Thoughts For The Day

So, I'm invariably the bad guy. No matter how it's sliced, I'm going to end up being the asshole in almost every story. Why? Because it's black or it's white, but it's never gray. You're either in agreement or you're in disagreement. You either support certain rights, or you don't. You may act like you are Switzerland, but in truth, you do have an opinion. You do have personal thoughts about everything; but you're too afraid of being rejected by people to speak them. Coward.

Oops! Did I say that out? Let me explain; no, that would take too long. Let me sum it up. If you are against abortion but someone who is pro-choice is speaking, you will nod and agree and even feign some form of empathy for the cause. When you get home, you will rant and rave about how this baby killing bitch was trying to get you over to her team. Why?

Because you're too afraid of what people think of you. Why?

Do you think you're the only person on planet Earth who has your opinion of things? Let me give you a nickel's worth of free advice - you're not. Being a two-faced coward, however, paints you with a brush that will likely leave you with permanent scars emotionally. You are never true to yourself. You are never honest with the people you claim to love. You're just a frightened child underneath all that bravado.

Did I offend you? Yeah, I probably did. But you're now wondering why you don't speak up more, aren't you? For a moment, think about the last time you actually spoke YOUR mind. Not something you're parroting from your absolutely insufferable family member who seems to know the color of every news anchor's nostril hair, but I mean how YOU feel about things. You don't vote? Explain why. If you can't, then you need to be quiet about politics. You weren't invited to the dance.

Furthermore, I'm ranting to get to a point, if you think I'm a weak person because I've been apathetic about my daughter's behavior, I'll need to set that record straight. She's grown. She chose similar things at 14/15 that I chose. She chose to start over and do her life somewhere else because she did not like living where she was or with whom. She felt like her life wasn't going in a direction she wanted it to go, so before 9th grade started, she moved. She didn't move to a different town, she moved to a different state. I moved from Momoo's house to Little Rock with my mom. I had finished 9th grade and started high school with a pack of strangers. Bailey was in the same grade as Hayden so she at least knew one person at Lakeside.

She made a hard choice, but she made it and she stuck with it when she could have gone back to Louisiana at any time. She could have reconnected with Sherry at any time. Nobody monitored her. Nobody stopped her from talking to Sherry. She chose that because she was miserable with Sherry. If you want to know why, watch the video. She explains most of it.

Did she regret the move? I doubt it, but right now she's surfing some pretty tall BPD waves and she's having trouble navigating her own issues because she's a state away from everything and everyone she knows as support people. She's chosen that, too. She wanted to start over. If she wants to start over in 8 years, nobody's going to stop her then, either. It's called being an adult and if that is what she wants, then I'm going to support that too - only this time, I'm supporting it from a real safe distance.

Sherry didn't stop by this house to see her at any point after she moved up here and she was still a child. Nobody ever told her she wasn't welcomed to come by here and TRY to get Bailey to talk to her. She could have shown some effort and it might have made a difference. She didn't. But somehow that's my fault.

Now she's an adult. If she reaches out to Sherry at all, 100% of the reason now will be to hurt her, use her, or try to get what she perceives as "even" with us for being unrelenting when we said "no" about her choices. It won't be for the right reasons. She doesn't love her or she couldn't have just written her off like that; so easily, so quickly, like she meant nothing to her - and for all those years. Individuals with BPD have problems with triggering and going from love to hate in the span of a human breath. Unfortunately, my daughter suffers from borderline personality disorder, something we've been avoiding talking about for a number of years, and not all the time is she in control of her behavior. Sometimes, it's a reaction from a traumatic nightmare. Sometimes it's her own paranoia. Sometimes it's no "real" reason whatsoever, but it's VERY real to her.

So you see, I'm not in charge of LETTING her do anything. She makes decisions, because she's legally capable of making those decisions, and right now she's chosen to do this. I've chosen to stay fairly silent on the whole topic because I'm tired of messing with it.

I cannot emotionally sort out the cause and effect of her impulsivity right now, so I'm not bashing her, but I am very much staying out of her line of fire for a while. She's hurt everyone in her life, repeatedly, for years, and she doesn't know how to stop herself.

I am not a coward. I'm not afraid to say what I think or feel. It's a character flaw at times, but more times than not, it clears the air so nobody is confused about how I feel. I will tell you to your face. I will show you respect enough to tell you how I feel and not make you think you look beautiful in a string bikini when you're 50 pounds overweight.

That's the difference. We are not the same.