Abusive, co-dependent relationships are terribly hard to deal with, to see in action, and try to mitigate the emotional toll on my own life. Emotional blackmail comes OEM with these kinds of relationships and even standing on the sidelines, one cannot help but be dragged into the fray. People who live long term in these kinds of relationships know, no other way of dealing with life or the people around them. Often the only relationship skills they know are manipulative, emotionally abusive tactics, and use them simply as a matter of course. They don’t actually know any better, because as Pat Benetar sings;

“Love and pain become one and the same in the eyes of a wounded child.”

Wounded children have no choice but to grow up into wounded adults. It’s the only thing they have ever known. When growth occurs, as it rarely ever does, the costs are frightening. More often than not however there is no growth, only sickness and death. When you pile on other conditions, like bi-polar disorder, the entire process become that much more a mess. No-one is 100% sure what causes bi-polar disorder, and any of a number of other mental health issues that people suffer from, but there are two commonly accepted paths to severe and disabling mental illness. One is genetics, if a parent has one or a number of mental health issues, children have a fifty percent chance of being touched by some form of mental illness. When both parents are suffering, it’s almost a certainty. Trauma is another pathway to mental illness.

Regardless of how one winds up touched by mental illness, it can, and often does have a profound and quite often devastating effect on ones life. Combine this with a history of domestic-violence, and the patterns inherent in such relationships, and life quickly becomes more than rough. It often becomes impossible.

Now maybe I’m turning into the mental health version of an ex-smoker, but I really don’t think so. Too many years I spent living so many lies, thinking and allowing the world to believe everything was okay. When reality finally hit me, well it nearly took me from this world. Overly dramatic? Regrettably, no, not so much. The sheer enormity of it all was very nearly more than I could stand.

So I’m in recovery. Working hard to move forward and establish new and healthy patterns and behavior, isn’t the most pleasant thing one should need to have to deal with. Having people around me in various stages of their own journey, or lack of it, toward heling and growth is hard. I want very much to be supportive and compassionate, even, considering my background empathetic, but by the same token when do I have to step back. When can or do I step back?

This is where things get even more complex. When I’m dealing with other people, I need to remain sensitive to their history and background hopefully not make things worse. At the same time, I have to know when it is all way too much for me to deal with. I’m working hard at not repeating the mistakes of the past, making changes to my thinking and behavior, and finding ways to mitigate the long term damage while I heal. I have come to realize that in so many ways I am terribly sensitive to others problems, and these same issues harm me.

It’s also terribly hard to see people in so much pain and watch them not do anything to help themselves. To have to stand by and see them not take what control of their own lives they do have, and try to make positive changes. So I have been forced to consider, and begin implementing, a policy of controlled access. Other people want to wallow in their own pain and misery, rock on, but don’t bring it to my door because I’m not going to open it anymore. Toxic people who refuse to take any serious steps to improve their own lives are just that, toxic.

I cannot, and will not, keep actively exposing myself to poison.

I’m part of so few groups these days, and the number is becoming fewer all the time, because the whole “T” community is in a uproar.  Well you know, if they want to set about klinging to their delusions about labels, terms, and who they REALLY ARE, fine.  I doesn’t mean I have to agree with them, or share my bathroom with them

Get over it guys.  If you’re wearing a ball gown, stomping around like a trucker, shoving people out of the way, and bellowing to your buddy across the mall, YOU ARE A MAN.  Period.  End of story.  At best, you might be “Transgender” which is an insulting, pejorative term, so why you’d want to Kling onto the term is beyond me.  Trying to convinve me, or anyone you’re “Transsexual”  well I’m sorry, but that should give a beer swilling, basement hidding, joker in a frock a one way ticket to a happy place, where they give you all sorts of happy pills, and keep you safe and out of harms reach.

As in out of the reach of HARMING others!

So you don’t like how pejorative the term “Trangender” has become?  Well, you can thank yourself for that.  Trying to claim you’re a “Transsexual” because somehow, that makes things better?  Yeah, right.  Put down the beer, and step away from labels before someone comes along, pumps you full of estrogen and cuts off you precious, beloved power stick of doom!  Just because some ignoramus at websters has chosen definitions for words they know nothing about, and codified them into reality by publishing them in a book, doesn’t make it right.

You there, beer swilling, basment dressing bloke in frock, yeah the joker with the deep voice, beer belly, and chain smokers cough, with the tree trunks sticking out of your face.  Yeah, you!  YOU ARE NOT A TRANSSEXUAL.  Get over it, move on, bugger off.  You’re a guy in a dress hiding out in the basement because your obsessed with “presenting” AS A women, not living.

Being a woman has nothing to do with clothes.  Yeah, we wear them, you wear them, and sometimes you like to wear ours.  Bully for you.  Enjoy…  It doesn’t make you a woman, or a transsexual one at that.  Get over it and move on…

A big difference between trangender and transsexual;

Transgender folks can’t wait to get to their safe and happy place and put on a bra and panties,

Transsexual woman can’t wait to get to her safe and happy place and TAKE OFF her bra and panties…

So there you go…

The UltraFlip has some serious advantages, but a couple of shortcomings I was concerned about.  It does have a great price point and that made it kinda hard to say no.  It’s simple and easy to use, inexpensive (About 150 dollars) and point and shoot.  Hook it right up, and off you go.  Has a tripod mount (mandatory for me) and moves video over to the computer with point and click ease.

Not being a newby and being more than capable of dealing with things like firewire, and high def, I wanted more.  I also wanted if at all possible, wide screen (16:9) and more options for storage, like something removable and a name I knew.  Would have been nice if I could have an external mic, and keep it in the same price range as the UltraFlip.  Tall order I know.

