BusynMember
Well-Known Member
And I meant it. I did not want to spread my DNA around. It was awful. And it was mean. I did it once, then stopped. I feel I did the right thing.
Family of Origin (FOO) Support Thread Part 2
- Thread starter BusynMember
- Start date
BusynMember
Well-Known Member
I think nature trumps nurture and have never had one regret that I did not keep reproducing and I feel it was a good thing that I did not. It had nothing to do with weakness or strength. It had to do with the fact that my FOO was mean. I do believe meanness and lack of empathy are inherited mostly and not because of our environment. So many kind parents have kids with no empathy at all...often their birthfather is no longer in the picture and he was mean and never even raised the child, but the child is also lacking in empathy and mean.
I didn't want to risk mean.
Also, although I loved my family when I was young, I did not like them particulary and wondered how I'd feel about a kid who reminded me of, say, my mother!!
I did not need to breed to have a good size family and I'm glad I only did it once.
BusynMember
Well-Known Member
Didn't want to take that chance, but parents continued to have issues, especially Mom, after they divorced.
BusynMember
Well-Known Member
I WAS talking bad about myself. I did not want to have a kid who had as many challenges as I did. or the rest of the crew. So, yes, I did not want to reproduce myself or anyone else of my DNA. My sister appeared to have three well adjusted kids to me, but I don't know them. I do know one of them was in therapy early and had issues. For all I know, they ALL have issues. If they don't, their children may.
My family members are NOT normal.
We have little DNA collection left. One day it will probably no longer exist.I really don't think that's a bad thing, if it happens. I don't consider this denigrating myself. Just being realistic.
In my adoption group a woman had a beloved son with muscular dystrophy. He was their biological child, their only one. They did not beieive in abortion and knew that if they had a boy he'd have a 50% chance of having this deadly childhood disease. Well, they took the chance. I would not have. He died at 19. The familly had adopted many other kids, but most had been adopted older and were not doing well. The man started drinking and the marriage started going bad, but last I heard they were still together.
I think it is appropriate to decide to have biological kids or not have them based on what you know about your DNA. None of my family had deadly diseases, except of the heart, Copa. And that is so sad. And I don't think it is environmental. You can love or you can't. You have empathy or you don't. You are compassionate or you're not. They are starting to learn that antisocial personality disorder runs in families. I can't think of anyone antisocial on my DNA tree, but narcissism is rampant and it can also be inherited. I see borderline too. Maybe I DO or DID have traits and I know my mother did and my sister does.
I was not vain enough to want to reproduce myself. Or anyone I grew up with. I did not need to give birth to love enough to die for.
The circle of life.
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BusynMember
Well-Known Member
Thanks. It came from the heart. I have felt this way for many decades. This is NOT new. I truly had to waffle whether or not to have even one biological child.
Scent of Cedar *
Well-Known Member
I absolutely believe the traits we consider abnormal today run the genetic line because they were instrumental ~ were maybe the deciding factor ~ in the line's survival. Whatever else we have to say about our troubled kids, they have never taken well to being told "Because I said so."
Our ancestors crossed an ocean in a time when to do that was as dangerous as traveling through space would be, today. Daughter has always wanted to travel into space; has always, from the time she was a little girl, wanted to be one of the people who travel the stars and settle on strange planets. Son wanted to be a pilot. (Or a person who sues people, but we are considering that wild gene, that exploring gene, that part of our troubled kids that refuses to bend the knee, not the gene, wherever that came from, for suing people.)
If you look, I think you will find it in your own heart.
Something wild.
It is not something that fits in well with bureaucratic twistedness.
They like their challenges real.
As we work here to clear caches of shame, I am beginning to see everything that happened from a different ~ like the genesis of the things that happened may be very different than the shame I trudged around in for so long.
Dirty little failure in the country of origin / exploring, creating, wealth-building patriarch, here.
It could be.
Look at the Kennedy's.
Those of us who hoard every calorie and move slowly and sit heavily vs those of us who roar through the days and can never sit still. In times of famine, those able to hoard calories and store energy live, carrying the human race forward into time.
There is a purpose, and there is a survival value, to all that we are.
Cedar
Scent of Cedar *
Well-Known Member
To return to the theme of betrayal, and of betrayal of self.
I am reading Rebecca, again.
