Editor’s note: Lovefraud honors all religious and spiritual beliefs. However, we’ve heard of many sociopaths who twist the teachings of the Bible in order to keep victims from escaping exploitation.
A reader sent the following letter in order to encourage those who are in this situation—knowing they are being abused, but being told that Scripture says they should put up with it. The reader has no affiliation with the organizations posting the material; she just thought the links were helpful.
For those individuals who are of the Christian faith (and / or of any faith) and who have, also unfortunately found themselves ”¨exposed to either sociopaths / the supporters-of-sociopaths ”¨(within their very own family or spiritual setting or, as is very ”¨often the case, both) the following links may be of some ”¨help in discovering and receiving Biblical “support” in ”¨being able to acknowledge the God-given FACT that ”¨”tolerating a sociopath’s abuse” is very simply ”¦
1) NOT part of a Christians’ “bearing one’s cross”;
2) NOT something that a Christian MUST simply ”¨”just forgive and forget” in order to have God ”¨also “forgive and forget” their own wrongs;
3) NOT merely a part of a Christians’ spiritual ”¨OBLIGATION to “turn their other cheek” (70 x 7)
4) NOT a part of “loving or ‘blessing’ one’s enemies”;
5) NOT something that in anyway “glorifies” or “honors” God, ”¨nor is it in anyway a type of “obedience” to the commandments ”¨left by God to all of mankind, nor does it follow along the ”¨lines of the “will” that God has planned for one’s life.
God has a GOOD will and plan for everyone’s life and God both can and will help people to escape, overcome, heal and even, somehow, also ”¨be able to learn from the abusive experiences that you have survived.
GOD HAS THE POWER AND THE WILL to, somehow or another, use ”¨these past experiences to “transform” a person (despite all the abuse) ”¨into becoming the very best person that they can become (to themselves”¨ and to others) and can actually somehow miraculously also use these ”¨experiences to work out all together for the GOOD within their own ”¨life (Romans 8:28; Jeremiah29:11; 3 John 1:2) and in the lives of others.
Should I offer forgiveness without repentance?
Should forgiveness be unconditional?
No forgiveness for the unrepentant
Selective Amnesia: “I have no idea what I did wrong!”
Forgiveness—does it matter if the abuser is a born-again Christian?
I finally came to see the challenges we face in life as a way to LEARN NEW LESSONS. In reading the story of The Future King David having to runn and hide in caves to keep The jealous King Saul from killing him, I believe that God COULD have kept Saul from trying to Kill David, but God warned David through Saul’s son who was his friend, and david ran and hid.
Saul hunted David for several years and David actually had the chance SEVERL TIMES to killl Saul but he refrained from doing so.
If God COULD have kept Saul from trying to hurt David, WHY didn’t he? Well, it looks to me like David HAD A LESSON TO LEARN IN THE WILDERNESS AND IN HIDING….
Also, David was a sinful man, he did some pretty nasty things, adultery, murder, etc. but he was still called “a man after God’s own heart?” Why was such a SINFUL man given that term? I think it was because David TRULY repented when he was confronted about his sins. That is what God wants from us I think, is a truly CONTRITE HEART no matter what we have done, how bad it is, or how terrible.
Everyone “sins” if you want to say that “sin” is doing something we know is wrong. I have done things I know were wrong at the time I did them, I did them because I wanted to for one reason or another. Yet, I also have a contrite heart about these things AND I try to NOT do things now that I know are “sins” (bad things) but I still fail to do good things I know I should do, and still do bad things as well. BUT my heart is contrite, I have realized finally, I think that I must TRUST GOD. God’s promise that “all thiings will work toetgher for GOOD to those that Love the Lord” is a promise that I believe I can trust.
So now, when I pray, I pray not “specifically” for some THING to happen but for “whatever YOU know is best to happen” and then trust that no jmatter what happens it will eventually turn out for the BEST FOR ME!
We do not have the power to look at a specific event and see what ramifications it will bring about in a month, in a year or in a decade.
I’ve had things happen to me that were devestating and I cried when they happened. I had the BEST most wonderful job in the world at the college not far from here as director of student health. We got a Psychopath in there as the new president and he cut the job to PART TIME (there went my benefits and insurance) and I CRIED, I RAGED, I SCREAMED. But I went out and got a job that was only 2 days a week as charge nurse on a geriatric psych unit. They needed a medical background nurse (I am a retired advance practice would only have to work 2 twelve hour shifts on Sat and Sunday.
