"Too Fat To Work" Anti-Fat People Propaganda

In the USA, you can't just be fat to get disability, but often over a certain size the co-morbidities are disabling enough. It looks like England is fattening up as much as America, though our problem here is worse. I do believe they are fattening up the populations worldwide, the so called obesity conspiracy and it goes far beyond just people becoming lazy sloths.

With the fat people healthy enough to work, most of them simply cannot be hired. I remember the hell I went through trying to get jobs when I was merely in the 200s and very active, this during the time when I walked three miles for FUN. I still was gaining weight though.

I do wish the show had some captions, I have a hard time hearing accents, but did the best I could, there are some ad interruptions.

I have noticed with this show new fat hatred growing in England where they produced this show and smug announcers express an less than under-stated disgust for the obese who are on the dole or the English version of disability. I fear a growing movement in America and Europe to throw the disabled in the gutter. Obviously it is horrifying to note that they see all obesity by choice. Sadly these opinions are growing here too.

The powers that be are increasing the BLAME THE POOR AND DISABLED rhetoric, and it is worsening. Sadly most normal people are buying the propaganda. This show I believe was produced to increase this in England and around the world. As more countries head into banker and politician caused economic troubles, the disabled and poor will be the first on the chopping block. It will happen here too.

I swelled up A LOT yesterday, I went to the eye doctor and then shopping at a Mexican market buying real food for 50 bucks that would last for some days and walking through a Lowe's to find something to unplug the drains. I cooked when I was home too. I can walk more then I used to be able to but it swells me up like a giant balloon. This is the hell I live, desiring activity but the body rebelling against it.  I am in pain today from the swelling, my legs were wrapped and Flexitouched so they are holding out but I will have to lay down more of the day to "recover". No one could even imagine. I am still coping with the fact that this is "forever" for me and this disease is not curable. I am constantly frustrated with hunger pain and trying to balance activity levels with a body that can't take much.

Being fat and disabled can be a scary world. The condemnation is severe. "Why don't you just lose weight fatty?" I realized after going no contact that one of my mother's smear campaigns was telling people I was a disability malingerer and if I was really "disabled" instead of fat and lazy, that I'd already be dead. I realized to my horror, given even words of other relatives, this is how they have seen me for years. As a lazy "fat bum" who won't help herself. They didn't give a crap about me having severe PCOS or thyroid conditions or COPD or even the later lipedema diagnosis. Hey my mother pointed to my swelling legs circa 1998 and said, "You should do something about that!" as if I sat around and willed my legs to grow bigger. This is why that one cousin used my being disabled to attack me. I have no worries, my medical documentation is high and doctors support my disability but it shows the depth of the hatred I faced. I do fear it from strangers too. While I have lived in mostly polite small towns the last 15 years of my life, I know this growing hatred against the disabled, is something people in my position have to be mindful of.

While we had tens of thousands of centers for the drug addicts and alcoholics, there's only 5-6 rehabs in the entire nation for the severely obese and some of those are more nursing homes then rehabilitative. This tells me they know their treatment of obesity fails far more then it does for the drug addicts. Does this mean only a few of the fat are food addicts and something more is going on? Otherwise why 10s of thousands of centers for the addicts to controlled substances and so few for the obese? I almost put myself in a center in 2008, but realized one was more nursing home and also was told because I could still "walk", I'd be long down the waiting list.

That's an admission of some sort isn't it?

Some of the fat people want to work on the video and are healthy enough to do so.

On the video above, they show a woman with pet rats [6:15] that is more midsized obese where she admits that she has applied for more then 100 jobs. It bothers me that this is not questioned, as I wrote on another article, our jobs system is broken here and it looks like there too as anyone with a small difference now is thrown out of the running in the never ending "weed out" process. I was saddened to see someone who is less then 100lbs overweight seeing dangerous WLS as her only option.

Notice something about Amy the 18 year old? [8:00] She's taking the dog for walk. I walked all over until the weight stopped me and bet she does too. I tend to think while they mention eating some snack foods she has some neglected medical problem. Her breathing sounds horrible for someone for her age and even her size. I have terrible lung problems so not judging her but when she climbed the stairs, [19:48]I know something is wrong. I think she needs tested for sleep apnea. [21:10]

One thing I was thinking of this morning, is, in the old days did people gain weight so easily? Did it take so much time and effort not to be fat? People just lived and their bodies didn't turn on them the extent they do today. People's bodies didn't swell like they do now. Remember the thin people eat too. They don't have their bodies do that.

We see the engaged couple going to a weight loss meeting. We know how that goes. Weight Watchers massively failed me. I followed it and went out of my mind with cabbage soup. As I have talked about before I have so much INVOLUNTARY food reduction as of late with tons of accompanying painful hunger pain, why isn't it working to take weight off?  I ate an apple for breakfast and its 10:10 am and hunger pain may force me to add some oatmeal to the apple.

Later I ate some cooked oatmeal--half a cup while writing this.  I plan to eat a falafel sandwich with tomato and onion for lunch midafternoon. I seriously worrying about gaining weight when our food is too low which I know is irony of ironies, but when you are poor, and know food has to last a certain period of time, there is little for snacks or any free eating. You have to measure every bit of food. You have to plan. One chicken piece has to be used for vegetable and hominy soup on Saturday.  I made burritos for dinner with black beans from scratch with cilantro and some avocado and took meat off a chicken leg and thigh to share between our burritos saving the other chicken piece for tonight. I saved rice for another meal. It takes a lot of energy.

While they make a big deal of the fat couple [Steve and Michelle] eating the gyro take away, one of the things I think about is how for the poor especially the limited income poor, meals out really is the only avenue of recreation open to them. Maybe I will post on this about how obesity is worsened by lack of recreational activities, because it does impact my life greatly.  That said the judgments in Britain especially for fat people eating out is usually beyond the pale. How dare they! Sorry but thin people are eating gyros too. I think gyros are to be avoided. It is a food I had to give up, I used to allow myself a sandwich-gyro once every two months but it's kidney stone territory for me. Skinny people are eating them too and not dying of an occasional gyro.

I supposed if you are disabled and fat, you are not allowed to eat out.

The woman at the 14:16 mark, is the lady getting a gastric bypass's daughter but she is already worried about her weight. Remember thin is far thinner in Europe. Sadly both believe the false promises about weight loss surgery

Do you notice something about Michelle? She has to walk quiet extensively even to shop for one meal. All that exercise and she is still overweight? This reminds me when I was in Chicago still having my weight gain walking, walking between endless bus stops and just trying to shop. While I understand how this happened with lipedema today back then it brought me endless confusion. I had no car and literally had to move around all the time even just to survive. Even to just use a phone, since we didn't have one, I had to walk at least a quarter of a block. Back then I had to walk a whole Save-A Lot at near 700lbs. I like when Steve talks about how hard it is to afford clothes [26:56]. In Britain this would be even more difficult.

I notice with the lady getting the gastric bypass her fridge is nearly empty. It makes me wonder if her obesity was impacted with food insecurity as well. I am worried for her, the special foods and pureed stuff for weight loss surgery is expensive. I knew when I was investigating weight loss surgery I could not afford or manage all that. With Rutabaga, pumpkin, and chicken breasts in her fridge, she looks like she already eats healthy.

One stat stands out to me, they say 1 in 5 people in Scotland are unemployed. Think something may be wrong with the jobs system? I sure do. Not just there but here. Soon good jobs will become a thing for the upper classes while the lower live in one room flats or tiny-houses in America and Europe on the dole or welfare or low wage work. The suburbs will be the ghettos of tomorrow. What is 32 stone? 600lbs? Oh a stone is 14lbs. Amy is 448lbs.

