Maybe I should just keep remembering why it’s better just to avoid people. Supposedly I’m the crazy one?
The sooner I’m done dealing with those PBeM people, the better. Every day is more salt in the wound. A new low for them…and I really think they honestly think I’m the crazy bitch.
Tags: PBeM, dysfunctional drama
So, I may be the red head, but N2 is the stuborn one. She not only refuses to see my Point-of-view on anything ever, but she doesn’t want to work on our friendship. She’s decided that my accusations are just too hurful and she doesn’t want to deal with me anymore. She has instructed me not to IM or email her again.
SQ had me send her one last email saying “O.K. No Problem. ;)”. I kid you not.
I was like, “You know that’s just going to piss her off. I was just just not going to reply.” But SQ wanted me to make sure I had closure I guess. It was her idea to put the smilie face too.
It turns out that what SQ wasn’t telling me is that SQ hasn’t talked to N2 herself in months. She didn’t want to tell me because she didn’t want to influence my outcome. After the fact, she told me.
I was very upset about the way N2 treated me, how she didn’t even want to try to work on our friendship, which only proved that it wasn’t a friendship at all, which is what I was trying to say from the start and which she refused to understand. Her twisted view of what a friendship is and my view of what a friendship is, however, messed up my own version is, are no where near close.
Anyway, SQ told me afterwards that I’m not crazy, that N2 has done this to people before. She has a history of it.
So…you know the old saying about just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you? I was paranoid and for good reason. I was right.
And as SQ pointed out, even if I had been 90% wrong, if N2 had really been my friend, she wouldn’t have treated me the way she did.
So, N2 is out of my life.
I’m not going to pretend it doesn’t hurt. It never feels good when you let go of someone from your life who you were close to. It might be the right thing to do and it might be the healthy thing to do, but that doesn’t mean there’s not an ache or a void and like I said, I was upset and crying last night for a while. I’m a sensitive person and I’ve been under a lot of stress in other parts of my life lately.
But it’s like SQ says, eventually, it’ll be easier and I’ll probably realize that there’s been a weight lifted and probably this has only been adding stress to it all and things will just be better from here on out. I know SQ means well, but she does have a husband and didn’t have to face the big loneliness while clean sweeping the stressful people from her life. 
Anyway, well, N2 is connected with the only PBeM I’m still playing and that has been causing a lot of personal stress for me too. It hasn’t been fun for me in a while either. A lot of it is the people, mostly the moderators. So, while I was at it, I sent an email to the head moderator and said I was leaving the game. It was the fastest reply I ever got, which hurt my feelings for many reasons — I’ve been told repeatedly that she doesn’t have time to answer all of the game-related emails, etc. and she didn’t even bother to answer the email I sent her the day before that I wanted to take a hiatus and was considering leaving the game.
Then all she had to say was “sorry to hear and it’s for the best” with instructions on how to write out my characters since I’d kindly offered to write them out, unlike most players who just say, “bye” or disappear. I had thanked her for giving me a place to play my characters and said I had enjoyed myself rather than write an essay on why I was leaving and tell her what I really thought about her and her favoritism moderating stuck up self. Did I get a “thanks for playing with us” or “sorry to see you go” or “we’ll miss you” or “sure you don’t want to rethink staying?” No. No return kindness, not even phony return kindness. Just instructions on how I can help her.
I really wanted to tell her to shove her game and the characters up her ass, but of course SQ was like “oh you don’t know, maybe she’s hurt.”. She’s hurt? I’m the one who was treated like an outsider and nitpicked by N2 for six months and isolated and she’s hurt?
I’m glad I’m getting away from the crazy people. I don’t understand them. I’m constantly supposed to be giving them the benefit of the doubt and act gracefully as I leave, but they can walk all over me and that’s o.k.
I’m thirty-five years old. I want to stop reliving high-school. When do we get to stop doing that?
Tags: dysfunctional drama, friendship, PBeM
Some or a lot of this post may not make sense to you, dear readers. That’s fine. It’s not really for you. It’s for me, for later.
SQ noted that N2 wasn’t included in a general email I sent to several people updating them on my health. I replied that N2 hadn’t responded to my email from Sunday so I assumed that she didn’t really care one way or the other which is why I hadn’t included her. SQ’s response was to inquire as to whether or not I was sure N2 had actually gotten the email where I indicated that we needed to talk because I felt she hadn’t been talking to me of late.
Originally I had told SQ that I didn’t want to drag her into this tiff like the one last Spring, but I’ve been feeling very depressed the last 24 hours and so here is my response:
Nope.
But the fact is that she hasn’t bothered to talk to me in a week. If she didn’t get the email, that proves that she doesn’t want to talk to me. If she did get the email, that proves that she doesn’t want to talk to me.
She’s been pulling away for some time. For the last few weeks the only time she’s talked to me was when I wasn’t posting regularly on [the PBeM] and then rather than say “could you post on [the PBeM]?”, she’d say “Hey, how are you feeling?” When I’d try and contact her and ask her how her
life was doing and how [her son] was and just general chit chat, *if* she answered at all, which she usually didn’t, it was a word or two and that was it. I kind of got the feeling that if I was online and not posting, she was holding that against me, but I just didn’t feel well and I’m sorry but being awake enough to be online and creative enough to post are two different things.I don’t know. I just feel like this has been coming for ages. I don’t think [N2] is who I thought she was or maybe I’m not who she thought I was. I think we’ve grown apart.
It’s sad but looking back over the last six months, she hasn’t been very supportive when I’ve tried to talk to her about being sick, like she doesn’t believe me or something, and I just don’t think that kind of attitude is helpful or healthy for me. I get enough of that from my dad and his “suck it up” mentality.
I think I just didn’t realize what was happening. I’m usually socially clueless. I want to be everyone’s friend and I just keep trying and I don’t notice when I’m the only one trying. And maybe [N2] thinks she is trying. I guess I just feel like I’ve been tossed aside. I mean, we used to talk every day about everything, but now I don’t think I know anything that’s going on in her life and she isn’t willing to share. And sometimes I feel like it has everything to do with the games…like I’m not in the upper echelon of the gaming crew and therefore there’s no time for me anymore like I’m being pushed out.
I know this sounds stupid and silly but I feel like the unwanted, pathetic geek that no one wants anything to do with like back in high school all over again sometimes. I picture myself in those flashback scenes from “Never Been Kissed” as Josie. That was pretty much me. That’s the kind of rejected pain I feel. I know it’s ridiculous to feel that kind of pain over a game all these years later, but that is exactly what the “cliques” in the gaming circles remind me of sometimes — high school. It takes me right back. Which is why I’m thinking about just getting out all together. I’d miss the actual gaming part, but the high school spaz part I wouldn’t. Trying to find people to post with me. Trying to find people to participate in my storylines. Feeling like there are favorites and cliques. Feeling like an outsider. Feeling like it’s never really my time to shine.
