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The Warrior Years – Battling Dad – Part I

February 21, 2026

“She would of been a good woman,” The Misfit said, “if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.”

Flannery O’Connor, story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”

He woulda been a good man if…

It was that same book I was given by one of my elementary school nuns from her college English course. The one that opened my mind to the wide new world of literature. The one I drank up like it was water, and I was dying of thirst.

There was that one story in the book, though, by Flannery O’Connor, called “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” I was both repelled by it because of its violence and unwillingly, but powerfully drawn to it. I could never let it go. All my life, it gnawed at me, but I never knew why.

It was about a family that took a wrong turn on a vacation trip, all because the manipulative grandmother badgered them to go find some old house she wanted to visit. So, to placate her, they made a detour, turned down a rutted dirt road, and ended up in an accident. At the same time, they crossed paths with a killer named The Misfit, who was on the run. Because the grandmother recognized him and announced it, the entire family would end up dead, shot, one by one. The grandmother would be the last one to be killed.

But the crux of O’Connor’s story was about that last moment right before The Misfit shot her. It was in that last second before the bullet tore into her that she finally had a spiritual awakening.

After he killed her, the Misfit observed that “She would have been a good woman, if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.” The comment resonated with me for years, even as I didn’t know why.

But I finally understand. She was Dad. He was manipulative, self-absorbed, and thought he was better than everyone else. Smarter. More clever. Just like the grandmother in the story. And the only time he would act differently was if he felt the power balance had shifted against him in an encounter. Then, instead of bullying and being abusive, he would be kind, magnanimous, charming, even. He would behave.

While I don’t think he ever had a change of heart or spiritual awakening, I realized that he “could a been a good man if it had been somebody there to threaten him with jail every minute of his life.”

A purpose, re-examined

On my forearm, I have a tattoo that clearly states my purpose in life — Tikkun olam — the Jewish directive to “Heal the world.” When I taught science at the museum, my purpose was less about teaching science and more about reaching kids who might be hurting. I did all I could to reach them, inspire them, and heal them.

I am writing this book, these entries, for the same reason. I start by healing myself and making myself whole again, but I also share the story to help anyone else heal.

The struggle here is to tell the story, with deep emotional truth, while protecting the privacy of others. At the same time, I have to tell the story as it happened, and as fairly as I can. This is not about making me the hero.

Cycles of “If only”…

Dad’s behaviors, when I look back, show up as an unchanging pattern of cycles. For example, whenever we went on vacation, the first day was wonderful. He was happy, relaxed, and we were excited. But within the next 24-48 hours, that mood would slip, his irritability would rise, we would walk on eggshells more and more, until the inevitable explosion would take place. Then he would be contrite, calm, and happy, and the rest of the cycle would start again.

In the same way as vacations, there was another cycle operating, though I didn’t realize it then. And it was going to play out again and again in a series of confrontations over the next several years.

My goal in confronting him was not to destroy our family, but to save it. I loved my family. Despite all the harm he had done to me, he had also done good things, and I still loved him. By challenging him and trying to open up the silences, I hoped to protect and preserve our family.

Silence had been one of his powerful tools. The rule of the family. In our house, our family system, it was made very clear from a young age that life was meant to be hidden. Secret. Back then, I didn’t realize what was operating or how much harm that silence enabled and protected. But once I got out of the house and began to understand what he was and the harmful things he did, I could no longer remain silent.

“When something exists in a family that is not discussed, it goes into what Carl Jung termed ‘the shadow,’ the unacknowledged aspects of the self…the shadow is called the ‘elephant in the living room.’ Everyone knows that something is wrong, but no one speaks it. Everyone accommodates the presence of what is unspoken and verbally talks around that territory, avoiding it as though there really is an elephant in the living room. Everyone knows better than to cut directly from point A to B because he or she would bump into a huge obstacle. That obstacle is silence; that obstacle is fear; that obstacle is facing the unknown.”

Christina Baldwin, Storycatcher: Making Sense of Our Lives through the Power and Practice of Story, pg 148

My thinking at that time was that if only I could figure out the right things to say or do, I might make him understand. If only he would get help, he could realize how much better our family could be. If only he could see the harm his actions caused and how they needed to change, there was hope for a better life. If only our family bonds, the things that were good, could be preserved. If only. If only. If only.

I didn’t understand then, you cannot make someone change when they don’t want to. There were no “right things to say or do” on my part. And it didn’t matter how many “good things” he did, that didn’t change what he was or what he might be capable of in the future.

So, like vacations, so began a cycle of confrontations over the next several years.

1984 + 1988 – The preceding confrontations

I’ve already written about two times that I challenged him to get help. The first one was in 1984, shortly after I began therapy. The second time was in 1988 when I was pregnant.

The 1984 effort was a failure as he either outright refused or paid it lip service by visiting a counselor once. Then he moved to Texas and refused any help from my therapist to find a new provider for him in Texas.

In 1988, when I confronted him during my pregnancy, he said he would get help. In looking back, I realize he never did apologize. But my therapist gave him phone numbers for other psychologists he could contact, which my father accepted.

At that point, I severed contact with him because I was too busy with my infant son. Whether he used those contacts, I don’t know. I doubt it. In those years, he wasn’t required to prove anything to any authority.

I saw my mother after our son was born, but I did not see my father again until early 1990. By then, our son was over a year old. It was a tentative visit, mostly to see my mother. But also, I truly hoped that maybe there would be a change…a chance for rebuilding our relationship.

It was difficult to know what to do with him, or what to think. He had seemed sorry. Contrite. Kinder. Changed. He didn’t offer any further information, and again, I was so busy with our son, I did not pursue it.

I will note that it is very hard when you have been both abused by someone, and also given the only real “love” and attention in your childhood, by that same person. Yes, he did bad things, but he also did good things. He is your father, and there is still love. And that family loyalty that was drilled in for my entire early life.

In looking back, I can only say it was so confusing. There was no clear guidance on what to make of him. I really wanted things to just “get better” and heal. I’d second-guess myself all the time. Was he a bad person, or just so misguided he thought what he’d done to me was actually some kind of love? Yet, I remembered that Nova Scotia trip years ago, when he admitted he knew he’d abused me.

But lately, he seemed to have changed. I wrestled with doubts. Was it possible he was sorry? COULD he change? Would it be okay because he was older now?

Yes, there was that cluelessness about sexuality in older people. At the time, I thought, well, he’s in his early sixties. Of COURSE he’s no longer interested in sex…right? He was too old. Yes. Clueless.

So it was just such a confusing mess. And again, there was so little known or talked about back then about sexual abuse. I just took it one day at a time.

1993 – The third one

Somewhere in that same period, we moved to North Carolina and were very busy with all the issues and responsibilities I’ve already talked about. Meanwhile, Dad had retired, and so my parents would periodically visit different family members, and there also would be family get-togethers.

Whenever they came down our way, they seemed to be on their best behavior. No angry “second-day-of-vacation” Dad, or any whiff of inappropriate behaviors.

It is that most difficult quandary that the therapist would explain to me, that when an abuser shows both love and abuse, it is the hardest kind of situation to navigate. He said it would be easy if Dad had been all bad, because then you could just walk away with no issue. But when there is goodness and love, mixed in with the abuse, it is the hardest situation. If you fight them, you look unreasonable when they are kind. And you can never be sure which person is showing up or how to react.

I was trying to maintain a connection with my family. For a few years after I first got out of that house, I had shut everyone out completely. But as time went on, I realized that wasn’t the answer. Total avoidance, as if they were all dead, didn’t work. I loved them. While I had no desire to be reeled back into enmeshment, I was trying to find some kind of “middle ground relationship” rules.

We were also trying to give our son some semblance of extended family experiences. There was no chance of that on my husband’s side. He had no siblings or extended family. His parents were older and sickly. If there were to be any extended family connections, it would be with my family.

It was hard, for sure. Our son really liked those visits and loved seeing everyone in the family. And he thought my father, especially, was a lot of fun. I had to balance being constantly on guard with letting him enjoy his grandparents.

The visits were mostly family group get-togethers, and we always stayed at a hotel. It was the best we could do to achieve some kind of “normal,” while protecting. But it drained me. A neighbor of mine at that time observed, after we returned from one of our family gatherings, that I always came home from those trips absolutely exhausted.

As our son started to get older, I would give small amounts of information, a bit at a time, as age-appropriate. Instructions on how his body was his own and what others weren’t allowed to do to him. I’d also explain that Grandpa could be nice, but he had also been abusive and hit us when we were kids. And, of course, we never sent our son for any stay-over visits with his grandparents.

But it was hard. Especially the time our son pointed out to me that he understood that I had one set of feelings about my father, but that he had his own relationship with him, and our son wanted that relationship. On the one hand, it meant Ed and I were succeeding in giving our son that extended family experience he craved. But it made it that much harder to make sure no lines were crossed.

For a few years, things seemed okay. The dad of the past seemed to be absent. He was calmer. Gentler. I wondered if maybe retirement removed some life stressors that had driven his abusive behaviors? Had he gained some wisdom as he got older? I hoped so.

Then a communication with a sibling trashed that assumption. While he was on his best behavior around me, he might not have been so with the others in the family. He was apparently trying to spend time alone with one or another of the kids. Offering to do clothes changes. Offering things that on the surface might be innocent enough, unless you consider that he was a lifelong child abuser. And some of the kids in the family, my son included, were now around the same age that I was when Dad molested me in the car as a toddler. No small trigger point for me.

Also, about that same time, I learned that he had not been to a counselor like he said he would. He brushed it off by saying that he and my mother had gone to see a priest. Who knows if that was even true? And even if they did, to my mind, that was a useless substitute for treatment by a mental health professional for deeply ingrained abusive behavior.

It hit me full force that here was the man who sexually abused me for decades and who had not done any therapy. Given no help, why would he be any different now? He still had to be a risk.

I reacted very strongly. Afraid that I might be overlooking a real problem, I consulted our therapist. His description of my father was chilling:

“…personality disorder…antisocial behavior. Conscience and empathy were absent, or present only in small and inconsistent amounts. Even though he could be kind and caring at times, he had no ability to sustain those emotions.”

