#but having dozens of strangers confidently tell me that making a list is a treatment

[baejax-the-great]

Inspired by a bizarre argument I had on reddit,

I think the question comes down to whether the word "treatment" encompasses strategic behaviors for lessening negative outcomes that result from ADHD symptoms or if treatments are meant to alleviate the symptoms themselves.

[ghost-chance]

Someday it would be really nice to not be told I'm brilliant then treated like I'm a blithering idiot in the same day, by the same person.

My father is a grudge-gathering and haughty malignant narcissist, and every compliment he's ever given was couched with "but you're doing this wrong," "but I can do much better," "but you're not good enough," or a shouted judgemental, condemning mansplaining tirade shortly after about something completely unrelated.

Sound petty? Imagine these scenarios.

College kid went from As and Bs to straight A's and got put on the Dean's list. Father looks at the report card. "Not bad, but at your age I was making straight A-pluses and I was working full-time, and I had a house of my own. You're unemployed and living with your parents. What's your excuse?"

Teenager bakes a dessert for Christmas without being asked, and everyone loves it...except father. Father says, "This is good but you could do better by doing this, this, and this." (Everyone looks at father like he's delusional for thinking there's any room for improvement.) "Try harder next time."

Father pushes adult daughter to let him read a chapter of recent original writing (rough draft, no edits) to show how much she's improved since she first started writing; daughter caves and sends him a chapter. Father says "Nice start, but you're making these mistakes [which aren't mistakes but tactics taught in creative writing classes] and it makes the story boring. Fix it."

Father: "I'm proud of how much you've grown up over the last several years; you're really making something of yourself." Father five minutes later: launches into a loud, obscenity-laced tirade because daughter answered a question (something non-urgent like "what day are you going out for groceries?" or "are you coming for Thanksgiving next month?") with I don't know yet but I will soon. "GODDAMMIT, you've GOT to figure this out! You've got to SIT your ass DOWN and FIGURE THIS OUT before you run out of time, then you've got to f*ing TELL ME! You know better than this! Stop being a f*ing idiot!!!"

Wanna know what the results of these situations were?

I developed severe anxiety regarding my grades, studied all night even when I had the subject covered, and started losing sleep. My grades started slipping the more I studied. I fell asleep in Biology, stopped breathing in my sleep and woke up screaming, and my professor had to bully me into taking a nap in his office by threatening to call my parents; Dad screamed over that incident for half an hour and took my bedroom door off its hinges. I eventually dropped out of college because I couldn't handle the stress, and I never recovered OR finished my degree. I was in my final year of college.

I tried adjusting the dessert recipe as directed over a dozen times; the further it got from the original recipe, the less everyone else liked it and the more Dad found wrong with it. I've never baked it again despite countless requests for it because 'I'll just f*ck it up' and I refuse to hear another "good, but you need to change this, this, and this."

I developed a year-long bout of writer's block which still hasn't fully gone away. My confidence in my writing has gone to shit. I spend more time researching and editing than writing, and spend hours staring at a blank screen wondering how to improve simple phrases like "Aubrey opened her eyes" and "Tanaki shrugged." I have never gotten even a paragraph added to the original story I shared with him, because every time I try to write for it, I have an anxiety attack and start crying or feeling sick.

I had a f*ing panic attack right then and there, went home feeling sick, threw up, spent the rest of the day staring off into space and wondering why I can never be good enough, and shouted at my husband for asking "what's for dinner?" I felt even worse for taking it out on Cold, cried, and made scarce for the night, and cried even harder when Cold tried to console me. I eventually remembered "it's not me, it's Dad; I'm doing the best I can with what I have, and he needs to cool his sh*t." I spent the night staring at the ceiling anyway, thinking back over every word that was said and wondering what I might have said or done to provoke or deserve that sort of response.

Overall result: my self-confidence is shit, I started having panic attacks as early as JUNIOR-FUCKING-HIGH, and I can't function without a clear and unblocked escape path at all times. If I have people blocking my escape or if they get too close or too loud, I get triggered; I've literally bolted for safety in Wal-Mart because people boxed me in. I have to be coaxed into talking to or around Dad, spend most of our time together silent or on edge, and routinely cry or get sick after seeing him. I've developed high blood pressure, PTSD, and have contributed to at least one therapist's resignation, and at this rate, I'll probably develop an ulcer by forty.

I'm that daughter, and that's my father...but reality is so much worse than this...so, so much worse, and I don't feel comfortable going into detail.

Tonight, I got the "you're brilliant/don't be such an idiot" treatment, with added yelling and an I love you attached to the you're brilliant. I'd rather he never complimented me at this point because compliments always come with a penalty. I'd rather just be told I'm stupid than be told I'm smart then treated like I'm stupid; I'd rather be ouright told he hates me than told he loves me then torn back down. I've gotten good at letting insults and such roll off my back, especially from strangers, but when Dad pairs them with a compliment...no. That's different.

My father is a narcissist, and he has brain damage and abuse in his past. This is no excuse, and I know it now. I just...I can't make him stop, but if I could just stop being caught off-guard every time it happens, I'd be satisfied.