Well, I think maybe I have said a lot more than I really meant to say when I started. The fact is that [N2] hasn’t bothered to talk to me either way so it doesn’t matter and I’ve been keeping up with posting so she hasn’t had to ask me about my health. But I didn’t want to drag you into things. I’m very sad about what’s happening and very hurt and a little angry but part of me is very accepting. It’s just a reminder that I need to get out more and meet more people.
Tags: dysfunctional drama, friendship, PBeMs, rejection
I think Pugly is part Tasmanian Devil. I would like to know how to get him to stop trying to chew and rip up my blanket, my clothes, my plastic bags, my bathmat and everything else. I also found puppy teeth marks on my laptop cord, which I have now treated with a bitter spray. We’ll see how that works. I also want him to stop nipping at and chewing on me. “No!” and “Ow!” don’t appear to work.
I’m also sore in my upper body this weekend too. I think/hope that has to do with carrying Pugly up and down the stairs and trying to hold him off at 3am when he goes all Tasmanian Devil on me.Tags: discombobulated, the puppy, dysfunctional drama
I know I’ve been quiet a couple of days. The truth is that there’s been some more arguing on the phone and in IMs and a couple of emails. Mostly it’s been one-sided so-called “Tough Love” coming from N2; at least that’s what she calls it.
I feel kind of beat up and sore and raw right now. It’s all been rather eye-openning.
Imagine finding out that the things your most afraid your friends will think about you are actually the things they think about you. But they “love you anyway” or they wouldn’t be talking to you about it. Quite frankly, I wouldn’t love me if I were all those horrible things she said I was.
And trust me, one of the things she said to me came very close to being on the list of things I might not have spoken to someone again for. Right under the one PW used on me before we didn’t speak for 3 years.
And she said all these horrible things, but I’m “not a bad person.” I’m just too negative and I make things too difficult for myself and I’m not reliable (because of my depression — though she refuses to accept that as a reason).
This is the one that I struggled with her on. She said that I refuse to accept responsibility for anything being my fault, but when I accept responsibility for things being my fault, she doesn’t seem to hear that. She says I blame everyone but myself. When I try to explain the situation, I’m making excuses. She doesn’t understand that someone can have an explanation and still know they are at fault and not be trying to excuse themselves from blame. So therefore because I try to analyze everything to explain why things happened, I ‘m making excuses and therefore blaming everyone but myself.
When I tried to explain to her that I am a self-blamer for everything in the world, she didn’t buy it. When I told her that I assume I’m always at fault and that one of my big issues is that I’m a failure and that I’ve disappointed my parents, I suddenly got the huge laundry list of how she failed her parents and how I couldn’t possibly be a bigger failure. Like it’s some competition. I didn’t even know how I was supposed to respond. I mean, I was trying to point out that I always assume I’m at fault and that I’ve done something wrong and suddenly I can’t possibly have screwed up more than her? How does that fit in?
And even stranger, one of the other people involved in the little Pow-wow that started all of this nonsense to begin with told me Thursday night that no one is 100% blameless in this — meaning everyone has to share the blame, all of us, right? Not just me. I’d really like to shove that down N2’s Tough Love spouting throat right about now.
Oh and the real kicker was being told that I’ve screwed up so bad that I’m going to have to “prove myself to them” all over again with these PBeMs. Quite frankly I don’t know that I care enough to want to “prove myself” to anyone, particularly them. I told N2 that I felt like they were going to need to prove themselves to me because right now I didn’t think they could be trusted again and as much as they say they’ve changed since the game we were in together last summer, I haven’t seen it. So it’s not fair for them to insist that they’ve changed and tell me I can’t use that as an example to not trust them when they’re using stuff from last year to hold over my head now. People change and I’ve been changing over the last month and if they can’t see that, then that’s their problem.
I finally did force her to listen to me talk about my Cognitive Therapy. I was really getting pissed off. She was just like my dad; she kept going on about how I dwell too much on things and how I need to just not think about things and I kept telling her that I suffer from General Anxiety Disorder and it’s not something I can just control; it’s a chemical imbalance. I told her that I’ve been trying to tell her about my therapy group/classes for a month because that’s what it’s about — teaching me how to retrain my brain to deal with those kinds of thoughts and situations. (I wish that we’d finished the class before I’d had to deal with last week. 
) I kind of think she finally got it, I hope. I explained that while normal people may be able to just make that decision not to think or dwell on something, I actually have to go through a process and I’m not done learning that process yet, which is why I’ve been trying to talk to her about it because I wanted to show her that I was in recovery and making important moves in my life to get well so that we wouldn’t continue to have the kind of issues we’ve had in the past.
Anyway, so I’m going to work on the being too negative thing….though I wish I knew if Janeane Garofalo’s friends complain about her being too negative. (Although to balance it out, apparantly I’m damned funny when I want to be…thing is I think being negative and funny are the same thing…)
Anyway, when I started this post I really didn’t mean to write all of this because I didn’t feel I was ready to share. I hope it didn’t come off as blame-y or negative. It’s going to take some time for me to heal emotionally from this, but it’s been a good reminder that I really need to make new friends, preferably ones with little need for drama.
(Also, I had a migraine from Wednesday until last night that finally went away. Yay. Obviously the trigger was stress and crying.)
Tags: friendship, dysfunctional drama, wellness, depression, anxiety
To: N2
From: N
Could you at least acknowledge either way that you’re at least getting these emails, that you’re alive, etc? Tell me to shut up and go away if that’s what you want but don’t leave me just sitting here wondering what’s going on.
Talk to me.
To: N
From: N2
Talk to you? About what? Your very unfair and kind of insulting temper tantrum on me yesterday?
We’re still friends, don’t worry.. but I need to cool down still…so give me some time.
To: N2
From: N
I’ll give you time, yes, but please take into account this perspective (as [SQ] would point out), your email to me from my perspective was very unfair and insulting and indicatated that you not only didn’t listen to anything I said the day before but you assumed I lied to you and you didn’t give me the benefit of the doubt….after you appeared to have stopped talking to me sometime the day before when I way trying to work out what was wrong.
[N2], I’ve been crying for 2 days and not about the game, but because I feel like you turned your back on me and shut me out and you’re my best friend and I can’t figure out what went wrong, which is why I think we need to talk on the phone. Maybe tonight rather than let this fester through obvious perspectives of emails.
To: N
From: N2
Did you not read [GM bitch]’s original email to you? She specifically said that I thought you should keep Willow and that it was her making the decision to remove Willow from you.
I did listen to everything you said and I took it all into account. You have not lost me as a friend, not one bit. I’m not even mad; just frustrated and irritated mostly that you found blame with everything but yourself and that you exaggerated on certain things to make it seem that you were that much more innocent and everyone else was that much worse. That happens to be a pet peeve of mine and I don’t take it from anyone, including my friends.
Yesterday, yes. I’ll admit I assumed you lied. It was a very, very -pat- coincidence that you started posting so much after [GM bitch] sent that email (which was cc’d to [SQ] and I and we both received it immediately after she sent it); the second thing was my first email to you yesterday morning, asking if you’d gotten it… and I got back one, single solitary word. “No.” Which is out of character for you. The third was that you found it… after I sent you an email about it…. you had to admit that when it’s laid out like that, it sounds quite planned.
