I used to be funny, and articulate. I used to be able to do just about anything I wanted to do. I used to be hope filled, and I had a sense of humour. I used to be able to make connections with people, I never had trouble making good and lasting friendships.

Over the past few years I've become withdrawn and unable to string together a coherent sentence. I have no friends, not one.

As is usual for broken souls, there was no final blow that crushed me but simply a long and linear cascade of painful disappointments. The weight of griefs has bent me completely; my options and opportunities crushed, stolen for the most part but also faded away in some cases.

It has always seemed to me that I was pushed by the people in my life into a cruel and different dimension, and it started early.

I tried therapy several times thinking surely it was something I was doing wrong, some nuance of everyday life that I somehow lacked understanding of. I thought therapy would help me see and learn to manage my life-I blamed myself first and sought to correct the mistakes I was making in order to go forward with more success.

Therapy invariably followed two patterns.

In the first the therapist would tell me what I was relating was so rare as to have not possibly been my personal experience. Any proof I would offer to back up my story would be dismissed as fraud. I would then be offered medication. Not being interested in a medicated response to the world I would quit that therapist.

The second pattern would end with me also being offered meds, but also with the therapist been rendered as shell shocked as I was. My documentation, and the therapist's independent confirmation of said documentation would leave the therapist as helpless as I was to deal with the problem. I had several look me in the eye and say they couldn't see anything I could have done differently. One or two wanted to write a book, and a few flat out told me I deserved a medal for not having gone 'postal'.

Meanwhile, all I wanted to do was be the wife, mother, neighbour, friend I knew God wanted me to be.

I've known all of life that God had no intention for me to become what it seemed everyone else wanted me to be; my dad wanted me to be an FBI agent so that I could arrest his second wife (my step-mother), my step-mother wanted me to be a thief and liar so she could pin her felonies on me (something she actually almost pulled off at least twice before I graduated from high school), my siblings wanted me to be away period.

My exes wanted me to be a paycheck they could fuck but had no interest in supporting what that took-if I tried to go to school they sabotaged the effort just as they sabotaged any job I took. I guees I was supposed to be a machine who worked 9-13 hours a day and then came home and catered to their every need and whim without needing anything including a thanks or occassional Christmas/Valentine's/Mother's Day/anniversery/birthday rememberance (it really is the thought that counts-DUH!).

My children seem to have wanted me to be a silent ever-flowing ATM and nothing else, both are apparently dining out on lying through their teeth that I was a "drunken, abusive parent". I don't drink (I did get drunk on very cheap cold duck when my divorce was final, my son was 19, guess that makes me a drunk?), and would someone please explain to me how telling my children 'no' when they wanted to play on the freeway constitutes abuse?!

When I was six years old God offered me the hope to make it through to the other side. I grabbed onto that hope and I was able to make it through to age eighteen.

It's taken until age 52 years and ten months but I've lost that hope. Oh hell, I've lost all hope.

Losing your family and losing your earning capacity will do that to you. Your sense of worth is completely tied to those two things-family and the ability to provide for them.

I lost my family because a sociopath decided that my "no" meant his permission to destroy me had just been granted by the cosmos.


My job is in jeopardy because my anger at the steer manure I see rewarded got the better of my ability to do my job well-I'm making stupid mistakes because I am so completely pissed and disheartened by the outrageous antics successfully pulled off by my co-workers.

They come in and immediately go for coffee. They spend more time 'networking' than actually working, a well known form of networking that includes name dropping, raised eyebrows, arch tones, and if those acts don't get them want they turn to arm-twisting and outright threats. Which work.

And of course they are rewarded. I can always tell when someone wants whatever work I am doing. People avoid me in the halls, cut me out of the email loop, cough and change the subject when I come in to the room. My boss begins frowning at me when he sees me, and then after a few days I am called into his office to be written up, usually for something I had no idea I was responsible for.

And it happened again this week. But this time I actually deserved it and so didn't argue or try to defend myself, not that I would have anyway as it never ends well anyway. I have given up trying.

My boss wants me gone, why bother trying anymore? He believes bullshit instead of what is really going on before his eyes, and I've lost any hope that he will see what is going on in time to save his or my job.

He is on vacation, and while he's been out there have been several successful power plays that go directly against his plans for increased and smoother production. I wonder if he has any clue that his job is probably in more jeopardy than mine is.

I'm not sure about his boss, I have a feeling his boss just wants the job done right. That was the feeling I got from the 'counseling' session I went through yesterday afternoon.

I got the feeling that he was surprised that I didn't react the way I am 99% sure he was told I would react; I really got the feeling he was surprised that I could document the mistakes I made this month and that I had been talking with my supervisor in an effort to remedy the problem. I also got the feeling that my documentation that the previous month was essentially error free came as news to him-I've suspected for three months that my supervisor has been reporting someone else's errors as mine, his reaction and the later behaviour of the someone I suspect knew her errors were being reported as mine have confirmed my suspicions.

(OH JEEZ, seven cost errors, I have caused the accounting department a bit of extra work! I hate making extra work for others-and that is why my current co-workers hate me. They spend an inordinate amount of time making extra work for others, and the current 'in' crowd have an especial grudge against me in that regard as I transferred away from them the last time my work ethics threatened their jobs.)

So. I've lost my family and I worry quite reasonably that a group of harpies who are trying to protect their paychecks are going to take the last thing I have-my job and work reputation.

Yeah, no pressure.

And, oh yeah, I know what today is. I'm not Job, I want my family back. But they don't want me. OK fine, I'd like to move on now please.

PLEASE!