The Random Dilettante

I just had the biggest break through..and all from watching “The Soprano’s” (First Season)

So I was watching it, and the lead character (Tony Soprano) has this crazy mom, and from the second I saw her she reminded me of my mother. She’s eternally miserable..all that stuff. Plus, in the show, he puts her in a “retirement home” because she kept having incidents at home, kitchen fire..stuff like that. So he sends her there, it’s a really nice fancy place, but she hates it of course, and continues to act in a way that always keeps him feeling bad, and on his toes because of constant antics.

What’s even stranger, is just like my mother, the mother on the show had 2 other children besides Tony (girls), but they had disappeared the minute they turned 18, leaving Tony…who was always the one who felt like he could make things better, and with the idea that “this is my mother, how could I abandon her?” type of thing. Much like me. (My mom had 2 children from a previous marriage, before she adopted me. Her son, and other daughter are non-existent)

So anyway, Tony see’s a psychiatrist who eventually addresses the issue of his mother, and tells him that from what she knows of her, she’s a classic case of “Borderline Personality Disorder” and then she goes into the symptoms.

My mouth about dropped open. It’s my mom..through and through. We all knew she was crazy..but I didn’t know they had a name for it. It explains a lot about why she’s always acted the way she has.

If you have a sec, read some of the symptoms of it. I had to look it up online. In the show the doctor is trying to make Tony understand it’s not his fault, and it was totally out of his control how his mother acted. He has a lot of feelings of worthlessness because in his eyes, if your own mother doesn’t like you, or treats you how his did to him, than what good are you…type of thing. I can totally relate…but knowing the way my mom acts actually has a name, REALLY HELPS..well as much as it can.

Signs and symptoms of borderline personality disorder may include:

Difficulty controlling emotions or impulses
Frequent emotional ups and downs
Impulsive actions
Mood swings
Stormy relationships
Intense anger, possibly involving physical fights
Casting others in terms of good or bad
Feeling of emptiness inside
Fear of being alone

“Borderline Personality Disorder, or BPD, is relatively common yet it’s not talked about very much. With at least two to three percent of the population suffering from BPD (by conservative estimates), there are many millions of kids–now adults–who were likely raised by someone with its symptoms. The effects on these adult children can be profound and long-lasting.”

Growing up, did your parent:

- Tease you, often cruelly, about physical attributes, mental abilities, intelligence or habits?

- Say one thing one day and the opposite the next?

- Share inappropriate information or secrets with you?

- Expect you to take his side or share her opinion?

- Treat you like an adult instead of a child?

- Discount, deny or ignore your feelings, especially anger?

- Did you often feel: scared; confused; angry; guilty; responsible; old; listless; invisible; unlovable?

As an adult, do you:

- Find yourself in abusive, unfulfilling or unhealthy relationships?

- Have difficulty trusting?

- Usually expect the worst?

- Feel responsible for others?

- Have a hard time knowing what you want?

- Feel uneasy with success or enjoying life

- Get highly anxious in social or new situations

- Hold yourself to standards nearing perfection

- Feel worthless, hopeless or depressed?”

And one last thing to totally convince me this is my mother :

The Borderline Mother

1. Confuses or frightens her child
2. Does not apologize or is unable to recall inappropriate behavior
3. Expects to be taken care of
4. Punishes or discourages independence
5. Envies, ignores, or demeans her child’s accomplishments
6. Destroys, denigrates, or undermines self-esteem
7. Expects child to respond to her needs
8. Disciplines inconsistently or punitively
9. Feels threatened or resentful if the child is loved by others
10.Uses threats of abandonment or actually abandons the child
11.Does not believe in her own or her child’s basic goodness

It’s scary how fitting this is, everything from how I was treated growing up to some feelings I have now. Anyway the stuff from above is from a book called “Surviving a Borderline Parent” of which I will be buying ASAP. It certainly can’t hurt.

What’s cool is, now if anyone asks me about my mom, and they’ve seen The Sopranos…all I have to say is..”You know Tony Sopranos mom? That’s her.” Heh..makes it easy. In the show she stirs up enough shit to eventually get his own people mad at him and get a hit put on him. So thankfully my mom has no Mafia affiliations, haha.

Yes…long post…sorry about that. Had to get it off my chest.

P.S. - If your interested in some background info about my situation with my mother, refer to:

“Bat’s In The Belfrey”

“#2″


“Wow”

OK, she borrowed them. But she’s never returned them, so now it’s stealing right??

So anyway, the lady that lived next door came over one night asking to borrow some spoons, because she was in the process of moving and she had packed hers already.

