Mind Games

Every human being reacts to trauma and loss differently. I find this fascinating. This reaction shapes us and plants the seeds of our future selves. For some of us, those seeds turn into the flowers of strength, motivation, and self-actualization. For others of us, they turn into despair and depression which lends itself to a variety of mind games played with one’s psyche and can make us believe things about ourselves that are not a true and accurate picture of who we are.

I believe this is why I have become interested in such shows as Hoarders and My 600 LB Life. These shows depict people who have suffered some kind of trauma or loss, their reaction to it, i.e. hoarding objects even to the detriment of their relationships and home, or eating until they become super obese, and how people try and help them out of this terrible hole their minds have put them in.

In my own personal life I can relate to a certain extent to the attributes of each of these disabilities (hoarding and weight gain). For most of my life I have “collected” things. I have enough books, for example, to fill a small library. But I will say, my books are not in piles all over my house. They are organized neatly on bookshelves all over my house. Every room has at least one book shelf and some have more. I would also say that the collecting of books was not something that came out of a trauma or loss. They are just things in life that I love and surround myself with. Plants are another object that I “collect”. There are plants in every room and again I would say that this is not something that came to me out of trauma or loss. It is something I have done since I was very young. I love the feeling I get when I make something grow; when a simple cutting turns into a beautiful plant. It isn’t irrational. In fact, it is perfectly rational because when you wander through my house you realize exactly who I am.

The people depicted on Hoarders have developed over years and in some cases decades an irrational attachment to things. While they say they love these things, they don’t take care of them, and the process of hoarding does more damage than just a messy house. They have pushed the people who love them to the brink of leaving them for good, they have in some cases caused irreparable damage to their homes even to the point where the home had to be condemned and could not be saved. Their children have left them, their families have deserted them. When things break in the house they can’t get them fixed for fear of someone discovering their secret. These are people who are in the throes of a great depression stemming from some trauma or loss that they experienced in many cases years and years ago. When a new trauma or loss presents itself to these people, the hoarding escalates. Their minds are telling them that these objects are the most important things in their lives when really the most important things are their relationships and their homes. To them, they would rather have the outside world believe just about anything about them other than they are a hoarder and they will go to great lengths to keep their problem a secret. For me, I love the before and afters. I love the rehab shows for this same reason. I love to see something that seems impossible at first glance turn into the possible. I love a happy ending. Call me a Pollyanna if you wish but I just can’t get enough of the happy endings.   

For most of my life, up into my late 30’s I was skinny. I was one of those who could eat and eat and never gain weight. Then I got married and the roller coaster ride started. I can blame it on many things, consciously rationalize it in my mind why I was/am overweight, but in the end, it really comes down to one simple principle, I take in more calories than I expend. Since 2008, I have lost weight and gained it back a few times. I am now at the heaviest I have ever been. This IS due to a trauma and loss I experienced in 2011 and my reaction to it has been to not leave the house unless absolutely necessary and so my exercise was curtailed and my motivation to stay in shape was completely and utterly depleted. I will get back on track and I will lose the weight again and hopefully it will stick but it has to be for the right reason. It has to be for myself and not someone else. It is a process. A process of grieving for what was lost, a process of learning not to blame myself for what happened and a process of learning to except and love myself for who I am and what I have to offer the world. Staying in the house and allowing myself to gain weight is not the answer to protecting myself from the people in this world. Letting the right people into my life is the way to protect myself. When I’m strong enough to make these decisions, I will venture out again. There is a world out there. I know this. I see it when I do go out there. And rationally I know it is not the world I should be afraid of or guard against, it’s the people in it.  

The people depicted on My 600 LB Life are also severely depressed people. Over the years as their size grew and grew, they were never able to get to a point and say “enough is enough” and motivate themselves to lose the weight and get healthy. As in hoarding, they use the weight somehow to protect and shield themselves from the outside world. They have convinced themselves that there is no other way. As their bodies grew and grew and in some cases lymphedema set in, they still don’t come to grips with their situation. In the case of the lymphedema cases, I have a difficult time relating to this because if I see or feel the smallest of lumps on my body, I run out to the doctor. These people have lumps the size of basketballs and in some cases even larger than that. In the show they reach a turning point and decide in their minds that they can do it, that there is a way to live healthy and they turn the corner and get help. They learn to love themselves. They pull themselves out of the depression and they venture into to outside world once again. A happy ending.

