Describing My Situation

I hope this worked out ok.  I have here what is supposed to be the whipping scene in ROOTS.  To me it represents how our own human will can be forced out of us, Kunte Kinte was the exception.  There were spikes on the end of the whip, which represents to me, how forcefully we have been brutalized, and torn into pieces to just get back what we were born with.  The power to be a human on our own, a person of our own.  An ACON grew up with the spikes being torn into us, freedom was something we definitely had to fight for.

I, in no way, am taking advantage of a time in history, or a people slavery happened to.  This blog is my own truth.  I watch this stuff, and it chills me to the bone.  This is my story too.

I've been asked to write up a one page composition, from my doctor, describing my mental health situation, for the disability tax credit.

I think the thing that bugs me the most about this stuff is that I have to leave out the narcissistic upbringing I had.  By leaving out that piece I am going back to self blame, and I wonder what these people will think of me, having such horrid feelings and thoughts for no reason.  No one else is like this, why am I?  If I was wheelchair bound that wouldn't be the case.  But I have severe mental difficulties that I have to work on daily.  All of this takes me a great deal of time to do a task, and without my parentage, I feel like I am weird for nothing.

So, just as I can explain things better to myself, this is hard.  First I have to get it all out, this is a tax credit I am asking for and I have to prove my mental functions effect me in all avenues of my life, or at least some.  I believe it affects me in everything.  I am to write a one page story on how this all affects my life, as per my doctor's instructions.  She is very thorough, and she said there is no sense of even trying for this tax credit unless I go all out and do it right.  She will attach the letter to my forms that will be sent to the tax office.

My feelings over take me, what can I say to that?  My self esteem is gone, I have to work on just being enough.  Its hard when you have a family and you are the matriarch, and you try to be the right person for them to talk to, and even lean on.  If I feel like I am not enough, and if I don't work on that, my mind, and body wants to escape my own accusations, and I feel that I am not good enough to be the one they can lean on and count on.  That is what gets me, if someone needs me, its a horrible feeling of dread that I won't meet up to the normal standards.  I would rather they depend on someone else, for surely anyone else can be better than me.

Even doing this writing gives me a feeling that I want to escape from.  This tax credit is called the 40K tax credit, apparently that is what some people can gain from it.  So I feel all this pressure to gain that too.  See, that is the thing, if I can't compete, and I know I can't, well, its just a losing situation for me regardless of what I get.  If I get back 10 thousand dollars, it won't be enough, for somewhere out there someone gets the 40K.  I feel like I lost before I even started.  So I always have those types of hurdles to jump.  My brain works against me.

Or when someone crosses my boundaries, I get right pissed off.  Even if the children do it.  As an engulfed daughter I can see why, but that part will be left out of the report.  But it always leaves me scrambling.  My oldest demands this and that, and I feel like she has been taking advantage over my reduced mental state,  I did share with the children my condition, but she told me that I am to get over it, and will chastise me over it.  This makes me cross at her, for I know she did not have the upbringing I did, she was not engulfed, she was able to be a person at her own choosing, I did not.  I did not get to make any of my own decisions, couldn't even dress myself, mother was in total control of me, and even tried to control me in my forties by telling me I am not to leave my apartment.  I wonder how my daughter would feel about that?  What if I called her and tell her she was to stay home all of the time?  She would likely tell me to eff off, and with my mother I had no such luxury.

Nowadays, when I have the grandkids over, I have this horrible feeling that any negative behavior at home will compound on them later in life.  I am having trouble accepting the fact that I'm not perfect. Even a little baby, will feel any tension here at home,  and she will pay for it later in life.  So I started watching all my behaviours and speech, and it was tough.  Hubby wasn't allowed to be grouchy and I forced this on him.  Life is not that friggin perfect, I don't know what to do about life not being perfect.  It feels like hell.

Even now while I begin the program with voc rehab somethings are stinging me.  The past, not being accepted, not being trusted, and I know if someone has to trust me, that means I have to first trust myself.  No matter how hard I try to hide this stuff from the rest of the people a lot of it just leaks out. They know.  And when they do know they can go for the attack or start to treat me like a kid, or as someone with this disorder.  Voc Rehab works in two ways.  Either the employer doesn't know about the disorder and they just find me a job that fits with my disorder.  For example, if I am stressed around people they just get me to work alone.  The employer will not have to know, and it will not be an issue.  Or, they do inform the employer of my condition, and he will be asked to be understanding. That last one feels like such a case for a sociopath to take total control and advantage over the situation, doesn't it?  But voc rehab will be monitoring the situation, I just worry that they will blame me if a sociopath comes as my boss, as sociopaths are not blamed for anything.