When they show Steve walking downtown, [31:40] it shows the breathlessness that can happen to fat people when trying to do all that exercise we are told to do. Many thin people if they had to breathe that hard and have all the pain would be crying their eyes out. Steve does seem to have very affected stamina and other health conditions as well since earlier in the video they said he had a stroke.

Mrs. Johnson is right about benefits being too small to put the right food on the table. [34:21] Amy is very fat but eating what appears to be a normal portioned lunch of ONE sandwich and some chips. Her mother talks about having toast and a cheese sandwich. I often believe that obesity is a disease of malnutrition more and more. Our food has less nutrients in it. There were days I was eating a cheese sandwich--not grilled in my case and vegan cheese slices at 40 calories for meals because there was nothing else to eat.

Why is everyone sitting in the back at the wedding at Steve and Michelle's wedding? The relatives all look thin, angry and annoyed, one flashes daggers out of her eyes. [40:41]. I had relatives get snotty about me daring to marry at an advanced weight.  Sadly as I watch Steve wheeze and get sick at his own wedding, I think of my ER visit on the night of my own for a leg infection which put me in the hospital for two weeks. I am beyond irritated by the relative who goes on about him losing weight. Look the man gets sicker as he pushes himself, how is weight loss supposed to come so naturally when to even to try and burn it off you'd be on the floor? He has other issues, he ended up with a blood clot on his lung and hospitalized for 9 days. I hope they can enjoy their marriage despite these challenges.

As I watched this show, I thought, WE ARE IN THE DARK AGES WHEN IT COMES TO OBESITY. They push weight loss that doesn't work. They don't assess different levels of hunger. They ignore the fact that exercise too affects overweight people differently. They ignore serious health problems such as respiratory disorders, blood clots and people who exercise and still do not lose weight.  They see obesity as a CHOICE and it's that fact alone, that STUPIDITY REIGNS and people who are disabled and fat are even more oppressed.

Fatso

I watched this movie this afternoon, it definitely had funny moments. It's from 1980 when Dom DeLuise was on the scene and he was a funny comedian and he tells the story of being a lonely fat man raised in a very close-knit Italian Catholic family.

Like other fat comics, I always got the feeling Dom DeLuise had suffered for his weight and felt it barred him from further inclusion. What is ironic is while he was "fat" for 1980, today he barely would fit "portly", one can tell definitely the obesity standards have changed since those times. There are negative stereotypes about fat people in this movie, that they are always hungry, love snack food and go on food binges. While there are the eating disorder folks out there, in one scene Dom DeLuise's character eats 2 huge bags of Chinese food or 40 dollars worth. I have to admit that gave me an uneasy feeling since some of us have majorly suffered for those stereotypes. In the "Get the Honey" second video of one scene, Dom DeLuise has his Overeaters Anonymous group, "Chubby Checkers" come over to do an intervention while his girlfriend is missing. The group is starvation dieting drinking only hot water, which makes them even more food obsessed and in this case, they rip the locked up cupboards apart to get to the food. Well that is one bad thing about strict dieting, it makes hunger levels skyrocket.

I found two aspects really interesting when Dom figures out dating and having good times with his new love Lydia after a lifetime of no dates takes off weight naturally and when he tells his siblings, that they have to love and accept him just as he is, fat or not. That was a nice scene. When the Chubby Checkers get together and make themselves chant "Fat, Fat, Fat", I laughed, this reminded me of NAAFA when we were told to own the word FAT. Wasn't 1980 about the time they popped up?

Jamie Oliver Sells Out

A new food system via Bill and Melinda Gates? Yeah just wait til after they poison the lot of us, they will tell us when and what to eat. Soylent Green isn't too far away.  Bill Gates will eat his organic lobster while you peasant get your green pellet and caloric limits depending on income.

More and more my opinion is, that many who get big fame sells out for it. Some more then others. You too Jamie Oliver? Of course Jaime Oliver's food looks like a dream. If I could eat what he cooks everyday it would help my health. However with him jumping on the GMO bandwagon, I am beyond disgusted too!

 Check out Jamie Oliver's twitter, the fans are angry and they should be!

If you know more about Bill and Melinda Gates, this picture is a far scarier one. Here he is pushing that lie called "global warming", aka "climate change" during colder periods of weather and in the second video promoting "death panels".





Many people personally know GMOs get them sick and that Monsanto with it's Roundup controversies and more is a very wicked company. How did Jamie miss all this news and information or does he care? Will he listen to his fans or continue the global elite bootlicking? Why hasn't he heard of terminator seeds or about those third world farmers committing suicide because Monsanto controls all their seeds?

Many of us know GMOs make us instantly sick and hurt our digestion. This isn't just theory to our lives, this is impacting us today!

See:

Monsanto GMO Corn Causes Weight Gain

Stand Against Monsanto

Monsanto's Corn Linked to Organ Failure

[yes I know I put up a cartoon for news breaks but planned this one yesterday :)]

Go on News Breaks!

Incidental Comics

Don't Give Up!

Don't give up

In this proud land we grew up strong
We were wanted all along
I was taught to fight, taught to win
I never thought I could fail

No fight left or so it seems
I am a man whose dreams have all deserted
Ive changed my face, Ive changed my name
But no one wants you when you lose

Dont give up
cos you have friends
Dont give up
Youre not beaten yet
Dont give up
I know you can make it good

Though I saw it all around
Never thought I could be affected
Thought that wed be the last to go
It is so strange the way things turn

Drove the night toward my home
The place that I was born, on the lakeside
As daylight broke, I saw the earth
The trees had burned down to the ground

Dont give up
You still have us
Dont give up
We dont need much of anything
Dont give up
cause somewhere theres a place
Where we belong

Rest your head
You worry too much
Its going to be alright
When times get rough
You can fall back on us
Dont give up
Please dont give up

got to walk out of here
I cant take anymore
Going to stand on that bridge
Keep my eyes down below
Whatever may come
And whatever may go
That rivers flowing
That rivers flowing

Moved on to another town
Tried hard to settle down
For every job, so many men
So many men no-one needs

Dont give up
cause you have friends
Dont give up
Youre not the only one
Dont give up
No reason to be ashamed
Dont give up
You still have us
Dont give up now
Were proud of who you are
Dont give up
You know its never been easy
Dont give up
cause I believe theres the a place
Theres a place where we belong

My Visit to the Food Bank and A Lifetime of Poverty

Saturday was food bank day.

Have you ever wondered who got together and thought that the poor should all eat corn flakes, cans of corn, tuna and macaroni and cheese? Our food pantries in my locale never heard of a fresh fruit or vegetable. Not in a million years. Even if you are allergic to cheese and fish, you still get a bag full of it like everyone else. At least I got them to exchange the nasty Froot-Loops for some decent corn flakes and got some cans of green beans.

We went to the monthly soup kitchen, that is held at this one church and ate some pasta with chicken and corn and salad, they also passed out cupcakes. The folks at this church are very nice and do not shame the poor whatsoever. I like them a lot. It wasn't a bad meal and if you wait until 1:00pm you can get leftovers and take them home for dinner or the next day. So Saturday which thankfully was warm enough for me not to be housebound was like charity day. We have a soup kitchen elsewhere in a neighboring town that serves daily but sadly like so many places like that, which we wouldn't mind using it's in a very bad neighborhood where going down there alone means taking your life in your hands.

We have been scrounging away. I made cabbage soup with turkey necks, and will be making black bean soup with some frozen chicken and rice from the freezer for tomorrow. I definitely am encroaching into my food, I consider the "emergency" meals, which is kind of scary and have been for the last week. Groceries have gotten so expensive. I laugh at dieting because when I read diet books or even Rachael Ray's Yum-O! cookbook which I probably got for a 1 or 2 dollars some months ago everything has a million ingredients.  The carbs always go up when you are food insecure. I don't care how much broccoli you buy. Let the people who don't have to worry about involuntary calorie reduction try dieting for a change. There is a difference in feeling between refusing to eat snacks and simply not having the option.