Some careful shopping turned up an unexpected buy that fit ALL my requirements.  150 dollars, HD, Firewire, Widescreen, Removable storage, tripod mount, external mic and more.  Rock!!!  So, I ordered it from Amazon, the Canon ZR800.  I have an existing relationship with Canon, in fact the picture in the header was one I shot with my Canon 20D digital still camera.  It’s not my first Canon, even the 20D isn’t, and it’s small, feature packed and easy to use.

So I’m excited!  It should be here in a couple of days!

 There are times however when nothing beats good old fashioned “comfort” food that I don’t have to make.  Something really good, really yumm-o, and all I’ve have to do is eat it.  For me, one huge choice is something so mundane as hot dogs and french fries.  When I was a kid, my family used to do something really silly, a bit strange, and a whole bunch of fun on weekends.  We chased trains across two states, and made a day out of it, including a stop at this one resturant for…

…hot dogs and fries.  

 So yesterday, a friend of mine and I decided to check out a place in Jersey that’s part of a small, but growing chain.   “The New England Hot Dog Company” is a self described place for “Gourmet Hot Dogs” that reminds me of that Hot Dog place all those years ago.  The food was, in a word, YUMM-O!  I chose nice hot natural casting hot dogs, wrapped in a toasted New England style bun with spicy brown mustard, sauerkraut and of course French fries that were hot, crispy, crunchy and just perfect.  A Sobe Lemon Balm and Chamomile vitamin water completed the meal and it was oh so good!  

Brought back serious memories of times past when life didn’t completely suck, and Comfort food, all without a single dish to wash.  The environment was great, the service was first rate and the food perfect.  So I had to go out for it, but sometimes eating out is just a great break away from dealing with the house.

NOT a Transsexual, Transgender, or any of the dozens, hundreds of different LABELS people try to impose based on ignorance or fear.  Transsexuality is a made up name for a condition, as is Intersexed.  I was was born intersexed, fought long and hard not to deal with it, and the medical conditions that came with it, and have grown past it.  Transgender has become this somewhat popularized, and horribly contentious term made up by some, claimed by many, and almost always disputed.  I don’t identify with any of them, I’m a girl, a woman, a person of the female gender.  From my earliest memories I’ve been a girl.  My father and the doctors had other thoughts, and society just kinda roped me off into a half of the room I don’t belong.  Seriously, the wrong half of the room in Kindergarten.  Wow, things just got ugly from there.  That’s a topic, a story, for another day.

I’m a feminist, though considerably more moderate [read, much less militant and man hating] than I used to be, and firmly believe the Constitution of the US meant MAN in terms of MANKIND, not just MEN. I’m a card carrying NOW member, and supporter. I was, for many years, a radical, lesbian, feminist, and had someone break up with me because I was. I’ve mellowed with age, and really appreciate the humor of those days. What was so funny? Well the girl I was dating at the time, actually engaged to, broke up with me because she knew her Mom would take one look at me, and KNOW her daughter was a lesbian. “Right, funny? What’s funny about that?” I can almost here you asking.

I was living, working, and looked like a guy. Seriously. Really. Pretty much everyone knew I was a guy, or so I thought. I was hiding well, trying to do the whole “guy” thing, and figured everyone believed I was a guy. Well, not so much! My Ex, in breaking up with me said I was way too much a les, and her Mom would know. She wasn’t ready to be “outed” at that point in her life, and broke up with me in self defense.

I could kinda relate, I had a big secret in my life that I didn’t want anyone to know either.

I was a girl, had been my whole life, and been fighting to hide. She suggested I just “go ahead and get things fixed, you’ll be much happier when you do and folks will be less confused.”

Wow. At that point, I was stunned, hurt, and just not believing what had just happened. I should have taken her advise then!  Breaking up is hard enough to do, but it’s not like I told her my horrible secret.

That was back in the early 80’s and the journey between there and here has been, humm, interesting? Transition was the furthest thing from my mind, and denial wasn’t just a river in Egypt, it was a way of life. I am, for the record, female, a woman, and proud of it. That’s it! No other labels, names, conditions I wrap about me like an identity.

A woman, my gender is female inside and out. It’s been a long road, and breaking up is hard enough, let alone like this.

What’s the point of all this? No clue really. Maybe to let people who are just starting out have a general idea that they are not alone. That, and to let other people who have no idea, gain some insight into one woman’s life. Not here to stir up controversy, or push the envelope too much. My concept is education, demystification, and growth. Not just for me, but other people as well.

I’m no activist, but sharing real life, letting people know they are not alone, and perhaps shining a light towards the sea of hope is a good start. I’ll include links to people and organizations I respect and admire that folks can learn from and or support. I’m going to talk about a number of topics that have, or do impact my life, and how I feel.

“Oh, goodness, no!!! How she feels about things?”

Look, I’m an emotional person, it is how I relate to the world, some could say the filter through which I perceive life. I make no apologies here, what I put up here for the world to read is me, my life, feelings, experiences, opinions and what have you. If you’re not happy with what you read, forgive me, I’d suggest you find other more interesting spots on the net. Otherwise, enjoy.

I’m also a survivor. While this site is new, it’s not my first foray into blogging, and I have five years of content in another blog I need to move over here. Either that, or I’ll add a link at some point to the existing content and go from there. Survivor? Yeah, of many things, Domestic Violence, Abuse, Trauma, Depression, Post Traumatic Stress, Anxiety, Gender Issues, and well life. That’s just the highlights. I’m old enough to know better, and for the first time in my life, young enough not to care. I’m working on a better, happier, more balanced life and this isn’t always popular with someone. Hopefully I’ll inspire some folks, and touch some lives for the better!

Thanks for stopping by!