Author: Skipper

Posted on

Yes I have cancer. No the outlook is not good. Here’s what I want.

Yesterday I got a text from my oldest brother.  (The first text ever, actually.)

At first I assumed someone had died, and he was letting me know.  Turns out, they found out that I have metastatic triple negative breast cancer.  I’ve chosen to keep it from them for almost two years, for several reasons, and it turns out that was the right decision.

He said the way they found out was “almost totally random” but it was actually pretty deliberate.  Brother #3’s second wife, whom I have never met, apparently did a search for me and found me on Facebook, where there was a public post I wrote about it last summer, when a few high school people that I wasn’t FB friends with were pinging me, because I guess the news had gotten around among them.  I got a few really nice messages from some of them, but I didn’t have the bandwidth to deal with each of them, so I just wrote a public post.  I assumed no relatives were looking for me any more (and I was right:  my actual siblings aren’t looking for me.  A stranger was, because a complete stranger cares more about finding out about me than any of my siblings).

I interpret what my brother meant by “random” here is something like, “we weren’t expecting her to find out something like this, where we might have to do something.”

His use of “random” to describe this could also suggest that the wife “doesn’t know the history”, to quote that long-ago revealing statement from Brother #2.  In other words, she doesn’t know that I’m not supposed to be treated like an actual family member.  I wonder just how that unwritten rule is going to be explained to her.

My brother started off using a very old childhood nickname, which was oddly touching.  I now wonder if that was a deliberate way to fake closeness or induce me to be more open, as he hasn’t used that name for me literally in decades.  And the rest of the conversation was fairly formal.

And with a little hindsight, I now see that it was indeed, as could have been predicted, all about him/them.

He didn’t ask how I was.  He didn’t ask what he could do for me, or us.  He didn’t even ask exactly what I have, or what my prognosis might be (although that information might have come from the FB post, but he said he hasn’t been on FB for years, so I doubt it).

He did ask, oddly, if he should ask what last name I’m using now.  I still don’t know what that was about. **  Do they think that my husband of 26 years would now leave me in sickness?  In fact he has been fantastically loving & supportive through everything.

(He reacted to this contact with far more anger than I had, over what they’ve done to me, which is a sign of love:

“Look, just so we’re clear,” he says, “if somebody asks something or says something about my sister that I don’t like, understand that I will break a bottle over their head.” Few words express love clearer than these.)

** ETA:  I probably figured it out.  Due to issues with FB Biz Manager, I had to close down my original account and start a new one, around April 2021. I christened that one “Morgan McDonald” so I could keep the two accounts straight, and then over a few months, I migrated friends from one to the other.  Once I had everyone transferred, I deleted the old one, and changed the name on the new one back to my real name.

BUT — if they are aware of “Morgan McDonald”, that means they’ve been spying on my account for at least a year and a half, and probably longer than that.  Way to “respect my privacy”, assholes.

If this is what they are doing, I’m pretty sure they spin it to themselves and each other  as, “We’re just being good people, looking out for our pathetic sister.”

They just canNOT stand that someone utterly rejects them, and especially someone they see as “lesser”.

Knowing that I’ve been dealing with this for almost 2 years, my brother made an offer for me to come and stay with them if I wanted different medical care.  Lymphoma was mentioned as a local specialty — which is not what I have.

What I have is quite aggressive:  it’s at the far end of the charts on every measure there is.  In fact, I initially had 2 kinds of carcinoma:  both HER2+ and triple negative.  I’m on my seventh therapy in total, including radiation and surgery:  I had chemo & immunotherapy for the HER2+, which looks like it did not metastasize; and chemo, immunotherapy and now another chemo for the triple negative, which did.

If I hadn’t been getting stellar medical care for the past 2 years, I’d probably be dead already.  As it is, a Residual Cancer Burden of III after surgery predicts:

    • 10-year recurrence/death rate = 40% for HER2+ BC
    • 10-year recurrence/death rate = 75% for triple-negative BC

And I’ve already had the recurrence.

Not great odds.

Anyway, it’s clear to me in retrospect that the offer wasn’t meant to be actually useful.  Once I explained that I am not in want of adequate medical care, the tone of the convo became that of someone who wants to end it as soon as possible.  I believe this texting was his way of “doing something” so he can stave off guilt and feel like he did something.  And he can report that back to everyone else, who can then say, “well she says she doesn’t need any help” and that’s that.  Go back to uselessly praying to that same god who GAVE me the cancer, if that’s what you believe in.  And keep pretending to yourself that you care about me, all the while maintaining your long-held beliefs & anger at me for things that were not my fault.

