I am also going to sit yahrzeit with ideas of Walt

This will certainly be different than with another person whose death led to the same idea, but I still think that it could be good for my general mental health.

One big difference? With that person, it only publishes when the year is up, because their death is only tangential to my story overall. 

Here, of course, it's different. 

Walt, my oldest brother and primary sexual abuser, died sometime during the night of May 31/June 1 or early that morning. 

I start with an edited version of what I posted to Lifering.

My sis told me, after Paul our No. 2 brother, had gotten hold of her. 

Walt's wife had contacted sis Thursday (May 28), saying he sure would like to hear our voices again. Marie said she figured the end was getting near but I think she was still thinking weeks, not days, but at the same time, only a couple of weeks, not several.

I was going to cut another video off my computer camera and send that. I was still not picking up the phone. That was all along a "boundary," and a way of achieving something kind of like closure, in advance.

From dad's death, and I sort of said so with Lifering shortly after Walt gave me his diagnosis, I already realized that's the only real way to try to do something like that. I am not going to the funeral. For the family, I may wire some flowers. But, not going.

Not just because of him, but per the other yahrzeit, still private right now, one religious funeral this year was plenty, and at the same time, theirs was different. I also don't need to be guilt-tripped directly or indirectly while up there. I will anyway from afar, afterward, by about everybody other than sis, I'm sure. Besides, if funerals are for the living, the other living can remember and even mourn their own way.

I don't really feel sad, otherwise, though I may feel bits more of that in the future. Even though he died a bit younger than actuarial age, and not the most pleasant way, with his fibrous lung disease, he was 69. That's also different than someone committing suicide when they're 45. I did, at the first contact by email last fall, indicate that he had been part of a "system," too, and if he wanted to read enough between the lines, he could have seen that I had bits of sympathy for him, even if any forgiveness was conditional, as it remained to the end. If there's any sadness it's that, as far as I know, he never really saw how much he was affected by his own abuse, along with dad's emotional abuse and other things, and how much he passed that on.

I don't feel that numb, either. Maybe I will a little more in the future. 

Sis and I have already talked a bit about how much his wife and their two daughters knew. Stephanie's daughter by an earlier marriage but adopted by Walt, contacted me, and Marie, a little over 20 years ago about an incident that she said had happened to her. It wasn't full-on abuse, but seemed to be inappropriate enough contact that I contacted the sheriff's office for that county, and 24 hours later, a deputy showed up at their door. (A few old-timers may remember me discussing that.) I am not sure if anybody was arrested; I know nobody was prosecuted. I do know that family counseling was mandated. And that this daughter felt angry at me. She also claimed to have seen a copy of a letter Walt wrote to Marie and I. 

I don't know what, if anything, the biological daughter of both of them, knows. Walt's wife knows something. Sis thinks the older daughter actually overheard her and Walt talking, rather than seeing a copy of a letter to us where he admitted the abuse but said he was beyond that, and the fact that he was an ordained Lutheran minister showed that. How much she's admitted, Walt's wife, of what she's heard? I don't know.

Dad's emotional and religious abuse was probably behind Walt being an ultrarigorous "pi-brother" with the church in Concordia, and thus getting shoved out of the ministry by getting his salary slashed. Maybe he thought he could land another call on the QT, like how he escaped Texas in the first place. 

Walt did have his sometimes rogueish charms. I mean, he nearly knocked up the daughter of our next-door neighbor, who was at least fairly attractive. Per sis, I can't remember how dad actually handled it. And, the Walt who got me drunk at the tail end of the abusiveness was also the Walt out partying with high school friends then getting pissed when I tried to sneak along. 

I can't remember if Walt was home from college the one summer dad mocked me for the crush I had, while in junior high, over the one visiting college-age girl. I do believe Paul was there and encouraged to join in.

Why the fuck, when I got sober, did I ever think about reaching out to dad for real emotional bonding?

Related, this was probably part of why I was pissed about Walt trying to "steal" MB at St. John's the start of my sophomore year. 

==

June 2, 2026: One response so far on Lifering to my post. This only reinforces the feeling I've had for months that I'm not really listened to there. 

June 4: Doesn't Walt still have control over some sort of annuity from Dad's inheritance? I've asked before and been told no, or words to that effect, but don't believe it. 

June 6: I was in the Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge yesterday. When Tim's first wife, Brenda, died, I couldn't get to the funeral, but got out to New Mexico a month or so later. Stopped at Chaco Canyon on the way. I heard (and saw) a canyon wren, and thought "that's Brenda." I don't believe in reincarnation any more than resurrections, but, in a non-metaphysical way, as a quasi-totem animal, I thought that. I tried the same when Ang died, the first and second trips to Hagerman, but it felt forced.

Walt? Coming back in on the first trail I hiked that day, I thought of it. It just popped into my mind: Dried bison shit. It's crap, shit out by another asshole, but. now dried so it can't stick to my feet.

Sleeping in my car the night before, I actually did some "empty chair gestalt" out in the middle of nowhere, and got mad at him, even yelling, for him not recognizing how much he had been damaged himself, then passing that on, and also for him getting me drunk as well as the sexual abuse, and his control issues. 

June 11: No big anger since then. No big care. I note that Marie had mentioned there is a second St. John's alumni group on Facebook, that looks to have 2.5x the members as the one I am in, and that, interestingly, does not yet have a copy of Walt's obit posted.

I have no desire to join it; her tagging me shouldn't have stuck anyway, since I'm not a member.

