BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

Today for my birthday - my friends were quite wonderful. But best of all was my children - who made and decorated a cake for me, did a magic show for me and got me thoughtful and lovely gifts that showed they have a tremendous amount of empathy and insight into their mother's character. I always worry that since my divorce as well as being disabled (and the disability is getting worse) I am not able to give my children what they want or be with them as much as they'd like. Of course those are my fears, not theirs. One of my children wrote this for me... it will be one of those MUST SAVE items every Mother has. After 12 years of infertility treatment, and then this particular child having severe 24 hr a day colic for 7 months - proved how worth it every single step of the way was.  And this child, after years of dreaming a big dream and very hard work - was accepted to Bronx Science . And what wonderful people my children are turning out to be. From my child, for my b...

A recent study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry focused on the prevalence of PTSD in Israelis. It stated: Israel has not known a time without hostilities. Therefore, an analogy between periods of "infrequent" terrorism in Israel and the situation that prevailed in the United States before Sept. 11, 2001, may not be accurate. Unfortunately, the analogy might be binding if further terrorist attacks reach the United States. In that sense, the comparison provided by this work suggests that recuperation from early distress will occur in a similar proportion despite an eventual incremental increase in the incidence of terrorism. The results of this work show that intense initial responses are important risk indicators of PTSD across traumatic events. They support the rationale of assuming a common pathological outcome (i.e., PTSD) to various traumata. In that sense, it is remarkable that the reactions to the more frequent motor vehicle accidents behave like thos...

From this great site: The not-so-bitter truth “You’re just bitter.” This is a phrase commonly used to silence women . Another variation says, “You are so unforgiving.” The bitterness accusation is used to bully a woman and tell her how she “should” feel instead of asking her how she does feel. Someone who uses this label expects her to pretend there has been no harm, no foul. She is expected to pretend the one who hurt her is a great person, even if she knows he is a terrible person. If she does not pretend, it is because she is “bitter and unforgiving.” Abusers nearly always sling this accusation at their victims. She may have accepted him back with open arms after a dozen violent episodes, but the first time she hesitates to “forgive and forget,” he will tell her she is a bitter and unforgiving person. If only it stopped there. The world does not want to hear the voice of the abused, either. Let her speak of abuse in the divorce hearing, and the judge may roll h...

By Yanki Tauber short/ cir/cuit (elect.): an abnormal, usually unintentional, condition of relatively low resistance between two points of different potential in a circuit, usually resulting in a flow of excess current. - Random House Dictionary of the English Language Do we love too much? Apparently we do. Many marriages fail for a dearth of love; an equal number are suffocated by an overabundance of the same. So desirous are we for connection, so hungry for communion with another human being, that we forget that for love to endure it must be complemented with an equal measure of restraint. So eager are we to give of ourselves to the one we love -- be it a spouse, a child, or a friend -- that we often give without consideration of the needs and desires of the recipient of our love. When passion is mitigated with a degree of inhibition, when intimacy is tempered with a modicum of reserve, love flourishes. But when all limits are betrayed, love burns out. A love relationshi...

I have had the pleasure of meeting & working with, in my domestic violence advocacy work - a number of former escorts and/or strippers. Most are quite intelligent having been drawn into a world they had no idea how to get out of. Almost all of them suffer from permanent, irreversible damage to their reproductive system. Almost all of those I know tell me while they didn't abuse alcohol or street drugs - they did abuse prescription drugs in order to deaden their emotional connection to the men they "serviced." Almost all had their pat "stories" to tell their clients to help sanitize the paid rape. All said to me they lied to their clients about how "great" they were or how much they enjoyed the session and what they did for a living. Almost all suffered from some form of poverty, and after leaving "the business" now have: post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, mood and dissociative disorders as consequences of prostituti...

The press will never get it, because it sells papers. A woman betrays a man and she's a HORRIBLE WHORE, SCUM , a COMPLETE SLUT. But a man betrays a woman - AND she becomes outraged and goes into a mental tailspin? He might be a CHEATER or DIRTBAG but she's a PSYCHO, SCORNED WOMAN, BUNNY BOILER, OUT OF CONTROL, STALKER , a NUTJOB . Just as the misogyny of the Obots shut down Hillary's rightful chances at the Presidency, misogyny still rules the day because women ARE NOT ENTITLED TO BE ANGRY. Especially when abused & used in interpersonal relationships. Nope, we women are supposed to take it. To women who were taught that it is unladylike to express anger, the presumably therapeutic yelling and cursing of the current let-it-all-hang-out generation is often shocking. But now a major new study has strongly suggested that both the old style of keeping anger in and the newer tendency to release it explosively are equally poor ways of expressing this fundamental ...