Saying Goodbye

Saying goodbye

Blog 15

Sadness overwhelms me when I think of another semester behind me. I have had fun in all of my classes this semester. I took Human Relations, Social Psychology, Bio-Medical Ethics, and Criminal Behavior. It truly has been diverse. I love learning about how people are and react in situations, but also behind the scenes where the diagnosis falls into play. I haven’t learned that much yet, but the class load this time has pushed me yet another step forward.

I have signed up for my BS in Psychology at Argosy University; they specialize in Psychology which is a plus. It will be hard to say goodbye for good to Germanna and the people I have grown to love since 2002. It is likely of me to apply for a job in the counseling office after I graduate. I’m not sure though what I want to do.

Saying goodbye to the teachers whom I have grown to appreciate and look up too will be very hard, I have enjoyed sitting in on the classes, but I am in a lot of pain now and I can’t sit for long periods and I will be taking online courses for the remainder of my program of study. I can’t wait to have the freedom to enjoy my day. I will be mobile and can take my homework anywhere.

I will be able to have a life at home where I love to be. I can sew and scrapbook and sit on my deck and not be rushed to be anywhere. Freedom is what I like about Psychology, you can make your appointments as you see fit. I will have time to volunteer for the  Rappahannock Domestic Violence Center. I love to help people and I have helped many over the years, and plan on helping many more in the years to come.

Thank you for looking at my blogs and I hope to have some feedback and keep posting in the future.

Thought Suppression

 

Thought Suppression

Blog 14

Thought suppression is where you choose not to think about something and avoid it at all costs. We just soon forget about an annoying person or a lost love. Maybe you have had a traumatic event such as sexual abuse or physical abuse. I have been both, and it isn’t fun trying to forget my past. Years ago no one talked about abuse of any kind, and I was raised to respect my elders and do as I was told.

This entailed sexual abuse; I have been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Depression because I was not able deal with a divorce between my parents and my mother’s “new love interest”. I will clear the fact that my mother was being mentally abused and a kept woman by this man, he controlled every aspect of her being. She knew nothing of the abuse.

I have been assaulted by men and women for many years. I have fought like a man in many instances. I led a very unhealthy life style, I was slowly killing my feelings of abuse and hiding behind a per sauna of self. I kept a wall up and suppressed feelings of guilt, hate, self-destruction, anxiety, and in between held a job and worked long hours. I held a lot of emotions back because I felt no one would listen anyway. I felt like I would be judged and ridiculed because of my past.  

I sought the help of a therapist who I saw for nearly two years. The work we did to get me better about myself was truly amazing. She listened to me cry, laugh, and talk every visit, and offered advice where it was needed. I created a bond with her, and could trust her. I am very upset she left the practice and I have no idea where she is working. I have not been back to one since. I can’t start at the beginning again. I made so much progress with her and learned that no matter what happened in my life I have control of my thought process.

I am able to change what I am thinking about and feel better immediately. It took me a long time to get where I am, and I know some of the inns and outs of psychology which has helped me cope over the past year. I think my issues through and weigh the pros and cons of the matter. If it isn’t worth me fussing over, I don’t. It saves a headache and elevates stress.

Friendships

Friendships

Blog 13

I have had many friendships throughout my life and I can honestly say I have a hand-full of people I can truly call a friend. I have been burned in the past by many people so I have a built in mechanism that keeps people at arms length. People seem to abuse others after they learn their inner most secrets. They tend to use that to their advantage when you are vulnerable.

I take my friendships very seriously, because I plan on having these people in my life forever. I don’t give up on them if they have a bad day. I don’t go behind their backs and deliberately hurt them. I don’t lie to them and I expect them to treat me the same. We all have bad days but we don’t take them out on each other.

We respect each other’s lives and wish each other well frequently. We hug and tell each other we are beautiful. We all have separate lives and extended families, but we manage to see one another at least a couple of times a week. We go shopping together and play games, have drinks and talk about everything under the sun. I feel like I am blessed to have them in my life.