That terrified me…and it also made sense. It was why he could start out on our vacations all happy and nice, but by the second or third day, he was back to “miserable Dad,” and there would be fights. He could never sustain good behavior. And in like manner, he never got help for his abusive behaviors. So while he had been acting as the “good, changed” Dad, was it even true? Could he sustain healthy behaviors?

My siblings and I all agreed this needed to be dealt with. So I confronted him, yet again, this time in a letter. I told him clearly that he had failed to honor his word to get help. That meant he was a risk to any kids in the family. Given his failure, I told him that if he touched any of the kids in the family, I would make sure he was prosecuted and sent to jail.

Frankly, I was shaking as I did that. I didn’t even know if I had the strength to go through with that threat. I was still a work in progress myself and fragile. It hadn’t been THAT long since I got out of the system.

My own emotional power was shaky, and my self-esteem was low. Every confrontation with him, with his family system of rules, terrified me and triggered fear, anxiety attacks, and nightmares. He still could make me question my very reality. I’d second-guess my perceptions and feel guilty that I was reading things wrong and creating unnecessary discord in the family.

Also, while we all agreed he needed to be “controlled,” that unity was shaky at best. I’d get comments such as, “You need to get over this,” or “Stop living in the past.”

I’d sit there, totally confused. Was I reading this all wrong? If everyone else felt it wasn’t a problem, and that “those problems” were all in the past, were they right that I was just hanging onto my own issues from the past? Or was everyone just ignoring the elephant in the room, hoping that if nobody talked about it, it would just go away?

I so wanted to let things go. I just wanted peace in the family. But I kept coming back to two things: I knew what he was. I had experienced, firsthand, just how manipulative he could be and how much damage he did. And…there were young kids now. Even if I was overreacting, I’d rather that than risk trusting him.

Sometimes, you walk the path you feel is right, even if you walk it alone. It was just that if you add in all of those issues on top of our marital therapy, jobs, Ed’s parents’ illnesses, and our son’s needs, it was such an overwhelming time.

The family system reactions

In all fairness to everyone involved, each was doing the best they could.

Jen Cross, in her book Writing Ourselves Whole, noted that “…sexual abuse doesn’t just happen to individuals…but to families and communities.”

While I’d been my father’s “sexual target” all those years, the energy in the household touched everyone. Each was a victim in different ways. And each had to deal with that trauma and damage in their own way. The reactions to one person speaking up, or another remaining calm, silent, or enraged, can vary widely. So there are no villains here, except my father.

1993 – There will be no more silence on this

Meanwhile, Dad was apparently scared enough by my letter that he made a trip down to North Carolina to discuss my “concerns.” I requested he stay at a hotel. My mother was put out about that because they were retired and had to watch their money. This, despite the fact that they had just bought an RV and were traveling around the country, including to Alaska. But whatever.

I confronted him about the fact that he was trying to get close to kids and be alone with them, things he, as a sexual abuser, had no business doing. I blasted him for not keeping his word about getting help. And I made it clear that a priest didn’t count. As far as I was concerned, he lied. He betrayed. And as usual, there was just silence and secrets.

He apologized for the silence on the subject and said that he was now working with a woman therapist. She had given him a book to read. He promised to speak openly about this to all of us in the family and said he would keep me updated on progress. Before he left, he promised, “There will be no more silence on this.”

And that was the last he ever said about it.

Reflecting on things more recently, I’ve wondered: Had he even gone to a therapist? Or if he did, had he been honest with her? What was this book she gave to him, and did she think a book was enough to unravel the deep-seated problems of a 60+-year-old man who was a lifelong wife abuser and child molester?

But at the time, I took him at his word…even more guarded, but still hoping…

Words from the Universe

Even as I struggled to stand up to him, there seemed to be help “from beyond.” I can look back and feel there were times the Universe sent messages not to give up. I’d come across some powerful quote, a line from a book or movie, or a song lyric, that seemed to be talking directly to me.

One time, it was Madonna’s song, “Live to Tell.” To this day, that song just strikes a raw nerve in me. Its haunting lyrics just screamed out about men’s lies, secrets, and who would tell the truth.

Another time, it was a quote in an article:

“Be the woman you needed as a girl.”

(Attribution: Often attributed to various motivational writers, bloggers, and influencers, including blogger Caprice Kwai and [lifestyle writer Jayne Moore](https://www.jaynemoorenyc.com/blogs/news/be-the-woman-you-needed-as-a-girl). )

There was even Dad’s programming in me, speaking from my childhood. He drilled in things like: “You’re the oldest. You know better. You’re responsible for them.”

So, I “stood guard,” always watching and listening for any of those “familiar signals” that might indicate kids were at risk. And no matter how afraid I was of him or of a confrontation with him, if I saw something “odd,” I was going to challenge him. If his “feelings got hurt,” well, he lost the right to be given the “benefit of the doubt” a long time ago.

At that point in my life, even if I was struggling to build emotional strength, I was physically strong. I was in my prime, and that was the one quality I could always count on. If I needed to confront him, I’d harness that part of me that was the fierce, male energy. Then, afterward, I would collapse and have to rebuild myself again. But at least I could always draw on that physical power. It was my battle armor, just like Maureen Murdock wrote about in her book, *The Heroine’s Journey*:

“Our heroine puts on her armor, picks up her sword, chooses her swiftest steed, and goes into battle.”

Murdock, pg 6-7,

It’s just that underneath that armor, I was still quaking jelly inside. And my biggest fear was, “What happens if I am no longer strong?” What if my fears got the better of me? But so far, I’d been able to keep fighting him. I stayed focused on the kids, “put on my armor,” and pushed my fears to the background at the moment of battle.

My hope was to convince him that he was no longer the only power base in the family. There was a lyric in the song by the Police, “Wrapped Around Your Finger,” that I strived for — that moment when the manipulator turns white because he realizes the tables are turned, and he’s no longer in control.

So every time one of these stray messages floated into my consciousness, I absorbed them like food into a starving person. They were my gifts from God.

All through the 1990s until the early 2000s, I would remain “on guard.” Only then, with kids growing older, and Dad’s health and cognition starting to fail, did I dare start to stand down.

But before that time would come, there would be one more confrontation, the largest of all, in 1995.

Tags:family, life, love, mental-health, writing
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The Warrior Years – What About Women?

February 14, 2026

Rebirth

As impossible as it may have seemed, we made it. Despite managing marriage, parenthood, jobs, caring for his parents, and fighting mine… despite all the odds, Ed and I stuck with therapy, and it started working.

In looking back at my journal entries and talking with Ed about all the things I’ve written here, we both just shook our heads. Both of us agree that we don’t know how we did it, and that it is flat-out amazing that we made it through those years. But we did. And we are both deeply grateful now.

As our love and marriage grew stronger, it would show up in small ways. It was especially telling on one occasion when we bought a new tree for the front yard of our home. Our son said that because the tree was part of our family, it needed a name. So he promptly called it “Ralph.” I have no idea why.

But then Ed spoke up and added to its name the words, “the passion tree.” Ralph, The Passion Tree. I looked at him, and he just said, “Ralph is a symbol of our growth…a testament to the changes that are happening in both of us, and in our marriage.”

So, Ralph was rebirth…and so were we.

As an aside, Ralph grew from a 4-foot sapling into the strong tree pictured below, in spite of hurricanes, winter storms, and even the chaos of house repairs going on all around him. He thrived despite, or maybe because of, challenges. I think the same has been true of Ed and me.

With things between the two of us settling into a real partnership and a place of peace, another issue rose to the surface that needed to be dealt with.

So what about women?

My husband saw that title, laughed, and said, “That is my question every day!”

It was a moment of comic relief as I tried to tackle my Achilles-heel topic, friendships with women.

My track record wasn’t great. I was a caring person, capable of much love. I was honorable and loyal. And I wanted friends, and could be a good one. But things weren’t going well. And there were so many mixed messages operating in my head. Some came from Dad. Some from Mom, or maybe more to the point, the “lack of Mom.” And some from the unanswered questions regarding my friend and our sexual relationship.

Early programming

Dad presented a couple of problems. For one, he had drilled into me, his rules: “Don’t grow up to be a stupid woman,” and its corollary, “Don’t be weak.” He had abused and demeaned my mother. I hated him for how he treated her, and I was angry at her for allowing it. I definitely saw her as weak and was determined not to follow in her footsteps. Hence, I had my own rule: “Don’t grow up to be my mother.”

He also interfered with a very primal need – the formation of a mother-daughter bond. To be denied that connection denies any honoring of, or even awareness of, the feminine side of life. He denied me a good relationship with her, so I never learned that there was a value to it, even as I felt its loss under the surface.

She, in turn, was passive and did not protect me or try to have a deep bond with me. That reinforced my dismissive attitude toward the value of women. What I was left with was the message that power = men. Weakness, being abused, useless, and powerless = feminine. Bottom line – be male in your approach to life.

Even those old Slovak women who always said, “I str-r-r-o-n-g like bull!” were ultimately still at the mercy of the men they married. Their strength was in enduring the garbage their men handed them.

There was one exception to all of this – my high school teacher, Terry Doyle. She had shown me that there were some women who were powerful and accomplished. So if I honored anything of the feminine side, it was her role-modeling. But beyond that, I wrote off any women who could not demonstrate that quality.

Add to this the fact that during those years, I was standing guard against Dad constantly, to make sure our kids would be safe. So I was totally focused on being a warrior, girded for battle. To be weak was unacceptable.

I operated totally from the mindset that no matter what came up, as long as I was as strong as any man, I could bull through anything and keep going. As long as I was “strong,” I was safe. As long as I was strong, I could keep others safe.

In fact, I remember thinking one time, “What happens when I am no longer strong?” That thought terrified me, and I blocked it from my mind as some long-way-off-in-the-future possibility. That possibility would come up sooner than I would expect, but more on that later.

