Dislike Judgmental and Hypocritical People? You May Be One
By Kristi King-Morgan, LMSW
 
I had my car stolen from the employee parking lot at work a little over a month ago.
​
I’ve had to deal with more than my fair share of judgmental and hypocritical people in my life. This is my latest story of being on the receiving end of it. I’m sharing this story as a reminder to everyone: Please, don’t be so quick to judge someone for their actions. You don’t know their whole story. You’re not walking in their shoes. You do not, in fact, know what you’d do if you were in their situation. And even if the other person did make a huge mistake, why do you care? We’re all human. We all make mistakes sometimes. It’s not your place to point out the speck in someone’s eye. Please tend to the beam in your own. A lot of people blurt out judgmental and hurtful remarks thinking they’re simply making conversation. I don’t think they realize they’re pushing a boundary with their comments; they simply feel the need to quell the awkward silence so they say the first thing that pops into their head. Others feel better about themselves when they can put people down.
 
Definitions of judgmental:
Having or displaying an excessively critical point of view.
Tending to judge people too quickly and critically.
Someone who rushes to judgment without reason or without knowing the facts.
 
Did you leave it unlocked? Were the keys in it? Where did you park it? Why did you do that? That was stupid! I bet your learned your lesson.

Judging without reason: The questions above are appropriate coming from the police, the insurance company, and anyone involved in this in any way. They have a reason to know the answers to these questions. They also need to know the facts. My husband has a right to know the details about what happened because we share finances and this affects him financially. The comments about being stupid and learning my lesson are not appropriate from anyone, yet these have all come from friends, family, and coworkers who felt they had a right to flippantly comment on my stolen car or question me about the details surrounding how it happened.

A more appropriate response to learning someone’s vehicle got stolen? I’m so sorry to hear that! I’m sorry you’re having to deal with this. Is there anything I can do to help? That sucks! Are you okay? That’s scary! Or as one friend put it, your car got stolen?! LOL OMG! – Yes, these are all responses I’ve gotten that I felt were appropriate. Why? Because they acknowledged what happened and that it couldn’t have been a fun thing for me to go through, and they left it at that! Yes, it happened. Yes, it has been a pain to deal with. Thank you for acknowledging that. Any questions beyond that are just nosy and none of your business. I received some more responses from people such as I park in that lot too; I better park somewhere else so it doesn’t happen to me!  Comments like this are not intrusive, so I’m okay with them, but they are showing selfishness on behalf of the speaker who didn’t voice any concerns about me. Only themselves.

Yes, the door was unlocked. Yes, there were keys in it. Not in the ignition, but in the car.

My reasons are none of anybody’s concern. However, I’ve been repeatedly questioned and put on the spot by people who seem to be making snap judgments about me based on just this tiny snippet of information.
I did not ask to have my car stolen. I didn’t put a sign on it asking a thief to take it.  Whether I parked in a well-lighted, secure parking area with cameras (which I did) or in a questionable area with no security shouldn’t matter. This was a violation that I did not ask for and did not deserve.

Deserve. That’s what it comes down to. Judgmental people are trying to decide whether a person deserved what happened to them.

The drunk girl in a mini-skirt on a date doesn’t deserve to be raped. She didn’t ask for it. Yet our society as a whole still seems to think it is okay to judge her and say her rape was her fault. If she wouldn’t have dressed like that. If she wouldn’t have gotten drunk. If she wouldn’t have gone to that place. Sounds a lot like what I’ve been hearing concerning my car. If you hadn’t left the doors unlocked. If you hadn’t left the keys in it. Why didn’t you park in the parking garage instead?  All of these questions/statements are blaming me, and that’s not okay.

People can have a bad day or a moment of forgetfulness. Have you never forgotten to lock your car doors? What about running into the gas station real quick and leaving the car running because you’re just going to be a minute? Things happen in a split second, and sometimes there’s nothing you could’ve done to prevent it. People tend to make excuses for themselves and justify their actions when they do something that might be deemed a stupid or bad decision, but are so quick to pass judgment on someone else for doing the same thing.