The material I am going to quote for us here begins on page 76. Max is speaking to his young, very uncertain second wife of Mrs. Danvers, the housekeeper chosen by the powerful first wife, Rebecca. Italicized portions are where we should direct our attention. They illustrate the difference in thinking between those who betray themselves and those who do not.
To me, they do.
"Don't mind her," he said, "she's an extraordinary character in many ways, and probably not very easy for another woman to get on with. You mustn't worry about it. If she really makes herself a nuisance we'll get rid of her. But she's efficient, you know, and will take all housekeeping worries off your hands. I dare say she's a bit of a bully to the staff. She doesn't dare bully me though. I'd have given her the sack long ago if she had tried.
"I expect we shall get on very well when she knows me better," I said quickly, "after all, it's natural enough that she should resent me a bit at first."
"Resent you, why resent you? What the devil do you mean?" he said.
He turned away from the window, frowning, an odd, half-angry expression on his face. I wondered why he should mind, and wished I had said something else.
"I mean, it must be much easier for a housekeeper to look after a man alone," I said, "I dare say she had got into the way of doing it, and perhaps she was afraid I should be very overbearing."
***
"Let's forget about Mrs. Danvers," he said; "she doesn't interest me very much, I'm afraid. Come along, and let me show you something of Manderley."
The paragraphs go on in this vein. One of the things addressed is that, though the second wife had felt foolish to hear her own footsteps seemingly thundering through the stone flags of the hall, with her husband at her side striding through it, the nails on his shoes loudly authoritative, she felt safer, less a fool.
Alright. So, the story goes on in that vein. At the bottom of page 77:
He did not look at me, he went on reading his paper, contented, comfortable, having assumed his way of living, the master of his house. And as I sat there, brooding, my chin in my hands, fondling the soft ears of one of the spaniels, it came to me that I was not the first one to lounge there in possession of the chair, someone had been before me, had surely left an imprint of her person on the cushions, an don the arm where her hand had rested. Another one had poured the coffee from that same silver coffee pot, had placed the cup to her lips, had bent down to the dog, even as I was doing.
Unconsciously I shivered, as though someone had opened the door behind me, and let a draught into the room. I was sitting in Rebecca's chair, I was leaning against Rebecca's cushion, and the dog had come to me and laid his head upon my knee because that had been his custom, and he remembered, in the past, that she had given sugar to him there.
So do you see it? Do you see the way the second wife creates her own terrifyingly lonely world and creates of herself a hapless victim?
Self betrayal, in her thinking.
That is where we are concentrating our energies, in our healing, today.
There is a key here. If we can become aware of these kinds of patterns in our own thinking, we will have come into possession of a wonderful tool.
Cedar
I am reading Rebecca, again.
The material I am going to quote for us here begins on page 76. Max is speaking to his young, very uncertain second wife of Mrs. Danvers, the housekeeper chosen by the powerful first wife, Rebecca. Italicized portions are where we should direct our attention. They illustrate the difference in thinking between those who betray themselves and those who do not.
To me, they do.
"Don't mind her," he said, "she's an extraordinary character in many ways, and probably not very easy for another woman to get on with. You mustn't worry about it. If she really makes herself a nuisance we'll get rid of her. But she's efficient, you know, and will take all housekeeping worries off your hands. I dare say she's a bit of a bully to the staff. She doesn't dare bully me though. I'd have given her the sack long ago if she had tried.
"I expect we shall get on very well when she knows me better," I said quickly, "after all, it's natural enough that she should resent me a bit at first."
"Resent you, why resent you? What the devil do you mean?" he said.
He turned away from the window, frowning, an odd, half-angry expression on his face. I wondered why he should mind, and wished I had said something else.
"I mean, it must be much easier for a housekeeper to look after a man alone," I said, "I dare say she had got into the way of doing it, and perhaps she was afraid I should be very overbearing."
***
"Let's forget about Mrs. Danvers," he said; "she doesn't interest me very much, I'm afraid. Come along, and let me show you something of Manderley."
The paragraphs go on in this vein. One of the things addressed is that, though the second wife had felt foolish to hear her own footsteps seemingly thundering through the stone flags of the hall, with her husband at her side striding through it, the nails on his shoes loudly authoritative, she felt safer, less a fool.
