this is renee's family. my mother's (rose) sister sally's daughter's (sandy) daughter.

 

trusty steed

 

eric and mike

 

patient's notes 4.08.2006 16:03

i should have posted that better. these meds do nothing more and nothing less than make me be my true self. along with a steel spine and a jackhammer.

that self includes a tendency toward depression, a love of music and books, and all the other character traits i was born with.

no physical, neurological or psychological tests show but that i cannot process serotonin correctly and have trouble implementing concepts i creatively comprehend.

i conceptualize conflicts in relationships as two entities about to collide, frantically signalling each other on how to avoid collision, my instictive reaction has always been to lean to one side, and if collision is still imminent, to lose consciousness. miraculously no one has been injured.

medicines will never teach me how to respond to those situations, nor heal the wounds for those decisions. they will only lessen the tendencies to replace reality with ideals and fantasies of "should" and "could".

i can only hope to suspend disbelief in the fellow traveller long enough to truly communicate without confusion. to slow down enough so that consious choices can be made. as i said it's very hard for me to implement what i creatively comprehend. my instinctive reaction gets misinterpreted as distrust.

two examples: i walk down the street and see someone also on the sidewalk coming towards me. since they are in the middle of the sidewalk, i cross to the other side. my intent is to give them room. they interpret it as a message that i want to stay away from them. or there was a time a is was at a friend's house. he pointed a pistol at me. i didn't look away. if he did pull the trigger and it was loaded i would be dead, if it wasn't loaded i'd be alive, there wasn't any time to jump for cover, so why not just stay still ? we're still great friends.

so why would i let a situation with my family escalate to a point where a collision could occur and step to the side ? i could say that it was just like an avalanche of small things gradually building. but that would be denying that i ever had a choice. instead i'll say that i have trouble finding where the choice i made was.

in the meantime the best i can do is to try and keep that window open, or reopen it. my legal training has taught me full well the meaning of trial and appeal. appeal meaning both to make a serious request for reversal and to be attractive or interesting. this can only be done through the initial appeal.

my daughter was immediately appealing the day of her birth

for three days i was the happiest i'd ever been. even after being present during a c-section. amy had decided to turn head up with one leg down and one up. cat wanted me present. she asked me to come. 15 years later cat said it was because she thought i should be there when my daughter was born. i had gone for cat. i made sure her mother touched her first.

her grandmother and grandfather came from statesville to be there all night. it was just amy, cat, my dad, my mom and me that night.

amy grew to have one stubborn streak just like me - the absolute compunction to have to be respected for telling the truth.

what happens if there are many truths ? just like a camera on auto-zoom, every time you focus on any paticular object to zoom in on that truth, the other truths go out of focus. when you go back to take in all the truths then no single truth gets attention. we all develop interrupt handling in order to cope with this. sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. instinctively we trust those who's process we can predict and appreciate.

it seems that my response wasn't predictable or appreciated. that was a mistake. i take responsibility. whether it could have been read from the past or appreciated from the present event is irrelevant. in my confusion i gave the wrong signals.

how do i rectify this ? well the action is past, so i can't take it back, not that i would know how to do better. i could explain, but that could be seen as an excuse. i think the only alternative is to ask forgiveness and share. but unless amy wants to meet me halfway i'm afraid that won't be enough. she will have developed her own reasons to trust or not trust and any character (of personality or wealth) has to stand or fail on its own merit.

this goes the same for cat. when i was confronted with a new boss at work, the new boss demoted me to work under a peer. i was then placed in a situation where i had to choose between this new boss and a new manager that took my old peer's place (beginning to sound like a bad family tree ?). they tried slipstreaming me and placing a friend into that position. having been through law school, i resorted to legal remedies ... ineffectually. i ended up in temp jobs and unemployed. which ended me up moving to fl. working out of a bus, commuting between cousins. keeping up a relationship, 12 jours by bus away, wasn't healthy. at some point the "d" word came up. suddenly the ships started signalling the collision alarms, i lost consciousness and ended up getting moved out of the house.

actually i ended up in at least 5 accidents. cat has some pictures i'd love to post here. between stress, migraines, dental abcesses and other factors, it's a wonder i'm here now.

but back to that point. when the confrontation came about my getting moved out there was a heated argument. cat's mind was made up. i didn't know what it was made up to. amy said it wasn't abandonment and i challenged that. amy took that as a personal challenge to her integrity. somehow i couldn't understand how getting moved out of the house, when there weren't conditions on when/if i would get back in, was constructive abandonment. but apparently amy knew something i didn't. how could i have understood her better ? because not understanding her better cost me a marriage. unless cat will tell me different, i'll never know what amy knew as the conditions why it wasn't abandoning me to be on my own.

i made a mistake. now what do i do ?

patient's notes 4.08.2006 11:13

my romantic ideals are gone. it was fun playing don quixote for these years but as hawkeye said "sidney, why did you have to do this to me ?" it all congealed when mom called me a tiger prowling a cage. it's a small one.

when i finish it, i'll share the notes to amy and cat.

i don't want the responsibility of this cage, at least not the wealth. i can and will make the decisions. everything else should just be held in trust for basic necessities like internet access to continue here and creative resources. the rest should go to amy if she'll appreciate it. but there's been reason to doubt she will.

seems that i've broken her trust. i think it's a misunderstanding. like me she has to be belived, especially that she's telling the truth. i do believe in her, whole-heartedly. i expand the focus of the truth to include more elements and maybe i didn't concentrate enough on her then, too busy on trying to make her see what i saw.

how does anyone handle that ? with two different images, her and mine at the same time ? is it more important to share or to put oneself in the other's shoes ?

all i can do now is try and stop that moment. to prevent final closure. to pry it open and explain enough that the issue can be resolved in light of this new information. then, understanding this, if amy still wants to back away, there's nothing to be done.

truth hurts. but it shouldn't be used as a weapon. it comes to all of us in its own way and we handle it in our own way. hopefully we handle it with kindness.