I am number six

[pennyplant]

I am feeling warm and happy this morning--this thread may be playing a big part in that  .

(((Portia, LightofHeart, Healing&Hopeful))) --If I hug all at once, I feel less overwhelmed for some reason.  Even in cyberspace, how funny.

A side-note:  I just printed out this thread as I thought I could keep better track of the replies I want to make.  Two pages on the screen translated into 31 pieces of paper!!!!  So, Sela, I hope you never want to print out the Anything thread  !

PP

[pennyplant]

I felt I might be doing a disservice because I wasn’t telling enough, I wasn’t ……fitting in with the feel/tone of the thread. And I like the feel so I wanted to ‘do it service’ i.e. respect the environment? Something like that. Maybe I wanted to be accepted into the group on this thread? Scary thought. Group dynamics!

The good thing about getting on this thread, Portia, is that it was started by a person who has "Group Dynamics Phobia" or GDP.  So, while it might take some suprising turns, really all anyone needs to be willing to do is go with the flow  .  And here I was taking it a little personal and thinking maybe I shouldn't have said the thing about anger and thread-locking.... Sooner or later I will conquer this taking things personally problem.

Reading about how you were treated as a kid. I was punched in the stomach once, aged about 8/9. Three lads ran past and one threw a punch and totally winded me (couldn’t breathe, thought I was going to die), but it seemed completely arbitrary – I didn’t know this boy. Just being punched by a stranger for the heck of it. I was tall and fairly quiet, being tall generally stops other kids beating you up I think, so maybe I escaped that. You appear to have a strong idea of what you were like (talkative, demonstrative), I don’t think I do. I felt more like a shadow, ignored? Maybe.


I had a vague idea of being powerful, being able to do what I liked, being free. I know I didn’t matter, I knew it then - not mattering to anyone in the family that is. My grandparents’ love for me was like a treat for being good and it made me believe I had some worth.

You know, I do wonder what it would be like if the cruelty I experienced in childhood had been arbitrary and not specifically aimed at me.  Maybe I would have learned to blow it off better?   In general, though, I was the intended target.  It is pretty hard to believe it wasn't meant for me when it was so specific to my looks or my name.  And my name was not anything particularly strange or unusual--but when kids don't like you to begin with, they can be especially creative with name twisting.  I forgot; I also was spit on in the face and had a worm thrown at me.  The spit--I will never forget the boy who did that to me.  I see him every so often now and I admit I take pleasure in knowing that he has an unhappy marriage.  What goes around comes around.  He was the main person behind some of the worst torment.  I will never know why.  I guess I caught his attention somehow.  His father owned (and still owns) a shoe store in town.  Other bullies were the children of the owner of our local Pepsi bottler.  Do capitalists somehow impart to their offspring the idea that they are more deserving of space, power, everything?

I have often thought maybe my childhood would have gone better if I had been less noticeable and quieter.  But I was very, very expressive by nature and think I might have exploded if I had tried too hard to be another way.  Later on, when life began going badly in general, I lost my expressiveness and became more self-conscious and tied up inside.  Life just shut me up eventually.  And things didn't go any better.  So, I guess I've answered my own question there.

Since my parents ignored me a lot, I did have a certain amount of freedom though.  I sort of became responsible for myself in exchange.  I think that feeling of responsibility did give me a certain kind of power.  Maybe I did know myself pretty well.  It was when the doubts came in play that I was sunk.  That's what I need to get rid of now.  Self-doubt.

Fortunately you had grandparents who valued you.  I always felt like a burden.  I felt sorry for my parents that they got stuck with me for their daughter.  I can't think of any other adult who valued me much.  Oh, that's not true.  One of my aunts said nice things to me and would hold my hand when I stayed there and we'd go to the store or down the street.  But I didn't stay there often enough to understand the routine and become accustomed to the atmosphere at their house.  Too bad.  I might have learned to be affectionate sooner and learned to like me as much as her family did.  They lived an hour away and my mother didn't particularly like her sister-in-law.  More obstacles to belonging and acceptance.

