Did you have a brain tumor for breakfast?

The sun is shining, the sky is blue, it's cool and puffy with a crisp and sweet-smelling wind, and it's a beautiful early Fall day here in Schuylerland. I just love Autumn. I think I mentioned that before.

I respond to this weeks Dear Prudie letters with a renewed spirit of brotherly love and affection – the weather just affects me that way, gives me hope and solace an makes the world a lovely place.

Here it is: http://www.slate.com/id/2233828/


Thing is, these guys are idiots.

***

Tickled Pink – I'm thinking of a word. Simple word, really, it's right here on the tip of my tongue. What is that?

Oh, right: “obvious”. That's the word. Another word is “you are a fucking idiot.” Both are the answer to your question.

Recap: your asshole boyfriend treats you like a fucking idiot, evidently because you are a fucking idiot, and you don't like it when he does that. Oh, there's tickling, meantime, and that's yucky and icky for you. Bonus: he says if you “master” your feelings, the yucky and the icky will all go away and you'll learn to like his being an asshole.

Do you use a lot of meth...often? You get dropped on your goddamn head as a youth? This “great” guy thinks it's fun to make you feel like shit, and you cannot find the words to explain this to him? Really now?

Sweetie, he's as asshole but you really are a fucking idiot. Seriously. I'm going to give you a few choices to pick from for things to say to him. Take your time. This might matter, genius:

1.) “You fucking brainless ass wiping cheese-dick, I said I hate it, and you still do it. What part of “I fucking hate it” are you missing? How about I bite down on your balls and see of that feels good to you. How about you master that, fucker?”
2.) “Here's your choice: while I “Master” my mind, you can “Master” bate, you simpleminded jackass, because you aren't getting shit from me in the bedroom until you get your head out of your ass and stop fucking tickling me. Get it?”
3.) “Yeah, honey schmoobie baby doll, you're right – I am a doormat and a moron, and even though it makes me really uncomfortable when you tickle-wickle me that's OK, because while you aren't an “amazing” guy, you're mostly, um, you know, “great” or whatever, and 'cause, you know, I really kinda, um, like you.”

Listen up, Wonder Woman – you aren't making yourself heard, and that's one of the easiest things in the world to do for people with a smidgen of guff and a few common words spoken in the proper order, proportion, and configuration using the king's own English language as “mastered” by a goddamn seven year old. Try it. Idiot.

***

Tight-Lipped – how far off the mark can you get? Are you taking after your mom and tipping back a little gin in the afternoons? I ask because while you could simply be profoundly stupid and self serving, I assume you are drunk out of your fucking gourd.

Recap: Mommy Dearest drank herself into oblivion all the time you were learning about periods and boys and algebra, and has been sober for six years. She asked for a luncheon date to discuss that gleeful, joyous time, and rather than admit you're resentful you took all of this on yourself.

“On yourself” means you made it all about you, Little Miss Princess Codependency, which I understand is fairly typical of children of alcoholics. I'll explain.

See, I didn't read anywhere in your letter that momma wants to talk about it to help YOU heal, which you clearly stated in the same letter. You weren't the drunk, you fucking imbecile. She was, right? See where I am going?

No? Right, I forgot. Pour yourself another one, brilliance.

See, She might want to talk about it to help herself.

That six-year “celebration” as you put it is not a minor thing to her, you know. Most people – MOST of them – do not stay sober one year, much less six. She has to continue to work on it all the time. Every day. It's not the cakewalk you want it to be, it's endless relentless hard work. You get to heal however the fuck you can, now – she can't go back and fix it, can she. The big downfall to alcoholic recovery: to get over it she has to get over it. What's your excuse?

As for your “obligation”, well, that's entirely up to you. I mean, she's just your mom, so what's the deal?

Now if you are uncomfortable about talking it over, or of the memories are just too awful to bear, this I understand. If you're just interested in your own healing process...well, you heard me.

***

Am I Rude? - I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt, because you're young.

Wait. No I'm not.

Recap: You have a small place, and want friends over, but not too many – just the college friends - 'cause more won't fit.

Bloody hell, how can this be hard? I assume you didn't study communications, English, public speaking? This is the most basic communication question ever, and you don't get it? You graduated from graduate school, I presume? If so, how?

Meanwhile, I already solved your problem right in this response. Hmm. You see it yet? Do you? It's right there...

Jesus wept. Okay. Here goes. Copy and paste this into an invitation, you brainless ninny:

“I have a small place, and want friends over, but not too many – just you college friends – 'cause more won't fit.”

Didja get that? Idiot.

***

Torn – Something sounds not-quite-right here, Your Fishiness. Let's recap: You adopted, seven years later she's 12, you've already reintegrated with her her biological sperm-and-egg DNA donors and associated relational spawn, and now she wants nothing to do with them? That about it?