My reasons, not that it’s anybody’s business, go deeper than just a moment of forgetfulness or neglect. I don’t owe anyone an explanation, but I’m sharing this in the hopes that you will learn to keep your mouth shut next time you want to judge someone for a situation they find themselves in.

I have a progressive and debilitating illness. More than one. The past couple of years have been really hard on me, and some of the medications they’ve had me try have only made things worse with the side effects. Most days I’m in so much pain I can barely move, and I have no idea how I’m still getting out of bed every day and going to work. I’ve spent several weeks in a row at different times recently in a complete brain fog. When I look back and try to think about those times, I draw a blank. Memory impairment and cognitive functioning has been affected, and at times I’m nothing more than a walking zombie. When the episode passes, I’m myself again, but these episodes are happening more and more frequently and with no warning.

The result? In order to function, in order to still work a job and support my family, I’ve had to make severe lifestyle changes to cope. There are too many changes for me to list here, but one of the consequences has been a stolen car. That’s not the only thing I’ve had to suffer because of my illness. I’ve lost friends, a social life, and the ability to do a lot of things.

Rock and a hard place. The same people who blame me for my car getting stolen would be the first ones to make hateful comments about me if I were to end up on disability or any kind of government assistance because of my condition. I don’t want my hard-earned tax money supporting you while you sit there and don’t work! Or you did something stupid and got your car stolen; it’s your fault this happened! Which is it, people?

If hearing about my illness makes you feel better about my stolen car, makes you feel that my reasons are justified now, then you’re part of what’s wrong with this world. 
 
Edited by Blair Hill
 
UPDATE: One doctor says its migraines. Another one said fibromyalgia. A fourth one has diagnosed me with an autoimmune disorder. I take 20 pills a day, and those are just the ones that I take on a regular basis. I have others I can take as needed. The good news is, the autoimmune diagnosis seems to be the correct one, and the treatment for it has helped tremendously. I feel almost like myself again. There may be more flares in which I have difficulties, but I’m thankful to finally be on the right track in regards to my health. Thank you all who have been there with me through this difficult time. 

​A Night in Morocco
 
Middle of the night he flies out of bed
to the commode only to wonder
in the dim light minutes later
if that's blood or simply a good-bye
from his wife’s stewed tomatoes,
a Moroccan dish she found on the web.
 
When he asked for a third serving
he pronounced them delicious.
So too, he said, was her dessert,
the Moroccan plum mousse
with the dark plums he likes.
Even with the ceiling light on
 
he doesn’t know now what he sees
so with his medical history he's
speeding at midnight to the ER
where the doctor says better safe
than sorry and orders a fast
colonoscopy to solve the mystery.
 
When he finally gets home, he tells
his wife when her boss comes over
for that big dinner Saturday night,
why not make Moroccan tomatoes
and her magnificent plum mousse.
He may never forget either.
 
 
Donal Mahoney

​The Canyon Dwellers
 
There’s this canyon
between two cliffs
and Tim Boyd has a foot
planted on each cliff.
He’s spread-eagled
but very steady.
 
He's been stretched
over the canyon since
he got back from Iraq.
After he took his position,
he thought someone
would eventually look up.
 
There are others
spread over the canyon
in front of Tim.
They’ve been there
since Viet Nam and
getting a bit wobbly.
 
In back of Tim
are the new arrivals
spread-eagled as well.
They’re fresh from
Afghanistan and they're
getting their feet set.
 
The rest of us below
have jobs and are busy
with families and lives.
When a canyon dweller falls
and makes a terrible mess,
we find the time to look up.
 
 
Donal Mahoney

​A Farmer Goes to the Big City
 
Six men were sitting at the table in the Day Room, as they call it, at the Whitehall Rest Home. They were playing poker and they had a newcomer in their midst. It was Bill, a retired farmer, 73, who was the youngest in the group and the target of needling by the other men, all of whom were natives of the big city surrounding the fancy home. Bill was a stranger in their midst and he really didn’t fit in. But there was nothing they could do about it. So they needled him.
 
