Hey, Cedar, or anyone interested in FOO (Family of Origin) issues. Cedar, WHY NOW???

[BusynMember]

I think there is a resolution with time, Copa. Time is a great healer. Great. Either the older child eventually does get a regular life, as you see some of those on the PE forum doing, or we learn to accept what we can't change. If it goes on long enough, the sting wears off a bit. When Goneboy left I hurt badly when it was fresh, however it was a little complicated a situation as he was greatly upsetting his sister Princess and I felt for her too and felt torn in half. Long, complicated story and in the end I'm not sure why he left ultimately but do suspect his wife as being the catlyst as just a year before, when he had a different girlfriend, he was fine with everybody. This one was just...well, she wanted him to herself and his religious beliefs tell him that he must support his wife first and Believers first and we were neither of them.

I found therapy, where I saw a psychologist who only saw adoptees and their families, the bomb. After talking to him for three two hours sessions, I was able to resolve what had happened. He explained, in a very compassionate way, about adoption, especially of an older child, and how it affects a developing child to live in an orphanage. I never felt as badly after talkilng to him. He was so knowledgeable and smart and he quit his practice to go into research right after he saw me so I'm lucky I got to see him at all. He is certainly very schooled on this topic. I do think therapy with somebody who understands the dynamics of older adoptees, adoptees who are drug exposed, adoptees in general really helped me. He didn't shrink my head. He helped me with my children, all of them, so I understood the difference in their experiences and why Jumper was so much better with us than Goneboy ever was.

We were at Jumper's birth. Yes, it mattered. Her birthmother took good care of herself. It mattered. I love her birthmother and she knows it. It matters.

I think therapy is a good place to go. I don't trust all therapists, but I just don't go back if I don't like one. I have had wonderful therapists for the most part. I choose middle age to older women. I don't want a kid. I don't want a man. They put things in ways that I never thought of and are not emotionally involved, although I have been with one therapist (I have two...one for therapy, one for EMDR) ...I have been with one for so many years that we honestly care about one another. It is obvious. I trust her implicitly.

The inability to accept anything that is out of our control causes this anxiety and confusion and depression. One way or another it HAS to be resolved. And the only person who can decide to resolve it is you. How to do so is also your decision. I wish I had more ideas other than therapy or continuing to post here, but I always used therapy and have found it very terrific and most therapists I've had were very helpful so I love them.

Self-help reading helped me out a lot too. There are great books out there about parent/adult child relationships. I eat them up and digest them quickly!!

 

[Copabanana]

Dear SWOT and Cedar when you get back

I made a choice to separate from both of my parents. I went no contact 35 years or more years before I learned the term here on this site. I did it because I wanted to have a life.

My father was dissolute and mean. He had nothing to offer except degradation.

My mother I loved. She was mean and unavailable, being wrapped up in herself, her needs, interests and feelings. I knew as long as I was close to her I would be swallowed up. I chose to live alone.

So, I must have it within me to survive independently of my son.

What is the difference, I ask?

The clearest one that jumps out is that a parent is responsible for a child.

The other one is that my son is vulnerable in a way that neither of my parents were.

And my son is a nicer person than either of my parents. He has no real meanness or cruelty in him. My parents did.

Writing this post is giving me a little bit of hope. Because kindness is a very good thing. My son has become street smart, but he still has his kindness. That is a very good place to start. To have hope.

I love him so much. I have to find a way to love us both. And I am on the road.

Thank you SWOT. And Cedar, when you are back. I start worrying when I do not hear from one or the other of you. I have never had better friends, SWOT and Cedar. Never better.

 

[BusynMember]

Copa, you don't have to separate from your son. You can talk to him without allowing him to live with you. Things may get better with time too. You SHOULD have hope. He is still young. If you feel inclined to do so, he will not be so far. You can meet him for lunch sometimes. One of our forum members did that with her son. You can sometimes treat him to shopping and buy him coffee and a donut. That isn't enabling to me. You can maybe have a conversation you haven't had before...about adoption, how does it affect him etc. It won't change his behavior, but you may connect on a deeper level.

When he starts talking about conspiracy theories, ugh, change the subject as if you hadn't heard him. When my son was living in hotels (cheap ones, but in motels on his father's dime) I visited him a lot and brought him food and talked to him. At the time, I was alone and afraid of his verbal violence. We have spoken about t hat in detail since then, something which I'd never had the chance to do with my FOO. He was really surprised I had been afraid of him. I don't want to tell too much here (spies abound), but it was a good talk and we are close. He's mad at me right now because I was not able to tell him what I felt he should do about a certain correspondence he'd had with his lawyer, but I decided not to go there this time. The custody battle was torture for both of us. Obviously, it was because of my grandson, but I wanted to console my son too and he was so on edge he just freaked out very easily. Reminded me of myself when I was under that kind of stress, really. But I couldn't help him then and I can't now. I don't know diddly about t he law or what his lawyer wants. I'll probably call or text him later. I'm going there in a few weeks. I know he won't stay mad, but these legal battles are so hard on him. And there is nothing I can do. If I give him advice and it backfires...he won't blame me, but I'd feel badly. I just wish his ex would not have a fantasy that she can run to the sunset with my grandson. My son will never let her do it, but it is so hard on him each time she tries.

Fortunately, he has his first kind, stable girlfriend since the divorce right now and I'm sure she is level-headed enough to keep him grounded.

Sorry. I got off track.

I do not think you are going to have to go on without your son. But you will have to accept your son and his choices. You will have to be able to sit across from him and be ok with dirty hair and clothes that make your kinda go "yuk." But you can see him IF YOU FEEL UP TO IT. He is not going to go away. See? He didn't choose to go so far from you, after all.

Your connection to one another is strong

 

[Copabanana]

Well, my son called about 45 minutes ago, asking about coming over. I swallowed and said, "Great. M will not be here. He's working late. We can have an early dinner in time for you to get back while it is light."

I had time to make a rich chocolate desert (Molten Cakes or something like that)--he loves chocolate.

I will try hard to keep it light.

Thank you SWOT.