Guarding your feelings…I guess I guard my feelings too, if I recognise them as feelings in the first place? I do recognise them more now but before, no. People where I once worked viewed me as ‘the odd bird’, at my last work the staff thought I was nutty (eccentric I suppose) and they enjoyed it, I think. I’m harder on myself than I am on other people. Are you harder to others only in your head, your judgements of them, or do you act on your judgements? I’m 44 too. Letting your flaws show….accepting the parts of yourself that you feel are ‘bad’? Are they really flaws? Or things that your parents disapproved of, or those things that you were persecuted for as a kid? Being talkative and having red hair have brought some people a lot of ‘success’ (but I wouldn’t like to be Anne Robinson who uses bullying and condescension to be successful, neither would I like to be her daughter).

I wonder what an odd bird is, Portia.  What do you do that makes people think that?  Where I work, being different or eccentric is appreciated because it is interesting and maybe seen as freedom.  I think I would probably like you if you worked where I do.

I suspect that when I am judgmental of someone, or not liking someone, it is not something I successfully keep in my head.  It shows in my body-language and interactions with the person.  Sometimes, not often, but vividly enough that people will remember, I will let someone have it.  One time a co-worker was acting pompous and unreasonable, talking about what everyone should be doing FOR him because of his exalted position as the senior person.  He is quite lazy by nature by the way.  He was blaming the supervisor for his terrible mistreatment by us lower souls and she was apologizing for upsetting him by asking him to work.  I was furious just from listening to this even though he wasn't specifically directing it at me.  But he was offending my moral sense.  My sense of justice.  So, I made a big show of going and getting the items he wanted.  He, for some reason, followed me to also get what he wanted and I said, "Oh, no, DON'T lift a finger, I will BRING this TO you!"  Very sarcastic.  He tried to get it anyway and I stepped in front of him and said the same thing again, only louder and more sarcastically.  And then I brought it to him as befitting his lofty station in life.  Well, did I get into a whole lot of "trouble" for that one!  He actually tried to file a harrassment claim against me, for "physically preventing" him from doing his job.  The job he had just got done saying he shouldn't have to do.  I am 4'11" and he is 6'1".  There was no physical harrassment.  Just a lot of pointed sarcasm.  It eventually blew over.  But, no, I don't keep it to myself all the time.  Some people do find these scenes, probably three or four of them in five years, very entertaining.  I do what I can  ....

I think I am critical of myself because my parents were picky and critical by nature about everything.  Perhaps they were raised similarly.  They were young and immature when they started out.  Maybe scared and feeling over resposible.  Both came from low-income families which brings it's own kind of pressures and pickiness.  So, it was taught to me.  I suspect my true nature is to be open and accepting.  We shall find out at any rate.

This is so very interesting, Portia.

PP

[lightofheart]

Hi again Pennyplant,

Well, so far as warm things go, your hubby sounds like a wise gem:

...

my husband and he has a phrase for this problem--"Sustained Goodwill."  He explained it to me like this:  if the majority of the time you treat people well, do your best, act respectfully most of the time, then the occasional weakness is the exception and you are a good person. 

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My Gramma would surely echo your H., and say, 'Sweet Penny, some folks just can't take to kindness, bless their hearts. Best to trust that good gut of yours.' What you describe as your cold side sounds like it could be emotional self-defense or preservation? Healthy instincts, imho, and can be real sanity-keepers. Speaking for myself, once I accepted that I couldn't save anyone, however I might want to, the buffer of distance was a real godsend with some folks who previously might've gotten my goat 20 times at one sitting.

LoH, what happened to the girl the clique was going to hurt? 

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A friend told me once that I am a survivor. 

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Hope you don't mind that I put these quotes together? 'Cause I think it says a lot about you, Pennyplant, that your heart would go out to the person targeted. I think you're a survivor, too: a compassionate survivor, which isn't always the case. I know other good and wonderful survivors who simply have little or no patience for anyone they see as unempowered compared to themselves. A sort of take-no-prisoners toughness I wouldn't judge...but generally not the kindest route. You seem much more giving than that.

