A bit weird out of context

They say it gets better; sometimes it doesn't.

Today I told Fi (and Jay, and Tessa, and Das, and Rebekah, and Ria even though I ran out of characters before I could mention her) that they saved me. And in a big way, that's true.

I've been suffering from major depression for close to 18 years. I was 10 the first time I tried to divide up my property (Bridgette, Jeanna and Maria were getting most of my stuff) in the closest approximation I could manage to a Last Will and Testament. When I was 11, I started thinking of ways to kill myself.
( Edited to cut for the sake of trigger warnings--the rest of this post contains talk that may be triggery for: Suicidal thoughts/actions; Self-harm. )

This is a filk for one of my own stories. Until the Sea Shall Free Them is the story of Lorelei, a mermaid, one of the Folk of Mharaheim, and River, an unwitting Selkie child, meeting, discovering themselves, falling in love, and choosing their own families and their own fates.

This song is a reminder that not every ocean's daughter's love story is a happy one.

Ocean's Daughters
When the sea-girls come a-calling,
Whisper-wailing their mournful tune,
Will you answer? Will you follow
'Neath the light of the cold bright moon?

Ocean's daughters seek to marry;
They'll love you true and love you deep.
But their lovers must be wary
For what the oceans take, they keep.

When a sea-maid seeks a lover
To live beneath the deep dark waves,
Will you swear to love no other
Though the ocean shall be your grave?

Ocean's daughters seek to marry;
They'll love you true and love you deep.
But their lovers must be wary
For what the oceans take, they keep.

When the siren sings her binding,
Weaves salt and sand and brine and blood--
Will you choose her, never minding
That you are not her only love?

Ocean's daughters seek to marry;
They'll love you true and love you deep.
But their lovers must be wary
For what the oceans take, they keep.

The ocean's daughters play for keeps.

Celebration & Awareness

14 Valentines is a project dedicated to raising awareness of women's issues and celebrating women. It's an annual project that runs from February 1 to February 14, focusing on a different issue each day. This year, I'm writing the opening essay. Check it out at 14valentines

I've chosen all of my character images--they're uploaded to one of my Photobucket accounts here. I'll post once more later tonight with my updated word count from tonight's writing. Wish me luck!

I got 2700 words tonight at the eleventh hour (after having to retype the wordcount I'd achieved earlier because my computer froze and there's no autorecover on my ancient iBook) and now I'm too wired to sleep. Any suggestions?

From the presumably brilliant mind of mickeym and brought to my attention by the always lovely shinetheway: kentuckyfandom

To quote from mickeym's opening post of the comm:
Fandom is a huge, huge place -- it spans the entire globe, literally -- and it's easy to feel (or get) lost within the vastness. Plus, sometimes it's just nice to know that you've got fannish friends that live (physically) nearby.

That's what this community is about. It's not about a particular fandom, nor even a specific genre (het, slash, gen). It's about fans who live within the state of Kentucky, who want to find other fans (reasonably) close by to get together with to watch shows, talk stories/characters/episodes, pimp into a particular fandom, or whatever. Maybe even do or talk about (gasp) non-fannish things. :)

I LOVE my flist, and the incredible diversity contained within it. I love that I know people from California, and Massachusetts, Canada, Scotland, New Zealand, Hawaii, China, etc. But sometimes I get lonely, and it'd be nice to know that I could drive up to Louisville, or Owensboro, or Lexington, or Bowling Green -- or have someone drive down/over to me -- for a day visit. Or a few hours' visit. Y'know?

And it would be awesome. So I'm starting opening this up on my flist: Hey, I'm Laura, and I'm originally from Bardstown, KY, but I now live in Lexington. Any Kentuckian fen on my flist should join this comm--awesomeness is sure to come :D

I am a survivor of abuse. I know too many people who have been victims of sexual violence. I have been stalked, harassed, and improperly propositioned by adult males when I was a minor. I have triggers. I want warnings, and I want them clearly displayed.

I have pre-emptively banned aukestrel, cynatnite, and mara_snh for comments and entries made during Warnings Wank 2009 (link goes to metafandom's collection of entries responding to a debate on warnings that began in bandom a few days ago). More specifically, I banned them for comments and entries that perpetuated the damaging culture of silence around victims of rape and abuse, for victim-blaming, for abusive language, and for general unacceptable behavior.

