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#addicts are ill and deserve love and grace but i have been a victim of neglect and emotional abuse and been codependent on this woman since
theworldissocool13 · 4 days
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i can’t be the only one who thinks the response to the whole situation with wilbur was so strange. saying you hope his mental health gets worse is such a weird way to respond because unless he has a chance to truly become a better person, the cycle is just going to continue and he’s going to hurt more people. there’s no reason to sugar coat it, you can tell by his solo music that he struggles with very bad mental illness and it’s pretty clear that he has some kind of addiction and if you’ve struggled with either of those things you know a) how debilitating it is and b) how easy it is to hurt those around you when you’re in that state. if you really care about victims, you would not be enabling him to hurt more people by saying you hope he gets worse.
you cannot say you’re a mental health advocate nor that you support victims if you wish an unstable man becomes more unstable. this is not me excusing wilbur’s actions, nor trying to explain them away but instead giving an explanation FOR them.
i have struggled with debilitating mental illness, i hurt myself and those around me and fucked up my life and had i not gotten help i would’ve continued hurting more people and eventually i would’ve taken my own life. this is not me supporting wilbur or trying to excuse his actions, but not only does no one deserve the kind of hate he has been getting, the world would truly be a better place if instead of wanting everyone we don’t like to die, we encouraged people to actually get better and find happiness. people have been talking about him as if he has no feelings, as if he’s not a person, and that’s just not right. people are not black and white and neither is morality and we have no insight into his perspective.
i am so proud of shelby for speaking up because that takes a lot of bravery and i fully condemn what wilbur did, there is no excuse, and she is under absolutely no obligation to forgive him regardless of whether he changes or not. i genuinely wish shelby nothing but the best, a lifetime full of happiness and love. tbh this post is not about her, it’s about the fans who responded the way they did. for anyone reading this, if you ever hurt people when you’re at your lowest, i truly hope people treat you with more empathy and understanding than they treated wilbur with.
and in terms of the statement he put out, yes it was shit but he is in a band that is definitely in some kind of contract with his record label. of course they will stop him from saying anything beyond purely addressing that he’s seen the allegations, they do not want to risk getting sued by saying something that could be used against them.
i really think we should treat others with more love, respect, and care, than i’ve seen many people doing recently because at the end of the day we all only get one go on earth, this is everyone’s first time living, and we all deserve a chance to be truly happy. i hope you all have the grace to look to the people around you and be kind to them, not because they’ve proved they deserve it, but because kindness is the most valuable thing we can give to others.
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kadeu · 3 years
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Accepted — Wainwright Rook
♣     Rook Wainwright aka Hyena looks like Colson Baker (musician/actor) ♣     He was born October 13th, 1966; making him 58 years old, but he appears 26 ♣     This Concubus is Bisexual and a King of Clubs ♣     He is a Tavern Owner and Resistance Informant
Biography
tw: child abandonment
 “I’ll keep a razor in my wraps to slit your throat at the gates.”
 Rook Wainwright was doomed to be a menace from the start. Memories not eroded by drugs or head trauma of his childhood are few and far between, but what he remembers in fleeting moments is the cold, the ache in his stomach as he struggled to keep himself fed, both on meager scraps of bread and small amounts of water, and the emotional stimuli of the world around him, drawn to anger and misery like a moth to a brilliant flame for his own survival. An orphan with no awareness of his true lineage, Rook knew only that one of his parents had been a concubus- and that if they had once lived in the slums of Club, they had long since left it, and him, behind. Little more than a child, Rook had no awareness of the concepts he’d fallen victim to, homelessness, abandonment- He knew only that he wanted to- no, needed to survive, and so, he fought tooth and nail to do just that.
 Club was unkind to him, brutal and lawless, but he found his comfort in a few kinder hands and hearts, a warm meal here and there, a mend on his dirty sweater or a hand me down coat to fight off the biting cold of the winter, and as he grew, he came to understand his position better- he was a one. Lowest of the lows, sooner to be spat on than offered a helping hand, but there were others, people who certainly looked just like him living lives a thousand times better. What made them different? Made them greater than Rook himself? What had they done to deserve their comfortable homes and three square meals? What had they done to sit in the warm glow of the taverns while Rook wasted away in the streets? He learned soon enough that they’d fought for those positions, tore their comfort from the teeth of their opposition, of their ‘greaters’- and had reaped the benefits. Now a teenager with a lithe, muscular frame, the young concubus was no whelp, and with nothing but a miserable excuse of a life to lose, he threw his hat into the ring of Club’s constant power struggles, practically gorging himself on anger and fear before each fight to grasp his single edge over those he faced: Head games.
