I know I am not "normal". Maybe never have been. There are hereditary mental illnesses in the family but I also have the childhood abuse issues that likely caused some mental issues. I'm pretty sure that the problems I had very young were mostly environmental.
There is also some probable psychic abilities that influenced my life. Things I knew and felt very young have no logical explanation. My first strong precognition happened when I was 8 years old playing in the garden in Santa Maria. A very dark feeling came over me, full of dread yet I had never been through anything to cause such a feeling. I would remember that experience many times through my life when I did face things that caused such dread and darkness. Then when I was 11, the first time I was in a courtroom. Mom had been in a car accident and had to go to court. When we walked in I almost fainted and was sick the rest of the day. Years later I would be in a courtroom being sentenced to "No less than 3 No more than 20" years in prison and I knew I had already seen this. 10 years ago I was at Jess's house and heard an ambulance and told Jess I had to go, that Jami was dying. I drove to Jami's house a mile away and the house was full of paramedics and Jami was being pronounced. I pushed my way through to her and she started breathing again.
Those are the Big 3 but my life was full of incidents like these. They have slowed down, I think whatever channel that let these things through is closing as I age. No, this is not part of any mental illness or delusion. Mariam Skaw was not at all a believer in such things, she was a hard core Bible thumper, but she said she knew I had something unexplainable. She said it had to be a gift of prophecy because she saw the world through the Bible. Maybe it was, maybe it's not age but my loss of Faith that has silenced these things. My daughters all have the same thing in different degrees yet none of them are "religious".
Ok, aside from those things. I have met several doctors and psychiatrists when I was younger who thought I might be bipolar. Manic Depressive. I was never officially diagnosed but I know I had Something Not Right through early adulthood into middle age. It faded and pretty much disappeared by the time I was 50.
I don't know how to describe it. And when you mix it with PTSD from childhood abuse and severe trauma and stir in some psychic abilities you have a MESS. I learned that I couldn't trust my interpretation of the Sight for several years. Many years.
Oh, also consider that I battled Graves Disease from 1984 to 1990. That makes everyone crazy! I developed a flash temper that was terrifying to me and everyone around me. The temper lasted longer than the Graves Disease, it went away about around when I turned 50 also.
I also went through the trauma of finding out my daughters were being abused in the early 90s. I can hardly believe that I didn't end up in prison for murder during those years! I did try to kill Oran Skaw once. I saw him driving towards me on a lonely country high way and floored it and got in his lane to run him off the edge of the road. I swerved back into my lane at the last second but relished the terror I got to see in his face when he realized what I was doing.
I did many worse things during these years that cause deep shame in me to look back at. I also started working out every day for over a year until I was solid muscle and probably a deadly enemy.
I had a crazy wildness in me that started in my middle teens. I was pretty much fearless but hung onto little shreds of survival instincts that likely saved me. Or it was just luck or fate or whatever you call such things.
I went through years of creating fantasy worlds that I loved more than the life I was leading. I always knew they weren't real but they still effected my every day life. I created the worlds when everyone went to bed. I sometimes could hardly wait for the real day to end so I could make a new one. Most of my fantasy worlds were Feel Good stories but many of them were about violence like torturing and murdering my enemies. I killed Oran and other members of the church hundreds of times but people didn't have to deserve death as much as they did to get killed by me. Anyone who slighted me or mine in any way was a candidate for being in a world where I attacked them.
I have wondered if serial killers emerge from people like I was. That's part of the fascination I have with serial killers. During these years I plotted the deaths of dozens of people in great detail.
But I digress.
I wonder sometimes about my resistance to the bipolar tag. I can see I used to have very classic symptoms. I think I resist partly because i didn't want to be just That. Pigeon holed. And if I embraced it the thing that was Me inside the manic depressive wouldn't matter. Sometimes I would like to be able to use it to excuse myself from direct blame for the people that i have been.
People not Person. I feel like I have in my life acted in ways that couldn't be the decisions of just one person.
I will say that in this life I have been a Mother and a Grandmother. That is my focus now and has been since I gave birth to Jami. No, before that, I was trying to mother others. I love feeling like i am taking care of people. I am proud of that person. I have fought to save girls and women who were in trouble. Taken many into my home and heart and fought for them with all my might.
I have also been an unbelievably terrible person. I have done and said things that I cannot stand to remember.
When I look this evil part of me I am looking at a person I hate. I am deeply ashamed of everything she has done. In retrospect I feel a common thread through all of her actions like she is a separate person that has stepped out of me like a demon sent to destroy. She rages to life when I feel cornered, mistreated, or hurt. I think she is dead and then she jumps out again. Less and less as i age but she is Here still but now i can at least recognize her and why she returns. She raised her ugly head the night I threw Jessalynn out. Jlynn hurt me worse than I have been hurt in years. When I look at that night I see ME curled up and dying and HER stepping out in front of me, to protect me? But she always actually hurts me more. She lashes out, tried to hurt Jlymn as much as she was hurting me and drove her away. Forever.
I didn't at all want that.