I don't know these LJers. I don't care to know them, nor am I interested in hearing defenses of them. As far as I'm concerned, their actions are indefensible. It doesn't matter that they didn't direct their bile at me in particular, nor does it matter that I don't know anything about the rest of the content of their characters or their histories on LiveJournal or elsewhere. I don't care if they feed the hungry, clothe the naked, cure the sick, shelter the homeless, end wars, crusade against any and all other social injustices all on top of rescuing disabled and displaced orphans from burning buildings. They're banned anyway, and my only regret is not doing it the second I saw their behavior in action.

I once cut a person I'd known and loved since I was three years old out of my life and heart for victim-blaming and making offensive statements to another friend of mine when it had actual, meaningful consequences in my offline life. I'm really not going to lose any sleep over pre-emptively banning users who have shown that they cannot be trusted to act like human beings on the subjects of rape and abuse.

However, if you're losing sleep over my decision to ban them, it is Defriending Amnesty Day around here all day, every day. The door is that way, show yourself out.

I never thought much about Dad's family when I was growing up. In the back of my mind, I suppose I decided that they weren't as important as Mom's family; after all, Mom's family has the more interesting legend (The Right Hand of Ulster), the more frequent family gatherings*, the more open storytelling about what it was like growing up**, and I physically resemble them the more. Most of all, though, I pay more attention to Mom's family because my father was physically abusive when I was young, and I didn't want anything to do with that part of my history. But that was more than ten years ago now. I'm sometimes still angry about it, and it's not resolved, but my father has worked hard for most of my life to not repeat his father's mistakes.
Saturday we went to my Aunt Donna's for a Derby party. Aunt Donna and Uncle Bob were there (of course, since it's their house), and so were my Aunt Judy, Aunt Mary, Uncle Dennis, Aunt Erlene, and my cousin Lonnie and his wife Cindy. Not present (at this, nor so many other family gatherings) were my Uncle Tom and Aunt Charlie or any of their kids and grandkids. After dinner, Cindy asked where they were, and Aunt Donna and Aunt Mary and Aunt Erlene explained that they were almost never at any Newton gatherings, and hadn't been since Grandma Newton passed back in 1995. I have cousins I haven't seen in almost a decade, and they wouldn't recognize me (or vice versa) if we were in the same room. They are strangers to us. And it's because Uncle Tom doesn't believe that the relationship between him and his siblings is all that important in the scheme of things, especially not compared to his relationship with his children and his in-laws. After Grandma died my dad's brothers and sisters promised not to drift apart, but Uncle Tom and Aunt Charlie are more concerned with their descendants than with his siblings. (I say "his" because as far as anyone knows, they're still concerned with her siblings.) And it hurts the rest of them deeply. My Aunt Donna says she's closer to her brothers and sisters than she is to her kids, and she's involved with her kids. When my Aunt Mary needed a place to stay after things went to shit for her, she lived with Aunt Donna and Uncle Bob. Those two are best friends, even into their 50s.
But until Saturday I hadn't really thought about where my immediate family fits into the Newton dynamic. Stephanie gets mad because the Newtons get together and don't invite us--I think now that what actually happens is that they do invite us, but Dad makes excuses to not go. My Aunt Donna tries really hard to keep the family together despite the flakiness of Aunt Mary, the absentmindedness of Aunt Judy, the apparent indifference of Uncle Tom, the sheer busy-ness of Uncle Dennis, and the avoidance of Dad.
Daddy can be unintentionally cutting, vocally critical, is sarcastic more often than not, and in general is kind of a hermit. He'd do anything for his family, but my dad is also a severely depressed individual who has unresolved issues with his own father and family dynamics, and is defensive and passive-aggressive to boot.
In other words, he's a lot like me.
I realized Saturday where I get a lot of my self-defense mechanisms, and also some of my more unhealthy coping strategies. (Not all of them, mind you, not by any means; some I get from Mom, and a few are all my own, but some things: avoidance of my family, tendency to retreat from the world, using sarcasm as a shield--all those I get from Dad.) How often have I made the claim that I love my family dearly, but I like them better from a distance? How many things do I keep from my family to avoid hurting or worrying them, even (especially) the things I need to share to keep from buckling under the pressure? How much important news have I conveyed via a throw-away line in an email? For the first time on Saturday, I realized how much I'm like my father beneath the skin, and it's not a bad realization, just one that brings into perspective how much frustration Daddy must feel with the world (and how much frustration the world must feel with me).
From now on, I resolve to do as much as I am able to keep either my dad or myself from alienating ourselves from our most valuable support systems. We don't have to be alone, and neither of us is broken beyond repair. We just might need some help making the necessary mends and modifications.