[fyeahcreepyshit]

I FOUND A LETTER FROM MY STALKER

Published on January 6, 2019 "I Found a Letter From My Stalker" Written by MinisterOfOwls ESTIMATED READING TIME — 12 MINUTES I found this note, nailed onto a tree on my front lawn. I really don’t know how to describe it. I’ll just let you read it yourself. [Note start] I saw you today. It was your birthday. You didn’t see me, you hardly ever do these days. Your skin looked so nice and healthy, and your eyes, they were the most beautiful I’d ever seen them. You’ve grown so much. I remember how you different used to look when you were younger. I remember the day I first met you. It was four years ago. I was sitting on my desk, head down, listening to the teacher rattling off names for attendance. The teacher called out a name I didn’t recognize, and a stranger’s voice answered behind me. Was there a new student? The teacher didn’t pause for a second, just continued calling out name after name. I turned my head to where the voice had come from. I saw you, a pale thing, so thin, your eyes so red, at a seat that should have been empty. I saw the fireflies flying around you, flickering. Dozens of them, never straying far from you. I saw them going through you, and coming out through your skin, like you were a mist to them. Can you believe I thought you were a ghost? No one else seemed to acknowledge the new stranger sitting at the back of the class. Class after class, hour after hour passed as I waited for something to happen. For someone to notice you, for you to leave, for you to let out a ghoulish scream and claw at me like in the horror story I was certain I was in. But nothing happened. Teachers came and went. My classmates laughed and slept, and you just sat there. The bell rung for recess. The other kids ran to their mundanities for the day, leaving me and you together in the empty classroom. You stood up and pulled a chair from the desk next to you, making it face your desk. You turned your head to me and spoke “Well, you’re slow today. Come on. Ask me your questions.” I don’t know why I didn’t run away screaming at that moment. Probably would have turned out better for me in the long run, but let’s not speculate. I guess, at that point in my life , I was pretty bloody lonely. I figured there was only a 50-50 chance you’d eat me and the other 50 was that someone wanted to talk with me. Kid priorities don’t make sense to me either these days. So I went along with the flow. I walked over to your desk, sat down on the chair you pulled for me, and asked my question. What were you? You told me you didn’t know. You said that once you were a child, just like me, with parents and friends. You used to go to the same schools as me. Then, one day, one ordinary day, when you were ten, you just woke up and you were like this, covered in fireflies and no one could remember you the moment they concentrated on anything else. No one, not even your parents. You told me of how I’d notice you, every day. How I’d think of you until recess every day. How I’d come to you every day. How we would talk, every day. How we would meet for the first time, every day, for the last three years. About how I’d forget the instant I walked out of the room. How everyone would forget you. How the fireflies would make them. How for the last three years, you’d been alone. Your story was very hard to believe. So I didn’t. I asked what reality prank show I was on. You looked, well, unimpressed, and asked me to continue telling my story. I was caught off guard by the non sequitur. You said last time I was here, I was telling you a story, a horror story about a haunted house. As you detailed the story, goosebumps prickled my skin. It was a story I’d been making up in my head. A story I hadn’t told anyone yet. At that moment, a million reactions were open to me, all simultaneously adequate and inadequate . But the only thing that seemed proper was to finish the story for you. So I did. Halfway through, you interrupted me to ask if my mother had recovered from her sickness yet. I had to shake my head, a bit ashamed at the fact that I shared this private matter to a stranger. The story ended a few minutes before recess. My next class was in another room. You told me to go. Your steadiness took me back. You seemed so… accepting of your fate. Like you’d already gotten used to the idea of being forgotten forever. I was a kid back then. I wasn’t a particularly smart kid, and I was probably on the onset of a crush. So you can excuse what I did next as an example of my childhood stupidity. I grabbed my scissors, pressed it against my arm’s skin, and dug in. As it drew blood, I pushed it forwards, till the cut forms the shape I wanted. Letter by letter, I carved your name onto my arm. Just so you up know, I don’t regret that. Don’t get me wrong, kid power might have made me do it, but it sure as hell didn’t make the pain go away. It was one of the most painful experiences of my life. But even then as a kid, I thought what was happening to you was unfair. I remember how your eyes looked when you saw that. The confusion. How strange it was for you, that anyone would want to remember. I remember that look so clearly. When I woke up the next day and saw your name on my arm, I remembered you. I didn’t forget. That day, for the first time, we had a conversation that wasn’t so one-sided. You said no one had ever done anything like that before and suggested I might have a mental illness . I won’t deny it, that drew a little blood. As we talked, a creeping thought came into my head: Did you prefer it when I didn’t remember? That night, I was sitting up on my bed, staring at your name on my arm, wondering if I should cover it up so I couldn’t see it and give you back your privacy, when I heard a crash. I looked up to see my bedroom window shattered and a dirty rock on my floor. I looked out of the cracked window, to see a dark figure on my lawn. You were outside yelling, about how we should hang out. It took me a while to get used to how bad you were at talking to people. Years without practice, made you a quite a bit rusty. That was all right. We had a lot of time. For the next two years, we spent the most of our free time together. Most of the time, we talked. You’d tell me an aspect of your life and how you lived. You still stayed in your old house. Your parents never noticed the food gone missing, never noticed the extra room, and you’d stolen the extra keys. One night, I confided in you, that I was beginning to think you were a part of my imagination, Fight Club style. After all, what could you do to me that I couldn’t do to myself? You spent the next month or so trying to leave bite marks on my ear or neck, to prove a point. I still have some on my ear, so I guess you did. Looking back, I could see the warning signs even then. Your skin seemed to get worse and worse, paler and paler, and you’d rub your eyes raw. It was in winter we had our wakeup call. The morning began like any other. I woke up, brushed my teeth, and started searching for clothes to wear. It was a winter morning, and my room was dark, so I didn’t see your name on my arm. The cold sent shivers through my body, and pulled out a long sleeve jacket. A small bell rang in my head. Don’t you usually roll your sleeves up? Yeah, and why did I? That was annoying. I finished tidying up and headed to school. On the school bus, I felt oddly content, like something I’d been worrying about had just… disappeared. I walked up the school stairs, down the hall, through my class door, and sat down on my desk. The same feeling of a burden forgotten hounded my mind. What was I forgetting? When recess came, I started came, I just sat at my desk, while my class mates ran out. It felt like a ritual , but I didn’t know what for. I was contemplating just walking out to join them, when I heard it. It was something small in the wind, like a whisper, but it came over and over, incessant. It sounded like my name. I knew this was strange, that this was worth my attention, but I felt oddly calm. Everything would be alright, everything would be fine, just ignore it. I sat there on my desk, my mind a war zone between two conflicting, contradictory, voices, when I felt a force tugging on my sleeve. The moment I noticed this, my jacket sleeve tore open. I saw your name on my arm, and then your hand that had ripped my jacket open. You’d been yelling at me for over 20 minutes. I think that was the moment we realized how on edge our friendship really was. One accident away from complete erasure. We spent the most of the next year in the town library together, trying to find out what the fireflies were. It wasn’t really a problem for me. Because of my mother’s