My egg donor was upset that I had “abandoned my career” for a job, but I began to see that there were some great lbennies, I got to STAY HOME 5 days a week! I didn’t particularly like the job but I was good at it, and it was obvious there was a BIG need for my skills there.
I tookk the job in June, and in October I was at my folks’ house and my stepfather was sick, I assessed him and then knew I had to get him to a physician as quickly as possible. I prayed his fever was caused by oone of the several tick fevers here and not by cancer. Sure enoujgh, it was a particularly aggressive kind of cancer for which there really was no hope, plus he was 81.
I was there for and with him as we made the medical rounds, to comfort him and “translate” medical-speak where he coujld understand it. He lived 18 months ninstead of the projected 4 months, and he didn’t just take 18 months to die, he LIVED THOSE 18 MONTHS and I was able to stay with him monday through Friday and over see his care and to ‘catch” the complications that would have made him feel worse. WHAT A BLESSING THAT WAS.
In July the next year, after he had been diagnosed the previous October, my husband was killed in a plane crash here at the farm. I WAS HOME, because I was HOME and not at work, I got to be with my husband those last 8 hours when he was alive and conscious and we got to say our goodbyes WHAT A BLESSING THAT WAS.
I realized that if I had not “suffered the disappointing loss” of my previous job I would NOT have been here for those very important (to me) things. I saw then that the loss of the job which was at that time, devestating emotionally, was actually a BLESSING IN DISGUISE!
As for me having to “run from my home” and leave it all behind, believe me, I can SEE SOME LESSONS IN THAT TOO. Frankly I was too “house proud” and too “contented” with the life FELT I HAD ARRANGED.
Sure, I had a career I loved, that paid well, and gave me respect in the community and satisfaction, and a beautiful farm provided by my ancestors who had worked like slaves on this land so that it was debt free. I had also worked hard to be debt free and to build my home, restore the farm to productivity, etc. but God had given me the strength, the intelligence and the opportunities to be able to do these things. THE BLESSINGS and I had gotten like the man Jesus talked about who was such a rich farmer he decided to tear down all his barns and build bigger ones because he was RICH AND SECURE. I learned during my period of running for my life that no matter how secure you think you are, you can lose it all in ONE MINUTE, and where Jesus advised us to “lay up treasures in heaven” rather than here on this earth, I realized that my belief and faith in God was not what it should have been and that God the Father was not the angry diety that didn’t really even like me…..I started seeing the BLESSINGS I had and counting those blessings daily.
Not only the positive blessings, but the negative ones too, like TODAY I DO NOT HAVE A TOOTH ACHE.
I spent enough time in third world countries when I was a teenager to have SEEN parents who couldn’t feed their children, or had no place to lay their heads under a roof, or had no medical care. Just having CLEAN water to drink is a BLESSING, a bed to sleep on that is more than a torn blanket on a dirt floor is a blessing. Sometimes we are so “rich” in this world’s goods compared to the many who are so poor that we forget what blessings we DO HAVE.
“I cried because I had no shoes until I saw a man with no feet.”
I can’t control the world, even though I have at times arrogantly thought I could, and you know it runs right along just llike it always has since I have decided that God can run it all by Himself without me telling Him how to do it. LOL
In the meantime, I try my best to trust that God knows what He is doing, and that if I do the best I can and TRUST him to keep His promises to me that ALL will turn out for good if I do Love Him, then I just do the best job I can and leave the rest to HIM!
Sometimes my faith falters, like Job’s, because I don’t understand enough and don’t trust enough, but I try to be like King David and learn from the adversity! Let that adversety make me stronger. Prayers for us all.
When I read the Bible and spend time with God, I do feel better, peaceful. It’s when I “get out into the world” that I get knocked down, going timidly along in life, not viewing myself as a fighter, being forced to recognize and deal with stuff that I’d like to pass on. I don’t want anyone to be hurt by others, but we all hurt each other at times. There are people who have a rougher road to walk in life (I tend to think I’m in this group presently) and my heart goes out to them, thinking that it’s unfair. Are there other people who think that it’s hard to maneuver through life, figuring out what your next step should be, fearing missteps? I have never been a happy-go-lucky person (probably too serious at times), just wanting things to work out in the end for everyone. I know that God exists – I just have to make my way over to Him, wanting to have continual peace in life (for myself and others). Thanks for the encouraging words, Sabrina and Kim Frederick.