Talking on the phone is fine and tonight is fine.. if I don’t hit the movies.
To: N2
From: N
First, I don’t lie to my friends and I don’t appreciate being called a liar by my friends who should know better. That is a pet peeve of mine.
Second, I had appologized the day before about the conversation on Tuesday night and had taken responsibility. However, it appears that it doesn’t matter how many times I appologize.
On Wednesday morning I specifically told you that I would be either posting for all of my characters before bed or before work from then on. I have been trying to explain to you since last week about setting up lists and schedules and how important that is to my recovery and it’s been increasingly frustrating to me that you don’t seem to be either interested
or don’t seem to remember.
I replied “no” because I was mad that I had tried to talk to you about the fact that you were brushing me off the day before and you weren’t responding AND I had not in fact gotten anything from [GM bitch].I have a separate beef with [GM bitch] now which I now understand is a separate thing and quite frankly I haven’t decided what to do about it. However, after receiving her email which I didn’t get until after I got to work yesterday and which I still feel was unfairly handled, I was quite upset and read your email that accused me of lying and it sent me over the edge.
Anyway, I’ll be home all night. I might even leave early.
To: GM bitch
CC: N2, SQ
From: N
In the future, I would prefer if you have an issue you would like to dissuss with me about a game, do not ask [N2] or [SQ] to approach me on the subject; I would prefer to discuss it with you personally if possible. I just feel that it adds complexities that need not be added to such situations.
I’ve requested similar before I know, but I would like to reiterrate this now since it appears to have become a problem again.
Thank you.
Tags: friendship, dysfunctional drama, PBeM
I’d like to say TGIF but quite frankly the day of the week means nothing to me. The weekend may be more time alone at home to sulk and stare at an empty inbox or an unrining telephone or an IM-less Y!M.
OK for about seven hours Sunny and Queer Eye will be there to distract me a little tomorrow but then it’ll be just me and the kitties and my runaway thoughts again.
I talked to SQ last night from about 11:30pm to about 1:30 (she’s on the West Coast, you know). She could tell I was distressed and didn’t want to let another day go by without trying to talk to me about another perspective and offer some suggestions on handling the “situation.”
The “situation” goes back to that earlier post about the PBeM issue but it goes back further than that and it doesn’t and it’s about other issues and it’s really about being angry at one person and what she did in specific and hurt by what N2 did or didn’t do or isn’t doing or may be acting and they’re kind of separate but they’re entertwined and to tell it my brain kind of goes off on tangents. At least I’ve figured out that I’ve been crying since Wednesday night but the tears are for N2 and not for the stupid game or the way that the GM bitch handled things. But I believe I deserve an appology by both of them.
So, anyway, SQ pointed out something I already knew. When your brain is running in place over the same track, it sometimes help to write it down so your brain can take a break, knowing it’s been put somewhere for save keeping. Well, I’m going to try. I appologize if this doesn’t make sense.
Last year, during my depressive episode, right around Hurricane Katrina, GM bitch and SQ first approached me about playing Willow in a Buffy/Angel PBeM. Normally I don’t play cannon characters as I don’t feel comfortable taking on already created characters but I was somewhat interested. However, between my depression and the Survival Guilt of Katrina, I decided not to join. I decided I couldn’t commit to the game at the time. A month or two later, they came back again as the girl they’d gotten to play Willow was a “nut job” and I had to come and save them. Reluctantly, I came to play but admittely I felt a little thrown into the wolves and unsure of myself.
Not to worry, I quickly discovered that GM bitch had plans for everything and she was constantly IMing me and sending me emails with instructions with what to do with Willow’s character. The one time I was actually doing something with Willow on my own, I was told to drop what she was doing and go do something else — when I complained about this last night, I was told by SQ that I should have spoken up then and therefore it’s my fault; I didn’t know I had a voice, but oh, well.
Anyway, like I said in the previous post, I kind of dropped the ball with the game. There was a four post per week minimum in “active” threads. I did find this difficult as one of the players I was in a scene with almost never posts more than once or twice a week herself if that, which has always been one of my pet peeves with her in other games. Then SQ moved all of our characters into another scene filled with other characters, lots of other characters and it was total chaos and it was, to me, impossible to figure out who was talking to who and where exactly everyone was standing. Not everyone was including such information in their “required” header information.
So,GM bitch sent an email to the game’s discussion list telling me to have Willow leave the new character she’d just brought with another character named Trysta and go look for Giles. So, I sent an email to the discussion list asking where Trysta was, if Trysta and Willow knew each other and if Trysta would mind telepathic contact.
That above email is the one that triggered everything supposedly. I was told that I was posting too many emails asking for help about being lost. (Mind you out of the 1099 posts on the discussion list since I’d joined in October I’d posted 44 total and only one asked a question about where anyone was, etc.) Anyway, that’s when suddenly N2 needed to “talk” to me.
O.K. Well, if you go read the other post, you know that sometime on Wednesday, N2 just plain stopped speaking to me. Certainly before that she wasn’t listening to anything I was telling her. I know specifically that I’d mapped out for her how I was going to be answering PBeM posts on a schedule of 30 min before bed or 30 min before work from then on. She obviously didn’t pay attention to this as you will see…and this was one of the first things I said in my initial appology to her on Wednesday.
When I got done working with Sunny Wednesday night, she still hadn’t answered any of my emails. I tried IMing her but she was very monosyllbic and cold. You know, you can always tell when someone doesn’t want to talk to you. You just know. So I said good night.
But I wrote another email and told her that I was very worried about our friendship, that whatever was up with the games, they were just games and that our friendship was certainly more important than that. I honestly told her that I was very depressed and hurt and that I needed her friendship and I wanted to fix whatever it was that had gone wrong.
I’ve never received a response.
I started crying that night. I cried most of yesterday.
True to my word, when I got up yesterday, I answered all open tags for my PBeM characters and then went to work. When I got to work there was an email from N2 asking me if I’d gotten “the email from GM bitch”. I replied “no”.
I got GM bitch’s email right after. (Please note that the time stamp said she’d mailed it from Austrailia on Wednesday at about 3:30pm)
It was a long unpleasant (in my opinion) email that basically said that N2 had “gone to bat” for me but GM bitch had made the decision to take away Willow from me. However, they didn’t want me to quit either game (I also play in her Firefly game) so I could make up a non-cannon character if I wanted.
Well, I was pissed off. I mean, why come to me on Tuesday night and tell me that I play a great Willow and that they don’t want me to quit playing Willow but thay they’re worried that I can’t keep up with the upcoming storyarc so they need to know if I can commit to it, let me commit to it and begin posting and then take the character away? What a friggin’ bitch?!
It felt like I was just starting to pull myself up out of the hole and she stepped on my fingers and kicked me in the stomach. Don’t make an offer you aren’t willing to go through with. And certainly don’t offer me a concolation prize. I only was in the game to play Willow. Fuck that! Which they begged me to do!
