When someone you love cries out for help, what do you do? When you have a friend who has a serious problem, what do you do? I have a friend who I love very much, but I worry that he�s going to do something self-destructive again.
See I see him saying �I�m going to make a change,� and I see someone who is trapped in the world he�s in. I see someone crying out for help. But he�s not strong enough on his own.
I have, with another friend�s help, decided that in addition to Salsalita, that I will not leave him again. When you are hurting and when you are down, you need to know that you have people who love you no matter what. A real friend would stay. I think I need to stay close to Rufus and Salsalita.
It�s been bothering me since this weekend. My heart has felt so heavy and I just felt like crying. I went outside a few minutes ago, sat down at a picnic table, and I cried for my friend. It was a little embarrassing, but I was alone.
I asked God, �What can I do? I can�t take away his pain, or hers. But I love them both. I can't stand to watch this, but I no longer feel like I can leave either.� I cried because I feel helpless to do much for him. But my friend at work here says that by being a positive, loving force in his life, along with Salsalita, that he could possibly emerge from it someday. You can�t give up on someone, unless they are putting your life in danger. He thinks right now, that besides Salsalita, that no one loves him. That there is no love in the world, and he isn�t worthy of it. But he is, and I�m going to show him that. A true friend loves you in your bad and good times.
****Rufus, I do love you from the bottom of my heart*****
****Salsalita, I promise to support you more when it comes to Rufus*****
Rufus, I know where the self-destructive streak comes from; I have it too. You think you don�t deserve to be happy so you ruin it. It�s a subconscious thing. You don�t recognize you�re doing it.
I guess I�m most worried that Rufus is going to drink himself into a stupor and not care about hurting himself. If he did get hurt, he probably wouldn�t know. But we know. He doesn�t see how precious his life is.
Sometimes I pray that he sees his life is worth living and stops being so reckless, but I don�t think he truly understands that he has worth; he is valuable. That he is a unique person. That he deserves a second chance to be happy.
I don't know exactly how you feel Rufus, but I kind of know what it�s like, my friend. Many a night I�ve just sat down and cried like a baby. You mourn for what you've never had.
I mourn for the life I wanted, the life I never had, the Mom I never really knew, my baby sister who doesn�t remember her mom, the innocence I lost and the family that didn�t have what it took to stay together.
I am sad that I can be in a room of people and be lonely, and no matter what someone says to me, at some point, I will doubt they love me and pull away for a while.
I grieve because I will never know what it�s like to have a relationship with a perfect stranger and not have to worry about him hurting or killing me.
I grieve because I know how terribly someone can hurt and kid and that even though I know this I must not let my daughter be afraid to grow up.
I grieve because I need my birth mother so bad now.
I grieve because my family and I are not close, and will never be the way it was with my mom.
I grieve; it�s silly, that I never had a muscular, flat belly and that I�ve always had the scar from the surgery I had to have because he shredded my private places. I�ve always had a little pouch.
I grieve because when you lose someone to a violent death, you will occasionally torture yourself thinking of morbid things, like did it hurt? Did they know what was happening? Were they scared?
I�m sad because I have some issues deep inside that I haven�t dealt with and I�m afraid. I�m afraid I will never find a lifemate who can know my story and not treat me like a delicate little egg. I�m afraid my scars will scare them. They are not on my face, you see.
I grieve because some people blamed my mom. Why? Because she was single. That�s right. She didn�t get married because she thought we might be mistreated, and that makes her bad.
My friend that I talk about, he feels misunderstood, lonely, confused, angry, bewildered, and sad. He screws up and then beats himself up. It�s a cycle.
Substances only alleviate for a certain period of time. Eventually, you have to identify your feelings and face them. They are yours, don�t feel bad about them. You don�t own the terrible things that happen to you. You were just a victim when you were a kid. But you�re not a kid anymore.
I cry because when I see my friend I see the old me. The "me" that didn�t care if I walked out in front of a car that day. I hated myself. He feels guilty too. He shouldn�t. He was just a sweet little boy when it happened.