While those rules served me well at that moment against him, as far as the rest of my life, they did not. Tough is a brittle form of strength. That approach leaves no room to flex or bend, no softness to catch you and hold you in the vulnerable moments. And most especially, no awareness that vulnerability was important and necessary in life.

As far as “feminine qualities” in my life, I could feel and allow things like compassion, empathy, and gentleness in my heart. And I don’t know that I considered them “feminine” anyway. I think I thought of them more as qualities befitting an “honorable” person. It was kind of like a “chivalrous” approach. I was a warrior when I needed to be, but could be kind where it applied. I didn’t bully or take advantage of someone weaker than me. So, honorable.

But vulnerability? That was an ultimate feminine quality, and it was a non-starter. That represented danger and weakness, being conquered and controlled. So, risk being vulnerable? Never.

It never occurred to me that vulnerability WAS strength and required courage. That one could employ the idea of Yin/Yang – the balanced use of both the forceful male energy as well as the softer feminine. But then balance was a concept never recognized, respected, or taught in our house. In our house, battles just had winners or losers. You were either strong or weak.

The ultimate quandary

So with all these threads woven into my psyche, I was not very adept at knowing what to do with women. And because of that, I was facing the biggest irony in my life.

Even as I either ran from, feared, despised, or refused female friendships, I also so desperately wanted and needed them. The hunger lay beneath the surface, and I was clueless that it was driving both my attempts to reach out and hampering my ability to be successful. I didn’t trust any of it. In fact, even though I didn’t realize this either at the time, I didn’t even trust myself.

Who and what was I?

If I tell you who I am…who I REALLY am, will you still be my friend?

Women. The list of issues was long.

I made “friends” easy enough. I wanted to have friends. But I can also look back now and see the patterns. I realize I was looking for certain things in friends, all things related to my own life wounds around “Mom” and “best female friends.”

I wanted a mom, a mentor to guide me and answer the so many questions I had about life, questions that I could never talk to my own mother about. I wanted someone I could tell anything to without shame, self-consciousness, or feeling judged. And I had a deep need for mothering, protection, and the “I’ll-love-you-no-matter-what” type of loyalty and devotion. All things my mother never gave.

And then, regarding mothers, I also wanted to save them. My mother was wounded, weak, and trapped, and I had to abandon her when I left that house to save myself. On some level, I felt awful about that, and looking back, I realize I sometimes befriended women who I sensed were hurting or struggling with something in life.

While I couldn’t save my own mother, maybe I could stand by that friend so they never felt abandoned? I knew what abandonment felt like in life, and I never wanted anyone else to know that despair. If I could give them support to take charge of the issues in their lives, unlike my mother, who never did, maybe they wouldn’t end up like her?

It was also partly a cross between that honorable, chivalrous, warrior mentality of always being there for a friend in need, and those early messages I learned in church when I was growing up. I had internalized Jesus’ message of “Greater love had no man than that he lay down his life for a friend.” So those ethics were as deeply ingrained in me as the messages Dad had drummed in.

Then there was that other big lack in my life – that fun, totally best female friend of adolescence. The friend you would die for. Share anything with. Giggle over boys, discuss how to kiss them, how to do makeup, whatever. I never had this, and on some level, missed it even if I didn’t know it or admit it.

And there was the huge well of shame. I carried secrets. No one knew the kinds of things I’d done in life or had to do. The self-hate I felt because of that past. Even if a friend DID like me, would she still feel the same way if I told her the WHOLE story?

It was not a prescription for success. I wanted to be able to just tell a friend all the secrets of my life. First, it was like a test of my worth: If I tell you who I REALLY am, what I’ve done, will you still be my friend?

Second, I wanted a woman’s perspective on the things I’d done in life. I had a therapist, but he was male. And though I did work with a woman therapist and a women’s group for a bit, I can look back and know it wasn’t enough. I wanted the compassion and caring of a close friend. Empathy over what had happened.

So that hunger under the surface for a mom and best friend drove my interactions with an energy and intensity that either put people off or gave the wrong impression. If I shared that I’d had a sexual relationship with another woman and her husband, I wanted acceptance and answers as to why it had happened. But would they know that? Or would they think I was looking for another one of those relationships?

If I wanted a friendship with someone in particular because she seemed kind, protective, or fun, did my neediness show? Those emotions can overwhelm someone and drive them away. People sense a need that is “too big,” that they know isn’t about them, and that they cannot fill. So they back off.

When friendships wouldn’t work out, I would feel like a true failure. Broken, rejected, and even less willing to trust someone in the future. So, I would just give up for a while. Until I met another person who truly seemed like THIS TIME, the friendship could work. But I would navigate it all so mechanically, in such a klunky way, all because of that giant well of hurt, abandonment, and longing for that feminine connection.

Did I understand ANY of this back then? No.

Nor did I understand the source of the fear lurking in the back of my brain about that earlier friendship. Could that sexual relationship issue from the past rear its ugly head again? That had been such a powerful force that came out of nowhere and blindsided me. I wasn’t looking for it now. But could it happen again anyway? I was terrified.

So, I talked with Ed about it.

I know who you are

“So you aren’t worried?”

“No.”

His response amazed me. “But…why not?!”

“Because I know you…I know who you are.”

I had shared my fears with Ed about not knowing why that sexual relationship with my friend had happened. If I didn’t know that, would it happen again? That he wasn’t worried mystified me.

But there it was – the crux of it. Or at least part of it. HE knew me. But I had no idea who I was. I felt like someone who’d been caught in the vortex of those powerful life forces. And I never wanted to be at the mercy of that again. But how could I be sure?

I only knew I was battling self-loathing from the past. Confusion over how things could just blindside you. Confusion even about my own identity at that point. I knew I had always found men…the male body…the draw for me. And still did. So WHY did I end up in a sexual relationship with a woman? Was I “bi?”

But then, even that wasn’t the real issue. Sexual identity didn’t matter. Because at the end of the day, I was committed to my husband, totally. I knew we were soulmates. But I was afraid that whatever powerful outside force that drove me before might someday come along again and put things at risk. Did the power of sex allow for choice?

Ed looked at me with no concern, almost mystified at my own frantic worries.

“Look. We committed to each other. And certainly, there are times when we might find ourselves attracted to another. That’s normal. But we chose to be together.”

I calmed as I listened to him. Everything he said was absolutely true.

“Our marriage is about so much more than just sex. And we didn’t get married to step out on each other. If that changes down the road, then we need to have a serious conversation about our future.”

Again, all true. There were no secrets between us. And there had never been any betrayals. But I marveled at his certainty. And trust. Not of himself. But of me. The truth was, he DID know me — frankly, he’d always known me better than I knew myself.

“I think you see sex as some all-consuming, uncontrollable, outside force. It’s just sex. And you can choose or not choose. But you ARE in control. It’s just that all your life, your father taught you that it was uncontrollable.”

That one was like a rap on the head that snapped me into awareness. He nailed it. I DID always see sex as this “energy” to be feared. Something “outside of me” that had all the power.

But then, given that it had always been forced on me, why wouldn’t I think of it that way? Dad had conveyed it as a “must have,” the most important thing at all costs. So, of course, I would see it as having all the control over a person. It sure did for Dad.

But Ed was right. That wasn’t who I was. I didn’t want anyone else. I never did. In my fear, I was looking to protect our commitment. Yet that still left the question, if sex was controllable, why had that episode happened with my friend and her husband?

I sensed that the key to putting this to rest was rooted in a need to understand it all.

It was EXPECTED…

In sharing all of this with our therapist, he wasn’t the least bit surprised…or disturbed. In fact, he said it made total sense.

I was glad it made sense to somebody.

First, he put sex in its proper place. “Nobody NEEDS sex to survive.”

Wow. Given Dad’s driven approach to molesting me, THOSE words were revolutionary.

“You need food. Water. Air. Sleep. Those are survival. Sex, while nice, is NOT required for survival.”

My mind reeled not just at that fact, but that here was a MAN saying that sex isn’t everything!

“Second,” he said, “that relationship you had was a natural outgrowth of what you went through. In fact, I am just amazed that, for what you survived, you were even willing to let another human being close to you. Despite it all, you were willing to be open to take in ‘love’ from someone. That was amazing. You were RESILIENT.”

Resilient…I was speechless. I had carried such shame, and here he was complimenting me. And I was just amazed that not only was that whole past relationship something he actually EXPECTED, but that he even saw something POSITIVE in.

He went on to explain that because I’d been denied the chance to go through that period in early adolescence of exploration and experimentation, I didn’t have a chance to learn “who I was.” He said those are the years when teens start to figure out who they are, who they are attracted to, and their sexual identity. It’s a time to experiment to find out what is right for you. I hadn’t gone through that, and there was no “getting around that.” If you didn’t go through it then, you would have to later. And since I didn’t get to experience that in my early teens but later as a mature sexual adult, it made total sense that the relationship turned sexual.

“So even though you were an adult at the time of that relationship, emotionally, you were still a child.”

I just sat there taking it all in. At that point, he thought I would benefit from working with the women’s group there and referred me to the therapist who led the group.

Terror returned. It was one thing to say these things in the privacy of our therapy session with just the doctor, my husband, and me present. But now, tell these things to a whole group of women? Would they judge and shame me?

So I arranged for a private appointment with the therapist who led the women’s group. I wanted to get her take on things.

The therapist weighs in

“So. When am I supposed to be shocked?”

The therapist smiled, adjusted her glasses, and looked across her desk at me. Her eyes, though boring right into mine, were filled with kindness.

“It all makes perfect sense. It’s not a problem.”

As with our regular therapist, I just sat there amazed at the “normalcy” that she viewed all of this with.

“In fact, if you had told me you never experienced this kind of relationship, I would have thought you were lying.”

It seemed that everyone else…but me… understood why I had responded the way I did with my friend.

The doctor continued. Even though I was in my twenties at the time of that relationship, I was emotionally a pre-adolescent, a phase of life development my father had prevented me from going through.