I have one friend who lives about 80 miles from me. I use to live in Richmond and we would see each other all the time. Her and her husband would come to my house and we would go out on the town. Down town Richmond is happening. We would go listen to bands and dance, and then go back to their house in the country. The next day we would go horseback riding or just hang out. Swim in the pool and be happy. I have such a great relationship with her that I know it is eternal. We have known each other since 1995 and are best friends.

I know my friends are a phone call away, and they would do anything for me as I have them. You take care of your relationships and friendships because sometimes that is all we have in life. You make it what it is.

Social Cognition

Social Cognition

Blog 12

Social Cognition is our perception about the world. There is a story in my book about a black man who was a street vendor and going to school in his spare time to earn a GED so he could go to college. An officer noticed him on the steps to his apartment late at night and approached him.

Soon there were other officers assisting in the incident. The guy reaches for his wallet and four officers unload forty one shots into him killing him instantly. In Cincinnati the cops shot and killed fifteen African Americans and during this time no white people had been shot by police. It seems this is racial as well, stereotyping blacks as they are all criminals.

I realize in certain neighborhoods people sell drugs, hang with gangs and break into people’s homes. Cops should be on heightened alert when going there. But if a black man is entering his home, let him show identification first. They can’t shoot first and ask questions later. I believe that the cops portray themselves as a gang too. They are marked by uniform and police vehicles, and they carry guns and shoot at random.

I was watching tv the other day and they were talking about a kid at a university walking down the sidewalk, and they attacked him. The cops lied and said that he attacked them and the horses, little did they know, someone was videotaping the entire incident. No lying there the video showed the officers attacking the guy and when he was down they kept hitting him with their batons.

Now the officers are in trouble with the department, and there is even more hostility toward them because they beat an innocent boy. As Rodney King once said, “Can’t we all just get along”. Rodney King was also beaten by Los Angeles police in the 90’s and the story is used as examples in colleges and schools across the nation. It is a shame we have to use our law enforcement as examples of what not to do in certain situations but it is necessary to show young people how to avoid conflict.

Deterrence Theory

Deterrence Theory

Blog 11

Deterrence theory is when the punishment is much harsher than the crime committed. I am in a Criminal behavior class this semester and knowing that there will always be people committing crimes who don’t care about the punishment only makes the topic more interesting. These people are psychopaths, and career criminals. They are murderers, and thieves.

When there is a crack-down on crime in certain areas of town there is less crime in that area, but as soon as it is over with, crime rate increases. It seems that criminals try to outsmart the law, and learn their behaviors so they can continue to commit crimes.

When I was fourteen I lived in Lake Charles Louisiana. I was watching my little sister when it started storming and the lights went out. I was scared to be in the house. I had an eerie feeling about it so I went to the neighbor’s house so he could come help us find the flash lights and candles. After about an hour of the storm and power being out everyone else was getting in from dinner.

The lights came back on, so I was in my room with my sister, my other sister was in her room, my parent’s were changing, just a typical evening. About ten minutes went by and the dog started barking, then both dogs were running up and down the hall. It drew my mother’s attention so she went to her bedroom and pushed the door open and someone had been in there. Someone broke in through the window, stole my mother’s purse. It was storming and rain came in across the room at her. It was scary, because I don’t know how long he had been back there in the yard.

I left the house and it was open. He could have gotten inside and hurt us. But thank God nothing like that happened. My mother’s purse ended up in someone’s yard a few blocks over. There wasn’t anything in there so I hope he was disappointed. My mother called the police and they came out to take a report. Nothing ever came of the incident, and I am sure there were no arrests in the case. I am pretty sure if he didn’t quit his criminal behavior that night, he has been to jail at least once.

