NO_BITING_by_RavensTell

NO_BITING_by_RavensTell
Originally uploaded by ravens_tell.

He's not biting. He's just being quiet and private about his feelings.

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Answer: No -- It's not PC to be just.

My name is H and I am writing to you on behalf of my boyfriend, HC. HC and I have been together for about 2 and a half years now. Back in 1990, he was charged with 4 counts of rape by the mother of his daughter. He was later convicted of 3 out of the 4 charges.

He was sentenced to [State] Correctional Facility in OHIO for 5- 25 years for these three convictions. TC was caught 13 times lying on the stand about the whole account and he was still convicted. He did and still does claim the sex between them was consensual. He was in prison for 3 and a half years when TC, his "victim", retracted her statement and admitted to several people in charge at the prison and admitted to her sister that HC never raped her.

TC's whole family was in an uproar when the truth came out, HC was a friend of the family prior to the accusation. When TC was put on the stand to admit HC didn't rape her, she lied again and said she was wrong when she said he didn't rape her.
He was never granted a retrial, was told by his public defender to lie down and stop the appeals because he was up for parole. He was paroled first time up to the board, allowed to be paroled to the Salvation Army, which is against their policy to take sex offenders and never admitted his supposed "crime" during his sex offender treatment. He was never revoked for not doing so even though it is policy to have to admit your "crime".

TC has since then, had every man she has been with in jail, including her now husband for domestic violence. ( This is her 3rd marriage and she is 31 years old now, she was 17 when she made her claim against HC ).
HC and Teri have shared parentingover their daughter, who is now 14 years old. TC has admitted she has lied about HC's raping her, blaming her mother saying she made her do it.
Her mother says she's a liar, and had even begged the courts to clear HC of this wrong doing. But the fact remains HC is a convicted rapist. How can such a terrible thing be allowed to happen? TC has often stated she doesn't care who knows she lied, no one can do anything about it now.

Everything I say about this case I have documentation of, transcripts of the trial, the original statement she made to the police, her notarized recanted statement, transcripts where where she retracted her recantation, letters notarized from her mother to the courts begging for his release, letters from the sister stating TC told her she lied about HC, so much evidence it's sick.

HC' mother has made sure she got everything to try to clear her
son's name.

Now for what is going on now.............in a nut shell
FCCS have taken my children saying HC is a sexual risk to my
children. I got into a fight with a "friend" who knows about HC's past and she called FCCS and said he was molesting my youngest daughter and her daughter. They had my youngest daughter evaluated and there was nothing, he loves my kids like his own and vis-versa.
They even made him take a lie detector test, which he passed. No case was ever opened on us, no charges filed and we figured that was the end of it. Well my older children are in the custody of my mother and have been since before HC and I got together. My mother and I had agreed it was time for them to come back and live with me.

When we went to court, which was 6 months after the accusation the judge ordered FCCS to come out and check my house and make sure everything was okay for the kids. Well lets just say HC's past has come back to haunt him.
They took my youngest daughter and placed her in FCCS custody until HC has a sexual offenders risk evaluation ( which is $275 ) and another lie detector test ( which is $195 ). My children are not allowed to see the man they love and know as their daddy. Not even a phone call.

My youngest has started to poo in her pants, the doctor said it's the only thing she can control and she is not letting herself go. All of this because TC has lied. And once again HC is terrorized by her, even told FCCS he did rape her. How can she just get away with this?

Can you help at all? (email for link)

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Mens Rights Agency

Mens Rights Agency

"Family Court Makes Disputes Worse"
The Australian - Thursday, 30th December 1999
By Letters to the Editor

Family Court Unfair to Men

I applaud The Australian for publishing the articles "Court Out" and "Trial Separation" on Christmas Eve. For too long the media have been silent about the difficulties faced by litigants, especially fathers, in the Family Court of Australia.

I must however, dispel a myth that is in danger of becoming accepted as fact and is referred to in today's editorial "Families need new ways of ending strife" (27/12).

