This book was probably the hardest and most challenging book for me to read. Not because of what she suffered, I was a social worker for 8 years and read hundreds of reports about child molest, dealt with clients who were trafficked, girls who were used as prostitutes on the street. It was the “Why” that kept nagging in the back of my head. Why was this incredibly, or seemingly strong woman having a book published posthumously? Why did she die by suicide? As a psychotherapist, I kept searching for answers throughout the book, and I walked away feeling as if I understood what they were.
Yesterday morning, 12/1/25, I published an ebook, seen above through Books2Read. Last night, while reading “Nobody’s Girl,” By Virginia Roberts Giuffre, I was caught off guard by a passage she wrote in her book on pages 113-114. I thought to myself, Wow! I wish I had known she wrote this amazing explanation, as it is better than mine. It explains what I am capturing in this title from a survivors perspective. Or, to put it more bluntly “From the horses mouth.” She loved horses, so I think she would appreciate this.
I want to include the passage here for your own discovery and so that you might consider reading her book – to learn more, as well as reading my book for the emotional support. I will come back here, when I am finished reading Nobody’s Girl as I want to pay tribute to this very well written book. For now:
It probably goes without saying that, given what my father and his friend Forrest had done to me when I was a child, being trafficked by Epstein and Maxwell was painfully triggering. To the extent that I saw the two of them as pseudo-parental figures, their disregard for my welfare as they lent me out for sex made me feel a familiar strain of worthlessness. But at times, that familiarity was weirdly comforting. This is complicated to explain, but that echo of past hurts was somehow bearable to me because I’d felt it-and somehow endured it-so many times before. It was like finding myself once more in a room I’d lived in for years. I hated that room, but I knew its contours-the shape of its windows, the nap of its carpet beneath my feet, the click of the door lock when it was thrown. I knew I could exist in that room because I’d existed there before. At that point, at least, this made me feel less afraid.
This is what I am trying to express in my title “The Uncomfortable Comfortableness with a Narcissist.” The familiarity was/is weirdly comforting and Virginia goes on to add how her visual and audio senses are enlisted by her hatred for this comfortableness. The shape of the windows, the nap of the carpet on her feet, the click of the door lock. She knew how to be in that place, as it was so familiar. Since it was so familiar, she wasn’t even as afraid.
In my book, I am helping you to discover the different parts of our self that are employed as our agency is taken away, while we are being lured into a relationship with the narcissist. Unsuspectingly – at first – yet somehow very comforting, very familiar, very Déjà vu. Once you are in, the uncomfortable knowledge that OMG! I am here again. Now what?
No worries, I am providing you with psycho-education to become more conscious of this process, along with six helpful homework assignments to begin re-discovering your sense of self. When you use these tools, along with a psychotherapist of your choosing, whom you can find to support you on this journey, these are the keys to moving forward in your life. To having a healthy relationship and never going back to the uncomfortable comfortableness ever again.
Image courtesy of Library of Congress Catalog/Wikimedia Commons
Margaret Sanger’s history is coming up for slaughter in a new documentary put together by the “right.” Even Planned Parenthood is running scared and trying to step away from their founding mother rather than taking a stand for history and the person who created their organization. You cannot erase the past and it is important to respect the reasons people had for their beliefs, as this was a different time and in fact a desperate time for women.
The secondary title of this Irish film set in 1974 which is meant to be about Irish history should be “There is an African in the Pub.” He has absolutely NO relevance whatsoever to this film, which I am calling a pseudo historical fiction. Yet, the filmmakers had to stick him in and had to have Liam Neeson’s character Finbar, babysit him throughout, because it is important to them to bypass the real reason we are watching this film – to focus on a part of Irish history.
On February 5th 1997, almost seven months before the day of Princess Diana’s fatal crash, both coming from the Hotel Ritz in Paris, Pamela Harriman died suffering a heart attack while doing her favorite sport – swimming. Ironically, Henri Paul tried to save Pamela, after she was pulled from the waters and as a result of this heroic deed would become the final driver to Princess Diana.