I...just gotta wonder. Gotta.

12 is a weird age, isn't it? It's a age for some kids where things start to make sense on a pretty deep level, things like people with drug and alcohol and other problems, things like people who are less than savory. These things make sense in a more terrifying way as kids get older, because they can start to understand them, even if they cannot empathize.

So, introduce into a young child's life a former family who “makes bad choices” and I wonder what will happen? Could be some time around 12, especially if that “other” family is typically not around much, that child might not be interested any more. Why is that?

Kids may understand a lot of adult-themed things on a deep level, but they have absolutely NO difficulty understanding the simple things, like when they are uncomfortable. They kinda understand when personalities differ and create competitive stress, but they really understand their discomfort under that stress. They understand if “good” mommy is good and if “bad” mommy is bad and that this is somehow important to them, but what they truly get is when the conflicting emotions are painful.

They may have issues communicating all that, too. They might be limited to saying something childlike such as “I live here, I'm happy.” Unlike that moron in letter #3 – sometimes they just state the obvious, but not the details.

Which now begs the question: why is this so fucking important to you, this reintegration? What's the deal? Do you think this little girl just needed to know how fucked up her real family is? Does it make you feel a little better about your adoption? Do you need the contrast between the “bad” family and yours? Why are you committed to this course of action?

Why?

Has the truth set anyone free here, Mulder?

Whatever, the damage is done, all in the name of “her best interests,” and you asked for it you fucking jerk. She may be 12, but you get to carry the message and cause everyone involved another round of pain, which I am certain you will go through counseling to overcome, being the “good” parent. You might have let this child grow up a little before you tossed her into the dysfunction of her former family, but had to shake her young little tree and point out all the horrifying, rotten fruit that fell out in a fit of emotional masturbatory self congratulation.

Ah. Now I understand. I should listen to myself more often.

Idiot.

***

Yes indeed. Nothing brings out my gentle, caring side like Autumn.

Until next time!

STC =^oo^=

20 comments:

  1. “Here's your choice: while I “Master” my mind, you can “Master” bate"

    Fkn hilarious! Thanks, cat

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  2. I am also very, very ticklish. I have never biten down on anyones balls before (but what an interesting idea......) but i have elbowed more than one guys solar plexus. When you are very ticklish it really can be painful to be tickled for more than a couple of seconds. What gives with the guys that do that shit???

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  3. Love your advice!

    In my younger days I would've been the idiot (almost) just like LW1. That phase didn't last long though ~ now I'd happily kick him in the balls & laugh as I left the building.

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  4. Beckaroo....it would have been MORE fun to hoof him in the nuts, then WATCH him waddle out of the building while you laughed at him. MUCH more fun.

    I had a cousin that used to do this to me. He still has the scar on his face from the last time he tried it. I was ten at the time. I hit him with a hardcover book, you see... I got in trouble for it, but at least he never tried that again.

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  5. Yepper, for LW#1, I advocate Schuyler option #1. Excellent stuff! :-)

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  6. The only thing #1 can really say is "Get lost jerk." Anything else, including your suggestions, only encourages him to think he can stick around longer, and may even give him the excuse he thinks he needs to cause some real harm.

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  7. I love it when you give the LW choices!

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  8. LW1 is wrong. I tickle my husband's feet while he sleeps, to wake him up, and he loves it. He screams, 'what's wrong with you, bitch?', but that's our special code for 'I love you.' This of course means we are now ready to adopt an alcoholic 12 yr old with a small apartment so we can tickle her, too.

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  9. Schuyler, as always, you are right on the money with your advice. And don't you just love how letters like #1 always start out something like, "My boyfriend is the greatest, sweetest, most perfectest guy in the whole wide world. In fact, whenever he makes a poo, I always look around to see if someone planted a rose garden in the bathroom." Whatevs - the guy is a sadist, pure and simple. Being very ticklish myself, I can say without a trace of hyperbole that being aggressively tickled like that is a form of torture. The laughing is an uncontrollable reflex that has nothing to do with fun, and this guy knows it. This isn't about being playful or dense - it's 100% about control. Even if he couldn't relate to what it feels like to be ticklish, the fact that she has asked him to stop multiple times and he thinks he can "train" her to desensitize herself indicates a total lack of respect from this "wonderful, caring" guy. So I vote for your option #1, with the stipulation that she dispenses with the warning altogether and just chomps away at will.

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  10. You're right Messy ~ watching him hobble out would have been great. I just like the thought of leaving him in a drooling, cringing heap of agony in front of his friends.

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  11. Dear Schuyler,

    My boyfriend is absolutely perfect. Except for one small thing.... He beats the shit out of me every day and twice on Sundays.

