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to the best of my knowledge, i am a natural born rager. it's hard to be certain of my birth nature because of the criminal chaos i was born into, but all evidence suggests it is possible, even probable. delayed early development and a hyperactive metabolism are fairly strong evidence, all by themselves.
methinks a new body of memories is trying to emerge. if so, the trigger is the relationship between my two foster daughters, ages 8 and 5. the elder is so artistically inclined that we have nicknamed her "frida" in honor of frida kahlo, her favorite artist to date. she wears the nickname proudly. she is also quite the songbire. her voice is incredibly diverse. the younger is not quite hyper, but highly energetic. i see uniforms in her future, be they athletic or military. well? ? ? she could easily turn mad scientist. there is no experiment this girl won't try. i'll bet dollars to wishes she won't try the desitin hair conditioner experiment a second time. it took two weeks of hard scrubbing to get that stuff out of her hair. i have to admire the way she took full responsibility for the failed experiment.
the body of memories which seem to be emerging is of "cry bullying" where siblings, schoolmates, etc., would goad me to explosive measures, then cry to authority figures about their helpless victimhood. "frida" is looking like quite the cry bully to me.
am i making sense? thoughts? experience? opinions? unsolicited advice?
today i leave the mood icon squarely on "okay." whatever is going on, it is responding well to therapy tools. we're gearing up for the new school year and both girls are excited to be getting back to their school friends. big bro is going into 6th grade and quite nostalgic for the simplicity of his old elementary school. our school district has an "intermediate school" for 5th and 6th grade.
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Hey All...I hope that you have a lovely, peaceful beginning of your weekI have a bunch of chores that need doing but may put them off til tomorrow and just hang out with my landlord/roomie todayWhat about you?...Anything special going on?Have a great day and take good care of you!!..Xo
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Once again I've had a fever today. I'm not going to the hospital because that's a huge waste of time but I did schedule a dr appointment for Wednesday afternoon.
You sure have had a lot to be p o'd about Arf
It''s great that your therapy tools are helping
I have quite an anger as well and I don't know quite how to break it down either
I think it's more about nurture althkugh that's just my guess
I have a picture of the conditioner experiment...lol
Big hug...xo
For one little easily remedied mistake ---- put a can in the wrong bin.
She blew up on me like I'd spat up her nose while infected with plague.
Over a can.
BTW, I changed paint colors in my closet with a chem kit experiment's gas output. I understand the experimenter too well! I may never live that down and it was 40 years ago. The rager, btw, blew something up. Literally. Boom. Her room needed a new window. Yeah.
So that's my experience. It's probably worthless but there it is
still. . . within my parenting experience, i have no doubt there is such a thing as a cry bully. when she first arrived, big sis was cry bullying big bro like a fashion diva. channeling that drama into singing lessons has helped, mightily. big bro still tenses into flight mode when he hears a girl cry.
the conditioner experiment was long enough ago that it has become a family joke. baby sis is laughing along. for your mental picture, think swim cap. i bet it won't catch on at the olympics, despite it's effective waterproofing power.
I wish I had more helpful information.
i believe i am being very careful about labeling these foster children. they have enough problems without label stigmas. just believing while i pray. my little frida was cry bullying when she first arrived as a freshly traumatized three year old, but i believe that healing has happened. she remains an hsp (highly sensitive person) but her sensitivity is far better focused and channeled than it was 5 years ago. just believing. . . we see what grows.
I think during our upbringing my sister never missed a day in which she provoked me to anger and then went running to mommy and daddy crying to tattle on me. She gloated openly at seeing her little dance result in my getting punished.
It was a skill set that served her well with our mentally ill parents (mom untreated borderline personality disorder, dad untreated bipolar). It didn't serve her very well as an adult, though, particularly not in her marriage. The clothing and makeup money she got my parents to invest in her helped her land a medical school student husband. My folks, in turn, invested in paying for his med school.
But then when she tried to perform the old cry bully dance as a basis for marriage, her medical doctor husband just ignored her.. Instead of getting angry he got busy cheating on her and got a nurse pregnant, divorced my sister, and started a second family.
That happened over a decade ago, and my sister is still at a loss as to how to go on with her life because cry bully is all she knows.
the current anti-bullying campaign paints bullying as something you are. i hold bullying as something you do to cope with stress and injury. the forms of bullying are as creative as life. the diff between a cry bully and a fist bully are approximately equal to the diff between emotional and physical abuse.
my own modus operandi is to disappear without a word before anyone knows i have a problem. the people who love me enough to wait for me to get back sure feel bullied when i do that. amends in progress.
here's to that forward motion.
onward through the fog.
we see what grows. for now, methinks it's enough to know there are better ways to channel pain than bullying, though i have always imagined frida kahlo as a major league bully. catching and keeping diego rivera in line was not a task for a lightweight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CTM7FcY1LE
Yeah, she was no lightweight at all.
fast forward half a century and diego is now, "frida's husband." she became a woman's lib icon in the 1980's.
for my adoration tithing, selma hayek captured frida kahlo beautifully in the 2002 movie, "frida." the two look remarkably alike.
for my strictly personal adorating nickle, frida kahlo's handling of the physical injuries she sustained in that tragic trolley car accident as a teenager made her a healing role model in my own recovery from the psychic injuries of child sex trafficking. she hit my radar as such when i was a homeless teenager in the 60's/70's.
healing hopes for all. no exceptions.