 “The cuts won’t kill you, but hesitation just might. Don’t let him get in your head.”
 Oh, how Rook loved watching his opponents squirm, every little emotion, their trepidation, their concern, their fear of losing their status to some young upstart made him bloodthirsty. From the first unlucky two he’d challenged to a fight, his method rarely changed: shake them to their core, break their focus. He’d taunt them, infuriate them into making a foolish mistake- the only mistake he needed to put them down. Weaponless and unable to afford one, he chose instead to hone his fists, torn fabric wrapped around shards of glass and rusted nails to make each swing a more deadly hazard, cutting his own hands to pieces in every clash, wrists slick with blood each time he placed a foot on the neck of his fallen opponent. Each promotion was that one step closer to no longer living with the shameful gaze of those who thought he was nothing, something he had now come to loathe.  By 18, Rook was a three of clubs, and had garnered the respect of those beneath him, somewhat renowned for his uncharacteristic kindness to his fellow lowrankers, it was his own bread that he broke now for the Ones struggling to get by, he held no ill will toward those he’d stepped on to climb up- it was the way life worked, after all, and those he left alive always had Rook’s respect. At least, most of them.
 “...A Scavenger, you know that’s what you are, right? Scrappy little fucker picking fights you can’t finish?”
 Rook’s promotion to a seven was unintentional, at least, as unintentional as the boy could manage. Now in his early twenties, Rook had comfortably settled at his position as a five, a dagger strapped to his hip and several tattoos marking his arms denoting his history and previous wins, the closest thing to a journal that the illiterate concubus could maintain to remember his experiences over the years. He’d liked the position, respected by the lowrankers and rarely bothered by the face cards, and most importantly, able to feed his newfound thirst for the emotion of lust, he likely would have held his position for the rest of his life, no hunger to climb higher than somewhere he felt comfortable, if not for the fact he had gotten brave and made a move on a pretty Seven at the tavern, satisfied to simply be rejected for acting out of his position, to feed on the disgust and shock at his mere implication he might be worthy- what he got instead: was stabbed.
 The young man’s lover had seen the exchange, and not particularly pleased at the implication he could be replaced by a five of all things, had drawn his weapon and immediately challenged Rook. With no opportunity to prepare, and largely untrained with his own dagger, Rook was staggered, forced into fighting with a wound and a much more capable foe, his saving grace was liquor, their fight moving into the street before his competitor staggered on the steps, falling back just enough that he could close the distance. It was the same young man he’d flirted with who’d pulled him off, and it was the barmaid who tended to his wound that he celebrated with that night. He was a highranker now, and once more, that voice in the back of his head reminded him that he was still, in the eyes of some, unworthy- a fly to swat, a waste of air and turin. The drive that he had been able to abandon for so long had roared back to life, he would be antagonized no longer, made to look weak by those around him never again. And so, he trained.
 “Fights like a man possessed, I tell you. Doesn’t even use a weapon half the time.”
 His further climbing of ranks was slow going, but brutal. Unlike those he fought to ascend to Seven, he left none he fought for his next position alive, ten bodies of his fellows falling at his feet. He’d known what they thought of him, his promotion a fluke, that his rank never would have changed, if he hadn’t been aided by the mead coursing through the other Club. he proved them wrong over and over again, and as his rank ticked to eight, then nine, then ten, each one hard fought and won with fists more often than his weapons, his body became a network of ink and scars, each mark a new chapter in the story he’d committed to his flesh. By the time he challenged the position of King, Rook had come to be known as “Hyena,” a scavenger with a taste for blood and a brutality not to be underestimated. Now in his late thirties, Rook had stopped aging, and reached his full potential as a concubus, he fed like a king on lust and desire, low ranks and high alike charmed into his bed, honeyed words and drugs shared on wicked tongues in the dark, anger and fear fueling him in the ring. He had long played smart, his position of Jack taken from the hands of the foolish, the Queen rank choked out of a human who simply couldn’t withstand the physical onslaught- But his opponent for the position of King would offer him no such ease, a Strongarm with a history as bloodied as Rook’s own standing between him and his goals.
 “Concede. Concede and we both walk out of here Kings. It’s a fair trade, Rook.”