I’m willing to bet a decent amount of money that a few of them are actually glad I might soon be gone for good.

In other words, even though now they know I have aggressive cancer and am likely to die far too soon — I don’t believe they will change a thing.

Because that’s far more comfortable.  It’s easier.  And it’s especially a better option than facing up to the possibility that MY FAMILY gave me this cancer.

I can hear the eye-rolling from here, but it’s a scientific fact:  “The more Adverse Childhood Events a person experiences (such as …neglect…[or] Having a family member attempt or die by suicide [or] …Growing up in a family with mental health… problems), the more likely they are to suffer from cancer…”

From the University of Chicago:

“Local chemical signals released by fat cells in the mammary gland appear to provide a crucial link between exposure to unrelenting social stressors early in life and to the subsequent development of breast cancer”

There’s not much else that can explain how I went from a healthy 52YO who routinely got mistaken for being 10 years younger, to having a super-aggressive, treatment-resistant form of breast cancer.  I don’t smoke, I don’t drink to excess, I’m not overweight, I eat relatively healthily.  I have no other health issues.  I got all my preventive care checkups. I have no genetic markers.

Early studies explored ways that children who faced adversity such as… neglect at home were at higher lifelong risk for a range of problems including cancer…
…chronic, toxic stress in childhood can affect a person over the course of their life… the trauma of having one or both parents die does impact breast density, risk for breast cancer, and risk for especially aggressive types of breast cancer.

It’s not much of a stretch to imagine that having your mother disappear for a month at a time, twice, during your first year could have a similar effect on an infant as if she had died.

I’ve given up on any possibility that I might get what I actually want (apologies, respect, acceptance, love — in other words, CHANGE) from my siblings.  And now that they know about the cancer, anything they might do will more probably be out of self-preservation from guilt, and not because they love me, miss me, or care about me.

But – in the unlikely event that anyone actually wants to do something useful for me, here’s the only thing I’m asking for now:

I want to know EXACTLY what happened to me.

I want to know what Mom did that night that made Dad pack Mom off to the doctor, and made the doctor immediately pack her off to the hospital for a month, keeping her away from her infant daughter.  I want to know why & what happened the second time she was hospitalized, too.  I want to know about Mom’s medical history, any actual records, and anything known about her mental health, or why she received electroshock therapy.  I want to know everything my sister knows, because I suspect that’s at least part of what made her try to commit suicide that year.  I want to know what they themselves did to me, or didn’t do for me, when they were put in charge of me and the younger boys.  I want to know how long I sat around in wet diapers and had such horrible diaper rash, and why 40 years later the same brother threw at me the words, “WE CHANGED YOUR DIAPERS”.

I’ve been trying to get any information I could for years.  I had to trick them into giving me a good chunk of what I do know, but they put a one-hour time limit on that one discussion session, and I’m certain there’s more.  And I have a right to my own goddamned history.

Here are the terms I will offer:  any information I get will be kept confidential.  I won’t blog about it, and I won’t rat out anyone who tells me anything to the rest of the family.  I was able to keep knowledge of my cancer from everyone for 2 years, and they only found out by accident — so that proves I can keep that promise.

My time is limited, and there’s a decent chance it’s because of what happened to me as an infant and a child.  Now that they know about the cancer, I’m asking – one last time – for the one thing I can only get from them.  My sister is likely to get what she’s always wanted:  a world without my existence in it.  So the way I see it, it’s only fair that I also get what I want before I’m dead:  and I want the truth.

I hope someone finally has the courage to give me at least part of what I want.  I know no one has the courage to love me in spite of dictates from my sister, and probably Susan — but I have a little hope that someone will have the guts & the decency to finally give me information.

Posted on

Recently, I’ve been knitting a gift for a neighbor whose 70th birthday is next week.  The surprise party was last night, but the knitting project wasn’t complete.

As any knitter (or crocheter) knows, this happens A LOT.

Many a well-intended holiday gift has been wrapped up, unfinished, and put under the tree.  Many a baby garment has been outgrown before completion.  I once taught a knitting group that included Marlene, a far more experienced and productive knitter than me, who was working on finishing a sweater for her husband that had been started over 20 years previously.