That was another time in my life, or rather, another life, or another Steve, to go more radical on Hume plus Heraclitus. That's not the same me that was that me, who would try to relive those memories. Sure, it's also true for people I knew there, but I'm more different from that me than they are from their old me's. FAR more different. It's not a different river, it's a different world, if not universe.

And, I look at some with sadness. Doyle Theimer reposting the Holocaust Remembrance Association last year, in a piece talking about "Hamas' lies and media bias." Really on HAMAS having media bias? 

June 13: Well, THAT's wonderful. Marie told me that her flowers never got to the church. I presume mine didn't either, since I followed her lead and used the same flowers company she did after talking to. her. They, Sophie's Flowers, seemed kind of skeezy to me from the start, but I just assumed she knew something special about them. She's been arguing with them over the phone and getting nowhere. I'm just going straight to Wells Fargo tomorrow and immediately disputing the payment. 

That said, especially because she got semi-suckered on how sincere and how complete, or not, Walt's last alleged apology was two weeks before he died, I asked her why she picked this company. I'll see if she tells me any details. If she doesn't, I'm not going to press.

And, we both get egg on our face and look like we don't care, even if our "caring" was for appearance sake, at least with Walt himself. 

I mean, I saw that one other floral company that was actually slightly cheaper, in the general area. That's part of why I thought Marie had previous experience with this company. It pisses me off, especially because I am also thinking that, already in advance of any response from her, she'll probably be defensive. (I didn't mention the sucker with Walt angle; she's already at least partially owned that.) 

That said, two other things, or three.

First and foremost? This makes me even gladder that I've crossed the early federal finish line and another reason to look forward to crossing the federal medical finish line. That will snap the last vestiges of thinking I might need to lean on Marie for some future financial help.

Second? Maybe my thoughts, and fears, that so many other adults know so much more about "adulting" aren't always true.

Third? This leads me to small bits of other thought, back to a night in the upper church parking lot at Calvary in Flint 35 or so years ago. And other things, where I wonder if she has a small slice of mom's one issue. 

Fourth, this may be one of the earliest times, as in quickness of emotional self-awareness, for me to recognize I'm angry as something happens. A silver lining that I wish could have happened in another way. 

June 17: The plot thickens. I put an apology note on Walt's Facebook, either his pinned post about going into hospice, or whatever the post is about his funeral. And Carrie used that as another self-invite to evangelize me. She has never said "you're going to hell," but she's come much closer to that, more than once, than anybody else in the family this side of Jed. I used to politely respond; now, I just ignore them. It also increases the likelihood I won't go to Marguerite's funeral.

Meanwhile, Marie still hasn't told me why she picked this particular company. I didn't directly ask her why she chose them, but she could have read between the lines in my response to her, and did not.

Post-funeral experience as well as funerals are about the living, not the dead. 

June 18, 1: Bought a card to send to Stephanie with an expanded version of the note I sent with the non-delivered flowers. Why? Inner survey this morning says 70 percent keeping up appearances, 30 percent true sympathy. At least I'm self-honest. Speaking of?

June 18, 2: Lifering has a thread going about anger. Most commenters appear to be in a quasi-AA "anger BAD" mindset. I said at the start that I semi-disagreed.

June 18, 3: Why do I cut Tim so much more slack than Walt? Was it because he was never a "controller" toward me any later than my early teens? Was it because he actually encouraged me on things like sneaking out of house with him while Walt bitched whenever I tried to follow him? After all, Tim's been playing his own version of Hamlet on his abusiveness to me and sis for years. 

My brother Walt and the "end times" with family psychology sidebars

OK, so things have reached a new point with my dying, primary abuser, Walt.

My sis said that, she talked to him sometime in, I think, mid-March, before I took a recent vacation. She was under the assumption that he had talked to me and Tim. Those who read here know that Walt abused Tim, and they both abused me. My sis’s story is hers.

She then found out that was untrue about Walt talking to either of us.

So, she called him again, and cited chapter and verse from the most heinous, though not nearly all, of what he did to me, and one incident with all four of us.

==

Here’s our Facebook conversation, to be followed by some afterward thoughts:

Walt: Sis helped unpack those memories. No wonder I tried so hard to blot them out. I'm ashamed and appalled with myself and horribly upset that I'd ever do such to you.

I'm amazed how you could bear to be in the same family, school, or room as your molester and of all I ever said or did, this hurts the most.

Please know that through all of this, I love you and want the best for you. I remember what you said earlier about forgiveness. Fair enough. But forgive or not as you will I cannot sign off without this final, "I'm sorry. Please forgive me."

Me: She talked with me by email, and a bit earlier on phone. I am glad that you're not only understanding and accepting what you did, but also understanding and accepting this within family dynamics — and hopefully seeing more clearly what happened to you. I'm also glad, per her, that you're doing some sort of penance, restitution or whatever on pushing your denominational officials to be serious on addressing this issue.

And, presuming you carry forward on that last, especially, you can have a more complete forgiveness.

==

Afterward thoughts, after a recent phone call with sis:

First, I appreciate her intervention, but knowing that is why I gave "more full" forgiveness, not 100 percent. I don’t mean to crush him, but, without putting percentages on forgiveness, it is what it is.

Would he even have remembered, or “remembered,” all of this otherwise? Given that, in a letter to the two of us 20 years ago or a bit more, he copped to the sexual abuse, albeit in a non-specific way, I doubt it. I know that my pre-sobriety memories of his abuse were vague, called up but rarely from my subconscious vasty deep, and also detached from emotional content. But? I was the abusee, the victim, not the abuser. He may certainly have been sexually abused himself, but we’re talking about his abusing, not his being abused.

