Thinking of Moving to SW Florida? Think Again – Lee County and Surrounding Areas are a Joke

If you’re thinking about moving to beautiful SW Florida, don’t. I lived my entire life near the North Shore of Chicago. Every so often there was a crime. Large crimes, like shootings and murders, shook the communities and were remembered for years after they occurred. Then my family decided to move to SW Florida. Holy hell what a mistake that was.

SW Florida. Sunshine year round. A quick walk or drive to the Gulf Coast. Pretty palm trees. Sure. Then again that year round sun brings hellish heat and humidity. The Gulf Coast is gross, often unsafe to swim in due to toxic algae or other dangerous bacteria. Walking might not be a good idea since you’re likely to be run over by an insane driver or shot by a teenager who stole a gun. Yes, this is what Lee County Florida has to offer. Do NOT move here.

Moving to Florida was the WORST decision I ever made. Lived up North. Life was never perfect but it sure wasn’t a living hell. First year living here, my daughter was raped. After a few years, my son was so hooked on hard drugs (after I repeatedly attempted to get him help, which seems nowhere to be found out here) that he went psychotic and I had to shoot him in self defense. Schools? A joke. Health care? A joke. It’s a GREAT place if you are going to move to a gated community and NEVER leave that community and you have 0 health problems and don’t have children. If you want to be near even somewhat decent health care and want to walk down the street at night without fear of being shot at or run over or you want a safe neighborhood with good education for your children, DO NOT move to SW Florida. I lived in Lehigh Acres at first. See, up north when you have wide open spaces it’s nice and quiet most of the time. Out here, wide open spaces are ghetto areas for people to drop bodies in. Not the same. At all. You’ll be confused as fuck and in a serious state of culture shock once you realize that SW Florida wasn’t what you’d thought it would be. Sanibel is decent. Napels is just okay. Lehigh and Immokalee are like SW Florida’s version of Cabrini Green. Then there’s Fort Myers which is getting just as bad as Lehigh. The people living in the so-called wealthy Gateway community will try and tell you it’s a great place. Gateway’s 7-11 has been robbed at gunpoint multiple times. THAT is their idea of great, just so you’re aware that your idea of great likely differs from theirs.

Then there is Cape Coral. I moved here after realizing what a shit hole Lehigh was and being told how great the Cape was supposed to be. The only thing Cape Coral does better than Lehigh in terms of crime is hide it better. Funny thing. Shooting happened right outside our house one night. Nothing in the news. On dozens of occasions our phones have shown a news alert involving a crime in Cape Coral and when we try to go to the link the page is dead. Someone is doing a GOOD job of covering up crime in this area (and trust me I know a cover up when I see one and this is definitely a cover up of the crime in this area).

Let’s get back to how crime is handled. We reported the rape of my daughter, who was 15 at the time, by a 26 year old man. Nothing was done. The detective who was leading the case left during Hurricane Irma and never came back. Don’t know if I should be pissed that he just left without warning or envious of him. Then a new detective takes over for him but we don’t hear from her until the guy who raped my daughter actually killed another teenage girl. Then my daughter was asked to pick him up out of a lineup. Great approach to crime control. Really. And today I read an article that crime in Fort Myers is at an all time low. If this is an all time low (which is a load of bullshit) I’d hate to see what an all time high was.

Fair warning. Don’t move to Florida. Definitely don’t move to SW Florida. Do NOT snowbird here. The natives don’t want you and you definitely don’t want to own property here. Then there’s the snakes, the bugs, the other things that I never had to deal with up north. Fuck this. We’re moving back up north soon. Because this area literally is not livable. At least not with children and DEFINITELY not if you have ANY standard whatsoever regarding the quality of the community you live in. I don’t know if it’s something in the water (we only drink bottled water since the actual water that comes out of the tap is probably deadly) or if it’s the sun getting to people’s heads, but Florida is like the third-world state of the U.S. Nice place to visit (stay right at the resorts) but you definitely, absolutely, do NOT want to live here. And for those who live there and like it and take offense to this post, you know that Foxworthy joke about there’s a redneck in every neighborhood and if you don’t know who it is it’s probably you? Well in Florida, there’s about one person who ISN’T a redneck in every neighborhood so I get your point of view but you’re fucked in the head and you’re wrong. NORMAL people do NOT WANT to live here.

