or a cup half empty/full question.
[o_o] Litmus Test Has Scientific Origins
It was in the 14th century that scientists discovered that litmus, a mixture of colored organic compounds obtained from lichen, turns red in acid solutions and blue in alkaline solutions and, thus, can be used as an acid-base indicator. Six centuries later, people began using litmus test figuratively.
^-.-^ … It’s still used.
I just used it. (Knew about the beets, did not know about the lichen. Curious now… ) moving on to the topic of art.
The Red Glass
This is an Entry Level Story. (G-rated)
Let’s make it easier.
I’ll give you a moment to write the narrative.
The story before it is told.
The kind of cctv-style.
Recordable Evidence. Measurable. Quantitative. Cumulative.
These sequence of actions did occur.
The full grown Adult Woman (34years+) and an elementary age Child (6yrs -10yrs.)
Whose Trauma??
Whose story gets told first, loudest, most often, with dramatic flare, re-in-acting, display of injury, lamenting, with the whoa-is-me-ing and gnashing of teeth?
Who has been mistreated? Who afflicted the harm?
Go on with your assumptions.
Write them down.
The story from the Adult (POV – A) first person-al (takes everything personally.)
Limited reasoning: “It’s happening TO her.” “She is the Victim.” Thus: Presumption of Malicious Intent.
Sounds like: “This is your fault. You did this on purpose. You did this to HURT me.”
This initiates Open Floodgate of Persecution… contempt, and hatred aimed directly AT the TARGET.
POV A’s Narrative: The Brat annoyed and finally she caved and took the Brat out to the yard to show her the basics of gardening.
[Inserts blameshift for imbalance (different for different audience…
…okay I’ll explain more: For “housewifes” blame “husband left roots” >>> when in cctv reality, Her father machine tilled the back corner every year, some years he’d leave a row or two planted, most often he’d hill it up for my mother to plant.
For gullible she would blame the malicious hell spawn (aka Child.)]
The lies and deception match the audience’s exploitable features; (sympathy, rage directed, affections, pacifiers and comfort food, (justified binging.)
> I’m not allowed to say that. Hard to break Barriers with >> Food Used as Reward/Punishment << without TALKING ABOUT IT.)
Child (POV C)
I was pointing at a plant emerging asking what it was, she shifted to look and stumbled.
[Multiple causes possible; shoes.. Slide on sandals.. Too close to hilled bed… leaned on tool, expecting construction rake support from spade shaped hoe … the possibilities are endless.)
She starts to go down, catches her footing, then decides to go… all the way down…
Back of wrist toward forehead,
slowly checking each move
before performed.
Mind you,
>> I am not allowed to see it THIS WAY <<
The final pose before “fainting,” she points out of the yard and tells me she is going to need help getting back up, “Go! See if Joe or Frank are home! I need a strong man!”
(As a young adult, this scene causes a different (not G-rated) re-evaluation. Considering all of the men who crossed my father’s threshold while he was at work… the strange ploy – AND likely twist … to go find her a man, as solution to her “fall.”) } Hysteronic, (but don’t diagnose!!)
Out the back gate … I knocked on every door around the block… both sides of the street!!
Running (as though my mother’s life depended on it!)
and back through the front door of the house straight through to the backyard.
Cognitive Processing aka Detective C: Not call an ambulance? Fire Department?
Also where was Everyone Else?
Work. School.
Dad was a teacher, siblings “good students.”
Remember My Truancy?
Right, she not only let me skip but would keep me home to “assist” her.
Fetch this, bring that, go tell… go borrow.. And ofc the animal retrieval for her “Rescue” work, but that’s a different story.
For every interaction with my tox-mother… every single one I can recall…
Those interactions were/are really messed up once you have some distance to think about it.
This memory came as a Flashback…
[o_o] A flashback is a specific psychological experience in which a person feels as though they are reliving a past event in the present, rather than simply recalling it.
A memory is the normal act of remembering something that happened in the past while remaining aware that it is a memory.
Memory
When you remember something, you generally know:
- The event happened in the past.
- You are here in the present.
- The memory is something you’re thinking about, not something currently occurring.
For example:
“I remember my first day of school. I can picture the classroom and how nervous I felt.”
You are recalling information, but you remain anchored in the present.
Flashback
A flashback is more immersive and can feel immediate:
- The past experience intrudes into the present.