He�s a sweet little boy now too. You can see it deep inside even though he�s a man. But he feels like he doesn�t deserve true happiness so he sabotages his own chances at being successful. I know, because I�ve done it.
I pray my friend knows that we won�t give up on him. We�d like him to know that he can lean on me. That we�ll get through it. That I�ll be a more consistent friend. Too, that we will be at his wedding.
That sometimes, we�re all mixed up. You�re not the first. It�s okay. But you gotta come out of it honey. It will eat you alive if you don�t. Deal with the pain. Reach out.
Hold a hand when you�re having a bad day.
But please try to stop drinking. Drinking is going to kill you or you are going to hurt someone else.
If you spend all your life drinking you�ll be numb to love. You�ll miss some bad things, but you�ll miss all the good things. Lots of people really want to be able to love you, but you shut them out and you can�t feel it; that they love and cherish you.
I never hated you, Rufus, I was just afraid of you and when you were angry you reminded me of him.
You�re not him though, and I know the difference now.
You know, your folks wouldn�t want you to live this way. They�d want you to be happy. That�s what we all want for you. ******************************************************
When I was in the Navy, I had a tyrant for a supervisor. First thing he ever let me know is that he didn�t want women in �his� Navy, but they�d have to make do since I was the first of many. He always wore that smug smile. It made me sick.
He�d slam me if me shoes weren�t perfectly shined, even though I spent an hour or so on them every week, perfecting my technique. Sometimes I took them to be shined by professional shoe shiners, but he�d still bust me.
I�d labor over my uniform to make perfect creases and he�d insist they were �off�, even though it was apparent to even his superiors that they were good, and they gave him the �knock it off look�, which he ignored. We�d have roll call, and I was usually standing next to some degenerate who had probably never ironed their uniform and had it balled up in a hamper before they put it on. Funny enough, while stepping in front of each of us and appraising our uniform, he�d smile at the degenerate (good old boys) and when he got to me he was full of criticism.
At hearing his sarcastic, biting tone, my eyes would burn but I�d choke them back, not willing to give him the satisfaction. After four years of straight hell and his repeated attempts to expel me from his Navy, he accepted that he failed. I won eventually, but that�s getting ahead.
This kind of �leadership� was de rigeur in bootcamp. Correct, mold, and shape your fleet of sailors. But it�s not supposed to happen when you�ve been in the fleet for four years. Only morons need that type of continuous instruction.
But I wasn�t a moron.
He�d write me up if I was two minutes late for PT. Yet the other people that walked in after me didn�t. I know, because I worked in admin and I checked the admin and disciplinary files. W
e had men that would be UA (or AWOL) for two days, stuck in New Orleans, in a broken down vehicle, and they�d never be written up. If I were a minute late, he�d write me up. In four years, I was late exactly 5 times, by two to five minutes each time.
Once, a widely admired, Christian, happily married supervisor got busted for soliciting a prostitute downtown. I mean, pants down and everything.
Now, by Navy standards, this constitutes proof of adultery (a crime in the Navy) and soliciting prostitution is also punishable. Did anything happen? Nope. Usually, the police will turn the punishment over to the Navy�s courts to handle; to avoid publicity. But I know for sure that nothing ever happened. In the hush-hush way that I became aware of, it was swept under the rug.
The good old boys club was active. They covered each other�s butts like nobody�s business.
One sore spot for me was the weighing each week. I seem to remember we all got weighed once a week at PT. It seemed embarrassing but you get used to all kinds of men and women standing behind you while these huge ass wand points to your weight in huge ass letters. It�s just how it is.
I was having a hard time losing weight but I didn�t think I needed special help although I remember my sleeping problems had gotten so severe, I was barely holding it together.