 Rook eventually stood over the bloodied body of the other King, planting his foot on the back of his neck with a primal howl, bones sore and broken, armor chipped and busted, but alive, alive and victorious. He was a King, standing now in the upper echelon of face cards with wounds that would eventually heal to show for it. He had proven with no uncertainty that he was no whelp, no refuse of the streets, and for the twenty years that followed- he would hold that position with a brutal efficiency. Rarely challenged for his title, Rook eventually ‘retired’ from his desperate climb for the top- and from his mercenary for hire work for extra coin. He settled on opening a tavern and working on learning how to read, the time not spent cleaning the bar spent reading and writing, practicing skills he never gave himself the peace to embrace as he was growing up. Still addicted to anything he could chew, smoke or drink, Rook’s tavern soon became a well known hideaway for those less… upstanding than most, an uncomfortable kind of peace formed in the awareness that the King running the place would sooner kill a troublemaker than huck them out on their ass. It was through the Tavern he became privy to, and eventually joined the Resistance, an ear to the ground in High Rank circles and many low ones given his position and occupation, Rook is an information broker, collecting and trading information to those who know how to stay on his good side. His hatred of being looked down upon eventually becoming a lust for true anarchy, no loyalty to Club or anyone but himself, for that matter. In Rook’s mind, there are two kinds of people, those worthy of and willing to work for  their survival, and those who are better off crushed beneath the cogs of change.
In Recent Years
Rook has maintained his position as the owner of the Thronebreaker Tavern, so called for one of his early nicknames. He continues to pass information between members of the resistance and operates within High Rank circles only to gather intel, otherwise preferring to be left to his life of excess. Infrequently called to defend his position as a King, Rook has no interest in becoming the Ace of Clubs, and is satisfied to hold his place under a fellow member of the resistance, but he maintains his training regime, and is well known for his brutal removal of those who break the peace of his tavern for anything other than a fight for rank. His addiction to Chrono when he was younger has caused damage to his mind, making him quick to anger and difficult to predict in recent years, and while no longer using it specifically, he still partakes in most other drugs, usually while running the Tavern itself. His taste for anarchy continues to grow, and he’s reveled in the recent attacks performed by those in the resistance, the fear and uncertainty more than enough to sustain him and the general promise of more to come exciting to the concubus.
Personality
Rook has never had any love for the rank system, he climbed it simply because he had to, used it to get where he wanted to be, and treats those around him with that thought process in mind, the gangs and ranks mean nothing to him, a Spade One is as respected as a Heart Ace in his eyes, so long as they respect him in return. Those who are unfamiliar with his past find him generally polite and jovial, a bartender with hundreds of stories and a proclivity for offering drinks on the house if the patron’s got a story to share in return, an imposing man with a heart of gold, at least on the surface. Those with a familiarity with Rook know that his kindness is as much of a play for power as his climb toward King was, that he’s a cunning, calculated sort who never acts without thinking twelve steps ahead, and that telling him too much could get you in the sights of someone you don’t want looking in on you. While often calm and measured, Rook is not above his anger, and often allows it to overtake him with little warning, though if this is because of his drug addictions or his history is up for debate.
  A horrendous flirt with a winning smile and a silver tongue, Rook’s truest vice is in the sins of the flesh, willing to trade more than a few things for a rendezvous in his bedroom, he isn’t picky about who he throws his chips in with, a behavior that’s gotten him in trouble before, and earned him an even more distasteful gaze than even his species has. Despite this, he’s warm and inviting, and keeps his friends close, loyal to the death to those willing to risk a friendship with the Hyena.
Congratulations Ring your app has been accepted and your invitation to the discord will be sent to you soon.
Please follow and welcome @crookxdrook to Kadeu!
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fortunatelylori · 4 years
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Thoughts on Otis Molyneux
I hesitated somewhat before making this post because the fandom seems to have settled on Otis being “a good man who made one terrible mistake” and who am I to rain on anyone’s parade?
Inner goddess: A very opinionated woman … that’s who … No one keeps baby down!
Well … since you put it that way …
My very first meta on Sanditon revolved around the idea that this show is Andrew Davies’ homage to Austen’s entire body of work. And since I discovered a very interesting link between Otis and one of the more misinterpreted Austen characters, I couldn’t resist. Particularly since every time I read a remark on Otis, I end up going:
He is a most fortunate man! Everything turns out for his own good! He meets a young woman at a watering place, gains her affections, she consents to an engagement! He treats her abominably, she bares it like a saint! His aunt is in the way, his aunt dies! He has used everybody ill and they are all delighted to forgive him! He is a most fortunate man indeed!
Emma is perhaps Jane Austen’s most transgressive novel and, while it is not my favorite (that’s Persuasion in case anyone was wandering), I think it’s the clearest indication of her genius. In Emma, Austen not only spoofs herself, as the old maid Miss Bates, but also pulls off a master stroke in concealing her villain, Frank Churchill, not only from the characters but also from the audience.