COPA

 

[Copabanana]

Well, my son was here 6 minutes maximum. He acted sad but nervous. Not about anything to do with me. Like kind of on pins and needles. I tried to get him to eat. "Here's these Molten things. Eat them while they're warm, why don't you. I forgot and put a little salt in the vegetables, but not in the meat."

"It's okay," he replied.

Within 2 minutes he happened to mention that he was locked out from where he was staying for the night, that he had not remembered that the woman who is letting him stay with her works from Wednesday to Saturday.

Then he began to say something like the following: "If I call the City (where he is going) and get a 2 or 3 night placement...."

I interrupted him and said: "You cannot stay here for the night."

He got up. He went to the bathroom. He came back out. He picked up his pack. And he walked right out the door. "Are you leaving?" He did not answer. He did not look back. I did not go after him.

He had not eaten a bite of his food.

I ate a molten chocolate thing.

So there we are.

I am sad. Maybe I will always be. But I think I have some clarity, too. There is no walking back from this. It is what it is and no amount of suffering by me will change it. Not one bit.

He is walking his own path, the path he chose. Due to stupidity or because of illness or hubris or immaturity or naivete or by accident. I don't know. Maybe I could have done something different or better. I cannot change the past. Only he can change things now. Maybe he will. Maybe he won't.

I was not a bad mother. But there is nothing more that I can do that I can see.
___

I do not know why it is worth everything for him that I consent that he stay here at the house; why he is putting the whole relationship on the table. He has options. He might not like them, but he has them.

Is it about power? Or is it about a sense of rejection? Or is it about not wanting to grow up and be responsible for doing so? As Lil might say, color me sad. And confused.

 

[Copabanana]

It is 8 pm and he just called. "I shouldn't have left like that....I'm sorry."

I cried. "Just remember. I love you. But it was hurtful."

"What does anything matter," my son said. "Everything's ending. There is no time to fix anything. We can't even talk without fighting. I just wish I would die."

I said, "You cannot say those things to me without wounding me deeply. I am your mother. Think about how you affect me when you speak like that. You have the power to change how you feel about yourself and your life. You know what you need to do. Get treatment."

"It's been five years like this. I can never come to the house again. We fight."

"We are not fighting. We are talking. I love you. Get treatment. Just get treatment. You know what you have to do. You are a good person. You know how to live. What to do to have a good life. Get treatment."

"There is no time. (Continuing with the end of the world theme.) There was noise in the background and he hung up.

I am glad I said my part. I love him. He knows how to fix this. He knows what to do. He can do it. I believe in him. I believe in his strength. I am always here for him. But it is not okay what he is doing and how he is living. And he is responsible.

I had spent the last 2 hours reading old posts by SWOT and CEDAR and I knew what I needed to say.

I love him. No matter what. He can do it. I know he can. I believe in him. And I will always be here. Just not according to his rules.

 

[BusynMember]

COPA, I'm curious? What is it you expect him to do in order to visit your house and are you sure he can do it? Do you want him to quit drugs?

Since it hurts you so much, would it be that terrible to let him home once in a while for a bath and a meal? I'm not saying to let him move back in. What makes this impossible? Drugs? Disrespect? How he turned out? He is probably never going to be able to be what you dreamed for him. He DOES have challenges.

I don't BLAME you for not letting him home, but you did forgive your mother, and it seems to hurt YOU so much that he is angry at you and not in your life enough.Why torture yourself? You have to think about yourself too. If estrangement from him is so hurtful, why not gentle it a bit?

Any answer is ok. There is no right or wrong answer. I'm just trying to figure out how to help you. I don't really recall your main issues with him. Drugs? I'd also say no. Not thriving? Id let the kid home once in a while. Partly for the adult child, partly for me. Disrespect and violence? No. But I'd meet my adult child in restaurants and buy dinner sometimes.Is it possible that he can't really do it alone? That he is too disabled? Not everyone can figure it out. I don't know these answers. I'm just throwing stuff out there...

There has to be a better way. You are suffering as much or more than he is...it's not fair to YOURSELF.

 

[BusynMember]

Copa, really hope you didn't take that as criticism. I didn't mean it to be!!!

Going out of town for two days. Will be back Sat. afternoon. May "talk" by phone

Cya Cedar and Copa!

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I guess it's that ole childhood win.

"Ha, ha! Mommy loves me best."

Is this the woundedness, or is it that our sisters are the same personality types as our abusers?

I agree now, that these people do trigger really crummy feelings, and that a piece of what it feels like to be near them ~ or even, to think about them at any depth ~ does trigger a kind of global emotional flashback feeling.

***

Forgiveness.

My mother abuses every one of her children to the degree she can, even now.

That ownership idea has been working around in my psyche lately. The idea that I am (or was) my mother's, and not my own.

Is this feeling normal, or is it an artifact of abuse?

At a child's level, I somehow functioned (as it sounds like you did too, Copa) as chief cook and bottle washer. As this happened to both of us, this must be part of the pattern, too. SWOT's mom was a mom at home...but I am wondering, SWOT, whether you were seen the same way. You were not encouraged to be your own, either. Long hair/appearance. Your mom was so verbally abusive in the way she taught you what mattered about you, SWOT. These are locus of control issues, too.

We must be getting very near the center, now.

Copa, if I may ask, did your mom work outside the home? Is that how it happened that you spent those early adolescent years functioning as cleaner and cook for your family?

***

"What fools are they that have not patience;
what wound did ever heal but by degrees?"

That is Shakespeare. I think that is an exact quote, but I didn't go look it up for us. So, it might be incorrect in a word or two but is great imagery for all of us, I think.

***

This ownership feeling has to do with my mother's justification of behavior she was fully aware was wrong.

The ownership feeling.

That I am hers and not my own. Locus of control, again.

***

So here is what seems to be happening, now.

As I come to see more and more from my own perspective, I am losing curiosity about the individuals in my FOO. That is a way to describe it, I think. It could be that denial about what they did and what they do, blind little gnomes servicing some evil engine to this day kept us tied into this ~ well, okay, SWOT ~ enmeshed.

Huh.

So I must be breaking free from enmeshment.