“It is not uncommon for teens, and especially teen girls, to go through a phase of falling in love with their friends. A same-sex attraction sometimes. At that age, it might or might not be acted on, and eventually, the teen discerns who they are and who they are attracted to. You had not been allowed to go through that phase until you were an adult. So when you go through that phase in an adult body with adult needs, it isn’t unexpected that it becomes sexual.”

Emotions swirled through me. Gratitude for such logical, helpful information. The ebbing away of all that shame and guilt I’d carried. Consternation at all I hadn’t learned in life. Relief to understand, finally.

Regarding relationships, she explained that Dad’s abuse of me made so much of my early programming about relationships sexual. I had little role-modeling for different kinds of relationships, i.e., sexual, platonic, friends, different kinds of friends, etc. So I was just trying to figure out my way around all of this.

And as to sexual identity, she added that nothing in life is black and white. Sexuality is on a continuum, with very few people being either strictly gay or heterosexual. Most fall somewhere in between.

As she spoke, I could feel some of that terror around my whole history subside. There was so much I hadn’t known or understood about what forces were driving me at that time. Her kind explanations made so much sense. And even about one’s identity – if everything else in life was on a continuum — weight, height, looks, etc., why not sexual identity?

When we finished our session, she had two requests of me. She wanted me to share my truth with a couple of close friends. She felt it was important that I be who I was and not be ashamed. Also, she wanted me to share all of this in the women’s group because she felt there were others who might benefit from hearing my story.

In spite of wanting to run the other way, I did what she asked. It was a first attempt to stretch my courage and ability to trust other women. And also to see that true friends would not be at all put off by my truth, which they weren’t.

Also, her requests gave me my first experience with another revolutionary concept — vulnerability. In contrast to the belief system in my house that to be vulnerable was to be weak or “too sensitive,” I started to realize just how much strength and courage it takes to be vulnerable to and open with another. That is a trait definitely NOT for the faint of heart.

Since then, I have had other occasions to face being open with friends. And sometimes, that openness would be “misunderstood.” But then, maybe those individuals were never meant to be true friends after all.

But each effort was another lesson in learning the art of friendship. It would take years. A lifetime of closely held shame, fear, and defensiveness doesn’t melt away after one effort. But it was a beginning.

So why tell my friends, or even write it here, now?

Because…it was my life. My truth. And it didn’t deserve to be shamed by me or anyone else.

Because I am tired of carrying secrets.

Because I don’t want to live behind a facade or some fairytale story, I didn’t live when telling people about my past. I don’t need to proclaim it from a street corner to all.

But if I am to be free of the ghosts of the past, I just need to…be…me. And end the shame and the hiding. I didn’t choose my past. He chose it for me. But I CAN choose my present.

As to friendships in general with women, I would still have more to resolve yet. The mechanical approach, insecurity, and clinginess still needed healing. But at least this one question about why that relationship happened had some answers. And I could begin to make my peace with it.

Resilience

In a Fresh Air interview with Tonya Mosley, Jane Fonda talked about her own broken relationship with her mother, and about the struggles it caused. They came to the topic of resilience, and Fonda shared what she learned in her own sessions:

“Resilience is such an interesting thing…resilience is when a young child who is not getting love at home kind of – there’s a radar that’s scanning the horizon. If there’s a warm body that maybe could love her or teach her something, you go there. You find love where you can. You find support where you can. That’s a resilient child.”

Fresh Air Interview – 9/2/25 Jane Fonda with Tonya Mosley

So, to quote Ed’s and my therapist, I was …resilient. I had been brave enough to risk letting love in from someone.

Instead of a condemnation, it was an affirmation of …strength. It felt so good…

Now, having laid out all the many things happening during the early years of our marriage, the next item is about dealing with Dad, and those warrior years of adulthood…

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The Warrior Years – Stretched Too Thin – The End of a Friendship

February 9, 2026

The mid-90s were hell on wheels in terms of intensity.

Ed and I were doing the marital classes and working to build a new relationship between us. Our son was having trouble at school. There were stresses with bills and jobs. Ed’s parents were getting sicker, which required periodic trips home, and we were also doing regular therapy to focus on our specific issues and my healing from abuse. Oh, and yes, we were waging battles again with my dad about his interactions with the kids in the family. Then, my friend called.

That phone call

I was about to step into the shower.

My husband stood in the bathroom doorway. “She’s on the phone.”

Every fiber in my body cringed. She’d been my friend. She helped nurture me when I was suicidal. She helped me over the hurdle of sex. But things had not been right for a long time.

For one, she seemed to change and view me as competition after I had my son. It was as if becoming a mom put me in a different category. To me, it was like I ceased being the person she defended and protected, and my son was now her goal. She seemed to think he needed protecting from me as I was now a “mother.” Had I become all those other mothers out there that her daughter’s friends complained to her about? Or her own mom, with whom she had so many unresolved issues?

All I knew was that she would act like she was the better mother, and I wasn’t doing it well enough. And instead of helping me find my footing and confidence as a new mom, there was a demeaning attitude.

Then, with the ferocity of her reaction because I changed her from being his guardian during her divorce, that pretty much severed things. For the last year we lived in Connecticut, we barely saw each other…until the night before I left, when she sobbed.

Despite all that, she had been down to visit once or twice since we’d moved to North Carolina. From the first visit, I just didn’t feel safe with her. It wasn’t a sexual thing – that was long since over. But emotionally, I felt unsafe. And throughout the visit, she was criticizing everything about North Carolina.

The next time she came to visit, it seemed to cause problems between Ed and me. After she left, he shared how, during one conversation between him and me, after I left the room, she shot him a look best described as a demeaning sneer. He didn’t make a big deal of it, just noted the observation.

But I knew that look, and that side of her. When he told me that she had acted that way toward him, I was angry. I was starting to see that the relationship was unhealthy, co-dependent even. So when she had called a couple more times recently about coming to visit, I begged off. I just couldn’t deal with it. Even without our growing differences, it was just an intense time with all we were dealing with. I expect I didn’t get that across well, or maybe I did and it didn’t matter. Her tart response was, “Don’t put yourself out.”

It was such a struggle. I was a loyal person, and I deeply appreciated what my friend had done for me in life. And I had tried to be there for her, too, over the years. I had done my best to support her through bad times in her marriage, helped out with chores when she was overloaded, and I had been there for her through her illness. And I tried to stay friends for a long time in spite of our growing differences. But things were never right after I’d become a mother, and that whole guardianship issue. More and more, I noticed attitudes from her that I didn’t like or agree with. And at this point, there was just too much going on.

So when my husband stood there in the doorway and said, “She’s on the phone,” all I could do was look at him with total exhaustion and say, “I can’t do this anymore. Please tell her I can’t come to the phone.”

I think I expected that at some point I would call her back. But it just kept getting put off. Things had been too much. The relationship felt wrong. And I had been stretched too thin. There was nothing left. The thread binding us just…let go.

I regret I didn’t have the courage or energy to just say that outright to her. But at that point, I was doing the best I could to hold things together.

Full disclosure

Sometime after that, I decided to share with Ed the full nature of that relationship and the sexual encounter. I didn’t have to. That had long since been left behind, and it was before he and I ever met.

But the more we did our therapy, the more we were learning just how much our pasts caused problems in our current life. And the more we opened up to each other about so many things from our backgrounds.

It suddenly occurred to me that my relationship over the years with my friend also needed to be opened up between us. I didn’t have to. What happened between her, me, and her husband was long since in the past. And had happened before I ever met Ed. But I just felt like the whole nature of how that affected me — my life, my friendships with women in general, something Ed had noticed too — needed to be aired. I wanted all of my life to be a known quantity and was willing to risk total honesty.

To this day, I prefer full disclosures between him and me. If there’s an issue, let’s put it on the table and hash it out. No avoiding things, and definitely NO SECRETS between us. I’d lived a lifetime of secrets in that house. I was not interested in keeping anything from him that could cause a future problem. So I put the story of that relationship on the table. And I made it clear I owned my part in it. I may have been vulnerable and not very “sophisticated,” but I wasn’t a child.

He reacted well and didn’t hold that against me. I think it surprised him, but he didn’t judge me. His comment was simply, “She saw you coming. She was older. You were vulnerable.”

In the many years since then, I have had time to work on the nature of my issues with that relationship and with my friendships with women in general. Later, I will write about what I have finally grown to understand. But for now, I will just speak about the friendship issues as they stood at that moment, and the complexity of the therapy work Ed and I were doing.

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The Warrior Years – Marriage – 1 – “The Breaking”

February 2, 2026

Is it possible to go from an abusive household with no role modeling for healthy relationship skills and have a successful marriage?

I can’t answer for anyone else. I can only say, for us, it was not a given, no matter how much we loved each other.

Is it even relevant?

What do you say about the issues in your early years of marriage, when you are writing about them from 40+ years out? From having navigated struggles and joys, successes, near-death episodes, and all that life can throw at you? When I think of who we were back then compared to now, we were almost more like strangers.

So does it even feel relevant to look back?

Yes…

Yes…because writing this memoir is partly about putting all the broken pieces of my life’s picture back together and seeing what it can teach me in the present moment. And at least for me, those lessons come through clearest when I view them through the lens of that shared past.

Yes…because there is never a place you reach where you can say “we got it knocked now and we’re all set. We know it all.” Being humans, we are always changing, and hopefully, learning. Even now, this many years out, each day is always a journey of mindful teamwork – sometimes easy because of the work from 40+ years of previous “negotiations. But sometimes just as strenuous as the beginning, because we keep changing as we enter different phases of life. And those changes mean we still need to stop, take stock, and sometimes shift or renegotiate things. You don’t raise a plant and then say, “Enough, I don’t need to tend it anymore.” If something is “alive,” you always need to do some tending, or it will die. And if anything is a living, breathing thing, it is a relationship. I may kill plants, but I don’t want to kill my marriage.

Yes…because all of that means you never stop paying attention to the person you love and walk through life with, and noticing growth and change. It is that very past knowledge that lets you see anything new emerging. And it is always possible for something new, wonderful, and interesting to be found in your beloved, through attention and curiosity.