I was determined not to ask for a bunch of favors just because I was working 48 hours a week (two 12 hour days, one off, two 12 hour nights), raising a baby, exercising four days a week, and doing it all alone because my husband just left me. Lots of people I knew were single parents but few of us worked those hours. I just couldn�t seem to get any sleep, couldn�t seem to muster up the strength to exercise properly. I was embarrassed.
I remember though, not being able to lose the baby weight, and I was mortified that four days of exercise and diet a week was not doing anything for me.
When it was my turn to weigh, the supervisor would make this �uh-oh� noise if I�d gained a pound or if I wasn�t losing enough. Then he�d note it, and I knew I�d be in for another six weeks of intense physical training. I had no choice.
But amazingly enough, these rotund ass, majorly fat dudes that were getting weighed? Well, something was going on. I knew that they were not within standards, way out if anything, and yet, they were not at remedial pt with me. I must mention, if you are not within standards, you�re not supposed to get promoted either. But a few months later these dudes were promoted, looking like sausages in their uniforms. It was just embarrassing for me to be singled out. To be sneered at.
These same guys would always flirt with me; they�d talk with me. We�d hang out. I was good enough to, you know. But since I wouldn�t do that, no hanky panky, I paid for it, with remedial pt. I also lost out on a few promotions.
I always had lots of awards, but the euphoria I felt about getting them was always tempered by the tyrants� games. I�d get a Letter of Appreciation, he�d have his secretary draft up a report chit for not coming in on time off to sign my evaluation (even though it was a month late) and that�s funny because I never got the message to come in.
A very good friend of mine had been his last victim. And while she, a very beautiful sweet person, was married to an officer and had all things that others admire in a woman, tyrant made it a point to terrorize her. She took it with a smile on her face, but the last straw was when a supervisor groped her sexually, quite a few times. She tried dealing with it, but the supervisor got bolder each time. She finally went to her legal team, but they sided with the supervisor.
She then went to base legal and filed a grievance because her supervisor was creating a hostile work environment and sexually intimidating her. But tyrant had her blackballed. Eventually, and IG and court marshal�s found out her complaints were true and with merit, but it was too late for her career. Even though she was right, and exonerated of making �false charges against civilian officer�, she was ruined.
She finally moved on to another location, but tyrant had called ahead to the new command to warn that she was trouble. And he has called every command since.
I got tired from the very beginning of his stunts. This friend told me to keep notes about everything, document everything, and get copies of everything. After four years of hell, I had a huge fat file of complaints about incidences where I felt he trapped me, belittled me and singled me out. I took it to the commanding officer, told her what was going on. I�d exhausted every other point of contact, but no one took me seriously. She did, she had him removed from our building.
I still hold on to that because I never felt good enough no matter what I did. And even now, every Sunday night, I can�t sleep because I�m afraid I�ll oversleep and be written up. That�s so crazy because I have a good job now, but four years of constant belittling and terrorizing don�t go away quick.
I�m so tired today. People don�t understand it�s something that I still deal with. I loved the Navy, yet my boss crapped on me.
Nobody stood up to him but me. I let him know that he couldn�t treat me bad. Because of that he squashed me. He crushed me. All the good evaluations I earned from my direct supervisors, tyrant would edit them and take out all of my extra duties and collateral duties so I�d look like a lazy ass. I�d say, �Hey, you forgot this or that.� He�d promise to fix it, but he never did. And when I asserted my right by Navy standards to certain things, he would just �pish-posh� those statements and act like he was just swatting gnats out of his way. I tried.
I remember he said, �You�ll never work anywhere but McDonald�s.� Now, I have a great job, but that inadequate feeling still stays.
I always worry about how I�m doing in my job. Then I self-sabatoge. It�s embarrassing.
Bye for today.
1:19 p.m. - 2003-06-16
Recent entries:
What you missed - January 16, 2012
%%older_entries%%From hell - October 19, 2010
%%older_entries%%a rant from a few weeks ago - August 17, 2010
%%older_entries%%Tired - June 20, 2010
%%older_entries%%A beautiful lie - March 11, 2010
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