Dear Blluejay,
I think we ALL want peace, the problem is that sometimes we think that “being peace keepers” in stead of PEACE MAKERS is the way to go about it.
In my own dysfunctional family of hard core psychopaths and hard core “peace keepers” having PEACE MEANT to “pretend none of it happened.” Not to raise the fact that someonen in the family was abusing someone else.
God and “forgiveness” were used as CLUBS to batter anyone into compliance with the “let’s pretend we have a nice normal family and that no one in the family is actually a PSYCHOPATHIC MONSTER.”
God was used as this angry diety that could read your mind and if you didn’t pretend that Uncle Monster wasn’t going to get drunk AGAIN and abuse someone (always female) in the family and there fore you had to be “nice” to Uncle Monster even though he had done all these EVIL things and WOULD DO them again….you had to “forgive and forget” and if you didn’t GOD WOULD ZAP YOU TO HELL!
I didn’t even really know that Uncle MONSTER was a monster until I was a grown woman (Keep the family SECRETS from everyone you can) and after my Grandfather had a serious accident and was in the hospital, Uncle Monster drove my grandmother back to the farm to get some clothes and other items as she had left the farm with the ambulance.
They were supposed to return that night–but we didn’t hear from them for several days, when finally my grandmother called my egg donor’s home and said that Uncle Monster had been on a drunken tear for three days and had held her at gunpoint, kept her from eating or going to sleep (she was diabetic,l very frail and 78 years old) He had also held pots of boiling water over her head and thratened to pour it on her.
My grandmother asked that someone comem and get her, that he had fallen asleep and she had gotten to the telephone.
I left my kids with my egg donor and got my pistol, and drove the 75 miles to the county seat in the county where my grandparents’ farm was, and stopped by the county sheriff’s office and explained to him what was going on and asked him if he wanted to send a deputy with me, and I told him I had a pistol and planned to use it if I needed to to rescue my grandmother. He told me, “Nah, I don’t need to send a deputy, if you kill him, “he’s paid for.”
At that time, and soometimes still, it is a valid defense in this county that “the SOB just needed killing”—anyway, when I got there Uncle Monster had awakened and hit the road, I am assuming that my grandmother told him that someone was on the way to rescue her.
After that I never again wanted anything to do with Uncle Monster—and I really had little or nothing to do with him. In fact, when my grandfatehr got out of the hospital they were so afraid to go back to their home that they rented an apartment in town and stayed there for 3 or 4 months until Uncle Monster decided to go to the VA alcohol rehab—and we know how long that lasted.
After the death of my grandparents, my egg donor started assuming the role of “family peace keeper” and the enforcer of the “LET’S PRETEND NONE OF THIS EVER HAPPENED.”
Eventually, this led to her protecting my psychopathic son from me —He is in prison for murder and I am fighting his upcoming parole hearing with everything I have. She is punishing me for doing so and supporting him in every way possible, from money to hiring attorneys for him.
I am no longer willing to be a “peace keeper” by pretending that my son is not a psychopath, that he has not already killed, and already tried to have ME KILLED, and almost got my son C killed.
So my trying to MAKE PEACE for the rest of us, I am being persecuted by the “PEACE KEEPER.”
So, there is chaos and I don’t totally have “peace” but in order to even have my LIFE, I must stand up and SHAKE IT UP and expose the bad guys. Jesus said if we do what is RIGHT we WILL be persecuted.
I don’t think He was jjust talking about religious persecution either. People who are DOING WRONG, like the Pharisees in the days of Jesus, who are also pretending to be doing right, they do NOT want us to expose them. Jesus ticked the Pharisees off because he exposed them for the hypocrits that they were—so what did these “piously religious” people do, they conspired to hire FALSE witnesses so they could get him EXECUTED.
Here was a man (Jesus) so powerful he could restore the withered hands, raise the dead, and they saw these miracles, and still they thought they could win over Him. For a while I imagine they thought they had WON, but they had LOST! Satan had lost. Evil had lost.
Sure, we want to think that people in our world want peace, and want to do what is right, but that’s not always true. There are people like Pilot who “wash their hands” and don’t want to “get involved” and there are others who outright lie, steal, manipulate, and punish anyone they think might expose their lies and hypocricy!