And this morning I realized why it really and truly upset me. It’s the associated memory. The rejection. The being fired. I know SQ kept saying that I wasn’t run out of the game because I had an option, but it wasn’t really an option to me. Why would I have stayed, really? It’d be like staying at a job after you’ve been demoted.
So, I quit the Buffy game.
Do I regret it. A little but only in that I feel like they should apologize and offer the character back, which they won’t. As SQ says, it’s a done deal.
So, GM bitch is at the top of my hate list right now which is kind of hard because I don’t want to have anything to do with her and the only game I have left is her other game and quite frankly I don’t trust her and despite what SQ says I do think she hunts for dysfunctional drama and it wouldn’t suprise me if she had a little chat room set up last night to talk bad about me and my little meltdown as I left the Buffy game.
What really pisses me off about her is that she always assumes the worst about me. She thinks I’m too negative and assumes that I mean something seriously when I’m joking and has accused me of such and told me to use Smileys when I’m being funny but then doesn’t believe the Smileys either.
Personally, she’s made this whole PBeM experience rather miserable. If it stays this way, maybe it’s time to finally leave roleplaying all together.
O.K. so back to N2.
After I wrote a nasty note to GM Bitch quiting her game and thanking her from always knowing when to kick me when I’m trying to pull myself up, I got N2’s response to my email that I hadn’t gotten “the email from the GM bitch”.
You didn’t… but now you’re posting like mad… cowinkydink?
You no longer have Willow, hon.
[N2]
Well, this kind of pissed me off.
I got [GM bitch]’s post after I got your email, after I had spent my morning
posting my posts like I told you I would do yesterday — post before work.
This is such bullshit.It doesn’t matter. I’m quiting Buffy. I might quit the other game too.
Thanks so much to all of you for kicking me in the stomach while I was
trying to pull myself up. You know what, I really needed some
understanding this week and I really needed my friends and I was really
trying to pull myself out of and sort things out the last few weeks but I
don’t need all this shit from people who are supposed to be my friends.You people obviously live on this drama. I did what I was supposed to do.
I posted my characters more than once this week and then I get this email
taking my character away. Bullshit.
I never received a response.
Last night my Y!M status message was “trust no one,” which SQ made me change. It now says, “It sucks to be Frodo.”
I feel betrayed by N2. I feel like she wasn’t there for me as a friend when I needed her. I feel like she repeatedly hasn’t been listening to me talk about my therapy and my treatment and my plans to get better and I’m hurt, particularly since she also suffers from depression. I resent that she judged me and told me that 20% of my problem is me and that she thinks I’ve gotten worse and that my meds aren’t working and then turned her back on me when my life went into crisis mode. I am hurt that our friendship is intermingled in this mess.
I have expressed in the past a dislike of having GM bitch send N2 to do her dirty work. This is why. If this gets fixed, I think I’m going to have to be more aggressive in explaining that in the future, either GM bitch comes to me or she sends someone else.
SQ tried to point out that N2 and I are alike in many ways, one of which is an aversion to conflict. It’s possible that once GM bitch made her decision on Wednesday, N2 just stopped communicating with me because she was afraid. Still, that hurts me too.
Anyway, this morning I sent one last olive branch to N2, an email telling her that I’d like to talk on the phone this weekend to straighten this out. There’s no reason that a stupid game should screw up our friendship. However I told her that the ball is in her court.
I have had no response.
Tags: PBeM, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, friendship, dysfunctional drama
When it feels as though your friends are abandoning you and that you’ve been betrayed and the world is crumbling around you, how do you stop the crying so you can just go on with your day?
How do you behave as if all is well in the world and your heart isn’t breaking while you sit at your desk wondering who you have left on your side?
When you’ve turned to a person you trusted and opened yourself up and been honest and needy and asked for understanding only to have them kick you even as you were reaching out for help, how do you face the tedious meetings and endless, boring daily routine?
Goddamit, why am I so fucking fragile?
Tags: dysfunctional drama, depression, anxiety
Let’s get something straight right now. We all have hobbies, right? I mean, there are those of you out there who are seriously interested in WWF wrestling, golf, knitting, scrapbooking, bird-watching, and even bigfoot hunting. I don’t mock. Much. These things are important to you.
I have a tendency to put down my own hobby as being silly and my therapist tries to discourage that because it’s important to me. I try to write-off it’s importance because it’s a “game.” Obviously games are not as important as other things in life and therefore don’t deserve to be worth emotional upset, in my mind. However, my therapist keeps assuring me that it’s o.k. to get upset and express it and not put myself down about being upset about it.
So. I’m upset.
The thing is that really I’m the only one to blame and so I’m mostly pissed at myself, which is easy to do when you generally accept that most things in life are your fault anyway. However in this case, I should have been a better player, but quite frankly the last few months I haven’t put a high priority on my Play-by-e-mail roleplaying games. I’ve kind of let them slide in favor of being depressed and mopey and then I used that as an excuse. I have lots of excuses.
So here’s the thing. I know and knew I wasn’t playing up to par. I’m not stupid or oblivious. It does make me somewhat hypocritical as it’s something I’ve complained about in other players in the past. However, the longer it kept sliding, the harder it was to pull myself back into shape and the longer no one mentioned it, the easier it was to keep letting it slide.
Now, here’s the thing. Just because I know I’m screwing up, it doesn’t mean I like having someone point out to me that I’m screwing up, because that means they know I’m not perfect. Or it means that they’re ruining the illusion I have that everyone might think I’m perfect if I close my eyes and pretend hard.
Really, who likes to be scolded and told they’ve fucked up?
And they (the game moderators) always send my friend N2 to “talk” to me about whatever the issue of the month is and then we get into a pisser. Take two depressives trying to analyze each other and one is trying to tell the other that she screwed up and the other is trying to protect herself by raising her defenses by blaming everyone but herself even though she knows she’s at fault. Shake well.
So, I was in an upward swing the last week or so. I’ve been busy with the cleaning and the puppy visiting and I even told my mother that I was feeling better and was excited about stuff. I’ve been enjoying all the sunlight and I’ve lost a couple of pounds and I’ve been downright chipper.
And usually when I think I’m making progress, I guess that’s when they think it’s time to send N2 in to deal with me. Maybe they think I can’t handle it when I’m “too low”. Usually, N2 “dealing” with me always knocks me back a bit. I think if she discussed it with me while I was down, I’d deal with it better because I’d already be there. Now I’ve got to crawl back out of the hole again.
And this morning, after thinking on it last night and oversleeping and thinking on it this morning, I wrote her a long email. I told her that basically I understand everything she said last night and that I agree that I hadn’t been setting a high priority for the games and that I was willing to change that. I explained that I don’t initially accept criticism well and tried to appologize for that. I thought I was being very mature.
And her response was to basically echo back that she was frustrated from last night about how I was making all those excuses and not accepting responsibility and how most of my problem with my depression is me. She told me that I need to make a decision about whether I’m going to commit to the game because they need me to post for my characters 4 times a week, etc.
And I got really mad and said that I thought my previous email had calmly explained all of that and how frustrated I was that she didn’t seem to understand that.
I haven’t received a response now in several hours.