    I've told him I don't appreciate this but he just laughs and smacks me across the mouth.

    Should I wear white or ivory to our wedding, do you think?

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  12. Righteous. LW#1 would have gotten one chance with me. One. Next time I'd have slammed the heel of my palm into the bottom of his nose until it shoved it up into his brain.

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  13. EEE - This is appalling. I do not understand some women, how you can just stand there and take it. You obviously get what you deserve Monday through Saturday, but I find it disgusting that he beats you on Sundays, a day of rest. You tell him I said so, and to do you twice Saturday instead.

    Oh: White and ivory are so gauche and 1985. Darker red, to hide the blood (darker to split the difference in color as it dries), and do up the bridesmaids in a blueish-purple to match those facial bruises you can't quote cover with foundation alone: if you can't fix it, feature it! Am I invited?

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  14. Your answers are outstanding. But your answer to EEE here? You outdid yourself. & Mermaid? Great answer from you there, too. Loved the palm-to-brain payment plan. Good stuff.

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  15. You're only invited if you pre-address and compose your own thank you card AND you'll need to pay me $120 for your meal.

    But yeah! You can even beat the shit out of me.

    Instead of the Dollar Dance (how tacky!) we're doing "Beat the Bride for a Buck!"

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  16. & then EEE responded to Schuyler, & took the gold for the day.

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  17. EEE - $120? The hell. End run, babe. Already called the groom, and he's getting me in for a 6 pack of Bud. See you in the back room at the reception, sweet-cheeks!

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  18. Schuyler, great advice. I love the rythm of your phrases.

    However, I beg to strongly differ with your comments on LW2. The now adult child doesn't owe anything to her mother, and at any rate the idea that a whole childhood could be discussed over one lunch is ridiculous and grossly insensitive (all those horrible years bandied about as if they hardly happened to the daughter, as if she wasn't marked for life by them...)

    Yes, giving up drinking is very hard for someone allergic to alcohol (= alcoholic)and such a person who is able to reach sobriety and keep it up for 6 years is to be very much lauded.

    But:

    1.She has no right to demand anything from her daughter whom she has failed.

    2. The daughter shouldn't feel obligated to help her mother's healing. The dynamics are unfortunately clear: if she has the power to help her mother heal, then obviously she must have been instrumental in her mother's alcoholism. Yes, that sounds crazy, but that's how people in this sort of situation think, at least unconsciously.

    Only an alcoholic who has reached sobriety can help another one. Isn't that the screed of Alcoholics Anonymous? I've been told family members have to be absolutely excluded from the healing process because it doesn't work and they'll just get hurt more.

    3.Kids of alcoholics are never to be called co-dependent: they have no choice unlike, I'm sorry to say, a spouse (though I wouldn't call myself a co-dependent, a term obviously invented to blame the victim, I was in that situation and thought I could "fix it" but I only got destroyed and had to rebuild myself literally from the ground up).

    4. Children of alcoholics have a hard time in life: higher rate of suicides and addiction and, so often, PTSD... a sober alcoholic will heal much sooner than his/her kids (perhaps because he/she actually benefits from memory lapses while the kids don't?)

    I'm speaking from experience: I was married to an alcoholic and had two kids by him before the drink literally took him. Even after he sobered up (very commendably, I wouldn't underestimate what it took) he still retained the personality often (but not always) found in alcoholics: blaming others for their own actions (a match made in hell with someone who tended to feel responsible for things totally out of her control and took the "in sickness and in health" thing seriously, and kept on trying to fix things, even after violence got into the mix.... --believe you me, a hard lesson to learn! I often feel I failed my own kids by not taking them out of that situation sooner, but after a few years I was totally brainwashed into believing that I somehow was to blame for the situation... )

    5. So to come back to the subject matter under discussion, that amnesic mother is probably healing better and easier than her daughter is...

    6. So what should that daughter do? I would say don't give in to her mother's demands. Instead, cut off all contact with her until her mother makes proper amends, and that means without the self righteous attitude sometimes (often?) adopted by recovering alcoholics.

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  19. I know I said this on SHADDAP!, but it's true nonetheless. Talking about abuse or neglect (more likely in this case) or just a nasty time in general is NOT necessarily the "healing" experience that some would have you believe it is.

    "Closure" is a myth - there is no such creature. "Forgetting" can never be done by anyone - all anyone can do is learn to live with whatever it is. "Forgiveness" sounds really nice when Oprah says it, but there are some things that cannot and should not ever be forgiven.

    Mommy wants daughter to stick a knife into scar tissue and start the bleeding again (Yes, that's what it feels like) for hero own purposes, completely heedless of what her daughter feels about it. Just like when she was drinking.

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  20. I love you, 'Cat. This just proves why. That's all. :)

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