When Microsoft fired my husband 10 years ago after grinding him down and breaking him, it was terrible. He blamed himself when it was in fact their deliberate actions intended to make him quit (he didn't).

This is entirely different. He knows it is not his job performance and he was not frog marched out by security.

Then, he was unemployed for 10 months and genuinely nonfunctional for the first 6-8 of that.

Now, he is in good spirits and positive.

My husband was one of the 5000 laid off at T-mobile yesterday. He will get severance and we will keep our health insurance until the beginning of next year, so those are good things mixed in with the bad.

My daughter got a co-manager position at Lovers yesterday with a raise from $19.50 to $22/hr. This helps her tremendously.

I can increase the dogs I am grooming if necessary in the short term to help with finances.

I am back from the renaissance Faire. My daughter and I camped there for the first time this weekend. I made dozens of "Fairy Friends" and gave them away to kids and traded them as trinkets with kids and adults. Am home and sunburned. Want to do it next year also.

It used to be, a man might go through a midlife crisis and get a new car, a new job and a new woman.

Now he just "becomes" a "woman"

I'm watching some idiots on Twatter talking about the coming nuclear war. Oddly, none of them seem to be mentioning who exactly is going to be nuking whom.

This fellow I know as an acquaintance has been in surgery recently (old vehicle crash injuries) and has been unable to work because of pain leading up to it. So - does anyone know resources to help him? He is also selling a lot of collectibles at unfortunately high prices because he is desperate to raise some funds. I have no use for any of them but maybe someone will.

facebook.com/victorthesnakeman

Dad and I watched the movie Casino last night. I should've known with it being a Martin Scorsese movie, that it would be mostly violence, and the word "fuck". And it was. The last time I heard that word used for every part of a sentence was when I was in jail. And then it sort of just ended. After a lot of death and blood. I am still processing the meaning of it all… If it had one.

But after being regaled for an hour yesterday, about the struggles it, my brother-in-law's family, I just wonder. I wonder a lot of things. And my sister-in-law was not supposed to tell me because secrets.(end)

When my husband became suicidal and depressed during his time at Microsoft, for which he was fired, and I promise that didn't help the situation… My in-laws told me not to tell my children anything. As if they wouldn't notice that daddy never left his bed much less the house.

We told the children that stress had made daddy's brain out of balance, and that he was getting medicine, and that he would get better. And he did. And my in-laws criticized me for saying anything.

One of my husband's cousins also has a mental illness with outbursts of violence, although it's not manic depression. So it does seem to run on that side of the family. My children are mostly autistic, but that's a separate thing.

Is the covering it all up and trying to look like everything's fine a generational thing? Growing up in the post war era? I don't understand it. I know there's a stigma with mental illness, but not telling people when there's a real problem seems like a problem.

After the nephew started medication, and began doing very well, his father – my husband's brother – also began the same medication, and his life has improved dramatically.

And I wasn't supposed to be told any of this. Because it's a secret. When my sister-in-law told me, she was almost whispering the whole time. And I don't understand this damned secrecy. The lies. The coverups. Making everything look fine when in fact, there was a problem, and it wasn't being addressed.

My children, now recount abuse that only occurred when my husband and I were not present. Mostly verbal. Not that that's better.

One of my nephews, my husband's brother's son, has now been diagnosed manic depressive. He had outbursts of rage and violence that led to numerous injuries to his father, and I think it was only addressed when he struck his stepmother.

There was always an excuse for the injuries. Tripped off a curb. Whatever.

He is doing well on medication.

I have a question about a family thing that may be a generational issue and that's what I really want to know:

My mother-in-law was from northern Ireland. Her parents were first cousins. And as best we can piece together, her mother was manic depressive. There were violent emotional swings and a lot of abuse. My mother-in-law being the eldest, she took the brunt of most of it.

We think my mother-in-law was also manic depressive. Her outbursts of rage were terrifying.

We have acquired a new dog, a 12 yr old shi Tzu named Sparky, surrendered to me by a client. He has a spot on his back that looks like a dog. 😂 so far Lola has only attacked him once, when he was trying to hump her. Tch.

In other news, the other twin has finally, at 23, cut off her hair. Look at that smile!!! We went from there to the piercing place and she got ear piercings.

...I choose to see the child and I will use the chosen name, even if it's under duress.

I did get her to acknowledge that she had cause great pain in the family when she began her journey to "find herself". But she seems to think that because it was years ago, it shouldn't matter anymore.

I keep holding on. Maybe when she gets a few more years under her belt, she will stabilize.

Frustrating update from trans daughter:

She now fully rejects her given name and insists we use her chosen name if we wish to visit her home. She says if her father showed up at her apartment her housemate would call the police because of his refusal to use the name. I suspect this is a housemate issue, as this is the housemate the kid is desperately working to move away from (next week). However, damn.

But, I told hubby that if the name is what stands between having access, or not...

I have so much to catch up on now that I'm slightly better with the "mu shu achoo".

Yard work. Housework. Car maintenance. I can't do it all but maybe I can chip away at it. Yesterday I managed to pick up all the dog poop in the yard, at least. And sat for hours watching the stump in the front yard surrender by millimeters to the flame.

Politics makes me so tired. I realize that all life is politics. It still makes me tired. :(

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QuodVerum Forum

Those who label words as violence do so with the sole purpose of justifying violence against words.