[VeryFoggy]

I haven't posted anything for a long time.  Not because I don't think of you all, but because I felt I had nothing to say. But I think I might be cured.  I haven't had a flashback in months. And any anxiety I have experienced has been quite manageable. But, I am afraid of the upcoming holiday season, so am continuing therapy with my beloved therapist until at least after the first of the year, just for extra moral support.

Here is a summary I wrote over the last couple of days of what this journey has been like for me.

When we with CPTSD are children we are taught we don’t know our own minds, we are taught to not trust ourselves, we are taught that we are possessions, and worth only what the insane one decides for the day.  We have no safety, no sense of balance, no security, nothing to rely on and count on, and worst of all?  We are turned against our own selves.  We are taught we are to blame for almost everything wrong in the universe.  It is a terrible crushing burden for a child to bear and eventually the child’s spirit is crushed. She does not have adult knowledge or maturity.  She only knows she is wrong at every turn, there is no pleasing, and worst of all she is brainwashed to believe that her very thoughts are wrong, bad, evil. And she is taught that all of the evil the insane ones perpetuate?  Is her fault.  There is nothing right with the world.  And so CPTSD is born. Hopelessness coupled with trauma creates CPTSD.

But in my case I think the most important things I took from childhood were two stories that I absorbed into my being.  One was the little engine that could.  I BECAME that engine.  I think I can, I think I can.  And Rudolph.  I just knew in my soul if I persevered and suffered and struggled, someday, someone would recognize that I had a lot to offer and ask me to lead the sleigh someday. I trusted this with all of my young heart. It kept me alive.

So I tried, I became superhuman. I tried to forgive everyone and everything.  I tried to be understanding and accepting of everything.  I tried to be perfect myself. I realized the other night that MANY people have come to me for help, shelter and solace.  My niece came to ME for help not any of her other uncles or her aunt.  And help I did, plane tickets, loaning her my car to get to work every day, straightening out the mess of her legal situation, helping her get a job, giving her a home and a safe place to live.  My aunt who was suffering from back problems stayed here 6 months while getting treated.  My sister’s best friend stayed here to try to recover from the death of her husband, my own son and my grandson, despite many screw ups are still permitted shelter and refuge here.  And earlier in my life, I took in my sister when she had nowhere to go after a divorce.  I took in my son’s friends when their own parent’s said no more, I gave them shelter. And my daughter’s friend K?  She also stayed with us for a time.  And my daughter and her daughter moved in with me for about 6 months. Even my own father - I tried to house him  for 4 months while he was being treated for back problems.   I offered my boyfriend a home too, if he would just divorce and walk away.  So I have helped many, many people over the years. And I all of the sudden I realize none of my siblings has ever done anything like this. So that right there makes me different.

But one day I got fed up with the treatment I was receiving from the Disordered and I said no more.  No more abuse as recompense for my generosity. I quit.

And life changed. Forever. I began the agonizing journey of healing. Because as hard as it is to stay still and suffer unjust and unfair treatment?  It is even harder to stop it and suffer the losses, and learn the truth and stop pretending everyone loves me.  Really deep down inside somewhere inside of me, I believed everyone did have a shred of love for me.  How could they not?  I was perfect! I opened my home to them, I gave them clean beautiful warm beds, soft towels, I made them beautiful meals, I treated them to beautiful sumptuous luxury that I earned from the sweat of my own brow, I shared it with them, and I turned the other cheek over and over and over as they slapped me for my trouble and it doesn’t work.  Because in order to do all of this giving?  I had to treat myself badly.  I had to accept that I was just not good enough no matter how hard I tried.  I had to believe them and agree with them that bad treatment was really all I deserved. One day I said no more.  And I started asking for more. Each person got about a year, and plenty of guidance from me of what the problem was, and what I expected from them moving forward.  And I can even sum it up in one word:  Respect.  I wanted to be treated with respect.  And without it?  We weren’t going to have a relationship anymore.  I got no takers from the Disordered.

My father declined, my boyfriend declined, my roommate declined, my sister declined, my son declined, my grandson declined, and one of my brothers declined.