While I am a fast knitter, I’ve made it a personal rule to avoid working to a deadline whenever possible.  But this time I made an exception — although I knew there was a good chance I wouldn’t get it done in time for the party.

And boy, did this failure to meet the deadline stir up some shit memories.

For a while I couldn’t figure out why I was upset about not getting it done on time, when I had gone into it knowing that was at least a 50-50 chance.  And then — I remembered.

So let’s back up a little over 40 years, to the holiday season of 1981.

I would have been 12.

My sister would have been 29.

My sister had seen a pattern for a crocheted sparkly gold evening jacket in a Woman’s Day magazine, dated 12/22/81.  So the magazine probably went on sale around Thanksgiving, a month ahead of the cover date.

My sister knit, but didn’t crochet.  My mother did neither.  But I did know how to crochet.

And between them, the idea was cooked up that my sister would pay for the yarn, and I would crochet this jacket for her, in time for New Year’s Eve.

I think I was asked if I would do it (yes of course I’ll try to please my mother & my sister) and could I get it done in time?

I had only been crocheting for maybe 4 years or so at that point.  To the best of my recollection, I had not done anything like a garment before, except maybe for a Barbie doll.  I do know that in my 40+ year library of binders containing notes, yarn samples, and patterns for pretty much every garment I’ve ever knitted or crocheted — this is the very first item.

Everyone else involved in cooking up this project for me had to know it would have been a tight deadline for anyone, let alone a kid.

How the hell would I have known?

And as I recall, it was going to be my mom’s responsibility to make sure I got it done on time.

Anyone who knew our mother at that time, knows she was never on time for anything.  Getting her on a plane to Chicago every year for the holidays was a complete train wreck.  Finishing Halloween costumes was often down to the wire.  Sewing formal dresses in time for special occasions was always a last-minute rush.  The suit my mother wore to my wedding?  *I*, the goddamned BRIDE,  had to first shop for it, then mail her a selection of 2 or 3 suits, then return the ones she didn’t want — and finally, hem it for her the night before my wedding.  (There were at least 3 other women on hand who could have hemmed the dress, probably better than I:  my sister, my sister-in-law, and my mother-in-law.  Not one of them did, of course.  Not for me.)

Back to the evening jacket:  as anyone could have predicted, I didn’t get the thing done in time for New Year’s Eve.  I believe I did finish it at some point, and it got sent off, I suppose.  I have no idea if it fit; I don’t know if I even knew what gauge was.

What I do remember was that the failure, my sister’s disappointment and her anger, were all my fault.

Certainly not my mother’s fault!  Nor my sister’s, who apparently saw in me a way to get something that she wanted, and was mad at me when I didn’t deliver.

Blame & shame the 12YO, who got set up by two adults.

Posted on

Fruitcake, Part 2

“I want a slice with cherries in it!”

“They ALL have cherries in them.”

 

Thus began a lesson from my dad in quality, and ingredients, and fruitcake. I was maybe 9 years old.

This story has the resonance of a memory for me, although not exactly the reality – it could be an amalgamation of more than one real-life event, “remembered” over the distance of 45 years – but at any rate, it’s a story about me & Dad & fruitcake.

As mentioned here before, my dad was VP of Production for a chain of bakeries in the Midwest for my entire childhood. One of those bakeries is in Beatrice, Nebraska, which is where they make Grandma’s Fruit Cake.

Dad & I were the only ones who liked the fruitcake. In fact I love that damned fruitcake. We always got some at Christmas. And I especially loved the candied cherries, as much for the bright red color as the flavor. And yes, they actually had flavor!

And this was in fact the lesson: Dad explained to me that to be a GOOD fruitcake, it had to be made of high-quality ingredients. All those nuts and candied fruit were expensive, he said. So people who wanted to cut corners would use less of those things, and more fillers, like flour. Really good fruitcakes actually have hardly any flour in them. The flour in a good fruitcake is just enough to hold everything together, and in Grandma’s Fruit Cake it wasn’t really enough to do even that. (Pro tip: for that reason, you’re supposed to cut it with a wet knife.)

Even today, long after the original bakery chain got bought out by some Belgian company, the slices don’t really hold together very well. They crumble into a delicious sticky pile of nuts and fruit, a bit more than a hint of booze, and those beautiful candied cherries.

I can say that with assurance because today my husband went out for coffee with his boss, and on his way home he stopped off at the grocery store.

