Round and round and round she goes… apparently, I’m suffering from a horrible affliction known as Vertigo. I am still but the room is not. It’s quite maddening. The worst part is that it is hard for me to read or write without feeling seasick so, I’m hoping you all will bare with me for a bit. My body is having technical difficulties.

I’ll be back to write replies to comments but I just spent a good portion of the day and night in the Emergency Room and I’m wiped out. Besides, I can’t stand to look at this screen a moment longer. I feel like I’m aboard the SS Minnow!

I have a favor to ask of all of you. Could everyone who got the following message email me at dawn[at]antibarbie[dot]net and include the full message if you still have it? Here is an excerpt:

Funny the friend psycho saga was removed. Remember Dawnie when you spit up, it always comes down. You have alot of nerve playing victim in this whole “saga.” I am sure you will delete this, because the truth is something you are not completely “friendly” with. First, we never really “lost” touch, and in 2003 I did move back to CT.

I appreciate your cooperation. I apologize to everyone about this letter. The funny thing is, I removed the post she’s referring to in the hopes that she would finally leave me alone. I guess *that* didn’t work. Sorry to have caused you any trouble with this craziness!

You granted your callous mistress the right to infiltrate our lives. My childhood memories are defiled by her meddlesome intrusion. You became her marionette, her absurd little dancing fool. I watched you; a once proud, mountain of a man, reduced to a lowly pebble.

You gave all you possessed in life to appease her constant hunger. We were afforded the scraps she left of your love, attention, and time. I can remember the contempt my mother endured every day for what you deemed an unforgivable sin: She chose to keep fighting for you.

You didn’t just defeat her once, that would have been too merciful. You subdued her inner essence, strangling it into submission. I witnessed my mother dwindle into a thin crumbling husk while you roamed in blissful freedom, never facing the aftermath.

There was never any real contest, family was expendable. You will never have my forgiveness for choosing her over your blood. I hope before you left this realm, you realized all you had lost in the name of your pale harlot, depraved goddess and one love: Cocaine.

My kids, boyfriend and myself have all caught a nasty bug. I’m hoping it’s just a bad cold and not the flu. Sorry for not getting around to anyone’s comments today. I’ll try and get to them as soon as humanly possible. It’s just totally wiped me out to take care of the kids all day and I really need to go rest. Hope you all have a better weekend then me!

I was at a children’s birthday party on Saturday and the friend who was throwing it at her in-laws house invited a ton of people. Her husband has a younger brother and it was his birthday too. The younger brother and his friends were busy setting up the basement to have a party later on in the evening. So, the house was really packed.

My friend has three little girls and the middle one is in second grade. She was busy trying to roughhouse with her Aunt and my friend kept having to pull her aside and remind her that her Aunt was pregnant. The little girl didn’t believe her and thought it was a joke so she kept trying to wrestle with her Aunt every time the poor lady sat down. Finally, my friend had enough and sat her down. She explained the whole process of pregnancy and showed her how her Aunt’s tummy was really big now because the baby was growing inside it.

So the little girl looks at me for a moment and then runs up to me with wild eyes and a huge grin. She squishes her hands into my stomach and screams, “You have a baby in your stomach too!”

“No sweetie. Auntie Dawn is just really fat,” I chuckled and shamelessly took another bite out of the potato chip in my hand.

Have you ever had an up close encounter with a person that was possibly mentally ill and really enraged?

When I was working at a pet store there was this gruff woman would come in to get her dog groomed and never pay. She would rant and complain about the groomer doing a bad job until she went through them all then she found new reasons to request her money back. She got away with not paying over half a dozen times and was told by the store manager that if she returned to get her dog groomed again, she would not get comped under any circumstances.

She came back and unfortunately for me she just had to be in my line. She hands me a check that’s unsigned and refuses to show me any identification. I let her know that we can’t accept an unsigned check as payment and I need to see her driver’s license and until she paid us, she could not go in back and get her dog (as per our store policy).

She started screaming in my face like a raving lunatic about us stealing her dog in front of her son who looked like a pre-teen. I called the manager’s office and the assistant manager didn’t answer the phone. I called for him on the loudspeaker and waited. Meanwhile, this woman is only gaining momentum. Shoppers are standing around just watching the spectacle and I was feeling horrible for her son, who was clearly embarrassed by his Mother’s rampage.

She got on the phone with her husband and told him that the fat bitch at the register was holding his dog hostage illegally and that he needed to come right away. They must live close because he came down to the store before the manager showed up. Things got really ugly. Now I had two people screaming and swearing at me. The husband handed her a purse and she threw her driver’s license at my face while telling me that she was going to make sure I would lose my job for the way I treated her: a valued customer. She hesitated about signing the check but finally did so after her husband started prodding her about leaving.