Photo above by Annie Leibovitz
“What she really wanted–and what those men were unable to give her–was a life on her own terms. A woman born in the early twentieth century to parents who wanted a boy, who was raised only for marriage, who never had the chance of a formal education or proper career, that meant changing her name and her nationality, wrecking her health with work and worry, and waiting five decades for her second break.” Sonia Purnell, Kingmaker.
HOMETOWN PROFILE: North Jackson woman, 99, served as ‘Rosie the Riveter’
NORTH JACKSON — Josephine “Peppy” Riffle Laakso will celebrate her 100th birthday in September. She also will be celebrating many lifetime achievements.
This is an excerpt from Polly Young-Eisendrath, Ph.D. in her book “Love Between Equals Relationship as a Spiritual Path” (page 118).
Personal love becomes true love, as you recall, when you can feel at home with your beloved because you trust what you see in the mirror: it’s not too wonderful (or demanding of perfection) nor is it too awful or dispiriting. It’s important to remember, when you are on the path of true love, you both have come to trust what you see in the mirror of each other’s eyes. In order for personal love to become true love, the relationship has to have equality, reciprocity, and mutuality, and the reflections of each other need to be Whole Self to Whole Self, which includes what is ideal and what is limited in both people. Why is equality important on this path? Why do partners have to be equals in order for disillusionment to transform into intimacy and ongoing trust? Because the equality signals that both partners want primarily to be with each other in the reality of what they both are – strengths and limitations. The relationship does not feel like a prison but instead feels freely chosen on the basis of knowledge of the self and other.
Ironically, at 18 years old, I left the church due to hypocrisy and feeling disappointed with the teachings. Here I am at 58, having been accused of lies by Christian strangers and believed by the one I loved, which caused me to turn to God and read the Bible once more. In my 40-year absence, I developed an eclectic view on faith based on my study of world religions and participating at the sacred temples or circles of various faiths. I am not “coming back,” merely feeling distraught and finding comfort in the words of God and the faith of my ancestors.
Thank you to everyone who came out and supported Ohio Women’s History Project this year at the conference! If you wished to have a receipt, don’t forget to email me at ladyjatbay@gmail.com and let me know your name and how many shirts or prints that you paid for and I can send this back to you. If you still wanted to purchase a shirt, you can click on the store at the top of this page.
Ohio Local History Alliance held an amazing conference and I think we all learned a great deal from these presentations. We now have good ideas about how to take our museums, non-profits and new businesses forward in the years ahead. Below are some of the workshops I attended and information that I learned. I have included some links so that you might be able to research this more on your own.
The first workshop that I attended was given by Megan Woods, Cultural Resources
Megan Woods
Division Director at the Ohio History Connection. Her workshop was “Ohio Women’s Suffrage Centennial.” Megan discussed how to be included on their event page on the Ohio Suffrage Centennial website. The Ohio Suffrage Centennial Commission was passed on May 2019 by Governor Mike DeWine. There is currently a travelling exhibit of banners and a trading card project going on in Northwest Ohio by the Trumbull County Historical Society. There are also book discussion groups and you can get a list of books to read for your own groups through the Ohio League of Women Voters. In August of 2020 there will be a huge celebration that is in the planning stages at this time. Akron is working on a statue to honor Sojourner Truth. Case Western Reserve is hoping to get a play produced entitled the “Taming of the Anti.” All these and more can be found on their website above.
Harriet Taylor Upton
She spoke about three women in particular from Ohio, Harriett Taylor Upton who started in Ravenna and ended up in Warren. She brought the National Women’s Suffrage Association to Warren. She became the Vice Chairman of the Republican National Committee and was a part of the D.A.R. (Daughter’s of the American Revolution).
She also shared about Florence Allen who was the first female judge in Ohio but began her career first as a musician and journalist. She had left Ohio for New York to study law and then returned to eventually receive a nomination to the Ohio Supreme Court. Later she would be nominated by Franklin D. Roosevelt to the Federal Supreme Court. Florence also wrote several books about the law.
