💀 Horrorcow Cecily Kellogg / CecilyK / Uppercase Woman - unrepentant terrible human being liked by no one.

[glass_houses]

What I'm hearing with that DC story is that Tori desperately wanted a trip to museums but Cecily and Charlie hate being obligated to do anything at all, for any reason. So they didn't give her the "birthday present" they promised for months, then acted like petulant teenagers eager to ruin the trip however possible so that she wouldn't ask again.

That, but also ruining things for others is essential narcissist SOP. Even if Tori wanted to do something that Cecily and Charlie also enjoyed, they'd still ruin it. Narcissists always wreck anything that isn't theirs, and will make sure that the attention is on them at all times. The meltdown Cecily had in front of the display that Tori wanted so desperately to share with her is textbook. Now when Tori thinks about that display, all she'll remember is Cecily spitting the dummy over her "anxiety", and how noble her mother was to stay in one place for twenty seconds. Cecily manages to be the most important person in the room, yet again.

Has Cecily passed on her myriad anxieties to Tori too? A parent’s job is to prepare children for life without parents. On that and every other score, Cecily and Charlie seem to have failed.

Oh, the failure was 120% deliberate, trust me on this. Even if god magically came down from the sky and replaced Cecily and Charlie with Tori's very own life coach, it's still highly unlikely she'd ever attain functional adult status. There are some milestones that a child can't afford to miss in their early development, and Cecily and Charlie deliberately made very certain that Tori missed every single one. The kid- young woman- is fucked, and she doesn't even have the looks needed to sell two dollar tug jobs at a truck stop.

 

[often puzzled]

Has Cecily passed on her myriad anxieties to Tori too?

I'd be very, very surprised if she hasn't. Children need structure and routine, and Tori has never known either. Most kids who come from chaotic homes get the bare minimum of structure from going to school, but Tori has never had even that. She's wholly unfamiliar with goals and expectations, aside from the desperate need to please her parents.

The museum story is depressing. Tori has never really had anything for herself, and a trip to go to museums is not at all a big ask. Many parents would be thrilled if their child made such a request, but her parents did everything possible to make it a miserable experience for her.

I looked at the offerings at that community college she'll be attending. There are a lot of great options for career paths there. I'd love an outcome where Tori goes into the x-ray tech path and gets a stable, secure job that allows her to thrive, but she's going to struggle with every aspect of her studies. It won't be her fault, because she's been set up to fail, and her parents would shame her for pursuing a career in medical transcription or something else they'd consider beneath them (beneath them, because this isn't-- and never has been-- about Tori and what she might want or need).

 

[John Andrews Stan]

I'd love an outcome where Tori goes into the x-ray tech path

She had a volunteer job mucking out horse stables last summer and seems to have a soft spot for animals. Cecily used to be a veterinary tech (she stole thousands of dollars from her employers by her own admission) so she has probably dragged Tori that way and will later be devastated and enraged if Tori surpasses her achievements (which, even as a kid who’s never known structure or had any education whatsoever, won’t be difficult).

Tori was an obnoxious, loud child thanks to Cecily. The teenage Tori on that podcast at age 13 sounded much gentler and more soft-spoken. It sucks knowing it was years of being shown she didn’t matter at all to her parents that moved her in a quieter and more reserved direction. The silver lining is that she seems a million times more likable than Cecily ever was.

 

[Aunt Carol]

Tori was an obnoxious, loud child thanks to Cecily. The teenage Tori on that podcast at age 13 sounded much gentler and more soft-spoken. It sucks knowing it was years of being shown she didn’t matter at all to her parents that moved her in a quieter and more reserved direction. The silver lining is that she seems a million times more likable than Cecily ever was.

Not to be optimistic, but the kid still has a bit of hope.

It wouldn't be fair to assess her adult status for a few years, yet; she's been socially retarded (transitive verb) and she's still living with her parents.

Community college has grades-n-shit, and for every teenager who's slouching through a starter AA with plans to transfer, there are a dozen aspirationally blue collar older students. Tori might get exposed to people with a work ethic, or at least people who know what it's like being poor and don't care for it.