The girl who was targeted by the clique kept to a solitary orbit on the far edge of the playground before this happened, and kept even more to herself afterwards. The worst part is, the clique didn't do it as a group: each one came at her individually, spouted the leader's mean words, then ran back to the group, laughing. Truly brutal, just sickening. I tried to apologize for them when it was all over, to tell her what jerks they were, but she was so humilitated by then--everyone had seen and heard--she just ran away.

Because five years ago, when I walked out on N-boss, it took me five months to get the job I have now. 

What job came next?  Is that a story of something happening for a reason?

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If you would like to tell, I would be very interested to know more about your walkout, and how it helped lead to the path you seem happy about now? imho, these kind of experiences and journeys are a real joy to hear about. Warm fuzzies, and much inspiration.

Re. my scary boss, I'm positive this happened for a reason, and the best. A few months after the 'respect' incident, she had a rage breakdown on the job and fired the whole management staff, including me, at 4 pm on a Friday. No reason given for any of the firings, my first and only canning--which came three weeks after a glowing performance review and raise for me. My (not-yet) H. and I had just quit excellent jobs and moved X country to the west coast, and there we were with no family at all, him still looking for work, and now without any income at all. I was stunned and scared to death. We had to sell back CDs just to buy food.

BUT (you just can't make this sh%$ up!) I had the good luck to be fired the day before I had a plane ticket to go to the beach, east coast, to hang with my family. Went out with the other ex-managers after the bomb dropped, hit happy hour, and wound up singing 'Take this Job and Shove it' at a karaoke bar filled with wildly appreciative Japanese businessmen and decided, full of sushi and umbrella drinks, it made perfect sense not to cash in the ticket and go on the trip anyway. While at the beach, I read the help wanted section of a big city newspaper exactly once, and, buried in all the techonology and nursing jobs, there was an ad for a job in a cool little city that could have been written just for me. Being deeply impractical, I sold a diamond ring, hired a moving man, and my (not-yet) H. and I drove 3,000 miles based on my absolute certainty the job was mine, and a shared feeling that we loved our family too much to live 3 time zones away. Got the job, my H. and I were married while we lived in that little city, and never looked back.

What I want to do here, is have an impact on others with my story and be impacted by others from their stories.  That has been happening all along.  I have been growing ever since I got here and people have said things which make me believe that they learned something from me...That kind of thing, the back and forth, makes me feel alive.

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For what it's worth, you've had an impact on me, Penny. Reading this thread, I think many others as well. Thanks for encouraging us to trade our joys here, and all the other pushes that led to them.

Hope you can stand another hug? ((((((((Pennyplant)))))))

Best,
Loh

[pennyplant]

About stages of growth I missed
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I still feel very young in my curiosity … maybe that’s behind the wanting to analyse and explore and dig away at problems …maybe that’s what I didn’t do ages 3 to 7? Beyond perhaps? I don’t remember much enjoyable play (like painting etc); I was pretty serious and always thoughtful, restrained, wary maybe. can’t quite cope with the idea that as adult I can actually do whatever I’m capable of, less, what I want to do! Still enjoying saying ‘no, I don’t want to do that’.
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There are very few people I don’t find it difficult to be with for anything over an hour. I feel semi-permeable sometimes and other people crowd ‘me’ in my head, it’s very tiring. In work interviews I take too much notice of the other people, their mannerisms, eye movements, tone of voice and most often, I just don’t like people. It’s not a judgement as such, I just don’t want to be near them. Is it worth trying to change that? What for? Etc.

