oh boy......

Last year I blogged about a little restaurant in the neighborhood that I grew up in and got more hate mail than any other blog before, or after. All of it was from people from the neighborhood.

I made reference to it being like a ghetto and gave the dictionary meaning that I was referring to.

It read something like, "When businesses comes in and take financial advantage of a condensed area."

Evidently ghetto is an emotional word and it triggered lots of anger in lots of people.

People who told me to Fuck off and never come to my neighborhood again and that my mother must be ashamed of me.

Well it turns out that said restaurant was taken over by the bank — shut down, gone, buh-bye.

My first thought was I was right. My second thought was, Why were they so hateful?

Maybe they could scare me to shut me up because they don't want to see the truth, because then they might have to see something in themselves.

So let me get this straight: the message is, don't express yourself unless it goes along with what we believe or you’re not welcome here anymore..

Sounds like a gang mentality to me.

Of course people can disagree with me, but the level of hatred was crazy. And they didn't even defend their case — they just tried to shame and threaten me.

When I was little, my mum took me to the dentist and when I got home I told my Dad that I thought the dentist was taking my mother’s money.

He told me to never to say that again and sent me to my room.

When I was a teenager, that guy got busted for some form of fraud.

Well when I was little I shut my mouth because I needed a place to live.

Now I’m a big girl.

I'm from Boston, MA 02125.

I see truth and feel when things are not on the up and up. Why? Because I am honest.

People have been trying to beat it out of me forever.

I will not be silenced and I definitely will not shrink to make others feel comfortable.

So I guess the question is: What does it mean that I grew up in a place that tried to beat the truth out of me and didn't win?

I understand that sometimes you have to say things over and over in the same voice for people to get it because emotions get in the way, especially when it's something that goes against everything that they believe. I respect that people see things differently because of their own experiences. I am also open to hearing other perspectives. But as far as being afraid of bullies, it's not going to happen.

I don't need everyone to see it, I don't need everyone to like me, but they do have to respect me, especially when I'm right.

nothing exists but love...

I used to think that this was complete bullshit. How could that be, if there is all this bad stuff that goes on?

How could that be true when it takes more courage to be loving than hateful?

How could it be true that even if you choose to be loving, others will still funnel it through their own hatefulness?

That part is not true unless you let it be true.

I used to feel like it wasn't worth it and the old adage of "If you can't be ‘em, you might as well join ‘em" was the only way to survive.

Well not anymore. Simply surviving is not enough for me anymore.

Janis Joplin sings "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." And that is where I am at in life.

I am starting to realize that love might be the only thing that is real and consistent.

That when people are nasty and mean, it's just words and sometimes actions, but unless those actions are murder — meaning they kill us — we still have the choice to choose love.

And love does not mean being a doormat. Love does not mean to be completely selfless. Love means respect.

It's the simplest way I can put it. And unless you have respect for yourself, you can't have respect for others.

If you make the decision not to be nasty to yourself then the decision to not be nasty to others will be made automatically.

Why? Because you have to have nasty in you to be nasty.

It's like when the terrorists attacked. A lot of the machinery they used to grow their "gang," if you will, were weapons that we gave them during the Gulf War.

Think about it: they can only get you with your own weapons.

It seems so simple, yet it seems that the connection through hate has become the stronger bond.

I used to be so scared that if I expressed my compassion I would be attacked so kept it inside and didn't express it.

I became the ugly out of fear of the ugly.

See it's like the camouflage suits they wear in the army — you try to blend in so the enemy won't get you.

You stay small to make others feel comfortable.

It doesn't work. The enemy will never feel comfortable until they surrender to love.

I have been attacked for my compassion but I don’t care. The attack means nothing. Really it' s just words that cause feelings.

It pricks old feelings that are from words that were told to me about myself that aren't true.

So from now on no more shrinking to make others feel comfortable, no more camouflaging myself so you don't see me.

It's only words and words can't kill me, but they can make me walk around dead even though I'm alive.

So not until I am dead will I stop, will I shrink, will the spirit leave my body.

I have the courage to stand up to the ugly with love and I believe others have it in them too because as long as there is breath there is hope.

Comparing my insides to others outsides

...is really just a form of torture. I find myself doing it when I get scared. I guess I could describe it as some sort of need to be taken care of, but it's a screwed up way to do it.

I find when I get scared, I yearn for something — anything — to make me feel better.

I guess that's why people take drugs or act out, but since I'm not into that anymore, I'm really, really trying to go deep and see the things that I do to myself emotionally to torture myself.

