Supporting and even teaching hatred and intolerance is something unprecedented now among educators and mentors.

What we need is tolerance of differences and the ability to negotiate and compromise. Whatever happened to debating as a course in public school? It disappeared in the 1960’s along with the true liberals.

Just by putting the bouquet in my room she transcended.
The small scents drifting up to her childhood wedding picture of two cats.
The buds are bursting to open,
I’m sure.
How did she make them live?
Maybe by doing these daring things she will live.

I think Robin thought she’s going to try hard to get away from me because of some of my drastic actions when she was a child. She had given up on me whereas Paul suffered more because he was too attached to me. she even said when she was already married that I should have given her up for adoption, but her standards were a little superficial.

Why don’t I believe what I hear?

Why don’t I believe what I say.?

Especially genuine.

It’s because all I heard was lies.

Their hearts were shattered,
or was it mine?
Stop for beauty,
or else you could get in trouble.
Help me take my turn.

I’m beginning to see the whole of my life, excusing the bad, which I had spent many hours agonizing over. I should look for happiness now, but I am so busy writing this and it involves a lot of pain.

When I got with the Sullivanians, that’s when all the hate started. Everyone I met hated me in a disguised way. I continued with them in spite of it, not knowing they were deceiving me. My so called friends taught Leon to hate me. He was too young to know better. If I had kept him with the first babysitter, and left the Sullivanians, none of this would have happened. I wouldn’t have needed my Mother so much and I would have had some guidance. My mother taught him to hate me too, from 2years old on. All of the same thing happened to Judy Collins including the alcohol addiction and our sons having committed suicide. We sobered up at the same place.

Every family has a scapegoat and with my family it’s me and I’m guilty no matter what. It is created so that the rest of the family members can be (feel) perfect. How can I put in the past what other family members won’t let go of?
I have already done it, but I’m paying too much attention to the lag my family keeps creating. I also keep forgetting they rejected me quite a long time ago. The only one I held onto was my stepfather, not even knowing he was rejected too. Then, after his death, the truth about him was revealed and it wasn’t nice. My disappointment and grief was so great.

Ambivalence is not a bad thing. It’s something people live with, unless someone exploits it and makes a decision for them.

I wasn’t aware of my surroundings. I didn’t know which was my daughter’s favorite muppett, or that I took away the cat’s companion. (One of his kittens) My family members had to tell me everything. I was so isolated by my illness. I actually blame myself for it.
It seems like when I am justifiably upset I minimize it and when its all over I feel deep despair or something like it, but it’s all out of proportion. When it’s safe I feel the real emotion.

Something about the self hate brought about by a mother who cloned every thing good about me and took it beyond my reach.
In a competitive situation I never could cope. That is why I feared my family.

My family broke my son’s heart.  He was a drug addict and they rejected him when he needed them most. That might be a factor in his suicide. Also there was the chance that he got bad drugs and decided to do it because of a bad reaction. There was a shirt covered with blood under his bed and a syringe.

It was such a racist thing I did, telling the black man who made me pregnant I wanted to be married instead of telling him to stop beating me and then to marry a light skinned Puerto Rican and get pregnant again. My life was ruined, but if my daughter reads this she will feel bad and I love her a lot.

After my marriage was over I didn’t do so well. I made my children suffer. I hit them with belts, although I don’t remember it, and my drinking had progressed.

I prayed that no one shall take away my happiness and that I will know the feeling of continued freedom. Jesus said, stop thinking about all the mistakes you made while you were gullible.

Almost all my life there has been an effort to deprive me of my home and every last vestige of happiness. I have long ago stopped asking why, but just keep struggling. Now in my old age, I have freedom.

Ever since I was 16 my life was a nightmare, my mother made sure of it. She rejected me when I was grown because she felt it was her time to shine. Not only that but she undermined me in several ways to make sure I didn’t shine at all. I used to be ambitious but when I became mentally ill I lost everything.

My mother was so poor in spirit that she copied me in every way, even when I was wrong.

