CZ - you're a Number 1 Lady.

[Jacintae]

Hi CZ and everyone

CZ - it's so good to see you back. I did miss you but I assumed that you had life outside this board and were off 'dealing with other things'. It's so funny - I can't believe you would worry about your hair which I am sure is very beautiful. But it's so heartwarming to see you are so very human. I think hair is a bit like a garden - I always think other people's flowers are so very lovely - but when I look at my own garden, I sometimes just see the weeds and all the work that needs to be done. 

But your post made me really think. I suppose I imagine you as some super cool kind of Goddess. Do you know sometimes when I am stuck or feeling sad I ask myself 'What would CZ do in this situation?' - that's how much help you have given me and that's how much I respect and love you.

I guess none of us have ever met in real life and we all have images of each other.

I have an image of this board as a lovely group of women sitting around a campfire sometimes, sometimes in a boat on a lake. In Ireland when I was young we had a lot of imported US TV programmes. I once saw women sitting around making a patchwork quilt. When it was finished it was all made up of patches so diferent and yet they were all the same. I sometimes this this site is a bit like this. We are all in different places, different histories and backgrounds but the stories are really all the same story. Maybe I sound a bit mad but these are the images that got me through some really bad times. When I had intrusive images of the N, I try and switch back to the gals on this board. When I could not yet validate myself - those images did it for me.  

And one of the best things about it all for me is reading back on old posts. Sometimes I posted at emotional breakpoint. I would read the answers - sometimes not really taking in what was written, just so very thankful that I had connected with someone who understood. It is so helpful to me to read back on these threads. I can see my own situation more clearly and I can then carefully assimilate the responses I got. It has been a huge part of my recovery on this board and it has really helped me with NC. I think for me 'reason will always be the slave of passion' but when there is so much logical evidence of the awful situation with the N, then all my excuses for that guy have faded away.

Anyway it's so good to have you back, CZ. It really cheered me up to see you posting again. You and this site have been instrumental in me really finding strength to make some radical and fundamental changes in my life. Thank you seems almost inadequate.

I have come a long way since I met you all. I sit in a lovely room here in London and I know I am lucky. I have a beautiful weeping silver birch tree almost touching my window and have wonderful peace and quiet with two cats sitting sleeping on my desk. And a heart full of gratitude to everyone here.

Love to all

Jac xx

[Litha]

What a beautiful post Jacintae, you are a WoNderful writer.

I guess none of us have ever met in real life and we all have images of each other.

I have an image of this board as a lovely group of women sitting around a campfire sometimes, sometimes in a boat on a lake.

I like that image. I love floating around on lakes and sitting around campfires.

I have this image of CZBZ at Kathy Bates in Fried Green Tomatoes. I loved that movie!

I always saw you as Spanish because of your name, like a Spanish contessa who is very refined. Now that I know you are Irish Catholic I need to reformulate my image.

I imagine Legs and Honeybear looking like long-lost relatives that I haven't met yet at a family reunion. Germanic-nordic amazons.

That's all I can think of right now.

 
Litha

[Legs]

I imagine Legs and Honeybear looking like long-lost relatives that I haven't met yet at a family reunion. Germanic-nordic amazons.

and you would be right about me.....one side of the family is German, the other side is Scottish but up from the highlands and their last name comes from a "viking" name, so there ya go. I would have been a prize back then maybe when women were expected to fight and bear children on the go... The women in my family drop children like kittens...two hour labor and home the next day cooking waffles. You can't even really tell they're pregnant until the last month or so when they finally unbutton their pants and leave their shirttail untucked. We are almost all artists, though (according to one customer) I look like I should be driving a threshing machine in Kansas. Whatever that looks like..he came to my house one day and wanted a certificate reproduced. It was old, from around 1900, with a white vine Italian border, and I showed him some similar work, and then he said "Who's going to be doing the art?" and I said "Me" and he said I didn't look like an artist and I asked, what do I look like, and that's when he said the threshing machine thing.

