Fear and (Self) Loathing

Many of my friends have days that may classify as "bad hair days" or days when they just don't feel they look their best - though we on the outside think they look just beautiful.  It is one of those things that can be hard for others to see - that lack of confidence or when your inner voice is your toughest critic.  Sometimes your "self-talk" is very negative.  

I know, you see, because for most of my life I have felt what can hardly be described as anything other than self-loathing.

How does that happen?  How does a girl grow up to hate the very image of herself in a piece of glass?  To hate the thought that someone ~ anyone, somewhere has an (unflattering) picture of her.  In my mind, they are all unflattering - all capturing some large or minute imperfection.

It comes slowly, built on day by day as one listens to those who purport to love her.  They tell her things that they say are "trying to help"...."we only want the best for you"....

"You shouldn't eat that.....don't wear those pants, they make you look fat....no one will love you if you are bigger than a size 10.....you won't keep a man.....your hair looks awful that way...those thighs have got to go.....I think you should just have salad tonight......your stomach is sticking out.....turn around - do you see that bulge....I wouldn't wear shorts if I was you....thank God you are at least smart....don't go sleeveless....you have panty lines.......don't wear knit - it clings to your fat.....you'll never look like  ____ (enter best friend's name)......why would you think to order that......maybe you shouldn't eat tonight...."


I could go on for pages....chapters even and all with the same message - you don't measure up (no pun intended) and so, you are not lovable, not cute, not good enough.  Not even your family loves you....


I'm not sure when it started really.  It seems like Dad was always telling me I needed to diet or Mom was always cooking something "low-fat" for me.  I guess it probably started at puberty when I started to develop curves.  Now, I will be the first to tell you that kids can be mean ~ but they aren't your family and you can go home and get away from them.  I couldn't get away. Ever.


I developed full-fledged bulimia in senior year of High School.  I never did throw up though - I abused laxatives - seemed easier to hide.  Throughout that year, I did anything I could to be a "single-digit" size.  It didn't work.  So, I started eating every other day.  Still no luck.  I would go down to the basement for HOURS each evening to exercise.  I would do 100 leg lifts, 200, 500.....I measured my waist, hips, legs, arms EVERY day....I was so afraid that I would never get a date if I couldn't get thinner.....

What no one ever told me was that I have a body type that tends toward athleticism and an hour-glass figure.  The classic beauty of Marilyn Monroe or Doris Day with feminine curves was in my future, not the androgynous, flat-chested look of a cover model.

Through my twenties and into my thirties, I would obsessively measure body parts and feel sick fear with what the tape measure said.  Pregnancy was pure Hell on earth as I had no control over what was happening to my body.  Though I did stop using laxatives so the baby would be healthy.  I did 30 - 40 minutes of sit ups during my pregnancy with Marcos until the doctor ordered me to stop in the 7th month.

After he was born, both motherhood and the  onset of my auto-immune disease, Progressive Hashimoto's Thyroiditis caused me to step back and take a look at my life.  I started to see things differently and understood that I had some serious baggage in my life.  Part of my journey back was realizing that if I stayed where I was and listened to my "family" tell me how unlovable I was, I would never be the Mom that Marcos deserved.  

That inner resolve to do better for him is part of what drove me to move to Texas.  I was afraid my family would give him his own baggage to carry through life and I wouldn't allow that to happen.  I took the "bull by the horns" and moved to Houston and then to Dallas and made a life for Marcos.


Through the grace of God, I met David and we fell in love and built a family.  I still have fear ~ that I may pass on poor self-esteem to my kids, that others will see through the veneer of self-confidence to what is hiding inside - a scared, shy woman who is afraid no one will like her because she is bigger than a size 10.....

It's been 10 years since I married David.  I still have those feelings of low self-worth - though some days I think my face looks pretty okay for a 43 year old woman.....some days I like my hair...I'm working out again ~ for me.  Not to be a certain size, but to be stronger and more flexible.  


My goal for this anniversary is to go out to dinner with my husband and for me to feel good when we have our picture taken.


I'm gonna reach that goal.

 

The Valley of Haters. NOT! ~~ Reprint from Darrell Ankarlo 5/5/10

“We’ll bring you to your knees!”

“Bigots…haters!”

“We’ll put a million people in the streets.”

“When we’re through with you, Arizona will be bankrupt!”

