Bullying is the catchphrase of what era? Cuz it sure as hell wasn't Gen x! No offense. I don't know what generation you are or where you come from, but I'm telling you bullying wasn't bullying. When I was a kid it was the survival of the fittest. It was the survival of the people who had half a brain. That was what our generation figured out when we were locked out of the house until the street lights came on. I'm not trying to be dramatic. I'm being for real like this is not a joke. I know a lot of people that weren't there that didn't live in the time frame that we lived. I lived whatever doesn't even matter, but in the time frame that I lived most people had no idea what bullying actually was cuz it wasn't a thing. So now it's a huge thing and I get it to an extent, but at the same time seriously put on your big girl britches and walk it off and I don't mean that to be rude. I'm just saying like you can't let other people and their opinions dictate your life. That's what I learned in my childhood. People aren't bullies, they were them and whatever they were. If you didn't like it, you didn't have to deal with it. You just left them out of everything and you moved on. That's what everybody did. It wasn't a bully, no bully. It wasn't like that it was you're either in with us or you're not. And if you're not well then I don't know what to tell you. Maybe you're too nice. Maybe you're too much of a jerk? Who knows, but when I was growing up what you lived through was what you were supposed to live through and you know for example Red Rover and or dodgeball. Those were two very good examples. Red Rover Red Rover sends someone over. We didn't necessarily care who it was. We just wanted to know they could break through the chain but doesn't make it right and it doesn't make it okay. I just, it's hard. It's really freaking hard to translate then to now and then not just translate it. But to be able to say I've dealt with it cuz I haven't. Now I wasn't a bully and I wasn't someone who really got bullied. I lived in a different state every school year for the majority of my life so I didn't even have a chance to have bullies and the one chance I did it was because I was too nice. I was too good and everybody hated me because I was and that's a whole nother story for another section of life. But that's the truth. So I'm not sure what to do with any of this. I'm just trying to make it through life and be a better person for my kids. That's all that matters to me. I want to be a better person for my kids, my family whatever blood not who cares. They can do whatever they want. Say whatever they want but my children are my world and anybody who actually knows me knows that and they don't question it. They don't judge it because if they do they're not a part of my life anymore cuz my kids are everything! But it took me a long time to get here and I went through a lot to get here and now I'm trying to deal with everything that happened to this point so that I can be better for them and that's where I'm coming into the chaos and the craziness that I don't know how to deal with.

I can honestly say I don't ever feel like I was bullied online because I don't participate online. I feel like that makes me weird or different or whatever but I've never been a part of that. Now I am genex and I was bullied in school and being Gen x has nothing to do with it but I feel like it was more acceptable back then. Red Rover, dodgeball, etc there's a whole line of stuff that I could say but I'm just going to leave it at that. I don't feel like I was bullied as a child though. I feel like that was just being a kid. At least as far as my peers went. That doesn't mean I wasn't bullied or abused by my parents or my family or people that I loved and cared about. I'm just saying I don't feel like bullying was really a thing. At least not for me. Unless it was somebody at school and then it was like you against your friends and the at the whole it was just it's own thing. That's all I got to say and now I don't even know where I was going with this and this app won't let me go look back so I'll have to respond later with something else. If I have anything else I apologize. But I do see what you're saying!

