coffeewithmrthornton

[coffeewithmrthornton]

Putting together the Puzzle of Amber Heard

When Amber Heard first filed her protection from abuse order, I was 100% behind her. Having escaped my own abusive marriage, I never questioned her story.

That was until I heard Johnny Depp on the witness stand and the audio tapes he provided of the toxic conversations between them. Now that the jury's verdict is in, the puzzle pieces of Amber Heard have come into sharp focus as a clear picture of the true abuser in the relationship.

The way I came to my own conclusions on this case was through comparing my own memories to what both parties presented in court. Here are some of my thoughts and observations.

Heard's description of PTSD didn't ring true. Heard said she is still waking up screaming and has unspoken "rules" for people who interact with her regularly. She also said that fight scenes in "Aquaman" filming triggered episodes. In my case, PTSD occasionally rears its head, but as I healed over the years, its hold on me loosened. When I first left, there were objects that I had to keep hidden, such as a vase. If I saw these objects, I would go into a panic attack. I didn't always remember the connection between the object and the abuse, though. It would be like having a nightmare, waking up and not being able to recall it, and then having the details come back to you suddenly during the day when you least expect it. Another example is that I cannot see a lake without feeling tightness in my chest and having shortness of breath. I'm terrified of lakes. Our home was on a lake in the woods. When I first escaped, even if someone said, "I'm going to the lake this weekend," I would feel like I could not breathe. Even today, I cannot go near a lake. Heard did not give specific examples like these on the witness stand. It felt like she had read about people like me and then tried to recreate what that would "look like" for the jury. I can't really say why it didn't seem genuine to me ... it just didn't.

2. The tapes of Heard's conversations with Depp revealed the person behind the mask. What I mean by that is, abusers are masters at wearing masks for the public. My ex-husband appears very meek and mild to outsiders. He's a short man. He speaks quietly. He is agreeable in a professional environment. He does not seem like anyone who would hurt another creature. Similarly, Heard looked like a fragile fairy princess. She is elegant and poised. She seemed like a waif of a woman who could never be the abuser. The tapes, however ... oh my. There is an iciness in her tone. She speaks very quietly, but with venom. The words are daggers, hitting Depp in areas that are sacred, such as attacks on his fatherhood. Similarly, my ex-husband spoke to me in the same manner. A quiet voice can be terrifying when you know the intention behind the words. I remember saving every voicemail in the height of my child custody fights. I needed those voicemails as evidence in case I went "missing." I was scared out of my mind about what he would do, always checking my rear-view mirror for him and calling friends or family members to make sure they knew where I was going every single day. The first six months after my escape were the most terrifying ... which brings me to my third point.

3. Heard did not seem scared of Depp in any of those tapes. Even when he was beating up the kitchen cabinets in her video recording, she was smirking and laughing throughout. When I left my ex-husband, I was so afraid that he would find out that I grabbed only one night's worth of clothing for me and my 6-year-old. I stuffed the clothes in a Panera paper bag from my lunch that day. When I returned later for belongings to move into a rental home, I only took the things that had belonged to me before the marriage. If I took anything that we had purchased together, I made sure I only took the broken items -- things he had destroyed. I didn't want him coming after me and accusing me of stealing from him. I left the electronics. I left a full kitchen with all of my dishes and appliances. I left the nice furniture and the flat-screened TV. I left the home as if it was on fire and didn't look back.

4. Finally, Heard is a master manipulator. I watched her gaslight the jury, claiming she never "snickered" during the trial, while in fact I and the rest of the world saw her doing just that. I saw her take words and phrases that victims use and twist them in her favor, not fully understanding the gravity of what she was alleging. When the jury returned their verdict, she again acted as if that verdict was hurting domestic abuse victims ... in fact, she was the person who hurt us with her constant lies about Depp.

Johnny Depp isn't a perfect human being, and neither am I. But I saw a lot of similarities between us in his telling of his story. No one believed him. No one believed me, either. It took a few years before some people close to my ex-husband saw the truth for themselves. For Johnny, it took 6 years, but now the world has the truth.

I hope Johnny Depp realizes how he has been vindicated. And I'm sorry that when Heard first brought up the allegations, that I immediately sided with her. Abusers know how to accuse others of the things of which they are guilty. Going forward, I hope all of us take a breath and see all the facts before we draw conclusions.

[coffeewithmrthornton]

There & Back Again: "The Hobbit" and My Journey Away from Domestic Violence

Last night, I was back again.

But it took 9 years for me to realize it.

My journey started in March 2010, when I left a log cabin on a lake in the woods of Kentucky with a 6-year-old to escape domestic abuse. At the time, I had no idea the harrowing days, months, and years ahead of me. But I found that the release of the film, "The Hobbit," a couple of years later would become a metaphor for this chapter of my life story. I know a lot of true Tolkien fans detest the films. But on darkest days, I found that I would reference certain scenes in order to survive the darkness.

Tolkien's metaphor for this tale was the plight of Jewish people in World War 2. They were the dwarves, removed from their homeland and obliterated by a dragon (Hitler). For me, the dwarves became a metaphor for me and my son. The metaphor for my ex-husband, though, was not just the dragon. We'll get to that later.

It was never lost on me that my obsession with the films was directly tied to the emotional release they gave me as I battled through my new life and identity as a single mother and domestic abuse survivor. Like the dwarves, I was misunderstood. I had lost my home. I faced maligning by those who judged me, not knowing my full situation.

Some of the most poignant scenes for me were the ones in which the dwarves were in the most danger. In one, they are on the side of a mountain in a terrible thunderstorm. Suddenly, they realize they are in fact caught in a fight between stone giants, who throw boulders at each other, threatening to push the dwarves and the hobbit into a chasm. The group had just left the warning of Galadriel: "The quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little and it will fail to the ruin of all." I felt that I was leading my son on the edge of that mountain in a storm ... and that my quest -- to raise him to become a strong man who would champion women -- was in fact on "the edge of a knife." "Perilous" doesn't come close to describe how I felt about my situation.

Other scenes linked me emotionally to the dwarves. In one, the hobbit tries to sneak away in the night. A dwarf wakes and asks what he's doing. During the conversation, the hobbit snaps that the dwarves don't understand how he feels about being at home -- because they don't have a home. The dwarf's understanding registers on his face in such an empathetic way that it still brings me to tears. In that moment, I felt the same way. I didn't have my home anymore. It had been taken from me, and I was out alone in the world with a small child. And what would become of us?

But there was one scene in the film that haunted me the most: The one with the Great Goblin King.

In this scene, the goblins have trapped the dwarves, and their king begins to mock the dwarves' king, Thorin. The goblin king is snide and cutting. He sneers that Thorin doesn't have a kingdom anymore ... so he's not much of a king, is he? At the moment when I saw this for the first time, I felt that that the goblin king ... was my ex-husband. I shook physically in my seat as the goblin towered over me on the film screen. Tears fell down my cheeks as I realized how much the bullying by the goblin was exactly like what I experienced regularly.

We of course were embroiled in custody fights. And he was living with the woman with whom he had been having an affair at the time of my escape. I remember that one Christmas season when I was very ill, he came to my door just to tell me he was taking her to Cancun and that my son would be staying with me throughout the holiday. He turned on his heel and jumped in his car, squealing out of the driveway like he’d just robbed a bank. I stood on the doorstep in silent outrage, feeling like I had been ridiculed by my own menacing goblin king.

Through all of this, I learned to have blind faith in God and put our fate in His hands. With each situation that arose, I prayed my way through it, and miracles got us further in our journey.

Last night, I went to my son’s university to watch him perform in a play production of … you guessed it … “The Hobbit.” He’s 18, and this is his first semester in school. He wants to become a voice actor, and he has been inspired through the films to pursue this dream, especially by the acting of Richard Armitage, who played Thorin.

But the biggest plot twist of all is that his part in the play … was the Great Goblin King. He would have no idea about the irony of this, because I never shared with him my secret metaphor, tying the goblin to my ex-husband. But as he jumped and screamed on the stage for the goblins to “Kill them all,” I felt a silent satisfaction that he was playing out the fate that I had made sure he escaped. He was the reason I left. His future was the reason I stayed away. And the real person he is under the costume -- is not anything like his father. I made sure of that. I made sure that he was raised to be empathetic and kind, sensitive to the needs of others, a champion for girls and women. I loved that he was playing the goblin, because it was like a sweet finality to our story -- a silent shout to the man that wanted to destroy me: “You were the goblin, but I made sure our son only played one.”

Last night, as I reflected on where my son and I have been, and where he is going in his future, I realized that we had triumphed, just like the dwarves. My son made it to adulthood as the man I hoped he would become. And I made a new home for myself, no longer wandering and wishing for my own “Lonely Mountain.” The Hobbit’s adventure will always be in my heart.

We made it “back again.”

[coffeewithmrthornton]

Prince Harry, EMDR, and My Experience

In 2010, I threw clothes into a Panera brown bag for myself and my 6-year-old son and left a log cabin in the woods to get away from an abusive spouse. That is a tale alone, but what I'd like to discuss is how I recovered from the PTSD that followed my escape. It was a therapy called "EMDR," or "Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing."

Yesterday, I watched Prince Harry use the same method on the Apple TV series, "The Me You Can't See," and I was so encouraged to see how it helped him. After tweeting that out, I received so many replies, likes, and retweets, that it seemed right to explain EMDR to anyone who doesn't understand it or is skeptical of it.

The best I can do, though, is to describe it as a former patient/recipient. I'm not a medical doctor or psychologist or psychiatrist. My descriptions may not meet a scientific standard, but my hope is that this will give you some insight into how it could work if you have also suffered through trauma.

