BIL wants to apply for it, it’s just been a $$ issue, as far as getting legal representation (one of those he makes too much to qualify for aid, not enougn to actually afford a lawyer – we’re working on it)
Have you thought about getting a lawyer for your niece instead of your BIL? It would probably be pro bono (free) then.
Attorney Guardian Ad Litem – In this capacity, the attorney serves in the special role of guardian ad litem or GAL, and is responsible to represent the child’s “best interests.” This is frequently the role of the child’s attorney in child protection (abuse, neglect and dependency) cases.*
You have to tell them to do what they want to do, when they want to do it. Then they’ll hear what you’re actually saying. Otherwise, everything goes through a filter that triggers whining until a) they finally shut the fuck up and do it, b) somebody gets so sick of hearing them that they do it for them, or c) it’s too late and they fail (which triggers a whole new chorus of whining).
but they always call me 12 hours before the deadline and magically expect me to solve their issues. Aarragh.
Thank you for being a voice of reason. Along with Argenti’s suggestion of getting myself some ice cream, I am no longer frustrated (That was what you meant, right, Argenti? Because I’m having ice cream now. It’s delicious. Your ideas are the best)
I don’t get it, but then, at my college, pneumonia wasn’t an excuse to delay an exam, so I might be a bit calloused. Apparently procrastinators abound.
I’ll set up the Ravelry group tonight and send invitations to all the manboobzers I know are there (hint: any Ravelry manboobzers I don’t know are there, drop me a line!)
leatapp
10 years ago
So, my friends are off at a Mary Gauthier concert tonight without me because I was too sick to go. Such a bummer. So, instead I’ll share some Mary with you. I absolutely love her.
[Content note: dysphoria, transmisogyny, body issues, self-hatred]
Suddenly tonight I feel really awful about myself. I feel disgusting. Every time I look at myself in the mirror I just blankly stare, wishing I never existed. I feel like I’ll always look ugly and have an ugly voice, no matter what I do. There is always going to be someone laughing at me or saying that I’m worthless and ugly because my nose is this way, or my cheeks are that way, or my jawline is shaped like a “man’s.” Maybe even my loved ones will eventually become ashamed of me and start calling me “beautiful” even when they think otherwise just to make themselves sound polite. I almost want people to call me ugly, masculine, and disgusting because I can’t imagine anyone ever thinking otherwise, yet at the same time it hurts to hear those words.
And I can’t do anything to medically transition because I have nothing but a small amount of savings, I don’t have a job, and I don’t even know how long I’m going to stay in Colorado. There are so many things going wrong. And I have no idea how to even start fixing them. /venting
AIT
10 years ago
Ally,
I can’t say I know how you feel as far as the transition. I have wished to hear someone call out the nasty thoughts in my head, so I can at least empathize with that, and I really wish I could help more. If someone is saying you’re worthless, they are dead wrong.
Hugs from kittens if wanted, and all the hope I can send you.
Ally, even without body disphoria, getting rid of the you’re ugly etc. messages in the mind is fucking difficult, so you have my complete sympathy in facing a much harder battle.
I don’t know if it helps to say I think you’re damn good looking and yes, feminine. There’s not a set way to look feminine, after all … and that last pic you took, the one with Tawney you posted on Feministe? You didn’t look at all masculine in that and that’s why I started talking about curly hair.
I’m only hoping this helps somehow, because I know my self-image only changed with the messages from guess-who.
I’ve set up the Crafty SPINSTERS group and invited (if I got the forms right) everyone in my friends group to join. Any of you manboobzers who’re also Ravellers, come on in! If nothing else, you need to see the kitties LBT drew for our badge and banner. 🙂
Kiwi girl
10 years ago
@Ally: I wish there was something I could say that could make you feel better, other than I hope you feel better soon and what you look like and how you sound don’t matter to me.
It’s so easy to think negative thoughts, just like we all tend to remember the hurtful things people say to us rather than remember the positives – it seems to be a particularly human thing to focus on the negatives.
One way I have seen to tackle these sorts of issues is with affirmations, which are done in front of the mirror. They’ve never worked for me personally, as I don’t feel the affirmation is true (or alternatively I feel really stupid saying it). If you feel that this approach is something you would like to try, then pick something positive about yourself that you think is relatively true, and affirm it in the mirror. And then work your way up through tougher and tougher affirmations.