Your editorial has relied on a claim that because only 5 per cent of Family Court cases are decided by a judge, then it follows 95 per cent are happy with the outcome of their separation agreements.

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Mens Rights Agency

Mens Rights Agency

Parental Payments Cost 'Three Lives A Day'
Canberra Times - Sunday, 19th November 2000
By Megan Doherty

As many as three men a day are committing suicide because the nation's child-support system is driving them over the edge, according to the Lone Father's Association Australia.

Association President Barry Williams said the claim was not based any official figures but on anecdotal evidence such as phone calls made to its 22 branches around Australia.

"People will ring to say their son or partner has deliberately driven into a truck or driven off the road because they can't take it any more," he said.

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Women believe marriage makes them poorer - National - theage.com.au

Women believe marriage makes them poorer - National - theage.com.au

Women believe marriage makes them poorer

November 14, 2005 - 2:22PM

Many Australian women believe marriage makes them financially worse off, a new survey shows.

The survey of almost 550 women nationwide, run by marketing firm The Heat Group, revealed 39 per cent of participants thought being single was best for their hip pockets.

Another 17 per cent of the women indicated a de facto relationship was most beneficial for the bank balance.

The age group most in favour of avoiding wedlock in a bid to preserve cash was the 18- to 24-age group, with 67 per cent voting for either single or de facto life.

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Greatest attack on freedom, says former judge - National - theage.com.au

Greatest attack on freedom, says former judge - National - theage.com.au

Greatest attack on freedom, says former judge

By Fergus Shiel
Law Reporter
November 5, 2005
AdvertisementAdvertisement

THE proposed anti-terror laws have nothing to do with justice, according to former Family Court chief justice Alastair Nicholson.

In a strong attack on the anti-terror bill, Professor Nicholson said: "What we are discussing today is a very good example of very bad law and one of the reasons why this is so, is because these laws have no relationship with justice but rather with a perceived fear of the unknown that has been used to frighten the populace into thinking that they are necessary."

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Power and Control Wheel

Power and Control Wheel

What is truly sad is how easily someone who is injured, elderly or disabled can be victimized in these ways. In my case, every one of them was used on me. Though as a male, it would be called "family privilege."

Because an injured, elderly or disabled person is already feeling much less than themselves, abuse is easy. The person is already feeling victimized by fate. All the abuser has to do is fill in a blank to put a face and a voice to it.

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Dreams - The meaning of Dreams

Dreams - The meaning of Dreams

Dreams - The meaning of Dreams

Everyone dreams allthough many people do not remember our dreams or do not pay them any attention.

Yet dreams often contain significant information for us, putting light on what has happened in our lives, or what is happening and providing insights about our future. In many ancient traditions dreams were considered to be messages from the gods

B.S. Goel, Indian psychoanalyst and author of Psychoanalysis and Meditation, said:

"All dreams reflect the desire of the jiva (individual consciousness)

to merge with Shiva (cosmic consciousness)."

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Abuse-Excuse Updates

Abuse-Excuse Updates

Tong's take: False rape allegations can be very powerful tools for those who are strident ideologues and believe in exploiting . Congress should pass legislation making false rape and child abuse allegations felonies punishable by prison terms.

-- At least in America, the courts demand some evidence of rape or abuse from the woman before convicting the man. But then, that's an expression of constitutional rights, isn't it?

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Stark clarity

A recent nationally-published article informed young men not to have children in Australia.
The article began as a petition signed by more than 55,000 men in just over a month. To understand that number in American terms, the number would be multiplied by at least 20 -- representing 1,100,000 people.

It's not surprising. The laws here may appear similar to laws in other nations, but here there is no constitutional guarantees of civil and human rights. If that simple fact were to taken before the UN and the World Court, it would be seen as a breech of human and civil rights. Australia could lose its membership in the UN; or be forced to renegotiate the treaties about trade and mutual protection.
Most Americans would turn away in disgust.

