that’s cool for your setting background but the Christian ruleset is very clear that El is he/him and that splatbook is famously well selling so everyone knows the basic canon

That’s one of Trump’s “funny” nicknames, and Talarico leaned fully into it - you can buy “Talafreako” T-Shirts to support his campaign, and they sell pretty well from what i’ve heard.

My parents watch youtube with ads as TV and the amount of “James talarico is weird” ads is stupidly too much.

Wow.

My father was, as near as I can understand, an actual Nazi, and I lean pretty hard left, but he never said anything close to as nasty to me as your mother said to you. In fact, for all his faults and despite all the arguments, I’m 100% certain he loved me.

Also, just for the record, I’m going to read this:

She frothed at the mouth and started barking at me.

As literal truth, as in she started barking like a dog.

I had a father who is much browner than me who loves Trump. He would scream about how Michelle Obama was a monkey and man… among other things. Needless to say, he’s no longer my father.

There are families of origin, the ones to which we were born; and families of choice, the ones we create for ourselves throughout the course of our lives that encompass all whom we love and who genuinely love us in return, not just by marriage or birth but by being to us whatever feels like family. The people that show up with heart in our lives just because that’s what they do, and for whom we do the same.

I have seen many a family of origin splinter, collapse, and even explode, with all members separating off into the farthest corners of the globe they can individually find, but I have never seen a family of choice go bad. It is what you make it. They are there because you want them there.

For people who came from shitty families of origin, this can be a revelation. There are as many families of choice celebrating Thanksgiving together as there are families related by blood, often with more laughter and fewer fights, and it’s even better than the so-called “real” thing. I remember one such family of choice – a group of gay men at the height of AIDS back in the late 80s – who were showing up for each other daily, in amazing, selfless ways even though their own families had largely disowned them, and having seen and experienced with my own eyes what a family of choice can be, I NEVER felt obligated to family of origin again. And I guarantee you that NO holiday was ever “less than” around these guys: they were making every minute count.

Others have mentioned it before me, but I think maybe you just got your invitation to start your own family of choice. Enjoy the ride, because it will last your entire life. This hard place you’re in now, it will pass. You will make it out of med school and into the rest of your life, and you will do well because you show up honestly. You clearly want to better your life, in a number of ways, and you inevitably will. But you cannot take anyone with you into bettering life who will not go. They will not change, and you are wasting energy and time you could be putting into yourself. Let them be who they are.

And don’t worry about who to trust: it is perfectly fine to self-guard after a huge maternal betrayal like that. The problem is usually not that we don’t know who to trust; it’s that deep down we know perfectly well but are not ready to deal with that truth just yet. Generally speaking, people only find themselves asking the question because someone (or even a core group of people) has been breaking their trust regularly. Maybe that’s true for you as well, and if so, this particularly difficult period in your life is not the time to deal with it. So don’t force it, because you don’t have to. You can feel better pretty quickly without doing that kind of inner white-knuckling.

The trick is to spend MORE time with people that feel good to be with, and LESS time with those who don’t. Look around your life and see who is showing up for you with no expectation of return, who let you be yourself, who just listen, who actually give as much of a shit about you as you do about them. Spot those people in your life, and whatever precious little free time and energy you have, spend it with them. Even strangers: when people smile at you, try to smile back, because you can share in their joy too, however fleeting. Do this, surround yourself with goodhearted people who feel good to be with, and I promise you that over time, your guardedness will drop, and your own truth – along with your genuine trust – will emerge with it. No need to force anything at all until you’re ready.

You’re going to be fine. Hang in there. I wish you well.

Another Texas resident here. I can’t legally vote as an immigrant, but I feel really hopeful based on how many people my age tell me “remember to vote.”

Here’s a virtual hug for you. You seem like a kind person and that is the best kind of person. You take care.

Be proud you were able to overcome all that baggage and damage, and I wish you the best. She is stuck in dualism and fears leaving it and her identity is attached to these chosen things. You have advanced beyond the little confining hole she is in and have critical thinking and real freedom and you climbed Perry’s scheme to real convictions. It’s harder to do this so she takes the easy way to just obey, conform and not have real integrity or actualize. She’s likely controlled by ego and the pain body that Tolle talks about. It’s sad so many stuck like that and never realize the truth that does really set us free and it’s not the faulty foundations of authoritarian groups.

My mother isn’t as bad, but I had something similar happen to me. I don’t think she recognizes it, but when she snapped at me she said words that she could never take back. In that moment she stopped being my mother. I show up to Thanksgiving and Christmas and enjoy my family for what I can, but she doesn’t get to see the real me. She lost that privilege.

I found peace in friends who understand what it means to actually listen to and love one another. Hope you can do the same.

Edit: In Texas. Voting for Talafreako and getting everyone I can to do the same.

Your mom is going to miss your doctor money when she is in the old folks home. I’m sorry you have to deal with that language from someone who is supposed to love and support you. This whole thing really does seem to be like a mental illness the way it brings out the worst in everyone.

It is so hard seeing this shit still tearing families apart. It sucks because these are important issues, not something you can agree to disagree on, and it hurts to see your family go down the insanity rabbit hole.

Found this out the hard way during covid when my mom laughed when i said someone I knew had lost a parent to covid and I wanted to check on her (despite us not being on speaking terms anymore). She laughed outloud and called it a scamdemic and called my friend’s family stupid for taking his mom to the hospital, because “thats what really killed him”.

I had the same kind of shocked feeling of now having to call into question everything I knew (and also everything I was taught) by my mom, including her level of empathy for others.

abbot et al forced redistricting on us last year. please keep in mind texans are trying to fight an increasingly rigged system.

These pedo apologists would be in big trouble if someone with common sense came in and did anything real for the people.

Zohran has a YouTube. There was a mock vid on his “scary” smile because his opponents had nothing else to point fingers at.

This is a desperate scare tactic and not necessarily a reflection of how most people here think. I live in Texas, and our airwaves have been so utterly saturated with anti-trans ads. I get the sense a lot of the people who used to be activated with this rhetoric are genuinely questioning why Republicans are only talking about this.

Rural folk feel the cost of gas and groceries even more acutely than city folk. When I drive through rural parts of Central Texas, where there used to be Trump signs everywhere, there are few to no signs supporting any Republicans. I could count on one hand the number of Paxton and Abbott signs I’ve seen on the roadside, but there are regularly Talarico and Hinojosa signs.

It feels like we’re approaching a cultural shift of some kind down here. Please, dear god, let’s have a cultural shift.

Well there is the policy of… ummm… let me get back to you on that.

Who does?

At least our parties are consistently no real policy for the average citizen.