Whitehall had all the amenities one could ask for and Bill had had a hard time getting used to it. He had lived frugally all his life on a farm both before and after his wife, Nancy, had died. He still missed her, especially her chicken and dumplings and her carrot cake dessert.
 
Bill was brought to Whitehall by his children when he couldn’t handle the farm anymore. His children all had good jobs and nice families in the city and they were too busy to take care of him. They felt Whitehall would be right for Bill so they chipped in every month to pay for his room and board. It was quite a sum but they gladly paid it. He had been a good father and tried his best despite difficult circumstances. A small farm is not usually a place a man can make a lot of money.
 
None of Bill's children had an interest in the farm. All of them had found a way to graduate from college with scholarships, loans and part-time work. Occasionally Bill would sell a cow and chip in if some extraordinary expense arose.
 
Following graduation, the children came, one by one, to the city and settled down. At last count they had combined to make Bill a grandfather 15 times. He remembered all of his grandchildren’s names and hoped some day he would have more names to remember.
 
Although Bill was an oddity at Whitehall, being a farmer and all, he found living there was better than living with one of his children. Given the choice, however, he’d prefer to have been back on his farm but he knew he was too old to manage the property, never mind cook and take care of himself. So he sold his cows and chickens, the house and his 40 acres, and made the trek to the big city.
 
He lived for awhile with one of his sons and his family but it simply didn’t work out. He felt he was in the way. Bill was a farmer through and through and his son was now an urbanite, busy with work and had a family to raise. So the Whitehall Rest Home turned out to be the next best place for Bill to be if he could no longer be a farmer.
 
At the card game that day, however, the other players were really giving Bill the business about coming from a farm. And Bill, as usual, accepted the kidding with good humor. He always got along with his cows and chickens. And he did his best to get along with the people at Whitehall. He felt that even if these men had worked in offices all their lives, they were in a way quite a bit like livestock. Just a higher grade. Handle them carefully and they shouldn’t be too much trouble. Usually that was true.
 
The card players really enjoyed kidding Bill about the outhouse that was still on the property when he sold it. There had been no indoor plumbing when Bill had been reared on the same farm and the outhouse was part of his growing up. He answered all the men's questions about going to the bathroom in the middle of winter but the men found the whole idea to be a hardship they could not have put up with. They wondered how Bill put up with it for so long before having a toilet installed in the house, something he did when he married Nancy and she had the first of their eight children.
 
Finally, while waiting for another man to play his cards, Bill told the men that while having a toilet in the house was convenient, it had been expensive to install and maintain. He said not once did he or his father or his grandfather, all of whom had grown up on the farm, ever have to call a plumber to fix the outhouse. He said the family, over the years, saved quite a bit of money that way. But he wanted his children to grow up with indoor plumbing so he took the necessary steps. He sold two cows and that paid for the toilet, shower and bathtub. His wife was very happy, although she herself had grown up on another farm down the road with a bigger outhouse.
 
The other men started to laugh again but then quieted down and concentrated on their cards. They were intelligent men, after all, who realized they had just heard one man’s truth and although it was far different from their own, they had to respect Bill for his. After that, Bill had no trouble fitting in at the card table for the last three years of his life. Those years passed quickly and Bill was a pretty good card player at the end.
 
When Bill died, the other five men left his seat at the table empty for a long time. Then a new fellow moved in. Like Bill, he suffered from Parkinson’s Disease. But he was from the city so the card players couldn’t ask him to enlighten them about life on a farm or some other place foreign to them. The new man was a nice fellow but they wished he had a drawl like Bill's.
 
Bill’s tales about life on a farm with an outhouse seemed to make the end of life getting closer and closer a little easier for the men to live with. His drawl had been a big help as well.
 
The card players realized that some day only one of them would be left at the table playing cards with the new fellows who would move in. It would be easier, they agreed, if one of the new fellows had lived on a farm and had wonderful tales to tell.
 