Austen villains are usually charming, fun and attractive, most of the time far more so than the hero that will eventually win the heroine’s heart. What Austen does with the likes of Wickham and Willoughby is show that superficial charm and a pretty face are poor substitutes for substance, integrity and a value system.
In order to drive that point home, her villains usually suffer a fall from grace: Wickham gets exiled to Newcastle (the degradation!) and is stuck with Lydia for the rest of his life; Willoughby gets ousted by his aunt, told off by Eleanor and publically canceled by Mrs. Jenkins.
Whatever it may be, all of her villains suffer some consequences (even if it’s just not getting the girl as is the case for William Elliot in Persuasion). All except one: Frank Churchill. As Mr. Knightley’s frustrated speech above shows, Frank is so fortunate that by the end of Emma, he gets everything he’s ever wanted and everyone continues to love and cherish him as if nothing had happened (with the exception of Emma and Knightley).
And because the characters move on from his betrayal so quickly you can barely get a glimpse into their POVs, so does the audience. By the end of the book, most of the readers are as pleased with Frank as the people of Highbury.
I can just imagine Jane Austen cackling with joy at our silliness.
Just because there are no consequences for Frank and because all ends well despite his efforts to the contrary, it doesn’t follow that he should be absolved of responsibility. For all his professed love for Jane, Frank involves her in an imaginary extramarital affair, flirts with Emma in front of her and ultimately humiliates her at the picnic. For all his friendliness and affability, he is less than generous to his father, uses Emma for his own motives and is secretly chopping at the bit to see his aunt, the woman who raised him, dead so he can inherit her fortune. Despite what his endgame would suggest, Frank Churchill is an immature, selfish man who is used to getting his own way with little thought or care about how that might hurt other people.
Which brings us to Otis “I fell in love with your soul” Molyneux.
But, but … I hear you say … Fortunatelylori, he did suffer consequences. He lost Georgiana!
To which I say don’t bring out the pity parade just yet. Because in losing Georgiana, Otis’ actions are reduced to an unfortunate youthful indiscretion by the characters (Georgiana and Charlotte) as well as by the people watching. Because he shed some resigned tears and spoke prettily about how much he loved Georgiana’s soul, everyone is “delighted to forgive him”.
But just as with Frank, is his love for Georgiana enough to absolve him of his wrongdoings? Should we cheer for their potential reunion or think she deserves better, the way Mr. Knightley thinks about Jane? And while we’re on the subject, what are Otis’ crimes? He clearly never meant to cause Georgiana’s kidnapping so what’s the big deal?
What gets lost in Charlotte’s “you are insensible of feeling” rebuke of Sidney is that Otis isn’t a victim of circumstances nor is him honestly being in love with Georgiana a get out of jail free card. Otis is a gambling addict who has amassed debts so vast that the man who is trying to collect them resorts to kidnapping a teenager to get his money back. And that’s just one guy he owes money to.
Does he love Georgiana? Yes, in his own way he loves her just about as much as he loves losing money at cards. What do you think would have happened if they married? Because me thinks Otis would run through that 100.000 real quick while simultaneously loving the hell out of Georgiana’s soul.
Which brings me to Otis’s less than agreeable character traits: lying and manipulation. He lies to Georgiana from the first moment he meets her. Worst yet, he takes advantage of her vulnerability and he encourages her to rely solely on him for emotional support:
Georgiana: I was uprooted. Lost. In despair. Otis restored me to life. Those 3 months were the happiest I’ve known.
That sounds great and all but what happens after he’s gone from her life is that Georgiana feels like she suddenly has no one and nothing. Because her entire sense of self was tied to Otis.
He also allows Georgiana to believe that her guardian is a racist monster who is keeping them apart because of the color of his skin when he knows full well that’s not the case and also that Georgiana needs to have a good relationship with Sidney for the foreseeable future at least.
In order to keep up the charade, he takes active part in poisoning Charlotte against Sidney and very much enjoys playing the wronged party in this whole scenario:
Otis: But then your friend, Mr. Parker, took it upon himself to rip us apart.
Charlotte: However painful that might have been, Mr. Parker must surely have had Georgiana’s best interest at heart.
Otis: Then you clearly don’t know Mr. Parker as well as you think.
 Lying is so ingrained in Otis’ modus operandi that he can’t help himself from doing it even when there’s not even the slightest chance that he can get away with it:
Beecroft: Oh, yes! The famous Miss Lambe! Mr. Molyneux speaks of little else. Miss Lambe this, Miss Lambe that.