Self-Righteous Fake

Have you ever known someone who went to church every week but didn’t follow a bit of scripture? Let’s talk about my mother…

If your a Christian, there’s nothing wrong with that. However, if you’re a Christian who determines abortion is only okay for your teenage daughter because it’s more convenient, then that’s a problem. If you’re a Christian who posts Facebook photos all over of yourself volunteering when one hand isn’t supposed to know what the other is doing, you’re a fraud. My mother is THIS type of Christian.

My son, who I shot in self defense, is living with this fraud of a woman. A woman whose single purpose in life is to control others. Self righteous. Self absorbed. Self centered. Self deluded. See a trend here? She’s the LAST person my son, who needs residential care, needs to be with. She will manipulate his addiction to control him. She will enable him. Not heal him. She’s beyond fucked in the head. At a time when the family should be gathering to heal him, she’s turned it into an all out war. To serve her own purposes.

She’s not alone. There are plenty like her. Yeah you could look the other way when you cross people like this. Or, better yet, you can call them to the carpet for being the fakes they are. Letting them get away with their shit does no one, let alone the church, any good.

She wants a war? She’s got one. And my son won’t be the causality. Her reputation will be. Because she’s hurt a lot of people and I’m going to expose her for everything she is.

If she thinks I’m afraid she’s sorely mistaken. I’ve got nothing to lose. I’ll make sure everyone knows her for the fake she is. That picture perfect glass house is going to come shattering down around her.

This is a declaration of war on her and everyone like her. If you know someone like her – an emotionally abusive bitch who paints a portrait of a saint – call them to the carpet. Enough is enough. Those of us with common sense and reason need to stop people like her, because they will take it too far if given the chance. Don’t attach the Church (except the powder puff ones full of BS). Attack the problems within it. Only then will they stop being a poor reflection on every other Christian in the world. Put on your big girl (or boy) panties and call them out. I’ve had it with tolerance of everything and anything wrong in this world. Pick up the sword and DO something. Otherwise we are all headed straight to Hell.

 

What the Hell is Wrong with The New Generation?

I can’t believe I haven’t posted in so long. Real life had gotten in the way of me posting online. My son, who is now 18, developed a serious drug problem. I don’t know if it’s because we moved to Florida and everyone in this damn county seems a few crayons short of a box and a lot of them seem like they come straight out of deliverance. I didn’t realize Florida was the Deep South until we moved here. Great place to vacation. Don’t make it your home.

So my son, who’s now 18, gets involved in heavy drugs. I baker act him. I schedule rehab for him. Nothing helps. I kick him out. He gets high out of his mind and decides he’s going to kill his whole family. Including my 4 and 5 and 16 year old daughters. I shoot him in self defense. Not going to say much about that because no mother should ever have to point a gun at her son let alone pull the trigger but that’s the position he put me in. It was a clean shot. I didn’t kill him. In fact he was out of the hospital in less than an hour and in jail. He just needed six staples in his back. I had a choice of which type of shot to take. I took the one that would cripple him until police were able to respond to our 911 call.

Point is, this generation is seriously screwed up. This is the future of our world? Even my 16 year old daughter, who is a beautiful girl and brilliant and level-headed is a bit screwed up in terms of values no matter how hard I try to drill them home. My children have become liberal snowflakes (except for my 18 year old who has become all about the thug life). It’s a living nightmare.

Seriously people. These kids nowadays eat Tide pods and set themselves on fire to get attention online. Thank God my kids don’t do that crap but seriously WTF? How much of an idiot do you have to be to look at a Tide pod and think, “I should put this in my mouth and record it for posterity.” Who the HELL thinks that way?

They think anything goes. Can you clearly see what gender you are by looking down your pants and still don’t know what gender you are? You’re not confused. You’re some new made up sexual definition. Don’t get me wrong. This is not about lesbian and gay people. This is not about women who know they are women and like other women or men who know they are men who like other men. This is about kids who seriously can’t figure out what gender they are. Wtf? I can see someone being male and wanting to be a female or a male who thinks he’s a female on the inside but who the hell can’t figure out which gender they are? It’s gotten so bad that colleges have an option for students to be addressed as they rather than a gender designated way to address them. Yep. Let’s lower the bar some more.