Criminals will always be around us and use precautions to stay alert. Carry your car keys with the keys between your fingers so if you have to hit someone, you will do damage. Scream as loud as you can, and hopefully someone will hear your cries. Don’t go places alone. Take someone with you and stay together. Especially during heightened seasons. Malls, Beaches, Amusement Parks, Sports events etc.. stay alert!

Stress

Stress

Blog 10

Stress is a huge health concern among Americans today. Globally this issue is becoming a burden in the lives of many. Biologically, stress causes an increase of adrenaline, and environmental concerns. The loss of a loved one, or unemployment could cause stress. If you aren’t able to use the coping mechanisms to deal with it then health concerns play a huge roll in immune disorders.

Stress is the body’s way of telling you it is rising to the occasion, it’s the fight or flight mechanism that kicks in to help with the decision to act upon the issue. The adrenal glands produce adrenaline and cortisol which speeds up heart rate and breathing rate. The blood vessels open wide to let the blood flow quickly to the muscles where they get ready to react. The liver releases the stored glucose which increases the body’s energy. The pupils dilate to see better, and all of these responses prepare the person to be able to react quickly and handle the pressures of the stressor.

I can tell when my husband is stressed out. He gets really quiet, like he is trying to figure out what he can do to fix it. He is providing for four of us at the moment. Our kids still live at home. They are boys ages 19, and 28. It is hard on both of us because we feel like we have done our part in helping them grow, but they won’t leave the nest. They don’t want to do their part to help us out by working and paying some of the bills they incur, so all of this is left up to my husband.

He is very stressed because we live pay check to pay check taking care of and feeding these kids. We spend hundreds of dollars on food each month. Our light bill is out of control, we give them gas money to get back and forth to school. They have habits we can live without. Sometimes they act as if we owe them something. When we feel that we have given our all, they give nothing but grief in return.

My husband asks them to help out and keep the house clean and they deliberately do a half-assed job. My nineteen year old gets an attitude toward me because I keep after him about his room. It is a pigsty. He will tell me it is clean, when I know everything is under the bed. I try to relieve my husband’s stress level by making him feel like I appreciate him. On every level he deserves praise. He needs that so he can continue. He works seven days a week to provide a home for us. Most nights he doesn’t come home from work until 9 p.m. He is caught up in a vicious cycle of life, he doesn’t get any breaks.

He is a high risk patient with high blood pressure. His pulse is always over 100. It frightens me to think of loosing him to this disease, and I don’t rule it out. I often tell him to talk to his doctor about it, but he doesn’t seem to worry about it. It is normal for his pulse to be that way. I am currently encouraging him to see a cardiologist about his heart to make sure everything is fine.