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Loss of one parent in early life seems to create many people who are exceptionally driven to achieve. Great achievers are not likely to be stable though I think.
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I think we can only do the best with what we have;

I guess it’s trying to work out what I was becoming as a child, and recognising the traits and abilities I learned and putting them to full use. Not trying to change them, or become some other person that really, my brain tells me, isn’t completely possible. It’s being content with what I am, not trying to change into something I’m not – and I’m definitely not amongst the 50% (???where do they get this stuff??!) who are stable, ‘normal’.
What you were becoming as a child – talkative, vivacious, alive, (funny?) – hey how do you fancy joining the local drama group? Get a part as real villain, or an empty-headed flirt, or a duchess, or …?
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I don’t imagine I’ve replied as you might have imagined. But maybe there’s something in there for one if not both of us? I’ll post it and let it go!
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Oh can I say something about your reply to LoH please? About :Selfish, lazy people bring out this cold side of me – and why not? Why do you have to be ‘good’ to these people when they’re not being good to you? You don’t have to reciprocate with rudeness, but you can cut them off, turn the other cheek. If people don’t treat you well, I don’t agree with treating them better. We’re all equal. We have to do what matches our personal values: if someone robs me, I won’t rob them in return but I will want my property back and I will want to tell them exactly how I feel. These ‘weaknesses’ of yours, aren’t they simply part of being human, do they need correction, or even suppressing? What are they really? Being intolerant of idiots? (that’s not a weakness to me, it’s a survival strategy I mean to build on, seriously).
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WHO IS NUMBER SIX?

Well, I did not know if you would post to this thread at all--I thought maybe the quietest people would reply, maybe even some of the guests who are probably still feeling their way in this place.  Your replies have got me thinking in many directions.  I'm grateful for what you have said.

So, you are young inside?  Me too.  Aside from genetic immaturity, I think I am fourteen and 18.  Fourteen is when my life fell apart-- parents' divorce, sister going out of control and ending up in foster care, best friend moving away, other best friends turning on me, and one really bad haircut.  And a bad haircut is not insignificant when you're fourteen and nothing else is going right either.  Eighteen is when I got pregnant.  So, I got on a different road all at once, and not until around age 40 did I get the chance to pick up where I left off.  So, I'm fairly young inside.

It sounds like you're quite young inside in some ways.  I like that the digging and analytical part of you might come from that.  You dig out of curiosity and interest.  Newness.   I like that for some reason.

I appreciate your take on how to be with those who are rude or otherwise mistreating me.  It's related to me valuing myself I think.

Oh, statistics.  I heard that most people who agree to participate in polls of any kind usually lie.  Not me, of course.  If I agree to participate in something I take it seriously.  But if I'm the only honest one, well, then what good is a poll or survey?  But I got my ideas of what works in society from looking at the past and noticing what usually seems to happen.  Of course, old newspapers are never comprehensive.  And people's memories are suspect.  So, even though I think I'm onto something with my ideas, well, nobody knows the whole truth about real life.  My sons are kind of quirky and off-beat.  I've seen the looks people give them for spiked blue hair and raggedy clothes.  I suppose society would say they are not stable or do not fit it. But I know my sons each have lots of friends, and work hard at their jobs, and contribute so much.  Contribution=Stability?  Maybe, maybe.

What was I becoming?  Probably all the things you listed.  I remember once going to try-outs for the school play.  I was so excited at the very thought, that I could barely contain myself.  But I lost my courage to actually read for a part.  So, I joined stage crew instead and painted some of the background scenery and absorbed some of the "theater" that way.  I really don't know why I couldn't take the last step and just read for a part.  Maybe because I had no support, back-up, feedback from adults.  Lacked confidence.  Desire, I had plenty of.  Maybe even a knack.  I used to run for student council every year.  I lost every year.  But I vividly remember writing my speeches and feeling so comfortable up there on stage in front of the student body.  Kids always complimented me on how loud and clear my speeches were!  How funny!  But I never was elected.  Always a popular kid won instead.