I am stumped in how to change my circumstances. We did sell some ebay and such. The scary thing is he is working freelance and we are still so poor. They just don't pay him enough and the flu cut off 200 bucks last month. By the way, with the jobs in his field,  they are far fewer in number they all pay the SAME EXACT salaries, they offered in 1999, when we moved for one of his newspaper jobs out of Chicago.  However now, the health benefits are almost non existent for most. One guy told him at his newspaper their medical insurance was the same as Wal-Mart's which basically means useless. That is some of the secrets about our so called "booming" economy.

The bills are growing so high we as I have written before I feel crushed. I am talking about moving us into a disability apartment and getting on the waiting list, but not thrilled with the rules or if he makes more money we get punished for it but rent is so high now it's eating a great deal up of our money. We may have no other choice.

What scares me is things are this difficult even doing the pay bills by hierarchy formula. Rent, electric, insurance, medical, taxes and food. We have never blown the rent money on a shopping trip or faced a near-eviction. We try to be "responsible" but in this case it doesn't seem to work. Maybe life is this hard for most people and I didn't get a clue around the spoiled narcs. Could that be it? But there is something wrong when there is always more month then money. We are always planning ahead and in survival mode. We have decided we need to keep the grocery shopping at the ethnic stores 15 miles away and an area Mexican grocery store because the food lasts longer and the owners aren't out to gouge us like the main grocery stores.

We have made it a life-rule not to live with anyone. Some may say, "Why don't you two move in with one of his relatives, like his sister?". Some may say, "Why don't you find a friend to move in with to make it easier?". I have lived with friends in my 20s, and gone down that road. Aspies and especially very sick Aspies need privacy. I still remember the year I had to move in with my parents and what a nightmare that was as I struggled to graduate from college.

Another blogger wrote about what it is to be poor, and I wanted to share her words here.  I definitely related to many of her words.

My Lifetime of Poverty

"Some people will tell you that there is no shame in being poor.  Really?  What planet are you on.  Of course there is shame, even from the one who is supposed to love you.  It makes you a low value person, very, very helpless and stupid.  Let's be realistic here.  Why didn't anyone actually connect to me?  Why did they sit all happy and tell me that and ask me a huge list of invasive questions.  Early on realized that you weren't allowed boundaries when your poor. "

There is a lot of shame in poverty. I am struggling with it immensely. At times I get brave and write about how I want to be above it all and how God will honor the poor but when push comes to shove, it is shame inducing and embarrassing. Poverty makes you angry. Poverty makes you see the long list of things you don't get to do. One thing that does happen is you plan to do stuff, "I want to visit ****, I want to see ****", and then you look back 5 years later and none of it happened.

I was showing this article to my husband while writing it, and he said to me, "Why should I feel ashamed when the game is totally crooked!" I noticed he has not internalized these things like me. Maybe he is better off in avoiding that! Hey I don't shame any poor people myself,  I agree he is right in my head but my heart needs to learn it.

I am working on leaving the narc family mind games with poverty wishing a few breaks or at least peaceful steadiness would kick in. My brother showing off his $15,000 dollars worth of furniture got to be a bit much the other day. That must be some insecurity to show off your presents, your furniture to a sister on the lower rungs of the ladder but I know the sick crucible that was all boiled up in.

It's been sad having a life where poverty has affected for so long.  I don't know how to make money or "hustle" or the things people do to bring in the cash. I have done things like tutor and sell the occasional painting for money in the past. Remember disabled people can make a little bit.   The scary thing is without my husband, I would have been even poorer and not able to at least enjoy the 10 years of the more stable working class mode. We also have done everything from sell so many things from our apartment like records or books on ebay to collecting cans. He even sold ebay last week.  If my husband sees a can he still picks it up. "Once a can man, always a can man" was the quip to this sentence.

I suppose one has to brush one's self off and tell themselves not to give up, keep walking. There is no other choice but do this. I am worried about my eyes and 7.9 A1C but I was very ill last month when I had the blood work done. My eyes could just be very dried out with the sinus pain. We try what we can. We have grown old but I found this poem the other day and it is MY LIFE:

              The Bean Eaters

Gwendolyn Brooks, 1917 - 2000

They eat beans mostly, this old yellow pair.
Dinner is a casual affair.
Plain chipware on a plain and creaking wood, 
Tin flatware.

Two who are Mostly Good.
Two who have lived their day,
But keep on putting on their clothes
And putting things away.

And remembering . . .
Remembering, with twinklings and twinges,
As they lean over the beans in their rented back room that
          is full of beads and receipts and dolls and cloths,
          tobacco crumbs, vases and fringes.

I know I am fortunate not to bear this poverty alone and have someone in it for the long haul but it can get scary sometimes. I do believe ACONs who are scapegoats do get set up to fail. I have spent DECADES working on life skills I should have known far earlier. On the Afraid of My Shadow blog, she also wrote:

Let me tell you something.  I met some real down to earth wonderful and actual poor people on line. These people had good educations too, but somehow we tend to walk around with holes in our gathering baskets. Unable to rise to the top.  This was all caused by an abusive childhood.  I realized right away I only loved my mother in theory, because I was supposed to.  The real authentic me couldn't stand that creep.

I understand what she means by holes in the gathering baskets. I hope one day to plug mine up or reweave them and fix them.

See: The Wolf At the Door and Other Poverty Posts

Weird Skies

I'm a bird and cloud watcher.  Here's some weird clouds from a few days ago!

I never get bored

I never get bored. Just now I was playing with beans in my kitchen trying to figure out what to make with some for tomorrow, black bean soup with chicken? Is frozen chicken from March 2014 still good? Can someone tell me if I am taking my life in my hands to defrost this tonight, boil them, take off the meat and make black bean and chicken soup? I have a hot pepper somewhere in my fridge. There is always something to be blogged about or read, or done. My problem is not enough energy to do everything I want to do. I'm even wanting to go study 18th century Scotland from reading the Outlander series. When people complain of boredom to me, I don't understand it. 

Hanging Out

Technology in some ways is separating us more. I have this odd rule, though I may try for an Obama phone still for safety reasons on the bus, I do not want contact with the Internet when I am out and about. Some of this is the naturalist in me, I want to pay attention to nature, not wait for another email.

Narcissists Have No Nostalgia

 Lucky Otter wrote a good article, and I wanted to comment on what I saw too. Many of the qualities that applied to her narcissists applied to mine as well. For feeling people who love, and miss people, this can be some of the most painful stuff in living with narcissists. Narcissists and Sentimentality.

I can go down memory lane with my brother and we often do, but no such thing exists with my mother and sister. This tells me of one core big difference with both of them. I have very few people I can remember things with. When you spend your whole adult life and childhood, moving every 7-8 years, there is very little cohesion or people who have known you for a very long time. Even my closest friend here has only known me since 2010. So there are very few people in my life I can reminisce with.

My mother has no concept of growing older. In some ways she seems decades younger then myself as I have had to face aging and even my possible death at a far younger age then most. I do refer to myself as "old" and in many ways I am "old". I live a life that is akin to an 80 year old and am nursing home material. To be frank, it freaks me out to see my mother in her very late 60s who seems to have no concept of growing older. She acts like she is going to live forever. The constant house decorating and emphasis on material reminds me of that woman in California who built the mansion for the spirits, and kept building, building, building. I and my husband used to joke and refer to her house as the mausoleum, because so much energy was poured into it, it seemed as she expected to exist in it FOREVER.