Without her I think I would have laid there bleeding for a long time but I would not only have recovered but I could still have Jessalynn in my life. Because of her I lost Jessalynn. Yes, Jessalynn thinks i am disgusting as she told me but Jlynn loved me.
No I can't go through what my relationship with Jessalynn Was here again. But I can so plainly see and tell what this Shield of mine did more clearly than the times she has ripped my life apart in the past because these wounds are still fresh.
Jessalynn was literally the center of my world. I hadn't seen the Evil entity I house for so long I thought she was gone.
I think what happened is about who I believed I had become, who I believed I was to my family, and who I believed Jessalynn saw in me.
It was about Jessalynn's flaws, too. She is extremely opinionated and judgemental of others but hasn't yet had to turn her magnifying glass on herself to see her own hypocrisy. I Know something will happen to make her have to do that eventually like most of us do. I thought I would be there to help her when it happened, I never imagined tha that I would become one of her targets and I definitely didn't ever think I would be incapacitated by her and resurrect my dysfunctional Defence System.
I should give this person in me a name to make it easier to write about. Ooooh, but does that make the delusion a reality?? Just kidding. Maybe.
I'm not trying to say I have a multiple personality disorder. And yes, I know that people who have been traumatized, especially as children, develop Coping Skills to protect themselves. I have some classic ones like the ability to compartmentalize my life. To be able to be molested and then run outside and play with the other kids like nothing happened, literally having No Memory of it the minute it stopped until it happened again and then years later in retrospect.
Mulitipersonality Disorders can start the same way.
I am in there somewhere.
I watched a show last year that talked about looking at yourself as a child and Loving that child. That show, that Idea, has haunted me since I saw it.
I can barely stand to look at the people I have been and definitely wouldn't know how to love them. I could write a whole novel about Self Loathing.
So here i am now. I really Never expected to end up such a Small Person. Yes, I had some Delusions of Grandeur in my life but I always believed that the Real Me really had some significance. THAT feels like my delusion now.
I am dying from COPD and shortening the time I have left by smoking and cant make myself care enough to extend my life. I do Nothing. Have no friends. Have very little family that I as a person matter to. Maybe none. My importance is only helping the people in my home survive. I make sure the bills are paid and that there is food to eat. I protect my household from the world and often from each other. No One needs Rhoda Kiser Laughary. No one knows or cares Who I Am.
Insignificant.
All through my life I have encountered people who believed and told me that I was going to do Great Things. I had Potential. I often believed them. I have so many creative talents. I used to have the gift of communication which made me a very talented sales person and landed me in my last occupation in Human Resources. I loved helping people and, unlike many who work to help others, I thought I had a deeper understanding than most because I was very aware that being a savior is often selfish. We do it as much because it makes Us feel good as because it helps others. (Well, unless you are Jesus Christ. Pretty sure His intentions were always pure.) I believed that understanding set me apart, would keep me humble as I saved the world. it subtracted Ego by naming it. This may be true, yet I end up as Nothing. Don't, can't, won't even save myself now.
I don't believe I would be classed now as Manic Depressive. Jami told me that there is a saying like "stay alive to 35" about how bipolar disorder burns out as you age, that if you just survive yourself it will fade. Maybe that happened?
I never dreamed that looking back over my life before death that I would only see wreckage. Carnage. Disillusionment. Grief. Failure. Pain. Misery.
Some would say I am suffering from depression. Give me meds to balance my serotonin levels to Fix Me. Yes, that might make it rose colored but it won't actually Change anything. I haven't Lost Touch with reality. I have been Crushed by it.
I am very proud of my daughters. I believe they are all Good People even though they are as flawed as anyone. I always told them that even if I hurt or even caused them damage that I made every decision about them, for them, with the best intentions. That is True. That doesn't negate the fact that I have damaged them. They all have a deep hatred for Me that I will never fully understand but I have to believe they are justified. If not, how could it be all three of them? I used to believe that Jeanette was my Proof that there was Good in me. She would even claim to Be that proof! My first realization that was false was when we all lived on Grand Avenue. I accidentally offended her by commenting on how she dressed for her job and she lashed out at me with a hatred that floored me. I hoped at the time that it was just because she was in her twisted relationship with John Ways but then last year my eyes were fully, painfully, opened to her searing hatred for reasons I still don't understand. My proof that i was in any way a Good Mother or even just a Good Person disappeared completely. She hates me more than any person on earth.
I became very small, or just realized how insignificant I am. I thought I couldn't get any smaller and then Wham! Jessalynn hit me right between the eyes, straight through the heart, and I almost disappeared completely.
I am barely here at all. I believe in karma, believe we all get what we need in this life. I didn't say "deserve", everyone suffers things they don't "deserve". The Bible tells us that our lives, the people and events in our lives, all are meant to work towards our Enlightenment and Salvation. Something like "All things work for the good of man who believes in, is with, God". I don't take the Bible literally but do believe in its message.
When the disciples ask Jesus what sin a man committed to be blind, Jesus explains that the man's blindness isn't from his sin or even about that man but about how others react to his blindness and that he is blind so we can see Jesus heal him. Like Jeremy. His shortcomings didn't cause his disabilities but I have judged people by how they treat him. (I often judge myself for this, too, and too often fall short. Fail.)