In "The Me You Can't See," Prince Harry does the therapy remotely, probably because of COVID-19. He is on his computer with a therapist, and he wraps his arms around his shoulders, gently tapping each shoulder as he reprocesses the memories. In my case, my therapist had equipment that I held in each hand. The equipment sent "taps" into my hands as she walked me through the memory. Some people have asked me if this is the same method that Scientologists use in their "auditing" process. It is not. This may look similar to the untrained eye, but it's a far different procedure.

Before we got started with my EMDR, I was tasked with conjuring a "safe figure." The safe figure was your "protector" as you processed the memory. This could be a real person. It could be imaginary. It could be a favorite toy I had as a child, for example -- anything that would make me feel safe. At the time, the "Hobbit" film series was being released, and my favorite actor, Richard Armitage, played a dwarf named Thorin. I decided that if I had to go into memories that I did not want to visit, the best "person" to protect me was this dwarf. I know. It sounds weird, but stay with me.

So the first thing we did was that as I held the EMDR tools, my therapist asked me to describe Thorin with my eyes closed. I described the scent of his leather coat. I could hear his footsteps next to mine and the "swish" of grass as we walked through a field. I saw his blade and knew that I was "safe" with Thorin.

After that, I had to choose a memory to revisit. This was the tough part, because there were so many, and I also did not want to go there in my mind. But as we walked into my log cabin in the memory, Thorin was there next to me. I can't describe this well except to say that it was very much like hypnosis. I was very much "in" the cabin, and Thorin was not leaving my side. In this way, I was able to discuss what had happened. I knew that as I reprocessed the memory, I was in the present, not the past, and that this was something that could no longer hurt me. And when I felt anxious as I walked through the memory, the therapist would tell me to look at Thorin. He was there, watching the entire thing play out and ready to bring me out when I was ready to leave.

I know. It sounds crazy. But this is the way it worked.

Now I'm going to tell you something even crazier. After I left the therapy sessions, Thorin would pop up in unexpected places. Here's what I mean ... Suppose I was in a conversation with someone and they said they were "going to the lake" on the weekend. Well, our log cabin was on that same lake. As the other person would be talking about how much they loved the lake, my chest would tighten. My pulse would rise. My shoulders would tighten. I would start feeling dizzy. Even as I type this, the word, "lake" still brings those sensations. However, back then, it would almost send me to a point where I would feel the need to run away. At these moments, the "sound" of Thorin's feet in the grass would come to mind ... or I might actually "see" Thorin in my mind's eye, standing at my side. No, I didn't really see this dwarf materialize -- it was an image that my mind conjured. When my mind did this, I could suddenly relax. And I did relax.

It did not take long for me to not need EMDR. I think we only did about three or four sessions. But it was enough to snap the PTSD like a twig. I was no longer afraid.

Does Thorin ever show up today? No. But at times when I do feel anxious, if I close my eyes and imagine him, I can still hear the feet moving through the tall grass, and I can still "smell" the leather coat. And I relax.

PTSD is very complex, and everyone is different. I'm sure that my experience with EMDR is also very individual. I don't know if others who have gone through it have had the same types of things happen to them. But I can say unequivocally that it was worth every cent I paid. Yes, I'm an American, and at the time, my ex-husband had taken me off of his health insurance plan as retribution. So I paid for all of my therapy by myself. It was the best gift I could have given to myself.

Prince Harry's experience with EMDR raises awareness about this therapy, and for that I am grateful to him and to Oprah. I'll also be forever grateful to my former therapist, who found a way to help me process toxic memories so that I was stronger and better and healed.

[coffeewithmrthornton]

A Tribute to A Champion for Kids

He was holding the door open for all of us who were new hires as we arrived for employee orientation. “Hello! Glad you’re here!” he said with an infectious laugh. “Thank you! I’m glad I’m here, too!” I responded.

I had no idea who he was.

I assumed he was a teacher from that school where the district had scheduled the orientation. He was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt with the slogan, “It’s About Kids.”

The slogan, I knew well. I had decided a year earlier to investigate a career change from journalist, to teacher. Encouraged by my family members at a Christmas dinner, I had applied to substitute in the Fayette County Public Schools in Lexington, Ky., just to “test the waters” and “see how well I liked it.” When I logged onto the district’s web site to apply, I read the job description carefully and was struck by a plea for substitutes with special education students. There was a shortage, not only for subs, but also for those willing to work in special ed. The district was adding extra to the daily sub rate if you were willing to do that. “We need people who are willing to work with our most vulnerable children,” it said.

If it’s possible for words to pull at heartstrings, this sentence did that for me. “Most vulnerable,” I whispered to myself. “Most. Vulnerable,” I repeated. At the bottom of the job description, I saw the phrase, “It’s about kids.” I submitted my application, even though my B.A. was in journalism, and was shocked when I received an offer to start immediately within a week. That first day that I subbed, I chose an elementary school and a job to work with special education children. One third grader who had autism only wanted to hold my hand and walk in circles around the perimeter of the playground during recess. I was hooked. I knew at that moment that I wanted to change careers, even after spending 30 years in my former profession.

Fast forward one year later, and I had taken a job as a paraeducator at a middle school. This job would involve doing nothing but assisting special education teachers by working one-on-one with students like the child I’d met that first day. I had not decided yet whether to teach full-time, and I was using this job as a springboard before I bit the bullet to go back to grad school for my certification.

And that’s when I saw him at the front door that hot August day for orientation, grinning and greeting everyone with that, “Glad you’re here!”  As I walked through the door, I thought, “I hope everyone I work with is as nice as you are.”

A few minutes later, I was seated with dozens of other new support staff in a dark auditorium. And I was shocked when the man who had greeted me so effusively walked to the microphone ... and introduced himself as the district superintendent.

“We are so grateful for all of you, because you are going to be working with our most vulnerable kids,” he said.

There it was again ... that phrase that had broken my heart in the original job listing.

“Most vulnerable,” I whispered again to myself. “Most. Vulnerable.”

He shared his own story with us ... how he had been vulnerable as a child and how he was himself acquainted with poverty ... and how so many of our “vulnerable” kids were coming from places of need. 

His name was “Manny” Caulk. 

I only saw him in person two other times after that. Once was when I returned to a job fair two years later to apply for a regular special education teaching position, having completed two years of grad school. Again, he was greeting people at the door and introducing himself as “Manny.” Again, he was wearing jeans and that “It’s about kids” T-shirt. 

The other time I saw him in person was during my new teacher orientation later that summer after receiving a job at my son’s high school. Brimming with hope and excitement, I felt I had come full circle as “Manny” walked to the front of the auditorium ... and again talked to us about the “most vulnerable” kids.

Throughout my short career in education in Fayette County, Manny Caulk has defined my teaching approach. He set the standard for me way back on that day in my home office when I first read the job description to substitute. Then as I saw him in person later, he set another standard -- one of humility, kindness, and gentle greatness. I was always inspired each time Manny emailed teachers to encourage us, whether it was as a new employee or as a teacher facing the daunting challenge of teaching during a pandemic.

Last week, Manny Caulk passed away at age 49.

I’m still processing it. As I walked out of my high school on Friday afternoon after a week of solitary online teaching in my empty classroom, the weight of the pandemic was resting on my heart. I looked at the flag that had been lowered to half mast in Manny’s memory and at the words our principal had placed on the school sign: “Farewell, Partner.”

In that moment, I realized how much two words spoken by Manny had propelled a life changing decision for me -- one that has resulted in a rich life steeped with love and an abundance of joy that my students give me.

“Most vulnerable,” I whispered to myself as I looked at the high school sign. “Most. Vulnerable. Thank you, Manny. I’m carrying your words forward in my heart.”

[coffeewithmrthornton]

The Betty Broderick Dilemma

If you’ve ever come up on a multi-vehicle accident on the eight lanes around Atlanta, then you’ll understand my dreaded apprehension watching USA’s miniseries on Betty Broderick. You gaze at the twisted metal, flat tires, ambulance stretchers and rescue workers with a mix of horror and guilt while driving past. The Betty Broderick series feels the same way for me, because so much of what she experiences leading up to her fateful decision to kill her ex-husband and his new wife is so common in divorce. 

Last night, I watched episode 7 and couldn’t believe how similar it was to the past 10 years of my own life since my marriage broke up. In the episode, what seems to trigger Betty’s decision to head over to her ex’s house with a gun is a conversation with her young son. He’d been offered a chance to go to Disneyland with friends and turned it down so that he could spend time with his mother. By this point, she had lost custody, and her time with her children was sharply limited. She realizes in that moment that her children are being forced to choose between being with her and experiencing childhood joys. It’s a heartbreaking scene.

At first when this miniseries came on, I saw people raving about it on social media and couldn’t personally get through the first two episodes. In a word, they were toxic for me. This is difficult to explain to people who haven’t been divorced. Even my mother has said things to me like, “You can’t possibly know what it is to love someone deeply. You got divorced, and I’m widowed after a 27-year marriage.” (Yes, she really said that.) The word, “divorce” has a negative connotation for a variety of reasons, but in my case, I always associated it with blaming the woman. I remember being in 2nd grade and overhearing a conversation between my parents about a neighbor. “She’s a bitter divorcee,” my father said, spitting out the word, “bitter” like he’d just chewed on a dandelion. It left me with a fear that I would be divorced in the future, and when I did get divorced, left me with a gnawing sense of being judged.

I picked up the Betty Broderick series again later, though, to see if my first impressions had been wrong. And what I realized was that the toxicity for me all tied to my own life experience. The difference between me and Betty is that I have had the majority of custody time with my son. But there have been times over the past 10 years that our circumstances ran along the same track.

Take this week, for example. My son is four states away for a regular July visit with his paternal grandparents and father. For the past 10 years, all of my 4th of July “celebrations” have been alone. Even though my son is now a high school senior, it’s still a psychological battle to get through a holiday solo. The same goes for the week after Christmas. While many families take that week to nest in with extended family or take vacations, my son is whisked away two days after Christmas for paternal family gatherings and parties up North. Every New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day is solitary. Every New Year’s Eve countdown is spent watching the ball drop in Time’s Square with my dog and cat on the couch.