So, color me still a bit, or more than a bit, skeptical. Maybe even a bit more than just skeptical.

That said?

She indicated she might follow up on this Facebook Messenger exchange, in a new phone call to me.

I most certainly did not ask her to intervene again, to follow up with Walt once more on what I said, now that I've talked to him. In fact, I tried to dissuade her from that, apparently unsuccessfully.

It's more than "let sleeping dogs lie." Rather it's like Pontius Pilate: "What I have written, I have written." I may, on my own, give him a final RIP on Facebook. But, I have no desire to talk to him on the phone. None.

And, she says she’s OK not going to his funeral, in part having visited him about 6 months ago. But, it’s like she had to work that out.

Me? I was OK when he told us his diagnosis with not talking to him on the phone AND not going to visit him before he died AND not going to his funeral, and had nothing to work out. Closure is not a thing; I know that from my dad’s death, and never expected to find it here, and therefore never looked for it.

I have seen a rough copy of her follow-up response to him. It's not highly meddling, but it does say that my type of forgiveness might not be satisfying to him because I'm an atheist. Sorry, but that's not really it, I don't think, no more than Tim thinking the abuse made me atheist. She did mention sobriety, though not directly talking about him getting me drunk, or most generously interpreted, him encouraging me to get myself drunk, at age 10. This gets back to the above; since he was the one watching me booze up, and probably laughing inside at it, I doubt he "forgot" it. It is simply something that, not being the victim, wasn't on his radar screen. 

Otherwise, to get back to something else above, I do not want her thinking that this new round will encourage Walt to talk to me further, to try to get me to talk to him on the phone. That's not happening. It's a boundary issue. 

Sis, though a year younger than me, was often my protector in childhood, from physical abuse from neighborhood bullies in Gallup, New Mexico, and other things. She couldn’t always protect me, and at times, I think she tried to protect me to distance and distract from her own situations.

That said, physically?

I was a “runt” growing up. Per the Charles Atlas ads at the back of comic books when growing up, I WAS “5-1 and 98 pounds soaking wet” when I started high school, in fact. I was only 5 feet 5 inches two years later, at the start of my junior year. I didn’t hit the 6-foot mark until the end of my freshman year of college. I was 6-4 when I graduated, and topped out another inch or so in years after that.

We talked about Walt’s perception that I was passive with him since his terminal illness announcement, versus me controlling the narrative, or trying to, on how, when, and how long in written words, I responded.

As far as me controlling the narrative with him, rather than being passive? I think she doesn't recognize just how much I am a mix of the two with her. My being passive in non-response IS how I control the narrative, as I know there's no better way of controlling the narrative. And, that's not just related to this, it's in general.

With my sis, I’m like a stereotypical husband of 50 years ago who says “uh huh” to his wife every 5 minutes in a monologue conversation. I think she’s afraid, today, of being “cut off” in some way; Tim and Paul, the No. 2 brother, don’t visit a lot, whereas I, with this winter week off most years in my past 7, drop in regularly, and even before that, probably visited more than either of them did.

Oh, well. I can say “uh huh” and let her think she’s still protecting me. She’s more than once said that if I have anything devastating financially, I know where I can turn.

On that? Two and three-quarters years to the US federal medical finish line. Four and three-quarters years to the US “FRA” finish line. That’s assuming there’s anything seriously left in either Medicare or Social Security from you Baby Boomers. (I’m not a Gen Xer, either; I and one or two friends of mine have consistently for years described ourselves, in US sociological terms, as “70s kids.”) And, this doesn’t even count both American duopoly parties doing little to help. (End of politics.)

Anyway, I will have “more options” after I cross those “finish lines.” Having already crossed “the early federal finish line” last year, I already have a bit more options.

And, I’ll be glad for them. It’s a reason I remain prudent, even semi-frugal, with my money. Crossing these finish lines with a reasonable amount of dinero, and with the tatterered remains of the US safety net hopefully not even more junked, gives me yet more options.

I also have not quite three years, or not quite five years, to figure out how to further detach from her monologues and her self-perceived (by her, in my going second-level theory of mind) protectiveness of me, and beyond detachment, how to speak back on it at some point.

Like a lot of things in life, at this current point, it’s a low-grade frustration.

Back to Walt. Sis says she thinks it’s weeks now, not months. I agree.

==

Update, April 23: Brother Tim called; we talked about Walt's current status, and about our current perception that Marie is trying to fix things. Fortunately, he, Walt, hasn't indicated he expects an actual phone call from me, even if Marie hopes for that. What she is hoping to fix is hers to worry about, and concerns me not at all.  

Things aren't always hunky and dory in secular sobriety either

 A bunch of people, at least as far as posting and commenting, have decamped from Lifering's larger, and generally more active, email list to its smaller.

Obviously, I can't tell you why.

I do find it interesting, on the allegedly stated reason, an incident before that, and some of the people who have migrated.

That's all I can say.

No, I can add one thing more.

The whole scenario has given me further food for thought regarding one person.

Beyond who has switched email list activity,  one or two others who haven't, are even more surprising.

And, there I'll stop. And, I have no idea who my one follower on this list is. They do have a real name listed, but it's not a person I recognize inside Lifering.

Sorry, can't do that, Walt

 I can't remember if I have identified my oldest brother and primary sexual abuser by name here before. I'm pretty sure that last week was the first time to do so at Lifering's main email list. I also identified by name for the first time Tim, the third of my three older brothers, also an abuser after first being abused by Walt.