Millions are spent each month to seduce young men and women into the aussie military. There are 70,000 berths, and only 55,000 are filled. It's not really surprising though. Who would be willing to fight for a country that held its citizens as the lowest level of the society -- only the elderly, disabled, and foreigners are lower.
As the nation ages, that fact will become more and more starkly clear.

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Undoing

A thousand years from now, Australia will be remembered as a brutish remnant of colonization. Its legend will be that of a country founded by convicts. A nation that never really matured, and in the end abandoned its people.

If anyone remembers this small country at all, it will be in those simplistic terms.
A nation that has to borrow its history from the US and UK because its own history is just one racist cycle after another.
As people seek to find good aspects of this sad history, they will say that the country produced a disproportionate number of sports champions for its population. And someone else will say how most of them wisely left the country when they realized what was really going on here.

This small nation on the foot of Asia is known for the rude nature of its people. Asians will remark with disdain how Australians were only required by law to work 10 months out of the year, not counting public holidays; and then only 36 hours a week. They'll chuckle and rock their heads remembering the long days in long years that their people worked.
It will be no wonder that Australia disappeared.

This is a nation that covers its brutish history by teaching and preaching the history of other english-speaking nations; pretending to uphold those principles by cowering behind a historical mask. Australia is still the only english-speaking democracy without the courage to constitutionally guarantee civil and human rights to its inhabitants.
In the end, as the nation finally has to face the test of history, that fact will be its undoing.

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Australia

"I sometimes think that America would be better off scrapping all the laws and returning to simply the Constitution and Bill of Rights. I've heard that suggestion all my life. It's surprising how I return to ponder that concept late in my life."

The founders of the American Constitution understood the brutality of law. That's why the first laws they created gave the citizens of the new country rights above all laws. That's why the citizens of the new country -- then only really a brave dream -- were placed in the position of being the most important part of the society.

These new citizens wouldn't find out for years that they even had those rights. First they had to pass through the fires of an 8-year struggle to give those brave ideas a chance. And before those rights could become a light to the world, another war would begin only a few years later that would destroy the new capitol.
Those who would abuse the law to prey on ordinary people were not easily persuaded to let such ideals have a trial, even in a small colony far away from Europe.

Today, that once-fragile colony has become a light to the world. A thousand years from now, when history speaks of the United States, it will be legendary. Like ancient Greece, the ideals of that Constitution will inspire men the rest of time.

There have been so many tests of those concepts. No nation is immune to the diseases of brutality, prejudice, and the blind rage of fear. Literally, millions have died to offer those ideals to the world; and more are dying still, every day.

When I was little, I was told like most Americans that we did not know what we had in our country; that we would have to travel to understand. Like most young people, I didn't understand and just filed the words away.
I have lived outside my country for about 10 years of my life, usually just roaming from one country to the other, not really seeing the lives around me. What has always struck me is how often someone would say that they wanted to live in America. Their eyes would light up; they'd smile at the thought; and they'd ask me why I would ever want to live anywhere else.
For most of my life, I really didn't understand.

It took coming to Australia to learn the value of concepts like equal protection under the law; the right to peace in one's own home; and the right to be treated equally under the law. Here, I learned why those dusty old ideals are so important. Because here, they don't exist.
I have to admit that I expected so much more from Australia.

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Nicotine users risk PTSD after trauma - Yahoo! News

Nicotine users risk PTSD after trauma - Yahoo! News

Nicotine users risk PTSD after trauma

Mon Nov 7, 4:37 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A new study shows that individuals who are addicted to cigarettes are at heightened risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder after experiencing a traumatic event.

According to Dr. Karestan C. Koenen who led the study, nicotine dependence that exists prior to trauma exposure increases the risk of developing PTSD following trauma by two-fold. ...

Gawd, I hate smoking. I've only smoked for a few years, relatively, but it is a damned hard habit to give up.
Many people in the IPSG smoked. It's been noted in studies that more people suffering depression smoke than the norm. Depression saps a person of their resolve. Even if they want to quit something like smoking, it's much harder.
Usually, a person expresses their lack of resolve as not having the energy. They say that they can't do something because all the other things affecting their life -- pain, work, pressures day by day -- take the strength they need.