Alright. So, the story goes on in that vein. At the bottom of page 77:
He did not look at me, he went on reading his paper, contented, comfortable, having assumed his way of living, the master of his house. And as I sat there, brooding, my chin in my hands, fondling the soft ears of one of the spaniels, it came to me that I was not the first one to lounge there in possession of the chair, someone had been before me, had surely left an imprint of her person on the cushions, an don the arm where her hand had rested. Another one had poured the coffee from that same silver coffee pot, had placed the cup to her lips, had bent down to the dog, even as I was doing.
Unconsciously I shivered, as though someone had opened the door behind me, and let a draught into the room. I was sitting in Rebecca's chair, I was leaning against Rebecca's cushion, and the dog had come to me and laid his head upon my knee because that had been his custom, and he remembered, in the past, that she had given sugar to him there.
So do you see it? Do you see the way the second wife creates her own terrifyingly lonely world and creates of herself a hapless victim?
Self betrayal, in her thinking.
That is where we are concentrating our energies, in our healing, today.
There is a key here. If we can become aware of these kinds of patterns in our own thinking, we will have come into possession of a wonderful tool.
Cedar
Copabanana
Well-Known Member
I love this, Cedar. I am posting to this too, on other threads. My people, especially my maternal side, came in steerage.They left a country where they were hated and hunted. They crossed their landlocked country over several other countries, alone. They were younger than our D C's. Without the language they crossed continents, going from City to inhospitable City.
They did all this FRAGILE, HUMBLE, LONELY, ALONE.
The core of confidence. The core of defiance. The core of entitlement. The core of faith. The core of freedom.
That is who I am. That is my core.
Had I stood firm with the male therapist and not internalized his betrayal, I would have still been left with a betrayer.
The therapeutic relationship could never have been resurrected because he was a poseur, a fraud.
There are times one has to walk. Just walk. If I could have done so I would have. I had nobody else. I made a calculated decision. I was not forced. I stayed. Cost/benefit. So that is a stronger way to see it.
I realized I was stronger than he was. By staying I did not subordinate myself or my interests. I did not stay for him. I stayed for myself. I was able to go on to graduate school, stay the course, adopt a baby, establish a career. I made the right call.
I did not betray myself. He betrayed himself. I saw it.
We make a choice. But I am seeing it is not at all simple to understand these things. Almost 40 years later, I am seeing that I made a strong and correct decision to continue with that therapist.
It is painful to remember the pain I felt, when I was forced to accept his feet of clay, and hardest of all, to see that I was the stronger, the healthier...that he could not rescue me or save me.
This felt to me like a betrayal at the time...that my strength to him...had been frightening. I am afraid of my power, still. In a bit I will tell you a little about of the latest iteration.
This has been my Achilles heel. When circumstances reveal my secret shame.
Vulnerable. Alone. Nobody. Pishy. Rejected. Helpless. A pariah. Denounced. Abandoned as unworthy. Bad.
This was exactly as it was, Cedar.
These last couple of days, again, it has been hard. Perhaps it is because we have been talking, M and I, about my Mother's remains.
We will travel to the Ocean. A half block from where I grew up. My father's remains are in the Sea. My Mother loved him. I loved that home, in that place, where I grew up until 13. My grandmother is nearby. She will no longer be alone. I am at peace with this idea. More than at peace. It feels like a return.
But my sadness about my mother's death and dying is more than this. I CANNOT BELIEVE SHE IS GONE. I CANNOT BELIEVE I LOST HER FOREVER. I CANNOT BELIEVE I LIVED MY LIFE WITHOUT MY MOTHER. EVEN IF SHE WAS IMPOSSIBLE.
Yes. Copa.
Our mourning is not for them, but for ourselves. For what we could have and should have had... and did not have. Far more than what was wrong, it is what was missing that we mourn. Every child deserves a childhood. Part of childhood is having healthy parent relationships. We were denied that. We have every right - and the need - to mourn what was not and is not.
Scent of Cedar *
Well-Known Member
We realized we were alone. More frightening still, we realized that we had been alone the whole time.
With our pasts; with the things we allowed, finally, to surface, believing we had an ally who was stronger enough ~ who understood and was stronger than, our abuser.
This Copa, is why I say that we knew all along these people were not as we needed to believe them to be. (Do you see it, Copa. We needed to believe in the therapist's strength, not in our present day lives, but to take, and take us back safely from, the realm of the Magical Child where we had been intentionally hurt.
Of course they were not strong enough, Copa. Few have survived what we have survived to the point that they determined to heal it. To go back, and to save the Child, and to reinterpret those confrontations with our own mortality.