This is where I entered therapy.  About a year before I started therapy I had decided no more.  Either respect me and treat me accordingly or get out.  And I tried mightily with each person.  I read 40 books and different ones geared towards each relationship, I wrote letters to them, I tried techniques, I studied all day long every single day.  I WORKED at it as hard as I possibly could.  While each one of them did exactly?  Nothing.  They were happy with the situation as is.  I give and give and give and they beat the crap out of me verbally or emotionally, and kick me around, and make sure I understand I really don’t deserve anything better.  So when I woke up and decided that was not what I could be happy with, then true agony began.  A year of agony. I knew in my soul I deserved better, but they were all saying no, you don’t. 

So I went into therapy almost a year ago with this plea:  I can’t get along with anybody. And they say it is me, but I don’t believe it.  I think it is them.  I think they are all Disordered and this is blowing my mind.  How can they all be crazy and I be the only sane one in this whole bunch?

Then another year of agony. Therapy. As my therapist told me last week:  Things often have to get worse before they get better.  And it did not get better the way that I would have wanted it to.  I lost them all, but?  I gained myself, the person I really am. I am finally me.  I am no longer a people pleasing perfect robot struggling to try to make insane crazy disordered people love me and respect me. I can accept now that they CAN’T love me, there is a hole in their soul and they are not capable.  And I can mourn for them, and be sorry for them.  But at the same time KNOW deep in my soul I MUST protect myself from them, as they offer me nothing except pain, pain, pain and more pain.

I am now:  Happy, joyful, pain free, whole, healthy, strong physically, drinking less than I ever have before in my adult life, excited, content, inspired, thrilled, at peace, accepting, and trusting of myself to KNOW things.

Again and again and again I come back to:  Each person has been given a task of what is needed to repair the relationship with me and each one declines.  Simple tasks. Really. Simple if you are HUMAN!

Nutshell to The Disordered:  You hurt me, I didn’t deserve it.  Apologize, ask me to forgive you, commit to do better and let’s move forward.  And Nobody can do it!

I think that has been the HARDEST part of getting well.  First believing I had a right to decent treatment, and a right to expect an apology and a request for forgiveness, and a right to expect better treatment moving forward. And quaking and shaking in my boots all the while as I first timidly asked for it.  Due to PTSD I was petrified to do it. 

But, I changed.  Instead of just apologizing to them for their upset at me, which is what I have always done to try to keep the peace, instead I asked correctly, finally, for the first time for them to apologize to me!  But Oh my dear God how difficult the struggle became when I realized and slowly learned to accept that not a single one of them felt I was worth that apology and that better treatment moving forward. 

It was tough! It made me doubt myself all over again, and search my conscience and soul over and over again to try to find the horrific flaws within me that prevented them from giving me what I felt I deserved.

But in the end I could not find them and that search only solidified and cemented my own beliefs about myself.  And that is that I am worth loving, and I am worth treating with respect, and there are some sick people in the world who are more interested in controlling me than loving me. And who want to use abuse and imagined slights to justify it.  Their world is made up.  It doesn’t exist.  It is a fantasy and they have dragged me into it for my whole life and I ain’t gonna do it anymore!

Thank GOD for my therapist, and the books and these forums. Where I tore myself apart and rebuilt myself all over again. Or maybe a better way to put it, is I found my TRUE self, I embraced myself, I accepted myself, I  learned to love myself, and to care for myself, and I learned to EXPECT others to do the same, and to ACCEPT that if they won’t?  There is something wrong with them, and not with me.

And one of the hardest realizations of all?  Was that this entire time?  I was the one carrying the whole relationship on my back.  Whether that relationship continued or faltered and died was completely on me.  Because as soon as I stopped trying to make up for their shortcomings through whatever sacrificial mean possible, be that laying myself out on the altar for sacrifice as the scapegoat, or else handing them the nails to pin me to the cross?  As soon as I stopped doing that?  Each relationship died a very swift and fatal death. There literally never had been anything there at all.  I was the one carrying the whole load of the relationship the whole time. And without me there to act as the scapegoat?  There literally was NOTHING left.

Learning how NOT to do that has been one of the most difficult lessons I have had to learn in my entire life.  But what a happy pay off in the end! Despite the losses which were extremely painful to face, and to accept, and to mourn?  I now have me.  Better, stronger, smarter than ever, and with a deep KNOWING in my soul of my value and my worth and what I deserve and what I do not.