I wonder is there is some scale that shows how much "strength" a person has or needs?

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Ran on the Run: little more than before

Ran on the Run: little more than before

little more than before
I don't know since when I changed to such a cold-hearted guy

I have to warm this frozen, icy, lonely heart to thaw

I like being wrapped with warmness more than anything else for sure

I'm gonna make my coming days to be filled with laughter and joy..

Sorrow is what I hate.. but it's grown my sensations..

Regrets taught me how.. to make any hard decisions..

Peace is always by my side.. but I've never felt it once..

Love is not the word.. only for the sweet romance..

Recalling my torn, broken, aching heart of these long days..

And all the memories I wanted to forget for making leaps..

Recalling, breaking, aching, crying, making sure to me..

And I take all and grin at my future on the way..

(Hisoka)

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Fear

From fear comes prejudice, and the guilt drives hatred. Then the need to be superior in some way to vindicate the now-hidden fears -- to brutality.
That is why the Law is brutal. It is the canonization of fears into the form of a society. A society with too many laws is sick. When the fear (or the power) of the law surpasses the responsibility for one's own actions -- personal morality -- all in that group will suffer.

America had Jim Crowe laws that blatantly limited the rights of blacks. Those laws were simply prejudice.

I sometimes think that America would be better off scrapping all the laws and returning to simply the Constitution and Bill of Rights. I've heard that suggestion all my life. It's surprising how I return to ponder that concept late in my life.

The saddest fact of fear is that it is mostly imaginary. The saddest fact of the law is that many laws are written to protect us from our own imaginations.

As George Carlin said about religious wars, "They're really about who has the best imaginary friend."

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Be brave

More than anything else, it is fear that kills.
Letting fear force you into making choices will only tear your heart from you. Cowardice gets people killed on battlefields. Fear destroys families and homes more often than any war or natural disaster. When fear becomes part of the brutality of law, it is simply inhuman.
Any law whose purpose is derived from fear will be brutally abused.

Somehow, we must give each other space to be brave.

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Choices

Whether you like it or not, Life is about choices. In any situaton, you have choices to make. If you cling to a choice when it's proven to be wrong, you'll be hurt. If you cling too long, it will destroy you.

As much as I could fill many screens with cynical, painful comments about that article, "How to have a happy marriage", it would be only beating myself up. One thing that's hard to swallow is that the most meaningful choices you make within yourself. No one wants to share them, not even those you love and cherish; or those you have to depend on for one reason or the other.

In the end, accepting that you are responsible for your own choices is liberating.
It frees you from hatred, resentment, and many other feelings that are more damaging to you to keep than to the targets.
There are times when your choices are few. A life changing injury can make your view of the world shrink to a terrifying tiny space.

The law is brutal. I think many bright minds are drawn to it because they see that brutality as a source of power. It is that, certainly. But the brutality of the law is impossible to avoid. At some point, all those bright minds must reconcile the ugly choice they've made with their own personal morality. -- I don't imagine it does much for their character.

Injury, disease, and age are painful facts of living. No one can avoid them. How a person handles their choices about them depends a great deal on the support around them. We draw strength, or are sapped to even deeper exhaustion -- and a sense of fewer choices -- by those around us.
The saddest person is one whose choices have led to living lies and loneliness.

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How to Have a Happy Marriage

(I found this reproducable article. It's perfect. All you have to do is reverse every recommendation here and it defines my former relationship. At this point, that statement only elicits wry laughter.)

How to Have a Happy Marriage
Copyright © 2005, Relationship Success Experts, Alan Stafford , All Rights Reserved

1. It starts with you

The happier you are with yourself and your life, the more
attractive you are to your partner. Another way to look at this
is: if you were someone else, would you marry you? Start today to
work on being the kind of person you would want to know, date,
and marry. If you're not that kind of person, how can you expect
your spouse to stay attracted or stay passionate?

