#ROW80 4QTR 2013 – SUNDAY CHECK IN – HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MA

Happy Birthday, Ma! You'd be 83 years old today, if you were here. Dammit, as much as we had our bitter messes and fights, we made it right, so I'm writing you this letter. I miss you, so very much. Ma, it's been a long time since you and I have spoken. In fact, it's been over 13 years, and I have a lot to say. We had a lot to say to one another over the years, most of it bitter and unkind. There were reasons for that and as these things go, not all of them are your fault, and not all of them are mine. Being life, it's just one of those things.

You used to scare the Bejesus out of us every time you crabbed down a runway...

It has taken me many, many years to arrive here and develop the clarity and serenity that I have wanted all of my life. Not judging here, but it didn't start well. Being whip-smart as a kid and having an alcoholic father (although, blessedly, one who was kind to me and always told me the TRUTH) and a mother, who wanted the best for me, but was also jealous of me and manipulative in her own right.

Yes, jealous. I wasn't planned; I know it. Daddy told me and would laugh, but you never did. He said I wasn't really planned, but once I “got here, you sure are a hell of a lot of fun!” Silence from you. See, that's how I know. There was always that issue. Then, when you tried to take your own life, when I was 7 and y'all tried to hide it from me, well, that was just confusing, because you see. . .

Wallace Family Christmas, 1956. Complete with Ceremonial Baby Talc

Kids know. You can't lie to kids. They just know this stuff and I knew you weren't shopping at Sears, or whatever. Unfortunately, I still have a hell of a memory. Still, even after all the years of abuse I've heaped on myself. I also knew from that day on, that things between Daddy and you changed and would never, ever be the same. I tried to always pretend they were perfect, but all the hollering and screaming at night (mostly by you) just are really scary to a little kid, and I would be so very anxious, and lay awake all night. I just never felt any security.

And, I could never be what you wanted me to be. Always yelling, or it seemed like it; telling me I was ugly and stupid. Hitting me; then you'd feel sorry and try to make it up. These things are confusing. I was just a bad little kid. No wonder I didn't have any brothers and sisters. I would have liked some, just to take the focus off me, once in a while.

It did and it didn't get better as I grew up. The whole competition thing and I really don't want to get into who you thought I should have married. Plain and simple, you pretty much helped me sabotage my first marriage, but prior to that, I was already battling depression and I didn't know that until just recently.

Lives are just giant puzzles and I find them endlessly fascinating. It's like a whole bunch of strands weaving in and out; some come together and make beautiful tapestries, with subtle colors and shining hues. Some become tangled and snarled and corrode. What a metaphor, I think. Anyway, I have a neurological condition and it is caused by depression; an existential depression that began at the age of 16. I recently found this out from my neurologist, who is probably one of the finest in the country. We dug into my past and in talking, figured out some stuff.

The depression goes hand in hand with what is called familiar tremor or essential tremor, which I observed in you, when things were tense. It is inherited. Nothing you can do about that. You and I worked through a lot of shit together. We had some rocky times; very rocky. I understand more now why you were the way you were and I've long since forgiven and most of all, pretty much forgotten anything we did to one another that was truly horrendous.

I know you loved me beyond reason, as I do you still. That will never change. I still love Daddy, too. He was funny as hell. From him and from you, I received the best of you both. I can think of no finer things than that. We don't get to choose our parents. We can choose how we shape our lives.

You used to holler at me when my socks were run down at the heels; now I know why. Ma, in 1944. 

To that end, though, I have to say this, I did deny you at a time when you needed it most and I paid for it dearly, and you will understand this. I truly believe you hear me when I say these things; here, or in my heart. You were scared, but we had been fighting and I was impatient. I didn't want to hear any more of your shit. I was about 38, and had just moved to Florida. You had taken the time to show me around, but you were starting to push my buttons and we were fighting already.