Yes…because sometimes there are issues, struggles, or discords that have been there for a lifetime, and something in the current moment finally explains it all. That discovery brings depth and peace to that lifelong struggle, and an appreciation for the willingness of both parties to sustain through it all.

Yes…because those early struggles set the foundation for how and why we are still together. The tools used to build that foundation are just as useful for continued “maintenance.”

Yes…because there was a lot that was GOOD, and those things, properly fed and nurtured, saw us through a lot of ills. It is equally important to go back and see all the good and celebrate it.

And yes…because it is the “accumulated history” that urges you to continue, and gives the perspective of that whole past as you consider what to do with the future.

For each of these, you go back to go forward.

So what was going on?

Given the number of years, memories, and events we have walked through, it almost seemed overwhelming to figure out where to start or how to capture the essence. So I did what I always do – Mindmap it. Just empty out every idea that comes to mind and then look for patterns and truths.

My first pass yielded this map, with positives on one end, negatives on the other, and “differences between us” in the middle. And I will note that differences aren’t necessarily bad or good. They can be both, depending on the situation.

Then I had an idea for another way to look at it all. What was in our marriage, good and bad, and what was battering us from outside?

THIS made it so much clearer for me. I will come back to the center part, the “bonded core,” in another entry. But first, this let me see at a glance just how many challenges and issues were arrayed against us. And those were over and above the usual ones of jobs, money, parenthood, no help or support, and just plain survival.

We had internal issues that were causing friction, but with no role modeling from our families of origin, with no tools for how to handle problems, no idea what was wrong, and no idea that there even WERE tools to help, the stress intensified.

Then there were our respective families and what they left us with: Scars of abuse; PTSD, even though I had no idea what that was or that it was operating in me; wounds like emotional abandonment, lack of mothering for both of us, triggers from being manipulated, and low self-esteem. And of course, the biggies: no communication skills. His household was silent and manipulative. Mine was violent, loud, and manipulative. And instilled in both of us, operating in stealth, were the automatic “house rules,” those internalized, unspoken, unshared, automatic “rules of engagement.” Those were the inner beliefs and methods we were each taught in our homes that affected how we reacted to things, even though we didn’t realize it.

With all of that aligned AGAINST us, I am still absolutely amazed we made it.

In fact, re-reading my journal entry from September 5, 1995, we almost didn’t.

And while it was an “internal” issue – sex – that nearly broke us, its roots were thickly embedded in deep scar material from that “external” abusive past…

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The Warrior Years – “Team Rules”

January 31, 2026

Priorities, “triage,” and setting up the “base camp”

For any successful team to operate, there must be an agreed-upon set of rules and priorities. And Ed and I were a team. So, during this “adult” phase, we had five priorities:

Survival
Our marriage
Our son
Heal into a strong, healthy life
Break the family cycle and protect the kids from Dad

Nothing else mattered. Not career. Not money. In our house, the iron-clad rule that reigned supreme for these years was:

Kids’ needs first.

Their survival, their wellbeing, their safety.

Yes, my past may have been strewn with wreckage that still needed fixing if I were going to be an effective wife, parent, and human being.

Yes, we had marital issues that were threatening to break us. So if we were going to make it, those had to be dealt with.

Yes, there was so much that I still needed to learn from the past and the present to catch up to everyone else.

Yes, I had unresolved trauma from my past that was locked away, so deeply buried that I didn’t even know it existed.

And yes, Ed and I did not want to create future problems because we did not address the ones from the past or the present.

The dilemma? With only so many hours in a day, what issue(s) should be tackled first? Between jobs and life needs, there was no way to do them all at once.

The answer was triage. Each moment was a constantly rotating set of decisions as to which priority to address first. And always, if it was immediately necessary for our son’s welfare, that issue came first. It was the best we could do.

So some days it was working on a personal issue, another day it was a marital one, and in between, it was learning the life skills to navigate better. We would take care of the latest, most pressing need first. Then catch the others later.

But the important thing we agreed upon was that there WOULD be a later for those deferred issues, even if later might be years. For my buried trauma, that later would be a couple of decades. And I think in a lot of ways, that was for the best, and my “buried trauma” knew that. Before I would be able to face any of that, I needed to “secure the home front first,” protect our kids from Dad, and develop tools and skills along the way. So those deepest of wounds knew it wasn’t time, and stayed silent.

For now, the first necessity was getting us to North Carolina for the hope of a better, less stressful life. And like any new adventure, first you get there and set up your base camp, then you explore…

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The Biggest Risk of Our Lives…

January 28, 2026

THAT phone call…

Sitting at the dining room table, I stared across the room and studied my husband’s face. He was seated at the desk in the living room, speaking on the phone. I watched every expression for a hint as to the “bottom line” of this call. The conversation seemed pleasant. The call was brief.

Hanging up the phone (Yes, this is before cell phones), Ed turned to me and said,

“Well, the job in North Carolina is ours if we want it….Do we want it?”

Never has there been more of a pregnant pause between us…not even the time I called him when I was actually pregnant….

1989 – 1990 and baby milestones

Late spring not only eased up in terms of weather and outside temperatures, but also our son’s moods. There were still many challenges, but we actually managed to overcome his hatred of baby applesauce and discovered he loved carrots and sweet potatoes.

Also, his awareness of things around him started to expand. He recognized the pizza delivery boxes and demanded crusts to chew on. And when I would pick up Asian food, he reacted to the aroma of lo mein flooding the car with intensity. First, it was a quiet “litany of “nam, nam, nam,” then he would say the words louder, until finally he started to wail because he wanted some RIGHT THAT MOMENT, and we weren’t home yet! Minor detail. Also, the dog had finally stopped living behind the bed. She had discovered that sitting by our son’s high chair meant food.

He had his own very definite words for things. Planes overhead were “Mios,” and a

truck was, yes, “F-ck!” Try explaining that one in a restaurant when he is yelling that one out loud when a truck drives by. Sure gets a lot of “looks.”

He also discovered crawling that spring. The more he crawled, the less he screamed. I sometimes wonder if the screaming was more about being bored and having to just lay around. Once he could get himself across a room, he was a lot happier. In fact, he didn’t stay in the crawling stage long because by nine months, he discovered you could pull yourself up and WALK! And everything I thought I had child-proofed, he proved me wrong!

But anyway, during the summer, his crawling skills coincided with the vacation trip we planned to Colonial Williamsburg and to Research Triangle Park (RTP) in North Carolina. Which meant hours strapped into a car seat right at the time he no longer wanted to sit still. Whereas before, a ride in the car could soothe him and he would sleep, now, you guessed it…more irate yelling. But, whatever.

That tube of toothpaste

The part of the trip to North Carolina came about strangely. We had pondered it after the therapist mentioned it as a good place for us to consider relocating to. But we hadn’t made any definite plans…until that tube of toothpaste I bought one weekend.

On the tube was a coupon. It was for a FREE WEEKEND at a new hotel in RTP. It was part of a grand-opening promotion. Given that, we figured, “Why not take them up on it?” So we made a side trip to RTP, North Carolina

It was a nice area. We’d never been to North Carolina before. Unlike the cloudy skies and compact geography of New England, here it was all sunny, wide-open vistas. True to the therapist’s description, the research park was packed with various computer, pharmaceutical, electronics, and research companies, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. There were also three major universities in the area – Duke, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and North Carolina State University – along with a few smaller ones. The three cities of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill kind of blended together into a decent-sized metropolitan area. And yet, the traffic seemed mild.

Ed went out one weekday morning to see how bad the morning rush hour was, and…he couldn’t find it. It is much different now for sure, but at that point, there was hardly any traffic in the mornings. A major point in its favor.

We were intrigued. But like all major changes, there was also a lot of resistance to making such a move. Or at least a lot of questions and uncertainties. So we put it on the back burner for the moment.

The “Mom competition?”

That fall, my son and I took a trip to Vermont with my friend. By now, I was pretty used to his VERY vocal “protests” at being strapped into his car seat. But she was not. At first, I think she thought I just wasn’t handling it right, and she was trying to solve the screaming problem. After a few hours, she gave up. I will admit that when his screaming gave her a headache by the time we got home, I was not totally sympathetic, as I was growing tired of being viewed as “not as good at this mothering thing as she was.”

Still, I viewed that more as a “kind of sibling competition,” one of those places in a friendship that just isn’t perfect, and I tried to ignore it. She had always been there through the worst times, and through my “transition” into a fully sexual being. And I had been there through a severe illness she had. She had been my very loyal supporter and protector. And even though there seemed to be a shift in our relationship after I became a mom, I just let it go. Until her comment.

The comment

Visiting one day, she made a passing comment that she would make sure to keep an eye on things and “*protect my son from me*.”

I was blown away…and had no idea why she said that. I didn’t say anything at the moment. But I pondered it and was determined to get that one clarified soon.

I knew that there was energy around the whole “Mom” thing. Aside from her comments to me and seeming “competition,” I knew she liked to be the “good mom” to all of her daughters’ friends. Anytime they would come by and complain about their moms, she would sit down and commiserate with them, almost trying to be their buddy. And I knew she’d had a fractured relationship with her own mom, who had treated her very meanly at times.

When she made that comment to me, I wondered if suddenly she saw me not as a friend but some kind of “adversary.” But as it turned out, I never had to deal with it because something else really fractured our friendship that fall.

The fracture

She was our son’s guardian. Despite this new competitive friction over “mothering prowess,” I’d never had a question about having her in that role. But about this time, long-simmering things in her marriage came to a head and really began to unravel.

Watching things get worse and more unpredictable, I saw two things very clearly: 1 – She needed to be free to do whatever she needed to get through a divorce and take care of herself. 2 – We couldn’t leave our son in a situation like that. His nature was such that he really needed structure and stability. If something happened to Ed and me, we couldn’t leave him in the turbulence that might accompany a drawn-out divorce.

So, in spite of my sorrow to make that change, I wanted to do the best for both my friend and our son. But when I spoke to her, that conversation did NOT go well, and she did not see it the way I did. Instead, she was deeply hurt and angry. I was upset and tried to explain. She was still a powerful friend for me. And if it were something that only affected me, I would never have pushed my opinion. But where my son was concerned, I made my choice and stuck to it.