I sent another email asking if she was pissed at me now. No response there either.
I don’t know. I really just want to get on my life, but I can’t until I know that she’s o.k. with it. That’s just how I am. I have to have closure of some sort or it just keeps eating me. That’s the General Anxiety Disorder.
Tags: PBeM, roleplaying, anxiety, dysfunctional drama
Well, it looks like probably in the next month or two, PW will be coming to stay for a few months. She thinks she’s burned her bridges with El’s family plus El’s sister and three nephews are due to move in once they can reclaim the house in Jefferson Parish. PW & El’s apartment will not be livable any time soon, but once Orleans Parish opens, PW and El’s entorage will have to go to the apartment to salvage what they can.
Once that’s done, while Associated Grocer’s is finding employment for displaced Associated Grocer’s customer’s employees and she’s likely to be able to find work, she’s concerned she won’t be able to find housing by then.
So, I offered my futon though it’s 1700 miles away.
It looks like she might take me up on it.
I know what you’re thinking…those of you who’ve followed me from Strategically Bent know that PW and I have a seriously bad history. We lived together for a year and a half ten years ago and it did not end well. Toward the end, it was all fighting all the time. I was miserable. I was angry.
Over the years, we’ve had huge fights and periods of not speaking but we’ve always been there for each other in times of crisis and I don’t consider this time any different. Yes, she’s tempermental and full of mood swings, but I’ve learned to distance myself from the drama, haven’t I? I can’t turn her away in her time of need. I’d do it for any of my friends, if they needed it, and I believe that any of them would do it for me.
My only real concern is that it will be easy to slip back into old bad habits, where we treat each other like the entertainment crew. I’m a little worried that having her here will make it even easier not to get involved in life here in Maine. I have to just lay down the rules. I will have my art class and my group therapy and possibly an RPG down in MA every other week.
And who knows? Maybe having someone else here will actually help me get out and try new things.
Hopefully, now that we’re in our thirties, we’ve grown up and grown out of old bad habits.
Tags: Hurricane Katrina, dysfunctional drama, friendship
Well, I guess I expected the drama to be of a greater level between El, El’s Mom (Mrs. M), and PW this weekend. Don’t get me wrong. There was definitely drama that was somehow related to the evacuation of New Orleans but also from a year or so of things just building up, I guess.
For those of you who’ve been reading since my beginnings on Strategically Bent you could probably skip the next few paragraphs, but for those of you who haven’t, perhaps some background information is in order.
El and PW have been friends for perhaps 16 years. Neither is what I’d call normal. I’ve learned over the years to take the bad with the good. No one is perfect and I’m too old to care about the drama bits.
PW is from a troubled upbringing with an abusive father and a mother who kidnapped her sister and abandoned her and her brother with her father. She has issues resulting from all of that. I’m not a psychologist and I only had a semester of it in college, but I’m pretty sure that she has abandonment issues as well as a certain amount of paranoia and she’s overly sensitive about many things. I also suspect her to be co-dependent though she won’t admit that. She has major mood swings and can be explosive at the most unexpected moments.
El is the last of three children and her sisters were pretty much grown by the time she was born. She apparently has some sort of sickly past and has been in at least one mental hospital. She has a heart condition and appears to have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome — though I have my theories on that. I think she’s anorexic and self-absorbed and is definitely co-dependent. She wants to be independent but also wants and needs to be cared for. She claims she wishes she was well-enough to work but I’m told she stays up all night playing video games and then sleeps until 3pm. She’s a drama queen type who has to be the center of attention and all men love her instantly, but she is afraid to drop her boyfriend who appears to be using her for her internet connection because she needs to have a boyfriend and as a shut-in, she’ll never meet anyone.
Mrs. M is definitely one of those Italian moms who has to be in charge. She is co-dependent but she’s the caretaker. She’s a martyr because no one can take care of themselves and she has to do it. She has all this weight on her shoulders and no time to push it off. I sometimes wonder if El is the way she is because she was catered to and babied by her mother all of her life. I know that she always takes her daughter’s side of the story as truth even if it isn’t and if you try to tell her that her daughter is wrong, you have committed the ultimate sin.
But they have their good qualities. You can trust that in a crisis, they’ll be there for you. They try their best to be good people, though I suppose everyone has their own definition of good people.
Now, after PW’s husband left her and she couldn’t afford to renew her apartment lease, Mrs. M invited PW to come live with them to save up some money and get back on her feet. She was supposed to stay six months but it turned into over a year. She then moved into a small studio apartment for six months before El and Mrs. M made an offer she couldn’t refuse.
PW and El have been living together for about a year in a three bedroom apartment that El inisted they have that PW couldn’t afford. The agreement as I’ve been told by PW was that she would pay 1/3rd of the rent and bills and do all the chores and El would pay the rest of the rent and bills (though I learned today that El’s parents were paying half of her part). PW says that when they got moved in, El demanded she pay half of everything and expected her to do the chores. So she moved in with El to save money and ended up paying more than she could afford. She used up all her savings and when El and her mom asked why PW was having financial trouble, she told them straight out. So they gave her a $50 “discount,” which is still way more than PW was paying in her old apartment plus she’s still expected to do all the chores.
Mind you, Mrs. M is apparently in and out of the apartment at least once a day to feed and take care of El and when Mrs. M isn’t there, El expects PW to stop everything to cook her dinner or fetch her a soda.
And supposedly, according to PW, since the financial difficulty argument, Mrs. M and El have been treating PW like a slave. There was also an argument that El never wants to do anything with PW anymore and isn’t friendly at all and then there was the argument about the fact that El and El’s beaux stay up all night in the computer room which is next to PW’s and make a lot of noise playing computer games and arguing and such and PW has to get up by 5am for work.
Mind you, this is all hearsay. I don’t really know. I wasn’t there and I only got the one side of that story. I can see it though, knowing them, but I also know that PW can overreact.
Anyway, so all of that was brewing long before Katrina became a depression. Mrs. M, El, El’s beaux, PW, PW’s beaux English, Mrs. M’s mom, and El’s dad evacuated with four cats in two cars the Sunday before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. Apparently this was a worse experience than one would imagine.
I’ll try to recall all the things that have been said to me over the last few days.
Mrs. M is angry with PW for packing and saving board games (collectible and rare ones at that). She’s angry that English and PW showed up with large suitcases the morning of the evacuation which wasn’t practical and she was annoyed that PW was unhappy about having to reduce everything to one suitcase. I think she also feels like PW wasn’t very grateful for Mrs. M getting her out of the city and then out of Hammond and PW seems angry that Mrs. M made her go to Memphis though staying in Hammond would have been much worse. Mrs. M is angry because apparently PW had a meltdown about having to leave her new used pickup truck though it was her decision to leave it in Metairie (near New Orleans) because she hadn’t had it long enough to know how it would react to the stop and start traffic of an evacuation. In fact, Mrs. M seems to be angry that PW keeps mentioning and bemoaning the things “she” lost in the hurricane and doesn’t seem to understand that she isn’t the only one who’s suffered loss.