Now that there are good medications for me I can go ahead and enjoy my life, but there are drawbacks that I can’t seem to surmount. My memories and my many mistakes haunt me and I never shook the suicidal ideation.

The Mystery of The Cross Continue reading →

I paid big time for my mistakes. I got caught up in “she deserved it.” not realizing there shouldn’t be such a thing.
“The obligation to endure gives us the right to know.”
Jean Rostand

I was deprived of everything that mattered to me by my family. Namely my son Leon and Joe who loved me unconditionally. they did it deliberately without conscience.
How can I put in the past what other family members won’t let go of?
I have already done it, but I’m paying too much attention to the lag my family keeps creating. I also keep forgetting they rejected me quite a long time ago. The only one I held onto was my stepfather, not even knowing he was rejected too. Then, after his death, the truth about him was revealed and it wasn’t nice.
My disappointment and grief was so great.
Ian both destroyed and nurtured his youngest daughter Charlotte whose only offense was not being a boy. He destroyed her bit by bit blaming her every time he was angry at his wife. He nurtured her by getting her help for her dyslexia and emotionally supporting her when she was having a difficult time around an abortion and providing her with a place to live the rest of her life. She became a nurse.
He was nurturing to me also by helping me and my children. He also hurt me by doing my mother’s bidding getting rid of me constantly. I used to call him and he used to call me saying “is that you, Hazel?” he used to come into the city once a week to visit me and my children.
They both used to throw money at situations they couldn’t handle. Something which I inherited. Maybe that is why my son is preoccupied with money.
I see several parallels. I will try to write them down. The violence against Lumumba and my family’s high threshold for violence. Not that they carried out any, but that they excused or justified any perceived violence.
“How can a beret colored blue erase, just like that, the prejudices of conservative officers from Sweden, Canada or Britain? How does a blue armband vaccinate against the racism and paternalism of people whose only vision of Africa is lion hunting, slave markets and colonial conquest; people for whom the history of civilization is built on the possession of colonies? Naturally they would understand the Belgians. They have the same past, the same history, the same  lust for our wealth.” *
* Quote is from The Assassination of Lumumba

“Upon your continual cowardice, your repeated lies, sentence will be passed on the day when some exibition of your weakness, in itself, perhaps, quite trivial, deprives you of any further opportunities to make a choice—and justly. Do you at least feel grateful that your trial is permitted to continue, that you have not yet been taken at your word?
As a climber you will have a wide sphere of activity even after, if that should happen, you reach your goal. You can, for instance, try to prevent others from becoming better than yourself.” *
* These quotes are from Markings by Dag Hammarskjold

If only he had known it was my stepfather who alone betrayed him and his own bosses. Something which might be covered up forever because, in the end, Lumumba might have died any way.

Freedom

The morning dew was shimmering.
I walked with a new step through a soundless thrill.
Would I? Yes, with boundless joy.

“How many years must some people exist before they’re allowed to be free.”
That was me, but now I’m free. From a time when I first remember, I was plagued with guilt and shame. It came about because of the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder I was suffering from.

The children still loved their father. Paul was very demonstrative of that, besides being conflicted. I am very sad about the whole thing.
One of the reasons I feel so much guilt is because people in my life try so hard to make me feel guilty. It’s a mystery as to why they do it to me.
Not only was I mentally ill like my grandmother, I was alcoholic like my father. The illness started at age 18. The alcohol started at age 19 when I came out of the long term facility.
I asked my mother, “What shall I do now?” and reached into her kitchen cabinet for the gin and made a gin and tonic like my mother always did in secret. She didn’t stop me or say anything, but later on she told her friends in front of me that I drink like a fish. They were looking at each other in askance. My mother used to be catty. I should have said , “Don’t be so catty mother, it doesn’t become you.” Ian would have been indignant yelling, “Disrespecting my wife, I can be bloody annoyed.” Instead I would yell some other time at her for never telling the truth. My behavior was always outrageous.