That is a tall, tall order.
We are doing it here.
So here is the story. As anyone following us here knows by now, I have ~ I don't know. I see what I see. In my relief at having that first therapist, in the beginning of feeling safe enough to confront what lived in my past...this is what I saw. And it scared me; really scared me. But it was true, Copa. If you remember, you will find something similar in your own trepidation regarding trusting that therapist to the depth that you did. Something that you, like I did too, refuted to continue in therapy at the very same time you decided to leap, to trust the therapist. All the things that came in the weeks and months and for you, years later ~ you knew then Copa, in the beginning, like I did, too.
So, here it is.
I do what I do through letting my mind show me what it will. Then, I write it into poetry, usually.
Or a story. In the same way others of us write music or create art of any kind, I suppose. I still may not know what it means, most probably because I refuse to know. But on some level Copa, I do. And so do you, or you would be broken, today.
More broken, Copa. There is a strength in you. Trust it.
Anyway, so here is the story that I saw.
A cave. Rocks and towering stone shapes and stalactites formed from water over centuries, over eons of time. At the center is a low table set with beautiful porcelain, the pot steaming, the cups ready, the table perfect.
The next time I looked, it was as though something eyeless had batted a hand across the table, breaking the china and spilling the tea.
"The tea things had been disturbed."
That is what I heard Copa and I knew then. But I did it anyway. Trusted him with myself, anyway.
He was not strong enough. I knew it. So did you. We did it anyway, knowing, beneath all of it, that we would come through it.
Probably.
Probably being the key word, here.
Add the stupid therapist's condemnation, in any sense, to probably, and we have where we find ourselves, today.
Again. The betrayal here is between us and ourselves, Copa.
That the therapists were as they are...we knew that, going in and trusted ourselves to get to the other side of where we had determined to go.
Cedar
Scent of Cedar *
Well-Known Member
Copabanana
Well-Known Member
I have had a mini crisis these past couple of days. I mentioned that I bought a small commercial office property, in the small city where I live. It is actually a house that was converted. It is quite lovely but needs repair. A Spanish Revival Bungalow that has lost its tile roof (and gained an asphalt one...lest you be concerned that it's roof is flying around somewhere, potentially dangerous). I would have loved the tile roof.
The idea was to buy a property to use for my own work.
Except they did not renew their option to extend tenancy in a timely manner. They needed to have done so by June 15th. They did not, invalidating their contract completely.
I have a property manager. We discussed options.
They have been abusive tenants. Imperious. Entitled. Obstructive. Superior. Paying below market rent. They use their religious garb to strike a morally superior tone, and to justify their acts which without their cloak, would actually be seen as quite ugly. We were patient...we backed down...to avoid dispute.
I had no obligation beyond giving 60 day notice.They had nullified the contract. There was no material interest that justified dealing with them anymore at all.
But because we were talking about going to the far away BIG CITY soon, it made some sense to offer them those 9 months we would be gone, at the same terms they had (ridiculously low rent--like 50 percent under market). We did make the offer. We even indicated that we would likely be open to extending their tenancy even longer. But did not want to be compelled to do so. (I made the offer even though I had extreme concern about the nature of the behavior that I had already seen.)
The rational to offer 9 months was so that we did not have to deal with remodeling the property in two months, and thereby forfeit the chance to travel now. I never ever entertained the idea of negotiating a long, long contract. I had purchased the house for my own use. They knew that.
They rejected the offer out of hand. They became enraged because they had lost the power position, and became overtly adversarial, threatening, and accusing. Personally accusing.
How dare you offer only 9 months? We will never accept it. Never. We will leave if you do not give us what we want, what we deserve. Even though they knew that I had bought the building for my own use.
We demand many, many years. With many, many options on top of that. Do you know who we are? What we do?
They involved their Christian Attorney. He was worse. They said they would leave unless I gave them a many year contract, with many many options to renew. At low rent. Tying me into a situation where I would be abused. (I was going nuts here.) And If I did not do it...we all knew what that made me. We all knew what kind of person would do such a morally reprehensible thing. To people like them.
What kind of a person would act in such a way towards these Christian People who walk with G-d? What kind of Property Management Company would allow their client and counsel their client to act this way?
Because they deserved it. Because of all the good they do. Because they do G-d's work. And if I refused there terms, it would show exactly who I was and where I stood with G-d. And they inferred that they would destroy me.