 
Donal Mahoney

​A Certain Look
 
Some things you can’t undo.
A remark, perhaps, you can retract
or try to with an explanation.
 
But a certain look can
burn forever in the mind
of its observer, a missile you
 
never knew you launched.
Maya Angelou was right.
Some folks can’t recall
 
years later what you said
but they remember instantly
how you made them feel.
 
 
Donal Mahoney

​Venus Calling Mars at Midnight
 
Millie calls the hotel at midnight
to tell Willie he didn’t do anything wrong.
It’s the way he didn’t do anything wrong
 
that’s the problem because a man doesn't
send a girl yellow roses on Valentine’s Day.
Willie is half asleep but awake enough
 
to know if he didn’t do anything wrong
why is Millie calling him at midnight.
He’s out of town on the company’s buck
 
and has a big meeting tomorrow with
a big presentation to give to the board.
He listens for 20 minutes and as soon
 
as Millie's voice cracks he knows
a hurricane of tears has begun so he says
he didn’t order any yellow roses.
 
He ordered three-dozen long-stems
with a jungle of the usual greenery
in a beautiful vase with baby’s breath.
 
He figured they'd send red roses because
he paid enough to buy a botanical garden.
Millie says tomorrow she’s calling the florist
 
and giving him Hades but Willie says please don’t.
He and the guy who took the order are from Mars.
Willie will pick up red roses on his way back to Venus.
 
 
Donal Mahoney

​Still Life
 
"On the window sill
the sun's pure gold today.
Usually it's white,"
says drooling Nell,
in her hospital smock,
 
her tea turning cold
as she braids
ram horns of hair
high and tight
 
to the sides of her skull.
"On gold days
like this, I warm
my hands for hours
on this sill.
 
"Yesterday, the doctor said
someone should paint me,
the fool. A still life,
that's what he said."
 
Donal Mahoney

Non-Fiction Book Review for ‘More than the Madness: A Memoir’ by John Kaniecki; reviewed by Amy Owings
 
More than the Madness: A Memoir
By John Kaniecki
Published by Dreaming Big Publications
Reviewed by Amy 
 
ABOUT THE BOOK
 
There is MORE than the MADNESS.

This book gives readers a glimpse into the life of someone living with bipolar disorder. It’s not a clinical book filled with facts and figures, but a book of humanity.

Spanning childhood to early adult, through stories of abuse, being bullied, experimentation with drugs and alcohol, inpatient stays on psych wards, a night in jail, his college days in the fraternity, hitchhiking across America, and his time in a third world country, John gives the reader a personal and up-close look into his life as a manic depressive. The stories are sad, shocking, and at times funny as he shares his antics while at his most manic and delusional.

Throughout his journey, John also struggles with his faith in God. More than the Madness is a testament of one man’s journey to grow closer to God while gaining a better understanding of himself.

John wrote his story to help educate others on mental illness and remove some of the stigma associated with it. It is his hope that readers will get to know the person behind the diagnosis; take away the labels and meet someone's son, friend, and husband. See that there is More Than the Madness.
 
Genre: Memoir / Mental Health
242 pages
 
MY REVIEW
 
4 out of 5 stars
I’ve known many people who suffer from various forms of mental illness, and I deal with anxiety myself. Mental illness is not as “visible” as a physical illness like asthma or a broken leg, which leads many to dismiss its validity. This is why writing like Kaniecki’s is so important: when people gain a better understanding of mental illness, they can show true compassion for those in their lives who deal with it. Kaniecki’s memoir delivers that understanding and places the reader into the shoes of someone whose experiences have carried him to myriad different places and people. This book moves beyond mental illness to reveal a person who’s ultimately led an extraordinary life. 
 
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
 
John Kaniecki is an author and poet. His published work, which has been published in over eighty outlets, includes several poetry collections, horror books, and a science fiction anthology. He was born in Brooklyn, New York and grew up in Pompton Plains, New Jersey. Kaniecki presently lives in Montclair with his wife Sylvia and is a volunteer minister at the Church of Christ at Chancellor Avenue.
 