Just a few of the threats and vicious words I’ve heard from the innocent and loving protesters upset that our state dared to act on an issue that has made one of our cities (Phoenix) the number one kidnap capitol in the country and number two in the world!

We have militia from a foreign country engaged in shootouts with police a few miles from my home and close to a million “undocumented people” shutting down hospitals and nearly collapsing our welfare system. In fact as I write this, five illegal aliens just ambushed a police officer an hour from my home. They used AK47s. Imagine this on your cul du sak…it may be coming.

Arizona is all over the news because finally our state says “enough is enough” and has stopped waiting for the federal government to do something we all know it won’t do. I mean, come on, those supposed “representatives of the people” knew about and allowed Wall Street to come within inches of bankrupting America.

Can we really expect them to address their open door policy to modern day slavery?

In Arizona, for example, a brick layer used to make close to $20 an hour. Now he’s lucky to make $9 or $10 an hour because illegal aliens—usually working in groups—offer to beat any price. Many contractors have been paying illegal laborers $4 or $5 an hour under-the-table which pushes U.S. employees out of their jobs at an alarming rate. And, more often than not, if you’re illegal and complain or get hurt on the job, the boss threatens to call the police so the employer has full control. All of this has been happening in cities across the country as corporate America and Washington say nothing! Keep stock holders and voters happy at any cost.; This is modern day slavery.

Our Legislature decided they would take matters into its own hands. It’s called “state’s rights” kids. We fought a civil war over this very issue. But, instead of being celebrated our state is a pariah as people are calling for boycotts of everything that is Arizona (including Arizona Tea— which is and always has been made in NY!).

Our new state law is similar to a federal law, one that is rarely enforced. It says you CANNOT break into and steal from our resources—or export your criminals to a state already struggling. So why all the marches, cancellations and outcry now? Because our state is the first finally willing to stand and fight.

“But no person is illegal!”

Those are the words I hear whenever immigration comes up. Though I agree that we are all created equal in God’s eyes, I also know many of our military’s servicemen and women, including one of my sons, serve in part to preserve a thing called sovereignty. That’s a big concept – which I don’t have space to go into here. However, you can read more about it in last year’s book Another Man’s Sombrero which describes my trip into Mexico and how I sneaked back into America—without papers. It took me six whole seconds to get back!

So, Ankarlo, what would you do? Obviously, we have an immigration system that needs some major work so let’s demand that Congress put it on the burner along with their health care and Wall Street games. Next, we put 10,000 border patrol and national guardsmen at the key entrances—fully trained and armed. Then, to avoid the “show me your papers” argument we use a passport system.

Everywhere that I have traveled internationally I have not only carried a passport but have been asked to show it multiple times. I guess I should have pulled out a protest sign and yelled “Hater and Bigot!” Carry your passport. If you don’t have it on you, you have 24 hours to produce it. If law enforcement believes that you are here illegally you can be detained until someone can provide it for you. People caught making illegal passports, drivers licenses etc would be treated as terrorists or traitors, depending on citizenship.

“What does an illegal alien look like?” Here in the U.S. there are illegal aliens from at least 51 nations so it can be difficult to tell. However, when a group of people stand at the local Home Depot and none can speak English, you have a bit of a clue that it’s Colonel Mustard with the candlestick in the study. Thus, our new law says the police can investigate. Oh, and they can also cite/arrest the guy in the pickup who slows down to ferry his new slaves off for a day’s labor.

Almost one seventh of our state’s population is here illegally and since our state is nearing $2 billion in debt one has to assume the cheap labor and unpaid hospital visits just might be having an impact but Arizona is backwards for daring to do something about it! Bullcrap!

Until a federal government finally realizes what an impact its flaccid response is having on our independent state (and California, New Mexico, the great Republic of Texas and at least 23 other states) we’re going to abide by a system our forefathers built into a national Constitution—we are going to use our State’s Rights to save ourselves!

By the way, just this week three houses were raided in two days here in Phoenix; one had 69 people in it. Two crack downs were done at the same time with almost 100 people arrested, detained or cited—over 90 percent of them were here illegally. You’re smart so do the math and then you’ll understand our anger and confusion. Anger because we’re feeling this open door policy first hand and confusion because so many still don’t get it.

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Darrell Ankarlo is a 32 year broadcast veteran and author of two books:  What Went Wrong with America and How to Fix it and Another Man’s Sombrero.  Find out more at www.ankarlo.net.

My son has been racially profiled!

