Everyone has their own needs, and what they need to get through their bullshit. Everyone has bullshit, and therapy says ( ) we all need at least one cheerleader.. well, I love all of you for being my cheerleader. Whether it be by waking me up to u healthy behaviors, or cheering on my healthy behavior. You are all, awesome, regardless of how you feel about me

Had my first big win in months and it was at Texas Card House on Friday!

Played 1/2/5 PLO 6 handed, cashed out $442 +$242 in for $200 when one of the softer players left and it was me against 2 other grinders and some tight soft spots. One grinder was a loud guy who apparently hated me for wishing my friend good luck in a free roll at Lodge earlier in the week, and the other guy stacked me twice by hitting flush/flush against me a a couple bomb pots last week.

Switched over to the 1/2, in for $200, 6 hours later out for $880 +$780.

Session was from 11pm to like 8am, 2 games, had a ton of fun, played great and took solid lines all night

Proud of myself

Great job! Running good in poker always makes life easier

1/2/5 PLO Homegame

In for $400
Out $2180

Got’em

So been going to the doctor

Hate doctors.

But it’s a cps requirement that I find pain management for my peripheral neuropathy.

He thinks it’s rheumatoid arthritis, or a vitamin deficiency.

If the tests come back negative, he’s gonna refer me to a neurologist.

But I just had this epiphany.

I’ve had “eating disorder not otherwise specified” since I was 12 (15 years). Sometimes I eat insane amounts and gain a bunch of weight, other times I restrict and lose an insane amount of weight. Sometimes I am bulimic, but that’s not as often as the anorexia has been in the last few years.

I’ve never been treated for it.

Recently I’ve been having some insane stabbing pain in my stomach, and difficulty swallowing food. I don’t drink a lot of water because the consistency triggers me to choke.. didn’t think too much of it until I just came across a research paper about gastritis, and damn, I’ll tell ya, I kinda hope it’s arthritis.

Well, I’ll also tell ya, for the first time in my life, I’m going to tell everything about my ED to my doctor. 15 years is too long, and after I was told today by my parent coach that after her observation of Malakai in daycare along with ECI reports and other input that she believes my 19 month old son is already on the spectrum, I have a whole new outlook on life. And by damn, I’m gonna be on this earth for my child.

I’ve been so wrecked emotionally that I’ve been despondent, and if anything has been made clear in this thread, I am certainly one to be emotionally reactive. So I have to assume I am suppressing some ridiculous amount of despair by expressing 0 emotions. I didn’t even know I was capable of being so numb.

I’ve discussed a ton of ways to figure out to what degree he needs intervention with my parent coach, and they’re gonna be implemented in my visits. He’s been displaying non-age-appropriate self harm. Head banging, hitting himself, biting his fingers, picking at hair and skin.. fml

She thinks I can get unsupervised visits prior to my Dec. 3rd court date; praying. I want so bad to just hold my baby and keep him safe, and regardless of what anyone thinks, I am WHO he needs.

Yesterday I also had to bite the bullet and make the appointment for my son to get tubes in his ears. With the speech delay and returned ear fluid after disappearing and clearing of stuffy nose, I want to give him every advantage possible to be able to recover developmentally.

I don’t even know how I feel right now, but I assume once my brain processes everything that’s happened in the last 2 days, ima be balling my eyes out.

I just pray that I find “the” way in this mess of 10,000 things.

Somehow only just discovered this thread, interesting stuff and love how open you are its a great way to be; i wish i could be as open as you are in this thread i bet alot of people reading this do to, i bet it helps alot with the stresses you are dealing with aswell to write things down here, now to backtrack from page 55 to 1 and see what i've missed wish you best of luck!

Brilliant

Update:

Court is on December 3rd for the 6 month check in.

I have completed all but 1 of my 12 services, and am currently having community visits supervised my my amazing parent coach who has the department put in their place. I requested an overnight visit on Christmas, if my case is not closed as my final service is a 7 week IOP (intensive outpatient) class, 3 hours a day, 3 days a week, and won’t be done by my court date, but will be started by then.

Unsupervised visits are planned to occur by the beginning of December!

I’m also going to meet with my lawyer tomorrow morning to talk about the remainder of my case. Will be requesting monthly court reviews from this point on to review reunification, if reunification date is not set on the 3rd.

I plan to have my son home with the next 2 months, shooting for January

I have grown a lot in these last 6 months.

I have healed a lot.