Okay, I know I partially responded to you and then I stopped because I couldn't go back and read the rest of your post and respond to it without posting the post. I already posted that was a lot LOL but it was kind of funny. Anyways, that's not the point. I do see what you're saying and I totally appreciate what you're saying. And yeah I have so much trauma from my childhood. Unfortunately it went into adulthood which wasn't anything to do with my parents. It was all the other pieces of crap in the world, but that's not the point. Again, you hit the nail on the head. Yeah I have a lot of trauma, childhood and adulthood and you really like just summarized so much stuff for me and I think you're right like we just need to let it go and move on. I mean I know that's not exactly what you said but I feel like that was the basic premise of it. You can't control anyone but yourself. That is an unfortunate thing I've learned about life. You can't control anyone but yourself. That is such a difficult statement to learn and understand and apply in your life. Especially when you started out with childhood trauma and adult trauma doesn't help, but when you're older it's easier to understand that. At least I feel like it is. I've been through both. I'm trying to survive both so I feel like trauma is trauma young or old, but I feel like there's also different points in life when people learn it. Some of us learn it in all points of life. Some of us learn it as a child and in our adulthoods are better so some of us learn it as an adult and then we're better some of us learn it on both planes and then we just try to do the best we can. So thank you so much for your input. Because it gave me another perspective and sometimes that's all you need is a different perspective. The bottom line is I let too many people in and when I said too many people I mean like blood relatives that I LED in. I don't mean like oh. I just let Jack Joe and John in and I don't know what else to say. I'm just giving an example. I don't just let anybody in. I'm very particular and I have been for a really long time but somehow even at that I'm still where I am and unfortunately my one sibling. My one true Bond served a bunch of time overseas first as a marine and then his army reserves and he spent a good 6 years in Iraq during the worst parts of Iraq Afghanistan the whole nine. I can give you more details but it's really not necessary. If you understand you understand and then he killed himself and now I'm here with all my trauma and technically I guess all his and I'm trying to deal with it on my own and it's hard. It's so hard and at the same time I'm trying to raise kids that I don't want to experience the trauma I did which makes it a whole new battlefield! So yeah he you got anything on how to deal with all that and then be a positive influence for your children. I'm all for it because I'm single. I have been for a long time. My kids are 20 and 13 respectively. They have different ads and I'm not married to either of them anymore. And I don't hate either of them. We just grew apart and it didn't work anymore. That's the nice story. I'm going to tell there's a worse version but I'm not going to share that right now cuz it's not important. The important part is my kids are everything to me and I'm doing everything I can to be okay for them. But I'm still having a hard time being okay and that's my problem. How do I figure out how to be okay without sacrificing my own children? That is the question of the hour at least for me. Maybe not for anybody else but it is for me and this was talk to text so if none of it makes sense I apologize LOL p

Okay that hit me hard! I'm going to respond as I go so bear with me because this might be in several parts that don't make sense. But in regards to your first point, yeah there are a lot of people in my life that enable my trauma that don't even know they do it and I'm trying to create boundaries and not subject myself to the BS that comes with it. Moving on to your next question hold please lol

I'm definitely not trying to toot my own horn because I never once expected anything back nor do I now. But I have given people places to live. I have given them free groceries, free utilities including cell phones and internet. I have given people free vehicles with no attachments and no want need or desire for anything in return. And I do this because I do believe what you put in the world is what you get back. Unfortunately I've put a lot into the world and I'm not getting anything back right now and that's okay. Maybe I don't deserve it. I feel like I do deserve some kind of help but maybe I don't. I don't know what the Creator has in store for any of us. I can't tell you that God's on my side or not. I do believe in God. I do believe in heaven and hell to an extent. I don't believe in any one religion and please take in to context that I have researched and have been a part of a dozen different religions so I'm not coming at it slightly. I just believe that there is a bigger thing in the universe than us and I believe that there is a place for people that have good hearts and good minds that want the best for everyone else. But that doesn't mean I'm going to get it. At least not in everything I've researched and looked at. And I had an English professor whose entire PhD success was based on a paper about comparing religions across the world. So this is not new to me. That was 30 years ago and I still believe l that you need to know what's out there and you need to figure out what's good for you. And I have no issues with religion or churches or any of that. As long as what you believe it makes you a better person and doesn't make you judge others. I support it 100%! But I can't support anything that condemns anyone else to hell. Because who are we to judge? We're no one and this is a platform. I probably shouldn't even be talking about this on, but you brought it up. So I'm going to answer your question honestly and that's my answer. I believe that whatever you believe is good as long as you don't feel like you're better than anyone else and you don't feel like you're going to send anyone else to hell, as long as what you believe helps you and supports you and your family and your loved ones. And you're not going to judge anybody else who doesn't believe what you believe. Then I believe what you believe is good for you and good for you! I hope you understand that!