treatment, my family couldn’t afford to go on any trips, and our house didn’t have heating anymore, so I was happy to spend my time with you. Trying to find information was a puzzle in and of itself. After all, how would I read about people I couldn’t remember and how would you find out who was special when no one could even remember enough about them to record them? We found out old family trees and records. Individually, we’d write down the name of everyone in the book on two lists and then we would compare. The names I hadn’t remembered to write down, but you had, would become the focus. They were the names who were under the curse of the fireflies. We compiled a list of “suspicious” books. Books we though could help us, because they were written by or were about the people we were searching for. I’d read the books, with the list of names side by side, reading it again for every page of the book. You’d sure the internet on the library computers , for articles about the people. Our search would lead us to the first glimpse we got of what was really happening to you. It was late at night when you found the picture. I was a bit drowsy at that time, and almost about to nod off when I heard a sharp intake of breath. I turned to see you standing up, pointing at the screen. I didn’t see anything. Well, anything noteworthy. On the screen was a picture of a clearing somewhere in the woods You held up your piece of paper where you’d marked out two names. Susie Applebee-Reagan, 13 Terry Applebee-Reagan, 12 Siblings For a moment, I saw the paper and the screen side by side. Side by side. And then I saw them. Two figures, emerging from the woods, towards the camera. They were almost humanoid, but all five limbs stretched to nightmarish proportions. Blank white skin, pure albino, that looked more like tree bark than anything on a mammal. A cloud of fireflies surrounded the duo. The shorter one looked emaciated. I could see the rib cages around which their… their eyes! God, their eyes! So small, so red. The longer one with their white hair, didn’t look alive anymore. They were just skin wrapped around skeletons. Their empty eye sockets had fireflies swarming out of them. Both reaching for the camera man. I looked at the article surrounding the picture. It was a blog post by hiker, twenty years after the two kids had been written about last. The picture was a mystery to the camera man as well. He’d been wanting to go to the woods pictured for a while now, but he never actually remembered going there. The picture had just appeared in his camera one day, out the blue. For a moment, I looked at your face. Your thin pale face, with those red veined eyes. Would that be you when my scar faded? Just a walking horror I’d glimpse, then forget? We worked through our reading list at a much faster pace starting from that moment. Maybe we should’ve gone slower. At least every book, every website we’d left untouched promised hope. The books we finished and tossed aside promised nothing but the clearing in the woods as your future. And we tossed aside a lot of books. I believe I tore through three fourths of my reading list before I stumbled across the journal. Oh God, that horrible, horrible journal. The journal used to belong to a mental patient, named Joey, who claimed to be a serial killer. He was locked up in an asylum when the police discovered his supposed victims never existed. He was ‘diagnosed’ with a need for attention, and shoved away. They should have electrocuted him. They should have fried him until his flesh melted and his hair burned. In the journal, he talked about how he carried out his killings. He knew things, bizarre and disturbing things no one else knew. He knew of strange creatures that lived in the woods. Of them, his favorite were the fireflies. I’m not going to tell you how he summoned these things. I trust you, I trust you more than anyone, but a thing like this belongs to the ground more than it ever will to the human mind. It’s sufficient enough to know that, these things were not fireflies. Joey would start his ritual by taking a kid. Any kid, anyone he’d liked. He could take them at any time, the dead of night in their own homes, or in broad daylight on their front yards. It didn’t matter if he was seen. He’d take them to his house and drag them to a room. Usually, an Amber Alert came up around now. He didn’t care. Like I said, it wouldn’t matter soon. He’d drag them to a special room in his house. Here the fireflies would come and latch onto them. Now, nobody was searching for the kids. Not the police, not the parents. Nobody. From then on, he could do whatever he wanted to the kid. He’d get bored of them after a day or two, after the child had broken. And then the kid would go too. Hacksaw, kitchen knife, anything would work. He detailed a large pit of bodies he kept in the woods, swarming with the bugs. I guess he got bored of that too one day, so one day he went right to the police station and turned himself in. Not of guilt, no, no, no. He just wanted someone to know about the stuff he was doing. Sick bastard. Oh, don’t get the wrong idea. He never stopped killing kids. The asylum doors didn’t stop him from doing what he liked. It just made him improvise. He made a new way. He modified the flies, so they could survive without a host, just in a dormant state. When a child (he specified the age) would approach the swarm, it would latch on and begin its effect. Over the years, the child would warp horribly into the things we saw in the woods. I wish I could hate him in peace. I wish I could say the world owed him nothing. But that wouldn’t be true. He detailed a way out. On the final page, was an exact explanation on how to get rid of the fireflies. You must have seen something in my face, at that moment you asked if had I found anything. I said no and closed the book. A few minutes later, you shut down the computer. You picked up the last book and went through it yourself. When you reached the end cover, you tossed it aside. I asked what we should do now. You said it was alright. I could go home. We’d talk about it in the morning. I stood up and walked past the shelves of books. I headed for the library entrance, but stopped right outside the door and waited. I waited until I heard the sniffling sounds. I sneaked back to our table, where you were quietly sobbing. You had your head in your hands. I sat back down, as you raised your eyes to me. You said you wished you’d never met me. How happy you were when you had nothing to lose. How I ruined your life. You’d never really gotten better at talking to people. That was the worst love confession I’d ever heard. I remember how we kissed that night. I remember your hands gripping my hair. I remember that kiss. I wish it could’ve been just a kiss. I’m sorry I ruined that moment. When my arms were around you, I was close enough to steal a firefly without you noticing. I remember holding the fireflies in my hand. I remember how it struggled, until it didn’t. Until it was a part of me. The fireflies shifted. They came over me, and left you. I remember the familiar look in your eyes. The confusion. I never wanted to see that confusion in your eyes again. You deserved to be loved and you deserved to know that. I wasn’t really living anyway. You reached for me. I pulled away, as the last lights of recognition faded from your eyes. And then you were just staring at a stranger, walking away into a crowd of strangers. That was a year ago. You’ve gotten so much better since then. You have so many friends now. So many people at your birthday party. You also look so much healthier. I haven’t been as fortunate. My skin’s gotten a lot paler, and my eyes hurt all the time now. I couldn’t go to school like you did all those years. I haven’t wasted my time though. I found Joey’s pit. The bodies, there were so many bodies. There’s a grave for those children now. Without me, my mom could afford her surgery. She looked so happy. Just yesterday, I saw her playing with my baby brother. I saw you crying yesterday. You were with your friends, laughing. For a brief moment, your eyes met mine, and then, they were so wet. I think I’m going away. For good I think. You’re not going to be happy if I stick around. I’m so happy I met you, even if you don’t remember me. [Note end] Sometimes I go through depressive episodes. I feel so lonely, even with my friends. I don’t know what’s going through my head during these times, and sometimes I’d end up in a bath tub, a knife in my hands and my wrists bleeding. Up till now, I thought I was cutting my wrists. I wasn’t. The cuts… they’re letters. I’ve been carving a name onto my arm. Credit: MinisterofOwls (Reddit)