Apparently, El’s dad, who’s known to be a bastard and has said some nasty things to PW in the past, claiming they were jokes, told PW on multiple occassions that she hadn’t been invited on this little adventure — only he was meaner about it. Anyway, this set off PW into another meltdown apparently in front of a priest which Mrs. M is angry about; plus, Mrs. M insists the comment was a joke and didn’t know until I told her that he’d made it more than once prior to being made in front of the priest.
This got PW to thinking about just going to England with English for about a month or until she could get back into New Orleans, where she and El lived, to get her stuff. Basically, she felt like she was a burdon and unwanted and she felt like it would make everyone happy if there was one less person to worry about.
Then there comes the nightmare about PW’s cat. Mrs. M got in a huff because PW hadn’t asked her if she would care for PW’s cat if she went to England. PW was infuriated that Mrs. M thought she had to ask permission to go to England with her boyfriend. See where this is going?
This led to a meltdown in the food court about what to do with PW’s cat. I volunteered to take the cat — even fly to Memphis to get him on a weekend — but for hours PW would not let go of the thought of what to do about the cat. This lead to how she was alone in the world because he hated father was probably dead in the hurricane and she didn’t know where her mother was and she had lost everything and now she’d probably have to put her cat to sleep because that was more humane than leaving him in a kennel. This led to how when she got back to the States, she’d have no where to live and how she wouldn’t even afford the FEMA and Red Cross housing, though I told her over and over that many displaced Katrina folks were getting free housing. And you have to love this logic: she insisted she wouldn’t qualify the low-cost housing because she had tried before and they’d turned her down and now she didn’t even have a job to help pay the rent for a full-cost rent.
El was upset because she felt like PW was insisting that she couldn’t be upset about losing all of her own stuff in the hurricane because at least she had a family to take care of her and love her and all of that. And it’s true that whenever El started to bemoan her own loss, PW would start playing the “I’m worse off than you game.”
Finally, Mrs. M is upset because she’s treated PW like a daughter for years and PW is treating her terribly and thought Mrs. M wouldn’t take care of her cat…nevermind that Mrs. M pretty much said something to the effect of “You’re just going off to England and expecting me to take care of your cat?”
Mostly, I think Mrs. M feels a lot of stress beyond the feeling of loss (though her house appears to be fine except for roof damage on the satellite pictures). I think she feels like she’s the only responsible person and that if she didn’t take care of everything nothing would get done. I think she needs to be the caretaker and in control and this whole thing is out of control. No one knows what’s going to happen next and that has to be discomforting.
I do think Mrs. M has been treating PW like a daughter. I’ve seen firsthand Mrs. M angry at her real daughters and I think she’s treating PW just like them.
Personally, I think they were all right to have whatever feelings they had, but I also wanted to point out how selfish they all seemed to be that they all expected each other to not whine about their own loss. No one wanted to hear “I lost my” and yet they were all saying it and it was perfectly fine for each of them to say it but no one else could. I think in a tragedy like they are facing, they’re all going through some tough feelings and emotions and of course they’re bound to aggrevate each other. I know that when you lose someone near and dear to you, you feel like the whole world should be as devestated about your personal loss as you are, and I think this is the same.
Plus, I think they’re all a bit similar and that kind of classes. Three drama queens in the same circumstance? Oy.
Anyway, I know it sounds like I had a miserable time. I didn’t. I’m proud of myself for not getting in the middle of it and not trying to fix it. If they can’t fix it themselves, then it’s their fault. I was just a neutral adult party who leant and ear and a shoulder.
I told them over and over that no matter what’s happened in the past or what’s been said in the past, the one thing about this group of friends is that when there’s a crisis, we’re the best support system ever — most of us will drop anything for each other and those of us in better positions to help in this case will help. Heck, JB has offered his home and money to his family and to our group. I’ve offered my futon in the living room. I was willing to fly to Memphis to get PW’s cat and take it home. (Mrs. M is taking care of all four cats while they wait for the opportunity to go home.)
Hopefully, when PW returns from England, things will have cooled off and everyone will have had time to heal and things will be back to -erm- normal.
Oh, and P.S. I liked English. I think he’ll be good for PW. He’s mature for the most part. Well, he’s not immature like her ex-husband. He’s very patient and he doesn’t roll his eyes like the ex-husband did when she had a meltdown. He tried to come up with solutions for her worries though like me he was frustrated that there was something wrong with every one of our suggestions. Anyway, I like him and I hope they make each other happy ever after.
O.K. So, My mother works for the American Red Cross. I’m very proud of her because she’s nationally known and respected and they just offered her a real paying job. Well, she used to work on one of the city boards and now she’s running one of the city offices and she lectures at conventions and now they’ve offered to pay her to teach.
And that’s not even the tip of the iceberg for my mom’s accomplishments.
Tags: Red Cross, communism, paranoia, dysfunctional drama, stupidity
Ever have one of those days where you wake up and you just feel like the whole world is going to crap and there’s just nothing you could say or type about any of it that would make a difference?
I’m feeling a bit like that today. I just feel like the whole wide world is in a complete mess — not unlike my apartment — and no one is actually doing anything to improve the situation — not unlike my apartment. It just seems like accusations and lies and spun facts and mistruths and war and murder and killing and racism and crime and hatred and distrust and a whole lot of other badness.
I try to live by a simple philosophy - treat others as you would want them to treat you. Basically that means, I try to stay out of emotional drama (these days anyway) and I try to be nice to others. I don’t understand really the whole idea of why people hurt each other purposefully; it just seems to beget more hurt. It seems like life would be so much easier if we all played nice.
I admit that sounds naive.
I wasn’t always like this. There’ve been times in my life when I reveled in the emotional drama and I was spiteful and selfish and, yes, quite childish.
I’ll confess that the last year I lived with PW, I was not always very nice and I was caught up in a lot of anger and jealousy. We argued a lot. In fact, I really feel like we never stopped arguing that last year. Everything was a point of contention and the situation just seemed to get worse and worse.
Part of the problem, I think was we couldn’t really have a break from each other to let the wounds heal. We had signed a lease. There was no where to go but our own rooms and really a few hours isn’t enough time to heal deep wounds.
Once we left that apartment and she moved in with the man who is now her ex-husband and I moved into the first of many blessedly roommate-less apartments, I didn’t speak to her for 3 months. That’s how long it took for me to heal.
Granted we went through another similar growing pain a few years later. I didn’t speak to her for years then.
Strange then that we are such good friends now. I guess we’ve both grown up quite a bit in the last ten years or so. We’ve learned to be more diplomatic, more generous, less selfish, less dependent — and yet, not afraid to ask for help. We’ve learned that what we have in common is worth the friendship and what we don’t have in common is not worth dwelling on…at least long distance over the phone.
And I’m sure you’re wondering why I went from talking about the world in general to my strange friendship with the one I used to call “Psycho Witch”.
The point is that she and I needed a break from each other for a while to heal our wounds once the fighting started. We needed to get away from each other and not keep picking at the festering wounds. We needed time to let go. The problem with the world in general is that we share this big planet and while we can go in our front doors and slam the world out, the time we’re apart from the world isn’t enough to heal.