Otis: That is a lie! If I mentioned her it was only in passing …
Beecroft: I’m not the liar here. You told me a wedding was imminent. That her fortune was as good as yours. I never would have let him run such a debt otherwise.
Otis: All I wanted was to buy a little time … If I had known even for one moment …
What was that about Sidney not having good reason to keep you away from Georgiana, Otis?!?
Also look at him running the eluding responsibility obstacle course like a pro:
Otis: He’s sold her! The villain has sold her!
Charlotte: What?
Sidney: In return for a promise to buy his debt, she’s been handed to some dissolute named Howard. Even now he’ll be dragging her to an altar.
Charlotte: An altar? But that cannot be allowed without your permission.
Sidney:  No. They have no such laws across the border. There they will marry you with impunity.
Otis: Had you only allowed us to marry!
Otis has gambled himself silly, bragged about Georgiana’s money to the worst possible people, disappeared from public view (he hasn’t picked up his mail in weeks because he’s in hiding from the debt collectors) and his reaction is to put all the blame on Sidney. That is not the behavior of a well-balanced adult. This is the behavior of a gambler who thinks he can talk his way out of anything because he has “game”.
This brings us to his last scene with Georgiana when everything comes into focus. If you really think about it, there is not a single moment during their relationship where Otis isn’t lying to her, including the romantic separation that hit everyone in the feels:
Otis: I’ve gambled. That is true. But whatever they tell you, I never gambled with your name.
Notice how the first thing out of his mouth is manipulative. “Whatever they tell you” i.e. turst no one but me. I’m the only one who is telling the truth so listen to me as I lie my ass off right now.
Otis: I never boasted of your wealth. I boasted of you.
Two lines in and he’s already lied twice. You can actually do a play by play of what he says here and what he says in the Beecroft scene.
And then comes the coup de grace!
Otis: It was pride. That is all! And Lord knows, I have paid for it!
As consequence of his gambling, hiding from his creditors and running his mouth about Georgiana’s fortune, the woman he loves was kidnapped, Charlotte almost got raped and Sidney is however many thousands of pounds lighter for paying off his debts. So bring out the waterworks for Otis, guys! Let’s not forget who the real victim in all of this is!  
Alexa, play Despacito.
Otis lies so much he has ended up internalizing his lies to such an extent that he has turned himself into a victim. His narrative is ultimately rejected by Georgiana, leaving him pained but that shouldn’t fool you into thinking he’s a good guy. Neither he nor Frank are moustache twirling villains but their flaws and the way they allow those flaws to affect the people they supposedly love speaks volumes about their character.
Maybe, eventually, they both grow up. Maybe Frank becomes more selfless and starts treating others with respect. Maybe Otis never gambles again and becomes the responsible civil rights leader he wants others to see him as.
But as things stand at the end of their story line, I, for one, am not willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. It’s sadly too late for Jane to pick herself another husband. But I haven’t given up hope that Georgiana will shake Otis off like a spot of English rain.
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apeaceofgod-blog · 4 years
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The Testimonial of the Beautifully Imperfect
There (in my opinion) is no better example and testimonial than my Grandmother’s. My grandmother was so beautifully imperfect and she would have told you so herself.  Grandma Jay (or more commonly known around the church community, Momma Jay), was abandoned by her birth-mother at the tender age of 3. Her father was then left to raise her and her alone, as dear ol’ mother took her older 2 sisters and left. Yes, that’s correct; she took 2 out of 3 kids. If that doesn’t scar a person than I don’t think they’re truly human. Her father remarried and she was left to the care of her grandparents (Grandma Jay’s father traveled for work, why stepmom didn’t take care of her, well you’re guess is as good as mine.) In her young teenage years her grandparents became too old to care for her properly and her father fell ill of cancer. Her stepmother lived in a different state then her. So, she found herself caring for her elderly grandparents and ailing father. She was shortly after all this chaos taken in by the nice lady down the street.
You’re probably wondering at this point why I’m giving you so much information on Grandma Jay’s childhood. Well friend, research shows that childhood trauma (and the absence of a relationship with God—no research needed here) leads to risky and unhealthy behaviors as an adult. Risky and unhealthy behavior??? Yes, risky and unhealthy behavior my friend. Grandma Jay definitely wanted to prove researchers right. (Yes, I am aware the following all took place many years before the statistics came out. I mean the statistics could very well be based on her—they’re not, but they could have been.) Grandma Jay married her first husband in her late teen and had a blissful marriage for entire 2 years, before divorcing because she decided she was not ready to settle down. Believe me nothing could settle Grandma Jay down, not even the first 3 kids she had. I mean the second marriage and last 3 kids helped a little; but, only a little. By the time she had her sixth child; Grandma Jay had put her motorcycle gang, Go-Go dancing and nymphomaniac life style behind her. She also drank less, I mean a lot less. She was now a methamphetamine addict, and sold narcotics occasionally. But let us not forget that this side of Grandma Jay was the settled down a bit side.