Funny how our relationship was always so much better long-distance, than up close; anyway, you said, “Mary, I'm scared. I'm sick, and I don't know what's going to happen.” I just ignored you. I really was nonplussed and had no words. You had never, ever opened up to me like that. It's just one of those moments in time. I should have said, “Wait a minute.” I needed to rethink this, or I need to stop seeing whoever I was seeing at the time, but I didn't want to fool with it.

I am so sorry for that, and I know you forgive me for it, but I still cry over it. Because I know how it is to be so very sick and ignored or worse, yet, screamed at and belittled. Bill Nunnally, my 3rd husband, did a similar thing. I remember telling you my doubts about him while you were still alive, and we were living in Charlotte and you were oh, so sick, and you said, “I'm sorry. He seemed nice,” when we visited you in October, 1999 during our 1st Wedding Anniversary. He was anything but, and committed emotional and psychological spousal abuse, when I was sick. So, what goes around, comes around. Jesus, what a tired old adage.

I leave you with this. I have become the person I was meant to be. I am proud of who I am. I live authentically, and I call bullshit, even on myself. I love you and I miss you and Daddy. I'm not really alone. I have friends; great friends who love me and I love back, unreservedly. I live in da 'hood, after being homeless; it wasn't in the game plan, but, it has it's moments. I've gotten a broader education here, but I've also found out I don't need a whole lot to be happy.

Love, 

Your loving daughter, Mary  

aka ViolaFury

October 20, 2013

Lithia, see here for Verbal Evisceration and for anyone else who is interested in aberrant, deviant behavior and what not to do, to gracefully rid yourself of an encumbrance, please feel free to follow the links.

#ROW80 - WEDNESDAY CHECK IN – POST 9 – EXPLANATION REQUIRED (AND LONG, LONG OVERDUE)

First, a short explanation, before the longer one, and a warning. This is being directed at my 3^rd ex-husband, Bill Nunnally, and it is vengeful. The reason it is so, is that I found out recently that he is currently the Head Poobah at Gulf Coast Jewish Family Services, out of Lakeland or Sarasota, but is now the Chief Quality/Performance Officer for an outfit called Heartland for Children, headed by Terri Saunders. A little background here; my mother worked for them and had her B.S. In psychology. Part of me can't help but think that one of the reasons he is there, is because she worked there. I take it as a slap in the face, although I walked out the door in January, 2005, never to return. I had recently been released from the hospital with congestive heart failure and the atmosphere was so corrosive in the house, I was afraid of having a heart attack and dying. I truly believe to this day, that Bill wanted that to happen, and was doing his level best to make it so.

After Bill (henceforth “Crapweasel”) and I were married, he very arbitrarily decided to give up a 70k job a year at IBM and get his B.S. In psychology. No discussion with how it would impinge our standard of living; he just did it for himself, as he did most things. I would have preferred he not do that, but that was his unilateral decision, as were many major decisions in that marriage. After graduation, he worked at a number of menial jobs for shitty pay, like he was going to save the world, and that would make up the difference. My assumption is that he is about as good as saving the world as he is at marriage. I was number 4. Shame on me. Over my ever-screaming instincts, I felt I may be able to reason with him. I wasn't and over time, I was scared of him. But I was afraid of my mom too and all of that old baggage came home to roost in spades.

He ended up at HKI, which is one of the more corrupt social welfare organizations. This is a for-profit that handles children's services for Hillsborough County. When I was homeless, I saw first hand how bad the place was from what had once been the purview of the state. By that time, Bill “Crapweasel” Nunnally and I had long been divorced. I saw children see-sawing back and forth between horrible foster parents and even worse birth parents, while incompetent social workers, who were having affairs with the parents and mis-managing the cases dragged out these cases. The kids were a mess, pulling out their hair compulsively, biting their fingernails, being dragged around and used as bargaining chips.