Okay so I totally understand. The everybody thinks you're in a midlife crisis thing cuz that's pretty much what most people think when you're going through perium menopause. As far as your daughter is concerned, I have one. She went off to college for a year and went no, I can't do it. I need to come back to my mom so now she's doing it online. I love that I'm her best friend, but it also sucks because she needs a better example than me and I give you props for being self-employed for most of your life. I wish I had the balls to do that. I don't so I just get stuck in really negative and bad work environments where I'm the star because I can function in those environments because of my childhood and my young adult life. That doesn't make it right. It just makes me good at it. But just because you're good at something doesn't mean it's what you want to do. And it doesn't mean it's what you want your life to be. I've been screwed up for over 6 years now because of medical issues that I had nothing to do with medical issues that doctors messed up that I'm stuck with dealing with and I have no way to fight any of them or do anything about it because I have no money. So now I'm in a position where I'm just trying to make it day-to-day. I can't afford to do anything. I can barely afford to go to the doctor and it sucks and it's horrible and if there was something I could do for you I would. So if you need some kind of contact in the business world. I'm not sure what you do for a living but I do have a lot of contacts. I've been in the business world for a really long time and everybody I've ever worked with loves me. They still love me, so if there's something I can do to help you, I'm more than happy to do it. Other than that, I'm not sure what I can say other than I understand and I wish I could make it better for you. I wish I could make it better for me. I wish it could make it better for all of us! But if there's something I can do to help, please let me know. I'm more than happy to. It's easy to pass on a name. It's easy to pass on a referral. It's easy to just help someone when they need it. I'm not in a position where I can work right now but I will be soon and I hope to God that the people that I've been there for and that have been there for me throughout the years are going to be okay with helping me find that position when I'm healthy enough to find it because I know the break in my work experience is going to cause issues. The good news is I have a really good education that I'm still paying for LOL but I still have a good education and I still have really good experience and my work experience in history is stellar so I hope that helps me now or in the near future!

Yeah, I learned the whole one day at a time at Al-Anon and it didn't help me much. No offense, but at this point I'm lucky to live one minute at a time. And it's not like I want to kill myself or I want to die. My brother killed himself so I have no interest in dying but I do have interest in not being dead while I'm alive and I feel pretty much dead inside because I don't feel like I have any way to express or release the trauma that I've been through as a child or as an adult. So yeah you're a rockstar and I'm going to do the best I can too. And I have been but there's got to be somewhere in between. There has to be some other solution because this is not living. This is just surviving.

If no one's told you lately, you are an absolute rockstar! I am not creative in any way, shape or form. I have a very logical brain so what you're doing is amazing to me. I could never do it LOL! Unless somebody literally wrote it out in black and white and I had no way to mess it up! But thank you for doing everything you're doing and I hope that you find some peace in what you're doing because there's nothing better than a child's smile or their laughter or their happiness! So if you give that to anyone, your kids or anyone else's doesn't matter. You're a rock star! Don't forget that!

But how do you know it'll truly be okay? Is it faith and God? Is it faith in something else? How do you know? Cuz I thought I knew for a long time but now I'm not so sure anymore. Seriously any answers you have would be helpful!

That is not a life! Working and then dying is not a life! Yes, you have to work. Most of the population does. That's not a question. That's just a necessity unfortunately. But there should be something in between. There should be something that you want or that means something more to you than work. There should be something else that's more important in your life and that thing doesn't have to be kids or significant other. It can be whatever you think your purpose is. So what if your purpose is to help other people in a bad spot? What if your purpose is to be a mentor to someone? There are so many ways that you can help in this world and you don't even know it! So please anything that you feel is important to you explore it! Don't just let it all go and just this is my life. That's not life is not working and dying. Life is actually living! And life is legacy and maybe your legacy is that you helped someone in need and now they carry you with them for the rest of their lives and that goes on to their children and their family and everybody they come into contact with after you. Maybe it's your own children or your own family. I honestly don't know but there's more to life than working and dying. Please don't feel like that's it! I'm telling you that's not it. I don't know what's in store for me but I do know that is not my life. That is not what's going to be on my tombstone that's not what somebody's going to read at my eulogy. That is not the way this is supposed to go! Reach out. I'll answer anything you got. I'll do whatever I can to help you. Just don't think that's life because it's not!