Remember when I stated that having your mother abandon you would scar a person. I failed to mention that it would also leave a person ill equipped to be a parent themselves (I’m not saying it can’t be done, I’m just saying the person wouldn’t really be equipped going into it.) Grandma Jay was definitely not equipped to be a mother and proved time and time again she lacked good parenting skills. Most her children experienced their own childhood traumas, and the family curses continued (I’ll explain those later, probably much later.)
Grandma Jay’s life style was definitely not godly and definitely not healthy. When you stand alone and without the righteousness of God, you are inviting a lot of demons into your life. Many wonder why bad things happen. There are many reasons to be honest, but one is because you have stepped out of the protection of God, as we walk further away from the things of God, the more we invite the devil to take hold of our lives. Grandma Jay had never known Christ or the agape love of Christ. Now, you’re probably wondering why I would say Grandma Jay was so far away from Christ, even going so far as to mention her not knowing the agape love of Christ. I say it because she had opportunity to come to know him. My mother witnessed to Grandma quite often and she ignored every last word of it. (Please note, I didn’t say she didn’t hear it. She just chose to ignore it.)
Therefore, I think it’s safe to say, she did not walk in God’s righteousness. So when one of her closest (and regular narcotic customers) stole her husband it came as no real surprise. Well maybe a little to Grandma Jay.  What did come as a huge surprise is Grandma Jay’s attempt to take her own life with prescription medication and ending up in a mental health house. The mental health part not really a big surprise, as mental health is in fact one of our family curses. (We interrupt your reading to bring you this broadcast- there will be more post on mental health, particularly mine, just a little something to look forward to.) It was at this moment of my Grandmother’s life. Where she was forced to be sober, and really evaluate her life style and choices that she stopped ignoring my mother’s words. She began attending church and formed a real relationship with Christ.
It was here that my Grandmother experienced that agape love. To be honest, I think that was the first time Grandma Jay ever truly felt loved. I don’t believe that she ever felt like she deserved love. That may have a lot to do with her childhood. (If you have children make sure to hug them and tell them how loved they are.) My grandma truly found her place within the church and would go on to be a dedicated member of the congregation for 25 years. My grandma taught me a lot. She taught me how to love those in need, to care and reach out to them. My grandma had such a giving heart; she gave what little she had to anyone in need. She was notorious for taking in strays; humans and animals alike. There was no such thing as having no place to go for the holidays, oh no, not with Momma Jay around.
I do believe wholeheartedly that it was my grandma’s never ceasing prayers for me that brought me back to Christ. It was her prayers that got me through a lot of ill thought-out choices in life and her prayers that helped me find all the blessings Christ had in store for me. In addition, it was her prayers that protect all of us in the family; including my uncle who beat cancer and an array of other health issues on top of it.
You see God uses the beautifully imperfect to perform his works. My grandmother was far from perfect and had a very spotty past. But she helped so many in need, including family in need of a bucket ton of prayers. So remember to never get down on yourself, fall a victim for those lies the enemy is whispering in your ear. You are the child of the most high, and are beautiful and unique, through all your imperfections.
 Good bye world, may God’s grace, love and mercy be with you. May you experience nothing but an abundance of joy!
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it-is-bugs · 6 years
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I Love Lucien Week: Soldier’s Heart
Anyone who follows me may have noticed I'm not one for revealing my great inner pain or anything of the sort on tumblr. But it's actually relevant to my post, so I'll make an exception this time.  
@aussiegirl41 recommended TDBM to me, and as we tend to like the same things, I started watching 1.1.  And found myself turning it off at the first Box of Pain scene, to not come back for another two years.  I told Aussie that the lighting was too dark and I couldn't understand their accents, but now I have to wonder if something else made me switch it off.  My father suffered from PTSD triggered by his WW2 experiences until his death at 59 from alcoholism. So....yeah.  
What I've come to appreciate about TDBM is that the creators and writers went beyond just slapping "PTSD" on Lucien as a sort of tragic aura; they took the time to build the backstory and make his behaviors a result of his mental illness.  