Relationships

Close Relationships Blog 9

Relationships can be a test of time. I have had my share of them and they have been bad and good. The relationship I am in now has been the best one of my life. I met my husband at a sports bar where I worked. He came in one hot summer afternoon about an air conditioning job his brother told him he needed help on. I sat him at a table and he ordered a beer. He asked for the owner and I went to get her. He talked to her for a few minutes and that was it. I went to check on him and he told me his brother did it to him again. I asked what that was and he said he didn’t have this job and he lied about it to him. Later that same night he came back and we talked a bit. It wasn’t anything out of the norm and he left. A few nights later he came back in and I sat him at one of my tables and he had a few beers with dinner and we chatted a bit and he left again. I don’t remember if it was a few days later he came back and stayed to hear the band play. I was off early that night and sat with some friends of mine who invited him over. My friend picked on him about me and from that moment on, we hit it off. He would come in every night I worked, and we would talk, but this one particular night, I had to clean up and it was late. Mike got up and left, so I sent the bouncer outside with a message saying, “Diana wants you to come back inside; she wants to talk to you”. So he came in and waited for me to finish. We sat in the parking lot for about 15 minutes talking about who we were. He told me he’d been separated for about a year and he was raising his seven year old son. I had this feeling like, man I really don’t want to get involved with anyone with kids. So I made an excuse to leave. I guess he was floored by my sudden exit, but I really had to let that sink in. He came back in the bar a few nights later, and as usual I waited on him. I would stand at the wait station just watching him. I couldn’t figure out why such a handsome man would be interested in me. Fortunately, we hit it off. He took me for a ride one night on his motorcycle and brought me to his house. I was afraid; I wasn’t sure where he was taking me. We rode for quite a way and then I was lost. I was new to the area and didn’t know where I was. It was all good though. He was cordial to me and we talked for a while then he took me back to my car. I was excited that he paid so much attention to me. We started dating and I would spend the night after work at his garage on the couch while he worked. About two weeks into our relationship he asked me to marry him. Meanwhile, I had met his son. The child’s mother left a year prior and never kept contact with him. He asked me to be his mommy. I was shocked. But a seven year old needed guidance from a woman. I continued our relationship knowing I would eventually have some sort of run in with the X. Sure enough; a phone call one afternoon would change everything. She wanted to talk to Mikey, and he was afraid. She made him cry because all of a sudden she wants back in. I took the phone from him and she cursed me and said she was on the way. Mikey looked at me and said, “She is coming and I know a place where we can hide”. About fifteen minutes later she came down the driveway, speeding. She pounded on the garage door. Mike opened it, she came in and pushed him backward. Asking, who the bitch with the mouth was? I said I am over here and if you push him one more time I am calling the police. Needless to say, she pushed him and I called the police. I clearly told her, if you want a relationship with your son, then carry your ass next door and visit with him. I said, right now he is afraid of you and doesn’t want to see you. She kept up the threats, but I was not backing down. She wanted to have her cake and eat it too. She wanted Mike to dump me and beg for her forgiveness. Twelve and a half years later, Mike and I have been married nearly nine years. We have been together nearly thirteen. I am so glad I stood my ground that day, and didn’t let him go, because he truly is the best thing that has ever happened to me personally. We have a wonderful loving relationship and we want to grow old together. Periodically, we have issues with the X, but it isn’t anything I can’t handle. I have raised her son for nearly thirteen years and he calls me Mom, because he had stability, and a sense of love from me. I was always here for him and I will always be.

The Bystander Effect

The Bystander Effect

Blog 8

Technically, known as the, “finding that the greater the number of bystanders who witness an emergency, the less likely any of them is to help”,  (Akert, Aronson, Wilson 2007).

I have been in many situations where no one would help me. One year my husband and I went to the drag races. We went with a lot of people. We were there all day, tailgating, cooking on the grill. We were walking around the pit area, really having a great time.

It was around 8:45p.m. and my nephew hadn’t eaten yet, so I left the stands to go back to the van and fix him a burger we’d cooked earlier. I told my brother-in-law I’d be back in a while. It was a pretty good hike back to the car. I made it to one of the parking areas and fell in a hole between two, “jacked up” 4X4’s, and I was looking at the stars. I’d twisted my ankle and couldn’t get up.

Walking toward me was a woman with a child, who was about ten. They kept walking and we made eye contact, she surely saw me laying there. They got to the trucks, when all of a sudden; she makes a b-line for the other side of the truck. I could not believe it. I hollered out, “No, don’t worry about me, I am ok”. I could not believe what she’d done. She could have helped me up.

I finally got up and hobbled all the way to the van and back to the stands, with a sprained ankle. Oh, don’t forget the hamburgers too. I walked up the steps of the stands, about middle way, just about crying, and by brother-in-law had left. I couldn’t believe it. I was wondering if he walked by me too. Or saw me laying there and didn’t help me up. Then I had to walk all the way back to the van when it was time to leave. My ankle was so swollen and blue. My family always jokes about my glass ankles. Ever since I was little I have sprained my ankle countless times and now it’s a family joke.