- The person may temporarily feel as if the event is happening again.
- Sensory details (sights, sounds, smells, bodily sensations, emotions) may be vivid.
- Awareness of the present may be partially reduced.
| Experience | Description |
| Ordinary memory | “I remember what happened.” |
| Vivid recollection | Detailed mental image, but clearly remembered as past. |
| Intrusive memory | Unwanted memory pops into mind. |
| Flashback | Feeling that the event is happening again in the present. |
^-.-^ disclaimer… disclaimer… PC don’t diagnose disclaimer…
Where was I??
This memory came as a Flashback…
From the outside, it looks like I zone-out, my pulse often races… nightmares are like this too.
>>> I learned to recognize the “spectrum” of SIGNS Robot just listed.
>> I learned how to ground myself in Now and not Then.
> I learned how to Listen to what the memory/flashback was telling me.
>> It shows what I have not healed from. <<
The Big Red Glass
[O_O] Your mind was reprocessing a memory until disparate details suddenly connected into a coherent interpretation.
At first, you may have remembered:
- A large glass of ice.
- Someone appearing to suffer from heat exhaustion or heat stroke.
- The person later being found in the shade in essentially the same position.
Individually, those details might not have seemed significant. Later, when the memory was revisited, the details fit together differently:
- The “glass of ice” became evidence that the person may not have been overheated.
- The move from direct sun to shade while maintaining the same pose became evidence that the collapse might have been staged.
- The pattern suggested intentional behavior rather than a genuine medical emergency.
Psychologists sometimes call this an insight or reappraisal. The memory itself may not have changed much; what changed was your understanding of the relationships between the details.
Detectives often describe this experience as:
“I had all the clues the whole time, but I didn’t see what they meant until later.”
In a true flashback, the emphasis is usually on re-experiencing the event. In what you’re describing, the emphasis seems to be on recognition:
“I kept replaying the scene until I finally noticed the clue.”
That’s closer to solving a puzzle from memory than reliving the event. The replay continues because your brain senses that something about the memory is unresolved, and eventually a new interpretation emerges that explains the previously confusing details.
^<.<^ I’m story-ing now.
^-.-^ The Big Red Glass
The biggest cup from Pizza Hut circa late 1970’s, that textured red plastic, (cupboard/drawers full of restaurant lifted dishes >pause and consider< ikr… tacky but There It Is and all it implies about my parent’s taste.)
In the moment of heart pounding flashback, my mind on re-play, zoom-in… re-wind… re-play zoom more… in my peripheral I see it…
The Big Red Glass
And this time I am paying attention, the cubes still square edges barely round, water GONE …a new puddle growing from ice melt, exterior condensation, no prints… water consumed before plastic chilled..
Ice chill spine plunge as my adult mind sees it, and puts it together!
She got up.
She came in and made a drink.
Then she went back out to… re-faint
(conveniently in the grass and shade this time) in exactly the same pose.
I woke her,explaining no one was home.
She sat up right away, giving instructions to bring various tools that she could use to get herself up, me running ahead to open the door, as she leaned on shovel-crutch to wobble inside to her couch and fan and paperback novels.
This memory, every time I thought about gardening. Not going to quibble about if it IS trauma or traumatizing. It was a barrier that limited my life.
A barrier; a deep fear in association.
What is agreed upon is that this whole event Started because a child asked her mother to teach her something.
I learned not to.
> I learned to garden from books (borrowed from my step-mom or public libraries), until I met Ms. Barbara and helped her for years before I got involved in the community garden, became a certified Master Gardener and started revitalizing blighted urban lots, or restoring vintage gardens for historical landmarks. <
These Theatrics.
A bit later, similar story about asking for a ride. The kids in the neighborhood would go on to the Skating Rink on Saturday’s and we could all pile into the back of the truck. Those kids were aging out of the skating rink having cooler “teen-ager” things to do. The request was to be dropped off on a Saturday Night.
It didn’t happen.
Faking confused about it the next morning, my mother acts like a Sunday trip was ”her surprise” for me, AND by nagging she can now punish me, by withholding the “surprise” she just invented (to cover her ass.)
She didn’t drop me off.
She came inside, got a ticket and put on skates.
<-.->
OF COURSE she fell down. (Again.)
This one I saw coming,
… her all nostalgic about skating, trying to find a station with her skate-era-tunes.
The bruise that went from calf to ribs.
