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Donna Mae DePola - Guest Speaker Chat ...May 25th 2013 ... for more information please read this!

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Dread and Laughter

15 October 2009
Posted by Siren  
[font="Arial"]Trying to work up the nerve to talk with Diane about my uncle. Even thinking about it, trying to imagine how to initiate the conversation, totally jams me up. I think, from stuff Carolyn said, as well as stuff she left for me to read after she died, I think she (Carolyn) had some sense that something had happened that I...
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Tags: miro, laughter, diane, carolyn, secrets, moral discomfort

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The Butterfly Effect

14 October 2009
Posted by Siren  
[font="Arial"]A few weeks before she died, Carolyn started spewing off all kinds of meaningful thoughts everywhere. I've mentioned this before. I think of it as her annoying "spouting profundities" phase. It was annoying because a) the stuff she was saying really was profound; b) she would deliver these really dense...
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Tags: carolyn, dying, moral discomfort

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Sobeit

13 October 2009
Posted by Siren  
[font="Arial"]I'm usually not that into symmetry, but there's something fitting about how my mother's death closed a door on me that only my uncle's death could open again.


One thing I keep reminding myself, and it seems to help: I wouldn't have the family I have now if I weren't the kind of person who did the...
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Tags: healing, death, serena, uncle, moral discomfort

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Inexplicable Cat

13 October 2009
Posted by Siren  
[font="Arial"]Last year, Carolyn gave me some big fuzzy slippers as a joke. They're really silly, cotton-candy pink, fluffy, ridiculous-looking. It was cold last night so I put them on, then ended up kicking them off when we were watching TV. Forgot about them, so they remained in the living room overnight.

Well, Miro has for...
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Tags: miro, laughter

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Paradox

11 October 2009
Posted by Siren  
[font="Arial"]Here's part of it:

I think I want to believe that willfully killing a human being is an inhuman act. Or maybe I believe I should believe this? I don't know. But it would seem I'm a person who is capable of willfully taking the life of another, albeit in the interests of preserving my own. And I don't...
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Tags: death, uncle, moral discomfort, serena

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Okay, I Get It Now

11 October 2009
Posted by Siren  
[font="Arial"]There's a sadness here today. No one has said anything, but we don't have to. It's been exactly two months since Carolyn died. Or it will be, later tonight.

I'm remembering that day. That last day, when she seemed so alive and solid and vibrant. That day she picked for dying.

I never understood...
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Tags: mensiversaries, carolyn, grief

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Am Not!

10 October 2009
Posted by Siren  
Today Diane accused me of being "surly" lately.

To which I offered a counter-accusation along the lines of, "No, you're projecting."

I said this in a completely non-surly way, of course.

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Inarticulations

09 October 2009
Posted by Siren  
[font="Arial"]I've been trying to articulate to myself what my struggles are with this head-stomping business. I've been using the language of morality because that vocabulary seems to come the closest. But I really don't truck much with the notions of good and evil or right and wrong. I know when I look at what I did, I...
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Tags: uncle, death, moral discomfort, head-stomping

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In Other Words

09 October 2009
Posted by Siren  
[font="Arial"]And because I also need to say it in real-life, rather than fairy-tale, terms, here it is: The way I got the key from around his neck was to...use my feet to render his head...uh...malleable...enough to fit through the cable necklace.

Okay that was kind of roundabout but you get the idea.

I don't say this because I...
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Tags: moral discomfort, death, uncle, head-stomping, words

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The Stomping Girl

08 October 2009
Posted by Siren  
[font="Arial"]Trigger Warning: graphic violence, a dead body, and graphic violence against a dead body.


I'm having trouble saying the next part. Saying it in first person, I mean. I'm not sure why.

I've tried to write about it before, in the form of a story, like a fairy tale. The story says most of what I need to...
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Tags: uncle, death, moral discomfort, head-stomping

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Posted by Siren  
[font="Arial"]Trigger Warning: dead body.


Finally I let my breath out of me, not in a fast rush like my lungs wanted to, but slow and silent, just in case. The leg I was balanced on was starting to wobble a little so I put my foot down carefully, like maybe the floor wasn't safe. I didn't like his face, his mismatched eyes,...
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Tags: moral discomfort, death, uncle, head-stomping

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Posted by Siren  
[font="Arial"]I was asked to put a special trigger warning on this part of my story. So, okay. This entry deals with physical violence and death.  Although the violence is NOT sexual in nature, it is gross and it may be triggering.


This is the part I had to skip over, a while back, when I was talking about how I got away from my...
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Tags: moral discomfort, death, uncle, head-stomping

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Ants in Pants

06 October 2009
Posted by Siren  
[font="Arial"]Now I've written something. There are two, maybe three different things to write. I wrote the first one, and I just now sent it off so it can get looked at by someone who's more knowledgeable about board guidelines and etiquette than I am. The issue is no longer the legalities and liabilities about the facts, but...
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Paralysis

06 October 2009
Posted by Siren  
I've gotten the go-ahead to talk about my uncle's death. This is good and exciting and a relief.

Oh, and terrifying.

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Missing Carolyn

05 October 2009
Posted by Siren  
It still hits me out of nowhere sometimes. From the side, from behind, at the knees. And then I'm on the floor. I never knew it was possible to miss someone this much.

Tags: grief, carolyn, tears

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I'll Just Sit in the Dark

04 October 2009
Posted by Siren  
[font="Arial"]It's a beautiful day, warm and sunny. But looking at us from the outside, you might think we're a bunch of twitchy depressives, sitting here with the curtains drawn, the shades down, jumping at every small sound in a dark house on a sunny day.

Every year, at this time of year, the cedar waxwings come around to...
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Tags: diane, ellen, miro, laughter

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What Carolyn Would've Said

02 October 2009
Posted by Siren  
Not long before Carolyn died, when she was in that phase of spewing profundities all over the place, she said something to me like: "That you doubt your own moral integrity only affirms it."

She said it in an offhand, shrugging, don't-be-such-an-idiot kind of way.

I miss her.

Tags: carolyn, moral discomfort, grief

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More Questions

02 October 2009
Posted by Siren  
[font="Arial"]I like seeing all the different ways people approach those three examples of ambiguous culpability. As I read people's responses, new questions bubble up. How might each of the actors in these scenarios come to terms with his or her own behavior? How much do mitigating circumstances come into play when we ourselves...
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Tags: moral discomfort

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Lightbulb

02 October 2009
Posted by Siren  
[font="Arial"]A little lightbulb moment, like maybe a night-light or a Christmas tree bulb.

Maybe the reason I sometimes feel so jammed up over stuff my uncle did is because of his intent. There was something incredibly clinical and removed about how he would act when he would tell me to do stuff, or when he would do stuff. Like...if...
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Tags: der, uncle

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Articulations

02 October 2009
Posted by Siren  
[font="Arial"]Survey says...psychological abuse is sometimes more damaging or more heinous than physical abuse alone.

(All physical/sexual abuse has an automatic element of psychological abuse to it, and I am taking that as given.)

So...when we talk about psychological abuse, we're talking about the mind-fucks, the head games, the...
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Tags: moral discomfort

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About my blog

This is basically my space to spill out everything I'm thinking and feeling.

Please note that some of the content here may be triggering.

What I write here is just me being honest with myself. Mostly just venting about things, realisations, and my path through healing.

There will be talk of CSA, SA, R, SI and ED here.

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