My sister has no memories and doesn't care about "yesterday" either, there is only right now in both their minds. Don't try examining the future with narcs either, that is a waste of time.

My mother never looked at old photos, she told my aunt not to send me any. It drives me crazy, that she holds all the memories to my childhood with hundreds of photos she does not care about. I wish I had gotten some of them before I went no contact. I have asked my brother to get some from her. He seems willing but I fear him chickening out with her jaundiced eye staring down at him asking, "Why do you want those old things for?" 

So to be honest this was something that always creeped me out about my mother, the total lack of the concept of nostalgia and sentimentality. She just didn't feel the way I did. She didn't hold some memories dear in her mind. One thing that keeps me going is pictures in my mind of fond memories. I even sometimes at this advanced age, think of childhood friends and fun with them and my time in the woods in the park looking up at the trees and youth explorations and memories. The disabled will dream about the time they could run, and play and do things they can't do now. Take my word for it.

One thing I used to say to my family when I was younger was "When People Die, they Disappear" and in this family, they cease to exist. One thing I and my husband still talk about is right after my father died, is every one of his effects was instantly deposed of. She gave my husband a few of his old clothes but once he was dead, there was an instant clean out.  The only thing I got of his, was his old address book that she had accidentally mixed in with some old papers of mine that she wanted to get rid of. There was no tie pins or other effects, I wonder if she gave those my brother. She removed every picture of his from the house though she oddly put a few in this one little wooden box thing like she wanted to cage every memory of his existence, so basically just a short time after he died, one wouldn't even have known he existed.

I still am bothered to this day, knowing she took a trip to New York City three weeks to go shopping after his death, and was on the Today show, whooping it up. Remember when they had that glass window and would show the crowds cheering and jumping up and down? There she was jumping up and down, with a smile on her face. She had told us the day, it would air. A chill ran through my body. Of course the time later came when she bragged about how much money she had been left. We never saw a will so she became instantly financially comfortable for the rest of her life, at the time I lived in severe poverty in the ghetto and at my highest weight too. He died in 1998 and I was disabled in 1997. I was still too much in the narc fog to ask too many questions at the time. Even my sister was bothered by the instant shopping trip back then when she still had some vestiges of her former personality back then.

Other relatives would die, like my loving aunt, and one would never hear about them again. Bringing them up was verboten.  I would have thoughts like "What about so and so?". I actually had thoughts since my health was so bad, and they still trouble me now about being forgotten after I die and having my effects wiped away. I can see her burning my stamp collection and paintings and throwing them in the trash so I am going to make provisions that this doesn't happen.

I can still cry over friends who died even 5 years ago. Something will remind me of them from out of the blue and tears will come to my eyes. This never happened with my mother or sister. Never ever. They simply did not care. They were not bothered by feelings like this. I never saw it sadly in my father either, though he wasn't as severe since he would bring up his deceased parents from time to time.

My mother mocked my interest in the past and history. She was weirded out by my love of previous generations, historical towns and old-fashioned values. At one point, she told me, "You are too old-fashioned and love to live in the past!" That same day she called my old rural town which I loved and still miss quite a bit, "Hooterville" and said, "There's nothing there". She scoffed at any memories. What is scary about this is she was raised in a nice rural small town, one that was very historical, but there was no attachment to this, nor history nor even realizing what she had.

This lack of feeling and sentimentality is something I could never understand. Narcissists are far different creatures then the rest of us.

Losing One's Mind is Far Easier

So Conflicted About Brother

Something I wish for with my brother. Am I hoping against hope? Is this an impossible dream?  It never will happen with my sister. Sometimes I seem on the verge of waking him up. Sometimes not. It has created great conflicts in me. My brother was scapegoated by my mother too and is ostracized by the family to a degree as well, as I wrote about before.

If I sound double-minded about my brother, and you see the conflict and contradictions in posts, yes I admit it.  On one side I think forget it, I've been hurt by too many who always took her side and he has some major faults I am mindful of.  We all have faults of course.  On the other side, I think, we were so close once upon a time, and he does seem to care. He gets upset when I disappear [well unlike the others who only PRETEND to care with their fake cards].

Flying Monkeys: Low Contact or No Contact

I talked to him again, but I am being careful and protecting myself.

Sometimes he seems to care, we were close when we were younger. He is the only one who before even noticed I was alive. He is telling me this weekend he is going to have his kids call me. I think he will keep this promise however I'm making sure I am not as emotionally invested as I was before. He does talk to me about personal stuff unlike the other ones though I am guarding my information making sure I don't tell him anything new to go back to Queen Spider for now. I find myself wishing she was not hoovering as a cloud over every family relationship.

But then I always worry, is she sending him as a flying monkey. Is he coming to talk to me because I've not been around a couple months and actually cares and is reacting to my pulling away or did she tell him to do it? I hate feeling this way and always having to second guess motives. Was I wrong to give him a second chance? 

Him and his girlfriend told me they both missed me. Trust me none of the narcs would ever tell me that. My sister and mother don't miss anyone.

He knows something is wrong with her but he is still afraid of my narcissistic mother and that's the problem. He didn't defend me to her, and I still don't understand why and it bothers me. Sometimes I wonder if I border on paranoid thinking of her controlling everyone. I know she does to an extent most definitely but it's hard to know where to draw the line. He told me he hasn't talked to her in some time not in a "We are on the outs way" but "She has been busy at her vacation" home sort of way.

There was an interesting moment on one phone call, when I told him, "They have ostracized you too, and he said, "Your problem is that you care! I don't care if they do or don't!". I stood up for myself and oddly he backed down and started relenting. I told him, "I am not you and not going to take abusive treatment". "I'm not going to say it is okay". It is unfair of you to expect this of me. I am a different person then you!"

I do think he lives in a denial about his own abuse. It is easier to deny it happened and keep from rocking the boat in his world. The thing that confuses me is sometimes he seems to listen to me and then draws back but then I'm too tired to battle to get others to see the narcissism and the damage done to so many others. It's creating some cognitive dissonance in me. With Aspies, we can't always read others very well, this makes it harder.

Some of this stuff gets so complicated my head hurts. I will take one step at a time. With narcs too, there is so much triangulation and so much confusion too. I still care about my brother. That is the problem. I want to fight for people and not have the Queen Spider win everyone over and leave me standing alone.  Maybe this is breaking every no contact rule. Maybe I simply am banging my head on the wall uselessly against the narcissist behemoth. I guess this is how I feel right now about it all. I have to protect myself and figure this stuff out all at the same time. Why is it always this hard?

My Brother Trained by the Family System.

They Want to Cut Disability!

Are they insane? The disabled are already struggling. We have had cost of living cuts for years. My check seems so small compared to the bills, if I could go get a job tomorrow, I would. For all the Republicans who whine about people bilking the system, no one is getting rich on social security. Most people's rent is more then a disability check!

People on disability do not live high on the hog. Are there a few cheaters? Maybe so, but they have this propaganda out there where they act like people can just walk into a disability office and say, "My back hurts" and go home and get a check for years and years. They even still review me every three years and I have multiple illnesses that ONE ALONE such as my cardiomyopathy or COPD could be enough to qualify.  Many people do get turned down, if not most.

I do know more people then ever are applying for disability, the whole program is getting a bum rap. I am not healthy enough to work but I worry about how our employment system is openly discriminating against anyone with any minor health problem, difference or even age. They are discriminating openly. They have no mercy for a short term illness. Have any of you noticed this? It is worsening. To get a decent job, you have to be thin and more and more young. Some with an extreme computer or other skill can do better, but not all people are so blessed. I wasn't.