You have listed some characteristics of yourself as a child.  Serious, thoughtful, restrained, wary.  Your description of yourself in job interviews, you seem very alert and discerning.  Is it overwhelming?  It seems like it.  It also seems to me that a place or role could be found for such characteristics.  I would never tell you to change a thing.  I'm one who likes to see what people are really made of and unusual things can happen when a niche is found.  My son is an artist.  He has tried a lot of things.  He had specific ideas that I thought might be too specific and lead to disappointment.  But he was right.  In high school someone gave him a bunch of silk screens.  He wanted to silk screen T-shirts.  How very specific.  Well, he ended up doing just that for a small fashion design company in NYC for a few years.  Gained some great experience that way.  He loves tattoos.  Now he has succeeded in being taken on as an apprentice in a really cool tattoo shop, that we have visited, and is on his way in a new direction.  I suppose many people would not see that as fitting in or stable.  But there is a whole culture now around tattooing.  He is a part of something bigger than himself.  He has taught me that it is okay to be yourself.   I guess I already thought that on some level.  It's that confidence thing.

And I thought I was so original with "I am number six"    .   I love this character from The Prisoner.  I'm going to have to look him up!

PP

[pennyplant]

My mom is an N.  Am I guessing correctly that your mom is an N, too?  If not, then you can probably disregard the rest of my post, because that is the assumption I am going on here. let me know if I am way off, and I will think on this some more.  I am trying to see the similarities and differences in our stories and put it together with what I know about Ns. I think two N traits come to mind.  1) N's try to shape their kids into what they want to be, themselves.
2) N's either praise the child or devalue the child, depending on how the child fulfills #1.

I think the same thing was going on in both our stories, but with different results.  Your mom wanted you to be popular, as she saw herself.  You did not live up to her warped expectations, so she tore you down and devalued you.  My mom saw herself as as so special that no one could possibly be so cool as to understand her and associate with her.  She saw heself as a maverick.  Very grandiose.  Because I had no friends, somehow she convinced herself that I must be a misunderstood maverick like her (I did not buy into this romanticized image; I just felt lonely and pathetic, even secretly failing at being like her, but I didn't dare tell her that!).  Because I lived up to her own self image in her eyes, I was a success.   I was one of the few times in my life that she felt I lived up to her expectations.  Even more depressing to me, because I felt I didn't.

That said, I think what your mom did to you must have hurt more than what my mom did to me.  After all, approval is approval, no matter how warped it is.  And at least I got some approval that day.  Then again, I am not sure I would wish that kind of praise on anyone, either.  So confusing.  Not sure any of this makes sense. 

I still have a lot to learn.  Thanks again for your thoughtful thread.  There are so many rich ideas here!

Hi IamNewtoMe,

I really am having a lot of trouble figuring out if Narcissism fits my mother.  All along here, I have not been able to figure it out.  Sometimes I think she was just incredibly immature in some ways.  Sometimes I think I was so caught up in my own drama as a child that I didn't notice enough about her to remember the right kinds of details that would tell me now what I want to know.   And nowadays, with this new knowledge of what narcissism is, I look at each present day encounter and think, is this really a symptom or am I reading too much into it?  And maybe it's just that she has N-spots.  She didn't have it all that easy at home growing up either.

Sometimes we have had some very interesting conversations and I can see that she thinks about the past a lot and tries to figure out why certain things just didn't work out too well.  I don't think she necessarily has created a false self.  She doesn't do many of the things I have seen on the lists and have also seen in someone who I strongly believe is a narcissist.  She CAN be remarkably self-centered and unempathetic.  She thinks things are funny which really are tragic.  She definitely has some kind of problem with accepting me as a separate person with value.  Also has somewhat shallow values at times.

She really was disappointed in me as a child and young adult.  It was important to her that I be popular, and I was not.  It was important that I reflect well on her or be like her.  And I was not.  I don't know.  Maybe she is narcissistic but not disordered.  Or maybe just has some characteristics.  My husband would probably say she is N.  He gets very upset with what he sees sometimes.

I was de-valued as a child.  But it is only now, since being on my own for over 25 years, that I really chafe against some of the comments and criticisms that seem to come from out of nowhere.  In fact, we have only lived in the same state, during that time, for just a few years.  So, I suppose there were very few opportunities for that side of our relationship to even exist.  She was mostly happy with me as a child if I was no trouble at all.  So, I tried very hard not to be bothersome to my parents.  Probably that is what kept the peace over the years.

