This is the popular for general audience consumption version of the full sociological report.
I decided to do this case study because of a sudden realization that came from an e-mail she sent to everyone in Madrialia Bar Nonne but forgot the attachment with the information. This occurred on Friday, May 27, 2022.
The e-mail was trying to recruit people from MBN to sing in a performance of the Durufle Requiem. It only failed to include the attachment telling who was sponsoring it, when were rehearsals and the performance, etc. I responded to it at 6:41 p.m. with: “Send a minute something missing i don’t then what you’re asking or showing at all.” The gibberish came from Google Voice to Text and my not checking it carefully. But Peggy understood and sent to everyone “oh geez… it looks like I didn’t attach the info. So sorry” at 6:57 p.m.
It was when I sent my flippant, and probably seemingly mocking response, to Peggy only, that I had my inspiration for the case study. “Yes this is the usual you Peggy, the ditsy headed blonde that you are underneath that redhead …”
Because it dawned on me that I hadn’t received notices of SongFlower Chorale’s spring rehearsals until almost time for the concert. It could have been Google and my e-mail service, or it could have been similar omissions on Peggy’s part, unintended, or the ditz could be a smokescreen for more intentional omissions at my expense.
In any case, the Annual Meeting confrontation, my new business, while seeming to make grounds in protecting the rights of individual MBN members from unfair individual expectations, had not really cleared up a serious issue that I felt clouded my continued participation in MBN. A perception of me that didn’t match reality was being made the norm through which people were expected to view me and evaluate my actions. Something needed to be done, and my prior attempts had been met with “oh Jonathan, you know you have been more difficult these past 10 years.”
To flash back to the Annual Meeting, I made a statement about how changes in the past few years had led to things I had never expected, like E-mail being and often difficult form of communication for be. This was no secret, as I had often mentioned it to people, and asked for their understanding as I remastered it and got back up to speed. Peggy used this admission as the focus of her denigration of my cooperative nature with people. It shocked me, that someone in her field of counselling would treat information like I shared in such a callow way. I wasn’t a patient of hers, so it might not have been an official breaking of professional ethics, but anyone who acted the way she did with my privileged information neither I nor many would willingly trust with such information as a patient. It doesn’t demonstrate the ability to handle it discreetly and with sympathy and compassion.
(I thought I had pointed this out in my ongoing communications to Peggy, but I see somehow I did not.)
In any case, the next e-mails on my part were and attempt to see if they could jar Peggy out of her smug self assurance at my expense and into a consideration of “I hadn’t realize how much that might have hurt him” via a reverse pyschological shock therapy. They were done dispassionately, but very carefully and with calculation. Whatever happened, They were crafted so that sooner or later Peggy would feel compelled to respond. As in Personal Case Study #1: David Jordan Hatch, the goal was to see if Peggy would reach for compassion and and an attempt to understand the hurt of the other, or close herself further into her own sense of being right and being wronged. When a similar thing was done to Jordan Hatch, he responded “Do you know how those words hurt.”
“Yes,” I replied, “they were intended to. It is a dangerous thing to use words that way, but sometimes it is necessary.” He seemed very close to understanding, but instead of “I never realized how what I was doing might have hurt you,” he simply emphasized. “I was very hurt.”
The e-mails can be summarized:
7:02 p.m. — Afher what you did to me I’m not pulling any punches anymore. Be sure yfou’re going to learn about every one of your little errors that comes up you better be careful
7:05 p.m. — I’m waiting for my apology and Im going to be nice enough not to make you do it in public.
7:20 p.m. — To shock(ed) that someone would actually confront you with it or to ashamed to admit it are e Peggy? Never thought that you’d be called on your affrontery. Well get used to it You’re not going to just run over people like you did before It’s going to be out in the public eye what you’re doing, unless you learn some humility right now.
7:28 p.m. — Behind the affability of your personality you’re a cold viper of a bitch, who strikes out anybody who gets in your way, and creates any lie you need to keep them down. Well you don’t do that to me without finding that I strike back, and I know better how to do it than you do.
9:42 a.m. Saturday — You really find it that hard to apologize? So your son has that cold and hard-hearted vixen of a mother does he? I wonder if he knows what a real bitch you really are, and how that drove his father away and into drugs. He’ll learn it sooner or later and you will find him running away from you too. that always happens to women like you sooner or later.
Peggy finally responded:
10:38 a.m. Saturday — You want an apology after the vitriol you have just spewed at me over the past 48 hours? Alright, here it goes. I am sorry that whatever I have done or said in my role as the president of MBN has brought out such hate in you.
You have proven the point, however, that you are not in a good place to sing with others. I don’t know if I will ever be able to sing with you again.