When I left home at the end of Susan’s pregnancy. I had been totally shut out. I left all my belongings. My mother didn’t keep them for me but doled them out to my sisters. I don’t understand why she totally rejected me at age 16. I remember the silent hurt. Later on I must have decided I would reject her, which was an afterthought. Was it only my anger at her when I was sent away to boarding school? She never knew I was being bullied-humiliated. She never tried to understand. While I was in boarding school, she took everything away from me. First of all, she deliberately sent me to a boarding school I did not like. I had wanted to go to another one that taught modern dance which I had become proficient in. She even said too late that I could apply again.
She took over my ceramics and even asked my teacher for her glaze secrets. She proclaimed that I had no talent so that she could paint without any competition. I had to pursue all my ambition in secret.

I became free of her but she took over my son. indeed my whole family did.

Today I learned a lot from Lauren. She is my therapist:
I had stayed too long in a social situation and on the way home I became suicidal along with the uncomfortable robot feeling. She said I’m not used to having feelings and somehow there is guilt attached to missed nurturing. Somehow I feel it was my fault that I was abused and neglected. She also said I have a lot of courage. The opposite of what I thought about myself.
I think my Mother taught me that mourning was a waste of time. Just like she put me down for meditating. “Keep busy,” she said.
Among other things, I get these manic constructs. They are so inspiring. When I try to write them down I never succeed. Indeed, I can’t even remember them. Maybe Abilify is the culprit. I had one right after (during?) a dream. The contents of the dream really didn’t exist. I had to tell myself that. Post Graduate Center for Mental Health rescued me. She called the psychologist at St. Lukes and demanded that they release my record.
In the distant past the same place let me down terribly, or lets say one of their psychiatrists did. I was distraught about an abortion I had. Why didn’t Dimitri understand that. Instead, he treated me as though I was a Narcissist and encouraged me to have two more abortions, saying, “now you would have had six children.” Horrible, and then he admitted that he misunderstood me. Just a typical example of professionals pushing abortions, especially on marginal women. My main problem was that I trusted everybody, thinking they had my best interests at heart.

I know I’ve been forgiven for the abortions, but it doesn’t take away the sadness. All but one were necessary for some reason, but that doesn’t take away the pain. In fact it increases it because of the bad judgement implied. When I was pregnant, after my ill fated abortion, Joe wrote me a very good letter. He said, “Without consulting me, you went ahead and got an abortion.” He also said I do have a color problem. That decision condemned me to a loveless marriage and a daughter with a serious heart defect. I was never happy again. Instead of being affectionate, I mistreated the children I did have. In spite of it, I loved my children very much and stood by them until they were grown.

I had the perfect chance to see a decent Psychiatrist and I didn’t take it.
Another example of not advocating for myself. So I became psychotic. Maybe it could have been prevented. A psychology professor at City College said I am completely insane.

I suddenly thought of Julia Schneider, my first psychiatrist in New York City and for a moment, I hysterically cried. She steered me all wrong, just when I needed a wise leader. She practically ruined my young life. There were some good ideas, like School of Visual Arts, but I should not have introduced Leon to Andy, who tried repeatedly to hit him with a toy hammer. Julie intimidated me so much. As a good psychiatrist, she should have realized that was precisely my problem. She yelled at me about the man who rescued me at my son’s birth. She said, “You look upon him like a knight in shining armor.” Of course I did. Well anyway, being afraid of marriage, I rejected him. Then I went on to be with an abusive man who made me pregnant and demanded I get an abortion. That set the stage for the other ones.

Leon was my oldest child. he died at age 28. 1964, the year of my son’s birth. I was so happy without my parents. I was doing artwork and I was happy on the birth of my baby, but I was conflicted about whether to  keep him. A black woman saw me at night looking at my baby in the hospital . She came and spoke gently to me. Then my parents and psychiatrist came on the scene and ruined everything.
After talking about Leon’s death, I feel so strange. Like I’m going to have a psychotic episode. I wish I had the words to describe it. I’m not comfortable in my own skin. At least finally I’m not copping out. Now (January 6th), I’m still mourning the death of the sweet, gentle child who Paul and Robin loved so much.
When he was 7 years old I was pregnant from a black man and he was against him just like my family was. I guess I was just as racist as my family at that point. Without consulting the father, I aborted the baby and married a light skinned man whom Leon liked. I was so unhappy because I loved the black man. I did it because I was afraid to lose Leon.