This is the future of our world. People think Trump is bad? Wait until someone who thinks it’s fun to light themselves on fire and eat laundry detergent and can’t figure out what gender they are is in office. They can’t be trusted to behave like a normal human being but we should trust them with nuclear launch codes? Because that’s not asking them to fuck shit up so they can upload it to YouTube.

Start praying for the future of our nation and stop be so damn accepting of everyone and everything. Tolerance is destroying us. There’s a point where you have to draw the line and be like, “Hey, this shit is fucked up. You need to get your shit together.”

Totally Off Topic – To All The Pre-Teen and TeenageGirls

I know this is totally off topic, but I’m still best friends with a guy I was best friends with in high school (that’s a long time for those of you who know me and my age). For those of you who don’t know my age, I’ve been 29 for a very, very long time. We were talking the other day and it made me thing of this topic. But I digress…

To all of the pre-teen and teenage girls out there right now, let me tell you something my mother never told me. And God I wish she would have because it would have made a couple years of my life so much more endurable.

You are beautiful. You may not think you are right now. And right now  you may be right. But you will, I promise, at some point in your life, blossom. Some of us blossom early (as did my 14 year old daughter and part of the reason I posted this) and some will blossom late.

My 14 year old daughter when through a “lurpy” stage when she was younger, where she swore she would never be super-model pretty and hated her looks. Now, I can’t take her out of  the house without guys looking at her (include much older men who should keep their eyes to themselves) and sometimes I stop and look at her and say to myself, “How in God’s name does she look at 14 almost exactly how I looked at 19?” Yeah I’m getting a shotgun this weekend.

The point is, no matter what you look like right now, don’t let it ruin what should be some of the best years of your life. Kids (and people in general)  can be mean. Cruel even. And looks play a large role in how you are treated because we live in a superficial capitalist society (you’ll learn more about that in college). And those girls who are mean to you? Well my sister was an early bloomer who thought she was “the shit” and now she couldn’t get a boyfriend if her life depended on it because later on in life, after you blossom, your personality is going to count just as much as your looks and those early bloomers who were treated like gold at your age, just because of how they looked, are already going to be fading and their personalities aren’t going to get them very far. Mean people just suck and they don’t get far. It’s true.

So what does this have to do with you? If you’re being picked on, bullied (or cyber-bullied) or just think you aren’t pretty enough, I promise some day you will bloom into the beauty (inner and outer) that you were meant to become. It happened to me (and I will admit I abused it) and it has happened to every woman I know at some point in her life. We all bloom and blossom and we all eventually fade. Had I known in junior high or high school what I know now, I would have done things a lot differently. I wouldn’t have bent over backwards to “fit in” and do the “popular” thing. I would have done whatever the hell made me happy because years from now those girls are going to want to be your friend anyway because of who you become. But that’s the key. You need to motivate yourself to become the best you possible. Don’t starve yourself to death, but eat healthy. My daughter is 14 and gorgeous and she thinks she’s fat. She’s a size 8. That, my dears, is not fat. Marilyn Monroe would  have been considered fat in today’s day and age. So why do you feel fat if you’re not? Because, again, you live in a capitalist society that tries to dictate your thoughts and the image of beauty that is forced in your face every day is unattainable but, hell, it sure gets you girls (and grown women) to fork over money for diet pills and health club memberships.

Remember, always, that beauty is subjective and what is most important is how you treat people. Because beauty comes and goes, but how you treat people will stay with you for life. And the girls your age who are so beautiful it makes you green with envy? They have their own problems. As I said, my daughter was a rather early bloomer. Yet she’s also bi-polar and prone to severe mood swings and serious bouts of rage and depression with a temper that is quick to flare. So remember, no matter what the packaging looks like, no one is perfect. Be happy with who you are and focus on your strengths, not what society deems your strengths should be. Do what makes you happy, and find friends that don’t give a damn about the packaging and keep them close when you do bloom (that is going to be the hard part) because at that point, everyone will want to be your friend and not all friends are created equal.

