look after me.

Unless I am in the hospital. Then he’s there every day. Moisturizing my feet. Combing my hair. Reading to me or watching a TV show on a laptop. People tell him how amazing he is. How dedicated and loving. They admire him.

Munchausen by proxy? Well, no. Not unless he’s triggering my illness. And I can’t say he isn’t. Maybe he just likes the admiration people give him. Doctors and nurses. It makes him feel important.

It makes me feel sick.

Terrorizing

My partner drives like a maniac. And I’m not talking like the joke cliché of a woman screaming ‘slow down, you’re going to kill us’, to the man driving 10 miles an hour. No, I truly mean he drives like a mad man. He knows how to drive, but the second he gets behind the wheel, his dick grows 10 sizes and he becomes aggressive. We sold ‘our’ car two years ago. He didn’t tell me how much he sold it for, and I never got any of the money. Since he sold it to a friend, I suspect he basically gave it away. I was just glad it was gone and I didn’t have to make up excuses not to go anywhere with him.

This story wasn’t the first time I was in a car with him. But it was in the first week.

We’re going up a long road. Far ahead, I can see cars sitting, waiting for the light to turn green. There were four lanes, and they all had four or five cars in line. We’re maybe a quarter of a mile away. He’s going the speed limit. Once we’re on the straight, he speeds up. And keeps speeding up. My foot involuntarily makes breaking motions. I tell him to slow down and he ignores me. The point where I would have started breaking, if I were driving, comes and goes. The point where at our speed, I don’t think we’ll be able to stop without hitting the stationary cars, comes and goes. I said, ‘What the hell are you doing?’ I brace myself. He says, ‘They’ll move out of the way.’ (remember, four cars deep, sitting at a red light. They are going nowhere.) When he finally hits the brakes, the nose of the car goes down, I’m thrown forward and we come to a screeching halt. Inches from the car in front of us. I must have looked pretty pale. He just laughed and laughed.

He did it once when his brother was in the car. His brother pitched a mild-mannered fit and told him to stop. He did stop driving like that when his brother was in the car. But he still did when it was only me.

Before him, I was a good, solid driver. But I was in a different country then. The roads were smaller, very winding, and I became very afraid of being on the road, in a car with him. I became so afraid, I didn’t update my license and have never driven again.

The years passed, I became more afraid. First, I always hung onto the door handle. Then I hung on to the seat belt. It just got worse and worse. He’d aggressively move into the flow of traffic. Cut people off. Stopped hard. Rode on peoples bumpers. My heart would pound, I’d hold my breath. And after a few years, I just closed my eyes, held onto the seat belt, and waited to die. If I told him to slow down, he’d go so slow, barely over idle speed. I was afraid someone would ram us, expecting us to be going the speed limit. He’d sneer and say, see, I’m slowing down.

I slowly stopped going out with him. I stopped socializing because I couldn’t take being in a car with him, and my disability made using public transport impossible. If I had to go, I’d spend the entire trip with my eyes closed. One day he noticed my eyes closed and just laughed. He practically pissed himself, he laughed so hard.

I thought he was just being a dick.

But looking back now, I think it was torture. Not a joky kind of torture, but real, dangling off a face cliff torture. Every single time I got in a car with him driving, I expected to die. He put me in physical danger day after day. He liked the control, I guess. My face full of fear. Pale and trembling. It was fun for him. A good laugh.

edit:

I guess I should say how this has impacted my life. I can’t drive. I’m afraid of narrow roads. I will not get in a car with my partner driving. My socializing has tanked, I just don’t now. (I can sit in a taxi, though, without fear. I expect them to be respectful drivers and so far, they have been.) The sound of a car’s breaks squeaking, even if I’m not in a car, makes my heart pound in fear. I am terrorized of cars, driving, travel, and roads. I think I might be for the rest of my life.

MWSA

It’s been a rough week. For a change, it’s not my partner who’s giving me a hard time. He’s been really nice these last few months. I don’t expect it to last. No, it’s not him. It’s everything else.

World events. I read and watch the news. Since Trump got elected president, the world has gone to hell in a handbasket. I am not a Trump fan. I do try to keep an open mind. Just one example: I figured, no one had ever tried to out-crazy Kim Jong Un before, maybe it’ll work? I kept giving him excuses. I did try. But it was like every time he opened his mouth, he said something that got my back up. … anyway, I hadn’t planned on this being an anti-Trump post. I wanted to touch on the tariff thing he has going on with China.

He keeps telling people how the tariffs will mean China has to pay us more. How they will pay for our commodities. Over and over, until it got to the point where I wasn’t sure how tariffs worked anymore.

This is called gaslighting. Being told something so often and repeatedly, that you come to believe it, even though you know it’s not true.

It’s not just Trump and his menagerie of sycophants who are currently and continuously in the news, as disgusting as they all are. But then there’s Alabama* putting a life sentence on doctors who give women abortions. I felt physically sick when I’d heard. Women are not going to stop from having and enjoying sex (sorry guys, that horse got loose a long time ago). What this law is going to do is make women go to dangerous lengths to stop a pregnancy. My grandmother had a wire clothes hanger termination when she was 17. My great-grandmother did it. Now, women only need to take a pill. The ‘fruits’ of rape do not have to be born. And one of those places that will sell you that pill is China. Unfortunately, they don’t have any regulations on how safe these pills need to be. But when you’re against a wall, a lot of women will take the chance.

It makes me sick thinking of the unholy choices women are going to have to make.

Then there are the deaths of Doris Day and Tim Conway. Two people I admired even though I never met them. Their deaths make me sad.

Then there’s Barr, for god sakes, the damn head of the DOJ, spouting conspiracy theories. And Trump saying now that Meuller has turned in the report, any further action is treason. Investigate the investigators! I’ve read the Meuller report, all of it. Repeatedly saying ‘no collusion, no obstruction’ is just another attempt at gaslighting. I’m getting gaslit from my partner, I sure in hell don’t need it from my president, too.

I’m not sleeping well. My stomach hurts from tension. I keep getting stabbing temple headaches. ‘Mindfulness’ is a placebo that isn’t working. Even my mental safe place isn’t working. I feel shattered. Cracked just enough to have all hope slowing seeping out my eyes.

And this word, ’embolden’. I don’t like this word, I don’t think it’s accurate enough. Reporters saying; so-and-so was emboldened by Trump policy… No. These people have always been here. They’ve always had brass balls. They’ve always slug their tar and sludge. They’re not ’emboldened’. They are enabled – empowered.

This week, I feel shattered. There’s too much going on and I feel overwhelmed. Beaten up. Enough. The world needs to go sane again. MWSA. yup yup.

*for some reason, I published Alabama as Virginia. Senior moment! Corrected.