I started going to a clinic called Post Graduate Center for Mental Health because I was distraught about the abortion. I got assigned to Dr Dimitri Spyropoulos who took me into his private practice charging me only $7.00 a visit. It was a bad thing but I didn’t know it yet. He thought I was a Narcissist and felt no compassion for my distress. I even had another abortion I did not want. I was so afraid to displease him. In retrospect, I think he could have taken Leon away from me. Later on Dimitri changed his mind, saying he had misunderstood me and gave me Stelazine meaning I was Schizophrenic which was more in line with the truth.

I always thought my parents had a hand in Leon’s demise. And Jane with her fake sympathy after the funeral assuaging the family’s guilt with her long talk while the family waited in the car. What I mean by Leon’s demise is that my family and especially Jane, was so important to him and then when he started shooting up Heroin they rejected him. It was such a let down to him. Then we put him in a hotel and he was so depressed even though he was in a Day Rehab and had a social worker who visited him and a Psychiatrist who gave him Desipramine. I doubt it helped him. He was speed balling by that time.
Leon was a robust 16 year old when he was ordered to leave me by the ACS worker. (I was suicidal at the time.) He came back to me drinking and smoking pot. Ian, who had called him a gentleman all his childhood, called him a bastard after the visit which lasted a year.
Then he got started with Amphetamines that an older girl gave him so he could party every night. He soon lost his bank job because he was unkempt. He went on to Heroin eventually at which time my family rejected him with Jane dumping him at my doorstep while telling me he was doing the drug. All this must have been a big letdown for him because he really needed them.
When Leon died he was living in a hotel because Paul had said, “get rid of him, he’s conning you.” Both of them were fed up with his drug use. Robin had found his works in my nightgown hanging in the bathroom. I had to put him in a hotel. He became very depressed and he was in a rehab day program but he wouldn’t take the antidepressant the psychiatrist gave him, probably because it would have ruined the rush he got from speed balling. Anyway he didn’t want to quit. His neighbor said he heard him having convulsions. Maybe he got bad drugs that day and decided to end it. However the circumstances were, he did commit suicide by jumping from the window 14 stories down.

Paul is my 39 year old son. The effect of Leon’s death on him was so devastating because he loved Leon very much. He changed all his friends to bad ones and, in a constant rage, he wrecked the house and lambasted me constantly. He still has an anger problem. Why can’t Paul be introspective or at least nice to me when he’s outside the “box”? It’s like the world closes in on him and he can’t cope. I’m not saying he’s helpless, just only focusing on personal gain at the expense of others. I’m sad about it and I think I have given up hope for things to work out between us. Prison seems to be the only place where his anger is contained and he’s not seeing the world tainted with it. I have about 75 letters from him while he was in prison.

The Sullivanians were the group my new psychiatrist belonged to. They lead me so wrong that I ended up insane. I needed medication but there was only Stelazine and Thorazine. I did take Stelazine for a while. It helped some but I was also bipolar. Nothing addressed the racing thoughts and mood swings. Then a fellow at Mount Sinai gave me Navane. I was very happy for a year until he left. My biggest problem was the sibling rivalry of my two children. Terrible fights where Dr Heiligenstein told me to call him when they occur and he would give advice. Thus the advent of the “separate rooms.” Something which my daughter years later complained about to her therapist at Mount Sinai.

Robin is my 41 year old daughter. I think the therapist ended up leading her wrong. She went to live with her father and was very sad but didn’t come back home. Her father saw to it that she got her AAS degree from Parsons School of Design. She went to Americorps in North Dakota with four other girls. She ended up in Sacramento where she still is. History not resolved tends to repeat itself. Both she and my older sister went to California in exasperation and met their husbands. Good husbands except that hers is alcoholic and my daughter has major depression.