***

In my work, I saw many different kinds of families. Healthy families have...not compassion for one another but ~ I don't know. It must be that their boundaries are intact and so, there can be the possibility of respect for whatever the other person feels, instead of needing to fix it. There was a sense of protectiveness, too. When I think about my sister in this regard, I can imagine her crying forever. My brother, feeling badly and being strong.

Why bother being strong when a person could just be.

So Jabber's French king and parading Scotsmen sans kilts are appropriate imagery. The authority of the English king...those are the things I have always believed mattered. That there was a quest, and that happiness and completion were to be found at the end of it.

That is not going to work for us.

Freedom.

It was never my responsibility to bring our family together. That too, was my mother's responsibility. My response ~ valuing family when she did not ~ was a good thing. I am glad I did that.

But I am not my mother. I do not owe her anything more. I need to stop fighting them to create something I think is good.

It could be that they are very happy just as they are.

We will believe that, then.

My made family is not enmeshed either. That is so unhealthy.

I will read about enmeshment.

Being in touch with who I am I was able to do brave things that I wanted to do, that other people could do, but usually did not, because they would not make the sacrifice or take the risk. So I ended up doing audacious things.

Good.

:O)

***

Our daughter and grands are here. Everyone is always wanting to eat and do things together and etc. We are doing so well. The little boys are fantastic, and have grown so much! Daughter is doing well. Baklava grand is doing well out in Oregon. Middle granddaughter will be here July 3rd. I will check in as I am able.

Please know I think of you both often, and with great fondness.

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

What is it you expect him to do in order to visit your house and are you sure he can do it? Do you want him to quit drugs?

I had thought there was a reasonable chance if he had to be responsible for the results of his choices and was not bailed out by me he would start to resolve these things himself.

He wants to be completely dependent upon me or others to handle his housing, so that he can use all of his money on his supplements, special food and marijuana.

At the same time he wants to have authority over us. To decide the rules for the pets. He is domineering over me, manipulative and aggressive. He brings his marijuana here, when we ask him not too. When we talk to him, or tell him something he does not like, he calls the cops on us and tries to get us put in jail. The last time that happened he pinned M down and gave him a black eye. When he stays here, I get very stressed out and get sick.

Since it hurts you so much, would it be that terrible to let him home once in a while for a bath and a meal? I'm not saying to let him move back in. What makes this impossible? Drugs? Disrespect?

The thing is he is manipulative. He thinks he can trick me by lying so that I will do what he wants and let him have what he wants. In the case of last night, for example, those were falsehoods designed to trick me into allowing him to spend the night. If he stayed over the night, he would want to be here for weeks or as long as he wanted. Then it would start over again. He would dominate the house. He would get aggressive. I would spend all day and night in my bedroom, and not leave.

You have to think about yourself too. If estrangement from him is so hurtful, why not gentle it a bit?

Today, I am going to call Social Security and speak to a supervisor, to insist on his having a payee. We went together 5 or so months ago, and he asked SS to make me his payee. They refused because they said they do not like to take over his rights. I will not ask to be his payee. I will ask for his having a payee designated, because people are taking advantage of him. Taking his money and throwing him out. Then there is the issue of his money lasting the month, which it is not.

Drugs? I'd also say no. Not thriving? Id let the kid home once in a while. Partly for the adult child, partly for me. Disrespect and violence? No.

It is a combination of things. Marijuana when we say no. His hiding it. We find it. Him, being stoned. Visibly under the influence. Dominance and not wanting to respect our rules. While he is physically clean, he is really messy in the house. With food, particularly. He picks something up that he sees, takes a bite and leaves it if he does not like it. He will hide food in strange places. Once we found hamburger meat and maggots in a drawer. Wet dirty towels around, etc. The calling police to get us put in jail could be serious. M's status for example and I have a professional license.

The idea that I am (or was) my mother's, and not my own.

That makes me think of my sister. How she felt entitled to take over my mother's life and do as she wanted with it.

Copa, if I may ask, did your mom work outside the home?

When I was 8 my mother divorced and went to work. Then started my responsibility for the house and the increase in my responsibility for my sister. She remarried when I was 11 and stopped working. But I had major chores in the house still, until I left home.

That I am hers and not my own. Locus of control, again.

Do you think, Cedar, that your mother has this mindset about everything and everybody or mainly you? Cedar, it sounds wonderful that your daughter and the kids are with you. Have lots of fun.

 

[Copabanana]

I am confused about what to do with my son. I have extreme heartache and worry. I am suffering and I suffer for him.

Earlier this year we had planned to buy a property where my son could live here in our town so that he would have a safe place to live, separate from me.

M reminded me last night, that my son could stay here and could have lived here with us at any time, if he was willing to show respect to me and to cede a little bit: to not let the cat out of the house; to not let the dogs out of the house without leashes; to be productive and to not use or bring marijuana here.

He has been gone from our home for about 4 months. We had hoped that he could establish himself in this town. The rents are cheap. The downtown is self-contained. He can walk everywhere.

Since he left here he has had 4 different residences that I know about. He could have had his own place. Instead he couch surfs while paying the people. He could have gotten a decent room for the money he pays, almost as much as an apartment.

He says he now hates the City where we live. He sees the people as Meth addicts, as scum. He seems to have the same problems in every situation he goes to. And to not learn. And ends up having a blow up and being thrown out. He does not want to understand that who owns or leases the house, has the power. He calls the police on them, too, just like he does on us. He says he is being cheated and taken advantage of by others in terms of his housing. He pays, and then they throw him out.

Buying a property for him to live in our town may not be the solution, if he hates it so much here to the point he does not want to ever come back. As I write this I realize that perhaps if he did have his own space, that might insulate him from the bulk of the disputes he has with others.

His hope now is to go to the City 3 hours North of us, and get into a really good shelter there. Last he told me, he was number 85. He thinks it is imminent.

I thought this might be a good plan because he loves this City, and there are great services for the mentally ill and homeless. Way better than here. He could get into residential treatment there, if he wanted to.

He is clearly going down the tubes. More and more focused on this delusion about the end of the world in August. He looks haunted and gaunt. Detachment seems not to be working so good, in terms of my son picking up the slack. He looks more and more lost. And desperate. He does not have his phone. He says somebody stole it.