[daniellesmithtv]

Give Good, Get Good: Gifts that Give

Gift giving is my love language.

Seriously. I LOVE to find the perfect gift for the people in my life. I love to surprise them and see the look on their face when I get it right.

But there is a little something else I love to do: give back.

I have a fairly robust list of people I gift –  between family, my tribe of friends, colleagues and people I like to surprise spoil. That means I’m constantly on ‘gift alert’…..what would they LOVE? But I also ask myself another question, “Is it possible to spoil the people I adore (or surprise them) AND make the world a little better at the same time.

Why yes, it is.

Because this matters to me, I’ve curated some of my FAVORITE places you can buy for the people you love AND give back at the same time. You’ll find jewelry, t-shirts, accessories and a slew of options your family can commit to – from easing the burden of a family with a sick child, to sponsoring a child in another country to helping to feed little ones right here in the United States to supporting the efforts of a family in a third world country to pull themselves from poverty.

Give Good, Get Good: Gifts that Give

Brave New World Designs– Have I told you that I have brilliant, kind, compassionate friends who are working DAILY for a better world? My friend Christine Koh is one of them. This past year she started Brave New World Designs. I will allow her beautiful words to describe her mission, “Brave New World Designs is on a mission to make the world a little better each day by giving voice to the virtues of creativity, humor, wisdom and love. Our work is part poetry, part adventure, part advocacy and part silly.” I have three of her t-shirt designs in my closet and my small girl has a favorite as well. She wore her ‘Love Fiercely’ shirt to school for picture day and it is PERFECT.