*This is false. The Newtons get together a LOT. We just don't go very often.
**This not true either; Dad's family are a bunch of born storytellers, and have hundreds of stories that I've not paid enough attention to to recognize.

Walking into that hospital room, I was probably more frightened than I'd ever been in my life. Aunt Anne, Ross' dad Randy, our grandparents, my Aunt Linda, my Aunt Doris, and my mom, sisters, and I all crowded around Ross' hospital bed (which dwarfed him--Ross was about 3'4", and the bed was adult-sized). He was hooked up to so many tubes and machines, and the TV was playing something asinine, and Ross was still screaming. Tears and snot were all over his face (my mom's family does not have the ability to cry beautifully, and Ross is no exception to that; no seven year old is). He was upset and in pain, and above all that he was hungry because he had to have tests run that required him to not eat or drink for 24 hours. It had been 12 when we got there.
It was cloudy and chilly, and I remember both how everyone gave Ross Beanie Babies while he was in the hospital, and also how everyone was so much angrier all the time--people were fed up with everyone; my Aunt Doris talked shit about Ross' dad like she was being paid to do it.
Myself, I remember being filled with sick, desperate fear, and rage I thought would never end. I wanted the whole world to disappear, just leave me and a Ross who would get better, who would stop wasting away, would stop crying, would stop being sick and pale and weak, would make me not feel so helpless. I wanted his doctors who'd missed the problem to be dragged over broken glass and burning coals, wanted to somehow infect them with Ewing's Sarcoma, the disease that was eating him up inside. I wanted my classmates, teachers, and family to somehow intuit that my heart was breaking, and treat me more gently than they were--more than that, I wanted the strength to tell them that my heart was breaking, and mandate that they treat me more gently.
Every day in Sr. Theresa Giardino's class (dear gods, may this lady rest in peace), I offered up my prayer intentions that my cousin would be cured. A few people asked me about it, and I remember Sister once remarked that it was really admirable the way I prayed for him every single day. But there were entire notebooks filled with one simple phrase: Please let Ross be cured. Please let Ross be cured. Please let Ross be cured.
And finally, finally, finally, after they'd done chemo and radiation and removed his appendix and tonsils and done a bone marrow and stem cell transplant, finally he came home. He was tiny--not just in weight (although he was that, too--he weighed something like 25 pounds at eight and a half) but also in height; he was still 3'4". The way chemotherapy works, one of the things it does is attacks rapidly growing cells. Well, in a seven year old boy, every cell is a rapidly growing cell. For a year and a half, Ross hadn't grown at all. He had no hair except for a few stubborn wisps on his head (none on his arms or legs, no eyebrows, no eyelashes), he was pale as death (because the cancer treatment reacted badly with UV light), he was severely underweight (because the chemo always made him sick, and for a long time he couldn't keep food down at all--they put an IV line in him for essential nutrients), he had a tunneled catheter line in his chest (and still has the scar from it), and he was the most precious thing I'd ever seen. Ross had to take the rest of the year off from school so that he missed first and second grades (he had a private tutor) and I babysat him every Friday night--some nights Aunt Anne wouldn't even go out, and I'd still stay over, because part of me couldn't bear to let him out of my sight for a weekend. While he was in the hospital one of the chaplains taught him to play chess, and when he was released, he taught me. (I was good enough to beat some people, and while I was there I was intensely dedicated to learning, but chess is never going to be my game; I'm just not good enough at plotting out moves and counter-moves far enough in advance to regularly triumph.) He also got me into trading Pokemon cards, and we'd battle Pokemon and watch the first movie for hours and hours--I probably spent, no joke, more than $500 on cards, most of which I didn't keep for myself; if there was one that Ross wanted, I'd give it up (not always without a fight). I still have a binder filled with the cards too precious for me to give away when I got out of the game.

FOB May 15 in Indianapolis: Anybody going?

So I'm still sick and not feeling awesome, and I got to work a little less than 2 hours early today, but when I checked my email today, I had an email from Dreamwidth Studios telling me that my email address had been pulled from the "set and verified OpenID login email" pool, and now I have a Dreamwidth account!! *grins happily* You can find me at druidspell.dreamwidth.org, although for now nothing's there. *does a happy dance* Yay yay yay yay yay!