The assistant manager showed up but was just a sniveling little runt of a man. She yelled at him about me and he just sat there apologizing, begging her to leave like the bootlicker he was but she didn’t stop there. As she left she leaned over and made insane threats about things she would do to me if she ever saw me again.

Minimum wage is so not worth that shit. I thank the heavens those days are long behind me!

When I was Twelve, I started acting out because of the insanity, drugs and abuse at home. I found a much older group of teens that were willing to hang out with me and I became two different people. I was good when I was home and in school out of fear of my Father but the second I was out and about, I was out of control.

I started shoplifting on a dare and my skills impressed the others so much that I started doing it at every store I went into. The targets became bigger and more expensive. I never got caught but I came close once and it scared me into stopping. With the encouragement of my new ‘friends’ I also started smoking cigarettes, smoking weed and drinking beer.

One day I was over this girl’s house. She and her brother had invited friends over and everyone was having a good time. Everyone wanted to go shoot some hoops down the street except me because I was getting a headache so I stayed behind. As it turned out, I was, unknowingly, not the only one who didn’t go with them.

I was sitting on a stool in the kitchen with a glass of water in front of me, about to take some aspirin when someone shoved me off of the stool. I hit the floor hard and the next thing I knew this guy was on top of me, pinning me down. He was one of the brother’s friends, eighteen years of age and over six feet tall. I squirmed and struggled but he easily overpowered me.

The strange thing is that I felt intense anger instead of fear. I yelled at him as though he was a bad dog that piddled on my carpet. Cursing at him using every filthy word I had ever heard did not phase him and he started to use the free hand that was not holding my wrists to caress my body. He leaned in and nuzzled the side of my face and earlobe. I grew more furious with each passing moment.

His fatal mistake was leaning in too close to my mouth. I think he thought he was going to kiss me. I had other ideas. Without hesitation I clamped down onto his upper lip with my teeth as hard as I could. As he struggled to break free of me he let my hands go and I dug my fingernails into his face and tore at his flesh. During the struggle I was able, somehow, to get him off of me and I sprinted to the next room and locked the door.

When everyone finally returned, no one believed me. He had told them a story about how he was roughhousing with me and I went berserk and hurt him. They all turned on me. They told me that I was messed up in the head and they wanted me out of the house unless I apologized for acting like such a bitch and making up lies.

Needless to say, I left without apologizing but with my dignity intact. I also left with the knowledge that when push comes to shove, I am a hellcat who won’t go down without a fight. I never told my parents. I didn’t even know how to bring up the subject. Instead I stuffed it deep inside and pretended like it never happened. I often wonder if my silence allowed that monster to harm any other young girls. I will always regret not telling.

I think it’s finally happened. My Mom has snapped and lost her damn mind. My Grandmother who lives with her, called me all upset because the landlord called there today to ask about the rent money that was due on the first. My grandmother gave her money to go towards half the rent like she does every month and assumed the rent had been paid.

When pressed, my Mother admitted that she had blown the money my Grandmother gave her on a new Xbox and games for my little brother. She had the audacity to tell my Grandmother that she shouldn’t be upset over it because ’she is strong with the Holy Spirit and God will take care of them’. Her behavior is getting more bizarre and disturbing all the time.

To be honest, I think that new Church she is going to may be behind it all. From the pamphlets she brings home, I think she may have gotten herself involved in a cult that has the facade of a Christian organization. I want to find out more. She is always pressing me to go to one of their services or Bible Studies. I am thinking of taking her up on the offer. I want to see what impressions that place gives me.

On the other hand if I go it will give her hope that I’ll change my mind about religion and she’ll try her hardest to persuade me back to the ‘flock’. As much as I know she is a grown woman who has the right to screw up her own life she has two people that depend on her right now and I don’t want to see them out on the street because she’s living in a dream world. What would you do?

Sometimes our lives get so hectic, we lose ourselves in the shuffle.

At some point I know I stopped thinking,
I just allowed “us” to simply be.
At some point I gave up all my needs,
and took care of everyone but me.

When did I become so damn careless?
When did I become dumber than sin?
I need to hang up “missing” posters,
to figure out where my brain has been.

I don’t recognize myself at all.
This is not the young woman I knew.
How was the buoyant dreamer within
replaced by a cynical old shrew?

I reclaim myself as a woman;
I am more than a mother and wife.
I won’t lose sight of myself again,
and nearly abandon my own life.

Hope had this great idea for me to do a Q&A session with all my readers. So, feel free to ask me anything in the comments section of this post…. and I do mean anything. I have no shame and will air all my most sinful secrets, embarrassing facts, stupid mistakes, views, philosophies, fears, dreams and anything else you might throw at me. Nothing is off limits and nothing is sacred.

That pretty much sums it all up. Speak up now or forever bite your tongue.