There was one Christmas season when I was freshly separated, and my soon-to-be ex-husband was by then flouting his relationship with a mistress. I had been sick with a mysterious stomach pain, and medical bills were piling up while I went through test after test to find the cause. It ended up being a tomato allergy, but that’s something I wouldn’t discover until April, five months later. On a cold December night while I wrestled with this excruciating pain, my doorbell rang, and my ex-husband was on the other side wearing a Grinch-like grin. “I just wanted to let you know that I won’t be taking (our son) the week after Christmas like normal. I’m going on a vacation to Mexico with my girlfriend.” With that, he turned on his heel and jumped in his car, squealing out of the driveway like a 16-year-old with a new license. I stood on the doorstep in silent shock and outrage.

During that period, like Betty, I also heard tales from my son about the social gatherings my ex-husband was having with the girlfriend. They would have parties on our former co-owned boat and with my former friends from my former church. When they say people choose sides in a divorce, they aren’t kidding. I was on the outs, because at the time people didn’t understand I had left the marriage due to abuse. To the outside world, I was a former military spouse who left an Iraq war veteran who was “going through a rough time.” I was heartless and deserved to be alone.

Although I know this miniseries has a tragic end (Betty kills her ex-husband and new wife in their bed), episode 7 was actually very therapeutic for me. I felt every moment of loneliness and sadness that Betty was feeling acutely. And I remembered the many days and nights I had to fight through those feelings and resolve that I would live for a better future. I didn’t know when that “better future” was coming, but I knew it would eventually.

I guess the difference here is life choices. When you’re in a situation like Betty’s, it would be easy to cave to the negativity, self-pity ... and to use my late father’s word,��“bitterness.” In my case, it took a resolute decision to give every one of those moments back to God and to pray for the willingness to forgive my enemies -- my ex-husband and his second wife. (She became his second ex-wife within 1 year of their marriage, by the way.)

What’s my point in writing all of this? 

I don’t even know if people will read it, and I don’t care. For me, it’s a moment to reflect while I am again at home alone during the first two weeks of July .... that life has turned out splendidly. The sacrifices were worth it. I didn’t withhold my son from his father or paternal relatives when I could have. I wanted him to grow up with the secure knowledge of love from them, and I don’t regret a minute of my sadness while he was away. The Betty Broderick story for me is a reminder of my plight, yes, but it’s also a validation that I made it -- stronger, wiser, and kinder. 

And yes, I do have to pray regularly for the willingness to forgive my ex-husband. All of these years later, it’s still an ongoing thing -- not a one-off prayer. Doing so has opened my mind and heart to the realization that our choices define our existences and that when we are willing to give in to love, it results in a beautiful future. 

[coffeewithmrthornton]

Why I’m For Reparations

I’m the descendant of slave owners, and I’m for reparations.

When I was a little girl, my granddaddy used to tell the story about a trunk filled with Confederate money in the attic of “the homestead.” The Homestead was the family vernacular for the former plantation site. Gen. Sherman burned down the original plantation house and the fields of cotton on his way to Savannah. The Homestead was the clapboard home built in its place. The story went that some of the slaves hid with my great-great grandmother in the woods while they watched the cotton and house burn. My great-great grandfather, a surgeon for the Confederacy, had died of pneumonia in the Civil War.

My granddaddy would say to me, “No one knows what happened to that trunk of money. We used to play ‘store’ with it.” He would describe an imaginary General Store in the attic, where he and his siblings would “buy” apples and trinkets and use the Confederate money like it was Monopoly money. My mother would then add, “If that trunk had never been lost, I would be a wealthy woman today.” Then they would laugh.

I think about that story now that reparations are in the news. As Democratic candidates push for the idea and Republicans like Mitch McConnell say they’re unnecessary, I think about that trunk of money.

I am glad it was lost. It was blood money. It was money earned on the backs of the slaves held by my family for about 150 years. Yes. I traced it on ancestry.com and found the very evidence that my family had slaves back to the 1700s. On ancestry, I found the Last Will & Testament of more than one ancestor who “willed” human beings to their children. The slaves in these wills don’t have last names. They are listed by first name, and next to the name is a dollar value on how much that person is “worth.” It is a nauseating sight.

I grew up in the North, because my father was a New Englander. My mother, who grew up in Georgia, regaled me with stories of The Old South. I was brought up on the vision of Scarlett O’Hara like she was a long lost princess in a forgotten kingdom. It wasn’t until I was in my adult years that I realized how evil had been spoon fed to me. 

Today I’m poor. I’m a divorced mom to a kiddo with autism, and we get by. I’m in grad school to change careers to become a special education teacher. I don’t have much money. And what would I do if that trunk of money would be found?

I would give it to the NAACP.

All of it.

The last thing I would want touching my hands would be that money.

I can’t do much for the harm my family inflicted on others. All I can do is offer sympathy. I can’t pay much. We can barely keep our expenses balanced as it is. But I want to be open with people about my family’s past. I don’t want to hide it. 

I am just fine with my tax dollars going to reparations. It would be one small way that I could say to those who were hurt by my family, “I’m sorry for what happened to your ancestors. I’m sorry for what my family did to you.”

If I could find that trunk of money, I would make sure it could be used to make amends. Reparations, in the meantime, is the least I can do.

[coffeewithmrthornton]

Soccer Moms, Cookies & Hillary Clinton

Before the Russian interference in the election ... before the demonizing of a woman candidate for President ... before books about “What Happened” and hand-wringing over a sexual predator in the White House .... before all of THAT 

.... there was this thing about cookies and soccer moms and a war of words with Hillary Clinton.

Last night on Twitter, some people asked me why white women overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump, despite everything they knew at the time about him and the Access Hollywood tape. I’ve had a full year to think about this, because the morning after the election, I was stunned along with the rest of you.

And I have a theory, and I don’t think it’s that far off. It started in 1992, when Hillary’s husband, Bill, was running for POTUS, and a quip that Hillary made which raised the ire of soccer moms across the country.

But let me set the stage before I explain this:

See, 1992 was a unique time for women in America. I was 27 years old and at my third newspaper, The York Dispatch in York, Pennsylvania, covering education issues. This was a time when women my age heard from our mothers, aunts and grandmothers how “lucky” we were that they had blazed a path for us to break out of the Ozzie and Harriet 1950s lifestyle. They’d led the charge for us behind Gloria Steinem, and we were finally being accepted as “equals” in the workplace. We were expected to give these women our undying gratitude for their sacrifices. We were expected to carry the torch into the 21st century, abandoning home and hearth for career ascension and entitlement.

Except most of us rejected the dream.

We became a generation of soccer moms. We rejected the idea that women had to “have it all” and opted instead for the stay-at-home mantra, carting our kids to Little League and becoming presidents of PTAs. 

Why, you may ask?

Frankly, I think it was a daughter-mom rebellion thing. Many women of my generation were still smoldering from their childhood memories of moms who worked late, who opted to bake brownies out of box mixes (if they baked at all), who left us to fend for ourselves and care for our siblings at home while they chased their career dreams. We were smarting. We were angry at our mothers. And goddammit, we were going to be the moms to our children that they hadn’t been for us.

We were the children of selfish baby boomers who thought they could treat us like dolls that could be tossed aside when something more “interesting” came along in their careers.  

Now although I shared many of these feelings with my cohorts, I actually was not living the “mom” existence. I had followed my own career dreams to become a news reporter and was achieving my goals. But I understood the general feeling out there, because I shared it. I had been a latchkey kid starting at age 7, despite living in a two-parent home.

Enter, Hillary Clinton.

Hillary was the brash, smart, young wife of the Arkansas governor running for President. After the first Bush presidency, which had landed us in a war with Iraq, we were all ready for a change. The Clintons understood the country’s mood and soared in popularity.

And Hillary wore these big chunky headbands over a pageboy haircut that became a “thing.” I had more than one of those things and always felt a little sassy putting them in my hair. She was someone to emulate, from her discourse to her own unique fashion statement. People seemed to like Hillary a lot.

That was until the “cookie” comment.

Hillary brashly told a reporter one day that she wasn’t your run-of-the-mill housewife.

“I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession which I entered before my husband was in public life,” she said.

That’s when things got interesting. It wasn’t really as much of what she said as the way she said it -- and what it represented to the soccer moms. It was yet another older woman scolding them for choosing a path that feminists thought would set women back. 

They bristled at that. No ... come to think of it ... it was more like a cat fight of the century. I remember it clearly, because I felt torn about it personally. I understood why those women were angry. How dare someone tell them that being a mom at home wasn’t fulfilling? And how dare someone remind them of their childhoods, when they wanted their mothers’ attention but could not compete with corporate America?

On the other hand, I also agreed with Hillary. I was pursuing my career and felt like women were not doing everything they could to stay in the workplace and fight for their equal place. I admired her, and Bill got my vote that year BECAUSE of that comment.

Most women my age -- and who were white, college-educated MOMS -- didn’t see it that way. They were livid. And they never let that anger go.

Guess what else.

They raised daughters. And these were moms who stayed home with their daughters. And these daughters, these college-educated younger white women ... also were taught at an early age about the importance of staying home. 

When 2016 rolled around, the white women voters who went for Trump were actually not voting for him as much as they were getting back at Hillary.

Women have long memories. Women carry anger for a very long time. And when given the opportunity, women WILL have their revenge. They took their revenge in 2016.

You may think I’m over-generalizing, but I still think about those cookies. I still wonder if Hillary had measured her words a little bit differently -- if she had tried to understand why those women had chosen to stay home and bake cookies and have teas -- she might have seen a different election result.

So yes, the Russians meddled, no question.