Nothing was working

About the same time, I got very sick. I had contracted a respiratory infection from the Vermont trip. Not only could I not get over it, but I kept getting worse. No matter what antibiotic they gave me, I got sicker and sicker. By December, I went to the ER, and they hospitalized me for pneumonia in two lobes of my lung.

In the hospital, I was failing to respond to any treatment. And I was scared. I was a bacteriologist. I knew exactly how sick I was and that nothing was working. Would I live to see my son grow up?

Finally, the doctor decided to put me on a powerful IV antibiotic that actually burned my veins. But it started to work. It took a few days, but I finally started to turn a corner.

Through it all, my friend never once came to see me. And she offered no help to Ed. With me in the hospital, he was trying to juggle his insanely demanding job, take care of our son at night, visit me, and do all the daycare runs.

She did offer once, after I was home, to pick my son up from daycare. But as the day got later and the daycare closing time approached, I called her. She had forgotten and was out of town. So I ended up bundling up and going to get him myself.

The fateful question

Meanwhile, Ed was busy trying to find a better job situation. In early 1990, he flew to Atlanta to interview for a job. Aside from the fact that it was, at best, a lateral move, he was so sick on that trip that when he returned, he told me we weren’t moving to Atlanta if it was the last job on earth. Which turned out to be fate, maybe? We found out a bit later that the job he interviewed for was eliminated.

Instead, after several attempts and only finding temporary jobs with no relocation benefits, he finally saw one right in RTP. It was for a computer company working with the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. And it had relocation benefits as well as a raise.

After doing one or two phone interviews, they flew him down for a day, then told him they would let him know.

And so, on that fateful day when the short phone conversation ended, and he posed that question, “Do we want the job?” it was now “Put-up-or-shut-up” time.

I remember we both stared at each other for a long moment. Connecticut was where we were both born and where we had lived our whole lives. We would be leaving behind everything we knew. And we didn’t have enough money to come back if this was a wrong decision. Also, we knew no one in North Carolina, so there was no support system.

But to be honest, we didn’t really have one in Connecticut either. It had become plain to Ed and me that our success or failure depended on our being a solid team and doing it ourselves. Add to it the fact that both the economy and the job market in Connecticut were getting worse.

After that long, pregnant pause, I remember saying to him, “Well…things aren’t getting any better up here. What have we got to lose?”

And so began the biggest risk of our lives. It would be a major trajectory change for all of us – not just professionally, but also for our marriage, parenthood, dealing with my parents, everything.

Looking back, I now know it was the best decision of our lives. But at that point, we only knew we were rolling the dice on a one-way trip, and we had to make it work.

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It Might Be You

January 15, 2026

Please, no more computer people!

It was the summer of 1985. I had resumed the dating service and met several generally nice men. I say “generally” because a few were just “non-starters,” but certainly not harmful.

There was the divorced man who spent all of our supper date talking about his ex-wife. No, thank you.

And the one who kept calling me to arrange to meet, but could never quite figure out if he wanted to because he also wanted to go play paintball with his friends. After several rounds of this, I told him to go play paintball and stop calling.

But the absolute “best” of the non-starters was the computer engineer who worked in the same company my father had. We met for lunch at a burger place. I’d been running around all morning and skipped breakfast, so when we met up, I was ready for my burger and fries.

As we talked, or rather, I TRIED to start a conversation, I made short work of my lunch. He was rather …aloof? No matter what I asked, it was one or two-word answers. I mentioned that my father worked at the same company that he did.

No response. Oh, he did note that I had finished my lunch quickly and said, “Gee, you eat a lot.”

I looked at him, and decided to laugh off his comment. Instead, I said, “This is nothing! You should see me with a 2 1/4-pound baked stuffed lobster!

Again, no response.

The dating service told me that he was building his own house. I figured THAT at least might be something he’d be excited to talk about. One of the guys I worked with in the hospital lab was building a house. All you had to do was ask him how it was going, and you were guaranteed 30 minutes of updates. So I thought that might work with this guy.

“I hear you are building your own house.”

“Yes.”

“Well, what is it like?”

Silence. Then he said, “It’s 2200 square feet.”

I must have looked either surprised or disgusted, because then he added the absolute finishing touch:

“Do you understand the concept of square feet?”

So many responses flooded my brain all at once that I was speechless for a moment. The absolute condescension and mocking tone totally enraged me. Four years of college in advanced sciences and…dammit, yes, of COURSE I understood square feet!

Anyway, at that point, I had decided this date was a wash, and he was a jerk. So I delivered my response slowly and deliberately, lacing each word with sarcasm:

“Yes. I understand the concept of square feet…So. Is it 2200 square feet STRAIGHT UP AND DOWN, OR DID YOU SPREAD IT OUT AT ALL?!”

That knocked him back a bit, and he stumbled to answer, giving a little more description. But by that point, I didn’t care if it was a pig sty. I was done.

When I got home, I called the dating service and left them a message: “PLEASE DONT’ SEND ME ANY MORE COMPUTER PEOPLE.”

I had dated a few of them by that point, and to a person, they couldn’t hold a decent conversation. No…more…computer…people!

It Might Be You

My overall sense of well-being was getting stronger that summer. If there was anything I felt at that point, it was just a growing longing for a something a bit more involved. It was nice getting to meet different professional men and learn about them. But…I could feel things shifting in me.

It really hit me one day when I was driving and the song, “It Might Be You” by Stephen Bishop, came on the radio. It was the theme song from the movie “Tootsie,” with Dustin Hoffman. A comedy and love story. The song’s lyrics and yearning tones exuded all the emptiness I felt. If only there were someone to share all the love I had in my heart. If only…

The new “Introduction”

By that point, it was August of 1985…almost 22 months since I’d moved out of my parents’ home and into my condo. It had been a hell of a ride. So much chaos and pain. Destabilizing. Despair. Depression. Trial and error. It was a lot to absorb and process. But I was hanging in there and just kept going.

A couple of weeks after my call to the dating service, I received their familiar yellow note in the mail with a new “Introduction” for me to consider. Someone named Edward Bailey, who lived in West Hartford. That sounded interesting, so I called the dating service to learn more about him.

They shared his age, a bit younger than me, but not a lot. And then they said what almost killed things before he might have had a chance:

“He’s a computer software consultant for a Boston company.”

I gritted my teeth and sighed. Computer consultant. God help me.

The “family-style” restaurant

I don’t know why I even told them I would agree to hear from him, but I guess it was more like, Who knows. A miracle? But I wasn’t hopeful.

We had trouble connecting with each other at first because he was always on the road to troubleshoot software problems at different sites. And I worked second shift. So we played telephone tag for a bit, leaving messages on each other’s answering machines. Yes, that was the era of answering machines.

But one night I came home, and the message was a bit different. He had programmed his answering machine to talk to my answering machine. It was hysterical. I admit, I was intrigued. THIS computer guy was actually FUNNY.

We finally managed after a couple of weeks to connect on the phone, at which point we talked FOR ALMOST TWO HOURS! I was in awe. Shock, actually.

I remember that I kept asking, “So, you’re a COMPUTER PERSON??” He was so different than any of the others. I figured he had to be on the wrong career path.

And I will simply add, as an aside, I think that in his heart, he is not “totally” a computer person. I think he’s always been more of an artist type, a more emotional, and a sensitive man. But computers were where the jobs and money were, he was good at it, so he put aside his other interests and went into software consulting. I could relate. I wanted to be a writer, but my hospital job paid the bills. Both of us came from really modest backgrounds, and our particular jobs were our tickets to something better. You do what you have to do to survive and put your dreams aside.

In any event, after talking for a long time, we agreed it might be nice to get together. And then I said what almost killed things for him before we got started. I suggested this small cozy place in Farmington to meet at for supper. I loved the place because it was like a diner-tavern, intimate, relaxed…a comfortable place to sit, eat, talk, and not be rushed.

But in trying to convey it was not a fancy place, I described it as, “It’s a ‘family-style’ restaurant.” His impression, which he laughed about later when he told me, was that “family-style” meant it wasn’t going to be much of a fun date.

However, I guess we were both willing to put aside our doubts, roll the dice, and see what might happen. So we agreed to meet…

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So, What Next?

January 11, 2026

Time for a new mind map

After the chaos of the winter months of 1984, I’d like to say things quieted down, and I could then just proceed in therapy to full healing and live happily ever after. For sure, at the time I thought it worked that way — if I worked REALLY hard, fast, and fiercely, I could get over all of this quickly and be “normal” and healed. That statement alone indicates just how far from understanding myself and the situation, I really was.

Yes, I had stabilized and was no longer suicidal. And that was no small achievement. But it just meant I had finally landed at the bottom of that abyss, the crash hadn’t killed me, and I was now standing upright on two legs facing a mountain whose top was obscured by a heavy bank of clouds. I had no idea then just how high that mountain was or that I would still be climbing it today.

Anyway, given the rapidity of changes and experiences I’d undergone in the few months since leaving my parents’ house, this seemed like the perfect place to stop and do a status check. As a former lab person, when I feel overwhelmed by so many thoughts coming all at once, or confused about how to clearly tell the story next, I reach for my strongest talisman, and I make another mind map. Then, with all my thoughts spread out on the paper in front of me, I can see what they tell me — both about the things I was aware of then, and the things I realize only now, as I look back.

To spare anyone the craziness of reading that map, I will distill the essence of what it told me. I think three main things were operating…driving me…in the spring and summer of 1984: Emotional issues, physical needs, and one big problem — sex. Of course. It was the ever-present elephant in the room. But first, the other two.

Emotions

In terms of emotions, there was so much whipping me around. I had just been through a meat-grinder of an experience, riding out the storm of whether to go on living or end it all. Now that I had decided to hang around, there were the issues of how to form a life for myself, especially when you have no idea how to do that.