Our marital problems started before I started showing signs of Parkinson's Disease, but at the time, I had no earthly idea what was going on. First, I lost my vision and lost it rapidly. What I didn't know then, but would shortly find out is that I had congestive heart failure, probably because of my Young Onset Parkinson's Disease. He started screaming and yelling at me; mostly about how I was lazy and about my “many illnesses.” The one exchange that stands out? Bill “Crapweasel” yells, “We need money, and all you do is sit there and look at that goddamned book!” I was trying to look at the larger pictures in a Time Magazine, since it was really all I could see. On the one hand I was so frightened and alienated and also bored, I needed to take my mind off of this whole mess. So, he's yelling at a blind woman. I couldn't drive and had been fired from Chase Manhattan. I sued them and won with the ADA act, but that came later, after I fled from my home. And who in the hell is going to hire a newly-blind woman, who can't drive? What would that job description look like? Christ!

The cane is for beating the shit out of people who step on me. Picture taken when it was 55 degrees Fahrenheit and I thought I'd died and gone to Michigan.

Every day was a complete and utter hell. His old room mate from before we were married had moved back in with us, as he had lost his job; Bill felt sorry for him and he was treated better than I was. I ended up in the hospital with congestive heart failure. 2 weeks later, I drove home, vision only in one eye, hopelessly scared of what I would find. I found my mom's cat so sick, he wouldn't or couldn't eat. I had to take him to the Vet. The Vet was so kind, but he told me, “look, I can run tests on him, but it will be over 500.00.” I didn't have that kind of money. I had about 100.00 and Bill “Crapweasel” was giving me no money. I had no job, no prospects of one and the idiots at Unemployment cut me off when I was hospitalized because I wasn't out looking for work. Seriously, who is going to hire someone with one eye and a bad heart? I was coming up on my 50^th birthday. Karma is a bitch they say. His granddaughter was born on my 50^th birthday, so in that way, he will always be reminded of that time. I hope he remembers it with shame, but how can you shame a person who has no honor, compassion or empathy?

You would think that the person who, as a child had a capricious step-mother, named Virginia, who alternately tried to mother and then pushed away young Bill, after he was abandoned by his birth mother, or was she run off by his father, also named Bill, the son feeling the fists of his father, slept in the auxiliary room beside the water heater, would have more empathy. Many were the nights I slept in my truck in the Publix parking lot, because I could not bear the thought of sleeping in that house. The tension was so great and my heart, not yet healed, would go into arrhythmia. 

Gulf Coast Jewish Family Service's Mission Statement. Items circled in red were absent in the male partner of Bill Nunnally's 4th marriage.

An online 53-minute co-parenting workshop, part of Florida ACCESS and the "system." I love this, because this is either the most clueless, or the most ironic slide I've ever seen. Bill was also only the 2nd person EVER to bully me. The first was my mother, but she got over it. He never did.

I told the Vet all of this about the money and my situation, and he said, “spend all the time you want with him. Normally euthanasia is 100.00. I'll do it for nothing.” I said my goodbyes for an endless amount of time and then held him, as the Vet put him down. I cried all the way home. The room mate buried him, (an aside, I got a package from the room mate a while back, with his phone number, saying “Call me some time. “We'll get together.” Yeah. As if.) but then when Crapweasel got home from work that night, he told Crap what had happened. Crap wheeled around and said “You murdered Dwayne!?” very melodramatically, as if I had just killed a room of small children. Oh, goody. More mental cruelty. I can see it for the melodrama and shameless manipulation that it was now, but then? It just was too, too sad.

I just looked at him and went back into my computer office where I was sleeping. It really takes a certain kind of special hypocrisy to voice this. This is the man, who, when his own Great Dane was dying under the front porch, tried to make me help him drag him out to the back 40, so he didn't have to hear his screams.