 
As John Lennon said in his song Mind Games, “Love is the answer and you know that for sure. Love is a flower; you got to let it grow”

All About The Bejamins

Politics has always been linked with money but since the Supreme Court issued it’s ruling in April 2014 stating no limitations on Corporate Donations to campaigns, the world of politics has gone crazy. The average politicians spends 75% of his time on the phone or on the road trying to raise money to be re-elected instead of spending 75% of his time doing what he is paid to do, work for the American people. And the Democrats are not innocent in all of this either. Once they have your number it is an almost constant cycle of robo calls and people calling trying to get money. They first ask for a ridiculous amount ($250). When you tell them “I have NO money right now”, they continue to badger you and say “Well, how about $200, how about $150, how about $100” and on it goes until you either hang up or they just thank you for voting.

I’m sorry but I am not giving ANY money to politicians who make a six figure salary and don’t spend most of their time doing the job they are paid that kind of money to do. The annoying calls, the mail box full of flyers and flyers on my door must stop. If this country is to get anywhere, politicians need to spend their time doing their job instead of harassing people for money.

And THIS congress? Well, it is the worst…literally the WORST. It has gotten the least done of any congress in the history of the United States. And that is not an exaggeration, it is actual statistical fact. They couldn’t get a bill passed if it saved their lives, and I mean literally saved their life! One of their own was shot in the head and almost killed and yet they still couldn’t get the flimsiest of gun laws passed. They refused to take up immigration reform. They still have not debated and voted on the air war we are already in in Iraq. It’s ridiculous. It is now almost November and they have had session all of 92 days for the whole year! Nice work if you can get it.

On the republican side they are so busy trying to find fault with this president they have completely lost sight of what is important and what their job is supposed to be. They take every single opportunity and then some to try and find some way to blame the president for everything. They force this belief that everything is the president fault down the throats of the American people through their news outlets like Fox news, and people like Darrell Isa who doesn’t know his ass from his elbow regarding pretty much everything. If you heard the things he said about the Ebola crisis, you would be dumbfounded by how literally ignorant this man is. He can’t get the country of origin right; he kept calling it “Eboli” and he insists that you can catch it on the bus.

And then we have Ran Paul, who claims to be a board certified ophthalmologist but what he isn’t telling you is that the board he is certified by is a board that HE created with his wife and father in-law. He is NOT certified by the board that certifies ALL ophthalmologists in this country, the American Board of Ophthalmology. He is certified by the “National” Board of Ophthalmology…something completely different and actually not recognized as an accredited board. But, he goes out there and says words like “occulum” and tells you that he knows Ebola is air born; listen to him because he is a doctor. This is also the man who when he isn’t lying about Ebola, is giving speeches containing passages that he has stolen directly from Wikipedia, word for word.

And then there’s Louie Gomert, my favorite. His name sounds like someone on Gomer Pile RFD and he sounds like it too. When he opens his mouth, you realize this is just about the most ignorant man that ever walked the earth. In a committee meeting with Eric Holder, he literally accused Mr. Holder of “Casting aspersions on his asparagus”. I’m not kidding…google it. If it wasn’t so sad that this man is part of a ruling body of our government, it would be hilarious.

The Supreme Court is full of idiots as well. They stuck down the Voter rights act saying that racism doesn’t exist in this country any more…huh? Really? I think the President might disagree with that considering he has spent most of his 2 terms being guilty of everything simply because of the color of his skin. They stripped the corporate campaign donations rule which held the politicians somewhat in check. Now, the politicians just pander to whoever gives them the most money. The crazies are running the asylum where the Supreme Court is concerned. I lost faith in them long ago when they gave an election that was clearly won by Al Gore to that buffoon George Bush. It’s sad that the highest court in the land has fallen prey to the political money machine. They are OUR court, the people’s court, not the court of the politicians. But they have lost sight of that fact. While they came a long way with LGBT marriage equality, there are still many states in this country where you can be fired from your job because your are Gay or transgender. You can thank congress for that. They had a chance to fix that and voted against it. But while they’re enacting laws that give gays the right to marry, they are stripping our voting rights, stripping a woman’s right to have a legal safe abortion, and giving politicians the right to take as much money as they can from corporations who are destroying the environment, shipping jobs overseas, selling guns to crazy people, not paying their fair share of income tax, not paying the people that work for them a living wage and discriminating in every way possible against people that work for them.