First, it’s hard to live a happy life without “relationships.” Even for simple friendships, I had no real idea of how to do that well. For all of my life, I’d been cut off from having anyone “close” to me. There had been none of those teen sleep-overs and BFF experiences where you stay up all night baring your soul and talking about “everything.” And it would take me years to understand just how big a loss that was, how it stunted my emotional maturity and development, and how it would drive my needs and decisions very shortly, and for many years to come.

I knew I longed for someone. I FELT such a need for a “mother,” older sister, BFF, trusted confidant, protector, even as I couldn’t articulate that back then. But I’d had none of these growing up, and I FELT its effects driving my actions. I was lonely and insecure, and when I did get a good friend, I clung to them for dear life, desperate that they might abandon me. And I needed outside validation that I had worth, or even to know what was up or down, right or wrong. I didn’t trust friends. I didn’t trust me, even as I didn’t realize it then.

Regarding trust, why would I TRUST anyone after what happened to me? The very people I should have been able to trust most – my parents – betrayed and destroyed that. As to self-confidence, given that anything I had ever felt or thought, my father discredited and replaced with his own programming, I didn’t feel I could make my own choices. And since he raised me to serve him and his needs, I was not brought up to see myself as a separate person. I wasn’t allowed to have my own needs, sense of self, or personal power, much less that I was allowed to use it or know how. I was trained that to follow my own path was hurtful to others and I should always defer to their wisdom.

So I felt the effects of these things and operated from that broken core. I knew I was broken. I just didn’t know how badly or what was causing it, much less that it needed fixing.

In terms of “broken,” I knew I was not a “full adult,” yet. I felt like a baby, ashamed of who and what I was. Not good enough. I felt desperate and like a hopeless case because I was so far behind all the other adults. I was that aberration of nature. I feared that I was so far behind that any normal methods of healing wouldn’t be enough, and worse, that it would show, and others would see my brokenness.

And then, regarding fear, there was one other one…that elephant in the room – sex. I was terrified of men, and especially the idea of having sex with them. Sex seemed like this out-of-control force that caused harm. I didn’t know then that I was deeply traumatized, or that there was even such a thing as trauma.

I only knew I was like this “child-adult,” a child in an adult’s body, desperately wishing she could be like all the other “grown-ups.” They dated, fell in love, made love…were normal. And I wasn’t.

I also didn’t understand then that the programming he’d drilled into me taught me another useless lesson — that all my self-worth was measured by sex. That was all Dad valued me for, and it was the thing he risked everything to get from me. So “sex” had a HIGH value tag attached to it. And from that programming, I equated the ability to be sexual with my self-worth, and with being loved. Without being a functional sexual adult, what good was I?

Physical

And then, add to this volatile emotional stew, a lit match — hormones. I may have been immature emotionally, but I was an adult with a body that had needs. And longings.

I was tired of “waiting for love to find me.” And even if it did, worried that I’d be unable to respond because of my fear. I’d been passive my whole life, always having to just wait for something to change, or wait for someone to rescue me, until I finally learned I had to rescue myself. So I was impatient and determined to take action. Never again would I wait and settle for passive patience.

The “Problem”

So the problem was: How does an adult who is emotionally more like a pre-teen in certain areas, with a background story no one could ever understand, much less accept, and who is way behind in terms of knowing how to find or develop relationships, meet men, and have a healthy, intimate relationship?

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1982 – The “Turning Point,” The Avalanche Begins

December 16, 2025

The new place

7/16/82

“As you can see, I’ve been remiss in my journal writing – 21 months. That last retreat (Nov 80) really did me in, and I just wanted to tune it all out for a long time. But since then I finally got up the guts to go to another retreat…a FEW of them actually. One-day retreats at a new place — The Cenacle in Middletown…”

Looking back, what a difference a place makes…though, maybe it was a difference in the person going to the new place that mattered, too? At the very least, the fact that I sought out a new retreat center in spite of how the previous one triggered me, implies that I was willing to trying again…fertile soil just waiting for the right seeds to be planted?

Either way…this became the turning point of my life. More on this, shortly…

Expanding my skill set

Continuing with the steps I began over the last two years to “spread more seeds in the garden of my life,” I started the new year with an investments course at the local community college. I had managed to save a little bit of money and was looking for the best way to invest and grow it. If I could do that, I might have some options for moving on with my life. I also purchased a 35mm camera and took a photography course. If I wanted to expand my chances for my articles to get published, it helped to provide my own photos for the them.

In general, I was discovering that I loved adding to my knowledge of life and the world. Whether it was for writing, music, art or business, all of them fed my self-confidence and sense of wellbeing. I had grown bored with some of the social things – the bowling league, parties, and trying to figure out who I might date. Taking classes put me in contact with a wider group of people. And even if I didn’t meet anyone there, the classes gave me the sense I was building more and more life skills. Even if I didn’t know yet where my future was leading me, I would be ready when I got there.

The person between

Home was still the same — more and more angry fights between my parents, and Dad was still pursuing me. Even as I was still terrified of his rage, I was equally exhausted with putting up with it all. And so guilty about what this had to be doing to my mother. I found it hard to believe she didn’t notice how he fawned all over me and treated her so poorly. I had reached the point where no matter how he spun it, it just felt more and more wrong. I was the person always between them and I hated it.

So I made it a point to be busy with my own pursuits, whether classes or personal retreats.

Spending more time away

I also spent more time with friends, though I had to navigate that carefully because if I was out too much, Dad would get angry. But more and more, I tried to get out with friends, whether with people who had similar interests in gardening, homesteading, and raising animals, or another friend whose family had some country property where they spent weekends. In fact, as the weather warmed, I joined them for weekend trips camping at their property.

It was a simple pleasure and so relaxing. Time in nature, campfire cooking, sketching landscapes, and just being away. It was like another world.

And one friend was also a mentor of sorts. Being well-versed in classic clothing styles and makeup, she helped me up my game in those areas.

Of course, Dad hated it when I went out a lot, and especially if I took those trips away. For one, he didn’t like it when anyone “pulled me out of the family circle” and didn’t hesitate to make his feelings known. And, yes, as always, for those trips, he would again put a sexual implication to why I must be going away.

While I had shrugged off that pattern a few times already, it’s only now that I see just how constantly his mind was focused on just one area of life. It was his addiction; he saw the world only through those glasses.

Nova Scotia…and his words

But the two key things about this year were the retreats to the Cenacle that I was taking — even Dad didn’t interfere with things relating to Catholic practice — and a fall trip I took with my parents to Nova Scotia.

First, the trip to Nova Scotia, which was a beautiful place with lots of raw, pure nature and seaside towns. We took a 6-hour ferry from Maine, which was a bit rough. Making that trip in the fall risks more choppy waters, so I was seasick and spent the entire time out on the deck. At least the crisp, fresh air helped me feel a bit better.

On the island itself, we visited a number of museums and toured seaport towns that, in the nice weather, were filled with visiting artists. I could understand why – the landscapes and sea villages provided an infinite number of subjects to paint.

Photo by author

If the trip had involved sticking to those areas, I would have loved it more. The long drives through gray, lonely back country felt more bleak.

9/24/82

“From our trip to Nova Scotia, I learned several things. The first is that I cannot live in an area that is very isolated. I thought I could make myself fit that mold, but I can’t. A small town, maybe…close enough to a large city so that I can still be in touch with the things I enjoy, but isolated enough to give me peace and quiet.”

Just like that experience during my 1980 retreat when I was kept off by myself and couldn’t interact with anyone, it was clear I was not “hermit” material. While I kept looking at property to buy in New Hampshire or Vermont, more and more I had my doubts that “isolation” was my direction.

As we drove through the miles of countryside, my parents kept stopping to eat at small places with the “all-you-can-eat” buffets that, while cheap, were not the best experiences. When we reached Halifax, I finally put my foot down. It’s a lovely city with many opportunities for fine dining, something I had developed a love for over the last couple of years.

So I made us reservations at an upscale seafood restaurant, and it was the whole deal. Located in a historic warehouse, it had beautiful old stone walls, nautical decor, old wood beams in the ceiling, exquisite food, and an ambiance to match. If the fresh seafood wasn’t treat enough, the dessert was the finishing touch: Parfaits of vanilla ice cream swirled with creme de menthe and fresh whipped cream. Even my parents had to agree it was worth every cent.

But no matter how beautiful or peaceful the place, it’s only as nice as the company you are with. Heaven can be hell with the wrong people. And, again, that old saying, no matter where you go, there you are. Just because we were on vacation doesn’t mean Dad wasn’t still a bear to be with. And then there was how he treated Mom:

9/24/82

“I feel that this is the last vacation I will take with my parents. I need and want to go places on my own to see and do what I want, when I want, without waiting for ‘Mommy or Daddy’ to say okay. I am tired of their bickering — they need time now to be alone with each other and become closer and happier with each other…I feel deep down that I sometimes come between them. Dad pays more attention to me than Mom, and I know she feels it, though she never says it. Dad has always done this…and it makes me feel guilty and angers the hell out of me. I resent it greatly. The time has come for this to cease…I represent a threat to my mother’s self-esteem. He puts her down so much, but shows me attention and respect. I can’t stand it, and I feel smothered.”

He KNEW

But the most telling moment of the trip was the evening we got to Halifax and stopped in a motel there. Mom was taking a shower, and I was writing some notes, oblivious to the news he was watching. At least that is, until he demanded my attention to a particular report.

The newscaster spoke about a man who had been arrested and imprisoned because of “something” he was doing to his daughter. I hadn’t heard the whole thing. What struck me was Dad’s reaction – he was upset, almost…I couldn’t tell if he was scared, or outraged, or both. He immediately turned to me and said:

“Would you do that to me?!”

Having only heard half the story and irritated at him interrupting my quiet time, I just shrugged it off and said no. For one thing, I never thought of the things he did to me in terms of abuse. I viewed our family system as generally okay and loving, mixed in with times where he couldn’t control his temper, and “those things he did that I never talked about and tried to stop.”

The other thing was that in those years those kinds of stories were almost never in the news. No one talked about it. Maybe that’s the reason he was so upset. Someone called it what it was and a man was actually put in jail.