Shop Compliment – I have a personal policy of complimenting ANYONE I find deserving. Have a kind heart, beautiful eyes, lovely manners? I will tell you. My friend Melissa has built a beautiful business with the same mission. She and I actually found each other here online and I’ve been addicted to her heart and commitment to offering education for girls ever since. 5% of each purchase from ShopCompliment goes to a scholarship fund for girls. It is magic. And so are Melissa’s products. She started with jewelry – and each piece comes with a personal ‘compliment’…but she has expanded to inspirational coffee mugs, candles, notebooks and so much more.

Pura Vida – Have a cause that matters to you? I’m fairly confident Pura Vida has you covered in their charity bracelet collection. You can support animal awareness, education, mental health, cancer, diabetes, the military, Parkinson’s disease and SO MUCH MORE. Each and every bracelet is handcrafted by artisans from all over the world. The bracelets are worn by millions of people around the world (I have a few dozen!) and provide full time jobs to more than 150 artisans around the globe. They are partnered with more than 190 charities around the world and have donated more than $1.5 Million dollars. And they have more than just bracelets. They are a go-to for gifts for me. Ohhh – and they have a subscription service!!

Chavez for Charity – I have told you I know extraordinary people, yes? Julie Marie Chavez is a fellow University of San Diego Alumni and someone I knew in my time at the University. She graduated and created the magic that is Chavez for Charity. As with Pura Vida, you can support some of the causes and organizations that mean the world to you. From the Matthew Shepard Foundation to the Malala Fund and Erin Brockovich Foundation (and so many more) – the purchase of each and every bracelet means you are making a difference. And the options are gorgeous. I regularly give them as gifts.

I am Just One. – If you have  ever thought, ‘but I am JUST ONE PERSON…how can I better the world?” – you aren’t alone. I AM JUST ONE is built on the premise that yes, yes! you can make a difference. Just One has the beautiful goals of offering hope, raising awareness and creating advocates. They are offering fair trade jewelry that subscribes to the notion of a ‘hand up’ not a ‘hand out’ so that you know, with each and every gorgeous purchase you are helping to allow a beautifully talented artisan to support themselves and maintain their dignity.

Cause Box –  You know I LOVE subscription boxes. This is one that offers not only a series of gifts for the receiver, but each and every item in the box has a story and makes the world a better place. The boxes are curated for women and each item you receive is either in partnership with CauseBox or comes as a limited edition product from a socially conscious company. Boxes arrive quarterly and subscriptions are about $50/quarter if you pay annually. I LOVE MINE. The products may be jewelry, art work, fashion, apparel, accessories or beauty products. There also have a limited edition box for men for the holidays.

Intangible Giving

The benefit of giving the intangible – you are blessing someone you love (and possibly that ‘person who has everything’) with the gift of having helped someone in need by your gift in their honor.

No Kid Hungry – I have long been committed to ending child hunger. It shouldn’t even be A THING. And yet, it is. ONE in SIX children in the United States don’t get the food they need. That makes learning, living, just being a kid nearly impossible. Share Our Strength is an organization working to make sure all kiddos get the food they need where they live, where they learn and where they play. I’m happy to join friends like Tim McDonald who have been advocates for this cause for years.

Additionally, through its Cooking Matters program, the No Kid Hungry campaign educates and empowers low-income families to stretch their food budgets so their kids get healthy meals at home.

Take a look at their work here.

Unbound – This is a gift you can do as a family – sponsoring a child in need in another country. A portion of Unbound’s mission is to ‘see potential, not poverty’. By sponsoring a child as we have (Karen and Jacqueline both live in Guatemala), my small people are learning not only about another culture as they can communicate with both girls, but also what is means to truly give to someone else.

In order to qualify for sponsorship, Jacqueline and Karen, (like all other children) must be enrolled in school. Dropping out at any time prevents them from being sponsored. Now that my family has committed to both of them, the folks at Unbound sit down with the family and determine how the sponsorship could most benefit them – food, clothing, school supplies and items that can help them break the cycle of poverty – like pigs, chickens, seeds for farming and trees for growing fruit – are all options.

The $60 ($30 each) we spend each month to sponsor these two girls clearly provides much needed financial assistance for their families, but it is equally beneficial for us: My children are seeing good works and love in action, they are learning about another culture, and they have a connection to another child who is opening their eyes to an entirely different way of life.

St. Jude – You are likely not a stranger to St. Jude’s Research Hospital in Memphis. I bet you know it is committed to saving the lives of children living with rare forms of cancer. But did you know the doctors, nurses, and staff treat each child and each parent like family?

The atmosphere is warm and inviting, it does not smell like a hospital (despite being a thoroughly sterile environment), the walls are painted with kids in mind and decorated with heartfelt art work created by the kids living there.

Though there are only 78 beds on campus, there are three different housing options available based on how long a child will need treatment – from a week to a handful of years.

No matter how long a child receives treatment, no matter how long their family must live in St. Jude’s housing, no matter how far they must travel for the life-giving, life-saving treatment they need, they will never receive a bill – not for medical care, not for housing, not for food and not for travel.

It costs $2.2 MILLION dollars A DAY to keep this miracle in Memphis open and saving lives…and it all comes from donations. (That’s SIXTY-SIX million dollars a month for those of you doing the math). Here’s another fact that just might blow your mind – 75% of the money that comes in is from individual donors and the average gift is a beautiful and heartfelt $35. Think about this fact the next time you head out to dinner, or pay your monthly gym membership.