Is there a support group you can talk to about what you’re feeling and going through? Particularly one with others close to you in age who understand what you’re going through because they’ve been there too? It feels like that type of support might be useful – if you think it would be/feel it would help.
I wish I could offer you more support, I’m completely out of my depth in this area. All I can offer you is that I’m thinking kind thoughts about you and hoping things improve for you soon.
Ally. You’re probably going to go through all kinds of weird emotional and self-esteem/ self-perception stages after leaving an abusive family relationship. Some stages will seem like one step forward, seventeen steps back at times. I remember from 40ish years ago after leaving an abusive husband that it wasn’t just the fear of seeing him round every corner (or that sinking every time someone in the office said there was a call for me) – it was a lot of strange internal thought processes entirely inside my head, about myself.
I was anxious, depressed and afraid and didn’t sleep too well because of the nightmares. But I had a well-paid job and I didn’t have any issues about my personal identity. (The issue back then was admitting to others that I was a kind of marriage failure. I felt horrible but that’s nothing to the turmoil you’re in at the moment.)
If you can find a way to see a counsellor you don’t even have to work through your transition issues up front. You really need someone to help you through the anxiety, the fear and the depression …… and to help you to keep your distance from the abusive person in your life. You know full well that it would do no good and might be very harmful for you to see him.
You know it. but you haven’t yet absorbed that lesson into your gut – there’s something hopeful in there which will occasionally urge you to see if he’s not really as bad as you think. In reality? There’s a remote, distant, theoretical, hypothetical possibility that that’s true – but there is also no reason for you to test that out before some cooling off period like, say, forever – sorry, okay, say six or nine months.
Set yourself a firm calendar date at least that far into the year which will be the day you allow yourself to think about doing a review of what you’ve heard of his behaviour during that period. And if it churns your gut to do that. Set another date 3 or 6 months after that. Whatever you do, don’t try dealing with him until you’ve dealt with your own anxiety and depression and got some clear water between yourself and your history.
Hugs and love. Make the most of any of the kind people and the good things you can find in your life.
One thing to bear in mind about family and other gone-wrong relationships. Many years after, I’d married my mr wonderful and had two beautiful children I was brought up short by my own extreme reaction to a suggestion by a family friend that I should talk to my ex about a particular subject.
Then I worked it out. Contacting him I would be taking the chance that
1) he’d be just as dreadful as before. So that’s a bad idea.
2) he’d be worse than he was before, Another bad idea.
3) he’d be better than he used to be. The question then is, would the improvement be enough to make the risk worth it?
So the odds become more than 2 out of 3 chances that it’s a bad, harmful, no-good idea. Bear that in mind when you get around to thinking along those lines again.
Really wasted right now, sorry everybody, I’ve been trying to keep up, but not posting. Personal stuff kind of fucking things up.
Please take it as red that I’m thinking about you all and hope everyone is okay.
Posting now because of Lana/Dallasapple. I’ve been losing time recently and honestly thought it was like a couple of days since we were all talking, god I’m so sorry @Nynaeve. Fucking miserable world.
Any positive thoughts/prayers I could possibly muster are being sent Lana’s way. Christ everything sucks.
On one particularly drunken night at Uni I rolled through the back of a park bench I was lying on, my friends didn’t notice in the dark and couldn’t find me. I was found fast asleep behind the bench ten minutes later. Yup, I was that British binge drinker. 🙂
Oops, smiling too much again. It’s the vodka. 🙂 🙂 🙂
Kiwi girl
10 years ago
My particular talent was trying to walk though a slightly ajar door thinking “I’ll fit through that gap”. I always hurt myself on the door knob, normally on the upper arm.
Sorry, commenting too much. Please ignore this, it’s just nice to vent.
I’m very, very drunk.
I have a cold, again! My anaemia is so bad I passed out again earlier. I’ve been alone all day (it’s 7:30 PM here) and Mr M is working all evening, AGAIN! It’s Valentine’s day. I’ve just been diagnosed with major depressive disorder on top of the OCD and I’m really scared they’re going to section me. And, oh yeah, it’s my fucking birthday! I have no family, I’ve been out of touch with my friends for too long. No cards, no presents, not even one happy birthday, not even from Mr M. Fuck perverted and/or dead families/friends.
Fuck the world!
The trolls are right, I’m a sad SPINSTER alone with her cat. Pathetic me.