The risk factors for PTSD start in childhood trauma, which Lucien has in spades. It's not just his mother's death, but I feel that Genevieve was an alcoholic with possibly some mental illness tossed in, and his father was emotionally unavailable well before her death. I also wonder about the little details like there's so much about his childhood which he either didn't know about, or was given a different version, from the reason for Rosie the dog going away, to Genevieve's actual cause of death, to the loss of a pregnancy, to her diabetes.  A sense of not knowing your reality is not a good foundation for a strong life.   
My own father's childhood was quite different from Lucien's economically, but they share similarities which resulted in entering adulthood without the strength to face trauma. He was raised in great poverty in Appalachia coal mining country during the Depression.  His traumas included his mother's mental illness, siblings dying as babies due to that poverty, and violence from union busting forces who would do things like rake the house with gunfire at night.  Like Lucien, he was the sensitive, intelligent sort, not quite fitting into his world.      
One of the most chilling moments for me was Nell's line, about what a sweet boy Lucien had been. It echoes nearly exactly my aunt telling me, "We gave them our sweet boy, and we didn't know the man they sent back to us."  
My father was significantly younger than Lucien when he joined the Army at age 18 the day after Pearl Harbor Day, but their paths rejoined after the war.  My father was recruited to join military intelligence, when the Army doctors rightly diagnosed him as now mentally ill, but they reassured him that this would now make him suited for the sort of things that they needed him to do.  Although there's not been that scene with Lucien, I would think he would have been similarly evaluated and routed into intelligence.
It does seem counter-intuitive that you'd put yourself back into dangerous situations when you're already deeply traumatized, but there can be a need to recreate the trauma, to fix it, to control it, as much as to avoid heightened emotional situations. One of the fascinating things that the writers do with Lucien is weave this need to control the pain into recreating the crimes.  Instead of his own horrible flashbacks and recreations, he puts himself in this other situation, where he can focus those heightened emotions while in the shoes of the victim or killer.  If Lucien's in the events, he can control it to an extent, and not be overwhelmed by it.  At the same time, he often put himself in deadly situations with this technique, showing several times no regard for his own survival, facing down knives, guns, hands around his throat with such relish that you sense he wouldn't mind dying. A real emotional turning point is 5.5, when he truly fights to live.  After all, Jean's got dinner waiting and she'll be cross if he's late.    
I've felt a certain frustration at fan reactions to Lucien's actions, as though it's something he could control. His emotional paralysis is a result of horrible awful things happening when he’s made decisions in the past. His drinking is about more than addiction. He needs it to sleep and to stop the terrible images. PTSD sufferers are still drinking themselves to death, even with many more medications available.  It works. And in 1961, with so few options available, I can't see how he'll be able to stop. His brain itself has been changed by the trauma.  He will suffer from nightmares, have hyper response to stimulation, mood disturbances, etc, for the rest of his life.  I'd love to say that marriage to Jean will change things, but if the story were to be told realistically, not so much.
Which brings me to another similarity with my family and the show.  I see a lot of my mother in Jean.  Strong women, with a great capacity for caregiving, but who expect others to be as strong as they are.  One of the little touches that I like is how Jean treated Christopher Sr with the same toughness as she treats Lucien--she has her own patterns to replicate. Although she understands that Lucien has been through a lot, I don't think she understands the true effect. I don't blame the character for this at all--it's completely realistic for the timeframe.  He should put the pictures away, he should stop drinking so much, he should stop doing crazy things.  When she says that everyone in the Colonists' Club had lost something/someone and thus Lucien had no right to have his meltdown, it really showed that she doesn't grasp the full extent of his trauma. Does she by the end of S5?  
But there has been progress for Lucien in five seasons. Initially, I found the resolution to Genevieve's death to be frustrating because it just opened up more questions to me than it answered.  But in showing Lucien finding peace in that, I have to interpret that as he's ready to move on, and accept there are no neat answers for anything.  He's never going to have a satisfactory answer as to why his own family had to suffer so much either.  And that's fine.  He chases the bus for a happy future, rather than staying behind at his mother's graveside.  That seems like such a no-brainer, but we can see that Lucien's been told time and time again in life, you don't deserve happiness.  Everyone goes away.  Look, there's Jean going away too. Chasing that bus is as difficult as opening the studio door.  It means leaving certainty behind to accept a new uncertainty. There’s so much certainty in unhappiness; it never lets you down. 
