'THE TIME I ALMOST GAVE UP"

THE TIME I ALMOST GAVE UP

I thought about giving up but kept moving forward. At several specific times, perhaps, after my life living with narcissistic men and other scenarios as a baby boomer woman.

As a woman, an empath, I was raised with a double standard throughout life. I am a baby boomer, born September 18, 1949, at 8:30 am. My parents were loving, kind, and caring, but very human.

I was 18 in 1968. My parents asked me what I wanted to do in my life. I had four choices. They were as follows: a housewife, a secretary, a nurse, or a retail clerk. I did not want to be a secretary because I did not want to type all day on a typewriter. I had worked as a waitress at a local hangout for a brief time. I decided that it was very boring. I was not sure I wanted to be a retail clerk as I remembered the time I was visiting my aunt who worked at Sears’ dept store. I used to run up and down the aisles hiding behind the clothes, playing hide and seek with my mom. I thought I could be a nurse as I liked helping people. I thought about being a journalist as I loved to write, but my parents told me that was too bold and dangerous for a woman. So, at 18 I graduated and then I began nursing school.

I graduated from nursing school as an L.V.N. and worked at an osteopathic doctor’s office. That intrigued me as I was into natural remedies and regular medicine. I was 20 in 1970.

My life had been hippy style of peace, and flowers, and hanging out with musicians. My actual love was music, writing, film, and art. Those days were crazy times.

The 1970s were the time of upheavals of ingrained traditions in a society created by a patriarchal society created by men. I thought this was very cool and so I poured my conscious mind into this wonderful metamorphosis of becoming a butterfly flying out of my cocoon.

I started college courses studying mid-management that included union management and negotiations. I then continued my studies as I worked as a nurse and retail clerk. I enrolled in a marketing class, but my professor was upset with me regarding a paper I wrote regarding shopping at expensive dept stores vs cheaper department stores. I authored a 20-page thesis about why I shopped at thrift stores vs expensive dept stores. I included the times I found Neiman Marcus tags on clothes that were brand new that I bought for $20 instead of $200. I was given an F Plus and told I should change my major to journalism. So, I did that.

I graduated from that. I got a job at the LA Times in copywriting.

As time moved on, I worked as a makeup artist in the TV and film industry, created documentaries, met many musicians, and worked with Native Americans in The American Indian movement. I was a member of The Academy of Television Arts & Science and Women in Film. I worked at Universal Studios Hollywood and other newspapers in the Valley and Pasadena.

I still had an aching in my heart that I was not good enough. My personal life was confusing to me. By the year 2000, I had two failed marriages. I had other failed relationships as they were all with men who were trying to control me.

Despite these narcissistic men I have continued my life as a writer and lover of film, art, and music. I just need to make more money for myself and not to be drained as an empath by narcissistic controlling men.

So, at 74 I am writing again after almost giving up on life literally and almost dying from long covid and major surgery in 2022. I am still standing despite the hate the narcissistic men still towards me with their flying monkey lies and arrows they throw at me still trying to say what a scarlet woman I am.

There is now a certain group of a highly patriarchal society that has reversed Roe vs. Wade and wants to control women’s bodies again. They want to destroy everything about women and our progress over the last 50 years. I will be traveling for the second year in a row to Sacramento California as a lobbyist for Naral Pro Choice, May 2024. I don’t give up very easily when it comes to a patriarchal society telling women they don’t have control of their bodies and their life choices as women. I will march again. I will write. I will do this.

I can do this.

This is a short story evolving from many complicated decades of arduous work, tears, laughter, dating, marriages, giving birth to two ten-pound baby boys in the 1980s, and various other life, happened situations. I continued to study professional health courses, computer courses, and other related college courses until I was 51 years old. I never made a lot of money, but I was remarkably busy.

I can no longer walk eight miles a week as I did before covid I suffered through in January 2021. I can write and continue to create in my life. I conclude that at 74 I am still standing after being on the brink of dying of health issues related to long covid and major abdominal surgery in April 2022. I had major depression from 2016 until 2023 relating to surviving narcissistic abuse relationships for many years and covering it up by pushing my feelings aside into a deep pocket of my subconscious brain. Life moves forward despite narcissistic relationships and being low-income in a highly materialistic society of expensive groceries and other low-level descriptions on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs pyramid. I reached the top of the pyramid realizing my potential as an artist but have failed, in the financial realm of what many people consider success.

Despite my low-income situation, I will continue as a writer and artist to utilize my talents despite the narcissistic jealous men who still want to control me or see me fail.

“I'm a feminist. I've been a female for a long time now. It'd be stupid not to be on my own side.”

As quoted by Maya Angelou

“Rock on my people! "

As quoted by Vicki Lawana Trusselli

Written by

VICKI LAWANA TRUSSELLI

MARCH 26, 2024