$35 is life giving. 

Power of 5 – Two years ago, I visited Zambia, Africa as part of the Power of 5 Program and that experience has never left my soul. There is so much I take for granted. My small people have enough food to fill their bellies every day. They have electricity and education. I sat with mothers who worry daily their children may not make it to the age of five. They worry….are their children getting the nutrients they need to grow and thrive?

It is heartbreaking that in many cases, that answer had been no, but Amway™ and its Nutrilite™ Power of 5 Campaign are making great strides, one child, one family at a time. As the largest vitamin distributor in the world, Amway provides a micronutrient supplement to families with great need in five different areas around Lusaka (as well as ten other countries around the world.)

This micronutrient is mixed with a child’s food once a day in order to provide the nutrition they need.

Every 30 days, the families I met, along with 200+ other families trek to one of five distribution centers in Lusaka, Zambia to listen to an educational talk, see their children weighed and measured for tracking and pick up their monthly nutrition, their Little Bits, for their little ones.

Amway is doing this work in nearly a dozen countries – with a commitment to continue expanding.

Consider supporting them?

Heifer International – This is a beautiful way to gift a tangible item that is life-changing for a family in need. For 70 years now, they have been working to combat poverty in some of the areas that need it the most (125 countries around the world) – but not simply by  – if you will allow the adage – giving men and women fish, but actually teaching them how to fish. Their goal has long been to provide farmers with the opportunity to learn skills and change their circumstances rather than strictly benefitting from gifts from others.

A goat can be purchased for $120 and once given to a family, not only will it be a source of food for them – milk, cheese and yogurt, but these products can be packaged and sold at market, helping the family to earn an income they so desperately need. Other animal gift options include a heifer (naturally) for $500, an alpaca for $150, a pig for $120, rabbits for $60, honeybees for $30, a flock of chicks for $20 and so many more. If the amount you would like to give is less, you can also gift a portion of any of these animals. They also support women’s empowerment and there are ways you can give specifically to this category.

As part of their core mission, Heifer supports Passing on the Gift – this means the families who are gifted don’t allow that gift to stop with them. They share the training they receive and pass on the first female offspring of their livestock to another family.

Check out their gift catalog.

How do you give back this time of year? I would love to hear any additional ideas you would add to this list.

Happy Holidays! And happy giving.

    The post Give Good, Get Good: Gifts that Give appeared first on Pretty Extraordinary.

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It’s 10am, October 1st, 2016, and 23-year-old actor Fionnlagh McFarlane is standing outside a Wetherspoon pub in Canary Wharf. He and dozen or so others are about to embark on a ten-mile walk across central London. With breaks, the route to Hammersmith station is expected to last five hours. Standing alongside McFarlane in the rain is Alex Morgan, 26. He is the reason they’re walking. His charity's name, Stay Brave UK, is emblazoned in luminous green across the white T-shirts the everyone is wearing.

The walk is intended to symbolise the arduous journey those who’ve experience sexual assault and domestic violence go through. It will also raise funds for the charity, which exists to help male survivors.  

McFarlane has raised £300 for taking part. He’d been encouraged to join the walk by Morgan, who he had recently met through a mutual friend. To those around him McFarlane’s participation looks ordinary – one friend helping another. But his friendship with Morgan is built, in part, on shared experiences. As they set off, Morgan was the only one who recognised the deeper emotional investment McFarlane had in finishing the hike.

Fionnlagh McFarlane grew up on the west coast of Scotland, in a rural town downstream from Glasgow. He describes his 18-year-old self as curious, confident, and bubbly. He had an amazing relationship with his family, performed well at school, and was blessed with a close friendship group that included his then-boyfriend.

In the summer of 2011, shortly after turning 18, he went to celebrate a friend’s birthday in a small local club with sticky floors and terrible music. Later in the evening his friends made their way to the smoking area. Alone at the bar, a stranger offered to buy McFarlane a drink, which he accepted. From that point on he’s unable to recall the events of the evening, aside from a few static flashes.

“I never really knew that flashbacks were like you see in films, but it's exactly like that,” he says. He speaks abruptly, considering each burst carefully. “It's like someone turns the light on, and I remember being in the bathroom. Light off. Light on and I remember being taken out of the club. And then as soon as I leave the club I wake up the next day.”

McFarlane woke up in his bed, surrounded by concerned friends. They’d left the club without him, assuming he’d walked home. By chance they stumbled upon a group of people surrounding McFarlane as he lay on the floor in a Tesco car park, covered in vomit. His jeans were open at the top. Someone from the crowd had tied his scarf round his waist to keep the trousers up. They were on the verge of calling an ambulance; instead his friends took him home where he spent the night throwing up. He remembers nothing.  

In the months that followed McFarlane was irritable. His sleep was interrupted with night terrors and he’d wake up covered in sweat. He suspected something had happened, that he had been raped, but he reassured himself with hopeful logic: that he vomited and scared the attacker off.

A chance encounter soon after left no room for interpretation.  

