The Hand of Glory
I’ve been having a series of psychological breakthroughs recently, one thing leads to another, one step after the other, not so much ‘what is the next step?’ of creative decision making, but, this is the next step, of my health recovery.
It started with the reflection: why do I need people who don’t like me or who don’t have anything to offer, to like me? Then, why do I need anyone to like me? What does anyone have to offer that I need as an adult? Communication, companionship and sex are pretty much freely available, talk to strangers, ask for what you want, don’t be deeply weird. Simple.
The answer to my questions of course lay in the three major musts of Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy, if I’m not liked and don’t do well then I’m an asshole. There is never any evidence for this but we all suffer from this distortion from time to time. It’s the vulnerability of major life loss, enabling cult recruiters and other predators to swoop in promising instant friendship and blah blah blah. Health care workers at the hospital said that god is healing me but when I asked where was the fucker when I got sick I was called inappropriate. Go figure.
Neglect, in my life, started at birth when my coal miner serially unemployed father was diagnosed with the always terminal black lung (cancer) and my narcissist serial family sexual abuse survivor, the national sport of Newfoundland, mother, now had 4 young kids and a terminal husband to care for. She didn’t care for anyone.
We lived in a micro village in Alberta called Turner Valley with an outhouse and a wood stove converted to natural gas. Mom baked the daily bread and washed the clothes in a tub by hand which was converted to the kid’s bath on rare occasions. She used as much force washing the kids as she did the clothes. I still get anxious in the bath and prefer showers.
Empathy was not her strong suit, life was all about her. When protesting her neglect later in life to social workers I was sent to for depression, I was put off with “She had a hard life.” So did Mother Teresa and Gandhi was my response. I was called inappropriate. I remained depressed, alone and neglected. Social workers I find are morons, by trade.
My survival, in my mind, became dependant on my use to the family. Like the youngest child, traditional beggars in India, who have a leg amputated to motivate the passerby with guilt. The welfare income that paid the rent was conditional, decided by the number of kids. We weren’t to do anything to upset the welfare, like need new shoes, except once a year and even then it was better to do hand-me-downs and the Sally Ann, the Salvation Army. Low welfare profile. I had taught myself to tie my own shoes and then to read by age 4, with no one read me stories, I read my own. By grade 7 I was reading Steinbeck, I still love Cannery Row. I can relate.
But. I digress. These religious zealots in military uniforms came into our broken-down rental at Christmas with the leftover picked over Charlie Brown tree, used toys and the turkey. We called it ‘the bird’. I love birds and I hate eating turkey. Mom cried and they said some mumbo jumbo prayer and split for another year of holy ghosting. Or more likely, more child molesting by the fat bearded codependents that seem to fit the profile of those that tried to abuse me. as a child. Apparently, I’m inappropriate when I fight back. Apparently inappropriate means I stand up for myself and ask for what I want.
We were also neglected by the government aid which was run by Ernest Manning, a fire and brimstone Christian zealot who preached on the radio every Sunday for the 20 or so years he was in power. The manifesto of his Social Credit political party included opposing the worldwide Jewish conspiracy. These days the party was rebranded by his son Preston as Reform and helped to become the United Conservative Party headed by a moron from Ontario parachuted in to win the party nomination through sketchy means (under investigation by the RCMP) by former conservative Canadian Prime Minister Harper now head of the fascist IDU in Germany, who wanted the oil company payoffs and other backroom deals. Politics in my province are as filthy as the oil from the tarsands which generate billions annually.
I had the occasion to meet Preston at his rural log cabin mansion near Calgary. He received the urgent delivery I in my former day gig rushed out to him in a blizzard. He was playing with his grandkids in front of the idyllic fireplace. We chatted that it was nice to meet him and I thanked his hard-hearted father ultra-conservative Premier for making me a life-long Liberal with deformed feet due to lack of properly fitting footwear as a neglected welfare child, looking at his well-supplied grandchildren in the romping in the background. I watched his face change from his kindly public one to Darth Sidious about to strike at Luke Skywalker. He grew up on government pay as I did but somehow he became a millionaire. Funny how that happens.
Growing up we were told to fall back on the resources of the family, a mantra still heard today by folks here in Alberta in desperate need with no family. At home everything was about Mom, how hard life was for her, my needs were never considered. No little league (love baseball) or cub scouts (hate uniforms) for me. This philosophy is similar to the hospital where I lived for 6 months doing stroke recovery. I was unable to cut my toenails due to nerve damage to my hand and foot. It was a 2 handed job. I asked the nurse for assistance. “I’m not doing that. Get your family to help.” “I don’t have any family” was my response. She just walked away, appeals to other nurses had similar results. A 160 grand a year master’s level on a neuro ward doesn’t do nails. Or social skills. They often marry non-personality mechanical engineers, a match made in heaven.
I actually have a surviving sister and brother. He is a former career military nazi. We don’t get along since I had the restraining order issued. An appropriate method to deal with a trained mass murderer bully with impulse control issues as it turns out.
My sister is a sex cult (Tantra) recruiter who stopped talking to me ever since the night she showed up drunk and tried to fuck me. “Uh excuse me this ‘sisterly hug’ has gone way beyond weird, I think you should leave.” Makes me question how she gets along so well with my brother the mass murderer. I had to contact her from the hospital, “I need a family to cut my toenails”. “Eww I don’t even cut my own, I’ll pay to have yours done, I’ll drive over and take you to the mall.” “Will my wheelchair fit in your car?” “No I don’t lift things, I’ll get back to you.” That was the last I heard from her. Four years later I’m still waiting for that call. I’m not her predatory target market as it turns out, what with being low income and all.
My favourite historical novelist Patrick O’Brian describes what was called in popular British culture of the 18th century as the ‘hand of glory,’ which was said to bring good luck. In his novel, it was described as amputated from a person that had suffered a stroke where the nerve damage caused the hand to freeze into a fist causing the nails to grow right through the hand.
This was happening to me, hand and foot and the medical folks just said, ‘not my job’. My so-called family just walked away in their usual neglect. Probably my own ‘hand of glory’ is very lucky as well since for sure I no longer have a dysfunctional cult recruiter nazi murderer family to bother me.
I took a cab to the mall and paid for the manicure pedicure. A hundred bucks every two weeks. With no income and caught short in the gig economy with no benefits, few reserves and no family to speak of.
This is what it is all about of course. To the religious conservative, the purpose of life is to create wealth. If you interfere with that you're fucked. Wealth isn’t created by sharing, no matter what Jesus said, the church is just to look good and schmooze business deals. Sort of, well, exactly like, the Stampede.
Yahoo, you are on your own buckos and buckettes. Good luck and fuck ya! God Bless.