So lots of things.  If I try to just get out the door to go do something, I have to fight anticipatory anxiety.  I have to fight anticipatory anxiety all the time.  Even with the simple matter of brushing my teeth.  Sometimes I feel that the toothpaste is too strong, and I have to not use toothpaste at all, I don't want to burn my mouth.  Then I have to fight the dreaded feeling of following the path of all my teeth, all the sides the tops, everything.  Yes, my mind overwhelms me with such thoughts.  If I want to have my teeth last me my life, I have to work through those feelings.

I worked through a great deal.  When I learned not to resist bad feelings but to just let them flow, that helped me quite a bit.  It is also more work too, but at least I can do it.  The trouble I have with it is that I am not used to it.  I really do resist my feelings, of panic, of shame of fear and dread, but it really does take down one wall to reduce my suffering.  But it is a lot of work itself, you know?

I do like a nice drive to the city by myself.  But when I start reaching the outskirts of the city, I tend to not know what I'm doing, or where I'm supposed to go.  I forget what the heck I'm going to town for, and I have to work on not resisting the feelings of panic, then my mind can clear.

I took on a quilting project that is rather daunting at times, to the point where I was seriously avoiding it.  I did one day.  So I just felt into that feeling.  In a while I was back to doing the project not even realizing how I got there.  It was a very liberating feeling, but it took me quite some time to get there.  It wasn't like, just go and do, it was like, just feel, and when you realize your feelings have done what they needed to do, then the task becomes doable.  Now I'm starting to realize how this has effected me in the job force.  Its just an up and go place, and I am needing a lot of psychological supports.

Now, I'm starting to realize this will be more than a one page article that was requested by my doctor. So I'm comforting myself, by telling myself, that first I have to get all the points down.  That is where I start with.  I'm not going to be talking about Nmom too much here, for it can't be in the article that I send to the tax office anyway.  This part is just to clue me in, for me to get how my mind works, so that I can convince them that I do need a tax credit.   One of the specifications on the form is AN INORDINATE AMOUNT OF TIME NECESSARY FOR EVERDAY LIFE, THAT THE AVERAGE PERSON DOES NOT NEED.

I do have a lot of supports.  Mostly I do have a relationship site that goes way beyond teaching about relationships, and reaches down into the psyche.  In ways that are not taught in the real mental health facility, but more real, and more helpful to me.  I do find her advice more painful actually. for you have got to feel those feelings.  But at least I know I am with my true self, and not avoiding my feelings in order to get something done.  That psychological effect has opened me up to the truth about my upbringing, for it always lied buried deep inside myself.  Once I did that I realized I had more support than ever before.  No longer was I just dealing with my feelings, and blaming myself for them, I had reasons, at least for myself, on why I am like this.  And there were people that experienced all the same things.

Of course, I do get a little angry at those people who blame me, that I know full well, they had a good life growing up.  So they expect me to be like them?  Seriously, that part pisses me off.  Even my ex-husband joked about me to his friends, saying that I must be a drunk, for never being able to be even able to hold down a job, just like a drunk.

So here is what I am going to do.  I am going to spend the weekend putting all this stuff together, just random stuff, coming out of my head, then post it.  It might be long, but then I'm going to take the key points needed from the tax office and just include those.  So we don't make it a habit of keeping the computer on, but I will keep it on, and as I go on my day I will be triggered by thoughts and those I will put in.  Memories, thoughts and feelings, and these will be all the truth instead of me just sitting here and trying to remember and think.  It will take the "trying" off the table.  That just makes it pure stress.  Surely, plenty of random thoughts and feelings happen to me in the course of a day, things I can't just think of at will.  So I will stay at home this weekend, and if I do go out I will bring a notepad with me, to jot down anything that comes up.   But no stress right?  This will just be natural feelings and emotions, that are happening to me anyway.