I will be doing DBT twice a week as well, my therapist speaks science, genetics, and has the capacity for “the big picture” type thinking, so I trust her competence.

I am stable financially and emotionally, more than ever before in my life.

I have complete faith in my Gods plan for my life, and his direction for my struggles.

Thank you everyone for your support, there were times where I’d have been so lost without this thread, again, and will always keep this here to come back to.

ICM chopped the lodge freeroll tournament last night for $2k, I had 1st. I was in for my $25 seat fee, and $100 add on

Didn’t want to chop, but was literally being harassed to chop by 4 other players.

I figured , I was either losing $1k on a chop, or $1k to keep playing if I busted next

So, what would you do in that situation?

Gambool!

Generally ICM chops favor smaller stacks more than their actual value. If you're in 1st and they are just harassing you for a chop then offer a chip chop. If you think you have any kind of edge on the remaining opponents then don't take an ICM chop as 1st place chips. Say the money doesn't matter and you want to keep playing.

https://upswingpoker.com/final-table...g-tournaments/

Congrats.

Yea that’s what I wanted to do, just take first place money and also I feel like i should have just been more concrete in my stance not to chop, I’ve made it clear I don’t like chopping, but when I’m being personally attacked for not chopping, I felt like I became a pushover :/

That's happens all the time in tournaments, especially smaller ones. The regs all want to chop for some odd reason and harass the one person who doesn't. I've been in that spot before. 7 other people wanting an 8 way chop when I wanted to play in a small tourney. Seemed ridiculous to me. It's also hard to argue against a chop when everyone else wants one because it feels like they are just going to gang up on you when you start playing again. That and you might be second guessing yourself if you bust early. If you really want to play you just gotta say the money doesn't matter you enjoy the experience and when they cry about it you gotta lick their salty tears and use it as fuel. Like when someone gets upset about a bad beat, I get a kick out of that. That's poker.

Embrace the variance, it's ok to continue playing. Sometimes you won't win but sometimes you will. Just gotta be ok with any outcome. Or chop if you want but be ok if someone else wants to play. And if you lose the chip lead you can always bring up an ICM chop deal and see if they'll take it then if you want. Que sera sera.

Rick, I see you've grown far wiser over the years, will need to go check out the past few years on your own epic thread

Congrats blazin, regardless of wanting it or not, first place is still first place and I agree that whether or not you want it, it's probably not a good idea to play when everyone is likely to subconsciously play against you

I'm with Rick, negotiate but be firm you need more than what they want, if they want a chop enough and the chip leader doesn't want one then you can negotiate for more

Somewhere here is a thread backed up with receipts where someone convinced them to give him more than 1st place money because the others wanted to chop so badly and there was a pretty steep difference between 8th and 5th and nobody wanted 8th or something

The holidays have always been hard.

Thanksgiving, especially so.

One of the most traumatic things to ever happen to me happened November 22, 2007. I was 15 years old.

I was a fugitive from the state, as I had AWOLed from my placement at mountain manor. I had been on the streets for over month at this point, but I wanted to be with my family for the holidays. I had called my mother, and risked her turning me in. She was so happy I wasn’t dead, that she agreed to let me stay with them until after Christmas, as long as I agreed to go back to placement when it was over.

My 4 sisters were all young, 2 were 2.5 years old, the other 2 were 12 years old. I was watching them as her and her boyfriend were laying in bed. This night, one of my 12 year old sisters needed feminine products from the store, but my mother was in a drug induced sleep, so her boyfriend agreed to go to the store. It was 10pm.

4 hours later there was a knock at the door.

By this point my mother was awake and in a rage that he was still gone. My sister had been stuck in the bathroom for hours at this point, he had taken the vehicle and money, so my mother couldn’t go to the store either.

She walks down the stairs to the front door.

We were the top apartment in an old duplex in Baltimore City that had been falling apart since we moved in. The door was held shut by a metal folding chair that was wedged between the foot of the stairs and the door handle.

She gets to the bottom of the stairs, and opens the door. Her boyfriend is incoherent and stumbling.

“You’re not coming anywhere near my girls like this!” She yelled, as she tried to close the door.. but he shoved the door into her, knocking her down.

I was watching from the top of the stairs, confused about what was happening. When my mothers back hit the stairs, he slammed the door open, grabbed the metal folding chair and shoved it into her chest. At that moment, a need to protect my family kicked in. I ran down the stairs, and jumped on his back and we both fell onto the porch right outside the door.