Me being the nice person I am, gladly handed over some spoons..I think 4 or 5.

Well, she’s never returned them, and I am trying to function in a house with 4 spoons, talk about a hard life! Especially with a toddler in the house, that eats best with a spoon. I am forced to HAND WASH spoons through out my day…sigh…

So PLEASE - return my spoons, OR…OR…..man……I’ll have to go buy some new ones. And if I have to do that, I’ll be mumbling under my breath the whole time about how I can’t believe you didn’t give them back.

(If that doesn’t scare her into returning them - nothing will.)

Give me a break,
Break me off a piece of that KIT KAT BAR

Sorry I got carried away….

Back on track -

Did you know a lot of the American public have nothing better to worry about than a book written by a recovering alcoholic, that turns out is partly fictional, instead of all fact?

GASP! OMG! let’s all freak out…I mean this man duped OPRAH!! You don’t dupe OPRAH! She’s a god now or something..I dunno.

For crying out loud. I like Oprah..I do. But I’m watching her show right now and it’s pissing me off. I just feel as though, it’s a BOOK, and if we have nothing better to do than worry about a book…than hell….thats f*cking sad. Why? Because we all know there’s real shit to worry about right now.

She keeps saying the book was so “fantastical” — yeah, so is the Bible Oprah. And I bet parts of it are embellished too. Launch a show against it, and tell us all how betrayed you feel that every single detail might not be true.

All this because the book should have said “based on a true story”

COME ON

Is it me, or does this shit just seem wildly trivial???? In the same hand she will criticize the media for not telling us what we need to hear…and then she lends her hand in helping them do it. WTF

I must be missing something. (it wouldn’t be the first time)

* If you haven’t heard about this lame piece of hype and feel like joining the crowd - GO HERE.

(click play to listen)

This is an original song written by Jordis for Rockstar:INXS - if I remember right, I think Marty helped her out a bit.

Anyway..I need to look up on her, she needs to get an album out. I love her voice..and I like this song for many reasons, one, I can relate (usually when I’m in a grumpy, pissy mood), and two, it’s just catchy. (to me anyway)

And just so it’s clear, I’m not playing this for some hidden meaning, into my man dragging me down. I think we are responsible for dragging ourselves down (or letting ourselves be), no matter what the situation. Actually this song makes me think of my mother, as bad as that is. But she’s one of those that would gladly pull you down to drown with her if she could. She used to have such a hold on me it was crazy, I’d be so busy trying to calm the waters I would forget about me - on all levels. My thoughts, feelings, needs weren’t important to her, or me. Which is where my problem was..who cares if it was important to her, it should have been to me. Had I not got that in check, there’s no doubt in my mind I would have done drowned by now.

SO yeah..it’s good to cut off the dead weight.

** Update** — I looked into what Jordis was doing, and it turns out she’s been working on an album due to be released sometime this spring!! And guess what?! One of her singles is going to be “Try not” - she has an official website now, http://www.jordismusic.com, and if you go to it and register they let you hear the full studio version of Try Not. I like it, it’s definitely more polished, but they slowed it down a lot and took some of the passion out of it, so it’s going to take a little getting used too.

Can’t wait to buy her album though.

If your interested in the new version..here it is:

(I think it should work)

I’m so ready to duel right now. Underestimate me and find the quickest way to get this red-head on fire.

Grab unto me like the rest - we’re all the same right???????

Drones with tits - that’s us.

Blahhh..anyway

I seriously think I could blow up the f*cking world and still noone would leave a damn comment. Of course everyone would be dead, but that’s little consolation.

(yes..bad mood…nothing a little sleep and coffee shouldn’t fix)

Welcome Home!!

This is my buddy Rob - he just got back from Iraq last night, after a year and a half..something like that. (So long I lost track!) He’s a big meanie, but even big meanies deserve a “welcome home” I guess At least, he has good intentions …only for himself..but they’re good, so I can’t hate on that. Gotta look out for #1 right?

Right.

(Don’t ask me what the title is all about, I hadn’t had any coffee yet, so shhhhh)

In 10 minutes this morning I solved almost every issue I had with my template that had previously stumped me the entire day/night yesterday. I tried over and over to find what was making my margins overflow and cutting off my side bar text, or better yet, making my sidebar non-existent. But for all I tried, nothing seemed to help.

This morning I woke up and diligently stared at the stylesheet for a few minutes, and all of a sudden I knew just what to adjust - so I changed a few numbers, published it, and walla!