So of course that sounds like a good plan, but already my mind is working against me.  Suppose some horrible crisis happens that throws off the weekend.  Ha ha, well maybe, but I have to accept that as part of life.  Sometimes it is necessary to go through all those feelings of horrible things happening that hasn't happened, just to get to the feeling that it is all alright.  I worry that I have to spend so much time worrying, there is always a double indemnity.  It is so painful, and as I sit here shaking and reeling in emotional pain, the average person just thinks that I am crazy.  I am not crazy, I was programmed to be like this, for it fed the narcissistic mother, for I was only her trapped source of supply.  That is what pisses me off.  There was no reason for this.  Just to feed that monster.

Is it that I'm lazy or that I lack self discipline?  I'll admit a big part of me has a great feeling of entitlement.  I feel like I lacked so much that to hell with the rest of the world.  I don't expect more of other people, but when they expect it of me I feel like I was set up to lose.  That is an overwhelming feeling, feeling that I must accomplish great things, not given the know how, but being expected of me regardless.  I feel like a few companies I have worked for in the past, has played some games with me, for somehow I had leaked information of my lowered state.  God will have to deal with them, I'm not going to be able to fair up the thing.  It is gross, what they did, and and it was like everyone in my path was a friggin flying monkey, and I was clueless as to what was going on.  That is why I feel the way I do, I do deal with a lot of anger, that is uncopeable, but like I said, I am sure God will deal with them.  I leave them to God, unfortunately, we are not supposed to hope God will do the worst to them, but I do.  Hey, these are authentic feelings, no matter how I try to sound polished, that is the way it is.

I don't feel like I'm lazy.  There are times, there are some tasks that are not as much fun as the others, and they are rather grueling at times, and I prefer to sit on my butt.  You know what the cure to that is?  Just continue to sit on your butt, eventually, you will tire sitting on your butt, and get up to do things.  If you are sitting on your butt for years, perhaps you are listening to much to what others tell you, or that you are resisting your feelings.  Resisting your feelings is a big no no.  Don't do that.  Try to think, little children do not resist their feelings, they will scream or bawl, unless someone forces them not to, either with threat of violence or other things.  And our ancestors didn't resist their feelings either, they just went with what they felt, and they didn't know how not to.

Emotions are your hard wiring.  Thoughts can't chase that way.  Positive thinking is never going to help you with that.  It is just thinking.  You actually don't live your life by thinking.  If that were the case we would be like computers, not humans.  So put any thoughts to thinking to rest, thinking will never get you going.  Sure, thinking does have a place.  If you are building a skyscraper for example. Then of course you better think on how to do that.  Emotions will never build a skyscraper.  I think I made my point.

So, if you are at work, you will have to think.  But so much of our day is spent in feelings.  Its how we live.  Feelings is how we humans communicate.  If thoughts were to transcend that life would not be worth living.  I am trying to get to the part where I talk of social skills.  This is a tough one.  Its almost like I have no knowledge of what it even means for me or what it does for me, but I need to put it into place for the writing.

I remember the pain of rejection where it was so vastly important what the other person thought of me.  What they thought of me was everything to me, so I became very low value, taking approval where I could get it, and it never occurred to me that this made me a greedy little taker wherever I went.  But it seemed so normal.  If you are my friend, I will need your approval first, seems like taking, doesn't it?  Normal people don't like takers, its human value taken from them.  So it takes a great deal of effort, and time, to pull myself away and treat myself like I am enough.  No one else needs to give me that value, I don't have to go around taking, I can give instead.  It makes me more of a valued friend, confident, worker, lover, and overall it makes me a better person.

Easier said than done, lol.  Why does not my brain just give me these things?  Why do I have to work constantly against the extraction of others?  People seem to see this right away, and they feel vandalized in my presence.  It takes a lot of work on my part not to be like this.  I think this is a big social skill.  I wrote on social skills before, I think I write on that one all the time.  It helps me put it into place.  Just start with being enough.  How do you be enough?  Is it something we do or accomplish a lot of things, or pretty enough, does any of that make us enough?  No.  None of that makes us enough.  We are enough, because we are enough.  We are born enough.  It is an actual birthright.  A blade of grass is a blade of grass, like it or not, that blade of grass will grow, do its thing, it has no other choice, it exists, it has its place in the world, it needs nothing from anything else.  Maybe the soil and the rain, but we all need these things, see what I'm getting at?  It has symbiotic relationships, it just adds to the soil, it adds to the sun, for what good would be the sun if it didn't produce the greenery we all see?  So we are born enough.