Not the quirky genteel poverty (phrase inexact; send help) Cecily thinks is romantic and noble and blogworthy; people who've been poor since birth and who realize they'd kinda like to live in a studio apartment with a clean floor and nobody yelling at them.

There's a small chance she'll teenage rebellion all the way into a regular job and some small peace. And then Cecily will borrow money from her.

 

[Hyacinth Bucket (Bouquet)]

Okay. WTF.

Here, let me solve every single one of Cecily's self-inflicted problems.

1. Bring food. Good for dietary needs AND poor people.
2. Hit a grocery store when you get into town.
3. You're eating sandwiches? Who care? You're in DC! You're there for the museum, not the food, right?
4. They probably hit crowds because they went at the peak time of the day. Don't do that. Go early morning on a weekday. It's not like anyone in the family has a job, right? Try not to travel in August.
5. A person's Tori's age is too damned old to be freaking out because it's crowded, let alone Charlie's.
6. Try asking, "beg your pardon" to people standing in front of displays. At least 95% of the time, "excuse me, may I just get in here to see the exhibit" works. The remaining 5% is probably some boorish impossible person like . . . Cecily.
7. Don't expect minimum wage security guards to solve your problem. They're doing their job. What the hell, does she not have a smart phone? Look it up!

 

[John Andrews Stan]

1. Bring food. Good for dietary needs AND poor people.
2. Hit a grocery store when you get into town.
3. You're eating sandwiches? Who care? You're in DC! You're there for the museum, not the food, right?

Yeah these were all such childlike complaints. Maybe it’s because I’m used to catering to my own very strict dietary guidelines and know better than to leave the house for more than three hours without adequate food or a plan for where and when the right items can be acquired, but this shit is Survival 101.

I’m sure Cecily will cry that her “diagnoses” mean she has the executive function of a slug and can’t ever learn to do better. In that case go into a Medicaid nursing home to be babied for the rest of your life.

No wonder Tori freaks out when she sees that her primary caregivers are so unequipped to provide for her needs or emotionally regulate themselves, let alone teach her how to do those things.

 

[Hyacinth Bucket (Bouquet)]

I am living for the day that Cecily's freakout ends up on Youtube. She's exactly the type who gets featured on "Karen is asked to show her plane ticket and YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!"

 

[DarkShark]

Then there’s this:

Funny, I would have thought that the actual “worst experience” award would be Tori watching her mother scream cry at the credit card company in the Burger King parking lot while her dad panhandled enough change to buy a few nuggets. Cecily is very good at living in the now being over dramatic.

 

[The Taco Santo!]

Funny, I would have thought that the actual “worst experience” award would be Tori watching her mother scream cry at the credit card company in the Burger King parking lot while her dad panhandled enough change to buy a few nuggets. Cecily is very good at living in the now being over dramatic.

Or possibly being molested by older 'students' at her 'school'.

 

[Diana Moon Glampers]

It's important to Cecily that this be one of Tori's worst experiences, because she feels like this one is absolutely not her or Charlie's fault.

It's imperative to someone like this that their own actions not be the cause of someone's worst times, even when that is almost undoubtedly the case. Honestly, it's probably the case with huge numbers of typical children vis-a-vis parents, just because it falls to parents to engage in discipline and stop problem behaviors in childhood before they become criminal behaviors in adulthood. But Cecily wanted to be different, very badly. It was important to her that her child regard her as a friend and a safe place who could never hurt her in any way. So she erases from her mind all the experiences where she was clearly at fault for depriving her child of normal experiences and giving her very negative, abnormal ones, while hyping up incidents she feels show her in a blameless light.

The fact that she sees this trip's incidents as being totally blameless is part of her pathological personality, too. The part that gets me is the "choking and throwing up in a restaurant" one. Combined with all the rest of the story, I believe very much that this was intentional to some degree. Cecily didn't like the food because she wanted this to be a chance to Doordash something yummier, and she was going to let her dislike be known in as dramatic and attention-grabbing a way as possible. By god, everyone in that restaurant would know that this food was beneath Cecily Kellogg and made her sick.

 

[John Andrews Stan]

Funny, I would have thought that the actual “worst experience” award would be Tori watching her mother scream cry at the credit card company in the Burger King parking lot while her dad panhandled enough change to buy a few nuggets.

