I'm going to be depressed - No Blogging For Lent

[countressrascal]

Abilgail is going to close her blog for Lent-time to pray. I will miss her posting about how they live in poverty.

[pixydust]

So not cool, Abigail! I wonder what Mommy Mary would say?

[Jinger Jar]

*** Long Post Warning***

Abigail, do your children a favor and close your blog permanently. Use the time you previously devoted to Abigail's Alcove to get a job. Use that salary to fill your pantry and refrigerator with nutritious foods and to heat your house.

Enroll your kids in a school where trained professionals and paraprofessionals will actually teach them to be literate and numerate, to think critically, and to be productive citizens. Use the money you spend on your fencing and music lessons to get them extra tutoring in reading and math after school. By now God only knows how far behind they are academically.

Find an NFP teacher. You’re written so many times about how either you or your husband are afraid to have sex, which tells me you either don’t know how to check and chart your fertility, or you’re using a method that not’s right for your body. A trained NFP teacher will review your situation with you and your husband and make qualified recommendations. Yes, Catholics are called to be open to life, but we’re not called to be terrified every time we have sex.

Get a spiritual director. Look for someone who's familiar with the Carmelite charism. Discalced does not mean what you seem to think it does, either for a woman religious or a woman in the vocation of marriage such as yourself. It is neither just nor holy that your children are cold, hungry, and/or ignorant, and you desperately need to hear that from someone who understands the Catholic faith more than you or I do.

Start going to your monthly 3rd Order meetings. They’re required. You’re not going, and that’s coming out in your writing. You will get a lot of spiritual support and insight from them.

Finally, seek out a trained mental health professional, someone who's not acting as your spiritual director and NOT your parish priest. He may be the holiest priest in North America, but he doesn't have a background in therapeutic protocols. You need to find an LCSW, an MFT and/or a PhD, someone with a license who's held accountable to professional standards of conduct. If you think that only another Catholic can understand your situation, contact your diocese and get a list of Catholic therapists in your area. You owe it to yourself and your family to figure out why you think it's in any way appropriate to hope to become the parent of a child with a profoundly serious disease. You need to figure out why you routinely collapse on your children's bedroom floor and bawl hysterically. You need to figure out why you seem to alienate the parishioners you interact with and why you perceive them as hating you because of the way you practice your faith. You need to get some insights into why you use money the way you do and why you are the mother of five who still gets credit cards from mom and dad. And finally, you need to seek to understand why so many of your behaviors are maladaptive and ultimately very damaging to you, your marriage, your existing children.

Your children aren't stupid, Abigail. If they don't already suspect something's not right with your mental state they soon will, even if they don't have to vocabulary to express it yet. If you don't get help, you risk alienating them when they're older. As soon as they understand that they're being manipulated because of your misguided religiosity, that you use them as pawns in your own private passion play, they will distance themselves from you emotionally and, as soon as they're able to, physically. And I am as sure as I'm sitting here right now that they will distance themselves from the Catholic faith you love so much. They will blame the Church for what you put them through as children. Do you want that?

Abigail, I don’t think you’re a bad woman or a bad Catholic. I think you’re a mentally ill woman, but there’s no shame in that. No one is going to judge you for that and if they do, they’re ignorant jerks. But people can and do judge you for how you treat your kids, which right now is pretty shabbily. So use this Lenten season to get the help you need to better parent your little ones.

[So Says I]

Abigail, have you contacted the Villa Maria program with Catholic Charities? I'm not certin if it works in WVA the same way it does in MD, but they offer wonderful free an low cost programs with psychiatrists and therapists. This could be of great assistance to you and your family. Do you think she reads here?

[lilwriter85]

Abigail, have you contacted the Villa Maria program with Catholic Charities? I'm not certin if it works in WVA the same way it does in MD, but they offer wonderful free an low cost programs with psychiatrists and therapists. This could be of great assistance to you and your family. Do you think she reads here?