“I was on a train to Glasgow a few months later and then this person got onto the train … and when I saw him, my whole body went into shock,” recalls McFarlane. He recognised him instantly as the man who'd bought him a drink at the bar, the man he suspected of spiking his drink and raping him. “That’s the first point I knew that something had happened. I wouldn’t be reacting this way. I was quivering.”

It was at least 8pm and the carriage was almost empty. The man was alone. He caught McFarlane’s eye, walked past numerous vacant seats, then settled on one across the aisle, facing him.

Astonishingly, and for reasons McFarlane cannot begin to fathom, the man began typing messages on his phone and handing them to McFarlane. The messages asked if McFarlane remembered what happened that night at the bar. When McFarlane shook his head his attacker listed “the gory details”. Even with the text prompting him, McFarlane had no recollection of anything written down taking place.

“He sat down across from me,” he says. “He kept making eye contact. And I just sat frozen.” His attacker offered no indication as to why McFarlane was ill that night, or why his memory was abnormally vacant – though McFarlane is sure his drink was spiked. However, the message did confirm his suspicions: he’d been raped.

“I just remember being absolutely devastated and sitting with my eyes shut,” says McFarlane. “I eventually got off and broke down. That was the beginning of the end.”

The intentions of his attacker that day are still unclear to McFarlane. But learning the truth sent him into meltdown. His mood was “black”. He became even more irritable, selfish, withdrawn. In acute moments of anxiety his body would unexpectedly and uncontrollably shake. “It feels like all your insides are vibrating,” he says.

Unable to vocalise his experience and feelings, his relationships deteriorated; he pushed his friends away and his boyfriend left him. He couldn’t bear to upset or burden his parents so he never told them what had happened.  He hadn’t even come out to them yet.

“I was just about to reach that stage in my life and it was snatched away from me because this other whole blackness was thrust on to me,” he says. “How can you come out to your parents when you're trying to deal with the fact you've been raped? Then how do you tell your parents you were raped without also coming out at the same time?”

McFarlane began looking for professional help a year after the attack. Living in rural Scotland, he was discounted from attending counselling sessions from charities based in London and Manchester. Even accessing the services required seeing out a 4-6 month waiting list. Other more local charities he looked into simply didn’t cater to men.

“We are the victims too sometimes, but there is nothing and there still isn't in terms of visibility,” he says, exasperated. “Even if you go to places that do offer something, it's never as great and then you can wait weeks and weeks to be seen because they're not funded. [To get to] the men's section you have to trawl through their whole website to see the tiny paragraph that they've got.”

His search for help, for others like him, was always unsuccessful. He’d wait for these “dark moments” to pass, then continue as best he could until the next episode.

As McFarlane recounts his story, he repeatedly returns to his isolation. For over a year he had no one to talk to. Stigma, shame, the fear of being perceived as damaged, prevented him from talking to friends and family.

He needed someone – a professional, another survivor – to answer his questions: Does it get better? If so, when? How do you deal with insomnia? Why can’t you control your own body? How do you deal with shaking? How do you deal with anxiety-induced nausea? How do you regain the ability to react to triggering words in a normal way? How do you talk to someone you’re starting to date? How do you navigate sex? How do you overcome the guilt of not reporting the attacker?

When McFarlane moved to London to study European Theatre Arts at university, a year and a half after the attack, he was still experiencing the effects of trauma. He finally decided to confide in a friend. To comfort him, she drew upon who own experiences with sexual assault.  

“We just sat, and I cried,” he says. “It wasn't really sadness, I was just so happy. I was like 'god there is someone'. Knowing that she hurt too was enough. Slowly I started to gain more momentum, started to own it. I could talk to anyone about it now.”

It’s been three years since McFarlane confided in his friend. He still has trust issues and anxiety. He still has bad days where he catastrophizes, his shaking returns and his mood oscillates wildly. But he’s also repaired the damage done to his relationships with friends and family, and is now in a stable relationship. Empowered through “owning it”, he’s transformed his shame into tenacity.

“Speaking to someone was a springboard to getting better,” he says. “Healing is a really slow process so I’d be a few years ahead of where I'm at now. But the person I am now, amazing. I'm so proud of how far I've come.”

******

There were 26,483 recorded incidents of males being victims of sexual assault or rape in the UK between 2010 and 2014, according to a Greater London Authority report published in November 2015. Research conducted by Survivor’s UK, the country’s largest male rape and sexual abuse charity, suggests the total number in the same period, including unreported incidents, stands at 679,051.

Sexual violence remains egregiously under-reported. The reasons why are as numerous as they are well-documented: fear, stigma, shame, societal attitudes and fear of poor treatment from the police, to name but a few. For many survivors, even finding the courage to seek help, let alone report a crime, requires monumental mental resolve. When Alex Morgan did eventually seek help, like so many men before him he was ignored.

Morgan grew up in rural Leicestershire. In 2004, aged 14 he was, in his own words, a loner and the school punching bag. Despite horrendous bullying, he had struck up one friendship with a slightly older boy, who we’ll call Joe. Joe told him about a car park where he could make money from older men by performing sexual acts on them. Morgan had developed a crush on Joe and was simply grateful for the attention. He agreed to go with him.