I think I am the one who has to do more thinking on this.  I do pay more attention now to how she treats me.  But we still don't see each other all that much since she lives an hour away and works odd hours the way I do.  Maybe every few months spend an afternoon or evening together.  Most of the time it's not all that much fun for me.

I have often thought that maybe it was some kind of a gift that I was kind of ignored growing up.  On some level I escaped the terrible mind games Ns can do on you.  But I definitely was "trained" to be susceptible to their kind of poison.  If my mother has some N in her, that would certainly explain a lot.

Thank you for bringing this up, IamNewtoMe.  I keep skirting around the issue of my mother possibly being N.  Usually when I'm avoiding a subject like this, there is a reason.  It's a good thing this board exists.  I just may find out all the secrets of the past!!!

Pennyplant

[pennyplant]

Well your thread and all the wonderful insight on it made me feel warm and fuzzy too pennyplant.  Thanks for sharing.
 
bean

You're welcome, Bean.  It is my pleasure.  (((Bean)))

PP

[seasons]

Pennyplant,

What is my purpose with this particular thread?  I want to learn what my natural approach to being in a group is.  I want to learn what my role here is.  I want to learn what my role here means.

Thank you for your gift, your true feelings and questions. I'm still reading, so much to take in.

I was number 5  (5th sibling) number six was my little brother and was 6yrs. old when he passed away. I could of been #6...scary as a child to wonder if they had wished I was #6. This was scary to say, thanks for giving me a place to say it out loud.

Brave, loving Pennyplant, (seasons)

[pennyplant]

Best to trust that good gut of yours.'

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The girl who was targeted by the clique kept to a solitary orbit on the far edge of the playground before this happened, and kept even more to herself afterwards. The worst part is, the clique didn't do it as a group: each one came at her individually, spouted the leader's mean words, then ran back to the group, laughing. Truly brutal, just sickening. I tried to apologize for them when it was all over, to tell her what jerks they were, but she was so humilitated by then--everyone had seen and heard--she just ran away.

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If you would like to tell, I would be very interested to know more about your walkout, and how it helped lead to the path you seem happy about now? imho, these kind of experiences and journeys are a real joy to hear about. Warm fuzzies, and much inspiration.
.....................

I had the good luck to be fired the day before I had a plane ticket to go to the beach, east coast, to hang with my family. Went out with the other ex-managers after the bomb dropped, hit happy hour, and wound up singing 'Take this Job and Shove it' at a karaoke bar filled with wildly appreciative Japanese businessmen and decided, full of sushi and umbrella drinks, it made perfect sense not to cash in the ticket and go on the trip anyway. While at the beach, I read the help wanted section of a big city newspaper exactly once, and, buried in all the techonology and nursing jobs, there was an ad for a job in a cool little city that could have been written just for me. Being deeply impractical, I sold a diamond ring, hired a moving man, and my (not-yet) H. and I drove 3,000 miles based on my absolute certainty the job was mine, and a shared feeling that we loved our family too much to live 3 time zones away. Got the job, my H. and I were married while we lived in that little city, and never looked back.
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Hope you can stand another hug? ((((((((Pennyplant)))))))

LightofHeart,

I think I would just love your Gramma.  She sounds kind and practical.  Just what I needed as a child.

You are right, for each girl to humiliate the outsider, one at a time, is so very cruel.  She must have thought at the time that it would never end.  Torture really.  I bet she remembers to this day that you tried to make her feel better.   It had to be the only thing that saved her that day.  I vividly remember some kindnesses that people gave me during my terrible year of age fourteen.  Those memories mean a lot to me.

I just knew there had to be an excellent reason for why that drunken idiot came into your life.  My walking out story is less dramatic but people have patted me on the back for it.

I worked in a government office for five years.  I knew the very first day something was  a little off.  The two other co-workers were very quiet that first day--I found out later they were very angry with the boss because she had forced out a third co-worker who they liked very much and that was how my job came to be available.  They never held it against me though and befriended me.  We are still friends to this day.