But, I would still rather be the persecuted than the persecutor. I would still rather be able to look myself in the mimrror and say I TRIED TO DO WHAT I THOUGHT WAS RIGHT. I tried to “do unto others as I would they did unto me” but at the same time, I am going to expect that others also DO UNTO ME, THE SAME WAY I DO UNTO THEM, or I am going to get away from those that are liars and abusers. If that makes them mad. So be it. This world will never have 100% peace, but I can work on peace WITHIN MYSELF with God’s help.
Bluejay.
I always get confused when people talk about god and quote the bible. I was brought up (and I use the term loosely) by the most self centred narcissistic pseudo intellectual sadists I have yet to encounter personally other than them ( I had no idea at the time, I was ‘in it’).
And I was brought up an ‘athaeist’ . The term ‘evil’ did not compute to me because of the ‘nutty religious’ connotations:(…. and I was/am not religious… (I think I AM spiritual… but of no fixed abode;)
I only ever used the word ‘evil’ in jest until after I met ‘the’ sociopath. Now I believe that there IS real evil in this world. Its not a joke. Its not a movie. It is not a red man with horns. And it doesn’t live in a holy book. It’s in this banal everyday world of human beings.
Its hard.
Looking at my waffle above; I also want to comment on your ‘So many of you are such good writers, expressing your thoughts so well ”“ exreemly helpful. I don’t think I have that gift.’ comment: I think I’ve said just the same thing here before. But I realise that a lot of the time I want to express something but cant. Not because it isn’t all there, but because I don’t know how to organise it!:) I am learning to give myself a break on that sort of stuff…I know where I am coming from (if no one else does!) and the intent is good:)xxx
to rupture our connection with our faith is a spectacular and heinous achievement.
to lose the ghost/ false lovers, partners and family, and to find ourselves unable or afraid to connect to our faith is part of the devastation.
sometimes that is achieved by the tactics that ultimately leave us feeling unworthy of faith and the resiliency and comfort if can foster, and sometimes it is because our actual beliefs or practices are targeted by those on the ASPD. And sometimes it’s both.
Between the N ex gf and the Spath my spirituality is oddly both damaged and stronger. I think it’s that way with most things for me now. I have lost a lot within me and in the world – so i am stripped down and more and more i see the essence can ONLY be worthy. and yet, there is this layer of trauma that i see a lot of the world through – i feel unsafe, incapable, ill and without resources.
i don’t feel well today – i have had a couple of bad chemical exposures the last few days. i left a conference early – i was squirming to be out of my skin. it was hot and the air wasn’t good…
i was only there to network and talking to people was painful. cause i feel like crap. and sometiems that tips easily into feeling like a piece of crap.
i have to turn down a job offer today – and i was pretty sure that i would do what i always do, talk myself into it.
i get anxiety when i look for work, which is compounded by anxiety about having less and less money, and the fear that i will just tip right over the edge.
now that i am allergic to so much in the environment, the anxiety is higher. MUCH higher.
i was offered this job….it’s a short term contract. which means in 14 weeks i would be out of work again. they have no office space – which means i would have to continue to work out of coffee shops as my toxic home is not a good place to work. they have no works space and meet in board members homes – they all have dogs. i cannot do this. and when we need to do a work party how the hell is that going to work?? we met in a coffee shop yesterday , but i can already see pressure being brought to bare to shift that.
i don’t know if i can tell you, express how much this is overwhelming, how hard it makes everything, how unsafe and unsure it makes everything –
i also realyl need to move, and a 14 week contract would mean i oculd not in the short term – i have to give 2 months notice, look and move. i need a steady income to know what i can affort. this new job would pay 2 times what the old one paid – and this city is like that – up down all around. mostly down.
the job is for a small festival, they have some funding. the pay is good. the job description keeps ‘evolving’ – which would need to !@.......#$%^ stop.
i don’t know if i can do the job. it’s a copr. fundraising position with a high dollar value and a short time lines.
and the worst piece – the one woman i never ever wanted to work with again is on the board. a very active member. i used to work for her, as in under her. she is a nightmare. no other person can make me feel that bad that fast. she’s a master of the deify, devalue and discard. it’s like there is something wrong with her brain. she has done the same to all save one of a core group who have worked with her.
i could use some help this if anyone is around. i am tryingnot to get all black and white in my thinking. i set up a meeting with the board – so i could see how she is in this context and she didn’t come to the meeting. I have seen her recently and i was shocked by the fact that it takes all of 5 minutes for me to feel like a piece of crap, and i haven’t worked for her since 2006. it was while working for her that i damaged my hands…so i am sure there is some charge there for me – her ineptitude with workers comp. almost cost me my claim – i had to fight long and hard to undo the damage she did (ultimately winning)
she is a nightmare. her name is holly (sorry eb 😉 and we call what goes on inside her head ‘hollyworld’. she is always out for herself, always trying to turn everything to her advantage (and is rather good at it). she is toxic and dismissive.