Ten months or so ago, Walt told his world, including me, that he had pulmonary fibrosis. It's kind of like an adult-version, progressive version of cystic fibrosis. Except that there's no new miracle drug.

He inquired in St. Louis hospitals about the possibility of a lung transplant. Apparently that's a no go.

So, early this month, Walt, after saying he almost surely has less than a year left (pictures confirm — he looks like dad about a year before his COPD death), asked for forgiveness for being "a poor brother," for not protecting me, and for otherwise nonspecific acts and actions. Nonspecific. Note that.

Eons ago, he copped to me and to sis about sexual abuse, only to say that his ordination as a Lutheran minister was proof he was "beyond that " now.

Well, here's my response to his request for forgiveness.

== 

Walt, the delay in response wasn’t deliberate. Rather, it was trying to figure out exactly what to tell you.

I could have given you a facile, a glib, or a multivalent response that would mean one thing for you, and anther for me. Some parts of what I see may actually still do that. That multivalent response would be, “whatever you really think you need forgiveness for, you have it."

The deeper reality is that, more than the cliché of “I was another person then,” that was another life then. Marie said five years and change ago that “this would have been dad’s 90th birthday” and I had forgotten all about it. Forgot that this year would have been his 95th until I started typing.

That’s an entirely different life, in part because my life today would have been different had that been different. Various overt and covert sexual abuses, physical, emotional, and religious abuse, mental illness in one parent which I recognized by or before I was 10 years old, mental health problems with the other parent which run on that side of our family for generations, and more, all made that life what it was. 

Within that, whatever you really think you need forgiveness for, you have it.

That’s an entirely different life for me in another way.

A few months ago, you asked me to pray for your outcome whatever the result. Well, I’m a secularist. I don’t do that. It’s not because of any animus toward you. It’s just that I don’t do that.

Life in general is massively contingent, but, I don’t think that either you or Tim protecting me from anything, or anything else in your actions or his, likely would have changed that part of who I became, although it might have. Since life in general is massively contingent, I don’t know for sure.

That said, since I am a secularist, per that “whatever you really think you need forgiveness for, you have it”? To use a medieval Christian term, if you are seeking not to die “unshriven,” you will have to find that elsewhere. Between the two of us, Lutheran pastoral confessional office / Catholic confessional booth / AA “fifth step” laundry lists haven’t been further discussed. We had brief long-ago communication about that.

“Closure” — and its value and worthiness — I know as a student of psychology to be more myth than real. Beyond that, personally, I never got it from dad, knew I never really could get it, and, still afraid of his anger decades after childhood, never did push that hard. Mom was too mentally ill — not her modest-yet-growing dementia but the mental illness she already manifested when I was growing up, mainly — to even understand that she had behaviors and actions from which any of us would have wanted to seek at least a degree of closure.

Ultimately, “closure,” to the partial degree it’s possible and of value, is an inside job. And, life has myriad scales of gray and ambiguity. I’ll leave it at that.

 ==

So, he's hoist back on the petard of his own ambiguity. I took neither the high road nor the low road but rather a sideways road. 

Well, THAT screwed the pooch

 I wanted my newspaper's owner to buy some Gannett southern New Mexico newspapers and name me publisher. I now see that, as of a few months ago, Gannett sold to somebody else and a guy who had been the publisher, after I left, at my previous newspaper site is now there.

I'm pissed. 

"It's time" entered my thoughts repeatedly during vacation.  

But, HOW?

Some "humastes" from vacation

"Humaste" is a word that, AFAIK, I invented two years ago while on vacation, at least in the form I use it. It's the secular humanist version of "namaste" and a direct riff on it: I recognize and salute the human in you because of the human. in me.

As a secularist, I don't agree with the idea of namaste in general and also see Gandhi's use of it along with "harijan" to be condescending or patronizing to Dalits, untouchables, "scheduled" castes, outcastes, etc.

That can include recognizing the ugly, or even in a degree, the bad, in others, along with the good, the true and the beautiful, because that's all par of being human.

I don't believe that these salutes will increase any non-existent karma in any way. I just want to offer them.

So, first, humaste to the "it girl" of a couple of weeks ago.

Second, humaste to the mom of the apparent special needs kid (he looked about 18, and not sure whether his needs were more physical or mental) on the beach at Crescent City, California.

Third, humaste to the apparent homeless in Eureka, California, bundled up against a Scotland-like summer night.

Fourth and related, humaste to the people gathering driftwood sticks to either sell to others or to use themselves for driftwood art in Crescent City, as you scrabble forward through semi-subsistence level living.

Why did you ask ME that?

A couple of weeks ago, while on vacation, I was hiking the Grove of Titans trail at Jedidiah Smith Redwoods State Park. I was coming back to the trailhead, when a young lady, I'm guessing early 20s, perhaps late teens, asked me, "Isn't this the most beautiful spot in the world?" or something very similar.

It was quite a nice spot. And, since the various state parks in the Redwood State and National were created before the national park, they arguably have the best lands within the system.

That said, per the old Latin phrase, de gustibus non disputandum, this is to some degree a subjective question. I indicated that, and noted I had been at a few other places that could be in the running. (She was from Los Angeles and might not have been to many such places.)

But, that's a secondary issue.

Why did you, a young attractive lady (and she was, indeed) ask ME that, instead of somebody else?

