Ah, Southern Baptists. You stay classy.

[Don Coyote]

I was trained to black out and beat the shit out of whoever started dishin'. So many fun ways to respond less than beneficially.

I'm not going to talk about what I was trained to do.  Coyote already has a good idea, even if he was a REMF, and not too many of the rest of you would understand.  Nigel probably would, on account of her family.

And, plainly stated, it isn't good to think about this sort of shit much, no matter what your background is.  Shit happens, you deal with it.  Everything else is just talking shit and raging for applause (even if the applause is just your own, in your own head).

I had a real good friend who came home from the Marines. And got called back twice to Afghanistan. And came back each time a little more . . . distant. He went boogedy and I haven't heard from him in over five years. So I kinda dig.

Sorry. I'll drop it.

No need to be sorry.  You weren't being offensive.  I was just saying it ain't healthy to spend a lot of time imagining committing acts of violence.  There's a reason people love war movies and gun camera footage.  It's horrible.

I can barely stomach watching the training videos for combat lifesaver training, which is highly concerning.

[Left]

I was trained to black out and beat the shit out of whoever started dishin'. So many fun ways to respond less than beneficially.

I'm not going to talk about what I was trained to do.  Coyote already has a good idea, even if he was a REMF, and not too many of the rest of you would understand.  Nigel probably would, on account of her family.

And, plainly stated, it isn't good to think about this sort of shit much, no matter what your background is.  Shit happens, you deal with it.  Everything else is just talking shit and raging for applause (even if the applause is just your own, in your own head).

I had a real good friend who came home from the Marines. And got called back twice to Afghanistan. And came back each time a little more . . . distant. He went boogedy and I haven't heard from him in over five years. So I kinda dig.

Sorry. I'll drop it.

No need to be sorry.  You weren't being offensive.  I was just saying it ain't healthy to spend a lot of time imagining committing acts of violence.  There's a reason people love war movies and gun camera footage.  It's horrible.

I can barely stomach watching the training videos for combat lifesaver training, which is highly concerning.

What is it that gives you the problem?
And is there a way to desensitize yourself to it?

Since there are dead people at my job, I actually went ahead and made sure to look if I needed to do something in the prep area and there was a cadaver.  The first time it was very jarring, and I decided I did not want to be jarred.

[Don Coyote]

I was trained to black out and beat the shit out of whoever started dishin'. So many fun ways to respond less than beneficially.

I'm not going to talk about what I was trained to do.  Coyote already has a good idea, even if he was a REMF, and not too many of the rest of you would understand.  Nigel probably would, on account of her family.

And, plainly stated, it isn't good to think about this sort of shit much, no matter what your background is.  Shit happens, you deal with it.  Everything else is just talking shit and raging for applause (even if the applause is just your own, in your own head).

I had a real good friend who came home from the Marines. And got called back twice to Afghanistan. And came back each time a little more . . . distant. He went boogedy and I haven't heard from him in over five years. So I kinda dig.

Sorry. I'll drop it.

No need to be sorry.  You weren't being offensive.  I was just saying it ain't healthy to spend a lot of time imagining committing acts of violence.  There's a reason people love war movies and gun camera footage.  It's horrible.

I can barely stomach watching the training videos for combat lifesaver training, which is highly concerning.

What is it that gives you the problem?
And is there a way to desensitize yourself to it?

Since there are dead people at my job, I actually went ahead and made sure to look if I needed to do something in the prep area and there was a cadaver.  The first time it was very jarring, and I decided I did not want to be jarred.

I'm going to cut you some slack instead of tearng you a new fucking asshole.

[Left]

Again, pissing someone off without meaning to.
I didn't intend to just be a douche, but I've succeeded anyway.

Fuck.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/katie-vyktoriah/what-happened-when-my-son-wore-a-pink-headband-to-walmart_b_3696113.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false

Well that didn't take long.

I'm not 100% convinced it actually happened.

You think it was staged or something?

No. I just smell something funky.

I mean, the lady posted this on her blog. It's not like anyone else saw it happen, and she didn't report it to Wal-Mart or the police, so there's no incentive for anyone to pull the surveillance tape and look at it. Yet. Now that it's gotten so much play someone's bound to.

Most of those "tapes" are memory buffers with about a week's storage, these days, except for the cameras looking down on the registers.

So there probably won't be any film.

Ah.

So, yeah, it's just a story that may or may not be true.

I know that if that happened to me I would be all "WHOA DID YOU SEE THAT?" and I would find an employee immediately, at the very least. I worked retail for 13 years, and while nothing like that ever happened, people were constantly tattling on each other and reporting weird shit and strange behavior in the store.


I can also see just going into shock and not saying anything and going home. But that's not really compatible with the "if you touch my child again I'll cut your hands off" statement, which seems remarkably self-possessed.

I dunno. Something probably happened. I'm just not very convinced that it happened the way she said it happened.

Some people come unglued hours after an incident ends.  Some people come unglued immediately.