The truth is, Bill Nunnally is a weak man. He cannot face weakness in others or flaws because he himself is so utterly weak in character and flawed. He likes to think he is a survivor, yet he has to use others to do so. When he returned to school, I started paying half the bills again, when prior to his unilateral decision to return to school, he was earning far more than I was at the time, so he picked up the larger share. Without me, he would not have been able to go back and finish his B.S. He exhibits delusion, self-aggrandizement and self-righteousness here, along with the most stunning hypocrisy and amoral behavior I've witnessed in many a year.

And, of course, what pseudo-lecture would be complete without a pseudo-psychiatrist? Dr. Phil has platitudes to spare. Having lived through the cauldron of psychosis and Baker Act, coming out the other side, relatively whole and knowing myself a whole lot better and owning up to my own faults, addictions and failures, but recognizing my strengths, I see all of this for the money-making shams that they are.

While I was in the hospital, Bill “Crapweasel” Nunnally got a girlfriend, because his wife was “broken.” He kept bitching about my “incipient weirdness.” Well, it takes guts to live with someone who has Young Onset Parkinson's Disease. JC's seen my dementia, tremors, been with me many times to the hospital and been with me through my Baker Act. Yup, been there through my committal. He's there with my legal blindness. He's also there with my triumphs, writing awards and laughter and good times. Unconditional love is just that. I wonder what Bill “Crapweasel” Nunnally's bosses at Gulf Coast Jewish Family Services would make of his being unsupportive and unfaithful to an ailing wife. I'd love to be a fly on that wall.

YOPD is not a choice and after thinking back, I am convinced my mother had it. There are no more completely "good" days. But through force of will, and the realization that life is truly to be savored and experienced, by damn I'm experiencing and loving it. I am still the same fuck-up I was, only more so, but I'm smarter and tougher and I got that from my PD. I also developed an insight and a very complex set of tools to help me navigate this new life. Couldn't ask for a better trade off. Hell, I should have left you years earlier.

After being hospitalized for 2 months and homeless for 11 months, I received full disability; no 2 year waiting period. 5 months; record time. Tremors, bipolar disorder I, pain and all the other ills that come with it are just part of it. What I experienced 12 years ago is nothing compared to what I deal with now, but I am tough and clear-minded. I also don't let go of things, until I am goddamned good and ready and this baggage is going out the door, here and now. If I hadn't found out that Bill Nunnally was now working at a place that my mother loved, I wouldn't have written this post. But, I feel her memory somewhat defiled. I deal with negativity in my own way. This is my burden to lay down.

Bill? When you thought I was depressed after the death of my mother? That wasn't it. I just realized that the one person who loved me for me was gone, because I knew you didn't. That is also one big, fat giant turn-off and I really didn't want to have sex with someone who didn't love me anymore, if you ever did. Creepy-crawly time, but then part of me always knew you didn't. You saw me as a commodity and an object. You will never give yourself over to any woman, because women are beneath you. Actually, you have it backwards. You are beneath me. Asking for money all the time. What kind of man are you? You can't even be truthful to yourself. I know I'm an alcoholic; I told you that. I stopped that shit.

So, here's the kicker, Bill gets a girlfriend while I'm in the hospital, fighting for my life. I stole his phone bill. Yup; I sure did and called the tapioca-headed bitch and basically told her that if she married Bill “Crapweasel” Nunnally, he would do to her what he was doing to me. He came home that night, full of self-righteous indignation and high dudgeon. “Where's my phone bill.” I had my blind eye towards him; I liked that part about being blind. “I don't have it.” He had the temerity to say, “You're a liar.” I almost, almost, almost said “At least, I'm not a philanderer.” Damn, I so wish I had. Unlike you, I was faithful throughout the marriage.