I also have pictures in my head of people here, though not well formed yet because I am so new. I think CZ is 5'8", 140 pounds, slightly frazzly grayish brown hair, crinkly eyes and I can't decide if they are blue or green (if she has brown eyes, then I will have to think of her looking like my fist husband's ex-wife who I liked very much until he died and then she went crazy)

....I think she she has a rueful, sardonic smirk and a big belly laugh. I think she has a smoker's voice. I think she wears faded jeans and teeshirts at home and when she goes out, she has a spectacular jacket of some sort that she throws over everything and some nifty art jewelry. Not a lot...just a few really nice, large and unusual pieces. I think she keeps perfect time in her head. I think she works in silence though there is music playing in her head. I think she paints with pixels. I think she is an artist and yet practical and magical. I think she is efficient and sympathetic, but doesn't put up with a whole bucket full of crap. I think she likes children and dogs. I think she lived on a farm or visited a farm when she was little. I think she has a heart of gold. And I am NEVER EVER right about what I think people will look like. I actually assign people a face when I get to "know" them online. I give them a voice and imagine how they sit. Yes, it's crazy, but those words on a page become like characters in a book.

legs, who is just delaying doing the rest of her homework and getting a packet 'o crap ready for her attorney

[SusyP14]

I crown CZ the queen of the Nile,, I mean the Queen of Compassion and Shattering the Denial of what you are dealing with.



For me, she is angel on earth:



But not made of stone ....

[CZBZ]

What a lovely thing you have done for my self-esteem, jacintae! We never know if we are making much of a difference in this cold old world and then someone comes along and says, "I love you and you have made a difference in my life" and all those hours wondering HOW we can help or what we can DO, have 'meaning'.

I consider myself to be such an ordinary woman---it's easy to think the only people making a difference in our world are those big-time, self-promoting celebrities. So if you are not drawn to the spotlight and you don't particularly like lecturing or giving speeches and you can't figure out how to organize a book that anybody would read other than your mother, well...we can feel so powerless and helpless and irrelevant EVEN when we desire to do something to help people avoid or at least get through, a horrendous experience with full potential to alienate us from our true selves forever.

That's how I viewed it many years ago after discovering my naivete and trust, two values I like about myself and other people, was also the Entry Gate to being abused. My first reaction was to become cynical, a little bitter but not too bitter, to give up on my ideals and poke fun at my values. My first reaction, in other words, was to become someone I was not because good lord, who wants to get hurt like that again???? I imagined myself at a crossroads---one road leading to a safe, but isolated life; the other road leading to the life I 'thought' I was living. As much as I wanted to be invulnerable to hurt like that again, it was a lie...a total rejection of who I am, always was, and hopefully, always will be.

I began to see that other people were alienated from their best qualities, too and this made me so damn mad that I wanted to do something to let people know that they are WoNderful exactly as they are. Because WoNderful people only get more and more WoNderful as they age IF THEY CAN RECLAIM THEIR TRUE SELVES from the alienation we experience in the narcissistic relationship.

I hope that if my life has meaning to anyone other than my kids ( ), that people will see themselves in 'me' and realize that even a compassionate and golden-hearted person CANNOT make someone love them, if he or she doesn't want to.

You can be a Bodhisattva and the narcissist will say you aren't spiritual enough for them. You can be, well...let me think...you can be Mother Theresa and the narcissist will say you are selfish and you're only being kind out of self-interest. Narcissists do not, cannot fathom, altruism.

Reclaiming your soul from the narcissistic relationship means recognizing your fine attributes and doing them over and over again without being ashamed of yourself.

I want everyone to know that I have always been compassionate. I have always been a nurturer, a good friend, someone people talk with and feel validated (not judged). I am making it my life mission to complete the woman interrupted.

AND, I do love each of you, too which I believe is absolutely possible to achieve online. We might not want to sleep together but we can still love one another.  

"Do you know sometimes when I am stuck or feeling sad I ask myself 'What would CZ do in this situation?' " ~Jacintae

How funny! I do the same thing. How would CZBZ handle this situation? and it keeps me focused on the right thing to do in all the crazy fixes we get in during life. Maybe having an online persona is a powerful way for EACH of us to stay focused on ourselves and remind ourselves of the things we write so we stay TRUE to what we know? It has worked that way for me, to be honest. I'll write a message about an issue i feel strongly about and then when I'm waffling later on, that message holds me steady. Maybe it works that way for others, too??? Writing is such a grounding tool for making sense of our lives and telling us things we might not put into words otherwise. It IS truly amazing what we 'already know' once we start writing on a message board.