Of course he knows about my history with Grandma’s Fruit Cake. And only a few days ago I had been thinking of trying to order one for the holidays, and wondering aloud if it was already too late to do it – or indeed if it was foolish to order a whole fruitcake just for me.

So when he happened to spot some small, stocking-stuffer-sized boxes of fruitcake at the store, of course he picked one up for me.

And that’s what was prominently printed on the top of the box in red: one generic word, FRUITCAKE.

I was grateful for the gesture, sure, but not at all convinced that a grocery store FRUITCAKE was going to fit the bill.

(Husband didn’t notice anything special about it either at the time – although he did mention later that he thought it was kind of on the expensive side for a little box of fruitcake.

Dad was right, and still is.)

So. Tonight I was making myself some cocoa, and the box of fruitcake nearby on the kitchen counter caught my eye again.

Only this time, I saw the dark green logo in the bottom corner: the curved banner that without even reading it, I KNOW says “Grandma’s Bake Shoppe”.

I couldn’t fucking believe it.

I grabbed the box, turned it over. I didn’t even know what I was looking for, except that I saw it immediately. There was the bakery address: Beatrice, Nebraska.

Proof that this was a real, honest-to-god Grandma’s Fruit Cake…

…and the first two slices had at least 3 cherries apiece.

Much like the last time one showed up unexpectedly at a horrible time in my life, it’s a very important message. The fruitcake is something that was special to both Dad and me; that bond is still there, and still meaningful even after all these years. Dad’s love for me is still there when I need it.

“I can’t be there any more, but here’s a fruitcake for you. You know what it means. Love, Dad.”

I love you too, Dad. Merry Christmas.

Posted on

About Damn Time

Oh, I’ve been so down and under pressure
I’m way too fine to be this stressed, yeah
Oh, I’m not the girl I was or used to be
Uh, bitch, I might be better
Turn up the music, turn down the lights
I got a feelin’ I’m gon’ be alright
Okay (okay), alright
It’s about damn time (time)
Turn up the music, let’s celebrate (alright)
I got a feelin’ I’m gon’ be okay
Okay (okay), alright
It’s about damn time
Posted on

Black and Happy

A friend sent me this link today saying, “Found this and thought of you.”  What a compliment!

Only five minutes (on 1.75x speed), which I will bet serious money that anyone with the name of this blog won’t actually be able to sit through.

This one is also very validating, at least until he starts talking about the “spiritual” aspect and the karma of past lives… oh, well.

notes from this blog:

Ideally, we should be able to renegotiate our relationships with family as we become adults. (This doesn’t apply if there are abusive or dangerous factors involved. We’re not obligated to negotiate with people who have harmed us.) I know very few people who have been able to do this successfully.

What tends to happen instead, is one of two things:

  1. People stay enmeshed and kind of codependent on their family, even while still being treated as an outcast. In other words, they keep taking crap from them, waiting to be treated better. Or,

  2. They become increasingly withdrawn from their family, to the point where they start to dread holidays and family gatherings. They might rely on them in case of emergency [HAH!], but that’s about it.

and this one:

Dysfunctional families also tend to have black sheep. The black sheep is viewed as a scapegoat to bully and receive all the rage, aggression, frustration, emotional pain, and general negative feelings of the other family members. In dysfunctional families, being the black sheep often connects to being functional.

When these families “other” a family member, it’s essentially projection mixed with bullying. Dysfunctional family members feel better once they’ve released their negative energy onto another person, unwarranted. Making someone feel even worse than they do brings satisfaction. The truth about the black sheep is distorted to paint them in a negative light, and the black sheep is often ganged up upon. Many black sheep voluntarily leave situations like this — who wants the acceptance of these people, anyway?

 

I recently had cause to reflect that I’ve FINALLY gotten ALL of the garbage people out of my life:  mom, sister, SIL, MIL, to name the major ones.  Also arrogant brothers who think they know SO much better than me (and I’m talking about more than one of them)…

And what a great feeling that is!

 

Posted on

“You’re not that good”

Adapted from Seth Godin

“You’re not that good”

This is what I’ve always heard from most of the people I’m related to.

“…once we start to build skills and offer something of value, some people are going to persist in believing that we’re not that good. Fine. They’ve told us something about themselves and what they want and need. This is a clue to offer our leadership and contribution to someone else, someone who gets what we’re doing and wants it. The smallest viable audience isn’t a compromise, it’s a path forward. Find the folks who are enrolled and open and eager. Serve them instead…

“The danger is that when you hear rejection during this stage, you might come to believe that you’ve accomplished nothing, as opposed to realizing that you might simply be talking to the wrong people…

“And then we get better.”