I must have been getting in my own way yesterday. Don’t you hate when that happens?

Overall, I’m happy with it, there’s still a few bugs to work out (like why my pic on top flickers when you run the mouse over it) but all in all, I don’t have many complaints..and I’m picky!

Anyway, my Saturday night was beyond exciting, sitting at my desk, troubleshooting the page code- going out to the club/bar or hanging with friends is wayyy overrated. Well…at least my night was cheaper!?! Ok, we all know better, but I could think of worst nights. *desperately trying to make myself feel better, heh.

Coffee, coffee, coffee - need it - going to get it -more later!


PS - About to drink my coffee, and seeing “blog successfully published” - it was such a sweet moment, I had to take a pic

These past few days I’ve been seriously slacking…with you know, day to day stuff. The motivation hasn’t really been there, so everything from the stock of food in my house, to the mail in my mailbox has been neglected.

Food in this house is pretty scarce, unless you count frozen chicken and v8. I’ve raided the pantry of all my options, so today I have to make the dreaded trip to the commissary. Grocery shopping really isn’t my thing…ok shopping in general isn’t.

If I could do it all online, I wouldn’t have a problem with it though.

Oh yeah, and nothing good comes out of my mailbox half the time anyway, so I haven’t been in any hurry to empty it. It will probably just be a lot of advertisements trying to convince me to come out and shop, but we’ve established this isn’t really my thing..so yeah.

My main motivation for going grocery shopping today is I’m out of my creamer, and I need to go get some Starbucks “Sumatra” blend coffee from Target..it’s the shiiittttt. The kids need some food too, so there’s a tiny bit of motivation there too, but just a smidge.

Anyway, if you come away from reading this post feeling like I’ve stolen some brain cells away from you, I do sincerely apologize.

Unfortunately that’s all I have for now

Life has been a bit boring lately.

Dramatic ups and downs are rampant lately, which annoys me highly. Leading the race are irrational thoughts, the kind that are self created and marked by having too much time on my hands. From there we journey back to my annoyance of it all and attempting to figure out if I’m just delusional, or perhaps there’s a grain of sanity in my thoughts and perceptions of things.

Is it me?

Yeah Glenda, I think it is.

But is it ALL me?

That’s yet to be determined.

I will just keep reminding myself, that no matter what happens in life, regardless of circumstances and who or what I feel might be contributing to my moods, that ultimately I am the one in control. It’s a personal choice to let things get to you, and not a very wise one in my opinion. I believe your much better off just letting it all slide off your shoulder, I just need to work on my technique and speed up the process by skipping a few steps. The steps in between are whats killing me.

I woke up with the realization today that half my problem is my age. Life chips away at you, teaches you things, dampers expectations, heightens others…and although I am 29, I still have a lot to figure out.

It’s the innocence and ideals of what people and life are “supposed” to be like that are fading as reality continues to knock at my door.

Some people call it the “real world” - which has to be the worst way of summarizing such a huge ideal. It’s why when your parent’s tell you “Just wait until you get out in the real word”, your like…SEE ya suckers…not having a clue what’s really meant by that statement.

That “real world” is there to try and break you down, then build you up again piece by piece…stronger and wiser than ever.

Of course not all people get put back together, but I can tell I’m not one of those. 10 years ago I was so blind , I can’t even tell you who I was back then. I wasn’t anything really..just this girl wondering around aimlessly. Now days I see purpose in things, and I’m even starting to get a glimpse of my own purpose.

In just 10 years…all that. So think of me in another 10, or 20 - and watch out!

Wow..isn’t it great how I just talked myself out of a slump? I tell ya, blogs are the cheapest therapy you can get, whether you just read them, or your the one writing them.

There are “highs” in life and “lows” in life - I don’t understand why the distinction between them has to be so DAMN harsh.

One minute your flying high, the next…. your road kill. Is there an “in-between?” — FUCK.……..it only seems fair. Or maybe we choose to ignore the descent? If we do, I don’t think we do conscientiously..who in their right mind would ask for that? Not me.

Ultimately I think we all leave ourselves open for such falls–which means you only have yourself to blame in the end. You’re the one who climbed the mountain so high, noone else had a part in it, it was all you. People can only let you down when you choose to put them up so high.

The choice is ultimately yours.

My advice? Only expect things out of yourself. When people underestimate you…don’t feel the need to prove a damn thing, they will learn on their own - leave them to be the ones that are disappointed.

Make them work their way up — don’t put anyone up “there” and watch them crawl down. That’s like watching the Titanic sink and all the while thinking it had an honest chance.

Screw that.