Kiwi girl
10 years ago
Happy birthday! Have you done something nice for yourself, like bake a cake, or read a book you’ve been setting aside? Could Mr M be bringing your present with him when he comes home?
Jobs can really suck with interfering with important facets of life. 🙁
Sorry, really wasn’t angling for happy birthdays. Thank you though.
I kind of just drank a lot, ate a cookie, oh and I smoked a very small cigar. (I don’t smoke, so I’m not quite sure why.)
Mr M I’m sure will be nice when he gets in, just would have really liked a ‘happy birthday’ this morning, or when we spoke on the phone. Just being picky I suppose.
Dvärghundspossen
10 years ago
I just had this weird encounter today. I’d held a lecture, not at university, but at a place downtown. As I left the building, exiting onto this big busy street with tons of people passing to and fro all the time, this random dude comes up to me. This is the exact conversation that followed:
Random dude:
– Happy valentine!
Me:
– Uh… happy valentine to you to?
Random dude:
– Where are you headed?
Me:
– Home.
Random dude:
– Wanna go grab a coffee instead?
Me:
– No thanks.
Random dude:
– Are you sure?
Me:
– Yes.
Random dude:
– Okay! Bye, take care!
Me:
– Bye.
That’s the entire conversation, nothing left out.
I think he must have been some kind of minimalist PUA? Cut out all the manipulation, just go some place where there are tons of women, and keep asking them out until you succeed.
Dvärghundspossen
10 years ago
@Ally: You have my sympathies. I do hope you find a way to transition eventually… I hear trans people over here talking about how it’s better in other countries, where it’s legally easier to transition (here, you can only get hormones etc from special trans doctors, there are looooong waiting lines to see one and you need to jump through all kinds of psychiatric hopes before you’re finally treated). On the other hand, in the US it costs lots of money. There really should be a system that allowed trans people to a) choose if they wanna transition without jumping through ridiculous hopes and waiting for years, and b) do so for free or for very little money, since this is not a luxury but a necessity for many people.
We Hunted The Mammoth
Have you thought about getting a lawyer for your niece instead of your BIL? It would probably be pro bono (free) then.
Attorney Guardian Ad Litem – In this capacity, the attorney serves in the special role of guardian ad litem or GAL, and is responsible to represent the child’s “best interests.” This is frequently the role of the child’s attorney in child protection (abuse, neglect and dependency) cases.*
*http://www.naccchildlaw.org/?page=Attorney_Children
Just a random thought from someone whose experience with law and children comes from watching too many episodes of Law & Order:SVU.
Have some beagles:
http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/ad/b1/46/adb146c706d7c64ab2d81c5f26ea2dd0.jpg
http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/5a/e3/64/5ae36425759ffcac6f34822181b8c1bb.jpg
http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/cd/2e/13/cd2e13b4bca4f122aabe61ce8771cab0.jpg
Hey, fellow SPINSTERS, look at LBT’s artwork for our Ravelry group!
http://i.imgur.com/hARMcHj.png
http://i.imgur.com/VYjnR9A.png
but they always call me 12 hours before the deadline and magically expect me to solve their issues. Aarragh.
Thank you for being a voice of reason. Along with Argenti’s suggestion of getting myself some ice cream, I am no longer frustrated (That was what you meant, right, Argenti? Because I’m having ice cream now. It’s delicious. Your ideas are the best)
RE: Fibinachi
I don’t get it, but then, at my college, pneumonia wasn’t an excuse to delay an exam, so I might be a bit calloused. Apparently procrastinators abound.
Also yaaaaaay I make art! :B
Yay art pictures! Great art pictures!
I’ll set up the Ravelry group tonight and send invitations to all the manboobzers I know are there (hint: any Ravelry manboobzers I don’t know are there, drop me a line!)
So, my friends are off at a Mary Gauthier concert tonight without me because I was too sick to go. Such a bummer. So, instead I’ll share some Mary with you. I absolutely love her.
[Content note: dysphoria, transmisogyny, body issues, self-hatred]
Suddenly tonight I feel really awful about myself. I feel disgusting. Every time I look at myself in the mirror I just blankly stare, wishing I never existed. I feel like I’ll always look ugly and have an ugly voice, no matter what I do. There is always going to be someone laughing at me or saying that I’m worthless and ugly because my nose is this way, or my cheeks are that way, or my jawline is shaped like a “man’s.” Maybe even my loved ones will eventually become ashamed of me and start calling me “beautiful” even when they think otherwise just to make themselves sound polite. I almost want people to call me ugly, masculine, and disgusting because I can’t imagine anyone ever thinking otherwise, yet at the same time it hurts to hear those words.