As I'm writing this I see how crazy it is. In a healthy world, if I were scared I would want a hug, and if there is no one around for a hug, then I should at least be gentle with myself.

Believe me, I've gotten much better at this. I used to wake up in the morning and not be able to get out of bed until I found something to worry about.

Once I did, I would jump out of bed and begin my day.

I guess that is the same effect that drugs have on your body.

They give you a false sense of moving forward, all the while taking you down.

Imagine what that does to my nervous system?

My career is taking off again and with that comes all the feelings about why I shut it down to begin with.

Growing up, I looked like a boy and all I wanted to do was look like a girl.

But once I did, I experienced what it felt like to be a girl and sometimes it was painful.

I used to think that boys had it made, that they didn't have any feelings and that they got away with murder.

I remember a therapist telling me that that was not the case. Oftentimes it's much harder to be a guy because their emotions are all jammed up inside them.

It's easy to hear it, but to integrate it is a whole other ball game.

Ha! Ballgame. I have forever been jealous of boys and their sports and the money they make.

I've been jealous of them my whole life (boys I mean).

Some of it is old feelings and some of it is a reality.

Sexism is alive and well today and oftentimes it's perpetuated by women.

Even I can be guilty of it. If I hate being a woman sometimes, then what will I manifest with other women?

And don't even get me started on the guys. If I'm so jealous of them, how can I ever get outside of myself and be loving and compassionate towards them.

The anger that I feel sometimes when I suffer a some slight because of sexism is almost unbearable.

It used to be any slight of any kind.

I think that it’s the anger that made me shut down.

I couldn't tolerate it, I couldn't process it. I remember being in therapy one time and being so mad inside, but on the outside I was weepy.

My therapist asked me why I was weepy.

A year later it hit me: I express my anger through weeping because that's the socially acceptable thing for a girl to do.

Here's my theory: guys are terrified of a woman's anger because they couldn't tolerate their mommy's anger. They hated how powerless that made them feel so they never want to feel that way again.

Well as sad as it may be, we are all grown ups now and just as I need to look at my own reasons for holding myself back and not having enough love and compassion for men, the men need to do the same.

They say that sometimes the anger or feelings are so intense when you first feel them because they are repressed childhood feelings. Those feelings are harder to feel, but if you can allow them to come out and process them in healthy way, they will not always be that intense.

I think they call that the maturation process.

Which is much more difficult to go through in you later years, but never impossible.

So for today, I'm going to let all my childhood feelings come up about how mad I was that I was born a girl and how jealous I am of how guys get it easier sometimes.

I will sit here and think about how when I was little no one let me feel my anger. They were beating the shit out of me and I wasn't supposed to have anger. I would spend hours in my room sleeping and repressing my anger.

Flash forward to my sitcom Costello. The executives hid behind the walls telling me not to be a bitch and "don't be like Rosanne."

I had appropriate reasons to not be happy about what was going on on that set, but what did I do?

I went home to bed.

I had a director (a man) say to me, "I wish I had a Mercedes when I was 30." I had a guy who was jealous that it wasn't his show. A guy that I fought to get on that show.

The show was called Costello and they all had jobs because of me and what did I do? I went to bed.

Well now I am able to feel the powerlessness that I have over the fact which will fuel me to my healthy anger to get something done!

Being a girl has gotten me fucked and not in the good way.

I'm beginning to feel worthy of what I have and being a girl is very powerful. I mean we do create life.

There's a new Sheriff in town

I’m making a citizen’s arrest on PEOPLE OPERATING ON A LOW LEVEL. Seriously, it bores me. It used to scare me but now yawn, yawn and yawn.

However, if those people should ever choose to take a few minutes to have a few uncomfortable feelings, in order to TRY to not be so ugly, I would care, a little.

Notice I said TRY.

That's all you really have to do to begin the changing process.

I know you are not happy in that skin of yours.

So, rather than spreading all that unhappiness all over everyone else, try to hold on to it.

It can take practice, like hold it for one minute, then the next day two, and so on.

Hold on to it until you are strong enough to realize how unhappy you are and that the truth is that the only way out is through.

Only you can dig yourself out of your own hell.

Think about it: if you spread your misery you're just making more misery and you'll never be happy :)

on choices

You are free to believe what you choose, and what you do attests to what you believe. (Meditations from a course in miracles.)

I see dead people

Well not literally, but I do see things that most people don't (want to). I have all my life and when I was a kid, I got beat for it.

I feel it in my gut, the second something isn't right. I use humor to expose it a lot of the time, but sometimes I just say it straight up.

