What does "white trash" mean to you?

[ann3]

Dawning,

Immature, yes, but he sounds much more troubled than that.  Agree w/ Gjazz, try to get involved in a local Thanksgiving & meet new people, but if you sense that type of behavior, back out & away.  We ACONS need to find emotionally healthy people.

Yes, go see an MD, esply if you dance.

xoxo,
ann

[CB123]

Dawning,

I wondered if something like that was going on.  I'm sorry for what you are going through with this guy.  He doesnt sound good at all--he sounds like trouble. 

Where does the white trash reference come in?  Is he calling you that?  Don't let that stuff stick--I meant what I said: that kind of stuff says more about the speaker's character than it does about the person he's referring to. 

Do you feel as though you can break away from this guy?  Do you feel trapped in any way? 

Love
CB

 

[Dawning]

Oh my goodness!  This guy just called me and there is no doubt in my mind that he is confused and hateful.  He called to "apologize," and then said, "goodbye, oh compassionate one.  you are bipolar, you truly are" - and hung up.  He also told me that he has my electronic dictionary in his car...the one I have been looking for all over the place.  I said that I needed to get that back at some point and he said that he would decide at his convenience when he would relinquish it and that now I would know how it felt to be left hanging in the air.  At least he didn't make any threats.  He has threatened before to go to the school where I work and make things difficult for me.  His nephew's girlfriend is friends with the daughter of the woman I work with and this colleague of mine is also on a power trip herself.  Life is so complicated.  I am a little scared.  It seems like it might not be easy to break away from him...he is incapable of listening when he feels threatened.  He can't let go of me and the need he has for a healthy relationship but he doesn't understand how to have one and I am trying but he is not on that road yet.  He is needy and he is starting to not make any sense at all! I'm so sorry that I got involved with him.  People beware - especially when you are emotionally vulnerable.  I pray that this will all end soon without any violence of any sort.  He seems like a lunatic at the moment to me.

Thanks for listening and caring.

Dawning.

[gjazz]

Yikes, Dawning.  I'm lying here in bed with the flu thinking, I'd go to the police.  I wouldn't threaten HIM with that, I wouldn't say a thing to him, I'd just go in and tell the police what you've experienced and let them know he has your property.  Maybe that sounds extreme but he has roots in the community and you don't, and you need some people on your side here.  Whether or not the guy is actually dangerous, you sound afraid.  Would you feel better if others were clued in?

[ann3]

Dawning,

Forget the dictionary & buy a new one.  Can you just forget about anything you left at his place?
Ya, he's scary & he's trying to scare you.  IMO, do not contact him or communicate with him.  Be careful & watch your back.  Probably/hopefully in a few weeks, he will find another victim to be his girlfriend.

I think you are wonderful for pondering the 'lessons learned'.   Yes, this man has taught you a lesson on what you may need to work on:  codependency, self esteem, boundaries, etc.   Maybe read some books on these subjects.

xoxo,
ann

[CB123]

Geez.

Dawning, I read your first post wrong.  I thought someone was calling YOU white trash and I was offended on your behalf.  I didnt realize you were trying to figure out how to explain someone else.  After I read Ami's post, I thought what the H___???? 

Personality disordered is probably a more accurate term for him--and maybe something more serious. 

Here's the long definition.  I find that google can be more helpful than a dictionary...

http://kpearson.faculty.tcnj.edu/Dictionary/white_trash.htm

CB

[Hopalong]

Dawning,
PLEASE draw a firm line.
I know you're lonely but calling him, talking to him about ANYTHING, is a red flag (to a bull).

I believe he's dangerous because he has rage against women (you) and he drinks and he's resentful and possessive and obsessive.

I won't call him that particular slur but I do think he's a raving loony, and dangerous.

I agree with Gjazz that having a discussion with the police is an excellent idea.

I believe you need to Just Stop communicating with him. Hopefully, the extended (hopefully permanent) silence will cause him to eventually give it up.

If you keep rationalizing contact with him, you endanger your peace and safety.

It's not real connection, anyway, when someone's that needy and resentful and volatile. It's being a hostage.

Be safe, be proactive, forgive yourself, don't ruminate about him or his emotional state. Now's the time to make a BOUNDARY, and then guard it.

You can do it. I know you can.

Please keep us posted!

love,
Hops

[Lupita]

Hi Down, so glad you got away from this guy!

Good for you!

[Overcomer]

My ex came from a family correctly called white trailer trash......these people think poor.  Think victim.  Think welfare.  It would have been easy for the kids to get federal money for college because they were so poor......but they didn't even think help.....

What happened to my ex is he became a con man of sorts.  He still has that mentality but puts on a fascade.  Then he finds a better off woman to fall for him and take care of him.  He is articulate (my mom paid for his college) but cannot ever convince someone he is interviewing with to hire him.  He can dupe women but not interviewers.  I guess if the interviewer was a woman he might....

Con men.....maybe that is it..

[teartracks]

Hi everyone,

I thought it might be worthwhile adding this to the mix of opinions.  I find the last sentence of the article of particular interest now that it appears that our nations sweeping influence on the world may be shifting.

Highbrow 

Origin: 1903

Americans can claim credit for both highbrow and lowbrow, the upper and lower levels of culture and cultivation. Highbrow seems to have come first, most likely around 1903, but lowbrow is close on its heels. In 1906 we have examples of both. That year the writer O. Henry refers to "the $250 that I screwed out of the high-browed and esteemed B. Merwin during your absence." As for lowbrow, we find it in S. Ford's Shorty McCabe: "The spaghetti works was in full blast, with a lot of husky low-brows goin' in and out." In Collier's the next year is a reference to "the overwhelming majority of Low Brows, who never read 'Peer Gynt.'" And in the Saturday Evening Post for 1908, we see highbrows again: "It takes all sorts of men to make a party, and Mr. Hearst apparently led in a few prize-fighters with the other high-brows and reformers he accumulated."

From the start, both terms were applied with tongue in cheek. They referred to the discredited phrenological notion that a person of superior intellect and culture would have a high forehead while an ignorant boor would have a low one.

A 1916 reviewer in The Nation took the distinction more seriously. Highbrow and lowbrow, he said, "stand for more genuine differences than Democrat and Republican. The one class has ideals, but no experience; it has flowered in an unfruitful transcendentalism. The other class has experience, but no ideals; its finished product is the millionaire. Each class looks with contempt, or rather with indifference, upon the other." The reviewer lamented this split, but in fact the two extremes of American culture seem to have prevented either side from taking itself too seriously. In the rest of the twentieth century both highbrows and lowbrows have had such success that American science, scholarship, and art on the one hand and practical inventions and popular culture on the other have swept throughout the world.

tt