You know, it is somewhat funny, the story behind this issue.  When my 1st husband and I found out we were having a baby, we wanted to raise him as both a New England-er and a Southwestern-er so that he would know the heritage of the parts of the country that his parents came from.  He was of Mexican and American Indian descent and was born in Arizona and I am Scotch-Irish, Italian and American Indian and was born in the Boston area.

After he was killed and my son was born, the hospital, the Navy, Social Security office and a variety of other bureaucracies were insistent that I racially identify my son. Was he "white"; "Hispanic"; "Indian"....  Well, that got my red-head in an uproar.  I checked "Other" and filled in "Human".  No amount of phone calls would change my mind.  That was it.  He was of the "human" race.  (I can be a little stubborn)

When I moved to Texas, his last name was more common than in New England.  His beautiful skin tone became even more 'coffee-and-cream' colored and his hair, unlike mine, didn't bleach out lighter in the hot Texas sun.  As he has grown up, his features have come to resemble my husband's so much that it takes the breath away from those who knew his father.

When he went to Middle-School, he came home one day with paper-work for me - and he was quite angry.  I asked what was wrong and he slapped the papers down onto the table.  The principal (who has since been replaced) had sent home papers that needed to be filled out in order to exempt my son from ESL classes.  They had (erroneously) assumed due to his name, that he would need to be in ESL classes in order to help him along.  Not only that, I had to explain myself if I wanted him out of those classes!  They also sent home information on getting immigration assistance!! Upon calling the school and identifying myself as "My Son's Mom", I was asked if I needed a bi-lingual speaker on the phone.  ~ You can bet I adjusted their thinking.  :-)

 My oldest son, child of an MIA/KIA US Sailor, had been pigeon-holed and racially profiled as "Hispanic" and potentially illegal or having illegal parents who needed consular aid.  He constantly rails against this assumption and he gets quite irritated that people assume he supports illegals and "Mexican causes".  My son is very conservative - more so than I am when it comes to the illegal issue.  There is no 'gray' for him.  It is black and white - if you are illegal, you need to leave. He has no issue showing his school ID, license or military ID.  He would rather do that than have illegals run rampant in the streets.

Like his father, he is vehemently against illegal immigration as he feels it lowers people's perception of Hispanics, especially those of Mexican descent.  It also causes suffering in the form of human trafficking that is abusive and exploitative of people who, in many cases, can't protect themselves.  Many Hispanics he has crossed paths with have dissed him for his stand, but he does not waver.  He feels being American is a privilege ~ and he is proud of the sacrifice his father made.

Immigration is great.  Immigrants built this great country.  We need immigrants who come here legally to help us grow into the next century and beyond.  We don't need illegal aliens making a mockery of our system and the ethnicity of our people. We don't need liberals who support open borders and 'sanctuary cities' profiling our children. 

My son deserves better than being profiled by the left as 'sympathetic' to their cause.  My husband damned well deserves better than a legacy that requires his son to be harassed by liberals as 'not Hispanic enough'.

Whose Country is This Anyway?

With the support of 70 percent of its citizens, Arizona has ordered sheriffs and police to secure the border and remove illegal aliens, half a million of whom now reside there. 

Arizona acted because the U.S. government has abdicated its constitutional duty to protect the states from invasion and refuses to enforce America's immigration laws. 

"We in Arizona have been more than patient waiting for Washington to act," said Gov. Jan Brewer. "But decades of inaction and misguided policy have created an unacceptable situation." 

We have a crisis in Arizona because we have a failed state in Washington.

What is the response of Barack Obama, who took an oath to see to it that federal laws are faithfully executed? 

He is siding with the law-breakers. He is pandering to the ethnic lobbies. He is not berating a Mexican regime that aids and abets this invasion of the country of which he is commander in chief. Instead, he attacks the government of Arizona for trying to fill a gaping hole in law enforcement left by his own dereliction of duty. 

He has denounced Arizona as "misguided." He has called on the Justice Department to ensure that Arizona's sheriffs and police do not violate anyone's civil rights. But he has said nothing about the rights of the people of Arizona who must deal with the costs of having hundreds of thousands of lawbreakers in their midst. 

How's that for Andrew Jackson-style leadership?

Obama has done everything but his duty to enforce the law.

Undeniably, making it a state as well as a federal crime to be in this country illegally, and requiring police to check the immigration status of anyone they have a "reasonable suspicion" is here illegally, is tough and burdensome. But what choice did Arizona have? 