In other words, the media and the world governments just keep picking at those festering wounds, causing more anxiety and hatred and misunderstanding.
And maybe that’s too simple a way to look at it, but I’ve been feeling disenchanted lately with the media (yes, even the so-called “liberal biased” media) and the government (yes, even the democrats) and the world in general. I just feel like if we could all take a break somehow and come back to it later, we’d all feel a lot better. We’d have a chance to let go of the anger and the nitpicky things we hold on to.
Of course, it wouldn’t hurt to be able to get just the facts from the media and the government. Today, I really don’t know who to trust, which news media is the least biased? Where can I find the untainted facts of anything? Why is it there are so many conflicting facts leading to conflicting opinions floating about?
I don’t want us to all think the same…but I would like us to have the same fact base to build our opinions on. It’s just impossible to try to convince someone your facts are right when they conflict with someone else’s facts.
I’m N. Mallory and I approved this ramble…
Tags: dysfunctional drama
I had a nice long talk with PW last night on the phone and got all the gossip from back home.
Apparently she hadn’t told El about her plans to move to England in February because it would make El harder to live with. El has always bragged about her trips to England and has made it no secret that she’s prefer living there than here. She a definite Anglophile. Anyway, El started spouting off about how in a year or so she wanted to move out on her own — though no one thinks she could possibly do that as she still can’t take care of herself — and PW decided that was the time to tell her about England. I’m told the look on El’s face was a mixture of jealousy and awe and shock.
Anyway, apparently, PW harrassed El everyday until she “found” Meg’s game and returned it to Peter.
El and her beaux are apparently nearing the end. She accused him of only going over there to use the internet and now he hardly ever goes over there. She told PW that she’s very unhappy with him but doesn’t want to break up because she likes the company — not sure what that means; maybe it’s the sex…which I will just say “ewwww, I must now burn out my mind’s eye!” So apparently they’re just using each other.
Meanwhile, apparently Meg is really unhappy with her new job and has said that if it doesn’t get better, she’s going to quit in 6 months. I hate to say it but I don’t think she’ll ever be happy practicing law. Once I asked her if she was happy with her work, she said that it was “tolerable.” The truth is I think she’s only ever really been happy when she was working in the theater.
And I thought that perhaps with Meg making big bucks practicing law, that might be a point of contention between her and Peter. After all, he bragged for years about how he was going to make big bucks and all of that. He’s not even making my kind of money and he’s not practicing law, though he works for a law firm doing something with computers and presentations. Anyway, PW says he seems really happy doing what he’s doing, and I guess that’s what’s really important — finding a job you’re happy doing. I’m happy for him.
Well, that’s all the news I currently have from back home…if anyone else cared.
Tags: dysfunctional drama
PW recently went to London to visit her boyfriend who she met through Everquest. She spent almost two weeks there and got back last week. She was supposed to call me last Saturday evening to tell me all about it but she didn’t and I assume some responsibility because I could have called her despite the whole being sick thing.
Anyway, with the bombings in London yesterday, I was very worried about English as I knew he lives in London and even though I’ve never met him, I was worried for PW’s sake. She did send me an email letting me know he was o.k. as he lives and works on the outer edge of the city. Still, I called her anyway.
The strange thing is that originally English’s family wanted her to come this week and she decided to go earlier luckily. She said they had been on the underground and in a double-decker bus while she was there and that if she’d gone this week, she could have been in the middle of it. I’m glad she went early.
The new plan for them is for her to start sorting through her things. She will take the bare minimum (I guess) and either give away, sell, throw away or store the rest. Meanwhile, English is looking for a three bedroom home to buy. He will narrow it down to a couple he likes and when she goes back in October (he will be here in September, which is when I’ll get to meet him, btw), she will see the ones he’s narrowed it down to and add her 2 cents.
Next February, she and the cat will head to England. Apparently, you can go to England with no Visa for 6 months on your passport, but she won’t be able to work during that time. She says, they’ll see how things go for three months and then in May, they are planning a trip to Hawaii to get married sans family and friends. On the way back to England, they’ll probably stop in New Orleans for a reception and in New York to file for a spousal Visa.
I must say I was a little hurt that I wouldn’t get to go to the wedding. She said I might be invited to the wedding in Hawaii, but I’d be the only one — and quite frankly, I have no desire to be the third wheel on anyone’s honeymoon. I’ll probably just fly down to New Orleans for the reception.
I’m happy for her. I really am. I hope this works out. He sounds like a nice guy. She’s had such a hard life — granted, some of it she brought on herself — and I’m happy she’s found someone rich and British and thoughtful and responsible. I just hope she lets herself be happy and doesn’t sabatoge things based on her past experiences.
And I hope she doesn’t let El poison her either. El apparently is jealous of the fact that PW got to go to England and has an English beaux and has a rich beaux. She’s also apparently made some snide remarks about how English isn’t that good-looking so why would PW want him? This has caused PW to make defensive remarks to me about his appearance, though I’ve never inquired about his looks. Looks don’t particularly matter to me in the real world. Anyway, PW keeps saying that she likes English despite him not being a Hollywood Hottie. I keep trying to reassure her that he doesn’t have to be as long as he makes her happy. Maybe I should call her more often to reinforce that so El’s continued presence will have a less negative effect on PW.
And I must admit to feeling a little jealous, though I have no interest in marriage or children (which she is already talking about). I guess deep down, I would like someone in my life — someone who is caring and thoughtful and independent, someone who doesn’t smother, isn’t obsessive, and will be understanding, and someone who accepts me as I really am and isn’t blinded by some self-designed delusion of who he wants me to be.
Tags: London bombing, dysfunctional drama
Well, it’s been a while and I’ve been mulling over some random thoughts. I thought I’d put them here for safe keeping, so to speak.
Today I received an email letting me know that a recent audit had revealed that they weren’t taking money out for parking.
Duh.
I should see the fee appear in my next paycheck. I guess I’m just glad they aren’t going to try to take the whole year’s fees out at once.
I mean, they are the ones who seem to have abandoned me but I feel like they think I did something wrong and I can’t figure out what it is. OK I hadn’t heard from them in months by Christmas and was surprised to receive a Christmas present from them. They called me on New Year’s Eve to wish me well. I sent a belated Christmas present to them and never got a thank you either via email or phone. In fact since New Years’ Eve, I have sent multiple emails to Meg and only received one reply.
These two were my closest friends for years and I am sincerely hurt by the fact that they abandoned me when I needed my friends and then dropped me when I moved to Maine.
So, around my birthday, PW mentioned that Meg had been sick and had an ER trip and everything. I sent a get well card.
Coincidently, not long after I sent the card, I got belated birthday presents from them with the message “we miss you”. I found that to be very hypocritical, but I sent a thank you email to each of them. I only received a reply back from Peter and I admit I was annoyed enough that I didn’t reply to his question about the weather.