Darley and Batson (1973), were correct in their demonstration of people always being in a hurry. Its amazing how so many people in one place are too busy, or don’t care, or are just self centered and don’t want to help someone in need. I wonder how they would feel if they needed someone in an emergency situation and no one came to their aid. I’d say they may get upset about it. After they have an experience like that, then maybe they will stop and think the next time they stumble upon a situation where they could be needed.

Rage

Rage

Blog 7

Rage is when someone becomes violent, verbally and/or physically with another. Fury is another way to describe how people act in certain situations. My good friend’s daughter was killed in a road rage accident seven years ago, and the guy who did it actually has a facebook page.

Amanda Colon was a seventeen year old typical girl. I never had the pleasure to meet her, but she fills my friends’ home with her beautiful smiling face. Her graduation picture frame acts as a permanent home for her ashes. Amanda’s loss is a terrible subject at times, because her mother morns her every minute of every day.

Amanda and her sister and their boyfriends were leaving church one evening and they were on their way to get something to eat. A violent man using a deadly weapon ran this child and her friends and sister off of the road; killing only her. I feel so heavy hearted when we discuss her sometimes because she is missed so much.

After she passed away her mother couldn’t bare the fact she would never see her daughter again and became severely depressed. She was paralyzed in her own body and living each day in bed. Her hell had just begun and she couldn’t get out of bed. Her feelings of loneliness were the soul fault of a man behind a machine who couldn’t wait a few seconds to get by.   

His rage and anger killed an innocent child. It is senseless to think if he had not chased her and drove into her and made her go off the road and hit a tree his life and the lives of many could have been spared. This was not the time for her to go. She is supposed to be here with her family and he is supposed to be able to live like he use too.

 It is harsh to say, but I feel rage toward him. I feel fury because he took something so precious away from a loving, caring, close knit family. I never met either of them, but instead of him being in prison for killing someone, I saw him with his family on facebook. He was holding a child, presumably his; something my friend is not able to do. He is smiling; something my friend is not able to do. She may seem happy at times but on the inside she has an emptiness about her that is relevant. She does not have her child.

This guy has some nerve. I hope my friend is able to reply to this post that she wanted me to write about because she can give much more about this than I am able too. I love her so much and I know she loves me, but this monster has to repent or something. This kills me to write about because it is a touchy subject, but so many are hurting and are in pain because of the recklessness and mayhem he has caused so many people.

Empathy

Empathy

Blog 6

Empathy is: the ability to put oneself in the shoes of another person and to experience events and emotions, like, joy and sadness; the way that person experiences them.

I certainly can say I have put myself in the place of others many times. Today I am in the process of helping an acquaintance move. She is approximately 35 and she has 4 children. Two of the kids have been taken from her because she is not self-sufficient; she can’t hold a job and is very unstable.

She did a stint in jail because of back child support while her brother took on her two kids for about 4 months. She lived in a friend of mine’s house for about 3 months all the while breaking the rules she set forth. My friend would repeatedly remind her that she was to follow the rules or she would have to move.

The final straw was a few days after she’d been told, she did something else and she was told to leave. She met someone and seemed to be hitting it off with him until the other day when she said, an old girlfriend of his showed back up and he was letting her move in and he didn’t want to see her anymore. Well, I’m sure that was like a slap in the face.

This girl is toting two small kids around, and I feel their pain. They don’t know where they will lay their heads next. They haven’t been in school for about thirty days now, and have missed out on so much school work; they may have to repeat the grade. This girl also moved into another friend of mine’s basement, where she is now being evicted because she didn’t pay her rent.

I swear it is one thing after another. My heart lies with these children who are at a loss as to why their mommy can’t get them a place to live and KEEP it. She moves from one place to another so these kids have no roots or ties to any friends, schools, church, or life. I wish I could take them and raise them as they were my own, but I can’t. For my own sanity, I can’t.

My life at this moment is consumed with school, and my own family. I can’t fix the world. I have spent many days in the shoes of this girl. I want her to know, life isn’t a party. You have to raise your children, or quit having them. I can only give her advice, if she chooses to change then she will