But if I could turn the clock back and be there when Hillary sounded off about cookies, I would have shoved one in her mouth before she could speak and told her to shut the hell up.

[coffeewithmrthornton]

An Open Letter to Ms. Shelley G. Broader President and Chief Executive Officer, Chico’s FAS Inc., parent company of Soma Intimates

Dear Ms. Broader:

 I approached a new part-time job at Soma Intimates in Lexington, KY, with enthusiasm. I’ve been a huge fan of the Soma product, particularly dresses that have been flattering and kind to me as I age. After doing some research about your corporation on Glassdoor and Indeed – and discovering a corporate commitment to helping women with breast cancer and also domestic violence victims – I was optimistic that this would be a caring company with a positive work environment.

 I have worked at Soma Intimates in the Fayette Mall in Lexington for a total of seven days.

 Tonight, I parted ways with the company.

 While I would normally make such a decision private, I feel that you and my reading followers should know what I experienced in that very brief period. I do not know if my story will create positive change, but my hope is that it might help women who do not possess my self-confidence to receive your kind attention:

 The best way to outline what happened is to start at the beginning – with my job interview. I’d worked in retail 25 years ago, when I needed a side job to make ends meet. So I was unprepared when my store manager told me that I was expected to plan parties for customers. These parties were to take place monthly, and I was to come up with ways to reach out to my network to bring people in. She wanted to know how I was going to do that. While taken aback, after considering it for a few moments, I actually became very excited about this idea. I shared with her that I had a wide social network with Twitter. Currently, I am at about 9,900 followers. My plan would be to come up with a list of party ideas and then launch a second Twitter account solely dedicated to promoting these parties and the store’s other sales and events. I would then circulate this among my network, and as I am widely connected locally, I looked forward to this greatly. I also was extremely excited about parties that would benefit women who had mastectomies, as well as young mothers and anyone else in need of a great Soma bra.

 After I received my job offer, I immediately sat down for about two hours and crafted a list of party ideas. For your purposes, they are listed below. You can read through them now or skip down to the rest of my narrative and come back to them later … but here they are, as they were emailed to my hiring manager on May 31, 2017:

PARTY IDEAS:

1.       Bring Your BFF Party: Invite women to come in for a girls' night out, where they bring their best friends. The aim of the party is that the best friend shops for an item for you, and vice versa. Best friends will often see that our wardrobes "lack" an essential item -- something that we would never shop for ourselves. Or they might see that we should "let loose" in certain areas (i.e., a best friend can tell a woman that she needs prettier bras -- something no one else could tell her). Sales associates would help best friends find the perfect items. We would wrap up each purchase with beautiful bows like a gift for each woman to present to her best friend.

2.       Divorce Party: As someone who went through a divorce seven years ago, I know the emotional pain of feeling like you are no longer feminine or sexy. You go through a period of feeling rejected, even when you are putting on a good face for the rest of the world. If you're a mom, you're also only focusing on the needs of your children. Pretty soon, your lingerie drawer is neglected -- and you don't even care. Most women also associate lingerie boutiques with brides and romance -- less thinking about themselves and their need to feel beautiful. We could reach out to divorce attorneys and also support groups for the newly divorced to get the word out about divorce parties. When shoppers arrive, sales associates would give one-on-one attention, asking each woman what would help them to feel beautiful.

3.       Mommy's Day Out: Moms with toddlers and babies are in the same boat as the divorcees. Many are trying to get back in shape and also are neglecting themselves. (Not easy to feel sexy when your top is soaked with souring breast milk.) We would hand out invites to day care centers around town. Also, we can target the moms who congregate in the toddler play area near the store. Sales associates would play with babies and toddlers in the store while their mommies shop. I'm not averse to changing diapers, if needed. 

4.       Men-Only Party: Most men walk into a lingerie boutique looking like deer in the headlights. This is less than a "party," and more like an effort to offer men one-on-one shopping experiences. During a special block of time when we have shopping "just for men," each sales associate is assigned one man to guide through the shop and help him find items for the special woman in his life.

5.       Pajama Party: Just like PJ parties at elementary schools, sales associates would wear their favorite Soma PJs and robes. We would have popcorn available and play films like "13 Going on 30" on a large screen. Soma associates would discuss with shoppers why they love certain PJs to sell them.

6.       Jane Austen "Tea" Party: The Regency Era of Jane Austen was a very "forgiving" fashion period, with its high-waisted dresses. It's also one reason I love many of the dresses offered by Soma. As my body has changed in middle age, these dresses take attention from my abdomen, are slenderizing and are very flattering. My proposal is to do a party for "Janeites" (i.e., Austen nerds). We could offer tea sandwiches and hot tea, show "Pride and Prejudice" (1995 BBC version) on a screen and discuss how the Soma dresses reflect the fashion-forward dresses of that period in history. We might collaborate with Joseph-Beth Booksellers and get them to bring in a speaker, along with a stack of Austen books that women could co-purchase with their dresses.

7.       Back to College Party: Although a lot of girls in their 20s still go for Victoria's Secret, Soma can push itself to this target demographic as the "sophisticated lingerie" option for "real women," not "girls." We can promote this party with sorority houses at the University of Kentucky and also circulate information at nearby schools like Asbury University and Transylvania University.

8.       Hot Flash Party: I had a hysterectomy at age 44, and overnight, the hot flashes started. One of my tools to get through them, ironically, are the Soma "cool nights" pajamas. Soma fabric is wonderful for hot flashes, because it is soft and comforting when you are experiencing a real physical meltdown. We could ask a gynecologist or RN from an OB-GYN practice to be a guest speaker about how to cope with changing hormones and hot flashes. Soma associates could offer suggestions about the best fabrics to get women through this difficult life-changing period.

9.       Back to Work for New Mommies Party: When women have to return to work after maternity leave, sometimes they are still trying to get back into shape post-pregnancy. Hence, their office wardrobe is sparse. They don't want to go back to maternity clothes, either. Soma dresses are a great option for women who are in that "in between" phase. We could partner with OB-GYNs again to discuss how your body changes after having a baby. Soma associates would help new mommies shop for back-to-work dresses to get them ready for their grand entrance at the office.

10.     Lingerie Bridal Shower Party: We could market this option on a constant basis with a partnership with bridal dress boutiques. Rather than have a traditional bridal shower where people bring gifts, they can book the shower in the boutique. During the shower while they eat and play games, they shop for the bride's gift. We have sales associates on hand to ring and wrap on the spot. The bride leaves with a box of wrapped gifts, to unwrap at home. We sell it as a win-win, because she can share her measurements while in the store (one "game"), and then they shop for her on the spot. We get bridal boutiques to market this option for us by cross-marketing their offerings (i.e. providing their business cards, having a photo near the cash register with one of their bridal gowns). We might have one of their associates in as a guest at each shower to consult with brides who have not yet shopped for their gowns.

11.     Mammogram Party: We partner with Kentucky One or Baptist Health to provide someone to teach our party participants about self breast checks. Participants can sign up for mammogram appointments, and we can also discuss with them how to work with their insurance companies to make sure the cost is covered. We then will sell bras at a discount if they sign up for mammograms

12.     Wine and Cheese Party: There is a wine shop in Fayette Mall. We partner with them to offer wine tastings and teach shoppers about best wine pairings with certain food. We offer a cheese and fruit spread while women shop.

13.     Binge-show-worthy lounging clothes party: I love binge-watching my favorite shows, like "House of Cards," "Outlander," and "Berlin Station." And Soma's lounge clothes are perfect for a day when you want to do nothing but crash -- but you don't necessarily want to stay in pajamas, either. We would have three screens around the store showing some of these shows, to promote the "Binge Day" lounging clothes. We might be able to partner with Netflix, Hulu or Dish to offer coupons for memberships.

 The manager was very excited and said that her district manager wanted to put me on a speaker phone call during a staff meeting to discuss how I came up with my ideas. I approached my first day of work with happiness.

 I launched the Twitter account that was devoted to my Soma work. I put a beautiful photo of pink peonies as my banner, and I tweeted out images of Jacqueline Kennedy, Audrey Hepburn in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” and other salient quotes. I retweeted the Soma corporate account on sales. And I included tweets about a fitness party that one of the other sales associates was hosting in the upcoming Sunday. I cross-pollinated the tweets onto my main Twitter account that has 9,900 followers, to generate interest, which it did. I named this Twitter account, “SomaMaven,” because I discovered there were MULTIPLE other Soma accounts by other sales associates that all used the Soma name.

 Meanwhile, back at the store, I soon discovered that I was not welcome. A second manager at the store was consistently rude and condescending during my first week of work. And I also had to push for training on the cash register and training on HR videos. A promised training on the proper way to do bra fittings was never provided.

 And my hiring manager told me that Soma Corporate was “upset” that I had used “Soma” in my Twitter handle. When I came home from work, I immediately changed the name of the account to “Bra_Whisperer.” I sent out a tweet to my 9,900 followers that I had changed the name to comply with Soma HR policy. I tagged the “SomaIntimates” Twitter account in the tweet so that they would know that I was trying my best to comply with corporate policy. I thought they would be pleased and happy to see that I was giving them wonderful and free publicity and that I was following their directives.

 But then I encountered another issue. I was chagrined to find that other sales associates and the two managers were taking credit repeatedly for sales that I had been generating on the floor. I am the same age as many of the Soma customers and relate well to them. I engaged them in conversation easily and helped them find things that they would enjoy. Even though I had not been trained on bra fittings, I tried my best to help them in the fitting room. However, on my very first day, I was shocked when a sales associate put her number into the cash register on my first sale – for $436. Later that afternoon, a store manager took credit for another sale I had generated for about $120. I was told by the hiring manager that because I was in “training mode,” I could not take credit for sales, because it would “throw off” my sales ratio.