I realize there are faults on both sides, but when one goes out to deliberately kill a marriage, there is truly something wrong. The mental cruelty practiced was at a level I had not witnessed since my parents' marriage. You told me at one point, that you were hoping I would “just pack my shit and leave.” Eventually, I did before you could finish me off by letting my own ill-health engulf me. I don't normally talk of this and I will not again, but I think for once, someone needs to stand up and say, “you know what? Bill Nunnally, you're a flaming asshole and all of your talk of helping children and saving and doing this and that is pure bullshit. You can't even take care of a family properly. Who in the hell are you to try and teach others?” Family to you are those vapid daughters your crazy ex raised. Their idea of a rich life for them is Cheer and trips to Disney World. Oh, and yes, those who can't do, teach. Unfortunately, that maxim went out ages ago. The most skillful of teachers are those of us that can do and do it quite well.

taken 02/2013

Yeah, Bill you asshole, I have 2 beautiful clear eyes; I finally got that 2nd surgery, it's just that my brain doesn't see one image. It's called Parkinson's Disease. I'll probably outlive you; I'm happy. Because you're not my problem anymore. This post is strictly because of your WTF move to Gulf Coast Jewish Family Services, and because it's your Birthday! A slur to my mother's memory if there ever was one, you giant bag of dicks.

What I got from the divorce settlement about covered what I put monetarily into the marriage, but the scars run deep. It's okay; scar tissue is tough. You did however, keep my mother's iron skillet, which had been her mother's 200.00 into a good violin, 200.00 into a good Australian Shepherd and a mix-master his daughters got me for mother's day. And you never, ever attempted to pay me back for the 5k for my IRA, which you promised you would, but then, what did I expect? A man's word is his honor and you have none. Today, May 22, 2013 is your Birthday. I hope you enjoy this present from me!

P.S. Before you start hollering slander or libel or any of that nonsense, think of this; I'm legally blind, have young onset Parkinson's Disease, am Bipolar and on full disability. I'm pretty sure a lawyer would take that up in a heartbeat and it will not hold up in a court of law, and do you want that kind of press? I gave in on the divorce. If you want to have a fight over who said what? Bring it on. I will not back down, because it is the truth and you know it.

P.P.S. I debated with myself for quite a while before deciding to do this. This is from my gut. I have found as I've aged that my gut instinct is reliable and not to be ignored. I could have set up false accounts and yada yada yada. I certainly have the computer know-how and the black art to leave no traces, but I had rather bring this into the open. Lest Bill think I am kidding about slander and libel, let me just say that there are things I know that I am sure he would rather not have brought out into a courtroom. Behavior witnessed at the house on Annie Street, that I did not participate in. Let me leave it at that and you leave it and me alone. I'm done.

===================================================================

Update: This is dated 06/21/2013 - Per Gulf Coast Jewish Family Services, "Mr. Nunnally no longer works for them and left the Agency last year to pursue another venture." So, I did fail to notice that the date of the lecture was from 2012, which indeed it was. But, this also brings up another point. His entire life has been spent in "re-inventing" himself. I don't know about most people, but I had a goal and mind  and achieved that. When I was confronted with husband #2, who didn't want another violist, I was forced to do something else, but I continued to play the viola. It was mere happenstance that I also loved working with computers. I don't feel a need to "invent" myself as a snake sheds it's skin. I may have lost my way, but I don't bully other people or resort to passive-aggressive behavior to get my way. So, wherever Crapweasel is and what he is doing, he clearly is not working at GCJFC anymore. There was a parting of the ways and is now no longer an issue. I don't wish him well. I suspect his karma is catching up to him and his restless ghosts are even more so. Good riddance, and I do hope  your continued existence here on this mortal coil is hell, indeed. You've earned it.

July 11, 2013 - Postscript - After several attempts to send messages to Bill's daughters, Katie and Kyle and his son-in-law, John Holley, who posed what was probably the stupidest and most obvious request ("Call him, you have his number. Well, no I don't; we've been divorced 8 years) with no response, I am ceasing my rather quixotic journey here. Rather than force someone who behaves in such a craven and cowardly manner and with no decency or honesty, whatsoever, I will finally let it rest. My mother would certainly understand and tell me to move on. I had gotten him out of my head years ago. This time, he's gone for good.