I was equally 'huh?' at his peacemaking with the spirit of Thomas in the telemovie at first.  But I remembered how I had to make peace with my own dead father, and a lot of that came from simply aging, reaching his age when this or that happened and realizing your parents were just people making mistakes, having no great knowledge and skills to cope and all you can do is try for a better outcome.  I find it as an example of Lucien's incredible capacity for grace, truly his most attractive feature.  
I cannot guess what the writers had planned for S6 which makes me want to see it so much. Love won't cure Lucien. Though we've seen improvement, a sense of comfort and security for him, his PTSD won't go away.  Having Jean beside him in bed shouldn't make the nightmares cease.  But you know what?  If the writers were to decide to make it all just go away with a POOF, I won't have a problem with that at all.  Lucien and Jean deserve that happiness my family never had.   
So to start off I Love Lucien Week, this is why I love Lucien, and have so much respect for George Adams, the writers and Craig Mclachlan for creating this character and honoring his difficult journey.  
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Please Stop Calling Suicide Victims “Selfish” or “Weak” by John Pavlovitz
Soon after news broke about the death of Linkin Park singer Chester Bennington, amid the flood of condolences and the raw expressions of grief and shock—came the others; the ones who are never far, always hiding just out of view, ever ready to crawl from out from the cracks.
In moments like these, they surface to offer flippant, callous, armchair sermons about how selfish suicide is, about how cowardly the dead person was, about why he or she should have thought of their children, spouses, loved ones. They add insult to fatal injury by heaping shame upon a suffering that had already proven to be too much to bear for someone. These people somehow feel fine critiquing dead strangers, before they’ve even been buried.
I’ve come to realize that there is only one kind of person who says things like this about those who take their own lives: a person who has never been where Chester Bennington was in his final moments, or where Chris Cornell was, or where 121 people in the US are every single day—where many are in the seconds it takes for you to read these words. The people who say such things, are those who’ve never (because of mental illness or acute trauma or severe addiction), been pushed to the precipice of their very will to live. They are people who (fortunately for them) have the luxury of their ignorance, who’ve never walked through this unrivaled internal Hell and wanted nothing more than to get out.
When you are in that desperate, frantic, lightless moment of despair—reason fails. There is no processing of things that seem so clear to people sitting calmly in parks and at desks and living rooms offering detached, knee-jerk commentary; those in their right minds, unclouded, lucid, and sober. That is what mental illness does, that is what addiction does, that is what depression does: it convinces your head that nothing matters, that this terrible moment will not pass, that nothing will get better, that you are fully, irreparably, and permanently f*cked. It doesn’t have to make sense, it doesn’t require objective proof, and it has no need for logic—you just feel it. In those moments the only thing you want is escape—and the choices people make in those moments are beyond what any of us have the right to criticize from outside of it.
I’ve never battled substance abuse or addiction, but I have carried depression for a couple of decades that has at times been terrifyingly heavy. And despite prayer and counseling and meditation and medication, there have been moments when the sadness became so overwhelming that nothing helped; not my career or my family or all the objective data I had that everything was good and that I should just feel better. I wouldn’t have said I was suicidal then—I just didn’t want to live.What got me through and what gets some people through when others fall is one of the greatest mysteries of this life. Some people make it and some people don’t—and the former aren’t any wiser or stronger or better, just very fortunate.
Suicide isn’t cowardly. It’s not weakness. It isn’t selfish. It’s born of a hopelessness that can imagine no other way out. It is a thick, pitch black haze created by powerful personal demons that prevents you from seeing light.
People like to say that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem, and they’re right—but those standing in the darkest places can’t see that from there.
When someone takes their own life, we can view it as a tragedy for their loved ones, as a reason to mourn their leaving, as a squandering of what that life may have one day become, we can even be really angry at the senselessness of the loss.
But we should never use the moment to insult the dead by trying to shame them after they’re gone. Believe me, they really wanted to stay.
They did the very best they could in the worst seconds of their lives.They were as brave and strong and selfless as they were able to be in that moment.
There but for the grace of God go the critics.
May you always be such strangers to the dark.
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***Disclaimer: This is not written by me. I just wanted to share this with you guys as I loved the article. I just did not know how to share it other than copy and paste. 
Link to the Article: http://johnpavlovitz.com/2017/07/21/please-stop-calling-suicide-selfish/
I do not own this content, I have no intention of plagiarising. Just wanted to share the beautiful article. 
I definitely had times earlier in life where I couldn't fathom ever taking my own life. But as the article said, I wasn't at that point in my life. I wasn't a victim to something so cruel that would encourage me to do such an act. Please seek help if you need it. You are worth it. Don’t do it for your friends, or your family, do it for you. You deserve more than what you were given. 
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