But like I said, easier said than done.  You screw up, its ok.  There is a difference.  Things that make you human, and any weaknesses make you more human, but you are always worthy.  This is something that we just are too, you don't have to go robbing someone to get it.  Imagine that unsuspecting person, who wants to like you and enjoy your company, has to give you permission for all things.  Its strange when you think of it.  I thought it was being normal.

I wake up every morning grateful that mother is dead.  I outlived her.  She can't do anything now. Her body does not even exist.  And for me she has become invalidated.  This wasn't even a real person. I used to think that she was important, valued, lovable.  She had all this going on but it was all just for pretend.  Nothing good about her that went on in my mind didn't even exist.  It was all a figment of my imagination.  When my aunt told me that mother had a lot of love to give, she just didn't know how, it only made me think, 'wow, the games continue even in her death'.  I mean, nowadays, to me, to think of mother as anyone else than an evil monster is deplorable.  You have to stretch your imagination to see anything good there.  This feeling is very hard to try to explain, it is an emotion, a feeling, there are no words.  The mother I thought she was didn't exist, I just filled in the blanks with my imagination.

I still have good feelings about my childhood, but I know that is only in my head too.  When I think back to when I was growing up, their was all this fighting, this triangulation, the infighting was comforting to me.  It felt good.  I got so used to it, that life became crazy when there was any measure of peace.  I needed the fighting, the triangulation, the put downs, to me they were comfortable.

And now, when things are quiet and peaceful, I have a very hard time.  Things are peaceful now, I have a path, a road I'm taking, I've accepted my disability, so I'm doing what needs to be done as a disabled person.  I know I want to be taken care of, I don't like the uncertainty that hubby is giving me.

I don't know how regular people don't see narcissists for what they are.  I think maybe its  because they are too scared of them, but that from my own experiences of it.  Mother was scary, so she used that fear to bring everyone into submission.  For other people who were not raised in this torment, how do they feel when they see narcissism?  Maybe they don't see it.  Maybe its just completely off their radar so much, that they have no experience with it, from childhood, so they don't see it.  So when normal people get crapped on, like me, its because the regular people can see that sin, they are familiar with regular sin, but the sin of the narcissist is too horrible to even contemplate.  They do not see it, not on their radar.  But somehow they manage to escape the brutality of everyday narcissists better than me.

Ok, sorry, I guess I didn't promise any bunny trails.  I have to kinda get it all out, before I can even begin to pour what is expected out of me for this tax credit.

So the social skills, what is that?  I know how to handle social skills now, it takes me a great deal of time to do so, but I can do it.  But I think they want to know more.  How it affects me in everyday life, and this is something I haven't a clue about.  I wrote about social skills, and it was a good one, and I use it, but its still a fight against this dead feeling, which I can't even begin to explain.

So regular people say that we must see the good in people.  Think of that will you?  Kinda deadly for an ACON to do, don't you think?  But regular people already have it where they will not just automatically do that.  They will keep in mind the bad things people do, all the while, keeping in mind the good that people do, and somehow able to keep it all together very subconsciously.  They have no problem keeping up with making sure they don't get hurt.  But we ACON's have to program it into ourselves to not just go around trusting everyone they see, and believing everyone is wanting to do good to them.  Regular folks have their claws intact and can defend themselves if necessary. The narcs don't attack them so much, because they are not easy targets to access.  Narcs need it easy. They have only so much energy to expend on going on the attack and they love way more, the extraction, rather than the extracting part of it.  It does seem to me that they love the attack more, but I know now, that's only because they are getting the extraction all the while they are extracting.  Sort of like pumping water.  They continue pumping, but only will pump if the water comes out.

Darn, I see narcs nowadays, new narcs since my awakening, and its like a big joke for me. And the SIL was on the border of awakening.  So she is now avoiding hubby.  He sent her an email saying we won't be going, and she did not respond back at all.  I still wonder why he sent her the email, and not his brother, but I seem to not even give a shit.  Not much a response from hubby about the lack of response from her, I don't know what he's thinking, maybe he is blaming me for it, another thing I don't give a shit about.  I know that narcs will do that though.  I don't know if its because she is lacking in supply from us, for what I did, and who I am now, she knows it will be hard to get supply, and I will open my big mouth if she tries.  I might be seen as the bitch, but I don't even give a shit.