I think she does read here once in awhile. I got a feeling that one of her poverty follow up posts was in response to here. I also recall she deleted comments on her blog after that crazy entry where she said that she neglected by her mom. That entry was really shitty. She talked about how she felt neglected because she was placed in daycare as infant because her mom worked and her father was in grad school iirc. I think it was in December, when someone who knows her made an account here and commented about homeschooling in a thread.

[darareaksmey]

I'm glad she's going dark for 40 days. When I looked at her complete blog for the first time, I realized how much fun I've been missing. Lent ought to give me time to get up to speed.

[lilwriter85]

I'm glad she's going dark for 40 days. When I looked at her complete blog for the first time, I realized how much fun I've been missing. Lent ought to give me time to get up to speed.

I have tried to catch on her blog and her blog is pretty easy because some of her entries are short if they involve her doing Catholic activities or visiting monasteries. Lent might give me a time to catch on some of her old postings. I thought it was weird that she made several entries for Super Bowl commercials that she liked.

[NurseNell]

*** Long Post Warning***

Abigail, do your children a favor and close your blog permanently. Use the time you previously devoted to Abigail's Alcove to get a job. Use that salary to fill your pantry and refrigerator with nutritious foods and to heat your house.

Enroll your kids in a school where trained professionals and paraprofessionals will actually teach them to be literate and numerate, to think critically, and to be productive citizens. Use the money you spend on your fencing and music lessons to get them extra tutoring in reading and math after school. By now God only knows how far behind they are academically.

Find an NFP teacher. You’re written so many times about how either you or your husband are afraid to have sex, which tells me you either don’t know how to check and chart your fertility, or you’re using a method that not’s right for your body. A trained NFP teacher will review your situation with you and your husband and make qualified recommendations. Yes, Catholics are called to be open to life, but we’re not called to be terrified every time we have sex.

Get a spiritual director. Look for someone who's familiar with the Carmelite charism. Discalced does not mean what you seem to think it does, either for a woman religious or a woman in the vocation of marriage such as yourself. It is neither just nor holy that your children are cold, hungry, and/or ignorant, and you desperately need to hear that from someone who understands the Catholic faith more than you or I do.

Start going to your monthly 3rd Order meetings. They’re required. You’re not going, and that’s coming out in your writing. You will get a lot of spiritual support and insight from them.

Finally, seek out a trained mental health professional, someone who's not acting as your spiritual director and NOT your parish priest. He may be the holiest priest in North America, but he doesn't have a background in therapeutic protocols. You need to find an LCSW, an MFT and/or a PhD, someone with a license who's held accountable to professional standards of conduct. If you think that only another Catholic can understand your situation, contact your diocese and get a list of Catholic therapists in your area. You owe it to yourself and your family to figure out why you think it's in any way appropriate to hope to become the parent of a child with a profoundly serious disease. You need to figure out why you routinely collapse on your children's bedroom floor and bawl hysterically. You need to figure out why you seem to alienate the parishioners you interact with and why you perceive them as hating you because of the way you practice your faith. You need to get some insights into why you use money the way you do and why you are the mother of five who still gets credit cards from mom and dad. And finally, you need to seek to understand why so many of your behaviors are maladaptive and ultimately very damaging to you, your marriage, your existing children.

Your children aren't stupid, Abigail. If they don't already suspect something's not right with your mental state they soon will, even if they don't have to vocabulary to express it yet. If you don't get help, you risk alienating them when they're older. As soon as they understand that they're being manipulated because of your misguided religiosity, that you use them as pawns in your own private passion play, they will distance themselves from you emotionally and, as soon as they're able to, physically. And I am as sure as I'm sitting here right now that they will distance themselves from the Catholic faith you love so much. They will blame the Church for what you put them through as children. Do you want that?

Abigail, I don’t think you’re a bad woman or a bad Catholic. I think you’re a mentally ill woman, but there’s no shame in that. No one is going to judge you for that and if they do, they’re ignorant jerks. But people can and do judge you for how you treat your kids, which right now is pretty shabbily. So use this Lenten season to get the help you need to better parent your little ones.

QFT