Another thing that has been hard to accept is that just because these people sometimes do nice things for me?  It is STILL not enough to make up for the cruelty and the abuse and the poor treatment.  My sister has given me many beautiful gifts.  My boyfriend has been a virtual slave for me as far as doing work for me on my home. Even my father the source of my PTSD has had his moments. I was educated given medical care and dental care and clothed and fed.

But despite these apparent outward trappings of caring?  My sister also felt free to attack me whenever I was down and kick me verbally, and criticize me and my decisions and way of life. She went out of her way to inform me of how superior she was to me and what a weakling I was for having PTSD.  My boyfriend felt free to deceive me for 17 years that he would divorce someday, and we would marry “someday.” Elaborate lies. For years and years and years.   My father felt free to put me down every chance he got and to attack me privately about how I was living, what I was doing with my life, what sort of a Christian I was (a wrong one) and he tried to convince my daughter that I had ruined my life and that I was such a disappointment. Slyly he told her that she found favor in his eyes because he felt she was not following my example. He just dismissed my whole life of struggle to be good and to help people in one sentence.

But it changed my life when he did that. The scales fell from my eyes and I could “see.”

So I had to accept that yes, these people could sometimes do nice things?  But it was STILL not enough to make up for their unfair undeserved disrespectful treatment and their complete and total lack of compassion or empathy.

I had to accept that each person had an agenda. I was being sucked dry by vampires. Whose sole motive in the end was about winning and control at any price, even giving up their own immortal souls. They were willing to sell their souls to keep being abusive, ugly, nasty, impulsive people without a shred of self control in their minds or bodies.

And I had to just walk away and learn to love me anyway even if they did not.  I had to learn that just because they did not love me did not automatically make me a bad and unlovable person. It was a long slow hard lesson to learn.

For a very long time there was only God, my therapist and my daughter left in my life that I felt truly loved me. A long, long time.

But conquering PTSD? Or what feels like I have conquered PTSD due to the long spell of pure peace that I have enjoyed?  I see now that PTSD actually kept me ensnared in these awful, awful relationships.  Because I could not stand to lose.  I was desperately trying to make these relationships work.  I thought if I just tried harder I could make the pain go away. I thought if I just tried hard enough I could end the pain, the anxiety, the fear, and the terror. But it could not be ended, because these people could not stop abusing me.  They quite literally can’t do it.

And so there was only one way to end the pain, and that was to end the relationships.  Give up.  Stop trying.  Stop believing it is even your job to try. I was only one sane injured beaten person fighting a host of Disordered people who could not stop themselves from hurting me over and over again for NO REASON.

They could not see me, hear me or understand me. Because they were not human. And my solution to try to become superhuman and able to endure beyond all reasonable endurance did not work either.  Just as they could not stop abusing me, I could not make them stop either.  No amount of good behavior on my part was going to ever earn their love or fix them. And I had to accept that at some point in time I had become addicted to the pain.  That I felt like that was a normal way to live.  Being constantly anxious worried and scared and waiting for the axe to fall over and over again.  I had to cut myself off from the source of the anxiety and pain and learn to live in peace and serenity.

And the longer I stay away?  The happier I am. There is a direct relationship between my happiness quotient and the loss of each toxic relationship.

Daily I become stronger, trust myself more and am starting to reach out to others, those who are not Disordered and to do things for them. And slowly my network is building and I have more friends by the day.  As I slowly gain in confidence and learn to ask people to help me?  Most are happy to do so!  And I in turn am also happy to help them as well. And now?  My life feels fuller, richer filled with true friends. And I trust myself a little more every day.

And I think I might be cured. And it only took 2 years of agony to get here, but now that I am I would not trade this place for anything in the world!

So I am wishing this peace and joy upon each of you today.  The forums help.  Tremendously.  But ultimately it is still a journey one takes alone. And I hope my struggles will encourage someone who may be in despair. I hope you can be encouraged to know that eventually it ends, the struggle ends.  You must do hard things, probably harder than anything you have ever done?  But it will pay off in the end.

Again I would not give up my new found peace joy and trust in myself for anything. It is wonderful to just quietly live a peaceful and happy life.

[C.]

Very Foggy.  Welcome back and thank you.  Your story and stories continue to inspire and uplift.

[woodsgnome]

Well put .