I understand that no country is perfect. There are flaws in every democratic form of government but when you can’t get the people who are working there to actually do any work, how in the world can you expect to even come close to solving problems. When you have a slew of elected officials who do not abide by the separation of church and state, who think they have a right to tell women in this country what they can and cannot have with regards to their own healthcare, when those same people want to rig elections by gerry-mandering districts so that they always win, when those people want to take away the voting rights of the poor, the elderly and the Blacks and Hispanics simply because they vote democrat for the most part, when those same people are dead set against doing any actual work because they are hell bent on trying to make the President look bad, when they bring God and religion into the halls of congress and use it as a weapon against the people (us) who are paying their six figure saleries….it is a sad day in America.

We the people need to educate ourselves on who these rogues are. We need to get them out of office and put people in there who ARE working for the people and are not just about the benjamins. Ted Cruz, Ran Paul, Louie Gomert, Darrell Isa, and certainly ANYONE who has been indicted on any kind of Federal charge, I don’t care if they have been convicted or not, they have no business representing people in congress. I mean come on. Nor should they be running a state like Governors Rick Perry, Chris Christy, and Bob McDonell. These are men who should never have held office, should never have been elected. People need to be smarter than that. When you elect a criminal to high office you can hardly be surprised when he steals from you.  

Even if you don’t have a computer at your house, take a trip to the library. Look up each candidates voting record. It’s easy to do. Find your state at Congress.gov and see what these people have voted for. Their record speaks volumes about what they stand for and whose pocket they are in. Look up the candidates and see which corporations have contributed the most money to that candidate’s campaign (Followthemoney.org). If you don’t like what you see, DON”T VOTE FOR THEM. If you don’t have anyone else to vote for, write a name in of someone you do think would do a good job in that office. But above all, educate yourself. Know what you’re doing when you go into the voting booth. It is a right and a privilege to vote. Choose your candidate wisely and even If he doesn’t win, you will still feel good about yourself because you voted your conscience and nothing is nobler than that.  

My name is Barbara Buckley and I approved this message.

Kings and Queens and Scientists Oh My!

Everyone who is adopted knows that we carry around this thing in the back of our minds that reminds us every day of our lives “Someone didn’t want us”, “Someone gave us away”. No matter how great your adopted family was/is, it is still there, lingering, haunting. No amount of great living will ever make it go away. It is always there in the back ground. We learn to live with its little voice popping up at the most inappropriate times.

My search for my father started in earnest in the late 90’s. I could find nothing on the internet or anywhere else I searched for Ray Morris Hilton, which was the name I was given as my father’s name. For years it was achingly frustrating. After a time I even had doubts that this man actually existed. But I also knew that all it would take would be one little break and I would be able to find him. One little piece of extra information and I would be able to know where and how to search. So I kept going.

That break came a few weeks ago and has revealed some pretty awesome stuff. My adopted father told me once, “Don’t search for your birth father or mother because you may discover things you don’t want to know”. Dad, you were wrong. I ALWAYS want to know. It is the not knowing that will drive a person crazy.

About a month ago, I was searching the Washington Post archives for a story about my maternal grandmother, Helen. I found that story and it turned out to be a sad thing that happened to her. I don’t know why but it took me another week to have the thought that “Oh, maybe I should search the Washington Post for a story about Ray.” So I did. Low and behold, there it was, right in front of me. I couldn’t believe it. It was an “In Memorandum” article and there were four entries. The entries were addressed to Ray Morris Newton (nee’ Hilton) and they were poems that my father had written for the people who were posting the article and it was on the anniversary of his death which occurred in 1965. I knew immediately that I had the right person because the first post was from his sister, Jean. I had known for some time that he had a sister named Jean. No wonder I couldn’t find anything on Ray Morris Hilton, that wasn’t his given name at birth. After some more research I found out that He was born Ray Morris Newton. His mother, Addie, had remarried a man with the last name of Hilton. My father had two step brothers named Harry and George Hilton. For some reason, maybe to feel more like part of the family, my father used the Hilton name. Maybe this man adopted him. I’m not sure about all that but he used the name for several years. It was during this time, that my mother got pregnant and so it was this name he gave the adoption agency. He then went back to using Newton because three years later he had a son, whose last name was Newton.