(And through all of this, I began to feel like a despised and hated Jew and all of the hatred cast against my people was now directed against me. Because I would not give this group more than 9 months. (And I was not obligated to have done that. 60 days was all I was obligated to do.)
The husband of the Director called M on his private cell.
How can your wife do this to us? To my wife. Step in and stop her. You must help us. This wonderful organization who does such wonderful work of the Lord...How can you put her out??? She has nowhere to go....Please, I am asking you a personal favor....please do not put my wife out. Please do not permit your wife to put her out into the street. Please.
And I became furious. Does not my worth as a person matter? Do they know or care about my good works? My charity? Do they know who I am? (A scared, cornered person, in reality, who just wants to climb into bed. The only place in life where she feels safe. And only sometimes, even there.)
What about me?
And I became completely regressed.
So M says, what if you are tied into the written offer of 9 months (I am not.)
I responded I will die rather than submit. I will forfeit the property. I will fight to my death.
And M responded: How is that a negotiating position? A business stance?
Feelings: I am out of control. I cannot protect myself. People are trying to hurt me. They can. They can destroy me. Come after me. Smear me. I am alone. I have nobody. Nobody to protect me.
My Mother was tough as nails. My self-concept is of being absolutely clueless, defenseless, alone.
Even though I won. They are fighting so desperately because they have lost. They have no ground to stand on. I do not feel like I won.
The property manager called me this morning. The voice of reason: They have no leg to stand on. You are way better off without them. They are lying. It would be dangerous to continue to engage with them at all.
I just stated what I needed and what worked. They chose something else. I am not responsible for that.
I changed my plans to deal with the new eventuality. That I will have an empty property in 50 days that will need attention.
I knew that when they decided to try to destroy me (this is where M goes nuts. He says, those are your feelings, they are not true. They tried to take advantage of you. They tried to dominate and to get the advantage. That is what business is like, often. Most people want to dominate if they have a chance to do so. That is not trying to lower you or kill you.)
But that is how it feels to me. That there are forces that try to destroy me. And that I am vulnerable to being destroyed. And whether or not this is cause or consequence of seeing life and the world through my mother's eyes, I do not know. I only know it is so.
The idea was to buy a property to use for my own work.
So, there is a tenant now. A religious ministry. I was forced to continue their tenancy because I had inherited a contract. I would have had to honor their tenancy for 2.5 years more.
Except they did not renew their option to extend tenancy in a timely manner. They needed to have done so by June 15th. They did not, invalidating their contract completely.
I have a property manager. We discussed options.
They have been abusive tenants. Imperious. Entitled. Obstructive. Superior. Paying below market rent. They use their religious garb to strike a morally superior tone, and to justify their acts which without their cloak, would actually be seen as quite ugly. We were patient...we backed down...to avoid dispute.
I had no obligation beyond giving 60 day notice.They had nullified the contract. There was no material interest that justified dealing with them anymore at all.
But because we were talking about going to the far away BIG CITY soon, it made some sense to offer them those 9 months we would be gone, at the same terms they had (ridiculously low rent--like 50 percent under market). We did make the offer. We even indicated that we would likely be open to extending their tenancy even longer. But did not want to be compelled to do so. (I made the offer even though I had extreme concern about the nature of the behavior that I had already seen.)
The rational to offer 9 months was so that we did not have to deal with remodeling the property in two months, and thereby forfeit the chance to travel now. I never ever entertained the idea of negotiating a long, long contract. I had purchased the house for my own use. They knew that.
They rejected the offer out of hand. They became enraged because they had lost the power position, and became overtly adversarial, threatening, and accusing. Personally accusing.
How dare you offer only 9 months? We will never accept it. Never. We will leave if you do not give us what we want, what we deserve. Even though they knew that I had bought the building for my own use.
We demand many, many years. With many, many options on top of that. Do you know who we are? What we do?
They involved their Christian Attorney. He was worse. They said they would leave unless I gave them a many year contract, with many many options to renew. At low rent. Tying me into a situation where I would be abused. (I was going nuts here.) And If I did not do it...we all knew what that made me. We all knew what kind of person would do such a morally reprehensible thing. To people like them.
What kind of a person would act in such a way towards these Christian People who walk with G-d? What kind of Property Management Company would allow their client and counsel their client to act this way?