2. There's you, there's him/her, and then there's we.

You don't have to give up your identity or be known as your
spouse's partner.

It also doesn't work when two people each do their own thing
without regard to their partner's wishes and feelings. Marriage
is, and should be, more than cohabitation. As the marriage vows
state, "two shall be as one". That "one" is neither you nor him.
The "one" is a third entity: the relationship, the marriage, the
"we".

The "we" is what you share, what you have in common, the
nurturing that cannot be provided on your own. Think
companionship, intimacy, and sharing.

3. Leave behind your emotional baggage

Are you really over your previous relationship? If not, you can't
fully commit to your spouse. Likewise, if you are still Daddy's
little girl or Mommy's boy, you are not in control of your own
life. Therefore, you cannot fully enter into an adult
relationship of mutual sharing and support. You can't be
accountable to your spouse if you have to keep pleasing Mommy or
Daddy.

4. Your marriage comes first

Marriage is the strongest bond between two people. Parents are
here and one day they are gone. Children grow into adults and
leave to start their own lives. Your spouse is only person who is
meant to stay with you the rest of your time on this planet.

Women who say their children come first are usually unable to let
their children grow up and become independent adults. Instead of
a mature adult-adult relationship, the roles are forever adult-
child. So the children never emotionally leave home and are
forever dependent on the parent.

These women are always surprised when their mates get tired of
being number two, and decide to leave for someone else who WILL
put them first.

5. Your marriage is your top priority.

You didn't get married to commute two hours a day, work at the
office 60 hours a week, and pay on a mortgage for 30 years. You
probably got married to share your life, your hopes, your dreams-
not your bills-with that special someone. During life's ups and
especially during life's downs, keep in mind why you married in
the first place. Not jobs, nor cars, nor your favorite sports
team. At one time, your partner was the most important thing in
this world to you. Act like it today and every day.

6. Don't compare

This holds true in your life as well as in your marriage. There
will always be a couple that seems happier, wealthier, sexier,
and more perfect than you two are. So what? Their happiness
doesn't increase or diminish your happiness. Neither does their
money, their jobs, their house, or their glamour. All that
matters is whether you and your spouse have created a
relationship that works for you.

7. Don't wonder "what if?"

Wondering what it would be like to be with another person-for a
night or for a lifetime-is self-delusion and is really unfair to
your spouse. You see other people socially when they are at their
best. You see your spouse when he/she is at his best, her
average, and sometimes at her worst. If you could swap mates,
guess what? You'd see that person at his/her worst, and you
probably wouldn't like what you see.

8. Realize that love can grow.

As much as you were in love when you got married, your love and
commitment to each other can grow over the years. Marriage can
get better, not worse, with time. The longer you've been married,
the more history you have together.The triumphs and
disappointments, the successes and the failures, all are part of
sharing a life together. And that history is unique to you. No
one else has that or can duplicate it. This is why a man who
leaves his middle aged wife for a younger woman eventually wants
to come back. With his wife he has a history-a shared past. With
the new woman there is only the present.

9. Commitment means no matter what.

It's as simple as making the decision to be totally committed to
your spouse and to the relationship. No matter what happens
financially, or health wise, or otherwise. No matter what. Once
the two of you have decided to stay "no matter what", there is no
question of stay or go, yes or no. Now the emphasis is on problem
solving. Write this down: all couples have problems. Happy
couples learn to deal with their problems. Unhappy couples
eventually just run away.

10. Believe that a happy marriage is not only possible, it's
yours for the making.

It won't happen by itself. It takes intention, commitment, and
practice. But the couples who have happy, blissful, and
satisfying marriages are proof that it is possible. Just choose
to be happy, and choose to be happily married.

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This story

My hip replacement was a new technology. Instead of cutting off the femur and drilling down into it to cement the tongue of stainless steel to hold the ball joint, then ripping out most of a hip, I had only two pieces of titanium. Titanium has a unique quality of growing into a bone. One covered the end of the femur; the other just set into the hip bone. It's called a Birmingham hip resurfacing.