….and i don’t have money to pay rent in 6 days.
2 dear people (the Executive Director at my job that just ended and a wonderful wonderful guy who is a business developer) set this up for me – worked behind the scenes and had the producer of the festival call me . they had no idea I have a history with her – well, they do now.(all i have said is that i ran screaming from her emply as if my hair was on fire)- and please someone tell me this is nuts, but i feel like i am letting THEM down. man, i will take crap to please people!
i wanted to write here last night – but felt so tired, sick and dispirited after the meeting with the board, all i could manage was to watch a bit of online tv.
i know, that in the right setting i will thrive – but the setting parameters are getting narrower and narrower and it scares me. a lot. i dont let myself dwell on that, but damn, i just want to curl up in a ball and cry.
I EXPECT her to challenge my fundraising chops – and i couldn;t,really couldn’t handle it. i read,i itry, i self educate. i am skilled and taleneted, but don’t have a record to stand on in this very selective area. i lack some slef esteem, but ususally it comes as i do the work and succeed. I am also pretty good with dealing with the succes rates (which in this sort of furndraising would be pretty low). but the idea of doing all that interneal work, and being sick and her ickiness….
bewtween the @.......#$%^ board member, and the lack of safe space i just feel felled. that it is not possible. it’s even hard to write about it.
i feel bad every time i ‘fall’ down. every time i can’t keep going cheerfully – every time i say no, for good reason i think it sounds like i don’t want to work or try or whatever, and i KNOW it isn’t that – but F^&* i have been abused around the ‘be flexible’ shit. every freaking disordered person i have known wants me to be @.......#$% flexible. i am even beating myself up for leaving the conference (which my developer friend got me a comp $125. ticket for). sorry, had to leave, my life felt like crap and i just couldn’t be beside the perfumed people today….
if you have some time, please, some help.
Blueskies,
Spirituality is not the same as “religion” and many people who are RELIGIOUS are sure NOT spiritual. LOL
I have gained insight from the sacred writings and beliefs of many different spiritual aspects, not just the Bible. I don’t believe that ALL good ideas or ALL good advice comes ONLY from the Bible. There ARE many good ideas and spiritually uplifting examples in the Bible though that apply even for unbelievers.
There are some good ideas in Grimm’s Fairy tales for that matter, and in the Mythohlogy of GReece and Rome, and each of us must choose for ourselves what path we want to follow with our spirituality and our belief systems. Though I was raised in a “religious” home, I now see that only my stepfather had any spirituality along with that religion. His was not the same as my egg donor’s, by a long shot, but his love and spirituality was drowned out by her screaming anger rage and control, using religion as a CLUB to keep me knocked into line, or actually TRYING to use it for that purpose.
“You know, you can never beat a philosophy into a man’s brain”
Don’t remember who said that, but religion or any philosophy that is such that someone FORCES you to “believe” isn’t going to produce anyone of any TRUE BELIEF though they may fake it. I honestly am not sure I even had any belief, not true belief, that was fostered with FEAR from the earliest memories I have, from age 4-5-6 of wondering what it would be like to go to hell-fire-and-burn-forever if I wasn’t quick enough to say “sorry” the instant before I died. My child’s mind tried to figure out a way around going to hell by being “quick on the draw” right before I died. If that is not child abuse, and relligious abuse and spiritual abuse I don’t know what is, but I had no idea at the time what was going on, I just knew my egg donor had warned me about this angry diety who was apparently up there reading my mind and waiting to zap me.
Oxy, I swear you should write a book about your life, I have been mesmerized by your posts ( It IS possible to laugh and cry, cheer and jeer at the same time) I probally have said that before but I, for one am so proud that genuine people exist on this planet like you (along with so many others here as well.)
I know you are a humble type, not tryin to “lay up treasures for yourself..” BUT sister, YOU have the kind of spirit that I know makes demons tremble! NO WONDER you have had so much evil come your way- THEY wanna take you down, BAD.
Keep up being the fierce warrior that you are. If I werent already on your team, I’d wanna know where to sign up!