Because they deserved it. Because of all the good they do. Because they do G-d's work. And if I refused there terms, it would show exactly who I was and where I stood with G-d. And they inferred that they would destroy me.
(And through all of this, I began to feel like a despised and hated Jew and all of the hatred cast against my people was now directed against me. Because I would not give this group more than 9 months. (And I was not obligated to have done that. 60 days was all I was obligated to do.)
The husband of the Director called M on his private cell.
How can your wife do this to us? To my wife. Step in and stop her. You must help us. This wonderful organization who does such wonderful work of the Lord...How can you put her out??? She has nowhere to go....Please, I am asking you a personal favor....please do not put my wife out. Please do not permit your wife to put her out into the street. Please.
And I became furious. Does not my worth as a person matter? Do they know or care about my good works? My charity? Do they know who I am? (A scared, cornered person, in reality, who just wants to climb into bed. The only place in life where she feels safe. And only sometimes, even there.)
What about me?
And I became completely regressed.
So M says, what if you are tied into the written offer of 9 months (I am not.)
I responded I will die rather than submit. I will forfeit the property. I will fight to my death.
And M responded: How is that a negotiating position? A business stance?
I woke up at like 3 AM. Terrified. Like a target. Like prey.
Feelings: I am out of control. I cannot protect myself. People are trying to hurt me. They can. They can destroy me. Come after me. Smear me. I am alone. I have nobody. Nobody to protect me.
My Mother was tough as nails. My self-concept is of being absolutely clueless, defenseless, alone.
Even though I won. They are fighting so desperately because they have lost. They have no ground to stand on. I do not feel like I won.
The property manager called me this morning. The voice of reason: They have no leg to stand on. You are way better off without them. They are lying. It would be dangerous to continue to engage with them at all.
I just stated what I needed and what worked. They chose something else. I am not responsible for that.
I changed my plans to deal with the new eventuality. That I will have an empty property in 50 days that will need attention.
I knew that when they decided to try to destroy me (this is where M goes nuts. He says, those are your feelings, they are not true. They tried to take advantage of you. They tried to dominate and to get the advantage. That is what business is like, often. Most people want to dominate if they have a chance to do so. That is not trying to lower you or kill you.)
But that is how it feels to me. That there are forces that try to destroy me. And that I am vulnerable to being destroyed. And whether or not this is cause or consequence of seeing life and the world through my mother's eyes, I do not know. I only know it is so.
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Scent of Cedar *
Well-Known Member
We are afraid we will be hated for it, reviled and set apart. Shunned, even.
Do you remember the story ~ I don't remember the writer or the title. Anyway, it was about the masks and weights and other encumbrances people without deformity or with appearances or intellects that could be construed as threatening to those whose appearances or intellects or whatever it was, could not be construed as threatening, were forced to don in public that the others not be shamed or made to feel less than.
A ballerina, required to dance with clanking weights on her ankles and wrists, and with a mask on her face.
Stuff like that.
Innovation, in that society, stopped. Every effort was made to make everyone equal. And in that effort, the society manufactured its own doom.
Which is an arrogant story, and I get that. But I have never forgotten it, either.
Cedar
P.S. Okay, you guys. I always think about that story as we all are struggling now in our societies, to figure out how to accomplish justice.
I always think too, about the thought pattern that enables belief in the understanding that each of us, exactly as we are, possess a wild variation of exactly the gifts and talents required, and the thought pattern that believes, however it is disguised, that some of us just don't have what is required and never could and never will.
And then, I think about Animal Farm.
Remember? All are equal. But some are more equal than others.
I think about that stuff. I think about it in how we see our troubled kids, too. Respect. It comes down to respect and to trust, somehow.
Cedar
Sometimes we cannot see what will be, until we no longer have what was. There may be another client out there that wants to also use it? perhaps leaving you room to also do so? You will not know until you get there.
You are a super-mom. Part of that includes the power to jump to the worst possible conclusion in a single leap. We're good at that. We jump over all the other possibilities.
You are a super-mom. Part of that includes the power to jump to the worst possible conclusion in a single leap. We're good at that. We jump over all the other possibilities.
Scent of Cedar *
Well-Known Member
Copa?
Are you dealing with the issue of your mother's betrayal of her own daughter, and of why and how this could have been so? Is that the issue you cannot acknowledge now that convention dictates those who are passed must be cherished, must be viewed only with love and respect and honor?
