SHADDAP!

(Photograph copyright 2009, all rights reserved)

As always, this post is based on the letters to Prudie at Dear Prudie

Now, this is a parody. It is not to be taken seriously by anybody. It will be unkind (especially this week), and there will be bad language. If you have a problem with that, then move on. If you stay anyway and get up my nose about it, then I will mock you in the way that only MessyONE can mock you. Clearly the "adult content" warning will have flown right past you when you opened this page.

Right, then. Some of you may have guessed that I'm a bit testy this week. Two straight weeks of clouds, pouring rain and gloom will do that to me every single time. Even the cats are bummed out. I've added "scraping the mildew out from between my toes" to my pedicure, it's that soggy around here. You'd think it was Seattle!

It's all right, though. The letters this week are....perfect for me. Yes, yes they're PERFECT! (Insert snort of derision and scorn here.)


1. I hate to say this because everyone and his dog has already told you this, but it seems I have to do it. You're apparently too thick to get it the first 500 times. Your boyfriend is not "great". He isn't even "nice". He doesn't love you, and in fact, he doesn't even like you. He gets off on hurting you, in fact. I'm betting that you "get along very well" when you obey his every whim, even if you don't realize that's what you're doing. So

SHADDAP!

Now pay attention, twit. What the HELL are you doing here? Do you LIKE being held down and tortured? Seriously. You've told the asshole that you seem to think is super-duper-good-guy over and over, using your words yet, that HE'S HURTING YOU! Worse yet, you already KNOW that he thinks hurting you is fun! Tell me, does he have the best erections of his life watching you scream at him to stop hurting you? Does he "have" to have sex after a torture session? Is he that sick?

What if it weren't tickling? What if his "thing" was to "playfully" smack your bare ass with a fly swatter until you bled, all the while telling you that pain is meaningless if you could just learn to ignore it. That ok with you? No? So what's the fucking difference here?

Did you know that parents have been charged with child abuse for doing to kids what your boyfriend is doing to you now? Do you READ, little girl, or do you just believe him when he says it's all "lies". Tell me, if you piss yourself (a poster on Slate suggested this), does he bother apologizing? Does he clean up after you? Or does he make you clean it up yourself all the while lecturing you about how you need to learn "control"?

See, I think you know you're being abused, otherwise you would never have written the letter. Some tiny little part of your pea-sized brain has registered that this guy is having fun humiliating and dominating you against your will. Your pain makes him happy. He LIKES watching you cry. He thinks that his place is to make sure you know yours, and by God he's happy to demonstrate that in a physical way.

What if you DO learn to control yourself? What then? Tickling you won't be fun for him any more, will it? If you aren't in apparent pain, then that sucks the joy right out of it for him. So what is he going to do next? He's into control and domination (and not in a good way), so what do you think? Maybe lock you in a dark room and let you scream to get out? Would that be enough for him? No? How about if he ties you up and leaves you alone in the house with a camcorder recording your every tear? Think that'll do it for him?

Of course since he likes to get physical, probably the pain needs to be more concrete to him. Likely he'll start slapping you around. Not hard at first, of course. Just enough to make you cry and beg so he can lecture you about "control". Does any of this sound like fun to you, dumbass?

You're not married to this chump. You have no obligations to him. Thankfully you have enough sense not to get knocked up by this abusive SOB (so far) so that you have to see him for the rest of your life. You are an adult. No one can harm you without your consent. Keep repeating this to yourself and GET THE FUCK OUT OF THERE.


2. Kid, I feel for you. (I can say "kid", because I'm well over thirty, so there!) It had to be rough, growing up with a drunk for a parent. A lot of people can never move past that - I'm glad to see that you can. It's nice that your mother's been sober, too. It probably saved her life. Too bad for her it's too little, too late. Next time you talk to her, tell her to

SHADDAP!

I can't help but wonder what in blazes your mother thinks she's playing at now. Does she want to hear about your adolescence because she feels like she missed out on the abuse she heaped on you and she wishes that she remembers seeing your pain? Is she still punishing herself for her own stupidity?

Either way, it's HER problem, not yours. You owe her nothing. I know (better than most) that talking about these things and rehashing the past can make things worse rather than better. Obsessing over past hurts and, contrary to what pop psych idiots will tell you, is NOT necessary for healing. In fact, keeping the memories nice and fresh is the LAST thing you want to do. You have every right to tell her to get lost the next time she asks to hear these things.

Besides, what are you going to say to her anyway? I can think of some things that very likely happened...

- Gee Mom, do you want to talk about how I never had friends over to the house because the stench of old vomit was so ingrained to the house that the reek of it was enough to gag a goat?

- How about all the times I had to strip you off, wipe the vomit off you and put you to bed? Did you want to hear that? Too bad I didn't take photos, right?

- Then there was the out-of-control screaming at me every time you were hallucinating about whatever it was that you were hallucinating about that day. No, you never did see pink elephants. On those nights I put a chair under the door knob of my room, because I didn't like the look in your eye.

- Would you like to hear about there being no food in the house to eat and there not being any money to buy food because you were drinking it all? Or the way you used to steal the money from my part time job?

- How about the prom I never got to go to because you drank my dress money?

- What about the rotten teeth I had to deal with as an adult because you couldn't be bothered to take me to the dentist...or the doctor....

See, you can list all of this stuff off to her, she'll pretend that she's mortified and apologize to you repeatedly. The whole 12-step bullshit talks about apologizing to the people the addict has hurt. Too bad most ex-alkies (and ex-junkies) never seem to understand that they can apologize until they're blue in the face and there are some things that can never be forgiven. In fact, there are things that SHOULD never be forgiven.