Did Jesus ever look like the bad guy?  Of course He did, over and over again.  He kept his focus on what He had to do, regarding salvation that is, and didn't care about anything else.  So why should I focus on shit?

So back to social skills.  The form says ADAPTIVE FUNCTIONING RELATED TO SOCIAL SKILLS.    Ok.  What does that mean?  Adapt means to change according to what the environment requires.  Functioning, means to do something important to live.  So since none of this is work related, and has nothing to do whether I need income supports, has nothing to do with how I can earn a living,  the social skills in this case relates only to my everyday life.  Lets see what requires a certain measure of social skills.  Going to the grocery store.  Going to church.  Going to any store. Visiting the children.  Sewing guild.  Anything that is about being around people.  Talking online. Other than going to stores, I don't know how any of the other things are necessary.  Yes, hubby can go to the grocery store for me, but that is where adaptive functioning will have to depend on him alot. Sort of him having to push his wife's wheelchair, anything that is required of him to do, that I can't do, is adaptive functioning.  There are a few times I got him to do things for me.  He handles the banking, I can't do that at all.  He checks the mailbox.  I don't know if any of these things are considered "social", but for me they are.  They feel like an accusation is going to come about at anytime ready to call me "stupid".

So I am pretty helpless on my own.  There is this house to pay for, and work required to maintain it, money to be earned to pay for it, all of which, I think, requires social skills, and I would never be able to pull any of that out of my ass with a ten ton truck.

Ok, I think now I am starting to get it.  Basically what it comes down to is obtaining food, shelter, sex.  I will have to go back to the time of the woolly mammoth to try to sort this out.  You see, women talk alot, well mostly.  Why is that?  How did that adaptation take place?  We would have had to adapt that skill.  At some point in time it was fundamentally necessary for survival.  It is because we were foragers.  We were the ones who gathered berries, fruits, raised children, all that stuff.  Certain plants can be poisonous.  You would have to know which would be edible, or which can be made edible by a cooking process.  Things change, they were hunter gatherers, they weren't always in the same place.  You had to adapt to whatever you came across.  If the men of the tribe found the game was very good in a certain place, you would do your gathering there, it was not usually the other way around.  So you talked to other women of the tribe, learned from their experience.  If so and so killed her whole family eating a particular berry and someone knew about that, you better find out what that berry is.  And where to find the berries too.  You would talk round and round with anyone trying to get as good as a report as you can about local experiences, and where to find the stuff, and if any dangerous animals were around.  You talk, and you talk some more.  That is if you want yourself and your family to survive.  No individual would know all this information, you have to learn how to talk and listen.

So I think I explained the process of adaptive functioning.  Now if I can just imagine myself in an environment where I was a gatherer, how I would be.  Not very good.  I would have a hard time joining in the cliques.  I just barely function in that respect.  We think its silly when women clique up, but it certainly has adaptive functioning.  Tribes were the norm, and you just didn't trust anyone but those of your tribe.  Anyone else would want to see you dead, most likely, but only because there would be more food for them.  Another adaptive function.  Kill everyone around you except for those who will protect you was the way to survive.

Maybe I should just include all that in my tax writeup?  Just kidding.  But know, its helping me to understand that socially, besides bringing home a paycheck, that social skills are absolutely necessary.  But I need to put it in a more direct format than that.  This will be hard, I will have to pray on that one.

You see, for me, social skills is a big one.  I can't just readily imagine myself in any setting comfortable, not without a lot of time and effort.  I'll feel scared just put into an environment where social skills were expected, and I will make other people uncomfortable with my value taking, and they will try to avoid me.  I will never learn what berries are safe, I will die in that respect.

So lets get back to what I mentioned previously.  I said the most fundamentally, ground level, basic reasons anyone does anything is for food, shelter, and sex.  Women have been known to kill eachother to get the most alpha male for he hunts the most game, she and her children will be provided for, and in hunting the most game the alpha male is assured of sex and offspring and to carry on his genes.  Basically, it all comes down to is carrying on the genes.

So I was able to carry on my genes, obviously.  But I wasn't provided for.  I had no skills to obtain the alpha male.  Even now, I don't really consider him an alpha male, it has nothing to do with how much money he makes.  I consider him to be, well, how good was it for me that the person he was with comes last and others come first?  How come he is still sleeping alone?  Is he without the things that an alpha male has?  In old times tribes, the alpha male ate the most, and got the most sex.