It's been over a year since my surgery, and only for the last 2-3 months have I not had to wrench my hip back into place when I sat. I was beginning to think I'd always have to do that little leg waggle when I stood up.

In that time, the Injured Persons' Support Group has disappeared. J moved from the area with his girlfriend. There had been a power struggle that ultimately involved the administrators of the facility where they met. When the responsibility for solving their own problems was taken from them, the members lost all interest in the group.

This will be the story of my experience with that group. The remnants of my efforts are still in a Yahoo group, "Mahogany Injured Support Group." I designed the pamphlet for the group.

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I was lucky

The second meeting was similar to the first. Most of the time was spent trying to find some organization; the couple worked the group for supporters.

I have to admit that I went to it with a knot in my stomach.
I wasn't sure what to expect, but I went. I wasn't sure I hadn't said too much to (I'll call him, J.) about my situation. The group took a break after an hour or so, and I was surprised when one after another of the group approached me.

Each had their own story. Arthritis, a car accident, some incident at work, or a freak moment of pain had begun their journey. One woman was in obvious pain, twisted over a walking stick, her smile was genuine even if I had to look past the sadness in her eyes.
Another woman had tremendous energy from the beginning of the meeting. She seemed to not be hurting at all. Then her face flushed more and more red, and she had to sit. Where she had been all energy and professional for more than an hour, now she could only sit and watch until the end.
She had had two car accidents that had left her back and neck damaged.

All had experienced the same depression, fear, and the horrible anxiety of not being able to face what the future held for them. In most cases, the future only meant that their conditions would get worse.
I was lucky. If I could recuperate from this surgery, there was a chance I could have most of my life back.

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Listening

My first meeting, the Injured Persons' Support Group was pretty well established. There were over 20 people at the Friday meeting.
Sitting back, I could see the politicking and struggle for leadership, even ownership, of the group. Pretty much common stuff.

One man had been one of the founders of the Group, but the combination of his injuries and depression had lost him a strong position as leader. His personality was not suited to leadership in these circumstances. His background made him expect the meetings to be a time for organizing a movement, while most of the others only wanted to visit.
One couple was "doing everything." Their bid for leadership was by example.
All in all, the meeting was mostly organization, and I didn't see that they needed my help.
I just sat back.

After the meeting, the man who had helped found the group approached me.
He asked about me, and told me about his injuries. He mentioned that he often was unable to stand or walk, and spent the days drugged up and asleep. Something in his words opened me up.
All that is in the previous posts and more came flooding out. I vented my heart and soul to this stranger. He was the first person in years that would listen.

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The reality

I was depressed when I first joined the Injury Support Group. It had set in me so hard that I could easily deny it, but those who met me quickly picked up on it. As it was told to me, "You looked pretty wound tight."
No kidding? I had gone through two years of increasing pain, with less and less understanding and sympathy every day from those around me. They just couldn't understand why I wasn't getting better. To be honest, neither could I.
Then a painful surgery, and more frustrating recovery, resented for my existance every day.

I didn't want to accept or even think about what was happening to me inside. My eyes teared up for no reason. All I wanted to do was sleep for days. I refused to even let myself think of what the future might hold. When I did, the idea of living from a wheelchair or bed .. Terrified me.
I forced myself to think of a man I'd met years before.
He had been test pilot in WWI, and crashed. A paraplegic, he had made a fortune from his bed in real estate. His mind stayed sharp, and happy. -- I told myself I could do that.
The reality was that that was far from my abilities even then.

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Good things

Depression is a hard disease to understand.
For those of us with relatively normal minds, it comes naturally after times of great duress such as losing a loved one. Depression is a normal step in greiving. For some, it becomes the last step.
Another route to depression is stress.
Depression as a result of stress is often linked with anxiety disorders. If the person is not depressed, they are constantly battling back the wave of anxiety. The hammering heart; the sense of not being able to breathe; the tingly numbness in your head that makes it impossible to think or feel anything but a desperate sense of wanting to hide.

