Brandy's downward spiral beginning

[prairiemuffin]

Uh-oh. There's a flurry of posting activity on Brandy's latest blog about her new goals and plans, and it ends on (imho), a somewhat troubling note, with this message:

If Mama ain’t happy, Mama needs to go get happy.

This is coming from someone who seems desperately unhappy in a lot of aspects. So, how is she going to "get happy"? She has a pretty set pattern about trying to do a 180 all at once, getting really discouraged when she can't keep it up, and then throwing in the towel to some quite distressing outcomes, as history has shown.

thecormierfamily.org/Brandy/

[MerryHappy]

She just sounds so tired...like she has lost sight of the fact that she is worth something.

Makes me sad to read that.

[fundiefan]

She is repeating the cycle she has been in at least as long as I've known of her, and I'm guessing much longer than that. She is trying to change every.single.thing about her life in one fell swoop. That's when and why people fail. They take on too much. Rather than taking things one step at a time, they decide they can change overnight in every area they want change. She's been here before. Diet, exercise, family food choices, keeping the house clean, organizing, making the kids happy, school on track, bible study...all at once she is trying to create new habits and a new way of being. Habits don't develop over night and they don't change over night. To change and/or make new habits you have to focus. And you'll be more successful if you are focusing on one thing at a time as far as life choices go.

When you set yourself up for failure you can't really be surprised when you fail. Especially not when you're Brandy and you've been here before; so many times it kind of identifies you in Internet circles.

[mirele]

I scrolled down to her previous entry...she says she lost 12 pounds in a week, which is not healthy. And she's drinking a little Pepsi Throwback (? is that like Dublin Dr. Pepper, made with real sugar?) too. That's also not healthy.

[starfish]

She's pretty defiant about drinking the Pepsi throwback. Jason carried it five miles home or something. Way to sabotage your wife's diet, Jason!!!

She needs to get those kids in school. It seems to me she is in no frame of mind to homeschool them. Being in a structured environment with stable people is what the kids need.

[LadyBBR]

One thing I find interesting about Brandy is she continuosly maintains that everything is "easy" for her: dieting, organizing, parenting. It's not easy for anyone and if you can't admit that, you can't even hope for change.

I have to edit to add that I really appreciate Brandy (though I have only gotten to know her post-headcovering phase). I totally understand what it is like to be overwhelmed with all of the changes you want to make and little support in sight and I can also understand a worldview that is somewhat in flux. Of course, it would be nice if she didn't have to insist each time she changes that everyone who doesn't believe as she does at the moment is just following "nonsense" and "garbage."

[Wolfie]

She's pretty defiant about drinking the Pepsi throwback. Jason carried it five miles home or something. Way to sabotage your wife's diet, Jason!!!

And the wife's diet was SOOOOO healthy if she lost 12 lbs in a week to begin with. :roll: Maybe he was trying to keep her from starving herself to death.

[fundiefan]

One thing I find interesting about Brandy is she continuosly maintains that everything is "easy" for her: dieting, organizing, parenting. It's not easy for anyone and if you can't admit that, you can't even hope for change.

I have to edit to add that I really appreciate Brandy (though I have only gotten to know her post-headcovering phase). I totally understand what it is like to be overwhelmed with all of the changes you want to make and little support in sight and I can also understand a worldview that is somewhat in flux. Of course, it would be nice if she didn't have to insist each time she changes that everyone who doesn't believe as she does at the moment is just following "nonsense" and "garbage."

It is hard to make changes. But, and it's what makes Brandy Brandy, she tries to change everything at once every single time she decides to change. If all these things were easy to do, she wouldn't go through phases three times a year or more where she is fixing everything about her life and habits. If she acknowledged - to herself - that change is hard and takes work and effort, she might be more successful. If she acknowledged that it is so hard that she should focus on one life affecting change at a time, she might succeed. Then she could move onto another change she wants to make.

Instead, she is riding the hamster wheel of all or nothing.

I did have sympathy for her once and respected her for her searching and trying. But, after a while, watching her try the same things over and over and over and never learning made me see that she isn't ever going to change and she is no different than any other fundie who demands life be what they want and then rages against the world when it isn't.

[bea]

My brain isn't working this morning - which is Brandy's blog?

[prairiemuffin]

My brain isn't working this morning - which is Brandy's blog?quote]

Address is included in the first post on the bottom...

[jockosmom]

I scrolled down to her previous entry...she says she lost 12 pounds in a week, which is not healthy. And she's drinking a little Pepsi Throwback (? is that like Dublin Dr. Pepper, made with real sugar?) too. That's also not healthy.

As soon as I read the post about losing 12 pounds in a week, I thought - "OK, that's what's wrong with her". Her blood sugar is probably all messed up; rapid weight loss like that is NOT good for you.

To me, she just seems so isolated and because she's so isolated, she's got no perspective on anything. She's got energy with nowhere to expend it. Doesn't work outside the home, doesn't seem to go anywhere except the library, doesn't seem to have friends except on-line friends. She spends too much time on the computer, thinking about her own problems. She needs to get out of the house once in awhile.

[LadyBBR]

I have lost 16 lbs in 1 week. When you start out with a lot of weight to lose, it's not so shocking. That said, the first week is usually water weight.

[starfish]

Jockosmom nailed it. She needs to get out.

She could start by attending a real, live church for one, instead of Jason's Church of the Living Room.

Brandy seems to be a decent type of person. Does she have any family that could help her?

And I still think she needs to get those kids in school.