This took all the strength my body had to fend off an ex Navy Seal. Within seconds he had his arm locked around my throat, picking me up and stumbling over to the recliner my mom would smoke on while sitting outside. It was firm, and fabric, with little ventilation.

He held me into the seat, with his arm still locked around my neck. Everything started going black..

I remember vividly the feeling of knowing I was going to die. I remember how helpless and powerless I felt. I remember the desperation.

As the blackness settled in, I hear mom mom yelling in the background of my disorientation. Suddenly, the weight from this man using his body to hold me down began to life, his grip around my neck loosened, I had my first breath.

My mom had took our cordless house phone and was beating him in the head with it, which caused him to release me, and turn his attention towards her. As he turns away from me, I stand up and kick him in the back, he stumbles towards the stairs to the 1st floor.

As I kick him again to get him away from the door, my mother pulls me into the house and slams the door. She barricades it with the folding chair, and leans into the door.

He’s on the outside, banging and yelling to get in.

My baby sisters are at the top of the stairs, and I run past them to get the other phone from the living room, and come back to the stairs to tell my mom that I’m calling 911.

She says “No!”

I just stare at her. He begins to get leverage on the door, it’s opening again.

She says “Call them now!”

I call the cops, and all I remember from the conversation is when they asked me who I was, and I gave them my sisters name.

She was still in the bathroom, so when I hung up, I ran upstairs and said to her through the door “I told the cops you called, when they get here.”

She said “No I didn’t!?”

I explained, “I’m not supposed to be here, so I can’t tell them that it’s me! You have to say it was you or they’re going to take me” She agreed.

I went and hid in the crawl space behind the closet in my room until they were gone.

After the cops left, my mother blamed me for ruining the holidays, said I shouldn’t had called the cops. He was never punished for what he did to me, because I was never supposed to be there.

Still to this day, I have nightmares and flashbacks about it. And every year, thanksgiving is the hardest of all the holidays because of what it means for me.

If I’m thankful for one thing, it’s that I’m alive. Regardless of how much I struggle on a day to day basis, I am blessed to be given an opportunity to heal.

People wonder why I am the way I am, not understanding what I’ve been through. And that’s fine, but I know who I am and what I have survived, and I know that I am stronger than most people realize.

You never know the battles someone is fighting, or for how long they have been fighting them. So I am also thankful to have people who know me, know my story, and love me in all my pain, especially when I’m suffering.

#StayStrong
#Blessed

Jeez, what a story Much luv Peace

OMG <3

Been doing a lot of soul searching.

Have had a pretty bad last few weeks.

Lost my dealing job, but have a potential offer at another card room that’s opening in January.

Visitation has been a wreck, I was sick all last weekend and didn’t confirm my visit for last Monday so I missed that visit and it was thanksgiving week so I was pretty wrecked.

I have court on Tuesday to see where I’m at in my CPS case, I’ve completed all my services except the Intensive outpatient which I started last week.

It’s Monday-Wednesday 5:30-8:30pm, will have to complete a total of 21 classes. Gonna see if I can squeeze in extra classes outside of that to finish it faster.

At this rate, I’m looking at another 4+ months without my son. He’ll be 2 March 2nd. He’s growing so fast, but I’ve been missing it all.

Been doing therapy twice a week for the last 2 months to help cope with my PTSD. It’s helping, but not significantly so just yet.

I played NLH cash for the first time in months over the weekend and lost $1k after booking +$300 in Big O.

Played Big O last night and was completely Carr dead, down another $300.

Did doordash deliveries tonight for like 1.5 hours because I just couldn’t bring myself to play. Made $40 doing that.

Not quite the $30-$50hr I make dealing, but it’s better than minimum wage.

****, I’ll be honest, I’m just doing my best to keep my head above water. Every day has been a struggle. I’ve been burning bridges left and right.

Decided that I need to do something different so I’m doing extra work on my mindset. I feel like I’ve just been making excuses and barley getting by without doing much work. Took a lot of **** for granted, and I’m paying the price of that now.

I wish I could go back and fix everything I’ve ****ed up, but that’s just not an option, so I’m going to do my best to just look forward and try to do better from here on out.

I’ve been trying my best, truly have. But I know I can do better. I am way too hard on myself and that just makes me do stupid **** and live inside guilt and regret.

I get lost in my head and lost thinking about what I wish I had and who I wish I was, instead of opening my eyes and just doing what I have to do to fix this **** before it’s not able to be fixed.

Stay strong

Keep going; don't stop.

Keep going; don't stop.