And I can’t do anything to medically transition because I have nothing but a small amount of savings, I don’t have a job, and I don’t even know how long I’m going to stay in Colorado. There are so many things going wrong. And I have no idea how to even start fixing them. /venting
Ally,
I can’t say I know how you feel as far as the transition. I have wished to hear someone call out the nasty thoughts in my head, so I can at least empathize with that, and I really wish I could help more. If someone is saying you’re worthless, they are dead wrong.
Hugs from kittens if wanted, and all the hope I can send you.
Ally, even without body disphoria, getting rid of the you’re ugly etc. messages in the mind is fucking difficult, so you have my complete sympathy in facing a much harder battle.
I don’t know if it helps to say I think you’re damn good looking and yes, feminine. There’s not a set way to look feminine, after all … and that last pic you took, the one with Tawney you posted on Feministe? You didn’t look at all masculine in that and that’s why I started talking about curly hair.
I’m only hoping this helps somehow, because I know my self-image only changed with the messages from guess-who.
Announcement for Ravelers:
I’ve set up the Crafty SPINSTERS group and invited (if I got the forms right) everyone in my friends group to join. Any of you manboobzers who’re also Ravellers, come on in! If nothing else, you need to see the kitties LBT drew for our badge and banner. 🙂
@Ally: I wish there was something I could say that could make you feel better, other than I hope you feel better soon and what you look like and how you sound don’t matter to me.
It’s so easy to think negative thoughts, just like we all tend to remember the hurtful things people say to us rather than remember the positives – it seems to be a particularly human thing to focus on the negatives.
One way I have seen to tackle these sorts of issues is with affirmations, which are done in front of the mirror. They’ve never worked for me personally, as I don’t feel the affirmation is true (or alternatively I feel really stupid saying it). If you feel that this approach is something you would like to try, then pick something positive about yourself that you think is relatively true, and affirm it in the mirror. And then work your way up through tougher and tougher affirmations.
Is there a support group you can talk to about what you’re feeling and going through? Particularly one with others close to you in age who understand what you’re going through because they’ve been there too? It feels like that type of support might be useful – if you think it would be/feel it would help.
I wish I could offer you more support, I’m completely out of my depth in this area. All I can offer you is that I’m thinking kind thoughts about you and hoping things improve for you soon.
Ally. You’re probably going to go through all kinds of weird emotional and self-esteem/ self-perception stages after leaving an abusive family relationship. Some stages will seem like one step forward, seventeen steps back at times. I remember from 40ish years ago after leaving an abusive husband that it wasn’t just the fear of seeing him round every corner (or that sinking every time someone in the office said there was a call for me) – it was a lot of strange internal thought processes entirely inside my head, about myself.
I was anxious, depressed and afraid and didn’t sleep too well because of the nightmares. But I had a well-paid job and I didn’t have any issues about my personal identity. (The issue back then was admitting to others that I was a kind of marriage failure. I felt horrible but that’s nothing to the turmoil you’re in at the moment.)
If you can find a way to see a counsellor you don’t even have to work through your transition issues up front. You really need someone to help you through the anxiety, the fear and the depression …… and to help you to keep your distance from the abusive person in your life. You know full well that it would do no good and might be very harmful for you to see him.
You know it. but you haven’t yet absorbed that lesson into your gut – there’s something hopeful in there which will occasionally urge you to see if he’s not really as bad as you think. In reality? There’s a remote, distant, theoretical, hypothetical possibility that that’s true – but there is also no reason for you to test that out before some cooling off period like, say, forever – sorry, okay, say six or nine months.
Set yourself a firm calendar date at least that far into the year which will be the day you allow yourself to think about doing a review of what you’ve heard of his behaviour during that period. And if it churns your gut to do that. Set another date 3 or 6 months after that. Whatever you do, don’t try dealing with him until you’ve dealt with your own anxiety and depression and got some clear water between yourself and your history.
Hugs and love. Make the most of any of the kind people and the good things you can find in your life.