Posted on

More Validation

From this recent article on family estrangement. All the things I experienced, and all the conditions I put on any kind of reconciliation — all in one neat, brief little package.

“To heal or to prevent broken ties requires similar types of effort. Given what we know about why adult children walk away—namely: lack of acknowledgment about a past hurt or trauma, lack of acceptance, and toxic behaviors like judgment and control—we can try to reverse-engineer these behaviors by doing the opposite:   Acknowledge and apologize for past hurts and traumas. Even if you were not the person that directly inflicted the trauma, sometimes your denial of someone else’s wrongdoing is just as painful. Or it’s possible that you don’t think you’ve inflicted trauma, but your loved one sees it that way… denial of what the other person feels deeply to be true is a sure way to build the estrangement wall higher. A simple acknowledgment of their experience, without being defensive, can bring the most powerful catharsis.   Accept the person just as they are. Nobody is perfect, and most of us are far from it. There are also lots of reasonable disagreements between reasonable people about the right and wrong ways to live. So, between all this ambiguity and human frailty,

Ask yourself: What do I want more—for this person to conform to my standards, or for this person to be in my life?

[Guess I have the answer to THAT one.]

Make your best efforts to demonstrate that you’re willing to listen and learn, even if you can’t completely change your worldview overnight.   Change behaviors that your loved one finds toxic. … be open and non-defensive if your loved one tells you that your behavior hurt them… show that you’re open to change, because opportunities for reconciliation don’t last forever.

Posted on

No Tears Tonight


There’ll be no tears tonight
Slowly the shadows fall away in time
Now I know no future dreams
The things I have today are fine
And as I stumble through
I find that I can choose
And lose the things I’m not afraid to lose

Hold your hour
Live today and let the past go free they said
Try again and I will do the best I can today instead
And as I stumble through
I find that I can choose
And lose the things I’m not afraid to lose

We move in circles as we go
With nothing to guide us but our souls
And we keep on looking for something that we must have
Lost two thousand years ago

There’ll be no tears tonight
Slowly the shadows fall away in time
Now I know that we who fell from grace
Will find a way to shine
And as I stumble through
I find that I can choose
And lose the things I’m not afraid to lose

We move in circles as we go
With nothing to guide us but our souls
And we keep on looking for something that we must have
Lost two thousand years ago

Posted on

Miscellaneous Messages from the Universe

“Scapegoating in a dysfunctional family system is a type of (unconscious) blame-shifting in which the family displaces their own psychological difficulties and complexes onto a specific family member. This process of projection, shaming, and blaming serves to divert attention away from the rest of the family’s mental and emotional problems via casting the scapegoated family member into the role of ‘identified patient’ (Bateson, 1972)... Because the scapegoating ‘story’ often follows the child into adulthood and may continue even after a parent’s death (e.g., via a dominant sibling or extended family member) there may seem to be no way out other than to limit or end contact with one’s entire family-of-origin.“

“Those who are victimized multiple times are also frequently targeted due to their assets, not just their vulnerabilities.

“Predatory people are on the lookout for empathic, resilient people – those who can bounce back from abusive incidents so they can continue the abuse cycle – as well as people with resources to exploit. Narcissists especially search for “shiny” targets – those who are attractive, successful and look good on their arm, because it boosts their image. If you are such a type, it is common for them to prey on you. As Dr. George Simon notes, victims of predators “tend to be conscientious and accommodating types. So, their good nature is ripe for exploitation. Moreover, manipulators play on your sensibilities, and often, your conscience.”

Posted on

Familiar Ground

The impeachment hearings continue the theme of politics reminding me of my FOO situation.

Calling out what is clearly bad behavior on the part of a Member of the Club results in yelling, lies, spin, misdirection — anything to defend the indefensible.  To shift blame from the person who did the bad behavior to the person who called it out, because that’s much easier and more comfortable than confronting the real problem.

Nothing makes that more clear than the R’s rabid desire to out the whistleblower.  In their minds, THAT is where the problem occurred. No one’s sorry for anything wrong that was done.  They’re just mad that it got caught, that someone had the NERVE to pass negative judgement on the Charismatic Leader.