[Skating rinks are not cushioned the way
garden beds mulched and tilled for a decade tend to be.]
AND
The subsequent shaming lore of blameshift.
The Child’s idea…
the child insisted… tantrum… similar outburst etc…
The FLIP… not Saturday, new “Party invite by friends” on Sunday, turned out it was a TRICK and this DEAREST of MOMMYs felt so bad, about the child’s abandonment (by fictitious friends) and the child was hurt so bad -by being betrayed (by those just invented out of nowhere group of friends) and She… so loving and caring a mother… wanted to be That Friend FOR Her Daughter!
What is agreed upon is that this whole event Started because a child asked her mother for a ride.
I learned not to.
Repeating Motif:
See how I’m the problem?
Always have been.
I don’t have to “Listen For It” most often the (narcissistic) say it out loud directly at the TARGET.
[HINT: Coercion… physical (and psychological) injury/pain and/or death implied and Enforced (via conditioning aka first-hand experience.)]
Especially if they believe there is no witness.
Or the programming is Still Working…
(lol…XD as though I’d leave puppet strings attached
and she could pick up where she left off…
rofl… stop!!
This is too solipsistic even for the terminally narcissistic!)
[HINT: I started re-scripting early. Started recognizing and cataloging.
Kind of Key to the riddle=lock, understanding your own springs and pins and figure out how to reset them… custom built style. New Passwords and all.
Thus: >> leash gets yanked. Cats don’t bark.
Modelling: what a tox-mother shows, models, instructs, allows and encourages, and how the elder-sister, and the enforcer-sister learned their entitlements/ privileges/rewards and the punishments/tortures they were allowed to commit
Surrounded by self-blinding/self-deafen-ing/self-mute-ing/do-nothing monkeys, and even more so with the flying monkeys armed-up with 10-minutes of hate rhetoric they kegger-chugged/tunnel vision/bottle googled/funnel goggled >>> a Target to point the hater-ship by… or just pointed AT?
Funnel is no joke for that comparison… >>notice how the circles get smaller<<… really hard to keep up with the currently trending PC purity standards of the moment as manipulated by monetized ai-bots..
“By” may not be a far miss…
What is your Friend-Ship (groups) guided By? A star/compass/motto? A 4 year mission? Any direction?
BESIDES “hating on the other guys… those people… over there… that you don’t really know, but TV told ya theyz bad guy ta hate-on today…” ”US vs THEM” “Red vs Blue” etc…
Beside all that
>>> What ELSE do you have In Common with your “Friend Group” ?
What are you actually doing… together… in real life?
It’s pretty easy to find people who Grow things together… (usually have “garden” or “gardener” in group description…)
Or Build things together…
OR Challenge each other to Improve together: support groups, yoga/tai chi, crafts, music, art…
Any Hobby?
And while we are at it…. What’s going on with your friends?
…. The ones who can’t bond without Targeted Hate at some other person/group?
No Other topic allowed until you agreed (aka Submit) to Their Side.
Press PAUSE > consider.
Does this seem “friendly”?
The Grudge holding, Silently treatment… Lick backs.
The verbal jabs, insults and undercuts… the set ups, the ambushes…
Haven’t We All Reached the AGE of (ayfkm?)
[Translation: Are You 4#&5126 Kidding Me? Pre-censored for your convenience]
I look around often to see which adult is going to step up and stop this >>when I see the BS,<< but find a lot of swivel nodding heads endorsing/aka enabling.
On several Notable/ and noted occasions (some officially documented)
I sadly realize I might be the only adult in the room and unfortunately not only in the right place, also with the right information, the right authority to speak openly, honestly… in the whole truth and nothing but the truth kind of way.
Ikr? —- >>“How does this keep happening to me?”
Speak the truth vs Submit to a Bully’s deceit-games and hate-clubs.
Not a hard Choice.
Not a NEW GAME
Just different terrain…different mini/big bosses.
Some folks have not kept an accurate score on this one…
I’ll fill in some of the blanks…
Sometimes I just leave and never return.
Some people/places/things I don’t need/want to fight for…
And
I won’t “fight for it,” if it’s not good for me.
Happily, I let go!
When I Chose to stand my ground >> I am Undefeated.
Gonna Quote the Captain on this one:
“It’s easy not to turn evil.” – Captain Howl Phillinish
Choose Truth.
Traveler Chimiru 
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