Bottom line? Before you know it you’re going to be stressed with a mortgage and worried about making partner at some firm or climbing the corporate ladder or even just providing for your family. Don’t take this time, when you should be having fun and enjoying every minute of life, and waste it on worrying about whether or not you measure up or if you’ll ever be popular. Because once you graduate high school, none of that crap matters. If you haven’t bloomed yet, you will, and when you do remember who your real friends are and remember how you wanted to be treated before you did, and treat all others that very same way. It will,  inevitably, pay off much better than trying to fit some mold  now that you were never meant to fit.

Beauty is subjective, and always will be. Just smile. You never know who is falling in love with your smile and your personality and trust me, you don’t want a guy who just wants to date you or be with you for your looks alone.

You are beautiful. The only problem is others, and possibly even you, don’t see it yet.

Run Far and Fast from BPD and Sociopaths Combined

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted here but I’m going to give everyone a sound bit of advice.If you are in a relationship with someone who has been diagnosed with BPD and is also a sociopath or a narcissist, get out of that relationship before you get pulled under. A highly-functioning BPD individual can make you believe anything they want you to believe, and when you crash and burn in the midst of their abuse and lies and are left wondering what the hell just happened, your world will never be the same.

They will tell you they will change. They won’t. They will make promises, and will break them. They will claim to love you, but they only love themselves. These individuals are completely incapable of love as you and I know it. They care only about themselves and will say whatever it takes to further their ends, even if that means destroying who you are as a person in the process.

Not everyone with BPD is like this, but the ones who really don’t want to change but pretend they do are the most dangerous. Because they can put on a good act. They can pretend with the best of them. They can really make you believe that they love you when in the end all they are really doing is using you for one reason or another. If they claim to love you, don’t believe them. Get the hell out and don’t look back.

For those of you who have BPD and actually do want help, this doesn’t apply to you.This is for those BPD monsters who are so sick and perverse that they have absolutely no remorse for what their actions do to others, and they will hurt you. It’s only a matter of time. Once the abuse cycle starts, it will never stop.There may be breaks in between while these monsters are pretending to “change” but they never really change who they are at their core.They are just playing you like a nice deck of cards.

I don’t say this lightly but I mean it.The world would be a better place without people like this in it. If you find yourself in such a relationship, there are three things you need to do.

1. Realize that no matter how scary being alone may seem, it’s a hell of a lot better than the hell these whack jobs will drag you through.
2. Realize that YOU are not the problem no matter what they say. They are the problem and have been since the day they set their sites on ruining other people’s lives.
3. They will not change, no matter how many promises they make They may pretend to.They may even fool you But in just a few short days, weeks, or maybe even months their true colors will show again and you will be right back where you started.

Don’t let these evil people abuse you and tear down your world and your sense of self.Stay the hell away from them. Otherwise you get trapped in a web you never saw coming and life starts seeming less and less worth living as they suck any meaning, joy, and purpose you once had away. You can’t help them. You can’t fix them. The only thing you can do is run from them.

I Left Chicago

I know it has been so long since I’ve posted but that doesn’t mean I have forgotten about my blog or my readers. I’ve just been busy. Really really busy.

Contrary to what everyone who has ever known me thought I would ever do, I moved away from Chicago. Away from my deep roots. Away from the double-edged sword that is my family. I also moved away from family and friends I miss dearly, but it was a good move.

I moved to Florida! Yes, this Chicago girl is now living in a charming little 3,000 sq ft new construction home on the Gulf Coast of Florida, complete with a palm tree in my front yard. The kids love it. I must say I did not miss the winter weather of Chicago as I donned shorts and t shirts in December and January. Apparently the winter this year was unusually cold down here. I didn’t notice. Seemed tropical to me.

We live in a “rural” area that is away enough from tourist areas to be private and quiet but close enough to be within a few hours drive to any tourist location we could want to visit. I am definitely enjoying this semi-retirement. And my kids don’t have to grow up in the middle of the politics and drama that surround my family back in Chicago. That is a huge plus.