So he wouldn’t let up and asked me again:
“Well, YOU were abused! Would you do that?!”

The odd thing, which shows just how much I had compartmentalized, normalized, and minimized the things he had done to me, was that his comment didn’t really register. I was still in that place of, “Well yeah he does a lot of mean things, but also good things. So you just move on.”

But it was his level of upset over the report that got my attention more than anything. For me at that point in time, arresting him for something I still hadn’t called “abuse,” was not in my mind at all. All I knew was that he was upset, so I tried to reassure him. “No. I wouldn’t do that.”

Whether it was my words or my flat emotional response to the whole thing, he seemed satisfied and went back to the TV.

It is only now, years later, re-reading that in my journals, that his words scream at me off the page:

“Well, YOU were abused! Would you do that?!”

There it was…You were abused.

He knew it was abuse.

He knew it was wrong.

He did it anyway.

He was a conscious, insidious, cold, calculating abuser.

It would have been bad enough if he actually thought he loved me during all of that time, actually believed the lines he was feeding me. But he never did. They were manipulation, pure and simple

Despite all his messages to brainwash and program me, in the end, he knew exactly what it was…abuse.

The Cenacle

But if there was one experience that totally rocked my life that year, it was discovering the retreat center called “The Cenacle.” It was not quite an hour from where I lived and thus was an easy place to get to, even for just the day. And unlike the first retreat I had done two years ago, this one did not trigger me at all.

Maybe it was the nature of the Sister I worked with. She was relaxed, friendly, and not pushy at all. It could have been me, and where I was emotionally two years earlier, but I just felt like that previous Sister at the other center had more of an agenda, such as pushing me toward being a nun. That might have been my own fears speaking. But no matter what, this Sister felt totally…safe. Collaborative. In my corner. It was like she was my ally, ready to help me peel the layers back to reveal the real “me” and find my true destiny. She wasn’t determined to force me into a preconceived format for a retreat, but instead helped me to define my own needs and experience.

If that wasn’t remarkable enough, her mention of their July weekend retreat WAS. The topic was “Effective Living.” If EVER there was a topic I WANTED, and NEEDED, and was READY FOR, that was it. I went. And it would change my life from then on.

A “revolution in thinking”

Over the course of that effective living retreat, several rich and deeply empowering statements were shared with us. So many of them spoke to my soul like water on a parched plant:

“Unconditional love is the key. It is love without conditions.”
“You take responsibility for your own choice. No one has power over you unless you give it to them.”
“Inner direction is the key to happiness. Happiness does not come from outside of you, ie, seeking it from others, money, jobs, or things.”
“Self-image is vital to the use of our potential to love and live.”
“Fear is the big key in negative habits.”
“Life can be changed in three steps: Determine what you do REALLY want and need; Get information so you can act; Repeat until this becomes your habit to live.”
“If you’re faced with a decision and can’t decide because both seem right, wait, gather more data, then listen to your gut for the answer.”
“If someone makes you feel guilty, they have control over you. They have power, and you are giving it to them. GUILT IS NOT FROM GOD.”
“God is not about punishment. He is the means to achieve the positive.”
“Never use self-devaluation. We may do stupid things. But we are NOT dumb.”

And probably **the most revolutionary** thing for me, especially coming from a nun:

“God wants us to spend life doing things WE ENJOY, that give us peace. HE DOES NOT WANT US TO HAVE A LIFE OF DRUDGERY!”

THAT had been the terror of the retreat in 1980 – that God would demand that I do something I hated.

Listening to Sister teach about how the different levels of the mind worked and how to change our attitudes and outcomes, I jotted down some things for myself:

“I am completely self-determined. I decide what is best for myself, and I allow others to do the same.”
“There is no knight on a white horse coming to rescue me. I need to rescue myself.”
“I am completely responsible for all of my responses to all persons and all events.”
“I used to think in terms of someday when I get married, or when I finally do this or that. But now I am thinking in terms of what exactly I am going to do NOW. I can’t wait until everyone else in my life has their life in order before I consider mine.”
“I have to NOW formulate a plan of action for myself for the next year, or nothing will change.”

The seminar was not just revolutionary for me, but I think for all the people there. The particular Sister presenting the course spent a lot of time talking about the psychology of the mind. How our thoughts and programming determine our feelings and then, by extension, our choices and actions.

She spoke about “habits,” and the kinds of thoughts about ourselves that we reinforce in our minds. Those mattered, she shared, because they determined what we feel and do.

Concrete actions for change

Other things she spoke of that I’d never heard of: Meditation techniques as a way to center and calm ourselves so we can think clearly. How to identify what goals we feel are right for us and how to bring them about. And something called “affirmations” – positive statements we can use to change how we think about ourselves and our lives. Lastly, Sister gave us concrete instructions for how to do all of these things.

During the course of the weekend, I also met a woman who worked in the field of gerontology – working with the elderly. I’d never heard of it, but it intrigued me, so I jotted down a note to see if there were any study programs available should I want to change career paths. And, I made a list of what specific choices were available to me right now, and my thoughts about them:

Decide if moving to New Hampshire and buying land was really the right thing for me. Given my reaction to the bleak solitude of Nova Scotia, probably not.
Take a leave of absence from my job and join Vista or a church organization geared to helping in underprivileged areas. This one could be possible.
Join the military and travel. This one had lost its appeal for me.
Become a nun and help people as a counselor? This one was a contender.
Write to my old boyfriend and see if we had any connection left or not. This didn’t feel right, and I tabled it.
Talk to a job counselor about gerontology and other career paths. Good idea.

While I didn’t walk out at the end of the weekend with my life all magically fixed, I did walk out with a totally altered way of thinking about myself, my life, and what was possible. This was mind-blowing in itself and a totally unexpected outcome from that weekend.

It was SO mind-blowing in fact, that I immediately knew I needed to do the course again. They were offering another round of it in November, and I immediately signed up.

There was so much “meat” to this course that it almost overwhelmed me, not in a bad way, but in the excitement of its possibilities. Like sitting at a feast with so much food you know you’ll have to come back later for more because it’s too much in the moment. I saw the immense power of all that wisdom and knew in my gut that this could help me change my life. So I didn’t want to miss a single detail.

And it wasn’t so much that it was a religious thing. In fact, the connection with God was secondary to the immense revelation that I had power I could and should claim. Maybe for another person, they would have discovered this in some course in college, time with a therapist, or a self-help group. But this was the option that presented itself to me, and I wasn’t going to pass it up.

A sudden jump forward

In fact, even before the November seminar came around, I had taken some actions that were not even on my above list of choices. One item I hadn’t considered at the time was the simple choice of finding my own place to live. There still weren’t any apartments, but there were houses and condos. And this time, I had saved some money, which meant maybe I could buy something? An investment? That class I took had taught me a lot more about money management. Perhaps having a place of my own was not an impossible dream?

Looking back from now, I was surprised to see just how quickly I mobilized on that idea. On the back of one of the handouts from that first seminar, I had jotted down a bunch of notes regarding a mortgage. I had called a few banks and spoken to one woman in particular who was very helpful. She explained about mortgage points, indexes, and how a variable rate mortgage worked. After calculating costs, that one actually seemed possible.

Just having this information set me on fire. There might actually be a way to a better life, and it might not even need some huge, drastic move to achieve it. I just had to set goals, gather information, and tap my own power. And it was a tremendous relief to consider that God might actually want me to be happy, not suffer.

The snowball transformed into an avalanche

Suddenly, where before there had been no path, now, there just might be a way forward.

As a final thing the end of that year, I made a note to talk to a relative who was a realtor to see what I might be able to afford. And then I set up more retreat dates for the coming year.

There was no stopping me now. It was like that snowball from a year or two ago was now an avalanche racing down the mountain.

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Addendum to “My God, My God…”

November 29, 2025

My husband’s question

The previous entry was one of the very hardest to write so far. Every fiber in me just wanted to beg off writing it. I could barely force me to the keyboard, and I felt such a heavy load of pure exhaustion.

My husband asked me, “Was the desire to avoid writing because I was afraid to show my shame publicly to my readers?”

I thought that was a good question, so I wanted to answer it here.

My mentor’s question

In reality, at my current age, I don’t really care if I share my moments of shame publicly anymore. What is the worst anyone can do to me? Think poorly of me?

And do I think I am the only person who has ever failed to live up to their ideals and ethics at some moment of their life? As a mentor once said to me:

“Did you expect to be perfect?”

If anyone thinks that this story is of me being the totally strong, ever pushing hard forward hero, who never slipped and fell or erred in choices, they will be disappointed. There are more shames to come, more poor choices. I was not perfect. I can simply say I did the best I could at any point, even in my mistakes. Sometimes our best is wonderful, and sometimes our best is flat-out poor. But I tried. And when I failed, well, in writing what it was like then, I can now see I was simply human, pushed too far.

(more…)

Tags:God, life, love, mental-health, writing
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Posts Tagged ‘love’

He woulda been a good man if…

A purpose, re-examined

Cycles of “If only”…

1984 + 1988 – The preceding confrontations

1993 – The third one

The family system reactions

1993 – There will be no more silence on this

Words from the Universe

Rebirth

So what about women?

Early programming

The ultimate quandary

If I tell you who I am…who I REALLY am, will you still be my friend?

I know who you are

It was EXPECTED…

The therapist weighs in

Resilience

That phone call

Full disclosure

Is it even relevant?

So what was going on?

Priorities, “triage,” and setting up the “base camp”

THAT phone call…

1989 – 1990 and baby milestones

That tube of toothpaste

The “Mom competition?”

The comment

The fracture

Nothing was working

The fateful question

Please, no more computer people!

It Might Be You

The new “Introduction”

The “family-style” restaurant

Time for a new mind map

Emotions

Physical

The “Problem”

The new place

Expanding my skill set

The person between

Spending more time away

Nova Scotia…and his words

He KNEW

The Cenacle

A “revolution in thinking”

Concrete actions for change

A sudden jump forward

The snowball transformed into an avalanche

My husband’s question

My mentor’s question

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