Some just flee, and come unglued the moment they're safe in their homes.  I mean, you think about it, from a survival POV, she did everything right.

Which in itself gives me the hinkies.

But the thing is, the story might be true, on account of Texas.

But it might not be true, because as Nigel says, it doesn't feel true.  And a lie in service to a cause is still a lie.  The ends do not justify the means.

That all being said, I'm gonna go with "take her word for it because Texas" until something causes me to discredit it.

Yeah, Texas. 

But when my kid was two, his dad backhanded him and the next thing I knew I was trying to rip his face off his skull with my hands. No conditioning, never done that before or since, and I'm normally a blunt object person and I THINK first, if only for a split second. I'm pretty sure the mom thing is hardwired.

[Freeky]

I think it largely depends on the personality of the mother involved.  I very much doubt that my initial and immediate reaction would be violence, on account of intense self-conditioning since I was tiny to be non-violent, no matter who did what to me or mine.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

The disconnect for me, as I said before, was that she immediately confronted the guy - ie. not frozen - then somehow apparently completely forgot about that and went into freeze reaction. All in under a minute. And then was evidently angry at the other shoppers for neither intervening, nor comforting her afterwards. A man "verbally and physically assaulted" her son, she says, and NOBODY DID A THING. Outrage! How could they just stand by and watch this terrible thing happen, and DO NOTHING?

But a couple days later, when people are urging her to call Walmart for the CCTV footage and press charges, suddenly it wasn't that big of a deal. He meant to be friendly. He cuffed her son as one might pat a dog on the head. Suddenly, it wasn't assault, it was a well-meaning stranger who merely made a social gaffe.

That and her extraordinary amount of observation about his clothing and shoes just sounds... inconsistent. Unlike the way people really react in real situations.

I don't doubt that she had a real altercation of some kind. But I think the reason she didn't go to Walmart is more likely because things didn't go down exactly as she said in her blog entry. It's only been 4 days. She could still get that footage. I'm not saying that she should, but I am saying that if it isn't worth it to her to generate a potential landmark case that could raise awareness and deter future jackasses from gay-shaming toddlers in Walmart, then I don't see much justification for the outrage in her OP, just a raft of hypocritical attention-whoring.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I mean, go to her blog and read it for yourself: hxxp://www.amotherthing.com/

It's all "IT'S AN OUTRAGE! UNACCEPTABLE! WHYIOUGHTTA!!!" and then when given an opportunity to do something about it, following up with "never mind it's not that big a deal".

[Freeky]

Ah, yeah I see it now. 

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Yes. She gets EVERYBODY'S attention and then it's all "never mind, it's really no big deal..." 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Not to sound like a CREEPY INTERNET STALKER, but I have been curious about this story so I've been following up on her blog.

She has now taken down her blog, for two reasons:

Reason 1. The internet has threatened her with pizza delivery and she was forced to file a police report
Reason 2. (issued shortly after reason 1) Her server is overwhelmed with traffic so she had to take the blog offline.

It appears, from reading her blog, that she is extremely unstable, an attention whore, and a pathological liar.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lpWUO0Vc8owJ:amotherthing.com/2012/06/depression-suicide-love-and-redemption/+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:1CVbVmBxSm0J:amotherthing.com/2011/11/page/2/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Piece of work.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Yesterday:

A Mother Thing
12 minutes ago
Unfortunately I have had to take down the site and the twitter feed for a while. I can't cope, and I am now getting phone calls at home and threats of pizza deliveries to my house because our personal information has been posted online. I thank everyone for your support, but I can no longer discuss this online. I will be contacting the sheriff immediately to figure out how to protect my family from this and further issues. Thank you.[/center]

Today:

A Mother Thing is currently experiencing an overwhelming level of traffic and has shut down the servers. I have put the site in maintenance mode for a little while so that I can get it back up and running..

Please try back again soon.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

[Left]

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lpWUO0Vc8owJ:amotherthing.com/2012/06/depression-suicide-love-and-redemption/+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

It appears, from reading her blog, that she is extremely unstable, an attention whore, and a pathological liar.

From her blog entry:

After my hospitalisation, I was finally diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, which explains my inappropriate anger, my impulsiveness, and my self-harm. There is no cure, there is no real treatment other than talking about it, which I am loathe to do.

About that, she's wrong. DBT seems to work pretty well for borderlines...and doesn't necessarily involve plumbing your neuroses.
I don't know about the pathological liar...Note that her suicide attempt was, well, in the middle of a marriage falling apart.
But I know I would have pressed charges had some asshole messed with my child.
As far as self-injury goes, this is a very good book about the phenomenon:
http://www.amazon.com/Bright-Red-Scream-Self-Mutilation-Language/dp/0140280537

Not asserting a position.
...Noting the judgmental attitude...
You're not going to be working one-on-one with clients when you graduate, right?

[Doktor Howl]

Um, even if Nigel WAS going to be working one-to-one with people after graduation (my understanding is that she is not), then I'd assume her "bedside manner" would be very different than "discussing things on PD".

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

Wow.