The way it is now, he plans to leave here in a couple of days, when he gets his SSI check. I know the general area where he is living but not the house.

I feel desperate to help him. I do not know what to do. I do not know if he is using harder drugs, or if this is entirely mental illness. Even a year ago, you could have a normal conversation with him. Now he is lost.

I fear it will keep getting worse. I don't want him to die. And I don't know what to do. He has burnt his bridges with everyone except us, it seems.

So the questions are these: Do I let him come home, if he calls me and wants to at least until we can come up with a plan? Do I follow through with trying to insist with social security that they get him a payee? M wants me to wait until he comes home tonight before I call them. Do I keep going as we have been and let him go further and further down, hoping at some point he will bottom and save himself? What do I do?

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I stayed with him so long for him, not for myself. Because I knew he was broken. Even as his world saw him as a great success, a great man, I knew him to be broken.

I know this sounds nuts. But it has some truth.

I too feel this way regarding brokenness.

Well, look at all of us here, staying the course to heal our own and one another's, brokenness.

My job since small was to care for those who needed it, up to giving my life.

It could be that we are happiest helping others (and ourselves) reach for that best person they could be; the one we see so clearly, whatever the exterior.

That is a precious thing.

We need to learn to care for and cherish ourselves, too. It isn't that we are wrong or foolish to feel as we do.

I would have survived. But I needed a family and he was all I had for years. In time I will make peace with it. And perhaps understand, better.

Regarding my first therapist: Beneath the anger was...more anger!

:O)

But as I put it away (thank you both for witnessing for me) I decided that what mattered here was how I put it away. He is not the important one, I am. He cannot hurt me, now. He cannot help me, now.

I am grateful for those beginning months. I made incredible progress. It was like being with you two here. A witness; someone I could trust, and I trusted no one. I don't know what happened to change all that. But it doesn't matter. Just as it is with our kids and our FOO, how the story ends does not change that it began beautifully.

I lived.

There was beautiful poetry.

Cedar, what did they reject about your husband? His strength? The fact that he is incorruptible? His loyalty to you? His insistence on protecting you? Was it prejudice?

And what is it that makes your sister hate the Greek Orthodox Priest? Does your mother have money that your sister fears will go to him? Does she fear losing control? Or is it jealousy and insecurity, only?

This too seems simple, this morning. (I don't know whether it is really simple, or whether I am cutting to the chase because I have some alone time here.) They (my FOO) and everything we learned there revolved around that initial choice to hate rather than to choose love somehow, any way you can. They choose anger, and use it to justify further abuse, whether the victim is child or adult. This is what I saw with the lady who drove my mother South; I saw it in my mother's response to my brother's complaints regarding treatment of himself and his family and grands. I see it coming between my sister and my mother, once there is no longer anyone to unify against.

That is why they do what they do. It is easy to hate. It is easy to love. The hard part is figuring out when to let go and how to do that.

The next hard part is figuring out how to be a decent person in my own right.

I have spent my life not being my mother, so afraid that I would be that way, too.

Good for me; that was a hard, scary battle.

I am back on posting like crazy because everyone is gone for a few hours. I have so many things to do while they are out, but I wanted to touch base here and see how we all are, this morning.

I don't know how I am doing either, unless I think about it enough to create a coherent post for all of us, here.

We are doing incredible work.

Thank you both.

:O)

And explained the theory of long-wave cycles in economic theory.

I love it that you know about this.

I don't know about it. I have done some reading in economics. It was a scary thing to understand that no one knows how to do this. I think that is part of having been abused, too. I was taught that my mother was the ultimate authority on everything, and that she knew everything. (Just don't think, Cedar.) I am forever surprised to realize that the more we learn the less we know and that no one really knows anything for sure.

This is what I have observed: Those who say they know or who believe they know? Are the very ones we should never listen to, at all.

(Just don't think, Cedar. Just shut up, mom.)

I replied, it is hard to explain. I have learned to respect that you will do the right thing for yourself, and to trust you that you will do it.

I worry about your health, especially. But I have been wrong not to trust that you will take care of yourself.

At the same time I have learned that I must take care of myself too. No matter if it is hard.

I love the trust and the respect in this, for both of you.

Good job, Copa.

And how grateful I am now that I was able to be that mother for my son. And still can be and am.

Isn't that an amazing thing, Copa. I am happy for you that you can see it, now.

I mattered to my father for some time, but at the end he hated and denounced me.

For all we know Copa, his mind had been destroyed by that time. For all we know, he was raised in misogynistic belief systems that poisoned him altogether toward women at the end and so, just like our kids do sometimes, he took it out on the one he loved best.

In any event, he is gone. We need not concern ourselves with him until later, and then only if you wish to. Can you imagine what you needed to hear from a father figure of your choice, Copa?

Had your father been healthy, had his life continued successfully Copa, how would he have raised and cherished and protected that little girl he dressed so well and was so proud to bring out for dinner to the restaurant?

That was surely his intent, Copa.

Life broke your father, it seems to me. Had his life been different, how cherished you would have been, Copa.

You talked things over (translation gossipped meanly regarding mother and Sis) and were together a lot for family holidays.

We did talk things over. We laughed alot. No one ever confronted my mother on what she did. My mother was always angry at everyone.

She seethes with it.

Regarding holidays...nothing ever worked. We were like that family in the song "Oh, I yust go nuts at Christmas." There is a line that goes: "And they all run outside whooping so the neighbors can hear."

That is my FOO.

My father used to hang Santa in effigy on the front door where a wreath should be.

D H family does holidays, and D H and I do holidays. They are huge ones, because D H family is large. The last 4th of July my mother attended, she snatched the freaking guest of honor (The new wife of a nephew. The lady is a black lady from Africa. This was the first time the nephew and the lady and their children were here with the whole family. And my mother promised the woman a ring, and took her to her house. When I called to tell my mother she needed to come back now because dinner was ready, my mom was "Why should I?" Her intention was to keep the woman away until after the family dinner.

I had lied about dinner being ready.

My mom and the lady made it back in the nick of time, the lady was given the ring, and D H did not learn what my mother had done until later.