I had a dream many years ago that I was in the presence of a demon. It was laying in a hospital bed and when I walked in, I was forced to quote scripture over and over in order to keep the demon down in the bed- the minute I stopped quoting, the evil thing would raise up from the bed, as if to devour me. The next part of the dream, my mother appeared in the hospital room. HER ANNOINTED PRESENCE alone was enough to keep the demon down on its death bed.
The lesson given to me in that, was that I too had to become more christ like, walking in the light. It being NECESSARY to fight evil and keep it from consuming me. Exodus repeatedly speaks of being/becoming Holy. Whatever comes into contact with God becomes holy , being in the presence of God causes annointing upon the spirit.
Bluejay, what wisdom you shared when you said in the world you get knocked down.Jesus sd. “in the world, you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.
Your so right- allowing the spirit of the world (sin/ungodliness) in, massive destruction can happen in our lives. Worldliness results in losing our annointing. The spirit of the world wants to destroy the scriptures, and the truth.
Like Oxy spoke of- the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herod (examples of worldly selfishness,and corruptness) are examples of the dangers of worldliness- and a lesson in never thinking that one has “arrived”, and are too powerful to be taken down.
One step, I am so sorry that you are going thru so much at once. I dont have any real answers for you unfortunately, I am not much help, but I do know when all the pressures on me pile up all at once- so much that I feel Im holding my breath, unable to breathe, I have to focus on smaller bits of the puzzle,breaking it down into more managable, palitable doses. Sometimes taking a mental break from the issues is good, although I fight it, stubbornly thinking I must take it all head on- bull dozing thru each intricate part of my problems. When my mind is in panic mode, adrenalin at all time highs- Its ultimately a recipe for disaster for me. I actually shut down my decision making part of me, disarm any common sense, reasoning, and go into all out panic mode.
Dont beat yourself up for leaving the conference- I think you were going thru what I go thru, just a complete over load and maybe it was best that you left.
I know it may seem overly simplified, but I often think about what a mentor of mine, 70 plus yrs old used to say over and over- “Things have a way of working out.” I think I heard him say it SO many times in my earlier years- even dubbing in my own snide remarks at times like Yea RIGHT! Easy for him to say, He’s OLD and DONE!
Your body (you are feeling it mentally and physically) obviously needs a minute to recover, and really just breathe again.
I am by no means trivalizing what you are going thru- ANYONE can see that you have huge hurdles that need your attention, but can I advise that you not be so hard on yourself? Give yourself credit that you are capable and are gonna work thru each issue best you can, just not all at once.
I wish I could give you a HUGE hug, bring you my banana bread I just got out of the oven and give you the TLC that you DESERVE so much!!!! In the south, we say with the deepest of convictions- Bless your heart. Some of my “yankee” (lol) friends thought this comment was like making fun, or not well intended, said off handedly without sincerity- It MOST certainly is NOT! It is reserved for the most serious and well meaning of comments. I take the term “Bless your heart” as a most welcomed term of endearment, and say it with deepest regards. xoxo
Faith and philosophy aren’t neccessarily mutually exclusive. I think we have seen over and over in history that when you take faith out of the operating philosphy of a society or even a single human being, the ability to overcome adversity and temptation are diminished and that recovery depends on the belief that there is something more.
This being said, there are wonderful philosohies. My favorite although I do modify it for my own purposes by the inclusion of faith in a higher power that grants, understands and forgives both they who suffer and they who cause suffering, is Objectivism.
I’m not promoting any particular philosophy or religion –
It looks like this- In the context here I love this idea because it does change everything!
“The world will change when you are ready to pronounce this oath: I swear by my Life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for the sake of mine”.
from John Galt’s Speech in Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
sabrina,
thank you.
i get scared about the money.
I don’t want this job – at least as i see it/ fear it to be. only thing interesting about it is the money. and if i was so challenged in other ways – the challenge of the work goal itself.
and it’s true – it’s just too much all at one.
i tired to break it down by meeting with the board, and talking to the director about my allergies… i don’t know if people coudl really conceive of what this is really like when i tell them – one of the board members was moldy. i kid you not, i sat beside this woman, and her house must be moldy and i kept wanting to lean away from her….my face flushed and i just thought – damnit, how am i going to cope with all of this?
i have ‘been coping’ for a year now, escalating sensitivities – affecting my health, my mood, my cognitive ability, and i just can’t hold it togehter anymore. i am done. and i just need to sit in that and see what i can do.
and i would love some banana bread. i will send my address. 🙂 my birthday tomorrow. i’ll put a candle in it.