So yeah, he does eat a lot.  But it doesn't explain how he has adapted to allowing predators to roam around in our lives.  No way would an alpha do that.

So back to social skills?  In relationships, social skills are paramount.  That man did not have my back, so in such is the case in a "less civilized" society I would have died, long before I would have been able to bear children if I was with him all my life.

It took me awhile but I am now able to get the most of what he's saying.  Men and women don't communicate the same way.  He'll ask me why I'm mad.  I know that is not what he is really asking. If I were to just answer the question as is, it will cause massive problems.  What he means when he asks that, is that he is saying that he is uncomfortable with what is going on, and he wants me to make him feel comfortable again.  So he can go back to the process of food, shelter, sex.

Lacking social skills has been a big problem for me.  In relationships, in a grocery store you name it. I'm always shaky at the store, worried about what that cashier will think of me, worried about what I wear, worried about walking into people, everything.  Bad adaptations, but the tax is not concerned how I got here, only of how it slows me down in life.  I can't say that I avoid grocery stores, but I'm always worried, nonetheless.  Then I worry about that for hours later.

I think the reason I talk about the SIL on here so much, is not so much to get a chance to bitch about her, but its where I got to see hubby's true colors.  His commitment to me was sketchy in the first place, but then I got to see how non-committal he was towards me.  And that's painful, that hurts.  It takes me back to thinking if I was ever good enough.  Yes, that lie keeps coming back to haunt me. Maybe I should be grateful that he helps me see where I'm lacking in myself.  It wasn't so much what he did. I didn't have to announce what he did was wrong, all I had to do was state my position of freedom, and stand on it.  An ACON will always have to fight for her freedom.  I don't know if you watched the new ROOTS movie but at the ending, Tom was saying that to his new baby daughter who was the first one born in freedom.  Don't expect you won't have to continually fight to stay free.

When panic comes over me it feels like this hot acid right in the center of my body.  I've tried to focus on that feeling, but then the worry takes over about what I got into a panic state about.  When I try to focus on the feeling, then I realize that the feeling of panic was caused over something silly, like a phonecall I have to make, something like that.  Sometimes the thing I worry about is not even worth worrying about.  But I'm left choking and trying to breathe.

Even the work I have to do to obtain the disability tax credit.  Its like, 'describe all these feelings,' then I'm worried that if I don't do it right, then I won't qualify, and we've already spent $160 on the doctor to fill out the form.  That was on top of the $140 for voc rehab.  I have an appointment with them this week.  I only got one of the references required by them, I need 2.  I will get the other one before the appointment.

But I do know that I do qualify.  Even for general anxiety someone would qualify, and I have the 'shoot to the moon' quality.  More like regular PTSD.  I don't think I can say that in the form without having been in the Gulf War, but you know what I mean.  But I have been diagnosed with a war disorder, it will be in my paperwork from the mental health facility, so I don't know how I'm going to work that.

It all seems so overwhelming.  I want this tax credit more than anything.  Its a lot of money, thus a lot of protection, but there is no telling how much I'll get.  I've been warned that it will come in my husband's name only, but that's ok, not sure why that would be a concern.  I will just tell him I want it, that its for me and my disability, and he will give it to me.

Even though I don't have certain things to worry about, I worry about other things, there is always something to add to the list of worry.  Its painful.  That shocking, jarring, feeling of panic I am so sure other people can see.  And there is no warning, no escape, no way I am even aware what is happening, otherwise I would just escape to the washroom when it happens.  I become aware of it after, like "oh yeah, it happened now everyone is looking at me."  All of which just adds to the state of panic I'm already in.

Its painful, and scary, and I'm sure that look on my face, that freaks out other people used to feed mother with the nsupply.  You know and that's sick.  That's crazy.  You know, I don't feel guilty about not going to her funeral, but I do dread how other people feel about it.  Isn't that strange?

It is not in my personality to spread a message of anger throughout the internet.  Unless it is the truth, and truth is painful at times.

So I thank you for listening to my ramblings.  I'll have to call the tax place and get them to help me with the descriptions more.  More explanations.  More help with the MARKEDLY RESTRICTED.  I think of it as the "fighting for my freedom" just like in the ROOTS movie.  If you want to know more about freedom, I'd suggest ROOTS.