I am SO fortunate around smells. Cagney has no bad breath, no tartar on his teeth and no gas attacks.

He doesn't even smell much like a hound when he's wet.

My gratitude for this is unbounded.

One of my good friends just broke up with her girlfriend Thursday night and is having many of the same reactions. They love each other a lot but also keep hurting each other and it sucks to watch them hurt whether together or apart :(

Humans are complicated. Sometimes I wish we were easier, but if my fairy godmother granted that wish, we'd be boring. And the assholes would still be assholes.

I was reading the last few posts and Penny came and curled on my lap for a minute and purred.

Relationships are hard. It sucks when you love someone and it just can't work. Sometimes I think I'm never going to marry or have a lasting relationship.

Yeah, I remember, Pix, when I talked to you about this, a good solid while ago now, that you were instantly like, I get that. I get you. And I really needed that because honestly, it hasn't been available from most people. You just keep trying to have this conversation, and they're looking at you like they're waiting to understand, but you keep talking and they never do, there's nothing you could say that would make it ok to divorce, for that to be the reasonable, good option, because of course, it's not a good option! They're not wrong in wanting a reason. But they're never going to be satisfied because there's no part of my conversation where I could give them a good enough reason. Some have been supportive anyway, but some, definitely not. So it meant a lot when I looked in your eyes and knew you understood.

I am full of feels after reading this. So glad I could be there for you, Liese. I think what made it even harder was that feeling that I had to make them understand, but they just weren't going to because of course there's no "good enough reason" when you are divorcing someone who isn't a bad person but also isn't the right person for you. As you said, some were supportive and some definitely not, and I so appreciated everyone who stood by me. So glad I get to return some of that karmic debt now to you. Hugs.

I went on a date today. It was nice. We saw Spiderman. We made tentative plans for Tuesday.

He's 6'2" tall! The tallest guy I've ever dated. I'm not used to the height difference but I like it.

I hope you have a good time on Tuesday too, askye.

Loving the discussion. I feel weird writing because I've been offline for so long, but I really wanted to go somewhere where ... Cheers ... everybody knows your name. I love the portmanteaux neighborfam. Don't know what I'd do without mine. I'm still in Oregon, the ick in my sinuses finally went away, I'm having fun but kind of just want to go home and lie on the couch and watch TV.

Java, it always good to see you here. Or on FB. Where, at any given time I might or might not remember which meatspace name goes to which board name...

long meara, ahoy:

Welcome to your new home, Slink the yard kitty. Good choice.

Zen, you are precious and lovely and wonderful. You deserve care and healing. You also deserve to define what those mean for you.

Thank you, Andi. That means a lot to me.

My therapist has said (and my brother, the MS student in psychology, confirms) that people with trauma/PTSD* just have whole chunks of their memory missing.

Yep, hi there, whole chunks of my life are not available to my working memory. I worried about that for a long time, but learning that it was common for the disorder I almost certainly have, oddly, helped make me feel less broken.

for me the weird thing is how differently my brother experienced our family than I did.

Oh, that, for sure. It bugs me a lot that my sister's (14 years older, family in a very different circumstance) experience of our grandmother was of a loving (though still selfish) woman, whereas my experience was of a resentful woman who didn't want me around most of the time. Having my sister reassure me that of course my grandmother loved me makes me feel like I missed out on the loving grandmother she got, and no one else but me experienced her the way I did. (I strongly suspect from her stories that my mother, her youngest surviving child, experienced a lot of my grandmother's anger, but she would never admit it.)

For him though, mom went back to college in elementary school and was making money by the end of it. So different.

Yep, same thing here. I'm the younger daughter - when my sister was little, mom was poor and dependent on family members. By the time I was old enough to be aware of financial situations, mom was getting her accounting degree and had a good job, and we were living with mom's parents on the farm, and so we were up in the rural lower-middle class.

I only ask, because one of the biggest things I'm grappling with in therapy is being allowed to be angry at my parents.

A huge thing for me was the realization that I'm allowed to be angry at them, without having to make any excuses for them to "prove" I'm not a bad girl.

and that asking for help didn't mean I was going to bother or upset anyone.

Also a huge thing for me. I had always believed that my existence was a burden to everyone and it was my duty not to bother them.

To answer the question "Did I feel better being angry?" Oh, FUCK YES I do.

Ya damn skippy I do. Forty-some years of anger gotta come out.

The trick, and this is where therapy will eventually take you, is

accepting your anger but also working to move past it so that you are functional and not a rageball.

Maybe I'm there? I'm sure I have more sh!t to work on, but I'm functional. Mostly. At least, it seems I'm no longer making bad decisions based on either anger or guilt/shame. Now I'm making bad decisions based on overconfidence and curiosity. Much better. Ow, my leg.

large and loud expressions of anger, or other emotions

Yeah, that doesn't work for me either. Not my style, and it bothers me when I see others do it.

My cookie doesn't taste good.

heavy sigh I hear ya. I've been eating "healthy" at my sister's house for two months and now my favorite junk-food snacks don't taste so good anymore. Of course, I should be happy about that... but dang.

There are SO MANY unresolved things in my past relationships. Anger, sure, but also things I simply cannot understand, and the only person who could explain them is dead. It's frustrating and infuriating, and I have to let that go or I'll never get away from the past.

it is key to choose to feel treasured. Not knowing what it feels like to be satisfied can really get in the way of appreciating what you get.

I have no idea what that feels like, and I suspect I'd feel uncomfortable with it if I ever got it.

I was not going to be one of those people who abandons a spouse when they get sick

I have twice now stayed with a spouse* and helped them to the best of all my ability. Both those times were devastatingly awful. I (continued...)