 I  firmly believe the job system needs a massive rehaul, where "at-will" employment would become a thing of the past and where people would not be thrown away for being over 50, or being a little bit fat, or Aspie, or different. I am seeing too many decent people being thrown into permanent poverty because they are not a lithe shark. Bosses should not be able to destroy lives at a flick of a wrist. I believe that firing someone should only be allowed if they cannot do a job--incompetence, or they are willfully breaking the rules or the company is running out of money or going bankrupt. People should not be forced into poverty because they are "not a good fit" and someone "doesn't like someone" or the office backstabbing reaches a narc zenith.

One thing I have learned more about the healthy enough to work disabled, is there are no more job programs for them save for workplaces usually doing simple factory tasks reserved for the developmentally disabled. There is no more job placement. How on earth did that happen? We found this out exploring options for my husband a few years ago.

They also need to realize Globalism is destroying our country and switch to America First policies. Get this, the other day, I was trying to get an Obama phone because I will need one to safely use the bus, and all the people working for them were in the Philippines, so think about that one, for a second, and how these phone programs get government money but that money is going to people overseas instead of Americans! That one made me want to puke! I told the guy, "Everyone in America needs a welfare phone because all the jobs went to your country! Our economy here is really bad." Hey some of them should know the truth.

No one is living it up on disability. It is barely enough to survive on. If I was not married, I would have to live in a subsidized apartment and even now, we may need to move into one as a married couple eventually.  It makes me sick how they have brainwashed this country to hate the disabled and see them as the go-to guys to scrape back money. Maybe because the disabled are the most vulnerable population with little resources to fight back? Hmm that must be it.

We are low on money this month again. Our shared flu early last month had a lot to do with it, since husband's work got reduced.

 I had to cook a bunch of things from scratch and even yesterday recycled 2 cups of left over cabbage soup that had been made with some smoked turkey necks the day before, for lunch. I saved half of the cabbage and some more turkey necks for another meal.

I added some left over frozen vegetables to the mix to make a new vegetable soup. I can cook anything and made biscuits too. I am craving yogurt, some grape leaves, and a good salad right now. I can't afford any of it now. I will be making chicken and rice as a midday meal, with left over celery, some peas, and onions I got last month from a food pantry. So no one is starving in here....YET.

Very little goes to waste in here.

We will be going to the once a month soup kitchen this one church holds. It's supposed to be warmer so I won't be housebound. I sometimes discuss going to the regular daily soup kitchen but it's in a very dangerous neighborhood. My husband told me a friend who volunteered there warned him it's a very sketchy place but if we got hungry enough, we would have to. We will be going to a food pantry on Saturday morning.

I haven't bought stamps, clothes, a magazine--I read those all used and from magazine bins, or anything one would consider luxurious or frivolous in MONTHS. For clothes I have personally bought,  make that one literally YEARS. I don't celebrate Christmas. All the cards I sent everyone was recycled from old cards. I try to live as frugal as possible. The bills still crush us anyway.

If healthy, I would pack up tomorrow, and go join a non-Agenda 21 intentional community or commune or Christian community but none of these places are scrambling to get a member that would come with a hospital bed, a wheelchair, nebulizer and a walker.  Modern American life to me continues to suck. I feel like I am in the bus station of life with only a few close friends sticking around as people come and go. I don't need to be rich, I can have fun without money but you know, some us just get wore down. I and my husband have even asked ourselves if a decent life could be found overseas, but with my disabilities, joint medical needs and our age, this is less possible. I hate this feeling of being "stuck". It's funny me and him are smart people but can't figure out this making money thing or basic survival. That may be the worse thing about Aspergers in my case.

 One thing in the works via Congress and the evil party this time [good cop, bad cop games] is they want to cut disability by 20%.  Will they cut the bills by 20 percent? I doubt it.

Please don't cut my disability check, I am barely making it now! They always GO after the disabled first, have you noticed that?

If they cut disability our pressures will grow even more intense. I have to pray, that sanity will prevail in one of our most insane institutions called Congress.  Caretaking is a hard enough pressure without poverty added to the menu from his side of things. Today, he has been working for hours on his freelance. We struggle even with shared income. What will happen to the disabled people who live alone!? They may be eating a can of dog food for dinner.

I do have nightmares of one day of being behind a shopping cart, in front of my narcissistic mother's 3,000+ square foot house with her two new cars in the drive way, begging for food or a place to sleep. She loves the Tea Party politicians that yell about the disabled and malign them.

I hope they do not cut disability for the disabled or the elderly.  It would impact my life very negatively.

Mental Health and Severe Lipedema

 

Conditions associated with lipedema

 Depression and anxiety are very common in people with lipedema for many reasons including the lengthy time to diagnosis, repeated counseling on diet and exercise by the healthcare community when neither is particularly effective and because of the massive and sometimes rapid body metamorphosis over a lifetime. In one clinic, women with lipedema were found to be more depressed than patients with paralysis¹¹²


What happens to someone's mind when they try to lose weight and fail for years and society looks at them with disgust and tell them it is their fault?

What happens to someone's mind when even their own family may reject them for being severely obese for years and call them a "loser" and a "bum" and a stain on society? Even the loving ones will give advice and cluck over your rapidly expanding body while the mean ones will throw the party invitations in the trash and keep you away from the younger members of the family as a "bad example."

What happens to someone's mind when you are told over and over to do things that simply do not work, and told that you are a liar even though you are doing them?

What happens to someone's mind when you are made to feel guilt for every little thing you eat and you cannot like a normal person really enjoy food and inside is always that little voice telling you that you are "bad" for eating anything at all?

What happens to someone's mind when your body swells and explodes into "lobes" and you fight deadly infections which can pop up in 20 minutes time that put you in the hospital over and over, and you are told it is all your fault, and it would be fixed if only you would lose weight?

What happens to someone's mind when you try to tell doctors, my body is swelling up every time I sit up and I have to lay down for hours a day to keep from getting worse and they do not believe you or blame it on your obesity? What happens then when you talk about the leg pain that never ends and they think you are a hypochondriac or simply not exercising enough and that is why your legs hurt?

What happens to someone's mind when the price of all this is severe poverty, and a life that has been bombed out like a crater?

Many bad things can happen to a person's mind when the world is against you and you feel your body is against you too. Your own body becomes an enemy when it comes to lipedema. I hated my body for years more often then not while I attempt to be more forgiving now.  It seems to do things that scare me on a daily basis. Remember you just don't have the swelling and the fat cells increased in size, and the lipomas, you get pain, fatigue, food allergies and other endocrine problems in the case of many lippy.

When I had my weight gain of over 350-400lbs, I nearly had a nervous breakdown.  The only reason I didn't is I put myself into massive counseling, art therapy and depression support groups. The Chicago mental health care system was the prop that kept me out of the mental hospitals.  However doing all this, a major piece of the puzzle was missing to us all. The less understanding  counselors saw it as a non-admitted eating disorder or the more amendable ones went along with my theory of having a pituitary tumor or other endocrine problems. Many later ones knew something was wrong and supported my medical quest by the late 90s.

I know it affected me very badly on a mental basis. I had already been sick for years with my bad lungs and struggling in poverty and with this added on it was more then any human being could take. I went from fat normal to a spectacle in a matter of months.  No one could tell me what was wrong. I had gone from already midsized to the very extreme of human existence. I remember those days, I felt cursed and as if I had woke up in hell. The Stephen King book "Thinner"  was the opposite of what happened to me!

While it took me 17 years I finally got some help, but one thing I am coping with lately is dealing with the reality that lipedema is not a curable disease. One thing about me, both legs were growing in size every year. I did fear the day coming where I could not walk because the lobes were growing so huge on the worse leg. At least the treatments will help arrest this, and I shrunk my legs down, but it is scary to face a progressive disorder with no cure. I do believe I could have possible Dercum's too given my body-wide lipomas, lung problems and growing deafness but even just getting officially diagnosed with Lipedema Stage IV was hard enough.