A memory just came to my mind as I am writing this.

Growing up, I was 3 years younger then my sister and her friends, so of course, I always wanted to hang around with them.

When I was around three, we would play in our back yard and they would go outside the gate and I would follow.

When my mother caught me she tied me to a pole so that I wouldn't do it again.

Then when I was around 8 or 9, we were in Vermont and the girls got to stay in our cottage by themselves while I had to go with my mother and father to a party down the street.

My mother told the girls that they were to save some candy for me.

When we got home, the girls were sitting at the table and there was one green leaf left in the dish.

I said something. I was so mad because I knew they were fucking with me.

My mother proceeded to beat the shit out of me. She punched me from the couch to the chair and back again.

All while the girls turned their heads and watched through the reflection of the window.

This beating did not make me feel like I was wrong, it made me feel like I would die if I stuck up for myself.

Now I think about what happened at the theater the other night.

I walked in and the floor was a completely different color from all the other times I had done my show there. It also had stickers and scratches all over it.

I was mad. I said to the assistant, “I realize that you guys have other shows going on during the week, but I never knew the floor was going to change and it's a mess. I need some level of respect.”

To which the guy who runs the theatre screamed, "FUCK YOU, don't you dare come in and frown at the floor, I've been working all fucking day here. Fuck you, don't do your show!"

To which I responded, "We'll talk about this after my show"

He kept going, "Fuck you! You're not doing your show, don't you fucking tell me what to do!"

He chased me into my dressing room.

I was by myself, but I had people outside waiting to see the show and the irrationality almost paralyzed me

You know why? Because when you get beat like that as a kid, it takes a lifetime to figure out what is acceptable behavior.

I said to myself, "Sue you don't deserve this" and packed up my stuff.

As soon as I walked out the door the "strangers" mind you, who were there to see the show, asked what happened.

I told them and their response was, "OMG Sue that's terrible. Do you need us to go back in there with you? There is strength in numbers."

When they said that, it registered just how bad this whole thing was.

You see, there was still a part of me who thought I should take it, that I should not speak up for myself, but that was when I was a kid, when I needed a place to live, when the adults were in charge of me.

This time I was a grown woman. I don't need that guy. And I especially never need to be treated like that. I didn't have an advocate when I was little but I sure as hell have one now, and it's me.

Another customer showed up and went right into the guy who runs the theater and said, “It doesn't matter what went on. The proof is in the fact that you have 30 people outside to see a show and you are turning them away."

She told him that he was dumb because he was losing business and that all those people would never come back to see a show at his theater.

One woman said that I should call the police. I did. Because in the past I’ve been in these kinds of situations and didn't realize the severity of them because of my past, only to wish I had later.

Well the cops show up, and the woman police officer said, "This will probably be harassment." And the the two male cops went inside.

They came out and pretty much yelled, "It was a loud argument, that's all. Nothing happened — you had an artistic disagreement."

I was shocked, then he said he has 2 witnesses.

I asked, " You mean the girl who lives in the basement with the guy who freaked out and the priest who lives in the homeless shelter on the other side of the basement?"

I did not have a written contract with the theater but I had a verbal contract which was implied by the signs outside and the customers.

Then the other cop said to me, "In the future if you don't have a written contract and they ask you to leave and you don't, you can be arrested for trespassing."

Mind you, he was saying this to me as I was on the sidewalk outside.

I picked up my set and carried it to the end of the street.

Thinking My God will the bullies always win?

I spoke to my friend, who doesn't miss a trick either, and said, "The priest probably got to the cops. I bet they were either Irish or Italian, and I bet they do the same to their wives."

To which I replied, “And the girlfriend and the priest were protecting their homes.” I had a little compassion because I remembered how scared I was as a kid that I would lose my home if I stuck up for myself.

And the end result is: I'm walking away. The dark doesn't win unless I let it.

The priest, the girl and the guy who manages the theater can keep protecting their homes in the basement. The cops can keep being scared by the priests and intimidating women and I will move on to bigger and better places.

ok here's the dilly...

I don't care what you think of me :) How's that?

I actually think it's funny when I write about abuse and people send me abusive emails.

Which proves my point: that bullies are dumb.

I actually got an email yesterday from someone saying that I am uneducated because I don't proofread my blogs.

The email had words left out, misspellings, no caps and extra words in it.

The person also wrote, that I referred to myself as "always nice."

Ummm never. I don't even believe in that word.

Also, the person who wrote the email called me "white trash."

So not only do they attack me personally, then they attack my education or lack thereof, and to top it off, they put words in my mouth.