 I decided to stay quiet about people taking credit for my sales. I thought that maybe I should be a team player and allow these other associates to take credit until I was fully trained.

 The next day, I asked the hiring manager when I would be speaking to the district manager about my party ideas. She said she had been too busy to email them to her.

 That same day, I was finally trained on the register. But again, I was shocked when the second store manager – in front of a customer – made a point of reaching over me at the register to key in HER name on the sale, after I had been helping the customer for more than 20 minutes. During the rest of the night, so that I would not ruffle feathers, I asked her if I was to put in her number and the other manager’s number for my sales, and she indicated that I was supposed to do that. At one point, a customer whose sales totaled about $150 whispered to me, “Do you get a sales commission? She just took credit for you helping me!” I shrugged my shoulders and whispered back that I was not even sure anymore.

 When I got home, I decided to DELETE the Twitter account devoted to Soma. I was concerned that it might get me in trouble in the future and that things would be misinterpreted. I deleted it and made an announcement to my 9,900 followers that it was gone.

 I kept working for the next five shifts on which I was on the calendar. But they were extremely difficult shifts, because now I was working with the other store manager, who obviously did not want me there. I believe this was because I was doing very well with sales, and she was unhappy that I was cutting into her commission. I do not know this for a fact, but I have no other explanation for her rude and condescending attitude. More than once, customers commented to me under their breath that they thought I was being mistreated and should say something. As it was my first week on the job, I decided to hold my thoughts to myself.

 On Tuesday, June 13, I had a very difficult day at work. I was instructed to hang mountains of bras that had been left in fitting rooms. I did so while two other associates goofed off around a register. I know you have cameras in the store and will be able to verify that while I was working the floor and hanging bras, they were not working. Nevertheless, I persisted with my work. I also decided that because associates were stealing my sales, I would ring up my own sales. By this time, I picked up that there was a strong dislike from the other associates. But I wanted to do a good job and persisted in helping customers while I was hanging the bras. The store manager regularly spoke sharply to me in front of customers. There was one incident in particular when a mother and daughter who were shopping looked at me with so much pity that I almost walked out on the spot.

 That night when I came home, I stayed up all night trying to decide whether to quit the job. I have never been so bothered by unkindness and mistreatment, but this really got to me. I decided to give it one more chance, and tonight, I showed up for my shift at 5:30 p.m.

 My hiring manager came into the back room as I was clocking in.

 She told me that Soma Corporate had flagged my tweet where I had announced that I was changing my Twitter handle to “Bra_Whisperer.” She said the District Manager had printed out the tweet and brought it to the store in person to confront me. I advised her that I had already deleted the Twitter account and that the matter was closed. But she kept going. I guess she wanted to have the satisfaction of putting me in my place. I told her that I did not understand why we had to keep discussing it. I had deleted the Twitter account, and I could not understand why any offense had been taken, anyway. The only reason I flagged Soma Corporate in the tweet was so that they would see that I understood the corporate policy and was complying with it. She said, “You threw them under the bus.” I answered that was not my intention. She told me I was being condescending to her. I answered that I apologized if that was her perception, but it was not my intention to be condescending. Finally, when the discussion kept going in circles, I decided to tell her that I was not the right fit for the company. I left and advised her that I would expect my pay check next week for the time I had worked.

 Ms. Broader, maybe you will never see this letter. But it is important to me for people to see it and know that in the corporate world, everyone should be treated with respect and kindness. I came into this job with an excitement and enthusiasm. I have been a journalist for 27 years and decided this year to change gears and go into special education teaching. I will be going back to school. I am a single parent with an autistic teenager. I am also a survivor of domestic violence. I thought that this company would be a great place for me to reach out to other women and create fun and exciting shopping experiences for them. Instead, I found a great deal of mismanagement, jealousy, confusion, rudeness – and frankly, dishonesty, when my commissions were stolen in front of my eyes.

 I hope you will take this letter seriously and that someday, Soma, Chico’s and White House Black Market will be a place where I feel comfortable shopping again.

 Oh. By the way. The lamp post on the right side of the door of the Soma Intimates shop in Fayette Mall is out. Maybe you can have someone fix that. It looks awful.

 Sincerely,

 Heidi Lynn Russell

Employee Number 067831.

[coffeewithmrthornton]

How Life Improved After I Quit Facebook

I abandoned Facebook about two weeks before the U.S. Presidential election.

I was tired of the constant infighting and bickering and sniping -- not among strangers, but among people I had known since childhood, high school, college, my early career ... and who were currently in my life at my church, my child’s school, my social circles.

I was tired of it. Anytime I tried to post an opinion about a man that I considered to be a tyrant, they pounced. They were relentless. They never let up. And I was tired of people fighting with people on my threads -- people that I knew from various times in my life but who didn’t even know each other. 

So I stepped off of Facebook, thinking it would be a temporary move. I put a note on the top of my account page, announcing that I was taking a short hiatus until after the election. My initial plan was that I would return after the election.

But that’s when I genuinely thought Hillary would win. 

After she lost, I couldn’t bear the thought of going back. Facebook for me is different from other forms of social media. My favorite place for “banter” is actually Twitter. But Twitter is different, because for the most part, these are people I have never met in person. I can handle disagreement and insults and condescension there, because no one knows me enough to judge me. With Facebook, if someone has known you since age 10, they take on an attitude that I can’t quite understand. When they attack you, they show how little they respect you. Because if you respect someone, would you openly insult them on a public forum for other people to read and debate? It was tearing at my heart and soul.

So I posted a second note on my Facebook page, that I was leaving permanently. I left my cell phone number and my email address and the link to my Twitter account -- and also the link to my LinkedIn account and my Pinterest account. If people really wanted to stay in touch, they would through those channels. Right?

At the time, I had about 350 followers on Facebook.

Since I left about four months ago, a total of 7 people have stayed in touch.

Seven.

Now you might think the point of this story is to complain about that. Quite the contrary.

See, when I made this decision, I didn’t realize at the time how much it was going to open up my world to new possibilities. Suddenly, instead of whiling away time on Candy Crush tournaments and reading through rancid threads that raised my blood pressure, I was making meaningful connections on LinkedIn. I was updating my resume. I was investigating ways to reinvent myself professionally. I was inviting people out for coffee and to my house for dinner. I was spending more time with my child and discussing his plans for high school and beyond. I adopted a kitten from a local animal shelter. I found a new church where a lot of poor people and homeless people attend, opening my world and my child’s world to more empathy and understanding of others. 

And I landed two new part-time jobs. I am segueing from a full-time career in freelance journalism (which I have done for 15 1/2 years -- and as a non-freelance journalist before that for 12 years). My jobs involve teaching, and I’m now looking into my teaching certificate and deciding which area of teaching suits me most.

And as for the Facebook friends who have followed after me? The friendships are better and stronger, sustained with phone calls and meaningful connections.

So yes. I quit Facebook. And no. I am not going back.

And my life is far better for it.

[coffeewithmrthornton]

When Republicans Hijacked the Meaning of “Evangelical”

I remember it like yesterday, because my father’s ire burned so hot.

My dad was a Salvation Army officer, and for those of you who don’t know what that means -- he was a pastor. I was about 15 years old, and he was in charge of The Salvation Army’s work in Akron, Ohio. We had a very large brass band, one that was regionally recognized for its excellent musicians. 

We had been invited by local municipal leaders to be on stage for what was billed as a “God Bless America rally.” It had been presented to my father as an opportunity for the Akron community to gather and pray for the nation, and they wanted our band on center stage to provide music. He was thrilled.

Except things took a U-turn when, during the middle of this “rally,” a speaker made it clear that this was an event to promote the campaign of then-Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan.

Suddenly, there was our band, on a stage -- a religious group -- supposedly in support of the Reagan campaign. I can remember sitting second chair baritone and watching my father’s profile as he sat nearby on the dais. His jaw clenched. His shoulders tightened. He looked sideways at my mother, also on the dais. And I knew in that moment that they were about to stand up and say we’d been hoodwinked and that we were leaving.

Except he didn’t. We sat there throughout the rally, played our final song, and when it was over, I watched as my father quietly walked to the organizer and gave him an earful.

It was the first time I witnessed a political machine hijack Christians and claim them as their own.

Going home, my parents debated whether they should have made a scene and left. And I remember my father specifically saying, “Reagan is going to go after Christians. This is a political strategy, and he is going to win the election.”

Reagan did both.

After that, I saw an evolution take place among most American Christians, as the GOP convinced them that they were “God’s party.”

More disturbingly, I saw the very definition of words associated with Scriptural truths hijacked by the GOP faithful.

It started with the phrase, “born again,” and later it moved to the word, “evangelical.” I can remember the first time someone asked me, “Are you born again?” And I answered, “Of course,” not understanding that what they were really asking was whether I was a Republican. They looked so chagrined, and I had to follow up with, “Wait. What did you mean by that?” 

So for those of you who today see the phrase, “born again,” or “evangelical” and are associating it with non-thinking sheep-like creatures who paddle after a far right wing political party ... Let me set you straight. This is the origin of those words.

The phrase, “born again,” comes directly from Jesus in the Gospel of John, chapter 3, when He tells a religious leader that he must be “born again.” Basically, it means that you have submitted your life back to God, that you have asked Him for His forgiveness for your sins, that you have resolved to change the way you are living and that you are a new creature. In essence, it’s like you have been BORN AGAIN. You’re starting over. You’re not the person you used to be.

The word, “evangelical,” comes from the idea that Christians are to *evangelize.* And what does that mean exactly? Well, it’s just what I’m doing now. I’m sharing with you the message that Jesus died for your sins, that He loves you, that you can share new life with Him as your Savior, that you don’t have to do life alone anymore, that He is with you until the end of the ages and that you can inherit life as God’s own child. But to do all of that, of course you have to be born again first. Evangelism is simply sharing that story.