Your message made me feel so good, Jacintae. An ordinary, everyday housewife who felt as though her life was destroyed by a rat-bazturd, really CAN make a positive difference in this world and isn't that an amazing thing the Internet has offered to women?

Women are the first to 'tend and befriend' in crisis, which means that one way or the other, women will build each other up through our relationships and by God, things are gonna change on this planet!



Love,
CZ

 

[Legs]

That's how I viewed it many years ago after discovering my naivete and trust, two values I like about myself and other people, was also the Entry Gate to being abused. My first reaction was to become cynical, a little bitter but not too bitter, to give up on my ideals and poke fun at my values. My first reaction, in other words, was to become someone I was not because good lord, who wants to get hurt like that again???? I imagined myself at a crossroads---one road leading to a safe, but isolated life; the other road leading to the life I 'thought' I was living. As much as I wanted to be invulnerable to hurt like that again, it was a lie...a total rejection of who I am, always was, and hopefully, always will be.....

I began to see that other people were alienated from their best qualities, too and this made me so damn mad that I wanted to do something to let people know that they are WoNderful exactly as they are. Because WoNderful people only get more and more WoNderful as they age IF THEY CAN RECLAIM THEIR TRUE SELVES from the alienation we experience in the narcissistic relationship.

Hmmmmmmmmm, so it's going to be up to me to do that, huh? I sorta though it would either happen or it wouldn't. Once again, I read here the perfect thing at the perfect time....I don't have to decide now and I don't even have to ever decide probably. The person you are will probably still be the person you were as soon as you feel sage again.

Thanks all you WONderful chix!
Legs

P.S. I should know this, but is KON the Kingdom of Narcissism? Kinky or Naughty? Knowledge of nastiness?










 
[/quote]

[CZBZ]

Thanks for that comment, Legs. You're making me 'think' this afternoon...Perhaps other people didn't experience the same alienation and yes, self-hatred, as much as myself. I do know that what I loved about being me was suddenly perverted into horrible defects of character.  Instead of assuming my old self would suddenly rebound from this crisis, it made sense to focus on creating Patterns Of Behavior that would soon become so normal and natural they took no effort at all.

The thing is, we spend enormous amounts of energy trying to help the narcissist be the person WE want them to be but assume we aren't worth the same investment of time, energy and attention???

I always looked at a couple of amazing Aunties and how their character had become so wise and kind and naturally validating to us youngsters and I wondered how they got to be that way since we all have those relatives who hit grandchildren with their canes. When reading about abusers' repetitive patterns of behavior becoming so common and practiced that they assume it is normal, I got wondering about my own patterns of behavior. IF I wanted to be like my beloved Aunts, what did I need to be doing today???

that's more or less how I view 'self-change', especially after feeling alienated from our very BEST qualities!


Hugs,
CZ

[CZBZ]

Kathy Bates in Fried Green Tomatoes? (more like Kathy Bates in Delores Claiborn)

5'8", 140 pounds? (only in my dreams!)

An angel on earth? (don't ask my nephew for corroboration on that!)


We do create images of what people look like. We do this with books and then you watch the movie and the person YOU created in your head does NOT fit with the actor playing the part. That happens to me all the time which is funny if you never realized your imagination was engaged while reading a novel.

I have met quite a few people from online forums and usually (if they have posted a long time), they LOOK very much like the person I imagined them to be. Then I met Honeybear whom I pictured as a smallish, brown-haired woman carrying a Pooh pot in her little furry paws. In reality, she was over six-feet tall with NO FUR on her hands or her face. She didn't carry a honeypot either though she did bring us home-roasted coffee beans from her little pooh-kitchen.  

We had a thread a long, long time ago and people posted pictures of what they 'thought' forum members looked like. It was so much fun......and luckily, nobody posted a picture of Charles Manson or Hitler when describing the forum manager. hahahahahaha!!!

I may post a pic of myself on the new forum (yea, I"m slow but I"m steady getting the new website finished)...then again, maybe it's much more fun to let our imaginations run wild!



Love and hugs,
CZ

[SusyP14]

If anyone is wondering, I look EXACTLY like Pamela Anderson.  Especially the body:

[LettingGo]

I also see CZ with the Spirit of Towanda! Fried Green Tomatoes is what true Sisterhood is all about! Love it!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b9Z3MYo2M0&feature=related[/youtube]

[CZBZ]

Susy, you look EXACTLY like I pictured you.