And, it’s clear that the conservatives won’t listen to any kind of reason or logic.  They won’t be swayed by facts or evidence.  They will persist in believing that “their guy” is being persecuted, rather than simply being held to account. They will yell and wave their stupid signs and perform all kinds of hysterical theatrics, rather than admit one simple thing:  THEY WERE WRONG.

All that is pretty damned familiar.

And whatever is driving the GOP to this extreme, toxic behavior clearly runs deep.  I assume it’s kompromat of some kind, but is it money laundering? human trafficking?  compromising sex?  Who knows?

In the case of my FOO, I think it’s a refusal to face the reality that the excuses and rationales they were taught for 30 years, and have clung to for 20 more, aren’t actually true.

“If only SHE hadn’t been born, none of this would have happened.”

That phrase, or something close to it, sums up how I think my sister in particular feels about me, and to a lesser extent the other two members of The Triumvirate.  “If only you hadn’t been born!”

It is where the thinking stops, and the anger takes over.

That phrase allows you to be mad as shit at the reality you are living, but it makes a serious error.  It allows you to throw all your (justified) anger and emotions and psychological garbage about what is going on, onto an easy target (not justified).  It’s a way to cope, but not a fair or healthy one.

But when all you know is how to blame — and the idea of blaming Mom, or god, or Dad (on whom they were suddenly entirely dependent, after having scapegoated him for so long) is too terrifying to contemplate — well, you gotta put it SOMEWHERE.  And a baby is a pretty safe place to put it, from your own selfish viewpoint.  No repercussions to yourself.

There might be some for the baby.

Unfortunately, the damage that is done by blame-shifting doesn’t come back to the blamer.  The blamer will just shift THAT blame, too.

And now you don’t have to think about how Mom was mentally ill.

(Actually I don’t understand the resistance to this idea AT ALL.  Mom being mentally ill explains a shit-ton of stuff that otherwise you have to jump through a lot of hoops to explain. To me, the idea is a relief, that finally everything makes sense.  It’s truly never made any sense to me to deny it.)

The reality is different.  Even if I had not been born, “it” still would have happened, in some form or fashion. Perhaps there would not have been a Divorce.  But damage would still have been done, just like Trump would have been impeached sooner or later — because our mother was not a healthy person, and toxic people keep on doing toxic things.

I spent the first few years of my life watching my parents yell at each other. It’s one of my earliest memories of them together.  Would it have been preferable to them if Dad and Mom had stayed together, angry and unhappy, forcing my two youngest brothers to grow up in that environment?

Because that’s some of the damage that happened, until The Divorce.

Of course, by that time, the Triumvirate were all escaping out of the house to go to college, so what happened at home wasn’t of too much concern to them.  And that’s fair enough.  What college freshman should be involved in their parents’ marital problems?

But there were still a couple of little kids left in that toxic environment.

So was it better in their eyes for there not to be a Divorce — as long as they didn’t have to live in the mess themselves? Because Catholicism, presumably.  And this is the major reason I gave up on Catholicism:  because it always puts ideology ahead of actual people.  I have only ever met exactly one Catholic priest in my life who put people ahead of ideology, and I’ve met an awful lot more who didn’t.

The Church brainwashed our mother to do the same thing:  if she hadn’t been Catholic, she would probably have had the medically recommended hysterectomy after her fourth child, and presumably my sister would have her wish:  a family that doesn’t include me.

Well, she more-or-less has that now, and I hope she is happy about it, and also that she chokes on it.

Mom chose ideology over what was better for her and her family.  And it eventually helped to destroy that family. My sister has chosen to cling to her grudge against my existence — rather than as an adult, re-examine the situation, work through the unresolved trauma and pain, and recognize the lies for what they were:  a way to scapegoat me, and protect Mom, and later Susan, from having to take responsibility for their own actions.

I wonder if she ever wonders how it feels to have someone begrudge the fact that you even exist.

How it feels to be deliberately not included in your own family.

What does all that have to do with the impeachment? Not a lot, necessarily, other than the shape of the current situation.

Oh, and that the continued and unwavering support for Trump & the GOP that we see in the polls tells me that about 1/3 of our population has some degree of mental health issues or unresolved trauma.

Anyone who can look at the mess that is Trump & the GOP and think, “That’s fine, that’s normal” and cheer them on — rather than recoiling at the unhealthy performances being put on in order to protect a man who is clearly a narcissist — has some issues of their own.

But mainly, it’s the sight of hysterical, toxic behavior to cover up and excuse previous toxic behavior.  And no hope of anyone ever changing.