You have become increasingly difficult to work with. That is not privileged information; it has been apparent to many.
Please stop communicating with me. Any communication you choose to have with me may be shared with the authorities. To that end I will do my best to block any further communication from you.
I will be recommending to MBN that we end our relationship with you. Someone from the organization will be in further contact with you, and it will not be me.
I will continue to wish what is best for you, but sometimes we need to care for others from afar.
Result: Peggy failed. her little tag of compassion had no real interest in my welfare. And she began her entire response with a lie.
Really, 7 p.m. Friday to 10:40 a.m. Saturday is 48 hours? She represented 16 hours as 48 hours. If she had said 24 hours it would have been acceptable rounding. But to triple the actual time involved to make my “vitriol” seem greater, is unacceptable hyperbole.
And to answer the question, what had she done that brought out such hate in me? Nothing. Because I had no hate. Exasperation is perhaps the strongest thing I could have said to have, well, hope was stronger, and she dashed that to pieces.
And have you ever seen such a non-apology portraying itself as an apology. No attempt at self analysis, No attempt to understand, or any exercise of the sort of critical thinking that a counsellor should be able to engage.
“It has been apparent to many” — Meaning she has no basis to stand on and so is stating a consensus that will only exist while people simply accept what she says instead of looking at it for themselves. So she has to do what a friend of mine once did. Rather than answer any of my logical questions, he spent two hours shouting “Your Fucking Crazy” at me, until everyone there remembered me as the loudest persotn there, and it took my examination of the security footage to realize the truth, I was the quietest and most dispassionate person there, no matter what everyone remembered.
This segues easily to referencing the annual meeting of MBN, where Peggy, Brittany (and was the third Julie or someone else) remembered a timeline where I didn’t respond to Paul until after most of the rehearsals were over. My checking of the dates of the e-mails in question, show I responded in time to make all rehearsals, if Paul had allowed me. Thus the quite obvious thing that everyone knew about my being difficult and responding too late, was a falsehood.
Note the reference to the authorities. Go ahead Peggy, there is nothing there that is a threat as defined by the police. Again, an attempt to claim the support of legal authorities that she does not have and could never obtain. I did abide by her request (command? threat?) not to communicate with her.
And notice, I offered Peggy the option that this didn’t have to become public, that she didn’t have to put her shame where everyone could hear it. But her own self-righteousness either has or will bite her. Because I also loaded my strategy with a landmine of a ticking bomb for her. Just like she has attempted to create an image of me to control me, I loaded my communications with a danger for her that she failed to realize.
“It is hard for the brain, when presented with such gossipy tidbits, to just say, “that isn’t true, I won’t think of that again. No matter how well intentioned, only the truly compassionate of heart won’t find themselves thinking, now and again, “I wonder, did she really …” and color their perceptions of her. Her brazen nature will leave a shadow of doubt about her, even if just a hint, in many who hear or read what I wrote. After all, it may be true. Because, Every knows, and it is evident … (And the indexing and tagging of this article will also ensure that anyone who wants to find out about Peggy for a job or involvement in any public philanthropy, will find this article in there with everything else, carrying the same weight as anything else.
On a side note, I will mention that I called several members to give them a part of my side to offset Peggy’s vague innuendos, that belong more in “The Rumor Weed” by Veggie Tales. And Julie Watson, the other Alpha woman in the group, parroted the same I am difficult mantra. “You have to admit…” whichd seemed to support Peggy’s position, then went ahead and torpedoed her. “Okay, she isn’t a very good leader.” Which backs up the impression I have often gotten, that Julie still considers herself in charge but is leaving the thankless grunt work to Peggy.
Then again, that is how Alpha women maintain control, according to the sociologists, they squeeze conformity from any potention challengers and fabricate any lie they need to keep them under control.
Enough lies, we need to clear the air and come to the truth and harmony, not coerced unity.
I have been physicalliy assaulted 8 times in the pyast 4 years. I have been arrested 2 times as the assailant because the police believed my assailant rather than me.
My counsellor has posited a theory that I am drawn to bullies. I need to knock down giants or something. That might make Peggy and possibly Julie bullies.
A lady at my church started a rumor, people are afraid of you, you scare us, perhaps you need mental treatment. The subtext is 1) you were assaulted 2) being assaulted makes you dangerous 3) We need to get you out of here.
They don’t say it, but it is what they are thinking, even when they don’t realize it. Now put “a victim of rape” where assault victim is. No one would ever suggest that. But they do it for the assault victim. And I wonder how much of that might creep into the MBN Vigilante Posse. I might need an addendum on this.
At The Rainbow 