While we have different paths along this trail called recovery, you hit the key component by saying:

"I gained myself, the person I really am. I am finally me.  I am no longer a people pleasing perfect robot struggling to try to make insane crazy disordered people love me and respect me. I can accept now that they CAN’T love me..." And found that "I'm excited, content, inspired, thrilled, at peace, accepting, and trusting of myself to KNOW things."

That's huge, and the inspiration, thrill, and peace shines through in your courage to share that story, reminding us that we're all "little engines that could."

Thanks again, and congratulations.

[Dutch Uncle]

Thanks for sharing.
It's a lot to take in for me at the moment, but I'll be going over your post quite a few times more.

Congratulations. I have found your story inspiring.

 

[Golden Tapestry]

 
Well said Foggy!  So clear when the fog has lifted!!     

[VeryFoggy]

Thank you all for your very encouraging responses!

In another thread  - http://outofthefog.net/C-PTSD/forum/index.php?topic=991.0 I read an extremely interesting discussion on Freeze types and being untreatable.  I always thought I was a Freeze type because when I get triggered I freeze in fear, pain and terror and cannot think or move or speak. But maybe that’s not a freeze type at all?  Because there is also much discussion about dissociation and NOT feeling.  But in my case?  I FEEL.  I feel so much emotional pain, and so much terror, that I turn into frozen petrified wood.

Anyway the discussion started me thinking of my own journey. And the first thing I did after being diagnosed with CPTSD and was able to start thinking again?  Is to almost immediately decide to start treating CPTSD as a friend, my best friend, and as a warning system that something was WRONG with the way I was being treated. Instead of fighting it or running from it, I embraced it as a friend that warned me when people were behaving very, very badly towards me. Because that is the only thing that triggers me – bad behavior towards me. Don’t know if that makes me “lucky” but that is the only thing that ever triggers me into a small EF, on up to a tsunami sized EF.

Next up was slowly but surely realizing that maintaining my hypervigilance was impossible and would drive me crazy.  Sitting around in a corner watching everyone and everything was going to drive me bat sh** crazy. And finally accepting that there was NO WAY I was ever going to be able to predict all of these people’s reactions all of the time.  Because even though I tried to be hypervigilant? They STILL managed to sneak attack me out of the clear blue sky, so hypervigilance was simply a waste of my time and my energy.  And a thankless, fruitless, and impossible task.  I had to accept hypervigilance was not the answer.  Also I found I simply could not remain on hyper alert every single moment of every single day, and sooner or later I was going to let my guard down and relax.  And it would be just at that moment that my relaxation was going to be sensed by the Disordered, and then it was going to be WHAM!  An unexpected attack that would freeze me and take me down mutely, and totally paralyzed from the emotional pain of the attack.
 
So then came the next step.  Okay if hypervigilance isn’t going to work and in fact will destroy me with anxiety, then what will work?  And I found boundaries.  This was the absolute hardest part of the entire journey, and it took months and months, and many, many books, and much therapy to reprogram my brain to believe that I was entitled to have boundaries, and to believe I had the right to enforce them.  This was a totally new and radical concept to me. To have boundaries and to enforce them. But more deeply than that, I needed to absorb them and the concept into the many, many layers of the onion, and down finally into my core soul and being. I had to absorb the understanding that I could solve this whole problem. And not by trying to anticipate (and failing miserably) what others were going to do, and how they were going to act, and what they were going to say,  but instead, all I could really control is myself so?  I had to decide what sort of behavior, words, actions and treatment were going to be okay with me, and set the boundary and the consequence accordingly. 

Much, much easier to do than trying to watch everyone all of the time!  But hard, hard, hard to do when deep down in your core you do not believe you have the right to boundaries.  This called for some major, major brain reprogramming on my part. And after months and months of working on my brain, and then taking it still ever deeper on down into my body, then on down to a bone deep cellular level.  Until finally I realized that I now had deep knowing in each cell that I deserved to be treated well, and that boundaries would ensure that I was either treated well, or took care of myself in an appropriate manner with consequences.

And mixed throughout all of this was waking up and learning to feel anger.  Righteous clean anger for mistreatment. And learning to channel that anger not into revenge or fights?  But boundaries and relevant consequences.