Stress can be caused by anything really. Too much work is considered a noble reason to be stressed. That's horsecrap, frankly. There is no noble reason to be depressed and anxious.

Chronic pain causes depression. It exhausts you from deep inside.
Doctors commonly write prescriptions for anti-depressants along with pain medications. But years of chronic pain and depression can bend your mind. To avoid the anxiety attacks, the person hides in depression.

About half the population has a tendency towards depression to one degree or the other. The stages of life can cause it, too. Teenagers' violent hormonal changes can throw them into the grip of the Black Dog. -- That's what Sir Winston Churchill called it.
Those who are not depressed can't understand. Even those who have experienced it drive the memories from their mind. We humans tend to only want to remember the good things in life.

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It isn't there.

One day, after I had built up the strength to walk, I went into a nearby suburb to have some time out of the house. Spotting a small shop, I entered and waited to order something to eat.
The girl turned to me and smiled to ask, "What can I do for you, sir?" I returned the smile and started to speak, then the look on her face made me wince. She looked frightened. I asked her for a couple of things, and she got them for me without looking again in my eyes.

When I left the shop, I was hurt and confused. I sat outside to eat. Then I realized what had happened.

A person in constant, chronic pain has a set face that most people read as angry. My smile had been just a thin stretched pair of lips, and it had not touched my eyes. Between that and my size, I had scared this young woman.
This sort of thing happened too often.

I realized that this was why people see old people as unhappy, or mean. They were looking at me the same way. And there really wasn't much I could do about it. The pain was real and deep. It touched my eyes and made me weep. It set my face, at once with pain and determination. It set my gut and twisted my voice around it.
I didn't have the strength to ignore the pain. I'm not sure anyone really does.

What's sad is that people expect those in pain to pretend it isn't there.

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the Group

For the next two years, my hip steadily deteriorated. All my efforts to make the muscles stronger to accommodate the weak joint only seemed to cause the cartilage to wear away faster.
I faced the fact day after day that I was looking forward to a life in a wheelchair or a hospital bed.

Finally, I found a surgeon.
I knew going in that the surgery was going to be painful, but after two years of increasing pain, I could hardly wait to have surgery.
The surgery was all that they had warned me about. 26 days in the hospital. The relationship was pretty much gone by then. What may have been a difficult relationship couldn't stand the stress of my injury and disability. I spent the days in the hospital essentially alone, wondering what sort of home I would return to -- if I were to return at all.

I had to put aside the sadness and focus on recovering. You learn to live one lie after another when you're forced into an emotional corner.

It was a little more than two months after the surgery that I attended my first meeting of the Injured Persons' Support Group.

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Courage

Arriving home, I triumphantly announced that I'd found an Injured Persons' Support Group and would be attending the next Friday afternoon. The disinterested sneer told me that my partner was biting her lip to avoid a sarcastic remark.
She'd told me I should get out and meet people in the area before. It was only once or twice, and I had tried to explain that I just didn't have the energy only once. I knew she didn't want to hear it. There was no use.

The relationship had deteriorated as rapidly as the cartilage in my hip in the last two years or so. Most of it was that no one wanted to believe how tiring and depressing it was -- not even me.

About two years before, the hip had swollen and sealed off the main vein in my leg. The leg billowed and turned blue. The pain down my leg increased over the weekend til it was literally indescribable, then I was transferred to a private hospital. Rolling in pain, I managed to get myself put under the care of a talented vascular surgeon.
Emergency experimental surgery relieved most of the clotting and pain, but left the bottom half of my leg discolored and disfigured.
What struck me later, after I was out from under the losing a leg, dying -- or worse -- was that my partner was at once attentive, and argumentative. I was too busy dealing with the physical problems to really notice at the time though.