And yup, LettingGo, I DO  look like Kathy Bates! Especially when I'm mad. Like the time i was so sick of my traditional housewife role that I baked a whole cake without even wearing my APRON!!!



LOL!!!!
CZ

[Jacintae]

Thank you CZ, and eveyone else here today. You say i did some thing for YOUR self esteem - but you have done so much for mine.

Love to each and every one here

Jac xxxx

[honeybearII]

This is really funny!  I have met CZ and several other forum members, and I am ROFL at the pictures being described by people here.  I also had pictures in my head of people and when I met them, all changed.  CZ, next time we get together, I will make sure I have my honeypot, LOL.

Isn't it fun to picture someone at their computer and try to figure out from their postings and screen names who they are and what they look like???  It is a lesson in reality, though, to meet and find out that even cyber-judgments about people can be so totally skewed from who they are in real life.  But it also is a wonderful thing to see someone's "inner workings" through their posts and then put it together with a real-life face.  What I HAVE discovered is that so many women underestimate their own beauty and their own uniqueness.

Honey

[eyes_up]

If people are honest in their writing then I figure it is possible to see more of the person then what is in a face/body. But what is funny after reading every ones responses is that I never really consider what people look like. I hear the energy of the words and get that persons energy.

"I'll write a message about an issue i feel strongly about and then when I'm waffling later on, that message holds me steady. Maybe it works that way for others, too???" CZ

YES, this is my experience as well. Not quite waffling but what I write about is generally what I have either accomplished or am working on.

I am happy that all managers, CZ, Tedi, and Practical Jude are back on board.


eyes_up

[Legs]

I think what's happening is that somehow, someone on the board reminds us of someone we know in the "real" and so we maybe subconsciously transfer those physical characteristics to the cyber friends. What else could it be?

And as for knowing someone by what they say online, I am iffy on that because I think sometimes (a LOT of times) we can't hear the "tone" of the post, only the actual words and some people are great at expressing their thoughts and others just aren't. I think for a long time, I re-did my posts (not here..I am talking many years ago) until I felt like there could be no misunderstanding of what I was trying to say, and eventually "I" disappeared. So now, I just write (and I'm sure people say, "that poor girl doesn't know understand where a comma goes or even that there *is* such a thing plus she can't spell....how we judge ourselves!!!) whatever comes out. I am alarmed when people snip at each other about something someone said. I almost always have to go back and read what they're angry about. I think I read a lot of stuff people say and I think, well...that's just crazy, but it doesn't usually make me mad.

I think they haven't had the same experience or maybe they're not a native speaker, or maybe they're having a crappy day. Ok, blah, blah. Sorry. I think I'm just nervous because I have a small surgery scheduled today and I don't have anyone to go with me or check on me. My best friend in town is out of the country. Now this is the sucky part of living alone.


Legs

[CZBZ]

Will you please report back to the WoN board after your surgery, Legs? Wishing you well and sending good thoughts your way!

I've been very lucky in maintaining strong relationships with people online and overtime, we begin to see this person from the inside out. So for me at least, conversing with people frequently can also be an intimate experience because one thing we're good at on WoN, is getting down to the nitty-gritty and telling it like it is. Rare it is to meet someone after talking to them on the forum, and have them be completely different than they appeared to be online. This does not apply to 'dating' forums. 

I can tell everyone that after getting to know people on WoN and then meeting them in person, there is one characteristic that is true for each person: they are incredibly kind. they are loving. They are tender and interested in other people's lives. They connect on an empathic level that might take years in a face-to-face relationship. We do things backwards maybe: we get to know someone intimately and then we get to know them on a surface level which means nobody gives a whit if you have bad hair, great hair, no hair or hair on your back.

Hugs,
CZ

[Legs]

Yes, I will CZ and thanks for asking! I have to get used to not having another person in the house when stuff like this happens. I should have called someone and asked them to go with me, but they didn't tell me I couldn't drive afterward.

Of course, I forgot to ak them that too but they would have told me probably if I shouldn't.


Legs

[LettingGo]

Legs, I hope your surgery goes well. Keep us posted. I understand your longing. I have this terribble summer cold, which a couple of days really took a toll on me that I woke up Sat morning thinking it was Friday and wondering why my H wasn't going to work. I lost a complete day! When you get so worn down you wish you had a Mom to come over and at least take care of your child while you rest, or fix you lunch and give you a big hug. So I just want to send ya a big hug and tell ya we care for you.   