I did have to clean house and usher an enormous number of people completely out of my life.  And then spend a very long period of time completely alone except for God, my therapist and my daughter.  And mourning and grieving the losses.  But for the last month or two, I have started reaching out to old friends that I did trust in the past.  Old friends who in the past were not boundary busters, people who were just nice, normal, boring, peaceful, peace loving people who really just want to get along and to be supportive to others. So I also had to accept that I had been addicted to trying to control the Disordered (stop them from mistreating me) and it had exacerbated my CPTSD symptoms. 

But now by actively avoiding and cutting off contact with these types of people, and instead only pursuing relationships with people who were NOT going to trigger me?  I could live a peaceful, joyful, happy, calm life and have friends where it wasn’t a battle of wits or will or skill. Just peace and empathy and compassion. I have started to trust myself to make good choices, and so far it is working.  At first I was scared to death to trust myself to be able to tell who I could trust, but by taking baby steps and reaching out, just a little bit at a time?  Well, I am slowly teaching me I can do it and do it well.

Now with all of that being said, and now being happier than I have ever been before?  My therapist has told me that I may never be completely cured from CPTSD.  But I am okay with that.  CPTSD is my friend.  It is my own personal warning system that I must DO something for myself.  So I don’t mind knowing I will probably always have it.

Si it took me two years of dedicated persistent dogged effort and lots and lots of time.  Time spent journaling, sorting, reading, learning, reprogramming and finally absorbing.  The absorbing part was the only effortless part of this process.  And that part came slowly after I actually confronted the sources of the triggers, setting the boundaries and the consequences and surviving to live happily ever after.  I did it in an email addressed to every Disordered person, and embarrassed the Disordered profoundly.  But, putting what I knew intellectually into actual practice slowly caused the bone deep cellular absorption of the knowledge that I am worth loving, and worth taking care of, and worth treating well and that I deserved good treatment.

I haven’t been triggered in months. Maybe July is the last time I felt even a twinge of a trigger. So I may be incurable. But you could have fooled me!  I feel cured! I feel unfrozen and free, free to be me and if you don’t like me?  Take a hike! Because I now KNOW there is very little to not like about me. Bone deep.

[woodsgnome]

VeryFoggy, what resonates deeply is your pointing to an awareness/realization by saying: "...I decided to start treating CPTSD as a friend, my best friend, and as a warning system...instead of fighting it or running from it." A worthy, challenging friend, no less!

Bravely accepting this friendship of an injured self seems to be a key to developing the awareness that Walker describes as a positive trait inherent in the so-called "freeze" type. But it probably applies to all once the labels are set aside.

Your experience suggests how the tendency to be hyper-vigilant can transform into a more comfortable sort of awareness that, despite roadblocks, can actually be useful in finding a way through. No longer a person's dire enemy, the new and unlikely friend called cptsd becomes one's best ally.

It's tempting to want the quick fix, but as you point out: "...it took me two years of dedicated persistent dogged effort and lots and lots of time."

Thanks again for all your pointers in finding one's way through what often seems so hopeless. 

[samantha19]

Hey,

Your post gives me hope. I am really happy for you.
I hope that with dedication I can find myself in a similar place, even if it takes a few years, too.
Congrats 

[V]

VeryFoggy, so happy for your revelation - I've been there, and gone backwards - only to find that I really didn't step backwards but moved back in order to reflect some more - walking into work one day it hit me that I was always on the defensive, why was I so defensive just walking into work - I started to smile and drop the shoulders and with my head up high I was sailing - quietly though ... not to disturb the one on my shoulder who has the voice ...

I've been through so much healing and I'm actually not doing anything right now except this forum that I had found last year - still delving in it to "remember" ... i do still see that i have a few issues but god has put people in my path to help teach me some of their ways of coping with things and I adopt and grow more each day ...

I still have trouble forgiving - I mean why or for what reason would someone do something so mean to begin with unless that person was not right - so forgive ? ha - forget - no way ... I ignore and move on and stay wary of that one and others like it that come along

what is normal for me is this "it is what it is" - my saying and I like it - if its right it's right, if its wrong ? well I can't change it so I just swerve out of it's way and move on - smiling of course ...

so glad you have found some peace and I know from reading that you have hit the button and I am happy for you and still have hope that others will make it out too - we have soooo much life to live and love and learn that going backwards is not productive 

[VeryFoggy]

Thanks Samantha 19 and I too wish that for all of us.  It is so unfair to have to do all of this hard work after already working so hard our whole lives.  But this time the work we are doing is on us and for us. Completely different than the past! But is it easy?  I would never tell you that.  it has been one of the hardest things I have ever done.  But just wanting to is the first step. Once you decide you want to? Then you will head in a new direction. Blindly?  Yes, in my case.  Everyone in my family is Disordered. Except for maybe one brother. But as V says if we start looking for help?  We will find it.

