Clearly a genius.

Considers parents. Yep.

What a bunch of people said about the single state of so many here. I could do a whole bunch of copy and paste stuff, but

If I had one piece of advice it would be to treat yourself and talk to yourself as you would treat or talk to your closest friends. If you had a friend that followed you around all day and randomly talked shit about you TO YOUR FACE, how long would you keep them around? And yet, you're with you twenty-four hours a day. Stop treating yourself like shit. That's my advice. FWIW.

So true.

There are so many men and women here, and in the rest of my life, that are seriously high quality humans. And yet they have not partnered with other high quality humans. Some of my friends just don't ever seem to connect with anyone, others make horribly unworthy choices. I just don't understand.

Seriously, I don't understand. I have been in some type of relationship for over 40 years. It may have been my expectation. My parents and all the parents I knew as a kid were married. My two older sisters started dating early and I had a boyfriend by the time I was 12. I moved in with DH#1 before I turned 18. Life circumstances made it 3 marriages, but I have pretty much been married for 35 years.

I have always been extremely independent and the spouse types were too. This works better than needy relationships in my experience.

When I look at my single loved ones (here and IRL) I can honestly say that they are smarter, funnier, more attractive, and more often grammatically correct than I am. The only reason I can come up with is expectation. And that would be subconscious expectation because I was completely convinced that I would never ever under any circumstances or conditions fall in love again after DH#2 died. 4 months later I had my first date with DH#3, that was over 20 years ago.

If I could bottle my relationship ~ma and send it to all of you I would. Because I know I am no more worthy than you are.

ION, I had to go and get some x-rays of my son's elbow this morning. Best guess is that he dislocated and it popped back. Of course he did this about 10pm last night. Never M-F 9-5 for these things. I called one of my customers that I knew was open on Saturday and they did the x-ray, but they didn't have a radiologist to look at it. The tech looked at it with me and we agreed that nothing was cracked or out of place. I have it on CD and have uploaded it to another customer that is a radiologist, but he can't look at it until he gets off rounds. He will want to do an MRI to look for soft tissue or nerve type damage, but I think we can wait until Monday because he can move stuff and can feel everywhere now. Kids! Also, bless all my beloved free health care providers. And yes, they do call my cell phone when they want my help too.

Laura, have I mentioned lately how much I love you? You totally rock.

IOmememeN, it is hot as hades and muggy already and I'm about to take off where it is even hotter. Seriously. Am I just stupid? I'm off to the wilds of Tenn. to see my family and will be v. dark for the next week. Hasta la vista, mah Bitches. See you on the flip side.

Background: I had this problem for the last year, I was given a new medication, and over time, I became more paranoid, frightened, and withdrawn. I was scared constantly, unable to feel joy or anything but fear.

Off it now, and have been in therapy twice a week for awhile, now. And stuff is churning up. It's stuff that I have been able to swallow and sometimes ignore over the years.

My mom told me, quite often, that she couldn't look at me. That I was disgusting to look at, how could I be this disgusting? It happened for over a half hour in the car once when I couldn't escape. She was dropping me off at school. I was 15, and fairly healthy at a size ten. I looked like all the women on my dad's side, and they were all big boobs and asses and hourglassy and never smaller than a ten.

I stayed in the bathroom at school that day and cried. I heard over the years that she couldn't stand the sound of my laugh, or the sight of my body. My mom was a broken teenaged mother who got pregnant at 16 and ran from horribly abusive alcoholic parents who said the same sort of things to her.

She doesn't remember this, but I gently asked about it, and she cried. She apologized. She took responsibility for it and feels horrible. I wasn't accusatory, I just wanted to know why, because it's just made it impossible for me to look in a mirror, to not constantly second guess whether my presence in a room is bothering people. I'm always feeling I need to apologize for taking up space, wherever I happen to be.

Sometimes it's louder than other times. It gets particularly bad when I feel attracted to someone, because it makes me hyper-aware of my own ugliness, how unacceptable and disgusting I am. My obnoxious laugh.

And it's hurting really bad right now because it's so front and center.

Best guess is that he dislocated and it popped back.

Laura - Iris' elbow has dislocated twice. For us, it's called 'nursemaid's elbow' or 'nanny's elbow' I think. Ugggh. I HATE it. 1 trip to the ER. Hopefully no more of those.

ETA 1: space porn (no, not that kind) - click on the Spitzer Telescope Link [link]

bleagh. bad x-post.

ETA 2: {{{{{{{{{{{{{{{Allyson}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}} we've never met, but I think you deserve a mom mulligan. You are gorgeous (the internets all agree).

You do understand that your mother was wrong, Allyson? And it seems she knows she was wrong too. This obnoxious laugh was a product of her damage and her pain, not anything you were actually doing. Same thing with

my own ugliness, how unacceptable and disgusting I am

Figments of psychological pain. That's all.

Allyson, I'm sure your mom would take every single word back, if she could. I'm sorry, for both of you, that that happened, and that the damage got passed along to another generation.

And I know there's no magic wand that can suddenly fix things, or retrain your brain overnight so that it sees what we see when we see you. But I wish there was, I do.

Oh, Allyson. I'm glad you're in therapy right now, even though I know how hard it can be sometimes -- you get the stuff out in the light and then you have to look at it and deal with it. And I'm very glad you went off the AD you were taking, because that one was clearly doing a wrong number on you.

Would it help at all to remember that your mom's voice then was only hers? Just one opinion? Because when *I* look at you(r picture), I see a woman who has a wicked smile and great hair and is an incredibly talented writer who managed to make me laugh and cry while I read her book.

Allyson, everything you said about you and your mother could apply to me and my father. (Except that I'm not talking to my father right now). And I have trouble getting close to anyone, because I expect that anyone who is close to me is going to criticize me and berate me. I even welcome it, because that's what I think it means for someone to love me.

And it sounds like you're doing a better job of dealing with it in therapy than I am. I've been going several times a week for many years now, and I still have lots of trouble talking about my father. It's just too painful for me.

You, however, are dealing with it, in spite of the pain. And we're all fucking proud of you for doing it.

{{{{{Allyson}}}}} I'm so sorry that you had to go through that, and I'm glad you're in therapy. I'm sorry that what your mother said keeps you from seeing yourself clearly. You are a beautiful, bright woman. I hope you can see that someday.