(This goes into the thing with Jessalynn, too. She judged me to be "disgusting" for how I treat Jeremy after she spent a year telling me how horrible I was for Not throwing him out. No, I haven't figured that out yet.)
I have suffered greatly in this life. I survived by clinging to the belief that I was being saved by being damaged, that if I just survived and learned from each blow that I was being purified for my own salvation and hopefully to help those around me.
If it was a Test then I'm pretty sure I failed. I didn't grow into anything useful to anyone. I didn't grow into a soul worthy of reaping by any standard. Unless the point was to make me see that I am insignificant. Maybe it was? Was I so full of pride that I had to be stripped naked?
I can't see how this speck I have realized that I am could be helpful to anyone around me. Are those few I am still in contact with shaped in any way or judged by their reaction to my existence? I can't see it. That doesn't mean it isn't there. Who can see God's plan?
I barely feel the presence of God. I barely believe the huge conviction that I used to preach. I hardly recognize the person who would look around and marvel at the beauty of the world thanking God for giving me my life.
I have to struggle against the voice in me that declares that there is No God louder and louder. I get caught in the debate of how could the 95% of the world who believe there is a creator all be wrong? and looking at the fact that believing in a God makes death bearable. Gives suffering purpose. Looking through history all the way back to cave drawings man has had many beliefs about God or gods, heaven and hell that they took meaning from and created or were given a code to live by.
On the other hand, I have no understanding of how true atheists see life or see any reason to be Good People which many of them are. So they only have morality from inner goodness or fear of reprisal in this life? And when they die they simply don't exist any more?? Without a God how do you explain or understand psychic ability? No one has moved objects, proven telekinesis, that I know of but other psychic abilities that have been studied defy explanation. Do atheists just see these things just as powers of the brain? Are they? What about the astounding number of people who have been studied claiming they have lived previous lives or had life after death experiences?? I study all of these things intently, read, watch everything I can find about them and I have to conclude that there must be some sort of Truth behind them. There is always an attempt of scientific explanation like saying the chemical reaction of the dying brain creates the same illusion for everyone. That recorded experiences are faked or coincidental. This becomes more unbelievable when the subjects are children. Children who it seems couldn't have been coached to say they the things they do, who are too innocent of the world ready to believe or disbelieve them to feel a need for deception. What about them?
Maybe this is Why 95% of the world believe in a Higher Power.
If I am a part of a Greater Plan I feel like I am less than a speck of dust in it and/or that my purpose in this life must be over. Thst is why I am dying now. Why cling to this life? I barely do. Every day now passes like the day before most of the time. Nothingness. I spend most of my time now laying in bed, mindlessly watching TV or reading. I barely interact within my household. I am still necessary, Jasmine, Kira, Jeremy, Jessica and Jami depend on me for their survival. I am terrified of what will become of them after I die but I Know that their lives will go on somehow. Jeremy and Jami have and could survive on their own. I pray that someone will step in and take care of Jessica. I want to live long enough for Jazz and Kira to be able to take care of themselves but I know that is an unrealistic hope. But the family will do their best for them, the love is there even though the ability to raise them isn't. Jeremy won't become more capable than he is. With his epilepsy and aging he grows less capable daily. i still try to teach him how to survive but i know it is useless. Hopeless. I am saying the same things repeatedly for years until it seems cruel to keep trying to teach him. I can't stop myself because I don't know who can take care of Jasmine, Kira, and Jessica after I die and crazily keep hoping that he will, can, become capable.
(A Note here: Jeremy doesn't believe that he is incapable so he rejects all effort to teach him how to Become capable. Like his driving, he believes he Is already a good driver so refuses to work to Become one while he wrecks car after car.)
It sounds like my Life is still significant when I talk about those dependent on me still. I suppose it Is. That is hugely why I am still alive. It should also be more than enough motivation to continue my miserable existence.
Ok. So i will make more effort.
Wow, i really strayed from writing about mental illness. I'll have to divide this out if i want an entry just about that.
My father was told after his heart attack that he would die if he kept smoking. There were several cigarette butts in the toilet in the hospital room he died in. Did he not believe that it would kill him?? It appeared that he smoked those cigarettes one after the other since they weren't flushed. He wasn't suicidal. There was a note pad by his bed where he had worked on his horoscope. It showed that he had some very bad days to get through, which included the day he died, but showed a long life after. It looked like he didn't believe he could die on these marked days because there were so many days after them. Mom stated that she thought he must not have loved us since he didn't quit smoking to live longer. He loved us. He just didn't believe he was dying.
Do I not believe that I am dying? I talk about it as a fact. Do I deny that mortality when I continue to smoke? But then we have to talk about addiction. Cigarettes are one of the most insidious addictions man has. Jami knows for a fact that her drug addiction is killing her. WILL kill her. Technically it has already killed her several times. She loves us. She cannot make herself Quit.
Can I NOT make myself quit? I don't really believe that yet. I keep telling myself I will quit Tomorrow. Been telling myself that for years.