As we walked to our cars at the end of that first day, she praised me all up and down out of all proportion to anything I could possibly have accomplished on my first day at a new job.  Now I know she was making me her new source of supply.

It was five years of ever-building pressure and stress.  Loved my duties, grew to hate her.  The turning point for me came when she decided to force out one of the other two employees, after 15 years of what seemed like a close friendship as well.  She was relentless about it.  One day I said, what does it really matter (the employee wanted to take some time off to go south as she had every year for a long time, boss didn't want to allow it) you have been friends all these years, just let her go.  My boss replied, "L is no friend of mine."  I was so stunned.  I had not seen that coming.  It became clear to me that for 15 years she had led this person to believe they were real friends but was only fooling her and using her all that time.   This was something I had never encountered before.

From that point on everything she did or asked of me was a burden and I resented every minute spent in that office.  She tried to win me over by asking for a promotion for me.  I even helped fill out the paper work.  I believed she was behind the idea.  Then when it came down to it, she wrecked the promotion.  Turned it into a job where I still had to do all the duties she wanted to dump on me but it wouldn't be management.  I felt betrayed.  She just couldn't handle the idea of me becoming management like her.  Too much encroachment on her territory.  After that, I lasted about a month.

One day I was especially impatient with her so she said, "Let's talk about this right now."  I said, "That is a very good idea."  Silly me, I thought she was actually going to listen to me.  Should have known when she ordered me to "sit down" that listening was far from what she planned to do.  As soon as I started to talk, she started to argue with me and twist my words.  So, I got up and said, "I'm going home."  She then realized she had pushed too far and started walking around in circles saying, "I wish we could talk about this," over and over again.  I said, "There is nothing to talk about."  I walked out at 9 am.  Only came back to bring in my letter of resignation and get my things.

Later on I found out she told people I had quit to take a job with my town government.  That was a lie of course, but people believed it because I did indeed have a small part-time job with my town.  It pays $35 a month.  It is mostly volunteer.  But people wondered, and she certainly couldn't tell them she drove me out with her unreasonable behavior.

The rest of my story, why I believe it was good that I left there, has to do with all the jobs I DIDN'T get which caused me to end up working where I do now.  I have met people there who have spoken to the different parts of myself that have been buried all my life by voicelessness.  Some of it has been very painful.  But all of it important and useful.  Altogether there were probably six or seven jobs I tried to get and not a one of them worked the way I might have expected them to.  One of them I was hired for but turned down because I had accepted the first job I was offered.  That one turned out to be the worst job possible and I quit after two weeks and begged to come back to where I am now even though it was temporary at the time and I had gladly quit this place to take what seemed like a sure bet.  It just seems like I'm supposed to be where I am now even though I have had some terrible rough patches to get through.

I am so glad for how your situation worked out.  And thanks for another hug.  I can definitely stand it  .  (((LoH)))

PP

[pennyplant]

I was number 5  (5th sibling) number six was my little brother and was 6yrs. old when he passed away. I could of been #6...scary as a child to wonder if they had wished I was #6. This was scary to say, thanks for giving me a place to say it out loud.

Seasons, I had hoped that people would feel free to say what is dear to them here.  This story of you and your little brother breaks my heart.

If you were right here, I would hug you.  (((seasons)))

PP

[Hopalong]

to humiliate the outsider, one at a time, is so very cruel.  She must have thought at the time that it would never end.  Torture really

this is what I experienced, from age 6 through about 14.

 

hops

[pennyplant]

this is what I experienced, from age 6 through about 14.

 

hops

I am so sorry for little hops.  It was so unfair and cruel and for such a long time.

(((little hops)))

PP

[Hopalong]

Thanks, ((((PP)))).

It's given me gifts too in a weird way.
I love my friends very much and feel such huge gratitude!

(Guess when you don't have it for a long time, that happens.)

Thanks for the kindness. Little Hops is grateful!

Hops