My father had kind of a crazy life in his short 25 years on earth. Changes in his family life and then there was me. In reading the work that I could find by him, the fact that he had two illegitimate children running around, one which he knew and one which he didn’t, pressed on him. In 1960, perhaps to get more stability in his life, or to get money for college, or both, he enlisted in the Air Force. He served for four years and was medically discharged. I don’t know why yet, I’m waiting on the records from the archive. After being discharged, he moved to Tampa Florida and started college at the University of Tampa.  He made quite a name for himself and became a co-editor of the Poetry Review, a literary magazine put out by the college. His major was English Lit and he even belonged to an English Literature Honor Society, Sigma Tau Delta.

My father died in 1965 of a Cerebral Vascular Hemorrhage, which came on suddenly. Had he lived he would have been 75 this September. He lies at Arlington National Cemetery which is an honor for our family and I know he would be pleased to know that he ended up there, as morbid as that may sound.

My father wasn’t afraid of morbidity. Much of his work that I’ve found so far is filled with it. From what I can tell so far from the things I’ve read and the pictures I’ve managed to get a hold of, he was a gorgeous, creative man, a writer of poetry, a dancer, tall, tight waving medium blond hair and a killer smile, not the open mouth teeth showing kind of smile, but mischievous and knowing, like mine actually.  My brother looks like me and we both look like him, same nose; same eyes. He was sensitive and thoughtful and I have no doubt that had he lived we would have been great friends and he would have wanted a relationship with me. I believe it was painful for him to give me up. The mother of his son, not only kept him but also gave him Ray’s last name (Newton). I think this may have helped him heal some of the wounds he felt in giving me up.

Had he lived I would have been able to share all of my recent research with him which I’m sure would have made him laugh at the irony of it all but also understand the gravity of our ancestral history, which is very long and quite grand. I believe he then would have been able to lay to rest some of his demons knowing that our family line dates back almost 2,000 years and is filled with interesting stories and notable people. In looking at the history, all of the Newtons have been through much and come a very long way.

In recent history, our ancestors were all farmers from Stafford Virginia going back through the 1600’s but there are some notable people in our paternal line. Our first cousin, eleven times removed from him, twelve from me, was Sir Isaac Newton. Yes, THAT Sir Isaac Newton. You know the one, invented the telescope, discovered the theory of gravity, and discovered the theory of light and color which is still used by science today. He was also a religious scholar, something most people don’t know about him as it is not widely published but he had serious questions about “Trinity-ism” and so studied the bible and other religious texts deeply and wrote about his studies. Because of the time and place he lived (England in the 15^th century) his work on this subject was not published until almost 200 years after his death.  I wonder what he thought about Judaism. Looks like I have some more research to do.

The 11^th and 12^th century brought us Kings and Queens, of Wales, which the areas they ruled over eventually became part of England. We are the direct line of King Caractacus, in Welsh the name is Caradog, who was captured by the Romans and made such a speech to the Emperor Claudius that he spared him from a military execution. I guess that explains where my powers of persuasion and long windedness come from!

I have only researched the paternal line so far. I’m having some issues with trying to find Addie’s maiden name (my father’s mother) but I will keep going till I find that one little piece of information. I am anxious to see what I find in the other parts of my history. So far, it’s been Jews who escaped the Holocaust who had a penchant for playing German beer garden and Yiddish music who fell away from Judaism and married outside the faith, an Irish grandmother who fell out of a car drunk and died whose sister was a champion Irish dancer, a father who wrote poetry and was a ballroom dancer, British scientists, and Welsh kings and queens. It has been quite and adventure and I am so ready for more. I now know where all the key elements of my personality came from, musician, dancer, writer, thinker, creator, my sensitivity, my intellect, my intense interest in religion. It’s all there in my family line. Like someone once said to me, “you’re like Prego spaghetti sauce, it’s in there”. In not wanting to have a relationship with me, my birth mother has no idea what she’s missing.

Daddy, I love you, and even though we’ve never met, I miss you. I honor your service to our country and I will be there tomorrow, putting flowers on your grave and saying hello. Where ever you are, I know you are looking down on me, respecting my tenacity, loving the fact that after all these years, I finally found you.

Love, your Daughter

Kathleen Bernadette Aufrecht Newton