I can't even wrap my brain around that.

So obviously they are wrong, but let's say they’re not. For argument sake, what if I am uneducated and white trash?

Who cares?

These emails are filled with name-calling and hate.

OK so you’re hateful. Great.

Again, I don't care.

Judgement generally refers to the considered evaluation of evidence in the formation of making a decision.

Any individual that makes the decision to actually sit down at their computer, compose an email of hate and send it — especially when the result of such email is the exact thing that I’m being accused of — seems to be an interesting decision.

There are plenty of people who I don't agree with (or respect, for that matter). There are plenty of people that I think are not telling the truth, but I would never sit down and send them a nasty email.

Why? Because it doesn't trigger something inside me.

I just move forward with my own life. What do I care what others do? I'm only responsible for myself. And If I'm busy writing emails to others, then I'm not taking care of myself. And, if they are hate filled emails, then I'm actually taking away from the world, instead of giving back.

The best way to stand up to something you don't believe in is to do the exact opposite. The truth will always prevail when we don't allow the truth to be pulled into the cloudiness of hate.

I can only think that this formation and considered evaluation is motivated by something they see in themselves.

Psychological projection (or projection bias) is the unconscious act of denial of a person's own attributes, thoughts, and emotions, which are ascribed to the outside world, like the weather, the government, a tool or another person or people.

In classical psychology, projection is always seen as a defense mechanism that occurs when a person's own unacceptable or threatening feelings are repressed and then attributed to someone else.

An example of this behavior might be blaming another for self failure. The mind may avoid the discomfort of consciously admitting personal faults by keeping those feelings unconscious, and redirect their libidinal satisfaction by attaching, or "projecting," those same faults onto another.

Projection reduces anxiety by allowing the expression of the unwanted unconscious impulses or desires without letting the conscious mind recognize them.

I never knew what bothered me about hateful people before, but I get it now. It's that they're dumb.

They keep doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. They spew hate at others as a way to put them down and in doing so, they actually prove that they are themselves the ones that are hateful, all the while trying to pretend that they are not.

If you choose the path of hate then I beg of you, at least put a little effort into it. Don't be so lazy. Try to use a little sophistication.

OK so to sum it up, you can call me uneducated, call me white trash, but at least I'm not dumb.

And who cares what I say either? The bullies won't even understand this post.

Enough is enough!

I try every day to be understanding and compassionate, but sometimes I reach a limit and today is that day! I am beside myself with the level of unacceptable behavior that I have been exposed to lately.

Over the past couple of years, I have been under tremendous stress. I lost my home, my therapist was abusing me, and I put up my show during the stock market crash last fall and lost more money.

That being said, I have not treated anyone poorly because of that. I took all of these situations as an opportunity to grow and to see if I can rise to the occasion.

I did just that and continue to. All my life people have said to me, "Sue we're not all like you."

That's a cop out. I used to think, Sue don't think you are better than, have compassion.

I have plenty of compassion, but up until now it has been at the expense of myself.

I do not think I am better than anyone, but I do think that there is a better way to live in the world.

It is TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE to treat someone like shit because you cannot handle your emotions.

Yes we are human, but that is not an excuse. If you make a mistake, apologize. Care enough about yourself not to treat others like shit because the truth is, you just get shit back when you do it.

The other night, the guy that runs the theater that I had been doing my show Minus 32 Million Words at freaked out on me because evidently he was having girlfriend problems.

I was an easy target because I was doing my show in 40 minutes.

He pulled the show and all the people that came to see me had to be turned away.

STUPID. He lost money himself and everyone there saw what happened. Also my friend who is a Tony nominated actress told me that he bullied a big guy from a play of hers in the past.

I can tell him why he's having problems with his girlfriend.

He's a big dumb bully.

I don't like to name call, but jeez.

If you hate your life and don't have the courage to change it, then stay home. It's not OK to take it out on the world.

Because he was having a bad day, I am left to pick up and find a new place to do my show.

He wants to sabotage his life — so be it, but leave me out of it.

This has happened many times in my life and I will move on and I will look at this and a gift that the stakes weren't higher.

But in the meantime, I'm pissed off. People need to pull their shit together.

The world is falling apart because people think that it's ok to dump into each other.

Well it 's not. I don't care if you have pain from your past if the only thing you choose to do with it is hurt others with it.

If you care to take a look at it and feel some of it yourself — which is what should happen, since it is YOUR pain — then I have all the compassion in the world.

But if not, save it. You left something on my doorstep — take it back.