My grandmother moved with us. As did my parents and sister (not sure if that’s a good thing yet). They don’t live with us of course. My grandmother moved into a retirement community that is more resort than it is retirement home and my parents and sister have houses about 30 minutes away.

I have so much to update but so little time. Now that things are settled I can start writing more. I’ll be sure to be giving more updates and information soon!

I’m Back

Yes, I have been gone for a very long time. A lot has happened. My life isn’t perfect but it’s getting better. I have a lot of information to share, however, with lots of different people who might need it so you can expect quite a few posts in the coming months.

Let’s see, what’s happened since my last post?

Oh! I had a baby. Not the baby I was adopting. See I was adopting that baby and then I got pregnant and actually had a baby too. She’s three months old now. I don’t know how some people do it. I’m blessed, but there are people who have to diaper three or four kids at once who don’t have jobs or own businesses. I have two in diapers and I feel like they literally eat money.

Speaking of money, I’ve been thinking of starting some kind of fund or grant program for people who can’t afford lawyers but need to fight DCFS. I’d like all of your feedback on that.

Oh, Mr. BPD, well he’s still an asshole with problems but he’s in a 12-step program. Two of them actually. So my life in that regard has gotten easier. Not to mention my uncle who was away for a while came back and basically told him if he didn’t knock his shit off, Mr. BPD was going to sit locked in a cage with a 90-inch monitor and watch…. Well I can’t go there. Let’s just say he’s been on his best behavior. And all I have to do is mention my uncle’s name and he freezes like a deer in headlights. I guess some people do have to be motivated by fear. Never really believed in that before.

Oh and my son went to jail for about 18 hours. For beating the hell out of Mr. BPD. This was before my uncle came back. My 18 year old son thinks he has to take care of his mom, although I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself. Mr. BPD wasn’t being violent. Hasn’t since that one night about 4 years ago where he almost landed himself in jail for 15 years. But he was being a raging ass. My son got fed up and before I knew what was happening Mr. BPD was on the ground and my son was on top of him. Mr. BPD walked away with 2 black eyes and a broken nose. My son got a $150 fine in the end. My mother pulled strings, which she rarely ever does.

My business managed to survive my 6 months of bed rest and 3 weeks of recovery from the c-section. I know they say don’t go back to work for 6 weeks. I telecommuted after allowing myself to heal for 3 weeks because my assistant was ready to kill herself by that time.

This pregnancy was a challenge. It literally almost killed me. But my beautiful daughter is worth every second of the pain. In fact, I don’t even remember much of it. Just that I said I would never get pregnant again, and I won’t. Had my tubes tied.

I now have a total of 6 kids living under my roof. Two will be ready for college in a year or two. I’m afraid of what college costs are going to look like in 18 years considering what it’s going to cost to send these two.

I hope all of you have been well.

And It Starts Again

I told my readers I would update them about Mr. BPD’s epiphany. Well, one of my readers was right. It’s temporary. Just today he attacked me, and this attack was calculated and deliberate and more manipulative than ever. For those of you who are holding out hope for their BPD partners, I’m sorry. I don’t think there is any. Either learn to deal with the bullshit or get out. Things probably won’t change on their part. At least not for any real period of time.

Sometimes Things Change

Life has a way of playing games with you. I’m writing this to give some of you out there a bit of hope. People with BPD can indeed have an epiphany. They wake up one day and realize all of the damage that they have done and they decide they want to fix it. At least that is what has happened to Mr. BPD. He just woke up one day and freaked out about the way he treats me. He broke down, apologized, and actually called therapists to make multiple appointments for his different issues. He ordered self-help books from Amazon.com and purchased eBooks to read in the meantime to help him until those books came. What does this mean for me though?

The situation that brought me to him was not ideal, to say the least. The scars I bear aren’t magically erased. My cynicism is not gone. My heart does not belong to him. And all of the things he is doing, I am hoping he is doing for himself and not me. I want him to be a better person for him. Because I cannot be the one he changes for. I cannot be his rock. I cannot love him the way he needs me to. And I feel terrible about these things. 