It is a horrible, dangerous thing to have lived without a mother ~ without our mothers ~ with everything those words our mothers entail when we know that mother who was ours made a living choice to see us, Copa ~ and to be our mother in the way she chose, on purpose. For us Copa, it is not that our mother was taken from us by forces beyond her control.
Our mothers chose.
And that is a very hard thing to know. It is a hard thing for me to know and I am not yet in that place where I will feel terrible if I need to acknowledge that my mother, seeing ME, chose as she did.
I'm sorry, Copa. Very bad, lonely things have happened to us. We have already survived it Copa. It is happening that we tear into ourselves for our shortcomings in our mother's eyes, blaming ourselves that our mothers could not be other than they were ~ blaming ourselves for the way they see us, for the way they saw us, for whatever it was Copa, that left us bereft and without our mothers as infants, as young girls, as young women.
We cannot change what was, Copa. We cannot pretend now that somehow, if we'd only been some impossibly better version of daughters, our mothers would magically have become the mothers we needed to survive ~ to live at all, Copa.
We did live.
We were given enough. It wasn't what we needed Copa, but it was enough.
We are blessed.
It was nothing you did, Copa. Your mom did the best she was capable of and may, as I believe my mother does too, have loved you and been afraid of her responsibility and of the way she let you down and let herself down, because she was not the mother she needed to be for you for herself, either.
Copa, I posted a picture of my mother and myself.
Read the body language, Copa.
Cedar
Copabanana
Well-Known Member
I am confused again.
The way I am seeing now is this: I wanted rescue from the past. I wanted somebody to stand with me and face it down. He failed. I felt horror.
I have gone back and forth on this. At the very beginning of the therapy I foresaw his deficits and failure. I foresaw it all.
I have blamed myself for this. For going into an arrangement that on some level I foresaw as dangerous.
In this new perspective I am adopting I am seeing that I went into this with various objectives, some known, some unknown.
One objective was to extricate myself from my Mother. ( succeeded partially.)
Another objective was to launch myself professionally (succeeded.)
Another, to deal with my ambivalence about men. (failed.)
Another, to go back to my childhood, this time accompanied by a strong and fair prince, and to confront those horrors. (failed.)
I can look at all of this in two ways. I can say that because I had already been failed by men by the time I met this man, to foretell his weakness and his inability to stand with me or for me...would have been my position no matter who or what. With anybody.
It was only bad luck that this man revealed himself to be a charlatan.
The other perspective is this: I discounted the signs for reasons within myself. Self-destructiveness. For example. In a way it was to hedge my bets. Like our difficult children do.
If you start off with something in which you already have doubt...the risk is not so great...the failure is not so great...
And the decision to view the whole endeavor with him as a glass half full. Not as a victim. I was not betrayed. I decided.
The way I am seeing now is this: I wanted rescue from the past. I wanted somebody to stand with me and face it down. He failed. I felt horror.
This is where the horror was.
This is absolutely true.
I have gone back and forth on this. At the very beginning of the therapy I foresaw his deficits and failure. I foresaw it all.
I have blamed myself for this. For going into an arrangement that on some level I foresaw as dangerous.
In this new perspective I am adopting I am seeing that I went into this with various objectives, some known, some unknown.
One objective was to extricate myself from my Mother. ( succeeded partially.)
Another objective was to launch myself professionally (succeeded.)
Another, to deal with my ambivalence about men. (failed.)
Another, to go back to my childhood, this time accompanied by a strong and fair prince, and to confront those horrors. (failed.)
I can look at all of this in two ways. I can say that because I had already been failed by men by the time I met this man, to foretell his weakness and his inability to stand with me or for me...would have been my position no matter who or what. With anybody.
It was only bad luck that this man revealed himself to be a charlatan.
The other perspective is this: I discounted the signs for reasons within myself. Self-destructiveness. For example. In a way it was to hedge my bets. Like our difficult children do.
If you start off with something in which you already have doubt...the risk is not so great...the failure is not so great...
And the decision to view the whole endeavor with him as a glass half full. Not as a victim. I was not betrayed. I decided.
Of my whole life. It felt.
Yes. This is a decision. A cold clear eyed decision. I survived. He did not.