That is what my mom does. A bad thing, but not really. But what my mother also will have done is plant poison against the family and the husband of the woman from Africa.

Roar.

I need to stop now so I can begin preparations for the 4th before everyone gets home.

Wishing you both such a nice day.

Cedar

 

[BusynMember]

I am in a hotel in Illinois. Don't like to post using phone or tablet so may make many mistakes. Typos.
Cop a, about ur son...wow. Does sound like he may be impossible to live with. On the other hand I have never read any stories of parents renting or purchasing property for their grown child that has worked out.
I guess u have to trust your gut. I would post more but I hate typing on this tablet...lol. I will get home July 4th. Jumper is home watching the dogs. She couldn't come with as she has to work. Will try to post later. Love to both of you.

 

[Copabanana]

Hi Swot and Cedar

Swot, thank you for checking in.

My son is here at home with me. I took heart from your last post, and suggested he come. We have been together about 6 hours and we are okay, so far.

The worst was when he got the courage to tell me that he stopped the Antiviral Medication he is on for liver disease. For more than 6 months he has been lying. He believes he can control Hepatitis through vitamin supplementation.

His plan was to go to the large city by train tomorrow AM and camp out somewhere until he gets in a shelter where he hopes to stay 3 months.

He has no other plans. Nothing. Now that we have said he can stay tonight he is saying his plan is unrealistic and it would be best to not go to the City until space in the shelter is confirmed. You see what this is leading to?

He wants to live here.

After 3 months at the shelter, there Is no housing in that City that he could afford and I do not see him doing what would be necessary to get subsidized housing.

He Is not interested in residential treatment because he would have to give them a large part of his SSI, even knowing that it might be a route to subsidized housing.

I did remind him that there is a Jewish Recovery Place, where he could go, and that did pique a tiny bit of interest.

I do feel much better with him here because I have my eyes on him every second and I can see he is okay. He is trying to get along, and he has calmed down since he has been here. Less anxious. Not scattered. More focused. Happier.

I am wondering whether it is an act, when he looks a mess, or if he is anxious. He is reassured to be with me, and that reassures me. M is very happy he is here but my son was afraid because M talks to him straight.

I may ask M if he would consider letting my son stay here and watch the dogs while we go to that distant city. That way we could keep Romy. M has been resistant because he worries that my son would let the dogs out. Also the last time we came home to a filthy house with maggots all over the living room floor. My thinking is we could get somebody to check on the dogs and my son and the house on a weekly basis. But I do not think M will go along with it.

The thing is that my son is doing not one thing to stabilize let alone improve his situation long term.

I have to accept that his trying to go to SF for the 3 months in the homeless shelter is good enough and that we will some way find a next step after that.

But he may be open to considering the Jewish Recovery program in LA, especially if we let him stay here until a spot opens up.

So, I will try to take it one step at a time.

I am accepting that there is a possibility, maybe even more, that he will always need our help. And if that is the case we have to make a plan together so that he is secure and stable.

Thank you SWOT. I could not have gotten through this last 24 hours without you.

COPA

 

[Copabanana]

Beneath the anger was...more anger!

With my therapist, I was furious. Furious. And before that I had an image of myself as a person without an angry bone. I did everything I had to do to never ever get angry. Mainly except for work and friends from work, I isolated myself from any significant relationship in order to maintain my sense of myself as not angry.

Cedar, think of it this way. The anger is towards are families. But it would never have been tolerated. Completely unacceptable. These men, your therapist, or mine, were stand ins, don't you think, transitional figures, with whom to feel anger....and later to direct it towards the real targets. I am not saying that these men did not merit our anger, just that in themselves they were stand ins.

I have spent my life not being my mother, so afraid that I would be that way, too.

Me too. For example, I bought a house in February that is zoned to use as a professional office, with the idea of starting a practice. It is leased out for 2 more years. My realtor recommended a property inspector. Fine. M went up in the attic a few weeks after the property closed and found that two roof beams were sagging. So overwhelmed and barely functioning, I mentioned this to the realtor but did nothing more. Last night I asked M what the implications were of this defect. Minimum 10k of repairs.

My Mother, the second she heard, would have called and aggressively hounded the realtor and property inspector. Polite. Controlled. Not rude. But aggressive. Unrelenting. And she would stop at nothing. She loved lawsuits

I can confront people but avoid it like the plague. But this is only after I am extremely backed into a corner. I get slightly hysterically aggressive. More like rabid. And it is nowhere near as effective as my mother's buzz saw relentless pursuit. Which I avoid like the plague.

I was taught that my mother was the ultimate authority on everything, and that she knew everything.

How boring it would be to think you know it all. Most of the fun of life comes from not knowing, and being curious, I think.

Cedar, I am sorry but your mother sounds a bit of a bully.

Can you imagine what you needed to hear from a father figure of your choice, Copa?

Gosh, I don't know.

I wanted somebody to be proud of me. Most of all that. I craved protection. But more than that I think I wanted to be heard and seen for who I am. Of my family, only my mother, at the end of my life had an idea of who I became. But never as a child. I cannot even imagine having a protective male figure in my life as a child. My grandfather was a benign and loving man, there but without authority or presence.

she needed to come back now because dinner was ready, my mom was "Why should I?" Her intention was to keep the woman away

She took advantage of that lady Cedar. And she did not care how the lady felt or how anybody felt. She caught somebody in her web and she sought to do with them what she would and could. Until she was done with them. When she was done.

my mother also will have done is plant poison against the family and the husband of the woman from Africa.

M's sister Is like this, the evil one. At the start of our relationship she would try to get me alone, and plant seeds of doubt or try to get me to tell her about the relationship.

First she said, How can you stand him? I answered, what do you mean? To me he is a good and kind man. Do you not find him such?

M is known in his family as being direct and blunt. He can also be aggressive and defensive verbally if he needs to.

The positive side of this is you pretty much know where you stand with him, because everything is on the table. This gives me a sense of security. I do not fear him. In the main he is very, sweet, tender, loving, and protective. But domineering, sometimes.

The one time I was surprised by him was after my Mother died. He had been so constant with his care of her, so constant at my side. And then he announced he was going to go to return to Mexico.