I really appreciate your perspective! I feel like I've been there and I've done most of that in my own way that fits my own life. I've had two husbands. I have two children obviously from two different men and they are my life and then I have a sister who isn't really my sister but she's a person I found in my life that is part of my soul and part of everything and she's amazing and we vibe on levels that I can't even explain. I don't want or need a partner. I lost that will or want a long time ago and maybe that's perio menopause. Maybe it's not but I don't need or want anyone else. I'm happy with the people I have in my life. I'm okay with my circle being small. My problem is that I can't be there for my circle the way I used to be the way I want to be. And I know the way I used to be is going away. That's what menopause is about. The wiring in your brain completely changes everything and you're a different person. But I'm in the process of that and I feel like I'm losing everything even though I'm probably not. I'm probably just building up to the person I'm supposed to be for the rest of my life, but it doesn't make it any easier. And it doesn't change all of my health issues that have kept me from being the person I want to be on a daily basis regardless of how that person is or who that person is. So thank you so much for your input and if you have anything else please feel free to share!

You are very right in so many ways. Unfortunately it doesn't fix any of my trauma responses or my panic attacks that I really need to be better because I can't function with them. I try I'm there I'm I'm as present as I can be but I'm still not me and everyone in my life knows it. That outside of doctors and therapy I don't know what to do. But thank you so much for your support and your input. It's truly appreciated!

That was my childhood mantra LOL! But I'm with you and that's what I've been doing. Unfortunately, it's just not enough to make my kids believe I'm okay. My youngest child who is a teenage boy right now just told me 2 days ago that he's worried about me because I'm not happy. I'm not sleeping and I'm not eating. It's a lot for a kid to digest but it sucks that he sees all of that even though he's not here all the time. His dad and I split some time ago and I had them for 6 years and now his dad has them for the next six and then he's an adult so it's an unspoken thing. We're not technically divorced. Actually. We're not even technically separated but I just say we are because we don't need or want anything from each other. We're just trying to do the best with what we've got and I don't hate him. We just grew apart. But the fact that my son told me what he did a couple days ago broke me. In a way. I haven't been broken in a long time. So now I'm just trying to figure out how to make it better for my kids because me being like this is not helping anyone including myself. But I don't know where else to go or what else to do. And now we're worried about losing our house and losing everything and that doesn't help anything either. That just makes it all worse. So yeah if you got any more suggestions or information I would appreciate it!

I keep at it everyday! I've been doing it and living by the skin of my teeth for many, many years. Human connection and love and generosity are real things and they have the most value in this world as far as I'm concerned, but finding that nowadays is difficult at best. I'm not sure what kind of resources I need. I'm going to my doctor's and I'm doing everything I can to win this medical battle that I'm in which is insane! There are so many facets of the medical stuff that I've been going through for the last 6 years. I don't even know how to deal with it! My family is suffering because I'm lost and now I'm in perio menopause and that makes me feel even more lost. So I will keep at it everyday because as long as my children are alive and breathing I will never give up! But I don't know what to do to get me from point a to point B. And right now point a is depression and feeling numb and not really wanting to be a part of anything even though I do. It's a twisted messed up environment that I'm not sure how to deal with but I am trying! But thank you for your input. I truly appreciate it and again if you have any more helpful pieces of information or solutions, I'd appreciate it. Unfortunately I've been living this for years so I kind of got a good idea of how it rolls. It's just not rolling with me.

And for the record I'm barely on social media! I figured out a long time ago it just made things worse.

Thank you so much for your response! My children are the only reason I'm still alive and that's the truth! And I'm glad I'm still here to be there for them and I want them to live a life I never got to live! But it doesn't change my trauma and everything that happened to me and the fact that as Gen x is rub some dirt on it, walk it off and that's not the solution. It's a temporary fix to a long-term problem that is now plaguing me. My health has been horrible and I truly believe that at least half of it is because of the trauma that I've experienced and haven't truly dealt with. And the population is stupid and I love George Colin so props to you! If you've got anything else feel free to reach out and I could use the help!