Now “evangelicals” used to be people like me -- someone who firmly believes everything I just outlined here and who wants you to know the joy that I know personally. That’s it. There is no political agenda. It is strictly a desire and an action to bring people to Jesus so that they can know Him like I know him.

When you see people on Twitter, Facebook or other sites who claim they are “evangelicals,” ask them what they think the word means. Ask them why they are “evangelical.” Their answer to you will reveal whether they are true believers, or whether they have absconded with the word for political reasons.

I have been highly chagrined over news stories of the “evangelicals” and their “support” of Donald Trump lately. This completely twists the meaning of the true words and throws those of us who are true believers under the bus.

I guess that going forward, I’m just going to have to accept that the word has been maligned and abused. Going forward, I will just have to say to people, “I love Jesus. End of story. I want you to know Him like I know Him, because He is awesome. If you have any questions about knowing Him, just ask me. I’ve known Him a long time.” And leave it at that.

As for the “evangelicals” that support the GOP, please realize that they are now in a category I no longer recognize. Just as those people at that Ronald Reagan rally so long ago, they have taken the Gospel of Christ and trampled it under their feet. 

I know why my dad was so angry back then, because I feel that anger every time I turn on the news and hear the word, “evangelicals.” No matter. I know the truth ... and now that you’ve read this ... you know it, too. 

[coffeewithmrthornton]

The Isolation of the Orphaned, Divorced Woman

My father died when I was 26. He was 55. 

I divorced at age 46, after a two-year separation from my husband.

After both events, I experienced a unique “isolation” in American society. This has been nagging at me ever since I heard Republican leading men discuss “their” wives and “their” daughters in the wake of Donald Trump’s 2005 recording. 

The Republicans were (rightly) criticized by feminists for making Trump’s comments about the women in their lives. It smacked of a patriarchal hierarchy -- one where the father or husband “looks after” his women. And some women railed at it, saying they needed no man to play the Knight in their lives.

But here’s the thing. In the wake of these comments, I’ve realized that deep down, I have mourned that isolation one feels after losing a father, and even after a divorce, a husband. And it’s not for the reason you might think. I’m no “damsel in distress.” I’ve fought many a battle, both for myself and for my child, and I carry on forcefully in the face of challenges.

However, there is a distinct isolation in our society that hits a woman if she loses a father as a young adult -- and there is definitely an isolation if she has been married for a while and suddenly finds herself divorced. At least, there was in my circles and in my generation.

As a young woman, when my father died, I no longer had anyone to confer with on decisions like car buying, handling difficult bosses at work, or even heartbreak in dating. I suddenly felt very vulnerable. I had been a “daddy’s girl” to the extreme, calling him regularly for advice. I’ve often told people that the character Jean Luc Picard on “Star Trek the Next Generation” embodied my father. He looked like him, spoke like him, acted like him. Now imagine that someone like that is your father, and at age 26, they’re suddenly gone. 

After he died, I noticed that I wasn’t just mourning his loss. I was also mourning the fact that other young women still had their dads. I watched jealously as my friends were walked down the aisle on their fathers’ arms. I was resentful when other women my age shared photos of their fathers coddling their infants and toddlers. My child never knew my father. But more importantly, I felt like those women had a “shield” -- a dad who could look after them. I was cast to the wind. So when I had issues in my workplace with a boss who, as Michelle Obama put it, “stood a little too close,” I didn’t have a dad to call and consult. I just packed up my things and moved to another job three states away.

And then after my divorce, I experienced a new type of isolation. I’m sure that other divorced people can relate to this, but suddenly, you’re not hanging out with other couples. And there aren’t a lot of people who are in your shoes to go out for dinner, etc. Even if you have friends who are concerned about you -- if they’re married, they’re into their husbands and children and lives. They won’t notice that you’re struggling to make it with a child alone. 

And don’t get me started on married women at church. I’ve never really spoken about this publicly, but they were the worst. Sometimes even now when I walk in for a church service, I see the askance glances in my direction, and the furtive glance back at their husbands (who are oblivious). I think to myself, “It’s CHURCH, not a BAR, and no, I’m not here to flirt with your husband. Don’t worry. I’m here to worship God, so take your little Bible and go to another pew.”

I sit alone in church and have for seven years. It’s okay. I get it. The weird thing is that I’m not even living a “singleton’s” life. I’m as boring as you come, preferring my Jane Austen books and jazz and candles to a night in a bar. But you’d think I had a scarlet “A” on my chest every time I walk into the place.

As annoying as these things are, though, what is really interesting is my emotional reaction to things like snowstorms. There is no one to help me shovel my driveway, while many other women might “send their husbands” out to do the job. Or suppose I encounter a road rage driver who tailgates me a little too closely. I’m obviously a solo woman driver, easily bullied on the road. And there is no one at home for me to discuss that experience. In these instances, like it or not, women do appreciate that “Knight.”

Let’s take it one step further, to the Donald Trump recordings. If you look at this through the eyes of the Republican men, then they would not stand for “their women” to be subjected to a man like him -- or they would be furious if those women came home complaining about a man like Trump. But what about a woman like me? You know, men don’t even realize that we read their eyes. Sometimes they don’t have to say one word. We already know we might as well be standing there naked, because they’ve already “undressed” us in their mind’s eye. You can see their thinking, and they aren’t even aware you can see it.

There is not a husband or father in my life to object.

And to the point, I think that despite feminists’ objections, every woman likes having that “shield,” that man in her life who will object on her behalf.

Why did I write this post? Partly, it’s self-therapeutic, and normally, this might go into a private journal. But I’m writing it for public consumption because, if you’ve taken time to read it, maybe you’ll gain an understanding as to why these comments by the GOP members were so hurtful. Yes, they have wives and daughters. But there are many women like me -- the isolated orphaned, divorced woman -- who are fighting daily life on our own.

And we also deserve the same compassion, care and concern when we run into the Donald Trumps of the world.

[coffeewithmrthornton]

Our Most Dangerous Time: Escaping from Donald Trump

Did you know the most dangerous time for a woman in an abusive relationship is the initial months after she leaves? That’s right -- and here’s another chilling statistic: 75 percent of women who are killed by their batterers are murdered when they attempt to leave, or after they have left an abusive relationship, according to experts.

Now why would I lead a blog entry about Donald Trump with this tidbit? Simple. During the course of the past week, since the time we were transfixed by the words on the “Access Hollywood” video, we’ve seen members of the GOP establishment leave Trump. And what has caught my attention is his reaction -- that of an angry abuser who will lash out when his victim leaves.

Don’t get me wrong. I know that these GOP lawmakers embraced him, coddled him, made excuses for him and propped him up during his entire campaign. If anything, you would say, they are victims of their own making. But ironically, many people say the same thing about women in abusive relationships. 

I know. I was one of them. And I was also one who left.

There have been so many parallels to abusive relationships between Donald Trump and the GOP. First, he charmed them. He romanced them. He made promises. He came up with plans and dreams for “making America great.” He dazzled -- and he lied his way into the minds and hearts of the GOP establishment. One by one, they fell to his charms.

Once he won the nomination, like many abusive men, he settled into a comfort zone. Think of it like a man who seals the deal. She has just pledged her life to him at an altar in front of God and all of their family and friends, and now he’s got her. He doesn’t have to do any more wooing. In fact, he can now start acting like himself. 

In Trump’s case, we saw it immediately with his attack on the Gold Star family and mother. Remember that? It was after he’d sealed up his own nomination. The bad behavior continued. I could list all of the events for you, but if you’ve been living under a rock since July, just do a Google search on all of the Trump controversies since then. 

Now one thing many people also don’t know about abusers is that the abuse isn’t constant. They let up for windows of time when they sense that the woman is starting to assert her independence and threatens to leave. They apologize. They may bring you gifts. Sometimes they return to the intense wooing stage you experienced when you first dated them. 

And we saw the same thing with the Trump campaign. I remember the day when Kellyanne Conway first made the rounds on the news circuits as the new campaign manager. And I was STUNNED at the change in her personality. Just a few days earlier, she had been on those same news shows, spitting venom. A completely different person showed up when she took over Trump’s campaign. Suddenly she was the PTA mom with a plate of hot brownies made from scratch, a honeyed soft voice, a soft laugh, a wave of the hand -- waving away all of the egregious things Trump had said and done. She lied with a smoothness that chilled my blood to ice. 

We were back to the wooing stage, and Trump was tucked safely away while his handlers mitigated his damage.

What I learned after my own escape, however, is that these “wooing windows” grow shorter and shorter. When the woman is back “under control,” the abuse starts again. And there is a longer period of time between the abusive period and the wooing period. Finally, you get to a point where the wooing stops completely, and it actually is non-stop abuse.

It hasn’t taken Trump long to get to that point. Almost every single day, something new is being said or done, culminating in the climax of the Access Hollywood tape. However, when that tape was released, something interesting happened.

The GOP establishment decided to escape.

One by one, they announced their revulsion at Trump. And yes, we can fault them for not stepping up when Trump went after numerous other groups. But if we’re going to use our domestic violent victim analogy, their behavior was very much in keeping. When you’re the victim in these relationships, you excuse a LOT of things before one thing finally happens that wakes you up. Some women tragically never wake up. In my case, my wake-up call occurred ironically over a fight about my church at the time. People would say to me later, “But if all of these other things happened earlier, why didn’t you leave?” I can’t explain that. It would take reams to explain it. But the point is that I did leave.

And I have to hand it to the GOP lawmakers who have left. Not all of them have left, but those who did have been very forceful about their decision not to support Trump.

In typical abuser fashion, Trump has reacted. 

And that now leads me to the title of my blog entry: our most dangerous time.