There was no flirtation involved on her part. And, physically, yes, she was attractive, but, and don't take this sexist-ly, but it wasn't in a "foxy" sense. It was in a fit, slim, attractive, healthy, well-scrubbed sense.

After I got back to the trailhead and hopped in my rental, some part of me thought, and kind of wished I had said to her, in a non-horny sense, something to the effect of "If I were a lot younger, I would feel [have said] 'wherever you are is the most beautiful spot.'"

I then thought about the idea of serendipity, which is part of why I'm journaling here right now.

In short, this reinforced that I reject the idea of serendipity, at least in the quasi-metaphysical to fully metaphysical way that most people mean it. Just like I reject that idea of "luck."

In fact, the two are tied together, on a non-metaphysical definition of luck.

Serendipity is just some people being luckier than others after a chance event that takes on ex post facto meaning due to that later luck.

It would be nice if this meeting had been serendipitous. I'm not holding my breath.

So, Lifering is inviting Johann Hari

 To be the guest speaker at its annual conference, its Congress.

To expand on what I said in an email forum?

Hari will be "interesting." He's certainly a "name" beyond the likes of a Candace Selby, who has been the top level of speaker at previous Lifering Congresses. It's certainly a "get" to get him.

Of course, that itself doesn't mean so much unless Lifering does good marketing of this, since its Congress is still, post-COVID, online oriented. Ditto in spades on getting Hari to market Lifering.

As for Hari? I've not read Magic Pill, but I have seen some reviews, including a semi-crushing one by The Guardian that brought up his past plagiarism and other things. He's also had to officially apologize for a wrongful claim that food critic Jay Rayner used Ozempic.

I gave Chasing the Scream three stars, and if you pushed me, it would be about 2.5. Lost Connections got four.

Looking a bit more critically at Grandma G.

 Several years after my parents' divorce, and especially after she decided to start going by her middle name, my sis started taking a more critical look at dad's family tree and family history. And, especially as our No. 2 brother anointed himself as guardian of dad's family heritage, my sis started doing that more with mom's family tree, especially with Grandma G.

Now, I'm distanced enough from both sides of the family tree that I don't need to do any heritage guardianship, and can also look skeptically at things.

The biggie to me always starts with: Why did mom take so long to get married? No. 2 is: Why did she marry someone younger than herself?

She was 26 when she and dad got married in 1955, in the latter half of the baby boom era. And, while not totally "old maid," yes, that was several years later than average.

The age difference? Dad was 16 months younger than her. Again, not normal for back then.

Plus, mom was a TWA stewardess back then. Back when that was a big deal, and women had to meet weight requirements, and then, still got dumped by the airlines in their early 30s. Just on the looks angle, why hadn't somebody picked her up?

There's the added factor that dad got cold feet and looked at backing out, after officially proposing. Mom's parents said: Oh, no you don't. Given that dad was eyeing going back to seminary, beyond broken engagements in the middle-class world being a big deal in general, it would have been a ginormous deal with the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

But, why, if he didn't really want mom, did they insist? With TWA looks and all, was mom psychologically not marriage material?

Before the time I was 12, maybe already at 10, just possibly a bit younger, I knew I didn't want to have kids when I grew up because I thought mom was mentally ill. As an adult, I pegged it as schizotypal disorder as a best guesstimate.

Since most mental health issues, especially personality disorders, are as much or more nature than nurture, what was mom's childhood background in the G home?

I also find it interesting that Grandma and Grandpa G never had a second child. Yes, it was the Depression, but? Grandpa was a St. Louis cop, and may have already made detective by this time. He never lost his job. Grandma's family had a small amount of money already at that time, I think. Not rich, but "comfortable" to some degree, unless they lost all of it.

So, was Grandma unable to have a second child? Or just did not want to, and was vehement about that, and stood up to Grandpa G more than mom did to dad? If it was psychological, was there some sort of competition for Grandpa's attention as mom grew up?

Life at 60

 Humaste to me. If I'll practice that.

Another decent vacation to sis and the family. Still don't know what she'll do when Andrew semi-retires, let alone what he'll do if she does the semi-independent life she says she'll do.

As for me? Recovering from the flu after getting back here to Tex-ass, with the massively stuffed sinuses, and perhaps a deviated (deviant?) septum, or too-large adenoids that I didn't outgrow, contra Dr. Diddams, and that provoking a small touch of asthma, and an even bigger touch of fear of breathing problems.

And, with that psychology, and the vacation being "OK," as in "use it or lose it" at a semi-trapped job, and as at times I do feel a bit lonely, not just alone, and as in, wishes here and there aside, I'm sure I'll remain lifelong single .... 

I feel mini-depressed. Dreams and hypnagogic thoughts while lying in bed lead me to reflect on life, and think of life's sometime shallowness, and perhaps my degree of sometime shallowness, to the degree that Dr. Miles whatever was correct — though to the degree he was correct on the "that," he knew nothing about the "why."

And, in part because of being frugal with the heater, I really, really feel chilled to the bone even as I am at least semi-recovered from the flu.

I have for what, 20 years, referenced Eliot's Prufrock that "I have measured out my life with coffee spoons." That's even as a NASA civilian astronaut candidate says I have lived an interesting life. Shy, neurotic? Constrained? Check, check and check.

Some things may be interesting, but, anything employment-related or relationship-related has been measured with coffee spoons indeed.

Two interesting notes about Lifering's Congress

 Unless there's two unexpired terms, or unless I missed something and the old 3-3-3 on three-year terms became a 5-4 on two-year terms, for the first time since I left Lifering's board of directors, if I recall, it has a contested election. Well, two contested elections in that five people were running for three spots. That's good, in terms of investment and involvement.