I returned home to find that walking across a room was remarkably painful. Nothing compared to what I'd experienced for a couple of days in the hospital, but enough to bring tears to my eyes.
I had been told that I was to walk off the clotting and swelling in my lower leg. The doctors somehow didn't realize that my hip was deteriorated. They were giving me the standard orders. It's a little difficult to walk off a blood clot when you don't have much cartilage in your hip.

Cynically determined, I found a simple way to know what was too far each day: When my eyes watered from the pain, it was time to stop.
No one around me wanted to hear about my small victories. All anyone wanted to hear was that I was "just fine." I learned to silently congratulate myself. I was surprised to find that I had such courage.

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Pushed

I was looking over the pamphlets and bulletins at the local community center when a middle-aged woman came up to me. She smiled and asked if I wanted something.
In the annoyed mind of someone in chronic pain, I searched her face to see why she was bothering me. Had I done something wrong? Was I somewhere I shouldn't be?

I walked with an obvious limp in those days. The limp worsened when I exercised the hip joint, and often I used a walking stick or a crutch. I had left both at home that day and regretted it.

I explained that I was just browsing, and planned to leave, thinking I'd take the rest I needed on one of the benches outside.
She mentioned that there was an injured support group meeting that day.

My first reaction was to question why she was pushing me towards this group. Was it her pet project? She was pushing me because of some problem with money, I thought. I feigned interest and asked about it.
All I really wanted to do was sit down for a while. My hip had me nearly unconscious anyway.

I politely told her I'd try to make the meeting next Friday, only half sincerely.
I didn't like being pushed.

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Embarrassment

I had stopped in to the local community center on a walk to test my new hip.
It was barely two months since the surgery. My hip still swelled. The muscles I'd trained so painfully to support the deteriorating joint were still making even a short walk exhausting.

Although I'd admit it to no one, my mind was still on the pain or the expectation of pain.
I was relieved to have walked the short distance to the community center and just wanted to rest a while and look around before heading back. I knew I'd need at least a half hour just sitting. The hip was swollen and stiff. For more than two years, that swelling and stiffness had drained all the energy from me.

But I had learned to keep those thoughts to myself. I had learned that no one wanted to hear about my constant pain. No one wanted to hear my grunts and groans of pain. In fact, I'd learned that my pain was annoying to those around me.
Strangely, they resented my pain.
And I fed that resentment by my own embarrassment.

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I dentity

We hardly notice how much health is a part of our identity. Whether consciously or not, we have a self image that is usually tied to the energy or attitude. We may see ourselves as "big, strong" or "funny, easy-going" or "happy" or whatever.
We will rarely use the words to describe ourselves. We use those words to describe others. It could be said that we prefer to let our actions and attitude speak for themselves; or maybe we are just in denial about how much what we can do defines the person we see in the mirror. -- And how much we like that person.

The idea only asserts itself in our minds when some sort of significant change comes into our lives.
A person may work for months to lose weight and suddenly cannot stop speaking about how much better they feel; how much more energy they have. If you listen closely, you'll hear the tone of their voice and be confused: The person seems to be trying to convince themselves of what they're saying.
As if they can't believe this wonderful change themselves.

What's happened to them -- by their own choice and actions -- has made them reevaluate the person they see in the mirror, and they are still getting used to the idea.

Now, imagine for a moment another person who did not choose to change; and the change did not make them stronger and more energetic. Some sort of injury has changed their lives.
There is nothing to brag about. The person has to reevaluate. But their own confusion makes them seem insincere. They are in denial, and the pretense of health is obvious in their tone of voice. If we are not so full of ourselves that we cannot hear it.

In both cases, the person is dealing with an identity change.

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Desperate Housewives

Funny how a few words from a television show can evoke such a clear motivation. I was bored and tired enough to have left 'Desperate Housewives' running on the television, and the voice of the dead narrator said, "..But no one slept that night. All they could think of was how terribly lonely I must have felt. You see, loneliness was something my friends understood -- all too well.", and through the foggy, half-asleep mind came a moment of clarity.

This was a blog I needed to do.

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