Keep going; don't stop.

You got this. Good luck.

So an update on what happened at court today. I was too upset earlier to be able to write it out, or do much of anything.

They said I’ve done everything that I need to do, they said that I have completed everything and am doing great work with my therapy and have passed all drug tests.

They also said, that the way I get upset with the department when something doesn’t goes away makes them concerned that I would be a safety risk to my son if he were to do something to upset me while in my care.

They refused unsupervised visits. They refused my extended visit for Christmas. They set my next court date a month after my son turns 2 years old. They have requested Malakais father participate in a service plan after proof of paternity comes back. They are allowing that abusive man into my sons life. They have also requested that all of my visits be moved north (I live south) and refused in home visits.

My son should have come home today.

As of today, I will not be able to have unsupervised visits for a MINIMUM of 3 more months. And I will not have him home for another 4-5 months.

This absolutely wrecked me.

I think all the time about how much I have ****ed up this entire case. How I have ****ed up my life, how I have ****ed up my friendships and how I have turned into a very angry person since they took my son in June.

I wish I could go back and do it all again so I could have him home with me today, but I can’t change the past.

It took everything in me to refrain from sending an email to the entire lot of people who think I would ever hurt my son.

Instead, I did something I don’t normally do, and just cried until the anger went away.

I’ve been through a lot in my life, and the one thing that I’ve never healed from is the anger in my heart about what has happened to me. It’s hard for me to trust anyone, and it’s even harder to believe that anyone would actually care about me, considering how absolutely damaged I am as a person.

I’ve been going to therapy twice a week for 2 months now. I started an Intensive Outpatient program for substance abuse last week that will be 3 times a week for 3 hours a class until I complete 20 classes.

I have been praying more than I have ever prayed in my life.

I’ve been looking inward at myself to find the root of my anger, and have been searching for ways to change the behavior that’s become an instinctual habit.

2 weeks ago I told my lawyer I didn’t think I was strong enough to get over my anger.

But today, I was able to handle it in an appropriate way, which is new for me.

My therapist said something to me on Monday that I feel gave me a breakthrough.

My abuse started young, and has continued throughout my adult life. I never had parents that taught me how to regulate my emotions, everything I learned was about how to lash out in anger when I felt any feeling.

She told me that I had to care for my feelings the way I would for my son, that I had to give myself the things I would give to him if he was upset. She said “There is a hurt little Amanda inside of you, who needs the same love and understanding that you give to your son.”

And it opened my eyes to a entirely different perspective I have never had before.

It made me realize that I’ve been hurting myself the same way I was hurt by other people, instead of showing myself the love that I deserve.

And for the first time in my life, I finally understood HOW to love myself.

I don’t agree with my son being taken from me. It is the single most painful thing I have ever gone through. But, I’m going to trust Gods plan. I have to believe that he needed me to feel this pain, so that it would lead to to learning the things I have tried to learn for years but have never truly understood as deeply as I have started to understand.

I don’t really know what to say, except that I love and I miss my son more than I could even put into words. The things I am willing to do and go through are endless to protect him and keep him with me.

Damn...

Good for you! Congratulations! I realize this is an extremely upsetting situation for you, but you've come a long way.

I may be way off base here, but from my vantage point, these developments seem closely related. They want to reunite your son with you, but they're concerned that that may not be a wise choice. So what's the second-best option (from their perspective)? Reunite him with his father.

That was the past, and you can't redo the past. But a new phase of this case is starting now. So try to learn from your mistakes and do things differently in this new phase.

You're going to continue to perform all the services they ask you to perform, which—by your own admission and your own demonstration—have facilitated enormous psychological growth. Keep up the good worth there.

The added step—and I know this is really hard—is to treat everyone you encounter in this process with respect and courtesy at all times. I'm not saying don't stand up for yourself; I'm saying don't lose control of your emotions when you do stand up for yourself. It might help to give everyone the benefit of the doubt that they truly want what's best for your son—keep that in mind, and they will be your allies, not your enemies. They will notice the change in your attitude and behavior, and that will go a long way toward alleviating their concern that you might be a safety risk to your son.

Your objective, by the way, should not be to prove that your son's father is abusive or unprepared to be a primary caretaker. Your objective should be to demonstrate, in everything you say and do, that you yourself are fully capable of handling that responsibility.

Obviously, you've been through a lot of trauma and tribulations in your life. But you're doing great. Hang in there!

I have no words for this response other than, you’re WAY off. But thanks.