Not so good? A proposed bylaws amendment change, because it was rejected by in-person delegates, doesn't go to us absentee voters for a vote. I didn't realize that, several years ago, when absentee voting was approved by bylaws amendment, there was a proviso that kept us as second-class voters.

Sexual compulsion, PTSD, and control issues

 This piece from PsyPost, in talking about differences in PTSD symptoms between combat veterans and sexual abuse survivors, lays it out simply. Sexual compulsions for child sexual assault survivors in particular may well be about sexual control.

Ain't that the truth.

Dadditude not one of gratitude

Like many people in recovery, for various reasons, gratitude is sometimes an issue. If you're like me, it's more the issue of accepting compliments from others, without minimizing explainers attached in return, than it is being grateful for the outside world.

But, it can be both.

Anyway, recently, I realized in reflection that it was a problem for my dad on the other side. He just couldn't be grateful that often, or at least not publicly express it. I don't think it was an "older generation" thing of bottling up emotions as the primary cause. Rather, I think that it may have been a fear of looking psychologically weak and indebted, admitting he needed help at times (and had just gotten it) and related matters.

In specific, after he got his PhD at Concordia Seminary and was stuck with fill-in preaching because he didn't get a "call" to a Lutheran college, and also didn't get one to a Lutheran congregation, it was me that put a bug into the ear of a pastor visiting St. Louis that broke that logjam on the parish side. Yeah, Flint was already going downhill, but "East European ethnics" plus German-Americans in his congregation, it was a place he liked in many ways. Any thanks to me? Not that I recall.

Psychological autarky

 I realized recently, after getting some new emails from Marie and journaling about it, that that's what I seek from life as much as possible.

Whether it's psychlogically good or bad, in the sense of healthy or unhealthy, that's been my goal.

I'm not a wilderness survivalist; I can't butcher my own deer. I can't even fix my own car. I accept the need to live, nay, to exist, within society.

But, to actually live, psychically? It's like Jeebus saying "be in the world but not of the world." And, I'm going to drop some more thoughts here in days ahead.

One other thing that stimulated this was reading my 2001-12 journaling Word document, at least most of it from 2006-12. It was "factual" and also an attempt at Branden-brainwashing (there are no Branden-brainwashing concertos) that didn't work because you have to already have psyched yourself out in some way to be able to psych yourself out further.

Unseemliness from a board member

 Won't say WHAT board, but my few regular readers can guess that.

While it's possible that any Dick or Jane who's a member of an email list associated with a support group could comb through membership information, by email address, for that email group, it would certainly be easier for a board of directors member.

It would be easier yet for said board member to cull through the entire email contact list that HQ has on file of past and recent donors and other Lifering contacts, and well-nigh impossible for a Dick or Jane to do that.

And, it would be unseemly for a board member to do that to encourage people to pre-order a personal memoir that, while connected with the reason for the nonprofit's existence, is not actually published by it.

I'm just leaving this here for now, but may write something elsewhere in the future.

Emotional abuse was the best tag I could think of.

The three of us: Two users, one used

 

Used

By two women

At the same time.

 

One, controlling,

Which I recognized

Early on

And stepped back,

Only to be insulted.

Such is the ease of email.

 

The other, with other issues,

Trying to stoke jealousy

In another man

Rather than leaving him

Or taking other actions.

 

That, I did not see immediately,

Even as the two met in person,

And me, with my own issues,

Including slowness to anger,

Not yet upset by the first,

While not yet knowing

The manipulation of the second.

 

Sometimes, the webs we weave

Aren't even conscious,

Whether they deceive others,

Ourselves,

Or both.

 

You both know

Who you are

If you were to choose to admit it,

Should you be faced with this.

 

More than a decade later,

I know not where one of them is,

In terms of self or psyche.

The other claims

Depths of spiritual enlightenment;

If so, that too could be tested.

 

Humaste

To all three of us;

Per the Buddha,

I start with myself.

It's easy to engage in Trumpist virtue signaling when ...

 When you're living off the teat of the federal government in another way.

That applies to Tim, No. 3 of my brothers and No. 2 of my abuser brothers.

He's a little more than four years older than me. 

He used to work in oil and gas field sales in the Four Corners area of the US.

Oil prices, especially, started falling before COVID really hit the fan, but that exacerbated it, and natural gas prices also started sinking.

His company put him on part-time, at first, IIRC. He then volunteered to share the pain with a couple of lower-level employees.

Eventually, they furloughed him. Not fired him. IIRC, they kept him on insurance coverage, but didn't work him at all.

Well, Tim told the rest of the family after several months of that, that he was ready to get an "Obamacare job" (the man he once called "blackie" in front of me and probably worse elsewhere), rather than continue on this, doing something like auto parts delivery for not too too much above minimum wage. This was about a year ago.

Well ... as of a month or two ago, he said he was working part time ... dunno with bennies or not ... driving oil and gas field supplies from the Four Corners to Odessa, in the heart of the Permian Basin, and then either deadheading back or bringing some supplies back. Dunno whether it's with a full semi, one of those bobtails, or what. I also, from what he said about minimal sleep on some turnarounds, am not sure if he's following US Department of Transportation regulations, if he is in fact driving a semi of any sort, whether with a full trailer or not.

Anyway, a year ago, he went through the "they're lazy" about the various people getting federal unemployment, etc.

Well, in talking with me on the phone that month or two ago, he casually dropped something I hadn't even thought about.