So from my new perspective I do not understand where the self-betrayal was. Except in the way I saw it then, when it occurred. Believing it had anything to do with me. Or my worth. Or my deserving. That I had deserved what happened to me as a child. That I deserved his failing me. That this train wreck that was my life as it was set up for me. I deserved. That is the only betrayal of self that I see.
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Scent of Cedar *
Well-Known Member
Like the roof of the house in The Wizard of Oz. Well I mean, that was the whole house that fell on the Wicked Witch of the whatever direction it was.
Perhaps there will be ruby slippers there, Copa.
Cedar
The act of putting on red shoes has to do with the assumption of female power. Did you know, Copa?
Copabanana
Well-Known Member
I acknowledge it, Cedar. How can I not?
My mother always asserted she was entitled to superior status and care. Even though SHE KNEW SHE DID NOT based upon her own decisions and actions.
I found the will, Cedar. Where she illegally and immorally stole the inheritance from her daughters. And when I had demanded she respect it...she played the victim, Cedar. My victim. When she always knew the opposite was true.
I know the nature of my Mother. I always knew it.
And she knew the whole rest of her life that she had stolen from her girls. And did not care less. Felt entitled to it. Felt entitled to what that money bestowed. The power. The gifts to self. The security.
And felt, still, completely entitled to their loving devotion. Their protection. Their loving and devoted care. Is it any wonder that I have so much trouble putting myself in that position, as deserving love and protection and respect from myself?
And she saw her children in need. And she refused to help...unless forced.
That her children may have been degraded, in need, desperate. Mattered not at all.
And this I think must have been what so galled my sister.
Because I believe in my sister's mind she was owed. The bargain my sister must have made is at the very least my sister deserved power over me.
And that was when she finally left the game when she did not get that.
I know that my mother chose for herself...against my interests....for my whole life. I never lose sight of that.
I know she chose for herself, especially, as she was dying. That she could have chosen, at least initially, to protect me and not abuse me. She did not.
She knew she had betrayed her daughters. She knew she was capable still of making all kinds of other arrangements. She could have decided to die in her house. Some people decide this. She would have had I not arrived.
She knew the cost to me. She knew me and my sensitivity. She knew I likely could not handle it. I think even when I did not know it, she knew I loved her. And would subordinate myself and my needs to her. She knew I was the one who would do it. She took advantage of me. I know she did.
And I forgive her. Still, I would save her over myself.
I want so to get to the point where I deserve something. I cannot get a foothold.
My problem is that I loved her. I still do.
And that I think your struggle, too.
Scent of Cedar *
Well-Known Member
No one likes Donald Trump either, Copa.
But they respect him.
What you won, in my way of seeing, is reclamation of the option of choice. That is what they were taking away from you. The option of choice.
As I read about the manner of their attack on you, I thought of my sister.
Remember the Ring of Thorns she and her compatriots prayed against me? Which was, if ever I heard of one, actually a preying against? Or that she walks with the Lord and so, is neither wrong nor unkind nor foolish nor...ill?
This is that place of uncertainty, Copa. There is no right answer. Each choice will have its effects.
I will say this. D H does not care that a person likes him or does not like him. Like does not enter into it. D H wants privacy and allows it to be invaded like a lion with a thorn in its paw. He saw my sister for who she was immediately. He saw my mother. He told me what he saw. I did not believe. Lion with a thorn in its paw until, in their increasing arrogance after my father's death, he took himself out of the picture. I was free to do as I chose. He was muzzled still, but bore it with the thorn in his paw.
Now he is unmuzzled.
He is free.
Who is it who is leaving you vulnerable now Copa? Whose thorn. Business is business.
M is correct.
As we all are, Copa.
Stop being ashamed of your strength. This is a betrayal of self through our self talk. I think. And I am just a person online, right? But I hear you on one level and I hear you on the other level, where the words that hurt, that call you to question your decency (and which should never have been employed in a business deal but which are, in every business deal, every day.
That's okay, Copa. We are learning to heal our broken places. In a very real way, this is a miracle, this opportunity for healing.
Can you strive only for steady state, Copa? Just like we learn to do with our kids.
Steady state.
There is your brain.
Did you see Dr Ben Carson's performance in the Presidential debate last night? That is how we need to learn to be present to uncertainty, too.
Just like that.
Cedar
Copabanana
Well-Known Member
Cedar, this pinched, a bit. To me you are as real as anybody I have ever known or more real. And I trust you as much.
How is a person online, any different than a person? We take each other's measure and we go from there.