V - Thank you and I have some thoughts on forgiveness.

There is a website luke173ministeries.org that helped me clarify my thoughts on forgiveness. Even God himself does not forgive us unless we first ask for it. And then commit to not do that wrong anymore.

So I am at peace knowing I should not, as a human, be asked to do more than even God Himself. And it is s 2 person process, not a one person process, as new age psychobabble would have you to believe. There must be remorse, request for forgiveness, and finally commitment to change in order for true forgiveness to take place. 

Acceptance?  Yes, I can do acceptance, in order to free myself up in order to keep honoring my own gift of life, and doing the best  I can with the gift of life I was given. I cannot become paralyzed and unable to move forward in my own life just because someone has wronged me and does not feel remorse, want forgiveness, and does not commit to change.  But I can accept what is. I CAN do that.

You are so right - that we must call things right and wrong.  Many therapists are not willing to do that anymore.  They call it "different."  I am fortunate to have found a therapist who does call right, right, and wrong, wrong.

One of the MOST important things that has helped me lately in my brain reprogramming is to think about what I would do if I was the other person.  Would I ever act like that?  Would I do what they have done to somebody, and most particularly would I do that to someone like me?  If the answer is no? Well, it is starting to help me have a whole new perspective on things.  One that I needed very badly. And that is, if I would not do this to them, then why in the world would it be okay for them to do this to me?

I know my own heart.  I know who I am.  That was never in question. But I simply did not value myself enough. And I had been programmed to think it was my JOB to take up the slack for others. To carry their load for them. To put up with and tolerate unbearable treatment. But no more. if I would not do it to them?  Then it is NOT okay.  And I am no saint.

Bu KNOW I am not Disordered. And I thank God daily for that.  There are 4 living generations in my family. And I don't know how I escaped? But there but for the grace of God go I. And I know God must have better plans for me than just tolerating abuse. I could spend the time He gave me in so many, much more productive ways. So that is what I am belatedly trying to do.

[V]

VF - thank you for that - you just cleared that way up for me ... see I had this friend of 40 years and right before my husband and I separated I caught her and my husband emailing between them about me negatively. I approached them both about this and asked that it stop, which it didn't. She said she was sorry but then would always add I don't know what the big deal is - you've done the same thing (not) and I never said anything to you - so in a way I couldn't forgive her if she would just say she was sorry but brush it off like it was nothing. I asked that we meet and try to figure out as friends what happened, what went wrong, where we both went wrong and how we could prevent this from happening again in order to establish a better friendship for the future but she absolutely refused. I didn't understand why but I got it. So be it. She was out of my life in a flash. Along with my husband. I "divorced" them both ... and of course they are still talking - and she has a husband and i spent 20 years of my life supporting her when she was always having arguments with him and running to my house just to get away. I always tried to be understanding and supportive of her. I don't think either one of them liked the fact that I was working and going to school full time trying to further my career in order that if one day my bi-polar always depressed x-husband could no longer work, at least I could support us. OMG, listen to me. I am the sane one. "They" did this to me. Truly I did nothing but try to better myself. They can both go fly a kite. I am happy and have a wonderful man in my life right now and I still have plenty of other friends who still enjoy me and I enjoy them!

[Darsha5000]

I'm in tears, thank you.

[Three Roses]

Welcome, Darsha5000! We're glad you're here.

There's tons of info here, but definitely check out our Guidelines (http://outofthefog.net/C-PTSD/forum/index.php?topic=1616.msg10035#msg10035) section for rules on posts, we want to keep this a safe & relaxed place for you and everyone.

So nice to have you join! 

[sanmagic7]

i can relate to so much of what you've said.  so glad you've found your way out.  i'm working on it now, and feeling like i'm a little farther along each day.  and, i agree, this is the hardest thing i've ever known, ever experienced, ever done.  but, if i'm going down, i'm going down fighting.  i will not let them have me anymore. 

[Joeybird]

Thank you for sharing that. I can relate to a lot of what you said -- especially accepting that it is what it is.

Congratulations,