And to this day I do not know why. I just asked him. He says our situation was so difficult, so complicated. When could he leave? Not while I was in the thick of it, he said. I still do not understand. Only that I was so sad, who would really want to stay with somebody like that? But he never left.

So back to the sister. After she did that a few times, I refused to ever go back to her house. But I made a big mistake, and I trusted her daughter.

Around the time my mother died I confided in her daughter, told her a secret.

The daughter then said, You know why M is with you, don't you? The only reason he is with you?

Why is he with me?

What do you think? Why would he be with you?

Because he feels comfortable and secure with me? *I knew where she was going at this point.

Yeah. Because of what he can get from you. Because he lives well. Because you let him do whatever he wants. Because you do everything for him. You give him everything. *Not true.

And where did a 22 year old come up with all of that? From her mother.

Within that little speech is something very destructive to M. The desire to take away what little security, safety, comfort, protection, and hope he had. So that he would be the sister's alone. To exploit him. To have his undivided attention and support. She wanted all of him and she was willing to destroy him to get it.

That sister said stuff directly to me, along the same line. And I stopped it. Everything she ever said I repeated to M. And I told her I would.

And if I was hurt was neither here nor there. Road kill, kind of. A means to an end.

It smarted that anybody would think that about me, that I could not attract the attention of a man in other than for ulterior means. But it was so silly. And my pride in myself in that way so solid, that part did not wound me that much. I saw it more as defining them and how they defined themselves.

The object was to destroy M to possess him and to destroy my confidence in him and the relationship, towards the same end. So that he would have nothing, relative to her, and by having less than her, in her mind be under her control, beholden to her. In her own mind.

As long as we were together she could not have the illusion of his relative inferiority to her in power and means. So she had to destroy the idea or fact that he could be secure with me and better off.

So I understand malicious intent to destroy and plant doubt.

M understands with his sister that he can never be around her. He loves her but knows that she Is dangerous and he cannot risk being near her. Ever.

Cedar, you are clear what your mother and sister are. I believe you have always known, and that is where the anger comes from.

Because there is a part of us that feels stuck. Still.

I can see this sister clearly and feel hate. I can see my sister clearly and feel impotent anger.

So I think it is an issue of power, not just meanness and victimization. Your mother and then your sister invalidated, used you, and victimized you. Then they tried to take away your voice to protect yourself, to define what you wanted in this life, and to go there.

But you would not allow this. You would not allow them to take away your power to define who you are.

Your mother tried, with you.

Just as surely as your mother absconded with the African lady, caught her in her web, and did not care who she hurt or how much. She had tried with you.

Did she care one bit?

"Why should I?"

That's power.

 

[Copabanana]

The thing is that my son is doing not one thing to stabilize let alone improve his situation long term.

So, this is how it is.

M came home last night after a 14 hour work day. After another long day yesterday. And the day before that. A bit fearfully my son spoke with him and explained his situation. I left the room. The upshot was M wants to let my son live here with the understanding that my son be productive.

They worked it out that my son would go to work with M today. M is putting floor tile down in a house. Also, my son would continue to pursue the plan about getting in the shelter, and continue to pursue the plan about the Jewish Treatment Place, and then make a choice about which option he wants to follow.

I was pessimistic but agreed, as long as there was an understanding that any point my son became difficult or did not follow through with working, he would leave.

Even leery, I could not believe my sense of peace and confidence that my son was here with me.

You know the kind of houseplant with tender stems and leaves that droops first, for lack of water. And then you water it and all of a sudden it just perks up, just like before. Almost instantly.

Within an hour after being here, my son was his confident, demanding self. The craziness had almost vanished. He looked healthy and vigorous. Just lazy, and not wanting to do one thing to go out of his way.

The kookiest exchange between us went as follows:

Me: Maybe if you go to the Jewish Recovery Place you'll decide to be a Rabbi.

Son: Mom, I can't be a Rabbi, I don't believe in G-d. I am an Atheist. (Smiling.)

Me: That doesn't matter. Half of all Rabbis are atheists.

Son: Mom. I can't deceive them, pretending something I am not.

Me: Don't worry. Nobody knows what they can be. What they will be. Now. People change. They become who they need to be. You don't know what you will be. Nobody does.

I tried this morning to remember what this reminded me. And I remembered one of my favorite movies of all time. Some Like it Hot. Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis.

The scene where Jack Lemmon, who through most of the movie has been in drag, while fleeing from the Mafia, fearfully confesses to his rich suitor that he is male.

That's OK, the rich suitor, persists. With a smile. Jack Lemmon, still convinced of the unsuitability, the insanity of a match between two males tries to talk sense. After all, both are straight males.

And it does not matter one bit to the rich suitor, whose name I do not remember, whether he is male or female. Or what he is. He loves him. And that is the only important thing. The particulars don't matter one bit.

The learning for me is not just that he is OK. Lucid. Competent. Together. To a point. After he is watered.

The learning for me is that I am better, when he is better. That the horrible aching in my heart goes away when I see he is okay.

That I always accepted him and his limitations. And will always.

What I have been unable to bear is the process of him going down the tubes. That he is falling and falling and there is not one thing that I can do. And this must have something to do with what happened to my father.

This morning M came back to the bedroom to kiss me goodbye before leaving. Is son going with you?

He answered, I can't solve everything. He looked stern.

I got up. My son was still in bed.

This is what is not going to happen, I said. Here is the computer. Buy your ticket.

M said that I should get my Chest XRAY taken care of today and not worry about working, foisting all responsibility off on anybody but himself.

He is leaving today and going back to his original plan, to leave our town.

It was just too much to go to work one day with a 60 year old man who has been working a series of 14 hour days stooped over cutting and laying floor tile. Just too hard and too much to do. To work.

We have gained though. Except for stupidity and laziness and his general personality which I have always known...he is still himself. I see this. He is still OK.

I am freaked out by the fact that he has not been on his antiviral medicine and the dangers presented by this that scare me so badly I cannot even write them down.

But I know that I am not the only mother here who has to live with this dread. How many mothers here have sons and daughters that drink and drug and are destroying their livers? And those mothers too, have no power to stop them. And those mothers live.