DISCLAIMER
 
I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for writing a review. I was not obligated to give a positive review, and all thoughts are my own.
 
https://www.amazon.com/More-than-Madness-John-Kaniecki-ebook/dp/B01M2AZ0KX   
 
 

Non-Fiction Book Review for ‘More than the Madness: A Memoir’ by John Kaniecki; reviewed by Amy Owings
 
More than the Madness: A Memoir
By John Kaniecki
Published by Dreaming Big Publications
Reviewed by Amy 
 
ABOUT THE BOOK
 
There is MORE than the MADNESS.

This book gives readers a glimpse into the life of someone living with bipolar disorder. It’s not a clinical book filled with facts and figures, but a book of humanity.

Spanning childhood to early adult, through stories of abuse, being bullied, experimentation with drugs and alcohol, inpatient stays on psych wards, a night in jail, his college days in the fraternity, hitchhiking across America, and his time in a third world country, John gives the reader a personal and up-close look into his life as a manic depressive. The stories are sad, shocking, and at times funny as he shares his antics while at his most manic and delusional.

Throughout his journey, John also struggles with his faith in God. More than the Madness is a testament of one man’s journey to grow closer to God while gaining a better understanding of himself.

John wrote his story to help educate others on mental illness and remove some of the stigma associated with it. It is his hope that readers will get to know the person behind the diagnosis; take away the labels and meet someone's son, friend, and husband. See that there is More Than the Madness.
 
Genre: Memoir / Mental Health
242 pages
 
MY REVIEW
 
4 out of 5 stars
I’ve known many people who suffer from various forms of mental illness, and I deal with anxiety myself. Mental illness is not as “visible” as a physical illness like asthma or a broken leg, which leads many to dismiss its validity. This is why writing like Kaniecki’s is so important: when people gain a better understanding of mental illness, they can show true compassion for those in their lives who deal with it. Kaniecki’s memoir delivers that understanding and places the reader into the shoes of someone whose experiences have carried him to myriad different places and people. This book moves beyond mental illness to reveal a person who’s ultimately led an extraordinary life. 
 
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
 
John Kaniecki is an author and poet. His published work, which has been published in over eighty outlets, includes several poetry collections, horror books, and a science fiction anthology. He was born in Brooklyn, New York and grew up in Pompton Plains, New Jersey. Kaniecki presently lives in Montclair with his wife Sylvia and is a volunteer minister at the Church of Christ at Chancellor Avenue.
 
DISCLAIMER
 
I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for writing a review. I was not obligated to give a positive review, and all thoughts are my own.
 
https://www.amazon.com/More-than-Madness-John-Kaniecki-ebook/dp/B01M2AZ0KX   
 
 

​Like Father Like
 
Strapped to his bed
in the nursing home,
he tells every nurse
who comes in
and tightens his straps
his trouble started
 
in first grade when
he'd make a mistake
reciting the alphabet
in the kitchen for Mother
while Father in the parlor
waited for an error
 
and then dragged him
down the basement
and made him stand
in a tub of hot coals
plucked from the furnace
until he was able 
 
to recite his letters
without error and then
Father would take him
upstairs to Mother who
put salve on his feet
so he could recite
 
his letters all over again,
this time without mistake
which Father pointed out,
decades later in the same
nursing home, was proof
his boy had learned a lesson.
 
 
Donal Mahoney

​Old Man At The Diner
 
He slaughters his hamburger steak
with a fork and a butter knife,
massacres ringlets of onions
again and again
 
thumps catsup all over
the bloody commingling,
then ever so slowly
peppers and salts
 
and reminds me of Hrebic,
whose wife, back
on the block of my youth,
sat all summer out on her stoop,
 
knees awry, one eye black,
the other turning gray,
sunning the great white hydrants
of her phlebitic legs.
 
 
Donal Mahoney