Lipedema is a very disfiguring disease. This impacts many lippys. Being fat alone is known to cause enough trouble, in a fat hating society. My legs and body are extremely lumpy, I remember being worried at a very young age about this.  Facially I am not ugly and actually good looking from the head up, but body-wise, it's scary. I am not "shaped" like many fat women either and remember this being commented on during my severe weight gain by doctors and others. 400lb weight gains are not unknown in lipedema. Other severe lippys have told stories of the same things happening to them.

It seems to me that depression is a given with these things happening to a woman. I have been grieving a lot of losses this year. While I was freed of some of the self-blame, I had to face facts that my poor health from lipedema and other conditions has given me a far harder life. For an Aspie processing all of this and having a life that deviates so much from the norm, gives one a far harder challenge. There is no book out there talking about anyone who has had a life like me. What does a person do? How do you keep from going mad? I ran to God to keep from totally losing it. There is no script for this one.

I believe there needs to be more mental health care and support for those with lipedema. Some of these issues need dealt with. Many lippys are suffering for years without diagnosis. Many are succumbing to depression. I saw one presentation written about online that detailed the extremely high lipedema suicide rate, that deeply concerns me!

Women with severe lipedema are going through something very few people could imagine and it is intertwined with the most discriminated against condition on planet earth.

Many of us need counseling that can be direct with coping with this disorder and emotional support. Too many suffer in silence. This is a chronic illness that can bring severe loss to someone's life. It did mine and I had many other challenges to go along with it.  Many of us need counselors that can help us deal with our medical problems and gain more understanding of how to cope with life and living a better life with these extreme challenges.

See: My Emotions Dealing With the Lipedema Diagnosis

Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America

Poor People Don't Plan Long Term. We'll Just Get Our Hearts Broken

I read this book last week and it described my life. The author does have some differences, she has children and the health to work multiple jobs. I do wish it had a chapter on those who lost their health or struggled on disability but overall she talked about the life of the poor in America in a realistic way. The soul-sucking dead end jobs that lead nowhere and sometimes pay so little they don't even pay for the gas to get there. The abuses that go with low-level jobs, from customers and bosses who don't care that you live on nothing and won't even accommodate the schedule for your second and third job that you need to keep a roof over your head.

 I saw some guy commenting on this article, stating very succinctly, the jobs have gotten so bad, the poor have lost motivation to work, and he is right. Who wants to wake up everyday to abuse? The boredom of low wage work is something I remember. There is nothing to engage the mind. You are their robot with a fake smile. You are the human machine taking plastic pieces out of a plastics machine to box them up. My favorite low wage job was salad girl, left to cook salads in the kitchen, having to fill up the salad bar and being left alone, but that one was a rarity compared to the ones who even tried to script each word I said on the phone to telemarket or as a fast food cashier.  That is the secret of low-wage work many of the rich don't realize, they treat you like trash and a throwaway. If the boss wakes up having a bad day, they will fire you and the "at-will" employment rules they've decided to destroy most of the lower tiers will mean you have no rights to protest.

 I even find myself warning people with grown children, "Don't let them work that dead end job, help them get a decent job because the dead end jobs while they may keep you off the street in the immediate lead to NOWHERESVILLE."  I know I majorly erred when young in following the advice from the wealthier, "Do what you love" and having a college degree and being forced to clean toilets was no fun. College today is no guarantee even for the more "practical" degrees. Take it from a woman, me, who worked at Arby's, a temp at a factory, a home health aide, a cleaner, and a multitude of dead end jobs I'd rather forget, today's menial jobs destroy the soul.  Even my last job I worked before I was disabled was a daily trip to Hades. Fat Aspies with severe medical problems don't get the nice suburban or even rural teaching jobs, they do jobs no one else wants. I remember the hundreds of resumes, the endless nicely suited wealthy people who ruined my life telling me I wasn't "a good fit" and watched this happen to my husband, who managed a few working class newspaper jobs until the sharks grew in power.

One thing and the author talks about this, when you are poor, you don't have the right clothes or the right car. That is enough to lose the bid for the better jobs. I wrote the other day that I'm an outsider artist because I can't afford the entrance fees--often around 40-80 bucks for regular art shows nor the fancy framing they expect. It's the same for clothes. If you can't produce a wonderful wardrobe, even if you get one outfit to get the job in the first place, maintaining this is very difficult. I had times in my life during my weight gain, and I was working the awful job knowing I had absolutely nothing to wear and I actually got written up for having bad clothes, even though the job barely kept me off the street. How does one win in that? Skinnier people can get cheap clothes at thrift but fat ones cannot.

The menial jobs don't offer any loyalty or a safe life as nowadays, no one is allowed to be full time and they cut your hours according to the business coming in. As I have written here, I believe the jobs system is failing. The jobs are a joke, middle class jobs that actually support a family growing rarer then ever. The baby-boomers and beyond really are 47 times wealthier. I watch some of the people around here and wonder, how did they get those nice homes? How did they get that nice furniture, those trips? The endless knick-knacks on the shelf? Those new cars every two years?  The rich live in a world I don't even understand. Their lives are a vista of opportunities, babies and children they could afford to take care of, and happiness.  The thing I envy the most however is the feeling of belonging they have. I suppose someone cast out of their own family definitely would feel this.

The author also gets nails the depression of poverty. The positivity patrol expects the serfs to smile, but many of us serfs are suffering. When you are poor there is less to look forward to. That is the fact of the matter. Sure some of us brave souls venture out into the world doing art and photography to belie our pain, hanging out within 10 miles of home calling it a "day trip", fortunately I live in a place with some good scenery, but the life of the poor is always an "endless cycle of no".

"But still we're told to keep smiling and to be grateful for the chance to barely survive while being blamed for not succeeding. Whether or not that's actually true isn't even relevant that's what it feels like. Unwinnable. Sisyphean.

"Responsible poverty is an endless cycle of no. No, you can't have that.. You can't do that, can't afford that, can't eat that, can't choose that. This is off limits, and that is not for you, and this over here is meant for different kinds of people. More than once I've spent money I couldn't really afford simply to state that I could, if only to myself. Just to say it."

She talks about life with no medical care and her bad teeth which worsen and embarrass her. I found dental care via a charity program for the disabled. Without it, my own teeth were busily rotting out as I hadn't seen a dentist in 15-20 years. This nice dentist continued me past the year's worth of care too. Of course you all have already heard my sordid story of having to use the ER to keep me breathing and the thousands in medical bills I ran up. I don't take for granted being able to get medicines or a nebulizer now, because I remember the days where I could not get those things and how horrific it was.

The book explores the life of renting and how bad that can be when you are living in endless flophouses and rented rooms. She talks about how easy it is to get roaches in today's poorer apartments and it's true and now we all have to worry about bedbugs, which I live in terror of even checking every library book that comes in my apartment. I pay a rent I really can't afford to avoid the troubles of a cheaper place, namely noise and the threat of being a crime victim. When I lived in the ghetto the water wasn't clean, drug dealers rented an apartment down the hall to deal from. I'm too old and sick to take the bullcrap but realizing that almost half of our income is going to rent that rises every year and utilities alone is a bit scary.

It was nice to read a book, where someone was allowed to talk about how life really is for the poor. Our numbers are growing but in American society usually the poor are invisible. I know living in a more affluent community, we often feel alone in our suffering. It does drag you down. She is right that a "million things" remind you that you are poor everyday. Of course we are blamed, even as we struggle daily. Many poor people are told they are "losers" and "bums". We are told we "did everything wrong". I think to myself, why couldn't my husband have one nice boss who enhanced his career? Why did I have to deal with so many jerks, who were cruel to me even as I grew sicker?