His wife died about six and a half years ago. Tim turned 62 in September. I don't know if he did it then, or earlier, but, he's claimed survivor Social Security benefits. If his wife were to be getting $1000 a month at full retirement, Tim could have been claiming about $600, by what I determine through a brief Social Security chart, if he started claiming survivor benefits at 60. Farmington, NM, is not that much different in cost of living than semi-rural North Texas. With a paid-off mortgage and perhaps still having a company vehicle for off-job usage, if it were me, I could actually save money on that much payment.

It's earned, yes. And, of course, I'm sorry that Brenda, who I knew before Tim did, has passed away. But, it's also a stroke of luck. Had Brenda still been alive, her school paraprofessional job would have been in trouble during COVID. Would Tim have thought she was grifting for any special federal aid she got?

SOS — Secular Organizations for Sobriety — is dead, but local groups don't recognize it AND Jim Christopher's "heirs" won't admit it

SOS being Secular Organizations for Sobriety, founded by Jim Christopher.

Christopher, kept afloat personally by the largess of Center for Inquiry for years, had to get others to help bail him out a few years back to get matching funds that CFI required of it, rather than a blank check which it had been cutting.

Well, the website got overhauled as part of that.

Without Duaine Metevia, who may not have been "THE" right hand man of Jim, but certainly was "A" right hand man. That would be the Duaine who, a dozen or so years ago, after Marty Nicholas stepped down as head of Lifering Secular Recovery and dodged founders syndrome for himself, and forced the organization to do the same, which it has done generally well indeed, threatened to call the cops on me if I ever attended the Dallas SOS-LSR meeting again.

That meeting was dual-branded at the time. I was at the Lifering Congress when Marty stepped down, and was also elected to its board. I talked about this after getting back from Dallas. I never mentioned Jim's name. But, I had no problems if people inferred I was making an insinuation, hint, whatever. 

That's when Duaine threatened to call the cops if I ever showed up again.

I got Lifering to stop the dual listing, of course.

Back to three-four years ago.

Duaine is cut out of the loop by a younger generation, with better web design skills for non-professionals, or professionals, than him. (Jim could barely send an email himself; his secretary at his office at CFI-West, which he got along with a salary, as part of the personal gravy train, had to do anything like this for him. It's part of why many people besides Marty were ready to move beyond SOS, which Duaine wouldn't tell you.)

So, he eventually takes his ball and runs home. 

The national meetings list is no longer maintained.

When Yahoo ends its email groups, he makes no attempt to find a replacement on another site. (Lifering is at IO Groups.) He doesn't create a Facebook group, though somebody else has. 

Then, Jim dies in July 2020.

And, SOS goes further downhill since then. SOS National had the "stay tuned" on meeting lists basically since that time, and it's now going on five years.

Center for Inquiry is clearly not going to fund a paid successor as executive director, let alone with a secretary and free office space.

And, I've known for years they don't have a real board of directors. Whether the IRS knows that, and what that would mean, and how far short of a real board of directors they've been, I don't know.

Now, in today's Net world, sure, it's not impossible to maintain local sobriety groups by word of Facebook mouth or whatever. But, that doesn't easily reach people who move across country. And, the lack of email groups or social media, which are unlikely to be maintained by individual groups, means that there's not that source of information about national happenings, either.

In short, these people are kind of like orphans. But, not 2-year-old or even 6-year-old orphans. They're like teenager orphans, who can survive on their own, but would be better off as part of a family.

Maybe leaders of some of them, like Metevia, have a smidgen, or more, of anti-Lifering animus. Maybe some are just wedded to tradition, even if it's a dead weight, the corpse has been rotting from the inside for five years, and the physical embodiment of the corpse has himself been a corpse for more than a year. Maybe, beyond that, but short of animus, it's stubbornness.

But surely, some leaders of some of these groups know of Lifering's existence already.

Anyway, whoever runs their website, and whatever other de jure (but not de facto, sorry) organization SOS has, from St. Louis? They've been contacted with a short and sweet summary of all of this:

"Wouldn't you be better off officially disbanding the organization and getting / encouraging member groups to join Lifering as their first / best option?

"Signed,

"Someone who knows some history"

The response, from John Gennari?

"Secular Organizations for Sobriety truly respects all paths to sobriety."

I replied to him, admitting the question was at least partly rhetorical, but telling him that clearly wasn't a direct answer and thus I was taking it as a "no" from him.

Given everything I've said above, IMO he's wrong. I also suspect that he knows enough about Lifering to know that ... at a minimum, even as an SOS last-ditcher, the issue is open to discussion.

So, maybe he wants to be a medium-sized fish in a tiny, and drying, pond. I mean, if there is a St. Louis SOS meeting, he can't even get that on the website. If there isn't one, he doesn't even have a personal puddle he's swimming in, only the national pond.

And, a quick Google proves me more than half right, at a minimum, on everything provable. A MeetUp shout-out isn't a website. Yes, he's getting one or two other attendees about .,.. one quarter the time? But, well over half the time, there's one attendee and I think we know who that is. The MeetUp isn't even linked on SOS's online groups page, though all of its nonexistent Yahoo groups are. Other than the Winnipeg group's website that led me here, the only other things listed are within a 60-mile radius of Buffalo, or Amherst, New York and CFI headquarters.

That said, going to THAT link? The plot thickens!