Haley Quinn Brown
The third woman was Haley Quinn Brown who was a black woman that eventually came to Wilberforce, Ohio. She was the Dean of Tuskeegee Institute, an International Public Speaker and the President of the Colored Women’s League. She was very involved in the temperance movement as well.
We listened to various people in the audience talk about their projects. One of which is that the Girl Scouts of Ohio are working on a badge to commemorate being a good citizen and learning about the voting process.
I then attended a Grant Management Basics workshop with Jennifer Souers-Chevraux who is the owner of Illumine Creative Solutions, LLC. Jennifer taught us about ways to be organized in a fashion that would help guarantee success with the grant already received. She also gave us several non-profit organizations to help with your business.
Tracy Lawson, the author of a historical book entitled “Pride of the Valley,” engaged
Savannah Homa, Tracy Lawson and Keilah Israel
with Mt. Healthy school in Springfield, to help kids become interested in their ancestry through family trees. Two young ladies came to report on their findings. These future female historians were Savannah Homa and Keilah Israel. There were a total of eight boys and girls involved in this project.
These young girls were very bright and had amazing insight into what they had discovered on this project. I was very impressed with their advanced level of thinking.
At lunch time, on Friday, we listened to Nekole Alligood from the Delaware Nation speak on re-patriating native American remains that might be found in a family member’s home. There is an organization called NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act) which handles this type of service in a culturally appropriate way so as to bring peace to the departed. When such an event occurs it needs to be a sacred event with no press invited to the ceremony. Nekole also made us aware of the fact that there are 44 federally recognized tribes that stem from Ohio. I wondered how many there were that were not recognized. We also learned that native American’s were not recognized or given U.S. citizenship until 1924. Even today, the issue of young women kidnapped from reservations, (which are often isolated locations with people living far from others) for purposes of human trafficking. The issue of rape was brought up many years ago in an article written for Amnesty International that I recall reading. I believe this took place in Alaska. It is interesting to note that girls are kidnapped from reservations but not outside of the reservation (i.e., non-natives). This is a huge concern because the reservations are meant to be protected lands – so why are the people on them not protected?
Sue Plummer and Christine Anderson
Another workshop I attended was on the “Women of King Records.” King Records was a recording studio, manufacturer and shipping warehouse run by Syd Nathan between 1943-1971, in the Cincinnati area. Christine Anderson, a professor from Xavier University in Cincinnati and Sue Plummer an Ohio History Service Corps Alumni, have been conducting research to uncover the women who produced music during that time. They shared a spreadsheet with their findings which held 2,054 recordings of various genres including hillbilly, Doo-Wop, funk and soul. They gave us access to this spreadsheet which includes links to YouTube videos if they were available. I am not sure whether or not it is acceptable to share this link so I will keep that to myself. You can however access this website which appears to be linked to Xavier University.
As you can imagined I had a wonderful time at this conference but I feel safe in saying most people seemed to be having a good time. There were smiles on these eager faces, as they walked about and the people I talked with all agreed that they enjoyed attending.
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Adolf Hitler and Che Gueverra were both socialists with different views of what was right. Both hated art (unless it was about them) and destroyed art and artists. They both killed people for different reasons. The same occurred within the communist movement and amongst religious zealots in history who wanted to take control over people. They have killed people too for different reasons. All thought they were fair, right and just for doing so. Now we have the feminist radicals who have gone to the extremes in many ways. We are no longer just seeing “Women are better than men,” thought processes but witch hunts from the “MeToo” movement and destruction of art, “Baby It’s Cold Outside,” to fit their purposes. They are destroying men and art and even women who don’t agree with them for the sake of beliefs that they believe is right and just. This radical approach to turning the world around to their perspective, and this causes them to be incapable of looking at another side of things or listen to their instincts (not their ego). The “I am Right and You are Wrong,” is like with any radical thought process mentioned above, it is always “wrong,” as it is based on the ego, not a mature mindset and destroys society.
A Frequent Blog of Devotionals Inspired by A Course in Miracles, A Course of Love, The Way of Mastery, Choose Only Love--Plus More . . . with Celia Hales - https://www.amazon.com/author/celiahales
Jeannine Vegh 