 Last night I was watching the TV show Intervention watching one of the drug addicts visit his relatives upper middle class homes, and had the thought, maybe he is getting blitzed every night knowing he never could catch up. I am against drugs and don't do them, but I think a lot of the poor turn to drugs or alcohol to alleviate the inner psychic pain.

 This week, I have to go to a food pantry most likely on Saturday morning. I can't afford glasses and everything is growing more blurry which since I am already deaf, is bringing some tendrils of severe worry into my heart.  Life becomes a constant litany of putting things off, or seeking charity when you are poor, and bills that feel like they will crush you. Everything is an emergency, you live on the edge of it all crashing and it takes a major toll on your health and emotions.

 Sometimes I and my husband sit down and have these discussions, "How did this happen to us?". "Why does there feel there will be so little hope?" "How can we change it?" and we are stumped. Sure many have advice to "change it" but the lack of a decent-paying job for my husband with actual benefits is the main problem. Now he could be looking at disability himself with growing health problems. Sometimes I have worried he got tossed out because of me and my medical costs on any supplemental insurance. I don't think I am paranoid to have these thoughts in today's shark infested world.

Poverty brings so many losses to one's life, I am glad a book was honest about it all.

The Great Narc Take-Over

                               [source]


One thing I have pondered is how society is growing more narcissistic. I have ideals that are even outside of my religious ones, that I am realizing are growing more rare, in today's world. Why are the wolves taking over? Why is it getting harder to function in society? Why does altruism seem to be growing more rare. Why do so many people who rise to the top seem to be either connected or always the meanest sharks with the biggest teeth in the swimming pool of America? What ever happened to friendship, love and altruism? In the "selfie" society everything is about appearances!

The narcs are ruling here more and more. The Bible says in the last days that

Matt 24:12 And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.

It sure feels like those days are now.

One thing I notice in any group, is the narcissists always get their way. I have seen it happen in my family, offices, clubs, health groups, Internet support groups, and a multitude of other places. How does this happen? The way often group dynamics work among humans is the meanest ones, get the most respect. All a narcissists has to do is instill enough fear, and they have plenty of sycophantic minions, enablers and flying monkeys to do their bidding. I have noticed almost all groups if a narcissist is in the midst that MOST will submit to them. Why?

Human dynamics suck, there is a reason we get a bunch of evil sociopathic scum running the world, who bring in wars, and endless destruction. I think a sociologist should explore the issue of why do humans love and worship the most evil? Why do the most evil always climb to the top of the pyramid?

How come there wasn't one person in my family who ever defended me? One relative told me the Aunt that Loved me, called out the extreme favoritism of my mother for my sister, but with the exception of her and my brother standing a little against my fat abuse, there was nothing. I was left alone and isolated. The narcs convinced everyone to have as little to do with me as possible.

One recent thing for me is I have not officially "unfriended" or gone no contact with the few left in the family, but I am not talking to them. I have nothing to say. I have not called for weeks. Right now I'm trying to make up my mind about two birthday cards for younger nephews, they never write me or send me a card. The days of kids being told to write their old aunt a letter out of politeness sake are over with. I barely know them.  I worry about those kids because they are being raised on a diet of nothing but video games. I even joined "Steam" one of their video game forums which kept crashing my computer because I don't have a special gaming computer to try and talk to them to no avail. Hopefully their public schools will teach them something useful in life.

 I hid everything on my Facebook from the few remaining relatives.  I knew it was getting back to my mother and she had a constant information source. Cousins defend and visit my abusers, my mother and her brother. My brother I already wrote about. My nephew refuses to write back or any contact. My niece wouldn't even let me see her Instagram account she told me about. Her letters were written extremely stilted and even there I wondered if my sister was reading and editing them. She is 14 years old but seems unable to figure out the ease of setting up an email account of her own. You know something is wrong when you ask direct questions and get no answers. These weren't crazy questions either, I never brought up my no contact with her or told her about the other relatives, just simple ones.  Why am I bothering? It just isn't worth it.

I sat back and realized I am a stranger to my family. I didn't choose this, but they did. This is something I have to admit in my letting go process, these people don't know me and didn't want to. The narcs set this into motion. Yes sometimes I stand back and think, "How did this happen?" "How did I lose so badly?", "How did the narcs turn everyone against me so effectively? I am sure this is something ACONs all relate to. I know now I can't take the disrespect and disloyalty anymore. I did for years putting up with it. I suppose it's odd to choose to be alone, but I got tired. Tired of trying so hard even with the ones I considered the "nice" ones.

The worse thing is how they silence you, especially for an Aspie where the social rules are tougher, and you go silent afraid to say the wrong thing but then wondering if the silence worsened things for you? Did I say too much? Did I say too little? I realized even with the few I opened up to, it made not a whit of a difference.

But then what do you do when everything you say is twisted and turned against you. One thing about Aspergers, I believe narcissists have it out for Aspies. We are often bullied by them. We are not as submissive and followers to group dynamics and it pisses them off. An Aspie who has had to float their own boat for years, is an annoyance to a narc. I don't feel like obeying the narcs for social ease. This gets me in trouble in endless groups.

Things flow fine if there are no narcs in a group or club. My present church seems narc-free thank God, and my old one was too. My time with these folks is joyful, however if a narc is in a room, Aspie watch out. Narcs like to pick on those they see as the weakest and most vulnerable. The way their twisted brains work, is they seek to find out who is the "weakest link" and they go after them to gain power. Sadly this seems to work far too often. They go after those they consider vulnerable, the sickest, the Aspie, etc. Narcissists are like the head chicken telling every other chicken in the chicken yard to peck at the scapegoat. They get others to join in but many others scurry to the sidelines not wanting to be the next target and the Narc has attained power via fear. One thing about me as a personality, is I have always defended the underdogs and this angers the narcs. This often makes me a target but not something I plan to change.

Think about today's work-world. Why are so many places back-stab factories? In the old days, if you showed up, did your work and were peaceful, things were fine, now people lose their livilehoods at the behest of narcs. Now if they "don't like you", they kick you to the curb into welfare and starvation. My husband worked a job for 5 years but sadly a sociopathic narc came in to run the business, and he got rid of him within a year. He laid in wait for him to make ONE mistake, in a newspaper article. If you are going to write 100s of newspaper articles a year, there is bound to be a mistake, if you are a human being and not a machine. This man fired others, destroying untold lives including firing one woman in a day, he decided he "did not like", who had uprooted her life to move to our town. He did not care about firing a man who had to do caretaking for a disabled wife, and seeking to destroy his life. The sick thing is he made a big production of being a Christian. The man was no Christian.

How many work organizations are being destroyed by narcissists now? Innovation and production will not increase under them. Most of the narcs will clean the place out and cook the books, so they look good. This may be one thing that describes why the American economy is failing. Too many narcs, too much destruction and no one can get any work done. It seriously worries how the nicest people seem to be the poorest now and left out of the running in the work a day world.  I think it should be illegal to fire someone simply because a sick twisted boss "doesn't like" someone who has worked a job successful for years, and is not insubordinate and the business isn't going out of business. Of course as they pass horrible laws like the "right to work", really the "right to be fired and unemployed", the narcissists grow in power. Too many narcs become bosses and are true incompetents using scapegoats to carry the blame as they destroy businesses. The boss who fired my husband, ran the newspaper into the ground and was fired himself eventually when the bottom line sunk too low.