The state has a fiscal crisis caused in part by the burden of providing schooling and social welfare for illegals and their families, who consume far more in services than they pay in taxes and who continue to pour in. Even John McCain is now calling for 3,000 troops on the border.

Police officers and a prominent rancher have been murdered. There have been kidnappings believed to be tied to the Mexican drug cartels. There are nightly high-speed chases through the barrios where innocent people are constantly at risk. 

If Arizona does not get control of the border and stop the invasion, U.S. citizens will stop coming to Arizona and will begin to depart, as they are already fleeing California.

What we are talking about here is the Balkanization and breakup of a nation into ethnic enclaves. A country that cannot control its borders isn't really a country anymore, Ronald Reagan reminded us. 

The tasks that Arizonans are themselves undertaking are ones that belong by right, the Constitution and federal law to the Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Homeland Security. 

Arizona has been compelled to assume the feds' role because the feds won't do their job. And for that dereliction of duty the buck stops on the desk of the president of the United States. 

Why is Obama paralyzed? Why does he not enforce the law, even if he dislikes it, by punishing the businessmen who hire illegals and by sending the 12 million to 20 million illegals back home? President Eisenhower did it. Why won't he? 

Because he is politically correct. Because he owes a big debt to the Hispanic lobby that helped deliver two-thirds of that vote in 2008. Though most citizens of Hispanic descent in Arizona want the border protected and the laws enforced, the Hispanic lobby demands that the law be changed.

Fair enough. But the nation rose up as one to reject the "path-to-citizenship" – i.e., amnesty – that the 2007 plan of George W. Bush, McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama envisioned. 

Al Sharpton threatens to go to Phoenix and march in the streets against the new Arizona law. Let him go. 

Let us see how many African-Americans, who are today frozen out of the 8 million jobs held by illegal aliens that might otherwise go to them or their children, will march to defend an invasion for which they are themselves paying the heaviest price. 

Last year, while Americans were losing a net of 5 million jobs, the U.S. government – Bush and Obama both – issued 1,131,000 green cards to legal immigrants to come and take the jobs that did open up, a flood of immigrants equaled in only four other years in our history. 

What are we doing to our own people? 

Whose country is this, anyway? 

America today has an establishment that, because it does not like the immigration laws, countenances and condones wholesale violation of those laws. 

Nevertheless, under those laws, the U.S. government is obligated to deport illegal aliens and punish businesses that knowingly hire them.

This is not an option. It is an obligation. 

Can anyone say Barack Obama is meeting that obligation?

Reprinted from WND - Patrick J. Buchanan - 4/27/10

Happy Earth Day

I know - raised eyebrows.  After-all, I make no bones about the fact that I am conservative and so that must make me a dirty capitalist who wants to burn Mother Earth, right?  Wrong.

I believe that we should drill early and often to develop new oil fields for domestic production. At the same time, I believe that we should do whatever we can, in the private sector, to develop new energy sources that are renewable and have less impact on the environment.  Why then, should we drill?  Because destroying our economy in order to punish energy use will not build the new technologies we need.  Because it will take 30 - 50 years to develop the right combination of new energy and delivery systems to make those new sources (Not corn ethanol) viable and available.


I believe that we should all try to be more mindful of our own impacts on the planet.  For me, that means recycling and compost gardening.  I am learning more all the time about compost and organic gardening.  I think growing a garden and sharing the surplus with others as you can is a great way to feel closer to the Earth.  I think getting your hands dirty is great stress relief.

I believe we, as consumers, can impact companies and whether or not they use renewable methods for packaging, manufacturing and materials with our purchasing power.  We don't need the government to tell us what kind of products we can buy - like light-bulbs or toilet paper.  Less government means more variety of responses to helping the planet.

I believe that the enviro-nuts who keep extolling us to live in caves and "save the planet" are way too impressed with their minute impact on Mother Earth.  The earth is magnificent.  It has been here for billions of years without us and will continue to be here for billions of years until the sun burns out.  Earth needs our respect and care; it doesn't need our meager efforts to "save" her.  We try all this "regulation" at the federal level and UN level to cut carbon dioxide (want to cut CO2? Stop exhaling) and the volcano in Iceland spewed more CO2 out in one week than mankind has in decades.  Earth doesn't care about our efforts - she is more powerful than we ever thought to be.

So, Happy Earth Day; be kind to the Earth; learn more about our wonderful planet; plant a tree.  Be smart.