For the next few weeks Morgan would walk four miles to the car park, an isolated spot along a B-road, and engage sexually with mostly middle-aged men. He became “known” and had regulars who would wait for him. At the time, Morgan saw nothing wrong with what he was doing. He relished the gratification and the confidence it instilled in him. It would be years before he understood that as a 14-year-old boy he legally couldn’t give consent and was being raped.

On one return journey from the car park Morgan took a short cut through a field. He noticed someone following him, a young man, 20 at a stretch, who he’d not seen at the car park. He quickened his pace then hid among the crops. When he thought the coast was clear he returned to the narrow path and carried on walking. The attacker charged at him, knocked him down, smashed his face into the ground with one hand and ripped off his jeans with the other. He doesn’t remember walking home. He never returned to the car park.

“It didn't start affecting me emotionally until about six to eight months later,” says Morgan. When he stumbled across the number for a rape crisis helpline in the back of his school diary he dialled and asked for help. “Nothing in it really said it was for girls, or anything like that. But I was told very bluntly down the phone that this number is for women and girls. I remember her saying ‘men are the abusers, women are the victims, we need to terminate this call now so we can help victims’. I remember just hanging up. She didn't finish her sentence.”

This was 2005 – Morgan is quick to point out that since then many crisis charities have improved the services they offer male survivors.

Without that help, Morgan's mental and physical health suffered; and his ability to recognise unhealthy relationships became warped.  “If someone had jumped in then I don't think I would have gotten into the bad relationship I did when I was 17,” he says.

A short while after his attack Morgan met a teacher from a different school through an online dating website. “He knew about my past and I think he used that to his advantage �� because I told him about what I used to do in the car park.

“He was very manipulative in saying that he wanted to start recording what we did and sharing it with his friends,” he continues. “Then he was kind of like, ‘well I want to start bringing my friends over,’ so he started to bring his friends over. Then I realised that his friends were actually paying him to have sex with his twinky boyfriend.”

Morgan told his friends what was happening. They implored him to cut off the relationship. “I didn't see it as wrong,” says Morgan. “As far as I was concerned this guy was lovely and paying me lots of attention and calling me nice things. That’s what I thought relationships were.”

Morgan moved to university in London to start afresh. Shortly into his second year his mood sunk and he sought professional help. He was barely sleeping at all, to the point he would hallucinate. He was fired from his part time job for failing to show for his shift. A GP diagnosed him with bipolar disorder and prescribed anti-depressants, anti-anxiety medication and sleeping pills.

A decade after his attack, Morgan still hadn’t fully addressed what happened to him at the car park, in the field and in the abusive relationship. His mental, physical and social health suffered. He persevered. There was no definitive turning point; recovery was neither rapid nor linear. But in one particular low point, during a conversation with a friend he disclosed his past. Like McFarlane, he found he wasn’t alone.  

“He had told me that he had just gone through quite an abusive relationship where he lost part of his ear because of an attack,” says Morgan. “What he found was the same problem I had, which was when you tried to Google [for] help the services are very female centric or female only. When you tried to call certain helplines they would actually turn you away.

“Then if you're in a case like my friend, you end up enduring whatever situation you're in for longer, because you've lost your confidence,” he continues. “You think that you're not a victim anymore and therefore no one’s gonna help you and you're over reacting.”

Morgan set up Stay Brave UK shortly after. His goal, an ambitious one, is to breakdown the stigma that prevents male victims of domestic abuse or sexual violence from coming forward. He wants to educate the young and the vulnerable, to raise awareness about consent and stigma and ensure no one ever goes through what he did.

Two years later and Stay Brave UK now has four volunteers, six trustees and is awaiting its official charity registration. As well as providing information and working with the more established services for male survivors, the charity has begun rolling out educational modules and workshops for schools and universities.

Morgan has spoken in numerous schools already, sharing his experiences with brutal honesty. He talks candidly about his own ignorance, his experiences with rape, the underage sex-work he engaged in, his inability to recognise emotional abuse and manipulation in his relationships. He recounts the many, many times he felt that as a man he could never be a victim.

“I hear the stories and experiences of others all the time and the story is the same: people just don’t see men or boys as victims. Society only mentions them as perpetrators,” says Morgan. “And while there are services out there, I happened to fall through one of the cracks. I asked for help back when I was 16 yet was turned away. I then didn't ask for help again until I was 20. I honestly believe if that helpline I called when I was younger recognised that I was a victim my life would have been very different.”

***

It’s October 1st, and the walking party are approaching the 10 mile mark. The official finish line is Hammersmith Station, but they walk a few extra yards to The Swan, a nearby pub. McFarlane’s knees are creaking, Morgan’s feet started giving way a mile ago. A friend of theirs is waiting with a bottle of Moët; he’d been expecting them at 3:30pm. It had gone 6pm.

The fundraising walk raised just over £1800, which is £800 over target. While the charity waits for its official registration to come through – April, hopes Morgan – the money will go towards its education initiative and building an even more comprehensive information directory, its long term goal. The short term goal is simply to speak out. Simpler, maybe, but in no way any easier.

“I want to stand up, put my head up over the wall and be a visible face for what is all too often a secret or hidden crime,” says McFarlane. “I want to stand up and say: this is me, this happened to me and let’s talk about it. It will be ok. I’m here, I was raped and it will be alright.”