[Legs]

Thank you, LG. Yes, please come right over and make me some hot tea and b-r-r-r-r-r-ring me my rubies!!


Legs

[betterdays]

Well, I miss a day here and look at this great thread!  Legs, whatever you do, DON'T LET THEM TAKE OUT YOUR FUNNYBONE!!!  I do understand completely about being alone after surgery.  N would take D out and not come back, so after the first, I got a tiny fridge and put it next to the bed, made sure the phone was near, and turned on the t.v.  It sure is nice to have someone who cares to bring tea and soup, but N's make your tea with faucet water and give you cold soup!  Do you have neighbors?  I found the people next door are very willing to help, if they just know what is needed.

About CZ:  I felt from the first desperate post I made till now, that I have a friend who truly understands.  I did not know who the managers were, but they also came across as people who have been in the trenches and can give me the right words and direction.  How funny that some have mental images of each other--I have a list of qualities based on the things they say.  It is more of a feeling, or map of the person that I receive from posts.

[betterdays]

ps to Susy--don't we all look like that? 

[LettingGo]

Legs, these are the times I wish we had that Star Trek transporter so I could transport myself over there and and bring ya some hot   homemade chicken soup and some homemade rolls. Maybe someday we can all meet a place like in Vegas for a WoN get together and have lunch at the Bellagio Cafe.

For me I don't really picture physical attributes of someone more like their Spirit or like Eyes says their energy, and the energy of WoN has that Ya Ya Sisterhood! It is like those great Sisterhood movies rolled up into WoN. I imagine CZ's heart song would sound some thing like this. . .

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tg0T_LtV63U&feature=related[/youtube]

The is Authentic Beauty

[CZBZ]

Love the song, LettingGo! My daughter asked me one day what I wanted engraved on my headstone and I quipped: "Here lies CZBZ, a trustworthy friend." To me, friendship means caring, sharing, seeing, hearing, being there for people through thick-and-thin. What we lack in our society are friends who can bear our burdens with us. Friends who will let us grieve. Too many people believe their role as a friend is to give advice or tell each other what we ought be doing or feeling or saying or believing so they feel comfortable hanging out with us.

To be told I am a good friend is the highest compliment of all...  


Love to all,
CZBZ

[LettingGo]

You know they say a true measure of a person is how many people show up to their Memorial Service. Many, many, many years from now it will be standing room only at CZ's Memorial.

Too many people believe their role as a friend is to give advice or tell each other what we ought be doing or feeling or saying or believing so they feel comfortable hanging out with us. ~ CZ

Yes, there are too many Counterfeit Friends in the world, who want to give advice instead of love. I would rather have one Authentic Friend than 100 Counterfeits. Even my Handsome Prince had a "fix it problem" and would get so frustrated because he couldn't fix my problem (the Momster), and I told him I don't want you to fix the situation just understand, relate, and empathize to the situation and express a shared emotion, like being pissed off at a vicious Momster who enjoys hurting  her child. You are angry to aren't ya? ...Yes, I'm angry too, but does that help if both of us are upset?----YES! ...So when you tell me about something you don't want me to fix it? ... That's right I am not asking you to fix it. I will let you know if I want you to fix it and will say can you fix it. I am just sharing my life, not asking you to fix it, just experience it with me. He understands now that I am not looking for help to fix or to change the situation, just to be with me in the moment, I'm not looking for an explanation, or a fixed situation, just loving Validation. He has learned to put the Big Red Cape down too and that being a Hero doesn't mean saving just understanding and compassion.

[Legs]

Ok, all that build up for nothing. After looking at The. Big. Cyst. today, they decided they can't take it out in an office procedure, so <ka-ching> another 56 bucks for them and I have to reschedule it as another "procedure" which will not be done in the office, but some nebulous place of which I know not where it might be. "In the clinic" is all they said..

I said ok, fine..maybe later but I'll let you know. Supposedly nothing is all that bad unless it starts "bleeding" (ick) and then I am supposed to call them.

And thanks for the cyber chicken soup and HOMEMADE ROLLS! I think I could live on bread and butter and CHEESE.

Legs, thinking they should have paid ME for my time, but it hardly ever works that way!