And I will find a way to live, too.

My son is stupid. And lazy and arrogant. But he is still alive. I did not turn my back on him. We did not. We gave him a chance. It lasted less than a day.

We have conditions. We are not a flop house.

So there we are.

He has left. And he did not say goodbye.

He had come to my room before leaving and said the following: "Will you just make sure to give the dogs water in their bowl outside every day?"

"I fill their water bowl throughout the day. And they come inside to their room when they need to or when they ask."

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

A few days ago, the family issue came up when I was talking to my hubby. He laughed and said, "Yeah, maybe you wish you had a nicer sister, but you can't MISS having a sister because you never had one. You and her would talk for six months then be off contact for years." He then chuckled as he talked about the cops, the e-mails, and how upset she got me. "You don't have a sister to miss, SWOT."

That is what my D H says. He also says I let my sister walk all over him (and myself, of course). But here is the thing: They say that if a criminal were to come knocking on our doors, good manners would decree that we override our suspicions and open the door.

It is the same, it seems to me, with the members of our dysfunctional or abusive families of origin.

They do the strangest things that we cannot see coming. Or even, understand what that was we just saw happen. We find ourselves going along with whatever it is because we just can't believe what is really true until it becomes too blatant to ignore.

That would be a good descriptor for what has happened in my FOO. Through all these years when the underlying feelings were hatred and when the underlying theme was betrayal, the family continued to think we were normal. (Okay. On a wide continuum of normal. :O)

With my father's death and my sister's...healing, maybe? It seems that she does feel better about who she is, now that she has a house and my mother and etc. However all that works. It is hard to see it. Once we do see it, it is hard to believe we could possibly have seen what we are pretty sure we saw. I think it is a continuum of the example I gave about my sister's behavior after my father's surgery. Everything happening now has that same feel to it; someone so finally, gloriously right and valuable and somehow in a position of claimed authority that they are doing everything exactly wrong and that doesn't matter because the only thing that matters is that the person in question is flying very wonderfully high and wishes nothing to disturb that.

As though my role and value were to witness her ascendance?

All interactions with my sister have that distinct feeling.

That would explain the picture in the bathroom, the postings about sisters being easy to come by. I haven't posted about that, yet. There was a time my sister created a site where each of the women invited to join would be "sisters". They would be loyal to one another and support one another personally and in their business ventures. (There seems always to be a money angle, with my sister.) Unless I am mistaken, I was made an honorary member. You two will not believe this, but I am not engaged online to any degree in the way I am engaged here, on this gift of a site that has made all the difference for me, and for my family. And the feeling that I got, when she began it and when I did not participate as she wished, was that the real purpose was to tell me blood sisters meant nothing, and that sisters could be had anywhere.

And I pooh poohed it then and wondered what in the world was the matter with me for thinking that way...but it really did feel like my sister wanted me to know that sisters are a dime a dozen. That we are easily replaceable things.

I don't believe this could ever be true.

We love our friends, this is true; but our sisters...whoa.

If my sister were not my blood, I would never in a million years have had anything to do with her at all. We are not so simpatico as people. But she is my sister.

On the other hand, that she feels hatred for me (not that big a deal to me ~ we did grow up so twisted) but for my children and grands, is a deal breaker.

Altogether. I don't feel badly about any of what I am doing when I remember what my sister did to my daughter when she was so broken.

But hatred for me would explain so many things my sister does, and has always done. Just like it happens each time we recognize an abuser in our lives, all the pieces just keep falling seamlessly into place.

I wish it were different for us ~ for me. It could be that my sister is happy with the way things are. It seems that she is. It seems to me that she needs to flaunt that to me ~ that she needs to be sure that I know she has won something I did not know we were playing against one another for.

Like always, I am saying a version of: I don't get the win. And I don't.

But I do understand: "Why" doesn't matter. And I don't get to cheat. That is a priceless concept for me, SWOT. Thank you so much for that. I would be cheating in my thoughts and in my heart right now without those words you gave us.

It would explain the sending of the Oz plaque. It would explain the sense I had of being stalked. It would explain my sister's intense need to tell me she "knew" what had happened to my daughter when she was beat. I had not been keeping it secret. (Like that could happen with the way daughter was posting on FB!)

It's just that neither my own mother nor my sister ever once saw fit to call me, never even posted in support of either daughter or myself while we were living through those terrible, terrible times.

I still feel badly for all of us when I think back to those times.

Ew.


So, I am not sure how I came onto this track, but my sister is a villain figure in my life. It sounds terrible to say so, I get that. But I have been thinking, just finding little imagery popping up of things my sister has done. She invariably says the right things; but what she does tells a very different story than what she says.

I think this stuff is all true. I think I have not wanted to believe it because I was so committed to creating that Disney imagery of family as that strong, centered core we all could take strength from and find peace in.

Boy, was I wrong.

It would explain so many things; things that have happened all of our lives.

Does it explain wanting the four generation pictures taken here when my mother lives with my sister during the winter months and has her own lake home twenty minutes away and those pics could have been taken any time?

Or am I imagining things.

Snip.

My sister may have a diagnosis of some kind, Cedar says, implying very bad things about her own sister without saying a word.

Once I left home, I had no idea how to value myself, much less insist that others do the same. Especially men. It took years and years to be able to hold myself as having any value worth saying no to anybody about anything. Luckily I had an intrinsic sense of modesty and decorum and did not crave to do anything that bad. But I had a very hard time controlling what others did bad to me because nobody ever cared either to protect me or to teach me to protect myself. I did not know enough to protect myself from anybody or anything. I had no voice at all to protect myself. No sense of my worth to others. Just to myself.

Me too, Copa. How sad for us that this was so. But you created success in your professional life; I found or was found by, D H.

If I had not found (or been found by) D H, I am very sure that the longer I was away from my FOO the healthier I would have become. I would have made the same choice of school and career that I eventually did make.

I had always felt some special something for that school. I feel very blessed to have graduated there.

D H did that for me, too.

:O)

In any event Copa and SWOT, we really were savagely abused when we were little girls. It isn't necessary to prove it. We bear the scars. We like to pretend we are strong and whole ~ and we are ~ but we are easy marks for predators, even today.