That’s not even the worst experience Cecily has shared with the world. There are so many anecdotes Cecily posted, thinking they made her seem like mother of the year, that showed she had no business having children.

One that stands out was when Cecily had a screaming meltdown at baby Tori that so shook the child that she spontaneously wet herself on the spot. Another gem:

Something inside me just broke, and the next thing I knew, I'd hurled the it-cost-ten-dollars-and-helps-with-tangles-hairbrush across the room, knocking it into Tori's Winnie the Pooh lamp, and I stormed out of the room.

Tori's tears – which had previously been of the crocodile variety – ratcheted up a notch as I sat on the bed in my room, trying to relax and stop being the kind of mom that throws hairbrushes.

Cecily referring to her toddler’s “crocodile tears” is fucking enraging. Children do what they need to do get their needs met. But I’m pretty sure there was no fakery involved in Tori crying over her unhinged mother’s outrageous behavior.

But guess what? Cecily still figured she was a great mom anyway:

I also simply must forgive myself. I am not perfect, I am not going to be the perfect mother, and I don't think the hairbrush throwing is going to negate the half hour we spent in bed this morning cuddling, talking, and laughing. I cannot spend my day moping around and hating myself for losing patience. It happens to everyone, and it must work out in the long run, because most of my sympathetic friends made it through when their kids were this age without murdering their children or tearing their hair out.

In the videos of Tori that Cecily posted online, the one constant is Cecily ignoring Tori’s needs in search of what she hopes will be cute footage. At 45 seconds into this clip, Cecily rewards Tori with attention for running on the furniture like a wild animal. When Tori stops and repeatedly says “I feel dizzy” — with no trace of a smile on her face — Cecily just laughs her head off and tries to get her to perform more for the camera.

This pattern plays out repeatedly in videos Cecily proudly shared online.

 

[Hyacinth Bucket (Bouquet)]

One of the best things you can model for your children is an attitude of "it's all fine, this will resolve and we will be fine." And for minor things like travel setbacks, it will be a funny story that we all remember later. A constant for parents in truly horrific situations is that they attempt to put on a brave face so that the children will be less scared. And I'm talking about people facing much worse trials than a limited dinner menu.

It's rare that I see anyone with so little emotional resilience as Cecily has, especially someone who isn't a histrionic teenager.

 

[John Andrews Stan]

travel setbacks

Recall that the DC trip wasn’t the first one Cecily and Charlie ruined for Tori. They built up a trip to Disney for her and then when they got there, proceeded to bitch and moan and post about how above it all they were. I hope (but doubt) Tori finally got the message: Don’t go anywhere with these people and for God’s sake don’t depend on them for anything.

I just listened to a short podcast where Cecily and Charlie talk about their experience when Cecily defied all of her OB’s orders and ended up (among other things) gaining 18 pounds in 10 days and terminating her late stage pregnancy. Cecily lies and says she was so happy to be expecting twin boys (her blog at the time was about how angry she was about not having a girl). She once again says how relieved she was when the first twin died in utero. The best bit of revisionist history is Cecily lying that the house they lost to foreclosure was actually sold by them because she couldn’t stand to look at the room that was to be their nursery.

 

[Hyacinth Bucket (Bouquet)]

The Disney story was all about how two adults could take a cross-country vacation with a small child without so much of a cushion of a couple hundred extra dollars.

She lost the house when Tori was a preteen, nowhere near the time that she lost the twins.

 

[toilet_rainbow]

Recall that the DC trip wasn’t the first one Cecily and Charlie ruined for Tori. They built up a trip to Disney for her and then when they got there, proceeded to bitch and moan and post about how above it all they were. I hope (but doubt) Tori finally got the message: Don’t go anywhere with these people and for God’s sake don’t depend on them for anything.

I just listened to a short podcast where Cecily and Charlie talk about their experience when Cecily defied all of her OB’s orders and ended up (among other things) gaining 18 pounds in 10 days and terminating her late stage pregnancy. Cecily lies and says she was so happy to be expecting twin boys (her blog at the time was about how angry she was about not having a girl). She once again says how relieved she was when the first twin died in utero. The best bit of revisionist history is Cecily lying that the house they lost to foreclosure was actually sold by them because she couldn’t stand to look at the room that was to be their nursery.