I have had a life where I have seen the narcissists never lose a job or suffer a bout of unemployment. They all ended up wealthy with money enough for condos and second homes in Florida, and endless decorations, vacations and eating out. Being crushed by health care bills or even taxes somehow didn't seem to be part of their world. The narcissists know how to play the system, not get caught and know how to scoop up the profits. The Bible talks about in Psalm 73 how the wicked will prosper. This doesn't mean every rich person is a narc or evil, but there are some who are, and they are doing big money clean-outs. The bankers with their bail-outs and politicians, what is the percentage of narcs and sociopaths in that world? I've read 10% of Wall-street bankers are sociopaths before, I find such a stat totally believable.

In our society of celebrity, the narcissists have a whole world stage upon which to play. They desire for the world to revolve around them and to have constant attention. Many of the celebrities that Americans worship are full blown narcissists. You see one every now and then who really loves acting and where it is a craft, but many simply are the most successful at getting attention and are connected. While not everyone can be world famous, one can see that narcissists DO get the most attention even on smaller levels. They suck up notice like sponge. They are bored by others, and say "What about me?" In our society however the way competition works, now where achievement is more about getting attention more then actually DOING something, many of the narcissists are experts at getting attention. The sell-yourself and NETWORK society threw open the door WIDE for the narcissists and self-absorbed to take power and they did. They are the ones who have the known names, they are the ones everyone is seeking to please because they are the one up on stage. Their faces are everywhere, and yours is not.

In a society where close social ties have broken and where there is constant moving, that helped the narcissists too. When people lived in the same town all their lives and knew folks, narcissists had it harder. Screw enough people over and many would talk and learn to avoid you. However in a society where the crowds are larger, and there's always a group of new "suckers" to be had for the narcissist, they are harder to detect and can pull off more antics. Small town gossip is no longer a curb on their behaviors. They are lost in the big city always with a new supply of victims. Their lies are easier to hide in a group of unconnected people or a bigger community.

Piss off a narc enough, via disagreeing with them, and they will go on their smear campaigns. They will make up endless lies about you. Most of their lives are based on lies. They lie about themselves too. Most do not see through their lies. To get a narc angry at you, you don't even have to get in an actual debate with one. Merely disagreeing with a narc in a polite fashion is enough for one to become your arch-enemy for life. Remember when people could have different ideas and not hate each others guts? Those days are over with now too. Their reaction is way beyond the original dispute. They will try to color you as bad as they can. "You attacked me, you are vicious!" they will shout in their classic ploys of projection. One thing about narcissists, is they project on you, what they are doing! So when one screams, "You are a liar!", they are lying their butts off.

 They want constant admiration and if you do not provide this, they will hate your guts. Before I went no contact, I disagreed with my mother about something in front of other family members, she started shrieking about her "respect" and "how dare I". I thought to myself I am old enough to be a grandmother and still being browbeaten by this woman? I thought no more. One sick narc I encountered was so extreme, she wrote on Facebook, that no one was allowed to disagree with her on her wall lest she would ban them. That's not friendship but a committee of "yes men and women". but she gathers them and quite easily too. Conditional friendship based on propping someone up. One can see narcissists making crazy rules all over the place, one thing they want to police constantly is speech. I see narcissism in the bad politics of America. Narcissism and wickedness is what is driving the police state and desire for control and silencing.

  Even if you retreat in realizing they are a sociopath with no human empathy, they are hell-bent for revenge and destruction behind the scenes. People will unfriend you and stop talking to you, and you won't even know why. They will go after your friends well just because they are your friends. My narcissistic mother hated all my friends even ones she never met. Why? She was angry at them merely for being my friend. My mother managed to destroy even what should be the strongest of family bonds.

 In the minds of reprobate narcs daring to challenge them on anything makes you a non-person. Instead of defending their ideas, they will attack the person. They will tell others long litanies of everything that is wrong with you and do endless smear campaigns. After I went no contact I realized how complete and utterly poisonous my mother's smear campaigns had  This is how they work, to vilify rather then to defend or stand on any principles. Narcissists and their minions sell out at the drop of a hat. If cash is involved they would sell their grandmother down the river. They go where the profit is at and ideals such as goodness, honor and integrity don't matter.  In America, those became old-fashioned ideals are meant to be cast aside among the Lady Gaga worshippers. We have seen the great sell-out continue. This is one reason things are growing more corrupt in our country. The Great Narc take-over. They do not care about what is good anymore but seek their own elevation and profit.

In a society where people have been trained to worship bare naked power, and where the whole premise is king and queen of the mountain antics, the narcissists have been emboldened even more so. Their power is growing. Their meanness is growing. The people who have given in to them and the flying monkeys lacking moral standing themselves have given them more of a place. One thing they can and do use is fear. No one wants to be their next target, so even the people who may know what they are, hide in the shadows. Fear keeps them on top. Fear and active destruction of people's lives, keeps all the others in line. I realized to my horror, people absolutely feared my mother. I wrote in my NC letter to her,  "why should I fear a narcissistic woman, when I almost got shot by gangbangers at my last job?".  Aunt Scapegoat and Aunt Confused shivered in their boots before my mother. In my family I am not considered brave for being the only one who has ever stood against her but crazy!

That is one thing I notice about the narcissists is everyone is afraid of them. This fear has some reason to exist. Many narcissists will destroy your name and reputation but the ones higher on the sociopath scale, won't let any human laws hold them back. This is why no contact is recommended, "winning with narcs" in this world doesn't happen. They aren't playing by the same rules. When I see a narc in my midst now, I know now to separate as much as possible.

Often they are the ones with the money and power, and to stand against one can bring great sacrifice. Many will dirty the names of the one's who do make stand. I believe in standing with God behind my back and no succumbing to wicked narcs.

Shaun The Sheep

Wallace and Gromit and Chicken Run were great movies. A lover of animation, I love clay-mation even more. This is one I plan to see!

Secrets

Just recently discovered this plus sized singer, well I am out of mainstream music a bit. I like some of the lyrics on this one.

I've got bi-polar disorder
My sh*t's not in order
I'm overweight
I'm always late
I've got too many things to say
I rock mom jeans, cat earrings
Extrapolate my feelings
My family is dysfunctional
But we have a good time killing each other

[Pre-Chorus:]
They tell us from the time we're young
To hide the things that we don't like about ourselves
Inside ourselves
I know I'm not the only one who spent so long attempting to be someone else
Well I'm over it

[Chorus:]
I don't care if the world knows what my secrets are (secrets are)
I don't care if the world knows what my secrets are (secrets are) So-o-o-o-o what
So what
So what
So what

I can't think straight, I'm so gay
Sometimes I cry a whole day
I care a lot, use an analog clock
And never know when to stop
And I'm passive, aggressive
I'm scared of the dark and the dentist
I love my butt and won't shut up
And I never really grew up

[Pre-Chorus]

They tell us from the time we're young
To hide the things that we don't like about ourselves
Inside ourselves
I know I'm not the only one who spent so long attempting to be someone else
Well I'm over it

[Chorus:]
I don't care if the world knows what my secrets are (secrets are)
I don't care if the world knows what my secrets are (secrets are)
So what
So what
So what
So what
I don't care if the world knows what my secrets are (secrets are)
I don't care if the world knows what my secrets are (secrets are)
So what
So what
So what
So what

(I don't care if the world knows what my secrets are)
So what
So what
So what
So what

I love my husband

I wanted to post this for my husband on here. He reads my blog. He has helped me quite a lot. During this month and half long illness that got very bad with two doctor visits, an ER visit and lots of medicines, he helped me quite a bit. He was there for me and even when I felt very sick from the leg infection and worried about going into worse bronchitis or pneumonia, he told me to hang in there and was extremely encouraging. I know caretaking for him is not always an easy task, he does have to do more then the average husband though I can still cook and do what I can. I want him to know I do not take him for granted and love him dearly. Happy Birthday to my dear husband.