As I stated earlier, the most dangerous time for a woman isn’t when she’s under the abuser’s roof. It’s when she leaves.  Feeling that he is going to lose control, the abuser now goes into overdrive to get her back. This is why Protection From Abuse court orders are so necessary -- they legally keep him away from her while she is mapping out a plan for survival and for her children’s survival. That said, this is the time when he will do or say anything -- even enlist friends or family to stalk her and keep track of her movements. 

Highly. Dangerous.

The first thing Donald Trump did after those tapes were released? We saw the forced apology, but by then, it was just like a man being forced to read an apology in court before a judge to his victim. But right after that, he went for the jugular -- at the second debate with Hillary Clinton. I don’t have to outline for you what happened there. All of us know it by now. 

And in the past few days, he has continued his assault -- not against Hillary, but against the GOP members who have defected. See ... they are the “wife” in this relationship. Hillary is an outside party who was his target for a long time. But his attention has been diverted now to the wife who is leaving him. He has to get her back under control and will say and do anything to do that.

It’s our most dangerous time.

Last night at a Trump rally, a woman stood up and told Trump’s running mate, Mike Pence, that she wanted to create a revolution if Hillary wins. The crowd cheered. They are not going quietly into this good night. They are going to rage against Trump’s dying light. They are going to fight the election.

That statistic I gave you about the homicides? The 75 percent who are killed after they leave?

Right. Pay attention to that. And don’t let your guard down after Nov. 8. Because if (when) Trump loses, there is going to be hell to pay. He will escalate into the drunk, raging abuser -- and our country, his last victim, may have the fight of its life to survive.

[coffeewithmrthornton]

Hillary Clinton, Pneumonia & the Women of My Generation

Even though I’m 18 years younger than Hillary Clinton, I understand fully why she kept her mouth shut about having pneumonia. What gets me is that she has been under such scrutiny for not being “transparent,” when it has everything to do with a silent struggle that women of our age group have faced:

The pressure to keep up with men.

Younger women do not understand this, because we’ve already forged a path to equality in the workplace for you. But if you started your career in the 1980s or earlier, you know first-hand what it’s like to be a woman in a male-dominated business.

I was in newsrooms for 12 years, and although there were women in my profession, we still were under pressure to out-perform our male colleagues in order to be considered equal contributors. 

Translation: Never get sick. Ever.  It didn’t matter if I came to the office with a roaring fever ... or with period cramps that would have sent most men to the hospital. I was expected to perform my work duties unless I passed out from the pain. 

And I did it. I never complained, and I rarely took a sick day.

Fast forward to the present day, and I’m a full-time freelance magazine journalist, working from home. You’d think I would take sick days now that I’m my own boss.

I don’t.

As a matter of fact, this time last year, I was 30 days in my bed ... with pneumonia, just like Hillary Clinton. I came down with it suddenly after battling seasonal allergies. Because I was working so hard and not taking care of myself, it ballooned into pneumonia. I continued to WORK, however. I did all of my magazine interviews from bed ... did all of the writing from bed ... and even on days when I was too dizzy and weak to walk from one room of the house to the next, I still produced. I still created. I still conducted my business as if I was working in a fever-pitch newsroom. I did not stop.

If I had to admit it to myself, my reluctance in taking time to “be sick” is also rooted in fear -- fear that a male editor will think I’m a weak single mom who needs the assignment for charity -- fear that the same editor will decide to give my work to a male writer who doesn’t have to juggle life with a child alone. 

In fact, that happened to me a few years ago, and ironically, the editor was a woman. A male freelancer had been after her for my job. And one day, after talking to me on the phone and hearing the rasp in my voice, she suggested that maybe she should lighten up on my load. She gave half of my regular work to a single male.

It is not imagined. These biases do exist. And Hillary Clinton is running for the highest office in the land -- against a sexist man who has admitted he didn’t even change diapers when his youngest son was born -- and she’s in a male-dominated field of politicians.

I bet they all think they’re physically stronger than women, so they should be the first consideration for the top job. I know that’s what Donald Trump thinks.

So the next time you wonder whether Hillary wasn’t being transparent enough or that she was hiding something deliberately ... you know what ... she was. But it wasn’t for the reasons you think it was. It was basically because she’s a strong woman, used to working in a world of men who think that just because they have something extra hanging between their legs it means that they have more ability.

I’m here to tell you they don’t. And she deserves a damn sick day.

[coffeewithmrthornton]

[coffeewithmrthornton]

When Donald Trump Gaslighted the Mom with the Baby (and why it’s important)

If you’re a political junkie, no doubt you’ve heard about Donald Trump banishing a wailing baby from a political rally during his speech. The incident has gotten a lot of play in the press, and even last night, I saw Trump try to explain away how it wasn’t the blow-up that the media was making it out to be.

 Unfortunately, the media has completely missed the subtlety of what Trump actually did during that rally: He gaslighted the baby’s mother.

 And what is gaslighting, you may ask?

 Anyone who has been in an emotionally abusive relationship will immediately recognize the term, but for the uninitiated, here’s a little back story and some examples of it before I explain the connection with the Trump incident.

 “Gaslight” was a play in 1938, and later a film starring Ingrid Bergman in 1944. This summary from Wikipedia actually nails it:

 “The plot concerns a husband who attempts to convince his wife and others that she is insane by manipulating small elements of their environment, and subsequently insisting that she is mistaken, remembering things incorrectly, or delusional when she points out these changes. The original title stems from the dimming of the gas lights in the house that happened when the husband was using the gas lights in the attic while searching for hidden treasure. The wife accurately notices the dimming lights and discusses the phenomenon, but the husband insists she just imagined a change in the level of illumination.

The term ‘gaslighting’ has been used colloquially since the 1960s to describe efforts to manipulate someone's sense of reality.”

 Now in an abusive relationship, this is what it may look like:

 Your spouse says he’ll be home for dinner at 5 p.m., and he’s rarely home that early. So you tell him as he’s walking out the door that you’ll make his favorite dinner of Italian sausage with rigatoni. That’s very specific, isn’t it?

 5 p.m. comes along … no spouse. The dinner sits on the stove warming until 9 p.m., when the spouse walks in the door. When you confront the spouse, he says he “never told you” that he would be home at 5 p.m., and you must have imagined it.

 This doesn’t happen just once. It happens repeatedly over months, then possibly years. And it never concerns the same type of thing, but it always involves a questioning of whether you are remembering something accurately. It also escalates over time. So in the beginning of a marriage, you may have one of these incidents every 5 months. By the time the abuse has fully escalated into a danger zone, you may see these incidents once a week, then three or four times a week … then daily … then a few times in the same day.

 So by the time you’re into seeing these things happen within the same day, the gaslighting has also reached a dangerous level. Let’s look at something more sinister – back to our Italian sausage and rigatoni example. This time, your spouse wanders into the house closer to midnight rather than the promised time of 5 p.m. And when you (rightly) confront him, he starts throwing things around, including prized possessions, screaming that you’re out of your f-ing mind and why can’t you get simple details straight? He breaks items that you have owned. Maybe he throws one at your head. Then, continuing to rant while you stand there in shock, he storms into a room and slams the door, screaming all the while that he doesn’t know why he married an “f-ing idiot.”

 Now let’s dial back to Donald Trump and the baby incident.

 If you watch the video of this, when is less than 2 minutes long, Trump hears the baby and jokes about the crying. Here are some direct quotes, and at the end of this entry, I will post the video.

 First he says, “Don’t worry about that baby. I love babies, so. I love babies! I hear that baby crying, and I like it! I like it!”

 The crowd laughs and applauds.

 “What a baby!”

 The crowd roars.

 “What a beautiful baby!”

 They keep clapping.

 He waves his hand at the mother. “Don’t worry. Don’t worry,” he tells her.

 THEN he says, “The mom’s running around like …” he makes a motion with his hands, mimicking the mother who is obviously frazzled. “Don’t worry about it,” he says. “It’s young. And beautiful. And healthy. And that’s what we want.”

 Now if you’re the mother, you’ve been publicly encouraged by the person on stage to stay in the room. So she stays.

 He returns to his speech topic.

 Fifty-four seconds pass by.

 He stops and looks back into the mother’s direction.

 “Actually, I was only kidding,” he says. “You can get the baby out of here.”

 He jerks his thumb at the door.

 The crowd laughs. Mocking.

 Encouraged by the change in the crowd’s tone, Trump looks back at the mother, and this time you can see it in his face – the intention to humiliate, to get more laughs, at her expense.

 “That’s all right,” he says.

 “Don’t worry,” he repeats, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

 He points in her direction.

 “I think she would’ve believed me, that I love having a baby crying while I’m speaking,” he says to the crowd, turning his back from her.

 Then he looks back in her direction again. He shields his eyes from the glare of the podium lights to pick her out in the crowd.

 “That’s okay,” he sucks in his breath.

 Then we get the full throttle of the gas lighting:

 “People don’t understand.”

 Let that sink in: “People don’t understand.” That means this woman wasn’t perceptive enough to take the child out of the room, in spite of his very public encouragement just under a minute earlier that the baby was “beautiful” and “healthy.”

 Now why is it important to recognize gaslighting in Donald Trump?

 Well, let’s go back to my earlier example of a husband who is gaslighting his wife: It starts with a small incident and then morphs over time. The behavior of the gaslighter becomes more erratic and dangerous. The stakes become higher if the victim of the gaslighting starts to question him or, worse, fight back against it. If you watch “Gaslight,” you’ll see how the husband in the film not only convinces Ingrid Bergman that she must be going crazy, but also others who interact with her.

 Consider what this means for a candidate who wants to become President of the United States of America.

 You may not think this is significant, but I will offer one more insight for your consideration.

 If someone gaslights someone else in public, then what they do behind closed doors is exponentially more. By the time you see a public display of gaslighting, the perpetrator feels incredibly confident that he is immune to public censure. He feels invincible. He feels that people will believe his version of events, no matter how twisted. He feels that he can get away with lying in your face and that you will accept every lie as if it is Gospel.

