Family
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Obtuse, So Say a Prayer
Since Cole’s passing in 2018 my folks have made a valiant effort to become the parents we always needed them to be. They’re softer versions of the people they once were. They are easier to talk to, less judgmental (which still makes them more judgmental than most), and more supportive; but, in many ways, they… Continue reading
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Unforgiveable?
In active addiction I was a lying full-of-shit liar. Some of you, I’m sure, can relate. Most of the time, my lies were a way of explaining emotions I had little capacity for processing or understanding. On other occasions, they were a means of boosting my non-existent self-esteem. I was a furious anger-ball with a… Continue reading
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In Memoriam: Lessons in Love
Go With the Flow and Then Punch the Jerk Off For my twenty-fifth birthday my entire family went to the Renaissance Festival in Florence. My brothers were twenty-two and twenty-one at the time, and both were excited because they could legally drink beer while snarfing down turkey legs. They also got jacked up by the… Continue reading
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Tell a Story of the Cursed…
This post is in response to — “In the Wee Hours” — a call by my friend, Mangus Khan, at Memoirs of Madness. My therapist once told me that we must perceive some of the people in our past as “monsters” because they’ve done monstrous things, and that to see them as anything else hinders… Continue reading
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Detour to the “Blank Space”
Today I feel numb, which is a self-defense mechanism for some of us with Borderline Personality Disorder when we’re experiencing too much emotion. Instead of feeling it — especially if it happens to be negative — we just shut down (emotionally speaking) and hibernate in what I call the “blank space.” It takes a lot… Continue reading
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This is Not Normal…
I grew up in a house with two parents who loved me. In that, I was lucky. I also grew up with two adult children of alcoholics who came from pretty dysfunctional families. In this, I was a little less fortunate. When I first started therapy I was asked if I came from a “happy… Continue reading
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If I’d Only Known, Part II
The doctors had promised that the nerve stimulator would provide a respite from the searing pain that ran from my lower back into my legs. It was one of the only reasons I had agreed — once again — to allow them to place a foreign object into my body. (That, and to appease Ma.)… Continue reading