Talking with PW over the weekend, I got a little more gossip. Apparently, Meg and Peter have been asking PW to do a lot of things they used to do with me — out to dinner, movies, etc. PW finds this very hypocritical because she and Meg never really got along before and she feels like they are trying to turn her into a substitute “me”. She likes playing games with Peter because she likes playing games, but she feels uncomfortable being the third wheel that I was. She has no desire to be the faithful sidekick. She finds it odd that when they invite her out, they don’t want El, her roommate, to come along.
Anyway, apparently, one night when they were at dinner, PW says that Meg was fishing for information, asking if PW and I were still talking and all. Probably this was around the time that Meg got the get well card.
Yes, PW and I have had our differences. Yes, we went years without speaking. However, when the hard times hit, PW was there for me and she knows that if I had been in New Orleans, I would have gone with her to the hospital for all the cancer tests. I called her often to check on her. I was there for her emotionally despite the distance…just like I had been there for them when they needed me.
I guess I’m just hurt and confused. I don’t understand what’s going on with them. My friend KW says I need to just let go and she’s right. Friends come and go in a person’s life. Very rarely do friendships stand the test of time, I think. Certainly more rarely than t.v. and books lead you to believe. People change. People move. People become self-absorbed.
So, anyway, I’m writing this here hoping that this outpouring of confusion will help me let go. (Even though I made and sent a stained glass birthday present for Meg. I didn’t include a message about missing them. I do in fact miss them and their friendship but I’m too hurt to admit it in a card.)
Plus, a pottery class has started at the stained glass studio. Unfortunately it’s only currently offered on the same night I go to the studio to work on my glass. However, I’ve already mentioned that if they expand, count me in.
I’m really kind of excited about it. My mom is happy that I’m broadening my horizons and trying new things, though she still wants me to “make some friends” (translation: find a boyfriend).
Tags: discombobulated, dysfunctional drama
Well, the final news on my friend who’s house burned down is that indeed only one pet survived. The thought is that one of the cats knocked over a new heater in the basement and that started the fire. They are currently living in a hotel and the rescued dog is staying with family. The dog was rescued by a man who wasn’t supposed to be in that neighborhood until Monday but got ahead in his work and stopped by her neighbor’s house for some consult work. He knew there were other pets and the dog was trying to tell him where they were but the fire was so bad at that point that if he’d gone in after them, he and the dog and the other pets would all be gone.
She seems to be taking each day as it comes. Some days are better than others. Some days she’s laughing about some of the little things and others she’s just sad and mad. She told me that the family photos were in a Rubbermaid container in a closet and were miraculously spared, which is one of those irreplacable things you’d hate to lose in a fire. She is thankful no one was home. They have decided not to use Red Cross’s assistance because they feel there are not needy enough and there are plenty of people who need that kind of help more.
Tags: discombobulated, tragedy, politics, dysfunctional drama, wellness
Well, I’m not sure what to think about this or really even if I should waste my time thinking about it.
*sigh*
A little backstory would help I guess.
About 5 years or so ago, I moved from one end of my apartment complex to another to get some more quiet and some more space. It was a nightmare. I think moving within the same place is totally worse than moving across town and you think it’s going to be easy. Anyway, there were about ten people helping me that day, including my parents. It was a Good Friday and I’d asked for help lots of time ahead. (I don’t recall if Peter was there that day. I know Meg wasn’t. I do recall that the last few times that PW and/or El moved, neither was available to help.) Well, after it was all said and done, I took everyone who helped to Cici’s Pizza (which is a relatively inexpensive place to go). Mind you cost did play a factor in my logic for picking the place, but I also realized that the guys would appreciate all you can eat pizza after a hard, hot day of laboring.
Flash forward to two summers ago when Meg moved to North Louisiana. She asked for help. I helped her pack. I helped Peter and Peter’s Dad load the truck. Meg did directing and clean up. I drove with them up to the new town the next morning after letting Meg stay at my house. I helped with some unloading but mostly unpacked Meg’s kitchen (which she later re-organized) and Meg mostly seemed to be directing Peter and Peter’s dad.
Flash forward to when I am moving to Maine and Peter is moving out of his childhood home and into an apartment with his soon-to-be bachelor dad, I offered to help Peter — lots of people offered to help Peter, but Peter wanted to do it himself and took a month to slowly move. PW helped me pack. Meg offered to help me pack one weekend but it was the weekend after I lost the Alabama job and I wasn’t packing then. I came to Maine and my parents went to New Orleans and with BJ’s help, loaded the van, which I would have done, had I been there.
Some months later, PW and El moved into their apartment together and again neither Peter nor Meg helped or even really offered to…though I believe BJ and 2Cool did.
So now it’s almost a year later and Meg is moving back to New Orleans and fast. She and Peter ask for volunteers. Peter and his dad load the van in the other town and the next day, PW, BJ, and 2Cool help them unload the van.
(I got this information from PW so it’s possibly scewed.)
I am told that the apartment is tiny and expensive. It’s in New Orleans because Meg won’t live in Metairie and Peter thinks it’s too dangerous to live in New Orleans so they had to get a high security place on the sixth floor in a building that is partially an assisted living building. The parking, I’m told, is horrible and there’s no wheelchair ramp in the lobby for El and it’s “a long walk”.
But back to the story. So PW says that Meg stood around in the apartment directing everyone while they unloaded the truck and that Peter tried to do the same thing downstairs at the truck but his dad made him help. Mind you, they haven’t moved Peter yet. He is going to move himself again and take a month to do it. PW thinks he just doesn’t trust them to touch his stuff. She also thought it was weird that it’s a two bedroom and they kept calling one of the rooms “Peter’s room.”
Afterwards, Meg and Peter took everyone to Applebee’s for dinner and PW said it would have been an o.k. day except all of a sudden, Meg said, “Well, we thought y’all were such good workers that you deserved better than Cici’s.”
When PW first said it, it didn’t bother me. Actually I probably wouldn’t have thought twice about it but it apparently upset PW. She felt that Meg was insulting me when I wasn’t there and PW also felt like she would have taken people to Cici’s too or ordered pizza as a thank you as she doesn’t have a lot of money to spare. PW seemed to take the whole thing very personally.
PW said BJ and 2Cool immediately piped up and said they liked Cici’s. Heh. Guys always love a buffet.
My first thought was to give her the benefit of the doubt and maybe she was digging at Peter as maybe that’s where he wanted to take them and she poo-pooed the thought as she doesn’t like Cici’s and I suspect she is a bit of a food snob.
*shrug*
I don’t know. I wasn’t there. Peter and Meg and I haven’t been that close in the last year. In fact, I didn’t get a thank you email or anything for their belated but hand-made stained glass snowflake that I sent for Christmas. Granted, maybe Peter still reads here and knows that I wasn’t planning on gifting them because of the chasm between us and maybe he told Meg. I don’t know. I feel a little insulted because I spent some serious money on the materials for the snowflake and time too but then I wasn’t expecting a gift from them and hadn’t gotten them one before Christmas…oh, what a tangled web.
And probably PW shouldn’t have told me what Meg said in the first place.
But once again, I feel like this whole experience has taught me who my real friends are.
Tags: dysfunctional dra