It sounds as if your mother wants you to bleed for her for reasons of her own. They don't concern you, and anything you don't want to tell her is none of her business. She CHOSE to check out for the most transformative years of your life. She CHOSE to let you raise yourself. Be assured, you did a better job than she ever could have, drunk or sober.

Her request and her nagging about it are upsetting you. They're bringing up things for you that are better left in the past. I'd also hazard a guess that the mere fact of her nagging sounds just a little like the way she sounded when she was drinking and pursuing answers in ways that only a dedicated drunk can do. Tell her you can't talk about, write about or even mime that stuff for her. Let her know that YOU had to deal with that yourself and now it's her turn. If she can't remember it, then that's too bad. Tell her that it's too painful for you to re-live it all.

Then tell her to stop nagging. She probably has some half-assed therapist who's told her that she "has" to hear these things and "understand your pain". Half-assed therapists like to think that they can help their patients by making their victims suffer some more. In fact, it's a favorite trick of half-assed therapists of this ilk to try and bully their patient's relatives to a session so they can "relearn how to relate". (Can you tell I've heard all of this shite before?) Remember that if she tries to convince you to go with her that none of this is about you or your feelings. It's all about HER, and it's as selfish of her to do that as it was for her to booze her way through your childhood. It's all bullshit.

I know it feels like she's trying to turn you back into that kid that she abandoned all those years ago. But you're an adult now. You're angry with her, and you have the right to be angry. You have the right to tell her to get lost, and you also have the absolute right to limit your contact with her if she persists.


3. Wow. So you're new to "grown-up" entertaining.... the way you talk, you're also new to "potty-training" and "eating with a fork". I bet you were the kid who gave out invitations to your birthday party to all the kids in class. And on some of them you added "don't" to "Please attend". Are you that much of a bitch (and I mean that in a gender-neutral sense, for those that think this is a guy)? I mean you've been all the way through graduate school, so I'm assuming that the number of years you've been on the planet qualifies you as an adult, but...

SHADDAP!

The answer to your question is "no". No, you may NOT EVER invite half a couple to any event that you're holding. It's NOT acceptable to do that under ANY circumstances. See, no one gives a damn that their significant others aren't significant to you, shithead. THEY ARE A TEAM.

You don't have to like it. No one cares what you think. If you want to stay friends with these people, then you had damned skippy get to know their significant others and make them significant to you, because you don't get to separate couples the way you're proposing to do. I guess you could TRY, but the instant you pop out with "and don't bring your girlfriend/boyfriend/ fiance/e/spouse", you will be off their lists permanently. No one wants to hang out with an asshole who has decided that for the rest of his/her life, he/she will only have ten friends.

I'm guessing that you're going to be spending a whole lot of time alone in the near future. Since you're going to have all that free time, I suggest that you check out about six etiquette books (start with Emily Post and work your way through - you CAN read, right?) and memorize them. Then, when you've recovered from that nasty case of Cranial-Rectal Syndrome you've been suffering from for all these years, you can try again.


4. Oh, aren't you just....special! You adopted one of those underprivileged children that you read about in the paper! Oh, how wonderful of you! How politically correct! How pleased you must be with yourself! Why I bet everyone in your encounter group is just full of praise for the horrendous yet rewarding job you took on! How.....

SHADDAP!

Jesus lady, if this were a hundred years ago, I'm guessing that you would be spending your life on the Dark Continent converting the Brown People, too. Patronizing asshole.

What's the problem, you didn't qualify for a Chinese baby girl so you made a virtue out of settling for a kid in foster care? That's how it sounds, sugar. I'm sure that poor kid is just thrilled to fucking bits every time you tell her how lucky she is and will send you letters throughout her life "filled with love and gratitude" (Sally Struthers reference, I am that old.).

What part of "she was in foster care" did you miss? Do you have even the slightest idea what it takes not only for a kid to be taken away from a parent, but for that parent to have their rights permanently stripped from them so the child can be adopted? Did you even ASK why this happened?

Personally, I think open adoptions in general are prone to the kind of child abuse that you've been committing for the past seven years. Kids do NOT need to know just how bad their lives could have been if it weren't for being adopted. Older kids - and five qualifies - do NOT need to re-live the horrendous and life-threatening abuse they were subjected to when they were little. I see another half-assed therapist that's made a lot of money off you in the past seven years, you credulous bitch, but I also see a fucked-up twelve-year-old who will suffer for the rest of her life because you took that load of bullshit and forced it down her throat.

She's old enough to stand up for herself now, and she has a right to be listened to. She doesn't NEED to be forced to talk to the crack whore that turned tricks in the same bed she had to sleep in. She doesn't NEED to be left alone with the granny who locked her in a cupboard and half-starved her to death. She doesn't NEED to be around the meth-head father that strapped her until she bled and broke her bones when she disobeyed him.

See, that's the kind of stuff that puts kids in the situation you adopted her from. If the scum that are her birth family stay in contact with her, you will be responsible for all of the pain that comes from that. YOU may "disapprove of the choices" they've made, but SHE is the one that has to deal with them. If you force this issue, there will come a day when she walks out your door and never returns. Nothing about this situation is right, and you need to back down now.

There's time enough for her to have to fend off her hillbilly birth relatives when they come harassing her for money because you were stupid enough to make sure they know where she lives.