[fundiefan]

No, there is no family to help. They've both gone out of their way to alienate their relatives. Even the ones they lived with and who supported them at the time their youngest was born. Brandy's story of her youngest daughter's birth wasn't about the miracle of life, it was about how disgusting her in-laws are for forcing her to go to a doctor and give birth in a hospital.

They both have an all controlling need to be special, different and persecuted. And, if it doesn't happen, they'll make it happen. By doing so - by turning random events and words into persecution - they've created an island for themselves.

It gives them the life without question but it's also given them a life without support.

[bea]

Duuur, I told you my brain wasn't working. Went back up, found the link immediately.

Wow. She really needs some help - like, get out of the house, do something other than the homemaking-and-devotionals-and-childcare routine. She's REALLY isolated herself; sounds like her only interaction with other people is online.

[prairiemuffin]

Uh, so I'm guessing this is indicative of one of the many problems here:

I’ve been lazy about other things as well. Thankfully, there are some very wise and encouraging ladies on the internet and many of them have little challenges to help hold each other accountable and to encourage one another. So I joined a bunch of them. Nothing too much because I don’t want to get overwhelmed. But I do want to get back on track.

Yeah, so in all the time I've been reading Brandy's blogs, I don't recall her ever ONCE saying anything about an actual face to face friend. Everything is virtual, all of her friends are on the interwebz. Gads, I can't even imagine that.

:?

[quiningseven]

Thanks for sharing this blog- I rather like it! The vacillation reminds me a little of another lady I follow who swings wildly from dresses-only, homeschool conservatism, (sometimes mormanism) to atheist, public schooling, much less modest clothes meant to show off her boob-job. Gorgeous family, sweet gal, but holy cow- lots to snark on. There would be more if she posted more often/ didn't delete her blog all the time.

lilpeasinmypodfromgod.blogspot.com

[mirele]

Thanks for sharing this blog- I rather like it! The vacillation reminds me a little of another lady I follow who swings wildly from dresses-only, homeschool conservatism, (sometimes mormanism) to atheist, public schooling, much less modest clothes meant to show off her boob-job. Gorgeous family, sweet gal, but holy cow- lots to snark on. There would be more if she posted more often/ didn't delete her blog all the time.

lilpeasinmypodfromgod.blogspot.com

I feel very sympathetic towards this woman, because I know people who took the same trajectory out of the Mormon church: First feeling discontent, finding something they didn't like, then looking around and seeing conservative Protestant Christianity as an acceptable substitute, but seeing similar or different problems among evangelical Christians as well. As a friend of mine told me back in the 1980s as we were standing in the driveway outside anti-Mormon Sandra Tanner's bookstore in Salt Lake City, "If she [Tanner] turned the same scrutiny on Christianity that she does to Mormonism, she'd be out in a flash." Ms. Lilpeasinmypodfromgod is going through the same experience. I don't know if she'll end up where I'm at, which is outside Christianity, either as an agnostic or atheist.

Let me be clear: Mormonism or evangelical Protestantism can and does work for people as a religious belief and it can be very, very satisfying. That said, for some of us it simply stopped "working" after a while.

[Patsy]

I was looking for that blog a while ago, quiningseven. Thanks!

[quiningseven]

Mirele- the thing is, she was raised agnostic, or atheist. I think she just adopted religion because she looooooves having kids, and thought that was the only way to validate her choice. Had her first at 16 and now has 7 at 26. I like her because she's mostly honest through her swings, but I feel sorry for the kids with all the back and forth- moving a lot, being sent to public school only to be pulled out again a few weeks later, being unschooled by a mom who spells 'voila' w-a-l-a, mom going through very difficult risky pregnancies. Hopefully she'll start swinging less and less to the extremes and find an equilibrium.

[fundiefan]

Since I still haven't bothered to get out of bed I've been catching up on crazy blogs. I read the comments on Brandy's blog. On the post that lists off all her new ventures and Big Life Changes, someone said it seemed she was taking on a whole lot. Brandy responded:

Brandy

on September 3, 2011 at 7:30 pm said:

Hahahahahaha!! Guess you were wrong, huh?

Eh, it kinda all meshes together though, really. Several challenges are very similar, but none of them really take a whole lot of time. Jason woulda let me know it’s way too much if he thought it was

So, her husband would know if she took on too much? Her husband is the one to judge what she can and can't handle? That, right there is probably at least half of her problem with committing to things. She isn't deciding what to do or how much, he is.

It's all the more scary given who her husband is.

I really need to get up and do something other than kill time reading the crazies.

[Prek teach]

I ventured over to her blog for the first time today. Took a look at her fridge pictures and was surprised at how empty her fridge was. Pepsi, eggs, produce and condiments. Does her family eat dairy free? Interesting that there was no cheese, milk, or juice apparent in the photos. Maybe I'm just spoiled by my food packed fridge.

[LadyBBR]

They don't have a lot of money, so maybe that's why the fridge looks bare.

[fundiefan]

Also, without a car, Jason brings home the food from work so I doubt they do 'big' shopping and just get what he can carry at any given time. And he is apparently pretty gifted in that regard since he carried home five cases of Pepsi. But, by the looks of the Pepsi pack in the fridge it wasn't five cases but five 12 packs. Still a pretty cumbersome amount to carry while you walk home.

I rarely give any thought to what or amounts people have in their fridge or cabinets, as far as the bloggers who feel compelled to share. Everyone eats and shops differently. I give more thought to 'why' when they post the pictures than I do to the content.

[Prek teach]

I certainly remember when my DH and I had my daughter and we had very little money. Thank goodness for WIC which helped to provide produce, milk, cheese, juice and cereal. I was just curious if they were a dairy free family. I don't know how Brandy's husband managed to carry all that pepsi home.