Cecily and Charlie are such irredeemably awful people that it’s impossible to say what is the worst thing they’ve ever done (separately or collectively). The foreclosure is particularly frustrating because they were so close to having a home free and clear, yet just couldn’t bother to do it. Heaven forbid they give their child, the one child whose siblings were murdered so that she could be conceived, a shred of stability in her life. Alas, they’re that unrepentantly lazy and destructive. Those two have earned their misery.

 

[John Andrews Stan]

The foreclosure is particularly frustrating because they were so close to having a home free and clear, yet just couldn’t bother to do it.

IIRC they only had less than $4k left to pay until they would have owned the home free and clear. The fact that they let it go into foreclosure will never make sense to me.

Worse still is that Charlie never felt any great urgency about bringing income into the home. So Cecily modeled for Tori that a woman is the one who has to shoulder complete responsibility for keeping a roof over the family’s head while the man can fuck around pretending to be a poet, having his weekly restaurant lunch tradition and taking sneaky upskirt pictures of strangers — then later hold suicidal threats over the woman’s head when being a useless sack of shit catches up to him. (Here’s a Cecily TikTok on that topic.)

I don’t think Tori thinks she’s a man but I can sure see why she’d think being a woman is a raw deal.

Speaking of Cecily’s TikTok, I tortured myself by scrolling through her videos. She started off trying to go viral by shitting on her elderly mother. Of course she did the usual pity posting about her abortion and even cried over Sinead O’Connor’s death and Roe v. Wade being overturned while pulling her signature ugly faces. It’s all so chillingly calculated and banal. What’s worse is knowing how fucking cute Cecily thinks she is as she hams it up (“Awww, ME!”) even while describing her faux guilt over shitting on her mom (not guilty enough to delete any of the TikToks of course). If you’ve forgotten how insufferably performative and unnatural Cecily is, enjoy:

Spoiler

 

[Diana Moon Glampers]

IIRC they only had less than $4k left to pay until they would have owned the home free and clear. The fact that they let it go into foreclosure will never make sense to me.

It's a kind of self-sabotage. We see the same thing with Cecily deliberately upping her intake of salty fast food after being told to avoid unhealthy foods to give her babies the best chance of developing to the point of viability. Aimee Mann sang about this in a song called "Momentum": "condemning the future to death so it can match the past."

Cecily couldn't picture herself being something other than her identity of "infertile woman," so she self-sabotaged herself into a tragedy and talked about the relief she felt. No need to disturb her image of herself. She couldn't picture herself as a person with a paid-for house who didn't have to feel precarity, so she induced precarity in order to continue feeling the way she was used to feeling.

This is legitimately the kind of thing a therapist might have been able to help her sort out years ago, but now she's too committed to the bit.

 

[glass_houses]

It's a kind of self-sabotage. We see the same thing with Cecily deliberately upping her intake of salty fast food after being told to avoid unhealthy foods to give her babies the best chance of developing to the point of viability. Aimee Mann sang about this in a song called "Momentum": "condemning the future to death so it can match the past."

Cecily couldn't picture herself being something other than her identity of "infertile woman," so she self-sabotaged herself into a tragedy and talked about the relief she felt. No need to disturb her image of herself. She couldn't picture herself as a person with a paid-for house who didn't have to feel precarity, so she induced precarity in order to continue feeling the way she was used to feeling.

This is legitimately the kind of thing a therapist might have been able to help her sort out years ago, but now she's too committed to the bit.

You're overthinking it and giving her way too much credit for a level of emotional depth that she's just not capable of. Someone told her that she couldn't do something so she had to prove them wrong. Simple as that.

 

[Diana Moon Glampers]

Overthinking it and giving people too much credit are some of my specialties, so I'm not surprised

 

[John Andrews Stan]

Cecily is either adjusting her FB privacy settings or deleted this post from last week:



Does she just expect people to send her money when she posts shit like this? Over 20 years she’s had multiple GFMs and still thinks it’s capitalism’s fault and her friends’ responsibility to save her.