 See … gaslighting starts out as a private matter, between two people in an intimate relationship, when no one else can see what is happening. But by the time you see a gaslighter perpetrating this on a STRANGER at a PUBLIC rally? Think about that.

 Why would this have ramifications for the country, even if Donald Trump was doing this in private to family members?

 Because he will gaslight the country. He will gaslight our allies. He will lie with so much sincerity that crimes against humanity can be committed without anyone questioning him.

 Gaslight.

 If you have time, watch the movie. And definitely watch this video of Donald Trump addressing the mother of the baby.

 Because it is the perfect example of a master manipulator.

Here is a link to the video:

https://youtu.be/WEeY8ENxPDw

[coffeewithmrthornton]

A Note to Legal Immigrants Supporting Donald Trump

This afternoon I was transfixed with an interview on CNN with a legal immigrant to the United States from Haiti. This man explained that he’d been in the country for about three decades. He’d worked three jobs. Being in our country was a dream come true.

He was supporting Donald Trump for President, because he felt that Trump said what many legal immigrants are thinking: “If I had to work hard to come over here legally and work hard when I got here, why should other people have it easy to come in illegally?”

I have to admit, he had a compelling point. But then I got to thinking about it some more, and here’s the thing:

I was born on this soil. Yes, my ancestors immigrated like you did, back in the 1700s on my mother’s side and in the 1920s on my father’s. But was born in this country and have lived here all of my life. I did not immigrate like you did. I did not have to work hard like you did. I did not have to check off a list of hurdles to clear like you did. 

I admire all of you. But I also want to say ... As someone who DIDN’T have to work hard to be here, who is here because she was born here ...

I welcome all of you.

I welcome those of you who came here legally.

I welcome those who come here ILLEGALLY, too.

Why?

Because who am I to say who can and cannot enjoy the blessings to which I was born? I am no better than you are. I did not do anything to deserve these privileges of freedom. And no one should have to. All of us should be born to the same God-given right of equality, respect, safety, peace ... and freedom.

I have friends in other countries who can only dream of these things. I receive emails from them about their plights, about their corrupt governments, about their unfair lives, about their lost dreams, about their fears for their children, about their concern for their loved ones’ safety.

It burdens my heart.

I am glad you are here, legal immigrants, but I ALSO do NOT begrudge ANYONE who is here illegally. This is a big country. We have so much, and that includes work that natural-born citizens stick their nose up at doing. We have so much prosperity.

When I was 3 years old, my mother tells me I memorized the inscription on the Statue of Liberty. Apparently, she used to stand me on a chair in a church basement where she and my father were pastors. And in my little loud voice, with my tiny arm raised in the air, I would recite this:

“Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,With conquering limbs astride from land to land;Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand. A mighty woman with a torch, whose flameIs the imprisoned lightning, and her name, Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command. The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame."Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she, with silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Yes. Age 3.

My mother taught it to me, and I may not remember doing it, but I do remember that I was always aware that I had been born free, that others had not, that we were a country of immigrants, that we were to welcome those on the outside.

So I say to you, legal immigrants:

You came here. But I, as a native daughter, I, who was taught at an early age to embrace all, I, who did NOT WORK for my citizenship ... you have no right to tell these people they can’t come here. You have no right to judge them.

I’m happy you’re here. But you know what?

They belong here, too. You are no better than they are, just because you worked. You are no better than I am.

If you support Donald Trump, you are supporting his spirit of exclusion.

We are a country that welcomed you.

So act like Americans, and welcome others as we did you.

[coffeewithmrthornton]

Asperger’s Syndrome and the Endless ADHD Drug Saga

Four years of dealing with my child’s ADHD medication and prescription has taught me one thing:

I must accept that it’s just part of the fabric of my life now – the lost time and energy due to obtaining it for him.

When your kid has Asperger’s, autism or ADHD and you have been relying on medication to help them function, you come up against a number of hurdles to conquer.

The first is the cost. On average, these pills run from $7 to $10 EACH. Multiply that by a 30-day supply, and you’re looking at around $300 per month.

The next is the insurance. If you’re lucky enough to have a great insurance plan, you have a small co-pay. But like everything else, the insurance companies will not make it easy for you to obtain the drug. No. They must be convinced by a doctor that the drug is medically necessary.

The third, unfortunately – are other parents.

See, these drugs are NARCOTICS. And all it takes is a few selfish parents to look in their medicine cabinets, decide a cup of coffee or a glass of wine isn’t enough for them – and TAKE their CHILD’S medication.

The result?

State and federal laws must be passed so that the kids who need these drugs will get them without their moms or dads scarfing them down. So there are laws on the books that set up the following safeguards. Let’s run through them for my state of Kentucky so that you can see what I’m dealing with:

1)      The prescription must be refilled once every 30 days. It’s not a standing order. A doctor must sign off on it once a month.

2)      The doctor must meet with you and the child once every 3 months. It used to be once every 5 months, but the Kentucky Legislature recently changed that … I guess because too many parents were drug abusing their kids’ ADHD supplies.

3)      When you get the prescription, you have to pick it up in person. It cannot be called in to a pharmacist. It cannot be faxed in. It has to be hand-written, by the doctor, and delivered into your hand. Again, it’s because people are good at pretending like they’re doctors and calling pharmacies and getting fake prescriptions filled.

4)      If you LOSE that piece of paper, guess what? You can’t get another one FOR ANOTHER 30 DAYS. No. You have to WAIT, because it would be too easy for the drug-abusing scumbags to pick up a paper, say they lost it, get another paper and then have a double supply to use or sell to another user.

5)      Oh. And one more thing. Suppose you jump through all of the hurdles and you are doing everything right, and your 3-month check-up occurs a few days before you are out of pills. You cannot go to the pharmacy with the new prescription until all of those pills are gone. Thirty days is 30 days.

 Which brings me to this morning.

When the Kentucky Legislature changed the law from 5 month review to 3 month review, it caught me off guard last fall. I called my pediatrician’s office for the monthly refill, only to be told that we had to come by for a THREE-MONTH check-up.

I, unaware that the law had changed, had to then scramble to drive my child out to an emergency appointment, because by then we only had one or two pills left in our bottle.

I decided, “THIS IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN TO ME AGAIN!”

Right?

So at the last emergency check-up, I scheduled our three-month appointment for mid-February. I calculated that there would be about 10 pills left in my child’s bottle. I would have PLENTY of time to get this appointment out of the way, and I would hold on to the prescription paper and have it refilled when our 30 days were up.

Are you following me so far? This requires quite a bit of diabolical planning, as you can see.

We went to the appointment 10 days ago.

The doctor, having looked at my child’s growth rate, decided that although this medication was working well, it would probably be a good idea to increase the dosage slightly.

He wrote the prescription and sent us merrily on our way. As I walked out of the office, I remember turning to my child and saying, “We got that done early! Whooohooo! Give me a high five! Mom is ON TOP OF IT!”

We came home, and I put the prescription in a jewelry box on top of my dresser, because the 30 days weren’t up.

I let it sit there for the next nine days.

On Friday, we had 2 pills left in our bottle, and I checked the calendar. Yep. We were safe to go to the pharmacy and get the refill. But before I drove out to the pharmacy, I had one passing thought:

“There are so many times I go and am told that the drug isn’t approved. I should find out before I waste time going out there.”

I called my child’s insurer, United Healthcare, and explained that I had the same drug, but the milligrams had been increased slightly.

The person on the other end of the phone flatly replied:

“We need a pre-authorization from your doctor before we fill that. He will have to fax in a medical reason why he has to increase the dosage.”

Now I’m kicking myself, because I could have made this call nine days ago, and it happened to be a passing thought on a Friday afternoon, just before I was headed to the pharmacy.

I called the doctor’s office. It’s about 4 p.m.  I explained the situation to a nurse.

“Unfortunately, the doctor is out this afternoon,” she told me. “And I’m looking at the chart, and he made no note in the chart that he increased the milligrams. He will be in late Monday afternoon. I can’t call the insurance company until I see the prescription paper myself.”

I groaned.

“Can I take a photograph of this prescription on my iPhone and email it to you?”

“I don’t have email.”

She doesn’t have email???

“Well, how can I get your office to call the insurer? We are down to two pills.”

“You can drive out here on Monday morning and show me the prescription, and I can call the insurance company then.”

The doctor’s office is an hour’s drive from my house. I have kept this pediatrician because they were the office that worked with me when my child was first diagnosed as autistic and have managed his medication for the past four years. I hate to change doctor’s offices, because he knows the staff, trusts his doctor – and if you have a kid on the autistic spectrum, you know how much it rocks the boat to make changes, big or small.

So this morning, I got in my car and drove an hour to the pediatrician’s office – WITH THAT PIECE OF PAPER – showed it to them, and drove an hour back to my house.

Will I get approval for the medication change? I’m sure I will, and that’s really not the issue.

The issue is that when parents (okay let’s say it: single moms) of autistic kids have to jump through innumerable hoops for the medication to help their child FUNCTION, it is maddeningly demoralizing. Just when you think you’ve figured out the entire system – just when you think you have checked off all of the boxes and done all of the right things – you miss one step and are back to square one again.

Do I expect anything to be done by writing this blog entry?

No.

Partly I’m writing this to vent.

I know there are a lot of people who would say, “Why didn’t you make the call nine days ago to the insurer?” or, “Why are you complaining when you could choose a doctor who is closer geographically?” You see, I’ve heard those things, too. It’s easy for people to cast blame and judgment.

But for once, I’d like the world to see that there are parents who are GOOD parents – who love their children and know that these drugs are like oxygen to their children – who would never dream of taking something so crucial to their child’s well-being for their own selfish purposes.

For once, I’d like someone to say, “How can I help you to have an easier time in a life that is already fraught with challenges?”