Gennari is ensconced at CFI West, according to it. Quite a magic trick, John, being in both St. Louis and Los Angeles. But, THAT would indeed seem to confirm the other part ... he's Jim Christopher 2.0, and seemingly not a lot better at current age techie stuff than him, or a mix of that and no better at getting help from the people (CFI IT staff, mayhaps?) who did the website overhaul five years ago. It's also "interesting," per what I know and what I've heard others say, that he identifies as a board member when the reality of an actual functioning board has also been a question. 

Seriously, dude. You've been at least a self-anointed heir apparent for what, a year, I'll guess, before Jim died? You've had two years to fix and update the website and haven't. You're a fine chip off the old Christopher block indeed.

AND ... interesting. NO IRS 990 form on file. But, that's an OLD notice. Back from the 1990s. Still, it shows Christopher was some sort of mis-manager then. Surely it wasn't fully under CFI's umbrella in 1992. That said, this additional info? Who is Hubert Michael Lenihan? Answer? Involved with a trademark suit over the SOS name. As in, Marty before Marty. In a sense. But, from what I can tell, never really involved in Lifering after the split. I MAY HAVE met him at a Bay Area Lifering Congress.

And, I've wasted enough time.

I will say, per the trademark lawsuit, I think Christopher talked about "individual SOS group autonomy" because he knew he was shit as an administrator. Peter Principle, sloughed off.

==

In addition, this quote from the SOS website:

If you can't find a physical meeting in your area, there are dozens of on-line groups utilizing the principles of Secular Organizations for Sobriety.

Is not true, or at least not unequivocally true.

SMART, for example, has four "steps," is explicitly wedded to cognitive behavioral therapy (which, IMO, may help you STAY sober, but is too rationalist to help a lot of people GET sober), and has at times, IMO, played footsie with moderation.

Nor does it take account of Refuge Recovery and other allegedly "spiritual but not religious" (Buddhism is a religion, folks, and Refuge Recovery is based on principles that are ultimately derived from the religious, metaphysical stances of Buddhism) sobriety orgs that aren't AA/NA. 

And, if it WERE true, wouldn't it underscore my point and make an SOS national org even more nugatory?

== 

Two comments, a year later.

First, looking at old emails from the late Itchy Bradley, he thought Duaine was a "call screener" for Jim a decade-plus ago. Could be; Duaine's computer skills at that time would have looked like stable genyus to Jim. (Sidebar: Why did CFI never build a website for them? Why did Jim never ask? The second question probably loops back to Duaine.)

Second, when the old Yahoo Groups disappeared and Duaine was cut out of a website redesign at about the same time, to raise money per a CFI demand? An email of his said that SOS Dallas would never go away. It linked to the website, which is ... now dead.

==

More comment, late 2025.

Gennari is STILL listed as being "care of" CFI-West, on the SOS-NYS website, the third link in the group of three, two-thirds down. That said on that page? Last copyrighted 2023. And, with COVID warnings still for meeting attendance.

SOS's main page? Domain has expired.

So has the first of those links, for Gennari's SOS St. Louis meetup. 

Allen Carr

Serendipity, secular style, I guess. 

Somebody mentioned him a couple of weeks ago on a Lifering email list; a day or two later, a newcomer mentioned him in an online meeting.

So, I Googled, and first got his Wiki page.

And, I noticed several things when I hit his website, or rather, the website in his name.

One is that he rejects AA's "willpower," and I think "higher powers" and related items. And, in general, I'd agree with everything he says.

Two is that he got his start with smoking cessation. He went into alcohol and other things after that.

Three is that he jumped into process addictions after that.

And, this is that he has a sort of post-death empire. And, his successors, while not getting massively rich, are surely making a few quid and bob. (That said, the website offers a money-back guarantee on group seminars.) Also interesting, is that his many books aren't listed on this website. Maybe British copyright has expired on them?

Even more interesting is many of them have been published in his name after his death. John Dicey claims modesty is why he won't even list himself as co-author. What if it's also the likelihood of getting a few extra quid and bob off them if it's just got only Carr's name?

Dad is still dead

 But sis felt the need to remind me on Hucksterman Central that today would have been his birthday. It was to talk about some better memory at her church.

She said that his birthday prompted memories of childhood from some visitors, and from our brothers, which in no way did she directly connect with dad's birthday either.

I said I'd totally forgotten about the date years ago and politely added that I didn't need reminding in the future.

==

And, it appears I broke my foot off in it or something.

She made a comment back a couple hours later then apparently deleted the post as I get the "unavailable" from Hucksterman.

I was polite about it, and before I said what I did at the end, I first said that I was glad she got a better memory.

That said, I think she sometimes assumes ... no, I FEEL as well as think she sometimes assumes that I frame and/or process and/or psychologically react to all of childhood's traumas that we largely shared (even if not specific incidents) in the same way.

I don't.

Of course, she has also assumed that Walt made me an atheist, as has Tim as part of his blame-shifting. IIRC, and I seem to have deleted the email she sent me, and the draft of the response I was writing to her (unless that's an auto-deletion of older drafts by Microslob), though it's mentioned in another post here. I think she thinks dad was responsible, too, not just Walt.

==

I might have been a little blunt, but I wasn't rude. And, really. I've moved on. I remembered Dad's 90th birthday anniversary a year ago, and Mom's 90th before that, and think I had NOT remembered regularly for at least four-five years before that. 

Actually, the paragraph above is half-wrong, I'm reminded, by looking through posts. I didn't remember Dad's 90th until after she reminded me, per this.

I hope to remember none of their birthday anniversaries before their 100th, and would be fine if I don't remember that one, either.