One thing to bear in mind about family and other gone-wrong relationships. Many years after, I’d married my mr wonderful and had two beautiful children I was brought up short by my own extreme reaction to a suggestion by a family friend that I should talk to my ex about a particular subject.
Then I worked it out. Contacting him I would be taking the chance that
1) he’d be just as dreadful as before. So that’s a bad idea.
2) he’d be worse than he was before, Another bad idea.
3) he’d be better than he used to be. The question then is, would the improvement be enough to make the risk worth it?
So the odds become more than 2 out of 3 chances that it’s a bad, harmful, no-good idea. Bear that in mind when you get around to thinking along those lines again.
Really wasted right now, sorry everybody, I’ve been trying to keep up, but not posting. Personal stuff kind of fucking things up.
Please take it as red that I’m thinking about you all and hope everyone is okay.
Posting now because of Lana/Dallasapple. I’ve been losing time recently and honestly thought it was like a couple of days since we were all talking, god I’m so sorry @Nynaeve. Fucking miserable world.
Any positive thoughts/prayers I could possibly muster are being sent Lana’s way. Christ everything sucks.
Hope my drunk comment makes sense.
Oh, wow, just read my last comment. I get really sweary when drunk, so, so sorry about that.
I walk into things when I get drunk (not watching where I’m going). I would prefer to be sweary. 🙂
Ouch 🙂
On one particularly drunken night at Uni I rolled through the back of a park bench I was lying on, my friends didn’t notice in the dark and couldn’t find me. I was found fast asleep behind the bench ten minutes later. Yup, I was that British binge drinker. 🙂
Oops, smiling too much again. It’s the vodka. 🙂 🙂 🙂
My particular talent was trying to walk though a slightly ajar door thinking “I’ll fit through that gap”. I always hurt myself on the door knob, normally on the upper arm.
Sorry, commenting too much. Please ignore this, it’s just nice to vent.
I’m very, very drunk.
I have a cold, again! My anaemia is so bad I passed out again earlier. I’ve been alone all day (it’s 7:30 PM here) and Mr M is working all evening, AGAIN! It’s Valentine’s day. I’ve just been diagnosed with major depressive disorder on top of the OCD and I’m really scared they’re going to section me. And, oh yeah, it’s my fucking birthday! I have no family, I’ve been out of touch with my friends for too long. No cards, no presents, not even one happy birthday, not even from Mr M. Fuck perverted and/or dead families/friends.
Fuck the world!
The trolls are right, I’m a sad SPINSTER alone with her cat. Pathetic me.
Happy birthday! Have you done something nice for yourself, like bake a cake, or read a book you’ve been setting aside? Could Mr M be bringing your present with him when he comes home?
Jobs can really suck with interfering with important facets of life. 🙁
Sorry, really wasn’t angling for happy birthdays. Thank you though.
I kind of just drank a lot, ate a cookie, oh and I smoked a very small cigar. (I don’t smoke, so I’m not quite sure why.)
Mr M I’m sure will be nice when he gets in, just would have really liked a ‘happy birthday’ this morning, or when we spoke on the phone. Just being picky I suppose.
I just had this weird encounter today. I’d held a lecture, not at university, but at a place downtown. As I left the building, exiting onto this big busy street with tons of people passing to and fro all the time, this random dude comes up to me. This is the exact conversation that followed:
Random dude:
– Happy valentine!
Me:
– Uh… happy valentine to you to?
Random dude:
– Where are you headed?
Me:
– Home.
Random dude:
– Wanna go grab a coffee instead?
Me:
– No thanks.
Random dude:
– Are you sure?
Me:
– Yes.
Random dude:
– Okay! Bye, take care!
Me:
– Bye.
That’s the entire conversation, nothing left out.
I think he must have been some kind of minimalist PUA? Cut out all the manipulation, just go some place where there are tons of women, and keep asking them out until you succeed.
@Ally: You have my sympathies. I do hope you find a way to transition eventually… I hear trans people over here talking about how it’s better in other countries, where it’s legally easier to transition (here, you can only get hormones etc from special trans doctors, there are looooong waiting lines to see one and you need to jump through all kinds of psychiatric hopes before you’re finally treated). On the other hand, in the US it costs lots of money. There really should be a system that allowed trans people to a) choose if they wanna transition without jumping through ridiculous hopes and waiting for years, and b) do so for free or for very little money, since this is not a luxury but a necessity for many people.