My emotions are so confused and convoluted right now. Half of me is saying this is just another one of his temporary “nice guy” phases, but there is something different about him. Regardless, I still feel as though I am living a life that is not my own and I am playing a part I was never intended to play. 

For those of you who live with someone with BPD, however, I hope this provides some inspiration. Pray. Pray hard that the person you love will see what he or she is doing to you. Because sometimes prayers are answered. I hope the best for each and every one of you and I will let you know if this was a temporary lapse in his personality. But if he has really changed, I will let you know that too. So you, my readers, can hold out hope. Without hope there is nothing.

That doesn’t help my situation. But for some of you, it may be a source of hope and inspiration. 

An Off Topic Post about Pittbulls

I know this is way off topic, but I wanted to let my readers know about Pittbulls because there are a lot of people out there who are really misinformed about this particular breed.

I’m a dog lover. I always have been. I’ve had dogs since I was 10. Pitbulls, however, were always a no no. I swore I’d never own one, until a friend of mine explained to me how misinformed the public was about the breed. Then, one day, someone from my church was losing their home and I was asked to take their dog for them so they wouldn’t have to put it in a shelter. Being the softie I am, I was more than willing to help. It just so happened, however, that the dog was an American Staffordshire Terrier. A purebred pittbull. I was assured, however, that the dog was very well behaved. Completely house trained. Loving and sweet. I went to meet the dog and he was adorable. I took him home. That was over a year ago. I have never had a problem with him and I can tell you from experience that he is one of the best behaved dogs we have ever owned.

Mr. BPD had a prejudice against pitbulls too. When I brought the first pittbull home I got away with it by using the name of his breed rather than calling him a pittbull. Mr. BPD didn’t catch on that the dog was a pittbul until six months after we had brought him home and I finally told him that the dog he thought was so amazing and well behaved was actually a pitt.

This past weekend there was a humane society that did not have enough room for the dogs they had and there were a number of pittbulls that were going to be put down. We went to adopt one. Had it not been for my first pittbull that we got from the member of my church, we never would have considered it. We used to think these dogs were aggressive and uncontrollable. This couldn’t be further from the truth. We brought home a five month old female pittbull this weekend. And she has proven to us that our first pittbull wasn’t just a fluke. The breed really doesn’t deserve the bad name it’s been given.

The five month old that we brought home is completely housebroken. She listens when we tell her no. She adores the baby. If the baby cries she whimpers and runs to us to make sure we are going to do something about it. Today my friend came over and sat in the living room waiting for me to wake up. When I came downstairs the new pittbull followed me as I was going to let her outside and she noticed my friend sitting on the couch. She did not attack. She did not even growl. She just stood in front of me, between my friend and myself, and watched my friend with a leery gaze. I told her it was alright and I gave her a pat and walked over to my friend and the dog was fine. She wasn’t aggressive. She rolled onto her back so my friend could pet her.

The point of this post is, if you believe the stories about all pittbulls being mean, aggressive and dangerous dogs, don’t believe the nonesense. It’s not the dog that’s the problem. It’s the people who have these dogs and train them to be mean and aggressive that are the problem. My pitts are very eager to please. I assume it’s in the breed to want to please their master. If they are trained to be mean and aggressive by the people who own them, then I’m sure that’s what the dog will do. If, however, you adopt a pittbull and train it to be loving and friendly, the dog will be the best dog you have ever had.

If you are considering adopting a dog at any point in the future, please consider a pittbull. They really are amazing dogs. They are loyal, protective and very easy to train. At least that has been my experience with them. Shelters have hard times finding homes for these dogs because of the reputation they have. When you go to adopt a dog, see if any pittbulls are available. You’ll be able to tell right away if the dog is a friendly dog or if it’s been trained to be mean by the way the dog acts. If the dog is friendly, don’t hesitate to adopt it. They really are an amazing breed.

I just wanted to put my two cents out there on this topic to help put the record straight. Pittbulls are not evil, terrible dogs. They can be just as loving as any other dog and make great family pets. If you can open your home to one, I urge you to do so. There are so many that are in need of good, loving homes. It’s a shame that so many of them are put down each year just because people don’t really understand the breed.