The thread is six years old, and he’s been inactive for years, but I wonder if Photog’s mother-in-law ever confronted The Mad Wiper?
Hey, thank you for asking, Ellen Cherry. He’s alive, he’s in the world and he’s improving. Small gains, but gains, dammit.
My hope for him is that we can eventually get him onto a computer so he can answer the question himself. 
Thanks very much for the update. Sorry it wasn’t a more fairytale ending, but that’s real life for you.
Hope you got through it without too much personal damage. Unfortunately we can’t always fix things, either for ourselves or for other people. Good for you for trying to make things better for her. Many others wouldn’t have even tried, even if they weren’t going through their own difficult situations.
Without asking for or expecting a response, I sincerely hope you worked through your own stress. I can certainly sympathise and empathise - many people just don’t believe it when I tell them what has happened to me and my family over the past 3+ years. But I refuse to give up, and I hope you don’t as well.
Blake, how was your trip to Taiwan?
**OmiNoKami **- did you ever visit Tibet?
Yeah, took about 6 weeks but they’re finally gone. I guess brother took some job in California. I still see his mail here from time to time and I get very nervous every time he visits.
Someone in the last other update thread was asking how I Have Hippos In My Garden was doing. I’ve PMed with her a couple times, and the last time we corresponded, in September, she said she was doing much better.
I’ve also been wondering how Skald’s marital situation has been developing.
Ah, yes, I have wondered about that for a long while as well.
However, I believe the poster is long inactive.
I’m glad to hear it, koeeoaddi! Give him our best.
Ah, I keep meaning to bump that thread and forgetting. Thanks for asking.
I and two others went to the program director, and the problem was evidently that she wasn’t getting all sides of the story. In other words, she felt that it was a bit of a ‘he said, she said’ issue without other people to corroborate what the instructor says it was like. I think there are issues if she can’t trust what her employees tell her, but whatever. I’m there to get my license, not to work out dramas.
Anyway, I came in the next day and she was kind of on the other side of the room from everyone, two stations away from the closest person to her. Then she was eventually dropped from the program after missing more than a week. When we return from Christmas break, I’ll have a new instructor and the people in the classes will rotate around a bit. My (now old) instructor told me privately that the new measure is supposed to avoid the problem of personal issues with an instructor or fellow student following the person around the whole time they are in school.
I’m excited for the change in people, because I wasn’t the hugest fan of the people I was in class with. So we’ll see.
Bump because I’m interested, too.
This was the first thing I thought of when I saw the topic of this thread.
Sorry for the long delay in replying. It’s been an busy and unpleasant month.
We are not getting divorced. She isn’t well. That is pretty much all I feel like saying in this thread.
As I understand it, after a couple of groundings she decided to take her skepticism under the radar. She’s still required to participate in church. I think she’s currently rebelling by (a) doing nothing but reading Bible passages aloud, and (b) always choosing pairs of passages that contradict one another.
I love that kid.
Hey 
Thank you for remembering me. I was touched.
I took a long break from this board and only came back a week or two ago.
Things have been generally good. In May I went into an eating disorder unit in a different area of the country for three months. That helped a lot.
In July I started working in a small shop in a local touristy village that sells beautiful art, jewellery and clothes from Africa and Asia, and so gave up working in psychology.
Then, at the beginning of September I went travelling around the world with one of my best friends for three months. We flew from London to Tokyo and travelled around the country using the JR train, staying with monks and eating lots of sushi. We sailed to South Korea and stayed in Seoul for a week before flying to Australia via Singapore. We loved Australia! We flew into Brisbane and went up along the coast to Cairns and Cape Tribulation, scuba diving and sailing along the way. We then flew to Alice Springs and went on a big trip around Uluru and nearby canyons. From there we flew to Melbourne and travelled between Melbourne and Sydney, playing with kangaroos and cuddling koalas.
From Sydney we flew to New Zealand where we hired a turquoise, pink and purple old campervan and I drove us around the north and south islands. We loved New Zealand. In the south island I did a bungy jump (never again) in Queenstown and we hiked over Fox Glacier. We went penguin spotting and volcano trekking. In the north island we relaxed in lots of thermal pools and fell in love with Taupo.
From NewZealand we flew to the Cook Islands and did pretty much nothing for a week. We stayed in a hut right on the beach in pure paradise and took a lot of photos and lazed about in hammocks and under the sun. I also met a lovely local artist who gave me an epiphany about how to move my life forward. I spent a lot of time chatting to her and helping her with her art.
Finally we flew to Los Angeles and stayed on Venice Beach. We flew onto Las Vegas and did a road trip around Nevada, Utah and Arizona. We went to Monument valley, the Grand Canyon, Antelope Canyon and Kings Canyon. We then flew to San Fransico and got upgraded to an amazing $550/night suite because it was my birthday. We then went back down to L.A before flying home for Christmas.
It was an amazing trip. Words can not do it justice. It helped me to grow and mature, and to learn what is important in life. And it taught me how to have fun. I still have my problems and have had a few ITU trips since coming home but all in all things are moving forward and changing. 2009 was my year of learning how I can change and 2010 will be my year of change. I hope.
I still have all the kind cards and messages Dopers sent me when I was going through a really tough time in April and I want to thank everyone for their kind words back then. They are not forgotten and will always be remembered.
Oh. And Yes. The Hippo is back. 
That is goddamned beautiful. I wish I had possessed some of that audacity when I was that age.
Oh, There are so many I wanted to ask…
[B]astro,** how are you and your daughter dealing with her depression?
Sunspace, did your dateturn out to be a match for you?
Ivorytowerdenizen, how is your depression? Did the Prozac help you as much as it helped me?
Phoenixundone, how did your boyfriend react to you dumping him?Are you still separated?
Endemic, did you re-establish contact with your estranged mother?
Pressed submit too soon…
StarvingButStrong, did you manage to fend off your relatives clutter invasion?
Shiftless, did you end up “divorcing” your wife over her son, your stepson?
Dudley Garret, how are your wife’s youngest sisters doing? Are they still living with that awful stepdad of theirs? That thread really struck a chord with me, I felt so bad for the 12-year old girl. I have been looking for updates, but if there have been any, I missed them.
I did. 
I used a technique someone told me about, called ‘broken record.’ Whenever anyone said anything to me about it, regardless of what they said, I said, “I’m sorry, that doesn’t work for us.” No explanations, no excuses, no reasons, no offering suggestions to them for what else they could do (which always used to get ‘yes, but’ replies.)
It felt somewhat rude, but it worked. Even the most persistant person gave up after four or five repetitions.
Wow!