Have you ever been bullied?

[magical thyme]

44. I was called ugly, nose, fairy and queer

by my classmates from about age 8 or 9 on. I didn't know what the words fairy or queer meant at the time, but I'm straight. I didn't have many friends.

I also was bullied by my family. I was the youngest and smallest. I was screamed at and shaken by my sisters. They would take my toys away from me and break them. I was screamed at and hit by my mother. When I was 6 or 7, my father pinned me down and started tickling me. I was screaming, sobbing and begging him to stop and he wouldn't. I thought my heart would explode. My mother was screaming at him to stop and he wouldn't. He finally did, and then said he was "just kidding around." He deliberately walked in on me in the bathroom twice, once on the toilet and once in the tub, when I was 10 and 13. He watched me get kicked in the gut by the family horse at point blank range, double-barrel. I dropped like a rock and he stood there laughing. He said it looked funny; he never bothered to check to see if I was all right. When I was 16 he apologized to me. He said it was his fault my face was so ugly, that nobody was ever going to marry me because I was so ugly. When I was 14, I won our church's bazaar lottery -- an all expenses trip to Greece. A member of the church offered $800 for it, but my parents took it away from me and gave it to my sister. She never used it, so they basically threw it away, rather than let me have the money.

Mittens has creeped me out since day one. All that has happened with this latest story is my gut feelings about him are fully validated.

I don't need a president I can "have a beer" with. I do want a president I can respect. I cannot respect Mittens. The more I learn, the more I despise him.