And it looks to me like my sister may be a predator.

Time to make breakfast. We have all these children here, now. Cocoa, eggs bacon sausage pancakes waffles. They are very hungry all the time until you feed them. Then, they become full so quickly until the dishes are done. Grandmas try to post. Children must eat.

roar

Cedar

Ha! So, I left so quickly I did not post this. We have (not) eaten our breakfast grandma made us. We are doing potato salad and blueberry and lemon meringue pie for tomorrow. Lots of family, tomorrow.

Our visit / reunification is going so well, Copa and SWOT. We are recognizing complex post traumatic stress in so many conversations with our daughter, and are coming through so well.

THAT MAN WHO BEAT OUR DAUGHTER SENT HER A LETTER HER THROUGH HIS MOTHER.

Have a great holiday, you two especially and IC, and everyone reading along with us.

:O)

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Cedar, I am sorry but your mother sounds a bit of a bully.

Oh, she is a bully, Copa. That could not be more true; D H has no patience with my mother and never did. Since my father's death, mom and my sister have taken what were already outrageous dysfunctions to a whole other level.

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

To me, I yielded, in the martial arts sense.

Integrity, Copa. In martial arts, you only fight when you have decided to enact serious damage ~ or to kill.

Cedar

This is short because I am supposed to be making pastry.

I am skimming your posts.

:O)

 

[Copabanana]

They say that if a criminal were to come knocking on our doors, good manners would decree that we override our suspicions and open the door.

You can look at it two ways, Cedar. Strength and integrity and the intention to do the right thing. No matter what. Or

Foolish and susceptible to victimization.

I choose to see it as the former. Unfortunately I still feel the latter but I am working on it. Perhaps in my life to come these archaic feelings will change.

Because I know it is courage and intention and the choosing to the right thing.

Look at that horrible story of the Greek American important, rich and powerful man in Washington Difficult Child. With his family he was tortured and murdered in a home invasion, by people he had known.

With all kinds of other holdings this powerful man owned martial arts studios.

Evil people can overcome, subdue, victimize and kill even the most powerful of us. That does not take away their strength, power, and courage. That in this one act they were overcome does not make them weak and vulnerable people. And it does not mean he should not have opened the door and welcome who killed him.

They do the strangest things that we cannot see coming. Or even, understand what that was we just saw happen.

I differ. We understand. But we choose to undermine, subsequently, what we knew. We cannot or choose not to hold it in our minds as the important thing.

My son uses the term "cognitive dissonance" and each time he brings up the term he acts as if I do not know and could never understand such an important concept.

Even though I was schooled by the most important living academic theorist and researcher of the concept. Every time, he condescends to me that I could not possibly understand. I stray.

Cognitive Dissonance refers to the state of having two inconsistent thoughts or beliefs. This inconsistency feels noxious and intolerable and we cannot sustain for long holding the two contradictory thoughts at the same time. Thus we must change one of the two of the attitudes or thoughts, so as to restore psychic equilibrium.

Even if the resulting decision or attitude can be irrational or against our own interest we change our thinking. Because psychic consistency can be more important than rationality.

In our case we have sisters.

Cognition #1 Sisters love each other. We love our sisters.
Cognition #2. They do a horrible, killing thing. Fill in the blank...there are so many noxious things that they have done. Pick any one.

We feel psychic dissonance with our belief that sisters love each other and we are loving sisters.

We choose to suppress the knowledge of the evil deed done by our sisters, in order to calm ourselves.

We choose short term equilibrium in favor of truth.

But we always have the healthier option. In our case, to revise our thinking about sisters, as has SWOT.

We find ourselves going along with whatever it is because we just can't believe what is really true until it becomes too blatant to ignore.

This is exactly it. But not because we do not believe it is true. It is more that we cannot sustain the truth of it, because it causes cognitive dissonance. And it is that which we cannot tolerate.

the real purpose was to tell me blood sisters meant nothing, and that sisters could be had anywhere.

Is this not interesting in light of the above? She is, herself putting forth the solution to the cognitive dissonance. An alternate cognition that we can choose to hold. A cognition put forth by SWOT numerous times: A sister is merely DNA unless there are sisterly feelings and actions and commitments between them. A sister is made by these, and not by the accident of birth.

And with the latter SWOT cognition, the repeated betrayals by our DNA sisters can be consistent. Therefore, no dissonance. Peace, tranquility and self-respect.

I would never in a million years have had anything to do with her at all. We are not so simpatico as people. But she is my sister.

So now we have a choice, Cedar. Do we persist in holding the old cognition that sisters are loving and simpatico and we love our sisters--which repeatedly and utterly collides with reality? Or do we revise our thinking to that of SWOT, and therefore avoid the repetitive dissonance and distortions of our thinking that make us dis-respect ourselves, and distrust our thinking? In other words do we continue "to cheat."

my own mother nor my sister ever once saw fit to call me, never even posted in support of either daughter or myself while we were living through those terrible, terrible times.

I rest my case.

Does DNA make a sister, a mother? They will never, ever get it. Will we?

My mother never really changed. She just let me love her in my way. Because she no longer had the strength to do it her way.

my sister is a villain figure in my life.

Yes she is. This is true. And mine, in my life. But I do cheat. I looked again to see if she lowered the price of her house.

THAT MAN WHO BEAT OUR DAUGHTER SENT HER A LETTER HER THROUGH HIS MOTHER.

This is scary, Cedar. What does it mean? How is your daughter responding?

Have a great 4th, Cedar and SWOT.

Thank you.

PS I forgot to put this in an earlier post. My son told me this: You can't get rid of Romy just to suit yourself. You have had him for awhile now.

So, I am supposed to subordinate my life to Romy, I asked?

If you were together and stable you could take Romy.

Son: It's like adopting a child. Romy is yours. He doesn't deserve to be abandoned. He did nothing wrong. You have an obligation.

You were right SWOT.

I repeated this conversation to M. After all, it was his idea about Romy. I love Romy. But I love myself more.

M in a mildly disgusted voice: Son does not get to decide about the animals. We will discuss it at some future point, between us. In Spanish.